##VIDEO ID:xAlkK7CJ-bE## e e e [Music] hide it there good evening everyone and welcome to the December 11th meeting of the lill township committee and we are starting the meeting at 6:30 uh please everyone rise and join me the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy andice for all Megan please kindly read the statement of presiding officer in compliance with the open public meetings Act of New Jersey adequate notice of this meeting specifically the time date and public call and information were included in the meeting that was electronically sent to the eoet N Morris Daily Record and posted on the township website the agenda and public handouts for this meeting can be viewed online at www. Longhill nj.gov a public comment perbly held and the order is listed on the meeting agenda thank you Megan and could you now kindly take roll call committee vendors here committee woman Riker Eline um is going to be uh a little bit late today committee men verza is um going to be late as well Deputy Mayor lavender here mayor pgia present and if for those following at home item number three proclamations presentations we have with us the chair of the historic preservation advisory uh committee Mr Hunt Fred hunt who does remarkable work along with his committee so I think we turn the floor over to you okay thank you uh you should have in front of you a picture or the copy of the 2024 historic site survey he you don't have to you don't have to read it I just but I know it's there okay um we I am from the historic preservation advisory committee and from now on I'll just call it hpac save some time uh one of our in fact the number one responsibility we have in our ordinance is to prepare a survey of historic sites and what we have here is uh and we've been doing this and what we have here is this year's uh update and so we're officially presenting it to you although you do have copies already um and I want to thank Sam Cornish the township historian who did uh a lot of the work on this and what the first thing is what changed from last year well we didn't have any additions we didn't have any deletions but what we did uh have is when we update it we uh we go through U all the sites and and we make some corrections or updates to the descriptions of the various historic sites now the historic sites you know you think of them mostly as houses but all the schools uh the churches um Turtle Rock Park uh they're all the cemetery in Sterling they're all historic sites um one of the things just an example what we updated was um 438 Long Hill Road that's the Old Hickory Tavern if you recall last year it was demolished but before it was demolished we had an historic preservation architect come and examine it because we knew it was a very old building we figured it was probably built in the early 1700s uh but the architect went over it and um determined that number one it was an example of an East Jersey Cottage uh well it's an East the old East Jersey and it's a cottage um but an East Jersey Cottage had certain characteristics about it that's how they could tell what it was and East Jersey Cottages uh they said date back to around they started that style started around 1730 we had always guessed that that was close to the date that Hickory Tavern was built uh but what the uh architect did uh also prove to us by looking at it you know the the layout but mostly the materials used to construct it there were a lot of hand Hune beams wide Wide Plank Floors that the house was definitely built in the 1700s and that is all now Incorporated uh in the uh the site survey even though that building is now in the the last section which is the houses that were torn down the surveys this survey is a uh it's not a new thing it's been around a long time it has multiple sources um some of it came from um Gwen Thomas's book The that was written back in the 60s the uh the history of paic Township but a lot of it is just plain old research done by the Historical Society and hpac also does a lot of research and that all goes into this it is a public document it's on the website anybody can see it um and one of the other things is uh that I want to bring up is if a house particularly we talk about the houses that's what everybody thinks about if a house is on the web site on or in the survey it imposes no obligation or restrictions on the owners they can do whatever they want to those houses including tearing them down um the other question that came up the other day was do we notify the owners whose homes are on the list and the answer is we really have no idea who's who owns the homes generally we don't cross reference the list with the tax records or um real estate transfers or anything um what we what we care about is the building you know owners change the buildings stay um and I think that uh most of the owners of these historic houses pretty much know what they have and probably figure they're on the list hpac also has an historic plaque program that uh people can sign you know they can fill out a form see if their house qualifies and if it does we'll give them a nice uh attractive plaque to put on their houses so so Fred thank you I mean thank you to the hpac members as you uh finally finally called them for the historical society and and you touched upon something that's always a question that comes up when this survey is discussed in public or on on the website this is is not the uh historic registry at either the state or the federal level where there could come with some restrictions this is just a a cool thing this this is local this is but you know it's there's a lot of history in this town um and a lot of historic buildings in this town and it's um and it's something we need to know and and people want to know and we do that yeah and some there is sometimes resistance to even our local plaques because they think that having that on the house will give them some kind of restriction and it's not the case so yeah if few I know just embrace it may yeah we think it's cool so okay thank you hey uh Fred I got a quick question for you sure I just interested that 438 Long Hill Road when you had the architect come in did they find any interesting artifacts not many we did save one which is sitting in my garage right now for one of anything better it's a it's about a 200 pound mantle piece that's all uh uh hand Hune Granite no it's not Gran it's wood wood yeah that's the other question I was going to have what what were the beams made out of I would imagine back then they would have been making these houses with locally sourced beans Y and and the house was built before a sawmill was in town right it's all any Chestnut in there before that went all I remember was looking in the Attic myself and finding that some of the rafters from the attic still had bark on them right okay and the uh the support beams uh to the house were all rather large uh hand hun Timbers interesting so all right just curious thank you thanks thank you for presenting so and and actually Jack we have to pass a uh a resolution uh 24-290 the 2024 yes just accepting the survey fair enough um so if I can have a motion from uh so move second dorsy yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor bgia yes and so item number four on the consent agenda uh I know I have to recuse myself from 24- 292 I don't know if anybody else has I have to abstain from 292 as well 292 okay so Matt that means uh that means I must as well all right and just one one item and uh Fred I don't need to all right I'm in I don't need to abstain according to me yeah plus I think because of the doctrine of necessity we need both your votes so I think you can both vote okay under the doctrine of necessity y yeah I think all three okay so nobody has to abstain from that right M fine and just one clarification or addition 24300 since chair chairperson uh Fred Hunt is in the room we're going to take the recommendation of the hpac um committee and we're going to add meridi Crawford Collins to the hpack to fill an unexpired term meridi thank you for stepping up merited volunteers for other uh groups in town and and she's very interested in historical aspect ects in Long Hill Township so that uh amending appointments to boards and committees it's just that one we Megan yeah we we need to pull 307 until we have four people here because that requires four affirmative votes okay so then here we go I'll take a shot at it uh can I have a motion to approve 24- 291 through 24310 we're going to pull 307 on advice of councel both Matt dorsy and guy pasera can vote on 24 - 292 yes uh so I'm looking for a motion so move wait do we take off 307 yeah we're going to we have four members here all right uh Deputy Mayor lavender yes made the motion I second yep May m dorsy yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor Pia yes and so we're going to go to item number five L on reports Matt first uh firefighter Sant is going around on Saturday I believe for both departments so if you hear or see fire trucks and a lot of sirens do not be alarmed no pun intended um the burnard's Township Board of Health is up to a lot of things you can check out their website at Bernards health.org for all the announcements and things that are going on thank you yes Scott okay on behalf of Aubrey I'm going to do the library update slide number one please it's coming I promise okay here we go the lill LI Long Hill Township library has opened seven days a week including 10 to2 on Saturdays and 1 to 5 on Sundays uh the Digital Collection the library has includes ebooks e audio books movies TV comics and much more and these uh this content's available 24x7 through uh several apps that you can get on your uh electronic device available through the App Store apps like Libby hoopla and canopy and uh all this content is available to download and access for free slide two please so please find here uh the libraryies weekly schedules of programs and events uh most activities like Story Time for Kids and movies for adults do not require registration slide three uh author talks uh so these talks do require registration and they're available under author talks on our website sign up get the link and watch whatever works for you we've got a lot of big offers including Laura Dave who spoke today and you can watch all pass talks from our website as well slide four Sunday December 15th a local resident and professional pist Jang son Lee will perform a free concert at the library please stop by and enjoy and the following Saturday December 21st Santa Claus will stop by the library and take over our story time so there'll be lots of other holiday crafts and events going on during that uh please check our weekly events page for uh additional information also and uh thank you to Starbucks who has provided us with free coffee and hot chocolate multiple times this month and uh lastly Santa is visiting our local local Starbucks this Sunday December 15th from 10: to 12: p.m. 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. uh you have the opportunity to take a photo and considering donating to Starbucks toy for Tots Drive Slide Five the lill library hosts two off-site silent book clubs at local businesses uh bring your own book and read in contented Silence with other Lon Hill Township readers that sounds interesting uh slide six if you're into Taylor Swift uh join us all for karaoke crafts and games all celebrating Taylor Swift birthday this week you can show up mayor pasera will be singing happy birthday to tor Swift as well as U five of her top 10 hits slide seven we have a free line dancing uh class at the library in December they often dance to Christmas carols believe it or not lots of fun dance to lots of fun to dance to or just to listen to maang on Fridays as well we also have a maang instruction class on Tuesdays if you don't know how to play maon I don't I'd like to learn call if interested slide eight L Hill Township cares the L Hill Township Library is a donation spot for 12 baskets food pantry and for St huberts this month December and Brownie troop 98378 is collecting food and toys for dogs and cats at St huberts huberts and we're thrilled to help them meet their goals and that's all I have for the library thank you thank you Scott and uh on behalf of Vic I will do the wreck update so Megan I know you have slides oh there we go so this is another great photo from Myersville with the focus on Myersville resident Ed zindell for those who don't remember Ed won the Statewide uh photo contest run by the New Jersey League of municipalities last year and I'm sure this photo will be submitted as well and since they are judged anonymously it's entirely possible that very own our very own Ed and Del could win a second year in a row last week the can park playground area was cleared to make way for our new playground which is a woodland known theme construction on the new playground will begin at the end of end of this week continue into next week watch the website for updates our full yoga program is continuing Monday and Wednesday mornings at the Millington Schoolhouse and continues to fill capacities so get your names in slides two to five I think U Megan beat me to it Parks and Recreation is having a lot of fun with the holidays in our contest let's go to slide two first tonight's the last day to get your letter to Santa in order to ensure that we can get the letters to the North Pole in time for Santa's elves to respond and load that slate properly so far our department has assisted with 60 letters to Santa still going lot of good little children in Long Hill not so sure about the adults slide three don't forget to enter our holiday cooking decorating contest all entries need to be photographed and submitted by December 17th we will announce the winners December 20th slides four and five Megan you are so fascinating we just published our fifth annual House business decorating contest driving list the driving list list the entries in order so that families can pack the car and go see the entries themselves we are proud to work with the Long Hill Chamber of Commerce on this event Starbucks there you go again of Gillette is offering a free cup of coffee to those on the Holiday Lights tour and Oak flour Brewery is offering hot cocoa $1 a cup so we have both ends of long hill covered to keep everybody warm while on tour which will continue until New Year's Day new this year don't forget to put your vote in for your family's favorite entry judging takes place December 10th which was yesterday through December 16th The Long Hill prize Patrol will roll out with Santa on December 18th whether permitting unless of course Rudolph is with us then Nothing Stops us to meet with our a our award winners this is always a fun evening WL TV joins us to film it all ho ho ho and you know what kind of like worldwide wrestling I'm going to tap in vic now for slide six if I can if I can see it thank you all right one on second page slide six if you have trouble you can add it back things are still looking up don't forget to submit your photo in our photography contest a look to the sky entry is free and the deadline is January 15th there is still time to register and play adult basketball with your neighbors Central School Thursday nights from 7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. registration is on community pass and the program continues until May 1st start the new year off by getting certified in first aid CPR and AED training classes are offered through a partnership between Long Hill Parks and Recreation and the Long Hill first aid Squad each Red Cross class participants will earn a certificate good for 2 years get this valuable training they say 80% of what you learned will be used to help someone you know and love let's face it that's who we spend the most of our time with got to deliver that that well I usually read it before I do this but all right slide nine Oscar the the Grouch still sends a reminder to keep that trash in its place he hasn't had a m he hasn't had as much to be uh as grouchy but there's still room for improvement so he wants us to keep this reminder out there many thank yous go out to Charlotte Maguire of Gillette who continues to come every week gloves up and cleans the turf field without fail she has put her heart into this task that no that not many want to do thank you so much Charlotte moving on to slide number 10 we are always looking for more volunteers on our Recreation committee this is a very busy committee and we really need our volunteers who help us with programming and events interested contact the Parks and Recreation Department and complete the citizen involvement form and we think you'll find this a rewarding experience we love bringing the smiles all right finally just a reminder from Rebel the elf to remember to be your best behavior because you know who is watching happy holidays everyone it is truly a magical time of year thank you and that concludes the recreation update great thank you so much all right my pleasure I have to Circle back cuz I got messages of new other things that weren't announced the uh if you go on the website the town website or the community services link you can log on tomorrow Thursday at 7 o'clock to watch the documentary like it gives a back door look at the social media and helps manage Stress and Anxiety following the presentation there'll be a live panel discussion which is a question and answer session it's sponsored by the watch Young Hills municipal Alliance which does a lot for the kids of the high school and helps plan Project Graduation and this is a new one on January 12th from 8 to 12 it's a Saturday I believe Sterling fire company is running a pancake breakfast fundraiser so you can pay at the door 8 to 12 on January 12th thank you Mr Mayor thank you m I appreciate it and let's Circle back uh to uh agenda item number four Jack thanks for reminding us now that Vic is here we need four votes 24-37 authorizing the transfer of funds if there are any questions and if not looking for a motion I'll make a second committee man dorsy yes committee men bza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor Pia yes and Randy let's go to you for the administrator's report hey we have a report from public works for November uh 2024 um they continued doing tree removal and pruning on a on a monthly basis uh they had three days of Styrofoam processing uh removed all the flowers and flower pots on from Main Avenue and Town Hall decorated Main Avenue Valley Road and town hall for the holidays uh 280 cubic yards of leaves transported to the county for recycling Township uh owned properties had the final Leaf cleanup four tons of black top was used to do for pothole repairs during the month and uh as was mentioned in the recreation the public works remov the old playground set at C Park and in preparation for the new install and they uh continuously especially around this time checked the storm water inlets and removed leaves and debris from all those inlets for days like tonight monthly report from the police department during the month of October they had calls for service at 19990 calls for the year making it a total of 2,615 calls they had 24 U accidents during the month of October two two with injuries uh for the year of 2024 they have uh invested 400 hours of training to various uh various officers throughout the police department they also received a grant for for $22,000 for new body worn cameras congratulations to the department for getting that uh they had a a program coffee with a cop at the um local Starbucks they also participated in the Halloween parade and the trunk trunk or treat um as uh during the consent the agenda we hired three new police officer recruits uh proud to welcome them aboard uh they will be starting the Morris County Police Academy in January and we hired one officer um that will be Tak in partial U classes at the uh she's a corrections officer so they need additional training at the police academy and uh that will um start also in January providing everybody meets the requirements I know several have already um that's all I have there I just want to wish everybody a happy holidays thank you Randy uh no discussion items tonight old and new business from the committee yes um on be on behalf of myself and the valza family we would like to thank everybody who showed up to my father's Services everybody who reached out and everybody who said a prayer for us uh we are humbly grateful and it's definitely helped us get through this difficult time so thank you to everyone we really are truly grateful God bless thank you any others uh just a couple of announcements I don't think uh Megan I don't have any from you so I'll just uh add live a couple so uh St Vincent dep Paul has a blood drive on December 27th 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. to be clear that is Friday December 27th you go on the website for St V Vincent the Paul and sign up they prefer uh appointments but walk-ins are welcome uh as always especially around the holidays blood is is is in short supply so if you can and are willing uh please Friday December 7th 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. uh earlier today I did attend a uh briefing from Mayers uh regarding the drones that everybody has been seeing um I would say unfortunately it wasn't anything more specific than I think some people have been able to uh read online uh the investigation is in the hands of the federal government the FBI in uh coordination with the Department of Homeland Security at the federal level and the state level and with the state police Le I believe and I see uh public safety director my peoples and officer in charge Alexis jamell I was told by the governor's office there may be a meeting with uh Chiefs of police tomorrow if you haven't been notified please let me know and I will reach out to them but I think you have been okay um so hopefully as time goes on we will have uh more details I do not have anything more specific than that to share uh is emphasized that there is no known public uh safety uh concerns at this time um so I apologize that cannot be more specific but that's essentially what was presented earlier today and that's it so at this point I'd like to open up the meeting to the public if you could please uh limit your remarks to three minutes or statements for that matter um and four is yours public Charles orowitz Millington for the first time in a long time I'm going to test you tonight with a question if you can answer it Sunday night in our neighborhood there was a drone spotted on Deer Run the size of a car I've read that mayor pasaran committee end dorsy has supported with the other Mayors a recommendation to take action your responsibilities are to protect us we've had Congressman Kaine here we've had representative bramnick from the state we've had and the Mars County Chief's Association president kski we've had the state police Chiefs Association Rizzo here we supposedly and allegedly have a relationship with the County prosecutor officer Mr Carrol allegedly I say some of the people on this committee have attended the State of the Union Address so my question tonight for each of you as well as if I could ask our officer in charge and our director of Public Safety to comment on what you personally and if Mr dorsy and Mr P want to comment I'd like to know and the public would like to know what you have done personally to try to protect us for the last month and a half with these drones who have you called what do you know and what are your next steps this is a test for all of you tonight so let's start with Deputy Mayor lavender I've been in conversations with the mayor who is interfacing with the appropriate authorities and many I right many that you just referenced and so our communication as far as I'm concerned is going through guy Mr dorsy do you want to add anything no guy was at the call or something this morning which the most up-to-date information that everybody has aside from the federales so that's I have nothing to add Mr verzar yeah I I reached out to senator bramnick who has really nothing much more to add than he said today on uh or yesterday on Fox News um you know one thing he said you know if it is martians they're not going to land in New Jersey the taxes are too high so there you go that's good I'm sorry to make a joke of it but it is a serious matter but I really don't know as a member of the township committee other than dep depending on State and you know federal aid I I don't think there's really much help I don't think there's really much we could do as a committee okay could we ask um the offic in charge and the director Public Safety to comment please yeah good evening um so as noted there is a meeting tomorrow uh morning which where they're supposed to provide information from the state and federal level um more than what we've gotten so far which is just that there's no threat we haven't really received much information but the only thing that we can do right now is to push out the information on uh how you can report it they've requested you know that residents provide video and uh information on their sighting through a a QR code to to the non-emergency number at the police department uh right you don't want it you don't want to type 911 there's a reporting process internally it's it's it's just been a progression um initially we were taking the calls and then the information was immediately transferred to the Comm Center and then there was uh reports going out through the county and that's how they were reporting it but um we're waiting to see if there's any new information tomorrow morning on that state call thank you the public safety director good evening not much more to add uh to what uh you have said as the committee and also in charge chamello we have received a number of calls um we do respond uh investigate take the information um when it's appropriate and other there was a call the other night where the uh Duty Sergeant would contact the Morris County prosecutor's office with the information but I'm hoping um after tomorrow's meeting that we'll get a little more guidance that we can uh share with the uh with the community how we get that information tomorrow that comes out if there's an update uh we can e we can um you know do it through our our local U media our Facebook I understand um that not everybody has not everybody has Facebook um but uh we can also uh we could utilize uh emails through our um alerting system if it's appropriate okay thank you all for your responses that's very good we're making progress in answering questions I want to congratulate everyone that commented tonight that you are making progress and I appreciate that and I'm sure the other residents do in this town when they're concerned over their safety and in particular our development is overly concerned with deciding the size of a car Monday uh Sunday night thank you thank you thank you Chuck I appreciate that any other member of the public in the courtroom currently I don't see anyone so Megan at home if you don't mind if anybody on Zoom would like to make a public comment please raise your hand now I don't see anyone mayor Megan thank you with that I want to wish everybody a wonderful holiday season Merry Christmas for those who celebrate that happy Hanukkah for those etc etc uh God bless everybody thank you motion to adjourn uh motion to go to Executive with no further adopting resolution 24311 who made the motion I think mat I'll do it second committee dorsy yes committee bza yes Deputy Mayor lavender yes mayor pgia yes good evening everyone problem thank you iate e