WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=0GCktdecrEE

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: 0GCktdecrEE):
- 00:00:00: Introduction: Community Energy Plan Development and Sustainable Jersey
- 00:01:52: Energy Master Plan Strategies: Transportation, Renewables, and Efficiency
- 00:04:52: Environmental Justice Community Definition and Strategy Seven Omission
- 00:07:38: Community Energy Plan Details: Transportation Sector Initiatives
- 00:11:10: Transportation Continued: Anti-Idling Ordinance and Renewable Energy
- 00:15:50: Energy Efficiency, Green Building, and Low Income Strategies
- 00:20:27: Funding and Cost Neutrality for Energy Initiatives
- 00:24:43: Partnerships, Community Concerns, and Emotional-Logical Arguments
- 00:30:08: Community Solar Opt-Outs and Electric/Hybrid Vehicles
- 00:34:55: Public Comment: Jean Kramer Discusses Solar Shadowing Issues
- 00:40:37: Council Updates: Budget, Tax Increase, and Park Improvements
- 00:43:52: Infrastructure Resiliency, Community Engagement for Park Improvements
- 00:47:51: New Website Discussion: Archiving Events and Data Collection
- 00:53:15: Leaf Blower Ordinance Discussion: Bradley Beach Rejection
- 01:01:52: Leaf Blower Solutions: Stipends, Incentives, and Enforcement
- 01:09:15: Planning Board, Town Parking, Environmental Impact Discussion
- 01:14:29: Public Comment: Sandy Caputo, Videos on YouTube


Part: 1

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and everyone aligned their priorities to coincide with the plan. Um, they sought a lot of feedback, gave us the feedback, and we then worked together with the framework created by New Jerseys Energy Master Plan to create your community energy plan.

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>> Can I interrupt for one second too? So I just we um Pima is here from sustainable Jersey and she is been an amazing partner um the whole organization has but you in particular on a number of projects and so um we received the grant um through partnership with Sustainable

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Jersey to be able to hire um Ben and his team. Um so we're excited to have you here too. >> Thank you. Glad to be here. >> Yeah. And it's important to note that this is very much a partnership between the board of public utilities, the clean energy program, and sustainable Jersey.

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So sustainable Jersey supports the board of public utilities in administering the program, working with the municipalities and having the municipalities coordinate their energy planning initiatives with the New Jersey Energy Master Plan. So,

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as we're going to cover right here, um, you know, as sustainable Jersey helps guide the municipalities and then we come in and help them implement those strategies. The strategies that are listed here are directly from the New

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Jersey Energy Master Plan. So the board of public utilities came up with a great way of getting everyone or as many people as possible across the state to coordinate their activities under certain strategies. Not that you have to undertake all of the strategies in the

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energy master plan, but it does serve as a framework that as you'll see in a moment under each of the strategies there are certain initiatives that you can choose to undertake or not. But it is a great planning process to create

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guidelines for energy use within the community. So the strategies are strategy one is to reduce energy consumption and emissions from the transportation sector. So as we'll go in more detail, think reducing emissions from burough fleet vehicles, consider

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electric vehicles, create electric vehicle opportunities for residents and businesses. So that's about transportation. Strategy two is to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy and distributed energy resources. So there think you know solar or

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geothermal or wind sources of renewable energy for the bureau to utilize through actual installations as well as things like community solar and educating the community about renewable energy. say, "Well, what you know, we don't we don't

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want to do this, but we do want to do that." And that's okay. There's nothing in there. We're going to go through these initiatives. There's strictly, you know, guidelines and initiatives that the bureau and residents can choose to undertake in the planning process. And also, this is a plan. You know, no one

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is committing anyone to anything. The burrow is not, you know, if you are delayed a year in implementing one of these initiatives, that's okay. The board of public utilities isn't going to come back to you and say, "Hey, you put it in your plan. You know, you didn't, you know, install solar on the burough facilities in time." That's not what

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this this is not supposed to hold anyone's feet to the fire. It's supposed to be an aspirational document for you to pursue an energy plan to reduce greenhouse gases within the burrow to educate residents and businesses about opportunities for, you know, renewables or electric vehicles. Um, so I just want

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to make that note. I'll keep going through this, but strategy three is uh about maximizing energy efficiency and conservation and to reduce peak demand predominantly for burough facilities and reduce burrow

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greenhouse gas emissions uh as well as educate residents. Strategy four is to reduce energy consumption emissions from the building sector and this is largely about new development. So creating a

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green development checklist, providing resources about clean energy programs for new developments within the burough uh or new construction. Uh strategy five you don't see there. Strategy five is not included at all for any of the

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municipalities because strategy five of the New Jersey energy master plan is to uh to increase resiliency of the electric grid. So that is strictly between the utilities and the board of public utilities. So it is not included

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in any of the municipalities community energy plans. Um strategy six then is encourage and support participation in low to moderate income and environmental justice communities. This is making energy planning and you know the results

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of the energy planning inclusive to all within the community. >> Question. So when I was looking over the plan, one of the things that will help is if you guys put some definitions in there. So can you explain to me what is an environmental justice community? Yeah, an environmental justice community

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is think um you know I a million years ago um I went to Rucker Law School in Camden and I was editor-inchief of the journal of law and urban policy and we did a forum actually with Newark on um environmental justice.

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Think environmental justice. There are certain communities that you know have disproportionate greenhouse gas emissions. So think cement factory in the middle of an urban neighborhood. >> So we want to make it you know inclusive for all communities because some

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communities bear the burden of uh greenhouse gas emissions more than others. So the strategy in the energy master plan is to make sure that we are making energy planning inclusive to all so that everyone's voices are heard. And

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so what we've done is, you know, we prioritize these based on the conversations with everyone in the burrow, you know, from the the different departments today is about getting any kind of feedback from anyone else to make sure that we and we put a message out to make sure we get community input.

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Um, and then what we did underneath each of these is then say, okay, which ones are important to our town? Which ones make sense? Which ones do we think we can achieve longer term? and really begin to select what we think would have the most value for our town which is what we've been working on with them. So

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it's not all the things underneath there. We really began to pull down what is there so that we can really make you know get resources against it get pri and take it as a priority and move it forward. >> Yeah. And I mean example of that is there is actually a strategy seven which

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can apply to municipalities unlike strategy five. Strategy seven is about you know advancing the clean energy economy and clean energy innovation. So that is things like battery energy storage and micro grids uh district

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energy and through the planning process a lot of those didn't seem to necessarily apply to the burough. So those didn't make it in there. um things like district energy, think like the Trenton uh Atlantic City steam loop, that's

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district energy. That doesn't apply to both. So those initiatives aren't necessarily considered. So um I'm going to go ahead and go through each of these strategies and I'm going to highlight just quickly the initiatives that the bureau did decide to pursue that did make it into the community energy plan.

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And I just want to by reference show you I'm going to just highlight certain priorities. Let me go back to the top here. This is your community energy plan. So, it is a much longer document. I'm just

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going to go through a presentation that just highlights the initiatives that the bureau decided to pursue. You can look at the plan on the bureau's website and go through the different initiatives in greater detail and I can talk through them. We do go through in here um the

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current status of uh electric usage, gas usage and energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and transportation that's currently you know by sector within the burough. So this is a lengthy plan. It's

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about 45 pages and each of the strategies each of the initiatives within those strategies uh are detailed in the plan. I'm just going to highlight those on a subject basis of this is the initiative. So as you can see here, this

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is strategy one, reduce energy consumption and emissions from the transportation sector. Each strategy then has initiatives under the strategy. So in the plan we detailed each of those initiatives meaning who are the

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stakeholders who would be involved when would a start date be to undertake that initiative what's the duration of that initiative what are available funding sources so we detail the plan and then what are next steps or action items that the bureau could take and what's the

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current steps what may be done already or you know some extra community notes that are particular development but now I'm just going to highlight the initiative So under transportation sector the initiatives that the burough is pursuing is adopt supportive zoning

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ordinance regarding electric vehicle infrastructure. Meaning where might you put EV chargers, where could they be located? That way people know when they submit an application what the rules of the road are essentially for permitting those types of projects. Um 1.2 and 1.3

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are are kind of taken together. It's essentially providing training. The first one is for first responders meaning for fire and police how to deal with electric vehicle you know battery fire as opposed to a gas engine fire. Uh how might first responders

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undertake that? So there is training. Um the next is not training non-emergency staff like department of public works if they start using battery training uh code officials on uh EV charging infrastructure and uh battery projects

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or meaning battery vehicles. Um 1.4 is purchase an alternative fuel vehicle. 1.6 is install public EV charging infrastructure, meaning just EV chargers. Uh 1.9 is community EV

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outreach. So creating an opportunity for the environmental commission in the bureau to make information about electric vehicles available to the community. And the last one is antiideling and enforcement. Meaning a lot of municipalities uh either have or intend to have a

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anti-idling ordinance, meaning you can't, you know, leave your vehicle having uh you leave your vehicle on say at the Wawa when you run in to get coffee and it's cold out, you know, you're just creating greenhouse gas emissions. So, putting signage up in

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different places, most towns point out a couple of areas where people end up leaving their vehicles running for a while. Um, and having some enforcement, meaning having police or code enforcement officials know that they

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should let people know, you know, you can't just leave your car running if they see someone. All right. Strategy two. Strategy two is accelerating the deployment of renewable energy and distributed energy resources. Uh 2.1 and and you'll see each of these

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strategies sometimes kind of mirror each other in that strategy one and strategy two are very similar. One deals with you know electric vehicle infrastructure, one deals with renewable energy. Strategy two, uh, initiative 2.1 is adopt a supportive zoning ordinance,

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meaning what do you need to do for putting solar on a house or a business? What are setback requirements? Uh, what are the permitting fees? A lot of municipalities want to have a reduced permitting fee for solar to encourage people to undertake solar projects. And

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the next one is create a solar permitting checklist so that solar installers know what the rules are in the town. It's kind of like the EV infrastructure ordinance. You want to have the zoning ordinance reflect what the the municipal priorities are related

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to solar or clean energy. Uh and there we've drafted these for a number of towns. There is a model ordinance that the uh that the state has as well. Um again like the other one 2.3 and 2.4 training first responders and training

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non-emergency personnel on solar. Uh 2.5 install on-site you know uh municipal renewable energy generation thing you know solar at municipal facilities. Uh 2.6 is buy renewable energy for municipal facilities. This means you

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might want to buy renewable energy when you get your electric supply. You can actually have a portion of it or all of it that's designated to be from renewable sources. and 2.9 and 2.11 essentially 2.9, 10 and

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11. Um those are different initiatives that are under the energy master plan. A lot of towns we work with have decided to take it's about having community solar and a community solar installation

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can be a solar installation one of the big solar fields you've seen you know on open land or on landfills anywhere within JCPNL territory it doesn't have to be in the burough and then you can make a program

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available where residents can uh reduce their energy bill, get a bill credit on their JCPNL bill by subscribing to it. Now, there are a few different things. There is supporting it uh community solar as a community as an ambassador

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that the burough can do by aligning developers with available land. You guys don't have available land, so that's not really at play. And there's also a renewable uh government energy aggregation where you might have a program where all residents are automatically subscribed into it would

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have to opt out. A lot of towns don't want to do that because it's an involuntary program. You can opt out but most of our mayors, council members, commissioners don't like placing residents in a program where they're automatically enrolled and they would

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have to opt out. So, what a lot of other towns are doing are doing a voluntary program where they're making they're going out finding a community solar subscription organization that will sign people up for community solar and then allocate a

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project to them and then they get a bill credit amazingly from 15 up to like 40% on their electric over 20 years. I mean, it's incredible. One town, I mean, granted, it's a large population of, you know, 67,000 residents, 23,000 households.

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Roughly 5% of people signed up for that, saving over $9 million over 20 years. I mean, the mayor loved it so much he campaigned on it. Um, so it really does save a ton of money and different than a lot of, you know, we've been developing solar projects at, you know, a lot of

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the towns and schools you see across the state over the last 18 years. And there is an impact from those. You save money from doing solar projects on your facilities and it saves taxpayer money, but it doesn't necessarily impact people

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directly on their electric bill, but the community solar subscriptions do. So, uh, it's a great it's a great initiatives initiative and residents see the results on their bill. Uh, strategy three is maximizing energy efficiency, conservation, and reduce peak demand. So

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3.1 is upgrading energy efficiency for municipal facilities. So here think uh uh LED lighting uh remote control thermostats uh motion sensors in in rooms, bathrooms

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so that lights aren't just on all the time to save uh energy greenhouse gas emissions and money at municipal facilities. Uh 3.2 and 3.3 are sort of taken together. It's a energy efficiency outreach campaign to residents as well

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as commercial. Again, one of the things 3.4 is energy outreach for large energy users, you know, hospitals, manufacturing, again not applicable to Belmont. So, uh, the bureau wants to pursue and environmental commission

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supplying information to residents and businesses about the energy efficiency programs that the state has. And we just finished the audit for all the buildings in town. So we don't have the results yet, but we'll be able to understand how inefficient or efficient some of the

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buildings are and be able to make recommendations on how we might be able to improve them. >> And it also paves the way for funding through the New Jersey clean energy program. So through some of those programs, you know, the bureau can get 70% or even more funded for their energy

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efficiency measures that they undertake after they do the audit. Uh strategy four is reducing energy consumption and emissions from the building sector. I remember before when I was going over all of the initiative all the strategies at once I was saying that's where you

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encourage new building you pulling new permits having uh encouraging energy efficiency measures or maybe green building processes. Uh so 4.1 is implementing a green uh green uh

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building policy. Again, not necessarily requiring people to do these things, but saying here are ways that you can uh create green building. So it's a policy where it may say future municipal facilities or

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buildings within the burough may end up being energy efficient and here are some things that you can do. So again, aspirational, not required, but it's creating a policy to at least consider those when there's new construction. 4.4 is request developers to complete a

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green development checklist. So when someone's submitting for permits, there's a checklist that says, you know, all the different types of energy efficiency measures they can do, meaning regarding, you know, materials or windows or lighting or HVAC, that they've considered those. So it's making

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sure that people who are pulling permits are aware of the things that they can do. So that's strategy four. Again, there's remember there's no strategy five. That's modernizing the electric grid. That's just between the board of public utilities and the utilities. Uh then we

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get to strategy six, which we talked about before. That's uh encourage and support participation by low to moderate income residents and environmental justice communities. Uh strategy 6.1 is make community energy planning inclusive. That uh is by making

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information available to folks on fixed income or low moderate income reaching out to uh you know senior housing affordable affordable housing so that everyone has a voice and everyone you know is aware of the programs. Uh 6.2 to is conduct energy efficiency outreach to

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low to moderate income residents. Just like I talked about before regarding energy efficiency, solar and electric vehicle outreach to businesses and residents, this is also making sure that low to moderate income residents are aware of the energy efficiency programs

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available to them. 6.4 is to support low to moderate income community solar subscriptions. As I was talking about before about the community solar programs uh for creating community solar subscriptions, a carve out of the state's program for

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community solar is to have uh a certain percentage up to 50% of community solar projects subscribed to by low to moderate income residents. So this is outreach to low to moderate income communities about community solar. So I know I babbled a lot. I hopefully that

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was informative. I know you probably have questions, but that highlights the initiatives that are in the community. >> I have a question. Is there, and this is something that we talked about before, is it can this be broken down into the things that don't require money, right?

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That we could start on we broke it down. One of those things to start and then what requires capital and then what are the things that request money and where can we get help on that? >> Yeah. So, in the plan it does highlight funding resources. So most of the things

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in here do not require funding. Yeah. >> The things that do require funding are things like uh putting in EV chargers, purchasing electric electric vehicles, installing solar facility, undertaking energy efficiency measures. Now in the

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plan, it does break down what the funding sources are for those. So you are correct. There are not a lot of federal incentives that there have been or they're being phased out like the 30% federal tax credit for clean energy. If you do want to pursue, you know, clean

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energy project, you'd have to start it today. >> Yes. >> Um, you know, at least very very soon. Um, there is state funding, you know, there's the clean fleets initiative. So, there is charging infrastructure money available from the state. So in in the

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energy master plan it does break down funding resources available >> and there's actually more than I would have thought like you know some utilities have programs actually Belmar has been working with some of the utility programs that are available. So um I think that's what you have done is kind of outline what that looks like.

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Excellent. But I think it's a good way to think about like where that's why we we took a if you remember we have the priorities like there was high, medium, and low and we took that into account to say well what things do we think we'd accomplish now and which one's going to take a little bit longer because some of these you know the team may get together

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and say we don't think it's an opportunity or it is. you know, part of it is getting everybody focused to investigate like what the best plan is and get the resources and, you know, some people from the bureau really like weighing in on what that should look like, you know, underneath each. Um, but

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I think there are quite a few ways supposedly to for us to go on. >> Yes. My point being is that when we talk to uh other people and talk to the town tying together, hey, you know, these are things that require capital. However, you can get some of the capital support from here, right? So, we're not and our

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goal is how do we not increase our tax rates? How do we not mess our budget up, but putting it together in a way that says, you know, if we do this right, we can make it costneutral to our our town to do a positive thing. How do you lay something like that out in a plan, you

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know, especially in a town that's going through, our taxes are going up, our budgets are going up and everything else, and we come out and say, now we want to do this. However, this is good because we're doing it in a way that is not going to impact you in negative in

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terms of the property taxes and capital spending and budgets, but it's going to benefit you in terms of the potential to your reducing of your electric bills, etc., etc. It's just framing it in that way that helps us in a community like this versus say some other communities. >> Well, and I think most communities are

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in the same place. Um, but I think it's how we position it. >> Exactly. And that's there in the information and it's it's there. And the going in proposition is that we would find funding sources for things. Not >> I just want to make sure people don't think we're crazy and go out and spend everyone's money. Exactly. How do you

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make sure we don't that we prevent that? >> Exactly. I think when you think about what the priorities are, thinking about what we can do immediate and what's long term, and not just that, but what can we partner with their towns to pursue? if we're I've been working with a couple of our neighboring towns to look at not

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just green fleets but some of the other sources uh for things like EV chargers and maybe even um some type of public transportation that would be solar that um that we could use across multiple towns in hopes that I'm trying

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to get a meeting with DOT um and just seeing what we can do and what's possible is a pilot program possible is a public private partnership possible but I think we think really big, we accomplish something. >> I agree. >> Yeah, I love that because I think that's

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where we get a focus too from we raise our priority level if we're partnering with other towns in everybody, everybody we talk to becomes a bigger opportunity. We talked about that somewhat with the trees. Yep. >> Um we saw what Bradley was doing with the trees. If we partner with other towns, there's a potentially way that you become, you know, somebody really

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wants to invest because you made a bigger impact across. I think framing it the way you guys just described it is critical because what we don't want people to do is all of a sudden hear this and turn their brain off, >> right? Because they think that it's going to cost me more, it's going to taxes going up, etc. But if you lay it

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out in a way that does what you're saying and you're saying that would help versus just a plan because a plan would all that context is is unfair to people who don't have the time that we've had to to evaluate this. >> The daily pages of the plan, right? We

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have the section on the on sources of funding the so that get it says funding source. This is a table here. Mhm. >> The rightmost cell is funding sources which is not the municipal sources

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listed here but the available brands from either the utilities which is in this case NJNG or JCPL or from the state departments and as and when not so often but other brands are opening we at sustainable Jersey try to keep the towns

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informed of them. >> Yeah this is all so important every argument every presentation is has an emotional component and logical component. So if you address the emotional component that we all feel in our town right now, but you're living being on the council, right? You're living this and you tie it together and

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you address it. Hey, we thought of it and here's how we've done this. I think that'll just help the plan get more buy in from people and see the benefit and and the and that it's going to benefit in the short term and the long term. You lay that all out. I think you can I think the plan can be rolled out very

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very clearly like that because it's all in there. It's just a matter of framing it for what this town needs to see. Okay. And like the one of the as you were talking earlier, I was thinking, you know, if done correctly, not only will it it reduce greenhouse

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gases, it's going to save money as well. So something like energy efficiency for municipal facilities. Like I said, it I'm not sure what the current level is for Smart Start. It kind of depends on the clean the the energy conservation measures you undertake, but it can provide 70 to 80%. Is that

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>> that's direct install? It's for municipal buildings and the more the energy savings possible the more the incentives you get and there is no upfront cost to the municipality for undertaking it. >> Um you're with JCPNL right? So JCPNL and

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NJNG if you're doing the projects with them. >> They will uh do a free energy free audit that's called the direct install audit. They will see which equipment can be replaced, lighting and mechanical. And then they will give you a proposal in

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which they will let you know the amount of incentives available. They vary anywhere between 40 to 70% depending on the uh energy efficiency possible for that given equipment. And the rest of the cost of the equipment can be uh paid

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through on bill financing which is 0% for the municipal facilities and over the next 16 months and the on bill financing will reflect on your bills only after the project is completed

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>> and you would have savings. >> Yeah. And the point is the energy savings should be paying for the equipment. That's one should pay out because that's basically >> that's not direction. That's what you're saying is energy savings investment program. >> I know I'm not saying it's eup what I'm

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saying is on the bill the amount that they should be receiving in energy savings should exceed the amount of the finance cost. Yes. >> So they will be at a a net positive. >> Yes. Overall the bill will be a net positive. And for the town this on financing is like it's going in your

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operational accounts versus your capital accounts. Go ahead. >> Well, yeah. I mean, one, well, first of all, thank you guys. This is super exciting. Um, but to to his point, I mean, would there be any benefit in calling it something like a energy

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efficiency and cost savings plan? Um, just to have that kind of taken off the table out front to have people know that this isn't another thing that's going to blow. >> Yeah. I mean, there is like an objectives page which I think you had that that actually said that, but we could probably make that big. Like I

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think that's a good idea. Like >> the the community energy plan is the name of from sust. But I like the idea of trying to figure out how do we Yeah. >> And then actually this is slightly related, but you mentioned the community solar subscription, which seems super

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exciting, but I I couldn't um just if you could clarify what was the reason why you wouldn't opt out of money for that like why would you have it be optional? Yeah, I mean the bureau can consider it either way. It's just the renewable government energy aggregation where the

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burrow would engage a community solar provide. They go out to bid, engage a community solar provider and then everyone in the burrow would be enrolled in the program. So years ago, I mean there still is, but

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there is energy aggregation having nothing to do with renewables where uh your electric bill the supply portion you can the town can bid out and all the residents are subscribed to. That has not been very successful

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because a lot of towns where everyone has been enrolled in things, people call the mayor's office very annoyed that >> their electric bill, >> their electric bill, they were enrolled with a supplier and they may have had a supplier on their own before and and also the utilities over the years have

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also had lots of issues maintaining the billing properly with that. >> Um >> I just know like sometimes you get all these like mailings and you're like, is this real? Should I send a ton of a ton of scam that came out and I was like I think we were talking about this like is this a real

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>> thing in 2.12 uh 11 and 12 where the municipality takes the initiative to um bet a few community solar programs so that um you like there are so many of them in the

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state number one like he mentioned you can only associate with the ones that are in JCPNL territories you cannot associate with other providers So there's PSNG, there's Atlantic City Electric, there's Rockland Electric. So you can't go with those. You have to go

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with the ones that are in JCPNL territories across the U um secondly, you have to uh make sure that the facility actually exists. That's exactly what you're concerned about, right? Does the facility exist? Am I getting scammed or not? I hope I'm not getting scammed.

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So that's where the municipality can play the role. you could vet these uh facilities and let the town know that these are genuine wines. There is actually a community solar finder on sustainable Jerseyy's website which has been created along with again PPU the

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board of public utilities where you can find um confirm that if you see some you know flyer at your door does this actually exist you can confirm with system's community sort of finder but having someone from the town speak up about it

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um create an awareness about it is something which is a good idea and to point 11 I think talks about if in the town there are large facilities I'm not sure about that but if you have something like a huge warehouse or something no okay so that that's out of

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question >> yeah so but the the involuntary program the downside for a lot of towns that did aggregations that people were annoyed that they were automatically enrolled so that's why generally we advise people to go the route of a voluntary program

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Um, is there any other comments or suggestions? >> Well, I just curious with the EVs, are hybrids considered in that program? I was just curious. I mean, it will eliminate a lot of the capital investment, wouldn't it? >> Yeah, hybrids are included in that. >> Yeah. >> So, there's not really much of a capital

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investment as far as installing. >> Yeah, that's right. I mean and and electric vehicles I mean there's so many options now for electric vehicles and the costs have come down substantially that a lot of towns are considering I mean there's the you know Ford F-150

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Lightning that lots of DPWs the you know the smaller ones I mean now there are tons of options for smaller EVs for code enforcement vehicles uh a number of our towns now have electric vehicles or hybrid police cars. >> Well that's fun. So, so yeah, I mean there's certainly and in that plan

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includes hybrid electric vehicles. >> So, we talked we talked with the police, you know, what kind of vehicles especially like when you think about it, there's cars that like the seafood festivals this weekend, there's cars that are going to be sitting there, police cars, you know, could that be electric instead and those kind of things. So, especially because we have

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so many events, are there ways that you can start incorporating that even if you're not, you know, we still think there's an opportunity and we've spoke to a couple, we spoke to someone that did it in New York and change their um police cars to electric. They've come a long way. Um but those are the kind of things that somebody, you know,

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whoever's working on that would then start saying, "Okay, what is best for us and like what are the ways we can start doing it potentially or go really big like the police >> Yeah. And also just to mention that there's a possibility of replacing an idling police car with an electric sign. >> So you don't have to have a vehicle

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idling because the police cars apparently have to idle if they're parked because of their communication system. So there might be solutions that that we can brainstorm together as a community >> and beach you highlighted or in the plan B highlight beach operations vehicles

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something yeah that end up you can replace with electric >> everything around the lake. So I want to thank you so much Ben for coming. I know did you have any more do you have any feedback or Anybody else? >> Can I let me just make a a comment if you would. My name is Jean Kramer and I

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live on 4th Avenue. Uh I was part of the BPU core program, customerowned renewable energy. Just so everybody knows here, I don't

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pay for any electricity. I sell electricity to you with a 7KW system. But my com my comments so o have seen over the years is that Belmar is the town itself is a bad player. Uh we just

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had a approval for 24 unit condominium uh over on 12th Avenue and that's going to shadow four solar systems in the neighborhood.

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So my advice to people and and of course the installers understand this is you can't encourage people uh to have solar installed on their house if the guy next door you going to be allowed to shadow

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you. >> Okay. Um, as far as potential buildings, larger size. Oh, by the way, uh, I think I'm the second largest, uh, solar array in town. Does anybody want

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to guess who's who's the largest? Minifair. You don't see it from the ground, but that building there, just from aerial photography, u I can tell it's larger than mine. Um,

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and of course, if you talk to people in the zoning board, they want to shut that down, right? >> So, part of the problem is right in the town, and it's I'll call it the attitude. Uh

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other targets uh actually our Delmare Elementary School is is a perfect solar candidate. It's got a south facing roof with no higher buildings around. In fact, there's a park to the south of it.

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That was brought up at one time, by the way, when this all started, both wind and solar. Uh back when I was on the environmental commission, uh we kept track of it. We made we we looked for solar candidates

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and also people that were restoring, you know, installing solar. In fact, Ken Pringle, I just saw him the other night. Uh he had an anometer mounted by a wind energy company that they had monitored

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it for a couple years. couple years ago it was taken down but generally in the architecture in town these dormers forget about it um what you have to do is maximize roof exposure in the

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southerntherly direction um I guess that's I was going to say if you want to change things in town change direction you have to encourage people to do it not allow buildings

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to be put up right in front of them to shadow them. Uh there goes your investment. When I first started this before uh got into trading of the solar renewable energy certificates, uh my my system was uh was to pay for

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itself in 20 years. when they got into the uh renewable portfolio standards that JCPNL and all the utilities, they have to buy a certain percentage of the electricity that they distribute. Uh I

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was able to cut that 20 year payback down to about six years. >> And you're one of the lucky ones who got one of the core rebates >> and also you installed your system early enough that you had SRES at, you know, $600. Now they're about $60.

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>> I think Jean's bringing up a great point because our role as an environmental commission is to provide recommendations to the mayor and the council and the administration. We have no enforcement. We can't tell anyone what to do. So I think finding that person and this you know Katie is important role for you is

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who's the person who's going to be the champion in the government who's going to roll us through and help us get resolutions regulations all those things and connect with them as soon as we can to get buy in and have a a joint effort because once we've done our

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recommendation as as you mention before that's all we that's that's where we end. So getting that person and finding out who that is and working with them starting now is critical. And >> thank you. >> Well, that's where when we when we

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outlined each project, we also outlined who would be responsible as the lead. That's part of the >> um that's the report. And then I think I've mentioned it in one of the other meetings. we'll all probably have to take, you know, some of the areas and then kind of coach them along and help

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them and, you know, you know, help make sure they're moving forward. So, um, we've identified already who who we think based on what the issue is or the opportunity, um, who the lead would be. And so, we would present that and then obviously get that person on board and then start asking the same kind of

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questions. I think that was great feedback on what you have there. And I think those are the kind of things you want to incorporate in each individual project. >> Great. Okay. Yes. So, thank you so much. >> Great job. Thank you so much. Appreciate >> Donna. Thank you.

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Thank you both. You guys, this is great. >> Okay. >> I'm an engineer. I love good plan. >> So, I want to just kind of shift up the agenda a little bit because there's an important game that someone gets in. >> So, want to just give me whatever council update you want to give.

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>> Well, I mean, council there's been major, you know, we we passed the amendment to the budget. So there is a tax increase this year. I believe the final rate would be 9.2 9.2 or 9.6%. Um

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and um we tabled a resol major bond uh that was I believe 2.3 that um would include 1.3 million for 8th Avenue uh which would then come back

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to us through funding. Um, and the rest included things like two D new Durango for the police department, which caught my eye. Um, because I was thinking about this plan that I knew reviewed ahead of time. Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, along with other issues. So,

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uh, we tabled that uh, so council could review it before voting on it um, on the next meeting. So, I wanted to flag that for all of you. Um, beyond that, I know that we have been talking a lot about um, Clearary Park and the issues over

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there um, since we met last I'm sorry I wasn't at the last meeting. I um I had mono so so I wasn't here but um we did have some residents from that area come by and they uh were upset about uh

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garbage on the ground over there about the general appearance of McClary Park along with uh the roads. So, I've met with someone from the governor's office trying to push along um the state to do um their part, but um I also got uh the go-ahead from our CFO and our burough

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attorney uh to commission hopefully and then this will keep going forward because we were it's difficult to take measurements over there, but to get a welcome to Belmar sign put over there too. Um and uh you know and Gary and I have talked quite a bit um about starting to

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slowly formulate a plan for McCclary Park in that area for us to start focusing over there and make sure those residents know that we're thinking about them the issues. Um on Monday I am going to be meeting with that um Shark River group. Um that's the um grant that we

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brought in along with you know the county wall add a add-on um Neptune and Neptune uh around Shark River Basin and the issues there. So um we're going to get an update from the state and county about the status of that grant and about

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the project moving forward and how we start to prioritize. >> Two quick questions. Is any money in our budget uh for matching funds to the lake? Like how do because we have to So the countyy's putting money up with the this the federal government is putting

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money up. >> Correct. We haven't had the earmarked dispersed yet. So that's not in the budget. Uh but the Silver Lake funding, I know I I was copying 20 million emails about that. I believe the match is in there, but I will double check on that.

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Um because I know um was worried about that. >> Yeah. >> Um so um go ahead >> on the theory if you're help. >> Go ahead. Yeah. >> On the theory part I was just reading something in the co-star about

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raising roads and >> I know. Wasn't that interesting? >> It just says we'll let you know as we develop it. >> Yeah. They didn't they didn't detail their their funding. >> Maybe we could get 35. I read it three different times and wrote down a lot of notes. So, I'm going

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to talk to them over there. So, I have a lot of questions. >> I mean, to me, the one of the most important issues going forward will be our roads and infrastructure and not only to repair what exists, but also to think about resiliency and what we should be doing maybe differently if we're rebuilding. Um, and that was a

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really good example of that. I'm very curious because it made it seem like that the project of that scale hasn't quite ever been done before the way sounds like a new thing. So, I have so many questions. >> I don't understand how they're not going to affect the homeowners unless it's a >> Well, yeah. I mean, if we're counting

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not affecting is not affecting more than a traditional road work project. Sure. >> It sounds like >> Yeah. >> Home was here, >> but without creating a gradient either. I mean, I'm not an engineer, but I had questions. >> There must be a sunken road or something.

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>> I mean, Misqu some of those areas are so low. They they sit so low. Now they're down low, but it sounds like the homes must be raised. >> A lot of them are further down. So if you go down near um Malard Park, which is where they have the fireman's fair over there.

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>> Um those homes were all raised. Yeah. >> All over there. And that's where a lot of that flooding comes from. >> Yeah. >> I think that for McCclary Park, we could do the same thing for Mclary Park that we did to Silver Lake. Set it up in a very similar way. Get community engagement. Look at the fun. talk to

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Congressman Smith, talk to the RS and get all that and put a plan together with you and the residents similar to that and hopefully we can get an outcome similar to where we're going with the lake to be able to to deal with the McCclary Park because the residents

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there definitely they deserve that type of attention. I agree. >> They really do. After what I heard I was at the session you were and I I couldn't believe I felt up there I felt so >> believe the woman had her carp house. I mean, and that that goes beyond the environmental commission's perview, but

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I mean, that's extraordinary. >> Um, and I've talked with them a couple times since then, and they're very happy that we're looking at it. >> I I also think that environmentally driving it through McClary Park would allow a lot of other things to happen more easily. >> You know, we're dealing with this and I

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think that just like we did with the lake, putting in a framework of allowing people that said, "Oh, I of course I have to support this. If we could do something similar for the oriental side, I'd love to do the carbon grants and the green carbon grant which might be directly applicable although frankly the green carbon grant

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I would love to see us partner with the shade tree commission and com tree and environmental commission to to address the canopy more directly but um yeah that's that's it. Does anyone >> I think it's signing you know they're very passionate and they deserve and I I

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like working with passionate people like that. >> I agree. Yeah. and yeah and she has come to this this meeting as well before. So um so she gets in touch with me and then I get in touch with Billy about spring very >> by the way it does look nicer what you

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guys did what you got Billy and DPW to do. So thank you for getting that done. >> Thank you. I appreciate it. I mean thank you to DPW. You know, if you ever walk down McCclary Park, who's ever done it, that whole spot from the end of McLaren Park going into wall was a mess. >> And because of the work that Katie got

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done with TP, DPW and DPW, it's a lot better. Still has a way to go, but it's so much better than when it was. So much of a better look. And if you put the sign up, that'll at least encourage our residents that they're doing something. >> Yeah, I agree. I agree. All right, guys.

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I have to go to Lakewood for the Blue Cross game for the PTO. But um thank you so much. You will all have my contact information if you need anything if there's anything else and I'll review the uh the meeting too. Thank you guys. >> All right, boys. >> You guys are great.

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>> Thank you. >> Okay, so um going back to the agenda, we wanted to talk about our new website. Angie's here if anybody has questions. Um, some of the questions that came up along the way were how to now work with the website. Um, like we have been

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struggling for a while to come up with an easy way to collect information want to get involved with different things that we're doing like to collect like an email address list or some way to go online. And we learned when you have people write things down on a pad, handwriting thing makes it a challenging

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thing. So, we're hoping to do something with the website. So, that that was my question. >> Yeah. And also um so for our efforts with sustainable Jersey, one of the challenges we had in the past is remembering and like archiving all the great things that have done. So we had

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you know late the flyer right for the and so is there a way that we can if it's posted there be able to archive you said some of that's archive but it's posted >> stuff that goes on Facebook it's all archived >> right >> in what's called meta business suite >> but is there a way that you know let's

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say we have 15 events throughout the year >> rather than going through each and every page is there a way that we can archive it and say okay you know we forgot we did this or we have this so that when we then have to tally it in the end we can kind of an easy way to do that. >> Yeah. So like um basically you want to

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be able to kind of archive an old news story that's saved it. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And almost develop a running list >> so that we can just look through and remember which one because there's certain criteria and one of the areas or the opportunity areas that we've been

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working on and I think we've gotten much better at is is community awareness for so we've got some great programs but is it out there as much as we could be? And so we didn't get a lot of points for when we were doing our work for sustainable jersey. So, um, we've a ramped that up a lot, but then we just have to be able to find all those

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documents and even like you said, when people >> sign up for things, you know, at the beach cleanups and stuff, how do we track those so we have a good email list? >> Yeah. Um, so one thing I can do is give you guys like admin access for like kind of an archival page that would be

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visible, but you can see like all the stories. We can archive what we want to. And then I think we have a get involved section right now but with I think two different types of site like you could say if you have an idea for the commission or if you we put the sign up

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for the patchwork for wildlife up there now but we can do any forms that we want. It's not super challenging. So >> I mean one idea just I can create like a Google spreadsheet or doc where if you have an idea and you want for the

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website and we can put it on there and I'll just work through it. Okay, that's great. That's great. >> So then what if we wanted to do a mailing to the people that sign up there or we want to add people to it? Is there like a master that we can we'll know what all those emails are and

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>> yeah kind of over time not captured them as best as we could. >> Yeah, right now if someone signs up I get an email which I could like I could forward them to you or they're like >> and then we can export the list >> and spreadsheet. Could you keep capture those?

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>> On a similar note, I have the email addresses from the beach cleanup. >> Right. >> So, could we add that to those same people >> like Oh, that was interesting that if we wanted to develop more like a a list that if we said, hey, there event like that.

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>> Yeah. The people came to the event, we asked them, give us your email name and email address so we can >> keep in touch with you about future events, things like that. Yeah, that would be like a new feature that would probably take me a little bit. We So, that would be kind of like turning it into like a backend CRM where we could

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like >> add people to the lists >> or we can also just start with like a spreadsheet and then like a Google spreadsheet. Probably start with spreadsheet and I can try to build it out over time where we can >> have them all one place on the website. But

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>> do you do you want me to send you the spreadsheet? Right. >> There you go. >> Okay. This will be getting already. >> Okay. >> But yeah, all three ideas and I'll try to find a way that we can centralize the ideas so it's not just like you have an

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email every time. >> Yeah. >> And then once something's updated on the website, will that go back to the town website or is that going away the town one? Like does >> it's linked to the town website? >> So you only go to the town website, you

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go to the commission and then it goes to this, >> right? So it would be the live version of whatever the most recent version. >> Yeah. I but the only question I had was we like right now I'm not pushing it out on Facebook or anything like that. So I don't have admin privileges but I wasn't sure like

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>> you know is do we know who who does the Facebook posts? >> Oh nice. >> So we should give admin privileges. >> Okay. Either way. Yeah. >> Because remember we had this discussion about Elena. We should just give admin privileges >> because if then if somebody sends me news, I can update the website and then

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just like push it out. >> Great. That's great. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Cool. >> Um did you want to talk about the leaf blower? You had a some of the thoughts about the leaf blower ordinance. Did you want to talk about that? >> Yeah. Or we can do it next time. I don't know what kind of time we have, but um we just that was we sent out the Bradley

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Beach. >> I like that. Yeah. >> Yeah, that was exciting. Um so just took a look at their ordinance and um it was very similar to what has been talked about in previous meetings here. So we just um put together some draft language. I did bring it if anyone wants

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to wanted to talk about it. Um and like I just it was it was what we talked about last meeting which you guys had it turns out already talked about um at previous meetings in the past. Um, but yeah, I mean I'm since I'm new, I'm

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not really sure what the what the process. >> Yeah, exactly. Where this goes from here, but it's something that I'm super passionate about. Well, one thing we can do is we can all review between now and the next meeting and give you any questions that we have, but also take a vote at the next meeting whether we want

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to refer to the burrow and ask them to consider it. >> Great. I think the >> was the president of each one uh rejected by >> Yeah. >> took it off on the next meeting. They took it off. >> Okay. Well, consideration's

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>> Yeah, they had 200. >> He had 200 customers from town or something. >> Yeah, we're not proud. >> I'm just saying if you want to model it after them, but they they got knocked down by There's a whole statewide organization of municipalities that are

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working on this um ATLJ alternatives to landscaping New Jersey and you can access they have like a whole network of people and of communities that have already passed these different and some of the obstacles they ran into along the way. Like in some communities they rolled out one thing and then they had

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obstacles and then they changed the ordinance and did it differently. like in one community um it only applied to commercial landscapers and then the commercial landscapers said that was unfair. They reddrafted the ordinance further down the road to include every you know residents as well with a seasonal ban. So there's some lessons

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that we could learn from other communities that have been working together to try to address this idea. >> I think we have a lot more work to do before you present any recommendations either to this community or anyone else. taking all that information you said, what are the learnings are, how you would educate people, how you educate

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the town, what the time frames and everything else because if it stands like right now I don't am not electric uh blowers because I don't know enough about it but if we know more you know then it'll be better. So gathering that information I think is is the most important thing now and addressing like

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why Bradley Beach turned down and or or whoever else turned it down at other towns and getting that one one place what we had done for the lake is we created you know Google Drive where we collected all the information around the lake. So if we had a place where we could gather the information on electric

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blowers so that people like on the committee and everything else could go through and search it and look at it and say, "Okay, here's the best way to position something like this for our town or the timing of when to do it for our town, but we just don't have enough information to have an articulate discussion about it yet."

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>> Well, my suggestion is that we leave it on the agenda for next month and that gives us a month to collect information. Yep. muster up our talking points and because you know Andy said we talked about it before we haven't made the any progress in any meaningful way. So maybe if we continue to try to address it

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>> and ways we can get around some of what we've heard >> and what we've heard are obstacles in other communities that we can maybe you know come up with a different way >> no I was just going to say maybe there's a way to it could be a crazy idea but like what if we could figure out a way to incentivize people that do so like is

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instead of saying like you can't can't you know all that kind of stuff people don't want to see that is there something I don't know advertising on our site I don't know like is there something that we can do >> I can give you examples. One is I know in Princeton they actually offer a stipen to commercial landscapers to

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support the purchase equipment. That's Princeton. >> Um but also on a smaller scale the whole concept of this patchwork for wildlife idea includes rewarding or recognizing homeowners for using sustainable maintenance practices which would

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include battery operated landscape equipment. So we give them awards, yard signs, thank yous and people home owners are really appreciative. People spend a lot of time in their yards and they don't get a lot of positive, you know, thanks for the neighbors. So, that's

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like another way to think about how you do that. >> And I like the stipen idea because if if people are also like you're thinking of residents, if it's maybe an expensive change for them, >> you know, if you could get some sort of stipend or some way that you'll offset

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some of the cost that might help. Does the town get a fee charge for a permit for the landscapers? But the landscapers have to pay for a permit. >> Yeah. I don't know from what I've been able to find out. >> Yeah. And I don't think there's even >> Yeah. I mean, you can incentivize it by

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not, you know, waving it or reducing it. But we don't have anything. >> We don't have anything like that. >> It's something to talk about like should we have some sort of past >> the landscapers? >> No. that would would um

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>> no the council person >> I mentioned it. Oh goodness. Who was >> gentleman before Katie? >> Tom. Tom. >> Yeah. And I I brought it up once or twice over the years.

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>> Just never seems to go anywhere. >> The only way to get anything changes to be relentless. So you can be relentless. >> Intubacious. >> Intubacious. You know, I think one of the things that we like can really emphasize is this is only a seasonal band and there's really not leaves in the summer.

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>> Like the leaves are in the fall and in the spring and that's when your landscaping companies can come. >> Um and so maybe if we also did like a phased in approach and said like this starts in two years and maybe if we also had storm exemptions. We talked about

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that a couple meetings ago. >> Does say storm exemption? >> Yeah. So like all that is just like if we can just get a foot in the door and try to be, you know, and maybe we can reach out to some of the landscapers and try to I mean they'll probably end up being there anyway, right? If if we if

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this gets introduced. So just talking to them, seeing how we can make it easier on them. Um but I do think the noise thing is a big deal for a lot of a lot of residents. Um well >> it's more of a noise thing from what um

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May through no November and that's the time for us to to share information educate people and try and get things done because hon forget about it December through April until my neighbor goes out and spends four hours blowing his property and then then it comes

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right back to you. So I think that those windows of opportunity is something to include in how in how we do that because you know and the timing will be key because it's just like anything else in life when's that window of opportunity to make a change. Well, you know, at the

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council meetings, they always talk about are there any petitions? And it was suggested to me in the past. We considered taking a petition around like at the LR5 or place where there's a lot of people at the concert series and how many people who live in town

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>> would support considering limiting the because in summer, like you say, people will probably be more likely to be >> that's when you that's when you take the petition around, not in December or January. I I do think also learning what other towns are in because I'm sure there's beyond Princeton. We've all

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heard Princeton, right? But we could learn from them and the community. Um but then what other towns I thought something around Deal or one of the other I thought somebody else had >> Aspbury was talking about it. I don't know. Maybe that's what it was. I think >> I think Bradley tried it and then there

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it had a seasonal ban and they changed they weren't um they weren't really enforcing it and then they dropped it. >> Okay. But there are there's a cluster of towns in further north and further west where there's a lot more trees, a lot more leaves um where they have passed

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these ordinances. So I think we could get more information and and look at it collectively and we just keep it on the agenda and try to get information you know out and maybe talk about this whole idea of getting petition. >> Yeah. Come up with solutions. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thanks.

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Um, okay. So, Patrick for Wildlife, I just wanted to mention we had the rooted in Belmar event. I guess that was a week or two ago. Um, >> two weeks. >> Two weeks. Thank you. And it was we had like 65 people. It was really a nice positive event. We handed out every

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single uh piece of every single seedling that you gave us. They all got taken. >> We had a really good speaker from the county parks department talking about native plants and about just general maintenance of your yard. um and a really positive atmosphere. So, it was really nice. >> Really great. I can't say enough of what Liliana did.

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>> She was >> she's fabulous and she really was so >> really organized. A great thing. >> Yeah, >> she was relentless. >> It was so cool to see her at the end of the thing. Was >> very good. Very good for her. >> I just want to say that's why I'm here tonight. >> Oh, really? >> Yeah. >> Were you at the I was at the event. >> Oh, well, thanks for coming.

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>> A flyer. I think I'm going talk to you for a few seconds. >> Yeah, you look familiar. Yeah. Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. >> So, there Thanks for coming. >> Yes. Yeah. >> It's proof that it had followup. >> Yeah. Great. Um, we also had a cleanup um on uh at the beach. Do you want to talk about that about the cleanup? >> Uh, yeah. It was good. I mean, the

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public works cleaned the beach before we got there, but there was still a lot of stuff in the bushes and I was amazed at how much stuff we actually found. So, I thought it was a great event. >> Great. Awesome. >> Yeah. >> I think the question moving forward that we've talked about is when is the right

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time for us to do another. So, there were a lot going on at the same time. And that's why we didn't get Manisquan had it the same day. And so, you know, do we move to the lake? Do we stay at the beach? Maybe we talked like do you do at the end of the summer because when everybody leaves there's a lot of trash

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and those kind of things. So, we can just keep an eye out and start thinking about when would be a good time. So, that we got a lot lot more people than I would have thought because last year we got a lot of kids from that squad. Um, and then this year there were some great people that came out. So, but I think that we could, you know, think about

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timing versus the Ocean One and some of the other towns to make sure that we're maximizing the, you know, the effort, but we still got a lot of garbage. So, >> which is great. >> That's awesome. >> Looks good. >> Um, I want to just mention about sustainable Jersey as well because we

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are going to, as Donna mentioned before, not only have to archive our events, but there's some other things that we want to start to think about to get reertified for sustainers. So that's something I'm just going to mention that briefly, but if anybody wants to go to sustainable Jerseys website, you could

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see the huge criteria out there for a municipality to be certified. And I think, you know, we could not only be reertified, but we could up our level >> and it developed a relationship with sustainable Jersey that led to this community energy grant. They they found

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us the money for that. >> We have the energy audit going on in the municipal buildings. like they're they're kind of linking us up with resources which is really nice to have a relationship like that for your town. >> Well, you do it the same way as you did it last time where we divide we divided it up between groups and we go in the

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site and do it. So you'll look for volunteers sections like I think that worked fabulously last time. You guys did a great job with that. >> Timing conquer I think was our because there's like so many different elements >> and you have to write up section it has to edit it all over there.

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>> Yeah. So all of that is coming soon >> and the the also silver lake just to give a quick update about that. Um I spoke to the Maya who's our engineering representative on the team from the US Army Corps today and they are still um

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working on some of the elements of data that they need to get together but they're also really looking at the um financial side in side. So, she's formulating a document for us to u be able to certify volunteer hours over the

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past year as part of the town's income contribution and um she's been working with her people as far as the water modeling which they have to do. So, there's still some elements there, but we are we're working on it. So, there's that.

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>> Does she have an she have an idea of when you're going? No, >> no, not right now. She doesn't. So, apparently there's a lot going on at the US Army Corp that we're not aware of, but >> but we're we're working on it. So, I thought that was good. At least we get some feedback. >> Is there anything that do we need to

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follow up with anyone to follow up with the US Army gets more priority or is it really on our end that the is it our end of the >> right now? It's it's the um the financial piece like looking at what

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what part can the town certify for their income contribution >> but also what part they've done because they haven't really come back like how much like they had their piece to do too >> well with the financial because they've already contributed their staff time towards this but

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>> there's the burrow engineer did some work >> right >> so they have to get like the you know what's that worth um like survey that they did. Um the volunteer hours, we got the grant from the county for the pathway, so that has to be included. So,

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they're trying to get all of that straight so they can figure out >> how to get this water modeling paid for because they were running into >> they use a university, we use a university, and they all go out of session over the summer. So, that's part of the challenge right now.

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>> So, we're working on it. And do you want to talk about the plane board? >> Just reviewing the sign ordinance again. Uh made some recommendations that are going to the mayor and council and now they're looking at awnings.

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>> And uh the meeting on this Monday has been cancelled for lack of agenda items. >> Okay. >> Pretty slow. >> Can I just ask a quick question and I can do it separately if you because I I was talking a little bit to Mike at the last meeting. Um, is there going to be some sort of consistency in the town? Like do you feel like that's going to

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make progress? So >> consistency >> like if we're going to have awnings and we're going to have like pretty much when you look at the town >> the chair I as actually asked that I said I mean nobody's enforcing anything. >> Yeah. >> And then so what we're going to go we're going to do this and then we're going to

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make everybody change but no. >> Right. But with new is there going to be some sort of you know there's the new ones across the street let's say down here. Um, has that been talked about? Like is there >> Yeah, they're looking at styles, the different styles, the area of the

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wordage on the verge on the sign, whether it has the fringe on the bottom or not, and if there's words on that, too. It's just, you know, >> oh my god, >> that's what I said. I mean, I don't know. I looked at it. The warrior got

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mad at me because I was kind of vocal, uncharacteristically vocal, but yeah, >> I could imagine what you said. >> So, um, it it so I guess they're going to table it because we're not having we we have not having a meeting one day.

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>> But, uh, yeah, they have pictures. I mean, it was nice. They two of them took pictures of all these awnings up and down Main Street and what you know, the different variations. No, there's nothing. >> Is there a recommendation from >> Not right now? Nothing. >> Okay. >> Just reviewing >> options

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>> options. And they're more concerned about the the the coverage on the awning with the words in the verbiage and the size of it. >> That's it. >> Okay. Uh any other >> I'd like some comments. I'd like to toss

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a new agenda item out for the future to think about is that I've been walk around talking to business owners and I've been walking through the town looking at the parking and trying to frame it against all these new people coming all the new people coming into our town with all the housing that's

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going on >> and um whether being forced parking and things like that. I'm really concerned that as we bring these things in that we're going to wind up with a problem with not enough spaces, not enough cars, idling, increasing, you know, standard pollution. And I'm wondering if we could

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potentially put uh town parking into an item for us to discuss within the environmental committee so we can make recommendations >> to the town redevelopment plan. They just >> kick the can down the road

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administration. No, I I agree and I'm just wondering if it's something that we should look at as a as a committee is to make recommendations on that in that area. I realize it's a probably somewhere to tread lightly, but uh I I got I was I went down 10th Avenue. It's

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not even the uh summer and every one of those spots was filled and so on to the business to put business on. They can't this the customers can't park there because there's two out of limits that people aren't enforcing and the parking there's nowhere else to park that there's the people idling in places. I don't know. It's just something to think

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about as if something that we you know I mean if there's a bridge too far I'm running for it. So, so it's just something to think about the code enforcement in general. >> We went down to the, you know, where all the shops are in the mall here, mall

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area on a Tuesday for lunch and it was full. >> Yeah. >> Well, that's I'm going to guess that's from the train station. >> Yeah, that's 10hour parking. >> Yep. But there's going to be people driving around our town looking for spots. They drive around our town more. It's just, you know, it's just I don't

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know if it ties into the community engineer plan or whatever, but I think it's something >> we have the law on 16th. >> What on the law toward the basketball court and the skate park? >> The other end of town, >> the golf cart.

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>> Yes, I know. >> Get an electric trolley. It's it's just something in it's it's just going to over the next two years it's going to get you know >> it's going to you know that's the reason why I talked about mcclary park over the next two years you have all these people that are going to be living that are

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going to be their access from where the the spot on where clients and the Belmar paints used to be yeah >> going to the 135 they're going to be going up and down Shark River >> right so that means that we have to have that that green space and that's why

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mccclary park becomes so important So, and I think it's making me think is that when that goes on and all this parking, is it something that we should start looking at earlier to give the recommend? It's just >> it just >> No question. Yeah. >> Stuff pops in my head. I'm sorry. >> No, it's

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>> has the committee ever done anything bike safety or bike safe biking initi >> just the um the thing that we're doing with the EVs and because there's they're very concerned a town in general is

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concerned with buyers and people using EV batteries that are not appropriate and kind of like I don't know if it's private label or like a non you know certified one because there's been issues so but not when it comes to biking in general I haven't seen this >> the newer developments the these big

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developments would require to put the bike stands in >> but outside bike rack inside or out >> I think it all comes together in an overall some someone this town's going to just have to look at different our town's going to have to look at different things that this increased

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amount of uh of people moving to our town and what the impact will be and you know environmentally we can make suggestions and you know >> like bike wrecks I mean that was a good one >> every there's a whole list of things that we can possibly think of as you said with the master a lot of this is

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already in the master plan it's just not you know you don't happen so maybe some things that we can that we can do and having you know environmental the environmental angle on it might make it e might easier to introduce and have discussions around it versus so and

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versus the other type of discussion that goes on look what it's doing to our town type of thing but no how are we going to get ahead of it >> just the environmental impact >> exactly I think because that's you know the environmental and I don't remember seeing any environmental impact

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statements on on our affordable housing you know so it's just something to think about Okay. >> All right. I'm sorry. >> Thank you very much for your time. >> Thanks for coming. >> Public comment. >> Do you want to make a comment? Go for

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>> it. Looking forward to >> uh Sandy Caputo. Again, my videos are for everyone. So, anyone is welcome to go to my YouTube >> uh copy the embed code uh post them wherever you want. >> Thank you.

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>> That's very nice. >> Thank you. Thanks. >> I used to review a couple meetings that I missed. >> Yeah, but yeah. Thank you. >> Thanks. >> Okay. >> All right. Good night, everybody. >> Good night. >> Good night.