e no we didn't we didn't vote on the election who who's in charge nobody okay sorry about the delay everyone so as of right now I'm sorry everyone could you we're back live public is now listening at home uh so right now there is a a motion on the floor made by Scott lavender to elect uh Matt dorsy uh seconded by committeeman Ray as the president of the township of long Hill for the Board of Health for 2024 so assessor Sherman yes committee man dorsy yes committee man ray yes commit man verza yes Deputy Mayor Pia yes mayor oh not going to correct me reverse it Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor pgia yes okay so next is the oath of office for the president of the Board of Health Matt I'll pose it as a question do you Matthew dorsy salom me swear that you will support the constittution United States and the state of New Jersey that you will bear true faith and allegiance to the same the governments established in the United States and in the state under the authority of the people and that you will faithfully and partially and justly perform all the duties of the office of lill Township president of the Board of Health according to the best of your ability and that you will not use your office to Grant preferential treatment nor seek personal gain favor or Advantage not available to the general public so help you guys I do okay all right so our first order of business is to election uh me all right office we did that appoint a Board of Health attorney I nominate Jack pigeon second assessor Sherman yes uh committee man ray yes committeeman valza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor yes president dors yes uh next approval of minutes from our last meeting which was January 18 2023 so moved s sorry assessor Sherman yes committee mon Ray I I don't think I was at that meeting you weren't yeah so okay so you're abstaining obstain yeah committee Manza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor ban yes president dorsy yes next order business uh resolution authorizing uh the township to enter an agreement or the Board of Health to enter an agreement for Professional Services with the community visiting nurses have a motion so move thank you second second assessor Sherman yes mon Yesa yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor Pia yes president dorsy yes and finally a similar motion which is 24-2 resolution entering into a Professional Services agreement with the Visiting Nurse Association of Somerset Hills have a motion so moved second assessor Sherman yes monr Yesa yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor Pia yes president dorsy yes uh discussion on we have two announcements basically the first one is um your dog license are due by January 31st so if you have up to three dogs you're permitted to have please get your uh license uh application in and just Supply the r vaccination information um and and if every month it goes up $10 a $10 late fee starting in February then a $20 late fee in March and then second there is a cancer thriving and surviving Workshop it's free it's at the Mars County conf uh County Library conference room it's from February 8th to March 19th not every day almost every day from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 says participants will attend a 2 and a half hour interactive Workshop once a week for six weeks to learn to deal with techniques deal with symptoms of cancer and it treatment such as fatigue sleepiness shortness of breath stress emotional issues and it's basically for open to anyone unfortunately has cancer they have survivors their family their friends and their caregivers so if you or anybody else is interested it's at the Mars County uh Library uh you can look up the Mars County Board of Health or you can call the register 973 682 4940 and that includes the announcements any discussion items left somebody else anything to discuss seeing none i' like to open the meeting up to the public for comment anybody from the public live or on internet have any questions or comments for the Board of Health Madam clerk anybody in the internet if anybody on Zoom would like to make a public comment regarding the Board of Health please raise your hand now I don't see anyone all right seeing none we'll close the uh uh meeting the public comment and I'll request a motion to adjourn so moved second all in favor I I thank you everybody thank you Mr chairman thank you have a good night you too Care thank you Mr President you're welcome I'll turn the meeting back over to you thanks Matt uh so we have a couple of proclamations or a few proclamations presentations the first one and for as long as I've known Mary Grace I'm embarrassed I hopefully I pronounced her name correctly litz there you go so I'm going to read a a proclamation for uh the work she's dedicated to this town specifically to the library uh for a long long time whereas the untiring work and dedication as an employee to the township of Long Hill Library while certainly appreciated too often goes without adequate recognition of the valuable contribution that is made whereas Mary Grace I I'll say Mary Grace going uh forward Mary Grace joined the Long Hill Library in 2011 as the adults service librarian and assistant director until 2020 this was Mary Grace's second career as she retired from Bell labs in IBM as a systems analyst computer programmer and web developer Mary Grace Loved Her First career but finally referred to her tenure at the library as her dream job Mary Grace always felt that opening the library doors each morning was like the start of a party Mary Grace never knew who would be walking through the library doors or who would need help with anything Mary Grace was instrumental in bringing great books and movies new technology Lively concerts educational events into the library for all to enjoy Mary Grace brought in resources for job Seekers for non-english speakers and for veter veterans something that Mary Grace did that no one else had to handle was navigate operating a library during covid this time was so important not only for the staff but for the residents as well Mary Grace found ways to get books to people who were stuck at home increasing the library's electronic collection dramatically and moving events outside Mary grass did a lot to beautify the library including the lovely paint job and the colorful wrap of the library bookd drop she reimagined the library's own logo and oversaw and increased branding push including Library bags and fun new library cards Mary Grace always thought her greatest responsibility was to the people who used the library she took time with people and knew what books they wanted and issues they cared about letting them know that they belonged at the library Mary Grace has left a staff that has learned so much from Mary Grace's role at the library caring about learning and about playing the entire staff relied on Mary Grace for information inspiration and positivity for many years and they look forward to seeing her in her new role Library volunteer for life I don't know I'm not sure if Mary Grace knew about that part uh therefore be it proclaimed that on January 24th 2024 the township Committee of the township of long hill in the county of Mars state of New Jersey on behalf of the residents and staff of Long Hill Township does hereby extend deepest thanks and appreciation for her long service and employment to the township gersa mayor thank you Mary [Applause] Grace Mary Grace if I could impose on you to come up for a photograph I think Nicole was here and if any of your friends want to uh take a picture as well thank you guy thank you all of you especially you um it's been my privilege to work at the Long Hill Township Library I've loved every minute of it maybe half a second here and there um uh and it's been my privilege to uh to work with the township employes and with all of the uh community so thank [Applause] you stand so you get the background that's okay [Applause] volunteer for life that doesn't sound like a reward that's a that's not that's not much of a reward huh Mary gra all right Autumn photography winners I think Lisa and Bill are here tonight uh and we're going to be looking for photograph for the the the state league is having a contest already did it they I sent several in so right we're going to win this year right absolutely we have some very t talented uh photographers here in Long Hill and we have been following up uh these photography contests a couple of year and I'm always amazed with the pictures that come in in L Hill um a hobby of mine has always been photography and these people Blow Me Away uh every time when I get the um photo uh graphs in so this year we ran in Autumn we ran the Autumn and LA Hill photography contest we had 18 uh entries in the uh program and we narrowed down our selection uh into one um juvenile uh winner and three adult winners and we'd like to present them tonight with um a special uh award for their photographs and uh several of these were also submitted to the league of mun municipalities too for consideration in their program uh what I'd like to do is call up each person um and show their photographs I don't are you going to I have them up here do that sure um and I you can do it right in the order that you have because I'll I'll match that then uh I'd like to have them come up and then if they wouldn't mind standing them and saying up here um it I thought it'd be nice if we could get a picture them their photographs their award and uh also with the mayor okay all right first we have uh Julian um bar and uh Julia is um did a photograph of full leaves and I'd love to have you come on up remember this picture see congratul ations and how old are you wow and what kind of camera are you using you don't know no you using a family camera oh terrific well we were very impressed with this so I'm gonna have you stand here and hold your photo your first winner and this is your award too do you see this okay and if you wouldn't mind just staying here I'm going to keep going through and and call up the all the other winners okay thank you all right next um we have Claire Borowski and uh she took a whole series of pictures of uh little mushrooms in the fall that I thought were pretty amazing so Claire's here congratulations you too and this is Bill Bill has an award for you if you wouldn't mind standing just up here we have two more okay uh next um and I said this to Bill we have a bluebird uh that was taken by um Steven terise and I've lived here most all of my life I know there are bluebirds everywhere in this town people tell me all the time I see pictures of them I've never personally seen one so that's my goal is to find my Bluebird here but um uh Stephen took quite a few pictures of uh different birds around he even got a uh an eagle so uh but we settled on the the bluebird that was our favorite so Stephen that works too okay thank you for joining us this is his picture remember that it perfect thank you and last um we had uh Bob stapper Fanning who um is a frequent photographer enterer in all of our programs and this year he took a picture of the Millington Gorge uh just as the sun was hitting the fall leaves this year it was particularly very pretty uh photo uh and I Bob's not here but is oh Bob is here terrific come on up how are you all right and there's your and if I could get a picture of you all together that would be great and come down and while I'm coming down around of Applause yes where would you like me to stand right in the middle of them M yeah there you go conratulations thank all right thank you and keep watching for [Applause] future we ever down walking around Clover Hill there blue time is that where they are some in my yard I have Nest okay he just gave me this secret where the bluebirds are thank you appreciate it I believe uh Fred hunt from the chair of hpac is here there's Fred I am um and you're going to give us a presentation well hopefully be very short uh why I'm here is to I guess ask your approval of a letter that hpac wants to send out uh and and because it's going to be on Township letterhead we need to seek your approval uh the letter is going to go to uh owner owners of historic house houses in the town uh and we get these the houses from our Historic Site list there's about 50 of them and why we do this it's basically uh part of our mission to promote historic preservation in the town uh and the what we're going to what we're seeking is information on the history of these houses um and we are hoping that some of the owners will be willing to uh you know share us share information uh artifacts um photos memorabilia that they might want to donate or at least lend us um and we're also going to Pro we're also promoting hpac uh historic plaque program and that's really what we're asking here that's you have a draft of a letter I think the only thing that's changed is we have a greeting on it that says Dear homeowner I I yeah did you want you want to read it or I can sure thanks and the letter will say dear homeowner the historic preservation advisory committee hpac of Long Hill Township is actively seeking historical information about our Town's Heritage specifically focusing on the historic homes within the community in this regard we are reaching out to homeowners to inquire if they possess any noteworthy history related to their homes additionally hpac collects artifacts photos and memorabilia associated with these historic homes the gathered information and items will be curated and preserved at the Millington Schoolhouse old Hall with the possibility of being showcased in the Longhill Township Town Hall as part of our commitment to recognize and celebrate the historical significance of these homes hpac has a plaque program under this program we offer a beautifully crafted plaque that can be a fixed to the house displaying its name and the year it was built if you're a homeowner with historical insights about your residence or possess artifacts relevant to its past we would be delighted to meet with you please don't hesitate to reach out to hpac for further discussion please visit our website and also they can uh call either me or Denise Murphy that's great I appreciate all the work do this is a wonderful program okay Long Hill has a lot of history I don't need this we're working on it thank you thank Youk you next up uh we have a Delaware Avenue presentation Fred zali uh I believe is here there there's the young man thank you for the record Frederick zeli on behalf of the owner of block 13302 lot 16.01 which is Mario paresi uh on November 28th of last year the planning board approved a four lot subdivision of the subject lot which is the unimproved portion of Delaware Avenue uh so west of moristown Road uh what we are requesting of the town pursuant to to the resolution of the planning board uh is to ask the town to take responsibility for the maintenance of a detention Basin and the related uh inlets and drainage leading to the detention Basin I just want to point out we're not asking for any kind of special treatment uh it's almost the opposite we're just asking not to be treated separately and to have four homeowners end up being responsible for a public Street uh and the uh drainage associated with it so on a it's a quizzical look so I want to make sure we're on the same page no I think we are Jack I I mean should we proceed by having a comments questions by the township committee yeah you can but what what Fred say sounds reasonable okay uh maybe my question is going to be for you though I okay we have properties in town yeah that are responsible for their own uh uh maintenance on so I'm I'm confused which is the standard where's this what are coming from is it coming down Delaware Avenue or is it from the L uh it's a combination but it's definitely all the water coming off of Delaware Avenue um what I can do is show a plan which will show it a little better I think for clarification are you at there there's two I I I I looked at the paperwork I think there's two different concerns here one is the road the actual Road and Delaware Avenue going from the dead end of Delaware out to Morristown Road and the drainage that relates to that road storm inlets and so forth correct and then there's a uh if you will a um private uh storm water uh uh structure that is on one of the Lots uh that would uh alleviate storm water for the properties I believe going let me see going north from from Delaware yeah that's a good clarification seems to me the township should be responsible for the street and the homeowner should be responsible for the the storm water management on the on the properties let me shed a little light on the way it's actually designed and I'll show you the plan I've colorized it to make it a little easier uh this is the plan the two sheets that you have in the package that was submitted Megan is it possible to I'm you're way ahead of me aren't you what else isn't there this what you're referring to okay so that sheet five which is the first one I was going to sh show so just here's a colorized version of it the um I'll just show the audience for a moment then I got to face the and for the public watching at home it's essentially where where the street is uh right smack almost in the middle of the uh of of the drawing so what I've showed with the colorizing here the blue is just to outline the four lots that were approved uh the yellow area is the portion of Delaware Avenue that will be improved as part of this project uh and then the top Center area to the right of the road uh colored in green is where the detention Basin will be that is an easement over uh lot 16.01 one now showing page eight or she eight actually the public and the public can't see right uh is everybody see the this is the same sheet it's just colorized version yeah we can but this is not Unum it's not the colorized version correct it's this is this is an exhibit that we were submitting this evening that was not submitted as a colorized version understood so what I've done here though is to again the green is the detention base and the yellow is the road what the Orange Lines show is the actual drainage lines so it picks up your inlets off of the street it picks up water at different spots within the property as a whole and all end up in the drainage basin and then the drainage basin and I'm going Toes has a Spillway that allows overflow and then that goes out into the flood area uh in the conservation zone so the point is it's a system that picks up both areas so when you talk about the private portion versus the public portion they're not really two different portions it's all one big system uh the town of course with any other storm Source system in the streets would be responsible for maintaining it uh Even If This Were uh typical situation in a much larger subdivision that would have uh homeowners association and something along those lines the town would still have an easement to get to the detention Basin so that if the homeowners association did not do what they're supposed to do the town would have the ability to go in and take care of it and and prevent any kind of flooding situation but what we have here here is just four single family properties uh it's this is not a huge complex or something like that the only alternative would be for a homeowners association to be formed uh again with just four Property Owners uh as I was starting to say before we're not really looking for any kind of special treatment we're really looking to be not treated differently uh than any other homeowner who lives on a street that has the town taking care of their drainage situation the individual home sites their leaders and whatnot are connected to pipes around their homes those do ultimately end up in the same attention Basin but we're not looking for the town to maintain those like any homeowner they'd be maintaining their own uh on-site uh drainage system this is really just for overall uh drainage that affects the entire area and would affect the street in particular well I have almost The Identical situation in my neighborhood on Stephanie drive and the the retention pit happens to affect my house probably the most it's right behind my property and how it works in my neighborhood it it's not just my uh you know the water from my property it's the entire neighborhood that drains into my into the pit I have to cut the grass I have to do all the maintenance on that piece of on on that pit I have to do it it's at my expense but the town has to take care of any heavy you know if a tree Falls in there if there's major repair that needs to be done then the town takes care of it so what would be different in this situation why would the town have to maintain it and not the property owners do you know why it is that you're responsible for it it was written into the deed that way when I bought the house I was I was made aware of it and then then recently there was a ruling by the EPA that kind of um that it'ss that into stone yeah the the storm water uh regulation s uh have identified uh privately owned storm water structures that are are basically owned by private uh homeowners and uh we have identified uh roughly about 20 such properties located in town uh that actually will be getting letters uh later this summer about the proper maintenance of these stor and water structures that are privately owned and what they need to do to the town to provide them um there are you had mentioned options you could create a in essence a four property homeowners association that can hire a landscape or whatever to maintain those outlets and a lot of these structures are tied into the township storm water uh structures and and the storm water Township storm water plans uh but they're they're maintained on private property um so there would be maintenance or um as as a Committee Member said the it can be written into that property's deed where they're they have to maintain maintain it themselves as a private property owner um the other option is uh and towns have done this where they've accepted uh if you will contribution to maintain that privately owned structure uh and the town would keep that in escro and use that escro money to uh maintain that and it or it can be just a one-time fee if you will to uh anticipate the cost of those those structures and uh the town some towns have taken those those privately owned structures over that way so there there's a multitude of ways that to take care of this um I I would uh suggest that you know the the committee uh listen to to what you're uh your client has to say um and you know maybe have a discussion with the Township engineer have the township engineer to a meeting and discuss options and so forth that we can we can have you guys well informed before you make any kind of decisions and I can represent in committ and Ray I'm sure remembers as well uh the township engineer your new engineer uh was also the board engineer correct uh and and he raised this at length uh chairman even had him go back and prepare a formal report as I recall um dealing with this issue and whether it would have to be a homeowners association or whether whether it could be a cross easement type of situation with maintenance obligations uh and there was quite a bit of discussion uh even between the board members as to the best way to handle it uh the ultimate resolution was that as they placed in the res in their resolution uh would be to come to the town uh plead our case so to speak uh and the town would decide whether it was a uh something they' be willing to undertake or whether we would need to go back into a homeowners association um our position would be we we think it's not overly burdensome on the town in any way uh what it would really amount to most of it would amount to just uh pipe cleaning starting with the street which they would be doing anyway it's going to ultimately be a public Street obviously uh and you know some mowing uh duties and things of that nature uh again this is a relatively small area it's just these four Lots uh and the flip side would be to have uh just these four owners be responsible for it um just speaking uh on behalf of the client you know as part of this obviously they're putting this road through uh at their expense not to say that they're not benefiting from it obviously they are uh but this is something that your master plan has had in place for some time to have Delaware Avenue completed uh and we are doing that for the township uh and we we just don't think that what we're asking here is to undo burden on the township and it would be both logistically and financially uh to place it on just these four homeowners obviously the town's going to benefit from the taxes from those lots these are going to be uh upscale homes uh they'll be assessed accordingly what if it was deeded to one of the Lots like mine is in other words my the adjacent lot what if it was part of their lot in other words my the retention Basin on my property um is sizable it's in the rear of the property and it does drain the whole neighborhood yet I'm the one responsible for maintaining it but conversely I I do use it I turned the lemon into lemonade and I made it part of my my property so what would would would if what would be adverse if the a the adjacent property simply maintained it as I do mine well you're referring I think to just like the mowing correct responsibilities and things like that of the just of the Basin yes in theory I I can't tell you any reason that couldn't be done it's just this request encompasses a lot more more than that uh because it's it encompasses all of the various pipelines and whatnot starting with the street and to keep them open and that the individual property owner in your position wouldn't really have the ability to do right no and and I believe that's how the town does it for me too the town if if anything major goes wrong if a tree falls in there if there's a problem with a pipe if there's a problem with the drainage itself the town takes care of that I think that's if that's what the Comm stuff that that's on me debris falls into the leaves that's on me as I would maintain any other piece of my property that that would seem like something that we I would certainly take it back to my client I don't expect that that would be an issue yeah I mean just at the my recollection of that meeting at the planning board was that we were kind of heading towards an HOA taking care of this and so my only question to you is um how would we distinguish the situation on Delaware from the situation that was that that is uh was presented by committee man Vera and others in the town obviously because if we if we were to do something for the Delaware property for your client then you I think there might be a long line here of of of other residents wanting us to do the same I I think what committee M verza has described is might actually be the right compromise on this uh because the HOA it's cumbersome to have an HOA with just four members it honestly is and that that as you know was a big part of the discussion um uh your engineer uh cited the uh statutory and Regulatory Provisions where it seems it has to be an HOA or at least that was position he strongly took uh and I didn't see anything honestly in the law that contradicted him on that so to try to do it some through some private Arrangement didn't make sense um but if if the board if I'm sorry I'm used to say board uh if the committee is comfortable with everything uh that Mr valeta suggested uh we could certainly de the obligation for just the Basin to that homeowner luckily it is on one lot only uh that's that's something we could certainly consider and if you want to take a look at at my deed in particular and how it's written in if you want an example we'll take a look at that short I would have be no issue with it so Matt Matt or Scott do you I had an original question but Mr zeli answered while I was talking but is oh but didn't the the resolution of the planning board say that uh let's see the subdivision oh here establish a HOA or similar private mechanism for the maintenance of storm water system subject to approval of the board of professionals so my question is or obtain to I see or obtain a formal uh commitment from the township committee so that's why you're here under Part B that's correct okay that you answer my question and and I think the former homeowners association is kind of like a turnoff for anybody who's on looking to buy that property like I I don't think it's fair to do it that way I think the way that I that that it's done in my my neighborhood kind of like a fair Pro Fair compromise you know DPW doesn't have to come and do the regular Mowing and mo removal of the debris but in that rare occasion if there's something you know blocking the drainage or something heavy that has to be maintained as the township would do in any other area of the town they take care of it like again I'm not it's it's just I I you know just just as caution that's not 100% accurate uh but you know if if the town if look if if property owners don't take care of their private um structures uh the township would ultimately do that and there will be a mechanism to charge that property owner uh for for the maintenance that they don't properly maintain because obviously any any structure any storm water structure whether it be privately owned or publicly owned is a is part of the storm water system to keep it uh moving clear and everything else is is very important part where half the town is called the Great Swamp and the other and the other three borders are the pic River so you know to keep the storm water system flowing this is um you know what we've been working on inhouse for uh probably the last five six months um of of getting all these inventories together um meeting talking with de and uh EPA so um you know I I would suggest that the commit committee um take under consideration um and uh you know not make any kind of decision tonight but maybe have the engineer come uh to a meeting and talk about the storm water regulations uh as it pertains to lill Township and the other approximately 20 private structures that we have that you know we will be notifying yourself included of what needs to be done and what needs to be provided for the maintenance on a yearly basis so there's there's more there's more to it than you know just keeping the Mowing and and keeping the small debris out of out of the way so uh so that that's what I would recommend to the to the to and Randy I I 100% agree with you because conceptually it sounds great the homeowner does this that and the next thing and then anything happens the uh the township comes in but what I'm concerned about is how do you define find when the homeowners obligations end and the townships begin and and I think that is a that that's something that that would be very difficult to to uh paper and and it would only lead to kind of argument down the down the road between the homeowner and the town so uh I I agree with Randy's assessment of the situation that we educate ourselves on this and and uh we can certainly take a look at how uh your your documents have been worded I don't sounds like it's actually within the deed I don't know if there's another agreement of some sort that we can we'll find that out uh Mr pigge and I can certainly work together and uh your engineer and our engineer they're all already working together on a lot of the design issues already so and Mr Z I know Scott I think had a couple of questions as well um no actually Brendon just cover for good Brendan thank you and and I guess what I'm looking for is the consistency exactly how you led uh your your uh testimony here this evening because I I'm aware of those 20 to 25 properties I know the uh the the properties on Stephanie have a couple not just yours I know there's one other and and and I'm aware of a few that uh are on Pleasant planes that then front onto uh Long Hill Road or respond I don't know what they're responsible for so that's why I would like to understand it better also I would point out as uh Randy had touched upon there's pre uh the new storm water regulations and there post and we are a town no surprise uh that has some uh drainage and flooding issues so I don't know what will happen going forward and all the properties on that list that you showed me I think are built 2000 forward so something changed you could point out to a development that was built Back in 1970 and probably you're are are accurate right but I don't know if you're going to be accurate for uh developments like Mr leses so that's not a yes it's not a no right I'd like to uh follow the advice of what Brendan said and what Randy said and educate ourselves and then maybe uh come back to you when your client sure that that makes absolute sense I can tell you that we were not aware of those kind of individualized treatments of certain lots and that that's certainly something to take into account because that probably is something a classification that we would fit into more we were really more concerned about being treated the same way you know 50 lot uh project that has a full-blown homeowners association and common elements and all that kind of thing we just didn't want to be lumped in that same category I I think that's more than a fair request thank you so much for hearing us we appreciate it thank you for your time great thank you okay now we're up to uh item five on the agenda so what we have I believe are three uh ordinances in a row all on first reading so I just want to prep uh everyone there there is no there are no comments or questions during first readings that's not to say at the end of the meeting of course the public uh is entitled to comment or ask questions on any topic so we're just going to work through this reasonably quickly of course if any uh member of the C committee has questions or or comments then feel free Mr Mayor Mr Mayor if I could uh say that I'm going to abstain from voting and also uh discussion on ordinances is on all three ordinances given their subject matter I think it's safe to do that Mr Mayor rather than go through each one maybe I can offer some light on all three of them in terms of uh okay did you want to do it before do it at beginning and then we can that go through these that's fine Scott thank you so if it's okay I'll uh absolutely okay floor is yours all right so there's three ordinances in a row here um one is a salary ordinance uh the second is uh the creation of the of a POS a new position director of Public Safety as well as an executive administrator and the third is an ordinance um dealing with uh committee liaison roles and all three of these are related so um well over a year ago um the committee uh the township committee commissioned a study from a company called MRI uh to do an analysis of of our police department and um you know the nature of that study it was a very high level 50,000 foot um survey of operations in the department uh that was to guide the uh committee on some decisions going forward um subsequently last um July we embarked upon um a shared services contract with Harding uh in particular with their Administration and appropriate Authority Bob ferano uh to assist us uh with advice and in also preparing um another report which was a highly granular report um based on uh a whole lot of information that was um retrieved from the from our department and uh as many people know uh Mr ferano had been U police chief in Long Hill a while back uh lives here in town so he had you know very specific knowledge of the evolution of the department uh over the years um so we did get the report and you know the committee uh reviewed the uh recommendations in it is prepared to act on some of those recommendations tonight um the report itself um is about 60 Pages not including some reference material in the back uh a link is supposed to be on the website I thought it was going to be on the website a couple of days ago but apparently it can't be there until we accept it by resolution but um you'll see a link to that maybe tomorrow or the day after I hope Megan right possible this week uh and I expect that that will be on the communication page of the PD website like the MRI report is um so um you know it's very well written um I would suggest anybody who has an interest in it please please um read it and you have questions you can forward them back uh to myself and copy the May um but I want to go through uh you know a couple of things that got um that that some of the conclusions that were reached and some of the purpose behind it um basically uh what we're trying to do we're not trying to recreate Department as much as we are trying to create a new department that is is uh responding to the needs of the 21st century and so what does that mean over the years um this town's evolved the Dynamics of the town have evolved uh the population has changed the demographics have changed the culture of the people who move here uh have changed drastically technology has changed um facilities uh they're in need of um of of of of change and compliance and regulations along that line coming from uh you know the the state government has has increased enormously um and what's interesting is um I believe Mr Mayor the population of the town is actually a little bit less than it was 20 years ago I think the population in the schools is a little bit less as well quite a bit less I and yet all of us who live here uh have this feeling as if you know growth is coming around us um and this was explained to me by Mr ferano is that our need to provide policing and budget for policing is not dependent upon the size of our population if you take a look at Valley Road and the traffic uh from the people that are coming from out of town to shop in our stores to go to shoppr right to go to TJ Maxx Etc uh there is a lot more traffic coming into this town and with that traffic comes incidents uh traffic incidences uh perhaps criminal Behavior Uh safety incidences Etc and so um what the effect that it's having on our town is as much related to the building that you see going on in Warren and Berkeley Heights and and Basking Ridge as it is you know building that we anticipate here and with um you know affordable housing requirements that you know inevitably come down the path you know we'll there there'll be more things to deal with from that perspective as well um secondly um technology has changed um the amount of technology in the cars and the amount of technology that the officers carry around with them is drastically different than it was even five years ago and that requires a different sense around budgeting uh M maintenance of Technology uh making good decisions uh for the future in terms of not only having the right technology but having support programs for the technology uh so we can optimize our spend um and then lastly um the nature of the of the employees that we hire and the new officers are coming in it's a newer generation and uh you know they think a lot differently than even just one generation ago and so that means different training programs um different um different incentives uh and a different command structure and so Bob's report um um uh addresses all this and lays out a blueprint to bring us forward into the future and this blueprint has has has some recommendations that are are highly suggested right away so near term uh and then some longer term recommendations uh such as there are creative things we could potentially do with like shared services with other towns and we've done these kind of things in the past we've had shared patrolling agreements with with with and with Berkeley Heights and you know for whatever reason those are no longer in place but those need to be rethought and there may be some opportunities to share a detective Bureau or something else we'll see um but the main thing is this committee is not the appropriate authority to recommend those decisions and um so one of the main things that we're doing is we are changing the definition the assignment of the appropriate Authority and that's a capital letter for appropriate Authority uh to this new Public Safety position uh you'll recall I think two years ago we had some confusion and some ambiguity as to who that uh appropriate Authority was was it the administrator was it the township committee uh we had made a decision at that time to make it the township committee and quite frankly that was a bad decision um because how can uh one Department answer to five different people it doesn't work especially when they don't have subject matter expertise so what we're trying to do is to hire a public safety director who is going to be designated the appropriate Authority and is going to be reporting to Randy bar and Randy bar will be hiring this person and when he finds the right person he will WR make a recommendation to the township committee for our approval uh but Randy is the hiring manager the appropriate Authority is the uh direct manager of will be the direct manager of of the police department so the big win there is to get someone who actually knows what they're doing that has subject matter expertise that has a a a a career's worth of experience to help us get into the 21st century um so you know I talked about some of the objectives near term one of the main things that we want to do this year is regain um accreditation um you'll recall we lost accreditation um over a year ago and accreditation is very important the accreditation process um proves via certificate that RPD is is is adhering to all of the Attorney General's guidelines and and best practices and and necessary procedures and being an accredited organization uh that offers us advantages on our insurance uh because we'll be less subject to lawsuits if we're adhering to um you know all those all those points in accreditation if I remember correctly it was like 109 different uh El elements to that accreditation is not just um reading and reacting to the attorney general guidelines it's also uh producing proof over time that you're doing what you said you were going to do so if something happens with the car there's got to be a picture a receipt something happens with the gun ammunition picture receipt explanation Etc um our public safety director um our expectation is they will regain accreditation this year in 2024 um that's the goal uh and we're on that path to that progress right now due to the work of our our officers in charge and we expect that we're going to get that over the hump and get that done um a second uh big item on our list and this is not necessarily A this year thing but it's a as soon as possible but we know we have a lot of steps to go through is a new police station um there is a marker in the parking lot that's about 4T tall uh right underneath the generator and that's the high water mark for a 100-year flood and if that 100-year flood were to happen that would go over the top of the windows on the ground floor and flood the police department um the committee this year is actively going to be uh trying to identify property um that um you know we can procure or or repurpose for a police department and kind of work through the steps we're by no means the people that can tell you how to build a police department it's just not our space you need a subject matter expert for that this public safety director is going to guide that process um and without this kind of person this committee would be Reliant upon a whole host of Consultants that cost a lot of money that don't live here in town and maybe are completely uh aligned with where we want to go uh so this is going to be a major um goal for this for this person um there's been some questions out in social media is there going to be a chief or is there not going to be a chief well as you can see in the salary Orin there's a chief position um we're not going to name a chief right away why not we're not subject matter experts we don't know what to look for in a police chief this person is going to uh help us uh identify who that person is and make the recommendation to Randy and through Randy to us as to who that person will be at the right time couldn't give you a time frame as to when that was going to happen uh you need to get the person in first and you need to let them do their job um next thing I mentioned we are no longer going to be the appropriate Authority um I was police liaison in the last year um I will no longer be police liaison um in fact uh when we analyze this we're eliminating liaison positions for any departments the spirit of a Le liaison as a member of this committee liasing to a group is to liaz to volunteers not to employees right and so what we want to avoid and this is a best practice that was teased out in Bob's report and it's something that other towns are finally picking up on unfortunately not all are is when you have a liaison effectively granting a Public Employee a route around their manager and we're not going to do that so liaison goes away um liaison for Police Department DPW and Social Services those those department heads answer to Randy and Randy will be responsible um for those reports um and so we think that's that's a a very good change and um you know makes the lines of delineation for uh for the reporting structure that much clearer um now I've seen some stuff on social media well gosh it looks like you guys are spending a lot of money on positions we didn't have before what I would like to remind everybody is um we look at a town like Harding I'll start there um Bob ferano is the administrator but he's also the appropriate Authority so he's basically holding two roles uh and the reason is is he has police experience um it's not this similar to what we do here in Long Hill where Randy bar is administrator and CFO you recall we had Nancy and Randy on on salary and when Nancy Malu left uh Randy moved into that spot but retained the CFO role and we hired a much uh less expensive uh part-time assistant to help him on the finance side we save money there um secondly with the people that we hire we're looking to get um retired individuals that's going to save a lot of money from a pension perspective uh and um is is really going to um uh save the town some money health and health benefits right that's what I meant to say in health benefits um and not pension because I think potentially they could go to a different system so I misspoke there pension okay health benefits we don't have to worry about and that's significant I think Randy what is the cost of health benefits is that something we can mention yeah we're under New Jers we're under the New Jersey state health benefits um I can tell you family coverage is upwards near uh in in 35 36,000 for 2024 yeah so so it's a lot of money um so um lastly what I wanted to say is you know we're looking at two civilian employees a Police director and an assistant to them and what these folks are essentially going to be is a force multiplier if you understand my language on that Force multiplier is someone who makes everyone else around them much more productive um we've had a police department that has just been overly burdened with um uh documentation duties uh evidence duties uh permit duties things that a non-sworn civilian can can offload when our officers want to be out enforcing the law they want to be doing law work they want to be doing detective work they want to be you know out taking care of the public not in an office sitting behind a desk you know worrying about uh where are we going to put this police station how we going to manage the training etc etc um what we're going to wind up happen here having here I think is is a much more motivated and um and and and and uh police police department you know Rank and file that is um you know moving forward in their careers they're they're they're they're getting the training that they need we're creating a succession plan we've got um we we we we've got backup and and and U and redundancy built in where uh you know we're just going to improve our service more than uh you know what we've seen uh we did have an opportunity last week um I think officer in the back we came in and talked to you guys I think you were there right you weren't there but all your buddies were there so um you know I I think it went pretty well um so they they they've seen this report they've shared it it's been to the PBA and um you know that's that I mean it's a really good thing I'm excited because once we get this Mr Mayor once we get this person on board and moving things forward um this committee it will have the trust that someone who knows what they're doing is fixing this building it not fixing building this and that will free us up to work on you know other things like uh you know the the storm water and flooding issues that we have in town so anyway thanks for uh paying attention to me I appreciate it if you want to ask questions during public comment please do Scott thank you I appreciate that so at this point uh we'll do them in order uh so ordinates 53-24 first reading introduction thank you Matt uh salaries and wages ordinance uh committee mon re is going to abstain on the three ordinance uh first readings so I'm looking for a uh motion so move second Megan committee M dorsy yes committee Man Ray will be abstaining uh committee M leza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor Pia yes thank you Megan so ordinance 531 d24 again first reading introduction an ordinance creating the position of director of Public Safety naming the director of Public Safety as the appropriate Authority and supplementing and amending chapter two of the Township Code entitled Administration looking for a motion move second dorsy yes mman R is abstaining comman verza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor Pia yes uh ordinance 532 d24 again first reading introduction and ordinance concerning Township commit committee Liaisons in supplementing and amending chapter two of the Township Code entitled Administration second commit M dorsy yes committee man ray is abstaining committee man bza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes yes mayor Pia yes and I'd like to point out for the public and actually for the township committee the second reading adoption uh hearing is scheduled for February 14th uh Valentine's Day uh so now let's move on to consent agenda are there any Mr Mayor yes there is an exstension um 24-55 thank you Brendan uh any Committee Member would like to pull for further comment or nope everybody good so looking for a motion to p uh well to vote on resolution number 24-44 to 055 zo moved second committee man dorsy yes committe man ray yes commit Manza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor bgia yes uh I'd like to go liaison reports I'll start on my right uh Matt if that's okay yes sir all right um to first of all special well Al Gallow just sent me a message before we had so far this year 22 fire calls I think that was 23 would have been the one just now so basically the fire department's been out 23 times in 25 days this year so they're pretty busy um on January 6th thank you to their Fast Response there was a house fire in Millington it started with some a generator some electrical work the basement in the back of the house caught fire and due to the Fast Response everybody all the family got out of the house they knocked the fire down quickly and the house was saved the people were saved so great job by our fire companies our Rescue Squad and then also our uh brother and sister for uh fire companies that came in Li Lions to the VA Hospital Liberty Corner Berkeley Heights Warren and chadam thank all of you for coming out and helping out everybody did a great job um and from the police Le on report and detective nney if I don't say this he's going to be very upset he's he is the brain child his brainchild and baby the PBA 5K and 10 Mile Run February 10th uh keep get your stockings on it's uh it's superhero racing if you want to sign up uh they'll accept you can even sign up the day of correct detective yes but please sign up in advance so they can get a shirt and everything else it's what time is it start not yet 9:00 a.m. Millington Station Cafe everybody knows where that is so if you want to sign up go to superhero racing just Google it or superher racing.com please sign up and enjoy it um next we have the DPW report um I just want to remind everybody Facebook is not the place to go if there's a pothole this is ridiculous we don't know about it we don't have people monitoring Facebook all day there is a specific thing on the town website to report a pothole I saw the pothole after somebody told me about on Facebook I drove our by Lombardo Farms it's pretty big but please the proper channel is to notify the DPW there's a link on the website or email the DPW we can't fix we don't know about so along that sentiment they have been fixing potholes I'm sure that one the granddaddy of the potholes according to Facebook will be fixed momentarily or shortly if it hasn't been already correct yeah and director G is nodding his head they're already on it but we can only fix what we know about and Facebook is not the place to go to report stuff like that just is not the place to go to report crime or any other issues you have a problem email or call here and it'll get taken care of um the DPW is also clearing as we discussed earlier drainage ditches and they're doing the clean the ditches on White Bridge Road and Pleasant Plains Road which are open ditches uh it's constantly trimming and removing dead trees uh and we got the much anticipated 2023 recycling report which I always look forward to seeing um some really impressive numbers so thank you everybody in the community for embracing all our recycling programs styrofoam last year 13,572 point8 pounds of Styrofoam was recycled and thanks to our new machine it was uh processed down it was they'll be repurposed into uh frames and molding and things of that nature so it's been a great program keep it coming and reminder you don't have to drop it off the DPW there's a collection bin right outside the library that's accessible 247 there's been fourth there were 4,000 cubic yards of brush and trees that were brought down there to be repurposed the aluminum can program that they partner with Sterling Fire Company um they collected 1.5 tons of aluminum and that turned when they went to recycle it it turned into for $1,433 which the fire company then donated to the St barnab Burn Unit so there's a lot of good feelings about this recycling uh uh 1,617 lbs of used cooking oil so the grease and things like that dumped in there again again it's repurposed and recycled 51 cubic yards of grass clipping 185 cubic yards of leaves electronics recycling this is a big one actually somebody at my office was asking if our town did it and I think they brought a television or two over um computers televisions printers and fax machine type stuff 17.8 tons of uh that's a lot of uh electronics and there were non-covered Electronics which are D DVD players and VCRs for those who still have them 5.6 tons ENT bulbs 561 lbs of fluorescent bulbs two tons of car batteries 17 30 yard containers a single stream recyclables which was 28 tons so the stuff that people didn't put out to get recycled they brought down to the DPW it's additional 28 tons we took out of this uh garbage dream 500 gallons of motor oil which I think was last year we bought a conversion system so the you the motor oil is repurposed and used to heat one of the garages so that's it's used again so it's that's great it saves the town money on uh gas bills food compost 600 gallons of food compost again more it's repurposed and recycle and use for fertilizer whatever else they use it for so far this year uh 628 Christmas trees have been picked up the last day to do that leave it on the curb is January 31st so please put them out by January 31st they'll be picked up as the gentleman drive by and taken down and made in a mulch and finally 200 lb of plastic bags which is pretty impressive consider there's other drop off sites around town such as shop right in other stores so thank the DPW and most importantly all our residents for embracing our programs and I'm sure we if as ideas come up we're going to roll out some new ones we're trying to be creative as we can so thank you everybody thank you Mr Mayor Matt that is a great uh great report I feel sorry if a Scot is going to follow uh I I want to point out that um Chief Al Gallow uh Sterling Fire Chief and also our uh DPW director and the DPW department does an incredibly uh great job uh they're always there uh real life example just a few days ago there was an icing issue uh on Myersville Road that was pointed out to me by a resident I called Al uh hopefully it's not has nothing to do with me being on a Township committee it was a public safety issue and and and your team went out there and addressed it uh within 30 minutes so please what uh committeeman dorsy pointed out if you see a pothole it is impossible for us to monitor all the roads just report it Al's team will get out there I promise you Scott well after that report from Matt I can only quote Roberto Duran no [Laughter] Moss Victor all right you're coming coming the rec liaison report is as follows let's go to slides one through four all right January 14th was National Dress Your Pet Up day we all know how important our pets are in our lives and we had eight families who went above and beyond to share with us photos of their pets and their best attire on the fourth slide we see the winners the oadus hats Peppe dog and hub Schmid lizard look at the lizard just before just before the meeting tonight Recreation held its snowman Bingo program where five families played five games of virtual bingo with us and rumor has it it was chilling get it all right move on tonight I don't write this stuff stick to the script slide number five time is running out to register for the babysitting training class make sure to register on community pass for this Sunday's babysitting training class by tomorrow class is open to students in grade 6 through 12 the cost is $119 for a full day course moving on come take the Red Cross training for adults and pediatric First Aid on Tuesday January 30th from 6:00 p.m. through 900 p.m. upon completion of the class participants will receive a certificate good for two years they say that 80% of what you learn in this class will be used on someone you know or love because that's who you all spend time with register on community pass by Sunday the cost is only $32 per participant for age 30 13 and up come relax and join us for Ceramics with Cara at the old Millington Schoolhouse on February 1st all participants will make a ceramic snowman cookie jar a light up snowman or a light up snowflake the cost is $45 and includes everything needed come out and find out how relaxing it can be to paint ceramic pieces and share some conversation register on community pass by January 31st or before the class fills okay we dare you to have snowballs of fun and enter our snow sculpture contest contest is free to all L Hill residents when life gives you snow make snow sculptures all right enter your enter your creation on community pass by March 15th slide nine our yoga programming with Aubrey rard Eline continues with another six week program at the old Millington Schoolhouse beginning February 12th six sessions Monday mornings for $60 register on community pass by February 9th and finally anyone wishing to have a band considered for this year's summer concert series please follow the instructions on the homepage of the recreation website and submit your proposal ASAP the rec advisory committee will be meeting again on February 19th to start whittling down the list and uh get to this year's lineup so if you have any suggestions Now's the Time to let us know stones oh yeah for sure I think kiss is going to perform not in makeup jez but anyway and that concludes my liaison report thank you Brandon well thank you Mr Mayor have to follow this and I have to also follow mat um I don't have any anything specific other than to say you know just a little bit of a follow up on Matt's uh report on the fire on on the fire companies uh a thanks to PD on that January 6th because they actually guided Us in we pretty much knew what we were in for H thanks to thanks to PD being there as quick as they were and guiding Us in and there was know the there was actually was there was one other uh structure fire that that came in a couple days later so we were we were really on a on a on a role it came in as a structured fire but it was halfast 3 in the morning but uh you know thanks to uh the VA uh Sterling and Millington had a had a big turn out even at that time and uh you know it it it it ended up uh the fire was tackled and we all everybody went home in the house was still standing so uh it's a it's you know really is a is a I can't say enough about um the services that we have here from fire to police and EMS and the way we all work together so thank you to everybody thank you Brendon and that's exactly right I I don't know if if the community I know they appreciate it but really knows what goes into it the police department uh the offices there are are top notot uh our first aid our fire companies our OEM our C uh what they do for the community uh is immeasurable and so thank you to all and now I go to the administrator report I just have one thing uh again to add to Matt's report um Public Works did was out this early earlier this week uh patching potholes uh I believe they did three tons of patch uh yeah yesterday or was it yesterday um and they have cold patch also um for people that don't know the difference cold patches is if you will just a a quick fix it's not meant to be permanent because with and and again I can't emphasize enough to please use the website for po repairs because when you when you do a complaint on that website it goes to an email address that gets to public works so they will they will know about it unfortunately we don't have the luxury to have a crew driving around town uh every day eight eight hours a day just patching potholes so we we do them uh when we get a bunch and we can get some uh hot maadam and this time of year keep in mind also that with the with the weather and the freezing and and thawing and 40° weather tomorrow then uh 10° weather on on Tuesday it's very difficult uh and and takes a toll on the roads especially when there's water getting in between cracks and so forth so please keep us posted as Matt said uh we don't look at the social media that people post on Facebook and everything you know if if you want you could even give a town hall a call uh but you know go on I know a lot of people notice these things on the way home and and you know in the middle of the night if you have nothing to do when you get up and and grab that sandwich out of the refrigerator like I do send us an email you know you you have time while you're eating so send them me send us an email and we'll get to it uh the other thing I have is about the HR training which we'll discuss at the next discussion discussion items yeah and and so I shy away from ever mentioning an individual employee or person but I'm going to do it tonight Al gal uh besides being the the chief of the Sterling fire company and the DPW director he attends every one of these Township committee meetings he is not required to do so he does so I I'm presuming if we a question were to come up you'd be able to answer that question uh I I I hate to point that out you look tired uh you probably are tired the weather and and and all the calls you go on so uh on on behalf of the township committee thank you all right so let's go to the uh discussion item right to what Randy was talking about there's an HR uh training are you going to uh provide that update or yeah I'll provide the update uh we've been looking at the What's called the municipal access liability which is called the Mel uh the the reason we're looking at at this group of people they are a portion of our uh the excess insurer for a joint Insurance Fund they have a very good Training Program uh with with all target areas of public employees but specifically they have a great training for governing body members and volunteers that go in the two seminars um next in the two weeks we'll have the reorganization for the board of adjustment last night was planning board correct with the reorganization so unfortunately the first meeting got cancelled so uh right after that reorganization what we wanted do is is um have an education for the committee and chairpersons and uh assistant chairpersons for each of those boards uh because they are very busy boards and and inter uh we have relations with the public and interact with the public um you know one of the things that this this system does is they have a learning management system that we plug in the information for everybody that's supposed to be taking these courses and it will give us a weekly update of who has taken the classes all these class these classes are online and who still needs to take the classes so uh you we're going to explore this uh system also for additional training to uh the employees also so um I'm excited with this uh mechanism that the the Mel offers and looking forward to it is that it that's it thank you Randy so the next one on your agenda is open space committee we're going to uh table that until the next meeting uh we're working on it we're trying to figure out exactly how we want to work this uh Scott and I have been discussing it um but we we're going to push it to the Feb 14th meeting I believe I do what Megan tells me to do microphone microphone say what talk into the mic all right talk into the mic all right we're going to table that to February 14th that's the open space committee uh now we're going to have a a discussion on special events food trucks um that has come up in the past a few times and we're we're trying to balance uh how it would be fair uh to the businesses in town um I don't know if how how do you want to start off this conversation maybe Randy can give us an overview real quick or Jack on on what the rules are around the the ordinances okay I'll defer to Jack okay yeah I I think tonight we need to decide what you want to do about food trucks they're becoming more popular and Megan gets more requests for food trucks and we really have nothing on the books right now so all we've been doing up until this point is allowing one food truck in front of the brewery uh and they only have to get permits from health and construction or fire I should say uh so we really need some direction some towns totally ban food trucks but for the reasons you stated mayor because you know it's their effect on restaurants in town you know that have overheat costs that food trucks may not have uh some regulate the number the time the number of times they can appear some allow them only at special events uh so if you give a some direction you know then I can have a draft ordinance uh ready for discussion at the next meeting you know I don't think we should introduce it I think we should discuss it you know at length before we actually reach introdu and as part of that we also need to update our special event ordinance and if you allow food trucks at special events you know the two are intertwined so that's that's where we're going tonight so I want to ask Jack one question then Scott you go so what we want to do is have two separate paths one is for special events and one is food trucks on an ongoing basis correct correct but as I said they're related because you may just you may decide and I'm not suggesting this that food trucks are only allowed at special events you know as opposed to you know just any day of the year yeah thank you Jack Scott yeah and just you know Jack I think you know because I know we have some folks in the audience here from oakflower I think what you meant to say was the uh the liquor store Sterling liquor was where they had that recurring Lobster Lobster there's um been two food trucks one has been visiting the liquor store cousins main food Lobster um and then there's been various food trucks that have been going in front of Oak flour okay right we think we had several there that's to what I was referring so the question I have is um the process that we have to get approval to do that um what is it say I own a we don't really we don't really have one so we do it by resolution no if because we don't have the permit process so they're really not prohibited at this point in time right when when I would say beginning of last year we were doing a special event permit if you will for the food truck that was going into the um liquor store parking lot uh for for various uh times of the year not on a regular basis or anything uh then you know uh Megan started getting more and more requests and uh you know we had a discussion uh with the each other and also with with attorney uh pigeon and said you know is is is this really a special event if you're going to have a food truck going to various places in town uh uh serving patrons of a of a particular establishment so you know we had debates back and forth uh healthy debates and we want we we finally determined that a food truck that um shows up to serve some patrons in a business isn't necessarily a special event but they do need to abide by certain State statutes which is obviously Board of Health regulations and and uh fire prevention regulations which they would have inspections so we wanted to bring it back to the township committee because uh as was mentioned there are towns that um are very relaxed with with um regulations with food trucks there are towns that ban food trucks completely there are towns that have uh if you will uh like permit fees for um various uh opportunities of how many times you can go have a food truck and so forth so on so this is what we wanted to bring bring to this Township committee to to have a a healthy conversation and discussion of how we would like to go forward and how you can give us direction to go forward all right so I have a question I think I know the answer but I guess this is a legal question can you spot zone so to speak or spot food truck or is the decision must it be Global I.E the entire town no you could you could only allow them a certain areas but it's not really a zoning regulation so you're not right so okay I'm sorry would it help if I brought samples of different kinds of ordinances to the next meeting so you had a better idea of what other towns are doing I think the towns that are most leval cities like Hoboken you know they they pretty much allow food trucks a lot of suburban towns totally prohibit them some as I say you know regulate them to some extent as to location and number of times right and I guess the direction my of my question is I I think and there's no uh secret here o Oak flow specific to that area it makes perfect sense to me I mean it's a drinking establishment I don't don't I think we like the idea that the patrons would have something to eat while they're there uh there are no food stores or food establishments in the area uh so I mean my own opinion is it makes perfect sense there it may not make as much sense in an area where uh one a place that serves alcohol can serve food and I don't know why the state did what it did but you know it's their it's their uh uh Mand not ours uh or uh a place that where uh food food establishments exist Millington is somewhat unique I mean it it it almost feels as as if um it was something analogous to a site plan for planning board let's say there was a permit or something like that that was location specific hours specific M right and it's an annual permit you apply for it and there's certain things that have to come along with that um and that would take care of it from an approval perspective on a site by- sight basis um you know in instances where an establishment may want to have a food truck and there's a a restaurant right next door that might object you know those are the kind of situations that you know we're trying to balance because we have gotten objections in the past from businesses in town who felt as if um their livelihood would be threaten by a mobile establishment selling food right next to them you know I'm just wondering along the same lines I I think I don't think we could allow the brewery to have a a food truck there at all times in the parking lot I think that would require site plan approv I don't think that was the request to be honest stre in front of that establishment yeah know I I was using that term just like as an analogy you know lower case not upper case but I think you're I think you're on the right track you know I don't in in order to have a food truck on a permanent basis on the property of any kind of business I I think they would need site plan approval for that yep okay sorry goad no just I mean it was just to that that point I wonder how valid the idea is of that you would be taking customers away from a restaurant because because it seems to me that it's like two different kinds of Patron well and I'm not disagreeing with you but that that feedback has come from l so no no yeah I mean I can see why but I you know just like like as I said knee-jerk but once you think about it it's something I I think I'd like to delve into a little bit myself just to just to just to get and the other thing too is is this a discussion that should happen within the confines of the Chamber of Commerce exactly right and agree amongst themselves because that's really where you know the Grievances are aired y but as as a Township committee should we maybe discuss identifying areas or zones throughout town where we we think that maybe a food truck might be appropriate and you know that kind of thing and then I would ER on the side of let's give it a shot and see how it works uh more than you know looking to ban it from the beginning and not give it a shot I mean I there was a situation you know many years ago there was a restaurant and uh two other restaurants moved close by and they were afraid it was going to dig into their business but all three of them were very busy and and the original restaurant was made busier because the other two were there so I don't think you know exactly what's going to happen until you give it a try and if it's a good thing for the uh the new Brewery in town which has been a a vibrant addition to uh to Millington in my opinion from what I can see uh I think that we should probably try to help them and to that point Vic and Jack I can ask you this question during covid we had you know it was a special circumstance but we allowed outdoor dining and stuff like that could we approve something on a uh I don't know if temporary is the word I'm looking for but for a finite period as a trial and then at the conclusion we can revisit it that's essentially what we've been doing is H so yeah I think we could for a short period of time you know not forever um you know going back to Brendan's point I think there is a distinction between a food truck on the side of the highway where where Travelers stop and you know grab a hot dog as opposed to de facto food service for an existing establishment okay and I don't want to put you on the spot I think the folks from oakflower here if you want to come up and and comment feel free if you don't uh because we're not going to make a decision negatively or positively this evening we're going to jack I think you're going to put together some kind of draft ordinance that will uh maybe not even first reading at the next one just something we can r wouldn't have first reading in in fact I would suggest I bring in a number of different ordinances that regulate food trucks in different ways to give us a better idea you know discuss this to three or four meetings before we even introduce an ordinance okay I think it would be great to hear from these guys though if they want I don't want to put you on the spot is there is there anything you would like to bring to our attention how are you we' I I I think your input would be crucial here sorry I didn't mean to put you on the spot but you're here how you doing everybody how are you hello good good thank you Colin McDon AJ ropi from oakflower that was pointed out um just like I guess a quick little bit of background I know guy you know what's going on with everything um the brewery restrictions in New Jersey are have always been pretty aggressive as to what we can and can do um it's really pushed New Jersey kind of to the bottom of the the national Craft brewery list like it's it's been hard to be a prosperous Brewery in the state um given everything they they kind of push down on us uh food being one of them which you know AJ and I have been drinking craft beer for a long enough time that we know the ins and outs of that but we do get a lot of people coming in wondering why we don't have food how we can operate a uh alcohol service establishment without offering food to people and um you know how good of an idea that is obviously you know everyone knows officer back there uh that you know we haven't had any issues everybody's great everybody's you know it's more of a community Hub than it is a place where people are overindulging um but with that you know we really always wanted to have some sort of food option for people just out of an abundance of caution and um just to kind of further that sort of communal feeling and um speaking of competition I mean we we've always been very open with the folks at the uh Station Cafe uh trying to avoid stepping on on their toes they've been here we love them they're great to us you know we do our best with them um and so you know we've never tried to have a food truck at the same time as them we're trying to really as we always have be a good you know good neighbor a good part of the community um and so more recently a lot of the restrictions on uh breweries have been loosened up uh which now allows us to coordinate with food vendor food vendors so prior to a couple months ago we couldn't even uh speak to food trucks we couldn't coordinate with outside food vendors it was you know we can serve bags of chips uh as people have let us know that's you know uh all we had um but so you know now that we can we really want to make sure we have that kind of full offering for people and um if any of you guys have driven by when we've had a food truck there I mean the the buzz is is excellent um you know people are excited to be there people are excited to have something new um to attorney pigeon over here um I know he mentioned permanent food truck we have no desire to have any sort of permanent uh food truck on the the the premises there it's really just this kind of rotating uh food truck ideally for us it would be Friday nights maybe like a food truck on Friday outside of the times when the uh the cafe is open really trying again not to step on anyone's toes but to just offer another that's interesting that you just mentioned I didn't realize that the rules have changed a little so to Jack's point one of the reasons why towns don't have this in place or have not approved don't have an ordinance in place is because you couldn't right so it's May hard to find anything that's comparable right uh and and and maybe Long Hill could be at the Forefront of this I I would I would love for that to be the case yes absolutely I'm gon to get myself in trouble but what's wrong with having a like a food truck Thursday Friday and Saturday nights after the Millington Cafe closes nothing uh nothing's wrong with that I I I yeah because I I I sense that you're trying to tread lightly but of course you know uh I I don't I don't think anybody has a problem with the idea like you know let's let's have a discussion let's maybe get some input from people who live in that in in that area and see what we could do to continue the buzz there and make it a fun a fun spot yeah great spot but do we can't to you know to to uh have it continue and get even busier all all I've heard from uh residents are positive comments so you should know that you probably do know that already thank you uh but uh I have not heard one negative uh word so again I I live in town I live half a mile away from the brewery so just for me even if I'm not working you know at night just driving by and and seeing the lights on and seeing people outside just outside of whatever's going on with the business makes me happy to see that kind of vibrancy um in town that when we moved in wasn't really there before um I've seen it on a Saturday afternoon yeah yep that's it's awesome God bless you yes so thanks for doing business in town of course thank you and thank you for your patient staying all night of course thank you thank you you know I think that was very helpful uh I think based on that I could draft a an ordinance you know a rough ordinance for discussion next time uh you know and we can go from there that sounds great thank you Jack look forward to the discussion okay uh old new business well first I'll ask the committee any old new for some reason I don't know uh how Mr Groff got here but he's he's been here all night did you want to come to the mic oh oh he doesn't know that he doesn't know that all right it's blind uh I the newsletter the newsletter which I uh committed to in all right come on Megan I I made it almost all the way to the end uh which we I committed to beginning obviously we weren't going to get it done for q1 so Q2 is what we're uh targeting uh Tom now I know why your name's there I volunteered for you to work with me uh you know and structuring something usual the usual in fact in fact for your patience we'll double it all right uh so that's the only thing I would put there uh no other so announcements uh of uh a veter veteran who lives in town uh and and a neighbor and a dear friend of mine pointed out that uh it would be a nice idea if the town had a some sort of a a small tax deduction for veterans and in fact we already do um it's a $250 veteran tax deduction and it is on the township website but Township website could be a little bit uh cumbersome has uh Tom pointed out to me just earlier if if you will May let me add to that um not only uh this $250 deduction is is a state program uh we also have a senior citizen uh deduction of $250 a disabled person's deduction of $250 the state also has programs uh for a tax exemption for a completely disabled veteran who got disabled during um time of conflict uh and we also have um the property tax reimbursement program now nobody knows what that is so I'm going to label it as everybody knows what it is the senior citizen freeze act um all all of these tax deductions are on our website under the tax assessor and tax collector uh departments they are also under the division of uh taxation in the state of New Jersey under tax uh rebates and uh deductions so you know feel free uh to come in and talk to the tax collector she's full-time her name's Maryann Amano uh she's helped many people fill out the applications um so if you have any questions whether you're you uh are qualified for the um veterans deduction or senior deduction uh please give her a call or stop in when you're paying your taxes and and get some information on it I'd like to make one point too Randy that's a good summary all of these deductions are pursu to state law we can't at the local level you know increase the deduction or change the deduction or add additional deduction it's all state law but what we can do is is is is make sure the residents of long hill know about it right and and one one side note as $250 doesn't sound like much I don't want people going to the tax collector and saying you know increase it we can't it's totally uh regulated by state law right the these are State programs and I I will say add this uh attorney p I started uh doing some work here in in local government um in a year or sometime ago in 1985 the there's a limit of $10,000 income for a senior citizen deduction that income has not changed since 1985 so and again that's State regulated uh I think it's I think I I don't know how anybody lives in the state of New Jersey with an income of $10,000 but again wor about tax deductions if you make under 10,000 yeah we I mean we will be more than happy to help you answer any questions and so forth so stop it and see the tax collector thank you Randy uh one thing the we had them for a brief period and and they kind of disappeared but I want to point out that we support Long Hill Police uh lawn signs you can pick those up at the police station they provide them free of charge they of course accept donations for the PBA uh I would strongly encourage folks who are so inclined to do so uh we've had a sign on our lawn uh since the middle of 2020 sadly the Windstorm the other day somehow I guess it was very cold split the sign in two uh I reached out and uh uh and Sergeant kroer delivered one to my uh door actually planted it on my lawn so uh thank you uh and if if if you're so inclined I would encourage you to do so on a more somber note uh last announcement to what's that I I got an announcement to before you go on your somber announcement um venison dinner more flannel than LL Bean Saturday March 9th 6 o'clock Sterling Firehouse it's a great event the food is outstanding and I think they they prepare all the food themselves correct Al so local chefs and it's a great fund riser for the fire department and it's packed so get your tickets early you can contact stering fire department or any member of the department I'm sure they all have tickets on hand to sell you thank you so unlike March 9th 6 p.m. Sterling fire un unlike Vic do you write your own material so the flannel LL Bean was that all yours I have writers but you have writers they on strike for a while but they're back now okay there you go uh January 27th is International Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust just a brief description uh this is done internationally commemorates the victims of the Holocaust which resulted in the genocide of one-third of the Jewish people along with countless members of other minorities by Nazi Germany between 33 and 45 um and there's a bunch of things so uh please keep that in mind it's it's something that we uh when it's out of you know out of our memories we we we don't think of it so uh keep uh keep everybody uh in your prayers and now I'd like to open up the meeting to the public public remarks statements and questions if you have them try to limit them to 3 minutes I will say this at just one word of caution uh it's not a debate we're not going to debate you if you have a series of questions please ask them up front we will write those questions down if we have the expertise to respond to them here we will if we do not I would ask Megan or Randy uh to have the uh say it's an engineering question I'd rather us not make up an answer on the spot we will speak with our engineer uh and and get back to the resident and you know whether they're here or in the evening so please state your name and address please good evening Charles with Millington first of all I'm very disappointed tonight after one year of having the capability with the prior mayor to comment on the first reading that it was denied tonight and I think it's beneficial to do that at the first reading because it gives you time to think about our comments from the public but again that was denied tonight and maybe that will be reinstated like I said I'm having trouble adjusting to that after the prior year the comment about the Liaisons does that mean DPW uh police department Community Services after this resolutions gets approved we won't hear them after the 20 the 14th of um February let me with my time minut let me go on to the easy questions then we'll hit the difficult ones resolution 2449 appointment of the township administrator comment one there was no mention of compensation or whether or not the administrator is an employee member of the consulting company or independent contractor question one what is the compensation and status of the township administrator question two the township administrator served as the Longhill Township qualified purching agent in the past will he serve as that qualified purchasing agent if not why not liaison ordinance 532-2425 B comment two I recomend adding to the same paragraph 2-2. 4B liaison will attend all board commission or committee meetings comment three these recommended changes will provide documents for the township committee agendas to include written Leon reports like Warren Township has been doing the past two years these changes will provide the residents the ability ility to read in advance the liaison reports and follow for greater communication with the residents of Longo Township comment four to refresh everyone's memory regarding the MRI report then mayor dorsy and then Township administrator Nancy mahul discussed the draft Mr report on the morning of October 6 26 2022 with MRI these changes were made by MRI and the report was transmitted to then mayor dorsy in an email from Shan Kelly director of police services MRI on November 1st 2022 at 75941 a.m. therefore Longo Township received the anary report in November not October the tough questions ordinance 53224 position of Public Safety comment one I could not find near any nearby town Berkeley Heights Warren watchong towns that lill likes to follow has a director of Public Safety I did find one in nework for 112,000 one in Jersey City for 124,000 one in Patterson for 127,000 in smaller towns the mayor or the township Committee Member serves that role comment two reading tonight's agenda it appears that Long Hill Township Police Department will have six layers a vertical management structure we'll have a director of Public Safety a chief a captain two lieutenants sergeants Patrol offic and detectives these excessive layers of management can lead to inflated salary budgets slow decision making a slow pace of innovation and change decreasing productivity and staff turnover question one would you please wrap it up you're yeah how are you planning on funding these two new exe expensive positions question two with the revised agenda on the 23rd why were the fire departments Rescue Squad and OEM deleted from the Public Safety Director's duties thank you look up for your responses well first I just I just want to make comments we don't have to respond to if you don't want to you can questions I want question answers the questions uh well I'll start with an easy one Warren uh with all due respect to Warren I have a lot of friends there and I have friends on the on on the uh uh the committee there I don't aspire to be Warren I aspire to be Long Hill Township so we'll scratch that one uh the liaison reports I believe for the uh the Departments you're referring to if need be we would let the administrator include that in the administrator's Report with police or uh going forward I I DPW and community service will be given by Randy yep that's what I figured we would would say uh the qpa I'm going to let uh Randy handle and I think most of the rest I'd like to answer that last let's go the the the compensation and is he a employee a consultant or that that I'll turn over to Scott if you don't mind no let's go through the questions I asked please okay let me let me deal with the last question you asked um which was um uh fire first aid Etc why was that taken out that was just boilerplate that snuck its way into um the uh the resolution it wasn't supposed to be there the intent of this is uh that this role will help coordinate and facilitate those other departments but they're volunteer departments they don't they don't answer to a public safety director now again you know um I personally spoke to Joe Hubert our our our OEM director he's thrilled with this position it's it's something that um that has been recognized that that we need in terms of um coordination um and and over time um while initially this person will be focused solely on the police department over time we expect that it can grow into something where uh it brings all these different uh agencies uh together not in an organizational chart but as a central point contact and facilitation so and not operational yeah and not operational the first aid needs to do what they do fire needs to do what they do uh we understand there's a lot of danst steps involved in terms of communication and and and and everything and DPW too right I mean dpw's got to be in in the in the loop as well so um let me answer that in terms of um I think you asked some questions about um other towns like I like I said no this is Long Hill we have some specific needs I laid out one specific example in Harding just so happens one person is in the two roles and very similar to like Randy is here one person is two roles administrator and CFO we have a need for this and we're going to get the right person in place we have a lot of decisions that we have to make and these decisions are not anything that anyone here in the Administration has the subject matter expertise to do we had choice we can go out and hire expensive Consultants one right after another or we can hire somebody full-time in here to help us lead us through the through through the woods on this one and that's what we decided to do uh in terms of being able to afford this I think this committee has done a phenomenal job and I will say that this committee has done a phenomenal mark my words phenomenal job managing the the finances of this town over the last few years so um I'm very comfortable with what we're spending on this I'm very comfortable with the plan that we have have this is not something that was thought up overnight this has been a collaborative process uh with with with Bob ferano and I'm thrilled that we're moving forward and can get on to some other things any other questions that we missed actually uh Warren is being run by the prosecutor's office right now Berkeley heights' Chief is on administrative leave for reasons I don't know and they might be run by Union County prosecutor's office and watchong just hired a new Chief in the last few months other questions that I ask you could answer please which ones the administrator ones maybe Randy could ask yeah the administrator as you are aware uh Supple Clooney was appointed at the reorganization meeting uh for a contract for administration and CFO um as far as CFO I guess you could classify me as a consultant and an employee uh because I do get a a small stien from uh Long Hill Township to be the CF um and our firm does the work for administration and finance uh at um I know it's a 2% increase over last year um I'm not sure of the total about I think it's like around 240 last year was 20,000 a month 244 244 this year okay um as far as a qpa uh we have a part-time qpa uh on on board um so so there's there's no reason for me to be the qpa 244 800 244 800 is cont sorry 244 800 correct okay um the qpa is who Nancy Mal she got raised uh nobody got raises this year yet thank you for your time thank you thanks CH we know each other well but Joe farino 23 Chestnut Street back to um Nancy Malo replacing her with Mr bar was supposed to be he took over nany's position and if he didn't have that um purchasing agent qualification was that qualified purchasing agent the alphabet soup right qualified purchasing agent if he didn't have that why did the township seek to employ him and then keep Nancy Malo I mean you told me about your due diligence and you're very proud of the work you do and the money you save us but that's like me hiring somebody to do a job that they're not qualified for and have to hire somebody else to do the job why isn't Mr bar a qpa certified agent it's very common for towns to have separate uh can I answer that yeah yes yes I would appreciate that I am so why do we need ncy it's a separate position clear as Temple but didn't she do it when she held your position she was also the Town Administrator and a qualifi Sten for the qpa but she did do both I did both as a certified finance officer in qpa then why do we have Nancy still on the payroll because I resigned as a qpa and Nancy was also a qualified qpa and they they uh offered her the position it doesn't cost anything extra we would have to give Randy if he was the Q a SN and here's my concern coming from where I come from government just continues to grow government so now we have an position then we have a substitute for the position then we have an assistant to the substitute for the position and when does it end you know supposedly we were going to save money how do we keep on continuing growing the size of the people that are employed Ed by this town and consider that a savings that's some math I don't understand I didn't go to college I don't understand that whole kesian math system you keep spending money but we're saving money and again so I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer but I do know the difference between Shinola and the alternative so Joe I'll get I'll give you a little perspective you're a little smarter than you pretend to be about 30 years ago the municipal portion of the budget here in Long Hill Township was 29% 29% % of every tax dollar that was collected today it's about 23 24% let's put that in today's dollars 5% of the tax levy which I believe is about $48 million 5% less 5% less today than it was 30 years ago that means the municipal budget is about $2.5 million less today in real dollars inflation adjusted than it was 30 years ago that is a fact I cannot speak to what the school budgets uh are back then it was 55% of the property tax dollar today it's near 64% there must be reasons for it State mandates etc etc I don't know the reason but what I what I can speak to is what these folks do and I agree with Scott lavender over the last 13 years uh not just this committee the Committees that came before us as well 1 and a half% per year for 13 years that is incredible especially in the context of only n what do I say only 9% of the rate of the uh of the tax dollar that we collect comes from businesses ratables to put that in perspective chadam is 20% forign park is near 40% so 91% of our property tax dollar is funded by residents and yet still we have kept it at 1 and a half% per year well below to State mandate so to Scott's point I am very proud of what we have done from a financial perspective and that's put us in a position where we can invest for the future and investing for the future is spending wiser in the future you you spoke about the percentages Ju Just appease me for a moment 5% of half a million is a lot less than 5% of 250,000 correct no a lot more in other words as the township grows and the people pay taxes oh we only went up percent okay so you went one up 1% and how much did the revenue grow so you still got 1% but the the amount of people paying into this big pot of gold has grown because you got more buildings how could you put up four new houses on Delaware Avenue which happens to be very Primo location and and I'm not counting anybody's money but those houses over there one of them doesn't even belong in this neighborhood that that that house is astronomical but as you keep on building and the tax revenue comes in more we only spent 1% yeah 1% of the $250,000 more you received in tax money the other thing was you mentioned that MRI report when that report came out and I read the beginning of it it sounds like Ma's recipe for a communist country where we have to worry about how many people in town of this nationality how many people are of that color that that is that report could have been well used in in in the bathroom as far as I'm concerned okay thank you very much thank you Joe thank you always ENT Danny I appreciate it uh Karen Nyquist and I live in Millington and I'm here as a private citizen okay uh couple of disjointed comments number one in your Le liaison reports there are a lot of groups that you didn't report on and to be I guess open with the public you should be reporting on them for instance like your Lea's on to the Board of Ed and tell what's going on on the board of ed so not more than just the wreck and the the well the the two or three things that you mentioned you have a whole lot of other groups that you Lea's on with um with respect to like I said there's some information that came out when uh Mr lavender was speaking about the position and I looked over the responsibilities uh and I have to say that 90% of those responsibilities I would see as the responsibility of the chief of police I think you you should be very proud of the money that you saved but that doesn't mean that you have to just spend it and administratively speaking you're tophe heavy I mean in in a a perspective from the outside I and you were saying the the uh that they have this knowledge and the experience or whatever now somehow prior to this of course you took out everybody else our Police Department did a really good job now somehow too you figured out how to hire or promote uh very responsible police Chiefs like Mr ferano and yet you say you don't have the expertise to do that and maybe you don't but you know there's County resources and there's State resources so that you don't have to hire somebody to do that you also can use those resources to help you decide or architect or engineer a police station you don't have to have somebody hire somebody just for that onetime job and to have an administrative assistant if they have all that paperwork in the police department have somebody report to the chief of police that can help with that you don't need somebody over the chief of police that's reporting to somebody over the it it's it's very topheavy I find it um actually I find it useless and as I said those responsibilities should be with our police chief that's it they've did it before if you look at them they were doing it before and they could continue doing it thank you thank you hi good evening Valerie novales 103 lacana Gillette I want to thank you for your comments I'm really going to Echo a lot of what she said because that was the most rational thing I've heard here tonight I'm here speaking entirely From aay perspective I don't know anything about the police I don't know anything about running a town however I'm extremely concerned with one how and on what the town is spending our tax dollars and secondly the relationship between this Township as represented by the town committee and the police department without getting into it what happened with our last chief of excuse me the chief of police was a complete travesty the fact that our Police Department is now being run by anyone other than a police a chief of police is problematic just because we made a mistake then doesn't mean that we should continue to bloat the system we had one position a chief of police now we're trying to put another party on top of that with an executive assistant and we're kicking the can down the road as it uh relates to appointing a new chief of police if we're going to talk about leadership we have commended the police department correctly I completely agree on their excellent work in this town if they're doing an excellent job how can you possibly presume that anyone has better subject matter expertise than a police officer to run a police department this is insanity we don't need extra Consultants we don't need to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on top of a chief of police to do that job I completely agree with my neighbor from Millington this is not a one-time spend this is up to 335,000 extra dollars a year in perpetuity that's irresponsible I have not seen where the Mandate is why is this necessary why is that position whether it is filled by a retiree or otherwise why is it necessary why can the chief of police not do this job which previously was done by him or her why is an executive assistant needed I I don't understand that wasn't there before that's in a very expensive position based on the dollar signs that were put in The Proposal it seems to me like this is illicit and this is about control and that's extremely problematic the responsibilities that are going to go to this perspect Ive position it sure seems to me again as a lay person that we are cherry-picking responsibilities and we are cherry-picking a department to control coming over the top to change the organizational structure of our Police Department what's next are we going to do it to the fire are we going to do it to first aid and rescue where does this end in terms of questions I'd like to know firstly most importantly where does our Police Department stand on this issue have they been pulled are they in support of this Perpetual oversight my second question what about fire rescue and other departments because Surly they are next the other towns that have been mentioned which are in no way reflective of our town you cannot compare us to Jersey City or Patterson or some of these other towns that have this position we're not the same at all we're tinier we have a different composition we have different needs but even in those cities one the position makes a lot less a year it's a much smaller expenditure and it is responsible for multiple departments doesn't add up secondly communication where is the direct reporting and the dotted line reporting are the other departments going to be liasing with this new supervisor are they going to allas with the police department who do you call that's complicated that needs to be explained secondly and this is a smaller point you talked about the onerous nature of documentation are you suggesting that this new person who's going to make up to 235,000 a year is going to do the corporate housekeeping for the police department sure doesn't seem like it certainly not at that uh rate per hour thank you Valerie I'll respond to you um so I would suggest when the report comes out that you read it I would love to and um you know please under excuse me excuse me I'm not done please make it public we'd love to see it I think I said already that it was going to be public two months if it had been ready in advance of this meeting we would have read it okay have a seat and I'll respond thank you two months have a seat and I'll respond thank you I'm not going to debate you I'm not looking to debate you are looking to debate me now I explained everything about this the document will be public this week I suggest you read it but I would also like to challenge you this document was an independent analysis of a former police chief of this town who has has over 40 years of experience in law enforcement he knows much more than I do on this subject he knows much more than you do and any insinuations about control if anything this Township committee is seeding appropriate Authority from here where a department could be controlled to a person who reports to the gentleman who who runs our town now this will be clear a little bit later in the season one uh presentation we are going to do so the people understand exactly how does a Township committee work what is the reporting structure who runs the town what's the duty of this board here this board is a board of directors and we're here for oversight we're here to help guide this gentleman makes hiring decisions we approve or disapprove of those hiring decisions and we're going to have that same role in the department and as I mentioned Harding has two roles like that as well it just so happens they sit within the same person right so you know before you jump to conclusions I would urge you read the report it's 60 Pages it'll be out tomorrow should have had it before this meeting well no we didn't two months you had it we follow our legal uh our our legal attorney's advice let's hear what he says oh go ahead Jack well I would suggest this it was just accepted tonight reviewed and accepted by the attenion committee that was done tonight and the report is being released immediately thereafter there you go and we have all these all these tonight we have nothing to common we haven't read the report thank you the ordinances were introduced tonight the public hearing is at the next meeting so you'll have the opportunity to come in then we get the report tonight so so sorry I I Randy was speaking and Jack was speaking but the gist of it is it could not be released I'm sorry I didn't know could not be released to the public until it was accepted as it has been accepted this this evening so you will have it for forth forth with forth with uh and I would point out uh I think there were comments made on social media over over the last couple of months uh maybe even this evening about possible redactions the report is almost entirely as it was written independently by the person we hired the former police chief in this town so you will have it essentially without redaction read it come to the next meeting with your comments or questions February 14 February 14th Bingo see you thank you for coming if I may just point out we redacted after I consulted with Robert ferano we redacted one sentence forf and security reasons and I think that because mentioned one sentence was redacted yeah I won't even say what it was about one sentence 60 pages I don't know how many lines one sentence so to uh Deputy Mayor lavend this point I understand the concern read the report and then come back thank you all right but thank you for your question meeting still open to the public could I oh here comes Mr gr well no you could State your own name and address please Jack Smith no Tom Gruff Gillette good evening it's a little chilly in here can we have some heat anyway trying to save some money in the budget we need it I won't go there anyway uh I would like to say thank you to Al Gallow and his team uh going to the point of how Al reacts so quickly on Monday afternoon after they had already closed I sent a notice over to Al there's an ice problem on Milton Avenue which he knows about Tuesday Morning his trucks were out and the ice was gone so Al is very quick to respond is his his group is doing a great job and uh one other thing I'd like to talk about about this town that's a it's a great service that I don't think that we talk about it enough it was talked about I think two or three meetings ago and I used it uh I was recently on vacation and signed up for the vacation awareness to the police I forget what it's called but and you call in on the phone and you give them information um it was actually kind of fun because there I was on the beach in Bermuda sorry yes I was um yeah you could tell my about my tan right and um I Got a notification that they were at my house and I I pulled up my uh my cam my uh cameras at home and there I saw the officer walking around my house checking the doors and it was was very comforting to know that my home was going to still be there um one suggestion is and I don't know if this is legal or not um if they're allowed to be tied together but perhaps it could be on the Township's website either a notice of it or a link to the police department so that you can maybe enter your information this is just a suggestion but may but it could be something on the website that says call the police for the Vaca vacation you know while you're away notice yeah Tom any any suggestions on website matter send those to colad arment can do she's collecting them and do and I understand you're going to be doing a big job on the website this year hopefully Colette is uh got the steering wheel on that and uh things are moving forward crossed okay thank you very much later thank you Tom thank you good evening Frank Leber Heritage Road Millington um just a couple of questions I'll be brief um I wanted to know uh I read an article in the chadam Cur about the uh Southeast moris auto theft task force where all the townships in southern Morris County are working together in real time dealing with the the car breakings the thefts that type of uh stuff and chief Gibbons was interviewed it was actually a very good article which kind of touched upon everything that they're working on to help reduce crime and deal with you know the element that's coming in and you know uh you know uh dealing with the cars and who who is who is the element Frank well the theves okay thank you um you know people with criminal activity is what I'd be referring to um is that something Long Hill is part of that task force because they weren't mentioned in the article I would hope that you know uh you know we're participating that that would be a question for either uh officer chamal or officer mareski okay um when the the safety director is public safety director is eventually hired um will they be a regular at the meeting to kind of ask questions like this if we have a question related to police yeah um undetermined um will they be a regular every meeting don't know will they be coming in periodically I expect so I think it would be good um you know it's something to think about just uh especially for dialogue with the public and you know community policing I think it would just you know for visibility I think it uh would be something that would be good uh for everybody uh a question regarding the part-time engineer um is uh is that just employing um Mark uh personally or is that a firm also like we had Ferrera before is that working in the same capacity or is it just good question it's a good question I'll let we we hired Mark uh as an individual okay uh he he's actually uh left Ferrero engineering uh and went somewhere else uh but we hired him to finish up some of the projects that uh he he was involved in and we and and quite honestly it's going to be cheap cheaper than hiring a consultant engineer and so when you have projects coming up will he be actually doing the drawings or he will have to you know bring in another firm to work with him for when you do plans and no the intent is that he's part-time okay and he's going to be finishing up the projects um that he's been working with oh okay we we did hire van Clea engineering as our bgff to do to do uh engineering work as a consultant firm um we are uh still exploring the idea of of looking at a full-time engineer and doing and we would do a cost evaluation to see uh which way would be the best opportunity uh that we that we could provide to taxpayers all right good and last question I know I had brought it up a few months back um uh regarding uh you know we had talked about uh high water vehicle and I know um Deputy Mayor you said it might be in the report I haven't seen the report yet was that reference that something that we would be possibly uh doing as a list of recommendations in Mr Fan's report that that doesn't ring a bell in there but um don't quote me on that you'll have to look in it okay that's the level of detail that I'm not down to okay yeah and the reason why I brought it up the reason why I'm leading into it is you know with the amount of flooding that we've had recently you know uh you know there was actually a uh both fire departments had responded to someone who' driven their car into a flooded area off of popler on Cedar and with our trucks um you know with the fire trucks you know we can't go in the water with them because all the electronics I mean it's you know very expensive vehicle you know fortunately DPW was available and you know they brought their loader over but um you know maybe this is something I if the public safety director who's going to be coming in can look into this but I really think it would be something that would benefit EMS and the fire departments and police not just one entity but I think for any emergency you know even if the squad you know you have somebody body you know in Cardiac Arrest or something like that getting to a house you know if you really have deep water it's just something I think we should think about you know whether we get a surplus vehicle you know through grants or through military I just think it's something that maybe we should get on the radar you know for something that I think help actually Frank um it is in there I water rescue yeah okay so me a little bit of perspective on this this is a Playbook right and the Playbook will be given to this person to implement they might not Implement all these things in the right order and we we're going to find new things along the way but it informs the path forward it's a map right um and um you know so things are going to come up that we anticipated because things change right well you have to you have to be able to adjust to what the changing environment is so if you have something to go off of that's great at least so you have something to work with going forward but so I answer you a question how rescue vehicle isn't there all right great yeah all right thank you very much Co thank you Frank yeah and thanks to thanks to Frank for bringing that up because actually uh we were together in in Berkeley Heights and they actually have a high water vehicle and that's and uh you know with the weather patterns that we've seen in the last couple of months it might be something with budget season coming up that we would that we would think about I thought you were suggesting we steal it see I that's the Jersey set coming out could have gone hson count yeah that did not to be as true hello gentlemen how are you Hi how are you great my name is Alexis Kelly I'm from Millington um my husband and I moved to town maybe about three years ago from Hudson County from Hoboken Stella proud Hoboken Jersey City my neighbors um I wanted to thank oakflower um for what they're doing for Millington we're so happy was one of the things my husband and I were so excited about um having them in our town so we're really excited about that my question though for you is with this um appointment of the public safety person I'm wondering while I'm looking at other cities we're talking about Jersey City we're talking about Patterson we're talking about Atlantic City these are cities with a huge kind of urban makeup maybe um one could say uh higher crime levels than a place like lill the annual salary for a public uh safety person is in Patterson 127,000 roughly in Jersey City 124,000 roughly in Atlantic City 115,000 roughly and that person also is in charge of all of the other um Services the um the fire department the uh Emergency Management um and if I if I understand correctly the person that you were liking to hire their salary would be over $200,000 with an assistant being paid over $100,000 and they would not be um required to be in charge of all of the other um systems the ma the emergency management system I realized that those are volunteer systems but they would not be in charge of coordinating them so my question to you is where are you coming up with this salary almost double what these other major cities that are far larger than our little Township of lill how are you justifying such a large salary for this one particular person apples and oranges and only thing they have in common is the name um when you get the report please do you want to take me seriously my answer sit down okay well I'm talking talking to you I'm responding to you wouldn't like to talk yeah I wouldn't like to talk to your back okay oh I just I didn't want to be told to sit down so I chose to myself as I said apples and oranges right um when you get the study take a look at it and it goes through the number of miles in the town the demographics the evolution etc etc etc um all the recommendations in there are based upon what the town is and where the town is going now in terms of this role we called it a public safety director because in the future we want to see coordination between all these different volunteer organizations we could have called it anything we could have called it a Police director we could have called it but or a police chief but it's not a police chief because it's a a civilian position okay all right um in terms of where did these salaries come from this is what the market bears for the skills that this person is bringing to the the table right and and look Randy you researched it this is what these positions cost so it is what it is okay are are you are you telling me that Long Hill Township has a crime rate that I am not aware of it's not it's it's look it's Jersey City look I grew up in Bon so I understand Jersey City and Bon my parents worked in Jersey City wonderful all right great place it's it's a totally different situation there they have a much bigger organizations spread across numerous departments their first responder services or all salaried employees I'm sure that the person who's getting paid $120,000 in Jersey City has a far bigger support staff than than this person does all right so what I would encourage you to do is with an open mind read the report and then figure out what you disagree with and let's have the conversation the next time and I would I would only point out about Jersey City since you mentioned that I can't speak to the the towns but Jersey City I'm almost sure that's a political appointment by the mayor reports to the mayor and really is his I I don't I want to say a derogatory word it's just liaison no real operational control is if I remember correctly I would just ask that you continue to keep an open mind and to listen to the citizens who are coming up with their concerns because this is my first time that I've been to one of these meetings and I feel that um I would like to come back but I would like to feel that my concerns are being heard um and actually taken into consideration not just um observed I don't know if that's the correct word well I applaud you for coming I was here at the planning board meeting last night it's amazing sitting up here isn't as intimidating I I was sitting in the back uh row yesterday and listening to folks come up and speak and you I said wow that's pretty that's that's pretty tough so I applaud you for coming I don't think it's an easy thing to do to go get to that mic yes thank you thank you for doing we appreciate your comments and your questions also thank you thank you may I sit down oh I'm sorry I didn't I'm sorry so anybody in in in in the uh I don't want to say courtroom courtroom yeah yeah I guess it is the courtroom if there's nobody else uh Megan online Pamela oens would like to speak hi Pamela that's what I have am I un am I unmuted we can hear you yeah that's very good thank you uh pamel oans Millington uh mayor Pia on January 3D at the meeting you welcomed public input for possible uses for the eal property Everly sorry Everly Everly sorry the ever that's the the 491 Valley Road uh and I wondered if consideration is being given or I'd like consideration to be given if it's possible sure in your plans for a new police department whether it's The Five-Year Plan or the 10year plan I just offer that as a possible since we own that property but by the way I I that may be a great IDE it's I appreciate the suggestion the interesting thing is you were at last night's meeting I and and maybe you were at a meeting a few years back when we talked about buying the Everly property and we brought up the possible uses of a dog puck or a uh community garden and and there was huge objections to that I don't know how that Community would accept a police station that said uh it's certainly uh it's something worthy to to look at it is on the eastern part of town and I you know I'd have to leave it to the experts as Scott has pointed out I don't think there's enough dry dry I'm I'm personally involved in that project with with open space and we're looking for we're working with the engineer to identify what exactly where we could build what prop you know it goes on Wetlands what's transitional what you're allowed to disturb what you're not allowed to disturb it's a complicated piece of property but and that's fair but Pam that's uh that's not to Discount what you're saying it certainly would be in consideration that's fair thank you thank you uh also I just wanted to bring to your attention when govern go Governor Murphy uh relieved some of the restrictions on breweries on January the 16th also in uh that relief to breweries which of course would include Oak flour is that they can now participate in offsite events like Community festivals so when our uh Chamber of Commerce does their uh street fair that might be an opportunity for people to get to know Oak flow Brewery more as well um the I can't see your reactions because my name is on the screen is there a way I you got a you got a thumbs up from everybody I'm actually thinking about my name is up there again I can't see you guys um Megan is there a way to to let me see the uh the committee members and not my name well okay then I'll just proceed with my last Point uh on information that I got from new jersey.com uh the state does have 24 police Chiefs that make over for $200,000 um but when it came to doing the same search for directors of Public Safety uh I could not find one with a salary of over $200,000 uh I did not go through every town but I did look at some towns that uh may be considered may not be comparable to Long Hill Township one was creskill with a population of 9,000 and approximately 22 police officers and on the record with new jersey.com their director of Public Safety makes $180,000 a year in Atlantic City with 305 officers and a population of approximately 40,000 uh the director of Public Safety per new jersey.com makes 16 6,000 67,000 and the last Carl ST which is not that dissimilar from us uh it's approximately 6500 residents with 25 police officers and uh the director of Public Safety there is listed on this resource is $180,000 a year so I I do ask you to just take that under consideration because as prior um uh residents have approached the podium the a salary of $235,000 a year um does seem uh out a line um especially when you're chief of police is is um making less and in again using new jersey.com as a as a resource the police Chiefs at those locations all had a higher salary than their their Public Safety directors um so I just ask for your attention yes I will read the report when it is made available uh and I thank you for your time thank you P thank you you have to you have to understand on those larger departments those larger cities there's so many layers of uh Administration with the police and the gentleman in the back will tell you they might have a chief but they might have three or four captains a bunch of lieutenants Deputy Chiefs countless sergeants they have lieutenants that are working at night they just have so many layers of supervision over there there's a lot less work for the uh public safety director to do because there's that many people that their budgets take a town like a Union City I mean it's much smaller than us or hobok it's a Mile Square as you know the budget for the police department is probably quadrupolar it could be even more than that um but they if you look at their organizational structure they probably have a deputy chief they probably have a bunch of captains a bunch of lieutenants we basically have two lieutenants uh off officer Lieutenant Cham Brill and the officer in charge we have six sergeants right now gentlemen six sergeants what we we we authorized up to nine we authorize up to nine but we have six we have no we have no sergeant and detective Bureau and they have specialized units too they have EMS units they have Sergeant covering this they have different units for everything we don't have that so the ladies and gentlemen our Police Department doing a lot of stuff that these other departments don't have to do because they have so many layers of supervision so there's those are a lot think ours was topheavy it's not even close to what these other departments have and I have friends that work in these departments and I worked with these department so I I understand how it works I think also Matt mentioned U the health benefits themselves you would have to adjust those uh police chief salaries probably add one another 38 to $40,000 Randy in terms of just the health benefits correct right and and that's something that we're going to avoid uh based on our strategy for hiring right but anyway that I I agree so Pam are you good for now I know you'll you'll you'll read I know you you will read that report so thank you I appreciate it I mean I feel I am at a disadvantage not having read the report so uh I will read it and um thank you Matt for your comments that's why I did not um talk about Jersey City and Nork I I did mention Carl St and Crill um towns that are much more uh in line with Long Hill Township but um you chose to bring up some larger cities and I accept your comments Thank you Pam thank you P Megan any other member of the public online sure Dennis can you hear us I can hear you can you hear me uh you better than when you started so continue and I'll let you know if we can hear you I have a comment about the a food truck issue believe it or not it seems like the food truck issue is based around a perceived problem which may not be a problem with a food truck parked in Millington in front of oakflower but we have a much more serious food truck problem throughout the town which also has to be brought into consideration and that is the food trucks that drive around selling food not from a fixed location but from anywhere they happen to want to park now not only do these food trucks show up in residential neighborhoods driving around they also typically have loud music or bells and they're a nuisance and I hope that when you get around to discussing food truck you bring into account these uh Vagabond food trucks that are all over town are these Gypsy food trucks Dennis I sure hope you're not talking about the ice cream trucks they'll be a lot of children in town and I'll give them your address talking about the ice cream trucks I I've never noticed if you food food trucks Dennis seriously where I haven't seen if you attempt to regulate food trucks you're going to have to either include the ice cream trucks or in some way shape or form exclude them and once you start excluding a particular class of trucks where does that end you know Food For Thought Dennis no pun intended that was that was actually pretty good food for thought you get it the the screen trucks are great but I have noticed that they're um like you like like when I'm walking throughout town I do see them you know just randomly stopping get the ice cream again I I I I love them I think they're awesome and I'm in no way way trying to complain about but it brings up a great Point what other food trucks are driving around town only this screen truck is the what one I'm they have a different business model they don't stop you have to order in advance and they come to your house they just don't drive around you can't down oh okay because I have seen them okay so that person that's already in advance they put out an email or text hey not a random stop stop in front of house Dennis if you if you're still hear us you're talking about food trucks that are driving around town correct no I am talking about the ice cream trucks I there is that there are the ice cream party trucks uh which operate clation Matt and they probably also would fall under regulation unless they're excluded and what I'm attempting to do is uh caution you that there are some benign and friendly food truck uh business models that we might want to exclude and if we do then where do we stop excluding them okay well to all the children out there I support the the ice cream truck for the record anybody Dennis you you have anything else no that was it I just want to broaden the scope of your uh ordinance discussion thank you Dennis thank you I think we have one more folk one more person here in person you're you're welcome to the mic thank you hi Emily Bailey I live at 91 lacana in Gillette um I just wanted to bring up as a question um with the hiring of the new Public Safety um person with using the premise of excluding or or looking at retirees to potentially exclude the potential of higher um uh Healthcare benefits as we said does that set up a precedent and maybe this is more to attorney um Partridge um does that set up a precedent of other types of discrimination of who might be able to fill that role in in what sense you're excluding me well I mean I work in healthcare so I understand how much Healthcare benefits can cost but my my concern is how it's phrased that it's being marketed is not the right word but being told to us the public that one of the considerations as a cost-saving measure to justify this position was to um look for those candidates that wouldn't have high of a benefit package as say someone that's still active in the force but somebody that's retired from the force or a civilian that is now a civilian because they're retired from their role as a police officer I I I appreciate your concern on that so um really it has to do with the uh the uh the pool of of of potential applicants for it um it's not near imposs to get an active police officer to leave their pension and take a role like this right and so we' Define this at as as someone who has X number of years of service that we can that we can bring you know almost like so this would be kind of in the job description that is in the report we're all going to read or how I mean I I don't think it's that I don't think it's that granular in in the report I think um the U the job description in the agenda is what I would refer to there but but we're not excluding anyone who meets the qualifications right it's just likely based on the pool of applicants that they would not need health benefits but that's not a uh a criteria for hiring per se I appreciate that clarification because it sounded more like a stipulation yeah let me let me read the ordin the ordinance itself gives a bachelor's degree master's degree preferred from an accredited college or university and public safety administration police science related field a minimum of 10 years experience as a member of a police department or other law enforcement agency 5 years of which shall be in a command level position Captain Deputy Chief or and administ and administrative capacity so you know while while you know everybody's talked about retired uh people um this does say if if uh you need 10 years of experience so if somebody were to leave a law enforcement after 10 years uh which quite honestly being in government as long as I have been I don't see that a as as a probability if if you will um so that's why everybody's been referring to uh a retired person uh in police in in police uh functions because reality is that that that's probably the uh collection of of um applicants that we're going to get okay I I appreciate the clarification um as a lady person I'm not in government as I said I'm in healthcare I've been in healthcare for 20 years so I can appreciate though as a member of the community how it's sounds different than how you just explained it now so I think that's important for the public to hear thank you I appreciate it anybody in the courtroom anybody online anybody on Zoom would like to make a public comment please raise your hand now raising he is can you hear me yes okay so so my question was along the same line so I'm assuming that this job description for the safety officer is going to be published so we can get the best candidate out there SEC the job description is basically within the ordinance that they just introduced tonight yeah I know but but I mean h how we how are we going to solicit candidates is it going to be published like on indeed or one of the social network so that we can ensure that out there to get the best candidate we'll look at a recruitment process meaning what so for instance in the past I think we used a uh an agency to help us find a a candidate we went down this path once before didn't we Randy yeah I mean there's a lot of different um areas of expertise you can go to to to get recommendations and have we started that process already um I have started that process um as an individual um with anticipation of this uh being looked at uh if for some reason uh this ordinance does not get passed I stop the process what if we have uh that we think that we have an interested party that could be qualified as a candidate who do we provide that name to you could talk to me okay perfect thank you thank you thank you Megan uh anyone else at home or here in the courtroom anybody else on Zoom would like to make a public comment ra raise your hand now I don't see anyone mayor with that uh I wish everybody a good evening no no she's SM uh what okay it's getting late so if you wouldn't mind I know you've already commented uh Karen IUS from Millington I just want to say as you spoke and you've been giving information regarding this position and very honestly your lack of deep knowledge of the report the way you responded I have uh don't I don't have confidence that this was a very open discussion and especially I mean things should have been defined like we should know your what is your recruitment process that should have all in part of good governance you provide the information about how you're making decisions to the public so then they can trust the decisions that you make and I have to honestly say uh I'll just speak for myself personally I do not trust that your decision- making with respect to this position and um I think it's very unfortunate that I think that the report was not openly reviewed and I can base that on your comments and Bas that also on your lack of comments and information to us well you have three weeks to read the report so so when you come back you will have read the report no you don't with response with respect to good governance what should have been provided if not the report but at least a high level information in some formal presentation to the public prior to the meeting so that they know the elements of what's going to be covered in the report and they can ask questions then like you said you had to wait for all the details and all the more information you provide the public about your process and what you're doing provides leads to trust in what your decision- making is thank you for your comment I I don't know if Scott would like to respond if he if not no I think we said enough we've covered it all right so looking for a motion oh no Joe what stay tuned no no 14 see you down Valentine's Day baby bring some candy for me looking for a motion so move to adjourn there we go we got Brendan who's second Matt Matt hi have a good evening everyone thank you you I good night everybodyy