##VIDEO ID:YxNRlFPq_mU## that you meeting is called pursuance to the provisions of mil public meetings law this meeting of November 25 2024 was included in a listed meeting to noce S the hunter County Democrat and career news on January 3 2024 posted on the B board at B Hall and on that date has continuously post as required in addition to copy of notices and has been available to the public and is on file in the office of the B clerk can call please counc Englehart here Council here councilman L here council president W here councilman Parker is AB uh Council vice president Rosetti here and mayor car here we have a presentation tonight uh regarding storm order utility feasibility um this is coming down through the federal government to the states to the counties and municipalities um and I like to say tax By Any Other Name is still a tax but um the state is putting us all in a difficult position um they did uh provide us with a consultant Tony Dill who's here tonight to work with us um regarding making decisions um going forward in the future and the timetable on what we have to do so um if you want I know my campion's on the phone right yeah do you want him as um you can put mik in as a panelist I would put Bill Hans on as a panelist as well um because this is is all money driven uh at some point it's got to do with some kind of collection is going to happen so um so you can put them in all right um Tony U this is the council as well as councilwoman he's up on screen um I know you know councilman Parker and he's been to the last presentation you did for the business community so um it's all yours share my screen you um do you want questions from the council throughout this presentation or you want to wait till the end what's your your preference whatever works best for you I mean sometimes I find in big groups it's best to wait to the end because some of the questions are going to get answered anyway but in a relatively small form like this feel free to you know okay okay thank you okay so um again I'm Tony Dill from arcadis we're a consultant that was uh provided by the DP through through a grant um that the buau applied for and we do stor utility studies throughout the country I've personally done quite a few in Pennsylvania um and a few in in New Jersey now since the enabling legislation was passed here so the agenda tonight I'm going do a little just background overview stor money Utilities in general talk about some of the analyses that have been done specific for for the burrow here talk about a few aspects of the program that required by the legislation and then really just sort of get into the next steps where where do you go from here so you know storm water management sounds pretty obvious but you know it's what what we need to manage you know the runoff in the system But it includes all the underground infrastructure the the pipes the inlets uh the basins uh the out from the basins all these things have to be maintained and periodically replaced repaired and replaced for the storm system to to function properly and you know this this gets run off from our rooftops or driveways you know parking lots roads all these impervious surfaces and you know if we have the the system functioning properly you know why do we care about storm water is that you know it allows us to drive around on the streets you know and have less flooded intersections and streets and they also can prot protect our you know our property values again the water is being managed properly in the community so these are some pictures I actually got from Mike C I know can't be here in person tonight uh just showing some of the work that's been done in the burrow over the you know recent years to show examples you on the left here you can see like there's a a part of the inlet that needs to be repaired and that was replaced um other you rebuilding of these inlets so you don't end up with sink holes you know that you know difficult to drive down the streets and things like that you end up to spend more money repairing the roads if you're the infrastructure underneath the road is failing then you usually eventually see it on the roads you know and if you don't fix what's underr you can you can patch a bottle then you back a year later you're doing it again right so again these are just some examples of kind of how money is spent on storm water infrastructure and the needs that areal so we talk about a storm water utility the DP defines that a public utility that assesses fees and uses that revenue for storm water management so when you create a storm water utility you're charging storm water fees that money can only be used for storm water it doesn't wouldn't go like back in the general fund and just be used for whatever it has to be dedicated for those uses um and you know that that cost uh or fees get allocated back typically based on like impervious area and runoff so who's creating the most storm water would pay higher fee than someone's less it's not necessarily tied to assess the value the way taxes are assessed is there has there been a change in the law I mean we've been paying for this all along for taxes what's different now that we're talking about what's changed right so nobody's required to implement a storm utility fee but in 2019 the state passed the clean storm water and flood reduction act which specifically authorized municipalities counties to be able to create St charge St M fees to the uh the property owners um they've been around the country for decades um but until this year there were none of these in New Jersey because there wasn't legislation specifically allowing that um new brunz is the first one that's actually going forward this year and implemented a storm of utility but I know there's several others that are are studying um so you know then back in 2022 because a lot of didn't run out start storm water utilities right A lot of people didn't want to do first the D created this grant fun funding program to allow municipalities to do the studies at no cost to to the municipality um as you know the burrow here and raron Township jointly applied for grant that was awarded uh we've been proceeding with the study with with raron and and bton primarily on an independent basis here um but down the road if if you both decide to move forward at some point you could decide to do something jointly but right now this this evaluation is looking at just the burrow that I'm discussing as a stand I guess my question Tony is did something change that this has gotten so expensive or more expensive there's more regulation that suddenly we're not talking about this where we were just kind of going along way paying for it well there's two things one I mean infrastructure just gives holder right so you're you're the infrastructure every Community has maybe stuff that was built 50 60 years ago pipes are now starting to get the end of their life cycle and you need to start reinvesting but legislative I mean every time the the D here and we see the same thing in Pennsylvania and elsewhere when there's a new Ms the ms4 is M separate storm sewer permit when those permit Cycles are reissued like every four years or so they usually add requirements to and and there's more things you have to do and spend money on like this cycle has a washed Improvement plan so you have to come out figure out where are the sources of storm water pollution what might you do to to mitigate those it's not requiring at this time specific projects you have to do to go reduce storm water but that might be the next permit cycle you know and that we already have that in Pennsylvania where they have municipalities have to do 10% removal of sediments and nitrogen phosphorus and things like that so there there's a both both a regulatory driver and then I guess just a needs driver in terms of Aging infrastructure and then in some cases we see bigger storms you know uh more intense rainf in so we have more storm water to to manage It's a combination of those those factories so then we you know kicked off the study in the beginning of this year and I'm going to be giving you an update on so storm water utilities you know we talked about this aging infrastructure increasing ratory requirements increasing floating issue I think we just talked about all these things but one thing I'll say is we've been seeing over the last decades really storm water finally being able to it's finally being considered like a real utility Like Water waste water electricity natural gas those things all you get utility bills they have dedicated sources of funding they can plan projects and manage it as a utility storm Waters typically you been managed just as a municipal function competing with all the other things that are are are you know it's competing with in terms of priorities and lots of times kind of Falls towards the bottom of the priority list you know it doesn't get a lot of attention but we're seeing more focused on that that it really should be Tre just like the other so I mentioned you know Tilles have been around for a while back in 2008 16 years ago there's still almost a thousand utilities stor Utilities in the country um but when you fast forward to 2024 that 900 and so it's now it's over 2,000 um and like I said there's one in New Brunswick at this time um but many are studying it and uh you know Maplewood Township and it was pretty interested in moving forward R seems interested they haven't made any decisions yet um so again there's lots of studies going on at the moment so what's the benefit of actually funding storm water management through a fee uh rather than the taxes as you currently fund any stor water work that you do right now well it creates dedicated funding so you can plan projects you know if you design a project where the money is going to be there to go Implement in future years that stable long-term Revenue allows you to plan an impl projects but also do you know Finance projects maybe you need to borrow to do a bigger project you know you have that that Revenue stream to toay this is a big one a lot of communities feel that it's a more Equitable allocation of cost because the cost for storm water the storm water fees go to all developed properties everyone who's got impervious surface it's not just taxable property so if there's tax exempt properties they would be assigned a fee just like they get a water de um and also those with more impervious areas so if you had something it's just like a big parking lot well maybe the assess value isn't that high because doesn't have a lot of buildings and things on it but it has a lot storm water R well it would get you know the same size storm water fee as a 10 story condo on the same footprint right because they have the same amount of pervy area cre the same amount of storm water so let's be clear so you're talking we have a school here we have a whole bunch of County buildings County Jail two County cour houses because the county seat we're important we have two just one and we have I want to say seven churches I think seven sounds right might need be nine but all of them would have to pay into utility they don't pay taxes now okay keep going um now there's a credit policy that um in some other states it's optional but in the law here it's required that you offer credits to property owners that manage Stoler on their property so that can provide an incentive uh having that credit policy for people to do upgrades on their own property sort of voluntarily or at least to maintain infrastructure they have doing proper maintenance on so they can get a discount off their bill going forward and that can help the overall storm water management in the community is if what's on private property is functioning property was detention Basin if the outlet structure is collapsed and it's not detaining storm water during stor is all running right through well if you fix that so it's doing its job you know reducing Peak runoffs and stuff then they can get apply for and get a discount off their bill because they're they're doing their part to manage strong can you repeat that beginning of that you twet I was trying to write that down yeah so just the beginning just the first how you introduced that section um New Jersey to give a credit right so in the enabling legislation there's a requirement to offer credits to property owners that manage storm water on their property it's all all properties not just resal so I I have two drywells on my property that take all the water off my very big Ranch roof and put it right back into the ground so that would get any credit yeah now I would say this the specifics of the credit policies are not dictated in the legislation say you have to have credits so it's up to the burrow to Define what exactly how does that work what do you have to do to demonstrate it's a legitimate facility that it's functioning properly you know how much credit you give it doesn't tell you it's it 10% 20% % so there's a lot of details that you will be in control of the figure of the program just the concept of having one is there now I will say this in many cases the credits aren't enough to motivate somebody to actually like so go make their go build a dryw like you know it's only going to give them 10% off of a $100 bill a year to save $10 a year am I going to go build a drywall to save 10 maybe not but if you already did it or you just want to do the right thing and do it anyway then there is an opportunity to get that credit so to incentivize private properties to really do a lot of work you have to make the credits actually very generous I would say or or probably say it's not worth it but that's not necessarily the goal of the program is to generate private you know property storm water management but if it is then you you got a fact to that thank you very much run so the legislation says that the stor Mar fees need to be based on a fair and equable approximation of the proportionate contribution of storm waterer run that's all it says it doesn't say any more specifics as to how you go about doing that the industry standard is basically looking at impervious surfaces so rooftops driveways parking lots things like that that that are those hard surfaces that the water doesn't have an opportunity to soak into the ground and you know our goal is to make you know to create a storm water Fe that's fair and Equitable and consistent with this but also it's easy to administer you know it's not too complicated from an Administration side in a level of effort what we look at for the Residential Properties is typically uh based on perious are looking at tier structure so you fall in one of few tiers based on how large your property is for the nonresidential or multif family sometimes they call them commercial um or other developed property we typically provide a custom bill for each one of those it's based on their impervious area we have some of this data in in GIS then undeveloped properties which basically don't have impervious area or in this case we typically say if it's under some di Minimus amount like two or 300 square feet if it's below that that's just a little shed you know otherwise it's a vegetated lot we wouldn't trigger that into getting a storm water Fe um so undeveloped Lots would not get what what's the diend that you've seen like 2300 square F feet is kind of what they said below that we're not going to worry about it you know so so minor so one term that we typically use or often use in looking at storm water utility fees is an eru or an equivalent residential unit and what that refers to is the amount of impervious surface that's on an average or typical residential property in your community um not not Statewide or Nationwide so in in the bur what's the average amount of impervious there it's not this number this is just a generic graphic here 1,950 squ feet but in this hypothetical Community here on my screen if you have 1,950 feet was a typical residential property then the non-residential properties are built increments of that amount so in this case here if somebody had 19,500 square feet it's a business you know they that's equivalent of 10 homes so they would get a bill for 10 erus so if if they residential property got built $100 a year you know this other property would get $1,000 a year right just basically still proportionate to imp purv area it's just introducing a term that is commonly used in the industry you may have heard of edus on the Wastewater side or something it's kind of a similar type concept so the state had um impervious area available that was generated I say by some sort of AI process automated process not AI but where they recognize from the imagery buildings driveways but you can see it's imperfect right it's sort of organic in nature the shapes rather than straight lines on drivway we looked at but we said you know for a feasibility study which is the point we're at right now this information is good enough right it gives us a decent sense of how much impervious surface is out there any given property might be off a little bit here or there but it gives us a nice sense of things and when you get to the bigger more developed commercial type proper that are often 80 or 90% impervious anyway between driveways and I mean parking lots and buildings then you the accuracy just goes up because there's just less un you know cious surfaces to measure so the blue blobs are the the the impervious surfaces well the red are the building that I can see are imp the blue is the other impervious which is mostly driveways parking lots very bloggy yeah and I think this is because um you know the imagery especially when you have leaf on imagery like during the summer months you get the tree can and like a tree is over a driveway and the okay whatever I don't know whatever process they use but if there some sort of automated bot thing you that's kind of look at imagery it's sort of going around like those trees and things like that sometimes it gets confused between like brown scorched yard you don't water your lawn in the summer it's really hot and then versus a driveway or dirt it might get a little confused at those things but um again overall it's it's pretty pretty good it will need some cleanup before going to actually creating a building database if you decide to move forward and send builds out door some of this will get Revisited and we probably have some opportunity to do that even within our our grant funding if it's done in the near future um the de really wanted these grants to be wrapped up by the end of the year but I think they're probably willing to let stretch in like January February kind of time frame I think is it probably not past February so if there's some money left over you know again it can be potentially used for things like that so yeah just other typical examples of of of the data that we were provided with so I mentioned that eru calculation for um the burrow here we had 3.3 million square feet of impervious area for residential single family Residential Properties that's what the sfr is on screen and that's 742 single family Residential Properties this wouldn't include like apartment buildings or condos and things these are uh single family so that an average of 4,481 square feet of impervious area per parsel on average um when you compare that just to some other communities in New Jersey not that this really means anything but um you can see it's sort of right in the middle and you would expect like a New Brunswick's more urban more like homes you know they have less impervious per property and Ron right outside you know a little more spread out some bigger houses longer driveways things like that would have more impervious there on average per per pars so when we look at the commercial properties here uh the non single family residential there's 4424 of those Parcels we took the total amount of per area divided by that 4,481 to get 2342 ER the commercial Parcels is that anything that's not residential anything that's yes so this so that includes the churches yeah I should I should have used a different term I've been using out other developed property is really the correct term okay I just was curious because I know we don't have 424 which we did no no it could be anything that's not single family resid Municipal so this is this is anything so Municipal properties are in there the County Properties the churches the school that commercial use use as well yes yes it if assuming it it was coded in the gis land use or property classification as as commercial du I believe that was is this where our apartment buildings are too yes okay everything but those the 700 yeah so I I I forgot to change the name I should say other developed property commercial it's not so I'm sorry interrupt you so you said the averages well this isn't an average this is just saying from the from the non- single family residential how many erus do we have which are basically our billing units if we were to move forward there's 2342 erus the equivalent amount same amount of Pur are as 2,342 typical homes in typical s Family resu Properties here now where did those come from um the largest ones are here on screen the top five properties uh we didn't aggregate proper like if one owner owns several properties we add those together but individual properties so like three Church Street here says about 87 erus so that's the Liberty billage out there so that has that would get a bill for 87 times what a typical property owner would would would receive you see there's just the the top five of those so and then roads roads is kind of interesting thing in many communities that I've worked with in the past outside of New Jersey they'll decide to just completely ignore roads and focus on the par because roads are considered in some ways part of the storm water conveyance system right the water has to get into has to move get into inlets you know and and and uh but when we had this discussion the early on about talking to municipalities having them decide how they wanted to handle roads whether not to build most that we're talking to didn't want to build for Road Center oh you you need to build for roads because in the legislation refers to imperious uh R up it mentions roads like on the first page of the ENA legislation I said okay um so we we've now been you know looking at roads and how many erus but they said but the municipality wouldn't necessarily have to build itself like but other sources of of uh roads in the in the municipality so we have okay so we have Route 12 which is State we have Route 31 which is State and a little bit of 202 which is state but most of the roads are municip yeah so first of all it's hard for me to believe the state's going to pay us anything but second of all some of those roads like the west side is fling to burough but the east side is r in Township so do we only build for half a road yeah I guess I mean that would be you know it depending on there's a edge of the municipalities that always has to be considered when you do these types of things because sometimes there's properties literally with the Miss boundary through the pars and like half a house is in RAR half house like well who's taxing how is that you got to just work on this when you're doing final filling databases kind of make sure you get that stuff figured out but no I mean wherever the me boundary is that's where you wouldn't go beyond that if it's down the middle of a road in the you know half of that road would be in and out but we've looked at the municipality rather than charging yourself for your own loads which is an option that some are are doing and they just have to in the budget and it's a source of Revenue that comes in you it's basically taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other say well if there's certain Services you're providing overhead support you know your time and effort in the building that maybe all that isn't getting loaded and that's being provided for free and exchange for not getting a bill for the billing yourself for your Municipal roads it can kind of go either way but this the point is here this would be 145 erus we build to the state so that's potential revenue from the state in if the state pays now you right is the state G to pay they've I know in New Brunswick they got a bill for some State Properties or Parcels that weren't roadways just for that and and wrote a letter back saying we weren't going to pay that because we're exempt from taxes and Municipal taxes and fees and there's been no resolution to that yet but I I understand they're exempt from taxes but this is not a tax by we a massive do in Flemington it's 100% of her's coverage it's huge again I can't believe that b would just round file bill so in the legislation the only thing Exempted is certain Farmland assessed properties that are actively devoted to Agriculture and Horticultural use there's no other written exemption into the law now that'll change will they amend that at some point and say oh and the state is exempt I but it doesn't say that now and in fact the DP has encouraged us saying you should really be billing for those state roads now and dos yeah will they pay I can't tell you that you know um I'm will help but Ruckers University is pay understanding Le State University so what's what's defined as a private road um it's a road where the the center line type that came up in the gis system we have wasn't municipal or state or County it was um uh trying to think be owned by individual businesses probably be a road that you guys haven't accepted or nether State it's only 3% of the total roads here it's it's very small you see 22 years I I'd have to I could get my G first to pull up the specifics of where these are you can work out if you're interested but um yeah they ones that apparently aren't your roads and aren't aren't state roads now roads that are entirely within a like if you had an apartment complex and there was like you know little roads within connecting um parking lots that shouldn't even be here that's just on the parcel so this is like within sort of the rways but the the the code that was in the again the data we had to work with did not indicate it was uh state or Municipal okay the the data that you had to work with the database where does that come from I believe it was the county has some public GIS files that we were using and um we actually don't have the the owner name of the properties has been redacted out I think there was a law here past years ago for safeties privacy something like that um uh so we have the parcel IDs and the and the you know boundaries and all that stuff but we actually don't have the individual under names you can look them up on Google you know kind of figure it out in some cases it's businesses that that's that and like the the the impervious area was a 2015 Statewide um mapping exercise I guess that was done I understand that may be updated at some point in the future I don't know exactly when so uh rate structure so what how would people get built so one of the rates that's very common throughout the country actually in Pennsylvania more than half the St utilities use a flat rate for Residential Properties where every residential property pays the same they do it because it's simple it's easy don't have to measure anything uh we talked early on with the D about that they said they didn't feel like that was consistent with the legislation because it says it needs to be based on Fair and Equitable approximation of store runoff basically so we looked at the how the properties are distributed here here and we confirm that yes not every residential property has a same size house and same size driver right there's a that's a bell curve like you would see here and you would expect um but we looked at a couple options and working with staff and and Mike and and other Tony U workers here we um came up with a three- tier option that we felt find kind of strikes the right balance between Simplicity and Equity uh where every residential property you build one of these three rates if you're in the first tier you be build half an the ru and that's because that group of 170 Parcels 170 homes has on average 51% of the impervious area that's of the eru average in of the whole overall average so they have 2280 square feet on average whereas 4,481 is the the burrow wide average group tier group two is 96% average we say we charge them one eru again they average about as you expect the the typical amount and that's 439 of parcels and then the the larger Properties Group three is33 properties would be build 1.5 erus because they average again more than the others um that creates a total amount of build are used on the right hand column there 723 and a half you know we add those all together and there's you know other ways you do this you do four tier system five tier system you can make it more complicated this a lot of people are kind of leaning towards something like this to keep it somewhat simple the other thing you have to be mindful of if you create a whole lot of very granular tiers now the data you're using needs to be highly accurate because you have 50 more square feet in pers no moves you to another tier when you have few tiers if your if your impervious area is a little bit off let's say we think you have um 4,120 ft well it's really 4,220 ft you're G to get the same build doesn't matter because you're in a you're in a you're in a group there right when you make very small tiers and then moving a little bit puts you you potentially more Peels and things like that and you can tell looking at per to get exact footage of everybody's driveway and deck and rooft that's the majority of residential units fall into tier one no um the majority when you speak are 439 of the 742 would be group two and they would be build one year so that's all background about budget billing units get to the point of well then what how do you they get out of this the state what did they get there's a requirement in the legislation that a 5% of the revenue collected or $50,000 whichever is less it's contribued to a clean storm water and flood reduction fund that the state manages if we do a utility if you do a utility um there's no money in that fund right now because until just the summer there they get a cut yes I didn't write the LA I I'm I shouldn't be speechless but I'm speechless um not surprised yeah um one of the I don't know if there an intended implication of that but we're doing a study for Bergen County um bcua but it's it's including many of the municipalities up there well potentially all of them um and our interpretation is that all 70 municipalities of B County just independent stor utility each should be subject to that 50,000 cap if they do a joint utility the 50,000 cap apply to all so then then you your piece of it is very so like if you and Rit actually at some point came together then because their budget's much larger than yours they're at the 50,000 cap so if you rolled in it doesn't actually add any of that payment to the state you have to figure out how do you share the 15,000 ibly you know instead of you're if you had you understand what I'm saying more they could get in you know as one Regional utility and they do want Regional utility so it may not it may have been an intended thing I don't know so ESP you become countywide at some point you then you know then still subject to that 50,000 so just big picture if you want to calculate a stor fee what's the budget and how many billing units you have divided by the number ofus and that's how you calculate the fees so if you're trying to fund $1.5 million you had a th000 erus you divide the 1.5 million by, be $150 per eru you know per year Mike is on the line so is that's just curious did they give you a either of them give you an idea of what our stormw budget is a year or what should be I guess maybe right yeah so yes I'm working with Mike we came up with what the budget should be about 200 you see 220 to $270,000 a year that includes you know maintenance uh operations this includes um a watershed Improvement plan that I mentioned earlier is requirement of the the the permit um that's budgeted 50,000 a year in 2026 2027 that's under the onm line that right kind of like bumps up and it comes down a little bit uh capital is actually a portion of includes a portion of a Debt Service that could be associated with storm water you borrowing um so this these costs are what have been captured for storm water in the municip basically tax dollars been paying for almost all of that already except for whatever's new in the newest round4 which includes having to build a building to cover gge litter the Le we um but otherwise we've already been paying all this to tax right those pictures I showed you earlier fixing storm you guys are already paying for that out of tax but there's some cost that you're paying out of tax now that would be been shifted or a lot of us here is basically taken out of the municipal um budget and put into the storm water utility bu so is the idea that this would um save us any money like for storm water what we're paying now in taxes if we did this would it save us anything um or is it the same the the net result to most taxes probably going to be not a lot of difference right now you're getting a new fee so that's a new expense but if everything else was held the same you would be able to remove some of these things out of the municipal budget that would reduce the burden potentially from taxes now whether you would reduce your tax rate or you know there's other things that haven't been done that need to be done that would you know divert that money I don't know that's you guys to decide but um yeah there there's things that would come out of Municipal budget you're currently spending storm water that would no longer be need to be funded by tax but also is spreading spreading the pool out farther right for collection so if this is I don't know I don't know what the magic number is but hypothetically $224,000 is 6 on the taxes or taxpayers right right now if you add more taxpayers in it might only be five cents that we're collecting because we're now getting it from the county we're getting it from the churches we're getting it from everybody who hates our guts now who don't hate us we're going to hait us in the future the school right you know right and yeah so R will be collecting it from all the schools which end up having an impact into their budget gets transferred to the taxpayers right so like if they were to charge it be again to the the Regional High School um some of that is obviously paid back by raron Township taxpayers right because they but some of that is coming from tax rate outside of the or other in the county right so that that particular thing that high school then be sort of spread out even further right I'm assuming is within the burrow most of the schools are attended by people in the burrow no the burough school is mostly it's mostly kids oh okay well then then they would be that that would get sort of spread out you know if it's in the school budget instead of in your Municipal budget then you know whoever's paying into the school budget okay we can dive deeper into that some point you know if you you know want to look at some of that specifics of course um so big picture um we looked at $100 per eru holding that rate for uh three years without rate increase then doing sort of inflationary adjustment you take that rate times the the net number of erus equivalent residential units this is after some assumption about credits that I I mentioned earlier that generates a certain amount of build revenue we made an assumption right now You' have 95% collection rate we don't know what it would be it's a new fee is the state going to pay is the county going to pay you there's a lot of uncertainty there uh your tax collection is probably that or higher I would imagine it's usually it's usually around 98% in most years right so we budget a little less of a collection rate here um and then that payment to the clean St flood reduction fund that's the payment to the state is shown there that creates a total revenue uh line $264,000 a year total expenses vary a little bit by year and then there's a net revenue there so the first year showing you know positive about 40,000 operating in the red for a couple years because we have that water shed Improvement plan that was estimated might cost $100,000 um and then when that drops off then you're back in the black and you see kind of the the balance running balance at the bottom so so the 149 homes in the tier one going to pay 100 bucks a year a year Well if a year tier two would pay $100 a year and the tier three would be $150 assuming they don't have credits like if they have you know yeah yeah rain Gardens and things that you would give credit for then that could potentially reduce that we've assumed an average of 10% credit to the residential and and the non-residential properties um everyone about the state roads and stuffum um typically we see credits coming out L than that because one sometime people just don't even apply they just don't think about it or whatever um and just n affected that and usually the most credit anybody can get on the probably like maybe 50% even if you take all your llers and put them into rain Gardens and you still eventually create some storm water runoff it's not like anybody on a five storm you know huge R could have all their storm water never leave their property so so so what about so we you know I don't know how much you know about what's going on in the burough but Liberty Village the large Redevelopment project completely falls under these new storm water rules they've been permitted by the DP they have detention basins and retention basins and cleansing basins and you know you name it they got it on this property right so will they end up paying anything or not because they've got so much mitigation already um because it's all mo you know it's all modern under the newest laws right um what I can say is based on typical credit policies again yours hasn't been written yet right there's not one dictated is things like if you take the impervious all the impervious area and run it through a compliant uh you know facility on your property maybe it gets 30 30 40% reduction you know if you capture all that um that's how I typically see them R I think the the thought processes they and because they may be designed for like a one-ear storm or one inch storm or two but what happens when a three inch storm comes or a 4 inch or a seven inch you know like that like a big you know Soaker R you know they get overwhelmed and they create runoff and that runoff goes into your system and elsewhere and you still have to manage it and you've got all the inlets and the roads in front of their property around the property that you have to manage so um you know it's it's for those reasons typically those percentages are something in that that neighborhood the only credit program aware of that gets up to the really high percent like 80 90% cuts the city of Philadelphia and it's because they have a combined sewer system and their long-term control plan to reduce the combined sewage jumping in is built on green infrastructure having all these distributed things and they don't have enough room on a public space to do it so they need private property owners to build things voluntarily so they're giving them super high incentives reduction that's atypical from what I see but again your credit policy hasn't written so you could be as generous as you wanted to make it you know depending on how you know details feels um so again we just sort of talked about this typical Residential Properties be $50 to $150 a year and then other non-residential properties something that's like five times as much of a typical house maybe like a gas station or small commercial property can be like $500 and you know can see it goes up from there and this is again not reflect any of those credits that you mentioned that a property eligible so how does that compare uh again Pennsylvania's your nearest neighbor that has a bunch of these utilities approximately 74 could be a little more by now um they average about $93 a year or a single family residential property similar to kind of number we're looking at here but they range from $24 to $2 $4 it's a pretty big range based on the community's needs that they have um New Brunswick pass there is at $77 for eru but keep in mind their eru is only 2,100 square feet so that's $77 for 2,100 square feet whereas here we're talking about $100 for 4,000 square feet you know so it's when you look at it per square foot it's actually probably even higher rate it's just they have smaller homes that divides in more pieces I won't spend much time in here because we've already kind of talked about that credit policies the idea is somebody's managing stor they should get a credit and it is required by the legislation um this is the legislation details of it if you want to read it it later just goes through not only do you have to credit for things that meet today's requirements like your billing something but if it was compliant with the ordinance that was in place at the time you still have to recognize and give them credit um just to make sure you will know credits and exemptions are two different things credits are how you get a discount your bill exemption is you're completely exempt from the the bill and the only properties that by legislation or the Farmland ones doesn't really apply here but it does in Ron um and then as we said undeveloped proper but we can exemp can we accept ourselves um it doesn't say that in the legislation um and most municipalities choose at least for the municipal properties to build themselves because they just say everybody pays everybody's getting a bill just easier to blame but it is taking money from the right pocket put the left pocket right so one of the first that ever worked on handon town they didn't they decide they didn't build their own Municipal properties for that reason so what's the point of just moving the money right to the left so I think it's something we could look at um um just asking yeah um any other the benefits of credits as we talked about reduces the fee for those that are managing storm water um the concerns we just make sure the credit policy isn't so complicated that you know you have to hire an engineer to fill out your application or evaluate it you know you want to make them pretty pretty simple to to to follow um and then you know periodically you want to audit to make sure people are um deserving that credit they say oh I have this whatever detention base and you probably want to periodically and make sure it's still functioning right filled with saw or whatever you know like they have they they're actually using it it's supposed to Tony we talk about new BRS first second is this first year 2024 that they're doing it or they launching it and it's starting in 2025 no their bills went out I think in Midsummer and how did that go do you know politically how that went over in town was there did they give did they like give everybody 50 bucks off their taxes you know as a soft Landing or something for the first year I'm not aware that anything like that happened uh my my my colleague Rich gr is the the manager for them so I I kind of I know some of the details but I I don't I'm not aware they did anything like that um and they actually went I mean really fast and we we thought they were going to start billing in the fall and then we found out the Bill's already out the door the bear got excited wanted to go they went um so um and like I said they've been collecting Revenue um the only one I know they got an indication that they weren't going to pay was the state set it for State properties that wasn't even the time to build state roads that must have gone to a different address that remains to be sorted out but I might understand Ruckers is is paying I think they just want some details about specific was it done correctly I think this is I I'll have one more slide after this um and then say long as L for questions um so the concept we talked about for credit policies you know it applies to residential and non-residential we can't just do the commercial properties that some some municipalities do that in other states um we want to require operation maintenance agreements so if you have a facility you have to agree to maintain it um and in the future and provide periodic inspection reports maybe once a year make sure you're you're they're documenting that some facili is in good shape the property sells who who does that go to somebody in in in the burrow uh would be or in the stor utility uh would be received those and you know if if there's a requirement that you're supposed to say submit an annual report that you've inspected your Stow M Basin and it's check the box it's got an inlet it's got an outlet whatever if somebody doesn't do that you can give them a warning letter and if they still don't respond or whatever you can take their credit so if they're getting 25% credit well that goes away the next bill is going to be higher and then and in fact in hand in tent they saw a huge increase in the compliance they already had agreements but nobody was submitting random reports because there was no Hammer like they when people didn't do it they just there was nothing once they start getting a discount off their stor mot bill when they enacted that all of a sudden people started submitting their annual reports Sy because they wanted to get that discount um and uh oops sorry we go uh every three years you know plan to inspect these although you'd have the right at any time and the thought is require an application fee maybe a small one but just to discourage some frivolous applications it varies some unan I see if they don't charge any fee people just mail it in check all the boxes and can you waste your time having to evaluate something that had no merit um whereas if there's a fee maybe it's $25 maybe it's you know something nominal and make it people are less likely to throw in a frivolous application if they've got to pay something even if it's 10 bucks right people don't want to put away their mind so um something that and sometimes if you have very large properties maybe charging a tier amount so if it's very complicated they have lots of basins and things to WR lots of erus maybe instead of the $25 maybe it's $100 or $50 or have some sort of tier solution details haven't been kned down but we have examp these other towns do you see a lot of like individual Residential Properties applying for these credits if it's only going to be like you know a 10% reduction on a $150 a year Bill 15 bucks I can't imagine really we don't see a lot in sheltonham Township which is a borders Philadelphia um we managed their Credit reviews for them or we had for the first year or so um the most common ones there was they they had a um wooded lot credit if you met the definition of a wooded lot in their ordinance meaning more than certain number of trees that are more a certain diameter per square 100 sare feet of property something you you could it was to courage you having wooded Lots but their fee there is based on lot sies not imperious area so to that would mean you get a big residential property but a small house you're paying more than somebody who had a smaller lot with a bigger house which you could argue isn't really fair so by having this wooded lot credit it was able to mitigate that a little bit okay you got to be your feet but now you can get a because you're lot mostly full of trees you know so what would fall under I see an innovation category is thater we we found that it's helpful to include something like that so if somebody doing something that everybody looks that says yes this is helping manage storm water but it doesn't quite check the boxes of the other things that we can consider it gives us an opening and one example that has come up is where the credit policy was written about uh one I've seen managing the imper runoff of the imper area on your property so if the imper are on your property goes into a storm M Management Facility it gets a credit somebody had a storm management that was managing storm Mar but it was coming from off their property if their neighbors house was all running into it and it was detaining it and before it goes out so it was providing a public benefit but it wasn't capturing any of their own impervious are so technically you would get a 0% credit but you look at it say well that doesn't seem right so this would allow you to say oh well under this Innovation credit or you can name it something else you know miscellaneous or whatever uh it's it's providing benefits okay we want to except so neighbors working together to get that down that out to the street would be yeah uh that's just an example I mean it can be somebody can try to abuse it somebody had an old swimming pool they weren't using a Cess pool they arguing rof was coming into it they'd pump it out every once in a while and they're trying to claim that is storm water detention or something they got not approved by the municipality didn't feel was a valid stor bar management thing but I guess you could get creative with something like that and try to make it we don't see these used a lot to be honestly you know I mean most people got better things to do than figure out how to like you said save $15 a year you know the big Str we had a few years ago all of our neighbors on our section of the street everybody took a look at their gutters they took the Cutters on their sheds their garages and we work together because the guy at the top of the street great hard and then coming down we had people across the street that have to kitchens so we work together and now it's alleviated a lot of that just fire anyway that's why I'm wondering who else could we get to do that we get anybody else else to do that what so that's all I had to present you know the next step is just sort of deciding on this you know if if the rate structure makes sense the budget the rate all these things we kind of talked about they can be tweaked um and and some of these credit policy Concepts if they make sense if we have any more questions on that then we we pray prare a report it's in our scope of work DP to summarize all this put all into report and that's would be reviewed by you and the D and it's available to you and then you decide to move forward at some point then there's the implementation phase that's you getting the ordinance pass getting the building database in place finalizing do you mind um any of the members Council Council you have any specific questions and is it okay if I open it up to the public that you do that I had a couple okay I had some logistical questions and some you know typical Joe fling Waller questions so you mentioned New Brunswick right now is the only city that has this my knowled right now in New okay and I just want to make sure so is this coming from the say You must absolutely create this utility oh no no this is you make the decis you can say no we just want to continue finding this two tax the way we've always done it and that's works for you guys then yeah because I mean my big question was like we get a get a bill um it's has water and sewer on it and then this would be I assume added as an item you would say is that is that a municipal water and sewer bill yes yeah so you could add it on to onto that yeah some add a tax bill some people make a standalone bill it's really kind of your preference so and I guess like one of the questions I had and I I sort of think I follow but I want to make sure I get it so if I live in a house and I have a certain amount of impervious covers but my how people would process this if um as a homeowner like my property's dry like my basement's dry right we got a lot of wet basements in town and whatnot a lot of runoff but if I'm in a situation where like my runoff from the house goes down a hill I'm fine like how I process it I'm dry all right I'm good I'm high and dry but down there it's not do I get like the fairness and Equity of it I think comes up there because somebody would ask like well what am why am I have to pay more of a fee I mean I'm I'm cool here but stuff coming from my driveway and off my roof it's going down there and it's that's where water's collected like is that is that something I can see happening like um no if when I when the storm water fees are calculated what I've seen almost everywhere is it's based on something whether it's your lot size it's not really typical or the amount of impervious area it's not trying to tie to and where exactly does your storm water go and because that that okay that would just become unmanageable you had to try to figure out every property in the world where their storm water went and it's impact on other properties or what it just it's too complicated right you know so it's usually just storm water runoff if you're Mak a runoff has to be managed yeah maybe your house creates storm into doing location that's more problematic than yours but we don't have the ability to kind of charge you more or you less based on that just it's you spend more money as you trying to figure that out man your budget would go through the roof and now you have to just charge more and I guess yeah and this one kind of ties that the concern of equity um we talked about so we would create the tears in burough Hall we come up with that te system like what or not well I mean there's a tier system presented here that it would be for you just to adopt if you thought it makes sense and you agree um if if don't like it it can be Revisited we went through a couple options I think three tier four tier when I was working just for like I forget Tony if we reviewed that with you a long time ago but with at least with Mike Camp being went through some options um and that was sort of to term at the time seemed to be the most advantageous but um it's not the only way to do it so yes you can come up with a different okay structure if you thought something else was better okay thank you I think one of the financial exercises that should be looked at is the the storm order budget as proposed by this by the DPW um if we don't do storm order utility what's the impact to the average taxpayer you know is it $130 versus the 100 because it's not being spread out and I'm curious about what that translates to with out of utility um for the average taxpayer in town any other Council m have any questions yeah yeah go ahead try um I I don't know if I missed it uh but the exact way that we're I know we're talking about tiers again but like the exact way that we're calculating how each property falls into each tier right because you show there were properties that had you know like up to like 70 80 of these erus right how are we actually determining like how many of these erus go to each property right so if you're already r through you don't have to other people think I might have just missed it no no no um I just just like we have a survey for every single property in town delineating the you know well we we do have this imagery data for every single property in town uh and what we're doing for actually for Maplewood and um maybe starting to do a little bit for Ron and anticipation moving forward is going through and actually doing some cleanup on that right now um but this would be used to put to calculate the number of erus and send them a bill be subject just some cleanup like I talked about but that you we have a number right now for each of those properties the tiers I talk about it's only for the single family resident okay so businesses churches hospitals jails municipal buildings what own a GI commercial property and you send me this based on this calculation I go oh well I have this survey that says actually it's this many there's a there's always an appeal process somebody you build me 37 year us I think it's show me 32 can show us your information we'll look at it and if you're right you you'll give adjust and this is based on 2015 so somebody put a big addition on their house you're missing it right what we've done but we I don't know if we did it here because I'm not sure how much property has been developed since 2015 um but whatever de new development has occurred would need to be accounted for even we don't have it in the imagery but you know somebody added 10 your us over here five over here we those can be added in then in the future we could periodically look at imagery but it's easier to just take Hermits like building applications or certificates of occupancy they go out the door whatever it is you know okay yep we have this new thing make sure it's added into the stor mod you bilding database any other questions CH no I think that was it Parker no I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm late I I would like to see just if we get numbers a versus I don't if I can sa a resident or family five bucks I'd prefer to do it yeah um I um I was interested in your your comments about Bergen County they all work together and I yes my my question is originally you because you referenced riton as well we didn't you'll have to refresh my memory we didn't go after this grant to do this study in conjunction with riton did we no they did they they did it on our behalf oh that's right thank you that's you you did some approval to go they they asked us if they want with us we are tied together in in related to storm water how water goes mu is actually named on the application as well as maybe Dan that would bring together the bill so that's the first phase in my question I guess the the next one is and and I'm I'm I'm not necessarily a fan of this because you know we all got our water and sewer just a couple days ago and mine was $120 more than it was last year so I I I don't necessarily want to add another tax and I honestly don't think it's realistic to say we're going to move it from this bucket to this buck and then bring this bucket down but if we can prove like Adrian said that we can save money per you know per household I'm all all open to it I'm open-minded however I guess my question is if if we do decide let's just say we go um we we go in with another municipality can can you then go in with a larger group let's say the county wants to get on board and we but we've already established a utility with either ourselves or with or with riton can we then go in and establish a larger utility or are we stuck with um yeah thank you question for the attorney I'm not aware there's any reason why if you take some action for mity you're stuck with that forever that you couldn't disband it merge other municipalities specifics but yeah I'm just curious if there was anything in the legislation that prevented us from doing that in the future no matter what action we took not not that I or that I'm aware of Miz every word I don't think I saw anything once you do this you're stuck forever you know like in in that Str I don't we get that distinction that's that's a pham's question he's listening to this now so B that B that would be a concern of mine it's just knowing that little piece of information how I have one other question um I know that some individual Parcels in this town specifically residen of parcels you know we're a we're a colonial planed town you know 300 years old so our Parcels tend to be a lot smaller than a lot of municipalities right so often you've got a house on a property property so small that even putting in the like they're already over the the uh previous you know um uh the allow impervious coverage um and impervious coverage before they even step out their door right so not counting their driveway not counting any addition they wanted to put on so how is there any um reason why we should look at this from a planning standpoint differently because we have that kind of denser smaller Lots than let's say a Raritan I know you you mentioned the financial benefit of of you know the not more than 50,000 if you're peeing up with somebody else but what about our unique circumstances as a center designation type town where we're a little more dense but we're not Urban um does that benefit or hurt us in any way when we form a utility um I I don't think so but what what the result to that is as we showed earlier like the eru value the average imp per per res is less here in Varity right right um so it just it's it's just a function of you know smaller Lots or bigger Lots um but in the end you have a certain amount of budget and you're trying to just spread it out over the imper right and whether that's a bunch of little Properties or a few or bigger properties it's still going to end up hitting dollar square foot of impervious area kind of the same right so and in the case you brought up if you had a small lot Almost 100% imperious let's say you got 4,000 impious on a 4500 foot lot but if you have the same 4,000 square lot 20,000 square foot lot they would get the same bill because the the trees and the grass and stuff were saying wouldn't get they're not built yeah so that no that that helps put things in perspective thank you uh Council vice president you have any questions mayor yeah I just um wanted to get a little clarification on one thing if we were to have this utility and give people a um credit if you will right if they have a A dryw or or a rain Garden or something like that does that mean we're getting a credit from the state or does that mean it's getting more distributed among the other people who don't have those beneficial things on their property yeah it would just be distributed amongst the other people yes and we've already budgeted into the rates I've shown you some assumption that you're going to be giving out an average of 10% credits then that could be half the people getting a 20% credit 20% of people getting a 50% credit it's in the end I suspect because typically I see the number ends up being less than that but depends on the details of the credit policy and the program you put in place and how many properties actually have something that's credit word I don't know older developed homes typically don't have a lot of you know rain Gardens and underground storage or green roofs or any of those types of things so they probably be eligible but we don't know what people put in some either we really don't right so there could be things out there thank you yeah that that was my main uh question and then yeah I just think that if we can save people money one way or the other of course it's worth it every dollar counts nowadays um but I do wonder if having a utility and then having those overhead costs of having SPO employees going out to like check on these things what do they have what do they not have like is that really going to save anything in long run I don't know though right and some of the question you brought up is if some of the savings comes from revenue like say from the state or the county are they going to pay I mean that's a something I can't say definitively one way or the other can the county say no I mean the the state can legislate make the legislative change and take themselves out we know they could do that but they're most likely not to take that the county question is can the county say no and then what's our Hammer if the county refuses like there's you know yeah we're going to really litigate where the county SE are we water County um next um okay so nobody else from the council anybody from the public in the audience have any questions Tony I just need your um name and address for the record yeah tony5 North Main Street I think you do need to come up to the microphone otherwise the council woman can't hear you online anybody else I just was wondering it seems like a gorilla of a project here you know in a while um however would individual homeowners based on well you know what Susan was saying you know I have an older home and with impervious coverage with my driveway where the house is situated I mean there's some things where you have to protect let's say the uh the dve of your basement you know where you water to goes some people don't have a large amount of you know property around the homes but what type of credits with individual homeowners get if they do Implement like dry Wells they try not to you know pump that water you know out to the driveway to the street wherever because it just amazes me when I look outside my house on North Main Street to see all that water coming down ta Hill being all the catch bases million thousands of gallons into the storm water I'm thinking like you know individual homeowners if they just do 20% of the job are trying to direct the water into the ground you know versus out you down dway wherever it just seems like just a little bit inbounds you know you live in the lowest the lowest point in the bur well again so that's why some of the commercial properties are just vacant so is that something that um your company I mean obviously you were implying that we have some time and some money left from the grant to continue setting this in some fashion is that something your company um consults on is what these credits could be and how much they would be valued at you know you're asking us Tony and we haven't just this is stuff yeah certainly we can we have example credit policies okay all over the place and you can just Google them you'll find them but we have ones that we've worked on we have one that we've drafted for um Maplewood Andy Brunswick already I can help them along um so there's there's versions of that you can just copy over and you know tweak it right really to to suit your your needs but one of the the principles typically is determining for whatever you decide that stor Mar management thing is worth 20% 30% 50% credit it's usually multiply multiply times times what's the percentage of imper on your property that goes into like if you have a dryw but it's only capturing let's say that's worth a 50% credit but if it's only capturing 10% of your runoff then it' be 50% times 10% so you only get 5% off your bill but if it's big enough to capture all your driveway all your house all your roof all your deck it goes into it then maybe it could be 50% times 100% or get an actual 50% reduction you build so yeah I mean it's it's well you know house by house lot by lot it's pretty mechanic what you get off the roof what you could put back into the ground but let's say just the person's driveway uh you know the water just runs down the rain cor RS down and goes out to the street can't do nothing without that you know I mean what are you going to do but and then I have another question a lot of big giant warehouses are being uh proposed and being created uh you know let just say New Jersey in general where where do they director flat roof water where does that go in these huge roofs on these huge buildings where does that stuff go do they get credits for keeping you know the water in the ground versus wherever else they they channel the water I mean out there in fburg I I I'm just I'm in amazement at that Amazon complex and the number of giant Warehouse goes back for Miles where does all that water go I mean is that detracting from the overall water supply it's you know this here is sort of almost like infinite tasal in terms of all this other water and where it's going into these storm drain or like I say with these large commercial warehouses like War where's those thousands of gallons of water going I'm just curious typically most UN Valle maybe they all have ordinances that would require them to mitigate that strine R into basins you know so there's there's probably underground pipes there's probably internal piping it's big enough and external drains to take it down in the pipes and then goes into basins that around the parking lots whoever and store it temporarily or allow to infiltrate and then it so but again it would just seem like for a town like Flemington uh you know it's it's really uh difficult to try to you know get credits and you know keep your basement dry or direct the water where it has to go guess on an individual basis I mean I you know I'm trying to do that just to keep my the older part of my house Dry the basement dry because with the rains we had in the spring you quickly find out like where that water is you know permeating where it's going so you try to direct it away from the house but when the water is saturated it's just be clear the measures to keep your basement dry wouldn't necessarily qualify for AET like I I spent on fortune in my own help putting in a a French drain system and sometimes getting moisture in the Bas and bu do and it just takes to some and it pumps it outside that doesn't give me a credit I mean we my to doesn't have a fee yet they're evaluating one but if they do that would not be eligible that's just keep my basement right it's actually worse it's more my Bas but like I said from a practical standpoint you try to keep the water away from your foundation the basement but some of these larger scale things uh you know I just look at it and I said you know another little back on the homeowner you knowen it all announc to anybody else from the audience the public here in the buildings anybody online have any questions um okay well uh so the next step then we're GNA wait till Bill Hans gives us a um some kind of breakdown of what the taxpayers are currently paying towards this budgeting or what they're they would pay towards this proposed budget as a comparison if you form utility um so and because the database we have doesn't have property owner in it has classifications may need to work some of here to confirm a county or state owned Parcels in the burrow because those would potentially be new sources of Revenue that aren't coming from basically the local B Flemington taxpayers aren't funing like the municipal building if you charge yourself that's just going to go back into the budget and the local taxpayers are paying it one way yeah I mean I can help you with that I'm sure my can't can if he doesn't know I certainly do um that would help with that I think valuation what's the bottom line if you did it we have a lot of churches in this town a lot a lot of nonprofit so the question will the will um Tony be giving the DPW committee an update or will that update come directly back to us the council both um I'm assum I I should I should assume that this was this was this was previewed months months ago in it's very early nent stages by the DPW subit Theon um so I not in this in a much rougher form than this um so I guess that's where is the DPW Community going to be taking taking inventory of this first or will Tony come up come back to us directly I guess I think it'll go back to the DPW subcommittee I'm not sure Tony's gonna have time unless we figure out what else we're doing here with them we have money left over is uh up on there Bill did you have any comments about their CFO hands yeah hi mayor I um I just ran some quick numbers on what the actual tax impact is for this that amount of money about you know 250,000 or 300,000 the average house that would equate to about $140 on the tax bill so you're looking at you know I don't know how much of that we're currently paying but you know that would then come off of the tax bill and then go through this bill okay but if if 100 so if a house is paying 140 a regular taxpayer is paying 140 approximately towards this storm water requir of the burrow and we form a utility that house is gonna not be paying $40 they still it'll be they'll get a bill now for a hundred bucks if they're paying full a full eru they'll get Bill for $100 but 140 is going to come off their tax bill right and the difference would be that the balance is paid by the tax exempt properties right okay Mike C do you have anything you want to comment on I do not mayor okay okay I think we're good we'll figure this out and moving it yeah thank you um okay so um thank you again we have um another presentation [Music] um regarding sign design from the uh F Community Partnership we'll be quick okay thank you um Michelle is online hi nice to see you again we had two of of Tony's wonderful presentations for the business Community thank you Tony thank you Tony so can I be a presenter first and then Michelle is going to be a presenter wait hold on I remove Tony okay so here out I don't know why he didn't leave you testing out to see if it's that's really youav okay I had to remove Tony first where are you oh there you are okay I'm gonna make you a um first I gotta make you a panelist and then I'm gonna make you a CO says join us panelist yep okay and then I'm going to make you a co-host and are you sharing on your computer I am sharing okay hold no but no volume know your panelists so hold on okay it says I'm the co-host yes so now you could share now I can share all right so um okay so everybody can see this we're we're just I'm just giving you perspective of um the sign project so here's an example of one of the former maroon wayf finding signs this one they've all been numbered they're all in storage we have a catalog of what each one said and we also have pictures of what each one looked like when they were removed um the the scratching and it's amazing that something that high up in the air gets scratched but it does and um that has a lot to do with the substrate of the that was used so we've found a way to cover these um very affordably so that they could be covered and if names change or color preferences change they can be re skimmed with a UV vinyl that's guaranteed to last like 5 to 10 years we've actually tested this vinyl and um so far so really good uh some of the signs do need a little um more work to fill in the gouges so that when they get covered they won't look like this but basically everything's and if we scroll down to the bottom that that's this is number 30 we found 30 in C2 to you know on in in the street um moving to the next thing basically these are all the words that were on the sign so the past sign nomenclature only said these one two three four five six seven eight nine ten things so we've struck or strike struck Clemington Furs on Liberty Village for from the signs and we started to look at new nomenclature which would be instead of historic downtown we have historic Main Street District Sangle Arts and Cultural District the circle up we need to change sorry since I typed this I'm changing it right now Circle shopping district um what we call the historic Courthouse Square Courthouse Square historic Courthouse Court Street Park those things we want more input and um on what the official name should be by the time we're really ready to go to print uh the Justice Center we also want the county to give us input on whether we call it justice center which is what it was called before it had jail whether we call it County admin admin buildings which is what the sign said in the past um burrow police were not on the signs burrow Library not on the signs burrow Hall not on signs public parking lot was not on the sign it just said parking Justice Center parking lot was not ever listed independently and County parking lot so we have an opportunity to make these improvements okay uh so what we did was we uh numbered every sign we numbered every post so we can go back and put number eight sign back on number eight post which seems like the right way to do it we identified where it is we identified which area it's in we indicated what the old verbiage was so we can go to the new verbiage we know the size in addition we made a map of where the parking is that still remains parking and we have a whoops oh come on can I please move that we have a um let me just show you where it is we have this this is the map of uh what we were trying to do with the when we put the signs back which is represent three different business districts so here you see the red signs are really our Main Street District the um orange signs are the stangle Arts and Cultural District and the green signs are the circle shopping district and that one little outlier number seven by the golf course uh will probably go more with the green than um SLE but you know you're not sharing that M but you're sorry about that what happened H any idea it says I'm screen sharing oh okay well are you just screen sharing that screen or are you screen sharing you have to take it down and then yeah I think it's I think it's that it's like a PDF and I don't think it's going to come up for for you so I will share that I will I will print it and share it and give it to everyone for how the how these things what's left to do is you have to talk you still have to talk to the county about verbiage we started that conversation you have to fix some signs with some kind of filler and who's doing that work we we have priced out who is the most efficient person to do it and our painter so a professional is G put in filler and make them all smooth yes and like what they use to fill scratches in a car okay and once once you have the county verb the H ones to take to order the Reps uh ordering them and getting them done is for each sign is like a two week process the the complicating thing is just how large the signs are so we can only you know work on like five to 10 signs at a time but how long do it take like you order them and you get the wraps the vinyl can be printed in like a you know two days it's just and then the WRA come in yes and they have to be applied and that's what takes time it takes only a couple days it's that's not the hard part what is the uh really the painting the back of the sign and the filling in the gouges is fix yeah so we're we're we have more to show you um I just wanted to give you a concept of like how how there what decisions are left to be made and then we we can actually go to uh Nicole and let her um Nichelle I'm sorry Nichelle Who's online we've had a really long day we had a really long meeting until it's 7:30 oh I know I'm sorry so do you want to take that off uh well it's off on my screen I'm GNA just say stop share yeah because I don't know why it's looking like that hi in the show Michelle is works for brand enchanting media who is our uh marketing firm and working with us on the sign project good evening uh good evening everyone how are you is she doing a presentation yes okay so I'm gonna have to we're gonna let you be a presenter or coost a problem co-host whenever you're ready good to see everybody you too okay you should be able to share now okay awesome okay so let me hold this up so what I'm about to share is kind of the um update to the seal I know a couple this exercise has been done a couple times um we worked with Robin including your feedback to get uh some cleaner versions that can be used not just for the signage but for other applications whether it's digital print so you actually have a highres um the current uh seal is there is not really a highres file um that prints out well um so we did some work here on that so I'm going to share that with you all um with the final iteration that we were able to come up with can everyone see that yes okay so this will show you the original seal the before and then we have the after we always start in black and white to make sure we get all the elements down and then we did do a colored version and I'll take you through some of these and we put them what we call in environment in some of the signage that Robin just showed with a diff with some different colors as well Michelle can you just expand the the middle one just to show uh what it says and so people who have is that good yeah so um little back yes you and you can yeah little back so basically this the there I don't think there is what an illustrator version or an EPS file for the seal when we've asked for it it's like you don't have a good uh version of it it's muddy it may may have been faxed a couple times to you know what I mean so we wanted to in order to print from it we really need something crisp and and now you can have an electronic version of it for when you go to print anything you use it for so you know we we because it's on it's The Medallion in every sign you know in every one of the maroon signs this is what what you see up at the top we wanted to get a good file you know we this is your seal um we we use it but we just want to make sure you're happy with this and you know we're it's for you to give input but it does look must much more crisp and will serve you better when you go to print things I just say I'm I'm furious that you've done this right after I finished recreating every Le form on the website with that old miserable copy well think of it this way we're coming in save day with a good file yeah it'll be really easy now yeah and you'll have layered files uh all the formats EPS PNG um no matter what size if you need to blow this up to a half a city block you'll have the res to do that can I ask something sure that peeve of mine you've lost the shadowing underneath the the Portico that is very prominent on our on her historic Courthouse correct that was the direction we were given we were I mean we suffered Miser like I can't even there are pictures of the courthouse where the perspective is so bizarre of the roof and it's just really hard and and there were there were a lot of Shadows interestingly enough that uh Tren if you don't mind just holding up the banner sign you know th this is what in the end kind of looked like the best um version of the courthouse even though it's really not accurate perspective and you know there's not really there really aren't Shadows it's very iconically the courthouse and that's what we were striving for is um is not not to make it too dark too shadowy you know we can we can respond to any of your uh pit peeves or design I don't I don't want to make too big a deal I I do see some some graphically represented Shadows on that flag there that are very subtle that I think might make the Portico pop a little bit but I I I'm not a graphic designer so I would ask your graphic designer to look at my electronical I have one so but it's lovely it's lovely I know how much work you put into it so thank you it's very clean and that's really what we wanted clean and you know the courthouse now is so beautiful and so cleaned up and we've tried to work with photos we we've tried a lot of things so this was we're not married to this color colorized version if people but we don't have colors that are the color the brand color pattern so we're you know this is for discussion so we're gonna show it to you and ask you to sit with it and the shelle why don't you show them what it looks like in in some is there really color in the town I've no we don't have one the I I think it could be that banner I don't know the his ban that's our that's our the flat yeah I mean those might be the colors sky blue this is this I mean it makes everything pop it's very it's more of a cartoonish blue than the blue we can play with this I promise I I am I mean I don't have a problem you know I use the word cartoon but that's a historical word it's not it's not necessarily Disney right so it's it's rather cartoonish because it's it is flat but it's very clear what you're looking at what I do appreciate is is putting the um the date down that we were established as the county seat and taking out of Trenton um so like that too I do so it's much better date than the one we we uh somebody put on there which was uh 19 1907 is when we that's when we were incorporated as a municipality but we were established as the county seat of 100 in in 1758 by a vote that removed it from which was the county seat of hun County from 1614 until 1758 here's your historical lesson for tonight thank you br was part of hun during the American Revolution George Washington crossed the Delaware into hun County okay so moving along yeah one thing I would keep in mind is from a um a brand Ing and usage standpoint you want to keep it very clean as possible to ensure that it looks clean and legible in all applications I understand a need to or maybe um some thinking the Shadows are it but when you're starting to go into signage t-shirts banners uh digital um postcards whatever the application may be you want something that is a little bit more flat number one it's more cost effective when you start going to printing number two it's cleaner and more legible so please keep that perspective as we go through some of these color options on um the feedback we received um early on from from Robin and team as well as some of our design expertise to make sure you had something that could actually last past you know all of our generation here that can give them something clean that they could use for the long term and having a file that will be legible and readable for a longterm on reproduction I appreciate that professional absolutely I just this one question before we get rid of the picture on the screen so I I get it I think it looks um much cleaner than the old one of course and and like you're saying simplified and recognizable the only thing I want point out and I don't know maybe it's just me but the leftmost column with the steps coming down um like when you're actually looking at it there's actually more of like a a rock bulge out and you don't actually see all the steps I don't know if that's something before it's plastered all over town that could maybe be more accurate okay get it again you said the leftmost column I'm just taking some notes Here Yeah Yeah the leftmost column like at the bottom where you see like all the different little step Downs of the steps it's not actually like that if you look at like a picture um I don't know if you'd be able to tell on my screen but like there's um yeah true it's more Stone I'll send you a picture of what we're looking at in Nelle in on the wall no I saw it I saw it on her screen we have tons of pictures of the building so I will uh Circle it highlight it and and say we need to uh have more of a pronunciation on that section thank you not a problem so next slide this is just more closeup so you can kind of get a little closeup noted here that we will tweak that section there and here's some additional color options and again when you're comfortable with a color palette we will put all of this in a style guide including all the fonts the colors that you select and making sure that you have a at least a one-pager style guide for the seal that can then be sent out to whoever is going to be reproducing this for you in any uh shape form or facet that cornflower blue is just too too bright it if you try to get match or flag it's more it's a better color well will play with the color we just wanted to yeah don't worry we're just we're just showing you some things the brown one's very attrative okay thank you what do we have next very read see the brown one's veryable readable it is yeah and that's the most important thing is that it's readable across all platforms not just on your screen but on signs on print outs on banners on letterhead all of that you wanted to make sure sure it's Popp and it's legible and now we're going into what we call in environment how it would look if we just use kind of the Black and White Version we just did the Black and White Version as mockups for tonight and we went through a couple of Blues um as just mockups for the signs the signs as well were not married to the font if you want to go with a more modern font we use the current font that you have now for the signs just for consistency um but all of those things are subjective um from an aesthetic standpoint um for us it's really about the legibility um and making sure that people can read uh from a distance and one thing uh in that slide on the right hand side which has the old ver nomenclature verbiage there is also a screen back ghosted KOA that is not going to be in the future signs it'll be flat like the one that says welcome to Flemington now and I right here yeah that'll be removed that we have 30 signs which at this size is a little bit overkill for a for a time where most people follow directions on their in their car on their phone you know what I mean it's it's people aren't looking for the signs to tell them where to go so some number of the signs where it might be actually too chaotic to have you know five signs at a corner and you're trying to see around them we may have we may remove a couple we may also have some that just say welcome to Flemington you know thank you for visiting Clemington just basic this is where you are welcome to the circle shopping District Welcome to the Sangle Arts and Cultural District there was a lot of redundancy of having multiple signs really close to each other that kind of said the same thing um and they're big these signs happen to be a really large scale so okay this it just another blue option we just gave some different uh gradients of blue just for this exercise and mockups but the again the colors are subjective we just want to make sure they read well um in daytime and at nighttime that's a nice blue a better blue really like this blue this one pops yeah very read and and the other thing uh the P signs were were not totally Ada compliant we we are working with Natalie at cultural and Heritage to make sure and some help from the county to make sure that our signs are totally adaa compliant in what Manner exactly were they not um uh the the the arrows that were used were not exactly the recommended uh position of the arrows and we've also this is like our third design foray um some of the designs that we got in the past were very were were very uh design heavy and not ADA compliance and signs is really very simple it's Point size is its readable fonts I think NOS it's a whole lot of stuff that we will make sure we comply it like the sign the the the arrows uh this is not the recommended way to do arrows moving along but we do love the color and and just to give you a little bit more education on ADA compliance sign um the font must be a Sans sah font so current currently these are all sarap fants so we would switch to a sand sarap Fant um for that um and that's that's one of the things that will help us make it ADA Compliant and for those that don't know um Sans Sif means sarif means these little wings that are on the edges of the letters they don't exist in s sand sarap font so if you look at a font like Ariel if you will that a lot of people have on their computers that is the sand Sant these are all sants but you having a sand sarant without all the little hooks and things on it and you have a straight font kind of more like the block letters that is that is ADA Compliant to to Robin's reference so we have a uh a sign um on Walter fan it's green it's really distress it's hard to read it's hard to read it's dark it's a dark green that has faded um we we uh we could this this um seal is recessed I think in the drawing but we have seen seals where it's uh it actually stands out from the sign it's really there's lots of different ways to and this sign post looks they look a little tired if you look at it really closely but you know we we would like to replace the one at Walter Fran um there was some permitting done for a sign at the Route 12 CLE um we've talked about putting a sign near the police station yes you get a grant for that it was before way before my time but yes there was gr was all that money spent I don't think they ever got I don't think they ever got grant money for it I don't know I'm I it's before my they really only the Landscaping a portion of that work they did they did spend some of that money just the land but we do have money put away for Gateway signs and um you know the sooner we get them the better it will [Music] feel is that our last the last slide yep that's the last mockup so you know we're driving in the in a blue Lane sounds like we got some feedback about what people like uh we're open to more comments about the colorization and different uh pallets we can try but we want you to know that we will soon have something very clean um we will some of the signs like if we wanted to just put up some welcome signs to start we can do those we're still looking at what icon we use uh for the Sangle Arts and Cultural District because we've talked about maybe those should have a different icon at the time top maybe those should have the same icon but have a different color um so we will come back gonna be an orange sign what's that I thought you said it was G to be an orange sign orange no didn't you say orange for the way I think she was just color coding them for the conversation oh oh because we didn't see no that was just tabs on the oh okay yeah sorry no no we we when you look at where the 30 signs are there's really like a majority of them the majority of them are on Main Street you know there is there is a very clear presence on the circle highway district where I have to say you know it's hard just to follow the the traffic signs you know there's a lot of wayf finding around there sometimes maybe ads to the visual confusion of how do I get around this circle or you know they're in they're they're they're in some strange places too um where they were put was a was other signs kind of cropped up around them so it's you know you have to re-evaluate these things so we will have a closer re-evaluation we just wanted to show you our progress give you a clean seal of of a of something that is workable and get your feedback very very quickly yes I meant to mention this this morning you probably already know the stangle Arts Center sign oh the letters are falling off oh yes we know okay and as far as branding it separately I I think that I want to make sure that we're we're treating Main Street and stangle equally and that I would like to see consistency with color and font on any sign that's on stangle I totally I think to be consistent everything will no we're not we're not doing a different look and feel for the different areas um I me the logo too yeah but we do want as we said as we've said as I've said for a couple of years we do want to Brand the three commercial districts with their own identity their own look and feel their own sort of narrative um because it's it's healthier they're healthier that way it's very hard for people to understand that we have three business districts and honestly if we could get people to uh know that when you come here you can get a cup of coffee here take an art class there and then you know pick up something big box that you need on your way home and we were sharing customers better but having them feel like it's one burrow and they're they're patronizing of the various things that we have to offer it's a bet it's a better experience for our retailers and it's a better experience uh for the customer yeah and what we're working on is um for the three business districts now we've kind of confirmed what the actual verbiage will be um we're doing a um we're in the midst of the middle of our logo exploratory and what we call kind of iconography so it's mostly dependent on the color and and very simplified elements inside so each district would have its own icon but all the icons would look as part of their part of the same family so that's what we're working on now to make sure there's recognizable icons as best practices when you're doing this type of exercise that each business district gets its own recognizable icon but when you see them you can still see all three icons together that represent all the three business districts of of of the Burl and that's what we're currently working on we're in iteration number two um before we send it out to you advertising and a marketing standpoint that absolutely does work it does work correct you combine it all together people people don't recognize they don't get confused and it's all disc it's all discombobulated right I think SE separating it and there is a Common Thread throughout that's correct common threat but there's a distinction between this and this and this and everybody has their it's kind of like everybody has the same identity but they Al sh also share something that's special about them I correct as we so you know for example from a practical perspective uh we we do this holiday shopping passport the first prize is a $250 gift certificate to any store you want to uh us to buy you a gift certificate from in the burrow and we did this so that people could actually have a list of all the shops in their hands as they were thinking about where am I going to go shopping where where do I buy a present so this year after talking to uh Nichelle we just it used to be you had to have 10 receipts and we didn't care where they were from it could be Burger King Staples and Alchemy coffee it could be your hair salon this year we changed it to you have to have one receipt from each of the three business areas so if you get three receipts you can from uh the circle shopping district stangle Arts and Cultural and Main Street if you shop in three places you can win $250 just for giving us a copy of three receipts we have no price restriction you could spend $5 and be entered because what we're really trying to do is to get people to go to all three so and just as a matter of fact we did take out um we took out dentists and medical and Banks from our list even though some of that would make a good holiday present um depending on what it is but for Main Street we have 69 retail businesses meaning you're going in and you're paying before you walk out main sheet includes mind katner we say surrounding not we say surrounding areas so like uh all the side streets yeahi avf yep we draw the line for Highway at uh Broad Street so you know Teresa's Cafe we consider not highway but calano is highway just because of the way it feels um but for for stangle we have 45 businesses so 69 businesses on Main Street and off side streets 45 businesses for the stangle Arts and Cultural District that does we do include fuler Central AB in that and then the highway is uh a total of of 79 businesses which isn't that much more than Main Street when you think about it but 23 of those are in the shops you know and the shops is a very contained environment so there's 56 businesses up at the Circle Highway shopping plazas and 23 plus 23 at the shops and that is a total of 216 what we're call in retail for the purpose of holiday shopping so it's a lot to promote you know two 216 businesses you have to break it down somehow and you have and because they're not right next to each other you like really have to give people a good map to find all this great retail so I'm G to segue um we have members of R Scout Troop 80 5 here yes cool so Arya who is on the far end is my neighbor she popped over yesterday for a an Uninvited visit to let me know that her troop your Juniors um are interested in doing a long serving Community project to help the business community um my word not their way find and um have recognition especially for the side street businesses is that right ARA do you want to introduce your friends here your members of your troop this is nice to meet you so I said you couldn't be more timely are you because we're talking about this tomorrow night and you come so they're here because they are looking to do a community project for their Troop that will have meaning and last for the business Community fantastic than you so much um you work with them and U gladly and have them work with you and do something for the town that is Meaningful for our businesses I can't wait to hear your ideas and uh sure let's get together and work it out and full disclosure Ellen I also talked about this as well well I'm glad there's been a lot of Engagement with everyone in the room and uh we'll look forward to working together awesome guys that's fantas thank you do I get a badge though I still have my f and I would like another like a new one are good I think we're good right okay Michelle any last comments no uh thanks for spending some time with us I'm excited to you know be able to always see you all and I'll put my bid in for a box of cookies from the young ladies I just need your name and address record for okay you need to speak in our microphone can't hear you hello I am a new uh person who's come to Flemington I'm from middle sex County um thank you very much I was the resident an artist in my last town which was Spotswood and I had a studio on my property as well um so and it was going from Main Street to Doo and then to mine um and then my art was called my business was MIA art we found mine Street here in Flemington which means Mia means mine in Italian so we moved to mine street so now it's going to be called Mia art mine but it's on M Street it's not going to be any of these in those locations um I'm also wondering about zoning we purchased for it to be a teaching environment um and I'm worried about zoning if I'm going to be able to have small classes and that but that's story for another day can you um say your name please Maria saesi hold on m a r i SS in Sam a v is in Victor a r e is in Edward S is in Sam e okay thank you told me to come um so yeah so just about like where I would fall into any of these signages that's happening I know that I have a sign I'm about to put up on my property matches your signage um make sure you go through Zing it per I'm I yeah everything's already been zoned it was the pre- permitted sign okay yeah so I just have to do this CCO to get back where the mine was correct the mine so yes so now me AR M so that's where that that was my question it's about where I would fit into any of these circles or if I'm just going to be an extra piece of the community that's not needed and that's okay too no one's exra not needed need everybody there's a lot of me here you know a lot of what I do with here already lot of all of us here but uh the the one piece of signage we didn't talk about is trying to uh do some vertical uh blad signs that point to some of the streets that have mixed businesses on them you know like Main Street off Main Street there's Bloomfield having a little blade that's like they have in Lambertville um you have to have a lot of height to do it it's it has to be I think 13 over your over my head over everybody's head um but I think M Street some of the streets that have businesses we should try to also indicate that there's businesses down there not we won't we won't be able to indicate every business but we can at least indicate that there's uh other businesses we I mean I match I keep my backyard is with the bookstore's backyard and then withina we've merged so so yeah a little a little little neighbor okay so done Michelle I think we're full we will uh out send request for more feedback and we'll come back and show you our progress great talk to these guys yes we will thank you very much thank you all right yes do not feel obligated to sit through this entire meeting it's not room to leave it's thank you so muche I'm around come back all right um right we're back to the agenda um item number seven which is report I have a couple of things to um report on and U I was hoping brandom's gonna be here tonight because I W to set um first of all I want to set a council Retreat um as I did last year um for everybody to get together with all the department heads on a Saturday in January to just talk about 40 and the specifics of what the Departments do I'm looking at either January 11th or the 18th 18th the 18th do how's the 11 you can't do the 11 P pushing it really late in the in January but we can do the is that the 18th is it the 29th is that Saturday Saturday uh yes what about the 25th the 25th Trent 25 CH I might be away you oh okay we'll tend to reset it for January 25th and see what happens okay um that's thing one uh thing two which is the most complicated thing on my list which is um banners so yeah I'm G jump right I'm gonna jump right into that fire so you know the council spent time doing a lot of due diligence on temporary signage and um we purposefully did not touch banners because we're waiting uh Hardware or any Banner system across Main Street um so we did not include banners in our temporary signage ordinance uh and since then we've been having issues with um a Millie's temporary Banner regarding opening we did say you know we did say that you know it could be up for so many weeks and then they for 50 bucks or whatever it was and they could pay again and again and again and it just had to say roughly when they were G to start so we've been having some issues I'm gonna just turn this over to our attorney because he's really taken the lead on dealing um with trying to relatively simple issue became complex now I'm going make it simple for you right right so your ordinance has two parts signs signs you did we SP a lot of time in this room doing the sign the banners there are certain technical aspects with the banner right part of it because you hang your banner across the me Street Mayor correct well that's that was our interpretation of a banner I think when we were talking about so we held off on doing that that part of the ORD still needs clean up we are waiting on certain aspects which we shall hopefully have in the first quarter next year in the meantime M would like to hang their ban or hung it see it um it is there is a dispute as to whether it will be a sign under the ordinance that you passed or a banner because Banner is not defined in the ordinance and there's some conflicting definitions uh you may recall the council specifically contemplated Millie the night of the discussion problem came up here problem we added a clause your licensing part for that for that um specific use the 60-day runway to open right so I prepared a resolution which will will distribute probably before we may before we go into executive and come out and vote on it just so the council can take a quick look at it gr ant Millies Millies relief um so they can keep their sign up for our and be in compliance with our Bo we will look to remedy amend your banner ordinance which I expect you will do the first so the council has the power to basically overule anybody technically R this you can grant no well it's par you mayor the um you can grant relief from the structures of your own ordinance uh by resolution as long as couple things are meant one it cannot compli with any state or County State regulation or typically State regulation so if it was a state code I couldn't do that right this is your regulation right and the resolution must state in detail the reasoning for the relief Grant which I've done uh as long as those two strictures are met it can be done um courts are open if anyone has a problem with it I don't think we'll see any lines or Millies just wants that b so you'll have a resolution may you and I spoke about this on Friday so it's relatively late pring have you guys email to Carla she print it and I would my suggestion would be when executive distribute it come out an executive vote on it doubt there will be much problems with very Bening thing but it will give the uh Millies a bit of a Clarity right and then and then we'll proceed next year in working on cleaning up whatever language we need to clean up yeah it's sty you know uh they should not be the original sign ordinance was done that 60 provision was put in for them at that time and know that their square footage would be what it is which is okay but we got to give them some right we talked about a sign that night we didn't talk about a certain Square anybody have an issue with that good okay it's like I said it's a simple issue that became complicated and again background and make it simple this resolution we'll have right um finally I just want to do a a parking committee update for everybody um because there are ordinances that are appearing tonight for introduction so the parking committee um you know we've been hearing all these complaints about M Street and uh tasked um J trapman our traffic consultant to take a look at M Street plus um the request for a three-way stop uh on Broad Street at Bloomfield Avenue by some of the residents so as well as the um flashing light that uh councilman Lev brought to my attention or all of our attentions I'm not really sure so so um Jay did look at comprehensively first of all he immediately blessed the three-way at Bloomfield and Broad to slow down the speeding that's occurring um down in that part of broad um so then he reviewed uh all of my street and um has opined that there should be two three-way stops one at Park and mine and one at stangle and mine um he felt that Central Avenue was too close to the one at Park uh but stangle was appropriate to have a three-way stop um we all way stop I think that the ordinance title says four way but they're all three-way um or could say all way um so there are three ordinances for introduction tonight on the agenda uh one for Bloomfield and Broad uh as an Allway um Park and mine as an Allway and stangle and mine as in all way Jay also looked at um the flashing lights that um are operator required if you're walking and you need to cross the street uh you press the button and they start flashing so drivers know somebody is about to cross the sidewalk um he identified three locations for those um one at Central Avenue on mine these are all mine Street one Central Avenue uh one at um what is it right no that's not right okay um one at Central Avenue in mine one at Academy in one I'm sorry Academy in mine and the third one all the way down is uh Walnut Brook and mine which gets people to cross to the church to the Catholic Church um those flashing lights run $336,500 a piece uh it was felt by the paring committee that perhaps the one at Central Avenue could be paid for by the FCP because it is for the business district um I have a call in go hun in to see if there's the grant to get money for the other two or all free um so I'm waiting to hear back from Tara about money for the others um because we're talking about you know over $100,000 in next year's budget for these if we want to proceed with it but it's not just the like the sidewalks none of the sidewalks are handicapped Ada so um and the one at Walnut Brook according to Jay's report is all broken up and really needs to be fixed now we have the money to do from the bridge um up at the rout 12 circle down ways and can probably get you know put into that doing the ADA compliance and new sidewalk area there to fix that all up uh when we when we get ready to do that that's you know we're going to be starting that work sometime in this winter uh not work but the financial side of this because we have of course want to do the 100y old sewer lines that are underneath there the 100y old water lines that are underneath there and any galvanized connections as well um so so that projects um we have the money just to do the road right now but it's should be comprehensive if we're going to put in these reticulating flashing lights we should be doing them at the same time um and maybe working our way down because like I said there sidewalks have to be um repaired and made ADA Compliant so so that's um the first the first thing that is um um I think it's it's I know a lot of people who live on wine Street have been complaining about for a long time it'll slow down it'll definitely slow down traffic um somewhat as you get closer to town which is a good thing U since that is the street with the largest amount of speeding and the highest speeds in the bur um the um parking committee also has been been feeling a lot of complaints about um parking issues and of course with the opening of the hotel uh and all the apartments um slated for next year um they are um recommending residential overnight park overnight parking um residential parking only and have been looking at new systems that would do permitting for that uh for visitor for visitor passes we're not quite there ready to present anything to the council yet because we're still working on policy recommendations as far as um how many residential or visitor parking spaces each house would be granted but there are a lot of problems in town with um parking now uh especially being driven by some of the apartment complexes that do not have enough parking on site and they're parking on side streets and in Neighbors driveways in front of U uh mailboxes you um you know all people you know overhanging into their lawns I mean it's it's becoming very difficult um and um also um at one of our early meetings next year either the first business meeting in January or February Jay will be here to present to the council um the route he is recommending um to ensure what the public was promised about um Union hotel traffic U making it flow onto the main roads and not through side streets so he has um he developed quite a few months ago um a route that would um not compromise the residential neighborhoods and um with a lot of additional traffic that wasn't counted on and uh he's going to present that like I said we'll have him here either at the end of January or the beginning of February uh to present that and then get an ordinance if it's um if it's aable to the council get an ordinance um done and um and in place before the Hotel opens so the residents get used to a new route um it's not significant changes it's just a few minor tweaks to some current roads um and that's it that's my report um so um going to start with uh council president BL I could even got a couple things here uh office of emergency management theme of disaster preparedness month and some of the topics uh are winter weather preparedness encouraging residents to prepare for severe weather by suddenly emergency kits planning for power adages and ensuring homes are winterized uh holiday fire safety promoting fire safety tips such as monitoring holiday decorations practicing safe cooking habits and ensuring smoke detectors are functional uh also the annual tget trap is going to be Thursday November 28th please note the following traffic updates uh road closures are starting at 7:30 a.m. and continue until approximately noon Town ride closures uh but uh and highly affected areas will be Broad Street East Main Park Avenue banel street mine Street Main Street and the secondary roads within the closure zones resident assistance residents impacted by closures are encouraged to contact the department uh police department I should say at 98782 3434 before race day to arrange alternative parking or discuss entry and exit strategies the H 100 holiday parade is Saturday December 7th holiday parade will be held at 5:00 pm on the 7th Road closes air portions of East Main North Main and the North End of Main Street will close starting at 2 p.m. residents can assist uh in closures they should contact Clemington police at the non-emergency number which I said before for assistance fire this Friday and Saturday the fire department will be holding a fundraising points house in the intersection of Church Street and Main and the squad I don't have a ton of details but um I will have more to say but they have been busy as they were the last month that's my for it thank you Council vice president Rosetti thanks mayor um everything was pretty much status quo at the shade tree meeting uh couple weeks ago so nothing to report there I did want to piggyback on your on your traffic uh topics mayor if if the traffic team could somehow look at um one other area in town where there's a safety concern I almost witnessed a really severe accident on the circle today um when you're going on uh the 31202 circle getting on to 31 North like heading up towards the Wendy's and the Wawa those Lanes like you can both you can go right or left in in those lanes and um a car was trying to go onto 31 north and a truck was trying to go around the circle and it was like really really close um I've seen other close calls but this was like really my heart stopped for a second you know it was really um serious so I don't know if that's something we can look at because it's a dangerous situation for sure and I actually were talking about this earlier this week that exact that is that the circle and and I were talking about the fact that there are less accidents now on the circle than before improvements because the visibility is so much better except in that location you just yeah I don't know if it it means you know we have to say Okay the right lane has to go on 31 and can't continue around the circle or but something is not working there really a state issue but um we just sent a letter the parking committee I just signed a letter that Jay wrote to the state um asking the state to consider changing the timing um for the left turn on rout 31 to onto Church Street because it's such a short light it only let seven cars get through so we just sent them a letter saying can you take a look at that timing please and give us more I mean Jay had counts and everything that he included so we're hoping you know we're hoping you know there's a lot of stuff we're doing like um um we have the timing counts the original timing Counts from 2010 for the traffic light on North Main and foran bu now Jay is um reprogramming that late because I guess some lightning or something knocked the timing out so we're putting that timing back so more cars can get through we're doing that on Route 31 in Church Street so we can certainly have Jay take a look at that Circle to make some kind of recommendation to the state whether it's signage or you know I mean it's you know it's really clear who's got the yield on that but but it's you know it's not even about the yield because everyone is already moving at that point right it's where you're either exiting the circle or staying on the circle and there's no yield sign at that point where you're getting on to 31 North so you know it just comes into the situation where the right lane and the left lane can both choose to go left or right and when not everyone is going in the same way um they cross that yep you know I was in a do meeting I want to say four years ago with a representative of the do and they actually expressed um willingness to consider repainting that so I think just just like we wrote the letter to the do about the church in 31 if we as the traffic committee write a letter about that reminding them that they were willing to look at repainting because it literally will solve a lot of problems if they would just even start with the repainting which is cheap um they were willing four years ago I think they should be willing again to at least reconsider okay I couldn't tell you why I was in that meeting I don't remember I think it had to do with the shops anything else Council vice president oh that's it mayor thank you okay thank you oh so noted I got notes on it I even just drew myself a picture um all right um councilwoman anglehart okay um Council report uh High School Board of that is tonight simultaneous to this meeting so go ahead and check their meeting out when you're done here um Flemington rington School District our K through 8 District their next meeting is December 19th at 700 pm at jpk um Sam flowing house their monthly House tours are on December um 15th Five Bell Street in addition I want to thank the shade tree commission for helping them um replace the tree um and there was a we replaced the the fence along the property line and in the front um a couple years ago during a storm when the trees fell and and you know broke the fence so that was also prepaired and I want to thank the uh DPW and the shry commission for assisting Sam Fleming with that um also last week I did attend the league of municipalities in um Atlantic City and really had attended a lot of great sessions in particular I really enjoyed and hope to um um uh you know get some um have it influence uh some of the my decisions over the next year and suggestions over the next year specifically I uh attended uh public transportation sessions digital um Equity goal uh sessions development sessions engaging with the film and TV industry and um uh women in government um so um I did want to thank uh uh thank the bur for the opportunity to attend thank you and that's it thank you very much uhor not I'm ping guys thank you Council let's see um there's an HBC meeting last week we have and one approval um just as a general Public Announcement um and a reminder I suppose if you do live or own live in the bur own a business or own any property in the historic district which is about 65% of the town uh please file an application for the HBC before making any exterior modifications while I'm not a snitch or narc of any kind nor am I qualified to make determination regarding violations of the ordinance I've seen a number of improvements in and around town that I don't recall seeing an application for within the past year so if that applies to you we have a nice easy to use online form meetings are once a month and the board is quite friendly so that's my this week thank you very much councilman Parker a couple of things so um I did attend the league of municipalities as well and probably one of the best ones I've attended and the reason is is I spent a lot of time talking to mayors of other towns people on the planning board of other towns Council people of other towns so it was I it was just such a great educational I got to ask a lot of questions that I normally would not have asked and just based upon the experience of what we're having here and and just serving on this um serving on the console so I I got a lot of good advice and a lot of good numbers that I can call up so that's always a good thing I think I think for me the league is it's just as opposed to just going to the sessions I think you get so much more benefit out of meeting other people from other towns and other levels whether it's senators or congress people or whatever the case may be and I I was lucky enough to engage with each one of those levels throughout the throughout meeting also I did run into a when we're talking about banners there is a new Banner system what people are what what is past say now is doing banners across went from building to building because it's so manual um the manual labor and it's not safe and it's no guarantee that it's going to stay up um so there is a company that has Banner this on the pulse and Susan I took I brought Susan over to take in Tren Susan Brandon I yeah and it's it's it takes five minutes to put it up and it's done by like almost like a drill so I I do have some inform I'm going to present it um to uh FCP and also to um uh DPW because I think this is the answer it goes on the poles does it go on on existing poles or own goes on existing poles existing po existing poles y y and it and it you just put this thing in and it goes up and it can it can be a pretty long Banner as well depending on how high the fs are but um they actually do the manufacturing of the banners if we wanted them to we can do our own but they can do it as well it the price is unbelievably um it's it's unbelievable so good it was unbelievable similar company to those big tall ones that you know that are that we have around town a little bit now but just kind of on steroids it was very cool yeah it's very cool so anyway there we are engaging them I'm I'm going to have them um sit with Mike and and as well as you Robin to go over what they look like and little bit and come to Cil and we can see it as well uh the other thing is the newsletter is out finally um so that was just that's out and it will be Carl we can put it up on the website um tomorrow maybe tomorrow the next day where can people find one well they're going to be distributed amongst a several of the same stores like sage and the corner and some places on on the highway so Robin gave me a list it's the same places I don't know off the top of my head all of but um they will be on between Main Street and um Circle have a good chunk of them I'll here y yeah and I mean it's you know same thing that I asked for last time if if each of the constant people can just take a chunk of them and just pass them out in their neighborhoods that would work as well because we don't have the money to do it as a we don't have the budget to do it in in mail which would actually be much more efficient and much better to get the word out but it is what it is we work with conference um the police um we are swearing in a police on the second just as a reminder at 1:00 his name is his last name is Castro he is again really great guy I think we're going to really benefit from his skill set um I will definitely be here with them to to be swearing in with them um and today we met with the landlords and this has been a big thing for I talked about this for for weeks and Susan was there um yeah and Adrian was there on and we had a great turnout but here's what I thought was even better we had a great discussion it was a great discussion it wasn't that people were but it was really very very it was insightful it was engaging and you know a lot of them came up with really great great ideas and and how to move this whole thing forward um especially in terms of the zoning a little bit so I I do think it can't be the last discussion I think we I think this is a way to keep engaging when I say engaging the community the community also includes businesses and we can't separate the community and businesses because without businesses we have no you know we just have the community that's it um so we I just think that it was very very productive and and and one of the things they ask for is can they want this to happen again um they want an open an open dialogue for input and so that's one of the things that we'll have Robin coordinat so that that can be done as well and that's it okay thank you um that's everybody all right uh at the first couple comment section uh anybody from the public wishing to comment um have to come up to the microphone any need the last name and an address and you have three minutes okay 45 North Main Street lington um the last council meeting that I attended here I kind of mentioned some of the things that were going on in and around my neighborhood or homes this is and that it would seem like uh there's a lot of rental property uh they're accumulating a lot of rubbish okay in the yards uh neighbor right next to me somehow they ended up with a large trampoline I me really large okay and uh I guess they used it for a day or two and now it's in the backyard that's my backyard and slaying up against my fence um you have to see some of this stuff to believe it uh okay if this is near you know nearby my house I don't want to make problems for my neighbors and you know but somebody has to come out and take a look at the situation this is like I kind of mentioned a couple months ago about uh a dumpster day maybe over at the abandon Agway property where you know maybe one of the large cars LMR can donate a dumpster yeah I I did follow up on that and and it's prohibitively expensive for the B hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars you know thought maybe they graus work for the burrow or whatever but uh it's beginning to be a problem have you called our property maintenance officer about well when I was here at the last meeting I thought basically maybe I might get a phone call or something like that I really didn't have time but I would like maybe somebody to look into that from the burrow if you you know are you asking me to have our property maintenance officer talk to you well again I'm happy to do that I don't know who's in charge of you know anybody can call him his number is right on our website they're pretty busy and in effect uh on the north end of town overall I might like to have somebody from the council do a walk through in this neighborhood of mine uh because between things that are going on bicycles coming down the sidewalk trash emanating from Steve's store there's a small trash container in front of my property which I personally have to empty more often than not because of the amount of trash it's you know accumulating very very quickly again Steve store did you put that there because you asked for one yes I did okay and it has to be I think a little larger and there has to be another one because it's just overflowing obviously people don't care to do that trash ends up on my wall on the sidewalk Etc I've been cleaning up the leaves uh you know quite often because of the time of year but then again I'm also out there every day people placing aluminum cans on the top of my wall Etc Etc I wish Steve's store was right up at the top of 100 Hills it'd be more convenient it'd probably be a more modern store you could do something with that triangle of property there that's just it's it's just private property again it's private property uh nothing else is going on in terms of the old Agway property Global we got little Elvis deteriorating on the wall uh it's a flood zone you know try to remain positive this time of year but again it's like hey you know I'll call the property manager you know I'll I'll call them for you okay well if you want to do that I thank you but again um if anyone of you on Council want to walk this neighborhood I kindly point out to you some of the things that have been going on there and some of the things that haven't been going on there for years uh it's great that some of these other properties are being developed you know know things are moving and shaking downtown but really uh to have Steve store the only business on that side of town on the welcoming end of Flemington there I I think we're going to have to get on the stick here and start like you know getting something done if nothing can happen to Global a because of the of the U you know the water situation there the runoff um just make it green make it make can happen at Global EG it's just what the redeveloper originally proposed and was approved for by the council in 20122 no longer can because the storm order rules changed in July 2023 oh yeah and either site had their permits in place yeah again I don't know what the red tape is but it would seem like a developer would be turned off of that area flood zone where it is but it just seems like everything is everything is dead on this side of town and I'm trying to improve my property I'm trying to make my property you know more you know just just make upgrades you know and uh nothing else is going on there and again I'm still picking up trash traffic is moving I got people coming down the sidewalks you know on these uh electric bicycles um again uh it's and then you know I see all these other streets stop sign here stop stop sign there you know flashing lights I mean I'm not going to say it's a little bit of Overkill I mean I drive a 5-speed Fiat My Town Car yeah my my 5-speed 3 the town car but I'm telling you what in the end the only thing that's going to solve this possible safety issues with everybody you know that come out of their houses every morning and there's a lot of risks out there but again you'll have a smart car and once you enter Flemington it won't allow you to go over 25 miles hour that well I'm just saying I'm just saying when I drive I drive like I'm going somewhere I obey the speed limit you know plus or minus I need you to wrap up you can hang out to the next one the next three minute comments but again no song okay thank you I got it all down the public I'll be really quick it was quick I thought so yeah I we entering our holiday season I really need to tell you that everyone needs to shop small um we have small businesses we our businesses are struggling in a way that they haven't struggled before there are very few people on the streets there's very few people shopping there's very few people actually making transactions it's really hard it's a real really it's a really hard time and they're really um depressed and nervous about this season so shops small Saturday which is weirdly an American Express holiday we apply we're a champion we're considered a champion um group they send us all kinds of marketing materials to distribute to our businesses but I really have to say to the best of everybody's ability what can't your watch please shop small please remember that the the that whatever dollars you spend on Main Street or stangle or even at Mom and Pop shops on the highway there there are people and they really need your business so small business um Saturdays is something I I'm I'm huge on it's the it's the Saturday of Thanksgiving um you know it's Thanksgiving and it's the Friday Black Friday and then it's small business Saturday to be very specific and this is something that is Nationwide um it's not only for this community it's Nationwide and saying that um to that end it's not only lemington that's suffering for small business it's small business overall that are suffering right now because people are just not shopping on going into break and mortar stores shopping online that's that's the big problem and I you know I had some conversations in at the weag about this as well but I do think that if we can just push out um and just keep I I wish we could have done something sooner but we just need to keep pushing it out that shop shop shop in Flemington walk down the street and shop go to every store you can go to I think we just have to keep saying and we have we decided this year to start earlier and consolidate our efforts so we do have Santa we do have Mrs Claus and we also have a trolley on shops small Saturday which is you know usually we wait till after the parade to start doing those things so we're even though Thanksgiving is late we're starting our big holiday uh efforts earlier we also have a um a first Friday on Main Street which is a new monthly event it's the first Friday of every month it's crafts it's sampling it's just coming to the stores and say hello um so that will be 4 to six before the tree lighting and we we've worked with Chris and the Chamber and the Boy Scouts um and Rotary on this year's tree lighting and help donate seven that is on the six the tree lighting is the six the parade is the seventh right and on the eth which is a Sunday we have another holiday trolley uh there's a blizzard Bazaar over on stangle and the shops of Flemington are sponsoring a big Santa event with a scavenger hunt at the shops of Flemington there's a new owner and they're really interested in working with us and that was one of our goals at the beginning of the year was to pay more attention to uh the highway uh plazas and this is do more events there and do more things so we're excited about that we we we have uh a couple need wrap it up okay we have a couple dates with Santa on Main Street but it's all printed I would love it if we could get the shopping passport in the PDF form to the residents because we want them it's a list of every business business in town where they can buy something so I'll send that to whoever can help me get it posted can help you yes Trent help we can push it out please push it out they can print it out at home give us three gifts three receipts from one from each business area and when so I would just I would connect with well great we'll do thanks anybody else here in the room wish to comment the public comment period I just need here okay anybody online that I see one hand up but I can't read it Dennis okay Dennis okay Dennis you could talk hi can you hear me hi uh good evening I'm Dennis sh a resident of Flemington at 194 Main Street and I'd like to comment about potential downtown business zoning changes from a resident perspective I believe everyone on the council wants to strive for a vibrant busy downtown Main Street not just during the day but in the evenings both during the week and on the weekends in addition I believe we all would agree that we are nowhere near that Vision currently Main Street has a lot of vacant space so no one can say there is there is a demand for office space that isn't being met in the burrow as we look to the near future with Courthouse Square Millie's completing next year and eventually Liberty Village I believe there will be significant demand for retail shops Services experiences and restaurants as the hotel and apartments will significantly increase the number of people looking for those services within easy walking distance I ask that you prioritize the Flemington Bur residents not landlords as many of the landlords don't even reside in Flemington and pass zoning changes that preserve important spaces throughout Main Street for retail services experience and restaurants on the F first floor instead of new offices I keep hearing landlords are against this and realistically do you really think any landlord would support any zoning change that restricts new office use facing Main Street why would they ever support that you need to have the courage to support what our residents want and need and it is not more offices facing Main Street there are plenty of vacant spaces that can be used for offices in Victorian Plaza the old egg auction with both have plenty of parking we need to have the vision consistent with the master plan that this zoning change will help fill vacant spaces for shops Services experiences and restaurants landlord should not be driving or zoning what residents want and remember they are the people that voted for you they want a vibrant downtown and that should drive our zoning office use in the recommended zoning change is grandfathered on the first floor for the same profession so there is no great risk to landlords today or their tenants in addition if there is a new office in the rear of the first floor that would still be permitted as long as the office doesn't face Main Street let me use an example take the red vanilla building across from Courthouse Square complex that building would make a great restaurant retail store or services or entertainment venue right now now if we don't change the ordinance someone could go in there and open up a new office and we would lose a prime location for what we are trying to promote to build a vibrant Main Street at night and weekends that office location would be dark at night and weekends which is the opposite of what we're trying to achieve I believe if you ask residents what they want rather than just asking landlords they do not want more offices on Main Street and we need to have zoning that encourages that which the proposed ordinance does with no new offices facing Main Street nothing is perfect but we need to send a clear message to people including entrepreneurs that we want their retail and services experiences businesses and restaurants on Main Street I am asking everyone on the burrow Council to have the courage to take this strategic step with a vision for the future anticipating the changes we're looking forward to including the completion of cous Square Millies and Liberty Village this will take time I ask that you have the courage to implement the zoning changes recommended to not allow new offices on the first floor of buildings facing Main Street and give it three years if after that you feel it needs to be modified then do it at that time but we need to act now before this window of opportunity passes I sincerely thank you for letting me give my comments as a very concerned resident of Flemington we love Flemington and these steps will help to get a much more vibrant Main Street in the near future thank you okay um anybody else from the public absolutely same yes I just need your my first name is Norma Cruz I own live and have a business in Clemington can you spell your last name for record last name Cruz c Ru Z separate r u i c I just wanted to comment that um as a business owner as a papy owner as a landlord I totally disagree with the person that I just come in before um I think uh we have a lot of Bey spaces in Main Street and I would hope that we can rethink about the no offices um I think if it's not um broken why fix it focus on issues that we are lacking of which is more businesses in town um I would love to see mainstream more busy more vibrant and um obviously right now unfortunately that's not happening so as a llord perspective I think that um by closing our Windows to offices or any other kind of a business it's taking money from us and opportunities um I don't like to be told what to do with my business with my building so um I would hope that in the future we can have more opinions from all of us and if the residents want to be included and that's good too but as a landlord as a resident and as a business owner I totally dis with everything it was said before and I will encourage for all of us to have more open opinions and to um obviously uh have L restrictions on that anybody else thebody else's that 134 Maine go ahead I just need your name for the record please Joseph felato he is in boy U CC L T I'm the I'm the property owner at 134 Main Street I also have a retail shop on the first floor the antique shop and there's offices upstairs uh regarding what the resident was talking about it I agree with him about we all the property owners want re detail on Main Street to be clear that is a vision we're excited about the courthouse project we're excited to see Main Street booming with retail and restaurants but we need to let the market decide uh who we can and can't rent space to so I just would like to get on record to say the I do not like the ordinance at all uh but I want to encourage retail and all the property owners from the meeting that we had this morning are of the same opinion there wasn't one property owner at that meeting this morning that was in favor of the ordinance we want retail we want a vibrant Main Street but we don't want an ordinance telling us who we can and can't rent to thank you thank you anybody else another hand car you need to take the we weren told that we weren't W I was told that we weren't speaking uh on the ordinance that was on the agenda well I mean it's public comment in general but it is not a public hearing right but we there were people who were told they couldn't make public comments I don't know who told anybody nobody said that no one said that some no no no one said that what we said was that there was not going to be it was you're mixing two things up one one was we we actually encouraged people to come here so that's absolutely not true what the public comment was on on the if we were going to vote and there was open for other comment for the actual ordinance if the ordinance is introduced tonight then public comment will be taken on December 9th right this is the public comment period for General comments iove First Amendment rights say whatever they want okay that it was a little confusing not on my part no asked me so uh okay well you w at the meeting right well if I was would for so that would have been a bad thing okay so we have approval of minutes okay not have any uh we do not have a consent agenda so uh we've got the introduction of an ordinance 2024 I need to change that language from four-way to either Allway or three-way what pledge Castor that's ordin in existing ordinance now I didn't change really I just added those roads into Department I mean we can go um we St yeah I mean got fine so I I just all I did was take the roads in my campign gave me and inserted them into the current or oh that's I do not believe there I mean there such there's no place where field meets mine so that's the part that's got to be a typ I just took whatever my C beion said oh yeah that was the one that I but I you an email saying that's wrong I sent you guys this thing saying I just took what mik so we can make that change 100% um I just took what Mike sent put yeah I i' said i' said both of you or at least you I don't remember get you don't yeah I got I got G list right here whatever it is I just took no no mik did send that to you the B the parking committee meeting Mike sent me his list I took his list put it in the ORD I just Ed as a form the last time we did did you get because I sent you Jay's letter and I said this has the right did you get that believe I didn't Mar yeah see I was also Le myself it do work so so and and then I just took the ordinance I did the last time we did this right and just add added the took the Bold balen highlights out for the old roads and added new road so the title is fine yeah and would just whatever you want to put in need to fix the body working it's just the body the title is fine ordance 2024 24 an ordinance amending chapter 7A traffic scheduled to create a four-way sou intersection at mine Street and stangle Road mine Street and Park Avenue and Broad Street and Bloomfield Avenue that is correct need to change the park on that's body can I have a motion to introduce this ordinance is there a second second um for the record Council want you want to correct the record as to what's in the body of the ordinance in the body of the ordinance on the second page at the top it should say M Street and Park not M Street and Bloomfield yeah just on the issue of a three-way stop I do not believe I'm scanning right now I do not believe there is a relevant section then schedule for threeway STS so it you okay I think that is the only only artwork that's I could create a new one the counts on I know we well they're all freeways or you can call them all ways doesn't matter C currently that is the only one that would be appropriate but I can change that it doesn't matter to me I just need guidance to do that yeah because the other all the all the other stops in the burrow are four-way stops there are no three-way stops in the bur I do not believe they're all fourways yeah we just make schedule 5c three-way stop you could do either way you can do threeway or you could do all way stops as as the mayor I think that frankly all way is better because there's a couple others here that while they're not they're they may be four-way stops they the way the wording here is implies that they could be Allway stops that so um that's scheduled Ian I I think we should put in noware and then I'll just Chase it with an ordinance to change that section okay it will not sub so it's always stop all right no no no leave it leave it with councilwoman and C's changes based on the edits that okay and then I'll change the TR away okay all right so you have a motion that that's fine can I have roll call please Council womanle yes Council yes Council 11 yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president Rosetti yes okay um passes and public hearing will be 9th which is also our last meting of the year um so ordinance 2425 I do not believe has enough votes to introduce it so um I am going to ask to have this tabled indefinitely which means to the end of the year and um it'll be brought back up next year um after more discussion I have a motion to the table definitely is there a second sorry all um all right uh we do have a public hearing orance 202 423 in ordinance of the Bureau of Flemington adopting an amended Historic District map um can I have a motion to open to the public please we move is there a second all in favor this ordinance is now open to the public anybody wishing to comment please come up to the uh microphone state your name and address for the record and please seeing none anybody online nope seeing none have a motion to close the public hear there second second all favor okay can I have a motion to adopt ordinance 2024 d23 move your second second any discussion roll call please par y Council nart yes councilwoman pararo yes councilman L yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president um under regular agenda number 14 resolution 2024 d157 resolution approving the interest waved the number of sewer units on existing sewer accounts for Guntown Distillery can I have a motion oh move is there a second s second yeah so um more yeah so so you know when you get your water sewer you building a new business or whatever it is you have to f a form a so that our sewer and water departments know exactly what's uh you're going to be doing and they bu so accordingly this prior owner uh basically never filled out the form a this went on for quite a while um the sewer and water departments finally build um for you know the maximum use this building could have which was like you know a very very very high number of units because there was um no basis of proof to say otherwise uh the owner subsequently um the ownership changed of his business however it changed it changed and the new owner came in and provided the foret and provided about exactly what units this business was using to the satisfaction of our water department and um and our sewer department and so consequently um they they asked for the um the Forgiveness of all the interest that the prior owner had uh encumbered on this property okay can I do call uh any other discussion or questions okay call please councilwoman yes councilwoman foror yes councilman L yes council president La yes councilman Parker yes and Council vice president thank you uh we don't have a work session we're up to public comment session number two anybody want to continue your conversation comments earlier you got three minutes I just want to say thank you for the really jeda of conversation that we had this morning for encouraging us to uh to be included in conversations with the planning board and um for for starting a conversation that I really hope continues because we have to be able to talk to each other about uh our shared Visions for this town and it has to be residents and it has to be property owners and it has to be uh commercial tenants it has to be everybody so um I I I I really hope we can uh have Civic engagement and really good conversations about how we what we all want and how we get there and you know to that end we've only had nine businesses open this year nine nine businesses we had 31 businesses open last year so when we do the data and talk about it I think we're going to you know really have to put our heads together to figure out what what are the motivating factors what are the incentives what are the unmotivating factors where do we all find commonality and how do we plan together to have what we want when is that downtown inventory going to be done it is uh in progress and I could present whenever you want me to present I mean that was actually brought up at the meeting today as well even even the own the landlords want that is they want to know we started working on the data um and the data I I think we should have a conversation Tony about all the the points that we're collecting the points of information that we're collecting but we spent the entire weekend trying to look up and go on site to figure out what is vacant H how many stories are commercial how many how many offices has one floor PR print footprint been divided into you you know what are the impediments to having retail in one building as opposed to another so we've started this project can Tilly help me we worked all weekend so it's a big project or even if the building is inhabitable as well that's important that as well I mean I think the point of it is it's it's not this broad bref it's it's a lot of detail it's just not been undone and I don't understand why all these years it hasn't been it is where we we are where we are right and we're moving but the bottom line is is that it's also what is possible is every building capable of having this a retail or a this or a that or whatever the case may be it's just so much more work that done and we did uh Chris B who's in the audience and I talked about can the chamber help us with some of the data we've also talked to Mark Z about whether there's Economic Development funds to get a database which would help because if we had a particular kind of GIS mapping database we would we could get clean data and keep up with it we actually talked to the county about that when the during the previous bid there there was there was an offer from Mark's office at the time but it's also the churn because that's what you ALS o have to talk about is the churn it's not a matter of how many businesses come in it's not a matter of how many business it's about about the churn as well so how many businesses are actually turning because that's just as important as how many people are coming at and and we you know there's there's data that we know people people don't want to put in air conditioning systems and new roofs and new elevators in in a building that needs it if there if there's no you know no tenant that's willing to pay enough to pay for that kind of improvement or pay their taxes there there's so many factors but uh I I would like you to tell me how you want me to present this next year when we have a council a work session invation for the work session okay we see keep working on it get it we need it I mean it held this you know it held up you know consideration on this ordinance to some degree um I mean the the plan for the community that exists I'm sorry I'm very tired uh Mr I believe was at that meeting planning board planning board took a lot of heat because we did not fully expand the historic preservation District when we're supposed to I live in one of this most historic homes I am absolutely opposed to the concept of this whole town being a historic district that's not going to happen especially when I hear business owners say things like how dare you tell me what to do with my property I feel very much the same way and I bought a historic home but if I'm the gentleman sitting behind you this home was never part of the historic district so I think that when we're talking like this about this we our home Rob I'm going to tell you oh $4,000 investment and restoring a home and we played by the rules and we came here with a vision we had a vision that has not come to fruition of and 2015 2010 we' been sold been a lot of people that have bought homes in this community lovingly restored them brought them back to life and we still have nothing so let's be aware of that the next person that comes to me and says you know what modernize my house we'll stand behind that Resident it's going to be bad go right ahead out the wall put a glass wall on right on Main Street right on me this is ridiculous anybody else sorry thank you I am no comments yeah I just I just want to say I want to thank the burough for all the work it's done all the work it's about to do coming years I think it's a big challenge based on society's changes shopping changes online Hightech uh people's times are seem to evaporate uh I just want to congratulate the council everybody up here for the work that they do in these challenging times just as a point of perspective I I just think that Flemington has an old blueprint it's like an old blueprint uh Main Street is too narrow you know you can look at stangle a little wider you know you're trying to to put the pieces in the jigsaw puzle but the bord isn't you know there's just something wrong with the you know with with the picture you know the framework itself and that's just a point that I'm going to make you know over over the years of being here and like I I you know I tout my end of town and I'm saying God when I first moved into this town with Agway flourishing you could go down there uh you know and now the only business in in in sightful distance of my house is a underperforming store okay which facilitates itself you know with lottery tickets it's a part-time employment uh you know agency where people hang out and do this it's just a tremendous amount of things like to look at from the past to the present and just say like Adrian saying you know I'm trying to make an investment in my town you know yet I have absentee landlords you know owning properties next to me I have to come here to stay hey this is going on this is going on and it just seems like you know it's just not going the right way and I hope that downtown is going to be the Catalyst but I just don't think you know like that blueprint on Main Street I'm almost thinking like if an architect would just wave hand on Main Street get rid of this County building get rid of you know just put an entirely different blueprint a river I want I want a river US river well again you know there you know the Redmill River you know all that so it's a very unique Challenge and there's hardship to it there's no question about it I've been here been to meetings I've been downtown I try to support local businesses but again you're not going to beat Costco you're not going to beat some online shopping you're not going to do it it's almost like you have to face the reality you know so again that's that's my comment but I thank everybody here for going through the you know going through the whatever it takes to try to make it work and it's an uphill battle and I don't think 10 or 15 years from now anybody has an idea what downtown Flemington you know is going to look like but it's the periphery and again I've mentioned this before I'm mentioning again a merger with ran Township would make sense I think to to this County to this area in general because it's always push and pull it's shared services anyway it's Flemington red anyway you know that's clear they didn't want that well again maybe not but depart maybe not but again Princeton Princeton Boro has has done it there's a blueprint there you file that blueprint you're going to save a lot of time time and aggravation as far as you know how and why and when but I I do think these larger moves have to be made they have to be made because you've got the old tea house sitting there you you you've got you know you got a lot of empty which used to be office rental structure which are no good to anybody anymore just too much whether taxes rehabbing the building which was mentioned you know trying to conform this this and that it's it's time to look at a large architectural scale from Main Street it really is and I can see that clear as de and you can go to other areas you can go to lamberville you go to Somerville you go and they all have that blueprint you know Somerville has a train station right there we got rails leading up to Old Banks nothing going on there but if we had Light Rail here well that takes Trenton that takes the state and yeah you get people out here they they have that rail Transportation anywhere and they they wouldn't have to worry about you know that part of their you know lifestock so you know continue your work try to try to try to look at a bigger picture and I thank you for putting up anybody [Music] else ums uh authorizing payment of bills in the amount of 1, 624996 can I have a motion please move there a second second please councilwoman Englehart yes councilwoman F yes councilman L yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes Council vice president Rosetti okay uh executive session we do have an executive session tonight um topics include uh number item number three litigation candidat license and number four Personnel can I have a motion to move into executive session second will be action oh there will be action afterwards regarding the resolution on on the sign thank you all favor wait there was a second let take a like a five minute break now back at Open Session okay we have resolution 158 granting a onetime waiver from section 2631 A1 se4 to milli brunch and coffee located at 144 Main Street in the girl to permit a temporary Banner during construction and I have a motion to approve long is there a second second any discussion how we hand normal resolu huh so I think yes okay no more discussion the B Council intend to resolve the appen ambiguities in the ordance in the near future so El you have and I wrote it I wrote it just now you have to dat with specificity otherwise so any can challenge it if they want and the judge would be like current ambiguities and the ordinance okay all right call please Council yes councilwoman faar yes councilman Le yes council president long yes councilman Parker yes Council vice president Rosetti all right have a motion to adjourn have a second Mar second favor have your Lucky Charms everybody should have Lucky Charms I will say the issue mayor