##VIDEO ID:h3bjrMLu9BE## e e e e e e e e evening everyone in accordance with Section Five of the open public meetings act be advised that a notice of this meeting was made by posting on the bulletin board in town hall and forwarding to the officially designated newspapers that this meeting would take place at Town Hall at 7M on Tuesday November 12th 2024 meeting details and the draft agenda were also posted on our website please stand to salute the flag uned States it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all roll call vote Please Mr Cohen here miss puus here Deputy Mayor here Mr Stoler mayor Romano here um before I begin I just want to um uh talk real quick about a a tragic incident that took place a little over two weeks ago um there was a devastating fire in town um over by the middle school and um thanks to uh officer Sweeney and well officer Sweeney that went into the building um to pull the woman out um we she was she has since passed away but um she was able to uh say goodbye to her friends and family for that week um before she did pass away so we are going to recognize um officer Sweeney and members of the police and fire and we're very thankful to the fire department that they they were able to um you know protect the area around the home because it could have been a lot worse um with all the dry weather that we've had so um we will be recognizing them uh next month but I just wanted to just uh ask everyone to um keep Ellie's family in your prayers and um she was a longtime volunteer in the community for 35 years on the senior citizen Advisory board so she was a great lady okay may I have a motion to approve the agenda so may I have a second second all those in favor okay may I have a motion to approve the October 15 2024 regular Township committee minutes may I have a second second all those in favor I may I have a motion to approve the October 15 2024 special Township committee minutes may I have a second all those in favor okay that's it all right uh reports um dep Mary would you like to go first I can start at the other ends you want to go start at the other end okay who installer sure busy couple weeks um all right uh Sid special improvement district um Main Street first meeting since the Main Street designation was announced and we're proud to say Milburn was accepted as one of the 2024 designes by the Main Street New Jersey program uh there's a kids Glow Crazy Holiday Dance Party on November 15th from 6 P p.m. to 8:00 pm at Short Hills train station uh hosted by 9-year-old DJ Le Brock to spend the holiday Tunes uh holiday kickoff Extravaganza November 23rd from 12:00 pm to 3 pm in downtown milber uh there's be characters including Olaf and the Grinch free holiday parking the parking elves and Santa photos winter village uh Saturday December 7th and Saturday uh de December 14th two two nights 400 P p.m. to to 8:00 P.M at Town Hall Plaza Bo liaison we'd like to congratulate Miss disin Who was appointed our new superintendent of school she was the Acting Superintendent but she was actually appointed uh the superintendent uh she was voted in and awarded a contract actually last night I'd like to congratulate the three Boe board members Brian Lawrence n bman and Assaf fudin uh for taking on the three open Milburn Boe seats and contract negotiations are still ongoing with the teachers joint fields which is the interaction between the Boe and the recre on the fields myself Chris Meers and Alex McDonald met with representatives from the school and their consultant who performed the feasibility analysis for ways to activate additional field space and usage behind the high school uh it went very well uh obviously there's a lot of uh a lot of lot of Runway ahead of us right now they're doing a study on the lighting that would be needed for this Fields emergency dispatch uh which is the Mountain Valley Emergency Communication Center mbcc uh we're going to meet for the fourth quarter regular meeting on November 13th at 2m uh and we're just going to discuss several Personnel issues a 2025 budget etc etc flood mitigation we had a successful public session for the entire town uh I believe the replay is now up on the township website correct Alex are we gonna make it it was okay so uh if you heard there you miss a great session um Big C kudos to the FM to flood mitigation committee affordable housing I'm going to defer to uh our Council and uh I think that's pretty much everything El M just picking up on the flood mitigation um tomorrow um I'll be meeting with Nick B patelli from the committee and um Tor Whitman from the Orum to take a walk through what they're planning for fixing the flooding that occurs at the vek it's not a river I'm not sure what it is but whatever it is we talked about it there was no it wasn't taped because we broke up into small groups that's why there's no video of it but at any event they did an outstanding presentation but there's nothing like actually seeing it uh in person so we'll be doing that tomorrow um on planning we had our second meeting with the kai Center again it was all about the civil engineer it made some changes to the first set of plans so we kind of started again with a civil engineer and that took the entire time of the meeting um we're meeting again tomorrow night where the first topic is traffic um and then still to come is the architect and the operations there is a 45 day deadline where this is supposed to be wrapped by December 2nd I don't really think that that's possible um so you know both both sides have to agree to an extension I certainly think that that is something that will uh will happen at any event the public is certainly invited to the meeting at the end of each of those Experts of testimony they is a um there's an opportunity for the public to ask questions so if you want to know more about the traffic or the operations or the architecture you know that's your opportunity to ask those questions um the arum held a very successful holiday event for Halloween um there were about 45 kids we had a walkth through of the orbera it was free it was an opportunity for the children but also for their families to get to know the Orum better um there was people were costume and there was lots of K giveaways that was a pretty successful event um the library um not to steal anyone's Thunder but the uh the friends of the library are soon to kick off uh their uh their membership I don't know if you were going to say that during public comment Dorothy but anyway the uh the annual membership Drive is uh should be starting shortly and I would encourage all of you to uh if you're not already to become a friend of the library other otherwise at the library work continues on we've received bids on uh replacing the elevator which is on its last legs and uh you know would be uh it's something that needs to be needs to be repaired and lastly um just to let everybody know there was a although the library is fine free that does not uh alleviate people's responsibility to return their materials when they borrowed them it was an outstanding case of some someone who had borrowed a tremendous amount of materials and was not returning them with after numerous notices and and Communications and whatnot so the library was about to take it to court so I mean we are serious and actually some of it was some of the materials were borrowed from other libraries through the inter library system so Milburn would have been on the hook for that as well um fortunately the borrower decided to return everything or pay for what was unable to be returned the night before the case went up on to court so fortunately that that had a a good ending but it was a lot of uh a lot of work so something i' like everybody to know that the library takes that all very seriously thank you and just so so you mentioned planning board just so everyone knows um the township committee will not be discussing any um anything that has to do with the planning board that they're their own autonomous board um so if anybody's here for that like committee Cohen said they have their uh special meeting tomorrow night Deputy Mayor sure um so the environmental commission um everyone's very happy that the open space trust fund ballot measure passed um they're eagerly looking forward to moving on to the next step so perhaps we could put a item for discussion on next meeting's agenda to figure out what the road map is to get to the necessary ordinances we need to formulate the committee that'll uh advise you know what that uh money can get used for in the future um we're also going to be discussing a potential uh leaf blower ordinance tonight um and I just wanted to also mention uh we just got our updated crime statistics here and our police have been doing a fantastic job this year at reducing crime um the numbers I'm looking at here show that we've got a 59% decrease in the number of car thefts a 57% decrease uh I'm sorry that's recoveries fewer car thefts or fewer recoveries a 31% decrease in the number of car burglaries 27% decrease in the number of home burglaries so these these numbers are going in the right direction and uh our police have been working diligently to keep us all safe and keep Community safe and I commend them for all the hard work they've done this year thank you uh committee committee woman propus I'm sorry sorry getting back to the crime statistic we want to thank you for locking your vehicles in your homes um I just wanted to add uh the free parking for Holiday Shoppers begins November 22nd you still have to um abide by the uh the uh time permits uh in that spot in those in those parking spots so you can't stay there all day and also um mentioning Board of Ed candidates I wanted to congratulate David Cosgrove on um being elected for the township committee congratulations David we look forward to working with you and I also want to thank Alex Alman for running um it's it's not an easy thing to do um so I do appreciate him putting his hat in the rink uh I did see him shortly after the ction ironically at DPW both of us getting rid of our lawn signs so I encouraged him um to stay involved okay Mr McDonald would you like to I Mr K the only report I have is um there are currently three pending motions before the court and our fair share housing action all three are scheduled to be heard next Friday at 2: pm. um it's currently scheduled for a vir ual hearing um I don't know how the public gets access to it but I know in the past the residents have attended virtually so um if I get any more information on how the public could view it if they'd like to um I'll pass that along to Alex or or Clerk and they can they pass it on okay thank you okay uh 2024 best practices inventory resolution 24245 Mr McDonald I'm um I'm pleased to report that the township uh has scored a 45.5 out of 46.5 on its best practices inventory uh this year um that the best practice inventory includes a long list of of uh best practice but also a long list of unscored survey questions that the state asks of the of the municipality um couple things that I would just like to uh note um particularly for the committee after uh in reviewing this uh best practices there was a question um under 7A that was a clerical error um we were able to get that changed it's an unscored survey question um uh that we had previously answered no to that was changed to yes this is uh has your municipality reach an affordable housing settlement agreement for the third round with Fair sh housing center a builder or any other interested party again clero had it at no uh but we we we had changed that to Yes um we uh also there were a few questions um brought up by uh committee man uh Cohen so I appreciate um your review of this um and I'm happy to answer those questions um one in particular was um and you know this this runs the gamut of of of questions of whether we are uh doing certain things that the state um feels are the uh best practice of a local municipality um in particular you know do do you um do you have the last three years of financials um on your website um a lot of it is is um uh one of the questions was is whether you're um you have bonds for your security for your financial professionals uh the comment that we um we we we had put in this is we actually answered no to this question because the state requires a a a bond amount of uh 1 million uh uh of $1 million but we we have a or I'm sorry $1,900,000 $161 but we have coverage for a million dollars so we don't have necessarily the state um prescribed amount of it but we do have a million dollars bonding for those employees um in addition there was a question I think on 53 was oh it was uh 53b um is your M you know if your minicipal has designated one or more special Improvement districts um do you have a business Improvement Zone we answered no to that um because we did not uh put in a separate ordinance to have a uh business Improvement Zone um but again uh as we have in in years past we've scored very well on the best practi survey um and we will not see any impact to the state aid that we receive um from the state of New Jersey happy to answer any other questions that the committee may have I also have Matt here if there are other questions okay um may I have a motion to approve resolution 24-24 may have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Colin yes Miss puus yes Deputy Mayor SE Mandy yes Mr Stoler permanent mayor Romano yes thank you okay public comment when invited to speak to offer your comments please come to the Lector clearly state your name and whether you are a Milbourne resident and or a property or business owner please do not provide your fill address seeing our meetings are recorded and readily available to the public for the convenience of our of our community there is a remote option if you called in and would like to comment please press star six now if you're attending by computer or electronic device please click the raiseed hand button and be sure your video is on when you comment all members of the public wishing to speak will be put into the queue to address the committee to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to one three minute session you'll be prompted when there's 30 seconds remaining a reminder that this is not a time for dialogue or to debate a matter this is a time during our business meeting for the public to offer comments I will now open public comment Char vanara uh 20 28 year now resident of uh U Milburn Short Hills um so I have a little something prepared usually I speak off the cuff okay I am The Lorax I speak for the trees I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues I Am The Lorax who speaks for the trees which you seem to be chopping as fast as you please in the final chapter the onler claims unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot nothing is going to get better it's not and sometimes I feel like the LX standing here in front of you talking uh so uh to borrow little of Dr Seuss's logic I'm Charlie B I speak to the floods I speak for the businesses and residents who suffer greatly from those floods those floods you create and perpetuate if you don't if you don't act to change Our Fate okay so if you allow overdevelopment to persist unchecked in this town with little or no attention paid the storm water runoff if you pave paradise and put up a parking lot as Johnny Mitchell cautioned you'll exacerbate an already daunting issue of flooding in the downtown murn business district as well as residential flooding further Downstream as an illustration I submit that the plan submitted uh by the developer for public comment and questioning uh of the kai Center are incomplete and severely deficient missing our site overlay plan calculation and percolation studies for storm water management how is a developer going to ensure that runoff from a storm a major storm is detained on site and not added to already overloaded system of existing storm drains and raway River tributaries detention basins are shown but no data or calculations to support their sizing um or their adequacy absent from storm water plans I did some calculations on my own of my one illustration and I conclude that the tension Basin will fill uh in less than an hour in a in a major storm event uh in lesser fre more frequent storm events that we experience uh it it'll fill in in two or three hours uh once it tops over it empties into a a storm drain that goes into the West Branch of the royway river river which goes into town into the business district and the res resdential area south of the a now I sit on the flood mitigation committee I've spent countless hours of my time trying to find solutions to prevent and contain flooding in town I'm beginning to feel that I'm wasting my time uh so uh in short I I think developers should be required to provide pervious my out of timer all right thank you good evening my name is Jeffrey Feld I live in the poet section for more than 32 years for those who are watching at home please be advised that the agenda was amended before the meeting to add in a new ordinance to approve a amended lease agreement and that wasn't mentioned I think at the beginning of the meeting reason I say that as my custom I gave a various heads up um memos about questions about the best practices I urge everyone to read the best practices um inventory read the questions I pointed out the mistake on 7A before you came here today you had to close the executive session we do not hear anything about the abusive power investigation we do not hear anything about be properties litigation um I've delivered a 28 day um privilege litigation letter to the TC and their Council the clock is running one issue we heard earlier today was the designation of Main Street New Jersey but no one has talked about when the TC knew that the state directed them to amend the boundaries of their application and to amend their budget how come that major material fact has not been disclosed to the public when did you know um again I offer my assistance in the Mount Laurel litigation on the bill list I gave you a list of various checks there's a major payment that you're making as the monetary sanctions are we giving that payments to fare housing center and to RPM are we reserving our rights to we may get discouragement I don't know but it says reserve on the on list in addition based on my experience in other municipalities sometimes bills are put in drawers if you look at Mr our mpal attorneys the only thing we're paying him is his retainer there is no time summaries for what his work was and also whether the special adjudicator what time did he perform the services because at the last meeting we discovered that payments were made for different mun different attorneys were work that they performed last year um the CFO 10e retention why can't we put that off for one meeting so we have some answers because know one of the things you have on your agenda is moving funds different accounts from this year I don't see anything how we funded 22 East Willow and how we F funded the um Town Hall closures how monies were done because after you did you approved the budget changes occurred but you don't have any transfers there um as to the Sid introduced budget um there's going to be issues whether you obtained any obtaining um updated uh opinions as to that I will speak later about other issues later tonight anyone else in the room good evening mayor romano and members of the township committee uh my name is Matt grer I'm an 18-year uh resident of Milbourne and an attorney who works on environment mental and public health policy I'm also a new member of the township environmental committee and I'm here tonight in support of the measured reasonable and incremental seasonal restriction on gas powerered leaf blowers uh this is an important quality of life environmental and public health issue for Milbourne residents um this is especially important right now as you know in the Township in the county and in the state we're facing red flag and drought conditions that are worsening our air quality uh as I as I wrote this today I was trying to concentrate but the sound from the nearby gas powered leaf blowers exceeded 65 DB in my own house and outside those gas powerered leaf blowers can exceed 80 DB which is damaging to human hearing the incessant and Loud howls from leaf blowers travel throughout our town and interfere with our quiet enjoyment of our own homes and speaking of long distances the fine particulate emissions that come from two gas powered leaf blowers in just 30 minutes are the same amount of pollution as a heavyduty truck during a 3,000 mile drive if you think about that that's like driving from here to Juno Alaska simply put gas powerered Leaf blow blowers are an environmental and public health disaster the two-stroke leaf blowers generate double the nox uh nox or oxides of nitrogen 23 times carbon monoxide and 300 times of non-methane hydrocarbons and a Ford F-150 pickup blowing leaves using the rush of the passing truck alone would be cleaner than using the gas powered leaf blower the air pollution is considered a key contributor according to health reports to asthma rates cardiovascular disease and other public health problems and multiple peer-reviewed studies directly link exposure of these uh particular emissions to severe health problems the gas powered leaf blower pollution poisons our environment and they poison our bodies why would we want this especially when there are widely available affordable and Powerful electric leaf blowers for residents and landscaping companies the total cost of ownership of the electric equipment is less than the cost of the gas and the oil uh for the gas powered equipment and this is a measured reasonable and incremental ordinance it's not a ban it protects quality of life for residents it mitigates damaging noise and harmful pollution residents can still enjoy their lawns how they want and our hardworking landscapers and their employers can still work to provide their highquality services in Milburn this is simply a seasonal restriction and it seeks to move residents and landscapers towards quieter and less polluting equipment thank you thank you hi I'm uh bill brazelle I live in South Mountain and I'm like Matt a member of the environmental commission mayor Romano Deputy Mayor sakami Miss puus uh Mr Stoler and Mr Cohen um as my fellow EC commissioner uh Matt G just explained uh we passed this ordinance unanimously for solid public health and environmental reasons I'd like to talk briefly about how we prepared for this decision and how we plan to educate our town about this proposed change uh before discussing a possible ordinance the environmental commission held two public meetings to learn more about how our fellow residents and our Town's professional landscapers many of whom are also residents feel about gas leaf blowers the first meeting on April 11th focused on the problems that gas leaf blowers bring which Matt just laid out uh for the second meeting on May 23rd we invited the public but said we wanted to hear from the landscapers only we listened carefully and we took notes uh we later learned that Milburn that night became the first town in the country to devote a meeting entirely to listening to the landscapers the landscapers explained that while the technology used in battery and electric leaf blowers is improving it can't yet match the power of gas the landscapers also told us that one of the things that makes their jobs harder is the high standard that some home homeowners insist on uh they described calls from customers saying in effect I just found three leaves under a shrub a 100 yards from my house um I worked as a landscape laborer and I know how hard these men and women work so as we ask the township committee to support a seasonal restriction on the use of gas leaf blowers we will also remind our fellow towns people that the town is asking landscapers not to use a powerful tool during those months in the op EDS that we're preparing and in educational sessions that we will give at the Milburn Library we will explain why we've asked the township committee to give a few give us a few months free of the noise and air pollution of gas leaf blowers and we will urge our fellow Milburn residents to give our landscapers a break as Matt mentioned the operating costs of battery and electric blowers are less than gas blowers but there are ini costs of converting so I reached out to one of our Assembly women Alex in Coos Gill in September asking her to please support a bill that would give rebates to land uh landscapers and others who convert from gas to battery or electric uh I later drove to Trenton to testify to the assembly committee on which she sits our assembly woman did end up voting to support this bill for which we are grateful as we educate the town about the value of this ordinance for for our children's lungs and ears and for our own we will continue to ask our fellow residents to please give our landscapers a break thank you hi Jee Pastor resident I'm just gonna finish with Charlie started uh I sit on the flood mitigation advisory committee and have spent hours upon hours of my time trying to find Solutions to prevent or somehow contain flooding in our town I'm beginning to feel that I'm wasting my time luckily my home does not flood I have better things to do with my time if the township is going to allow unchecked overdevelopment we are all doomed to continued and worsening flooding there's no point in seeking Solutions because with the lack of overlay zoning without requirements for perious driveways and parking lots and with continued overdevelopment we are working against mounting and impossible odds why aren't developers required by ordinance to provide pervious drives and parking Plus plans for dealing with runoff it is my understanding that a fellow resident and engineer Mr Steven Tu began questioning the developers engineer during public questions on this very topic before he could continue and get an answer from the engineer he was rudely interrupted by the developers attorney a public questioning session for the engineer was closed before Mr two got a proper response I maintain that Mr two's First Amendment rights were violated and he should be allowed to continue his line of questioning to the developers engineer he saw what I now point out to you the Builder did not adequately address storm water collection and detention if the detention Basin Basin is of insufficient volume the Builder should be required to store and detain excess water underground in subbasements as is done in Hoboken and other developed areas he should be required to use pervious Paving techniques such as lattice type pavers with grass grown in between I'm not going to read the last one because there's no way you're resign anyway um I'd like to add I was in attendance at that planning board meeting and one thing I would really like to add this ask this town ship committee to do is immediately start to think about getting a traffic study that has uh is able to look at the global impact of all these new projects the this peacemeal approach with each project coming before the planning board with air traffic studies it doesn't give you a view of what the hell's going on so I really believe that it's not responsible of the township committee not to get a more Global approach uh for this this whole traffic issue that's coming and flooding I think Charlie you know raised is really important issues I would say the same thing I mean I hopefully the flood mitigation committee will be engaged in that way um safety is another issue that I think people were really concerned about that came up and through this project I think this is going to be true for all the projects so what are we doing to look at pedestrian safety V vehicular safety um across the board once all these developments are done uh the other thing that someone made a comment on that I thought was really important is people are entitled to Peaceful enjoyment of their homes and that is in our New Jersey Constitution um I also don't want to forget to congratulate Dave crove on his um election to the township committee he's a great Edition thank you for running and also of course Alex like you you s said too mayor um great that people put themselves forward and I had one last quick question on the paper mill um lease agreement has has there been an allowed delay in collecting parking revenues thank you anyone else before we go online anyone onine we just have iPhone okay so I will now close public comment um who would like to start any just go ahead committee M just you know uh just to address Mr Manar it's unfortunate you were not able to attend um the planning board meetings um and as as far as the way that that works I guess at the end of every every expert's testimony that's when the public has the opportunity to ask questions and the civil engineer who addressed the issues and provided very different answers than than you just did uh he's completed however at the end of everyone's testimony at the end of everyone's testimony the public is invited again to to give their own testimony and since you know that would seem to me to be another opportunity for you I don't know when this is when this is all what what night it is that that will happen because I don't know how long this is going to take but that would be a good opportunity for both you and Miss Pastak to provide testimony making the points that you did he did mention his calculations and they did come up at the second meeting but I would suspect you may not agree with his calculations so I would encourage both of you to attend uh every meeting and certainly the last one thank you committee sure um Chaz Charlie Bamba listen um it pains me to see you with any type of Mal content I know how much time you spend on the flood mitigation committee you and I are texting on weekends back and forth and uh uh you know I really want you to to know that we're working to make make these processes better uh and your involvement has been invaluable so um you know keep keep the faith um for the leaf blower uh seasonal b um I everyone's talking about the peaceful enjoyment I just want to understand because I remember hearing a couple times that um the electrical were just as loud as the gas and I just want to clarify if that's true or not at some point I think we'll talk about it during new business right I think deputy mayor might have more information Okay so understand that point uh but uh you know now with people working from home and Co I mean ites it becomes a nuisance um what else I have here uh Mr Feld uh you know obviously the 22 Willow uh and the other project were paid for so you know I would like to for Alex or or you know Michael and I are on the finance committee as well uh procedurally those payments are put in place underneath the within the budget so I just want to make sure that you have an explanation from Alex of how those are paid so there's no ambiguity or uh anything uh nefarious going on that uh seems you seem to form a cloud on so thank you thank you um Deputy Mayor second sure um so to Mr ban um you know I certainly appreciate all that you've done for the town with regards to flooding I think everyone up here does as well um you know it's unfortunate that you feel that you're not being heard I think a lot of people in town are in agreement with regards to the issues that are impacting our town with flooding and how more building leads to more flooding um I would be interested uh and we can look at this offline to see if there is some option that municipalities have uh to put forth ordinances requiring perious pvers and whatnot I would imagine that some of these things might be done at a state level so there's uniformity uh I know that like certain building codes and stuff are Statewide um but we can certainly ask our Council if there's anything we can do there to help tighten things up on a local level um with regards to your specific concerns uh about the matter before the planning board my recommendation to you and any other members of the public that have um any interest in asking questions or making comments attend the planning board meetings um members of the public are also allowed to bring their own expert witnesses to to testify as well um that's what we've been told so um you know if if you are an expert witness you can certainly testify you could also bring an expert witness to testify or if you're a normal resident you can also testify and say what you want to say and ask questions so I encourage all those that are um concerned uh about any matters before the planning board to attend the planning board meetings and there's one tomorrow uh Mr Feld you asked about the abuse of power investigation um we are going to be releasing that to the public soon our attorney just has to go through that and make sure there's nothing that legally has to get redacted from any exhibits but that will be released soon um see uh I'll allow Mr caner to answer whether uh the funds that you discussed uh that rep court ordered are being put in you know a separate account or being paid out um that's that's a matter for Mr caner so hopefully he'll answer that for us um Mr brazel and Mr gr thank you so much for coming out and speaking uh and um letting us know a little bit more about the steps that you guys are going to take uh to educate the public we'll talk about this more during new business but I think it was helpful for everyone up here to hear what you have to say um and then miss Pastak uh with regards to the traffic study I I agree and this is why all year I've been harping on the need for a townwide traffic study I believe we have bid proposals and I believe they then went to some Municipal the the um the compar of the proposals and recommendation of the assistant engineer on okay so that'll be made available to us and then we can decide what to do correct yeah and and I I'll add to that when I com perfect um then the question about the paper mill and the delayed parking Revenue it does look like um in the documents I was provided that Revenue would not be collected uh until 2027 I think um so that's something that we can uh address or we can ask uh at the hearing for that matter that's all I have thanks can woman purose I have no um the only thing I want to add with the traffic study um I believe we did we did a traffic study for complete streets in 2014 15 so there's still a lot of information in there that was never acted upon um so I think that before and I have no idea you know what Mr McDonald has but maybe we should look you know ask the engineer for any type of you know to pull those reports for us I'm sure if we speak to the police department they can tell us where the problem areas are in town because I don't see um and again I'm not an engineer but I don't see where we can make changes to traffic when we you know everyone comes through town that travels down Route 24 there's nothing we can do to stop that you know wherever your navigation tells you to go you know when you're driving there's nothing we can do to change that Uber drivers that come into town door Das Dash drivers that come into town there's nothing we can do to change that so I just if you would just review you know see what um engineering has from those last traffic studies and maybe maybe go from there like just a suggestion um Mr McDonald um sure I uh just to piggyback on the the the traffic um study question um we we did we Reed three proposals as I had mentioned in a previous Meeting those proposals ranged in in in dollar amount from uh 234,000 uh dollars to $129,500 um I had the assistant engineer who has background in traffic um she used to be uh employed by uni County uh uni County engine uh traffic engineer um and uh she made her analysis of each of the three proposals provided her recommendation I would just um also um and and I think that some of you know and we can speak about this further after your review is just you know uh when and how uh to proceed and certainly I think it's important for the township committee whether it's uh deputy mayor sakandi or another individual to meet with the firm that is recommended um so that you have an understanding of what it is that they're they're looking at um and their grasp of what it is that the committee may or may not want to evaluate um but and and I'm happy to provide any previous reports that the committee may want um as it relates to traffic um I I'll speak more to the uh the Papermill lease at that point in time I'm sure there's going to be on several of the agenda items uh questions that I can um speak to but that's all I have of comments I just answer the deputy mayor's question um we were ordered to pay fees to fair share housing and RPM as a result of the last round of motion practice um we held those funds in a trust account uh for the township um there were motions filed in cour to have those monies turned over and based on the court order and and the fact that the appeal was denied by the division we did turn those monies over to fair share housing and RPM okay thank you the township committee will now consider consent agenda resolutions are there any comments from the committee in regard to any items listed on the consent agenda may I have a motion to move resolution 24246 through resolution 24255 which are listed on the consent agenda may I have a second roll call vote Please Mr Cohen yes Miss puus yes Deputy Mayor SE Mandy yes Mr Stoler mayor Romano yes thank you mayor I'm sorry but Mr St did ask a question about the.2 million Dee for East I'm just hoping that Mr oh yeah I'm sorry U Mr uh Mr Stoler did ask a question about the $2.2 million for East Willow and I just want Mr larsy now that he could probably leave the meeting if he wanted to um to uh answer that question real quick my apologies sorry yeah we had a bond ordinance for the um for the 2.2 million for for East Willow uh again we have kind of one po of capital cash and we we go out for funding at different times um we're able to make that payment with the cash already uh within our you know accounts but we will have to actually fund that at a later date um probably early 2025 uh which is when our normal Bond sale happens um note sale happens so um it's costly a little bit to have note sales so you want to kind of plan them and have a big picture view of all that and then the uh I think there was another question regarding the funding of um the closure of uh you know Town Hall Plaza there um and you know those costs weren't too high we're able to absorb that in our like equipment public gr public buildings and grounds budgets um you know just within our normal operating budget you know maybe we push some other costs off and we're able to just absorb it there thank you thank you are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 24 d256 may have a motion to approve resolution 24256 thanks may have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Cen yes Miss Rus yes Deputy Mayor s Mandy yes Mr Stoler mayor Romano yes thank you are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 24257 may have a motion to approve resolution 24257 so may have a second roll call vote Please Mr Cohen yes Miss puus yes Deputy Mayor Sandy yes Mr Stoler mayor Romano yes thank you are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 24 258 may I have a motion to approve resolution 24-28 may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Colin yes Miss pus yes Deputy Mayor s man no Mr Stoler mayor Romano yes thank you okay the uh budget introduction for 2025 for the Milburn sh Hills business organization um Mr committee installer sure um so this is the introduction of the the bud budget for special improvement district I am the liaison and a voting member of the board um I'm actually going to talk to a couple uh to the kpis as it as it results this uh it's a reason I put myself on this board or requested my fellow TC members let me be on it so I can have a clear path of vision to what is actually occurring uh I think we're going to start with the jack with our chair giving opening introduction thank you thank you good evening everyone mayor Romano members of the township committee Jackie Benjamin lieberberg here I serve as chair of the board of explore mbour Short Hills during my time as mayor in 2020 I work closely with current committee members Tara prus and current Explorer board member Richard waserman to launch the special improvement district four plus years later I am proud of all the work we have undertaken and the hundreds of businesses Property Owners residents and strategic Partners we support and collaborate with on an ongoing basis to support these efforts going forward this evening we will present our 2025 budget which was approved by our board at our annual meeting in October I will begin with how the budget is developed and how the Sid operates our Treasurer Stephen Wier will discuss our accomplishments in 2024 and our committee liaison Ben Stoler as he mentioned will discuss the kpi indicators and then our executive director Mr Gilla will present the budget to understand how the Sid budget is constructed and how many funds are allocated is important first to understand what a special improvement district is a sid is a public private partnership between the three groups the M municipality that establishes the Sid the stakeholders property and business owners and residents who are supported by it and the DMC the district Management corporation in this case explore which is responsible for managing it SIDS do not replace government but they do supplement it in very important ways the Sid works as a unique problem solvers they address day-to-day concerns for stakeholders solve time sensitive issues and develop unique Vision plans for both the organization and the community at large which can be Advanced by the municipality they are staffed by professionals and experts in the fields of Economic Development marketing events and Community Development they are managed by Boards of dedicated volunteers who seek long-term benefit for the community and address issues that are sometimes out of the scope or ability of government when Sid successfully partner with the municipality they can lessen the burden on the municipality and deliver Services more efficiently a good example of this is the Street Maintenance pilot program that was executed this year explore develop the list of vendors crafted and distributed an RFP selected the qualified vendor and then manage the daily oversight while the township paid for the services via a grant SIDS are independent nonprofit organizations and are eligible to apply for Grants and special programs to advance the economic development opportunities such as the main street application that was submitted by the township but drafted by the Sid additionally our experienced staff allows the Sid to have a valuable voice and advocate for stakeholders concerning zoning planning parking traffic circulation and more our executive director serves on both the parking committee and the development Review Committee and represents explore on the board of downtown New Jersey as well as our local Chamber of Commerce SIDS are mirrors of the communities they represent one size does not fit all because no two communities are the same or have the same needs or Ambitions the city here in Melbourne has its own unique service portfolio that is constantly evolving and we pride ourselves on a holistic and highly participatory decision making I'd like to uh have Mr Wier our Treasurer continue with this overview thank you thank you Jackie good evening uh as Jackie said my name is Steph Wier I serve on the board and also its Treasurer uh for the Sid and I apologize in advance 2024 has been a super busy year so if this comes out as a bullet point list I apologize but I do want to get through a number of the big projects that we accomplished this year um so one item we started in 23 and really worked hard to finish in this year was expanding our community and volunteer engagement so we expanded our volunteer pool as well as our advisory committee membership partnered with local nonprofits including the neighbors of Milburn Short Hills group and the Indian Chinese and Muslim communities a Hallmark of this work was this year's public art program called mil Wheels 2024 where we had over a dozen local community organ organizations participate those are those M Wheels physical setup in Taylor Park they were beautiful this year we expanded our Educational Services this year and hosted classes on various topics including using Google for small businesses search in and optimization digital marketing and social media we worked with new uh the New Jersey Economic Development Authority including a special session with local business New Frontier storefront on the state's free website program that's a terrific program in fact nine businesses enrolled in that and they each walked away with a new website uh it valued at $10,000 or more so a free service from the state um all facilitated through uh our work at the Sid we expand Ed one-on-one marketing sessions that included setting up social media accounts for businesses surprisingly many businesses just are not on social media so we really focused on those and helped them and in train them and educated them how to use social media to the advantage of the business we launched a partnership with Milburn and Short Hills Magazine which includes a monthly feature on local community events and managed a welcome package program for residents at both the Hearth and the Metropolitan we also launched a new social media campaign called tour of the town which already has 30 new videos uh released and posted online which has highlighted businesses in all five districts of the Sid we once again here's part of the laundry list hosted Restaurant Week founding day girls night out and a Halloween event and have four events scheduled uh coming into toward the end of this year including I think as was mentioned earlier our winter Villages two new efforts this year included a partnership with School District's Wellness week during which a dozen businesses participated and of course as we mentioned Town Hall Plaza we also expanded our placemaking work with a new mural in the Milbourne art alley completed the Morris Turnpike Hardscape project and installed six new Planters on upper Milburn Avenue with native plants in partnership with a local organization we also completed that I think Jackie mentioned a successful street cleaning projects and are now working on uh our fiveyear holiday decoration and Improvement plan throughout the town so um Mr solar I think you want to now focus on our kpi thank you when I when I joined the board in January there's a lot of noise around the board on what were they doing how are they doing it is there an Roi on the board on the group and how is it working so I requested I requested that Mr gillo and the team come up with key performance indicators every business I run I have a collection of businesses we have a dashboard for each one we have uh the dials that show us if they're in the green in the yellow and the red Etc so I wanted to have that type of visibility on what was going on on the Sid on the special improvement district uh and you know it's a little more difficult to do because you don't have an actual number that you quantify but you have a lot of other numbers that you can quantify uh which makes it even that much greater and I'll go through some of those now uh the number one qu you know to quantify what they're doing was an email I received from a local business owner I said hey we participated with the Sid to help build our website give us exposure on Instagram and also take them to actually become a local provider for Amazon for that service where you want it by 4:00 a. or 4:00 am. to 8:00 amm in the morning and is kind of a local supplier for those products to me that's making a big difference to possibly keep that business owner in business going forward uh when a lot of businesses especially retail and um are being beat up by Amazon and other delivery services if you don't have a kpi you really you can't measure the degree of success and you definitely can't fix it uh so it's incredibly important to quantify those various uh services that to explore is is providing uh just a few of the numbers quickly we have 509 total businesses with 27 have have opened this year we have addressed 139 service requests from various stakeholders including 32 requests for space 56 navigating government request and 51 requests for General business advocacy as I mentioned before uh the pay stations in downtown Short Hill station and upper Milburn uh through the just the first three quarters have generated approx $328,000 in Revenue uh and at the end of this year we will compare that to the previous track years uh explore has conducted eight digital campaigns reaching nearly 3,30 people on email distribution which is a 400% increase since uh December 2024 3,900 Instagram followers that's just followers uh which is a 850 increase person increase since December 2024 and 424 4,000 Instagram engagements conducted 28 and conducted 28 one-on-one marketing consultations with individual businesses as I discussed before um 184 businesses have participated in Restaurant Week girls night out Town Hall Plaza and and fall into Milburn Short Hills uh participation came from over 80 different communities and engaged over 40 volunteers 23 sponsors uh we had 23 sponsors and raised nearly 27,000 for just these events 160 businesses have participated in various Community Partnership projects including the Metropolitan and hearth welcome packages these are packages to uh the new residents uh Town Hall Plaza and wellness week uh these all we've also engaged 21 non-b business Community organizations including a dozen through the Mills mwis project as we just discussed finally the most significantly due to the work of uh our executive director and M Mr gillo we are awarded with the coveted Main Street New Jersey designation now there's only 25 New Jersey communities that have received that Main Street designation since 1989 which represents only 4% of the municipalities in the state and 25% of the existing SIDS uh the Main Street New Jersey program is the Statewide arm of national Main Street programs and this is the highest designation possible for any Local Economic Development organization it provides technical assistance training and Capital dollars to communities uh communities it provided $150,000 worth of Grants to Red Bank and mouen for physical improvements just because they were members and they they put in for it uh so we will now have that opportunity going going forward we supported our executive director to submit the application in February he drafted the application with the assistance of the board of directors and eight Community organizations and elected officials uh and there's a formal announcement from the governor's office uh that will be done for our onboarding process the township taxpayers and here's some of the numbers not including s assessed properties contributed approximately $55,000 towards salaries and $23,000 towards Town Hall Plaza in 2024 while raising nearly $50,000 in sponsorships so they almost doubled uh the salaries just in sponsorships alone and these are paid sponsorships from uh all of the folks uh sponsoring the township the Town Hall Plaza and other events that are had uh just fantastic work uh I I can firmly state that I believe our $78,000 investment as a town uh was well spent and the numers speak for themselves thank you thank you good evening everyone my name is Steve gillo I'm the executive director of explore Milburn Short Hills thank you Ben Jackie Stephen I'm going to go through the budget itself so Tim if you wouldn't mind pulling that up while he's doing that um so before I present the budget I just want to State on the record that we did present this budget to the public both at our September 19th uh Workshop meeting that was a draft and then October 19th in its final form which is our annual meeting public comment was allowed in both sessions and all property and business owners in the district were invited to that annual meeting as well as provided a copy of the Budget prior to that meeting additionally uh we're proud to say the 2025 budget which all of you have received copies of is the most detailed robust and transparent that we've ever provided um really because we've Diversified our portfolio so significantly um specifically Committee Member proest assess to fundraising secure sponsors last year we actually estimated we would raise about $29,000 We've Ended up raising $50,000 committee man Stoler asked us to develop key performance indicators he just detailed those and then of course we were tasked with creating Town Hall Plaza on essentially two months notice and I think anyone that has attended it can say that it was a dramatic success but obviously all this work takes funding and so both the staff the organization and then to purchase supplies and equipment and provide services so the 2025 budgets divided into six sections uh those have all been made available to the township committee as well as the public and the sections are as follows and don't worry I'm not going to go through all six of them is the budget by source of Revenue which is the only one I'm going to discuss tonight um you all have received a 2025 budget narrative which is line by line a comparative budget 24 to 25 a review of the proposed assessment increase which I will discuss key performance indicators through October 2024 so everything that Ben had talked about is written down in your packets and then our annual success tracker which is year to date on the income side which you see here we're proposing a total budget of $41,250 which is then reduced because we hold $20,000 in reserve to cover operational costs between January and February uh January and then when the funds are actually collected in April and May as many of you know uh tax bills you'll you can potentially approve the budget in December we don't actually see any money into our account until May or so um so we need a little bit of a neste to keep up operations so this results in a spendable budget as you see on line nine of 381,000 see and I'll go through the assessment is collected from 161 assessed properties that totals in 2025 244,000 565 this is an increase of 4,565 or 20% nearly all of this increase will be spent on to support stakeholder facing Services related to events marketing public art plantings and Street Maintenance this is also the first increase that's ever been requested since the formation of the Sid and matches the significant growth in our service portfolio across the five districts in 2024 we secured approximately $50,000 in sponsorships as I mentioned and for the purposes of this budget we're estimating that we'll raise $40,000 next year of course that's a moving Target and we're being conservative but we will adjust Services as necessary we were also recently notified that we've been awarded $556 from Essex County for our third year of public art funding this requires a 50% match from the assessment so you'll see later on that the total project expenses are 11,000 the income is 5565 the Township's required to pay half of the executive director's salary which is shown here at 56,18499 , $7,500 more than the township provided in 2024 but we do expect a longer activity period and we'd like to add more seating gazebos and other visitor experience items the funds for this will not be paid to explore so it won't be an income item these are things that we go to the town ask them to order they then order it through their accounts and credit cards so it never appears on our financial ledgers we're also requesting the township allocate $20,000 from the New Jersey clean communities program that is to continue what was a very successful uh pilot program for street cleaning and weeding throughout the five districts this summer we also plan to put $88,000 of assessment money towards that to extend the period where we can provide the services so now that I've gone through the income Revenue section I'm happy to pause and answer any questions related to those items question I will then proceed uh so then on the expenses side we have four main categories management Professional Services and operations Services excluding Rec closure and then the stre closure itself which you'll see here broken down into those four buckets they're broken down on the in like the income side of the budget into four columns B through e and so you'll see the source of the revenue assessment non-discretionary from the town which is a portion of my salary the township discretionary payments which I mentioned and then other sources or grants of sponsorship on the management side my total compensation for 2025 is $2,316 per an existing contract half is paid by the assessment half is paid by the township our director of marketing Amanda Dean is currently compensated at $60,000 and our board has authorized a $5,000 increase to her contract for a total of 65,000 for 2025 if the budget is approved by the township committee her contract will then be amended to reflect that new compensation there are two part-time administrative positions that we've proposed the first is a compensated summer intern to work on economic development projects at a cost of $2,000 we had a wonderful college intern local resident this year he's actually going to be presenting a report at our meeting on Thursday so it was a great opportunity to work with a local student and we gave them a stip in for his time spent the second is a marketing and events assistant uh for the amount of $115,000 this is a one day a week position um it will help Amanda on various tasks including event planning business engagement social media scheduling filming posting and other tasks um it's also going to lessen the burden that Amanda and I have and doing things that really aren't within what you're hoping to pay us for in our job scope um going out and handing out posters and things like that um this is certainly a position that can be done by someone other than the executive director so the total expense is 19436 Professional Services um that category remains virtually the same for 2024 um from same as 2024 I should say the only change of note is uh the addition of a board training session for $1,000 we haven't done one in three years so it's a good time for us to go through that with our board and explain them some of the obligations of a nonprofit board an increase of 300 of $3,000 for email and Technology Services we were under budgeted this year um a lot of the subscriptions and things that we have like our email distribution list etc those costs have gone up so we need to uh buffer that there and then an additional $700 that we'd like to allocate to our website to upgrade and create uh directory improvements as well as interactive calendars um our our directory and calendars certainly need an update um so that brings a total expens expens of 34124 of which 21,500 is dedicated to legal and audit Services terms of General Services uh that res represents our public facing services so we're proposing an event budget of $30,000 and we expect the majority of that revenue is going to come from sponsorships as you see in column e we're also reallocating our marketing budget to have a new line called social media influencers uh which we'll use to promote the town events and businesses that's been something that we've been hearing quite a bit from our businesses that they get a lot of attention when a social media influencer is hired to promote an event or their business um and so we're going to allocate a specific amount of money this year to hiring those folks um then one of our most expensive Services is Street streetscaping and planting so we've proposed a total budget of $20,000 that includes mulching 50 tree pits throughout the town which we've done every year since Inception as well as spring and fall plantings and various other Design Elements related to that we'd like to do a post- winter refresh and expansion of the Morris Turnpike streetscaping project that we started this year and as I mentioned we're going to put $88,000 of our assessment budget into the uh $220,000 provided for the town for street sweeping and for weeding to extend that another six weeks I mentioned the Essex County grant for public artart so that brings that total cost to 103 630 and then finally in terms of Town Hall Plaza we've requested $35,000 as I mentioned um that also we also intend to allocate $6,200 from the assessment and $8,000 from from sponsorships Town Hall Plaza was actually our number one sponsorship driver this year which is pretty interesting it's the first year obviously that we had tried it and it was a a huge Revenue driver for us um here we'd like to have $10,000 towards someone that can help assist on that project Amanda and I are here every single weekend usually two nights on a weekend be nice to have someone that could help uh set it up and break it down and work with us on that um of course you have to pay for the live music gazebos additional seating branded barrier covers um and planting so really just to create the Ambiance in that space so before I discuss the assessment increase are there any other questions on the expenses side yes have all the sponsorships that were pledged actually been paid out have you guys received all of the funds that were promised from those sponsors Yes actually um I can provide you a copy that we're presenting at our Thursday meeting we have I suppose it's about 98 99% collected there's only one that's outstanding and that's because it's not doing until December 1st so 100% 100% of what has been promised has been collected any other questions and thank you to Amanda who's done an amazing job getting getting those sponsorships out and getting them collected um so in terms of the assessment increase so we've talked about a $40,000 increase 44 I should say um so in 2024 the assessed properties have an average assessment now this is from the smallest assessed property to the largest of 1,267 that's the average uh with a proposed $40,000 increase the average assessment will go up by $266 for all 161 so of the 67 properties which pay between $100 and $499 for the year their average increase will go up $65 uh 113 Properties or 70% of the total will see an average increase of less than $175 for the year um considering the increase uh this in context after adding the $40,000 for Milburn Short Hills we still have the lowest assessment in comparison to Summit Springfield and Livingston but we serve almost the exact same number of businesses as Springfield over 500 and more than twice as many as Summit so um I think we've been operating on a Sho string budget to begin with and I think we need this additional funding to become even more competitive with our surrounding communities and that is our presentation we thank you all for your patience tonight and I'm happy to answer any questions thank thank you does anyone have any questions we gonna have time for discussion or is this just question um if you have any comments that you want I do have a few comments so um what we heard tonight is that the Sid is an independent nonprofit organization um I get that so my concern is that the township Town residents the taxpayers are funding a portion of the executive director salad some 50 some thousand now when the Sid was first getting started I could see the town shipping in for that but now that it's more established I think it's time that the town no longer continue having to pay uh for the salaries of the people that work for the Sid because remember the point of the Sid is to help the businesses in town the businesses in town are primarily the ones that are funding it and they're the ones getting the benefit so if they feel that they're getting the value that they you know should get out of this then they should be the ones to uh pay for the executive director's uh portion of the salary um additionally and I brought this up in Prior meetings um you know I think there are still complaints from businesses in town that feel that it's taxation without representation I think the governance structure of the Sid needs to be modified so that the businesses that are actually paying into the Sid have more uh input and control over who is on the board there should be designated positions that could be elected uh by the the people that actually pay into the Sid um I think that would be more fair and more transparent um you know unfortunately that didn't seem to get much traction but uh you know I think we're at a different spot now than we were four years ago and yes I think there's a lot of businesses that benefit but I think at a certain point the residents should not not have to be subsidizing this uh program that's for the benefit of the businesses also I would venture to Guess that if you made the Sid contributions optional the majority of the businesses that are currently paying into the Sid would probably stop so in that case I really question the overall value of this to those businesses I have a question have you guys notified the business yeah have you notified the business of the increase of the assessment does anybody know what's going on yes um so every business and property owner was served with a copy of the budget which included a narrative that details the assessment increase okay so something was shopped off to me you should have received it via email I'm gonna go check to my email you should probably have received it in early October okay so I think that now that we're voting on it I mean and you know I don't remember seeing that email I don't I mean and I would I think that the businesses before we vote on it people need to be notified that this increase is happening which we did no okay I get that yeah I hear you I'm telling you that like for myself sitting up here and as a business owner I did not not see that email okay okay I understand that you put it out there what I'm asking you to do is to put it out there again maybe in a separate email like to let people know that to even let the businesses know that this is being voted on right now by the TC just to give people an opportunity to come out one way or the other like as always I think it's really important to hear from the businesses themselves and the property owners for them to come advocate for the organization um and I think it's also important that you let them know that this increase is happening sure just awesome add real quickly to that sending an email um that should not be deemed official notice I don't know what your bylaws require but you guys should make a modification if necessary you know when the township has to send out official notices they do so through the mail and in some cases things are sent VI a certified mail um you know with spam filters and all that that people have um an email is not sufficient notice I think you guys need to find a better way of more reliably ensuring that the notices are delivered and I would recommend using certified mail I think that would be a more appropriate way to disseminate that information you could do an email in addition but then no one could really say oh well we didn't get it just to be clear um the ordinance and the bylaws say that uh if we have an email address that is sufficient if we don't we have to send it via hard mail we sent about 25 or so via hard mail um so we follow the letter of the ordinance and the bylaw and I'm suggesting that the ordinance Andor bylaws or both should be amended so that we have a more reliable form of notice that is the responsibility of the township committee we follow the rules that we were required to follow okay so we should probably look as tightening that up for notice I agree notice should be done maybe by by mail with some type of reply etc etc but you know that's good uh I think that is a good uh suggestion we don't get our tax bills certified now it's kind of right so maybe I agree maybe a male but a certified certified male is right well let's not be unburdened by what has been whatever I just um know this the process is the process the procedure they follow the procedure so the question really is is the value that the Sid brings much more uh and do we do we support it versus you know the alternative which would be hiring a a big $200,000 guy or something to come inhouse and work internally for Alex and be a part of the Town Etc uh having sat front row at every I don't think I didn't miss a meeting this year um that I can unequivocally say the value that they've that they' put forward uh certainly could not get that from one person working in Township in town hall uh and you know just Applause to what you guys have brought forward I mean Township Plaza was a was a huge success uh and then the sponsorships and such but Ben one thing about Township Plaza and Kudos and kudos for you guys for figuring out and it's amazing that you did it and you know it was a great success I'm not sure that the businesses the people that are paying into it saw would directly relate that that success for the community did we run this Township for the residents not for the business we have to go one at a time we have to go one at a time is actually for the businesses not the resid but one at a time a a very strong business community supports the residents we have a beautiful downtown with entertainment we were the Envy of New Jersey this year with the beautiful paper mill shows uh and the down and the Town Hall Plaza which was packed just about every night so it's all intertwined uh you can't really separate the two I can I just say something the the um the Sid does not only support the businesses but it's supports the residents because if you were here over the summer every weekend our downtown was packed Town Hall Plaza was packed and a lot of these people came from out of town and a lot of these people told us how they wished their towns did something like this for the stationers so then the increase should go to the town right for the res Tera we have to go one at a time I just wanted to make a St I was just gonna say so we can't have it both ways if it doesn't if it if it if if it does support the residents which we which I think it does but that's why we're pay the that isn't you know uh Deputy Mayor sakandi just said we should stop contributing to the executive director's salary so the town is paying a portion of the budget and there and that is the portion that I don't know that it's matches dollar for dollar but there is a portion of this budget that Services the residents and that's why the town is kicking in part of the money but the increase is not going to the town what the increase of the Town budget that the town is going to pay we're increasing what 5,000 to match your increase in salary how much more is the town increase what is the town's increase to the budget how much more will the town be paying of the budget of that $4,000 increase versus the business assessment zero the 40,000 is from is an assessment put on the businesses sure there's the these there's the discretionary money right that we talked about right the 20,000 that comes from a grant which you could use for something else if you wanted and the 35,000 that we talked about from Town Hall Plaza okay so maybe it's like 35,000 then you're asking more from the town and 40,000 is coming from the businesses correct our special assessment right which forms the bulk of the budget we're requesting a 20% increase which is the $40,000 there's funds from other sources but specific to the assessment that comes 100% from the assessed properties so I I guess point is is if the value is equal to the residents and I'm separate than Frank right so I I'm making a different point than Frank's making but if the value to the residents is equal to the values to the business then it should be an in like um they should both be paying the same amount extra increased oh to be fair the town did kick in extra money specifically for the town Plaza right they bought cbos or signage other stuff so there was more the executive director's salary that was contributed by the town and that money went specifically to the town hall Clause of closure so I think you could make the argument that the town did contribute more that is fine the only thing that I'm saying is the businesses should be notified that their assessment is going to be increased in a way that you know it got to them and an email is not sufficient that is all I'm saying prior to the December thank you and is it it's to the property owner or to the business owner so might as well go down this R technically it is only the assessed property owner however we go the extra mile and we serve every property owner as well as every single business we we are not legally required to serve the businesses but we do it all right so articulate that a little further how that happens so again we follow the rules set forth in the ordinance and the bylaws uh prior to our annual meeting every property owner and every business owner receives an email stating the date of the meeting that there's public participation and we submit a copy of the budget that you guys have in your packets that's six uh slide packet everyone received that anyone that does not have an email address on file which I mentioned is only about 25 Property Owners or so they receive a hard copy letter in the mail that's it so in the end about 700 individuals receive notice that the annual meeting is occurring they're invited to participate and they receive a copy of the budget that's being discussed there's also at our September meeting a workshop on that budget as you know so we actually went over that budget and presented it publicly twice and now we've presented it publicly for the third time tonight how many Property Owners showed up to your annual business name none one and and because you you said receive that they received it you sent it correct you have no idea who actually received that email in terms of them reading it and knowing what's happening and all I'm saying Steve I think you're doing a great job all I'm saying is you just I would like to see um an effort made just to get that information out there and I would also like to see all the property owner show up to this meeting on December 17th and say we love the sit we want the sit well we did that last year as you recall we had a huge number of people that came out um if you would like us to do that again I would like to see it like to hear from from them when I vote that we're going to increase the budget by $40,000 I would like to see them come out and say yes we love it it's working for us we want to keep it they're doing a great job okay yeah I think that's a good point I mean right now there's no mechanism for the businesses that pay into this to say whether they you know want to participate or whether they find Value in it and I would hope that before we continue to fund this or fund any increases that we should find out from the businesses if the majority of them are happy to pay this tax and feel they're getting the value uh out of it great that would be good feedback to have but there should be some way that we can do a survey so that's not input um so we have a meeting every month it's subject to open public meetings act most SIDS do not follow open public meetings act uh we have one property owner per or so who attends every meeting virtually and constantly expresses her displeasure nobody else does she can but nobody else does so it's not fair and not true to say that there's no mechanism for someone to express their displeasure they absolutely can that doesn't happen and so I think we need to be careful that not we're not inventing displeasure simply because you don't hear it right if you don't hear it it may not exist and so I think I think you're Taking Liberties a bit to say that there's all these people who have displeasure respectfully but they can show up every month Deputy Mayor mayor just let him finish let him finish please respectfully I've spoken to other business owners in town and they have expressed their displeasure at the C okay they may not be inclined to show up at a meeting uh to express their displeasure because some of them are concerned there could be potential backlash or ramifications um stop that's I wish I was that powerful that's what I heard uh so I think look over excuse me excuse me I think I think I think it's reasonable that there's at some point some sort of survey or you know if at the next meeting you come forward with all these letters of support then you know that would be a sign that this is something that the businesses want and not just talk and last year when we came with letters of support I think we had over 50 of them the township committee said of course they wrote letters of support they benefit from it yeah that's generally when people write letters of support when they find benefit um it's the same discussion every year uh it's it's it's actually quite tiring um Benin over kpis tangible datadriven kpis that you seem to be ignoring because you're looking for displeasure that doesn't Voice itself I'm confused by that no I'm taking a critical look at something that our residents are paying into and that our businesses are paying into and I'm looking at the structure of it and what I'm realizing is it doesn't seem that the businesses really have as much input into how this money is spent and used as they should they don't have direct representation on the board they don't get to elect members of the Sid board I which is a separate issue than the budget well when you approve the budget you're approving the program to move forward if you don't fund it then you can force it to be you could also fund it and change the ordinance you could change the bylaws you could do that simultaneously right you could say that I support the services you're providing therefore I want to support the budget but simultaneously I'd like to change the ordinance or I'd like to change the bylaws you could do that I would like to change the ordinance on the bylaws fortunately don't think we have a consensus okay can we the beauty of Township government that's how it works you have five people representing the interests of all constituents not just Republicans not just Democrats not just uh a handful of of of dis displeased business owners Property Owners Etc you're making the best decision so you're making you have all the information coming in you have to make a decision based on what you believe sitting here I'm not gonna go into the back and forth being at every meeting understanding the kpis we put in place I feel it's is a worthy increase and I'm going to support it thank you committee I just want to applaud all the work that um the Sid board has done and thank you to uh Mr gillo and Miss Dean you work I've seen you work 247 um to make this community what it is so I appreciate you thank you I'll I'll just add that anecdotally you know as a representative of the ororo who was looking to increase their awareness um what the board did there was to reach out to the C was not required to support them as they're not of business but as has we've already developed a partnership with the Sid to increase the to to work on events work as partners and and the auban would kind of be stuck um being able to do that on their own so that's also a benefit where the C's gone above and be to help how that help I have one more thing to say here and it's really important so please don't just let me have a we could go we could do this for hours okay go ahead go ahead isn't that what we're here for go ahead okay so right you just said that the S is helping the arboro which is amazing right I think it's great but the qu like the question I have is so at what point do like where is the responsibility of the Sid to is it to the business owners or is it to all the other organizations in town how what is the mission of the S is it to bring all the organizations and all the nonprofits in town together and to unify the town and make this town have all these great events for the entire town or is it to help the businesses it's to help the businesses to be the best that they can be so that they can provide AR business well how does the arum help the businesses in town it's a p the Arboretum is a piece of of the community yes totally and Arboretum is a gem and a jewel and we love it and Amaze it okay but how does the Arboretum help the businesses so we're gonna we're going to continue the public hearing and consideration of adoption I want to say one final so this year we had a ballot measure right as to whether the town wanted a new tax or trust fund and the residents the people that were paying into it got a choice the business owners and the property owners of those commercial buildings in town did not get the choice they didn't get a vote what I'm saying is they should have a vote as to whether uh they should continue to have to pay this tax thank you thank you the public Hearing in consideration of adoption of the 2025 budget is scheduled for December 17th Township committee meeting which begins at 7 p.m. here at Town Hall the introduced budget is available on the township Clerk's Township clerk's office at in the township clerk's office and will be posted on the township website once the annual assessment role is certified by our tax assessor letters will be sent to each property owner within the district and the full role will be posted on our website the annual assessment role will also be scheduled to be before the committee at a future meeting is there a motion to approve resolution 24259 yes motion second oh you have to move it I move that resolution 24259 be approved and that the Township Clerk be authorized to have the budget notice published on November 21st 2024 in accordance with law and that the public hearing and final passes be scheduled for December 17 2024 uh Township committee meeting beginning at 7M is there a second second roll call vote Please Mr Cen yes Miss pus yes Deputy Mayor Sandy no Mr Stoler absolutely mayor Romano yes thank you Deputy Mayor you are scheduled to sponsor ordinance 2692 d24 I would like to present an ordinance entitled ordinance number 2692 d24 ordinance amending and supplementing the township of Milburn development regulations and zoning ordinance um Alex able to provide AEF description of this very specific with the zoning I believe it's this one back the front yard set back um so what this ordinance does is it re uh verts uh the change that was made last year to the prevailing frontback setback front yard setbacks uh the zoning uh board was getting a lot of requests for variances and there were a lot of problems with what was done uh last year uh so they've taken that into account and uh we're adjusting that so that's what this is for I move that this ordinance be taken up and passed on first reading and that the Township Clerk be authorized to have the ordinance published in accordance with law and the item and for hearing in final passage on Tuesday December 17th 2024 may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Colin yes Miss prus yes Deputy Mayor Sandy yes Mr Stoler for mayor Romano yes thank you uh Deputy Mayor ordinance 2693 d24 I would like to present an ordinance entitled ordinance number 2693 d24 an ordinance authorizing the township of Milbourne to execute a residential property lease for that certain property located on block 4901 lot 3 in the township of milour uh so briefly this is uh going to authorize the township um this is the EAS correct this is the Le for the par this is the Le for sorry I have number of these that were going going going through and they don't tell me which is which uh on here um so this is uh for the parasol house um so I move that this ordinance be taken up and passed on first reading and that the Township Clerk be authorized to have the ordinance published in accordance with law in the item and for hearing and final passage on Tuesday December 17th 2024 we have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Cohen yes Miss pus yes Deputy Mayor second Mandy yes Mr Stoler mayor Romano yes thank you okay I am sponsoring ordinance 2694-24 I would like to present an ordinance entitled ordinance number 2694-24 ordinance amending chapter 7 traffic of the revised General ordinances of the township of Milburn the proposed amendment to chapter traffic code of milburn's General ordinances is intended to correct inaccuracies between the code and regulations displayed on the street the purpose is also to establish several recommendations of the Milbourne police traffic Bureau and parking ad hoc committee these changes include reducing the parking time liit limits in Lot 12 from 1 hour to 30 minutes and codifying the mid block crosswalk on Highland Avenue do you want to add anything yeah um there are some additional changes to this ordinance um including um the uh parking lots making sure that uh We've added five metered spaces in Lot 19 as well as what was described as uh the uh changing from one hour to 30 minutes in Lot 12 and also making sure that we put in the general code um that idling is prohibited um so that we can potentially enforce idling in that lot as you know that's used a lot by um Uber e or um GrubHub drivers uh we also added uh two stop sign um locations Cedar and um and lynen um which are intersections that should have stop signs and were indicated by the mbour traffic Bureau that uh they would like to see that codified in the in the traffic this is again an ordinance that we do each year there's usually some cleanup there's usually some uh things that happen throughout the year that we're we're we're codifying um and um this is a uh another um version of that that we do each year so thank you I move that this ordinance be taken up and passed on first reading and that the Township Clerk be authorized to have the ordinance published in accordance with law in the item and for hearing in final passage on Tuesday December 17 2024 may I have a second roll call vote Please Mr Collin yes Miss puus yes Deputy Mayor Sandy yes Mr Stoler yes mayor Romano yes thank you committee wom appr is your scheduled to sponsor 2695 5-24 I'd like to uh present an ordinance entitled ordinance number 2695-24 an ordinance authorizing the township of Milburn to execute a cell tower and compound leas for that certain property located on block 541 lot one in the township final anything else no no no this is uh this is the uh this is the land lease uh for Diamond um who is will be erecting a I believe it's a 150 total feet U monopole cell tower um this also includes a 25 area 2500 uh square foot area um on the uh on on the ground as well as their access to that to that property um and uh yeah as you said finally because this has definitely been for my entire second time we have been talking about this so this will get done um I move that this ordinance be taken up and passed on first reading of the Township Clerk be authorized to have the ordinance published in accordance with law in the item and for hearing and final passage on Tuesday December 17 2024 may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Colin yes M puus yes Deputy Mayor Sandy yes Mr Stoler mayor Rano yes thank you commit sto your scheduled to sponsor ordinance 2696-24 I'd like to present an ordinance entitled ordinance number 2696-24 an ordinance of the township of nurn County of Essex authorizing the township of Milburn to execute a lease agreement with paper mill playoffs for 20 Brookside Drive Milburn New Jersey 0741 this is the lease that's conforming to uh the uh build out of the U the paper mill uh to extend it uh it actually somebody mentioned earlier uh it begins upon completion of the project uh and those two years or two years will be added onto the back of the lease uh so there is no missing of Revenue just so uh there's not uh that's not confused any any questions if the project is not completed it's completed the following year and it pick correct corrects so if it takes an extra like two years they'll tack that on and correct correct I move that this ordinance be taken up pass on first reading of the Township Clerk be authorized to have the ordinance published in accordance with law and the item and for hearing and final passes on Tuesday December 17 20 I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Colin yes M puus yes Deputy Mayor sakandi yes Mr Stoler affirmative mayor Romano yes Deputy Mayor ordinance 2691 to four please I present for consideration ordinance entitled ordinance number 26912 ordinance of the township of Milbourne County of Essex authorizing the township of Milbourne to execute easement agreement granting an easement and right of way on property located at 521 Milburn Avenue Short Hills New Jersey tonight is the time set for public hearing final passage as advertised in accordance with law I declare the hearing open raised I don't think it's on I moved it this find out all right we just in case hi Miss best we're doing we have the um public hearing now on ordinance 2691 d24 is that what you're calling about you're muted you're muted I was waiting for the next three minutes Anette I'm so sorry sure no we'll put you back on hold thank you so just want to make sure thank you in that case I move this public hearing be closed and the ordinance be adopted on Final reading and that the Township Clerk redirected publish the ordinance by title as passed on Final reading in accordance with law may I have a second roll call vote Please Mr Cen yes Miss puus yes Deputy Mayor sakandi yes Mr stera Mayor Romano yes thank you okay we have no all business new business we are going to talk about the proposed gas blow gas powered leaf blower regulations um do you want to uh discuss said I mean I think we've all reviewed the ordinance but I can give you my feelings if you want to yeah um so just so everyone's clear um as we as we heard earlier uh the environmental commission held um a number of public sessions heard from the landscapers and I think what they came up with is a very reasonable compromise that will I'm sorry people can you guys hear me I've had a lot of complaints that my mic doesn't work well so maybe we get that checked out um for now I'll lean over and speak directly into it um so I think that this represents a very good compromise that will help um reduce the amount of uh pollution and noise pollution that we have throughout the year but still allow the landscapers to use the heavy equipment when they need it most which is in the spring and the fall and actually I remember a number of the landscapers came and they actually said look we'd prefer you don't have any sort of ban but if you did have a ban make it seasonal so that it was you know not in the fall in the spring so I think this is a a good compromise and then I think over time as technology improves and uh electric blowers get more and more powerful uh and have longer run times then you know we can revisit it but I think for now it's a very good compromise because quite honestly there's no reason to be using a very loud and heavily polluting gas blower to blow around a few Blades of grass in the middle of the summer it's just it's not necessary so um I'm hoping now that there's been discussion um that we will be able to move this forward uh as a Township committee I understand there's still that educational piece the EC is going to do but I see no reason why we we can't start uh having this move forward I'm just I'm just a little concerned about the enforcement of this I'm just not clear how that's going to happen um you know I don't I just don't imag you know are we expecting that if your neighbor is using gas power loop low at the wrong time of the year that you're going to report them to the non-emergency number and I just don't know you know it's unlikely that a policeman is going to be driving by when when that happens and you know I just don't know how that's supposed to work are we allowed to respond not right now um so it's my understanding uh that there's going to be a way to you could report um you know a violation and then there'll be a warning uh and I think even that there's going to be sort of an educational component to it and furthermore you know we don't have to take the ordinance directly as given to us that's something that we should work in and there's a number of other towns that that have done this before we should also look at those ordinances and come up with a reasonable enforcement mechanism because I think the especially the first year or two is going to be about really making sure people understand it and I think with regards to the enforcement it's mostly going to be the commercial um lawn services that would potentially be you know using the gas power equipment as opposed to people calling and Reporting their neighbors well but they're reporting their neighbors landscape or whatever I mean that's you know that that's all I'm concerned about I don't think we want to turn that's not a good way for for this to happen is to have you know neighbor versus neighbor so I just think we need to kind of think through how that how that I think it's a good idea I just want to make sure that we have the if we're going to have an ordinance like this that we're able to enforce it in a in a way that's fair to to every so Jared maybe would you be able to help us out with some enforcement language based on what other communities are doing yeah I also have a suggestion that two suggestions which you can consider is uh one is if the resident is using their own leap flower making that an exception so they're because you know obviously commercial landscapers have more money you you know sometimes there's exceptions for individual residents who are using their own Le flers that's the governing body obviously and I see that number one as golf courses uh will golf courses be also subject to seasonal restrictions they can't because they're open mainly in the summer I know that there was discussion of that um I'm hoping during the public comment period one of the members of the EC that uh is here will be able to answerer that uh more completely but that was something that was discussed and contemplated okay so I'll defer to them yeah even even on that um if it is on a golf course and you're so many meters or yards off some neighbor's property maybe there is some type of dispensation for that because you're in the middle of nowhere basically uh versus a uh versus insid of the community yeah and the I bring up because they they get they get an extended hour um for their time restrictions so they were they were like they were set they were they were differentiated in the ordinance they could be given a greater time to PL escape and I understand why I'm just wondering if the seasonal restriction applied to them and I also if an individual resident has a gas gas leaf blower are they required to swap theirs out if they're not using commercial landscape I don't I don't think Maplewood does I think Maplewood their residents can but I'm not 100 they can use um gas I thought Maplewood was a total ban but uh check on that yeah I mean I am I don't you know I've spoken to some members from the environmental commission thank you you um I'm not opposed to it but I what I said was I don't want our residents to find out about this through their landscapers so um you know I think that just you know as hard as you worked with open space it's it has to be the same and um it has to be the same and also um the schools like did anybody talk to the schools because this affects them too you know there's seven schools and they maintain their properties through the summer so that that was my other ask and um is there going to be a ban on decibel levels I know there is a ban on it but and that's why I was asking between electric and and gas power just I guess uh you guys can Enlighten US during the the uh open open public session but um you know how loud are those and will there be a ban on uh the noise for peaceful enjoyment uh because uh quite frankly my electric leaf blower is just as loud I think as a as a gas blower maybe what would make sense is for us to formally invite um a representative or delegation from the EC to come that can speak as an authority and directly answer these questions that we have and then from there we can determine what the next steps are would that make the most sense maybe sure put it on yeah you know next meeting's agenda and might not be nice to have is a some type of cooperation with a Home Depot or Lowe's if you wanted to buy one for them to help with the reduction and price of some sort some type of kiss for the residents you I think there's some state level programs that Mr Giselle pointed out that are being contemplated so again I think these are questions we should ask of the experts Mr McDonald would you like to the only thing I just as Mr Stoler had uh commun Stoler had asked about decibal levels I think that becomes a very difficult thing to enforce um and particularly given that the difference probably might not be all all that much depending I think where I read it was like 65 to 70 on electric and you know 80 or upwards on a on a gas powered um I just I think when we talk about enforcement there's always going to be a difficulty in enforcing new regulations um but certainly that would add another level of complexity to it and if you're talking about whether using a gas powered or using electric that's very easy to enforce very simple to Define um so I just I would just um comment on that um and I I know it might come up Mr brazelle and I had a nice conversation today um but and just so that the the committee is where because I think it also should be a concern of ours from an operational standpoint and what we do is and particularly in the fall and and and in springtime cleanup um but during the summer months we we already you I mean we already use electric blowers for our uh Lawn Care Crews um I had asked the question um earlier uh of U Mr Dodie on whether when we do tree jobs and have large stump grindings or or other activities whether and you know that's going to take place over the summer whether G electric leaf blower would um um suffice and I think his words to me were we will adapt so uh I I I don't know if that was a direct uh you know answer to it but I think that um you know we'd be able to deal with that but I will say that if anything you know particularly eats into the fall and what we do from a leaf collection standpoint uh would be very problematic for us um so um from the standpoint of the compromise that was achieved here I think U makes some sense but um those are you know my the only thing that stands out to me is if I drop a th000 pound weight or 800 pound weight on my toe I'm so break my toe right so understanding you know the peaceful enjoyment and you know if you're going to restrict the times you know let's do it in such a way that we do get peaceful enjoyment from it just because somebody's out there with an electric blower blowing all day long still doesn't give me peaceful enjoyment so I want to make sure we address the the issue agree yeah just I should have mentioned this earlier there is a difference between the it's not just the deciel level but the pitch of the sound and depending on the pitch it also affects how far it travels and can be perceived as my understanding get someone that can explain the physics of it better but it's my understanding that in general electric blowers even if they're not um you know from a decibel level all that quieter when you're sitting inside your house and your neighbor is using it you're not going to hear it as easily as you are those giant you know gas blowers but again questions we should ask when the EC comes to present great and I just want to say I know that we've been talking about this for a really long time and the EC's work really hard this year and I think it's great that we came to a compromise that it seems like everybody's on board with so congratulations AC thank you we just got to get it across the Finish Line oh I think yeah we're on the way I think we're on the way yeah we're a lot further along now we were absolutely yeah so okay public comment this public comment period is to allow for final comments from the community when invited invited to speak to offer your comments please come to the Lector and clearly state your name and whether you are a Milburn resident Andor property or business owner please do not provide your full address seeing our meetings are recorded and readily available to the public a reminder that in order to help facilitate mly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to one three minute session I will now open public comment but I would like Miss best to go first since she's been waiting so long hello hi thank you nette oh wait let me turn my phone off so hold on I just got to turn this down because I have my phone on and my I apologize okay um I just wanted to gosh um sorry about the echo but I got to just go quick does the township have a tracking um place in system to monitor predatory land practices such as unidentified llc's accumulating accumulating land in concurrent block spaces in the same blocks um a reference number of properties close in proximity to 165 old Short Hills there's been probably six or seven llc's very close to the 165 old Short Hills um Road and um I wanted to ask about that um if a homeowner next to a property in her Township has won a cease and desist lawsuit against a homeowner who is operating a property in a non-residential manner such as a house of worship a gymnastics studio or parlor um in a residential area does the township have a legal responsibility to enforce the court order as part of the Township Code Enforcement um and I would like to request if um our town code off officer can be a witness at the 165 hearing tomorrow night in regards to that and if a property at one Jefferson was not allowed to be operating house of worship how is it that they are tax exempt and have a tax exempt status I I wanted to understand that and maybe Mr um um McDonald could educate me on that it's just a question um and then I wanted to just quickly talk about the kpi comment um in terms of um the uh explore melbour I listen very closely to the kpis so kpis are about benchmarking numbers it's not about like throwing numbers out oh we did 85 you know 85 people showed up or 85 businesses happened you need to comp things so you need to do a Ty L comparison and a percent increase Etc or decrease you need to look at things like gross margin increase if increases and also um just Topline sales increases um and also just marketing you know in terms of conversion rates because you know the amount of people landing on an Instagram account is not the same thing as converting so I think that that's really important and there's a lot of fluff on those kpis so I think that you might want to get a retail expert on that board um and I also want to talk about just quickly the gas powered blowers before I run out um I'm an environmentalist but I'm also a reasonable environmentalist and I wanted to comment my neighbor um is very t uh he's a wonderful person and he loves to blow his stuff at like s o'clock at night and he has a um electric blower and the electric blower is really it has a high frequency and I think Frank was talking to the difference between Sorry Miss best your time is up sorry I'll talk thank you so much Annette have a good night okay now we can go to the room good evening again committee members Matt gr uh Milburn Township resident I appreciate the conversation and the debate um and discussion on leaf blowers just a couple of quick points to answer some of the things that you raised there have been a number of studies I believe there's over a 100 towns that have implemented uh some type of restriction number of Studies have been done on acoustical quality differences between gas equipment and electrical equipment some of them make the same level of sound but the and I'm not an engineer I've been reading the reports but uh the frequency is different and the significant greater difference in the acoustical quality of the gas powerered leaf blowers makes it as as Mr Sako was saying makes the sound travel further so if someone is down the street you're going to hear it up the street but it's also audible over that greater distance and it travels the frequency waves travel through Windows through walls and through doors so if you're in your own house you will hear it if you're right next door to someone using the electric equipment you may hear it but it's not as piercing it's not as annoying um and it's not as incessant compared just just on the scientific level uh people may differ if they don't dis like it but that's why we have a seasonal restriction and hourly restrictions as well and that's a compromise um the golf courses have additional hours because they're wanting to make sure the course is clean uh for folks to play Early in the Morning enforcement we don't want neighbor versus neighbor we want people to get along that's on the township and the environmental commission to uh push the education and the implementation to make sure people are aware of this before it takes effect there is a three-month grace period That's a suitable ramp up to educate people and get the word out um and there also is right now ongoing debate in Trenton to try to provide um tax credits or rebates for landscapers or residents to make the conversion just like they have for electric vehicles from of gas powered cars so again trying to put it on a decibel level that's not how that should be done it's based on the frequency because the decibel level can be similar and we're trying to make this a quality of life issue for everybody so landscapers can still do the same job they're doing the lawn can still look as the resident wants it but it may take a little bit longer if we're using less powerful equipment but over time because the cost is less we think that this will benefit the landscaping companies as well thank you thank you Jeffrey Fel living the poet section I just wanted go back to earlier today you approved closed executive session minutes I would just recommend because your closed executive session minutes are not recorded that you adopt sooner the minutes of those closed executive session because I think tonight you approve Clos executive session from last November that you you should bifurcate that you approve closed executive session minutes within a more of a reasonable period of time whether you release it that's a separate decision that don't combine those decisions going forward because I think people need to see those records um as to the Sid I just recommend that you read the briefs that were far the trial briefs and the exhibits and that you go look at what budget was presented at October's meeting of the S because the numbers that were I heard tonight differ from what was presented to you I had about a $5,000 difference and things were changed um um I want to bring up the first time I appeared in front of the township committee was in October 2019 because of Russia sh I could attend that meeting and I asked the township committee to investigate and asked the county to Monitor and collect all long-term tax exemption revenues that were due to it it's taken me five years with the county to admit that they failed to do that you need to look at the October 29th public notice that was appeared in the Star Ledger where the county auditor finally admitted and told the county you need to Monitor and collect all long-term tax exemption revenues I know when I speak you discount everything I say but I'm telling you right now you better you should start listening and give more credibility to what I'm saying because on October 29th there was a page and a half ad about tax exemp revenues bonds being issued for affordable housing projects on the 29th the pel division issued an opinion that I had to file filed the motion for reconsideration where it says that all Pilots since o April 17 1992 have to be issued by the long-term tax exemption La that's the way we can fight RPM so RPM's been saying that they want a long-term tax exemption under the HM fa statute they don't have to be a a urban renewal indic this is getting to the weeds I offer my assistance I do not understand why you don't take my offer up to help in fighting RPM and fair share housing center because the fair share housing center has a subsidiary they got revenue bonds but not pursuant to the long-term tax exemption will and one of the problems we have in the state when we look at our state controller where did he come from he was the former executive director of the fair share housing center why isn't he investigating that thanks I bill brazel again South Mountain environmental commission Etc um I I just have two comments so this should be quick um one is the question of enforcement that was raised um so I've spoken with a number of towns where they have these kinds of restrictions um the code enforcement officer is generally how other towns handle it so just FYI I had a very nice conversation with the code enforcement officer of Montclair delightful man said call any time it's not a problem in our town and we're happy to talk about it so that's one thing to think about when when we take when you guys take this up um the second thing uh Mr caner you had raised the question of could residents have an exception and be allowed to use gas leaf blowers where professional landscapers would not be this was tried in Maplewood and the landscapers brought a lawsuit saying this is discriminatory against the landscapers um the only way they could end the suit was to say okay no one has an exception both private residents and professional landscapers have to abide by the same rules I just wanted to let you know that that has been uh experienced uh in our neighboring town uh thank you thank you anyone else no one online um yeah Perry erso had asked me Jean past her next sorry Perry erso sent her statement and asked if I would read it into the record um she's busy she said um due to a prior obligation I'm unable to attend the meeting uh she asked the following statement be read um let's see skip the beginning there um I would respect respectfully asked that this body request attorney caner to opine on the conflict of interest appear of impropriety matter and not rely on the former Township attorney Falcons memorandum dated August 10th 2020 which failed to State any case law post 1958 have all members of this body reviewed all existing Sid professional contracts has this body been furnished with the annual review of the performance for the executive director from the Board of Trustees of the Sid if you were to answer yes when was it submitted I would respectfully suggest that committee woman prose recuse herself from the 25 2025 budget presentation when when mbour Township's now sitting mayor accepted her nomination from the TC committee there was push back from the public because she was also the current sitting msh Democratic party chair public questioned her conflicts and she graciously resigned from her long standing position as chair since then I have learned that the current Sid board chair has accepted the position as since replaced our mayor as a new Democratic committee chair in June 24th should the current Sid chair resign from her position as this poses the same kind of conflict and why would the Democratic committee ask during interviews with candidates running on the Democratic ticket if they support the Sid why is this question relevant and would this bring you back to November 21 uh 2018 TC meeting when then dmda president stated that this entity is used as a political platform is the ex officio member On The Board of Trustees required to live and vote within Milburn uh to Perry or so these this was my couple questions from the Sid present um I think it's great that you guys actually have a discussion like you had so I hope you'll continue to allow that and not shut it down I think it was really helpful um what restrictions does Milburn have in addition to the benefits from Main Street New Jersey uh Tara raised this question last year and I don't think it was ever explained or answered fully Mr gorilla has a Consulting business how does he work full-time for Milbourne and also tend to his um other clients it looks like Amanda does a lot of the work that Mr gorilla used to do as this organizations move forward forward um maybe it and as well as Outsource vendors this was a startup is now launched and operational maybe it makes more sense to make this a more operational job for the Ed that's thank you Richie cyber uh resident this is a quick one um the town that picks up the town guys that pick up the leaves they do a beautiful job they organize but there should be some kind of rule about people doing overnight parking and blocking the streets do the leaves I think that the DBW guys should be able to issue tickets to people or at least knock on the door because I saw this week I mean it happens people park on the street the leave guys come to clean it up and it's like a pain in their neck they have to come back later to the neighborhood to fix so is there overnight parking in this town no okay 29 Southern Slope Drive good evening Phil K Milbourne resident about the gas powered leaf blowers I mean it's great what the environmental commission has done I think we're making real progress one perspective I wanted to give was my landscaper really nice guy and I mentioned to him a while ago around the time of the meeting um what he thought about the gas power leaf blowers coming in and he said he was open to changes and he said he'd come to the meeting where the landscapers were invited and I said how did it go and he said everybody would they were really nice reasonable and it was a good discussion so I think that I think a lot of landscapers are going to be amenable to something like you talked about that's a compromise situation I also think that if the homeowners are amable I mean I said to my landscaper I said well you know if they do this and you have to charge me a little more that's okay with me and if my lawn doesn't look as perfect as it did that's okay with me also and I really think that the homeowners have to do their part I mean the EC has done their part the landscapers I think are more open to this than some people think and if the homeowners do their part I think it's going to work out really well thanks thank you uh Debbie Frank Milbourne resident um also on the leaf blowers the other thing you have to remember is that a lot of the landscapers that are working in Milburn also work in those other towns that have the restrictions on leaf blowers they're already getting accustomed to this they probably already have ways that they're dealing with this so for them it's for the first town to do it it's a harder ask than it would be for us to do it um also the um the auto you know the the levels the frequency levels all that are very important but the one thing that I didn't hear ask questions from here that is as important are the polluting aspects and the health aspects that are not about um you know the just the noise level that's at least as important a thing as the noise and one quick question and I may have this completely wrong maybe I have my zone wrong but cyber was talking about the leaves my leaves were supposed to be picked up last week they have not been picked up um mine my cross the street neighbors my up the street and so I don't know what's going on with that thank youal now close public comment was anybody okay uh comments from the township committee uh committee M uh sure uh and we know it's not because of the raid Miss Frank so um couple issues U or a couple comments Richie cyber I agree uh they should just tow that car if it's sitting on a pile of leaves you know lucky not to catch the leaves on fire especially with the fire dangers we've been issued um second um the leaf blower ban I came to the meeting with the with the landscapers one thing I want to make sure is we don't create something worse than a leaf blower and one of the guys was saying that he has to have a generator buzzing 247 to charge the battery so I want to make sure that we understand that any generators used by these guys are is going to put out a greater level of uh of noxious uh gases as well so I want to make sure you know if we're going to do it let's do it right I don't want to swap one problem for a bigger problem and that's for Mr grer I'm sure there's studies and I do understand I think I understand by the desal versus the pitch I mean because when they're doing the gas I mean it comes permeates right through the entire house um Mr Feld I read everything you send I don't discount any of it I do believe you are an asset and it helps to see it uh so continue to do as you as you as you do uh and then uh that's about it thanks thank you com have any com uh sure so real quick um I just want to put it out there that generate aters are four cycle engines four cycle engines apparently are far less polluting than two cycle engines two cycle engines don't have a complete combustion cycle and they're also burning oil which releases a lot more pollutants so you'd run a generator for hours and hours and hours and it wouldn't come close to the amount of pollutants that a single two cycle gas blower will emit in matter of minutes that's just science so there's uh I think um Miss Frank made a fantastic point a lot of landscaping companies around here are already dealing with these restrictions so I think we're in a good position in that yes we're not we're not first we're not the Pioneers maybe we should be more pioneering but you know we're not the first so I think that this will be an easy transition for the landscapers and I also don't think we should be the last so I feel like this is an appropriate time to do this um with regards to the leaves I have noticed the piles of leaves all over town um Mr McDonnell is there some are we missing something is there something going on or are we just wrong about the schedule I mean a lot I don't know I mean that's a it's a it's a fairly vague question given like I don't know exactly you know um what zones haven't been picked up or I think the larger point is is that a lot of leaves have fallen en um due to the drought conditions due to the wind and things like that and the leaves um drying out earlier a lot of leaves have fallen also I'm not I mean we'd have to be certain that people are following the leaf collection schedule too people put their leaves in the street rather than storing them on the curb and then pushing them in the street on the days that they're supposed to be in the street um I would have to go back to DPW and say one are we enforcing the the the rules are we you know red tag neighbors that aren't doing or you know residents that aren't doing it correctly I do also know that they are behind as well uh in their collection based on the volume of leaves usually it's a it's a it's you get a much heavier November and December and I think you're gonna you're seeing a very heavy November and we'll see a light December um so that is part of it is there any like additional resources they need or equipment they need to rent that would help time unfortunately start early in morning I'm cognant of the fact we've had these these fir neighboring towns yeah we probably don't want those leaves to linger understood yeah okay I have no comments uh yeah just to I I I apologize I didn't hear uh the beginning of Miss best um conversation um but however I did hear the question about um one Jefferson and just to be clear that one Jefferson is a parsonage um so therefore it is also tax exempt um there are other parsonages in the township as well um besides one Jefferson um and I think that's I think that's it Mr I have nothing aome may have a motion to adjourn