##VIDEO ID:e7qUO8RlrIo## good evening and welcome to the Bedminster Township committee this is our regularly scheduled meeting for December 16 2024 recognize that we are the full tenants of the township committee here in person with committe Stevenson commit hickey committee woman meski and committee woman Fernandez M Ray may we please have the open public meetings access statement yes mayor adequate notice of this meeting of the township committee was sent to The Courier News Somerville Burnsville news liffany and to all subscribers andos at the Town municipal building on January 5th 2024 great thank you please join me and standing for the of the United States of America stands okay this is the opportunity for tonight's meeting and I'm wishing make a public comment come well no one anyone participating remote uh we have no one remote no one participating by remote so anyone who's here in person no no sorry you don't have to thank you um approval minutes we have two sets of meeting minutes to approve December 2nd Township committee and town I'm sorry it's the uh December 2nd executive session any com questions regarding minutes seeing none take motion to approve so move second all in favor thank you we have two items in the and Raffles is casino night to benefit with basalone Memorial foundation on February 7 2025 from 700 p.m. to 11: p.m. located at Trump National Golf Club and the second is an off- premise 5050 raffle to benefit HSA Immaculate Conception School on March 15 2025 at 10:30 at F's elbow questions or comments say none take a motion to approve those to the raffle and the casino night second all in favor thank you hey comme woman Fernandez mayor would You' like to start off with sub committees thank you I have no updates um this week so okay good evening Mary good evening everyone I just have a quick um announcement of what the plaque for our Salem oak tree that is already up over um the jacobas Vander house I'm having such trouble seeing that um so it the plaque will read gifted by the state of New Jersey to Bedminster Township planted by the Ben Minster Township environmental commission at this historic site on June 1 2024 dedicated to the men and women who serve to protect our freedom and the environmental commission is putting that plaque up they are ordering that and we hope to have that sometime early next year and it will go on the Rock that's sitting outside just on the edge of that trie and how about jbh I don't have anything we don't have meeting oh the tree lighting I'm sorry that's already left year so we have a tree lighting um on what was it this what day was that sth the seventh the first Saturday the the last day of farmers market um I didn't get there till a little later but um it was very well attended um there were tons of kids upstairs decorating the gingerbread cookies there were lots of people who hadn't seen the house before they were doing some tours um Santa par was delivered by the fire department again this year with an elf at his side and um they were taking pictures and there was always somebody will waiting to sit on s's left to get a picture taken um there were there was hot chocolate and there was um uh hot pretzels they had a lady showing people how to do lace making and everybody was having a good time and then the mayor came said a few words um said thank you to all of the um the uh Trustees of JB who do such a great job all year and uh kids yelled at one two three light that trade it lit up it was beautiful and it was a little chilly outside so pretty much after the tree lit up everybody took off but everybody had a good time and we can't wait till next year yeah well done so uh Rene please once again thank everyone at jbh who helped organize that and uh great attendance and you're right TR it up committee thank you very good evening all just two quick updates Board of Health they had a special meeting to discuss the contract with the suet County Health Department to continue to provide health and Professional Services for Bedminster it's renewal of a five-year agreement and after some back and forth between the county and Board of Health over a few outstanding issues the contract has been approved it administrator Ray director Perez and I sat down last week to discuss our it strategic plan and our investment priorities as input to the budget process which will be coming up quick uh we actually moved a number of things around up in in the queue and I think that will result in a more stable and secure it infrastructure our goal as always is to make sure the business that tach is running and is available for residents at all times so that's what we want to make sure happens mayor that's all I have thank you committee men Stevens thank you mayor good evening everybody uh again histor press new meeting um for December so we'll get back after it hopefully in January uh Jason and his crew have been working uh decorating you see Town Hall the van house barage market so thank you for that making everything look nice and festive uh continue to work on street light outages in the Hills um then also the there's been some signage the last time we had the folks um from Old Dutch here we have installed the the temporary speed sign there um I don't know if it's operational it was up last time I by wasn't so um get some data on that um obviously they're still working on getting roads ready for the weather uh grading the dirt roads added some Stone to Old Farm Road recently and um just basically getting everything ready for uh old man R so thank thanks Jason and um thanks to your crew that's all I've got great uh Jason so where exactly did they install the um uh the traffic well I guess the speed um on the down slope almost it's at the last house on the it's it's after the de Haven Haven intersection if you go oh it's after the Deer Haven intersection I know so it's closer by the uh facing as you're facing up downhill all the way down okay okay all right so run that for a couple weeks and then reconvene with uh the chief and the engineer and residents and see what uh see what the information we down over the weekend and the guy line us insane the first place we were going to put in would have been taken down by the tree oh jeez oh wow all right well um when I'll just go for my subcommittee L board uh going on with uh no no applications coming down the pike at least uh not yet um a advisory this last week the deed um for the conservation of the Dylan property was recorded it had already been executed the attorney for uh Nancy Dylan wants to wait until the 45 day period was up so that's um that's now in place so the Restriction is now all legal and tied up and good to go um farmers market so as uh Renee mentioned December 7th was the last Farmers Market um tremendous season so on average throughout the Memorial Day Weekend through first Saturday December we averaged 200 more patrons then in last year and last year was a bu up from the prior year so that's uh really just incredible so just great success and once again uh great to see everyone from uh from Bedminster and the surrounding areas supporting and showing up and um you know enjoying themselves at River Road Park it's great to see um so while this is not a subcommittee I'm going to go into what's been um topic for a month now so this afternoon we had a briefing that was uh put together by the White House Office of intergovernmental Affairs didn't know there was an inter governmental Affairs office at the White House but there was and it was coordinated with um representatives from FAA from homand security FBI I think that was let me just check if there was any other federal agencies there was some multiple folks FAA multiple FR from DHS and FBI so from the FBI they're saying that nearly all the reports are either manned aircraft fixed fixed wing and helicopters hobbyists so so some drones out there um just hobby drones um and that there's no evidence of any forign drones um of reports coming in not one report was found to be credible evidence of spy or foreign drones or anything else um they believe that the concerns related to truly unidentified aircraft activity is much less than what is being reported reiterated multiple times there's no foreign threat uh the FBI is trying to uh send out the message for the hot s who are sending may be sending their own drones to go find the other drones that we're seeing that aren't drones so they want the hobbyist to stop uh flying at night to check out the other drones and uh they repeated multiple times that there's a million drones register to operate in the United States and um it's not illegal to fly drones it's not illegal to fly drones at night and as I you know I think I've been saying to a lot of some folks it's not illegal to fly lots of drones at night every night for weeks on edge so that was um some of the reports uh FBI said that they're coordinated with uh DHS to send visual observing teams out to New Jersey to check things out uh they also said that they were sending some detection equipment uh to coordinate with the state police to check out uh reports as well um and they talked about the report starting sometime around November 18th or so now talking col said you know remember when we had our emergency management meeting that was uh November 11th that was um yeah Veterans Day and couple reps from the fire department came in and said this is November 11th ah the drones were up above the firehouse again yeah they've been out there they've been out there since the uh since the election yeah so that's and that was right and I think at the time that was um had been going on for maybe not quite a week about four or five days so that's early November uh so that's about two weeks um week and a half before that November 18th where the FBI said it really sorted kicking in um and our fire department works with Northstar so they know what helicopters look like they helicopters approaching look like uh and like much of our beder residents give this uh statement to the Burnsville news we are on the flight path for nework Teterboro Morristown your host to Somerset airport and with within a few short miles of soberg airport in Readington Somerset airport is home to the state Northstar operation so I would say that bedm residents know what our night sky looks like thanks and what our residents are seeing in the night sky since early November is not what they've normally see so whether it's the uh the videos or the photos on Facebook showing what appears to be a drone um by Hills Drive over here at the municipal complex down by Trump or anywhere else um we are still getting what I would say is an inconsistent messaging from the governor's office from the state police Coast Guard pitini uh Joint Base Maguire dicks or Dix McGuire um and what we heard or what I heard today from uh the federal government so what we're being told is there's no threat most of the reports can be explained and that's all I got for it so basically don't look up all right that's all I got that's got great may we please have the administrator's report yes mayor trying to understand why our view has changed today looks like we made another change um okay uh very quickly um we submitted the scope of work for the plugman project Park uh to the highlands planning Grant if you recall the last meeting there's some extra money left over from another Grant so we've asked to reallocate funds still waiting to hear back from the highlands um we have finalized plans with the well I should say we met with the school back on December 9th and updated the memorandum of agreement for the um student uh school resource officer that the school is planning on putting in place so that's all uh set just waiting for the school board approval on that um Somerset Hill public safety committee meeting was on December 10th mayor I'm sure you'll speak to that the next meeting is January 23rd um committtee man hickey already spoke to the it strategic plan which will drive our budget uh for 2025 and uh I've been working on budget prep um and a couple Grant applications at the same time so it's busy busy time uh don't forget our employee holiday party is on Thursday and the reorganization meeting is on Thursday January 2nd and uh checks are due by this Friday great Republic has been invited invitations on our website um thank you Robin and you're also going to give uh the chief's community policing update I am I am but all of a sudden I can't find his report but I do recall um a couple of the items number one uh the police department is putting on movie with a cop during the school break at the Clarence Dylan Library Friday December 27th from 12: to 300 p.m. which is absolutely adorable and um I think movie sounds pretty fun um the all the alprs that have been installed all five in bedm Township are all up and running as of last Wednesday so we're in good shape and things are busy and um the St school resource officer was the other the what's left is to work out the duty details with the principal and the police department great great thank you we have no ordinances to introduce or to hold public hearing uh we have three items on the consent agenda these are items of a routine nature any T commit member can pull one or any of them or all of them offer individual consideration being none take motion to approve the consense agenda move second all in favor I'm sorry roll call vote Please Mr Stevenson hi Mr hickey hi m hi M Fernandez hi and mayor Jacob hi thank you we have two resolutions for individual consideration versus resolution 20241 161 this resolution authorizes a professional service agreement between Township of Bedminster and Phoenix Consulting Group for chief finance officer Services Miss Ray uh yes mayor I've just a little bit about this um this actually authorizes U professional service agreement with Phoenix Consulting Group um we have done our um research actually I should back up and say our CFO is retiring and um in the interim we've decided to go forward with a um consultant an interim uh third party to assist us through the end of year financial statement reporting and U beginning of next year um through the audit and um after going through communicating with four different firms we decided that Phoenix is a good fit for us and would be on an intern basis so resolution 161 authorizes the services agreement and then resolution 20241 165 actually appoints since the CFO is an appointed position um if we approve 161 upon execution uh we will also be appointing Phoenix to serve bur to serve as our temporary CFO right which we can do up to one year up to one year that's similar to what we've done for the qpa and other statutory positions okay so let's uh take the resolutions one at a time first resolution 161 authorizing the agreement between Bedminster and commix Consulting will take a motion to approve so moved second okay roll call vote Please Mr Stevenson hi Mr hickey M moresi hi and Miss fernandz hi here Jacob hi thank you and next is resolution 165 which will appoint Enix as the temporary CFO for a one-year term take a motion to approve so just a quick question 165 in the binders doesn't match not the same no you're right I don't know I've had some binders together but it should be in there it's in there 166 okay okay yep yep there it is 166 the next so it's 166 there 165 yep so it says 165 on the agenda and it says 166 in your book correct I'll move resolution 20241 166 thank you all right and 165 isn't on the agenda 5 should be the consent agenda that's 163 that's 163 yeah right so under regular resolutions item number 13 on the agenda um B should be instead of 20241 165 it should say 20241 166 and the resolution is is identified properly actually on the resolution of 166 correct correct represented on the agenda yeah it's just the agenda's off corre okay so we'll take a motion to approve resolution 2024 166 soov second roll call vote Please Mr Stevenson Mr hickey hi M morki hi M Fernandez hi and mayor Jacobs hi thank you and take a motion to approve the bill pending review of individual invoices some second roll call vote again please Mr Stenson Mr hickey hiy hi M Fernandez hi and mayor Jacobs hi thank you so we've covered drones which I don't even know if it's new business anymore um old business utilities there I do have an update on jcpnl uh as always I spoke last time about smart meter installations beginning in the hills and those are continuing uh one item to note uh is that certain exterior conditions may be present that prevent a smart meter from being in and in condos and Tow houses the onus is on the association not the individual homeowner to make those Corrections so for example if the meter base which is the metal box in which the meter is mounted if that's loose or separating from the exterior structure that situation needs to be corrected before the meter can be installed that needs to be done by licensed electrician and as exterior structure it is a responsibility of the HOA I'm working with one of the associations right now where they have about 15 in instances where this is the case throughout their neighborhoods I brought this to jnl's attention they understand the problem they are working with us uh in this case they asked for the individual unit addresses because they didn't want the individual customers to start receiving notices that they haven't complied and they would ultimately be finded or build for not having a smart meter so from jcpnl from jcpnl they're given a 40-day window in which to either say I'm okay or to say no I don't want a smart meter but if they can't be installed they start to get notices we send the list over to jcpnl today they will make sure those individual residents do not receive those notices temporarily the HOA is meanwhile dutifully working to correct the situation so the meters can be installed I go through all this because if it happened in one neighborhood it's going to happen in all the neighborhoods Mr O'Brien I know you're on your HOA this is probably going to wind up at your desk I know Jeff leard usually watches on the on the video Jeff you're going to see this as well so just to be aware for the associations they're going to encounter this issue they need to make the corrections necessary so the meters can be installed so is there someone going from box to box checking to see if it's loose as the sub subcontractor goes out there I think it's Wellington they will identify those places where it cannot be installed there's a loose socket the meat are separating from the building they'll make a note of it okay they'll they'll notify Association but the association has to make the corrections the problem is the bill is in the individual homeowners name so if they start sending bills to the home own saying hey we couldn't install this you're going to be build for an old style meter homeowner can't correct that so that's why we're trying to go through this process making sure the HOA takes care of it and how many associations are they going through this trunch of they going to go through every Association everyone everyone is going to be 19 and then and they're going to come out the West bed Min as well for you know the single family homes so everybody's going to have this issue single family home obviously or fee simple you're responsible for the exterior but condos and Tow houses it's the HOA so just no wrink what's going on and that's all I have on jcpnl and I don't know Jason do you have anything else on utilities May went about the tree going down took a long time to clean that up that was that was on Old Dutch yes over 24 hours clean you impacted so Old Dutch and dear hav yeah as well yeah yeah there about 50 customers impacted um apparently that night they had a lot of customers out throughout the area that served by um by our by the field office that serves all of us and uh because it was only 50 customers and not 100 or th000 we were low on the priority que I called up immediately in the morning to jcpnl escalated it it got to the Field Services Group it was escalated again they finally got out there between 5 and 6 o' at night and I think they got the power back on at 300 in the morning yeah so they went out like maybe 8:30 the night before and then f it was over 24 hours end up following like 3:00 a.m. um and I think that they were Crews were from out of state they they hired external contractors because they had so many instances of people being out they had to start hiring people so we were the first ticket to go out the external contractors because they were overwhelmed the uh tree came down understand but I'm just trying to exped what was going on that they had to bring in out ofate contractors had so many outages across the area due to what just because it was the weather I think it was the rain and then you had some wind and it just took down a bunch of line it was Friday it was it was no it was whatever when or Thursday it's ridiculous yes I what you're saying I'm not making it up I'm telling you I was the entire time that's cool it was I got from some had a three day you know right right and then there was another out on top of that were another eight customers who were already impacted went out again got them back out there that one was more quickly resolved yes I also by the way just to close that out um some of the neighbors had mentioned to me that they had reported that tree sometime in the past two years ago I asked the forestry group from jcpnl to go out there do an inspection that whole area see if there's other trees because obviously it's steep slopes so just I want them to go and do an inspection figure out what else needs to be taken down if it's going impact those lines I'm theyre to do that steep slope you have a short distance from the road and the curve yep yep a little rain a little wind and and that tree I guess was was on its last L to beun with so okay got a good place to put the chips go I went the windship that's what I mean exactly fcking Park Housing no Tango okay all right we'll moveing this up so Hill Public Safety Committee uh as uh Robin mentioned we had a call last week and as you can imagine once again this is a uh committee uh I formed with mayors of Bridgewater and and the police Chiefs of Bridgewater Bernard's Township Bernardsville bar Hills Pac and Gladstone and uh first 45 minutes we were talking about drums and um our residents concerns our concerns uh the individual observations by the different mayors of what um I think we were just told today are probably not unidentify drones um but moving from drones um we actually discussed drones and one of the drones that we were discussing that was not the unidentified drones is the opportunity um to work with these companies who provide Dr I think I mentioned this at a prior moving um for First Responders police fire um first aid um so uh in Bridgewater they had a Lulu with it or actually a presentation uh from a company that uh provides the drones and drone Services uh and the software so that if a call comes in right to dis P um the Drone can identify or the technology can identify the coordinates from the phone and the phone call that called it in so for example there's an accident there someone injured um there's incident of of someing that involves police activity like fly a paramedic to you or is it just like video like what are we getting here me um u a you could be getting um video you see getting eyes on the ground so there's an accident on 27 or 78 or uh wash the Valley Road you mayble to get Eyes On The Ground sooner then you can with a first respond so right doesn't need um doesn't need Road Network it's going to get there directly um and they even I discuss that if there was someone injured uh beasting goes into you know some sort of shock uh deep in the woods these delivering EP it's crazy technology is is absolutely nuts so um Bridge Water was definitely interested in it uh so mayor mench gave a presentation to us and then um we requested perhaps that we could do a video conference with um this company to see you know if they could serve multiple towns subject to multiple jurisdictions and see if that's a possibility that perhaps the uh the six towns could work together uh to this way to cover the entire Northern section of the county and certainly the suet Hills so that's uh we're going to talk a little bit further about that um and it was interesting after um this was last week I got a call from a representative from the New Jersey League of municipalities and they were intrigued about what we've done up here with the Somerset Hills Public Safety Committee and we actually got um one of the uh senior legislative uh directors at the Le municipality asking if he could sit in on our next Somerset Hills Public Safety Committee meeting and looks like we have consensus from the other Mayors uh to allow the league uh to attend so Rob I'll get you um was Paul Paul pen information so we can include him on that him on that uh and and then one of the other things we talked about at the uh Public Safety Committee meeting was uh the atrs and the efficacy and the real live uh benefit that they provide to the police including some recent incidents uh where there's been freakins and these license plate readers have been critical to identifying Persons of Interest certainly vehicles of Interest so that was very interesting um presentation to see how this works and how it's widely uh accepted by the local police uh that's what I have for my Public Safety Committee update Robin do you have anything anything on this no okay Township committee comments we do have an executive session uh we will not be taking any formal action after the executive session so we'll go through T committee comments We'll add to executive session you're more than welcome to stay but we're not going to be taking any we won't be taking any noral action after the executive session so we'll run through T committee comments and we're going to start with the Comm woman good well thank you mayor for at least um you know addressing the Drone situation and it's a big concern for our town and and people New Jersey in general so um thank you for the information that you were able to relay um and I just want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas happy Hanukkah happy Quant happy New Year what's up thank youcy Mary thank you for all your work on the drones and I gotta say I don't believe any how do you see that um my daughter-in-law had went over the house it was big enough that rattled yeah so and that's not you know she knows what unless they can tell me who's flying it or who who's um tail numbers on these things we don't know what they are but I'm glad that they're still working on it um and just a quick thank you to um the Farmers Market Committee especially Neil and DPW led by Jason for uh that weekend with the last day of farmers market in jvh um it was so much fun with Santa and the the big throne and everybody taking pictures and um it was a great weekend and we couldn't do it without you guys and happy holidays to everybody whatever holiday you celebrate and happy New Year if we don't talk to you and may people see you at the reorg meeting hickey rest assured mayor they have top men working on the Drone situation top ra is lost AR reference uh I just want to wish everybody Happy New Year happy holidays please come to the reorg meeting if you can good time and the mayor you'll be giving another PowerPoint presentation of recap of 2024 PowerPoint let's F more to video production they G be some surprises like that defit and that's sounds enticing just want to say happy holiday to everybody take the time get your loved ones and um you know take your time and reflect on the year and and gear up for the next year because I'm sure it's going to be a doozy um J the holidays um as far as the drones go I look we're all in dark but I have a hard time believing that it's North Korea China Iran or anybody in the feris you I do believe it's the good guys why are they there that I do not know um but I do believe it's the good guy so to speak um but it certainly would be nice to get a message other than don't believe what you see because it's not that because that's just not getting it done but I I don't believe that it's anything the various but would I that's just why thought i' but you got be Prov wrong we'll see yeah many many many theories that uh I've been bombarded with and I'm sure some of you all have see knows as well um so last week uh I was getting together with some of my neighbors and we do this every year go to Delicious Heights and I turn around and um or about eight or nine folks who just showed up from the um Bedminster school board meeting and mentioned this was the last school board meeting of the year and so I want to give a shout out to school board presidents Susie Stevenson and School Board president Jeff Rees both of whom um have served school board for years both have served as president of the school board and it's um you know so I just want to say thank you to those guys for their service uh and also a recognition to the school board because they've done what many boards haven't the gion to do which is the school board had been at nine nine and they've actually reduced the school board to seven Representatives now unlike other towns where we've seen fighting and just a lot of bombast associated with some of the School Board elections and School Board issues we haven't had that in Bedminster in fact we've had folks who won writing campaigns with two votes two rting votes yeah um so it's good to see that they reduce the numbers to seven so we can actually get uh folks who are interested in participating on the school board put them in place and not just have open seat just for the heck of it so uh tremendous recognition to uh Suzie and Jeff so please pass that on Doug I will thank you and I don't think we I think we're all done with drwing comments for the night um Merry Christmas Happy New Year we will'll have one last TC meeting where we'll do some um end of year bill paying and uh with that at 7:43 I'll take a motion to go to Executive session so moved second all in favor thank you and thank you okay it is 8:27 Township committee has returned from our executive session we are taking no further action for tonight so 8:27 take a motion to adjourn and to say Merry Christmas who's going to second time I need a motion for I a second second a second be all in favor oh