You're also quite you can talk, you know, you're not like Good evening and welcome to the township committee meeting of May 13, 2025. An executive session was held at 6:30 and we are now reconvening. Miss Break,
please call the role. Committeeman Britting here. Committeewoman Hand here. Committee present. Deputy Mayor Payne here. Mayor Tickerelli here. Administrator Ferrer here. Attorney Miller here. All right. Please join me in a salute to the flag to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible and for all. All right, I read the other the usual language earlier. So, approval of minutes. May I have a motion and a
second to approve the regular meeting minutes of April 22nd, 2025? So, moved. Seconded. Roll call. Committee Bringing. Yes. Committeewoman Hand. Yes. Commander Leani, yes. Deputy Mayor Payne, yes. Mayor Torley,
yes. Okay. Okay. May I have a motion and a second to approve the executive meeting minutes from January 14th, 2025? So moved. Second. Roll call. Committeeman Britting. Yes. Committee woman. Yes. Committee man. Yes. Deputy Mayor Payne. Yes. Mayor Jilly. Yes.
All right. On a roll. May I have a motion and a second to approve the executive session minutes from February 11th, 2025? So moved. Seconded. Roll call. Committee Britt. Abstain. Committeewoman Hand. Yes. Commani. Yes.
Dep. Yes. Um okay. So before we get into the committee um pardon Mr. Willard. Yeah. May I guess address? Yeah. Before we get to the reports, uh, while we still have everybody here in a
captive audience, um, as everybody, as everybody knows, uh, every municipality in the state of New Jersey is under time deadline with respect to coming up with a housing plan. It's got to be filed by June 30th. Um, and I understand we just had an executive session meeting to discuss that. We're still in the
planning process and there's a need of a special meeting of the township committee um for Monday, May 19th, 2025 at 4 p.m. Um so uh if the township committee would like a motion and a second and a roll call to approve the
clerk sending out a special meeting notice again for Monday, May 19th at 400 pm. So make a motion. Sorry. Motion in a second. So I'll second it. All right, we have it. And that's for executive session. Uh yes, it is it is technically
a public meeting. We we will come out here. We'll we'll open the meeting. Um but then again for members of the public, they the committee then will be going into executive session um to discuss things of a confidential nature because it is uh our affordable housing plan. It is under litigation. Um and
then there will be a public comment session if anybody should should want to appear. But uh again, I don't think there's a need to uh but anybody's welcome to attend because it is a public meeting of the township committee. Roll call. Okay. Roll call.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. All right. Um we're before we get into committee reports, I have a couple of general announcements to make. Um, Hillsboro community mourns the loss
of beloved coach, counselor, and resident Ian Projan, who lost his 14-year battle with brain cancer on May 2nd. Uh, Ian will be remembered for his quiet strength, unwavering dedication, and deep love for the people around him.
Hillsboro Township offers our condolences to Ian's family, friends, and students. Uh may your treasured memories be a blessing uh for Ian and the Trojan family. So um this month is uh May is National
Military Appreciation Month. Uh it's observed annually to honor and thank the men and women who serve or have served in the US armed forces. The month-long observance established by Congress in 1999 provides an opportunity to reflect on the service uh sacrifices made by
those who serve and their families and to show appreciation for their dedication. So, it's na it's military appreciation month. I know we've got a big event at the end of the month uh in our Memorial Day parade and veterans breakfast. So, um you know recognize
that. Uh, Hillsboro also is excited to uh, welcome two new businesses to the community. I was joined by committeewoman Hand and the economic and business development director Susanna Caris and members of Hillsboro Police
Department and the Hillsboro Business Association to cut ribbons at um, Robinson's Chocolates and Peru Chan. Uh learn more about these businesses tomorrow at the Hillsboro Township website and an upcoming edition of the mayor's news. Um we uh so yeah,
Robinson's Chocolates is a favorite of mine. So uh and my family. So uh if a if any company wants to schedule a ribbon cutting, please contact the economic and business development office uh at the uh at hbhillsboroenj.gov.
Um last Thursday uh committee woman hand and I were both uh able to attend the hope for tomorrow mental health fair. Uh we had uh numerous vendors. It was run by burrow safe. Uh a huge turnout and and lots of
uh lots of vendors if you will or or groups uh uh supporting uh the mental health fair put on by burough safe. So, uh, great event, another successful one, and it was it was a a very busy evening.
And, uh, on May 2nd, we had a bench dedication. Uh, we held a bench dedication at Anan Middlesworth Park in memory of Vladimir Vladimir Stabnoi. Deputy Mayor Payne and I were honored to participate and we'll learn more about Vladimir's legacy during the
proclamations today. Uh, so with that, I'd like to go to reports from the committee, starting with Committeeman Britting. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, everybody. Hope everyone's having a great week so far. Stay out of the rain, which is hard to do the rest of the week. My kids play baseball hopefully this year. Wreck leagues are
actually double headers now, which is crazy. So, all right. So, for administration, so first I want to put a congratulations out there for uh Miss Lindsay, don't leave yet. See, we're going to congratulate you, too. See, you're coming in and out. So, congratulations to Hillsboro Township Clerk, Miss Sarah Break, and Deputy Clerk, Erica
Alenzo. They both were named to the 2025 municipal clerk's honor role. This is Miss Break's fifth year in a row to receive this recognition. Now, she's a Hall of Famer. And Erica's second year in a row, so perennial all-star. Uh, the municipal clerk's honor role is a special program uh from the general code
since 2001. Uh, Mr. Farah, I know they they work for you. anything you'd like to just say about both of them while while on the subject? I think one word. Awesome. So, uh I couldn't be happier uh with uh both um Sarah and Erica and our office not only supporting u me, the
rest of the employees, the the business community, the residents, but also the mayor and the township committee. So, uh I'm thrilled for them and we already know that they belong on the honor role. So, uh we're thrilled thrilled to have them. That's great. And we have a tremendous leadership program as well too that Mr. Farah had sponsored for
many years and we won an award last year for uh helping and sponsoring our people and working with them on growth and development which is great. All right, next is primary election. Hear a lot of buzz on social media. So the New Jersey primary election is a few short weeks away. Here are a couple dates. I'm not asking you to memorize them all. You can always look them up. Uh mailin ballots
were sent out on April 19th. Voter registration deadline is May 20th. So coming up, the dropbox in front of the municipal building is now open for mailin ballots. Sample ballots will be mailed on May 28th. So that's coming up in about twoish weeks plus or so two
weeks. Uh the deadline to request a mail-in ballot is June 3rd. So you could still request one even though they're already sent out. In person early voting for the June primary election begins June 3rd. The last day for early voting is June 8th and primary election day is June 10th. All right. So what that tells
you is just for everybody to know and the younger people in the crowd too who don't vote yet we have a new system a new process in the country or mostly say New Jersey as well too. with early early voting, right? So, that's a big deal. So, you can go before election day and vote. Gives you the opportunity to have make sure your voice is heard. So, it's very important. Economic and business
development. So, ribbon cutting. Hillsboro proudly welcomes uh care and cure physical therapy to our growing business community. Located at 256 Route 206, Unit 9, Care and Cure provides personalized hands-on treatment to help patients recover faster and feel better.
It's a great great vision and model. Uh their team is dedicated to improving mobility, relieving pain, and supporting long-term long-term wellness for individuals of all ages. If you'd like to schedule a ribbon cutting for any of you who run a business or friends and family who are as well too, uh please
contact the office here at hba hillsboroj.gov. All right, so National Small Business Week that is uh that is that is concluded. So that was Hillsboro Township thanks everyone who supported our local businesses during National Small Business Week. even though it's
considered a an official week, support them every week. That's very important. That was from May 10th through May 14th officially with over 1,000 small businesses in town. If you think about it, we have a large town of 1,000 businesses. It's huge. Um your support helps them thrive and streng strengthens
our local economy. From dining at hometown favorites to shopping at local retailers, your efforts made a real difference. We just want to thank everyone who shop locally and continue to do so. Continue to shop at hashtagshop forb NJ all year long. All right. Next is from the health department. So we have green living and
wellness fair. So the economy is important but health is way more important. You don't have your health, you don't have anything else. So health's very important. The annual green living and wellness fair will be held on Saturday, June 7th in conjunction with Hillsboro YMCA Hop 5K. The fair or rain or shine event begins at 8:00 a.m. here at this building. Um
and it will end at 11:00 a.m. a little before lunch. So participating local businesses will share informative presentations to raise awareness of the various aspects of living a healthy lifestyle including making informed nutritional choices, long-term planning decisions and benefits of a green lifestyle. There will also be health
screenings and interactive dance and exercise demonstrations. So actually pretty cool if you want to bring somebody family member uh to come come be a part of it. Human resources to a very strong human resources department in Hillsboro to make sure we have the great people that we have here and they do a great job supporting. So, Hillsboro is hiring for a variety of positions,
including inspectors for the building department and a crossing guard. So, please see tomorrow's e-news for more information on available employment opportunities with Hillsboro Township. And e-news is very important. If you go to the Hillsboro website, sign up for the e-news because you will get weekly and sometimes bi-weekly um information sent from the township. There's so much
going on here. Sometimes you have to look and you'll see how great it is. Just a few more for me here, too. So, recreation. So, recreation is still open. This is for all ages. A lot of times the kids take advantage of the recreation. is still open for the 2025 summer sports clinics and music academy and summer camp. See tomorrow's e-news
for the registration link for these programs. We have a fantastic recreation department here who is doing an immense amount of uh work with the kids in the spring and in the summer. It's getting time for it. So, please sign up. They're very digitally savvy as well too. So, you can sign up online. Makes it very easy. Social services. So, the area
that's really helping people live better and healthier lives and just better lives in general, better quality of life. instrumental meditation and yoga series for Hillsboro senior citizens. Our social services department is pleased to offer an instrumental meditation and yoga series for Hillsboro seniors during May and June. If you're interested in participating, please
contact the social services department to register. You can find their number on the website right down the hall here. Fantastic. And the last one, tax assessor. So, the farmland applications um that are specific to those those those those types of land will be mailed from the assessor's office in June to
all qualified farmland owners. Completed farmland application should be returned to the assessor's office by August 1st, 2025. That is all from me. Thank you very much, Mayor. Next, uh, thank you, Committeeman Britting. Um, one item on the HBA, the small business comment. Uh,
this earlier today, I attended, uh, HBA, Hillsboro business association, uh, joint meeting with the Somerset County Business Partnership. So, uh, very busy, uh, busy day, but, uh, a nice event attended by about 100 small comp small
businesses, some from Hillsboro, some from Somerset County. So, another, uh, we'll we'll talk about that probably at the next meeting. We'll have some pictures, but a great event tonight. So, thank you. Uh, next is Committee Hand. Thank you very much, Mayor. All right. Hello. Good evening. Hoping all of the
moms out there had a fabulous Mother's Day. Um I feel like we had really nice weather which was wonderful. Um from a stroke awareness month, it is stroke awareness month. So May designated as national stroke awareness month in the US. This is a month-long campaign aim
aimed at raising public awareness about stroke prevention. Early recognition which is really important um and the signs of stroke so that we can seek medical attention immediately. The signs of stroke, think about fast, as you can see here, face drooping, um arm
weakness, speech difficulty, um time to call 911. It's important to call 911 at the um initial signs of stroke, no matter how small. Immediate treatment is essential um so that symptoms and long-term repercussions don't
escalate. We also have um from Sahaja, yoga, meditation. I think we have a visual there too. So this was um founded by a local friend Shri and her spiritual breakthrough has enabled all people in
Hillsboro to have easy and free access to selfactualization and self-realization. at the in-person upcoming weekly classes at the Hillsboro Library. Um, you'll have the opportunity to meditate in real time to nourish the subtle, excuse me,
energy system components within us, specifically our energy channels, energy centers, which centers which provide vital energy for our optimal physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Again, classes are free. Please check the library calendar for scheduled dates.
Um, I also had the pleasure of attending the board of ed art galla recently. So, great demonstration of not only the musical talents from town, but also if you as you walk around the building, the incredible art um that all ages within
the township have produced. Um, also wanting to call out um we've had a couple fabulous uh milestones with our Hillsboro sports. So, with our women's lacrosse, I would just like to give a shout out to Sarah Thompson who had her
um remarkable 100 draw controls. If you're not familiar with lacrosse or women's sports, it's a big deal. You want draw control so you can maintain possession. So, congrats to her on 100 draw controls. And then um as well to Kevin Jones of the men's, um lacrosse
team that just scored 100 points. So, congrats to him uh at the high school. And then a shout out to two of our alumni. This is a moment of personal privilege as um I'd like to give a shout out to Gabriella Rousa as well as Hi Hand. Yes, my daughter. Um these are two
Hillsboro alumni that just completed competed in the NCAA D3 Women's Lacrosse. It was really incredible to have them representing TCJ and Stevens Institute of Technology as they battled on Mother's Day. Um, I would like to
report that Stevens, my daughter's team, did win. They are advancing to the NCAA Sweet 16. And it is just an incredible moment to see our um our alumni not only excel from an academic standpoint, but
also uh physically and emotionally as well. So, thank you for that. And back to you, Mayor. Thank you, Committee. Uh, next will be Committeeman Leani. Good evening, everybody. Wait. Okay.
Uh well, once the weather warms up, people want to go to their pool. Right now, not so much, but uh pools have specific requirements for their installation and for their barriers. These requirements are intended to protect potential drowning and near drowning by restricting access to the
pool. Seasonal pools may be temporary, but can pose a life safety issue if the barrier requirements are not properly met. Please stop by the building department for more information and to get our residential swimming pool guide. And we did talk about this. They do require a permit. So, uh, please
remember to get your permit for these pools so they can be inspected as part of this program. Uh, the life they save may be one of your own loved ones. Building safety month. Uh, building safety month is an international campaign held in May to raise awareness about building safety.
This campaign reinforces the need for those adoption of modern, regularly updated building codes and helps individuals, families, and businesses understand what it takes to create a safe and sustainable structure. Hillsboro Township is committed to recognize that our growth
and strength depends on the safety and economic values of our homes, buildings, and infrastructure that serve our citizens in everyday life during natural disasters. The International Code Council sponsors building safety month to remind the public about crit the
critical role of our local code officials and our communities of unknown protectors of the public. Uh we have started our will be starting once the weather permits our annual sidewalk replacement program. The
engineering department advises that a contract was bid for the sidewalk through the township. We will we will concentrate in high walk areas near schools and shopping. Other locations with uneven socks will be reviewed and developments are to be and and developments are to be determined within
the next few weeks. Uh the continuation of our Hillsboro master plan that the mayor has talked about in the subcommittee is excited to announce again that the next master plan survey is now live. Uh, this
survey is looking for insight on Hillsboro's current and future land use patterns and is open to anyone who lives, works, or owns property in Hillsboro Township. It will close on May 18th at 11:59 p.m. for those who stay up that late. If you want to get your last minute app in there, and is available in
a variety of languages, give your fe feedback and let your voice help share Hillsboro's future. Visit the Engage Hillsboro platform to take the survey and learn more about the master plan process. And we're also we're also asked a lot of times, what can our youth do to help be part of a township? This is one
of those such circumstances. They live in this town. They have a vision of what they like. So all these lovely students over here, I'm sure you have some opinions of what you like to see in town. So, and you guys are very techsavvy. Scan the QR code and let's hear what you have to say. Uh public
works pavement preservation program. We've talked about the pavement program, but the pavement preservation program is another prong of our long-term cost-effective maintenance program designed to extend pavement life through the use of preventive maintenance products such as micro seal and chip
seal. When applied to the right roads at the right time, it improve safety and driving quality while saving tax dollars. Currently, 20 roads are scheduled to receive some sort of road preservation. one of the two that we just mentioned and I will list the roads
slowly and it's also up here. Bomb way, Todd Street, Larrison Drive, Hendrickk Court, Frey Road, Crane Court, Peak Lane, Drost Road, Cruiser Court, Doyle Court, Hamilton East and Street,
AN because there's two N's. Franklin Street, Claremont, Highacre Drive, Sunnyside Lane, Norris Drive, Wagner Lane, Felen Place, and Woods Road from Amwell to Hillsboro Road. The timeline hasn't been issued, but we will be
released in the next month. Lastly, the Municipal Bureau Safe Melt Mental Health Awareness Month. We've talked about the fair that we just had. Um national mental health awareness month was established in 1949 to raise awareness about the importance of mental
health and to stop the stigma associated with mental health. Mental illness can affect anyone and can be and develop at any time. It effect spreads well beyond the individual to family, friends and co-workers. In the United States, one in five adults will experience a mental
illness each year. 17% of our youth experience a mental health disorder each year and 50% of lifetime mental illness begins by age of 14. Feelings of worry, stress and fear
are normal during a crisis. Hillsboro townships from Hillsboro School District have designated as free stig free excuse me stigmafree communities stigmafree initiatives help raise awareness surrounding mental health and strives to create an environment where individuals
feel free to speak support and enhance their mental health without fear or being stigmatized. That's it mayor. Thank you. Thank you committeeman. Uh next is deputy mayor Payne. Hi guys. We can't do this any faster. I promise you we're trying though. Okay, so first
thing first, chimas and outdoor fireplaces are popular in backyards throughout Hillsboro, although their use is allowed under the state fire code. There are restrictions that residents must comply with. Please see tomorrow's e-news and Hillsboro Township website for Chima and fireplace safety tips and recommended guidelines from the
Hillsboro Fire District. For the police, we have a lot of things. So, for the first time in over a decade, team Hillsboro proudly competed um in the uh sorry, completed the 2025 Police Unity Tour, riding over 300 miles from New
Jersey to Washington DC. The Police Unity Tour is an annual event where law enforcement officers from across the US ride their bicycles um to the uh National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington. The goal of the ride is to honor police
officers who have died in the line of duty and to raise awareness for law enforcement um sacrifices. To end their journey, officers from all chapters rode together to the National Law Enforcement Memorial where friends, family, officers, and survivors welcome them. Congratulations specifically to our
riders, Corporal Gorka, Patrolman Gerba, Patrolman Johnson, and the support team of Patrolman Lawrence, Detective Richie, and Andy Gerba. um patrolman uh Gerba's wife and not only uh for completing the ride but continuing to represent
Hillsboro in a selfless and exemplary manner. To say that we're proud is an understatement. Also a special thank you to the Bridgewater PD that helped Hillsboro join them um showing them the ropes and also shared their trailer. It's National Police Week,
which is why they do the ride now. um offers honors of reme offers honor, remembrance, and peer support while allowing law enforcement survivors and citizens to gather and pay homage to those who gave their lives in the line of duty. There's also an ice cream social coming up. The Hillsboro PD
invites Hillsboro restaurants, I'm sorry, no it doesn't. Hillsboro residents, I'm hungry. Can you tell? to come out and cone neck with them at the Ice House down the street uh on July 9th from 6:00 to 9:00. In addition to meeting the local um officers, the first 100 kids
get a free cone. Nothing. God, that was really much quieter than I expected. I'm sorry. You all should be lined up right now. I know. Gosh. Save the They're hard to please these teens, you know. Save the
date. I know. Save the date. Hillsboro Police is also hosting their second annual National Night Out on August 5th, weather permitting, from 5:30 to 8:00 PM at Mountain View Park. Uh fun, games, demonstrations, and much more. For the veterans, this is um as the mayor
mentioned, a big veteran uh month. We have active military veterans and spouses. It's time to register for the salute to military service breakfast taking place on Saturday, May 24th before the Memorial Day parade. Please contact the recck department at 908369-4832 to reserve your place. Doors
will open at 7:30 a.m. The Memorial Day parade will follow uh at 10:00 a.m. and the Garden of Honor ceremony at 11:00 a.m. where we will also feature our lovely choir to come and sing for us at the morning breakfast. And lastly, the next veteran information session will be
on June 21st from 10:00 to 12:00 in the senior room over here. We uh will be joined by someone from the veterans um hospital Lions in Basking Ridge. So, we're very excited about that. And that is all I have. Mayor, thank you. Um all
right, a couple more items we'll torture you with, but um all good news. Hillsboro remains one of the best places to live and raise a family in New Jersey. Out of 564 municipalities in New Jersey, Hillsboro remains one of the top 100 places to live and raise a family.
According to the ranking site nich niche.com with an overall niche.com score of A+, Hillsbor received a plethora of high ranks in a rankings in the state, including A+ for public schools, A+ for as good for families, and A minus for diversity. Hills
Hillsboro also achieved A's in outdoor activities and health and fitness with B's in housing, crime, and safety. Hillsboro is proud of our diverse community, and we continue to receive high marks in quality of life, public schools, and low crime. is a testament to our teachers, police department, township staff, business owners, and
residents who bring a pride of ownership to new levels. So, uh, great great stuff. Um, the 2025 township calendar, uh, this year we're again working with the town planner to or town planner to
produce a 2026 color printed calendar that could be mailed to every resident in Hillsboro. As always, the township calendar will be a collaborative effort with res with residents as being asked to submit photos. Uh for 2026, it will be our honor to highlight the work of
local artists. The township is collecting digital images of artwork created by Hillsboro residents. The artwork doesn't have to be township related, but it would be preferred uh I guess when it's reviewed by the staff. Uh with input from Hillsboro ExpressYou
Yourself or Hay uh a subcommittee of sustainable Hillsboro, the township hopes this new format will provide uh will promote the work of our creative community members and groups and uh as committ Han mentioned there's art throughout the school throughout the township uh
building uh displayed from all the schools. There's actually some new art out there from cardboard. So, um, but that the theme this year, um, is going to be local art. So, uh, look forward to to seeing what comes in. Um, National
Day of Prayer, a little recap here. May 1st was a National Day of Prayer, which Hillsboro Township commemorated with a ceremony at the Garden of Honor. I was joined by Hillsboro residents, Hillsboro staff, many of our police officers, and thanks to all who who attended as well
as the event speakers, uh, Bridge B Sharma of the Central Jersey Hindu Association, Reverend Chris Kyle from the Shannik Reformed Church and Vivec Ralph from Hillsboro Maharaja Club. All speakers are part of the Hillsboro Hillsboro's Interfaith Community
Network. Um, pies with patrol. On May 3rd, uh the police hosted a pies with patrol at Roman Gourmet. Um I joined the police along with Roy Fryman and we stopped by the their display and enjoyed the their interactions with the
community. So it's good for the business and and good for the police and and you know they spent a lot of time interacting with uh everybody walking by. Um walk in the park. I recently joined Hillsboro residents uh for another walk in the park. This picture
is from May 3 where the guest speaker focused on walking, the benefits of walking, the needs to stretch and and warm up. Um, so the last walk was this past Saturday and I think comm deputy mayor Payne attended. So May 10th was
the last walk and I I think we'll see another series in the fall or no, I guess it's up to me. So we'll uh we might see another episode in the fall. uh adopt a highway. Some very special residents and high school
students from the wrestling, track, soccer, and uh mentorship program dedicated their weekend time to participating in in in the Adopt a Highway Communities Cleanup Day for Route 206. So, I want to thank the entire crew that showed up for that. Um they they do it a couple times a year
and and it uh you know, just beautifies continues to to clean up and beautify Hillsboro. Uh and lastly, the uh Rotary Fair is coming. Beginning Tuesday, August 12th, the annual Rotary Fair and Business Expo will once again transform transform the the prominade into a
classic carnival with a colorful midway, over 20 amusement rides, games of chance, fireworks, food vendors, and an expansive exposition of local businesses. Uh, the fair offers local businesses multiple opportunities to showcase their services and connect directly with customers throughout
through the purchase of a $350 sign displayed at the fair throughout the week or a purchase of $650 tented space that provides a unique opportunity to meet with prospective clients from the surrounding communities. So, if anybody's interested in displaying uh or for more information to participate in
this event uh in the business expo side of it, contact Ken Jenko at 908229-5045 or his email at [Music] kgnco48gmail.com. So, that's how to how a business can get tied in with the uh the Rotary Fair and all the traffic that
comes along there. So, um, stay connected with Hillsboro. As always, you can stay connected with all events via the Wednesday Mayor's E-News and Thursday's Experience Hillsboro bulletin. Be sure to follow and like the official Hillsboro Township Facebook page or X, formerly known as Twitter,
and Instagram. Tune in to Hillsboro YouTube channel and sign up for Hillsboro alert alerts for traffic and emergency notifications. So, um, we have six proclamations tonight. So, I'm going to come down to the floor and uh we'll recognize some of you folks
in attendance today. Okay. The first is Anjanna. [Applause] All right. Unjana ay a chemistry specialist special education teacher at Hillsboro High School has the honor of being named the 20ou
202 23 all right make sure I get the the year right so presidential awardee for excellence in mathematics and science teaching so that's great [Applause]
uh has been chemistry teacher at Hillsboro High School for 14 years. She has a passion for making science accessible to all students utili utilizing an instructional model and an inquirybased approach. The United States government awards top honors to one
educator per state that demonstrates deep content knowledge of the subjects they teach and the ability to motivate and enable student success. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the mayor and Hillsboro Township Committee, further commend Unjuna Ay for
being awarded the 2023 presidential award for excellence in mathematics and science teaching. Well done. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to recognize um all the students and the staff tonight. Uh thank you, mayor. Thank you, Hillsboro
Township. Thank you so much. [Applause] Okay. Thank [Applause] you. All right, we've got Cassandra.
[Applause] Cassandra Shannon in English as a second language teacher at Hillsboro Elementary School has the honor of being named the 2024 VFW teacher of the year. You can stand closer. Cassandra has been an ESL
teacher at Hillsboro Elementary School for 17 years. She initiated multicultural Mondays, which are schoolwide video announcements that explain various celebrations and traditions throughout the school year. Cassandra created and co-taught an after-school program for multilingual
learners, has organized and distributed donations of clo clothing and holiday gifts, obtained free eyelasses, and obtained grants for supplies and snacks for all of her needy students. Cassandra Shannon hails from a family of veterans, including her Navy veteran father and Army veteran aunt. Now therefore, be it
proclaimed that we, the mayor and Hillsboro Township Committee, further commend Cassandra Shen for being awarded the 2024 VFW teacher of the year and thank her for all her work and dedication to Hillsboro's youth. Well done. I just wanted to say thank you to Mayor
Chikarelli, thank you to the township committee, and thank you to students and parents and teachers. And I hope everyone has a great rest of the school year. Thank you. Is anybody here with you? No. They're
all My husband's home with the kids, so thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Do we have anybody here for Vladimir? Hello. Nice to see you again. So I saw his headstone over the weekend.
So it's very very not a coincidence but good. Uh Vladim Vladimir Stabnoi a Hillsboro resident that is remembered for his commitment to beautifying Anne Van Middlesworth Park passed away on November 8th 2024. Vladimir was born in
St. Petersburg, Russia and journey to the United States in 1997. He graduated as a chemical engineer from the Leningrad Institute of Technology and once settling in the United States was a quality control chemist, a school custodian, and an employee at Shopright. Vladimir was often seen picking up
garbage and cleaning Anne Van Middlesworth Park. He was known for his kindness, generosity, and willingness to extend an open hand to everyone around him. Hillsboro Township has dedicated a memorial bench at An Van Msworth Park in his honor. We were at that event last weekend. Now therefore, be it proclaimed
that we, the mayor and Hillsboro Township Committee, recognize and honor the kindness and generosity of Vladimir Stabnoi. Um, so it was a nice event. I know the parks department was very familiar with him, saw him at the park all the time and they were very
emotional about, you know, his passing and and were very committed to dedicating not only the bench but a special plaque on a rock at one of the gardens. So, if you'd like to say something I would like to thank you all people who keep good memory of my husband and
especially I would like to say thank you for township committee and especially for John Crossen supervisor of park who organized it and install that beautiful bench and memorial plate in
the memory of my husband. Thank you. [Applause] [Applause] Who's here from the South Branch Reformed
Church? All [Applause] right. Thank you, pastor. Um, so the South Branch Reform Church, it's their 175th anniversary. uh they were organized. South Branch Reformed Church
was organized on May 14th, 1850 by 43 individuals desire desiring to have a reformed church in their community. The church was built on land donated by the the Amerman family and is now celebrating its 175th anniversary. The church building was dedicated on January
27th, 1851 and was expanded in 1946 to add space for an education wing including classrooms, parlor offices, and a preschool. members of the congreation congregation have been active participants in local and global ministry and remain committed to serving the community, the families,
and those who visit Hillsboro Township. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the mayor of and Hillsboro Township Committee, congratulate South Branch Reformed Church and the entire church community on their 175th anniversary. Pastor, you'd like to say some words? No, you're going to Don't
ever give clergy a microphone. The pastor's gonna The pastor's gonna pass. Okay. Because we won't shut up. Thanks, Steve. [Applause]
My priest would tell you the same thing. Father Hank knows that. All right. The leg legacy show choir. [Music] [Applause]
Yeah. I thought we were just underdressed tonight. We didn't get the black. Uh I did. You look very I know.
Spread out like you're in a coral. Show formation. Need two rows. Two rows. Come on. Great. Uh, the Legacy Show Choir is the first ever curricular show choir in the
state of New Jersey. They competed at the National Titan Tournament of Choirs in Richmond, Virginia, placing fourth in the mixed division, the National Rhode Island Show Choir Competition, receiving a silver rating, and second place in the medium mixed division with a specialty
award for best costumes, and the 33rd annual Roxberry Invitational, receiving a silver rating, placing second runner up. So, well done. [Applause] I graduated from Roxbury. Um, show choir
members Brandon Javier and Rio Rio Quampang and Scott Doyle. Do Doyle, yes, were selected as outstanding performers at the competitions this season. The Hillsboro Legacy uh Hillsboro High School Legacy Show Choir is comprised of
the following students and coaches. It's all to you now. last name Sophia Bombachi Yash Good Boy Ray Golden Grace Carver Anukica Dangari Max Patrick
Amelia Patterson Anushka Nyer Zack Stasowitz Zoe Quinn Connor Ranchek Rio Campong Elsie Kerwin Miam Roplay Cath Catherine Whitman, Brandon
Javier, Krogerson, Charlie McGlaughlin, Amelia Espazito, Annayia Sadiki, Lilia Roberts Churchill, Lily Dwey, Ebner, Eva Quinn, Bana Calins,
Austin Garul. We miss somebody. Come on, Ashley Matthews. Let's keeping track. [Music] [Applause]
Now therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the mayor and Hillsboro Township Committee, do hereby commend the Hillsboro High School Legacy Show Choir, the Coral staff and parents, not only for their successful year, but for their hard work, dedication, and commitment to the arts and to those principles of
teamwork, academic achievement, and commitment to community, which the organization endorses. So, congratulations [Applause] this for you. You should be used to the mic. No, I like my back, too.
Um, I just want to say a quick thank you not only to our phenomenal students who without them, this program would not exist. But, um, to our wonderful parents, our administration at the high school, and throughout the entirety of the district, to you, mayor, and to the entire committee. Um we're really looking forward to this upcoming uh
veterans breakfast. It's one of our favorite events of the year. So thank you for continuing to have us and supporting us. Um we were just named one of the best communities for music education in the country. Um and that's because of your support. So thank you so very much. [Applause]
Can we do everybody? They know the and we don't have to. We can't be seen anymore. Thank you all. Congratulations. Is there any how do we hear you? Where do we hear you?
I just told you. Sure. Thank you. Going home with a lot of sweat. The mixed coral. We got a lagger. We got a double dipper. Slightly smaller crowd. Some dupes.
Some dupes. So, the uh Hillsboro Ohio High School mixed coral, which is not really mixed right now. That's true. That's pretty funny. received the following titles at the National Titan Tournament of of Choirs
Chamber and Concert Choir Competition. Best overall repertoire, best overall vocal quality, first place in the chamber division, and overall grand champions of choirs. So [Music]
great, the mixed coral was also awarded a gold rating in the chamber division at 33rd Roxbury International. and has received superior ratings at every competition they've attended since 2021. They've also been invited to perform at Lincoln Center. Great. Mixed coral
member Milopaga was recipient of best soloist at both the Titan Tournament of Choirs and the Roxbury Invitational. Hillsware High School Mixed Coral is comprised of the following students and coaches. You've seen this before. Sil
Damlay, El Farad, Eva Quinn, Sheree Prasad, Shvy, Gassavi, Teresa, Alex, Connor, Ranchek, Malab, Gupta, Zach, Stasawitz, Prrenav, Yanamandra,
Isaiah Woody, Max Petrick, Austin, Yash, God, Dini, Weather, Sahitia, Upon Gupali, Charlie McGlaughlin, Lily Dwey
Abner, Sundar. Great. Thanks. All right. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that we, the mayor and Hillsboro Township Committee, do hereby commend the Hillsboro High School Mixed Coral and directors uh director and parents not only for their successful
year, but for their hard work, dedication, and commitment to the arts. and to those principles of teamwork, academic achievement and commitment to community which the organization endorses. So [Applause] [Music]
congratulations about this group. They're really good. What? So wait, hold on. I heard that. Was it see our concert tomorrow at the high school at 7 p.m. It's for free. For free. She said it's for free.
What time? Seven. Seven. Did you say that? I missed it. Yeah. So, and while they're taking a picture, just a show of hands from the audience, who would like to hear them sing a quick song because they're willing to do it. Can we see a show of hands? All
[Applause] right. So, if you're comfortable. Yay. No pressure. Can we What about the rest? What about the rest who are sitting in the stand still? Aren't they two different groups? All
right. You want to bring them all together? All right. Sounds good. Huh? I felt bad. They're sitting there. Daniel, Daniel, serants of the Lord. [Music]
Oh, the king cried. The king cried Daniel. Oh, the king cried Daniel. Daniel, servant of the Lord. Oh, the king cried. Oh, the king cried
Daniel. Oh, the king cried Daniel. Daniel, servant of the Lord. [Music] [Applause] [Music]
And he stayed there all night long. Oh, the king cried. Oh, the king cried Daniel. Oh, Daniel. [Music] The king cried
[Music] [Applause] Daniel of the Lord. A king and a slave was [Music] trouble down to lock the lion's [Applause]
He was a servant. [Applause] Daniel cried, "Oh, [Applause] servant of the Lord. He was a
serant serant. A servant of the Lord. A serant. [Applause] [Music]
[Applause] This is much better than the Thank you. like shower this room then that is the most exciting thing that's happened in this courthouse. I assure you what do we owe you?
I think South Reform Church 175th anniversary pastor Steve, that was the best song for you, too. Don't worry. On those notes, that concludes our proclamations and we'll take a quick break.
Five minutes. Two minutes. Two minutes. Two and two. Two and two. Do we need to put the table up? 82 in. All right, welcome back. All right, welcome back. Uh before we go to our consent agenda and the rest of the business portion, we have two
presentations tonight. The first one is Energy Tech. Um I believe they're going to be on presenting by Zoom, so queue it up. Eva. Eva. All right. Can you see us? Okay. Yes.
Okay. Great. Well, thank you, um, Hillsboro Township Committee and Mayor for having us tonight. I'm going to share a presentation shortly. I'm Eva Garretts and I'm Kristen Debias and we are the owners of
Energetic. Okay. All right. So, everyone can see that clearly. Yes. Okay. So, Energetic is a women and minority owned company that helps public entities in New New Jersey manage their
utility spend. We aim to lower cost for electric and gas, increase building efficiencies, and also assist with any type of sustainability efforts or projects. Um, our company partners with a group called Taurus Advisory Group,
and together we um hold energy auctions for Hillsboro. Um together, Energetic and Taurus have been managing the commercial meters for the township since um November of 2022. So, our main function is energy
purchasing. So, in the state of New Jersey, um you're able to shop for the supply portion of your of your bill for both electric and natural gas. Um so, we help the township facilitate those purchases. um so that the township can
you know gain a more competitive price. Um we also um offer guidance um and strategies on how to mitigate costs um or to manage any type of increase from the the utility companies.
Um, one of those increases that we wanted to really talk about was um, in June all energy users for both homes and businesses. Um, in our utility region, which is PJM, stands for Pennsylvania, Jersey, and Maryland um, but also
includes some other states as well. Um, we will see a surge in their electric costs um, because of the increase in capacity. Um and we are estimating that increase to be around 15% um increase over the you know the annual
budget. Um how we are helping Hillsboro um manage that increase. Uh so we provided a budget forecasting for the township. Um we've also implemented an energy product that would avoid paying a capacity premium. um making sure that
you know you guys aren't paying more than what you should. Um and then also we have ongoing discussions on how to you know lower energy usage during peak times um to really mitigate um those costs as well. Yeah. So like light
switching sensors or or timers which is what the township is doing now. Okay. So the first contract that we had with Hillsboro, we were focusing on the um electric accounts. So again, commercial meters and then looking at
some lighting. So before working with Hillsboro, the electric accounts were in a third party agreement with rates ranging from 14.5 cents to 20 cents a kilowatt hour. So, our approach was to first look at and collect utility data,
um, any previous contract information that we could collect and review. And then with our auction platform being state approved, um, Hillsboro was able to engage our team without having to do a competitive bidding process or not having to do an RFP or Q. Also, we um,
executed a resolution. So, Hillsboro was able to execute the energy contract on the day of our auction. Um, and basically for the auction, we have all available energy suppliers bid um at a certain time, certain day they put their
prices in and then we have the um township execute that contract assuming the results are favorable as they were. So, we looked at a fixed rate uh for electric um you know just you know 14 or so and a half cents. Uh the contract
also helped Hillsboro avoid incoming higher rates from the previous contract and this was about a 10% decrease from the previous contract that the township was in. So looking at the current contract we are in now um we approached it
slightly differently. Uh for electric we separated non-lighting meters and lighting meters to lower the cost for each group. We also did an auction for natural gas and looked at more of a market-based energy strategy which leaves room for future hedging
opportunities. That really just means that when the market dips uh we have the opportunity to lock in the commodity at a lower rate instead of locking it all in upfront um in a fixed product. So for electric, the market-based product we
looked into is called an index adder. It again provides optionality um and then enables the township to take advantage again of those market dips. So we locked in at 039 so about 4 cents a kilowatt hour. Putting this all together
this translate to it translate to about 10 cents a kilowatt hour if you're looking at it from a fixed point. And this is a 30% decrease from the previous contract that we did. So again we also did natural gas this time around. We did a market-based product as well that's
called a basis. Also provides optionality. We have the opportunity to hedge when the market dips. We locked this in at just above 20 cents a therm. Translates to about 58 cents a therm. Um if you're looking at it again from an all-infix perspective and this is a 10%
decrease from the utility company. Um because again natural gas was just with the utility company. it now. It's in a third party contract as electric is. And really next steps that uh we're focusing on is paying attention to the
market um tariffs, everything that affects the energy price and looking for those market dips so that we can lock in um the you know or hedge some portions of electric or natural gas um for Hillsboro. And that's it. I guess we'll
um leave it open to uh any questions. Thank you, Eva. Um, Anthony, did you want to make any comments before we um open up to the No real comments. I just want to I just want to thank both um both leaders for being here this
evening and just the relationship that they've had with Hillsboro and making sure that uh we're being fiscally responsible, especially when it comes to the fluctuation with uh energy prices. So, I know um some of the members here on the committee were able to uh have presentations by uh by both ladies and
um I believe Nate as well. So, if anybody has any questions here, but I thought the presentation was pretty straightforward. Any questions for uh Energetic from the rest of the days?
I I'll just thank the ladies for coming. I know that uh this was a last minute because of our our schedule presenter had a family emergency that's why they're on Zoom here today. Normally they would have been here in front of us, but uh um the utility business is a is a complex business and um obviously
with the upcoming uh interest uh utility increases that they they talked about up to 20%, it really is imperative that we have people like this keep keeping an eye out for us to prevent any undue spikes which would you know dramatically increase u cost to our bottom line and
our budget. So uh thank you Eva and your staff. Yep. Thank you so much. Thank you. There's nothing else. I guess we're we're we're good. Do we open for the anything for the public or no?
No. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Evening. Our second presentation is [Music] um Mr. or is it Floyd from
Flynn? Bob Flynn from JCPNL. So, please come on up. Sure. I'm actually happy they touched on that because that's something we're presenting on quite a bit, too, is the uh BGS rate. Oh, yeah. I have this problem quite a bit.
Yeah, it's always at the max whenever I have to do it, too. So, it never reaches my uh my height. Is this okay? Okay. Um, so that is something actually we're we're presenting on quite a bit too is the supply rates. That's what they were discussing is this 20% increase for
customers. Um, so if there's a future want for that presentation, I can give that as well. But there's two very basically distinct charges on your bill. There's your consumption, what you use in your house. Then there's a supply charge from PJM. There is this 20% coming as of June 1st. We are kind of a
pass through for the charge. We don't mark up. We don't make money from it. we just pass it to the regional transmission operator which is PJM. But uh it's clear what we're trying to do is make a distinct difference that this is not a JCPL rate hike. We go to bid just
like all these other companies do and BPU oversees it, ensures it's fair market value and unfortunately that's the number. So um anyway, but I'm not here about that tonight. I'm going to introduce myself first. Uh I'm your new representative for JCPNL. Um my name is
Bob Flynn. been with Jersey Central for six years now. Um, my main territory is up in Bhin, which is covers like eastern and northern Morris and Paya County. Now I cover all of Mars County, all of Somerset, Union, Essex, Payic. So I got
pretty big district. Uh, but the north is split between myself and uh, Amy Overman who covers out in the west and Sussex and Warren County. Um, so nice to meet you all. Looking forward to working together in the future. Uh, I wish I was here for better reasons than the
reliability that we've had recently. Uh, obviously a big concern. We had, I think it was five or six within like a few weeks. Um, and this is a new district for me, so I'm kind of learning the territory as well, but that's a that's a high amount
that we see. Um, typically, unfortunately, I live on a circuit that has the same sort of issues. It's the Chester circuit. Uh, a lot of trees, a lot of private trees that are dead ash that haven't been removed are the reason for a lot of my outages. But, um,
luckily we do have a plan in place that I'm going to discuss tonight. But I have some data as well that I just I want to go through, but I'll be cognizant of time. So, I'm not going to read each thing in the pie chart. Um, but we can we can jump in
now. So, this is the background. Just just for information before I start too. Um, circuit maps are things that we can't share with public. They're protected by Homeland Security. Um, so we had to rename the circuits. Obviously, there's A, B, and C. Circuit A serves, uh, very minimal C customers
in Hillsboro. It's only 39. The bigger circuits are are B and C out of Nishanic, which is about 5 to 600 or 700 per circuit. Um the past five years we've had a lot of CMI's customer minutes of
interruption. We've had a lot of equipment failure and line failure particularly at that intersection. I think it's Elman Pearl was where we've had a few issues in the last most recent one. Um I'll get into the initial cause of what happened with that one, but
um tree and line failure was pretty much the biggest over the last five years that we've had for these three circuits. Um, we've had obviously a lot of weather. We've had East AIS, um, we've had, uh, Irene, etc. that where we've I don't know if you were particularly affected by that, but a number of my
other municipalities were. Um, East was very, very damaging. We had I think 900,000 customers out and we did the research afterwards and it was 80 I think it was 88% of the cause of outages or tree outside of our normal trimming
specs where it's you know 10 feet on either side and in certain areas ground to sky clearance above. Um but that that was a really really big storm. We had a lot of transmission outages from that. The ones that happened recently for Hillsboro were the initial cause, which
is this is an odd one, is most of my animal contact is squirrels or birds or occasionally get like an apossum or something that runs into a substation into a breaker and blows the whole thing up. I have photos if you ever want to see it, but um this one was actually we
had I guess it was a family of raccoons that were in the vicinity of this pole at Elman Pearl. um they created significant damage to our equipment. I don't know specifically if they were chewing through the rubber or things like that or making actual contact from
the wire to the pole. That was the reason for the first outage and we kept responding to that thinking that we had found the problem and each week after subsequently we'd have to go back out to reconductor everything because it kept burning down. So we had other areas of
kind of pinhole damage in that section. the last outage, the reason why it was like six or seven hours was we replaced everything on the pole. Um, and there is a plan, I think, to actively remove that pole and put a new one in with a stronger class. We can go to the next
slide. So, this is the breakdown um of and this one is for for kind of each circuit. I don't want to rush through it because it's good data, but I want to be cognizant of time. The the moral of this is the breakdown and these are the reasons for our interruptions that we have in our service. So, animal contact,
forest outages, tree contact, whether inside our rightway, outside our rightway, car pull accidents, that's a really big one in my towns now is a lot of distracted drivers on their phones. Um, underground digins we've had as well here. Uh, unknown vehicle and then
obviously equipment failure, line failure, etc. But the thing I like to kind of preface before I go into the it it's easy to concentrate on equipment failure, line failure. What we have to remember and just keep this in mind is the linemen and line women are not
trained investigators. When they show up to the scene, their first goal is obviously safety. They want to leave alive. Um, a bad day for all of us is significantly different for a bad day for a lineman. So, safety is the number one priority. Obviously, that's why restoration does take some time. Um, but
the second is is that when the outage has concluded, we've restored customers. The crews do spend time searching to see if they can find a cause. Um, obviously if it's an animal contact and it's the third or fourth in a few months, we put animal guards on. We do proactive measures to make sure that doesn't
happen again. Um, but if we're in big storm outages or non-blue sky day outages, it's usually just right to the next outage, an emergency. Um so some of these numbers although they are higher for equipment in line failure I think some of these may be attributed to other
factors. Um but big point for this circuit was the majority of them were between the three for each circuits were line failure slashequipment failure trees off right away and um trees what did I say trees off right
away and then I think what's the next biggest one line excuse me equipment failure line failure and then trees off right away were the three biggest for kind of each of the three circuits. Next slide. So this is the breakdown.
This is the pie chart. I'm not going to read everything, but this is the breakdown of what we have in terms of the outages for this particular circuit out of East Flemington. Uh majority of those were the equipment failure that discussed prior for that location. Then we have things like digins, trees off
right away, etc. vehicle, wind, animal contact. Next slide. This is the breakdown for the Shannik circuit B. Um, this one is equipment and line failure, but also a big one was trees off rightway. Um, we have to get permission
to remove trees that are on customers property. We have the rights by BPU to clear within 10 ft of our conductors. Uh, we can have refusals. So, we document those to the BPU that if there's bad reliability and they come back to us, we say these six houses said
we can't cut their tree and it fell. So, we do keep record of that. Um, but that is a big portion of our outages in my forested communities is trees outside of the rightway, outside of our normal trimming specs. Next
slide. Here's the pie chart for that. Again, we can move we can move past this one. Um, same thing with this one for Nishanic Circuit was equipment failure, line failure, and then trees off right away and trees on right away actually for Nishanic. So this one increased by
50% once we include the minor storm into our analysis. So there's regular blue sky outages, but then there's also minor storms, which aren't, you know, tropical storm or hurricane level. Those are major events. Minor storms are run-of-the-mill kind of like summer thunderstorms that we're going to start to get in the next few
months. Next slide. You can go past this one, too. Um, all right. So this is the the next two slides are the big important ones in terms of what are we doing about it. Um, so the East Flemington Circuit A 2024, we had the engineers or we we do have
reliability engineers with JCPanel that that's their sole job is when we get increased outages on a circuit, we start to receive a number of BPU complaints, etc. Kind of points the focus on those circuits of what what can we do to improve the reliability. I mentioned you before, I'm on a circuit out of Chester who
I've it's been like eight times since the beginning of the year since I've lost power. the second to last house of this circuit. I have no pull. I can't get crews there. I can't, you know, etc. But it is a circuit that we have through reliability engineering. We have the RIP project which is reliability
improvement. It used to be formerly known as worst performing circuit, but it's a rotating list per district that changes each year where we allocate a certain amount of funds to basically improve the reliability for customers. So the Flemington circuit was one in 2024. Shannik was also 24B and C. Um,
both of them had thorough reliability engineering inspections. We installed new cutouts. We reconductorred, we spacer cabled wire as well. And uh we've also done a ton of tree trimming on Zion Road. I think last year alone we got rid of
25 private trees. So outside of our normal uh trimming corridor that we have, uh we identified 25 that were in decline. And then obviously the big one lately is the emerald ashbor affecting the ash trees. That's the biggest cause of our tree related outages. Um and then on the
right you can see that's the inspection cycle. So we do proactively inspect our equipment through infrared camera. Um we also have forestry cycle trimming that we do where we'll send the administrator, usually the mayor the list of where we're trimming that year. Coordinating with police. Um and then we have wood inspections which is done
through OSMOS. So, if you get calls in the administration that they're, you know, someone digging near my pole, there's someone just put a drill through the pole on my front property, that's Osmos testing the structural integrity of the poles to make sure that they're up to up to snuff to handle our equipment. Um, but we do have issues like termites. We do have people who hit
it or sideswipe poles affect the structural integrity. Um, so that does happen from time to time, but that is something that is ongoing per district. I know I'm already going over my five minutes. I apologize. Um but this is the big project. So we have um
after you know the the report that we saw for how many outages we had in Hillsboro that were out of both of those substations. We are identifying these circuits. I called them RIP before. This is one now that we're going to do. So this is special funding that we've
allocated to basically install and replace 25 new poles crossarms with fiberglass so they're not wood anymore. They won't decay. And then we're also doing another round of tree trimming on Zion Road because that that is a road that again I'm not I haven't driven that
road but I know it connects two different there's two different circuits on it and I think two subs that meet at some point on there. So if we have that we have Hillsboro customers that go out but we also have I think Branchburg and one of the other adjacent towns that's affected by that road as well. So this
is something that's going to be coming. The goal is to have this work designed and completed before the end of the summer storm season. So that's like the next few months you're going to start to see poles on the road. Um and that's us replacing them.
Uh we can I mean yeah it's okay we can if we if you want to go to questions I think that's probably yeah so my first question is will can we share this I mean we skipped over stuff people love to look at data but can you share the presentation or
any elements of it with uh with the township you have it yeah so so as long as the circuit information is not in there um well AB B and C is right your designation to just yes the map on the
first page is the one but I I can work with you actually if you want because we've been doing for the RIP circuits we've been doing one sheets for our towns of the benefit for customers and it's simple it's not as kind of complicated as this is where I'm used to it in the utility it's a lot more simpler terms that you can put on
Facebook and residents will understand what why don't you just just work with Sarah in our office just to let us know what we can can't post on Sure I Britting is chomping at the bit. No, I I because I we you have two you have two of your customers sitting right over there. I I introduced myself to them over there and I know I've when I was
mayor last year, I received a lot of challenging emails and phone calls from people I know, people I didn't know who were dealing with JCP and LSU in that area. So, I I appreciate you replacing the five poles. And I work for a large company 25 polls, excuse me. Sorry, I
didn't mean to minimize that. I work for a large company outside of this, too. I know sometimes things take time and I think I think what's important too is to maybe show the residents what a three-year plan would look like of what you would do to try to make that a better place as well for them too cuz they live in an area that's very hard to access as you know crews and all that
type of stuff cuz it's up the side of a mountain people don't realize you know a lot of that's mountainous and a lot of forest a lot of forest area I would request and I know you're a utility organization but if you could potentially give a three-year outlook as to what you guys think you could invest in that area to try to help them out would be really helpful because they are
literally at your merge mercy. I can give them my card completely at your mercy. So that's all. And have a reliability engineer reach out to them. So inspect the circuit, inspect the secondary that feeds their house. That's something we do. Yeah, absolutely. That'd be great. I appreciate that. I think that information could be that
information. That's great that you want to offer it to the to the people who were nice enough to come to the meeting, but that information should be made, you know, available to anyone else in our township that would have questions around that reliability study. That that is my goal. Okay. Um, so I just we just
had a meeting with we have a new state president um as of like a few months ago and the big thing that I've told him is that there's always been this kind of veil of secrecy for the utilities and understandably on purpose. I get it. You know, we can't be putting out circuit information, you know, when there's all
sorts of cyber threats and things like that. But we also need to be a little bit more proactive with how we say we're investing. I mean, we're putting hundreds of millions of dollars into some of our municipalities and we're not saying a word. And I I have kind of rung that bell at the top being like this is
what our towns want to hear is not we're not bandating. We're not doing these sort of temp repairs where we're just going to have to come back in a week. There's major upgrades at substations coming on our distribution circuits. Um I mean even this slide I was really hoping I was going to get more from my
reliability engineering than we're going to replace 25 poles and crossarms. I wanted details. I wanted you know if we're going to put a recloser on one of those eventually that we can kind of switch customers to different circuits. So, I had that conversation directly with the state president last week of we need to be more on the offensive rather
than reactionary where we get called into these meetings saying, "You're not doing enough. You're not doing enough. We need to be coming in weekly to our municipalities to say, "This is what we just put in. This is a brand new piece of equipment that's going to, you know, this south end of town that kept losing power last summer, this is going to be
able to do, you know, ABC now." So, that is coming. It it is coming. Also, may I say too, if you have any ideas of pilots that you might want to run in certain towns, we're a very well well-run town. So, if you want to reach out to Mr. Far, Miss Break too, there's opportunities to work with us in other ways and we have a
really good communication platform here too. Very transparent in what we tell everybody. Everybody knows exactly what's going on here. So, if there's the information you can never too much information to share with them that they can then get out to the community. That would be great. That's very important. They're very good at it and and I can tell from in all honesty is one of the
better Yeah. We don't mess around like we want people to know what's going on. They they deserve the right to know what's going on. The reports as well. Yeah. Well done. Yep. So I have a question. So you mentioned specifically Zion Road and then considerably at that same time my um girlfriend was on
Hawkenberry. Okay. Uh she was out for 5 days with two dogs and no access to medicine or water or anything. Um so the unfortunate thing is that most of those people in those areas are well septic. And so they can't flush toilets, they
can't get water, they can't do anything. And then being down for 5 days, she had six trees on her front blocking the road. So people were crossing her yard and bypassed them. Wow. Yeah.
And this was six long days before she started even getting crews. I had called our own DPW to get them there and like help her get out. The reality is is we also need a plan in place for these
folks to say we know you're on a troubled street with a delicate line or whatever this situation is. So hopefully these 25 polls do rectify you know a considerable amount of the data that you showed us. Yeah.
What is your plan for these specific troubled areas though in these situations? Is there a heightened response time? Is there any plan like are you aware of these you know hot roads if you will that are going down frequently that are constantly an issue and what is your plan to rectify those?
So Zion specifically yes I don't know anything about Hawkenberry I'd have to look into that one. Um Sarah I don't know every road in Hillsboro. Come on. Not yet. Give me give me a month. Uh but no I I think just to backtrack a bit. I think it's important also that customers
we we need to plan as well. I mean, I'm I'm not going to sit up here and tell you the next hurricane that hits the state of New Jersey, we're going to be okay. Like, we're going to have people potentially out for a week or two, but I think that customer, if they're not enrolled already in critical care and wellwater, they should be on that list. Um, because they do get priority.
Obviously, during storms, we have that was part of the slide deck. I probably shouldn't have skipped, but we we don't have to go back. But we do have a a list in terms of how we prioritize restoration. Um, briefly, typically in the beginning, it's life and limb emergencies. A cop has a wire on his car. Sure. You know, line dancing near a
leaking oil tank at someone's house. Like those are crew is there. Clearly, we're we're cutting the power and we're going to the next. It's also important, I think, for each municipality to have a good plan with their OEM in terms of do we have to evacuate people? Do we have to prioritize this road for a road
opening? Um, and what we've worked with after Sandy is we developed the it's called the priority restoration unit. It's a separate department that opens up when we have a major storm that the procedure and the way it operates is the municipal OEM will funnel the priorities
to the county explaining the necessity of prioritization. The county OEM kind of racks and stacks them for us as JCPNL. We are able to then move them up in the list in terms of not necessarily restoration, right? But clearing a path for customers, like if we have road closures or if we have wires down on
customers property near them, that's a public safety issue. That is, you know, piece number one of the restoration process. So I think that that should be something that that customer looks into is just to one have a plan, two to make sure that they're enrolled in our critical care and wellwater. Okay. Um
big storm obviously it may not make a huge difference when we're having, you know, 700,000 customers out, but a blue sky day outage that customer gets priority. um we respond to those quicker people that are on oxygen. Um and that program operates where annually that person has to provide a doctor's note uh
from their physician indicating that they are on a piece of life-saving equipment um or you know need refrigeration for insulin or you know things like that but they basically need a doctor to verify each year and we keep them on that list and there's special communication and priority that goes to
those customers. So this was a weird situation. It was a supercell that hit their street. Oh, and there was so much down on the road that literally they were working from both ends of Hawkenberry in and she happened to be unfortunately in the middle.
It's just like the worst of all situations. But it's it's nice to know that there are other protections and other plannings that are being, you know, Yeah. offered to them. And I between you and I, I brought up Zion Road to my forester because I think I got an inquiry from a different
municipality about it. I don't know if the road splits between two or not. Montgomery. Okay. Yeah. So, I got it from him and he he laughed initially because he goes, "I just got rid of almost 30 trees there last year that were like not part of our normal cycle just because it's that bad in that area." I guess there's such a canopy
over the road. It's a mountain. Yeah. Yeah. Um but that is part of that plan is also to address that going outside the normal trimming cycle again. Mhm. Well, thank you for being here though, too. I think it's important to note. I mean, I really appreciate you being here. You work for the utilities. We need to find a way as a group to always
work together. So, thanks for being here. I know we're running more than the five minutes. I just got one question just because I'm I'm inquiring. So, all the upgraded technology and the new stuff you're putting in, has they improved the ability to if there's a power outage be repaired as opposed to the old stuff? Like is are they designed
like almost like plug-andplay? You rip one out, put it out, it takes much less time to repair than let's say the older technology. Yeah. Yeah. The the work still takes time. There's a lot of safety protocols with it obviously. Um, but there's a lot of automation now with it. Um, very careful automation I would
say for f first responders is I'm a I'm a social member now, but I was volunteer for a firehouse in Mars Township and we installed trip savers. The last uh infrastructure improvement plan, which was automatic fusing. So, normally if a fuse blows, you hear that boom, you'll get calls or 911 will get calls saying,
"Oh, shotgun. I just heard a I heard an explosion." It's the fuse popping out of the cutout. The whole process after that is the troubleshooter has to come out. He has to identify the location. Then he has to patrol the whole circuit to make sure when he throws it back in, it's not going to blow back in his face in the
bucket. It takes that takes time. Trip savers are automated fusing that will attempt to operate themselves three times before they do it. So that's that's a big one we just got from SNC and it's big in Florida and power and light. Um and then the other I I'm
really going over. I apologize for my time frame. But um the other big news we had from last week is we we filed for the BPU for 900 million uh to do a program called Energize and J, which is basically upgrading a lot of different stuff uh from substations, distribution
circuits, etc. Um we got approved for not the 900 million, it was only 200. Um which we're hoping for more, but uh we're going to get to work on it and start engineering that. The goal of that project that we indicated to the BPU was normally if we have a circuit that goes
out um we have an area called the first mile out of the substation is called the lockout zone. If you have a tree that falls in that area, it takes out the whole circuit. All 1500 people are out. The goal after Energize NJ is complete is that we will utilize loop schemes and reclosers and tie points where basically
we will have the substations connected to some degree. So, if you're at your home on a stormy night in the summer, you hear a tree fall, you look outside, you see it, you and your neighbors go out of power. The goal after all of this is said and done is to have, you know,
the 10 houses that are going to be out, they get it. They just saw this gigantic tree fall, broke two poles in front of their neighbors yard. They get it. But the other 2,000 people on that road shouldn't be affected. They should not lose their power. And the goal is that they won't. And that their clocks won't
change. it'll just switch immediately to a different circuit. Um, so that's going to be a big thing that we're looking forward to do over the next few years is this kind of loop scheme, reclosers, tie points, etc. So, um, that's the goal. All right. Thanks. Um, just a couple few
two more comments. Um, or two angles here. One is on a proactive sense how often and you don't have m maybe you should consider how often your resilience resiliency engineers drive the roads. Uh it's a day. What do you
think? Maybe half a day to to but to to drive the road, see what's And what what brings this to my mind is the raccoon family. Like if if there was problems there, you know, how did it get to that point? And are are there other pieces of equipment that can be inspected that see
see a problem here already before it gets to that? But if you're replacing all your equipment, you're going to install redundancy and right take care of that. So, but but that I don't know if it means an extra trip a week or what have you during this this time of year
on the trees. What um so when you clear the vegetation, it doesn't matter if it's dead or not, right? When you you have your right away, but correct. When you say there's a tree that's on private land and they refuse to let you do it, is it is it
living or dead? I mean, are you are I would expect most of the time dead. But if it's in decline, if it's ash that still has some leafing at the top, like it's not fully dead yet. Some residents really like to apply like there's like other things they can do to try and bring it back to life. We will go and
just say like this this is going to fall. It's going to break two poles. Like we come to an agreement with each of the homeowners. And you have that you have that but you have that list on at risk trees. Yes. Oh, definitely. So, I mean, I don't know if it's worth sharing with us or not, but um you know, I mean,
that that's a you know, obviously a high-risisk area if if there's strips of if if it's all in one place, that's great. At least you got focus, but if it's all over, it's you're just as much at risk if if you have a lot of those spots. So, and you'll you'll start to see them now, too. We've switched from
ribbon. We used to do ribbon. Now, it's a uh spray paint that we do on trees that we're planning to remove. So, you may start to get those inquiries. But what do you Is it a red pink X? What's that? I think Yeah, because there's there's some near my house that they're doing that work for and they're going to remove some of those trees and it's a
red It's faded, but it's a red X. It's not bright and, you know, going to have residents call him. But, additionally, as the governing body, but also residents, there is a form online that you can submit if you are concerned about a tree on your property because sometimes it is beneficial for us to
come out and remove it before it is fully dead. So, will you remove it? We will, but it's circumstantial on the terms. I mean, not one over here, but if it's over here, if it's near if it's near our equipment, if it's in decline, um, you know, if we don't have to use a crane, etc. And then there are
agreements that we have with the customers, but also municipalities. So, come some customers like the wood left. So, sometimes we'll say, "We'll drop it for you. We'll cut it into three foot, six foot sections and leave it right here." And they'll say, "Perfect, done." Yeah. Our DPW I think does the same, right? And then we have some that if the
town are putting to us, I'll say, "I can take it. I can drop it, but can you take the wood or can you give me a cop for a half a day?" Like we find sort of like a balance between both parties of, "Yeah, it's important to you, then we'll we'll take care of it." So maybe there's something on that end that we can collaborate on to it's something we like
to do quite often. We can get that word out that if you do have a tree that you think is Yep. eligible for this, let us know. All right. Yeah. That's under service requests on our website. Yeah, I was just going to say along that
thread, is there also something if I see a raccoon going into a box, could I report that kind of stuff? Yeah. In terms of like animal guards, I've it's again always been for birds, squirrels, like small kind of creatures like raccoons was a first for me for this one and it's only because they found them
afterwards. We have a family that's uh terrorizing a light pole near my house. Do you really? A street light pole. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's not your It's You're fine. is PSN. So, still it's sounding like a problem now, though. No, they got it. They they did. But it it you know, a light pole is very
expensive, much more than a regular person would think. So, and and it's dangerous, too. I mean, if they if they burn it down, there's a fire that wires on the ground live like Yeah. Yeah. So, uh two things, uh Mr. Flynn, while you're here, I think Anthony has a comment. Yeah. Just two things. Just I
wanted to thank Bob not only for coming out but being very responsive to our office um and and looking at some of those things for the residents. Also, we did uh reach out to some of the residents that are here tonight. Um I know we did have presentation before with no comment, but we did ask the
public to come out if they did have some questions. So, if the mayor and the committee would allow I know they've been here for quite a while if they had any questions. I know Bob said he'd be willing and he's been very transparent and a good guy about this. Most people run from this type of conflict and Bob was the one to come out here and said
six years you know. Exactly. Thank you. By by all means if uh so yeah we may have a couple questions from the from the uh residents. Yeah. So come on up. Can
you just I don't know what grid we're on. We live on Riverside Drive in the corner of Riverside and Clawson Clawson and Hillsboro here. And when the raccoon event occurred when he lost
power like three days in a row, right? Um I just want to know if we were on are we on that grid wherever that is that Zoy Mountain? Yeah. I don't even know if we want to go back to the slide deck if you could tell from that map or not. Okay.
Yeah. And we're always kind of the last because there's like we got 10 houses only on the on Riverside Drive, you know, it turns into Mil Lane. We're kind of the last to get the power back constantly. Um I'm too old to go out
with my generator anymore and whatever. Um, and uh, who makes the calls on, you know, you we get a message, the power's going to be on at 2:00. Then we get a message, the power is going to be on at 5:00. Then we get a message, the
power is going to be on at 8:00 or whatever. You know, that's the frustration that we have that that has occurred lately um, with us. So, anything you can do to better that for us would be appreciated. And and if you
can help me with not losing the power when I'm watching a big game or something that that occurred a couple times, you know, I'm going home bad. But anyway, but thank you so much for your help. We really thank you, sir. We really appreciate it. and um you know if
there's anything you could do to make it a little better for us uh in that area uh we'd appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you. a chat line now with our neighbors and I have to tell you if the mic if we could
tomorrow uh move to public service we would do that. I mean I don't think there's anyone in our area that's satisfied and my son lives on Amwell happens to him not as frequently as us. The problem we have is we don't see your
trucks so we don't think you're out there enough. We see public service all of the time. We do not see you. So, there's an issue with your company. Um, and I thank you for the presentation today, but we've got to see results. Absolutely. Because honestly, if I
showed you the chat, you'd be embarrassed. I see them quite often. It's not a secret. Yeah. No. And I mean, I'll say this too. I mean, there's no incentive for us, as I mentioned before, to equip the week after. The goal is I mean, we are in business. We want to
keep our customers neighbors and when we see that we had we put this in place to address it to make sure like I'd like to go back and say to my neighbors, you know, I think this is being addressed, but if it next week it happens again, it's like it's very dis it's just
terribly disappointing. Yeah. I would I would think you could probably look for some of the benefits to start at the end of the summer after the design and the installation of the equipment. I think that's when we'll probably Well, we're afraid because as soon as the air conditioning kicks in, that's
when we seem to have the problem. So, hopefully you're going to be able to control that. Yeah. And please send me an email, too. If you're noticing any sort of voltage issues at your house or if your AC unit is tripping, breakers or things like that, send that to me and I'll Okay. And you're going to give us a
card? I have. You got it? All right. Thank you. No problem. All right. Thank you. Any other comments? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. He's right there. You can give it to him.
He's dialed in on you. Ready, right? Thank you. Thanks, Bob. Thank you. All right, moving on to the consent agenda. We have end of presentations, I think 16 items. And reminder, we're going to hear all comments from the deis, then from the floor. first on the
consent items. After that, if any committee member would like to take any item separately for voting purposes, we'll give you the opportunity to do so at that time. Um, so do we have any comments from the deis on items 1 through 16?
Yep, I have one. So, I'm going to start with number two. Quick question, mayor. Um, this was for Schaefer Fireworks. I just looked um back since 2019 we've been using interstate. They didn't bid. I thought that was kind of interesting.
Only Schaefer bid for fireworks, you know, just as this is obviously a dangerous activity. Uh they're I think only carrying like 5 million in um in coverage. Do we have any, you know, thoughts on why Interstate didn't bid and how do we, you
know, do we have any reference for Schaefer? Um I you want to say something, Bill? Well, actually because I reviewed the cont I talked to Griffin and he said because um interstate had conflicting events so they wouldn't be able to accommodate it. Yeah, I was going to say that and we also have no
control over that but yes and then Bill looks at that to make sure that whoever's bidding follows the uh the guidelines and so liability is the same. Yeah. Or I should say coverage is the same state requirement. Yeah. Yeah. All
right. Thank you for that. Um my second question was around um so mayor shared services this is number 15 is what I'm looking at um this was shared services we were including Manville just in general um my question
is just from a percentage perspective do we know how often Hillsboro inspectors are going out to other towns and how often other town inspectors are coming into Hillsboro. Sure, I can answer that
if you don't mind, mayor, since I'm the one handling it. Uh, so anytime we can get another town to team with us to provide services, obviously we want to say yes because across the entire state, uh, there's a shortage of all inspectors, whether it's electrical or
plumbing or any any kind of inspectors. So, the acting administrator for MAL had reached out uh, specifically for fire. Um, so spoke to our construction official, Mr. Feedler, spoke to Ed Allen, our our um fire um inspector, and
they're not taking time away from the day here in Hillsboro. That would be after hours or weekends. So, the five towns have agreed to the same price because we don't want to compete with each other because then one town will take all of the inspectors. So we agree in the shared service we all pay the
same price uh for our inspectors and we don't impact the other town. So we use them when we can. So if it's in the evening, early in the morning, late at night, weekends and it just depends on that project. So Manville really just needs fire inspector, but we might need
Manville. So, um, the group of all the administrators always agrees that the more people we can add, the more inspectors, it helps us, but it's not going to impact Hillsboro in any way or take away from the jobs here in the town because I wouldn't I wouldn't allow that. Okay. Well, I I read it. So, just
just to clarify, it sounds like um the inspectors would not be leaving Hillsboro during the you know, normal working hours. This is only nights and weekends. And then again, all towns are paying the same as not to incentivize
and steal each other's inspectors. Okay. And we're just adding Manville. And it sounds like the other mayors were or the other township administrators were positive. Correct. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Bottom line is everyone's short inspectors and anything that we
can do to help each other get through projects. As we know, we've had what three inspectors up for jobs that we posted today, right? So, um it's it's actually a necessity almost now to help each other because otherwise things
wouldn't get done. Yep. So, I guess to answer the question, uh the answer is no. Then we don't have data or we do have data that supports how many inspectors go from where to where it it sorry, do we track that? It it would it would just depend.
I mean, we don't track that. We have so much tracking of our own town on what we're doing for every inspector, every inspector that uses multilicens. We have so many different things that we track now to track somebody on a part-time basis. I I it
doesn't matter to me is what if they want to do on nights or weekends or I don't track that data. I track our own internal data that so well and I think the reason thank you uh deputy mayor because the reason I was asking was I believe there um Hillsboro inspectors
leaving Hillsboro would be using Hillsboro equipment and they're on our you know god forbid workman's comp that sort of thing. Yeah. No, that's No, they would they're they're not. So they're not leaving either way. Yeah. So it would just be they're hiring them as a part-time people just like we'd hire a
responsibility. So those other towns have that responsibility for for those employees. They're employees as well on a part-time basis. So if I I'm working Hillsboro right now. If I work part-time in another town somewhere else
on that those hours, that town would be responsible for my time. Like there's many administrators that work in multiple towns and there's multiple clerks that work in multiple towns. And how administrator for how long have you been doing this shared service for building services with the other towns?
God built how long it's been a long time for the other four towns. My god, as far as I I remember John Fe. Yeah. Is it like 25 years or is it like five years? It's more than 10 15. Yeah. I mean Yeah.
I actually have a we're going to have Franklin come to my house because be a conflict of interest if somebody inspected my air conditioning unit. So So we're we're reaching out to Franklin to have them come and if he does something wrong that's Franklin will be covering and then yeah or her my dog
bites him. Um any any other comments from the day any from the floor? Well, thank you for coming. Thank you so much for all your help. Have a great night. Thank you. Thank you for putting everything together. Good night. Good night. Okay, wait. I'm I'm
sorry. So, hold on. I I because we weren't done. So, um going back to number 15 real quick. I pulled up the contract. And under clause C responsibility, all property liability, auto liability, workman's compensation claims shall be the responsibility for
the employing township regardless of where the incident that caused the claim arises. So it it when I read it, it it it appeared that Hillsboro and that's why I was asking about how often, you know, are we
sending folks out versus folks coming in because if the liability is ours, just trying to understand are we benefiting from the shared services agreement or not. Yeah, we we are and I understand there's a shortage of inspectors. So yeah, we we are as I guess as committee Le Pontia just
mentioned that we have three full-time inspectors that we haven't been able to hire in two years. So we are constantly borrowing from the other towns as well. So I think it's a shared liability. Unless Bill, you want to chime in on our liability, but we've never had an issue.
It does not say shared liability. I'm looking at the No, I'm No, I'm asking Bill if it's a shared liability. you read that correctly that um the municipality that employs the worker is responsible for oral employment and workers compensation coverage. Okay. So I think my point is that I
think we should get some data on and I understand it's part-time but if there has to be some sort of a call center I'm making you know some sort of aggregator where townships are saying hey I need a fire inspector a plumber and whatever I
need this type of inspector and a certain township is sending somebody that should be tracked so that we understand where we're at in this agreement and what liability we're having. My other comment real quick is I think these and I'm ballparking here. I think these are an average of like
76 75 76,000 positions. So we're looking at like 36 $36 an hour. We're only making 50. And by the way, we haven't paid for, you know, the vehicle, the gas, anything else. It may be a losing proposition. So, just wanting to really
understand the specifics of this so that we make sure that this is beneficial for our township. Again, I acknowledge that we have a lack of inspectors, but we want to make sure from a financial perspective that we're not losing money on this deal. Yeah, I can assure you we
we're not seeing data. I appreciate your assurance, administrator. I know you're making it sound like there's some aggregator that there's a call center. There's not. So, if I'm hired by Manville part-time, the construction official is calling me and say, "Hey, Anthony, can you work on Saturday? I have three inspections." But they're
using a township vehicle. No. Or liability. Do we have any information on that? Yeah, I I can check with Mr. Feedler. Um, but if you're going to make the towns do all this back and forth and and data, I I just I don't We're trying to We're trying to make it flexible and
we don't want to make it difficult where people don't want to come here. administrator. I'm not trying to make anything difficult. I'm trying to understand the financial um liability that our town has in entering this shared service agreement so that it is beneficial for the town of Hillsboro.
Okay. Why don't you give us an idea how much that's going to cost before you get into an in-depth study? But uh I think looking at the contracts probably makes sense just but um and talk with
John. Yeah, I'll talk to I'll talk to John. Any other comments from the deis items 1 through 16? I do I have one last question. Um this was on number eight. Um a comment here, an observation was
that this was a six and a half month, this was um going to the CFO. Um excuse me, this was going for Phoenix as a consultant. The agreement was 6 and a half months, but it um talked about
$2,000 a month and 14,000. It should be the kind it should say 13,000 since it's 16.5. Um, and then besides that, um, kind of math piece, this seems like it would be
a redundant service. And I do understand and I read the backup reser um, regarding Nancy Costa and and her um, you know, and the and the funding that we the township paid while she helped on board Alicia, which
I, you know, we that can um, we'll leave that where it is. This seems to be a redundant service. Um, so just wanting to to understand more from the mayor, Mr. Ferrara. Oh, I I think maybe the
finance committee and because they had this discussion. I I think that of course this is a not to exceed contract. He could be here a month and we could say he's good and he leaves, right? So, you have a a new a new CFO coming in that uh they want to have a quote
unquote transition period. Yes, the budget will be done, but there's still some things for him to learn. Um obviously the u as you commit Mr. Monzo is a very talented and knowledgeable um asset for the township to use. I
think the having him here for a month or two months. I think for the $2,000 it may be isn't is a valuable training tool for our incoming CFO and and co and provide some coverage for everyone in the office. Do I think that Joe will
need to be here till December 31st? I doubt it. Um I think it's just provides a a coverage and again it's a not to exceed contract. Um, and I don't think Joe expects to be here till December 31st either in my in in my conversation
with him. Yeah. And as far as redundant services, it and I've said this up here multiple times that there's an unbelievable need for CFOs throughout the state and we're lucky to have a person that um is as a CFO and has their
license. As we know with Delicia, we did the three months with Nancy and that that she had just was going for a test. So, this gentleman has a CFO license. U but we all feel from the finance committee that it would be beneficial to
have someone like Joe from Phoenix Adviser to work through all the new things that he's going to be learning just like Alicia did for those three months she was there. So, we want this to be successful. Um, and I think it's extremely important that the new CFO comes on with that mentor and with the
experience that Joe has, I think you've all seen the type of experience he has almost 40 years, it's very well needed and we want to we want to end up with a successful CFO. So, as long as it needs for the amount, I think it's not redundant. Um, and I think it's going to
be very important and beneficial. To answer your question, you asked me if I thought it was redundant. I don't think it's redundant at all, especially for someone coming on to a new town. Joe understands the town. He's been working with the town for the past few months. He's done the budget and that's going to take months. It took months with our
last CFO. Three months, which cost us a lot more money than six months. Well, but let's we're not going to throw good money after bad. That being said, keep in mind Joe has been here for two months. He has done a fabulous job. We're we're you know, you know, so but Joe's been
here for two months. So, I don't without know how long Hold on. But I don't know how long he would need from a transition standpoint. I don't He He even uh admitted that he didn't obviously know the town or the intricacies. You know, he came in and and and fill that void
for two months. So, if we only think it's going to take a month or two, then that's what the contract should be written for. Um you're talking about separate things. So, please Joe was here without Christian. Christian is here now and
then the transition. Wouldn't you rather set our new CFO up on solid footing to have all of the expertise under his belt and then this nominal fee that we're paying the
consultancies goes away or we can be in the same situation where we had a poor CFO poorly transitioned sorry to a CFO and we're left in a situation
where we're there's now an upstart and a continual learning process for the next CFO. This CFO has his certifications. We're trying to set him up on the best foot possible to cost as little as possible. This is a significantly less
incurrence to the taxpayers than what we had had before. And again it will not take the full the everyone has already admitted both the administrator Sean and the C the Joe the from Phoenix that it
will not take there there's no expectation that it'll take the full six months and yeah as soon as Christian feels comfortable and that he's good then he'll let us know that just we want to do it transition is
important I I I think Hillsboro Township residents are best served if we have one of the most well-known financial people in township finances working here as a consultant. And that's one of the reasons that we brought him on to do what he did during that transitionary phase. And I think we are going to be a
better off town with his expertise. And again, this doesn't have to go the full length. We have the right to make that determination. But we want to set ourselves up and set Christian up for success. I fully support keeping the best and smartest bright minds in front of our finances. Hands down, I think
it's the right move. So, we're I think Christian, it's like 142 plus the 25. So, Christian's being paid I think 167. Um, we you know, you said he was 25. He's got I'm sorry, the 25 is not all his. That 25,000 is prrated for the
year, right? But okay. So he's making 167 per year prrated for this year. And for the record, he's not being paid any more any less than the last CFO and it's in the budget. I just want to make I didn't say did. I'm just saying I know you were just putting number like it's like this exorbitant amount of it's the
same money that the last CFO has paid and it's in the budget. It's not anymore. I just want just for the record that's all understand. Okay. My point was it's a well- paid position. He has the qualifications. Um, you would think there would be, you know, a two week a month transition. I don't know why we
would enter into a six and a half month contract to have somebody, you know, overlook standing for six months. It's a month-to-month basis. So, it's not a it's it's a month-to-month basis, not to exceed. We p we paid Miss Costa for
three months last time $39,000 to stay there with our last CFO who didn't have the experience of of Mr. Monzo. So it could be 2,000 4,000 maybe maybe out to 12. But still as as Mr. Britting said,
it is uh better to have good people and learn and and have a good start for the benefit of Hillsboro than to try and save four grand and saying, "All right, you're on your own for a little while. If you have a question, call me." I know as a business
owner, training is imperative, right? for an employee and for this when I had someone come in here and for retention and for retention it cost you six times more to hire a new person than to retain a person. So for the $12,000 I stand to differ that even if
it did take that long for him to get comfortable is money well spent. We spent $15,000 just or going to spend $15,000 on fireworks to put it in perspective. Well, the and the for the year the the
financial what do I want to what word do I want to use the the the the function of the CFO changes over the year. So he may not have anything in in August but then come September October as the year starts to close out he may have he may
have something to he needs consulting on. So, and I think the redundancy was the fact that we have bond counsel and we have um the auditor. We have lots of different folks that are more than happy to take calls from CFOs um and and absolutely support them. So, um thank
you very much for the input. Any comments from the floor for items on the consent agenda 1 through 16? Seeing none. Um would anybody like to take a motion separately? I would like to take number eight
separately. Okay. So, we have a motion. So, I need a motion and a second to approve consent agenda 1 through 16 at le number eight. So, moved. Second. Roll call, please. Committee Bing. Yes. Committeewoman
Hand. Yes. Committee Leanne. Yes. Deputy Mayor Payne. Yes. May. Yes. Yes. Sorry, jumping the gun there. Sorry. Um, all right. Item May I have a motion and a second to approve item number eight? So moved. Second. Roll call. Committing.
Absolutely. Yes. Committee woman hand. No. Committee. Yes. Deputy Mayor Payne. Yes. Mayor Cherelli. Yes. Let's see now. Public hearings none. Introduction of new ordinances.
This is 202507 ordinance amending chapter 143 vehicles and traffic section 143-38 schedule 11 stop intersections the code of the township of Hillsboro Somerset County New Jersey to add the intersection of Montgomery Road and
Wartsville Road further consideration and public hearing to be held on June 24th 2025. May I have a motion and a second to introduce ordinance 2025-07? So moved. Second. And the roll call. Committee Bing. Yes. Committeewoman
Hand. Yes. Committee Money. Yes. Deputy Mayor Payne. Yes. Mayor Turley. Yes. Claims list. May I have a motion and a second to approve claims list 20259. Motion to approve. Second. Any comments from the
deis? Comments from the floor? Seeing none. Roll call, please. Committee Bing. Yes. Committeewoman Han. Yes. Committee Levani. Yes. Deputy Mayor Payne. Yes. Mayor Jelly. Yes. You have a
quick item of clarification. I know that we voted. We took eight separately. Did we actually vote on the rest of the consent agenda? Yeah. You said that was the first. Okay. It was all going. Thank you. Uh we have no new business. Public comments. Pardon me. Did you have
something Mr. Willard? Something uh Okay. Uh, public comments are matters not on the agenda. Miss Break, please read the statement regarding public comment. The township committee welcomes input from the public. Please state your name and address and spell your name for the record. You will be given one
three-minute aotment for your comments. Please understand that this public forum is not structured as a question and answer session. Comments are to be addressed to the mayor. Again, please keep your comments to three minutes. Thank you. Anybody have any comments?
All right. Seeing none, may I have a motion and a second to adjurnn? So moved. Second. Roll call. Committee Bing. Yes. Committeewoman Hand. Yes. Committee Money. Yes. Deputy Mayor Payne. Yes. Mayor Jarelli. Yes. Time is
9:40. Thank you. Have a good night. Bye everybody. All right. [Music]