e e e are I'm okay is this I just I woke up really early and I looked outside wait till 8:00 I left all my clothes out start and I was just about to tell Ariana Lauren SAR little four-year-old in the back of her wife l i mean Plastics around his head mommy I'm not happy she said you're gonna be happy you're gonna be happy there were Dick came down the street with all their kids and they like and our friends around the corner Debbie and Robin like Robin texted me later and she said did you Conta thing with their [Music] t- I don't think I'll go into that tonight [Music] buta been warm even with the rain would have been better to cover I weather yeah so any but it was a good first and stringing was playing in the park at Pro he said I said it's going be one song that's one song more than I expected and also [Music] everen yeah that's a great onewe story was um a couple emailed me and said we not only have fun in the ring we went out to breakfast with neighbors we never kind of idea place did you live I Liv at 301 be missing people over there that get you got write it down what do you got we got the over under got it thank you for where isov and then we saw it he's all right and then if it moves the officers will call and [Music] then the day see there's a couple of parks so I know we had trouble last time back there couple months he was back there fors it was back out wife called me hey D how are you good thanks definitely after then a couple days later a menu yeah no I haven't a menu yet I'm sure that's coming they're pretty excited I almost walk the bingo with the brewery oh it is yeah they were pretty excited is anything you go on their website it says coming soon guess you came to visit me today nervous I P there do like nothing I'm like she's allow she's gonna film you she's gonna film you something we could do yeah well she's not here she's she's not yeah good yeah than yeah but luckily hi there [Music] no no thanks I was not gonna do it right up front Okay I mean I can do it you want me to do it up front I think because he he's taking he's taking the time to be on this meeting so might as well do it up front you out we're at 630 okay start please Allegiance Pledge Allegiance Amer Nation godible with Liber and justice for all I wish to announce that the 48 hour notice is required under the open public meeting deck this email to the Asbury Park Press the coast star and the new coaster on December the 7th of 2023 that a copy has been placed on the bulletin board in the burrow office and that a copy has been filed with the municipal clerk as a courtesy to the public this meeting may be attended via Zoom if for any reason the zoom portion of this meeting fails or is disconnected the in-person meeting will continue and actually can and will will be taken providing there is an inperson quum MR Noble absent Mr kuboi absent Miss Mahoney here Mr Weber here mayor Fox here uh good evening everybody and welcome to our eth meeting of the year I think it's the eth meeting is that the eth meeting it is the eth meeting of the year um before we get started with the formal meeting I just wanted to mention two things uh first uh we were for those who haven't heard um we were saddened to hear that on Monday uh Paul and shamon's wife Ruth passed away um we were very sadden to hear that I see I think Paul is on is he on the screen I think I so Paul I very much appreciate you being on I recognize it's a it's a tough time for the family and yourself so uh our condolences as a community uh Paul is been a a leader in our community in the area of the historical society and other things and um I know he's had a uh a challenging few years um with family medical issues so um we're sadden to hear this but uh hopefully uh you and your family will will get through this tough time so uh uh our condolences as a community uh the second thing I wanted to mention is just um that it is uh this week is Passover and I wanted to uh extend my uh wishes to those who are celebrating that uh particularly um the context of um Passover this year is probably particularly poent for uh people that celebrate that given the um current world situation so uh hopefully um our Jewish population here in town um is um going through that U particularly going through this holiday um with that in mind so those are two things I just wanted to cover early in the meeting um so um as I have covered I think every meeting for the last year or so plus actually coming up on a year and a half uh I have and will continue to emphasize that um in these meetings we really have an expectation that we should welcome this agreement because it helps us think things through from a different perspective our voice should be a constructive one uh I think we all want a brighter Bradley Beach continuing improved Bradley Beach so I'd ask everybody to gauge their tone going forward um as we all know we're all neighbors now having said that I've said it and I've said it and I've said it many times but uh I think in many cases this has fallen on deaf ears um we've made an attempt at managing our Council meetings more effectively in 20124 we had some success in January and February uh then we kind of went off the rails again so we need to get back to an improved um state of how we conduct these meetings um one of our dep our Deputy clerk did an analysis for us and um the average council meeting of Mammoth County this year um excluding Bradley Beach is about an hour and 20 minutes our meetings have been averaging 3 hours and 30 minutes there's only two towns besides us that um come near three hours uh over 75% of the towns in uh which is 42 towns um are under two hours so I think we can do better so we're going to try to really conform to the agenda uh I'm going to bring forward some changes um we have a workshop scheduled for May um but we're really going to try to conform to what the agenda says and how we um conduct ourselves in the meetings um so we're we're looking forward to that Workshop coming up in um in May so with that uh we'll go to workshops which we have none um we do have um under pres number six on the agenda presentations and bids we have um four uh proclamations to cover tonight um all are very appropriate and I will start with um the national volunteer week Proclamation um do we have any volunteers in the in the audience if you're a volunteer could you stand up please uh strategic planning people hello it's about everybody in the room well that's my point so there is a point here so um we have right sorry uh I want to make um just comment on this Proclamation um it's National volunteer week 2024 whereas National volunte week enacted 1974 by President Richard Nicks celebrates the spirit of volunteerism urging all Americans seek opportunities to provide service to their community and whereas the burough Bradley Beach is fortunate to have dedicated volunteers who generously give their time energy and talents to help make our community a better place and whereas the work of these volunteers contributes to the quality of life and the gr confence ways and whereas these volunteers serve on a variety of boards commissions committees and extends to include many non-popular organizations where volunteers also share their time to help with various burough sponsored events and whereas volunteering changes the lives of Volunteers in positive way increasing self-confidence self-esteem and physical well-being offering the chance to make a new connection and make new connections and provide opportunities to learn new skills and abilities whereas the Bureau of Bradley Beach recognizes that volunteering improves the quality of life and increases Community participation and ownership volunteers are vital to our future as a desirable caring produ to attack now therefore be resolved the governing body of the bur graic Beach does hereby recognize the week of April 21st to 27th is National volunteer week and expressing gratitude to all local volunteers for the tireless dedication and service to the community so thank you all thank you those volunteers that are celebrating Passover and our here tonight we certainly thank them too our second is um Administrative Professionals Day uh hey Michelle could you come in here she 16 hours today we not done whereas Administrative Professionals including administrative assistants office assistants receptionist building clerks Finance Specialists Deputy clerks and other administrative support staff makes up some of the largest segments of the labor force in America and whereas administrators professionals play an essential role in coordinating the office operations of business government agencies educational institutions and other organizations whereas the work of Administrative Professionals today requires Advanced knowledge and expertise of communications computer software office technology project management organization customer service and other vital office managerial responsibilities whereas the Administrative Professionals Day is observed annually in workplaces around the world to recognize the important contributions of administrative staff and whereas we recognize the importance of contributions of Highly skilled Administrative Professionals to the success of all operations now therefore be resol the governing body of the burough Bradley Beach to hereby recognize April 24th as Administrative Professionals Day and do hereby recognize and appreciate these Administrative Professionals and their valuable contributions in the workplace and support their continued professional growth what was Monday 28 years here oh okay next one ER stand up we're at professional cler the time honored and vital part of local government exists throughout the world and whereas the office of the profession Municipal is the oldest among public servants and the office of profession cler provides professional link between the citizens the local governing body and agencies of government at all levels and whereas profession clerk have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutrality and impartiality rendering equal service for all and whereas professional Municipal clerks serve as the information center on function of local government and Community whereas professional the professional Municipal clerks Contin dri to include the administration of the Affairs of the office of profession Municipal cour throughout participation educational programs seminars workshops and the annual meetings of their state provincial County and international professional organizations whereas it is most appropriate I would recognize the accompl accomplishments of the office of the profession quote now therefore we resolved governing body of badley beach we recognize the we of May through next week through May 11th as professional Municipal cler's week and further extend appreciation to All Professional Municipal clerks for their vital service they perform and their exemplary dedication to the communities they represent so thank you very much okay our last um Proclamation is uh burough Bradley Beach proclamation of National military appreciation month anybody who's in the military or in the military now or was it one stand whereas a couple times in 1999 Senator John McCain introduced legislation design the month of May as National military appreciation month and both the Senate and House Representatives adopted resolutions calling for Americans to recognize and honor US service members and whereas National military appreciation month n is celebrated every May and is a declaration that encourages US citizens to observe the month in a symbol of unity and whereas nmam honors the current and former members of us Armed Forces including those who have died in the proceeder freedom and whereas the month of May is characterized by six National observances which highlight the contributions of those who serve they are loyalty day which is May 1st public service recognition week which is May 3rd to May 9th Victory Day in Europe AKA Day on May 8th Armed Forces Day on May 16th and Memorial Day on May 25th now therefore be resolve the governing body of the bur of Bradley Beach to hereby proclaim the month of May as National military appreciation encourage all citizens to recognize the services of all current and former military personnel and take part in all national observances thank you all for those who don't know Bill shuck really is a contributor um in this area and that he helps us uh on Veterans Day and Memorial Day um really uh bring forward um very deserving either veterans or other military to be the honores of those particular events and that's not easy work in a small town so we appreciate that very much okay um we'll now move to approval of minutes um we have uh make a motion to approve the April 10th 2024 C Council business me meeting minutes second you Mr Noble absent Mr gubitosi absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr we yes mayor Fox yes um okay I will now go to the minutes for April 10th executive session make a motion to approve those minutes second Mr Noble ask Mr gubitosi absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes okay uh public comments per pertaining to the 424 agenda items only um five minute limit single instance per participant are there any questions on the agenda tonight yes just the agenda or the uh as well was the consent agenda either anything on so uh in reference to resolution 2024 d101 uh looking at it I'm just wondering why 714 Main Street is not listed they have a a tree well over there on the corner but yet it wasn't mentioned to place a tree there s 714 Main Street yeah was a tree there originally that they cut down or whoever cut it down and just a my understanding this is not every empty tree well on Main Street we're doing just taking a handful and doing the ones that we can um so I don't have an answer besides that I mean I don't think we were trying to you know do every single one um that's you know doesn't mean we're not going to get to that but um this and again this is just replacing trees that already existed on Main Street it's not new trees they they probably should have been replaced a long time ago but um getting to it now what's the what what is the business that 714s in front of that's uh uh Bradley Beach grou okay and and I've actually spoken to them they would like a tree so that's a bummer that they're not on this list but that's that's fine yeah the other one may take a little Lor which is I'm a little upset on that one uh 301 Main Street GE models they used to have trees there and I don't see a tree there and thought I was Sten the original site plan when they came before the planning board they had trees on Main Street and on the side street now looking into it there is a note on their plans the note G the contractor to maintain and preserve all existing trees and replace if anyone were damaged well there's no trees there so it's great it's great observation do you know if there's tree Wells there there used to be no I think they repaid the whole uh my recollection yeah when they did the building because everything was torn up so that's something you thank you yes um I just wanted to urge the council to not pass the introduction of the budget um for all the same reasons I always explain I think we're at a time that there is very little trust in the numbers were being given I think the 2022 audit has shown enough proof of too many questions we have um um I would like to see a 2023 Bud uh audit for we even entertain a 2024 budget um I also know that many residents including myself have reached out to other entities DCA com controller's office um and if we don't pass the introduction within a certain time I believe is when they step in and I think think they'd be more concerned about not getting a 2024 Budget moving forward quicker than them wanting to step in here for all the complaints we've had because we haven't gotten much response um I did receive an email back I received a phone call back but it's a lot of the same boilerplate answers so to get them in here promptly I think it's really important that we don't pass this so they could start getting their hands on all of our finances so please do not pass the introduction yes um Julian 605 NK Avenue um quick question you want an introduction to the uh budget today so my question to you Mr Mayor have you given Council the ability to talk to the CFO to answer their question yet that they requested at the last uh this is this is agenda comment but but you but it's to the introduction to the budget so so if you did you give Council the ability to talk to our C CFO Mr G if they requested at the last meeting in order vote in order to comments pertaining to the agenda and that's the agenda because of the fact that you so you're making so you want to make a public comment no I'm not point of order Mr Mayor before we started this you said does anybody have questions about the agenda you literally said the word does anybody have questions about the agenda my mistake we take questions time but but Mr Mayor you've set a precedent where you answer questions and you just take comments I also just so also question and comments sir it's my time to speak okay let's you said to gauge your tone so please take your own advice that would be engaging my tone I'm trying to respond to you is to say that what I said at the beginning of the meeting was we are going to try to conform to the agenda the agenda says it's comments on the agenda then then I am urging the council not to pass the introduction to the budget because the mayor is not being transparent and we still do not know if questions have been answered um by uh Council that they had questions that so due to a lack of transparency by Mr Mayor and his administration I urge you not to pass the budget and then also I have uh comments about um the uh resolutions for waiting fees for events um in Riley Park we have bbca Farmers Market um and I'm concerned about why are we um going to wave these for anybody who uses public property at the end of the day um I don't think any organization should be weighed fees whatsoever because the taxpayers always wind up um footing the bill um to say that they are going to clean up and set set up that's wonderful but at the end of the day DPW still has to pick up the trash take the trash to the dunk so there are our uh trucks that are used our gas is used our time is used and also um you know the event of police officers as well um do we bring on additional staff just for the fact that we do have an event going on in town so there's always a cost to the taxpayer and we as taxpayers due to the increased spending and also from the 2022 audit that we still have a million dollars missing um which is a debacle um I urge you not to um approve anything with um the resolutions for events until and and honestly just till they get ironed out that's 2024 d98 202499 and also 2024 -100 um so um if we could table that and have a workshop because I I love the events but I don't want them at the expense of the taxpayers and also the mayor's always touting his experience at J&J and you would not pass a budget nor would you have an operational practice without vetting all the nuances to cost of the Town any money so as a business professional I would like us to table that and workshop it to make sure the fact that we are not going to be footing the bill because the taxpayers are always footing the Bill thank you Julie thank you yes resolution number 100 that coincides with the ordinance that we introduced last week um for facility facilities oh okay okay so that's got nothing to do with special events I just want to know that but I just want to make sure that we're vetted for any fees or services and everything that it's always in the ordinances okay any other questions yes yes 106 we are super excited about our events with the bbca this year and it is based on a lot of feedback from members and residents at the direction of the council as well as our own um interpretation we are indeed fulfilling the ordinance as you know we have filed application for eight events with the $25 application fee we indeed will set up and clean up as well as bring our own tables and chairs we do indeed commit and we put in writing to the council that we will pay for any expense we're just asking for the waiver of the $2,500 deposit and again I know you know this but our mission is indeed to bring our businesses residents nonprofits and the municipality together as a collaborative partnership to strengthen our businesses to engage our residents and build a better community so we're doing that every day trying our best but these events are part of that so thank you for your consideration thank you yes n oce Condominiums I want to underscore the previous comments from M Maguire and Miss malalis um I support those comments 110% I would add to it as I said last meeting 202495 and 96 passs we need to get a deposit you can always refunded deposit but things happen and I would add to um M Gavin's comments that um setting up tables and then cleaning up after you themselves is not involved tipping these which we know were a huge part of events that being said I would also urge the council um not to approve 20246 regarding the form of government I been discussing and requesting looking into changing our form of government for years it is somewhat peculiar to me that all of a sudden a form of government one isolated one is appearing on an agenda um even your predecessor the seat you filled miss Mom she even said we should research and have recitations on different forms of government um therefore I don't and I can't even begin to trust this community with a referendum because the wording is always not the problem with wording this I would also like to address the bill list um on page down the pages sorry um but there's The Bernstein Bill and may I say that um I have not received a reply from their attorney since February 18 so if any of that billing and we don't get the detail includes that I would say don't pay the bill um the page prior to page one that is not numbered um I would like to see of utilities I don't think that we have one meter in this entire Community for all of our municipal buildings so I would like to know how much is electric here there in the other C there are about 60 we get about 60 utility bills a month okay but it be nice to know by building they aggregate it and they put it on the building it would be nice to know by building um please don't interrupt me because they take away my minutes or seconds I'm just telling you um there were two payrolls listed with dates now are there was the week ending or the pay dates that's a little confusing to me because if it if it's the 415 was payday this is 424 I think so it's that pear um these are things you got to look through then there's a company Pro Phoenix which I believe is for our security software for $1400 all of this is from the first page just about um do we a to go competitive and look at other softes I think wonder about that because we know how we just don't like to do things like that and um the previous sheet prior to page one says I believe wire transfers in manual checks now what is everything else in a I I I don't know what the page one through or whatever that is on the the list it's a little confusing to me as a encounter um so it would be nice to have all of that clarified and I don't see how you can vote to approve spending our money to me I say as to Residents is your money as well um without knowing these thingss or understanding me and I guess I need to say everything else for later thank you thank you yes to make sure that my name and address please Lauren edbert egv ER 44 and a half Brinley Avenue um I was just wanting to clarify my understanding that the ordinance regarding investigating the change of government is about exactly that just setting up a commission or which would have to be elected by the people but it's to set up a commission to investigate and make recommendations regarding the possibility of changing the form of government so if if that am I correct in the way I'm describing that is there anything that should be added to that about what that's that's about Mr Mayor can I make a request that we have the attorney address this a little bit because it's probably a lot of people's mind to make I would suggest we wait till that comes up well because but if every single person in the audience has a question about that this might save a bunch of time um well that's fine so Greg could you address just like just explain the chart chart thing yeah briefly I so the optional Municipal Charter law allows uh two different routes to change form of government of municipality um one is by petition and one is by ordinance so the one tonight here is by ordinance the ordinance the question that's written in that ordinance is uh the only thing that's changed from the statute or that is allowed to be changed I know uh Miss meow had comments about the language of referendums but in the case of Charter study commission that language is specific in the chat statute and the only thing that you can change in that language is the name of the town so that's straight from the optional initial chter all um what happens is is if that ordinance is passed by the governing body then the clerk will accept petitions for a charter study commission uh and a question will be placed on the ballot so there'll be a question first it'll say do you want the BS a charter study commission to investigate the BS for government yes or no okay so forgive me for just slowing you down a little bit so that question in November will just simply be whether the voters want us to want to have a commission that will investigate the possible forms of government we could have and whether we want to change or not correct but that ballot will also include the names of anyone who filed a petition to serve on that Charter study commission drawn in random order like a non like the graes I believe are here in nonpartisan Town um and uh you those voters will be asked to answer the question and then vote if if it passes who would you want to be on the charter study commission and so those people are elected if the yes question passes if it's a no then it ends and there can't be another question for a period I believe at least four years I think it's actually five don't quote me on that but there's period of time where the town can't do it again if the referendum fails and uh thereafter if that say it's yes there's Char study commission Charter study commission has nine months uh to organize and investigate Alternative forms of government um which I'll note in this municipality are not many given its size and the fact there already a faer municipality so this doesn't open you up to choose any form of government you like you have to pick one from the optionable municipal Charter law and there are and given the population of your town and the fact that you're already a f their municipality uh believe you're limited to only two others um and the charter studies commission presumably study those two forms of government in comparison to the current fauler form and then makes makes a recommendation if Charter study commission votes uh to not recommend a form of government Charter study commission winds up its business and that's that's the end of the story and then again the town can't do it again for a period of years if the charter study commission recommends to change the form of government they have to do that within nine months which places it before the time period to place another ballot question on the 2025 uh general election ballot in in the municipality as to whether you want to adopt that form of government and then if Town V yes then that resets the entire government's that form as you guys did here in 1992 if the T votes no then again process ends and you can't resurrect after for certain period of so now if there were a no vote would would the um could you go back to the petition if if the key toll of the Town petition to form a commission great question I'm not a fer uh becoming a faler act expert working here um uh I don't I don't believe you can do it at all for period of years if the if the question fails but don't quote me on the specifics of that you can Google optional or fauler act and there's literally a booklet that comes up that basically has a flowchart and every everything else with it that sounds great and I just would like to urge the council to vote Yes on that I think that we at least um deserve to open up the question and that the for of government that we have right now puts perhaps too much responsibility on the shoulders of any any one person thank you thank you and Mr May C attorney one additional uh question actually I'll wait till we get to the yes me sorry I once YK Avenue um back last year I asked and several of us asked if there was a way to capture um how much of the police department and the dpw's time was spent um on these extra events that are held in town whether on the boardwalk or in Mar Park wherever and at the time we were told that that they were going to look into being able to capture that time so we could see um what it was costing us because the fees for any event should actually cover that extra cost I also have a question all of these groups that come and whether it's Boardwalk or Riot Park whatever do they have to present a Certificate of Insurance yes they do okay so we're covered in that respect yes okay but I would like someone to give us an answer as to how many hours our police department and our DPW spends on these I don't know if it involves overtime or it's part of their regular schedule but how many hours are involved in what we're paying for that portion of these amounts thank you yes lind3 friendly I have a fresh on the bills list I have no idea what this means it's on page three and it's for Christina t a tax reimbursement why is that bill list questions just you write them up um we're going to start capturing your bill list questions so we can figure out how long that's taking for their administrative St so just write it up and send I have please comments these are comments on the agenda on the agenda but it's actually a really like we have a tax lean Redemption things on almost every Bill list we just take two seconds and explain that then we probably save a lot of time thank you um Sor no I'm sorry if you have comments get them down and we will all right well then this is another thing I'm going to ask first of all I'd like to say I'd like our law enforcements to have uh all the amenities that they need to keep them safe and US say I just have a question about on page 10 the purchase of a firearm is that a firearm that has tax stamp on it it's it's under weap if I don't know but they have the answer and you don't and we will get you the answer but I don't know if that answer is going to be correct I have other questions regarding that answer so I could I there's like five questions here for that one bill then sub subset those questions if I I would like by Monday thank you and then how will we how will the answers be provided to everybody yes how are they G the answer to question you'll put them in the minutes that's not appropriate order please yes speech please J 12. when we get to the resolution about change of government we appreciate the bur attorney could at least explain the other option which is direct petition so when we get that if people would speak to that my understanding having Googled that uh that they're basically two options you covered in one it's a resolution but there's another to thank you thank you yes anybody else yes I 6004 that the states uh delayed EXC me extended multipart byting process one of them is the annual financial statement for 2023 U which was extended from February 10th to the 8th of March um has this been submitted yet um to the St the 202 I'm sorry the 2023 AFS I don't know if it has but I can find that out okay um thanks it be a good tool to help understand process thank you okay let's move shus yeah Mrs Mrs shus I can hear you okay good um uh first of all I have numerous things I want to discuss uh we have Edmonds who just received $3,640 on this bill list now we were talking about um the police and overtime doesn't Edmonds provide time for um employees isn't that the purpose of Edmonds no no if you have questions like that in that detail could you just write those out and we no I cannot write it down I'm asking you now I have another question and that well let me explain something to you mayor uh I asked a question at the last Barrow meeting about the manual checks New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development and that check was 23,9 6761 and I never got got a reply from you regarding that amount of money I think it's so therefore you know the followup is inconsistent I think it's important that the residents realize that Mr Bernstein got another 9,45 this pay bill cycle to date from May 23 2023 to now he has been built he has received 81 $1,696 uh I would like for Mr Canon to realize I went realize that he was just paid for his January fee um I and now another question uh Olivia's and CP Co CPA that was the 20 $229,000 for the 2022 audit um I would like to know is is the 2023 a audit in progress and will it be ready for the um for by June 30th be happy to answer those questions just get those questions into us and we will respond I just gave them to you now another I want to thank you for sending me uh about the budge team I find it very interesting that um the budget team is uh the rich the CFO G Garts Meredith DeMarco Greg farach and Alison Gavin now how many hours does um faren box spend on this also in the let you with the email that you sent me you said that the council is a member of the budget team uh I would like to know how much time um Jane the uh Council has received how much time they spent working with you on the actual budget no response from the mayor no but I'd like again if you these are comments for the agenda uh we be happy to answer and we want to make sure we answer them I've just I've just spoken and I would like to have my comments I would like to have my answers we've got your comments and we will respond and when by what time by when can I expect an my response as soon as possible and will you also um uh answer the question about the hours that Mr farbach has spent on the uh budget one of your questions thank you you yes for um Greg can you just clarify um I believe at a previous meeting that when we questioned about the mayor taking questions and giving us answers later on that if it wasn't handled through the meeting that it couldn't be part of the minutes can we get clarification on that because you know like I said there's no hard the minutes are what they accept as they're record need so argu with each other about the minutes last time then I also said that last the two Kristen and John to make sure that everything is captured and questioned and perhaps we find a better vehicle for answering these questions um sadly again it seems Mr DeMarco our illustrious PA is not here so again I don't know what we're I'm sorry I forgot I forgot to announce this earlier M Demarco is ill tonight to she she's a lot so I've ever pay okay could you conduct yourself minutes I can say anything I want minutes sorry I'm asking to be civil I I I am civil I'm completely civil um so thank you for that um and in light of this that Mr Mayor does not want to answer any questions about anything um I think it would save us a lot of time also moving forward that perhaps maybe we never never approve a bill list um because there is no reason for you and I am not giving you permission to spend any of my money on anything that we do not um know about or approve about and if it means DPW needs to walk let him walk if it means somebody else needs to walk let him walk it's unfortunate that again we're closing in on probably 20 months DPW still doesn't have um contract and that's unfortunate because we all stand by them in the town it's unfort and the counsil does so when people say it's the administration and the council that does no it isn't it's the administration that does not do the work so um again please defend us at all costs do whatever you need to do you have all of our support um and we'll see what happens so obviously these are going to be like you know 30 minute meetings and nothing will get accomplished but let thank you can I say something sure I just want to say that um councilman Weber did send about I don't know 15 questions about the bills list about seven or eight seven or eight questions about the bills list um and 78 200 um and and got ansers some of those questions are questions that I had as well I agree with all of you that something needs to be done to improve this process because you deserve transparency um I think a lot of your questions are valid John uh excuse me councilman weer and asked some really good questions um so it's unfortunate that you're not getting the answers that that you want um some of them are a little bit different but um I agree we need to we need to fix this for sure it's not fair I guess I guess what by by getting a clear question in in writing and getting a response I would hope that that would alleviate any any questions you discre so the fact May is these people took the time to come to this meeting and they had questions and the least we can do is answer them if for all you know we absolutely don't have their answer email it that's you know but let's respect the people and just well answer question I'm trying to I understand your point and there's a balancing act that has to be place here one of the things that I said at the beginning of the meeting is we're averaging 3 hours and 30 minutes a meeting average we are we blow other towns out of the water we're looking at ways if we can address this through better uh management of this I think I think we'll we'll see people that can't be at a 3-hour 30 meeting start coming to meetings um so I think it works on both sides of that so uh Mr Kenny you have a question not Mr Kenny I'm trying to yeah I'm trying to unmute can can you hear me yeah herb Kenny 216 Brinley um quick question for um attorney Canon um you know since the rules have always been if there's an agenda and the bills list is on the agenda um does Mayor Fox have the ability to just shut that down this evening with no council vote nothing just saying we're not going to answer bills this questions we're not saying we're not I'm asking I'm asking attorney Canon yeah and I'm answering your question I'm not saying we're shutting down questions I'm saying we're asking people to we're trying to get a handle on the resources required to answer all these questions well the problem the the problem mayor is when you send an email to answer a question the public doesn't hear it this is a public meeting where public people which is recorded should be able to hear the answer that the ba would give if she was there correct or not so that so just because you send an email doesn't mean the whole public knows the answer to the email and that's not right we said we would include that in the minutes so thank you I don't well who's who's goingon to go find the minutes okay thank you for your comment I'm not done I'm not done I'm sorry I didn't know you weren't done keep can you mute can you mute yourself so the question I have is Mr Marts his compensation which is on the bills list we just paid him $24,000 in April what do we what is the fee that we pay for a part-time C CFO we have a shared services agreement I understand that but what is that for how much money is that for $72,000 a month or quarter a year year okay we just paid $24,000 this month we paid a $112,000 payment and two $6,000 payments okay this is why these questions should be answered publicly to go back to Mr Bernstein okay he's on a run rate of at least $113,000 this year wouldn't it make a little bit more sense to actually settle the DPW argument take all the savings which he is now using almost 60% of his salary is directed towards employment and hire a full-time CFO which could help us clean up this financial issues with the audit and everything else those are my only questions thank you and oh one thing mayor um if your clerks are going to start spending time understanding how much times our meetings go it' be interested to know how many times what percent of towns had a 13.2% tax increase who had their 2022 audits late and who has a late budget drafts and I bet those meetings are a lot shorter thank you okay that looks like everyone oh I'm sorry one more Mary Backstrom 284th Avenue um that's the process when Mr shook name up you can ask him for his name we all know who he is and I know site on your your part so I don't blame you but I just would like to see consistency uh from the mayor regarding the length of the meetings um I would ask you to think about what's the root cause issue that everybody who comes up here during any comment period is simply seeking clarification about pretty simple questions and if I'm sorry Mr mono was ill I wish you well but somebody should be sitting in that seat answering those question question because mayor I don't see you having any willingness or knowledge to answer the questions I don't care how L the length of our meetings compared to other towns I really don't it's irrelevant the problem is that nobody's questions ever get answered um from what I've heard I've never asked somebody to send me an email but I've heard that that doesn't happen much either so we just need if we only had more transparency which I'll tell you is a real root pause issue uh could get through these meetings in record time so I would just ask you to give that some consideration thank you thank you okay we'll move to the next agenda item which is ordinances uh ordinance 2024 uh one second 20246 ordinance authorizing B cler to place the November 5th 2024 general election B question asking voters whether or not they wish to establish chared commission to study possible recommend changes to the bu's form of government I would like to offer up that ordinance move that ordinance you seconding no I'm actually moving it I don't think the mayor moved it but okay that's fine you're you're introducing it right introducing okay you're seconding the introduction blank here so I figured he wasn't doing it I just didn't know who was going to do what so that's okay um oh I think she's considering that a second you are considering that a second okay did you actually second that's fine all right so you want to move you want okay he's moving I'm seconding okay Mr Noble absent Mr Gob toi absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber I'm gonna make a comment first um I just want I appreciate every's comments on this um notice this say says we're authorizing the burrow clerk we're not forcing her we're not telling her she has to do this um I do think this is the best course of action right now but there's a lot of time between now and November um I am interested in actually uh hearing what uh attorney Canon has to say about the petition process as requested by a resident um if you could tell us that process real briefly Greg could you describe the other one well uh sure um I'll be honest with you I'm not as familiar with it his name ordinance um rout petition is basically initiated by the citizens so you have to get a certain percentage of the registered voters in the town to sign a petition before you do that you essentially have to uh form a small committee and write out the form of government that they're seeking to that you're seeking to change to um excuse me or you can also seek a charter study commission so like when you go with direct from the citizens you can actually propose it for a government if you get 25% of the voters in the town to sign that petition then you can either have Charter study or you can spell the form of government change throughout straighten the petition and then it goes right to the question um I have seen people attemp to do a petition um as myself I you guys know well some of you know I'm the coun in my time I get people to sign a sign sign a for me takes significant amount of time to get the 50 signatures I need to run for office uh I've seen people try to do it to get 2,000 or you know 1500 signatures or some one person 6,000 signatures let you see I never see I have not personally seen someone uh accomplish that you need you need a large group of people a lot of effort um for a petition because of the number of signatures that we need um but the petition has two potential WS directly to the new form of government or to the Charter study commission that's the principal difference in the methodology thanks than just to continue my comments um you know we had a workshop on this I guess it was in the fall and we you know gather some information then and uh this doesn't say that we're definitely doing this but I think this is the right thing to do and if as um Greg explained before this would go on the the ballot in November ask people yes or no if they want to change their form of government and at the same time they're like I don't know why you're shaking your head no if they want to form a commission for a commission right right the point is and that at the same time you would actually elect the people to um to be on that commission and again they just went through this in Red Bank if you want to read all about it they they just went through this in Red Bank there should be plenty of stories in the paper so with those comments I will finally go and say yes thank you for your patience mayor Fox yeah I would for oh I'm sorry was a long it was a long interview between the two uh I'm gonna vote no um I the reason I don't support this is I'm not sure that's what we need right now what we need I think is the focus on the community we have um any number of things going on right now and I want to focus our energy there so I would go doing that okay we have two adoptions um tonight uh so we have to have an adoption hearing on uh ordinance 20244 it's an ordinance supplementary burs revised General ordan is new chapter 352 previously reserved public facility rentals to authorize the burs existing facility rental fees policies and procedures so make a motion to open the hearing on uh the adoption for 20244 we just getting a point of [Music] thank you sorry about that um you're doing ordinance 2024 opening public hearing yep okay Mr Noble absent who's seconding sorry second second okay Mr Noble absent Mr gubitosi absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes ordinance 2024 five um ordinance to exceed M budget appropriation limits and establish C Bank any Public commentor public com public comments on this ordinance I'm sorry my apologies any public comments on this ordinance okay I will move to close the public hearing and take a vote a hand I'm sorry Molly coner Molly coner yes question not sure she Molly yes hi city council was this um was this public comment or did I miss here it's public comment on the specific ordinance that we just introduced 2024 I apologize that's my bad let me mute up I'm so sorry I'm so sorry thank you I'm sorry thank you Lear BR Loper yeah do you have a question on ordinance yeah no sorry I was also waiting for public comment I'm with Molly here okay thank you so that's at the end right correct thank you so much God bless okay so I will um make a motion to close the the public hearing and make a motion to pass 20244 second Mr Noble absent Mr goosi absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes uh ordinance 20245 I'll make a motion to open 20245 uh public hearing second mrble absent Mr gubitosi absent Miss Mone yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes any questions on 20245 okay there's no questions I will um move to CL the adoption hearing and vote move on ordinance 20245 second Mr Noble absent Mr gubitosi absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes okay um just okay uh Communications we have sleo seasonal employee memo um May can I make ask a question about that one sure memo um so i' would like to know if any of these folks listed in this hiring memo are related to anybody that works for the town do we know that not that I'm aware of okay thank you um resolutions we have a consent agenda uh resolutions I'll just briefly read those we have 22492 the bill list uh 2024 93 approval of BP bbp ta to conduct two on premise 5050 cash Raffles for Thursday May 30th and June 6 from 6:30 to 8:30 20 2494 approval of caleidoscope of Hope to conduct their annual 5K walk race for Saturday September 28 2024 from 6: to uh noon 12m uh 202495 the approval of national multiple scoris to conduct their charity bicycle ride for Saturday May 11 2024 4 from 6:30 to 4: passor only 2024 96 pool for the sharing Network Foundation to conduct their 5K walk for Saturday May 18 2024 from 8:30 to 11:30 Pastor only and uh 2024 97 authorizing the appointment of special class one Law Enforcement Officers attending the May class at the momth County Police Academy uh that's it for consent agenda items um a question on bills list um I know I asked eight questions and um I did get answers but I sometimes it happens you get more questions um one of the answers one of the questions I had was about something on probably early on because it's creative management and well the answer for that is they provide i' never heard of creative management I don't they call it anyway they provide gasoline and um I know from looking at a lot of bills list we generally get our gasoline from an outfit called rigin Incorporated and we spent um I guess the neighborhood of $3,500 in gasoline so does anybody know why we have a different vendor for gasoline besides rigin on this bill I don't for for an additional I should say three and a half actually that doesn't add up but says for additional $35,000 for yeah I don't know the only thing I canise is that we have a couple of vendors and we use that vendor but I don't have the answer that okay uh I just I've never seen cre before we can follow up onar with rins um yeah okay that's it for my bill questions okay motion to approve the consent agenda second uh Mr Noble absent Mr guos absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes uh okay we'll go to um individual resolution s 2024 86 introduction of 2024 budget to read read by title only uh make a motion to approve 20 2486 we have a second I'll second it so we can discuss it how's that Mr Noble absent Mr gbos absent Miss Mahoney no Mr Weber you want yes oh I'd like to add a comment so that everybody knows why I'm saying no um um I'm unfortunately gonna say no to this um and I'm going to tell you the reason why on March 27th this Council was given three Excel workbooks with multiple paths in each there was a lot of information a lot of schedules a lot of numbers I was warned that Municipal budgets were abuse like no other especially in New Jersey where Gap accounting isn't used but this was clearly unlike any budget I had done in the past this Council has repeatedly asked questions and requested to speak to the CFO an example of a simple question why the number for each of the funds each sewer and current did not equal to the to the budget ask numbers in two different files budget prep file has a recommended budget of 16, 55417 spot 66 2024 budget appropriation and revenue file which had no Revenue has a recommended budget of 16, 6291 144 spot 16 of 500,000 differ $500,000 differ if you add up the balances of the three funds oh from a new PDF that was given to us before the last council meeting the actual total of these three funds is15 m833 36 at 2:30 today the mayor sent us an email telling us we should not use the data that had previously been sent to us and instead use these new files there is the can I clarify just a point on that I'm sorry after I'm done sure I can wait you yeah I mean I'm not going anywhere sure so and instead use other files there is a glitch in edin the data is wonky that's what we being told we've therefore been asked to use summary PDF data we do not want summary highlevel so-called userfriendly PDF data Mr gubitosi told me that auditor Bob OA said we need to use Edmund systems data and that's what we've been asking for we would like to see three years 2024 2023 and 2022 we would like to see three categories Appropriations revenue and actual for 2022 and 2023 and for all three of these we want detailed line items in Excel and these this information needs to come from edin so therefore I am not approving this budget introduction we still need answers okay thank you um so let me clarify a point um that you made um councilwoman um number one um what I comment on today was primarily the revenue document and the revenue document in Edmonds hasn't been used um by the CFO if you look at the user friendly which is really kind of I'll call that the Bible of what gets submitted to the um State there's 16 pages on the revenue document in the um in the state form about two or three of those have data in them the rest of them are blank because they just don't apply to us so there is a level of detail on those three pages um now I I spoke to the U CFO about that and he basically said on the expense or appropriation side because it's I don't know how many lines it's a thousand lines because at departmental 130 130 it's departmental and that's what we use to review with departmental budgets with u the appropriate department heads you have to you have to use evence so that's I think the basis of all's comment I'm finding and I found this out from um the CFO that um because there aren't a significant amount of those Revenue lines um some CFOs don't go that route they go the route of they basically go through the 15 lines or so that we have of Revenue and take actuals take data from the state and create that Revenue profile so that's basically why what I said today was that um he doesn't use it um additionally I know that um a couple people have tried to go back and do some reconciliations to Prior years Ed post audits Edmonds is not adjusted so you have numbers that are not going to tie out but the key document is that 402 page or 42 whatever it is how many pages uh userfriendly schedule from that we provide to the state uh that has the level of detail and revenue that's the lowest level of detail that we have so I I just wanted to clarify that point that I'm not saying all the data is bad I'm saying we know that the revenue I don't think it's been used by the last couple of CFOs and that's this is the first time this has come up require asking Revenue questions off that detail sheet we usually use it for Appropriations which is that thousand lines so I just wanted to make that point thank you okay and I'll make a comment um similar to councilwoman Mahoney's yes we got spreadsheets we got lots of spreadsheets um they're not totaled up they're not sum but you know some of us on the council took the time to sum those things and when you can't make you know what was supposedly the the final number for revenue from 2022 which is the last year we have audited numbers for so I thought that was a pretty good place to start when you can't make the total revenues for that year uh in the spreadsheet that we're given can't make that match the the budget document where you know it says what the revenue was for um for 2022 you know that my question started and ended right there um you know what the mayor's calling you know user friendly it it is the state form it's what they require you know but it's a giant PDF and yes it can be many many pages long um from our perspective the advantage of the Excel spreadsheets is that you can do things with the data you can like add up a column and that's kind of really helpful when you're looking at this stuff so um you know there's discrepancy what you're calling user friendly what I would call user friendly to me it's kind of like well just B you know I understand there's there's a why you call it that but if you want to like find out how these numbers were arrived at it's it's it's very hard it's not user friendly um and I think I feel like we're at a level with you know you got kids doing math they get to a certain point in math class and then at a certain point the teacher says okay the math gets complicated enough you need to show your work so it's kind of just you know you've heard about the the many you know the 130 questions or whatever we are really asking to show the work how were these numbers arrived at uh and we don't feel like we have answers to that we don't think we're just being you know kinly or whatever about it just for for fun because it's really not that fun um and you know I know councilman kosi would be saying the same thing if he were here but he is not so I'm going to say it in much shorter fashion um there still we think there's still work to do I hope we can get there soon because I know it is difficult on department heads when they have their budget as soon you know if the budget pass in the year's half over um that's you know not ideal either so I hope we can get this done soon uh I think a faster way to this would be to give some time for the CFO especially with councilman guatos I think it's a faster way and I'll leave it at that and just voting out on this budget introduction thank you councilman um I didn't make up that name user friendly no I understand and user friend because I would tend to agree with you that when you look at a I don't know if it's 40 pages or 7 Pages it's it's a long document uh it's got a lot of detail my first year looking at it you know your your head spins but it is the document that has 24 budget 23 budget 23 spend um so it does give you some good Trend information um uh there was questions on revenue between 23 22 I I hopefully answered that for uh councilwoman uh Mahoney um because we did take a revenue hit and I I think I sent that to you also today or yesterday I can't remember yeah I I still don't think my you know questions got answered but we can continue discussing and and I you know I hear what you're saying about the document and it's just it's it's a beast but if you're trying to figure out how you got to those numbers that were plugged into this giant document that's still the stage that we're at and that's that's where we're at right so one of the issues that the CFO had and uh well let me I'll vote Yes and um I'll finish my comment um one of the issues the CFO had was that when we turned that budget over on March 27th um we did try to set up time on April 3 and that was basically rejected and on April 10th we said here's the time for your questions asked the questions and councilman goosi chose not to ask some questions he said I'd rather meet with you um and that's just the way it's played out now um we have answered a number of questions the CFO has answered a number of questions the CFO has taken exception to the fact that we sent he sent a file on March 27th and that file was kind of taken apart tabs were added analysis was added and questions came out of that his view was I'm trying to develop a budget here somebody just took this file and blew it up on me now he had the original file but you understand your point if if I send you an Excel file and you change it all around I'm going to take exception to that do he so he did which I I understand um Mr that's if that's if you have we have an auditor CPA sitting up here and he sitting up here for a reason and if that's how he needs to come to his understanding about the budget I mean I'm not the one that took this thing apart and did all these things of course Al did so I think that's within his right and most people be encouraged that he did that to find out how these numbers were what I'm saying to you is that the CFO developed the budget those a lot of that change did come from Council MOSI the questions that came out of that we feel like we answered he feels like we didn't uh we answered his final set of questions last Wednesday it was 21 questions which was about 10% the last 10% um we provided answers to that haven't really gotten a response on that um and it and one of the most critical that he had questions on was the fund balance and replenishment which we provided on April 10th so um I I think we and if you look again at the trend information year on year it looks it looks reasonable it looks it follows um we actually reduced our expense our our revenues down marginally but it's pretty consistent it's not like a million three that we took the hit in 2023 or versus 2022 too the numbers I think 75 down so um at what point does answering a couple hundred questions and having a 3.74% increase become unreasonable the other point I have for you all is have you do you have any recommendations on changes to it I I haven't heard any of those and I I'm not asking you for those right this second but that's what when we hand over that budget our expectation is we'll clarify things which I think we have and do you have issues with it or do you want to make a change do you have a recommended change um and and that's what we're waiting on right now so um hopefully that's forthcoming so with that I'll vote my yes and we'll move to the next thing which is individual resolution 2024 98 approval of bbca to conduct their various community events for the remainder of 2024 make a motion to approve 2024 98 discussion yes um so this is with a A waving of the fee correct okay and our tourism pays the $2500 fee don't they they used no no they just did for the green Fair my understanding is that they just did for the green Fair they had they paid the $2500 aware of thatw too right I am unaware of that I didn't think I don't think no I'll follow up on that but I'm not not aware that not sure how we could how could we have charged the tourism commission the $2500 fee I don't know but I don't think the only way that could have happened is it was through the vendors but I don't think any vendors paid us $2,500 to my knowledge no I didn't really have anything to do with that I we could follow up on that I I was not over I guess my concern is it I mean it's a bigger problem because I think the ordinance we need to I think the ordinance needs to change um so I I was under the impression that tourism had paid a $2,500 fee if tourism is going to pay a $2500 fee or you know I don't I don't understand where we you know I get the the the fire department you know uses it maybe they wouldn't need to pay a fee but I I don't point about the fire department well I mean like if we do an event if we the fire department something uses the park I don't think we do we charge them $2,500 fe uh no okay well I I give you a better example okay the fire department the 10K they run every year the 5K run I'm sorry it's not 10K couldn't make it if it was 10K 5K we do not charge them for that and that's probably pretty hefty police expenditure right and it begs a question do you do that ABS absolutely absolutely um I I think no but I also think the same I I have trouble differentiating this particular organization in that their sole purpose is to support Bradley Beach I am not looking to make this a a money maker that's not what I'm that's not what I I'm looking for some form of consistency and and also making sure that if there are DPW resources used I know that we say we're going to invoice them and I also don't you know which is which is good and I assume we have a tracking for that but also when we have these big events and and I know Erica said that they don't require police because they're not closing roads but I don't understand how we can say that we're going to have all these people in one place and not have a police officer there we don't have a police officer officer there at these big events I well I'll to that certain events yes certain events and what's the criteria for having the police officer not just when there's alcohol just obviously how large the event is place a b Park yeah but there's obviously more events now than the past I'm sorry there's more events going on now than there wasn't right right so I assume that there would also be if there were any police fees with that it would be included in that um I any comments John yeah no I have comments and um I yeah this resolution is also about waving feet and I know I spoke to miss Gavin just today and learned some new information since then so I would like to approve this ordinance but without waving the fee but I want to be clear I'm not in favor of charging them the fee for every single event I feel like we should take this speed from them this one time and um as it says here if there are uh if there were additional costs to the town that should be noted invoiced you know whatever um and then maybe we can treat this like a security deposit and it could be taken um out of this but I believe that um the tourism was actually charged $2,500 for the uh for the event that was just this last weekend and you know I have another question a resident mentioned before have we ever Mr Mayor do you know if we've taken a look at like or have we asked DPW hey can you tell us what it costs when these events come to town what are the extra costs what's the overtime so have we done that with DPW we have and they've charged we've charged organizations okay so so they so they kind of know what it takes so they should so I feel like if they have their event and if you know there's absolutely no involvement by DPW then there there should be no invoice or anything like that but if DPW has undertaken this process and they kind of know this is what this costs and this is what that costs or just hours or whatever so after the event if we go back to DPW and say hey did you incur any other event any other costs then we should have a handle on that and we can so the current process to do that is the the I don't think you see the supervisor of DPW meets often with the burrow administrator and those are the kind of things they review and he will actually quantify and say we spent two people x amount of hours doing what we're doing okay so that's great I love that that that happens so I feel like if we have a $2500 dollar kind of like a security deposit from the bbca one time and then that process happens after all of these events obvious except for one which you know the food pickup's not going to require anything in the park or anything like that from DPW um I feel like that's a good way to do this and I wonder if we can pass a resolution such as that this evening can Finance hold the $2500 check and not no you're not supposed to hold borrow funds for more than 48 hours yeah learning new stuff all the time okay okay are we able to re like say we question what's the what's the purpose of I don't think they're going anywhere I mean I know where she lives all right so so but my question is can we put if law doesn't allow us to treat this like a security deposit and hold on to it can we reimburse money at the end if we get through these these eight events through the at the end of the year like you know what all those invoices only added up to ,000 so here's $1,500 back can we do that see nice Christmas present do you have any idea if we can that legal clearly states that $2500 is a nonrefundable money got a 27 bank account we have table get I don't think it table because they they have TW we could have a meeting yes we'll the one time if that makes everyone feel comfortable excuse me I just I'm offering the resolution I'm affirming and saying we would absolutely pay one time if that feels right to the council yeah I mean I can't I mean if you guys have eight events at $2,500 I can't do the math so I I can't see you guys coming up with $25,000 to no no no no no no I'm not I'm agree I'm agreeing with you I can't see you paying you know $220,000 to do the events when it's for you know my town people not agree I believe that's originally what we were what we had planned we were going to pay the one time $2500 I told you I couldn't hold on to the chck so I gave it back to you you you didn't want it cash can you table this yeah no because these events are getting planned and they have to they have to be planned please I think technically we Chang this this resolution to reflect what Miss G has said and we passed this resolution minimum 2re I mean think we can can we change the language on this on the Fly and just make it reflect that they're no no no but I'm saying change the resolution and let me get to the resolution click all yeah turn off next game what do you think I wish I had I don't think the next play on 98 just see the comment on the the paragraph on the bottom 8 9898 got yeah you can change that language you can say the bbca shall tender a single $2,500 special events deposit fee for the above we can do that no no no okay please okay so so your motion to amend the if you if you want to consider that you Mo move to amend the resolution and then you can vote on the new language as written so move you make the move I would like to moot make a motion that we amend the language of this resolution uh require a single special events deposit fee in connection with the eight events what he said yeah okay okay um in order to move us forward and uh so we have to vote on amending it first yes for yeah yes okay so I'm making that motion second Mr Noble absent Mr gubitosi absent M Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox um I I am struggling to vote Yes on this I'll tell you why um it's not because I don't support the bbbc but I struggle with not providing some level of support to an organization that does nothing but support Bradley Beach it's not a foundation it's not a pass through it's it's uh and we've had a relationship where we co-sponsor events they've never taken advantage of that um their sole purpose is to promote our town and their volunteer base is incredible so uh we're treating them like they're Outsiders and in fact and in fact they're not so I struggle with um just the whole treatment of this particular organization the example before our fire department is second to none uh they have a 5k they make some money off of that we expend a tremendous amount of resources in DPW and police we don't charge them why because they're here to support Bradley Beach um so that's why I struggle with this um I will vote um I will vote Yes but um I hope we can relook at this uh ordinance and um you know treat a volunteer base and a group that does nothing but support this community and the businesses in this community um treat them um more like a true partner and um not somebody that we're just transacting business with so I B yes yeah okay next uh uh now it's we have to do oh I'm sorry I'm sorry it now we have to to pass the resolution the resol what I said before yeah okay you do you do you uh yeah motion motion to adop resolution okay second Mr Noble absent Mr gzi absent Mr Money yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox what I said before yes okay thank the revised yes that's the revise okay uh 202499 approval of Fresh Markets New Jersey to conduct their farmers in markets at rally Park June 1st July 6th August 2nd September from September 7th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. make a motion to approve 202499 I would like to do the same thing and revise the language of this um this is a for-profit venture um I don't want to wave their fee I do want everybody to know that with these uh these markets they are offering our Main Street businesses a free booth at their at the Fresh Market what are they called yes farmers markets um so there's inclusion of businesses in town and basically that was kind of the deal to get them to come to do this however uh I don't feel right waving the fee for this so kind of like the last one they're having four events would love to make it so we just ask them for the feed for the one time to cover the four events and um so I will make a motion that we revise this language similar to the last one and ask for the $2500 fee for one time for this full Rock Adventure second uh I didn't realize they were giving uh our businesses um free spot they're giving them a free spot yeah but they're bringing plenty of their own I believe so you know it's a combination said yester no that was the that was um for second I'll second um Mr Noble absent Mr gubitosi absent Miss Mahoney I I think they're for for profit why aren't we just making them pay every time because I think they won't come and right some right um and they're going to reimburse all expenses yes yes uh Mr Weber yes on this motion to revise it yes okay mayor Fox yes okay make a motion to approve 2024 98 as amended not 22498 is 202499 99 I'm sorry second okay um Mr Noble absent Mr toy it's absent too absent Mr Hony sorry my brain yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes 22400 approving facility rental application agreement in accordance with the ordinance 20244 creating new chapter 352 public facility rent adopted simultaneously here in here with make a motion to approve a second speaking of fees I have a question I'm still not 100% sure on why this we did an ordinance for this which we just passed earlier in the meeting and we also need a resolution I'm still not 100% sure it was explained to me but now I can't remember that go ahead yeah please right so um long story short B has a practice with the facility rental agreement that's on there has been has been used for significant period of time and it works very well and you can see but these are all worked out everyone's happy in general um go was question of one of our employees as to where this is found in the burough code and the fact is that it wasn't so they brought that to Bar's attention you brought it to my attention so the ordinance codifies um the fees and it indicates that except by resolution of the governing body so in so far as you adop the ordinance tonight that resolution essentially is setting the fees and the and the procedures which were were already in place so it's cify do that make sense the ordinance just references a resolution that's the resolution uh so I would second that mrov absent Mr gboi absent uh Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber yes mayor Fox yes um 20241 approving and directing the planning of shade trees and the planning Wells at various locations along Main Street so I would like to make motion to adopt resolution 2024 101 second Mr Noble absent Mr gubitosi absent Miss Mahoney yes Mr Weber and I'm gonna comment because just for good measure um this is this is not new trees on plate I mean they're new trees but we're replacing trees that in tree Wells that already exist they probably should have been replaced a long time ago um I pretty sure that the shade tree commission has been trying to get trees planted on on Main Street always one thing or another um I know we are endeavoring to you know use our grant and and do some stuff on Main Street I don't think we're going to have to remove the trees however I will say we're just doing this because the shade tree commission planned a planting that's going to happen on May 4th and they ordered these trees and it would be great um if we could fill those Wells on Main Street um and they have a plan B just in case if not so um I will vote Yes to this um mayor Fox I I will vote I'm gonna vote no and I'll explain why um we embarked on a Main Street initiative we had our first meeting yesterday um there's been some discussion between Public Works myself The Bu administrator and the chairman of the shry commission saying that uh we're going to be expeditious with this plan for Main Street because it's a million four and we've already got a we had a good meeting yesterday I think we'll need two more meetings to make a recommendation uh there's a chance that we'd have to move some things around plus this is more complex than the trees that we plant in a regular planting on the on the um on the planting strip for residents because uh as we stated in our meeting yesterday there's some wires coming out of some of these Wells we don't want to plant trees have to move them after the fact so um uh Public Works is not supportive of this uh not not neither is the B administrator neither am I at this point I can tell you um that you know everybody wants to have Main Street have a better look that includes trees I don't like seeing empty tree Wells tree Wells either but I think we finally got the funding to move something forward basis the meeting yesterday I think we're gonna we're going to deal with a number of these issues more expeditiously and not try to do a Big Bang Theory on a couple blocks so I just think this is um this is and in an alter alter perspective we just took down a number of trees on silven Lake because of that Ash um disease um if there was a need to replace um trees that have been ordered we can we've got spots for them U that are easier to deal with so uh I would vote okay um we don't have um any announcements uh so I guess we will go to Mayor and Council reports um we why don't we start with counc okay um I will excuse me start by commenting on this fre resolution um that we just passed I mean I I listened to what the mayor just said and it reminded me that there was we had an email exchange and um and he just said you know the decision had been made by himself and the administrator and the head of the W but that's not what our ordinance says our ordinance doesn't say those three people decide but gets Point on Main stre it actually says the mayor and Council so I don't think it's appropriate to um make the call one way or the other until we have a meeting of the mayor of the council which we just did and we voted and that's the way the vote went so that's about that's why we do things that way that's what we're supposed to do um I am going to address some questions that were asked by residents uh specifically Miss Eileen shizas um regarding the budget team she got a message about who was on the budget team and everybody that sits up here was was mentioned she asked well how many hours were we involved in developing the documents uh that you know are we're going to decide on when we ever get around to doing the budget um I know my answer is at zero hour zero hours in developing those documents yes I they I was given these documents and I spent a lot of time and I added things up and they didn't add up and that's why I go to no but um we didn't spend any time in in um developing those documents so I'm not sure why I got put on the the budget um teamed I also want to let you know that there's a town in Mammoth County that had much shorter meetings and you just have to go back in time because it was Bradley Beach Bradley Beach used to have much shorter meetings and um even when I sat up here it wasn't that long ago okay my first term and first year my second term you know we had a lot of shorter meetings um I think a resident mentioned this we have to address the root cause of why why these meeting so long why don't people ask so many questions but you know the bottom line is there's not trust okay I get it I'm I'm willing to say that there is not trust and uh but you look at some of the things that have transpired and I think there's uh and I think it's not unreasonable that people do not trust you know everything that's going on up here or with this Administration um I we certainly had the the situation with the chief of police that was you know just shocking and um I can understand people have a lot of questions and don't trust we had the situation where um from a budgetary standpoint we got the 2022 audit we thought we're going to replenish $700,000 worth of uh worth of surplus funds and we only replenish $22,000 that does not exactly Foster trust among people so this is you know these are the root causes of this and I don't think it's a good use of anybody's time to go around and find out how long other towns meetings are I think we should put our time and effort into uh establishing and maintaining Trust and you're not going to do that by silencing the people here not answering their questions and telling them to put it in email I mean I get told to put my questions in email now sometimes too um you know and and sometimes it's appropriate but uh I think that should be used really judiciously so so that's uh that's that onto actual commissions and stuff in town um the shade tree commission is going to have an Arbor Day celebration uh on that's this Friday April 26th 4:00 in the Second Avenue Park they do this every year plant a tree in honor of the 8th grade graduating class it's a great celebration we're not sure how many eighth graders we're gonna get get there this time because of is it 4 or 3 o'cl I thought it was 3 o'clock uh it could be 3 o'clock but I said I was thinking four o' if it's 3 o'clock that's fine how about we check on that for everybody and we um everybody and we put an email we'll put in the minutes for the next meeting no we we'll get we'll get out people um I absolutely could be on that 3:00 hoping Clos four the end of the day but that's fine um we do this every year for the you know eighth graders and uh we do get some participation from the school we hope we get some eighth graders at this time but um it's great little celebration and hopefully we'll have good weather and come on out on Friday the following weekend on Saturday and I know I said this wrong last time Saturday May 4th is our tree planting event we have some volunteers lined up yay we've got a bunch of trees lined up to plant yay you could probably still use a few more volunteers so if you are free uh and you want to plant some trees it's not that hard DPW digs the holes yay which is the the hard work um just see me and we'll get you on as a volunteer uh I get the pleasure of reading the police report first time ever um and we have a few things to report here uh a local area male and female both arrested for possession of heroin possession of drug house finia in possession of a hypmic syringe police responded to a report of a male committing Lew acts in the North End of the boardwalk we were able to locate and confirm his behavior so he was arrested for the same he was also charged with unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of methany a local Resident was arrested and charged with be and the police are looking forward to more great weather it's part of the report so um thank you gentlemen for that uh I'm GNA read the first aid report oh wait this is still police police business National takeback initiative is this Saturday so that's uh 27 thank you very much um they do this every year twice a year correct uh you can bring unused prescription drugs back to the police station they get properly disposed of this is a national I think DEA initiative where you know you don't want that stuff going flush down toilets going in your waterways and whatnot so bring your unused drugs no questions asked right okay great um and they will get properly disposed of so this Saturday 10 to 2 right here they just go to the door or just like they were going to dispatch it right okay terrific thank you uh it's it's Anonymous they can't take hypmic needles uh and batteries must be removed from Bape or ecigarettes okay thank you thank you for that first day report for the operational period ending today the squad responded to seven day calls and seven night calls uh 10 were for medical four were for fire calls the squad conducted one drill for the safety and education of the membership the squad con provided medical OverWatch for the Earth Day event in Riley park there were no out of town requests for Mutual AIDS and they requested no Mutual Aid uh from other towns uh they fulfilled 100% of their assignment and as I've said before the fire department is um doing monthly reports so we will have that at the next meeting um and that is the extent of my report thanks very much C sure I don't have much uh council president the noble send her her regards she's sorry she can't be here tonight um this is the first meeting she's missed since she was elected but she will be back next week or next meeting and Council M goosi sends his regard he's not here either but he doesn't miss many meetings either so he's sorry they they're sorry they can't be here but John and I and we're carrying the look we carry the look we tried um on May 6 the environmental commission will meet that's all I have about my commission and things and um I just want to say that not I agree the the root cause of the problems I belong council president of noble and I belong to shore women elected elected officials which is just a a group of women elected officials in in the shore towns who get together and we talk once a quarter to talk about issues issues that are going on in our town uh the towns with uh the shortest meetings are towns where very few people show up for meetings but that's usually because there's nothing going on in that town and people feel like they're getting their questions answered and they don't feel like they're a transparency problem a good council meeting should be quick it should be easy um and when people think their town is being run the way they want it to be run they don't have a lot of questions and they don't have a lot of concerns um so um questions I welcome them I don't always have answers uh but I really think that you all deserve your answers and you deserve them in this public for so I would love the day for us to that these meetings you didn't even have to think about that everything was so well taken care of by this Administration and this Council that uh Wednesday nights were a great night to to watch TV or maybe catch a council meeting that only took an hour we'll get there thank you um so I I I'll I'll start my comments but I do want to make just a comment to councilman Weber um the context in which you were on that team was that each council person was provided one of the biggest variable areas of our budget is the capital improvement process what projects of capital we are going to embark on so I believe every and and I was not part of that interface initially with the bur administrator but I believe she went out asked everybody to get their Capital Improvement input to her so that's a key part of the budget it's not super lengthly but it's a key part of the budget so I'm not sure whether you did or didn't Supply that if you didn't um you just missed your champ no that makes sense I didn't know that may be the the budget team but got it well it's one of the key I mean one of the most variable key pieces of the budget is capital I mean when you take all the fixed costs we have our biggest area of room from a variability perspective is capital um so um I just wanted to make that point I've got a couple things uh uh I'll try to be brief uh first again Main Street um small team kicked off and we had a productive meeting yesterday we'll keep you posted um infrastructure project status uh we've had a couple of meetings with CME on the Northside prominade building the prominade grant Main Street silven Lake which is very new and some other miscellaneous grants uh we'll be framing actually I'm going to work with them the frame a status process for all those projects because there are phases of all those projects um we have over 9 million dollar of funding that's come in and we want to be able to utilize that to improve our community so um I'm I'm very optimistic with CME we're meeting with them every other Friday they they're telling me about the um applications are getting in U surveying they're doing so I'm I'm pleased with that uh I think Main Street we can get a pretty good recommendation together within four to five weeks uh the other projects are in process uh so we hope to get that on board here pretty quick uh and the team of uh people seemed energetic about that um for those who live on the south part of town south part of town uh you'll see water and silven lake at and the whole lake which is good U that tells us that The Flume project worked it's a temporary fix um that's a huge project coming up this fall uh between the outfall pipe with silen lake and um we're going to have to replace that unit uh that this is a temporary fix that we put in uh hopefully it will last through the um uh through the duration of when we need it uh I'm going to be meeting with the Avon mayor to talk about sequencing on that um on that Flume my my opinion is we fix we put a permanent fix on which we just fixed first and then the secondary U fix is going to start in October and probably take us through March which is a huge project um we're estimated between three and4 million right now which is uh pretty big pretty big numbers um I'd ask you to check Library uh check the website for library and recreation activities uh that are coming up uh I do want to mention and thank DPW baj cfone and um his team uh one of our pieces of they they kind of took a shared service action on their own initiative uh along with the bur administrator our Bobcat which is one of our bigger pieces of equipment broke down uh the estimate we got was $122,200 and um he enlisted some mutual support from um belmare we've helped them on a number of occasions we went to belmare and um they were able to get the Bobcat fix for us in their shop for less than $4,000 so you know that's an that's an example of um some good initiative and and some cost savings that um that that could have really U you know cost us a few dollars uh for that piece of equipment um I want to make uh one other comment about the food pantry um I don't know if people are aware of this but I'm personally personally heartbroken by this that um they announced yesterday that they will close prematurely on May 17th um they had committed to relocating and have been very active in acquiring a new property which is in process but unfortunately the pressure they uh was appli to them in the interim that created a really untenable situation um my biggest concern when you think about that Enterprise I've always called that probably the most important Enterprise in Bradley Beach they support about 750 families in about 10 towns around us including Bradley Beach um not as important but very important is um we just talked about uh National volunteer week we got 175 people that have been committed to and worked in that food pantry that um we're I guess there's a meeting next week that the director's going to have um to explain what's going on uh but they will close on May 17th U and it is a shame um the acceleration of this closure so uh I don't know all the details of that acceleration but from the briefings I've gotten it seemed like there was a process and a plan in place um it's unfortunate that whatever whatever impatience drove them to this um happened because uh I do believe their new site if they do get that new site it's going to take a little bit of time to retrofit um one of the questions I have and I've gotta do this after the fact with um the bbca relative to those events is I'm not sure that being first food pickup we we're gonna have to we're gonna have to we're meeting Friday with um a number of agencies and um entities that are in the business of supporting um people uh in Mammoth County and we're going to try to figure out I I just tried to broker people to see if there's a way there's an interm solution between uh May 17th and when they open can we do popup can we utilize something else so we're going to we're going to work on that but uh that's that's a variable we're going to have to to talk about um because they may not have a place to put that stuff uh give them where they are so we we'll figure that out though uh that is the end of my report um we'll now go to public comments anybody have a public comment yes uh William sh avue uh Bradley Beach and uh Deputy coordinator OEM for Ry be the reason I'm mentioning that is uh I received an email yesterday uh from uh one of our surrounding towns uh Neptune City and basically it's a resolution that they adopted on April 22nd uh I talked to the ba about it and uh like I said it's short notice so it couldn't be put on the agenda but I would like to see it into uh Place into your next meeting's agenda and that is uh requesting uh authorization requesting General financial support under the state states of fiscal year 2025 budget for regional flood study uh this is uh to submit request to the state of New Jersey for $500,000 uh to conduct a regional FL this is actually going to help the residence by silven Lake on Bradley Boulevard but more it's going to help the residents at the north end of town by Fletcher Lake we have to understand our Lakes do not just get rain water they also get water from other towns through their storm water uh like Fletcher s Lake gets it from Neptune City there's actually a pipe from Neptune City that goes right into silven Lake and it dumps in there and eventually dumps into the ocean same thing with the what you call yes I know you seen the typo okay I was going to say if you're going to adopt it you want to copy the word for word just do a spell check because go on the record and say a resolution like this would never leave our town typo let's not copy the typo you guys know me better than that Right Care careful us to work we can you however but what I would like to add is uh they did make a little mistake we need to send this to uh uh to palone ourown let's send it to uh the state senator Vin goal okay let let's get more people involved in this and let and push the governor to give this uh $500,000 uh study thank you is time is there is this time sensitive not really like it's just the sooner we could do it okay you know because they're doing their budget so let's get right there there's been a lot of activity just to clarify the urgency um Neptune U Mike Basham I hope I got his name right BAS basket um has headed up a group I've sat in a couple of the meetings butam has sat in all the meetings the October um rain that we had affected the ocean grow side much more because they're lower yes number one and two I don't think they have the infrastructure that we have below ground um so they've gotten a lot of pressure from their residents to to look at flood mitigation um so they've headed this thing up we're part of the I don't how many how many towns is it Mr sh uh I believe there's four towns involved in this with Mama County o okay oh yeah it's right here I'm sorry so uh yeah so um that's generated a lot of Buzz um and a lot of me there's been two or three meetings and uh I think this will this should move but um you know I can understand if we were on the receiving side of that um I can understand so got we I think we can get this into the main will'll make the appropriate changes thank you and on another note uh there was a uh meeting that was held at the belmire in reference to Verizon 5G uh I mean a lot of people from this town went over there to support bmar it's a shame that they didn't support me back in 2017 when I was arguing this point with the 5G uh the uh previous mayor along with the council allowed Verizon to install the 5G on Bradley uh I mean Ocean Avenue in as well as Third Avenue on the 100 block when I was complaining about it you know everybody was like yeah yeah yeah yeah whatever whatever but about two I'm going to say two months after my complaint they put a sign on that telephone pole it's about 8 ft 10 ft I said it was six I was wrong you're you're on time I'm sorry thank you anybody else questions yes comments I'm sorry saying questions comments hi greato 604 Bradley Boulevard so my house faces the lake I have a lot of questions about uh what was said at and reported at the last council meeting about the $2.4 million gr so what is the scope of the $2.4 million gr um so this is comments but I'll I'll be happy to send that out to you it's it's there's a lot of detail I can send you the doc Grant the grant so if I leave my email with ER you could send that over okay the next question I have is Who's involved in you know the execution or you know determining the out you know actually working on that and you know I'm asking because I'd like to volunteer to work on that group yeah you need some assistance it's actually a point that I'm going to put into um a more formal communication but um we've had a group working on this for a couple of years it's called a repe grant so there's a a whole group working on Shoreline and improvements this grant is for other things we're going to marry the we're going to get those groups together and figure it out so that but it has not been done that's that's a Todo do they need help uh they haven't even formed at this point so I'll make that point to the CM guy yeah I don't know what that means do like that the engineer the engineer who's gonna kind of be the point person and that's a employee B engineer yeah he works for us okay thank you yes really don't please okay thank you um first off I find it very interesting that once again mayor fo you have shut everybody down for the most part tonight but of course the gentleman comes up and you had no problem starting to answer his questions um part for the course um I have been asked by someone who is not here tonight to uh just acquire perhaps the council could reconsider why are we only holding one planning and zoning board meeting a month um especially now that you have condensed the two um teams into one um it's causing an excessive weit time um you know this person happens to be that you know they've already reach their 45 day for their plans only be told that they can't get on the calendar until um July so this is someone who obviously has spent over a million dollars we spent more than a million dollars building and re renovating their house but can't do so because they can't get on the calendar so um I believe somewhere it was written or was back in the day that we are entitled to have two meetings a month um and that the group it shows Anno to do one but that a special meeting can be called for but isn't always given so perhaps with all of the re uh Rec the construction reconstruction and building that goes on the town perhaps you could look to read address that and maybe I mean if we can have meetings twice a month why can't those that are only here to better our community have twice a month and maybe move that along I'm on the land use board so I can send the secretary please talk to that yeah I appreciate that um again someone else ask me to bring up um since we are focusing on volunteer and you know we are a Titan a community um and we want to promote that um there was a recent uh gofund me put out on our Facebook pages for one of our residents U Megan gingerelli um she's on weight list for a liver transplant she's a single mother three kids um I applaud everybody that has given fly and donated but we're only about halfway there so if anybody could share that with anybody that would be greatly appreciative um another point of thanks um we'd like to thank actually the um police department and animal control um recently had this weekend an incident where um woke up to a very loud noise on Saturday morning to my dog being attacked by a huge raccoon in my backyard um and he was thinking about me but he went from my dog and said otherwise I would have taken them out um but we called we called the police and asked them to inform Animal Control they did um Animal Control did get back to us two hours later and said that they had captured one don't know if it's the same one or not but they're sending out for testing and of course you know we made notification on the Facebook page so everybody would be aware for their own safety and their pets um and our pet was taken in for um the preventive rabies boosters and antibiotics just in case so I applaud you thank you for getting on top of that um really do appreciate that um and lastly um earlier I know um it's a shame that we're not able to ask questions anymore or you know for the sake of time mayor fox wants us to just kind of run through this when in fact the point of a public meeting is just that for us to find out know get questions for you guys to know I mean obviously you guys have all getting together beforehand because it would be inform and that's illegal so this is the Avenue for us to get all the information for you to get the information so um it certainly would be nice if the ba and the mayor would perhaps send you a lot of information well in advance and like I said it be an open book so that you're well versed before you come here and then maybe we have more questions um answered and quite frankly I don't know in terms of the DPW contract if Mr far seems to be the point of contact why do we not have women here giving us a status because again it's still unacceptable that our workers who really carry the load in this town are not being treated and I believe in the last meeting when we were talking about the proposed budgets and someone asked a question about was the DPW contract included in that mayor foxa said yes as it's been presented and we all know that if it was accepted as presented we wouldn't be waiting 18 months so we know that if that's what they're using as perhaps part of the budget plan it's not going to be correct so again if that could be done appreciate it thank you thank you R McGuire six the a um okay I have a few things I do want want to say I'm disappointed about the event fee situation um I do think it needed to be tabled um both both resolutions for both entities and I want to explain why I believe so um the fact that tourism may have been charged and I know that seems we're not sure but if that's the case that's a huge issue that we have Our Town Event Department being charged for events and we're waving fees for private entities um I don't believe the bbca needed to pay $2500 for each event absolutely not it's nonprofit company um I do think we needed to table it so that we could come up with an agreed amount that would cover all those events um I don't know if the owner of the farm market was contacted but I think it is a huge disrespect to have removed the waved fee without him knowing and passed that and now suddenly it's not waved and I don't know that he knew about that and as a business owner that would piss me off greatly um I do think he needs to pay for each event but I I just don't think that should have been done without him being informed um I do want to thank the council for voting down the introduction of the budget I like I said earlier I'm going to continue repeating and stressing the need for forensic investigation into our finances in this town I really really hope we can continue voting this down so that the DCA can step in I think it's really necessary um I do want to remind everyone that I had Oprah the um Federal funding we got through the American Rescue plan the co money for 2021 and 2022 44 $434,000 and when I when I asked I was given that there were no responsive records I got that same answer three times then after three times of no responsive records I was given an Edmund's list of that amount of money sort of just being tossed around into accounts with still no bank account it was deposited into which I had asked for and no allocations of where that money was was allocated no information on that so I do want to put that on record once again um let's see the oh the um tax levy versus Municipal increase so mayor Fox I I don't understand the tax levy so much versus the learning I've tried everything I've tried to learn about Municipal tax increase and I know in your newsletters you mentioned the tax levy so can you can you give me the difference of those two for a better understanding yeah I think what I put in my newsletter is our Municipal Levy is what we control there's other elements of tax that to give people a sense of what the total tax is going to be that's what I lay out and it's an ask so I know the municipal tax money is like our money that we control and spend so is tax ly the same thing why don't I write out a couple paragraphs for you off of the summary that I do okay that would be great thank you um I just I'm I would appreciate that just because I went back to last year's newsletter as well in the same time of year of the budget and it had like the lower percentage rate for the tax levy and then by the time we passed the budget we were at the 13.2% increase in Municipal tax so so that's why I just wanted to know the difference you're not an understanding the only big change in the newsletter was that the county hit us with a lot more tax last year than they had in the prior three years gr so I'll explain that in that paragraph okay great thank you um I think that's it thank you yes you SE that Ocean Park um Mr Weber school gets out so i' share that with you uh this meeting got off to a pretty embarrassing and repulsive start and if you don't want to know what we have to say you may leave um that being said also I find it offensive that Passover was brought up and Ramadan was not brought up one of the most religious holiday for the people that follow that religion but you know been somebody that was skipped over last month um prior to a budget I would like to see because I always say to you we need to legislate need to change the ordinance and the number of Personnel in the police department and you need to change the ordinance on the percentage of salaries taken from the beaching civil utilities I don't see how you can continue with the budget without doing that and I do realize that the utilities you know make it so that we we the taxpayers pay less however I would really like prefer to have truth and transparency um I would well I don't ask questions but I think the public would like to know when the qpa depent contract is up I don't think it should be renewed um we a presentation I try to find it online but you know finding something on that website is you know I find something um the rec Senator came in and made a presentation and it said um I think the phasing is Reven expenses but we see no breakdowns how many months have I been asking for breakdowns on what comes in and what goes out and what's spent on because I'm going to look at those expenses and I can tell you that that is not 100% expenses of running the recreation which then would also bring me to tourism which is under our umbrella of municipality for the bbca as I've said before is 501 C6 so therefore it should not be treated the same as a fire department police department you know it's same thing you know how did we not def funed the Chamber of Commerce that's what we would have and it's the same kind of thing they should not receive any sort of special treatment um since they're not under our umbrella um we could save money once again if the second floor of the police department facing uh Main Street didn't have their windows open I see them open almost every morning on my wind weather I don't get it this is before we had a little bit of wind weather um I don't understand why once again I overed something and we don't have any records on some bills they were bills that we did not approve for payment and we no longer have records to so like where' they go you know what happens to your bills when you don't pay them where' they go you don't seem to have information and then that would bring me to the last meeting we had when a tenant spoke about her personal landlord issues during the consent agenda part of the meeting now I've been saying since December 15th at this point in the meeting that I have a landlord issue and that has been ignored by this entity as well as by the code department so I wrote a letter I have no answer so don't brush us off and think that we believe you're going to give us appropriate responses we have the right to know and have answers or whatever it is because you serve at our country and I want to thank Mr Weber and M Momie for your votes this evening many of which I didn't agree with but they did have well thought out and um professionally stated answers and that um just go look far in making us the community that we used to be um the website how many times do I have to say you need to do something about this now we've got every Department doing their own so we've got different different styles the pointless consistency which would tie into a little bit of your branding but not totally but it's beyond my R comprehension why we're so dysfunctional well I do know why um but why we're allowed to be so dysfunctional why employees are allowed to be that way and yes I can say it because it's freedom of speech in America and that quite honestly no endorsement of anyone in particular trumps everything else thank you yeah oh that um yeah just a comment on Miss Castellano that that was a mistake on our part at the last meeting she got up and after being into it for two minutes that doesn't help I wasn't going to um have her sit down and it took a little time and I apologize but um so just uh we don't get the same courtesy to where the voter um thank you L ducky 312 Bley Avenue I just have a question for about the ordinance 2024 death does 25% of population have to vote for that majority of population has to vote for it so 25% I don't know the voting populations I say well depends how show up because vot not voting is a choice as well uh but the 25% I was referring to is the number of people that have to sign a petition in order to get that on the B so out of the voters how many people have the vort like over a thousand I Believe Miss to just ask would have to sign the petition that question about sign talk about 51 50% plus one okay the people that show up that's what that's yeah there's no there's no oh no there's no minimum Forum that shows up for the just H at a regular Municipal general election people would show up they can choose off to vote of the question too well yes but I was just wondering if it was like percentage of the Town ask no that only applies to signning the petition all right thank you very much wel okay somebody's on the board um just getting the first on the board who's the first on the board Molly coner is that coner yes hi city council yes I'm curious if this was the public comment yes or did I did I is it the public comment can you identify who you are and your address please state your name and address yes yes yes my name is Molly yes yes yes my name is Molly Conger and I love live on 614 North 14th Street I was curious if this was the public comment are you in Bradley Beach what you can just tell us what town that I'm sorry what are you in Bradley Beach yes yes I'm in Bradley Beach we don't have a North 14th Street what street are you on in Bradley Beach oh sorry sorry did I say 14th I meant I meant 12th I'm sorry whatever is public comments yes what is comment please well is it public comments or is it on the agenda item it's public comments oh okay hi so I was just curious basically like I see a lot of anti-white propaganda pushed in the media and I mean I think it's great that we celebrate so many different cultures and do that freaky First Amendment why are you why are you have a First Amendment that's kind of rude that's kind of rude okay well I'm curious like can we have like a white History Month I'm curious like white people I would just like to say some awesome things that white people have done like as a as a white transgender Israel it feels like white people have been very very prejudiced against and like I'm I'm also Jewish and so we get a lot of hate too and like I think that we should you know we have a Jewish heritage month I don't see why we can't have a white history month or even a year I mean white people founded our country I mean white people you know freed the slaves I mean oh my gosh white people have done so much I mean we've built roads I mean architecture most of the modern architecture was designed by white people I mean the phone that you use I mean the beautiful building that this council is in I mean it was it was created by white people like it's just very disheartening to hear that we've done so much awful stuff where some of it isn't fully accurate either but at the same time like we've done so much great stuff I don't feel like we celebrate white people enough I think but you know I see little girls and they say how much they hate being white how they wish they were you know black or brown or you know pink or whatever color and they don't like like being white I think we should have more people that are proud to be white you know I think we should have white pride like where's a white pride like we have gay pride we have like black pride we have Asian pride like where's white pride if you were to say white pride everyone would say you're racist I don't think that that's very fair accurate at all okay so that's my comment thank you Council okay Paul new shampion good evening Paul hello can you hear me yes uh I'm trying to start my video up there we go all first of all I'd like to thank everybody for the condolences I I really appreciate it and I really like to call out again to our Police Department who I think are just terrific and handle situations like this in an extremely sensitive and effective manner um I salute them um a separate issue um Al gubitosi would have brought this up if he was at the meeting the fallen heroes fund which we are co-sponsoring as a historical society uh with the burrow um really is in need of funds um I think their goal was $112,000 um they hope to accomplish everything by Memorial Day I don't know how they will unless somebody comes forward and donates small or large donations accepted um by check to Al um online through the Historical Society website BBH his.org when you go to the website in the front page you'll see a link to the fallen heroes fund and you can fill out that form and make a donation thank you very much thanks Paul okay anybody else yes mik 64 excuse me in the 2022 audit there were 16 total of 16 internal control and compliance matters one of them was considered a material weakness eight of these matters were the same issues mentioned in the 2021 audit report um found a website named ecode 360 and on there it states the municipal clerk Association of New Jersey chapter 10 local budget and fiscal Affairs subsection 10182 uh corrective action plans dated 78 1992 all local units including municipalities counties and fire districts and authorities operating under the local public authorities fiscal Control Act must now prepare and submit a corrective action plan as part of their annual audit process the corrective action plan shall be prepared in accordance with the OM circulars and this notice plans are to be submitted to the division and placed on file with the clerk or Secretary of the local unit 60 days from the date of the audits received by the governing body this plan shall cover all findings and recommendations in the audit report including state federal and general findings as well as the status of all prior year findings and recommendations it should be prepared by the Chief Financial Officer of the local unit with assistance from other officials affected by the audit recommendations and approved by the governing body of the local unit each corrective action shall include the following description of the deficiency analysis as to why the deficiency occurred descriptions of procedures to be used to correct the deficiency or reason why the finding will not be corrected expected date of implementation which is required to be no later than 6 months after the date of the order report corrective action plans would to be referenced in the synopsis of the order report that is published on November 22nd 2022 and March 27 2024 there were two resolutions passed which our governing B certified the annual audits for 21 and 22 I've gone through all the resolutions from 2022 through 2024 and I don't see a resolution accepting the corrected plan for for to clarify for this year for 21 and 22 for 21 and 22 correct uh okay I recently found an example one from West Cap May for the their 2021 audit and this resolution followed right after the resolution that certified their annual audit since our former government um maybe different than West K May are we exempt from this process of preparing submitting corrected action plans as part of the annual audit process or do I dismiss the approved resolution from our website no the 2022 is uh corrective action plan isn't completed yet that's being done and what about 2020 I'll have to follow up on 2020 I because I know that we did a corrective action 202 thank you also doing my research I found annual audits from different M municipalities libraries for odds I didn't find one of Bar's website or the library's website I also couldn't find anything on the state level I was surprised that I couldn't find anything since there was a recent RFP from the library requesting audit services for 2024 in many of the meeting agendas mentioned Financial reports comparing budgets and actual results I called the State library of New Jersey and left a message of Robert Keith who is the director of Library law state aid and statistics and left him a voicemail asking where I could find a copy of the most recent audit or was I Library exemp from having to do one he called me back and told me that the library wasn't exempt from doing them he was surprised to find out that one hadn't been done excuse me performed for several years uh that's not that's not correct it's not okay so if he's did I so um is there any way to get copies of those get the library director H we reviewed um last year's I think two meetings ago yeah she's on that she has so must us gave the wrong information you got wrong information it's correct wonderful thanks so much appreciate it good thank you yes laor in Eggbert 404 and a half brly Avenue um this gentleman just hit on exactly what I haven't been able to quite get out of my mind for um since I heard about the 2022 audit and that was findings findings at the very end of the audit that anybody can find on our website and it cites things like lack of accurate and timely maintenance of the general ledger to prevent and detect um and correct misstatements or mistakes and and it go you know it goes on with several recommendations and what they say could be the effect of our deficiencies there and this is the first that I've learned that there's a corrective report I mean that was the kind of information that I plan to stand up and ask and and I'm wondering if that is a public document and if our Council has been involved in in looking that over and um if we could have any insurance assurances that we know with accuracy and you know what is coming in what is going out if Goods that are paid for received you know I don't know how we can go forward you we talk a lot about the budget but if we have no internal controls or we can't rely on our internal controls I want to know how to fix that you know it it seems to me you know absolutely fundamental and um that major concern number one second major concern is having DPW and other wonderful um employees of our buau working without a contract for how long is it 20 months pardon I think it's more like 15 or 16 at this point 15 or 16 months months okay and that once that contract settled we're going to owe back money to them too aren't we y right and if we don't know you know I'd say you know let's get a contract these people principally because they deserve to be paid and deserve to be I don't think we can pay them what they're worth quite frankly but as close as we can and we also need that information to have accurate budget projections so um the last thing I'd like to say part of the budget conversation that I heard last time I was here involved um elimination of positions through attrition and I think I heard mentioned the possibility of two of them being in the DPW and I don't know if it's been shared with our council at all or with anyone what positions at what salary levels we're you know we're planning because really I mean the details of this budget is the plan of how our government's going to operate for the next year it's not just numbers we arguing about numbers it it's it's how we're going to operate as a town and and I'm concerned about balancing the budget in this way particularly without the details thank you thank you okay I'll make a motion to um close the meeting all in favor thank you everybody have a good evening