[Music] to the of the United States of America and to the repblic for it stands one nation God indivisible with liy and justice for all pursuance the open public meeting act advate notice wased to the official news on the meting Mr here Mr here Mr ke here Mr Mar here here we're going to start off with a couple proclamations the first one is going to be honoring Anthony faio as he celebrated his 100th birthday on Saturday April 20th 2022 from want I'm all right you all right yeah no you're fine you proclamations honoring Anthony Tony Fabrizio as he celebrates his celebrated one her birthday on Saturday April 20th 2024 whereas Anthony Michael Tony Fabo has been recognized by the township of Franklin Coster County as he joins the prestigious Centurion Club on the 20th day of April in the year of 2024 and whereas Anthony Michael Fazio was born on April 20th 100 years ago in Camden New Jersey shortly after graduating from high school Tony enlisted in the United States Navy to joined a Pacific fighting in World War II tney was a landing craft vehicle higgings boat operator after the war tney joined a merch Marine for a time and then he eventually became a tugboat operator and ship's mechanic he eventually met his wife B and whereas the couple has been married for 54 years in June of 2024 and have resided in Franklin Township for 54 years also and now therefore be resolved that the township committee the township of Franklin County of Gloucester state of New Jersey hereby thanks honors and congratul Anthony Michael attorney forio on this Milestone presented by the township of Franklin County of glester and state of New Jersey on April 23rd 2024 mayor Bruno committee M Doyle committee Fel committee keen and comman Mike Marsh thank you congratulations again that's yours okay we have another one this Proclamation is uh honoring Fen firefighters and the firefighters of our community for their dedication whereas the United States Congress and the president of the United States have designated the day of the annual national fall fire Firefighter Memorial Service as the day to honor firefighters and Emergency Services Personnel who have sacrificed their lives to save others by lowering the American flag on all federal buildings through half staff and whereas the average of 80 firefighters courageously make the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty each year whereas firefighter is and emergency Personnel Service Services Personnel playing Central role in the protection of lives in the property in our local community whereas a national fall fire figh memorial service marks weekend following International firefighters day 2024 and whereas it is of major importance that we increase our efforts to reduce deaths injuries and property losses from fire therefore I John Bruno mayor of the council Franklin Now convey to all citizens of the township and patriotic Civic and educational organizations the observance of the day of May 5th 2024 in recognition of the Patriotic service and dedicated efforts of our fire and Emergency Services Personnel by lowering American flags on all buildings to have staff I respectfully encourage these same organizations as well as the citizens of the Franklin of Franklin Township to remember all fire emergency Personnel who have made the ultimate sacrifice and service to their community and to pay respect for the survivors of our Fallen Hero by participating in Bells Across America for fall firefighters to Bell pause for a moment of silence and read special passage to honor and sacrifices of these public service and their families during your groups Gathering or meeting I encourage appropriate Services services and ceremonies in which all of our citizens May participate through honor fire and Emergency Services Personnel past and present who by their faithful and loyal Devotion to duties have rendered in valuable services to our community and its citizens in witness therefore I have here to set my name and hand my hand and cause the with Franklin C the effects presented April 23rd 2024 John Bruno mayor tenness doy loel Jonathan ke Michael Mar um appreciate that as some of you know my dad lost his life in line of duty far as gr back in 1999 going to fall had a heart attack every year since I've been going back as a returning Survivor uh this year I believe there's 226 names being added to the memorial 89 from last year 137 from years past the closest one to us is Deford being honored he died I think he was going to a call last year some had a heart attack um that's a lot of guys being honored I mean there's a couple Co there still catch up on Co but that's just a lot you know and I know they're they're starting to consider suicide L of Duty death now too fireman cuz that's getting pretty high so I just want to say thank you and look forward to seeing the Flies lowered and hope we get the fire companies to do it too thank you thank you a motion open the first public portion for resolution motion open first public second in favor Harry Kennedy 1578 pry Mill Road Bob thank you for coming out thank you we it's the days you remember you remember Lee Gonzalez you remember Bob stanmire you remember the terrible things that happened in Franklin Township and I know you know it there are a lot of sad things that happen as well as good things as you serve in Township committee uh tonight I have a uh strange uh strange request uh I noticed that you're getting three trash trucks from Logan Township no no I I was going to say I I took it upon myself to take a look at what a new trash truck costs 350,000 to $500,000 those trash trucks I'm sure in Logan Township uh I know mayor Miner fairly well he's used to be an executive at the Delaware River and Bay Authority uh I have a feeling again I looked online Jake and I looked throughout the entire country the entire country you couldn't find a 2010 2009 trash truck for less than $18 $20,000 you guys got three trash trucks for $30,000 I don't know whether you're going to use them for parts or you're actually going to put them in the service and repaint them and use Logan Township's 15-year-old trash trucks I know you've had a very very uh unfortunate string of C circumstances with your trash trucks it's got to be the unluckiest trash truck town in the history of the world between fires and people I don't know how you crash into a trash truck how you can miss that and hit it but again I I admire you I admire you I really do for taking a chance on three trash trucks that are at about oneth of market value for trash trucks even of that age and I went on and tried to look up the numbers and if I had paid 1995 they would let me have seen all the things that were on there but I'm sure I'm sure you did a thorough examination of the value of those trucks and whether you're going to use them for parts or put them in the service or paint them or whatever if they work if you get a couple years out of them you've made a great investment but are you planning on any new trash trucks or any Capital expenditures in that area one right good for a long time yeah it's the supply chain of trash trucks and the used Market is almost Beyond Comprehension except especially for side loaders and uh you know the utilization of them so you don't expect that one for a while no you can only get them from another municipality right so what we are buying is not J no kidding one will go to work right away good the other two well that's what I figured you'd try to part them out and use them for other things but again I know it's a gamble but for what trash trucks cost and what the supply chain is and what the delay is in fact they go for up to $500,000 now if you buy the new one with all the bells and whistles and the whole bit so to get three trash trucks even if you're going to combine them into two and make them work and replace them for a short period of time God bless you I hope that Logan Township's trash trucks service well maybe even better than they serve Logan Township and I realize it's a gamble but what are you going to do you have to pick up the trash you have to provide the service and you did it for $30,000 I commend you for trying yeah good now and we're doing the best we can we're pick trash five days a week when we should be days a week right thank God you thank God you have the extra day buil in where you have the flexibility to do some other things but again uh you know Commendation and condemnation are very close in words and I know that sometimes I'm up here not spewing the happiest of things for you and maybe that'll happen again later on today in the second session who knows we'll be talking about things that might be of interest but again thank you to the public works department thank you for taking a chance thank you for collecting our trash every day and again I found it to be a department made up of people that really care about Franklin Township and even though it's a gamble God bless you for taking it hopefully our trash will get picked up regularly because of the good working and good mechanics you have available to do it thank you [Music] mayor $330,000 was good two weeks at least good yes thank you thank you motion toose first all in favor motion to approve correspondence and reports motion to approve correspondence and reports second all those in favor motion to approve minutes from April 9th 2024 motion to approve minutes second all those in favor I motion to approve Bist motion approve second Mr yes Mr yes Mr ke yes Mr Mar yes yes motion to approve f stand for Ferguson approve second all in favor I resolution resolution 6924 Al purchase of three waste collection vehicles for use within the Department of Public Works from the township of gloan motion R 6924 second Mr Doyle yes Mr fella yes Mr ke yes Mar yes yes resolution 7024 approving emergency temporary budget Mo R 724 second Mr yes Mr yes Mr ke yes Mr Mar yes yes resolution 7124 director Council administrator to complete and submit an application for consideration for fiscal year 2024 cbbg public facility and infrastructure Grant cler County H Avenue project motion R 7124 second Mr yes Mr fella yes Mr ke yes Mar yes yes resolution 72 forging direct coun administrator compete and submit an application for consideration fiscal year 2024 cdbg H facilities and infrastructure Grant poer County Nicholas Drive Basin project motion R 7223 second Mr do yes Mr yes Mr ke yes Mr Mar yes yes resolution 7324 approving the purchase of the development agent and F property of Zachary n Morana and Christina N Mor motion R 7324 I'm [Music] second Mr Mr fella yes Mr ke yes Mr Marsh yes yes 7424 authorizing payment for fer engineering for survey services for a Farmland preservation project a total amount of $964 motion R 7424 second from that for the same reason Mr yes Mr ke yes Mr Mar yes yes motion open the second motion second second all those in favor I good evening Leah the Sal 560 dely Drive I was here um at the last meeting and I had some questions Mr Keane from the report that you had given at the end of the previous meeting and you weren't here to answer them I went over some of them with the committee members who were here but I wanted to go back around to that since you are here now and uh just basically respond to that I was uh curious as why you picked a four-year look back you you did looked at two you said 2019 yes and 2024 hasn't happened yet so you have to be looking at numbers from 2023 right 19 20 217 yes so you actually would be starting at the end of 2018 is where you were looking at okay so You' mentioned a few things and and to touch back the one of the key ones was about the bond rating yes and you mentioned for that one you went back to 2017 and said in 2017 the bond rating was an A+ and then in two or now it's an AA minus I believe you said right and why'd you go back to 2017 for that one so that's was um misunderstanding between myself and the administration so the administration provided me that accurately I misinterpreted that but you are correct so that did happen two months later that happened in 2017 and that didn't happen in this 5e period okay and because it it seemed to me as if you know it was kind of a look back to say well let's look at things now versus how things were run previously um so what I wanted to basically address is when when there is a a rating assessment what is the primary item that a rating company would look at in your financial records that's going to depend on the financial company but I would say assets okay I I would make the argument that it's Rush roughly the equivalent of equity in in the private sector you know if you're looking at the current fund and you have the assets and then the liabilities and then what you have remaining or what would be normally the equity in this case is a combination of of um the fund balance and the reserve for receivables so talking about tax rates since that time period and you said I believe it was approximately a 20% inflation over that time period correct but I wanted to point out that during that same 5year period regardless of what happened with the actual tax rate the regular and this isn't the whole 5year period This is actually going from uh basically January 1st 201 19 to January 1st 2023 because we don't have the audit from 2023 yet so it's looking at those four years even if the inflation was 20% the regular fund assets only increased by 6% during that time period whereas the regular fund liabilities increased by 77.8% and the critical part the equity the value of the township which is the fund balance and the reserve for receivables actually decreased by 12.7% during that same time frame so even though you had inflation of almost 20% you actually had a decrease in value if you will at the township by almost 133% so tax rates can be manipulated very easily and they oftentimes are um you know I've sat up on Township committee as both a Democrat and Republicans I've seen both parties engage in wanting to keep you know increases down and certain key years and things like that but when you keep your increase down and it's at the expense of the value of the township you're basically selling off assets to do that that's a limited uh it's a short yes yes and it's going to catch up with you twice as much when you run out of those things to sell and part of um what we try to do when things were not high inflation when the time I sat in office it was generally about 2% per year is we tried to do things that would leave a buffer for when bad times came including going from an Accelerated Tax sale back to a standard tax sale which creates revenue for the township because it's one of the only ways the township can actually uh generate an income which is through the up to 18% interest and things like that so my concern is don't keep selling off Township assets and raising taxes because you're not keeping taxes low but you're also not going to be able to St sustain that for more than a few years and then there's going to be a massive massive tax increase so I would encourage you to look past the simple numbers of what was the tax rate for that particular year and look at the actual fundamentals behind it to see whether things have actually improved or whether they have not and I think you'll agree that that they have not during that time period thank you uh always be aware of the second time uh Harry Kennedy 1578 fris Mill Road uh I'm going to ask uh the township committee to uh investigate some things and uh the thing I'm going to ask you to investigate is something that I found to be true over the years uh in the demographics of politics nowadays it's not elections that destroy people because elections are pretty well decided in Franklin Township just by the demographics all right it's it's a republican Town it gave it 3,000 vote plurality to president Trump in the last election to former president Trump uh less than 10% of people split their vote anymore used to be 50% less than 10% split their vote it's uh court cases that come and bite us and court cases bite us real bad one that bit us real bad was uh the one Kitty College I think we all remember that that that caused a seismic shift in the politics of Franklin Township another one was the Torres case I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Torres case but that was the one that was affordable housing it was the one with the testimony as to racial slurs that were used and other things that were done to prevent people from moving into Franklin Township uh there's a third case and may I have a feeling there might be a fourth case in the future but there's a third case right now and probably a fourth case in the future uh the third case is the one that involves delce solar and delce solar I don't know whether you're aware or not the judge threw out two of your ordinances uh regarding solar uh the judge in held in favor in a preliminary way and threw out two of your ordinances regarding what she although most of you weren't here for what was done in terms of the solar ordinances but the other thing that I thought was fascinating and again it it takes some time and effort is that you have to take a look at the judge's decision and the filing of the attorney that was filing the suit for delie solar LLC what that attorney did was point out deficiencies that were so egregious and terrible that they can't be missed by even a Layman I'm not a lawyer you I have a obviously a few lawyers in the family but I went through that decision and read it and I read what was said and I read what was done and I read what was not done and I also opened what was paid in terms of legal fees to defend that property from Solar Development I also looked at the lawyers filing for reimbursement for the legal fees for delce solar LLC when you read that again no condemnation because I was told by the previous zoning officer of Franklin Township who the primary architect of that solar ordinance was and for what reason and how much time it took and who did it and why it was done but when you look at how those were put together and what the cost was in terms of money and what the cost was in terms of legal fees and what the cost will be when somebody reads those decisions in terms of embarrassment embarrassment for the foundation of law that was not followed by the people that were charged with following the law all right it's embarrassing and I would ask this of the township committee I I know that the planning board agreed to a preliminary agreement to allow the solar field to go on is the appeal still being pursued by who is it by the zoning board by what right do they have to do it did anybody on Township committee approve it is that appeal still ongoing does anybody know yes yeah well The Zing is party to the action decision does the zoning board have the right to hire outside attorney to pursue a legal case did they ever do that in an open public session to the rest of your knowledge you don't I mean you're not aware all right so there is there is ongoing litigation there is the threat of the legal fees being reimbursed to the lawyers suing us and the zoning board never in a public session approved that to happen it's costing us legal fees it's costing us appeal fees and it's costing us embarrassment I'd suggest that you guys take the time to read very carefully the judge's decision and the lawyers brief I think it will be eye openening as to the confidence of what's happened in Franklin Township thank you [Music] Dave Marshall 67 New Road Malaga uh along the to follow through that not that I knew what Harry was going to be talking about but about reputation and and black eyes against the township I have a couple questions uh when that solar ordinance was voted on just recently of course I just have a question for you Mr Mayor maybe you can clarify I know com okay well then you can okay well you don't have to answer we'll just leave it at that then so at least from what I understand you had worked for the electric company and of course which that means you probably have some kind of ties to it either through some kind of stock dividends or retirement I don't know all money anymore tell you what money this money  you come help me a hole my basement so I put more in there well what hav work to work with the electric company have to do with that because you voted you voted yes on a project that the electric company is doing not going to benefit from that one way sh form they got to BU the power we can't we obviously we can't answer questions regarding pending litigation well that's what he said he wasn't going to answer me so I was just talking but he decided to anyway so my my question which you're not going to answer so I'll make a statement it just looks like a conflict of interest maybe it's not and that's why I was asking for some clarification uh just asking no I understand that I understand that but retirements do happen and sometimes payments do happen through that re retirement so that's why I was asking good very good the other question I have is in about election Integrity as you probably have known because there's been some emails that have gone in your direction in reference to this the ballot petitions that were signed there were some that were signed of course at the community center which shouldn't have occurred there was well all right that's again I thought you weren't answering me but thank you and then the uh there was also multiple employees that signed maybe they did it on their own time maybe they didn't uh you know but I'm just asking it was also take no they're allowed to vote however they want they just legally are not allowed to do it during work hours that's the way it works that's that's in our bylaws and in the state ethics law so that's why I'm asking because I just want your clarification on that there's also a uh spot where the zoning board there's five members right in a row that signed it sure looks like a quorum maybe it didn't happen at the meeting but it sure look like it did and from what I've heard it did and maybe it was planning board at the moment the if you're going to clarify please I don't know which board it was that did it as a quorum but it regardless it happened all right okay that's why I'm bringing up and just I felt maybe you could enlighten me uh the county or our Township Clerk of course signed for you which is you know within her rights to do so but then she also notorized it which from what I've understood is also a conflict and I'm just asking is am I wrong there you know I mean it's notarizing isn't a problem and signing isn't a problem but you can't do both together from what I've understood legally and from what I can glean this has happened in the last three elections so that's what I'm asking it's just accountability it's black eye we don't need it the last thing the Republican party needs is is another ethics violation uh and if you're you're not sure of the ethic side you can always talk to our chaplain I'm sure he can Enlighten you thank you rep this weekend the go for Franklin commun the ALB tournament we make you can't make Le purchase dinner ticket donate something that be a great day for great calls um the library their um Academy streaming service launch April 1 is um an app you can download and gives the free um video streams that you need through it there will be a training on it May 21st at the library at 2m um and they just started a puzzle swap um the library which you don't need a library yes Mr Mayor just to elaborate a little bit on the report that I gave which is come into questions so first thanks for your comments I think they're very well thought out and I will look into what you have stated at Mr Gala so I appreciate that um but as far as the reasoning for a 5year period Mr Mayor just to clarify here um I think a lot of government entities have a fiveyear budget so looking back five years is something that's beneficial for us I know that we don't do that here but I think that there's a practice in other areas um and also 2019 was the last four year that's pre pandemic so I wanted to kind of have a look back of how we've been navigating through this new post pandemic economy so um that's the purpose of why it's was as report I think that's important for us to have reporting periods or reports to have um comparisons to in the future for us to make decisions that are um you know as educated as possible but be transparent with that I know that we're looking at that on our end but I think it's nice to report that to the public so just want to add that CL appication thank [Music] you U just Public Works guys are they can do it what they got give them credit not many um municipalities are probably rebuilding use trash trucks but it's what's necessary um I'm sure we'll get some complaints one breaks but you know these guys are getting it done they care it'll be really easy to sit back and say for so good job I want to thank John for doing a report I've been here no one's ever done a report like that um uh I just want to thank the public works this is just coming up with an idea like finding this resource to uh purchase these trucks hopefully get more than a month out of them sure have a lot of parts but uh honestly you know like Brian said this takes trash to a five day week that cuts down some of the other things that we need to get done and that kind of hurts a countship to this size a lot of Grasso a lot of you know work to be done there's a ton of P that need to be filled and if you're saying them I believe you can report them to Public Works to get them filled um but yeah give them a call to find a b again I want to thank public work going out of the way making deal please go with that said what day is that May 11 May 11th we'll have the shredding event up here from 9 to 12 not 8:40 because the guy don't get her till nine the shredding got truck so we have nowhere to put the stuff until easier yeah 9 to 12 May 11th okay if you have anything need to be shredded please bring it in now right we got you I motion to Mo all those in favor I