##VIDEO ID:sZk387Lwtgw## I don't want to get over optimistic that sounds way better than I thought yeah c I mean analis wait wait till the developers get crack at it there I mean there's already several vultures swarming around oh really it's got to be creepy do all that and get that was are we are we on YouTube okay see recording in progress welcome to the chadam township committee meeting of December 10th 2024 um we are returning from executive session and uh our clerk Mr alante has verified that uh adequate noce has been given uh could everybody please join me for the flag [Music] salute States Justice for okay we are going to start out opening up the hearing of citizens uh Mr lante did you want to read the guidance the record members of the public are now welcome to come up to the microphone to address the township committee this is an opportunity for any member of the public to be heard about issues which are not topics scheduled for public hearings tonight those present may be May step up to the microphone to be heard if you're watching via Zoom you may speak during any of the public comment sessions by following the zoom instructions to raise your hand whether in person or online when you are recognized to speak please mind the following procedures please say your name spell your last name and give the name of your street you do not need to give your street number all public comments will be limited to 3 minutes rather than use any of your time answering questions the township committee will wait until you finish speaking before responding there are two public comment sessions on tonight's agenda each member of the public will be limited to one comment of up to 3 minutes during each public comment period written comments submitted to the Township Clerk before 3:00 p.m. today will be read during the public comment sessions written comments are subject to the same guidelines as oral comments duplicative written comments may be summarized rather than read in full according to guidelines issued by the New Jersey Division of local government services and we do not have any written comments thank you okay do we have anybody online who is raising their hand uh at this time there are no hands raised we have anybody online uh um we have four people online just no h just so I know for next round okay and since we have nobody coming up to the microphone I will uh close the public hearing and we'll start our Workshop shop portion of the meeting Mr shahadi Workshop sorry Workshop session yep uh you had Mountain View on the um up for discussion yes um so as you'll see mayor down below um there is a resolution for um awarding a contract to this Co-op uh for playground equipment uh what is on Workshop is just uh ensuring that there's consensus and and explaining so I emailed I believe in August and that was included in your package the um the the drawings that the uh vendor put together for this I believe it's the same vendor that did it for us quite a while ago and most of our Parks they're very familiar with it so uh they we gave them what our budget was uh they knew what our budget was based off of the grand um which we got $67,000 for uh over the summer uh the playground equipment is about 74,000 we are required to contribute a portion uh as well in addition to this grant that was one of the conditions in the grant so we had put in for I want to say something like 880,000 and so the balance was what we were supposed to pay for so uh exhibit a of the resolution is the um is the quote from from the vendor uh John our engineer and Rich our Public Works director reviewed this and we're all on board with it I didn't hear any feedback from the governing body necessarily on it but just want to make sure that we had a chance to to discuss if necessary yeah I mean it looks good to me does anybody have any questions or comments about the plans looking was there any uh proportion on the contribution or does it really matter there was I can't remember what it but we meet it we will meet it yes yep uh because a portion of it is so I believe it was 880,000 right and so the difference here part of it is also in kind work that DPW will be performing there's other work that also is not included here the mulching the barrier like the borders around there any fixing uh that needs to be done all of that can be counted as in kind work and a contribution towards the final amount okay great thank you it looks like it has all the fun stuff in there did you have a question I thought I saw you pause I just the only comment I'd make about it is just that it would be wonderful if this would be in the in the um meeting packet that's available for the public so that they could see it this is the kind of thing that you know we have workshops sessions and I've droned on about this incessantly that we have Workshop sessions and they don't have access to the documents that we have and you know this is like a great visual aid something easy um this might even get in the Press if it was available so it would be the this kind of thing would be a benefit to the public my opinion what is sorry go ahead disabili so I did ask about this and um another one about them being uh ADA Compliant and uh falling within the barrier free and I was told that they are uh that this does have elements and that it meets Ada um so if anybody wants to challenge that by all means because I was it's you know being Ada and barrier-free but also being inclusive are also two different things in my from my understanding right you know having a generally completely inclusive playground is a little different and goes above and beyond just being ADA Compliant um and so I did stress that to to John and Rich uh for the uh project that we're looking to apply for the next round that we want to make sure that not only is the playground but access to the playground as well that you don't that you've got ramps to get there that you've got uh nothing that would impede somebody's ability to utilize the playground even though the playground equipment itself might be ADA Compliant and what is the to be chip it's a special type of Chip type of mulch it's got to be playground mulch there's a special uh over overpriced piece of uh material that's specifically for playgrounds that we have to not only put down there but also make sure that it's replenished and uh changed out part of the thing that our risk management consultants and the GIF does uh will'll inspect and come out and look at the playgrounds to make sure that we also have the right substance [Music] um sorry I'm just looking there's no particular Rush with passing this at this point is there that we wanted to just post it I mean either way it's going to get posted we were going to post it anyways I just again you know posting it for the public when you guys haven't had a chance to vet it discuss deliberate maybe make modifications but the the plan is we would do a press release on this and you know announce it to the public and and what's your timeline that you would need to uh have this passed in order to get stuff done on time um we've got a couple more months on I don't know exactly when I mean you have it's fairly fast that the only hiccup here is that the quote may go up at the end of the year we were told that the quote was only valid through the end of the year um so will it go up I don't know it could go up um that's the only hiccup here we've got probably until May or June to finish the project okay might even be a bit more because it's one you typically it's one year from the grant award I think we got the Grant in June yeah I'm sure that Coop pricing is yeah just through the end of the area okay I mean I'm fine with proceeding and you know we'll just of course have it out for residents to is does anybody prefer to hold off and take chances of a price increase I mean we just get less for our money basically and when I look at this it's got everything so I can't imagine and it looks it's complimenting stuff that we don't have in other places or providing things we don't have in other places okay um so we have the resolution in the package get already Mr shotti would it be worthwhile you know getting getting an opinion from the environmental commission as far as the the pellet materials or any other materials that might be part of the design to the park or is that like for the uh for the sure yeah um we could do that I mean that's not included in this that would be something we'd be doing outside of this like this is just a playground vendor right the mul andal that we do separately so we have time on that one consult with but is that a practice or is that done in the past or is that a suggestion that I don't know that it's been done in the past um just because it hasn't been doesn't mean we shouldn't do it but it's pretty limit I mean you've got this is the material that you've got to use for insurance and risk purposes I don't know uh you know what how much flexibility there is but I can I'll talk to our engineer and see if there's any yeah there could be like a Green version of whatever is acceptable to the state or whatever it work worth asking a question I think to the environmental commission um and by the way uh when I came across this grant I brought it to your attention and you were very fully versed in it it was it was very comforting to know that you're on top of the Grant and we're taking advantage of uh grants that are out there um to make improvements to the township so thank you thank you Mr shoty between our engineer our Public Works director you know we we all have been through a lot of these and we're we try to stay on top of them to save taxpayer money wherever we can um and leverage sometimes if you can multiple grants for the same project wherever we can do that so uh the next round of this 2025 which you and I spoke about briefly um we're looking at ways to combine two different grants for that project as well so we'll have more information for you on that in hopefully January great thank you thanks great um was there anything else we wanted to cover under work to that's that's all may okay uh unless actually let me just pull up if there's anything on this agenda that you want me to go over beforehand um there's the cancellation of taxes if there was any question on those um one that I know mayor you had asked about and wanted me to give some clarification on was the resolution cancelling taxes for Verizon um the recital in there the whereases um I do think give a little bit of context our tax assessor uh Glenn is recommending that we cancel them even though we do have uh litigation uh on the Verizon taxes the property taxes there um and I believe the thinking is that it's it's better that that ta tax cancellation wound up not being necessary that's just being covered under the U refunding the overpayment of taxes perfect well in either case it's um better to not owe them taxes later on and have them owe us taxes so that's kind of the thinking there is something changing based on what you just said cancelling it's going under the refunding of over yeah in my discussions with the assessor and the um acting tax collector that we had um it wound up not being necessary to do that as a cancellation because it wasn't being ruled as exempt it was just you know having a temporary uh zero assessment yeah so but this has been adjusted or the packet's been adjusted already for yes okay you that's why you only have two resolutions for cancellation of taxes rather than three okay um so that's that the change orders those are for the dot uh Municipal Aid project uh that we award to uh the county vendor the the vendor that wins the county Co-Op um when John gives us the estimate and we make the award that's usually based on just that estimates so once final tonnage Milling numbers are completed and they're calculated that's when we make a a change order sometimes it's been less and sometimes uh the projects ended up Less in this case there's slight overage but it's uh accounted for and covered MH okay mayor if I may one resolution that was uh updated uh very late this afternoon was 2024-25 Redemption of outside lean originally there were two redemptions on that resolution there are now uh for them um yeah that's the tax collector had a couple more that were ready to be cleared out and just to clear everything out for the the year end uh we decided to get that done today okay great thank but it's it's it's still you routine things okay thank you wonderful okay if uh everybody's good then I think I'll close out the workshop session and we will move into our regular meeting um so I'm going to open up with our mayor's message um I wanted to take a moment uh in particular to address the Drone sightings in the township um I wanted residents to know that we're taking those drone flyovers of our town very seriously our police chief our administrator and I have all reached out to our contacts at the state county and federal level uh the message has been the same across the board the situation is being monitored they request any any sightings to be reported through the FBI website uh and there is no known threat at the time to the public at this time I like you am very dissatisfied with that response uh we keep pressing for more information at every level and I plan to attend the governor's briefing tomorrow and we'll let you know as soon as we have more information given this is our last scheduled meeting for 2024 I wanted to say a special thank you to our administrator his amazing team and our Township committee members for all they did this past year to take care of our community and to help our residents despite never-ending budget pressures the township team managed a tight budget keeping the municipal tax levy flat relative to the prior year they renegotiated our banking relationship resulting in higher returns and better services install new turf at Jump Pike field and completed the tennis court improvements including striping for the pickle ball they work with the Cornerstone developers see through the implementation of our third round affordable housing mandate and work diligently to add the feny property to our open space inventory these are just a few of the highlights uh there's so much more and all done while providing the day-to-day services our Township residents rely on so thank you all very much um the year is not over we have our Winter Wonderland event this Thursday December 12th from 6:30 to 8:30 right here at the Township Municipal Building uh it'll be a wonderful opportunity to join together as a community to celebrate the holidays it'll be a fun evening filled with carolers hot cocoa and fun activities I want to thank our event uh events volunteers for coordinating this event and for the very successful uh Fall Festival that was held in October uh so please spread the word spread the word spread the word we' like to get a good turnout um for the holiday event on Thursday which if you've been to one in the past they're really very special um on December 18th from 3:00 to 5: we'll have the grand opening and ribbon cutting for the Cornerstone at chattam affordable Family Apartments our Township team worked with the developer of the Walters Group to create an affordable community that all Township residents can be proud of I look forward to welcoming our new residents to chattam Township um in order to secure millions in the tax credit funding for the Cornerstone project we had to provide transportation between Cornerstone and the train station in the morning and in the evening that contract was awarded to boxcar our administrators been working with boxcar to find a way to leverage that train station shuttle amenity for the broader Township community which I know many people have been interested in for some time um I'm hopeful we'll be able to announce additional service in the New Year U before we move into the meeting I would just like to thank committee man Lois for his service to the township over the past three years and I wish him well in his next Endeavor I'd also like to congrat congratulate committeeman elect Craig Al alperowitz on his win and welcome him to the committee I look forward to working with him in the New Year okay we'll move on to uh Township committee reports uh Mr Lois would you start please sure I uh I don't have a report um I do have a bit uh a few items that I you know would like to leave the committee with though um we jcpnl never came to present to us for their energized NJ plan we never made time for them for that despite that there were increases um you know there were rate increases so we gave up an opportunity in my view to have a voice and to say something um to jcpnl but also to hear about maybe what improvements would be made with these increases you know to our community so perhaps in the future um whoever takes on the utilities Le us on would you know be a better Advocate maybe than I was even to get um that person here so that the residents could benefit from whatever the improvements would be um in our Township um in addition we have several uh things that people residents have heard me speak about many times um whether it be the the custodial funds that we have for Mac for a teen center which have been on the books for a dozen years and never applied uh we have money monies for opioid the opioid crisis the opioid settlement we have monies that have been contributed in the tens of thousands of dollars that have never been deployed we have never T talked about that topic in Workshop uh this year the entire year and you know that that is certainly a bipartisan affects everybody you know it's going to touch children in our community it's going to touch families in this community there should be something being done with those opad funds and it shouldn't be balled up as it was um as it was stated previously that we were waiting to a mass a certain massive amount of funding before we take some action to have some sort of programming whether it be at the library whether it be um you know glow-in-the-dark pickle ball glow-in-the-dark tennis some sort of a teen program maybe along the lines of things that I've suggested or or sent in for Workshop sessions um maybe something else I but some sort of program for the opioid crisis would be appropriate in my view so with with that I oh and then finally for Colony pool I would say that every year that I've been on this committee we've talked about listening to uh The Colony pool um the the the report and some uh feedback about rates so that they can be set earlier so that there's a that rates and membership Drive can start in January um because that's when the pool season is and you know again this year we've missed an opportunity for that and I would just encourage this committee to take on uh a review of the rates and the membership um in the fall so that you could be ready in early in the winter for something new thank you I guess the one question I would have about Colony um I I I do recall and I thought they did come up with something that that that you were working with them for recommendations based on the prior year for next year which you know if they had recommendation rates would be perfectly welcome but I was just wondering if you had any their feedback accumulated from the past year for from the committee The Colony pool advisory committee um you if you're referring to the feedback that was given this year that was uh wholly rejected and and not reviewed At All by this committee what was given in the winter a none of the raid advice that we were G that was given was followed are are you asking me um was if you're asking me this past Summer's feed so we were going to reassess in the fall and get feedback from The Colony pool advisory committee so they could we could start planning well in advance of next year right so that that topic has never come up on any of our uh agendas and that's what I'm I'm saying that that should come up on an agenda every bit of advice that's been given unsolicited from Colony po this year has has gone um unmet in response by this committee and also uh wholly and and totally rejected culminating in what happened with the the pool wall issue which was you know finally we we conducted a public survey which was 3 to one against um in its result against what this committee had had pushed forward because they had ignored The Colony pool committee I I think this I think there's some repair in that relationship that has to come forward okay thank you Mr McHugh Al righty thank you Mark um we have not had a environmental uh committee meeting this month due to some uh little illnesses here and there so that uh we don't have a big report on the environmental on this particular uh as far as the library goes there are a couple things um the last just last week there was the successful holiday uh book sale which is always good think about what's coming the next round come the come the spring and the summer um and then uh we are in a hectic holiday period and the at the library uh there are now um yoga meditation classes being offered uh to calm us down and and get us through so do take advantage of that um uh the if for any Opera lovers out there uh there is also now a um Metropolitan Opera offering where you can stay home and actually live stream uh they offer one per week um and if you're interested in something like that scroll down in the library website uh down to the bottom uh where the ebook and audio books are and you can take advantage of that uh I would like as I do sometimes really thank and the staff because they've been back battling continuing HVAC issues um and they are continuing to uh although they lost some heat here and there over some time uh it is something that uh you know if you're in the library and you're warm thank the uh uh thank the library workers and the staff because they uh really do some diligent work just on that alone never mind all the services and other things that they do provide um as far as um the open space committee there is nothing to report and and I think that's uh all I have for now thank you mayor thank you committee woman Roland thank you uh I don't really have any updates it's been kind of quiet with the holidays um but I also wanted to take this opportunity to thank um everyone that I've worked with all the neighbors that I've met and the the opportunity just to serve my community and I hope that I made a meaningful impact this year I learned a ton and I'm reallying forward to 2025 got to repeat all do I have to I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve on the committee and all the people that I've met and and hopefully making a contribution to chadam T thank you Deputy Mayor yes quick update on uh joint Rec advisory uh JRE I would like to give uh special accomodations to uh chairman Tom claps and members of JRA uh they had uh been given a request by the Board of Ed in connection to the Harding send and receive consideration um to entertain um Harding students joining Chad and Rec programs they spent a material amount of time um meeting with constituents and evaluating data um I found chairman claps have run a well-run process to uh vet through the data um and and involve all the club heads as well as participants in in their respective program so um I would like to make special note that uh JRA uh given its Mission and its other um elements uh has done admirably in terms of what they're called to do um and I thank all the members uh at that uh committee uh for investing the time to put in the consideration uh that was brought to them by by the Board of Ed so hats off to all of them um and winter festival I'm going to Echo mayor e Walt's comment M on it cuz it is that important uh Thursday the 12th 6:30 to 8:30 Myersville Municipal Hall thank you thank you mayor thank you and thank you for mentioning JRA uh they um became a bit of a target for everybody's concerns with respect to that uh send receive agreement so um they took on a lot more than I think they they thought they were going to get so I appreciate all the their efforts um okay we are on to the consent agenda um any there was a lot of discussion already regarding the items in the consent agenda did anybody want to remove anything for discussion okay can I get a motion to approve the consent agenda move can I get a second I'll second Mr Lois yes Mr McHugh yes Mrs Rand yes Deputy Mayor Choy yes mayor eal yes motion passes and we will open our second hearing of citizens and the same uh rules apply and we do not have any hands raised at this time give it a minute okay in that case I will close the second hearing of citizens and I will uh take a motion to to adjourn so moved do I have a second I'll second all in favor I I happy holidays everyone thank you asking Mark take care markk you thank you