I call the role, please. You get a second here. Sure. How are you? Okay. Bob Husk here. Okay. Arie Schmidt. Yeah. Bill Connell here. Okay. Lort here. David Triggs here. John Earling
here. Justin Jones here. Chase here. Uh Steven D here. And am I missing anyone from here? No, not here to say. Yes. Okay. So, um I know well I know I'm pretty sure Bob Morlocker, Mayor Kramer,
Council Member Patasnik are not going to be here tonight. I haven't heard from Mary LaCo or Stephanie uh yet or John. All right. Next thing on the agenda is a public comment. Motion to open the P
meeting the public. Motion. I've got no comment at this time. Maybe at the end motion to close public session. Motion second. Second. All in favor? I. Next is the approval of the November 24th to fe February 20 November
2024 to February 2025 and April 2025 minute meeting minutes. I emailed them all out, but there's paper copies in the middle if anyone wants. I don't know if you want sheer up.
[Music] I did. I did. Look for the minutes, right? You have them or you look for them? Yeah. What does this say? Activity report. Any additions or corrections to the three meetings
minutes? How are you? Good. We don't have [Music] Here it is. And here's another hearing. No corrections or additions. A
motion to approve. Motion to approve. Which ones? All three or more. Which Well, I have to abstain from one cuz I wasn't at the February meeting. If it was John or John Moon or Bill in favor I
financial report. So it's on the front and back. I again I emailed those around because last month we didn't meet. So on the if you turn the paper over is May. I can put it up on the screen if it's easier. We can do April is
first. [Music] Any questions on a financial report? Second. Second. All in favor. I [Applause] park maintenance. This is something Arie and I have been talking about and Arty
did a little research for me and uh yeah, Arie, you can take it away. Uh this has to it's two different parts. I'm going to start with the lesser of the two, I think, where we've been asking for several months to
see the cons uh the Talpa plans. Um, and we were told we're going to see them, see them, and then at I think the last meeting or the meeting before, we were told, well, council has to see them first and then we get to see them, which
is sort of backwards. I think all the time in the past we have reviewed them first. If if the council sees them first and they approve them, then there's no reason for us to see them. Um, let me something here. I want to see something
here. Okay, this this is actually April 21st, 2015. This just an example. Um, under all business, uh, Alpha Park hearing on the revised
concept plan will be held Tuesday, June 30th at 7:00 p.m. at Council Chamber. Dr. Warlocker asked the open space advisory committee to make recommendations to the council prior to the June 30th public hearing. Thus making my point that we've been asking
to see the plans all along. And Bob tells us, well, the council has to see it first and then us. So then I find out last week that the top has been sent out for bid.
So it's been approved. We never got to see the the new plans and it's a done deal. So I mean I think we I think we all understand the council can do this. We're just advisory, but it
would have been nice if things had gone step by step by step in the right direction where we got to see it first. Um, made our recommendations if there were any, then the council got to see it and then it goes out for bid, but it didn't happen. So, that's one thing. The
other thing has to do with um DPW salaries. So in March of 2015 at our meeting uh it was discussed that uh paying salaries
for DPW employees must consider a motion to recommend the council to hire two employees pay salaries and open space funds but not pay benefits. Schmid sec uh Schmidt seconded. Um all members in
favor motion passes. March 2016, uh, the court expressed concern of how this year's park maintenance budget was calculated. The court suggested 1 half a cent of every OSAC tax collector be used for maintenance. Conversation ensued.
Pros and cons of this idea. Uh, Fran Barakali uh, said she would follow up with local counties and towns to understand how they fund maintenance salaries for parks. That was March 15, 2016.
And where did I go? Now I'm at 2015. Uh need that. May 2016, park maintenance costs. Fran reported on current procedures of various towns and counties used
regarding open space funding. Puscus uh the court moved Puscus seconded a motion for a maximum 10% of the open space annual tax be used for maintenance salaries. All may all members in favor.
Motion passed. So Bob, if you would take from there and talk about um how much you know we pull in from open space funds. I believe you have those numbers and how much we're paying out of those funds, right? All right. Thanks for
looking that up for me. Um we're taking into right around a little over $6 million from our open space tax. 10% would be about 600,000. So we're we're spending now 800,000. Now
this this is again I've been saying all along we already agreed to pay for two guys and the council took on to pay other 10 guys. So now we're getting over over the we and the council can do what they want to do but as advisory committee we come here and get I I feel
we get disrespected because like you say what Arie said about the the GAPA we used to we used to see the budget before now we used to get to work on the budget say okay historic preservation needs some money we move money around the budget or add money to the budget now the budget's just given to us we have no say in the budget we have no say in
anything bottom line is the council can do what they want but why have this committee If they're not going to if they're not going to respect this committee's opinion. I agree. Yeah. At at least make us, you know, give us the opportunity, right? And regardless of
what we say, they can still do what they what they want. We understand that, right? But I just skip bias's. Bob called me today because he's looked at the agenda and says, "What's park maintenance got on the thing?" what and she he called there and said I don't
know but I'll put it on there. So he called me and I made it online to him. I said we're getting disrespected. We asked for stuff we don't get and why I had to you know there's a feeling why have the committee even if you're going to do what you want to do and it not only for like the budget and and the top
stuff but it's even stuff that has to do with maintenance on the open space properties. We asked a year ago to get the fence fixed on uh Memorial Forest when we planted the mayor's mother's tree. Still broken down right there in the front. It hasn't been fixed. We asked for the sign to get a different um
angle for the sign, a V sign instead of a flat sign. That hasn't been done. Uh it was brought up, one of our residents brought up about Mullen consul fathers. That hasn't been done. I mean they just why had the committee
and this is more of a maybe more of a shade tree and environmental commission thing but it also has to do with open space because we want to plant trees on open space. We've been talking about Memorial Forest, talking about a part in town where Ted wants to plant trees um
but we've been being told about um watering plan water maintenance plan for the past 3 years about approximately and we you know and if you go up and down JFK Boulevard where we had where PSNG
planted trees I think it was 2 years ago um some of those trees are dying and other trees There's about 20 trees on JFK Boulevard that the tops of them you can see they're all dying from the from the top. Um and we've been talking so again
and then and they're not being trimmed. I mean there's there's shooters coming off of them from the bottom and we had been told by DPW representatives that oh we have great people to take care of all this stuff. Um and we do have good people at DPW. I I know uh you know our
representative on Shade Tree does a does a great job with us, but he can't do everything. Um so don't want to throw good money after bad by planting trees when we know they're not going to get watered or maintained. So we're still waiting for that. That
was and I'm really I I really feel bad about bringing this up without the main people who we discussed this with. Um uh but they're somewhere else tonight. Well, Bob got it. You know, I laid it on
the line to Bob today about what the you know, what we just talked about basically, and he didn't know what to say actually. And then he then he kind of said, "Well, you're not 100% wrong or right." You know, he just kind of got out of the conversation pretty quick, but I just kept on him about all the different disrespect and you know, just
committee doesn't get do diligence. And again, I kept telling them, we understand that council has the ultimate decision. Absolutely. But like I say, in the past, we always got stuff to look at and made comments and stuff that sometimes they follow us, sometimes they
didn't. But now, at least we had some input. We represent the rest of the town. Everybody's from a different committee, different organization that represented the rest of this town and we get the town I feel have the representation because of the way operating. I would suspect that the manager doesn't
want us to make recommendations to the council. And if we make recommendations, council won't see them. Well, they have to. I mean, if it's in the it's being recorded, it's in meeting minutes, so they can't ignore. You would
hope the council members would watch the tape and not look at the minutes or anything. And we have council members, at least two, that come to most of the meetings. No. Right. We never looked at our local newspaper. 800,000 is the labor number or is that the total like in the in the annual
budget it's 800,000 is the total labor number? I think Tara has that number there. Or is that labor and all the other stuff that goes with it? Because I think it's equipment maintenance. It's all that sort of thing. What was it? I thought you 800,000
budget. I think you added up because there's over time they've got three items for for the budget for salary is just three lines. The budgeted amount for full-time is 685073. The part-time is 64,500 and salary and
wages overtime is 25 680 685073 um 64500 for part-time and then 25 for overtime under 770 something like that 73 it's
774573 is salary on the top of my head you pass you get back too full. We're, you know, we're over that amount every year. We're going, you know, luck luckily,
you know, fortunate for the tax that they keep raising everybody's taxes in town. So, this number keeps getting bigger and next year they even get bigger because they raised everybody's assessment. So, did you just say fortunately what you know fortunately? And unfortunately for the taxpayer, but fortunately for
the budget, you know, Bob, you going to say something? Oh, you already forgot. I could say a lot. You already say it, Bob. No, I can't.
So, can I since I'm basically the the I'm like the only person from the town, I guess, here, let me ask some questions. Is that okay? So in terms of the salary, so what is the what like what I'm asking kind of what are you thinking is best now? Do
you want to just see it? Do you have an idea in your head of what it is? Are you talking about the plans? So start off let's start off with the D let's start off with the DPW salary. If I could just make the first comment on that again going back whatever it was 8 n years ago, we agreed on the 10%.
We all understand that the council can do what they want right now. It's well above it's a $150 $170,000 above 10% approximately ballpark figure and they can do that. But if they're
going to do it, we're here talk about it with us and you know just tell us you know this is just doing just wait till they start to add benefits and don't think that that's not coming next. And if they're if they are legally allowed to and they want to do it, they
can do it. But again, we are the people that are representing the township the township and I curse. We are the people that that represent the people in the town. And I think that's one of the reasons we're
Absolutely. And so talk to us. Talk to us. That's all. Right. Okay. So, it's a matter of you want to be consulted on it at this point. Do you guys have any recommendations for I think that we should still see the freaking plans.
Well, first let's talk about the need. Let's talk about the need and then we'll talk about the plans. I agree with that. But, you know, one thing at a time. Yeah. Do you guys want to like make a recommendation on it? Not today. It doesn't say. Do is is your goal that you want to make a recommendation on it like
for the next time we meet? Do you need something to look at that I can get for you so that you can make a because I do want to say this and this is just coming from me. Um the 10% cap it might not be appropriate anymore. You might need to increase it. I don't know this. You might need to though because there's a
lot of work to be done and there's not enough time to get it done. And I can tell you that because I work on four committees in this township and everybody like the the requests you guys have. Trails has the same amount of requests. Environmental commission has requests. There's constantly events to
be held and barriers to be put up. So what I'm saying is is that the maintenance out of that 10% might not longer any it might not be appropriate anymore. It might need more. It might not. So that when we did that the tax base was you know what is it 3 400,000 now it's 600,000 right? You know what I
mean? So that number is going you know right now the number 10 to 10% is a good number because the the the money take it in is growing. So there's not a stagnant amount. We didn't say that we're going to cap it at 200,000 forever. It's it's a sliding scale. So, as the tax as the
tax base go up, it's it's that number is going to go up. Maybe it's something you need to look at to see like what I'm saying is can I try to get you something so that you can make an educated decision on what the percentage should be because just saying 10% might not be, you know what I mean? like is there
something I can add like do you want me to ask DPW for something so that you have so you can look at it and make a recommendation or do you just want to wait until like next budget season? I think the first thing that comes to my mind is
we had a big conversation when we came to the 10% thing and 10% a couple years ago at that time was probably 400,000 now it's 600,000 right? We sit here at 10%. the council, they might come to us or Bob Morlockwer might
come to us at a meeting and say, "Look, you know, you guys agreed on 10% um 9 years ago, whatever it was, and [Music] we're our open space is growing, our um maintenance costs are growing, our
people are getting, you know, salaries go up, benefits go up. Um we need to take more money. What do you guys think?" So, you know, for us to to to give a number, we're sort of we're sort of um bartering against ourselves,
right? I guess what my question is, we kind of need to see a number at some point because once Kataba Park goes online, that's going to add at least another $400,000. Wow. That much? So,
you don't think so? Well, the first thing they want to know is if there's 664,000 or whatever it is for full-time positions, right? How many actual positions is that supporting? Okay.
It sounds like it's more than the two full-time positions that were originally. Yeah, it is. Sounds like a lot more. They added Oh god, it's like amazing. It's the two
guys plus the 10 part time. The 10 the 10 guys are paying 10 months. That's that's all coming out of that 10%. I know Arie, you were saying before when you were looking at the old minutes, you mentioned how Fran had looked in to compare other towns. Did I hear you right? Like to to to see what was like
the status quo. Yeah. Like is what you're saying like you want to look and see what the current status quo is to kind of like what I guess what I'm asking is is are you guys looking to like I want to make a recommendation based on this 10% to see if it's relevant still or not and if that's the
case I can try to get you information so that you can see how much are we paying now how many people what are they doing and what other places are doing or are you looking to basically just say you know the next time you guys consider this we want open space advisory committee to be consulted because either
one is that's going to be one of our requests that in January I guess the budget gets done in February or March or something like that the budget they vote on the budget. So in January we want to see a proposed budget for open space and we can move the numbers around if we think that 800,000 is not enough we can
increase it you know or if we need historic preservation needs more money or meadows you know the meadows maintenance needs more money we could give it we can put our input into that whether they want to take our input or not is one thing but at least give us a shot at it. We're not saying no to what they're doing. We're just saying speak
to us. Oh my god. So, and I think and I think the county open space does not charge. Pardon me. The county open space money coming out of the county open space does not pay for any maintenance that's in their
salaries come out of county open space. you somebody come here and speak to about you have somebody come here and speak to how they do it I mean the county just speaking from someone who works at the county I don't know I didn't work in FNS or anything like that but I did work there for a long time
they have a huge fully functioning staff that has electricians electrician go ahead yes is this a point where especially to Bob's point about coming online should we have a like
special maintenance portion just for open for really I I've said I've said a long time that there should be a parks commission okay that's designated I might have stole your I have no idea and um you know that way it's it's less gray
you know what I mean like you have people that are just dedicated to doing that and and you don't have to wonder if they're out fetching coffee for water in the water department or anything like that which is why you should have us we're a big enough town where we should
have a park commission just like wreck. Okay. So there should be a set aside a park commission so it's fully funded. You know exactly where every 10 cents is being paid. Funded from where? Funded from where? From open space. From the
trust. Well, it doesn't have to mean that it's all coming from the trust, but that's something to be talked about. But haven't Bob, I'm not sure if you brought this up at one point um about, you know, seeing, you know, during the during the
summer months when there's a drought and grass isn't being cut, what are those workers who are spending 80% of their time, you know, taking care of things like that, what are they doing? Are they spending 80% of their time, you know, so we are we really
getting our bang for the buck? I don't think so. I Arie, I agree. I don't think we are because of the fact that the one meeting Bob we said in question about Bob the guys are out filling potholes in we're paying for the pothole filler you know the guys filling pot I mean yes they got to be done but why is open space paying for those guys the question
I like to then get answered also is before they start raiding the trust fund for salaries there had to be a line there had to be a line item in the midst of a budget for salaries for open space or for parks that money just got into
but I take it when the general general fund and they didn't have to raise, you know, they took money out of our budget or our fund because that ra didn't raise taxes this year. We didn't raise taxes. They're balancing the budget by saying we have no tax increases because they're taking out the tax dollars out of the
open space. They're double tax on the people basically. Well, I would consider that if you had 10% allocated to maintenance, that ought to include any equipment and supply expense that are really for maintenance
as well as salaries. But as I remember, the original agreement was that open space would pay for the salaries of two public works workers. And but that in the summer,
which is when open space work generally gets done, they would actually have more people from DPW involved. And in the winter, the people that we pay will also be driving snow plows. that the idea would it was it it seemed
like a reasonable balance. If I could just touch on what Ted just said going back to the February uh 2015 meeting. Uh that's when it was boss made a motion recommended to
count account councils to hire two the employees two employees to pay salaries from open space funds but not pay benefits through open space trust fund seconded all members in favor motion passes
so that was February of 2015 May of 2016 that's where We upped the ante and we went uh court move plus you seconded a motion 10% of open space annual tax the
youth for maintenance salaries all m members in favor motion passed but and and this the frustrating part for me is m maintenance salaries so salaries and salaries not not not
lawnmowers and bolts and nuts chains, right? You know, you know, they need a lock for middle bush park or a lock. Who knows what, you know, we just this stuff gets locks and no more blades and all this other stuff. We don't know. It just comes out of this. Look at our budget line items and it giving us the finance
report. There's all kinds of stuff coming out that just not maintenance. It's not maintenance salaries. It's all kinds of stuff. A new lawn mower or whatever. And you know, how much is that lawn mower being used on? Again, we we back up a little bit. We hired these two people because we couldn't get part-time
help in the summer and any time of the year to take care of the trails at the John Clyde and Negri Podia or Butler Road and make trails and maintain the trails. So that was the idea hiring two full-time guys in the we did it in February, gave the money in February so
we could have two guys basically our staff to do what we needed done on the trails and then after they got done with doing what we needed to do, they would work for public works doing whatever they needed to be done. So now now we're funded 12 guys
and we can't get anything done on open space properties anyway. We asked we asked we asked we never get nothing done and uh here we are. And had it not been for Arie looking into this I wouldn't have known that
there was that big of an increase. So like they're kind of sneaking it in. And where does it stop? That's that's even a bigger concern to me. Like that's you know especially like you said once Katalpa gets built like you you know
they're going to want to dip more into it. Are they going to consult us or are they just going to do the same thing more employees? They're going to have more overtime. If they don't hire more employees that 25,000 overtime is going
to get used up pretty darn quick. So we are not an open space budget anymore. It used to be that this committee would have to approve. Well, this year though and that is true. The last two years I have cuz Stephanie actually I have your comments
on the budget. So it was sub it was sent to everybody and I got comments from Stephanie and that is the truth. That is the that I sent it for two meetings this year. No big deal. But the last two since you guys have been telling me to give you the budget, I I started giving it. But I can only give you what I have.
I don't have DPWs. That's the problem. I think I don't have DPW's budget. So what were you you were sharing? Yeah. Like open space budget. Yeah. Basically what we would need for like open space preservation, maintenance, you know, equipment, supplies,
uh appraisers, things like that. Salaries. no salaries because I don't DPW does that part of the budget and I don't have it and all that stuff that you talked about is not salaries and the 10% that we were salaries. Right. Right. Those items are typical I think to come
out of an open space trust fund. But I understand your point is that you want to be you want to review it at budget at budget time. And I think well I say like I said back in the day we get in January, February whatever it was we get our budget maintenance or whatever it
was. We got to look at it and uh you know historic preservation needed you know they had budget historic preservation enough money now we need more. So we put a little more money towards that or take you know shuff shuffle the money around and then in fact when it was when the council was
hearing the budgets uh Randy and Fran would go and sit before the council council would ask Randy questions about what our proposed budget I was with Randy too I think twice. Once or twice. Yeah. Right. And that just went by the wayside cuz as long as I've been on this
you know chair of the committee I've never been asked to come before you know we don't get to see it anyway. So I mean we should have input in the whole the whole whatever that financial statement is we should have when it comes out of open space trust fund we should have some say in it. Whether listen to us or not is one thing but we should still have some say in it. You may have an
idea how to save some money too. I mean, right, right. And it also to get back to filling potholes. Um, you know, I don't know if there's a way where you can account for, you know, how spends every minute of the
day. I think that's impossible. But, you know, there's a way to look at it, get an overview of it, and see who's doing what possibly. Um they we should be able to get and we've asked for this number of times we keep getting shut down on
this. Um how much time did the guys spend even on just a negative podium John Clyde and Buck you know are what what I call open space property is not kappa park or you know in park they're all open space but what I call open space properties are stuff we have to
manage differently than just mowing the grass and putting park over down. We got to move trees off of trails, motor trails, motive properties once a year, you know, things like that to maintain our properties. They should be able to tell us, you know, what these guy how many times how
much time these guys are going to do this stuff. And there there's no there's no accountability. We can't get any accountability out of that. Can't even see a schedule. They should have a scheduled it's written down and it's not public
but uh they got to have a schedule. I mean I would assume they have a schedule and it seems like they keep track of it. I'm sure they do. Yeah. It sounds like to me like the one of the main concerns is like the open space properties are not being properly cared for. If the output
space properties were being mowed and repaired and replenished and signs being replaced and benches fixed, then there wouldn't be as much cause for concern about the money usage, right? Cuz I mean, I feel like there's a lot to be done. And if those things were being
done, then there wouldn't be a concern. But the fact that this over 10% of the budget is going towards this, but we're not reaping what we're sewing um for that just as far as a schedule um from Chry
Commission, our DPW that they only find out what they're doing on that morning when they come to work. And it just sounds like even though the everyday person may not be aware of a schedule, it just sounded to us like it's not very organized or
planned out like what the plan is like what is the watering plant, how often you go water trees. There's no answer like there's not even you know what is the general plan um and then if it rains then you back off on water. There's just no like
looking forward. So you have a DPW person on your committee and you have a DPW person on your committee. Well, we're on the same committee. Shrina and Barry makes an excellent point about Connor Freddy is our is our representative and he has been a
blessing. He has been great working with Shade Trade. And who's this? Conor Freddy. Um it's been wonderful. And but he tells us that, you know, depending on the day, depending on the
weather conditions, they might not know what they're doing until they show up at work at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, whatever time they show up. You know, they might have a plan for the week, but things change for different reasons this week. Yeah. So, we we understand that.
So, they they might have a schedule. They might have it's a soft schedule of some kind. It sounds like um but you still end up going back to what was planned last week and doing it this week, you know, once the emergencies
come up or whatever. But even even if we get the numbers, the stuff after the fact, it's easy to track after the fact, you know. So, okay, we're going to go mow negative potty today. It rains, you can't do it. We do it 3 days from now. They could come back and say, you know, they have they have to they got to be a schedule. So, I don't care if the
schedule changes, but stuff still needs to get done. Somewhere along the line, there's got to be somebody, you know, I it's just frustrating cuz so much stuff this committee has to ask for this town to do in an office what I again different scenario open space we can't get done. And it wasn't for Connor, the
mayor should have never gotten planted. And it there are some things that have to get done on a regular schedule whether it's raining or not such as watering the trees along JFK Boulevard.
Now I think maybe I understand why they're dying. It may be that nobody ever put them into the watering into the schedule for two weeks. Uh Bob Hudachak and I have walked up and down JFK
Boulevard over the last three or four years many many times and spoken to Shade Tree and said these trees are dying. These trees need to be watered. Where is and Steve Guli is the chair of
Shade Tree and we keep talking about where's the the watering plan, the watering and maintenance plan. Well, it's being worked on. It's coming. It's been worked on and we've been hearing that for years. Meanwhile, trees are dying and you got to, you know, we got
to remove them, replant them, put in new trees. Cost me money. You're throwing good money after bad. And and seems to me trees elsewhere as I said, but we don't want to plant them until we have a watering plant.
And if they say if Bob says, "Oh, it's being worked on." The reply has got to be, as it would be in a British comedy, that's simply not good enough. You've got to tell us why this thing has
been in the works for three years and has not. And we're always just told, oh, it's being worked on. There's no excuse for that. She goes in. So, any we've seen a draft. We've seen
two drafts. drafted. I don't know when it's getting finalized. Of course, talking about trees and water and stuff. If anybody goes around Middle Bush Park, not Middle Bush Park, I call Middle Bush Park, the park by the church. You go around South Little Baker left off on the on the South Middle Bush. The church planted
eight or 10 or 12 trees around there two years ago or a year ago and every one of those trees was alive and doing well. Why? Cuz they took care of every day you go by, somebody was out there watering those trees every single day. Beautiful. They're out there watering. They're all different species of trees, too. They're
out there taking care of them. Out there watering. I see the pastor sometimes watering off the hose. So, what's the committee want to go from here? I mean, it's in Hopefully Billy's got all this in a minute. So, I hope somebody reads them.
Go back to the videape on this one. Okay. I think we have to have the same discussion when Bob Warer is here. Yeah, I wouldn't mind to see I wouldn't mind seeing more information on this because I'm fairly new to this committee
and it's I it's yeah I'll see absolutely what I can get. So the financial report I give you I the way that I put it together just so you know I get the um admin's report which is like the system we use has everything that we've done and then I basically
like put it into all the lines calculate it and I put what was spent but I don't have access to DPW's salary so I can ask for that absolutely right I think that's that's the biggest unknown in this schedule I'm sorry
that's the biggest unknown in. Yeah. Do we want a hiatus on buying any more property until we get more of an answer with this? I mean, I feel like we're kind of contributing to the problem. We keep buying and buying and accumulating the money. Well, we want to buy
properties. Well, we want to we don't have to plant trees on these new properties that we're buying. No, but we we need some transparency and some a little more accountability on how this money is being used. Maybe we just I'm saying we don't do
whatever. I'm not saying that. Maybe we take a hiatus from it until we get this a little bit clearer and find out a little bit more information. I would because we're just compounding the problem. Then I would not take a hiatus on purchasing property. Yeah, we don't have that if the opportunity comes up to
purchase. Um I'm not saying to do that when when the opportunity is there. I think some of the reason why this is happening is that our purchase expenses are a lot lower than they were 20 years
ago when we were buying or buying the development rights on big properties like Sedan Farm. Years ago, we were buying a lot more property than we are today. Expensive
has open space, right? I agree with you. Commission comes out I believe out of you Bob so we can hear it down here. The park commission comes out of general fund. I don't know. I think some of it does. There has to be some funding from
the open space fund. I'm sure for the parks commission at the county. Um I could look up their annual report and see if it says it in there. I'm sure some of it comes from there because the one thing I do want to stress is this.
In 15 20 years ago, buying property was very everyone was buying property left and right. It was easy. There was a lot of property to buy. There's not as many properties that are suitable for open space or farmland preservation currently right now. Not that we're not buying properties. We are. But that is the the
trend across the state of New Jersey. And that is the truth of the matter. Maintenance now that we have all these properties is a real need. It really is. So we can the thing is is that's why I think it's important for you guys to see what's actually being done and spent because you don't want to reduce you
don't want to cap the maintenance and then say well why isn't this getting done why isn't that getting done if if a case can be made that we need money like that for maintenance that's one thing maybe the case can't be made I don't know because I don't have the numbers but I'm saying maybe getting the numbers would be helpful to see what is the
actual because we don't know what the actual need for maintenance is the same thing with like changing the price of a replacement tree Right. We can't just say, "Oh, we think it's this." We should have like some background and I don't know what it is. It might prove that you need it. It might prove that it's overspending. Who knows? You're not
denying the need that there's a need, you know, the prices go up, that cost is going up. We're not denying that, right? Looking for more transparency. Absolutely. Totally get that. I'd like to see it. It would be good if we could
get even for one month an explanation from DPW of exactly what say those two or more uh employees have done and some idea of how much time is actually spent
on open space properties. Right. Well, I guess the first thing is the first way the a horse got its head inside the tent was oh open space fund should pay for maintaining parks that were bought as
parks now as as open space right. Yeah. Well, we exceeded to that and yeah, we'll fall back and saying, well, the ordinance says that you could do this and the ordinance says you could do that
and that's what they'll fall back on. Okay. How much is in ordinances and how much is just in well, it's evolved this way. That's true, too. Yes. But uh this brings into mind the question of okay
we've got all this open space property need to maintain the parks are mowing the grass stuff like that but we're paying salaries for guys in the winter time but they're pl snow plowing or there's no mo you know what are they doing when they're not doing parks maintenance we're we're footing that
bill and how many other DPW employees actually are involved in maintaining open space because that was the original deal that more DPW people
would work on open space and time. Does Carl have any written instructions how to manage those people? I guess it all right. Well, let's let's move on. We got Vanessa has a comment. We uh Bill's got in the minutes and we're going to
we'll bring this up in next meeting we have which is probably not going to be till September. So, Steu on this all summer long. Do we do we have a meeting scheduled for July? We always we schedule July and August, but we normally don't pass counsel. Well, I guess that's the question. We schedule
them, but then we make a decision as to whether we want to have them. So, I guess we still have to make that decision as to whether we're going to have a meeting in July or August. So, I mean, you could schedule a meeting and see if the manager will attend. Well,
the the meeting is scheduled, right? It's a matter of whether it's or cancel. All right. Next on the agenda, Bob, can I ask one has a question? Um,
for the second week in July, the third week in July, you know, I don't have my schedule with me right now, but I'm wondering, is there anybody that would be opposed to having a meeting in July? No, I mean that's fine with me. I be
July 15th. Is there a reason I have something? The 1 of July is it's a 16 follow up on this and that's right up there. Yeah. Follow up on this and short meeting. Yeah. Just to follow up on this and get it get it
out of the way. The sooner the better. And gloves. Go ahead. And that's good. By all this by the September me, we'll all be fired. We all have a plan. Cut our salaries. We have a plan uh cut mine in half. I can't
survive on that. Um but as we know, we can say we want to have a meeting in July, but we can be overridden by council if they No, you can have a meeting in July. They can't say no, you can't have a meeting. I don't think they can say no to that. Yeah, that's a
meeting. Well, It would surprise me. If we have an alarm, we can have a meeting. That's something. But the the idea of having a meeting and following up on this would be have having the council shows up meeting
discuss the mayor both. But we want the mayor also and also and by then hopefully they will have had time to read up on what we discussed today, review the video if they want to and they'd have a I mean you know you had a small conversation
with Bob today. Um so the other thing is we were talking about the county towns around here with open space. How do they do maintenance? That's what I was trying to get at actually. Montgomery, Hillsboro, I know that they pay maintenance out of Open
Space Trust. I don't know their percentage. I don't know like how many workers or anything like that, but Hillsboro Montgomery for sure. Um, Bedminster. Yes. I'll try and think back to I was trying to get out before was just trying to like think about like looking at this whole thing big picture.
And I know when I first joined the committee, one of the things I looked at was I was really proud of how much preserved open space we had. I started looking at other towns comparing and I was like, "Oh, well, they have a lot too. They have a lot too. And then like I know Terry, you've kind of shared this in the past which is like there's an evolution. There's an evolution to open
space like the early years you guys were talking about where you acquire a lot and then now once you acquire that then the next phase like what you were talking about now it's the maintenance phase. So I think it would be great to have like a bird's eye view of what that evolution looks like and budget-wise
what that looks like and like the percentage for open for maintenance versus the other things. discussions here is how do you you manage it? How do you like because there's that management there? If they add five or you know five
years every you know we're going to wind up spending half our annual budget on maintenance. So now is the time to to put some boundaries on it. I agree with you. But there's no right now you don't even know what what the data is. You
know what I mean? you you you know there's no there's no way to calculate are do you really need 12 people okay how are these people being mixed and matched you know like like let's say let's say in the morning they say okay it's raining in the morning go out and
fill potholes and the pothole job becomes big so now the guy but we can't micromanage that like we cannot micromanage you but but but it's kind of back to what Ted Chase was saying before which is like we're assuming ing that they're going to be spending a percentage of their time doing potholes
and then we're going to have extra guys who are not paying for helping with the mowing in the big stop assuming and put some but I but I feel like there is a need right now to manage this because we're not seeing any return on our investment and so part of that's that
communication you guys are talking about there's not that we're not stopping what they're doing that may not be true we don't know by influence you know so it's that it's the communication piece like what should what are our goals goals like what are the goals? What are the goals for the money and the budget? And then how do we know if we're reaching
our goals and if we don't know how the money the the benefit of the money they could be overachieving for all we know but we have no no data. Our main goal is to buy purchase open space. I mean that's really what this committee can be just to purchase it though. It
cannot but we really want to buy any open space that's available that makes sense to purchase. That's really our primary objective in my mind and then maintenance comes secondary after that two goals purchasing property
maintaining the property. So out. So that stuff is purchasing. We're doing as much as we can. Maintenance. What we're talking about tonight is maintenance and how it's getting paid for and more transparency. Right.
Because not not all of our open space property is being m is not maintained because it doesn't need to be maintained. We buying 518 property is a perfect example. We've got hunting on it and trails committee is talking about putting a small walking trail there. Mhm. But once that walking trail is in there, right, there there's no
maintenance. I mean, you know, what's the maintenance once or twice a year to go for somebody walk around trail and take the treat? Well, there's a parking lot there now, though. So, that has to be filled in sometimes. There's the kiosk that will be there. They want to put benches in. It's not just a trail. It's that's what I'm saying. It's like those are the You can't just have a
trail and be like, "Here's a trail that we mow once in a while. There needs to be a garbage can. benches like this is what I'm talking there's there's expenses associated with it. Trail goes through woods. You have to check it to see if a tree has fallen down, right? But that's not it's not an everyday job. It's something you want to do. Somebody
one of the employees can walk that trail in an hour once a month or get a report from somebody that tree is down and they just go take you know some probably go takes the tree down. It's it's that the maintenance isn't in a lot of these
properties isn't that difficult. I think it would just be good for us to compare to other towns like just like you guys did originally when you determine the 10%. Like is that still what other towns are investing? Is that now that we're in more of the maintenance phase, we can't buy quite as much as we'd like to? Like what does
that look like? And are we in sync with that or not? And then if we are then the communication piece. Well, it also goes you can't really compare too well because you got to know what they're paying. for per for 100. When we're paying a
nickel 100, some other towns might be three cents or 10 cents. You know, you got to if you're going to go that far, you got to look at what they're collecting. We also got to look at the size of the town, which we can absolutely say. Yeah, we're and we have a lot of open space. We understand that.
Whereas a town like Montgomery probably doesn't have as much open space as we do, but Hillsboro probably does. Yeah. But like I say, the 10% is not a bad number. 10 the percentage of the 10 is not a bad percentage because it's not
capped. It's capped at 10%, but it it it goes with how much money is coming into it. It's never going to go down. No, that number is never going to go down. So if we're collecting 6 million this year, next year we'd be collecting 6 7 million and next year 71 or 72, that
number is always that 10% number is always going to go higher because we're taxes are never going to go down. We're never going to go to 500,000. So then we're just asking for transparency basically. Yes. We've been asking that for ever. So maybe we find out like, you know, how does that exist in other
towns? Like how is do they have issues with transparency like we do or no? It's just a matter of communication. All right, let's move on cuz we got a lot of stuff to do tonight yet. No. Open space uh recreation plan. So yeah, I
have that on there. Um, I we haven't I haven't been able to start it with Mark yet. Mark has reached out to me, but again, so the open space plan is slated to be right after the adoption of the pathways and trails plan, which is scheduled for tomorrow night. Um, so as soon as that's done, then comes open
space plan and then uh environmental commission has a plan. So it's it's that's really under mark, but I'm just reporting that. Okay. You know, we're going to try and start working on that soon. Anybody have any other new business they want to bring before the committee? Uh um just
going back um still talking about talking about Calpa would still like to see that plan. Oh, it's coming up another old business. Okay. Walk all trails program. So the walk all trails program we uh at the trails commission
we um created this Google form for people who are going to participate. We identified 14 trails. It's like 14.5 miles of trails. If a participant walks those and locks it, then at the end of it, they can get recognition at a by the mayor at a council meeting. Um, we're
also going to use it to work with um, healthier healthier Franklin. Is that Yes. Healthier Franklin to kind of figure out, you know, some metrics for health at the same time. So, at this point right now, we've identified the trails. We've created the Google form. So, I'm working with Sappy to get a
website going and advertise it and all that. So that will promote our trail usage and hopefully get some people recognized for walking those trails. So that's that's where we're at. But we are we're moving forward. How many trails is it? It's 14 trails and it ends
up being 14.5 miles. Yeah. Next on the agenda is the trails grant from the county. Uh the trails grant from the county. So we talked about that the trails committee the other day. We were talking about the um sorry I have
it up here. Give me one second. The recreational trails uh program that the county is doing. So basically it's on a rolling basis right now. It's until all the money's expended that they put into that program. There's no cap on how much
you can ask for, but really every town gets to apply once and then they make sure you can't apply until another as long as another town hasn't gotten theirs. Right. So, um the trails committee we were talking about should
we be, you know, thinking of a trail forward for this program because there are some projects that we've been working on and um what we kind of came up with was two options. The first is the um wooded trail at Nean Williams Park that we've been trying to do. The
thing that's been holding us back on that has been permitting. There's a lot of permitting fees involved in it. The trails uh grant guidelines that covers um permitting, design, construction. So, that's good news. Um that's in our one of our town areas of the town where
we've really been trying to do trails improvements and open space improvements and preservation. So, it would fit that. There's been a crime prevention through environmental design study done there, a green infrastructure study design. There's now new fitness equipment and the pathway has been paved. So, it would
be a really good spot to work on that. So, that was our our one item and I think that's what we kind of have right ended up really pushing. The backup item is the trail at County Route 518 property, which would basically be the full design, construction of the trail,
benches, garbage can, um, kiosk, you know, really getting that trail done and like completely done from start to finish. Well, the big question there is how far is the trail going to go? Is it going to go all the way to Route 27? No. So, to start off, the trails committee
actually went through and kind of looked at it. So, we're looking really at like what, like a onemile loop trail, right? Is that basically it, Vanessa, for the most partish? To start, I mean, I was just I personally was like hoping to have a nice Yeah. to use most of the property to kind of get a nice loop out of there.
Yeah, absolutely. I think we could go back four mile. I think we could probably get a four mile there. The one thing with Neon Williams Park I forgot to add was I'm sorry the microobility study that we recently did identifies um a street on street trail that kind of
goes it would take you from Non Williams past the youth center over towards um Inman Park right yes so our thought was we might even be able to loop in the name Williams Park trail and this connection between which two schools was
it? I was Hillrest and the Franklin Middle School Hamilton Street that's been identified in the microobility study because they kind of connect. We might be able to apply for both of those but under one project basically saying we're making it one big improvement. So we could get a good grant out of that.
Um, so I think the trails committee was really wanting to forward that idea to the open space advisory committee and if you think it's a good idea, you know, recommend that we actually put that grant um application together. How many counties does Somerset have or
how many towns does 21. So after 21 then we get to go again. You can go again. Yep. So they used to have an open space program. So I know Franklin applied for it a few times a long time ago. was 2006 through 2009 they did the open space program um and that went on for 3 four
years and you know it came around basically you know every time so as long as they're willing to keep funding it you know the question I have is what about trails on county property um so this is just for municipalities
but yeah so we couldn't apply for that but the county I guess they must have their own plans you know yeah we I just kind of put the ideas out there. Yeah. So, is the trail looking for a recreation tonight from on this plan? We wanted to kind of put it out there. We know that the you know the sooner you
apply the better you're, you know, um, you know, Chris Kelly had kind of shared that like this is a great opportunity. we want to take advantage of it and we just when we have our committee sets goals annually and this was one of our top goals was to kind of see through the name in Williams um uh project getting
you know through the wooded area cuz that was that's what drew us to that park to begin with was the wooded area and creating access to a wooded area in the more densely populated parts of town. Um and it's just been it's been difficult. Um we, you know, we started by deal dealing with some of the flood remediation issues along the regular
path there and and that went really well. Um and so now the next stage is getting into that wooded space. Um so yeah, and that that was our priority. It was our priority goal. We're also very interested in 518 and we were thinking if we could get to that second round, you know, that would be a great second
round, but also if open space, if you guys, you know, were not comfortable for some reason with Damon Williams, we would want to move forward with the the 518, right? And basically what we need from this committee is, you know, in order to put the grant application together, we're going to need, you know, to use my time, we need to use Moren
Sturgeon's time in DPW. She's a civil engineer cuz we have to present a concept plan. So I've drawn it up on mapping, but we need like we need a like an architectural drawing kind of like a landscape drawing of that. So that's easy. I can do the mapping, but it's going to take some effort basically. So
we need the okay to really submit for that. And we can submit the grant. We need the township council's approval for that. would be the recommendation to the township council to submit this grant on behalf of the township. Now, this is a to connect the middle school and all these that's your priority that we're talking about. You want So, the prior
it's two parts. One part is just getting the trail in the wooded area and the other is kind of like a bonus part which is really using the information we got from the micromobility study which is helping people get from one part of town to the other um to be connecting Nean Williams Park through you know through
Inman Park and heading over to this area. Um, and and part of that complication is that Franklin Boulevard crossing and then wanting to have a piece in in the in this proposal, it has a piece kind of like with a trail kind of going through between Hillrest and
the old high school's, you know, backyard. So, just na navigating that. Um, we we've gone out and looked at it, some of us just trying to like figure out there's some other ideas we think might be better than what they had in the proposal because there already is a path a little bit closer to the Franklin
Middle School building. Um, but basically our our bigger concern is like safety signage and things like that which we could work into this grant as well just making it a safe path passageway. So, you're looking for us to make a recommendation that we're supporting the trails advisory committee
to um to go for this grant, right? So, just on the screen, I just want to show you so you just know. So, this is from our microobility study. So, as you can see where Neon Williams Park is, the wooded trail would go to the right there of the um you see where the regular trail is in green at Nan Williams. So,
the wooded trail is basically over here and it would connect basically you could connect basically from here to over here. So, it would kind of as you're walking along the trail, you can go on an offshoot if you want through the woods, right? Um, then the part we're talking about connecting is up there. See that purple part right there? That's
been identified because people are using that and they're going through these streets and it's kind of already being used in an unsafe manner. So, the idea is to kind of improve that so that it's safe. And basically, the end goal is you could get from Nathan Williams Park,
you're going to pass the youth center. There's going to be bike lanes on there. So, it's to make it safe. So, there'll be bike lanes, signals, signage. It gets you from Non Williams Park through there. You can pass the ele the uh youth center and then ultimately you can get to the school without having to, you
know, use a car or walk in an unsafe manner or bike in an unsafe manner. Submit the whole plan or can you We don't have to submit the whole plan, but this is a great opportunity to get that part funded. Does it disqualify the small part of the plan? Like, can they approve part? They
can. they can. So, basically the other part of it is once you have your grant application, they schedule you for a county open space advisory committee meeting. You go there, you present it, and then while they're there, they'll ask you questions and they might they might come back and say, "We only want to fund one part or they might say, "Yes, no problem." Or they might say,
"No, come back with something else." So, yes, they can do that. They can make amendments. So, I'll make a motion that we support what the trails advisory committee is is looking to do. And and I will recommend the council that we be
we're supporting, right? Mhm. I second. Can we plant trees along the way so they have shade? Absolutely. Yeah, that's all. We can include that in the cost estimate for sure. Yeah. We got a motion on the floor motion. I second. All in favor?
Most of would be just along streets. Some of it's along streets. Yeah. the trail connect the trail in Neon Williams Park is an actual development of a trail. It's going to require permitting, construction, but yeah, then getting through is going to be mostly yeah, bike lane signage. Um, but the good news is
about this project too is it it won't be it'll be easier for them to approve it, I think, because we have so much backup documentation to support it. We've had it studied as much as a place can be studied probably. My only question was like, do you know that there is um
there's like a neighborhood um need for this or interest? We do. Yes. So, as part of our studies, we spent a lot of time there throughout different seasons, different times. So, Yep. And we plan on continuing that though as well um just because we do want to make
sure that by people who are living nearby are wanting this to happen. Right. Exactly. All right. Next on the agenda is the uh pathways and trails plan. But I see it's going to be adopted tomorrow night. So, yes. Then we can move on from there. Yep. Next is the
repair the burp line degree pod. So, I emailed uh DPW, you know, a few times before the meeting to ask. So, when I emailed them two weeks ago, well, I emailed two weeks ago, they said that they were ordering it, but that the final budget hadn't been like the actual
funds, I guess, hadn't been put in yet. So, then I emailed them again and asked like, you know, hey, I'm going to the meeting. I need to know. I have not heard back yet. And I checked my my email right before the meeting, but they had the supply list. They had me telling them to order it. And so they're waiting until it's 95°. No, I'm
sorry, Chris. Like in two days. Yeah, that ain't happening. So, all right. So, again, as we alluded to earlier, we had no no respect or anything. Not even the we can't get public to do squat for us.
All right. Kappa Park Plan. Well, we've already touched on that. I don't have them. Yeah. Uh again, this would be something for the July meeting. Correct. Yeah. For the July meeting, I mean, put Katapa Park Plan in the park maintenance
and that's it. Those would be the two main issues. Have a spe sort of a special meeting and uh Got it. Yeah. We can only do that if Bob and and the mayor are right. That would be the point is to having at least them there if not
at all. So, okay. We have Carl's security. I need a security guard. So, plans were updated and approved by council. Is that what you're saying? They didn't forbid. It's been put out for bid after to build the park, but we
can't see them. But so, so it was at a council meeting. So, it was at a council meeting and the public saw them. Uh I don't I don't know. What are we commenting on? It's already too late to comment. Well, I the idea is that to
bring up that we didn't get a chance to comment on the changes. Well, we don't but you know I don't anticipate that the plans are going to change see it. Did did recreation see it? Yes. That's correct. Um, our rec advisory did see I guess
they drafted those plans, but we didn't see how long how long ago was that? Trying to remember which meeting it was. It wasn't our last meeting in June. In this calendar year in Yes. In this calendar year, it was how long he's been asking to see. It was either in April or
May. I can I can go back and look in our That was probably before the council got to see them. The council saw them. They voted on them. We got put it went out the bid after our last meeting, right? At that next council meeting. Mhm. So, it was a month ago. So, yes, they saw him before
the council did. But we didn't because the council is supposed to see him before us. That's what we're told. Right. Um for the first time ever, um I first I don't anticipate that we're going to look at them and go, "Oh, no. This has to be there and that's got it's
got to change." But it would be nice to actually look at them and see, okay, but if there's something incredibly glaring in it that we say, "Whoa, you guys missed this. This shouldn't be there." Well, we got we got we got our say on it. We put our
two cents in. And if they want to leave them the same, they can because just cuz something goes out for bid doesn't necessarily mean that those plans can't change. But we we need to see the plans before the next meeting, though, so we can review. like you you don't want to just show up in the meeting and start
revealing the Well, if that's possible for Tara to get them to us to email them to us. I have asked for them. Yeah. And I have not been able to get them, but I once I can I absolutely will. If if they've been if they've been sent out for bid, the biders have the people who
might be bidding on them have received them. So, they've been sent out somewhere. Probably on the website. Golden Fountain in this thing. Why on the website? If it's out to bid, it has to be on the website. Okay, let's see. RFPs. Oh,
uh, here we go. It's Hubble Park. There it is. All righty then. 6ix9ine. That's good. Yeah. Uh, but is is there a Let's see.
So I know trails has also been asking you know that's actually Katapa is you know Franklin Park Natural is my adopted trail and so I definitely have been wanting I've been asking Terra repeatedly because I want to like when they're doing that trail design I would like to have a say you know and just
share some input as well. Sorry. Let me just scoot and see if there's all the way down. And so keep going. She's reading fast. Bridge plan
pre-cast culvert and specification submitt package. All right. That's for a culvert. So, is there a picture of the an overhead view of where this the cricket field is going to go? Where the tennis
court? She's looking. She hasn't seen it. Certainly coming up yet. Wetlands. I think I looked at the same thing and I don't think I saw that. There you go. Retell's general permit plan. So, this is for the per Okay. Well, there's some
But it's a we did review it once at least once but it was it was a precious so you know this is like I think okay this is what I'm talking about. Yeah, this is like the first time I got a chance to show you it. Thank you. I'm wondering here or the
environmental commission, but I don't know. That's a good question. Well, we don't again, we don't know if we can see him here and stuff like that. Talked about it was circles the cricket fields interception of this whole thing. How many changes how many changes there were since that we didn't see. I believe when
we reviewed them, maybe it was environmental to review them. Dave just made the point that it might have been environmental. I believe I'm not 100% sure at that time there might not have been um what's the new pickle ball pickle ball right that's been added that
was not pickle ball was not that was not on the plan these plans aren't really that good to look at for our purposes because they don't say what's what cuz this is a wetlands permit so it's showing like the wetlands boundary we need like a site plan basically of it but this exactly this is not like
exactly I mean maybe it's in here somewhere is like further down it could Is it 100 Is there 415 pages? Probably. By the way, the document you're showing tomorrow night, does is is that all done like is that like something that was
built on over the years or Yeah. If Yes. Over. And I I you guys all reviewed it. Yeah. You all reviewed. So the previous So basically, let me just go back to that for a minute. So, the pathways and trails plan that was done in 2008, I learned basically that it was not
brought it wasn't brought to this committee to the open space committee and I don't think the planning board got to it. I don't think it's ever been officially adopted according to what I found out in Mark as part of the master plan. The new plan, the trails committee worked on it. They incorporated the
blazes and the signage and the trails field mapping and all that. And then we had it come here for comments. I got some great comments from Ted and some from some other people, too. And uh yeah, now it's going to go for the planning board for adoption. Yeah. So, yeah, that's been that's been in the
works. Yeah, I just sent a lot of comments to Tara and suggested that, you know, we can bring these up, but it doesn't prevent the board from what happened. We need to overview what what's going to go where. I don't think you're going to
find in those plans. I don't think we're going to find it in here either. There's the test. Yeah. I mean, it doesn't say what's what. You can kind of deduce, you know. Um, looks like there's a lot more there than
I remember from the Where is the point of reference? Where's the what Bob's saying with the maintenance and how expensive it's going to be? I get it now. Yeah, this is a lot. It is a lot. I would recommend if you guys are
good with it. I would recommend you go home and look at it on the website and if I can get paper copies for the next meeting, I absolutely will. I've asked, you know, what we need a copy of is basically overlay like like Arie said, we want to see what's going to go where, how they lay it out. We don't care too
much about the grade and Yeah. Right. Right. Just looking for, you know, it can be a page. It can be a page this size that just shows, you know, pickle ball courts are here. This is two more. I don't care where the drainage is or that's what these are.
Maybe you should, but you know, it's a more environment. Let's check it out. What's the layout? Okay. All right. Uh the consultants monthly activity report. Anybody any questions for her on that?
No. On the It's April and May. You have to see there's two. My my comment is I don't know how she gets all done having a father that's not well and and and kids in school and activities and me
calling about her all the time. I noticed it in this thing about request to connect several severable exception area for the public sewer line. Oh yes. Like that was a real pain. It was it's so it's ongoing. So that is the um
preserve Sudam farm. Um this is an interesting thing that happened. So he's a he's a preserve farm uh Sudam's preserve farm that was done by the county. The county is the uh easement holder from back in 2008.
um they took out several exceptions at the same time that their farm was preserved because the idea was that they would eventually separate those from the farm and it would be used for you know the kids housing or whatever. Um so now he wants to do that finally because the
kids are actually ready to you know live in them. And when he contacted me because it's a preserved farm to be like hey can you figure out how I connect to the sewer line? So I'm like okay. So, I called the sewage authority and they were like, "He can't connect to the sewer line because he's not in the wastewater management planning area."
Which I was like, "Yes, he is." Because I was at the county and I remember that, but not only that, he wouldn't have been able to preserve it with those several exceptions and showing it on the plan if he wasn't. So, I went back and looked at that and it's like, I don't get it. What's going on? So me and Mark kind of
worked on it and what we basically found out is that in 2011 NJD did like a bunch of removing properties from the wastewater management area. His property being one of them. So he was in the wastewater management planning area
when he was preserved. He's no longer in the wastewater management planning area because NJP removed him from it. Um, so the county is really the wastewater management planning agency for, you know, everybody. Um, and they're like, well, we, you know, Frank, and
understandably so, Franklin Township sewer sewage authority cannot connect the sewer if it's not in the wastewater management plan. They are not allowed. They can't do it. So, I contacted the county, explained the situation. The county's position is basically they don't mind readding it back to the wastewater management plan, but he has
to apply for it through D and go through the the amendment process. So, but he was never notified that it was taken out. It doesn't seem right. They did it apparently to a ton of properties actually. Um I'm pretty sure I think
it's Kat I'm not sure if Katalpa, but one of our preserved properties was removed at the same time. So, yes. So, that was So, we're still working on it. The countyy's holding a meeting on June 3rd. So, uh July July
3rd, I'm sorry. July 3rd. Yeah. So, I'll be there for that. So, we'll see what happens. But yeah, that's that. For the fireworks. I'll be on vacation. Yeah. I have to call in for it because honestly, I'm scared to not be there. Honestly, it's like they are Well, I called the
county to be like, "Are you serious? This doesn't seem right." Because when you're preserved, especially, you're preserved in perpetuity. And like the way it is is the way it is. And they're like, "Oh, no. It doesn't matter. You still need to apply for a wastewater." It's very rare to be a preserve farm and
apply for sewer service because that's development. So, yeah. Yeah. Somebody dropped the ball along the way is what happened. Well, D removed it. I And they apparently did it to tons of properties across like Somerset County. Yeah. Wow. All right.
Updates from other committees real quick. Um, we have a firefly hike on Saturday, July uh 12th. So, if anybody's interested in coming and checking out the Fireflies at uh John Clyde, um we're
going to be doing I might not too hot. What time is it going to be? It's going to be at 8:00 p.m. being sarcastic. [Music] like 12. My wife will have a night by myself.
That's fun. 8:00 p.m. And then 9:30, I'm sorry, 8:00 p.m. 9:30, the um astronomy club is going to be there to do observations. The environmental commission is going to be there and having having a table because they're promoting the dark sky initiative, which is to reduce light
pollution. So yes. So how long we've been doing this for now? Like 5 years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think at least I think. Yeah, I think so. Preandemic. Yeah. So yeah, we took some of our five
year olds to uh grandkids to see a couple years ago. Oh, good. They loved it. Good. A we have some other things just we've been posting them on the township website through parks and recreation which has been a great great partnership for us. We had our national
trails day hike um on uh was the 7th and we partnered with the Meadows for that and they gave an outside tour of uh the van house. Um we didn't have a great turnout. We never do on national trails day. We did. We had another hike on May
17th and then we had a good turnout for that. But there's a lot going on. National Trails Day. What day is that again? The first Saturday of June. So this year June 7th graduation. I know. The township had something going um I think a pride event going on at the
gazebo here. There's a lot of good stuff. There's a lot of good stuff going on. But um yeah, but we had that and this is our this is our next one coming up. And we have others in the wings as well. So, it should um you should be able to find them anywhere you like. All right. Uh, one thing I wanted to
bring up, I just we just talked about these other committees and stuff like that. I didn't meet, but I just noticed on our wall calendar in the barn that there's going to be a barn talk at the Hegman barn on I believe this coming Saturday 1:00. A fellow who ages barns is going to be a talk about the barns
and I know about it cuz on our calendar now something meadow is putting on. You see nut meadows again. We go back to Meadows not promoting what they're doing. You know, for my nephew being involved in it, I wouldn't never know it. 100 p.m. at the Hagman Farm. I think so. If it's wrong, Ari, I'll let I'll let
you know where that T I'll let you know, Terry. You can put it out to the committee with exactly what's going on. But cuz he he's been our place our barn. He's going to do some barn talk over there. How? Why? I have no idea. But it is what it is. All right. Um, next on
is public comment. No motion to move to the public. Motion second. I'll second. All in favor? Everybody but Chris Williams can talk. Thank you, Chris. Good to see you again. Goodbye.
I have a couple comments. One is there. Our trees are dying. Maybe we can set up adopt a tree program where volunteers can go out and water the damn trees. We talked about it at Shade Tree. Yeah, they never follow. Okay. Well, they like
the idea. It's a matter of, you know, then you're depending on somebody to water a tree and then a week later they they, you know, they miss it and then another week goes by and they miss it. It's great to have it, but we really need to have a maintenance plan by the
town. And if people want to water it on top of that, that's great. Okay. They talked about actually possibility of on Hamilton Street, the shop owners watering those trees, but is it their responsibility? And what about
if they wanted to look pretty in their place? Exactly. They benefit they would. Absolutely. You're right. But um can you put that on them? Mary, I don't know if you have anything else to add to that. I think it's just consistently it's we
can't really rely on agreements like that. with the public. Um yeah, I think there's a lot of discussion about that and um with Hamilton Street, I think last year after we had the uh trees planted, we were very concerned about
whether the trees are getting watered and we checked and we got feedback that yes, they're getting watered. I went out there with my finger and poked and it was wet. So, um it seems like it's if we keep on top of it the township um then they do. And with Connor especially, he
cares about the trees. So, he he makes sure that these trees are getting watered. Hamilton right now is with the contractor's responsibility, right? And if and if those trees die within 2 years, we want to be replaced by the contractor. Two years now. Two years.
Two years. Yeah. Oh, they took my advice. Yeah, that's what I said. Okay. Um, the other thing is is whenever we do get the wood, let me I will you'll be the first person to know. It's I'm not going to go out there at
night. There's two things. One is I haven't put any nails up real high because I was given orders by my wife not to climb a ladder if no one's there. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. So, I need I will need at least a spotter to stay
there with me. So, when I go up to to put the screws in higher, I can There's enough screws. The wind will not take it away. There's There's so many screws in that thing. But there's I still have to do one side that I have to redo. And the
trim and the floor. Yeah, the floor is a little wobbly, but I get new plywood. I can just Absolutely. Yeah. As soon as it's, you know, as soon as I get word, you'll be the first to know. So, okay. As long as no one expects me to go out there when it's 95 degrees out, cuz that
ain't happening. I get it. I get it. What do you think? You dip in a pond. Cool. If it's still there, you won't regular ponds, right? Oh my gosh. Speaking of the pond, does that pond, and I don't know if this
is something that's done, does that need to be in a way some of the grasses, anything removed from it because it's getting to be so overgrown. It It's the whole thing is is if you start going in there, you can go in there and mow it,
that would be no problem. But you start digging it up, you've got frogs, salamanders, and other insects that have buried themselves in the mud for when a dry period happens. What is your recommendation for that? Anything? Just leave it alone. Okay. I mean, yes, you
can go in here and mow it. They they we do have a problem with the cattails, and my recommendation would be to dig them up and move them over some, you know. Did Did I hear you volunteer? Me? Not
Not necessarily. How do you How do you mow that in? when you can only mow it if it's dry and they only the grasses only grow when it's dry, right? When when when it become it's a veral that the definition of vertal pond ones that dry up during the summertime. That's what
distinguishes vernal pond by DP that for the last couple years has dried up because we've been in a drought. right now it's to the brim, you know, and the the outfall is what's keeping Chris. I I haven't looked at it.
The the spillway, is there a way we can open that spillway up or is there's a permanent structure? It's a permanent structure. I I can't see right now where if there's wood slots in it that you could pull out, but just leave. Now,
we're we're managing a pond right now, not a vernal pond. That's then that was the idea of making a rental pond out of that. So I don't know if there was a way to lower lower the water at times like now. Uh a couple I know a couple years back we had the same thing. We had a
very wet wet summer and we kept water in it all year round. It's it happened. The whole thing is as long as would be in the woods. Not necessarily. Okay. But yes, you're right. Well, there's no
influence of the pond, right? So, there's no way to really regulate it, right? It's just whatever water flows in it to There's no creek that you can damage. There's a small spring there. Yeah, I brought a little spring there. How's
your uh your rain pond doing up there? It's overgrown, isn't it? Oh, yeah. That's super overgrown. Yeah, super actually. put a rain garden in super bro. Yeah. So have survived and other
anything else Chris? No. Okay. Oh, I just want I just like to bring up that Dave and I were just talking about there was a vernal pond in Middle Bush Park where the little league field is on the right hand side when you first drive up. Um but the little league field is now
there and there isn't a vernal pond there anymore. center field now. Center field gets soaked. Well, second base did until recently that they had to regrate the entire thing. Like they literally I mean is that the softball
field or the baseball field? Softball field. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Chris. Y public comment. Motion to close public session. Motion. All in favor? I. I. Right now we're
going to have to we got to go to executive session. Motion to go in executive session. Motion by guys. Second. All in favor? And would be no other business handled after the recession comes out.
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