e meeting notice statement adequate notice of this meeting of the Burley Heights Board of Education was given as required by the open public meetings act as follows on January 9th 2025 notice of the Board
of Education meeting schedule was sent to the Star Ledger and The Courier News and was also provided to all schools PTO presidents and the bhea president and posted at the administration building a copy was also provided to the public library and filed with the municipal
clerk Mr secretary may I have a roll call Mr Ki here M Bradford here Mr Dylan here Dr forer here miss Jolly here Miss Connor
here miss Stanley here M Terrero here please rise for the flag salute iates adjourn to Executive session whereas the Berkeley Heights Board of Education seeks to adjourn to Executive session in
full compliance with the open public meetings Act njsa 10 colid 4- 6 and whereas the open public meetings act provides that a public body May exclude the public from that portion of the meeting at which it discusses matters
related to those identified below matters rendered confidential by the federal law state law or Court rule individual privacy collective bargaining agreements purchase or lease of real property if public interest could be adversely affected investment of public
funds if public interest could be adversely affected tactics or techniques utilized in protecting Public Safety and property pending or anticipated litigation attorney client privilege Personnel employment matters affecting specific perspective or current
employees be it resolved that the Berkeley Heights Board of education adjourns to Executive session to discuss matters related to Personnel students and legal issues and be it further resolve that the minutes of the discussion of any of these items will be
disclosed to the public when matters have been determined and confidentiality is no longer applicable may I have a motion to enter into executive session thank you Mrs cona seconded
second thank you Mrs jolly and Mr D thank you uh and Voice vote please time is 6:30 three we are moving to Executive
session e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e uh good evening may I have a motion please to return to public session thank you Mrs cona second second thank you Mr Dylan uh Voice vote I I
thank you the time is 7:34 we are returned to public session may we have a report from our student Representatives Olivia and Pippa thank you so much hi everyone the transition from
Winter to Spring Sports has begun mostly everything was covered in our last meeting about the end of our winter sports however there were a couple who were not done yet Varsity Awards night was on March 4th and CJ Henrick created a lovely overview of the Season through his recap video everyone on the winter
teams felt extremely supported and appreciated the athletic department also announced the new heart of the Highlander award recipients for the 2024 2 winter sports season Olivia was one of the winners for fencing so a huge congrats to her on March 6th the varsity
hockey team faced marble High School in the final round of the sexual tournament they unfortunately lost 4-2 but had a great season overall and down at the state tournament in AC three jail G wrestlers represented our school Nate Faxton Christian Joya and Brandon rayak up next is the start of both the boys
and girls lacrosse Track Golf and baseball stay tuned for updates for when their first meets begin baseball had their first scrimmage yesterday and have another one today and boys lacrosse had their first scrimmage today against Newark Academy thank you good evening this March G students
have remained dedicated to service through participation in the blood drive on March 7th as well as a non-p perishable food drive for veterans the Highlanders have also been very committed to clubs and extracurricular activities on Friday March 14th GL artists and musicians traveled to the
Union County teen Arts event where they showcase their abilities and met other artists and musicians additionally last week the future Business Leaders of America Club sent competitors to a Statewide competition in Atlantic City and G students had three impressive top 10 finishes opening
night for the spring musical The Prince of Egypt is this Thursday four shows will run in the auditorium from Thursday until Saturday within the next month the third marking period will wrap up for the secondary schools in Berkeley Heights the fourth and final marking period of the 2024 to 2025 school year
will begin on April 3rd on April 4th the governor Livingston marching band will hold its annual basket raffle fundraiser from 6:30 to 10 p.m. at the high school thank you thank you Olivia thank you pipa you may leave when you when you
want I just want to mention that yes the ra the raffle is for the band is always so much fun um people like bring their bells and ring it's it's a lot of fun and you can win a lot of prizes I won some music classes for my son last year but also on tonight's agenda the band is
getting their new uniforms finally so I'm really really excited for they've been asking for a few years so so thank you so much for your report thank you and Dr fter you had something else to add I just said Olivia can't leave yet right yes right okay thank you report
from our superintendent all right thank you Mrs Bradford so this week the boys tennis team uh will be practicing in New Providence from 5:30 to 7:30 and starting next week Mountainside Recreation has agreed to let the boys tennis team use the town courts um uh
from Monday through Friday from 3:30 to 5:30 and we thank our neighboring towns for uh supporting our uh uh tennis team uh through this time um I'd like to acknowledge and extend congratulations to Olivia who was awarded the 2025 Union
County School boards Association unsung here award which was an award given to one student from each School in Union County who has dedicated their time and effort to help enhance the quality of life of others diagnosed with
enthesitis enthesitis sorry enthesitis related juvenile idiopathic arthritis at the age of 14 after years of joint pain and inflammation Olivia is Raising awareness that arthritis is a disease that affects children and Adolescent
Mr Nixon spoke very very eloquently when honoring Olivia during the ceremony on March 12th we are very proud of you Olivia I'd also like to extend congratulations to Alexander Casper who was selected by the governor Livingston High School athletic department to be
gl's scholar athlete of the year for the 2024 2025 school year this is a very well-respected recog awarded by the njsiaa that is given to one student athlete in each High School in New Jersey all award recipients will
receive a scholarship award at the event for being selected so like to congratulate him as well and then tonight Mr Phillips is going to be presenting the apsat PS PSAT uh results
congratulations Olivia um thank you for uh introducing me uh unlike the njsla assessments uh tonight's results are not required to be reported out but we think it's important
that we share the result results with our school Community what you're going to see overall with these test results are that govern Livingston students continue to perform well uh we're going to start off with our AP
results and with this chart you're going to recognize that um over the last several years uh we have an increase of number of students taking the AP exams and that's a great opportunity that we want to uh happen in our schools as the
majority of our students go on to college we want them to be exposed to the rigor of AP courses not only are more students taking AP exams but obviously we're uh having more exams administered um so in the last five
years this is uh last year was the most exams that we have uh administered at Governor Livingston high school um not only have we administered a lot of exams with more students taken but we contined to maintain a high level of success um
we had 29 subject areas out of those 29 subject areas 24 of those tested areas at least 75% of our students scored a three or higher so um 93% 90.3% of our students uh scored at at least a three
or higher on uh some of the exams that they were taking so we're continue to see uh success on these exams as we continue to increase the number of students and the number of exams that are being taken um you this uh presentation is
online so you'll be able to look at these numbers a little more detailed but just to get a little uh representation um we out of the 29 subject areas you can see how well we did uh by the percentage of uh tests
that scored three three or higher um again this is a really a testament on how well our students are prepared how well our teachers are are working with our students to get them um ready for the May
exams and a little bit more of a detailed uh numbers as we look at each individual test areas the percentage of students scoring three or higher and the number of students that took those exams if we had less than 10 students take an exam I didn't um include how many
students actually took those exams just because that becomes identifiable amount and I didn't want to uh have individuals identified if they you know if we were at 50% you might be able to identify who who did well and who didn't do well in those those areas
um as we looked at individual success though we start seeing some of our students being recognized with 80 of our students receiving AP Scholars uh with distinction 27 of our students AP
Scholars with honors 48 of our students AP Scholars and then we had 10 of our students uh receive an AP cap Zone certificate award um for those who are not familiar with the AP cap Zone program that is a two-year commitment
where they're taking AP seminar first year and AP research a second year and they must receive a a three or higher in both of those AP courses so a a lot of students seeing success and that's represented in those numbers overall as
a school uh school is recognized with um uh the silver recognition award for how well that again our students are taking uh and performing on uh the AP exams um you typically when you're seeing increase of numbers and continued
success uh the AP college boards will recognize the individual schools and last year Governor Livingston received the silver recognition so congratulations to government Lindon High School PSAT scores um we administered
PSAT scores to 9th 10th and 11th graders but when we start looking at our test scores for PS uh PSATs um we're really looking at our 10th and 11th grade scores here um they're get they're given a separate a different PSATs than the
ninth graders um well what you notice here as you know obviously we're performing higher than our state and National levels um averages um typically what uh last year we we performed uh in
range where we t uh do throughout the years um I like to look at where we're performing comparing math and uh uh reading and writing scores with our PSAT scores our reading and writing scores are historically higher than our math
scores um and what's a little concerning is we're seeing a little decline in our our math scores with on our PSATs and that's something that as a district we're looking to address we've been stressing um mathematical instruction strategies we're looking to um
resequence the the middle school program uh and hoping to address some of those concerns through um those um U those changes that we're making for next year um but interesting enough when we look at sat uh uh those things change a
little bit PSAT is uh that that is also the the determination for our National Merit um uh Award winners and La um this year we had six National Merit commended students so that congratulations to
those six students and as we start looking at Trends and this is where it's some positive signs at least um in the last couple years compared to our National and state levels um when we start looking at Trends the last um couple years we're seeing an upward Trend at
least in GL with our math and and um reading and writing scores where you're seeing a a decline nationally and Statewide when scores um there was a big bump in 2021 um these tests are usually given in schools in 2021 a lot of
schools were especially Urban schools were still closed so um the the students who were in urban schools didn't uh most likely didn't take these tests which might explain why we got uh a little bump nationally and Statewide um but we're looking to
hopefully uh Trend those scores up in the next couple years as as we're addressing some of the concerns that um through our curriculum SAT scores um last year scores uh we really saw some outstanding results um
uh 610 in math as 599 in La um again this a little bit opposite of what we saw in PSATs our math scores over the years have been better or equal than our reading and writing scores um but our our numbers have been pretty consistent
over the years including our pre pandemic numbers so that's a good sign that our students uh By the time they're Junior years um that they are continued to perform well um they're selling and they're prepared for the those College admission
tests um and as we're looking at the national and state Trends the last few years those scores have been going down um GL is is staying consistent even slightly increasing in their numbers and and that's a positive sign why the national and state levels the trend is
decreasing ours are slightly increasing uh I threw out some uh comparative data I I know we always like to compare oursel to our neighbors um so we looked at some local schools of similar background um social economic
backgrounds to uh Berkeley Heights um as a combined composite score we were at 1,29 only Summit Westfield and chadam uh did better than us we outperformed uh New Providence uh Scotch Plains Cranford
Clark and Springfield so that's a good sign that we're doing well overall um that our our numbers have an average SAT score of 1,29 is a good sign um and I think that's a a great reflection of of what we're doing as a district what's
happening in the classroom and how our students are prepared uh and and are take you know their education and the process of of getting ready for college uh seriously and and we will continue to
um monitor our scores and continue look for ways that we can uh make improvements um I'm very pleased with what we're seeing and and these are scores that I will be sharing with uh my uh the person who will be placing me next month uh
just a as we're talking about uh ways we can make the um Governor lens Singh and Berkeley Heights a little bit better uh questions from the board yes this is Ka thank you for the presentation This was um this was helpful and it's always
encouraging to see numbers trending up or at least staying consistent with where we were I'm curious to know if we are also tracking or starting to track ACT results because not everybody is you know is going to excel
at the sat there are some students that do better on the ACT are we are we doing something thing on that so so um we would if I would have reported out if we had enough numbers to report out so those are uh we look at ACT scores um but if we don't have a significant
amount of students taking SAT scores which was the case last year um we're not reporting out on them but we are tracking th those results um at one point I I at least in my former District district the number of ACT scores and
the number of SAT scores were about equal um sat's College Board changed their exam to be more similar to act because they were losing business and then that so slowly changed and um sat became more
popular again so um in the east coast the SAT has been a more popular choice in act um we've always tried to encourage students to try both exam and see which ones that they feel more comfortable with and pursue that one but
but uh we do monitor that um you know I've worked with our director of guidance and just purly on numbers we don't have enough numbers to report out on an actd course got it and curious are these the digital SATs is is they're all they're
all digital it's 100% digital now right yeah starting um March of 200 uh 24 24 yeah my son was actually I have a senior uh in high school he was the last one to take the paper one and the first one to
take the digital one so yeah are we seeing a trend positive trend if it's digital now or hasn't mattered um I looking at our SAT scores we're not seeing a significant change I I think there was um that first test there was some
adjustment that had to do that the College Board had to do the math results were much lower uh they made the switch so what we're seeing over the last couple um administrations of of the SATs we're see more of a normalized scores thank
you yep Mrs Airi just a quick question so uh for SATs it's a general question so if there are special ed students who need to take it on paper based they cannot they can they can yes SATs will still have accommodations General time
paper based yes but general education students can't take paper based anymore correct okay and uh do we have any plans uh for you know now that we're tracking SAT scores uh any goals for next year to improve them are we even asking students
do they need help or um I I we offer the summer courses but it's it's not something that you know we're tracking more of our academic courses as far as as the um looking for goals you know we're
not setting goals with SAT scores because we're not offering courses that's you know we're focusing in our academic courses and through that work we're hoping that that reflective in our sap scores okay thank you okay I don't think there's any other
questions thank you very much Mr Phillips appreciate that okay Dr phry anything else in your superintendent's report no Mrs Bradford that concludes my superintendent's report thank you moving on to committee and liaison reports do
we have committee and liaison reports okay uh we'll start at this end uh Mrs Terrero okay I okay um so the technology committee um met this past Friday the 14 of March um
we talked about several different things um we discussed edpuzzle and this product provides an additional layer of security by utilizing permission allowance with YouTube there's also a component of instructional value because it allows
the teacher to infuse questions into videos presented to the students via YouTube this also limits access to videos on YouTube for our students students can no longer access YouTube videos that aren't approved by teachers um the Raptor visitor
management system there is a new mobile app that makes it easier for visitors to create an initial profile and scan it via QR code it makes it nice for those who don't enjoy carrying the IDS with them um they have um they've been
receiving positive feedback on the product and the district has been running a parental survey to those families currently piloting the product for feedback cyber security Grant this grant allows for the managed EDR which is endpoint
detection and response solution which enables the district to better detect malware on the computers uh Tech coach a current staff member has replaced a Tech coach who recently resigned in December she has an appointment calendar to help with tech
coaching and has been a tremendous help for the tech staff infrastructure um and there was a lot we discussed there but there are tremendous challenges that we currently face in the district the most recent one was the power outage at GL that affected the entire School District plans need to
be made to look at better ways to prevent this from happening in the future such as purchasing UPS backup systems for switches and alternative options via the phone system so that communication from the within the building and the district does not get
affected the committee has requested a proposal to be put together for the board it upcoming projects there are two there's PA system at Mar um Mary Kay and one at Woodruff that will be replaced during the Spring Break and they will be
modeled after the PA system replacement made at Mountain Park last year on to Town Council liaison uh the Town Council met on Tuesday March 4th um they did honor veteran sergeant
major Jason dwart who was honored with the proclamation for his service um I understand he has a child in the district so um we wanted to report that an ordinance for the mayor's Wellness committee was approved and continues to promote mental health an
ordinance to reduce the speed limit on Park Avenue to 30 m um miles per hour was approved hopefully this action will continue to keep our students safe as they walk to and from school along parking Avenue and then lastly the tab liaison
which is the technology Advisory Board um and we met on Wednesday March 5th and the committee met to discuss the technology access that should be made available to substitute teachers um we discussed providing these Subs with security keys and Chromebook allowing
them access to homepage and links to various sources of information we explored ideas of links that might make sense to be made available ideas discussed were access to teaching plans security protocols building procedures canvas
screencast and power school for attendance and that's my report thank you Mrs Dolly so um for the curriculum committee um the curriculum committee met um March
14th as well um from 12 to 22 met with Dr phry Dr Curtis Mr Phillips and uh the rest of the committee um large topic of conversation was the update on the math uh professional development um feedback
from teachers and observations um so what Dr Curtis has noticed um with respect to the PD is that you know they focus on lesson planning they're balancing direct instruction productive versus unproductive struggle the math
department meeting times um are used for training every single department meeting uh she's working with M Miss Rush on consultative collaborative model implementation um they met in fe uh there was a meeting in February to discuss small group direct instruction
plan for targeted instruction in classroom essentially how to use classroom time better teacher guided instruction in small groups you'll did the most impactful change so feedback on the survey from uh um from teachers I
believe so uh they observe that guided instruction for special education they need more intentional um planning more data analysis for planning but they also have seen an increase in student participation um the challenges they
face special education classes they need the time to plan and work together um furniture and Facilities was discussed um some of the furniture in the classrooms is outdated need flexible seating a place to work I think Dr Curtis mentioned that there was
something that she put into the budget for the kidney tables and then I think Pam can speak to potential bhef solution for that um so and with respect to Mountainside um given that we're implementing math 8 um there was a
question around what Mountainside is doing so response was that um we're meeting with ma math specialist in Mountainside we shared Mountainside specific student data from the kids that are attending the high school and I guess they're progressing their work based on that data we also had a
conversation around grading um cons to have like a consistent grading um across the classes that are the same um reported that they are having conversations there's some progress that's been made at CMS with respect to consistent grading and I think just as
an example we mean like 30% homework is counted for 30% across the same all the same classes at GL there are some issues with respect to grades um some things that were cited were kids getting waved into classes not recommended for and
then not doing well um academic Integrity um and so the message to us I guess to communicate to the parents is that teachers also need support from parents when it comes to um grades um asked about test corrections
um teachers do it differently uh um some don't offer it as some kids are not doing the work um initially but again I think the conversations are ongoing so a couple questions um what else there was uh the big thing also I
mean there's more and when you everyone can read the minutes when they're published but we looked at um Dr Curtis brought in the new math textbooks that are being um approved uh for grades uh 6 through 12 and talk just through the process of evaluating these um textbooks
um the winner was uh reveal math and so this would be for um they piloted for sixth seventh and eth uh grades uh it was algebra one geometry and Algebra 2
so um and the program comes with um Alex quote unquote Alex program um it's a way to assess students knowledge against standards it's adaptive and provides actionable data and it can be used in msta for extra support um and can be
used for general education intervention we also discussed class sizes um so Mr Phillips provided class sizes for CMS and GL um discussed how waivers can potentially cause Pro um issues with class sizes during
scheduling and consistence from the you know from the administration is that um 20 to 25 are good group sizes um there is a class policy class siiz policy that's in our policy book um we initially thought that it was um counterintuitive in some parts but I
looked at the policy again it's not really so but we it's something to consider I think class polic class size was also something that was high on the survey for the budget um okay we also talked about um
in the context of class sizes some classes that may are not offered here um potentially because the class sizes are small um and we spoke about AP Computer Science um and then an multivariable
calculus so I think this is going to be considered and maybe a proposal brought to the committee for introducing these classes at some point Sorry talked was was a two-hour meeting talked about um clubs um I think
the takeaway for Club sizes and actual procedures um Mr Phillips will provide us with a written procedure in terms of how um clubs are onboarded and offboard if uh the sizes don't meet the you know
the requirements and then uh and finally we did have a preview of the um AP sat PSAT um uh presentation I think like the one key observation there in the PSATs we saw a gap between math and verbal where math scored much lower but then
when we look at the SAT scores that Trend reverses um and then finally for the teacher uh of the year that was um a very fun activity it was really nice surprising the teachers and I was also able to participate in the I guess in
the committee in the process of you know evaluating the um uh the writeups and the applications so congratulations to all the teachers um it was really touching to see how they were surprised and you know nice to see that they even remember my
kids thank you Mrs jolly and of course congrat ulations again to all our educators of the Year wonderful um Mr Dylan I think at this time no the athletic department was pretty busy yes we decided not to have a committee meeting Mrs Conor would you like me to
report yeah go ahead okay um I attended the Union County Educational Services Commission uh this past week uh the big thing that they had this week was their presentation of their budget the preliminary budget and they at each meeting they do highlight a school the
school that they highlighted was Westlake and again the treats on the table are from the school Westlake School where they have their inservice workshop where the students there create make get the change and they do this um as sort of a small business there so
that was the Union County Educational Services Commission yes Mrs Stanley policy committee has not met yet but we did receive the alert um from St Esme um from Dr phry so we are going to start looking at those policies and
hopefully have a meeting the next month for next um meeting but I did attend um the bhe uh bhef um the Ed foundations meetings um they had their student grant wish list
come in and so they granted their wishes at all uh one wish at each school um but they did have some interesting asss um so they did want to make sure that us as a board knows some of the things so one of the students um did ask for the
bathroom to be renovated at Hughes um I think we you know anybody who's had kids at Hughes there's a good bathroom and a bad bathroom because one's newer and one's older so the older one was requested to have an upgrade uh a little facelift and then um another one that
came up at first they asked for padding of the walls at CMS and it took the committee a long time to figure out what they were talking about but we did figure out that in the Gold Gym the padding does not go low very low and I guess a kid had slid or something and
hit his head on the wall because the padding didn't go low um so I told them that I would mention it so if we do redo the padding in the Gold Gym to make it lower but at first we were worried that the kids were running into the walls in the hallways we were not sure what they were talking about um but they did um do
those student grants and I think it's really nice to see what the student students are interested in I know one of the ones um was that they wanted to give their their teachers the cricket machine that cuts things out um which I thought was really sweet that the students were thinking of their teachers and their
wish list um I know at the high school one of the ones that they gave was the camera for I think it was the photography club or the newspaper which was really nice um they also recently gave one of their grants to Mrs willinski in the steam uh program um
that going to be used at both Mountain Park and Hughes they are asking for anyone to apply for Grants they do have some money that they've gotten in their fundraising um so principals please reach out to them um teachers please reach out to them I know I had sent an
email after our curriculum meeting to um our staff to mention that maybe some of these math tables that they are looking for could be sponsored by them um but they do such great work for our our district and so many um things have been donated by them in the past so please
reach out to them they did continue with their lit lunch um program and they've brought it down this year to the fifth grade so they did both um fifth grades at both Mountain Park and Hughes um and then they're just finishing up with I
believe their sixth grade lit lunch uh this week and it's you know that's a program that's really really nice they pick a book and the kids read it and then they come have lunch um they are looking for community members if anybody wants to read a book and come and talk with the students um you can sign up
with them and it's a really great opportunity to see uh our student Insight um and how they think about some of these books so it's a great time that's it thank you Mrs Stanley Dr forer yes uh as
uh as chairman of the finance committee I had planned to hold uh four bi-weekly meetings prior to the presentation of the preliminary budget however due to administrative avail a ability we only met twice yesterday I was finally able
to do a comparison of the budget amounts to the supporting documentation for salary lines and discovered that there's an excess of $334,800 11 by 334,000 those were corrected and those were sent to you at 4:00 you were missing several
of the staff members I corrected those and sent them to you four o'clock I didn't see it okay um let's deal with it when we get to the budget then or to your email if you'd
like okay Mrs Ziri anything um given the time timing of when the Committees were created I don't think we have had the bandwidth to do strategic planning so we have been busy
with budget and you know the next thank you thank you Bradford just uh one more shout out um today um Pamela and I and Deb attended um uh a CMS uh lunch and learn
um an Outreach lunch and learn and there they were highlighting the Mount Pleasant Animal Shelter so they had puppy dogs and cat and so it was really lovely to um you know to meet the animals and to you know have the kids do their presentation um Miss bound was
there with her therapy dog and you know they also brought in the therapy dogs to explain difference between therapy dogs and what they do um so it was very sweet and very very nice thank you Mrs jolly and also a shout out to our Librarians
for read Across America a number of our board members and community members and police force have been into the schools for read Across America and that is still continuing for the month of March so thank you all for participating um board Communications Mr
secretary let's see I have one two three four five six seven correspondents uh first and I'm going by my oldest to the newest first I had one from uh Jared weissfeld there are that was regarding
redacted records next was the 2025 budget from John migas next was in accurate information given to parents from John migas as well next was the tennis courts from Jack Wagner next was Columbia tennis court
question one from Laura kazinski next was positive steps forward in our district from Michael leblond and last was Columbia tennis court question two from Laura kazinski and that concludes the board
correspondence thank you Mr secretary may we have the report of the business administrator that'll be the uh preliminary budget presentation correct good evening everyone just wanted to uh start the presentation
off for this evening of course we have our lovely board members here and or pictured above here is our strategic plan our Str uh strategic plan uh involves diverse diversity equity and
inclusion student and staff Wellness Talent technology and academic uh curriculum our board budget goals goal number one promote student achievement through support of educational programs
goal two maintain and upgrade technology in support of District goals goal three develop a budget that retains and attract staff so that we may meet the needs of all students goal four upgrade facilities maintain equipment and enhance security
and goal five be respectful of the impact on taxpayers the chart that I have up here is on a survey that the district had conducted and is the ranking of what they feel the Board of Education should focus on within the 25 26 school year
budget um and you had the topics here of the academics facilities personnel and overall and your the rankings are as they are pictured up above with the first second third fourth and
fifth um and as you can see those textbooks uh or actually first um what do we have here enrichment programs remedial services and classroom furniture
next currently berkele hats public schools has full-time seos class three officers at each of the governor Livingston and Columbia Middle Schools two seal officers are shared between the Four elementary schools and on a scale of one
being the lowest and to five as the highest how important is it for you for there to be an officer at each of the buildings now as this was a survey question um five was being an important qu uh important of having offic offers
at all the buildings uh in our budget we don't have officers in all the buildings and we don't have Incorporated in our budget having officers at all the buildings and one of the reasons was we had to make sure that we had to keep our budget at 2% but that
was something that the community wanted but we were unable to achieve that in next year's budget because of keeping our budget responsible fiscally responsible so although it was requested we weren't able to keep that promise our budget highlights for our
next year's budget tax levy is increasing by 2% um on a assessed home of 300 ,000 the tax would increase by $57 for the um entire year state aid has
increased by $181,100 budget lines 349 of them have remained flat or decreased which is 56% of those account lines control contractual increases of 3.2% for bhea
salaries for the school year 2526 and contractual increases of 3% for uh bhaa salaries for 2526 next we have the estimated increase in the contribution for the public employees retirement system that is
increased ining at 175% next we have an increase for Property and Casualty Insurance rates they're projected to increase at 12.6% health benefits and prescription rates are projected to increase by 11% increase of
gas and electricity is budgeted at 7 and a half% and an increase of sew and water is uh increased for uh next year's budget at 5% riculum highlights for next year's
budget there are new calculus and AP Calculus textbooks included for the budget new algebra geometry and Algebra 2 textbooks digital prescription new math 6 to8 Algebra 1 geometry textbooks and a digital
subscription with those Sundance Newbridge fiction non-fiction paired guide reading reading books Wilson Foundation decodable books for tier two and three instruction makeer Space
Furniture leveled literacy instruction kit to support the reading specialist at CMS and big idea math programs for K to 5 our technology highlights for 2526 we have we have a technology lease which includes the following new devices
for 450 students 80 poers and 75 staff technology uh for governor Livingston desktop replacement for room 120 desktop replacements for office staff uh child study team counselors
with older computers and 75 docky monitors for governor Livingston high school our Revenue comparisons just a little um just a little summary of what our how our revenues are as I stated earlier
State a went up $181,200 compared to last year last year we seen a decrease of uh $8,000 at least that was a % increase a mountains side tuition that is decreased um we're seeing a little drop in
enrollment from last year that is equating to a decrease in tuition that we're receiving from students from out inside and also we have a um deaf and hoer hearing class where we receive tuition students from other districts
we're seeing a decrease of about three students from uh that tuition that we received from other other school districts uh extraordinary Aid uh we had a decrease in that and that was due to last year uh there was a funding
difference from the state and that we've seen a decrease with those funds from the state preschool tuition since we um increased the rates for our preschool tuition uh we're seeing a increase for that tuition for that for next year for
for next year's budget Subs uh subscription busing since uh last year we had decreased the rates to increase ridership we had a decrease in that revenue for next year and once April or May comes around
the board will be discussing possibly keeping those rates the same or increasing those rates but that's going to be a discussion and that could change in interest in maintenance and capital reserves uh there'll be a slight
increase with those um interest rates uh we are changing over the capital reserve funds that we have and putting those into a cash management fund which is going to be yielding a higher rate and since we have changed our general fund
that we've placed those funds into a cash management fund they've been yielding higher rates and that has brought us better revenues since last year year um we've had a slight increase with the interest that we're earning on that
account line and that is reflected for an increase in that account line that we've had four interest rates in that general fund as I've just explained uh we have facility use and cell tower rental the cell tower rental
since that is a uh renewal of every five years that it gets an increase of 3% every year that we see in a contract that we have with to sell Tower company non-public Transportation Aid we're seeing an increase uh with that
money that we receive from the state the money that uh parents send their children out to private schools they are allowed to get uh $1,125 back from the state so every year
when we pay parents that money the state gives us back some type of an allowance for having to reimburse parents for that money so it's based on a formula that the state gives us that reimbursement back so we're seeing an increase in that
money so that is giving us more money back to put toward our budget and lastly we're putting a little bit more money toward uh fund balance or tax relief to help us fund our budget um and every year we're hopefully we're
going to look to keep a little bit more money toward funding our budget every year for state aid well I don't think we're going to be getting much more money in state aid uh in future budgets so we'll have to just fund our budget in that
manner as I stated a little bit earlier this just shows that our tax rate we went to the 2% uh maximum increase and that dollar increase was 93 $ 5,258 the example that I gave uh from before was a home assessed
at $300,000 we'll see an increase of $57 and that increase will equate to four $477 um if your home is a little bit assessed at a different rate that
assessment will be I have it here I believe if your home is assessed at 500,000 that would go up to about $97 uh for the whole entire year that was another example next
is I'm just showing you the difference in the state a figure um that was the 181,000 $198 that percentage increase is 6% from what the state gave us our Appropriations the difference
that we've had from last year to this year was $979,000 that equates to uh a 1.65% increase from last year's spending our next our next chart that we have here is just to give you uh kind of a basics of
what our total budget is um most of it is salary salary comprises of 65% of our budget benefits comprises uh 19% of it and everything else is 16% of it that's our
supplies um Services um all the other little things and as you see every year it kind of kind of shrinks due to the fact of the numbers for our salaries and benefits continue just to uh increase every
year next is just kind of gives you just a little um uh an explanation of how our budget is broken out to various different areas of classroom instruction um class instruction
instructional support General Administration School administration business technology or operations which is um uh maintenance and custodial Transportation employee benefits and
just a capital and Su summer instruction that's just to give you just a a basic idea of all the components of what our budget is uh in this concludes my budget at this time and I don't know if the board has any
questions thank you Mr jtz Mrs Ziri um thank you for the presentation um quick question on the last slide that you presented uh it showed capital and summer instruction were at 0% and I did not see any I I did see
this early on in the presentation that um Community wanted Safety and Security was highest preference so some of our parking lots and we've had this discussion and I was hoping that you know at least one of the schools parking
lots like maybe CMS or GL would be included as a capital project is there I know this is the preliminary budget and is there a possibility to include any of them before the final budget in April there's a possibility one of the reasons
why I didn't include it and as we had that discussion um if you're going to receive if you're looking to do a referendum and if we're going to receive 34% back from the state as opposed to not getting anything and taking it out of capital reserve I think it's quite
prudent to get 34% consider if you're you're talking about 300 to to $500,000 and it depends on what parking lot we wanted to do uh I understand so given the timeline of the referendum and you know as going going through that process this year and putting it on a ballot in
2026 some of the parking lots I believe if we are sitting on I think before we vote on today's agenda I could correct me if I'm wrong I think we have about 4 million in capital reserves 1 million in maintenance reserves based on what's on the agenda
today the capital will drop down to 1.9 and M 1.9 million Capital reserves and um 1 million in maintenance so we still there's less there's 500,000 in me 500 so 1.9 + 5 we're talking about 2.4
million um in reserves is it I I thought we were going to get the Architects to give us a quote on at least one of the parking lots because those are a security concern God forbid a child or a parent or a staff you know Falls or gets
injured then that's as we've stated before every spring time I do we do maintenance on those those things so what's more important if You' like to lose out on 34% I think that's a board decision that needs to be made and not an individual one I don't know how the board feels yeah have to bring it to a
committee and then bring it to the board as a whole so I did ask in the committee to get us a pricing on the parking lots and I believe the administration was going to reach out to the architect one of the things that we've mentioned also and we've had that discussion on March
6th when The Architects bring all those projects and we have those all prioritized all prices if I'm not mistaken they said that we're waiting we're waiting for that to come one of the other discussion items that we're also brought brought in is that that
whole referendum comes to fruition and if that comes in at March those projects for the parking lots could probably be ready to go come March and go out the bid so until then we are going to we are we are and that could be the summer of
2026 so for us to make an informed decision if we can get the cost pricing for these parking lots and then we can present it to the board and say hey if maybe GL parking lot is at I'm just throwing a number there half a million I think it was mentioned by one of the uh teachers who came to the meeting here if
it's half a million if there is an interest to at least use there is no tax impact to the you know taxpayers or the community we have 2.4 million while we work towards you know getting to a referendum we could include it but we do
need the pricing for these parking lots also uh hwac and given the heating issues that we had at GL is there a possibility to include them in capital projects before the final budget but my my my question becomes why would you
want to spend the money and not get any money back from the state when you can get 30 even for hwac we are not I don't think you can get 34% that I I'm not sure if you listen but most of the projects of what we all presented would be eligible for 34% back from the state
I am so so my my my my my air on on going The Prudent way is to get the 34% back and the things that are not eligible that you wouldn't get 34% back would to utilize things that wouldn't be eligible to get any state aid back and
and to take that that Capital Money capital reserve and or maintenance reserve and do the projects with things that aren't eligible and as I said at the committee like if we have a big gaping hole in our parking lot and you're going to trip and fall on it and am I going gaping hole as I said we've
done this every single year we go through a time where we fill all those holes up and we work with the ship and we fill them up we actually borrow there some of their equipment and fill those holes yeah so we wouldn't wait until next year's tax break to you know do
that so anyways I would I look forward to getting the estimates on uh these projects that there'll be forthcoming because we've asked for those you probably heard they said that they were going to get those together okay uh what about summer instruction I know we do run a very robust summer program how
come we have a 0% for summer instruction when you're looking at a 0% of $90,000 out of 62 million doll budget it's going to be that so small on a pie chart that it's going to come out so it it is included okay thank
you um Mrs dolly okay um so on the slide where we said um that we have you know 615 budget lines 349 remain flat or decreased which is 56% I just want to
make clear we're comparing it to the 2425 budget that was approved and so I I comparing budget lines to budget lines right of the budget that was approved right and as we know um
historically um so for example the 23 24 budget you know we had a surplus or we UND spend by close to 2.4 million so I just want to make sure that when folks you know hear that it's versus the budget that was approved and not versus
what we will actually spend so what we actually spend if we look historically year-over-year is much less than what we budget for compare expenditures to expenditures on comparing a budget to a budget so it's a budget number so last year's budget number for a particular line
special special ed tuition and that was a million2 and this year it's a million one those are what I'm comparing it's Apples to Apples as opposed to expenditures which is Apples to Apples okay so just so that's a good way of clarifying it that you're comparing
budget numbers to budget numbers versus actuals because the five years of data that was looked at um only the last budget was a budget the other prior years were actual spends so I guess the other thing I think think that wasn't highlighted here that I think was in the
minutes was um the Surplus right so we are building in a surplus I guess like we usually do so can you talk a little bit about that H in terms of what the number is and what the purpose is for that Surplus and how much it is well if
there's 2.4 100, 443 if I didn't have that number to put in there um I'd probably have to do some severe cutting because if you took that number out of there and I wasn't able to put that budgeted fund balance in there
or stabilize the tax rate um I don't know where I would be able to have that Revenue come from in order to help fund the balance because if you took that number out of there I don't know what I'd use to substitute it or find a different Revenue stream in order to support the budget okay but the budgeted numbers are
inflated to repres to include a surplus right L I try to conserve at the end of the year to not spend in order to do that and that's what been going on before I got here so I have to keep that Loop so to say to keep going in
order to maintain what's been going on so is it um I is there specific budget lines where this money is kind of or or this um Surplus is kind of parked or is it spread across every single budget
line where's the Surplus I'm I'm not following what you're saying um I'm so I guess like so if if we're just keeping the cycle going and most of the budget line items are flat I would expect that um that 2.4
million is kind of spread out across all of the budget lines uh okay well if you want to talk about that direction um there's teachers that are budgeted in in this budget okay they have to be budgeted as special ed teachers so on and so forth if there are teachers that
can't be found Math teachers they're in there is there is there shortage on Math teachers right now I don't know can anybody answer that to me on this board does anybody know do we have a shortage on Math
teachers I think it's difficult to find them I don't know if there's a well we have to budget for them correct I don't know if there's a short my my point is that we have to budget for for certain teachers special ed teachers poers sometimes if we don't find those teachers I still have to budget for them
if I don't use them that rolls into a surplus at the end of the year or I have to take those individuals and we have to find um what I'm trying to think give me a second we have to either use a um Zoom
teacher possibly I don't know what's the other other route that we have to take with some of the teachers if we can't find a certain math feature longterm sub perhaps if we if we have to go that route um there's other things that may that we don't use during
the time um special at tuition um kid may come in in a role and then leave or they may be here for the full year things that so I think great the answer is that it's multiple lines I know one of the things that we've talked about before is
that we have to budget a certain percent um I think it's for like the Property and Casualty and health benefits like we have to use their numbers right and that sometimes comes under but not always but we have to budget for it just in case and I I think I've mentioned to you before that all right I don't know again
a budget is a budget I don't I'm I can't predict what health my health benefit number is going to be at the end of the year because they have to collect all the information that comes in the experience rating you have to take Everybody's Health experience rating all
the way to the end of the year in order to know what you're actually going to charge um your actual what's the word um get everybody's experience rating so what you you're going to tell me is you're gonna you're G to give you or charge you
budget 11% until you get everybody's whether they've been sick more during the course of the year or less could it come in close to 11 could it be close to nine they don't know until they gather up all that data and
actually know what to charge us closer to 10 or 11 I don't know until we get that data toward the end of the year so when we have to start putting a budget together they have to give us estimates same thing with insurance I know the insurance market right now and
this has been even the example of my own home I've had to go out and I've got charged $500 because the market right now has been crazy with all the events that have been happening across the whole United States and I've shocked probably about seven different places
and I haven't been able to get anything down closer than anything below $500 so with that Market at 12.6 I don't think it's going to be anything lower and we've had probably five three catastrophic events that just
happened here alone so if that's going to go go down I'd be very surprised but she's got to give me guesstimates at this point because we have to start getting this budget together five six months ahead of time compared to what the township has to do because they can
start operating a budget um I'm G to say going into this the year and do emergency Appropriations as they operate we we have to put a budget into place well before we even start operating so it's not an exact science
but it we have to put these things together and try to guess where we're going to be at so I'm I'm not sure where you may want what you're trying to say in terms of Are We inflating numbers no we're trying to take a guess up what some of those numbers are going to be
that's what it comes down to so I'm I'm I'm hoping I'm trying to answer your question no I you are I I guess I'm just trying to reconcile that um we talked about a 2.4 million surplus versus what we're seeing in the budget items right
so I don't know if what we're budgeting for is what we're actually planning on spending or if it's you know a budgeted number to kind of carry over the Surplus that's what I was just trying to get at all right um just a a couple of other questions um with respect to
subscription busing um it went down by uh 5,000 and I I'm just curious what was the actual Revenue that we got um that we received as part of this past school year and I don't know if this is a question for Dr phry was there a survey
that went out a transportation survey that went out I don't think I don't think we need to do a transport a little too early to do do anything with it yet we got to really wait until like April in order to do something like that okay all right so if I you may not know off the top of
your head but um if you can come back to me on what the actual I I those numbers to you you sent me a Reconciliation of the 121 but not what what the actual Revenue was for 2425 that was the actual yeah that was
oh we had budgeted for 6 but we only had 121 people you know worth of okay and then I misunderstood that there was 65 what was this 65 of the 750 64 and then the other one I'm trying to remember of
of the 500 how many people there were off the top of my head I've seen so many numbers this past week it's not funny okay so those were actuals yes those were the actuals okay and so finally um we talked about moving money to the higher interest account uh for the capital maintenance reserves have that
because I know we passed the resolution earlier has the money been moved not yet I only just I've I've been asking the uh cash management fund and checked with them the last two weeks and I only just got notification that the paperwork just went through
yesterday so we're going to be moving that but after tonight we got to allocate the funds for all these projects and put them in for the bathroom and the other two that we have on here for the roofs uh because actually the bid opening for the roofs is going to be happening on Thursday so
that'll be fourth coming the remaining balance all be going in that that $2 million Mrs Stanley and then we'll do uh Mrs Ziri then Dr forger so um I was kind of surprised that the finance committee minutes weren't read out for um
everybody because when we first started meeting as a committee um we knew that this budget we were over budget by I believe 800 ,000 so even with the 2% of 935,000
right we're going to get an extra 935,000 plus the Surplus from last year which is 2,443 th000 we still were 800,000 over budget um because of all the increases
between benefits and teacher pay and admin pay um so the the district had to go back um and find ways to cut the budget um a lot of that happens through principles and their ass
and say what is actually needed versus what did you want and then as a committee we were trying to come up with other ways to um find ways to get we had a 100,000 left when we had met our first meeting that we still had to find in the budget to cut um so this is a cut budget
um luckily um one of the the things that happen is that the Middle School enrollment has gone down which allowed us to not rehire a staff member yeah I'm sorry she retired but we did not re the position not the employee
we did not bring we're not going to rehire that position right because we have less students um so to be clear that teacher left on her own Goodwill re retired but because of enrollment we were able to not have to bring in another staff member um and that's how
we were able to get the budget balanced um and then there was also some um the textbooks I think came in a little bit lower and all of that kind of just helped get us to the budget that we have today so I do want you to realize like there are um cuts and and principles
have to give up things every year um when you can only go to 2% and you're seeing everything else go up by 3.6 3% 11% 177% it makes it really difficult um and I know other towns have had to go
out for a vote to increase past 2% um which is something we can think about if security is um a big issue for us if we do want to get um more officers you could go out for a vote to go over that 2% um I don't think it's something we're going to do this year but it could be in
the future but I just wanted to make sure that everybody understood where the finance committee started with this budget um and then how we got here um I I don't have a ton of questions because AJ and I spent a lot of time going over the lines um but I do think
one of the things that we do need to think about um that we were discussing as part of trying to find ways to um cut the budget is the busing um because we did cut the amount um parents pay for subscription busing um by a lot last
year right so parents this year are paying $500 um where in the previous years they were paying $1,000 per child that is one way to bring up our Revenue but of course that comes at a cost because we can actually have less kids apply uh as well so it's something we need to think
about and and think about um a lot because every taxpayer is paying for those students to get subsidized right for the cost of that seat um and I think that when you're looking at budgets this tight that matters thank you Mrs sty Mrs Ziri um I
just had a follow up on the New Jersey Cash manag M account um we met early I think right after March I think second week so why can't we move you you did say that for the capital projects you can
just move the money anytime you want from different lines so if it is set up and it's been over 3 weeks and I believe I don't know how long has it been since we passed the resolution why can't we just move the February 27 February 27 so
if we can move the entire 5 million and when the bids do come 4 million and what about the maintenance Reserve you're not planning to move the one M that was already in that's in the general fund okay so if the 4 million why can't you move it into the higher interest rate
interest bearing account and then when the bids come in and when the actual projects start can you move them out so that at least till then we can get some revenue on higher interest or does it have to be moved right after the vote today for these projects you said uh
something is getting moved out of the 4 million right well we're going to have the the bid opening for the roof yeah so the 20 yeah so and so it can go into the higher interest pairing account well I'm going to see what happens we're going to have that thing we have the bid
opening I have to talk with the architect okay we may have to do do an intent to do something with the bid okay so I have to see what we need to do with that thank you it's going to be for two days because I may need to get a PO out because we're late with this whole
roofing project to begin with so uh Dr forger then Mr Dylan and Mrs con have a question um something I've always wondered about I I know districts uh and we all like to uh sort of pad lines to
generate Surplus and um it always kind of bothered me because it it doesn't tell me uh actually what is it you need to spend you just add on something so you've got this built-in Surplus 2.4 million scattered around on
all the lines is there any reason why you couldn't uh sort of budget each line close to what you think you will actually need and then create another line uh with what you think you need for
Surplus in other words put all the Surplus in one place if I could do that right now I hire and I'd be a millionaire okay so you're willing to do it all right thank you thank you Mr
Dylan so uh just a few comments uh one just start off uh thank you for the presentation um I know how hard it is to stay within the 2% given all of your uncontrollables uh you and I had gone back and forth on some emails um I know
that there would be some there would be some opportunities to go above 2% right things like waivers I'm just familiar with the budget process having LED this in mountain side as well so I I know how hard it is to get to 2% and uh honestly I was pleasantly surprised to see that
we got there uh additionally when I looked at some of the printable versions uh I was encouraged to see from a cost per pupil perspective and some of our grades I looked specifically at 9 through 12 uh and that's going up 1.6% right so it does seem like uh the costs
at the higher grades are are stabilizing or not growing as quickly as the cost on the lower grades right so just something I looked into as someone who pays tuition here it was of of of something I wanted to catch my attention um question
for you what what is it that triggers you to use 300,000 as your reference point on the the tax slide well from my my understanding the uh the assessed average assessed home here was 318 from my understanding from
what I was told at the tax office okay so that's uh that's something given to you from the town that say that's the that was there their is the medi so if it was $57 it may be 60 here but I do everything in increments on all my career at you know 150 200 250 300 so
okay so that that's from the the town the the yes median or average um that's what I was told by the tax okay and just an additional comment uh I think more for the board um you saw the mountain side enrollment was dropping right so I
I do encourage you guys to continue to have that conversation those that are on the the Berkeley Heights or the mountain side liaison group right um really trying to get a handle on why it it's not due to a lack of students right uh students are going elsewhere um and and
that'll continue to impact the budget as those revenues come in uh lighter um I remember sitting in here as a member of the audience during the fiscal cliff times and we were having that same conversation that enrollment from outside was dropping um and tuition from outside was dropping so just just
something um to continue to to think about uh as it pertains to the Budget moving forward thank you Mrs Conor thank you for the presentation um how does the enrollment number how does that overall compare against what
you have in this plan versus what it was last year walpar I don't know what I i' I've taken the numbers that the teachers gave me because each of them give me a spreadsheet with their enrollment figures for next year and what I do is I accumulate all those I take them put
them on one sheet and then I summarize them and I have to put those in the in the software I mean do you remember if it was higher lower same Dr to felter when we went over those I'm trying to remember I I I think I can answer they
were I can answer that I think uh according to you would look at him as well yeah yeah I put it all together in a summary and I sent it out uh it's uh total over the whole District we down 43 students it's slightly L
okay um is there an estimate of how many students from all of those housing developments in town that are not paying the taxes do we have an estimate of how many students do we have in the district coming from those specific developments
I I couldn't tell you that one I I wouldn't know that and that's why I guess we're getting a demographic study to get all that stuff done but we don't know yet okay um you mentioned a certain percentage of the lines that have stayed flat or have gone down do you have the
dollars associated with those lines out of the 60 odd million is it 40 million 10 million any do you say if the ones that have increased no the ones that we said have either stayed flat or
have gone down I get it's 56% of lines but it's not 56% of I just took the value I just do you have do you have an an idea of what is the what are the dollars associated with those lines that have either flat they would they would
the on that were either flat or went down they would either be zero or negative but I didn't add no total dollars no um what is the budgeted amount for Legal Services if you know that for next year
yeah 105,000 for General and 45,000 for U special ed which is a decrease from last year of about 35,000 okay that's helpful um as it relates to the subscription busing are
we assuming that the rates in this calculation it's assumed to stay the same the 500 and the 750 Max per family unless unless you decide that in April or May when that when that comes up but this this math is assuming that they stay flat correct okay and last question
have the activity fees also stayed flat in this calculation yes because the last time I think was two years ago where you increased it yes that hasn't moved yet so it's still the same number okay thank
you thank you Mr jitz okay okay we're g to move on now to very much thank you to the comments for the public on agenda items we see now that we have a lot of people here from the public um our board attorney has
just asked that I just make a statement here uh because under business under resolution n uh to approve the Lower Columbia lease agreement this lease grants the township control over the maintenance and development of the portion of the Lower Columbia area
currently owned by the district for the next 25 years for many reasons excuse me for many years there have been an Unwritten agreement between the township and the district both the recreation department and pal Sports utilize the district land and provide funding to the township for
field maintenance this Arrangement allows the district to focus on education while enabling the township to maintain the fields to meet the demands of Youth Sports in the community the lease agreement is being requested partially to ensure the township can access specific grants to fund its plans
for the Lower Columbia property it's important to note that this agreement does not extend to other fields owned by the district some of which the township maintains to support wreck and palal programs as many in the town are aware the Lower Columbia fields and parking lot are widely used by the entire
community and different sections are owned by the district and the township both the township and the district have had liability considerations regarding the use of this area for many years the township has partially maintained the Lower Columbia field and this agreement not only formalizes this Arrangement but
also enables the township to apply for funding and grants that are not available to school districts the board and the township have gone back and forth over this agreement for some time in an effort to get the agreement completed the township has agreed to resurface the parking lot at Lower Columbia this lot is currently owned by
the district and is otherwise not part of the lease agreement but the board foreseeing increase in the use of Lower Columbia area if certain uh development projects occurred sought to protect this asset for both students and the broader Community however the Township's offered to Paving the parking lot is contingent
upon the vote this evening if both the board and the township vote in favor of the lease the township will have control over the district owned land of the Lower Columbia field for the length of the agreement how the township proceeds after this lease agreement is agreed upon is at the town's discretion the
agreement ensures that the district students receive priority scheduling to Lower Columbia Fields owned by the district the district will also continue to allow the wreck and the palal to use the district fields and land whether or not the gree uh the agreement the lease agreement for lower columia passes or
not and they have done that for many years we are going to go on now to public from the comment uh comments from the public on agenda items only and this is an agenda item during this portion of the meeting District residents and staff are invited to address the board of
education on agenda items only the board requests that individuals State their name town of res pres or School of attendance for the record all comments should be directed to the board president and depending upon the nature and complexity of the question it may or may not be answered during the meeting
by the administration if so the response would occur after the public portion of this meeting has concluded although the board may not respond to all items raised during the public forum all public comments will be considered the board asks that members of the public be courteous and mindful of the rights of
other individuals when speaking specifically comments regarding Personnel matter are discouraged and cannot be responded to by the board students and employees have specific legal rights afforded by the laws of New Jersey the board Bears no responsibility nor will it be liable for any comments
made by members of the public please note that if any member of the public becomes disruptive during the meeting the board president May terminate the participant statement continued disruption may result in formal removal from or adjournment of the meeting each speaker statement will be limited to 3
minutes in duration we will do do the in-person um participants first and then we will move to our online participants is there anyone who would like to come forward at this time in public first is the mic on hello yes we can hear you
please state your name uh Ryan barin good evening Board of Education members my name is Ryan varnerin and I'm a student athlete and a junior here at GL I thank each of you guys for volunteering and dedicating your time to helping Berkeley Heights become a better
town I wish you guys will listen as to what I have to say I have played soccer on all different levels and Fields throughout New Jersey and other states for Club school and wreck throughout all these environments I can speak on behalf of all my teammates or at least those living in
Berkeley Heights that poorly maintained grass fields are much worse than tur Fields most grass fields in the area for as long as I can remember are full of divots and holes which is a hazardous condition I encourage each of you to take a walk on any grass field here in
Berkeley Heights including those here at G Count how many divots you will find for many people one wrong step in a divot could be lifechanging as it could result in a serious injury warranting time out of sports Hospital time and a ton of money for hospital care even those with the fitness level
of a high school athlete are not safe from this danger as per my last soccer tournament played on a grass field prior to the game me and some of my teammates were joking and comparing the field to that at Lower Columbia in the game an individual on the other team was back titling in the process he misstepped
into a divot causing his need to become dislocated we were not laughing then and to be sure it was not a pleasant sight furthermore this is not just a fluke grass fields have caused 20% more non-con injuries compared to tur Fields
as per Brigham following the game I thought to myself about how that could be me or any of my peers living in Berkeley Heights that this would happen to hopefully you guys will vote in favor of turfing Lower Columbia in order to eliminate this threatening problem and as the meeting
continues I challenge you guys to ask yourselves do you want this danger in our town thank you Mr varnerin how you doing good evening uh Bill Faxon Berkeley he resident also president of the Berkeley height BL so this lease agreement it's not perfect
right there's things about it that some of you don't like and I get it and there's things about it some of these people don't like there's things about I don't like right I don't like the football restriction but yes you have to make concessions right because the while the if you wait till things are perfect you'll never do anything you'll never
get Mar well my wife waited till it was perfect that work but in general you'll never get married you'll never buy a house you'll never have kids right if you wait till things are perfect the agreement is not perfect but the goal of the agreement is perfect okay for our kids we're we're dealing with a time where our kids were at an all-time high
childhood obesity video game addiction right social media addiction suicide all these things that we know the participation in athletics doesn't make it all go away but it minimizes okay creating more opportunities for our kids when it's costing the Board of Ed the
school district zero dollar it's costing these people the taxpayers zero doar I really struggle to see a downside for this again considering that it's not perfect right but but the longer we wait to do this we lose momentum we lose the ability to do it because again the goal is perfect creating things for our kids
I know you know we sat here all night hearing some great things about the academics in our school district which is why I think most of us live here but you know it was inspiring seeing Olivia thinking about our great student athletes that we have right so she's going to play her sport at toughs just in this GL class of 2025 we have a student athlete going to MIT we have a
student athlete going to Amherst we have two of those wrestlers that we heard about are going to NYU we have some of our younger baseball players just committed to uba the Lehi so a Athletics and academics are not in congruent they're two sides of the same point so by creating more more athletic opportunities for our kids we also help
them as academics as student athletes we keep them safe as those young gentlemen just said very eloquently and again we're creating more opportunities for our kids we're getting them off the video games we're getting them away from eating the Twinkies we're getting them off the social media all these things that are away from the drugs all the
things are having such a profoundly negative impact in our community so you all were voted to look out for your constituents let's think about the constituents That Couldn't vote for you the youngest most vulnerable people right they're the ones that will benefit from this so I implore all of you please
vote Yes help our kids out thank you thank you this is my good good evening um probably going to be a minority on this um your name please I'm sorry John MZ Berkeley Heights uh I'm not opposed to uh a field
at all I'm not I'm not opposed to having a uh shared agreement with the the township my concern is sort of how the process sort of played out and I'm going to be mindful of the audience here today and try to temper
how I normally talk I feel like this the board was put in a very unfair position in in how to negotiate this this was an 11th hour edition a negotiation should be fair and level and it shouldn't involve putting
children in the middle of a contract negotiation and that's exactly what happened and so I I'm I'm willing to overlook all of that and I'm 100% for a solution because I I mean I my kids wouldn't use the field my kids are in
sports but I don't they're not in mean volleyball's not going to use that friending is me but um but I think that if you look at our investment in athletics we spend more than any of the other six districts while textbooks are at 56
cents we also know that the township has de wealthy developers coming in building all these profit making um house all this profit making housing I'm really trying to temper myself and none of those not a dime of that goes to our
schools to support our kids I'm all for the athletes I'm all for giving them the field but I think the district needs to be treated fairly and with respect and what happened today this being on the agenda in the 11th Hour was not fair
respect in my opinion I have some questions about the budget if you would allow me um tutoring Services were something that the math department Dr phry IND I'm sorry Gail of the math department uh indicated in the presentation that would
be offered through the the new math program and I think that was part of the performance budget that's still the case right that there would be online tutoring available to students um that was what something Dr Curtis told me okay that that would be an issue uh
so I'm G to have a concern with that because if we're talking about that budget I was GNA I was actually pretty okay with it but if if our kids aren't getting tutoring which I mean we doubled our security cost our general admitt
support services are through the roof that was something I'd hope our kids would get some type of support service uh which I thought was part of this new math program so I'm a little disappointed that you guys aren't aware of that is that the Alex okay so are they
GNA have access to tutors that's okay you can get back to me it's fine it's fine it's fine um I would also like our C Co curricular to to to be a little bit tighter uh I feel like our kids could use I know money goes into most of the money in
there goes to like the the Staffing is that true or and I'm not criticizing that I'm just wondering well if that's not the case excuse me if if that is the case I'd like to see kids get a lot more enrichment opportunities through those
venues I'd like to see money spent um in those areas as well thank you very much thank you good evening I'm Michelle Blum from Mountainside my son attends G as a freshman I'm one of those concerned
parents about the tennis courts so at the end of tryouts they were just trying out last week at the end of the second day the tennis team was told that they were not allowed to come back to the courts
um and they could no longer use the courts at Columbia except for the one court that was owned by the Board of Education as you're well aware you can't function at tennis team with one Court I emailed each of you last week thank you
for those of you that did respond to my email I also emailed the mayor the Town Council the town business administrator the recreate director of recreation um I me emailed everyone in the district that
I thought that would be able to help answer this question I was supplied with multiple emails from the mayor with a lot of information 18 months of a timeline um and the following
information quoting for months the township has been transparent in the communicating that for liability reasons we cannot permit the school to use Township owned courts without a signed agreement that includes proper insurance
cover verage to date the board has not yet committed to finalizing that agreement we are awaiting a vote by the Board of Education there's nothing more we can do that's a direct quote from the mayor we're extremely grateful for
Mountainside for helping the team out for Thursday and Friday last week and also for New Providence where the students are practicing still trying out this week and yes the mayor of Mountainside wonderful I contacted him this weekend to ask if he could help out
so he called me yesterday and I put him in touch with the um Mr hris and the coaches very grateful for that um I don't feel that this is a permanent
solution I feel that it's a temporary Band-Aid on a bigger issue um I was also told on Facebook I'm new to GL but apparently there are tennis courts here that haven't been maintained for years I guess maybe an option is
could there be a quote to get those courts renovated or another option we're requesting for you to sign this contract so these kids could play ball where they should be um these students deserve this they
deserve a board to provide every opportunity for them and I'm confident saying if any one of your children were on the tennis team you would do everything that you could to get them to get what they need so I'm asking you the dedication
and the passion that you would have for your children have the same dedication for these boys right now they deserve to be at Colombia help them to have a successful season help them to represent GL and
have pride in what they do please help the tennis team thank you thank you hi my name is uh Peggy house uh 20 Janet Le in Berkeley Heights um I am also the former vice president of the Berkley
Heist palal and field former field hockey commissioner but I'm not really here tonight as a sporting parent I'm here as a taxpayer also um it was very interesting to hear the budget perspective from everybody and the questions that were being asked um and
more importantly the comment regarding the parking lot um you know considering we have HVAC issues uh we have toilets here in GL that don't flush uh we have sewers that back up through the girls locker rooms and ruin equipment uh
clothing that all the parents have to replace because we can't get a functioning building I I think the pros here outweigh the cons financially you're getting field maintenance at all your schools you're getting a parking lot paid you'll be getting a turf field
potentially in the back and you'll be getting use of the tennis courts you have other places to spend our money other than what I just rattled off um so I would just strongly implore you to
vote um at least in a financial way if you don't have an athlete uh and you're a taxpayer to vote what is financially responsible for the town um I do sympathize with the tenant team um some of these kids it's their senior year
won't be able to play at GL if you don't vote tonight and vote to pass it um I strongly strongly suggest that you pass it and I kindly ask that given the turnout tonight that this become the first vote of the night rather than the last um so that we could be excused and
you could move on with the rest of your it thank you thank you hello my name is Roger Fon nowitz I'm a resident of Berkeley Heights uh currently I serve as Berkeley Heights softball commissioner so I represent
over 125 female athletes ranging from first grade to e8th grade uh we are impacted significantly by this dispute that is taking place tonight um our season begins in the next 14 days and our fields are nowhere close to be ready
for the season uh our softball program is one of the best in the state but our Fields don't reflect that standard our players are currently excited and working hard for the upcoming season they've done everything right uh we
always tell our kids work hard be grateful and be humble and good things will happen that's not the case here they're actually getting punished so this is an unfair situation for our female athletes and should not pay the price for this dispute so thank
you for your time and let's please vote Yes for our female thank you Kemble member of um resident of Mountainside uh first I'd like to commend you on your budget getting it in under the 2% being a Chief Financial Officer of two
municipalities in y County I understand your pain as far as the lease agreement I wish the board can come back and respond to the mayor's if you decide not to vote on it tonight or postpone it or vote it down because they gave out a very
detailed timeline of saying you've had it for 18 months so I can't see how it's being saying being rushed on the 11th out next thing I have to say is if you can't come to that agreement can you Le at least come to agreement with the town or the tennis court and give them a
certificate of insurance so they can at least play where they want to play that's all I have to say thank thank you good evening Debbie barnman I am the uh current chair of the Berkeley Heights Recreation commission
I've been a member of the Berkeley Heights Recreation Commission since 2018 uh one of the first things when going back what was that seven years ago um my son who spoke before was nine and
he played every single sport um and sitting on the fields um and seeing the condition that they were in made me want to get involved and and volunteer to improve things and um I'd like to think that I've made an impact in the town and
um significant changes with um the parks and Fields that we have in town I understand that this is a new board here but I I think one of the things
that is getting missed is the fact that these discussions have been going on since 2018 with former board members and former athletic directors and coaches a couple of years ago um a bunch of folks
that are on the board of education um had input into a recreation master plan that was developed um and documented um we didn't do it on our own um the former Board of Ed president came with me in
2019 to present the plan to Turf Lower Columbia to conell Corporation and together we received a 200 50,000 donation from them this isn't new this isn't rushed in in the 11th hour since July of
2019 I have been speaking to uh official formally speaking to the Board of Education I have presented to your finance committee I have presented to your Athletics committee I tried on September 11th of 2023 to reach out to
small groups of you to try and set up a more detailed one-on-one conversation so that I wasn't limited to 25 minutes of of te of talking uh through the finance committee um and that turned into
Facebook posts and me trying to do something illegal and attorneys got involved and I was told I couldn't do it anything that you've asked of me I've done I've done presentations I've presented to the to the um the Town
Council I've offered to present to you guys I've offered multiple times to come to your executive sessions to answer your questions I've responded to every question that anybody has had Jordan Heyman probably had about 15 different
questions and I've responded timely we responded timely to the attorney when when we got his email this weekend on Saturday within three hours we responded back with comments so to say that this is getting rushed in and it's getting
you know at the 11th hour and no time to talk about and nobody's seen this the original lease was sent over at the end of 2023 this is March of 2025 we're not a private company that
you need to do Finance in look at Finance information and see how strong the company is we're the municipality we want to work with you we want to do this for the children of the town and Mrs Bradford to correct something that you
said before wreck does not use any property that is owned by the board of ed for its programs that is a false statement we use the property that we own the money that is received on field
usage fees barely covers the money that is being put back into the fields the way that we were able to get the money that we have now is from 2017 that's eight years ago prior boards
before my time have increased program fees to be able to raise money for Field improvements because we know how much it's needed I know my time is up but I have been asking for a year and a half for an opportunity to speak to you
guys please just vote on this and as Bill Faxton said it's not perfect we're your partner we want to work with you we want to do what is best for this community and that's it there's no more
and there's no less nobody's looking to get one over nobody's got a hidden agenda all we want to do is work with you so just work with us thank you everybody I'm Carolyn George I am the
recreation director I'm here because honestly my whole life and Berkley Heights is always been for the kids I don't a lot of you know me because your kids came to Camp or have been part of one of my our
programs that we ran I've been working for the rec department for 19 years I literally have been called by God to do this and when I tell you I live for the community and for this children in this community this project that we're trying
to do is truly for the children and for the community it's there's no agendas there's nothing all the programs that I we run I run through the rec department has funded for all the projects that we have done in this community which are
taxfree anything we do we pour back in to the community it's the community Prov we provide a service for the community they get great programs we save the money and we pour it back in so it doesn't cost one penny to the tax
dollars it's baffling to me I have absolutely no idea why this project is not getting done it makes no sense I'm living here over 30 years and when do you ever get anything for free you only get the grace of God from free but I
don't understand why this is not even something that you're just all jumping on it just makes zero sense I can't even explain it to people when people ask me I say I don't know I don't know what it is that's causing them to say no to it it it
it I wish somebody could give us an answer because there's zero answer to it and this has been going on for years back when I was a program director Tom Barton and I stood on the basketball courts and we talked with the with the
Boe and members and we talked about it we had plans made up that's many many years ago when Tom was around these plans were in in progress and then Debbie came on the commission and things just we kept on saying we got to do this
we got to pour into the community and we changed so many of the facilities and they're your facilities and our facilities and we made them better why wouldn't we do this facility better it just makes no sense please reach into your hearts and just be like
okay this is the right thing to do for the community cost you z doar z you get nothing for free in life other than the love of Jesus thank you sorry I know I wasn't supposed to say that but that's what I'm saying that's who I am
thank you hi Kate kellerer Wessel I am a mountain inside resident so not a tax payer unlike Peggy uh I am the new field hockey commissioner for the Berkeley Heights pal um just a couple things I'm going be really quick here but I do want to to sum it up right so how many of you
have a hobby that you love right maybe not playing a sport but there's something that that you feel passionately about I cannot imagine being one of those tennis players and having not knowing if I could play my sport right so just a couple things that
I I want to sum up for you right so we heard Bill talk about the pro of Athletics on our students we heard Roger mention the negative impacts this has had on female athletes this dispute we talked about our soccer players saying how Turf benefits right them that
they're less likely to get an injury this is also an opportunity for us to offer more Sports especially to our female athletes right we now we now have flag football we have field hockey right which is played on Turf th this Turf project would not only benefit the the
students that we have today and the sports that we're playing today but also provide opportunities for the future so thank you thank you hi uh Jean Kingsley I'm a Berkeley Heights resident I'm also a former uh councilwoman I was on the Town Council for 12 years uh I've lived here 30 years
I've put four children through this Township and I'm not sure people remember but I am a dinosaur and 20 years ago uh the field out here at GL was not turfed it was a mud pit and there were a lot of times when soccer games couldn't happen they had to rearrange with other schools weekend
Sports didn't happen and a board sat here and fought the residents left in right because they didn't want to put a turf field in and only because you had a a wonderful group of people and residents in this town did the residents come together and ban together and find the money to get a turf field put in and
all of us sitting in this room today have benefited Sports have taken off we have room and ability for girl Sports and boy Sports and it's because the community came together and overrode the board that somehow wasn't listening to the residents and did the right thing
let's fast forward 20 years later we have the same thing happening again when I was on the council we started in 2016 talking about this T this Lower Columbia project when I got on the council in 2012 the sports Fields were a disaster many these people that are sitting here
now came in front of me constantly as a council person complaining about the fields because the Board of Ed and the township didn't have their act together they didn't have a good working relationship and the fields were a disaster you know hats off to Carolyn George Tom Barton Debbie barin and the rec team because they have taken over
field maintenance so that softball and baseball and soccer are happening and our sports are booming and then they've turned around and they've worked their butts off to fundraise to figure out a way to get a field put on which we thought we could do because we thought we UND you know we owned the land and
then when all of us got together in 2018 and actually looked at the tax map it's a goofed up tax map because families donated land to the town sometimes they gave it to the town sometimes they gave it to the Board of Ed and you have a mess in lower Colombia so what we first talked about doing was actually fixing
the tax map and redesigning the land and putting it where it belongs so somebody could take care of it but there's been a lot of board changes and that would be really complicated to get the board through so we came up with plan B which is do a lease so that we can at least put an asset on land we don't own so I
can't understand why this board cannot come to an agreement to let something benefit all of the residents and benefit the board but there was a referendum that was put through in November and there's many of you that sit on this deis that have come to the deis when I was on the council complaining that
things did not go to a referendum and yet you're sitting here now ignoring the referendum that was out there that you unanimously voted to put this tur field in and I don't want to hear the excuse that there wasn't enough people voting to make that matter because the refer
you know people knew that there was a question on the ballot it's their choice to get out and vote and you as a governing body are supposed to respect the amount the outcome of that vote the same way you get to sit in that seat whether five people show up to vote or 5,000 people so please listen to the
voters help the students that is your job your job is government you've had two superintendents you've had two athletic directors tell you this is a good project I don't know why any of you think you are more qualified than the people you hire the experts you hire so please do the right
thing thank you good evening Jeff Barner and Berkeley Heights former councilman as well I'm really going to just keep this short because at the end of the day this isn't the hill that you guys want to die on this is a
no-brainer Focus your attention and energies on raising our scores we saw all the data here tonight about test scores that's where you guys can have a real impact I implore you this is a zero cost thing to you you get
a vast Improvement in your infrastructure the kids get a place to play this is a no-brainer please vote yes thank you thank you I see no one else in person here um
Mrs M oh sorry sorry Steve Steve guski on uh here in Berkeley Heights first off I just want to say shout out to the French Club and I hope that they have included in their budget or whatever they need for next year
something that that trip I'm a little late on this the trip to Quebec was awesome and all those folks who were involved in that kudos to them uh in terms of the budget quick quick note Park AV has now been a 30 m hour area so I'm wondering if you need to have your
crossing guards there I don't know if that's been included or thought thought of when I came here tonight I guess I expected to see a more detailed budget presentation um the recap that there wasn't that informative to me I'd expected a listing of planned Capital that would qualify for the
34% as well as capital projects that would be uh done out of the reserve and it sounds to be like the budget was done as a 2% budget as opposed to this budget line compares to this expense expense line from last year
if you just doing budget to budget you can have a $6 million entry for health insurance that you actually paid five million for but this year you made it 6.6% simply because you're just multiplying numbers my hope is that it wasn't done
that way kind of a new thing for me was this whole thing of the leasing because I'm not really familiar with any of that uh it's a Well organized effort over here I think you guys done a great job ofing your case I what I had heard about it was
that students were forced to go elsewhere which to me was using them as pawns and it made me very upset that that's going on I think we need to be able to show our students that we use critical thinking and resolve these things without this kind of
attitude um and also I think that uh based on a PTO meeting that I was at last night um the school administration is faced with this issue and I don't think they're fully informed on this either which I think should be I'm one of the first people you'd go to as form
the administration but I must say God bless Mrs geordan i i i Wasing on this whole thing but when I heard you this is awes thank you thank you uh good evening my name is Alan Kane
uh I live at Mountainside um so about three years ago we got involved in a Berkeley Heights uh athletic uh so my kids started playing at Snider which is a great field I love the turf so I'm all for the Lower Columbia getting Turf um so fast forward my son's a freshman this
year on the tennis team he's trying out hopefully he makes it so what are you going to tell the kids when you don't sign this lease agreement where are they going to go going to bounce around Mountainside New Providence that the parents just drive in circles what's the big deal sign it get it done if it was
your kids you get Done Right Maybe not maybe your kids don't play sports anymore at one time it kind of sounds like your all your kids played here okay went to school here so just get it done this is simple 18 months and you can't sign a lease what are you doing in the
real world 18 months you'll be fired right truthfully but you're not you have a job right everybody pays you so sign it get it done it's not that hard right let the kids do what they have to do right we're not telling to get buses for the kids kids who has got for that
happens we parents is driving around like UBS right drive from Mountainside driveing to Providence drive to Columbia one Court the other day we went down here at 3:30 the courts were empty nobody's playing what's next you're going to put in pickle ball courts and get rid of the tennis courts that's
probably happening soon right I'm pretty sure if you want to pickle they'd have it you have tennis courts for the kids let them play It's not that difficult we're not telling you to put them out in the Third Field over here at GL okay but we're not let the kids wa it's simple there's nobody playing tennis there okay
it's easy it's a no-brainer get it done thank you any more comments from the public here in person Mrs molinary I see no one online is that correct okay at this point we will close
the public comment section of our meeting we're gonna move on to the minutes I need a resol there's no response to that do we have a response a lot of it was inaccurate there are some things that we can say publicly that are
inaccurate and correct them do he okay Mr um our board attorney do we want I mean we we I mean there are accusations here that we had anything to do with that tennis team being
the the simplest thing is we are not paid you know we get paid to be here we are we are volunteers to you the board to respond okay I'm going to ask our board attorney and our Superintendent at this time if there's anything they would like
to respond to and then I can change the order of our agenda to go to our business section first Gail you you need to Okay so um Dr felt do you have anything to respond this time well I can speak to a couple
of the inaccuracies that it wasn't the board that removed access to the tennis courts for the the the students um uh I know it was in an agreement that um but it wasn't the board that didn't give
them access and not the reason why nobody was playing on it and um I think somebody uh so came up and said why didn't we try to work with the township I did reach out to the township and didn't receive a call back most likely
because this was um an event that was happening uh tonight but I I did attempt to reach out and see if we could secure the the courts this week so that was yesterday and I left a message order we need
order yeah but I believe not the Jerry spring show this is not the Jerry Show and I I understand the frustration right and that's that's part of the problem is that um this lease agreement
has been 18 months um and it has been very difficult last year we had a lot of a people uh on the board and we um have been trying to work this year we got a brand new superintendent in January and one of the first letters she got was
from the town saying that they were no longer going to maintain uh certain Fields like the softball field unless we sign this agreement um that softball field is not part of the lease agreement so it it's it's just being used as a way to get us to sign the lease agreement
now I I believe there's falls on both sides and and I'm I'm truly disgusted by how this has gone down and I've lost a lot of trust in people um for the way that it's it's come out but the tennis is not necessarily part of this lease as
in once we sign this lease agreement right it will become part of this but this is land owned by the town they have every right to schedule who they want and who they do not want and that would be their insurance not our insurance um so it's it you know we had girls play
there in the fall and this insurance issue wasn't an issue so it's it's you would have to ask the mayor why she's saying that I I can't tell you I tell that we have our own insurance that covers everything also the wreck does use some of our property for playground
Camp um okay Mrs Stanley I'm G to stop I'm gon to stop this back and forth between the board what we want to do is get to the vote as soon as possible it sounds like the board is not going to allow me to go out of order so I'm going to go as quickly as possible agenda
actually you have um the right to do so will the board allow me to go out of order Mrs Jolly Mrs yes Mr Dylan yes Mrs Conor no yes Mrs Stanley yes yes Dr vorer No and
Mrs FY no looks like I have the right to go out of order we will now move to hold on the only thing Gail the only thing is is that there also needs to be a discussion period as would with any other right absolutely with any other
votes moving ahead to to business on page 10 of our agenda business resolutions a through n all board members may I have a motion to move business a through n all board
members may I have a motion to move it forward so moved thank you Mrs Stanley a second second thank you Mr Dylan discussion I like Mr Dyan yeah so
um I am troubled with the one line item um which is section one letter K prohibited uses following or prohibited in Lower Columbia without the written written consent of both parties the only thing
listed here is tackle football I I I truly cannot understand out of all all the activities that all of these F mentioned why this one line would be edited U we're not we're not calling out don't throw rocks at each other we're not calling out you know don't jump
upside upside down the land on your head uh there's just this one line and and it does seem hard so um I I I request the motion that uh we make a change to this lease that's in front of us to
remove the restriction on tful football and let's make this lease agreement exactly what it's supposed to be uh for all of the athletes not just those that we some whoever put this in here decided is safe or unsafe or whatever the case may be so make the motion to update this
uh agreement we have in front of us to remove the prohibited use of tackle yes our board attorney wait till it's second second that okay we have a motion we have a second yes I just has to be heard because I don't I didn't take your
question to be rhetorical in terms of how got in there right so it was it's in there at the request of the the town um no is that the request of a board okay um okay all I'm saying is that the
language that you see here was agreed to by the town so I can't say with certainty that if we make this change the town will agree to it understood underst that's that that's that's I'm I'm not going to be debating
with anybody I'm just giving you the information this language was discussed hear you right we had a similar situation couple meetings ago where we made an amendment it rejected so on so forth I understand the rest that goes wrong with it yes so and and I what I what I want to add to that if I may
Madam president because not directly in response to your question but I think it's useful for the for the board to know is that giv the uncertainty here um the township attorney uh texted a short time ago that um the the town did not
act on this this evening but they're willing to call a special meeting if the board adopts this this evening yeah I I would like to move forward giving advice and knowing what the risk would be to make that change that's fine I just wanted to again I didn't take your questions rhetorical
and I wanted to respond yeah thank you so we have a motion we have a second Mr secretary a roll call vote to strike the could you give me the number again Mr Dylan number one subsection K section K subsection one one right strike out the
the motion is to strike uh onek uh small letter I correct so we would essentially be removing the current clause in there that restricts tackle football the only activity that's being restricted in this whole document okay so just to be clear for the members
of the board the the motion on the table is to strike that it's not to approve the lease without it it's simply to approve striking it and then move forward with a new version and then you have yeah then you then you would vot understanding that that's now not in sync with what the Town Council had and
I guess vote would mean yes to strike it yes the motion is to strike the the uh exclusion of tackle okay Mr secretary so Gail again there's discussion right so okay so discussion on topic but I think it speaks to
broader because um issue is that because this is so fast moving we don't the no no one in the audience has an attachment that they can look at right as typically done with things that we vote on I don't have a final version like I know we
discussed this in exact but then there were some changes made so I don't know exactly honestly what we would be voting on anyway so I you know there is and we're essentially then taking stuff that we're supposed to be negotiating confidentially out in public and I you
know so I I don't I I'm I'm honestly like I can you know we can vote on the motion we can proceed but I don't know where this is going given that I don't even have like a final piece of paper in front of me to know what I'm voting for again I can respond to that if you want to so you are you are voting on
exactly what is in front of you uh there was one change discussed in executive session um which was then discussed by phone with the attorney for the township she said it was acceptable um which was to
add um a reference in section 14 to the following one sentence the mutual agreement of the parties as to historical practices for maintenance as required by section 7 shall be continued going forward so other than that you're voting on exactly what's in front of you
what you have in front of you may or may not be modified depending on on the vote on the motion put forth by Mr Dylan so um m m Ziri yes so I think it'll be it'll be a good benef it will do a
really good deed if you can time out the chronology of the current lease that is on as listed on our agenda n so yes there were certain leases that were sent last year the board made a decision we
were told entire year of 2024 that this is a contract negotiation you cannot discuss the terms publicly so we had to discuss them in exec and vote in exec there was a chronology that was a chronology of events or how things happened a letter sent by the mayor that
was received by a new superintendent and I did list out to Dr feltri the inaccuracies in some of the events that were listed the board did make a decision in exec last year and it was communicated by Mr dler to the township also there was a statement made in one
of the letter and I believe Dr feltri responded back to the mayor where the mayor said the board attorney had recommended that the board meet publicly with the township to discuss this in October while a referendum question was
already put up we we on the board never got an fii a basic thing that hey we're going to put this on the referendum and that's fine uh you know they are a public entity they're allowed to do it it was a biased question and people voted on it but we were never informed
that there was a referendum question that going to be placed so and our board attorney clarified when I asked Dr felt to confirm with Mr dler did he recommend that the board go and visit a town council meeting the answer was a no so
the board attorney never recommended the board to go and meet them the other thing some of the items that are being told is last year there was an Outreach made only to the board president and Athletics committee I did reach out to the mayor and ask are we all going to be given a chance and I was told Noe this
is how I'm going to proceed so that is the history part of it coming to the lease that's on the board agenda right now I have reached out and I asked Dr feltre Mrs zir would you stick to the motion which is the motion is about the lease and I'm asking a question motion
is about tackle football being on the lease on the lease which is agenda you will stick to that motion then we'll have a discussion on the lease yes let me just ask you so this MO with this particular item of tackle football this
version came to the board on Saturday morning at 10:00 to your I I think into our inboxes and now we were told at exec at 700 p.m. that there was a new version the 18th March version that was sent at
2 p.m. by the township attorney and then as Natasha stated there were some telephone conversations and there is said maybe another version so so what are we voting on is a question and if um Dylan wants to remove tackle football
and that's a motion that's fine we can the motion we're voting on at this time and and I will state right so one of the principles in this whole thing was memorializing the agreements that have been in place all along well Taco football is occurring at Lower Columbia today so it's not like we're adding
something back in we're just documenting what's already happening right it already happens there I'm down there you know several times I see you know doing so it's we're not changing anything we're we're documenting the as is which just been
part of what we've been working thank you so uh Mr secretary a vote on the motion to strike tackle football strike tackle football as a Prohibition as a Prohibition thank you Mr Dylan
yes Mr Terrero yes Mr Kiri no Dr forer no Miss Jolly yes Miss Connor no Miss Stanley
yes Miss Bradford yes motion passes so going back now to uh resolutions a through n all board members with n sorry we still have a discussion yes right okay but I'm just saying that now
n has been modified in that section to strike tackle football okay so a discussion continues B were you done yeah I have comments but I just went so I'll let everybody else talk okay I'll come you can come back
okay yes oh closer bill could you be speaking to your microphone a little closer me or no okay I'm over okay Mrs Jolly did you have a discussion item um yeah so I guess there's a lot to
say on the lease so last year I was on the board and you know um and my husband was also the the softball commissioner for a while and you know my kids play sports my daughter plays softball so I you know and I was an athlete in high
school and college so I truly believe in athletics and all that like I think the two go hand in hand however so what happened with this lease right is um and I was one of the ones who suggested that you know maybe the athletic committee
meet last year so we could get some questions answered and present back to the board so fast forward to um you know the questions were answered there's still there's still have a ton you know some more um but fast forward to this year
again with the new superintendent um you know getting that letter was certainly not a good way to start any restart any negotiation effort um you know two weeks into the job and as we move through the month of February
um you know we certainly inquired are we going to what's the plan B what's the contingency what are we what's going to happen um I guess based on whatever conversations Dr felt had with the township we were led to believe that as we are negotiating um they're not going to
commit to um what they said they were going to do which is cut off the services okay so that's why the whole tennis team um being locked out was a bit of a shock I think to the board as well because we were operating under the assumption that we are negotiating and
that um the township knew we were negotiating and then you know and then the tennis team gets locked out now so why did the tennis team got locked out and let's be clear it's the township that locked them out so Township locks them out in order to force us to sign
the lease okay whether you agree with the lease or not that is what happened the first time we heard of any insurance issue was I think March 13th was when there was a GL letter from the attorney that was also not so nice um you know
threatening all that so do we have an insurance issue I believe this lease would resolve any liability issue that that wasn't the question I my question was and we asked an exec session and the answer was we do not so I'm asking for the public I mean
it was a different attorney sitting in exec session question do we have a liability issue do we need do we is there an issue to resolve given that on day one on a Tuesday the kids could practice on a Wednesday they can't do we have an issue as far as the
board is concerned or the township is concerned I don't do we have an issue an insurance issue with the boys playing tennis on Columbia courts so I without this agreement I I can't speak for whether the township has any concerns we do not on behalf of the board well
there's a concern and there's an actual issue like so we are we're being told that we have to sign this lease so the kids can play in Colombia because there's an insurance concern so we have coverage as Pamela had stated so they really don't like like I said they were fine all of month of you know all of
last year the year before but all of a sudden right now there is an insurance issue that was only made of um apparent to or was you know was told to us back in in March of 13 March 13th of like a couple days ago so this was never part
of the discussion around the lease this was never anything so somehow this issue materialized Okay then if we get back to the substance of the lease itself right everybody's saying not a big deal just sign it you know it's kind of like now
after being threatened and pushed into this vot it's like you know getting into a bad marriage if you will we'll protect your kids but only if you sign the lease but if we break up there's no other protection right so as so this was somehow addressed I guess a little bit
with respect to the property that's being leased but nothing here addresses the um the field maintenance of the fields that are not considered the lease all the softball fields like that's that they could pull that at any time there's no guarantee here there's also no
guarantee of a turf field right I think that um this is near like Wetlands right so there uh this has to get de P approval and one of the questions I had asked is why don't we see if a turf field is even possible before we commit ourselves to a 25-year lease I don't
think I ever heard back on that because I think that would be a reasonable approach um so you know it's it's it's also very difficult to become partners with the township that says oh we want to do this for the kids and make it better for the
kids but then they hold out then they lock out the kids from tennis I mean like I said that was a shock um and and and I guess part of it is really you know we were negotiating in good faith like we you may you may for
this year with the new superintendent we were as a board we are not allowed to meet together other than in exec session we called a special meeting on March 6 where we did talk about the lease and we came up with things to send to the attorneys right we just it's it's a it's
a l it's a long commitment and like I said I'm for for athletics I understand the need for the fields but I for the life of me cannot understand why the township locked out the very kids they're saying they want to help and how this lease I mean for example both
parties have 90-day um Clause to um exit out the lease right if we exit out the lease under the current um lease uh the tennis courts issue would still remain right so if the township use decides to um exit the lease you still
have no guarantees to play in Colombia right there's nothing you know the way this should have happened is we should have a shared services agreement with the things that are currently being done in terms of field maintenance and you know usage and then sign then enter into
a lease to um to improve the property look that field is out there and you know and it's not being used to its maximum potential the Lower Columbia softball field was um you know was you couldn't use it and that's why it's just kind of sitting there so I don't think
like you know we probably could be making better use of it but you know to force to force this by using children I I don't know Mrs Stanley um so if we're just going to
discuss the lease um I I I'm GNA say I'm I'm GNA vote Yes for the lease today and I'm doing so because it's what's best for the district and the students not because of what has occurred recently um
I'm just I'm really disappointed and I think that the relationship is really really hurt between the district and the town um I know that the board has some responsibility for that too uh we did have a great meeting with the atic
athletic department uh over the summer um and then there were delays and unfortunately it led to our brand new superintendent um not being very welcomed into the town and I I I cannot
understand uh that at all but I do think that if I can put my own ego and my own uh all the drama that has surrounded this aside I do think that the lease has finally come to a point where the district is protected um and that it is
in the best interest of the students um and the community um and that's that's where I differ is that I think we finally actually worked through on March 6th and got the wording uh to what we needed to be to make sure that it's in
the best interest of the district um it's a 25-year lease this is not something that we should just jump into um because as a district we have our own UH responsibilities to make sure that the education comes first and while I understand that the the town is going to
take over the maintenance and so it it's free to us it's also land that we're losing right and it's a huge piece of the land and as you can see there are some issues that we have to still work out with the township and I hope that they will come to the table with those
um so we can get everything written down um and and not have this happen again um because it was it was really disheartening um because I love this community and I think that as a community we always come together and do stuff for the students um some of the
reasons why we are able to stick to 2% is because we have the Ed Foundation because we have pto's that give and give and give and we are so lucky to live in a town that can do that because there are lots of towns around us that do not have that money from people in the
community um but yeah I I am really disappointed but I do think that this lease is in the best interest of the district so I'm going to put everything else aside and do what I think is right so I'm I'm not sure like it's in the best interest just for the very things
that I pointed out anyone can the township can leave this lease and then um and then like I said tennis court usage is still in the same place where we are today field maintenance is still in the same place
where we are today um what's not to prevent what's to prevent the township and again you know this is a super long lease so you know Mayors are going to change Boards of EDS are going to change what's to prevent the Township from after let's say a turf field is built
from you know exiting the agreement now we have a turn a turf field that's on both Township property and Boe property who's going to maintain it who's going to fund it like it doesn't it doesn't you know account for any of that right
so the the the so so then what we lose first right because the you know Township could say well we spent the money so it's our field there's nothing in the lease that protects Us in that eventuality right so yes it's great that you know it'll you know be funded yes
it's great that you know kids will have a field to play and what if what if we can't get Turf right what if the D says and they published a technical paper that says you know you don't want to put Turf in FL in flood pone areas so what's going to happen then there's no there's
there's not there's I'm glad that the township did not act on it and you know and I heard that you know they did not act on it they want a special meeting so perhaps this is the opportunity to really sit down and nail it out as opposed to voting to approve something
that I don't think is fully takes protections for the district into account and not just the district the kids as well like I said you anyone could pull out of the leas and the kids can still be locked out of Colombia um Mrs Terrero I'm going to let uh our board attorney address some of those
issues then we'll go back to you yeah there's there's one of the things that you said that I can address and I just want to backtrack for one second because several people have mentioned um my colleague Dave dler who was handling this up until a few weeks ago so in fact
I know at least one Community member thought there was some Intrigue about the fact that that Dave wasn't here so I just want to make this clear um uh Dave had um a a medical issue that had him hospitalized for 17 days he came home last week um I believe he will begin um
to resume work uh starting next week um and and we'll continue he's exceeded his doctor's expectations his doctors are watching this I don't know that they would send him here anytime soon but um I I wanted to make clear there was nothing to be
read into that um I thought that the example you gave about uh what happens if they install the turf field that's on their land and our land then they pull out of it you know what's going to happen so uh I I I want to just um use that to to cover an important legal
principle that I think addresses that concern because it was a great example so um I I I'm certain that uh everyone here is familiar with the term breach of contract right so there's language in the agreement somebody doesn't live up to the agreement they can be liable for breach of
contract um there is a uh related principle that I suspect most people haven't heard of which is the implied Covenant of good faith and fair dealing and uh you can uh be liable for that in
an example like the one you gave so it's a circumstance that you can see a rising out of the contract but it's not necessarily covered by the contract so I I have a high degree of confidence that if what you described were to unfold and the town's like you know haha we're
pulling out of the lease but we turfed the area that you own and so now we have say over who controls it that um if there if such a legal dispute arose that the board would Prevail that we can see a wiggle room we did it we pulled the
agreement haha is exactly the sort of thing that the implied Covenant of good faith and fear dealings designed to address so I think a concern like that was a useful one to raise because I don't think that it needed to be covered by the agreement in order for us to have a high degree of confidence that you would not be in the in the position you
described but it is a very realistic scenario that we can Envision I know we say none of us know what's going to happen over 25 years since I've been doing this with you folks for 30 I don't know that I'll be doing it 25 years from now but I've been here that long that
circumstance I am confident the law would protect you from that outcome why not put it explicitly in the um agreement so everybody knows what we're signing I'm sure the answer to that question and I think it's why the legal principle exists is because I
suspect if we took the time we could come up with a whole host of things that the town might try to get away with and it's not particularly covered by the agreement that's why the law protects you and I would point out by the way because I haven't received this information from the town attorney that while the town did not act tonight
waiting to see what happens here they're prepared to call a special meeting I have not received any communication that the town was willing to resend the deadline it set asking the board to take action yay or nay to take action tonight so um the reason this is before you is
on the fact that the town expects the board to take some action on this lease this evening I can't tell you whether the town would be willing to entertain this if the board doesn't act tonight I just don't know Mrs Terrero you had a so um I just
entered onto the board in January of this year so I'm relatively new to all the drama that's gone on um I do think that there has been a lot of miscommunication I understand why people
are upset I do agree with Miss Stanley at the end of the day it's important for us to think about who is getting impacted and that's our students and that's the children that will eventually become students in our district so I
will be actually supporting this agreement and um I just want to implore and and encourage the other members of the board to try to look past um there issues about what's going on
what's going on to try to make the decision that's in the best interest of the kids and and the only other thing and this kind of addresses your question was that I do think it's important that if this does pass that an amendment be
put on this to address the concerns that you had about the other fields and the other things the commitment that we be made to make sure that um those items are taken care why can't it be done ahead of time
like why do we like why not we start off with doing this the right way you know like it doesn't because some of the concerns that were raised here you know softball fields so this has not this will not help softball fields um Community member
also asked if it's about tennis right why if they if all insurance is needed why don't we just you know provide whatever the insurance piece is needed right and then then tennis can continue without an issue right these are like these are all
separate things right we have an ongoing maintenance agreement like I said I was the one who was also kind of in favor of making use of land that's currently sitting unusable so why don't we do things the right way why like why are we trying to
lump all of this and you know and and force just and it's just to force the issue right so I mean mayor's here I don't know what was decided at the Town Council either so I think that if we
want to proceed which you know I think there is obviously some appetite on the board to do and I'm appeti on the board not to do is that we need to get all these other agreements in place and then so we can negotiate as an equal party because that that's when we're all doing
it for the benefit of the kids because right now in this lease doesn't doesn't protect tennis courts like and if like so if if the D says no no tur field right at that point what's the benefit
of that agreement right just to use the tennis courts the township could pull out of it then as well again leaves the tennis courts in the same exact position and the fields are not accounted for so so do you want to try to amend this
agreement right now to add it is that what you want to do I want I want us to not have to negotiate in public like I think I've said everything publicly in terms of what I want to do but I think it's you know like and we have to negotiate with the other party I
don't I don't know if the other attorneys here like it's I just don't know how this is supposed to work when um there you know the the township pass the lease on their own like we can come up with our own lease and pass it too I mean are we going to start negotiating
through uh passing leases back and forth you know through resolutions so I you know I'm just asking that this be done the right way in the sense that protect take it separate right the lease is for the fields it shouldn't have anything to
do with tennis it shouldn't have anything to do with field maintenance of the other softball fields let's get that documented and then I would feel much better about this lease Mrs Conor Mrs cona has the
floor order Mrs cona has the floor Mrs Conor so first first off I'm sorry for the students the families of the of the kids playing tennis I think it's extremely unfair for you guys to be in the position that you are in um I I'm
hearing a lot of tone of be partners and whatnot um which is great but I do want to point out when every body here was talking about the tennis kids getting locked out the wck department is here the
township council is here now nobody stepped up to say we were the people who locked the students out so I want to Echo something what Natasha has been saying the partneri tone is nice but it also comes with taking responsibility
when you've made a decision that is adversely affecting students going back in time a little a little bit you guys have said this been going on for 18 months what not maybe longer the first time I heard about this was I think in
2023 that was my first year on the board um and I think Debbie verin made a presentation I think to the finance committee sometime in 2023 uh at that point in 2023 with the constitution of the board as it was
there was no appetite to sign away the land that we talk talking about today for a 25e duration come 2024 the board's Focus was getting a superintendent selected through a very
intense process so the athletic committee met the Town Council I want to say in August that at that time to point out very clearly the whole of the summer I'm not sure how many times we met as a
board to go through a rigorous process to choose a superintendent that was squarely the primary responsibility of the board at that point in time to make sure that we would get through a superintendent election process so
forgive me if you know we weren't taking the leas agreement seriously in in the definition um as you see it what has happened in the runup to this meeting is we were told if this lease is not on the
agenda tonight the township is not interested um arm twisting is one thing but arm twisting of this nature and taking the students as um as as a political Pond to make a point is sort
of Next Level uh and it just gives me pause to think if this is going on now I'm not sure what will come next when the township needs something from the board this isn't partal conversation or
collaboration so I I'm worried about signing away land in the middle of town for a project that isn't called out in the lease specifically there is no commitment there's no promise for a turf field to go on that property there is no
timeline associated with it there is okay right Mrs Mrs kanana has the floor Mrs this this whole conversation is about a turf field there is no promise in the words Mrs is no promise
is talking on the sleeves that this is a CF field that's going to be put on the property there is no contingency if there is no turf field what happens to the land it is unknown if there is a problem with the process of putting a
turf field in we do not know who is responsible for the cleanup none of that is called called out and to to the point that was made earlier we as Trustees of the land are responsible and we need to take the time to do this right having us
under the gun that says if you guys don't vote on this on March 18th we are no longer interested is not the right way to negotiate all right I'm going to I'm going to continue with this I am in full support of this agreement this lease
protects the Board of Education this has a discussion has been going on for a long time there has been a a lack of trust and our job is to build this trust back up this is leas is only about that lower Colombia field doesn't have
anything to do with the turf field there's been a lot of drama as Pam has said about this but we have to focus on what is best for our students give us the opportunity to work on the educational and academics of our students and our students athletes and our community we have to work together
here this is an opportunity to work together with this lease to move forward in our community and this is an opportunity at no cost to our district for our students and our kids in our community to benefit from what is going
on and I am in full support of this and I have to go past what the drama is going on and look at what this lease has as a protection and we can't put in every thing that might possibly happen in the future we have legal protections of this we have the right to back out we
have 60 days we have 90 days we have that built in we can't foresee what's happening in the future but we can look forward to a future for our students of how this is going to impact them and it's going to be a positive impact for
them Mrs Airi so I just have a quick question to the board attorney um the March 15th version of the lease agreement that was shared with the board um who approved it who on
the board approved for that version the March 15th version to be sent to the Township from your firm to be sent to the township we were going back and forth with the with the town attorney um for weeks so so no we
received it so this version the March 15th version so we got a Redline version of the contract and we got a version of that was going to be added to the agenda it was sent on a weekend um because on the March U 7th or the special meeting
that we had I think in the exec session it was decided we will this meeting is for our preliminary budget we were going to focus it keep it focused on the budget and not added to the agenda but on Friday around 5:40 I think around 5:8
p.m. we got an email from Mrs Bradford that this will be added to the agenda and around 5:48 we got an amended agenda and on Saturday morning we got a version a March 15th version of the contract that was sent by Mrs Bradford so so the
board received it for this version that we are we were expected to vote on at 10:00 sometime around 10 on Saturday so my question to you is if the board is receiving it at 10:00 how did it reach the town ship because the board has to look at the particular contract and say
this is good to go understand your question yes so uh to it's a two-part answer so the the first part is that sometime um earlier that week we were informed by the town attorney that the town was setting March 18 as a deadline
so uh we were going back and forth with the town attorney until we got to the point where uh each attorney that is the attorney for the township the attorney for the Board of Ed a were comfortable uh bringing the board and the township respectfully the document with the
attorney's recommendation uh to proceed uh we had a telephone conference with the superintendent and the board president discussed this with them obviously I'm in public so the attorney C privilege prevents me going into detail but you understand generally what
happened uh we uh made sure that the representatives understood the deadline understood that uh we were comfortable proceeding with the lease and the matter was put on the agenda for tonight it's it's obviously our ethical o obligation
to communicate accurately with our client and it was very pertinent that we had the March 18 deadline so that's how what you have in front of you wound up on the agenda for uh action this evening so my qu the second part of my question is you did share it with the board
president and the superintendent my question is is the March 15th version of the lease agreement that was drafted by your one of the the board attorneys Brian jar yes who So when you say the board is
your client it's the entire board you only spoke to one the board president and the superintendent so my question is the September this the March 15th version from this Saturday before it was sent by the board attorney who on the board did the board give you input and
give you a go-ahead who on the board did that the the the the board's approval would be taking place this evening so we we we at no time represented to the township that we had our clients approval the only thing we represented to the township attorney is that we had reached agreement on language each
attorney was comfortable recommending to their client so there was so this was like a draft lease agreement that was sent over so normally with Mr dler any Redline version that was sent to the other party and until last year or until this this meeting I wasn't sure that
contract negotiations and terms can be discussed publicly but this is new to me and because everybody's talking I'm asking you yeah prior to uh Mr distler's medical leave any Redline version was discussed in the exec session we took a
a some sort of agreement in in exec session and then we said this is good to go correct that did not happened so are you I'm I just s it yeah the reason that didn't happen M the significance was was that as I said early last week we were
given this evening as a deadline if that were not the case my expectation is that your expectation would have been met that is to say we would have been discussing with you in executive session the latest version of the um lease you might or might not have had a vote tonight but the the reason the process
was different was simply because of the deadline but you are our attorney right your firm represents the board not the township yes they gave you an ultimatum and the significance I understand that and that was communicated but you represent the entire board so you could
have said we have a normal process this is a public entity contract review process we are all obligated to follow that process so you I don't know what makes you think we didn't say that but it was the town's deadline so our ethical obligation is to tell our client the consequences as articulated by the
township attorney of you're not taking action tonight and that's why what you have going on tonight is not simply an executive session discussion which we had but rather something before you for Action this evening and it was based upon the deadline set by the township
which we are obligated to convey to you so you know the consequences potentially of not acting tonight so the other advice could have been like hey you you guys need to review this and then maybe re reverting back to the township and say hey the client has not looked at this Redline version or this version of
the lease agreement so you do need to give us some more time that didn't happen or that was already taken care of uh again you are free not to act tonight understanding the consequences we would not have of our own meaning the attorneys representing you um
recommended this process got it it's not ideal under any circumstances it's it's this way because we are obligated to convey to you here's what's available and here are the consequences but the decision Remains the boards and we have a we have a 2 p.m 18th March version
that is actually that was shared with us in exec that's what we are voting on with with that amendment that is correct you have the the two changes the one sentence I read to you and the uh elimination of tackle football as a restriction other than that what you have before you was what you're voting
on okay and just to address one one of the concerns that there is no tax impact and um you know yes this field is has issues it partially is in a flood zone um and we have been discussing it and we have gone we have done good faith
negotiations we've given them our concerns we have asked for a survey of this property which could have been done there was no prerequisite that we have to sign the lease to do the survey also to address the concern that yes our students and our community deserves a
usable field um I don't know if everybody was here for the budget presentation but we do have about 2.4 million after the vote today which is in our reserves and if we the board wants if this is a priority for the board to fix
the field we can do it without any tax impact using the reserve funds that we have also uh also also I have a quick question which I I think which was never answered from the township is given the
which was um given at the last exec was given the political like there is no clarity on which Federal grant is the township applying for given the political environment at DC I don't know which federal grants are available for
leases you know for putting a turf field I know we have some donations from conell and fiser and I'm sure if the if the board of eded decided to go and fix the field and do it for the community I'm sure conell and fisv will be more than willing to help us out but we have
our own reserves that we can take care of again uh we are getting into the weeds the lease in front of us is a benefit to the students and to the community um we are not concerned with where the grants come from this is the town's responsibility and the town is
doing the survey we are just approving this lease in front of us tonight so about the taxes that would impact our taxes because that 2.4 is from our taxes The Other M ta ta we have already that's from our Reserve scale
resp why would you blow all your reserves when everything that's going on you don't have heat you have fire panel issues you're running into all have you even seen what the infrastructure looks like in the district why would I trust hold on why
would blow EXC I have floor why would you blow your Capital reserves why would you blow your Capital reserves on fixing a field when you already have something fully available to fund it why would you do that Mrs Terrero and Mrs Ziri our
board attorney has something to address I I just wanted to because two of you have mentioned it it's a it's a it's a critical uh issue that is sort of touched on but there's a lot not said about the issue with the turf field and
um I'll go back to Mrs J's comments about you know there's nothing in there about you know when they would apply to whom they would apply the circumstance in which they would apply what happens if it's rejected Etc my my answer to that is um in section four here which is that you can pull out of this lease on
90 days notice the only restriction is if you pull out uh within six months of them making any improvements um you'd be obligated to reimburse them but if the issue is the status of the tur turf field and a level of concern or dissatisfaction on behalf of the board
there is a pretty extraordinary safety valve there um and there are so many uncertainties about the the turf field and you identify a great many of them um that would be my answer to that concern whether it's a sufficient answer for you or not I'm not suggesting one way or the
other but I'm I'm responding to the concerns that you've raised and that's how they would be addressed based upon the lease has drafted all right so since we have the mayor here and recck so why I guess my one question to the mayor
would be why March 18th we met we had a special meeting we were getting preparing an amendment we were preparing bearing a lease to our draft of the lease to go to the township we wanted to focus this meeting on the budget where we could have spent and which we did the
exact session talking about lease what what's so particular about a March 18th deadline Mrs Dolly this is not a discussion with the public before us is the lease we get the opportunity to vote Yes or I am talking about the lease
because it makes a difference I don't understand the lease deadline I also you know don't understand so if this is an insurance issue why can't we take care of the tennis courts really quick and have a business administrator provide
whatever insurance is needed to get the kids back on the tennis courts I think the insurance issue is covered in our lease the in but it do not but we don't really I don't even think we have an insurance issue right but why do we need the lease to cover the insurance issue
Mr Dyan just a suggestion right I think we all up here agree that the the statements that were made about about why the tennis courts were removed why the tennis team was removed are just not are inaccurate from our point of view so I don't think we need to rehash
insurance or or anything having to do with ten I we've all established our point of view on that I I'd like to just get past and remove that from the debate um because we can't ask for feedback from the audience and we are all in syn as to what happened okay that that's my
only ask I I love the debate but I think I think we got to get Beyond the the tennis part of it yes Mrs Stanley so I hear everybody right I I hear your concerns about the other fields and I and I completely
agree that this should never have been part of this lease agreement at all and we need to Hash that out my my difference is is that I think we got to move forward right and I I thank Gail for actually putting this on the agenda and for Dr phry putting this on the
agenda because we got to move forward like we have so much we have to do we have to go focus on a referendum so we can fix the rest of the buildings I I honestly like this lease is is does protect us where it wasn't before but
this one does protect us we have ways out the tennis thing is going to be the tennis thing whether or not right this lease gets passed or not so we're going to have to figure that out separately right because if they do back out yes then we don't get first dibs on the tennis courts like this says right now
like the lease says if we pass it so we'll have to figure that out but what I'm saying is with all that put aside right I have to put it all aside too because I'm upset about it too right I I mean Bill Bill used his contacts to make sure the tennis team could go I was come
you know coming up let's call watch on Hills they have this board members immediately acted and they Ed their contacts to help our new athletic director who doesn't know the area right and to help our new superintendent that was the job right and I had people say oh well they think
that you are holding up this lease no right I was focused on the students that's all that matters all the noise doesn't matter right all that noise doesn't matter we need to move forward for the district this is good financially right we know that we have
lots of of of Paving to do of parking lots once the construction is done if they do a turf field they'll be able to pave that right that is massive for us that is helpful for us this is money that we do not have to spend on that when we have buildings that really need
our help right I was just at Mountain Park for for the reading week right their their alarm beeps for the last two years at the entrance door right and they don't know why but it's just beeping for two years and we can't fix it because that's a low thing on the
budget right because we have to pay our teachers and we have to fix all the other things that are actually important right I sit with the bhef and they're like why are kids using their student grants for the bathroom and I'm like well it's because when you have a tight budget it is very hard to fight just to
update a bathroom when it's currently working right we have things we can do we need to get money on a referendum so the state gives us actually 34% and we don't spend it on taxpayer money that's important this I think we
need to move forward move on and focus on the other stuff we have to get done and so what happens next time that the if the township wants to use the fields again to force us to do something else so that's just what we're going to do right well and that's why I think we need to come up with a separate
agreement but we cannot control that right now at this meeting what we can control doing what's best for the district and the kids but isn't getting that agreement in place also what's good for the district see but that's a matter of trust also we have a lease agreement in front of us we have have very little
trust based on what happened just now but we have to put this beside us and behind us and move ahead move forward for our students there are consequences if we don't if we move forward we have protections built into this and we can work with this and do what we need to do after it and there's consequences if the
town doesn't Continue to update the softball fields and the baseball fields right that that will come back to them right so we we do need to get that in writing and we do need to make sure that our district has priority in many of these areas but I think it's separate
from this lease this is so how how do we make sure that we hold the township accountable what is there outside of this that will prevent exactly this tennis court situation again and if we don't I mean
if we don't do this now we are just leaving that door open to be just open again and again and again the lack of trust is because there was a very recent action that broke down the trust so your point about trust trust is a two-way street in this case
so I I don't feel that we are protected the district is protected in terms of the words that are here without the other elements that we've been talking about in the exec session so I don't think we are doing the district or the
board or the students uh a good service by keeping things separate and leaving ourselves open to the same situation yet again Mrs tro um so what I keep hearing people talk about is um concerns about
trust with the other fields and some of the the other items not covered like the tennis courts so would it make sense for us to talk about setting a timeline to get some kind of documentation in place and an agreement with the
township um to have that in place and if it's not in place within a certain period of time we pull the lease so I wanna I want to go back that's my thought I we we did this um maybe two meetings ago maybe the last meeting if you remember where we were having the
conversation about um uh the SLO agreements we we said okay let's uh let's work together we made a proposition to say let's um I think we said shorten the the duration that was
rejected outright so when there is lack of trust it is because of recent actions uh that has made it for me personally impossible to believe unless it's actually written down on a piece of paper also uh Natasha can I just say
something this lease doesn't protect the district or the students in any way the clear action is after creating all the chaos the the mayor and the township chose the most marginalized group of students 25 students who are
predominantly Asian and they knew that the parents are not going to show up that is accurate okay that is accurate no you can yeah War about your comments please no we no I am I aming warn you about your comments no what is the warning Mrs
Bradford I point pleas make my point yes we have emails from parents I know half a dozen of them whose students are playing they're all Asian and this is all factual okay so this is all factual okay here so I am
asking you how does this lease protect us when the mayor and the township used these 25 students as political pawns to shut this down and when the the superintendent tried to reach out we didn't even get an answer
it's been going on for the last one week we are scrambling to send find tennis fields for our te for our students we didn't even get a hey we will try to look and find a way for these students not to miss their tryy outs and you are expecting us that this lease is going to
protect us with nothing written in there I don't I don't believe it Mrs K this lease does protect us in here we have our board attorney who do this please watch your comments about in public about this you also watch your comments if you're saying you're warning me warning me about what I'm making factual
statements thank you thank you Mrs Ziri okay can I may I ask the board attorney to one more time read read the um amendment that was the quote unquote the protection Amendment what are we a m thing that is a mutual agreement yeah
it's what yeah that's that's about um no the change that we made in exact session that's not on paper yeah the mutual agreement of the parties as in history I'm sorry yes the um language that was discussed at the request of the board
discussed by our office with the township attorney in the hour before the meeting and deemed acceptable uh reads as follows the mutual agreement of the parties as to the historical practices for maintenance um as required by section 7 um shall be continued going
forward so section seven has nothing to do with the softball fields or the other fields no so that's right so because the location it covers sure only that so and and there's a clause in here that says if certain contingencies are not met
then the lease falls apart so why don't we add the fields it's not part of the lease but it's a condition on the lease being implemented What fields are you talking about Mrs Jo the maintenance that is that is the sball fields do you want to
make a motion to add Mary K to this contract right because like I I want I wanted but yes I want maintenance and then the other thing is okay so the parking lot is like well we'll pave it once in every 20 once in 25 years that's
not really I think what we were looking for considering the parking lot is also used for um you know playground Camp which is a Township wreck event right it gets a lot of traffic it not just for the schools but for other uses so I
think we need to improve on that as well but the parking lot was after the construction was done and it's if the construction is not done then it's only once in 25 years so um let me let me I mean if we're if
we're negotiating right in public like those were kind of things let me see whatever your suggestions are I think we have already gone through this I would like to it's 1040 we have a budget to vote on let's just take a vote I don't want any amendments this is what it is
this is what we've got and I've got the confirmation that that I needed from the board attorney this was not approved by the board I have already reached out to the commissioner of the New Jersey Commissioner of education so let's see how this plays it's a public contract which was not approved and I don't
believe I don't want to be part of a board which is negotiating and adding terms and amending terms to a contract that's up for vote I would like to vote on these two versions the LA latest version that was sent at 2 p.m on 18th march with this amendment let's vote on it and let the commissioner decide may I
hear from our board attorney please so I I I know you contacted the commissioner of Education I I don't know what that was designed to do um of course the of course the need to approve this finally okay I'm I'm not going to get
into a debate with you I'm I'm kind of comfortable with how the commissioner of Education goes about his business but um the there was never a representation ever that the board has approved this lease you keep saying that the board hasn't approved it of course I'm not
saying I'm asking you if it's not approved then how did it will you let their board attorney finish please your questions and statements sound quite similar so um I'm responding so I I want to be clear there was never a representation by anyone at our firm
that the board has approved this I want to be equally clear that if it wasn't for the deadline we would have been discussing this in executive session and not engaged in what we're engaged in now but we but we are so it is the board's
opportunity to approve this or not there are various contingencies or proposed amendments whatever there's none of them trouble me right they're all related to the agreement the only thing I've said consistently I I don't know how the town
is going to respond to any of that but I think you know I guess you raised two issues right the maintenance of other fields and the you know whether they should PVE the parking lot more than once I I I have no idea how they're going if this is the thing we have to vote on right so I would include the
maintenance of the other fields I would include that if even if we do break up right that the tennis team continues to use the the courts that's not how see I I feel like no it it isn't how it's done but like this is what we're being forced to if I'm if I'm forced to vote on this
particular version I will I will not vote for this particular version mly would you support would you um you would make a motion to add those two things to this agreement is that correct we we obviously we're not going to talk about
the the language right so I'm going to ask you to describe in a general sense in other words if you say uh we would want the town's maintenance responsibilities to include the uh um a b and c uh baseballsoftball Fields
that's fine that's easy enough to write so I'm if if you're going to if you're going to make a motion to propose an amendment I'm I'm not worried about the wording necessarily I just want to be specific when you when you say the softball fields whatever I'm going to ask you to be a specific as possible but but we don't have to worry about the language so if you want to make that
motion I understand what you want to do but I'm just going to ask you to be specific so my concern with with doing this in this way is how do we know that we have factored in all the things that we want to this is like we're doing this
live it's not the way and again I'm saying it again we are negotiating an agreement that's supposed to last for 25 years doing this on the Fly is not the way way to go about it but we are very close and if a board member has some
things that are pressing then we should take it take advantage of it Gail I understand where you want to go but I'm just stating here understand this is not the way to negotiate a long-term lease for a really precious asset that the board has the responsibility for and
again are this lease could be broken too yeah so yeah so there's there's let me let me I'm sorry we keep saying that the lease can be broken I just want to call out for the lease to be broken it is going to involve additional legal fees depending on what is happening on the
land the turf field or not the board is going to be left with having to maintain it if it does go there that means we will need to make room in our budget to account for the maintenance of a turf field that we did not put in there okay so there there are two termination
Provisions the first is the 60-day provision on written notice that we within 60 days if if either party fails to meet a contingency you can just terminate the the other is a termination on 90 days notice so if if so this is
pretty straightforward to me right while I think I've been pretty consistent this is not the ideal way to do this but if we're going to do it this way I'm I'm going to just ask that you be consistent neither the you know the town agrees or or doesn't agree or maybe you say three
Fields they only agree to two and then we amazingly get to do this again in ail no honestly if we are going to make any amendments I would like to ask for uh an exact session let's go inside let's let's list it out I don't want to do this in public that is not how you
recommend it why should we yeah so I don't understand like if if there are last minute things being added and we are expected to vote on it I would like to like let's take the time yeah we I think last meeting we were here till like 12:30 let's let's plan for it so s
can we have is it possible to have um a an exact session or negotiation like directly with the township folks no in the session no why don't we just do what Natasha suggested I think Mrs uh Stanley you had a comment first or um I just
sent you the list of okay the field okay the Mrs Jolly if you could make some type of amendment and we could get a motion going and we'll have a second and uh our board attorney can make a general thing and we could work about the in ask the attorney I would
like to get this done I agree and I think I think this is great I think we're thank you I think we can get the five votes that we need um but what I'm asking is um I just want to make sure putting other fields as part of a lease
agreement isn't an issue because I know we added language that specifically talked to this lease agreement I just want to make sure there's no issue by adding other properties into this so um um if I were to if I were
to um word the proposed amendment I I would word it as a contingency that is to say whether it's in this agreement or a separate agreement that that it would be contingent on an agreement for maintenance of the fields that I guess
you've just listed I I think you leave it to council as to whether it's going to be the same agreement or a different agreement the motion is going to be very clear um so I I I'm I'm not concerned about it but again I can't speak to the town or the town's attorney and whether they would be comfortable having it the same
document or not I don't know yeah I mean they might deny it but they they might not want it at all but it that's right it might at least get us to the talking table um equally um instead of voting it down which I think is the other option
um so I am but I I do think that it's because of some lack of trust that we even have to kind of get this put in there um and that's that's part of my concern um but yes thank you for your advice Dr forger you had a
question not so much a question uh I haven't said anything on this subject so I hope I can say a few words uh we've heard a lot of opinions here I don't think I've heard many facts though and I think what's needed are
more facts and less opinion um I'd like to know one of the uh audience members raised a thing that's kind of interesting he says the injury rate on um the uh artificial turf is
lower than natural Turf the injury rates were lower uh I'd love to see a uh a paper on that subject with the injury rates I've seen that if he has something to back that up uh I've seen summary papers that
say actually you get a better injury rate uh fewer injuries on uh natural versus artificial thank you Dr burer do you have anything else Poli I'm yeah I'm okay I'm I'm telling you what I think needs to be done here there needs to be
more of a factual basis for a decision instead of everybody just tossing their opinion out uh this is a flood clone area you can just go look I looked up the map the FEMA Maps this is a flood prone
area um I'd like it's not clear to me who would since the field would reside on Board of Ed property and Township property it's not clear to me who would cover the cost of the replacement Turf since the agreement doesn't even
say they're going to put put in Turf um and I'd like to know uh what the impact on our insurance rates would be if we have to Ure this as a a flood
item um and it's it's not clear to me that putting in uh artificial turf could actually allow you to comply with all the storm water management rules that the njde
imposes I know they say they can put in a nice drainage system but I'd like I'd like to see some uh technical report that says we can actually do this and that in the and I'd like to actually get an opinion from the
ngd as to whether they'd recommend uh turf field in this kind of area thank you thank you again um once this leis is signed that those decisions would be up to the Town Council so you could go to the Town Council and ask those questions too yeah but we are facilitating this and everybody has an
expectation here that that's what's going to happen thank you um Mrs J sorry Mr Dylan would you like yeah I think we were getting somewhere um with Mrs Jolly's comment right I I just uh would ask
that and I think you were referring to some sort of contingency right where um we say in some way we are voting on this with the expectations that within the next 60 days um the
further land agreements are documented and assigned on both parties I I I agree with everybody um saying I don't want to necessarily take the time now to list out a through z uh we don't have that I know it's documented because we asked for some of that leading up to this um
but is that acceptable and then I I want to make sure I'm covering Mrs jol's concerns where it's contingent Upon Us aligning to that the town will continue to do the work they do today on field XYZ a is that what you were
suggesting or am I saying it wrong no that's what I was suggesting because my biggest problem with this lease is it has no protections for the tennis court so there is the fields right um there is the tennis courts I'd like to see an agreement in there that um they will
that even you know under the lease they get rights of first use but if we break up they will continue to allow for the tennis courts uh used by by the kids right and at least maybe for a year right let's even even if we put a time
limit on it right because we do have courts that we can refurbish and that could be you know something that we might want to look into but something that doesn't all of a sudden shock and protect like shock the tenis team and like and protect the kids from losing
their um their uh courts to give us time to make alternate Arrangements right so that's uh that's two then the other thing I want to see is um if if the if for whatever reason the turf field is
not able to be put on right um it doesn't seem like I think the purpose of the lease was the turf field right but I don't see anything like does that mean you know the whole thing gets abandoned is the township then committed to improving the grass I don't know
that's yes okay so I mean I think intention is important to have in this lease the the township maintenance responsibilities in the lease are not contingent upon the existence of a turf field okay so then the other thing that's interesting to deputy's point I
think the point was if not Turf will they maintain the gr their maintenance responsibilities are not contingent on whether it's artificial turf or no are you saying that no matter they're just going to improve it regardless of turfer that's the way the lease is is drafted
it's not un unless we break up unless you break up right so then the other um piece is um so we covered the tennis courts we covered the fields um parking lot right Columbia
parking lot is a hot mess right and it's and even though there's like some maintenance done to fill in the potholes that was done earlier this year it's now rocks so you're going to have so I think and you're talking Lower Columbia Lower
Columbia Lower Columbia so given that this is um you know the any work I think the mayor said it would take six six months for the D potentially to approve anything so there's nothing going to be done in the next six months right and so
Turf isn't guaranteed but playground Camp starts in the summer so there's no way that kids could be running around or walking in that parking lot like that parking lot is a disaster I would like um I would appreciate it again you may
choose to disagree but even for the safety of the kids that um are going to come into playground camp that the parking lot get paved once in 25 years is not really you know giving it to us so considering you know all the usage
that it it has not just for school events so Mrs J you're talking about three things is that correct the fields the tennis courts and the parking lot because the not tour field was already in there I I disagree with the parking lot only
because we want to do with that we need we need to check on that like I mean a lot of this is contingent right like I'm listing these as contingencies right so um if I may I'm G to so what I'm going
to suggest this as as an amendment to the least contingencies that we have in 14 right so one is an i' I've described these are listed as contingencies right an agreement um um with the township on maintenance of of BOE baseball softball
fields that's that is schols Boe the Board of Education all of them right the next one I have is um student Priority Access to the tennis courts for at least um one year following the ter termination of
the well I will call it a break following termination of this agreement okay um and then I don't know where we're going with the with the parking lot but my my respectful suggestion to the chair is that you you make these motions to amend
the agreement sort of like we've already done right one at a time and and if they pass the it you know I'll amend the agreement to include them so I I know what the motion's going to be about the fields that's very clear I know what it is about the tennis courts that's very clear it's not clear to me what
amendment you want to make as it relates to the parking lot uh Mrs Jolly you had put a time constraint on the parking lot is that correct maybe you're no but Natasha me ask before the
summer camp at see this lease or the language was written by two attorneys and now you're going to add peace meal and there is no mention of flood insurance there is no mention of we ask there are three questions that are not answered if the turf field is not what
is the timeline so it is indefinite so maybe yeah if you're going to add these amendments then reduce the the years of lease so you're going to make these on the Fly which was not what and we were we asked some questions in the exact session and you said your questions were still not answered the flood insurance
the board attorney said he's going to reach out and get back to us so we have no Clarity on that and we are willing to make these amendments for 25 years I'm willing to do it on a month by month let's see if they actually get the grant there is no Ambi there is tell me which
Federal grant is available given the current political environment we have to do 25 years so if you going to make amendments then yeah let's let's put the timeline why is it 25 years there is no federal grants available show me why is there ambiguity let's just be let's just be open about it with which Federal
grant is it that only the township can get in 2025 Mrs Terrero I think we should make a motion are you ready to make a motion okay I would just say I mean I don't believe we have flood insurance for that property currently so I'm not
sure that you don't know that do you I'm I I'm saying that I don't believe we have flood insurance anywhere but no we do have what I'm saying is I think some of this is stall taxes so it's just why we've gotten here and that we're doing this in public is because we have had
these issues of not being able to actually talk about what the board as a whole wants to do because we've just been individually lied saying I want this I want that I want this and that's that's not how a board works we're a board of eight and it is very difficult for do for us to do these things because
we are a board of eight we can't meet individually um so it it's it's it is very difficult and that's part of the reason why we could not um have the the um Rec Department meet with us individually because we would be breaking Sunshine laws right the open
public meeting act so I appreciate everybody for actually doing this and sitting here and working through it it's very late though so we do need to keep going because we have a huge um other agenda items so I think we're really close I think this will give us some
some leeway I just don't think we should go into these big wh ifs because these are Big wh ifs and we're the board that loves to go into wh ifs but this protects us we can back if we need to which is really the important thing that's in there and then we get some of these protections see what what you can
name as stall tactics unfortunately I take my fiduciary responsibility very seriously I was elected for three years and not if you're talking about spending money on a field when we can get I did I interrupt you like I think I have the floor so I'm just saying make it quick
yeah I would really appreciate if you uniformly apply the quickness and interruptions thank you Mrs Ziri Bradford it's 11 so all I'm saying is we have been elected for 3 years and we are giving away a prime piece of land with no guarantees on timeline if you did a
control F on this lease term lease agreement there is no mention of any timeline when the turf will be installed what is going to happen so I take my responsibility very seriously if you think of it you can name it whatever and I don't believe in calling my fellow
board members out and you know calling them names or you know what their tactics are or what their intentions are I don't know what your intentions are and I don't want to speak for them my intentions are very clear we and as I said if the community and the students need a field we can make it happen there
is a lot of ambiguity for that we don't need to lease away for 25 years plus another 10 years and this lease has been documented and written by attorneys so we we are going to amend peace meal one item by one item then maybe just do it
for a shorter term or let's let's reschedule Mrs oh sorry so go ahead I just think we're repeating ourselves now we we've got to vote uh it's 11 o'clock can it's it's item one on the agenda can
we propose that you want to propose it so I mean ideally I I mean like I said the mayor's here and obviously we're here negotiating in good faith in public um I would love to bring this back to ex session um if if if the but if the
deadline is is I mean because when you think about it like it it stinks that our tennis team right now is um you know in New Providence in Mountainside but they do have yes but they do have a place to practice so I would say and I
and I understand it's not it's it's far from ideal um but you know I would like to know like if if given everything that we've said and there's seem some indication from the audience that some of these things that are proposed that
would be agreed upon can we just do it the proper way and bring it back to exec and then give back and send the lease the redline version to the township with the things that we had discussed like do it the right way like I hate that we
have to do this um in like it's taken out of the process because we're set setting up a precedent right I mean and the whole time we weren't able to even say anything because it was confidential but other terms I think were being banded around so I am in good faith
proposing these items I would love to bring this back to exec but I don't know if the township is going to hold true to their deadline and keep the kids locked out from Colombia so I'm not sure if we fully understood the deadline here or
what was the reason I don't think we ever heard why why is March 18th the make or break date for this conversation so sorry Mrs Terrero make I I have um you
know so I will make a motion and I don't know if it'll pass or fail given everything that we've heard right to um to to table this no folks please to T to with everything that we've like this is
what I want to put into a g into a lease in exec session to see the proper language of those resolutions right because right now whatever I I you know I kind of describe it could go into a lease agreement in legal ease and then we read it and we're like oh maybe not
right so wouldn't it be wouldn't it be like I just think if I get voted down then we'll make the we'll make the adjustments you know here because because I do want to I do want to move forward but you know without the Amendments I can't approve this version
of the lease and I would love to be able to do the amendments in exec session I think our board attorney has said the simplest way is to just do the amendment here all right so I move to update the lease agreement to include a provision
again to for the um a contingency to include field maintenance as described I don't know um I I don't even know how to make the motion from the letter from June 14th if if I if I
may right I'm going to suggest the language and you can correct me but I I I want it to be as specific as possible but it's not going to be in legal language but it'll be clear enough right you could take a look at the letter from the mayor in January 14th it's very specific but understanding that this is
what the mayor wrote right I think it's complete but again and it will not include flood insurance why include everything why I just give the time frame for those that are experts to agree to what the list is
I listed out here well because he's asked me to be specific no I'm sorry so Natasha let me ask you this question I'm sorry sorry Bill go ahead it's a suggestion to word it in such a way that allows those experts to go away and make sure that ask the attorney he asked me
for a specific thing no would that be okay with you I guess is that so my thing is like whatever the field maintenance is currently done whatever they're doing right now yes well they I don't think they are right well whatever was being done in the past and um and
before the ultimatum right before the ultimatum and you know and there's a there's a list in that John 14th um like but whatever what's the date of the letter January 14th from the mayor January 14th of this year yes okay this is the first introduction of Dr phry to
the township if we want to use this as the opportunity to resolve everything that's outstanding with the township why not lump in the other shared services agreements everything that's under the gun put it in here no I I don't care wa what tell me no you were Theos and
everything else on the table why do we limit ourselves to just this yeah let's let's see if we can just move forward with the has suggested move forward with vote gone back to the township with any of those agreements they've been shot down Point Blank without taking into
consideration any of the Amendments that we've made so why would we stop here why wouldn't we just deal with everything in one shot what if they voted down that's not even what if let's just try with all right so the
amendment to the SLO contract the am no so they wouldn't accept the terms that we put in but they didn't vote it down didn't and and let's stick to our lease agreement that we have here Natasha so you have the one motion so all right so the way I would PHA the way I would phrase the the uh proposed amendment I
think you're about to move uh would be to add a contingency in uh section 14 U make another contingency contingent on an agreement um on the township maintenance of the Boe baseball and
softball fields as set forth in the mayor's letter of January 14th or 2025 it's not just those fields I think it's yeah I mean it's not just the baseball Sall field at she wants the other fields inut they
are I mean Mary K McMillan Thomas pus Mountain Park Willam woodriff they're all listed here District instead of CM yeah Boe I just said Boe baseball and softball fields forth in the mayor's letter of January 14th 2025 that letter
had a lot of inaccuracies how are we even basing it off of that letter okay I think one one second I I mean to size point I think I think I think it's best to keep the language maybe simple well
that's what I had first I said Board of Education baseball and softball fields I thought that was as simple as it gets existing service of or existing maintenance of right an agreement on the township maintenance of Board of
Education baseball and softball fields okay that's that was my original proposal so if that's satisfactory my suggestion is make that motion that we add that as a contingency so I move to add the uh contingency to the lease to
uh for the township to reach to reach an agreement on maintenance of the softball and baseball fields second second okay any discussion okay let's go for a
vote Miss Charlie yes Miss Stanley yes Mr Airi no Mr Dylan yes Dr forer No Miss
Connor just for these things that I just heard just for the fields just for the fields yes Miss Terrero yes Miss Bradford yes motion passes now you had another one is that correct the second one as I understood
it uh was to add language to the agreement that students would retain Priority Access to the tennis courts for at least one year after termination of this agreement I move for that I've got it do we have a second second discussion
nope vote who was the second on that uh Mrs uh Stanley Mrs Jolly yes Mr Stanley yes Mr Kiri no Mr Dylan yes Dr forer
no Mrs Conor yes Miss Terrero yes Mrs Bradford yes motion passes okay are we ready now to move ahead with the resolutions a through n or was there something else um I did want to talk
about the parking right I'm not sure exact like to me like once in 25 years is a little SAU right it's not it's a yeah because you know we could break up before then there's no parking
um so I understand that if a turf field is um approved and if things move forward that um you know the the current lease states that there will be it will the parking lot will be repaved after the construction's done you know and all
the heavy machinery and stuff um so that um I but like if the if there's just grass fields right then if there's you know if the turf isn't and the township maintains grass it still um
creates a field still creates additional usage it still creates all of that other than heavy machinery right so um and as you could see our parking lots get pretty beat up so I'd like to see something um added and again because we're doing it on the Fly I don't have
it prepared right um but I'd like to see some additional uh Paving uh to be added to this lease agreement so this one actually I think is pretty easy right so the way the agreement is worded they're going to uh resurface it at least once
um and they would uh beyond that would resurface the parking lot within one year of the of the Project's completion right so the reason I think that's easy is because if you think they should do it twice in 25 years and just you can make a motion to replace the word once
with twice I again I I don't represent that they would be willing to do this but in terms of getting something approved this is pretty straightforward I mean well again I the the the wish list may take us
further from having an agreement with the town so so I mean I think realistically I don't know once uh every three years four years no why
not you don't do your drive no your driveway driveway the number of cars that go there so I don't know maybe while I was I out of order out Natasha what do you want
Vice does it it's it's it's resurface the word is resurface resurface or repave rep well we should we should definitely update that to pave to repave especially after the
construction res it's it's it's it's re resurfaces the word used that doesn't mean anything it needs to be paved okay can we can we uh I move to amend the current language from resurface to repave okay how many
times every year no that doesn't make sense let's say every five years once every five years that's a little unrealistic in terms of that why not the most used have a second does she have a second it's 11 something is there a second I'll second
it okay so second what Natasha seriously you're not being clear everything is being said by the board attorney he's not an elected rep like no no disrespect to you like you're not an elected so I'm just saying somebody once told me there's no such thing as a little disrespect I like that line quite a bit
okay no you're not so you are making the you're giving the language and she's saying yes so if she's really I'm just asking her as a colleague if you're making the motion you need to be clear let's vote and that's about it can ask chair restate the motion before we vote
on it so the the the part about replacing the word resurface with repave is easy so if I were to if if if if we were to make that change the town would agree to it they would be repaving the lot at least once during the term of the agreement but also within one year of
the Project's completion so if the turf field took place there would be two uh rep pavings within the 25 years if the township agreed to that but I thought I just seconded her for every five years that's the motion on the floor hang on one second so I think that
issue is clear the what is what is let's do it one at a time let's I move to re update the language to repave so I'll pave over where it says resurface inut repave repave okay okay let's vote that's a
motion to that's a motion that's a motion to change to to change resurface with repave I got that she have a second I'll second it okay and then we have a vote now Mr secretary for change of wording so wait a minute can I can I bring up a point I think it's on motion
is on the yeah I don't even know what I'm voting on you're voting simply on changing the word resurface to repave the the amount of times that the activity would take place has not been affected yet not yet that's not been affected yet yeah this just rep I got
you okay Miss Jolly yes Mr Kiri yes Mr Mr Dylan no Dr forer yes Miss Conor yes Miss
Stanley no Miss Terrero I don't even know what the difference do the sh yes I I don't get it said yes yes Miss Bradford no motion passes
okay now let me bring up a point if they're leasing the property they're leasing the parking lot as well correct no no parking lot ours that's our parking lot clear it's clear it's clear
on it that it's not included it's explicit which is why it was which is why it was this is why it was a concession to to add it in right and so that you know un unlike um I mean again doing this this way of course not ideal
right I have no level of confidence that if you increase the amount of repaving Beyond what's here that the town will agree to it so you can ask for whatever you want but I also think the repaving even goes right pretty far because it's
it's we know we have to do our prty Lots right it's been a long time and I'm so glad that they were able to say yeah we'll help you out with that too and yes it gets used a lot by the whole Community but so do all of our parking blocks Mr G and I I think we need to
just realize that this is again for the best interest of the students right and yes we're going to get a little bit extra even more right by getting them to re um redo the pranking laot for us after they do construction but we got to
at least at some point move forward so we can move on with the other things that we have to Mr I want to ask you when you keep saying we are going to do this in public as far as I can tell are you going to vote Yes To End TBD on where the conversation goes so I had one more thing sorry I just want to ask Mr
gag when you keep saying if you keep adding these things then the it is difficult for the township to pass it well they have also played this thing that this has to be voted today and we are seeing how it's playing out so we we put our needs and let's see how they
vote right in in good faith so the actually the I I did not say what you just said I said because I I think that the you said if you add repave and multiple years it's difficult to get it on so right but I did I didn't say that about any of the other proposed amendments
because my assumption when when I and and obviously they're hearing you articulate the rationale for it so I think you know maintaining the maintenance of the fields protecting the the students if the agreement ends so that the courts are available for at least a year I I
think all those things are reasonable so I'm uh here to give you the benefit of my education and experience and insight and this issue of the resurfacing of the parking lot was something that um the township offered somewhat later in the
negotiations and so all I've said um is that um I can't give you any confidence in other words I understood that can we vote I understood the the purpose of this exercise was to get the agreement to the point where it's passed and is advantageous I just don't know what's
going to happen if you increase that I'm not telling you whether to do it or not do it just telling you I can't tell you what will happen you can make whatever Amendment you want are we ready to vote Mrs Jolly are you finished we don't have a motion on the table at the moment do not we have a
motion n is already open for we're in the discuss we're yeah we're can I add so one thing that we haven't talked about but I think it's well worth asking the question together is there is no timeline to get to an answer of is this
going to be a turf field or is this going to stay as is what do we think about actually having a a stipulation that says there needs to be we we need to know where that project is going I'm sure the
community needs to know because this has been marketed as a turf field I think from day one there's nothing in here no language no word that promises a turf field on that property at all there's nothing and that has been one of my concerns is that there is nothing we are
essentially giving away leing away the land to the township but there is no promise of a turf field why don't we have a stipulation that says in the next I don't know two years whatever is there I'm sure they have a timeline if they have it ready to go they might do it in the next you know 12 months but but I
don't see the point right I don't see the benefit and this is just going around and around and cires again I'll say that that that question has been asked and answered several times over the last few weeks uh once we are we are granting the town a lease to
the fields whether or not they decide to Turf it or not it's up to them to do after we lease them the land that that question has been asked and answered they don't have to commit to us right it's you can make your own assumptions based off the language and the cont basally the referendum question was
inaccurate are you are you B saying it's inaccurate what I'm saying is that you guys are twisting the the motion that's on the floor the motion on the floor is do we want to lease the land to the town for them to do improvements to right they don't have to guarantee us a
turfield they don't that that question's been asked and answered many times to us so that that is the reason why maybe you vote knowing that this entire discussion is predicated on this being some sort of a and that's been corrected that's been corrected that the way that we need to
think about that is not whether it's going to be a turf or not not whether the town's got approvals uh to to to go in a flood zone all of that is the only question that's on the table for us is are we going to lease the land to the town to do the
improvements that they want to do and what if they they dig it up and then there is a drainage issue or a you know these things have been asked and answered no so basically then if it is a big hole in the ground what and again it's been they have to return it to the original state this do we no is it in
the Le that David Mrs Jolly are you done with your motions talkking okay I'm just letting but you got the facts in front of you to know which way you want to vote Mrs Dolly are you completed um I think we're still on the parking issue that's true
right the the the timing of the the Tim the timing of the repaving so um okay so I think I initially throughout there once every five years I mean if if for example they do the construction and
then they repay right so it's not every five like it would be from that point on you know in the next in the fifth year after that right um so that's what my motion is but this affects taxpayers right like who's going to pay for that
the taxpayer well I think well in the lease we talk about um a maintenance plan right and if the township knows that this is something to be done I mean it gets a lot of wear and tear right so so why if from not just the Boe not just
the Boe from everyone in town so why is it just the be for that particular space we're not saying pave all our you know uh parking lots but for that particular space that gets a ton of use by everybody by every taxpayer yeah I'm paying for it too but you know either
through the Boe or through the township so so okay so we have a motion and we have a second no I don't think we second we don't have a second I think it's a five years yeah and I seconded that five years and then we got into the I don't have any motions from
anybody no what what's what Mrs Jolly could you restate please um so I move that um we add into the lease with respect to parking that the township would um pave repave 5 years after the project
after the project is after the turf project is completed years does she have a second yes second well she's got the second I okay a vote Mr secretary Miss
Charlie yes Mr Kiri yes Mr Dylan no Dr porer yes Miss Conor yes Miss Stanley no Miss Terrero no no Miss Bradford no motion fails we have a floor for TI
all right so let's get so I'm going to move one more time so five wasn't uh palatable I will add at least an additional one so I move to add additional so three times where it says at least once
outside of the construction you would want that to say at least twice which would be could we maybe say instead of Paving like repair no because we've seen what the repairs are like the spot repairs that are being done from the winter and they
just Buckle anyway and it creates like holes even more holes so expensive does she have a second second okay so discussion right like yeah again if we do a referendum we get 34% from the state to repave parking
this is not fiscally responsible for our taxpayers to ask them to do this so I I I'm all for them doing it once especially after the construction that's great I thank them for doing that but it's not it's not responsible of us to expect that the taxpayers now have to
pay for this over and over and over again when we could get it in a referendum at 34% yeah and they would still pay the taxpayers would still be paying even comment just real quick comment paying the full price they'd be
paying something it's not free money 34% of it's free Mr Dylan yeah just comment in the interest of time so we don't just keep jumping the ladder in terms of how many years it'll be a no across the board for me so just no okay so just so I'm clear here what's what township will
repave this how many times so the the the phraseology in section 11 is um that they would re that they would resurface at least once we've changed the word resurface to repave but now the motion would be to change the word once to
twice okay Mr secretary vote Mrs Jolly yes Mrs Conor yes Mr Kiri yes Mr Dylan no Dr forer yes Mr Stanley no Miss Terrero no Mrs Bradford
no motion fails so let's get back to a through n we are voting a through n we just vote n first let's okay yeah yeah the mo there's already a motion on there's
ation that's the motion on the we Stanley and Mr Dylan correct so v motion for Resolutions a through n Mr secretary we've had a motion and a second uh vote please Mrs Stanley yes hold on we
haven't even talked about the other items we just focused on end it's 11:26 I think we gave up that right you chose to get into this discussion in public so deal with it we're already in a vote I already answered my vote it's too late no come on we have to discuss other
items spent all this is how it works according to Robert's Rules we are already in a vote Pamela you don't get to decide that there is no discussion on the other item follow Robert's Rules according to our policy I don't think you know anything about Robert's Rules I will refer to the
board attorney so we we've already started a roll call vote yep Roberts rules St okay no so so are you saying we cannot discuss the other agenda items which is our budget I'm not saying that that's you asked me what Roberts rues
says I'm saying you've already started a roll call vote you can't suspend it for the purpose of discussion if you if you want to ask the chair for an opportunity to discuss you have that right so you have that right so chair we would like so let's do a vote on N
resolution n Only okay I think you need to amend the motion right you can't just hang hang on one second who uh who who made the original motion uh Mrs Terrero made the original motion the original motion to move a through n that was Mrs Stanley
and Mr Dylan all right sorry so the the the the way you can do this without more motions is whether Mrs Stanley and Mr Dylan as a friendly Amendment would agree to have a separate vote on n in yes let's go second but it's 1120 yeah
you don't need you don't need to vote so it's a friendly call that a friendly Amendment so going to have a separate votee on N okay Mr secretary vote on n Only n Only so one one on N I'm yes I want to vote but um everything that we agreed
here that con that does not get signed Gail until we actually see the document under right so well hang one second it's not the the ne may I yes please so the next thing that's going to happen is we're going to make these
changes nobody sign anything because the town hasn't agreed to it yet so we're going to make these changes and send it to the town's attorney right but again um we don't want the signature of the Boe president on there until the full Board gets to see it as it would typically be done if we were in exact
session no shouldn't we shouldn't we see the final version We I think the right thing to do here is actually vote on sending it to the township but not vote to approve it yet yeah the the only thing vote to approve it as an
offer well that's not my motion the motion on the table is motion to approve by Demand right but but I what what I don't want to see happen is that you know we haven't seen the final language we haven't seen the final document as part of process before the board
attorney signs it before it goes to no sorry not the board before the uh the Boe president signs it right because it's you know her signature I don't know if Dr F signature is required on this I'd like to see the final document right I think because that's what would have happened had we been following exact
session so while I gave you my verbal kind of descriptions I would really like to see what it looks like in the document that's all I'm saying I disagree we didn't get visual on the last Amendment we made the problem is the resolutions as
we're approving the Lower Columbia lease agreement with no Clarity on that's it so as a as a amended so I okay I agree you know we've we've you know put them all in there but again I'd like to see the piece of paper before it goes out the door and I think that's my right as
a board member to see what you know uh the final language looks like yeah like a clean C before we send it to the town attorney is that your is that the request uh before the board president signs it before before anyone from the Boe signs
it right there's nothing to be signed yet we're simply gonna write this up I I mean you have officials from the town here but send it to the town attorney and see if there are issues with any of these amendments that's the next step that's the only thing that's going to happen next well the reason why I asked because I think
the township approved their version and it was signed by them so if we're I don't know anything about that okay but that's what happened right so that's why I you know whatever we're doing here I'd like to see the piece of paper before any signatures if you're if if the
question if I may is whether or not we intended to draft something have it signed by officials of the board and send it over to the town that is not our intention Our intention is to draft it and and get a reaction from the the township attorney as to the additional terms we've had okay let's okay Mr
secretary vote Miss Stanley yes to n Mr Dylan yes to n Mr Kiri no Dr forer No
Miss jolly yes to N Miss Conor yes to the amended version of n not as it states right now miss Terrero yes to N Miss Bradford yes to n motion
passes going back to resolutions under business a through everything except N A through M any discussion or first I need a motion there it's already on the table they agreed to separate it in a friendly so now we need a discussion on anything
else I have a point on item D excuse me item which D item D thank you I see that we have something called public relations at um I think it's a Max of 15,000 this was 10,000 in the last
budget last last year's budget it's gone a 50% 10,000 to 15,000 uh I'm not not sure the rationale for that why we would do that um the auditing services at
47,000 is that because we have a quote for for 47,000 or help me understand if you're asking me this now if you would have asked me these questions prior I could have given you have you asked me questions I provided answers I does that mean you're not answering any more
questions tonight honestly uh my mind's full of a lot of other things if you would have asked me probably some things I probably could have answered I think I answered your questions I had other questions I had other questions and I got those answers I'm asking another question ask away if I can answer them I
I'll I'll answer them the best I can it's so I see the accounting auditing services for 47,000 I'm trying to figure out I I don't remember approving this last year I don't think this was in the in the same resolution from last year same res
was this yes it was was it at 40 was it at the same number or different if you can ask if you're trying to ask my memory from last year I've been looking at numbers for the last four weeks off the top of my head so the 47,000 is that based on a quote or how did we come up with 47,000 off the top of my head I
can't really tell again I've been looking at numbers all week long I can't remember off the top of my head yeah yeah different history so um we did discuss this I think previously about the AUD in fees
and the history of us getting it delayed and we also looked at how much other districts spend we have something here if you want to look at for auditing services and is that significantly different yes so this well no we looked
at it in finance and again there was a couple that were very low but again that was that person was barely used and I would assume it's because they're new to the business which can of vary between districts as the size of a of a
of a um their budgets whether they got grants is all going to make a difference as well because single AIT Act is going to play into into place so whether or not that came into play on all those different prices I don't know yeah and
uh again really wasn't minutes but yeah no um most districts are bigger than us and right that were higher they actually right spend more money and the districts that were smaller than us paying less money but the only one that has significant was this new auditor who you
know was being used by a couple townships but I don't think that's something we're looking at right now so basically we given the history of this auditor being like delayed why budget the same amount maybe why not do an RFP
and look at what we do and reduce the budget uh you know budgeted amount for what we pay for auditing Services we voted it not but again I'm not sure that's you know 11:35 at night is the best time for this discussion if you want to have these
discussions and you wanted to bring this up we've we've had this out this has been out since what last week I I I if if you want if you want to ask questions prior to that I'm more than willing to ask me these questions and and give me
them prior to a meeting I'm all fine with that no it's not a question AJ we had two finance committee meetings we did discuss it we were trying to have a third finance committee meeting the administrative team was not Administration said we have a conflict we're not available we I was hoping that
given the short Runway that we had for the preliminary budget we will meet four times and get all the answers we were basically said no we cannot meet on a Tuesday because we're not available and then that there was nothing on thday there was plenty of time that you had asked questions I got plenty of emails
where I did have a lot of questions and I did take my time to answer all those question but but tonight we can approve this even if we go out for an RFP after the fact right that we don't this doesn't have to be an all or nothing right so again this can be approved as a
maximum and then we go out for an RFP and it gets changed right like this is not like a final thing so again in essence of time let's move forward oh in essence of time maybe we should have focused on budget first so if this was supposed to be the the the priority of
this meeting was supposed to be the budget we didn't really talk about it well this isn't even the this meeting this the format of this meeting is extremely by Design Gail decided she wanted to prioritize the lease which everybody knew was going to
take a lot of time so that was by Design this meeting was supposed to be about the tentative budget we should have spent a lot of time talking about the budget and asking some of these questions but we chose or the board chose I wouldn't say I chose CH the
board chose to go ahead and and prioritize item n we still need to vote on this I mean at this point if there are no questions to be answered I would just like to know that AJ are you not going to answer any more questions tonight uh Mr Phillips you had a comment
I just want to stress a point what Pam was saying was we're not approving an actual auditor we're just approving an amount so we are suggesting that we'll reduce the amount and then see what we where we land with an RFP I can make an amendment to reduce the
number from for public relations to we currently this is right like we currently have an auditor right so until we change that how are we going to just pick a number out of a hat right so again we can change this in the future this is not something that's like
set in stone we're approving this tonight so we can move forward we've heard that so many times that I don't believe any of that anymore you yes we have a very hard time moving forward I agree you choose to move
forward on agenda items that you like or you want to support but you don't want to spend time talking about pieces or questions that other people have just my observation sitting across the table here you chose to spend the time on the lease spend the time on the budget I
didn't spend the time on the lease yes you did you supported putting the lease prioritizing the leas in the discuss what do you suggest I I move I move a motion to amend um Item B D isn't it D yeah um to reduce the public relations
to 5,000 and auditing 5,000 you said yes 5,000 for public relations and auditing to 20,000 I'll second that yeah so we have an amendment 5,000 for public relations and
20,000 and we have a second so let me back here um Mrs akiri made the motion and Dr forer seconded correct okay can we have a vote on that hold on a second we're just picking numbers out of a hat had to give me a moment here to write this all down because you just we're
just picking numbers out of a hat we're just picking numbers not based on any data the uh then we have Mrs Terrero who I don't know where you're gonna find an order for $20,000 even his list doesn't have that that's that's my concern it's going to be a good luck with that one how you
determine that number I don't know numers if I if I may I can uh oh you gave it to motions on the floor late to a all right because there was a question about that a AJ can I be M no Mr Phillips
please will it be a con do do you find it concerning that amount of finding an audit I I Tom I I understand that you found one but that if if they are not RFP in and we have it budgeted for only
20,000 and we're not getting um you we have a surplus Mr Phillips with all due respect we have Surplus if we're not finding then we we have Surplus and we can definitely amend it so there's a motion on you're voting on then excuse me but that's what I mean no I'm sorry
because we're not voting on the budget yeah we're voting on The Limit yes right this is a limit right so if you put the limit low this has nothing to do with budget right you're saying that we cannot spend more than that so if we have an RFP for 22,000 we can we have to
say no so I don't think you guys know what you're actually voting on excuse me we I Dr for you got a question uh with regard to the question of Auditors uh yes there are a number of firms that'll do it it looks like for
under 20,000 so I don't for the size of the for the the budget that we have he answered yes a motion is on the floor so for I'm asking a question okay will they do the audit are they doing $22,000 for
the same siiz budget that we have that is the question that I just proposed that is POS um the answer is no no look point of order I you don't have the floor uh and you don't have the floor either I did no
he asked me a question it's 1143 all right do you want to get all your remarks out so we get this meeting for do you haveen you Dr forer do you have an answer to the question I have a list of uh districts pass that to uh our
business administrator and then he can look at I don't need to list the districts all I want to know is just do they have the same size budget that we have for $22,000 uh that's all I need to know I did not because that's how they base their udit fees well let's say uh Springfield are you familiar with their
budget I'm not sure if I don't know off the top of my head okay uh the answer is about Rosel Park Tom you have a motion Rosel Park is much is probably half of our size okay and there K to eight
well I don't have the uh data in front of me so the answer is I don't know all right let's take a vote it's up to the chair to call for a vote yeah ready for vote we've had discussion what are we voting on uh your Amendment lower
lowering the uh public uh public relations person to 5,000 and the public auditor to 20,000 that's the uh vote on the table may I have a vote Please Mr Kiri yes Dr
forer yes Mr Dylan no Miss charie no Miss Conor yes Miss Stanley no Miss Terrero no Miss Bradford no motion fails is there any other discussions on
items a through M yes item L the Press Box um 421,000 for the Press Box um I'm trying to figure how does one justif I a figure like that for the
Press Box I looked up the whatever njs AA regulations to see why is this a necessity and I couldn't find it so I'd really like to understand how do we justify spending $421,000 on a Press Box I'd have to yeah
I we put the question forward there's an email out when that individual answers the email the answer will be there I'm I'm confused Miss Conor are you talking are you challenging the cost or the need both both okay but your response
was specifically the cost you would send an email out for somebody to explain why we need aess no I I have done both I have the uh the yes got it what happened was they there's nothing can be found Mr uh um Hendrick
is asking njss excuse me it's a little late njsa he's asking them to get the substantiation of why press boxes needed he is asking them they're going to send the email and once I do I will forward
that to the board uh the second thing is uh with the Press Box um that's the price that we've been discussing I'm going to say for the last probably 6 to8 months um I got a $60,000 Grant that came from the state regarding that
cost um I don't know what else to tell you if there's more specific questions that you want me to ask the architect I can ask I don't have the answers to that that's the only thing I can tell you um I know we discussed it they came in and talked about
it if you want to ask more specific questions send them to me and I'll send it to the architect AJ I would like to understand like so this is just a number of like how big is this because I know we've there were um options that were
discussed in the past there were various pricings right one pricing was as much as a house um but we um like what is this actually what's the size of this thing relative to what's currently there
it's it's 24 feet wide uh I'm trying to remember the dimension on the side um off the top of my head I'm I'm what's and I guess compared to like what it currently is right so is it the price
tag this big because it's a lot bigger than what we have right now is it no this is the lowest no this is the lowest costing I believe it's it's approximately about the same size um no I wait a minute the picture
you sent indicated and and you told me it was 24 ft long the one we have now is certainly not 24 ft long it's more like maybe 8 ft uh and it's two stories um so it's much much according
to that picture it seemed to be much bigger than what we have now and it looks like it would involve tearing down those wooden posts that support what we have because they're dangerous that's why we can't use the Press Box is those is those foood po okay I'd like I'd like
to you introduced your opinion into this I don't know that I should pay any attention to your opinion we don't have an engineer's report that says it's dangerous are are you saying my opinion to it I did not say that today I'm asking I'm I just I don't like this stuff I just invent things like it's
dangerous I don't think it is uh well I didn't say that I said that from didn't she did she thinks it's dangerous it's dangerous did get the architect I did get the the report and there's actually three reports that he did send me I've just been busy and haven't gotten them
to you I have a lot of things that I need to get to the county office and prepare for the budget which is due tomorrow and that's my first priority okay there was only a maximum of five people allowed in the Press Box at the moment because of the structure so I did and I did send you that information and we've been
talking about this in finance for months so Tom has been part of those discuss he has disingenuous it's not no we went in not it off Pam not it off too late for that too late for that let's keep focused on the topic we have about 10
minutes till midnight all right um is there any other discussion on any other items so that's the qu on L I just want to know one thing the we went and saw the steps leading to the Press Box look to they need painting that they're
rusted maybe the structure on the top which is wooden does does not look right maybe that's what that needs to be replaced and I did bump into a couple of people who are on Al my Association who are involved with sports they were also
shocked that the price tag is 400,000 or whatever it's almost the price of almost buying a home and our questions are valid we are just asking if the posts are not don't have to be replaced if the size of the Press Box that we ordering
is relatively bigger and larger than what we have of course the posts have to be replaced and I know how the light post or light they look exactly like the the electrical poles that are in front of your house and some of them on my street were replaced so these do not look like they have to be replaced but
if the structure is big yes you have to add everything over so we're just asking have we done the due diligence I'm not against a press box but first of all the way it was presented to us is it's a requirement by
njsia or whatever that is when we go and look at it there is no specific requirement by njsia that to conduct Sports at a public school you need to have a press box so so where is this coming from is the statement that this is a state
requirement is it valid or not and if let's call the vote and see if anybody agrees with you it's 10 minutes to midnight it can be voted down but again Pam we don't need the time is there any other yes I do we talked about this in finance committee so that all of this
information is in the finance minutes so if if we come here without doing our homework this is why we're like this thank you so can you confirm or point me to where it says this is a mandatory requirement under njs AA you know why
because I don't care I want to do this for our stud since you don't res all these Capital res Mrs Stanley and Mrs a going to ask us to stop this discussion everyone's getting tired Dr forger do you have something to
add to this discussion this is $21,000 expense Dr for you have anything to add when on the finance committee why didn't you bring problem Stanley I'm going to ask you is a discretionary expense it is is kanana and Mrs Stanley
please stop Dr forer do you have a comment I just I really just have a question I'm looking at this B which is the travel maximum got it and you've got B travel maximum be putting it at 66
194 uh whereas currently it's uh 77151 so he's lowering it but then he says uh we've only spent 14,270 as of March 10th so we are like eight months through the year and we've
only spent 14,27 4 why are we going up to 6616 194 where did that come from it seems like we could get get away with less unless there's some huge
expenditures coming up can you repeat the question please okay you're you're setting the max at uh 66 194 okay 66 1994 that's the next year's budget right and this year you've spent
14274 okay so you haven't spent very much and you only got a few months left so do you really think you would next year people have put in PD for next year and I had to I what I have to do is collect all those numbers and
those PD lines yeah it equates to $66,000 okay okay we've had several people in this the assistant superintendent um position and is that a possibility why that money hasn't been spent very well could be I don't know
why okay so so that's that's tested out of that office all right so so that's very well could be why it hasn't been spent as much this year I think Dr f is trying to get a warden all right so basically you're saying you collected the the requests for professional
development and it's based on actual data and if everybody got funded they you would need that much correct okay drry well if I can add um sometimes uh title funds if we get title funds we
will use the title funds for professional development because that's what they're allocated for so then these PD requests um could get funded that way but does the union have a specific amount in their contract that were
required I know in Hillsboro we did but yes I think our our Union our contract has um a number I think that number is for Gra graduate CL classes I don't think it's professional development and I'm sorry I just said one more C looks very similar
to B I don't understand the difference of c and b it's it's the way it's worded and and that's how the county wants these sample resolutions done so this is a county request to do with this one one Tom I think they were
the same last year if I recall yeah I know the two similar ones yeah the two similar ones I think it was like that last year numbers we had to go and amend remember yeah okay are there any other discussion on uh business a through m i I just have maybe it's a bit of a
comment or clarification so every time I see um things on the resolutions that are marked as maximum whatever the the amount my understanding is that it means there is that much amount of money
budgeted slash withheld for that so if he said architectural services is $50,000 yes you would earmark $50,000 in the budget and if I would if we go over that then I have to have approval by the board to go over that
yes so the reason I'm asking this question and you know my original question about the audit service or the public relations what I'm Translating that to mean is that when you create the budget and there is a notion of the
budget is not balanced or we don't have enough resources to put where it needs to go I'm equating that to mean because we have made certain assumptions that we will spend 47,000 150,000 on Legal Services 15,000
on public relations it makes it makes an impact on the other line items that get budgeted for is that fair meaning if if if you don't have money for the busing for transportation then we would start to look for alternative sources of
revenue we would start to think we need to charge more for subscription busing or we need to charge more for activity fees just just as an example of we will start to look for other Revenue sources is that the way it works what you're looking at is Appropriations as versus
revenues yes so you're not talking apples to you're talking apples to oranges I'm talking about what you assume here will directly impact the expectation of Revenue that you will need to cover this isn't it isn't that how this works or or you would have to
cut yeah or you have to cut right and then you so that's why it's important for us to understand when we approve these numbers what does it really mean that means so that's why I'm questioning why is the number so high because in my mind you're potentially taking away
budgets that could be allocated to other things more relevant to the classroom that so that's the reason I'm asking the question um to give you some context of why I'd like to know where these numbers are coming from we may vote okay thank you Mr secretary may we
have a vote on business items a through M Mrs Stanley yes Mr Dylan yes Mr Kiri um I'll vote Yes on a hoping that
between now and the final budget I will see some capital projects added and we will see the numbers the because it's a preliminary one I'm hoping that and I hope we will get to see some projects on there um on um B uh it's a
no um if you if you could if you could just let me know which ones you're saying uh nay to that would make it much easier um B so B is an A C is an a d is an A and rest of them are and L
is a no and everything else is a yes so I have B C D and L are all NOS yes and everything else is yes and on a I'm really hopeful I'll see some capital projects on the next budget
presentation Dr forer uh no on l yes to the rest of it Mrs Jolly uh I think I am yes to all Mrs
Conor I'm yes to all except the Press Box in item l Miss Terrero yes to all Mrs Bradford yes to all motion passes going back in our agenda please
to uh minutes resolution a all board members may I have motion so moved can I um a quick uh discussion second please okay Mrs Stanley I need a second yes Mrs Stanley had the motion may I have a second
please second thank you Mrs JY discussion now Mrs Ziri yeah I think the March 6th exec and exec meetings have uh couple of Errors I think it was um it doesn't have the time that one of the board member dropped off the call and U
who left early I think it lists Mr Dylan as leaving early but it was actually Tom and me who left early um so and then I I think Mrs Kana actually dropped off at 9:00 yes
dropped and also some of the key points that we discussed about the lease agreement now that you know it's all out in the open I think some of the items that we discussed some of the questions and answers and the commitments that this will that it would not make the
budget meeting those are not listed there so I would really hope that you know these be amended any other discussion okay Mr secretary a vote Mr Stanley
yes with the no I didn't get an answer are these going to be corrected with the who left early and you can vote no so you're okay to vote Yes with incorrect minutes secretary for exact session
I'll correct the uh the timeout as terms of the detail um is that is everyone's consent on that because I have I have no one else that gave me any information besides yourself you have you have the recap from Natasha for that very exact session right and some of the details
that we you recap um from the Natasha you sent it right so there was after the March 6th meeting I sent um an email to everybody kind of summarizing what occurred during the meeting if AJ if you don't have that
I this is the first I'm hearing of anything that needed to be added into executive session no so I didn't give like there's a lot going on so to be honest I read the minutes today earlier um and didn't give you feedback um but
they are lacking but the recap that I session yes and but the and the recap that I sent it was uh I I just have to double check if you were copied on you may not have been copied on it but I will forward it to you after this meeting for to use for Corrections potentially get anything how am I
supposed to know these things can we just table the exact session minutes and then vote on the rest while you while we figure this out I know there I we I've I've just thoughted a vote well you can you can vote no on that one the only way to get out of this is to vote no and
then already we just started the vote I mean now now now we're going to go out of parliamentary procedure right the vote has been started right we had Mrs Stanley saying yes too late yeah I I'll do that normally it was
via Zoom so what I just put in there was just via Zoom that's that's what I did okay continuing with the vote we talk to Mrs Stanley uh Mrs Jolly um I vote yes to all except the exact minutes on February 27th and exact
minutes March 6th so are you voting no to those two yes I'm voting no to Big second so that's 227 and 36 okay Mr Ki uh what to yes to all except no to March 6th and February 27th
exec session Mr Dylan yes Dr forer uh no on March 6 exec and regular and yes to the others 36 regular and
exec is that what you said yes that's correct Miss Conor yes to everything except the exact minutes March 6 Miss Terrero yes to all Miss Bradford
yes to all okay so we have one two three the 36 exact session fail now I have one
two okay the 27th pass moving on to Administration resolutions a through C all board members may have a motion so moved thank you Mrs Stanley second second thank you Mr Dylan discussion please pay attention to the
school calendar yes uh Mr secretary board vote oh I'm sorry Mrs TR so there those I'm assuming when you're talking about school calendar you're talking about the GI back day okay so what happens if we have a snow day between
now and with the first day that's taken away is the one the end of the spring break uh no it's according to the the calendar it is um reverse order so Tuesday the Tuesday
I think is yeah it's defined in the contract so I'm so tired the the answer is there done all I can't remember one clear and then there's the wrinkle with
the GMS yeah there's the WR with the CMS um yeah see yeah actually not on here that's if if four more days are canell so it it's according to the contract the
teacher's contract it'll it'll likely be um okay it's not gonna happen more don't put it out there because don't you dare it messes up everything because it actually affects all the other schools but CMS is already coming in messes up
everything all right okay Mr secretary vote please miss Stanley yes Mr Dylan yes Mr Kiri uh yes to a um and on the B I think
I'm a no to 28 6349 and uh yes to the rest so B is a is a no no no B only one one of them is a no it's not very well
documented 286 349 28 3649 286 3499 okay thank you Dr forer uh let a yes to a then on B I'm
going to abstain on 286 349 I did not feel that was adequately documented and yes to the rest of it yes to the rest of B and yes on c c Miss Jolly I'm going to vote yes to all I but
you know I think I'm gonna abstain on B Mrs Conor yes to a and C abstain on B Mr yes to all M Bradford yes to
all okay so we have 2863 49 there two 286 349 is going to fail and the rest will pass can veto just
double check that one so um 2863 49 that number doesn't mean anything to me so I know if you look at B there's one that has three abstains and one no four yeses is this this is the substitute
supplemental Personnel no no no it's the hi Hib Cas Administration but it's important only because we don't want to overturn hivs if we don't actually overturn no but I think um the I'm asking veto yeah I'm just follow I'm just saying the adding to your question
I think Mr Dylan can't vote on CMS hibs correct so did you did he did you count that he can vote on on HB usually no not for CMS right I just get so so you don't anyway
you only need you only need a plurality what's the vote I have three extensions okay there's two two abstentions for complete B and then I have one
B where the cases 2863 49 is a no and another one is an exstension so 286 349 is definitely not passing okay 331 okay yeah so that's that's fails but the other but doesn't make a
difference with the other with the rest of them yeah rest of them we ordered I ordered yes yeah I know but right when you're overturning an HIV it's a big deal well we have by law we are expected to act as the jury and we have didn't even vote no that's right abstaining is
like well you voted no but everyone else right that's saying that they didn't have enough information instead of tbling it now Point what is the point here is there a resolution or a motion or are we just going to keep talking yeah I'm going to say this this is bad behavior ucation isn't it yes right so
one of the Hib reports was was voted down that's that's correct bottom line okay yeah which means it's overturned moving on to education resolutions a through b all board members may I have a motion so moved thank you thank you Mrs
Jolly thank you Mrs Stanley discussion vote Miss Jolly I was just looking at the um uh attachment D sorry the uh the Hillmar services and the reason for this I
believe was because this was the one I put in the board Buzz um none of the uh ones that we've approved in the past were available to provide the services for a meeting um and just I mean I I guess maybe the first time I've looked at the
cost of them but they're pretty pricey right they're they cost more than the Attorney Services is that typical I mean so we have other translation services right um this is just because they weren't available for the day that they needed it so um I guess I'll do my own research
but if I I'm kind of just curious how they rank stack up against uh the other services we have at the cost right and was there only that one day that it had to be done the evaluation I guess it had to be done that one day Mrs
Jolly I'll say yes Miss Stanley yes Mr yes Mr Dylan yes Dr forer yes Miss Connor yes M Terrero yes Miss Bradford yes passes moving on to uh Berkeley
height sorry Personnel resolutions a through H all board members resolutions I through n uh Berkeley Heights only may I have a motion they moveed thank you Mrs Stanley a second a second thank you thank you Mrs
Terrero discussion no discussion Mr secretary vote can I ask the sorry yes yeah question I'm looking at item G and there is um it says
92% instead of 100% how do you determine that this this was the coach who um was left early okay and that's the MTH to get to the 92% okay correct thank you y what has
92% yes Mr secretary vote Miss Stanley yes Mr Tero yes Mr Kiri yes Mr Dylan Dr forer yes Miss doly yes Miss Conor yes Miss Bradford yes motion
passes Finance we did business so moving on to finance Finance uh may I have a motion please for Resolutions a through D all board members so move thank you Mrs Stanley second I'll second it um I have a quick
question a second please yes yeah oh thank you Mrs Ziri discussion so on finance I think this was was also under business I have a question for Mr gagleard so how do we determine which items are like is it k28 uh the mountain
side representative cannot vote and uh yeah so yes if it's strictly k through eight if it's districtwide or just related to the high school then the m so the so my question is the Lower Columbia field it is in our middle school so can
the sending District vote on that the the the lease for the Lower Columbia field yeah my understanding is that that is that the high school students use that as well right like for the tennis courts so my understanding is that high school students have access to it it's
it's appropriate because it affects mountain side as well okay just wanted to clarify yes uh no other discussion let's move to a vote Please Mr secretary Mr Stanley Mr Ki uh I am a no
on check number 21645 21752 211 994 yes to everything else on the bills list on a and no to b c and
d there anything on those that we should be aware of that you're saying no to those check numbers yeah uh yeah I went and looked at them personal preference huh no I I I I have some questions I didn't get the answer so I would rather
so the only thing that you passing is a a a everything except for those three check numbers 211 645 211 752 211 994 but the problems a mystery and BC and D you're you're
saying no to BC and D or no yeah okay Mr Dylan just checking to make sure I'm allowed to vote on everything uh yeah we'll go a through D yes thank you Dr forer uh no on checks
21645 check 21752 and 211 984 yes to the others and yes to BCD you said uh yes to AB and a Ab C and D yes to BC and D yes Miss
Jolie I'm yes to all except for the two checks listed um 21645 and 21752 Mrs Conor yes to everything except check number 21645 check number
21752 Mr Torero uh yes to all except I have to abstain on check number 212018 as it's written to myself M Bradford yes to
all okay so we have checks check numbers 21645 and 2752 do not pass okay we sorry go ahead everything else done thank you um we only have five minutes of Zoom left and now we have
three minutes of Zoom left so at this point um we have to public comments from the public Steve do you have anything you want to say thank you life I just I'm stuck and there's nobody online at this point uh that correct
Jason right is that correct Haley nobody's online great okay so I'm not going to read that old business we have no old business moving on to new business Mrs Stanley I would like to table new business for our next meeting
because it is after midnight I on my point I just want I need a second okay is there a second to tabling new business to next time no one wants to table new business nobody wants to table new business I I really would like to make my comments so
okay all right Mrs Stanley policy discussion I'll wait for next time okay Mrs akiri um on the board docu I'll I I would like to move this delivery of board documents to the next meeting I just want to and the only topic that I
want to talk about is um the repair and renovation of the existing tennis Sports at GL I did go and visit them I have pictures I'm going to send them to you uh Dr feltri and if I may ask or request
the administration to take a tour um I believe that um somebody made a decision I don't know when and I don't want to point you know I I don't even I think it's way beyond my time in the town but one of the coat is being used as um as a
storage or some sort of a dumping area uh the remaining three have existing chain link fences which are intact I did go and look at the base of it I know your board bus email said that they need to get foundational work done um yeah if
if foundational work oh I okay so I feel uh if there is if the the only discussion I had was can our grounds people you know buildings and grounds may they go and clear out the outgrowth of also to see how the situation is
because at this point there are creepers everything's grown overgrown out there and one of the court has been used as like a storage also on my way to um getting to those fields I saw that we have an electrical panel which is also fenced up but that fence is also
overgrown but the grass around it is maintained so once the overgrowth is cleared can we get can we evaluate and see if these can be you know repaved not resurfaced get an RFP or something going
on yes tennis courts repaved not resurfaced just digging them up yeah well and and just so we know the tennis courts they one of them is actually on Summit land um and so yeah so it gets
very complicated and and Summit did give us permission to build the tennis courts many many many years ago uh because they couldn't use that land at the time we would have to go into negotiations with them as well for that land now um and it's going to be quite expensive
since we passed this lease agreement we do have tennis courts for the moment so I'm not sure this is what we want to focus on right now but it is it's more complicated than just fixing them because it is on other lands so when we went um the environmental Club did tour
with me one time and the previous superintendent and they actually wanted to see if we could pull up some of it and then start growing trees back there um because they felt like they wanted to you know improve the environment and bring it back to its natural state
because it is a mess um but obviously budget- wise that was not in our budget um but yeah it's it's a lot more complicated so also in terms of this repair request um my I think I'm going to put it on a finance committee I would
like to know how much do we currently spend on busing GL students to CMS to play tennis because if we I I did look at the tax maps but I'm not an expert I would leave it to Mr gagliardi's firm or somebody to look at it I think some of
them belong to the county and we could definitely ask because it's a public entity and these were existing courts and I did talk to some of the people around who lived around there when we went for the walk they said the interest is if we can save money on how much are we spending I don't know that's an Ask
um transporting on a bus and it's in the evening hours driver fuel cost everything's going up as part of the budget so if we can look at just re renovating the codes that are there then students can use them they don't have to be busted they're on the property
parents can go pick them up right now parents have to come pick them from CMS thank you Mr Dylan oh I'm sorry I'm sorry M sorry so just two quick thank yous um yes one just make sure we thank the mount Rec Department uh for stepping
in and giving the tennis team the location to finish their tryouts and then also opening up their courts uh depending on what happened here tonight I don't know if that's going to be necessary but I certainly want to thank them for stepping up and and giving us a quick answer uh not having
us jump through hoops and make up stories about insurance um two uh also want to thank Dr phry and AJ uh you guys stepped up and and helped us get busing uh specific to the eighth graders coming over here for orientation I know that the on behalf of the mountain side Board
of B they asked me to express the Gratitude to both of you so thanks again I would like to thank mountain side rck and for you to you know helping out with getting the quotes my part was easy they at the thank you New Providence yeah yes yes yes Mrs Terrero I agree with you
thank you very much toide thank you for everybody thank you thank you thank you um Pam I just wanted to ask you a question because I actually was looking at the lottin blocks that you're talking about um and there's three pieces property back there that I do we need
think we need to pay attention to um one of the Lots involved um half of the tennis courts and part of the baseball the in field portion of the baseball field that is
owned by the Board of Education in Berkeley Heights there's also another portion which is the other half of the tennis course which I think you were talking about and that goes well beyond to where like it's like turn the there's a gate actually now that's in you're
saying that's in Summit so you're concerned about what their rules are so to speak in terms of development well so right so a long time ago we got their permission to build on it I don't know if we would get that same permission so it's a lot more complicated than just saying let's find out how much the quote
would be because we need their permission to build on that land well I think permission aside you could still get a quote if on refurbishing right um something right not to say that we're going to do it and I you know I support sign this like it it it even though we have I
supposedly under this lease permission to use the Columbia courts right in general right why not have tennis courts that are part of the high school so the high schoolers don't have to so it's kind of like on their campus right it's part of their part of where they play um
so I think it's something that is worthwhile to investigate and there's also a shot put uh course back there too so not I think everybody should be aware of is half of
that baseball field The Outfield is owned on County Land so I don't know if we knew that or not but it's something that you need to at least keep in back I do believe they know that but I the come in with the tennis I don't think any of
us would be like no we don't want our own tennis courts but we are having enroll in trouble at GL and if we lose Mountainside we will not be able to have as many sports as we currently have so I don't even know right like if tennis
would be the one that we get to choose to keep so I I do want everybody to realize how important this is that the relationship with Mountainside is vital for us keeping this many sports and extracurricular activities because of
the amount of students we lose um so it's it's it's really important and I I think that if we do want to move forward with a tennis court we need to make sure that is also a priority is this relationship with Mountainside and
promoting GL right and we've had a I we got to do some PR work because of the heating situation because of the fire panel parents are upset and they are complaining even though we have so many opportunities here so we do need to do
some major PR work to keep GL at the state that we have it keeping this many sports keeping this many extracurricular activities well no I mean I think it's worth at least a yeah abolutely and
there is only one access when I went I did look at the maps some of them is County area the summit part I think I don't know when it was nobody I don't nobody can Summit from access it because there is like a big fence when you go to the very end and that's the very Corner
maybe it's called it has a summit zip code and when you go into that area there are three zip codes up there also getting a quod and reaching out maybe having a legal expert look at you know our maps and say hey this is for a public school because there's only one access maybe we should ask them for a
lease what are we doing yes ask them for students students will come I think to address the other comment about mountains side and GL I think most of the parents that my daughter goes horseback riding in Mountain Side one of the concern is Mountainside doesn't have
collaborative consultative model for special education they have integrated classrooms they have a dedicated special student so when their students come here I've just heard it from couple of them bill can confirm if that is an actual concern that when they come to GL they
are a little um surprised with the layout or how the instruction happens here and we are spend on ir and this is something that we were going to check with Mr MOA but given the situation may I have a motion to adjourn you you don't need me to confirm just watch the uh any
of our board meetings it's a it's a common topic so yes I have moved second Voice vote hi thank you 12:30