You are good. >> Thank you. We're going to uh call this meeting to order at 6:01 p.m. We're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. America
>> and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, >> indivisible indivisible with liberty, justice for all. >> Thank you. Please join me in a moment of silent reflection. Thank you.
Sunshine law notice. This is the January 14th, 2026 special meeting of the mayor and council of the Burough of Fair Haven. This meeting is via Zoom only broadcast from Burough Hall, 748 River Road, Fair Farven, New Jersey, and was called pursuant to the provisions of the
open public meetings act. Notice of this meeting was provided to the public, the Asbury Park Press, the Two River Times, and the Rumson Fraven Patch on January 8th, 2026. Has been posted on the Bolton board in the municipal building, and through the burough's social media platforms, and has remained continuously
posted as required under the statute. In addition, copies of the above notices are and have been available to the public and are on file in the office of the municipal clerk. With adequate notice having been given, the burough clerk is directed to include the statement in the minutes of this meeting. Allison, may I please have a roll call?
>> Council members Cole here. Deelli, >> yes. >> Griffin, Cotch, >> yes. >> MKI, >> yes. >> Olsen >> here. >> We have attorney Malma, Administrator
York, CFO Britain, and Junior Gordella, and parks and rec director DJ Breenidge as well. Alison, Councilman Griffin says that he's on but muted. So maybe he's on as a attendee and not as a >> I'm checking right.
>> Is he on by his phone? Maybe. >> Not sure. But I'm I'm going to uh I'm going to get rolling here. Um >> we have on workshop tonight the 2026 Greenacres grant application discussion. Uh Chris, do you want to take this?
>> Yep. So, uh, just to give a little background at the, um, December 15th council meeting, uh, former councilwoman, uh, Kristen Hoey had brought up about this grant, um, to give you background on it. There's three funding, um, opportunities for this grant. One is for land acquisition for a
park, one is for park stewardship, and the other is for park development. Um, the grant itself is due on February 27th. Just to give you a timeline and I'll get a little bit into logistics on that. As far as the awards go for municipality,
we're considered a standard uh municipality and how it would work is um we would provide a 75% match and the grant would provide a 25% match towards a project. Um looking at previous awards
uh for standard municipalities between 20 2021 and 2025 the base awards were anywhere between 600,000 and 700,000. Again that's a 25%. Give you an idea the cost of that project to get between 600
and 700,000. Um for 700,000 you're looking at a $2.8 million project which you would have to come up with a $2.1 million 75% match. Then for a $600,000 award, you would have to come up with a it's a $2.4 million project, you'd have
to come up with a $1.8 million award. So, just to kind of give you an idea of what you have to match with. Um the one thing about this grant, which is um kind of advantageous for us, this grant does allow you to use funds to match the amount that were acquired through other
grants or other loans. So if we had a green acres loan, if we had a mama county open space um grant, um all of the money can be used where um typically other grants do not allow that. So for example, when we received the $361,000
award for Mama Mama County Space Grant, we had to find an equal 50% match to that, but it couldn't be used from other funds. So just to give you an idea on that. So, um I'll give you an idea what money we have for um again 21 Fair Haven Road. Um that's again this is maybe
something that the council might want to discuss if that's the project. Um but right now um also just to add to it, you could also bond and create debt for the match as well. Um so I just want to put that out there as well. That is allowed. But I'll just give you example of of a
project we do have funds to match 21 Fair Road and that is a project we do need funding for. Um we currently had well in the beginning of the year we started with $734, um $888.25. We received a grant from Mammoth County
Open Space this year in the amount of $361,817 which brought us to a grand total of $1,959.25. Okay, so just shy of 1.1 million. Um the demo and asbestous mitigation that uh Frank Lurch provided for us. The cost of
that um which we have a PO for is $121,700. That's what that cost was. So that leaves us with $974,2525 that we would be available to to provide a 75% match. Just looking at some
numbers, if we were to apply um if we put in for a um 1.25 25 sorry one sorry one uh 1 1.275 project okay 1,275,000 project um we would be required to come
up with a $956,250 match and we would get an award of $318,750 um if they decided to award us the grant. Um I would say that would be the highest amount that we could apply for for an award. Um, you know, again,
putting in a 1.275 project. Um, you know, I'm coming as close as we can to the funds available. Um, and again, we can use the money that we have. Um, that using the money that we have already, um, in the account would not, um, acquire any more debt. We wouldn't have to bond for it. It's money
that we already have appropriated. Um, so it would allow us to use those. >> Just to give you an idea of that. Any questions so far? >> Yes. The original purchase price of the um house, wasn't it 129? Do I have that
wrong? >> What was it? >> Say again. Sorry. >> What was what was the acquisition cost >> of the house when we purchased it? >> Oh gosh. >> Yeah, it was like 1.2, I think.
>> Okay. So let's say it's one two Chris could >> and that was a mixture of grant dollars and money we paid out of pocket and the grant dollars came from I I believe two different two or three different entities I think it was two entities but but and then we had some out of pocket.
>> Couldn't Couldn't we use all of those dollars to qualify as match dollars? The grant dollars and the money we paid out of pocket >> since it's an acquisition. >> So we can only use the money that we currently have. So the money that we currently have left in that account um
including the grant that we received this year is 974,200. >> That has to be forward facing. We haven't we couldn't have spent it yet. Got it. Okay. >> Yep. >> Question along those lines. >> Yes. Um, say theoretically the council
chose to apply for the screen acres funding for 21 and we were awarded as you just demonstrated for us approximately 370,000 whatever that number was. >> 318,000. Yeah. >> 382,000 >> 18 318
>> 18. >> Yeah. >> The numbers keep going the wrong way. >> That's okay. Would it would we be allowed to use that money towards a match for an open space grant this year?
>> That I can't give you an answer on because they have not released the details of the Mama County Open Space Grant. Um that has is out. I checked it as of yesterday and it hasn't been released. So that I do not know if we'd be able to >> knowing what we knew from last year, would it have been allowed
>> last year? No. meaning disallowed. >> Yeah. Last year, you would not have been able to. >> Okay. >> Tracy, can you explain your question again? I didn't understand it. >> Yeah. I So, we know that the county open
space fund is going to open up for another round of grants, >> right? And of course we we know we need additional funding to complete I mean multiple parks projects I'll just say but it'd be great to put us in a
position that we could successfully apply for the max um the max is well given that the if the rules were the same the max was 500,000 and we'd have to have 500,000 in our accounts to apply
for that much. Um, but I don't know that we can use the open space money that we got from last year towards that match. So, I was wondering if the greenacres money could be used to match a future application. >> Yeah, because right now currently um at what we would have out of play um
between the the open space money grant and the match was about 723,634. So, you know, roughly in play that we would have to match if we applied for the Mon County Open Space Grant, it would be, you know, roughly around $250,000 that we would have to match on
that. So, we wouldn't be able to apply for the full 500 anyway. Um, again, rules could change. I don't know what the rules are, whether we could use some of this Green Acres money towards a match. That is possible. I I don't know until they release what the parameters of this year's grant is going to be. Um,
so that that we'd have to wait and see. Um, however, again, for this grant, um, the max that we could again roughly get would be about 318,750 if we did apply for it. >> Hey, Chris, can you hear me? >> Yes. Yep.
>> So, it sounds like we have 9 Let's just round numbers. We have $900,000 in an account that was related to 21 Fair Haven Road. And if we pledge that, so to speak, we can get an extra, call it 300,000 and
then we have to have a $1.2 million project. Are we is this money in search of a project or do we have a specific or does it have to be tied to 21 Fair Haven Road? Maybe is that is that what I'm hearing? >> So, you're right. The numbers you're right on. Um, as far as the reason why
21 Fair Haven Road came up, this is a short period of time that we have to apply for this grant. I know we um that's where we had left it at the 12:15 council meeting um to be able to again this is due on February 27th. We have to
have a public hearing and we also have to have um again plans drafted. We have plans that we had already drafted when we got the award of 361,000 towards this. Um so we could reuse those plans again for this grant. Um there's no way we would be able to number one,
no way we'd be able to afford it um with the money that we have to put up as matching funds. Um but there's no way we'd have timelines to get that V plans drawn up for either 21 or any other location here in town and meet that um hearing and deadline for the application. Um Allison and I have
talked about and we have a you know short number of meetings um you know for public engagement even before we are able to submit this. So we're working up against the clock. That's no fault of ours. >> Hold on though. I'm getting lost there. So, does the 1 point would the 1.2
million be what are the requirements on how that would be spent? I assume it's related to 21 Fair Haven Road or No, >> if the council was decide that we wanted to apply for the grant for 21 Fair Haven Road, it would have to be spent for 21 Fair Haven Road. Yes. >> Okay. So, it would be a Green Acres
grant. We put in 900 that we've already set aside. They put in 300 and we have 1.2 to that would be um dedicated if you will or in the intention would be to spend it on 21 Fair Haven Road. >> That is correct. Yes.
>> And do we have I we haven't we haven't really um nailed down what exactly we're going to do there. Is that is that okay to have sort of a loose idea or how how advanced does it have to be to qualify for the application? >> We already have the plan, right Chris? I
mean that we already applied to these other applications for or these other grants for. We had a con a um again a pretty a primitive concept plan that was put together um as far as the idea of what we would use for passive park which is what got us the $361,000
award from M County Open Space. Um my goal would be because again there's still that's still not enough money to fund that project. My goal would be to use that plan and submit that on behalf of the grant so we can provide more funding to realize that project. But is
that is that is that could you repeat? >> Oh, go ahead, Josh. >> No, I was saying we we have the concepts of a plan >> was the comment. Correct. >> I think I think it sounds like a no-brainer. We already have the plans. >> Well, that's that's what I was getting
to. Is the concept of a plan sufficient to to or do you have to do more planning >> to put the application in? No apply for the sub. >> It seems like it was sufficient enough for that original grant. It seems like
it would be sufficient enough for this. >> Chris, can I just ask though, what is the amount that we estimated we needed according to this concept of a plan? Like what does that leave us with if we do if we do get their matching 318, we get 100 1.2 million, what does that
leave us with to fund for the project? Like what else will we need? Uh, I would a rough estimate and and I think Rich would agree with me. I I think we probably to to get this project done, you know, and again, one unknown is
whether or not, you know, we can do a living shoreline or we have to bulkhead it. And that's, you know, an expense that would be there as well, but I would estimate you're probably going to need at least 3 to 3.5 million to get this project done. That's just my >> in addition in addition to this 1.2. >> No, total. So that would leave us with
like 2.3, right? >> Yes. Almost half. It would get us almost halfway there. >> I think I think we're going to come in under that, Michael. I think that administrator York is very good at his job and he's being very conservative and he should be. >> Yeah. No, I think that's good. I mean,
I'm I'm with Betsy like or Councilwoman Cotch. I It's sort of a no-brainer. If we we need money for this project anyway, we already have the plans. This would be a way to get it. I understand why Councilman Cole asked that question though because we don't want to not have
funding for other projects, but this is one we already know we're doing. We have a plan. We potentially we don't have to match any of it because we have these funds that they're allowing us to match and that doesn't happen that often. So, I would I would push forward with it. >> Let's just record. We do have to match
it, but we do not have to incur any new debt to match it. >> Yes, it's money that funding. Yeah. Does that a couple questions administrative questions does that by ple pledging it or matching it does that preclude us from using that money to match for other
grants? You you maybe addressed that or maybe I miss misheard you. So, um, depending on the grant, uh, Councilman Cole had asked, "Would we be able to use that money to, um, do a match for the Mama County Open Space Grant if they award?" Again, they do not have that out
this year. So, I don't know. It's again, usually comes out end of February, um, that packet. So, I don't have those rules. So, there's a possibility yes, there's a possibility no. Um, okay. >> That's that answers that question again. And this money that we have currently
for 900 the 974,2525 that we currently have is can only be used for 21 Fair Haven Road anyway. So that money would couldn't be used for any other projects like a Fair Haven Fields project or you know community center field. I mean it had to only this >> Yeah. I guess what what I'm fishing for
is if we encumber this towards this particular grant does it preclude us from applying for another grant? Sounds like we don't know. Um I wouldn't want it to tie our hands on a bigger grant for example, but that's just speculation. >> So >> um second question, second question is
>> I just answer that one for one second. Um >> yeah. Yeah. >> So if let's just say we decided we didn't and uh and the rules were the same as last year. We would only have 250,000 available to match the Mammoth County Open Space Grant. So the max we
could get out of Mammoth County Open Space would be 250. So, this grant would end up yielding us more than what Mammoth County Open Space would yield us. >> Got it. Okay. Um, second question is, does it start a clock if we apply, do we have to finish 21 Fair Haven Road by a
certain time or or risk losing the grant? >> No. What we cannot do, and this is um this is specific in the application, um because obviously they don't want people to dial the project up. If for some reason this project, you know, we ask
for 1.2 275 and this project only cost us 600,000 which obviously is unlikely you know you know from what we've discussed um we would have to give any of those extra monies back that they gave us >> if we if we c so we'd have to refund some if we came in bare bones >> correct
>> yeah okay thank you >> okay >> so you know after listening to everyone's contributions it seems to me I mean this is this is the only application we could possibly complete in time the only project for which we could complete an application in time um we know we need additional funding to
advance um this project even if it's incrementally we chip away at it. So u I don't see why we wouldn't and I'm in favor of applying. >> Okay, this is Rich. The only thing I would add is the due dates in six weeks.
There's two public sessions you have to do. You have to do a community engagement, which is a planning process, and then you have to do a public hearing. So, we have to look at the calendar to see how that lays out within those six weeks.
And there's certain time frames that you need to do the community engagement. I think it was a minimum of 15 days prior to your public hearing. And then there's certain things you have to advertise. So obviously we can work that out internally, but from a calendar
perspective, we just need to be conscious of that. >> Uh Rich, is it just the is it community engagement that they like the project or just that they want to go for the grant? Because didn't we already do the community engagement portion for >> we did, but we still have to do it as
part of this process. So you have two options. You could do a community engagement, which would be a meeting like we did the last time, or you could do a survey. I don't think we have enough time to pull a survey together. >> Okay. >> And then phase two would be the the public hearing portion.
>> Yeah. So would so in the past um again because we had two new council people when we did um you know again public engagement it was usually the mayor and the two facilities um leaison on there and I believe the facilities leaison correct me if I'm wrong Allison are u uh councilman Cole and um Councilman
Griffin correct >> for facilities Brian Olsen is on 21 Councilman Olsson >> oh that's 21 so yeah so >> but then there that's three of us uh or the mayor well we could also advertise Tracy, depending what it on what it is
um and what the schedule is, I might be willing to not attend if for the three of you to attend also. I just got to know more information. >> Understood. >> Yep. >> Well, I'll make a motion we submit the grant application and undertake the schedule to complete the public
participation components and get to a public hearing. >> I'll second that. Uh Allison, may I please have a a roll call? >> Council members Cole, >> yes. >> Yes.
>> Griffin, >> yes. >> Cotch, >> yes. >> MKI, >> yes. >> Olson, >> yes. I I probably, you know, the one thing I should have done, but I don't think it's that big a deal, is I probably should
have just asked for public comment before we voted and I apologize for that, but I think it's a good time to ask if anyone in the public has a comment right now. Anyway, uh please raise your hand uh raise hand button. Um
and uh Allison, is there anyone there? >> We have three attendees, but nobody has their >> raise hand. Okay. So with that being said, uh um we're going to move to adjourn the meeting. >> One thing on real quick. >> Sure. Absolutely. >> Obviously, in regarding times for um you
know, public engagement and um the council and the hearing for the council meeting, um engineer Gardella, uh clerk and I will have a meeting tomorrow. We'll finalize those dates and we will make that public to the uh council governing body. >> Great.
Anything else? We're good. We're going to adjourn the meeting. The time is 6:23 p.m. Do I have a motion? >> Motion. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I. >> Anyone opposed? I >> Everyone have a great rest of rest of the week.
>> Thank you. Good night. >> Bye.