okay uh we are live good all right I will call the meeting to order roll call please here Mr amance absent M MC here Mr McQueen here Mr here Mr R he's up there r yes I'm here just sore throat so I'm remote today M here notice of this meeting was provided to the barnville news and carer news fil with the municipal clerk and posted on the municipal bulletin board on December 14th 2023 please stand Pledge of Allegiance i al to the of the United States of America and the which stands one nation God indivisible with Li and justice for all okay welcome to the January 22nd 2024 meeting of the Bernville burough Council this meeting is being conducted in person in council chambers in burrow Hall and it is being broadcast Live on YouTube and on Zoom to make it as convenient as possible for residents to attend the meeting members of the public who are here in person and those attending remotely on Zoom will be given the opportunity to comment at appropriate times during the meeting in accordance with the following guidelines members of the public will be allowed to speak during the open sessions and during formal public hearings on the agenda including public hearings on ordinances comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker which will be monitored and enforced by the burrow clerk comments containing offensive profane or indecent language or language Constitution muting hate speech will not be permitted remote participants will be muted unless they are unmuted by the clerk and remote participants will not be able to unmute themselves the clerk will mute remote speakers at the expiration of their three minutes of a lot of time or if they make any inappropriate or offensive comments All speakers whether in person or on Zoom shall State their names and addresses before making their comments speakers on Zoom shall activate the camera so that they can seen by members of the governing body and audience failure of the governing body to provide a live broadcast of this meeting or technological problems encountered during the course of the meeting that affect remote viewing Andor participation will not invalidate this meeting or any action taken including but not limited to the adoption of any ordinance resolution or motion all right we have two presentations tonight um we have Main Street Bernardsville I know as you recall when we signed a contract with Main Street part of it what's required is that they do an annual report and so I believe you all got one in your packet and Olivia is just going to give us the Highlights Highlights hi I love you I love you hi happy New Year happy New Year good to see you um roll tap H scroll all the way up there we there we go um I just told Charlie I'm going to be repetitive but 2023 was a bit of a weird year um it was great we had a lot of wonderful things going on we had some uh things happening that we didn't anticipate the outcomes but um as they say what doesn't kill you or doesn't hurt you makes you stronger so um we're looking ahead to 2024 quite a bit and we've learned quite a bit in 23 uh which we'll go over now and a lot of these are just highlights from the year and from our events and um our our um experience at the conference and a number of other things that occurred this year as well so really excited to kind of review it all and share it with you so Anthony next please I have a little timer on here for myself so I don't go over so we can all have a nice quiet night um so just tonight we're just going to review just some really basic things I will have the full annual report up for the ire public to view um on the website as well um but this is just again some highlights of of what our teams have worked on throughout the year um and then we'll go into a little bit more of our goals and our transformation uh strategy and a little bit of a a summary of what we're going to be doing in the next couple of months and what that will lead to moving forward and then a projected budget and general idea of kind of what we're starting to work with which we'll we'll talk about and we'll be moving and shaking in the next couple of months with our strategy as we're working forward next please uh our design team has been very busy this year um as you all know the historical walking tour has been a project they've been working on quite significantly um and last year was a lot of time was spent by the team uh connecting with all of the businesses and the property owners of all the locations where the markers would be placed uh we got 100% of everyone uh involved on board with doing this and not just on board but excited it so we're really really thrilled with that connection um right now we're in some of these sort of nitty-gritty historical information accuracy moments um it has been with our local historians however Somerset County as a result of the grant that we we received last year is requiring reviewing the content as well so that's going to take a hot second but the uh goal at this point is to make sure it's open for our actual Centennial date which is um April 24th of this year so that is our goal to have it uh installed and good to go we will be doing some fun grand opening events around that we're working with haunted history on doing some tours um and a number of other fun things to make it more than just a couple of hours and cutting a ribbon there 10 markers is that there are 10 specific locations and there will be one main marker that'll highlight pretty much everything and um a little bit larger than the others but yes there are 10 locations we do have two extra locations that uh we could consider and if there ends up being room in the budget we can add two more but there's a lot more that we could add to it moving forward and we're not limiting it by putting numbers on them or you know anything that's you know pigeon hoing it into just 10 sites um so we'll be able to expand on it moving forward as it as it's warranted um but we've certainly you know spent some money on it and it has been completely Grand funded up until this point um we do have a little bit of remaining balance which we'll be covering with some sponsorships and potentially more grant funding as it may be needed but as of right now nothing's going to be du for anything until April everything's sort of paid up to date so we're we're good to go on that front and just waiting on making sure that all of the information um so all in all doing well on that and again our design teams have been working really hard on that project so kudos to all of them for all the work they've done last year as well on that um as many of you know some of you may not we did upgrade the banner system um on the poles it is an automated system um which is all great and the one stipulation when we conted the company was that the veteran banners would fit didn't so that was fun um so the company did well by us and they printed new ones just because the timing was really short and tight but we realized that they were really small so we are evaluating the idea of a larger system our board has approved moving to the larger system the upgrading cost is not very large uh or so I've been told I'm waiting on numbers from the manufacturer on that the larger system is it fits right into place where the uh pole is the banners don't have to be that large size but we at least have the flexibil AB ility of being able to use whatever size we want um and if we do end up using that full size it actually you know doing a mockup of it it doesn't actually look overwhelming so they'll actually be really nice for our beautification efforts if we wanted to do W finding signage limited by the fact that we can't install signs being them on 202 um you know that this will be a really great way to be able to put way finding in place as well so at least it gives us the flexibility to move forward um but that is a number for what the banner as well as printing the banners cost in that $122,000 number and it was partially Grant funded as well and the rest came from our general fund um so really excited about having a a schedule coming up for this year we're going to be working on the Centennial banners as well which is very exciting um so we're looking forward to that moving forward um many folks don't actually know but we did help support friends review of Burnville last year we did pay for all of the watering that they conducted we didn't actually schedule it or do any of that the friends did all actual work itself we just s to paid the bill so we did support them last year unfortunately the baskets did come down a little early weather was treacherous last summer um but we were there to to assist um and we did do the tree pit maintenance as well with all of that and some of the meading earlier in the year and that's shifted a little bit of the new position that was made available uh towards the end of this season so um I'll be talking conting with you guys about what to do with all of that moving forward but um we're really glad that we were able to support and help the friends American water company charges just 3,800 bucks for water for that square uh it's all the hanging baskets and it's the Planters I Believe by the train station I never remember exactly which Planters are theirs um but they do the you know the independent the large they must do some kind of a service you're talking about the water R of this picket right where they are no it's yeah it's yeah they you know they I don't know I think I saw once doing it yeah they around with a big truck in the water and yes it is quite costly it's not a small thing uh okay mov [Music] over moving into our economic Vitality team so at the very beginning of last year I feel like it seems like forever ago but it was actually the beginning of last year the um the printed map was made available and all of our advertisers and everything were were thrilled with copies of that a copy went out in our appeal letter last year so everybody in birds will receive one um so we were really excited about that they were Distributing to a number of hotels and attractions in the area our a team uh took a lot of copies out and distributed do we have them downstairs in the r we did I think so yeah good yes um we actually may be a d to start replenishing some of those locations so we're um we're really excited about it and it's a really great tool to you let other folks know we're out and about that burns um of course we spent quite a bit of time last year working on our improvement district project and we all know the outcome of that however we did do a lot of Outreach with our local business Community we did four iners events three mailings um and a number of other uh items as well social media Etc so we did spend a lot of time last year working on that project um up until the fall um of course our birdsville bucks is still alive and rolling um honestly we should have put quite a bit more promotion into that program and that is one of our goals for this year to putting a little bit more promotion into our bsal bu program we did a little bit of that last um the this past holiday season and promoting some of our barable bu businesses with video and content with City Liv magazine too an interesting thing that economic Vitality did um was an Instagram pight series for Valentine Day last year which we're going to be doing a little bit of again this year in conjunction with having ladies night um which is more obviously in person but doing a special feature like this is something that we never actually did before in promoting our local business community and we got a really great response from a lot of people were engaged online um and we heard from some of our local businesses that they actually got business as a result of that people seeing this on social media so it was a really great way for us to be able to engage with the business community and then help promote them as well no cost to anyone really um so it was a really nice promotion we were able to do o the big one was the launch or the soft launch I should say of the Discover brf app um it is live on Apple and Google depending on the device you use and it is still in its beta form we'll call it um there's a lot of content that still needs to be added to it our businesses we encourage them to sign up to participate and have their listing on there um just because we want to make sure that whoever's on there knows that they're there and they are actively interested in a part of it um but the main purpose of this app was to work in conjunction with the history tour which the app is geotrack which means if you are in the middle of Bernardsville and you're standing in front of a building it looks old and you're like oh I wonder what's up with that building you look it up you don't have to download the app there's actually a web version as well you stand right in front of that building it'll tell you what building is in front of you and then if you click next it'll tell you what building to which direction is next um so that was the purpose of getting this up and then we realize there's so much more that you could also do with it so all the parking locations are there currently um obviously that's an image of our fall holiday events um but the events are there as well with clickable links to be able to access tickets or other things that are involved with the events and also for our businesses you can click links um to get to business websites send an email Etc what is the name of the app is discover discover that b with the underline is the what the app itself looks like do we have it on our website I don't think so we should advertise and I haven't heard anything of it I think it's brilliant idea did you program it yourself or uh yes it's a a plug- andplay uh feature so thankfully I didn't have to do a lot of is it into the site so if you change the site the app changes with it yeah it's all all one we should have that on on our website it should be on the website you should probably put it there's a couple hundred download already is great I I have it's been a soft launch just to sort of work out the Kings so we haven't done a huge push for it um because there's always ks in technology are you considering local businesses be able to put events on there as well uh they would have to send to us but yes like if David Burke was doing something or the theater could they sell tickets through your app um they don't necessarily sell the tickets through here they would give me a link and then the link goes to wherever you know whatever website but it should be a very simple process um there's there's plenty of features I actually mentioned with Diane who was working on the trails committee there is an option to be able to put a Trails map and include those as well I'm listening to I'm just downloading your app fair enough thank you um it is all free there are no inet purchases or any of that um I mean at least not yet until somebody comes up with a great idea for us to be able to fund raise U but there are sponsorship opportunities so businesses certainly can sponsor the app and then it just you know helps support the app through year um so it was really cool it definitely took some time we had an intern this summer which is the most fabulous thing I want more interns we have internships available um love how our our intern racial is phenomenal um and she helped the content as well so it it it took a minute but it's there so that one was a really big one and this was not just a economic Vitality project obviously the the um design team worked on it as well with the history content and a number of other to our Solutions team so really great compehensive program how many download you so you have you a couple I haven't checked recently last time I checked were like 170 something um so I'm sure it's just slowly tripling without promoting it plan to sorry this is now you now you got things that I do so you're plan to put all restaurants on here you're going to have a reservation link to open table I would love to um as of right now I'm hesitant with getting everyone on there just automatically in the past I've had a business or two mentioning like that the idea of having a nap up for our kind of thanks I love that there you sign team chat we're always looking for volunteer um experience uh well it's a great promotional tool as well you know and the idea is to get as much at the Forefront of the community as possible at your fingertips and again you don't have to download it there is an option for just being on a website um so you can access the information are you pushing notifications out of it too as well P are you doing push notifications as well out of this yet or no um I don't know if it does that I don't functionality most of them have it built in so if I have the app you can you can tell me about everything I want to know about everything Burnsville yes but there is a when you go into settings there's a refresh app option where you may have to physically do it versus people can't resist the Little Red Dot I'll have to see their functionality and how far they can go with that but I'll definely check make sense if the walking tour is if if you're going to notify somebody that the walking tour is you would have to there's all kinds of things you do have to open you have to open the tour for it to tell you where where it where you are okay so it's up it pings you and tells you you're there it's when you open it it says oh you're standing in front of the old library history photos all stuff and then next for the next stop on the list so I don't I don't know about the pains but I'm sure they're always upd so really really it's a star hey that's what feedback is welcome across the board any questions so far any more of course promotions team working on our events for the year um like I said at the beginning it was a weird year um and I actually calm myself down a little bit in talking to my counterparts in other towns or there it's been weird for them too uh Cranford does the haunted history event just like us and there obviously with their history um and I spoke with Karen and she said what are your sales like and I said well not great she's like oh mine are not great either and we ended up selling the exact same amount of tickets so wasn't just us um so you know events were down there were three events that we canceled as a result of attendance being so low um our our golf outing it was the 5K as well attendance was I was very surprised at low registration um and then I remember Mr dinner we had to cancel those three events this year so not really a fan of canceling events but sometimes you lose more by keeping them up and yes that is my son pushing his power wheels into place with my younger son in can't resist that photos um but all in all the events that we did uh they were great ladies night was a phenomenal hit despite the fact that it was the end of July um and a million degrees and um usually no one's around but we had 75 of our tickets sold and I know that there were more ladies out there shopping and enjoying that didn't necessarily buy a ticket which you don't have to do um so that was really great so and of course our parid was I was shocked it was double probably quantity of people that attended this year and most likely because we were able to help with our sports teams and honoring our sports teams for all their accomplishments the St so was really great too um and having a bar at an event was a really great idea just saying that that would over really well Olivia with the Cranford tour thing was it their second year also yes okay yeah that might have something to do with it um Woodbridge has been doing it for 15 15 years you go once you 15 wood Woodbridge has been doing it for 15 years um we switched up the the route last year and then this year they're going to be new stories can't really change history so it's hard for a lot of the stories to change there were some new actors as well so sometimes it's a little bit different um but this year there's going be some new content so we're hoping to push a lot of that um and because it's our Centennial year we may focusing a lot more on the Speak Easy concept which I know Jane with concept history is really excited about doing lot of Speak Easy things this year so just randomly so you know we may kind of shift that aspect of it but if Woodbridge has been doing it for 15 years or's something that we said about it just being consistent and continuing on and even she said they were a little bit down the St too so it's um it's not isolated to us next please um I will tell anyone willing to listen that when you decide to Rebrand your company it is very challenging in a number of ways uh but also when you're doing it for a good reason uh it makes sense and you just have to be patient with it right um so we did we did do the Rebrand as a result of attempting to be more inclusive um a lot of folks said that downtown was one side of town downtown was off up square area uh no downtown's the whole C stor were concerned so switching to Main Street was just it was a Mis logical thing to do um so we did that starting in August it took certainly most took a lot of time uh website was new as a result and you know switching things over took some time but ultimately I'm finally starting to see the shift of response from people that they're understanding the difference some people still call Downtown that's okay um not gonna not going to shun you for saying that it's all good um but just over time it'll take a little bit more time for us to be a full understood as mainstream um so that that took a hot second last fall um we also did something sort of in the shadows um nothing really major just to see if there would be a response uh there's the share the Hy levo at the top this is something we learned about when we were at the conference in March last year um there's a town in Georgia Mak Ma I don't even know how to say Mason bacon that makes sense because you actually spell it like bacon with okay thank you for that um and they have this concept of having a hype team which essentially is an ambassador program um with t-shirts and swag and a whole bit they even have a really cute aspect of it called the hype hounds so there's like a little doggy bandanas whatever and they get folks to walk around town and share the excitement and the love and all the wonderful things that is in their Town um so I just created a little thing I made some stickers I made some magnets and I just put them out when we had events just to see if people would take it or they would ask and they did they took them they said what's this about I'm like oh you know we're Burnsville we want to share the love and oh this is awesome and they just took the magnets and they put them wherever um so uh stay tuned for that because we will be developing some sort of ambassador program moving forward I have a lot of people asking about volunteering but not being able to devote time for meetings and doing a lot of things so hype team is a really great place where you just put on your swag go to the farmers market for an hour and you just say hey here's some fun swag here take a pen here take a cup take a you know whatever you have questions we doing in bville y I got my M there you go see really good friends actually um so we're really we're really looking forward to creating more of of that ambassador showell program moving forward okay Anthony next so we can wrap up as much as possible here uh I just left this list here I'm not going to go through the whole thing um but we were able to have some great connections with a lot of different organizations we sponsored the ball club last year which we're looking forward to doing again this year um you know working with the burrow on the Centennial Lo contest um working with the burville news on their holiday answerer and a number of other things so um we're we're really focused quite a lot on those those relationships and working together with um organizations and I was so excited to break the barrier with New Jersey Transit this year um and they have still continued to reach out to me so what barrier did you break getting them to respond okay well not only are they responding but they keep following up with me okay vers Chase New Jersey Transit a giant they are they are you can say different words but I chose to keep them on as far as the verification component goes they're very responsive so we're really excited it depends on what department you're do we got we have a good one so far so I'm I'm going to that it and we did it so um and then our fundraising uh we did we did okay considering there were two things that we worked towards last year that we did not receive um the T-Mobile Hometown Grant we did not receive and of course the district as but despite that we were able to raise some some funds to help me for our events and our app and all the other items that you see on the list so far and congrats on the 40 under 40 oh thanks technically just made it just made it technically I think the they messed up with the cut off date but we're not going to talk about it don't me did did you get your ax in this target no I'm terrible at that but it f I couldn't do anything they had an event for all the 40 under 40 of thank you at the uh Hatchet House yes it was uh end of last week it was a networking event that they they all invited us to and it was great I met the couple folks from Lynch which is awesome basically you just say you slid in blue tag there also there and they made me sick anyway moving on uh so 2023 it was great it was weird we had a lot of lessons learned successes failures you name it but that's the nature of Life forget business and all that as well um so now we're looking towards the future so 2024 we're focusing right now um in the next three months specifically on this phase one and phase two of a transformation strategy plan in October I also went out to Washington State um where Main Street America was holding a um a workshop in specifically researching Two Towns out there one that had 1500 a Main Street town that had 1500 people and then Vancouver Washington which was forget how many people a lot more than that in the T of thousand um and then just understanding what they're all doing in their different phases and understanding the concept of a transformation strategy which I had known previously but this really immersed me a lot more into the topic um so what we're working on right now and many of you you hopefully have seen it we have our survey Community survey out again we did this a few years back but it's always good to refresh um the community survey will close at the end of the month and we will be focusing on uh trying to understand the priorities of the community what their pain points are and really listening to our community in that process we'll also be gathering um some more number data U not just demographics but Sher data um I don't know have any of you heard of Placer AI yes I you have because I I'm talking about it Nancy you have as well uh we may be able to actually get it just the brand so um Place Ori is a fairly new it's been around for a few years but it's a fairly new version of being cell phone location data um it does not get personal information or any of that but it helps track where folks are coming from how long they're staying here where they're going next why they leave town why they come here um we can pinpoint to a very specific business and say hey business you had a million people walk through your door this year um and it's it's accurate information so um Main Street America is actually helping us with this part of the uh strategy plan and Gathering all of that data and one of the representatives is coming out from Chicago to Bernardsville to help us gather all of this data disseminate information from the survey um work with some focus groups and do number I'll mention that on the next slide as well a number of other elements that we're going to put together a strategy based on all of this information to tell us what we're going to be doing for the next 3 to5 years one question yeah so you get data and aggregate about traffic in a variety of ways does it link to other third party databases in regards to things like demographic income yeah yes um specifically for Placer it's proprietary so I don't know what third parties are but they um they do use that as part of gathering their data Russ yeah it's it's actually I'm not doing it justice right now and we don't have time to talk about it we can talk privately but it's it's really it's really cool and as a marketing data nerd like I'm in love and if they ask if they have the ability to compare Ag and an aggregate to other communities of like size that be a huge thing for business grow so yeah in New Jersey and all over we can really do it um so ultimately we will be creating this road map of what our projects are going to be what our future business support our events and any other programming you know if we decide that a car show is not really appropriate when we have a million boutiques and salons in town then we maybe won't do the car show anymore you know that's what this information is going to help let us know or because the community loves the car show we'll keep it on anyway because it's a community F you know whatever whatever the answers will be from that and then phase two is going to go hand in hand with phase one but it's going to work on uh all getting those detail plans being specific down the tasks when they're due how much things cost um Gathering a stronger volunteer program getting more volunteers to join and support um and really getting the the program that we've already started and set a foundation for really rolling on a much larger scale when you speak to them can you ask if they can advertise direct aka the same way that Amazon does based on your web traffic these systems exist so if you had the ability through geot tracking to push somebody into a certain Boutique just because they happen to be in town the technology I didn't look at it that way but yeah the technology exists and I'm guessing whose company can do it place there's more of the Gathering of the data not so much the pushing of you can do X Y or z um so they'll they'll tell you more of a story based on what you see versus them making you be able to do something as a result you choose to do the things as a result of the data that you find independently of that company if that makesense no these things are they all exist just figure out which company you're working yeah no uh I believe that yeah this one does not okay please um and so the the tasks that we're doing I mentioned already you know we're doing the survey now be doing the data Gathering um we'll be working on some focus groups sometime in February we'll have a big idea session where the community will directly um be able to share their ideas we we'll do sort of a main street mockup in a way where we'll kind of break people up into groups of different uh teams and they'll be coming up with ideas and all of that and then once we gather all of this information together we'll be able to build a really strong strategy for the next three to five years um and then of course phase two is going to include you know developing our volunteer program a little bit more um and obviously having some recruitment sessions so we can get more folks on board any questions or any okay last but not least money yay um so to be frank we have never actually um put together a budget in this format before um this is somewhat new for us because we've never really known what we were doing previously you know we would come up with some ideas for projects and events and we would execute them and do them as we could and gather funding for them along away or maybe we would find a grant and say well what can we do with this Grant and then we would create the project and you know there would be some sort of format um so we've never really understood that until this year um we are very very very happy to report that Main Street New Jersey is this past year their Grant was $27,000 but for 2024 it's going to be $150,000 so um again grants are mostly for programming so we can't really use it for overhead costs or at least that's what um I hav been aware of up until this point they haven't released their information exactly on what's going on with it so that may change if it does cool that's awesome but U for now let's roll of the IDE like grants until cover overheads for the most part um so uh in addition to that you know hoping that we have some really solid programming budgeted amounts for our programming throughout the year and then obviously our office expenses hiring somebody in the office um because this really isn't a one person job at minimum it should be one and a half people two um and and really having some folks that we can rely on in the office as well whether it's me someone else both of us whatever the case may be um so that's really what we're we're focusing on moving forward can these numbers change will these numbers change absolutely especially depending on our strategy and what we come up with as I mentioned in the last two slides uh our program Services numbers may change um you know maybe economic Vitality needs to be 40 and promotions needs to be 20 or whatever the case may be things will shift as as needed um so with that um we up until this point over the last three years the burrow has finally provided $12,000 for us each year um Steven number each year and the agreement was for those three years and now I'm back to see if we could do some more um and yes we obviously were ask for more because they've been stagnant numbers over the last three years they weren't incrementally growing things change and we want to do more um so we are asking for 50 to start 50,000 if the bur would be willing to do so I know this is a conversation this is not a I'm having an answer tonight so I know this is a thing um but that's where we would love to start if that's something that the would be willing to do with us so the big projects for you next year you talked about two phases do you have other Capital Andor capital is not the right word word um so you outline projects with budget in the beginning that you did last year do you have a similar plan for for this year that's what the strategy plan is going to tell us um and that strategy plan will be complete by March um so we'll we'll be able to tell you exactly what what the plan is because we don't want to just what we've been doing previously is just you know let's let's get more people in a town so we focus on this concept of Tourism and you know restaurants and dining experiences to get folks to come in which is where the history tour came came from and where Restaurant Week came through and all of that right those focused on that kind of but that doesn't necessarily mean that's the right thing for us to be focusing on you know three three years from now we'll probably do this again and determine that there's something new or if not maybe it's just keep rolling what we're doing um but the idea is to really get a comprehensive look at what the community needs what we what we want um uh independent of of Redevelopment obviously you know this those things are still occurring and we'll work with whatever whatever that is entailing over the next few years but programming needs to occur whether that's happening or not um so it's it's really important that this this follows through one way or another it's Economic Development and its finest so um it's important that whatever we choose to do make it happen yes the survey is great have you gotten a good feedback on it like response I have posted it once on social media and I sent it once in an email and we have 110 responses so far um we have a postcard ready to go to all the mailboxes and we'll obviously be continuing to do more of a push I actually will be at the farm market on Saturday um to encourage folks to answer the survey I actually will have a big um poster of sorts where people can put stickies on it and just sort of engage a little bit more as well so we'll encourage people to come to the farmers market if they're not already to be able to answer it there as well and we have extra question question for people to take too so I think the survey is very thorough that was that was supported by Main Street America as well yeah it's good um National has had their eyes on us for some time because they keep being really loud at all of the national events that go on and saying where you need to come cuz New Jersey's program is just not as strong as it could be um and so they're listening so I'm really excited about that yeah thank you question anybody else questions just it's excellent great presentation and really kudos to you and the committee and the board and all the great work this year um and setting this up for day 24 so thanks for the great grp thank you thanks yeah very well done anybody else want talk need to talk together about all that technical talk sh talk sh so because look I I've always been skeptical about how much value downtown can tangibly bring Main Street burners sorry to to the businesses however technology platforms like that could have an instant return uh yes it's one of many things right like a marketing strategy you can't just do one advertisement and think that you're going to get a whole bunch of business you have to do multiple things to generate business right the hard thing is knowing where your customer is sometimes yes especially for someone like us because technically and I hate it I cringe when I say it everyone is our Market that's like the worst thing it's not true but this entire town is our Market and then we're also trying to engage visitors right we're trying to get folks to come in from other towns so that's where having different types of events comes into play because you're appealing to different markets yeah um and then your um your business Community is obviously very important so having a fashion show is going to make more sense all the goods we have well so I just quickly looked at the website where you were talking I have a feeling that they may have that ability so for example if we could measure foot traffic that is a demographic that would shop at a boutique yes and also Market to them through either Aid adjacent there may be an adjacent Place uh place or AI is expensive yeah um to be able to access on a regular basis I'm hoping that with our grant for Main Street this year that we will be able to use funding to be able to at least access it for the next year and obviously we would love to continue that moving forward um yeah I've been quoted about $20,000 for the year to be able to access place for data is say data is the only that's relevant anymore no no it's again it's a piece of the PT people are relevant that's and that's a thing people are relevant and that's the most important thing for us you have to find get to them and that so good yeah all right thank you thank you much yes well done thank you and next we have our chief who's going to give us an update on the uh cameras the uh license plate readers I'm glad you said update because you said presentation earlier I'm sorry and then again you said 45 minutes combined right so she used I'm waiting to hear the police Farmers markting game yes well it's our 100th year just like getting new patches soon um I stood here uh about a month ago we talked about rise in car um and what you know what can we do about it um from our perspective from the from the police department side we knew um Manpower wise we don't have a lot of officers here we don't have a lot of officers who work in night shift but how can we better deploy um and make a difference in some neighborhoods that we're seeing arise um and I think councilman rera can probably attest that we put some good efforts into an area that was getting particularly hard to hit and I think we made a difference um there was some folks there that experienc a little anxiety and I think it was our responsibility to try to allay that uh anxiety and I think we did a good job um the extra trolls that we put in those areas going forward though I think we talked about uh the license plate readers and to try to get a little update where we're at um um and talking to the mayor recently the mayor and the mayor group is wanted the area she used to get together and I think that's the best way for us to go forward is try to be uh on the same page as the area towns as far as what type of places PL readers are getting where are we deploying them um I don't think we can share in the cost I think the cost is going to be our own to share um but where we can share with the other channel is being on the with the same vendor we can share information and share it instantaneously um and I think that's the best thing we can do as the group the consensus we're coming to and that's talking to the cheap burners Township uh Bedminster Far Hills Pac um just the area Chiefs here to see what you know what they're going to do and we're going to do I know burner's Township is making a very very strong conserved effort to put um somewhere between 10 and 20 licensed plate readers um in their Town that's only going to help us especially if we partner with the same vendor they are um we've already talked myself and chief berer um about sharing that those alerg when they come up um I think we talked about how this happens but um if we're lucky enough for a stolen car to come in town and get that alert it's going to be instantaneous so um we share a large border with Bernard's Township so to be able to um share with them is certainly going to help how do we do this I think buying it was one way um leasing it was another I believe uh looking into it the leasing program probably is the best way to go with these cameras right now because we don't see a real big difference um than what are we paying for we know it's just a tool and Tool help so it's not going to um solve things 100% but I think it's going to make a difference um whether we start out with three cameras or four cameras um I think it's going to make a little bit of a difference um where we put them Charlie I know you had that question for me I'm not going to deul that now but secret I don't think secret tell the world that's one thing I came to you know I when you ask that question in the email I said to myself I don't really want to tell them right now but the end of the day that camera's going to be so obvious to everybody it's going to be public so um once we determine where they go I think everybody's going to see them eventually realize it's one thing if it's me driving around the same road it's something different if it's some other dude just R TR P yeah you know you don't right um but I think the obvious areas are the inroads in the town um just so we can get people coming into town these with this technology um apparently the state highway is a little challenging right now so we're probably going to focus on the county roads and the local roads as opposed to using the state highway um I don't know this to be fact but I was told um by somebody very reliable at the prosecutor's office that the state is about to um put a big influx of money onto the into the state highways um with a large outlay of license plate meter cameras all over the state don't know how long that project's going to take and I think if you're if you're right about it you might even want to see if somebody down there will talk about it I know they passed the big budget number in 22 for a large outlay of licens player readers in the state um so I don't know where they are with project um but I think that would be helpful to us too because we'll be able to partner on that information if somebody drives into town with a license plate that comes up with stolen is that sufficient for a stop or do you have to find another infraction no that's perfectly sufficient and I think what we're finding out is those alerts whether um we have our alerts come to the computers the officer cars or to our desk or to both I think those alerts will be instantaneous um as we talked about in the past the cameras are are only as good as um what the bad guys's driving or or who's registered in that car if it's not a stolen car or it was just stolen in another jurisdiction not reported stolen it's not going to help us um but um I know I don't know if anybody had a chance to read it but I passed on some information from um the watch on Chief recently Chief Anderly and he wrote um a nice description of their experience with a certain vendor um one that we are considering and he's only about seven months into his program and he's he's had a significant reduction in uh regies and Auto Effects in this town just from implementing five or six cameras in their town and they're looking to do a couple more right now so um he said the experience he's had has been great with it um he finds his officers it's really helpful uh to to do their job to have those instantaneous lerts so um like I said it's not going to solve every problem but I think it's going to make a difference and I think starting out we talked about whether it's you know three cameras or four cameras or something that effect it's certainly going to make a difference um where we put them um in addition the roads is a little challenging we need power you need solar so it's just determining where we want them and can we don't have an existing pole we might have to pay a little extra to put a pole in but um are they easy to relocate if we determine that a different yeah there's a fee that goes with the relocation I mean it I think it was like 750 bucks to relocate to decide that's not working but I don't you know I don't think if something is better somewhere else I don't I didn't think it was something you know um yeah I know I think uh we're moving forward and however the council decides you know let me know and we'll we'll certainly move forward with the project we just decide I think the the good part about leasing too is the technology changes so fast that you will always have updated cameras rather than buying them and then having to yeah the one specific vendor we're we're focusing on that we're talking to a lot um is it seems like their Technologies far ahead of everybody else's right now so you know hopefully um they stick with it and they keep producing and I know you know a lot of these uh you buy them I don't know outlay 20 30 40 $50,000 for a bunch of cameras and and you don't get any impact on it it's probably not the way we want it going to rate all the back we try to keep it low and I think you know we'll see if they're they seem to get their money's worth then we can we can make a different decision later on yeah um just three comments first of all I'm glad really glad you passed the information Not only was it interesting to see it but councilman amberine asked last time if we had any tangible examples of it actually in practice so it was really helpful to see that absolutely the neighborhood I live in was very grateful for the um uh took up of police presence also know um Sergeant Richards came by and met with the community met with a lot of uh um homeowners there um you know Aller support from the police how to J sort of uh I would say quasi neighborhood watch they maybe not official um and uh I think they were just grateful for the attention of the police department so thank you and I been really um it's been really great to work with you and Nancy on this project and the members of council I do think that this would make a big difference and I'm really grateful you move so quickly over the holidays and all to take a look at this and work with the other um Chiefs in the area too um I'd be interested in trying to expedite it as quickly as possible I mean the cost for three was roughly 9,000 plus the ination fee I believe it was underneath we should give ourselves a little cushion you just to make sure you know we have to put up a hole or something pay utility company H us up to power I mean just have a little Cushing you know whether that's 10 or 12 or whatever it is I think be fine we have Jack this probably just a resolution this just just you don't I don't think we have to actually do we have to be part of the budget put it in the budget be budget depends when but the problem is the budget doesn't get p you want it right now so if you want to do it we have to amend temporary budget probably I don't think we have anything in there that could be us for that so we could do it at the next meeting it's three weeks too long I mean I guess by the time you like I I'm just concerned that it's next month and then you put the order in and then it be two or three months before it's actually here you yeah I think the one vendor and I'm sure they're all the same they told me about 8 weeks out once you commit and weeks out right so I don't know if every going to wait three more months I'm sure in place operating temporary budget there's probably room because we can always amend that the next right so if you want to go Ahad and Order okay and you don't need a resolution or anything we can just go ahead and give the thumbs up I guess I this is the jack question I guess based on the ordinance that you're introducing tonight I think I can have heard it that's right yeah yeah I I agree okay okay so yeah excellent okay put the order thank you so much to you you'll feel really great about the step and giv you a tool where it goes right definely good tool technology you can't run away from I mean it's going to be helpful and we'll do our best for it keep let us know how many folks get pull over and put the CL well you know that's be inter that's what one of the one of the things Chief Andre Le from watch on when I asked him you know he he was able to provide a lot of Statistics he said but you know it's interesting I don't have everything because we've all been doing for seven months but he plans um once the year goes by I think in June or so he said he's gonna he's going to do a whole um spreadsheet on the differences made and how many card stock they've had out it and how many the crimes they've stopped so I think it's you know come up with a B numbers talk you know the waren the same thing um they believe they've had about a 50% reduction in in auto theft um since the Imp implementation of their cameras so it's making a difference and I think it'll make a difference here too awesome excellent thank you thank you all right appreciate being here right have good night good night thank you all right we have minutes to approve November 13th November 27th December 11th and December 26th do I have a motion I'll move second all in favor I hi opposed okay um we now have our first open session for any items not listed for a public hearing anyone in the public wish to be heard yes Aaron hi uh Aaron 51 CR drive I have a few questions about the um proposed uh Appo housing payment L ordinance um that's being introduced tonight um was discussed during the uh the last work session just some questions that came up um that ordinance that's being amended was originally passed in 2018 um to implement obligations that the burrow undertook as part of its um settlement of its third round foral housing obligations with a fair share housing center um essentially it undertook to pass certain doning ordin es um to fair share of satisfaction that would stimulate affordable housing construction of the bur based on that settlement agreement went to court got our judment oppos um so my first question is in so much as this new um ordinance amends that um does the burrow intend on providing that to fair share and and the court um to assure itself that it's not in violation of the selling agreement not jeopardizing the Judgment of the propos um pursuant to its uh it's second the uh Amendment impacts the rounding um formula that's in the statute it's in the current ordinance um so it's uh the amendment the uh proposed amendment cites um the co-regulations that are Incorporated by reference into the statute that allows for payment in L and that's founded njac C 597 uh subsection 6.4 provides that ordinances may allow the developer the option of making a payment in L of providing the whole of fraction affordable units required by the zoning subject to the following subsection one payments in lie of constructing affordable units may represent fractional affordable units the affordable housing requirement shall shall not be rounded so not not the clearest regulation I've ever read but I think the universal interpretation of that has been that your payments in L can can um take into consideration fractional units happy unit okay I'll take half of my unit based P your affordable hous side effects cannot which is why your ordinance that was approved by fair share in 2018 and every other ordinance that I found in any municipality New Jersey when you're talking about set asdes unit number set asdes they need to um the whole number so if you have any um percentage uh of set aside calculation that results in a fraction um they need to provide units at the next whole number um so I would look into that to see if there's any Authority that the uh Municipal attorney can find that would justify or any other ordinance in the municipality allows for rounding down flal set asdes um finally the uh there was discussion that while this only applies to um smaller um last question um smaller uh developments residential developments um that the buau had some authority to um essentially disregard I guess the mandatory stde language in the ordinance and allow for payments in Li um with respect to larger developments residential developments uh and I was you know also just curious as to where the authority um where that comes from um you know whether it's statutory whether it's in the code or elsewhere U where it applies to the larger um developments that aren't captured by this amendment thanks thank you Aron I I can answer those questions mayor can you all hear me thanks you can't can't see me but there's a good reason for that uh first uh just by way of background that there really is no Authority at the present time the co rule expired years ago now uh so the court said just look to the co rules for guidance secondly the this ordinance any units that it provided were above and beyond uh the Township's fair share obligation so it's was really a voluntary ordinance uh third with respect to the uh amount um as as Mr Duff said that was set by the old uh Co rule but the um as to the rounding there is no rule uh in in place at the present time uh so we just felt that it was Impractical to require small developments 10 or fewer units to provide affordable housing on site it's very difficult to do with respect to the rounding rule uh we did discuss making it fractional and we could still do that uh but the way it was written before was it always got rounded up uh which in the case of some small developments like a you know an 8 unit development uh became very unfair uh because 15% was 1.2 rounded up was two so if you had an eight unit development you ended up having to provide 25% uh set aside instead of 15% set aside so that's the rationale behind the ordinance uh there's no specific legal Authority uh but I think it's in keeping with the spirit of Mount Laurel 3 thank you Jack at the end of the day there's going to become a date when they tell us how much more or less we have to do well there's a there's a bill pending in the legislature now which the rumor is it's going to be adopted by the end of February it's a terrible bill it it looks like it was written by fair share housing it was released in the middle of the night immediately sent a committee U so I know the league is fighting it the old old uh more abund uh Consortium has been fighting it with their leftover funds so we'll see what happens but it's not it's not very favorable at the municipalities it's not really a fair Bill all right uh anyone else from the public wish to be heard no yeah there doesn't look like okay um then I will close the public hearing all right um we have an introduction of ordinances um this is 2024 1989 so let's see construction code please Chad why don't you do that sure and move ordinance 2024 1989 ordinance concerning instruction code fees and amending chapter 12 of burough code entitled building and housing be introduced by title passing first reading publish according the law and that a public hearing be scheduled for meeting meeting beginning 7 p.m. M 6:24 second all in favor I I opposed all right moving on to hand it go ahead Christine I move that ordinance 20241 1990 an ordinance concerning of portable housing set aside and supplementing and amending Article 13 of the buau of Land Development regulations entitled affordable housing be introduced by title passed on first reading published according to and that a public hearing be scheduled for a meeting beginning at 700 p.m. Monday February 26 2024 second all in favor opposed um I move that ordinance 2024 1991 sorry an ordinance concerning Towing contractors amending article three of the bur code entitled police regulations be introduced by title pass on first reading published according to law public caring be scheduled for meeting beginning at 7M Monday February 26 2024 second all in favor I opposed all right Tina think the last I move that ordinance 2024 1992 an ordinance concerning the qualified purchasing agents responsibilities and amending article three the B code entitled Administration the introduced by title passed on first reading published according to law and then public hearing be scheduled for a meeting beginning at 7 p.m. Monday February 26 2024 second all in favor I I any opposed none all right moving on to resolutions we have 2423 to 2435 and I think we had two more at the end actually 37 um because these two the last two 36 and 37 uh we did not discuss at the work meeting but they're pretty standard we had just overlooked this Leo at say they had requested it but we didn't hav't well they pay for it um and then we needed another labor person for public work so they're pretty standard uh I think all the rest we discussed at the work meeting so if someone would like to move them I move that resolutions 2423 to 2436 be adopted second roll call please Mr yes Mr yes Mr yes Mr R yes yes okay um mayor's report um since we last met well had our first public meeting um I've done two weddings I actually did married Andy at the coffee shop in the coffee shop it was really nice uh we cleaned up the REITs from REITs Across America we had a main street board meeting where we kind of reviewed this whole yearend summary um Nancy and I met with Chris Schmidt who is now the new president of the law enforcement Foundation um just to go over how they can purchase things and what kinds of things they're looking for and we are so grateful for that organization they have really been raising a lot of money and doing a lot of good things for our officer so um and then I had a a county stigma free meeting on the 19th just a reminder THS next Thursday no this Thursday 1:15 no today 2:15 I'm sorry it's 2:15 for those that want to um you probably got the invitation to Somerset County governing officials Association and actually this is a brand new place I just saw they're doing a ribbon cting there in Ren so if you want to try a new restaurant and uh I forget who they have as the speaker but they always have a good B Craig B he's the administrator in B's G talk about elected official responsibilities oh yeah okay yeah they always have good programs um and then a reminder the mini golf on February 3rd at the library I got my tickets don't forget to sign up it's really if you've never been it's it's a lot of fun so highly recommend it um that's it for me administr oh yeah yes I'm also appointing the um advisory committee and actually I had one more person to add on there um Jim Sasso wanted to be on so we add him and we have not we haven't scheduled our first meeting of the year yet so we need to do that just want to check on people's availability okay okay I just wanted to answer some questions that some of you had at the last meeting I get back to you on um there are no Park Mobile signs up in the train station ver just up the picture pay by phone they're both green and white and black so confuse me um somebody asked about Audi um there is electricity but no heat and I asked about the danger of you know frozen pipes but there's no water in the pipes so um and you asked about maintenance there and uh DPW pulls weeds um make sure that it's clean of garbage they clear the sidewalk of snow and they plow and then you had asked about the um status of boil and terrorists and um the new engineer signed up for the class that the federal government requires you to take and um are you asked about the status of the bid for um The Pavilion and that is supposed to go out around the end of February so then work would begin or at some point in May but um there's some things we need to work out with the timing of when the work will be done day versus night things like that so I think that that will go out as an alternate for all the work during the day or work at night like how much extra cost and then you can decide if you want to spend extra money to have the work at night do that would interfere with school if we get it during school time or be to the pool because that just yeah and then um I think that was all the questions that you had that I need to get back to on and then I just wanted to mention so that you know uh this train station waiting area um is closed to the public because two portions of the ceiling fell and actually broke one of the bench the bench you know the big long bench that's there I'm not sure if it's an antique bench I think it's the original bench original bench and it it broke the bench so fortunately nobody you're sitting there at the time um because of the weather last couple weeks DPW has not been able to get in and do any temporary fixes but they we are looking to expedite repairing because we recognize it's cold now and public in place to stay when they're waiting for a train um so uh you John's working to get a contractor in there to do something shortterm then we have to talk longer term about [Music] remind me who's responsible for yeah I know Jack is that um us or is that New Jersey Transit if it's structural I would look to New Jersey Transit yeah think it's there uh for the temporary um you know kind of short they're looking to us to do that right but if we the roof to replace the roof itself that would be that's them right joh I agree yeah yeah so um unless they want to barter and give us the train station we've tried that I'm not sure why they won't but yeah it' be the best we're all involved negotia yeah Che your contact with they give us the building get out of our way forever we'll keep trying all right thank you um do I have a motion to accept the monthly reports we had in our packet um a second all in favor all right um have we had any committee meetings Public Safety we did meet with Public Safety we talked about the B budget time we did I'm not the chair anymore oh that's right J J but Jay's not here yeah I mean so we met um I think we have a really interesting path and good path to a budget that involves I don't want to reveal the punch Lin getting close to revealing it the council right answer that fair to say yeah yeah um actually have more information on Wednesday so we have a meeting Wednesday no we don't have a meeting but I'm gonna get some more information in the bud Ah that's right that's an important thing but there's a path there's a good path I think we've taken a slightly different approach Kos nancing she's done a fantastic job on the internals and bless of' wel excellent uh Personnel we have not met yeah um Public Works I'm not on it anymore Public Works has not met we don't even have it scheduled actually yet well yeah talk to um Christine earlier we're looking at the second Tuesday so I have to check with Tony and John make sure and well the rest of the members on do we want to I'm just thinking the way we've changed our structure of meetings is to have the committee meetings before our work meeting so if there's an issue that comes up at the committee meeting we can discuss it at work and then if we need to take action rather than having them after this meeting you yeah the second if they the second it used to be the third Tuesday then we can discuss we discuss and we don't need a room because it's Zoom yeah we do those on okay that makes sense um any other liaison reports I don't know if everybody's kicked in their meetings yet no I mean we had a meeting for planning board unfortunately um I I'll talk about com I'm going to go through pretty tough Pat work so I've been traveling four nights a week for since Thanksgiving and so I'm going to do my anybody else you Board of Health we did have Board of Health thing put in the new president and secretary new updated L Francine back in as president secretary and yeah pretty unal otherwise okay um contract and we got covered reported um we don't have any correspondents we do have um just under unfinished business um last at our work meeting we had a request from Harrington to use the lot across the street we asked them to check first with Far Hills since they most of the work will be in Far Hills um they did and there is no space available where they can keep their dirt or whatever they want to put um so I would recommend that we allow them to do this while it's still available at some point it won't be but while it is so this is a Far Hills project no it's actually 202 they'll be coming up 202 so but majority was in farill we asked them to go to farill first I guess they did yeah farill didn't have a spot for them um how what's the length of time again oh yeah I'm Tot so yeah that it was important to check but want to be good neighbors yeah well we yeah good we're good okay um any new business I don't think we have any new business but we do have another Open session so if anyone didn't get a chance earlier um i' like to speak on a subject see none I will close the public session um we do have uh contract negotiations to discuss in close session I I also have two items to discuss briefly mayor the train station Su and 261 Claremont ah okay I'll be brief you always are I have a motion for executive executive all in favor I I all right we're not find coming out right no we don't have to come back so um thank you all for being here thank you those that were on Zoom