##VIDEO ID:0qJztPwcpiw## Dr Roach can you please call a raw okay the roll call Mr an baronson here miss franois here Mr kovax here miss Davenport here and chairwoman Ford here in accordance with the provision of chapter 231 New Jersey public laws of 1971 the open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by the giving of notice to the Cora news posting the agenda and the public Lobby of this building 48 hours prior to this meeting delivery of this notice to the Franklin Township Clerk at least 48 hours prior to this meeting and mailing notice to those persons properly requesting to be mailed notification of meetings at at least 48 hours prior to this meeting is I think we should do the um allegiance to the flag again everyone please stand I pledge allegiance flag of the United States under God is there a motion to open the meeting to the public Ram second fris all in favor I I any oppose motions carried seeing that there are no members from the public here is there a me is there a motion to close the meeting to the public I move to close the meeting Robert is there a second second R all in favor I any opposed okay the motion is carried okay let's move on to business um to executive director Danielson thank you chairwoman I hope everybody enjoyed their Labor Day extended weekend and was safe and uh joyful okay okay uh the uh attorney's office worked on commer Street dve Pump Station Wesson Canal um Pump Station rebuild Shirley Avenue Pump Station uh project meetings resolutions bankruptcy uh cases and G General legal support uh our finance platform upgrade and migration to Edmonds uh phase one of that project is a uhi the finance platform and the training is scheduled for June 12th and the 13th and a go live date will be determined based upon those training outcomes the Edmond's phase two the billing portion of it has attended it scheduled date of October 15th and 16th and likewise the go live date will be determined by the training outcome the high Bay garage uh project which is still in yellow because we don't know when or if we're going to get past the drcc uh issue and that issue is involving the 100-year flood plane buffer zone uh CDM is uh trying to manage this they reviewed the asilt uh some asilt documents provided by the Franklin Township engineering department and they are drafting a response back to the drcc for resubmittal it is noted by the engineer that it is possible that uh the our Authority filing will need to change to reflect a buffer zone uh waiver the next step is for CDM to solicit the drcc to review our response filing the Somerset Street Pump Station Rehabilitation the contractor placed orders for equipment and materials uh in the past month it is anticipated those deliveries will take four to eight weeks to arrive work on the building waterproofing detail was completed the last week of uh August of 2024 and the next steps of this project will include the approvals shop drawings more procurement preconstruction items and prelimin preliminary schedule the sister project toess is the Brookline uh Avenue uh sewer rehab system the notice to proceed was issued to the contractor on August 12th 2024 the project schedule is 550 days to complete the project site meeting was held on August 13th with me ftsa staff Franklin Police Department and our engineering firm CME work is to begin on September 9th 2024 and it is noted that the contractors s utilization plan was approved by njde the Western Canal um Pump Station uh rebuild project a meeting was held on August 7th 2024 with psng to discuss the land easement acquisition and njde is preparing a license agreement for ftsa however they do need to communicate and confirm with the New Jersey state historic PR president a office and a drcc regarding um some possible restrictions and or requirements we did advise psng of our attempts to obtain a license agreement with the EP uh at the same time they're trying to uh acquire the land from njd the Commerce Street Drive Pump Station we have uh is also in green the bid package was sent to njde on August 14th authorization to award the bid was received by njd the next steps of this project would be contract execution then a pre-construction meeting in October the attorney did communicate with the objectors attorney um verbally and we're hoping and waiting we're hoping that would resolve it but otherwise we're waiting for a response from their attorney Shirley Avenue Pump Station rehab uh this is going to start moving forward uh I'll give it a green status uh for next month it has no status right now um but it will be green because we did receive the appraisal uh land appraisal for acquiring uh the additional um additional space the appraisal was very reasonable and uh the attorney and I are going to uh work on how best to approach the landowner um I will note on this project I reached out to commissioner farooqi and I'm gonna ask commissioner farooqi to take a look at a third option that was presented to me by CME and see what his professional and unbiased opinion is um before I uh make a final decision on this sorry I've emailed commissioner farooqi uh and we just haven't got together on it yet uh that it that concludes my summary of the projects and chairwoman if you want I can just jump right over to the executive director's report yes please do thank you ma'am okay um Revenue uh as of August 31st the checks received were 2,8 87,500 is remarkably High year-to day collected is 3,577 46561 we have an opening balance due of non-met billing still remaining of 4,294 3582 penalties generated uh for the for the month is $2,769 and that is above average expense report um as of July 31st the expenditures for the month were 2,394 22627 year to date collected was 2,743 7871 we are at we are at a spending level of 5% of our budget and we are at a a 7 % of our calendar cash position as of July 31st in unrestricted we have 1,898 5834 under restricted we have 15 m488 12321 under designated we have 4,602 $411 51 giving us a total Cash Net position of 2,821 936 uh discussion items I would like to highlight for the uh for tonight uh is our 2024 audit uh that is um the fieldwork has been completed the auditor is going through all the material will'll ask us if he needs he or she needs anything else we do expect the auditor to present the report in the fall in the next couple of months uh land acquisition we have the psng land acquisition that already reported on we're we're trying to get um uh a license agreement with the EP at the same time PSC and G is trying to get the land given to them plus we have Shirley Avenue Pump Station where we are going to buy some footage based upon the appraisal we just received uh big and new item for tonight everyone is Oprah and the opma initiative that's the open public records Act and the open public meetings act today is the first day of the a new law coming into effect for o uh open public records uh the GRC did adopt a records request form in accordance with the new law and thusly as a local ageny we must uh adopt a form as well and we have to adopt everything that the GRC adopts so all we have to do is just copy and paste the GRC form put our name and information on it and then we can adopt it and that's what we have tonight uh via resolution is to adopt that government records Council request form uh in addition to that i' like to bring to everybody's attention that um wrote up an extensive uh document uh of improvements that we're going to begin making using the technology to make hopefully tens and tens of thousands of more documents accessible to the public on a 247 basis without even needing to ask us for us um that will include but not limited to um creating a document repository and retrieval platform using either um our website and or Dropbox where we could just start uploading everything or anything we wanted to uh such as contracts purchase orders vouchers bid documents any agreements any contracts uh all Opa requests and responses um and and those are the um those are the biggest items uh that are requested and my thinking is if we just put them up there automatically um we don't need to um provide them manually to anyone who asks for them uh so uh running down uh that's it for Oprah uh I still have not concluded my uh review of our uh amending how we issue our meeting minutes and expanding the material that might be in them but I will by next meeting I I did draft a new policy for our employees who are volunteer firefighters who may or may not want to respond to fire calls uh within our Township uh once I'm done with that I'll meet with the Personnel committee to go over that Franklin under Franklin municipality will note that b War Locker a couple of weeks ago wrote to me and said that um you know I reached out to Bob War Locker because three years ago they told me that they were going to replace the water meter at how how Harrison towers and the water meter they're using now is the original one that was put in when they built the building I think back in 1968 so the lack of them changing that water meter has created a legal battle for bumping a road with our with us our contract and a relationship with new Bron it's now come to a head so I reached out to Bob War Locker asked him the status of that water meter he said it will replace should be replaced within the next 30 days at least that's the demand that they sent Harrison Towers so I'll update you the board further next month uh rules rates and regulations uh we're going to send the board a proposal to vote on next month um to adopt some new changes that relate to private privately owned collection systems that dump into our sewer system these will be condos or apartments or the have you uh we're having more and more issues that we kind of anticipated but now it's coming to an ahead and some of these private systems are either uh taking advantage of of us by way of not maintaining their system and allowing tremendous inii into the system uh and they're not being built for it and or they're not managing their flow into our system and um controlling the odor and erosion Properties or characteristics of their flow and now such as recently we discovered uh three of our manholes and the pipes that interconnect them are slowly being destroyed and now have to be go through an emergency repair because for example one development uh was derel in maintaining their system and their flow so we really can't do a whole lot until our rules rates and regs says we can uh so we have to we have to vote on those those changes and then we we would be able to act uh stepan okay um Traffic Safety so with the Brookline Rehabilitation project uh I anticipate for each street that they're working on will have uh a team of flagmen that will require that will consist of a car and a professional at each end and if we have two or more streets we will probably have a a roving vehicle and professional that goes in between the two because of the unique uh characteristics of this neighborhood and a safety level cost for uh with internal engineering uh this La past month we we had zero con new connections and since we're only two months into the year um we really don't we haven't had any new commit new connections uh since June 1st under um TRC the technical Review Committee reviews we've had three of them and we've had one tww executed under Staffing discussion I am very happy and proud uh of the work that Dr Roach has completed she successfully uh hired and trained and integrated uh Miss Ivon Gonzalez as our new bookkeeper and she's now officially a full-time permanent employee of ours and Dr Roach also hired and uh retained a position while she was out on fraternity and Eis cologne or Colin as our administrative support specialist um now this brings our admin staff to full authorized um Staffing levels and we're humming along nicely thanks to Dr Roach mcua as you know when I first came on to this position the mcua uh estimates were uh way off then be 25% off and what that happen what that resulted in is our quarterly estimated payments being very low and what that resulted in is after the year was over two three months later we would have to pay them a two million back fee reconciliation check so uh what that also does is it puts our monthly Finance report into a fost sense that were $2 million ahead just to find out two months after the year's done it was really not true so I made I made the discuss the change that mcua estimated flows will be as spoton as possible and we've done that within a 1% margin maybe even half a percent margin so they they sent us our uh what they thought are estimated flow would be we had a different number and uh they bed at it so C me and I discussed this and we're just going to go with mcua estimated flow for right now um okay nothing to report under southbound Brook New Brunswick uh water and sewer bill uh drama issue uh New Brunswick has the right to know if the flow they're billing us for for is accurate so there even though we have a valid contract that's in effect they want to modify the contract that's only I think a year and a half old two years old uh they want to modify it to introduce monitoring the monitoring they were suggest suggesting to us initially was totally unacceptable by me it was too expensive I got quotes uh from our typical vendor that was approximately half as much we presented that to New Brunswick and now that's where we're at uh both both agencies are looking at how best to monitor the flow going into New Brunswick system the Somerset County and the municipal grants um we sent them the bid documents um they told us approximately how they're going to handle uh paying us the grant money we had a meeting last week of our staff and the engineering to talk about the workflow on how to present uh payment applications to both agencies uh and the details of which uh so that's that's been finalized and one project will go to municipality the other go will go to the county when when a smaller project is either completed um then um we'll shift over and exhaust the smaller of the grants and then revert back and continue on with the larger Grant uh this month I noted that in the last three months we've had a high rate of foreclosure notices being sent up us I don't know what's going on but I'm keeping a pile of them and giving copy to the attorney in case they turn into bankruptcy CA uh cases uh and or tax sale cases um I've been communicating and working with our New Jersey CHF um insurance broker uh bgia we had a bad experience uh I don't know how unique it is but it was bad uh with one of our workers comp cases and when I did a h a post claim audit uh it was glaring to me that the workers comp uh third party administrator failed to issue a check for almost three months um so that's two there's two problems there one um they just didn't do anything for three months almost three months and that's about the length of the claim number two the Su Authority wasn't getting their money so I'm going to work with Dr Roach under a protocol and procedures when it comes to workers comp and how we can audit uh what our audit the uh expectations of receiving money and reconcile that uh as the claim is progressing but uh with bgia our broker um my end result is to file a notice with the Jeff board that this happened and also to hopefully discuss this case with the some sort of management or executive within um quell links who administers the workers comp because it was bad enough that it it called for a conversation um or discuss private developments all projects are moving forward um in the green with the exception of high the high Bay garage project that we already discussed our standard resolutions for the night uh we have all standard ones payroll operating expense general fund renewal replacement and escrow we do not have any North track resolutions and the only additional resolution um you're looking at tonight is adopting the GRC adoptable Oprah request form and Madame chair that concludes my reports thank you chair woman if I may interrupt for one second um we need to go back and uh vote on the minutes from last month's meeting I was just going to do that good we're on the same page thank you so has every one had a chance to review the minutes are there any questions any additions to the minutes seeing that there are none is your motion to adopt the minutes as is you're muted I move to adopt the minutes as is this is goex second thank you all in favor I I any oppos motions Carri uh now for committee reports negotiations Personnel committee uh nothing to report Madam chair thank you what about Municipal liaison nothing to report but M Mr chairman if you have any issues with the um Harrison and you need some followup let me know the construction committee I know commissioner U farooqi is not here okay uh what about the Safety Committee Madam chair there was no accidents Andor injuries for the month the gentleman who did go out on workers compact in April of 2024 has returned to full Duty thank you you moving on to the consent agenda the approval of the resolutions will be done the following resolutions will be done by consent agenda all the items listed below are considered to be of a routine nature thereby requiring one motion and one second for all items and if any member wishes to remove an item from the consent agenda please advise me at this time which resolutions need to be handled separately and they will be addressed and voted on sep ly resolution number one payroll account $171,200 resolution number two operating expense account $ 239,240 resolution number three the general fund $1 17,745 192 resolution number four renewal and replacement account $ 53,91838 and resolution number five the escro fund account $3,231 is there a motion to adopt this resolution these resol R is there a second I second Robert KX all in favor I I any oppose resolution is adopted excuse me resolution number six is an additional resolution and that is a resolution authorizing the adoption of the open public records Act form is there a motion to adopt that resolution I to adopt that resolution coex thank you is there a second second thank you all in favor I I any oppose resolution is adopted is there a need to go into executive session I don't think so chairwoman Madam chair I I will udge not uh that um my I am scheduled for knee surgery on October 4th so I'll be out of work as little as possible then I'll probably transition uh from work a remote then when I become more ambulatory I'll be back in the office well I hope you have a speedy recovery well everybody here treats me a lot better than at home so you know that's how that go is there any you know what I'm saying is there any other business that needs to be acted on this this evening no in that case is there a motion to close the meeting go mve R is there a second second Fran all in favor I I w me