##VIDEO ID:yuiB9rQCkHI## okay I'm calling the meeting of the Berkeley Heights environmental commission to order at 7:31 on Monday January 20th 2025 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 meet meeting is taking place via Zoom uh so I'm hoping that everyone is attending because I ask you to uh advise me if you are not attending the meeting and so the meeting is being recorded and who is taking minutes for the meeting I can do that David you're GNA take minutes thanks very much I will now we're looking at approving minutes I'm I don't know if everybody's gotten a chance to look at any of these minutes but I'll go through them one by one August 19th did anyone review those minutes yes I reviewed those all right you want to make any changes or do you want to move to approve I can move to approve okay so now we need a second they're my minute but I can second if that's okay I think that's okay Ang I think that's not an issue right uh so without objection then uh the minutes are approved for August 19th and then October 21 yeah I've reviewed those um I can move to approve the October 21st minutes do we have anyone who else who has reviewed those minutes sorry I was in mute I in second I'm sorry was that Alvaro Alvaro okay all of a sudden you're there Alvaro yeah appear you appear suddenly and I didn't know that you I wasn't on the screen so okay Alo seconds the minutes for October 21 and so if there are no objections the minutes for October 21 are approved and then November 4 again I've reviewed those I can move to approve the minutes of November 4th okay do we have a second I can second Alvaro seconds no November alv or Angus I heard I didn't that was Al and November 8th 18th 18th sorry November 18th um yeah I I authored those but I can also move to approve the minutes of who was that um me I can second very okay thanks I'm kind of bouncing back and forth so that I could take notes on my computer and December 16 I can make a motion to approve um those second second I like I think that David had one correction on one of those minutes I don't remember which but I'll go back and correct make the correction that he uh noted and was that Alvaro seconding the 16th yes yes got it okay that brings us up to date we as far as the agenda is concerned uh then hearing on agenda item S 3 minutes per resident we have a resident and you can speak now Steve thank you um boy it's that was fast going regular business that was very good I don't have any other comments enjoy your meeting right so we're moving on uh to uh new business 's Wellness committee request for community garden BL so I sent that off to the community garden and uh Heidi Cohen came back she's on the community garden committee and said uh that actually they don't have any plots available at the moment but they would be interested in talking with the uh uh mayor's Wellness committee and I quote it would probably make sense for mayor folks on the mayor's Wellness committee to meet with the garden committee and explain how they would be looking to use a plot for The Wider Community I'm not sure they are aware that the garden has a dedicated donation plot we could always use help planting harvesting Distributing and multiple plots currently earmarked for a Children's Garden where we we have a garden contact working with ch teachers and special services they provide classes slash education for children and the ability to plant and harvest one of those plots is also a touch Garden we were told it is funded by a grant I would think that the mayor's Wellness committee folks could talk with the garden committee about options to help in those plots and perhaps increase the interest Beyond just children that would be very exciting let us know who we should talk with directly the mayor has copied on this so I'm hoping that we don't have to act as middle people in this and let the mayor's Wellness committee talk with the garden committee and see what they can do together any comments or questions no and I'm ass assuming you you heard that I I think I was unmuted yes okay I have sometimes spoken without knowing I was muted then the mayor's Wellness committee Harvest Moon hike and I kind of threw that at John and David uh do you have anything on that David um nothing beyond your email from earlier in the week um so your your request is that I was I um coordinate this with um or help Co coordinate the event and at least coordinate with Scouts if there's a scout especially right right especially because the mayor was suggesting Scouts and the EC um and maybe I don't know how available John is these days but uh maybe John can get involved uh but I think uh the first question is basically the one that you brought up is when would this be apparently it would be in October uh and uh then the question is you know would we try to nail down a date at some point earlier in the year and then uh uh promote this later in the year so um I mean there are several people on the wellness committee it doesn't have to be the mayor that you're talking with but you can start with the mayor and ask uh you know who uh wants to get involved from the mayor's Wellness committee maybe there's somebody on the wellness committee who would take on that organization I mean basically organizing it where would the walk where would the hike take place for example yep so if you're accepting that uh that's great yeah so it's going to be organized by the mayor's Wellness committee so I'm I'm I'm fine um being Leo on to the EC and if n to the scouts that would be great helping support that planning all right then uh 331 Springfield Avenue this is a TRC meeting that we're talking about we got documents we received documents about the meeting I made some comments David uh put together a um memo see um to the zoning board I'm sorry the wrong address it should be 713 PL Avenue is that right no no no no that's that's that's mistaken the 713 planfield Avenue is the gas station yeah no we're not the gas station here this is so that's a so you need to change that D if if we're talking about the same subject did I get the wrong address in the um in the letter yeah the subject has the wrong address 713 I do this can I share share the screen I confused myself today going backwards and forwards between different applications this is what I've I'm looking at is this the document that David that you did for because this has got this uh screenshot of the plan schedule and recommendations so this is this is the right document this is the document I drafted today and this relates to the application for the property adjacent to tdb okay but it should I may have the wrong address the wrong um you have you have a October 20 2022 I've got to fix the dates and I've got I've got the wrong address perhaps yeah and also probably that means the block and lots are too I'll check I may have those right but so I guess I got the street address wrong okay so if you can correct that uh the only other comment I had and I just sent that a few minutes ago was that here on the tree removal schedule there are four trees to be removed you have two deciduous trees and two evergreen trees the replace the replacement trees eight deciduous trees and four evergreen trees and that seems to not necessarily agree with another uh planting plan is that am I understanding that correctly David maybe you can explain somewhere in the document um it's in it's in the environment impact statement it says three trees will be removed I I Mis I Mis interpreted the um the screenshot right above um but in any case it it's it's um they're not saying three there they're saying they're saying four so that two in my first bullet should read four okay it's not clear whether they're removing three or four and then just you know clarify that and then the other comment was that the the storm water management plan shows two bio retention areas but the side plan seems to show only one at least all the pages that I looked at every uh they were showing one bio retention area so that's animportant difference I would expect that the calculation for bior retention must have come from the storm water management plan I'm hoping that they're planning on two bio retention areas even though the site plan shows only one that's an engineering drawing that should have been picked out yeah and after I saw your comment Richard I went back to the plans and I could I could just find the same that you found okay um at one at one point in the storm waterer management plan it describes two um and shows two on the on a plan but then the actual site plan the engineering drawings just show the one okay and then the comment about at least half of V trees reps some ground cover should be needed any other comments or questions on this sorry if I jumped away but if not then do I hear a motion to approve I can move to approve okay and second I'm really not 100% sure what we're approving if there's discrepancies right now between the buyer retention and the tree so we're approving the memo Chris uh as amended okay yeah there's some amendments that need to be done right the address the and then the five retention number of trees so I moved to approved the amended document and I'll second that okay excellent than Dr if there's no objections then we uh then that is approved as amended moving on to Old business Scout projects any updates on Scout projects no updates community garden Rene is not here well we already talked about community garden with the community garden plot storm water ordinance and ms4 education status um so we uh David and I had a meeting with Margaret illis on the Storm ordinance she thought maybe she'd be attending tonight but I haven't I don't I haven't seen anything from her saying that she would miss the meeting but she wasn't totally sure sh she would be here uh in any case um there were uh several questions that came up um one of them had to do with um some pumps uh some pumps at some point were uh discussed as being part of the storm water ordinance and then that didn't happen and if I'm remembering correctly mark asked me to see about uh whether there are any model ordinances for sub pumps uh I uh sent out an email to a couple of different people today asking about some puns but incidentally I looked on my own uh computer and found several uh some ordinances um from different towns uh I will be happy to share them but I'll wait to hear back from New Jersey future and the Watershed Institute to see if they have any additional recommendations also the an I I contacted anj about that but of course today is a holiday so I wasn't expecting to get an answer back uh at this point maybe uh tomorrow or the next day um did you um see back from Margaret her updated list of um comments or issues that she's tracking Richard she said she share it after the meeting but I don't think I saw that I didn't see anything from okay and she communicated that the target is to get this in front of the um Township Council on February 4th which is just about two weeks away exactly I don't know how realistic that is but mhm um I'm not you know uh um how would I put it I I'm I'm thinking if if we get if we are agreeing on uh all of the parts of the ordinance fine but if we're not agreeing on the uh these things we need to work uh the differences out um and one of the areas is uh one of the main areas is minor uh developments or as some ordinances put it uh non major developments um one of the things that she asked for and I agreed with is how to make it easy for home homeowners who are doing a de minor development such as uh a you know anything on uh that's to 150 ft uh of impervia surface are greater how how do they address the storm water management and uh it's easy to put together a simple guideline uh and some other ordinances do that uh I I think that we need to discuss of that a little bit because for example one ordinance that I saw which was uh the rington uh River Watershed ordinance basically said um if you've got uh 250 square feet of impervious surface then you need to uh retain 400 gallons of storm water on site oh H how is that calculated I'm not sure because then I saw a different version of the ordinance which said 300 gallons of stor water must be retained on site to me the easier way to do that is to justify it by saying this um must comply with a 1.5 uh uh uh now I forgotten the T tecal term but uh rainfall quality storm of 1.5 in over two hours and then you can simply do a calculation for uh how big that bior retention area needs to be for 250 square feet and uh but the other alternatives are a 300 gallon rainwater harvesting system an 80 square foot rain Garden that has 6 in of storage capacity and a minimum infiltration rate of 1 inch per hour a dryw of 120 cubic feet with 3/4 inch clean stone or another stor water best management practice that is approved by the municipal engineer so those kinds of things I think we we need to go through and be clear that okay we're being consistent and making it easy for the homeowner to comply with the uh ordinance and in addition to that there's always going to be a requirement uh to maintain uh whatever kind of system is installed and I mean I don't want to get into the all the details unless people do want to get into them but that's uh one of the things I see David maybe you want to say something more so one yeah one of the agreements that you and that we reached with Margaret was you and I would work on some improved wording taken from some other um prior drafts of what we worked on or what other towns have implemented to to yes to simplify the requirements around um minor developments and simplify that the way the ways that those are expressed in the ordinance to make it um more readily followed by um homeowners as opposed to necessar necessarily requiring um engineers and um expert interpretation of what's in the in the draft um also looking to simplify the checklist of what's required to apply for a um still want a management permit for a minor development because currently it leverages the requirements for a major development but those are beyond what a what a typical homeowner could could accomplish yeah so that's what we were agreeing to um provide back to Margaret yes yes exactly and and one of the model ordinances also uh says that uh you know a bio retention area or a swell is preferable uh to say a dryw um so that would be the first uh type of storm water management uh project that that a homeowner would do um the the other thing was the maximum contributory drainage uh area so if you this is uh especially applying to larger areas so if a um uh an area such as uh one of these developments with the um apartment uh already has let us say 75% imperious coverage and increases the imperious coverage by 25% the current if I'm understanding the current law uh the change is only 25% so they the developer only has to provide storm water management for that additional 25% whereas if we say that uh it has to the uh that's assuming that the other uh the other impervious coverage the existing impervious coverage doesn't have storm does have storm water management uh but the other way to approach it is to make uh uh to require the developer to do storm water management for the whole property uh not just the increase in impervious service I hope that makes sense the way I just explained that and the point is that we're just not quite there yet we need to have some more discussion and makes uh propose uh how how minor uh development can be made easier for a homeowner how storm water management for minor developments can be made easier any comments or questions so when shall we target getting some revised wording back to Margaret Richard right I would I would this week would work exactly exactly I would try to do later this week it's another busy week but um we should try to uh do that by the end of the week okay uh I'll try to Center what I've got and the way of model uh ordinances and also the sun pump David okay sounds good thank you all right if there's no other comments then we're moving on to uh adopt the drain did can't make it in yet yeah I'm here um I don't have anything to report this week with respect to adopted drain okay okay great onward sustainable Jersey application actions for 20125 okay you read you were doing working on something you have any update um I don't think I have any major updates I sent the form to um the two people who came from the mayor's youth Council and I think they got um a few people to um fill out the form but I need to make the article so we can post that on tap into and um Angus I'll probably send it to you as well to post on Instagram and Facebook what is that um in relation to what action in particular um the green challenges oh yeah yeah right oh sorry can we go back to adapter drain for just a second I'm gonna wait wait wait and you're going to speak again in a minute again okay anything else in sustainable Jersey application if not then we're moving on to recycling and cleanups which uh again we're coming back to Kim so if you want to address adopt the drain and then move on to the recork program Kim yes thank you um I I don't angus mean to Heath this on your plate um but I thought it would be good if we could um under our contest tab just add to it our most recent um no more scary drain contest information or at least post um the the two different articles the one that announced the contest and the uh the follow-up one with the results so that it doesn't look like we only had one contest for the life of the program that's fine I'll I'll I'll ping you and we'll work work on that okay fantastic thank you um okay so moving on to cleanups um I had mentioned at a prior meeting that the New Jersey clean communities Council runs their Clean Water Challenge from March 1st to April 30th and um Richard had said um that perhaps David was going to run a cleanup during that time um so uh want to keep that window open for for doing a cleanup possibly in um Snyder Park which is where we had a clean up last year under this program so that is thing one and um last time um many Scouts had showed up for that cleanup so just kind of flagging that window for a potential day to do a cleanup again um and then also I came across a program called recork um recork is kind of exactly how it sounds they they take corks from wine bottles and then they repurpose Pur the corks into um the like shoe materials so you can buy shoes that have repurpose corks in them like they redo the corks and they repurpose it to be like the sneaker type thing the cushiony part um the thing is unlike other programs where you just you know they send you the the box or they send you the label you just send it in we would have to pay for the sending in of corks but we we could do so two things first do we want to do a cleanup between March 1st and April 30th in Snider Park like we did last year Under This Clean communities Council um Clean Water Challenge and secondly if we do at that time would we like to do some kind of a collection of corks from The General Community to send in to get corks repurposed for this other program the recork program so two things on the table okay let's let's take one at a time so first uh I have committed to coordinate a cleanup um on a specific date and I don't remember the date off the top of my head um which is to enable um Community from I think it's the Little Flower Church um um I what's what's the event it's um was that conf confirmation confirmation events I think um they were looking to engage in a community event on a particular day um it wasn't clear how well not known at the present time how many um volunteers it would be children plus parents so they'd be supervised um so yeah I volunteered to coord to make that event available um plan it through Township County as necessary my thought was to hit one or more of the local parks um as as we've done in the past um and according to how many people we have sort of on the day signed up for the event if it's convenient to um com combine that with the Clean Water Challenge and sort of get kill two birds with one stone I don't have a problem with that but my event needs to be one specific date because of that because that's the um that's what will um work for the Little Flower community okay um do you want to just maybe coordinate offline as to what those dates are when when you know them a little bit more clearly yeah it's in one of the prior meeting minutes I just don't have that in front of me right now okay if I can find it before the end of the meeting I'll post it to the chat okay um yeah yeah I'm F I'm fine coordinating that I don't I don't think it's a problem to say that we've I mean the purpose of the clean what a challenges to say that we've cleaned up a park right um clean up a park that is close to um a a running water area and in the past we've done it at Snyder Park um just because it's convenient to coordinate with the township or the county whoever is going to pick up the trash to um do it on a weekend where the recycling Etc can be picked up and the garbage can be picked up pretty readily so that we're not dragging the bags from like Locust Avenue down to a place or there's no transporting of the trash and people's Vehicles so um yeah we we did this challenge last year in Snyder Park and it it just happened that last time around many Scouts Boy Scouts attended there were other people that attended as well but primarily it was Scouts and their parents who came um and again the park is located by a stream or Brook that runs in the back that eventually runs an empties out into the pic River so that has counted for us to be a participant in the Clean Water Challenge and uh David it's March 22nd thank you is Richard is that a Saturday Sunday good question I just looked back at the minute okay March 22nd is a Saturday it's a Saturday Saturday okay the uh yep and then the second is there interest then in David again I don't want to impose but is is there interest in maybe combining the two events or would you prefer that it's we do something separate for Clean Water Challenge I have no problem combining the two okay um I haven't checked yet with Maggie gleon what the provision might be for rain dates I their event is on a specific day so they may not be able to accommodate rain dates for instance so they may just go do something else indoors if the weather is bad um I've not chatted with Maggie on that um we need to think about how we plan this in terms of registration and numbers um I I don't know that there's for this a pre-registration last year there wasn't we just kind of guessed at how many volunteers would show up um yeah and we got a certain number of garbage Grabbers and gloves I believe it was from the county um and how many other people showed up showed up so I don't think pre-registration was a thing so if it's yeah I agree we haven't really done much much uh in the way of pre-registration have we we we try to estimate how many we'll get and plan accordingly yeah that's we kind of do the same Wing It kind of thing um and and you know I think last year we had about 20 30 people show up and this is my one concern is if we have 40 or 50 people that's that's not a useful use of 50 people to try to clean up Snider Park yeah because it's a big it's a lot of people for a a modest area Okay um I mean I'm happy to hold a separate event on a different weekend so that way we can um double the effectiveness of keeping the park clean or maybe that being said I'm not sure that we need to restrict this to AP Park true um happy I'm happy to hold the cleanup in um Lower Columbia Park yeah I mean Lower Columbia is equally it's right there by another drainage to the um to the Bic River yes I think we could we could legitimately hit a number of the parks in town they're all relatively close to drainage into the Bic um so I'm not I'm not um I'm not arguing against coordinating I'm fine coordinating this and um getting the maximum value out of our coordination efforts our planning efforts um to your to your point of having 50 people in one location it might be more useful to maybe do it on two different dates so that we maximize so that you have the right amount of people doing it when they need to on March 22nd and we get a different cohort of people helping to clean a different Park on a different day during the uh the window for the Clean Water Challenge okay that's fine too I don't have a strong preference either way okay okay um well then let me let me look at my schedule and then I'll come back to the group with a date that we can maybe do for the Clean Water Challenge in Lower Columbia Park for the whole town and if you do um so if you do Lower Columbia then you want to contact Carolyn George and tell her that that's planned if you do snap Park you need to contact the County and let them know that that's planned so they because that's a county park what's the um the date window for the um clean communities Council event Kim is it March 1st April 30th yes correct all right so that you you two will connect we coordinate through either coordinate or not coordinate oh and so recork so the recork thing that sounds kind of curious kind of interesting because I'm wondering whether uh we can not only promote it uh through tap into but maybe with the local liquor store saying that we're would they collect corks as well uh because people would go be going to buy their wine at the local stores and the next time they come back they bring their used corks to the wine store just a thought yeah um again the recork recork requires whoever is collecting it to pay to send the corks in right and is that by do you have any idea what that cost is or is it just the cost of mailing I think it's just the cost of mailing so it could be uh just a a box that's filled with Corks And and sent by at the US mail yes okay maybe you can check that out can't see if that's something that we can not going to be a very high cost if it's just the that we're filling up a box with corks um but but to your to your suggestion Rich so two things do we want to try to do this during um a the potential Cleanup in Lower Columbia Park where people bring their corks and drop them off I don't know how much corkage we would get or um you instead of doing that we float out to the local liquor stores hey there's this program called recork would you be interested in doing something like this but that's going to impose an obligation on them to bring the quirks to mail them off that might be something we can work out with that I mean that I I'm I'm thinking it would be worth talking with the liquor stores to see if they're interested in that because if you're saying you're coming to visit coming to clean up Snyder Park bring some corks with you you may or may not get a lot of corks yeah that's true I'm wondering I'm wondering if you try to do that with the liquor stores whether you're expanding the option the availability of corks for the program yeah oh that's talk we're not committed yet right we're we're just we are not committed to anything yet with with fre work at all all right let's let's see if that's something that could we can do all right is there is there an action that someone's going to take here to to determine if we're going to progress something here um I'm happy to you know talk to a a local liquor store and say hey we're thinking about doing this what do you think uh this is something you would want to do to you know would you be able to help with this and see what the options are from the from the liquor store's point of view without having them commit okay all right anything else on this that's it so are you gonna follow up on that [Music] Kim um I there's a suggestion that we talked to liquor store is that something you that you are going to take on or is that just a a notion I'm taking that on okay Richard is okay um so Richard there there are two liquor stores in town are you going to contact one or or both what what's the there they're walking distance from my house oh okay short pleasant walk exactly okay tell topics for the township newsletter Angus anything we want to put in do I mean we already did the uh the salt do we want to do the salt again didn't we do it recently we did I think it was in the most recent newsletter trying to think what other topics there might be that we could use that that are very winter specific the other the other top topic is uh uh saplings I don't know if we want to put out the word about saplings at this point and that have ask people to sign up um I was actually wondering did we send out the the green challenges could we do that oh yes the form oh yes I think you could you could have a a link in and an announcement and and people would just click on the link and go to the form do I need to write something small for that like a few sentences yeah a small paragraph is good okay sorry and then do I send it to you Angus or I should send it to someone else you can send it to me okay sounds good thank you oh sorry by what date usually in the in the middle of the month or I don't have a deadline per se I have to ask uh ask her but since we're still in the 20th I think this week should be fine okay I will attempt to do that and I hope I do it I hope you do it too Kim uh not Kim n I'll follow up with you thank you um bake River Park and Trails um I haven't heard anything from Pat Shanley anything uh uh regarding the B River Park David no nothing on that from me okay uh we'll move on rggg Grant I've asked the township administrator to uh put out the a notice for bids on planting trees the spring I haven't heard back from her she was supposed to uh get back to me by the end of last week I will ask her again Comm to the energy plan grants webinars alaro yeah so we had our uh first meeting with the full team to review the uh the op the initiatives that we uh might want to pursue came up with a lot of great ideas um there's also some good news in that we have a little bit more time that we than what we anticipated initially we thought our due date for the uh for final plan was October of this year it's going to be be uh March of 2026 so we've got a good solid year and the reason behind that is that the uh the um uh the grant agreements haven't been sent out yet and are not expected to go out until March and that's the trigger point so um that'll give us a good time we had a lot of good participation in the meeting so and a lot of great ideas for things that we could do with sustainable Jersey I mean just actions for sustainable Jersey and for communications with the community so I think there's a lot of stuff we can sink our teeth into I I plan to pull together the team again in April to uh resume our our discussions and our thinking um the uh there is a this uh day after tomorrow on Wednesday the 22nd there's a webinar that's dedicated to uh uh uh EV patrol cars and uh the chief of police has signed up to attend that I will be attending as well if anybody's interested I can send you the uh the webinar link to register um and then there there are a couple more webinars coming up but I can't remember when they're when they're uh when they're due but uh I'll I'll uh I'll try to get that and share it with everybody that's it I think there's another webinar coming up a couple of weeks I think it's February February 12 let me look it up I think U renewable energy webinar I have is that post it on the chat yeah okay I can't make that particular date but I've got it in my calendar that it yeah I can't I can't either uh but uh I'll offer it up to anybody who can okay then Green Acres Grant for hand tools I haven't heard back from Dan berer on that uh B City USA the uh PG students are are move organizing a meeting this week I think it's tomorrow afternoon at 4 or 4:30 we have to confirm that uh and we've got about we got a couple of students and a couple of residents interested in that so it'll be our first organizational meeting um hosting the Hub so we had a meeting uh hosting the Hub a week ago Alvaro and David and I attended the meeting it was a I thought a good meeting other people commented uh I um the I regret that I didn't take minutes uh but after the fact I uh asked Alvaro and he did a draft I then took that draft and sent that to a couple of the presenters Lois uh kuss and uh Tracy uh to uh kind of fill in the blanks and so that we can share that uh the minutes from that meeting uh it included the meeting included um AstroTurf uh and there's another AstroTurf webinar uh that is apparently being hosted by a different group then the hand um so I shared that with the township Council as well as with uh Carolyn George and also with a couple of members of the uh Board of Education um so uh we should be able to maybe in know by the end of the week uh be able to put together the minutes for the Hub and share that any other comments on that Hub meeting yeah there was a bit of discussion on gas powered leaf blowers also and um the momentum towards Banning those few a few count a few townships have um made some steps in that direction so that was one of the topics discussed as well yes and and uh speaking of which uh that uh was something that Lis Krauss followed up on I'll come back to that uh in order because we didn't put that on on our agenda originally we um um still have the uh Budget on the agenda and David you weren't uh at the me last meeting but we basically approved um the budget uh proposed budget and let's see if I can do this again share um um I actually had a question about the budget okay go um so a while ago I went to visit students in the science club um at Colombia and they were just doing some brainstorming about what they would want to do um related to the environment in the school and um they had some ideas I think one of them would be um not too hard to do um they have a courtyard that I actually I don't even remember there being a courtyard in um Colombia but they wanted to have some plants there so I don't know what the area looks like but I'm wondering can some of the money for other equipment and supplies go to that can I offer that and talk to Miss Frolic um the teacher of who runs the science club there I would yeah I would start by asking them uh if they have a budget because that's on town on school proper um and I've been in that uh Courtyard it has a couple of invasive calorie pair trees it had some raised beds it's uh a good part of it is in shade so you'd have to if you were planting you'd have to do suitable plants and also there's a drain there so guessing that there's a lot of rain that falls into that courtyard and then basically goes down the drain so there might be the need to do a little bit of grading there to uh uhjust for plants um if the money is to be spent on Plants then we might be able to take that from the tree trust fund depending upon what what we're planting so maybe we maybe we should talk about that offline here but uh I'm not trying to say no but I'm trying to get the uh school to commit here because this was something that I guess a couple of years ago um Lara mendenhal and I looked at this place okay Yes sounds good here is uh the budgets uh request we're requesting uh 2200 for um Professional Services this includes uh the need to update the NRI the E er uh we were uh the interesting thing was that at the Hub meeting I raised the question of who's doing an update to the ER and Summit said they're working with the Land Conservancy uh and Westfield said they worked with Kane College I don't know whether Kan college would still be interested in working on any ra and I didn't get a chance to talk with uh anyone else about uh the possibility of doing that um so I I would say that at this point where it could be that uh we won't have to spend $20,000 because my understanding from Summit was that the cost was much less than $20,000 but when we previously went around looking at uh options or not options on contractors to help us uh develop a new ERI the the general cost was around $220,000 that was quoted to us so that's why we applied for a $220,000 grant the but the sustainable Jersey $20,000 grants are only a limited number I think is it five David I don't remember um I don't remember uh but there are there are twice as many $10,000 grants and uh what I was proposing and what got approve the last time was that we apply for a $110,000 grant we supplement that with um the Exon Grant and we asked the town for $22,000 uh to complement uh the other monies that we have if the if the vendor uh is going to charge us $220,000 it's possible that the vendor doesn't charge us $20,000 and which case we may not even need $22,000 from the town that's the way that uh budget item was proposed the other thing uh was the uh adopted drain annual dues that's now under DPW and was there something else Kim didn't you ask for something else or am I misremembering yeah we had put the we had asked for the $500 for prizes for oh yeah there it is it's there yep we request $500 to perch prices for cont contest the rationale for that is the $500 investment to get people to help um do the adopted drain cleanups to date we've collected about 4,500 lounds of litter that would have otherwise gone into the drain so the amount of damage control that we're doing for people who would otherwise have been flooded as a result of clogged drains and drainage systems this provides a a value incentivizing the community to help in between um DPW cleanups okay any questions or comments two and a qu tons is a good number to kind of uh you know advertise it's like it's as impressive as when we were doing the thin phone Plastics right then Lois Krauss um emailed about this um other project that Kim you were involved with apparently at one point had to do with the uh uh believe it was gas leaf blowers gas leaf blowers and the abbreviation was ATL NJ uh I don't know exactly anymore what ATL andj was but there apparently they were planning to meet on January 27th uh at 7:30 p.m. do you still want to do that um I again as Lois pointed out in her message or maybe you pointed it out I I'm not involved in that any longer so my my answer is um no if someone else would like to take you know take the Reigns and do that I I'm happy for them to do so okay anybody else want to step up for that it's a meeting about leaf blower ordinances does anyone know what the acronym stands for I'm not remembering David I I think I clicked on the link and it brought me to a website that says westfield.com that Zoom yeah it seemed like it was just the zoom link right yeah the the meeting is from 7:30 to 8:30 um and she did I forward this right lots to catch up including local successes the Monclair lawsuit sustainable Jersey item for 25 total Pro expoo and broadening your approach to all kinds of sustainable Landscaping techniques and then there's another link to a Google doc which is basically asking uh to for a survey help us gaug how far things have progressed in member communities and how best to think about priorities and next steps for 2025 in connection with moving away from gas leaf blowers and to stroke lawning anybody all right I'm going once going I guess I'm I'm content to let this progress for now and then let's see if we want to get engaged I think it's interesting but I also think that the enforcement aspect of this no matter what Lois said are really challenging yeah it seems like uh one of the things is being able to get the landscapers on your side but I must admit and I'm I'm not ready to get involved with this I don't have a landscaper but I've seen I'm not sure how you get the homeowners on your side either because there are plenty of homeowners in town with gas powered leaf blowers who are not interested in being persuaded to and I'm not taking them on I cannot read what your article is saying that you're holding up the headlines for and with the with the simulated back it's it can get weird too but when you so let me just finish here okay this is related to the state level and leaf blower all right right the point the point is that these leaf blowers uh are really kicking up a lot of dust and I've seen them really uh en engulf the landscapers in in this dust it's it's a it's an environmental uh uh problem that they're breathing uh and and and getting this dust on themselves so Steve I guess you're going to say something about the state level uh on law on on Leaf blow yeah just I'll just say and and I didn't see it I didn't see it on the you started talking about I didn't see it on the agenda to bring it up earlier I have something that uh from um star Leger story from June 21 of this year so it's the current session last last year uh well last year but current legislative session so this is applicable to now um right as last year June of 24th but it's still the same so at that time a senate state senate committee on Thursday must have been the day before Advanced a bill that would ban such blowers most of the year but would allow one using fourstroke combustion engines to be used during Peak clean up periods in Spring and fall and the dirtier Two Strokes will be phased out after two years that's the one paragraph in the story and it talks about kind of the issues you guys have talked about so if anything um You probably can find that article on jersey.com but there is a and they don't reference the bill number as far as I can tell in the article but there is there is a state uh Bill dealing with the subject that does what I just summarized and it's you know made it through one committee I I I haven't read it uh but I I'm just reporting that I don't know if you guys knew that he thanks Steve all right uh then one last item is uh trees for uh the fourth grades and for residents we had a discussion about that and uh one of the things that has come out of it is at this point the state forestry um office only is only offering Tu bling tube seedlings uh the uh and those are a limited number of trees they they may uh at some later point also offer bare root seedlings which would be less expensive the tube seedlings are $75 or $100 uh for 30 seedlings depends upon the species what uh the price is so for uh Atlantic White Cedar it's $100 for 30 seedlings but for Northern Oak and chesta Oak and white oak it's $75 for 30 seedlings so you can see that if we're ordering 300 seedlings uh we'll be spending a bit of money we can take that money out of the tree trust fund uh I was hoping that the state would uh be uh offering uh the saplings but apparently they are still stretched for employees and haven't gotten uh haven't been able to tell me whether sap saplings or how many saplings will be available but this normally the sapling orders are for a larger number of saplings at a lower rice any comments so you You' said that that state program wasn't going to be available this year does it seem like that's just a one-year thing rather than being they've stopped it for good now there's two two things that happened right one is the Hurricane Sandy uh I had a project to replace trees they were giving away trees and we took advantage of that but that project is ended now the they're going back to their normal uh way that they allow municipalities to order seedlings uh but they haven't uh issued the order form for um uh bare root seedlings yet and those uh barro ceilings are a little bit less expensive than the tube tube ceilings uh my thought is maybe we better order them because they may not have availability although the woman whom I talked to said we can you know uh we'll save you uh seedlings and I told her how many we wanted that's basically it in the nutshell David okay all right that's all I've got anybody else um we we're agreeing then to go with the tube seedlings what I'm thinking yes y um and Order about a 100 for residents as giveaways right as giveaways exactly AR same Target targeting Arbor Day for the distribution or there BS yes um so I wanted to quickly go back to the um the ER so are we agreeing then that we should go ahead and apply for the the 10,000 Grant with the expectation that we'll have up to another 8,000 or so from the Exxon fund possibly $2,000 from the township and with that 18 or $20,000 we should be able to get this done is that what we're agreeing should be our plan I I that's what I'm proposing as the plan it's possible that you know uh you and I should talk about these options that we heard about uh at the Hub meeting uh and see whether that's a uh a possibility that uh we pursue that that route to uh have the ER are R done I'm I didn't talk to Lois on this but I'd be very concerned with the um the free option well I I'm not saying we're doing it or should do it I don't even know whether Kane college would do it again because that was a special project that they did uh I'm just saying we should you know we should see we should look at uh the the Westfield Eris and see how that turned out I've looked at it it looks good to me ah okay well and the Land Conservancy was one of the um the companies we reached out to so we've we've we've spoken with them yes um and if we're in a situation where we need to have this done for less than $20,000 I'm I would be hopeful that we could get that done through them I would be hopeful too I I liked uh the qualifications of the people with the Land Conservancy and I liked the uh ERI that they do did uh for another town it wasn't a summit at that point but Summit sent a link for one this week I forget which one that was right um anyway yeah I my concern with the the keying College option I mean free sounds very attractive but a it may have just been the right group of students who was who are interested and motivated um I'm I'd also be concerned that that my option might require a lot of management from our part and I don't have the bandwidth to do that right right I I'm not arguing that that point at all I agree d That's could be the same page yep okay um yeah the deadline for that um PSG Grant is sometime around the middle of February yes so I will um now that we've got a fairly good idea what we're we're going to be putting in for I'll um I'll I'll look at that some more and see what further work needs to be done to our um application maybe I'll connect with you and um maybe Alvaro offline if you're both willing to support oh yes all right anything else from anyone if not do I hear a motion to return 8:48 p.m. second was that Alvaro oh second okay then I'm stopping the recording