give him just a few seconds to get on I believe I just got a text from Rob alas he was jumping on [Laughter] Rob yeah I I was GNA make time sprinting up the hill looks is on the plan for minute so she she couldn't match up the times um all right let's go i' like to call the special meeting of the bota board of education for July 30th 2024 please stand for the flag Sal to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure the right of the public to have advaned to attend the meetings of the public bodies at which any business affecting is discussed or acted aart provision pleas act the go to board of education has CA no that this be published by have the agenda take time and place there off posted in The Bona bur Hall communicated by letter to the record f with the of of the and PO on thetion Mr hereare abent Mr alest pres Mr Chavez present Mrs Cruz present Mr Navaro present M Mrs solivo present M record present Mr present we have the Corum that works circulation difference okay also pres superintendent attorne board attorney Thomas kov School business administrator board secretary ER and assistant board secretary she's not here oh I'm sorry and absent is secretary Elizabeth Ruiz I'd like to open the floor to hearing on of the citizens on theenda items only do I have a motion to move Mrs olal do I was that a second Mrs Rock yes any board discussion all in favor any opposed does any member please state your name you have five minutes to address agenda items only hello hi good evening and uh thank you for the a I'm Susan Harper um I am first just like to file an objection concerning the agenda today the agenda that's on that was online is different from the agenda that's here this one's more specific this is general and it does not put the public on notice with respect to what the um what this board is going to be discussing further further um I saw that there were no documents linked at all for this meeting although it seems like that there are several agreements and grants deed notices that may be related to some sort of environmental issue deed modifications as well as other deed notice regarding flood Hazard none of these were um posted online to put the uh to put the public on notice and finally um with respect to these uh with respect to these a lot of the this this particular project because it relates to this as everybody can see it's exceptionally hot out we're in the hottest time period I'm not making this up people climatologists have said this over and over again New Jersey is heating faster than any state in this um in this uh in the country because the waters are rising and the idea of the fact that this board is going to cut down all these shade trees when we see people who are playing outside every single day who are sitting underneath there including all the school kids who are the recreation kids um you know who are going to the camp as well as all the soccer kids who are there every day I invite you to come down and take a look for yourself and feel the real feel down there as a resident it is exceptionally hot it is hot and the president Mr Miranda just turned around and opened up all the windows and you have AC here please please take this in consideration thank you can you address yeah um so when you have a special meeting what needs to be posted is the agenda to the extent known okay um I think your comments done yes thank okay so you uh published the agenda to the extent known on the agenda that was published the titles of the resolutions are on the agenda and one of them we're not going to move 3.5 we don't need to move tonight so that one's not going to be moved but that's all that needs to be done to comply with the open public meetings act so the agenda that was put out there to the papers complies with the open public meetings act the documents that are approved in a meeting okay are not public documents until they're approved okay so to put them out there to the world you don't need to do that to comply with the law boards sometimes will do that on certain things but you don't need to do that it's it's bad practice in fact to do that because things can change there are documents that are what's called deliberative under the open public meetings law until they're adopted okay so everything we've done here and we're going to do here is in compliance uh with the open public meetings act okay and what what we're doing here is this project has been approved by the town by the board it's been a long time in coming these are some procedural Hoops that we have to jump through based on the D's permit so these are like a uh a conservation restriction deed that needs to be followed to memorialize the Public's right to certain access along the river that exists anyway we're just the DP is making us put it in a deed notice that's one of these documents the amended uh shared services agreement is being amended based on what the D wants the D wants to be indemnified things of that nature so we're doing things like that they want to make sure that both parties the burrow and the and and the board are going to comply with the um three acres restrictions that are on the burrow property so they wanted certain other things put in that the term of that is now going to be 15 years with a 10 year renewal as opposed to what we approved back in I guess April which was 25 years um so it'll be 15 and and 10 which is fine and the deed notices have to do with the fact that um because of the river being there the DP wants to put the public on notice that you shouldn't part you got to be careful if you park down there there is a situation with flooding and you can't have people inhabiting any structures down there that's one of the deed notices okay the other deed notice has to do with that there's a storm water management system which is essentially a screen over gutters it's very uh non-complicated very rudimentary that's the storm water runoff the Burrow's going to do one of those too and the bur's going to do all these deed notices except the conservation point so these are all Hoops we got to jump through for the DP and to start construction on the 1 we needed to have a special meeting tonight to get this these some of these Deeds recorded so there's Noir condition the record uh Mr ter toin explaining we in compliance secondary we do not have that here that's why we open the window to circulate the A and third and foremost um although I've been away I have several text messages phone calls uh parents children who are and I know I'm not the only one because you're all asking me every day what are weing around every single parent that I have gone into has basically said when are you breaking and doing our parts our parts the words are not the parts our parts so to reference or elude that there's people suffering or that there may be a possibility I get it and I totally understand it um that's not the case the parents want Parks the parents want parks people who are joging elderly people that I've met senior citizen age they want something to walk on they can't walk on what exist um I want to say though that you know I know this board is exhausted with this discussion I know you're exhausted I'm exhausted I've been having the meetings with BP two and a half hours recently and we've had to answer a lot of questions I think it's it's actually worse for trials and this is the worst I've ever seen and you know they made mention that a lot you know there's just a handful of people really trying to Dag to this project um and then and that the best thing that I felt about I just can't see why we can't come together here and trying our best I think on three occasions they said that it's unusual to see a board of education and the town working together like this isn't that accurate they said it's just so unusual they can you know they just said it's a word worth it's really nice it's a beautiful pH that you're working together because nothing that we've done hasn't been by way of discussion with the both entities at the bur anything that we try to do is all of been and we have further you know just so you know we're doing everything we can to protect those trees and and and they're going to be that's the key we're going to going to cut out move the walkway we're trying to do the best we can however um it was also brought up that a license onist I'm an attorney an engineer license off said that those trees P danger in the future that they're dying that in order to raise a bit out of elevation I don't have to go through it again because I am actually very exhausted I'm hoping this is actually BEC a good thing at some point in our lives in M uh but you know one of the things I want to point out there was a a mild discussion about what would it be as a budgetary confinement to the board Etc um I mean to the council the mayor coun the bur right GRE bur it's funny because the biggest tax R is here the children of the future are here but there's an entity protecting them and we're here protecting ourselves from own residence no really so it's funny how that plays out but one of the things that came up was if there was an extra expense are they not a going to be able to afford other parts and I think that people often talk abouts in a very broad plan we only have one part and and I said what expense it's one it's all we have this is all we have there's nothing we can do for all we have this is how small this this is what we have it's either very disgusting and broken the way it is or we enhance it and make it better and you know you can tell they were like oh that's right it's a square mile down one so it's so hard everybody when you only have one we have playgrounds but we only have one part and and this boy commitment the administration to share theud um and they were that too they just so impressed that we're actually working on communicating and I got to tell you you know it's not just the board everybody on the council at least for the most part and everybody here we're all working together compe it has this breathing everybody's on it everybody's let's go so it's a beautiful thing I don't want I don't want you know this stred that at the end of the day this little town is work together and it's and as it was stated it's not it's rare and almost unusual so so I just want to put that out there this is this is a beautiful thing whether the parks trees work together every should work together all right motion second in I think what you referring to notice but where I out the agenda that's so you're refering of the meeting we excuse me the agenda I'm looking at on what it's printed out do the agenda what you you have in your other hand is the Bo know of the meeting that's telling you about the meeting special meeting when it's a special meeting we have to list why we are meeting is not a normal sched meeting that's why it list those four things on the board agenda is online that's always that's where you can always find that it's just that we're doing our uniform s big spe Smo went out for the parents I believe it is uh 7th and 8th it is August 6 7th and 8th so that'll be happen that BX school I believe 27 that went out I'll be resending that out tomorrow and the principal will sending that out okay so we're not moving 3.5 moving on to1 Section you got to approve we have to approve yes motion which one of us is it I don't know have a second Alvarez Alvarez any board discussion call Mrs Al yes Mrs Alber Mr Alber yes Mr Chavez yes Mr Cruz yes Mr Navaro yes Mrs Oliver yes M ret yes Mr Miranda carry it motion carry thank move it on to1 you didn't do 36 did you do 36 became 3or 36 became 35 got it got it yep I'll call me alare all in favor your name you have five minut so um with respect to uh the amended restated shared services agreement that agreement was already agreed to it wasn't proposed agreement Mr hin um and so I would assume that something like that would be submitted to the public so they could at least see that the strike out where the amendments are um with respect to uh the park and everything dying and now you keep saying everything's dying you keep saying everything's dying I don't know things look like they're Bloom there every finish everything so everything's dying however there are people there every single day there has been a community day there has been a um a disability event there have been the track the people practicing track there've been people playing soccer there have been kids playing playing with their parents playing baseball um there are people sitting underneath the trees on a daily basis and there's there's you know I mean and and you have been saying this that this that these that these are dying you've also said that these are disgusting that our Park is disgusting and I really take offense to that okay I take real offense to that I'm a naturalist and I believe that our environment is beautiful these trees are beautiful but maybe if you would go down there and actually spend time instead of seeing what's bad and broken and look at what's good thank you I want to address the trees because I've sat here silent for months on this and every single step that we were asked to take we to we engaged first we numbered the trees that we intended to take out we landed at a number then we engaged the arborus at the suggestion of the council and the arborus that is familiar with this town came back to us and recommended additional trees above and beyond what we asked and the state stated reason was because the trees were in disrepair and dying I don't believe anybody on this board is an expert and or capable enough to make such a determination so we went to that person and we got that I get it I don't want to see a tree damaged any more than I want to see the plants in my house that I continue to not do well with however it in once given that as a a recommendation by an expert it's our duty to take that recommendation again we said we wanted to do X number of trees and we were then asked hey could you include these others because they're equally as bad lastly we then went back to our folks who said could you put in more Shrubbery granted it won't be mature as these trees are here there is really no Road forward that allows us to give to our community the enhancements that they want and that we see fit and live within the confines of not touching a tree because we recognize that the trees are somewhat tearing up the very Park that we're talking folks can't run because the pavement is uneven why is the pavement uneven because roots are lifting it up we are looking to mitigate a bunch of different things and be able to provide an enhancement that means that yeah there's probably going to be a a drawback on the other side and unfortunately that sounds like some trees that in the future are going to cause us some issue anyway and to mitigate that today in my view does feel much better than waiting for an eventual Poe outcome I I'd like to add something too real quick just because you said you know Frank said that the trees were dying and it's not Frank saying the trees are dying it's the arborist saying the trees are dying and what's concerning is is that if we have something from an arborist saying these trees could pose a harm to people in the future if we don't do anything about these trees and they do in fact harm someone in the future some that person that gets harmed in the future will have a claim so it's it's you know it's not that we are like haha we want to burn down trees or cut down trees like we're not evil people but you I think what we have to do always is listen to what the experts say I'm not a tree expert but a a tree expert has been consulted and this is what their recommendations are and that's why we go to experts so we can follow their recommendation tree expert also said that there are healthy trees there and we're not those will all all the small trees are all going to be there that's not the that is not that's not what that's not what the report is saying unless you Chang I didn't use the word disgusting I used despair just no I didn't you go back on the table I didn't the word disgusting I consider say that in comparison to tal of the park where it's it's bad it's bad and you know what um it is a personal opinion that I have a total right to what I think we have as a tax Bas of B when you compare every other towns is disgusting what I think that uh officials have offered Boda to this state it's my personal opinion that it is disgusting this should have happened a long time Susan Okay and there's a lot of other areas that I believe that it's disgusting and if I can contribute somewhat to those areas to try to help but I just can't there's just simply no way um you know I respect you I do you're an attorney you you study but what I don't really want to fight with you is you're not an arborist and you're telling me here over and over by way of your defense that you seem to have a better opinion or study than a licensed arance who study probably as much as you did environmentally to provide a officials and and developers these uh these responses and we're following them I don't know how we're blinded to the fact that we all know the branches have fallen in bota Parks no trees large full trees there's been there's been storms where full trees have fallen and as far as the few trees that have to be taken down which are healthy you do recognize that there was a man-made ditch created that not the purpose it was intended to it has no real exit L it goes around three or four trees and it's really going nowhere it it doesn't have a feeding process it doesn't have anything we meaning the board and the engineers and the professionals are going to pipe beneath the ground so that becomes a more practical uh process that it's supposed to have happened those are really the healthy trees because in you know in essence of the entire project that's what has to happen happened further we're finally joining a whole park together again I I lose to them we only have one park and I don't know you know you say I don't know why would you say that I have to be down there I played 12 my kids um I play soccer I coach a lot Ina um I've seen the bikes ining your son watch them Lucas I know I'm down I often do go to we've also seen kids break break their legs there because there's so many ditches we've seen a lot of things happen and that's that's the point where we want to en like most recently over the last 13 14 years working here and listen I'm just not going to continue to go back and forth I've never seen you have one of those games so let's be very clear about the subance of of what you're trying to shoot out my years here the games I've been to I know who I watch and I know who I see go ahead we're we're putting piping we're going over so the kids can run up not have to go around not have to go through so they can run up on the fields yeah I'm just G to finish we're trying to do everything we can I can't I don't know how to make you happy or anyone who feels has the same sentiment as you do but we're trying and it's just well I app I appreciate I appreciate you you're trying I appreciate you trying and I think I think we we all appreciate everybody trying and of course we all want improvements for the town some of us may just differ on the Improvement ments and as a taxpayer and as a homeowner I have every right to raise my voice and maybe other people they want to be silent or maybe they're scared to go up in front of a board or a councel okay but I have every right in this Democratic Nation to speak up and to address elected officials and each one of you are elected officials right I think we all agree that we're in Democratic Nation we welcome we welcome all your comments and welcome the comments of everyone you know Democratic nation and um and I'm not I'm not I'm not suggesting that I'm an arborist but based upon the arborous report the arborist has said that healthy trees should be removed too okay so go back and read the report I don't know if your plan how your plan is going to change or not I I'm not really sure okay but that's that's that's what the report says so take I'm I'm not then then don't change then don't change just come and sit there and watch on the day when all the trees get cut down okay you can all watch okay thank you Susan thank you um so I just I just miss Harper I just wanted to address the one comment so I I reiterate the issue with the documents deliberative until it's approved this document allows us to go on the board's property okay implement the construction maintain the property and use the property going into the future it's the same agreement we approved substantially and substantively back in April or May or whenever it was these changes all they do is affect the term I wouldn't even have brought it back in front of the board except for the term because there's no material change in here whatsoever it's just making sure the board the burrow complies with his Green Acres Provisions really and that that's it that's that's all that the changes really delve into so that's the only reason it's back on the agenda is the terms otherwise we wouldn't even have it on I just want to add I I think it's great when citizens do come and voice their concerns and if people are scared or whatever they shouldn't be because we're all just your neighbors like this is this isn't Congress you're not coming to a congressional hearing if people are scared and they're out there listening and they don't want to come out we're not scary I promise just come out listen I welcome I'm all about this discourse I'm all about this discussion I've always been I'm not a quiet person and nor do another person to be quiet I just when when you can't do anything else and you you weigh the balances of who are we appeasing one or general well I have to do what's in the best interest of the residents of Boda and I know we love trees I I made that statement ATP yesterday our emblem is a tree our emblem is a tree so I get the Sensitivity I get who we are but a tree is not a taxpayer either so so when when when I have residents who are not afraid I mean I I think I have people who go up at the council I don't think I know and they make fun of us I thought you to break ground name the same people who opposed it are challenging us so it's Dam if you do excuse my language and Dam if you don't and you know what I've always been the doer and if I promise you if I look at you and I say this is what you wanted I will prevail that's my intent personally and it looks like it's the entire board's intent to Prevail this project and to do whatever we're in a special meeting in August with most people on vacation and everybody came back I FW back everybody's flying back trying to get this done so we're just trying Su and to that I'll also say thank you to Mrs Harper because um she's here she's not she's not being a keyboard Warrior like we all are up against on a regular basis so thank you for always attending um on zoom on a regular basis also giving your input because if we can't do anything at least we can listen and I do appreciate that thank you very much motion to close alare second all in favor no that was he trying to run H it is hot motion oh okay motion to Jour motion second hold on Leo motion CH second all in favor