Yes, exactly that. Okay. Okay. I didn't see anything like that though. See, but a lot of her I mean grass grass. Summer has three chefs.
How are you? you know, okay. Okay. I appreciate that. ceremony last six-year-old. You can do like that. She's only like about. Kids that are very tall, right?
I really need to say, right? But it's a green. You know what I mean? just says my sister gets approved. So I just Right. Yeah.
Yes. Well, that would be great. Okay. Well, you got it'll put on your glasses. So, you know, like I don't know if you've read it. Oh, okay. I know. I understand that. Right.
It's kind of interesting. Sorry. We don't have your Mr. Weber has a minute and together all 94 pages. No, it's good. A lot of it was I already
knew but it was great. Thank you. Oh, yes. Yeah. Fascinating, right? All the statistics. Yeah. Very interesting. Yeah. But I have a question too. Like a lot of times says um because
Yeah. I'm curious. So that means that I was like there can't be that many houses. But you know how many houses were demoed in like I think it's 2017 houses.
They're under construction. I I wasn't sure that. Yeah. That's a good question. What you talking to me? Point of order. What's your point of order now? Talking
to me. Point of order. It's 6:39. 629. We're waiting on um the attorney and John Weber. Eric, get a word from now. Do you know Route 34? Call this meeting to order. Please stand
for the pledge of allegiance. 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. I wish to announce that the 48 hour notice is required under the
open public meetings act was emailed to the Asbury Park Press, the Coast Star, and the new poster on December the 19th, 2024. That copy has been placed on the bulletin board of the Burough Office, and that a copy has been filed with the municipal clerk. As a courtesy to the
public, this meeting may be attended via Zoom. If for any reason Zoom fails or is disconnected, the inperson meeting will continue without interruption and action can and will be taken providing that there is an inperson part. Mr. Noble here, Mr. Blet here, Mr. Nikki here, Mr.
Weber here, Mayor Kubatosi here. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for joining us this evening. Uh we are going to jump into item number five on our agenda. uh having holding a public hearing uh and adoption for the
2025 budget amendment and municipal budget. And just by way of quick background, we've been through a process already to this point where we've introduced the budget. We've uh created an amendment to that budget. We had a public hearing on the amendment to the budget our last meeting. So tonight uh
after this public hearing, we the council will take action whether or not to adopt the amended budget. So, um, with that said, I'll make a motion to open the public hearing on 2025 municipal budget amendment. Um, is there
a second? Second. Mr. Noble? Yes. Miss Greenblat? Yes. Mr. Noiki? Yes. Mr. Weber? Yes. Mayor Katosi? Yes. Anyone with any questions or comments about the 2025 amended budget? Mayor Fox
second. Sorry about 601. Not like that. It didn't even um I just had a couple questions. Number one, has the fund balance analysis with for replenishment 25 budget? Yes.
Uh we have not completed a replenishment analysis at this point. Okay. Well, we introduced the budget or you introduced the budget two months ago. I guess it's always been a practice or requiring them to do that. Why why
isn't it done? I guess my question. Part of the challenge has been the lack of data integrity that you know that we started the process with. Um I actually responded to this question in a private
email to Mr. Farenbach where um to the best of our knowledge from what data we we can observe we believe we have the ability to replenish. That said, um, prior 3 years under your administration, for example, um, replenishment analysis
was nowhere close to what the actual results turned out to be. So, we've got some faulty historical data. I'm not suggesting it's your u your fault, Mr. Mayor, but rather um it was very
difficult to rely upon the data. Now what we what I can tell you and the public is for the past seven years we've had roughly a million dollars of anticipated surplus 887 or 977 you know orders of magnitude 1.1 million for
three years in a row but if you go back seven years we've always had roughly a million dollars of anticipated surplus over the past three years um we drained surplus a million dollars despite the fact that the replenishment analysis said we could replenish uh the following
year that was 22 and 23 we drained surplus 600,000 even though the replenishment analysis said we could replenish and then last year uh per the uh AFS at least we have we don't have audited statements but the uh 2024
budget sub uh the replenishment of the of the budget has said u has indicated that we not only replenished 700,000 we added to surplus plus 1 million. So we've had fluctuations of over a million dollars two out of the last three years
rendering some of these prior analyses totally irrelevant. Right. Well, I would talk to the 24 Mr. regards to the pretty thorough analysis and I'll I'll actually provide this to you because this question's been coming up
uh in this film and in fact um he had stated right up front when he did the analysis on April 10th of last year that it was a conservative analysis. So we started the balance that he
forecasted was about a million5 it came in at 2.4 4 million which we expected it to come in favorable. So yeah it was not exact to a million4 but in fact it was conservative in fact when
you built not only um some surplus in that account but also in the growth utility account. So, I believe that the 2024 analysis was a was a good analysis. And again, I I would just state that I would have expected that we would have
done that for 2025. We're going up about 94% in this uh surplus use uh in one year. It's about 42% over the six-year average. So to your point earlier uh I looked at the
six year average it's about 42% more this million 405 and I realize that the rationale is speculative on the sale and proceeds of 319 but to me it really doesn't dismiss the analysis as appropriate and fiscally responsible. Um so I just want to make
that comment. Um the other comment, the question I have is that and this is more directed to mayor. Um in the past, um you and another resident have pretty much railed on what you call a surplus adjusted tax rate. Um I would even
suggest, not suggest, but state that you campaigned on that last year. I thought I had the document, but I don't a graphic. Yeah. A graphic showing what we called a what you called a
surplus adjusted budget. Um I don't particularly agree with that uh and that approach for for a lot of reasons. Um but my question is um it seems as though
that is something that was looked at and brought up numerous times. Do you have a handle on what the surplus adjusted budget increasees? Well, we expect it to be neutral. We
expect the we expect to be able to replenish the surplus. If we do that, the increase would be the 2.7% budgeted tax rate. Maybe I state my question. When you remove the surplus, I my calculations
are that the spending levels at at the least are 6% up. If you did add in the um the Grand Avenue, it would be up 9%. So when you remove that surplus and just
look at spend, it's not 2.76%. It's minimal 6%. And as high as 9%. Well, again, if you're using the materials I campaigned with. No, I'm using actual No, I'm saying to to calculate your version of the materials
I use. No, I'm not using your materials. I'm using the budget document. And I'm saying that last year to this year without the surplus spend is up 6% minimally and when you add in 319 rate it's up 9%. So my point is that the 2.76
is somewhat of a misnomer. Do I agree with this surplus adjusted budget conversation? I don't. But I was just curious that it was such a a strong point that you continued to bring up along with another resident that you would have looked at it this year. I I
think we're we're sitting here. I'd love to answer your questions, but I think we're talking apples and oranges because the surplus adjusted data that I provided and to your point that I campaigned on it was a combination of two things. What was the tax increase 2
3 5% whatever and what was the impact on surplus in that same year? So in a year where you had a tax increase of 1.7 or 9% and then you drained surplus of 20% of taxes, I added those two numbers
together. I don't have a drained surplus. I don't have an added to surplus number yet for 2025. I expect it to be neutral. If it is neutral, our surplus adjusted number for this budget would be 2.76%.
So you're calculating, you're adding in your own spend for this year. It's not a spend number. It is a surplus adjusted number as you described it. Right. But you would you would agree that if you took the surplus out, it's a minimal 6% and as high as 9% just on a spend. So I
don't know, you've got numbers you've calculated. When you say 6%. Yeah, I provide it to you. Regardless the Are you, for example, including dollars budgeted to pay an employee over $100,000 over a couple years that your
administration was supposed to pay and didn't? Are are you including that in your calcul? I'm just including if that's in the budget. It's in our budget. Yes. You can't be including it because you wouldn't have known about it. Well, no, I'm just taking the document that was provided to the to the public. That's what I'm taking. I'm
looking at wages and other expenditures and it's up 6% without 319 Lorraine. It's up 9% with 319. Obviously, we throw out 319 Lraine because that is a onetime expenditure. Correct. No, no reason to keep referencing 9% unless you want to
count $4 million of revenue coming in, give or take. Well, it's not going to be $4 million of revenue when you net it down. Not when you net it down, but revenue coming in will be $4 million before we net it down. You don't want to count that, I presume. No, I'm talking I'm really looking at 20 or 25. You're
talking about spend, but if you're going to count a demolition charge expense appropriation of 380,000, that's that's deceptive to the public. And my and as I said, my point on that is that it is speculative. Um, do we expect to get that revenue? I would
assume we would, but it is speculative and the numbers are the numbers. It is 9% when you look at the numerator and denominator. I'm not arguing that. I'm saying do you do you understand the number of one-time expenditures appropriations are in that number?
I I numerous one-time expenditures that we do expect to be able to recover. We do hope to and expect to uh retain most if not all of the net revenue that we gain from the church. We believe that we have
uh sufficient buffer in our uh our appropriations and we we have ant unanticipated revenue that we should have increased about $300,000 this year because for example we've raised fees on well we will be raising them on zoning
and construction. We already have those ordinance amendments drafted and we've already raised them for court fees. We expect the total unanticipated revenue to increase 300,000 this year. Last question. The capital forecast is the three and the five-year capital
forecast done. Has it been completed? We have a It is not included in this budget yet. It It is uh I talked to Mr. Varbach. Mr. Varbach has agreed to share with us information that your administration
pulled together did not share with us, but he said there was a six-year forecast. The budget thoughts were 23 and 27. Well, we had it. Um, it's in the documents. I'm sorry. The detail.
Um, it we have not adjusted it since last year, but Mr. Veron indicated to me that he had updated data which we will include subsequently. So, we don't have a capital forecast right now for 25. We have what was
rolled over from last year. Well, we haven't submitted anything into the state as to in the budget document the 25 to the 15th page. Before I answer, I I want to say yes, you're right. But before I do, let me turn and ask to see
about Did we update it? It was not included. Um it will be amended. Okay. And I don't think that's required. I don't think it's requirement that you have to amend. Yeah. So, so we'll amend it to um uh because there are some projects that are going to be coming down. So, it has to be amended. Okay.
All right. Thank you. Thank you. I'll try to keep everyone else on a fivem minute path, but next Mr. Cohen. Sure, mayor. The 380,000 Tom J. Co3rd Avenue, uh the 380,000 that
you're including in this budget in the amendment, um that's for the demolition of the church. Correct. Okay. Now for 2024 when the church was supposed to be demolished was that money 380,000 in the 2024 budget.
It was it was not and it was not. It was not. Okay. But now it is. So now we really have a true budget going through and the expectation is that uh if the sale takes place for over $4 million. Um and I I believe we previously heard that
this money net go into the capital fund and not into the general. Is that correct? My understanding of the of the flow of the dollars is it comes through the current fund as as margin and then we uh
move it to the capital fund to extent we extent we want to we got two C MFOs here. Yes. Well well the previous CFO said it was up to the council and I just want to clarify that that is the council's intent. The council it's my
intent. The council has not officially voted one way or the other. uh s let me ask the cos to comment. Well, so if you you take in the revenue as a sale of municipal assets and it would go through the current fund as you're stating and then I believed and I don't want to
speak for anybody but the intent was to take care of the debt associated with it and then you would have the net amount which talking round number still say $2 million. I don't know that there is a plan or what's going to happen with that $2 million whether it's part of it is
going to go back into you know fund balance and then in the 2026 budget whether you um increase cash capital projects whether whatever you're going to do with the money but that's that's if there's and correct me if I'm wrong I don't think we've gotten that far where
the money is going to go beyond the I just like to clarify um that is the debt required the bonding require required to be paid down and the asset is is sold. I I don't know yet. I don't know when the asset is sold when you incur the
debt. It gets paid down. Okay. So, you can even set up a reserve, right? Depending on how it's bought. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. And that and you were referencing existing debt. The 380,000 uh you know is going to be covered by
that in revenue. Yes. Thank you. Any other questions in the room? Any questions on Zoom? Is there any questions? There are no hands. Oh, sorry. I've got this thing in the way. Miss Kepler, did you have a question?
Um, Pat Kepler, 504 Central Avenue. Um, good evening, esteemed council members, Mayor Kubatosi, and fellow residents. I stand before you this evening during these public comments to address a striking irony that's not gone unnoticed. It is both surprising and
frankly perplexing to hear a former mayor whose tenure was marred by significant financial mismanagement now attempting to lecture our current administration on the principles of fiscal responsibility and the timely passage of a municipal budget. Allow me
to elaborate. During the previous administration, under the leadership of the former mayor, our town faced serious challenges in maintaining financial integrity. Independent audits conducted during that time revealed multiple material misstatements, errors, and
oversightes that called into question the accuracy and reliability of our town's financial reporting. These were not minor clerical mistakes. They were substantial issues that eroded public trust and raised serious concerns about the stewardship of our taxpayer dollars.
Such missteps created unnecessary hurdles for our community, forcing us to grapple with the consequences of for poor oversight and questionable at best decision-making. Perhaps even more telling is the issue of the budget process during that
administration. The former mayor presided over a period when our municipal budget was not finalized until August and an astonishingly late date that left our town scrambling to allocate resources, plan for essential services, and meet the needs of our
residents. This delay was not a one-time occurrence, but a reflection of a broader pattern of inefficiency that hindered our community's ability to function smoothly. public works, for example, and community programs all felt the ripple effects of this tardiness,
and residents were left to bear the burden of uncertainty. Now, contrast this with today's situation, our current administration under Mayor Puettosi has worked diligently to present a budget that reflects the needs and priorities of our community. While no process is
perfect and we acknowledge that finalizing the budget by today may not have been ideal, it is a far cry from the delays and the disarray of the past. The current administration has shown a commitment to transparency, collaboration, and fiscal discipline,
qualities that were sorely lacking in previous years. To have the former mayor, whose track record speaks for itself, now step forward to criticize this administration's effort is not only ironic, but it borders on absurd. I urge
this council and our community to focus on the facts. Fiscal responsibility, it's not achieved through empty rhetoric or selective memory, but through consistent, accountable actions. Mayor Gubossi and this administration are working diligently and tirelessly to
move our town forward, addressing past mistakes, at the same time building a stronger financial foundation for our future. Let us not be distracted by the critiques of those who own records fail to withstand scrutiny. Instead, let us
support the ongoing efforts to ensure our town's resources are managed wisely and our budgets are passed with the urgency and care that our residents deserve and voted for. Thank you all for your time and attention and I encourage this council to continue its work with
integrity and to keep the best interests of our community at heart. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? I will make a motion to close the public session. Second, Mr. Noble, yes. Miss
Gree, yes. Mr. Noiki, yes. Mr. Weber, yes. Mayor Guboszi, yes. Um, I'll open it up to discussion among the council. Any comments or questions about the amended budget? Good.
Okay. I will uh make a motion then that we um vote to uh approve resolution 2025-216 the adoption of the 2025 municipal budget. Second Mr. Noble. Yes. Miss
Reblat. Yes. Mr. Nikki. Yes. Mr. Weber. Yes. Mayor Guboszi. Yes. Okay. One exciting session after another. We are now going to talk about Six on our agenda, uh, workshops. We are
going to have our planner, Miss Jennifer Beam, uh, share with the council an overview of our housing element and fair share plan. Good evening. Good evening. So, several months ago, I was here to basically
give you my anticipated implementation plan on how to address our affordable housing obligation for this fourth round. Um the DCA's number came in at 30 units of new construction.
Uh and our rehab obligation is 64. What we've done since I've been here last is we've done and completed the vacant land adjustment as I said that we were going to and the realistic development potential or RDP is 13
units. Um so that would leave 17 units of what they call unmet need that has to be addressed through zoning. We have proposed to satisfy that obligation through negotiations with the owner of
803 Maine who came in two years ago to get an approval um which had 18 units some commercial and no affordable units proposed. They have amended their proposal increasing the number of Venus
from 18 to 24, four of which would be affordable, still with a a modest commercial component and um pretty much able to comply with our current zoning requirements uh along Main Street.
Because uh this development is approximate to Mass Transportation, we're able to take a half a credit per unit for a total of two bonus credits, resulting in six total credits from that project.
In addition, we have two Oxford houses located here within Bradley Beach. One has nine bedrooms and the other has six. Um we were not able to take credit for these units in the past because they don't
maintain lensure with the state um as with like a technical group home for supportive needs. However, the new legislation that was adopted last year now allows for municipalities to take credit for these um sober living facilities. So, in addition to the 15
beds which we get credit for, we're able to take one bonus credit uh for a total of 16 credits resulting in a total of 22 credits for this round against the 13 unit obligation. We have nine surplus
credits that don't go away. We can use those in the next round. And just a refresh, this round is 2025 to 2035. Um, in addition, we have committed to participating in the county's program in
for the rehabilitation units, which is basically what is required uh in order for the court to deem that we're in compliance with that rehabilitation obligation. So, basically that handles, you know, our obligation.
Now, if we move over to the unmet need. So, in order to the legislation requires that whatever we do in terms of zoning and I know that um we've been working very closely with Delaney's board um on this issue has to
at least be able to to produce 25% of the unmet need. Uh so it's not super clear in the legislation whether it's 25% of the fourth round unmet need or it's 25% of the total from the beginning. We have taken I've discussed
this with multiple attorneys that are doing this throughout the state. We have taken the position that the legislation regulates round four. And so it would be 25% of the 17 units which we can do through an overlay zone over Main Street from you know north to south. We have a
draft ordinance that was provided as part of the housing element and fair share plan that your lanes board adopted. It is very rough, you know, given this ridiculous time frame on how municipalities have to get all these plans approved and submitted to the
court by June 30th in order to maintain things unity. We were working through some zoning when we were dealing with this issue in the prior round before we opted to withdraw. So we have included that as a good stepping stone as a draft
commitment to overlay Main Street for mixed use. The special adjudicator at the time was Mary Beth Vanigan and um Rachel Larkin from Fairchair Housing Center was working with myself and Ron Cherro on coming up with a draft
ordinance for Main Street. They had proposed um on each end, the north end and the south end to allow for standalone multif family residential a commercial component. We never got far enough along in that negotiation to even get
governing body weigh in at that point. Um it definitely was something that they've asked for. I fully anticipate um Mary Beth asking for the same thing. But all we're required to do to put in here to maintain compliance with this June 30th deadline is a draft ordinance.
And I know we've spoken TJ and I actually just recently that you know we'll be working with you know you as well as the ladies board to come up with an overlay that you feel comfortable with in terms of height density 100%
multif family mixed use whatever you'd like to go in there. Um, but right now we needed to put something in here in order to maintain compliance because part of the legislation requires that these draft ordinances be incorporated into the document. Typically, we wouldn't even have included it until we
were further along in the process. Um, in addition to that overlay zone on Main Street, we're required to have what they call a mandatory set aside ordinance, which means that if any project anywhere within the burrow is five or more units,
20% have to be affordable with a minimum of one. Meaning, if it's what happens and and we've seen this throughout the state is when you just say five or more at 20%, you wind up with a lot of four unit projects with no affordable units as part of them. So the minimum of one
um but anything five or above it would be 20% affordable to comply with that requirement. And then lastly we have the development fee ordinance which you approved last year. So that is still in effect where any a development that takes place in in the burrow. If it's a
residential in nature it's one and a half% of the equalized assessed value or the change in the assessment. So if someone does an improvement on their house, it's not of the total assessment. It's on what the improvement changed. If there's no change in the assessment, there's no fee. And on on
non-residential development, it's 2 and 12% and that actually is now incorporated into the municipal lane law. So there's really no wiggle room with respect to that. But other than that, you know, that is our plan in a nutshell. The when was the meeting? Do you remember? Was it last week? Two
weeks ago. Two weeks ago. So the ladies board approved this two weeks ago. The document was submitted to the court. The legislation requires that the document be submitted to the court within 48 hours of any lame board planning board approval. So that was submitted. So I
know in your regular meeting you have a resolution endorsing uh this document on on the agenda. Uh that would be forwarded I mean tomorrow hopefully. But other than that, we're in good shape and we anticipate
getting comments back probably mostly from Fair Share Housing Center. They have till the end of August to appeal or issue comments or what have you. So I anticipate that in the fall any kind of negotiation and discussion, any kind of proposed amendments will be coming at
that point in time after which time all these zoning ordinances would be adopted. So the legislation requires them to be adopted basically by the first quarter of next year, but there's no harm in doing it. If we have a plan everyone agrees upon, we can just adopt
the ordinances and and we're good. We would maintain immunity, get a judgment proposed until 2035. Great. Thank you. Questions for Miss Me? Yes. Can we go back to the four unit developments? Is that with the minimum
of one does that mean that nobody builds four unit like I'm just trying to No, it means like if you come and you have a proposal for a project that has four units, one of them has to be affordable. Okay. Even though it's not 20%. Correct. So what if you have a proposal for building three? I'm just wondering if
the developers just ratchet it down. One of them will be affordable. Minimum of one. Okay. Two. One will be affordable and then one one will be affordable. If you want to if you're just going to build a single family house. No. So, this is this is more like multif family. So, it would be more like a But if
you're building one, that's not multi family. No. So, you're not asking for multifamily. What I'm thinking is is that it be like a mixed use kind of thing or some kind of like multif family development. It would not if if you're building a single family house, that would not kick the man. Does it depend
on the zone or does it depend on what you're building? What you're building. What you're building. Yes. So if you're someone, let's say, comes for a use variance and wants to build, you know, a townhouse project or a department project in an area that you don't allow
it and the board approves it. I haven't seen that happen here, but let's say it happens, then that afford that mandatory set aside would have to kick in. Okay. But I'm trying to get to the like trying to think like how the developers are going to try and get around this by just
you know well that's why the minimum of one is there because what happened was historically it would just be if you have five or more 20% have to be affordable which is one. So you have a litany of these projects which just have four units. So that never kicked in. Understand? So but what if you're just building a duplex?
If it's multif family and it's not permitted under the zoning you would have one of them would have to be further. Gotcha. Well, that's good. Then I have another question. So, take it back to the beginning. You used a term, you're going through the numbers, and I was all very familiar with it until you
said, "So, we have the 17 units of unmet need." I was, I had my head around the 13 is our obligation, right? And we've already, you know, calculated how we're moving that, but the 17 of unmet need. I'm not like, how does that
the DCA gave us a number of 30, right? We adjusted the 30 to 13 and that's our obligation. So 30 - 13 equals 17. So the 17 units that are left don't just evaporate, they go into what we call unmet need, which is why we have to do the zoning. Okay. But the 13 is what our
actual obligation is. Like we have to provide those units credits. Yes. Okay. So the 17 they expect that to be addressed in the like anytime in the next 10. We just have to provide the zoning. If not one unit is ever built, it doesn't matter. We've complied with
the unmet need by providing the overlay zoning overlay of Main Street and the mandatory set aside. Those are the mechanisms that the court will accept to address that unmet need. Okay. And we're actually providing the the obligation of 13 through what you said, the 801 lane and combination of the Oxford housing
that previously didn't count. Okay. Correct. Um just and I'm just saying all this because you know there's been some people that are very adamant advocates for affordable housing as they should be and they've come here and they've said a lot of things and I feel like the town is doing everything that we are supposed to do and we're doing it and we're
getting there and they've stopped coming because they think it we're not doing anything or something. So um um appreciate your efforts and explaining this in plain English and thank you very much for other question. Just adding to that, I think um we've been the most,
especially thank you to you, Mayor Gupatossi, we've been the most proactive uh mayor and council ever. Um these development fees were created, but they were never enforced. So, this is the first year that we're doing that. We're complying with the state regulations. We're improving the housing stock. We're
building up the trust. So, I think these are all great things. Thank you for your time. Thank you for the land use board as well because I think we're really and and we're exceeding what we have to do. So I think this is really good news. So I I have a question. So on the 64 rehab units that program that we have to put
in place um how is that going to come about? What's the timeline of us putting that into place? We're collecting the fees on on development fees. Correct. And so, uh, there's other obligations that we would have to do. Set set the, uh, the account, the trust account, um,
accumulate that money and then advertise also hire a a, um, a person to manage that, administrate that. Yes. And that's that's tied to the county program. Could you just elaborate on that a little bit on the time frame that we would have to do this? So, so the 64 units is over the duration of this round, which is 2025 to
2035. So, you have uh, 10 years to do it. However, you don't have to physically rehab 64 units. You just have to provide the opportunity and earmark the money in your spending plan that would accommodate 64 units over the 10
year. It's really actually 11-year period of time. Um, what that means, you the bureau will have to hire what they call an administrative agent. th that administrative agent will manage not just the rehab and the coordination with the county but also the four units that
are being constructed at 803 Maine making sure that it's affirmatively marketed meaning it has to be marketed to the whole region Mammoth Ocean Mercer County uh make sure the individuals are income qualified you know they go through all of their income information make sure they're qualified and make
sure that the deed restrictions are in place because these affordable units have to be deed restricted um They also will coordinate the rehab program. And the way the rehab program works, it's not really a timeline. Once this gets adopted and and honestly the the
spending plan and the revenues coming in are are a projection because clearly we can't predict the future. So we're projecting how much revenue the bureau will get over the course of this round. We project how much it will cost. You know there are things that are required.
30% of your balance has to be earmarked for affordability assistance. Meaning like if someone came in and said, you know, their HOA fees were too high and they can't maintain, you know, their income qualified and they can't maintain this, you know, there could be programs put in place to give them money under
this affordability assistance assuming, you know, they're going to be willing to de-restrict their house and those types of things. Um so that's a projection obviously but um all you have to do to maintain compliance with this rehab program is provide the
fact that you are participating in the program you have an administrative agent and you provide if you're marked revenue or money in the spending plan for rehabilitation over the course of this of this round. The way the rehab program works is, you know, obviously you have to be
income qualified and it's for things like bringing your house up to code, maybe replacing a roof, maybe replacing some windows, those types of things. And then if you leave your house before a 10 years is up, you have to
repay the money back to the trust fund. If you stay in that unit beyond the 10 years, then it's forgiven almost as if it's a grant, not a loan. Um, I will say it's going to be challenging in a community like this because, you know,
the the property values are pretty significant. Um, and I find that in all of my coastal communities really, you know, but the opportunity is there. We have to provide for, you know, the obligation. And you know, in the event
that we're looking at uh a budget situation where the trust fund doesn't have the money to pay out all the stuff, there's an opportunity at that time to do what they call a windshield survey where you go through town and you identify, are there really
64 units here in Bradley Beach that are, you know, out of code in terms of things? I don't know. I I haven't done the windshield survey, but that option exists in the regulations in if in fact it becomes an issue moving forward. But
right now, we have it earmarked for approximately six per year, which would get us to 60. So, like the last couple years, you know, it's like seven for the last couple years just to hit the 64 number. So, so theoretically, so theoretically if in fact um the plan
gets approved and then um we have to hire our administrative agent and we have to advertise proactively and we have people coming through us applying for assistance but there's not any money yet enough money accumulated. So there
would be an obligation then for us to um somehow be able to fund that. You would have to you would have to bond for it, but you can bond against the trust fund. And I I I did hear somebody in the past make a suggestion from the community
that perhaps there could be a donation from say with the proceeds of 319 LAR that could also help shore this up and so we could also do innovative things like that to be able to ensure that we are building that trust. Absolutely. You would just have to take whatever I mean that would be up to you and then you
whatever amount you decided if you decide that to be pushed into the trust fund that fund has to be a separate I know she knows this cuz she knows what she's looking down there but has to be a separate fund separate and apart from all your other funds and things like that you know and then what the court
will require is you know the bank the interest rate all that good stuff which she's provided for us right thank you go ahead I have one more please on windshield survey thing. I agree. Yeah, we're probably not going to find 64 unit right in the front houses. The people's
back houses I think potentially could be affordable housing. But how do how would that work? Never mind, you can't see them through the windshield, but we figure out let's say we found them. But if the you know the value of the property or the income of the owner, I mean, you know, it it's going to be
tough here. That's, you know, and I find that, you know, I do this basically from, you know, manage phone all the way up through deal. I have to tell you, I have seen single digit rehabs. Okay.
And then when you say something's not up to code, could it just be peeling paint? Could be. I could have been on that list. Me, too. I'll take it. I did have my house painted this, so I think I'm off the list. But it could be a bad roof. It could be Yes. anything that's not up to code. Correct. So, it could be something
that simple. But, but on this point, if it's a a highinccome individual, they would not qualify. They would not qualify. Right. Right. But still, they wouldn't qualify. But just because there's 64 houses doesn't they don't know how much these people are earning. No. And that's
that's why you have the administrative agent that would go through the process of income qualifying, right? You know, and and the income levels vary depending upon the size of your household, right? So a single person household income levels are significantly less than if you're in a household of five or six people that it's not one income. It's
dependent on the size of your household. So I I think it's important to so number one thank you for all the work you've done for us and I know you've had a very intense six-month period uh culminating with June 30th. as you're getting a Jeep
up. Um I I think it's important to say for the public's benefit that uh others have made reference to this, but this council is doing everything in our power to not only comply, but to aggressively push forward making funding available
for affordable housing. Uh, I had someone suggest in an email to me recently that the burrow, our residents are somehow discriminating against lower income people that we collectively, not just me, not just the council, the
burrow is anti- low-income individuals. I have seen no evidence of that. Clearly, none on this governing body. Um, you mentioned, Miss Bean, that uh, you know, and I forgive you for being awful a couple years, but you said last year we introduced the uh, the the
ordinance for uh, development fees. It was actually introduced and adopted in 2017. Yes. But that was not correct. Yeah. So, we did recently adopt a new ordinance and establish the fund I think last year.
I just so those ordinances that were adopted in 2017 were never formally approved by the board or by DCA whoever was managing it at the time because there was no adopted housing element fair share plan. Um so that was redone
recently in any plan and and the point being uh there have been efforts underway for years right through to my first two weeks in office this year where we flicked the switch and said let's start collecting these fees. Um
there has been already very preliminary discussion just one-off discussions about could we take a chunk of money put it in this trust because our trust is bare because we have not been collecting for could have been seven years. So this you know we're talking to different
developers in town. You mentioned one of them uh the auto tech property and we've worked out at a compromised position there. We're talking to other developers as well to try to secure units as well as potential funding to support this. So, I appreciate your efforts to support
us, but as our message to the community, we're doing everything in our power. Even though we are deemed to have satisfied our current obligation, we are doing everything in our power to continue to provide affordable housing. And all that is going to do is set you
guys up for success in round five. Because the more units you accumulate over the 13, you know, they don't go away. You still are able to take credit for them in in subsequent years. I was actually in Plainsboro Township on Monday night and their entire plan was
built of surplus units that they had done in the prior round. So there was no new developments node. It makes the process that much easier and way more difficult for anybody to challenge when you have surplus units on projects that have been approved and what have you. For sure. So no other questions from
this man. So no council questions. Okay. So typically one second. Typically, we would hold uh public questions for anything related to the workshop until we get to uh item number nine on our agenda. However, in
the interest of letting Miss Beam go home, I'm going to open up questions for the public now so we can take advantage of Miss Beam while she's here. Mr. Ken, you had your hand up. Yes. Thomas J. Cole Avenue. Um being that everyone's in the room, Mr. Canon, Mr. Dy Speed. Um at
our last meeting when we did adopt this plan on the land use board we did uh schedule a workshop for I believe it's our July 17th meeting of the land use board because all the land use board members were concerned about the draft ordinance but they have some really
really good concepts in terms of the do and the OP zones so that I think we can really work through it quickly. My question really to Mr. Canon and Miss Beam is do we uh expedite it now and do it in 2025 or do we wait and do it in
January of 2026? I mean, if we have I think you have to see how the process plays out after we file it. If if you have objections, then it might it might take longer. Um I I don't think we can play that timeline until we see what
happens for at least the first time period. I mean, there's nothing to prevent us from doing it in 2025. But I I agree with Mr. Ken and that's, you know, there's so many unknowns. This process is brand new and so we're not really sure, you know, like right now the focus is June 30th. So, we're not
really sure what we're going to get over the summer. We may get nothing, right? We may get people coming out of the woodwork. We just don't know. I would not recommend adopting the ordinance until we have the balance of the plan pretty much set. we will be expeditious
in terms of 100%. I mean, there's nothing to stop us from doing the work now, right, to to set us up so when the time is right, we're ready to go. There's nothing to prevent that from happening. It just I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend adopting any of these ordinances until we get farther through.
We'll just turn it over to you and you know, once once we've completed the land, we'll just turn it over to you. I'm sure will have a comment. Yes. and uh being a winner Law Group is the affordable housing attorney who's handling specific compliance filings. Um and yeah, we'll turn over to them and
they'll tell us and then the ordinance changes will be done here though, right? Ultimately, yes. Thank you very much. And then come back to you and then come back here. Yes. You'll be in the loop. We good. Other questions? Yes, sir.
Check them up, please. Yeah. actually who would state name and address. Um I'm Bob McCallister from 412th Avenue and um I had a question uh with respect to the credits for the Oxford houses. Uh
what is our level of confidence that those are not going to be subject to challenge? So historically because they don't have lenture through like the state of health and human services or developmentally disabled uh the process would not accept
those bedrooms as credits because they they would just not allow for it. This legislation which just got adopted last year has changed that. So it specifically says that they're eligible for credit. And how do we assure that they are affordable? They're affordable
just by the nature of the fact that they're supportive needs housing. Is that right? Yes. Same as a group home. Okay. Because um I had a question about the plan because the plan says that Bradley Beach maintains them. Maintains meaning has
them here. I don't think that's the case. Right. That word is used to say Bradley Beach has them physically here. So privately owns and operate. Yes. Yes. But we're certain that there will be income requirements so that they will be
afforded. No, they're affordable just by the simple fact that it's supportive use housing. There, that is one of the groups of preditable use types. So, if there was a group home of developmentally disabled adults, which is regulated as a single family home, so would not need any board approval or
what have the time utilize that they're there because they really just pull a building permit. They don't income qualify the individuals. It's a registered supported needs housing. You get credit per vendor. Okay. Thank you.
Um the other um part that I I was concerned about was the present need and we talked about this a bit at the land use board as well. Um 64 units is big. Yes, I agree. Belmar's number is zero. I
understand. Belar is bigger than we are. the DCA creates the numbers which is why I said if we wind up in an issue we can perform that windshield survey and then okay my my only reason for raising it and the reason I raised it at land use was it's something that we really need
to think a lot about and figure out how do we satisfy ourselves that we don't have a big problem because if you look at the plan we could be talking about overcrowding we could talk could be talking about inadequate plumbing. We could be talking about inadequate
kitchen facilities. It's a bad look for Bradley Beach to have a big number like that. So, if the number's wrong, that's great. But how do we figure out whether it's it's real? And if it is real, what do we do about it? So, the building department would have to go through
through the burrow and do a windshield survey of every structure and then give us a detailed detailed information about each and every unit here. and they would come up and say 64 is not real. We found 15. But they would have to go through that exercise.
Jen, on this point, and we, as you mentioned, Mr. Macaus, we talked about this uh and I asked questions as well about this at our last land use board meeting. Um, that windshield survey, you were alluding to some of this process earlier that you don't know who's living there. could be Shane Denovo that just
doesn't paint her house frequently enough. But to the extent it's it's qualified for low income. Well, the thing is is that we're talking two different things, right? So, we're talking about the number, right? The 64 number. That windshield survey doesn't doesn't matter
who's living there. It's do you have 64 units within the burrow that are in needed for rehabilitation. I agree with you. I think it it's significantly lower than that. Um then once we get to a realistic number based upon this windshield survey that the building department would have to do
then if somebody wants to propose to enter the rehab program then they would have to be income qualified. It's two separate the numbers first and then who gets to use the the rehab program is second. But and you also I believe mentioned but let me confirm you also mentioned it's less about it it's more
about creating the opportunities for people to take advantage of the rehab dollars that we need to market campaign advertise. So you have to you have to earmark the money too. That's one of the reasons why when you have a big number um you know you're earmarking like
$25,000 per unit and you have to provide for that out of like your trust fund dollars. So that's money that has to be earmarked for the rehab that probably is inflated erroneously that you can't touch for other things. So it may be
worth the while. That would definitely be up to you. You know, it's something that we could do. Uh but as of right now, it's really just a matter of hiring the administrative agent entering into the program. And you said we at the moment where we have no very very little
trust fund dollars, we might have to be bonding for a lot of that. Yes. And did I understand before that um for the development fees for collecting them under a new ordinance? I think they adopted it last year because when the
special adjudicator and fair share housing center reviewed the ordinance that was on the books in uh from 2017, they found some you know changes to the language that needed to be made, changes to the law that needed to be made. So those things were made and the fund is open. Right. We have trust fund right?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. And we are collecting. Very good. Thank you very much. Thank you. Other questions or comments in the room on Zoom? Questions or comments. Okay, Miss Beam. Thank you very much.
We'll close our workshop. Like to move to item seven on the agenda, presentations and bids. Um we have another special guest with us tonight. Uh, Mr. Fred Ebono. Uh, Mr. Eveno, I put a couple quick notes
together for you. Number one, I I wish former mayor Fox might have been able to stay with us a a little longer because I did ask I did ask Mr. Ibeno to u well, the council hired Mr. Ibeno a number of
months ago to give us a look back focus and understanding of, you know, where we the municipality have struggled financially. give us a sense for the nature of the challenges and you know the the real focus here uh that we charged Mr. Emano with was to say tell
us more or less what went wrong how can we learn from the past so we can fix things going forward in the future and I think I even presented it at the time we were hiring Mr. even always said your sole focus was to look back. Um what we
do plan to do is um learn from the past. Uh not coincidentally we have uh officially assembled um a financial task force and uh under the guidance of our CFO uh Janette Larrison. Um Janette is
clearly leading the charge here to help us fix flaws in our current structure. um our collective hope is that we'll be able to utilize some of the expertise we have from in our residents to uh help us move forward. So, uh couple quick
things. Mr. Ibo delivered a 10-page report. It counting the last page, which is a uh an attachment, but a 10-page report, my opinion, very thorough, very informative, uh a lot of insights, not only in terms of what went wrong, but
what we need to do to fix things. Um, we have asked him to present tonight. I did ask him specifically to present in an overview fashion. He's not going to read the report. We're not going to share the report with you live tonight. It is posted on the the burough website. We
posted it 6:00ish, 5:30, 5:30. It's a little before the meeting. It is out there. If you've seen it already, great. If you haven't yet seen it, you can look at it later. If you do have questions after Mr. Even Mr. even know presentation. Um, Miss Lur, Miss Larrison and I will try
to handle those at a subsequent meeting, but tonight is really just to give everyone an overview of the work that Mr. Ibano has done. So, Brett, can I ask you to present? Absolutely. Thank you. And thank you for bringing you a board and thank you for giving them my report.
Can you be at the microphone? And Fred, are you are you able to speak at the microphone? This may help your voice. Mayor said I will be pleased. Oh man, almost everybody has s problems.
Um it's a very interesting um situation that Bradley said in I've been in government for over 40 years um CFOs for most I'm retired and here I am
um I had in reviewing all the books and the records annual financial statements annual debt statements reports um there's uncommon denominology which is very very very concerning. And there are two major major concerns in
reviewing the books and records of the borrow. The first one is um I don't know how many people are accountants or try to keep it simple but you have one set of books which is your general ledgers and subsidiary less you do on the
computer. Okay, that's where you record your cash and you record your expenditures and so on and so forth. At the end of the year you do an annual financial statement. Okay, which is supposed to be for all your votes. And after that, you do an auto report. Now,
all three should coincide. It could be some little things here and there or off. You make a little adjustment here, a little adjustment there. But I looked at everything. I was looking at three sets of books. What was on the ledgers was on my financials, and what was on
the order report. Totally totally millions of dollars. I wasn't even supposed that was concerning to say the very least. Um the um another problem that I seen on
the books themselves um in accounting in the accounting world you have debits and you have credits. Okay. Debits must equal credits. Debits do not equal credits here.
That's been going on for seven years. Um the other major concern that I had is something that's called an inund it's money that is borrowed from one fund to another fund. That's totally
legitimate totally legal but you'd have to pay that money back before the end of the year. Meaning let's say if the capital fund needed money okay I want to borrow money from my credit project. profit who borrows it but by the year
end it gives back and I've heard some discussion with surplus okay when you don't pay those interests back was bad accounting number two you restrict your surplus fund balance change to say that the
surplus has been restricted you've got millions of dollars okay why they weren't liquidated because in many cases you haven't actually built it just um
the struggle I voided actually went back to 20 2019 okay so it's not like we're taking shots at administrations or jun administrations I'm just looking at the books and records and find
why the borrow is in the financial condition condition that the financing is told for me in today. And in order to do that, I I went back all the way back to 2019. I looked at 18 a little bit. It wasn't too bad, but 19 seemed to start
in downfall. the uh some of the highlights of surplus uh which has often um be generated. Now what is surplus in a budget? Okay, you have all of your revenues that you anticipate and you have all your expenditures. Okay,
ideally they're equal. Okay, but when they're not, it's permissible and and very fun to use surplus to on that so that you balance your budget. Okay. Municipalities have zero balance budget where revenues have to people
expenditures surplus is considered a a revenue. U ideally when you're using surplus if you're anticipating x amount of dollars surplus you want to be able to regenerate that surplus to equal that.
if not better that by increasing your uh port collection of taxes by increasing your local revenues. So the news has been all bad taxes over 99%. So which is very good. So taxes are
going in um it's almost surprising that your your finances are working. I think a large part of that is due to inflation of taxes. There's a long errors on the books all over the books. The 2022 audit had not been completed
until 2024. The 2023 audit was just just came in a couple months ago. Now, not the auditor at all in reviewing the audits. They did a great job. However, being handed the
books the way we shape the book short is why it took that long. Um, again, no negativism against a phenomenal job. It's just that when you handed this, it's almost like he had to put the books back together. So, he didn't almost like
his own work. He had nothing really else to work on. Um, there was a tremendous amount of lack of controls and return controls. I'm real big on internal controls. Um internal control you don't have all of
these other issues. Uh so there's a severe limitation controls which have to be addressed. Um on the order itself uh only 23 ordered that which came in
there were 11 comments and recommendations on the order that does the audit giving useful books he puts everything all together and where he sees problems. Okay, he identifies those problems as a finding and then also adds to a conviction
11 findings is quite a bit ideally one zero. Um is it common to have one or two something like that? Yeah, it's that's common. Okay, hopefully nothing of any large magnitude but it's common here. You had 11
of those 11, nine of those were your vice. It means that in the priority year audit those were out of address in the that was the 23 a 22 audit there was 16 audits in regulations of which eight
were prior year a recommend recommendations um and then I went back to 21 there were eight findings in that report okay much of which part that died in 22 is ended
in 23 as well. So it doesn't look like much attention was given to the order. Um when I looked at the order reports and I looked at the notation of financials and I looked at the records when an order comes in and it makes adjustments to
balances, you know, having books equals to what the audits. So you're starting out with you know any balances beginning balance in the next year the same number. I don't see any of those adjustments. I don't see any audit adjustments.
Uh records are just so bad. Why is this all all so important? Uh why there's no financial integrity which is which is needed. Okay. That helps in your bond market. It helps get new ratings. Um another reason why is you
talk about the budget early and you put a budget together. They don't even know how to know each other. Okay? So you don't want to put a budget that you could pretty well deficit uh and then have to base that deficit in the following years. you know it's it's
extremely I always like to look at the finest department being like the nervous system of body okay it's not any better or any worse than any other department but when your when your nervous system in your body doesn't work other parts of
your body have all kinds of problems when thees don't work public safety publics recreation departments also suffer that's Well, we can't buy police cars. We can't public works equipment. We can't do this. We can't do that.
Okay. So, the place really have to be in place. So, we have to be the water. I can go on and on and on and on. So, and I have to be honest with you, much of that is touching the surface. Okay?
And it's not just the current fund, it's the capital fund, it's the sewer fund, it's the recreation fund. It's all over the place. You have something that called dedication by writers which are which makes up your trust fund. These were approved by the division of
government services that say yes, you can have this or no, you can't do that trust fund. They have 33 of them, but not all have been approved by individual services. Well, they acted Soviet going
on by refugees. Uh so there in a nutshell is um however anything else it can be fixed. Okay. uh J and I have spoken a little earlier on
some remedies uh that he could actually accelerate uh basically using the order report the message there basically start fresh trust with what the order report has in it and clean that up and the internal
controls internals uh over expenditures that we see in there uh don't allow over expenditures any over expenditure happening in one year to another year. Absolutely. You make under budget there's something there something called transfers between
the last two months of the year and from there so you don't have over expenditures. You never overextend trust that panic but those again to control so they won't have these problems. If more
attention is paid to finances they don't have these problems. um speaking in a in a nutshell for you and thank you for your report. I mean for you that's an honor.
Anybody has any questions? I was going to say so yes uh Mr. Io thank you again for the work you've done and coordination with us. While I'm not going to open up to the public I am going to open up to the council just to ask do we have questions for Mr. Iano? I don't have a question. I Well, I have
a sort of comment that something I'm hoping you'll say. I read your report. Thank you. Great summary just now. Uh, one of the things you say in the report it is that you you say it doesn't look like there was fraud or embezzlement or anything like that. It was just all this sloppiness, lack of controls or
whatever. So, that's a really important thing to say to the public. Um, because there's all sorts I mean it can lead to those things, right? if it but to um even at one point in time bankulations weren't done for over a year. Okay. They could have been
vesseling there. They could have been um somebody breaking into your bank account. So scam something like that going on. Fortunately uh in that year that that had happened, you wouldn't report showing. Uh so you were extremely fortunate. You were extremely
vulnerable. Okay. which we're extremely fortunate um even to today that nothing catastrophic has actually happened. And on that note, I agree with you that I'm not aware of anything that would suggest anything fraudulent. No.
However, in that year 2022, you mentioned nothing happened, but we couldn't find $75,000 through lost entries. It wasn't which is Yes. That 22 years was a tough year. 74 there. There was um
over $100,000 of overdrafts. Uh there was a reserve for what the reserve was called. Something wild. I've never seen that before. Uh miscellaneous revenue. Miscellaneous. Yeah, it was wild. You just don't have that. Okay. Uh it was
here. Okay. Um and it was overdraft. They didn't do the overdraft. They charged his account. Um you had at one point in time 53 bank accounts. was a tremendous when I was CFO in the city of Patterson, we didn't have 53 bank accounts. Okay. And that was over $und00
million budget. Um they other years was about 30 some odd. Those bank accounts really have to be looked at. I don't think you need that many bank accounts. Uh especially in a small municipality like this. you don't have a whole bunch of different barriers
where you redeem different trust funds and uh escro funds, stuff like that. You know, again, internal controls, simplifying things. Um it's just incredible and and the deviations
uh from, you know, you could be missing almost a million dollars of surplus going from one annual financial statement to the order. cash huge disparities huge huge so there's a lot yeah thank thank you for
the I think was uh you know well done um a lot of the items that you were identifying were um accounting bookkeeping uh discrepancies errors bad bad habits bad practice um similar to the audit findings were very similar to
what you were finding as well so those you know and just reinforcement of that have you come up with a um a list of specific recommendations, early action items, critical ones that you would put in a priority order for us that said these are the absolute things you need
to do, you know, ASAP and and and have you gone through like an action plan that you define? Not a full-blown action plan. Um there are hints of that in here in various different areas. I'd be happy to get together with Janette who's been known Jed for a number of years also. So
um but and like I had said we we were speaking earlier at this point in time to undo everything to bring it back to where the order report should be uh internally on your books. It just doesn't make any sense. Are we relying on the audit report that you had just
received even though it's for 2023 to reset those 24 balances? even though you've already done your uh completed your annual financial statement and your budget still go okay to make sure that when the orders come in for 2024 you can
find some of those uh issues that may exist which will help you uh in your 2025 year to get at least better beginning balances because 24 is the best um you know 24 books your debit income because the investment that we've
made in you doing this, we want to capitalize that going forward. So, if you do get together with Janette, please do you know and bring that back to, you know, administration to make sure that we are implementing some of the best critical um practices that we need to address. Absolutely.
Yeah, great comments, Paul. And and uh just to state this clearly to the public, Janette is our CFO. Janette will lead the charge. Some of this you already were aware of, some of this may be helping, insights you've already gained. Uh and I have
but you are only one person and this might need you know an army. Uh however we are very committed to streaming this out as soon as possible. Um now we've known for a long time. Yeah. So do we have like a time frame of when
this can be organized and can the financial task force help out with this? We have a committee. I'm I'm not sure. I was talking to the mayor. eventually financial task force. Um I'm not sure what their actual role is. Um but I would run everything through obviously.
Okay, that sounds good. And I do have to comment that I did like that um in the last budget that we did, we didn't have the the council last year didn't have the financial data to make an educated decision. And I'm really
glad you acknowledged that. I mean, I I didn't know what to do. I thought maybe we have to change our form of government just to break this cycle. We didn't know what was going on. And I I'm just so glad that you found Fred and it sounds like we can actually resolve this and finally break this cycle. You said, you
know, you went back to 2019. I'm wondering how long this really went on even before that. Like I said, 2018 didn't look too too bad, but then the the downfall really started in 19 and then really accelerated
in the last year thereafter. Right. So, I'm glad we can finally get to the developments. I learned not on the books per se, but in America, I said the governing body was actually fined. Yes, we were fined. Yes. I don't know how you almost $1,000 each, which is terrible.
Yes. It was it was really frustrating and we just wanted to do the right thing and absolutely and we couldn't make an educated determination but we didn't have information. I don't think they did either. This is wonderful. This is very refreshing and I I'm it's a very good day for round the beach and I thank you
for your time. You're welcome. Thank you. Any other comments? Um, the one thing again I've thanked you a couple times and we all appreciate just getting some better insight into our, you know, challenges, but I did want to read for the public and for the record for the
minutes. Um, one one specific comment you made. It was on page eight. You said across all the years examined there is a consistency of bad recordkeeping and books grossly disagreeing with the audited and unodudited financial
statements. As a result of this it is very difficult for a governing body to make an informed decision on financial matters including the introduction and adoption of the annual budget. Right? And that not only captures in a nutshell
the challenge we faced last year, captured in a nutshell the challenge we faced this year in preparing this year's budget. Yes. And when the prior mayor was asking what kind of prep work have we done and I said it's difficult because the data we have is somewhat
questionable. Um, I'm not sure he fully appreciated I kind of wish I had your report done before I invited him to speak, but not sure he appreciates the lack of u quality in the data that we began this year's budget preparation
with. So, uh, so this is illuminating and I do appreciate your work. Thank you. All right. Uh, I think you can go home, sir. More questions. Thank you. Well done. Okay. We will move from workshop to uh
I'm sorry from presentations to approval of the minutes. I will make a motion that we approve June 5th, 2025 council business meeting minutes. Second. Mr. Noble. Yes. Mlett. Yes. Mr. Noiki. Yes.
Mr. Weber. Yes. Mayor Gossi. Yes. Make a motion to approve June 5, 2025 executive session minutes. Second. Mr. Noble. Yes. M. Green. Yes. Mr. Noiki. Yes. Mr. Weber. Yes. Mayor Gutzi. Yes. Uh, now we
will open it up for public comments or questions pertaining to any items on this agenda. Questions or comments on this agenda? Anyone on Zoom? Okay. Seeing no questions or comments.
Sorry, is there one? Oh, sorry about that. Um, Beth Kepler 54 Central Avenue. Um yeah, I'm not surprised that um there Fox Bulked it out of here after uh
knowing that that was going to be on the agenda. I'm not a money person. I'm not a financial person, but three sets of books sounds like three crimes and mob activity to me. That's how that
operates, which goes back to 2023. And my petition letter that I read here and 300 residents in Bur signed asking for the attorney general to assign a special prosecutor to investigate the
corruption that was clearly happening in the town. And in retrospect, it completely makes sense to me now why being that I was the first person to come forward and say boldly and loudly what was going on, why my home was
entered and threats were left. And um I applaud you all for doing what needed to be done. It wasn't easy to do it. I think I'm I'm really offended especially hearing what I heard here tonight that
um including Councilwoman Mahoney that isn't here that you had to pay money out of your own pocket to defend us and to stand in the gap between us and I mean you're being generous by not calling it
fraud or embezzlement but that's what it looks like to me. Um that would have been nice for a prosecutor or somebody um criminally to investigate. And based on what the gentleman said this evening, um his financial review, would that normally find fraud or would that
specifically be for an investigator to find and would his report be something to send on to be investigated? At this point in your opinion, it would not normally find fraud. It would be very unique for you. It would have to stumble
onto it because he was not looking for fraud. It was a very limited scope. I hate to even call it an audit, but it was a limited scope review where he largely compared financial statements. To find fraud, you've got to investigate our vendors, legitimate vendors, you
know, as people created false bank accounts. He did not go to that level. He simply could not track trial balances ending of the year to equal trial balance amounts at the beginning of the next year. I mean our everything he
observed was flaws in our accounting processes. So for me from my background in the medical field that would mean that he saw symptoms and without further diagnostics he couldn't clinically diagnose. So being that we have
massive overwhelming symptoms, um based on what this report and and my loose understanding of it, just going by what his explanation revealed and coupled with this uh the the 54 bank
accounts that were, you know, discovered and were withheld and the budget process, the materialist statements, the fact that our CFO had his license removed. Um, I could go on and on. Um, the the I mean the list,
you know, the list. I I I keep going over it and over and over it, but when you put it and you look at it, you know, I know that the the L Mr. Barrett never wanted to look in the rearview mirror, but the only way we don't repeat this in the future is by looking in the rearview mirror and learning from our mistakes so
that we never have to live through this nightmare again. And so in your esteemed opinion at this point, I know it's preliminary and I'm putting you on the spot, but based on what this gentleman said tonight, I is are you going to be
forwarding this to an authoritative, you know, someone at an authoritative level like within the state like at the because back then in July of 2023, we were asking for a special prosecutor. I feel like two years now into this, we have an overwhelming insurmountable
amount of probable cause here worthy of a criminal investigation. Will this um this body, this legislative body on behalf of the residents present this to the attorney
general's office and formally ask for an investigation in depth into what's going on with millions of dollars of our tax money? I would say uh it would be premature for us to do that because again there's no at this point evidence of fraud. There's
evidence of tremendous malpractice if you will. Um the primary intention of having this look back and having this report delivered is to educate us to figure out what's broken. And we we we've seen a good amount of
that from Mr. report. we now have to turn it over to our CFO to work with me in particular and the council governing body um to fix things and in the process of fixing we're going to learn a lot more about why we went off the rails. So
so potentially it could come to that point we're it's too soon can I just say something for clarification and Mr. But just so you know, he did not say that there were three sets of books. He said it was as if there were three sets of books
because the books which are supposed to match the AFS didn't which is supposed to match the audit didn't. And so he said he said it was as if there were there were not three sets of books just to be clear. Oh, I heard that. Okay. That's like he came to the
microphone. He said three sets of books. He he said there's not three sets of books. I heard very clearly what he said and that screens Rico and mobility. That's how the mob operates. Yeah. I don't think we're talking about that's how operates. I'm not saying it is a mob, but the the financial aspect of the
mob, they keep different sets of books and the numbers never jive and that's essentially what we have going on. Based on my interactions with Mr. even know and then listening to him tonight, I think we all jumped to a visual of truly
having three separate files of of books or whatever. And I I think he was being a little bit uh creative and what he's saying is in my opinion we have one set of books maybe
John to your point but they are so mismanaged that uh general ledger accounts don't equal sub accounts year end balances don't equal following year beginning balances we effectively don't have one set of books
with 54 bank accounts and wreck things not reconciling. That's troubling. But I'll I've taken enough of your time. Thank you for answering my question. Other uh questions or comments about anything on the agenda?
Anything? No. Okay. We will close the public comments. Item nine and move to uh item 10 on the agenda, ordinances. There are no introductions for this evening. We had scheduled an adoption of um the traffic ordinance chapter 9 um
changes we plan to make to the parking lot just started in this building. We I'm going to make a motion in a second, but the reason I'm making this motion is because we the burrow are working on possible alternatives. We are not saying this ordinance might not ultimately be
be voted upon, but at least for tonight, we would like to buy a little more time to see if we can come up with an even better solution than what is proposed here. So, that said, I'll make a motion that we table the uh the uh adoption of ordinance 2025-17.
Second, Mr. Noble, yes. Mr. Greenl, yes. Mr. Noiki, yes. Mr. Weber, yes. Mayor Gubosi, yes. Okay. Uh for item 11, we have communications and I'll turn to the council member Wiki. Paul, would you like to give us a brief update on where
we stand here? The Japanese sewer infrastructure. Sure. Um as far as the Fifth Avenue sewer infrastructure replacement project. Um so, um as people may recall, last year we were going to advance a project um to uh line uh the
sewer from Main Street down to Madison. um and then resurfaced that uh Fifth Avenue. Um back in January, we opted to not advance that project. As we reviewed that and we saw that the the lining
option we felt was not the appropriate solution that we should do a full sewer replacement for various reasons. one because the condition of the sewer although you could extend a useful life um all your canal your lateral connections house connections coming in
would be um um difficult to ever replace if you were to line that sewer so it would just create a complexity to the homeowner um so we ultimately opted not to award that contract um as a sewer lining and then we revertised here um
and did a sewer replacement project that was actually bid Um we took bids on that yesterday and those bids came in uh in the engineers estimate um and the um the contract for the resurfacing
which which was was awarded to Fernandez construction back in and um earlier this year that was just for resurfacing. and the lighting was taken out. And so the contract that was awarded yesterday was just for the sewer replacement. We were trying to get this project and the
sewers done here between um July and September because of the school um and the school session being there. And so we're pushing to get that contract awarded and the construction to happen and completed for the sewer
replacement while school is out and then come back and resurface the lot here in um you know with the Fifth Avenue in um September time frame, October after the sewer is completed while school is in session. So right now that is being um
coordinated with the contractor and um we also have to get a bond or ordinance put into place so that we can actually bond for that um sewer replacement. So there's a timing thing here that is occurring as we speak um that we won't
be able to get that construction to begin on that sewer until probably late July, early August. And so that's the time frame right now when that construction would happen. Unfortunately, um certain things with getting in getting everything in in place to get that contract awarded
sooner and bid on sooner than yesterday didn't happen um in order to have had construction begin here um beginning in July. So, we are moving rapidly. It is going to happen. Uh we're going to have more information uh to the community of the residents on Fifth Avenue exactly
what is being done, when it's going to be done, and how it's going to be done and any issues for the residents that they need to be aware of regarding parking um you know um any any use of their of their you know flushing and that type of thing when the contractor's
uh working. So more information to come on that. There's going to be more coordination and more information as we um coordinate with that contractor. So stay tuned on that. And just to piggyback on that, um so the rest of Fifth Avenue, the plan is that once from
Maine to Madison is done then and hopefully by the fall, we're going to go forward with Madison to Ocean Avenue and do the same replace completely replace the sewers and uh we have a grant in place already for the surfacing. Yeah.
just for clarity that the the sewer construction itself is being paid for on and through the sewer utility. The resurfacing of the street, sidewalk repairs, handicap ramps, curb replacement is all being done through a
DOT grant. Um, and that's the similar fashion in which the um phases one and two of the sewer program was done over the last several years. So that that this is just a continuation with Fifth Avenue having been left out on trying to complete phase two of that sewer
replacement program. And one thing worth repeating and both of uh my council members mentioned this in their comments. Um the original intent was by the prior administration was to line this particular stretch of
sewers and this council reverse stride on that and said we don't want lining. We want to make sure we are replacing 100-y old sewers. So, uh that that did delay the process. We could move forward much earlier if we wanted to start lining certain areas of the sewers. I
think we all unanimously agreed that was not appropriate for homeowners in that section of street roadway. Um okay, we'll move to resolutions. Item 12, there are no consent agenda resolutions, so we'll move to individual resolutions.
The first item is 2025 214 award of bid for Newark Avenue concession. You may recall in the last meeting u there have been no biders and we had to rebid once again. There were there were no biders that uh met the criteria which included
a minimum bid threshold. So we do have a a handful of entities interested in this concession. I believe we will have someone in place fairly soon only because people have expressed interest. They just did not want to pay the
minimum price that was in our RFP. Uh so we will work very diligently in the next few days to talk to those potential biders and uh determine who we can we can enlist to serve uh the New York Avenue concession this summer. Mr.
Mayor, Am I right? That one of those is the It's the same concessionire that left. It's the same business that left. Correct. Am I right about that? That is one of the But there's more than that. That's the one official bid, isn't it? I can't even call it an official bid. They
did put together a bid, but they did not meet the bid criteria. So, um, they did put together a bid, but others didn't put together a bid, but evidence that they were interested, and they they're kind of all in the same pool. So, we have to talk to them, find out who's
going to meet. We are now legally, if Mr. Can here, he he'd be able to take us through this. But, we are now in a position where we can negotiate. We have complied with bidding requirements. First bid, go through it, a second bid. Now, we are in a position to basically
negotiate with anyone we want. We've had folks suggest popup vendors. I don't think any of us want to try to manage that, but we do want to maximize uh coverage for this concession. So, uh a little more to come, but again, we're hoping to resolve this hopefully within
the next few days. So, we're not voting on we're not awarding any. We are not. I am going to motion that we table 2025-214. Second. Uh Mr. Noble. Yes. Mr. Braat, yes. Mr. Nikki, yes. Mr. Weber, yes.
Mayor Guptosi, yes. 2025 217, appointing summer seasonal gateguards. I'll make a motion that we approve. Second. Mr. Noble. Yes. Miss Ree? Yes. Mr. Nikki? Yes. Mr. Weber? Yes. Mayor Gubosi? Yes.
Um, I would like to ask one of my council members to make a motion for 2025 218 as I will need to recuse myself. I'll make that motion. Uh, so I make a motion to approve uh 2025 218
approval of annual renewal of alcoholic beverage liquor license for Darcy's LLC uh ta Darcy's Tavern. Perfect. Mr. double. I actually live within 200 f feet and I've been advised by our attorney to abstain.
Um, Miss Greenblat, yes. Mr. Noiki, yes. Mr. Weber, yes. Mayor Guboszi, I also live within 200 feet and I will abstain as well. Thank you. Regarding 2025-219, I once again will ask one of my
colleagues to make a motion on this item. Okay, this was for the U 2025-219 approval to add LED lighting to a single air raator in Fletcher Lake for a trial period. This was a workshop at our last meeting. The um Fletcher Lake Commission
did a presentation and I've done a little more research and it's not uncommon to have these fountains lighted at night. Uh Spring Lake has it, Belmar has it. the um Neptune side of their lake commission has already approved it
and u many neighbors I' I've spoke to many people and they do like the idea of it and um it it is a trial period up to six months and they're going to assess it after that to see if there's any ill
effects whatsoever. So, um I don't know if anybody has any comments or on this or otherwise. I'd like to make a motion to approve resolution 2025-9 219. What do they say? 199. Oh my
goodness. I do this all the time. I I don't know. My apologies. 2025-29. Second. Um Mr. Noble. Yes. Miss Greenblat. Um, so I would, you know, I've been on the fence about this
because as an environmentalist, I would, um, say that I would not like to see lights in the lake. Um, you know, the I guess uh, lighting can impact, um, the wildlife. Uh, it can impact the health of the lake and so forth. But this is a
very minimal amount of lighting. And I would, um, I would opt to um, vote yes on this. And just for the record, um I hope also um that the lights don't stay on for too long because I think the
longer the lights are on, the more impact it has on the wildlife. Um and furthermore, um just from a little bit of research, uh the color of light makes a difference as well. So a warm either an amber or an orange lighting would
have less of an effect of a negative effect. So that would be my recommendation, but I would vote yes support. Uh Mr. Nikigi, yeah, I would also just comment that um we should probably put some um
guard rails if you would on this what time, you know, define a little more clearly on this trial period. Exactly what time are are the lights going to be on, what color they're going to be, who's going to manage that. Um and um and then what are they looking for? How are they going to be evaluating uh any
effects of this um and and who are they going to report that to um through the commission and I would say back to this council. Um and I am a little concerned about it becoming a precedent but I do also see the um the aesthetic feature of it and it could be you know um as long
as it doesn't impact um any you know wildlife um I would vote yes. Mr. Weber. Uh I'm gonna vote yes but also make a statement. Um but first I learned something from the workshop which was good. Learned some things there. I'm very happy that this is just for six
months because that's a very manageable uh trial period and fair I think. Um one thing I just want to um you know people think about going forward a lot of times this was called the fountain and you research something like this you come up with fountain stuff. Fountain you know
this is an air raator in a lake in a natural lake. uh maybe kind of unnatural lake, but um they're trying I think we're trying to make it as natural as possible and a lot of the information you get is like lights and fountains and that's just a concrete sort of man-made thing. It's just it's not the same if
you're talking about algae growing and things like that. So, um happy to vote yes and keep an eye on it and check it out in six months. Mayor Guboszi u the reason I asked others to introduce this is because I I plan to not vote in
support of it but but quickly um my own research I appreciated the uh the individuals who spoke uh to us at the last meeting u providing you know the positives of moving forward u based
upon their presentation and based on whatever research I could conduct on my own I kept coming up with we're balancing largely aesthetics. It looks really nice and residents who view the lake, visitors who view it, passers by
like lights on the lake and it looks pretty in the uh you know with the air raator. However, I I continued to find issues that cause concern. I'm not saying u yes the incorrect boat. I just could not
get myself comfortable with potential negative impact on the lake ecosystem with the uh impacts potential impacts on algae. Yes, some shades of light are uh I think Miss Green Councilwoman Greenblad said um you know less of a
negative, but there's still to some degree in my mind at least a negative. Uh I think there might be negative light negative issues regarding ambient lighting. Uh and we heard if you have these lights that might be an incentive
to run the uh air raators later into the evening uh and we had heard that there were some residents who were already raising concerns about the noise of the air raators. So if we're running them potentially longer, I think that could be a challenge. So, um, what I'm very
happy to hear is that the council wants to put guard rails around the process, talk to the, uh, the seven lake individual, uh, Fletcher Lake individuals just to make sure that they're using the right shades of lighting and so forth. And I'll also be very anxious to see what the results are
of, of this trial period after 6 months. Uh, but I'm still going to vote no. Thank you. Okay. Uh, I think I am back. I can now. Item 2025-220,
approval to submit a grant application and execute a grant contract with the New Jersey Department of Transportation for the improvements to Ocean Park Avenue project. I'll make a motion to Mr. Noble. Yes, Miss Fra. Um, so I'm going to vote yes,
but I also just want to comment that this is sort of an extension of our of the plan for the sewer system infrastructure upgrades. So, um, this is a grant for, um, I think it's the, um, the DOT, Department of Transportation
grant, and that's in order to secure funding for surfacing, um, for Ocean Park, and that will be very likely the next street that we'll go to after Fifth Avenue. And on that note, we're we're
experiencing some sewer problems on Ocean Park currently. Um, our DPW folks have been, you know, all over that sewer system. I think they've identified certainly one and maybe one or two other uh problem areas. So, we we'll be moving
forward as quickly as we can on replacing those sewers. But in the interim, we've got some hopefully strong preventive measures to avoid any challenges for those residents. Mr. Noiki, yes. Mr. Weber. Yes. Mayor
Guboszi. Yes. 2025-221 authorizing a contract for playground equipment for the recreation center playground through Educational Services Commission of New Jersey Cooperative Contract Vendor MRC Inc. through a very
lengthy code that I won't I won't but uh this is this is basically spending a $116,000 or so rounding uh on brand new playground equipment to really upgrade our rec center playground uh largely covered by over $600,000 of grant
funding. I'll make a motion to approve. Second. Mr. Noble, yes. Miss Greenblat, yes. Mr. Nikki, yes. Mr. Weber, yes. Yes. Mayor Gubosi. Yes. 2025-22 authorizing purchase of recreation
center playground surf surfacing through state of New Jersey contract 16 fleet 00131. Make a motion to approve. Second. Miss Denobyl. Yes. Miss Greenblat. Yes. Mr. Nikki. Yes. Mr. Weber. Yes. Mayor
Gubosi. Yes. Following up on Miss Jen Beam's presentation earlier on affordable housing, we have resolution 22025-223, resolution to endorse the housing element and fair share plan HSP. I'll make a motion to approve. Second.
Um, Mr. Noble, yes. Mr. Greenlat, yes. Mr. Nikki, yes. Mr. Weber, yes. Mayor Gubossi, yes. uh 2025-224 authorizing a modification of fees for suburban consulting engineers to improve the additional scope for the Silven Lake
technical assistance application. We're we basically had two sets of fees what we've already approved. There's another 15,000 that was coming in and this is Mr. Councilman Noiki's effort and uh Councilwoman Greenblat's effort to just consolidate these into one um one
payment, you know, one scope. So I will make a motion to approve. Second. Mr. Noble. Yes. Miss Greenlat. Yes. Mr. Noiki. Yes. Mr. Weber. Yes. Mayor Guboszi. Yes. As Councilman Noiki explained earlier around the Fifth
Avenue sanitary sewer challenges we faced and we're moving forward. But um we put this on the agenda hoping we might, you know, be able to move forward more quickly. Uh, I'm going to make a motion, however, that we table 2025-225
the award of contract. Yeah, the award of contract for Fifth Avenue sanitary sewer improvement space one. Second, Mr. Noble. Yes, Miss Greenlet. Yes, Mr. Noiki. I just want to comment that I think we the administration we could do a little bit
better on getting these things um more timely for our bonding and making sure that we have this lined up so we don't run into this in the future. So I would say yes. Mr. Weber. Yes. Mayor Gupetzi. Yes. 2025-226.
The bill is for June 18th, 2025. Are there comments or observations here? Mine were answered. Thank you very much. Shauna and I have some questions, but we got that resolved. That's right. You know, the only other question that I had
was um on page two of the bills list, um there was uh payment made to Fernandez Construction in the amount of 200,000 and change. And I just wondered if that was from work that was done before this
year. Was this our place um the one block that was done or is is this go for going forward? This is for work done I believe years ago. Okay. And remarkable the guy didn't come here with
Okay. Well, but sometimes when we pay bills this late like they didn't actually bill us. So they build us. They build us. Yes. Oh, and this is the Fernandez construction who is going to be doing the surfacing work for Fifth Avenue, right? And they weren't going to do it until we paid them. What do you
mean we owe you money? And then we found out we owe Okay. $200,000. Okay. While we're on the topic of of this bill list, uh I know Councilwoman Grimbaugh, you raised a question and uh Mr. Dhy, you have resolved the question, but it
was it was regarding the purchase of dog muts poop mitts or muts m butt mitts. Would you would you give a brief overview to the public just to let them know what the issue was and how you've resolved it? So, uh, one of the, u line items that Councilwoman Greenlet picked
up on, uh, was the purchase of muts, uh, for $1,379 and the shipping of those muts for $239, which is insane, right? So, uh, unfortunately, these have already been
delivered. Uh, they're already out in use, so we have to pay this bill. But going forward, uh, we're simply going to use Amazon, uh, to purchase these at a much reduced cost. And, uh, because we're Amazon Prime members, we will get
free shipping. She said it's 200 bucks. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you both. Plus, my favorite. Yeah, they were not cheap muts. These were very expensive. Yeah. So, and I think the worse they are, the less will be taken.
Yeah. They're very high quality. We're not going with the high quality one. This identified the real problem is that somebody goes in and takes like 50 or 100 at a time because when I had a dog the I mean, you know, I would go out there and I would see the DPW guys put in a new one and like 2 days later it
was empty and I said, "What is going on here?" Right? There's they're too nice. I want cameras on Rain Avenue, the lifeguard stand on that one so I find out who is taking the I'm serious. As long as it's not virtual. Yeah, it's for
emergency purposes only. Okay, thank you. Thank you. We will move to item third. Somebody second that. Oh, I'm sorry. Second. Mr. Noble. Yes. M. Greenwood. Yes. Mr. Nikki? Yes. Mr. Weber? Yes. Mayor Kubz? Yes. Item 13 on
the agenda, announcements. There are none. Item 14, uh, 14A, the administrative report. Mr. Vorty. Yes. Uh, Mador Council, as you may remember, uh, last meeting, uh, someone from the
public came up and asked about the, uh, invoices for, uh, the attorney for the last few years, Eric Bernstein. Uh, wanted to report that Mr. Bernstein was paid $238,000 between 2022 and 2024.
Um, he's also continuing to bill us. There's an invoice outstanding for about $9,500. We're disputing those charges. Uh, we're going through attorney fee arbitration with the office of attorney ethics. Uh,
we are putting all the paperwork together now to send it on. um to ensure that we're not spending a lot of money on this, the only cost to the burrow is one check for $50 to the disciplinary oversight committee. So, we will send
our dispute on to them regarding this invoice uh and hopefully come to a resolution. And what we're disputing in the invoice is the work done for factf finding regarding the local 152
contract. Oh, can I ask a question with this? Are we only disputing what's what's left? This $9,000 that he's invoicing us for. Not that you said 228 paid 238,000. 38. And then that was for 23 and 24 collectively. Uh 22 23 and 24.
Oh. Okay. But that was for Oprah's and other items as well. Correct. Or was this just for negotiations? uh it was uh for all of them but a significant amount for negotiations and again for factf finding. So if we are successful in our
dispute for the 9,000 we are going to pursue uh the availability if there is one to claw back some of those dollars that were paid out prior to this administration uh the previous administration for that type of factf
finding and mediation that was never necessary to begin. Wow. Thank you. Yeah. Does it put us at risk for a lawsuit? No. If that's a great question. So, if we do not go through the attorney fee
arbitration, then uh Mr. Bernstein could sue us for not paying this invoice. Um, and then obviously that would cost us legal fees. But for $50, uh, it seems worthwhile to go and see if we can get at least a few thousand dollars knocked
off that 9500. And if we can, uh, take that and look at the other line items in the other bills to Councilman Weber's point and if there's additional factf finding in previous years um, to go after that money back as well and try to call that back to the taxpayers. What will we base that on? Just like he
didn't find any facts or that it's just an unnecessary thing to bill us for. I mean, what's the that was unnecessary line item to bill us for? Correct. Okay. And there's a a panel made up of a couple uh attorneys, some members of the
public that that adjudicate this. Can you bring to that whenever you go before this panel like tell what the total amount of all this the arbitration with the labor union like would that all add up to the end like I think when you
compare that to what you're this number you just gave us that might make the panel think about their decision. Yes sir. Uh second thing I want to bring everyone's attention is an update uh for the uh demolition of the church at 319
Lraine. Um this is from our engineering firm CME who is spearheading the uh the management of the the project. Uh environmental remediation the asbesus abatement and lead paint abatement uh is complete for 317. in the rainav the
parsonage of the house next door 317 in the rain a demolition permit was submitted today to the building department uh tomorrow the offices are closed as as everyone knows for Junth but we'll issue that permit to them on Friday so they'll hopefully start demolition on Monday
uh which is the 23rd I think um Matt on that point are we posting something on the website to inform residents about the demolition yes we'll we'll do everything that I'm I'm reading out today. Amy Hall goes to the to the partner website that Councilman Noikia
had us create. Um 319 Lraine, the church itself, asbesus material such as pipe insulation and floor tiles are removed and contained in accordance with state requirements. Removal of asbestous roof material is
currently underway. Once pastus is fully abandoned and a letter of completion submitted to the state, uh a demolition permit application for the church will be submitted. Uh we could keep the public up to date on that as well. Uh that'll probably happen at sometime uh
next week. Uh and then finally tomorrow, uh folks will start seeing a chain link fence surrounding the property uh getting installed. Um again, that should be going up tomorrow. So when this gets posted the information this information you just shared when that gets posted on
the website hopefully along with the um demolition schedule which was from the demolition company. Um does that go on the homepage? Uh we do have now um a a a
location for infrastructure projects. So it would be great to start using that um so people can have know where to go to find the information. We'll do and I also think it'd be worthwhile um prior to the church demolition to u just go
out and fly the neighborhoods that are going to be uh most affected by it. you know, maybe the 300 block, the 200 block, the 400 block of Lraine, some of the side streets. Um, and then uh that portion of Bridley Avenue uh that uh
abuts the uh the church between uh I guess it's the 300 block as well. Yeah, I did I did discuss with Amy the website and so in the under Burough Hall there is what was called projects. is going to be is called now infrastructure projects and then the information that's going to be inside there will be all the
different projects broken down that's the work under underway. Um however the um notifications of the um flyer that we did pass out um you can find that right on the front page on on the homepage as you scroll down. And so that's um her
intent is to put notices to the community on there that are active. Um but all the documentation of all the different projects would be reside underneath that in infrastructure project tab underneath Burough Hall. So there'll be like a library of all
projects. So I think once that comes together it'll be very intuitive where and how to find things. All right. And lastly, uh, if you're traveling south on Route 71, the bridge across the Shark River is going to be in
the up position for what seems a long time. So, take Memorial Drive into 35 if you're heading south. That's your new route home. That's Well, I try to take the ocean. Yes, that's a good choice. Uh, thank you all. Thank you, sir.
Okay, we finished the administrative report. Move to 14B, mayor and council reports. I'll start to my far left with council Noiki. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, the uh police department report. On June 7th, uh a 50year-old female from
Ocean Grove was arrested by Patrolman Daniel Crow with an outstanding contempor Municipal Court and Long Branch Municipal Court. Uh she was processed and turned over to the Long Branch Police Department. On June 10th, a 23-year-old male from Anbury Park was
arrested and charged with theft of a bicycle from Bradley Beach. Um, Mr. Deetsz was stopped in Anbury Park and was in possession of the bicycle he had taken from a residence on 4th Avenue. Detective Gregory Pancha handled the arrest. On June 14th, a 19-year-old male
from Neptune was arrested and charged with simple assault, possession of a weapon, and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose stemming from an incident and on the 600 block of Evergreen. Sergeant Michael Tardo, a patrolman by Ian Ambrose, made the arrest. Officers also investigated three
motor vehicle accidents and conducted several motor vehicle stops and various motor vehicle violations during this period. the fire department. Um I get that report monthly. So I will only report be reporting at the end of the month uh for for the fire department. And the first
aid um last council meeting I actually reread a previous one and and actually printed the wrong one. So um the chief, you know, corrected me and cracked me on the street and said, "Paul, did you have a problem with my email?" And I said, "Yes, I did. I printed the wrong one."
So he wanted to make sure it wasn't his problem. So, I'm going to go back to the June 5th report first. Uh, the for the operational period ending June 5th, the squad responded to 21day calls and 189 calls for a total of 39 calls, 26 for medical, 13 for fire calls. The squad conducted one drill for the safety and
education of the membership. The squad provided medical overwatch for the Memorial Day parade and festival as well as marching, attending the ceremony in Riley Park. The squad provided medical overwatch from the concert park. Um, the squad provided additional personnel and
ambulances in support of the Avon 5K. The squad congratulates member Kyle Hagermanerman on his graduation from the New Jersey City University and Bachelor of Science degrees and fine science and nation security. The squad requested
no mutual aid for the operational period. The squad had fulfilled 100% of their assignments in this operational period and they are still looking for volunteers uh for the first aid. Current report for the operational period ending June 18th. The squad
responded to 21 calls, 18 night calls for a total of 39 calls, 26 were for medical, 13 for fire calls. The squad conducted one drill for the safety and education of the membership. The squad provided medical overwatch. I printed the same one.
They're not going to be happy. They're not gonna be happy. It happens. That happens. Okay. I caught myself. Okay. So, that's interesting. I think it is dated June 18th. So, anyways, I'll report on that one the next period.
We continue. As far as Silven Lake Commission, um they are actually meeting I met tonight over at Avon because we use the facility here and work is continuing to um move forward on with the commission and with various projects. Um and there's a technical
advisory committee meeting between the burough and the society and the burough of Avon on Friday. And so that will be the update um to the overall consultants etc and trying to advance the projects um going forward. More information on
that uh at the next meeting. Thank you Councilman Council President. Okay. Sha Tree has a meeting next month. Tourism has a meeting next month. But Amy Hall, the director, would like me to remind everyone that country line dance
starts June 24th at 6 PM. The Beatles concert is the 25th next week at 7 in the park and opera is the 30th at the beach and the new takeout signs have been placed on the boardwalk. Also, there was no board of ed meeting, but I
do want to share with everybody the mayor and council attended the graduation last night. It was amazing. They had um slideshows. They had music. They had awards. In fact,
our own Nicole Brownie, this dispatcher that works here in town, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. She was from the class of 1990. She graduated from Bradley Beach Elementary School. So, congratulations, Nicole. And I also like to congratulate Bridget DeFane and John
Weber because their daughter Nora was validictorian. So congratulations Nora. That completes my report. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council President. Councilwoman Green. Thank you, Mayor. Um
uh the first is recreation rec the recreation board met June 9th uh when the burrow hosted an information session for the rec board with our engineer Ben Matlac of CME and BA Matt Doherty. Many thanks for presenting the site improvements planned in early fall and
an opportunity for feedback. And thanks to the rec board for a fun-filled Sather's Day kickball event this past Friday. It was a great way to kick off Father's Day weekend. REC summer camp begins onboarding its staff on June 23rd. Camp begins Monday, June 30th. Uh,
and a reminder about ongoing events. The senior club meets June 25th, noon at the Byz. The group will then reconvene in September. Summer Botchi League registration opened yesterday, June 16th. Registration is still open. Summer
league will run from July 8th to August 14th. Uh go to the recreation web page to sign up. Salted yoga, salted soul yoga hosts a full schedule of activities this month. Uh check the calendar on the recreation web page for dates. The
recreation board's next meeting is Monday, July 14th, 6:30 p.m. at the rec center. Uh and now the Fletcher Lake Commission met Thursday, June 12th. Thanks to everyone who participated in the lake cleanup. Many bags of waste and
debris were collected and it was a great community event for both Bradley Beach and Ocean Grove. Another cleanup will be scheduled for early fall. Uh wildlife enthusiasts enthusiasts take note. There have been sightings of pickrol and bass
at the lake by Bradley Beach DPW. Fletcher Lake is indeed coming back. The next commission meeting is scheduled for Thursday, July 16th at 6 p.m. The Arts Council has not met since this last council meeting. The Arts Council
recently hosted Summer Pallet, an art exhibit at Posh Real Estate, which included an artist reception and a book talk of member Lorie Crime's recently published Chasing Bruce. Many thanks to Mark Posh. I hope you had a chance to see the performance one sweet dream Abby
rode and beyond on June 8th where member uh arts council member Olivia Miranda and her dancers entertained in front of Riley Park's band shell. Ahead this summer in partnership with the Bradley Beach Library, the Arts Council is hosting a children's art workshop
entitled Color My World Tuesday, July 29th at 4 p.m. for students in grades 2 through 6. and mark your calendar for the popup art arts exhibit August 23rd 10:00 a.m. to 4 pm at the James Bradley. More details ahead. The next arts
council meeting will be an in-person brainstorming session date to be determined. And that's my report. Thank you, Councilwoman. Uh Councilman Weber. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, I want to take everybody back to June 7th. That Saturday was a very busy little day in
our wonderful little town. Uh the environmental commission was busy doing um the dreaded knotweed, the invasive species. They were removing the Japanese knotweed from the maritime forest. But as we did that, people from the that
were cleaning Fletcher Lake came through the forest and they were like looking for her garbage. And as both sets of volunteers were doing that back in the distance, we could hear the fire sirens going off uh because we know that the food pantry pickup was happening. And that of course involves dozens of people
in this town and there was probably dozens more uh volunteers at the pantry. So I just it was like everybody in town was volunteering and it was this hot sweaty kind of wet day. It was very interesting. But um so helping us out in the forest, the Kenny's who are here. So
thank you for that. They uh did a a great job there. every member of the environmental commission and I will say including our newest member um who her first meeting was on July whenever the Monday the first first Monday of in June so just a few days before and then that
Saturday she was out um helping us remove the knotweed um of course Liz Hernandez leader of the environmental commission uh Tracy Davidson Rich Davidson uh Katherine Batco I'm probably forgetting a bunch of people but a lot of people came out and it was a great
day of volunteering um I will say school graduation was great. Of course, uh Councilman Nikki, he was excused, but I do recommend you go because it is just it's a really it's a good time. Like just clear your schedule that evening. It's fun and it's nice that they uh invite the council. It's really great.
Uh it's great to see everybody there. Um I have just something to say about the logo. you know, we kind of did this whole thing with the logo and kind of already used the logo in a few new places, but I think there's still more work that needs to be done. And I'm just going to just grab you and grab the
administrator and some other people and just kind of get it across the finish line because there's actually like picking that the actual graphic though. That's just part of it. I think there's a lot other work that has to be done and we should decide if we want to, you know, go out pay somebody to do that. If we can be done in house, if we have
somebody in house that can do that, it' be great, too. So, I'm just letting you know that's like that is coming. Um, finalize the logo stuff. And that is my report. Mr. Mayor, thank you, Councilman. Uh, so my report, I'm going to cover a few things. Actually, I've
got not only I, but hopefully many of you will have a busy next week because, uh, I'm going to list off a number of dates starting with library board meeting on Monday, June 23rd, 5:15 at the library. Uh clearly not mandatory
tennis, but the public is welcome. June 23rd, Monday. Then uh on uh Friday the 27th, we have the Julie Stripe Maritime Forest Celebration planned. Um that is that
will be held at 6:00 p.m. at the fifth I'm sorry, at the gazebo, last gazebo before you head into Ocean Grove. Uh right on the boardwalk. Uh, we're going to be adding new signage. The signage will not only have a little brief bio of former mayor Julie Shrek with a picture
of her. You know, the maritime forest is named after the former mayor, but there was there's no detail specifically in our signage about either the mayor andor the history of the maritime forest. What we do capture currently are species of wildlife that you can view there. But
now we're going to add smaller signage with a picture of the mayor, uh, former mayor, brief biography of her role and and a brief history of the maritime force. So, we'll be celebrating that. Uh, members of the Shrek family plan to
attend. Uh, I believe her her daughter Molly might be able to attend as well and even speak. Uh, refreshments will be served. Now, that's Friday the 27th. On Saturday the 28th, very exciting Mayor's Wellness Walk will occur at 900
am uh at the boardwalk at the Fifth Avenue Gazebo. We will meet at 9:00 a.m. and the uh Jersey Shore University Medical Center physical therapists will teach strength training using resistance bands. So, I personally have trouble
getting those bands open, but uh I'm sure a lot of you might really enjoy uh the exercise that will come with that. So again, 25th Beatles, well 23rd library board, 25th Beatles, 27th Julie Shrek Maritime Forest, 28th Mayor's
Wallace Walk. Um, and I also just wanted to comment that the graduation was fascinating. The kids were great. Uh, it was a phenomenal program and uh, and proud parent sitting too to my right, Mr. Weber was giving thumbs up to the to the kids and taking
videos and pictures. I John, I know you probably had a better time than all the kids, but it was a lot of fun. So, that concludes my report. Now, we'll open it up. Uh, item 15 on the agenda, public comments and questions. Public comments, questions. Yes, sir.
Rick Ray Pascal for Bradley Boulevard. So last meeting I was here to talk about the white wooden rectangular boxes on the beach. Uh after leaving the meeting I had some more homework to do and I'm
back to uh to talk about that. Um so I hate reading really is not my style but there's a lot of material and to make the five minutes that's what I have to do. So I apologize for that. Okay. The objective is to request the
council to create an ordinance to improve the procedure to assign beach lockers, which from here on out I will call beach storage boxes. The beach storage box issue frustrates many Bradley residents. The existing process
has loopholes that prevent residents from moving up on the list. Beach storage boxes have been given to new residents that were not on the waiting list ahead of residents on the list for a number of years. Major improvements are needed. The Pharaoh needs an
ordinance too. And by the way, I have a copy of this for everyone with no need notes are required. The Barrow needs an ordinance to one. Publish existing beach storage box assignments and all existing waiting lists on the burrow site. The
list would include the name, city, and state of the person or persons that are assigned or waiting for beach storage boxes. Two, limit residents to one beach storage box per resident or non-resident. Three, develop a process for allowing current assignees to move
their beach storage box from one location to another. Four, build additional beach storage boxes for residents currently on the waiting list. Winter storage limits in a parking lot have been used as justification to prevent this, but other towns store their beach storage boxes against the
blood walls. Five, permit residents to purchase beach storage boxes from the burrow. Residents would would incur a one-time cost for material and labor labor to build the beach storage boxes. Six, develop a process to initially assign and validate the ongoing
assignment of beach storage boxes to handicapped individuals. And uh seven is prioritize beach badge storage boxes for residents only. If you notice only the the first six items can be done. They have nothing to do with
the resident non-resident um issue. Okay. VS versus Burrow of Deal 1978 and Neptune City versus Burrow of Avon 1961. Legal cases do not apply to beach storage boxes. The deal case addresses non-resident access to deal casino beach
club and the add-on case addresses charging non-residents higher beach tag fees. Beach storage boxes are not beach lockers. Beach lockers can be interpreted as changing rooms with toilets and showers and would apply to the vaness case mentioned above. Asbury
Park, Lock Arbor and Wildwood Crest give priority beach storage box access to residents. Beach storage boxes are only available to lock barber and wildland press residents and asbury non-residents are grandfathered but can no longer obtain a beach storage box going forward. While it's exciting to talk
about main street improvements and extending the Bradley Pavilion, residents care more about basic summertime issues. The season is short and that's why residents on the wait list care more about beach storage boxes than most other things happening in town. Please consider this request to help restore the trust between residents
in the barrel that apply to beach storage boxes. Thank you. So here's the uh document from which we can read through. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you for doing the additional research. Now we get to
turn it over to other. Yeah. I mean people are doing it and um you know when when I used to work and you know you're you're like the you know the board Michael they would look at the attorneys and say make it happen and if you can't make it
happen find somebody that can make it happen. I mean that's really how I how I see it there. The the the process is broken. Um there are loopholes that you know people have seen they have observed doesn't you know it's it's not good and
um got to be fixed and uh you know if I if by really we can get item seven then you you know you really fix it more even more quickly. Thank you. We will definitely look at it. Thank you. Other questions or comments on anything
the agenda or not the agenda? Miss Kepler. Beth Kepler 504 Central Avenue um here in town. Um first I'd like to thank Mr. Dari for his report tonight. Um in regard to Mr. Bernstein. Um I find it
obscene the amount of money when totaled that was um allocated to that firm given what we know in history which I won't go into. But I think we're all aware, but not just about the labor issues, but specifically to the OPAR issues. Um, we
all know the uh the double dipping scheme he had going peeringly with, you know, in my opinion of the uh Oprah where he would he was our Oprah attorney. He was denying Oprah requests, getting paid to review them and to deny
them and then subsequently going to court and getting paid to go to court to defend them. And then the judge was overturning it because he would lose because he wasn't following the Oprah. And if he had just, you know, if he was really an Oprah attorney who understood
Oprah law, the he would have granted and not redacted the records that he ended up having to unredact when he lost in court, all with our tax money. So, he was getting paid on both sides. How convenient. And I think that that is something else that I think the Office
of Attorney Epics should evaluate. Um and last week um the last or not last week but the last meeting um council president Denoval brought up a very important point in her um
council report at the end of the meeting and I think it may have gotten lost in between the Moby Mats and the ice cream proppers and all the fun fund stuff that there was a $12,000 misallocation identified
of the shade tree money that um we can add to the ever growing list of um financial improprieties uh that we've identified that have been going on. And I'd like to ask this
council body if in regard to the letter that was received from the state of New Jersey office of the comproller dated August 5th of 2024. Um there was 24 documents that were
requested by uh Kevin Walsh, the acting state controller that were supposed to be received by his office of August 20 by August 23rd of 2024. Um we most people characterize that as
an investigation. Um Larry Fox said it was an inquiry and that and tried to make it seem like it was routine. when you look at the 24 documents and in different information that was requested. Um,
in especially in context to where we stand today in light of the report that was given earlier tonight is an clearly an investigation. It could be easily termed that. Do we know where that stands? Will that be reported back
to this burrow? What came of that? because these are this is a very serious thing going on and I don't understand and I I don't mean to keep coming up here but I'm not going to go away until that till we find out what is exactly going on.
So I'm not not with you and and that's my my frustration that your sentiment is not with this council body. Thank God that the burough got it right and voted correctly this year because we wouldn't be have gotten the information that we've gotten so far. But we're only 6
months into your 4-year term there. And you know, I would love to talk about like, you know, drinking and outdoor drinking and who's going to be playing at the band and the fireworks and all that fun stuff, but we've got serious business here that cannot be just swept
under the rug. And I think part of the reason that these agencies are ignoring us is because there's only a very limited number of people. Everybody's concerned and everybody's paying taxes, but there's not that many people that
are coming up here and and voicing their concern. And I'm not saying that these other issues are not important that people are bringing up, but it would be very helpful to all of our interests if these agencies were hearing from all of us collectively because it's easy to
ignore one or two people. But we we wrote a letter and 300 people signed it and we were ignored and the council body wrote a letter and signed it unanimously and brought it to the attorney general's
office and you were ignored and our legislators at the state and county level were reached out to and we were ignored. the DCA ignored us and they find you and that just doesn't make
sense to me. the math game, the math. So, I wish the DCA had ignored us instead of finding us, but Right. So, can you tell me please? Um, I didn't mean to spend all my time just talking, but if you could please answer I if you haven't received this report from the
comproller in regard to what their investigation or inquiry or whatever this letter was from August 5th of 2024 listing 24 very detailed specific documents that they asked for from the prior administration. What is the
outcome of that? Uh, I don't know the outcome of it. Um, in fact, I'm trying to track down a lot of the activity that occurred in 24 when the council was not made privy to that. Um, but I will tell you and the and the public that we are
even currently having ongoing dialogue with the comprollers's office. So, they're not ignoring us. We're we're in contact. I just need to track down some of last year's correspondents. We're we're also creating some new correspondents for them as well. Could you ask them what the outcome of that
is? And maybe um I mean I I can tell you the stuff that they were requesting was sent to them and it was an inquiry. It wasn't any it's it wasn't anything against the burough. That much I can tell you. Okay. So all of this was sent. That's good. We at least know that it
was they they give you a date. You have to send it by that date or you're supposed to send it by that date which it was done. But what about things like that were like bank reconciliations that we know were never we didn't have bank reconciliations. So how did you anything that was available that we had so things so not everything
it it's handled the same way that an open request is handled if we have the records they are all right so then to be specific everything we had was not everything that they requested was available that was a year ago off the top of my head I don't well I wasn't trying to put you on the spot you jumped
in most of it I can tell you what was saying most of it yeah but now it's Okay. So, so if we So, Beth, we're over our five minutes, but but we're we're continuing and as soon as information is available that we can
share, we will. Okay. But specifically, this this letter is the one that I'm interested if you could ask them what come of that one. We're going to track it down. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Yes. Mr. Bartal, Rick Barto, 116 Newark. Uh following up
I think on my inquiry two weeks ago. A did we ever find the report about all the wires that were on the uh telephone polls and you know there supposedly an audit was done on that and I think councilman had said that he thought he
had seen something and second part of that I think Matt you were going to possibly talk to Ocean Grove to see because that was supposedly they had done the work and gotten all the utilities to uh take down need extra
wires from near town. That's not ringing a bell at me. Yeah, I don't recall that. Oh, okay. I mean, how did it come to I think it was Ocean Grove if I remember correctly. Yeah, that's what popped at my initial inquiry year ago
and who whatever it was that they had done. That's it. And there was some sort of a survey done for Erica. Do you recall that um of of our polls? I thought somebody did
there is a map showing poles and some inventory and I think it might have been CN did it at some point in time. Kim Kim Humphre had said she well she had responded that it was being done. Yeah. I don't know how complete it was. Who was doing this survey?
Do you know who was doing it? Was it like but it was the elevator? I think it was the engineer. there was that for I think I think it's like blows back like two years ago. No, I think it's it's all through the burrow as far as polls that were identified.
You mean each poll is different. They might one poll might be P&L, another poll might be Verizon, another poll might be Optimum. I I do vaguely recall there was some exercise, some effort made to take an
inventory. I also vaguely recall that it was it not actionable but but we'll try to track it down. I didn't have that on my to-do but thank you. I've added it. Other comments? Yes, sir. Mr. Cohen.
Uh Thomas J. Goan 612 Avenue. I'd like to echo one of the previous uh speakers on the uh uh Bernstein bill. Um, I actually filed suit against the town because I was given documents that were
80 to 90% redacted and it was very nerve-wracking and the town uh did settle by paying my legal fees. So again, it's this kind of churning of the account. Um charging to uh do the
redactions and then having to charge to then fight the lawsuit and then having to pay me anyway. I mean, I'm so happy that this is getting out there because it's quite fortunately in that case I paid my u my retainer to the attorney,
but there the court does allow fee shifting for open public records act violations. So, I was able to claw that back, but um it it it's annoying because it doesn't serve the the purposes of the OPER requirements. Um I do want to uh
thank the mayor and council for making the changes on Fifth Avenue. Um our sewer system doesn't need any more band-aids, but um I think um one point Mr. Noiki I think should you know shout out to the folks is that uh when you do
the new work like was done in phase one and phase two the homeowners get a curb stop cleanout which they don't get if it's lined correct. So if they ever have a failure in their 100y old system
the work has to be done from their house all the way to the line in the road. So now once we do these sewers, if they have a failure on their side of the curb stop, they only have to go that 25 30 feet from the house to the curb stop and also they don't need a road opening
permit and bonding. So uh it's very important that we do it the right way and I appreciate you doing that and thanks for your inputs, Mr. Smith. Any other questions or comments in the room? Uh we have a handful. Yeah, we
have a handful on Zoom. Uh, Mia Mullen, questions or comments? Mia? Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes, now we can. Okay. Hi. Um, I just wanted to go back. I was at the last meeting. I mentioned about the uh music
on the beach. You were absolutely right. It is on the sign. It's in very It's in the fine print, and I say that in air quotes. If you can see me. Um, it says, uh, earphones required. What I have to do is maybe research how
they posted on other beaches because teenagers, college kids, they're not seeing that. And that's just my opinion. But I would invite council, the police, take a walk on the beach on any crowded Saturday Saturday and there is just
music all over the place and it's a constant. Um, at least on my beach at 4th Avenue. I would imagine it's like that at the other beaches. So, I just don't know how you say to somebody, "Oh, by the way, earphones are required." It's more like no music. And I don't know how to fix that without it being at
some extraordinary expense because our signs are very nice. They look nice, but there's a lot of fine print on it. I almost wish the music part was up where it's the no smoking part, like no smoking, no music. Then it would just click with the average person. Oh, I
can't smoke and I can't have music. Um, anyway, that's I'm I really want to see how they post it at other beaches, but again, it could it's would be an expense to change that. And I don't know how you police for it, but it's very uncomfortable to say to somebody, uh, you know, a 20-year-old, you know, could
you please, uh, turn your music off? I usually say, turn it down. And they get irritated because they don't know that there's a sign. They really don't understand that sign. Um, and the other thing I wanted to ask as a question, has there been consideration for how the
lines are going to be when they red resurface the courts at the rec center? Um it's desperate need to have that done. I forget the timing on all of that, but when I've played there now in recent weeks. Um and there's former
tennis players on these pickle ball courts, they all agree that, you know, to put a tennis court down there would just not be used. And it's so confusing the way we have the positioning between the tennis court and the one tennis
court and the four pickle ball courts. It's different than actually how it is in other towns or other public courts that use tennis courts as pickle ball courts too. So I really please me I just want to let you know that the feedback
we got from the recreation board and the recreation director is that there are a lot of people who do want to play tennis. Of course they don't want to play it on a pickle ball court. That's the point. Well, that people will be playing tennis and that it will be lined
for tennis and pickle ball. That's the bottom lines. A waste, Miss Mullen. They the board, this rec center board and uh councilwoman Greenblat is the liaison to the board.
They met on this. We very very pointedly said, you know, there are tennis players saying they won't play and we're on pickle ball line courts and we're being told by the wreck board and by the rec director, no, that's incorrect. Many tennis players are using these courts
with the pickle ball lining. And given that we don't have a lot of space, we don't have area to, you know, hold one tennis court separate. Uh, I bet none of I don't mean to interrupt you, but I just And I'm sorry.
I bet none of them play tennis. I mean, it just doesn't any sense. If you ask any tennis player, they will tell you. It's just it's exactly what she's just saying. Okay. At the rec board says there's lots of people that play tennis and would like to play tennis and will
play tennis over. It sounds like there's two two types of tennis players out there and you and Jim Shishius are one and these folks spoke to a bunch of others and you know this is what government does. You talk to people and you figure out the most people what the
most people want. So we're we're trying uh Miss Mullen, but this is an example. We heard you. We heard Mr. Shishious. We heard others. But we also heard others saying, "No, there are many people who will play tennis on these courts. And given our
lack of space, we just can't we just don't have the capacity to to have multiple courts or or give up the tennis court. They don't want to give up right the option for tennis. So, any other
comments or questions?" Okay, that's it. Uh, Miss Maguire, actually have Eileen Shashas. Sorry. Eileen Shashas. Oh, I see. Breit. I was just taking one. Okay. Breit Maguire, are you available?
Yep. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. Yes. Hi there. Um, just want to make a couple of comments. Uh I too was someone who had a lawsuit based on uh Oprah's and um about over 20 documents that were loaded with
black ink redactions. They looked like bar graphs if you turn them sideways. Um I believe I had all but three unredacted documents come out of that lawsuit. So it's crazy that he's fighting for this invoice to be paid and we're at
risk for a lawsuit. Um, you know, we all keep trying to move forward positively, but we have so much to fix in this town and are constantly reminded of how poorly things have been managed. Um, the financial review by Mr. Ibanau confirmed
for me that we do need investigations to happen and far back. Um, what else we had? Oh, we had a historic tax increase here a couple of years ago. had a set of books that didn't match anywhere and was
basically like looking at three sets of books. How were we even able to come up with a number of that tax increase that we had when our numbers were so all over the place? It's it's it feels criminal. You
know, there's people who couldn't stay and afford living here because of some of these tax increases. So, it just confirms that Larry Fox had really no clue what he was doing during his term or even commenting tonight at the meeting. He comes scripted and makes no
point at all. He spoke more tonight than ever as a mayor and expected answers he never gave as a mayor. Um, yes, I am furious with his behavior, but more so of the BS he brought to this town that doesn't allow us to move forward without
the reminder of his terrible administration and professionals he milked our money for to keep his holdovers doing nothing. Um, I'm sorry. Thank you for letting me vent. But this, you know, you we try to move forward and
then we're reminded with who we still have to pay, putting us at risk for lawsuits, someone who didn't even get our employee contracts done, and then he shows up at these meetings and talks more than he ever even spoke to residents. Um, so I just want to say
thank you. Thank you for hiring Mr. Ebanau for this additional report on top of the audit we'll be waiting for. Um it helps put things in a clearer perspective of really how damaged our
financials are and I just am so I feel so much gratitude to where we're at today that we actually have a mayor and a full council that really can move forward and work for all the good. And I
just I feel so positive about that. And you know, thanks for letting me vent all the negative, but we are finally here. And it's a bumpy ride, I feel like, but we're here. So, thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Uh, Miss Shushis, are you can you hear me? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. Hi. Um, you know, I love the Bills list.
And if I remember correctly, it was November of 2022 that CME charged us I think $2400 for a utility pole inventory.
So I know it's a nove I I pretty confident it's a November in the a November bill list. And for some reason, I think it's 2022. I'm trying to go through everything here and I can't find it. But I know they were they charged
us, I think, $2,400 for a utility pole inventory. Okay. Thanks. We We will follow up with Ben Malac. Okay. Thank you. Byebye. We should give her a prize if she's right.
[Laughter] Are there any other questions or comments? Okay, leaning forward so I can see Miss Kepler. Seeing none, I will u close the public comments and move to what is
next? Executive executive item 16 executive session in which we will discuss 301 Main Street zoning appeal versus Bradley Beach and uh this is roughly we estimate going to take us a
half an hour and and the governing body will take no action when we return from executive session. So there will be no official. You're welcome Mr. Thank you second. Great second. Mr. Noble, yes.
Mr. Spring, yes. Mr. Nikki, Mr. Weber, yes. Yes. We'll discuss the on it.