##VIDEO ID:lrF60qWR1SI## okay following the meeting of the Berkley Heights environmental commission to order on Monday December 16th at 7:33 adequate notice of this meeting was provided informing the public at the time and place according to the provisions of the open public meetings law this meeting takes place in the do room on the second floor of the township hall and the meeting shall not pass past 9:30 okay recording uh and minutes Al you're taking minutes yes excellent uh we're doing uh approval of minutes uh August 19th once going twice a October 21 think I can do October 21 can anyone second 21 all right November 4th I just submitted those yesterday so I just submitted it yesterday so it might I don't know if anyone has had a chance to look at it right at least it it's circulating November 18 you KN a great deal on it Game Pass there nothing on November 18th and December 2nd I can keep on that one all right anybody else yeah I drafted them so okay all right so we have December 2nd mov on at second gr okay then caring on agenda items we have a guest Steve do you have anything to say hello everybody yeah I was just given the uh last scheduled meeting of the year um okay I notes I think I only missed two or three meetings this year so I have pretty good attendance that's all I've got we gonna have to sign you taking minutes yeah te thank you thank you for that compliment all right well I've attended more than youve asked these so there just joking okay new business mayor's Wellness BL so the mayor asked whether the environmental commission wants to uh participate in a wellness walk um the last time this was held I wasn't able to make it I guess nobody else attended either I think I have forwarded that to the to you people but I don't know whether anyone participated from the environmental Commission second a second what is it again well that's the thing we would uh it's open so she's asking whether we would want to do that and I would say or sponsors or co-sponsor we would do it with with the mayor um and um I'm not sure whether I can get a guest uh to come but uh uh if we're doing it uh in uh someplace like the bake River Park or someplace else uh might look to see if I can get a guess if they have time to do that would that be an over the winter thing or is that something that could she didn't specify any particular time so the basic question is whether we would be interested in doing that uh I personally think it would be a good idea get uh the environmental commission uh involved with something uh that is environmental namely walking and um maybe walking in the woods and uh if we can get other people to participate that would be great I agree with that so um people are interested uh that I would follow up by contacting mayor and asking her to suggest a date when this might happen say could have a motion we agree to in sponsor okay second second any objections any discussion if not then contact I will contact May mayor's youth Council and that's what we have here right yes two members I'm assuming there are more people yeah it's like a group of five of us five to six of us okay wait a second so would you introduce yourselves or the minut so I'm Alex Casper and I'm a senior at Governor Livingston high school uh I'm Raina haar I'm a junior and I go to the ucbs magnet school but I play sports for oh wow that's interesting I didn't know that was possible yeah te you to spell your name your last name for me uh k a s p e r and Ros and h a z a r i k r a r a y a right R A YN a first name okay thank you okay now so there's I have about there's five of us in total right now but I have a couple friends so basically it's just a bunch of kids that all live in grocery Heights and we help um like we I volunteered events and we're also thinking of like creating our own events or helping like co-sponsor certain events like this box sounds like something we'd be interested in and like a good part about having us is the fact that like you have direct access to GL and I have direct access like my friend in you as well so we're able to have people show up to these kind of events and if we were to like create our own things that's also possible like one of my friends wanted had a goal of uh giving music to like senior citizens so we organized a holiday concert at the Autumn L Rehabilitation Center so it's essentially whatever like six of us seem important and we want to give back Community we events around yeah and kind of adding on to that about like the student Outreach we recently worked on the turkey chop with the mayor and we got the National Art Honor Society at the high school involved so I don't know if you saw there was the thankfulness mural that was up at the Turkey Trot and the Winter Walk that was all made by GL students and we kind of partook in that so that's kind of what we do we get the students involved in the community okay um so to tell you a little bit about some of the things that we do uh we do things like uh uh do cleanups along Trails pick up uh you know trash P Trails or um uh in the spring or in the fall we try to remove invasive species invasive plants um and uh we as you know we you helped out with putting signs on the ases that uh we treat uh two years we're trying to save some of the ash trees that are growing town from the ash Bor and you do that by hiring somebody who can treat the trees with this insecticide and uh want to Mark the trees because people think that they should cut T of trees and these are Township trees uh they're being treated to save them uh the other thing that uh uh we do is uh we plant trees but to do that we identify where uh we should be planting trees uh so those trees are planted along the right away of of the township streets uh so uh we uh walk along the township streets and look for opportunities uh to plan trees uh what else do we forgetting anything PL board PL that yeah weend plan so all all the plant that go before the zoning board and planning board uh we receive those and we evaluate those and make recommendations and when there are other things that are related to the environment we uh uh look at them and try to evaluate them so one of the most recent things that has been happening is this proposal for our Fields down at L Columbia and uh there's a proposal that this field be uh artificial turf and uh there has been uh some uh movement uh against artificial turf by some organizations that we're trying to evaluate the positive and negative sides of of artificial turf dis see whether we would uh think that that's something that could be done or we would recommend against it so we would look at the data for for what the environmental effects are of having artificial CHF um I don't want to go into all the details but there are aspects of artificial turf which people say are negative have negative effects on your was trees tree planting tree counting tree planting tree planting yes tree planting and also in the spring uh giving away uh three three so little Tre like this is that the elementary school we it's at the middle school yeah did you ever go I remember I got a tree got we also get them off to the four fourth graders yeah fourth graders I got is it still alive no I think it died in my back but I did plant it I did PL okay yeah all right so maybe there's some of those things we could talk about that maybe you can get involved cleanups and B Yeah clean up and faces yeah so are those like specific events you guys those so if there are like events like that um just send us to look or anything and what we can do is like we just put put it out on our friends or put on our social media just to attract more people in the spring especially uh and uh we've been doing things at the B River Park with the help of uh this uh um person Pat Shanley she's a uh Forester and uh is really good in explaining the benefits of of forests how she lived uh in town so she uh grew up now she lives in prin she has been doing uh events with us and sorry for the turf field at columia what's like the timeline I think might be to get students involved with I think the yeah I don't I don't did not see a timeline did anyone see a timeline on the I think it's dependent on then getting a to do it so there's no we don't have town does not have funding at this point right so I too early for there was a um uh a webinar and I put uh send you a link to the webinar yeah um and you can take a look at that um talks about let talk about artificial CH natural you want us to communicate with you how do we how would you uh you just use our emails yeah okay I can I can share that that okay um I was wondering this is Nar um about maybe if they could help with some of the sustainable Jersey actions at least for the green challenge one um oh yes basically sustainable Jersey is this organization and part of the organization is um they have like they give out certifications um for towns and also for schools as well um so right now we have bronze but when we do more actions each action has like a certain amount of points with it so we're trying to just get more points so we can get silver or gold um yeah and so one of the ones that I'm working on right now is um to have the action is to have like 2.5% of the households or residents in a town um pledge or commit to do a challenge so then there's 10 different things that they're pledging to do so um if you could help with getting people sign up for that that would be great it's a fairly easy action that's why I'm trying to do it since it just needs to be we need to do some community outreach and we just need to reach that goal um and then through that hopefully we can do more things sounds great uh can students partake in the pledge or is it yeah I think so yeah it just says residents or households so there's no um like age restrictions is like a petition or a survey they have to sign like how would they physically pledge to um it's a Google form so yeah so they would just have to we I am asking for their address but I put in the thing that that will not be shared it's just for sustainable Jersey to know that it's people in our town um yeah send that out to students I think probably at both of our schools and that would most likely get a lot of signature especially um I could share with the environmental science teacher and she could share it with her students which I think would get a lot of pledges as well that would be great on that like the link and everything that'd be really good wait sorry I missed what did you say again you could send us more information with the link and I think that I could start sending it out to students yeah that would be great and um we can also talk more just in general if you want to talk more about other sustainable Jersey actions and things that you think people at GL would be interested in as well that would be great yeah definitely great thank you great thank you okay there is um for the Hall of the environmental commission there is an email so that if you sent to that email ecbg w.com we all get so I'll uh share your interest with everybody your addresses move from there happy you because I know Ryan was great they happy to be here and you know M yeah M are you I a student at but I'm not in her class but I do know her we did like the climate games at G last year you heard about that so yeah I never welcome to St 're move on to our next agenda sounds good thank you Little Flower confirmation service David yes I was approached by um G on behalf of the church there's a confirmation event in Spring and there's a community service um element to to that program she's asking if there would be an opportunity for a activity C clean around that time so I my suggestion is that we um B clean up what a number of people want from that um the flower once and I think you said March 22nd was a possible date I think that's that is the date okay we'll be at the Mery sorry yes but do you have a place where that's happening don't no so I think we can s of Hit the usual sou Banks we can look at Lower Columbia Snider um depending on the number of participants they have from that group decide how many locations we want to to all right it's been a while since we've done any kind of clean up Sports field so I think be a good time bring a good time with kind of pre vegetation um it's an easy time to pick up right trash relative to when all the Lees come okay and this is Renee so uh the confirmation students need a total of 24 volunteer hours which is significant because many of them don't have any at this point so we we could do multiple cleanup events or other things or involve them in other things so let's just keep that top of mind as we're planning um events and things for for 2025 okay there from um Maggie's contact with me so I was not aware of that yes and I think the the hour the 24 hours that they are they're due summertime I would think like June or July so anyway um just wanted to give those additional details thanks for clarification okay yes because this clean up of March second is between 11:30 and 1:30 so that's only few 11:30 to 1:30 yeah I'm not sure how that fits with the um the 24 hours right okay anyway all right we're moving on to unless there's other discussion on this moving on to to 713 plan for Avenue TRC and David drafted a um recommendation yes you want to talk about it yeah so I drafted letter recommendation which I sent out yesterday um Richard had some comments I sent out a revised draft again um just a few minutes agoes yeah yeah um okay so while you're uh looking so in the past when people have proposed plants to be planted they put them into categories sometimes and if you just said half the plants be native then you might get all shrubs will be native but everything else could be non-native but it's the best practice to ask them to make half of all of the various types of plants be native so half of the grasses half of the shrubs half of the trees at least that number be native so at least half so Rel yeah and that's the point is diversity yep so relative to the version I sent out yesterday the corrections I made were um specifying that 50% of the grasses and of the tree shrubs should be um specifying the township engineer should approve the storm water management plan and provided links to the ruers Rain Garden um green infrastructure sites and yeah that was it so essentially this is the gas station on andon planfield they're looking to convert a building into a convenience store um some reduction in imper surface with a bit of additional Landscaping um not so the recommendation is that given they are well over the imperious um the usual limit of imperious coverage that they Implement some sort of stormw management in the course of renovation it looks like the Landscaping putting in is on the Downs slope side so that actually works from exactly and that's flowing towards the green book right that's going south yeah yeah just uh or our guess you know about water sh so do you know that berley height is a two water shs it didn't do that so do you know what a water shed is take take gu place where water is h a place where water flows to so generally uh it's going to flow towards a river or ultimately so it might flow to a stream the stream flows to a river so in breley Heights you have to the safe River and you have um a mountain if you will or a hill that is running uh along Mountain Avenue approximately that's the top part of of Berkeley Heights and on one side the the water flows South and then the other side the water flows north uh so the northern side is the B uh River and the southern side flows into the uh green which then flows down across throughoute 22 which then floods Green Brook uh and the towns on the other side of 22 so where are they getting this water from they're getting it from Berkley Heights like a storm water I have a confusion about this this drawing so the yeah the uh they're describing the sou the eastern part of the development as or I should say the western side of on the drawing itself the western side is that which ABS plain field Aven reverse should reverse it says this should be East yeah and it says West and it says oh that's a um that's a latitude longitude this is this is latitude longitude okay but it's not it's not uh it's not what here's here's right yeah but here's the north south so this is East that's West so what they planning new is this section down here south that's part of it yeah they're also converting the building right yeah sorry got to get off your okay just just confused that so that's latitude longitude so if you've entered those numbers into you come up with a DOT on map 59 degrees 7 minutes 20 seconds west okay got thanks all right so do I hear a motion on so motion to approve as the second version okay and second second that's Christopher I think you're saying you're yeah I said yeah my my mic was off sorry okay thank you all right so before we move on from this one um what is the process from here do I send this to Connie this goes to Connie exactly I make it into a PDF yeah and send it to con can you convert it to it PDF and there was a question I had are you are you able to uh do a screen uh a shot of the data you're able to do that I mean it was more work for you putting in all the data right I you put you did in in Exel Excel spreadsheet just to check their numbers because I wanted to check that the um the square feets and the percentages were all accurate right but um and I usually do I I don't do it in this in a Excel spreadsheet but you do find that sometimes the handwritten uh application page has different numbers than what the engineering and if that happens to be have a discrepancy I go back to Connie and say I'm seeing a discrepancy so right um what do you use to create PDF how do you create PDFs my my word processing uh you can PDF create yeah create a PDF I don't know whether you're in are you in uh a Mac or PC PC so with a PC you should be able it's actually it's actually very easy all you have to do is this um save the document as and then what you'll deal you'll see there's a drop down list that says you can save it as a PDF yeah thanks you're doing it from Excel it's oh it's it's coming from word okay oh word yeah Office programs are very easy for for Generate PDF other programs not necessarily depends on where the source is coming from yeah I can PDF that and send it's coming excellent yeah I will warn her that it's coming I'll ask her to acknowledge she's getting she gets the first one so she knows what it's about excellent um next 32 Liberty Avenue everyone saw that resolution uh this is another application that has been through several meetings uh and um the neighbor uh in back of so on the north side of this property uh was at the meeting uh to express her concerns uh and you saw that the resolution said that they were going to be required to put in a bios uh in consult with the environmental commission if they needed to uh for the pl we don't need to take any action on that we don't need to take any action was just uh for your information to like you know that uh that had happened okay Scout projects no up jity Garden Rene she unmuted up but we don't hear can you hear me yes uh nothing with community garden um only just actually maybe a quick plug the community garden through the Rotary Club are selling luminary so if anyone is interested um please watch the uh mailers that are in your mailboxes we have it on the board or I can share a link in the chat a QR code in the chat to to order them if if any anyone's interested and Renee was uh do you have any update on applications for the community G I do not so water ordinance and then as4 education no update on that I haven't heard from Margaret she was supposed to come back uh to discuss but I haven't heard from adopt the drain we don't uh sustainable Jersey application actions for 2025 thanks near from mentioning the green challenge anything else you want to say um don't think so um I guess also just in general I think I emailed everyone um the Google form form just in the environmental commission so also if everyone in the environmental commission could fill it out that would be great yes saw it and we do I'll try to get it up uh and out to the public too yeah I was also thinking were you thinking of doing a tap into article or yes something else okay if if you want to do that be my guest I would be happy to not do that but also I can do that if you need me to I'll I'll check with you so can work together okay letter oh I'm sorry I'm sorry I interrupt no just said sounds good Recycling and cleanups so we have March 22nd as a date anything else David no nothing else okay and topics for the township newsletter put out the article on uh what to do about ice anything else we should be doing now all right the saake River Park and trails I have no update on that I still I'm waiting to hear back from uh Dan berer on various topics one of them is the storage for tools on at the m park on Grant Street Grants rgi Grant topic um what was that was the Green Acres Grant right right supposedly to is it January 20 or February 25th I can't remember feary 5th in my mind I can't know so it's a first first quarter anyway yeah and we're applying for that regardless right would be good to hear you know if you're putting something on County property you need to have permission teic so but if you get if you get permission if you get the grant we could locate something on Township proper right thew for example sure I would think getting the ground for that yeah the there's very little room so putting out there and accepting all sorts of of uh donations deposits from Community right right really that challenge so do we need do we feel we need to have permission for where this stuff's going to go before we uh find out where you're going to put things before you from there and find out you can put for the flip side is we don't if you miss this gr application it could be a year before we get perion to by so we have S window for year yeah okay I will I will follow up with Dan again I'll try to get one call tomorrow so we do have interest in pursuing another Grant which is the psng grant the environmental resources yeah so we should probably right yes yes we should yeah we touched on that last month's meeting yeah right okay then the rgi grant um had to reports I didn't get a chance to read any of that most recent document that I posted on B did you look at that I didn't was I thought there was a document for review on Bas I thought it was just the report maybe maybe I didn't get a chance to look at it I don't know but the other thing about that is that um we're also talking about about uh you know this rent would uh finish in 2025 [Music] and we've already gotten our allotment of 185 trees for the spring now we need to do it for the fall you know if we didn't pay I do not know that I do know that uh uh the um certified Tree Experts reviewed the trees submitted that uh and I uh exported it to an Excel file and that got posted so you can see all the tree all their yes on Bas cam you can see all the comments that they make about what has to be done about trees some of those things are responsible of Steve's trees some of it is things that we may have to do I think we we're going TOS at the end this year yeah that's that's State okaya got that I also recommended that uh Township uh download it tree Echo because that is a free program and they can continue to um keep track of the trees now um and then the community energy the CG Grant I attended the uh the webinar on Transportation initiatives and I've been waiting for them to send the deck which I have to follow up on because there was some pretty interesting stuff that was that was shared including an additional webinar that's focused on police vehicles Electric that I thought uh I didn't attend but I was able to start reviewing I didn't had a chance to review it so that webinar is available the which one the recording de sh and I'm not remembering whether I saw the availability of the deck but the reporing is there I'll follow okay okay all right and then next thing is bcity USA so uh the resolution uh for p c USA uh says that uh we uh need to submit that resolution to BC USA and they approve that resolution and then they tell us what uh the next steps are part of that submission is to also submit the email addresses for people who are on this team uh and BC USA wants to have the names and off I emails of all of the township Council so I have put that into the app the a website and also emails for people who are participating in this so I uh added uh your email because I know that you're interested in native plants uh and I'm wondering can I add anyone else Christopher would you be available for that yeah I would I would like that CH you can put my name there okay now what I expect uh is going to happen is that this the dirg students who have also contacted us uh uh want to be involved so we would form a team and then discuss what our next steps are one of the first steps I would suggest is for us to check uh those places which have Gardens on public property that includes the rain Gardens that are at the various pools and see what we need to do uh to make sure that those plants are thriving because those are all native plants in those rain gens and then see what opportunities there are to expand beyond that uh it uh mainly would be on public property so it can possibly include the the municipal building property uh or uh the park and they ask that uh either people someone from Parks H uh in this case we don't have a Parks and Recreation we have just a recreation department so the recreation department and also from DPW because they take care of the fs so we want to have uh contacts from them as part of this team that would be involved in uh planting pollinator plants I mean they're calling it BC the USA but uh you know all plants that have flowers attract not only uh bees but also butterflies um uh Ms uh other kinds of uh uh insects that are beneficial for the environment so I will fill that out and submit it and finally hosting the Hub Hub so we're going to host the Hub uh January and now I forgot January 13th was it was 14 or 14 it was the Monday because 1 because Ang that's the 13 okay so that's set we need to uh make any suggestions for the uh agenda but we expect other participants to also uh bring up suggestions I mean one of the things uh I would uh like to ask about uh for example is uh the art field Turf because other towns have tur field so I'm wondering what their experience is with that so that's just one item for the agenda so if you have um suggestion for agenda items please uh speak up not right the second but this is oh no we have we have a meeting or we're scheduling a meeting for January 6 anything else before we open up the agenda nothing else okay well Steve has just come online unmuted himself you can talk on anything up for up to three minutes Steve don't even need to do that enviral anything environmental yeah yes um next year environmental um I was just thinking again end of year if um whoever plans next year's dates if um like one year you could send me the the list I'm able to go onto the calendar when you find it but if you have a document that you send to the commission and with all the plan dates that you plan to put in the calendar if you could just CC me that would be appreciated otherwise have a great holiday and a happy New Year just just to kind of indirectly answer that generally the the dates will be on the first and third Mondays unless town unless the town has something going on on it either of those dates and I think we made an exception for one of the holidays I don't remember which one but yeah and I understand that it's like I say though if you create that and send it to the commission just add me please that's all if you don't then I'll do it the you know the old fashioned way okay and ran and Alex do you want to say anything more not really thank you for having us all the information we talked about um from what else thanks all right we hear a motion 820 okay we have motion to and David second right David made the motion an Al second okay thanks everybody happy holidays and well I know what we didn't do and know what we didn't do we Alo sent an email oh yeah I forgot that you so why don't other topics so I just wanted to ask the the the the members on the on the call today is there any interest in in having a a gathering before the year end or maybe even before the holidays or maybe even during the holidays between Christmas and New Years I did hear back from Press thank you very much and I guess the question I have is dates to stay away from and um and then whether or not you have any thoughts on including spouses ST which Chris uh said vir spouses okay is there other is anybody have any dates they want me to stay away from that they want to share on the call or just email yeah wow could it be easy to do this in January like the first four week of the year P for me me personally would be easier in janary because I'm gone all of next week so unless we're doing it this week There's a a a webinar on Thursday right is that one that the uh Thursday so that Thursday sure is that work everybody only person who can't come is me I'm in Maine right now so but other than that uh you know if you guys have it it's okay thir proposal is the first week of January the second oh first week of January I thought you meant this week yeah no do you mean the first full week first week of January should be fine week of the sixth week of the sixth okay that works for me it works for me as well okay and it works for me yeah I believe it's fine for me too okay okay I'll I'll just we got a meeting on the on the Monday on the Monday any preference on that any day work better for anybody Thursday Wednesday I think Thursday's Thursday personally just because it's a if you're at the end tail end of the week rather than the beginning yeah from a from a work perspective it's a little bit easier that's just my opinion though not everyone would be the same okay okay this is I'll shoot for Thursdays any uh thoughts on where [Music] venue americ America Amero we could do Americo I don't know how everyone feels the fine too I like a Maro or Cafe vinata they're both um recently opened right and bring your own if anyone oh yeah well Vata sounds good too yep okay cool I'll find reservation one or one or both okay y I know Americo does have a private room I don't know if we need a private room but they have a lot of space so I mean that's one really good benefit about America all right sounds great all right great thank you okay thanks everybody happy holidays start the s