##VIDEO ID:QsmNNazJfI4## will be taken on the following items at the regular council meeting on Tuesday August 27th 2024 in council chambers Sparta Township Municipal Building 65 Main Street Sparta New Jersey the time is 7:10 uh the Town Council executive session was opened and then closed uh started at 6:00 the regular meeting is opened at 7:10 p.m. all Council meetings are now live streamed and can be viewed at the following link www.youtube artw p/ streams adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the public in press on January 5th 2024 by delivering to the press and posting on the township website a copy of the notice Madame clerk may I have a roll call please councilman Herzberg yes councilwoman Quinn yes councilman cherell I'm here Deputy Mayor blumetti here mayor Clark here all right let's all stand and salute the flag flag 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 and because we had an executive session I do need to read the resolution with respect to the executive session um where at Section 8 of the open public meetings act chapter 231 p L 1975 permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting in certain circumstances and whereas this public body is of the opinion that such circumstances presently exist now therefore be it resolved by the township Council of the township of Sparta County of Sussex state of New Jersey as follows the public shall be excluded from discussion of an action upon the here and after specified subject matters the general nature of the subject matter to be discussed as as follows litigation Personnel contract negotiations miscellaneous legal advice it is anticipated at this time that the above subject matter will be made public when deemed appropriate um this resolution shall take effect immediately so with that out of the way uh we do have a proclamation tonight um that uh uh involving our sister city uh Sparta Greece and councilman chello has really done a lot of work and initiative uh on this and so I will let him speak speak and and and read the proclamation thank you mayor um before I begin um is there anybody here that can speak Greek no okay because um it's in Greek so maybe we'll just pass on this I'm kidding we have it in English too like um so um as we mentioned uh as as the mayor mentioned uh we did we we were taking steps to try to renew our sister city relationship with Sparta gree uh and um and so we want to REM more that with this Proclamation and I'd hope to have someone here that can read the Greek version but I'll just do it in English um so um the proclamation reads whereas the city of Sparta Greece and the township of Sparta New Jersey were originally joined as sister cities in June of 1969 and whereas the Mayors and the other officials of Sparta Greece and Sparta New Jersey will meet in September 2024 to exchange meaningful symbols of their community commities and extending greetings on behalf of all residents of their communities and whereas Sparta Greece and Sparta New Jersey have much in common in their size Community characteristics and government operation and whereas the bonds of understanding and friendship between Sparta Greece and Sparta New Jersey have been firmly established from the meeting of the two municipalities therefore be it resolved that the township Council of the township of Sparta New Jersey in Sussex County and the state of New Jersey does here affirm Sparta Greece and Sparta New Jersey as sister cities in acknowledgement of the continuing friendship between the two communities um so um uh thank you mayor I will U I am happy uh and very proud to be able to deliver this to uh our friends in Sparta uh on September 7th uh I'll be in Greece meeting with them and um I will bring back pictures um so um thank you everybody thank you councilman shello uh next we we have meeting minutes to approve may I have a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes of May 28th 2024 um and just as a note uh councilman Herzberg was not present so he should abstain from voting so may I have a motion to approve the regular meeting minutes of May 28th 2024 I make a motion that we approve the minutes from May 28th 2024 may I have a second please I will second it all those in favor say I I I stain so we have uh four eyes and one abstention next may I have a motion to approve the June 11th 2024 regular meeting minutes as presented I move that we approve the regular meeting minutes of June 11 2024 as presented may I have a second please I will second all those in favor say I I I the regular meeting minutes of June 11th 2024 are approved uh we are now at the section of the meeting involving the manager's report um Mr Zep may I have the manager's report please absolutely good evening mayor council and Sparta residents uh I am lucky enough to H have another firefighter appointment at the recommendation of fire chief Chris angelucci I would like to appoint Brendan Shepard as a new member to the sparta Township Fire Department chief Angel Luchi is confident that Mr Shepard will fulfill and complete the New Jersey state mandated firefighter One requirement and become a great asset to the department um fire department is doing pretty well with these volunteers say so I I know a lot of other towns are struggling and and we are really fortunate to to have uh these volunteers stepping up I'm also very pleased to report that Christy Ray our account clerk in the finance department has successfully passed the New Jersey state qualified purchasing agent exam her skills are already greatly utilized in ensuring proper purchase practices are followed by all Township departments uh as many of you know the main street closure as you're aware Main Street is closed for the continued construction of the q6 bridge replacement with the prospective completion date of December 31st 2024 the local businesses are open door in construction either via access of Town Center Drive or County Road 517 Glenn Road and Station Park Road please continue to patronize our local businesses in our public works department P DPW performed maintenance work requested by the board of education at the high school with the pouring of a concrete sidewalk and asphalt work completed in their parking lot by performing this work to DPW the sparta taxpayer ultimately benefits I want to also thank the public works department for sweeping Westshore Trail as part of the County Road 517 last month for the annual passet along Lake Mohawk Country Club Triathlon in our Parks and Recreation departments the fall program activity brochure is out and reg registration is open for special events workshops toddler Youth and adult programs and Clinics our seniors are preparing for the next round of Senior Olympics being held in Randolph Township at Veterans Park on September 18th if any spart senior is interested please call the recreation department for availability the park staff has been working diligently on all Municipal properties keeping up with field maintenance and other small projects keeping our recreational facilities a place for all residents and visitors to enjoy uh Chief mccarrick will now read his portion of the manager's report this concludes my report thank you mayor counsel and Sparta residents thank you manager Zep thank you mayor thank you Council good evening um just to start off we know Labor Day weekend is approaching and the police department would like to remind everybody to celebrate responsibly we're going to have extra patrols um on the road over the weekend to enforce obviously intoxicated drivers and of course course after Labor Day comes back to school uh as you can imagine it's a time of year again Educators and our children are heading back to school our department has been very busy with school staff re reviewing their emergency response plans and um going over some of the security plans we'd also like to remind everybody that be cautious while operating your vehicle bus stops are going to be out there there's going to be a lot of children walking to those bus stops and we also uh as the manager mentioned with the Main Street uh being closed for the bridge there will be heavy traffic in town uh we know Around Town Center Drive in 517 so be mindful of that as I reported um last meeting we were preparing for our junior Police Academy I'm proud to announce that our Academy went very well we graduated approximately 40 recruits and I must say it really was the best class ever uh the the recruits were great and uh a lot of it has to do with the instruction um and keeping them busy and not making them bored while they're there they had a great time they came together as a team and uh looking forward to next year really appreciate all of our sponsors uh the board of ed for supplying the mwk AV school um of course the parents for allowing their children to be there and the recruits and also you know our officers who put a lot of time and effort into the uh planning execution of this event yeah Chief I'd like to personally thank you my son had a great time so thank you and officers you're welcome and I appreciate council members showing up for the gradu I know it meant a lot to our officers and the recruits so appreciate that I have spoke about in the past about a summer series um so this past weekend the sparta Police Department wrapped up its first ever summer series with a barbecue we did it behind the police station um and this was uh throughout July and August children from the community uh came and interacted with our officers and they they taught different sports even archery um cheerleading a bunch of different things and this gave the children an opportunity to talk to our officers and engage them in a positive manner and learn a bit a little bit about what we do and also you know we have those conversations about making good decisions This was um headed by Officer Elise brown with the assistance of many officers throughout the department I'd like to thank everyone that was involved this past week was the last week of service for lieutenant Adam Carberry Lieutenant Carberry is retiring after his 20 years with town uh Township of Sparta and his six years of service with United States Army it was really a pleasure working with Adam um you know we came up together uh through the ranks and um sad to see him go but uh I I wish him well and his family well on on his next journey and um I know he'll he'll do well whatever he's going to do next um and just a reminder of the celebration of our departmental promotions this Friday August 30th and on behalf of the department I would like to invite the council as I know we've uh sent some things out it will be 5:00 at the Sparta High School auditorium and uh as always we appreciate the council's support and uh the township manage managers uh uh respect and and support and of course uh from our citizens and and our public it means a lot to us and uh we're glad to see our department holding steady and and uh doing well so I'm happy for these officers that concludes my report all right thank you um again again I want to reiterate what um manager Zep said about whatever they're doing at the fire department keep it up I don't know if they're you know it's the food or what's going on but whatever they're doing recruiting wise is outstanding and I want to thank um is it Mr Shephard shepher Shephard um for committing uh his time his effort um to join uh a fantastic fire department and um also Chief I I I you know I join you and I I really appreciate the effort and Outreach that you make to the community it it doesn't go unnoticed uh I hear over and over again how outstanding our police force is how they're um they have such interaction and the fact that you doing it uh with our you know our children starting early um is tremendous and I just want to commend you for that um and I will say um I am sad to see officer carbury go um he's a you know obviously an outstanding officer but also just a fantastic person and he was you know an asset to the force and I agree with you whatever he chooses to do he'll be an asset to that but um if I don't see him personally I hope you'll pass along all the councils thinking of his time and effort is 20 years was he here a little over 20 years and you he had to spent a lot of time in the US Army okay serve for a long time okay pass that on and thank yeah I hope I I'll be able I'll obviously see him around town but I I I will if I can't thank him personally I know that we all commend that his his work has just been outstanding and we're in great service to him so thank you thanks I'd like to Echo those sentiments as well both for your efforts I think every year I love to see what's going to be the next thing um and since you've been in this position you've added multiple things the reporting that's gone out which I think is incredibly um you know it's very informative and it's great to show the community a lot of times when you say it's great job it's great job when you see those statistics um you really understand but in in addition to that to see all these different things that you're doing like and these new programs as well and people don't understand these programs are run through the volunteer efforts in many cases of the officers themselves that are giving up their free time to come and participate and support these events and I think that's really really important as well so um also very sad to see Adam leaving and just want to do a shout out to Christy Ray for her qualified uh purchasing assistant um that these exams are brutal I know Dawn worked very hard as well to get her CFO exam these exams are are grueling they take a tremendous amount of our employees time and I think it's it's very important for us to acknowledge when this happens so thank you for bringing it Forward please convey to christe hopefully she's watching that we all say uh congratulations um christe and also obviously we you know we have now have uh two great success stories coming out of Finance which is wonderful and we always like to see the employees wanting to take the next step because it is a lot of their time um invested in these grueling exams so it really is great to see them being involved and taking it to the next level so congratulations yes thank you right uh I have a motion to accept the manager's report I'll make a motion to accept the manager's report may I have a second I will second it all in favor say I and the manager's report is approved uh we are now at the first open public comment period this is limited to items that are not on the agenda so if you see something you want to talk about that's on the agenda now is not the time so again it's a public comment period for items that are not on the agenda and we ask that you approach the microphone state your name and address and please adhere to the 5 minute limit okay seeing no one for the open public comment perod we'll move on to the expenditures uh Deputy Mayor would you please read the expenditures for August 13 2024 yep I make a motion to approve the expenditures for August 13 2024 total of 3 million 83822 68 uh may I have a second I will second it uh all those in favor of approving the expenditures for August 13th 2024 say I I uh the expenditures of August 13 2024 have been approved um Deputy Mayor would you please read the expenditures for August 27th 2024 I make a motion we approve the expenditures for August 27th 2024 for the total of 14, 864,000 of the township of Sparta adopting chapter 8 of the Township Code filming okay may I have a motion to introduce ordinance 2413 I'll make a motion that we introduce ordinance 2413 uh may I have a second I will second it okay and I before we do roll call take it back to um the uh Das if anyone has has any comments over it I will um say that this is an ordinance uh I think we've been speaking about the sparta film Readiness program probably close to four months five months um this meaning this ordinance is part of the requirements that the New Jersey film commission requires in order to have um to get the designation for film right it is based upon the commission's own kind of template of an ordinance it's also um been vetted by both our attorneys uh and also members of our film ready committee uh many of which who have experiences with these type of ordinances um and so they've also looked at it and so I want to thank uh Tom's office roxan and others who have contributed mightily to getting this ordinance introduced and so with that um is there anyone else uh before we get a roll call that wants to be heard on ordinance 242 13 13 sorry okay uh M I just have a question sure um separate maybe than the ordinance but I brought this up as a concern last time I just want to make sure that um if I understand this correctly it's coming into the the clerk's office and the manager's office that's how it's outlined in the ordinance so I just want to make sure that again we have an electronic process in place it could be something as simple as an a Microsoft form or something so that um these Crews can come in put in the application they can come in the workflow can be automated then they go where they're going so that it's not paper and pen or everybody scrambling so if this ordinance upon its introduction if it is adopted in two weeks at our next meeting I just want to make sure that you guys are prepared in the back end to be able to handle requests that come in or or what's going on in that respect yeah I think that's an excellent point and I think that um we should probably work with uh Mr Dempsey about how we can have a separate you know either it's a tab or something on the website that they can click on and apply electronically as opposed to hey can you send us a paper copy of the permit and right then you know I think that that's a very um cogent point and I think that one that will streamline this so uh thank you for raising that and so as we um have I guess a few weeks until would have a hearing on it I hope we can start investigating the the ability to get this you know a permit in place electronically so thank you because the other thing is the permit that whatever that electronic process is should be able to upload documents like insurance so there's a whole list of things that are included here so just making sure that everything could just be in one big bundle electronically is really going to streamline the the effort I think okay thank you and I I think I also I'll uh reach out to some of the other town who have who' gone through this permitting process and and and talk to them about how they've done it and how they've made it easy and I can even talk to some uh of members who are you know who've been production assistants and managed production saying hey tell me a town where it's really easy to apply online and it's a pretty streamlined process and we'll we'll try to replicate that here in Sparta so thank you I think we're ready for a roll call vote councilman Herzberg yes councilman quinnn yes councilman chello yes Deputy Mayor blumetti yes mayor Clark yes so uh ordinance 2413 has been introduced and in 2 weeks uh they will be a hearing on that next up we have an actual hearing of an ordinance um Madam clerk could you please read the title of ordinance 2412 Bond ordinance providing for the construction of a playground in and by the town of Sparta in the county of sus New Jersey appropriating 700,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of 500,000 bonds or notes on the township for financing such appropriation okay we're now open to public comment just on the ordinance 2412 so if there's any member of the public that wants to be heard on ordinance 2412 please approach the microphone uh state your name and address and please also adhere to the 5 minute uh public comment period right see no one wanting to approach I will take it back to counil for discussion and comments uh starting with my left is there anyone Council actually mayor um I have a a Parks and Recreation director Gene monan here she's got some illustrations and she can give us the status update of where we stand right now with that project I think that would be fantastic yeah thank you [Music] yeah that's I think use the mic okay so we just got um information from the state back and I'll let Corey when I'm done he can tell you where we are with that so we can't move ahead with it until we do all of the steps at the DP that the uh State needs us to do um that being said we can't move ahead but there are certain things we can do we've come up with some design these are the same design just different of it of the park of what we're going to put in uh we've got lots of climbing activities we've got sensory activities the whole port in place that's what makes it accessible so that's that's what we are required to for the grant we're doing some extra swings we have swings where parents can sit with the kids we have swings that are just handy um handicapped for um wheelchairs so we have a lot of different components in this playground that will be good for kids of all ages from to all the way up to 12 which is what playgrounds are in different areas there's even like a sensory area for kids who want to be part of the playground but aren't able to really be with the other kids and there's there's areas for that so I'm pretty excited about this um I'll let Cory tell you where we are and he can give you a timeline on the project thank you and um if the members of the public want to take a look at that maybe online or how would they find a copy of that just to get a kind of idea of what these look like but you can always come to my office I'll be happy to show you okay well we can probably put that as a post right on the on our website somewhere like a news item yeah thanks you can get that information from the uh playground provider uh the the project of the we we received a grant for an amount of $57,600 for toward this project um we got a letter dated August 2nd which gives us 60 days to prepare a preliminary assess assessment report basically the assessment board just provides historical information to show that we're not putting this over a um any kind of toxic U you know U areas on the property so we have to do some historic um research of the property which is some historic mapping just to show what it was for you know we we don't anticipate any problems but we have to go through that process once we we we we do that within 60 days we submit it to the state for a review they approve it then we can appropriate the funds so that's why we're not running into you appro you know getting a a a project award we are using a state contract uh contractor so we don't have to uh go out for you public contract law and and public bidding but we still have we can't do that until we get through the assessment part so we anticipate uh we'll get through the assessment in October is and then November December we can make an award and then go to Construction in the spring okay can can I ask um and you might not have this information for a Sparta resident right now where's the nearest such Park in New Jersey there there's no other towns in a county that I'm aware of that has one right now BM Township at spart the only two in the county that received this grant though yeah okay thank you and do you um at this point are you at the uh any of the engineering stage or do you anticipate any kind of you know structurally construction this is going to be difficult or I mean we already have a park there I mean it doesn't seem like to me Layman doesn't seem like it would be that difficult but you never know you you have to Dem you know demo everything that's there which will likely use some of our forces to do that part of it but we have some access issues for Ada ramp you know getting from the parking areas to the get up to the playground um so we we have some work to do there but it's not it's not terrible not terrible it's flat from the parking yeah that's right the perfect yeah okay and most most of the uh the biggest part of this whole uh process is the um you know the uh the the the material that's being placed down it's it's got to be soft enough in case somebody Falls but also has to be ada8 compliance so not just the children can get there but individual that is a you know a parent grandparent a or whatnot that needs to have access so that's uh um it's got some stringent criteria we have to comply with what's the uh expected timeline just conservatively for completion do you think well we'll we'll have it ready so that that we can get it uh um delivered as soon as possible after you know after you know the New Year pry likely but if it's a mild winter maybe they can do it a little bit earlier if not it'll wait till spring yeah but so by the summer you would think we talked um and it's like you said on the winter actually if it's not so mild it's even better then we can get in there to pull all the stuff out for the demo we do that if we can get all this stuff ordered before the new year get it all ordered um they will hold equipment the playground company will hold one issue we didn't want to go demo the playground today yeah then you're then you have no start of the summer not a idea we have the equipment ordered and then we know basically when it's coming in and then we can do the demo while it's the grass is everything's firm enough to get our equipment in and then you do the construction once we're good to do so another another question is caveat I have not been there in a while to look at the condition of the existing equipment is there any opportunity when during the demo to take it and either use it elsewhere in our town or to donate it to another park that is not on the same journey to get where we are right now but maybe to is it really old okay okay can any of it be sold at auction unless you donate it might cost more money to do that then you'd recover maybe yeah okay I mean there there are certain parts like with swings said we have justl some of the the the bottom parts of the swings and stuff if they're still usable we can probably reuse those but that's I'm think okay just curious thanks most of the time the liability of trying to give it away or sell it it's that you'll get money for Salvage but risky otherwise yeah yeah thank you thank you all right may I have a motion to adopt ordinance 2412 make a motion to adopt 242 I was going to say so moved oh okay I know if you had extra questions I apologize uh may I have a second please I will second it all right uh Madame clerk may I have a roll call vote councilman Herzberg yes councilwoman Quinn yes councilman shello yes Deputy Mayor buetti yes mayor Clark yes next up uh is the second public uh comment period and this one is limited to the resolution resolutions which you'll see identified and uh number nine so again uh please confine your comments to the resolutions that are identified in the agenda uh please state your name and address and please adhere to the 5 minute limit so is there any member of the public that wishes to be heard on the resolutions hi Kimberly null 9 South haywards Road um I'm here to talk about resolution 9-8 about the turf replacement um I think we have over the last couple of years become more and more aware of past or the forever chemicals that are starting to be all around us and we even have some that have been identified in our our higher levels in our wells um turf fields and AstroTurf or plastic Fields they are actually one of the places that past are getting into our environment the manufacturers don't disclose that I know that like if you look at their websites they try to say that they don't have P in them um but more recently they've started to sell nonpest free AstroTurf so generally speaking you know I don't know that we want to add additional AstroTurf fields or replace the ones that we have with additional astro turf particularly I'm I'm not sure exactly where the wells are that have been um have higher levels of past right now but if it's right in the area where we're replacing this field I just don't know if that's a good idea I'd imagine that um the tackling of the pfass in the well has to be twofold not just remediating the water that is there but not adding more past to the environment is probably also a good idea so looking at where the sources of that in our environment would be probably um very helpful um I know that there's also cost right we're all taxpayers I pay taxes here too we don't want to see um things going in that cost a lot of money um if you look at the costs sometimes astrof Fields can be said to be cheaper they do require maintenance I know I used to think that they didn't even require maintenance but they do and special equipment to um maintain and they only really last 10 years they don't last forever when you add in the now the remediation to our wells for any water that might be in the environment um and you add in health concerns for children um now you're looking at something that's quite expensive to have in your environment it's not just the immediate cost of maintaining that field so I would recommend um grass that we convert it to grass and um for the health of our children all the community and our water supplies thank you thank you hi um Jeremy ly 317 Stan Hope Road I'm also here to talk about res surfing of angerman um from a different point of view so I've been on our youth softball board for seven years I'm also a fad teacher here in town at Alpine Elementary um and the field definitely needs to be repaired it's not in great shape it's 20 years old I think at least um it's definitely on borrowed time and I'd be worried if we don't do something like how much worse is it going to get and is there going to be you know a potential injury that way with like a player um also having a turfield I feel like is also a big Advantage for like our town our community um for our organization I mean obviously it's easier we don't have to cancel as many practices or games we had uh the past fall season really bad bad rain and in the fall we play on the weekends and a lot of people couldn't get our games in our teams all got all their games in either being able to play on it because the rain didn't affect it we're making them up like immediately right after uh we even had two towns reach out to us to see if they could play a game on our field on hungerman because we have turf and they don't um so all of our girls got their full experience of all their games practices everything and a lot of other towns those girls did not on unfortunately um also in the spring we host tournaments here and it's past one was great but two years ago bad rain on Saturday and we had to move fields and Fields you think would hold up did not our high school field actually we had to move games off of our high school field but we had hman and luckily because of that we're able to get a lot of games in still able to run our tournament not have to send people home um for that and that's a big deal for our organization that's a big money maker for us is our tournaments that we put our work in um so being able to still provide that tournament not having to refund people because well the games got canceled was was big for us um we also go and play other towns that have turf or tournaments my daughter's team actually in a couple weeks going our first tournament and they're all turf fields so for our teams I know it's an advantage because we play on it we have one right we're able to practice on it play on it so when we go there we don't have that I we see it every time we go teams like trying to figure out oh because the ball does bounce different it does roll different so it definitely helps our players that we have a field you know just one where we're able to you know play practice and be used to it so it's definitely again an advantage for our organization when we have a turf field here and not only uh all grass I also feel like learning how to play on different surfaces is kind of important also I mean we've had girls that go on and play obviously high school or college and they're going to play on some of these surfaces too and kind of nice that they're able to learn how to do that at a young age right and not have to do it when they're older um but I also want to mention it's not just an advantage for our organization we share that field with baseball in March they get to practice on it just like us before the spring season uh because they only have grass fields so we share it with them um and I know they definitely like that um also the last couple years the Challenger league has been played at unerman they used to play at Station Park and uh I can't obviously speak for them but I know they've mentioned to our president how much better it is for them to be on and like the turf is so much better for some of their um players than when they were over at Station Park um obviously like I said I'm a fette teacher I would love some kind of turf somewhere like I know it's not realistic for a school but there's so many times at Alpine I go out and that field in the back does not drain it's a swamp and I can't do things and at Alpine obviously the little kids I'm like the highlight of their day they love it and sometimes they like go we can't go out we got to stay in the gym but it's not even a gym it's all purpose room lunch all kinds of other things that's another issue but so unfortunately I can't go out all the time there so it would be great to have you know a field like that that I'd be able to you know use I know I can't use unerman for Alpine but I'm just saying if I had something at Alpine it's great so it is kind of an advantage for some of those things umr's our Center of softball in town we like I said we host two tournaments we had 75 teams between the two tournaments last spring come here they all see Youngerman that where you run everything out of the Press Box there so they all see it a lot of them get to play on it um our town runs the spring travel League all the championship games played on unerman right and the reason why we can do that is again we have turf doesn't affect the weather uh scheduling so much easier our rec side all the All-Star games are played on unman and that's because the other towns all want to play on unman um the girls love it I mean like I said I'm at Alpine when our younger kids get to play on it they come and run and tell me when I'm at Alpine they're so excited I got to play there it's so cool they feel like you know big Leaguers like it's just different than when they're on their you know grass field so they really enjoy it um and like I mentioned I've been here a while seven years on our board and something does have to get done with lman though we've heard different things over those years I I thank you I I don't mean to cut you off but you you've given a great presentation um I just have to adhere to it so other members of the public have their opportunity too but thank you all right thank you thank you thank you anyone else on the uh public comment period just on the resolutions okay so I think there um some resolutions that we can handle kind of and Moss um and so uh unless someone else uh disagrees I think that we could have a mo uh may I have a motion to approve resolutions 91 through 97 I'll make a motion that we approve yes 97 I'll make a motion that we approve resolutions 9-1 through 9-7 uh may I have a second please I will second it all those in favor say I uh we are now up to resolution um 98 um may I have a motion uh to approve resolution 98 so move uh may I have a second please second okay before we um go to vote I know that there are some questions that my fellow council members have about 98 and I think also we have um our you know Jee monturo and Corey Stoner here um to address some of the the questions that we have uh in addition to those raised by um uh Miss Noel about P so uh maybe youall want to come forward it may be helpful before we go to vote I think there's some questions [Music] so I I I think um before I be I think there's they they can be broken up into two kind of components there's one uh the substantive issue of you know AstroTurf versus grass and the you know peos concerns other concerns and then there's an issue um related to this particular vendor um so I think first we should probably address the substantive issues that some of my fellow council members have uh about uh Turf in general so I'll I think Dan has has done a lot of work on this starting years ago um so if it's all right I'll I'll let him begin if he has any questions um thank you mayor yes I do have like to offer a few comments um first I'd also like to reiterate what was said before that um this field is in bad shape and does need to be replaced uh however um I am very much against the use of plastic grass fields in anywhere in our town uh there's a number of reasons for that uh I'll lay them out here uh first of all these are very dangerous playing surfaces um I think I'm the only one here voting today that is actually played on a plastic grass field uh there skinned legs your cleats often get stuck in the plastic and the risk of concussions is much higher on a plastic grass field than it is on a natural grass field um the surfaces of the of a plastic grass field can be be wickedly higher than a regular grass field uh between 15 and 30° on a sunny day um when the when the temperature is 90° outside playing at a plastic grass field is just brutal um the fields actually are wildly expensive um and taxpayers usually get duped into believing they're not uh these fields have a lifespan of about 7 to nine years uh after that you tear up the field and you reinstall it every time and that terar up the field will cost tens of thousands if not over $100,000 and you're going to dump that plastic grass as toxic waste into a into a landfill where it's going to sit for a few thousand years uh so during that cycle every 7 to n years or so you in effect renting your field you've taken a field that you owned as a grass field and now you've in in effect rented it uh and that's an ongoing taxpayer uh uh burden um so if we were to be true at the cost of the field you can't really look at a one-time installation you need to look at the total cost of ownership over 20 or 25 years whereas after 7 to n years putting in a plastic grass field you're dumping you're tearing it up dumping it in a landfill and reinstalling it after 7even to nine years on a plast on a grass field you're just watering it there's you're done uh since we're already maintaining the rest of the fields and unman field it's not going to be that much of a lift that just Mo move the mow over there and cut a little bit more grass um the uh these fields as we said are are toxic uh the plastic grass stuff does degrade over time it does degrade in that the chemicals volatize in the sunlight uh the the fill and the grass is crushed under the player's cleats uh people breathe that in there have been ruer studies that shows that the at mouth level that the particulates are much much higher or very are very high actually in that uh in that regard um now it to be fair there there have been to my knowledge no studies that have proven a direct link between plastic grass fields and the incidents of cancer there are many studies that have shown um that there are indirect correlations uh there's a fair Fairly well-known study out of a believe it was Washington State it could have been Oregon one of the Pacific States that studied uh 300 different child athletes that had uh child childhood cancers uh they and what they found was a very large portion of them were goalkeepers soccer goalkeepers um being a uh let say an old seio goalkeeper myself back in the day uh I do can tell you that you spend a lot of time on the ground uh and um and the risk of breathing in that stuff uh over time practices daily sometimes daily practices are a danger um I also need to point out that this field will be installed within a few feet of the walkill river um so uh as I as we mentioned before these fields are not maintenance-free uh the crumb rubber particles that hold the plastic grass in place where as I mentioned and they can compacted over time then they must be combed periodically uh when the surface becomes too hard to play on which increases the risk of concussion the rubber must be vacuumed up and replaced uh additionally the entire surface must be disinfected periodically because animal feces do not decompose in the grass and the soil because there is no grass and soil so when children scrape their skin on the sliding on plastic grass fields uh and believe there is a risk of infection if the fields are not properly treated um now I have had a conversation with a former recreation parks and rec employee Jerry aners about the the playability of fields and uh what Jerry told me very proudly actually was that these fields um you can construct and grade a natural grass field in such a way that would provide as good if not better drainage than any plastic grass field so um that's it that's part of the construction process not inherent in the uh and the fact that the plastic grass field can naturally drain better uh so again uh if we look at the cost of ownership you need to look at it over 20 years uh and I and um uh so couple questions I had uh with regard to what I just mentioned um we there is a quote here for the cost of installation of the plastic uh surface uh did we get a quote to install the natural grass field over that no and if we didn't um I would please recommend that we call a synthetic turn field but the plastic you will I prefer my terminology but anyone is fine no we did not do a quote um you know get a quote for that to to replace the field with a with a grass field if you're going to do such a thing you would have to remove not just the surface you'd have to moove the whole drainage system under sure replace it I asked me that probably about a $300,000 job and you'd have to look at that cost amortised or the total cost of ownership over 15 to 20 years because on a in synthetic tur field you're doing it every seven to nine years this Field's 20 years old but and it's probably 10 10 years past its lifespan I've been here for a long time typically the fields you you know you get 10 to four 10 to 14 years something in that neighborhood that's what I've seen that's what I've seen them replaced if you push it yes but you also can run into places uh where Vernon uh had a very big problem a couple years ago where Maple Grange field they needed over $2 million for those fields right and for a while they didn't have the money for those those fields and so that Maple Grinch field was in very bad shape for a long time they were about 14 years old yep and and 14 years old that played in those fields were were terrible shape for a while and the the the township just didn't have the money to replace them in fact at one point they were going to implement a an athletic tax to be able to try to recoup some of the costs there eventually they did replace them right um anyway I think I've I've um made my point and I'll I'll rest here um I'd like to make some points on what you said because I actually don't disagree with most of what you said I actually agree with most of it but unfortunately we're not in a situation where we can just and some of it just is is true but but not fully correct the drainage I don't disagree that you can make great drainage on grass fields they're still not playable in the beginning of the spring when it's been a when it's been a tough winter that was part of the reason why the initial push for Turf from lacrosse was because they couldn't start their season when all the other towns were starting their season and although I don't like playing on turf fields I'd much prefer to play on grass if you got to the end of football season on unerman field you were playing in mud different kinds of injuries but injuries nonetheless because they couldn't hold up to a full season now and Jane you can correct me if I'm wrong we were not supposed to be even doing considering this because all of this was supposed to be moved over to White Lake but unfortunately due to budget constraints now we can't build the softball complex that was supposed to be built out there we can't finish it we can't light it we can't do some of the things that we were supposed to do and there are kids and adults alike that need a field to play on I would much rather not be doing this matter of fact I was very vocal about against doing this because I thought there was a better way but unfortunately because of the situation that we're in right now I I think we have to do it because they need a field now I I don't disagree with with uh Miss Noel talking about the pasas I think that there are some serious dangers to some of these fields and I think the sooner we can get out of that and then there are Fields now that that don't have them there are Fields being made because people are paying attention to that we know that we're going to have to spend a lot of money fixing our water systems because of it now luckily this particular one isn't over an aquafer but unfortunately right now this is the the the set of cards we have and we have to play them and I think it'd be unfair to the sports to the girls to the rest of the programs that use that field to not have an alternative solution for them so in my opinion unfortunately because I didn't want to have to do this I wanted to build them nice beautiful complex with lights out there that's not happening so without that solution I think this is a short-term solution to get us where we should be and I hate that in government you end up doing what you have to do instead of what you should do because money gets wasted in other places but that's where we are may I um yeah please do responding to Dan or we going down the we'll go down the day okay go ahead yeah go ahead yeah sure yeah okay and then you can go I want to also reiterate uh what you were saying as well um and again I think that we need to be very mindful here I Know Dan you you said you're the only one that's played on Turf but I can tell you you're not because I played on Turf I played women's league here in Sparta softball uh for about 20 years and when that turfield came in I apologize I take that back also my daughter's played on that field my son's been playing football since he was four he's 21 years old um it was always grass exactly what you said about angman if you had the first game of the season at unerman which is a grass field and it rained it didn't recover the whole season it just didn't recover the whole season I think the other thing to keep in mind also is I appreciate the the list of the organizations um that were shared by Mr ly I I think the thing to remember also is it's baseball it's softball it's travel softball it's women's softball and it's Challenger softball and I just want to spend a minute there because for those of you that are not familiar with Challengers program that is a program for children that have physical handicaps that is a program for children with that face different disab abilities of different levels it is critical for them and of course it's easier for them to play on a turf field um these things are critical I think the important thing also as being the mom of a million kids and I was spending my whole life down at at all these different fields grass Turf you name it I was there I think the thing that's really important is was said also before which is the exposure these kids it is different playing on Turf I can tell you that I mean I might not be an Olympic athlete but I spent many years playing on it and I watched my kids transition to it um you know there are different ways the ball's going to react there's different ways you have to react if you want to make a quick stop or you have to go backwards you know you you do and I think it's very important and we are doing a huge disservice to the kids if we don't provide them with both services to learn on we have Olive Station Park we have softball fields of grass to Joshua's point unfortunately we were not able to move the complex we would have liked to do things differently but we can't and really when we look at the amount of people that use this field and the fact that we do need an option for these teams to go pre and we didn't even talk about postseason okay um if we look at the amount of Revenue that is generated for local businesses through these tournaments that come in I could tell you um I've spent a very long time in all these tournaments and all the businesses benefit from it having to cancel reschedule if you have to take that out of where it is and move it to Station Park the businesses are not going to get the same return because when people are all the way over at Station Park they're not driving all the way back to town to go get their team and ice cream cone um so for all of these reasons I think we would be doing um the kids a tremendous disservice not giving them I'm not saying every field should be turfed because I also agree I love grass fields I think grass field you know you we could sit here and make arguments all day long but to me as a mom of players as someone who has played on different surfaces I think we need to prepare them for everything um so I think in this regard we have one field that is used for soccer football lacrosse that's Turf so those kids have exposure to a different field and we also have this one that is utilized by all those organizations that were mentioned previously and I think it's very important that we not take that away from them to give them the best chance to to be successful also very important to note is yes there is an expense to this obviously there is there's also an expense to Grass um and and we could argue what that is and I I I think again I don't want to get into that right now because I think Corey and and Jean are going to give us some more information about that what's important to note is that this money and correct me if I'm wrong Jim this money was in the budget and secured at the end of last year this is not new money coming out of a new budget or a new line item that's coming that's hitting this budget this is money that was already um put away and put aside for this project we uh we knew when softball came in originally and this field was originally put there this was going to be what we were facing um and I think again Corey I heard you kind of say and I don't want to put you on the spot but if I'm wrong correct me that it could be upwards of $300,000 initially to pull that field out I think also important to note is not only is that a good cost but let's talk about the cost of right now that turf field is grandfathered and if we were to rip it out and then in 10 years decide that was a bad idea we most likely would not be able to put Turf back there with leave which would leave us with absolutely nothing let me make another Point Chris because it's going to get used whether we do it or not so right now it's been being used in a defunct State and I can tell you because my wife who slid into third base and got a staff infection from the the turf that it it it's it's shouldn't be being played on but we don't have other solutions for them and they're going to use it either way so to make it safe I think is important yes if I can make a comment though when you're talking about the the cost and the drainage and things of that nature it it's costly just because you got to remove what's there um the drainage is underneath that field today if doing a new turf field is very difficult because of the drainage systems that you have to install these days to meet up your stor because they treat like impervious cupboard so you got to treat an underground storage something of that nature um you know above you know like a detention Basin or underground piping things of that you know it it's very costly if you take it away you would have that issue you are correct um when I say cor can I interrupt for a second and the there are reasons for that right that's the current best practices now I mean there are probably real reasons for doing that yes okay yeah uh we want to control the runoff you make sure we're not increasing the runoff off the property um more than what it is today um the the drainage you you could design it so we can handle the drainage um in a very very um um good manner and make a very nice field field of of it one issue you do have with the lights and the the the numbers of games and and items that you are playing on that you'd have a difficult time doing that on a grass field it just you wear the the field out so there is you know the I think cost-wise it might be you know cheaper to have the grass field but I think there's advantages of what the the the number the use that you can get out of the fields when it comes to to the P that's obviously a touchy uh subject I think if you look you read up on it um there's all kinds of information of it may be a u may be environmental risk um and it may not be there's not you know I think even um um Dan you made a comment there's a lot of studies but there's you know there there's I haven't seen one that says you know definite that this is the reason why caus the children have cancer so I I understand if I if I rather play in Grass than Turf I'd probably say yes um but you don't have enough grass fields to be able to handle the population um I live in Frankfurt Township and we have fraction of the the people and they're able to take Fields out of service you don't have that option and Sparta to take Fields regularly out of service and that's where Advantage comes down to have one or two of these fields um and there was a talk about making new Fields you're not making new Fields right now you're you're maintaining the two that you have okay go ahead so first of all as as it's been said it's clear that the unman turf field needs a replacement I mean I took a look at it um personally I think for me the White Lake Field Complex which was also a significant investment that's something that I would be proud of I would speak a bit proudly I wouldn't criticize it myself um so you know pasas substances you it's a class of over 12,000 chemicals um and they're using a diverse range of like manufact facturing and different types of processes industrial they don't degrade they've been linked to numerous health effects and according to the EPA there's no safe level of exposure to certain pasas um everything I've heard in the last 105 minutes doesn't override the health of the kids and maybe adults playing there I don't care about convenience I don't care about all this I mean it doesn't override our duty to protect the health of them and our water supply um the township as you may know is evaluating our wells I think I came up earlier um through a very thorough manner to check if we have PS and what the levels are and as you probably know we also joined a class action lawsuit a while back to help protect us in case there's any um assistance that comes out of those lawsuits against the big defendants um perhaps for mediation uh mitigation effects or things like that we can use that money for so we we've done that um so there's a Synthetic Turf Council right that's the represents the industry last June the president CEO Melanie Taylor said that the industry needed at least till 2026 to develop viable alternatives for the marketplace without past chemicals and at least to 2028 to reduce them to even lower and than even 2026 this is the president CEO of the council that represents the manufacturing of Synthetic Turf so to me that that means a lot they wouldn't be going out there and saying that this is not a risk and they don't need to change if there wasn't something there there are three ways or three Pathways that P can uh you can get exposure from right so it's ingestion um so the little particles things like that if kids are on the ground that could actually be ingested um inhalation and Dan talked about that a little bit and then skin contact and the latter skin contact is the one that's most commonly discussed when you talk about health concerns including by this vendor um there's also the impact of the chemicals going into the ground the ground water beneath it uh the runoff into the walkill river or wherever especially if we're not redoing the hole underneath uh to mitigate for that in 2019 the US APA report indicated that even that crumb rubber the see flying up on TV when you watch sports any artificial turf can contain many chemical compounds cadium chromium arsenic all those aren't past but they're still dangerous as well when you think about the evaluation of the harm from pasas it's also something you can't think about only during the active use so say we have it for 8 9 12 15 20 years right you have to think about also what's the impact of it during manufacturing and also disposal right now there's not a great Network out there for taking these and recycling them or using them properly unfortunately I think a lot of them wind up in landfills so I know it's Thinking Beyond Sparta but we need to do that so this is also the end of life the full life cycle of what this material is going to do you know cities and states are are taking action some examples Boston has banned all future artificial turf installations uh California Vermont have introduced bills Banning past and artificial turf uh there's some towns especially in New England and in Mid-Atlantic that have put a moratorium for three years on artificial turf until they study this more there's just too many unknowns and the risk is not worth it the uh two medical institutions I I I want to quote one is um the Ian School of Medicine they've recently raised red flags they are writing letters sending out letters to municipalities weighing whether to invest in Turf discouraging the decision over concerns about exposure risk to to kids that they're seeing uh Mount Cai children's Environmental Health Center they also highlight the many unknowns that surround most pasas and a quote skin contact is not the only way that athletes or kids could be exposed to chemicals in the turf they could also accidentally ingest the compounds if they touch their mouths after touching the turf I would say that we need to to the greatest degree possible restrict exposure to these chemicals and then finally an example um interestingly this is by the same vendor that we are considering in Woodbridge Connecticut testing has shown past levels Rose in the surface water that were yards away from The Amity High School field after the turf construction was completed and it's attributed to p p foa and posos and those levels in water are above the threshold that are now considered safe by the EPA and this was actually a couple years ago the numbers I think got more stringent now or they're going to and the vendor field Turf installed that field and claimed it would be free of total pfast measured under the epa's testing standard so those are my concerns I have a few more about the vendor but I just want to lay that out there in terms of what we're dealing with here in terms of considering pasas uh and thinking about all these other benefits we might get from a t field these to me outweigh that by a long shot thank you I have a quick question Jean are those fields um down there um do you use does parks and wck use chemicals on those fields to so in other words fertilizer lime to paint the I'm talking about the grass fields okay so they're fertilized yep they have lime which is makes all the stripes and the paint in the end zones and all that kind of stuff as well and and weed killers correct weed killer and also on a rainy day um bags and bags and bags of I don't know what it's called what's it called turface turface okay to dry up that is put all over the grass field to mop up if you will um and in the infield of like even Memorial down there so all of that is already put on the ground as well correct okay that's that's bad for the environment too I agree the point is I think we're we're not talking about more Fields we're not talking about looking into the future adding more Fields I know the rec advisory committee Neil you sit on that as well um we've talked about the importance of doing this for about a year now um very important from safety reasons I I agree ALS so we're not looking at asking for anything new we're looking to replace what we have for all the reasons that were given um the rec advisory committee was very much supportive of this entire initiative as well because they realized the importance of that field being available um for the all the different organizations that are are using it as well and to my knowledge again I think Corey you said this as well there's a lot of studies out there but we really don't have the end everybody thinks you know we look at things through different lenses that's that's how the world works so I think if you read a study for someone that's Pro Turf it looks one way if you look at uh something that where people are are against it I just have to think although I'm not negating um I know kids that have gotten very very sick playing on grass because of different reasons um and I just have to think to myself if it was really that bad even though I appreciate the fact you're saying in some places there's a moratorium which again we're not asking for anything new but I have to think that if the if it was that bad there wouldn't be this many of them and again we're not looking at you know ripping out all of Station Park and saying we want 15 fields in a row we're just the the ask is to replace what we have now so that we can service what we have now um nothing new thank you may if I make make two two two quick comments um May uh one is that I I want to apologize earlier for stating that I was the only person with experience playing on a synthetic field that was an arrogant comment and I'm sorry um apolog accepted thank you and and secondly like while I while I do feel strongly about this issue I want I don't want to imply that there's any shame in having a different opinion there are very valid reasons for supporting this and and that I respect so um that's the only thing I want to State thank you Dan yeah I'm just um so I think my question were am I right that we did not consider uh grass as an alternative so no analysis went into that or that's that's not but this I know everybody's thinking this is the first year or two that we've been talking about this the first quotes I had on replacing this was when I first got here in 2019 it's it has been in disrepair and needing since then when I did that one I did get a quote for replacing and at that point replacing the turf was about about 160 and it hasn't gone up much at all but putting pulling it all out and redoing it was 200 back in 2019 with the increase of everything that has been going on I don't think Cory's far off by saying it's going to be at least double of what of taking it out and I didn't do a detailed analysis on exactly what they had proposed at that time but um there there's certain things you got to consider with the grass field also which I'm not sure if that one did the removal you know of the material constructing you putting new new Earth you know new soil back in for top soil seeding you know seeding the property but also irrigation you you got new irrigation requirements that that comes in a field like that with the use that this field would get you would have to you know the irrigation comes into that as well so um it there there's a there's a lot of cost to it so that that was considered the the cost my my number is I'm estimating that if if I include that it' be somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 okay if if I me because I'm I'm your employee I I can do whatever ever you guys need me to do I I don't have an agenda here but I will tell you um you take that field out if you don't replace it with the synthetic field so it's usable right away we're looking about being without a softball field being down so you're actually being down two Fields remember because you got the lights so you can play double on being without two fields for probably two years because when you put the new field in if the white leg's been going for two years we only opened up the spring so because you can't just get on a grass field once you put it in it takes a long time for it to take and to be able to use it so we'll be out two fields for at least to you know a year and a half to two years that's the first thing the second thing is I am your department head I do have to watch our cost and stuff it's not just grass growing van I'm sorry we have we we're not mowing that field every day we're not dragging that field every day I'm down two people right now in the department because of of attrition and stuff and I need to get back up to my eight I'm down at 6 and we really should be operating at 9 and we don't have those numbers and it's not just a little bit of grass to mow and then they're done it there's a lot of work and maintenance daily that goes into a grass field which they're currently doing on the field next door right you can figure it out but it's it's a lot more than just I I just don't want you to minimize it like it's nothing there there is a lot that goes into keeping the grass fields the way are and how long would it take to go from AstroTurf to Turf you said six weeks 6 weeks so you could get this field done in 6 weeks it would take up to 2 years to get this as a playable field to make sure it's playable and it's not going to get ruined the first time you use it yeah you normally let it sit for one year to make sure the grass is um you know has a good stand of grass before you start to use it or you're going to waste what you had even if you saw it it makes it difficult and saw just increases the price even more yeah we I mean we saw at White Lake and we still had to wait okay and you need to look at a total cost of ownership over 15 20 years because no I understand what you're saying I I I get it I'm just saying you know we we're going to have to deal with the here and now whichever your decision is you need to be prepared for the hearing and if unerman was closed for 2 years uh meaning hey we got to wait for the grass to grow um what uh effect does that put on you and you scheduling of these uh various clubs and there'll be no tournaments there'll be no softball tournaments they won't be able to do we won't have enough field Tak two field out mean no tournaments or not a scaled back tournament well okay scale back but I think I think the tournaments we may you're you may lose them if you have the tournament time where like she said we had two years ago we had tons of rain we were able to get that tournament in because we were able to schedule most of it around angerman if we won't if we don't have that ability then we would be canceling that tournament and they would be returning all their money they they're in numbers just like baseball and Lacrosse and everything since covid are going back up so now we're trying to find fields for their teams they have more teams than they even had two years ago I've got a a woman's softball league that went from five teams to I have 10 teams in the 11 teams actually in the spring and another six in the fall so that will have to be scaled back and they can't play in the fall there'll be no their fall ball season would pretty much be done except they could only practice on the weekends because come six more weeks no three more weeks you have Darkness so there's no practicing after school there's no games after after school because there's no lights at White Lake which was part of that project that we were supposed to put in so it for two years I mean could we manage you're probably going to you might really do harm to the girl softball program at the very least and the women's program but I would it come back I don't know you know I don't know if people would go looking for softball someplace else or baseball this was the last two years when we started doing a my sport programs right now and I'm going to call them mine our coordinat better than they ever have softball baseball lacrosse we're we're using the turf fields starting early March and baseball uses Station Park Turf we split with AC cross two baseball has like 600 kids in it in Spring we're using angerman they're getting three days girl softball's getting three days they split the Sunday they're getting their preseason in there's probably less injuries because they're actually getting more touches to the ball they're they're being able to work out earlier during the season in the fall they can continue what they're doing those are the pros of of the field of how I mean how many less games would you be be forced to um have as a result of putting this offline for two years well for the I mean in the spring because you I I it all depends on the rain you're ask me how many we could we couldn't schedule as many um if you put take the grass out you have no lights now so you can only do one game a night on the field you have on the four fields that you have we and we are using School Fields so it's not like we're just saying we're only working with we are already using all of the school Fields baseball and softball fields do do you have an idea how many games are on uger per year per year I'd have to figure out per you but but I do know during the week it's 10 on the weekends um it's probably there's at least three or four a day every Saturday and probably another two or three every Sunday so that's five so maybe 20 games a week from April early April through June and then you've got the fall which we is all unerman except you also lose the ability to your point to have night games so the women's softball program would be greatly affected by that because you have 8:00 games for the moms and everyone who come home and um you know start playing it they have games at six and 8 so that's double there um and also to your point Corey we would not be able to maximize the investment that we made in the lighting down there there because to your point right now we can have uh because uh we're able to have you can have the girls softball in there in the morning the the travel team comes in at noon the baseball team comes in at two uh you know and you can have the the women's team there at night so my point is you can utilize the lights and you can play all day you cannot do that on grass so in addition to just not just shutting it whatever I think what we're missing what we need to consider as well is the investment we've already made down there um in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars in those lights and what's the difference of having those lights down there if you have to shut them off because you can only have three games on the field um because the grass can't take it if even utilizing the grass you can use the lights but to the point you know you're going to be wearing the grass out especially if you have a rainy season there's going to be a point where the grass is not going to be playable just because the field is going to be in horrible shape just from playing on it with cs and stuff these are three people in the Outfield are going to wear out the cleats it's not always a grass you got the clay you got the pitch M actually the infield more of a problem than the grass in the Outfield the and you're going to wear out the clay they roads it gets uh you know no matter how what do you do for drainage and wash you know you get some kind of wash washing going on if they play in the mud you got Footprints you know that's just and then you're replacing clay every time you every time they try to dig it out to get rid of the water but I'm not saying Dan I I know it sounds silly because you you have your I see we have the water clay next to the baseball field where they where the you can't just throw clay you just don't throw clay onto a field and say it's playable there's there's a lot that goes into grooming the field I'm not mizing it believe me but uh it sounds like a solvable problem is what I'm trying to say it's not it's not insurmountable but it is something you asked me what the you know what is the impact that's the impact there's there is an impact I'd imagine that you know I mean it's been handled and figured out over decades and decades when there before there was Turf right towns figured out how to take care of the fields when they're starting to get a little thin do some other things to them their seasons were much shorter they played they played differently and I mean we we can shorten Seasons we can change things around they're just not going to be our our kids are not going to be if if you care about that thing the kids are not going to be as competitive as they move up the ranks it does it does it does affect the the competitiveness of it um if if that's not a concern then you know it's not a concern but it does like Chris said you know playing on different um different surfaces does make a difference I I have played on grass I've I ran on a cinder track I would never want to do that again I would much rather be on a regular you know eight Lane track that's nice with the with the bouncy surfaces and and all of that stuff it's you know there are times when those kind of materials are good for you I mean so but knowing how to run on all different surfaces is helpful I think there's a reason why your high schools are all converting their fields to tur fields and you know got Sparta Sparta High School they got Pope John Pope John's got multiple Fields um and they just wear and tear and then the competitiveness for their their their programs speaking of the high school Fields um that went out to a referendum twice to to replace that and it was voted down twice until the high school just did it anyway and and nothing nothing is insurmountable I mean let's be honest we're I think for the concern I have is the one that you spoke of about the disruption to the program and um and so what you're just so I'm clear is if we were to take this and try to convert it to Grass we're looking at a 2-year possible window of no one being able to use that okay and would that and so that means teams that would used to play there can't play there you have to put them somewhere else and do you have a somewhere else that you can put them no I don't they would just have to play less they would have to play less so instead of getting three two practices or three practices you might get one uh the younger kids might only get a game in they'll never have the opportunity to the practices are when you learn the game and the game is when you practice what you learn right so if you don't have practices to learn the game and the skills you're just gonna kids want to play games so you're going to end up throwing them just in a game situation because no one's joining a softball program or a baseball program whatever to just come out and practice and never have a real game the kids to play games so they won't develop they won't have the opportunity to develop the skills as maybe they they do now because they would not have practice times they would we probably just schedule some games and you're going to play every Saturday and that's it or you're going to play you know you you'll get one game a day a week that would be one way to fix the problem another way I don't know I mean maybe we could rent fields from another town but I don't rent my Fields out to other towns because I don't have them we don't have enough I I have Veritas plays in our fields or the verto school because it's a Sparta school they play in our Fields I even have Pope John teams coming over to play in our Fields during the day the high school uses our fi like not just that field but I'm saying our field so it it would be hard to go to another town and say I need some softball fields how many softball fields do we have have will we use the Moa if you count just the town Fields no no I'm counting all the fields that we use with the school so you've got two softball fields up at White um well White Lake is softball baseball baseball used that this okay so call us half Fields was that so call them half Fields half field so you got so got one maybe one in one at White Lake for a Bas softball field one there we do use Mohawk strictly for softball baseball's been able to go around that we have one really one baseball field at at Station Park field 11 softball softball softball is the only the field 11 is the only all softball field other than that we use the school middle school field right so we have the two Fields middle school high field and then you have the Park there's like four Fields there or three Fields so there's like when you add them all up seven no those are baseball fields those are just bball at Station Park around the Mohawk one at Station Park one at White Lake um and the two Middle School Fields needs a lot of work which we'd have to do so six maybe six fields and you we can count the unman field twice because they've got the lights I I'm not even count I thought you meant without unman so we've got eight Fields total if you include the two unman Fields so we'll be losing two of eight so we' be losing a quar a quarter of our fields for two years so you'd be losing a quarter of your practices and a quarter of your games okay so you wouldn't go down from three games to one or zero you'd go you lose a quarter of them right well yes and no travel teams do mostly on on okay I I think you know we've can I can I just okay I I want to move to the other issue which wasend just if I in go for it because there's there's couple other things that I really want to say about this topic we're talking about sports we're talking about sports uh meaning softball baseball you know all these different programs I think we need to take a step back and look at it outside of sports these kids being involved for all this time in these organizations with these organizations is critical to their mental health it is critical when we're talking about living um healthy lives staying engaged being with a team staying connected to things um it's much it's much bigger than even just the sport itself taking it away telling them they're going to have less I don't think that is a healthy solution and as much as we could sit here and argue mental health and well-being physical health and well-being and we could go back and forth but I think they're equally as important um the other thing is I will speak to also the condition that I have seen again uh my husband and I collectively raised five kids we've been on every field that you can imagine the school Fields all the every field there is the problem up here in Corey if I'm wrong correct me but I will share my experience because of the landscape up here a lot of the fields once you play on them for a while millions of rocks start coming up and then you're going down a field and if you don't stay on top of it to jeans point and keep it maintained what starts happening is all the fill underneath which is millions of rocks all over the place that starts coming to the surface we saw that at angran we saw that at the even the high school field before they redid that field as well so in addition to other things I think it's important to understand the upkeep that is required because that is also a very dangerous situation if you don't stay on top of it but I do really want to go back to the importance of I people move here they come here they see our facilities they see our programs they want to raise their kids here for a reason they want to get involved with the sports programs for a reason and I think to sit here and say we're going to give you less for less or we're going to take this out of commission um that's going to be financially devastating to the the softball programs and and anyone else that's using it for for these reasons so I just want to be mindful of the fact that I think we need to be not just looking at the actual playing of the sports as important as that is for physical health I think we also o need to look at the impact of all of this um from a mental health and perspective as well okay yeah I don't think anyone disagrees about the importance of of these fields and the you know that that I think that the issue is I think we all have safety in mind I think those are kind of at the Genesis of um you know councilman Chell and councilman blue Matty's concerns as well and I know it's your concern too um but I'd like to the other issue I wanted to address was not this the substantive issue of you know the field versus Turf but this vendor in particular um and so uh what I'd like to understand is how this particular vendor was chosen because I know on my investigation of this particular vendor uh I found not one but two separate uh lawsuits against them for misrepresenting uh the quality of their fields and then the town later had to sue in order to get recouped their money um and they weren't honoring warranties and so I wanted to find out you know what is it that didn't what did we do to you know kind of do our due diligence with respect to this vendor you take that yes okay um first of all we we looked at two different vendors okay the the vendor that we had proposed was field Turf uh which is a u probably the largest a field installer at least in the country if not the world um I think um NE your comments about the lawsuit there was a you know major class I think I believe I'm I can't go into I don't know the details of all the lawsuit but I know they had major class action lawsuit about regarding one of their lines of product duros spine you know field that they had in the early 2000s mid mid to late 2000 I think um that is not this product um they they they do not utilize that product anymore um this this vendor is um we we did field Turf and then we did another got another quote from Shaw Sports okay both of those those vendors are on the um the escnj which is the um the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey Co-op program I done Fields with both contractors or both both manufacturers and I think both of them would do a fine job um the field Turf is the vendor they did the uh the original field here 20 years ago um they've also um gen has had them in many times in here to do um some maintenance on that field sometimes I don't even know if they charge you you know you know for the field maintenance so there is a little bit of loyalty there because they they're very good to Sparta Township over the years um the the fields at Sparta High School or field Turf the fields at Pope John or field Turf is my understanding um the um I did use field Turf on the fields up at leny high school if anybody's been at lenpy we did three Fields with them up there uh the the fields I I did with Shaw I did uh three Fields up in up in Vernon with Shaw um both both vendors are you know they they a fine job and I think you'll get a good produ product out of either one of them fter too also I mean I I'm part of NRP are are my colleagues they they all have used them uh yeah they they did whatever that was back in the the early 2000s with that that material and that whatever they everything has been changed they're not using that anymore Monclair State just did a multi-million dollar project in St just redid all of their fields with field Turf so my you know I obviously spoke with colleagues and and bed it out that way too and there has not been those issues that they had back then with them both companies T that they have a um you have a warranty if the warranties by a third party insurer so it's uh um uh to guarantee the fields for I believe eight years is the guarantee over both of the fields um um so you know with that knowing that information know both products are very similar that the little differences they they both have their own proprietary you know you know field um manufacturing um just knowing that um you know field turp has been in Sparta for many years and they they they were involved with this field as well as the high school um we thought that this would uh and they gave and technically they gave us a better price they they discounted off the C&J because Florida has used them at the high school and we've used them several times so as a as a repeat customer they were discounting off of the off off of the discount off of the you ever had to make a warranty claim uh with next Turf with with none of with any of these I haven't even when I was in R off we used field Turf and we didn't ever have I haven't I had I've had field Turf a year or two later come back in to make a repair normally it's like their seams they come back they have the stripe that comes in and the seams come apart or something they come back in and and they I've never had any issues with them coming back in to make those repairs um the the process what they do is they come in if you know the carpet that's down there now they actually come through and they slice that carpet in about 4T rolls and they they U they roll roll the rolls up in almost like a um uh they roll the rolls up and they shake out the material they're going to reuse this infill so that's one thing you know it's a lot of the infi that's on the field they're going to reuse it as much as they can that cuts down in a cost and less of it goes to a landfill um but the but the carpet itself that is disposed of like the end state it does go to a landfill on the infill question I thought that infill is like the old 20-year-old infill with crushed rubber tire really bad stuff we're not going to reuse that are we it's mostly that's the issue with um with field Turf a lot of it sand as a sand material right the field that's on there now you you're not going to reuse that infill some of that yeah because it's that's not all old we've been we've been replaced and and cover that with all the newer stuff as the years have gone on so and you've replaced the older stuff you've vacuumed it up or something or no no oh it's a that's typically that's what happens they reuse the material and then they they add material over top of the you know the as it's required and how much uh more was Shaw than uh field Turf do you know a similar product I received a number for 187,000 just 188,000 and this in field Turf is how much 175 okay about 13 Grand yeah I mean um so you know just what I found was um that yeah it was it was a nationwide class action involving their product right and um and I understand that's not the product that's going to be used here um but in that in that case uh they had found internal documents so this wasn't just someone hey I think this is a bad company I'm going to spout off about it so they had internal documents from field Turf uh where they were communicating they meaning the employees were communicating um that this product was they were not being truthful about how long it would last the effects that it would have and they were like we have to change the way we Market this because it's not consistent and so my concern is they're going to promise US same as they did with this you know the I think it was called bual line I think it was the product they're making a bunch of promises here that they may not be able to keep later so I don't feel comfortable that this is a vendor that I can trust um um I don't know what Shaw is I haven't done my my you know um is it a you know a huge deal to to switch vendors at this point I just think that and again also to point out this wasn't the first time for field turf field Turf back in 2010 entered into a consent judgment with the state of California and the Attorney General because they were lied about the presence of lead in the turf and so one would think okay we got in trouble in that then we're going to be really good vendors next time well they weren't now they have a new product and it's called duraline and that one was subject to misrepresentation so my concern here is are we going to run into the same problem with them and I know look we always look at issues about we don't want to get sued right but we also don't want to have to sue right we don't want to have to sue to go back to this vendor and said you know what this thing is falling apart after 2 years you promised us it was going to last 9 years it's not lasting years um now I think it's helpful that you've used them before and haven't had issues and is the type of product we have now is that what we're going to use for unman so what we have at uh station station is what we're going to use at unman the newer version okay even either one that you have at at the high school it's probably similar to what you have at high school the one at the station Park is an older older technology this is just upgrade from that it's just because of age every few years they have a new line that comes out um this this line has been around for a number of years it's I believe this one's more related to softball they try to relate to different Ty of turps use a different weave in the whole bit depending on what kind of field you're using your usage of the field I think one of the comments was how the ball bounces things out you know they they tried to at least that's how they Market it you know they Market it it's a different you know um line of field for uh a ball like a baseball or a softball versus what you're doing on a on a turfield you know for a soccer lacrosse you just the way you're your your feet you you react and move it's a little bit different the blade but it's a newer version of what's at do you know any Township that that have used Shaw for their Turf and have they had any issues I use Shaw up and Vernon when they replaced the fields that Dan was talking about a couple years ago we replaced two uh two multi-purpose Fields with Shaw okay and they again they did a fine project okay but like again that field Turf I've had more projects with them too and they were fine as well okay and do you know whether they would have the same six weeks turnaround time that I guess you understand that field Turf would have I didn't ask him that but we can it is fairly fairly uh quick as long as they they can fit you in the schedule so okay the whole process does not take a lot of time it's not how you fit into the to their schedule and the advantages we have right now doing it now is uh schools back in in service you but technically all summer long they're working on the schools to get the school Fields done before The Fall season but but you have a limited window because it is temperature control you know everything you're doing is temperature control with the weave of the grass and stuff so that's why we picked this time of year because at this point it would be quicker and whatever you can't do it when it's super cold so if we don't get it done within the next you know by November or so at this point then now you're talking they can't do it until the spring and now you're going to lose all that that whole advantage of having it done early because you're going to out of a field for 6 weeks in this spr and how much would there be any additional delay if we were to choose Shaw over field Turf we'd have to call shop we don't know how long it would be okay I I I didn't do more of that due diligence because I was comfortable with Filter you know and I had the pricing and he was giving me even more reduced off of the other thing so you know I didn't I didn't get the timing the time they they both said it would be like a six week project but field Turf kind of knows that this is coming so they're they they're holding a spot for us I don't know you don't know whether where you fit in the shaw Q correct okay got you do you have the extra funds to be able to if you want with sha so in other words if we went ahead with the resolution um well I'll be I'll be dipping into this year's Capital but yeah I mean there is funds there okay we could do it you're talking $220,000 and I think that the thing is also I think it would be very hard to find a commercial company very hard that has no lawsuits um and so while I appreciate the due diligence I think we could almost look at almost every vendor that's out there for anything I mean even the big ones look at Fisher Price look at the bigger you are the look at all of them the bigger you are the more you're going to have um I think the other thing and I was asking that before and and again I didn't have a chance to research it because I just found out about it at 5:30 tonight but the other thing is um one of my big questions were were they guilty well what did the judge say were they guilty um and they settled now not only when we talk about vetting here this is vetted through the co-op correct Corey youve you've used them for multiple projects Jean we have them for multiple products the turf that we got from them that is supposed to last supposedly from the conversation tonight 7 to 10 years has been pushed to almost 20 years right now and although it should have been replaced a couple years back it's there um we have had no issues with them holding up there into the bargain with us to date Corey has also said he has none um I'm curious what is the Warr like what is there a warranty is there a warranty yeah I don't have it with me I believe it's a year warranty okay they do a little bit um it's a little staggered like they only warrant warranty of the base pass like a certain number of years and everything else is like you know eight years the base pass might be two to three years three years years because they used but is it consistently like regardless of cuz you're not the warranty is not on the installation the warranty is on the product right okay so when you do any any project we um you we can require them to have a a maintenance guarantee for at least one year after they install it so that the you know anything happens that first year they got come back period without having that we can we can make sure we can write that into the contract so what I'm wondering then is if we can just amend the resolution the amount of the resolution to say that we approve the expenditure for that amount for the turf replacement and let you go be be able to go back and talk to Shaw to be able to see if it's even applicable if they can you know if there's any kind of um leeway or whatever because I don't think any of us want to hold well I I can't speak for all of us I don't want to see the project held up anymore and I know time is of the essence I mean last week we started getting some cold weather um grant that it wasn't wintertime weather but it's clear that it's changing and I think none of us want to see the timeline be pushed out or it end up getting having to be scheduled in the spring when now we got to kick off the all the preseason things and all of the the spring softball so um I think if we make that adjustment to the price to say $187,000 that we approv moving forward with $187,000 if the consensus is that more people are comfortable with one vendor over the other vendor I mean to me that's a daily operations to me that's a day-to-day operations thing that's not a us thing um but at least we could move forward we could let you guys do your due diligence again I think for me that's a day-to-day operation thing not a a council thing the council thing is the project but I think getting into the vendors and all that kind of stuff and you know maybe maybe that we need to defer to the professionals I'd like to share uh comment about field Turf just for a little more perspective so recent customers of theirs was uh in New Hampshire right Portsmith you're familiar with Portsmith New Hampshire um they made the same claims around you know 30 30 pasts you know 30 of them and those levels once it was installed there a local advocacy group went in and found organic Florine in the field which is indicator it might contain pasas so then the city of Portsmouth New Hampshire approved and funded its own tests with an expert to go in for specific compounds and they confirmed that there were indeed p in the turf so the tests that the city council ordered found those multiple compounds and they were at multitudes higher than the maximum safe level for those chemicals drink drinking water so there there is concern here there's risks here um I don't think I don't think it's a matter of field tur field or Shaw they're all the same materials Ju Just so you get that straight so you understand what you're saying I agree yeah I think yeah I think on the same page with that I mean this is an example right and especially one that they mentioned in the recent one that's been documented we haven't looked into what that Shaw has the same complaints I don't yeah I mean I think that we would want to investigate that but I think um I think councilwoman Quinn's point is probably a good one if um and I think we'd have to move to amend resolution first we'd have to make a motion just to amend it um to for it would be not to exceed I think is it 187,000 is what okay say 188 their actual number was 187 75194 so 188 is probably okay so my recommendation is that we pause this and let Gan let you have some time and Cory to get quotes so we know what we're talking about with grass fields so we have some specifics put it out the bid or get three or four quotes and see how long it would take and then give you some time to work out is it possible to what kind of shuffling would you need to do we're not talking forever right we're talking a year or two whatever it is to figure out how bad it would be and let's get to a real number so we know what the disruption would be I still think above all that and above the convenience of turf we're still talking about a long-term investment that could be dangerous that's my view but I think we should take time so you know what the decision is not just have you estimate on the spot how many games or how much The Field's going to cost so all of that takes a lot of time that we don't really have right now if we want to ensure the spring season the other thing I want to just share with everybody here is we just literally did an open space um survey that I just got so thank you for sending that to me and I just want to let everyone know that that that open space uh survey which was sent out by the environmental commission by people working with the environmental commission about the open space plan had 334 response 160 listed top thing as they need more turf fields the quality of life survey that we did and presented in 2020 also one of the things for quality of life that the residents all said they wanted more of was more turf fields not less turf fields we're not talking about more here we're talking about status quo I think that um I would like to make a motion to amend the resolution so I I would like to make a motion that we amend the price to 90 I mean to make it easy $188,000 and uh to make that Amendment to the resolution I'll second thank you okay fortunately I just have to interject that one legal point unfortunately we don't have the chief Financial Officer available to certify that the differential uh in funds are are available so we could we add funds permitting I'm sorry could we add funds permitting well um yes you could do that we would have to certainly get a certification from the CFO okay before any any contract award is is made even if you're delegating uh that but then it becomes a business function rather than anything else then it doesn't have to come before the council again so the uh the resolution could be amended to say we approve up up to $188,000 funds permitting correct and then it becomes the manager the professionals and the staff and the administration to then go back and you know for the replacement of the turf field then it becomes a business day-to-day thing that you guys go back do your due Ence make your selection of the vendor and move forward with the project then we're not jeopardizing anything in the spring that's critical this is our window what you would want to do is you can authorize delegate that indeed to the the township manager and authorize the mayor to execute the contract on behalf of the the township you know after advice and consent from the township manager and whomever else you want to designate advising the mayor okay so I want to make that motion a second and again it's a motion to amend resolution 9-8 d8 so that it is not to exceed $188,000 funds permitting yes okay right and again and you're also deleting from uh in in that Amendment from 9-8 you're Del you're deleting the reference to the party to whom this resolution uh was originally designed for and that being field Turf USA right so we would just remove that and to be the vendor would it be to field Turf USA and or or or shw yes if you wanted to limit it to one or the other yeah I think that's what we should I I agree and then let it be a business decision we don't we are we are in a short window let's yeah and the Anor would be shaw sports turf Shaw sports sports turf sh a w sports turf okay they don't have their address available there oh there it is I'm sorry to vote to amend correct we would also be deleting the term of the contract as it is presently reported in this resolution that's in the third whereas and the second and the second the first mention field was that's what they said it to amend that from field TKE USA or Shaw sport tur oh you know what so would be March 2124m Mo they don't know what the short thing is because they haven't reached out and seven because I mean Neil is this really that important to you that we I mean is this particular issue right above and beyond the the replacement of the field and and for all the reasons that were given today and spoken here today and for $113,000 on top of all of this is it really that important to you that we go with a different vendor and turn turn I think I'm glad you asked me because um this is a very difficult decision for me um because I'm very mindful of the safety concerns that been raised um but I'm also kind of mindful of who is making those claims and who wants to use this field the people who use these fields seem to have consented to the risk right I mean we had the you know the physical headed teacher and the coach stand up here and tell us we want Turf and he's in the kind of best position of understanding what it is the people who use these fields want um I think it was also helpful to hear from councilman Quinn about the survey of what the people want the people who say we want Fields say we want tur Fields I'm going to assume that they're well aware of the potential health concerns with respect to turfield and so my concern is that we would be saying well we know better we don't we don't think you should undergo that risk we think you know you should wait two years and let us put a grass field in and then you know we're going to do it for you um particularly when you know uh it would be what you said a significant disruption to our wreck and I think everything in life comes about balance and risk um the fact that we've lived with this turf field for however long um you know we're not saying let's going to Turf every single field in in Sparta um and so you know with that I think at least I've been persuaded that I think that we should you know I don't think it's worth waiting two years to get a a grass field I think the people who use this most have consented to use they want it they know the risk they've assumed it um and so um we can talk about later whether there's a a liability waiver that we can you know sign when you sign up for softball but that's another issue now with respect to the vendor make a comment on that um you can in a minute um next is the vendor it's you know maybe it's just because you know I'm a lawyer and I see you know this this makes me comfortable you know it does it's but it was helpful to hear that hey we Neil we've had this vendor for however long and we haven't had an issue with it so that's that's a potent argument um it just make you know when you read what they did and what they I mean it's like I said these are internal documents and they did and it wasn't the first time with these folks you know they did it again are they going to do it to us I don't know do we have to run that risk I don't know you know I I I I know I hear the softball I don't want to I don't want to delay this Sports was the most important thing in my life I know how important it is it it made me who I am today and I don't want to stop and delay that if we don't have to um and I did all kinds of risks with my sport that probably someone said you shouldn't have run on that Cinder track you're breathing in all kinds of stuff but you know what we did it and so I think with that you know my view of it is I'd like to just do another vendor it would just make it it is important to me Chris I just I worry about like let's just do our due diligence and you know maybe Shaw's just been in trouble just like all the rest I don't know but it would make me feel better um but I think on the substantive issue of field versus Turf I think we have a the people have spoken they want this and so let's give them what they want so in the r at the at the risk of not being able to come out of here tonight with something in place so that they can move forward because we need to understand now the fall stuff is starting you know what I mean like we need this window so is then the directive that we give the manager right we approve this we take the vendor names out we say we approve the spending of x amount of dollars to have this field replaced um that you know then they can do their du Ence if Shaw comes back and says we're really sorry we're booked we can't get you get to you till whenever then I think they still need the freedom and flexibility of being able to go back without having to come back here get our permission because to my point I think that's becomes then a day-to-day operation of of who you use what vendors you use I think we just got to ask Tom what the best way to do that is yeah Tom how before we get there I I I wanted to add some comments and I was going to speak next kind go ahead I say them okay I'm a bit appalled that we're thinking the public and kids have consented to this I mean come on I think we all know in our hearts and our brains people aren't consenting to this when use the to field right I mean it's impossible I don't think they understand the risk or the future risk I think it's our responsibility and our duty to protect them and do that same what we do with drinking water and bridges we're not asking these people to be experts and consent because they want to go play a sport I understand there's a lot of disruption that would happen towns deal with this and they work it out some way they make it work for the long term I don't think that we're expecting this is not a consent We're Not Kids Aren't consenting to this there's parents that have sued over this not here because of this right we all know that there's a risk here and this could be dangerous right and yes it would disrupt things and that is horrible and sports are really important especially the physical and the mental health parts of it and just the community part of it I get that but to assume they're consenting and that's okay let's check the box and fund this I'm gonna tell you right now sit right kids kids have been just to be clear down at unerman when the field was a train wreck before the turf um kids ripped their legs open because sprinkler heads popped out of the ground and you know I saw you guys cracking up back there because you thought it was really funny when we were talking about Rocks coming to the surface but you know many kids have been taken to the ER because they went sliding in and hit a rock it's not really that funny if it happens to your kid okay so maybe you want to tone that down a smidge so here's the deal you consent when you go out there even even you know my my daughter just broke her ankle playing softball on Thursday there's risk when you when you play sports whether it's the field you know there and I mentioned before there were feces on the field years ago over at Station Park kids got got very very very sick are we going to make people sign a waiver that says if there's goose poop on the field please don't sue us I mean there's some things that are inherent I also don't think we're judge and jyy to make Health decisions for everybody we voiced our comp our our opinions this information with the help of social media and everything else is out there people feel a certain kind of way about it one way or the other if parents have concerns then they should withhold their children playing on those surfaces and have them play in the games on the grass that's okay that's fine but I don't think you could say that this is something that people aren't aware of and I certainly don't think we are the judge and jury um you know we have we are on the all on the record with our different feelings about this and our different concerns about it but I don't think it's it's up to us to make make those decisions for parents of for their children for anything else honestly I disagree actually I think it's fine we could have our own opinions but I think can in situations when someone is consenting to Breaking an ankle or falling on a sprinkler or things like that that happens that's more understood that's near term that's present these things we're talking about are long-term risks and it's not just made up right so you have the federal government the state government lots of entities it's known things have been tightening up around Pas right so this is an a potential long-term risk I think we do we're representing the public I think we do have a responsibility to think about their safety it's not judge and jury it's being protective and making the right decisions for the long term that's my opinion we differ on that I get it that's and that I respect that but in the interest of time and discussion I do have a motion on the floor and Tom if you could walk us through how we can make that happen I'd like to be able to formally make that motion with you giving the caveat and then put it up for a vote well if if I understand the the amendment being sought it's it's uh requires multiple changes to the uh the current uh resolution current resolution would be amended there are seven whereas Clauses the first whereas would be amended to include with field Turf USA Shaw sport Turf the second whereas Clause would be deleted the third whereas Clause would be deleted the fourth whereas Clause would be edited to read or amended to read upon the township Financial Officer certifying that funds are available for this purpose and certifying that funds are available in account numbers in Parks and Recreation capital accounts not to exceed $188,000 uh fifth whereas would stay as is sixth whereas would stay as is seventh whereas would read whereas the the procurement may be awarded under and cites the statute using a fair and open process to field Turf um or Shaw sport Turf and then the now therefore would be amended to read uh be it resolved by the township Council of the township of Sparta that with the advice of the township manager the township engineer and the township attorney the mayor is authorized to execute a contract act with either field turf or Shaw sport Turf so I'm going to make that motion second can Mr Mayor can we have a roll call vote on that yeah Madam clerk can you read the have a roll call please councilman Herzberg yes councilwoman Quinn yes councilman shello no Deputy Mayor blumetti no mayor Clark yes so resolution 98 is as amended next up is resolution we haven't passed it we just amended it oh we amended it sorry you're right so I move that we adopt resolution 98 as amended second Madam clerk may I have a roll call please councilman Herzberg yes councilwoman Quinn yes councilman shello no Deputy Mayor blumetti no mayor Clark yes so resolution 98 as amended has passed next up is resolution 99 was is a resolution approving the submission of a Grant application execution of a grant agreement with the New Jersey Highlands may I have a motion uh to approve resolution 99 I move that we approve resolution 99 uh may I have a second please I will second it um may have a uh all those in favor say I I I and so resolution 99 has passed next we have uh resolution 910 which is a resolution authorizing displaying of commemorative flag on Township owned flag poll September 11th uh 911 flag uh may I have a motion to approve resolution 910 I move that we approve resolution 910 uh may I have a second I will second it and all those in favor say I I abstain all those abstain two so we have three yeses or eyes and two extensions next up is resolution 911 which is a resolution authorizing the displaying of commemorative flag on Township owned flag polls September 18th uh US Air Force may I have a motion to approve resolution 911 I motion that we approve resolution 9-11 uh may I have a second please I will second it all those in favor say I I all those abstain abstain okay so we have three eyes and two extensions for resolution 911 mayor before we get into Council liaison updates I'd like to uh see if we could call up Vinnie from the New Jersey film Council I know he wanted to say a few words that's you we do that dur open to the public why don't we do that during the open to the public what cuz he has to leave cuz he lives like an hour and a half away and he came for the uh the thing that was an hour ago appreciate it uh well a cool discussion though wasn't it yeah it was uh cool you exactly yeah we all like grass um anyways you're all like grass Big Time guys 100% um so anyways I was invited by Kevin up here um you know so my name is Vin Rizzo I'm uh a filmmaker based in mon New Jersey I own Syndicate Productions and I own the only Film School in New Jersey known as Syndicate film school and we train people by industry professionals um and uh I started working with well I mean uh we've worked uh on the subversion film that Kevin's been creating uh we've done it at uh Josh's restaurant and you know I've been acquainted with Neil and uh I just want to kind of um basically essentially talk about how amazing the film committee has been working um coming from a professional stpoint um how smooth everything's been coming along and on top of that the fact that all these big key leaders have been all coming now just to make sure that uh this common interest um is fulfilled in regards to making um the economy flow with film making make sure that we have this come out here so for those who don't know um film Mak every single time that there's a film happening in in a town in New Jersey they've actually found that the economy Rises by 40% and there's not many film uh ready towns and for those who don't know what film ready is uh I work very closely with the film commission regards to the education system um with our education system at the film school um basically with the uh the NJ film ready initiative it's basically where we take um uh a town and municipality and we essentially turn it into a uh ready committee for um filmmakers to come in and basically use that town to shoot um so basically uh I just wanted to say you guys have been doing absolutely phenomenal and uh our goal at Syndicate is to essentially come up here and and be a part of that one day um so we're looking to put up more locations both production companies and film schools to basically train people and we'd love to work with you guys at some point but I just want to say congratulations for everything that you you guys have been doing and it's absolutely phenomenal just with very little that I've seen and I think it's only going to go up from here so thank you very much for having me and I appreciate it thank you thank thank you Vinnie and I appreciate all the work that you've done I just want to say a little bit on that because um you guys have been great I mean I've seen you've been there once a week for what almost a month and a half now with 30 plus people volunteering their time and their and their work and their expertise and it's been really cool to watch I'm a little disappointed in the efforts of the township because this was a committee That was supposed to support guys but the only one supporting you guys seems to be me out of my out of my own pocket personally because um you know watching you guys that first day I didn't think you guys were going to be there for you know two months almost but I felt like I just had to you know I had to help you guys out because it was such a cool project and it was it was something that I think does have value in the township so if we're going to have committees in the town I think there's got to be a little more support behind it besides just you know sending these guys out to to do it all on their own it really hasn't been fair so I I applaud the work that you guys are putting in all the volunteers you put together um hopefully maybe we can get our stuff together and actually support you guys so let me ask um are film committees in other towns funded like in the in the budget or something like is there sorry so my my question he heard did you did you hear my question he did he did he jumped we've essentially been trying to fix that by essentially having the uh New Jersey film ready conventions and stuff like that so you guys can do that um and in fact it's actually very much recommended because it actually makes things a lot smoother in regards to actually building um uh A system that filmmakers can go off of right um so I think you were talking about the automating system and stuff like that that's good to start off with just for the paperwork in but really there still needs to be a liazon for your town to essentially um because every single film is so different you know it's not just a cookie cutter thing every single shot every single film is is so very different but I do think that there needs to be budgets in place and so far just based on the I I don't know if you guys know this but there's only 12 film ready um towns ready in New Jersey and I think you guys are are you guys one of them right not yet not yet there's only 12 so you guys are going to be one of the very first people to do that in history and what happens is by making sure that you have all of this stuff implemented right now it's going to send you guys way ahead and plus you know Kevin's very connected and you know we're all very connected and the fact that you guys are investing into this now and if you invest into this early it's only going to grow and Blossom from here so I do recommend you guys possibly look into something to where there is some type of implementation some type of training some type of funds that could you know help build the town better in regards to the permiting system and stuff like that so very much recommended but no essentially there's nothing like this yet so I I heavily recommend it and uh it doesn't need to be too crazy but still the the most that you can get the better so um any other questions before I jump back down and spring back up sorry no thank you absolutely thank you so we are at the council liaison updates and so when I go to my left left with councilwoman Quinn do you have any liaison updates so um we are having um let's see hold on one second let me get back to my page here um okay so the rec advisory committee we had submitted our list of projects we were asked and they were ranked we had asked to go been asked to go back and rerank them we waited because then the survey came out so we wanted to make sure before we did our own thing let's see what everyone in the town has so we're going to be providing another rep another ranking or or report um still ranking very very high on our list is pickle ball courts we're very excited about our pickle ball courts and um you know I think it's again this is a sign of the times things change right and now pickle ball is very hot and about and again it's about getting people outside it's about getting people connected it's about bringing people in the community together and pick a ball seems to be a great way to make this happen so that is one of the things that is very high on our list and we're super excited about that um we will um send back in a revise I don't know if there's going to be we met and discussed it we really did not have any revisions to it Jean at our meeting that we had uh we just wanted to hold until such time as we got the survey results back we'll get the surve results back to the The Advisory team Neil as you know as well and then if anyone wants to make any changes we can always I guess Neil send it back but I mean I don't think there's going to be any but we could we could always do that so that's what's going on there um we uh also Municipal Alliance is um in the middle of the screenagers review so very excited about that we put together a form and a survey for all of the schools we're waiting for them to all give us their feedback before we uh pick a path forward the seniors have no meetings till September but I do want to clarify something for anyone that's is interested in the Senior Olympics if you have not been it's amazing but sometimes people wonder hey what does it mean what age can I participate and the age is 60 so it's not 65 it's 60 so if anyone is interested um and also like I said I try to go to all the ones that I can it's such an amazing event um it's really great so thank you for reminding me that I'm now eligible to play in the Senior Olympics we're waiting for Jean she's not there but we're going to have her be the ringer oh you are there okay five or six was the very first Tri County Senior Olympics I was working random at the time that Sparta had the first one it was here Sparta so what Jean is saying just for the grand for everyone that's that can't hear her cuz she's not on microphone is that the very first Tri County Senior Olympics was held in 1986 1986 or 87 and it was held right here in Sparta so something to really be proud of um Lake Mohawk we we don't have any updates there um mayor unless there's something that you have and um I think that is that's everything I I have for now councilman hburg mine was canceled due to Vacations so I didn't have a meeting uh councilman blue Med uh just a summary of some recent planning board activities from last two meetings um planning board approved uh three applications Beringer on tarway uh on1 Holdings on one North Village Boulevard jvp Ventures on 172 woodport Road Pine Cone Plaza uh another application rames and Company llc at 61 Sparta Avenue was started and carried to September 18th um uh L Lakeland Bank was uh came through was any a variance on some rebranding signs uh as they changing Brands and then finally the master plan subcommittee met on August 12th and the next master plan subcommitte meeting is uh the second week of September next planning board meeting is Wednesday September 4th thank you councilman chero I have a couple of updates um first uh three updates first with the trails committee I believe we need to assign a council liazon we don't have to do that now but that's still the trails committee is in place we did name three four people to the TR committee but um we'll need a council leas on again it doesn't have to be done now but just want to point that out okay uh culture and arts committee uh the our last uh show of the year is on August 30 Friday 30th Rachel Z and osmosis so um it's our last chance to see some free rock in Sparta um maybe last for the culture arts series to to participate in that um and then finally to wrap up um back to the sister city in Greece we do have a committee that we set up uh we will staff that soon probably get going in October is uh the annual conference in Sparta greases on and uh on September 7th and 8th so I will I'm leaving Friday for that conference I'm very happy and proud that so many people have stepped up so many U organizations have stepped up to offer gifts uh from us to the uh people in in Greece um we gift SM the municipality uh the police department the school system the Historical Society and also the Sterling mineral m m Museum uh and I will also point out I bet you've never noticed really paid attention to this before but that flag right there that's the flag of Sparta and we're roxand will not pry that from her cold dead hand hands for getting that so we will not send that flag but we are sending a duplicate of that flag over so roxand put her foot down we're not sending that one it is cool and old it's at least 55 years old we found out um so um yeah that and that's all I have for um comme reports all right uh first for me uh I attended the August meeting of the library board uh the library circulation is up um they're all so uh in the process of expanding the um kind of what I call the kind of integrated um inter Library loan system so you'll have better ability to get books from a whole wider array of participating libraries um so they uh Dave Costa has been very involved in that and the um it's a new type of software that they're very happy with and so um that is probably coming online soon they've also uh had some you know movement with some technological assistance uh but they are the Staffing is just fine and so the library um has really bounced back from Co and it is doing uh quite well next um with respect to uh the film committee the reason why we did that ordinance today um is that August 30th is the deadline to submit our application for the film ready designation and so um part of that is to have an ordinance in place so that you can have the structure and I know there was an illusion to how come the town can't help well part of it is we we had no infrastructure in place to even deal with this um and and now we do and I think um that was a good issue about possible funding and we'll we'll look at that um but our application will get in on the 30th and that's simply big thing the heavy lift was really the ordinance and then I know that um our uh we had to take you know various photos of you know certain areas and we're in good shape with that and we can always add later if someone says hey how come you didn't include you know this part of Sparta well we'll be glad to take pictures of it and upload it to uh the website and so but I I do want to commend uh the the sparta film ready committee um because when we started it it was really focused on just getting this application in I really didn't have an idea that they were going to take it upon themselves to actually try to come up with an actual TV show you know and now they have is it 11 minute is that what 11 minute trailer um that they have I think one more shooting day left um and then after that's done and the post editing is done that uh will then be shopped around to various um production companies and streaming services Etc and I got you know and Josh has been able to see it i' I've gotten to be on set and you would not believe the amount of work that goes into this and it was a real lesson in cooperation because there's so many different facets of it and you know as I told them it's sort of a very kind of great metaphor for how a community actually works right because the community isn't focused on just one person for a film to go off successfully requires everyone on that to be working on the same goal and so if the lighting is messed up then it doesn't matter whether you have the greatest actor in the world it's not going to come off so they have to make sure every little component of that it it works and so it's been a real Tre treat to see and I applaud you know Kevin and Vinnie and everyone who's been involved from you know the talent that was there uh to the you know I didn't even know they had you know what I'll call the script police make sure they get the lines right there's literally a person who sits there and makees sure you don't screw up yeah you know so it's a real cool process to see and and all the work and effort that it's take I also want to thank our police force um when I went out at the station Park shooting um and there was a police officer there don't remember which officer but um you know he was you know and they've been tremendously helpful um and again I also want to thank councilman hburg he has been tremendously gracious and great you know and helping this oh and yes and for those who uh of a certain Generation Um Elvin from The Cosby Show was one of the talents that were here so for a Gen X person um it was very nice to have Jeffrey Owens in town to help film this so I applaud all of the work let's get this application in um the award probably we won't know about it till November is my understanding from the film Commission um and then I also look forward to updates from Kevin and others about this we we hope to have a screening of this trailer probably sometime mid November where members of the public can go see with all the Fantastic work that they've done so should have it at sported theater well our own theater yeah we have Sparta stage has been a much more receptive audience let I'll put that diplomatically um Joe Garcetti um has been very nice about hosting and so we'll we'll find a venue My Hope Is you know what we'll get so much demand that we have to go to the high school or something so we'll see um I also want I I the past um month I've been able to attend an eagle scout award um and that was a tremendous experience uh that was held at our VFW um you know just learning what it takes to actually get one of those Awards is incredible and for um they do a lot of work for us and I think it's and also um I want to props to Pete litfield and the VFW for hosting and having Pete there was actually a great example that I used for them which was that you know Boy Scouts are committed to service but it doesn't stop after you get your Eagle Scout in the same way that Mr litfield when he got out of Vietnam didn't say well I did my duty to the country I'm done I'm never going to help out again he dedicated the rest of his life to helping out his community and I thought that was a very very kind of important lesson to convey on those the kids uh next was also the um the junior Police Academy and really the time and effort that y'all take out of I mean out of your day job so to speak is incredible it's a lot of work for those kids and I really thank you um and it was a tremendous lesson for them about being of service to their Community as yall are every day so thank you for that and with that that is all the updates that I have are there any unfinished or new business that anyone needs to address I have some sure so first is just an announcement um it is football season and the Spartans are opening up on Thursday night so I just want to let everyone know Spartan high school football has their first game Saturday night um Thursday night Thursday night I'm sorry I'm sorry Thursday night Thursday Night Football so the spart are playing on Thursday night go Spartans um also uh we have been talking about the a report that was done around Station Park and the the field over there and I think um The Next Step of that is to discuss if we're going to or it where it's going to be so that people can have access to it so I think we just need to provide the public with the information as far as where they can find that information um I know that I had talked to you as well and to just say we're going to set that meeting up so um we can get specific questions answered but I think the the path forward I think you had said or someone had said it was going to go on the website but it can okay Council direct so do we agree that that that report's going to be on the website well I'm sorry I missed that report is the which one the oh yeah that's what I thought you were saying I just didn't catch that one um so I mean I think we just need to tell people where they could find it I think yes I do we need to um I don't think we need to do a motion or anything to make that happen but you know I think that would be fine so we'll post it on the website I'll get it posted I'll tell you where it is perfect thank you and then also I'm going to be putting in a request I had such a great conversation with um Scott Greco for those of you that may not know him he he and his wife started the Challenger program they're just amazing people the program is absolutely unbelievable if you have never seen it it is it is unbelievable um and so I'm going to be putting in a request I would like to um formally acknowledge Mr Greco and his wife and the coaches and the Challenger program so you're going to be getting that email from me um tomorrow Jim I'll send it to you Neil I'll copy you on it but I would really like to um recognize them formally and um they don't want the accolades I know it took a little while to coers them but they did finally agree to come so I will be putting in that request formally you'll have it tomorrow great okay and that's it for me I only have one thing and it's you know going to be my every other month request that I we get some kind of movement on these Sober Living homes that are operating in violation of our zoning in these neighborhoods I I again got calls from some of the people that live in one of the neighborhoods asking where it's at because it's been two maybe three years since they first came here and complained and you know they feel very neglected and I've kept telling them that you know there is movement on it that we're working on it but I in good conscience I can't tell them that anymore so I just we need to do something and I know Jim you just stepped into this and this was well before you but you know these people have been bringing these complaints for for years now and there are tons of case law I know some of the the things that New Jersey has done might be a little different but there's tons of case law showing that that they're not allowed to violate the zoning of our town and we've talked about this a lot that you know I understand this is a need and there there there should be things like this and they should be in mixed use they should not be in residential only neighborhoods we are in process of of addressing them there's a new classification out by the state and I'll be working with Tom's office on getting each of the locations uh looked at for compliance and you know whether they're appropriate or not anything else so okay okay yeah on um new business for me yeah there uh I think I'd sent um to probably a Jim or someone I'm also getting the complaints about the sober homes and some towns have been able to do some type of Regulation um there is that new classification under our zoning laws that you could you know use it as a permitted use and that would maybe carve out some of the the the bad sober hom so to speak um but I know we're we're looking at that and um hopefully we because I know there's some in town that people have um complained about and so again I think we do need to you know everyone wants to help those uh in recovery but I think we also need to to balance that with the needs of the residential Community uh that we have um the other item Neil I'm sorry interrupt you but I do want to make one thing clear is that the person that owned it made a commitment to the township right that they were going to move everybody into a facility that was in a mixed juice area correct and this was a year after he he did commit to doing it then didn't do it then promised this and then talked to the guy that owned the building that guy did a bunch of construction to do it and then he sold it out from underneath everybody screwed us screwed them and sold it to somebody else who now owns it so there's been a lot of shady stuff done to you know make promises to the town that weren't kept and to a lot of other people in Sparta so as far as I'm concerned this business is over and over again showed that they don't care anything about Sparta and just about making money yeah thank you for that and that that obviously is a real concern and I know it's a concern Nationwide with a lot of these homes that you know they they bring in people who are not don't have the best interest of the residents it's simply to churn and to make money uh off the most vulnerable and hurt in our society so um in any event um hopefully we can get some type of you know regulation there and assure the public that you know we're doing the best we can to regulate these based upon you know the laws that we have um the other item of uh new business is is just for me uh personally um folks will know that we did a council connect initiative uh which was to meet at the library and you know to address uh issues uh of our um of the public um speaking just for me uh in light of the election season that is upon us um things will you know and and undoubtedly uh can get gray between are you acting uh in Your Capacity as a council person or are you acting as a public citizen during campaign season for me personally I don't want to have to navigate those Waters um so I'm pausing my uh attendance at Council connect uh until after the election I just don't want it to be um an issue although I will make clear that we as council members in our personal capacity can campaign for whoever we want to as long as we aren't using you know Township property and so um but for me personally I don't want to have that issue of where you were campaigning for this candidate and you were using Township property I'd rather just you know that's just for me and my risk tolerance and I don't have any judgment on anyone who decides well I'm still going to do it I think that's completely fine and they have a free speech right I just know for me I'm not going to do that but I thought it need to know if someone says well you were supposed to be at Council connect on October 30th and you weren't there here I'll resume it after the election but I just want to uh let folks know um I do know there has been some interest in uh additional joining of the the sparta film committee um I I think I do you know at this time I want to see what happens with um whether we get the designation or not before I start adding a bunch of other people people that doesn't mean people can't attend who aren't interested in it but I think we need to kind of get to grips with um you know what do we doing next now that we get approval but um so there will be additional appointments but I want to we have a great group now I want to continue that I want to take a you know see where we are um also to get a better understanding of what we're going to need you know once we get the designation in these Studios and you know start coming knocking um making sure we have the infrastructure in place because you know we need to be on top of that so um you know for right now I'd like to just pause adding people but um you know I can always change my mind if we really see a felt need but we have a great group right now so I just wanted to let people know that and with that that is all the newer unfinished business I have uh councilman uh bledy so just want to do uh it's actually unfinished business I just wanted to correct uh something before that was inaccurate right it was about um I heard some information didn't want it to sit out there it was about the um open space Community survey um so I just I wanted to make sure there wasn't a misperception out there um the the question around uh desired outcomes for the open space plan updating Sports field was 3% and for what recreational facilities could use an upgrade eight people said edit tur field so I just want to make sure there wasn't a misperception out there around extremely large number with the turf field it was 160 out of 344 was it not no no those are those are additive those those are additive they build upon each other so the dog parks is the largest Splash Pad pickle Bol qus so it's just that sliver at the top so I just didn't want to be a misperception out there on which apparently was contested okay conversation I'll tell you that the one in 2019 is very clear that's on the website and that one had um almost 1,800 people respond to it so if anyone is interested in looking at the data that came out of that report you can find it on the sparta Township website www.s Sparta nj.org great thanks yeah I got a couple things to offer excuse me first I need a drink uh first I'd like to thank um everyone who uh provided input and um for their spirited discussion of the unman field resolution um I think that's healthy it's kind of why I I I wanted this job it's I think that discussing policy is fun and um I appreciate everybody's input into that and and um and it was helpful to see everybody's different opinions uh and I just to me it makes it clear that you know what I owe every voter in town is is my time and and my effort and my best judgment that's what I hope to give and what I believe I gave um the uh was issue was raised that uh we had started on a program of installing uh historical markers around different uh historical points in our town and uh and and U structures uh we had initial funding for that uh since then I believe we have two or three that came in maybe more um and the funding had run out I believe there is a um additional funding required of $1,800 $1,816 to install the remaining historical markers is that do I have those numbers correct ballpark correct um do we how do we um is so I guess I'd like to see if there's a if there's an appetite in the council to um approve those expenses and what the vehicle is for that what line on them did they come out of um B Mary and Francisco from the Historical Society uh she and former mayor Dave Smith had started this and uh when uh U the signs Etc put those uh stainless steel plaques together uh the DPW had installed them and you may you'll see them up at the B Kirk museum with the concrete post there's one at the Presbyterian Church there's one at the Mohawk school um there's another one I I forgot so these were established so uh apparently the program that they had started also included three other locations uh White Deer Plaza Lake Mohawk Country Club and Lake Mohawk Boardwalk where they wanted to establish these historical markers um signs Etc in The Jug Handle he had been making those and then the DPW guys would U install them so as Dan had noted it was $1,800 in cost uh there is a line in the uh Council uh uh budget for a historical society and there is funding there that to uh pay for this uh if you guys so choose do we need a formally do anything can we just say yes or is it we don't need to do anything formal do we the administrator has those funds available to I I just I asked uh because I know Dan was uh uh in correspondence with Maryann and I I just needed to get U consensus from the Council on uh if they still had the desire to finish the project with the last three markers yeah I I personally do agreed okay excellent thank you while we're on the topic of dispersements um Dan has really spent a lot of time preparing for this trip to Greece um and representing Us in the sister cities but he has a lot of things including that replica of that flag that he is bringing with him unless I get to take that down without anybody looking you got to get through you got to get past roxan first and that is not going to happen cameras in the room um but I'm just saying I think that if there's any cost I mean originally he had looked at shipping it out there it was going to be very expensive to do that he's giving his own time he's flying out there on his own he's representing us so I think if he absorbs any costs the council line item should cover it thank you I don't you should have to be responsible for it on his own yeah I decided they it would cost like a thousand bucks to ship the stuff so I'm I'm I packed another suitcase um I mean it's not going to cost that because luggage fee yeah yeah that's what I'm saying but now instead of a thousand but he's still got to Lug it all the way over the I mean you know what I mean and so I think that we should absorb that that cost let my wife carry it that's fine is she watching I'm joking that could get really expensive down the road that could get really expensive that's true um but thank you Chris uh councilwoman Quinn um and finally I'd like to put a u make a motion to put on the agenda for the August 20 for today's meeting that we fly in the next council meeting which is September 10 yeah so make on a motion for the September 10th meeting that we fly the uh the commemorative flag of the US Navy on October 13th to commemorate the founding of the US Navy that was uh requested by Commander Lichfield of the VFW so um we need to vote to put it on the agenda for the next meeting which will be September 10 so I make a motion that we do that I'll second that thank you all those in favor say I I I abstain obain why do we vote on it twice we have to vote to put it on the agenda and then once it's on the agenda we vote on that's the process vote to put it on the agenda don't vote to put anything else on the agenda no but the way this what specifically is provided for under the ordinance when we adopted it true this is an exception okay so the eyes have at two extensions on putting the uh this on the September 10th agenda to fly the Navy flag on October 13th thank you and that's all I have he all right anything else not I will make a motion to adjourn what open public comment sorry I always miss that one it's so late that's why I can't find my's chomping at the B yeah um all right sorry about that Jenny uh so we're now at the final open to public session this is on any topic um and so again state your name for the record also please keep your comments to five minutes and any public comment okay Sean sorry Mr Landy everyone Scott Landy over here um I was meeting here today I've been working with Kevin and Kevin and all the great team at subversion um I don't know if I'm on the council I think I was possibly mentioned to come here on the committee on the committee that's right that's right excuse me uh so I prepared a uh a heartfelt letter go overviewing my qualifications and thanking the council for their consideration I think it's a pretty good letter here so I'd like to read it for the council thank you I just want to sing the Praises of Kevin and his whole team Vinnie just Kevin Shawn my brother Shawn another member of the committee uh um thank you for the honor of service serving on this committee as a Spartan native and local filmmaker my journey began right here in this community since 2007 I've dedicated myself to the craft of filmmaking in 2008 while still a student at Sparta High School my peers and I created a featurelength film that was screened right at our own very Sparta theater that Sparta theater one of the scenes actually was filmed right outside this courtroom right in there right in the uh four area I remember the thrill of the premiere seeing it sell out every seat and every Showtime a testament to the power of community and the passion we all have for storytelling makes me think stories are important stories are integral look at the conversation between turf and field today two passionate groups arguing a single point the same point different viewpoints stories are a part of US Film is not just a medium but a mirror into our souls a vehicle for storytelling that connects us to each other and the broader human experience as I take on this responsibility I'm reminded of the words of Tennyson in his poem ulses we are not now that strength which in Old Days moved Earth and Heaven we are that which we are one equal temper of heroic Hearts made Weak by time and fate but strong in will to strive to seek to find and not to yield these lines resonate deeply in me as they speak to for the resilience and determination needed in any creative Endeavor we may face challenges but our Collective will and passion will drive us forward together we will strive seek find and above all not yield in our commitment to fostering a vibrant Film Community in this town thank you again mayor Clark and members of the council and residents of Sparta for this opportunity I look forward to working with you all to create something truly special thank you thank you [Music] thank hopefully it won't fall this time good evening Kathy e and cows and Scot's Road uh a few months ago I brought up the Nationwide opioid settlement the $50 billion in funds that we expecting to be paid out over the next 18 years tonight I wanted to continue that dialogue um councilwoman quit and I have traded a couple of emails over the last few months um she let me know when we spoke about it publicly last time that the municipal Alliance of which yourself and chief mcer our uh co-chairs are handling this today I sent a of my initial questions via email I hope you received it it's right it's right before the meeting so I'll assume you have it sorry sorry um so look for that in your inbox um and tonight I'd like to to read aloud that email so I'll give you a preview of it or give you the whole the whole of it here um in public just to keep the public um those in the room those in the council who aren't a part of that email um those that are on the online stream aise of our Communications as you know the town has an enormous responsibility to spend the opioid settlement funds in a way that honors those who have lost their lives to the opioid crisis helps those who are actively addicted and works to prevent the future future individuals from becoming addicted if opioid addicted people die they never get to be a productive citizen for their Community I'm certain that you feel the gravity of this topic and are actively working to make positive changes in our community at every opportunity for this I thank you and the members of the municipal Alliance subcommittee and thank you for committing to transparency on this work so that the citizens of Sparta can be informed and proud of the work that you are doing this all being said I have a list of initial questions um that I've have enumerated in this email and I will read aloud uh there are nine questions so hopefully I can get them in in two and a half minutes um question one is Sparta Township has so far received over $53,000 as part of um from now up till March 2024 um and I did ask this question last time where has this money been spent thus far number two you stated that there's not a specific day in which the monies are put into trust uh for Sparta by the county the question I have there is what is the process to notify the council as a whole when those monies are received if there is one question three what steps have been taken in the two years thus far to establish a repeatable process on receiving notifying and deciding what the monies will be spent on for the year number four knowing that is there is expected to be over 274 um sorry um there's expected to be over 274 uh, um given to the town between now and 20 uh 38 what steps will be taken to put into place proactive plans to utilize those funds 100% in the following categories prevention harm reduction treatment and Recovery um something occurred to me listening to the discussion tonight um regarding the Sober Living homes that we've been dealing with for over for a couple years now uh I do wonder if there's an opportunity there for those funds I'm not sure to what extent those Sober Sober Living homes are being used for um but it possibly could be used for uh those funds could be earmarked for some sort of mitigation for that I don't know just a thought um as I stood here tonight listening to that uh topic be raised again um number five how is and will the public be informed of these plans and expenditures question six is there any resolution or approval process that has been brought to the council in the past or will be in the future for review of proposals to allocate These funds for expenditures question seven oh shoot I'm out of time what what experts are being utilized to provide guidance to the council and to the subcommittee to create plans to utilize These funds eight what experience do the members of the subcommittee and Council have with addiction and health policy that will help guide you to use this money well are you Consulting with other Municipal alliances in New Jersey on ways that they are managing These funds and the choices they are making to spend them in meaningful ways and thank you for your time and consideration tonight thank you answer them now or answer them email if You' like I could touch on we can answer them on email I think that's fine or we can mean it's totally fine doesn't matter to me yeah I think it would be helpful just to um answer the the via email and you know I think um yeah I you know this is not to um say that anything unto is happening I think that's not what's going on here I think it's mainly that um you know we have a kind of Duty to make sure that these funds are being spent um responsibly I'm not saying they're not um I know that you know I do have some experience with how when you have litigation um a lot of times in the cases that I do we have money left over in the settlement and that no one's collected and we then face the situation kind of of like what we do here is well you know what do we do with this money that we have and there's a whole Doctrine called the cypre doctrine which is about you can give the residual amounts but it has to be uh in light of the purpose of the litigation in the first place right you can't just take the money that you know for example I had a case involving nurses who were um had their wages suppressed and we we've had you know a couple million dollars left over and we had to decide how to spend that money well we couldn't say well we're just going to spend it on Carpenters you know we did what we did is we spend it on we donated it to uh an organization that helped train nurses and so it sort of helped further the purposes of the actual litigation and so I think the goal here is to you know go back to what the opioid case was about and what IT addresses and to make sure that we're spending the money um to help those uh who were suffering from opioid addiction through the um you know fraudulent practices of the uh of Purdue and and others and there's other ways you can spin it you know I get that I just want to make sure that you know and I particularly have a duty to that as a member uh of the recovery Community who you know by the grace of God I'll celebrate 20 years in November um you know I want to make sure and I I've seen the success stories and a lot of things that happen with people in recovery is when they get out they don't have a network you know they've burned every bridge that they've had their family their Community but they want to get they want to stay sober um and there's programs available to help them who want to help themselves you know I'm a firm believer that God helps those who help themselves and so we can use these funds to help these people and and I know that we're doing that I know we we we give a lot of money to the Center for preventive care who does this uh I just want to make sure that's that's a lot of what we're doing and there's other ways to do it and I know the IAL Alliance is coming up with with good ideas how to do it so I appreciate the the spotlight on this and the transparency that's needed so thank you um Y and Jeff we can get together and put together the you know rather than sending two separate emails we could just put our thoughts together and answer if you want or if you want to do your own and I'll do my own that's fine too yeah if you could send me the I tried to write down the questions but I got them all written down in my book and she said she sent an email so I do want to let you know also there's reporting that's done every single year the other thing that's really tricky about this money is it sounds great to say there's $234,000 which is what it might be after 18 years the problem is that number has not been confirmed for us yet we're not sure the other thing is it comes in literally in drips of drabs so it could be $1,500 and then 4 months later I could just touch on that yeah maybe there is quarterly reporting that our department does we please Department under the CFO was put in charge of the opioid settlement fund not the whole fund goes to the municipal Alliance right um there is uh again quarterly reporting that we do to the county who is holding out as a whole for the county then reports back to the state um we have no clue how much we are getting um I could go downstairs tomorrow and there'll be five checks um two months from now there'll be two checks and they're all different amounts um we have really no clue so it's very new to us and we do a lot of Consulting with uh the county on how to spend it and and what to utilize it for so uh again that's just a few of her questions but uh when I get the rest uh via email I can answer them absolutely great thank you I appreciate it anyone else for a public comment dereck's tap into Sparta I have a I have a list um sorry going back this is a an issue that's been going on for more than a year that I've been talking about uh Missing minutes may not sound that exciting but the environmental commission has two minutes listed for 2024 total five of 13 in 2023 and seven of 15 meetings are reported in 2022 the planning board is just as bad five of8 in 20 five of 18 in 2024 eight of 19 and 23 zoning board zero for 10 no meeting minutes for this year what we do find when we get finally get something at the planning board is transcripts transcripts are not minutes hundreds of pages of trans transcripts do not substitute for minutes something needs to be done you are violating opma this has been going on from more than a year I know that you've spent you're spending money on staff to do transcripts but that is not minutes I know it was discussed and I appreciate the discussion at the last planning board meeting something needs to be done this this has been going on for too long um is there a 911 event going to happen in Sparta or is it just at the county I'm not aware of one in Florida but I think just questions out and then we can oh yeah um do we have an never had come to me I'm not sure if the council wants to do a 9911 event I know there's several 911 events uh at the county um want to pick a to Arsenal I'm just curious if there's one at SP there's one at the C maybe we Pete well it was we did one here in one year couple years' done several years yes yeah private okay um a longer question um do we have an update on the Brownfield solar project and the Station Park report from AOL from a about AO polymer I'd like to at some point talk it's going to be online that's what we were just talking we're g to post that it's going to be posted thank you so the minutes essentially is a huge issue and and then do we have an update on the Brownfield solar project J on the solar project that's ongoing as you know um and we've been working with C Renewables on uh basically the mitigation uh in our efforts to close the the landfill that's still in process right now it that that is the hold up is the mitigation of of the the the 2 acre Wetland property um we're actively working with d to come to a an agreement Solution on on mitigating that property and then once it's mitigated uh we'll close it and they'll uh install their solar system um but that is to hold up and what's happening with the minute um I mean I I make sure you use the mic I I I want to know what's happening with the minutes um to to I wasn't aware that we're 0 for 10 at the zoning board and if we are we shouldn't be I mean we we talk all the time about mitigating our our litigation risk uh we're walking right into a buz saw of an OP lawsuit if we don't get these minutes done so I mean we I mean there may be expenditures but you know you have to balance that what the expenditure is going to be um when someone comes down and says you know you're 0 for 10 that the zoning board you have this many meting at the planning board um I mean what do we know what's what's the hold up what's is it funding is it staff um I think that's an important issue I'm working on it it's all the above it's funding it's staff um it's it's satisfying what people want when it comes to the record of the meeting uh we have recorded YouTube streams that document you know what we're doing right now then we have the transcriber services which are verbatim and then there is the traditional minutes that are usually uh summaries of of it and I think Jenny likes the summaries uh of it which take a it's not a question of my preference it's what's required you can't search a transcript you can't even ask the planning board members or the zoning board members to read the transcripts to know what they're approving when they're approving them you can't look back for history which is important and that's why we have minutes it's not just my preference okay I wasn't finished I'm sorry with it I understand I'm trying to satisfy all of them because of this day and age that's what we're offering is just just all of those all right and with my staff levels at what they're at right now I don't have the resources to accommodate all that and as I started here we were way behind we you know we rebuilt the the the the the uh planning board and the planning board we rebuilt the planning department my construction Department they're all new people all right they're all getting up in gear I am working on it and I I've told you we've hired these transcribers on the transcribers part and I know that that satisfies some of it uh it it is an effort I'll be honest with you what I'm going to do is I'm going to post uh on our website a position of a of a retiree or or a young person who could come in and help me with these minutes and get that done because um that is the position that that I'm in and uh I will have to find the resources to pay for this to get caught up on minutes like this uh because um and so Jenny if you could help me maybe locate somebody that you know would be able to help us and and we get we you know solve this problem together that would be great meanwhile I am trying to catch up on the previous minutes from from the past on that but uh unfortunately it's just not an easy problem to solve right now and and and you know I I I'm open to suggestions on on help I I when I learned more about this problem I I thought about it I'm like well maybe I put out a posting and maybe I can get somebody out there as as you all know the council minutes are are Done by Mary Co our former clerk so that's those are like the the potential solutions for this Chris had a good point I mean literally could drop the transcripts into Ai and create summaries in two seconds said the same thing so we look into that I literally justed that yeah I mean so I'm you know it it it's not for lack of effort or anything we'll we'll get there just to be checked uh you you can keep inquiring and I'm I'm trying to get on top of it but um we'll get there good suggestion Josh thank you Chris's idea than Chris thank you Teamwork Makes the Dream workor anyone else for public comment hi B Luciano 9 oat Trail I'm here as a member of the planning board and a member of the master plan subcommittee um one of the things that I did want to expand we are having a master plan subcommittee meeting at the second week of September we are hoping at that meeting to approve and roll out um in in the following week a website that will expand on on the pr progress in terms of the master plan and and how that's moving forward what direction the subcommittee is moving forward um hopefully subsequent two weeks after the roll out of the um actual website we're looking to put out a survey so I just kind of want to put everyone on notice that this is coming please stay tuned we want the Public's input we're looking for Council input we're looking for everyone to to be a part of this process because we're really proud of the work that we're doing we really want to push forward full steam ahead so just want to make the announcement stay tuned it's coming within the next two weeks so thank you thank you thank you any other member of the public wishing to be heard right with that uh we now have the time for adjournment I sorry it was premature last time uh may have a motion to adjourn motion I may have a second I'll second all in favor I motion carries meeting is adjourned thank you thank you for everyone for coming out and for speaking and thank you uh Cory