e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e miss picala here Miss Kennedy here Miss
D Benedictus here Mr Henry here Mr maleri oh yes I'm sorry Mr Mesmer here missana R here Mr Edwards the New Jersey open public meeting law was enacted to ensure
the right of the public to have advanced notice of and to attend the meetings of public bodies at which any business affecting their interest excuse me is discussed or act done upon in accordance with the vision of act this act the Bricktown D board of education has caused notice of this meeting to be posted on the administration office bullet board the
official District website and channel btv2 and sent to the Asbury Park Press the brick times the store Ledger and Municipal Clerk's Office motion to move into executive session motion Fran second Aly whereas The Brick Township Board of Education has been formed pursuant to
applicable New Jersey statutes and whereas the board is charged with responsibility of Performing all acts and doing all things consistent with law and the rules of the state board of education necessary for the lawful and proper conduct equipment and maintenance of the public schools and public school property of the Brick Township School District and whereas section seven of
the open public meeting act permits the exclusion of the public from a meeting of the board in C circumstances and whereas the board has determined that circumstances exist for such an executive session and whereas the board has found the action described below to be necessary and proper now therefore be resolved by the board on February 20th
2025 that the public shall be excluded from the discussion of an action on the executive session here and set forth the session will be approximately 15 minutes and the general nature of the subject matter to be discussed is harassment intimidation and bullying reports it is anticipated at this time that the above stated subject matter will be made public if and when it is deemed in the
public interest to do so and the need for confidentiality is no longer required by the board I'd like to have oh okay that Mary can I have a vote please miss picala yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss St Benedictus yes
Mr Henry yes Mr meleri yes Mr Mesmer yes Miss aan [Music] r e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e roll call for return to the meeting I need a motion in a second motion Fran second
Mike Miss Bala V oh I couldn't hear I'm Sorry Miss Bala yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss St Benedictus yes Mr Henry yes Mr mjeri yes Mr Mesmer yes
Miss Ayano yes please stand for the salute and a moment of silence to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible
with liy and justice for all for maera good thank you Mrs Z rone this evening we have our two student representatives to present information from our high schools and our middle schools we're
going to start with Kristen would you like to start this evening Kristen mcwade is the president of the student government Association for Brick Memorial High School Kristen thank you um tonight i' would like to begin with the monthly report from veterans soraa Middle School
congratulations to our 11 students who participated in the PCA art reflection showcase six of those Su six of those students were chosen to move on to the county level best of luck to them another congratulations to team three our pbsis incentive winners for marking
period two winter sports girls basketball congratulations to Soul De La Cruz and Michaela rivers on their selection to the Ocean County All-Star game also congratulations to Liam blood and Landon schmidtz on their selection to the Ocean County All-Star game that took place on February 4th at Toms River
Intermediate South wrestling congratulations to the Tri County Champions Thomas O'Keefe and Colton Stalin both finish a season undefeated spring Sports meetings are currently being held for the upcoming season which starts March 8th High School scheduling
on February 6th the bmhs counselors visited V's Memorial to talk to all the eighth graders about high school scheduling students and their parents are currently working on making final course choices for next year and have until February 28th to do so some
upcoming events February 20th the sixth grade glow dance February 26 the seventh grade glow dance sponsored by the PTA student faculty basketball game Run by school base on Tuesday February 11th the brick memorial High School Palace club visited their friends in the autism
program for an afternoon of fun the palace prepared and guided students through multiple activities with a Valentine's Day theme each activity worked towards enhancing IEP eals OT and PT skills in addition to life skills our friends at the middle school really enjoyed their Cupid movement break on
Thursday February 13th the classes in the autism program started the Mustang espresso delivery cart which included delivering ice coffee lemonade and IC tea the students filled ordered for the staff and delivered them we are excited to be Brewing life skills at VMS we are looking forward to our next one on
February 27th now on the monthly report from Brook Memorial High School Brook Memorial was exed to end our first semester on a positive note we had a successful few days of exams and are looking forward to continuing to build on the Positive Vibes of a strong first half the school year it is hard to
believe but already as a new semester begins along with the help of our amazing guidance Department our current 9th 10th and 11th grade students are working hard to schedule their classes for next school year with that we welcome staff from Ocean County College on Wednesday February 5th to meet with interested students for our many
offerings of dual enrollment opportunities Mrs saruca and our Administration then met with all of our students during grade level meetings on Friday the 7th to give a state of theable and reinforce all of our expectations and opportunities throughout the remainder of the school year that weekend also proved to be
noteworthy for a brick memorial in two capacities first our wonderful Mustang players and drama Department put on an incredible winter Musical and Beetle Juice Jr so many amazing performances were highlighted by senior Luca buckno as the lead character as always all of our cast and crew Shone brightly during
the three night run on stage we are already excited for their next reduction which will be Mary Poppins coming this spring secondly a huge congratulations to our mock trial team who won the Ocean County Championship they competed against several other County schools on their way to the finals which took place
on February 5th versus mates at the Toms River courthouse their confidence their Poise their knowledge and their undeniable quest to be successful was inspirational to say the least Mrs cord Leon was and is remarkable in leading their journey to become the Champs congratulations to Katie Andress and
Sophia salsa in their work as the plaintiff lawyers to Miranda Monero Jude Smith and Sophie DY for their work as the witnesses and to Nate delin Tatiana Williams yaku Chrisco Lyla Breen Eva car vasillis for their roles as our Witnesses and the defense team and to
all of our brick brick memorial mock trial team their next case is to compete in the regional competition on February 26 for a chance to move on to the state championships and then a case to retain the mayor's trophy against bths on Monday March 3rd at the municipal courthouse
we had a great spirit week last week that saw many of our Mustangs take part in Monday's Jersey day Tuesday dressed like a partner day W Wednesday was going to be show the love day for Valentine's but we were lucky enough to have our first snow day of the year and then of course Thursday was our Mustang Pride
day on Tuesday February 11th brick MOA was proud to host in conjunction with our bmhs and bths guidance departments an Administration our annual brick and Beyond event over 1500 people attended the event that proudly showcases what our high school have to offer and what
post-secondary opportunities surrounding our community has to offer we had over 100 vendors in attendance including about 60 different colleges from the tricy area all of our branches of military and many local vocations and job opportunities it was a great
night oh it was a great night for Brick thank you especially to Mr Kevin mcnight and Mrs Angela Smith for all of their hard work and efforts in making the event a success lastly our brick Air Force Junior ROTC is preparing for the unit assessment on Wednesday February 26th conducted by the Air Force ROTC
headquarters as commander my senior staff and I have been working to prepare our unit for the inspection by going through inventory adapting new Cadets to the program and creating a unit briefing for the inspector we are confident we will be bringing reports of good standing to you next month now on the sports report wrestling
the brick MOA wrestling team finished the year 14 and5 Central Jersey group three Champions and group three finalists the brick memorials this was brick memorial 's 19th sectional title for girls track the girls 4x400 team of Sloan Kelly Samar Robinson Morgan Bland
and Tory Hedley set a new school record at the group three Central sectional meet the girls finished third and advanced a group three Championship on Saturday boys track the boys secured two sectional titles with Ricky dylan winning the 55 meter dash and Jackson
Ellis winning the Central Jersey group three sectional championship in shot put BS boys B the boys finished third place in a very competitive a South finished fourth in the Ocean County tournament and sixth in the shore Conference tournament took second and third at the Lakewood Scotch
doubles tournament they finished third at the rule the river classic and second at the New Jersey Super Bowl Classic on an individual note Nick manella made the top 100 in New Jersey and qualified for the individual state tournament be sure to keep up with all
of our current news on our social media platforms Atri Mora High School and BMS Sports on x and BM stangs on Instagram also subscribe to our podcast straight from the Mustangs mouth where this week we feature a special message to all of our seniors from past graduates and alumni that's all I have for tonight thank
you thank you Christen next up is Paula kobian Ramos from Brick Township High School she's the president of the student government Association paa good evening I am excited to share this month's bths dragons update with with you but first we will start with the
lake graa report for the lake rera winter sports the lake rera boys basketball team wrapped up their season with three hardfought victories but their record doesn't tell the full story of their heart hustle and resilience they battled through adversity and never
back down from The Challenge each game was an opportunity to improve learn and push each other to be better Ali her Hernandez and Paul mes represented LR Mes in the eighth grade All-Star Game Coach P py looked forward looks forward to
seeing this year's eighth graders eighth graders competing at the high school level next year and the Improvement the seventh and sixth graders bring to the team next season at lrms the cheerleaders had a wonderful season concluding with Spirit Week the staff
and students enjoyed walking into her school underneath a beautiful green and white balloon arch provided by Miss ventor Torino the student versus staff basketball game resulted in a phenomenal win by the teachers and helped raise
over $600 on Wednesday our cheerleaders distributed every everyday hearer notes that students wrote to staff and staff to students to acknowledge their positive influence finally we celebrated our fabulous season together with a Hab Habachi dinner at yokaoma
the lake Raa wrestling team finished the season with a record of 5-3 the team beat Toms River North Pinelands goats Manchester and McCulla the boys on the team worked incredibly hard over the season many kids made great strides on
the map The A Team had four blue division champs Patrick mccordi Jord John Irvin Jack George and Vinnie mavo and three Place finishers Sheriff hessen Chris kbone and narck Gorgan the team
finished third overall in the blue tournament two wrestlers Patrick mcgi and Jack George won the Ocean County championship the lake Rivera girls basketball team had an impressive 2024 2025 season the girls ended the season with a seller
record of 95 the girls worked hard all season long and played tough against every opponent they faced their sportmanship was exceptional speaks volume about the character of each of the girls on the team graduating eighth
graders Haley MIM Ro rosan cikas Noel olski Sadia menta and Valentina vashi will be missed greatly next year coach Henrik is incredibly proud of all her players on and off the court this
season spring Sports will begin next month registrations is open for All Sports track and field baseball and softball for their Club activities their yearbook is in the final stages of publication the last day to pre-order a
yearbook is April 17th visit YB pay.com or see Miss Fagan to place an order the performing arts department is getting ready for a full spring season next Wednesday our brand our band department is hosting a Southside band
festival with our elementary schools from bths bands go brick go is a fight song and they will all play along together and it's truly something to hear for March they have planned voices from the lake and Senior band will be
performing at a district Art Festival March 6 at bths it is an amazing celebration of all Arts of our community voices from the lake Club next rehearsal is March 3rd we practice Mondays in room22 after school
Jack and the Beck performances are March 28th and 29th at 6 p.m. tickets will be available the next week on the show for $5 each for may they have a spring concert coming up for all bands in choir May 28th at 6 p.m. they are also
preparing to compete at Six Flags Great Adventure with a Performing Arts consulants group on May 16th we are happy to report that the manga book club started back up again this winter what is manga it's a type of comic comic book
from Japan like Naruto Pokemon Mrs Kerwin is the adviser and we meet in the libraries after school by monthly to watch movies read games read play games and make new friends it is is very popular Club at the lake Riv vera for
kids who love to read both manga and regular books all are W all all are welcome the staff of the Laker Ledger our school newspaper are currently fin finalizing the winter Edition these articles in the Laker Ledger are being
written edited by students at the lake the club advisers are Mrs Lynch and Miss Kerwin be sure to check your email for be sure to check your email for the winter Edition as it will be sent out to par parents and the school community over the next couple of weeks our lead
program for our L ml students are continuing to work hard on listening and speaking skills we have reviewed a variety of topics and are now focusing on a asses test prep science club met and created Snow though they mix
different parts of flow and and conditioner to form the dough they had to pick different thickness of conditioners to decide what kind of dough they wanted to make they learned about mixtures explored and use their IM imaginations to
create and now to our Brick Township school report this past month we recognized our bths school counselors during National Honor National School counseling week we are extremely grateful and lucky to have support that these individuals provide
all of the students at bths whether offering academic advice providing emotional support or helping students navigate their future paths paths our counselors are always there to lift and Empower I believe you can see a picture on our D District website of our awesome
bths counselors bths would also like to thank and recognize the counseling departments at both bths and BM bmhs for their work in planning preparing and facilitating the brick and Beyond event it was a great event where students and
parents had the opportunity to experience and review post secondary Pathways along with current opportunities within the brick schools special recognition to the supervisors of guidance of both high schools Mrs mcnight and Mrs and Miss Smith for their
leadership in high in this highly successful event we recently held the annual bths science Symposium offering students an opportunity to showcase their research in the fields of biology as well as anatomy and physiology the students
began working on their research projects early in the semester and we were eager to Showcase their process and findings with staff and peers our computer Honor Society students participated in a in a high school programming competition at mouth University two bths two bths teams
of three students competed on February 7th at the MU High School Hawk hack it was a large field of competitors with a high level of skill on display bths proudly ended up with highly respect Ed fifth place and Seventh Place team
finish two students also from Brick Township High School were represented no were presented and with an award of recognition on January 20th at the VFW in Brick the students recorded an audio essay in response to the topic is
America today our forefather's vision the third place winner was Samaria Hall and the first play first place winner was Savannah gross the TS performing artarts Department hosted a musical theater workshop for 8th grade students from
Lake Rivera Middle School the participants learned for part of a song and dance from Disney's High School Musical the future dragons had the opportunity to converse with current bths students about course offerings in the Arts co-curricular opportunities and
upcoming events now onto our athletic report the girls and boys bowling teens are finishing their already successful Seasons with a Deep Run in the state playoffs we are excited to share that the girls bowling team won last evening in the third round of the
njsiaa tournament to advance to the sectional championships which will be which will take place next Tuesday February 25th in New Brunswick we also had four girls qualified for the individual state championship the boys bowling team has also Advanced to the
third round of the NJ siaa tournament tournament but unfortunately lost to De for in a close match the ice hockey team won the Dow cup in the short Conference tournament the team also qualified for the NJ siaa tournament their first round
game is scheduled for Monday uh February 24th 2025 versus Robinsville at the Mercer County Park ice rink in winter track bths had four athletes qualified for the group three championship ship meet which
will be held this Saturday boys wrestling districts will be this Saturday February 22nd at Point burrow High School this determines what wrestlers will move to the region 6 meet and then hope hopefully to the njsa
Championships in Atlantic City at the beginning of March the girls wrestling team will attend region championships this Sunday in East Brunswick they will determine who moves to the njsia a championships in March as well the boys
basketball season has unfortunately ended and just missed qualifying for the tournament the team is ready to start working towards next year girls basketball team has qualified for the njsi AA tournament and they will host the first round next Wednesday at bths
with a 4M tip off the girls swim team also qualified for the njsiaa team tournament and lost to a close meet in the first round to cold neck both boys and girls squads had many record-breaking swims and are looking
forward to next year now on to our club reports this month's NHS member of the month is Junior Erica borney Erica embodies all core values of bths and is and the Honor Society she promptly attends to do tasks with diligence and
enthusiasm her positive and fortude are contagious she's a role model for others congratulations Erica Key Club is currently hosting a crumble cookie fundraiser that will conclude on February 28th they also have a service trip coming up to Warren Wolf Elementary
School for read Across America they hope to encourage Literacy By model my botling good reading habits the interact Club will be hosting a dying to donate fundraiser at Mike's Pizza on February 24th from 10:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. at
this month Spanish honors society meeting Kiera mchu and Paula oh me hi presented information about fiesta de Candelaria a Spanish festival celebrated in February for future events looking ahead
our annual Battle of the classes will be held on Thursday February 27th in the East gym from 3: to 5:00 p.m. the four classes will compete in a variety of events and races such as tug-of war and three-legged race human Hungry Hippo and
basketball musical chairs in preparation for the event SGA is hosting a spirit week and a schoolwide game of R Shambo which is also known as rock paper scissor and shoe rock paper scissor sorry the class of 2025 is hosting a student volleyball tournament on March
6th right after school NHS is looking forward to participating in the Polar Plunge to help fund raise for the tiger stola Foundation be sure to stay connected to bths event and inside information by accessing her school
website sgaa Instagram bths sgaa and her school Twitter bths dragons you can always you can always see our happenings monthly through Dr cajun's dragon reveal thank you so much for this opportunity and this is all I have for
[Applause] tonight thank you Paula as Paul mentioned uh and I believe Kristen did too brick and Beyond took place and we were thrilled with how it turned out this year as we are every year thank you
to Mr mcnight and Miss Mrs Smith and all of the counselors for working so diligently to put that together I know Dr Farrell Dr Anderson and many of the folks here from central office attended uh this is a premier event for uh for us
here in the uh District it's a great night where students parents staff along with the community come together to help to guide our students for continuing education and careers we thank the colleges the military the local businesses for attending thank you to our high school guidance departments
again for both high schools joining together to facilitate facilitate this awesome program there were over 125 Representatives that attended this event and some 60 colleges vocational schools career schools along with job offerings from many many different places like
Great Adventure Lakewood blue claws Jenkinson's brick Beach uh Recreation Casino pier and New Jersey swim and more teachers advisers and representatives from both high schools were there to promote their clubs organizations and associations I know Dr o con was there
as well from our transportation department and several of our board members as well um there were Refreshments that were provided by the local business we would like to share with you a short clip of the highlights of brick and Beyond if we could show that clip now please
[Music] [Music] he [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] he
[Music] and as always thank you div Vision tech for providing the Highlight um videos for all of these important events Mrs Zan around just add to that that just happened a week ago Tuesday so to have that video that quick and the turnout on
that where it started to snow right around what was it 78 o'clock that night um turnout was phenomenal really a premier event if you get a chance next year to attend um actually my former employer cwood Swim Club when I
lifeguarded 30 around years ago um was had a table there as well so it's a really neat event great job by our guidance Department uh running that event so I need a motion and a second for approval of January's minutes motion
bran second alley Mary vote please miss picala for the volume on the microphones to be increased so I could hear everything that everybody's saying um yes Miss Kennedy yes Missy Benedictus
yes Mr Henry yes Mr meleri yes Mr Mesmer yes missar yes okay committee ports reports Miss mcamera thank you Mrs Aeron the policy and planning committee did not meet this
month we will be meeting next month I have lots of reading for them to to do I know they're excited um we do have a couple of updates however we'd like to congratulate all of our fifth graders who were dare graduates um recently I know that uh Dr farell Dr Anderson
myself uh have been uh going to those dear graduations I think we had some board members attend as well so again congratulations to all the fifth grade dear graduates the posters and essays are outstanding and your commitment to practicing good decision- making and leading healthy and safe lives is
outstanding thank you to our Brick Township police officers and our municipality Who deliver this program to our fifth grade students which address the critical risks that our kids face every day on Saturday February 15th it was
school resource officer Appreciation Day brick schools is thankful for the Cooperative relationship we have with the Brick Township Police Department and for the school resource officers who work in our district thank you to detective Dockery and detective Alero for all you do and serve in best service
to our students parents staff and the community coming up we have brick hero Awards Friday March 14th at 7 pm the brick hero Awards will take place at Brick Memorial High School this event honors brick residents businesses and brick School staff that exhibit a
remarkable effort to make the community a better place the event is hosted by The Brick Township High School and brick memorial high school student Community Connection councils and will include performances by local school choirs theater groups and and dance teams please see the link to the nomination
form on our district website at brickschools.org Brick Township is 175 years old on Saturday February 22nd Brick Township will celebrate its 175th birthday the celebration will take place
at Civic Plaza from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. happy birthday to the community of Brick Township on its 175th commemoration of the founding of brick if you would like to register for this event the flyer is posted to our district website and a link is there for registration once
again brickschools.org finally our school calendar has been updated if you missed it we had a snow day so just a reminder the calendar for the school year for 2425 has been adjusted to reflect the snow day um last Wednesday and the updated calendar has
now been posted to our district website at brickschools.org along with the 2025 2026 calendar that was approved last month thank you Dr Anderson thank you missan Ron the cni
committee met on February 10th at 4:30 in attendance for Mr de Benedictus who's the chairperson Mr Henry Mr malgeri Dr Farrell and myself um I welcome the cni committee and thank them for serving uh on this committee I explained that this meeting would be devoted to a bird's eye
view of the curriculum and instruction department so the committee has an understanding of how the department is structured and the systems of support that are in place to support our teachers and leaders and strengthen student achievement I explained that the district was one of only two districts Point Pleasant Beach in oce in Ocean
County um that was designated as high performing and instruction and programming during last year's New Jersey qac evaluation process um next I preview the items under the curriculum instruction section of the agenda which included training and travel field trips
student teacher placement and clubs I explain that under operations there's a book donation from the brick Elks club uh Lodge 2151 for re Across America day in honor of Karen minata um The Brick Elks members will
read a chapter from Freckle Juice and donate uh that book to every third grade student in brick on March 3rd uh next I explained how the cni department has goals and initiatives aligned to the district's vision of student centered teacher-led community connected
explained my role in the systems of support for meeting our student achievement performance goals um next I talked about uh family engagement and identified several community events designed to Foster Community Connection uh these events included family math nights at each of
the elementary schools and it was great to see so many families in attendance a special thanks to Mrs Bey and our who's our math elementary math uh supervisor and our math coaches for coordinating these math nights in each of of our schools we also had a virtual Parent
Academy supporting your young reader and of course we had brick and Beyond which was just so wonderful that video just captured really the um energy in in the room and our students representing our co-curricular clubs was a highlight for me since our last board meeting we also
enjoyed a wonderful celebration of Performing Arts I attended Beetlejuice uh performance at Burke Memorial High School and we were also treated to uh winter chorus and band concerts at drum points M Drum Point M Havens in osbornville the Veterans Memorial Middle
School course also performed uh their course concert last night with many uh winter selections and um this celebration of our Visual and Performing Arts uh programs will culminate on Thursday March 6th when the entire Community will celebrate and be United
at Brick High School for the annual District Arts Festival this event will highlight our finer Performing Arts programs K through 12 and we'll also look forward to seeing our students Talent shine um and then lastly I previewed the brick Bridge uh our quarterly quarterly curriculum
newsletter in terms of District assessments I explained that the second marking period report cards were posted on February 7th in Parent Portal um I also provided a district uh testing update which include uh included grade three uh kagat testing and access
testing for our ml students and NJ GPA will occur from March 10th to the 14 for our 11th grade students our next meeting will be on March 10th at 4:30 um and that's it thanks missano you're welcome Mr Edwards
please yes thank you I'll start with facilities committee facilities committee met on February 11th at 4:30 and attendance was Miss Kennedy Mr Mesmer Dr farell myself Mr picoro Mr shaton from fvhd Architects Miss gardi
from speel architects Mr seagull from spel Architects and Mr yor from Neta Architects uh first project discussed was Lake Rivier Lake Riviera Middle School air conditioning uh Mr y reported that the steel inspections at Lake Rivier are scheduled um and that coordination efforts are
underway to ensure the timely inspection and project completion veterans mower Middle School boiler Replacements and air conditioning Mr yor reported that a change order is Penning review related to the water balancing issues uh there was discussion on the summer camp usage for veterans more Middle School and that's continued on confirming
completion of the project as an update to the committee um and to the full board we did confirm with the contractor that you do not see Veterans war Middle School being available for this summer uh due to the Transformer upgrade Emma Haven's Young Elementary School air conditioning Mr you reported
that the balance report has been received and the close out documents are being finalized Veterans Memorial Elementary School air conditioning Mr y reported that the balancing reports are being completed and under review and that finalization of the project is expected soon drump Point Elementary
School boiler Replacements and air conditioning Mr RoR reported that the project is complete and this can be removed from the agenda that received a great Round of Applause from the committee that that project's done Lan's M Elementary School air conditioning uh Miss G already reported that the punch list has been issued with
minimal work remaining and that close out is expected by the end of the month midstreams air conditioning Miss gy already reported that submittal are being reviewed by thesan mechanical and mobilization is expected within the next few weeks osbornville Elementary School
is the same as the same contractor uh Warren Wolf air conditioning Mr yor reported that the pre-bid meeting was held on February 10th with two contractors and attendance six bids had picked up as of that date and the bids are due March 11th and that
is the same for Herbertsville osbornville kitchen Edition Miss gy already imported shorelands construction delivered temporary storage and Fencing Equipment deliveries are expected in the coming week and the permit acquisition is uh a priority midstreams Elementary School
kitchen addition Mr y reported that the permit packages have been submitted and that mobilization is expected within two to three weeks uh additional discussions uh summer projects osbornville uh I informed the committee that osor ville's kitchen Edition and midstreams air conditioning are expected
to be completed in one summer uh we discussed uh the issue with the permitting process at the township uh I expressed to the committee that I would reach out to missb Oran to see if we could expediate that process which we did and now are in receipt of all permits um and then future budget
considerations uh we discussed with the committee window replacements at Brick Township High School and the fire alarm upgrade at Brick mura high school for Budget feasibility I see Mr Campbell's did see did you see Mr Campbell's ears perk up on that one when I said window replacement window replacement he was
like what so uh and our next meeting is March 133 2025 at 4:30 we then moved into finance committee um intendant Mr Mesmer Miss aanon Miss D Benedictus Dr frell myself Mr Columbo
from Gallagher and Mr kic from Gallagher uh first item of business was the health benefits Mr Columbo Mr car reviewed the committee the health benefit spend to date and the projection for the next five months which indicate the board's plans will be within budget and Below what the board would have spent had the
board moved to the state heal state employee health benefits plan last July Mr Columbo Mr kuk and Dr farell exited the meeting at that time I think Dr Farrell went to something called um brick and Beyond or something like that some that's probably why it was
shorter it was shorter than it would have been let's say that right Miss sanon sure right Mr Mesmer we all agree on that uh Community solar and building performance uh I informed the committee that Mr Pico has reviewed the proposed layouts for the solar car ports and has
given them back to dco for revisions uh I indicated that once the revisions for the layouts are received I chair with the committee prior to putting the RFP out to potential responders Brick Township facilities informed the committee that there was no new information to share at this time and the committee concurred that this item could removed from the agenda until
an actual facilities is located for discussion electric School Bus Grant I informed the committee that the two resolutions for electric School Bus Grant would be on this evening's agenda the committee discussed the various pros and cons of moving forward with the project 2025 six budget informed the committee that meetings with the program
managers are ongoing I noted that the budget build includes taking the tax levy projection um to the uh cap at 2% right now I reminded the committee that the tenative budget adoption in March is not the final budget as the actuary figures for the benefits are not
received until the first week of April uh conflict Council we discussed with the committee The Proposal receive for the conflict Council which is on this evening's agenda labor Council uh same we discussed with the committee the project The Proposal received for for the ethics I'm sorry I said ly ethics
and negotiation Council which is on this evening's agenda Grant consultant we reviewed the committee The Proposal received for Grant consulting services and discussed the competitive Contracting process which is on this evenings agenda and advertising uh discussed with the
committee that Crown Fried Chicken will be our second School Bus advertisement and the next meeting is scheduled for March 13th at 5:00 pm you so we're going to have our first public comment session on agenda items only so will be the first opportunity
for the public comment and will be for agenda items only the board invites thoughts and reactions on agenda items each participant is asked to give us his or her name prior to making a statement all statements shall be directed to the
presiding officer comments shall be limited to 5 minutes board will not during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving employment appointment termination of employment negotiation terms and conditions of employment evaluation of
the performance or promotion or disciplining of any specific or productive or current employee Andor students okay anyone have any Mr Finelli Mr Campbell okay Mr Campbell
go ahead go down to uh on your agenda to the uh infrastructure for the electric buses buses and I don't know whether Neta forgot it or it's coming down the
road but the problem is I think he's about a million off I don't see any firewall in there I don't see any at least 3/4 of the million dollar generator in that place for the when it
power goes out I don't see a hydrant that's going to be near his prescribed location there but I'm not an engineer and I don't know how they're going to set up a suppression system but the key to
everything you think I'm nuts with the firewall but the firewall has to go on the south end of the electric buses why is it going there if any of those batteries go
off most of the time in the winter and whatnot we get the Northwest winds and we get them heavy only new spark and if it goes through there and something lets go on one of those electric buses it's
going to wipe out half the fleet on that side cuz when when those lithium batteries go it's like a blowtorch big time so please tell them you need a large generator to take care of the
transportation building as well as charging the when the power goes out the solar system isn't going to do the job and tell them do not steal any
El extra electricity from brick Township High School we're saving at for either a gym or a swimming [Music] pool thank you very much anybody else oh wait wait Mr finel did you want
to go last okay come on up my name is uh Charlie bacon good evening superintendent administrators and the board members I'm going to start off with a comment couple questions and a
recommendation about the electric buses first everyone is concerned about what pollutants come out of a tailpipe of every bus every we heard a lot of discussion back and forth over a number of meetings about this I still
feel that a better time tested option such as propane mentioned at a previous meeting is a better option yesterday ironically I'm sitting at a red light I look over and there's a waste management truck next to me and I
look at the sign and it says propelled by U natural gas so I decided to look look up Waste Management's uh website about green initiatives it's pretty impressive they're running trucks that take a lot
of beating under uh natural gas that might be another viable alternative to consider now I have a couple questions I want to ask um at a previous meeting I believe it was stated we had to take 25 buses
all right was that a requirement of the state Grant application or was that a number of buses that what the districts submitted and that's an important point because I have filled out Grant applications in the past and I and they're pretty extensive
they never went in there how much money I wanted to get for a not profit organization and I think that's important my last question on that has every board member seen the application submitted I think that's important too to see what was presented how it was
presented and what we really have to take now on to my recommendation I've said this in Prior meetings I'm going to say it again tonight there should be a a pilot of the EV buses based on the type the different
types of buses that this town has and if it's four or five different types of buses that's what I recommend because we don't know how this is going to do over the long term there's been a lot of great questions uh on this I think the evalu evaluation uh period
should be at least a year we get through a whole school year we get through all the weather systems concerns about heat cold temperatures weather conditions icy roads whatever else you want to throw under the mix I think that's important and then we can make an informed
decision on what is the best solution going forward for the fleet now I'm going to go into a series of things they they're in no order of importance I've asked probably and I'm going to go through that many different questions that have
not been answered I've made comments in front of this board about a number of things at the last meeting in December I submitted a five-page report on that report I had a series of questions that were never answered previous to that meeting and thanks to the vendors being
at that meeting they there was a couple of things they cleared up with me in terms of the types of battery used on the battery so I thank you for that next we talked about Mr Campbell thanks for bringing up the infrastructure that's also on this uh meeting tonight you're talking about
putting an infrastructure into our current Bus location to support 25 buses if you go with a pilot it's going to be less cost and I think it's a better option on that I've talked exhaustively about
technology advancements every day the EV technolog is changing I have concerns about precious metals things like that are required to build the batteries we've talked about firing these things I actually submitted a report that I talked in front of the the council and
the mayor about about accidents around our red lights in this town people going through red lights is a chronic problem it's a concern I have if these buses get hit and God forbid one of those accidents now let's talk about the reliability of
jcpnl I brought real real time things that have happened in this town about Transformers blowing up ironically in front of a meeting the night before well if anybody ever went to the reorganizational meeting of the Commissioners in January this topic was
near and dear and one of the Commissioners brought up the problem with the reliability of jcpnl in this region to the point where he actually recommend that we should sue him there's issues going on at Tom's River anybody on this board that lives in Tom's River they got problems with
the reli ability of jcpnl I question the jcpnl reliability to the grid I do not think this town this state and even this country is ready to go to this kind of level of EV technology the Mandate I've talked about
this at the federal level it was speculation at the time in 24 no longer speculation I'd like to continue I got a couple more points and I'll sit down well the federal government is in the process of unwinding any any mandate at
the car level buses trucks whatever else you want to throw in there it's all going away the state we're not sure about we have a governor's race this year that'll be determined whoever's going to go and run for governor what their position is on
that and the last thing I'm concerned about vendors and they see they're sitting here and thank you for coming and sharing some of your information in December well it doesn't take a lot to do a Google about EV bus companies that had gone bankrupt in
24 and that's when the government was giv money out if if I had Charlie bacon EV bus company I probably could have gotten multiple million dollars from the the federal government they went bankrupt before the evb Mandate is now going to go away at the
federal level thank you for letting me go a little bit longer Dr sure uh a couple things that I can answer first of all um Mr bacon respectfully propane does not work Tom driver used it tried it Tom driver
school district um Mr Edwards spoke to their ba I spoke to their superintendent um Jackson has electric buses not many a few and the reason why it wasn't coste effective is because they didn't get the quantity they needed that pays for the
infrastructure to payback um I I'll talk a couple things but the 25 buses is not we said this last board meeting it was not mandated in the bid that was something that Mr Edwards did in the break even and went at nauseum in the finance committee they were going back
and forth we said for the last three months can we go a little less not comfortable with 25 and basically because of the large amount of the infrastructure the payback really only works with the 25 buses and taking the
$7.8 million it just is not cost effective when you go below that I think it was 23 was actually right like the break even um and the charging stations of 13 would cover 26 and that has came and that that's one of the issues Jackson had with not building that in um
there is no pilot because the pilots not cost effective because we don't get any money um there's nobody's going to I mean remember from the get-go we said we wouldn't be having this discussion if there wasn't that much money kind of you know thrown at us to utilize and that was really the impetus uh for this I
kind of joked I know there's environmental benefits but right now with the way our budget is in our fiscal State my job is to really look at it from a financial perspective only and that's the way I did look at it um what you did send me you didn't send me a report and respectfully you sent me a
ton of questions you had and when we put on the website two months ago there might have been almost 30 questions and they're frequently asked questions it wasn't just one question from Mr bacon there were a lot of people that asked these frequently asked questions many of
them were from your list of questions and we put all those answers uh on the website and I know tonight it's coming to a vote so I just want to make sure everybody has seen that the cost analysis uh for that uh that has all been on the website at nauseum last
month they were asked some questions a couple things came up we added to it we eated adding uh some benefits and the finance committee really I got to tell you the last three Mons really even since last May has really asked a ton of the same questions going
through each one Mr Edwards has gone to people whether it was the town whether it was jcpnl uh fora there there is no mandate for us to do that I know you said like there's going to be a mandate to go away there's there's no mandate so I agree with you that this was again spurred by
the impetus that we were awarded over 5 million back in May or June we're able through Mr Edwards to get that up to $7.8 million nobody that submitted also locally was able to get that amount of money that's really the impetus for this
uh you know I've said it again and again it's just you know what I put on it is you know Financial benefits has been a no-brainer since the Geto on it but um you know that has all been laid out and it is up for the board uh the board to to vote on it tonight but I I think that
should have answered your I know Mr Mesmer has been addressing many same questions you have and been get getting those questions answered uh by Mr Edwards for that um I think that answered most of it and I know Mr Finelli wants to come up thank
you anybody else oh not yet Mr Finelli Greg Cohen um before I give what is prepared um statement um as far as propane buses go those of you who don't
know me I am a transportation director for a major New Jersey district um at one time I was here in Brick Township I've been in districts as large as 20,000 students so I am kind of familiar with this electric buses have been something that have come up in our
association meetings on a continuous basis um to correct something Mr Farrell propane buses um burn 100% clean you could actually stand behind the tailpipe and breathe the air Rand off Township um in northwest New Jersey 100% of their
Fleet is all propane buses their mechanics love them have absolutely no issues with them and highly recommend them to the point where they had a meeting inviting all the transportation supervisors from New Jersey to come up there and look at these buses um with
that said um I'd like to read my statement so I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this important matter well the push for electric um Vehicles is commendable and aligns with future sustainability goals I urge caution when considering the immediate
lease of 25 electric buses at for our district the reality is that the school districts across the country are facing significant challenges with EV buses including districts here in New Jersey and rushing into this investment without addressing those concerns would be financially and operationally
irresponsible first reability remains a major issue reports from districts already using electric school buses have highlighted frequent breakdowns battery malfunctions and software issues that have taken buses out of service for extended periods of time there was just a report on ABC news about a district
six of their buses cannot pass inspection and they are not running theyve actually broke down on the road in the middle of a highway full of students um unlike traditional um cannot I'm sorry um buses out of service for extended period of time unlike
traditional diesel buses and even gasoline which could be repaired quickly even offer require specialized technicians and propri proprietory Parts leading to longer downtimes and disrup disruption in student transportation second charging infrastructure is
expensive and um insufficient it's saw on the necessary charging stations upgrading electrical grids and ensuring that we have enough power to keep all 25 buses running as a massive undertaking jcpnl is our power company many districts have faced delays and
unexpected costs in this process and we need to ask ourselves as we prepare to invest in the infrastructure upgrades while also managing our existing Fleet third cold weather performance is questionable numerous Studies have shown the EVS including school buses lose efficiency
in colder temperatures battery ranges could drop significantly leading to unexpected delays or the need to back up to need for the backup of diesel buses given our climate we must consider whether the buses can consistently meet the demands of our routes especially during the winter months additionally
the long-term cost of Maintenance and Battery placement are not yet fully understood while proponents argue that EV buses will save money on fuel the cost of replacing batteries which can be as much as a third of the bus's cost could erase those savings with
technology still evolving and that's really my major issue is that this technology is just not there yet it is not ready for us to be putting our children inside of these buses um it would be wise to wait until there's more clarity on the true cost of
ownership finally other districts have faced significant setbacks from California to Maryland school districts had to pull Eevee buses off the road due to Mechanical failures and operational challenges if well-funded districts are struggling we must ask ourselves whether this is right time for us to take on
this kind of risk in conclusion while I support the move toward Greener Transportation I strongly believe that now is not the right time for us to lease 25 electric buses we should take a more measurable approach mon how other districts resolve their issues and
assure the technology truly ready to meet the needs of our district and our significant financial commitment remember that when the grant money is gone to replace one of these buses is $400,000 Plus thank you mad yeah I got some Madam president
may I ask a question uh you don't want me to respond to some of these or I was going to respond to I wanted to ask a question to Mr Cohen Mr Cohen do you have any information on how much it would actually cost to convert the buses over to propane is
there an investment in how much to I don't know I do know excuse me Mr Cohen for those can you just go up to the microphone cuz those in in YouTube land can't hear you thank you let me just answer Mr Cohen's questions Mr Cohen sit on let me ask I don't want to
please just let me go through your questions because I think we're getting sidetracked in a lot of areas there's a lot of areas we've said we've been talking about this for months and I I'm not going to get into a Q&A so the first thing is there is no grant money for
propane I never said propane's not efficient never said it wasn't clean I said it's not working for Tom drier because of the money we're getting I want I want everybody to be clear I've been saying this for 3 months I don't want to talk about the perspective of viability 20 years there's some risks
involved in here I simply have been saying from the get-go and I have an MBA and I want to talk Finance the payback because of 7.8 million if we wait and there's no money around anymore we're not going to do
this it doesn't pay for itself the cost is too expensive on its own but when you put $7.8 million which you don't have to pay back into the equation it is now gives us an automatic positive cash flow in next year's budget alone of almost a
half a million fact so fact that's a fact there's no and I don't even take fuel costs in accounts and this is all online for you there's no fuel cost involved so there's more than that just the base Mount that we're going to least Finance these buses over the life term and what we would pay to replace the
seven buses next for how many years are we doing this lease purchase 12 Years cuz that's the life warranty just like another bus we we've gone through these so I'm not going to go through a Q&A if you just let me just bear out that next year we got to pay Seven buses at would over seeven regular diesel buses and that will be in the budget if we don't
do this if not we're going to at leas Finance at 330 grand for the 12 years which is the warranty and life of the bus like the other buses which we've said for years the difference is over $400,000 net savings period no fuel costs maintenance cost not that's not
included right now now as a finance guy we always way risk reward right everybody knows this you buy a stock you're looking at risk reward when I look at the slight risk when getting $7.8 million it is this superintendent's
recommended recommendation based solely financially for the last six months that this is an opportunity to basically save when you take that net almost 500,000 about seven teacher positions just in next year's budget alone when we're losing money not to mention the Optics
the Optics with the state as we've said you know not taking the money and this is a board vote and the board knows because I've said this for months in public and everything but I don't want to get when when people say financially irresponsible that is totally false
however there are other options and other different Technologies propane all that of which we're not getting 7.8 million for if you said we could get 7.8 million for propane Mr Edwards would do the analysis on propane because he talk to Tom drier about it and we would come
and say our recommendation to the board is we got $7.8 million we're looking to convert to propane we're presenting this though Dr FR not to cut you off but we're presenting this to the the taxpayers of Brick Township um and we're
talking about strictly money and that's what this seems to be boiling down to and believe me you know dealing with with school budgets and and current situation in every District in the state um with the cutbacks and the cutbacks that we think are coming next year I do understand but this is not this is the
safety of our children this is kicking the can because you you and I both aren't going to be I'm not going to be standing here 12 years from now and you're not going to be sitting in that seat 12 years from now if the buses even last that long and we're doing what every District does the reason that our buildings are falling apart and the
reason that every district and it's not just Brick Township it's everywhere in the state is because we kicked the can down the road not us Mr so let me let me finish then thank you but um you can sit down now because that this is our time I'm not going to go back and forth with a Q&A uh you could agree the board has
heard this they could vote or whatever again no one said I don't look at the risk we balance risk verse reward on everything there is I presented the information it's been online you could Google it you could you can look at all the information that has been posted as
far as the risk to the diesel buses with fires it's all up there but at the end of the day at the end of the day we've been saying month after month since May risk versus reward nobody's disagreeing with some of the perceived risks and there's arguing about it but when you
base it against the reward uh for that it's a no-brainer financially now what you said though I'm sorry madam president I'm GNA say this you said we kicked the can down the road this District did not the last five years maybe some other local districts that are going through some problems because
we've cut almost 400 positions this District this district has taken the money and and did what we needed to do by going to self-insured doing full day prek and doing these but but when the narratives are presented and they're
going to be up here and I'm supposed to come back and forth we never kicked the can down the road and we don't intend to kick it down with buses so okay thank you thank you Mr Cohen anybody else Mr uh mark
just wanted to make sure he gets a full presentation before he comes up no I'm just kidding uh Mark Vasquez so I I think uh number one I think we we should vote no on this I think taking a huge risk on the factor that we are going to
take about a quarter of our Fleet and replace it with something that we don't have all the answers to as much as we've said we presented as many answers I think there's still a gap here I think to present it in the fact that we're trying to save cost when there's risk I I don't I don't think that's an
appropriate statement I also don't think it it's appropriate that a board member should not only question a resident in that in the manner of which he did because it had nothing to do with an EV but what to embarrass or trap I don't think it's appropriate I also don't
think it's appropriate for you to get as upset as you did when you have when someone's presenting information the way they want to present it again this is not your meeting it's the board's meeting and I think we have to respect that so I'm going to put that out there but at the same time I'm going to ask for the board members not to vote on
this and I think they should also be respectful of people in the future even if you don't agree we elected you right so respect us thank you and and yes I totally respectfully it is a board but when they
come up on a Q&A for vits I want to just be clear no no it's a Q&A you can't listen it's a superintendent's agenda you can't come up and do a Q&A and expect me every month okay we have somebody we no no
we're good it's so I'm I'm going to talk here this is not an argument I just want everybody to understand that we please sit down sir please I can talk I can talk because this is the point this is a Q&A
session if you if you just I'm going to agree with you if you just let me do what's the right thing for a board meeting that that's separate no no that's of education so wait we have a board attorney here and I'm I'm
going to let him jump in then for that all I want you to know is I expected to do a Q&A people come up here and do a Q&A when people say something and say you know you know I'm hearing risk reward I just want to explain that we balance risk vers reward on financial my
job as superintendent is to make recommendations I look like I got upset and I'm apologizing for that I know the board's going to vote on us we've been talking about this for months once the votes on we'll all move on I just want you to understand when the superintendent does make recommendations
in the best interest of the district and then no other superintendent does a Q&A like we do at board meetings here in Brick the last five years it's a comment session you get to say what you want superintendent doesn't say anything I do that and we've said for the board for the last few years because I think it's important to just tell you why I'm
recommending something absolutely right it is a board decision to vote on this absolutely right there are some risks our recommendation because we feel the financial benefits outweigh any of the risk that's all I'm going to say and I want to give that honest transparent feedback to everybody I don't want to
look upset but obviously when you got to go back and balance a budget it hurts a little that's why we had some area to make room and balance a budget that's simply it and why we're voting on tonight but thank you um I'm going to have Ben answer you all right listen this is the public
comment section we still have a few members of the public that want to make a comment let's move along to that let them make their comments just is it meeting first of all you don't yell out you had your your time at the public comment super
did sir it is not yours from it is not yours from the cheap seats it is a it is a board meeting wonderful thank you because the seats are thank you next next person are we able to answer thate or is
in the superintend this is this is a board meeting the Pres in officer is the board president and it is the superintendent's job and role as has occurred here for years on end as requested by the public
for the superintendent to be able to respond and provide information as requested from the public so don't parse it both ways and be mindful of what you take thank you sir can I have your name
in Clayton petshack 588 New Jersey have um we're still looking at the Thomas buses EV buses for the purchase it's got to be bid I don't yeah we didn't bid out I think I read specifically was the Thomas
cc2 is its model so I went online and looked up the bus no we we don't we haven't done anything yet oh you haven't looked at well I saw in some proposal I think it might have been the last Grant you were offered that was backed by the federal government was we didn't yeah we
didn't bid out at all yet well either way I did look up that bus Thomas established bus company they produce their batteries they're manufactured in Greer South Carolina so this is a pretty safe
battery I looked at the specs on it all all EVS come down to insulation that's that's all the engineering is you insulate the battery it won't blow up it won't discharge it won't overheat it's all batteries it's also the same thing with everybody's phones that they have
out it's battery insulation it's all about engineering you can engineer anything to work so I don't get the pants on fire I don't get the ridiculous outbursts over it and as this plan specifies we are
offered $7.9 million of the state's money right now from a district that has been complaining for years about not getting enough money from the state we need buses now approximately 25 buses right now and we have a chance to get them for free
whereas a bus fleet that we would have to Finance on our own would be $5.25 million causing a total damage of negligence to this budget of 12.2 $35 million again the cost of EV buses runs
about $6.1 million we have $7.9 million of a grant there is the ability to use this grant for infrastructure it just makes fiscal sense to take the
money I'm not getting where the hangup is and especially from a town that has complained constantly over the past five years about not getting enough money from the state due to freezing the
algorithm I I just can't understand you people and I don't have kids and I hate children and I never come to these but I like budgets and have since I was 10 years
old and felt the need to come here so thank you just so I could be clear it's not free what he said it is costing us money after December the infrastructure though is built into our cost the 7.8 million the total toal job
over 12 years over the life of the bus we've explained it so it's not free I mean I I would think we'd have even an easier conversation was 100% free and we'd say it's not cating anything we're getting M but that's not true so I want to be clear for everybody it's not free it's just a quicker payback than just
right now say buying buses without the grant so that's all so thank you Mr Finelli I think you're at oh we got sorry Jim Marvin uh Brick Township administrator supervisor Association
president um first of all Mr Campbell's comment I just want to make a comment on that um I'm pretty sure I've been hearing about the pools on the roofs of Brick Township and brick memorial since they were created you know so I'm pretty sure they're there somewhere keep hearing about them um didn't get a
chance to come up last meeting um just wanted to start by thanking all the Board of Education members for volunteering their time you know volunteer positions you guys take the time out of your day to help support you know the students and the community Brick Township so just wanted to take a minute and say thank you for that um
know there's a lot of agenda items that have been talked quite a bit about over the last few months and I just want to thank you for taking the time to consider all the possible options to look into supporting the students of Brick Township High School especially in the wake of the S2 funding Cuts over the
last several years just wanted to come up and say thank you for all that thank you very much anyone else sir please state your name um my name is
Curtis Fischer uh 21 uh Rochester Drive in Brick and I testified at a recent the couple uh hearings ago so I just want to make sure to both express my appreciation for all
your time and but then make sure that um you know it's on the record that uh of course I uh strongly recommend a yes vote to uh this proposal and I I haven't been here for the whole discussion but I
would just mention that it's clearly an issue which we're all experienced see a lot of in our political landscape where there's differences of opinion um and sometimes emotion um comes to the Forefront and um in having to be in your
position of sitting to try to make those judgments I hope that you've given it enough time um to you know look at the data um and I appreciate the superintendent who has been consistent through this whole process and I believe
um you know trying to help everyone understand what is really there are just simple facts and money sometimes orientates itself to an easy explanation of what are the facts and if um the money was all there I I just want to say to the people who I may not dis agree
with on this issue that I think there are times when safety or other issues right would be Paramount over the cost savings that could occur I mean just to recognize that that that sometimes environmentalists advocate for obviously the adoption of for at that may be more
expensive and it could be the case that people on a different side of the perspective think that uh uh you know there another safety issue in this case the safety of EVS for their children uh is a concern so I think all those concerns are valid I would just say that
in terms of your role um to really consider that if you're not if you're voting against this to feel the burden of articulating to the community what cuts are you making to the budget to address this issue
because to me they're clearly connected because of the reality that we're faced with in terms of either accepting a grant or not and that I think that the uh I appreciate the professionalism of this board and the openness and willingness to hear from you know some challenging comments U from the public
but ultimately it is going to come down to your vision of what this board and this school district should be in terms of staff and with revenue and expens and I just would say that it that would be great where however you vote to commit when you're voting to say that I will
explain that if there's six teachers that are cut in this budget that I take responsibility that I didn't think that the EV money that would have came to this state and turning down the grant that that was an appropriate decision and to put that on the public record so
otherwise I appreciate everyone's time including people who I don't agree with trying to have a common dialogue within a community about it's clearly a tough issue for people so thank you so much thank wait is there anyone else that would like to speak anybody else that
would like to speak Mr Finelli you're on I get to respond to everything else I heard I know I get it first of all I'm glad you started off by saying what you said because I thought I
missed the part where somebody was giving us $7.8 million to buy propane buses so I guess I didn't miss that part before I get into other agenda items and that one I have some other things I I just want to remind you to all speak
into your microphones when you're speaking and I have an alternative reason asking for tonight because my son is home watching this on this computer right say hi Jim hi Jim
now if and when I decide if and when I decide to move on one way or another my son can always move into my house and come to the school board meetings and take over where I left off would't that be fun yeah you're lucky it's my son and
not my daughter really so first item um which I speak about every meeting now field trips we are now up to 167 field trips with the 11year
voting on tonight and we still have four months to go the reason I bring this up is simple your scalac achievement is below average and almost every area and the only way you're going to fix that is more class time and and I looked at some other things like 15 half days on the
calendar so that's 15 half days they're not in school at all these field trips you really got to change the way you do things and that's one way to do it um okay uh can somebody explain to me why we
need a grant consultant that's number 18 and Mr Edwards mentioned this but I don't know what it what it is you have item 21 on there it's ethics and negotiation Legal
Services padulla Law Group what what what what do they do and why do we need them and why would we take on a law firm whose offices are in Washington DC in
Miami okay um and looking for something good that I'm supposed to do every meeting there is an item here under operations about Pine Belt Enterprises
paying off $683 in uh overdue lunch accounts which means they're picking up the cost for people who didn't pay for their lunches I'm not going to go into that I think some of that stuff needs to be looked at but you got to congratulate Pine Belt
Enterprises for paying $6,890 [Music] uh the architect right and let me read what the statement says and then I'll ask my question the Board of Education shall in each instance State supporting
reasons for its action in The Resolution awarding each contract what what I'm looking at is you you you are awarding a contract well maybe you're not but it's
on the agenda you're awarding a contract to Nea no bid Neta as we call them I call them for the uh electrical stuff all right my question is number one do they have any experience in all at all
with electric buses and and and all of that kind of stuff and the reason I bring it up is because we've had some bad experiences with them before most of you were on the school board but I'll go into it anyway Mr farell Dr farell came here first he wanted a uh demographic
study I tried to convince him not to do that in fact I gave him the last two demographic studies but he wanted a new one gave it out to Netta I objected why are you giving out a demographic study to an architectural firm that all by the way twice the price that we paid for the
one two years ago one we paid for like 16,000 and this was like 32,000 it took two years to get that report into the district two years now they they'll tell you well that's because we had this Co no all of
that but it could have been done a lot better when it finally came in guess what presented it to the senior staff from what I heard they couldn't understand it they had to go back and be redone again right and then we never did see it I never did see what it looked
like so I I have a bad taste there so what experience do they have in doing this kind of work now let's get on to the election school buses right this is one of the more important decisions that you're going to make this
year I'm not going to go over the money and everything else but I will have more to say after I hear how each 20 of your votes you can bet your life on that okay put that one in the bank I've read all the reports that I could find on the internet about safety
uh about insurance companies charging more uh everything that you heard tonight and I couldn't find any of that but this is not a new program all right what I have right here is a report on how many school buses electric school
buses were were in use up to across the United States up to 63024 so that's June of last year that's the last round right I was surprised at the number
12,088 12,088 electric School buses were in operation almost a year ago I'm sure there's more now if there was all of the problems that people claim there are I don't think they'd be out there like that now I personally have talked to people in
school districts that have electric school buses and they answered we don't have any problems but I speak to people who say they break down they don't go in the snow the batteries blow up this that where did you hear that well I heard it
well did you speak to people that actually had the school bus no but I heard it I went to meetings people talked about it third hand fourth hand fifth hand information doesn't mean anything to me right you you have an opportunity
tonight to be on the Leading Edge around here and do something I'm not going to go into the finances I'm not going to go into anything else I can tell you that I spent the last week trying to come up with reasons why people wouldn't vote for
this and I really couldn't find any right I really couldn't come up with something that said well I wouldn't vote for this because of this reason or that there is some risk involved there's always risk involved when you're doing something new right nobody mentioned the
fact that the state wants to do this the state is going to love the brick School District if they take this on and do it you're going to get points you can't help it they're looking for something they're begging s and a half 7.8 million
boom they want to do this we need Trenton on our side Mr Finelli you need to wrap it up please okay oh I'll have more to say after I hear how you vote I know so I have two questions to ask or three one was Nea have they had any
experience the other is tell me about the grand consultant and the other one is ethics and negotiation legal service what is that about thank you uh let me start with the field trips because we talk about this too because you had some question oh you don't want there was you asked me why so manyi I I don't want to
hear it I know I know you're feeling you think they're good I think I think a different way I was going to say it's part of our saying is consider it yeah so I do want so the public knows when we have field trips that leave our town we get them board approved many of times whether it's our classified students or
certain trips that's part of the curriculum so when some of our um life skills classes are going out of town to a shop right or to something where they're doing uh life skills and work skills and it's out of the town we get it board approved for a lot of reasons
insurance but it is part of the curriculum we always look for a curricular Vance all right so the the first thing is the grant consultant um part on the agenda that's going to be a request for bid and they're only getting paid on what they bring in that are new
grants so any because we bring in I will say this District this staff and we bring over $15 million in grant money a substantial amount and you see every every month little things donors choose but to big things so but this whoever
would win this RFQ and put in for this they would then have to bring in money be found money in my opinion and they get a percentage of found money and new Grant so that's the grant consultant Netta and I can let Mr Edwards add to this with the the bus
first of all I believe that was an RFQ for them to bid and they were the only one that put in for the EV buses and that's obviously only based on approval um if they but that was a bid for the grant that does infrastructure and everything right was that an RFQ RFP I'm
sorry so it was an RFP request for proposal and were they the only one that put in they were the only one that put in for that and for us to get the grant we needed the RFP on that and that's what you're voting on right you're not voting on the grant you're voting on the RFP for that and the leaste financing
for it to go through on that um that was the Grant and 21 the legal services um was I'll answer that um Mr padul is Associates um he does ethics um it's
right here I could better yes I don't think so ask them if it's better I I think they can hear me uh Mr padulla is an attorney who I've worked with before on negotiations and ethics and um we're we're hoping to work with him again he
will only get paid if we use him he's not on the payroll as um other attorneys might be he's yeah he's as needed well what what what would we need him for for ethics or for um our we're
working with the board the teachers right now on their negotiations so comes up do you have don't you have legal counsel that does that we do but every new dep uh every new board that comes in gets to choose their attorneys and that's who we chose so it's somebody you
want no it's somebody that a group of us want yes just like when the other board came in they changed all the attorneys I chose not to do that we chose not to do that we chose to bring Mr padulla on I don't understand why that should are they local um no they're not but neither
are the other ones I didn't hear what you said I said no they're not and neither are the other ones well I don't I don't know I I look at some of the stuff I don't know that that any of attorneys that we use housed either in Washington DC or Miami I I just don't
know any attorne oning yep and that's who we chose as a group okay are we done yeah I don't know do you want what else do you want I want to hear you vote now I didn't get to go this like a local boys one of
yours hi Dr oone uh director of Transportation um so this is my 80th day being employed um and this is uh Hot Topic
right so I have ridden 101 bus routes since I started 80 days ago School pick up drop the kids off back I've driven with 61 drivers and during that time before the students get
on the bus is really the time that I had conversations with the drivers I want to know what's really going on how could we make this place better right I can tell you we have some of the greatest
people driving our students to school every day and I know there's a lot of other things that concern us but I felt like I wanted to come up here because regardless of your decision either way I'm I will be a part of this and I will help manage this decision
either way and I had plans to be here for a long time many of our people are Brick Township graduates many of our people are brick memorial graduates many of their children ride the buses they drive
to school many of the buses ride these buses to sporting events they are part of the fabric of this community our drivers about 60% of them live in town have children to go to town and 40% of them are graduates of
our school some of them unfortunately I've had as students too so um it it is just such a great place and and I know you will make the the decision that is best for the students
for the parents for the drivers and the citizens of Brick Township I'm extremely proud of this place I left my own high school as a teacher to come here and to be a part of Brick Township I have always felt like
Brick Township has led the way I hope we continue to lead the way tonight thank you anyone else go ahead yeah I took your spot sorry thought you were last um Kevin bleam I'm
the BTA president um first of all thank you to every single board member I know I don't see Larry here usually him and I are the ones that are really thanking you all the time and because we appreciate what we what you
guys do for us volunteer your time so I just want to make sure that's clear maybe invite us down the school boards next year in October maybe we could advocate for you guys get a stien or something but all right I I've been listening
to this topic with the EV buses for you know the past several meetings couple months I'll be quite honest with you before this I knew absolutely nothing about electric
buses um as a matter of fact if if you know me I drive a big F250 I get about 11 miles to the gallon personally I would never buy an electric car because I'm a car guy like that's that's me however in in this situation you know
we're we're we're kind of in a crisis you know financially and there's two things here there's there's two points we have a financial component to it and a safety component to it and um and I commend the board because you have
opened up the dialogue to the community and I've learned so much about EV buses um just just some of the uh safety factors was one of the things that I've been looking into and my brother just
happens to be uh the vice president of the NFI trucking company and they are big on electric vehicles so I took it upon myself to call him and ask him questions and just same questions that
have been going on through here and because my concern was you know you hear about the fires you hear about them blowing up and things like that um he he actually told me he said that Mo 99% of those
batteries that you see Catch fire like the Teslas and any of them he said there it was caused because the battery had been damaged so in other words it was in a car accident or something like that so
that eased my mind about some of its safety components to it on the financial part I have to look at we are I look at some of these districts around us suffering from S2
and luckily we didn't want to do this over the summer with the tax levy because I'm a taxpayer too and remember that was a very that was the last thing we wanted to do but we didn't have a choice and every the board and the public we all
discussed it as collectively and ultimately we did the right decision was it and and we all know it wasn't our fault this was this come from the state and it's not and it wasn't fair that we the taxpayers had to pay because we were
not funded correctly so all I'm asking if and I don't even know if this is possible if if there's any doubt in your mind about the safety and you need more information and if you're going to vote no on this I don't even know if it's
possible can we table it or and get some more information about about it but I I I just really honestly I just think it's a no-brainer uh financially um to do this um and that's
really that's that's all I want to say e either way I respect your your decision that you make but I I'm just asking that you would consider to please vote Yes on this we we need it and I'm I'm concerned I mean I was concerned about the safety
you know I after listening to everybody and all the input uh I I feel pretty confident that they are safe and uh the financial gain is something that would benefit the district and the taxpayers in Breck thank
you thank you anyone else see no one else Dr Anderson will you introduce curriculum and instruction please thank you so much missan rone the superintendent recommends that the board approve the following items 1 through
S I need a motion in a second motion Brad second Mike Mary vote comment ask if any board comment more board comments please um I I just have a question about
five six and seven I want to say thank you very much to these volunteers these things uh promote student engagement and connection which is so important especially in our high schools I think the early act book
vending machine is the coolest thing I've ever read on an agenda in nine years um and uh as far as the field trips go Dr Anderson are some of those I Kennedy yes M Benedictus yes to all but
I need to abstain on number two uh under number two number four under field trips for high school and yes to the rest yes yes to the rest sorry Mr Henry yes Mr mjeri yes Mr
Mesmer yes missu yes Mr Edwards please introduce operations yes thank you this evening the superintendent recommends items 1 through 21 I need a motion in a second motion
Victoria I'll do a second then bran board comments anyone I have a couple comments on a couple different items um number nine someone brought up Pine Belt I just wanted to thank once again Robbie sickle um proud
to call you my friend thanks for taking care of the kids of brick um if you're buying a car go check out Pine Belt um I want to thank the number 10 number 10 the anonymous donor for the treadmill at Brick Township High School I had one of those at my house it was really great at
holding laundry I hope it does more for the kids at Brick Township High School um number 11 brick Elks 2151 thank you for your donation and then I do can I make a comment that's going to give away
how I'm going to vote like am I allowed to do that you can you don't have to but you can but I can okay so um I just want to take a minute and explain my vote um I do plan to vote Yes for the buses first and foremost I spoke at nauseum
with Dr Farrell about this topic um am I nervous about these buses years from now and their um repair costs and things like that yes um however I am also nervous about tomorrow and I'm nervous about next year and what our kids need
and what our teachers need um and I I feel like by turning this down that we're saying no to extra money in our budget for next year I feel like we all as as parents and community members we talk so much about class side is and by
by cutting our classes even even seven or eight teachers we're looking at smaller we're at bigger classes and it's just not what we want so I I was very torn in this um I've like I said I've talked to everyone at nauseum so with
tomorrow in mind and with the recommendation of Dr Farrell who I do trust and respect his fiscal knowledge and financial prowess um um you know with our teachers and students in mind I cannot say no and we need our teachers
and without them we're in trouble so um that's my comments can I also comment Madam president we're still very no you can comment you're still a com sorry go ahead okay thank you so first of all I
appreciate everybody coming up to the podium and you know commenting your concerns or some of you were not in favor some of you were that's great um I am in favor of this and I am exposing my vote I am voting ass on this I did my
homework as well and I just don't see the risks I've done extensive research on my own and like I said I don't see the risk that it's that much of a concern it's always going to be a concern we're always going to have safety issues even with diesel buses it can get into accidents but this
technology has been around and it's not going away and I always thought that brick was going to be the leader in this and the Forefront and to turn down $7.8 million is not something I think we should do at this moment especially if the risk in terms of and Mr Finelli said
it he did some research other people have said it as well there's always a concern but to turn that down don't expect the state or anyone else for that matter to give us more money and another Grant we probably won't have that opportunity
again we won't I don't think so but I could be wrong but in terms of the money the savings that could be put towards teachers we already knew that I I applaud the superintendent and the ba for doing their homework and looking at it from a financial perspective and the
comments from all the people again here and the board concerns are legitimate but right now I agree that we should vote Yes for this I'll make a comment as well on the buses um so I will let you know I will be voting no on this and I'll give you
the reasons why I'm came to that decision uh this took months and months of work for me uh my main concern is the amount of buses I am for Ev buses I was pushing to try and get five or 10 buses for the District 25 buses is 40% of our
Fleet of full-size buses from the vendors I talked to they've never dealt with that many buses in an order before I had no confidence that we're even going to get the buses could be years before we get the buses
the financial savings that we're talking about could be out the window because we would then have to Outsource and scramble if we're putting so I look at it budgetarily Opposite we have no margin for error if we enforce this and
go with the 25 buses and it doesn't work out our district is in a lot of trouble so that's ultimately the main reason I have many other reason reasons as well why I'll be voting no so thanks anyone else yeah I have some
questions uh number 21 the um uh provider for ethics and negotiation Legal Services we do have Labor Council will you not be using the labor Council for negotiations now we
will be using labor when needed what do that mean yeah I I I don't know what that means I don't either I'll explain it in my comments what does it mean it means we use please don't call out please don't
call out from the a so for certain for certain unions in the past uh we have only called Labor Council in when there was a conflict for other unions from the GetGo we had our labor Council present just to hear
everything that was going on so which will it no longer be that labor Council will be present for like BTA negotiations no they will not wow that's a big change all right I
have a couple other questions um number 16 the $3.4 million Bond um uh when I read that proposal it said that the Boe will fully reimburse itself for
that money is is that right I'm sorry Jim maybe Mr Edwards sorry I'm not sure I understand the question in the lease purchase for the electric
buses it says in that that um it will be for $3.4 million and that in in the course of it the Boe will fully reimburse itself for that of that money yeah so so and that's
that's typical of way lease purchases work so we're going to borrow money from hypothetically a bank or some Source that's going to give us the money they're going to put the money in in an escrow account they're going to hold that money as we spend the money we then get reimbursed from the es escrow for
our local share okay thank you and um number 17 is an infrastructure upgrade I think um infrastructure upgrades especially in this District are so very very very
important um our buildings aren't crumbling because we have done so many infrastructure upgrades um over the um last 10 years as far as the EV buses I would like to pronounce that I
do not watch a black and white TV I don't know how many of you here do but I do not and the reason is because something uh was invented called color TV I don't use an analog phone because
something was invented called a digital phone um I don't know how many of you still use analog phones I am supporting this because when we hired our superintendent who
happens to have an MBA um we we hear every meeting when it's operations the board secretary says what's what's the exact literal quote
the literal quote is the superintendent recommends that the board approve the following items and um I know that RBA who hasn't had a um audit remark in in how many
years I know he called um Boards of Education in Massachusetts and ask them about uh when it's cold in Boston and do their EV buses work and he was told yes
now I um I have a certain are of expertise but I also have an open mind and I believe when an expert who has history and um caution and
concern for our school children tells us that this is safe this is fiscally responsible and we're never going to see this money again I really I want to trust them and you know why I trust them
because they work for me they work for all of us on this board and they wouldn't be in their positions recommending to us what's the best for the school children of
brick if we didn't put them in those positions and I accept their expertise I will be voting yes and I certainly hope that in a school district that I've been fighting
for 25 million loss in funding over these last nine years I certainly hope no one could put their head on their pillow tonight thinking about what this could
do for the children of brick and specifically our teachers thank you anyone else are all set okay okay um I'm Mary
I'm going to need a vote please miss maala I'll be on operations yes yes okay on operations I will vote the green queen says yes to everything thank you Miss
Kennedy um I am going to abstain from 14 20 and 21 and yes to the rest I didn't turn my microphone on did you get I've never been told I couldn't be heard but just in case you didn't hear me 1420 and
21 I'm going to abstain and yes to the rest thank you Miss de Benedictus um yes to all but no to 16 and sub subsequently 17 as well Mr Henry yes to all Mr
maleri no to 16 and 17 yes to all else Mr Mesmer no to 16 and 17 yes to everything else missan um I need to abstain from number five
24682 24766 214683 21 4684 24749 24765 214 805 214
789 21 4850 and no on 16 and 17 and yes on the rest Mr ker can uh you introduce human resources please thank you missone tonight under HR the superintendent recommends items
1- 28 for approval um like to have a motion please second Aly board comments I have a question about number three are these U repurposed positions due to Staffing your budget for what
reason I'll answer that and then you can uh both they're all repurposed um I know in the case we had with the media center we we split they were like 67 now it's 34 and 33 meaning art and media and the
others um that are repurposed are due to I think IEPs on some Mr kler you want to add to that yes that's correct um U some are repurposed from existing positions and others were other needs um that would be uh labeled as new thank you I'd
also like to thank all the volunteer coaches all the volunteer coaches for the spring I know a lot of them are are full-time teachers ERS and they work hard and and they work after school and I I know our volunteer par professional
coaches really make the lives of our special needs students um much better so thank you for that any other comments oh I did have one other question I'm sorry um we're hiring a
senior diesel mechanic um who's going to have an unfill ated contract what why is that do you want me to grab that Mr TR you want to started that's the civil service position that did not have the title The title's not in a recognition
Clause of any of the unions at this time I have a feeling that will change soon okay I understand thank [Music] you um can I have a vote Mary please miss picala yes Miss Kennedy yes Miss
Benedictus yes Mr Henry yes Mr meleri yes Mr Mesmer yes missan room yes Miss MC Miss mcam please introne we'd like to um applaud any of our new employes that are in the audience this
evening if you were just approved could you stand and let us welcome you to Brick there we go congratulations and welcome welcome Miss mamar can will you
introduce policy and planning please I can under policy and planning the superintendent recommends one can I have a motion in a second please motion for second Mike any board comments any board
comments no Mary vote please Miss picala Miss Kennedy yes Miss Sten adictas yes Mr Henry yes Mr mjeri yes Mr Mesmer yes missan
yes okay this is our second public comment section this is the second opportunity for public comment each participant is asked to give his or her name prior to making the statement all statements shall be directed to the presiding officer comments shall be limited to 5 minutes the board will not
during the public portion of this meeting discuss matters involving employment appointment termination employment negotiations terms and conditions of employment evaluation performance promotion disciplining of any specific perspective or current
employee or students Steve has his hand yeah come on right up good evening board president Ian own you board members uh superintendent Farrell my name is Steven curo I'm the president of
the Ocean County vocational technical schools for Ocean County we have three fulltime Blue Ribbon high schools we have a shared service agreement with the 33 municipalities in Ocean County as
sending districts to our schools we have school here right in Brick Township and Brick Township sends many students to our schools all are doing very well uh I can't thank everyone enough for their
support um I've been a resident of Brick Township for 59 years Ruth an and I have raised six children here 11 grandchildren and now our great grandchildren are here so we are very
vested in Brick Township I'm here to say that we have a Cooperative agreement with both of our boards anything that my board I this is my 18th year second year as president 16 years as vice president
of the school board uh children are my passion um I do everything in our power to make it a better place to live and I'm looking for the cooperation and give the cooperation to this board and thank thank you for all that you do and thank
you for your service thank you thank you so much anyone else you sure Mr Finelli you it Mr Finelli come on up my first question how many school buses we have in the district I'll write them down we'll do
this all oh could you answer that one off top said over 100 over 100 so you saw your math is as bad as your rationale because 25 school buses is not 40% of the fleet can I resp when I went to school that's less than 25% of the fleet so that that statement is wrong
secondly your rationale I wish you pay attention because I'm talking to you Mr Mesmer so Mr Finelli first of all you're not talking to Mr Mesmer you're speaking to me and you are not to address the board in any manner like that if you have a
statement or something you want to say please don't that's almost an attack well I am talking to him okay well secondly your rationale of you're you have a concern that they won't be able to meet the delivery schedule of the buses which is going to
be spread out over seven years I don't know where you got that concern from but I tell you one thing these bus companies don't make money unless they make and sell buses so if you for whatever reason think that they won't meet the commitment once you sign up to S get 25
buses I tell you you don't understand business at all because they're going to bend over backwards to deliver those buses or they don't make any money all right now what you people have done tonight and and some of you you in particular you're not even planning on
being here next year right I'm talking so don't interrupt me and by the way you three have had a nice conversation going going on two or three times tonight and I warned you last time you can't do that at a public meeting so next time you do it my hand's going up and I want to know what you said you can't do that all
right this is a public meeting it's public record now what you've done and what's going to happen is every time any one of the four of you mentioned class size money anything to do with that I'm going to be here to remind you of what
you did tonight right now some of the people that come up here I don't know I have a suspicion that you all belong to the same political party I have a suspicion in fact I think one of the people that came up here tonight is going to be running for the Town Council when you run for mayor I could be wrong
but I don't think I am all right and stop talking you can't talk to him during the meeting I'm going to say something to you don't bring politics into this right now please I I can't hear you and I'm glad I can't hear you I told you I'm taking the gloves off what you did
tonight was wrong all right right I don't know what your reasons for it were I really don't somehow I I think it's political but I can't come up with a reason why you would do this why you would turn around and make the decision that you made
based on what you think or what you feel what I'm hearing is you four people who who voted no tonight think you know more about this than I do Dr Farrell does Mr Edwards does you know more about it you think it's the wrong thing and I tell you you don't you don't know more about
it I mean the MoneyWise the risk all I heard was I think I feel whatever really really you think you can't you think they can't deliver the buses when they say you think they're unsafe when everything says they're not
you think they won't work in the cold when when nobody has any firsthand information about that you think the batteries are going to blow up you think you're going to have more accidents what happens when somebody runs through a red light and hits one of the electric buses the same
thing that happens when they hit one of the diesel buses it's no different there is no difference you took $7.8 million and threw it in the garbage and for that you all ought to quit I will
answer you have you have another person Mr feles so on the opposite side of that whether politics has nothing to do with anything I apologize there we go thank you is thank you for voting no because again I think the risk of while I understand the
savings aspect the risk of taking out whether it's a quarter whether it's almost a quarter whether it's more than a quarter doesn't matter the risk is that if we were to lose buses and for some reason something went wrong when than I think it's what I think it's around 7% of the nation has uh electric
school buses right now that's such a small sample size to say this is the right thing to go and when Mr Mesmer and thank you for Mrs president thank you for having Mr Mesmer look into it to find out more information about taking this many buses and replacing them with
electric school buses and finding out that that was the right thing to do that that wasn't the right thing to do so with that said yes could could we have taken money from the state okay we could have right but there was a risk to do that and so putting children and
thankfully this gentleman whose brother works for the transportation company for a truck company that works with electric said that his brother said yeah if they get into accidents that's when they catch fire that is our very concern when we have a town that the infrastructure right now with the way traffic is puts
these Buss at risk so if one were to get hit and a child one child were to die on that aspect of that right because we took this risk and replaced 25% it's not okay yeah that one bus was wrong but then now you have another 24 buses we have to worry about and we can't just replace those right so while I
understand yes it would have been nice to take some money from the government yes the state needs to do better yes you guys are volunteering and we appreciate what you're doing but at the same time what you did tonight was right and maybe people might not agree with that but I do and I appreciate you taking the time
over the months everybody talking back and forth for hearing our comments discussing with us thank you for doing what you did thank you for voting no anyone else Mr bacon my name is Charlie bacon uh since I could not make the
regular January meeting I want to congratulate the reelected member of the board and the two newly elected members of the board I appreciate the amount of work you're going to do over the next three years and the rest of the board and the administration working closely with
you uh this is a good segue into my first recommendation tonight I will not be the first one to bring it up but hopefully I'm the last I think board members should receive some level of compensation all
right I don't know enough about the procedures of the school the laws in the state or any of those other things so forgive that um ignorance you spend countless hours off hours babysitters and everything else and you need to be
compensated I think all B uh board members should receive a minimum of $5,000 and the board president 6,000 I realize budget things are tight but in the size of our budget we're talking 30 $6,000 these people dedicate
a lot of time and I think they deserve some level of compensation on that uh I'm not sure how it's going to happen let me know if we need to get legislators involved or it's something we can do in the next upcoming budget which you spoke about tonight uh I have some other
recommendations for the administration and the board to consider you might have already discussed this in your reorg meeting in January first up uh I'm kind of old school but I do appreciate if we could have a reader digest version of the agenda for
the folks in the audience it's hard when you're scrolling through things maybe it could be one or two pages I know we don't re we will recycle it but it's kind of nice to have it at least in the back um I also would consider special
meetings being scheduled the board might already be contemplating doing this so when big issues come up it could be the budget coming up now this year where the meeting is kind of dedicated where you know you can have that good dialogue back and forth about some of those
things I think that would be helpful this is something they do on the uh the operational side the mayor and the council do I've been involved in this I was involved in it for three years it's called a citizen budget Advisory Group and they work closely and
they look at the budget and they make recommendations back to the council and the mayor on it and I realize there's a lot of sensitive things dealing with I understand I know Hippa quite well I was involved with it for 15 plus years but it's nice to have another set of group
you know eyes on it and I think there's a lot of very talented people in the state of in the town of brick that might be part of that if you want to consider it and then what I recommend is and this is different than the citizen advisory budget committee is a special task force
and it could be about anything in the future I don't know what it's going to be right but just going forward if something big is going to hit the school district consider maybe you can have a task force somebody from the the administration would lead it and ask for volunteers and so you can get some
feedback you know I'm not I don't want to bring up the the buses but something of that magnitude obviously when we're talking about infrastructure rooftop units things like that I'm talking about something bigger than that so you might want to consider that so just a couple of comments I wanted to make last month
but I couldn't make it so thank you very much for tonight's meeting and listening to a lot of folks on both sides of the EV bus issue good night thank you Mr bacon anyone else um Mr Campbell please
brought up a word that I wanted to go over this uh thing tonight Mr Campbell bring the microphone down so we can hear you please it's called an audit this district has not had an
audit as far as I know' 08 when I first got involved I think Jim came a year before that but we not had a professional audit and what I'm
doing I'm giving you the synopsis from uh a about uh 12 2012 to the
present I'm giving you personal information I don't want to blab around in the public but I'm not happy with certain Architects you have around here and I'm getting tired of one in particular of getting Co his back
covered all the time there's been too many screw-ups so I want an audit we got all these projects going on contingencies where do the contingencies go all right so I'm going to synop right
here I have a whole pack of notes for the board get your file cabinet at this is only the beginning hey you might as well stay informed I I've been where you guys are you got to know what's going
on and I'm good at what I do even though that one guy got me at the the pool bit if I was on the board you'd have it by now okay this is the schools schools should be run at
like a business where you have accountability and results with transparency political agendas have no place in schools it brings stagnation and financial
crisis the child gets lost in the environment the present board is the beginning of a new erir heading in a positive direction
otherwise I'd just pack it in it's being Guided by a very capable and caring superintend Ed and the district's lucky to have them fortunately we both are on the same
page that's it and I will give you this stuff and Mary I'll give you this other package just be careful of that and you could give that right to Mary thank you Mr Campbell no no Mr Campbell give it to Mary Mary yeah give it to Mary step
there thank you all basically I'm tell you right now I want to see this a if I don't see this audit I'm taking the skeletons out of the
closet been here too long anyone else Mr Finelli were you ready come on care okay just give it right to Mary thank you I'm allowed I'm allowed to be up here
again he's allowed to come up two times yes pH pH you're not involved and okay Mr Campbell thank you has nothing to nothing to do with
school buses surprise surprise first thing Dr farell last meeting you ended you got a little frustrated and at the end of the meeting you said I get the last word well guess what really the board guess what you don't get the last word with me all
right now you might get the last word at the meeting but if it's something I disagree with I think you're misleading or it's not truthful I write it down and I'm going to bring it up at the next meeting so there's no such thing as the last word secondly um the school performance
report is going to come out pretty soon commonly referred to as your report card but you don't like that right if you remember last year uh when we went talked about attendance one of the action items that
you you committed to doing was tracking the absence every month so my question is when the report comes out what's it going to say did absence get better did it get worse or did it stay the same that's my only question and my
last comment is really Charlie I want to thank you for voting no and I think we should give you $5,000 are you kidding me are you done Mr Finelli we're not here to have a scoring match done I'm not done yet I'll let you
know when I'm done okay but we're not hear a Spore with other people out that are out there again you can speak to us you're not to Spore with people that are out in the audience okay I won't look at him when I say it and thank you for voting no I think you should give you
$5,000 I gave you two times come up AR you got to be kidding me you've got to be kidding me unbelievable that I even heard that okay thank you anyone else okay
thank you Dr phell so for the last year just so we can get with the efficiency of a meeting um I said years ago this was the first place I came to five years ago where there was a Q&A on items uh in the beginning agenda which is a I think a
good thing we have our admin team up here and before board members vote and the public want some questions we should be able to answer those so we've we've always done that at the second public session we started a year ago was we would let everybody talk on com comments what I could answer like I'm going to do now I'm going to try to answer on some
of the things that came up in the second public comment if I don't have the answer I definitely will get back to you or point you in the direction of one of our administrators to try to do that at the end in trying to get with an efficient meeting with the Corum first Mr scoro thank you so much Oshi County
vocational technical schools is one of the best vocational uh programs in the country uh we will actually be hosting I'm the president the county superintendent and they will be hosting at our brick Culinary Institute our County meeting tomorrow at 11:00 where
the students will be making the lunch serving and and doing it so um bone thank you they do a phenomenal job we are very supportive of the program miss homak the superintendent uh is a colleague of mine and um we thank you
for promoting them um with that part-time and full-time programs are very very well received here in Brick so thank you for that um Tom don't forget that they got an okba as well oh trying to put a little uh bonus point
so I've always said and I know people talk about paying board members obviously we can't there's there's no legislation Mr bacon there's you can't pay board members it is volunteer and I always said it's a thankless job so I've always said I'm a professional I'm a
professional educator the vote has been done I'm going to say this and people may agree or not to agree because I don't take things personal this process for the last eight months on the EV buses was done right it was sorted through it was financed and just just to
go back to there was someone Mr com you asked Mr finel you did say about the number of buses what Mr Mesmer was referring to and he's correct is 25 of our large buses cuz we've decided we didn't want to go with the smaller buses with electric is 40% of that Fleet
so he was correcting that and the other issue that was a concern right was 25 I was just gonna say real quick Dr phell that said he said 25% of no but he said past months too not what he said okay okay I'm not g I'm just GNA just say 25
buses out of the large Fleet is approximately 40% it has been said for a couple months what I do also want to say is the one other issue on the delivery time is a fact the delivery time is something we said you know going through this definitely I do recommend mend it I did recommend it but the delivery time
on buses was going to be um up to 16 months we we were told so there was going to be um a lag time on delivery Mr Edwards has shared that but I don't I don't want people to think there was a right or wrong answer I really don't I don't want that to be the case we don't
want to I don't want to polarize anybody I think look it was a recommendation that that's why we have boards we have Boards of Education to vote on that I sit up here and I'll you know you know I I hate to say Mr vas I'm sorry I don't want to look like I looked
upset or emotional I didn't it's just me it's just me you know it's my game face is just you know I take things serious and I feel strong about the final but at the end of the day that's the process for every one of these people every one of these board members have sat up here
will give their reason not give the reason we could agree disagree but I always say until you walk in their moccasins and spend the time and hear it I get now would I love you know blind trust in the superintendent of course you know it makes the job so much easier
because we do so much across the course of a year that it's hard to explain every single thing um Mr bacon mentioned about special task force and you've mentioned to me this in our private meeting and over the last mons let me just say and I'm not going to give you a civics lesson but every one of these
people up here are elected officials they are your representative we are a representative Republic all right I'd love to tell you I have the time to have special committees we did that what you were talking about with strategic planning Mr Campbell we do an audit every year but we did a detailed almost
a forensic audit through strategic planning that was part of that process and that's all part of the strategic planning that been online that took us eight 18 months but to have meeting after meeting outside of your elected officials not only because of the
confidentiality of uh the school district especially because 8 85% of our budget everybody is salary and benefits so at the end of the day 85% is about people and personnel and they are your elected officials so when you see that I
don't know how many 5,000 lines or how many pages the budget is that we share with board members starting in about a month electronically some want it printed I hope not many but how many pages is it one how many pages is
it 800 pages but as the board members get that and go through items and we have any questions you know feel free and you see talk to your board members what our prior but I'm here to tell you I've been saying it for the last four years it's so much simpler we reduced our Surplus got a waiver last year to
1.5% which was the only recommendation in the audit because you have to by lawke keep 2% we asked to go to 1.5 to save jobs so not to go out with a larger tax levy to put jobs back there's not much more we could do in the budget because at the end of the day we don't
have discretionary income if they talk budgetarily or discretionary expenses there really are 85 comes 85% comes and that's growing that's the the Pacman the 85% of the budget on that I just wanted so that was Mr bacon on the special commit so please you'll talk to these
board members they want to hear your input on what's what are your budget uh priorities uh The Architects Mr Camel as I told you years ago we do have two now for the last couple years three I'm sorry we have three different Architects and they all go out with requests for
proposals so um I I I got it and we do have um we do and we do have you know three three or four uh attorneys and now a few others and in a large District like this I think that is awesome because we may
have a board attorney for say board meetings we have special ed group for special ed we have Labor we have com that's that's a positive I just want everybody to know that you know don't put your eggs in one basket it's good it's good for everybody and it keeps us together so lastly you know um I just
want to add I think I answered the questions if I didn't you can always contact me email me before or after which one my question about attendance oh yes I'm sorry that's what I thank you no so um and I'm gonna get Miss mcar onette so as you know Mr finale is spot
on that is a huge goal of ours and we're going to continue postco um I know student attendance has improved I don't know exact amounts m mcam is pulling us up probably right now one of the things that actually decreased as far as positive attendance staff attendants
sorry Mr ble but that there was another law a couple years ago as you know and it's been hard to get substitutes so that went a little bit different direction um on the staff but on the student attendance issue it has been a major goal and will continue to be a major goal and I believe we have
improved slightly um you could comment on it I hope we do so thank you Dr Farrell we are uh we were in line to improve uh we have had the worst flu season ever for children
that just occurred um so our student attendance really got hurt in the last two months um we're hoping we can recover from that as the weather gets better and the flu season ends um I have
not uh finished doing all of the statistics on it I was working on it today hopefully by next month's meeting we'll have uh a little bit more detailed information so when I'm going to ask Miss mmar to get actual data because we had this a couple months ago we had an
update for half the year so get the actual data we have that for you I promise next month we'll give you where we think we are before the report card good bad or ugly okay yeah the report cards last year but you know report cards last year
last let the report card that will be coming out soon is about last school year so you know that I'm we're going to give you updated data this year as the goal just so you have that you uh someone else asked oh Mr F ask and this is just the truth we have a new
president honestly 13 years I've been a superintendent I constantly say hey don't forget we have the student reps um I asked her for a piece of candy just before I I also a new president with agenda the the last president had a lot
but many times I'll say don't forget this is just on agenda oh don't forget Miss mcnamar is going to see if anybody's been here after HR so don't move on to the next one do that constantly so you can I those well I I've done it for 13 years I don't know R
can't do it no you can do it you're just you're you're obligated to ask me and you can and I could tell you you could I you can't stop me from speaking I can't shut my mouth sometimes I mean but if you me I'll tell you I I do this constantly Miss mcar sometimes cuz my
leg's going up down if I get cheek smacked so I but I'll tell you but that tonight was I said do you have a piece of can the last time was but I I constantly tonight because she's a new president and did a fantastic job tonight but I would just say hey you know this this remember the second
session we'll do at the end but listen what's on my lungs on my tongue for everybody I'll share it anytime with all of you um and lastly Mr B we do have special meetings a couple times a year as you know either they called special meetings because they aren't on the calendar we've had them before for
budgets they happen I hope they don't happen all the time you shouldn't because again at the end of the day our jobs is to run the day-to-day operations of a very large school district with a large budget and keep these meetings efficient and to a good decorum and
remember to you know I always say we got to thank our board members because at the end of the day it's like everything else like we can't find sometimes certain teachers and certain people people are at a point where if if you know look if it's not enjoyable to but they're just not going to do it and
quite honestly we need our best and our brightest that want to run for the board boardmy because it's a lot of work so um I don't ask you to always agree I just ask you to respect that this is a tough gig for them that's all that's all I want you to do I'm a big boy I'm a
professional I get paid a good amount and I will stand here and I would take the questions but I want you to know you can have it both ways too I'm going to have questions asked Mr I'm going to share what I'm thinking um in anytime with each of you whether you like or not but that's just the kind of the way I
roll I think I covered everything and then you could get into board comments are you sure because you didn't do superintendent comments no I purposely didn't do superintendent comments tonight because I don't have budget information and because I thought this would be a long meeting so was okay okay
um Mr Miler do you have any comments sure yes please uh thank you very much president dianon I appreciate that uh hello good evening everyone I hope that you all are doing well and thank you all very much for coming out and um expressing your concerns asking your questions uh making any recommendations
comments um I'm trying to think of a response that I could give in reference to what was a particularly spirited meeting um I appreciate the cander and uh the concerns addressed and uh recommendations made as I already said um and frankly I'm sorry if people do
not like the way that things work but frankly this is the United States of America with this is a representative democracy you vote for people who make decisions uh by the grace of God hopefully on your behalf you may not like it but that is how the system works
if you do not like it and frankly gripe and moan you can run for one of these seats and not get paid just like we do um I'm not complaining about that I have signed up for this uh freely willfully and frankly happily I actually enjoy this I enjoy the idea of being able to
serve the public I never thought I'd be able to do this particularly at frankly 25 years old um and I consider it such an honor and such a privilege given that I've lived in this town for most of my life and I was a student in the school district and you also have to take into
consideration uh at least I think that my mother for example she's a public school teacher in our neighborhood to the West leid Township so I am not doing anything in particular because we had referenced potential for layoffs of teachers I'm not looking to do anything I have a personal bias here to keep as
many teachers as possible I'm not doing this with any sort of animus against any particular individual or group uh socially economically what have you I have family in the town friends neighbors of all different socioeconomic and demographic backgrounds and I've talked to many of them about this
particular uh issue with the electric buses among others uh with various perspectives more often than not perhaps surprisingly this is just coming from one person they would have appreciated the way that the majority voted I'm not saying that the minority is in the wrong necessarily we're going to see that pan
out as time goes along frankly the manner in which the uh proposal was described uh as wonderful and professional as it was uh for this proposal uh it I for whatever reason it just couldn't get away from me perhaps because I've had so many different
issues uh automotiv I have a car issue that's been going on for last six years and uh I thought to myself you know this sounds like something that Dr frell you mentioned moccasin this is why I popped into my head my great grandmother used to say that to me all the time because
she uh had a fascination with American Indians and she had a plaque in her house before she passed away uh saying that you have to walk in someone's moccasins to understand the place from which they're coming and uh she was also a very Avid Judge Judy fan she would always say Judge Judy and my
great-grandmother if something sounds it's sounds great it sounds wonderful it sounds perfect this plan what could possibly go wrong frankly that this is nothing against any of you I appreciate the time and effort you put into this when you think of it from the perspective of a citizen as a taxpayer
if something sounds too good to be true more likely than not it's probably going to be we may very well be wrong we're going to see you have to take into consideration um how different policy related to energy and the environment comes from the federal level now from the EPA we have a governor's race this
year because things have changed in Washington um very in a very big way we have a governor's race this year we'll see how things change come next year for school funding and anything related to Transportation within the district I am not looking to do anything to hurt any particular person I'm not I'm not doing
this with any animus toward any particular group I'm not doing this to please someone who filled campaign cence of mine there's no uh Elon Musk or frankly for example who's backing a campaign from to vote or against a certain way I'm doing this because this is what I believe is in the best
interest of the town in the best interest of the community my neighbors friends family taxpayers of this town residents of the community that is why I do what I do and anyone who does not believe that can run and try to get me out of this seat and I thank you very
much for affording me the opportunity to do this and I look forward to do this and answer your questions address any recommendations and hopefully either convey what I am trying to do what I believe would be in the best interest of the community to you or very likely you can impart something wisdom and
knowledge to me I'm only 25 years old I have a lot to learn uh I'm not sure what else to say other than that but thank you all very much for coming and president thank you very much for the opportunity Mr Henry I want to give a big shout out to the staff and the students that participated in Beetlejuice I attended
it it was an excellent excellent uh performance and also for the brick and Beyond I also attended that it was great a lot of effort and I went into that but it was it was really well well done so thanks for all the students and staff uh
that made that happen and also thank you everybody for coming out tonight on a cold night and hopefully you can have safe travels on your way home thank you Miss pallen hi I'd like to um comment on um
Dr Cajun and Mr saluca and the um the guidance staff uh they have the vision for Brick and beer beond and of course you do too Miss Mack and um it just grows every year and it gets better every year and the attendance goes up
every year and I'm sorry I was out of the country and I missed it I also want to comment on the uh winter steam activities that were compiled by some of our teachers for our kids um steam steam steam I I really love these teachers
because they grasp the a need to engage students in the world around them in um the facts the science the truth and the discovery that is out there to be made and our science supervisor I've said it
a hundred times Jen Lane uh is just so overqualified and I'm so glad she stays here um uh secondly I'd like to comment on um what I said before as far as the
superintendent recommends for nine years I have thought this school district needs a better reading curriculum I've never heard a Community member get up and speak with interest
and passion for updating our reading curriculum I've never heard anybody dissect the importance of SP spending money on helping our students learn to
read or engage in Reading I don't know about anyone else and I have my masters in special ed and teaching children with learning disabilities is kind of my
expertise but I would never in a thousand years contradict our cni Direct ctor Dr Anderson or our superintendent because I know they work on pilots and they figured out every
detail of what's important in choosing a reading curriculum and I know that they ask our teachers for input and I know that um they may look at the scores Mr
Finelli but the most important thing is to teach these kids to decode get involved and engaged in reading and I say that because I don't watch a black and white
TV this was an opportunity for us as a board to do for our students teachers district and town what we will never get from the
state $7.8 million to be Progressive who wants to go backwards anyway I think the most important thing for me as a boa member all these
years is that my agenda is all about the students first and I think that should be a common agenda for every Boe member I think the process did not work out for the benefit of brick students
sorry Dr fowl because it didn't work out for our teachers our administrators our students who need to learn that they're going to live in a world without black and white
TVs or diesel engines so on behalf of the school children of brick on January 31st I've been busy January 31st I attended the New Jersey School Board Association board of directors
meeting um it was announced that the School Board Association is debuting at something called Capital watch which is a brand new quarterly online newsletter and it's going to track the 1,800 pieces
of legislation that are going to affect school children in our state this year so that's a great um resource for our our local board we also have a new associate membership in
um for it texts in in um the state and we also have a new co-op and I sent you some of that information I hope it was it was brand new when I heard it so I hope you got it
um I also attended the mammoth County School Board Association meeting on February 4th where we um had student representatives and um we had a special
presentation the from the national PTA and from the state education um Senate chairman about uh future goals um for our
students and how the legislature can help work out with that um and then the last thing I attended I was at the I was a member of the nominating committee for um the New Jersey Schoolboard Association and we
reviewed and interviewed about a dozen candidates and came up with recommendations for a slate of New Jersey Schoolboard Association officers that will be voted on at the delegate assembly on May 10th um I I'm glad to serve and represent the
children of brick I I I think it's important that our focus and I'm sorry to have to remind everybody again our focus should be on the students in Brick thank you um for coming out tonight miss picala can you please send that
information on the school board to Dr frell so you could put it in our package for tomorrow thank you Mrs Kennedy hi okay so um I also attended brick and Beyond it's a fantastic event it's totally crazy to me that I was
there because my kid was actually like talking to colleges so that was a really weird thing um but it was a really it was really great he left there very excited so to get a 17-year-old boy excited about much that has to do about college was that's a great feat so kudos
to those that put together um Beetlejuice at brick memorial was fantastic great job to the cast and the crew um I attended the wrestling match um that brick memorial versus oh Lordy I
don't even remember who it was Cranford thank you Cranford um so I I'm I can't I don't have the stomach for wrestling it just is such a sport but we won the match 30 6 to 35 my watch was
telling me like oh your work out because I'm sitting in the Sands and my heart is going and it was it was intense so we won 36 to 35 our young men and I'm going to tell you something they won
because a boy from the other team got a point taken away a team point because of unsportsmanlike conduct which I personally think he should have been thrown up but that's the mom in me but you know so anyway so we got the point taken away so we wound up winning the
match and that really comes down to the character of our kids in Brick and I was really very proud to have on my Memorial sweatshirt that night so Mr saruca unfortunately um had to step out already but I wanted to just say kudos to him um
you know those kids and to Dr Cajun for the Brick Township kids like we I was so proud of our guys that it didn't escalate cuz I think a bunch of you know a bunch of teenage guys and it was really um a low blow so congratulations
to the memorial wrestlers and then I just wanted to say that I love being up here and I ran my campaign in November of 23 I think it was 23 um not as a Republican and not as a Democrat and I
know that I have Republicans up here with me and I know I have Democrats up here with me and I didn't want to do either of that I just wanted to be up here because I I'm up here for the kids and and the conversations that we have with our children that I literally just
had before we came tonight is about respecting each other when you speak to each other my daughter and my son was whoever was talking to but here I would like to just implore all of us that I do appreciate you all coming to the
meetings and I wish to ensure that we keep it respectable from those of us here at the table on this side of the table to those out there I love what you all have to say sometimes we agree and sometimes we disagree but there is
definitely um a delivery and I appreciate the passion behind all of it and I love the passion and I especially love when I share the passion sometimes I don't but I love when when I do but I just wish that maybe going forward we
can all all all keep things respectful and um kind because this is what we're trying to instill in our children to be kind and speak nice to each other and we all have differences and we are all allowed to think differently and I just
implore you when you visit to please or or are at work to please just remain respectful of everyone and I love brick okay bye thanks thank you Mrs de Benedictus so I saw um Beetlejuice they
were amazing they're so talented um and this has been a heavy night I don't know about you guys but I'm ready to go home um but I do love being up here it is such an honor to be up here
and this has been grueling over the last few months it has been it's been a lot and something was said especially about being kind um something was said that we have to take emotion out of this
and this is true but when you're up here you also have to wear the hats and one of the hats that I personally wear is I am a mom who puts their two kids on those buses every single day except for
sometimes my middle schooler who misses the bus because she can't get her booty out of bed um but it's difficult and it's a hard place to be in it is as as you know Dr Parell
says all the time this is a thanless job it is it is a thanless job and it is difficult and we have to balance the hats that we wear and we have to wear them in the appropriate times and it's
not easy and I for one have spoken to several other parents other taxpayers and bus drivers and I got a majority of us they were not
happy with the aspects of us having an EV they don't like it and we are up here we are put up here by by the people in for the people and that's who we are here to help that's
who we are here to serve and if some of you don't like it I'm really sorry but it was really difficult and I'm I'm um going to quote I'm gonna do a quote tonight
uhuh and I am a big geek and I love Harry Potter so I will leave you with something that the least favorite Professor Professor Umbridge said and that is progress for the sake of
progress should be discouraged we should not just do this because it is the next best thing we shouldn't just do this because we want to be the first we want to have the most we should do it because
it is what is best and if we don't feel that it is what is best then we shouldn't do it and on that note have a great evening drive safe my husband just texted me and said it's icy but drive safe and thank
you guys Mr mmer Sure uh first off I just wanted to talk about uh Mr finelli's comment about the number of buses so and I appreciate you pushing board members when they bring up numbers I think that
helps us all get better um for this Grand the 25 buses were full-size buses I said it was 40% of our fullsize bus fleet okay okay Mr finel he's he's given his
comments he's given his comments it's not a question and answer time well it's a good thing that board comments are at the end fullsize Fleet didn't say that so regardless um fullsize Fleet so that's where I got my numbers from so I
just wanted to clarify that just make it clear um I explained part of my decision it was not an easy decision um I don't think either side is in the wrong I just personally think committing that many buses to a district that is in
such financial trouble is too risky for me and I've been in business now for 15 years with a master's degree as well so that's my opinion I'm risk risk adverse and I understand that it looks like we're going to have you know all the savings that come from it if the
infrastructure costs are a million dollars more than what what is quoted as an estimated number that savings is gone so we need to look at the full picture we also need to look 12 years down the road when this contract's over and the new board of vet I understand
that's somebody else's problem but my kid is going to be 12 years old going on buses in the district at that time how are they going to buy 25 electric buses at 3 to 4X the cost of what we're paying for buses now so these are some of the decisions that I factored in to mine so
I just wanted to be clear as to where I came from and how I came to that conclusion after the months of research that that I did um on a positive note I want to shout out Dr farell yeah I have to pull it up because
um so it uh so he was selected to be the region six which is the New Jersey representative uh for the national aasa governing board um which I don't know you can elaborate maybe a little further but it's a super National superintendent
Association so this is a really big deal and he was selected out of the region so out of multiple States so shout out to Dr frell on that congratulations um yeah and uh so just closing not closing the door on electric
buses because I think there is a future for it um I've already been thinking about potential Solutions moving forward for this uh one being if they can include infrastru structure costs in the Grant and I know uh Mr Edwards and I spoke on that and that's potentially
something that they're looking to do in the near future if that's the case then we can go for a five bus pilot type program or 10 bus a lower risk program where we're getting full coverage that's something that I hope can be pushed moving forward so thanks everyone and
have a good night thank you um I'm going to talk about first of all the buses we all agree that we're looking for another grant that possibly might be with the infrastructure in it so that it would be a savings for all of us this grant was
not good for us for 25 buses that that was too too much we discussed that for months and our meetings went on and on and it just was not good it wasn't working out I you're saying to me Mr finel that um I'm not even going to be here next year you're right but my
grandchildren are still going to the school I still live in Brick I still have to worry about that it doesn't end with me being here or not and politically I haven't spoken to anyone of these people and ask them their votes you can ask each and every one of them
because their vote is their vote my vote is my vote I was at the meeting with Mike and with Mr Edwards and Mr uh U I almost said Finelli again I did that to you and Dr farell we were all at the meeting together we asked questions I went out I asked people for answ anwers
the answers I got I didn't like I brought them back to um our board meetings it was pulling teeth pulling teeth that am I making the right decision am I making the wrong decision I'm not worried about making the right decision for this year I'm worried about
making the right decision forever you know what I mean buses we don't do not have a problem with electric buses at all we had a major problem with the amount that being said that was why I voted no I am going to say to you that I
gave you the extra five minutes I changed it I went into the policies and I allowed you to come up not to Badger this this board this board is not going to be spoken to the way you spoke to them I was warned that I was giving you uh a place to go up there and start
yelling at people and carrying on listen we're here to listen I do not control the narrative our people do not control the narrative that might have happened before it's not happening now there's no reason to yell at us there's no reason to question there's a you ask the questions we're getting the answers and
if Dr Farrell doesn't get the answer I'm saying to him where's that answer Here Comes Mr Finelli where's that answer where's that answer we are answering your questions to the best of the knowledge I know you speak to Dr frell I know that you get answers to your questions before times listen I am doing
my best to make this board comfortable for everybody and everybody to get their reasons there is no reason to make someone feel less than you I will not allow that to happen I allowed it to happen for the last two meetings it will not happen again I will put an end to
shouting out over there I I want your opinions I I have Brad shoulders you could yell at me you could call me whatever you want because I could ignore you I have that I'm a sicilian but I will tell you we will answer you we will get the questions my
vote is my vote I sit on this board you might not like it but at thousand people might you might like it and a thousand people might not I'm not here to make you happy I'm here to make the whole town everybody in the town all the
people all the teachers we're here we're doing trying to keep teachers it's about the students it's about everything it's a big big deal not just a little thing that we thought of easily and I thank you all right I'm going to read the
calendar March 5th 2025 early dismiss students only um March 18th 2025 regular meeting 700 p.m. over here and I'd like a motion to close the meeting in a second please
oh second frad you can Mary please miss picala yes Miss Kennedy yes please miss Ste Benedictus yes Mr Henry yes Mr maleri yes please stay Mr Mesmer yes Miss aanon yes ear I'd like to make
an thank you have a good night