okay it looks like we're on and recording all right so I will call the meeting to order uh roll call please mayor Kos here Mr amang here miss mccre she's muted she's here yeah sorry here Mr M isent Mr Rivero here Mr ruse here missor here hey notice of this meeting was provided to the Burnsville news and Courier News fil with the municipal clerk and posted on the municipal bulletin board on December 14th 2023 please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all all right so welcome to the January 16th 2024 meeting of the Burnsville burrow Council uh this meeting is being conducted on Zoom so it's not in public um so it will be recorded yes um members of the public will be allowed to speak during the open session and during for we're not having formal public hearings this time so don't have to worry about that um comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker which will be monitored and enforced by the burrow clerk comments containing offensive profane or indecent language or language constituting hate speech will not be permitted all speakers shall State their names and addresses before making their comments and failure of the governing body to provide a recording of this meeting will not invalidate this meeting or any any action taken including but not limited to any adoption of an ordinance resolution or motion which we're not doing um just to kind of say where what we're doing now this is a new format uh we would have been sitting in the little conference room next to the courtroom um it's more of an informal work session so that we talk about issues that we will need to take action on at the next meeting so this is more for the council and the public to be more familiar with the background of things that we're going to vote on later uh and to let us kind of hash it out first and be familiar with it so it was a system we did many years ago um I guess when Sandy Jones was here right yeah so um we're trying to get back into that so that everyone is more familiar with things before they show up for Action um so right now we have an open session um so if anyone from the public would like to be heard please raise your hand and um Anthony will unmute you and then just give us your name and address and he'll also have a little clock in his window there we seeing any hands can't see my hole no I'm not seeing anybody right now no okay and I will close the public session uh moving on to discussion items um first is construction code fee schedule which is an amend proposed amendment to ordinance 2023 1987 and I believe that was just an Omission on the first round or Nancy if you want to explain that there were two omissions um that we inadvertently left off one is an increase um for alteration work which we're requesting an increase from 24 to $30 per $1,000 of estimated cost the other is a water heater which I believe went from $85 to 100 if I'm remembering correctly um then there are some language changes that the DCA required okay so then that will be um an introduction of the ordinance at our next meeting yeah if anybody had any questions about it or wanted to discuss it now when we do a a water heater did did they come out and actually inspect it I've never had one done they do inspect it because it is um plumbing and fire okay I just had one done so I'm waiting for the inspection I'm sorry yeah tell me about it I know um the next is um a Poss a proposed ordinance concerning affordable housing set asdes and if you recall what we've done with some of the smaller projects that have come up is ask them to contribute to because if they've only building six units it's kind of hard to do a 15% um affordable so we've asked them to contribute instead to our affordable housing fund but we have to wave the ordinance every time we do that because it's not in our language so I believe John if you want to Jack you want to explain kind of what we're doing with this yes as the mayor said our current ordinance uh applies to all developments of five or more units and requires that they have a 15% or 20% depending on whether they're rental or for sale for affordable housing and as the mayor said we've had several uh developers come in one I think had eight units uh and the other part of the ordinance is that it got rounded up regardless so so that one came in it would have been 1.2 units but it got rounded up to two so it ended up being like a 33% set aside uh and you really can't put that number of affordable units in a development that small so this orness those three things it provides that for developments between six and 10 units they may uh make a payment l two it changes the rounding to the standard formula of anything above a half gets rounded up anything below gets rounded down uh and the third thing it does is it codifies the amount of the contribution what we've done up until now um cgp andhr Mount Laural Consultants just took the 2009 COA rule which is long since expired which fixed the figure at 147,000 I think for Region 3 where we're Loc at uh and adjusted it for inflation so I saw one of the other ordinances just had $180,000 which is the essentially that number adjusted for inflation through this year uh and provided it could be increased depending on H you know future inflation so the ordinance does those three things discussion anybody hey Jack it's Al um so the the 180k is just for six to 10 units is that correct um correct and what's the rationale of having it that specific like I remember during one of the discussions last year we said for larger properties um the 180k may not be appropriate which you know we can discuss that but you know the rationale that it starts at six and not lower well because the current ordinance and we can change that that's one of the reasons we're discussing it the current ordinance doesn't apply to developments of four or fewer units oh okay got it so that would be where that would be essentially where that's where you would be required to actually provide affordable housing that's correct so it just gives them the option of making a payment L for those smaller developments so if it's over 10 they don't have the option that's right although you know we could do the same thing you could still depending on circumstances the council could could wave that requirement but we don't want to write too much into the ordinance get so complicated yeah and I think we get need to get more of those smaller projects yeah we don't have any big ones on the horizon that aren't 100% affordable anyways yeah and Jack just one more thing um might just be helpful to get your like obviously you've tracked this for years about where Bernardsville is in our actual housing commitment versus the the affordable housing fund that we have like in other words the last few projects we've said we prefer the funding rather than the units because we're pay on the units right now but can you just give us the landscape on that um just be helpful at the beginning of the year for both C the rationale for that was the fact that for our scattered sites developments originally uh a number of the units were going to be on property the bur owns up on Pine Street by the park uh which was actually purchased for affordable housing purposes like 40 years ago um and then when RPM did a title search they discovered that that property was used as substitute property to get green ERS restrictions lifted from Pine Ridge no one in the buau knew that uh so we can no longer use that property which we already owned and had to go out and buy property uh the first property we bought after the council considered a number of properties was 33 33 burners and that ended up costing two times because of inflation and the appreciation in the real estate market two times what the estimate was the original estimate was 700,000 we ended up paying a million4 for it so that's why we were looking to replenish the affordable hous and trust fund to cover the cost of acquiring the properties but for the the was it the third round fourth round what round are we on we're in the third now fourth is coming down the pike which is we we have all of our third round obligation planned out committed correct um fourth round we don't know we're going with that um what is the what's the um I'm just curious what the senior housing requirement is for senior affordable that that's the one good thing in the proposed new bill A4 uh which raises the senior limit to 33% from 25% uh but other than that the new bill abolishes COA and leaves it to the courts to set the number based on the Mercer County judge's formula which just slammed towns I think West W ended up with 1,500 affordable units as an obligation Princeton ended up with 900 units uh so that's the formula if this bill passes that's the formula that's going to be a Statewide well fortunately didn't survive the lame duck session so no now they have to start over but but but the rumor is they they'd like to adopt it by the end of February so really is that the rumor that that's what's going around wow geez you know and Co was such a great compromise that the towns accepted it because they had representatives from the builders from affordable housing municipalities and it worked they listened to us yes yeah well at least at least we got a fair hearing what was our just uh our total obligation for the third round do you remember I I hate to put you on the spot yeah it was like 248 units but we got bonuses and credits and things like that so that's where we were a little lower to where we did okay oh man all right so now any other questions on the affordable so there's only one typo oh okay it's just a misspelled word you found it where is it it's kind of halfway through the first page it just says okay collect the word I'll find it and correct it collect it says it's missing the C that's oh okay oh that's probably from cutting and pting uh just just the last point on this I did run this by Jessica cwell and she approved it it's current form uh yes I saw her email thank you okay so then we can introduce that at the next um the towing contractors this one this was at the oh I'm sorry mayor sorry go ahead I'm sorry to I didn't mean to cut you up I didn't it was a lag yeah this is the request of the police department uh the current uh standards for being disqualified for criminal convictions was written a number of years ago uh and they got an application isser uh where one of the principales had a conviction for misdemeanor like 30 years ago and they didn't think that should be disqualifying so they rewrote the uh the crimes that will disqualify you it's basically felonies for certain crimes against persons in property so now it says an indictable offense that's well that's one of the changes but some of the other changes they they made it they made it a higher bar before you get disqualified okay and these are when there's an accident and they have to call a towing company right at that time they have a list of people they can reach out to yeah it's a strange system we used to for some reason we used to have to bid it even though we didn't pay for any of this Towing it's all paid by the the car owner but then they came over this alternate system where you could have a rotating list of tow operators who had to qualify uh and that's what we do now so you're right if there's an accident or a broken down car these tow toy operators get called yeah hey Jack I I didn't think it's okay but this didn't change anything on the um insurance requirements that we changed last year no no no only the the crimes that disqualify you okay thank you and and the who are requesting this change was the police polias police department yes it Chief R and Sergeant Al the two I dealt with but yeah it was totally initiated by them okay so that'll be a introduction as well yes uh the qualified purchasing agent responsibilities Nancy you want to talk about that yes I was uh hoping that you would discuss whether or not you wanted to make a change um the way the law currently or the way the law was was that any contracts between $177,000 and $44,000 um the governing body had to adopt a resolution in order to to um enact the uh contract um the way it is here is any contract no matter how much it is uh the law did change to say that if you have a qpa the qpa can sign and enter into any contract up to $44,000 um I'm not looking to do that I'm not asking you to do that I was hoping that you might come up with some amount that you were comfortable with $2,000 $5,000 something that you're comfortable with that I could just do just to make it more efficient and save time for like the smaller things that we don't have to wait you know for a council meeting to get done what's the thres sorry what's the bid threshold bid threshold is 44,000 yeah but the quote threshold is what 17 66 66 15% of the 6 okay isn't there Threshold at 177,000 the threshold that the threshold is 17,500 if you don't have a qpa yeah they're the they're the state law requires they're called or did require they're called window contracts the window between 175 and 45 44,000 um even if you had a qpa the governing body still had to do a resolution they recently changed that law when they changed the the election law right jack that was part of yes where they got rid of that requirement so now if the governing body adopts a resolution the qpa can enter into any contract up to 44,000 but that's not what I'm asking I'm I'm asking like if you wanted to pick the quote threshold which is 66 6600 or you know some lesser amount I mean if you're not comfortable with anything that's fine too but it just would make it we see everything right like in other words it's still it shows up on the bill list but besides that like take for example um later on in the agenda you're talking about the park mobile um contract now you've already talked about that and made like a policy decision of what you wanted to do with that but I had to wait in order to enter into the contract until tonight so that you could well actually until next week until you actually adopt the resolution to enter into the contract and that one's I forget like $2500 or or something yes great so it's that kind of thing so I mean I'm not looking to you know spend all this money on things that you are not aware of probably we would have already talked about it before this is just to kind of save the time to not have to come back and do a resolution um you know to enter into the contract yeah I thought we did have something that was like $6,000 or something already no no no you have um I mean the quote threshold is $6,600 right but and in fact you have a policy here the state um the local public contracts Law requires that you get two quotes for anything um over $6,600 and under 44,000 uh here you have a policy that you have to get three so um written down that's just I think it's in the purchasing uh manual oh that may be it's not the ordinance I I think that's left over I think some people have that misconception now it's interesting the statute actually says that if you have a qpa qpa shall have the authority to prepare public advertising for bids to receive bids uh and to award contracts permitted pursuant to the sections other sections that Nancy referred to I'm good with 6600 anybody else yeah that makes sense to me yeah I agree now should I just make it up to the amount of the bid threshold or the quote threshold because gets increased as time goes by started at what 21,000 I think Nancy back when no the bid threshold uh bid threshold was 175 right but then then when it increased it they made it 21 but said it would increase State could increase it without changing the statute every year so it's gone all the way up to 44 it's every right it's every five years they change it right and the quote threshold is 15% of that so all add language up to the amount of the quot threshold yeah so it'll change with the States changing it yeah that's a good idea okay you'll do an ordinance introduction yep I'll change that ordinance for next week okay um then we talk we had um the HR representative I think this is mainly for answering questions regarding pensions and retirement and which get very complicated and since we don't have a full-time HR person um this would allow you to pick up the phone and call somebody who has the answers rather than dealing with the state well yeah I mean um this was something Leslie had requested uh we were hoping that you would be willing to do this because um it this person whoever you know whoever we contracted with would likely have most of these answers off the top their head and wouldn't have to spend hours on the phone with pensions or if they did have to spend time on the phone with pensions you know it's not Leslie doing it who's taking her away from doing payroll or doing CFO duties so um we did get one proposal it was $150 an hour um Leslie did think that uh she she didn't expect it to cost us more than $3,000 for the first year and possibly wouldn't need the person at all for the second year you know assuming she picked up all the language um you know all of the different rules and everything um things like retirement and pension and health benefit questions are complicated and Ever Changing so um it's not a bad thing to have somebody available you know even after the first year but but uh I wanted to know what you guys thought about that is the only person that would be using this you or or Leslie or it would almost exclusively be Leslie um we would not be giving employees the person's number you know to talk to but if the employee if uh if whoever this person is had to talk to the employee then they would call the employee and and not the way around so that we didn't just you know continue to build up our cost okay great makes sense to me yeah we okay with that do we I don't think we need to because that would be a contract under the bid under the threshold so you could just do it okay well but this is the kind of thing I was talking about like I wouldn't just do it I would talk to you about it first yeah okay thanks all right um the license PL readers so for the those of you who may have been at some of the public when we had um Chief reman talk about the recent car thefts and some of the burglaries and one of the suggestions that came out of that was the license plate readers the cameras um to be installed and um Allan Nancy did some more research on that and as did the chief so if you want to give us kind of an update on where we are with that and then I think we're going to have the chief come to the next meeting and and give us a more detailed Al do you want to you can Nancy or you know Gina I know we talked about a public safety I also want to defer to you as a chair but I I can add there's anything uh so basically these are these are cameras that are put up um at mostly at entrances into town the point of them is so that if people are driving stolen cars into town then the police would automatically be be alerted because the licensed Plate Reader identifies them on the stolen car list and then the police can converge towards the area where they where they came into town um it's an effort to try to reduce you know the car thefts that have been happening too frequently in town um the chief has reached out to other Community surrounding us and I know Bernards has a very um aggressive uh plan for their licensed plate readers they obviously have a lot more highways into town than we do um and the towns on the other end have also expressed the other end of 202 have also expressed an interest in joining together so my recommendation would be if you ask the chief to get together with the other police Chiefs and they could all come up with a a concerted effort so that um a that all the towns could share information with each other and B so that we're you know we're not all spending the same money you know repetitively um in addition I believe the chief also told us that the state police have cameras as well and so you can't put your camera in the within a certain amount of where their cameras are um and as far as the cost goes it is $1,000 per camera per year to rent 3,000 I think 3,000 I'm sorry 3,000 I'm sorry three cameras $3,000 per camera per year to lease I can add Gina do you want to say anything I can add a few things if not no go ahead I'll you talk with the more in depth so yeah I'm first of all great summary Nancy I just wanted to um underline a few things first of all like a lot of credit to Chief reman and the police department for I think here in the community and taking it really seriously um the concerns around the car thefts uh it's not you know a um complete Panacea of the issue but I think it's an important step uh you know a lot of the incidents involved stolen cars or cars that would have been flagged and if these cars enter our community the police department will get a notification to individual officers to the dispatch I think the most important thing too you know we're I think that you hear from the chief next week is that we might we're going to propose three initially which may cover it for uh burn Ville but if the other communities around us have the same system too and we're sort of sharing them we're creating a really large blanket Network um covering entrances in and out of all our communities um and uh really it's great collaboration the chief uh you know mayor I know you've made some phone calls too have helped to forge um um and uh collaborating and showing sharing of information that could lead to catching you know criminals potential criminals coming into our communi so um um uh I think we'll hear a lot more from the chief next week and I know uh the last thing I'd say is um considering it was the holiday kind of record time in my mind for government to address this we heard this in the December meeting and we're already KN on wood hopefully going to take action um this month so more to com thank you Al yeah and I think what um the pattern that they described is what happens is these Crews steal a kind of a broken down car drive that into town so it's already so it's a stallen car coming into town when they find the car they're looking for they just dump these stolen cars and leave them in the neighborhood so if we get them before they get that far that's you know first step so I think that's a great great plan and hopefully we'll get this in place soon but thank you for your hard work and to the chief as well yeah um yeah too I had a question but I'll I don't know Gina did you have something you to say nope I was saying the chief did a great job and connecting with the other yeah connections great so so um so thank you also for I think uh the the fast work on this I agree with what Ali said I think that uh the Public Safety Committee uh and chief REM and turning this around so quickly has been great the question I have is and this not be answerable but is there any do we have any idea for the crimes that have occurred in the past how effective this would have been at stopping stopping them what I mean by that is is that if somebody like the the crime you described mayor where someone steals a car comes into town just assuming that like are they are are have these cars that they're bringing into town already been reported stolen and and we think half the cars would half the time we would have gotten a hit on these any kind of Statistics or or and if we don't have it that's fine it's still I think a great idea I just am interested I do think this the chief has statistics on that Jay I don't want to put words into his mouth I think he's gotten feedback on that specific point not only for Bernardsville but specifically for other townships and buroughs we asked the version of that question and I think he can give you one potential case study I'm hesitant to do it because I don't he told us at Public Safety um a specific Township that saw a significant reduction based on that uh but I would rather him answer it since it kind of came firsthand that's okay okay yeah that's fine I think it's a great question and I I did like just reading some of the some of the Articles like the Burnville news and others there were um cars that had been stolen that had been reported that were driven into Bernardsville Bernard Township war and some of the other surrounding communities that resulted in further stolen cars as the mayor and an today but it wouldn't I don't it's not gonna do everything right oh absolutely unfortunately I I think we'll find like everybody it just uh it will evolve right yeah it's just like fraud you know they find a different way Unfortunately they get more and more sophisticated don't they be nice to put that all that creativity into something useful but we would get the notifications from you know Bernard's Township you know other towns if we work with them we'll get their notifications they would get ours yeah yeah I like that that's great okay uh the Quin project uh yeah we did not do that appointment at our reorg meeting for the mayor's ad hoc committee um so we'll be putting that on the agenda for the next meeting um and what we've discussed I think in our prior is to keep have this group focused strictly on quinby and really kind of get that nailed down as to what what direction we want to go with that Redevelopment because then we talked about it being more scaled down but what is that going to look like how does it address parking so they'll be on the next agenda uh and Jack 261 yes I've kept you a priz yes by way of background 261 Claremont of buts Peter tracked we were interested in purchasing it about five or six years ago I'd say uh but it turns out that there was an oil tank on the property that had to be removed and the owner of the property which is an estate refused to do it so we killed the deal in the meantime we purchased 251 Claremont which is next door and which also AB buts Peter track uh the idea was we would use those two properties for parking and access to Peter's track which is underutilized because of lack of access um then at the end of last year I think it was Dian Greenfield said that the oil tank had been removed so the council directed me to reach out to the attorney to see whether they were still interested in selling it which they were so then we were proceeding and then the mayor emailed me and said are we sure the oil tank was removed so I emailed the attorney and he wrote back and said it hasn't been removed because it would be cheaper to remove it after the house was demolished so he proposed that the owner demolish the house and remove the oil tank and that we uh reimburse him at closing for the demolition of the house then he sent me a follow-up email and said no he was wrong that the oil tank had in fact been removed but they were concerned that there may have been other leakage from the oil tank before it was removed so he made a similar proposal at that point in time so I then tried to reach out to the environmental consultant that New Jersey Land Conservancy used when they were uh handling this for us and they were handling at the last time before they walked out on us and I thought i' checked to make sure that the the engineer I dealt with was still there uh and when I did I discovered that three principles of the firm had been indicted for overbilling municipal clients for $850,000 plus they had a number of civil suits against them so I guess we won't use them uh originally I asked that this be on the agenda uh to authorize me to get two appraisals which will me because we had to go through this process now with Green Acres that you can't even retain apprais the list have to get their approval before you even do that uh so I sent out four rfps and I got three back and they're all over the map so I'm going to send out some more rfps but I would like Authority authorization to retain two of them uh Norm Goldberg was the most reasonable of $2,000 which is what we usually pay yeah so he'll probably be one of them but I'd like to get somebody else with a reasonable number with you're okay so we buy this property do we have to we don't have to I mean we can cut this off right now uh I in my email to Nancy and the mayor I said this property has a black cloud over it well I think history the history goes way back they were going to sue the burrow 12 years ago or so and every quarter they sent us a threatening letter saying that we cause water damage to their property because water ran off the Dr uh name property and across a 50 foot RightWay easement that we have into the Peters tract and that caused the the drainage problems well the water just passed over our our RightWay we didn't have anything to do with it so finally they offered to sell it to us uh and like I said five years ago we had had a deal to buy it but we backed out once they wouldn't remove the O but yeah if you don't want to buy it I mean that makes it easy well I think the the issue with it I why we wanted to buy it five years ago is if you know we have the park at 251 it has a very narrow driveway that has very bad visibility if you're coming up Claremont Road so the idea was that if with that property you could make a you know an in andout Loop because it's got a great big front yard uh and the house has been sitting there empty for I think 10 years it look it's an eyesore it looks terrible uninhabitable yeah um and it would just make that Park more usable right now it's there's just there's not enough parking to to have good programming there if you know Recreation was talking about maybe doing a summer camp there or whatever it's just really dangerous getting in and out of there so that was the beauty of having that second lot should we bring this back to wck then because I mean I'm the reazon I could talk to them and see if it's something that you know are they planning on using 251 for they are I mean at least I don't know who is they were yeah they I mean they actually want to use the house um for some programming and they were talking about possibly a a summer camp there or a sleepover or something like that you know with a hike so yeah it's and I know people that have gone and used the trails have mentioned how bad the driveway is know but I used the trails there before and I'll be honest it's a like it's a half mile in and a half mile back it's it's not really much of a trail I I like I I would recommend and I mean this is my opinion obviously my opinion would be that um why would we pay for an appraisal on something if we're not sure we want to buy it now if that's the direction everybody wants to go the other worry I have is I I don't want to buy anything that's got any kind of environmental problem I don't want to get into a contract where we have to you know well we find out all of a sudden well the oil's been leeching into very very far down we turn it over to the previous owner and now all of a sudden we have to pay for the demolition of a house on property we can't buy this just really feels like a bad deal if if there is a real real great use compared to other burough property that we have that we have to have this piece of property then by all means spend the money on the attorneys but I don't think we should spend the money on appraisal for a property unless we're absolutely certain that's what we want to spend our money on well it is it's part of the um our Green Acres fund this would not be regular money yeah I know I just don't think it's worth the money funing yeah the open space uh fund I don't think I don't think it'd be worth the open space dollars I'd rather I'd rather reinvest the open space dollars into something else I I mean I've been up there I like I like to hike it doesn't connect into anything else so walking up Peter's track and back it's a great path uh you know but there's plenty of parking up there if you want to walk and I'll give it if you want to walk uh half mile up and half mile back on your own it's it's a it's a great little hike but I don't think you need extra parking for for the hike now I can't speak to the wreck uh use of the uh the house there I don't know if they would be able to use it or not I know we talked about that when Diane was here a year ago but I I'd prefer not to pay for attorneys unless we're absolutely certain we want to pay for this a lot of it's wet too I mean there's only a limited area that could be used how how much was the original appraisal like what were we GNA buy 700,000 I think we were paying for it then something like that what was it five acres five four and almost five yeah yes and what is the open space fund currently it's like five to six million yeah something like that and that's the acquisition money which we can't use for anything but acquisition right I think it's about five milon I mean I my I'm interested what others think too I would lean definitely you probably a little closer to Jay's position in that we've H we we' bought a lot of burrow property my supposition is that we should probably invest in making in getting those right um unless we hear a really compelling reason like I I think it might be worth it Gina to check with the rec committee um see how the situation is evolved and changed you know making sure that any decision we make is done with you know complete um full perspective on things but I don't think we should outlay funds until we know that that is a Direction one problem one problem with that is that we have like three and a half months before the Green Acres money goes away you know that's not the end of the world but uh and and I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to buy this property it's it certainly got issues but I think a decision has to be made whether we want to at least get the appraisals uh you know we don't even have a contract at this point in time so there's nothing binding but it's up to you all can we ask for money maybe I'm missing that I'm sorry well they they pay they reimburse us for half half yes half so whatever we pay for it we get half back from Green Acres and what is Green Acres is state or that's uh State it's part of D yeah um let's let's ask Recreation for a recommendation I don't know if they were they meeting this week or do they meet last they're meeting next Tuesday the 23rd after our meeting so it's after us I wish they would change their meetings they always meet the wrong times yeah may we now that we've got our working session stuff I think actually Bob proposed that in the email to be honest but he didn't move oh okay well can we just um get his input maybe next week they may have already discussed it we don't know that yeah yeah I I can email if that's you yeah okay I'll put it on hold we can we can decide next week whether it's a go or not okay Nancy is it okay if I I'm sorry if you what is it okay if I email Bob and just ask him about this since the meeting will be after sure all right um then moving on to General business uh we have a resolution for these will be the regular resolutions um Highland storm waterer grant that is um to apply for $225,000 storm water grant to offset the cost that we have to incur to get an ms4 permit I don't know what Ms stands for but it's something DP is requiring us to get um and the money to we hired at the beginning of 2023 and I guess we did it at reorg this year as well we hired storm water compliance Solutions and as part of uh what we have committed to pay them um the Grant application is part of that okay uh the bulk rock salt I don't know if you looked at the the quotes but um the somerson county Co-Op will had a much better price than the Mars County Co-op so it's great that we have the option of doing either one so um that was pretty clear what the choice was there um True Green this was I guess from John McDow hiring them to continue with what we agreed to in terms of treating the different properties yes and councilwoman's Amer asked me um to get some more information about that about treating the area around the polar grounds and I did reach out to John but um I haven't gotten he hasn't been able to get a response to me yet so if you want to just um I mean if I if I I will get it before next week's meeting so I'll make sure to get it to you and then if you wanted to pull the resolution next week could do that well my thing was that it list synthetic treatments around the pickle ball cours I guess that's the news that's the difference between this and last year the rest is I'm fine with I guess I mean I'm not really fine with any synthetic treatments but I in an effort to compromise we're allowing Playing Fields like rose bow Claremont and kaanis but I don't see why Pi around the pickle ball courts would require synthetic treatments like that doesn't really make any sense so if he has information on some kind of reason for that I just think that's adding you know toxic chemicals that were never there before and isn't really potentially to me isn't necessary so and you're right right by the stream there too and you're right by the stream and and the pool it's not that big an area the pool really yeah and the environmental commission just planted like a big well not big but they planted like a native plants garden right there so I wouldn't I wouldn't be touching that with synthetic treatments if I didn't have to so I won't vote for it if that stays in but I'm only one all right let's Che no i' back you yeah yeah I don't get to vote but I would vote you yeah I mean when's the next public works meeting do we ask John then but I guess yeah we have to approve this yeah we don't have one scheduled but I'll I'm still I reached out to him the other day but I guess with the weather he hasn't a chance to get back to me so I'm sure I'll hear from him for next week can we just ask him to do organic there I mean just one yeah I mean I can ask him unless there's some compelling reason not to anybody have a problem with not doing organic there all no so let's just see if you can change it yeah must do he has some compelling reason really compelling reason that it's got to be I don't know why all right I'll ask him I'll let you know all right uh Parker McKay Jack this is still our ongoing never ending yes Sant Sega we still three tax appeals pending they also sued U Anthony Tom teki and a Kerwin as well as the burrow in the Bergen County Superior Court claiming fraud uh so we hired outside Council Parker McKay they got it transferred to Somerset County the Somerset County Judge dismissed it they filed an appeal with the appell division the Appel division affirmed the Somerset County trial judge then they appealed to the Supreme Court and the attorney missed the deadline for filing his brief and this is just a petition for certification didn't have the Supreme Court works just like the US Supreme Court they don't take every case US Supreme Court calls it sari the Jers the Supreme Court calls it a certification so you have to first petition for certification before they even he the case and that's where they are now in any event he missed his deadline for filing the brief in support of the petition for certification uh then he filed a motion to extend the deadline so it could file out a time the Supreme Court took about five months and granted it um and said now the burrow has to file a brief on the merth of the petition for certification as well as just in opposition to the extension uh so as a result uh Nancy spoke to John Gillespie from Parker McKay and he estimates it'll be $10,000 to write that brief um we don't really have much choice we can't we can't let the can win yeah so that's that's the story behind that thank you all right another fire company we've been getting a lot of those lately that's great so we'll appoint David at the next one um the train recovery campaign approval request um this we do every year I believe um right we've done this um with the Green Team and the environmental commission as part of Earth Day and so I don't think it I mean were everybody okay with continuing that yep yes I think Dr there was no cost right no I think they they give away the seed links um says here he's not sure if we need to do a resolution or just a memo so I'm okay with whatever they need if it if it can be done before the next meeting because it looks like there's a deadline of January 26 for him or for them to do this application yeah yeah I think last year we didn't get them I think we told them um Anthony I think we told them that our meeting was the 22nd he said that was okay right yeah I believe so yes do they actually need need a resolution we thought it would probably be easiest so that in future years you just it would just automatically come up okay oh there's an actual application that they need documentation of approval okay so we can do that at the next meeting he'll have time all right um the contract for the traffic planning and design and this uh was also parking no isn't it parking and traffic uh it's mostly parking even more than traffic yeah because that's what we talked about was parking so uh that was this is the person who came to a couple meetings ago and made a presentation and um so he provided us with a proposal and I believe it is 62 50 and that is to review all of our parking ordinances um which in some places are contra dictory um and try and put a cohesive plan together for parking and I like to make sure the traffic is in there with you know those like the the picture you put together Nancy of all like the pending applications things that yeah I did give that to him even before he came to the meeting um to talk to you so he'll have to take all that in consideration okay so is everybody okay with that yeah okay yeah it's actually it's under the 6600 no I'll put the resolution on uh Park mobile we're ready to move on that we are ready to move the um contract went back and forth between Jack and them um a few times and uh you know if you're I mean we already talked about it several times so this is just for you to you know sign the contract and we can get that underway um we've already sold our parking decals for the train station now this is only for the train station even though we said to Encompass all of the possible parking areas just in case in the future you choose to put um a parking meter in other locations that you own they're included in here just so that we get the lower price at some point if you choose to do them in the future but this one is only right now for the train station and we've already sold our parking permits um for the annual parking permits so this will pretty much take place of the parking uh meter that's there that hasn't worked in a couple months I understand because we haven't gotten any money in there so um I feel like that it's perfect it goes perfectly you know um with the parking study that we're doing at the same time so um if he recommends that you expand parking meters or whatever you know we have the issue with the valley parking um that goes very well together with the park mobile contract that you're hopefully going to adopt yeah what what are the hours for the park mobile and stuff because I the signs are up in the train station so I actually parked the other day and I was like oh I forgot we have to pay for parking now right everything else has been it's not been working so I had the app and I went to go you know download it and whatever and then I was like I don't even know what the times are like there was no like the signage I guess wasn't so great well the sign there shouldn't be any signs up yet no it's not installed yet is it yeah no it's not it's not we haven't we haven't kicked it off yet because you didn't sign the contract so I'm not sure why they put the signs up already but I will check those are probably the old signs no they're Park Mobile signs huh I'll ask him to take those down until because we told them that we needed some time to get all this in place they weren't supposed to put anything up until you know at least next month if not later than that so maybe we just cover them like uh like the dot did with the cross yeah put a garbage bag garbage bags over them so they started doing it before it was approved uh no they put the signs up apparently they put the signs up so I'll check into presumptuous yeah hey Anthony how many um how many annual parking passes do or how many how many uh commuter parking passes do we sell do you know uh let last year we sold 50 way back we used to sell like a little over 100 but but that's gone down over the past few years and and it's about 50 now that we sold uh if you go by last year okay thank you we used to have a waiting list remember recover yeah and this is just the the right right side of the station that those go work on right oh Park Mobile um the south side is it South South well eventually it will apply to the entire um and to the entire lot because we won't have the decals anymore like next year um unfortunately we just couldn't get it together enough before they had to be sold in December um but going forward they'll cover the ENT lot so people will be able to buy an annual permit next year through Park mobile oh good yeah I like the new passes too now you have the the ones you hang on your mirror I think it's that they're not stick like you don't have to stick it onto your car now which is nice okay recycling contract um with the county that's we renew that every year I think it did it went up not outrageously did it Anthony do you have that yeah it went up from $26.70 per household to $27 per household so went up 30 cents per household okay did they pick up today I didn't notice anybody get their they did I don't think I think they missed me all and the annual stream cleanup we do this as well every year um we usually do three sites I think in town with the uh R and Headwaters and they ask for a donation as a municipality we are not allowed to make donations so um instead what we do is have them invoice us for the materials the bags the gloves and those kind of things so we're actually paying for something rather than donating but um it's really we've had a lot of good volunteers turn out um amazing how much garbage we pick up out of the stream beds and it's yeah I don't know why people think it's okay to throw things out the windows but um everybody good with that to approve that yes all right um we didn't have any correspondence right we don't have um unfinished business I just want I wanted to ask uh I know we have our new um engineer which is exciting to have a in-house um just two things if we could ask him to check on is the boand Terrace walkway because I'm not sure where Doug left that and I'd like a a status report on that because you know people I get a lot of questions from people in town about where we are on that project um actually I think Jack could probably answer that better because um we were waiting for some um easements temporary easements no that was a different project that was the sidewalk right oh are you talking about the train station one yes goes from boil and Terrace down the station okay I can I can tell you that um oh good right so uh we the still with the feds we still have to wait to hear back from them but um Tony the new engineer has to go for training in order to be able to work with them to carry out you know to to enact the grant so it's a big deal um so he we're setting him up with the training okay I if there's more to that I will let you know at the next meeting but um uh that's the update as I understand it how long is the training is that going to take him months to complete or no no no I think it's um I think it's like a class like an all day class kind of thing I remember when Doug was talking about it in public works it's not H deal right yeah Doug went not that long ago I think so because Tony's taking over Tony has to yeah got it all right that was my only unfinished business anybody else have anything they you said there were two things two things you oh you know what I was thinking the um the bids for the Pavilion I believe the last Doug told us they were supposed to go out in December and I don't know if they did um we actually asked them to hold off on those because uh John McDow said that we needed to delay the work until school was out because of all the work they need to do with the um Utilities in that area um they don't want to interfere with with uh school so we talked to the engineer who's handling I believe it's suburban and we asked them to hold off on that so um I think uh I think Tony's having a meeting with them just to go over that project soon but um we did ask them to hold off putting the bid out in December because then you have to award it and there's only so long before they want to get started so um I'll find out when when it's going to go out oh great not to throw a wrench into this but if we're going to be putting Utilities in for that and then we're talking about lights are they going to do similar work at the same time or is it going to have to be two separate projects I just don't want them like if we have to dig open if we have to cut open the ground to put Utilities in i i granted utilities can mean multiple things I guess I'm just thinking electric but also the if they're GNA light that field I'm just wondering think about that a little bit we talked about it at Public Works last year do you recall off top of your head it was I think we were putting down the eventual infrastructure to allow to do that so we wouldn't have to redig it twice even if we didn't put in the lights right away do you remember thought it was electric and SE that are going well this is sewer electric and gas I guess yes oh okay okay so just a thought you're not going to need I wouldn't think you'd need sewer and gas for the lighting of the field over there if that's we end up doing eventually but I just you might the electric you obviously would so just a thought I I mean it's pretty significant it's I think it's over a quarter of a million dollars just to do the utilities for the Pavilion and I believe that the lights for the field were like a phase two of this project that's right right so I don't think that we included that as part of this no you're right so the field lights the way it was explained to us in public works that Al is describing is that the conduit is placed so that refers to like an I guess an infrastructure that would allow us to just of put a fixture up without having to run What's called the conduit so that makes sense that would prevent any type of ripping up or destroying what's already there I think that's why we did that yeah I think it's like the tube that the wires would go through for yeah it doesn't have to be dug up again but they're not going to be put in at the same time yeah no I I would I would yeah I I don't want to delay one for the other I just thinking about like if we if we if we trench the exact same trench a year later we may just have wish we've done it all at once is the point so it sounds like that was covered that's great yeah and Nancy but from as far as delaying the the build out was it the schools request is it our assumption that we need to wait for the schools to be out like should we talk to them instead of making an assumption or um I think I recall that John talked to them I will check on that um but I think John and the police chief made the decision together I believe it was in conjunction with the school but I I'll check all right um new business request from Harrington construction to use our gravel lot for fi dirt what are they Paving that they need or where's the FI dirt four um I believe this is to do a uh water main work for New Jersey American Water they have to remove fill they need a place to keep it until they finish the work and it's about three weeks and so they requested um across the street is that right Anthony is that everything yeah what are they gonna do when we finally have our affordable housing there everybody uses that for equipment and storage and interesting you're gonna have to figure it out yeah not to uh so do they pay us or is this just like a they get to borrow it no they don't pass do we have any worry that the dirt there they said clean but do we have any worry that the dirt they're putting on there might drop something into the ground that we have to deal with with the hiking trail right there right yeah and the build of the affordable housing and when that comes because I I I look I I don't know how this has been done well they sign a hold harmless don't they if they screw anything up they have to pay because this is in a Burnville project so they're going to be trucking dirt from which where the project is in Far Hills right is it I thought the project is out of we are yeah it said that that they they're completing the main improvements along 202 in Far Hills yes well then from Far Hills into Bernardsville and then back again right they're gonna go back and forth yes that's right so why don't they find a lot in Far Hills wouldn't that be a lot more sensible less traffic less trucks up and down 202 at the very least start with their burrow right I mean it's benefiting benefiting Far Hills I mean you're not obligated to let them use it yeah maybe it's time to start saying no yeah in some ways like if Far Hills came to us and said we have an issue you know we could neighbor no way to put it yeah yeah but I mean they should at least go to Far Hills if it wasn't SC catch J like they like I mean they have the Far Hills train station all that parking in the back nobody's ever there we'll tell to check with par Hill y um National Fish and Wildlife Foundation five star water restoration Grant yes I'm very excited about this actually this is a grant um that we would like to apply for to get money for the dam removal um this particular Grant is $60,000 and um there is a match it's not clear we believe it's 25% um but we are working with rippled waterers was the engineer who we working with to remove the dam and um this woman Mary uh past Goldman I believe is the engineer who's been working on it and um Tony and I met with her the other day and she gave us a list of grant opportunities that uh the total potential is $3.3 million in Grants and she said that uh the high likelihood of grant money is $1.99 million and if you recall the cost of the dam was estimated to be removal was $2.3 Million so um so this one for 60,000 um is due next week so so um I asked her to give me an estimate for her to apply for it and it was $2,000 which is a great return on investment um because she said we're very likely to get it and she said in fact we're very likely to get the $1.5 million USDA Grant as well as some of these others that are 450,000 25,000 15,000 there's 100,000 for the highlands um again a total of three .3 million but 1.9 that we are likely to get so I mean if if we can get all of them and you don't really have to spend any of that $2.3 million that you already allocated you know that's a it's a no-brainer so um so I just wanted you to um authorize her applying for the grant well authorize her applying for the grant and applying for the grant itself and then as we get closer um we're going to do these for all of the you know five or six other grants there are yeah terrific okay it's interesting because I think we when we talked about the dam in the first place there are no grants to repair the dam but there are a lot of Grants to remove it so um because it's so much better for the the water the streams the wildlife the fish so okay anything else I think we're good just do I have a motion to go into close session and we will not be coming out I believe will we John Jack okay I'll move to go to Executive session second all in favor hi hi all right thank you everyone yeah thanks for the public to thank you I'll stop the recordings and uh