evening and welcome to the beder township committee meeting this is our regularly scheduled Tuesday meeting February 18 2025 recognize that we have a full attendance by the Bedminster Township committee here in
person committee man hickey committee woman rusy committee woman Fernandez and participating remote via Zoom committeeman Doug Stevenson hi Doug and we have a special guest today stand in for attorney Bardo Attorney John Mars
John Mars and John you live in bster welcome M Ray may we please have the open public meetings act statement yes mayor adequate notice of this meeting of the township committee was sent to the ker news Somerville bernon withy and to
all subscribers and posted count Municipal Building on January 7 2025 great please join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the of the United States of America and to the for it stands one nation God
indivisible and justice for all this is the time of the meeting that we open up the microphone or the zoom session up to public comment any member of public wish make a statement ask a question no answers are guaranteed now
is your opportunity to do so no one in the audience is raising their hand and unless Chief Bernardo wishes to make a statement I don't think I see any public
comments moving on we have two sets of meeting minutes to approve February 3rd Township committee meeting and February 10th budget work session I comments from TC take a motion to approve the minutes the copy of the
February 10th aren't in here not I did send them out still motion to approve the minutes I'll make that motion second all in favor I thank you we have
one two three four five six seven eight permits and Raffles to consider um so let's run through if you don't mind we do the other ones I know Rob from Advance is going to be coming for the special use permit okay so we'll
hold we'll hold special use permit a off and we'll proceed to um he on you're to go some some other permits what you want you want to catch
your breath I'm good you ready good yes sir you sure yes sir okay EX hello everyone so we will consider special use permit uh a and this is for advanced
realy located at 1450 rout 206 this is for temporary signage at the fresh head headquarters construction site this special use permit would run through May 31 2025 the material for the special use
permit is in your binders and have seen it um it's part of the package that Robin sent out earlier so we do have Rob paret from Advance realy uh to walk us through what's being
requested so Rob um turn over to you thank you mayor Jacobs um committee members thank you for having me tonight uh we're really excited about the way that uh that the project is progressing the pr pet building is is coming together uh though it is hidden behind
tarps for now so for a grand reveal um come springtime um the the request is really just uh couple couple reasons one to let everyone know what's going on I think uh you to just announce this is the future
home of fresh pet um but also to give a acknowledgement to the general contractor Iron Hill construction management and Bo lender connect One Bank uh for for making this this project a reality so um you hoping that this
won't be up even through we we hope to have that fence down well before the end of May um but yeah the idea is to keep it simple these are 3 foot by 6 foot we would attach them as one strip so it would look as if it's a single 3 foot by
24 foot sign um but uh it'll be relatively um unapproved s of facing 206 and uh just so know what's going on Robin can you um can you go to your
email so that we can put on the screen I can't access email from this computer I'm so sorry I'm happy to share photos with yeah sure okay I think that'd be good so I just sure that camera's going
to pick this up so one for future home of fresh pet Iron Hill as the contractor doing construction Advance as a property
owner connect one as I'm assume they're doing the uh constru construction lender yes and so everyone can get a sense of what this would look like four 3x6 banners up against the fence
and the reason that this is a special use permit is because the size of the banners and the duration of the um requested time does not comport with our sign
ordinance okay questions for Mr K any lighting no okay I think it will be helpful because all bedminister has seen that building go up and I think half of them have asked us what's going on now I know I almost feel like we need another sign
that that explains why the building is wrapped because we get that it is cold yes warm but there are there are windows now installed behind that R yes it really will be like a grand reveal when that thing comes down she
gonna say move that is yes sir great thank you all right no more questions for Mr CET okay let's take this individually um take a motion to approve the special
use permit for advanced realy for the temporary signage through May 31 20125 so moved second all in favor St is going to on that please yes I already have
okay Rob thank you very much forward to welcoming you to the Grand reveal yeah we excited have a nice night thank you to thanks Rob moving on with permits and Raffles annual seasonal Farm Market permit for
Burt M Cider at the Bedminster Farmers Market at River Road Park would that be what's what would that be haven't been approved yet I don't believe the Farmers Market has approved anyone se but I guess um in anticipation of
being approved then next is an annual seasonal Farm Market permit for Sky Acres Winery at bmin Farmers Market located at River Road Park next the social Fair permit to benefit the friends of the Clarence Dyan Public Library on May 3rd 2025 from 5:
to 7: p.m. at Clarence still in public library a social Affair permit to benefit expect miracles foundation on September 29 2025 from 7:30 a.m. to 400 p.m. at Fiddler hille Country
Club a social Fair permit to benefit Hope Chest Scholarship Foundation on June 3rd 2025 from 11:00 a.m to 6: pm at F El Country Club an off premise 5050 raffle to benefit the Willows school May
19 2025 at 2 pm located at Hamilton farm he Club and an off premise 1550 raffle to benefits Pottersville Volunteer Fire Company on December 10 2025 at 8m
located at the pville Volunteer Fire Company any questions or comments regarding those permits and the two Raffles see none take a motion to approve them on mass so moved second all
in favor okay we're go to monthly report discussions by subcommittee chair committee woman hernandes oh thank you mayor I have no significant update we're working on Camp believe it or not already even some Fall Fest we we've uh
the band for Fall Fest oh great yeah so um just you know working on some things but no significant updates we haven't had a meeting so I'll let you know as we have updates okay that's it thank you committee woman moresi thank you mayor good evening everybody some things to look forward to with our environmental
commission um first thing that they are working with Mike vancl I don't know if anybody knows that name but he's the Strike Team program director from Friends of Hope ball Valley open space and he is in charge of helping us with invasive species so the EC is going to
be doing a program headed by sort of headed by Mike he's going to send us in a direction and I hope hopefully get some of our local Cub Scouts or schools involved and uh clean up some of our parks where we need some invasive species pulled out and cleaned out um
the the initial um scouting out of the properties uh will probably happen in late late May early June so this will be a summertime project um more info to come um one thing uh EC has been working
on um is uh a program to help recycle styrofoam we've looked into it um on many occasions and it's looking like this actually might happen this year um we're going to be working with DPW and uh it'll be a small program to
start with um hopefully DPW will be able to help us on a um mul waste day uh EC will be providing the labor to collect the styrofoam um and it will go to a a recycling place I believe in Middle sex
County somewhere um so we'll we'll start that program more information on that to come as well but um that's a program that many people have been interested in in having getting rid of the styrofoam um so we'll see where that goes um uh last thing is just the
announcement of the stream cleanup by R and headquarters we do that every year um Baron headquarters organizes a bunch of spaces all around area and they uh dig in and clean up a bunch of the the uh stream streams EC has been um in
charge of the one of the Bedminster sites for the last couple of years and uh so we're looking forward to that and put that on the calendar on April 12th of this year 12th more information to come but it will be um I'm pretty sure
as usual sign up online with r and headquarters but I'll get you more information as we closer and that's all I have okay thank you thank you mayor good evening all uh why you and I have a meeting tomorrow for of Health we have a meeting on
Thursday where at least one application will be heard and we also have a board of ed meeting on Thursday I just want to mention that Spring Fling tickets are now on sale at the Bedminster pto's website is scheduled for Friday April 11th from 7 to 11: p.m. always a fun time and a great way to support
bedminister school and mayor that's all I have okay committ Stevenson thank you mayor good evening everybody sorry I'm not there with you in person today um on behalf of DPW uh Jason reports obviously the snow fall recently um that's keeping
everybody pretty busy um but uh great job again by DPW and everybody down there getting everything cleared up as quickly as it fell um River Road they're doing some ation so uh hopefully we'll see some improved growth this spring um
Jason reports that we've got a D inspection uh re that received a very positive review I'll let him speak a little bit more about it next time but I got a positive review from uh the state uh continues to work on our dirt road
repairs uh pothole repairs of course this time of year and with the storm came some additional tree cleanup that was unexpected so our folks have been out there uh doing some tree removal and cleanup so I've been very busy last couple weeks
uh with Mother Nature keeping us occupied and then on historic PR we've got a a meeting coming up later this month so I'll report on that at another meeting thanks man that's all I've got okay thank you so as uh commit hickey mentioned we
have a live board meeting coming up this week there is no land use board uh meeting scheduled for February uh and it looks like uh there will not be a land use board meeting for the first week in
March there are no pending applications that are ready for a hearing so um it's been a very quiet time for the um for the L sport uh last week we did have a meeting of the sewer advisory
commission and it was perhaps one of the longer sewer Advisory board meetings we've had in a very long time uh we covered many different topics one of which was um looking at the 2025 bills uh the way that the billing cycle works
for uh the Bedminster sewer and just once again to clarify that this is not the direct billing uh for the hills and for folks in plaman who get their bills directly through New Jersey American
Water this is primarily for uh Bedminster Village um this area up here on Somerville Road um Lucas Brook so traditionally uh the bills are based
on water consumption for uh the beginning of the year and the end of the year avoiding the uh water consumption rates when people may be watering their lawns or pools or water consumption is not
necess necessarily correlated to sewer use in 2024 New Jersey American Water did some estimated filling um for August and then did a catchup um based on actual flow for August
September I'm sorry yes for August September and it was a dry summer so those numbers were abnormally High so this essentially the September catchup
pushed that quarter the September October November what what you know end of the month I'm sorry the end of the year push those numbers up higher than would normally be associated with
um that time period so the sewer Advisory Board is looking at if that we can adjust the sewer billing to essentially get rid of that Spike which in some cases could
actually um maybe double maybe not double but PR close to it uh the sewer bills for 2025 so we're being a little creative and I do want to um uh point out Miss Ray who brought this to our attention
and recognized that there's um some irregularities is based upon that August September time period so thank you uh Robin once again for pointing that out and the SE Advisory Board is going to make some
recommendations back to the township committee on how those bills should be adjusted also during that meeting we um talked about some sewer repairs uh there's some manholes along Main Street uh that are in disrepair and may need to
be replaced particularly up by Delicious Heights where Hillside hits um Main Street we also got an update on the pump station project right across the parking lot um and uh it's expected that we'll
be breaking ground on that soon very soon uh and then we also talked about an issue that's been brought up many times before uh um the sewer extension bring sewer
to Deer Haven Old Dutch Berkshire court and ski hill and we went through the issues again that you're looking at properties um that are that were probably well here we go U we some very
old Aerials that were dropped off yeah um my guess is 50s and 60s so we're looking at properties that are 70 years old um you know One Acre Properties maybe a little over One Acre
Properties um ski hill is on a hill Old Dutch birkshire de Haven they're on a hill so even if you have more than an acre um you don't have a lot of necessarily usable land so a lot
of these properties may be on their second septic system and do not have room to install a third septic system mounding is probably not um
available and so the choice is dig up maybe quarter acre of your yard to put a new septic system in when existing ones begin to fail um and this could have some
environmental consequences because at the bottom of the hill is the PAC Brook and um you know I think we need to once again uh take a hard look at what can we do to bring sewer to these neighborhoods
because sooner or later we're going to see failing septics and folks are going to put a boatload of money into getting their properties ready uh once again there is a um sewer M that runs down uh
Pac Road at the bottom of the hill on the other side of the brook um or alternatively it's been discussed doing a pump station and coming back down 202 so the sewer advisory um had a
strong recommendation to revisit uh the engineering issues with our Municipal engineer and um the recommendation was start looking at what we can do there so long sewer Advisory board meeting but uh
very productive and that's what I have for my updates M Ray please have the administrator's report yes mayor so um last week we had our uh budget meeting number two so um this week I'm been
preparing for budget meeting number three which is this coming Monday they just keep rolling uh we conducted CFO interviews last week uh and a followup again for this Friday for another interview um on February 11th I attended the sewer advisory committee meeting
again just same thing as mayor Jacobs had said um on February 12th I participated in a Somerset County cdbg Grant proposal meeting uh to learn more about that program and what's available to us in our community on February 13th
I attended um The milleran Pump Station pre-con meeting with was um our contractor is JVS industrial and um so now we start ordering all the equipment and get rolling on the project so contracts been awarded and here it is so
it'll be a fun summer and um uh tomorrow we have our roof uh Town Hall roof project precon meeting with the contractor uh to tell you keep everybody involved as to when that project's going to start and how
it's impacts the municipal building and court and everything else um we have Thursday we have the somerson Hills Public Safety Committee meeting mayor and um on Friday we have like I said CFO interv then budget meeting on Monday so
a lot of crack work this week in addition to um working on uh preliminary uh gathering information for the uh uh state of New Jersey the DCA uh leap Grant which is a local efficiency achievement program Elite gramp is a
like a shared service with other municipalities we plan on on working with Pac Gladstone and the burrow of Far Hills to uh purchase a street sweeper by the time we get word it probably won't happen until the beginning of next year
um so that'll be a 2026 budget item that will need to fund and so just as for a quick update so what are we doing with street sweeping currently we um have to contract out for it that's part of the new storm water um New Jersey state
storm water regulations we're going to have to step it up and do three Street three Street cleanings per year which right now we there's no requirements um and we are going to have to uh clean out all of the sewer drains so the type of
equipment that we're going for will do both and by the time it finishes Bedminster and then goes on to the burrow of Far Hills then it goes to peack time to come back to bister again for our second cleaning so we just keep rotating that around and we figured it
works well with the three towns based on the miles of roads that we each have as well as the number of storm drains that we each have so that's how we're going to be um dividing up the shared Service as well great thank you Chief Bernardo do we have any uh
updates on community placing hi good evening uh just a remind Remer Thursday at 12:00 at the at the library our detectives are going to be doing a safety presentation for anybody who is interested and that's all I got
mayor okay thank you Chief moving on to ordinances we have no ordinances to introduce tonight we do have a public hearing uh the public hearing is on ordinance number
225001 this ordinance would amend section 3-19 Property Maintenance VN Village neighborhood Zone and senior citizen housing Zone and would include the R1 low density residential Zone the R1
district and also make some um adjustments to that ordinance to include um on on property maintenance issues such as Solid Waste uh wood chips mulch brush de trees and limbs
I think we've discussed this uh at L both as new business and when we were moving to introduce the ordinance um I'll take a motion to I'm sorry to uh yeah I'll take a motion to
open the public hearing come move second all in favor thank you okay so we've gone through the discussion of this ordinance before we have any further questions or comments or anything from Attorney
Morris or Miss Ray that you'd like to uh talk about with regard to the ordinance you don't have to no new comments all right any comments from Township committee members on the ordinance no new comments um you know on
behalf of like the people who live in that neighborhood or drive by that that neighborhood I that unsightliness um is greatly appreciated this or okay all right I'll um open the public hearing for public comment any members of the public wishing to make a
statement about the ordinance now is there opportunity to do so nope nope nope okay seeing none take a motion to close the public hearing for ordinance
202001 I moved second all in favor you and now take a motion to approve and adopt ordinance number 2025 001 soov second roll call vote Please Mr
Stevenson you're you're muted I can't hear you I shouldn't be Mr Stevenson doesn't say I'm muted hi hickey hi Miss moresi hi Miss Fernandez hi and may J hi thank you okay
thank we have one item on the consent agenda that's an um item of routine nature any member of the township committee can pull that one item off or individual consideration seeing none take a motion to approve the one item on the consent
agenda so moved second roll call vote Please Mr Stevenson hi Mr hickey hi Miss moresi hi Miss Fernandez hi and mayor Jacobs hi thank you and this sounds but we have no other
resolutions for consideration tonight so we'll take a motion to approve the bill list pending review of individual invoices so moved second roll call vote Please Mr Stevenson hi Mr hickey hi M moresi hi M
Fernandez hi and mayor Jacobs hi thank you member of the township committee have any items they want to put up for discussion under new business seeing none we will go to one of our favorite items what would that be
under old business by favorite items I really don't mean that but utilities yes mayor many Hing thank you mayor we get some wind we had some wind the good news is our
outages were limited and the largest outage we had was actually at the uh Shopping Center in pluckin but that issue has been resolved as of about midday today which is good news um if you'll permit me for a few minutes I'd like to step on my soap box and talk a
little about jcpnl sure um as you may have heard electric rates are expected to increase across New Jersey beginning on Jun June 1st Rate paay supplied by JCP now will see an average estimated Bill increase of
20.2% 20% believe it or not this is not not JC pnls fault and their fault they had a lot of fault but this is not one of them on your JCP bill you may have noticed two line items one for basic generation services and another for
delivery service charges this increase involves the former basic generation Services which jcpnl passes directly on to the consumer without a markup just as a refresher jcpnl is a utility provider
which means they provide electric transmission and distribution services they don't generate power they don't own power plants instead like many utilities here in New Jersey they purchase power from pjm which is an organization that signs interconnection agreements with the
companies who own the power plants and generate electric power pjm is an energy wholesaler they buy energy from suppliers and they sell it to utilities using a market-based approach PGM buys capacity in a daily
energy Market to address real-time energy needs and also buys capacity in advance to address longer term needs we're talking about years why am I Born you with all this well go back to your first economics lesson you learned back in junior high school a law supply and demand which
still applies even to this day the energy market like all markets reacts to supply and demand here New Jersey in my opinion State policy has constrained Supply by limiting traditional sources of energy like nuclear and natural gas
in favor of renewable sources like solar and wind right now 91% of the energy excuse me the electricity New Jersey comes from nuclear and natural gas 7% from solar and 2% from other sources including wind the state has enacted
policies prohibiting the extension of natural gas pipelines making traditional plant construction unfeasible instead they have poured Millions into the construction of offshore wind farms which are heavily subsidized BEC because the economics
don't pencil out as we just saw on the Jersey Shore that program collapsed under its own economic weight by adopting a R's robust approach the state has severely limited new sources of Supply meanwhile State policies have Jim
up gin up demand remember we have a state mandate that all new cars must be electric by 2035 the state's energy master plan proposes that all new appliances and furnaces can't be powered by natural gas they must be
electric and the states new affordable housing mandates will likely result in the construction of over 200,000 housing units over the next decade and by the way electric demand is already surging as more data centers powered by artificial intelligence are coming
online I just read an estimate last week that by 2028 roughly 10% of all the electricity generated will be used by data centers alone folks you cannot squeeze the balloon on all sides and expect it not
to pop policy drives supply and demand and ultimately prices by not adopting a balanced approach to a state energy policy where both traditional and renewable sources of energy play a role the governor and the BPU in my opinion have condemned New Jersey residents to make to pay more for
energy now and in the years to come there's plenty blame to go around and certainly PGM show shoulders some of the responsibility but as my colleague commit Stevenson has eloquently app time and again we all pay for these unfunded mandates folks the buck stops here and
unfortunately now it's only worth 80 cents when it comes to paying the electric bill mayor I don't know if you have any other comments you may agree disagree but I know you get involved in this professionally as well but I just want to put that out there for folks because they're going to get a surprise come June well it's it's interesting so there
were a couple articles that came out within the last um week about the pjm auction and so uh we did see some social media posts going after Jon pnl but to be clear this is all the utility
providers Cor in New Jersey P Atlantic City Electric jcpnl um Rockland up in um that part of paic County yep those are essentially the four electricity providers of New
Jersey y um pjm pen Pennsylvania Jersey Maryland even though now uh I think it it goes all the way to Indiana yes Department that's correct Indiana um so it is the bulk aggregator
of energy purchasing yep in all those States and then they it gets distributed through psng jcpnl in our neighborhood um and so we saw some social media posts going once again going after jcpnl and
certainly this Township committee um re indorse going after JC pnl we' done it ourselves we've done it ourselves multiple times and we'll continue to do so um but there seems to be some uh conflating of the issue on this uh bulk
energy purchase um a lot of finger pointing at jcpnl saying you know you're going to raise our rates and and we're still getting um inadequate delivery and inadequate um Security in
delivery but this issue as you you've eloquently described is separate and apart from the transmission to your phone correct okay so um that's jcpnl so you already covered outages and the
response um have an update on New Jersey water oh sure no Al no no update on Al two quick updates on New Jersey American water so we had a recent press release that they put out indicates that if that the water May taste a bit salty right
it's caused by Brine and salt being applied on our roadways this winter that salt obviously inevitably winds up in streams and rivers that feed our water supply I'm not sure their press release gives me much comfort but apparently it's for Jason's fault because we put
salt on the roads you want the ice off your roads gotta salt the road you got to Salt the roads exactly and the salt is going to get back into the ground and right right right but they say temporary and they've got to fix um they've got to
do some upgrades at the uh the Water stations themselves so it's temporary situation and my my understanding is that it should have been addressed already resolved uh that's my understanding as well so they also put another Crest release out and said if
the tap water tastes like pool water you don't have anything to worry about so according to them it's part of their annual maintenance program for water Distribution Systems they are temporarily shifting from chloramine to free chlorine as they treat the water that treatment will start during the
week of February 10th which was last week and continue through mid April so if your water tastes a little funny those are one of the two reasons so comforting yes so very comforting I like my tap water tastes like lemon spritzers you
know I really quick question I don't know I remember a few months back um JP and I was here talking about they're going to do um upgrades to the generator station is that anything to do with the fee increase or no no all their generator stations no so that that is all substation upgrades sub so that's
part of the transmission and obviously the delivery of power to your homes and and and businesses totally separate separate okay that would be on the second line item in the bill which is delivery charges okay very good thank you but I'm glad you asked that question because I have a call into JCP now obviously they were seeking BPU approval
for certain improvements I know that's been through BPU review but I want to find out how much of that has been alligated towards Bedminster in terms of specific projects they promise we'll get that information and then when we get it we'll pass it on to everybody here very was also to understand that um there were
upgrades that were allocated to Bedminster separate and apart from the most recent uh rate increase yes so um while you're at it those earlier yes um upgrade St and
some of those have been completed including the work at the sub station in bville others are still in progress okay great but I will follow up thank you bucking Park senior hen um I did uh create some messages with attorney Bardo
uh no update on that Somerset Hills Public Safety Committee meeting as Miss Ray um mentioned we do have a teams conference setup for this week so we'll update on our next uh Township
committee meeting and that's all we have on our agenda we will proceed to Township committee comments we do not have an executive session so we'll go through Township committee comments and then we will adjourn for the
evening Moman Fernandez thank you mayor I just wanted to say thank you to Jason and our DPW Department again from all this ice and just all this weather we've been having they've really taking good care of our roads so very appreciative of that and um thank you mayor for your
meeting with the sewer Advisory Board and you know really looking into um evolving our town as you know the years go by and the septic tanks kind of seem something of the past that um you guys are looking into
alternative uh means of disposing of so thank you for all your hard work on that and and um thank you Robin for your meeting after meeting after meeting she's before oh yeah it's budget meeting it's Bud thank you for her long list of
administrative things she's working on um so that's all have a good night everyone committed room meski um I just want to let everybody know that the EC meeting for March 5th has been cancelled um and I will be bringing dinner to our budget meeting so if anybody has a
suggestion let me know that's all I have thank you committ hickey Thank You by Renee great job I think since you and I were on the EC and it's probably back to when Larry was on EC we're trying to figure out that styrofoam problem because I always feel bad you know you get something and it's just tons of
Styrofoam so we can accommodate in some fashion I mean that's a great project to work on and then just thanks to Jason I I stay up too late at night watching Bad TV and I'll I'll be up like 1:30 in the morning I'll be looking out the window and suddenly I see the flashing lights and the trucks are out there and they are persistent they do great job as
always many thanks for our DPW what's interesting about the Cyber is that a lot of cyberoam right now will actually have the recycling symbol on it but it is not recyclable here in Somerset County so it's just which is
something that we learned from the EA commit and Stevenson you know you may not realize it but you're actually talking to like the styrofoam king king of Styrofoam ah you know what you can do folk Public Service
Announcement you can use your styrofoam to create winter scenes for all of your decorations that's that's that's no lie anybody sees my uh my my social media feed we show our uh little snow scene
whatever it's all styrofoam out and paint it up so it's a good use of it but it is a good use and we should find something to do with that because that's stuff you can't ever get rid of uh other than that I've got no comments have everybody have a great night and um wasn't there tonight because I heard there was no food so I figured I stay at
work I'm just kidding so looks like you're in your office yeah I'm in the office there's no food here have a great night everybody thank you Doug um I have no further uh
comments and at 7:43 I'll take a motion to adjourn for the evening so second all in favor thank you and good night thank you for coming tonight you want any
second apprciate the section