In accordance with open public meetings act NJSA 104-6 notice was provided by to the public through the municipal calendar that is publicly available on the belmar.com website and in the co-star. Um we sent
around the minutes with one change to add one more person present. Can we agree to accept the minutes as as were reviewed? Motion second. Second. All in favor? Oppos? None. Okay. Um
I want to just give a couple quick updates then let Amanda have a chance so she's at the state for the whole meeting. Um the green team and the landscaping grants. We are continuing to try to manage those um this set of activities under those two grants. Just have to close out the social media piece
of the green team. Um we're going to be at the San Janeiro Festival on Saturday. Everybody's welcome to come and man the table or woman the table. I know L said you could give us some time on Saturday. Yeah. Yeah. Great. I will. Well, obvious we'll talk. Um, so
what we're going to do there is give out information. We invited John Gibbons if he wanted to come by and sit for some time and talk about patchwork for wildlife. Um, and just kind of see what we could hear from people in the audience there over there. Um, we met with I talked to Billy Musto. who's our
public works director about the landscaping grant and we agreed to ask sustainable Jersey for a budget modification because the original budget had several thousand dollars set aside for like a consulting workshop but we did have a sustainable landscaping
workshop in the past six months u we have contact with vendors we can get training at no cost and um Mr. We've also asked that we just use all the money for equipment. So that way we can purchase more equipment for the burrow. So we submitted a request to Sustainable
Jersey. We're waiting to see if they're okay with us modifying the budget in that way. And this is for the C? No, this is for the um battery operated landscaping equipment for the parks department. Which grant is that on there? It's a it's a sustainable Jersey grant.
And um we've talked about having public works employees use battery operated equipment in order to kind of showcase to residents also the some of the benefits. But we also talked about the benefits to the workers which is that there's less exposure. Is that the $10,000 one?
That's $10,000. I'm only remembering by numbers now. We just got started. I uh my husband's at the fire convention down in Wildwood and one child has soccer right now and
the other two are anyway. Sorry. That's okay. So, I was just giving a quick update about the two the landscaping grant that we operate and the green team grant and we just have to um close out the green team grant. We have to kind of finalize the social media piece and we're looking for a
modification based on public works request that we change the electric landscape budget to cover only equipment purchasing that they don't feel the need for another training session but we could get some like training from the vendors. Cool. So we're looking Yeah. So I I kind of like the idea it'd be
their idea, you know. So secondly, um we're going to be at the San Jane Festival on Saturday. Unless we're going to see here now, not everybody will be there, but some of us will be there and we'll be distributing information and talking to the public. So, I want to break from the agenda and invite Iana here who has nice enough to
come. She's been working on some projects with the general arts council and she would like to let us know what they're doing, invite us to work with her. So, here you go. Yeah. So, the the big thing is I got I am the director of an exhibition in April May next year. So
2026 um it it's called nature at the shore and I want to emphasize native plants mostly. So I'm trying to get it I mean in in my in my mind we have everything. We have a workshop. We get the Monmouth
Park system here. We do um pictures, paintings, whatever. we we have meetings with people so that we'll um talk about native plants and uh however I don't know how much of this I mean I'm working full-time so unfortunately I can't
dedicate all my life to this but if we could do things together so like a workshop April is native um plants month so it would be nice to have a workshop and then of course BAC would be really
happy to have more people actually advertising. So they are okay with saying that this is sponsored with a government environmental commission and library or whatever else we we can bring in. So, one question is, does do we want
to co-sponsor an event like this just to lend our name to it? Perhaps provide some resources. Maybe we could talk to them about the Patchwork for Wildlife. That's like another source of native plants in Lake Coma that we've been working with and maybe some ways that we
could work together. Are we good with that? It's a good tie. Yeah. So, now is this a one day event? No. No. This is a whole month at the BAC. Okay. But the thing is I mean we can do anything if as long as we just sort of cross advertise. So they will say these
things are happening as part of this exhibition and then we say and also go to the BAC we have wonderful paintings and drawings whatever happen maybe a plant sale maybe we can I mean you know the sky's is the limit I can dream.
So I guess it ties in with the magical garden as well. Uh we can tie it with a magical garden. So, I just assumed that because I know you're a member there. Yeah, I'm a member there. And over this winter, I actually uh grew some native plants from seeds and I'm a little more
comfortable with doing this. So, one of the things I can do this winter is maybe have the same workshop here, not necessarily in the library, but somewhere, and have people come with a jug of milk and come back with go home with seeds. I mean, we'll plant them
together and we'll see what happens. So, some something. What would the title of the workshop be? Uh, this would be planting um growing native plants from seeds workshop. So, we would co-sponsor growing big.
No, I mean it's everything is open right now and I'm the only volunteer. Okay. Doing a brainstorm. All right. think if there are other things that we want to do, we can kind of tie it together. Seed growing workshop. So, it's like something I'd be willing to help with.
Oh, awesome. So, I have a lot of a wide network in the native plant society and I can get seeds for free. I know the material. I can talk to people. So, it's as long as I have people helping me. And
so, for example, I don't know, deciding on a date and having a workshop, things like that. I think we should think we should go. Absolutely. Good time. All right. It's great. So, um, also at the Belmar Art Center,
there's um, if you guys went recently, there's a nice garden in the front, but on the side on the left, there's or this is my right, on the right. Um, it's towards the police station with a bridge in the back. So, it's kind of awful. And
they wanted to make a native plants. They got a grant for it. They had someone pay a check for that garden. I got a list of plants and I'm trying to get plants and plant them. So, by April, May, we're actually going to see some.
So, basically, that's going to be my art project is going to be the the gardening uh garden there. But the thing is by then I'll probably know what grows well in our area and things like that. So you planting them now is Yes. Okay.
I'm right now trying to acquire all of them. Nice. Yeah. There's like 30. There's not such a big place. I mean, do you know John Gibbons? Because I'm sure he'd be Oh, yeah. Remarkable resource for this. Yeah. I mean, John Gibmons, you know, I
I asked John Gibmons for 10 plants that I can plant and he's like he has 15. It's like asking him to choose between his children. It's actually picked this one. Okay.
Um maybe there's a way we've been trying to figure out how we connect with the schools. Maybe there's something at the schools. Yeah. To make them aware and make it a learning experience for them as well. Yeah. So any connections that you can help me with. So would this tie into like the environmental fair thing that you guys
have talked about last time? Maybe bring something like that into it. I paid attention to put the name. I think Earth Day is in April. Is that right? Earth Day. So that you're talking about April, right? Right. So maybe there's something
that with the school that we could sort of tie into that as well because a lot of schools have some sort of You said April is native plants month. Is that what you said? Yes. So you have one volunteer already. I'd help that too. I would do that sounds like fun.
I think we and we can figure out and we can figure out how to kind of put together the package so it gets attention especially if it's a collaborative effort. It just feels like a readym made project. Yeah. Yeah. And are you thinking that you would take
your art then and let's say it was up at the pavilion or somewhere else would you take your art out of there or just thinking that you want it done where it's being displayed? You know, I I had an idea that if I have so many submissions and if if I actually do a
campaign, a good campaign, I will have every single artist that I talk to was interested in this. So, if I start it now and I talk to people and I have so many paintings or pictures or whatever that it's an overflow if if we could use either the library or any other place to
we can display these things. I don't know the town. Have you thought about reaching out to like the art teachers at the high school as well to see if I That's a great idea. I would love to. Yeah, because there's I'm sure there's art teachers at St. Rose. There's an art teacher, I'm sure, at Old School High School. Yeah.
And you could have like maybe a student division or some sort of Yeah, sure. That's a great idea. I think there's an environmental club at Manisquin High School, too. We talked about this before. So, maybe this could be a good reason for us to reach out to the teacher over there now that they're back in school and
there's plenty of time to plan. talking about spring. So yeah, if you guys have any connections, please let me know. Yeah, we have the names of we've reached out to them for a lot of the cleanups and things. Excellent. Thank you so much. Yeah, in fact, we had some high school students at one of the cleanups, too. So,
or maybe it's better coming from you to introduce me. Yeah, you did together. Yeah. Be nice. Okay. Is there anything else you want to share or um I mean uh this is should be required reading for all of you. If you guys are
interested Douglas tal. Oh yeah. So if you guys didn't read this and you're want to do native plants, this is a way to it's I just it's very similar to I worked with his son. Oh, okay. Oh, did you? It's very similar to the
work that John Gibbons is doing with replacing lawns with native plants and what you should and should not plant if you want to support wildlife. Yeah, I recommended it to the library and I saw it over there. So, it's from the library actually. I should read it
and return it soon. Well, since we're talking about John Gibbons, just just to kind of follow up, um there's a letter to the editor in the co-star today about patchwork for wildlife in Belar. Great book. And I I know the author, so I've already seen the letter,
but it's there if you have a chance to take a look. Um, we're gonna we invited John to join us on Saturday, so we'll see what we can work out there. But he is also planning a sustainable landscaping workshop for September 27th. And like Iana has said, he's asking if
the commission would co-sponsor that workshop, which would be at Candid's garden at his house where he has his his garden. Um, but I guess that that's a question he had for all of you. Would you be willing to co-sponsor the landscaping workshop and then we could
advertise it together on our media or his media or however we want to advertise it. Sure. September 27th. It's like a three-hour tour through his garden. Just get me content. I can put it on. I will. I can and I will.
So September 27th. Um, I h I don't have it in my head, but I think it's 11 to two. That's my guess. It's September 27th. 27th 11 to two. And we'll co-sponsor and and help publicize it. Yeah. As long as nobody has an objection. Yes.
I'll say that I have. Um but we we've been we recognized six yards in um a couple about a month ago and we have another set of six or seven yards we're going to go around. We sort of roam from
the outside and kind of John kind of evaluates the yard and the landscaping and kind of estimates the acreage because the concept through patchwork is to make to accumulate an acre of yards if you put them all together. That's why we look at the the size of the yard. But
we look at native plants to see if they have native plants, if they have permeable services, if they have Hey, Carlos. Um, how you doing today? Um, a lot a whole lot of things which I I think I gave out last time the patchwork criteria. So, that's what's
going on with patchwork. Um, okay. So, Iliana, you're welcome to stay or it's up to you. No, unless unless you Thank you for coming. No, we're happy. You read this whole book. You read the whole thing.
Was it good? I remember he was like his son was like, "Oh, yeah, I know a weird man about bugs." I was like, "What?" Yeah. I put it on the list for the library. Oh, you did? And they saw it there. I
was so happy. Oh, good. Yeah. Um, okay. So, the next item on our agenda is the Sha Tree Commission relationship. And, um, along that line, we had a meeting uh, actually the three
of us, I think, at the meeting at public works along with at least half of the state tree commission was there. And the the content of the meeting was who's going to manage the trees around Silver Lake? So, um, Okay.
Well, shade tree commission doesn't um they um what's the word? They deferred. They deferred. Very good. They deferred to they deferred to us around the uh repairing boundary and said that what we think is necessary to be done to maintain the repairarian
boundary. Uh but that'll be good with them. they felt like they already had enough to deal with and that they weren't that interested in dictating what happened around the lake and they would defer to us to that end. We met with Billy
that was the meeting was about one of the things that I learned when we met with Millie was that maintenance has become very difficult for anybody to do around the edge of the lake because they can't get their equipment in there safely. um it's right on the water. So
there there's some issues that we have we've learned from having this no modes all around the lake. So we kind of talked about what are some ways to approach that and although people volunteered to help public works with the pruning public works at this point feels they can manage it.
They're just happy to have a little leeway to take some more things out to make it a little easier to actually maintain the border of the lake. I think we had a good we have a good plan with them. um we'll be able to see they'll be able to get the most done with the best use of their resources and
um we'll learn from it, right? What we're hoping is that, you know, cuz when they go through and take out some of the trees, they're going to have to take some of the repairarian area out and we'll just the geese then use that to come and exit go to the lawns. We'll know, you know, the the
role that it's playing. We'll be able to confirm that. So, it's and it's not going to be over a broad area. So, it's it's going to and those trees have gotten, you know, the the honeylust trees have gotten a little bit out of hand with the nuisance level of them. What were the other trees that we saw that the
some are native? I think the pimmen the pimmon trees that there's just a ton of them that need to just be thinned out, right? Yeah. And they're going to do it. They said they do it, you know, depending on their workload and
Yeah. In October. October. probably by Halloween. As long as nothing happens weatherwise between now and then, like a hurricane, I think we had a frost. But I think it was good. We kind of got clarity about who can do what?
Go pick some. Do you know where they are? I know what they look like. But there's a lot of them because the pimmon tree sets fruit, drops it on the ground, and then there's pim trees everywhere. So there's too many for some trees.
The whole goal is to thin out and prune so you have the healthy tree environment and also um you know some of the some areas just been overgrown. You can't you just literally can't see through the honey. It's almost like a damp stretch how bad it got.
It's a little underrated. Yeah. What section of the lake is that in? Yeah, a couple sections on both sides of the lake. I kind of walked around mostly like east of Be Street. Okay. There's honey locust trees on the north side on the south side over by Drew Drew's
house and then on side lake north side. Yeah. So, we'll find out. And, you know, we asked told them we'd have volunteers to help them, but they said that they said they got it.
Yeah. I actually was uh talking with him today because I was over in that area and there was some overgrowth near the playground like that. So, he's aware of that and that's on the list now, too. Yeah. They're going to spray again as well.
Was in September. Did you say something? We should make sure this time that we get a notice out to people because that that was certainly source of contention earlier. Just letting people know is always a good thing. Yeah. Will will you drop a note about that about it?
Well, we talked about it, but we didn't ask for that. Well, the nice thing is that um Nixl, which is the system they use to send out like texts and things like that, you can microtarget neighborhoods with that, which is really the only reason to keep it. Yeah. if you ask me and let's
pretend you did. What do you think? Well, because I mean the it would be nice to be able to email the town whoever signs up the town newsletter in a format that's looks modern and readable. Um, and there's a lot of very accessible programs for that like
Mailchimp, content, like all these things that aren't as expensive as Nixl, but with Nixl you can microtarget neighborhoods that. So, but we don't use it that often. We should use it for instances like this. Is that why they don't use it because of of the price? I don't understand your question.
Do they get charged every time they use Nixl? I don't I doubt it. Usually packages don't work. I'm surprised they don't use it more. I I agree with you. Although I think tech I've been given conflicting information on that. Um I was told at some point that it was only supposed to
be used for emergencies and like notifications that would apply like road closures. Um, but I also think that in this instance, spraying would would fall under that. Absolutely. Um, I would love to use it because I think nowadays people are more likely to open a text
message than an email anyway. Yeah. Absolutely. My prior town uses it all the time. I still hooked on it, but they just do mosquito spray and it's nice because like there's been accidents and you don't actually know that there's been accidents and those kind of things. So, I rarely got one from here, but I get it all the time for
to my mind. There's really only one reason we would be restricted with Nixl and that would be either a if it's funded through the police department or something like that or two if um there's something to do with the contract where a certain number of text message per thing and that's triage.
But I I can find out more and see if I can narrow in what the the issue is. Okay. Um Silver Lake. So, kind of talking about the lake. Um, I've been trying to get some closure from the Army
Corps about the September meeting. Apparently, one of the engineers who's on the team that was assigned the project has some significant health issues. She's been out. So, that that's kind of the hold up. The last they told me was that they would try to set something up in December. They did not say whether it's going to be virtual or
in person. Soon as I get some detail about that, I will share it, but I haven't been able to get it yet. So um other than that, the purpose of the meeting in September was for them to give us feedback on all the documents they reviewed, all the data that we
shared with them, the studies, all that kind of thing to see if there's anything else that they need the town to provide to them. Um so other than that, we're waiting to see what what's going to happen next to them. Um and the money from the federal government, we're
waiting. federal government is in an interesting place right now with the budget, but our allocation the um the million dollars is still in there on the house side through so far. So, we'll see. I there's no telling what's going to
happen, but that's where we're standing. It's it's moving along. We It was cool to hear about the dread small dread vote, right, that um they got approved. So hopefully not on it. We'll see. We'll see.
Um so uh Donna, do you want to talk about the energy plan? Sure. So we have two things that are um focused around sustainable sustainable Jersey and the energy plan. The first is the audit which I talked about last time. We're still compiling all the
energy bills. We have a third party that we use some of the we get some of our energy from and that's what there taking a little bit of extra time but we're hopeful that pretty soon they're going to give us a timeline um of when they would come in for the audit and we we briefly talked to um Kevin and Bill and
just let them know that we will you know soon have a date and there will need resources to help with helping them get around the buildings and um you know we can we can even help somebody needs to be there but it doesn't necessarily have to be in every building. The second one where we just got another grant was um
the community energy planning grant um which is um really focused on how do we reduce the energy usage in our area, make it more efficient and um you know obviously cleaner. So they have about seven areas that we have an opportunity
to focus on that would help us everything from you know electric vehicles you know using it um potentially with the police more electric bikes all the way through to green building policies that we could establish in our town for builders. So
um there's there's seven areas and it's very overwhelming. So, we met with um uh Kevin and Jennifer, who is the new communications person on the team, which she's going to be a great resource for us. And we're going to have a workshop with the leaders in the different areas. So, the police department, emergency
fire to sit down and say, "Here are the areas, and we're going to streamline them first to say, here are the areas that we could potentially pursue for this grant. What are you most interested in? What are you thinking of pursuing? Have you looked at it before?" because the planning grant doesn't allow us to go out and purchase things, but what it
does is it allows us to get resources to evaluate them and come up with a plan. So, we could hire someone to help figure out which is the best plan um for particular topics. So, we thought it would be helpful to narrow down to something that's digestible and then sit down and have a workshop to say what do we think is going to be something we can
really accomplish, what do we think is going to really deliver on our goals and then also align with what they're trying to do with the departments. So Jennifer is going to help us with that, which is great because I think that team will be nice to pull together and have everybody have a voice in it. So we need to have the plan by December.
So it'll come pretty quickly. So we already started to streamline some of the areas and we'll send those out to you as well, get your feedback um to see, you know, areas that you think there might be um interest as well. So the So we have a grant or the plan
will help us. We have a we have a $10,000 grant for the plan. It's a planning grant, but what it does is it does allow us um when we focus on an area, they then have it trickles down to and here are the ways that you could potentially get funding for it. So they don't just leave us kind
of kind of like our US Army Corps plan. It's the same thing. So once we hit that plan, then we have a plan to go get additional grants and money, right? So some of it, for example, could be safety training for the police and fire on EV vehicles, like those kind of things. If it's an area they don't have
already a resource to get that, they have content as well as they could potentially point us in the right direction to help do that. Um we, you know, a couple of the other areas are um just even having green building policies. Do we have green building policies? Are they established or are
they the new buildings going on? That could be an area. And then the whole idea of you know the vehicles. So could you could we get some more bikes in town for the police department electric bikes so that it could help you know become more efficient and also um you know in many cases you're also going to see some
financial gains with a lot of the you know more efficient use of energy or for instance like an electric trolley that might I'm dead serious about that's one of the ones that's actually on there are more for they call it micro um micro
events in town so that whether it's running down to the store, those kind of things that there's a way for people to get places. Yeah. I mean, that's like one of my very long-term goals is to get and originally it was just trolley, but having an electric vehicle to me a lot is not only
more practical and energy efficient, but there's more grant money out there for that as well. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. So, it's definitely one of the areas that that's on the list as well. So, logistically, what we're planning right now is we're going to meet separately with the department heads. So, we have we're kind of formulating an
agenda for the police. We have something for the OEM people. Um, so we're going to try to target our agenda to what it they would be, you know, most concerned about. Are do you guys have the beach on that list? Yes. Yes. The beach and the head lifeguard. And um I'm not sure about the marina like
should there be someone else? I don't know. Um we also want to try to get to the chamber of commerce or whatever they're calling it now. So Jenna said that she could leaison with them because she meets with them. Yes. And then once we go through like the departments in the town and please
if you have an idea of let us know to put them on the list. Um or if you want to come to any one of the meetings you're more than welcome. The next step is by March you have to set up a community stakeholder meeting but Jenna said that she would be the key on um making all the contacts through
because it's not just for employees of the burrow. It's also for residents and also for business owners who work in the burrow. So we would try to set we have to set something up that's a requirement for the grant give allow people to have input from different points of view about what they think
and I think there's also like you know there's a lot of resources from the um JCPNL and others that potentially consumers and not consumers um people in the community don't know that it's available to help them they become more efficient and so there's a lot of
connections we can make that way and then make that available to everyone in the town so that they may not realize some of the benefits that they get because what there's a big focus in in um the grant that talks about low income low and moderate income homes and do people know that there are some savings
available? They may or may not. So when we talk about that energy that environment fair or whatever maybe becomes a section to talk about that and we even potentially have some vendors come in. Right. So, so we go and talk to the department heads and we say here are
the benefits to the departments and those benefits are we're going to help them save money, right? And because we're going to ask them to do some type of work. So, it's the money and what else? And the in the environmental impact, cleaner cleaner air, better working
conditions for your employees. So we we had met with the um there was a a police a captain that had started something in the in the police department in the city and he started it with actually going after maintenance because there's a lot
of maintenance issues with certain equipment that doesn't happen with the electric and so he saw cost savings in the way of his maintenance in addition to the clean air and everything else. So I think that we can definitely point out all the key areas but it's more than just you know than just uh
I think the reason why I'm saying is I had um facility responsibilities in my career and you always love it when someone come in I'm here to help you and you want to know how they're helping and I think telling anyone that you think you can put programs together that will save them money and improve their efficiency is the way
to start it off right it's you know because I always used to go on those meetings with a little bit of I don't know, doubt. And now I'm, you know, I'm waiting to see like I have to do all this work. What am I going to get out of it? And I think that you guys have that laid out well for them based
on it. I think that'll that's a good that's the best opening I find when I used to do those things. Even just the audit we're going to get back. So once we get the audit back, there's going to be things that they're going to tell us that we could do better to drive more efficiencies and cost savings. So it could be that one those become one of the areas that we focus
on, too. There were some things they said they're already considering just for that reason like changing out the lights in the gym. Yeah. They said they put LED lights there cost for electricity. So they're already the same way those kind of things. Well, it should be because every one of the departments, you know, I'm thinking
from private industry is that every year when I had a facility, I had a 4% cost reduction that I had to hit. I never I didn't get money. You had I'm sure that they'll be doing the same with them and hopefully this can help them hit their cost reduction targets if they have them. Or even if they don't, just if you save money on this, you have more money
for that. Yep. That's I think it's a great way to explain it to them. So, good good luck. It should be fun. It should be fun. Yeah. I think the people that work here it's really good. Yeah. It's just getting over the initial discussions. Well, I think they've been pretty
motivated and we had a good meeting with Kevin and Jenna. We did. Um, do you want to talk about this meeting? Yeah. I was uh on vacation on the August meeting, but I mean it's been pretty well publicized that the uh development in
I saw that between 8th and 10th. I thought they were going to have another third meeting on it at least. I was surprised because I asked April for the uh you know the uh video so that I would get caught up and I'd be allowed to vote on the third meeting,
but they they held a vote and it passed. So it's up and going. Do you have anything you want to share? Sure. Um, I attended a meeting with uh Bradley Avon, not Bradley, Avon Wall,
Neptune, Neptune City. Um, and me as the Belmar representative to discuss Shark River. Um, the county is actually leading the effort. Um but we are talking about ways to not just dredge in Shark River but think about other ways
to improve it the water quality the environment in general stabilize all the different um shorelines from anything to um those like oyster reefs I don't know what the right word is there that what now I should be using um which has been successful in other areas and right now
isn't technically allowed but um to like I said thinking about how we get more funding and in fact I have a meeting again tomorrow with that same group to discuss um strategy for a couple different grants. So um we're all really optimistic that this group especially
with wall involved is going to be able to actually move forward get things done. Commissioner known is very invested in this. Obviously he comes from Neptune City. So um you know uh the idea is with everyone fully taking part and talking about what our um priorities
are, what our concerns are, we won't have a situation. I know they tried to do this group a couple years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago. Um and it didn't quite make it all the way through, but they did get a little bit done. They got something done. I shouldn't say a little bit. That sounds dismissive, you know, but we want we want this to be an evergreen committee
commission um with the full support of all the towns involved. So when when they talk, do you guys talk about well here's all the different volunteer organizations that are there? They can do X Y and Z. We've had one meeting. So So we haven't even gotten that far. The the first
meeting was more um legal logistics on setting and setting up uh and and kind of the scope of what we were talking about. Um the the literal society is also involved. They were represented at the meeting. Um Shark River Clean Coalition. Um I know they actually after
the meeting asked me to come to their next meeting which I'm hoping to be able to do. Um so uh the you know getting getting people involved. I know you guys had talked about having meetings separately with the different environmental commissions different groups and kind of having that as an
advisory group. uh that did not come up at this meeting, but I'm sure I can elevate that. There certainly wouldn't be anything from stopping you from regardless of Yeah. you know that there's no impediment there. So, it's great for collaboration though because that's how it's going to get done and the county's involved too. Yes.
Is it is a goal with the count for county funding, state funding, federal funding because Yes. And so they try and figure out how to try to get all those things to look for funding wherever we can find it. Certainly. Yeah. Because it sounds
like the same thing that we go through with the lake is that you need funding for a plan. You need a plan for funding and then you need to get someone to fund. Exactly. And that's kind of one of the reasons why the first meeting is legal setup and things like that because you even just little minutiae like is it
better for us to apply as an organized group or for us to have one lead town with the rest of us signing on and the conclusion was the former um which is why we're doing that. But it means like we're writing ordin like resolutions, establishing it through each town and
and things like that. So, sounds like fun. It does. I I enjoy it. That's why I'm here. Uh it's just fun to hear someone say that out loud. Well, no. When you look at the work we've done on the lake and uh hopefully
if we get the funding for the lake, the shark, so hoping they're doing a similar thing on Shark River, which is just a magnitude, but about 100 times more. Yeah. And I mean the Deal Lake Commission has done incredible work over the years. They're really the the Yeah, I didn't want to say blueprint
that fell. I mean, they're multiple different towns, too. So, but yeah, there's so much to do. We got to manitate, you know, like we heard that. I I you know, I think it's exciting. Is Matt working with you on this, too? He's not He wasn't present at the
meeting. It was the president of the coalition who was there, but he's aware of it. I moved to So who was Jimmy Near? Was there Jen? Oh no. Who was it then? Arlene Travel. Yes. Who I thought was the president? Am I using the wrong title? Director. He used to be his president. I don't
know. Maybe Arlene is now. I don't I don't I might just not be used. I I had the sense of leadership. I might not be using the right title though. Arlene has been there for a long time. Okay. uh for the good of the order. Does any anybody have anything else they feel
they need to share? Okay. Thank you very much. All right. Thanks for your time. Thanks. All right. Tomorrow is picture day. I thought the uh guys the 911 memorial service is down at 8:30 at the boardwalk which
gives me an hour to get today before go scoop up your kids. Yeah.