In accordance with the Oklahoma public's meeting act notice, this meeting has been sent to the retrospect and hosted on the bolden board in Burough Hall. The first item on the agenda is the public comment period. Anyone who would like to speak to the commissioners, please state stand, state your name, and speak your
piece. We'll do the room first and then we'll do the Zoom. Yeah. No, Jenny, you can start. Oh, where are they standing? Oh, Jenny, what street are you on? celebration. Thanks, Phil.
Anyone else would like to speak? This is my first time. This building is beautiful. So, I'm Beth Wolf and I just was coming because I've never been name and address. Oh, name and address. Beth Wolf, 218 Lake View
Avenue. Thank you. 0833. Definitely got me. Um, I've emailed the commissioners about bringing wanted to put it in on public record what's going on with the uptick in the homelessness that's going on in our community that's
gotten progressively worse. So, I know that there's a whole process to it. Um there are a lot of other people who are very very concerned especially business owners but it's such a sensitive
eggshell topic that people don't want to speak up. So I said I'll just go and check out the meeting. I didn't know it was going to be this intimate and small but so I just wanted to put that on public record about the uptick in the homelessness. I know I've emailed her Facebook very long and Frank
I know we've talked about it and stuff so I just wanted to put that on public record. All right. Thanks. You're welcome. Anyone else? and election favorable event
investments. Those of you who gave nonprofits an opportunity their rares and what they did and also people going but they weren't very successful. What did you say? Bill, you can sit if
you want. There's a chair behind you. All right. Okay. In 2022, I became president of the president who resurrected festival as we have been. Unfortunately, I
during my term and I did not very rehab about eight or nine months. I pursued that. I had my check to begin
with great interest in resurrecting my president this year. you know, and approved by our board of
the use of sidewalks for October. And in the meantime, I was various invitation. and living. I went out there
91 restaurants and ice cream outside 91. work people and anticipation approval. And once we're approved,
Foundation Express. Uh well, we'll tackle them all at the same time. So, are you sticking around? I can just for a few. We'll put it first on the discussion. All right. Thanks, Bill.
Anyone else? Just have to come up as closely as I can. Hi, commissioners. My name is Harlo and I'm ask and I'm 9 years old and I'm asking you to please keep the fireworks downtown. It's not just about seeing cool lights in the sky. It's about
everyone coming together. It's one of the one It's the one time everyone in the town gathers in the same place, laughing, smiling, and feeling proud of where we live. That feeling is something kids like me will never forget.
I know things are like this are hard to plan and maybe even replan, but some things are worth it. The fireworks downtown make people happy. They make memories. And if you move them or cancel them, it just won't feel like the Fourth of July anymore. Please don't let that tradition
go away. We all look forward to it every year. Thank you for listening. Anyone else? Hi, commissioners. Congratulations to all of you. I'm Kimberly McGrath. I live with Harlem McGrath um at 1114 Concord
in Hannenfield. I grew up here. I won't tell you how old I am, but getting up there. Um and I don't am I allowed to ask a question at this point or just ask for Okay, my question is what is the real reason we can't use the old location um
that we've been using for decades for the fireworks? Is it because it's been sold to a developer and we no longer have control of that property? uh because the financial constraints um spin in the press to me was um it became
financially not feasible because um hurrying to catch a loca or find another location in the last minute or find the vendor that could do them in the last minute maybe became too expensive. But that's kind of what I took away from the press. So I I want to know is it because we no longer control that property that we can't keep that tradition there. And
I will just say I grew up going to that location. Um, I grew up all through the school system here. It is a memory for our community. It's not the same going to other communities. Like we want to be with our community celebrating like Independence Day and having the shared
experience with our relatives, our friends. I don't I know there's a post about I think Hen Township or Mount Laurels having them. It's not the same. We don't know those people. And I want my kids to experience that. My kid um and her kids to experience that. And um
I just want to know the real reason. I want transparency. What is it with this property that we can't do it all of a sudden this year? And if the former mayor or former team knew about this in March, why wasn't it announced at that time? Like why are we finding out now like 3 weeks prior? And I think the big
thing for everybody that I've at least communicated with is we want transparency like the good, the bad, the ugly. I want to know what the real reasons are and if we can do something moving forward uh to kind of get in front of it because I think we a lot of us in town have felt like things got
away from us with what transpired with that property and kind of went on like when everyone was like wait what do you mean the guy that voted for this isn't living in this town and who else knew about this and that's how we're left feeling and uh I don't want this tradition to go away because once it goes away traditions are very hard to
get back. So, I'd like that addressed in the in the time that you do that. Thank you so much. Anyone else on the road? Good evening, Chris Tempo. 3:30 Windsor Avenue. I just want to congratulate you
as well. wish you best of luck. Want to echo the sentiment about fireworks. All I want to ask is what do you need from community to perhaps try and salvage the fireworks this year or make sure that they are resurrected for next year?
Chris, anyone else? Is there anyone on Zoom that would like to speak to the commissioners? You have one. John, I would if there's an opportunity. Michael Miles, you're recognized.
Thank you very much. Um I live at 40 Gil Road and I just wanted to um congratulate all the commissioners and and wish you certainly the best of luck. Uh also I just wanted to raise the topic
very briefly of the repavement of Gil Road. We have received um some letters um from Commissioner Troy and from the burrow uh administrator as well. And u
I'd like to note that they were you know very thoughtful and had obviously given a lot of consideration to how this process was to take place. um and in particular with respect to the trees on the burrowowned strips on either side of
the road. At this point, um the residents of this street have been presented with three options and given until June 16th to make a selection. And I I do appreciate um all involved
for that opportunity. Um but uh discussing the matter amongst ourselves, the residents um have identified some of these trees that we believe uh it would be worthwhile saving. Others are are
sickly or certainly encroaching upon the road and it makes sense to um cut them down. So I I think the proposals that are currently on the table are not um reflective of kind of the current
consensus on the street and I would submit for the commissioner's consideration that uh perhaps just some dialogue so we could perhaps reframe the options so that the residents of Gil Road could vote on them and and this
process can hopefully proceed. Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Thank you, John. You in comments? You had your hand up. John Kazaki callinski. Oh. Oh, John B. No, not not from me.
Thank you. All right. Sorry, John. All right, John. And not for me. No. All right. Anyone else on Zoom? Seeing none, we'll move on with the agenda.
Uh, first we will talk about the fall festival. Sure. Because so that Mr. Brown can kind of take off. Um, In our packets, we have a complete completed checklist for fall festival
requests for October 4th. Rain date October 5th. Tanner Street request close from Kings Highway to Clement hours 10 to 3. Um, packet seems in order, right, Dan? Uh,
this is not a voting meeting, but if we have we can discuss the fall festival. thanks for your dogged effort on it. Um, since they have a uh potential sponsor, although we're not voting, if anybody wants to share their thoughts for them,
I'm excited about it. I'm very excited about it. Uh, we do have I think October is a really geeky month to begin with, but this will be earlier in the month and it's uh sponsored, right? Um,
I I'm very close to the idea. Tanner's our street, not a not a county street. Tanner is our street. The only concern I would have is, and I don't know if police were checked with this or not, but sometimes we don't aren't able to offer rain dates with police
services. So, it's a road closure. So, we'll just have to confirm that we'll be able to offer the rain. I don't see any reason not to move forward with the approval. We just have to work out a rain situation. Yeah, rain dates are tough. Uh especially back to back on a
weekend. Uh but u if you can just check that before it comes before us next week. And it's next week. So for everybody knows, we moved our meeting from two weeks to next week on the 16th. Correct. Right. So uh that was announced
today, sent to the newspapers. All right. Street would be the only one closed, right? Correct. May I please have the envelope for the end of it? Thank you. All right. So, you Frank, you have any opinions that this a nice event and I
think um I look forward to it. Has been around for a while and was unpolished for a couple years. So, it's nice to come back. So, that's as official as we can get tonight, Bill, but it sounds like uh you know, Subaru might need your phone call tomorrow.
I think they're planning on having on the agenda for the 16th. The only thing we have to check is whether or not because when you're dealing with bad back for one day or for that can
is not necessarily available the next day. So we just have to make sure able to submit to both dates and then we'll whether or not we've elaborated. Sure. And and in the event of
a lack of police on the rain, does that affect the entire festival or the closing of Tanner? Like what? It would just affect the closing of Tanner. So that would be something that uh we would discuss but something to think about as well uh if if it's not available. Um
yeah because unfortunately well it's on Sunday they could take over King's Court for their crafters but I'm not sure how many they're having whether or not it would fit on King's Court. So that's something we'll have to talk about as we work through. But as Sharon said, the trickiness of a rain
date is is lease availability and and and overall it's it's a comment that we've had about events that you know it it's a new day and actually uniform police presence is required that at our events
because tom foolery and hooliganism. I mean, it's just I we've just seen it in all of our neighboring towns have had good events go to go bad because of uh disruptive forces that kind of
come in. Uh but we don't want that to happen. So, and the closing of the road is is is unfortunately tied to police presence. So, um just think about that. But yes, our intention would be to have it on the agenda next year.
Okay, going back to the agenda, the first item on the agenda is the communication plan and we want to discuss the communication plan before we kind of address any of these questions uh that were ped tonight in the public comment. You can you can make a decision. I don't know how you
want to handle the public comment because some of them don't necessarily have a topic on here. So, how do you want to address those? Do you want to do that before this after this? No, I would say probably after. Okay. Okay. Um, so with the three new commissioners, there's a thought that
um, communications is to be a little more opened and shared. Um, but in order to do that, we need to have some ideas as to the direction that you want to go in for some of these topics. um and for what you want us to just move forward
with and what you want us to hold back and get input in and then how long that input period takes place. Communication plan that you have in front of you is a much higher level document. Um it was created a couple of years ago uh and uh
by the former mayor um never moved to finalize it, but it's one of those things we felt that it would be a good starting place and then we could get your comments and suggestions and changes to the document so that we would
be you know over the next couple of weeks. Um, obviously we can have some discussions tonight, but over the next couple of weeks, so we can finalize kind of like final talk through it all at the July session and then formally adopt it. Well, they're not sure where their
communication was. Oh, no, no, not the wireless communications. Oh, that one was further down in Okay. No, that this is whole this should be the whole close. Uhhuh.
It's in there. Oh, it's in there. Oh, there it is. It's on the back. Thank you, Dan. looks like this. On the front it looks like this in the front of the packet. No. Yeah, in the front of that packet is that and
that was cuz that's about cityscape wireless telecommunications. And then that was in the backind. Yes. I didn't know exactly what went with what the way they all were mixed together. Yep. Well, not that we're going to be reading it right now anyway, but I think the point that we're trying to make here
is that there is an awkward period between two groups of commissioners. The last firm of folks have a different style of communication. We want to change it up a little bit and that requires us to have a standard set of
procedures of when do we communicate what, how quickly, um who gets to review, who gets to chime in and approve it. And so we want to process. So from now until the July session instead, the work session. So for the next month or
so, we'll start drafting some communications plan of how we're going to do this. This is all born out of for those in the room and we're listening. This is born out of some of the promps that came out around the fireworks on July 4th. Um again, awkward period
between the last group of folks and this new group of folks. So we're trying to nail down exactly how we're going to go about communications. So, uh, give us a month to to draft it and plan it and, um, talk it first. But that's for those, right? Right. But
there but there's some specific issues. Uh, I I kind of think ofation happens in three buckets in town. There is the things we know about that should be well communicated, thoughtfully communicated, we can have discussions
about. So something like we've approved the fall festival, you know, when we do approve the fall festival, uh that could be vetted. Joanna could propose the uh communication plan. We can all look at it. I don't know about voting on it, but at least giving comment back to the
communication officer for it. Then there is the departmental type of communication. Uh and I kind of see it as in three different ways. Uh public safety, you don't know when something bad's going to happen, right? for public safety. It just happens. Uh a lot of
times that is now in the hands of the professionals from a on the spot communication effort and we're more in the role of cleanup and wrap-up uh after the fact. uh in public works I see it as
sometimes it's pre-planned the you know the the tree trimming schedule the leaf pickup schedule and sometimes it's trees are down everywhere and these are all the roads that are closed and uh we just had a flood you know somewhere so
there's a combination of on the ground communication what we know when we know when we should say it where public works is more about stay in the house or avoid this road. In public safety, we don't necessarily know
when that communication's appropriate and that's why we have professionals. And then you have kind of like the revenue and finance area. Pay your taxes four times a year. You know, I mean, there's not a lot of communication coming out of that angle. Uh so each department has kind of
uniqueness to their communication style. I don't know if one if one guiding kind of document in a checklist style works, but I do know the one commonality between the three of us is if your communication officer and Joanna and
working with each of the departments to come up with the way you should communicate and when you should communicate. If we could sign off, I think the three of us could sign off on that without getting in the way of the on the ground communication. It just has
to happen sometimes. So, how do we balance that? That's the thing I'm actually going to be thinking about uh and and is really thinking about and and when that's the eye that I'm looking at it is to not hinder activity but still
make the public aware in a as needed until an event is over in either of your worlds and then kind of a wrap- up more press release style. here's what happened, the who's, the what's, the where's, the wins, the wise, and the hows. Uh,
I think we can cover both of that in a plan without being a bottleneck. I think I view it as there's a lot of communications that I don't think should ever make should just be handed at the
the chief level or, you know, respected like managers levels within different departments. Uh, and all commissioners do is probably just slow down the communication. So, yeah, I think there's certain things that from a public safety standpoint, let's
say, if there is like a a breakin or series of breakins, I think there should be I envision I want to meet with chief on this to discuss kind of his vision for it, but I almost I envision like a a short burst communication so people know, hey, something is
happening. You know, not a lot of information. We heard there's a breakin. There's a series of breakins. Whatever the case may be, people know about it. They know it's happened in their neighborhoods. They can be on alert, lock their doors, bring their kids inside, whatever the case may be. S would know this from the military. This felt like a sit rep, you know, but like a a helicopter fell out of the sky. We
don't have any details, but at some point you're going to get more details. And then, you know, hours later, the next day you find out that you know the details behind it. That's kind of how I envision the u department working. Then also with the respective departments
there is also volunteers that so I think that is less about uh well there's an element of emergency communication about it and there's also an element of probably healthy notice of social media element about it and you
could take the you know co-pilot and say what is a municipality social media you know policy they could have people sign it all spit something out 10 seconds actually pretty good and like the uh volunteer fire department kind of has that already. So I think that's the kind of thing we should put in place to say
we want those events to be swift and as events are taking place like at the skirmish you know I want the chief or people there to be able to share ideas saying hey this is great or whatever else we maybe don't want you know kids names posted and stuff like that like
unless the parents want that there but there's certain things we can kind of put brackets around saying this is what you're allowed to do this is what you're not allowed to do and I think that just about anyone can follow that and social media has been around long enough to know that people know how to abide by it. So that is kind of the what I'd like
to do and um just give more autonomy, give information faster to Joanna and in a lot of cases we're finding out after the fact or you know right before it goes out whatever case they and they're not it's not up to me to kind of QA it or to
change this word to that word or something like that. It's more about like yep I'm going to agree with the release. It sounds like what we need to agree on are the principles that we want to abide by as we're communicating. So it it sounds like we all agree that we want to
get information out quickly, especially if it's an urgent matter and that is the priority amongst anything else where urgency is not the top principle. I would argue that one of the things we want to do is give enough detail that
people know the contest. So again, going back to the fireworks example, I think that's an instance where we missed the mark and we could have given enough detail that that didn't spiral out of control on
social media or that folks felt like they had the right context and the information they needed to to move forward with. So I think maybe those are the two pieces that I'm going to anchor on is one. The first principle is that we want information to be out as quickly
as possible especially when there's an urgent situation developing. We want to give information and the second when urgency is not the top concern that we want to provide as much detail and context as possible and as you know the app allows so that people have the full
context that they can um yeah so two situations that come to mind uh one is last year we had cars being stolen and people coming every meeting saying what are you doing about the cars what are you doing about the cars and you get kind of like general answers and blank
stairs until we were given the okay from the state police to actually tell the reason which was it was an active investigation. The fact that we could even talk about knowing that these people were being
watched, right? Uh was would have given tipped them off that there was a whole sting operation that wrapped up and when it wrapped up we were able to tell everybody. But there is months worth of frustration that we just have to own sometimes. uh and just kind of give
general things because the the insatiableness of social media's need for news and the government's responsibility to uh protect active investigations, the general public and all that are not always in alignment. Uh
but then there's the other issue of and something like fireworks. Um what the failure of that is really deciding who should communicate. um that there weren't going to be fireworks.
Everyone knew for months who was involved that fireworks were not going to happen. The reason for it, we can debate that a lot. Um but the fact was the fireworks weren't going to happen because there was no location to be signed off on. Uh
and without a location, fundraising couldn't really uh gather hold. So whose responsibility is it to communicate that? Um the town is communicating the Fourth of July celebrations, putting the parade, the
the u the stuff before that. when it when do we step on the toes of an organization who's who's act who's exists for and puts that on not not to pick on eugenia and celebrations I'll use Bill for example uh
we approve the general permit for the Lions Club and then over the next three months they get no volunteers and they don't tell anybody and then a month happens you know and then o no September 4th comes
and no one knows that on October 4th there's not going to be a fall fair. Whose responsibility is it to communicate that? Is it the burrow's responsibility as the permit granter or is it the or is it the Lions Club for
the organizer of the event? And this is where the this is where this all breaks down. At the end of the day, in the changeover and the awkwardness of the changeover, I didn't think it was appropriate that the town didn't know 29 days before an event was supposed to
take place that it wasn't going to take place. And here nor there how it was said, it was said because the important part of the message wasn't the why. It was the it's not happening. And that was kind of lost uh in all of that. So,
if we want to move into speaking a little more specifically when we'll knock out one of the comment things tonight, we could talk about how you two feel about the fireworks, how it was announced that it's going away, what we're going to do about it, if we can do
anything about it, and also I'll go back to the understanding that sometimes the barrel has to eat it for this for the sake of everyone. Uh that includes event organizers, the board of education, the general
public and access. Some things we can control, some things we can't. Uh circumstances about why this year is special. It might not be special. But the insatiableness of I want to know
it and I want to know it now and I want to know why. We might not have the answer. We might not have the answer you like or we might have the answer as we know it on June 9th and that doesn't mean that for next year on February 1st
we don't have a different answer. It doesn't mean on November 1st 2025 we don't have a different answer today. Be real honest. Have no idea where we shoot them off from even next year. Does anybody want to hear that? No.
But at least we're willing to say it. My thoughts on it is that one, I didn't know the decision was made. Two, I didn't know the message was going out. So, I found out with everybody else. Um, and that's all fair and well, right? The rich which decision was made that they weren't going to be fired. I mean,
if we're talking specific. Oh, yeah. No, no, let's let's talk specific. So, to me, and then it seemed like there was quite a bit of fallout afterwards, right? like there was and I know there's insatiable like I want all the information on social media and I don't think we need to always cater to that
but I think how much work has gone into it to kind of figure out a problem and to even coordinate with celebrations committee I mean going back to your point of like who gets to make the announcement right like was it our decision to say was it the bur's decision to say this is not
happening and therefore we need to announce it like who made the call I You made you had to call you had to make prompt and so it becomes your your message to deliver. Mhm. I like and my mess to clean up because you know in announcing it u there is just marked
frustration that that I had that 29 days before an event that the town loves to find out what would it have been July 1st? Would it have been June 14th my birthday? I don't know. I didn't want to ruin my
birthday, so I did it before my birthday. And honestly, was there a way to resolve this between now and then? No. Reality is like, are we going to find a location between now and July 4th, July 3rd? Unlikely. Are we going to find a vendor between now and
joints? Unlikely, right? So, like there is no Sorry folks, but like it's probably not fixable for us here. Um, I lost my train of thought, but like I get it. I get why you went, but you felt like you had to make the decision you
did. I think one maybe learning for me is that we could collaborate with the celebrations committee and at least agree on the messaging together because they're they represent half the half the point of view, right? And maybe that like shows more unity across the groups that are involved with. So that's my
only two cents. But no and that's great feedback and I think part of what you had described the messiness of the changeover the it's a messy thing to change you know groups of people who are so I get it but Frank you were about to say one so uh a book that I've
encouraging teams to read for years is five dysfunctions of a team and one of the five is called false harmony where you just pretend everything's okay Everything's fine. I think this falls into the category of false harmony that
back in March because I see the emails and I I I encourage anyone who who who excuse me speaking out of line, you know, you know, by all means, please do so. It seems like we didn't have the money or at least that the fundraising effort had
not taken part yet, but there was definitely a a plea to the bureau to ante up the money in order to have some of these events. Um, and that was an email communication on that that I was receiving just recently. It seemed it was pretty clear that the
locations that we had in the past were unavailable. Uh, unbeknownst to all of us, it it seems as if from the insurance standpoint, the board of education um was not allowed to have it at the location for the last three years. That was always kind of off the table and
maybe none of us knew that. Um so you know back in March you know and if this were like a manufacturing line in Japan someone would have pulled the and on forward and said we have a problem here and that would have been a good opportunity for the burrow the school celebrations
uh and any other stakeholder to get involved and say well let's define the problem is the problem location money all the aforementioned no one did that and I didn't know anything about it because I I was never involved celebrations committee but in that email I said we'll appeal commissioners and no
one ever appealed to me. So uh you know so I think if we take a look and you were public works at the time. Yeah. So if we look at this I would say that you know we have a few issues here. Surely communications the seamless communications
surely you know fundraising and outreach to people. I think most importantly I still don't even know if we can find the problem. Is the problem money or location or both? All of it. So I mean I think
the starting point really this is no um so so I'm not trying to be like you know cute about it that that is usually when you start solving a problem you define the problem and say okay well where do we go from here and so like I don't know if it can be solved this is
here it sounds like it's not but certainly we had to look to 2026 and uh you know and start you thinking about what do we do from a fundraising standpoint? And let's say we say, you know what, we'll never be able to do
fireworks again because it's too dangerous. Our locations have changed, insurance requirements have changed, the state requirements for firefighters on on site have changed. I know this is changing all over. At long time, we used to do landing, now they're doing mountain bay. So, I don't think we have
the option to do that here, but I mean, certainly we we can, you know, look at other things that there other ways to to look at this. And the reason why I asked Chris to to stop and hit tonight is my interaction with Chris is he's good at like solving problems and volunteering to to help solve problems. So maybe we
need need more people involved in it. Say what can we do? And if it's going to be drones instead of fireworks or something else instead of drones or whatever the case may be, let's start defining it now. Let's start doing it at our country's, you know, founding
anniversary and maybe superersize it next year and start the communication about this now and and treat this as like a rally cry for people to get involved in both uh you know financial support and also equity. Yeah, sweat equity. Sure.
That one. Yes. Okay. Um, so you're going to work on if you have comments between now and July on the communications plan and or you just want to give us highlights, just send them in an email to us. We'll start to
draft something for your review. Okay. The next item on the agenda is to talk about burrow use of burrow property. Yeah, we only did build because deep. And actually, can I just add one more thing for celebrations? And now I'm really touching my paragraph out here. Um, I shouldn't even bring it up.
Whatever. Come on, Frank. Too late now. Uh, I I think uh as part of fundraising, maybe getting more people involved in it. Uh, I've always been bothered by holiday tree. I don't know what a holiday tree is. I know what a Christmas tree is. I know what a holiday celebration is, but I think calling it a
holiday tree is um I think a melding of the two and um I know I I I find it somewhere between silly and offensive. Well, one of the things I do appreciate about Library Point is the fact that we do celebrate lots of different things.
Uh just last week we did a Catholic church uh had had a their mass had the outdoor mass. That's wonderful. It reminded me of almost like the blessed in the sea down the shore when we had the outside mass. I'm a 7:30 mass or so. 11 o'clock was too late for me no matter
where it was. Uh but you know, we have the we have the crutch out there. We have the lighting of manora. The lighting of manora. Um to me it's a Christmas tree. To you it's a Christmas tree. To other people it it might just be the lights of this the
lights of the holiday. Some people remind it as non-denominational. I think one of the things about the Christmas season is that it's uh it's a unifying type of things. Um and I appreciate your feelings about the the name of it. Uh
like I said, I I would I always call it a Christmas tree. How you want to fund raise for it. Again, I this is so this is the this is the conservative side of me and that is I wouldn't want to step on the toes of the organization raising the money to tell them what they need to
call it because whatever they think is the most successful way to raise the money, they're just going to do it. And not and and this goes it goes back to ownership that it is has to be a partnership between the sweat equity providers in this case celebrations
which does the the tree lighting uh and the commissioners who own the land and grant the access right but I may have you know I don't feel I made a mistake kind of like ripping the
band-aid off of the news But at the same time, I have to appreciate that the next time, just kind of what the Tira just said, I should have browbe them into Telling Town because they're the ones that are on the hook for the the fireworks. We're
on the hook for granting the access and providing the police access and the fire. So, uh I wouldn't want to tell them what to call it if if that's the most effective way to raise funds. I just know when I count it down I in my brain it's a
Christmas tree. So, you know, yeah, I'm not as stuck as on the naming. And again, I I think what is Burough business? What is like what is our business as commissioners and what is our business as residents? You may feel strongly about that as a resident, but again, I don't think it's it's Burough's
responsibility or even appropriate for us to be telling you celebration of history. I do appreciate that they do it because it's a fantastic event. I love going to it. My children love it. Um uh so I'm just grateful that the event
happens and if they find that they are able to draw a larger crowd and have a more warm community feeling by calling it one thing or another game, but again that's their business. Back to you, Suburb Property. Yes.
So we did the Lions Fall Festival. That was the first one. and thank you for indulging me so that that Bill Brown could uh go ahead. Okay. So, we have um a number of events that typically in the past couple of years we've been going through each
individual one. One of the questions I wanted to get as we are starting this um with this new group of three is how you want to handle these. Um we've done it a multitude of different ways through the years. There's been times where most
things are just kind of done internally. Um, you know, department heads go through and make sure everything's being covered and and they're approved, especially if they are events that happen year after year after year and then only something that is questionable comes to the full board. Um, you can do
it where one commissioner is kind of taking that oversight and saying yes, no after they get the information from department heads or we can continue to bring each and every single one of them to your work session. How do you how would you like to handle it?
I think it's a combination a little bit for me. Sh uh there are a lot of traditions in town and and the fact that we have to approve them all the time makes no sense to me. uh because we know they're going to happen. We just might not know the date,
you know, of the thing. We might not know the name of it. So, when I talk about like uh Viva Diva, that was just the name of it this year, but it was still uh the Mother's Day, you know, type of thing. Uh you know, the Haten the the the night markets on here wildly
successful partnership for Hatenfield is like, "Yeah, do it. Everybody says do it." If it's already happened before and it is part of our identity, I would love to see it just approved once. You know, it's almost like approving a calendar of events and then the details and the
checklists and all of those things. You just give us periodic updates and say, "Yeah, the fall festival application's complete, but we don't have a rain date yet or you know the rain date is just keep us informed on that." That that
just so this is just my point of view. Uh, but a new event. Yeah, sure. I mean, I would like to hear about new events, especially if they're bumping an old event. So, going back to the fall festival, that the fall festival was
bumped for Patty's birthday. It was bumped for that. And and I think that probably should have been a communication amongst the commissioners because each one of us have our own demographics that that we talk to. Um, and that's part of the role that we
could provide you and and Deanna and Joanna. And that's saying, can you take the pulse of this out in the in the public for us? I I just know from all the here and I did in the fall campaign, which was like, what the hell happened
to the fall festival? you know, it I think there's enough room to probably to do both, but I would have loved to have heard of a new one and talk about it and sold on it, but especially if it's going to bump
another one. So, that they're the only they're the only things I have. Otherwise, we approve a calendar of events and you guys just keep us informed on how it's going. I will say one more thing though and that is approve the best case scenario
or or in this case the the broadest case scenario the skirmish we had to come back and approve like them cooking on library point even though everybody knew they wanted to all the time just they didn't have that part of the paperwork or at least they were vacasillating on it
should we do it shouldn't we do it improve the f the whole case scenario and then we can whittle down from it or like the case the horses just didn't show up even though they had proven for animals and all that. Um I'd rather do that than have to keep coming back and nickel and diamond an event and nickel
and diamond the the uh organizers would say we have to go back for another approval. You know just that that's all that's the only other thing I want to try to avoid. That's your Frank. Uh yeah, I mean I think that we've reviewed a lot of these things and it's
just really just a prefuncter final sign off. I always ask the same questions of is more than 50. Do we have urinal set up? And these are all questions that someone has already asked before me anyway. So um you know maybe we just want to have that be fine. Maybe we just cover a summary of the ones that
were requested and um you know the approvals and you know if any just kind of jumps out at us we can Or maybe even if it's a uh you know if you approved it I guess it's either like approved or not. I'm I'm fine approving especially if it's a
recurring launch then no one's meeting and would you just want to review them in in work session instead of having to bring them to a voting meeting to talk about these things. Yeah. I just think maybe just kind of these are the six ones that are recurring ones that we just reviewed this month and approved this month and just so that you know
people know about it just so we know about it. I'm fine with that. So not on an object on a action agenda. There's going to be certain ones that we have to put on as we're because we're giving additional permissions, but that's but that would be under consent agenda
anyway. Yeah. Right. So they are now. Yeah. As they are now. So yeah, and it really is just highlighting them in the action meeting to say, "Oh, you know, this is for extra urinal for the Super Bowl or this is to allow the stage to be put on the
street or, you know, just just to mention it." But it's not really as as Frank said, the checklist already covers things like bathroom and wayfinding and police presence and safety and like all that stuff. So, uh I think if if if you
wanted to make change to the general vent purge application checklist, yeah, then bring it to us. But if you're following the checklist and we've seen that I think a million times. Yeah. I think I only find it interesting when there's a new event, something that's out of the ordinary. So maybe you do
something like I think that's interesting to know. Um and if there is a major change to an existing event, those are the things I feel like are worth talking about. But yeah, I mean If we know skirmish is happening every year, like we really need to approve it every year,
absolutely go for it, you know. Okay. So, in listening to the three of you, I think what we're going to do moving forward is we'll provide you a brief summary in part of your work session packets. These are the, you know, the ones that we're moving forward with. If you have any questions, you can
then either bring them up at the work session or you come to us before the meeting. Um and then anything that is new or changing significant change then we'll kind of point those out in the work session for discussion. Yeah. But and and it's all and one thing that does
go is the sooner that a committee or a group knows that they have they can they can bank on that. They can raise funds. They can collect volunteers. they can plan it, you know,
better instead of planning to plan. The first part is getting it approved. That's like check number one, two, and three probably on their plan. The faster they can get away from get past that, they can get to like, hey, this event's really happening and now we can promote
it and we can promote it, you know, uh the one thing I was really attracted by was uh the summer the summer thing that's on the trash cans now and in the windows of the stores. uh that it's a mixture of the events that are burrow approved versus the events that are
community sponsored. Um that has nothing to do with your approval process, but I think it goes back to this general theme of communications. So that these are a bureau approved ones are we're putting it on, we're paying the cops, we're paying the fire, we're paying the trash.
Like these are the ones we're committed to. There's probably what three, four of them a year. And then these are the other ones that make Hatadamfield Hatenfield so that the public is aware that that is the sweat and toil of a group, the Lions Club. I keep going back
to Bill Brown. He told the story 2021, the guy he put it on pause because he broke his back, but he never gave up on wanting to bring the fall festival back. That's not only a great story, but that's kind of the the story of Hatfield. Everybody has the event that they care about and they want to
sponsor. um the family that just left, we seem to really care about the fireworks. It sounds like a great You should get their name, right, to have them volunteer. Uh because these are the community parts of the events that we can help those groups get the word out
faster and hold them. Okay. Um so going through that with the list of of events that you've have these are all recurring events. Um they've all agreed to any of the
monetary expense that that are needed um and are and have been approved by all the departments. Okay. Maybe one suggestion Y might be I see you're Are you looking at this in the print view? Like are you looking at Yeah, there there should be. Did you I
don't think I printed that one for this and my apology for that. No, no, that's okay. I I feel like this is actually It was in our electronic package. That was in the electronic package. Yeah, more helpful than seeing that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Usually you do. Yeah. Instead of
having all those packets in the future, you're gonna have something like that. That is awesome. Much better. Because you don't need to know all the background unless it's something brand new. Then you'll have the background. Yeah. Just in case. Yeah. It's the list of events and the status of them. Y and
it's a quick glance and it could even be put on out for the public to be able to follow along. Yeah. So chair before you move to I think technically the use of burough property also best question about
homelessness people sleeping on public property. Do we want to address that here or not? When you talk about it, it's it's it's um your I mean Yeah. So the issue with homelessness, I mean part of the issue for the burrow to
manage is that it's public property. Sure. And so that's there's there there's other communities where um part of our unique downtown is that all of the sidewalk to the curb is owned by the municipality. So there are other alities
where the individual store owners and storefronts they own that. So that's private property and then they could have a trespasses or something like that. So part of our limitations under the law is the person is sitting out in public property. We all have a right to
enjoy public property. It's may be unsightly. It may be uncomfortable. Um what about safe? Then then then Frank and the police have ability to inquire for safety um and
make an inquiry of that individual if they themselves are safe or if they perhaps need some assistance and then it would fall for the police to to do that. But a person sitting there with a I've seen it I live here in town. I go up and down highway the shopping carts and um
it's makes you feel uncomfortable certainly on site between us but there and they're on public property and if they're not hurting themselves or danger anyone else that's sort of our limitation as to what we can do certainly if they hurt anybody or become
obstructive or seem to be d public urination like that yeah that that conduct is completely prohibited you call the police and the police will deal So you just said and I was this the storefront owners public own they they like rent the
building they have nothing to do outside. No no no the the property itself our part of our unique downtown the way the property is that sidewalk belongs to the is public property. Got it. Yeah. Well, and there's another thing about that, too. Yeah. And that's it's the land of churches. And you know,
the churches here do good work. And, you know, not to get religious, Christ never turned his back on anybody who was homeless, and neither do the churches in Hadenfield. So, it's I'm not saying it makes it a destination for homelessness,
but there's a lot of people that have a huge heart here. Just as many people that might not feel safe, there are those that actually reach out and want to help. Uh it's a tough balance and as you said, it's public property and homelessness isn't a crime.
Conduct conduct is though. Any conduct, call the police. But there's been an uptick. It 100% has gotten worse since I've lived here 20 years. Yeah, you didn't see it. I know. But but now we're going to have to actually
stop because we we told the one woman with the public comment part back and forth. No, no, but we needed your information. So, so you're absolutely correct. There there has been an uptick. There's an uptick all over the county right now. Um I when
when we have folks in town, the police reach out, there are services. We are limited in what we can do with them. If they don't accept the services, there's not much we can do unless they violate a law and that's kind of where we are at
the moment. So, but are you able to ever do an ordinance? So, so again, we can't do the back and forth, but Beth and I thought of this. I mean, so I at first tracking something
where uh essentially trying to pass an ordinance. I don't know where it stands right now. At one point was it was 96 meeting or something like that. We're I don't know if they passed it or not, but it's still but I'm benchmarking summit New Jersey. There's a lot of it's a larger community than us, but there's a lot of parallelism
for us. I'm keeping an eye on that to see how that shakes out in terms of the legality and whatever else because I think that as much as you don't want to turn it back on someone, you know, having someone sleep on a park
benches isn't a right solution either as far as I'm concerned. There should be a way that you know if you can if they're not willing to to accept the help that we're willing to give them, then there's got to be some sort of remedy to Yeah, we go to a different direction
that protecting the public health as well, you know. So, the ordinance that you're mentioning, what is the ordinance? It's in uh southern New Jersey. It's northern New Jersey. They're basically uh trying to pass the ordinance where there's a fine. possibility of um being removed and um
like going to jail if um you are uh like loitering and I don't know parameters about exact I think it's overnight and stuff like that but we're going to you're going to find a homeless person that
yeah no no more back and forth thank you Uh I don't I don't see how fine like if they throw some money there, but I I think that the details of the ordinance are important. We'll get we'll get we'll get that. We'll get it. We'll
get And that's why there's three of us. I feel different ways about it. I I definitely have the more traditional Christian value of social.
So that's all public propert. Yes, summit. I actually have to reach out to her. I was talking to her during May's conference. She want she is interested in some of the solutions we came up with for maintaining housing master plan. So she I actually have to reach out to her anyway. Um she went to
the mayor grew up in Cherry Hill. Oh really? Oh she went to Cherry Hill East. Okay. Yep. That's she's friends with Sean Drive with Oh Jen. Yeah. Um, okay. Next item is uh the
burrow's affordable housing plan. Um, before we go into the fourth round plan, let me just talk briefly about the amendment that uh the planning board reviewed and approved and will be on as a resolution also for you. Um, as you're
aware, we have been trying to finalize our third round plan with Judge Schwitzer. Um, one of the things that she asked is that we It's here. You were not here. And Dave, I don't know if you were Dave, I think
you were here. When we amended the redevelopment plan, we changed a lot of language because of I couldn't vote on it, but I was right. But it was based on things that this is what we're going to do and now we've done them. So, it's change just changing the language to be
current. That's the exact same thing that the changes to the third round plan is. You know, initially it was we're going to to you know, this is our plan for this property. Well, we had now have contracts and have awarded things and so it's changing
um the amendment is actually just changing it to what the current circumstances are. And she asked that that be done before our hearing in July. So, that is in front of you. Um, as I said, we did have a hearing for it at the planning board meeting. They were
fine with it. It made sense for them because the the affordable housing is an element of the master plan. So, they have to review it and and approve it. So, for Judge Schwitzer in the July conference. Yes. Is that the disposition
of the third round? Yes. Okay. So, then that's and that'll close the third round for us. Yes. Satisfactorily completed. Yes. Hopefully yes. Hopefully. Yeah. Hopefully. Yes. That's all hearing. It's a hearing. It's specific. There's notification requirements show up. It's
it's more than a conference. So there's Yeah, there's a lot of formalities. Yeah, it's a lot of formalities in terms of notice of it. But to answer your question, yes, that will hopefully conclude the third round because we are in the fourth round now. this role. The
only reason I wanted to mention it, mention it is when I was on the school board, uh there was a perception of activity that the governing body does during the summer is is is a way to hide it from folks because they're away all the time.
So, I want to really just get it out there while there's still people in town that that it's a hearing that is scheduled by the court court uh to dispose to finalize and seal and sign off on our third round obligation. Correct. Uh the date is not ours of the
choosing. We're following the correct it was her honor's calendar. Thank you. Okay. So now our fourth round. Um we had the public hearing for the
element at planning board last week. No earlier this week. Last week we're last week. Sorry. So if you want to look at the large screen, this is the presentation. Um in order to simplify because this is the
third ground plan at as its whole um a number it's over 500 pages with all of the appendices. Um sorry. Um so here here is the simplest explanation to what our fourth
round does what our requirement is and what our fourth round does. We have a rehabilitation share of 35. Um we have projected that we have an RDP of seven which would then leave us with
an unmet need of 86. And that is those two numbers agree to the original 93 that we accepted back in January. Joanna, if you can go to the next page. Nope, that's okay. You're you're
multitasking. I get it. Um, so our rehabilitation share, we have one every round and that how we have come into compliance with that is we participate in the Camden County owner occupied housing repair program. That is a income
um based program. So you have to provide proof of what your income is uh in order to be able to qualify. It is for things like heaters, a new roof. It's not to completely renovate your home. It is simple projects here and there. Um and
so we are required to um be able to to provide the assistance for 35 of those in the next 10 years and that we continue doing that by by participating in this program. How do we is that our direct funding of properties
in our bar or repaying into the Camden County program? Actually funding that they get through HUD. Oh great. So we just So it's we sign in we sign in to participate and they oversee the program. So that makes it simpler for us
and then the individual homeowner has to make an application the application qualify for income right and do all that. So we're not doing that. Do we do we promote that at all or is that just like stuff on the lately but we certainly can that once we get this started up some of those things that we
talk about of what to bring to attention to to our our residents again. Okay. Okay. So, the RDP of seven um Mary Beth uh and her associate explain for her to who Mary Beth is. Yes. Oh,
I'm sorry. Mary Beth at Longhan is our affordable housing planner. Um she years ago she worked for the council on affordable housing um before she went off as a planner um on with Clark hatton hits. Um so she
knows the rules inside and out from the beginning. Um she she is specialized in this. Um not only does she do this for a number of municipalities developing the plans and assisting with the enactment of the
plans, but her and one of her prior partners um are are actually used to be masters for also for for things. So, a master was someone that worked for the court to oversee a plan that was still
in flux that had not been approved or might be in with um in discussions with fair share on a settlement. And so, a master is the court's voice and and replies to the courts and trying to make sure we mediate something to its
finality. Um, so she so not only does she do this, but she also is specialized enough that she is used by the courts as a master of towns. I think she's like she's grown up. Yes. Yeah. It's we're lucky to have her. She's little little
um dry when that's why I try and simplify things so that you guys don't have to listen to her for an hour. Um, but but she she knows her stuff. So what they did we in order to determine what
your RDP is, they had to go through all of the development that we had since for like the past 15 years in essence because the last round was either 15 or 17 years long. Um and that's what this
lovely group sheets is here. And so what they do just Because our zoning may say single family this size depending on the lot. Affordable housing may say you could fit
more. So they have to look and see of all the development was there any missed opportunity. That missed opportunity can can sometimes provide an RDP. Um, for example, when we were doing the
third round, they determined that the Bankraftoft site based on a 12 to an acre could have 60 units of affordable housing on the entire complex. So our
RDP for the third round when you took in Bankraftoft, Boxwood and a number of other sites was actually 83. And then we had to find units to meet that 83. So once they determine the RDP,
the next step is how do we get to that? And this and the fourth round our RDP is seven. Tardity Commons is a 100% affordable, but we are we have a cap in each round
at the number of affordable senior rentals that we can use. We are able to add one. We we used X number of them in prior rounds. So, we have 28 left. We are able to use one of those. Since our RDP is only seven, there's a limit at
how much a percentage it can be of your number. So we're able to use one for targeting comments. Braftoft in our third round was supposed to be 10. We are getting 12. So we get that two to add as an RDP. Um 110 North Haden and
118 Ellis are both projects that have been through planning board already. While neither have moved forward yet, um they contain enough units that they were required to have affordable units. Um 110 North Haden was to have two. 118
Ellis is to have three. Um you would have to ask Mary Beth about the bonuses. That is one place that I just fall short on. I don't know. Um but it's based on the number of units and the type of units because their family were getting an extra bonus I believe is what it is,
but I'm not 100% sure. I would have to get Mary Beth to explain what the bonus is. Is 118 L the hole like the the open lot next to the fire next to the police station or the Yes. It is no longer a hole because we got them to fill it in. Yes. But yes, it is. Yes. Okay. Um so
with that, when you add all of that up, it actually comes to a total of nine. So we have our RDP. The good news is we are a we we already have a plan in place. it doesn't require us to, you know, try and buy additional housing to find it or
anything like that. So, we we have it um and we're able to uh move forward with those projects. Now, if for some reason 110 North hadn't didn't go through or 118 Ellis didn't move forward, then sometime over the next 10 years, we
would have to um either something else would be built that would have them in it that we could switch it over to depending on whether or not that created an RDP, an additional RDP, but we would have to figure out how to get there. It's a lot. No. No. Well, and it doesn't
take a builder off the hook of any new development to have an affordable component. It's just we've met our number, but that doesn't take anybody off the hook for development. So that's our RDP because when you when you go back to the numbers, you had an RDP and you had um an unmet need. The difference
is in a plan, the RDP is something that in the 10 years you must accomplish. The unmet need is something that you have to put zoning in place in order to so that someone can try and accomplish it. That's the key distinction.
encourage is you're encouraging people to to develop. So if you go to the next slide, Joanna, please. So and this is where so our unmet need of 86. Um here's how we've the first
three items are ways that we have previously under our third round which we have an unmet need of 400 and something um we are able to put in place to work towards. So you have uh the development fee ordinance. This is
anytime a person builds a new house or builds a significant addition. There is a one and a half or 2% fee that they have to pay based on the construction cost. Um that money goes into a trust. That's how we are funding the purchase of homes. We are funding the
rehabilitation of homes um or for the properties that we purchased the eight scattered sites. It's also how we assisted in paying down for the uh the place um the portion that we were required to pay to them. Um a mandatory
set aside ordinance is the second way that we did it previously back in 2006 2008 sorry. um that requires over the entire town we have a mandatory set aside that if you b if you build five
units anything more than four you are required to have at le to have 20%. So if you do five you have to have one. Um then because we weren't getting a lot from that we started to focus in the
third round plan of creating these eight inclusionary overlay zones. Uh, and you'll see those. Just wait one second. Wait one second. You'll you'll So, we created these eight overlay zones. And what those zones, we'll see them in a second. What those zones say are that if
you have any residential development, you have to have affordable housing. So, if you have two, one of them has to be affordable in those overlay zones. Um, and do they match up with the new master plan? It because this is already part of
the master plan. That was wait. So our fourth round what we did is we added two new inclusionary zones. So now you can go Joanna. I know you're excited. So this is a little hard to see on here. Um but what this is the all the colored
elements are our prior ex exclusion or I'm sorry inclusionary zones. You're fine. Um and and the colors represent height. So, the reason you're seeing red um is because our ordinance
states that you can build up to five stories when you're along the Paco speed line and you must go down to three stories by the time you're in the street. Um so you will see Archer Griner, you have uh red five stories for
the majority of the property. you have four stories along the alley and then three stories along the two streets that are on either side of the property. Um the Paco station you have the five stories along the Paco speed line you go
to four and then you go to three as you branch out. Um the the TD Bank and the Wells Fargo Bank is a you can go up to four stories. Um the rest of them are all threetory buildings. The
two new locations are all the way at the end of Haden Avenue. It's the um office building all the way at the end across from PJ's. That is currently I believe a four-story building. So that will be yellow that 807.
Yes. Um currently right now that is mostly offices. Um it is also zoned commercial with no residential. So keeping the same number of stories uh and allowing them to put
residential in there is the um kind of the carrot for that. Um with the way office has been going, we felt that that was a possibility. You know, someone not necessarily have to, you know, would necessarily get rid of all the offices, but if for some reason they
had a story or two that were empty, they could, you know, potentially switch those to residential. They have the parking. Um, we felt that that was a good mix. The the second section would be green. It would be three stories. It is the Brightaid, uh, the 71 and the gas
station and the couple of buildings across from the gas station. That's just again if for some reason those um existing uses were no longer there and and the folks buying it did not want to keep it commercial and they wanted to potentially put residential. It would
just require that there be some type of affordable housing in those locations. So the gas station so yes the acne site was existing that was existing the acne site um different areas on Haden Avenue Paco Archer Grryer
the two areas over on Grove Street those were um we we got special agreement that those were upper level because they were commercial they're all commercial um upper level could be
uh residential, but it also could be kept to one and twobedroom places so that they weren't um knowing that we were in the Tatum school district. And at the time, Tatum was very overcrowded, we didn't want to be adding too many units over there. And the one purple became Cooper and the other purple was
the school board uh administrative office right now. Right now. Right. Okay. Just talking about current uses, they don't seem to will be going anywhere. Yeah. They don't. They're not switching to any type of residential use. But again, the ability is there in the future should something change.
That one was on there for years. Yeah, it's it's been on since Yeah, it's it's on whenever we adopted the third round plan. I think the first time. Yeah. My dad My dad sold that. Yeah. Yeah.
So, years ago, there was the tod push from the DR the Del River Port Authority to try to encourage to development. Uh, is there any word on any type of of program that they're thinking about uh coming back with in the future?
So I will tell you that and that this has not been in the last this has not been since COVID but any conversations with them prior to CO if a developer wanted to come in and put something at our PACO station they had to keep all of
the existing parking and so anything they put on top of it they would have to add the additional parking and the structures. Um it became that sounds expensive. Well, yeah, it it became something that was not realistically going to happen. Um, they kind of
started shutting down all of those, okay, in their parking lots. Um, since then and since co's, you know, I I've heard a rumor that Hatton Township may be looking to develop theirs. Um, I don't know how true that rumor is. Um,
you know, but parking lot ever full capacity? Not since as a taco rider. Yeah, they used to be packed every day. All them 7 o'clock in the morning. If you weren't there, you knew this.
So, one of the things I see that the Paco lots are doing is solar. Have they actually ever purchased on that? I has nothing to do with it. Okay. We, you know, again, it's we use We typically will meet with them every so many years. We we have we have to meet
with them soon. Um they're looking at doing some drainage projects and improvements that we need some insight on. Yeah. But I mean they don't let us use their parking lot. No, they stopped letting us use their parking lot again before COVID because they were having
issues in some of their parking lots um and not enough of their own police to to ensure safety and stuff. So, Hadfield parking lots designed that the back fence closest to uh the stores of Haden
Avenue, I mean the stores of Kings Highway could be open on Saturdays and then people didn't have to go through the gate. They could just come up the street and park there. They don't open that anymore. They just they haven't done that in a long time. So, just to make sure I'm understand this is just a
potential plan like this. When does this get activated? the this plan that you were talking about the flood. So, so not the fourth plan like this that where it requires a sale of one of those properties and then a a a buyer that wanted to develop
commercial and then that buyer would be obligated to they wanted to do a residential component, right? They don't have to do a residential component on those properties because they're commercially zoned, right? Yeah. So, they do do residential and it falls into like five
stories up. How do we how do we ensure to do that? Like do you have So anything like that would have to go in front of planning board and part of the um part of what planning board requires is for them to
get from our affordable housing agent um what their requirement is. Um we're going to be coming to you in probably August or se probably hopefully August but probably maybe not Septe September
with some um land use tweaks that our engineers and and both planning and and zoning solicitors have found some minor issues and stuff. Um not the same type of thing as as some of the things we'll be looking at that have come from the
master plan. I think that may not all be at the same time. Um, but one of the tweaks is in the checklist in order for an item to be considered complete is the sign off from our affordable housing agent as to the number of units and the
type of units because that's the bigger problem because we also have so many low, so many very low, so many moderate that we have to have according to our plan and beat. And so we need to make sure,
you know, everybody's going to bring in, you know, a one-bedroom moderate. That's not necessarily what is required. So we need to make sure they're going through our affordable housing agent. And this way, if they don't have that sign off and they haven't agreed to it, it can't move
forward to planning because it's not deemed complete. So that plus some other things will be coming to you guys either later this summer or early in September. Is there any questions on the simplified version of our fourth round plan other than Could we post that? Yeah. That's
what one of the things was, you know, I think I we should probably just put a little explanation Yeah. on these slides so people understand a couple of them. Yeah. Um but we can we can work on doing that and then we can get that up. We did
add uh to the website some stuff under the redevelopment section and stuff under the affordable housing. The entire plan is up on the website under the affordable housing section. If someone really want to see all 500 pages,
they can. They can. Uh, okay. Um, and so just to finish that real quick, you will have a second resolution on next week's meeting approving the plan and the spending
plan. And then we are required within 24 or 48 hours, I think it's 48 hours to submit those to the court. And those are explaining the spending plan on the fourth round obligation. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yes. No, just being
clear. Yes, because we're also talking budget tonight. So, sorry. Yes, that that um it's quick. Yeah, that's quick. We got that up. I I sent you proof. The we got all of the plans up right after um the planning board public hearing.
So, we are in compliance so far. Um and this needs to be completed by June 30th. Yeah. And then we probably won't hear anything from the court until December or January. But for later. Yeah, because they're going through all the towns. Everybody. Correct. Yeah. Right.
Everybody's right. And I'm sure then we'll have a conversation with fair share as to what they disagree about. Okay. Uh next item on the agenda is to discuss changes to chapter 232 vehicles of traffic. Um Frank will remember this.
We we received a request um from residents a long time, quite a few years ago now at this point um about on the speed bumps on the lake. It didn't really qualify. Um but what we're what the chief has
requested is that we make a change to the or to the um code and add a stop sign on lake and a stop versus two stop signs on lake. One at Colonial and one at Friends um because of the proximity
to the school we are able to do that without needing any additional warrants because it's within You answered my question of Um, so if you're okay with that, we will put that on for introduction next week. And explain it because it is a school zone. Correct. Not because of our
whim or anything like because it's a school zone. Because I mean everybody there's a lot of people that want four-way stops. It's a very narrow. Yes. The where you're allowed to do it for the schools is very limited. That's why we're able to do four fourways around Lizzy Haten. When we did the Lizzy Haten
fourways, it's also around public parks. That's why we were able to do it by the baseball field. Oh, right. At Prospect in Wellington. Oh, Springfield. So then if it's not by school or a public park, what does it take to get it to get a
four-way stop? There are warrants that you have to meet and that means that um DOT has determined that you have to um one of the warrants is x number of accidents that have occurred at that
intersection over a period of time. Um, more common one is that there needs to be a certain amount of traffic on the main road and a certain amount of traffic on the crossroad, both within a 24-h hour period and an hour period. Um, we've had
trouble beating those warrants in certain areas um in the past like along um is it West End? What are they optimizing for? I'm sorry. What are they optimizing for
to why do they create those forms? Because not sure I have the answer to that. State state DOT, right? Yeah. I mean, state DOT has determined that here's the regulations that make sense or I, you
know, again, you have certain towns and areas that don't pay attention to it and put them everywhere and if they were fought in court, they would lose because they're not regulation. Um, I don't know why DOT has created rules and
regulations, but I would guess it's the same as any other entity because they feel that's the provides the safest um mode of transportation without slowing transportation down too much. I don't know. I'd have to ask the engineer. I That's beyond my And they base it off of
driving laws and rules, not residential behavior. Correct. Which is part of the problem. Yeah. Um but if you if you're okay with that, then we'll move forward with amending that ordinance. As somebody who drives down Lake a lot,
I mean that it they take a lot of effort to try to slow traffic down with a lot of signs and uh and there's friends and colonial just they all funnel out the lake and lake is also one of those
frustrating streets one way and it's one way and people who try to go up will realize that they just created a circle and then there's a frustration that goes in it and so it's probably a good idea. period. This change to chapter 232 means we're adding speed bumps on No, not
speed bumps. Traffic traffic stop sign Lake Lake Street at the intersection of Friends. And then the next one is Colonial Columbia on Lake Street as he's driving from H. Yeah. And they both dump out on the lake
this way. Yeah. And then Lake is a oneway street. Yeah. will slow it down. All right. Um the next is to talk about fees for certain parking offenses. Dave,
I know you have questions about this and I'm okay if we want to push this another month. I had reached out to Jason um with what you were looking for. Um he unfortunately had a a family issue today and so he wasn't in today to be able to get that to me. That's fine. what I had
asked for from a revenue standpoint uh because we'll get to the budget in a few minutes uh is I wanted to see uh collections and violations by time of day uh and weekend particularly to
determine whether or not the 6 to 8:00 p.m. time frame on the weekdays or either freeing up street parking or lot parking on Saturdays might be something that we could offer as beneficial to the PFH without really killing the revenue.
When it was started, it's it was a toughy uh to swallow, but it's also really filling the hole. My my understanding was you were looking for the violations, not the collection. No, no, no. Just violations. Okay. Yeah. No, no, no. Collections are collections. It's the violations by time of day and
weekend violations and then overnight violations. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, the collections I just mentioned because it's a revenue source. Uh but violations is the is the is the how much is it collecting to then change the parking
offense because that's what they're asking for is to change the fees for not the collection fees, the violation fees. So, we just want to see how what the volume of violations is and the revenue that it brings in.
The fact that Autobon is crazy. Oh, yeah. Don't get a ticket in Autobot. Yeah. Just so you're one of the things we're talking about in terms of first there's the safety this memo um that she did reference that safety stick. We had sent you the letter about that contract.
So, that's still sort of going in the early stages. And then Deanna and I had had some conversations different methodologies but an ordinance is a local law. So that means anytime you change it introduction first reading second reading we're trying to come up with a mechanism that it's it's a little
bit more streamlined so that if we can refer to a fee schedule that we published every year then that gives you all greater flexibility to simply do so by a resolution without having to go to the formal publication of an ordinance. So it adds an additional step for Diana that every year she doesn't have to
resolution that lists those items, but then this way instead of changing it, it's not this task where we have to go through. So you're saying like the ordinance would say we are charging fees and refer to appendex A, right? Okay. Yeah. Appendex A will come over you. Okay. For apart from particular. So just
tuck that back for sure. We have other resolutions that we do in January each year. We would just add it to that. So but thank you because Yeah. No, I I I've could have moved forward without that info. No, that's fine. That's fine.
Okay. The next item is to discuss tele telecommunications ordinance and the plan. Um, again, this is something that was kind of on and off for several years. Um, believe I gave you both the
telecommunication plan. Yes, you did. I'll be honest. That's a book. It's a book. what is like what decision needs to be made to so
um where we had been before the election was we had we were having the uh in March we were having the um consultant that we hired to draft all of
this um give one final presentation on the plan and then the commissioners were going to potentially introduce the ordinance. We had a couple of residents that had gone through the ordinance and had all sorts of comments and concerns.
We there was confusion with the consultant. She thought that she thought she was coming to planning board not commissioner's meeting. She had the wrong date on her calendar. She didn't he wasn't here. So, we didn't move forward with anything. Um and we held it off till after the election. So, I sat
with the residents that had comments and questions and took all of their questions, made notes of them all, um, in the ordinance that we were planning on moving forward and introducing, and then sent them back to the consultant, said, "Do these work? Do they not work?" Some
of them they were, some of them were easily accepted, others were, "No, that's a violation of the, you know, the um the FCC." Um, matters. Yeah. So, here's here's what the federal regulation is, so you have
to follow this um those types of things. The key question that I would want from you guys of the like most of the stuff it was, you know, there's a couple of things that are still a little up in the
air. Um there's one section And I can easily read this to you rather than you have to look through it. Um to minimize the adverse visual impacts from the proliferation of antennas and associated above ground equipment for
small cell wireless facilities. No small cell wireless facility in the rightway shall be located to the extent practical within 165 ft of each of any other small cell wireless facility in the same right of way unless the wire service provider
desires to install small cell wireless facilities less than 100 can demonstrate to the burough satisfaction why such placement is necessary. The question on that that was raised is that's a little ambiguous. What's the burough
satisfaction? Um so the consultant's answer was the decision-making authority for the SWF facility should utilize a preponderance of evidence standard to determining if the applicant has demonstrated the placement necessary.
That's a lot of words. And I said, hm, so we could certainly put that in instead of the burough satisfaction, but it's still somebody interpreting what that means. The prepoundonderance of the evidence is term used specifically by judges with
instructions. They're associated with civil trials, not criminal, more not criminal, more so more more likely than not. in in simplest of terms 5149 the tales are the scales are tipped slightly so ponderance of the evidence I mean we
can refer to the court rules and that's how it's defined if it's a uniform standard clear and convincing is a little bit more beyond a reasonable doubt is criminal so compounds of the evidence is more more likely than not a 5149 so want to incorporate that we can
get probably get some language that's what I was going to say it might be easier to take some some of what they said and just kind of add it rather than just have the burough satisfaction. Yeah, I I can put the instructions from the judges when they do jury charges for proponents of the evidence and we could sensically maybe whittle that down and
just make it a couple sentences because that's fairly defined. But but ultimately this is whether it's the language or adopt it really comes back down to you know the end state here is that you take
uh the master plan and that becomes a and you know we adopt that and then at some point that goes out as an RFP which will be foundation for which we'll someday get responses. So, so really ultimately you're going to you're going to come back with responses
probably ranging everywhere from someone wants to put two you know lattice antennas it down to someone who wants to put repeaters all over and everything in between. So, I mean, still ultimately comes back down to the bar decision. The first decision. I'm not entirely sure
what I think it's more frank. It's it's if somebody was coming in. Yeah. I mean, true. We should be going to RFP regardless. So, yeah, because the RFP outlines the the responses from the residents that I forget what they are.
I've read this thing like five times over like two years. something effect like 70% of residents don't want they want to be visually appealing and like I mean so like so the long and short of it is that it sounds like they you know
it sounds like most the people who took the survey want some sort of hybrid where they want you know enough you know monopoles or like a power whatever and the repeater shroud down the small cell shroud down that it'll improve
connectivity but it's not no one wants power events that are happening. Right. And from a reporter standpoint, I don't think they want new utility polls just to hold that. Correct. Right. So, right. Uh the only reason I worry about the language isn't from an RFP
standpoint. It's if a state contract comes up where we can join it, we have to kind of take it, you know, or go out to RFP on our own. But usually those state contracts are a lot more attractive financially. I don't
that true or not. Well, they don't exist right now, but somebody could come and sell the state on, you know, covering the state and then we could sign it onto a state contract instead of have to go out to RFP. Yeah. I mean, but I imagine that pricing would include
everything. They probably have a pricing for like the lattice antennas. Oh, yeah. No, it wasn't about the pricing. It's it's it's about spacing. So the worry the worry about is from that language. That's really the only thing outstanding that I had and that's to say if if we go to a state contract and they say, "Well,
we promised service here, so we're digging a pole, you know, right on your, you know, right in your rightway." I mean, nobody wants that either. Nobody wants a new street pole, you know, on their on their parking strip. Uh but in
an RFP, we could say yes no to that one, you know, or but on a contract one, we wouldn't really be able to say anything about it. I don't think that's it's that big of a deal. As I probably feel John's eyeballs
right through my head, I don't think it's that big of a deal. So, for example, that's again, I don't necessarily need the three of you to decide tonight because we got to figure out the path forward on this. Um, but that's one of the the things I have.
Another one is when they're doing the testing um and the notifications for the fact that one should be in, they should both be the same distance, but what's that distance? Typically, distance for applications is 200 feet. it is felt with the type of item that this is that
maybe that distance should be more and again back to your point Frank if if how we've kind of maybe thought about the possibility is going out when you go out to RFP is it's going to be
well do we do we just say here you know you can you can take what restrictions are and come back to us with a plan. Or we say, you know, we are looking for this specifically, you know, we want the monopoles, but on our existing poles,
you know, placed out um you know, here specifically and and we want a new tower, you know, here, you know, that can be shared by everyone. Um I think I think you would just basically say here
And then I mean is it if it's as easy as saying like adding one paragraph saying that like there's a bias for not having a large lattice tower there's a tolerance for mono poles at uh public sites
and then you know throughout there to maintain the the appearance of of a historic town we would want like repeaters or um small cells through whenever possible. Then I think it's up to them
to then say, "Okay, given all that, you know, the guy who says two lattises," you're like, "All right, like, you know, they're out." Like, you know, who else do we have here? The reason I was I was going there is because 500 feet for a tower makes sense.
500 feet for every small repeater. It's too far. You're you're you're now overlapping. And so I mean that's one thing we have to consider too, you know. Yeah. Do we do we separated out because type I mean if they're coming in with a blanket to
cover the town then everybody's going to get notified anyway. But so that's just something to think about when we talk about the the distance as the question. Well, the concern I have in that section is the same could it just let me know if it has
been addressed and that is the waiver of the test itself because weather conditions really affect we took it out. Okay, took it out. Thank you. Uh so the old just say the old section said ah if it's raining we'll just assume that that was a good test and and then they go by
their calculation instead of no no actually do the test and if it's raining tough break come back the next day and do the test. So, thank you for taking it out. They have to test. They have to be notified. They have to be notified in order to to move forward with the test. And this is so anybody in the public that interested could go out there and
watch them with the ruler and see that it's marked out and do it. So, they have to show their work and they have to prove it because there are enough people that are just rightly concerned about it. So, is this going to come up on Monday? No.
No. We're not We're not putting this on for introduction Monday. Um it's you know it's it's giving this because this is a lot and so we want you to have a chance to look at it understand it. Now the question is is it something that
we want to put you know try and start over again in July? We want to, you know, talk to Susan about coming to July and reintroducing the master plan again and then you guys potentially introducing, you know, we could do that at a work session or we could do it at
the action meeting, but if you do it at the work session and you're comfortable with it and then you're comfortable with the ordinance, we could then introduce the ordinance in July or we could do it all in July and have the ordinance on and her there to answer any questions about the ordinance and if you're still
if you're satisfied then and or it gets tabled and brought back up whenever you're ready. Yeah, there's a public safety aspect to the current condition of wireless in our town and that's we have dead spots and and that's not good. No, I I would move I would move to going
faster. Yeah. Yeah. It's been going on forever. And cell service isn't getting any better and the number of devices per person is just going up. We have health wearables now. We have, you know, just think what you got in your pocket, right? You got your watch, you got your
phone, you might have a another health monitor. Uh your car is calling back for service. It's it's doing its own GP. All those things need signal. Uh and we don't have enough signal and in enough places. So to me, I think it's a public
safety issue to not move fast on this. So which which option do you want? Do you want to come to work session and we can hash everything out at the work session and then put the ordinance on at the July meeting? Yeah. Okay. All right.
Yeah. As long as you know as long as she can come. If she can't come I I moved the table last time. It was it's a promise I made to the public. So the professionals have to present to us. Everybody does. Come support session. We work it out and then we go ahead and
vote on it in the session in July. In July, you would you would not work on it. You you would not introduce it until the July action meeting. She'll come to the work session, make sure she's answered all your questions about the ordinance and then go ahead and the
other option was what it was either to do both things. It was it was either to do the review of everything at the work session and and the introduction at the action meeting or wait and do the review of everything and the introduction at
the action meeting. Work session. Okay, perfect. Um, what I'll do is I'll the the when I looked through it, there were only like three maybe four comments that I might need your input on. So, I will send them out to you specifically with what I'm
looking at. Um, you know, just so you can make decisions before we get to July on those. Sure. Sharon, do you want to talk because it's kind of related? I was going to do that closed because I just thought about it. I forgot to put it on thing, but I think
that should be closed. Yeah. Okay. Kind of related though. Yeah. There's a contract component contract is just to let the public know there's a contract component to our order tower that needs to be discussed as yeah litigation contract personnel's
contract. Thank you. Sorry. Okay. All right. Um, Comcast. Yep. The next thing is the Comcast renewal, franchise renewal. Um, they are, you
know, moving forward. The only thing I mean, we typically have not we typically don't have a reason necessarily not to um move forward with it. south to kind of give you a little history of the whole process. Um, but I thought it
might be a good time to see if we could just negotiate a few more things from that board of public utilities. I mean, it's sort of top topdown driven. We have a couple little things where we can negotiate. We really can't say no. I mean, it's prescribed like with any
other utility, but we have a couple little areas. So I recommend that we discuss those areas, look for some concessions where we can, but you can't turn around and say no to this. It's a utility. It's going to happen. Yeah. The state's mandate, but we need we need to
reach out to them in the next couple of weeks to start that so that they're aware that we want to speak to them. Otherwise, they're just going to move forward as if they're they have approval. So a lot of times, uh, is what are you looking to get? Um, you
actually mentioned it and it it it Thank you. for us at our different parks so that our cameras could be live rather than just with a memor stick. Yeah. So that
is one thing I I would hope that either package could cover that whether that be the wireless RFP or cable you know and Exfinity can stretch that out as well. So I think that's one of the things that
um we should be talking to them about before we just finally approve. What what's the time frame for approval for their license end of the year? They I think if we don't do something by August just open
Yeah, I don't It's okay. Um, we have to have notification done to them by August 27th with municipal consent due by November of 26.
Does it roll over if we take no action or Yes. Oh, I see. Yes, it automatically is approved. Yeah. So then we should reach out to them. Um because yeah, it is another safety issue. Uh one of the things that uh on the recreation side we were looking at is being able to do
digital notifications of field use, who has it scheduled, when they have it scheduled, uh plus cameras on the parks to to damage and and usage. Um, yeah. So, there's a public safety aspect, but then there's also a public uh works
aspect of figuring out who's where when they're supposed to and when they've signed up. Uh, a complaint from the recreation side is out oftowners that are using our fields for for gaining. you know, they're running sometimes they run uh camps.
They run their own little trainings and things and and our ordinance says that they should be renting that field and then paying the fee to use it. Uh but we don't really have any record of it. It's it's hearsay because we don't have wireless to be able to uh have real-time
camera usage to then send somebody down and ask them what they're doing. the bank shine. That's a good that's a good So we will um reach out to them to begin that discussion.
Okay. The two 2025 budget. This is uh different than a normal process because normally we would have meetings and stuff. We talked, you know, briefly at the last meeting I talked about setting up a special meeting, but we didn't really talk about a date on one or finalize anything. So, what we're doing
is we're giving you a draft budget that we propose potentially introducing in June. We are not necessarily finalized on the number that is here. Alex and I think we can lower that a little bit still. Um he and I just need to sit down
later this week and figure out how we're going to do that. Um, one of the key things that I want to talk about as to why the number is jumping as high as it is this year, um, revenue changes. We are receiving $100,000 less in state
aid from the from the state. Uh, we were able to make that up by, you know, for example, we were able to increase our ambulance fees by 100,000 from 200 to 300,000. Um, we last year when we started the stipen program, we received
some additional money from the fire department to help offset that. We don't have that this year. They don't really have that to give to us. Um, overall your revenue has decreased approximately 16,000 from last year. Um, not including
grants. Expenses. Some of the big things that have occurred for the expenses is last year we started the fire stipen 247 in May. This year you have a hundred I mean you have you have 12 full months of it plus we're not offset by any additional revenue. So you know that's
jumping from 200,000 up to 300 and some thousand. Um you know the police department you have a lot of young folks there so they're in steps rather than than the uh smaller raises. So that is going to jump more
than your typical percentage raise. Um in addition there is a new employee. Um so that's increasing that department. Um and you said younger people are getting married. So for well that's health benefits. I'll get to that in a minute.
Um you know municipal clerk budget doubled. That's because you have a punishment this year. It's once every four years. Um so there's that. um your health benefits have increased $230,000 which is a little high and unusual for
us. That's mostly because um there was a we we did have we've been very fortunate unlike most places. Our increases have been very minimal over the last six years for our pump benefit costs. Um we actually had no increase for a couple of years and then we had minor increases.
We do have a larger increase this year. Um, again, I mostly I believe in prescription. Um, but we also have several due to the fact that we have a lot of young folks working for us. Many got married and then had families. And so you're switching from a approximately
$15,000 cost to a 32 or $36,000 cost. Um, that hit us last year pretty hard. So you're you're seeing that jump in there as well. Um, again, public works, you have some people who are still in steps. So, those increases are
um, you know, there those increases are again not you're not going to see a typical, you know, 2% increase there. um vehicle maintenancees. You know, we while we try to replace our trucks as well as possible and we have tried to
maintain them. Um you know, we've done a much better job over that over the past 10 years, we've run into some larger expenses lately. Um and and we need to spend some money on on the vehicles that we have. Do we have um trucks being held? Um we
may have a couple, but again, that's going to go just into MNA. It's not really something that's going to it's not something we're spending money on for maintenance is what I meant by that. But if it's fully depreciated and you sell it, it's going to be revenue, right? Or no, it's
it's revenue. It's not revenue we anticipate typically. Okay. Um right now is a great time to sell vehicles like we have tons of money for ours, okay, by companies. Um pensions increased. Um, it took us a
couple of years to settle the police contract. So, on top of your annual increase in police pension, you also have about $30,000 in retro that's going to be due to them. And did you acrew
anything from a previous budget or no? No, because it's it it's budgeted the state kind of looks at you and says budget specific for certain things and doesn't really like you expanding. Um so we we did not um and we had an increase
in debt service this year. So having said all that, you know, you're looking at about just, you know, just under a six cent tax increase. Um 5.79 cents. uh it would be about $33 for
the average household which this number is probably low for average household at 522. Um and the other thing that increased to just to bring to your attention is the library tax. We are finally at a point where the the formula which is three
mills for the library when you have a municipal library um is is actually more than what we used to budget for them. So, this increase is based on that formula. Now, um you know, there's about a $14 increase to the taxes overall for
the library increase. So, what I need to know from you guys is how low do you want this? And what services potentially are you willing to look at
changing if necessary depending on how low you want to get it? So, one of the questions I have is uh what's in cap, what's out of cap? Everything's in cap except your shared service amounts, debt service, and
capital. And we meet our caps. We have we between cap banks, we meet our appropriations cap and our um what's the name of the other cap? I forget the name of the other cap, but
our other cap that they put on us about 10 years ago. Okay. So we're not we don't have to change anything to get within cap. We have a budget that is allowable to move forward. Okay. And then how much of
what's on the horizon? So the two things I'm going to ask for on the horizon. uh public works contract because that's one group of regulated labor and you said we just settled the police contract. When's that up again? Well, we set it took us a couple years
to settle the police contract. It's actually up March. All our contracts run from April to March. Um it's something they started a very long time ago. Um police contract is due up in March of 26.
Teamsters is due up in March of 27th. Typically what we do is we negotiate the police. Whatever we give the police, we give everyone else. So for example, the police are on their last uh raise in their contract. It was 2.25%
in on April 1st. Everyone else is a step behind them because of when we negotiated with them. So everyone else is is at one and a half on April 1st and one and a half on October 1st. um which nets out to roughly a one and a
half cash with basis wise. Um and then next year public works and non-UN employees would be getting a 2.25. So police negotiations is up. Um we should be starting those
conversations next month. uh you're going to have more more you know debt service is probably going to you know readjust again. We still have hopefully some of it will be taken away because of the sale of bankrupt. Hopefully we'll be able to finalize that
in the next year. Um and that will go right to principal. It'll go it'll actually go to uh notes. Oh, the notes that we haven't converted and then we'll and then we'll convert the rest. We we are actually probably
going to be converting some of the rest at the end of this year. And do we have the bond sale budget? The cost of it. Yeah, the cost of it. Yeah, that's that's absurd by the ordinances. Oh, it is. Okay. I just again school board it's it's different
like you actually budget for we we put it in. Yeah. No, we put it in the make sure I have a little extra in the ordinance. Okay. Um because that's what's causing it. Um yeah, we're paying a higher interest rate right now because we haven't
converted to longterm because a lot of Well, some of it has the notes are what? No, it's it's not necessarily that. What happened typically your notes are a lower rate, but what was going on with the economy is the the notes and the long-term were coming to the same
amount. So it no longer made sense to be keeping things in notes because you're allowed to keep them in notes up to 10 years as long as you start to pay them down after a certain point. Um but it didn't make sense. So you go out to bond then you're in a dedicated 20 years or 15 year cycle depending on what you sell
the the length of the um bonds and that all depends on what what ordinances are in and what their useful life is. That kind of all depend all flushes out to how long you can sell the bonds for. Well, when you peg a barn also to a revenue source. So, we're trying to peg it to a pilot payment to
be able to settle make that payment. Yes, we are anticipating that the pilot payment will go towards for the remainder of the portion that the burrow had to pay for that property. Y correct. Um,
right now we're still in that flux where the shortterm and the long term are really close. We have not gone out to permanent because we thought we would be when we originally made the plan that we were going to go out early in this year,
we had the idea that um we know where we were with Bankroth to be getting ready to close that so we wouldn't have to go out for those notes um because those are actually taxable notes compared to what our typical is non-t taxable. So it shows a difference in rating there. I mean a different not a different in
rating but there's a difference in in rates that you're charged for that taxable notes are a little um at a higher interest rate than non-t taxable rates. Um so we have bumped that you have extra money in interest costs this
year because we've bumped that sale to the to the second half of the year. Um, is there anything else in the budget that if we are going out for bond sale would make more sense to bond? Nothing in the budget. You are going to have to
make some decisions with capital and stuff moving forward and what you want to do and what you don't. That's going to obviously increase future debt service costs. Um, you know, some unexpected, you know, we've got an increase in in electricity here. We don't know where that's going
to fall. Um, that's kind of one of the things we've been told there's going to be an increase in electricity coming. We're just not exactly sure what that is. Um, did first snowfall in two years uh first active year, did that show up in the budget at all? No, we were we were good
because we always typically budget some um for snow and then use it for other things if necessary or cancel it. Um, what else is in here? And the last question is it depending on
one of the one of the alternates in the some of the proposals for trash would allow our public works to be freed up to do other type of work. So I looked at that initially that was my thought but then I went back and I looked at the
solid waste bids that we were working under which is the next topic. So, so that's what I thought initially. I was like, wait, if I'm going to spend this, keep everyone on for a year, see how the service goes, and just award everything. And then I realized that
Waste Management almost tripled, actually more than tripled. They had 20 they increased their price by 218%. Yeah. What now? So, is that price
something that Waste Management customers are seeing across the state or is that a a uh subtle way to say good with someone else? No, it was not. They were not happy that they lost. I think their
contracts that they negotiated are far more expensive than what they used to be. Okay. And so, they're trying to make adjustments in their contracts. Um the new company the first year of their contract is just
slightly under what our existing year is for waste management currently now. Um so we're not suggesting that we take on any additional you know additional services with them. Yeah. Um and that change has been put in here because it's only for four months. You'll see a
better change next year. Um, but you know, we we did some research on them to make sure because that scared us initially when we looked at the numbers and went, "Wait, what the heck is going on here?" Um, but then when you compare it to what our old contract was, it's more in line. Um,
more in line with the predictable spend we've had. Correct. Okay. And then because again, this year's contract, this 12-year month is is a little over $600,000. their first year of their new contract was 1.3.
That would have been a huge jump for us. If they had been the only bid like they were last time, that would have been a huge dramatic. You'd be seeing even larger numbers here. Um and rejecting and going out would have been a really risky proposition. No, actually probably
what we would have talked about at that point was bringing it back in. Yeah. Right. And doing it internally again at that point because it would have been cheaper for us to do it internally. Um, but that comes at the expense of other things in town that they do. Well, you hire additional people is what you'd end
up doing. Um, so we have the equipment if we did that. We have some. That would be the other issue. If anything breaks down, we would have some issues. But yeah. Um um so I I we did some research on the on
these folks and we believe that they are quite capable of it. They are a large firm. Um they are based out of Tom's River I believe is their main focus. They do do Washington Township I think it was city cluster do they city too?
But they have an office of base, but they have they have a number of Gloucester County community service. So it would probably might be their base of operations put in Glouester County. Yeah. So that Well, the nice thing about this town is there's there's somebody that's in every
freaking industry. Do they do Camden City? Thank you. Do they? I know they have an office. There you go. Um, so that is in here again if not to derail the 25 budget but I thought yeah they kind of conflate they do and and
that's yeah it's important to put in here increase their personnel and associated costs. So I mean it's it's like a business like you the other discussion would be you know reduction of personnel you know and therefore
reducing at least the you know salary wages costs but I mean the pension costs going back going back to our budget. Yeah the fate is sealed there. There's not much you can do there. So I mean really you're talking about what do you have in the budget to really trim
personnel and maybe scale back on streets? Well, I'm not crazy about scaling back at all in the uh stipen program for fire because I mean we have a man's shop 24 hours a day, seven days a week and uh we know that that
they have great hearts and we have a very strong volunteer program there and it's still a necessary expense. I mean, it's proven that this type of program is important in terms of recruiting people and and the leadership there, but
I think you're talking about like full-time personnel, FDE and students. That's really like your two costs that are within your control. Do you have any recommendations for cuts? So like I said, I think we
Alex and I want to meet we think a couple lines may be able to be parred that you know between his vision of of what it is in mind that there might be some room to decrease. You might be taking a penny off you know we might be down to four cents four and a half cents
but that but that doesn't help set us up. So permanent expenses need a permanent source. And it's not saying that that it's not. It's just saying that how he's budgeted for him may not have been how I would Oh, I see. I have and and and I will tell you, and Frank knows
this from having been here before, typically there's no fluff in our budget. We, you know, when we get to the end and there's issues that come up and we have to potentially do transfers. last year was inc and we had to look at potentially transferring in for health
benefits. It was really really tight. Like our budget is so tight that when we have issues like that, we're close to now having to call an emergency which then we that money has to be raised in the following year. Um because we don't have the fluff to be able to necessarily just transfer around.
So that's you know that's one of the concerns. So, I'm just saying the difference that Alex and I think is that there's some some that we could pair down a little more to again make it to where there's no fluff. There might be just a tiny bit of fluff
in here. I might be able to get and we may be able to massage the revenue numbers a little more. Well, the thing I'm concerned about is the surplus rates. Uh really, how do you feel about that? I'm okay. I'm I'm okay. They seem low. The
surplus rates? what the surplus is that you've targeted. This is this is what we're anticipating using of what we have. We have 7 million. We're anticipating using 3.1 almost 3.2. Um I typically don't use
more than I think I can replenish. Okay. Um typically um and that and that's one of the things. Yeah. But if your target is to replenish it, I mean that's the whole point. I mean I think we need to um and
the ways you replenish fund balance is anticipating or receiving more revenue than you've anticipated which is why we try and be conservative with the number based on what we've received the prior year. um
you get it by um at the end of so for example we are in 2025 when 2024 closed out any appropriations that were still in the books from 2023 automatically go into fund balance so you keep your you have your current year and the prior
year still in the books just in case any any invoices or anything come up that you have to charge against there. Um so that will go into um fund balance. Um the reserve for uncollected taxes. So reserve for uncollected taxes is
something that municipalities have to budget unless you're doing tax sale in November, which we're not going to get into. Um the reserve run collect taxes. We are
required to pay the county, the school, the library partnership, and all the open spaces 100% of their tax regardless what we collect. We are a very fortunate community. We're
collecting anywhere from 98 to 99.8% of our taxes. We're very fortunate. When I first started here, we were collecting 98.2.3, something like that. um that has has changed. Again, part of
the reason we believe that's changed is more mortgage companies are collecting it, automatically paying it than residents paying it, things like that. Um but we we have something called reserve fund collected taxes where we're required to put something in the budget
that we automatically raise in our taxes in case there's not a 100% collection. So what doesn't get used of that to cover those 100% costs for everything goes into fund balance. And that's why you the user friendly budget and the
where your dollar goes. It's really stark to show how much we have to put aside for uncollected debt. Yeah. What is it 13 cents to the dollar? I I haven't looked at the user friendly budget since I had to do one like you know 20 years ago. Yeah, I
forced him. I made Alex really get good with graphic because uh because it's important to be able to see that some of these things stick out like sore thumbs when you see it in terms of sense to a tax dollar. Uh and that is one of those
that we have to do. It's I it's it's untouchable and idle at the same time. Uh but it's necessary to collect. Now again, we can We can look that's one of the ways that
we can look at tweaking that slightly to lower that number some and see where that puts us which can change this number also. So I mean like I said there's we're comfortable that we can probably lower it a penny maybe a penny and a half but I couldn't get lower than
that. and the average home. So, right now it's 303 with the 5.79 cents, but that's based on a 522 522 966, right? Yeah. That's the assessed value of the average Hadenfield
home, which that may be slightly off because I didn't get the the new number from the tax assessor. Say the number again. $542,966. Look at this sheet. It's over here. We have low medium. We have low, average, and and higher. That's kind of what we
do to Yep. So, what impacted the our state aid decrease this year? Anything or just luck of the draw? So, there's there's two components of state aid and I have to this goes back a long way and
I would not have be the finance background that I have without telling you that state truly isn't state. It's your energy inverse. It's your energy and receipts tax that the state decided would make more sense if back under McGrevy if they were to collect it and
then give us what they believed was owed to us. Um your thought on money. Yeah. Which is all then been short changed from us for all these years. Energy receipt tax rent for all the wires on the poles. Right. Right. Um,
having said that, just to give the history of it, um, then we hit a period of time where there was provisions where they were supposed to increase every year. Um, and then we got underground Christie who said, "Nope, we're going to cut that back." We started to get decreases instead for a couple of years
and then it stayed just stable for years. Well, there were two categories. there was um the energy tax and there was the compra and I am not going to remember what that stands for. Um but
what they did was the energy tax was the base. This was an additional amount over and above that that you were getting based on a prior calculation. And so what they started to do was increase this number a little. So they were kind of in compliance with the rules, but
decrease that number some. So you were basically getting the same amount. And then for the past two years, they kind of gave us a bump up in that number, but now they took it away. So, we're back with our base number of
$992,722 for energy and gross receipts tax, which if if it were years and years ago, that's only about what 30% of what we Yeah. I mean, and and look, the state has a couple of problems with the energy
tax before they can balance it and do what's right for communities. You know, you also have communities that basically have no tax, no, it's not considered to have a tax rate because it's less than 10 cents um because their energy tax is so high from when they used to have
large plants and stuff that are no longer working, but they continue to get the money. So, you know, the state hasn't taken away from them either to the extent that they so they kind of have to figure out how to offset all that, but that's a state issue on mine. So next step uh you're is this at the
action meeting next week or is this Yeah, it I mean we we can introduce next week. If not, we have to really in order for tax bills to go out, we really kind of have to come up with a plan. It just unfortunately with the election this year, it kind of threw us and and dealing potentially with bankrupt, it
threw us into a little bit of a ringer and we would not we would normally have done this process a whole different way. Is the tax bill due in August? Is that the next tax pay? Tax tax bills are generally created at the end of July to go out. Um if we don't have a budget,
they can't go out until we have a budget. And the last appropriation, the extension of your spending plan, when does that expire? Anyhow, what what our thought was when we introduced the budget, we're just going to put the budget in for the year. Okay. So instead
of do an extension just to actually file the budget. Yep. Okay. Um can he present to us next week? Yeah. I had to ask Alex to actually come and walk us through the budget. Present to user friendly budget for the public. He
has meetings conflict the same night. He can come next week. He won't be there for the public hearing. That's okay. He has to come once. Yep. So he he has to take his daughter to New York. Yeah. So it's a shared service. So our CFO is a shared
service between us and Vorhees where he is the primary CFO for Vorhees and we pay the shared service for using his services. He's also one of the state trainers for right for CFOs and for business folks. He he was he was an
auditor previously. Um he has done some speaking at of he's not necessarily a trainer but he's done some speaking. All right. Well, and he he is um former co-orker with the the business ministry. They worked at Bowman
together. Just for your actually for both you and and Dave, when you're on this sheet, this is last year's the numbers we used for last year's. And the key thing is is this number down here, which is the ratable base. What I always show you is
this increased budget with the old ratable base because you do get a benefit to that ratable base increasing. So for example um if we were still using the old
ratables the tax increase would be 6.36 with the new ratable base it's 5.79. So that just I like to show you the the benefit of of that increase because we've been through years where that also
was stagnant or decreased. So um yeah, we can so we can finalize this and tweak this down a little bit and introduce and and but if you guys have any questions between now and then, please let me know because this is a lot to dump on you and I understand that.
And do you have enough time if we have just the action meeting in June and then our July action meeting is Yeah, maybe we're actually better. Yeah, you have Yeah, you have to have 28 days. That's what I was getting at because we moved
this one, but we moved it up up. So, we have enough time to between the two. Yeah. And then you have enough time after that to do the tax bills and get them ready to be sent. I think we'll still have to do the the done the period. So, it won't be it
won't be August 1. It'll be sometime in August. It'll probably actually be sometime early September. Yeah. But that's fine. We have a lot of people that pay on that last day from an interest rate standpoint. Including a lot of banks. Yeah. Right.
They hold off to the very end. Yeah. No, we should be. All right. Thanks. We try not to be so painful next year and much easier and early. Um, we talked about the solid waste bids already. Um,
that does not need to be awarded and well actually we should award it because it's 60 days. Yeah. So, we should award it on Monday. Um, we are recommending going with the low bidder. Yeah. And they've been qualified. So, yep. And I would actually I would
actually award the whole five years rather than than one year at a time. That way you're locked in. The bid can do that. We could. I just We never have. Yeah, we never have. We've done We've done one and then just always renewed it each year, but I would lock them in.
What's the benefit of doing it five years? Lock them in. You're locking them in for the full five years. They have the opportunity to get out at the end of the year as well as we do. This way we're locking in those lower prices for five years and locking in the service for five years because they can find
another tenant be like, "Oh yeah, we went to that town instead of your tenant and they just walk away and we have to go get somebody else." If we don't like any of your we don't like service, you can you can still get out of it. There's always clauses in the um contract to be out of it for
performance and other other reasons. Just have to document everything. Yep. So I would say from public work standpoint this is going to be a lot of work it will uh I mean just uh even initially the transition even our even our
everyday driver now shoulder injury uh or shoulder surgery for about three months whatever it was. Yeah, that mean a lot of mistreats, mishouses, miss. I mean, it's just, you know, there's a lot to learn. You think, how hard can it be? It's I mean, no matter how good this
company is, there's going to be a steep learning curve. You're saying like they have to learn how to collect on Lee, right? I mean, I'm just telling you that like, you know, I mean, and waste management, I mean, we've had this waste management, if you compare what we were getting to other municipalities that we they were a
great provider. I mean really we didn't have any problems with them at all. The biggest problem we had was them arriving too early. That's not a terrible problem. Yeah. Um so this you know sad to see them go you know I mean obviously financial notwithstanding but for the
new company that first few months is going to be there's going to be a lot of complaints just no and this is where communication comes in. It's it's going to be I lostad. Yeah. I hadn't even gotten to the weekend yet because to me it's September so a month. I haven't even thought about
it yet. But he's right. You know, part of the issue like we'll have issues right now if we have um a different driver or they have vehicle issues or something like that where breaks down. They don't they don't get the the route completed. We have it where they come they call and
tell us they're not going to get it done. We put it out on social or on our app and on social media. um in that situation they're going to be learning all of those routes and if they don't have the same people all the time they're relearning those routes until they get the group of the same people
in. So you're going to and because one of the problems too that you have and we may not have it quite as much with them if they're based out of Camden as we did with Waste Management because they were farther away. Those drivers are also only allowed to be in their vehicles for
so many hours. So that includes getting here, leaving here, going to the dump, finishing at the dump, and then getting back to their office. So they had like waste management has to be out of here by 2 or 3 at the latest in order for
their guys to get back 2 a.m. No, in the afternoon. They're coming in at at, you know, 6. Um, they have to be out to be six. It's supposed to be six to do the downtown. Um,
so that's one of the things too with them sometimes, but these guys are closer, so it may not be as much of an issue of when they have to get out. Um, but we can sit down with Bill and he can go through all of it. He's been dealing with waste management and the issues
we've had um since. Yeah. Yeah. So, we'll be able to sit down and with Bill and and Joanna come up with a communications plan to figure out how we're going to address that before September. But all the routes have been documented. Yeah, they're all part of the bid. You know, it's, you know, the
um this is actually good because it also decreases the Saturday pickup that we were charging for. Um so yeah. Wait, is this a good time to um talk about the July 4th
on um on Friday trash trash pickup? Oh, that's just between us. I mean, you can if you want to ask their opinion of it. I don't I don't have the dollar. I wouldn't didn't wasn't able to respond to you this afternoon because I didn't have a dollar amount. Yeah, Bill can calculate
the dollar amount and get it to you and we'll get it from him. But the question that we need to answer and this is a little off a little on topic, a little off topic, but Friday the 4th, we won't be able to do trash pickup. So, should we do double pickup on Thursday, pick up on Saturday, which we would have to pay
overpric overtime for, sorry, or do double pickup on Monday? Where are the Thursday and Friday routes? They're next to each other. A Monday, a Monday, a Friday pickup or opposite sides of town, right? They would send out two different trucks.
Yeah. Well, the the thing with downtown though, they collect Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Yeah. They downtown they collect every day and Saturday. Not the big bellies. Not the big bellies. We're not talking about the big bellies. We're talking about trash in general. And there'll be a ton of trash generation. So the Saturday normal Saturday pickup
would still occur down. So waste management is going to pick up on Saturday where we have to figure out recycling. We have to figure out recycling pickup. That's the issue. It's like what do we do with our personnel? We talked about it initially. I I thought let's do Thursday because that way you get it
over. But that's going to confuse people. People are used to it happening the day after, not the day before. Yes. So, it's do we bring them in for overtime on Saturday or wait until Monday? Wait until Monday. You better wait until Monday since it's just recycling and not trash and a lot
of people anyway. Yeah. Yeah. I would think Monday would be better. We don't need the We don't pay the extra cost and we don't confuse the hell out of people. And if they put it out, it just sits all weekend. Well, most people aren't going
to talk about that. Okay. There you go. The agenda because I The next one is uh the discussion in 616. Yes. Oh. Oh, I thought you meant you wanted a copy of this agenda. She did. She just gave it to me. She just gave it to I forgot to
print it out. Oh, I thought you were asking what's next on the No, no, no, no, no. I needed a copy of the agenda. I forgot to print it out. Um, so question for you before we go into the items on the agenda. Dave, I had heard a rumor that you maybe wanted to make some
changes and maybe we didn't need to go into monthly reports every month. Well, I wanted to ask the opinion of these of a tier and a Frank. How do you feel about at action meetings us doing the show like the what's
happening in each of the departments? I think it it makes these work sessions longer as we're getting these updates from all but how do you feel about doing the departmental reports versus just putting them in the packet or just putting them on the website or just
putting them on the website right yeah that's what I mean about the packet like putting them on the website uh so for so for instance ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra ra rather than having was public work yeah I mean you know Frank Frank would go through there would
be department of public works and this would happen. There was a number of treats. This is what we have done and here's a collection or here's the engineer like do you want them to keep coming and doing those things or now to be the chief of police, chief of fire, do you want them to come keep making
those comments or just say the reports are reports are in writing. They're on the website. So I'm fine with this one just doing it just because I'm meeting with Chief tomorrow, Chief Cutler tomorrow and I've not discussed it with Chief Gorman yet. So I would say for the
next one it's probably fine just the interest of time just to keep it going but part of what I'm going to be asking them is just about how they want to convey the message with their respective department. Yeah, I I kind of view it as in,
you know, I I if you could turn it like a onepage summary, you know, but that's what I was hoping. Graphs and bar charts, that'd be fine. But anything more than that, just I I actually thought of it as highlight, like what do you want to highlight this month? And that you just put it in the report. you
know, he's put it on the website instead of every month coming in and saying, "This is how many tickets we wrote, this is how many attempted breakins there were," and all. I mean, that's you just don't have a lot of people who attend these meetings. It's the same thing over and over again. Like I just you I'd
rather just find a way to you know in general you've had you and I had this conversation over the age of 50 you just don't read content the way you is a proven study like I'm just I'm not going to read 20 page report about anything unless it's about like surf
destination or like a nice golf course but like I mean it was something like that like I read on Powerire magazine. Yeah. So I I think we have to in general just look at like the USA Today model like what does the front page look like in terms of graph colors and you know and bar charts and then for people who
have content how do we post the content and this is leveraging the communication officer to kind of just say what what do you think that people want to hear? The last thing I want is anyone spending five hours writing a report that no one in their right mind's ever going to read. Yes. Yeah. A pager. I think one
page summary of the months. I I mean in our case under public works. I would probably want to give a little bit of like what's to come next month. Like I would I mean that's hard for you to do as public safety and and for finance, but like it would be good to know like hey you're probably seeing a bunch of X
marked trees and that's this is what to expect. You know if you want to debate any of that kind of thing. So, I'd love to do a one pager, but yeah, I don't know if we can get full read out every time. Yeah, we're going to airate and see these fields next month, right? You know, just to know that there everything happens on a routine because these are
all routine reports. So, so if we're going to switch, everybody's going to love it. If we're going to switch and not have full readout of all the reports, not necessarily Monday, but after that, do you still want your department heads here in case there's
questions? I mean, both of yours are probably going to show up anyway. Yeah. But we don't necessarily need to pay for the engineer to be here. Do we pay for Bill to be here? No, he's a department head. He required to be here. Okay.
Um, just And that's that's their choices. Yeah. Yeah. So, just so we know just so we know what to tell them. And we've already decided that Alex can't be here most of the time because they're at other meetings.
Um, but he provides the report and it goes online. So that's where that's why I don't even read it. I've never read it since I became the commissioner of revenue and finance. I give I pick out one thing to highlight. January, it's dog licenses, right? It's it's uh during
the budget season, it's budget. During the tax collection month, it's pay your taxes. I mean, these are pretty very routine. The collection rate for the month, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. We don't I if I even say it, it's all on it's all online. That's just how
I've felt about it. Long meetings don't need to be longer. These work sessions are long. The action meetings are we talk these things to death as these folks are all thoughts. Um okay. Uh so thanks for asking them, you know, to see how they feel about
going forward. But leave that as it is for this Monday. Yeah. Yeah. The other question I had was F on the 16th. Uh so I put out for the last meeting five minutes, three minutes to give people a second bite at the
apple. I I did it, but I didn't ask you guys because I just wanted to see how you felt about it. U so one of the other things you guys need to figure out how you're going to handle is
when somebody is up asking you questions, you know, are you going to answer their question and then are you going to pause their time because you're not taking their time or are you going to have them ask all their questions, finish their time, then you guys answer them
because sometimes then it becomes conversational and Yeah. And then you kind of Yeah. And and tonight I tried to mimic what I thought was right, which was collect all the questions and then have a dedicated section where we just go through the ones we can and assign
follow-ups for the other questions. So if we couldn't answer, well, here's a great example. Homelessness. Frank mentioned that there's an ordinance. Okay, Sharon, get the ordinance. Get give us a report on the ordinance. So uh and then we can
present that report at the next time the next work session really because that's not going to be an action item. uh we talk about but to collect them all answer what we can assign what we can't and then just move on it to some degree the second so in an
action meeting it's the second it's the basically the comments on all other topics because most of the agenda topics we're going to cover anyway because right they're on the agenda right but still regardless I mean you're what you're going to have is somebody's always going to have a followup or
they're going to have a comment to your comment. So, you just that's what I'm I just want to put it out there. Three of you need to figure out how you're going to address that so that you then consistently do it moving forward because otherwise you're going to get
into these back and forths that we started to get into here. And then that also then extends things. I don't care which way your decision is, right? But just should put some thought into that so that you're what has worked in the past or what has not worked obviously back
and from a case law perspective we'll get a little bit of latitude here but um what court decisions have sort of adopted and accepted is at the beginning of the calendar year. So obviously we get some leeway because we're a main nonpartisan this new group. We want to
do this. You're going to adopt it now. not going to do it again in January of 26 to adopt the policy. So if you're saying it's five minutes with three minutes followup, you adopt it so that no one would ever say Yeah. And it's not our followup. So what happened in the
the school board when we did the second bite of the apple was somebody would make a comment, somebody else would make a comment that would trigger another thought. They would then come up to finish their thought. This wasn't another three minutes to talk to us. It was another three minutes to share their
thoughts with us. Yeah. But it was basically triggered off of other things they heard from the audience, not from responses. So that's the change, right? That that you get up, you say your piece for five minutes, somebody does a yes and that makes you think of something
else. It now gives you that second opportunity to come up and say, "Oh, yeah, by the way." But all while we're listening, writing it down, and then we'll respond in mass to the crowd on all the topics and especially on an
action meeting, we're then incorporating that in the discussion of the agenda items as we land on them. So, kind of like tonight, we pulled some things like uh the fall festival and the the fireworks we actually covered on the communication plan. The fall festival we
talked about in public property. Uh the Chris talked about uh or he talked about fireworks too. We The only thing we haven't really gotten to yet on this was Gil Road and Michael
Miles. I I we haven't gotten to Yeah. Right. It's you you wouldn't I mean that's that's honestly something that we need to follow up on. Yeah. Right. So, so that's something right that we put an answer in the spot, but now you've just been assigned to get an answer and then
respond back to Michael uh you know or talk about it next week when we actually talk about the probe program. Oh, this is a 24 load program. That's that's for the 25 row program. I mean, that's why we'll have to meet soon
to with them. Oh. Oh, I see. Answer because we're getting ready to award it, right? So one more thing to consider u particularly with more contentious topics and meetings and we've had this in the past and adopt a policy I mean I could in the past I'll share with you my
opinion but this practice of yielding my time that becomes this is not the United States Senate you know we're not we're not we're not yielding to the gentle lady from Tennessee or we are under Robert's rules of order the I think it
becomes particularly unwieldy and from a practical pragmatic respect. I mean, poor Joanna or whomever's got to do it say, "Oh, you had three minutes remaining. You've assigned it for this one." And like that becomes on you have your five minutes, you have your additional three. No. Yeah. And no
assignment of time. I mean, because then it especially with topics that are that bring a lot of of people to turn out. We've had them over the past couple years. I mean, we've had some soccer meetings that my god, this auditorium has been packed and yielding time and
you're we're here till midnight. The uh on the length of grass, which Franking time Frank's having topics about cutting the grass, cutting the grass. Yeah. There are still people that remind me during the uh during the mask
conversations at the board and I was I was the time keeper. Yes. And I can remember a woman. I'm not finished massive but unfortunately your time is and there's other people that have to wait but so I'd recommend not adopting a where you're yielding and giving time to
you have your time speak of that because it's just unwielding and we'll give you the second bite. Yeah. So yeah to finish your most important thought but we wait to respond until the very end or we respond throughout the agenda
as they come up. depends on you have you have two types. You have two types of of public comment during a regular. Yeah. There's agenda items and then there's everything else. Yeah. Yeah. And we didn't do timekeeping tonight at the work session, but but and actually in the back and forth there's probably
less. Oh, I I think everything was less than five minutes, but we didn't officially Oh, you were keeping time. Oh, thanks Joy. Yeah, one last thing before we talk about the things. Um, you've also mentioned that you wanted to switch from interactive zoom to YouTube. Well, it's
something I wanted to float by too. So, uh, one of the reasons that the chief's here, right, is is to give a report and the other is because we in in my time just sitting here, we had three Zoom bomb attempts and that's since November, right? Uh so zoom bombing is something
that is unfrequent is is frequent enough to put to make it a distraction to the public meeting. Uh that I don't I don't know how much participation we actually get from the
online to make it worth it. Not not to make it worth it to have access but to have interactive access. So instead, now that we're switching to putting our recordings on Zoom, that we could I mean our Zoom recordings on YouTube to then
instead switch it to broadcasting our meetings on YouTube. Uh and creating an opportunity during the announcement of the meeting agenda on Fridays to say if you have any questions about the agenda, just send the question in. Yeah, I did
not know what Zoom bombing was. I've only been part of closed Zoom sessions. I unfortunately had to explain what it was to me. Yeah, they can get colorful. It's not I am in favor of uh webinar style uh whatever webinar. Yeah. I mean, and
we've seen it in different fashions. We've seen just Tom Foolery and we've seen come people come in as common names of people that appear on our Zoom sessions, but they're not them. They're other people. So we've seen two different flavors of Zoom bombing. Tom
Fullery and malicious. Is there an opportunity call in or not in real time? Same problem. Yeah. Well, we're not built for the phone. Yeah, you'd have to have the phone system. I mean, it's effective question for the phone. Just have listen
on a speaker phone like a dial number. I was thinking like just voice over IP. Like I don't know if this connected to a number or not. like put a dollar in number and just I have to check. Yeah. And this is so the model that we're trying to follow is like the board successfully has done this for a long
time the board of education where they are broadcasting to everyone and then the recording is immediately available. Uh right now it's a it's another step that the clerk's office and the communication officer has to do. Uh I guess the only thing is used anyone who
attends Zoom meetings now just doesn't get the opportunity to ask any questions. That's correct. Live. Live. But they could submit a question or but who would they would submit them to? How far in advance before the meeting starts to a mailbox?
But how far in advance? Cuz who's going to be there to answer or to to look and see that we've got questions? Oh, that's a good question. So that was something we'd have to talk about from a process standpoint. If you have until 6 PM the night of the meeting so that it can be
printed out and read, you know, into the record. Yeah. Would you be the one taking over that? Yeah. I mean, we'd have to choose. It doesn't have to be me. It could be, you know, somebody else. Um, I mean to give ourselves time, I would
say at least like noon by the day of meeting. Well, just generally, how do you feel about switching from Zoom to from interactive to broadcast only? I do think it makes it more professional
to go broadcast instead of interactive, especially if Zoom bombing has happened in the past. That is the kind of thing that will put you on the news. You do not want to be part of that. um we can collect questions up until a reasonable time that gives us, you know,
enough like room to print it out um and read it and then we're also still accessible, right? Like they can email us at any point and they will hear back. Um so I think we can maybe like emphasize that that like this is one of
the many ways you can reach us and get your questions answered. Okay. Um, any other comment on that? Um, yeah. The only thing I don't like about is just like the inability to ask
a question in real time. Yeah, in real time. I think you're just going to have to have like push back probably. Well, this also kind of goes with the making sure the agendas are posted and they're complete by a certain amount of
time, Friday noon. So, it it comes to a longer strategy. So you have the whole weekend to mole and say is it worth for me to show up on Monday to uh ask that question or um but it so it's a part of a larger communication
offering which is also you know one of the things that I've complained about uh in the past was resolutions and ordinances that are read title only in first reading and because they're not totally complete by the time
the posting would happen that if you don't ordinance. Yeah. Ordinances. Yeah. No, not resolution. Yeah. No ordinance. Yeah. The ordinance is read by title only. I don't think that's acceptable. So if it's not if if the work isn't complete on it by the time it's legal. I
I don't care about it's legal. But but if the work isn't complete by the time the public has a chance to digest it and decide whether they want to come, I think it just needs to push to the next meeting. Yeah. And I said, "Oh well." And it's and if the time doesn't work for you guys, oh well, get it done and
push something else like you have to prioritize the work too just to make sure that the most important things are not missing dates. But I think it's more important that the public gets to read everything that we get to read in the same amount of time that we're given it. So that's the
larger component of that, Frank, is sometimes people are asking questions because it's the first time they've seen it and I want to put a stop to that. Uh because if it's not ready, it's not ready. There's no shame in it. It's just it got just has to wait till the next
meeting. Um and for us, Monday meetings means 48 working hours. I I'm still okay with Friday at 12, but if if we're sticking 48 work hours, I mean, it might be too hard on the
administration to be ready for everything. Uh but it's but I would rather stick to a Friday noon, whatever is ready is ready, and that's where we get to read and we have all weekend to do it and the public does too to decide
whether they want to come. The only thing I would ask is just to make things easier for Susan, we don't necessarily switch over until after the July work session. Oh yeah, we have to grow into these things. Yeah.
So, okay. I would even allow her to participate by Zoom for communications. Well, sure. She's in Florida. Well, and I would also say maybe even it's a this is a see in September type of changeover, too. You just have to let me know when you want to do it. I know. Well, what do you guys The July one's
very specific because our telecommunication person is remote or fly up for it. It's just easier to have her participate the Zoom. And then the summer months are quiet. So, like let's just say September, we're going to start out the year. Okay. And that way we can
we have plenty of time to notify the public of the change. Yes. And get feedback on it. And would there be times where that would be changed because if you have a second time that you have to have a a
professional attend remotely, you know, can or is it set in stone? Well, a professional providing information to the board
is not the same thing as public comment because it's not public comment. It's professional comment. Uh, can you have multiple I I'm sure you can have multiple presenters. Well, the older alternative is very expensive which and Frank you had mentioned this
before where we had talked about or you had all talked about a Zoom webinar license which would handle that where we could elevate people to be able to speak to us but everyone else is passive and that would have solved the problem too. It's a budget at that point. You know,
Zoom is 40 bucks a month. A Zoom webinar license is like 500 bucks a month. Well, our Zoom right now is 17 bucks a month. Oh, okay. because it's a personal it's a personal Oh, it's Zoom. Yeah, but a webinar license is like $500 a month
more. Yeah. How about a teams? I don't I don't know what that is. It part of our 365 package. Oh, use 365. We've direct on our computers. And so our mail our 365. You use 365. So
we pay a license for you to use 365. We use We ours are d we purchase the software. It's directly on our on our computer. So we're we're licensing you Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. I only have Outlook. I only have Outlook. Everything else comes from work. You're
the fancy one. Whatever you want. You just I I don't I don't know how you have 365. That's a conversation for Jason. He figures that out. But the point is that that's a very ex it's a
it's a it's a real number. So it's it's $6,000 to offer that feature all the time versus tackling it in a ad hoc way if it actually has to come up. And do we have and I don't know the answer to this. Is there do we have a
technological capability that if you have somebody by YouTube broadcast can we also host a zoom? Yes. Okay. 670. I had a lot of dad to do it back in January. 600 a year. Oh, it's only 690 a
year. All right. So, it's not 6,000 a year. That's not that expensive. That's not that expensive. Just do it. Yeah. No, I think that's a better solution because it allows us to elevate it, but it still solves the Zoom
bombing. That's Yeah, we he'll figure it out. Yeah, I've never seen a couple. Yeah. No, that's a that would be worthwhile. We had a good one in Port year ago. Oh, I I had one of work maybe a month ago from a public meeting. It was not
nice. Not nice. It was very graphic. But I I work at a university system around they're pretty good at it, too. Uh, so if if we can if we could investigate the Zoom webinar, that would probably be the best of both worlds
where we're broadcasting, recording, but also be able to elevate speakers when we need to. Yeah, we can take care of that and all by September. So, it gives that breathing room for it to get feedback on it. We can take We can take care of that. And then Joanna can work out a
communications method to let everybody know what's going to change. Um so in addition to well first of all like obviously the resolution for celebrations is just the parade um authorization for thermoplastic we only
have to do that once every couple of years so we don't need to do that that was from last year. Diana is just kind of bringing stuff forward from the previous year. the road program. We are hoping to be able to award they those bids are coming in. Just get into my phone and see the
calendar. Oh, while she's doing that, Alex also Thursday, Alex also asked me to um include the um cola ordinance. Yes. So, that's what I was going to get to next. So, okay. You're going to have
there's the COLA ordinance which is so in municipal budgeting there is a appropriations cap requirement. So your appropriations amount inside the
inside what's inside the cap and outside the cap which which what you're allowed to increase is 2%. It's based on some number that the state decides they're going to put out each
year. You then can increase that up to three and a half, but you have to pass an ordinance to do it. We do that every year because then that creates if we don't use that in our actual um budget,
we're allowed to bank that so that we kind of have a cushion in future years to be able to use it. How long does a cap last? Three. Yes. Yeah. A bank cap lasts three years. So you can you have three years to use your bank or it don't make Well, you get to use it once, but
Well, yeah, you have three years to use it once. Yes, it sits there, but you get to use it once. Um, so it's an ordinance we do every year. It's It's just a typical budget ordinance that we do every year. Um, what's it called again? Core. Yes.
Um and we'll get you a sample of that um so that you can see it. Um obviously the other things are the budget introduction will be on here. Um a salary ordinance will be on here just approving the salaries that would be
included in that budget which again goes back to everybody gets what will we're the non-UN employees are at one and a half% on April 1st and one and a half% on October 1st. Uh part-time employees
are part of that. Yes. Is that where we can also do title ch title changes? Yes. So, one of the title changes is from uh Mabel K from coordinator to director. Right. The the board has requested that
title be changed. Um you one of the things we're going to be talking about in a minute is the partnership budget. Um that will also be on here because you are the actual adopting entity for that
ordinance. Um So that will also be on here. The two resolutions that we talk about for affordable housing will be on here. The award for the solid waste budget resolution will be on here.
Think we've discussed anything plus this point. The ordinance for the stop for the Stop signs on lake will be on there for introduction. That should be that any additional proclamation requests
come in. not proclamations but awards for an coing and thank you for mentioning yeah call sir um I actually have let's see for ed nouns noms noms okay
okay I have uh Bill Shanahan did he resign from yes yes um Doug Mcllister and Coen are the ones that I had um I just got that one technically today. I'll add that. Um Kay Neil from
Zing. Do you want these people here? Yes, that's the the next question. It'd be nice to have Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank them for their service. So, what I'll do is I'll redo the letters that I have datam for next Monday and then I have
the uh certificates of appreciation as well for everybody. So, I'll just Walls. Um we don't sign that one. Oh, the the certificates. We just signed the letters. So, um I will add uh Miss
O'Neal and um update the letters. You don't stamp them if they're going to be here. Yeah. Put them in, right? No, I didn't even print envelopes. Is that the first thing we do? So, they can like Yes. The that Yeah,
proclamations is the Yeah, we can. It's not a proclamation. We can add. We'll add before the proclamations. We'll do certificate of of appreciation. Any other questions about the agenda? No.
Um, do we have to spit a close session next time? I it'll come up when it comes up. I do know we have one today. Yes. And Deanna has uh elections tomorrow and and she has to be up really early. So
sorry for this long meeting. I mean we could we can push Um some of the appointments we really shouldn't. No, I know. That's what I was thinking of. Um, we have a couple things we have to discuss, but we can try and
narrow that down and then push the other stuff either to for session. Yeah. To the regular meet a close session after the regular meeting. Yeah, do that. Okay. Or vacancy be we can we have to do a Sorry.
We have paper towels in the in the kitchen. Sorry. Is that a reusable? Yeah. Smells like whiskey. True. That'd be interesting, Frank, because I can't drink whiskey.
I can. Thank you. Thank you. Vodka's a better chance. Angry. I I don't like the taste. Get the ice cubes out of here. You can throw it back in here. I wish I just can't because they were all
starting to get sleepy. I still have a there's a new Irish whiskey building for that American distiller Irish whiskey. Yeah. No, it's not. No, I I know there's
articles there in America is is in the My favorite whiskey is called beer. Let me wipe that off a little bit more. Everything else is uh unnecessarily There you go.
We're all waiting. The next item is Haden Avenue. Yeah. And that's why these are here because this is the full draft set of plans for Haden Avenue. If you have very specific questions after the meeting, we can open it up and you can look at it. Um,
I gave you a brief synopsis of what is happening on Haden Avenue. Um there is a portion for us that would be uh the other change you're going to see in the budget adopted between tonight and
Monday. Um because we're going to use up the rest of the water and sewer sale money. There's like about $700,000 under that. Um and some other little fun money that not fun money but like fun I meant
money. Um fun debt. fun fun spreading around right money fun we're gonna pull in to help offset our portion of the Haden Avenue cost so we're not bonding as much for the Haden Avenue
cost um so because our the anticipated cost for us is is around a million dollars um and the counties is between three and $4 million for the project but it will all
of Haden Avenue from Lincoln to the edge of town. I'm just taking So the So the only thing I wanted to publicly state, you've already answered the question to me, uh was a concern of
some of the Haden Avenue corridor businesses about the sidewalks and why some sidewalks were being touched and why not others. uh some some some sections of town had already invested money into their sidewalks as a street
streetcape improvement and uh you just mentioned 100 block that needs to have the sidewalks and why? Yeah, I mean typically the county does not do sidewalks as part of their road programs. Um Grove Street
had some done because they were monolithic to the curb. So that's when you'll get them done if the curb needs to be redone. Um, if they're attached to the feds change handicap branch
environments all the time. So, whenever you put them in, it has to be whatever the most recent like when we did Gro Street between when we started the plan and because it was federal money by the time they came out and inspected it, we had to go back out and redo handicap
rings because the rules had changed again. Um but so there now is you know has to be flat spaces within so much from so there may be some sidewalks due to the handicap ramps. There may be
sidewalks because if there if there is a need to redo the driveway apron that they may be doing the sidewalks based on that. They're not just going to go out and fix all the sidewalks. That's not what they're going to do. Um it's only going to be very specific locations
because of issues and the 300 block I had in the specific issue is a storm water redirect. So that one correct that's a whole other issue where we were trying to do storm water
improvements connecting lake to Uklid could not get permission from the property owners because there was never an easement put in place back million years ago. So it rans private property. It does. We have that issue
unfortunately. um goes behind Bank uh Boxwood. Goes behind boxwood. Yeah. And the offices next to it then adjourned or a bus or 89 89. Right. So what we've created and it is
alternate in this plan in case it comes in too expensive and can't afford to do it. Um we've created a wraparound so to speak. So that in essence we're no longer putting extra water in that
connector and we're creating new line that goes around the properties in public property but that includes all the utilities in the street. We have to put that under the sidewalk. So that's why we would be doing the sidewalk there. Okay. Um but that is an alternate because we may not have the funding for
that. Just for the sidewalk please for for the for the redirect of that story just project. It might be something we might have to do in the future. That's all. Since it's the storm water that's budget, but it's been designed. It's
been engineered, right? It's just we may not be able to financially afford it at that time. That's what the prices are. So, we may have to go out later and do it as a separate project. Um, we were just trying to tie stuff in that made sense. Um, we also have some additional I wasn't quite sure if the county was
going to pay for this or not, but I think we're paying for it. We have some additional green infrastructure. Um when you are going out of town towards Haden Township on Had Avenue from just beyond the library like beyond
Uclid when you have heavier storms that are not the severe storms but just a typical heavier storm you get a significant amount of flow that comes down that right side like the
firehouse side of Haden um that then starts to because it's coming up all the side streets and then it starts to come out into the into Hagn Avenue. So we have come up with a few locations where we can do some green
infrastructure along there in the park strips that kind of may retain some of that water so that it's not expanding out to the street and then slowing it down from coming to that intersection which when we do have the heavier Tanner and pattern with her sexual
flood. Um opportunities for people to adopt them for uh growing or these stuff like that. Is there infrastructures where their their storage tanks under the the grass? So So yeah, we'd have an opening going in and kind of overflow a
little bit on the on the park strip, but it's more than going down into a a system underneath. So, but if you have any other questions, please let me know because I do have a lovely set of plans. Now, um and then hopefully that will be going
out to bid before the end of the summer. PFH update. Um this is simply they are it is time for their budget. Since we're going to be doing our budget, they're doing their budget also.
Have just the one sheet. He sent you a lovely um presentation um that I would recommend that we don't necessarily need to spend the time with, but we can certainly print them out as packets to be available for people if they're interested in reading it. Um
but in essence, their budget, while it is increasing, is not increasing with the tax. the tax is still the same $250,000 that they have collected since its inception back in 2006. They've never change they've never
increased their tax. Um and then you have the breakdown of how they are looking to spend their money. Yeah, sure. Yep. This all I printed out was just the actual budget and salary, right?
I think it says so Joanna is are you this is more of a so their plan other than the budget is uh since it's listed as a PFH update not just a budget sorry
have their printed there's one in color um so the reason I put this back is this is how we used to do PFH so this is here. So, for example, um it's right here in the color. We
is Frank. Um we we used to have PFH listed on our work session agendas. Then whoever is the Aison would come back like if there sometimes there may be no comment. Um other months there may be PFH is
thinking about a new event that they'd like to do. What are your thoughts? Um, and that's kind of where we would approve their events and things rather than through a discussion of use of burough property. Um, so that's why I went back to putting it on as PFH
updates. It's just if something has happened at the meeting that we want to pass on or um, you know, they're coming back to us with requests that they want us to talk about, that's the time period it would it would occur. I know it's a typo because of a space,
but if it really were $2.5 million in money market interest, could we invest with them, please? Yes, please. We'll have him fix up. Cuz otherwise Wow. I guess it's supposed to be $2,500,000.
Y paper this bone like a wedding. Wow. That's from American Psycho business cards, right? I know. All right. Anything on
their budget? No, I'll get a real quick. Okay. Um last thing in open is just um this is something if you guys again the 250th
anniversary of the country is next year. We talked about creating a committee to oversee the events in Hadenfield. Um we were going to do it. It didn't happen and it was going to happen and again it didn't happen. So we are getting close to it. So we really should create one to
figure out because we're running out of time. Um So, if you guys want to create a committee and we want to pull together some names um so that we can get those people together and start planning some stuff, would we be doing a general call for it, you know, through a marketing
campaign? Depends on how you want to handle it. And I mean, is it if you're doing a general call, then they're planning things that only they can raise fund raise to to get or are you appointing
committee and potentially asking them to fund raise and we're willing to sh pitch money in? Well, I was just saying a call for volunteers to serve on the committee. I know, but my point is there's you may want to look at it as two different things. If you're opening it up to the general public at large for
as many people that want to participate as possible, I'm not sure that you are you asking I would think then that at that point you would be saying okay you're a committee we need to do things but you also need to be able to fund everything you want to do
or are you being a little more selective and a little smaller and saying you might need to fund raise some but we might might also be willing to put some money in the next year's budget should do it. It's just a thought. I don't care how you create your committee. Um I just
think you should do one. Well, isn't there an events committee already that's part of the business improvement partnership platform? There is, but I think you want to There is, but I think in this particular case because the type of of occasion
that it is, there are some specific people in town that you might want to reach out and and get. For example, we were talking about um you typically I know the woman from the Indian king would probably like to participate. Are
they going to do something? Michelle um the state is doing something there. So yeah, but she'd want her, you know, Joe Murphy has been involved in almost everything. You probably want him, you know. So I mean I think there are some specific people that you really would want involved in this other than just
handing it to the partnership and say do it. Yeah. Well, one of the things, so like talking to the skirmish reenactors that say, "Oh, yeah. What's your what's your time look like for next year around Fourth of July?" And they laughed, "We're already booked in Philadelphia. We've been booked for a long time." Like
Philadelphia bought them all, you know, for next year because it's so huge in Philadelphia except for like our June date. Yeah. Well, no, the skirmish is fine. This is this is the Fourth of July. if we wanted to do a colonial theme fourth of July
wasn't going to have that I think that's a starting point no and this is where public private partnerships really come in I mean it's what we talked about at the very beginning of this meeting with celebrations uh is that the partnership has a part in it celebrations has a part
in it other groups groups in town that have their own ideas to plan and want to and do we create the canvas that everybody paints on or is Sharon saying are we creating the canvas and either supplying the paint or painting some of that picture
not to get too visible just such a huge moment for the country like we have I mean we have to do something we have to do something good we're older than the country colonial things that are older than the country in this in this town our town. Our fire
department's older than the country. I'm sure they'd want to have a big part in, you know, in that. Uh it's also the 100th anniversary of our school of our high school. So there's a lot of things that are going on at the same time in that time frame. Kind of the names of
the people that you want on the committee. All right. So that's what you're looking for us to submit names. So and it doesn't have to be like No, no. It's like so Well, Yeah, but you're gonna wind up you're
going to wind up with like just not getting developed. I mean, yeah. I mean, I think there's a combination of things that you can do. And I mean, I think there are ways that you can go with the colonial theme on some things where you're not don't
necessarily need the people, but you could still, you know, we could talk to the historic society about doing a special um house tour. Not to take away from interfaith Christmas house tour, but we could set up a garden, you know. Yeah. Or garden
tour that they do now. We could talk to them about a historic tour of some of the homes in Hadenfield. You know, that's that's something that they can bring to the table and run with and it's not just a day. Yeah. Right. So that's it's not just a Fourth of July type of
thing. Yeah. You want to And us you we may want to talk about moving our events on the 4th of July to the 3rd of July next year because the Fourth of July is going to be so big in Philly. You may not have people come. So you may I mean I still think we do something. We
just may want to talk about when we do it because what's going to be out there is Saturday. Yeah. You So anyway, I think we should get a committee to get so that you can start
talking about variety of things that can be done potentially. Yes, let's do it. Okay. I think it's a highlight of tonight's meeting. We should actually mention that we were talking about that. So that people who might be interested reach out to us.
Wasn't everything actually on the 2nd of July, but it wasn't released until the 4th. Is that is that Well, you make a very good point because one of the other things about the 4th of July and the Declaration of Independence is well is the penman the calligrapher of the
Declaration of Independence is really and the other thing I would I just thought of the other day is you know our lovely Three signers of the declaration might make more sense over in the Indian King Tavern for 2026 than on our walls.
It's just a thought. Have they asked? Huh? Have they asked? No, I don't know if they know we have them. No, they don't. Because the only person they have over at Indian King is Livingston. You know, it's I'm just saying for 2026, it
may make sense for them to go on loan. since that's where it was signed. They're creepy in here. Well, they're just creepy. All right. I uh I have a motion to go into close session. I'll I'll second
that motion. I'll make that motion. Got to make the motion. I'll make You're not the governing body. I'll make the motion to go into close session. I'll second. All right. And why are we going into close session? I was just getting ready to say we are going to talk about um settlement discussions for a lawsuit. Um
and contracts. Yeah. Contracts and appointments. Contract. Border tower contract. There's general contract that involve the border tower. General contracts. Yeah. General contracts. We vote on it. All in favor? I. Any opposed? No. We will be closing. We will
be ending the meeting from closed. So, uh no, we expect no action to take place. have no action to take place. Do you want to before we go, do you have any questions for us? Contract negotiations vacancies. Um, contract discussions.
You can contact Joanna tomorrow. coordinate for it. All right, Abigail. She Oh, no. She fall asleep. She didn't fall asleep. Uh, she'll contact me. Yeah, she'll contact
you. Okay. No, that's fine. All right. Well, thank you. You're good. Yeah, the bathrooms. The woman's bathroom's on that side. Time the building's