##VIDEO ID:LtnOUw4BlFw## can move that whatever comep in that room you know but she's yeah feeling tell we to get elevator music have it play you know the up here how are you feeling I'm all [Music] right my just get provided by vir resolution oh the the code for the Council the B year 2024 which resolution was adopted by the B Council on January 4th 2024 and published in moris newsby and the Daily Record and by posting of such resolution on the bulletin board of bur Hall all the above action accordance with njs roll please Mr Pres pres present so I do have a few things to bring up um one of the things that's on a lot of people's mind are these drones tended to uh updates one from the White House and one from the state of New Jersey and which we we got little to no information or any new information uhing Dr where they're coming from what they're doing where they're going um so what you hear on the news or see on the news is probably just the same as the as what we are hearing of hearing about so really NOS for that um there are new flood maps that have preliminary flood maps that have been uh sent out to all the towns from FEMA and the D um there's going to be a meeting up the County Police Academy tomorrow which our engineer and possibly Nancy are going to be going to to get a little bit further information again there are preliminary Maps I think they're open for comment now um I think there's a short window maybe 30 days so once I get a better report from our engineer Nancy if she goes 'll be able to report on that for those of you who didn't see the new clock was installed the rotary clock was all the that down this past week uh so that's congratulations to them um and they still have a list of the roads this year this should finish up all of the half PA roads that public service had has done when they did the upgrade to the uh service Mains running through town so it's going to be Cleveland Avenue Brook Drive North Davenport Windwood Road Beach Drive Sun Valley Way Forest Avenue and Forest Court on agenda for to start working on projects um done another not just unfortunately Joan will not be with us today she's feeling under the weather so we hope she feel better um we got an email from the uh burough grant writer about the community change grant program America walks uh sponsors it and active people helping Nations so this grant will award $22,000 in community brand for projects related to creating healthy active and engaged places to live work and play um so I don't know if you want to think about doing maybe trying to get some more money for our Trail Grant um I talked to Steve about it and I did talk to about it probably not the amount invol very competive only for $2,000 $2,000 are only six six award and Anna said that it's not time she'll put more time okay um and then I have a long wanted to have about uh something Joan asked me to to pursue for her uh she asked me to kind of speak on her behalf since she's not going to be able to be here today and our next meeting is probably going to be a short meeting and she wants to make sure gets discussed before the end of the year but do you want to see anybody else has anything it's on sh tree yes so we have an application in um for someone to use the community center um is for six consecutive Saturdays 9 to 10:30 uh Jo wanted me to speak about it because we normally just give the space to uh Mars Plains residents this this the applicant is from Mars Township uh and she's also an em with the um man she's a coach uh with the Special Olympics this is a uh this a program a special a young athletes program uh so Larry's been going back and forth where he kind of wants to let her know Council how Council feels about that I mean I guess I think that's one of the you know one of the points we always try and me is it's from from Morris Plains but I personally feel like you know the township is our our our neighbor and it's for for for a great cause and she is a uh she is an entc with Mars minman we have had you know several residents who work with so I just wanted to just I mean police are involved espe theor for special as long as it doesn't interfere they're not Charing anything no no um there was two there were two conflicts um but they were willing to take the smaller of the of the um of the rooms and we'll continue to do that if there are uh further further conflicts um I'm trying to get I'm trying to get the dates uh here and I'm not wrong oh it's January 18th through February 22nd um those they they six uh Saturday they booked um the multi-purpose room they have to switch they have to pull an audible and use room a two of those six uh two of those six Saturdays hour hour and a half Mor marown young athletes it's called but it's affil affiliated with the Special Olympics the commit was in full agreement which sounds okay I'll let uh good lar know yes I am good what are they going to be doing you know I can I can find out from from R's an indoor winter uh winter young athletes program so I would I mean I'm guessing it's going to be some physical some physical activity so Larry knows more about this oh absolutely yeah he's contact I don't have an I don't have young athlete program so they Insurance imagine they're prepared for that okay I'll reach out to Larry tomorrow when is this happening the first the first Saturday would be uh January 18 that's a Saturday would be 18 all right okay all right so Joan asked me as council president to lead a discussion about uh in her absence about a topic that she discussed with her building and grounds committee she received a memo from Shay Tre on November 6 requesting additional mons funds for tree maintenance from another Department's exceeded their budget for the year so she met with her committee and they denied the request but she wanted me to share this because it's been an ongoing situation with the shade tree um and I feel that and so does she in order to exceed budget amounts with taxpayer dollars shade tree needs to provide a little more explanation as to why they can't stay within their budget which is $96,700 so facts related to this are the shade tree budget has doubled since 2012 when it was 3,175 uh last year it was actually $177,400 after a transfer from buildings and ground budget of $30,000 um and in comparison to other Morris County towns that have a shade tree commission who published on the website that they do have a budget for that those commissions and and they're within one to three square miles similar size to Morris Plains all have shade tree commission budgets of well these are the towns of found chadam Chester marown Riverdale their budgets 29,000 18, 1250 and 2500 respectively so um the other thing about this is that shade tree commission does not PR present the council with a plan for the year outlining planned expenditures for planting pruning and removal and Fridays before the meeting often times the uh person who is called the Forester will drive around and find things to you know to request funding for at the next meeting um the shade tree commission also hasn't provided a priority list of trees that represent the highest risk to Residents that could be tackled early in the year when the budget is flush with cash uh they they they generally try to spend they take their 96,000 budget divided by 12 and try to spend that 8,000 a month so when you come up to the end of the year like we are now where there are some emergencies that they need to take care of they're short of funding so they also don't provide an accounting to the council at the end of the year of what they accomplished during the year how many Tes taken down at residents requests how many were targeted for pruning or take down by the DPW how many were referred to Greenwood tree which is our contractor for tree maintenance so there are really right now no checks and balances on that budget spend and um I watched the film of the October 7th shat Tre commission meeting which is available on YouTube and what I was dismayed to see is that our uh our our contractor who does tree maintenance and removal uh sits on the Das with the shade tree commission members and you know he's the guy who get who get makes the money if we decide to do something with the trees um and he was referred to as the Forester by members of shade tree commission and that's also on the website that his title is our Forester but we really don't have a position in the burrow for that he's qualified to be that to have that title though um but since he owns Greenwood Tree Service uh he also is basically advising the commit on what trees need to come down and what ones need to wait and what are priority and what um and there's nobody else on the shet tree commission who has appropriate training to be able to assess whether the trees are damaged um dead dangerous Etc so the shatri commission member simply tally the dollar amounts that he recites and then he gets paid once you know once the work is complete he gets paid so um another thing I think I'm made about is that um having done research for the tree ordinance that we're going to be introducing next year hopefully uh sh tree commissions were created in order to reduce the liability for the burrow so if you have a shade tree commission that meets the criteria of being approved which is certain training that they have to undergo each year then if there's a situation with a tree that the Burrow's liability is reduced and that's the purpose for having a shade tree but no one on our shade tree commission currently has any of the training that's required and the last time they had a plan for tree for trees for the burrow for the tree canopy was 2014 when Lorie Fu was the council liaison they created a five-year plan which expired in 2019 and at the time they did have some members who were trained um including our DPW superintendent but that training has not been maintained so um without the you know the protection of that training we we lose that that liability of protection also so um they also have an opportunity to pursue grants to create a plan and a tree inventory that that plan that Lori Fu created was with a grant and one of the recommendations in that plan was to complete a full tree inventory of all of our burrow trees uh and that was never accomplished it does take additional funding but there are grants available to to pursue that inventory um so at the October meeting I observed there was no discussion of the DPW assisting with any of the Tre PR removal all the uh the the funds that Dave duy mentioned for the different trees that he ran through during the meeting with the amounts that were tallied by the members are for funding that the company that he owns um so I feel like we really need a little bit more checks and balances on this system that is currently in place to spend this money down and to request additional funding at the end of the year now you know we also have an issue of liability so nobody wants trees falling on lenss falling on people in the burrow that's obviously a danger Dangerous situation so we need to uh you know consider that when we take this into consideration but what what other towns do is they have a third party arborous that they hire on an hourly rate to to look at the list of trees that are recommended for any action and they you know sign off on them so it's kind of a third party who's objective who's not making money from the actual activity of the trees um so as far as the risk goes I think that they they do they do say a lot of times there's a lot of pressure to take things down because of the risk but um I was able to attend a uh got a copy of a at the New Jersey League of municipalities they had a presentation called boosting the benefits of your Municipal treat canopy and I wasn't able to make it but the presenters uh provided the slide deck and I asked for a copy and um one of the slides they had was the perception versus the reality of dangerous trees the chances of a tree harming a person is rare the chances of a person harming a tree is fairly certain and what they show is that uh the rate of a tree or branch falling and and killing a person is one in 10 million the chance of a car accident killing a person is one in 112 and the chance of a pedestrian being killed is 485 so I think that the risk of these trees is is overstated and um you know there's a lot of feedback that's been around the burrow about pedestrian traffic safety lately and you know some of the individuals advocating for this funding for trees did not express the same level of concern about these other risks that I just mentioned that are much more likely to happen to a person in the buau so because of this increasing risk and the concern the increasing expense and the concern about risk um I I just wanted to have a discussion with the council about instead of having a budget that is as high as ours is considering maybe taking a piece of that budget and allocating it towards a third party who could provide the service to evaluate our requests and um I would recommend postponing additional work until we can make sure that this commission is operating with some checks and balances on spending um in my quick research it looks like the arborus work would be under the bid threshold so I don't think it would take long to get the bids um to find somebody who could provide the service for us and work at a situ a solution with the shry commission where they could figure out how to make those referrals and get those approvals so that we can keep the the work moving um and also this person would be able to give us a an an estimate on um updating our plan and tree inventory and going for those grants that would help to pay for those so that we could have a you know a tree a program that actually is working for the bur so that's my laun spal and I just want to see if anybody else had any inut so how much are they look who sh the request to I and is it possible with so it wouldn't be a bid would be a quot for the services yeah uh yeah I always up those is there a shared service or something municipality possi look at and are any of these trees and parks right now that do have to be addressed or just the trees that they requested the funding for that was uh the committee other two members of the committee denied were were in the Parks uh they were something that was that was located late from one of these drive around by the arborus by the by the Forester uh that were not included in a plan that was created at the beginning of the year that was not budgeted for early in the year was like a weight add to the list of items um the other thing just just say that the Ood and the road department have a very good relationship so any our capacity is lied as far as height of the truck you know what we do there so I know they have a good work relationship whatever and I'm glad you brought that out here because um when I work with them the DPW always helped take down reach the height of some trees not feasible but lower trees are they still doing it I I only observed the one meeting on January 7th so there was no discussion about referring any of the work to the DPW that may be part of the process uh it wasn't Johnny looks I'll say anything that's question they do guys will ask and we all sign the vouchers too so you see what the the size of the trees that they're taking down yeah it's hard to tell like 12 to 26 in tree is what what we sign off on right so I can't Envision how tall that tree is and if it's something that BW can do or not but I see those on take down or PR or something like that also specific on height with the bucket truck that bucket truck say make 30 ft go that high but yeah when I was on few years um I looked I think Madison has the it's farest so they got go around and check ARB but he would go and verify the tree was unhealthy I can look at my notes I remember I say $46 an hour or something there was a fee but I thought it was a good idea too because God bless everybody that volunteers on all these committees we appreciate them but there was very little knowledge including myself on a healthy tree an unhealthy tree a dangerous tree our biggest focus when I was on was the ash trees that were dead and they became very brittle so the most of that was take down of dead trees but there were some other trees that had fungus which you know I know nothing about that was the big spike in the that was the Big Spike and then it's maintained and then towards the end of my tenure they were planting trees which they hadn't done in like 16 years so I you know I agree I think there should be a check and balance just service the company that does our tree work I just none of us know or don't know what what should should take it down so I think it be we should look into that option and get some cost you know just to investigate it the other thing that's going to be coming next year with this new tree ordinance that the state's requiring is that residents are going to have to put in a an application for a permit to take a tree down of a certain size and who's going to review those permits who's going to review whether this tree meets the crer take down or whether they need to replant a new tree or whether they really don't need to take the tree down because it doesn't need any of the criteria there's not going to be a pool there or a sidewalker trees not dead Etc so it would it might be good to start that relationship with somebody who can also maybe make those decisions as well um just you bring that up and I was looking in the league magazine here there is a legislation now a426 and um it's going to prohibit the D from requiring municipalities to adopt ordin that control repl so is it a is it a resolution no it's it's a bill there's a bill in the assembly okay well the orance is sitting right it's not yeah no until we get a little further on that it was due in mayate already but it's that going to change question how long we contract the top of my head we went out for good last year well every year we go they about 25 years so I think it's healthy every every few year years to delve into the processes and checks and balances on any not that anything I'm just saying with that length of time sometimes you get a chance to be complacent comfortable with a company and uh check and balances and Che a bit that really what's on the table tonight is and am no that was already denied $2,000 yeah but the council makes the decision um well I wasn't prepared to give you a dollar amount that wasn't the purpose of this the purpose of this was to see if we could agree that we don't do any further takedowns or removal until we get this other person to have a third part was the letter submitted to the council no it was only to the committee subm to what was the committee's recommendation the committee denied the request right now have should be a council decision theit make aoun favor holding yeah I'd like to hold on yes I'm just curious about no I've not heard any issues with green it's the process okay hold have to hold off because this 20,000 exact thing for it they specify was it for the lantern they call they identified some trees that they said in the parks that need to be Tri or removed Etc part of the comment was they didn't want to be in the red for next year you know they want to wait till next year because they notify this year that they're out of their budget that was a common theme when I was on that they would run out of money and oh we can't be in the red and we transfer money May another another department I mean if if there's money and something has to be done I don't you always said Tre safety issue Factor but if they have to be done I don't think we should be ignorant either about this I don't I don't I didn't see a list I don't know what there has to be a list or something that request yeah they have a list they have a list again should be chance of a tree harming someone is so slight I understand but I don't I'm just hearing this now so I'm trying to get all the information think that you know if if we're really concerned about safety maybe we should close all of our roads so nobody gets hit by a car you know that kind of thing like we really can't we can't eliminate every risk and the risk is so small 100% that we can wait a month till January when they have budget I'm just just asking the question I didn't hear about anything so that's right two weeks $100,000 basically in january, I mean they treat the like a retainer and try to every month and they have nothing left at the end of the year when they have emergencies so it needs to be a little more responsibly designed so that there's a plan that's approved at the beginning of the year they know what they're going to go for and then if things crop up emergencies there's plenty of funds for that so this's 20,000 just came out like in the last couple of months Nancy or not sure n your letter to Jo was November 9th I remember the that was a month ago we hold off until next year anybody else need an ex session be it resolved by the B Council of the B claims on the 19th day of December 2024 the mayor and B Council shall meet in executive session from which the public shall be excluded disc matters as permed pursuing to njsa 10412 subsections uh seven and8 B7 and B8 the time when the matter is discussed pursuant to paragraph one here of can be disclosed to the public is as soon as practicable after the final resolution of thefor matters is there a second second second by denn all in favor Iain the eyes have we'll be an executive session we'll be back here here uh at the latest 8:30