welcome to the Blairstown Township committee meeting for November 22nd 27th rather 2024 we have an opening roll call Kristen Mrs Lance here Mr lman I think it's going to be late Mr makur here
Deputy Mayor orot mayor Morhead here can we please rise to salute the flag I the flag unit States of America to the stands adequate notice of this meeting
has been provided in accordance with the open public meeting act PL 1975 chapter 231 setting forth the time date place and purpose of this public meeting through a legal notice published in the New Jersey Herald Andor the times Express Times following the Township's
annual reorganization meeting at which the 2024 meeting schedule was adopted good evening everyone all three friends family um and uh we're going to start off our uh our meeting tonight with our
damn expert Beth Styler Barry I the pun is just you can just go forever 10 damn things um okay good evening everybody I'm just here to give a super brief update I have a one and a half minute long video which would just
help me to walk you through visually um Kristen I'm going to send a a digital update which I accidentally sent to the mayor and the deputy mayor copied you with the other address but it's the same one I sent to you um and I also have it
in paper kind of a a summary update if anybody prefers paper I I have it otherwise maybe CH can attach it to the minutes or something if anybody okay I want okay y yes than you go okay exactly the right
amount I think there you go thank you thank you so much okay my pleasure all right so every um every resident whose property line is within what we call the limit of disturbance has received a personal note from me including a very
similar update but you know inside a hand addressed car to make sure that they open it and then the other 50 oddd people on Ward plus chrisin will get the the update that you're going to see in
your minutes over the next couple weeks I do hand address everything so it actually gets open and it's a it's a lot of time so but it's coming so what I wanted to show you is this is a drone shot it's going to open up right over where the dam was and what you'll see is
the Bedrock that you see under the dam I'm going to stop it on a few times as we kind of fly over the point out things you know things that people have raised to me as questions so that you can see the answer um and just also so you get a
good look at it can everybody see this pretty much M get a little later go back just stop okay so right from here is where the dam was all that Bedrock is
I'm sorry this is the best if I sh all right can you guys see I me it's just a clearer shot there okay so the bank on your left is you know has actually greened up a lot more this is the first week of October the seed had
been in for a month at that point but with almost no rain um it really didn't have a you know good shot at grow so but that will be planted everywhere you see the grass now we will plant not entirely
we're not going to make it a forest because we know people are going to want to use these Banks but um probably a better way to say is where you don't see grass it's going to be impossible to put trees because it's really sand or
gravel so if you kind of fly up here so you can see again that home place is candidate for trees where you see um and then the first place that I kind of want to take a good look at actually you know what I'm going to point out
first a lot of this is kind of very flat and sort of without interest and I've had that pointed out to me by Anglers there's not a lot of you know good uh aquatic habitat for fish that will actually develop over time there's still
a little bit of sediment in the whole bottom that will you know that would have been washing through over these months but without rain it's just kind of sitting there and it can take up to two years for the river to cut down to the level that we we know it wants to be at but we will also come back after July
1st of next year and uh probably put some Boulders in put some you know what we call large Woody debris um big dead trees actually I me to ask the DPW if they have big dead trees and they want to you know dump them down there we can
you know use them next year think about that I know there's a bunch of Ash everywhere um okay so I'm going to just go up a little bit further just to point out something that is often pointed out to me and that is this area of bank
right here is pretty steep if you notice I've communicated with that property owner that's actually private property right there next year um again we will be back to July 1st that's you know we'll be up there probably a couple
times in May and June just to see how things have developed um but we will grade those Banks next year it would have been kind of silly to grade them now because they need you know a couple of storms they need to see what the river is going to actually do so you
know we didn't forget to do them it's not as if you don't see them you know it's just the the best practice is to give it a year if you can sometimes you can't and here we're lucky enough to be able to do that um just another quick off to show you this is what I mean when
I say places that we wouldn't be able to plant stuff cuz it's just a lot of sand and gravel so and then over here what you see um a lot of the vegetation was submerged so that will turn into river bank which will kind of
take care of when we see what happens this was a really bad year to judge what is going to live and what is not going to live because there's no water you know the water was record low pretty much from the third week in August
through you know last week pretty much you can continue to see on the left um we'll see a spot where there's um what was cat right here and again you know some of that might survive the water table might be high enough in a regular
Year we're now kind of coming up to this Bend you can see some rocks in there and some Boulders and again know probably will'll cut down a little more and we'll see a little bit more interest in habitat um a bunch of dead wood on the side here you know that is great
instream habitat that the river will scour out under make deep spot for fish again a lot more Sandy areas that will you know never have trees might have some vegetation and then I just want to take
a minute up here I did just get another email from up here okay not the best shot but if you've walked up there this side of the channel is dry right now completely dry um actually I don't know
you know in the last week of rain there might be some water in it um you know I've had people say why did you do that we didn't do that um the river did this and there's also a bunch of dead trees right there that have that were cut by someone they didn't just fall in someone
cut trees they wound up there uh and the person said you know why why didn't they go to cut them we actually discussed that but we knew that there would probably be more the next time it was Heavy Rain so this side of the stream is actually higher than this one
so you know gravity is is putting with water there and in high water it will likely also fill this channel um you know it is distressing if you think of it as habitat that exists does not um
but again the water was lower very low slowly so it's not as if you know overnight the fish got F there we pull up BL right so things did have a chance to see you know better habitat but um this is an area that we're not sure I can't say to you yes it's going to be
two complete channels and I can't say it's definitely only going to be one we're going to have to wait and see what that looks like in a normal rain year which we certainly did not have um and also to kind of take a look and see is wood constantly accumulating there
because it's catching up on those rocks in which case you know we would not make a commitment to come back to you cut dead trees so you know at that point sometimes you just have to let the river do what it is that it's going to do right you know 50 years from now this
might be dry and this might be filled it's the nature of a river that you kind of moving around and it's silly to try to force it because you know mother nature always gets the last so we try not to fight it we also try not to what we call hardening the river
you know you can definitely like scrape that out and force it to go there but that's usually you know fo's erron and very so that is all that I have um we will be back in July the list
that the update you know kind of contains what we'll do vation wise Bank wise and you know whatever else we discover over the next six or seven months we take care of next year we have a budget for it we have a big long list of what we call as directed or as needed
tasks so you know hopefully not a lot of work will be needed but definitely there will be some work that will get done Beth would you say that most of that stream the length of that stream the Bedrock it is bedrock down there so we'll we might see more there's quite a
bit but I mean it is bed between that whole that whole section a foot or 2 feet or or just by the damro um no I you know by the dam is definitely bedrock and when you go up actually right on this corner is another big ledge of Bedrock from there up if
you could tell it's that's all so I it's a little hard to say exactly what might be revealed as it cuts down more but you know the Bedrock is an exciting feature that people could pay bazillion dollar again and proof it was there so that's
that's a nice t it all looks really really nice with all the grass grown in it it's I looked at I had planted grass over the summer like why couldn't might have come in this this gra uh that that rope mesh that they used although it was probably
probably not necessary because there was no water trying to tear it away but it was it looks beautiful down there really does it's also a mix of native grasses so it's going to be more resilient to um drought and floods and cold and heat you
know it's native it wasn't you know kind of hper it came in great Without Rain that broke me serious stuff I'm curious um as um I don't know when's the first time it will make sense to do a biodiversity um check on it because
again as with such low water there's nothing appreciable that you're going to be able to really measure I think so we are constantly surprised at all the things are finding so one of the things um if I can find a quick picture
um I'm going just pull this out so let nobody get seasick while I do this um but we have some underwater photos of um about 14 species of fish that
um are you know most of the Native not all around here um but when we cross reference those to the to the freshwater muscles that we're looking to
add um we were super excited to find that most of those fish are hosts to um a lot of the fish a lot of the freshwater muscles rather that we're trying to bring back so that is not
officially complete yet but we also had Edna samples taken from Upstream of the bridge of um D and see all this and this is someone
literally holding the camera under the water for like 30 seconds at a time let's see if we can just pull up a couple of these but uh it was pretty amazing we were all really excited to
see these again it's you know it's what we would consider well Davis so it's not out there I did talk to a couple of different this is actually that particular Shad looks like somebody had it in their its Talons there very ripped
up Shad in there probably from that eagle um but this this is just at the foot of the day most of these Shad are gizzard Shad but we do have Edna and also photo evidence
of American Shad right at the foot of the dam so we are testing Upstream for um for American sh to see if they made it up during this migratory season um but we're not we're not
positive okay just tons and tons and tons of f check that you have taken so um rainow but 14 species um and again oppos to about 20
um freshw muscle species so exactly what we're trying to do like when we wrote These grants we listed Target species we were picking up every single one super exciting yeah very
cool yep and this is you know the the young man who came out to do this for us he you know as soon as I show these photos to to people to help me identify them um they said okay I can f right now this is the wrong place to
look for American sh so that's why we didn't see any but again a ton of other of other fish but so next year we're going to have someone give him a little bit more invit but you know there were a
lot of fish and this is like a human standing right there and it was also on a construction day so they were not really at all anyway it's a very um very exciting and successful try this for just a second I
don't know if this is or those pictures were taken at the Y right at the frot of the dam yeah right during construction no American Shad we have photos of American Shad
there but not this um this photographer did not take them he's not really a fish person so he just he literally bent down and held the camera under and took a shot took a shot just I'll do this another time
or um pretty pretty amazing what was going on down there no I was happy to see you know several fish even in the same frame I mean that that there were tons I mean I I actually needed a lot of help because
some some of them were um you know super imposed on like you know there's only a tail sticking out here and a head sticking out there we have actually something called a fall fish jumping you know in the air
and um L jump trying to get up but yeah this is just my connection is just way too to try to do this but we're in the process of getting some of these out in the in the public a little bit but we
need to get themi okay if you guys have questions I'm happy to ask answer and if you have um anybody who ask my way they they tend to find me pretty easily just by Googling me get you're very responsive
to you do call yeah you know and they have really good questions they have really you know thoughtful questions most of them so I'm happy to answer sometimes I don't know but and there's me sending you videos at 3 in the morning no that was great I had
never seen a video but I've seen many Stills but I had seen a video I forgot I had that it's just something it was a a the bridge was completely inundated in 2011 and the the house that used to sit right next to the railroad tracks was still
there and it was that was I think that that may have been the storm that that shifted it off it uh off its foundation yeah 2011 was um Irene followed by Le followed by another a name storm yep I I
did two damn removals that year and uh yeah you couldn't see for weeks and weeks what the dam looked like the contractor kept calling and saying is everything still there I I don't know took six weeks before we could see the
work well thank you Beth all right well thank you all have a great Thanksgiving Thanksgiving thank you um and if anything of interest you know comes up or maybe I'll stop late winter or something and you know confirm the schedule for the spring but we will definitely not be in the water before
July 1st CU that's a permanent condition but we'll be out on site probably in both May and June this see what's what's happening out it's fun to to watch nature do its work now with the growth yeah but if you see anything that is concerning or question you know like
just send it my way we can come out and take a look you can okay are they uh have they remove the uh those big metal um things that they drive out onto yet I know that was the like the only piece of like construction equipment that was
left down there yeah there's just the rock ones are out there okay by the the rail Bridge yeah and uh down below the D so they they'll St in it's I don't know I I think I think people will use those
we actually we went out there one day on a Saturday with the donor and there was a dad and this was probably in August a dad in a lawn chair and a little kid playing around on the Rocks I was like this is what it's all you know this is
super exciting I've also heard comments that people like the expanded parking lot cuz that parking lot was was somewhat overgrown and and it was very um bumpy yeah you know so now it should be flat not stay okay okay all right very good a
good night so uh we uh open the meeting now to public comments any of the three guests tonight if you have anything to say say it now or hold your piece until you think of it or blurt it
out you something looks like he has something boiling up in there someone else some perca [Music] still 14 still to found this from
05 from 2005 this was a good idea that if we could do something like this and send out I can't tell what that is to the public I I'll give it to you um it's a list of all committee members what uh what their positions are what their re
on too it's all contact information here for everybody in the township um and on the back we had some people that did some the CH all the churches that are here Etc I'll show see that it's
almost like a good welcome package for for people moving into town you know that would that would go out to uh good for all the people that are here yeah well it's not going to bring them to a meeting any any faster but so it's funny to see some of the names on here
has see on the committee Davis Andy I want to say hope has a really thorough one like that but I have seen that often I think hope they do it quite often I think they do it every two years it'll change committee members enough to do it
every that could be one of the first things you work on in J the next I let me thank you for welcoming me number one and for being very inform minut for me so I just who are you talking to I'm talking to you I'm
talking to I know I know know take it for what it is cu we may never hear that again Trump and King Jo I also want to ask you um February 1st at the metal lands is a course for uh Municipal
elected officials and then on February 22nd there is month of budge and I'd like to go to both of them so I'm going to ask you can register two forces okay I don't see why no um
and let me see what else I want to say that's it I I did wter answer a lot of my questions so that I wouldn't have to be sitting up here too long tonight and keep keep it going because we know tomorrow's Thanksgiving and the women have a lot to do tomorrow so I power
washed my house in the dark the other night with bleach let me give this to you my son's Bing the tonight you you don't have to give us that you just hang on to that and start working so start
working it's not going to magically happen unless you do can I just see it before you it's information we still I think we had one that was half by 11 at one time I think we did a used to do the
newsletter something like that and there was always the be time to out tax bills in the past which was really good and then they just didn't want to did you notice my name was on there
no yeah were chair yes oh that I saw I yeah and I saw the crooks that were on there and the crooks that came came on right after me when I didn't get back on yeah i i s was on want mention their names that's it that's that's all I have
to say thank you what up Mike that's very short John nice job M will be even shorter Mike said 5x in the trail spoke to uh Tom frell again last week Attorney General's office has assigned an attorney
office on the case the next um court case will be at the end of February so things are moving along we're very pleased and we will continue to monitor it thank you for your that's it yeah
that's as you have since the beginning can't believe it's can't believe it's been this long but it's uh it's actually short in their time FR yeah I guess it probably so we're staying on it excellent we'll continue thank you Mike happy thanksgiv you too you tooy
thanksgiv all right any other comments Lorraine you want to get anything in I mean you it's like why why be the uh why be the the give us an update give us an update on the senior lunch the senior Christmas dinner what whatever it's going very well we're up to about 80 88
people what's your what's your normal you get you usually get about 100 don't know don't know remember over 100 uh 15 years ago okay not recently we're making new seniors though so it's yes we're all getting older that's what it is yeah
it's the younger yep younger seniors the younger seniors the younger seniors the junior seniors okay yeah no it's good it's be a fun time yeah absolutely looking forward to the entertainment first
class uh I I'm I'm excited to see it um maybe you could introduce them of course okay sure I just have a question by shipping containers you mean those big things yes
the the big things that look like tractor trailer yeah oh that been on l no haven't been for many many years a lot of people have them they know they they know don't on all right seeing no further public
comment we'll move on to the department head reports for the month of October from Blairstown fire department Hose Company number one Department of Public Works Police Department tax collector Township Clerk vacant and abandoned properties and violations uh we will cover these in our Committee Member
reports toward the end of the uh evening we have a motion to accept the October department head reports all in favor I all opposed there we go uh we have uh just one set of minutes
to approve for October 23rd 2020 for our public session meeting minutes any discussion on the minutes motion to accept second all in favor to accept October 23rd
2024 abstain there you go all oppos okay moving through got a few ordinances here that uh we introduced and now we uh we've got an adoption for one uh our public hearing an adoption for 20243 an amended ordinance fixing the
salaries and wages of the officials appointees and employees of the township of Blair toown in the county of Warren and state of New Jersey by salary range um seeing that this is our uh public hearing adoption do we have any public comments on 20
2413 just have one question is that with are these uh numbers with or without the shared services did they be in as part of these numbers no I believe that's without it's the P yeah it's just it's just a lower
pay any other public comment I move to close our public comment second uh all the eyes all right so uh we have a motion to
uh adopt 202 413 second roll call please Christen Mrs Lance yes Mr lman yes Mr Mur Deputy Mayor orcot yes mayor Morhead yes next is an introduction of
20244 bond ordinance it is uh amending the ordinance 20244 any discussion on this motion for approval we have a second for 20244
second all in favor I all opposed the eyes have it on to the introduction for 20245 Capital ordinance to purchase various various Department of Public Works equipment any discussion maybe from our
uh head of buildings and grounds no okay motion for approval second all in favor I all opposed introduced 20246 a capital ordinance for various improvements to Township
property any discussion this is a just by for clarification this is a small uh Capital ordinance that will incorporate uh some things that were being considered in the operating
expenses but can be moved to Capital to take the stress off of the year end budget and I will make the motion to approve second all in favor all oppos there we go introduced our consent
agenda is 11 items tonight we have 202499 award contract for Partridge Drive in Quail Court 2024 101 resolution authorizing the change of tax collection software from Municipal software Inc to
ripped Technologies LLC for tax billing and collection Software System at 2024 102 refund of 2024 overpayment for Block 1603 lot 5.08 2024 103 the resolution to cancel Capital ordinance
20234 202 4 104 resolution to amend the 2024 salary resolution 2024 105 the emergency resolution njsa 4A uh 448 2024 106 a resolution requesting
approval of items of Revenue and appropriation our clean communities Grant 2024 107 resolution requesting approval of items of Revenue and appropriation our Warren County historic Grant 2024 resolution requesting approval of items of Revenue and
appropriation are recycling tonnage Grant and the 2024 109 resolution requesting approval of items of Revenue and appropriation for our DCA Recreation Grant and finally 2024 110 approving vouchers and claims any discussion on
any consent agenda items 1 through 11 just to mention that um items 7 through 10 are monies that are incoming to the to the town and usually we have to expend all year long but finally the county or state reimburses us so it's
nice to have those coming in so that represents money coming in um the emergency resolution is the end of year just to move money around so that we can finish the the last month of the year um the salary resolutions you saw that
there was an ordinance before that that's the resolution to change it um easy none of these are controversial we should vot on this together combine them do we have a motion to approve consent agenda items 1 through 11 make that motion second okay
roll call please Christ Mrs Lance yes Mr lman yes Mr makor Deputy Mayor orot mayor Morhead yes some unfinished business the Jones Farm or what's left of it we should say Charlie going to talk about that okay
basically uh week two week and a half ago U Donald took out two more tractor trailer loads of lumber and 10 um he's expected to return for one more truckload if you could at the building structure now on the right hand side there's a lot of lumber and a tin there
the problem is a lot of that wood apparently there's a fire back in a while ago 60s but anyway a lot of that wood is is Pine um so it's not really conducive uh for what they're doing to plan as a matter of fact the two
truckloads that went out one actually went up to Montana um to be refurbished for wood planking cuz I guess it was all over and the other one went down to Georgia um but anyway he is planning on coming back uh so we will get at least one more turn of that before we turn it
over to tpw um and I know that there's there's talks about bringing in a grinder uh to take all the concrete and reuse all that um but anyway that's where we're sitting uh they were here for 21 days um work
nonstop every day um R gpw did come out out and help them in in loaded the traffic trailers and that was a huge a huge asset for them to help out a great deal so I look forward to having to come back and eventually we'll get this thing cleared up and Charlie I want to thank
you for uh taking ownership of that project and seeing it from the from the very start of it finding uh finding our gentleman from Georgia and um if if ever you see work going on down there you're probably going to see Charlie's pickup truck out front as he kind of supervises
everything you you've done an amazing job put a lot of time into it so thank you thank uh Municipal housing liaison Mr Mayor I just left that on there because it was an unfinished business but we're not really discussing affordable housing today so I'll just
table it for the next meeting if that's okay very good um our new business we have a uh facility use application for the BC's jingle Eve parade which is coming up yes so this
was um sent us late there has been back and forth communication um they are not closing the road for the hour that they requested originally they're only doing it for 15 minutes um our police on juty police officer will be present unless
they are called out if they're called out then they're aware of that um but other than that the fre was the only change to the Jingle on me Eve and then the jingle on Main is the same and jingle on Main Eve is Friday night yes J
main eeve was always um where they just did the tree lighting near the ging Gallery I think it was and it wasn't on property so it's was nothing that they had to go through before but because they were asking to close Main Street for that day that's why they did the facility St does Committee Member last
realize she was uh she was summoned to uh to join yes uh I don't remember what time we're supposed to be there but I'll make sure you're okay should probably be sure all right Friday night it be fun
that the uh the parade last year was was pretty cool what people did to their their vehicles to oh they did do it last year they did yeah I gu they just didn't close the room no they just drove around the block understand yeah so they're kind of doing the same thing yeah it was it was it was
pretty cool yeah awesome some people got very into it so and that's good because you know Saturday is small business Saturday and jingle on Main so U looking forward to that it's always a great time downtown for us on that um story about how you get on
Christmas Sho that's a great story isn't it it is yeah it's a season but um it's also Thanksgiving it is and we're all trying to go home she's got she's got pies in the oven we're going to we're going to burn the pies if we don't get out of
here fast enough I'm not I'm not responsible for that love that okay heartwarming and everything is unsupervised all the pies are just they're just just cooking unsupervised want to put that out there um so yeah
are we approving that I mean it is Friday right do we have to approve that that fac already did very good yeah we'll see you down there um revise land use board forms so we have to have committee
approval because we're adding according to the land use board um attorney because we're adding um two term terminologies to the checklist okay um it's to all of the applications however I did not print out all the applications because it's the same
wording um and it's regarding the storm water and the tree ordinance I believe it was discussed at the L stuff we so we just have to approve that yes motion for approval
all all in favor all oppos wow this forms look great all right got some correspondence uh let's uh let's kind of uh I think there are a few things here we could we could focus
on um number one U the the shelter bills I going to talk about that yeah that I think that's one we really need to to look at uh from our ACL you you want to talk about that later you want to talk do down let's do
it um the problem with the ACO is uh the cost of Sheltering the dogs is getting and it's basically overburning our account for anal P um so what he is suggesting not only us I think he does about at least 9 or 10 municipalities
down there yeah um what he's recommending is when a dog is impounded and is released to the owner traditionally the kennel will build the municipality what he's
suggesting is the municipality then take that bill forward to the owner and collect this pce which then would replenish our Animal Control fund um in talking to the other municipalities that he works with everybody seems to be on board with this
and likes the idea the problem is they haven't found any button to write the ordinance so he's he's looking into that and I kind of suggested maybe we look at our Municipal attorney who who could also reach out some of my other
municipalities you know Rob does so I was already kind of had down my radar I mean we're at the point in the year where we really can't do it till January but I reached out to Rob today in January I'll get an ordinance together
can start here so yeah basically he's looking you know just I mean it makes sense but you need an ordinance I'm just curious though because looking at the the email that I got is that technically a fine or is it a fee for service or how does that work he Rob's Talking end
about issuing a summons if it's unpaid I'm not quite sure how we're going to work that um his argument was you know basically they're going to the municipality will build the animal owner for whatever the fees were if they refused to pay he's going to issue a summon
for oh I think the verage use for the animal um saying those to Municipal Court um could it be that way or we could we could just make it a notice of violation with with any appeal here and the only reason I say that is you know
as you guys may or may not know you know if you talk with to D deal your zoning offic you know you may be sitting rash this with all the summ he issue but um you know municipal courts has a lot of problems handling so many issues now
because they have no teeth to make anybody even appear we're all Zoom first of all and if you don't show up there's no bench warant that can be issue there's no license suspension at the very there's no nothing so that these things just keep going kick down the road kick down the road it's very
frustrating a lot of zwing officers all all across the state um it's all came out they war and stuff six years ago so you know I've also been exploring and again if I can figure out an appropriate way to do it trying again bring some of
the zoning stuff instead of the summons and of course any summons does have to go to mle court that's work but can we somehow uh come up with a basically notice of violation process and due process would be an appeal here and then
if they don't show up here we can strike those office mpal leans and ultimately we'll get their attention because that can put on a tax um I think it's doable nobody's really tried that but the frustration
level uh really Statewide and I and I don't blame this in court I don't mean to say it's not the judges it's not the prosecut it's just they're they're kind of hamstring so um I have that in the back of my mind as far as this do too so
um but yeah we'll get both things uh on the agenda early next year that's been help help me understand this okay a dog is a dog is running at large for example okay Robbie picks it up takes it to the shelter
corre when the when it's identified when someone says oh that's my dog at the shelter right they just go pick up the dog yes why wouldn't they pick up the dog and pay shelter it's extremely leveraged they're going
to no sense to me we talked about this at length with our with our old ACL and um and the shelter has the the animal hospital has has really no no nothing in place to do that they have no
legal right to do that at this point incredibly inefficient they do abandon them I mean if your dog gets out but they're not going to they can't enforce the law no but they're paying for the three nights or whatever there's a very convoluted process that that hospital
theoretically could do that but they're not going to do that and they do have the right to send us the vill as alternate to our responsibility so they take the easy way out um they they there is a process by which they could chase the property but you know In fairness to these hospitals it's just too
com have to file I'm almost not saying that you want to get your dog back and write the check for the three nights the dog was there or whatever I that doesn't seem unrealistic no it doesn't but it's it's never been done as far as those shelters do that what's different this
year than was previous year running over the expenses to the kennels there's not that many places are taking them anymore and the ones that are taking them are getting very expensive right so they want to get a lot of money for help having the Ken but they don't want to help us collect the money so his
argument is it's just getting false prohibited to where you know the animal F find is it just can't sustain it anymore what about the part part of his comments had to do with cats if we pick up a stray cat that goes to the kenel
too they you well not feral cats only supposedly domestic cats yeah if they identify as AER you I remember you saying we don't deal with cats right well that's true
the past we didn't but when when the ACL picks up the dog does he check for um he does he does have a reader yes well the readers are kept at the uh at the count okay and I asked why that was the case he said because of the software
always being updated and he said basically you need a laptop or a computer use it anyway so the readers kept different Camp yeah the reader that we bought was obsolete in a couple of years yeah so I I did ask it's kept in
town need a computer anyway can access do they does the kenel contact the owner then right away the ACO the ACO does yeah before it goes to the kenel right but yes as far as a domes can't C
they they he's obligated to pick it up and take to the other thing Kevin talking about home but lot of rwn so I don't know how you put any on right well maybe we'll make it maybe
we'll make it an alternate you know we'll maintain a summons process as as a last resort for that type of situation you I'm still trying to I have a pretty good idea the way I think I want to set it up but you are right if you can't lean a rent um so we probably have an alternate process for that I think you
got no I think if we can get 75 90% we won't get everybody 75 80% yeah we're not going to get everybody can we dye their dogs red to shame them is that hello YouTube
you I'm thinking even if the kennel doesn't want to um force it whatever they can certainly say yes here's your dog here and your dog C while you're here like that's all I'm saying yeah I mean just to really
we could do the same thing we could do we could do that did anyone just hear Mr s just said no everyone was talking over I'm sorry I'm sorry BL you don't have to speak up Mr so you're G to be involved in this each dog owner and jam is required to pay for
a license if they get whacked at the kenel and they owe you money your license reflects that addition before they get it but that's good unfortunately we have a
lot of dogs that are picked up they not licensed and that's how we find out they're not license you know the owner comes and pick it up it's like well you know you didn't have a license either so again by that coming back to the municipality um if it's June July believe it's $5 for every month that in once every month that they're out of
January so not only do they be paying penal fees but they're paying licensing fees plus the lake Fe so really is a way of you know kind of relasing Our Own so how are we leaving this as as Karen
just said and I I agree again we're trying to build the fund but but if if if a if a dog is sitting at the kennel for 3 days and the people go to pick it up they should pay that kennel fee I'm not saying the fs are anything right but they should pay that kennel fee before they get their
dog but you're not going to get the kennels they don't want to do it so that makes that makes no sense Charlie so I I think going to need to have aers I think our our attorney kind of explained it very well they don't want to deal with it they don't have
to fee it's what it's their boarding fee oh really it's Aco we bringing it in bring ultimately us and this structur yeah we as a Township are bringing the dog to them it's not to say you can't attack
the service and and that's why Rob's trying to kind of do this through the back door and and I I think Rob's right that's the way we're going to have to do it but we'll do it via ordinance well I would kind of recommend that we allow our Municipal attorney to work with our ACO I know oh yeah
veryable subject it's already under way working next good thank you all right so let's stay in second gear can we talk about U another an issue because we keep getting letters
about should that would be executive session is it real yeah okay liation there's no litigation here yes it's
agree well it's all right this is that's a one-sided issue I think um what else do we have any other uh correspondence anyone wants to
go I think you see that there's another local Recreation Improvement Grant so we'll be working to provide the uh details and information on that I'm really really hoping that Eric is going to continue on his hard work on that for
what we've been doing over at wal Valley so just pointing that out thank you okay there's also which one you looking up it's the one right the Murphy administr Administration announces the
$20 million for the local Recreation not that one not that one sorry we was shared services yeah it was for um uh studies for districts uh local government entities such as counties municipalities school
districts authorities it's like a three page um nothing in all right then I will not put that it was just mentioned just because of all the storm water stuff
off it goes yeah that's that's a complaint letter whatever talk about a big a picture that that's September that's September email a couple days ago
party there you go that's yeah puffing puffing up his chest a former mayor by the way um that me a former mayor ref correspond great last week I see we got a successful inspection where is that is that a
municipal name b d d came inspected d you said it was satisfactory well that's a that's a private we get those I'm sorry we get those yeah just imagine having that on
your property that's there's no fun there's no fishing opportunity what you're asking from the township attorney have anything for us Kevin uh well I think there was a brief executive session just on a uh personnel
reti health benefits issue won't take very long but I met with the mayor and Christine and Christ earlier in the week just have to kind of get some guidance from how to respond um beyond that um just you know that Municipal housing
beon thing on there uh you guys have gotten a report from Jim Kyle a planner who was going to try to be here tonight but they could not be here but basically we look at his report he's basically saying hey if you want to try to comply with this next round uh his proposal is
like 12,000 and change um if you also want to comply we are going to have to do that principal house on position that requires some training not a lot but there is some online training for that there's paperwork um that's probably going to
have to have some type of not a huge but some type of modest stien with it so there's your cost as well um so you guys are going to have to decide by the end of January whether you're going to go with this fourth round or just forget it
um in in the same ve um and we don't have to do it tonight but I'll prepare for the next meeting uh the New Jersey Institute of local government attorneys has circulated a resolution in a bunch of data uh which I I also forwarded to you guys um basically they're they're
proposing a legislative fix to this issue which would change basically the numbers to make it very simply that were based on the census changes um that that's where the numbers came from that we're dealing with that the uh State
came up with the Institute of local attorneys say now let's be realistic and go off actually um building permits and Coos but really see how fast municipalities are really growing get a real picture if you went in that direction example you guys would go from
65 unit obligation down to 11 um they're asking every municipality to the FL resolution I think it's a good idea for you guys um so I'll have that for next meeting I don't know whether it goes anywhere to be honest with you anybody who went to the league I I
didn't make it this year but I understand there was a lot of discussion down at the league and Atlantic City on the issue you know and that's one of the other problems frankly you know you start spending 12 or $15,000 complying and then they throw it out and they change things so you're going to have
some decisions to make they don't they're not going to be tonight uh but they are going to be in the near future we'll have to deal with this uh early next year we do get we still get into that same thing I we're on round three to build it we're at the Peril of Builder's remedy but where would that
how in a practical matter how would that eat if you read I would say if you read flip over to the back of Jim report his second to last par basically said your exposure is pretty pretty he's like yes you would be exposed and it's kind of the same thing I've been saying kind of
the same thing judge Miller said last time when we kind of gave up on the the litigation your exposure is minimal I I will say this uh and I just learned this recently and I I I was unaware of this but it just happened uh D just uh again
you you have competing interests all across the state one of the very strong lobbying groups is the Builders Association and apparently they they just were able to push through um a r a rule change with the DVP that's going to allow Adit by rule process in other
words no no dppp approval needed for Onsite uh sewage Disposal Systems up to 20,000 gons uh that's a decent Siz project 20,000 G so that's a little bit of a
factor here that you know where you say well look we get a durational adjustment we have no public water theoretically you guys could have a farm in town that some developer you know R homes or somebody comes in says hey we'll we'll do one of these 20,000g systems on site and that so I'm
not saying there's no risk Jim KY wasn't saying there's no risk it's it's a pretty nominal risk but that's what you guys are going to have to weigh it's a it's a decision for you guys to make really we'll make it early next year I will also I did speak with J pal Foley
on this we discuss it at some length he couldn't be here tonight he did indicate he thinks if we meet him he probably could be here meeting on the 26 he's going to be flying back to Florida I guess Christmas night he said he thinks he can probably make it so if you guys think you want here let me know
and try try to get to here otherwise we can shoot for Janu our January meeting is still enough F to address all the stuff address I think January is probably the best too much up the yeah okay that was
really about it guys very good Township Clerk Kristen you got anything just a few things um first off I just want to state that the um election went well at the Flair s host company there was no problems but there also wasn't as big of a turnout as prior presidential election
thanks to the early election um I would like to have discussion in 2025 to making um all elections in one local place it did work out with all of full workers I'm not saying that the h the best place cuz unfortunately I didn't take trucks out with the TRS back in um
but hopefully we can find something more local for all districts um friendly reminder BR PL is December 7th uh that will be 8:30 to 10:30 it's going to be at thew building as always um another thing I don't know if you're all aware
of this but the Department of Consumer Affairs for the permits to construction Department here they are going to slowly start going digital um which could mean that we may not have many representatives here in
the office um in the building there's talk of them moving to asbery there's a lot of talk going on but nothing has been confirmed but I just want to put that on everybody's radar um that they are going digital and there may or may not be someone here right now they don't
have a construction officer because I Mr Miller retired and they don't have anyone taking his place right now so they are behind on a lot of stuff finally um to the committee members at
committee wber I provided you with the meeting dates that they would be in 2025 I would like you to look at them and let them discuss in December because I need to get the meeting calendar ready for our
we please and have a Thanksgiving lost my list already so um I see that we' just have them at one per month um I think that we've had had the um custom in past of having I
don't know a March or April extra meeting that's the budget meeting that we schedule after your Finance meeting and you ask everybody what that is so you don't want to set that if we can set it that's great but um again it's not something that we have done in the past
um but whatever works I just absolutely I just want to have it all in advance this way next meeting you can tell me we're not doing this this and this and we're going do it this I'm good with all of except for Christmas Eve
yeah do and my suggestion that's the 29th the following Monday is a fifth Monday so there shouldn't be any conflicts on that don't mind the audio any any any problem with you that
if there's something happens between now and then we'll deal with it maybe Joan will come up with the right IDE sorry um okay so I'll pcel in for December 29th and and then you'll just
look at the other dates and make sure they're okay yes nothing nothing on my birthday so that's that's good that's all right I just don't know I'm work got us all here this right now
it's fine I'm just making the statement just like today except it's going to be a year from now right yeah 365 all right Committee Member Lance I was just going to say I'm not going to be able to make any of Themis can you can you mark the audience aren you going to be our a guy
yes I was just actually who is doing that dotube Lorraine are you good with the camera all right try Okay Committee Member Lance what we have for us uh thank you um okay so the
finance committee did meet and we you saw the results of our meeting today we had have the emergency resolution for um you know the finances to complete the year um it's uh it's not a good place to be in but because we have to be stuck
with whatever is under c um it's a it's a lot of money you know um so that was what that emergency resolution that we passed earlier so that was that um it's overtime it's all over time um L's Town historic I um let's see on
November 2nd and 3rd we participated in the explore Warren history Trail um from what I understand we had upwards of 65 people come to visit us over at The Falls which is very nice um it's really really great to see that L's kind of so
well represented in the county as far as stuff like that um also we had the County B Centennial Gall um the will be celebrating 200 years next year but the event was held on November the 12th this
year to be able to kick it off there were people who came in Period GB it was really pretty outstanding it was over at the David's country in um there's going to be more interesting things to follow in the upcoming year and it was really really nice to participate in that um I
believe everyone has seen the jingle Eve is happening on Friday night this Friday night 600 p.m. um 6 p.m. will start the car parade the lit up cars and I they have somebody with the golf cart they
have somebody people ask if they could be in the parade with a horse uh and I think the insurance won't provide for it but if they're willing to sign a waiver who knows that could happen too um and as the mayor correctly said Saturday is
for small business um Saturday so uh that starts a jingle on Maine from 10:00 to 4: um May Street will be closed during that they are notifying all the different um they've already notified all the businesses they've already
notified all of the individual homeowners um and renters that are on Main Street there so if that's something that'll be happening it'll be a lot of fun um I did have fun helping to pick out and cut down the tree that is on the Gourmet gallery green and um that was
that was quite a fun thing to do um did you do that like midnight 2 a.m. what was that no it was during to day oh was okay this was a this is a plan today yeah and I'll tell you what the uh the tree was donated by um see Sunset
Christmas tree farm lovely lovely people uh definitely go get your tree here there's I think five or six uh tree farms in or near blown and I I really they were all jumping over to be able to donate that tree and um we just got
there first that's all there is um just to go through the rescue squad um lown ambulance let's see they they have fiscal year that they go through they just completed their year and they're saying it's going to be about 1,200
calls for the year um they have 40 members although only 20 of them are active but right now um they wanted to let me know that um three of the members are currently training for EMT certification it's a national
certification over at Newton hospital they'll be graduating in January so that's three more qualified people to be able to uh continue all of the good work that they do over there and that was about it I'm going to pass it back to you ma' very good thank you Committee
Member lman all right well speaking of Walnut Valley Field uh Dennis ke responded the fact that he has finished the test pits and they did the design of the proposed uh re septic replacement for Walnut Valley Field um their next
step is to get permitted they have a DP permit and Health Department permit that they want uh approval to go ahead and make I was going to tell him to move ahead with that unless anybody objects um and then uh with the plans that he forwarded uh I'll be able to
start shopping this around and uh get some bids doing work very good they give you any idea any all all so that all you got for us that's it
thank you Committee Member Mur okay we've already talked about Jones Park we talked about the AC dog License Act um for the police department uh two Awards the Chief came out this this past month um detective Joseph Beach the life
saving award on uh November 24th be responded to a residence um for a 75-year-old male choking in turning blue protected v r location and utilized the PE choker after three attempts he dis instruction was able to remove the
remaining pieces of food and the patient was able to loate again so congratulations to him since this award is to any member of the force his problem and alert action results in Saving and on November 19 I say his name and officer har are
getting the gallry Star Award officer Hart and toan T responded to a group home attach for subject armed with a knife is actually m m um the officers entered the residence and gave immediate orders for the subject to drop tonight
uh they he did not comply or did not comply uh officer uh the subject was distracted and did a quick takedown and immediately assisted by Officer har both officers PR s in danger to disarm the sub so further on that my understanding the subject was
over 300 lbs um gave them quite a fight both officers actually Ed up pH to the hospital and bike so you this to them and congratulations um the other thing I wanted to say is the uh Main Street as a par said would be closed on November
30th with being one main start 9:30 in the morning and till 4:00 and that's from the post office to carart Street um and the last thing is we offer our p is to officer bill um this father passed away on November
21st please and um one of things legal municipalities um thing that came out of that uh that I found very interesting social media and this affects all of us especially uh the planning board
12 subject of this earlier this year the state guidelines are coming out in December for the state employees for the Municipal Employees they expect it to come out in febrary basically what it's saying is
any social media account with the municipality owners or anything that they put on the website has to have an AR fighing process and anywhere from 1 to 5 years depending on what the for but then it goes on to talk about personal CS it's
most for the committee members and the board members on the language grp any social media you use whether it be Municipal email accounts your private email account your private social Facebook account whatever it may be if
you discuss Municipal business that would be being um an item that needs to be archived depending on what it is social media I they're talking about a year but again that's going to be Millen one by the state how long has be ared what they were talking
about is having the municipal computer whoever does our computer and ariving actually archives the committee members accounts social media accounts if they so be if they use it they gave an example one of the Mayors who uses social media a lot
to talk about town business public so they automatically grab his account and archive his personal account all this stuff is U subject to oo so your social media account your personal accounts all subject everything is
personal is redacted so the only thing you're really the public would ever get is anything that pertain to that specific subject that you were talking about that had to do in Municipal business to take it a step further is your texting on your own
personal phone that is also vable it's subject to archiving so they gave an example and again we felt um uh in this realm nor the Year langage Board uh there was a
municipality and there was a Facebook group that had something to do with against you know warehousing it wasn't Us by the way um and most of the members on this social media and on the board
land's board commented on that post wasn't whether they we're for or against but just the fact that they commented on it even liked it they like every member on this board had to estain so they actually had to put a whole separate
board in just to hear this you know subject's you know motion so again it's going to come out in February um it's a whole ball game for all of us none of us are subject for all us Bo this also brings a very interesting
point the fact that we're using the video I mean you always said you know it's not an official document of the municipality um it's not subject to Oprah well with these new guidelines that will be subject to O So something to look forward to in a couple
months that's actually very interesting because I was talking to the I'm sorry there guys I'm so sorry um the chief the other day CU our P our Facebook Page's Facebook p is connected to my Facebook and I do want to figure out how to
disconnect the two I don't know why it was done that way I kind of just in I hate using the word inherited and I'm not it Savvy to understand how to separate the two um but I may have to shut down our account and start a new
one with a new email um for the municip for the municipal yeah one of the things they they talk about in doing that especially for the police department is police saying turn off all comment so the police depart post you know main
going be Clos one me about comment and their argument is as soon as you open it up to the public you're going to get some type of argument out there and it's they said it's just a road you don't want to go down yeah so Municipal level same thing if you're going to use it for
just information you may not want to allow because now you're opening yourself up to have I don't think ours can have I don't think you can make comments but they're not visible where I can see well it's how set it up I mean look at personal page
everybody so but up another point though because you're saying that it's with the phone which I knew about that but you know again for those who have access to the Facebook it's on their phones so that would be the social media
account not necessarily the vehicle that you're using to to do it CU you can use a lot yeah cu the dat is not stored on the phone when you start sending text messages on your phone and you're talking about Municipal business that is definitely you know
subject to not only being AR it's subject open interes look for yeah the text messes that's well now being specific they're saying has the
AR the face our Facebook pag is AR go ahead very good Deputy Mayor orat well thank you mayor as you'll remember we had some members of the audience here last month concerned about
some trees over at the intersection of the cedar Bill and M road that at a school bus up they couldn't get any other uh satisfaction from anyone else and our guys went out there with their new uh high reach that we bought just
for that Purp for one of those purposes with a big man bask a big man platform to be able to work and it worked out greatly they trimmed the trees and they went on and did it in a few other uh locations also uh so that we've been utilizing that uh new piece of equipment
for these these uh trees that are painted there um also they were able to use it to put up Christmas tree lights this week we got the lights up which you'll see tomorrow night of course and they've been working they're pretty well done uh working on the
power uh extensions at Sycamore Park that were requested by little leag they Dev own the trenches uh with no really no cost in the town other than just digging the trenches literally stepped up and they they it was completely on their di to do the permitting and and uh
uh installation and everything so that's worked out really well so that's pretty much all I have tonight two things first of all that's going to be great have more generator running baseball games as as far as our high lift equipment that you just beened to you do know the
one we're using is a rental it is because within 3 hours on or something $160,000 in 20 hours of use Y and throughout the transmission in the a the axle got to go overseas it's come
back we have to see that wanted to charge that no that's not that's noten okay thank you thank you Deputy uh I just have a few things to to
talk about um Deputy Mayor and I uh tour the um very very uh I I I can't believe it's it's gotten so far into the construction uh we we the public certainly can't see it from the road but
uh the brand new library that will Deb in the spring uh from the road it doesn't look like they've they've done much can't tell you can't tell the the scope and the size of this building but uh it was very very impressive right
down to the architectural touches that they've made they they've Incorporated like a mid-century modern uh Motif plus the the the U the roofing inside when you enter the the the main entrance in the back all of the the ceilings are exposed wood and beams it's really going
a very nice facility and one that can uh can accommodate um the changing needs of people who are using a library and bringing people back to a library because I think a lot of people you know don't think uh there's much of a need anymore well this is going to be less of
a less of a uh focus on books and more of a focus on as a a meeting area as a learning area as a uh uh a project uh area they'll even have a recording studio in there it's it's going to be really very different um libraries are
evolving thankfully because uh we all grew up in them and um for 2024 you have to really kind of set your sales to uh to catch different wins for for Library goers but I think we're going to have a a beautiful um branch of the County
Library System we thank Emily hammer for bringing us through there uh also speaking of libraries I had the uh I had the pleasure of reading for some kids at the Blairstown Elementary School this past month thank you to Carrie Erikson the librarian there for allowing me to
do that met with uh uh Peter Karan the head of school for Blair Academy um their CFO has uh left them they have an interim CFO in place and uh we just had a really nice conversation I had never
met Peter and U really nice guy and we we'll be um we'll be talking quite a bit down the line uh also met with the uh president of Aqua New Jersey uh Natalie chesco um considering uh they're also
they're they're kind of um interested in the fact that we uh have a water system that uh we hope to uh to sell and um and the meeting meeting went great she she's very well versed in in local local Water Systems uh they are based in uh
Goldsburg so they can at any time come up and and take a look at uh at what we have and um and we'll we'll you know be uh continuing toh get to know them as we go through the process um and uh what else oh the uh
blairtown Hose Company number one had quite a few calls in the month of September 26 for blown three for Hardwick they had six Mutual AIDS two for freeling heis and two in n and two and hope and they also did U fire
prevention month for uh for October um and they uh they they went out and went to the uh to the uh school and stopped by and showed some kids uh all their their turnout year and uh
probably probably got a couple uh couple of kids in uh with the fire uh fire department service in mind CU it's it's ever growing Department it's really amazing to see the volunteerism that has has kicked into full gear uh coming out
of Co they're there up to like you know 35 active members of these uh of these meetings each month now so it's really it's really good to see that uh let's see anything else what else should I have here I think that's it for
me um we do have an executive session this evening and uh I would like to uh move to that now 2024 111 a resolution authorizing executive session for attorney advice
and contract negotiations do we have a motion to adjourn and enter executive session all in favor Happy Thanksgiving you too mik all in favor all all right welcome
back um spoke about a couple of things uh personal discussion on a postretirement healthare benefits coverage issue you guys give me some direction and I I'll continue the dialogue with the iring
attorney and we try to come to some here next month we had a discussion about some contal issues ETC no decision made on of that and I think that's about it Happ
do do [Applause] Park based upon the I'd like to move to get tiny out of the dog house I've seen a lot of free tiny t-shirts and I I'll do that I'll do
that tiny I definitely want all right all in favor there we go welcome back me that it's f and behave yourself kiddo okay do we have a motion to adjourn and enjoy our Thanksgiving Eve
I'll make that all in favor all B heyye Happy Thanksgiving God bless us