Good evening. It is 7:01 on April 20th. Welcome to the Bedminister Township Committee. This is our regular scheduled meeting. Recognize that we have a quorum in attendance uh of township committee.
Committeewoman Fernandez, Committee Moreski, Committeeman Hickey, and I are here in person. Uh, Committeeman Rosen has an excused absence. Miss Raymond, may we please have the open public meetings act statement?
>> Yes, Mayor. Adequate notice of this meeting of the township committee was sent to Courier News, Somerville, Berninsville News, Whippony, and to all subscribers and posted on the township of Bedminister's official website www.bedminsterj.gov and at the township's mult municipal
building on January 6, 2026. >> Great. Thank you. Please join me in standing for the pledge of allegiance. >> Here. >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation
under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, this is the time of the meeting that we open up the microphone, the Zoom, telephone, whoever you're participating to uh public comment.
As been saying for a while, um you are welcome to make comments. You're welcome to ask questions. You're not guaranteed of getting an answer. You're not guaranteed of getting an answer you're going to like, and you're certainly not guaranteed of a dialogue. If you're coming up to the uh microphone, please
give your name and your street. >> Marshall Mabberry for Quincy Court in the hills there. Um my question and concern has to do I'm a poll watcher and in that capacity I have a concern about
um ICE and uh coming to the election places locations. I know this is kind of uh it would be a surprise, but this if you like surprises, this administration, you got to love them because they're full of surprises. Um so I'd just like
to know if we find ICE has come to our location as a poll watcher and we call the city, could we count on the city responding? That's that's my concern. That's it. Thank you. >> Thank you.
I do not have an answer to that. I know that any potential committee member does. >> Okay. Any other comments or questions? >> Seeing none, we will proceed. And Robin, there's no one uh participating via Zoom.
>> No. We've one set meeting minutes to uh review and approve. That's the uh April 6th regular township committee meeting at 7:00. >> Comments or questions regarding those meeting minutes.
Seeing none, second motion to approve. >> So move second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Thank you. We have three well two permits, one raffle. First is an
annual seasonal farmers market permit for Don Brew Works LLC at the Bedminster Farmers Market. That's uh May 23rd through December 5. A social fair permit to benefit Hope Chess Scholarship
Foundation on June 2nd, 2026 from 8 a.m. to 6 PM at Fiddler's Elbow Golf Club and an on premise merchandise raffle to benefit Special Olympics New Jersey on June 15, 2026 from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00
p.m. at Whidler's Elbow Golf Club. Questions or comments regarding the two permits one raffle? Seeing none, take a motion to approve. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I.
>> Thank you. >> Monthly report discussion by subcommittee chair, committee woman. >> Fernanda. >> Thank you, mayor. U. So, I'm happy to report after tonight's meeting, the DPW
department will be fully staffed. Um and um it's just a little bit of update for DPW. Um they've been working on the police cars and on the DPW equipment, lining the soccer and lacrosse fields, even though they were probably covered in frost this morning.
Um they're transitioning from winter mode to summer mode with the equipment. Um grading dirt roads, adding stone to dirt roads, building and loading garden boxes. There are 110 complete as of uh April 17th. and they've just, you know, been cutting
the grass, which is growing like crazy, and grooming the ball fields. And that's all I have right now. >> Okay, great. Jason, what's the uh 110 I went by after the JV event looks great.
>> It's getting there. Contractor showed back up. >> And how many signed up for the garden? I >> think Neil has around 160. >> 160. So, he's still about at 50 to go. We'll get it. >> Okay. >> April 1st. >> And when's uh and May 1st is
>> May 1st is the opening. >> Okay. So, once once again, um maybe this goes to Neil or a combination of you and Neil and Robin. Um when we have that opening, we really should do a uh a press release. And um
if we're going to do a ribbon cutting or any grand opening or the first shovel in the ground, um let's reach out to the county and invite the county commissioners to attend that um opening event. >> Committee Women Rescue. >> You guys are trying to pull one of mine.
>> Yes. >> Um let's see. Uh the EC met last week and couple things going on. The styrofoam uh recycle program was so good. They're going to see if they can or arrange another one. Um if that one
comes out good, I think what they'll do is uh see who has attended whether they were just Benminster residents or other people coming in. And then if we have a lot of people from other towns, EC will reach out to the other towns to see if they want to participate, join in, share
the share the burden. Um, but we'll see how that goes. Um, they want to do another reptile night with Aaron, uh, the woman who was here last year. Um, they're going to get in contact with her because that was really well attended. The kids had a lot of fun and we'll keep
you, um, updated with that. Uh the Raptor Trust, Debbie wants to do a u a meeting with the Big Birds and the Raptor Trust does have some time to do it. So, they're going to try and arrange something maybe this summer. And uh I
don't think we want to do it in here, but maybe at Hills Village North because they have a really nice um rec center up there. Uh let's see, HPC. Not too much. But the fun thing, at least for me, is
we have a new retail space being filled by Monkeys of Somerset Hills. I don't know if anybody knows that that um it's spelled like the band. Um but it's really a
>> Monkeys M O N K E S. Um it's a high-end uh women's clothing boutique and they came in just to get their sign approved and they should be good with that. But I Googled them cuz I had never heard of them. Gorgeous stuff. So, that'll be exciting. I think uh Amanda is the
owner. I think she said maybe later this fall they'll be starting up. So, keep an eye out for that. Um I was very late to JBH. So, I'm not sure what was going on. Robin, is there anything that other than
working on the the um Fourth of July day? >> So, we have the Fourth of July um that we're working out details with. got some feedback from the commissioners and um just rounding out the program schedule for the year. We have some stuff we're doing internally in May are the two
areas that we just need to fill in and where our calendar is booked for the year with programs. >> So we'll say on um Saturday there were two events on Saturday. So one is the um stream cleanup which I didn't get to. So
Don and Deb um >> y >> handled the uh >> the attendance over at River Road Park. They said it was >> very well attended. Um once again, we're seeing less and less trash hopefully. Well, which hopefully is a reflection of
uh increased vigilance by residents and visitors to uh to the park. Um so they were very pleased with that, but they're still they still generated a fair amount of uh reference. You can't help it when the highways cut through our town. Not everybody lives here and they don't take
as good care of it as we do. >> Yeah. And and well, I was I was going to hit on JVH next, but >> that's actually a a good segue. >> Um the highway exits um full of garbage.
You come off 287 and whe >> somebody did the one ramp. >> Yeah. 22B was cleaned up. Um it was interesting because I I had received a request from the learn about that, but we had already put that in process a couple weeks ago. Uh do came out and um
you know I drive the that ramp um every day at at the speed limit take once I'm coming into Bedminster. You know >> what do you think the speed limit is? >> I don't know. >> 10.
You know, I don't feel the GeForce is that much on this, >> but it was but it DOT did get out there on last Tuesday, I believe it was, and um it looks much better. >> Yeah. So, that's certainly part of the issue is that people driving by when
they come off the highway to say necessarily the truckers, but >> No, it could be anybody. Yeah. >> Right out the window. So, uh, >> that's >> thank you to Robin and Jason for >> and and the chief for following up on DOT.
>> Um, the other event on Saturday was JBH. So Paul Muer um who is a JVH commissioner uh and he's also the mayor of Bethlehem Township and he's also the
chair I think it's chair the president of preservation New Jersey. Paul is also the former um president or chair of the um Redmill Museum in Clinton and he's also on the board of
the Morris Museum. He's busy. >> So, he's very busy and and um he once made the mistake of of asking me if there's anything I can do to help out at GBH. You let me know. And so we made him commissioner >> and um he gave a presentation on
Saturday afternoon on um once again this is it was not completely dissimilar from the uh presentation that Spencer Peek did a couple weeks ago on the uh retreat of Washington from New York across New
Jersey to Pennsylvania leading up to the uh Delaware River crossing um for the battle. uh Trenton. Um and in so doing talking about how the um army split into uh two they took two
different paths and was one of those paths was through Bedminster. Um Paul was talking about um similar situation um and he was excuse me on the role of
Pittstown right just couple miles that way um and it was interesting something that you know I certainly I learned um is that Pittstown was regarded as sort of the bread basket storehouse for the
um Continental Army during this time whereas Somerset County had relative um frequent incursions by the British. Pittstown did not, even though it was
just a few miles away, it didn't have uh the river access or the road network uh that we saw here in Somerset County. Um, and it was once again it was interesting and the most encouraging thing was it
was standing room only. >> Standing room only. >> So about 40 people there >> easily. Yep. >> Yep. >> So that was just it was great to see um we saw some new people uh coming out to the JVH event and so it was really
really encouraging. Um and then that event was followed by dosent training >> and we saw some new blood coming in for volunteers training to be dosent at the JBH. Uh it
was just great. So, you know, >> phenomenal. Paul was great. Paul was a great speaker. And, you know, the one thing that impresses me every time you hear these guys speak, you know, we think in our history books about, you know, signing a declaration of independence, winning of the Revolutionary War, but nothing was taken
for granted. It was like it was there was no guarantee we were ever going to actually win that war. And you hear about as as the mayor said, you know, their incursions on roads that, you know, were barely paved in the snow, without shoes, without ammunition, you know, hauling guns across the Delaware
River. And how do you do that? You know, what do you say the 2,000lb cannons? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Or how how do you get those into a boat and row across the river? And you know, crazy stuff. We all take for granted, but it was really it was He's a very engaging speaker. He had the crowd laughing a lot of times. So, it was
terrific. >> Yeah, it was really good. snacks. >> There were plenty for other snacks. Thank you. You >> always take good care of us. >> I try. >> Committ Hickey. >> Thank you, Mayor. I wish I had some exciting news about board of health, but they didn't meet this past month, so I
have nothing to report on that front. >> Okay. Um, so farmers market, we did have a meeting of farmers market. Um once again we are um fully loaded with um additional vendors certainly increased
from where we were last year. Uh as what's um sort of become usual we're playing around with the parking playing around with the entrance. I'm sure Neil has reached out to you about maybe shifting some of those entrances further down
especially as we anticipate uh more activity at um at River Road Park both with the community garden and with activation of JVH. So trying to make sure that we can u have adequate
sort of hold the uh the lag or the resonance um coming into the uh coming into the park. So the further we can push it out probably the safer u so that's good. Um, what else have we got? Covered bags, shirts, shirts
recognizing, um, America 250. Um, and I think that's what we got for the farmers market. There's no landings board meeting since our last meeting. Library. I actually brought the library agenda. Is there anything we missed? We,
let's see, we approved the operating budget for the library. uh staff incre staff salary increases. Um some uh titles that were given out to some of the uh staff
and is there anything else? Put a subcommittee on looking at the children's uh library. I know I think we talked about that previously >> uh but Mary uh Mary Beth Shaw
will be re leading um that subcommittee and um no time like the president to get that children's library um back up to speed. >> Did they bring up our um community garden?
>> No. >> That's not interesting. >> They did not. Um they the only uh convers conversation about the garden at the library was that they were um getting some volunteers to help clean
up what's called the children's garden. Um there was no no indication about the impact of the Bedminster community garden on the library gardens. >> Probably won't be much because people love to go where they're where they've been. So they'll be fine. Once you're
in, you're probably going to stay there except for my wife who is obviously jumping to the Bedminster Garden. Um, giving it a plot of whatever. >> I think some people will if they can get plots both if they are at the library, they might want to get one. Yep. >> At the community garden. So,
>> yeah. And also it'll help like because I I believe they had like a long waiting list at the library so they can get on to our, you know. >> Yep. Let's see. library uh with le meeting of the agricultural advisory committee um talked about some pending
um pending applications and we also approved the master plan revision or the update to the aggre master plan. Uh I believe that the recreation committee had already reviewed and approved the recreation
part but this was for the agricultural advisory committee to approve the open space element of that. Um so Robin uh has that been conveyed to David Banish to then finalize. >> So actually um you sub corresponds with
Beth. She is taking one more look at it before we submit. >> Okay. and uh not necessarily a subcommittee chair um presentation, but last week I did have a meeting with Choose New Jersey
and with um folks from Somerset County just talking about uh Choose New Jersey is a organization um it's it's in but not of New Jersey government. It
acts separately. Um it's appointed by um uh the governor and this organization its sole job is to promote New Jersey to businesses whether it's relocation from other states uh
maintaining businesses in New Jersey or actually um looking for foreign investment in New Jersey. Um, so I we had a meeting with him primarily talking about the former AT&T campus uh and
working with um that with Cheryl administration and possibly in the future with uh the EDA to look at what we can do and what we can work with county and the state on
promoting the redevelopment of the uh of that campus. Uh we've looked at the ordinance uh the zoning ordinance that we did a few years back and we also looked about what the township has done in putting that property into a
designated town center and working with the legislature to get uh some of the economic incentive statutes amended so that the property development property would be eligible for certain
of those. um incentive programs. So, uh very positive meeting with Choose New Jersey and once again always a pleasure in working with um our friends at the county. Ms. Ray, may we please have the administrators report?
>> Uh yes, Mayor. Um just that uh I had this past week the uh Summers Hills Public Safety Committee meeting last week where I know you're going to touch upon that later, so I'll just um move on. The next meeting is May 14th. The um agricultural advisory committee met. I
attended that meeting on the 16th. Again, that was to review the open space and recreation um plan, which is a component of the master plan. Uh tomorrow we have a Crossroads Park pre-construction meeting at 11:00 with the uh contractor J Aeri that we award
the contract to. And then Thursday is our Bedminister School 8th grade civics day >> um that starts at 1:30. So, um, got a busy week this week. Uh, primary election, the ballots were actually mailed. Mail and ballots were mailed
last Friday, uh, April 17th, and the voter dropboxes are officially open. So, more to come. And that concludes my report, Mayor. >> 1:30 Thursday. >> You got it. >> Okay. All right. And tomorrow was the
other at 9:00. >> Tomorrow is Crossroads for Hope, the uh the opening of uh >> the new building. >> The new building, which looks beautiful. I drove by yesterday. It looks great. >> And while I was there, went down and
back to Jason. Uh looked at the work over at uh B Mills Park. >> Mills Park. And maybe Jason, just give us a quick update on that. I see all the the poles installed for the fencing.
>> Posts are in. They paved the perimeter. Um I was expecting the fencing contractor to be there today, but I guess they didn't show up. Um I'm expecting the fence to be done by the end of the week. >> Okay. >> So, it's good. looks. You can tell it's
it's going to look great just from >> I think Neil and I were talking maybe June 1st opening up, let things settle down in there. We get benches in and everything that we were going to do. >> Great. >> Great. Thank you,
>> Chief Community Policing Report. >> Uh yes, Mayor. April on April 13th, we uh conducted a fraud presentation at the Hills Village North, which I heard was um well attended. This past Saturday, we attended a touch a truck event at the
Primrose School. And coming up um this week, our officers going are going to be at the high school doing a uh driving under the influence presentation. And then on April 25th, we're going to be participating in DEA takeback day where anybody could drop off expired
medication or medication that they want destroyed from 10:00 to 2 p.m. at our police headquarters. >> That's all I got. >> Okay, great. Um, and Colin, I know you showed up at the April 13th and you said it was >> standing room only,
>> bringing out chairs left and right and uh, Detective Smith and Del Coy did a tremendous job. They went through a deck. They probably had an hour and a half worth material with the questions and a lot of requests for that deck. Um, a lot of people great questions and it was a lot of material they cover and it
was terrific because those those scams are happening everywhere and they gave some real life examples of right here in Bedminister what's going on and I think a lot of the audience was like, "Wow, you have to always have your card out." So, it was terrific. Great job. >> That's great to hear. Thank you, Chief.
Uh, moving on. Introduction of ordinances. We have none. Public hearing of ordinances. We have none on for tonight. Consent agenda. We have one, two, three, four, five, six.
We have six items on the consent agenda. These are items of routine nature. However, any member of the township committee may pull some. All >> offer individual consideration. Seeing none,
take a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Roll call vote, please. Committee man. >> I. >> Committeewoman Rouseski. >> I. Committee woman Fernandez. >> Hi. >> And Mayor Jacobs. >> I.
>> Thank you. >> The one resolution for individual consideration is resolution 202683. This authorizes the hiring of a part-time fire official. Miss Ray, you want to just take us through this? >> Yes. Um, mayor, I just wanted to um the
reason why I pulled this out of it is normal course of business, but I wanted to pull it out to acknowledge um Steve Dill, who um was recently promoted to deputy chief with the North Planefield Fire Department, so he can no longer be our fire official during the day. However, he would like to stay on as a
substitute. And um he highly recommended another gentleman. Um we had a job ad out there and um we made a recommendation that we hire um Mario Abruie uh to fill Steve's shoes. But Steve was with us for um 12 years of
service and just starting his 13th year. So I just thought it was worth mentioning. >> That's it. >> Yeah, it's great. Um and certainly congratulations to uh to Steve. He's been in his 12 years. He's been um just
a terrific um smiling face in the administrative building um active with our fire uh department and just really an overall great guy and uh we know that he's um you know first
congratulations on his appointment as he uh deputy chief in North >> Planefield Fire Department. Yes. and um which you know that's obviously his his love is firefighting and um we wish him
tremendous success and we're glad to still have him involved in Bedminster and we know that there was a loss in his family and and we also extend him uh our condolences. There's no further questions or
comments. Take a motion to approve resolution 2026 083. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Committeeman Hickeyi. >> I. >> Committing woman Moreski. >> I. >> Committeewoman Fernandez.
>> I. >> And Mayor Jacobs. >> Hi. >> Also take a motion to approve the bill list pending review of individual invoices. >> So moved. Second. >> Okay. Roll call again, please. Committeeman Hickeyi. >> Hi.
>> Committeewoman Moreski. >> Hi. >> Committeewoman Fernandez. Hi. >> And Mayor Jacobs. >> Hi. >> Thank you. >> New business. Any uh member any member of the township committee want to put anything up for discussion under new business? >> No.
>> Yeah. We we're we're loose >> old business utilities and I will keep us moving because I do not have any updates. >> Okay, real quick. Uh Somerset Hills Public Safety Committee. Uh Robin and I attended the um the meeting last week
and during that we focused on scams. And one of the things that we brought out was a um email And I think I I talked about this at our last meeting. Um
that an applicant who had received approval from uh the Bedminister land use board had received this um very official looking uh request for payment of about I forget it was about $19,000 or something like that. Um,
hey, if you want essentially saying if you want your approval to proceed, you need to square up with the township on these expenses. And it had the Bedminster logo.
It um had the name of the chair, the chairwoman of the Bedminister land use board. Um, it identified um some of our professionals and it came from an
email address that reflected almost entirely our new bedminster NJ.gov gov address except there was a dot after that which was really the one
immediate tell uh because the applicant um forwarded to um to both Colin and on it saying hey is is this something that that you guys are doing now and we looked at it and you know in 5
seconds we were able to say like no this is not something that we do this is obviously a scam but the sophistication >> was really significant and um it's certainly something that we thought that the other um towns
participating in Somerset Hills public safety committee should be aware of and that they should alert um their boards to this and and the fact that this is you know just just scratching the surface. Um and then uh we did hear
through the chief that there's been um some towns and it's not just Bedster that's getting that u but people have received similar requests for payment and and have made um you know how the prosecutor's office
or the detectives look into it and what they can track down uh very very difficult. Um, but you know, once again, be vigilant and um, be suspect of
things that don't look right. If it doesn't look right, there's probably a reason for it. >> Robin, was there anything else that um, we covered during the um, Source Angels public safety committee? >> Um, uh, there were a couple other topics
that we discussed. um you know what some of the other um municipalities are experiencing such as um you know data centers um veteran affordable housing just regular everyday topics that are affecting each of the municipalities but
the main focus was obviously the the scams that are affecting residents throughout of all the uh some hills communities. Yeah, and Chief, we did uh talk about the um the attendance at the um Hills North presentation and um I
certainly think that uh you know see the other towns doing similar events especially in the hills where they can get a good amount of folks um there to participate. So you may get a reach out from the other towns about how the program was run.
>> Um I have a question. So, the presentation that you did based on fraud, is that um posted somewhere on our website or could we post it or at least like a resource guide for our our residents at least? Um I know we talked about title fraud and in the county there is like we could put a link to the
website. I did I put a link through um and you can um go online and they'll send you notifications if anything happens to your property, right? So, just like resources like that for our residents so that they could um you know, we could do our part to prevent that from happening.
>> Yeah, I'll put it on on our website under the police side. >> Okay, that's what we have for public safety committee. We'll go through township committee comments. We do not have an executive session tonight. So, after we go through attention committee comments, we will adjourn from the
evening. Will Fernandez. >> Um, thank you, mayor. Well, I'm just very very excited about the garden. Um, and I I think back to 2020 when we first started talking about it and now it has come to fruition. So, that's very
exciting. Thank you to everybody who's worked on that. Um, securing the grants and and our DPW department, our rec department, and everybody really who's had a part in that. That's amazing. Um, good luck with the farmers market. That's exciting. You know, spring is
here and um, yeah, and the pocket park is coming. I mean, a lot of wonderful things happening in town. So, I'm very excited. That's all I wanted to say. >> Yeah. Ditto. This spring has started. It's going to be exciting for all those projects to get going and to see them come to
fruition at some point this summer or fall. >> Lot going on. Bed. How many How many free weekends until the farmers market starts? >> Not many. >> I didn't think so. >> Um >> Gina,
>> Colin and I um all attended the >> um PTO Spring Fling fundraiser Friday evening at uh Trump Golf Club. Um great showing by the PTO, by uh the
teachers, just a tre um great event and it was really good to see that there's u you know my wife was a former PTO um president >> and um I know Brain was involved with
PTO before my wife was and we and Gina and we've all been through that and the event is just >> fantastic. It raises a lot of money. >> Um always great to see Principal Swan there.
>> Great. Um, and really it was uh and and a lot of you know what's also interesting is that they're still we're not the only three kids have moved on but yet they still come out to that event >> because they support the PTO and what it
does in raising money um and promoting programs at the Bedminster Township School. So uh great event there. Uh, and the only other comment I'm going to add is when I was looking at the um checking
out the community garden to see all the uh all the VGO gardens being as they've been filled out and those are laid out. Uh there was a young woman uh who was walking from JVH to the garden
with her son and um as I was driving by she was coming up that that gravel drive was leaving and I just stopped and said, "Oh, you're going to check out the garden." She's like, "Yes, I have a I just we signed up for a plot. I'm so excited. This is great."
and she was and I believe that she was doing the dosen training at JBH. >> She was so excited um about once again that the garden was going to bring people to JBH, that JBH was going to
bring people to the garden. And you know um I introduced myself as as uh mayor and said you know the township committee you know we first got the idea for the garden back in in the beginning of COVID when everyone was looking for something to do and um
food supply was an issue certainly as as we were doing the um the food bank here. Um, and you know, it took a long time to work out the design, work out the grants. Um, and you know, she talked about it in her
context. She moved to Bedminster in 2020 and she remembers reading about the community garden at that time and she lives in the hills and talked about that you know you don't have the opportunity to do a garden
>> in the HOA areas and that this is um a tremendous boon uh to the residents and um just seeing the excitement on her face was really gratifying. So um for all the efforts it took six years to get that garden into the ground. Uh and as
Sha said, thank you to everyone who's uh worked on it over the time and thank you to Jason for getting it done. >> Yeah. >> Finish it. >> So uh that's what I have and at 7:40
take a motion to adjourn for the evening. So moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Well, here all in favor. >> I thank you and good night. >> Thank you, Chief. >> Welcome. Own.