that was for 0 recently see here it is again read them all e e e e e e e e e good evening I'd like to call the July 31st 2024 burough council meeting to order will a clerk please read the open public meeting statement adequate notice of this meeting has been provided as required under chapter 231 Public Law 1975 specifying the time date and location by posting a copy of the notice on the municipal billing building Municipal website providing a copy of the annual notice scheduled to the official newspaper of the burough and is on file in the clerk's office will the clerk please call the rooll council president rolinski here councilman Collins here councilman moo here councilman pansy councilman Potter here councilman Zen Brana here mayor Murray here Bor Attorney Peter vinolo pres bur engineer Mike mclen presid B administrator Fred Carr pres burrow CFO Joseph zanga pres burrow clerk Monica Orlando Pres will everyone please stand for a moment of silence and follow by the of the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to stands one nation God indivisible withy and justice for all now is the time for public comment limited to the resolutions on the agenda if you wish to speak please step up to the microphone and state your name and address for the record again this is the public portion is limited to the comments only on the resolutions listed on the agenda at this time Dave nins 59 West F miltown New Jersey I stand in support of the resolution to rename p panav as part of haav I was happy and appreciative to hear councilman revolinsky uh resurrect the issue in the spring of 2023 when he brought it up my good friend councilman Collins also brought it up at that time uh mayor M mayor was uh in support of a name change preco she then had Mr venola look into the impact and the process by which that could happen somehow this was superseded to the HRC committee under the able leadership of councilman Paretti he might be listening that's why I said AEL um who concluded what we knew years ago when we looked into the issue and that is that there would not be any great financial hardship on the two residents that live on panav um there would be no legal document that have to be filed no new mortgage that would have to be obtained that's all based on lot and block number and the reason based on lot and block number is that over time street names have tended to change in different places at different times so there wasn't a big legal cost that he found but he did find that there'd be some in incidental costs um if people still write checks I don't know if anybody here writes a check but you'd have to update your checkbook passport license during a grace period would have to be changed but nothing that would be a great cost to those two residents uh we also have the uh example of New Brunswick where commercial La was recently changed to Paul robes and Boulevard uh a Long Street with many more houses than we have on pav panav by the way is about the distance of a long Fly ball not an Aaron judge home run but just maybe an average flyball with only two houses commercial La is much more involved um under the leadership of councilman Z Brana who took over the HRC committee uh we looked into the example of new br Wick we talked to the business administrator a present councilman director of Community Affairs they told us they provided no money to the residents for any incidental costs so I think that speaks to the amount of money that we're talking about councilman Paretti had worked with the former business administrator of getting a line item in the budget uh it's probably not there in the budget now but uh that would be a way in which costs could be uh immediately compensated for the burrow because I think the town should compensate the residents if the town did not want to appropriate the money uh we could easily find uh voluntary contributions into some type of a fund I'd write the first check other people that are in the audience today have also indicated that they would write a check so the finance issue um Financial issue is not an impediment um Mr zimbrana talked to both residents they had no objections to a name change although they had concerns about the process who wouldn't but that process could be worked through with Mr venola with our example in New Brunswick uh they said it was all very very very smooth uh going at that time um post office city services none of that would be a problem so that box was checked so we come to the third issue which is is it the right thing to do and we looked into to that issue in depth historically and what we found is that we did believe it is the right thing to do because uh pain did not meet the test of History if you know the south side of town There's a cluster of streets named after World War I generals fos Joffrey Persian hay and patan they were named by Michel Andy in the 1920s uh patan a was just a paper Street into the 1950s similar to Christopher Street that everybody seems to know about now but the two homes were built in the 19 um in the 1950s had patain retired in the 1920s when he was a hero for his service in World War I venerated throughout France there'd be no debate today we would not be standing here but Pain's story continues into World War II France Falls in a matter of weeks to the Nazis pain is called out of retirement to lead a new government write a constitution and to sign an Armistice with Germany his priority was to Curry favor with the Germans in order to get a lenient peace deal he's not a Nazi he's not even a Nazi sympathizer patain is old enough to remember the Franco Prussian war of 1870 but he feels that it is his duty in the best interest of France to collaborate with the Nazis it is a choice it is not imposed upon France and in that policy of collaboration French police will will willfully arrests over 75,000 I let me correct myself over 75,000 Jews foreign and French will be arrested and deported during the War years 34s of them will be willfully arrested by French police almost none of them will return Bain fails the test of History he did nothing to stop this no measure no objection no speech he was perfectly willing to have foreign Jews round it up and Deport it there is no historian that gives him a pass or any of the vichi leaders on the the excuse of ignorance that they did not know what was going to happen Robert um Robert Paxton noted Columbia historian um Michael Cur Curtis from Ruckers who's recently passed Julian Jackson who just wrote a book um France on trial which by the way mentions miltown at the end although they get the date wrong all of them have come to the conclusion that vichi does not deserve um any type of recognition other than condemnation Jacques shurak in 1995 the president of France formally apologized for vish's role in the Holocaust there is no street named after patain in France today now for those that want to make the charge that we're trying to erase history I respond this way a street sign is not a history lesson street sign reflects the values of the town and how we honor people every Fallen combat veteran from miltown has a street named after them we don't know any of their history we don't know how they died from that street sign what their family was like what their personal goals were but we do know the sacrifice that they made because that sign is an honor patain does not deserve that honor also to the uh charge that this would be a slippery slope where would it stop to me you look at each case individually you take the context of the time the person's accomplishments Jose them with their failures and make a determination a determination here about the Holocaust is an easy one if there was a football field in miltown named after a USC Heisman Trophy winner in the 1960s 30 years later I don't think that football field would have the same name just today in the news Bob Menendez High elementary school is going to have its name changed you look at each case individually and you make a determination and if there's anything this Council can agree on and I know this Council disagrees on a lot it's that we stand against the Holocaust and those that enabled it so I don't think there's a problem with the process I don't think there's a financial issue I think the issue of history is clear on what the right thing to do and a town that honors its Hometown Heroes and a town that honors its veterans should make the call to change the name and I'll just add one last thing just this is an issue that's long been looked at long been discussed and studied my good friend Mr Zen Bron and I met with Mr Dixon of the American Legion Mr Kazar of the VFW they can take no position they are nonpolitical but I want the council to know that we we spoke with them we mentioned them and everything I said here was told to them so we're not blindsiding anybody this is an issue that's long been in part of the public debate and I trust that the council will approve the first reading of this ordinance tonight thank you very much uh good evening all uh my name is Courtney Williams um I am the chair of the human relations committee and I would like to speak on um two ordinances 1547 and 1548 first um I would really like to thank and really acknowledge the work that it took to got to get here um as a person who's been on the HRC since it's Inception this was one of the main task in charge of this committee um to really look into this issue and help um guide the councils the terms of the councils um move forward with this issue and to support the work that has been done and really continue to do that work and so to be here today um having this as um something that we are now really considering and really looking into and hoping to move forward and I very much thank everybody's consideration and the work and everybody's previous work that's gone into this um this has not been an easy issue and has not been an easy task but I very much appreciate everybody's willingness to continue to pick up that mantle um secondly I do um want to come and have sort of a discussion around the second ordinance of 1548 um the last time you saw me uh was at our previous meeting uh regarding the a flag policy or the development of a flag policy in town and since then there has been some dialogue back and forth and some very good conversations about the development of the policy and what would go into it and how the HRC which um as you know is really meant to guide and help the council really work through the complicated issues make this less complicated and make it a more sustainable transparent process for the town to be able to develop these policies going forward um so I would like to say and would like to ask that um there be consideration to continue that conversation going forward um as it stands the current flag policy um May and still need to be discussed amongst the HRC many members not been able to attend that meeting so I do um request that we have some more time to have that dialogue I think that there are existing policies from all around the county that can really help inform this policy especially from the county um I believe I've sent um an email with an example of what that potentially can look like um to Dave's point right now um you know talking about history and moving forward I think history does uh play a factor in this but we're really looking to the Future and really trying trying to determine how we continue to make this town great how we continue to make this town grow how we continue to make this town the friendliest town in the world and I think it starts here with the very um diverse opinions and the diverse sort of collaboration that it would take to make something like this um happen okay seeing no other uh comments um I would like to close the public uh portion of this the meeting uh minutes for June 24th 2024 regular meeting on the agenda for approval is there any comments or Corrections uh yes uh Mr Mayor I'd like to just make a comment uh that I failed to make that night uh at the end of the meeting I thought I would be able to do that at the next meeting but we weren't doing that at the special meeting so I want to take the opportunity tonight um just to thank councilman Potter for dialing in that night I believe he was away that night on a work event um he moved his schedule around to make sure that he uh dialed into that meeting and to uh to make sure that he voted thank you can I make a can I have a motion to accept minutes a sted so move uh can I have a second second um motion made by council president rinsky seconded by councilman Collins all in favor I any opposed okay meeting minutes for July 8th 2024 special meeting or on the agenda for approval for any comments and Corrections no can I have a motion to accept a minutes as typed so moved second I have a motion by council president rinsky second by councilman Potter all in favor any opposed okay ordinance introduction first reading this is the introduction of ordinance 24547 there will be no public input on this ordinance tonight the introduction summary will be published as required by law and second reading public hearing and final adoption will be considered on August 19th 2024 full copies of the ordinance will be posted on the B website on the bulletin board at the min ipal building and available at no cost in the office of the municipal clerk between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. on Fridays will the clerk please read ordinance 24547 by title only ordinance authorizing a street name change from pat avenue to hag Avenue may I have a motion and a second to adopt ordinance 24547 so move I'd like to pull introduce introduce okay can I speak all right so competing motions I believe the first motion was councilman rinsky's uh followed by I guess the first motion is for action on the ordinance so wait and see if there's a second to councilman rinsky's motion okay thank you is there a second I I didn't hear the motion yeah what was the motion so uh you had a motion to adopt and then a motion essentially to table it happened immediately after so council president revolinsky made a motion to adopt okay councilman panski made a made a motion to table it immediately after council president rinsky made the motion to adopt so we have to second so versally we need a a motion to Second for the motion to Second the thank you okay got it now now it's any discussion I guess right yes we don't have a second yet is second yeah sure um is that good Peter yeah there's a second to the okay so there is there is a second so now we can have uh any comments okay well first I'm going to say I'm not going to tell anyone what to think I'm not going to tell anyone how to feel anyone who knows who's who's read about the patain case because I have I researched it in college and since I knew this was coming I've been working on this for the past six weeks I have a lot of notes which I won't bring in tonight um but the it's with pan it's complex it's complicated and it's ambiguous there there is no smoking gun with all the reading that I've done if I had found a Smoking Gun I would have shut my book years ago but I would shut the book this time and that would have been the end of it I've read and I've read and and I've read and I have another book that I'm reading and vichi uh well I'm going to read this first uh Germany invaded Poland October 1st 1939 been on world domination they swept through Europe with the blit Blitz Greg tactics of shock and all Blitz c means lightning War Poland became the G general of government all six of the death camps such as alwi were located when France capitulated and patan was installed as his head of state he signed an armis and he was criticized by many such as the Gaul who had fled to England the bottom line with patain is that he thought what he was doing you you you can't see something in that time frame with the mind that a person has now he thought he was saving his country he saw that that Europe was on fire age and he did what he thought he could do to to save his people Germany had captured over two two million s u 2 million soldiers and taken over 650,000 citizens as slave labor so he cared about his country he was a hero in World War I he was a hero of Verdun he was he was he was um called IMM Marshal it's not a it's not a rank it's an honor there were very few people that were honored as such and um at the time all of Europe was at this time anti-semitic the worst being Austria many countries had anti-jewish laws many were jealous of the financial acument of the Jewish people they worked hard built businesses they had to struggle to survive had many basic rights taken away as they were not welcom in many countries the French anti-semitic laws during vichi were unlike previous laws but very much in line with Nazi laws the Nazis controlled France they divided into three zones so vichi France Paris was no longer the capital it was vichi which was in in lower lower France and they had two occupied zones which were the Germans occupying France and there was an unoccupied Zone because the German didn't the Germans didn't have the manpower to occupy and they also expected the French because they were prosperous to supply the Germans with money and food which which the Germans needed um and I for a different books um there's Julian Jackson who wrote France Cal which is a book that I have right here what he said is the V regime regime would never have initiated policy to murder Jews vish's anti-semitism was exclusionary not exterminatory so by October 1940 vishi was enacting laws excluding Jews from participation many activities but yielding to German pressure the vishi government was facilitating the arrest and deportation of Jews in the occupied areas so after 19 in November of 1942 the Germans came back and took all of France and with their puppet government and the thing to remember is it was a puppet government so there was there was always the knowledge that they would not survive if they went against them so when when a person can say that it was voluntary everything that I've read I've never seen that it's it it can be alluded to but I've never seen that and I'll read I'll keep reading so from 1940 pain thought he was doing everything he could to help his country and his people in Nazi occupied France and and that's what it was it was Nazi occupied and they're the ones that had the final solution that were killing the Jews many of the French people understanding the horrible situation fully supported pan his trial was like a trial of Collective Soul of France and they needed to be cleansed that's all I have to say tonight I'd like people to think critically I I I I don't want to think that i' I've put in dozens of hours and I didn't have to but I want to know everything that I could before I came here tonight and for the next meeting if this comes up and I think everyone should have the critical thoughts to go along with this do some reading and read both sides because like I said it's not cut and dry so just to be clear uh the motion was made by council president rinsky seconded by councilman Zan okay Monica yep okay good I just wanted to confirm um any more comments I would just like to thank uh both the discussions from Mr nin his comments as well as those from councilman P nansy it's interesting to hear uh two sides to things and I'm glad to hear that people are so passionate about this issue that they that they're doing their research um I think it definitely warrants you know some some more thought but uh I personally I'm I'm okay with uh proceeding with with my motion to to approve and understanding that we've got 28 days here for anyone who's be contemplating otherwise to truly research the matter on their own okay thank you will a clerk please call the RO council president rinsky I councilman Collins I councilman moo I councilman posnansky I councilman Potter I councilman Zim Brana I a second reading and public hearing on this ordinance will take place on August 19th 2024 at 700 p.m. in the council chambers ordinance and introduction first reading this is an introduction of an ordinance 24548 there will be no public input on this ordinance tonight the introductory summary will be published as required by law in second reading public hearing and final adoption will be considered on August 19th 2024 full copies of this ordinance will be posted on the bur website on the bulletin board in the municipal building and available at no cost in the office uh at the municipal clerk between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 pm. on Fridays will a clerk please read ordinance 24548 by title only ordinance to amend chapter 2 administration of the revised General ordinances of the burrow of miltown to add article 89 flag policy may I have a motion in a second to adopt ordinance 24 make a motion I make a motion adopted second I second the table was first the table did you table it I don't know people were talking before the mayor finished so I couldn't hear so Mr Veno can I get some clarification because it went I was still talking so I don't know I want to I did you get a perspective on what happened there I believe that councilman's and BR uh made a motion to table uh before councilman revolinsky made the motion to approve okay so that's and I second to there was a second by councilman Potter to T so you we have to vote no if we didn't want to table it yes if we did want to table it if you would like to table the ordinance you will vote yes if you would not like to table the ordinance you will vote no okay does council have any questions or comments first before we vote on it oh I just want to say I just uh pardon my ignorance but the m t cross is the one by the fire department right that's correct that's correct thank you thank you well I have a question from what I understand from uh email from uh chairman um there's there there are talks that are ongoing so I would wonder why we're we're putting the court before the horse well I think I think the purpose of this ordinance is to address the posting of flags in which Flags would be flown at Burrow buildings but it still leaves the opportunity open for us to develop a flag policy for other locations for for other uh other flags of expression as as may be presented to uh to the council so council president rinsky you're saying there be two flag policies there'd be one that governs which this one is for burrow buildings and then we're working to develop another one for another location which could be utilized for any specific specific representative flag at a at a given time so so are we saying is it in this policy it's not in this policy so we're going to add it to the policy later so why no it'll be a separate so separate ordinance right separate ordinance SE so there'll be two this one governs burrow buildings the other one would govern so so are we saying are we saying that the juneth flag and the uh pride flag uh are not good enough to be flown in front of bur Hall is that what we're saying I don't believe that's what we said that's that's sort of like what it sounds like if you'd like to imply that you're more than welcome to I guess my question is per M Williams the HRC had hasn't had a chance to look at this policy correct I don't know we've received an email I want to say yesterday uh regarding a flag policy so so was yes or today answer is no no we have an HRC we have an HRC policy we have an HRC committee to help the the burough Council on on these issues correct this is an ordinance introduction right so it's an ordinance introduction so we would table it so that the HRC can add more input so we have when we look at it next time that's how you choose to to vote then that is your choice that's what we're suggesting that's we're so we're just making it clear to the residents that that's what we're suggesting so this vote is to table yes is table no is not table correct that is correct okay so this vote is to table will the cler please call council president revolinski no councilman Collins no councilman moo no councilman posnanski no I'm sorry no councilman Potter yes councilman zamb BR yes motion carries okay so now this no the motion does not car motion does not carry I apologize motion does not carry so now we need vote on the actual ordinance now we vote on the ual ordinance so do I need to make a new motion then to uh to introduce and adopt uh ordinance 24 1548 uh I have a motion by council president revolinsky do I have a second second uh second um made by councilman Collins um is there any comments yes so we did have an HRC meeting uh last Tuesday the 29th if I have my math correct uh 20 28th 29th um which uh mayor you were part of and in that meeting uh you made it seem like the conversation uh around the flag policy was going to continue and to be ongoing but that doesn't seem like that's what we're doing here tonight uh that's not correct I clearly said it was going to be twoo policies no you did not that's not you did not so will the clerk please call the rooll this is to approve it correct Mr v a vote of Yes means that you approve this is to adopt the ordinance on first reading council president rolinski I councilman Collins I yes councilman moo hi councilman posnansky I councilman Potter no not it's current written councilman Zen Brana no a second reading and public hearing on this ordinance will take place on August 19th 2024 at at 7:00 p.m. council chambers ordinance public hearing second reading the following ordinance was introduced on June 10th 2024 published in accordance with law if any member of the public wishes to comment on this ordinance they may do so after reading will the clerk please read ordinance 24542 by title ordinance to amend chapter 15 building and Housing section 25-2 administrative fee for all sub codes of the revised General ordinances of the bur of miltown may I have a motion in a second to adopt ordinance 24542 motion to amend no adopt no ad no I I understand that's not the two options that I was given but I'm saying it with a question mark at the end of there because I do have just one question here uh as I look at this again it um what is this the third section one the last sentence says new build in additions 250 minimum or uh 34 or 3.4 cens or is that dollars and then it says per CF that would be cubic foot that would be my guess that seems unusual to me when you think about an architectural plan that should be square foot I would think because then if someone's got an apex roof are we counting the peak as a cubic foot or is that point just can I answer okay go that is how the construction official sent it to me when we did the original massive fee overhaul back in February that took me two months to put together uh I guess he didn't look over it carefully and gave the wrong number so that's why this is in here that's how he gave it to me as cubic feet and I made him read it five times before I put it on so I would encourage you to ask him I assume that means cubic feet but I am in construction I'm kind of I don't have an issue with cubic feet is a standard measurement the height of the building it plays into your cubic feet so if you're having a commercial building probably rated at different rates 10 foot ceilings in over three floors it imply it it implies a standard that increases or decreases whereas square footage doesn't really do that yeah and then it could be square footage of just the overall building or are we talking per floor if the floor is 100 by 100 but one is 10t ceilings and the other one is 8T ceilings um I can see why you charge more for that more and then my uh my second is I see 250 minimum or usually I see these as like a greater of you know at a minimum but the uh 0.034 um should that have a dollar sign in front of it I copied and pasted it from his email of what he wanted and then I'll I'll I'll motion to approve this but I have a feeling like that might come back to just a tweak if if it's needed well I think the assumption is that it's a dollar figure okay so want to make sure that we're I think we can add thear sign in front of it without subsid changing the ordance okay appr did just come to mind though in the and you know I'm not a lawyer of course you may have noticed that uh but $250 minimum for 3034 per cubic foot uh doesn't exactly Express um why I guess does that mean it's always or greater than and over what I think that's how it will be interpreted whichever is whichever is greater the greater 250 250 is the minimum and if it's more than 250 then it'll be based on the map so if you have that as you talked about that 100 by 100 by twostory you know 2,000 10,000 cubic foot building like do the math and maybe po do 50 the idea is to capture the feeds associated with the inspections at the construction department and that make it so honorous so that he has to go out and do this the math now at the time of we all know that you come and file your permits the construction official does the math puts it on the jacket hands it to you and says here's your permit fees for this project if you agree or you disagree that's your time to say I like it or I don't like it or I'm not paying it or I'm reducing the scope of my project because I'm not paying the fee but without this math he doesn't have the ability to do that so would it be a substantive change if it was the to say the greater of or is that generally minimum means though I know it's probably implied but we can we can change it to Greater of 250 or the dollar sign 0.34 per CF if if that is something that the council feels like would make them have a greater Comfort level I don't think that will subst change what I I I've seen a lot of construction contracts and they just you always see the greater of or you know that sort of language that's all but otherwise I have no no issue with this I a question Mike yeah on the architectural plans does it list cubic feet you know John I'm not really sure cuz I've never seen it it's in a different I think they're looking at the air space of the increase yeah so so I'm not really sure that yeah I mean because it's going to be how they CU they may there may be some you know ARG of how they calculate cubic feet like Rich was saying if you have a you know a roof that takes up more you know in the ceiling that takes up a lot of a you know even a technically you could say like a what would you call that window you know with a glass window or something and that could take up more cubic feet right Ian you can calculate it's not you know it's it's it's takes a little more work than do it by just yeah it can be done so we also need a second to move this one forward to move this one forward I'll say thank you I have a motion made by council president rinsky seconded by councilman Potter um can I have a a vote we need to open this to the public a second reading ordinance now I open the public hearing on ordinance 24542 please state your name and address for the record and the comments are elicited to the ordinance only I will close the public comment portion of this uh will the clerk please call the role council president rolinski Hi councilman Collins councilman moo hi councilman pansi hi councilman Potter hi councilman Zam BR hi ordinance public hearing second reading the following ordinance was introduced on June 10th 20 24 published in accordance with law if any member of the public wishes to comment on this ordinance they may do so after reading will the clerk please read ordinance 241543 by title ordinance to amend chapter uh 34 comprehensive development of the revised General ordinances of the burough of miltown County of middlex state of New Jersey to add section 34-7 privately owned salt storage may I have a motion in a second so moved second I have a motion made by council president rinsky seconded by councilman Collins um I will now open a public hearing on ordinance 241543 please state your name and address for the record these comments are limited uh to the comments on this ordinance only I'll will close the public portion of of the comments uh will the clerk please call the role council president rolinski councilman Collins councilman moo hi councilman pansy councilman Potter I councilman Zim Brana I ordinance public hearing second reading the following ordinance was introduced on June 10th 2024 and published in accordance with law if any member of the public wishes to comment on this ordinance they may do so after the reading will a clerk please read ordinance 245 1544 by title ordinance to amend chapter 34 comprehensive development of the revised General ordinances of the burrow of miltown County of middlex state of New Jersey to delete chapter 19 protection of trees and add section 34-36 tree removal and replacement I have a motion in a second to adopt ordinance 24544 so move second I have a motion made by council president revolinsky seconded by councilman Collins I will now open a public hearing on ordinance 24544 please state your name and address for the record these comments are limited to the comments on this ordinance only Lee weisenberger 99 JFK J uh looking for a little Clarity uh we still presently have a free removal process for Street Street trees yes as as deemed necessary by the by the uh DPW right well that's the question mark then yeah Street trees yet then I notice this says on the acreage involved too but per acre of property is where replacement trees come into effect so up to an acre nobody has a problem that's the I the way I it that's my understanding as well unless Peter can you I will admit I did not commit the ordinance to memory this is a ordinance that is required by the state d uh and has been essentially mandated for all municipalities to adopt so my understanding is it does regulate Street trees as well as private trees based upon uh the caliber of the tree um and goes through what the regulations are for those removal and replacement because it says up two for an acre and then it's replac of depending on size it could be three trees to replace one mhm I'm just curious like I said on a street tree thing because who makes the decision on the street tree now uh typically the request to remove a tree goes in through the DPW uh they'll review it take a look at the tree itself determine if it's diseased if it's creating additional hazards if it's dead uh and then make the determination if it should be taken down or not as I said because the way this reads it it's kind of kind of like you know you got to get an arborous now to make a decision on anything so but to your previous point I believe that's for property greater than an acre to a point once again yeah but so but trees now that are grandfathered in yet I would guess that are scheduled for removal nothing's going to affect any of this this new stuff I know this this was floated around around I believe earlier this year and our DPW Department had made it a point to go out and check all those trees again that were on the list to see if there were any immediate that really needed to come down right away in order to try and get that accomplished prior to this the uh the state introduced this and then withdrew it and then now the state has reintroduced it and said it's it's time for adoption so I believe the DPW has done a good job of probably getting us as far ahead as possible um but the the interpretation and how the state winds up going about uh enforcing this regulation is anybody's guess um I find it hard pressed to believe that the state has time to come to Little Old Midtown and find out if someone cut down a 6inch tree in the backyard enfor we enforce it well we yeah it's it's it's a municipal enforcement obligation by our zoning official just so we're all in the same page so so basically they mandate it and we enforce it yep and there's no compensation from the state for there is not nope they told us we have to do it and they gave us the form uh kind of like storm water it's uh you know the D has become very good at drafting legislation telling me's College to adopt it and telling them they to enforce it yeah because along this line again like I said the acre is the break point I don't know how many how many uh houses in town are over an acre but once again new trees again I have a problem with roots and this doesn't say boo about it no and I know a lot of the a lot of the trees that were planted in town were uh the pin OES which have a Val very shallow RO system which has led to ripping up sidewalks curves and Street damage um and hopefully it would be the selection of an appropriate tree to replant yeah once again even if you had an acre or you're just over an acre and they want you to put three trees back or something once again the canopy the root system uh because I don't know right now with with our current or yeah current ordinance if roots are coming into your property can you cut them no problem I don't I mean again I I don't know if roots are coming into your property from another person's tree yeah your neighbor's tree reckon your yor that seems like a private property issue that's not a municipal issue it it also just uh for heads up it also States in here that it is to be monitored by the applicant for a period of 2 years to ensure the survival and then shall be replaced as needed within 12 months um after two years I I bring this up have aun going through a similar problem I mean it her yard is destroyed by roots from the neighbors happs to be a commercial apartment building M and I'm to the point I gave up I took the SS all I'm cutting Roots cuz they're not doing anything and I'm just curious then I said planting more trees even if you got an acre I don't know how big a house you got there where they want you to put these trees but once that canopy takes effect the roots are all over the place again affecting everything so like I said they don't address it they just tell you yeah plant trees that's all appreciate it just just for the record I think what you're referring to is is tree tree tree replacement requirements for trees of a 6in calber that are taken down per acre so it'll be one up to an acre and then once you enter your second acre it would be a second Tre so but it does apply to uh trees with a calber of 2.5 Ines or more on any property but it's these are the minimum requirements the state has set forth again this is this is a d ordinance so Peter that would also include a paper Street like Christopher Street right trees there in that in that vicinity it would apply to trees in the vicinity or apply to trees on Christopher Street because Christopher Street is is a is a paper Street true true but there's there's there's trees there I know the environmental commission had a had a had an issue and frankly councilman Zan BR given the fact that that is a pending application I I don't know that we're going to count that thank you Peter thank you good advice I will close the public comment portion of the meeting uh will the clerk please call the rooll council president revolinski Hi councilman Collins councilman moo hi councilman pansy councilman Potter hi councilman Zen Brana no the following ordinance uh I'm sorry ordinance public hearing second reading the following ordinance was introduced on June 10th 2024 and published in accordance with the law if any member of the public wishes to comment on this ordinance they may do so after reading will the clerk please read ordinance 24 4 1545 by title Bond ordinance providing for the acquisition of a pumper truck and various Fire Equipment appropriating $1,200,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of $1,140 th000 bond and notes to finance a portion of the cost thereof authorized in and by the burrow of miltown and the county of middle sex New Jersey may I have a motion in a second to adopt ordinance 24545 soov second second was close I'm I'm going to give that one to councilman Collins for the tie I have a motion made by councilman Collins second by councilman Potter I will now open a public hearing on ordinance 24545 please state your name and address for the record these comments are limited to the comments on this ordinance only seeing none I will close the public comment portion of the meeting will the clerk please call the RO council president revolinski I councilman Collins councilman moo I councilman pansi councilman Potter hi councilman Zen Brana I have a question so do ordinance 24545 and 24546 do they go hand inand they're just two different ordinances two different ordinances okay so if I look at this I see that the following ordinance um is where we're reappropriate $800,000 that we already have so if we're reappropriate $800,000 are we using that to offset the 1.2 million for the pumper truck could you repeat that I didn't I didn't hear what you said see the councilman Z Fred can I you want to repeat that Fred so so your question is what are we doing with this with the 800,000 yeah they go hand in hand so if you look on page three you'll see the amount to be appropriated or reappropriated under section three yeah uh those different different categories in the bond in 1545 or 15466 46 right yeah the 1545 is flat out fire truck okay it's on 46 it's not it's on the last page I think is it 154 is a fire right yes 45 is a fire that's right 1546 is the other ordinance where we appropriated money from 17 if you see there was uh ordinance number 1714 related Public Works complex flood mitigation project various Capital Improvement blah blah blah and then we're going to take that 800 we're going to use categorize these other things spend it in other matters so just one more time that's okay maybe I'm a little thick here so no on that same page in section three so are you taking the 800 and are you appropriating it to all these pieces that are there that are listed that add update 100 on pages two and three yes sir okay thank you so what your vote no he was yes I need his vote now that's what I'm saying yes yes okay motion carries thank you I thought said yes had a question no no yes okay ordinance public hearing second reading the following ordinance was introduced on June 10th 2024 published uh accordance with the law any member of the public that wishes to comment on this ordinance may do so after the reading will the clerk please read ordinance 24546 by title Bond ordinance reappropriate $800,000 in excess Bond proceeds not needed for their original purposes in order to finance the cost of various Capital Improvements and capital Acquisitions authorized in and by the burrow of miltown in the county of middlex New Jersey may I have a motion in a second to adopt ordinance 24546 so moved I have a second second thank you I will now open the public hearing on ordinance 24546 please state your name and address for the record these comments are limited to the comments on this ordinance only seeing none I will close the public comment portion of the meeting will the clerk please call the role council president rolinski Hi councilman Collins hi councilman Mano I councilman posnansky no councilman Potter I councilman Zam Brana I authorizing payment of Municipal obligations next on the agenda we have authorized payment of Municipal obligations clerk please read resolution by title authorizing the payment of bills claims and statements against the burrow of miltown and the total amount of 3,292 2677 you have heard the reading of this resolution are there any comments yes I had a question on chapter uh page 14 FR it says New Jersey GIF that's our new insurance company correct yes oh okay I just want to check on that may I have a motion in a second please so moved second I have a motion made by council president revolinsky second by councilman Potter uh will the clerk please call the role council president revolinski councilman councilman moo hi councilman posnanski hi hi councilman Potter hi councilman Z BR I have a question okay Fred I see that pfk Davis has uh is on the bill list do do you have any idea uh what the audit progress is and when we might see the audit for 2023 ballpark so I'm hoping by the end of the month this month yes no next month this month's over in fact you know not to be too craft soon as we head up this day will be over and we'll all be done right but thank you Fred the uh conversation with them yesterday they were looking for a few other items couple of things in the clerk's office couple of things and pulling some items for that I think they sent a list out yesterday that Joe and Bob Gardner and the rest of all we addressing at by I'm hoping to have that done real soon okay thank you okay hi a consent res solution has been prepared for the resolutions listed on the agenda all matters listed under the consent agenda are considered to be routine in nature and having been reviewed by borrow councel will be enacted on in one motion any items may be removed from the consent agenda at the request of any council member and if so removed it will be treated in a separate manner any items requiring expenditures are supported by a certification of funds and if any member of the council wants any Resolution Act upon individually please give me the resolution number and I will be pulled from the consent resolution will the clerk please read the consent resolution whereas pursuant to the rules of council the council May establish a consent agenda for any regular or special meeting upon certain conditions and whereas each of the following resolutions to be presented before the burough council at its July 31st 2024 regular meeting appears to have the unanimous approval of all members of the burrow Council resolution 20 24- 219 through 202 24-230 now therefore be it resolved by the burrow Council of the burough of miltown that each of the above listed resolutions be approved and adopted by the burough council with the same legal effect as though each was read read in its entirety at the July 31st 2024 meeting and adopted by separate vote are there any questions comments I do have I do have one question regarding um two of these resolutions and I think I know the answer but just before they get pulled for for that um the relationship between 2024 uh 229 and 230 um the reduction in the amount being paid to the contractor who did the waterline work is what we are using as basically the payment towards uh middle sex County for or the uh the paving of uh Highland Drive uh Lawrence and and uh Oaks or Oak Street over there um and I just see a difference in the in the dollar amount if I'm I see a the estimate is shoot sorry about this um I see 229 is a change order reduction in the amount of 130,000 and change but then resolution uh 230 which I apologize where did I put it under one of these pieces of paper uh was for $129,000 to come from a a fund so I just are those kind of like rough estimates or so yes so it's an estimate for Middle sex County we will not get the the exact number until they've completed the milling and uh and the paving and all the rest of that so it's all based on a lot of that's based on the cost of asphalt councilman as you know right and that fluctuates uh but that's their estimate right now and that's why we have we have enough money based on the reduction of the water project to cover the current estimate to move forward well just it just shows that like uh 129 891 coming from account G23 65301 and I'm I'm wondering if that because it's so close is it just intended to be similar to the change order amount no it's just the number we were provided but go ahead yeah a decrease had to be more than what the authorization was okay as long as it was the same or more we were able to do both thank you and it's bad to do exact then you're shooting crafts Sev you have read heard the reading of this consent resolution what's your pleasure so I just got I just have one more question the same same resolution does anyone know how soon that work will start for all of those streets after this resolution is passed tonight uh the county meeting is within the next couple weeks I believe so we have to get our resolution over to them and then they vote on it and then we'll get and then um hopefully the work should start okay because there's there's a especially Highland uh East Lawrence uh Chestnut those streets are sort of in my neighborhood and folks come out to me and say hey by the way when is that going to start I just keep saying it's coming it's coming well when I when I send them a sign stuff I can ask them if they participate to date and let you guys know thank you thank you've heard the reading of the consent resolution what your pleasure move that this resolution be adopted second I have a motion made by council president rinsky seconded by councilman Potter will the Kirk please call the rooll I got a question do I have the opportunity to pull any resolution at this point or after well we should have done it before we started that's what I'm saying I just have a question about one of the resolutions then then why don't you when I ask the question I apologize I apologize do it then okay so which resolution would you like to pull um I'd only like to pull uh actually I don't need to pull I just have a question and so I think I know what the answer to these questions are but I want to make sure on resolution uh 20242 and 2024 26 for the fire department um we have a few folks that are uh notated or denoted as a c does that stand for Cadet yes and will that just be updated so that when someone looks at this I did update it so that what on the certified resolution the C will it denotes Cadet and J uh denotes Junior that takes care of those two yeah I just didn't want to waste the paper Printing it again for okay and then the the one question on 2024 27 uh since is waving of fees for the Boy Scouts which which is fine uh no Tay at 28th yeah yes not the 29th okay if I don't if I mess that up then I got a problem because I'm that I can that I can okay up and then there's a um is there a reason that the letter that's attached to this is dated in March and did we get permission from the property owner to sell trees there on the corner of Fort Avenue in May so as far as the letter being dated for March um um I don't know where the disconnect was it wasn't sent to me um we it came in as a question when the scouts reach out to Recreation about uh miltown day and said oh you know uh the fees were waved so Recreation reached out to me for the resolution I said I didn't have anything so then um the letter was then forwarded to me and that's when I threw it on the agenda I'm not sure what happened there um I'm just fixing the date here for miltown day and as far as the property Army I can reach out well actually we could ask mayor I don't know well what's what's the question we're trying to find if they have permission from the property owner to sell trees at the corner of for I I'm assuming that if they're making the request to do it they they do so I mean but do we have confirmation from the from the property owner I don't know that we've ever gotten confirmation from the property owner before we know who the property owner is right I I'm I well aware of who the property owner is and I I know that for uh in Years Gone by we've had the kns of Columbus selling uh Christmas trees there we've had Boy Scout selling Christmas trees there and I don't recall ever seeing a letter from the property owner my assumption is that if they don't have the uh permission of the property owner he will politely tell them to take their trees and get off his property uh Boy Scouts do uh requested I think it's September October okay uh and they get it uh uh email verification back uh indicating um whether to have permission or not so the answer seems to be that they do secure permission from the property owner but this would supersede that should he deny no we're not giving permission the property this this I believe this is just a request to wave electricity priv to allow them to connect and and run their lights for the tree sale right so it's just given who we're dealing with here never been an issue in the past true true doesn't mean I can't bring it up now you can and then I thank you for letting me know know that PE what's that thank you for letting me know that question are there any more questions will a clerk please call the rooll council president rolinski Hi councilman Collins councilman moo hi councilman posnanski hi councilman Potter hi councilman zamb BR hi all right so uh this is the public uh calendar year 2024 budget public hearing and adoption and any budget presentation by our CFO uh Joe Mr Joseph zanga thank you mayor yeah Monica's going to set it up Joe we quick question this is only talking about the budget but not the capital plan the capital plan is not a part of the budget second to the last page and think get Capital sorry we just got this so yeah second last P got an hour no dollar amount it just says no on the actual Council on the actual budget itself has the capital budget at the end okay that has the dollar amounts okay thank you we lose the ball turn that's pretty good thank you mon okay so this is the 2024 Municipal budget presentation uh first I'd like to thank the finance committee which is council president revolinsky councilman Potter and councilman Collins also want to thank Fred Carter business administrator for all their input on the budget and my name is Joseph zanga Chief Financial Officer uh first thing we have been cleared by the state of New Jersey to adopt which is which is good next M yeah how we doing you want a chair fr the other way we all right so this is where your taxes go the burrow collects property taxes for all taxing entities and then distributes the money accordingly uh the biggest bulk of your taxes go to the Board of Education which is 61% uh the burrow receives 24% the county receives 133% County open space is 1% and the library is 1% so the total of all entities on the bottom right is 30, 46,6 32 your budget consists mainly of the following in Appropriations it is salaries and wages uh other expenses utilities and miscellaneous expenses contractual obligations and statutory expenses which are mainly your pension bills and and Social Security FICA charges revenues to support these Appropriations usually come from fees fines grants state aid and mainly property taxes on your expense side uh there was no cuts and services anywhere in the budget some of the Ser services that are provided to our residents are police protection uh garbage collection recycling collection storm cleanup snow removal Parks and Recreation code enforcement Building Inspections court services Animal Control Vital Statistics Senior Center public library and volunteer service EMS and fire protection and again there's no cuts and services in this budget all right so this is a pie chart of the Appropriations the biggest portion of the pie chart goes to salaries and wages and Personnel uh the next largest portion goes to other expenses which are mainly the um Appropriations on the prior slide then we have the library which is 3.2% Grants make up 2.8% Debt Service and capital expenditures make up 13.5% and statutory expenditures which are again the pension bills and F expenses make up 11.1% and reserve for on Collective taxes makes up 5.1% this is a slide which shows last year's budget compared to this year's budget uh medical expenses did increase uh the fifth line down which says uh police fire retirement system that one up $79,000 those are rates that are generated from the state of New Jersey for burrow portion of the pension cost this line right below that says Bond and ban principle the six line down uh we increase that line item by 165,000 we're going to try to pay off debt a little bit more quicker since interest rates are significant right now um we're also trying to avoid having a bond sale in a few years too to try to save the burrow money so that's why you see that line going up I'll show you on the next slide in Revenue uh where we're bringing in more Revenue to cover that cost uh also down at the bottom you'll see where salaries and wages are compared to the total budget and where other expenses are compared to the total budget than the um I'm sorry the uh the items in red could you I I understand they're probably a just because they're negative uh what those red items indicate so it's a decrease negative is yep it's a decrease in appropriation so the burrow went to a new uh joint Insurance Fund this year and the uh expenses were were less that's the first decrease of 10% uh the p r p RS dcrp went down slightly that was that decrease and bond and band interest uh since we paid off principal last year the amount that we have to pay for interest is less this year so those those three next slide is your revenues from 2023 compared to 2024 the fifth line down that says other that's where there is something that we had on the books called reserve for payment of notes of 147,000 $335 we brought that in as Revenue to offset the Appropriations to pay pay down Debt Service quicker as I said before we're trying to alleviate the high interest costs on ban principle a ban interest and also try to avoid a bond sale in the future down the bottom second one up is your local property taxes that is the highest amount of Revenue that is the most the biggest Revenue that bounces your budget right above that too one more thing too utility Surplus which is a million dollar this year it was 1,17 $ 75,000 last year when we get to the slide a few later that says electric utility I'll explain why that is a lot less next is the water sewer utility budget the total budget is 3,996 35930 this utility is self-liquidating which means revenues do support operations uh the bulk of the revenues come from rents there are also some ARP money that was in there and connection fees on the appropriation side it is salaries and wages it's water and sewer repairs insurance cost uh your water operator expenses are in there Debt Service purchase of water from New Brunswick uh sewer treatment from New Brunswick and we also had a line called deferred charge overe expenditure of appropriation we had the Auditors picked up on less two years of Appropriations that were charged without a budget line to overex the budget line theoretically so this we have to raise in the 24 budget that came to $3 33,541 38 we're going to try to correct that going forward so we don't want to see overe expenditures in the future this is your electric budget which is 7,457 17114 now this utility was not self-liquidating which means revenues did not support operations in 2023 this could be an early sign that there could be a rate increase in the future so we're going to take a good look at at the electric after the summer month's end in October and see how the summer month right now we've had some hot weather which is decent for the electric utility for buildings and collections but in October we'll know how the how the summer months ended up electric rents do make up about 97% of your budget on the expenditure side is the same as the water sewer it is based on salaries um maintenance of the poles wires uh Insurance costs Debt Service energy energy purchasing through pjm psng and BP energy and this fund also had a deferred charge overe expenditure of Appropriations from prior year here's your Capital Improvements for 2024 uh roads we already did the ordinance for one of for some of the roads I think was North Brook Drive and fou Avenue uh also in that ordinance was curb cuts and sidewalk improvements um we're also going to do equipment public buildings parks and playgrounds pool improvements utilities and then you just authorize the fire truck tonight and finally in summary uh the tax increase for the average residential unit in town of $163,700 73 will'll see a local increase of $49.98 or $417 cents a month again there's no reductions in Municipal services and INF infrastructure improvements are anticipated same with the water St Utility Fund the rate increase was approved in June uh so that is in this budget there are no reductions of any services and infrastructure improvements are anticipated and with the electric utility there was no rate increase no reduction of services and again infrastructure improvements are anticipated s the increase is 1.99% yes y $49.98 cents the average unit but the maximum is 2% we can go we're at 1.99 2% plus adjustments but we Tred to stick to 2% we're under that yes we're under correct so again I just want to thank the finance committee and Fred for all their input on the budget and any questions yes sure so uh Mr zanger the uh you mentioned on the appropriation at the LI at the library liability insurance went down over last year so it was a good thing that we changed Insurance GIFs from last year not to stay with the same GIF yeah I mean the GIF that you were currently that you're with prior is still having problems yes so I don't want to get too much into it but there still could be more costs coming from them in the future y so so it's this isn't a done deal that this will go down in in NE in in subsequent years the prior GIF every year they close out a year I think they just closed out 202 21 and 22 every year there's a deficit any member of the fund then gets a portion of it okay so there was a deficit in those two years that just got certified by them so mil Town's going to see another bill coming from them in the future appreciate it so um could you speak a little bit to the um the pilot uh Revenue sure that is based on the Arisa pilot uh there's a calculation done every year uh January was sent to the dev velver and it was about 474 8,000 somewhere around there and we aork 400,000 in the budget okay so the orisa is where um Acme used to be that that believe proper yes that whole area Target it's like everything but the portion that has a pilot it so basically what I'm trying to get out is when they start building there when that's complete that pilot go away pil goes the end of the pilot period which is 20031 I think it said in the letter yeah I think it was 2031 we got a little time got a lot of time coming and all three payments have come into I think I think it's a big thing to consider too if I may for a second that when you have a pilot program that's coming to an end uh payment in lie of taxes right they pay the burrow directly instead of just paying property taxes the reason a lot of municipalities do that is because the township will get the majority of the money the downside however is that the Schoolboard does not get their portion of the money so out of $400,000 that we're currently getting from that pilot program you figure there's 61% of that so 61 * 4 is somewhere in my miltown education math $240,000 that we are getting extra that the school board is not getting so by 30 um you said this expires in 2031 2031 so in 2031 the burrow is going to be looking to somehow make up $241,000 that it will now no longer receive because those monies will be going to the school board or not to the school board to miltown Public Schools um and it's just something to be aware of because we've got to start chipping away at our Reliance upon that money before 2031 or else we're going to be stuck looking at 200 Grand that's just no longer there am I correct in in in saying that perfect world when they start going on the tax rolls the taxes hopefully are equivalent to the pilot money I don't know what it'll be in seven years but hopefully it's 400,000 or something they're paying in taxes which will then offset the decrease in the pilot money and then there'll be an increase in taxes but you're absolutely correct the school then gets a portion and everybody gets a portion of the taxes then not just the pilot which comes to the burrow thank you that's why I brought that up thank you I had a question Joe yes our water rates haven't gone up but we we're actually paying more of our contract in 2023 was $3,047 per million gallons and in 2024 it's going to be 3 3,154 gallons per million and in 2025 it's going to be 3 $3,265 a million is that causing part of our water problem or that we didn't raise the prices or you're talking about the expenditure side with New Brunswick water yeah so when I looked at the budget from last year and compared to this year's budget I think the budget last year was higher than what was needed so this includes this budget includes $3,154 per gallon uh that new that's in New Brunswick's contract so this what I feel is equivalent to cover all four quarters of water so I used the first quarter which was actual which we already paid and then I used the second third and fourth quarter based on the same gallones gallones last year times the new rate and then came up with a number and that came to about 588,000 if I remember correctly so I put 600 in the budget okay Joe I'd like to ask a question sure uh about the schools um they're they're able to ask for I believe an extra 2% this year have they and and will they get that yes so in here they already did their budget so$ 188 million I think on the second second slide had the pie chart it was1 18,1 188,000 90 that was exactly 2% from last year's budget for the school sure thank you um I have a question in regards to your uh and and I know most of the answers to these it's just more that you said some things and I want to clarify it for for the residents but you had said uh for the electric utility budget it is non self-liquidating but meanwhile for the water utility budget you said it is self-liquidating and um and you added to that saying the revenue in the electric utility did not support operations correct so what what does that forecast for us that usually is an early warning sign that there could be a possibility that Surplus did drop which it did from this year's budget but there could be a possibility of rate impact in the future because your revenues that you're collecting are not supporting the operation side so when I went to that one slide where I showed the electric surplus of a million this year and last year was 1,175 the reason we had a drop at 175,000 because the Surplus wasn't there so when revenues aren't supportting operations your Surplus starts to drop and it also affects the current fund course we rely on on the electric Surplus to balance the current fund also so in other words our budget could not rely upon 1.75 5 million it had to rely only on the 1 million because we didn't have that Revenue last year and that was that was going to the wall also so that's an early warning sign that there could be some problem but but also I'd like to wait till the summer months are done because usually the summer month drives the electric utility so in October I'll have a better sense of where we stand in the electric utility and we've had a hot July yeah so far knock on W it's the buildings are are there so far Joe I got a question for you maybe Jerry could help us if we're projecting a $600,000 uh deficit in water next year what can we do to correct that situation amend rates so you amended rates this year um and I think the plan is to amend rates for one one of 25 going forward cuz we're in a six-year contract that was signed last year with a 3.5% increase every year correct thanks and we're I'll speaking to the microphone that's better so councilman Collins just to let you know that we I have been working with uh Mr binola in the revisions to the um the water sewer ordinances which includes the rates while we haven't discussed specifically what the rate numbers yet um we're going to talk to finance about that um our CFO but essentially we're going to include language in there such that when our water supplier increases the cost of water automatically we too increase the cost to the residents because we can't go on ignoring when our supplier charges us more dollars per gallon and not doing the same it just that's how we get ourselves in Jam right right exactly that's what we're trying to avoid and council president rinsky do we have a timing of when we're going to have that meeting uh Mr venola is currently working on that ordinance on some of the legal language for certain parameters and then now that once we adopt the budget the next thing is to start evaluating those rates and we're hoping to introduce it hopefully possibly by uh by August or for the August meeting um the goal here is that uh we distribute the information to all the council members so that uh we can amend things and everyone understands it fully before it's introduced but we want to adopt those rates no later than September 30th because they have to be in place for October usage such that the bills that go out in January are at the new rates and that the budget can be balanced based on collecting at those new rates throughout the entire course of 2025 as opposed to just during a six-month period if we introduce it any later all right so you talk about the the our August 19th meeting we hopefully we'll have new rates that's the goal thank you I have one more question in years past um part of the presentation was a capital plan so is there a capital plan second to less page said the capital items we planned on doing and then in the budget on the back six pages on the website on the budget has the actual Capital plan in there built in already but not here on the presentation no here just had the what we plan on doing not dollar amounts so I'm not sure what was brief previously actually councilman but this is the basically what was used last year and there was no Capital numbers on the budget present no I know I know but there's a like I want to say for one from bed an EXL sheet a file that basically had it broken out like for 3 years all right so that's on that's on the budget document itself so if you go on the website you'll see in the back section you'll see all the budget stuff on General capital and Water and Electric sounds good so what we'll do is we'll make a note so that when we actually adopt tonight you know we'll send everybody a hard copy um so you can have at home you look just like the one on the web and then there's you know we have a half a dozen entities other than the state it's also looking for the budget the gif's looking for lots of different people copy the electric guys looking for there was a hard copy in the packet when they in oh they ad and once once this is adopted this presentation is going to be posted on the website absolutely good I'll give it to the website though sorry any more questions comments thank you very much for the the presentation J will the clerk please read resolution 2024 D 231 by title public hearing um have a public hearing on ordin or uh resolution 202 24-23 if any member of the uh public wishes to come state your name and your address for the record mayor if I may we it's the before we do the resolution 231 which is a an amendment to the budget which was presented we need to have a public hearing on the budget presentation that we provided okay first thing you know we have to have the Public Public has to come out and talk about and then once the public is finished we can roll into the budget amendment 231 the 232 and the 233 so just opening to public comment so public comment on the budget only hi good evening Dawn milver 12 Desmond Avenue I just had a question um with the budget other in quotes expenses which you know took up quite a bit 27.8% of the of the pie do you make that more specific to to the mayor and council members that they know what other stands for I thought that was you know I don't write budgets but um I thought it was unusual to see that other is mainly most of your departments which is police fire admin clerk Finance uh includes Insurance um what else does include um mainly departments though like construction code so why isn't that just I would just I know I'm familiar with school budgets and we they have to be very specific so I was just wondering rather than have other I wondered why you didn't have certain categories like Police Department you know rescue why is it in the budget itself is it individualizes every line item but for here we just summarized it okay do you ever make that uh public to us it's on the it's on the website it's on the website thank you yeah so the short answer is if we took that 27.8% of and actually put the little pie charts the pieces of it you would not be able to read the chart at all okay because yeah it' be like but you can find it online very specific absolutely and if you have and if you can't have any questions just get a hold of my office and we'll thank you so much that there's also a hard copy in the clerk's office if you want to come visit thank you and the other question is can you give us maybe a projected uh what you project is a possible increase in the electric bills in October because it sounds like you kind of hinted that it's very likely it's going to happen have you talked with uh right now I can't predict anything I want to see in October where summer months came in for Billings and collections yes and then we'll know whether we need or what percentage okay so if the summer months are very hot going forward we there might not be anything okay but we we just want to see when the summer months end see what we stand thank you very much thank you okay I will close the uh public comment portion of the meeting um so this is just to uh for the budget presentation itself correct no that was right yes sir so now we've done the budget now we can go for resolution 231 the budget amendment which was provided to council earlier this afternoon and may be on your diet okay um and we have to open it up her read resolution 231 and then just like any other resolution same process no no hearing no hearing no public hear okay no comments will the clerk please read resolution 202 24-31 by title amendment to 2024 Municipal budget what's pleasure Council move that this resolution be adopted second uh motion made by council president rev Linsky second by councilman Collins is there any discussion yes what's what's the what's the amendment like I'm I'm looking at it and it's like looks like it's ticking in time so during the state review they came up uh on the AFS there is a trust other deficit in a reserve that's been there for many years okay for some reason their comment was they wanted us to cure that deficit this year so what we did was cure the deficit put it in the current fund budget and then decrease the two Lins that are in that Amendment to the amount by the amount of deficit to cure that deficit yeah but it's been there for years and the state never commented on a prior and then some reason this year they said they want us to take care of it so tonight uh like today they decided to do that in their comments on the budget when we set this down thank you you're welcome you you said that that deficit has been in there for years yeah it's in a trust of the reserve it said miscellaneous reserves it had a deficit so it was there and for some reason they just chose this year to say we had to do it I mean we would love them just verbally tell us and next year we would put it in but they wanted to cure it immediately so sure no other comments will the clerk please call the RO council president revolinski hi councilman Collins I councilman Mano I councilman posnanski I councilman Potter I councilman zamb Brana I all right now we have resolution 232 is that correct yes sir yes okay will the clerk please read resolution 202 24-232203 um public nope no just a motion a second okay may I have a motion a second please so move second I have a motion made by council president rev Linsky second by councilman Collins is there any discussion no okay will clerk please call the rooll council president rolinski councilman Collins councilman moo councilman posnanski councilman hotter I councilman Z BR I have uh reports no 2024 233 233 um we'd like to make a resolution uh clerk please read resolution 2024 D 220 220 233 233 sorry 233 by title 2024 Municipal budget adoption what's pleasure Council I move that this resolution be adopted second I have a motion made by council president revolinsky seconded by councilman Collins is there any discussion seeing none will the clerk please call the rooll council president revolinski Hi councilman Collins hi councilman moo hi councilman posnanski hi councilman Potter councilman zamb BR no all right mayor I'd like to if it's Council has no further questions I like to get Joe out of here before the second part before we the fund starts yes I would like to thank Mr zanga um and Mr stanitz for uh coming tonight uh you both did an excellent job with getting us uh together so thank you both than have a good night I'd like to add any questions the bud brought up be directed in writing all right reports from elected officials council president revolinski um other than the budget introduction uh no news is uh is really good news at this point uh we did receive an email regarding some potential rate increases for electric next year which was uh quite unsettling that came in this afternoon um it came across around 12:30 so uh I think we still need to digest it a little bit but essentially the uh the move from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy that uh the power company pjm that that provides the power that we purchase as well as nine other municipalities I believe it's nine um is resulting in an increase in transmission costs for electric uh the numbers that they gave for miltown were $1,119 th000 if you divide that by about 3,000 MERS in town over 12 months it comes to about $318 per month so that's a hard pill to swallow um but we do uh the mayor and I had uh met with a gentleman who uh they they do a battery backup system and be again because these are based on transmission and demand uh a battery backup system can assist by taking off your Peak um South River currently has one employed and they are seeing a net benefit um and I don't want to speak out of line but well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of this in fact uh they rais their water rates 10% uh and at the same time they were able to lower their electric rates as a result south river is in the same purchasing group as miltown for electricity so it's uh we're looking forward to having that presentation so that the rest of the council can learn more about this opportunity for us and hopefully we can jump on the same bandwagon and start saving some money in electric and possibly offset these increases um there was a Forida Avenue meeting earlier this month uh not too much happened uh basically delay in the trial um still scheduled for September and uh other than that we'll be working on the looking at those water rates for next year um now that the budget is adopted and and finalized we'll be looking at those water rates uh for the revised ordinance that we look forward to introducing either in August or the early September meeting that's all I've got thank you uh councilman Collins uh thank you Mr Mayor uh electric utility restored power outage on Avenue replaced the fan motor and repaired fan blade at Elkin Lane power P Pump Station exhaust system repaired and replac street lights at various locations in the burrow replaced the time clock and re lamped the post light at miltown Museum to make it functional again ran some new overhead secondary twist cables at glor Bradford Park for a new Fourth of July power drop installed power drop for the first a trailer relocated a 60 amp service and plug for OEM trailer replaced the GFI receptacle Infuse assembly at Albert Avenue Park replac the electric meters in various locations which were difficult to read due to age checked several customers services for voltage problems we invested in a stateoftheart tester last year it evaluated the wiring and spaces from the houses to the street it was proven to be invaluable troubleshooting tool removed a large broken limb on Garver Avenue with the help of Public Works crew responded to sparking wires situation behind courland Street a local Transformer had been turned off so that we could safely remove branches and Vines from the secondary conductors we're in the process of hiring a new contractor to do the line clearance here and in backyards on the other side of the street when this is complete we we are ongoing to rean the existing conductors to get the wire hire department members performed line cleaning at various areas with tree interference some upgrades in troubleshooting were performed in the substation monitoring system one circuit has unusual low power factor at times an investigation and how to correct it is underway a reminder of Stormy conditions when winds bring down trees and tree limbs which can drop a live conductor on the ground never never approach any wires call the miltown police for emergency service actually I just learned something off the TV I never knew that some of those High lines that uh hit the ground can actually electrocute somebody at 30 ft away so it's a good thing to know uh the Water Utility repaired hydrant on Fern Place replaced hydrant at 172 ree Avenue and area has been restored replaced hydrant on Lafayette Avenue and at the corner of Scott Avenue repair hydrant on Rider's Lane in front of Fresco repaired hydrant in on Rider's Lane in front of an empty lot vacuum valve boxes to keep them clear of debris due to Paving and that concludes my report Mr Mayor thank you councilman Mano so uh with the transitions within the rec department uh we haven't had a meeting uh but you know they are up and running uh I know the swim program uh they have their little the newest thing that say started this year during the uh during the summer of the pool where they were having not exactly competitive races uh but that seemed to get a lot of attention and a lot of uh excitement and a lot of people participated in it so that's what been going on Dorian with the green team uh is always moving forward and her work on the senior center is expected to start uh I believe August 8th was the date I heard but I'd rather confirm that uh beond that with the library there are some events going on there uh there is crocheting with Sam G on Saturday August 3rd at 11:00 a.m. adult yoga with Marcy on Monday August 5th and 9 andth at 9:15 a.m. registration is required for that uh curious about AI uh there is a learning seminar to join on Tuesday August 6th at 11:00 a.m. for a presentation from the AARP registration required and refreshments are served for that jungle Dave's magic show will be appearing on Saturday August 10th at 11:00 a.m. uh and that will conclude the summer reading program the summer reading program was a very big success grand prize wienners will be announced after the program registration is required make it Monday uh we'll be featuring uh making keychains for grades 4 through 8 on Monday August 12th at 6:30 p.m. registration is also required for that drop in craft on Wednesday August 14th at 11:00 a.m. and almost time to get excited about a new school year depending who you are parents especially get excited uh but for now forget about the pencils and even the book and join us for a back to school Bingo on Monday August 19th at 6:30 p.m. during the month of August the library will have an art EX exhibit artwork will be on display is created by Spectrum for living on Friday August 16th there will be a meet and greet from 10: to 12:00 p.m. uh from some of the artists most Thursdays Miss Sam has Story Time babes and tauns at 10:30 a.m. and all ages at 11:30 please call the library for details they also have a schedule up on their website and uh please use the library it's a great resource and underutilized in the electronic age uh please note that there's no Library more meeting in August thank you thank you councilman pansi okay uh I'm going to start with the DPW Main Street if if you've noticed it's almost finished and hopefully tomorrow hopefully tomorrow weather permitting um it also brings up another issue I had a um resident complaining about the crosswalk so I've I've gone out with uh Ralph jesnowski uh we looked at we found 12 crosswalks that need to be repaired um I I've talked to him about if we can do that to possibly split that so it doesn't uh doesn't burden this year um his suggestion is to to get it done all at once if we get um the right numbers he's supposed to get back to me because the um the uh the outfit that that would be doing the work that he's that he's spoken with um the um they're supposed to get back to him by the end of this week and then then I'd know um Highland Drive also uh should be started hopefully uh before the end of the summer um we we can go further into the fall but hopefully not um okay as far as the uh the DPW the uh the old DPW in the building if if councilman rinsky uh would like to speak on WE he's he's spoken to about and he he's going to take the lead on that if you'd like to talk about that um sure we we did um we did talk to our uh qualified purchasing agent or qpa it allows us to uh make purchases without having to go under out to bid for I think up to about 44,500 give or take a few cents um we did receive one quote for uh demolishing the old building and we received another quote so we just want to make sure that before we execute any contracts or move forward with it number one uh we have the funds available our CFO had looked at some Antiquated ordinances uh Bond ordinances to see if those were funded if the money is essentially sitting around um would be a capital Improvement so it does fall outside of our spending cap within the budget but um long story short uh if the money is there um and right now we're looking around less than that $44,000 we're hoping that we can uh take down that old structure and then really start making a little bit more Headway towards developing a a waterfront park in that area thank you U also I'm going to go into the senior center it's uh they have um let's see here bus trips Wednesday August 7th have a bus trip to Delicious Orchards the bus will leave at 11:00 a.m. Thursday August 8th they have a bus trip to bosos the bus will leave at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday August 13th bus trip to Shrimp Box in Point Pleasant the bus will leave at 10:45 Wednesday August 21st there's a bus trip to Ali and Aldi in sville the bus will leave at 10 a.m. Thursday August 22nd there's a bus trip to the Amish Market bus leave at 9:30 and the VNA nurse will be here on on August 20th from 12:00 to 3 pleas up please sign up on the bulletin board if you would like to meet with her and um for historic preservation I'll ask if councilman Zen Bron would like to um speak about that if you you don't have to but I'm just asking if you'd like to uh I I don't really have anything to add um yeah I don't really have anything to add I'm sorry okay um that concludes my report Mr Mayor thank you coun Potter thank you Mr Mayor uh for Public Safety um on behalf of the miltown police department backed by popular demand the miltown PBA 338 presents National Night Out on Tuesday August 6 that's next Tuesday in the American Legion parking lot from 6: to 9:00 p.m. this is a free event with food games and entertainment and a great way to meet our First Responders regarding solicitor permits as of July 11th there have been no individuals who have been issued solicitor permits by the burrow of miltown through the police department it is important to note that companies cannot obtain solicitor permits only individuals each solicitor must pay a fee and go through a criminal background check to obtain a burrow issued solicitor permit when in doubt please call the police do not be a victim of a scam regarding crossing guards the miltown police department needs school crossing guards for the 2024 2025 school year uh the position is a part-time position with very flexible hours if interested apply now as training will take place in the summer so our new crossing guards can be ready for the September start of the school year if interested applications can be found on the burough website for more information about the position please contact uh Lieutenant dorenzo at C dorenzo mtown tv.org from the miltown fire department Department the Midtown fire department would like to thank the 4th of July committee for putting a fun and safe holiday together on July 4th uh the miltown fire department will be doing a live demonstration at National Night Out on August 6th on Saturday August 10th the miltown fire department will be hosting its annual cornhole tournament at the American Legion if interested please go to the miltown fire department's Facebook page for more information and members are needed if you are interested in joining the miltown fire department please stop down at the firehouse at 6:00 p.m on Monday evenings from the miltown rescue squad the miltown rescue squad will also be doing a live demonstration during National Night Out on August 6th please remember to check on friends and neighbors during heat waves be alert for signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke you can learn more by visiting the CDC website at cdc.gov backsplash extreme heat if anyone has any billing questions please call our Building Company Cornerstone at 877 21468 you can also access their website um at you can access their website on the rescue squad's website at www.town rescu squad. org please do not contact the miltown police department with any billing or recruitment questions and finally regarding recruitment anyone who's interested in joining the mtown rescue squad or becoming an EMT should contact the miltown res Rescue Squad via their email email at recruitment mtown rescu squad. org to learn more they'd be happy to answer any questions and Mr Mayor that concludes my report thank you uh councilman Zen bran thank you Mr Mayor um our environmental commission met uh late last week and um spent quite a lot of um um effort on going over the tree ordinance um uh ordinance that we we adopted tonight um that's why I voted no because they they did have a concern that the new tree ordinance uh that was that that the DP is pushing uh or pushed to have adopted has less teeth in it than the one that was in place uh so that's why uh I uh I uh said no to that ordinance um Board of Health did not have a meeting in July uh through lack of a quorum next meeting is in September uh to be uh on September 24th uh that will be in person um a revitalization uh committee uh next meeting will be again second Tuesday which be August 13 2024 uh tomorrow is August 1st 30 days still to get in your application um and registration for miltown day which is September 28th which is the last uh Saturday in uh in uh September and finally last but not least the human relations committee so um I did not know um it well let's put it this way um during this entire flag policy conversation that we've been having over the last several weeks um I just happen to uh as I do on the weekends I read the New York Times and I I I came across this woman's obituary from Texas and it turns out that this woman uh passed away on on the 19th and her name was um Sheila Jackson um Lee uh and she was a champion and she was the main sponsor of making sure that juneth was made a holiday uh at a federal level and then could make its way down to the state level um as I read her uh obituary I knew nothing of this woman but as I read her obituary um so funny that she's from Queens New York even though she's a representative from Texas and so funny that she went to the same high school that I did uh again you never know um you know Queens New York Texas uh and the things that you can you can accomplish if you put your uh your mind to it um as I mentioned earlier uh we did have a HRC committee meeting last Tuesday uh our mayor was there um our mayor did bring up a couple of options that we could uh follow um we we were all under the impression that the dialogue will continue um we were surprised that this uh ordinance was introduced tonight hopefully we can continue the conversation before the next meeting uh to see if we can have some amendments for the conversation uh as we collaborate on on a flag policy that fits everyone's uh that fits everyone thank you that concludes my report we I did get something that was in my packet I'm used to getting it in email uh the rep Department did give me an update uh so just the burough pool is having a great summer with its crazy heat waves they have been opening staying open later here and there uh but every Tuesday evening from 8: to 10 is pre teen night for ages 9 through 12 August family pool memberships are still available for purchase uh vis a community pass to purchase your membership uh if you want to be in in August they um are happy to announce that they filled every spot for the miltown splash Squad and the kids are having a lot of fun uh that is the that is the little racing part uh their first mini meet was on the 21st and was a huge success uh the next one is on Sunday August 4th uh the album AB summer camp began on Monday July 1st uh and that is uh kids making memories with friends and having a great time uh they often go to the pool a lot of good days for them the uh children in the fresh theater arts program I'll be put on an adorable show on June 29th the parents love seeing their kids and babies on stage and are looking forward to starting up again the fall the adult coed softball league was a great success the championship game took place on July 15th and there are already talks about a fall league summer tennis classes began on July 9th and will conclude on August 20th beach volleyball began on June 25th at the burough pool and will conclude also on August 20th and several yoga classes filled within days of opening registration classes begin on July 8th and run through to August 28th uh there is any consideration for that again in the fall be sure to revisit the recreation web page um I could tell you all the letters but that probably will be so you can look up you can look them up uh and if you want to register uh the bur of miltown capturepoint docomo burrow pass or town pass we'll help you with all of that community community P thank you thank you okay um for professionals Mr Peter bolo uh just uh as council president revolinsky indicated I'm been working with him on a uh ordinance Amendment regarding the uh water utility and a number of sections regarding that ultimately I believe there's also going to be a rate Amendment that'll be plugged into that um and I'm also uh council president revelsky had raised a vacant property ordinance that he wished to see implemented I've been working with him on that as well um and then finally Mr Mayor I know you were looking for an update on the status of the burrow acquisition of the property adjacent to the train trestle um I I have reached out to the property owner um we had done a title search and there were some issues involved uh when that came back and I have not heard back from him so I need to follow up with him again okay thank you um Mr mclone Mr Mayor one item tonight uh just a report on progress we attended a meeting of the utilities committee after your last council meeting to discuss LED service line identification replacement plan we worked with since that meeting your bur administrator your supervisor utilities your licensed water superintendent and operator to prepare and submit the plan which was submitted today and in time for the requirements of DP we thank all for the guidelines and assistance I will note that this led service line replacement issue will require the bur's attention in the future I think we met the deadline here today but it's going to be something that will be on uh the discussion uh for your your water as time goes on that's all we have thank you um ask a question before we move on um I did see that come across I didn't get a chance to read it this afternoon there was quite a few that came through um did it include our assessment of the lead services or Services based upon um installation of new meters and that was going to be our inventory or our approach inventory absolutely that was an allowable way of proceeding for the DP it's on the form we'll check in okay yeah just as we talked at the meeting great okay and then um I had also reached out last week in regard or maybe a week prior about uh progress with going out to bid for the improvements to Albert Avenue Park right status is we're waiting for NJ do to approve an issue what's called an uh authorization adverti we have it from the mayor and Council but not from them since they're funding the project that we're waiting there okay any any thoughts on when that might be hopefully in the next week or so excellent and uh once that's done we already have officers to go right to the after that perfect thank you thank you hey Mr mcland I have a question um related to DPW that uh councilman pansy brought up but then Council rinsky also uh made mention of about um the structure that's there now um it does it make sense uh to um take down a a structure like that without first reaching out to like the DP uh to see what may go there I don't know if I'm explaining that correctly the Public Works building yeah I think what you're getting at is if we take it down can we put anything back that's what I'm asking yeah Mr M it potentially would be something that uh the D would make a call on uh I can tell you that there positions lately have been very difficult I would be concerned about taking the building down prior to deciding and constructing or getting approval to build something else but that building is in what's called not necessarily the flood plane it's in What's called the flood way uh it's probably the worst condition you can have it's existed since I think probably below the 50s even before my time so uh um I would say that I be very careful taking it down before you decide what you want to put up there it's it's almost like it occupies a space in the floodway right and when you take it down they will generally um take that as a credit and not necessarily give you something back for it so be careful that way but if if it's the um to be clear what we were talking about was removing the superstructure so not not the slab in other words to maintain that area as a designation that should we you know rehabilitate the the concrete slab uh we'd still have that as a non- green uh location that would just be the Super structure that would work but if you decide to build another building in that area that's where they'll they I think they'll refra uh prevent you or try to prevent you from doing that so be careful with that I'm saying which I I would advise not to put anything else there we spent quite a bit of money moving the DPW building moving our electric substation out of the flood way so it would seem quite foolish for us to uh to build something else there uh a building in that location I would say that's a a positive way to Mo with in this case reason I ask is I just wanted to make sure Mr mlan wasn't involved in all the communications going back and forth with uh you know the possibility of removing that structure that's all now Mike if I just want to add a question if we took the the metal section down and leave the concrete can we disconnect the sewer line I would recommend you do that because the sewer line uh from the building is not being used and it basically is a connection to your system which eliminate that obviously in flooding times when that water presses right into your system you don't want to be paying a treat uh river water river water right I recommend you plug that if it's not plugged already the bur uh utility department may have plugged it already thanks no other uh reports from burrow staff business administrator so I have nothing B cler ah thank you uh the clerk's office would like to thank everyone for your continued patience with us as we still work currently are under staff since Kathy retired on May 1st a reminder that we do offer free notary services if possible call ahead to make an appointment but we do accommodate people as they come in summer hours are still in effect in the burrow until the end of August burrow Halls open Monday through Thursday 800 to 4:30 and 8 to 12: on Fridays poll workers are contacted this week to work the general election which is Tuesday November 5th we're always accepting applications from anyone who is interested in being a pole worker you will get paid training you can work as a pull worker in any Town within the county you reside in so anyone from miltown you can register to be a pole worker and if I don't have space for you you can work anywhere within middle sex County uh you can go to the borrows website on the clerk's page under elections and complete an application and either email to me m Orlando mtown bor.com or stop by the clerk's office to say hello and drop it off in person some other important dates to know regarding the general election general election is Tuesday no November 5th if you have moved please make sure that you update your address with the county commissioner paper applications are available in the clerk's office as well as online on the burrow website clerk page under elections October 15th is the deadline to be register to vote early voting in the county will be October 26th through November 3rd we don't have an early polling location here in miltown but if you go to the clerk's web page there is a list of everywhere in Middle sex County that you can go to do early voting October 29th is the deadline to a apply for a mailin ballot you can also get that application in my office uh let's see what else we have here uh planning board I didn't hear mention today so the August planning board meeting has been cancelled our next meeting is September there is currently a vacancy for an alternate member that we're waiting to hear for an appointment on um today burrow employees got an email regarding cyber security training that includes mayor and Council I hope you all saw that as part of our new GIF we have a cyber security training requirement it is not spam that came to you please make sure you go in do the training we have to have all of our employees uh complete with that by the end of September the munici bid auction that we uh did closed out July 18th Chief Johnson got everything up there for me and it was quite successful um this week we have everybody we're contacting everybody to come and pick up uh what they successfully bid it on so I've been working through that signing the titles and uh getting in contact with everybody I just want to do a reminder for everybody in town food trucks do need to be licensed if you're having a party at your own house that's not much of our concern but if you're having an event where you're inviting the public to come you do need to have your food vendors come in and apply for a food license there is a fee they have to submit their menu they have to submit uh health inspection um I know some people have been a little upset about it but it's in our ordinance it's it's what we have to do um the application is on the clerk's website you can always call an email as well and I can walk anybody through it but if you are having an event that is open to the public your food truck vendor does need to come to the office and apply for a permit and I believe that concludes my report thank you old business does any member of council have any old business to bring before Council I've got two because I'm excited uh number one the four-way stop I had the pleasure of talking to some people recently the four-way stop is installed the signs over at uh Clay Street and Oaks Avenue um I believe the police have been somewhat lenient with residents who have failed to notice it so if they stop you and you please understand the fact that they could give you a ticket and maybe they're giving you a little bit of Grace because for 30 years you've been driving right through there and never noticed a stop sign or because there wasn't one but uh they will be enforcing that pretty strictly moving forward so uh just be aware that it is there um and secondly the architect we had some uh issues communication issues uh making sure that emails were received confirmed received re purchase orders Etc but uh the Architects did did start doing their analysis over at the schwendeman property today so that's good news great yes I got some old business Monica but by the way how much money did we make on that uh you have an idea uh I can give you the number shortly like 30 grand right 29,000 about yeah about 29 and then we still have two more vehicles to obtain titles for and get out of there and then hopefully the old DPW Yard can undergo some further clean up instead of being an ice right I have a question Kathy beards Le seat if if you're not going to replace her you have to change is it an ordinance because um you can't eliminate a position a St stat statutory position so she's she's eliminated because or the seed is eliminated because she's been gone for months so if if there's no plan to replace her I I'd really like to know why I think you can keep it if I open so we have a plan to replace her but she was not placed in this year's budget it's a simple matter of math councilman uh we've had considerable back and forth for the last six months if I may uh but at the end of the day it became a matter of math um I'm hopeful that there will be in the budget that we come up with either at the end of the year there's some slacking the budget definitely in the spring but you know we're we're constrained in this in miltown in state of New Jersey by the budget cap and that budget cap is 2% and when it death settled at the end of the day didn't happen okay I have another question it's uh exit interviews we have no policy I know that I guess the standard is that it would be council president the mayor and the labor attorney that would sit in on that on what sorry excuse me sit on sit on what uh for exit interviews correct we had that conversation uh previously on the exit interview well process is that a policy an official policy no sir we don't have anything official maybe it's not normally the normally the ex interviews done by the ba uh but the Personnel committee decided that they wanted to do it themselves uh we had that issue in February the individual left in February declined the opportunity um well well should shouldn't Council decide we regarding what sir you have a Personnel committee so the Personnel committee established by rules in Council established that at the Personnel committee it was their desire that they set to do that that has to be approved they're not approved by the council that's between the seven of you I I would say uh councilman pansy it wasn't intentionally as a dropped issue I think just we've been dealing with some other issues that came up that that were more more pressing you know developing the budget getting those other things taken forward but I think it's I thank you for bringing it up it's something that uh developing that policy does need to be re resurrected well I'm I'm not I'm not blaming anyone I'm just saying it's been a while and I thought maybe it should be brought up no good point I still got some old business Russ did we uh did you ever order the new computer what's that you have not anything yet oh okay and whatever happened to we we renamed the Street Paul Paul core Lane whatever happened to that it's did anybody ever go through and order the sign or I'll I'll check with I'll check with gpw thanks Mar that's all I got in all business uh the cameras that were discussed earlier this year can you talk into the microphone please yes the cameras that were discussed earlier this year for different spots in the town um is that has that has a PO been issued for that is that still in flux is any that no we we've been holding off until we had the budget approval okay okay uh close old I'd like to close Old business uh does any member of council have any new business they'd like to bring before Council yes Mr Mayor uh I just like to remind everybody that August 10th the taxes are due and uh I took the account accounting course online the other day and I they had a very interesting uh idea on there that I don't know maybe Fred you know about internet payments cuz a lot of young people pay their bills online and we could probably save some labor that way does anybody looked into that but paying your taxes online yeah your taxes your water your electric yes sir we do that right now what's that people do that right now from what I understand oh they do it right now they can do it online but you have to pay a fee times if you use your credit card it has to be pay by a fee oh you can pay with credit card a something like that at the tax office we just don't collect at the window with your tax but you can pay online right now okay I mean a lot of people pay online but uh yeah we we've bad around since we've been here about you know collecting you know and I I would recommend not putting credit card machines in the window because we'd have to eat the fee or charge people for it but online uh it's normally a do that oh so you can pay it online with a credit C I think so my neighbor want to know if he could get the points get points on his credit card yeah well AB so that's what he told me I know talk everybody it's not a bad idea so I will tell you that you are absolutely correct so when the guy who sat next to me Joe Zang and I did the budget in South River we we were paying $770,000 a year the burrow was paying 70 grand a year which is two tax points to credit card fees so we got rid of do doing that because um people would come in you know like council president rinsky come in here and rip that MasterCard across there get uh 10,000 points Go Disney World right go to Disney World at three for one or whatever he was doing okay meanwhile we ate the feet so we we got rid of that went through a long process uh to try to find out how to do that the problem is four or five credit card companies out there they all charge a different fee uh the state requires that we charge the fee that we charge so if you use a Diner's Club card or American spreads card whatever they charge us I have to charge you which is a pain so we just said the easy solution is we just don't take credit cards right now online okay it pops up you get a convenience fee you decide if you want to do it like you go to DMV you go to state of New Jersey pops up there's a $2 convenience fee do you want to pay it yes for no it's way too much aggravation for for miltown but we do charge a $1.95 convenience fee right correct I think so yeah because that's how I pay my my water and my sewer and my electric that way because that goes to that goes pays the charge card that you use right so you don't have to do the math is the $1.95 worth the points that you're getting you have to get that calculator out say let's see I made two paid them a $1.95 I made a Nick I thought you're going to need three times the points by the way in order for that to work about $1.95 but um I've got some other ones if anyone wants to hear I know I like hearing myself talk uh new business go ahead go ahead you can stop laughing all right I'm not disagreeing I'm not disagreeing um real quick I just wanted to bring up some other things that that we have been working on um uh Mr venol mentioned the vacant lot ordinance um we had already talked about the uh the Water sewer ordinance coming up around again um we've also had in the utility meeting I'll go a little bit further in depth right now we have $2 million in Grants and the utility committee is trying to determine which two projects that are about $1.5 million each are the ones we do first um and to explain it to the residents one of them is the smart meter replacement it's best to do these all at one time replace all the meters at one time to do so you have to hire an outside contractor the total estimated cost for that is about $1.5 million the problem is when you do a uh a water meter technically you should only Bond or borrow or loan you know take out a loan essentially is what the borrow does when we buy bonds or sell bonds uh for 10 years for water meters because of their useful life that means that $1.5 million has to be paid off over 10 years we also have a utility line that is uh collapsed underneath the New Jersey Turnpike the cost for replacing that currently is estimated to be about $1.5 million the benefit with a utility line is if you bond for that you can spread that out over 20 years repayment so if you think about it 10 versus 20 right payments are about half um so that is the situation that we're kind of looking at now we've got 2 million bucks but we've got 3 million in projects to do which one do we do do we apply a million towards each and then bond for the balance on both do we fund one all the way and then hope that there's enough money left over and try and get somewhere else on the other one um so I think that's worth talking about because that all does impact our operating of the system and our ability to maintain the system and unfortunately the costs um one other issue that we had recently was uh the uh I've gotten quite a few calls from residents after the success that we've had with JFK drive and the No Parking during the school hours for pickup um lot of benefits there people seem to respond to that um very well but we've also had other walls on Lincoln Garver uh Lakewood F ha where residents are parking so close to the intersection and they are parking on both sides so close so to make it extremely clear the state law is 50 ft from a stop sign whether there's a sign there or not saying no parking here to Corner 50 ft now from a crosswalk it's 25 ft so please keep that in in mind uh I've asked our DPW director Ralph to try and get some pricing on uh all the signs around town that we have that are currently so faded that you can barely read them that say no parking the corner and we've also spoken with uh Mr venola myself councilman moo and the mayor have actually walked to a whole bunch of these streets and said with a tape measure and said you know what it probably makes more sense to go to this person's driveway let's have 50 feet on this side because it's dangerous for our kids that are crossing you know they're pulling out more if you've ever gone down Lincoln um West Lincoln for that matter off of Main Street if you pull down that street chances are your head on or you've got to try and find a place to pull over and a lot of those are people who live on Main Street that are parking their cars on Lincoln and on the other side streets it's becoming more and more of a problem in town and so we're trying to get ahead of that um we've got four or five different streets Mr ven is working on that and hopefully we can show that to the rest of the uh the council for their consideration and adoption uh again in the coming weeks because it only gets worse when school is in session last but not least we had a uh a call unfortunately uh Council mtter couldn't make it I totally forgot about it I had a work conflict that I didn't realize till last minute um but this was in regards to selling of the South Main Street Firehouse um with the Inception of the South Main Street Rehabilitation plan it outlined certain parameters by which we can sell uh the South Main Street firehouse and have a say in what happens there Beyond just someone is permitted to build uh it's a request for proposals and with that we can say this is what we'd like to see so if we want to see it be at a restaurant we could say send in your pricing based on building a restaurant and whoever presents the best plan moving forward that could be selected based on how much money they're willing to pay for the property as well as some other criteria um those are broad Strokes councilman Z BR if you want to add to that at all I know you filled in for councilman Potter on that call but uh I'd like to get our bur planner in here possibly in August to explain the process a little bit further to to the rest of council and hopefully we can move forward with that because it seems that we we tend to sit on assets a little bit longer and when we've got some increasing costs coming up that are onetime costs that we can avoid and offset I think we should take the opportunities to do so so what would you like me to fill in there if if there was anything else in that statement that I just made that uh you'd like to add to based on being I think John Barry uh summarized it in his email reply to both you and John since you I don't think you guys knew that the meeting was happening no so he summarized in that in that reply like what we should do yeah RFQ a lot of the work is already done a lot of the work is already covered in the South Main stre he relation project a lot of we've already gotten two uh assessments like two years ago now you're going to have to go out and get another appraisal to see how much it is now so it's already there it's just get the RFQ out there as soon as possible so I didn't miss anything in what I said again I stepped in for councilman Potter I rearranged some things because I worked from home on Friday I thought you and John were going to be there I said John let's do this and that was it in and out 15 20 minutes thanks for answering my question yep uh I only had one comment um when we walked uh the corners I had a concern about our um Rescue Squad and fire department Vehicles apparatuses getting around those Corners so that's why uh I wanted to walk because uh walking measured that because it was a big concern about the vehicles getting around the corners there God forbid there's a uh incident or something where a vehicle has to get down one of those streets um they're not getting down they're not getting around the corner and getting down those streets uh so that's why I asked if I could attend because I wanted to look at that all right open to public mayor I just I got the number for the auction it's 29,7 52 is what we made exent good job Monica uh Chief Johnson was a huge help with that he praised you as well is that it for new business okay the public comment portion of our meeting is to allow the public to bring to the council's attention or com their concerns or comments the council will respect the Public's Time by refraining from any comment until the speaker has finished it should be further noted that the public comment portion of our meeting is not structured as a question and answer session please state your name and address for the record when you come to the podium good evening ladies and gentlemen uh my name is Richard Ruff I live at 3:30 North Main Street uh I'm a resident for approximately 20 years um have an issue with myself and a few neighbors since they built the new H home at 342 Main Street um every time we get a substantial rainfall I have raging Rapids running through my backyard uh as does uh Miss Barbara Hill at the 334 North Main and as does uh Mark brola who lives at 329 clay um we all went to school and we know water runs downhill and water Finds Its Own level this new home that was built uh took the place of a set of woods that was basically level that home is now 6 feet above the former grade which is uh the same as Mrs Hill's driveway to the to the point that it needs a retaining wall I don't know who the homeowner is I haven't met them they obviously have water in their basement um but it all collects it all runs through Mrs Hills yard through my yard into Mark's yard behind me and I should charge admission and give out tubes it's raging Rapids who do I how do I address this I have met with Marty the zoning uh guy he stopped by and a gentleman by the name of Lou from c c CME CME that's right I'd like to know who in their right mind with all due respect approved the plans for that home the reasons I was given was um there's a high water table on that particular lot so they allowed the archit protect the engineer to raise the building well in to raise the building they backfilled it now that lot is 6 feet higher than it was in the past what do I do no one's going to buy my home with a river running through it what are my options who do I speak to how do I remediate this uh was there any sort of storm water management Plan before and after it states right on your website that for any buildings there's got to be a a storm water management plan what do I do who do I see uh what's the runoff what's the um I don't know the correct word uh the absorption rate uh prior to building and after building I'm screwed Mrs Hill she had just redone her garage couple years ago they built this home now she's got a river running through it I have a tree in my backyard the root ball is in Mark uh bra's yard at three it's touching my fence it's going to come down any day and it's all since this home was built would anyone offer me please some recourse or direction or who do I speak to this tree is dangerous and it's as a result of this home being built I can show you before and after pictures if you'd like uh what's your address I'll come take a look tomorrow 330 North Main Street 333 330 330 North Main that's by a big yellow house right that's Mrs Hill 3304 uh that's Barbera Hill what's your name sir my name is Richard ruff okay Romeo uniform Fox Trot Fox Trot military no sir my son is but I like your initials rough rough like the dog well yeah I got a little little action there the same I'm a ramond I have three uh question for Mr venol I'm going to direct it over to him because okay for my understanding sure before you're going to build a house you have to go in front of planning board for approval I would think think or zoning no not if it's a lot if it's a lot you can go and file your plans and build a house so I will openly admit that I don't necessarily know every aspect of what the construction department wants but typically you would file a zoning permit to show that your building is going to result in an invariance relief and then you follow your building permits to get your building and you know if you need to open the street you need a street opening permit um Mr mcland is probably more familiar with the permitting process on that aspect because it's not usually something that legal would get involved in the reason I asked is cuz we just had and I'll let you answer too Mike but uh you know we just had this situation occur over on one of the other streets where a gentleman said that the lot next door was subdivided he's nervous about when they build on that it's going to create excessive flow into his house as well and you know shame on me for thinking this probably went before planning or zoning at some point but I didn't I don't recall hearing of this in the past which is why I'm trying to understand the process here yeah I think that uh as indicates it's after the zoning permit it goes to the construction department for construction permit and uh generally uh uh when we have a subdivision and planning board approval there's a requirement for grading plant your construction Department may not always require that and that grading plan would be something designed to show how the war is can be handled these are really private matters between the res unfortunately as it was explained to me by Lou um basically msol uh this guy built a house and water runs downhill was it the house that was built last year the new house from uh the house is probably about a year old the lot was probably leveled it's about 2 years okay um I've lost 8 in my fence was put in 5 years ago I can show you pictures my rat terish now is can run under it he doesn't have to crawl or duck his head now that Dirt has washed away gone I have a root ball in Mark's yard that's the root the ball is 3 feet off the ground Mr what's he address the new house I'm sort interrupt you I'm sorry the address of the new house I believe it's 342 it's um North Main Street yeah that's what North Main thank you it's uh right next to Barbara Hill the big yellow house okay Mr Ru could before you leave can you leave me your phone number please if you wouldn't mind I'll stop and chat with you um I have some errands to do in the morning but I can rearrange my schedule okay uh I'm just looking for direction I had to take value off of my home um if you're going to stop by bring a tube we'll uh Su yeah and water shoes we'll uh bring a towel okay supposed to rain tomorrow hopefully you can see it live up close got you I thank you all for your time thank you have a wonderful evening and uh safe travels home thank you thank you for hearing me sure thank hello I'm Missy grow Herman I live at 49 Highland Drive I'm not sure if this is a suggestion or a question but to help offset the cost of this signs for no parking here at to Corner how about the police department starts issuing tickets for those cars that are doing that and then this way it'll bring in some money great it is a great idea however you have to put a sign up in order for them to enforce it but I thought it was knowledge to everybody you can't park well that's yeah in in those situations yes we just need to make sure that we've got our ducks in one of the issues is that as councilman P NY had indicated a lot of the crosswalks are in bad shape the lines are barely visible so it needs to clearly be indicated as well so th those are the little steps that we're trying to take here but yes great suggestion perfect thank you thanks good good to see you Rachel freed 58 West Lincoln I just wanted to comment on the statement about the parking on both sides part of the issue that we face on West Lincoln is that people use that as a cut through not to go down kol the car is double parked on both sides prevents anybody from flying down that street it is insane and I would love for the council to take a look at some options to slow people down um whether that be speed bumps or uh painted speed bumps which is an inexpensive option of 3D speed bumps as well as maybe some enforcement um because I I hate to say this but like every morning we walk out and there's cars just flying and the camp is right there and I'm just so worried we need a crosswalk we need something that's all thank you they don't stop they don't stop at theop no no that's what I'm saying I live at that corner and it is frightening the amount of people that have run through there um so at the top and the bottom people are trying to slow people down which is why people Park the way they do in hopes of preventing people doing 40 down our street to cut through Miss Fred I will definitely speak to the chief about that thank you yep Dave nins 59 West F mtown New Jersey I was was heartened by the council's vote unanimous to advance the panav resolution to um the the second reading um I just wanted to see if I could add a couple things I don't know if I mentioned that it's the hrc's position that the street sign be preserved in the miltown museum so if the council approv the second reading and the ordinance passed uh we would want to preserve the history of pain in its full context with the sign in the museum and I don't know if I mentioned the idea of eighth grade class excuse me or an eagle scout um developing some placards that could provide a full accounting of patan's life on the issue of evaluating history critically which I am very much in favor of um I point out a couple of things one the French have made their decision there's no street sign no statue of patan anywhere in the in France he was a bigger hero after World War I in France than he ever was in the United States so second why do doesn't patain get a pass I mean after all he was uh a servant of France for decades um he came at a time of of Crisis um he had the interests of France at heart his motives were good um he he wasn't for the French were not for extermination they were for exclusionary as Mr P pansky said exclusionary think about what what that means in early 1940 Europe exclusionary the French police willingly arrests Jews in the occupied and the unoccupied areas keep that in mind in fact early on more Jews are arrested in the unoccupied areas than the occupied areas the the Roundup in July of 1942 almost 20,000 Jews arrested and occupied and unoccupied areas 3,000 will die die in French captivity Pain's response what does he do to stop this what does he do to speak up his concern is that the arrest of foreign Jews that distinction will make it better received by the public there was nothing that he did the The Prestige of vichi France rested on pain they would never have followed the other leaders if pain was not with them and so his inaction his standing aside while this atrocity occurred is something that I don't think he should get a pass on collaboration was a choice the Germans do not want to occupy all France Hitler's got his sight set on the East he wants the French to administer their country they occupy the north not the southern part of the country so I would ask the council to study the issue you want books come out to my trunk in the parking lot I can give you a host of books from Paxton to Curtis to Julian Jackson that Mr pansky cited Julian Jackson who wrote also France during the dark years and then most recently France on trial none of those historians are giving Pat a pass so the full context of a difficult time in history with a lot of things going on and a lot of choices that had to be made I'm submitting to you that patain made the wrong choice he bet on a Germany Europe dominated by Germany he bet on Hitler he shook Hitler's hand and I don't think that that is a place a street sign is a place of honor that his name should rest so I thank you for listening to me again I encourage all the council as Mr pansy encouraged to get out and read look at the full history and ask questions and hopefully uh come to a resolution at the next council meeting thank you good evening Randy Ruth 88 Clay Street uh usually have something prepared but I kind of just scrambled over here but one of the more important things I want to mention is about the uh new tree ordinance uh I'm wondering if anybody on the council had received the D FAQ about that ordinance that needed to be adopted okay well it was brought up at a planning board meeting that uh councilman rinsky and mayor Murray were not in attendance of so I don't know if you heard any of those comments were any of those comments from the planning board communicated to council a memo from the planning board secretary was sent to the attorney with the concerns but at the end of the day this was a d mandated boilerplate ordinance right and that's exactly my point is that the ordinance is actually not necessarily required okay what you can do is work with the liaison at the D to address and see if your current ordinance is satisfactory or if it can be tweaked and the concern that I had at the planning board was that the language it's it we'll break it down to be something this simple the current or or the the old ordinance was much more detailed and longer than the one that was just adopted tonight had more teeth yeah and I feel like there could be some things that were lost and you know it's it's a little disappointing that that it was kind of I feel like it was pushed through as opposed to maybe re-evaluated and would have had more um more consideration for the things that we losing by adopting those ordinance so it is what it is I guess we'll see how things shake out one of my main concerns that I had was the definition within the ordinance that was adopted tonight specifically about how and maybe uh the attorney can address this in some way is they Define walk as a structure even though nowhere in any other burough ordinance is a sidewalk a structure okay a building structure so it's seems like there could be a uh uh in fact we we explicitly call a sidewalk a sidewalk and a structure you know things that people live in or you construct uh so I don't know if there's going to be maybe some confusion in the future when people are trying to go through the appropriate uh processes so with with that being said um there's there was another concern that I had especially hearing tonight about the burough budget and the electric utility uh I guess it's not pulling in as much as we hoped in the previous year so it's just a matter so as I've stated before it's a matter of math yeah okay so as rates go up water elect electric choose an item in our lives okay as you know if we set a rate to charge here but we pay here eventually there's going to be a disparity that Delta and that's what we're looking at and that's what Joe talked about we don't know we'll have a better evaluation at the end of the O and the October because it's the end of the summer it's end of the quarter that's one your highest usage is and you'll see what your see what your numbers are but U I'm sure the finance committee and Council has heard my conversation for the last six months and 25 years before that is every single year you look at your rates and you make a management decision are our rates in all these things paying the bills yes or no we haven't raised the rates in water since 18 and I'm not I can't remember when the last time we raised electric rates but I think Franklin was still flying his kite okay so not really we're not doing our job if we're not making a management hard decision to pay our bills it's just me they make the decision I can sit out here and provide my professional expertise but and then they can choose to adopt it or ignore it that's okay I appreciate that and the reason why and thank you for the clarity I think it is pretty simple math it's not it's not complicated but but the burough isn't in a unique position because they don't just own and operate an electric utility you know there there's I believe it's publicly owned it it the No it's it's we are not managed by the BPU there there's some sort of municip Municipal League that we're we're a part of Public Power Association correct so I don't know if maybe if somebody's in charge of looking for particular Grant or something some way to kind of get ahead of um what we know is coming down the road and the only reason why I'm really bringing this up is because on the burough website today there was a new document that was that talked about electric vehicles and none of that information in that document is relative to this municipality so I thought it was just kind of kind of interesting um the other thing that I would want to bring up and it's on the Fly is the sale well the sale of the Main Street Firehouse now I understand that's always been the plan for many years uh the South Main Street Rehabilitation plan as councilman revolinsky said creates a framework so that way we have some say so I think that's pretty positive I'm glad that that plan was not only uh brought forth and and adopted but also in that process there were many residents overwhelmingly supporting the preservation of that building so you know I don't know who on Council was there at that meeting but please keep in mind the wishes of the residents as you make your decisions in these closed door meetings when you put out an RFQ or an RFP um because I think it's pretty important that you know something whatever comes out of it something that honors what's there you know happens uh there's also I know some comp some zoning things that need to occur in that process so um I'm not too sure if this actually is truly just about the South Main Street Firehouse property or also the adjacent miltown Historical Society property as well because they're next door and I think people have been confused about where the actual boundary line is and for those who don't know that boundary line for the firehouse that that parking lot has nothing to do with that Firehouse it's a separate parcel so putting something out now just for a firehouse they might assume that the parking lot's with it that's not the case um it is also interesting that over the past few months really many people have come before this council with uh really things that stem from construction possibly Planning and Zoning where something they feel should have happened or had a second pair of eyes didn't and now they're in a precarious situation where they don't know what to do specifically about water and drainage and I think if there was a second pair of eyes on top of these basic administrative uh processes maybe these things wouldn't have happened that's why we have you know steep slopes ordinance and that's why something like a historic preservation element of the master plan is really important because even though I know there's a concern by many people that a star preservation commission would have too much say over what people can and cannot do that's really not the case and it's really comes down to them being able to interrupt and maybe slow down so people can think before a precarious situation happens so with that I've got nothing else to say thank you hi danan milver 12 Desmond Avenue uh I just wanted to make a comment about um the ordinance uh for the revised flag policy 24548 I think there are five of us here that are present from uh the human relations committee and mayor and leaan to the board were present there were seven of us present at that meeting the reason why we're here is because we were actually shocked to see that you were even having the first reading because and we do have minutes to back you know what what we're talking about if you were to ask every member here we left that meeting with the understanding that um that you would discuss it further and you know we are a committee that was appointed by you you know and we think that you you value us and we're supposed to suggest things and we know you're not going to agree with us and of course I'm not against you know any of you for maybe feeling differently about our opinions but it is offensive to know that you we're appointed by you we advise you we're told that you will you know bring this back to the council discuss it further I know that that is what was said and it's in our minutes if you want to ask us here a minute so I'm just very confused by the just I just keep can't even believe the audacity of voting for this first reading because I am not losing my mind and you can ask any other member here um that's why we're here we're just so disappointed in you that you would even vote on this when we were told that you would take some of our suggestions and further discuss it that's the part that's really disheartening to me so I would hope that before you have the second reading that you would maybe maybe ask to see our minutes and confirm that what we're saying is not nuts um and we hope that you would just value some of our opinions and we will respect whatever you vote but the fact that you voted on this tonight to me was just audacious and rude um and as far as um just a comment you know as in the environmental commission we are always concerned about um storm water runoffs we tried very hard a couple of years ago you know the D gave a model with some minimal standards that you know that that the township could meet and we did really work hard to try to to make those standards a little bit more rigorous and these are the kind of things that happen houses are built like this poor gentleman is experiencing has a flood in his backyard and it's very important that when the environmental commission who is also appointed by you when we get together and we ask you to be more stringent and more rigorous what your standards for storm water that we would be taken seriously because these are the kind of things that happen you know when houses are built so when you as a mayor and Town Council appoint members to commissions and committees we know that you're not going to always agree with us and we respect that and you're in a position you put in a lot more hours than I do but when you're when when you're appointed to be on these committees and then we come to you and we advise as we're told in whatever committee we're in and then we see a first reading and then a vote it's why are we here why do we serve in these commissions and committees it's just to me it was offensive and I would hope that you would reconsider the whole flag you know we I'm not even going to talk about the reasons why I thought it was respectful to fly those flags one being the middle sex middle sex County their buildings they raise those flags treaten raises those flags if it's good enough for our County and it's good enough for our state why is it offensive for miltown to raise a flag to honor people who were emancipated at a later time and are trying to celebrate and why is it why is it disrespectful for us to raise a pride flag to honor people in our town that might have different values or life systems than we do I just I I feel that we're moving backwards and I would like to know that miltown understands that there is this human Relations Committee we are here for a reason and we hope that you value our purpose and that's it thank you hi egita Paro 57 Southbrook Drive no toown New Jersey um so I just have like a general comment um I too was in attendance at the HRC uh meeting um and I was I was home packing for my vacation and had to come down here because I was watching the meeting and when I heard the interaction between councilman Zen brano zbr and uh mayor Murray it took me by surprise because I know exactly what was said at that meeting um we do have the minutes to jog your memory if you need them and the blatant um the blatant just negating of what was actually said um is very disheartening you know as an elected Member One of the building blocks of that is is building relationships right and in order to build relationships you need to there needs to be a level of transparency because that Fosters collaboration that Fosters trust and when you say one thing to a group of people and then take a step back and openly negate that you you begin to sever the transparency you you begin to sever the trust and the collaboration the efforts the collaborative efforts that we're trying to maintain between Council and the community is going to suffer and I know that's the last thing that anybody here wants is to sever the communication sever the collaboration between community and Council because ultimately you are in those seats because of the community that seat is not given to you it's not yours to keep so building relationships has to be at the Forefront of everything we do when we when we serve our community because those severed relationships you know will destroy the very work that you're trying to do in those seats right and I know that's not the purpose I know that's not what anybody here wants you know you're in those seats because you want to serve the community to the best of your ability but that also means you have to build relationships sustainable relationships and again like Don said we not made we may not agree and that's okay you know I don't expect everyone to have the same mindset but what I do is expect as that there's reciprocated communication and respect and collaboration and to vote so quickly not to table this ordinance and hear the communication happening between everyone when one council person is saying we just want the opportunity to have a discussion question and to hear everyone else so quickly say no you know that's that's not building relationships very well in fact you're doing the opposite right so it's not so for me it's not so much the raising of the flag as it is the bigger picture that you're intentionally limiting and creating barriers for something as simple as just communication um so I would ask the council to to reconsider open the lines of communication be receptive as much as you can to what we're saying and just give us the opportunity to be heard because at the end of the day everybody deserves to have voice in agency and I think that the HRC being here and their presence is their attempt to do just that be given the voice and agency that we're entitled to have and I don't think that anyone here especially those serving on this HR HRC committee are going to accept anything less than but I do thank you for listening M Paro I just want to let you know I know it was two hours ago but I was also in agreement with councilman Zen Brana to table it I seconded it and said no to moving it on so just just I appreciate the support thank you y sorry to be back uh obviously you know my name Courtney Williams I live at 318 Clay Street um I just have one sort of lasting comment I won't sort of Labor the points of the people that came before me I'll just say something um a little bit more nuanced in the fact that I believe that we all have come to this room and continue to come to this room and live in our community for the same shared purpose which is to continue progress and to continue collaboration amongst ourselves and that we all want to see our town flourish and we do want to continue to make history and our own rights and for our town and to be on the right side of history that requires dialogue and that requires compromise it is about recognizing that progress is about collaboration and that no one person no one group can be a part of that without others being involved in that and so I'm really saying that as a body this is not an easy task people are coming down here getting in front of you speaking into this mic um that is not an easy task to do especially coming from different backgrounds different genders different voices different languages to come up here and share their points of views to ask you for help to have a dialogue that is not easy I will speak to my own personal experience I'm coming to you as a young black woman of this town who has been in this town for 30 years this is my town this is my home and it is not easy to come up here and speak into this mic but I do because it's required of me to continue to have that dialogue and the respect towards this Council and to continue to do my PO my purpose which is to continue the progress in the town and the move it forward and to ensure that we have conversations like this and to ensure that other people continue to come up here and speak even though it's hard even though it feels like it may be the wrong thing and even though they may receive backlash or not get the results that they want they continue to do it because this is what this is about we are a town we are a community and it's very important that we continue to have respectful transparent ongoing dialogues especially when it concerns the our future evening everybody 54 van L Avenue um Wow have you heard such eloquent people before it's amazing we are lucky how hard is it to get people involved in this community or any Community where you get the public to come up it's not a paid position they care about something mayor I'm speaking to you as well um they care and they care about miltown the same way you do you're heavily involved in the scouts you care about the scouts they come here before you they have ideas and they are named to you to a committee to advise you on various things and what happens I remember when this issue first came up the HRC and councilman Z bro came forward to fly the um the pride flag and the juneth flag and councilman re trinsky rightfully said you know what it's only a few days before the 19th so you know we haven't had a chance to look at it there's some concerns we want to take a look so great I agree 100% now all of a sudden there's a dialogue they're involved and you disregard them your committee why did that happen why couldn't it be table tonight it's a reasonable suggestion why did you go ahead and totally disregard this Committee of mtown residents are here volunteering their time without giving them the time of day it's not a rhetorical question you don't have to answer it but it's not a rhetorical question I looked at the ordinance it is the position of the burrow that flag polls are not intended to serve as a form for free expression by the public wow the juneth flag which celebrates a freedom of people that were oppressed in slavery it can't be flown there because of that that language is that what you're calling that flag that's that's embarrassing I don't understand how you can even consider that but mostly to go ahead and not listen or at least listen a dialogue to their advice from your advisory committee that's shameful I hope you reconsider and at least re-engage with them I do have another note want to let anybody else okay Council revalen on the on the pilot I just wanted to address I don't think that it's a complete drop off of monies where all of a sudden we got to make up the amount that goes to the school board okay um am I correct I can take a look into it I you know because usually it's spent a long time yeah usually a pilot agreement means that that person pays less than True full taxes so they get a big benefit once the taxes come online they have to pay more okay so I believe it it who knows what it's going to be but it's not going to yeah it's not going to be a full you know all of a sudden we got to pick up the whole thing um I am glad to hear there may be some movement on the rehab um South Main Street Rehabilitation okay thank you very much everybody hi Randy Ruth 88 Clay Street I just wanted to add one thing and something more of a high note and something to be very um uh aware of in for the near future the safe roots to school program uh is going to be coming up any day now in 2023 it look like it started uh there was an opening beginning July 24th and then the applications were due November 17th so I know that's a very short window of time but if you want to really try to improve the safe routs to schools with paint or signs or sidewalk improvements like curb Cuts I mean there's a lot that can really be done but you need to move fast and keep your eyes on it you know not talk about it by the next council meeting but really hopefully keep looking and checking every week so I don't know who's in charge of handling grants or seeking grants or you know who the best person would be but I do know that in a previous administration the contact for keep middle sex moving for miltown was the mayor so I don't know if you want to reach out to keep middle sex moving that might be a good idea to keep that dialogue going um because they're kind of the gatekeeper is my understanding so uh hopefully we can see some Grant before the end of the year thanks Mike we've applied for that uh sorry I need to speak closer into the microphone um Mike we we've we've applied for that uh safe roots to school in fact I think I just asked you about that uh last week or the week prior in regards to where do we stand with that uh that Grant application because we were hoping to receive some monies uh or at least a positive response for the illuminated or flashing pedestrian crosswalk signs I think you applied every year for last maybe even up to five years maybe long that so I we'll take a look and see the application us come from NJ dot we'll make sure you get copies and get the process roll yeah I thought I I thought we actually did agreed already to submit those applications CU there were three different ones there was the safe roots to school there was the bike path and then there was the other criteria and the bike path was limited to like what $5 million throughout the state or smaller amount do at the end of June I have to check in to see sometimes they come up with an interim program sounds like this may be a a doubling in it thank you I made it okay seeing no more um oh I had a question Monica are they going to stop using our uh municipal building the North Brunswick courts here today sir what's it they were here today I will close the public comment portion of the meeting Council comments there's any fur anyone further from Council that would like to bring up at this time please do so now why didn't you raise your hand real quick he's halfway there at least come on 54 van L um I just comment on the the the patain issue and and I I understand councilman pansy's comment that you know sometimes people are put into a tough situation and maybe they think they're doing the right decision at that time but when they and I I believe that Dave's comments nin's comments were incredible and Illuminating but when a person goes ahead and takes that step you know our kids I forget what grade it is we learned about Nazi Germany and what happened and the the comment is lest we forget I believe and when somebody goes ahead and makes that collaboration that compromise to save themselves at the risk of somebody else I'm not in their shoes I don't know how bad that decision was to make but we don't honor them okay we don't honor them so I ask that it be unanimous to change that when it comes time so is there anybody on Council that would like to make any comments sorry yes but I'd like to go last should I'll go first we'll just go right down the go right down start there uh would just uh again uh like to thank uh the folks from the HRC committee who are here tonight in support um not only for pain but also for the flag policy and uh I will do uh whatever I need to do to uh talk to the folks on this council with me because um you know I don't know if you guys uh understand this uh I I was this close to going to the Main Street flag poll and raising those two Flags uh in the middle of the night and I decided not to because I respected uh your input uh I thought that it should go to a committee it went to a committee uh it's been introduced it's been passed I would hope between now and the next meeting we can have a transparent open conversation as to what the issue is because at the end of the day there's only one thing that matters it's acknowledgement from the folks that that those two flags represent that's all it is an acknowledgement it's all about acknowledgement thank you so uh down the line um I have heard other people mention about um that the tree ordinance uh lacks the teeth that did exist I heard that uh from some people on the environmental commission and I do think that uh you know if if something's presented that fills that Gap I'm certainly interested in looking at uh the DP one as was presented was to be passed to satisfy the d uh but that has nothing to do with miltown that's a bigger package just like you know we got to do a lot of things uh regarding the regarding the flag ordinance my personal feeling in most simplistic form because I'm a pretty simple guy in general is I just feel that we government takes painfully long to do to do in anything and in miltown there's a lot to do and I'd rather just not have questions come up where I see it as um if it's open to even as the are three government flags and those the only one ones that stay there I'm fine with that I almost don't care either way I support the people who want to put whatever they want on their house I'll fight for their right but as a government agency I think we've got a lot to do in miltown and simply in that respect uh if it certainly seems though that the timing of today's ordinance may have called people off guard and that is certainly a regrettable occurrence uh because expectations are what lead to disappointment and that may me uh I'm sorry that that the vote doesn't address or coordinate that as I Came Upon me today as I was not aware of the expectations that were created previously uh so change V can't next time yeah I don't think it's legally binding at this moment but uh but but I do agree that you know that as a committee and as your as what you're endeavored to do the you're right to have an expectation of statements that are made and you know Clarity of time frames and such that's certainly not certainly not an unrealistic ask so with that said uh I guess we'll have to see about trying to work those things better in the future and and between now and uh councilman pank I really appreciate the uh the support or the the sentiment but probably the best thing to do is to make sure that the minutes of the last meeting are sent to and share it with everyone on Council so that they can see what was discussed and what was the expectation I think that's fair and and I'll just add councilor MCO you you said it takes it takes time uh actually we wanted to take time we want to get this has been rushed this was basically brought up right away so that's why we're pushing the table it so we can get the HRC to put in their input so we as a council can look at this in a open manner where this was just rushed tonight so that's why councilman Z and I push to table it to get that information so like I said I beg the differ with that we did rush it we didn't take our time and we should no no because you said it I'm more no no no I don't mean that took time I more mean that that if we want to add a stop sign that can take two months and the toop sign's got like everything everything incrementally that that town tries to do takes a long time and I simply like less on a plate and a list of priorities finding a way to stop the guys stop new housing that floods the guy behind another house those guys have been coming here for a longer time but but a different night understood and we were talking about two different night two different things so we want to the goal would be to get the hrc's input on this flag policy that's what so if if the HRC can provide some information before the next meeting that would be great you know provide to councilman Zen Brana and councilman Z BR can provide yeah so that'd be great and then maybe we can look at it as a council and um come up with a decision I'd also like to congratulate our we we did have a with resolution 2024 222 we uh hired a new police officer it's going into the academy uh in August so congratulations uh Donald Herman III uh he will be going in he'll be going in uh police academy so we wish him the best of luck and we look forward to seeing him in his swear and ceremony that's all I have Mr Mayor oh just B I just want to clarify that that Fred that uh North BRS are they going to come back next week or are they still going to cuz I read in the paper they were supposed to be done already so the only information I have is what I read in the paper like you I did reach out to the ba there in Brunswick uh but I have not had official documentation from Brunswick saying that they no longer need this facility I just just I just like to say I it's kind of ironic this this Bain situation came up because I I think we Overlook a factor too that that man was General Bain was like 80 years old trying to run a country and 84 was 84 he he was old yeah and we had right now we had a guy what 81 and he's only working 6 hours a day so I think 78 I think what's it no no I mean he's only work 6 hours a day so I mean like you know it's kind of ironic that we're talking about an age issue when it comes it came up like 84 years ago I'm not that old sir no I didn't say you were FR either and you're I know you're working more than 6 hours a day I'm just saying I'm not that old right well that's not for lack of him not wanting to that's cuz he won't get hired full time okay um wait you wanted to last I was skipped over go go I was skipped over it was my turn go s of council voted that you've already spoken enough tonight second that I third that motion Fantastic look um I got I got three Council comments to make number one the tree ordinance yes it was adopted quickly to appease the state but I do not believe we redacted or removed or it supersedes the Burrow's ordinance in regards to that being meaning the B ordinance that still has would be in the to replace it so we can now work on that again but at least we appease the state and we're moving forward again try to make some progress where we can second yeah I know I'm an idiot my turn talk um second regarding this flag issue um councilman Mano started to express his thoughts on it and I got to tell you when I saw the email correspondence going back and forth originally when this was brought up about 3 days before before juneth I thought to myself good God we have to focus on the water rates and I'm not saying this is not an important issue but quite frankly we've got a lot of things to focus on in this town so tonight's ordinance introduced a policy for borrow buildings and I hope that in the future we have a flag policy that incorporates the collaboration discussion and open communication and advisement of the HRC but for now at least we can put this to bed and move forward with some other issues that are more pressing like a $1.1 million electric increase next year my last comment is in regard to my daughter who says I don't spend enough time with her who says I don't talk about her enough so I am going to take a couple seconds here and tell you how absolutely amazing my daughter is and I'll relate it to council business because it has to do with the fact that there was a uh a swim team that was created for Recreation Department apartment and my daughter out of nowhere must have gills because this little girl took first in both two swimmingsong crat so Adeline you go girl that's all I got to say about that okay I have some things also to to save up T he was 84 years old 1940 1945 when he was done he was 89 years old there are different reports that he was addled but his doctor said that he had about two two hours a day of clarity thank you all for coming um this is this is also um there's a Memorial in New York City that the council decided not to take up and it's in in regards to pain the liberal Council decided not to take up the memorial because they were afraid of cultural amnesia and I hope people do take Mr nkin up on reading because I I think you all should know what you're going to be voting on my wife told me tonight why bother because it's a done deal and it may be but it was worth me being here and I I'll also add something else I wish the the the people that left did not leave because this is for a human Relations Committee I know that people people people have problems with other people these days different when I grew up people disagree and they hate each other and I'm going to tell a story I told Council rinsky last week I forgot for over 35 years I lived out outside Atlanta Georgia I lived in maretta Georgia and um I came to a job that I had it was a Saturday if anybody's been to marett it's a big square there's there's fountains uh there is uh statues I mean I think there's still statues there and um I came and I thought there was some kind of a joke because when I was pulling up I saw hundreds of people wearing white robes so I came to where I had to park and what I I saw people running and it's a big Square it's like a city block and I saw people running and uh I thought it was a big strong guy so I thought well I'm going to go the opposite way so I came to a corner and there were many many of these guys in the white robes lined up and I stood there with my hand hands on my hips and I was watching them and they were watching me and um I I saw a lot of blacks running into it was like it was a lunch inet and I I asked to God what's going on he said you better take off there were uh there were ma'am please I'm speaking EXC speaking I'm speaking this is his comments please I'm speaking I will say what I said ma'am there they had their cars they had camouflage they had big poles with flags Confederate um battle flags and it was a car that had a loudspeaker going around the block telling blacks to get off the street so um and everyone was leaving I was alone and when one person I saw I I asked where where the black people were running he said they're hiding so I went in I went into the lunch it was a large lunchonette and there were a lot of there were a lot of people huddled there in the back and I I stood there in front of them and I knew that something could happen to me and it's a terrible memory I just I I just remembered it last week I like I said I told councilman rinsky and um I thought I'm a human being and they're human beings and I'm supposed to be here and I stayed there till it was over so you can think whatever you want of me ma'am that's who I am thank you for listening Council com blessed Council comment done Sor thank thank you I'd like to close Council comments now it's my comments um Mr mclen if you could please do me a favor and um get us some sort of specification for Speed humps we'll do thank you um so I actually did reach out to Mr vinolo after I think it was the last council meeting about the flag policy for uh various locations I went to South River I looked at other municipalities uh and I did say during the HRC meeting that the flag policy that we were looking at for a say I used for example Bradford Park near to sign and everyone understood that and agreed that to that um that that's what um we were looking for for a multicultural or uh open place to hang a flag and we discussed about um what it would be like um times length of time if there was any cost incurred or what happens with that and that was going to be towards um dialogue that the HRC would have to um we would figure out with the HRC um the flag policy that was introduced tonight was um I guess proposed prior um and that was uh not that had nothing to do with with doing what we needed to do for that so it was two separate items and I just want to be clear that um there was no uh not being uh transparent with it uh it was very clear that and councilman zbr actually said uh texted me a couple times earlier this week and I said I did not put that uh flag policy on the agenda uh it was requested that it be on there for consideration uh the one I was working on with uh U Mr vinolo was for the uh display of any flags at uh Bradford Park um so that that's uh I did not have any intentions on um leaving anyone out with that or or anything else it was I was very clear with I want to have everyone's input with that because I I want uh I want it to be displayed there uh because a lot of people do visit that Park um and I know the conversations came up during the HRC meeting about installing another flag po here um I just there's you know that dialogue didn't uh come here uh we didn't get to have that dialogue yet uh so you know I I don't want you to think I wasn't um having that dialogue with them I just it it just didn't get there yet uh with you know even another flag poll at Burrow building but I know their uh thought process with that was to leave the three flag poles uh in front of burrow building and that's what their um their heart was saying that they wanted just a three flag Poes there but it was it's not meant to be disre disrespectful to anyone or or any nationality or anything else uh and I just want to be clear with that um so I did want to address one thing with um planning board uh because it was said again so the planning board meeting I was not at the planning board meeting council president revolinsky was not at the planning board meeting because we received an email saying it was not a planning board meeting it was a zoning board meeting and we were not to be present uh so that's why clearly both of us we we couldn't partake as active members of the committee so cor it was kind of implied that that were it wasn't for to read that correct so um I just wanted to make that very clear because um you know it was it came up again um other than that that is it so I would like to uh entertain to motion to adjourn so move second uh motion made by council president rinsky seconded by councilman Collins all in favor any opposed thank you I want to see my daughter Tex