##VIDEO ID:j6y3TQMFQPI## e e e e e e e good 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 forwarding to the officially designated newspapers that this meeting would take place at Town Hall at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday August 13 2024 meeting details and the draft agenda were also posted on our Township website please stand to salute the [Music] flap uned States roll call vote please here may here may I have a motion to approve the agenda so may have a second second all those in favor I may have a motion to approve the July 16th 2024 regular Township committee minutes may I have a second all those in favor may I have a motion to approve the July 16th 2024 special Township committee me minutes may I have a second second all those in favor okay okay the energy aggregation program update uh yeah um so just to provide a brief update um there is going to be a uh additional public information session via Zoom tomorrow evening at 7:30 uh the information is located on the t's website uh the period to opt out which is a little bit of a uh a misnomer has been extended uh until uh Monday of next week the I'm sorry the the 20th the uh other thing is that residents can opt out at any time just because there's that sort of deadline does not mean that you can't opt out after that deadline I know there's been a few questions uh regarding the uh the program and energy aggregation Community Ed aggregation uh we've been answering a few of those at Town Hall um and just understanding that you know through the uh BPU who regulates these types of programs throughout the state and and of course the other 17 communities that are participating in this particular round of community energy aggregation in The Hunton uh Cooperative is uh that it has to be an opt out program it is not uh it's not permitted to be an opin program um so again uh Lisa hibs from uh H will be on uh that Zoom tomorrow night to answer any questions and and help residents in any way that they need with that Community just say when this ordinance was pass to put to put us in there why it's just happening now yeah so th this um all of this sort of started to take place in 2021 um and a part of that was um you know there was I think conversation at that time with various groups that wanted to see the township um enter into a community energy aggregation program for a few reasons um one is obviously there's there has to be a a savings involved in it but also there was a desire to be able to offer a green option uh to Residents to procure green energy uh this type of aggregation or you know having a a different supplier of your energy uh has been available to residents on an individual basis for a very long time you could always reach out to a a you know a a company and say you know I'd like to to to buy my energy from you and jcpnl will continue to supply uh will continue to be your distribution you know your line all that your billing agent all of that but the actual energy is coming from a different Source whether that be constellation IDT which is in this case the townships and so uh but this is a way when you aggregate with multiple communities is a way to find larger savings um in that uh aggregation obviously the energy Market has been not great for the last um few years and and they have attempted several auctions but this one was successful and getting a strike rate that was um a a savings to those um communities H interestingly enough the T the township does also aggregate this energy um we uh we do that um for all of our buildings street lights things like that and not shortly after this uh all took place we got a call from our representative saying it's time to go out and and do our energy aggregation auction as well so there will be uh on the September 3rd agenda a uh a resolution to strike uh a rate so that when we go at the auction we have that authorization to do so okay so we have an update on Native habitats uh by Mr per okay hello so I'm I am here this evening as most of you are aware to give you an update and to reintroduce I call it a native plant resolution but it is the native the building native habitats resolution so uh the resolution was first presented to you on May 7th at that time you saw a slideshow um the TC requested that the Environmental commission discussed the resolution with Tor Whitman from the cor of haror Arboretum because discussion had already been held with other stakeholders I met with Tor he was very pleased at the prospect of having the native plant resolution his requests were that we include for him or him to be able to include and uh cultivars and Native ours which I will read you definition um a cultivar is a plant that has been specifically bred to emphasize specific desirable characteristics so a native comes about on its own without any human interaction a native R is a cultivar derived from native parents and bred for a particular trait okay so they're a deviation from a native but not not a non-native there's a lot of debate they're native purists if you're you know talking to people about pollinator Gardens or because in a flower it could make it so that there are extra petals but that might make it difficult for whoever the pollinator who specifically likes that flower to go into so it's a whole but anyway that's what Tor wanted and so we included it we also said that once a year you know we talked about when would he report you know the percentage of trees that he planted and we decided it would be once a year and that it wouldn't have to be in the resolution or future ordinance hopefully um the EC passed a revised resolution which includes tor's request and I am going to read you the two paragraphs that were changed so if you should all have your copy so if you um the 11th whereas paragraph give you time to get there whereas shave trees that provide Urban your Urban heat island effect mitigation and other environmental benefits may require non-native cultivar or native our species in circumstances deemed appropriate by the township Forester or the superintendent of the Department of Public Works or the Milburn shade tree Advisory Board or the director of the Kora haror Arboretum and bird sanctuary and then the next paragraph that was changed to accommodate um tor's uh wishes for the Arboretum is the fifth be it further resolved paragraph Okay so be it further resolved the township shall maintain a target of 70% native species to be used for all new shade tree plantings within a calendar year with the discretion of variants from this target granted to the township Forester or the superintendent of the Department of Public Works or the Milburn shade tree Advisory board or the director of the kah haror Arboretum and bird sanctuary as individual non-native cultivar or native our species selections may be necessary for placement in environmental conditions unsuitable for a native species so that overall benefits of a healthy and robust Township tree canopy may be obtained okay so those were the changes um moving on a little bit New Jersey municipalities exist that have already enactive native plant ordinances just to remind you we're not leading the way here um Monclair also has a 70% uh requirement for trees shrubs grasses ground cover Flowers Madison has all chadam has all rawe has 70% and mendum has all but what these municipality ordinances don't have is the permissive discretion of variants from a Target percentage of designated native plants to be planted that we have incorporated into this resolution so effectively the paragraphs are a recommendation rather than a mandate and just to refresh your recollection a brief summary of the benefits of native plants they belong in the echo region in which they evolve together with other native plants insects birds and animals because they have symbiotic relationships that support native species biodiversity and therefore the environment upon which we depend their roots are deep which assists to minimize soil erosion and flooding once establish lished watering is usually unnecessary as opposed to Grass Lawns and non-native plants which did not evolve in the echo region in which they've been planted and require significant use of water and often a variety of chemicals which have negative environmental consequences to stay healthy so the enactment of a municipal native vegetation ordinance aims to restore local biodiversity conserve water and reduce maintenance needs labor and the money put into chemicals um compared to non-native plants and that it is to help create a healthier community so there should also be Financial savings and Water Conservation so um the idea is also with native plants to create a larger more connected plant population base to help ensure that future native plant species are able to migrate in response to climate change so we want to have enough of them so they're going to survive and make the incremental accommodations that they've need to and they create larger more connected plant populations to enable pollinators to more easily locate the native plants instead of the um Gardens being so fragmented there is a big movement to have pollinator Pathways to make locating the um sources of pollen and nectar more easily accessible for the pollinators and the birds and it's all up the line so our municipality like others before has the opportunity to model the practice of sustainable gardening or yard care supporting a healthy environment supports a healthy Community there's no doubt about that in fact in 2017 the New Jersey Senate and general assembly enacted a revision to chapter 41 title 27 of the revised statutes requiring the department Department of Transportation the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and the South Jersey transportation to only use native plants to landscape roadways um and they would achieve benefits such as water conservation and reduction of labor hours in addition to the benefits that the native plants would provide to the environment so in recent years the number of Milburn residents recognizing the need and ease of supporting native species biodiversity in their own yards has been growing and I can tell you this without hesitation based on my interactions with residents in my current position sharing the environmental Commission in my many years having co-chaired the Green Team and privately as my neighbors always stop when I'm working in my yard to ask me questions and I'm always very happy to share plans and give them whatever education they are up for at the moment so the environmental commission strongly recommends and respectfully urges that that after you have the appropriate discussion um of this building native habitats resolution the township committee moved to consider the enactment of a building native habitats ordinance that is the end of my prepared words if you have any questions thank you I think before we have questions can we hear from Mr do so that we could just is that right so have questions directly Mr yeah um Mr doie our superintendent public works thank you and then if anybody has any questions good evening thank you mayor and Council for allowing me to speak tonight thank you for Renee all your hard work all through the years and the environmental commission sh Tre Advisory Board commission and all the above um as you know I'm Tom Dodie the superintendent of Public Works I've worked for Milburn for over 20 years 16 of those were Forester among any other thing that came along in DPW from leaves to trash whatever um so I just wanted to bring that up and I'm still current certified tree expert state of New Jersey certified arbest certified Forester so I keep all those certifications just beware so we basically have no problems with the overall idea of this ordinance but just some of the questions and some of the concerns that uh Stacy Phelps are Force she apologize she should couldn't be here tonight so you're stuck with me um so just some of the items um that we wanted to talk about uh and just when I vast experience uh with the New Jersey strike Strike Team I go back with them for 20 years Michael Van clef who's actually one of the uh co-sponsors writers um that I talk to quite often and I don't always agree so one of the items on the second page it's the like fourth paragraph down where it states invasive species defined as those species listed on New Jersey invasive species Strike Team don't plant list are hereby banned from future procurement on use on public lands so I'm concerned with that word band um just when you look at their list of trees that they have listed um one of them is a Japanese m and and why the intent of this list was created from when I was involved was for the aggressive non-native Cedar so plants that would like grow out of a planting bed and then establish themselves say in Old Shore Hills Park so that was the extent of this list but again we always you know don't agree on everything so one of the trees is a Japanese maple which drive around Shore Hills most yards have Japanese maples in that were planted and yes can it seed but you don't see it you don't see it aggressively seeding you can't find it that I've seen in Old sh Hills Park or the yokei tract you just don't see it happening because mainly because we're such a highly urbanized area um another one of the trees is called a weaving Higgins Cherry which is another ornamental cherry tree that same same content goes along with that another one is the U they call a Chinese Elm but it's also known as a lace bark Elm which is a very ornamental uh nice tree and the last one is the uh Japanese zova which if you do the history of it people want it as a replacement for the American elm because the American Elms mostly are dead except for ones that we fortunately use chemicals in to keep alive so that was uh one of the words that I think we have a concern with that we and not that we plant a lot of those trees but if the opportunity came up uh we feel that the word band is too strong so in the next paragraph down it says be it for the resolve deer resistant native plants in my opinion and I'm just stating my opinion right now is that that doesn't exist and what I mean by that is if you go out in the woods or any place that has trees and under story on it where you'll find a lot of the nonnative invasiv like Japanese Barb deer will even eat that with thorns and the problem being is the population of deer and that's across the state of New Jersey so that's that's just it's hard to I and I get it's in text and educational things and like that but it's a challenge so if you don't manage the deer or if you don't fence it off completely they're going to eat it they'll Che even American Holly just because they're so hungry um that's just another item and then um you know our biggest our biggest issue is the percentage um and the 70% because from my experience and again with the ideal of this we agree but here's the challenge when you have a highly urbanized area and I'm just going to use Milbourne for example where the street tree planting strips are literally 12 in wide to 3 feet wide and you have a 4 foot power line over your head so when you look at the list of native trees a lot of them want to grow 80 feet tall you don't have to be a Forester understand that Jersey Central will come here every five to seven years and prun those trees and the minute we tell them not to there's a State statue with a BPU that tells them if we stop them we can be liable for the outages and the damages so there's nobody that's that's going to do that so when you look the native list it's just it's a hard challenge to try to get trees that will fit in these restrictive planting spaces to grow successfully because that's what we're we're about we're about keeping the forth alive and healthy and diversified so I'll just real quick when you look across the street from that planting strip and you have another 12 in to three foot wide planting strip now you got the wires coming from those poles to the houses remember you're planting you're trying to plant a larger tree now over there and you have to look that down and you have the sidewalk and then you have to look for the natural gas Public Service Electric and Gas in the ground you can't plant there you look over here in the ground you see new J American Water you can't plant there and then you look a little back further in the lawn and you have a sewer line so it's very challenging with what we do to try to manage trees in those in those areas and if I just stuck to the native tree planting list and thank you for the exceptions we're basically be planting service Berry and red butt underwater so we need the diversification of trees to maintain a healthy Forest so you know when you talk to the New Jersey sha tree Federation that manages and works with all the municipalities across the state of New Jersey they say use to the greatest potential that you can for a native tree which we're fine with so what we've said is the Forester and obviously with what I still do today is our compromise which we worked with um Renee excuse me alen and is the 50% is what we feel would be appropriate now that's just for Street trees in those areas planting in Parks we have ample room you can plant walnut trees and I have examples of their fruit in there that are the size of tennis balls so there's a lot of items that you have to think about when you put a tree in a certain area so that it'll grow so that's just one quick concern that we have um and I believe you know just the last the last item that I have is um it's the third to last paragraph and I just I just I'm just cautious as curious says to why is you know it says the environmental commission by the way of annual remal to the township committee should review the above exceptions and procurement percentages annually and make recommendations to the uh Township committee for changes um we have a shry Advisory Board that's specifically uh there to work with myself the Forester other people to oversee plant any trees and shrubs on Township property so in my opinion that's again my opinion that would be the job of the Shater Advisory Board which have no problem with them doing the initial review that's where they're there for they're all appointed by Council and then if they want to give that information to the environmental commission to give back to the township committee that's fine but I just I was just curious as to why another layer of review or government is needed when we already have a five member board doing that so um that's basically what I have and what I've done with some of these are old so bear with me but I had the books available there's I'm giving each one of you I think I got enough or close to enough there's a little bit of homework here and and what there is is there's there's a book and I'll keep that there's examples of the pests and again a lot of these pests are non-native that are attacking trees that we have to use chemicals to keep the trees alive but there's a brand new one right here which one of my other favorite treeside the sugar maple is the American Beach tree which of course is a native tree and to let everyone know there's a new disease called Beach Leaf Disease which is affecting all of the American and European beach trees in the Northeast and Beyond and it's basically a soil nematode which is a microscopic worm that gets into the tree goes up into the buds and produces millions of worms in this bud and when the leaf opens it basically destroys the chlorophyll and the leaf so it literally is killing all the beach trees so and it is here in Short Hills it's already confirmed we're already getting calls so that that is another challenge when we just stick to the native trees we're gonna we have issues and it's a challenge to try to keep these trees healthy and alive and there's there's others in here called you know we don't I don't have to explain to you the anal Ash for so we can take the ash tree off our native list because they're all dead except for the ones that we treat to keep alive and then you know Dutch elm disease right everyone's probably heard of that that's another one that's been here since the 1930s which is another non-native fungus that was brought over here but we have alive elm trees in town prior to my coming was from the TBL they paid private companies to treat them and I've actually taken that over and now Stacy's running with it so we spend money on treating those trees like the huge one tayor Park Diane knows that tree to keep alive so the other ones are bacterial Lea Scorch which is killing all the oak trees and there's another new one that's coming called Oak Wilt and there's a u little article in the back about Native and planting and then some of the problems with the native tree species uh that we have and I just you know as an example this is a I was out riding my bike on Saturday on Clinton New Jersey where I live and you know it's not isolated this is bacterial Leaf Spork so this was was a healthy oak tree that is about you know 40 in in diameter that 3/4 of the canopy looked like this Lea so what happens is this fungi affects the leaves and they end up dying and then every year when that happens it ends up killing the tree so that's the challenge that we have with the native um issues with Street trees so park trees or Open Spaces we have no argument or no no U discussion with so thank you uh questions first of all um thank you for talking to Tor the AR I requested that I'm glad that that'll work one thing reading here I just found confusing is in the first be it resolved it says you know as well as the the township will require that at least 70% the newly procured plans and nles aren to say as well as trees used in public places be native but then further down it says in the be a further resolve it says the township shall maintain a target of 70% so I was confused because that didn't seem consistent it's either required to be 70% or a target of 70% I think if it's a target of 70% that should aay Tom's concerns because you might not meet the target you know 50% is the best you can do you strove for 70% so therefore I think a lot of what you're concerned about is potentially moot if it's the first part is says it's a hard requir it doesn't conform it doesn't conform which where so the first now therefore it resolved that first one says will require that at least 70% of newly procured plants and and trees um be you know as be be native but then further down it says a Target so in Frank I would personally rather start at 50 that I know we most likely can achieve versus starting at 70 and failing right off the bat so you're not going to get a report card on this well it's it's it's Antics I mean we we want to we want to be successful and if it's going to be annually reviewed ordinance can be revised so that's just I hear what you're saying but I again 50% we can strive to do that uh I think I think we can work I think we can work with you as we develop the ordinance there can be some back and forth that was be I think we should move this forward I know these the environmental commission's been working on this for quite some time there's a number of other towns that have similar ordinances and I think uh that we on the day should take action to move this forward so we can get a draft ordinance that we can review uh you know with Tom and and whomever else we need to review with with the EC of course um that way we have some forward movement on this I what does the township what's their target now how are you guys dealing right so it's I we you know 45% is an average for canopy cover that we're achieving so there has been no goal for natives we we try to fit the right tree in the right spot so it can be successful now again we're you know none of us will most likely be here but we're looking at 50 to 100 years you know when you look at the big pin OES down on Undercliff Road the ones that are left those are 80 to 100 years old so you know that's what we're striving to do to keep trees alive for the long for the long run so we had no you know goal to plant X percentage for Native um you know again if we're in Short Hills and there's 60 feet of lawn with no sidewalk I plant White Oaks I love the tree right we still plant sugar Maples even with all the risks we still do that where we have enough soil volume so the tree will live you know that's that's the deciding factor it's if you want to reduce it to you know planting in your garden that's basically the same for a tree so the more soil volume you have the healthier tree and the longer it will live so you know Tom thank you for the analysis uh Rene great job bringing this forward I I really do believe that you know this needs to continue the momentum that's in place today um it does seem that the DPW uh as well as a few other parties of Forester and or arum do have the power to it seems like full discretion really uh to uh you know to to to do what they please the two things I would think need to be fixed are conforming language for Mr Cohen's needs a conform uh that it needs a conform to say that um the second part is in this in the spirit of compromise the 50% you're saying it only pertains to Street strips which are below power lines correct Street T it's uh it's usually between the curb and the sidewalk that's that's the area right so if there's no sidewalk then we automatically try to put bigger trees unless you know and again someone comes out and says I want this specific tree and it's going to die if you don't so there's all kinds of scenarios where that comes up so it's the planting strips if you so is there a specific reason that that would not fall under the great measure of discretion that you have across the the tree strips to to say hey it's 80 feet there's a power lines they have to come every five years we're going to create a liability for the town I'm just trying to understand why it should be parceled out separately because it it's it's it's a challenge to use just the native tree planting list oh for that reason um it's just it's number one you like you remember Tim Gordon everyone his favorite tree was a sassr tree which has a mitten and that's the shape of the leaf and then another and it turns flame orange in the fall I love the tree but you can't find one to plant as a street tree that is don't growing so it's all of these effects that challenge the point I'm kind of making is if you're limited to seven if you're held sternly to 70% you got to do 70% I can understand taking that part down to 50 % or even 40% maybe 30% whatever the case may be but what I read by the letter is that you have full discretion at your at your fingertips to to plant as you see fit uh which I heard was and I'm sure it's I hope it's true is that raway Madison chadam other places do not give their that discretion to the other parties the DPW the Forester uh the Arboretum or and their and their similar analogist Parks so I'm just trying to understand um why why if we did I guess pair that out uh what the benefit would be to achieve that goal successfully that that's basically it um and it comes from what's available to plant in those certain areas right but the could it the forestry the DPW say hey we have a our own internal goals 50% due to these different reasonings and hold that line I I just want to understand it because uh um and I think it's it's a great thing to move forward but it seems like theyve given you 100% discretion yeah again as long as it's not required and that's not an isue and that's that has to be fixed right now it is required in that first go I also agree are something you should strive to right so the goal should always be a little bit above what you actually think you're going to achieve now because if you put some effort into it you might actually you know be able to get closer to the goal so I think this gives very wide latitude I mean I I couldn't you know make it any looser without completely negating the point of it right so uh you know I think what's here with with some minor tweaks uh would give you guys the latitude you need to do what you need to do uh while still setting goals that I think are going to be um helpful uh for the to use as guidelines as as we strive to get more and I think as we negot as we not negotiate as we as we discuss it there may be opportunity to to pull out and say Hey you know in certain cases if we need to identify the land strips whatever maybe we can but it needs to be conforming language and you need to have the discretion to do what's best for the town from a li liability side and a economic yeah sorry I mean no I just want to thank thank you both thank you for your expertise and Renee thank you for your passion and everything that you do um I'm fine with tweaking the language like we said I just 70 just to me is a little high I would just like to see us start at 50 and then and then see what happens I mean we know we could be very successful at 50 but I just think to to start at 70 is just a little we're already at 50 so maybe let's no not really that's not what he said pleas said no we're not well no I think and again that's a generalization as an example when we when I repaired Gilbert Place 300 free of the streamed we pled over 6,000 live tree Stakes so it it's you know in Street trees it's an average so some years it's a lot more than that right a lot of years it's 40ish and and let's not complate the issue it doesn't seem that that that Tom has a problem with the 70% it's the piece on the street the strip that's the problematic piece so striving for for for these to attain these I think is a great thing so if if we haven't heard back from the arbor or from um the Forester from Tom that 70% is not doable I think it might be a great compromise just to talk about that land strip but you know we have plenty of time to negotiate this arbitrated Etc so between us um yeah so just just one uh one point on this too is that this will actually result in the drafting of two ordinances um one of them will be for the zoning code as one of them is requiring that there be review of uh the site plan to make sure that there's 70% right on a commercial property or a um multif Family residential correct so says that it says the township shall require 70% of plants be needed when specified for planting when a landscape plan is required right yeah so so that will have to be written into um the land use and then there will be would be a separate ordinance um on this one of the things that I think and obviously will'll all be working together on this and and and and drafting this um is just figuring out like with with an ordinance you know where this lives um in our code and whether this is you know because usually when you when you do an ordinance it's something about it is enforcable right like the township is required if we build a new building to be silver certified you know that is a you know to your point of goal we're going to do that I don't know whether we are able to deviate from that um so that's just something that you know I think as we go through this process we'll figure out exactly how that how that works and where that lives in the code so I just wanted to make sure that you understood it would be it's gonna end up being two two organiz and and then just one other thing that Tom mentioned there's a lot of sh bees and at discretion of Etc but then we use the word banned um I find it difficult to ban anything in in the context of trees I need to understand what I'd like to understand more about invasive species I I understand yeah but if you have a spot come hell high water that you can't grow anything but one of those he's he's not he's not at that spot I just don't understand why we would ever use that invasive species in that spot and maybe you can answer Tom yeah again so it's interpretation with everything else um you know this is a group of plants that a a lot of very smart people go out and come up with this list uh that they they want to see and and you know the difference is with the dot most of that they have a lot of room to put a lot of trees in versus a 12inch planting strip so the reason I brought that up was just that it's in the spirit of sustainability correct and this is where government is going and should go and should model why again these are these are these are the challenges so um it's something we can discuss further another time I believe so okay I need to make a motion to have the orces drafted so and everyone wants to stay at s you don't want to come down to like 50 well that could change let's yeah let's see the draft and then we can discuss it you know if it's drafted in such a way that it covers the areas where they think they're going to need to deviate well then the 70% might be fine if you have a separate car out so let's see how that's drafted so I I we make a motion uh that uh we have the administration go forward and draft the two ordinances for Township committe I'm happy to second roll call vote please yes may yes yes yes thank you public comment oh no we didn't we skip report the rest reports oh I jump did I jump over oh I'm sorry report energy aggregation but anybody else I I'm sorry reports um Deputy May would like to go first sure um so the only report I have is the Environmental commission is going to be having uh meetings on the open space trust fund ballot initiative uh they're going to be having one in September and October uh you should check the township website for those dates uh definitely something you should inform yourselves about uh because it's a fantastic opportunity uh for our town to you know begin Gathering funds that we can use to purchase space that can be used for recreation uh can be used to you know help protect against overdevelopment so there's a lot of positives so definitely uh attend one of the information sessions if you can um those are the only reports I have for now oh um we will have our attorney give a for the housing update later tonight committ install sure um I got all these meetings so I'm gonna actually go through them have to go through them uh Recreation committee uh last call for uh fall program registration soccer flag football volleyball other programs uh the tour to Milburn is returning on September 8th uh registration is still open if you want to get your bike out uh and the pool has had over 28,00 visits so far it's been a hot summer so um that's quite a few um the special improvement district Sid uh they're having a end of uh their fourth anniversary party on Thursday August 22nd uh here at Town Hall uh Town Hall Plaza I've seen a lot of people out at Town Hall Plaza as we've done the uh live music and food for sale has been a resounding success seeing a ton of people out there everybody seems to be having fun uh as we collect data and look at uh the future of the of the um Town Hall Plaza and there's actually been some requests to to keep it open later which we're reviewing uh we've had some inclement weather which has closed it down on a couple weekends uh family movie night is uh is uh Wednesday uh tomorrow the event starts at 7 pm they're showing top gun Maverick they're also gonna have s'mores for the kids then on August 21st kids chalk and uh and such and there they're having a kids Glow Crazy party uh which is September 1st uh the free website and social media Services has been fantastic uh over a dozen local businesses have received these Services uh the free website and social media Services you can go to explore Milburn Short Hills and request it if you want and look at them and they're just fantastic uh and then the storm preparedness kits are uh is the resource tab is now available uh Boe liaison uh I I spent a lot of time with the the Boe understanding what's going on right now there's just they're closed it's quiet but they're still in the midst of the superintendent search everybody did the uh online uh survey and and made their their their pitches and then the the two unions on new are they're still working with the two new unions on contracts there's been no update or really progress there unfortunately uh joint Fields no updates emergency dispatch no substantive updates uh we are bringing in a consultant to look at moving to summit's fire headquarters for that uh uh we're having a a flood mitigation meeting tomorrow morning at 8:30 which I'll get more clarity uh it seems that we we had no overwhelming U from the floods or from the quite a lot of rain there a lot of water uh but it doesn't look anything was destroyed in the pumps were working affordable housing I'm going to defer uh to uh to our Council and that's it thank you call sure I have a few things first of all um the Arbor is getting ready to plan its uh annual cornhole Throwdown event which will be on September 22nd the registration is open it'll be held at the train station by the box car it was a lot of fun last year and um they'll be doing it again it's an elimination tournament and it's a a fundraiser all of the proceeds go to rebuilding the the forest in the arboro uh on Saturday I attended a CPR class that was held by the the m Short Hills volunteer ambulance Squad it's an unbelievable place um and what they do the class was excellent it was uh it was at capacity they had one the week before also at capacity so they're they're considering holding some additional sessions in September and October and I would encourage um everybody to attend because you never know what's going to happen when you're you know to when you're in a public place or even at home with a family member uh I also attended a a couple of weeks ago a session with our state legislators held by the American Jewish committee discussing um anti the growth of anti-Semitism in the in the community and the nation as a whole um they they talked about the work that they do and highlighted their um that they've encouraged various towns which we already did to pass a resolution that um defines anti-Semitism which we did uh last year the important thing in addition to to that was that it also um uh there was also two sessions of police training to help the police identify events and that are anti that are anti-semitic and how to respond to that and per the AJC the training was a was a huge success and they were representatives from all the other towns in the in the legislative district they were encouraging those that had not already done that kind of thing to to do that and then lastly today um the Historical Society had their open house um which I attended I know some of you were there as well um they were showing that they had a bunch of projects that were done by the high school interns uh it was totally interesting there's a ton of um a ton of material that they have in their in their facility um and they're uh they're you know they're looking to uh to have regular hours again starting in the fall they'll probably be open most every other Sunday or something and when they do that we'll certainly publicize that and I would encourage everybody to just drop by is at the sh Hills train station and take a look at all the historical relics that they have in the thecil it was pretty amazing thank you um just a couple things the uh the Essex County Mobile Health mobile was here at the library last week uh they provided 24 Health screenings the commission of the blind was there repres representatives from R RWJ Barnabas health and uh I just wanted to give a special thanks to the senior citizen coordinator Jamie Hawkins and the library director for Mike banck for helping us to coordinate the event so it was um it was really great uh all of our have our mostly our seniors came out um agree with uh committee M Stoler Town Hall Plaza has been a blast all summer um the community has really come together great food options live music uh we had a beer garden this past weekend all the activities been really outstanding I just wanted to thank our sponsors um explore Milburn Short Hills Board chair Jackie Benjamin lieberberg Trustees of course uh committee M Stoler and Tim Hoffman for his work the business owners the merchants and of course um Steve and Amanda for um their DED dedication and um just fabulous events all summer so to my fellow TC members that haven't been there um please visit um we don't have another meeting before Labor de so can we can we discuss extending the closure can we do get a consensus now and then we could take care of it at the next meeting is right if we have a consensus just to I don't I don't know I think it should be extended I don't see why there wouldn't be consensus they had multiple weekends of inclement weather where the bands were didn't not present and the vendors didn't show up so uh we can have a discussion sure been I'm in favor I am too I've been there you know most most weekends it's really a lot of fun it is a lot of fun if you haven't been it's great you know it's it's a it's a nice environment you know you never know who you'll run into people you haven't seen from town in town in uh in quite a long time it's it's a it's a great Community spirit and I would certainly be in favor of extending it as the weather permits awwesome so we can on for the next meeting I don't know I don't I don't know like what's involved in planning um other events I don't know after Halloween after Halloween yeah they do something they do a very special thing for Halloween so it'd be nice to have in that space you they could do all types of a little corn fi and things like that so through Halloween or after Halloween I think so all right what's that maybe the you know whatever weekend is whatever weekend past that right so I I don't know when Halloween is it's on a Wednesday extended past that weekend that Monday so so yeah so whatever we have to do to do to get that done also too since this is our last meeting in September uh before our next meeting I believe roctober Fest is coming up guys 30 live bands of beer garden food and shopping Kids Zone um they've raised $3.2 million in the last 20 years it's all for the Milburn Education Foundation and these are the programs that they support everything outside of the Boe they support I think it's 100% Richie right the uh the uh uh world champion uh robotics team uh the mill um there just so much great use for that money that comes out so everybody tell your neighbor grab a friend go down there on September 14th uh and enjoy the festivities they're actually this year they're doing 52 uh interns young interns from the high school uh to participate and get a little resume filler so uh I think it's fantastic for those guys to to get to see how this event is planned it's such a a great event and it's a lot of organization behind it so I'm really going to put push that hard for everyone to go out thank you and just finally just on the um the storm last week storm preparation and response I just wanted to recognize and thank everyone involved um for their outstanding job during the recent storm preparation and response uh our business administrator Alex McDonald Chief guil feder and the entire police force and Chief edar and the firefighters us our superintendent of Public Works Mr doie and all of the DPW and of course JCP L for um their quick response um in the recent I guess two storms um I've went I've been out with Chief etaria and um Alex and I've seen my share of pump stations and how they work so I just wanted to just let everybody know how much I appreciate all of the hard work that you guys do so and those were my reports um you know quick frankly uh the the extension because it's done by ordinance will need to be an amended ordinance or a new ordinance to continue that that extension but we will uh we'll look through that and make sure like I I understand there's consensus uh from the township committee so uh we're going to work on uh whatever mechanism we need to put forward to uh to make that happen um as far as uh my reports I have um a few uh one is uh New Jersey American Water um many residents uh today received a message from the township I think everybody also received their packets from New Jersey American Water um what is happening is that New Jersey American water is mandated by the state of New Jersey to change out all Leed uh or galvanized uh service lines and now that they've done a lot of that work in the township and you know uh just a kudos to the township committee for having the forsight to wave uh fees for that type of work uh which got them in our town fastest and got that work done uh very quickly here in the street now they need to move to the residential service line um and so a lot of those materials are unknown to them uh whether it's lead or whether it's galvanized or whether it's you know neither of those um um so they have uh brought on a company CD Smith to do a canvasing exercise which they will go to those 4100 homes that they do not know what that service line to your from the curb to your home is made up they need to they would like to do an inspection um they would uh there's there's also other ways that residents can report uh what that service line may be made of or send pictures and allow them to to inspect it um so they some some in some instances they will be knocking on doors um in some instances they will just they'll be you can set up a a an inspection online um but just wanted residents to be aware of that that's starting next week uh and that this is very much a necessity uh because if they do find that the service line from the curb to the home is LED or galvanized then they are responsible for replacing it and working with the homeowner to do so uh we are helping in communicating it although we have nothing to do with the work or or the uh the the requirement to do so uh but we are helping to communicate just wanted to let everybody know about question on that so if it has to be replaced who pays for that uh New Jersey American Water because they always send that service line maintenance thing that they want you to sign up for and they say that the service line is the home owner responsibility so it is unless it's been mandated by the state that's why I wanted to do to make that also also too uh you know being with Raquel deera on all the neighborhood watches the different neighborhood watches I think it would be prudent to have uh whoever's coming to the door to be marked well marked or have ID or their their their vehicle will be marked their uh they will have IDs and they also will have vests uh that indicate that residents that want to avoid having someone come into their home you can just go right online they ask you to take specific pictures of where the line comes in and uh you can submit that so you know if you don't want to have to deal with someone coming in to do an inspection you can go to the website and uh take care of it there correct um in addition our 2024 Road reconstruction improvements have started uh in particular we have completed curb up on Fairfield uh Terrace and marale uh we have started metal work and uh work in on uh Church ocean mechanic and Orchard uh in addition uh there's quite a list of streets this year that are getting done um but uh in particular uh milling and Paving of the Washington section will be um is slated to be completed before the start of school and then we will be beyond the summer and some of these other areas uh but it'll be less impactful to school traffic and things like that but uh we want to make sure that we get down into that area before the start school um in addition PS and G has started their restoration of various areas that they uh in what they've already done in the Washington section but uh they are now in the beach crofs doing mil millon pave they're also million pave in Fairfield Terrace and marale uh old Hollow um and uh will be completing their restoration of uh btis roll and Elmwood um and those those for the time being just so because I know this usually ends up in in some phone calls but those will be curbed to Center Line where they've been impacted um and then the township is obviously already starting to evaluate its 2025 program and we will uh we'll be looking at those streets that were impacted by psng as well as what we anticipate psng impacting uh further um which um is is likely to happen they've already contacted us about some addition but additional work that needs to be done uh up in the uh the Long Hill tyoga kyoga uh area of town so um I think that's all I have do you want to talk about or was that a one day uh that was a one day thing we're done uh The Pedestrian uh uh signal has been put into laana place uh for those Crossing from the library or lot n to the train station or the parking garage to the train station uh that is a push button and a motion active ated pedestrian activation signal it has advanced warning on both uh both sides of the underpass so that those cars coming up from essic Street can know that there is a pedestrian uh in the crosswalk on the other side of that underpass so that has been completed today yeah and just just a friendly reminder that cross-section Milburn and uh uh Milburn and uh Wyoming you know still I know it's a county road but we can continue to apply pressure to the county to get that resolved it be fantastic so uh thank you mayor um so for those who might not know who I am my name is Richard bir Burch I'm an attorney at the law from anell caner Rivera I'm filling in for Mr caner tonight Who's the township attorney and also the fare Housing Council for Milburn um just to give a little bit of a of a back story um we were in court on July 10th uh where the court adopted the recommendations of the special map Master uh which were to move forward with the nine Main Street site uh including uh adopting the uh Redevelopment agreement and a pilot agreement with RPM um that was memorialized by a court order on July 31st um what I could say is that the township uh is currently evaluating all its options um we're still discussing amongst um you know the committee and uh as far as any decisions um nothing's been determined yet but uh probably at the next meeting there'll be um a better update to to provide but that's that's what's happened since the last meeting and if any if any of the town has any questions for me answer thank you public comment when invited to speak to offer your comments please come to the Lector clearly state your name and whether you are a Milburn resident Andor property or business own owner please do not provide your full address seeing our meetings are recorded and are readily readily available to the public for the convenience 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 be 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 debate or to debate a matter and this is a time during our business meeting for the public to offer comments I will now open the public comment period we'll start in the room hello I'm ad dark stalker and I'm a 30-year resident of the Wyoming section and I wanted to uh address two things was the invasive species that you asked about and you asked why would people plant invasive species so I wanted to explain that Home Depot sells invasive species um we also have for example Barberry which is an invasive species on in our parks and our public lands as well very commonly in households because it's a very cheap plant and it's readily available at Home Depot on my street um there is a a planting of purple loo Strife I don't know if you know what that is but I'll tell you because I just happened to go to the ader rondex and the entire throughway is covered in purple lustro from like Al up to like Lake Placid because it's so invasive one little plant in a year or two becomes a field of purple light strip and when you have your it taking over that area our native species can't live there because it's it spreads more readily more easily it loves wet feet um so in my street there's actually purple do strip that has escaped from someone's garden and is now growing in the crack between the curb and the road which is public land right so hopefully we can take care of that before it ends up in our River because when it ends up in a river it'll be full of this weedy purple very pretty plant by the way which is why people plant it and buy it at Home Depot and put in their Gardens but I live on Norwood Terrace which goes straight down to the east branch of the Norway uh raway River and if we allow it to continue it'll fill our Waterway and contribute to further problems when we have flooding issues so that was the one second item probably running out of time in my neighborhood in lower Wyoming a lot of trees were replaced I think it was about two three years ago I think 100% of them were non were non-native in fact most of them were per uh Japanese lilac and there aren't any places actually a lot of places available to plant natives so our neighborhood probably I'm just going to guess is probably around 60 to 70% non-native already if you lower from 70 to 50 as a goal what's going to happen is you're still going to have a vast majority of our trees to be non-native so that's why the goal is important 70% thank you I am radika anger I'm the resident of 439 boming Avenue this is a very personal experience I wanted to share regarding native plants my husband and I came to Milbourne in 2015 like all first home first time homeowners we wanted our house to look the best so we invested in a sprawling lawn with expensive seeds and a sprinkler system we maintained shiny grass which involved us to put in all sorts of chemicals our visit to Home Depot increased and our pockets became lighter but the house had to be maintained with the shiny new grass with the summer heat increasing every year we had to to we had to water more and somewhere down the line our water system also gave way just a year before covid a current environmental commission member and my friend Vanita gangwal came came to visit me with the milk weed I planted it and saw the transformation with my own eyes butterflies and bees started to hover around it my kids and I were busy counting the monac butterflies and caterpillars covid years passed by learn passed by by me learning a lot of uh names of birds and observing the milkbe ecosystem and then the Green Team co-chair Rene paparan held a native plant sale during those years and I got a bunch more of native plants for my yard I saw more bees and butterflies in my yard meanwhile for my husband and I the fascination for the shiny green grass which only he and I hovered around and not the bees had died down also because our pockets were getting empty and a lot of water was being wasted while all our biodiversity action was in our in our backyard with the milkweed and the blackeyed Susan and Mountain mints and the obedian plants having a lot of action around them they required little watering and no fertilizer and the best thing is that the plants kept coming back and back again and again with more flowers each year we saw beautiful monar butterflies in my yard and I started to read about dwindling monar population and how I can help I saw glimpses of monar restoration efforts in town like the vi triangle the patch near the Milbourne train station so TC members I here to see more of this transformation townwide monak should be everywhere not just in patches here or there today you have the decision in your hands whether you want the shiny new grass or the native plant to support more bio biodiversity in town thank you [Applause] yay so um uh so the monarch butterflies they're um the verge of Extinction which is why we should plant more uh milkweeds which they thrive on so there's more biodiversity and um want than native plants are good because they support monarch butterflies and I love monarch butterflies thank you good evening ladies and gentlemen my name is Leela cleanport and I'm a resident of Short Hills today I'm here to talk in support of the native plant resolution many people may ask why are native plants important well one reason why native plants are important is because they are necessary for local creatures to live one for example the milked is a host plant for monarch butterflies and the only food for monarch butterfly larve not only butterflies but pollinators need native plants as well native plants provide the needed nectar and pollen to bees without native plants many local species will die additionally native plants also require less overall care helping conserve our resources money and time their deep roots allow them to withstand large amounts of time in dry weather hence requiring literal to no watering after they are planted finally native plants are beautiful they come in various colors textures and can look appealing while also protecting the local environment without being invasive in conclusion passing the native plant resolution will help native animals Thrive take less resources money and time to maintain and increase biodiversity in Milburn environment thank you thank you so much hi everyone my name is Vidia bindle I am a rising Junior at New York Academy but I live in town um I support this ordinance and I strongly urge you guys to support it as well these native plants are extremely important to our town and climate change as a whole but again you know why might we care about this well we children over here will have to face this impact for the rest of time essentially I know that many of you guys might not be here at that time but we will be and we will have Toops and we will we will have to bear that impact so I urge you guys to support this ordinance in the sense that any change that we can make in our town is a change that we can make yes we might not be able to control climate change in the ire world but in our town we can and for that I want to give a shout out to your guys reusable water bottles I think that's amazing so finally these native plants are able to sequester a lot of carbon they are acclimated to our environment they don't require a lot of energy water they don't require excess fertilizers or chemicals meaning that they support micro and macro environments the birds the bees the insects the deers everything that you see those can be supported by native plants so I urge you all to um support and pass this ordinance thank you thank [Applause] you hello my name is nidi takur I live in the poet section in town I'm also a part-time poet so I'll start with a fiery orange butterfly in Flight is a Heavenly sight a still busy Monarch on a milkweed Leaf the Earth's sigh of relief so at the cost of being dramatic while the monarch butterfly is only symbolic of the beauty that native plants can bring there's so much more to what native plants can bring they can support the local ecosystem which can thus sequester carbon perhaps but certainly help prevent the flooding the droughts that climate change is making most of our communi so susceptible to so this ordinance seems like a Nob brainer to me 70% seems like the best Target to pursue at this point anything lower than that is again saying okay we'll try and we'll see what happens we've seen that in this past summer the temperatures across the world and in our town and in New Jersey in particular have shot up like crazy so I think the time to P put the pedal press the pedal on this is now and we need to go all out so 70% seems like a good number that's the number that we should pursue and I hope everybody supports this ordinance thank you hi my name is ishan barwad and I'm a rising Junior um at mbour high school and I'm an Milbourne ecomaster and as a student resident and Eco ambassador of Milburn I care deeply about our community and I'm in full support of the native plant ordinance because it's a critical step to preserving our own local ecosystem and um doing our duty to address the broader biodiversity crisis at a local stance um so in 2021 as you guys know murn faced one of his worst disasters hurricane Ida which caused widespread damage and showed our Town's vulnerability to extreme weather events like flooding I remember seeing the water rise in front of my house by the hour a river slowly forming on milour Avenue and as a middle school I was happy that we didn't have to go to school the next day but looking back Ida was horrible it devastated homes and local businesses leaving $100 million of damage in its wake some businesses haven't even been able to reopen since although the Milbourne community did not fail to support cleanup it's not sustainable for the future at all and since then we have also noticed more flood warnings and heavier rainfall and flooding with new storm that comes our way and it becomes apparent that it becomes apparent that over the years we have seen conditions deteriorating with our own eyes native plants can slowly improve these conditions in many ways native plants deep root systems would reduce flooding like we experienced in Ida because they allow more water to infiltrate the ground stopping water stopping water just staying on the surface and causing flooding and near flood prone areas native plants could even slow down and absorb storm water native plants also act as natural filters so when runoff from urban areas carry pollutants and head towards local water bodies the native plants trap and absorb these pollutant improving water quality and cleaning aquatic ecosystem also native plants with their adapted Roots can stabilize soil especially in erosion prone areas like slopes and by implementing them in murn they could maintain the Integrity of the soil but also reduce sedimentation in local rivers and streams that further lead to improved water quality the this is definitely not the end of the many advantages that these native plants have they have created habitats for local pollinators birds and other insects that would make our local ecosystem healthier and diverse and diverse ecosystems are the most resilient to extreme weather events that we've been facing and I think because we have seen with our own eyes the environment degrading over the years in many different ways we have the utmost responsibility of promoting as many nav plants as possible throughout our town to create create a resilient local environment and also through this set an example for other communities to follow thank you so much uh hello to the township committee my name is orian Jane and I'm a junior atmer high school and uh I want to say that I think that the township committee should take every chance to pass an environmental policy um enthusiasm because I believe that environmental policies they give us a chance to build a more perfect Society a society in which we don't have to travel by car or by a plane to national parks and instead can enjoy the fruits of nature right here at home where we don't are not separated from but integrated with nature because for the past 200 to 300 years our society has focused on pushing nature out that has led to repercussions because nature improves her soil quality native plants improve so quality they prevent flooding they improve the air that we breathe and they are the backbone of the ecosystems in which we depend on thank you thank you uh good evening everyone hello Township committees I don't have a prepared scrip because I thought we were coming here to defend a native plant uh resolution but I really first of all want to thank all of you for really uh taking the next step forward here so but I would like to utilize this time to say something more than just native plants what I do want to say really echoing everything that everybody has said here especially looking at all the kids in this room that this is really a very small First Step that we are talking about we are way behind the curve I'm not just talking about Milbourne collectively our generation is way behind the curve and really facing up to the challenge of and I am going to use this word climate change I know last time I uted those word in this room I got a collective response from many people here but it should be the least controversial term CL it is just two words climate and change and nobody can deny our climate is changing way too rapidly in the front in front of our eyes and we don't know how to deal with it right and just like Mr doy said you know the American Beach tree you know now we are it sounds almost like that we're losing the battle already and then we're just playing catchup but if human beings can think that far ahead that in in the event of an in an Extinction event we want to go and become a multiplanetary species and go to Mars I'm sure we can look this challenge right here on this Earth and face it and do what we can and I think we are really not doing quite enough we have lots of people in this town who have been working in their volunteer capacity for years Rene paparan and Alan wi inber are the perfect example with the green team we have Milbourne climate Action Group a lot of volunteers here the environmental Commission but we are all working putting in so many hours and efforts but the efforts are just fragmented and it is not being our efforts are not being strategically utilized so I really urge this committee to create an office of sustainability for Milburn to have a paid officer I promise you that position will pay for itself with all the grant money that is available from federal government and state government to do the right thing uh from sustainability perspective you cannot Really Leave it to you know the volunteers time to pass these policies uh in in this fragmented manner so really really appreciate support for a sustainability office for this town thank you thank you so much I am reappearing Renee paparian resident I I support what you just said and I hope that you take it seriously and um I have a card from someone from a sustainability Summit who would actually share the job with another municipality that she's working with so Alex um mayor I will share that information with you as you explore the possibility of a sustainability officer or position but I am actually here to uh read something from Ellen ingber because she is uh working with her daughter on getting the wedding gown for the wedding this weekend so pretend I'm Ellen as a 32ye resident of Milbourne Township and former co-chair of the Milbourne township Green Team I strongly support the adoption of the building native habitats resolution the township should be a model for its residents by planting as many Native habitats as possible but in addition to serving as a model for the community the township should be a reflection of the community it represents with each passing season I see more and more residents growing native plants in their yards it is clear that the decision to plant native plants is spreading throughout the Township's neighborhoods apparently it is what Milbourne Township residents want to see in their yards and would appreciate seeing in more public spaces I hope that our elected officials have noticed these changes and agree because with climate change pesticide use and loss of habitats it is time for all of us to help our local species as much as we can to avoid their Extinction with that said I ask that you please pass a building native habitats ordinance thank you for your time again Ellen inber thank you anyone else before we go on okay let me go the Dave cosgro resident um two two matters at the last TC meeting I brought up the issue that the town was refusing to allow citizens to see uh land use applications and I wanted to know if that's been fixed where we are on that and the second is um um I want to push you again on the citizen fair share committee and and find out where we are and appointing people to that so we can get that moving thank you hi Diane Eglo resident um you touched on it Ben about um the traffic light at Wyoming and Milbourne I'm wondering if we have got in touch with Essex County about changing the traffic lights at Milbourne and Maine in Essex to be talking beeping traffic lights really important for safety um Alex I think it's been three years we've been talking about the crosswalk being put in at Ivy and Ridgewood is that going to be happened before school that's a there no sidewalk on the opposite side and that would be a really good place for a crosswalk and I think that was supposed to be done um all talk about trees and yet we still have no trees all along Milbourne Avenue Upper Milbourne Avenue Tom you remember when I was on J Tree I talk about this all the time it's a tree City and we have no trees it's hot it's not attractive I also wanted I have a hodge podge of things here um I was at Town Hall plaz Saturday night was that Friday night Friday night I saw you guys it was crowded and what I said to Ben is that when people go there it's intentional it's not like when it was on Main Street there were like people eating there and I would really love to put on the record that when town hall is renovated that that becomes a permanent closure a treelined Park Plaza which would be like an amazing addition to the downtown um also when you do Town Hall renovation which I hope is going to happen we have individual ped seats to sit on because these pews are just really awful they look bad and they are uncomfortable um back to trees let's talk about trees perhaps there could be an ordinance with the planting board for all new construction must plant trees when nage put up the building across the street which I think is attractive why were there not four trees put in front of that building it's again it's a tree desert it's all concrete if people think that building is not attractive imagine if there was four trees there would certainly soften it um back to trees I think trees have to be put in in the fall is there a plan from the shade tree in the new Forester to have trees slated to be put in in the fall I put something on the sdl about there's two new trees on the house at the corner of Winningham and Midwood I don't know if those are Town trees but they must be a foot away from the curb so I don't know if the town planted those or the property owner planted them but I didn't hear back about my sdl inquiry but they look like that's not in a great spot um next thing um if it's feasible to keep fighting this nine Main Street project if you can stop this please go back and revisit the plan that would develop all of essic Street in one contiguous plan with a proper Ingress and egress uh proper Green Space and if you're going to have to move DPW for millions and millions of dollars have a really good plan do it all in one shot and make mil really beautiful thanks hi Jean Pastak uh I have a bunch of stuff and it's all disorganized sorry about that I just want to say thank you to Renee and all the people here who took time to come and educate us about so many things that many of us really don't know a lot about and I have to say the the best thing out of that I see with what Rene is doing with her committee is that there's a process that brings people together and whether people agree or disagree things are aired I I admire your bringing Tom to the table mayor to give his side of things and I think that's what has been missing for so many years and I'm really pleased to see that that's no longer the case and there's a lot of good open discussion so thank you um the other uh thing I wanted to say is that um the um uh let's see resolution 241 199 the resolution joining other municipalities and um the constitutionality of the affordable housing uh laws in in this state I I'm so pleased to see that and I hope all of you will be supporting that I think most people in our town would be really happy to see us doing that um I would link to some activity that I've been doing campaigning uh with uh Alex um zzman you know on his behalf there's just such strong feedback still about the dump project I can't tell you how many people like 100% pretty much I think out of you know 100 people we talked to maybe one might have said okay we understand we're not going to be able to go for it everyone is still very strongly in favor of you guys pushing back so I hope I hope you'll continue to hear that as I have been hearing um the other thing is on back of um um the question about committees being established could somebody just give an up there were so many different ones that were being talked about citizens advisory committees I think I know for sure the affordable housing um but also what about um there was one on budget there were just a bunch of them now I'm I'm completely lost as to where they stand I think those are important and it would be good to have an update as to where those things stand um let's see uh just on the 2025 Road plan I just want to put a pitch in for coniston uh it is a mess there's a lot of traffic there because of that light that was put in um on um Hobart and uh o White Oak Ridge so it just seems to be deteriorating more and more and I hope some somebody will take a look I think Tom actually you were going to go have a look so thank you um there's something else here but where is it oh uh I think I learned from Ben that we have a fairly large um Surplus and I just wondered what is that and why is it so big and why do we need to keep it at that at that size of like something like 18 million okay thank you thank you anyone else before we go okay thank you good evening hello there you are by sorry about that that's okay uh uh Antonio braa Township member country I live here lived here all my life um had a couple quick questions uh for Alex about the lead um so I take care of a lot of stuff from my dad and he was gotten this Township Township letter saying I to use leew for Environmental Services they came yesterday actually and it cost $278 um and I thought you said during the meeting tonight that everything was going to be taking care of by somebody um so that was just one of my questions question number two is you said that the I know the streets are are getting paid before the school year um just curious to see where uh you said the metal work has begun on certain streets I live on Mechanic Street I haven't seen anything yet at all um and then uh I agree with uh Miss Eglo iglo for a couple things you know streets uh trees on the streets for sh sidewalks would be nice uh Town Hall Plaza remain permanent after the town hall shifts to East Willow and um the one last point I had was uh appreciate everybody speaking out about the trees and and and learning about all the butterflies and the native plants and all that stuff but I think it's kind of uh my question is look at this shiny thing over here while we build 53 other condos here because you're taking away places that we could put certain native plants um so I guess that's that's about it thank you thank you good evening good evening Sarah Sherman resident um I have a couple of questions about resolution 24199 so in uh doing some homework on that I understand that uh mayor gasali of montale has invited a 100 communities to join him um in this challenge to affordable housing um guidelines um I understand what the uh cost that's being requested per year for this year and the next but what I'm curious about is whether we know at this point maybe you can't tell us until September how many other communities are joining in this and if other communities join in this will this lower the cost of participation and at what point will we have a little more detail on this um as I understand it mayor gasali is estimating this will cost something like1 and a half million dollar and um this could go on for some time I believe monil was previously involved in a um an effort with a number of other communities that failed uh I don't know that it was similar to this one um U but I think um we'd like to know a little more detail about this and perhaps that'll be provided later or perhaps we could find out at the next meeting thank you thank you oh okay good so I will now close public comment no it's just uh it's I really don't have any comments just kudos to all the young uh young people who came out it's an inspiration to see the passion and how it's developing uh for the environment and the the local uh plant species as well as it's just very very very encouraging thank you so much for coming thank you now second that even though I won't be here with all the trees on a more serious note um to Mr in fact Mr McDonnell and I talked about the uh the move to make the uh the land use documents uh public even while they're still in draft so that effort is is moving ahead we had some clarification today um making sure that people understand that what they're what they're getting you know they get something today it could be different tomorrow that needs to be made clear but that effort is uh is still alive and hopefully will be implemented uh as soon as POS sure uh Mr Cosgrove uh I agree with you I think that President should have greater access to um the you know draft documents uh when it comes to building applications Etc so I I stand with Michael in support of that um second the affordable housing uh committee I think our position has always been that we planned on um filling that committee in the fall uh when people were were back so um can look forward to that in the coming meetings um I'd like to thank all of those that came out uh in favor of the native plant resolution uh it's always great to see people come out and stand for something um you know a lot of times people come out uh when they want to speak out against something or when they have a complaint but uh it's always great to have people speak in support of something especially something that I think will be beneficial to the town as a whole so thank you to all those that came out um let's see [Music] um I yes um Miss Pastor the uh other advisory committees uh you specifically mentioned the budget one I think what where we had left it is that Mr McDonald was going to work with the CFO and put together a long-term capital plan and that was going to be worked on over the summer and then we would have an update on that in the fall and then based on you know what we think of that how complete it is ETC then we can evaluate whether it's necessary to have uh an additional committee or or not it may not be necessary uh so that is being worked on uh and Miss Sherman um it's my understanding I think there's about 25 other towns uh at this point that have indicated that they're going to be signing on um and I do believe that the prior litigation that on number of towns were involved with um that was about a different uh aspect of the prior affordable housing laws so uh this is targeted for this round and specifically um what's going on is there's about 60 towns in New Jersey that are completely exempt from affordable housing requirements uh these include Jersey City Hoboken monair Monclair of all places right they're exemp so uh it just seems like there's a lot of community that aren't doing their fair share and um we're trying to be fair as a state you know we should reevaluate that uh because really all communities should be involved in providing affordable housing um and also I think that will help lower the thresholds for all the other towns uh you know if all the towns uh shoulder their portion of the burden so that's all I have thank you thank you I have great um I just also want to thank all the young people that came out tonight um between the tonight and the the uh high schoolers we saw this morning they these these young people truly care about this town and it's just it's great it's great to say just um you know as part of the community so uh Mr mdon um just answer a few questions that have been asked um one to um Mr brocka Question uh the two things I think that you were discussing are two separate things one is a lead uh lead based paint inspection uh on rental properties in the township that is required by the state of New Jersey um and that was passed down to the municipalities to implement uh what I was discussing earlier in my reports was leadline Service uh for your water into the home which is something that will be taken care of by uh New Jersey American water should they find that it is lead or galvanized pipe going into the home um to answer some of Miss Eglo questions uh one I think you had asked blood sugar sorry no worries um to answer your uh question I think at a previous meeting I you you had maybe had stepped out um when I had answered about Ridgewood Ivy Ridgewood Ivy is on our uh Ada accessibility list um for curb ramps this year we are anticipating getting a $70,000 Grant through the cdbg it will be installed with that money um that includes also curb ramps in the Glenwood area um and so it is very much on our minds and we very much be done uh but we are we are awaiting that Grant award um in terms of uh the light activation uh or sound and uh we've I've already had a discussion with our Police Department to look into and and speak to gen electric who uh is our our signal uh vendor uh to look into our lights um Rector and Maine Brookside and and old short um and um so that we can address those we will also be reaching out to the county to see what their appetite is for putting those uh those uh improvements on the traffic signals uh we are a tree City us Tree City um that is because and I just don't want this to be misr we do have 8,000 trees that we um manage and maintain plant you know and and replant or or whatever it may be um so I understand that there are at times sentiment that we don't have trees in the right places and that's fine and that's great and we will continue to strive towards putting trees in in various places uh we've had a discussion with the Forester about uh some additional locations it's not going to be you know automatically Sprout up as a as a a Treeline street but we are looking at additional locations in the downtown as well as upper Milburn Avenue um but there's there's a lot in terms of what the municipality maintains for a uh for for trees we have uh four uh actually three now uh we're we're we're staffed for four um shade tree individuals as well as a Forester that manage those 8,000 Street trees um so the um so we'll be working on that as well um and that relates to your sdl complaint a little bit I believe those are Town trees correct Tom down on Greenwood or Wham yes um Miss Pastak asked a question about the Surplus and it I just want to sort of um it's sort of how how how we state things because um we do have a healthy Surplus um however $8 million of that Surplus is at work every year in your budget um and so what that leaves us with is a surplus that is well within the 10 to 15% range that is required by best practice as well as triaa rating uh for our uh Debt Service and Alex um I think this was under the discussion you know I spent a day uh one of my Saturdays where I could have been golfing um play at a municipal Finance course by the state of New Jersey and it was Illuminating in terms of that I think it came up in a discussion of how do we spend money in this town and give the Necessities that people expect for the taxes that they pay in terms of improvements you know and those improvements can consist of uh the bower Center guo Park uh Community Center things like that and how we invest in the community today because people are putting money in and then want to see the benefits of living in such a nice town we don't want to live in squalor we love the restaurants we love downtown we want to just improve it so uh it's like um I think we have a a debt capacity of uh $240 million based on uh based on our rent roles and such uh and we'll probably won't keep our triaa credit but uh you know putting money to work for the young people who are going to be here after we're all gone uh uh you know keeping that same analogy but it's how do we improve the talent for the betterment of everyone here yeah and I think you know and as we've explained in our budget sessions you know it's also uh there's the philosophy of having the financial flexibility that any one particular thing that impacts the municipality uh on the expense side doesn't necessarily impacts the residents on the tax Side and being able to have that Financial flexibility um you know does require um a an adequate Surplus a healthy Surplus uh but that that is within range of uh what is considered best practice uh for municipalities um we have a lot of you know there's there's there's a lot of other communities that don't necessarily have uh that uh ability and so uh we continue to strive toward that philosophy of of being financially prudent by having that um and I've heard your plug on coniston um and um I think that is oh and just to Mr cos grve and committee M Cohen's Point um I just also want to be very clear that uh you know Mr K came up and said that we're not allowing people to have access to this stuff um I one um it has always been the practice of the township that draft documents are not released um I know that there's been a commitment by this committee to allow for draft land use documents to be released and provided to uh to to those that may be interested in it um again and I had mentioned this to to committee mcohen I think just keeping uh making sure that we have the disclaimers and the caveats that people understand that these are draft documents that they will change that um we are not going to be able to answer questions for people because we have not yet deemed that application complete um once that application is deemed complete that is that means the it's been reviewed that there's nothing being asked of that applicant to further that application or make it uh you know something that can then be put to the uh land use boards uh and scheduled so uh we are creating we are going to be creating a space uh on the website it is not going to be something necessarily that we're pushing out but that's something that people that are interested in those land use applications that may be available they can always go there and check uh no mayor thank you okay consent agenda resolutions are there any comments from the committee in regard to any items listed on the consent agenda may have a motion to approve resolution 24186 through 24-1 1898 which are listed on the consent agenda may I have a second roll call vote please yes may yes may yes are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 24-19 may I have a motion to approve two resolution 24-1 199 may I have a second roll call vote Please Mr yes M yes mayor second yes Mr yes are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 24-20 may I have a motion to approve resolution 24200 may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr yesus yes mayor yes Mr Mayor yes commit stol your schedule to sponsor ordinance 2683 d24 thank you uh I would like to present an ordinance entitled ordinance 268 3-24 it's a capital ordinance of the township of Milburn in the county of vessex New Jersey authorizing the making of various improvements in by and for the parking utility of the township appropriating therefore the sum of $200,000 and providing that such sum so appropriated shall be raised from the park and utility Capital Improvement fund quick over yes provide an explanation um so uh the uh majority of this Capital ordinance is going to be used to replace uh parking infrastructure uh in pce stations um we have a lot of uh old Pace stations a lot of our pce stations were replaced after Ida and they were damaged and they were claimed to insurance and they were replaced but there we still have a lot of Aging out pay stations I think the the municipality has 72 total um so we're replacing some pay stations we also now now need to hard wire some pay stations as a result of the Metropolitan and the uh the lack of sun being able to power the solar power over there um so we are uh hardwiring some of those uh that will be included in this Capital expense as well as we're putting a sh shelter in lot four which is the one behind um uh the hogendas building um so that that pay station does not get cooked by the sun each day actually too much sun there um so we're we're putting a shelter over that um and so this this ordinance is is going to pay for those improvements and this is this just just to be clear this is not this is not debt this is uh Capital cash from the parking 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 for hearing and final passage on Tuesday September 17th 2024 may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Comm yes missus yes Deputy Mayor Sandy yes ster affirmative May yes okay ordinance 2684 d24 I would like to present an ordinance entitled ordinance 2684 d24 an ordinance of the township of Milbourne County of Essex accepting drainage easements over various properties in the township and authorizing the execution of easement agreements this is Greenwood and want to go yeah I can provide a little detail um this is a uh a project um a a drainage project similar to projects that we did last year uh being Advanced uh by both the flood mitigation committee as well as the township committee uh to proove uh the uh drainage between Greenwood and Ridgewood and we are acquiring easements from approximately um 10 um locations uh to make that that project a possibility uh currently we um we have eight of those easements um signed and we will have obviously all 10 by the time that the final reading takes place um but that is the current status of that project 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 September 17 2024 may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr Comm yes M purus yes Deputy Mayor Sandy yes Mr ster yes than you committee woman prus you're scheduled to sponsor ordinance 2685 d24 i' like number of the county I move that this ordinance be taken up pass on first reading of the Town authored to have ACC La it on Tuesday September may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr yes missus yes mayor secondy no Mr Stoler affirmative mayor Romano yes committee M Coen you are scheduled to sponsor ordinance 2681 d24 I present for consideration an ordinance entitled ordinance number 2681 d24 an ordinance to amend and supplement the revised general orance of the township of Milburn chapter 4 General leasing the purpose of the following amendments is to make necessary changes in safeguards to the Township's canvases solicitors transient merchants and Peddlers these changes include increased fees for permits increase time for staff to review and issue permits the ability to perform appropriate background check the ordinance amendments will also decrease the time the initial permit is valid from one year to six months these changes will continue to allow the practice of canvasing and solicitation and will improve the health safety and Welfare of the Township's residents tonight is the time set for the public hearing and final passage is advertised in accordance with law I declare the hearing open I move that the public hearing be closed and that the ordinance be adopted on Final reading and that the Township Clerk be directed to publish the ordinance by title as passed on Final reading in accordance with law may have a second second roll call vote please yes purpose yes Deputy Mayor secondy yes Mr St approv mayor Romo yes thank you committee M stol you are scheduled to sponsor ordinance 2682 d24 great thank you I present for consideration ordinance entitled ordinance number 2682-20 ordinance authorizing submission of a question for the election of CH of a charter commission under the Falkner act njsa 4069 A-1 in the 2025 general election tonight is the time for public hearing and final passage as advertised in accordance with the law I declare the hearing open I move that this public hearing be closed and the ordinance be adopted on Final reading and the Township Clerk be directed to publish the ordinance by title as passed on Final reading in accordance with law may I have a second second roll call vote Please Mr col yeah I would just like to say that mayor romano and I had a very productive meeting with Mr morale about this topic and he uh he helped assuage some of my concerns however there's no guarantee that the starter commission will be when it when it passes and I know it will tonight uh when the people elected it won't necessarily be five people as sincere as Mr moral who got elected to this to this commission so for that reason I have to vote no Miss brus yesy mayor second yes Mr ster affirmative mayor Romano yes Town Hall Renovations Mr McDonald um so I wanted to to to take this time to discuss with the township committee about the next steps as it relates to the renovation of this building um we have had uh a public information session obviously individual meetings with the township committee uh we had a presentation at the township committee uh this information has been on the Township's website uh for some time and so at this point we are just looking for a Direction in terms of uh where we want to go with Town Hall renovation uh one of the things that would be necessary is to to first and foremost agree on the scope um to agree on the approximate timetable which at this point if it were decided that we would move forward with it it would be the summer of 2025 uh that construction would be would would likely begin um uh the the budget um you know one of the issues and you know if I'm if I'm making a a plug uh to do this is that one of the issues that we're running into uh you know is that the expense to do this um is only going to continue to increase um as construction cost inflation uh you know some of that may wax and Wayne but uh it will you know it only goes up over the long term um we're already seeing some of this uh some of some inflationary impacts um as we've you know had this uh this process going on since uh the end of 2023 or 2022 I'm sorry um so um I'm just looking for uh again consensus on on on the scope that it will be the renovation of this building as presented uh with the addition uh of the of the new committee room uh court and uh additional office space uh with a with a safe storage uh facility um and that then we can work toward uh financing of that uh of that project uh right now it is estimated to be at the uh tune of about 12.5 million um I would anticipate that any authorization would be a bit more than that just to provide for um you know soft costs and things like that that um but um again just looking for a discussion with the committee and whether we can advance this project forward I have some thoughts um so this is an example of a infrastructure project that our town absolutely should do paper mail we shouldn't have but this we actually should uh because the longer we go with this building the more it's going to cost to maintain it has no insulation some case it's literally falling down and the space just doesn't work for uh our medicial workers um also if we go ahead with the plan uh and move the municipal court that will free up valuable space at the police department so really we're solving two two problems at at once uh and I think Mr McDonald's absolutely right you know this is a project that probably should have been done 10 years ago and it would have been a lot less expensive to do it 10 years ago I mean even if we did it five years ago it it would have been significantly less um so I think that now is as good a time as any and and uh we need to stop delaying and while I understand $12 million seems like a lot to put that in perspective you just gave 7 million dollars to the paper mill uh so you know I think something that is going to be in town and is going to be a building used by the town and the municipality for the next hundred years uh is something we should invest in I I think you're just asking for an authorization and not I'm okay with that I just think that as we move ahead with this I would just as I you discussed I would just like to see some Alternatives I mean from the presentation that we've seen it's kind of to me it's kind of been like that well here's the building I hope you like it and I would really prefer to see some some Alternatives that we have some opportunity someone you know some and they'll cost different amounts of money that we have some opportunity to make to make those decisions I mean we've can give it one design and I'd like to see I mean I'm not saying to spend a ton of money making you know 16 different designs but I would like to see some Alternatives or some explanation of possible tweaks as we go for yeah I think just to touch on that point um there are certainly um you know some things that we we can address again we're looking more at the overall scope but if we were to say you know we can soften the Inside by having a little bit less committee room so that we can create a little bit more open space um as well as you know perhaps uh adding an additional you know adding um you know different design to the outside of the committee room things like that I think we can we can work within the framework we're just looking at the overall scope of the pro the architect he spoke to everyone who works correct of course yes no absolutely yeah so there was a lot of that discussion around what was needed correct my concern is i that's my concern about that process seems as our that process already Tak Place those discussions maybe not by five of us because we don't work at this building so I don't know I guess I don't know what options other I think you know uh Community impr these are these are M these are minor tweaks these may be some aesthetic tweaks to the outside of the building um you know in particular what we haven't seen and I don't think that you know is in terms of the front of this building you know what what improvements are we going to make to the pathways so that they're more accessible um you know there's some repair on the historic facade you know the the historic pillars and and and facade out there you know what are those things it it will not it will not be major in nature by any means nothing that is going to hold this up trust me you know we are going to be looking at a timeline that if we want to start construction in 2025 we also then in conjunction with any of that uh exercise have to start moving from this building to 22 East Willow uh which is going to take time effort uh and and and we need to address that as well yeah looking at the you know you know it's you know it's an embarrassment for anyone on to not support the paper mill play play house and understand the the continuing understanding the economics of it we didn't give him 7 million he's gas flighting everyone's getting gasl we're getting $2.2 million for the brook side we're get 1.2 million on the books of cash for repairs anyway uh we have uh we have h a ton of economic growth from the paper mill Playhouse so I think it's a false equivalent that being said you heard me earlier this community deserves a new a new uh Town Hall um we we're you guys are living in squalor here and I'm 100% behind a new town new uh Town Hall yes please move forward there you go fantastic thank you all very much okay final public comment this public comment period is to allow for final comments from the community when invited to speak to offer your comments please come to the lectern clearly state your name and whether you Milbourne 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 an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to one three minute session hi J Morelli uh resident um a bunch of Kudos um first on the Town Hall Plaza uh think the extension is great it's it's just a fabulous environment so to everyone involved in putting that together um it's great and I like Diane's uh uh thought to turn it into a permanent Park maybe take some of that parking lot across the street it's it's a fabulous site and it's brought you see more children more families more of everything there it's great so Kudos tall um Alex thanks for the ptis ra update great um and Kudos on the land use um uh changes to let people register to um get notifications um has anybody who's ever been involved in a land use dispute knows um if if you receive a notice and you've got 10 days to try to understand what's happening and to try to impact or change or modify it's impossible um you could be out of town for two weeks and the change could get passed and you not even know about it and they're constructing that store to you um it it's crazy so uh kudos to Mr kgro for bringing this forward and kudos to to Alex and Company for moving forward with this I think that's incredibly important um and I support the town hall res uh Renovations um I've been in many Town Halls uh across the state as part of some of the advocacy work I do and I can tell you on equivocally this is perhaps one of the the lower rung establishments in the state and it it is a bit of an embarrassment so uh deputy mayor uh uh uh everyone I I please move forward as quickly as possible with this um and then finally of course um Kudos on passing the uh Charter commission uh study um I think it's incredibly important that from time to time you take a step back and you take a look at the big picture and you say can we do things better and and maybe after looking at it you realize no we're actually doing okay but I think it's important from time to time just to step back and look and do a a big assessment like uh will occur during the charter study commission work and just see if if we can do things better and be better um stewards uh of the taxes that are paid to us uh paid to the township by res so thank you for that hi Diane Eglo so just a question um why is the ordinance 2685 24 the paper mill being pushed up to September 3rd and the other two ordinance introductions second read public hearing September 17th and I agree with Ben I agree with Frank you know I all see different things but Michael to your point you didn't ask for the paper mills to have a second rendition of what they were doing and you gave them $7 million I've been pretty vocal that I think that that wasn't a good deal for the town but it's done I I think I mean people ask me if that bond has been released I don't know so maybe we could just clarify that for the town that it's a done deal and people should stop asking because Mr stot you're getting your money we didn't have any say on your fancy Atrium or whatever it is you're planning so I'm sorry to be snarky but um I am and um I'm glad you Alex you know me pretty well um and Tara you're funny you're a woman a few words but when you speak it's always very poignant and important I'm glad Ridgewood Road and Greenwood is gonna have their flood Pro um drainage put in that's really important we got really lucky last week and um that's it so thank you I I when I left um sitting up there the only thing that happened in my six years was you got new chairs seriously and I think that the last thing I said was when I was in my goodbye speech was that you all the people who work here really deserve a great place to work because you all works so hard so I really hope this happens next summer thank you again good night thank you hi Richie cyber president I just want [Music] to uh agree with Frank about the fair share housing and the allocation of affordable housing cities throughout the state so I just want to say that this needs to be fought right to the Supreme Court and we should win it about what we do with our land and where we want to build and who's going to live there and that's what Milbourne does they're leaders I moved to this town cuz this town is made up of the best people in what they do that was my first question why is Milbourne shill so great because the people that live here are the best in their fields that's what they are and we have a lot of smart people in this town and as Jean said earlier she went to the pool and ask people at the Town pool what do they think about building on the DPW site nobody wanted it right nobody wants it banon Frank rant nobody wants it and then we have some people that want to know how much is it going to cost if you have ever hired a lawyer in your life and asked him that question what do you think it's going to cost he'll never tell you that he'll tell you what the deposits going to be but how could he tell you what it's going to cost how does he possibly know how long it's going to take who he has to subp all the depositions it's a lot of work involved but I say take it to the Supreme Court that's it thank you thank you sorry I still have more um Jean Pastak so I just want to say as far as the town hall renovation okay an architect was hired um he obviously is a professional he did his homework and he's offering his best case scenario I'm a daughter of an architect a a sister of of an architect there are many architects in our family and I can tell you I remember my dad saying this so many times that his clients you know it was like the architect is sort of that the lowest rung of the ladder they know what they're doing they have a lot of education and I think you should trust that architect's judgment Michael um I'd also like to uh ask you Alex about the um and thanks for all the support from the whole whole Township committee about expanding our 911 memorial to include survivors I hope there's um something that's I know there's not going to be a meeting before then but if there's anything that we can do to recognize that I'm willing to help or put you in in touch with people who could do that um the other uh question these are some of Mr feld's questions that I asked that he asked me to um ask about what is the status of the retention of special counsel to investigate the private citizen Municipal criminal complaint filed by our former mayor um let's see will residents be provided an opportunity to ask our Auditors questions about the 2023 audit what is the status of the 2024 Main Street New Jersey application what steps is the township taking to update its list of registered voters didn't say that said something much worse and then uh will the township disclose and post all post August 17 21 affordable housing hearing transcripts in its actual and constructive possession beginning with September 17th virtual 2021 virtual case management conference um and let's see what portion of the community is located within a 100-year flood plane and um when will the township disclose the results of its promised apartment unit assessment and inventory okay last thing I want to say about paper mill is I I really would like to take the emotion out of it and say that there were a number of really as Rich pointed out very intelligent people pillars of this community that had come before you presented their numbers their analysis um and I don't think it's an embarrassment at all I think it shows that our community cares that people do take things seriously spending $7 million is a big number given all the priorities that we've heard about tonight and previously and I think that um I hope that you will listen further to what was presented to you thank you thank you anyone else in the room hi uh Debbie Frank Milbourne resident um about the affordable housing thing I would hope that um that after this one meeting I would really hope that you would take a very cold eye as to your process going forward to see whether or not there is an actual path to turning this over or not because first of all you're you're dealing with a lot of history here so it's not as though everybody here could have had a very pure heart when it came to coming up with alternatives for where to put this but you also have the history and the history has been interpreted as being resistant for a very long time to any sort of affordable housing that is going to cannot help but inform how it is looked at by a judge by the legal system it's part of the history so I mean I I I know I'm one of the only people in this room who was absolutely in favor of doing this I still am putting that aside it is you have to look at the numbers you have to look even more at your actual um whether or not you can actually win this thing because at certain point if there are if there is really no plausible probable path to doing this what it ends up being is an expensive temper tantry so I'm just saying take a look at it obviously we're not going to out here we're not going to see all the things that go into making this decision but I think that you really have to look at it that way a couple of other just kind of things on the side regardless of what happens with N Main Street it doesn't mean that you can't take say the rimbach area and put up what you're talking about in affordable housing Workforce thing you could still do that this one does not preclude the other and the last thing when you are I would be very very careful of your language here considering the considering the history considering how the judge has looked at uh the pleading so far I think you should really be very very careful about using negatively loaded terms like tenement it does you no good thank you thank you good evening uh Jerry Kung Short Hill resident um I didn't intend to speak tonight but uh the previous speaker Miss Frank with all due respect when when you go into this talking about history and pointing the finger at our town as if we've done something wrong that's sort of a defe attitude and that's sort of not going to lead us to sort of the point where many residents I would say probably 80% of residents would want us to be so when you want to talk about history we we should be very careful with exactly how this history unfolded so yes people say Mount Laurel goes back to the 1970s sure how many Mount Laurel cases have happened since then Mount Laurel one was in 1970s there's Mount Laurel 2 Mount Laurel 3 Mount Laurel 4 what is the exact history when you say Milburn was reticent in building affordable housing is that actually true so on Fair Share housing Center's own website before they updated it with all of the you know riches and money that they get from who knows where because you can't open them because they're third party nonprofit deao government organization that's not subject to government transparency and oversight on their own website when you looked up Milbourne before they did their whole flashy new website there was a quote from a former mayor from about 2010 they said Milbourne hasn't built affordable housing because no developers have approached the town to build affordable housing now here's a question if no one comes to you and says I want to build affordable housing are you actually trying not to build affordable housing is it the role of a local Township to go into the development business it's theoretical question it's a philosophical question but if no one came to you and said I want to build affordable housing you never said no I want I don't want to build affordable housing you basically just said come give me some proposals to build affordable housing maybe I'll say yes maybe I'll say no but Milburn did not actually have a history of saying no to affordable housing as far as I am aware and as far as the fair share housing Center website before they updated it said up to the year 2010 so what EX changed well Laurel 4 happened in 2015 and that's when all of the AFF housing laws suddenly you know changed but you can't just say and point the finger at Milburn with all due respect Miss Frank that Milbourne didn't build affordable housing for 40 years Milbourne didn't want to build affordable housing for 40 years the fact of the matter is that Milbourne Township is not in the development business okay and so if a Township chooses not to engage and become a developer and you know no affordable housing gets built that doesn't mean that they didn't want affordable housing it just meant that no opportunities arose organically for such construction thank you very much thank you anyone on one Ione I think it's she couldn't figure out how to turn name on she had texted me a while ago I think we won't have the experience M see their face can we do that can you guys see me hold on sorry my apologies can you see me okay yep I see you can okay can I have a little more time because I missed my I sat and waited for public comment and there was some kind of resp just just just continue please okay I'll go as quickly as I can rette thank you um so um I wanted to just I I I wanted to first um thank Renee and her team for the amount of effort and amount of time and work they've done because they've done a bang up job of like coming up with all these great things and I fully support you know the work that they do um but I have some strong opinions that I wanted to share particularly um I I I'm in the middle and I I think in this situation with this new ordinance you guys are talking about I think being in the middle and playing it safe is a better way to go um you know starting at 25% because just because other people do things doesn't mean we should do things it always goes back to like because somebody wears these ten of sneakers you should wear these because somebody smokes pot you should smoke pot so I kind of don't like going that way and making decisions I feel that Tom does um well I don't always agree with everything he does his Excellence tonight was on full display with his knowledge and I'm sure Stacy was very involved in in helping write that up as well um and I really think that it's very important that they have a massive amount of say and that we bring in additional people that are third party because I don't think it should be left to a bunch of and I love the fact that all these cute high schoolers came out and pleaded their case about climate change It's a Wonderful story but it's a story it's an anecdote there's no science everything was over was generalized okay and I'm I'm very science oriented and I'm I am an avid Gardener and I really care about my plants as you guys know because I have told everybody about possibly people cutting my native oak trees which I was shocked that the town didn't care about that yet we talking about all of this so one of the things I want to talk about is that there's there's a lot of reasons why everything shouldn't be native number one almost a lot of our native trees are dying right now I mean if you look at 24 million Ash trees that were dying um the beach the oak is um you know susceptible to um bacterial Leaf Scorch and Oak Wilt fungus and also canker okay my neighbor lost their Oak next to me and I lost two Oaks actually in my front yard so um and there's a number of other ones that are you know um subject to disease and so so after I lost my oak trees I planted a katsura which is a Japanese tree that's quite exotic but it is known to be very hard in North American climate and I don't see it's not an invasive species it's a fairly slow grower so I I think people really need to think about that and also they need to think about the conditions that things are planted in sometimes they're trees that are understory trees and they're planted for the specific purpose of growing up underneath as an understory tree um so like the forest pansy is an example of that or the red bud trees so you you'll have another opportunity at because we're going to discuss it further next month no I but I I I I can have my two three minute sessions in that because I did I I can't I can't why can't you do that I can't so you just make up I'm sorry I can't anyone else does anybody want to respond oh I'm sorry okay good so Jean past 100% agree on 911 Memorial can't think of anything more poignant uh as it's coming up um Miss uh Miss Franks um you know uh thank you to uh to to Dr Kung for his words uh he kind of stole a little of Thunder but what I want to make sure and we articulate very well is that this Township committee completely supports affordable housing no one is ducking their affordable housing uh uh requirements Etc and I think we've made that completely known to the court we gave the court two lots that were significantly better from a monetary standpoint for residents from a timing standpoint and a infrastructure uh standpoint as well and they said that those were not better than the site we have here if anything smells to high heaven it's that decision I can sit here and say a lot of things that may get me in trouble so I'm going to leave it at that that we did the work we believe in affordable housing we want affordable housing we want to to move it forward but we need to do it in a sensible manner uh that does not threaten the livability of our of our town uh from removing the the removing the um DPW site to the large amount of financial requirement for that site to other other things we've taken into account we have great Professionals in this town we have great attorneys uh we have great CFO we have great business administrator we do rely a lot on them to give us the information as we requested and to provide us guidance uh and I think everyone is on the same page that um when we look at this the question is can we afford not to fight it and I've said that numerous times can we afford not to fight it and what the implications are on our Township uh so I'll leave it at that thank you sure uh so I I want to make this abundantly clear we say we're fighting it we're not fighting affordable housing we're fighting segregated housing when we say we're going to fight it we're fighting for the future residents of this community we're fighting for the existing residents of this community we should not be building tenements that's not going to help the individuals yeah I said it tenament because that's what it's going to be it's going to be a slum uh over time the proper way to do affordable housing is to do it in an integrated manner where you have people of different socioeconomic backgrounds living amongst one another and that helps lift up the entire Community all right if we segregate them that's going to further marginalize them and that's not going to help the people that it's supposed to benefit it's just the wrong thing to do and our town cannot stand idly by while this happen happens we have to fight for what's right and doing affordable housing the right way is of Paramount importance to us in this town that's why we put together a fantastic alternative proposal it would have provided uh affordable housing units and much needed Workforce housing units that's that's really important we were actually going to do more than what was required and we were going to be building housing for a portion of the population that is underserved right there there is a lack of affordable housing for people that make between 80 and 100% 20% of the area immediate income those are your your policemen those are your firemen your nurses they should have an affordable place to live too and we as a community wanted to provide that and yet RPM and the judge fair share housing are arguing in favor of segregation so um we're going to continue fighting for what's right we're going to continue fighting for what's best for the town and we're going to continue fighting for building affordable housing in a responsible manner thank you uh no mayor thank you very briefly um um just to since it's been brought up in the public I also let uh everyone the attorney has been engaged for uh the investigation and the complaint that uh Mr Feld through Mrs M Pastak asked um as far as Mr feld's Question about flood zones I just suggest that anybody who's interested in go on the sdl portal there are map overlays of our zoning flood zon sewer system everything can be found there um and that should satisfy his curiosity um the um the other thing I just wanted to say is um again thank you to the township committee uh for having the um uh you know for providing the ability for us to move forward with a town hall renovation I think it is uh incumbent upon me on behalf of our staff to let you know that you've made a lot of very happy people in particular that work in town hall and would love to see this building renovated for the future not only for them working here but also for those who come after us um and we are all very grateful for you making that decision so thank you we have a motion to adour