was direct she Rich B she is the best I mean literally good evening everyone this meeting is being held with the benefit of public notice as required by the open public
meetings acts uh Madame clerk would you call the role Mr Carabelli here miss Phillips here Mr Ty here Mr Papo Mr wher bson uh would everyone rise for the flag salute and the invocation I pled Al to the flag of the United
States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for [Music] all may we please remain standing for the invocation dear God As We Gather for our
Township council meeting tonight we humbly ask for your guidance and wisdom in all our deliberations grant us open minds and hearts to listen attentively lead to the needs of our community and make decisions that are fair just and beneficial to all may our discussions be respectful and producted guided by a
spirit of unity and collaboration we pray pray for your blessing on all our council members and the decisions we make this evening amen amen there has been an amendment to the agenda since it was posted on the
website uh we are going to be removed moving ca19 uh consent agenda item 19 255-1528 20 uh 25-1 53 also a resolution for uh the
municipal emergency temporary budget uh we will also be removing resolution 2 25-13 3 which is the renewal of a Cannabis Testing Lab permit
for green analogic green analytics East LLC and with that uh let's move forward with the agenda shall we have a motion on the
change oh can I I'll make the uh the motion for those updates and changes on the agenda this evening I'll second in the motion Madam Clark Mr car yes Phils yes yes next for consideration we have the minutes of January 21st 2025 regular council meeting minutes do I have a
motion um council president I'll make a motion to move on M1 the January minutes I'll second that Adam clerk Mr Carell yes Philips yes Mr Tai yes next for consideration we have communications
C1 through C6 um first is a joint Proclamation recognizing March as colal Cancer Awareness Month in Hamilton GO blue next is the joint Proclamation recognizing March as women's History Month moving forward together women educating and inspiring
Generations next is a joint Proclamation for the Vietnam War veterans de Vietnam Veterans Day commemorating the anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War next is a joint Proclamation for Irish Irish heritage month Ireland's contribution to Global
Technology joint Proclamation acknowledging the 2025 brand Marshall the St Patrick's state parade Todd fauler and the joint Proclamation acknowledging the 2025 Miss St Patrick Riley Carr do I have a motion to
recognize Communications C1 through C C6 I'll make that motion I'll second Madam clerk Mr Carabelli yes PHS yes Mr Ty yes next for your consideration is resolution 125-132 is a resolution authorizing the
adoption of pre-qualification regulations as required by njsa 4A 11-25 for contractors to apply to the anticipated bid for the restoration requirements for the same Gardens Point Pond located at 155 Hughes Drive this is
a public hearing any comment from Council just a long waited project that I'm happy to see that we're uh uh starting to get some uh traction and movement on um good to see yeah uh good
to see the upkeep of Sayan Gardens it's it's one of the jewels of the Township Park system if there's no further comment by Council we'll open it up to the public any members of the public wishing to comment on resolution one
Mr Balo more question than comment is that okay so um there's all kinds of ways to do restoration of of ponds and things like that so do you know specifically what they're going to do is it going to be a restoration that's going to be when the facility is finished it's going to
be low maintenance it's going to last for many many years you may not know all those details if you don't I can reach out to engineering or somebody I don't know the specific uh details of the project the only thing I I really looked into was the dollar figure and I know that um half of this
project is funded through gr dollars so that's good that was a a step in the right direction and uh um I know when it was originally anticipated this was only going to be funded through Capital yeah as a capital item but um we're able to seek some Green Acres funding for this
project yeah I think you guys are doing a great job with with soliciting grants stuff I've heard from some people but I'm just I've done this kind of stuff before in my professional like um and I know there's things that you can do to Water waste to minimize things
like Silk having been silk in over the years that types of thing so that's the only reason I was asked the question yeah and we can shut a little more light on that don't know exactly yet everything that's going to be done and what this resolution beginning what this resolution is doing is really setting
the pre-qualifications for any contractor that would work on this or bid on this and so it's limiting the pool of contractors because they have to be certif ifed they actually have to be specialized in a specialized Pond
contractor a certified Aquascape contractor that we're going to bid for um and so but I do know that it involves you know um sort of demoing the existing Pond to a certain extent and then
constructing uh a special filter in there so that is probably doing some of the things that you're talking about and then having some I don't know Coes in there and waterfalls and things like that so my question was actually then premature because this is more you're just trying to qualify contractors
that's correct great thank you so much all right any other members of the public wishing to ask a question or make a comment seeing none seeing none I'll look to um close the public comment
portion and move on resolution 25-32 I'll second Madam clerk Mr Carelli yes Phillips yes Mr Ty yes next for your consideration we have consent agenda items ca1 through
ca18 sorry we're okay okay consent agenda items CA 1 through ca8 18 yes uh any comment from Council I'll just make the comment that
a couple couple items I just wanted to mention one was I was happy to see that obviously um we've negotiated an agreement um Kathy I know you probably put some work into that um and the administration 25-1 36 for the uh with
CWA and our local 1040 um and good to see that it's a you know three-year term that's uh it's foure term actually so um and then um also just wanted to mention I'm
happy to see that we have the two um funded projects for Homedale um recreational space and um some of the Mercer at play Dollars although I'm County I just want to say this I'm prefacing in this although I'm a county
official this doesn't affect my particular department so I feel comfortable voting on this this evening thank you councelor um I would just um also just want to add just happy to see more grant money coming in and I see that we're
going to be moving forward with um grants for improvements on the tennis cour of V Park and just in general just uh you know saving the township and the taxpayers money good any questions or
comments from members of the public on CA 1 through 18 yeah we're going to go to I'm sorry that's okay good evening yes Lisa Williams um I have a question on ca15 we're resending a Professional Services agreement for assistant
municipal prosecutor why um there is a we since learn since we appointed him there's a conflict interest and so therefore so it's it just you can't so there's no conflict of interest
does that affect any cases that he's he hadn't yet appeared okay so and we still have a full we have a full-time prosecutor um so he hadn't yet appeared in our court we have a full-time prosecutor it's just you know in case our prosecutor wants to under no shock
take a vacation take a vacation or have a conflict with the case that's in front of them um is our full-time prosecutor an employee or Professional Services Professional Service okay I was just wondering cuz it seemed like there was a an item on the agenda
a couple maybe a few months ago that we then like held off on a prosecutor my thought was should we just have a municipal prosecutor on the payroll so we don't have to keep going through this we did okay uh we we determined it was actually um less expensive to the township do it through a profession
Services agreement and also um we were able to maintain more control over quality of services vender okay thank you I'm just going to make a comment um it's my own personal opinion um I'm not a petty cash fan never have been and uh
never allowed petty cash in any of my previous positions so I think there's vulnerability issues there accountability issues it is just $200 but just my personal opinion so the other question is c ca1 u can you explain what is why do we
need that and so this is thanks y this is is uh an agreement to buy a fire truck uh we're going to buy a used truck instead of a new truck it's going to save us about a million dollars all
right the vehicle has 10,000 Mi I believe on it oh that's good where where's it going fire yeah where's it going to be where's it going to be parked where's it going to be located yeah it going to a fire department which one of our firehouses well yeah it's a a fire yeah
I just don't know which exactly which one I don't know that doesn't matter going that's all I need to know thank you so much okay it's replacing the 1996 vehicle that's right yeah 30 30y Old vehicle for
replacing okay any other questions or comments from the public okay seeing none seeing none I'll make a motion to close public comment and move on consent agenda item ca1 through CA
18 I'll second that Madam clerk Mr Carabelli yes M Phillips yes Mr Ty yes next is ordinance 1453 ordinance amending and supplementing the code of ordinances Hamilton Township New Jersey chapter 2115 fees section
25-12 marriage ceremonies it's the second reading and public hearing and we are uh just raising the fee for non-residents who are getting married by the by the mayor from 150 to 250 under this
reg yeah any members of the public questions or comments on this on this [Music] item see no members of the public wishing to
comment I Look to uh close the public comment portion and move on second reading um ordinance number 12 25- three I'll second Madam clerk Carell yes pH yes Mr
yes all right now we are going to move to public comment no one has signed up would any members of the public wish to come up and ask any questions or make any comments I guess I will I'll be come on up BR so um can you just wait to to speak
until you're at the mic you're okay speak you're at the mic you're good name's Rich Bal gallan I live at 55 Church Street in Hamilton Township also known as north crosswick um House was built in 1790 it's amazing so um anyway um you may or
may not know but I met with mayor Martin a couple weeks ago he got he generously gave me over an hour sitting down with him and um you know I may be I was a registered Democrat at one time independent and registered Republican
and as you well know I was hired by Gilmore and then Ben Sango kept me on the rest were let go but that's just an FYI but I am really my position is I'm for the township I'm for the township people I don't care what party I'm
affiliated with I really don't um so I sat down with the mayor and I had about four pages of documents of all things that we could do to improve impr services in the township and many of them also not just improved services but saved us money at the same time and um
takes a little effort to do it but we did that and then I talked about other things that are out in the township involving Public Safety that we have a significant liability if someone gets in a crash an accident and uh especially things with get like guard rails and things like that that have not been
compliant for decades and DEC decades spans multiple administrations not just this Administration so um nothing happened after that meeting I expected some people to get some word like engineering or whatever about some of the things that we do I didn't hear anything but and I'm not
going to get into all that stuff now um but um we really need to look at taxes are as you know taxes are always a Hot Topic there's things we need to look at to cut taxes and um there are a number of items in our budget that are big
ticket items that we can make significant changes to Solid Waste for example I'm not going to get into any of the details about that but solid was waste recycling which is the county which is one of the most as far as I'm concerned one of the most pathetic programs I've ever seen in my life um
they need to gut the mcia uh they're doing a horrible job and then there's other things too that I could get into resurfacing and contracts and stuff like that I'm not going to do that but we really need to look at what can we do to cut our operating costs and when you can
improve services at the same time to me it's a no-brainer so that's pretty much just a comment that's all I have to say thank you so much thank you any other members of the public wish to ask a question or make a
comment seeing no members of the public wishing to comment it's okay you want Lisa P Williams I'll be quick just to sort of piggyback on this gentleman's comment me we I've raised this issue for four or five years now the whole dog license scenario and the amount of money we lose
when we bought that ACO truck or contracted for it I think you needed $775,000 from general fund the rest came from the dog fund if you enforced the dog license law you would have had plenty of money because that thing is short every single year by at least $100,000 I did that calculation a few
times a couple of years ago and then again I've just kind of stopped because I feel like I talked to the wall but but if we enforced the dog license law if we collected the fees if we enforced fees when people go to court for things that they actually proved instead of just dismissing them we'd have more Revenue
that could fund things and not additional taxpayer dollars you know that animal control truck has been paid for by everybody in the township because a lot of people didn't license their dogs so there wasn't enough money to cover it so I agree with him there are
ways we can find money um I just thought I'd put my dog license feel out there before I have to make a call because there's been another issue and look at that the dog that's running after me and my dog is not licens thank you thank you any other members of the public
wishing to ask a question or make a comment seeing none uh we'll move to council comment go there only the three of us tonight so weird um I just want to thank everyone for
coming tonight it's nice to get some springish weather finally just in time for the St Patrick's perod looks like it's going to be a beautiful day on Saturday so hope to see everybody out there um can't remember the start time is 11 I
think it's 11 yeah I think it's one one the kickoff kickoff is one love yeah um and I'm also excited for women's History Month I hope everyone's doing something to recognize that and um of course all of our proclamations are important but of course I'm kind of
partial to that so thank you again for coming out and I hope you have a great great night thank you I'll just Echo what uh councilwoman Phillips had uh had uh mentioned regarding the St Patrick's Day event I know it's a big event in our town and um it brings out a lot of
people um it's a good Community event glad to see um our 2025 Grand Marshall uh with the joint Proclamation and uh Miss St Patrick Wy Carr met her uh know the family fairly well um and also got to know um was introduced to Todd as
well so looking forward to them leading things off and uh the prey committee does a phenomenal job so looking forward to that event and uh and uh in a couple more weeks I guess uh you're going to be scheduling council president at some of our budget workshops my favorite time of
year so um and we'll go through the budget at that particular time but thank you for coming out this evening and uh I look forward to seeing everyone on the eth yeah uh I I just want to say congratulations to the Grand Marshall and to miss St Patrick uh I would like
to thank all the members of the public who joined us this evening uh as always we value your uh questions and comments and we are this has been a brief council meeting tonight but we uh thank you and
we look forward to seeing you again soon this meeting is adjourned thank you