okay um Township of parcion Troy Hills Township Council special meeting April 9th the meeting is called to order by uh council president kifi uh what time is the meeting what time is it now it's 5:30 so call to order at 5:30 the agenda of the special meeting to the extent known is as follows it's review and discussions of the mayor's 2024 budget recommendations formal action may or may not be T taken adequate notice of this meeting has been in accordance with the requirements of the open public meetings law by fing notice in the office of the Township Clerk and by posting the meeting notice on the bulletin board at the municipal building on March 27th 2024 where it has remained posted since that date copy of this notice appeared in the daily record on April 1st 2024 and was faxed the Star Ledger on March 27th 2024 can I please ask everyone to stand for the FL salute PL aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with li Justice for All okay uh roll call M Hernandez is is is on her way Mr uh muella here Mr McGrath here Mr neglia here Mr kifi here okay others uh present at the meeting are uh mayor Barbaro Township attorney Mike Lavery business administrator Jamie cryan mici clerk CED Madden and CFO Leonard hoe uh council president we have a quorum we may begin okay so at this time we're going to go ahead and start uh with the budget summary of administration and finance okay I have a statement to make uh council president go okay um first you got that my draft letter so I do want to read it into the public first I'd like to take the opportunity to present to you the 2024 budget and draft users friendly budget both of which are outstanding reflections of the fiscal responsibility and acens we have demonstrated over the past three years the documents are not just numbers on paper but our demonstrated commitment to fixing the township finances and to thank you for your support hard work and partnership in making this happen I want to thank our business administrator Jamie cry CPM Chief Financial Officer Len ho and members of the finance team who work diligently over the last few months with each Town Department to analyze and streamline our cost so much as possible in in order to deliver the best possible services to our constituents I'd also like to thank the members of the finance uh committee council president Paul kifi Jr and Council vice president Frank neglia for their many hours of work and input to help us produce a responsible B balanced budget that minimizes the tax burden on our residents and continues providing the services our community deserves we are proposing a fiscally prudent structurally balanced budget that corrects the course of the past and finally puts par back on sound financial footing and I say this proudly sound financial footing stopping the kick to can down Road mentality of the past positions and our finances are very well not only for 2024 but 204 uh 20 but for years to come and we have our order to he today the projected tax rate increase is 2.78 which is basically your tax levy that is roughly a $6 per month $72 per year impact to the average residential home fixing our financial position allows us to flex allows us the flexibility to not only make significant and strategic investments in areas most requested by residents Public Safety Public Works and Paving Parks and Recreation as well as able to to fill vacant positions to give our Personnel the back in to support these efforts now and in the future for our residents but also allows us to manage the tax rate and deliver a responsible Municipal increase that is this year an example for $6 per month the residents will see our continued commitment to Public Safety with the addition of three police officers best of all this budget does not have one shot tricks and does not and I'll repeat it does not utilize any utility Surplus the proposed budget is the outcome of strategic planning and choices my Administration has made over the past three years to fix the mistakes of the past and invest in our people the benefits of which are now being fully realized enable the hard work you will hear about in more detail tonight and the final hearing uh for the adoption of May 21st I'd like to add this um as you know when I came back in 2022 and I said this in 2021 I was running no matter who the mayor was going to be myself or mayor Sano it really didn't matter much there was a lot to fix a lot of a lot of headaches that had to um be delved out as you know um there had to be some tough decisions made and I had had no I had no issue making them whatsoever there was medicine that had to be uh administered and we administered that medicine and as you see each year our tax rate continues to go down it doesn't go down by accident it goes down by the hard commitment of my team of my Administration and everyone up up here that wants to make parpan the best town it can be which I believe it is um it was a lot of lot of pain as you know I've taken a lot of attacks and I continue to take them but um I'm a tough guy so I don't really care how many people want to throw some misinformation out on me and lie about me that's fine feel free to do all that um but I'm going to tell you the truth and I'm going to tell you when it's no I'm going to tell you when it's yes and we we really worked hard on these budgets over the last three years um we are in a fiscally sound good situation um in 2021 uh we were downgraded to a negative and I don't I forget which Bond rating agency it was and last year they brought us up to a positive with the budget that we have this year I wouldn't be surprised if we get moved up on our bond rating uh going forward into next year which is a commitment I made to the community and the residents of Paran Troy Hills um with that being said I'd like to hand this over to our administrator uh Jamie cry thank you mayor thank you council president Council um this budget is uh mayor HD all the highlights uh and we're going to get into a lot more detail next week when the budget is actually introduced this is the budget hearing uh the departmental budget hearing right now um tonight you'll be hearing from representatives from the largest departments and utilities uh in our town please dep Department of Public Works including parks and Engineering Department of Planning and Zoning which including building water sewer and the null the interaction between Department directors and the township Council in public is instrumental in fostering transparency and unified approach to committed governance this collaboration between the administration and Council down to the departmental level ensures that every decision made and every project initiated is a step towards providing the highest amount of accountability and ensures a consensus is achieved towards realizing the Township's strategic goals there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes with these budgets and tonight you'll hear from each of the Departments and you may hear some uh numbers that uh may surprise you or may shock you or may bother you uh but what I hope you concentrate on is that we have Paran Pro provides more and better services than any other municipality in in the county and we do it for just about 25 cents on your tax dollar so one quarter of all of the taxes you pay goes to an incredible amount of services more services than any other municipality uh in the county and what you're dealing with is numbers and increases and uh issues but behind all that you have an incredible Workforce from top to bottom you'll hear some of our department heads and division heads and I hope yours impressed with them as I am um underneath them you have Rank and file workers that uh are doing an incredible job um and only want to do their best for you um that's all I have right now I'm just going to kick it over to uh uh our CFO Len uh good evening um our proposed uh tax rate for 2024 is 2 . 78% or 62 mil 228 625 in dollar terms uh the average uh home assessment value is $313,500 or the average uh tax in dollars is $2,664 186 and just another Point council president uh online in our transparency section there is under 2024 there's a 2024 budget and Fin cial documents the draft userfriendly budget is up there obviously that may change because we're still in draft format when the uh budget is introduced that'll be up there um and as it is right now we are uh a month and a half away from the uh uh public hearing for this in May so that gives plenty of time for scrutiny um or congratulations whichever one you want to give U we appreciate both thank you [Music] okay okay we can move on to the Police Department chief good evening [Music] everyone glad you outdid yourself with these um I'm Chief pantana I want to thank the council for allowing us to present our 24 budget um a lot of thought and uh consideration went into it um before I I'd like to acknowledge some people uh mayor and and uh ba um for all the work they've done with us over the years um I've been here 35 years as a police officer in parsipany I've never worked under an Administration that's been as open to discussion as the mayor and uh ba and I've been through a lot of Mayors and I've dealt with a lot of them at a higher rank so I really do appreciate the effort that you put into uh working with the police department um but most importantly I'd like to thank the community um we are the lucky and I say this at every meeting I know you probably remembered we are the L luckiest Police Department in the county uh we get to work for such a fantastic Community that's very supportive of our Police Department um we hear it all the time you know keep up the good work great job and we're not looking for accolades but it's very rewarding to to hear that from the people in the town um and we're going to continue to give them the uh service that they deserve um uh continue in the future and that's a lot went into the budget thinking about that how to protect and serve our uh Community um I hope you guys received uh the brief presentation that we uh sent you um I I at the beginning I just went over a couple of the staffing issues uh you know how our Department's laid out so you can get a visual of what we're dealing with uh we have a 100 police officers now or this this contract I mean this uh budget will give us a 100 um and I could reiterate what the uh ba had mentioned Jamie um we have a fantastic police for and I think the the community should be very confident in the fact that they're highly trained and very uh compassionate police police department um they their main concern is the community and I know that's easy to say because that's their job that's what they should be doing but that sometimes is easier said than done and they really do uh consider this like a family this community and uh that will continue so we went over a few uh just a few of the graphs here um there's an extra one that we have at the beginning um our Communications um division we've changed some of our names uh councilman K you know the normal division sections we changed different names to go with uh more uh OEM uh statement so some of this stuff groups and squads are a little different than what we're used to um just a few of the achievements that we've had over the past couple of years uh we're still we are in an accredited Police Department which uh is constantly monitored keeping up on our policies and procedures for more uh best practices throughout the state of New Jersey so I'm proud to say that we completed a review in 21 we'll be up for another review in 25 and uh it's really it's really helping um we get to see what other departments throughout the state are working on and again best practices throughout the state so it's really really uh great to have that for the town and for the dep Department um we're recently involved in the arrive program I don't know if anybody's aware of what that is that's uh where they pair certified mental health professionals with Law Enforcement Officers so we have someone that's going to be at our police department at least once a week um so if there's any uh uh calls that have deal with mental health they're there for us on scene um you know it should reduce arrest uh use of force incidents unnecessary hospitalizations and improve mental health outcomes so that's that's a big thing um I know at a lot of the meetings we talk about uh grants and and production and stuff like that um we're going to continue the grants that we had in 20 in 23 we had drive sober get pulled over clicket or ticket pedestrian safety grants um and 24 we'll be doing all of those plus distracted distracted driving and others that that come along so we're we're doing a lot but when it comes to Grants which increases our ticket production but also shows that we're out there which hopefully will prevent accidents and uh speeding and all incidents and that such um we've been utilizing alprs and I'm going to mention that again later because we we brought that up in the uh capital budget so alprs we're uh utilizing we've had a couple of uh hit and run crashes and stolen cars that we detected because of the alpr so they're they're a great asset I know that uh Matt I know we talked about uh the County getting grants so I was informed today that we they are going to put alprs in our town great we don't know how many um because they got a large amount of money from the county so um that's going to help us immensely so with the with the two that we have asked for plus the five that we have and with the cars it's a it's a great great um asset for our Police Department um so we have in uh in the past year we've increased our uh school or special officers class 3es to have more in the uh schools so right now we have six officers in the schools uh class 3es which takes two main officers out of the middle schools which helps us put them back on the road or wherever there need to be assigned so that was a big that was a big help and that was actually an idea the mayor came up with in uh conversation with the um uh Board of Education so uh that's a big help and I know I saw some ped people here today they could tell you those they're very valuable the uh class 3es uh in the schools um we're going to continue our community relations uh Neighborhood Watch program which I saw cassand Cassandra here tonight um active shooter presentation uh all different scams and identity theft residential security tips we're going to continue that our goal is as we hire more officers that we increase the number of people in our community policing unit so right now everybody knows him Remo delandro is our Point guy right I'd like to have three or four Remo Del Sandos to go throughout the community and and do stuff and that's why hiring the officers and doing it the way the mayor has and the council with that resolution that you passed that we replace people when they retire and now these three officers that we're going to add hopefully this year will add on top of the ones that are that are replaced so that's a big help that'll move us forward um some of the goals that we have in 24 um continue to hire officers to increase patrols within the neighborhoods community relations increase public presence and assign officers when we get up to Staffing in more of the uh specialized units uh investigative Bureau we need more people right now we only have five which and that's with just adding one personin the last last month um and also our Traffic Division which we added two people we're only up to four but that's a big part and we have them concentrating on the on uh enforcement so they're out there uh writing tickets you can see I added in that presentation uh tickets from 20 Sues and arrests from like 21 was very low who were coming off of covid and then they increased uh in 22 uh and then in 23 they were even higher so we're we're getting there uh we're trying to as we've talked about it numerous times deputy chief Dow Captain weeners and also Captain Carney uh we have meetings all the time and we're we're trying to change the culture of the department right we went into a little bit of a lull uh a lot of reasons for it but we're starting to build it back up we have a lot of young officers that were hiring in the past two years or so probably about 20 um they're young they're aggressive but they need to be taught the right way to think and I think we're heading in that right direction um we also uh you know common theme throughout the county and throughout the state uh uh Auto thefts so we'd like to as we build up the department to get us we were in the auto task force we did have officers assigned there we had officers in the past assigned to the prosecutor's office we'd like to get back into that so that's one of our goals in 24 when we get these uh officers that we have in the academy right now back to us and then when we get the three that are going to go through the academy through this budgetary process we'll we'll start assigning people uh our training we we're constantly keeping up on training I know people have mentioned about active shooter we did a a great training this past year uh which was handled by the FBI we're going to continue to do that we like the fact that a Hands-On training for two days and then we do our uh computer training also but the active training is very very good the FBI was fantastic in the in instruction um and and it's it's encouraging to me because we actually have officers now that want to do that training on their own so they they addressed it with us uh you know saying hey we want to we know the department can't send everybody all the time but we want to get together on our own and train for that which that's great I mean that's that's what we're looking for so um you know we we just made promotion so we're going to send people to leadership training and career development you know that again that all helps uh all of the training that we get um so like I was saying some of the crime stats we had from 21 uh you know just to use the summons as an example uh in 21 there were 1641 summonses that's just the EET ones we didn't track the ones that are in books um but uh in 22 they were at 2362 so you know it almost doubled uh and in 23 we're at 4,241 so officers are out there working and they're getting it they're getting the job done um we have uh 23 case in uh 2023 we had roughly uh 240 uh follow-up cases we Clos 195 and we still have 46 that are open um and as you see on that one page uh calls Ser calls for service uh 2021 the reporting was different uh we didn't have a code for initiated uh acts so that number is a little bit lower so we're at 29,000 calls roughly in 21 61,000 in 22 and 60,000 23 um that that number is usually going to be around that area and I only assume that it's going to get higher as we do more building in town and uh you know more people moving in um uh so we added in this past budget we added a supervisor for our uh desk our desk is and you see in the budget there's a lot of cost involved in the Radio Systems um but we have a uh a civilianized position that used to be manned by an officer so we added a civilian position position as a supervisor who's in charge of soon to be 12 uh dispatchers as everyone knows we're not at the county we do our own dispatching which uh I know the mayor was instrumental in that years ago um we get a service in this town that other towns in the in the county don't have because they're into a Clearing House of uh other departments and people that don't know the town our dispatchers only work for pipany they only send us to ks and forany so there's more uh awareness of what we have the problems we have um I think it's it's great that we do it that way um so again some of the budget highlights that we mentioned were uh Motorola radio maintenance uh increased Staffing and civilianization of uh another position that used to be manned by a sergeant our goal is to if the budget passes to put a civilian an ex police officer in that position that position would be body War cameras handling OA requests um which takes a lot of time the body War cameras are like you could probably acknowledge anyone that gets arrested anybody gets stopped for a ticket they want a copy of that body War camera tape so that's information that has to go out that needs to be um redacted and you know so it takes a lot of time um and we utilize it actually when the officer was in there the sergeant we utilize that as um picking up on infractions that the officers might have done that we didn't see right that nobody reported but we might say hey this is a training issue we need to address this issue because he did this this and this so it's really an important position and it would be a full-time position that's a lot of work involved in with the oah uh request that's that's very big um capital budget we uh are asking for uh Vehicles which I've know I've spoke to a few of you about that uh 911 upgrades and expansion of the uh license plate readers added a couple more of those um so in the you know we've had a lot of burglaries in town everybody's aware of that uh Although our numbers went down slightly from last year they went down and uh we're trying to do more for that um we've had many discussions over the past 8 months or so and we determined that we would move our schedules around to accommodate when we thought that the highest crime work so it's not on W we think it's working um we're constantly monitoring it so we eliminated a shift and then added another shift later in the evening um uh to accommodate for that so we do have a lot of officers on the on on duty at a between a certain hours I think between like 10 and 4 in the morning we're concentrated so that's that's very good um and I know the public I hear from a lot of people saying that they see the police officers around that's what we want our way of my way and the discussions that we've had I think the only way to prevent these crimes is saturation of the neighborhoods and visability so that's what we're doing we want people to see the police officers they're not hiding we want you say man that I saw two cops come down my street today or you know that's great that's what we're looking for um uh we have uh consolidate our our upper ranks also so we promoted a deputy chief which was a bacon position for years um but we uh combined two of our divisions I'm going to use the term division because I don't even remember what the groups and the divisions are so sections so uh so we combined Patrol and the investigative uh sections together uh and then we have support services so we're going to we're going to monitor that right now it's working the way we want it to work um so uh we in our budget we didn't add that extra Captain uh that we had for about 35 years or so we were actually up to four at one point um but it's it's working um so that's all I have to present to you guys if if you have any questions I'll be more than willing to answer them um and I know uh Jay's here with OEM so if you have any questions about that or animal control we answer those for sure um first and foremost I'll just make some general comments and then I'll get to my questions uh I think this was a fantastic presentation Chief and for all those who you know prepared this for us because I think it really breaks down um what the ppdd is doing in light of horrible State policies that embolden criminals and handcuff police um I also think that you know between you and deputy chief Dow going to the community programs being accessible and increasing your visibility really helps put people at ease too to let them hear from you what what you're doing so you know thank you for your service to the to the municipality um and now with that said I would just have some questions for you um on the the the budget there is a line item and it's under Communications and other maintenance uh last year about 191,000 was spent and this year it has gone up to $66,500 can you help me understand what do you know what number that is Council it is account number ends in 453 okay the second page it's on the second page if you have the same budget book we do it's the second page account number ends in 453 says police colon okay great and and that's why I'm glad we have uh Captain wieners here so Captain weeners just came from that division this part of the budget we were in conference with him on uh updates with the computer system um so he's better to explain that than me so I we could just just address sure can we hear me so in 2017 um the township actually going back to 2015 we're having radio issues by 2017 after researching our options we decide that we are going to um basically build a new radio system to replace our old radio system by 20 that came up late 2020 it was up been running so as part of that um process we had 3 years of not paying radio system maintenance that was included in the original contract for the years before that we had a radio maintenance contract line it that was in the budget we just haven't been paying that for three years that's back um it's more in depth than it was previously our old system only had four channels that were um analog we now have five channels of fourth Radio site and as a result we currently have 28 radio talk groups that not just Encompass the um police department but also fire departments EMS all the utilities Public Works schools Etc so everybody in town now has radio contact with one another for an emergency situation every vehicle every handheld radio can talk to anybody else in the township um obviously it's higher grade technology it's more to maintain but that of course is based to keep our system up and running and if there ever is a problem Chicago you know Motorola from Chicago is in contact with our system and they can make um emergency repairs within a matter of minutes so that's the uh that is the reason for that increase again it was there previously you know going back to 2017 and before we just hadn't been paying it because when we did the the bond for the new radio system three years of Maintenance was included okay okay uh my my second question would be regarding overtime I see that last year overtime was budgeted for 500,000 we ended up at 653 and this year 750,000 is is being requested can you you know walk me through your thoughts there okay so so um as we discussed before um I put in an overtime budget based on what we do the year before um the past three years or so we were understaff okay so so go back you know to 2021 we didn't hire for like 3 years or 18 19 20 we basically didn't hire um that lowered our staffing um so that makes overtime increase because we have a schedule that we have to work and we have to man those those schedules um we were low in in uh supervisors too which added to uh overtime and we were short in dispatching which added to overtime um so when I look at it I I I come up with a number based on what I'm thinking our staffing is okay um sometimes we go higher we're we're never really lower um I I would assume it's going to be at that level this year uh it it's going to get better I could guarantee you it's going to get better because um we have hired more people and we have more Staffing and the way we configured our shifts it's going to add to it but there's always unexpected overtime I mean there's just things that happen you know when a rest late in the ship overtime occurs um you know a a big catastrophe do did overtime occurs um so we we trying we're doing everything we can in this budget to be not only effective but efficient right so we're lowering we're we're trying to lower overtime when we can but just in the past it was rough it it was tough um so we're just starting to come out M that now like I said the mayor hired you know and and the council hired 20 people in the past two years which is you know we haven't seen in a long long time so as the numbers go up with Staffing we're hoping that the numbers go down with uh overtime well they they they have in uh as far as Patrol officers with the adjustment of the schedule the overtime is trending down not by an enormous amount but it's it's trending down uh so our hope is that this schedule continues to work it has been working we don't think there's any reason why it will not continue to work um adding the new officers is only going to help uh but like the chief had alluded to unanticipated uh overtime ther car and like Captain weiner just mentioned we do have to also consider uh the election year and um protests are very expensive and we can almost guarantee there are going to be some level of protesting um at some point so it's a good idea to have that buffer for things like that and my last question would be you know given that we're expanding our Police Department which is something i' I've supported and I think is a great idea um are there any opportunities with a larger Police Department to um you know collaborate or work with other external agencies that can promote cost Effectiveness uh any thoughts on you know what that might look like no that's great that's a great question because it's funny you brought it up because I forgot to bring it up we we uh utilize the county extensively um somebody mentioned that one of the neighborhood watch meting he about getting K9 we used to have K9 um it's very costly to have uh K9 just using that as one example we utilize the sheriff's department for everything they have all the toys to be frank you know um we'll utilize any agency every every uh law enforcement agency is willing to help right so we utilize them when we can so it it saves US money in our budget not having all of that stuff um but like I said at the beginning I want to start getting more involved with other agencies meaning the task force assigning somebody to the prosecutor's office um the uh Secret Service had a uh uh un loan uh officer so all of that helps you know and with some of them we get money back in return because we get pature money which will help the police department um for non-budgetary items so so that's all great but yeah we're always looking for ways of making our job easier if we could do it at less money that's fantastic so we do utilize other agencies uh that are around us most like most importantly the sheriff's the sheriff banon is fantastic he uh very helpful and his staff is very helpful with us so good all right thank you anyone else all right I just want to say thank you for a great report I was very informative thank you I appreciate it good job guys I have a good staff excellent thank you thank you thank you thank you [Music] thanks okay moving on to Public Works parks and engineering department slow very [Music] [Music] [Music] slow [Music] council president just as we uh transition to uh Mr Walsh I just wanted to just mention that uh Jim's department is one of the bigger departments and it's it's really on the front lines you know everyone recognizes the police as being on the front lines and they are uh uh no doubt uh but um Public Works is on the front lines of a lot of the issues that uh people deal with on a daily basis fixing potholes making sure that uh trees are are uh not falling you know every two seconds and uh dealing with Ash boore disease and all that um making sure that our beautiful Parks stay beautiful our sanitation department which does a great job making sure that our garbage is picked up uh on time and uh efficiently and uh we provide more services uh in the public works department than any other municipality in the county I know I said that about uh earlier and you're just going to keep on hearing me say that over and over again because in particular you have things like bul pickup which is done on a weekly basis where a lot of towns do it on a a once a year basis thank you you're lonely down there I'll come shot with you come hold my hand good evening folks uh anybody have any questions well can you you start off by you maybe giving us an overview of how the last year has gone for all of your departments well the the last year has been better uh in that we've started to finally fill the empty spots that we've uh you know had so we're putting more people in um to get you know the work done that still doesn't mean that we're not there yet uh we still have a couple open spots I think Parks right now we're down to one uh roads we're down to two sanitation we're down to three which is a far cry from what last year was last year we were just that far behind um we weren't uh maintaining anything we're basically putting out fire so last year was between last year and this year we've certainly been able to catch up a little bit um we still have a little bit of ways to [Music] go winter wise we were good we had a couple of small storms but nothing uh nothing that really crippled us um you know as as the ba mentioned the emerald ash Bo is still there we're last year I think we spent $1,000 um on removal on hiring a private contractor to come in to help us remove some of the Dead ash trees along the street we just can't get to them um we're going to do that again this year you know it's it's we just don't have the manpower to do that uh you know by by hiring the company to come in at 50,000 you're probably looking at 500 trees maybe that that we can you know get with them they're they're uh you know but that's a drop in the bucket when you start looking at all the developments uh that have have these trees and we have a list right now which is almost two years old for takedowns uh and that's with these companies so we're you know looking to do that again this year to me it's it's uh you know a safety issue we get them down because once they start uh you know getting that far being dead they become hazardous and we just can't be everywhere once at uh sanitation wise we're doing okay now better than like I said last year um uh and and then road department we're starting to go back and get um besides filling potholes we're starting to get on top of some of our other projects that need to be done uh or catch Bas you know that kind of stuff being rebuilt um certainly with all the rain that we've had we've been able to stay on top of keeping a lot of the trash racks and other things clean so it lessons will never stop the flooding but it will lessen the flooding so what would you say your top priorities are for the upcoming year Services providing the resident services and having not having to cut any hopefully get enough people uh hired that we can go from putting out fires to actually trying to start maintaining things which is the right way to do it uh but that's going to take a little bit of time because we were so far behind with Manpower okay I I recall at our last budget hearing last year um you had said that our starting rate was too low and since that conversation we have since raise the rates so would you say in your opinion that has worked with helping us recruit and keep employees yeah the the mayor and administration were recognized this too um that you you can't keep people if you don't pay them so we were able to up the basically starting salary once they get their CDLs they they got a a you know a little bit higher rate um it has helped recruiting people and keeping some people you know there's always going to be a a bigger pot outside of the township um if somebody's looking to go they're going to go doesn't matter how much um but yeah by raising the starting salary it has helped us retain um some you know the most of the employees that we've hired and putting aside money what other Investments can we make in in your department that would help us keep people for instance I know other municipalities have certain equipment that reduces the risk of injury to uh potential employees that we don't have is there any thought on you know what we're doing to reduce injuries to employees and and bring in new equipment that um Can can really reduce the um I guess the physical burden of the day-to-day aspects of the joh we have a uh in in all the Departments we have a pretty good array of equipment to lessen the the labor and and you know try to keep the physical labor down but with any job of this category you are going to have Labor you know um it's just the nature of what the jobs and criteria are to to provide the services um I mean I think right now now we we are getting heading in the right direction for replacing some of the older vehicles um that's you know again that's a capital issue uh years past we've always had try to put in for three or four pieces of equipment yearly because then it just as they turn over you don't wind up with a lump sum of equipment uh years past we were denied that so we're kind of back in the same boat um we we are certainly throwing everything that we can in there uh to try to get the equipment back so that we don't have things that are 20 years old that you know uh they take more mechanical repair um so we're we're going back in in that direction if I may add plus we're looking at the um I know we spoke about it in capital the one arm bandit uh and that would reduce the amount of um Labor uh that would need we only need one man on the truck so we're looking at means of doing that but sometimes the topography and participan just doesn't work in certain areas yeah again it's it's something that we were looking to do um but again we had other priorities come up whether it's equipment uh that we had to purchase before that so we've kind of put that on the side for right now we're going to revisit that uh to see if we can do it through the whole town or part of the town or you know that's something that we're going to revisit in the in the future and and do you feel like this budget will address some of the lingering concerns that you've raised relative to Manpower to deferred maintenance and and getting where you want to be or or how many more years do you think it's going to take where you'd be 100% satisfied with all of your departments well if I had my way probably in another year or two we would certainly uh you know I can tell you parks for example uh we were back in 2003 we had when I took over there we had 30 people up until last year we actually had 27 people because you know attrition or people left the work didn't go away so I've I asked at that time not only for the 30 people but for six more I then cut it down to 30 to three people because if I can't get three positions why am I asking for six so next year um we're going to be looking at three additional people for Parks uh probably a couple more for roads uh and and sanitation so as long as I can fill the the uh you know address the services you're look at probably a couple more years uh of of adding Manpower because that's basically what we need the town's gotten bigger and for years we we did not keep up with it as far as Manpower was and and is there any planning with respect to our projected population growth in the next two years there's 11 apartment complexes being built that's going to bring in uh on the lower end about 4,500 new residents so is there any thought on you know if we have the staff today to address that and meet that demand or you know can you talk about how your department might change your departments might change with a uh very large increase well again it depends on whether the town takes over some of these projects or not it's my understanding some of them are private or we're not going to uh most of them are private so we wouldn't even um we wouldn't even service them but right now right now I mean you know if we have to then yes we're going to need more equipment and more [Music] manpower council president just a real quick the Kelly act allows us to uh deal with uh larger entities larger uh condo or or apartment associations um where they Pro they do the services that we provide for other parts of the town and uh uh we pay for that um an average basis um some of these agreements that we've done in the last year since I've been here I'm not sure about the ones before I got here but we're negotiating things into uh Financial agreements that say that they will be uh uh that the entity will be responsible for the uh uh garbage collection and pickup and and uh uh snow maintenance so it takes it out of our hands and puts it back into the developers hands I just have a question about the Green Acres maintenance um I know I guess this is for everybody does does some of our open space bers go to that help maintain some of the Green Acres properties well you I'm Glen I'll let you answer it but I know Green Acres money could be used for open space money not green open space money can be used for maintenance of um of areas that we like um it can be used for the infrastructure it can be used for uh maintenance it cannot be used for purchasing equipment I believe um so we have in the past we have used open space funds to offset some of the parks budget some of the you know get some of the projects done um I think Smithfield was one of them part one of the phases part of me Acres or open space funds help I was wondering if open space Scholars would be allowed to help with the ash or Gypsy tree fuckle that's a good question I don't know the all the parameters of that yeah um I know other Miss municipalities have done that but I'm just well that's actually a good question Judy um to go away we have to look into our ordinance cuz the Ord was amended in 2012 the open space ordinance so we'll look into the ordinance to see if it can be amended to do that but we first have to find out what the criteria of the state is with regards to using open space money to take down the airport trees um I know when we um did the um ordinance in 2012 that had to do with um building two high school football fields and and stuff like that you can use the money for that but but that's a good question I we'll look into that I guess my my last question Mr Walsh is when I looked at the 2023 budget um and I cross reference that with some of the personnel there seems to be a large amount of outstanding promotions some of which have been going on almost a year now do you know what the holdup is for promoting certain Personnel I believe we're waiting on contracts well the budget's number one and number two with regards to the Personnel um the promotion that that will be discussed amongst us um with regards to the promotions we will you know I'm not going to discuss it here in the open because it has to do with um Personnel thank you counc one more thing I'm sorry to to keep jumping but uh Jim mentioned something about uh uh the tree list and it being as long as two years that sounds very concerning um but I can tell you firsthand uh Jim is not allowing for a dangerous tree to wait two years those things are getting addressed immediately and I live in uh uh Morris County in another municipality and I live on a County Road uh we had a dangerous tree an issue with the tree and they left us waiting uh uh months for it not because they were doing it on purpose but because they're going through the same issues as we are here in Paran and uh as soon as that tree became an a grave danger they came right out uh so they do a great job um almost as good as our guys do almost almost not as I tend to disagree with you but okay but also um if I add into the budget here with regards to Recreation and and box and force we also budgeted for a a cricket pitch um in volun on volunteers Park so right it's in capital it's professional Cricket pitch that they been requesting and I spoke to the commissioner of um the county uh John crius and they're in the process um and they're going to give me more information on actually a professional Cricket field up in the county it's in Pary the um the property but putting a full fledged Cricket field in as well so I asked them whatever help they might need to contact me I have a silly well it's not a silly question what are Park attendant 74,500 Park attendance are um years ago we used to have somebody go around check permits um make sure the restrooms were locked up at night uh you know if you're on the field you're supposed to be on the field uh if the lights are on and nobody's there they would turn the lights off uh basically after hours after you know town hall and everybody's closed up they would go out and do do a you know a lap or or a route um we haven't had a park attendant in a good number of years uh the other the the last guy that did that has retired um you know but we leave it we leave it in there in in case we do get somebody to come in and do that okay thank you Mr Walsh being someone that's out side a lot in all the fields and all the parks and um as well as with you're a snow removal crew I just have to commend you and your department for outstanding work that you guys do um to do all you do with the amount of people you have is just amazing and you get a lot out of your guys and you just you should be commended for that you do a great job and I thank you for that thank you thank [Music] you anyone else thanks J thank you thank you okay moving to yeah that's the the Public's at the end okay moving on to planning zoning and building oh excuse me engineering uh the public session uh will be at the end at uh after all the P [Music] up [Music] good evening council members uh mayor uh Justin Lea Municipal engineer um you have before you um the budget for uh 2024 it's uh very similar to last year we try to hold um our lines as close as possible um what you will see there there really three items are three line items that um will be uh somewhat of a change um namely the uh Building Maintenance um uh requested an increase of $1,300 and really that's just uh you know the building we we moved into the building in 1990 um really nothing's been done to it since then so um slowly we're putting you know some Renovations into it some painting cleanup uh recently uh and really the reason for the increas is for the uh replacement of the lights the old FL fluorescent bulbs light pictures are failing and instead of just replacing one at a time it' be better just to come in and put a better plan together to get them all replaced at one time so really that's what the big increase or the additional money is for the building maintenance um also we're looking for an increase uh of $830 in the computer hardware and software that's just to replace the tablets are Road inspectors used in the field um they the ones they're working with now are about 5 years old they're starting to get glitchy they're starting to have problems with some of the programs and we're just looking to upgrade those to uh newer tablets for that so they they can continue doing what they're doing with that and the last one is for the uh Consultants um we're last year we had a a budget of $1,000 actually for years before that uh going back probably about four or five years it was a $10,000 line item and and the bulk of this is for a consultant to help us with um the CRS program and if you're not familiar with that that's um a program uh part of the nfip which is a national flood insurance program which allows policy holders to get discounts on their flood insurance based on certain Criterion and qualifications that we as a municipality do but you have to be enrolled in this in this program and um when you meet certain goals it's like a point system and you get so many points um you'll get five% um uh reduction in your flood insurance if you keep going you can get 10 15 20 and so on they're in in 5% increments um this is something we want to get back in we've been trying to do it uh we've had uh just a lot of problems with FEMA in the last couple years um just trying to get back into the program we got the data we needed uh from them earlier this year so now I want to bring that back up to that 10,000 so we have enough for our consultant that do what they need to do to get us back into this program and we're looking years ago um we were the the rating system is from a 10 to a one one being the best um I don't think there's anyone in the country that even has one we were a a nine so there was a 5% um uh uction years ago in the flood insurance policies we can easily get back to that and our goal is to you know try to achieve maybe an eight or seven we have to uh you know once we get into the program and really get going we'll evaluate how far we can go because there's a cost to it so you know with 300 uh policy holders are we spending more money than what their savings is in the flood insurance rate so that that's where that balance would be to see what number we can get down to and what the percentage is but the goal right now is to get into the program and then start developing it from there so that's really what that increase is of $9,000 just get us back up to that 10,000 um which we had years ago which we think will be enough to to cover the consultant fees uh and and the other part of that is also it's not just for the CRS it's any consultant we use if it's a um you know a structural engineer that we need which we don't have the expertise in or uh traffic related issues you know we'll call them in on uh sporadic basis is so this covers you know any of their costs but for the most part all the other line items we you know we we do a good job of trying to hold within our budget and you know you'll you'll see year to year certain lines you know will will uh overextend on one but we're on others and we try to maintain that um year to year so we're looking to do that going forward I appreciate what you're doing can I ask some questions sure okay I appreciate what you do because you do hold the line here but there's no shortage of work that you have guys have gone same with the DPW with storm water and all those increasing issues so how how do you guys do it really because it's just worse every year yeah yeah financially it's it does get tough um right now we are uh down actually two people we're we're looking to fill um one of our road inspector positions so the uh person left the end last year and we have an engineering Aid position which um the goal of that engineering Aid is really to um to be like a catchall kind of position someone that can be in the office to help with some of the storm water requirements uh but we can throw in the field as well to help with the inspections because you know with all of the development that's going we know we we have a a a large number of capital projects that will go into construction this year but also it's the private development that we do site inspections on so um you know the all these different uh housing developments uh it does get taxing um you know fortunately we're able to make it through the winter um okay but now the weather is getting ready to break we've already bid two projects and uh we just sent two more to the uh purchasing department to advertise for other so things are going to start picking up soon and uh we've been interviewing and we have a couple good candidates um that will help us and you know that's the thing we just have to you know try to be as um uh diligent as we can to you know stay on what we do to to uh keep up with it and uh you know council member you brought up the storm water yeah the storm water regulations for municipalities is getting harder and harder and and you know they they refer to it as the ms4 permit it's the municipal separate storm sour system permit every town in the state it has a permit from the D for storm water and there are numerous obligations uh and responsibilities we have to do yearly and matter of fact May 1st we have our annual report for last year due and it goes into you know what roads are swept and how much debris did you pick up and you know the the cleanliness of your maintenance yards and fueling stations and um uh stormw compliance for private and and uh uh public facilities and some of the new ones and I I think you you you may have seen some of the new uh or if you haven't yet they will become new ordinances that are required for us uh privately owned salt storage so think of any um you know uh Shopping Center or office building you've been to and you see that pile of salt that they have in the corner that they use during the winter time to you know DEC well there's now regulations that they have to have certain protective devices around it either tarps and hay bales and whatnot to keep um you know rain or other uh precipitation from melting it and getting into the storm sores unnecessarily uh this all falls on to us we have to do inspections on this we have to make sure there's compliance um every detention Basin that's been built since 1994 we have the inventory we have to make sure that that the the owners are inspecting them and reporting to us on a yearly basis yeah there's aot because your department does that it's just increasing so I'm thinking like from the outside if there's grant opportunities we have the Green Team resolution again but there's opportunities for storm water help that we I'd like to talk with you and work with you and see if we can get some grants to help with some of those initiatives absolutely yeah thank thank you for what you do both of you I guess Mr Lissa recently I I held a town hall and one of the questions that I received um I thought you'd probably give a really good answer on um the the question was from an engineering perspective specifically about our roads how is the town adapting and changing to meet the oncoming onslaught of new vehicles that are going to on our roads when these housing developments come online so can you kind of talk to maybe big picture from an engineering perspective what you're doing and how you're going to address that well yeah that's interesting because um you know a lot of the developments that um are being built um are going to maybe fortunately um tie into roads that aren't municipal roads you know a lot of them will tie into County Roads or state highways and you know the the the capacity issues would really fall onto them um from a a local standpoint any of the local roads we have there's really not much we can do to increase capacity you know uh unless we're going to uh start widening rway taking properties adding additional Lanes um you know we're we're kind of stuck with what we have and unfortunately that's part of you know the the this whole rub I guess with the affordable housing is you know towns were given a a number that they had to meet but there's no real good resources or thought into what the impacts are on those numbers you um you know are we're already one of the most densely populated states and now you know the roads are are choked as it is and we're going to be adding more to it so you know I think a lot of is just working with the state and the county to see if there's better initiatives that we can embark on to help um move traffic it's going to you know it's going to be tough and I think it's going going to be somewhat problematic but um you know with maybe additional traffic lights and um coordinated timing of them they may be able to move traffic trffic a little bit better um but other than that you're kind of you know stuck with what we have unless we really embark on a huge widening type program which uh you know creates other issues as well like a specific intersection that is now uh in the news is obviously 46 in North beverick with the recent fatality is there any thought on doing something about that intersection to make it different from what it is now and more safe yeah you know that's a state highway um and actually north bever coming in from the south side is County we we are on the North side we maintain it so uh I haven't heard anything uh yet about improvements and what could be done um but again it would be a multi- agency discussion that would have to take place to see what um what if anything can be done to to improve that um you know and again you look at that intersection you have uh changes in topography you have multiple Lanes in all directions um is your room for a Jug Handle or an overpass without taking properties and you know those are the the the tough large scale decisions that are going to have to be made they're going to make improvements there and then lastly can you just walk us through what major capital projects you're working on for the rest of the year um so as far as what we're looking to budget for or what what we're going into construction yeah what we going into construction okay going into construction so we have the north beverick streetcape there's two phases of that that'll be going in construction this year um we have our um uh 2024 Road resurfacing uh program so that's just milling and resurfacing roadways just to um you know uh improve the road quality surface um Edwards Road that's the South Side from 46 to um New Road will be improved there'll be drainage improvements and curbing um and you know the bwi's driven on there you know the road quality is is horrible a lot of that is attributed to just the the moisture down there the the the lowness close to the flood plane it just it it's something that has to be looked at every uh you know so many years um we also have uh pudding Stone uh Heights so uh we started a pro project uh two years ago in Pudding Stone Heights and it's a it's a Min are widening more so drainage Improvement uh Road reconstruction but we're also um helping out with the sanitary sores there we're working with the sore Department um that whole development up there uh is on septic so what we're doing is and there's no way to uh put sores in by gravity um the the topography just changes too much but we were're able a to put uh design in a force vein where homeowners would be able to connect in with grinder pumps um grinder pumps are actually you know a lot less expensive than them replacing their septic system uh and it's something that's better for the environment so this is will be the second phase of a three-phase project up there um we'll be uh getting into construction with as well this year interesting thank you thank you all right guys all right thank you [Music] both okay planning zoning and building departments [Music] good evening evening [Music] [Music] hi [Music] you like it's a start would you you want us to we actually have a a handout that Terry's prepared that would be [Music] great what I think Colette also emailed this to you I I if it's if it's the same handout it was emailed and it was placed in their folders well the hard copy was also placed in their folders as well oh good yeah they have hard copies in the [Music] folders are you looking to speak to me about all six of my department or do you want or most of the questions gear to construction I guess maybe you could start with you know in between the last time we've met now um I'm I'm sure you guys are trying your best but permits and cosos particularly from residents and business owners the the complaints about how long it takes are are still very much there so what what I would really like to hear is can you walk me through through what you're what you're doing or what you still need to tackle what in my view is probably one of our top three problems that Paran suffers from in industrywide now we have been interviewing for the last year um and every year as we have many people that are retiring as we have an older staff uh the market out out in the competitive field for construction employees is we're competing with other municipalities and everyone is in the same state that they're doing more development and they need more inspectors and they're increasing their offices so now in the past where we have posted jobs and there was a large Market of inspectors who might have been people in the field that were a plumber or a builder or coming into the profession we're now competing with other municipalities so when Terry and his staff were conducting interview they've just interviewed with five other municipalities so it is very difficult to find the the employees with the skill sets and the experience and then have to compete with the other municipalities we have done in last year as you'll see in Terry's memo we have increased the staff uh with uh three full-time and two part-time employees uh technical assistant uh full-time building inspector a uh full-time plumbing inspector uh part-time inspector uh one electrical inspector part-time so we have been in the last year increasing the staff but the volume of work continues to be submitted so that is an ongoing uh matter that has to constantly be interviewed uh we've had recently someone else retire so we will be doing more job postings and interviewing but the volume of work and as spring and summer comes everyone wants a deck pool and shed so that volume will continue and it there's a a lot to be said about the the paperwork that's submitted uh what you don't understand is that the the employees and the department and the staff have to struggle with the applications that are submitted the the perfect architectural plan does not make it through all the subcodes perfectly the first time so you'll get a complaint from a business or a resident who doesn't understand that their application was Des denied but it's their job to read the code and interpret it and to make sure that those plans are correct so we come off at times as the bad guy but we're doing the the best that we can to enforce that code and Terry can answer better better on that so part part of the problem which we are not going to fix I've been doing this for 36 years and the the plans that we're getting now are not as good as what we used to get so the attention to detail isn't there and we are probably I want to say probably 100% um of the applications that we get there something wrong with them it's very rare to get an application where everything is correct applications filled out properly the plans cover everything so we're we're kicking back I mean almost everything gets kicked back because it doesn't meet the code and we're not we don't look at everything you know there's a lot we have to look at but um so that's kind of scary but it is what it is and uh you talk to the state about it and they don't want to hear it either they're just like btle through get it done right so that that's a huge a huge part of it so I don't know what the answer is to that right you know cuz it is what it is and a lot of times you get complaints and this is this is the scenario and it happens a lot is you get a complaint from an owner right because they don't know that their architect or their contractor submitted something and it got kicked back and they tell the owner well it's the building department we're waiting for the building department and they're not telling them that and we don't tell everybody like we usually deal with the Architects the engineers and whoever the responsible person designated on the file so the owners aren't getting a phone call or an email saying hey by the way we're missing all these items right so they don't know so they call and they complain because they hey building my architect is the building department is holding it up and nobody wants to admit that hey the architect didn't do a good drawing and the architect's not going to tell the owner hey I did a crappy drawing and that's why it's being held up and that happens every day every day so we're not going to fix that we're not going to fix that however I think we're doing a lot better uh and I'm sure uh the mayor and the ba can can tell you that we have just in the five people that we've hired um in the last what for four or five months not even right we have uh significantly um taken away that backlog that we had um so having the extra staff is huge having having enough people um we have a lot of big projects in town as you know yeah I don't want anybody to go downstairs but if you go downstairs and go into the lunchroom you're going to see there are plans all over the place of big projects and those are just the ones that we have that come in so there's a lot of big projects going on and we're going to get busier and we're going to need more inspectors um so you know I'm sure that the mayor and the ba explain you that you know the state has put a new rule into place that if we cannot do the inspections in a timely manner they're going to be able to go to a third party and then we'll have to refund money for them to pay for the third party to do the inspections so we're trying to avoid that but as uh um Miss Smith said there's a huge problem finding qualified people like we wanted to hire an HHS which is the highest level licensed building inspector to help with plan review I can't find one we hired uh a full-time guy with uh RCS or he has IC but he doesn't doesn't have any experience you know so it it's it's very difficult to finding people because we are competing one we have a shrinking pool of inspectors cuz nobody wants to be an inspector anymore right it's if you go to a if you go to a seminar for cus for inspectors all right you talk about lack of diversity it's not a very diverse group it's a bunch of all white guys in the room and there's like maybe you know it'll be one woman and maybe one person of dollar and you're like where is everybody that they don't want to be inspectors and so we're an old aging group that's getting smaller and smaller and smaller and and people don't want to do it and especially if if the construction is booming which it is you make a heck of a lot more money building things than you can inspecting things so that's that's Terry I'm sorry to up to council president that's that's the other point you're not we're not only competing with other municipalities for these employees we're competing with uh private uh uh uh business they these most of these people are contractors on their on their own and can make much more money doing that than they can uh uh inspecting a property what municipalities are biggest competitors well they're all over I mean and and people are willing to travel so you know we lost one of our inspectors to HW horn one to Sparta one to Sparta where did uh Frank go um I forget but you know so Sussex County I mean it it's it's not at first it was just Morris County but there even because Sussex County is is having the same uh hurdles that they're raising their salaries to pull our inspectors from our area we lost one inspector to he went back to being the contractor yeah because he said that he would make more per week going back to his business than being an inspector that that there everyone wants a contractor so it wasn't worth being an inspector so and he said when the when it slows he'll come back and be an inspector again so it's not just the the the pool of interviews but we're also so competing with people going back to uh to their original trades so you had mentioned two problems earlier that I want to touch on take one by one the first problem you mentioned being applicants submit their plans wrong upfront do we provide firsttime applicants or contractors with an FAQ of here's the things that you might do wrong you know is there any education where we can help people not make those mistakes upfront so so you don't waste time they don't waste time is there anything we're doing it like that we do have some uh handouts and stuff that we try to guide them through some of the most difficult processes like if you're going to do a demo permit you're going take a structure down we have a handout that says these are all the PRI approvals all the letters and stuff we need but there's just it's so varied that we can't cover everything and it's tough because ultimately our job is not to teach like we don't have time for that like we we try to help as much as we can but I I and and we are actually it's not our job but we're teaching every day every time you call an architect and say these are the things that are deficient in your plans you're teaching them because you're saying you need to do this you need to check this section of the code and then they want to bounce it off you and it's like you know they have options they're the design professionals we're not supposed to have to tell them they're they're supposed to submit it correctly that's the way the the code reads the regs read but it's not how it happens reality so we do we do our best to do that I also think there's a misunderstanding especially with residents when they call and they have questions I try to explain that you think of construction as a as one whole and that terries doing the reviews but in essence there's five different sub coats in that department you have electric and you have plumbing and you have building and you have fire and you have elevator those are different people so that plan is moving from each sub code official so you could submit an application for an addition as a homeowner and you could be denied by fire and electric but it be approved by plumbing and building so there there's a constant teaching to the homeowners that that they think well you know I I got approved by building well no you you didn't make it through Plumbing or electric so we're constantly trying to explain that that their their plans that they're getting has to meet all of those and and back in 20 years ago when uh I started down downstairs you had one person who had multiple licenses that doesn't exist anymore you don't you know we're we're training as much of our new people and multiple uh licenses but that one person who has multiple licenses they don't really exist so that's a learning curve for them to understand that it's not one person down there who's holding up you have to get through several different different sub codes and because the amount of inspections because of the projects I mean I'm going on 33 years here I have never seen the amount of applications especially even in zoning the amount of pools and decks and sheds I mean it must the finances must be doing well because everybody's building and everybody's improving their homes which is what we want but it's it's difficult for us to to keep up on that volume yeah yeah because I find you guys have a a lot of untapped potential for the municipality the faster you guys get permits and cosos out the quicker we get Revenue in and so you know fixing that lingering issue is still a top priority the the second problem I said is something that I get at least once a week I get a call from a resident or a business owner that says oh nobody's getting back to me I haven't heard anything then I have to call Jamie crying and then it's this you know endless feedback loop do do we have any tools where um I would be able to log on and see the portal the the portal I don't do we do the does the council have access to it it's on the website everyone has access let me let me talk a little bit about the uh so I could say to the resident hey look if Jennifer kicked it to your contractor it's with him I see the notes here um because often times I'm I'm Flying Blind so we we this I'm sorry Terry we posted on our website that this portal was active um it was active for everybody I think what two three weeks ago maybe more than that and we're really going portal base and most of our department so residents can get on see where the permit is see where all this is and um and some of them we tell them you know we had a situation just recently that they went online they saw it was still open to resident and they were happy so I know it's a different portal but not all portals are the same and you know so and and but the the mayor's talking about so the construction portal which uh I mean we're actually quite excited about and so the last time that we we met and we talked which was I guess May right of last year um so we talked about the portal and come and it's been online and of course you know it's going to take a while there's a link on the website to get to it and the information right now is limited but um you know there's opportunity to expand it so some of the things that we're we're still trying to do and and we're going to get there is uh and part of the state mandate is to be able to do some permitting on online so we are going to at some point be able to do that so there's there's a lot of capabilities there right now they can go online so like if somebody wonders hey someone has permit for doing their work they can go online put in an address and they can see if there's a permit or an application in uh they can't see right now all the the notes as to why it might be denied but that's that's a step we're going to get to so in other words um in the future owners contractors Architects will all be able to go on the portal and see what is being denied and why so they'll see the notes from the inspector why it was denied so we're not quite there yet but the the uh availability that is there it's just that you know we we're doing it in steps you know because we don't want to just throw everything on all at once want to make sure it works and uh sure you know the mayor plus when I brought it up to a resident they they they said can anybody get on it and look at mine and they were kind of disturbed at that so we don't want to do that at someone else and myself and we can go on that and see where they are and you know that that kind of disturbing like big brother type of thing so one of the other things that we're looking to do is uh was approve in lashers capital is we're going to get some uh plan review tables big computer screens that are for Plan reviews even though we're still waiting for the state it's been years still waiting for them to figure out how to do electronic plans signatures when you send something to the DCA for review it's electronic and then when they you go back and forth and when it's done they send a paper set and then they stamp it so we are going to do the same thing we're going to try to get that on board uh so that way because a lot of the firms everything's being done on Cad and electronic they can send it to us we can review it go back and forth and when it's done we'll say send a paper set in sign and sealed we'll sign it and we get because right now one of the things as uh m Smith mentioned was there's so many people have to look at it you only have two sets of plans so theoretically two people can be looking at the plans there's only one file so only one person could be looking at the file at one one time so we're trying to get as much as we can in the digital format because then I could have five people looking at the plans at the same time so that's one of the things again last time we talked I said hey we're in a multi-year project to upgrade these things and so that's the next step so a lot of things have we've accomplished that we talked about last year and those are the things that we're we're still trying to move forward with and we will it's going to happen it's going to get better every month or every so many months it's going to it's going to get better but we still it's finding the people is hurting us and with utilizing the people that we have are we changing the the hours like staggering hours allowing people to come in at 8: or come in at 10: leav at 6 or even come on Saturdays to do overtime is that something we're doing we have increased overtime right but that's that's a stop Gap because you burn people out right so like you can't constantly be doing overtime and coming in every Saturday so it it's good you know as a stop Gap but you still need to fill those positions and we are doing a lot more overtime we don't really stagger the hours because the state mandates when we're open but we we do early inspections we do late inspections and we'll come in on a weekend and do plan review so and then with the additional office space um are we trying to get additional space here are we able to maybe lease a very small office so that way we're in discussions with that due to we have employees right now that actually don't have a desk wow so we had at one point the downstairs a lunchroom so that employees wouldn't have to leave the building they could have have lunch we've been eating away at that space little by little and i' I've been taking more and more all the plans are down there now we now have a couple employees that are sit have desks in the lunchroom um we're we're discussing you know options of what we can do but um that we're becoming I mean zoning is maxed out on Space planning board and board adjustment were maxed out on Space construction um is is sharing desks we purchased the inspector tablets so that at least if they were not able to have a desk to sit at they could do more work uh while out on the road and mark their inspections you know passed or failed and that way there'd be less time to have to come back in the office and actually sit at a desk so we have several options but we have been discussing what what we're going to do we're at the point where where we're probably maxed out in our space downstairs and I I guess with um respect to some of your increase is um that you're asking for I'd like to turn your attention to one thing I had a question on Miss Smith under planning uh it's account number 270 and account description is Consulting Services it says that 2024 the amount requested is $130,000 for various professional fees related Pilots this might be red development uh expenses but it looks like last year we spent over $75,900 on it so was that all us spending It's a combination that account in the past paid for all of your professionals uh your the the township planner the board planners the board Engineers that's all taken out of their Consultants so on a year where we're doing a giant revision let's say on the zoning order you'll see a giant increase in that section because it will pay for the planner to do those reviews so during like when all the overlays were done a couple years ago there was a giant increase in that line item so you are seeing and I think I actually have some of it it it uh we had to increase it because it's paying for the uh not only the consultants and the planners and the engineers but also the attorneys and there is some charges that are yeah for the Redevelopment are we able to get some of them are in the 2023 too are we able to get a breakdown of of who was paid for pilot work um I can try to try to run those uh numbers at year to date the ones that we uh already expanded yeah so so Jennifer every every budget that Consulting Services would be could be different could be different the M the year that we did the master plan the year that we did the master plan it was larger than this okay because that paid for the planner and the engineer and and we we met with the residents so every time we went out and I think you remember you attended those we you're playing paying for the planner and the engineer to attend so that year the uh we did a complete revision of the zoning ordinance and the consultant fees were high okay thank you yeah I think that covers it yeah thank you for all you guys do it's really hard thank you very much diminishing professionals do you have any other questions for any of my other departments [Music] or okay we'll move on to the water department [Music] good evening members of the township Council residents and colleagues just to introduce myself my name is Sean Andreas I'm the water superintendent and to my right is Kevin buus the assistant water superintendent the township of PNE Troy Hills owns and operates what is considered a large public Community water system Public Utilities such as this water department are regulated by the federal EPA and the State Department of Environmental Protection as a water superintendent and licensed operator record and direct responsible charge of the supply chemical treatment and distribution of safe drinking water throughout the township I must ensure that the utility is adequately staffed and equipped to maintain water quality adequate fire protection and uninterrupted delivery of water to the Township's residents and businesses which speaks directly to this year's budget statement requesting $3.3 million in operating and an additional $4.3 million in early Capital appropriation for this fiscal year and an effort to maintain funding towards our Capital Improvement program with $20 million currently adopted the US EPA and njde are constantly evaluating and updating the standards for Safe Drinking Water Regulators are setting new standards for new and existing contaminants that we are required to monitor for maximum threshold values are being lowered which requires an increase in sampling and monitoring and in some cases requires new treatment techniques regulated posos let's use this as an example regulated posos spelled pfas and stands for per and polyfloral alkal substances were unregulated contaminants until 2018 when the state adopted adopted maximum threshold values of 14 parts per trillion the EPA is expected to adopt lower threshold values later this year which will require this utility to treat all its groundwater Source wells in response these proposed mcls I have authorized a Consulting engineering firm to perform a posos treatment feasibility Master planning study for the township so we can properly plan and budget for the design and construction of posos treatment plants the water department maintains a staff of 30 employees we operate 34 remote facilities throughout the township which includes 18 well stations six booster pumping stations one seasonal interconnection with Jersey City and 10 storage tanks we maintain over 220 M of water main mostly of cast iron construction and ranging in diameter from 4 in to 36 in our distribution system includes 2,000 fire hydrants and 4,000 inline gate valves all of which are required to be inspected operated and maintained annually with certification to the ngdp we maintain read and Bild over 15,00 ,000 water meters and routinely accommodate and attend to a variety of customer requests these requests include water quality concerns leaking service lines meter failures High Bill inspections new construction inspections and so on outside of the routine maintenance of the systems staff also responds to water supply and distribution related emergencies 247365 our infrastructure is old and aging we have been aggressively making Capital Improvements to our water system for the past number of years we have 26 active capital projects at this time and is my intention to continue upgrading and replacing our assets and infrastructure Wells tend to underproduce over time and need Redevelopment and eventually replacement our broster stations require require maintenance and upgrades to the building envelope piping valving pumps and motors our steel storage tanks require regular interior and exterior inspections and need to be rehabilitated and painted every 12 to 15 years cast iron pipe is brittle and fails which results in water Bane breaks for the water quality accountability act we have created a 150-year plan to replace all the water ban within the township prioritizing most vulnerable areas such as Route 46 Lake Katha and New Road under the New Jersey D's revised lead and copper rule we are now required to identify and replace all lead and galvanized service supply lines throughout the township by 2031 Mount Taber phase one is currently under construction and phase two is currently being designed with the goal to advertise Republic bid dis full needless to say there is a lot to do and at this time I'm happy to address any questions you may have regarding 2024 budget statement request first off if I can just say I just want to thank you guys you know all the water main breaks we get in town you know these are the people that you see out there in the middle of the night when it's 10 degrees outside and it's freezing and and these are the people that you see that are making those repairs for us and getting people's Services back as fast as possible so I just want to thank you guys for that thank you thank you people don't care about water and so or they're questioning what's in their water um so your p is a big one I was going to be asking you about that have you you guys started or is that so right now I have two replacement Wells under construction which includes brand new treatment plants to treat those individual Wells uh the one well and the hills of Troy area was originally designed to be a softening plant um until uh we found that we had a posos problem there we did have traces of posos there which is currently under the current MCL but knowing that the EPA is going to lower that MCL from 14 Parts uh to four parts and knowing how to State DP is are probably going to want it non-detect we work with our consulting firm and the D and changed that from a softening plant to a fe posos treatment plant our other replac well um which is off of in the uh Forge Pond area that was uh originally designed to treat for 14 dioxine but the treatment technique for 14 dioxine will also remove posos as well we do have traces of posos again uh those uh the the level of posos at that particular location is below the current MCL but when the new MCL is adopted we will be above it um and the state's probably going to want n detect again but we'll have it taken care of there but um knowing that this is going to happen this year that's why I authorized the engineering firm to do this study pretty much to give me a guide book um and really the council Administration um and our CFO an idea how much it's going to cost we have to do it posos is there it's in every well unfortunately we have to get rid of it and and right now you know these two treatment plants are are under construction minimum $5 million a plant and unfortunately out of the 18 Wells we currently operate you know we don't have the property to build individual treatment plants at those locations so part of this study is going to kind of tell me you know do we do centralized treatment do we do a number of centralized treatment plans which I'm almost envisioning we're going to need MH so you know let's say we need half a dozen treatment plants now they're not going to be $5 million they're probably looking at closer to $10 million pop if not more so I see also you have two positions open are you how are you doing in your so um better um we were able to uh have a meeting um with Administration and finance um we had a a number of retirements since fall last year we we were able to fill those positions um we had a couple more retirements this year we were able to fill those positions we had a couple uh employees that um moved on to other opportunities we were able uh to fill those positions so right now we have uh another resignation uh separation from the township so we're currently um looking at candidates and interviewing candidates for that um and we're looking to to fill a an open supervisory position for our water supply and treatment section work could out for you and the cast IR replacement I mean is there an estimate on so a couple years ago when we did the Lake Shore Drive in Lake hawaa we we did about a mile or so of water M there at that time a couple years ago it was almost $400 a foot wow okay thank you and we have over 220 miles of water so so first I would like to thank you I went on a tour of the water utility not too long ago and and I uh agree with what was said thank you for your hard work for what you guys do gives me a whole new appreciation for you know water treatment and dealing with uh you know things that I really didn't understand um you know I guess you know you had brought up a lot of our infrastructure is old and aging and I'm sure everybody on Facebook always sees we're posting about the water main breaks that that routinely happen can you maybe walk me through you know what you guys are doing to you know deal with that challenge you know it's these emergencies are not predictable you know we you know we we keep our staff up to where we need it we train our staff so they can take care of these problems proactively you know we purchase new equipment replace equipment keep our vehicles and equipment in tiptop shape or always replacing tools and whatever that's just part of the industry water main breaks um they're not really preventable other than replacing water M which we have been proactively doing the state actually required that all public water utilities um generate um and maintain this 150e water main replacement plan in response to in infrastructure it's not only in this state it's around the country you know these this cast iron water M um I think at that when it was put in many many decades ago you know they had a maybe a 50-year lifespan we are way past that um but we have plans to replace um we are replacing we're hitting you know the the worst areas right now uh Route 46 being uh the first one um sections of Lake iwaa which we started but unfortunately when the state uh adopted their revised lead service line rule we had to kind of change gears because the state uh well the US EPA basically said look you can't have lead service lines anymore I think we all know why right um but the the state of New Jersey said okay can't have lead you got to get the lead out but we're also going to include galvaniz Services as well um and historically you know over the years we've had enough information and experience to know that for the majority of the township there isn't no galvanized we are the majority copper which is good there are some galvanized lines to very old homes that were like the original homes when there was tons of form land around them um but we knew that uh the mount tab section of town was mostly galvanized so uh we Chang gears and that's why we're under construction with our Phase One Mount Taber job now which is not only replacing service lines from galvanized to Copper but we're also taking that opportunity to replace you know older water M there as well um and we uh had a kickoff meeting with our Consulting engineer a few weeks ago to start design a phase two and again we have to to be in compliance with the state we have to have this done by 2031 not a lot of [Music] time and with one of your increases I just had a question um it's under electric is the account and the account number is 303 you're going from $63,800 to $800,000 for electric can you walk me through what that is so it's very costly to operate a water utility we need electric to run our pumps our Motors uh we operate 18 ground waterer Wells uh our wells are drilled anywhere between I don't know let's just say 100 to 200 350 ft deep how do you get that water to the ground you got to Pump It Up and how do you run that pump electricity so out of the you know all our our well stations our booster stations you know they're all electrically powered be able to distribute this water throughout the township we have six pressure zones in town which is why we have all these booster stations um our our I'm sorry so our two largest pressure zones is where all our wells live we pump out of the ground there and then we got to pump it all the way up the mountain to get it up to our residence and powdermill um that takes an awful amount of electricity to do that um and just like any other utility bills like you see at home um our main Electric fers jcpnl so I'm a jcpl customer at home my bills go up at home guess what our bills are going up to at the water utility to to pay for the electricity is there an opportunity for renewable ground pumps or not so much for there could be um I don't see or hear of a lot of talk about that you know I uh I go to a few conferences throughout the year professional conferences and there's really really no talk about that believe it or not so is there an opportunity perhaps I'm just not familiar with it or heard of that there's a lot of talk in renewable energy circles yes there is but perhaps not with the with the watery correct correct and I guess my last comment would be same thing I've asked a lot of other department heads uh you know where do we stand relative to the whole you know Spate of developments that are coming onine a common concern I get is do we have enough water is our water usage going to be affected by the new apartment buildings the new commercial development can you comment on that yeah that that's a good question there was a concern many years ago with that um and at the time we kind of had to put the brakes on it and speak to Administration to say Hey you know all this development where we getting this water um you know at that time is kind of where we took a very aggressive approach and rehabilitating our wells you know these Wells do start to underproduce over time you know they can be a newly drilled well can be operating at 100% capacity for 5 years probably not even that and it will dwindle down over time unfortunately in the past um I uh predecessors before me weren't very proactive in rehabilitating the wells and they got to a point where they were significantly under produced ing um up to the point where we are replacing Wells today um what we have uh that's not under replacement have been rehabilitated you can bring them up to near to their capacity you'll never get them up to 100% capacity that's what you need a replacement wealth for um but we work very close with a hydrogeologist and we have a plan we where we are not going to stop rehabilitating this town can't afford it because of the Redevelopment um you'll see in my capital budget we need to uh at least rehabilitate two Wells a year to stay on top of these Wells being able to to produce what we need them to produce and reh uh Redevelopment or Rehabilitation of Wells not cheap you know that's about 150 to almost $200,000 per well to redevelop a well are we on track for doing two rehabilitations a year yes okay president just a a quick point we were on the the scarce resource uh order and that has been removed due to making sure that these Wells are back up and running yes and if I can add um with regards to all the housing that has been approved prior and you know we have an albatross coming our way with the new affortable housing rules the courts pretty much dictate as they did in uh on land index that you have to build a well if it's for affordable housing I just want nobody to know this because it's not the town and that's what they pretty much demand it we upgrade our wells and the scarce resource order basically is that all water gets attributed to the affordable housing projects before any other project in the town so we're trying to stay away from that um but um and that's the problem with the affordable housing once the courts get involved once you have a special Masters once you have all those things they pretty much tell you what you're going to do um in the past I I know when I was mayor prior than the former mayor for me he he went through it as well um I know we we sit here and once the court starts demanding it you have to upgrade your wells and you have to build Wells that means they're just fixed on affordable housing they're fixed on getting these projects done and um we're going to be dealing with it in uh January as of January 31st 2025 and and to add to that sorry mayor to add to that the D also requires uh townships and uh license operators like self to run a calculation a firm capacity calculation so whenever a development uh is presented to a Township um and there's a proposal for development uh we ask that they provide what they are estimating to be their water demands um for that particular development and uh myself and that particular developers engineer have to run this firm capacity calculation um and at the end of it um it pretty much spits out a number and we check it against what our capacity is our firm capacity is with what we have in town uh to distribute water and it's either yes we can do it or no you can't and um we have it's been a yes for a number of years now which is why we're able to develop into the town we have the water the highlands being in Highlands conformance in the planning zone Amendments have been added to that um new affordable housing bill that considers the Water Resources so I think that's a first time that that we're going to at least have them be able to weigh in and it will affect our number so those that because we are in conformance they they're a resource for you guys as well I mean for precipi yeah and we should look closely at that and work with them to make sure we can get our no numbers lowered at where we can sure and you know another thing to to remember is uh we do calculate what's called connection fees um from these developments um historically they were known as capacity fees in the modern term is connection fees that's pretty much uh I I do the calculations for water and sewer you know it's based on a number of factors square footage you know if it's a warehouse let's its number employees that kind of thing you have to what we take in consideration are are the water demands of that development or project and we run it through a calculation uh we do have a connection fee ordinance um that we do follow um but basically that's that developers owners Builder contribution to the township so the utilities the water and sewer can continue to upgrade our systems when we have these big developments come into town because it does you know connecting to one of our water mains takes a toll on our water M you know we have to be able to pump more water you know to meet those demands of that development so those connection fees are important we are operating under an old ordinance I believe there's a draft ordinance out there um that we have to uh you know look at it again this year with Administration uh and CFO um but that just another opportunity for us to collect more connection fees for the benefit of the township thank you wel thanks Sean [Music] you're okay Sewer [Music] Department council president just a quick Point um Joe beckme who uh would usually be here he's he's there he is he's he's laid off at home but insisting on on still working at being on the phone Gina and Craig um who are intimately involved in the sewer department and know the goings on and do a great job and they'll do a great job here too thank you is he there can you hear John I'm you good evening uh I'm Greg Albert the assistant superintendent of the SE utility this is Gina Cal the office our office manager and uh Joe beckme the super attendant is on the phone um Joe wanted to be here in person but he just had back surgery yesterday and was unable to make it but insisted on being on the call um I'd like to start by presenting a few key items that Joe and I put together and then I we'll be happy to answer any questions that you might have for us uh thank you to the mayor council and ba for your support in Prior years and your continued support of the SE utility and our efforts to improve efficiency and dependability the SE utility is a self-liquidating and as such has no Direct effect on increasing tax rates a major accomplishment of the SE utility was the completion of The Pump Station 4 redirection project in addition to the elimination of an Antiquated Pump Station in force M its replacement with a gravity sewer based on 2022 figures saves the township over $30,000 annually in electric costs and over 5 million gallons per year of portable water at a cost of approximately 40,000 per year um this savings allows the use of this water for other needs in Township where there have been levels concerned with availability and the reduction of the carbon footprint resulted in a $2 million NJ DP sustainability Grant um we operate under an Egypt's permit and all applicable New Jersey DP and US EPA regulations unlike most other departments we must comply with the permit while some other departments can add or cut programs we cannot if we do not satisfy our permier requirements and discharge limits a construction ban May may be imposed on new developments of over 8,500 gallons per day for the construction of new pipes we operate 24 hours a day 7 days a week 365 days a year with many nighttime and emergency callouts we can't tell the citizens no flushing today the flow never stops uh on your budget sheets the 2023 appropriation was 6,499 500 so as presented the requested 2024 accounts total of 6 million 5 49900 only went up 0.08% many items are flat some have been reduced uh and some have been increased by the administration for services provided and uh increas increases have been requested in sludge disposal and chemicals um we are also requesting additional 50,000 be added to line number 301 for the testing of high and medium electrical systems located at the stream plant um we have our own substation on site s increases will be per Union contracts with total white collar adjustments minimum um we have requested 12 full-time positions uh some are pending promotions other are positions that will be created by the promotions and others are some new positions and positions that have been open for some time there are issues and challenges challenges when hiring new employees for a sewer plant and sometimes when anticipating loss of an employee we need to have a second new employee on the payroll to be trained so they are ready to go in the existing employee leaves also some positions require applicants with special qualifications education licenses Etc that are difficult to fill and even when these applica and even when these additional positions are included in the budget they will only be filled after our due diligence is completed and in consultation and agreement by the business administrator so those that's everything we put together and we'll be happy to answer any questions we [Music] have well first uh if Joe you can hear me hopefully you feel a lot better you know best wishes for speedy recovery I knew if I had back surgery yesterday I probably wouldn't be on the phone but um I guess you know my my question would be um the one line item that stood out was Legal Services it looks like uh it's on page two um account number 357 says legal um Dash other expenses last year was $6,279 th000 can you walk me through why the numbers changed um I believe it was 100,000 last year and then that 100,000 again we only um utilized 6,000 of it or approximately 6,000 um joer probably better that is correct I'm sorry it doesn't have it at the the the header doesn't have that yeah that just remain flat that okay so it remain flat okay that's just that's if we have to you know address any legal issues with any sort of projects that we have um Ono in the town or or at the treatment facility what kind of Capital Improvements are you up and coming are there um we do have one uh big Capital item that's going to be for uh much needed improvements at the treate facility to our Iration system um local dish and grp removal things like that uh that pretty outdated need to be updated um other than that we're we're planning to do uh update one of our pump stations and then uh but that hopefully will kind of be uh offset by a grant that we we received you still 9 MGD with with what's your uh we're designed for $16 million per day yeah but we average about 1010 million okay um do you have I see that I know you have a lot of the vacancies do you only have two lab people is that okay or are you look acely looking for we actually have four yeah one's one's out on like long-term visibility right now so we have three three people in the lab okay I must have read that um well I think two of their official tighter only lab Lab techs but um they've been trained in you know they work in the lab they they kind of cross train as operators and lab Lab Personnel go okay all right um I'd like to come visit the plant I used to work in New York City on a waste water I'd like to come visit your PL okay yeah of course i' go too yeah me three yeah most people don't think about it they hit handle turn on the shower turn off the shower the thing with water you know um you know in addition to the the plant we have you know several hundred miles of of pipe in the ground that convey the you know the the waste water down you have a fish tank there a fish tank there is there is an abandoned tank that has fish in it yeah you what about your Sledge disposal I know you're working on something that few years ago has that yeah we still have a long-term Sledge uh disposal uh plan in the works uh but it's just it's taken longer than expected um right now our sludge goes it it's applied for landfill cover um so we have a contract with an outside huler that takes that away for us so in 2019 before in your interim before you're here New Jersey looked that parci and said wow you use a lot of electric you know the plant is like half of pares maybe I'm exaggerating a little about but half of the usage of electric so um there's opportunities maybe to see if we could do some Renewable Energy savings there and I'd like to maybe talk about there is uh we do have something in the work we received the grant um from the Green Team yeah so we're looking into solar we're doing a feasibility study for solar in the surrounding Sharkies lfi good so we'll see where that that takes us great so we'll talk okay yeah absolutely and also C sorry the food uh uh disposal food um waste uh oh yeah as part as the as part as the long-term uh Sledge disposal we're thinking about going back to our digestors and in that case we would accept um liquid food waste either from you know across the way huge from Morris County or uh from waste management and that would feed the digesters and increase the U the gasket so even better that we want to look for some of those r that seems to be the one that we're we're leaning towards going to go with all right great great thank you thank you great thank you thank [Music] you it's good so we have extra time for the N right yes the N no we got we have two hours to talk about the N now ex [Music] sign okay my name is Joe janone Jr I'm the general manager of No Country Club East and West and uh if you when you see our budget from last year to this year we're just asking for a short a small increase due to fertilizer went up a lot of money and uh our water water bill is going to go up a little bit so basically that's it on our budget um we got a late start on uh membership but as of now we're up to 763 members and we have a waiting list over 350 um is in great shape we got a great greens department and uh that's what makes the attraction and we got one of the best golf courses as far as I'm concerned in the area any questions that was quick [Music] good I'll start I was say council president real quickly this is the last few years the uh uh no was not making money and this year it it it did 2023 yes we we broke even or just went into the block a little bit uh we kept an eye on uh but every month I was watching the budget and uh in previous years you know they were so busy they just felt like they were making money let's spend the money and uh I don't know what happened but uh um we we watched everything last year and uh this year we did raise the rates because we did a comparison as for the administration to uh check out other golf courses and what they were charging and we were almost on the bottom of what we were charging compared to our golf course which is in great shape so we raised the rates and uh and we have such a demand we still have a demand I was going to ask um do we have any projections on what we'll end with this year uh the new rates went into effect last month in March uh probably towards by the end of October after the summer is over we're going to do a an assessment to see how much we need to increase for the following year for next year if if we need to increase yeah so just to say to our staff we work very hard uh to keep keep uh on our contract you know cost on our budget and our greens Department uh we had a new new uh Michael walk moved up to General you know our superintendent for greens and uh he's been there for years and doing a great job and that's where that's our bread and butter is in our as our greens Department so so far so good maybe Mr jrone you can walk us through what your plans are for the upcoming year what okay so uh last year 2023 we removed that abandoned house that was there the old caretaker's house that's gone and uh right now we're in the process of removing the pool taking the pool out uh we're not sure what we're going to do yet either expand the parking lot um but that had to come out the pool was there we're going to take the fence down we're going to clean some of the trees we're going to leave the building up still because we're using that for storage and I I believe we're going to try to move ahead uh the mayor uh at one point a few years ago wanted to do miniature golf and that's what and we still have plans for that that they took a I think it was in 2012 or 10 10 or 12 we did we have some pic plans on it and that's what we wanted to do but we had to get rid of the pool first that's got to come out and that whole area it's got to get cleaned up but miniature golf would be definitely a plus and a big money maker do you know uh what the plan might be for working on drainage on some of the um some of the sand traps I think aren't there certain holes that continue to be a problem for us uh yes uh our Michael's working on that now I don't have an answer for you but uh he's he did a lot of work over the winter time uh we did a lot of tree trimming we didn't remove any trees this year did a lot some tree trimming especially at the least uh some of the some of the the traps you said were having issues with drainage so uh I believe a lot of some of that was addressed but I can get you an answer for that if you like yeah no I think it looks great I'm looking forward to setting my my first tea time for the season okay and uh you know really excited at you know how the nlls turned around so keep up the good work thank you any other questions for Mr jro all right four thanks Jee Paul see you see you one day all right all right at this time if we could just take a five minute break before we go into the open 63 now so so um before we go we get a motion yeah can I had a motion who who made the motion so Mr Hernandez oh Mr K made the motion Mr Hernandez seconded roll call Mr Hernandez yes Mr Mella Mr McGrath m Nea yes Mr K we're adjourned well we're single stream is a choice and the last record I had is back in 2019 and we were paying uh tipping fees we were paying 9785 a ton and our bill back then uh precip tonnage was 19,1 32 tons time 9785 1,872 ,6 that's a lot of money and I suspect now it's probably at least 2 million and what this town needs is not only more police we need sanitation inspectors that actually find people who are repeated offenders because the recycle law has been in effect since 1987 there's people recycling before then but it's a failure and the one thing I didn't hear was plastic plastic is a disaster no one wants it and when we see the town these barrels look like ice cream cones and plastic nobody wants that stuff so that corporate convenient their waste that they put on us is actually costing us and I would suspect that we're not getting anything back we're actually spending more money than than uh you know for our waste and what we're actually getting in return but Municipal leaders should encourage the easiest materials to recycle are paper wood cardboard and aluminum nobody wants glass and plastic anymore it's a joke that recycle symbol they put on here was a joke from day one one to pass the responsibility off to you all right um uh switch channels I think what by hearing the great thing here from the water department that was the most uh one of the most powerful things I heard in a long time about our water I think we should look into the storm water utility all that runoff winds up in our water it's only a matter of time before everything winds up in the water we need to protect our groundwater recharge areas which we haven't done in the past and we need that storm water utility and like I said it has a loophole a good loophole that makes it comes back to where you put green infrastructure that helps keep the water clean so it doesn't go to General Revenue it goes to improving your impervious uh Pavements uh mostly large corporate uh impervious services and parking lot and for the null I'd like to know have they made any progress are they continuing the river friendly program which we we've been trying to initiate now for years and if they dig up that pool over there if they don't put the mini golf course there they should make a beautiful rain garden over there at the null with the benches and after the game you can sit down with your sweetheart and look at the flowers while you're when you're done golfing and they have Ramstein beer up at the golf course now that that's a plus and once you get a taste of this beer it should draw a lot of people up there all right uh that's all I have to say thank you all right Nick thank you anyone else anyone no one else make a motion to close motion to close motion made by Mr neglia seconded By Me Miss Hernandez roll call M Hernandez yes Mr uh McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia Mr kifi yes public session is closed motion to adour motion made by Mr neglia can I get a second Mr herandez seconded the motion uh roll call Mr Hernandez Mr McGrath yes Mr Mella yes Mr neglia Mr Ki yes we're Jour to have a great night I'd like to just again thank all the department heads for coming tonight thank you very much