Good evening. Welcome to the Bedster Township Committee. This is our regular scheduled May 5 meeting. Recognizing we have a full attendance by the Bever Township Committee. Miss Ray, may we please have
the open public meetings act statement? Yes, mayor. Adequate notice of this meeting in the township committee was sent to the courier news Somerville Burnersville News Whippony and to all subscribers and posted at the township municipal building on January 10th 2025. Great. Thank you. Please join me in
standing for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge 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.
Get the chair just right. And it's still not right, but it's close enough. This is the time of the meeting that we open up the uh the DAS, the microphone, the Zoom session for public comment. Any member of the public wishing to make a comment, now is your opportunity to do
so. Once again, reminder, you can make a comment, you can ask a question. You are not guaranteed of a dialogue. Sean Blind, when you come up, please state your name and your street, please. Hi,
uh, Sean Blind, Encampment Drive. Uh, thank you, uh, Mayor Jacobs and members of the township committee. I'm just here on behalf of the, uh, friends of the Jacob's Vander House. We did uh just note that we are on the agenda for an executive session uh later tonight. So, we are, you know, obviously interested
in what's going to happen. Obviously, there's not going to be a dialogue here, but we're just here to show our support for the uh for the museum. And thank you for uh considering um considering extending our lease. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you and members of the committee.
Mr. Rhoden, we haven't seen you in a while. Happy new year. Happy new year. Well, that's the last time I saw you was in the reorg party. Okay. Yeah. Um, Michael Rhoden, Spencer
Lane, Pluckman, New Jersey. You know, where the major part of the hills is built, Pluckman. Um, I'm here on behalf of the dog park. We're really, really in sad shape right now. the three the four
trees that were planted, one is really thriving, two are struggling, one, you know, is going to be okay. The areas around the trees, the uh snow fence is breaking up. It's deteriorating. The
weeds inside there, you know, are just getting about 2 ft high. Um there's holes all around the park. Last time I brought that up, the only thing that, you know, showed up in the minutes was the fact that filling the holes, which I stated, you know, was a recommendation,
was not in the ordinance. Still, you know, there's no real material there to fill a hole in with. Uh I personally scrape up loose gravel and put it in the hole. The hardcape, there's no hardcape. Zero. You You got people that are
struggling to walk. You got people uh you not necessarily with a wheelchair yet at this point, but you you got people struggling to walk. They come in through the gate. There there's a low area there. You you come across there. You know, the ground is packed hard from the grit that was put down. The grit's
been washed thoroughly. All the material from the grit has soaked into the ground. It's almost like a clay, hard clay surface there now. But there's no hardcape. When you look at a park, a good well done park, there's a hardcape in there cuz it just grass is going to
get abused constantly. So, you need a mixture of that. We have none of this. Uh gate maintenance is, you know, shoddy, the the snot from the dogs rubbing up against it and all that, you know, it just builds up. I look at I say, should I go out and buy a steamer and come there do it? No. I'll probably
get in trouble trying to do something like that. Uh the grass horrible. We got weeds all over. We got dandelions. I know you're not really going to want to go in there and spray anything because you got to close it for 3 4 days to let this stuff
go into the the ground. It the the grit is unsightly. It's uneven. There's no clean lines to it. The park is a mess. It really is. the mud area it's growing, you know, soon, you know, at least it before when the mud area was very slippery, they put
the grit down, worked out fine, but it's it's growing and it gets a lot of use. There's no plan apparently to do anything with the park. You know, there's no Last year I I suggested ask, you know, can you snow fence off an area
and do a reed in a short section of it? No. Can't do anything with the park supposedly. We're waiting on Burnt Mills. I don't know. I mean, I talked to Neil and you know, oh, it's all out to the uh architect or the designer or what? Like stuff like that.
You know, nothing solid. Just a little this, little that, you know, maybe a maybe a shade area, you know. And the picture I look at for that park is like you're going to make a uh a gang way between two parks and make people walk down there to get to the entrance. Have
you ever been at a park when the dogs show up and there's dogs barking on the inside of the park, dogs barking out on the outside of the park? It's not fun. Not fun at all. Anyway, I only bring this up because like a year and a half ago, Mr. Mayor, you followed me at a land board meeting
and told me that uh Petresh was going to do something for the park. Nothing's happened. And you know, I I I think the park, I mean, you know, you you want to see pictures of nice parks, you know, Colonial Park, very nice. Baskin Ridge
Park, very nice. Nice nice green grass. Nice green grass. Now, this is more like our park, Thompson Park in Monroe. But when you look at it, the grass looks well maintained. You got lots of spots from dogs wearing
it out, running it down. And I'm just asking this committee, you know, what what is your intention with the park? Are you actually going to do anything with it? Is there a real proposal from PetSmart to do anything or is that just, you know, handshaking? Anyway, those are
my comments. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Rhoden. Any further questions, comments? If you are participating by Zoom, your opportunity to make a comment. Take your cursor, scroll down to the bottom, click on reactions. Click
on raise hand. Wait one second. Robin, I'm not getting any raised hands. Mayor. Okay. and mayor once again we're going to need name and app street uh Cheryl Rhoden Spencer Lane Bedminster
New Jersey uh I am here tonight on behalf of the Stone Edge Homeowners Association because uh we received the direct payment agreement for signature and quite
frankly I was running for committee when the Kelly bill was first passed in the legislature I was sitting on this committee when we signed the first direct payment agreement with the neighborhoods and I will say this, we
didn't know what we didn't know. Okay, now we are here 30 some odd years later and in my opinion this agreement is unfair. It is a not advantageous to
any of the neighborhoods. Those who have signed, those who haven't. There are three main reasons for that. Number one, last time I looked, the calendar said it was 2025. We are getting a 2023 rate. Guess
what? Those rates are not the same. In addition to that, there are nine separate charges, nine different things that we get charged for on our JCPNL bills. I assume the committee gets the
town gets charged those same nine light items on the roads that have been dedicated in the hills. Yet, we are only getting reimbursement for one line. The difference between those two numbers is
almost 10 cents a kilowatt hour. That is really not fair. Then lastly, you're asking us to sign a 10-year agreement. There is no escalation clause. When JCPNL changes
these rates, we get nothing. And and guaranteed those rates are not going down, right? We all know that. I mean, Committeeman Hickeyi has been very active with JCPNL on behalf of the hills to try and fix this
infrastructure. So, we know the rates aren't going down. Why is there no, let's say, one day every year that the rate is reset, whatever it is, that is our ask of this committee
for this agreement. Okay. Thank you. Still no one. No. Okay. So, we're going to move on. Uh, as with respect to the Kelly bill agreements, your best bet is going back
to Robin or have your condo attorney reach out to attorney Bolardo. So this is not necessarily the venue for negotiations. Uh but your comment is received and for those who work on the
drafting I think they've heard and um I don't know if we have an update on how many uh associations have signed. We have 11 so far. 11 signed. Okay. All right. Moving on. We have four sets of
meeting minutes to approve. The April 7 township committee meeting, the April 7th executive session meeting, the April 21st township committee committee meeting, the April 21st executive session meeting. Any comments or questions regarding those meeting
minutes that have not otherwise been provided to Miss Ray? Seeing none, take a motion to approve. So moved. Second. All in favor? I I. Thank you. It's first time in a while that there are no permits and
raffles. So we're going to go to monthly report discussion by subcommittee chair. We will start with committeewoman Fernandez. I thought we have we would have permit the raffle. Okay. Um I just had just a quick
reminder um that registration for nonBedminster residents began on Thursday, March May 5th um for Camp Edminster and a lot of the camp the afternoon camps are already filling up or or are already filled up. So I just
wanted to remind um people of the registration is now open for out for non Bedminster residents. It opened for Bedminster residents on April 1st. And um the Bryce Rosen Memorial 5K will be held Saturday, June 28th at River Road Park. So that's just another reminder. I
haven't had a rec meeting since our last meeting. So that's those are my only two updates. Okay. Thank you. Committeewoman Moras. I don't really have anything. I have an environmental commission meeting on Wednesday. I'll report back after after that and we will be going through
the Jacobus Vander information in exec. So, we'll wait till then. Okay. Committeeman Hickey. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, all. I have no updates because none of my subcommittees have met as of yet, but I'll have more next time.
Committeeman Stevenson. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, everybody. Just real quick on DPW, uh our guys are out there continuing to work on the ball fields um and fixing and regrading our dirt roads. Uh and of course, coming out of the winter season, fixing our potholes. If anybody's aware of
potholes, please let us know so we can get out there and fill those. Uh Jason, thank you for getting your crew out to Autumn Ridge to get to the resident's concerns. Very uh top-notch job and very timely. Thank you. Um uh and then just some various other work
around the shop. We're just working on vehicles. Get to them. And um just more to say. Okay. As we go. You're ready. Oh, did you want to say share anything about the the blowout of the line or because it doesn't involve us? No water. No problem.
Yes, but there's everybody's water's good. All right, that's it. Okay, thank you. So, just real quick, uh there's been no um land use board um meetings since our last one. Uh there will be a meeting coming up later on where we will be
discussing um eventually the housing element fair share plan um to address the affordable housing obligation for Bedminster 2025 for the fourth round. We had an A advisory meeting uh where we've went over some of the more
recent updates to the A uh program from the SADC. Um got a couple couple uh projects in the hopper. Hopefully be reporting back on that in the near future. Um Somerset Hills
public safety. We'll address this a little bit later on, but uh we cancelled last week's meeting. Um and farmers market, we have a farmers market meeting tomorrow, which farmers market, once again, we are opening this
month. So, um, get rid of get rid of your Saturday morning. Wipe those uh, wipe those slates clean, Renee and Colin and whoever else is going to be out there. Um, so yeah, it's
a long season. How many weekends is that? 28 weeks. 28, just in case you're counting. Um, we've had some discussions
with the county and the state regarding reimbursement for security expenses associated with President Trump. Um, most recently we had a uh meeting last week with representatives from the state police, representatives from the county
prosecutor's office. Um and it looks like there may be some opportunity for release of limited funds on a going forward basis uh from the state office of homeland security. Um we
well certainly I've been in touch along with uh Robin with Congressman Kaine and his staff uh which are working uh on legislation that would get both the state, the
county and Bedminister uh reimbured for expenses going back to July 2024 uh which would include those expenses associated when President Trump was not president, but candidate Trump and there's a big distinction as far as uh
Homeland Security reimbursement goes. So, we continue to press those efforts and um hopefully at the next meeting uh we have something um very positive to report. Ms. Ray, we please have the open public
meetings on the open. May we please have the administrator's report? Yes, mayor. So, I left my report on the printer. So, I'll just try to go back and um review this. So, first of all, you know, we introduced the budget on April 7th. Um
Benertica is state reviewed this year. We did have some questions posed to us by the DCA for review. Um I worked with Andrew. We got those responses back and I'm happy to report that um last week our budget was approved for adoption for this evening which is on for
consideration later in the meeting. So, that's a good problem. Um second, uh I did attend a couple meetings with regard to pus funding. Um as the mayor just said, the state is issuing a stop gap, uh grant to fund some of the overtime
for the police department at this particular time. So I worked on that funding application. um our partners at the county and state have also done the same and we continue to meet with our um with the state homeland office of office of homeland security to help us as well
as uh congressman Keane's office um at committee meeting mayor already covered that um and uh we met last week with our partners for um from Far Hills and Papac Gladstone as we further develop and fine-tune our shared service agreement
for a shared street sweeper so we're in compliance with their stom grants. There's a lot of things to work out. So, um, that concludes my report. Okay. Thank you, Chief Bernardo. Anything on community policing? Hey, good evening. No update this week, Mayor. Okay. Thank
you. We have no ordinances to introduce. We have no public hearing of ordinances. We do have one, two, three, only four items on the consent agenda. These are items of a routine nature. Any member of the township committee may pull one. All
of them. None of them offer individual consideration. Seeing none, take a motion to approve the items on the consent agenda. So move second. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson. I. Mr. Hicky. I. Miss Morowki. I. Miss Fernandez. Hi. And
Mayor Jacobs. Hi. Thank you. We do have one resolution um for individual consideration which is the adoption of the 2025 municipal budget. Now Robin, before we uh read
this, do you want to um do you and Andrew want to do a quick rundown? Sure. You don't have he doesn't have to read it because it was already posted. So you don't have to read it. We're cover. Did you practice it? Thank you.
Um I just have a few really quick comments to make. Um so this year, you know, thanks to the hard work of the township committee, uh Robin, uh Jason stepped in wonderfully and helped out really with, you know, Debbie transitioning out this year. Um and and
later on, Jim did a good job as well helping out with certain questions and things that came up as well as James. Um, so we came in below both the appropriation cap by about $2,200 and below the tax levy cap by about $98,000. Uh, as Robin had mentioned
earlier, uh, once every three years, we're required to go through a state review of the budget. Um, so this was our year. We won't have it again until the 2028 year. Um the comments that came back were very minimal, mostly looking for clarification on certain uh revenue
and expenditure items and we were able to clear them up very quickly. Um Robin actually uh what seemed like almost instantaneously had responses, documentation, everything flowing back and forth in an email uh which was wonderful. So, we tidied up all of our
responses back, got them back to the state, and they they quickly approved us thereafter to adopt this evening. Um, but yeah, I mean, I just wanted to, you know, thank the township committee, thank Robin for all the hard work that you do. Uh, a very solid budget once
again. Um, and, you know, I know a lot of thought goes into it. We're continuing to pay down our debt on our plan um as well as feed into our capital infrastructure and and working towards that. So, you're you're all set to adopt
tonight and we're we're ready to put the 2025 budget into the books and move along with it. Okay. Thank you, Andrew. And Andrew, thank you for your uh your support and your participation as well. uh especially on the uh the afternoon
before we actually introduced uh when we received some phone calls and and a quick Zoom session with me Hickeyi and Robin and we went through um adjusting and readjusting the um uh the surplus
and um where we ended up um is a 1.95% increase um with respect to the individual taxpayers. Correct. So 1.95 brought us under the uh the 2% cap. Um lot of
effort to get there. Um as everyone knows our directors uh Jason and James was there u from finance. Um Robin was there for some of the meetings I believe right there. I think I remember you at the
meetings. Um but just what a tremendous effort by everyone. Um hard year. Fire trucks are not inexpensive. In fact, they're very
expensive. And uh we are we maintain two fire departments um in town, Pottersville and Fireills Bedminster. And um you know they do a tremendous job and their equipment is at the stage
where it is rolling over and that is just a a fundamental um expectation. Equipment ages and it reaches an end of life and it needs to be replaced. Um we've looked at this in
the past. We've uh set monies aside. Uh we've worked with our um fellow uh municipalities and partners in these departments with uh the Burough Far Hills and Tixbury Township for the Persville Fire Department.
And this budget sets money up for the purchase of the tanker for far hills Bedminster and sets us up well for the other equipment that will be coming down the pike in the next three four years.
Um and we think we can do so at the same time reducing our debt and managing our expenditures for the other um the other expenditures that are expected of the township by our
residents. So once again want to thank everyone for their efforts in all this and certainly to all the efforts of those on township committee and once again tremendous job Robin. Thank you very much. Before we introduce um comments
from township committee, just want to um thank the fire department volunteers for working with us over the years to making sure the equipment does in fact go longer than their useful lives. I mean, uh you're not joking when you say the equipment is
is past its time. So, um, it is time to to bite the bullet as we say, but you know, they were they were they are, and I'm sure they will continue to be great partners with us. So, thank you to our true heroes, the firefighters out there, the first responders, and of course, our
police, the first role of government, keep everybody safe. So, this is what we've got to do. Okay. Just a just a thank you again to Andrew and Robin. You guys work tremendously hard in support of the questions, the data requests, everything we need to make the informed decisions.
We know Robin, he was only kidding. You're amazing. You gave that look for a second though. But you're amazing. Seriously, in all you do and all you have and managing the process, which is not an easy process. So, thank you again both of you. I
concur. Me as well. All right. So, no further comments. Take a motion to approve resolution 2025083, the adoption of the 2025 Bedminister municipal budget.
So moved. Second. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson, I. Mr. Hickey, I. Miss Fernando, I Jacobs, I. Thank you again for everyone who worked with us and for all those who came out and
watched the sausage being made at those meetings. That's not Miller time yet. It's just bubbly. Could have been champagne for that. Take a uh motion to approve the bill list
pending review of individual invoices. So moved. Seconds. Roll call vote, please. Mr. Stevenson, hi. Mr. Hickey, hi. Miss Moreski, hi. Miss Fernandez, hi. And Mayor Jacobs. Hi. Thank you. New
business. Any member of the township committee want to put anything up for consideration under new business? All right. Seeing none, old business. Colin, utilities. Thank you,
mayor. an update on JCPNL. So JCPNL, as you may be aware, had previously submitted to the state a $935 million plan called Energize New Jersey, which proposed upgrading the electrical infrastructure throughout the state. Last Wednesday, the BPU approved a
scaledown version of that plan, which will now include 22.5 million in network upgrades over a three and a half year period starting July 1st. Once that work is completed, the average residential bill will go up about 86 cents per month. Just a reminder, this is separate
from the anticipated increase in generation charges, which is done on a pass through basis, and those are anticipated to increase the average JCPNL bill by 20.2% starting in on June 1st. What is not impacted by the scaledown
energy New Jersey plan are the investments being made right here in New Jersey as a result of the pressure we've brought to bear on JCPNL over the past week. You may have noticed on Route 202 206 utility crews out there that's JCPNL installing new
reclosers. Remember, these are essentially smart, excuse me, smart circuit breakers that can can detect a line fault from a down tree limb or animal contact and restore service automatically once that fault has been cleared. Those are going in right now.
If your lights go off for a few seconds and then come back on, usually it means it's a recloser in action, which avoids a more extended outage or a truck roll. In addition, crews have been working on installing a loop scheme in the hills, interconnecting the switch located at
the south side of the hills near Washington Valley Road with the switch located at the north side of the hills adjacent to the 287 entrance and Slay Mountain Road. You may say, why do I care? Well, let's say the electrical feed coming into the hills from the southside is interrupted perhaps down
due to down wires on Washington Valley Road. the feed will be automatically switched from the south side of the hills to the north so that power is now being fed from the circuit coming in from the opposite direction. As a customer, you may not even realize this automatic switchover which will occur in
real time and should reduce outages significantly. And the best part, all these improvements are happening now. They will go live by the end of this month. So there's a lot going on, more to follow, but I just want to give that update. So Colin, when we had those
discussions with JCPNL about the $900 million package, Yes. Um what we had heard back was that if that went through, Bedminster would be top of the list. Um the efforts that you just described, are those part of the 225 or
is this being done separate and apart from the uh $225 million? My understanding is separate and apart. These were priority projects to get us, you know, to improve service immediately. Uh I know there was also in that package for the larger package, uh
substation improvements. I understand those are still going on, but we don't have the details. JCPNL has agreed to come in here probably in June and give us a further update. So at that point, we can find out exactly where they plan to make additional investments. And so the reclosers that you had
mentioned, those are currently not in place. They're being installed. So they're being installed now. So, so when there had been an outage say or you know you mentioned um Schllay and and coming up the south side Birchwood so if
Birchwood went down it was not being fed in from the south that was it that was it it was out the circle went down you were dead in the water. So now with these reclosers and so that's the loop that's Yes. Yes. So now with the loop
system Yes. In theory, the customer should never see and then it power comes right back. Power comes right back. Exactly. And that's why you've seen a lot of trenching along Robertson and Hills Drive because they were trying to connect those two switches which they've accomplished.
So, work in progress. Altis. I have no updates on Altis Mayor. Okay. And Jason, anything with New Jersey American Water or PS&G? Okay. All right. John, I'm gonna assume that
there's no updates on discussions with uh Pluckman Park Senior. Your assumption is accurate, mayor. Okay. And I've uh talked before that uh the Somerset Hills Public Safety Committee meeting. Um we'll our next meeting will be in June. Robin, we need to get a date. Uh we're
going to put that off till after the uh the mayor's conference down in Atlantic City. Uh but what we do have teed up for the next Somerset Hills public safety committee is a discussion on fraudulent
deeds and deed conveyances. Uh the county is um put together a program um Chief Bernardo has talked about it, but it's certainly something that I want to uh coordinate further with um our surrounding municipalities. So we're going to talk about that and then
hopefully have something to report back. either through the police department or through the township committee. Um we do have an executive session tonight. So we're going to go through township committee comments. Uh we are not expected to take any action following
the executive session. Uh so we're going to go through township committee comments and then we will adjourn for executive session. Once again, you're all welcome to stick around. We come back out, but we will not be taking formal action.
Miss Fernette. Uh, thank you. I have no comments. Well, happy that's my comment. Miss Mares, as I said last week, uh, last meeting, I just hope we come to u some good conclusions when we talk about the Jacob's ban of your house because I
really think that it would be a um big blow to Ben Minster if we lose it. Committeeman Hickey, I have no further comments. Mayor, thank you. Committeeman Stevenson. No comments, mayor. And no comments from me. At 7:33, I'll take a
motion to adjourn to executive session. So moved. Second. I. All in favor? I. Okay. Thanks. Stop the recording.