Good evening. Adequate notice. Oh, this is the wrong which is May 8th. of the May 8th, 2025 regular meeting of the township committee has been provided in accordance with the
open public meetings act by posting written notice and agenda to meeting out of bulletin board the municipal building 1000 route 10 township of Hannover and by hand delivering mailing or faxing such notice to the following newspapers Morris County Galley Record the Star Ledger Hannover Eagle and by following
the scene with the township clerk roll call committeeman Cahill here committeeman Francioli here committeeman Mahalo here mayor Gallagher here five members in attendance. Please join us for the pledge of allegiance and please remain standing
for our prayer. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Almighty God, please watch over and guide this governing body with an abundance of wisdom and understanding to help make the best decisions for our residents. Please bless our first responders and township volunteers who help keep us all safe, especially Jim Danis of the Whippy Fire Department who
was seriously injured during a fire training uh this week. Please keep Jim and his family in your thoughts and prayers. Also, bless our township employees and residents. Lastly, please let us pray for the men and women of the US armed forces who stand vigil over us always.
Amen. Thank you. Good evening everyone. First on the agenda, we have the approval of the meeting minutes of April 10th, 2025. May I have a motion to approve the minutes, please? So move. Second. All in favor? I. So
approved. Next order of business is the public hearing and adoption of ordinance numbers 11-2025, 12-2025, 13-2025, 14-2025, and
15-2025. Proof of publication that those ordinances and the notice of introduction appeared in full in the April 30th issue of the daily record. At this time, may I have a motion to convene the public hearing on ordinance numbers 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15? So move.
You have a second. Second. Is anyone in chambers wishing to be heard concerning any of those ordinances? If so, please state your name and address for the record and which ordinance you would like to speak regarding. Second. Now on adoption, may I please
have a motion to adopt ordinance numbers 11-2025, 12-2025, 13-2025, 14-2025, and 15-2025. So move. A second. Second. On roll call.
Committeeman Cahill. Hi. Committeeman Faroska. Hi. Committeeman Francoli. Hi. Committeeman Mahelco. Yes. Mayor Gallagher. Hi. So adopted. Next on the agenda, we have the introduction of ordinances. I'd like to
read the titles of each into the record. First is ordinance 16-2025. It's a bond ordinance providing for the approvement of the Samuel Tuttle House in and by the Township of Handover in the county of Mars, New Jersey, appropriating
$450,000, therefore and authorizing the issuance of $428,000 bond or notes of the township for financing such appropriations. Ordinance number 17-2025, an ordinance of the Township
Committee of the Township of Hanover, County of Morris, and State of New Jersey, authorizing a change order in the amount of $9,000 with Suburban Consulting Engineers Incorporated for the performance of additional construction phase services within the scope of the original agreement as it
relates to the Bmetal swimming pool splash pad project and further appropriating the sum of $15,000 for the swimming pool enterprise. fund capital account for 2025 and all prior years for the financing of the change order. And
lastly, I have ordinance number 18-2025, an ordinance of the township of Hanover, Mars County, New Jersey, amending chapter 166 of the township code entitled land use and development in order to amend permitting build permitted building heights in the RM-6
zone district. I'd like to state for the record that these ordinances and their respective notice of introductions will be published in full in the daily record in accordance with law. The public hearing is scheduled for June 12th, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. And if any member of the public
would like to be heard regarding these ordinances, they will be given the opportunity to do so this evening. May I have a motion to introduce ordinance 16-2025, 17 2025, and 18 2025?
Motion. May I have a second? Second. Um, roll call. Committeeman Cahill. Hi. Committeeman Farraamosa. Hi. Committeeman Francioli. Hi. Committee Malco. Yes. Mayor Gallagher. Hi. So introduced. The next order of business.
We have the approval of the resolutions as a consent agenda. Those are resolution numbers 99-2025 all the way through to 117-2025. Does any member of the governing body have any questions regarding any of
these resolutions? Move it be approved. May I have a second? Second. All in favor? I. And the resolutions are so approved. And lastly for myself, I have the payment of bills
in 10,151,16218. John, can you pay the bills for us? Motion to pay the bills. I love that he does it every every time. I have a second. All in favor? Bill is repaid. And mayor and the members of the committee, that clears the agenda and I
thank you very much. Great. Thank you very much, Christie. Good job. You're welcome. Okay. I'd like a motion to open to the public. So move. Second. All in favor? I. If anyone from the public would like to address the governing body, please step up to the podium,
state your name, address, and you have four minutes. Hi. Um, Dana Atinson Cedals. I just had um a question about ordinance 18-2025 with the um land use the
building height. What are we trying to change the height to? Blaze, you want to take this one? Put your mic on. Put your mic up. Thank you. The current ordinance allows a 60 ft
building height and we're increasing it or we would be if we adopt the ordinance to 75 ft. Um the reason for that increase is that when the this was an affordable housing site as part of our
third round housing plan and in negotiating a settlement through the process uh with the developer in the court uh it was based upon uh an estimated wetland
limit. It turns out after that was adopted that the wetlands were both more extensive and also classified with a much larger buffer requirement than was anticipated. Therefore, to help meet the
township's affordable housing obligation, the development cannot be as horizontal as it was planned to be. It needed to go more vertical. So, it's allowing an additional story. The height that's proposed of 75
ft is the same height as the office zone that surrounds it. So, for today, an office building in the surrounding zone can be 75 ft high. So, it's no taller than what is already permitted on three sides of the property. Um, so that's
what the change would be. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And so Blaze, just to conclude, this isn't going to be a new normal. This is really for a specific area, an option moving forward. It's one new normal. Yeah. It's one site. It's adding one story to a building that is
the clearest the nearest resident is over 500 ft away. Okay. And the ordinance 17-2025 about the pool. What's going on with the pool, Michael?
Um, with the splash pad, there's been a lot of a lot of delays. Um, a lot of issues that have popped up. Uh, when they start digging in there, they didn't realize it was going on. We also had to adjust. I believe this specifically comes back to the electrical. Yes. Change order to
some electrical work that need to to be modified to support this. Yeah. When they got in there, they realized that the the panel, the existing panel was basically shot, and we re needed to redo it. There's no point in just doing a patch. So, we said, "Let's redo the
whole panel and uh bring it up to code, bring it up to safety standards that it needs to be." Okay. And um I also saw on the agenda for the conference which I missed that um you
were going to talk about the mountain of residents concerns with the group home. Um what happened with that? That was an easy one. The other last meeting there was a quite a little bit of confusion about an easement and a walking path and
we just had to confirm with each other and with our professionals that there is in fact no easement and like we made clear in the agreement to the company if there is going to be any change in the walking path or paths they will be reconstructed and complete prior to any
construction of the new dwelling. So we just need an update clearly. Is there an easement? Yes or no? And there's not. And we al and that so that won't affect anything when it comes to the walking path. But our agreement with the ark is that if we do in fact move a walking path, it will be moved immediately and
complete before any construction so our families can enjoy that path and our children can enjoy walking to school safely. Okay. And I know engineering was working on the placement of the home on the lot. That's going to be a work in progress.
We're we're looking at different options and we're not in a very good place right now. So, nothing to report right now other than we don't like what we saw. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?
All in favor? I Joe, would you like to make a few comments about three resolutions? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Um, how did I know Joe? Normally, uh, when we hear from members of the public, uh, when I re receive phone
calls, uh, I get complaints about different issues and problems. But it's always nice to report on things that are going well in the tension. And a number of years ago when committee man Farah
Moscow was the mayor, he called me up and he said, "You know, we need to get uh do something about the young people in our community that are attending high school and college to get involved in government.
And we ought to start an internship program." And so we put together an ordinance for internships and it's been very successful I might add for the last almost 10 years. And on the agenda
tonight we have three such appointments. We have two individuals um one gentleman by the name of Thomas Lapra and a second person by the name of Carly Zealia uh whose um dad was a Hanover Township
police officer and is now retired. Both signed up to do internships with the police department starting later this month. Then we have a young man who is a senior at Wibbony
Park High School who who is not getting paid for his internship but will be getting credit to work in the engineering department albeit only for a month I think one day a week Jerry is it
more than that four days a week and to get experience because he's going on as an engineering student at Rutgers university. So, I just wanted to tap the fact that there are a lot of positive things going on in the township. That's
one of them. And tonight, the township committee approved those three resolutions for this internship. So, I thank you. And he drives his bike every uh Yes. And the young man that's from Whippony Park High School actually, you know, uses his bike. So, thank you,
Chris. Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, T, for sure. Was that for all the items you wanted to cover? That was it for now. Okay. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Yes. Um, so have you guys ever had any high school students interested in sitting with you guys? because I know
I've been to other towns and sometimes they have high school students that participate with the council but they're just not allowed in the closed legal sessions. The closest we came and it started under Ron was a mayor for
today. We had one again I believe 2 3 years ago and I heard there's two one in Salem Drive school and one in B Meadow. But as far as high school students joining us in in actual governing or participating in a meeting, that's a very good idea. No, not that I know of.
It's a very good idea. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. You know, thinking back on that too, um this came out of Mortown airport. Uh last week I attended a meeting where 10 high school students
who are programs for aviation were hosted at Marstown airport. They got a tour, they got a talk, they got in the tower, etc. is all part of the curriculum that they're doing. And hopefully that will Oh, I'm on the air.
And hopefully that will uh hopefully that will launch a uh a career for a lot of these young people who are seniors. So, we're very happy to be a part of that, too. Excellent. Okay. Other business. Would any committeeman like to take a moment
and explain what's going on and how to potentiale starting with John? John, we'll begin with Earth Day. There were two major events in our community for Earth Day. The green team in con conjunction with the Wikipany River
wershed action committee teamed up for a major cleanup of and beautifification of all of our parks to include the community garden. Uh there were over 100 participants and a special thanks goes out to Barlay's Marzetti Falcon Metife
uh the department of public works did a great job and a whipony fire department rescue team. The second major event I'm going to leave that for the mayor because that was a special event as well as part of the Earth Day to discuss that. Um my next issue to discuss is
economic development advisory committee is planning for a big open house for business brokers on June 11th at all seasons golf and economic development advisory committee has had a long-standing relationship with Whippony
Park high schools for intern to participate in the details of EDAC. So that's something that we felt was very positive and that's out there. If anybody is interested, come to one of our meetings. Engineering's focus is all
about the roads this time of year. Popular drive, Countrywood Drive, Laurel Lane, and Howell Street are some of those where the advertising will go out on May 13th. The bid packages to be open on June 3rd. Looking for an award early
in June. Last point um in terms of engineering and I'm sure deputy mayor Malco will talk a little bit about the recreation projects that mayor that concludes my thanks very much John Ron. Yeah very
good. Yeah to piggyback on John uh with the uh community farm and garden that was a very successful weekend. We want to thank everyone involved. certainly do. Also, uh on that Sunday of that weekend, uh through Sierra with the one of our employees in the recreation
department, uh we had an organization saving earth a toz. Uh they showed up and worked all day to uh improve the garden, uh fixing the trails, adding wood chips, etc. A lot of good physical labor. The garden looks absolutely
beautiful. We have to thank all these people who made contributions to making it happen. So, we're very happy about that. I just explained that uh Marstown Airport uh did a uh high school tour lecture on aviation. I think they're
going to try and annualize that. That'll be a wonderful thing for them. Um we're making progress with the uh county on the Mars County Transportation Committee which I sit. Uh Route 24 Park Avenue, Columbia Turnpike, as most know
has been a treacherous intersection for quite some time. Uh I think at this point uh they're moving forward to uh uh in the design concept. Uh we'll learn more about that very shortly through our committee, but uh it is approved to go
forward on so we're very very pleased about that. uh as well the um oh tonight uh one of our own uh members of our community Wayne Rosatka some may know him who was member of the Hanover Township Sewage Authority for
quite a long time uh who retired and left he's back with us here tonight uh he's at the library and from 6 I think we just missed him from 6:00 to 8 etc on a book signing tour. So, uh, I hope, uh,
some of our community, uh, got an opportunity to get out there and, uh, and see Wayne and say hello to him as well. Uh, this particular Saturday, uh, and these are pre-registered folks are going to be part of our first eye care
clinic. It will be held at the recreation center. Uh, and it's being run by laser vision of Hanover Township. Uh there are well over 20 applicants that have come in on the program so far and
uh we're once again this is a pro this is a first time we're doing this program. This is a initiation of the program. So we're hoping to expand it. We don't expand it this year. We're going to certainly expand it on an annualized basis uh for more of our seniors. And by the way this was focused
on seniors and you didn't have to be a member of the seniors club to be part of it. This was all seniors in town who could take advantage of this if they pre-registered. So, thank you, Mayor. That's what we got. Thank you, Ron.
Brian, we thank you. Um, just a couple of things. First of all, I had mentioned a couple meetings ago uh that Hanner Police Department participated in a distracted driving uh enforcement exercise uh designed just to do that to
discourage distracted driving such as texting and so forth. that ran from the beginning of April to the end of April. Uh so I just wanted to share some results. Basically uh the state gave us some grant money which allowed for the police department to add 125 extra hours of patrols specifically for the purpose
of distracted driving. Um and that resulted in in in high levels uh 250 stops, 248 summones, 68 warnings uh but also resulted in seven arrests. So you know when you're out looking for distracted drivers, other things do pop
up. So by all measures it was a success as it has been in uh multiple years. Uh next again HPD and police department uh the two of our officers are participating in the uh the unity tour. Unity tour happens every year. Starts
off in Fairfield, New Jersey. It's a 3-day bike ride, 4-day event. Uh a bike ride to Washington DC. Uh and it's basically the organization that's responsible for it. Uh their mission is to support uh officers in their or their families of officers that have been uh
washed in the uh in the line of duty. So that's going on right now as we speak. I'm sorry, actually starting tomorrow, Friday. Um, also again, uh, Hetension Police is sponsoring a blood drive, uh, sponsored, uh, will be at the community center on
Friday, May 16th from 12:00 to 5:00 p.m. So, if you're so inclined, I'd encourage you to go there uh, and do that to help out. Be much appreciated. And last is uh just a reminder, it's a little bit early, but in case we don't have any public meetings in our next May meeting,
uh Monday, May 26th is the Memorial Day parade kicking off at the high school uh at 9:30 in the morning. Um so we'd encourage people to please attend. It's been huge success in the past and uh hoping it will be again this year. So thank you, Brian. Mike, do you have
anything tonight? Thank you. You know, we always have a lot going on. Yes, my four minutes. Uh I'll start with seniors. Uh we have a very active senior program and uh in addition to their uh two meetings a month, there's also every Wednesday um the
seniors meet. There's always either a movie or games or something always going on for the seniors. In addition to that, we got trips coming up. Uh Wind Creek bus trip. Their spring lunchon is coming up on Wednesday the 21st. Um uh the senior balance clinic is coming up. The
point is, if you're a senior above that age, over 60, sign up. There's a lot going on. Hey, there's a lot there's a lot going on. Uh really for our seniors, and you don't have to necessarily belong to the club. You can be anybody from our town is welcome. Um and again, get out,
socialize, meet some new people. Uh there's always always something going on. Check out the website. Mark your dates, guys. We got a couple things coming up. Um May 31st we have actually a learn to fish. We tried that last year. Brian Primo took a lot of
youngsters and showed them how to fish over at Malipar Park. He's doing that again. Uh and he's doing that before June 7th which is our fishing contest. So mark your calendars for that too, guys. Um while we're marking our calendars, July 2nd will be our
patriotic celebration, our fireworks here at uh at town hall. So that's on July 2nd. um cultural arts. We have an event coming up, the Ukrainian festival at the rec center. That's on May 18th, Sunday, May 18th. Um there'll be
dancing, there'll be food. Um a lot of things going on for that. So again, that's also May 18th. Uh we talked briefly about Betal Pool. I just wanted to point out we've had the highest registration almost ever so far. Um 500,
excuse me, 600 registrations. Those are families. multiply that by, you know, three or four or five people, that's how many people so far, and we still got another month to go. Um, Splash Pad is moving along a little bit slower than we wanted. Uh, they've run into a couple
problems. One of those was the power that we pointed out before. Um, there may be some delays. We're hoping, um, we can start using it by mid July. Um, but we're going to keep pressing ahead as long as it's safe to operate and safe to uh, do the construction. we're going to
keep going ahead and we've worked out a plan if they are still doing construction when the pool opens full-time come the end of June that um we should be able to safely do their construction the the heavy stuff should be complete by then um and the pool will still operate. So uh we made
contingencies for that. We knew it was a tight time frame but um we're going to keep moving ahead with it. Um, while we're talking about um projects, Blackbrook, um, I don't know if you guys saw Facebook, we I put a couple pictures up there. The turf is down. We're about
90%. We got a punch list of some items that need to get finished up. We're also working on repaving all of the paths at Blackbrook. Um, really did a nice job. Um just just the the design of the of the uh uh of the park itself of the uh
of the ball field. It's really coming out well. Looks looks pretty sharp. Be aware though, Val Park is still closed. We have a lot of big equipment going on. Unfortunately, until that big equipment's out of the way, the park needs to remain closed. Uh we can't afford to have those, you know, machines
going back and forth and somebody get hurt. Uh so uh we we'll open it as soon as we can which hopefully should be within another couple weeks again as soon as the big equipment's out of the way. Um thank you for mentioning Memorial Day parade uh all of the committee members help out on the Memorial Day parade. Everybody pitches
in and does something. It's a terrific crew. Uh I chair it but everybody uh does a lot of work and a lot of organizing. And uh this year our grand marshal is Steve Bulkar. Uh you know he's from town. And our speaker is Mike Herbert. Mike Herbert. Thank you. I
forgot his first Captain Mike. Captain Mike Herbert. He'll be our uh he'll be our guest speaker. Again, that's on Memorial Day, Monday, uh May 26th. Step off for the parade is at 9:30 and it starts at uh at the high school, travels
down Whippony Road, left on the Pipony Road up to the American Legion. Um and then hopefully you can join us for a ceremony and some refreshments afterwards. So that's it. That's it. Nice job, Mike. Thank you very much for everything. No, thank you all.
I got four items. Number one, speaking of distracted driving, catch you later is a foundation out of Bayon, New Jersey, where the entire purpose of the initiative is to alert people to distracted driving and let them know
that life or lives can be changed in a split second. We're partners with them in Hannover Township and many other municipalities in this area. Now, when we had our last event here, we videoed that event. We spent quite a bit of time with Robert and Robert, great job and thank you very much. Quite a bit of time
editing that material. We wrote a cover letter and a one-pager from Pam O'Donnell from Catcher Later. Last Friday at 7:00 p.m. we sent it to 529 mayors in New Jersey, introducing them to the program, the importance of the program, what it
means to us, and uh it exploded with the views of your video, Robert, on YouTube. We're getting a lot of interest, putting a lot of people in touch with Pam O'Donald. That's going to make a very, very big impact. Another great opportunity for Hannib Township to help as many people as possible using every
resource available. I want to talk about flood remediation. And I can be quick on it, but this is a topic I'm a little bit Mike because I can I can really talk about this one. Two days ago, and I don't use props, the League of Municipalities Magazine did a big feature on what we're doing in this area
of Mars County. Seven municipalities shared service. I'm going to give you some numbers. Behind PC Richards, we took out 150 yards of material. Behind Pity Auto Parts, 175 yards of material. down
Klinger Road and Styus Lane in East Town of Earth. Downstream service was in there 7 to 10 days. The water is flowing. We had a volunteer portion which was 4A 4B is going to be in June where we had the DPW, we had our OEM and
we had James Hawk out of Cedar go there on a Saturday morning in the rain and they pulled out 100 yards of material. So you tally that up and then you watch that water run. That's no accident. This is real. It's happening and this is just the beginning. I do want you to know
that releasing posts and different videos on Facebook is a great way to communicate. Well, we have a record with this because when I put the video on behind PC Richards, in 4 days it had 18,200 views. I've never seen anything
like it. People are thrilled. People deserve this. And we made it a nonpolitical issue. We have everybody now joining us and supporting us. And we have a meeting next week with some heavy hitters where we are going to create a recommendation to all municipalities
with a waterway to create a line item whether it's $2,500 or $5,000 to go in and at least d snag their rivers cuz when the water runs, we have a lot less flooding. And it's and it will not make it as essential for New
Jersey to do little or nothing and just simply change the flood maps and make people fend for themselves. So, I'm very proud to be part of this and what I am as a part of this. I'm trying to figure out how to release this on Facebook or share it through the town. I think it's on the website already, but you'll also
read this article and there's no heroes in this group. And now our task force is up to 52 people. 52 people. And I'm very proud of that. Two more quick ones. Um, the Mental Health Association is going to have a symposium in here May 21st and
our target is middle school AED families. We have a lot of incredible people coming here to help people understand and our two big speakers are Tracy from the Mental Health Association in Had um Hatter Township Schools,
Superintendent Justin Tumi. Justin's going to talk about some of the issues he's dealing with and services that are available. We are going to record it so people can watch it in their privacy of their own home, but they are welcome to come join us and that should be a really good event. A very, very important
event. I want to say welcome to James, our new assistant BA right there. Robert, if you could put the camera on this young man, I'd appreciate it. Maybe that could be what is displayed on YouTube when it says our meeting. Didn't know you could turn that bright red. Oh
yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, James right there. Last thing, I talk about the 200 Club of Morris County a lot. They have a very, very big ceremony at the Morris County Public Safety Academy this coming week. I believe it's Monday, Bill. I
thought it was Tuesday, but it's Monday. And Had Township's very own Bill Burn, his granddaughter is getting a scholarship. And let me tell you, from being a trustee, that's a very, very big deal. Congratulations. If anybody wants to come check out that event at the
academy, they have snacks. The place is beautiful. You can get a tour. And of course, Sheriff James Cannon will be there for the entire event. That's all I got. Anybody have anything else? Motion. Motion. Second. All in favor? I.
Thank you. Very good. [Music]