call a meeting [Music] order flag of the United States of America and to the repic for which it stands one nation under indivisible liy and justice for
[Music] all open public meetings act statement pursuant to the open public meetings act notice of this meeting wased to the official C of newpapers post on the board and website this meeting is being
video roll call Mr fella here Mr Marsh here may BR here uh can I get a motion to approve the car respondence and reports motion to approve correspondence and reports second all in favor I I uh me a motion to approve the minutes from
January 14th 2025 motion to approve the minutes second all those in favor I I uh can I get a motion to approve the bill list motion to approve Bill list second Mark Mr Pella yes Mr Marsh yes mayor bro
yes a motion to approve the 2025 uh licenses for food handling motion approve the license second all those in favor I I uh can I get a motion to approve uh Raffles and bingo motion to approve Raffles and
bingo second all those in favor I I uh can I get a motion to approve transfer of porchtown recyclers to wow suan AB abam Mound do it just a license transfer Dr your license yes all right motion to
approve the the transfer second is that all all in favor all in favor I I okay I get a motion to open the first public portion for Resolutions below motion uh open the first public portion
second all those in favor I for Resolutions res list Bel the resolution is listed below 39 r45 open public at the endary yes yes um so
r425 uh um what is the uh percentage uh of increase 3% 3% across the board yes for alling employees uh few years ago the Public Works got I
believe it was $4,160 and then a 3% or 2% at the time um this year the police got 3,000 plus 3% and this is just the Administration Employees and the uh non-union employees are going to get the
same the chief of police a chief of police is is is getting more than the rest of them to line his salary with what's happening around the county for Chiefs how much do that in uh he had to get once you rais the other ones he had to be within
$5,000 I believe and then it was equivalent of about $15,000 so I'm just going from top to bottom what was what was the salary of police
year I 147 or something 145 147 yeah somewhere around there and and that now it's 167 76 that's what it says yeah
that's 33% I said 15,000 plus 3% plus 3% and how about the count administ $3,000 and 3% um I I don't know I mean that's a big
increase for from top to bottom in this kind of ony um I don't know if you r that by the public um I don't know if they would approve an opinion yeah I do you'll see
my opinion when I vote ont judge what was his salary shame it hasn't changed okay now what about to some of the other questions I might have pertaining to
theirm Second public portion yes [Music] yep thank you uh as you said all the salary increases with the acceptance of the chief for 3% increase 3% $3,000 of 3%
whichever was whichever was they all got a minimum they all got what the union they all got what the union employees got some way shape or form cracks so when you signed the original agreement with the Mr finy uh provides to the governing body
of any municipality administrator so on and so forth the administrator should be made by the mayor and executive office of the municipality would beic consent of the governing party and that the term of office of the municipal administrator shall be at the pleasure of the government bodyy and you set salary 1.5
I believe October that was probably 22 yes so the salary has increased from 125 to 134 approximately yeah I don't have the numbers in front of me that employment agreement that you have online is the
employment agreement that we have Mr we have one for him and we have one for um Chief we have one for couple of the girls in the office correct and and most of your salaries I mean we're not one of the biggest municipalities in the state as you're well aware and most of our
salaries are not in very high percentile area uh the clerk is is an anomaly the clerk is in the 90th percentile Park salaries and is very well paid but uh certainly she is providing duties above and beyond but the clerk normally does
however that is Way Beyond what most clerk should pay just for your information we can talk that the rest of thank you very much for your time yep thank you Mar 67 New Road M some of the salaries were already hit upon it the one that stuck out for me was the
assistant the construction official I'm looking at what the construction official gets and the assistant between the two of them they get paid a pretty substantial amount of the most construction officials in the full time so I construction official you reference it there's only one on the list s s it
says technical assistant construction official he didn't get a raise he didn't get anything okay the technical assistant construction official which is 53,5 that's Jen it's a taco I think you're talking about yeah just how you come up with that amount just look at what assistance that amount she had a
salary and that amount was $3,000 3% how about originally then originally I think she started probably about 45,000 2 years ago probably and they get you know they get normally what the union employees get I understand how the raises work I'm just
looking for the faces on yeah most most assistance are 38 to $49,000 10 times bigger than we are she does permits stuff like that she's more than just an assistant to S I kind of figur because he's parttime also right
yeah so I figured she did more but I was just curious on where that basis came from uh the other question I have is in reference to the H I know back in October all the bids at that point in time were declined because of the substantial amount they were I think you had told me Mr F they were over $2.1 million somewhere around there yeah so
what is our basis for choosing this individual and what is this going to actually C well there was a lot there was a lot of stuff in the other bid that we're not going to do like we don't need radiant baseb heat if we got forced hot air heat yeah they kind of and the 2.1 million was for the entire building we
broken it down into sections now so this is Phase One well that's why I'm asking so what is our total cost going to be then uh uh I think the bid was 332 that's one we don't need anything else right now so this will end that there is no going to be any phase two
the other two sections are are working at this point so the initial bid was for everything because by doing that then we can go back out for other bids on different phases so this is the main section where the historical society is there's a couple problems new hbac in
those two areas it's hot in the lobby correct it's cold in the lobby it's you know the uh historical CER where the senior center is and where the actual renovations to the library are they're actually both operating well the center portion is the main factor and that's
where we're going to fix that but again where where's our final cost one a lot you know are we how many phases I would say it would be three if we end up doing everything but as of right now we're going to do this phase one and then we won't have to do any more H for a couple years okay so it's
not not a a six-month plan and an 8 month plan that's looking to see no yeah so hope I mean and this phase has already been budgeted a year and a half ago so the the money is just sitting there waiting to have the plan done so and how do we pick this particular
vendor they had to put bids in so they had the specs and we end up I think it was five bids I forgot I think there was five bids to Township engineer review bid submissions B these are after the first bids in October this is another set of bids no no we put it out again as as
phase one and and okay iig he been he been on the first time also I believe all right let thank you can I get a motion to close first B portion motion to close second all in favor I uh resolution 3925 authorizing
the mayor to sign and enter a memorandum of understanding between the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission and the township of Franklin to participate in the limited online access program motion R 3925 second Mr Pella yes Mr Marsh yes
may Bruno yes resolution 4025 does designating employee salary for certain positions in accordance with the salary ordance for the year 2025 motion r425 second Mr Pella yes Mr Marsh yes mayor bro yes resolution 4125
authorizing Tax Collectors to Grant tax exemption for a totally disabled veteran motion R 4125 second Mr Mr Pella yes Mr Marsh yes mayor yes resolution 4225 authorizing hiring of Eric Samson to full-time
mechanic probationary status for Township of Franklin Public Works Department motion R 4225 second Mr Pella yes Mr Marsh yes mayor Bruno yes resolution 4325 authorized Township Franklin through the
Frank Township Police Department to participate in the defense Lo Logistics agency law enforcement Support Office 1033 program to enable the Franklin Township Police Department to request and acquire oh this is good access Department of Defense
equipment motion R 4325 second Mr fella yes Mr Marsh yes mayor Bruno yes we getting Hummers and Rocket Propel grenade we're going to have uh what's his name Doge guy come down one
back resolution 4425 awarding contract to LGB Mechanical Inc for Professional Services connection with the hbac phase one Community Center Library project in the T Franklin motion R 4425 second Mr fella yes Mr Mar
yes yes resolution 4525 authorizing the temporary increase of hours of Jessica Jones to part time administrative intern for the townsman Franklin joint Municipal Court du to the retirement of Jackie Pace Mo
r452 25 second Mr fella yes Mr Mar yes mayor BR yes can I get a motion open a second public portion motion open second public portion second all those in favor I [Music]
I think you can tilt it or you want a stool I just wanted to take a minute um I heard you say Jackie cas's name and I've worked with her uh for many years in the court and Jackie was a tremendous asset to the township uh in her
different roles when she was employed here to certainly an asset as a resident so I just wanted to take a minute I think she worked here something like 30 years so that that's pretty impressive and I I just wanted to thank Jackie and her family for the sacrifices I'm sure they made um and Mr Marsh just
anecdotally I heard a rumor uh that I was planning on running this year for Township committee um and given the fact that you're running I just wanted to tell you that I definitely would not be doing that from what I can see you do everything you can to stand up for the residents and you know your own mind and
I just wanted to take a minute and say thank you thank one more thing whatever we pay our Chiefs of police whether it's Chief Theory whether it was Chief Zimmer um but every chief that I've worked with has been well wored whatever we pay so I just wanted add on the as well thank you
thank you um William count and so I no it's not it's a Township Road we adopted that highway back it's not entir County coohill to the Township Line Is Ours kohill to Route 4 Route 47 into IA
lake is County so I'll go coill Tac t no that's ours that's yours yes okay need they were out there the other day they did a couple pretty good size for them pretty good size cutting
patches out there so you know I think it's on the list to be we don't we have the do funding for it uh CME is doing the actual prelim work and we should hopefully have it uh for the March meeting to to be able to implement the
program for that so we it's going to be redone yeah is that going to go in phase is they going to do the whole thing it's 3.3 miles and we have funding for about 2 to 2.2 miles so we' got to decide what
we want to do with that last 1.1 mile or we just have to put in for again right cuz that's two years work right what they're that's why we held it that way because instead of trying to make because such a heavily travel of roads that those three phases we wanted to try
and do it in two for one total it's like when we did dut m road we were only getting about a mile time at a time right it was five or six phases yeah it doesn't matter but it's dangerous no they took a couple we had a
couple complaints uh they took care of a couple of the bigger all right spots that's good and then uh so this year we're pulling back our meeting uh am amounts from 2 to 1 correct and I want
to ask why just because we don't really need to have 2 m of M save you guys trip up here sa some gas well I don't know I mean all the other towns that surround us Washington capson
un they all have un uh univers but all the others a minimum of two a month so your statement is that cut in head if you want it to be it can be yeah
all right if you want it to be a k okay I'll give half to you if you need it I don't okay well then you shouldn't concerned about our sing R concern you think these guys only work once a month I guess that's what you're
getting at no because there's it's a big town there's a lot that goes on it's a big town there's a lot that goes on I agree and these guys are available every day every day of the weeked and they get addressed you know
what a month that's fair again that's opinion and you're entitled to [Music] that uh there was a notice on your new web page that the township Administration build would be closed from 12 to1 for a sta development
program I wonder what that staff development program was that it was for the retirement Jackie P for employ so they would know 29 years that you know do a career and so
everybody got inste taking staggered lunches we had all lunch at one time so it was a [Music] retirement the definition of staff development program is a structured set of activities to help employees improve their skills in the last years these
programs can include training sessions mentorship programs and workshops why not just say it was a retirement question why just leave the public was there any particular reason for that I mean retirement laun is fine exactly what nancyy said they spent 29
years here that's great but uh it is what it is if it's a retirement lunch it's a retirement lunch tell the truth it always works the other thing that I found most interesting is the township administrator agreement you remember when I came up here the first time I read you from the township administrator
agreement that's online and it very clearly points out what the duties are and what the results are of the employment of Mr finy but there's another contract that Mr Finley has that wasn't online and the dad a
paragraph it says that uh Mr Finley is entitled to a 5 years of a contract and the 5 years is sort of contradictory to what it says about administrators the administrators should serve at the pleasure of the township
committee now nobody ever knew that that existed until suddenly it became available in a document fil so what was online was nothing like Mr Finley's actual contract believe is an original contract that was
for a 5-year term oh you are so long so long nobody gives a 5year contractor an administrator they serve at the pleasure of the Town exactly tomorrow if we decided we wanted to fire Mr fley you could do it with a in his State Statute says
otherwise so it was amazing it happened right after the negotiation took place with Mr ran in that hipper Dipper deal W here we yeah that special I'm sure that'll come up much more in the very near future but it's interesting that that
was the case you gave them a 5-year contract and you didn't put it online you put it in a special Cod of sill it wasn't available to the public the second thing I thought that the township committee should be made aware of my
favorite movies was the good the bad in the ugly and a lot of good things happened in Franklin Township you guys did a great job on the vaccination the dogs people were great that work there Township Park seems to be coming along very well needed to be done you guys are
doing a very good job on that the fact that the fire departments responded so well to that fire was a testament to the fire department and also a testament to our Emergency Management coordinator that was handled as well as any
professional I've ever seen do marketing and public relations I agree your it was was done perfectly and as a person that oversaw those departments at a $92 million business it was perfect may your release to the town was right on
schedule and evacuating those school children was smart well done well thought out well planned there were just a couple things about that fire that raised a question and I'm going to leave this particular paper with you guys
because all those things were done well the zoning board did it well you guys had litigation against those people to shut it but I know you all know Barbara halin and you know Barbara and I aren't exactly the best of friends but she's somebody that's one of the best
environmentalists I've ever seen I'm just going to read you what she wrote on Facebook it should never have been permitted to operate in that zone and was operated with no permits the township allowed it to continue to operate in violation of many state local
laws and will tell you all kinds of excuses I was told by our administrator that he contacted every agency to try and stop it that was a lie I called DCA Department of Community Affairs the
agency that oversees construction planning zoning and land use boards and they never heard of it again gentlemen it is very important that the truth be utilized whether it's a retirement luncheon or whether it's actually doing
what you say you're going to do I'm going to leave that here and maybe all of you should peruse it because veracity is one of the most important qualities we have by the way I've referred that and given it to Mr Rick tetta in vinin I thought he'd be very interested in
seeing the truthfulness of our administrator thank you Matt would you like to just comment on where we've been through this process with that in particular let's let's let's get through Marshall
67 I didn't want to ask on the first one but I saw that the roof on the community center had been taking care of which I'm sure needed y I don't remember seeing with that ever went out the bids insurance company paid for it that was it was damage repair yes that's why ask why again was that particular vendor
chosen too big okay but again where were the bids done then nothing poed online about it okay it was all bids they took care of where where do they post the bids at I'm just curious I I think they reach out to local vendors and stuff like that
and get bids in they the insurance adjusted took care of all of it that it didn't cost us anything the FL the premiums $1,000 and the deductible right but I have probably needed I think it was do getting do anyway but I can't recall um I want to thank you for getting back to me on the email
reference to the location over there behind the church malago I'm sure you've all seen that and it's just progressively getting worse and with the addons that you saw before it becomes a problem like KY that P place I don't know what's in the barels I don't know where they I talked to uh Chief Bob
Sarah he was out there uh he took some pictures and was going to reach out to the owner we tried to talk to him we have him pending court and that's nothing else can be done faster than that I'm just the reason I'm bringing up is Elmer had a similar situation the May actually forced the owners of the
property to come to a public meeting and invited the public out so they could have an open discussion with property owners and at that point in time they because of the amount of Propet that came out the owner agreed everything actually signed it right there at the meeting I mean it made it you know he just he had really nice backbone and did
it there to do it based on the conversation with this guy he's not going to come to me I don't think I don't know and I don't know what this this sounds like this one one for once also I just last thing I'm going to know is going if the sound count tougher than we are I think we can do a little better job than them but I'd like to see something done you cour becomes a
nightmare for the township on the TA back we had an agreement for the pool guy too to be shut down by first of year and you see how that that's what I'm asking is obviously there he's getting results and I've found the two townships that have done it too but they get results I don't know what they're doing different there got to be somewhere we get we get results from people that
actually have a regard for the law well if they they wouldn't be doing that right but 90% of the people just fix this stuff it's the 10% that you spend two years in court and they never going to fix it and in this state that we're working within the laws we can't arrest them we can't close them
down we can send them violations wait they go to court they get postponed they get postp you know it's it's unbelievable how slow it is I drug p it's horrible you should be able to just shut it down right well because it keep he keep adding to it what what's being added now look a lot worse than what it
was at least chemically than what it was I remember the first time I Dre when were the place I's town you know once he gets in the legal process that process moves out own Cas he can write them up every whatever 30 days
but you know legal process not change it before you said he may be coming forward to he talked about opening the business ER if you see how he operates out last you do time operate the business here he'd have to go before the board La then we' have then we'd
have even more because we'd have a resolution of what he was doing in site plan and everything so so as of right now it's just it's a hand toand transfer of land and keeps getting more and more stuff living we're taking more and more
pictures and summons this so it'll be all in the judge's hands when we get to him so when is that date I'm not sure when the next date is he was just supposed to be in two weeks ago in postpone so I would say probably another couple weeks he postpone with the Jud he did that gentlem did I didn't know you
could do that oh yeah okay and there no there's no limit number U think back in on to Mr Marshall and Mr Kenedy you're only you're only allowed to come up on time but if it's going to be quick we'll let you keep your
[Music] piece was there theol fire manufacturer whatever want call it yet really was so was was there
a expense output for us to respond to that fire uh Chief can speak on that so yes um we spent uh a couple th000 on overtime we spent uh $99,000 on
an escavator that had to be purchased and brought in rented rented with with an operator uh had to um pay gas for vehicles uh I was able to put together a package and get a hold of uh the
gentleman's attorney sent them the bill and he came in and paid for everything so reur for all of our expenses just under $111,000 just under $11,000 as as a municipality yes but that didn't include U the public
schools no he reached out he he reached out to them a couple times about the cost no we got reimbursed for their gas the fire just for gas for Forest gr fired um he paid for all their gas they were five Partners on scene the longest
they needed to get fuel truck out there we were able to get in the ti for gas he paid for all of the F Department uh overtime expenses paid for the escavator paid for the canteen that came out to Fed all the First Responders um there more than one District that responded
there was probably about 25 there was people from all okay R Rosen was one of them right as far as the expenses that we put out he paid us back okay because basically it
was a a non-permitted operation it was illegal they they had they had didn't have a CO they didn't have all their paperwork U so they were operating what illegally Mr Mayor unter unapproved
litigation with them for for years on these exact issues and there have been hearings there been two hearings in Superior Court this year in addition to the U Municipal enforcement hearing Mr we we have uh the the township
committee undertook that that legal action I believe it was in 23 23 it's a perfect example it's been in the courts for 2 years year and a half 2 years and and it's municip he was in court the day before the building right yeah there was
a hearing in Superior Court on Thursday Frid Wednesday no Tuesday Tuesday and then the building brought Thursday Thursday or Friday Thursday now I want that hard to believe go two
years without lock locking them out allow yeah we were told there's nothing else we can done there's nobody I ever met in this town that was supportive of that any politician not even a resident except
for people I they wereing in hazardous place was out there ocean was out there all these different organizations Pine lands everybody when it's in court it's in court se you know it's unbelievable the
township was just so helpless they could couldn't do anything about something that day before we weren't allowed to inspect the building I agree with 100% 100% need a motion to close second public portion motion to close all in
favor committee reports mik make it quick no is coming down I have nothing Mark um not so much committee I would just like to thank the fire companies and the police for dealing with the fire um next door to my house I'd also like to thank
DPW um for the work to the old Mala Park I know they didn't install the equipment but Mr F was telling me that you know you did a lot of the grading Ed will be in charge of fening so thank for that and I'd like to thank Mr Finley for the uh heading up the roof project for Library turned out
great Tim Chief um as of right now um it is it is getting pretty bad out um we've had five accidents in the last half hour um so I'm going to
call if they can get going a little sooner um but most of them F on State Highway or County highways so I'm going to find out when I get done here what they're doing with one of the accidents was involed in
one of our police cars so I'm going take off make sure they are County just activated 7 get ready all right thank you Matt you want to give us a little um history
on what actually happened with the pool guy a briefly not you were out there a couple times too though I mean it it it started before I
came here in in February of 22 um and then once you know as as commit and Doyle had said we tried to get OSHA out there we tried to get New Jersey D out there pin lands everybody sending them pictures uh County OEM was involved with
us State hazardous materials everybody came out everybody thought it was a horrible thing and nobody would take the next step we were in the court with the you know filing injunctions against him trying to get someone tell to close them down and it just never
worked you know so even though Mr Kennedy and Miss Halper like to disparage my name in public it's not true so the proof is out there so I yes many how can we not know anything more about this lawyers M State people who's
the guy met out there that day County OEM County OEM guy told me he goes He I recognize you I'm like yeah he goes yeah I've been at here like 14 times and I said yeah and you haven't done a thing about what's going on out here no one has helped out so you know OSHA was out
there I believe and somebody got sick in their presence both of them got sick two the people working there got sick they did nothing about it everybody lives out there they told us they were coming back with an emergent order and shut them down and we never heard from them or saw them again so I mean I understand the
frustration that barber has but the same frustra we litigate it with the intent to get it closed down the agreement that was not followed through that was the end result is that there would be
a removal by the end of last year and I know on yeah on reorganization day which was the deadline we was drive by inspection to see if there was complains it actually seemed to me like
he actually brought more stuff in so until the fire then all of a sudden he cleared everything out yeah it wasn't no big xent rers or anything out there at that point so yep but again uh thank you for coming out be careful going home and uh that being said can I
get motion to adjourn motion to adjourn SEC all in favor all sure you know