like that good evening welcome to the beder township committee this is our regularly scheduled Township committee committee meeting of March 3rd 2025 I'll recognize that we have a
quarum of Township committee present here in person joining me committee woman Renee moresi attending remotely committee man hickey and committee men Stevenson and committee
woman Fernandez have excused absences 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 Courier News Somerville Bernville news
whiy and to all subscribers and posted the Township Municipal Building on January 7th 2025 great thank you please join me in standing for the Pledge of Allegiance I put alance to the FR 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 or your computer or your telephone for public
comment anyone wishing to make a public comment ask a question once again you are not guaranteed an answer or a response now your opportunity to do so I don't see anyone here in person raising their hand I don't see anyone
remote indicating otherwise as well so we will move on we have one set of meeting minutes to approve that's the February 18 Township committee meeting that was our regular meeting
uh no executive and uh while there was a budget meeting those minutes have not yet been prepared any comments or questions regarding the February teen meeting minutes see none take a motion to approve so moved
second all in favor I I okay permits and Raffles one two three four five six seven permits and Raffles we're going start off with the first one which is special use permits for burnard's high school to use the Miller
Lane Park baseball field from March 10 2025 through April 1 2025 and the Miller Lane Park is located at one Miller Lane so Robin you um understanding that
this is the high school is obviously doing some work on the fields over in Bernardsville and this is the request to use um Miller Lane Park so this once again just to confirm this is not River Road Park it's Miller Lane over
here that's correct this is U Miller Lane Park and just like you said they're having some work done on the fields typically our ball fields don't open until April 1st by ordinance but um we are asking the uh Township committee uh by way of special use permit for
Bernard's High to get on the fields uh beginning March 10th um Mike copy who was the athletic director and um vice principal is on the on line here who have any questions of him Hoy I do not have any questions for
you um R Colin happy to be able to help him out absolutely okay so let's uh let's take this one individually um if there's no more questions or comments regarding special use permit for the high school to use Miller
Lane take a motion to approve so moved second in favor hi thank you Mr hoppy I really appreciate the help the other permits and Raffles next is a
social Fair permit to benefit the will of school on May 17 2025 from 6:00 p.m to 11:30 p.m. at the Willow School next is a social Affair permit to benefit the Willow School on May
19th from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. located at hton Farm Golf Club then a social Fair permit to benefit Children's Specialized Hospital foundation on July 14 2025 from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at
Hamilton Farm golf club and on premise merchandise raffle to benefit the center for Great Expectations on April 11 2025 from 11:00 a.m. to 2: p.m. located at filler's elbow an off- premise 50/50 raffle to
benefit the center for Great Expectations on July 15 2025 from 11:00 a.m. to 900 p.m. loc at F elow Country Club and an on premise 5050 raffle to benefit Fellowship life
foundation on June 2nd 20125 from 10:30 a.m. to 8:00 pm at Fiddler's Elbow Country Club any questions comments regarding those permits and Raffles seeing none second a motion to approve so moved
second all in favor I I monthly report discussion by subcommittee chair committee woman moresi good evening mayor good evening everyone some things to catch everybody up with on uh the Jacobus Vander house I
want to formally welcome Yolanda silow as the new president of the friends of Jacobus Vander house I'd like to expend extend a big thank you to Laurel Porcelli the outgoing president for all her hard work and dedication over these past few years and I'd like to welcome
back to the board Sean blind who is re recently elected as a returning board member just to catch you up with a couple weekends ago on February 23rd the Heritage Trail found Association held a five generals tour this is an annual
event um So for anybody who who doesn't know about this it's a bus tour with a Vox audio system that narrates a tour of five his hysterically historically important houses in Somerset County with a stop at each house for a quick tour
jbh is one of them I believe we were the third stop this year um among the attendees were several of the County residents who are participating in the Somerset County dosent program uh this is a a program um designed by the Somerset County cultural and Heritage
commission designed to provide volunteers with the essential skills and foundational knowledge needed to become volunteer dosant with these five general houses this will provide um wonderful secondary Staffing that'll help give jvh
some flexibility hosting New programs and some things to put on your calendar for jvh the Middlebrook Symposium is March 15th at Ron Valley Community College and if anybody needs
some information I have it up here um our next school day is April 9th I'm not sure what schools are attending but I will let you know and I can't believe it's time already but the field of Honor with the White House wind symphony is June
7th um and a quick mention of a grant that jbh just received I believe Robin you can correct me if I'm wrong they received this almost every year the county his history partnership program they received a grant of $20,000 and just to let everyone know
this grant is for General operating support to continue the organizational the organization's educational program and Outreach programs as well for administrative costs so for example the school day programs this is where jbh takes those funds out it's it's uh it's
a really nice little Grant um that's all I have for jbh for now and just to let everyone know the environmental committee commission meeting for this Wednesday has been canceled okay and that's all I have that's all you have
okay thank you and certainly congratulations to Yolanda and a um big uh expression of appreciation to Laurel purcelli for uh running jbh for
the past few years um so well done uh L and I look forward to a great relationship with Yanda commit man hickey thank you mayor good evening all little apologies for from my bit of a raspy voice but want to
give you a quick update on the board of health uh they had a meeting a couple weeks ago we'll start with the relatively mundane they've reviewed and approved deceptic application now for the fun stuff a reminder that the board will sponsor a presentation called cooking with herbs scheduled for March
26 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Town Hall the cost is $10 per person and you can register online we just ask that you do so by St Patrick's Day and speaking of programs the very popular CPR program uh that we ran a couple of years ago will
return to town hall this summer we had a great showing so the board uh is looking forward to sponsoring that program once again details to follow on the board of ed a feasibility study was discussed at the February Board of Ed meeting Bedminster Township school will be
working with the Somerset Hills School District to apply for a grant to conduct a school regionalization feasibility study this does not mean that Bedminster school is merging with Somerset Hills it does mean that if the grant is approved
there is money to explore how the school district could potentially merge with the somerset Hill School District and whether or not it would result in cost savings or other benefits to the students and the taxpayers this is a very long process which may lead to
something different or simply maintain the status quo as I recall the last time this opportunity was was explored was back in the early 2000s so I suspect the board determined it was probably time to reexamine this important issue and there that's all I have okay uh Colin I just
want to follow up on that so last week uh was read Across America at the Bedminster School uh as I was waiting for the kids to bring me down to their classroom superintendent J Doo came out toh speak with me and gave me the advanced notice of about this is
probably about 5 minutes before she clicked send on the uh the email and let me know that the school board and the administration were going to move forward with that Grant application um it sounds as if uh Sumer said Hills is going to be uh the lead on
the grant writing or certainly uh the application for the grant um superintendent Prime bruta will be working with Jen on that application and um you
superintendent Jana was very excited about the prospects of uh the grand application she had high hopes that uh between Somerset Hills and the Bedminster Township school that uh the grant would be received favorably by the
folks down in Trenton and was um looking forward to uh you know starting that process so it's a a very good news and yes I believe it was 2003 was the last time they uh formally looked at the
regionalization um since then we know that there's been Audits and and disputes about um the uh the amount of uh tuition that bedmas pays and I think there were some adjustments based on that so it's all been positive um so
this sounds like a a very interesting development for two school systems yep for subcommittee reports uh there's no land use board meeting there were have a farmers market meeting last week that was uh put off
for another um weeks that's actually another two weeks so i' be uh reported at our next meeting we've had no a meeting um so really I I don't have much more on subte reports um where's
Ray I please have the administrator report okay um February 19th I participated in a town hall group um project preconstruction meeting uh with the vendor which is Marshall Incorporated and our project uh Consultants from roof maintenance
systems we discussed materials being used uh the desing safety because we do a Orton session uh storage of equipment materials work hours and uh crew uh mobilization and erecting and Scaffolding uh will uh tentatively start
the week of April 14th and the Project's expected to take about complete um Highland planning Grant I actually received official information from the highlands that our submitted scope of work and budget was approved for the plugman project Park plugman
Park uh pocket park sorry pocket park that's a lot of that's a lot that's a appful to reallocate 70,000 in Grants from a prior Grant so that's terrific news for us um and so once again that's for a design engineering
design and Engineering of construction yeah great um we had a uh budget work session uh number three which was back on February 24th where we primarily discuss the capital budget and um we
have another budget meeting coming up on March 10th budget work session number four where the focus will be on the tax assessments and operating budget then we have uh sewer transmission Advisory Board which we had this you you and I yeah I guess I should have reported on
that step right right right B Township posted it's called stab sewer transmission Advisory Board which is a shared service between um Bedminster Far Hills and Pac Gladstone where we um all bring sewer together and send it
over to EDC uh so we introduced the operating and capital budget operating budget was approved unanimously uh the capital budget requires a little bit more additional information as it pertains to um a full inspection of the forest main which is something the board
is considering at this time so more to come on that coming up we have a FEA meeting and is that was that just to clarify that's the force meain from Miller Lane down to EDC that's correct okay yeah there be uh a inspection of
the full line so coming up we have a bunch of meetings this week a feema meeting regarding flood M flood math updates uh March 5th we have a DOT meeting coming up to discuss the route 287 bridge over
202 206 fine Mount Road uh we also have uh H Somerset County Hazard mitigation plan review meeting coming up with the county OEM folks this week um on March 6 is a demo at the Bridgewater PD by Brink emergency
service drone technology so I'll report and you probably report on those at your next at our next meeting well I I don't think I'm going to make the um the brink presentation at Bridgewater but know that um commment hickey um I'm not sure if you're going um I
think Elliot is going to go Our IT director Chief not sure if anyone from um PD is going to attend that presentation as well so we'll we'll have we have some good representation there so I may not be reporting back but
you can or the you can so and that concludes my report we have a lot going on great uh well yeah it is a busy time of the year with uh budgets and a lot of not just uh the municipal budget but all our uh other boards and commissions
moving forward with their budgets as well Chief Bernardo any update on community policing hey good evening no update tonight mayor great uh we do not have any ordinances to introduce we have no
ordinances scheduled for public hearing we do have three items on the consent agenda these are items of a routine any member of the township committee may pull any of those items or all of them offer individual consideration seeing none take a motion
to approve the items on the consent agenda so moved second roll call vote please who do I have left here um committee man hickey I Moman moresi I and mayor Jacobs I thank
you we do have two resolutions up for individual consider first resolution is resolution 20250 043 this authorizes B Township's bloodborne pathogens exposure control
plan in compliance with the occupational safety and health administration standards Robin I I don't believe I've uh all the years I've been up here I don't remember seeing this one before sure well we you're going to have a series of different documents coming at
you like this these are requirements that are um well not only OSHA requirements but requirements of the Gip that we adopt these different policies so um we identified those departments that would be uh could potentially be exposed to bloodborne pathogens
obviously our First Responders the police department uh Public Works and also Recreation um dealing with children and injuries at camps so uh and Rodney from uh the Sewer Authority as well so those four departments are there's a
exposure control plan we've put in place and um identifying who you know is susceptible and what to do in the event of so and this is going to be distributed to all of our employees and um with the option for Hepatitis B do U
vaccinations if they haven't already done those there's a series of three sometimes four uh vaccinations that need to be done and um I've been in touch with the county who helping to assist with that effort of getting everybody
vaccinated that needs to be okay so other than the um plan being handed out is there any other presentation on this issue um no I we'll go over it with those employees and this will be part of uh you know their employment uh package that they'll
have these materials and we'll be updating this from time to time um we do have a couple other um programs that we're going to be implementing over the next couple weeks that um U director Rand is working on me okay and every
Department gets the book in their department so the guys can read through it whever needs to okay so it's basically read it read it be familiar with it but no if no one no one from Board of Health or the count is coming down to give an understanding of the CH the CHF we went through did a class on
the jip okay you know online it was mandatory and the Camp staff they do a during their orientation they also do a bloodb pathogens um class so they know that they're what they're exposed to okay okay so we really okay any uh questions or comments
regarding this resolution oh mayor I just want to make a point we've been doing the training and we've had the engineering controls in place for many years this is simply just putting all the Departments uh into one document um this isn't we're not
doing anything really new we're just kind of do commending it which uh we probably should have done uh years ago but like I said we've been doing the training we have the engineering controls in place so everybody's pretty much on board already uh with the details of
it okay that's uh that's very helpful so once again um saying no further comments questions take a motion to approve this resolution so moved second full call vote please committee
man hickey iom moresi I and mayor Jacobs I thank you next is resolution 20250 046 this resolution authorizes a shared services agreement with Pac and Gladstone burrow for joint use of block
29 lot 31.0 in PAC in Gladstone as the designated location for emergency debris Jason why do I have a feeling I'm going to point this one to you um so Brad approached us and uh was
is going to put this this resolution into play uh it's really for if we get overfilled here with our debris storage um it lets us have the ability to bring it over there they have a larger debris storage facility at their DPW so we just
wanted to have it written up they're going to do the same resolution in packs okay so we have an interlocal agreement correct and both Municipal attorneys um floro and the PAC Gladstone attorney have reviewed the agreement and
so this is so I don't see any fee in here no Fe no Fe a 10 year agreement we get to um if we need overflow goes down goes up the street
and it's a temporary storage facility until we have great any further questions or comments seeing none take a motion to approve resolution 20250
046 so moved second committee man hickey call moresi hi and mayor Jacobs hi thank okay take a motion to appr the bill is pending review of individual
invoices so moved second roll call vote again please committee man hickey I woman moresi I andir Jacobs hi thank you commit hickey committee woman Ry any
items you want to put up for discussion under new business not this time nope well said commit hickey I'll start with you on utilities mayor I have no utility updates don't know if Jason has any updates he wants to share but I have
none no moving right along joh um is there anything public that we could discuss regarding pluckin Park Senior Housing nothing new mayor nothing new and Somerset Hills Public Safety
Committee meeting um Robin you had mentioned the presentation by Brink B r i NC over at Bridgewater um that's for this week so at our next meeting we'll have a report back on that and we probably don't have
another Public Safety Committee meeting till later in the month so that won't be reported back until not next meeting but the following meeting correct March all right that's that's the agenda so we have no executive session which is good
because you know he's remote and he's coaching uh coaching the basketball team as they continue the triumph uh season so go coach Stevenson um we'll go through Township
committee comments start with committee woman moresi I don't have anything for tonight mayor thank you committee man hickey just wishing committee Stevenson and his team best of luck against Madison tonight nothing else mayor thank you okay and I am not going to belabor
uh the evening so at 7:25 take a motion to you adjourn so moved second all in favor I I I thank you and good night good night all good night thank you thank you John
thank you Chief guys good night be well thank you you too good night night