##VIDEO ID:snqBJ4ERRwY## notice of this meeting was properly given by transmission to the asay park press in the Two River times and by posting at the B of Highlands municipal building and filing with B Clark all on September 13th 2024 items on the items listed on the agenda are subject to change please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge algi to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stand one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all I will now do roll call council member santes council member chac here Council melik council president meski here mayor bran here thank you welcome everyone thank you for joining us tonight uh we have our attorneys with us vo gardi and Carrie wri thank you all know our clerk Nancy Tren and away we go um f would you like to start us out sure um way we go is a Jackie refence which I appreciate although um given the new dser I felt more like George Jefferson T um it's on it was on you just turned it off no okay so good evening everybody there really has been so much going on in the ongoing efforts to bring before the voters of Highlands Atlantic Highlands and sebrite the option of having sebrite join Henry Hudson Regional that we appreciate very much the mayor and Council having Carrie and I down here because we wanted to bring you up to speed so uh I'm going to go over the history really of what's gone on for uh the past year or so even those of you who have followed it closely I suspect will be unaware of some of the things I'm going to share with you um I have as a caveat that everything that I'm saying could be upended by the appella division we're arguing tomorrow uh over the commissioner's decision to uh allow sebrite the uh standing to petition for author isation for a petition to join Henry Hudson spoiler alert uh we are not going to lose that appeal uh but the court will take several months before it rules on that so uh I'm going to go backwards for about a year and take you up through literally tomorrow morning at 9:30 so you will recall this historic effort by the three governing bodies of sebrite high in Atlantic Highlands to bring the issue of creating a K12 school district for the three communities before the voters and I'm underscoring what the nature of the effort truly is since the municipal governments and in the leadership role that they've played have not been trying to decide what happens you are going to decide what happens municipal government has been fighting and the people that are against this are simply against the idea of letting the people choose how their tax dollars are spent and how their children are Ed educated it's remarkable really and for the folks in sebr of course as ocean port and sure Regional resist this they are using impart your tax money to prevent your taxpayers from deciding how their money is spent and where their children are educated it's really just remarkable but I appreciate the opportunity to work with this where you see leaders in different towns um joined for such a noble purpose which is letting the people decide so uh there was a point in time when uh the then three school boards Highlands Board of Education Atlantic colle Board of Education Henry Hudson Regional and the three municipalities were jointly petitioning the commissioner of education for authorization to submit this issue for a vote the issue was to create a Regional School District and the municipal governing bodies had a meeting to decide what they thought would be a fair tax allocation for the people to consider they didn't approve a tax allocation they approved a methodology that provided for a substantial amount of saving hundreds of thousands of dollars every year every year for the folks in all three towns and they were looking for the commissioner of Education to authorize that being submitted to the voters Shore Regional and Oceanport uh the communities the school districts which currently educate the children of sebrite um have filed numerous challenges along the way I'm not going to go over every one every one of them has failed so far um but those Court actions and the approach taken by the Department of Education toward the first ever use of the statute which would permit this type of vote to occur um led the school boards to be frustrated and so last summer without advanced notice they uh f F an amended petition leaving out the municipalities and leaving out sebrite saying that while the sebrite stuff is being sorted out we shouldn't be prevented from having a vote and they asked for the commissioner to approve a vote just to create a school district for Highlands in Atlantic Islands all the sebrite stuff sorted itself out um we didn't oppose that but we filed papers with the commissioner of Education seeking to make clear that even though the sebrite option was left out of the board's amended petition that we still wanted that uh option considered um in September the commissioner of Education ruled that that vote the September of last year now right could go forward and it did and you all know that it passed and they ruled that once that K12 District was authorized by the voters uh sebrite and the boards of Education were free to file a joint petition seeking to have a second referendum so that c could join that Regional District I want to underscore something very important for you that is not as confusing as most of the things I'm going to talk about this process was spearheaded by sebrite and Highlands and they hired independent experts who did a report saying that virtually all the tax savings that would be enjoyed by the communities could come only if C bright was part of the school district there were educational benefits as the enrollment drops at Henry Hudson to adding the C bright children and there were substantial Financial benefits Atlantic Highlands wanted to do its own study which came to the same conclusion the school boards wanted to do their own study which came to the same conclusion so for all of the differing viewpoints and assertions the boards of education and Atlantic Highlands said we want to get our own assessment and they did and their own assessment made the same two points that virtually all of the savings would come if CBR was part of the regional and that there were educational benefits to adding the children of sebrite so there is no dispute on those two critical points so it was our view that filing an amended petition with the board board of education updating some of the analysis we had already done um would not be a challenge so we had the study done and uh Carrie spearheaded that work with the experts and we shared a draft of that study with the boards of Education because the commissioner recommended a joint petition only after following up several times did we get a an email from the attorney for the uh Boards of education on April 29th 2024 the email reads in part as follows uh I'm sorry to inform you that our client does not wish to file jointly at this point in time for a number of reasons one things are very hectic right now as the task of getting the new allpurpose Regional School District up and running for July 1 are quite demanding and the prospect of having to add an additional series of tasks as early as the fall is problematic number two the draft feasibility study does not deal with the allpurpose district number three the existing litigation with Oceanport in Shore Regional was not yet resolved and the commissioner has yet to rule concerning C Bright's ability to withdraw from its present relationships and four the board has not discussed or agreed to a new tax levy appropriation formula unfortunately every one of those statements is false and I'm going to go over them for you first things are very hectic right now as the task of getting a new purpose allp purpose Regional District up and running is quite demanding as you know um those three school districts were run by the same set of Administrators so uh and the um the law answers what happens with things like your collective bargaining liit all of the property is transferred to one Regional School District uh no one has more experience doing this than M wri and I and that process is actually fairly straightforward particularly when all three school districts are run by the same subit administrators that's not always the case um and it is unclear since it was our it was our set of Consultants doing the analysis how that would pose any additional challenges for the school leadership number two the draft Fe ability said he does not deal with the all-purpose District in that September 23 letter from the Department of Education stating um here's what you need need to do to proceed they set fourth is it seven C seven labeled eight but seven questions that needed to be answered by a supplemental study the study did exactly that so what the study did or didn't answer um is irrelevant it's not someone's opinion to what should be in the study the Department of Education said we need this additional information to consider the opportunity for C bright to be part of a referendum for the public to vote on and we gave them exactly that number three uh the existing litigation with ocean for Shore Regional was not resolved and the commissioner is yet a rule concerning C Bri's ability to withdraw from its present relationships that's what the commissioner ruled on in September that's what's on appeal now that's what we're arguing tomorrow morning so the commissioner at the time this was written to me had ruled eight months earlier that CBR had the standing to pursue a referendum for its citizens to be part of Henry Hudson regional district and the litigation with Oceanport and Shore Regional being resolved I I I have never seen a gat treated like a tianos surus Rex like I have with this okay they filed an application with the commissioner they lost they neither saw it nor received a stay meaning there was no impediment to proceeding and the Department of Education when it told cite to proceed made no mention of any concern of any litigation with Oceanport and Shore Regional and I think I mentioned without being disrespectful they have lost every time so they provided no legal or practical impediment to our moving forward and I don't see that as a valid excuse and then the last uh the board has not discussed nor agreed to a new tax appropriation formula okay that's the last one let me say it again the leadership of the three towns did not agree to a tax appropriation formula the leadership of the three towns agreed on a formula for the voters to consider so neither the board nor any mayor or Council has the power to agree to a formula they have the power to agree to something that seems fair to them for their voters to consider that's all that was done and that was done about two years ago so with all due respect to how busy the folks at the Board of Education must be the idea that they have not had the opportunity to look at this in two years is I'll say unfortunate but what's available for them to consider is not whether they want to agree to that formula there's nothing to agree to except something that is perceived by the leadership of the communities to be fair enough for the voters to consider so in any event we were disappointed to receive this email and not convinced uh as to the rationale uh let me mention a few other things and then talk about uh I'll I'll defer to carry to talk about what it is we have done uh despite the the board's unwillingness to participate at this time um in May of 2024 um a month after this we were in the process of preparing a motion to dismiss from this appeal the three boards of education and Highlands and Atlantic Islands the issue on appeal by Oceanport and Shore Regional is whether the burrow of sebrite has the standing to um pursue a petition to authorize a referendum since uh SE brigh does not have a board of education and is part of the Oceanport district and is a constituent of Shore Regional District so there was no relief being sought from the boards of Education as you heard the the stress and expense of the litigation uh I I don't think there's been much of either but the stress and the expense of litigation was Troublesome to the boards of Education there was no reason for Highlands and Atlantic cols to be part of it so we were preparing a motion to dismiss the appeal as to all parties Acy right we were advised uh as that was being done that the boards of education and the O the Oceanport Board of Education and Shore Regional so Henry Hudson Atlantic Highland Highland Boards of Education Shore Regional and Oceanport we're entering into a settlement agreement the settlement agreement uh provided essentially as as follows that the boards would be dropped from a litigation a litigation that seeks no relief from the boards by the way but the boards would be dropped from the litigation in exchange for agreeing with ocean port and Shore Regional that they would not participate in any effort um to have the voters vote on C bright joining them until the commissioner has ruled on a petition that it's possible so this is so circular I will not be surprised if you're having a hard time with this but here's what they did so the commissioner of education has said you should Define the they you're you're naming a lot of people well it's all straight in your head it's not straight I'm not I'm not um you don't want to hear the names I'm going to use but um so the I'm going to call them the tri districts okay so that eliminates one of the pronouns so the tri dists agreed with ocean port and Shore Regional that they would not be a part of any effort to have CBR join them until the commissioner ruled on a petition that it was possible but I told you that in September 2023 the commissioner said that what the commissioner wanted to consider was a joint petition CBR and the three boards of education so how possibly could the boards of Education um agree not to be part of any effort to have Shore Regional sebrite join when CBR needs to be part of the petition with the boards in order to join I I think that's called the gordian KN now I'm I have a simple public education so I I'm using a phrase that probably has an interesting origin that I don't understand but what it means is the boards of Education created for sebrite a conundrum that seemed insurmountable we won't be part of a petition until you get your petition granted but the petition has to be part of a board of education and C brigh joint initiative so the tri districts entered into this settlement agreement which at the time seemed odd to us because a they were settling a case that was and seeking belief against them and B we thought we were going to just file this motion and when they had have been let out of the case they would have had to agree to anything by the way just to be clear we had discussions with their with the tri District's attorney about filing this motion so before they entered into those settlement discussions they knew that this motion to dismiss them from the litigation was coming because we were preparing that in consultation with the tri District's attorney so those uh the trid district Boards of Education in one of their last I don't think it was their last act their last act I think was given Dr beam's a 5-year contract but their next to the last Act was to approve this settlement and that's the basis for the litigation that um the council president in her capacity as both a citizen and the council president is challenging so we think the way they entered into the settlement was defective not pertinent for the purposes of this discussion so I will tell you that we went ahead and filed that motion anyway and we won Highlands and Atlantic Highlands were all out of litigation what that tells you is the boards of Education could have gotten out of the litigation exactly the same way without agreeing to any deal with Oceanport and Shore Regional and I think in the context of this litigation challenging what they did the discovery process is going to make very interesting what discussions were had and what promises were made that would allow these Boards of Education with elected representatives from your communities to enter into such an odd sement agreement one that again doesn't seem to have been necessary at all but what it seemed to do what it attempted to do was to create an insurmountable obstacle so that there could never be placed before the voters the opportunity for sebrite to be part of the tri District Regional because the boards wouldn't be part of any such petition and the commissioner said that the commissioner expected a joint petition so now I will give you uh Miss kri Wright who will describe for you what we are doing to surmount this allegedly insurmountable obstacle created by your elected officials for reasons that uh will not be clear yet but they will be eventually thanks Vito so the The Next Step that we took was to file that joint well so petition joint actually though because it's between um sebrite and Highlands so we went ahead and we filed a petition with the supplemental feasibility study that answers all the questions that the commissioner needs and the relief that we saw in that petition was to Grant the relief um contingent upon sebrite joining Henry Hudson so what the commissioner doesn't want to do is the commissioner is not going to approve seite to Simply withdraw from Oceanport andore Regional without knowing exactly where seite is going to go so we have requested that the commissioner approve contingently sebrite to withdraw from Oceanport and Shore Regional so that it can go to Henry Hudson ultimately Henry Hudson will need to make a determination on a referendum you want to say something good oh you moved up you moveed forward in your seat I thought you were going to say something I wouldn't interrupt you but okay um so that's the that's the petition um as you may recall just recently um CBR passed a another resolution um regarding that petition because the commissioner wanted to make absolutely certain that cbde had passed a resolution which we are certain that they already passed but anyway Commissioner's Office says jump through this other tiny little hoop we jump through that tiny little hoop so that we can bring this issue before the voters as soon as possible so to the extent that anyone had a question about why see right passed that resolution again that was because the Commissioner's Office wanted to make absolutely certain that the petition that we recently filed was authorized by the municipal governing body you know if you go back to read any of the media reports or even the things that the uh Tri District board posted online when it was campaigning for the referendum the leaders there said that they wanted sebrite to be a part of it they just didn't want sebrite to delay things um again uh we may learn more about what's really going on there but what we're looking to do if we get this petition granted is it would be an order from the commissioner that cite is authorized to have his vote to join the uh Henry Hudson Regional School District contingent on that Regional School District passing a referendum saying that it's ready willing un aable to take the C Bri children so some cooperation with the board of education is going to be necessary that makes sense right the commissioner is not going to have the people vote on whether or not children can join a school district that hasn't committed to taking them but we have eliminated any concern that may or may not exist by the Board of Education that they're going to be involved in litigation because when the commissioner rules on our petition if the commissioner rules in our favor which we certainly expect and sure Regional and ocean Port want to challenge that which they will the boards of Education wouldn't be part of that litigation because they weren't part of the petition right so we have eliminated the possibility that they said they were concerned about which is getting involved and litigation but they'll still need to pass a resolution before the referendum is held again if we were working as we thought we would be with the boards of Education these different Maneuvers wouldn't be necessary we're trying to honor the law naturally but we're also trying to um respect what it is the boards of Education are doing a a collaborative Cooperative effort with the boards of Education would be much better particularly if they wanted to follow the recommendation not of our Consultants but theirs the financial relief available is available if sebrite is part of the school district the improved educational outcome since none of the children have moved just because they have one school district you want to have more children so you can run more programs have more honors classes all the things that comes from a larger School population you'd want C bright to be a part of it and I will add some compounding factors um a few weeks ago the uh Tri District boards um now just one board filed suit against the commissioner of Education they filed suit against the commissioner of Education uh alleging two things first that uh their Grant application that they filed should have had the commissioner uh the Commissioner's Office pay for the referendum that seemed to be the case but there was something about their Grant application that led the Department of Education to say we're not paying for the referendum that's only worth $118,000 a bigger issue according to their own petition this is not anything we're saying this is what they have said in filing the petition is they seem to think that the way they formed the Department of Education seems to think that the way they formed the district does not entitle them to the additional state aid they thought they were going to be getting for consolidating and they're saying that they're being short Changed by $334,000 this isn't a publicly filed petition I don't know that they discussed this at any of their meetings but it's available so what that means is in addition to the benefits that we've been describing that their own Consultants describe about the tax relief available to the citizens if CBR is part of the district they now have between those two things we add them together about $350,000 um that they're in the hole that they didn't anticipate right they didn't anticipate having to uh eat the cost of the referendum and they anticipated by their own petition $334,000 in additional state aid so doing the math I think that comes to 352,000 I'm rounding it to 350 because it's easier that's a pretty significant number for a school district of that size right $350,000 so in our view it makes sebrite uh joining the district even more significant but what we think isn't the issue with these elected officials and kind folks think is not the issue the issue is with these additional Financial challenges for that school district why wouldn't you let the public vote on this I don't have an answer for you but it's a good question um three months ago it's a better question now right for 350,000 reasons it's a better question now so in any event if the commissioner grants the petition that um is Right described we are hopeful that we will see some renewed cooperation from the Board of Education and there's many ways they can um throw a monkey WR at this right well now we're going to look at the uh tax allocation formula that the mayor's agreed to two years ago and we'll you know wrestle with that for a while what have you again um we we have done this in so many different communities where the boards of education and the municipal governing bodies are collaborating in in some cases um the the mayor and counsel aren't simply taking the lead they're they're shouldering the financial burden entirely for a petition that's going to the commissioner and ultimately leading to a vote of the public so I am hopeful that we will see as I say some renewed cooperation here since the current circumstances have allowed us to proceed without the boards of Education being involved in litigation and proceed at the time when the boards of Education clearly have an increased Financial need to uh seek the benefits of adding cite the very benefits that all of the experts including theirs told them were in the community's best interests so with that mayor I'll y the floor to the coun um go go ahead do you want us to go over the non-binding referendum well that's what I was going to say the reason why we're here is the non-binding referendum because as you've heard this is a uh very much detail I'll sum it up in the way um from my own notes we have been uh many I shouldn't say we many mayors and council member and especially school board members um have been working on this idea since December of 2018 so we're nearly six years in I don't know the numbers for any other uh town but we've spent over 100 $75,000 on veto and Carries expertise this question is do we proceed we are trying to take a financial responsibility how many more years are we going to go after this how much more money are we going to continue to throw at this problem that nobody seems to want to make this happen or have a a creative solution to making it happen and making it happen happened by the way is sebrite coming into our school system um so that's why we put this question on the ballot for a presidential election because it's the amount of people who voted in Highlands for regionalization was 670 there are 30 over 3,800 registered voters in the highlands and for only 670 to have made that decision it's really tragic but that's what happens when you have an election in September and there's nothing else on the ballot so we don't we didn't want to hide this from anybody the question's very clear we're going to weigh the education you have to weigh the finances on top of it everybody's time money efforts all of your time that you've come to how many more of these meetings have we had and we want to be respectful of everybody involved especially the people so we don't H this vote is not going to bring the sebrite in this vote is for you guys to ask answer us simple question do we continue to fight the fight and even though it's a non-binding question I mean if if it's resounded a no which I doubt that's going to happen because why would you say no to lifting your tax burden you know we'll have to have that discussion then but I think it's fair to uh put this out there it's important it's uh something that will hopefully if it if it goes through at some point in time it would be very beneficial for all three of our towns and very beneficial for our kids so I'm not seeing a downside but uh I'm an optimist yeah I don't know how Wily it was reported here but um ocean Fort and Shore region uh sought to get a super court judge to enjoin your having that non-binding referendum um that which is American for they were trying to stop you from voting they were trying to disenfranchise your vote and they were spending educational dollars to do it including dollars from sebrite it was a remarkable initiative um so we argued that two weeks ago was was unsuccessful as all of their legal applications have been I may mentioned that already uh so um that is you know in terms of the the cost of this um everything done to get in the way of this as the mayor points out is simply to get in the way of letting the people vote on the issue they're not trying to stop the mayor and Council from bringing sebr into the regional district because they don't have that power the only Power they have is to get the issue before the voters and the idea that your Regional an ocean Port would spend tax dollars and try to stop it is unfortunate I'll say to be kind but it was unsuccessful so um that effort is over the effort to um argue that c Bri does not have the standing doesn't have school district it's only municipality that argument as I said is going for the Appel diving tomorrow I expect that to meet the same state the only thing I all about is that to the extent that there are folks in in the audience who live in sebrite you'll see the same non-binding reference on the sebrite ballot as well asking that same question of the voters in sebrite that the voters and the highlands are going to look at um on the November fifth ballot and just to be clear I did send that same question um over to Atlantic Islands and um asked for them to put it on their ballot as well and that was rejected do either of you have anything you would like to add no I totally have age okay no you're good good good okay Dy we're going to take some questions individuals wishing to address the council shall be recognized by the presiding officer and shall give their name address and the group of any they represent although the council encourages public participation and reserves the right through his presiding officer to terminate remarks to in or by any individual not in keeping with the conduct of a proper and efficient meeting if any individual refuses to conduct themselves in the proper manner they will be removed from the coun from the meeting the council will not during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving Employments appointments termination of employment negotiations terms and conditions of employment evaluation of the performance of promotion or dis of any specific or perspective or a current employee there's a three minute time liit to your comments no takers I'm shocked okay I'm Don Krueger one Scenic Drive Highlands New Jersey and I am running for my seat on the board of education I have been on the board of education here in Highlands with now of the Henry Hudson Regional PK through 12 Regal for the last three years and I'm doing one year just to get the regionalization through but I want to say just speaking for myself not for anybody else on the board I think it's wise to bring sebrite into I there's no question about that um but I think there's a misunderstanding of why the board has done what it's done and if I can go back I don't know if I'm going to exceed three minutes but I'd like to give the board view of things and you'll see it's not that different from where you're standing right now when we filed a petition with cite back when was it 2022 I don't remember when we did that on hand when we did that um nothing happened we waited for the commissioner of Education to do something and this was just a Deputy Commissioner of education and immediately SE and O um region Regional and ocean Port started the suit and nothing happened and we said well nothing's going to happen this is going to go through litigation forever and ever and ever and meanwhile we really wanted to regionalize so what we said is let's do our own petition to get the three of us into one region put in a petition for that and hopefully that'll get approved we'll get a referendum we'll get that done okay we did that and we got that done and now we said we would welcome seite when the Department of Education gives a permission to do that and we've said you know if you look at the resolution the settlement that we had we said once you know we're just waiting for Department of Education to allow Oceanport and Shore Regional the right this P of ocean Port Shore Regional once they do that we don't have a problem with that then we could submit a joint petition and get a referendum and see what happens now we want more information it's probably the same information that the Department of Education is asking from you we'd like to get an accurate sensus of how many students are coming in there how many special education students are there we'd like to also have some input about what the funding formula was going to be like um but aside from that I don't see any major problem it's just the question of we're not going to do anything until and maybe this will happen tomorrow afternoon Department of Education says okay we give you students permission to pull out of Shore Regional and ocean court it's as simple as that so I I know you're represented by Council so I want to be respectful of that in your capacity I'm just talking on my own no I understand that but I still want to be respectful all I'll say is thank you in the sense that you're saying I need you know we would need some information and you identified what it is you would need number of students number of classif ET we've never even been asked that in other words if the boards of Education said we're not ready to get on board yet because we we could use some additional information we would at least feel that the process is moving forward you know the the mayor talked about Atlantic Highlands not submitting the question to the public as a um non-binding referendum the mayor in the same um communication said that's because we know our citizens would be in favor of it so um even though they're not doing this Atlantic Highlands has been um communicative in terms of what it wants that is we would want to be a part of this when it comes up for a vote I can't say the same for the boards of education so if there were a finite set of questions or even concerns about the funding formula we would love whether it's with our Consultants or with our clients or both to be given those questions and to answer them because right now since this uh no thank you uh email was sent in April we've had no communication on any issue of which the boards of education is concerned and that's we don't want to do anything until the Department of Education says students can be pull out we don't want to do anything we promised that the short we do on an ocean Court settle that once we do that I mean if it happens tomorrow we'll go full steam ahead we'll have our attorney contact you I'm sure Jan will talk with you and when move full steam ah head on this I'm again speaking for myself understood but I've spoken to the eight other eight members on the board not one member has said we ha to see Bri we don't know any of those kids coming into our school that the funding formula issues are important and knowing who they are do we have a lot of special need students so we have to be able to budget for that and so we have to keep that into account there's some discussions about the way it's being funded based on the number of students which can be variable each year versus using adjusted valuation and that's an issue you know you look at the economics of a school it's all fixed cost and very little variable cost and so if you don't get the money to cover those fixed costs you can be in a lot of trouble so we want to make sure we are comfortable that we'll have those fixed costs covered um those those are issues again I'm speaking for myself those are issues that you know we we have to attend to but I think we can come to compromise again speaking for myself now I'm only going for a one-year term so I may never see this happen I'm really concerned with the regionalization issues with the lwuit for example that we're doing against the state to get the funding money you know we really believe we deserve that funding money I was talking to D go yesterday about that getting that funding money you need to be closer to the microphone I was talking about V goal getting that money helping us get that money from the state because we think there's a real misunderstanding there uh and the regionalization is a lot of work you know when this started the state had no idea what to do they hadn't seen this in so long didn't know what to do and so we had a problem they had no infrastructure set up to deal with that and that's where Dr beam has been running into a lot of trouble and spending a lot of time it's not on some of these other things also I was on the teachers negotiating committee we had to take three teachers contracts and negotiated into one and I know that Continental Airlines and United Airlines have taken decades to get this flight attendance to go into one contract so we did a lot of hard work took a lot of time but we got it done we did get it done but there's just a lot of little pieces that you don't think about when you're taking three separate school districts we had 25 school board members and put it into nine school board members and now Dr be has this whole thing sitting on her right now doing something brand new we haven't had a regionalization like this I think in a number of years you probably know better than I do yeah we did the we did the last one in South negotiations took us less than a year I don't want to be disrespectful but I want to be respectful everybody in the room okay okay thank you no one no one really you oh go ahead thank you put down you can probably hear me without it Muriel Smith 29 Leonard Avenue ATL k um unlost on a lot of stuff that you said Mr Gard because I know that this has been a long ho type thing um I first of all am having trouble understanding why the regionalization of the three schools was a difficult thing simply because you're not dealing with any different people you're not dealing with any different taxes you're not dealing with any different children so I I I didn't quite see the um this the sense of a regionalization of the two towns and the three schools because I've always been under one superintendent it's um as long as I've been here they've always worked together and I didn't see whether there were any Financial benefits and I still haven't seen if there are any fincial benefits of that um in in view with the fact that it doesn't appear to me that if there are any Financial benefits that they can't be very much because you're dealing with the same tax payer ERS um and no more taxpayers um and it's ocean for and and um Shore Regional that have put up so much of an argument um the superintendent of these three schools and now the superintendent of the Regional School District lives in one of the towns that's going to be adversely affected by the um sebrite coming into here sebrite leaving those districts has any body looked into whether there's any conflict of interest with her having such a a powerful position um I've been to those board meetings and I see how the attorney defers to her or she speaks to the attorney during the meeting um has anybody looked into any possibility of any conflict of having her being in such an advisory position so let me let me see if I can do justice to all the questions you posed um first as far as combining the school districts is concerned and how complicated that might be I I certainly agree that the idea of combining three collective bargaining agreements into one is a challenge it's done very rarely uh in the state um we've done it several times and it can be done but it is a challenge I wasn't so much questioning the challenges that exist particularly when you don't get help from the Department of Education what I was saying is that since our our experts were doing the work on the supplemental study and we were going to be the ones submitting the petition whatever challenges are posed by the petition to the Department of Education would be handled by sebrite and Highlands and their attorneys so there would be no burden on the board of education other than having their names on a petition so I wasn't so much measuring how challenging the problems that they identified would be I was simply saying that this would not add any weight to it and would provide based upon what their own experts are telling them the financial benefits that you referenced um as to your um uh last point in terms of U any potential conflict of interest I've heard this question raised many times uh given that uh we are now in litigation with the boards of Education over the way in which they handled their last few meetings and and let this issue to come to a vote we may obtain some discovery that sheds any light on that although that's not really the the the point of the litigation um honestly um there is no factual or legal reason of which we are aware that should get in the way of getting this issue submitted to the voters so uh I don't need to say any more than that it is my expect that the Department of Education is going to agree with us remember we're halfway there the Department of Education has already agreed that c Brite has the standing to make this argument and we have now made the argument based upon the petition we submitted where we can get a blessing for a vote to withdraw from Oceanport and Shore Regional so long as there is a resolution passed by the Henry Hudson regional board that it's ready willing able to take cbr's children so I'm not anticipating any challenges and for a host of reasons this has been more complicated than it needs to if the boards of Education would work with the towns this will come before the public for a vote I have no concern over anything Oceanport and Shore Regional have done or have threatened to do so it's really what is it Pogo the old uh Cartoon right I have met the enemy and it is us right the only uh reason that this is where it is is uh the boards and the community the municipal governments are not working together as they were as they once were Shore Regional and O and and and ocean Port by very design of the litigation I'm sorry of the legislation that was passed in January 22 are not in a position to stop this that was the whole point right to make it easier to form Regional School Districts so I'm I'm hopeful that um we will get there and and get there in the next few months this gentleman is reelected I want it to happen before his term is up because there's no reason for this to take longer than a year and then because I didn't really understand it or I couldn't hear the whole thing could you go over again tomorrow the might a decision be made tomorrow or did I hear you say it'll take a long time for that decision it will take a few months for the decision to come out so I I said remember I said we're halfway there right the commissioner has ruled that sebrite has the standing to pursue a petition to withdraw from Ocean and Shore Regional and we have filed that petition the Shore Regional and Oceanport Boards of Education have taken an appeal of that commissioner decision saying sebr has that standing that appeal will be argued tomorrow in Trenton um ocean port and Shore Regional on one side and uh Atlantic Highlands and and sebrite represented by me I'm sorry just CBR now cuz Highland's out Atlantic Collins is out so it's just sebrite now uh CBR will be represented by me and there'll be a deputy attorney general representing the commissioner of education on our side defending the commissioner's ruling that we have the standing to go forward so there'll be four positions presented in court tomorrow sure Regional and ocean port on one side sebrite because the other parties were dismissed on our motion CBR and the Attorney General on behalf of the commissioner on the other side so we'll argue tomorrow take about an hour um again I expect to Prevail you don't get a ruling when you arguing appeal like that at the time um it will take a few months but we haven't waited because there's no stay as I mentioned earlier so we have filed our petition and if our petition is granted then we'll be looking to the boards of Education to pass a resolution that it's ready willing and able to take the sebrite children and we'll have a vote so I am hopeful I mean I said it in a lightharted way but I wasn't joking I am hopeful that there'll be a vote on sebrite joining Henry Hudson re uh Regional in 2025 I'm aware of no factual or legal impediment to that just I'll just add because we know this issue has been out there for a while and has been holding up um Henry Hudson's willingness to move forward with this process we've requested that the appell division expedite the appeal so to move faster with both scheduling the argument which is tomorrow and making a decision and the appell division agreed with our argument that this is a a matter of public importance and so they will issue a decision faster even though veto says it will come in a couple of months that is actually faster than any of the decisions that the appell division typically renders so this is it is a lengthy process but they have agreed with us this is an important issue and it needs to be decided as soon as they can so we'll get that decision out as soon as we get it thank no Gina come on [Music] up I'm wearing my motorcycle boots all right I'll just Crouch over a little good evening everyone my name is Gina melck I live at C5 Hillside Court in beautiful Highlands New Jersey I want to thank you for being here tonight and also um really for your ongoing information sessions on this matter I think that the closest that the tri district has come to something like this was their um regionalization Fair um which while eventually was shared online had no public portion uh folks weren't able to interact with the board and the experts and get um specific answers on the record were shared publicly so I appreciate this opportunity and I appreciate everybody who came tonight and who um you know maybe because it's a little difficult at 6 pm to attend meetings um I appreciate that you're recording this and folks can check it out later um so before I make my comment I don't think I have any questions uh well here's my question before I make my comment um would it be true to say that um The Promise made by uh Henry Hudson and the friends of regionalization that the special election in September would be um paid for by people who are not us um is is it is that not true they actually the special election was not paid for or is that something else no you're correct they they believed that the nature of the grant they submitted would have entitled them to get reimbursed the election by the Department of Education Department of Education has taken issue with that and said the nature of the application you made does not entitle you to have the cost reimbursed I see that's the I think the number is $18745 voter turnout the day after a school holiday um maybe 30 days before a general election where people were voting for council member in town and stuff um maybe it didn't get as much attention as it should have and now that's compounded by um the taxpayers are on the hook for $119,000 okay cool just um wanted to clarify that before I me my comments is that a total number for all three towns just curious that's total close yes yeah I mean even if it's six grand you know that's like a theater program in elementary school for the year um and you know so it's just divided by the two two towns Highlands and attic High good point yeah and and a soccer program um so I just I think that I think of what I heard tonight when it comes to regionalization is that I think that the people of our community have sort of been part of either a bait and switch or a shell game and at some point like this is a plea to people in Highlands I think you guys I'm preaching the choir um we need to really start demanding accurate information we need to start asking questions why there are executive session meetings and we don't hear what they're about why are members of the board publicly saying we really want sebrite but they just you know they got to do all this stuff like if sebrite and Highlands and Atlantic Highlands really want this to happen for our students first and then of course ta our taxpayers we would all be working together and saying what the heck can we do to make this nonsense that we've been talking about since for for me as a board member November of 2019 that still Wilds me out why are we still having this argument um I do have a question my question is in light of the fact that for whatever reason the boards of V took it upon on themselves simply because they hadn't heard anything it's not there was action I think we just heard well we just didn't hear back so because they didn't hear back they decided to do their own referendum which now apparently we're paying $199,000 for and um the referendum which again had 20% voter turnout uh it was about 400 people yes in Highlands and 200 people no um that then resulted in in a funding formula where um Highlands residents are responsible for paying more per student for um the students who are attending the tri District which that number by the way is less than 800 so keep that in mind when you look at the percentage of your taxes that go to our schools you might hear people in other districts say well my tax burden 62% that's probably for like 2,000 kids so um so 42% It's it's like 41.6 42% of your taxes go to the three schools which now the annual budget is uh 26 million dollar it's annually uh you're not responsible for all of that but you're responsible for a lot so now that this new funding formula exists because we have a new regionalized District where the people of Highlands are um paying more per student could you please discuss the importance of bringing Inc so that maybe uh the people of Highlands will see a fair funding formula not the one that was just passed by the instum boards uh or board um you're welcome to address that you're right here um and and how if we bring sebrite in not only will it be better for us educationally but we as Highlands taxpayers will see more equity and equality when it comes to how we um fund uh the 60% of the students in the districts who don't live in our town uh who go go to the school districts who don't live in our town thank you thank you you want me to address the final question sure so the the short answer to your question is that CBR was going to be contributing about a million dollars a year in tax relief for Highlands and Atlantic Highlands um I don't recall uh precisely how it would be divided between the two communities uh but the uh allocation of that savings was deemed satisfactory by the uh mayor and Council in both Highlands and Atlantic Highlands satisfactory again to be considered by by the voters they didn't approve it they approved it going to the voters the reason C Brite is in a position to do that is because the grotesque funding formula that was visited upon them C Bri did not agree to it this is as a result of changes in the law has sebrite paying uh about $2 million more uh than it would be paying if it was being taxed on a per pupil basis the way Regional School Districts uh uh almost entirely were funded before a change in the law in the 70s so because sebrite is getting battered so badly by the formula CB is in a position to uh offer a million dollars into a Regional School District and still save a million dollar itself and when I say a million dollars for the highlands and Atlantic Islands taxpayers or a million dollars for the C taxpayers I'm saying a million dollars annually so there is no doubt there are discussions in rooms like this where citizens go crazy because you're going to spend $4,000 to repay the tennis courts or these days turn the tennis courts into pickle courts um so when we're talking about a million dollars a year in communities of this size it's extraordinary and available for the voters to consider if we could collaborate and get out of each other's way so that is what we are hopeful we'll be doing in 2025 [Music] anyone else want to um share just we're going to get to everybody if anyone else has anything that they would like to say share comment question on okay good there a question you said before that the Board of Ed the Department of Education is going to say that in order for students from sebrite to withdraw from Oceanport sure Regional they have to have our Board of Education say make a resolution saying we're willing and able to do it right now but how can we do that when we don't have some of the information that we're required to have let me let me um underscore what I said the petition that we had filed because the boards of Education would agree to file it with us was to ask the Department of Education to agree to allow sebrite to withdraw from Oceanport and Shore Regional our expectation is that the Department of Education will grant that request but that they won't allow the issue to come to a vote unless and until there's a resolution passed by the Board of Education Henry Hudson Board of Education that it's ready willing and able to take these children well if you have if you have questions that you need to answer before the board is going to make a decision on that they should ask the questions I suspect they could ask the questions now so that they'll be available if the Department of Education rules in our favor but we don't expect the Department of Education to say your petition is granted you can join Henry Hudson Regional because Henry Hudson Regional hasn't committed to take the students yet and so therefore we can't imagine that they would allow the issue to come to a vote until the public knows what it's voting on namely what uh school is going to be taking these children understood okay but we assume or I assume I'm not saying we assume I assume that the Department of Education would simply say that CBR has a right to withdraw its students from those two schools once that is the case then we're willing to move forward but we can't move forward until we know that they have the permission to withdraw from those schools are we saying something different or the same we're saying the same thing we we we you can't do that until we get permission from the Department of Education because of the deal you cut with ocean Regional you didn't have to cut that deal but you did so we're trying to work through that and allow the boards of Education to have an opportunity to consider us even though they cut that deal with ocean p and Shore Regional so the sequence you just articulated is exactly right the sequence you articulated is exactly right if we get that permission from the Department we would talk to the boards the the Henry Hudson Board of Education and then hopefully submit the issue to the public for a vote that's the sequence okay okay um I have one other question and it just my L was one too well I'll speak to you later if I remember it well we'll be here for a while okay sure thank you anyone else any questions or comments okay I'll see none I'll will close public portion does anyone have anything else that they'd like to say or address our residents I think it's we're good interesting any closing argument sir man but closing arguments I get asked to do those all the time uh the uh um I I I just want to say thank you really the opportunity to address the public given even those of you who follow this closely how confusing it is because of all the different um um allegations and litigations Etc but I me what I said it's actually a very straightforward process if folks work together when uh again we we've been involved in more of these than anyone well we did this about 20 years ago in lower Camden County Regional that was a 7 through 12 School District Regional School District that serve students from Seven towns um the communities that we represented uh Berlin Township clemon pin Hill Linden wal and wisell Township um the Mayors and councils and uh superintendents and Boards of Education of Five Towns worked together when we had our committee meetings the dere regionalization committee the committee had like 50 people on it it was extraordinary but we got that done because people collaborated and did something that at that time had only been done once before in State history and which most people said couldn't be done and we went through the process of merging collective bargaining agreements where k6 districts became either k8s or k2s there were two Junior highs and and two high schools and a third high school was built all to make this happen over a period of four years there were over 700 employees that had to be moved into a different collective bargaining agreement 7 over 700 there was one grievance so there's a way to do it there's a way to do it right but it begins with collaboration and ends with making sure the public can be heard on such a crucial issue so we certainly appreciate the opportunity to help you fight to bring this issue before the public but if folks would work together and respect the Public's right to be heard on this it wouldn't be so much of a fight thank you thank you man one thing I would add that as you will know we did work together until we couldn't until there was a push back but we did we did and I certainly hope that we can put humpty dumpy back together again sure pieces are still there the pieces are still there correct okay and then with that I B you good night thank you again thank you second second all fav I meeting 707 thank you everyone