Good evening. Welcome to the Bedminster Township Committee. This is our regularly scheduled July 7th meeting. Recognize that we have full attendance by the Bedminister Township Committee here in person. Committee Stevenson, Committee
Hickeyi, Committee Moreski, and attending via Zoom. Committeewoman Fernandez. Miss 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 career news Somerville Burnsville News Whippony and to all subscribers and posted the town municipal building on January 7th, 2025. Great. Thank you. Please join me in standing for the pledge of allegiance.
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, now is the time of the meeting
that we open up the microphone up here or the Zoom session for public comment. any member of the public wishing to make a statement, comment, ask a question. You're not guaranteed of a dialogue or an answer to your question, but you
certainly have the opportunity to make one. No one online. No one online. I mean, that has their hand raised. No one has Sorry. Well, John could raise his hand. Okay. Uh we will proceed with the meeting. We have um four sets of meeting minutes to
review and approve. Township committee meeting for June 2nd, the executive session for June 2nd, the township committee regular meeting for June 16th, and the executive session for June 16th. Comments or questions? I know um Robin
needs you to make some u revisions to our earlier draft corrections. Yeah. Seeing none, take motion to approve those minutes. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you.
Permits and raffles. Special use permit for Cold Stone Crearyy to request temporary outdoor seating from April to October located at the Hills Village Center. Um, well, let's take that off as a uh one-off.
Yeah. you shall have a copy of that um special use permit application um that was uh there's a sketch in there of what they have proposed um and then um
Zuzanna the this has been reviewed by Zuzanna and the um our zoning officer and Paul Ferrero our uh municipal engineer. This is temporary outdoor seating for two benches and two beastro seating tables from April uh through
October from 12:00 noon to 10 p.m. Uh do they need and not sure if this is initially pertinent to um our consideration uh sign off by the property owner? Um I believe they've already received that approval. The next step was to see
Suzana. Okay. comments, questions from township committee. Assuming this is going to be under the overhang will be people will still be able to walk past there.
That's correct. Still be protected. They'll still be protected. The tables and chairs are going to go adjacent to the columns which are right towards the edge. So the walkway is still clear and the two benches are right by the windows. Thanks. And we have a number of other uh
vendors. I think Rocco and Pancher was already Yes. and Rockos both were approved. Right. Right. Right. For temporary. Yep. Okay. Take a motion to approve the special use permit for Cold Stone Cranberry. So moved.
Second. All in favor? I. Thank you. Fireworks permit for a fireworks display scheduled for July 12 approximately 9:15 at Hamilton Farm Golf Club, 1040 Potter
Road. I see the application is already in here. It's gone through emergency services. So, I can give you a little bit of background on this. Um Renee from Hamilton Farm couldn't be here this evening. Um the permit was reviewed and
approved by Steve Dill the week before last and um approved last week by uh Chief Bernardo and all seemed to be in order and a letter did go out prematurely in anticipation of this being approved because they didn't want
to lose any timing notifying the residents just in case. So, and just curious because I'm trying to see if it's on here the duration. Okay. Opening.
So, it's a 15 to 20 minutes. 15 to 20 minutes. Front page lower left. And it begins at 9:15. Thank you. 15 20 minutes. That's a little bit longer than usual, but uh usually it's 8 to 10. Yeah. All right.
questions, comments. Is there a reason for the prolonged display? It's a very special wedding. Not to aggravate Doug's. It's not to aggravate Doug's dogs. Tug, you're you're the closest to there. And and there are consequences when
fireworks occur. Let me just say that. Yeah. Dogs don't like dogs do not like it. It's an important wedding. It's a firework. It's a really, really big wedding. There's no further questions or
comments. Take a motion to approve the fireworks display for July 12 at Hamilton Farm Golf Club. Second. So, I have Colin Committeeman Hickeyi for a first and Renee for a second. And all in favor?
I. Thank you. And uh the last three on premise 50/50 raffle to benefit the Timothy J. Piaza Memorial Foundation on August 11, 2025 from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Fiddler's El Country Club and an
on premise merchandise raffle to benefit the Timothy J. Piaza Memorial Foundation on August 11, 2025 from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Fiddler's Elbow Country Club and an offremise 50/50 raffle to benefit the Center for Contemporary Art
October 10, 2025 from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at the Center for Contemporary Art. Questions or comments regarding those three raffles? Seeing none, take a motion to approve all three. Second.
All in favor? I. Thank you. Okay, we'll go to monthly report discussion by subcommittee chair. Committeewoman Fernandez. Oh, thank you, Mayor. I haven't had any meetings. Um, summer camp is on on its
way. It's it's happening. Everything's going smoothly. Um, and next time I have a wreck meeting, I'll have an update probably on fall fest and on how summer camp went. Okay, great. Thank you. Committeewoman Moreski. Good evening everyone. Uh quick update
for Environmental Commission. Moth night have been cancelled due to potential weather issues which actually never happened but had to cancel it anyway. Um it will completely cancelled or it was it was postponed. Okay. Until July 19th. So in two weeks uh
it'll be moth night, same uh same time, same place. Robin will send out the flyers to everybody again. Um, and let's see. Oh, and so that's that. And they EC got some information back from Mike Van Clefft, who was the
gentleman who's in charge of um invasive species in Marsh County, I believe. Um, anyway, he sends them some plans, some ideas, suggestions. So EC is going to get with him uh look at the plans and see what kind of things they can do that
are possible with either a group of people or just the EC depending on who wants to volunteer um and clean up some spots of some invasive species. And I did throw out the idea of getting the goats in and they were so excited. So they're going to look into goats. Goats
love to eat invasive species. They'll in a day they'll clean out an area and uh instead of having little kids come in and get poison poison ivy, the goats take care of it. Might take a little bit more than a day. Depends on the herd of us. But Robin, Jason, and Neil,
those are designated goat herders. And unfortunately for them, I've been sending them all the goat invasive planteing reels that keep popping up in my uh Instagram feed and I keep forwarding
them to Robin and Jason and Robin's already had um one meeting, right? Yeah, we have another one this week. So you tell if you want invite somebody from they
don't get poison invite them to attend if you want she loves goats serious if you're serious I'm serious they go eat anything I've seen it I've seen it in Massachusetts where they brought in I don't know 60 70
goats they fence off an area they move the fence from and They do not go all out. Wow. And we've looked through some of the areas that we're looking at which are in
our recreation areas along the hike and bike or along the lane. And um just about everything is poison ivy or other invasives. So we're not we're not eating we're not eating Yeah.
We're not going after anything that's um worth maintaining. At least this way you get rid of that stuff and allow perhaps some of the native uh plants to regrow back. Um and you know talking to um
folks on rec committee, you know, go chase a foul ball and it's poison ivy, poison ivy, poison ivy, poison ivy, poison ivy. Um and that goes all the way to the river just non-stop. So, um,
it's a good way to do it. It's tremendous. Jason, did is that what you you thought you'd be doing? It's very interesting. They clear out they do about an acre area at a time with solar fences and um they have cellular cameras to watch the over the
goat herd. Um, anywhere from 20 to 40 goats depending upon the size of the area. Nice. And they can do it in about five to seven days depending upon how hungry they are. An acre some beef. Well, that makes sense. 1500
cheaper than putting manpower out there. And it's better than putting Roundup. Yeah. Yeah. So, Oh, yeah. It's been fun. Very, very interesting. Very good stuff. That was That's all I got. That's okay.
Might have been hickey. I have to follow the goat story. Okay. You know, we had a board we're going to have a board of health meeting later this month. That's very exciting. Uh did you want me to cover library? Sure. We we met last month. Uh we approved changes to the library policy
manual. Very exciting. What are you looking at? Mayor Doug K. Oh, pay attention. That that's what he uses to kill the poison ivy himself sometimes. It does take all of
anyway. More importantly, at the library meeting, we approved an expenditure to begin to deploy security cameras both inside and outside the library. It is a muchneeded improvement for the safety of our patrons and the security of the building itself. Many thanks to our IT director, Elliot Perez, who helped
advise on the purchase and the layout of the cameras. So, more to come on that one. And mayor, that's all I have. Okay. Thank you, Tim. Minman Stevenson. Thank you, Mayor. Well, Jason and his crew have been incredibly busy. Um,
obviously with all the storms recently, going through cleaning up all the storm damage. Thank you for that. I know Skill Drive in particular was hit hard. So, thanks Jason. And I know you said that long list of the more material trees down on the lines and whatnot. So, I know that was a ton of work and thanks
for working uh and thanks to all your crew. uh continue to do roadside mowing, uh dirt road grading. Uh we're going to be putting down in the future some uh product, what is that? Calcium chloride on our dirt roads to start try to
control some of the dust. Um also working on the ball fields, the baseball, soccer, lacrosse, uh fields, continuing to cut the grass out of us. Uh there are crews out there clearing the basins and the pipes. um
for pothole repairs and then a couple jobs just in particular we've got a pipe replacement job up on Holland Roads that's proceeding and uh we've got the turtle fence tunnel that has arrived. We're going to be scheduling a date with
Thank you. Uh to get the those we got the split rail fence installed on River Road Park. uh paving Old Stonehouse, Hackle Barney, Mount Prospect, Hillside Extension, Grady, and Cemetery Roads. Um
that's two. Uh so we'll be completing those and there's a pipe to replace River Road and uh we're starting the garden project. So there's a lot going on. DBW is very very busy and a lot of stuff to do.
So, is there an update on the uh on the community garden? Do we have a um a date for excuse me for meeting with the contractor? Thursday, July 10th. That's the pre-construction. That's the precon meeting. So, the precon this Thursday, correct? Here. So, when do you expect uh a
groundbreaking? Well, you were hoping for August 1. Okay. But this Okay. So if you have the precon just coordinate y uh because like to have Franklin Township committee wreck um and
um Melanie Morano commissioner not commissioner Melanie Morano um who we've been in contact with um because she was uh helpful in getting uh the grant for us but um so would like to invite the
county commissioners to that as well program briefing here. Yeah. Keep the goats away from the community garden. Goats in the community garden. Mix doesn't mix. Be a good fencing turtles. That could be dessert after poison ivy.
You mean Doug's tomatoes or right? And Doug would like to operate the bucket for when it's time to actually break the ground. Bulldozer. Actually, you good with that style? Yeah.
Are you going to ride a fire truck? No. I asked I She wanted to drive and she got off. It's kind of They said I could have a ride. They I couldn't drive. I couldn't either, but I still also
they're working on a roof that started to be splashing on the rail. Will that be the last bit of the uh roof work? That and the gutter lineup. Okay. Down. Okay. So, at that point, you think we'll be complete with the roof project?
July. End of July. Yeah. Mayor, I forgot one thing. Yes. Material thing. Um, residents reached out over back in O'Brien in that area about the connector between O'Brien and the hike and bike path. It had, as Command Hickey put it, a real ankle
turner. But they reached out uh Colin Col connected Jason and the crew went down, replaced all the pavers. like phenomenal like noob. So tremendous job. My apologies for not mentioning that. That was great. Uh and that was direct result from the community reaching out. So we
say if you see something out there that you know is off the beaten path, let us know. We will take care of it. Great for that. Yeah. Thank Jason. Thank you Jason. Um similar to Gina, I've not had a lot of meetings
since our last one. There's been no Lenny's board meeting. Uh Colin attended the library um farmers market. We had our first no clouds, no rain day and 1288. 1288
1288. That's a that's a heck of a lot of people going through uh River Road Park. Um terrific job parking director Renee Moreski for the first couple hours out there when it was
uh busiest. So well done Renee. Um, it's just great to see everyone out there. Everybody stops and says hi and they say thank you as they're leaving. Thank you for doing this. And you've got a very nice comment from uh from a patron if you want to recount
that before I proceed with the rest of it. We we do have an older gentleman who is a regular. His name is Larry. We're not talking about the mayor in this case. Um he has been notice noticeably absent this year. We all started to get concerned. Both the vendors and the
volunteers alike, everybody, "Where's Larry? Where's Larry?" He showed up last Saturday and he told us that his wife of 73 years had passed the week before. He said to me, "She was the first girl I ever kissed and then I married her." He
told me he woke up on Saturday morning and with her passing, he needed a reason to get out of bed. And then he remembered the farmers market. And he said to himself, "I need to get up and go see my friends at the farmers market." So, you know, folks, we may be a small
town, but we're a big community when it comes to our our residents, our neighbors, and that's what makes Bedster so special. So, glad to see Larry back. That's great. That's great. It was good to see him there. Yep. Yeah. Uh thank you for those uh for county
that that's fantastic. Um, as I mentioned, there was no landings board meeting, but I do want to uh talk about um some of the activities that we we're seeing in town right now. Uh, Fresh Pet is in. So, they are in the building. Um, I
imagine that they're going to do a ribbon cutting um either later July or or August. I know that um the fresh pet uh media team is coordinating with uh
advance uh developers and they'll be also obviously uh connecting with us to coordinate on the ribbon cutting. Uh Neil Masterano from Wreck is also in touch with Fresh Pet because it would be a great opportunity to coincide what
they've said would be a donation to the forthcoming dog park. uh with participation by Fresh Pet. So hopefully that goes well. But you drive by the building and now you can actually look inside with all the glass and you can see how it's finished.
Looks really nice. It looks really nice. I mean this is you know the first um trying to think of the the last major commercial building we've had in Bedminster. may actually be the other advanced
pharmaceutical uh that went under. Oh, Melro 18. Melanch, right? But Malcra was an existing that was an existing building. This is brand new construction, but it is really, it just looks great. Um, and we know
that uh you know on actually on the Fresh Pet website, they actually have a page on their location and why they chose Bedster. So, I just, you know, ask everyone simply, you know, if you can just interested in why they chose that location, uh, just go to the Fresh Pet
website and, um, they talk about why they've cited, um, here. Um, so that's great to see going on. Uh, Somerset Hill Shopping Center down in Pluckman, uh, a building that had been approved by the zoning board
three years ago, four years. Yeah, three probably three years ago. Yeah. So, uh, the owners have decided to move forward with, uh, the construction of that building. They do not have a tenant, so they were going on spec. Uh, but apparently
they've already received multiple inquiries for possible uses and teny at that building. So, that's great to see. Once again, we've always talked pluck mini needs a little kick in the pants and uh timing that with um our own uh
park across the street. I think you know good things are coming to Pluckman. So glad to see that happening. Um Lana Lobel. So, Lana Loel has been in a state of disrepair with absentee
property owners who um we believe went bust because the property was foreclosed and taken over by Bank of America and Bank of America went through an auction process and uh Lena Lobel was purchased
by an entity that's close to us here in Bedminster, Fiddler's Elbow. So Fiddler's Elbow, Ken Donovan from Fiddler's Elbow um took a leap of faith and bid on Lana Leel, the northern
40 acres or so. Um I believe 120 of which are preserved. I'd have to go back and look at the um at the preservation that that Beth Davidson and I worked on years ago. Um but in the area that's not
preserved, he's got ideas for um event space and converting the manor house possibly to some um guest rooms. And it'll just be great to see that property put into um ownership
that's responsible and has a sustainable vision for that property, taking advantage of its views. I've ne I'd never been on the property. and met um uh the new owners out there
and I had no idea that even though I worked for about a year on the preservation of it, I'd never been out and you go out there and views of the Lamington River as they come around the back which you cannot really see from the rattlesnake. Uh but it was fantastic
and you can see that there's a vision that he has and the exception areas where you can actually do non agricultural activities are sort of centered. So even from
rattlesnake preserved up to the matter house preserved around the manor house and around the back. So the views will be improved. They'll be put into ad functional use. Um where they've been
sort of u I don't say in disrepair. Um so it's it's great to see that visioning and once again to see a Bedminster company invest double down in Bedminister I think is uh
is really great to see. Um, also while on that same subject, uh, Hoopstick Farm, which uh, Bedminister Township preserved, um, with, uh, Nancy Dylan, who was the owner or the daughter of the
former owner, uh, she put that property into preservation and it was, uh, I believe transacted probably about two weeks ago. Um, so a someone came in and bought the property as a preserved property. So,
There's a lot of really interesting investment in Bedminster and um you know I think we should all be proud of that. Um also you know this is really not on subcommittee chair but previously we talked about uh Congressman Kaine and
his office working into the uh one big beautiful bill. The let me get this raise get the correct terminology here. Um section 900006 of the one big beautiful bill is
presidential residence protection and this is the provision that would um doesn't would anymore. It actually does provide funding for reimbursement of local
agencies that uh at the request of the Secret Service provide security to presidential residences. Uh that certainly applies to Bedminster uh for its support of the Secret Service and it
is retroactive to July of 2024. Um, so we've been in touch with Congressman Kaine's office about the next steps in putting the application and Robin and Chief Bernardo will be lead on that. And um, so once again,
thank you to Congressman Kaine for those efforts. And that's what I have for my subcommittee reports. Myth Ray, may you please have the administrator's report?
Yes. So, I'm going to tell you what's most important to report on. Are you got goats? You have goats. You have pictures of goats. Can you Can you broadcast your your goat? Um, so we have an employee uh walk challenge, walking challenge that
started a couple weeks ago. We are now in our four third week. Third week. We have um 29 participants that have really been, you know, logging the miles on their challenge. And uh I just got knocked out of second place and
I'm really pissed. Um that's most important to mention. But it's great. It's great to see everybody, you know, participate. You'll have to tell us who's won and two now. It's the same one. It's always first place. Sergeant Veltry. Right. But who knocked you out of second place?
Um Gold Digger. That's Zusanna. She's walking around Paris. It's her sister's wedding. So that's what happened. She beat me. All right. Anyway, um I just uh Committee Man Hickey reported on our information technology meeting on June 18th with um
IT director Elliot Perez. Um so I'll pass on that. Uh the liquor license renewals are complete for the annual uh 2025 liquor license renewal process. Everybody was in compliance, paid their fees, and we're good to go. And they've all received their new license prior to
the uh June 30th deadline. um emergency services. We are working with Darthothy to reestablish the emergency services funding advisory committee so we can drill down on a lot of these expenses that we haven't been able to wrap our heads around and do a good sharing of
expenses. So, um not just the big purchases, but right down to the little stuff. Um as well as trying to establish it with Tukesberry, uh that's been a little bit more difficult. And just a reminder, this Wednesday, July 9th, the fire department is celebrating the
delivery of their new fire truck at six o'clock. Be there. I know Renee and I will be there. Um, parks and open space. We met with Goat Shepard to discuss the poison ivy and vegetation control throughout the parks. Um, we are meeting
with another gentleman this week and um, it looks like I have another meeting the following Tuesday. So, we'll fix that up. I'll reach out to EC, see if they want to join us. Um, it's interesting. Uh, working on the tax bill insert for 2025. We just got our, um, certified tax
rate from the county last week. So, um, I it all depends on when everybody else's tax bills are in. Obviously, there'll probably be another grace period this year. So, um, POTUS funding, you already talked about that. We were originally going to go through the county like as a regrant program through
FEMA because we don't qualify for certain loans. This was going to be through Homeland Security, but I have to see how that plays into this new big beautiful bill. Um, community garden July 10th is our pre-construction meeting. Somerset Hills public safety
coming up on Thursday, July 10th, and DOT meeting on July 14th. Um, that is to discuss the Route 78 westbound uh over 287 bridge, which went from a single span, if you remember, to now double span replacement. Um, and
just working on the affordable housing spending plan with CGPH coming up with some additional ideas as we discussed at the last T. John, is it frozen for you? It's It's frozen for me as well.
It just went out. Not quite sure what happened. Okay. I just text her Robin to tell her, so I don't know. All right. Thanks. Mhm. Oh, she now we're out. Okay. I don't think we missed. Sorry about
that. We don't and we're going to go through the uh open the uh the public hearing for ordinance number 2025014. We have a motion to open the public hearing. So move second. Second.
All in favor? I. Thank you. Okay. Robin, just want to quickly walk us through these administrative changes for the police uh one, two, and three for specialists. Yes. So we um had our ordinance just about our class three special officers.
So this ordinance now just identifies one and two um and a class three as well. So um the class uh class two is for um I'm sorry the class three is the new school resource officer um that will
be employed by Bedminster Township, an employee of Bedminster Township but working for the school and the Bedminster school will be reimbursing us for that fee. were all the expenses associated with that um school resource officer. That's a class one, right?
Uh class three is the school resource officer. So the class twos are the the um police officers that work the court. Class one is our regular police officer. I think it's one and three is bad. I'm sorry. Let me just look at the very last
sentence of 3A. No, class one is a traditional um as a traditional officer. What is the last sentence though? The use of a firearm by an officer of this class shall be strictly prohibited and a class one officer shall not be assigned
any duties which may require the firing, the carrying or use of a firearm. I no I don't think do we have class ones is or is everybody class one is that like everybody on fours I'm sorry
I'm sorry it's class one two and three so I have to sorry it's been a while since I've looked at this so um class one I'm assuming just by real quickly because I messed this up uh Class one is
going to be um like your um police officers, I think, that are like your summertime ones, like the summertime police hired down the Jersey Shore. Your class two are um are permitted to carry a firearm. They're the ones that work in the uh port office. And then the class
three are the ones that are the school resource officers that um may carry a gun, but not an an offduty revolver when on campus. Sorry about that. So none of this stuff is new is any is only relates to the specials.
Yeah, this is only for special. It just identifies the special police officers. I'm so sorry. No worries. So the class three is for the officer that's going to be employed only at the Bedminster Township School.
That's correct. with all the expenses. Uh so that' be like reverse by 3D, right? That person would be 3C. That's 3C. Okay. Any further questions or comments from the township committee? Okay, seeing none, open up to uh the
public for comments regarding ordinance 20250. Seeing none, I'll take a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you. And is there a motion to approve
ordinance 202514? So moved. Second. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson. Hi. Mr. Hickey. I miss moresky. Hi. Miss Fernandez. I and Mayor Jacobs. Hi.
Thank you. Okay. The next ordinance is ordinance 2025 015 amending chapter 2 entitled administration and establishing establishing section 2-26
Jacobus Vandervir House Commission. Um, as everyone knows, the lease for the uh JVH house to the Friends um terminated um the Friends has had a long and very
storied um time operating the house, but in the last couple of years, we've seen some waning of uh participation. Um what this commission does is essentially creates a township commission.
Um the membership will go up to 21 members and they will all be voting members. Um and the commission will be charged with the operation and programming for the
Jacob Vander House. Um I will say since it's been real widely publicized uh what our actions were uh both um I and Robin have received a
number of very energized um and interested applicants who want to be on that commission. much more energized than the look you have right now.
So, um what this ordinance does, it would establish the commission. The commission would be resident uh within Bedminister Township uh with 21 members to be appointed once again and charged with uh the operation programming and
events and um actually fundraising as well for the Jacob Faire house. Uh Robin has already established and I think we um approved this by resol resolution was that last
week? that. Yep. Yeah. U so we already approved a resolution that establishes a fund strictly for programming maintenance um and accepting donations
for Jacob's Vanderver House money absolutely dedicated uh to that purpose and not to be used by the township for any other uh purpose. Um Robin and John, anything else I missed with uh respect to the proposed ordinance?
Mayor, the ordinance is introduced. Um indicated 15 members. The change to 21 members is not substantive in my viewpoint and so you can go ahead and adopt the ordinance as amended from 15 to 21 tonight if so inclined.
Okay. So take a motion to um open the public hearing for ordinance 2025015. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Thank you. Okay. So, comments on questions from tension committee.
Just to remind everybody what kind of led up to this action couple months ago, the former JVH board president came up and quoted to us Thomas Payne. These are the times that try men's souls. I think with the loss of Shawn Blind from the JVH board, perhaps she was right. Ray,
you can keep me honest here, but I think with his departure, there was exactly no one from Bedminster serving on that board. Am I correct? I don't believe anybody else lives in Bedminster County. Right. So, having just celebrated our 249th birthday, I'll remind everybody of the rallying cry of the American
colonists, taxation without representation. At the end of the day, we represent the taxpayers of Bedminister, not the history club. So in adopting this ordinance tie, I am excited about the future of JVH and I think the new chapter this ushers in. It gives the opportunity to make sure the
taxpayers are represented, the donors are better protected and the community is much more engaged in the activities going on there. So I will be enthusiastically voting I on this one. Thank you, mayor. Thank you. I think that just to echo uh Nikki's comments, I mean, you've got a
real gem that's right here in our community. Uh I've been involved with it over the years uh you know a decade plus ago. Um and it's just you know the the my take from it from afar is that it's sort of up become untethered to the
community and it's sort of taken on its own mind. Um I would love to see the house get back uh fully in involved in the community. I mean it's certainly something that we should be proud of. I mean the history is there is tremendous
and you know uh I too support what we're doing and I think it's in the best interests of the stakeholders and people have skin in the game. People tend to do a knockup job when there's no skin in the game. You know things tend to get missed and corners are cut and that's
what I'm seeing here. The services are cut. It's never open and and that's a shame because it is a jewel and it's not being treated as such. So I fully support Okay. Any further questions from township committee?
I agree for the most part with what the two gentlemen before me just said. I don't think that it is totally disjointed or pulled apart from the the uh township um things like um the u flags u the field of flags and the
Christmas parties. Um, I think the group has done a good job with the number of um, volunteers they had on the board. However, I do think that with the number of people that we're going to be putting on this new committee and the names that I've seen and the names that I know from
the the um, friends that are staying with it, um, I think it's going to be a fabulous place. So, I'm excited. Okay. Open up the uh, public hearing for public comment. any member or public wishing to make a statement or ask a
question regarding ordinance 2025 015. Now is your opportunity to do so. Seeing none, take a motion to close the public hearing for ordinance 2025 015. So moved. Second.
All in favor? I. And we'll need a motion to approve ordinance 2025015 establishing the Chacobus Vanir House Commission. So moved. Second.
Roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson, hi. Mr. Hickey, I. Miss Moreski, I. Miss Fernandez, I. And Mayor Jacobs, I. Thanks. And later in this meeting, probably about 45 seconds from now, we
will be uh considering a resolution appointing members of the Chacobus Vander River House Commission. Uh before we do that, we do have the consent agenda. We have one, two, three, four,
five, six items on the consent agenda. These are items of routine nature. any member of the township committee uh may pull one any or all of them offer individual consideration. Now is your time to do so?
Seeing none, take a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda. So moved. Second. Uh roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson. Hi. Mr. Hickey. I. Miss Moreski. Hi. Miss Fernandez. Hi. And Mayor Jacobs.
Hi. Thank you. We do have two resolutions for individual consideration. The first is resolution 2025 117. This resolution would in support or authorize an endorsement in support of
the New Jersey Department of Transportation Route 287 northbound bridge over Route 2026 project. So we had previously discussed this
before. Uh this is uh the bridge adjacent to the well it's over the hike and bike pathway and it will be now this is this is what deck replacement
correct deck replacement full deck replacement. Yeah. So, all we're doing is we're saying yes, uh, DOT is identified. Uh, right off the deck, we say no. 22B. Yeah. Where you get off that, that's that deck's a nightmare.
Yeah. It needs to be replaced. They should get DPW out there to help them. Yeah. Our guys are awesome. He could. He could. And hopefully they'll figure out a better detour. Yeah. They're just looking for support
from the municipality that shows that they've come to us and reviewed the project. My tire should see no further questions or comments. Take a motion to approve resolution 202517.
So move second. Oh, sorry. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson, I. Mr. Hickeyi, I. Miss Moreski, I. Miss Fernandez. Hi. And Mayor Jacobs. Hi. Thank you. Now, Robin, I do not have resolution 118
in my binder. I wonder why. I do not know. Anyone else have copy of it? No, we don't have a copy either. Uhoh. I don't know. But she better click to something else. Um, okay. Well,
yeah, because that would be the resolution appointing the members of the Jacob's Vanderbeir House Commissions. Okay, this is it. Okay. Um All right. So,
resolution 2025118 appoints um Oh, so this brings us to uh 21. Yes, it does. including the bedminister school rep school rep the rec rep. Okay, so there's three reps to be appointed
um that have not yet been filled but so let's run through the 18 where we do have names. Now, we I do have various bits of uh resumeumés from many of these individuals, all of whom um have
experience in historic preservation, operation of historic structures, um fundraising and um participation in town and elsewhere. So, while a good chunk of them are Bedminster residents, not all
of them are. So, I'm gonna run through and I I will stop or Robin if you want to provide some color for those names that I mentioned. And the first one is Norm Penny who is from Bedminster. Grant writer. Grant writer
involved with the historic DNR canals and several other historical organizations is a Bedminster resident. Sue Manion also Bedminster. You're really testing. Yeah, I am in the quiz. She serves on the um historical society of Somerset
Hills and also lives in Bedminster and it's on the uh you know she's not on the executive committee. She's an educator. She's a teacher. That's right. Three passes. Okay. And you can call or you can phone a friend, right? Cynthia Crossen also of Bedminster.
Yes. Cynthia is also on she's an executive committee member in the Somerset Hills of uh historical society Somerset Hills and um uh interested in the Jacob Vanderbeir House and uh and I believe she was in some other historical
the Vander she's in other historical organizations. She attended the Vander House colonial Christmas and and got the bug and that was it for her. Very good so far. Kathy Piol also of Bedminster. Oh, maybe Kathy's the teacher.
Kathy's the educator. Yes, Kathy's the educator. The other woman was um a treasurer. I'm so sorry. From the Somerset Hills Historical Society. Kathy Pearson is interested in being a a reenactor. It's been her lifelong dream. She's an educator. She volunteered up at
Marstown National Headquarters. And wasn't wasn't the other woman retired Lieutenant Colonel. Did I read that in her bio? Cynthia Crossen was Yes. Pretty impressive. Yeah. Leslie Mole also of Bedminster.
Yes. River Road. She is a former trustee and very much interested in supporting and um helping with the transition team. Former trustee of the trustee of the friends the Jacob's longtime trustee since 2007. Jean Golbreth uh she was one of the founding members
of the uh Jacob House. Derek Anderson. Uh Derek is with us today. He's the current president of the Friends of the Jacob Vandenber House. Craig Southerntherland, former president and treasurer of the Friends of Jacob's Vandenber House.
Paula Podkerski. Uh Paula is a colonial reenactor and educator for the current Jacob Spander House. Ray Sanderson. Ry is a reenactor and um serves the lamb's artillery and
associated which is a reenacting group and uh current trustee of the Jacob's ban house. Stephanie Dardy. Uh Stephanie is current trustee of the Jacob's Bandford House. Our appointee from the Historic Preservation Commission, Wendy Weinstein
Hickey. Wendy Weinstein Hickey is chair of the historic preservation resident. and a Bedminster resident, also a Bedminster resident, Shawn Blind. Uh Shawn is part of Somerset County Historical Commission. He's a historian
uh a historian. He speaks nationally on various committees and commissions. Um he's also museum studies uh student and uh educator, written books, author,
mayor Steve Parker, mayor. case the former mayor was he needs no explanation. Former mayor and uh one of his ancestors was uh captain of the militia at the battle of Lexington in conquered.
Oh wow. I didn't know that. Yeah. One of the many esteemed Lehi University graduate. He would say he would if in in Steve's defense he would say he is a Lehi graduate. esteemed.
I know I see I don't know that C would agree with that assessment. Mayor Paul Muer. Oh, so Paul he's associated with um well Bethlehem Township, New Jersey. He's mayor of Bethlehem Township. Um he served as the League of
Municipalities chair or the conference of mayors. He was the uh former chair for the New Jersey Conference of Mayors and he he's also very active in the League of Municipalities as well museum which is uh great to have someone with that background. Uh he also ran the Redmill Inn in
Clinton or not not the not the in the Redmill museum in uh Clinton. Um, and he is on the board of New Jersey Society of Historic Commissions. I think I got that right.
Um, he is fabulous. He's super excited. Fabulous to have Mayor Mure from Bethlehem. Um, and he was telling me uh that he um
with his uh new position at Morris Museum, he drives past JVH every day. So, we were talking a couple weeks ago and I said, you know, seeing as you're already driving,
so getting him on board, I think, is uh fantastic. and and equally fantastic are the next two uh commission members. Robin Ray, I served since 2007, also with Bedminster.
Also Bminster resident. Yes. So I think Robin's uh you know history with the JVH um goes way back and I don't think we really need to blavor that. Okay. And uh the next one also of Bedminster, Renee Moreski,
Bedminster resident and I've been the liazison for the last what seven years. Seven years. I know a little bit about what they do. And then we have uh two openings that have yet to be filled. One from um recreation
and one from the Bedminster School. Um Colin, you've reached out to um Superintendent Giodano, correct? or a recommendation is as from my perspective it could be a teacher. I think probably unlikely for a teacher.
Um but it may be a a parent. It could be a teacher. It could be student could be anyone from PTO um who's interested in participating. Um, and then there's another opening and and what I thought I
would do with this opening is reach out to uh Superintendent Brochell over at um Somerset Hills and see if there is a student perhaps that uh would be interested. So, we're going to leave
that um that position open for the meantime. Uh but that with those names that bring us to 18 uh for the 21 slots. Uh any comments or questions regarding
the appointees for the Jacobus Vanderver House Commission. Seeing none, take a motion to approve resolution 2025118. So moved. Second.
Okay. Roll call vote please. Mr. Stevenson. Hi. Mr. Hickey. H question. Can I vote since my wife is being named to the commission? Uh that's a John Valardo question. I might be conflicted on that. So should I I'm clerk you can you can vote on that.
This is not of uh such uh essential impact that anyone would deem that a conflict. Okay, good enough. And I and she is the HBC she is the HBC designate. Yes. So, exeicio.
Yeah, exeicio. So, you know, you're you're just want to make sure everything's on the up and up. There you go. Well, can I vote then? Oh, that's right. I didn't even think of that. John, am I okay to vote? And you're good to vote.
Okay, then I say I. And Miss Fernandez, I. Mayor Jacobs, hi. And congratulations to everyone who's been appointed to the commission. We expect great things. And Rob and Ray will be reaching out to you. I believe
you've already got a first meeting scheduled. Nice try. We're getting there. We're getting there. Okay. You're going to be hurting cats. The third Wednesday is a good night. Okay. Gotcha. Clear. It's that's already cleared on your calendar.
It is. Okay. Great. Uh let's see. That's it for resolutions. We do have uh the billist. Take a motion to approve the billist pending review of individual invoices.
Second. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson. Hi. Mr. Hickey. I. Miss Moreski. I. Miss Fernandez. I. Mayor Jacobs. I. Thank you. New business. Any items that township committee members want to raise for new
business? Seeing none, old business. And we will start with utilities. We had a storm run through whipped through here on Thursday. That was We've had I I've driven through some
hail before. That was really bad. It's the hardest rain I have ever seen in my life. That was really really bad. When when the winds when the trees start to circle in different directions every 5 seconds, that's that's rotation.
Unbelievable. Yeah. I drove up to Chester to go to shop raid and on my my way back there was a tree that was down right on 206 taking down uh I presume that's the line. Well, it's one of the lines coming off the Pac
substation, right? But fortunately that only fed the local neighborhoods there on the right hand side of the road. So old Dutch west west correct. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So okay Colin. So uh how did Bedminister
fare? How did JCPNL fare um with we can talk with that storm? We can talk about both storms because forget there was also a right. That's right. Monday night out as a result of a storm that was caused by down wires at the greater crossroads substation that was actually major
outage uh that impacted both the lower hills and western Bedminister on Monday night right before midnight uh through circuit switching. The Hills was able to be restored about 2 and a half hours later while the majority of western Bedminister was out until 8:45 on Tuesday morning. Uh the breakers at the
substation had to be reset manually as part of the fix. uh that's why the outage lasted as long as it's as it did. Then obviously we mentioned the Thursday storm that took down poles, trees, lines throughout Somerset County. That outage only lasted about an hour or two, but
obviously we also saw there was a loss of life in our neighboring communities. So it really puts it in perspective. You know, you have now, you know, you have an outage for an hour and a half or so, it's inconvenient, but when you hear about that, that's real impact. So let's keep those those families who are impacted our thoughts and prayers. Um
the weather has also impacted all the work going on to finish out the construction on Hills Drive. Uh between the storms, between the intense heat the week before, uh they are looking to schedule two more days of construction this week, which involves underground
boring and cabling. And they will do one day of testing immediately following that, which hopefully will be scheduled for next week. Once the project is released from construction, which should be right after that, they will begin the restoration of all the lighting, the landscaping, and the irrigation systems.
So, that hopefully will occur mid July. Stay on top of them for that. Um, I know I sound like a broken record, but sit tight because there's light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully the lights will stay on longer in bed once all that work is done. Mayor, that's all I've got.
How about the uh situation with the OEM computer shed? Thank you for reminding me that. So, the storm on Thursday night uh took lines down because of a tree that came down right adjacent to the repeater shed, crashed the gate there, which meant that the uh paging network that we use for
fire and first aid went down because there was that it was actually on battery backup for several hours. The telco lines were also impacted. Worked very closely with OEM director Chris Crowell as well as Bob Flynn from JCPNL to make sure they were put on a priority
list. um uh between uh Chris uh and and Brian Wild. They were able to get up there, take pictures, which then we used to get JCPL to immediately dispatch a forester who went up there on Thursday night or early on in the morning of July 4th. Did
the forestry work immediately so that the power could be restored to the repeater shed by 3:00, which was good because the batteries only have a 2 or three hour life. They went up there to turn on the generator but could not get into the facility because the gate was smashed and they didn't know if live lines were on the on the uh on the gate
itself. So they stayed away from it wisely so but again power was restored. Uh some county went into an OEM emergency position. They basically um made sure that dispatch uh was being done for fire and first aid for Bedminster through alternate means. But
it was a good team effort to get that back up and running as quickly as we could. And kudos to JCPNL as well. I was on a phone with Bob Flynn 9 10 o'clock on Thursday night and he was pushing buttons and making things happen. So that was good good effort all around. So it's interesting it almost reads like an OEM um tabletop drill. Yeah,
right. So yeah, power goes out, tree goes down, the battery backup last for three hours. Yep. There's a generator tree down the generator. Yep. Yep. So
now you've got to rejigger your got really everything and find an alternate means um for getting dispatch app to all the emergency services once again not just for Bedminster not for Farhills Bedminster
but for Pacadstone um for Pottersville Burnersville as well. Yeah. They're not connected to that. Too exper. So, you know, one one thing goes down
and you see the the complications just t down there. Um, okay. You covered uh JC Panel Altis. Nothing with New Jersey American at this point. Nothing. Jason, do you have anything? No. Um,
John Pluckman Park Senior Housing, you and Doug, that's still uh not for communication. I think the most recent update is that there's no longer interest discussing anything else. Okay.
There was a party um as you're aware with a possible interest in um the purchase, but that party has uh no longer expressed an interest. So the the present ownership for now remains in place. Okay. All right.
Pilot expires end of this month. So the pilot expires end of this month. So that they ownership will go to um regular taxation. Okay. Well, we'll see if that provides
any motivation for uh for them to come forward with um some proposal to the town sales public safety committee. Um as Robin mentioned, we have a meeting coming up this Thursday. So, we'll be
reporting on this at our next meeting. We do not have an executive session tonight. So, we'll go through township committee comments and then we will adjourn for the evening. Start with uh committeewoman Fernandez.
Thank you, Mayor. Um, I just wanted to thank everyone who came out to the Bryce Rosen 5K. Uh, there were probably about 150 people that turned out, myself included, and um they were able to raise $5,000 for the Makea-Wish Foundation in
Bryce's memory. So, that was great. So, I just want to thank everybody. And that's all my comments. Have a great night. Thank you. Committee woman Moreski. Thanks, Mayor. Just want to remind everybody about moth night, Saturday the 19th at 8:30 River Park.
Committeeman Hickeyi. Thank you, Mayor. I just want to thank you and Miss Ray and Chief Bernardo and Lieutenant Pledo because you mentioned uh Fed minister's inclusion in the big beautiful bill in terms of reimbursement, but that didn't happen without you guys sitting everybody down around the table and coordinating. I
mean that guy that guy I know but and you also get to do all the data work and the analysis to figure out how much we spent, who spent what who needs to be covered. There's a lot more behind it. I you're you're being modest, mayor. There's there's there's a tremendous amount of work and you organized all the parties to make that
happen. So, thank you. Thank you, Committ Hickeyy's comments. I won't repeat them, but I echo them. And Robin, give me a buzz. We'll work on this fine print to make sure there domestic steps only for next year. We'll get that into your
contract for next year so you can win. Nothing off the soul of the United States, right? No, it's got to be domestic stuff. Domestics. I like that. But that only gets her to number two. Well, we got another plan for Jeff. Okay. Well, hey, you go take that up. You take that up with Sergeant
Fel like. Well, I have no further comments. Hope everyone had a great Fourth of July celebrating Independence Day. And with that at
8:06, take a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. All in favor? I thank you and good night. Good night. Good night. Night night so hard. Clouds. That one was good one.