WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=43hg-QA5sL4

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: 43hg-QA5sL4):
- 00:00:04: Meeting Call to Order and Flag Salute
- 00:01:15: Approval of Minutes and Township Committee Reports Start
- 00:01:57: Sam: Hannesport School Budget, Tax Increases, Health Insurance
- 00:07:29: Ken: Environmental Commission, Data Centers, Invasive Species
- 00:10:03: Anna: Green Team, Earth Day, Native Plant Challenge
- 00:13:30: Andy: Memorial Day, Events, Public Works, Trash Pickup
- 00:18:47: Presentation: Hannesport Community Impact Award Winner - Joe Martin
- 00:21:36: Open Public Comments on Agenda Items Only
- 00:21:52: Public Comment: McKenna Speaks About Joe Martin's Impact
- 00:25:23: Public Comment: AJ Barto Met Wife In Joe Martin's Class
- 00:26:38: Ordinance 2026-6: Municipal Budget Appropriation Limits, Cap Bank
- 00:29:59: Ordinance 2026-7: Prohibit Parking on Section of Pine Lane
- 00:30:30: Ordinance 2026-8: Construction Code Uniform Amendment
- 00:30:49: Presentation: 2026 Hannesport Municipal Budget Explanation
- 00:47:11: Open Public Hearing on Municipal Budget, No Comments
- 00:47:34: Resolutions 2026-84-5 & 2026-85-5 (Budget Adoption)
- 00:48:22: Approval of Consent Resolutions
- 00:48:37: Resolutions: Health Benefits, Family Leave, Energy Tax
- 00:49:41: Approval of Business License & Charitable Bin Permits
- 00:50:18: Correspondence Discussion: 1207 Deacon Road, Time Extension
- 01:02:52: Open Public Comments, General Comments
- 01:03:08: Public Comment: Janice Len - Environmental Concerns
- 01:06:26: Public Comment: Bruce Levenson - Fiscal Responsibility, Campaign Accusations
- 01:11:35: Comments from Administrator Jen: Early Voting, Soil Removal, Positions
- 01:18:45: Comments from Solicitor John: Affordable Housing Compliance
- 01:21:10: Comments from Committee: Anna, Ken, Sam, Andy
- 01:37:18: Motion To Pay the Bills and Enter Executive Session
- 02:36:48: Motion To Reenter The Meeting and Action Items


Part: 1

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This meeting is called pursuant to the provisions of the op open open public meetings law. This meeting of May 12th, 2026 was included in a meeting notice sent to the Burlington County Times and Courier Post on January 9th, 2026 and advertised in said newspapers on January

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11th, 2026 and January 14th, 2026. posted on the website and the bulletin board of the municipal building on January 9th, 2026 and has remained continuously posted as required under the statute. In addition, a copy of this notice is and has been available to the

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public and is on file in the office of the municipal clerk. At this point, let's stand for the flag salute to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice

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for all. All >> right, Jen. Roll call. >> Committeewoman Evans >> here. >> Committee Montgomery >> here. >> Committeewoman Loveman >> here. >> Deputy Mayor Tory. >> Mayor Dick >> here. Okay, we got a couple minutes. Uh, got

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approval of the regular committee amendments for April 14th, 2026, as well as executive session minutes. I'd like to make a motion for both. >> Second. >> Mr. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Miss Leman? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Evans? >> Yes. >> Mr. Dick? >> Yes.

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>> Uh, got some reports here. >> Uh, we do have a couple state troopers here. Do you guys have report or just here for support? >> Great. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you, sir. >> Thank you both. >> And let's go to our township committee liaison reports. Uh let's start with Sam.

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>> Oh, me. Hi. Hi, everybody. Um I went to the Hannesport DOE meeting on Tuesday. Um they they had an honorable mention uh that was given to Halley Hendrickson by the American Legion for the for their Americans

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Americans 250th anniversary coloring contest. The PTO's next dine out is uh for Rita's on 38 in Larchmont. That corner right there. Um and I had the date somewhere. And of course I don't have it on me

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right here. And then next BOE meeting is actually next Tuesday the 19th if anybody would like to attend. And Rita's is I just had that pulled up. Give me one second. Nope, wrong one.

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All right. June 4th. Sorry about that. From 5 to 9, if you just mentioned Hannesport PTO, the uh some of the proceeds will go towards the Hannesport School. Um I try not to talk too much, but tonight

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I do have an announcement. Uh if anybody did attend a BOE meeting on Tuesday, they did have their budget presentation and this is for the 2627 budget. Uh unfortunately uh if you did attend you'll know that they will be raising

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taxes. In addition to that they are also making some cuts. Um it seemed to be mostly for staff for the paraprofessionals. Um this is not what we want to hear but this is the reality that we're living in. Um, I want to just go over something and this is not to persuade anybody's

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feelings towards what's happening. It's more of just to be as informative as possible. Um, because this one particular thing that I'm going to speak about is a little bit more complicated than your typical situation. Um, so part of the reason costs are are gone up is because utilities. We all pay utilities.

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We understand this concept. We understand what's happening. Um, the other thing is health insurance. So for the schools, this is a really big hurdle that they're struggling to get get by. And so I wanted to just try and break this down a little bit. Uh Paula

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will be going over a little bit for our township. And so normally um a school district health insurance cost will increase by 5 to 8%. This year Hannesport school district saw an 18% cost in health care for their employees.

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Most of us are feeling those higher costs for our own health insurance. Uh be it through our companies or if we buy through the marketplace or anything like that. Our schools and other businesses are no different. In many situations, an employee will pay

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a percentage of the actual health care premium cost. However, this is not the case for New Jersey New Jersey schools. Chapter 44 changed how school employees contributed towards health insurance. Chapter 44 changed how health care costs are shared between the employees and the

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school district. Employees contribute contributions are now tied more to salary tiers instead of actual insurance premium costs. Because of this, when insurance premiums spike, the district absorbs significant portion of that

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increase. So before chapter 44, employees would often pay a percentage of the actual insurance premium. When insurance costs increased, employees contributions increased with it. After chapter 44, employees contributions are tied mostly to their salary tiers.

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Insurance premiums skyrocket, say 18%, but employees payments rise only slightly and they cannot keep up. The school district absorbs much of that increase which impacts the overall school budget and the financial planning process. The board of education has

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limited control over these expenses because health insurance is legally required required. Benefits are negotiated through union contracts and most of them say that the if you are to shop around they must be equal or better to what they already have. Chapter 44

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limits flexibility in these plan options and cost sharing structures. So when healthcare costs spike unexpectedly, districts are often left with only a few difficult options. raise local taxes, reduce programs, staffing, services, and use reserve funds

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temporarily, which is something they have done already. This is why many districts across New Jersey are seeing tax increases. This is not a Hannesport problem. This is a New Jersey problem. This is honestly a health care problem. The reality is that healthcare inflation is rising much faster than the funding tools school

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districts have available to manage it. If this is something you feel strongly about, I ple I urge you to please reach out to your district 8 reps, Senator Tyver, Assemblyman Andello, and Assemblywoman Catz. I have drafted my own letter. I work for a school. This both benefits me and hurts me at the

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same time. I believe that a change needs to be made and I personally have written a letter and if anybody has any questions, concerns about this um would like to discuss this further, please reach out to me and also the BOE members. I have talked to them and they are more than willing to talk to anybody who has questions about this or anything

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that's affecting the school budget. Thank you. >> Thanks, Sam. Thanks for the research, >> Ken. Okay. Um, so as part of the uh as the liaison to the environmental commission, um, always

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very busy, always a lot of good work there. I'm happy to be a part of that. Um we um discussed um last meeting I discussed uh talking about proposing a to be proactive and preemptive for um to

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have a ordinance to disallow data centers in our town. And I said that I don't really think we have the infrastructure but we really did want to be proactive because Lord knows what'll happen 10 20 years from now. So, um we've um you know that's

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under the work that's on that's that's being worked right now. Um also um what we discussed was uh an invasive species management um act. Um so we've all heard about the bamboo in Hannesport. It's it's being it's there at Big Rusty and

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uh it's right on Creek Road there too, right by 38 uh not far from um Hesport Chase and Sage Run. Um anyway, uh we had a person that came up uh and and discussed this with us. The issue is is that bamboo is so invasive um and it can

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just it just takes it just spreads so rapidly and there are other species that do this as well. Um but bamboo is is kind of the big one of the biggest things we're dealing with right now. Anyway, you have it on in your lawn and it spreads across your neighbor's lawn. Why does your neighbor have to cut the

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bamboo down? Why can't you manage your lawn and not allow your invasive species spread to your neighbors? It's really not fair. So, um I just I'm bringing this up now to the committee. I'd like to discuss this further and uh and possibly um have some type of ordinance

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dealing with this. And it's not so much bamboo, but anything else uh along those lines. Also, um Sam and I are part of the Farmland Preservation Act Commission and we met with um um the family and

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regarding Tustin Farm. Uh re we're in research mode right now looking into it. A lot of things have to be done uh in order to make this work. Uh we're submitting applications uh to the state and to the county. So, a lot of work there. But anyway, we we want to support uh the WZinger family and preserving uh

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the farmland if if we can. Uh that is it for the environmental commission at least at this point. Um let's see. I want to defer my finance committee discussion for afterwards. Affordable housing. Um we're still working on

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closing documents for Marilyn A and MRN highway for the veterans housing. Um also uh the construction code uh the construction and code uh very steady. It's not like it's been crazy busy or crazy slow. just very very steady there. And um we're going to have

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a topic about that as well. Um and our construction office um you know Kathy Nukem has been there for 25 years. I know is that something like that. Um she's great. Um and and as a town, we want to help our residents. We want to

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help our businesses. We're not there to cause to hurdles in front of you um or anything like that. But you know, you you live in a community, right? So, you need to think of your neighbors and the rest of the town. Um, and uh we we work really hard to be um kind and

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compassionate with um with those things. So, I'll I'll leave it at that and um that's my update for now. >> Thank you, sir. >> Okay. So, the green team has also had a busy month. Unfortunately, we did have

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to cancel Earth Day on April the 25th because of inclement weather, but we did go ahead with launching the Native Plant Challenge. So, three of our members attended the 8th grade car wash on May the 2nd to offer free native plants donated by the Pinelands Preservation

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Alliance to folks who were waiting in line for their cars to be washed. People were in general grateful and receptive, and we now have 45 of the 60 household signatures needed. On April the 26th, I attended a meeting of the Bonton County Green Teams round table and we set our

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priorities for the year. On April the 27th, our own green team met and we renewed our we reviewed our plans for the challenge and also for the commercial energy outreach. That uh event occurred on April the 30th at the Street Center from 3 to 6. Turnout was a

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little light, but Sustainable Jersey did share analytics from our outreach website which showed that the publicity for the event had driven traffic to the website. So, that's all good. There was a follow-up meeting on May 11th. Janice Len attended that to discuss our next

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steps and some ideas include canvasing and maybe another event. On May the 9th, members of the green team and the environmental commission attended Rancokus Valley Earthfest, which was an interesting uh event at the f for the first time we were there. The

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repair cafe is happening this Sunday. If anyone doesn't know what that is, please come and talk to me. It's 1 to 4 p.m. at Medford Town Hall. The repair coaches include clothing, bicycles, small electrical appliances, wooden objects,

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jewelry, sharpening, guitars, and lamps. I will be there and along with the green team member Erin Sandman. So please bring broken things instead of throwing them away. Come and get them mended for free. Our next meeting for the green team is on June the 1st and it will be a

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working meeting on our Halloween costume exchange. For the Burlington County Commissioners, uh just one thing and that is that nominations are now open between now and June the 12th for the Burlington County Outstanding Women Awards. The categories

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are business, community service, diversity and inclusion, education, health care, law, leadership, military, and public safety. So, if you know an outstanding woman and you would want to nominate her for those awards, please visit the Burlington County Commissioner's website. Thank you.

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>> Thank you, Anna. All right. Uh, I'm going to run over. So, uh, Tory is absent today. She had surgery last week. Um, I'm going to do a much worse job than she normally does to go over everything. We do have a Memorial Day event on the Monday of Memorial Day. I think it starts at 9:00 am. Um it is rain or

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shine, so hopefully it'll be outdoors, but it has been indoors as well. Um that's actually personally my favorite event of the year. Uh here we do have the Ruck March on June 6th, uh which is the Saturday, I think two weeks after, something like that. Um and then we have the Pride Run, um that is hosted by

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Beast Coast on June 7th. Um so that's the I think that's everything, Donna, right for the Okay, cool. All right. So, fire, we did post the admin position. Um, so that is posted. Um, I think we've gotten a pretty good response on that one so far, right? Yeah. Okay, good. Um,

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again, reached out to E1. So far, we're still on on target for that September time frame for a firetruck. Uh, public works. Um, I did want to bring up to everyone, I've talked to Paul about this, um, with the new, uh, cornerstone property on, um, right off the M Highway

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there. we all have gone through that kind of like dead man's curve. I think I'd like to like if we could brainstorm or come up with maybe like a blinking stop sign or something like that, something that's a little more obvious for people than to kind of take that turn real fast because you do get get

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some issues. So, if we could add that to a to a conversation at some point, that'd be great. Um, one quick note on trash pickup, which became an issue last week. Uh, we do have a new new company, new old company. Um, so there'll be some growing pains. So bear with us or bear with them, I should say. We're not actually the ones

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who pick it up. If your trash is not picked up, the process to cut through the chase of some of the comments. You get home on Thursday evening and it's after hours, call, leave a message. It's going to go to Jen. Um, or before noon on Friday. That's when these offices

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close. I'm sure everyone checks their voicemail after that, but you got to by noon. Um, if we don't get back to you, that's because we haven't heard from, when I say we, the township, we have not heard from that trash company yet. That doesn't mean they won't go out and get it on Friday. Sometimes they don't even

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tell us. They have gone out by Saturday usually. I think like the last two times we've had an issue. >> So, the day of the next day. >> Yeah. So, I think Saturday is the latest we've had them go out to get it. Um, >> yeah. Yeah. So, they were out by Saturday at 12:30. I I I looped around. It looked like the the bulk of them were

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picked up. So, um, that is the process for those that were asking. So, again, call, leave a message. Um, it is a little hectic on Friday, so you might not get a call back right away, but understand we got them, and we will get out to them. And again, you're welcome to talk about it on Facebook if you want, and if I see it or any of us see

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it, we'll try to respond. But the more what's going to happen is I'm going to see it, then I'm going to call Jen. So, the quicker way is to let Jen know or to let the township know. >> And they're, let me just say, they're very good. A lot of times they may not call back right away, but they're in the process of getting somebody out there.

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Yeah. So, >> yeah. So, so book them out either way. >> Yeah. So, try to bear with them a little bit, but again, let us know if it happens. >> Um outreach. Um our HSport helps guys and girls are still helping at all of our events. Um they've had a couple of local

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uh neighborhood stuff that they've done. Um we did have a smaller Zoom meeting to discuss starting your own projects. And the goal of that is to teach all of our teenagers not just to be volunteers, but to find what they're passionate about and teach them how to create their own volunteer projects and volunteer organizations. It's great for college

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apps. It's great for the community. And you know, I always use my daughter as the example. She started Buddy Ball and she's driving home every week from college to be a part of something on a Sunday as a freshman in college. So like when you see a kid that that takes something that they really enjoy, um that's something I hope to help we hope

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to help foster. So um that is something we did last week. um seniors meeting uh Thursday at noon at the street center if anyone wants to join and um the other thing I wanted to bring up um another thing to kind of talk about um to bring up to the the committee as well uh Anna

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had uh spoken to someone at Davenport right Davenport village um and one of the issues is they don't get necessarily the the best communication um they're not the on Facebook and they don't feel maybe connected to the community so we were discussing maybe having an HOA newsletter that we could send out

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quarterly and something simple esecally Once we have the PIO in place, that would just be all of our events. So, get a quick list from recreation, get a quick list from all of us or whatever. Not nothing crazy, just a little bit to say, hey, to each of the we have seven

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HOAs and then we have Cornerstone and um uh Davenport. So, nine communities that we could get our community events out to just on a quarterly basis or something to that effect just to kind of get the idea going. And again, once we have someone in place that could actually do that, it's a lot easier to to do. But I

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I think I could probably handle that if no one else can um in the in the here and now if we think it's a good idea. So, just something to kind of mle over and we can talk about on our own. Uh admin, we did post for the public information officer as I said. Um the H1

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newsletter I just mentioned. Uh I think that's it for me. All right. Um so can I get a motion to enter this into the minutes? >> So moved. Second, >> Mr. Montgomery. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Evans. >> Yes. >> Ms. Leman. >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick. >> Yes.

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>> Okay. So, next we have our presentation and this month's Hannesport Community Impact Award winner is Joe Martin. So, I'm going to read this and then we'll come up and we will all congratulate Joe. a lot of whereazzes. Uh so whereas the

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township committee of Hannesport Township wishes to recognize individuals and organizations whose actions reflect the values of kindness, generosity, and community spirit. And whereas for this month's recognition, Hannesport Township wishes to honor Joseph Martin. And whereas Joseph Martin, a Hannesport

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resident, has been an asset to the RV community for over 20 years in a variety of roles, ranging from Spanish teacher, winning teacher of the year in two 2007 to principal. And whereas Joe is known to be in any and all events regardless of his own social calendar. Co-workers

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applaud Joe for giving his all to each kid no matter the time and effort it may take. While Joe is certainly a great administrator and there are concrete examples of this, those around him are more interested in discussing how genuinely good a person he is to be around. Now therefore, be it proclaimed,

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the Township Committee of the Township of Hannesport hereby recognizes Joseph Martin as the Hannesport Township Community Impact Award recipient, commending him for his hard work with our emerging young minds and examples of service to others and encourages all residents to join in celebrating his

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positive impact on our community. Be it further proclaimed that the township committee extends its best wishes to Joe as he move forward into new Well, you're gonna let let him stand here by himself. Come on. Come on. Come on up. Come on up.

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>> Thank you so much. Thanks so much. Good work. >> Thank you so much. >> If I heard you guys, I call >> Yep. That's me. >> Thank you, Joe.

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All right, let's move on to some ordinances. >> Oh, sorry. Thank you. Is that on the bottom? Oh, yeah. Thank sir. All right, so now we're going to open up to comments from the public. This is on agenda items only and comments are limited to five minutes. Does anyone have any comments?

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>> Might want to wait a second. >> Well done. >> Um So, you want to say your name and your residence? >> Hi, I'm McKenna. I live three Wilkins Road, Hanksport, New Jersey. Um, I just had some some words to say about Mr.

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Martin. Um, okay. Good evening. Oftent times when we think about educators, we focus on the teachers you see every day in front of your classroom. But we don't always talk about the principles for the ones that guide the entire school. For me, one of

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the most made me expect to cry. Um, one of the most influential figures I had at RV was Mr. Martin. Though I never had him in a Spanish class, he started for me at RV as a teacher, and his impact as a principal was extraordinary.

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I remember being in eighth grade, leaving Hannesport and walking through RV for the first time as a tour for the high school and being graded by Mr. Martin. Um, his smile was as warm as it gets, a perfect embodiment of RV pride.

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From my own con choir concerts, musical theater shows, red and white night events, lacrosse and soccer games, Mr. Martin was there. And beyond my own events and everyone else's, even if he couldn't attend, he still remembered, still celebrated us, and knew what every

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student was doing and made us feel seen in school. and a school as big as ours. That showing up meant the world. He didn't just foster pride in the school, but he fostered pride in each of us as individuals. And I remember as a

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senior when it came time to apply for scholarships, there were so many and it often was overwhelming. Mr. Martin saw what I was involved with and encouraged me to apply for one particular scholarship and he didn't even hesitate to provide a recommendation. and that led me to being

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awarded the New Jersey's Principles and Supervisors Association Award. Because of Mr. Martin, I always wanted to say yes to every opportunity. So, tonight, I'm so sorry for getting wishful. Um, I just wanted to congratulate Mr. Martin on his retirement. He leaves behind

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really big shoes to fill for Hannesport and for RV. And we know that RV is in great hands, but he will be missed so dearly by all of the students, the alumni, staff, Hansport, and everyone whose life he touched. Thank you.

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>> THANKS. >> Little birdie told me, >> I mean, it means so much to me, but he's one of my greatest fans as principal. It's ironic and literally my first year teaching in the 90s right over there is my

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full circle of course my own children all three going to the Hport school system it truly is home and this the words mean so much >> I'm humbled thank you everyone >> thank you sir >> you might want to stick AJ Barto 1402 asker.

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>> So believe it or not, uh me and my wife celebrated 20 years together. This year we met IN HIS SPANISH CLASS. >> NOT only taught me, he also educated my daughter as well. Well, as a principal, but >> um we've stayed in touch throughout the years. I don't know how he recognizes me

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after all this time, but every time I see him, he knows exactly who I am. I mean, you were one of the most memorable teachers of RV. Um, we've stayed in touch. It's awesome that, you know, not only taught me, my daughter hate to see

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you retire, but, you know, enjoy it >> and thank you for everything you've done. >> Thank you. I think now you can do any other comments on agenda items. I'm just going to clo before I close that I would like to pass along for my daughter who's finishing her last final

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um that she was actually the person who mentioned to me to u nominate you. So, that's just a secondary passing along of um she was, you know, obviously you're our neighbor of ours, but um you were one of her favorites through her four years at RV and and obviously we are we

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are grateful as well. So, thank you very much. >> So, uh with that, um there's no other comments online. Paula, >> no. >> Um can I get a motion to close comments? >> Motion. >> Second. Miss Leman, >> yes. >> Miss Evans, >> yes. Mr. Montgomery,

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>> yes. >> Mayor Dick, >> yes. Now, let's go into some ordinances. Okay, so we got ordinance 2026-6. This is to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank. Uh, this is a public hearing and final adoption. So, open this up to

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uh conversation. >> Paul, could you just say a word on this? I always like as a lay person just seeing it to exceed the municipal budget, it just people may not understand it. So, you probably could explain this faster than than I could or

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maybe anyone else up here. The wording is it's it's obviously it's something that we that happens every year and >> it's not a big deal. Um it's but just so people can understand. >> Sure. >> Thank you. >> I just want to preface that our CFO would normally be here tonight. Um she

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actually is online and I did send her the budget presentation. She's she's very sick. So, she is very sorry for not being here. Um there are any questions about the budget? We can always follow up with her at a later time. Um, but she is online. So, the annual cap ordinance, um, the

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1977 cap limitation of the annual increase of final appropriations. This law prohibits towns from increasing final appropriations above a certain percentage um, over the previous year. Um, basically budget increases can be no

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more than two and a half% or the full whichever is less. Um, we can pass an ordinance increase this cap base up to a total of three and a half%. All right, so this allows us to bank uh for up to two years the difference between our

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final appropriations subject to the cap and 3 and a half%. Obviously there are exceptions to the cap limitations. Capital expenditures, debt service, um grants, lowap share service agreements, deferred charges, things like that are

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not subject to the cap to certain items within the budget. Um so the 2026 budget increase is limited to one and a half% this year. So for 26 this equates to $52,6331. However, when the municipality the full

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ordinance it may increase the rate to three and a half% as I said so for 26 this equates to 121,480.35 so any unused final appropriations subject to the cap up to this three and a half% may be banked and appropriated

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in the next two years so we get those numbers from the auditor and CFO and that's inserted every year into this into this ordinance and it doesn't necessarily mean we're going to use its Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Much better than I would.

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>> All right. Can I get a motion to close public hearing and and to adopt? I can do both the same, right? And to adopt. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Mr. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Leman? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Evans? >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick? >> Yes. >> All right. Ordinance 2026-7 to amend

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chapter 80 of the code of the township of Hannesport entitled parking to prohibit parking on a section of Pine Lane. This is a first reading. The public hearing and final adoption will be on June 9th. Uh so can I get a motion to enter this >> motion? Second. >> Mrs. Leman? >> Yes. >> Miss Evans?

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>> Yes. >> Mr. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick? >> Yes. Ordinance 2026-8 to amend the construction code uniform. This is a first reading. The public hearing and final adoption will be on June 9th, 2026. Can I get a motion to enter? >> So moved.

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>> Second. Mr. Montgomery. >> Yes. >> Ms. Evans? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Loveman? >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick? Yes. Okay. We're going to move on to the presentation of the 2026 budget. So, I'm going to turn this over to Paula for right now.

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>> I don't want to have to read the budget. >> That's fair. Sounds like the fan's on. >> Yeah, it's showing up. >> There it is. >> Oh, it's getting brighter. Look at that. Okay. All right. Uh, so this year I did it a

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little differently. Um, instead of the standard five or six slides of the pie chart, um, this is actually entitled a guide for residents just to kind of help explain the budget in a different way. All right. So, what is a budget? What's the municipal budget? Think of it like the

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township's checkbook. Just like bringing just like your household budget, it shows what we expect to bring in and how we plan to spend it. Why should you care? Because it's your money. Uh the budget decides whether that pothole gets fixed, whether your park stays lit, or whether snow gets plowed before you

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leave for work. Understanding your bill, where do your property taxes go? Basically, your tax bill has roomates, Hannesport school district, RB Regional School District, Burlington County, and municipal

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services. We're going to focus on the municipal services. So that is uh equates to only 12 and a half% of your total tax bill. And this is going to be posted to the website tomorrow.

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So what we can control and what we don't we do collect it all but again we only control part of it. So 48 and a2% isport school 21.5%

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is RB Burlington County 17% and again township 12 and a half%. So where does the money come from? It's not just your property taxes. So the 2026 municipal budget is $5,71220,

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but the amount that we're raising by taxation is only 2,746,458. That does not include the open space tax. So where did we get the other money from? Which is about $3 million to

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offset your property taxes. Again, 48% is your actual taxes. our savings which is surplus. We're utilizing 1.7 million this year which is 29% of the municipal budget for revenue allocation. Um

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debt payments and big projects uh that is zero again this year interest on investments 153,000 or 1.9%. Now I can say back in 2021 it was only

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like 46,000 I believe we talked about earlier. Over the course of the last four years our CFO has been able to earn interest on investments almost a half a million dollars grants uh state and federal money that

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we've applied for which helps to support some of our township projects. That's almost 4% or 224,000. That's the grants that we know of today. We We receive grants throughout the year and oftent times receive resolutions. They're called chapter 159. Those are grants

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that we see we receive throughout the year that we have to insert into the budget um through that particular resolution. The railroad fees that we collect, we're accounting for $30,000 on that building and permit fees. Uh committee in Montgomery talked about,

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you know, the construction office, we do get a lot of revenues from the permitting and all the work that they do in that office. Uh licenses permits such as like liquor licenses, the annual license fee 64,000. Our energy receipts tax um that is

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funding that we get from the state is our money that they now collected on our behalf and then redistribute it to us six 6.7% and then finally pass through taxes. So these are all bills that we finally collect from outstanding

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uh taxpayers. So why do we budget for unpaid taxes? So not everybody pays on time but we still need to cover the expenses. So you as the taxpayer has to we have to budget for that in our budget the difference because we still need to pay all those

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other tax those other entities. They still get 100% of their tax bill even if we don't collect 100% from everybody. So we have to put that in our budget. So that's called reserve for uncollected taxes. We're for a $375,000 gap. So, we need to put that in our

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budget. Our healthy surplus, the rainy day fund. You know that friend who always has that cash set aside for uh when life gets weird? Well, that's us. Uh when a pipe bursts, a storm hits, cost spike, or preservation cost share that we had

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talked about earlier, we don't scramble or borrow. We've got it covered. And that's not luck. That of being careful with your money. Rainy day protection. Emergencies do happen. We handle them without touching your wallet. Stable tax rates. Surplus lets us absorb rising

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costs without automatically raising taxes every year. And double A bond ratings. We've earned that. Our reserve is why we could borrow at lower tax rates, which means less of your money going to interest. So we've been saying, and here's why

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that's a big deal for you. What A rating actually means it's top tier and the only the responsible towns earn this rating. Lower borrowing costs, financial stability guarantee, and your

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home's value benefits. Fiscally strong towns attract investment and support property values. So where the money goes 16% of your local share goes to employee salaries and benefits that's public

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works the township staff pension and social security 3%. Insurance 14%. Utilities reserve for uncollect uncollected taxes garbage and landfill. So not only do we have to pay our vendor

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to collect the garbage we also have the landfill fees that we have to pay for. So that's about 9%. Your overall operating our overall operating expenses 20%. The money that's set aside from pilot

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monies to uh to help the school uh board of education for capital projects, that's $50,000 this year. Capital improvements, a big investment there. Almost $1.3 million for capital improvements. That's your road projects,

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park improvements, vehicle acquisition, our mapping maps are being updated this year, and public works equipment. And then again, emergency services, fire companies, their annual allocation, the new LOAP program that was started a

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couple years ago, um the fuel for both the emergency squad rig, which we still own, we just leased that, as well as uh the fuel for all of the fleet of fire, the fire company. Uh maintenance costs. And this this money does not this amount

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here does not include um capital purchases, insurance, the acquisition of apparatus and grants that we applied for on the behalf of the fire company. >> What was that amount, Paul? I can't see it. >> It's 135,000.

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>> Or 4.6%. So how each dollar of your 8,42961 property tax bill is spent and that's an estimate for this year and that's that's this number is based on a 282,399 average home assessment. So, the breakdown of your estimated

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bill, 4,100 of that is going to the Hannesport schools, 1,780 to RV, 980 to Hannesport Township Municipal Services, and $85 to the municipal open space.

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Oh, Burlington County Services. One, thank you. 140 $1,485. And then the breakdown of the $980 services listed there. Again, another chart showing how every

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$1 of your taxes is spent. Just another way to look at it. And then I did I was asked to put in the regular pie chart that we do. Um breaks it up. Just another visual again the municipal levy which does include the

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open space tax 2.9 million which is an increase of $14,150 from last year but our tax your taxes were flat this year. There is no increase in municipal taxes this year again for the second year in a row. The county level is estimated this is

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the only one of the four taxing entities that is estimated. Everyone else is actual taxation for this year. But the county level is levy is estimated at um almost 4.3 million. That includes the county's tax, the open

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space tax that they collect separately and the library tax that they collect separately. Randogus Valley Regional School District 5,151,285. That is actually a reduction of 152,758 from last year. But let's be reminded

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that the year before they increased 1,233,984 >> 30 some% I think it was in yeah >> um so their reduction this year does help the taxpayers with the increase that committee 111 was talking about earlier uh from the Hport school

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district so their budget this year is 11,670,951 that's an increase of 878,161 last year and the prior year is 74,390. So in 2026, the total amount to be raised by taxation of the total level

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levy from all tax entities is 24,1,891 representing an increase of 840,418. Now again, the county has not struck their reach yet. That generally is in August. Um so that could go down a little bit or it could go up.

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So again, a lot went up this year. Your tax bill not at the local level. While costs are rising, your local taxes remain the same as last year. But again, what's driving increases? Pension and health insurance increases. And if I could just kind of come a little bit off

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topic about the difference between the local pension and health bill versus the schools. So they are two different um legislation. Um and as you might recall, I think it was in 2007.

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Back in 2007, uh then Governor Chris Christie uh created chapter 78 and that was directly to the local municipalities and there might be some other entities that were involved in that. That mandated that the local municipal

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employees have to start paying more into their pension and then more the health insurance costs. So over a fouryear period, he phased in those increases up to whatever the 100% mark was. Our

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health insurance costs, our premium, our cost share for our health insurance as local employees is based off the premium. So if it's $50,000 to insure an employee, the premium cost share or the

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cost share from that employee is based on that premium cost. So the local employees contribution is significantly higher. Um whereas chapter 44 from the school was passed in 2020.

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>> Um and their health the school employees health insurance contributions are based on their salary. So it's significantly lower. So there is a difference between the two but either way it it it is based on two different things premium and salaries which which is a significant

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difference. Um but still with that we are also at the local level dealing with rising health insurance increases. I think our insurance premium has doubled in the last five years. Doubled.

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Um, garbage and recycling costs go do go up, but we were able to secure a contract that increased this bill only a little bit less than $20,000, which is very significant. There are municipalities throughout the state of New Jersey who are facing hundreds of thousands of dollar increases with their

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trash contracts. Um, again, our utility bills increase. This budget does, even with the flat tax rate, includes a new full-time position and two new part-time positions. Capital projects are also included in

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this allocation. So no borrowing for capital projects again this year. And it also uh represents some increases significant increases for fire services. So our commitment to the taxpayers. We continue to demonstrate fiscally responsible budgeting and operations

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while approving an increase in services. This is how we take care of the residents and the Hannesport community. So, if you have any questions, feel feel free to ask them. Um, this is your town, your money. Reach out anytime we mean it. Um, again, this will be posted on

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the website. My information is there. Um, our CFO, Donald's information will be on there. Any kind of questions you have, you can always reach out to myself, the mayor, deputy mayor, community members. So, I'm pretty happy that it's a flat tax again this year, two years in a row

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for the residents. We remain debtree. Um, We just bought a 1, you just bought a $ 1.4 million fire truck using just capital, no borrowing. Um, so this is exciting. We're increasing services. Um, the new full-time position. We'll be

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promoting that, advertising for that probably within the next couple weeks. >> Great. No, that's great to hear. Thank you so much. >> Thanks, Bua. >> Good job. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. All right. So, before we go for any further, let's open this up public hearing on the budget and the

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budget alone. Does anyone have anything they'd like to say? >> Is there anyone online? >> Okay. >> Yeah. And you're welcome to grab any of us after the meeting as well. All right, let's close public hearing. >> Yeah. Thank you, Don. >> Yeah. Thank you, Don. >> Thanks, Don.

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>> Well done. Feel better. >> Yes. Feel better. >> We miss you. Do >> I need a motion to close? Do >> I need a motion to close public? I'd like to make a motion we close. Thank you, sir. >> Thank you all. >> Second. >> Who? >> Um, Mr. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Miss Leman?

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>> Yes. >> Mrs. Evans? >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick? >> Yes. >> All right. Resolution 2026-84-5. This authorizes the 2026 budget to be read by title only. Can I get a motion? >> So move. >> Second. >> Mr. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Miss Evans? >> Yes. >> Miss Loveman? >> Yes.

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>> Mayor Dick? >> Yes. >> And then resolution 2026-85-5. This adopts the 2026 budget. >> So move. >> Second. >> Mr. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Miss Evans? >> Yes. >> Miss Loveman? >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick? >> Yes. >> Let's move on to consent resolutions.

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>> Can I get a motion? >> Like to make a motion that we approve consent resolutions. >> Second. >> Mr. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Miss Leman? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Evans? >> Yes. Mayor Dick? >> Yes. >> All right. And moving on to resolutions.

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Uh resolution 2026-90-5 urging state leaders to implement fair and equitable reforms to mitigate the unsustainable increases in health benefit premiums for public sector employees. >> How appropriate? >> Motion. >> Motion. >> Second. >> Mubman.

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>> Yes. >> Mr. Montgomery. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Evans. Yes. >> Mayor Dick. >> Yes. Resolution 2026-91-5 amending employee policy handbook due to changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act and New Jersey Family Leave Act in JFLA. Can I get a motion?

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>> Motion. >> Second. >> Mrs. Leman? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Evans? Yes. >> M. Montgomery? >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick? >> Yes. >> Resolution 2026-92-5 calling for the restoration of energy tax receipts and increase municipal aid to provide real property tax relief.

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>> Motion, sir. Second, >> Mr. Montgomery, >> yes. >> Ms. Loveman, >> yes. >> Miss Evans, yes. >> Mayor Dick, >> yes. All right. Uh, moving on to business. Uh, looks like we got some approval of business license and approval of charitable bin permits.

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Can I do them all together? >> Uh, so got 2026-6 CB Planet 8, Inc. as well as 2026-7-C Planet 8, Inc. I'd like to make a motion we approve all business licenses as well as the two charitable bin permits for planet aid.

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>> Second. >> Mr. Montgomery. >> Yes. >> M. Love. >> Yes. >> Mr. Evans. >> Yes. >> Mayor D. >> Yes. At this point, we're going to open up for a correspondence. We do have um conversation on 1207 Deacon Road. Seox extension of time request.

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But more than that, friend knowch system which meant he couldn't live there. He followed her inve said which it's impossible. You can't do it.

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So then they cut the bottom. Unfortunately, she has now got rid of I'm now involved. Everything in the world is

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in the side and we're looking for more He's living another state. I'm getting ready to start public.

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where they build. >> Where is the farm, sir? Sorry. >> Right down the street. That building burns $300,000 because it wasn't

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as high and they were destroyed. That is covered but not everything. So, does he still own or do you still own 1245 and that's where you live right now? >> Oh, you don't live at either property.

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Okay. >> 1245. >> Gotcha. Okay. Okay. >> I got you. >> Are you living locally still? >> Okay. Is there a set date for when you would

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move the box or is that all dependent? That's fair. We're not tell furniture. I can't speak for anybody else, but as far as dates, um I I think it would need

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to be written. Um as far as what is happening, what you're doing about it, when you plan to to move it, and if you cannot move back into your home, what would happen afterwards? Um I don't know how everybody else feels >> as far as a plan.

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I would be glad to do that. >> I think uh we already we um probably what makes the most sense if we go briefly into session. What we have to go into session anyway and we already have this on the docket. We can talk about it and if you want to hang tight, but that but so we can kind of all put our put our

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>> Yeah. Get No. Yeah. But but brief but but quick. >> Yeah. >> And Yeah. And you know what? And and I think you know >> sorry about all this. I mean sorry this happened to you. I mean it's a shame. It's horrible. and um >> custody of a four-year-old too. >> Yeah. So, wow. So, it any of us, we all

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have a lot of balls in the air. So, um from a personal perspective, I'm sorry you're dealing with this. And I know Kathy um personally and um and obviously professionally and I know um you know, she she wants to do the right thing and and help you and um get this done and

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I'm sure you're frustrated and sorry about all that and you know, we obviously need to look at it holistically, of course, and I'm sure you're aware of all that. So, but I think as mayor said that we'll we'll we'll take this into executive session. >> Yeah. Yeah. No, we we'll we'll be fairly brief.

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>> Yeah. >> Right. Ahead. >> You said that brought bought the property in December, moved in in January, there was a flood. The information we had was that this

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metal storage box has been there since October 15, 2025. Is that not correct? Oh, March of 24 it happened. >> 25. >> Oh, March. Okay, I'm sorry. >> Yeah, I got you. >> So, can you walk us through if the flood

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occurred in March of 2025? What transpired between March of 2025 and October 15 of 2025? And is that a correct date? Is that when this temporary storage trailer went on site? >> Pretty accurate.

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And so let me ask you this. Um, when did you move out of the house? So it happened in March. You moved out a within a month later. Yeah. >> The work that's been done on the house to date though, can you can you can you

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describe what's been So far, what type of permits have been pulled to to achieve that work? Um maybe to Miss Lman's point, it would be helpful if you could just provide some photographs and chronology

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of the purpose of your soc. Happy doing all your work. And are you doing, you said you've been in the business, are you doing the work yourself? Do you have a contractor doing? >> Did they vanish because the insurance company stopped paying or

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I knew action. Um the contract you have now that spells out all work if there's anything that's not privilege that you could supply us over the next couple weeks in terms of evidence

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showing the difficulties with state farm difficulties with and and just the the hurdles that Mr. Patterson has had that would warrant the committee's consideration of such an extension because you got to keep in mind, you know, the ordinance allows in

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the worst case scenario four months and we're already in >> almost >> I don't have the zoning ordinance in front of me, so I don't know. Seems to me that If it's unrelated to the farm, it would not be a permitted accessory.

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So, I don't know how that would relate. >> That's interesting. >> Yeah. The more you could provide the committee to support request for this type of an extension. I understand that. But but the committee what you're really asking the committee

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to do is urge its enforcement officials not to enforce. Right? The other alternative is to ask them to change the ordinance to have made it a one year. >> Understood. I'm not not arguing not

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extraordinary. What I'm asking is >> it is extraordinary. Appreciate it. >> You good, John? >> Yes. >> Good. Yeah. Okay. So, we're going to we'll we'll talk about it in session and like I said, some number of us will be in touch with you very shortly. >> Okay.

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>> Thank you. Yeah. And good. >> Thank you. Best wishes. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> That's interesting. >> Okay. So, let's move on to comments from the public. Uh and comments are limited to five minutes. J start with you.

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>> You know the drill. >> Janice Len 14 Heather Lane and I'm here representing the environmental commission. At our last meeting we had a resident come to our meeting um Jim Black and he lives in the Heights and he had a couple of um environmental

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concerns and we're just an advisory committee. So I wanted to share them with the committee and the township committee and um and also explain what some of the things that we did in response. So the first thing that we did was we I did write a letter um to Mr.

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Black telling him that we that heard his concerns and his first concern was about bamboo and he said that it's a fire hazard and we should prohibit it and complete removal with roots. So um New Jersey actually recently passed a

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invasive species u law something ordinance and um so bamboo is being phased out being allowed to be sold and planted but it doesn't address

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uh if it's already planted. So that's why um Miss McGomery um was going to introduce hopefully something in Hannesport that will um encourage removal of bamboo and other invasives,

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but at at least make it your responsibility that's on your property. It's your responsibility to keep it under your property. The second thing he had concern about, and I I don't really know anything about this, but to maintain fire roads in park grounds

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because he said with deadly winds, with high winds, it could be deadly. So, I'm not sure exactly which fire roads he's thinking are not being maintained, but I said I would mention it to the committee heights, and he mentioned fire roads in park grounds.

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Passing it along. >> So, I I appreciate that, and we don't have to have the conversation. if you want to call me later. I and I kept them a breast of it as I did it. Uh I went out to his house two or three times. Okay. >> I surveyed it with him. We discussed some things that he wanted to do unrelated to that. Okay. And so I have a

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pretty good image of some of the stuff he's talking about. So if you want to give me a call later, okay, >> I can we can compare notes. >> Sure. >> Yeah. And then I'll fill all them in. >> Yeah. I have, you know, took his notes and and he was in a rush. >> And then the last thing is vines killing trees. um example poison ivy, Asian u

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wisteria and many others. And um the environmental commission is starting a thing where we put out we try and educate the public on different environmental issues. We're trying to put out some periodic did you knows and

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we're emphasizing currently vines but uh you see a lot of English ivy climbing up trees and that will fill the tree. It gets heavy and smaller than the tree. So, um we are trying to educate based on that and there is English ivy growing a lot of

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the trees in return park which probably should also be addressed. So, but I just wanted to pass the things along that you know they're valid you know environmental concerns can do those. Thank you. >> Thanks Janice.

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>> Thank you Janice. Thank you. >> Bruce Levenson to Fox Court. First of all, I want to thank the uh township committee present past for maintaining a fiscally responsible management of our township tax monies. Um Haynesport can't print its own money

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like the federal government can. will never be in debt. 40 trillion dollars, thank God for that. Um, unfortunately, printing money, more money going after fewer goods, creates a level of inflation that we're all going to experience as we go forward. And

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handling money continuously and in the future in a responsible way in our township uh is what we need to do. Unfortunately, we experience uh tax increases um exteriorly, not municipal tax rate increases. And uh even though

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we may as a township maintain the level of our municipal tax, we still have to pay the external taxes that drives our taxes up. With that aside, I'd like to start by expressing my appreciation for everyone involved in the history tour

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and the continental dinner this past Saturday. A huge thank you to Karen Tory. We hope she's feeling better uh for her initial idea as well as the as well as as well as the supporting ensemble, Donna Casey, S Derekson, Lauren Levenson, all the food servers,

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Eric and Melissa are historians. I apologize if I've missed anyone. I was fascinated to learn how much of the Revolution of the Revolutionary War was fought right here in New Jersey and even in our town. And as a special treat, I got to sit and talk with Benjamin

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Franklin, who I must say looks fantastic for a man over 300 years old. Uh my experience has been that if you are willing to get involved, Haynesport's activity calendar offers endless opportunities to participate and

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volunteer. One last thing I just wanted to mention that I discovered that Benjamin Franklin had an extremely high IQ. He just couldn't spell it. IQ. Okay, we'll go on from there.

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Anna, you took our clerk's private unpublished government document and published it before it was supposed to be released to benefit you and your campaign. You targeted the release of this document exclusively to District 5, promising a negative vote on their easement issue in exchange for their

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political support. This was a clear proquo agreement. In doing so, you simultane simultaneously deprived another party of their right to a fair and objective hearing. You supplied information from this document to only approximately 20% of

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our residents, leaving 80% without the same information. Folks I spoke to in that 80 80% that voted for you said they would not have if they had had the backstory. They felt misled and betrayed.

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these people included Democrats. He recently called me obsessed regarding this issue. I accept that I am focused on it because truth and transparency is a very slogan you ran on. Truthful and transparent engagement with the public is what builds the trust that

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sustains this republic of we the people. A republic that millions of Americans have sacrificed their lives to defend. Your contradictory and misleading behavior has compromised the election process.

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It was a rebellion that cast a shadow over both the end results and your own legitimacy. If you truly believe in the truth and transparency that you campaigned on, the only path forward is to admit to this

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purposeful selective sharing of information and acknowledge its damaging impact on our Republican form of government and our Hannesport community. And I was here when you took your oath of office. This room heard you swear to

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represent all the people of Hannesport. all of them. You have not. I'm asking you now, will you at a minimum offer a formal apology to the residents of this town for restricting

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access to information and compromising the integrity of our election. Thank you. >> Thank you, Bruce. >> Thanks, Bruce.

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Thank you. Uh, anyone else? Still unknown on. Okay. All right. Let's close comments. >> Make a motion we close comments. >> Second. >> Mr. Montgomery. >> Yes. >> Miss Leman? >> Yes. >> Miss Evans? >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick? >> Yes. >> Comments from the administrator?

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>> Okay. I just want to remind residents that um we are fortunate enough to be added um as a early voting site um this year. So, we're pretty excited about that. Early voting starts May 26th, I think it's the Tuesday after Memorial

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Day, and ends Sunday, May 34, 31st. Um, and again, the primary is on June 2nd. Uh, we will be conducting soil removal of several areas of concern at Falls Tank Farm late this summer. Finally, um,

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the bid process will be done over the next month. Um, because of that, I mapped it out with Jen from uh BRS who was managing our grant as well as the project. Uh, we mapped out the bid process and I'm requesting that you

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consider having an added regular meeting on June 23rd. Um, I propose 5:00. There will be a lot of business to conduct, but most specifically, we need to award um the contract for the actual soil removal, the soil remediation. We need

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to get this done by the end of September >> per the EPA grant. >> Is that the date you emailed us? >> Yes, >> I'm good with that. >> Um, so I do want to kind of deviate a little bit and formally ask if we can amend our meeting date resolution to add June 23rd at 5:00 a regular meeting

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where we'll be able to conduct business. >> Okay. >> Oh, I need to make a >> Okay, you go with it. >> Yeah, absolutely. I will be on vacation but I can go to meeting or phone. >> Yeah, it'll be brief. >> Yeah, I'll be out of state but

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wonderful. >> Do we want to do it now? >> Yeah. So motion to be a resolution. of those resolutions to add. >> Yes. >> Okay. I'd like to make a motion that we

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amend our meeting schedule to add Tuesday, June 23rd at 5:00 pm. Um, I guess that's it, right? >> As as stated before, I just said it. >> I'll second that. >> Johnson. >> Mr. Montgomery. >> Yes.

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>> Ms. Evans. Yes. Miss. Love. >> Yes. >> Mayor Dick. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Um, and as stated previously, uh, there are two new part-time positions that were advertised. Uh, public information officer and fire and emergency management coordinator. Uh the emergency

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management coordinator, fire coordinator is open until uh May 22nd and the public information officer um is open until June 1st. So please uh share that information. I did release the job description for the public information

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officer position. Um again, these new position Oh, and then I expect um with with your budget approval and we've also discussed it um probably in June or July advertising for a new time clerical position and that would be in the

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finance office. Um, one of the main reasons first of all we do need the extra help. Um, there are only five full-time people in this building that are and five full-time people in public work. Well, right now four. Um, we do a lot with very little. When I tell you that we are all

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at 100% every day we are. We do not have a lot of time to convene. We don't have water cooler talks. We are all truly hustling and and I've been doing this for 28 29 years and I can tell you all the employees here are phenomenal. However,

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um our services are growing, our needs are growing. Um we are expecting a retirement the end of this year. So two of these positions are directly related to that retirement. This particular person is doing five wearing five

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different hats as we all do. Um so those positions need to be um we need to find somebody to do all of that work and the direction that we are going is dividing up some of that work into a public information officer position. It is more

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than posting to Facebook. Um another reason why I posted the um job description so people understand the comprehensive amount of duties that that new position will um person will be responsible for. Um fire and e

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management positions. Our OEM coordinator resigned. It was just too much work for him and he's on the path to retirement. I'm currently the acting OEM coordinator. Um you all made a commitment to support the fire department, fire company. Um and this is one of the recommendations that was made

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in that fire study. So again, this is u promises made, promises kept. So we are providing you are providing that position to help support the fire company as well as being the liaison to the township. Um, so that's that new part-time position. Um, so I'm really

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excited about those positions. Um, please spread the news on that. And then I'm going to give Jen an opportunity to talk real quick about the print newsletter because she handles that entire project. >> Yes. Um, >> it's coming out. >> It should be coming out. The print newsletter um has been we we finalized

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it. It should actually be going to the printer. We generally like to see it mailed out uh about we try about a week before Memorial Day. We don't do the actual mailing. Um the company itself does the mailing. And what's nice about this

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newsletter is thanks to all the local businesses in the area that do advertising is that it doesn't cost the township anything. You know, we're able to get all that information out to all the residents. Um but yeah, I mean, you can look for we try and and keep it

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change it up a little bit every time and give just new information. You're always going to see a list of the upcoming events for, you know, a good four to six months coming up. Um, anything new going on in the township. Uh, Andy has written a wonderful letter for the front of it.

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>> Did I? >> Um, yeah, you did. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Is that what I did? >> Yeah. You remember now? >> Yeah. >> Did you say so? Um, so we try and just take this, you know, information and get it out to the residents because sometimes you might miss it on Facebook or on the website and it's just another way to to reach out.

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>> Good. So probably in a few weeks it'll be >> sent out. Awesome. >> Thank you, Jen. >> And that's it. >> And I did see you take lunch today at three o'clock. I think you tried for five minutes once a month on the dot >> once a month whether she's hungry or starving or not. Yes. Not even her

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choice. The >> point where I'm hangry this is not good for anyone. So we all encourage her >> part of my problem because I was >> keeping you from getting there. >> No, it's Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Comments from the solicitor. John,

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>> hangry is a dangerous place. >> Thank you, Mayor. First of all, good to see you all. It's good to be back. >> You as well. >> I wanted to congratulate you yet again. uh between the last meeting you had and this evening, uh the court on April 29th entered an

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order granting you compliance uh and um approving the fourth round and actually approving all prior rounds. So if I can just for the record read in just a couple of clauses from the courts. >> It's affordable housing, right? >> April 29th affordable housing order.

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Yes. The task of Hannesport's fourth round fair share plan is hereby approved and deemed to meet the objective standard pursuant to the statute of complying with the fair housing act and the mouth Laurel doctrine and the township is granted a compliance

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certification as to its rehabilitation obligation prior round obligation third round obligation yada yada yada fourth round obligation. The township's compliance certification shall remain in effect for 10 years beginning on July 1, 2025 and ending on

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June 30, 2035. And during this 10-year period, the township shall have repose immunity from exclusionary zoning litigation, including but not limited to builder remedy lawsuits. Um, the township's prior round

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obligation from the third round of 150 has been met. the following obligations. And then it establishes and approves the fourth round obligation of 74 units. But you'll recall that of those 74 units, only 56 are actual, right? 18 are result

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credits. Same thing with the prior round um probably threequarters of those were actual units and a full quarter of them were through credits. So long as we do the things we said we would do uh in

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this plan that adopted by the planning board and endorsed by you uh and which has been implemented by the ordinances you adopted earlier this year. You are sailing pretty well through 2035 in

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terms of your affordable housing obligations. So >> thank you. >> Great news. >> Great. >> Anything else, John? I don't want to cut you off. >> No, sir. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. All right, let's go to comments from the committ. We'll

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start with Anna. >> Well, first of all, that's great news about the affordable housing. Well done everybody who worked so hard on that. Uh I also wanted to thank Paula and Dawn Mlan for another wonderful job on the budget. Great job everyone. Uh I do think Andy that the HOA newsletter is a

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good idea. I mean, particularly came up because of Davenport and Cornerstone, but I think all of the HOAs because they all maintain their own email distribution lists would benefit from something that they can email to those lists because we don't have access to those lists. >> We can work on it together. >> Yeah. So, I think that's a good idea.

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Um, Joe Martin has left, but I wanted to congratulate him again on his community impact award. Um, this Friday is the Friday I'll be speaking at the 2026 sustainability sum summit in Homeell, New Jersey. So, I'm excited to do that. Uh, next week I'm away at a poetry

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conference in Connecticut, but I will be back in time for the Memorial Day ceremony on May 25th. It is still time to sign up for both the Rook March on June the 6th and the Pride Run on June 7th. I'm doing both. Thank you all for coming and have a great night.

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>> Okay. >> Okay. Um, $224,000 in grants. Great job, BA and team hitting all that. Um I I I guess what I should start out with are prayers out to

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Karen Tory and Don Mlan. Um Godspeed. Like to also congratulate again uh our former RV principal Joe Martin on his community impact award. You heard my daughter speak earlier. He obviously had quite an impact on her and my other three daughters and our family and uh

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quite a few other people. So, um, wish him well in his retirement. Um, some of the things that I had neglected to say during my time, I have to spread this out because I have a lot to say. Trying to make it short. Um, the Environmental Commission in Haynesport received 10

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trees from Miller Subaru. Um, and they were some bald cyprus and some river birch, which I've been told like water and are somewhat deer resistant.

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And the laughing is I right because what's deer resistant? It apparently they go to them last. But anyway, so the last time we got them, they ate the deer ate them all. So, um, we've gotten some approval on taking better care of these, um, and helping and members of the

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environmental commission have planted them and, um, so we're hoping that they will work. Um, and um, the other thing that Karen's not here, but I wanted to say a few more things about the uh, 2 Hesport

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celebrates America's 250th anniversary. Um, again, July 4th. um go to the shore, do whatever you do, but come back here to Hannesport uh in the afternoon. We have a great great uh night, late afternoon and night planned. Um we also

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have some tents if you'd like to rent some space to bring your own tent or to buy a tent and some space. So go to our website for all that. There are limited tents, limited spaces available. Um so

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this past Saturday, we had a bus trip and a colonial dinner and uh as someone had mentioned um I think Bruce Levenson had mentioned that Ben Franklin was there which was great. Um so super um super job u Donald Casey and Sue

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Derekson and Lorraine Levenson and Leela Gilmore and whoever else is on the recreation committee that um worked on all that. Um, I had also wanted to stay a little more about the um finance because I I said I

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would defer that because I didn't want to steal Paul's thunder in announcing everything. But uh once again, no debt. Um and um the the reason that the the amount is going up for all of us is because the school budget uh have

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increased dramatically. Um, and again, um, my children have been through all these schools here, and we love the schools, but it's it's just crazy. Of that tax bill, 70% of what you get is going to Hannesport and RV schools, 70%.

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What we decide up here is 12 a.5%. And we've been flat. So, I I just want to commend everyone up here at the DAS, and this is my sixth year here. Um, but we've we've we've been no debt and a flat tax rate for all that time. And

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also Paul and her team and our um employees for doing that. I want to also make a um point out Don Mlan, our municipal CFO. Um Paul mentioned this, but it's significant to say again in

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2021 we had $46,000 in interest on investment. That's great. In 2025, we had almost a half million, 46,000

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to a half million. Bravo, Dawn Mlan and our finance team. I'm happy to be the liaison for that because that's a lot of success in so many different ways. Capital improvement, $1.3 million. Um

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um again, we've uh we for emergency services, we're buying a fire truck, not on taxpayer dollars, but on all the work we do behind the scenes to avoid that extra expense for our members. So, that's just been great. Uh affordable

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housing, I needed to defer a little bit for that. For John to mention this is that round four. Uh wonderful. I'm I'm happy to be on that uh committee. We've we've done a lot of work, but again, it's the professionals that that do the work behind the scenes that do all that.

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Um, great planning, um, great budgeting, great negotiation. John, you and and um um, your team have just been great in doing all that. So, we appreciate that. We're we're we're committed up until 2035.

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So, um, and the big thing is to avoid builders remedies, right? This is where builders can come and sue our town and say, "Hey, we're going to buy that property and we're going to put up 300 homes and the the judge therefore makes us do it." So, we're avoiding things like that

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is what you see in Mount Laurel. Um, we're we're responsively managing our growth. Um, so I'm I'm proud to be a part of that and just, you know, you know, kudos to John and everyone else. Um and um look forward to the Memorial

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Day event and um God bless Hannesport. God bless America. Thank you, sir. Um all right, next Hannesport Township meeting is June 9th right here. Joint Land Use is June 4th. Green Team is June

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1st. Environmental Commission is May 28th. >> Oh, I'm sorry, Sam. I was just I was gonna go after you and just be like the mayor for the night. It's fine. >> No, go ahead. Sorry. >> I don't usually talk, so he's like, "Oh, gez, there's another person here.

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>> There's no one sitting next to me." >> Uh, I wanted to thank Paula for the way she presented the budget tonight. I thought that was very informative. Um, I'm always uh for learning and I felt like that way that the way she presented the budget um offered information that you might not normally receive and for somebody who does not deal with this on

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a day-to-day basis, it is nice to have little little smidges of information that it's not overloading, but it's also informative. So, thank you for that. Um, as a the newer member of the committee, um, I want to say that the teamwork that has been involved with everybody here

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has been amazing. Um, really the only other entity I've been really dealing with outside of the committee itself is the school board. And I have to say that they are they they when I email them, they are responding right back to me. Um, and I like to to consider us all a team. We

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are different entities. We are different taxing entities, but at the end of the day, we are a community. Our children are our future. I understand that none of that when you see your tax bill is going to probably play into to feelings at that moment. Um, but I want to I want

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you to consider the fact that the the BOE is working really hard. Um, I've read into this uh pretty deep into New Jersey. Um, we made out really well even though it doesn't seem like it. Um there are other towns that have lost way more during um as far as staffing activities,

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things of that nature than what our school has. Um so I'm hoping that as a committee, as a township committee and the school that we'll continue to work together um to help wherever we can. Um and then as far as I just want to make a comment about the cornerstone on Creek Road. I live on

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Creek Road. Um it is so far has been super fantastic. like we I see kids riding bikes um more often than I ever have before. So any improvements we can do to the road and to safety, I am on board because these kids do not use the sidewalk. So they are on the streets. So

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anything that we can do um to improve that will be fantastic. Um and they also like to sell lemonade off our street. >> I bought lemonade the other day. >> So if anybody wants to swing by um it it's it's been a pleasure um to see the kids. Um, and so like I said, teamwork

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and and safety, anything we can do, anything that I can do, um, I would be I would like to be a part of it. Thank you and have a great night everybody. >> Okay. I apologize for not seeing you over there. >> I I wanted to be the mayor for the night. I I would have got to speak left. >> Just He's just anxious. He's just

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anxious. Yeah. Got early flight. Um, anyway, um, so first and foremost, uh, to all who, uh, put together the event on May 9th, uh, thank you. I wasn't there. I was at the Flyers game. So, I apologize for that. I don't apologize for being at the Flyers game, but uh thank you. I heard it was wonderful. Um

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I would like to meet Ben Franklin one day. So, that's pretty cool. Um as far as the uh the public information officer goes, just to kind of reiterate what Paul has said, um ironically responding to Facebook posts about the need for someone to talk on Facebook. Um, I do

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highly recommend if anyone has questions, concerns, or thoughts that this is a wasteful position that they call me and set up a time to meet me in the office so they can see everyone working at that moment. Um, I cannot say enough that everyone in this office is

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overworked and that anything we can do for a moderate amount of money to make it better for them, which then of course makes it better for our township, I will get behind a 100 times out of 100. So, please reach out to me if you'd like to discuss it. I'd prefer to do it in person. That way, you can see it in the

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building for yourself. And I do mean that. And feel free to pass that along to anyone who you may think would want to hear that. Um, so one thing I want, the only thing I really want to talk about today is the township. And when I say township, I mean all of us up here. We look to work with all the residents, with all the businesses, with all the entities. We do

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need to balance that with our desire to be responsible to the entire community. So, we can't always take on every project. We can't always obviously satisfy every ask. Um, not everyone's going to agree with that path. We can't always take the popular one. We do try to take the correct one and we do try to talk uh amongst ourselves at least

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somewhat to to make sure that we're all on the same page with it. Um, recently last couple days, I did field quite a bit of personal negative feedback from my Creek View neighbors. Um, few issues. Um, so I want I want to reiterate kind of what we did as a group and then to

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kind of elicit if there's anyone who has ideas to improve upon that, please let me know. Um, obviously the geese we had talked about, um, we wanted to help. We did recognize using full community funds for a private lake isn't necessarily fair to the rest of the community, but we did keep in constant contact as a

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township and as a a committee up here with the HOA. We went door to door to clean up. We kept open lines to continue to assist with cleanup. Um, as did the HOA board, by the way. We also offered to clean up the lake for free using volunteers. Um, and the township did provide a dumpster to assist for a few

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weeks with the cleanup. Um, and we tried to help without really tapping into full town funds. So, I feel like, you know, we tried to do as best we could without necessarily putting the the community out um, you know, and setting a new precedent for future >> even though there's an HOA. >> Yeah. Um, and then moving forward and

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the reason that I started to receive some more feedback was the fort and um, for those you don't know, there was a fort that was built by some kids. It was kind of behind Hastings Lane. Um, they did, the HOA did contact the township. I went I happened to have seen it and to be fair it was something that needed to

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be looked at. I did go to check it out. I took a bunch of pictures, noticed that it was a kids fort, not anything that was concerning. Um but you know, still um they there was a damaged fence that allows kids and it's been damaged for a while. I mean trees fall down and stuff like that, whatever. Um that allowed the kids to easily access access it. They

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really used some of the old fence wood for the fort. Um so we did discuss options with the HOA including ask the kids to take it down. The HOA did send out an email. We didn't get a response. um went back to the HOA and the the HOA manager, Brandon, told the board really just kind of wanted it gone. Um they're

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worried about the safety issues. So, we agreed they're going to repair the fence because it's theirs. Um and that we were going to take care of it. So, we did put it on Facebook. Uh we disassembled the fort as best as we could. We kept the pieces. We then posted it on Facebook to try to elicit a response from the

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parents or the kids. The kids reached out to me and I have spoken to them. I have met the kids and I give the kids a lot of credit. They I think they came into the building. Um and they actually one of them called me the other day. So we're going to try to work with the kids. It's not as easy as it sounds to find a place that makes everyone happy

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because obviously where we took it down is where as kids we put forts. Um but we are going to work with them to try to make it something that maybe they can if they can find a suitable place or maybe we can make a little portable we will put it back together for them. Um so I do apologize to anyone who thinks that

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we were trying to be mean. We were trying to balance a very thin line as a group up here as well as the township. And for both of these, we could have said no. The fort was on our property. So to people said that we could have said no. The geese were not. We also could have said no helping there. But we want to work together. We want to help

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everyone in the town. The result looks messy. The result might look unfair. And my ask is if you think we could have handled this better or other things better and again and I'm going to say this every year, every month, feel free to complain about me on Facebook. That's

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fine. But to get things done, if you have ideas on how we can improve our visibility, on how we can improve our assistance to whether it's the HOA or to other entities within town, reach out to me. Reach out to anyone up here and talk to us after the meeting. Ask to get

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together face to face. I would love to hear ideas. These are stuff we have to think of on the fly. I never thought about an a dead geese epidemic in my life and then you have 48 hours to fix it. I never thought about disassembling a fort and trying to res. These aren't things that we were trained on. So my

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ask is again, you are trained on >> Yeah. You're welcome to comment and to attack on Facebook. We're never going to stop you from doing that. But if you actually want something done, reach out and and and work with us because we were trying to work with the HOA and to the best of our abilities, we thought we

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did. So, please keep that in mind in this day and age of again complaining about a PIO, people discussing that on Facebook about the lack of a need for Facebook. So, I I that is my rant for the night. Um with that, um I think uh that is all I have

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for today. >> Pay some bills. >> Yeah, let's pay some bills. I'd like to make a motion that we pay some bills. >> Second, >> Miss Montgomery. >> Yes. Miss Evans? >> Yes. >> Miss Loveman? >> Yes. >> Mayor Deck? >> Yes. >> Pay all our bills, not some of them.

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>> Sorry, I I had to sign every one of them. It's really annoying. Um, all right. So, we're going to go into executive session for a little while. Um, and then we will be back out. If you want to stick around so I can make a motion to go into session. >> We're going to be How long? >> I'm out. Yeah. So, if you would Yeah. One, if you would make it potential and

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pending litigation >> in addition to potent the the >> so potential endpending litigation. Two, >> just word play. >> Client privilege will involve kind of everything because all this is getting advice. Okay. >> But it also relates to the close session minutes to look at for 2025. >> Yeah. >> Determine whether it can be released.

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>> Okay. >> And then the third arising from this discussion this evening about 1207 Deacon Road, the temporary storage. And I'll correct the record next month if I get this wrong, but I think it's NJSA 10. -2B9 that allows the governing body to go

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into close session to discuss to deliberate over potential fines or penalties that may be pending. There's really no pending violation now, but but the nature of the presentation is such that they're in violation of the ordinance, right? So, it could go to

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municipal court. It could result in the imposition of fines and penalties. And I think the question for the committee is what what can and will What do you wish to do about first one being what can you do? >> Okay. >> So I I we will make a motion with that.

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Is that the resotion to go into close session adopt the resolution uh number 2026-93-5 with those exceptions? >> Yeah. So moved. >> Second. >> Uh Mr. Montgomery. Yes. >> Mrs. Evans

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>> or Yeah. Yes. All in favor? >> I All right. We're going to go into session. >> I was going to repeat all that. I'm like, yeah. You know, >> let's just take a brief break and get back there because I don't think we're going to be back there long. >> Yeah, we're good. Are we? We have two things. >> Are they

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reenter. >> I'd like to make a motion we reenter. >> Second. I >> I >> So, mayor committee, the first motion I would ask you to do is one um as to the close session minutes from 2025, they can now be made public subject to the

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redactions that you approved in close session. >> I'd like to make a motion that we approve the release of the executive session minutes minus the redacted personal movements from 2025. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> All in favor? Hi.

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>> Hi. >> I think I can do that for you. >> It's all one that Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. >> No, we're good there. And as to the other uh topics that were discussed in close session, um a motion as to the

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deacon road presentation uh to authorize the tax attorney and tax administrator to proceed as discussed in close session with the specific understanding that the matter would back on the agenda for the June 9. >> Yeah, June 9.

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>> June 9 12th township committee meeting. I'd like to make a motion that we proceed with the Deacon Road presentation as author and to authorize of attorney to proceed as um advised to the June 9th meeting. >> Second.

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>> Second. >> All in favor? >> All in favor? >> I. >> And as to the other two items discussed in close session, simply a motion to authorize the attorney administrator to move forward uh as discussed in close session. like to I'd like to make a motion that we authorize our attorney

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and our um >> what he said. >> Yeah. As so and administrator as instructed. >> Second. >> All in favor? >> I >> I a lot. >> Was that all? >> Yeah.

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>> Motion to adjurnn. >> Second. >> I >> at 9:10. We're done. >> 910. >> Yep.