Al to the flag of the United States of America to the for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all good evening and welcome to the March 25th 2025 regular meeting of the
Jackson Township Council this meeting will now come to order pursuant to the provision of the New Jersey open public meeting Act adequate notice of this meeting was properly provided by transmitting a notice of the meeting on January 28th 2025 for publication notice
of this meeting of the township Council has been posted in the corridor of the municipal building and in the office of the municipal clerk we'll begin with a roll call councilman burelli here councilman Paul Mary presid councilman Sergeant pres Council vice president Bernstein here council president
here also attending this evening is Township attorney Mr mcgucken and myself Municipal Clark Martin ma'am we have somebody for the assistant business administrator Miss Novac here as well thank you you're
welcome the next item on the agenda is our small business recognition council president cun thank you madam clerk so we would like to recognize minutes stop Delian Market uh congratulations on being named the small business of the month for
February 2025 your dedication to Excellence and commitment to the community and the spirit of Entre uh entrepreneurship in Jackson we appreciate your contributions and wish you continued success this is from the all Council I'm gonna come up if you guys would come up to accept the
[Applause] plaque yes yes [Applause] thank you the next item of business is the proclamation portion of the agenda thank you madam
clerk who is here from the library thank you ma'am whereas Librarians spark creativity fuel imagination Inspire lifelong learning uh offering a space where individuals of all ages can
explore new ideas and be drawn to new possibilities and whereas librar uh serve the Vibrant Community hubs connecting people with knowledge technology and resources while fostering Civic engagement critical thinking and lifelong learning and whereas libraries
provide free and Equitable access to books digital tools and innovating programs ensuring that all individuals regardless of their background have this support they need to learn connect and Thrive and whereas libraries partner with schools businesses and
organizations connecting the dots to maximizing resources increase efficiency and expand access to essential Services strengthen the entire community and whereas libraries Empower job Seekers entrepreneurs and lifelong Learners by
providing access to resources training and opportunities that support career growth and economic success and whereas libraries nurture young minds through the story time stem programs and literacy initiatives fostering curiosity and the love of learning that lasts a
Lifetime and whereas libraries protect the right to read think and explore without censorship standing as Champions and intellectual freedom and free expression and whereas uh dedicated Librarians and Library workers provide
welcoming space that Inspire discover collaborate and create for all and whereas libraries Librarians and Library workers across the country are joining together to celebrate National Library week under the theme draw to the library now
therefore be it resolved that I Michael Raina mayor of the township of Jackson County of ocean state of New Jersey along with the Jackson Township Council to hereby Proclaim April 6 TW uh through 12th 2025 as National Library week in the township of Jackson we encourage all
residents to visit their libraries explore the resources and celebrate all the ways of libraries draw us together as a community thank you ma'am if you can come up and get your Proclamation [Applause] just
G well done pardon well done thank youting huh getting good at reading fast getting reading fast I know my nerves are um okay so we're going to go to Madame clerk opening
comments I just want to before we go to opening comments so I just want the clerk um just to update the residence of Jackson where she's taken her Department in uh I think about 10 weeks um I know this coun I know myself and this Council
are very appreciative to her and the new hires that she's made uh we did two hires this week and um I know that in the last you know since we've been lack of Staff I've been in there almost daily um and put in a couple hours and kind of learn the systems and saw what kind of
gaps that was there the biggest Gap I think was that people were coming in to get marriage license or to pay you know for a certificate and there was somebody in hey Eric back there Mr Jones was there when I was there
um but somebody had came and they didn't it was $10 I think and they only had a 20 uh thankfully I had Chang in my car so I went back and I'm like are you telling me that we can't take credit cards Madame Clerk and she was like no we don't have the process of the systems um so we dove into it and uh with
Christian R it and our clerk's office uh I'll let her continue but we have a lot of exciting stuff that has brought us into 2025 recently so we're really excited go ahead Madam clerk thank you first I want to take a moment to acknowledge that the efforts to modernize the clerk's office are thanks
to the support of council president cun Council vice president Bernstein and the council members we successfully have implemented municip which is an online payment system that allows the public to make payments using credit cards Visa American Express Mastercard Discover
Google pay and eCheck directly from the Jackson Township website we've also set up a public computer at the clerk's office public counter this computer is a useful tool for the public to make online payments submit op requests and navigate sdl conveniently during their
visit these updates were implemented to create a more accessible experience for the public with the council's support we will continue to move forward to enhance our services and ensure that the clerk's office remains accessible and efficient for the public thank you thank you for your hard
work in that I mean Christian's just going to show her real quick I actually played on it at the clerk's at the at the uh Clerk's desk today on the computer and um I had to pay any violation or anything that I had or anything from the clerk or uh I I could do it online we are working I met with
the uh uh accounting department and we are looking if there's any set rates which the clerk was with me we're going to uh ask um it and the finance department to automatically inut them in so that there's no question on what the fee is because there you could just swipe your card and and get it done so
we're super excited thank you so much for all the hard work that everybody's done council president guys one question on that quickly so if someone gets a landlord registration um obviously at the end of the year when they have to renew it for the following year is there a way for that to be done paid online
just to give an example something that's actually the one I did so if you go landlord registration right now and code enforcement that's the only one that's on there until I uh get with the uh Administration and get the rest of them on there but if you look the payment amount we're going to change that to be automatically 125 because last year it
was 100 so now there's going to be no questions you go ahead you put in you put in your register address um and you upload your payment in there it will go automatically to code enforcement and then if there's a reference number a permanent number we'll work out the Kinks and everything um but that's again
as long as you're renewing your registration if it's a new registration I know that the um code enforcement needs a lot of documents but a new as long as nothing's changed we're hoping that even if you have to upload a copy of your license or anything that we can we could take it to 2025 and have already conveniently be able to uh
either pay Their fines or update their stuff from home or they can go into the clerk's office we hope to have these computers at all departments so that we you're going there you can swipe your credit card make it quick efficient if you want to go in because I understand that some people still want to go in and
um pay their their stuff online and just to get be ahead of it just you know an ordinance is coming that there will no longer be any cash payments um within the township and any departments uh except for which we're waiting is going to be our tax collector uh they will be
the only Department that will now moving forward taking cash once we get that ordinance G so good thank you thank you opening comments opening comments all right opening comments so I'm going to do my opening comments and then I'm going to give you a little traffic safety update
uh that I got from our Traffic Safety Bureau our Council remains committed to addressing the long-standing issues within our Township particularly those related to project Dodge or Doge while there has been criticism and misinformation circling the fact remains that we're working to improve efficiency
and accountability to key departments code enforcement has been inefficient for a long for way too long and our council is taking action to correct that the recent push back is a direct result in our efforts to bring transparency to these issues and we will not be silenced
if the administration fails to address the concerns of our residents the council will the best part and the best way to get facts is to attend meetings ask questions and be part of this discussion one of the most pressing concerns is the issues of illegal
rentals and property maintenance code enforcement fines means little if Property Owners do not appear in court there must be a more efficient system in place to ensure accountability additionally some members of the department have refused to enforce council's ordinances such as landlord
registration requirements this is unacceptable Council initiative initiatives should not be ignored word or selectively enforced our Focus remains on making the difficult decisions necessary to improve our Township these are issues that have been
neglected for over a decade and addressing them will require tough sometimes unpopular actions for those who have questions about project Dodge or Doge and other initiatives we encourage direct engagement attend a council meeting ask questions and be
part of the process misinformation and conspiracy theories do nothing to move our Township forward the council will continue working towards real solutions that benefit all residents traffic okay so we did traffic
on Willow Drive and Valley Road Willow Drive 85 percentile was 35 39 miles an hour that is a cut through road so I'm actually shocked uh um that it's only 39 miles an hour is the average um 462 cars
a day uh average space uh pace is 28 to 38 and then the peak hours are from 5: to 7: uh p.m. in regards to Valley Road the 85 percentile is 36 miles that's a 20 both of them are
25 mph roads average speed is 30 miles um daily volume is 588 and the peak hours are again is well four to five so that is the uh reports that we have now I know that the machines were down for a little bit so we will have again once they put them
back up we'll have more readings at the next council meeting otherwise thank you and have a great night council vice president bste thank you clerk Martin again thank you the clerk I know she came in and single-handedly um from the beginning has uh really been working to a be
responsive but B to modernize the department so we appreciate that um just to bring up two points I I want to take a moment and thank our former code department head Mr Pac who reached out and gave me a very informative we had probably about a 45 minute conversation on the phone where he was very
informative about how code how code enforcement Works how it has worked and gave me a very a deeper understanding of a little bit of the processes um and the importance of having an effective uh Code Department um I also just want to bring up um the mayor authorized I think it was last Friday um maybe with
Thursday I apologize um a a comprehensive plan to be drawn up for Pitney Lane residents have been reaching out for a while about some of the safety concerns over there I know one of the things engineers are looking at is a striping a different idea that they're looking at is is Banning parking possibly on both sides maybe on one side
and we're looking forward over hopefully over the next week or so to get that report so we could if there are necessary uh ordinances or resolutions that need to be implemented together with our PD we could hopefully do it as soon as possible thank you and have a good night council member barelli uh thank
you clerk Martin I want to thank you in your office and uh Council leadership here for municipay to make it easier for residents uh to do business with our Township it's long overdue um regarding our small business recognized tonight I like to frequent the Min stop at the
corner of Chandler and Jackson Hills Road maybe too much uh they got really good coffee sandwiches meats and more I encourage you to patronize the minute stop which is a long-standing business here in Jackson if you don't already uh the annual Jackson Easter egg H we have
some events going on in our town just want to share this with the public um the annual uh Jackson Easter egg hunt will be held on Saturday April 12th uh weather permitting and hopefully we'll be getting nice weather um from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the Jack Jackson
Justice complex um at 1 Jackson Drive uh the Easter egg hunt is a free entry it's sponsored by the recreation department and the commission for the disabled and handicap and there will be food trucks there music face painting balloon artist um and of course uh the famous Easter
Bunny the event starts at 11:00 as I mentioned uh handicapped and disabled uh children uh that starts at 11:30 the Easter hunt for them for the three and 40 year olds it's 11:45 a.m. for kindergarten uh the first grade it's 12:00 p.m. second grade is 12 uh 12:15
p.m. and third grade and up is um 12:30 uh p.m. so if you uh need some more information about uh the Easter egg hunt and other uh many events that the recreation department is sponsoring and conducting this year uh please reach out
to the recreation department coordinator Anthony horda at aorta at Jackson TW WP nj.net where you can contact their office at 732 9281 1200 at extension 1255 uh one last thing also I received
um correspondence from the Ocean County uh Library uh there will be a scams uh spams and fraud lets not be a victim presentation at the Ocean County Library Jackson Branch at 2m on Tuesday April 15th the presentation will be made by
Laura Reeves who is a certified financial planner CR PC who's the owner of ljr Financial and Jackson uh she will help to identify common scams while save safeguarding your information and getting tips to uh plan a response to
identity theft the registration for this free program is on the Ocean County Library website and for more information you can stop by the Ocean County Library uh Jackson Branch here at uh to Jackson Drive or you can call them at 73 2928 4500 and to view full schedule of other
libr programs um is on their online uh calendar of events the Ocean County library system is celebrating their 100th anniversary this year amazing it's good seeing you all take care and have a good evening council with Paul Mary so since we last met some uh
Council business over the last two weeks uh working with my colleagues here on the Jackson Township Council I was able to secure 115 school supply kits and delivered them to uh m L Citra and her amazing team at Johnson Elementary which I'm sure they'll be able to utilize those well-needed supplies uh also I had
the honor last week of attending the highway dedication ceremony for Jackson police officer Robert Ventura officer Ventura made the ultimate sacrifice on March 18th 2001 and this honor was well overdue and well deserved um it was a
very nice ceremony if you didn't get a chance to to attend you should definitely a lot of Articles out uh on it also I had the special opportunity to attend I like to attend as many shows as I can throughout the town especially when the school district uh host them I
got to attend the molof middle school performance of The Lion King Jr it was absolutely amazing that we have such talented young people in our town and I would uh implore anyone that is looking for a great evening if we have a show the Board of Ed please attend it it's much cheaper than Broadway and a lot
closer as well and finally I would just like to congratulate once again Matt and the entire team at minute stop Delhi and Market their the their team is fantastic their service is wonderful their food is delicious and uh I'm very happy that
they were the council's February small business highlight so congratulations to them their entire team for serving this community for over 40 years thank you Council Ser good evening um I too frequented to minut stop um for 34 years
and uh I enjoy the poor CAG and chief and my son likes to cheese steak it's an absolutely fabulous place to uh grab a bite to eat I'll wave all my further comments thank you are there any further comments by the toship council yes Madam clerk I
just if Christian and if you could put up um Mr balinsky yes okay so I apologize he did give me we're going to start doing uh DPW updates at every council meeting on what is going on um there is a lot going on with DW so we just wanted see he's
hosting a cleanup uh townwide for nonprofit on uh May 4th they're looking for 30 again nonprofit organizations to come out I know I've done it in the past and we did it with uh little leagues that I've sponsored and baseball teams it's really great the kids go if there's
anybody you know any roads I think Sean already has it set up but it really is a good time go out there for a couple hours and just pick up garbage put it in the bags and it's a feel-good moment and you do get I believe it's a $500 grant that you get from the town I think that's great um and then the parks we
have uh a few updates I'd like to share um the improvements uh to Jackson Forest are completed so it's ready for everybody's enjoyment and then the equipment has been delivered to Johnson Park playground and the renovations um started last week and we will keep you
updated on that but we definitely want to hear especially with this beautiful weather that we had today that we do have Parks going on and we have Wood Lane Park that is I mean I that's I live over there and I I do drive by there all time and there's tons and tons of kids out there and it's great to see uh that's all I just wanted to give an
update from our DPW Mr balinsky I promise might do that thank you madam clerk I'm sorry coun I just wanted to just wanted to add one thing I forgot to mention um recently um um one of the chaplain um Hinman met with the fire department they recommended for the
Passover burning this year they always try to do a centralized to make sure it's done safely they're going to be adding the location this way the shouldn't be that much traffic on South New Prospect I think they're going to be adding a location by the rosener elementary school um lot so stay tuned there'll be Flyers about that in that coming weeks thank
you any further comments by the council council president yes I was informed today the pickle wall courts are starting to be worked on at Wood Lane par yes they are so super exced coming got a call about it thank you yes they are thank you the next item of business
is the first reading and introduction of ordinance 20259 council president C are there any comments on ordinance 20259 yes okay sorry let me just get my bearings all right so this is or uh the new ordinance that's being introduced
tonight correct first reading okay so let's just clear up going to read this ordinance is adopted would amend the township code to correct a typo which was listed for a fee of a temporary certificate of occupancy as $39 in the code book and it should have been 30
again it was a typo I'm going to read you the email from the department head Mr um Wilton that sent an email just going to read it right from here in my hand Mr Wilton sent it Wednesday January 8th 2025 at 1051 uh am to Mr Terrence
wall and he cced uh Linda which is his assistant TCO fee revision good morning Terrence I'd like to get a portion of chapter 163 construction code uniform change I was told during a DCA yearly audit that our temporary certificate of
occupancy was too high the change must occur in 1624 subcode uh fees um the code sites I'm not going to go into all those numbers but it's in there the fee must be changed from $39 to $30 I sent to DCA a rough draft awaiting their
approval C attached that is the attached ordinance that is on the agenda tonight this was not brought by Council this was not brought by anybody but it was brought our by our department head that asked that we were in compliant we had to do it thank you madam clerk council president it's a difference of $9 as per
the state as per the state it's a different of $9 and I I just want to say we have the attorney here I didn't create this email Mr Walton sent it and actually it was supposed to be done in January it was missed in uh in through the emails but again going into uh
efficiency and going into all the Departments we are finding things that are not you know that weren't addressed that we are addressing as Council so thank you councilman I'm super excited that we can get this correct Ed for our building department ordinance 20 2509 amending
chapter 162 of the township council code entitled subcode fees to comply with State construction code are there any questions or comments further by the township Council may have a motion to approve ordinance 09 2025 on the first reading and introduction and to authorize the
notice of introduction and the public hearing to be held on April 8th 2025 motion second thank you councilman burelli yes councilman pal Mar yes councilman Sergeant yes Council vice president Bernstein yes council president cun
yes thank you the next time of business is payment authorization of bills and claims I would like to note the following extensions extensions include councilman burelli e ye1 ru4 Ru T14
and st40 and council president ke's exstension rcs2 are there any questions or comments by the township Council no ma'am may have a motion to approve the
bills and claims with the extensions noted motion motion second councilman barelli um staying on those vendor numbers uh Miss Martin and yes to the rest on the bills and claims agenda thanks thank you councilman pal Mar yes councilman Sergeant yes Council
vice president Bernstein yes council president C yes thank you the next item on the agenda is the consent agenda listed for tonight's consideration of resolutions 128 through 137 2025 listed by title council president K are there
any comments um on the consent agenda resolutions listed on tonight's agenda I would just like to um congratulate hopefully it we all vote Yes but Mr Peter Mah um the man does an amazing job I've known him a very long time he's
very very smart and very knowledgeable he does an absolutely amazing job and I don't think that we would have gotten through this reevaluation without such a uh knowledgeable um department head and professional on our side and and and helping the Jackson residents and answering I've been here in these last
couple weeks where residents have come in and wanted to do appeals and he he sat down and went through the numbers in the education and they said oh okay I I understand now thank you so much um and came in angry and left you know comfortable um so that's super you know we we love to hear that uh that stuff
secondly I would like to welcome Stephanie Marlin she is our new Chief Financial Officer she's coming to us from pton um we want to welcome her with open arms and she's coming into you know a large town and uh I'm sure that she would be very successful she works with
a bunch of uh great people in the financial department so uh we want to welcome her that's all I have are there any questions or comments by the township Council thank you may have a motion to authorize the consent agenda resolutions
128 through 137 2025 motion second councilman barell yes councilman pal yes councilman Sergeant yes Council vice president Bernstein yes council president yes thank you is there anything further by the township Council
not for me ma'am thank you at this time if any member of the public has any comments to make please address the council at the microphone and state your name and address clearly for the record you will have five minutes and they only speak once may I have a motion to open public
comment motion to open second all in favor I any opposed motion approved Deb Jones heis Road Jackson um first I'd like to start off thanking Mr pal Mar for
spotlighting some businesses in town I like to see it I like to see their businesses grow from it um I also I'm a little confused or I should say perplexed in the opening statement not once but twice it was said
that the best way to stay informed is to intend uh to attend the meetings and ask questions but I thought at the last meeting it was said that no questions are going to be answered at the council meetings so I'm a little confused as to
what that is supposed to be because for me I don't have time in my day to email you guys that's why I come here but and also I'm I'm also a little confused you mentioned that you talked to a former lead Code Enforcer
do we not have a lead code enforcer in our town right now and if if we do why isn't that person being talked to about different things to get information about code enforcement it seems like if someone's not with our town anymore that
shouldn't be who we're going to we pay taxes to have people in these positions now but it just seems like there is a lot going on here and I feel like and this is just my personal opinion but I've walked away from here feeling like
some people are spanking people that are holding positions in our town and they're not even afforded the ability to be here to defend themselves and I don't think it's right for anyone to be spoken about without their ability to be here
to defend themselves I just want to put that out there thank you ma'am I'm just going to answer your first in regards you can see up at the top we have a statement from the council regarding the New Jersey uh open public meetings act so it states that if we get if we go
into a battle the council has we have you have comments you can make all the comments that you want we can have an open conversation like we are now but if it gets irate and we're getting screamed at we have the right to not answer so if we have a nice calm conversation it's no problem and and and and Council has the right to to respond okay I appreciate
that I misunderstood it then but that's why thank you I appreciate that and a councilman since you did speak to her second could you please councilman bernsteen can you please respond sure absolutely thank you um so the answer to that question is that Mr P like I sent Council an email um saying that he's
seen that code enforcement's been a center of attention recently and he asked if he can if I if I would take his call and share he can share a little bit of his perspective being that he had known many of the the current code officers and he's known the operations so I took that phone call we had a great
45 minute conversation and gave me a very well-rounded understanding of how the department has come to where it's gotten to he explained the numbers that he felt were necessary he actually talked about the fact that when he was the the department head the department I think had five officers and maybe six and now he was shocked to hear that it's
at 11 and he was very um intrigued when he heard some of the some of the questions that we had as counsel and he was able to give me a little bit of a better understanding that's not to take away the importance of going through Administration and sitting down with code what I will say is that there have been conversations what I will say is a
lot of misinformation um someone posted on social media there was a request from Co to meet with Council that request never came to council president never came to council vice president um in this form of government any request to go to meet with the department head has to go through Administration which Council has done in the past and we will
continue to do it to make sure we're informed of what's going on in our departments thank you counc and I just want to say that I'm not taking any of this from social media I'm taking it from sitting in the audience at the meetings absolutely and again I I'm I do understand that he might have a
perspective but if he's not in the town he might not have the full p uh perspective of what kind of changes and what they're up against so it just doesn't seem fair to take someone who's not here anymore and it's one thing if
he wants to have a conversation with you and the people that are in Code Enforcement but I'd be really upset if a former employee came into the school and decided they were going to talk about what was going on in my job when they
haven't been in it so I'm just saying we have to you know you guys always talk about fairness and being clear with everyone it has to be everyone and ma' I was on that email and I the councilman took the phone call so I I didn't I
didn't feel I needed to because he had responded and said the case was closed I think he was just trying to um bridge the gap as there's a lot of um you know we're looking into a lot of things and uh we were council members respectful enough to would like to return the calls
that we get thank you ma'am I get it but bridge the gap with everybody thank absolutely hey guys Donnie Adelman 206 will appoint um couple of things number one minute stop is awesome I go there regularly you know I go to wa on off
hour po they don't have you know they're not open later or whatever it may but they they are essentially what you would call the pillar of a community because everybody knows about them it's a essentially a landmark that people use for navigation purposes at this point as well so good for them as far as the uh
Library it's great that they're being acknowledged I think reading literacy is great and it does help a lot of people there's a lot to be said about having a book in your hand versus an e-reader an Audi book or whatever it may be um that's the good stuff
I see somebody sitting in the administrator desk do we have a new no sir um she's the assistant administrator we just don't have a title for assistant administrator no I I that's why I'm asking I know um I sent you an email because of questioning about the fact
that I wasn't here at the last meeting because I had K me Fusion that day I was here two meetings ago I asked Mr wall about meeting with him about the various problems I'm having in town and he said that we' meet with me by you know the next day which was Friday and that was
the day that he uh resigned whatever happened there I'm sure I'll never get the truth on that one so I'm not even gonna ask um now I still have quite a few outstanding issues and just due to some other things going on has nothing to do with the
council right s sitting there writing out an email is extremely painful and it takes forever so I'd like to know who it is I can meet with to have these things address because I need to sit down with somebody preferably I you know if we did it on the phone great but if we sit down
with it you know there's a better chance of making a record of it um and it needs to be done somewhat quickly I uh some of it's personnel with code enforcement Personnel issues some of its questions I
have uh with the clerk but I'm going to take that up with our new clerk I haven't had a chance to speak with her so I'm certainly you know I haven't even attempted so maybe I can that one off the list and certain ones are uh police issues so I just want to know who it is
I can talk to about that you want me to answer you okay so you can send an email to miss Novak she is the assistant business administrator right now we do not have a business administrator so until we until we have one it would be Miss Novak um she would she would set up a meeting and she can have our Personnel
uh which is Miss horda if you want to email her I don't know how that works but I know that believe that she could be in a meeting Miss B Mary Maryann ho yes okay I I I tried speaking with her about this and I would go through our assistant she want she want to speak to that's Mr wall got involv so let me just
finish you asked a couple so in regards to the clerk that would have to be appointment only so if you we cannot allow anybody just walk into the clerk's office it's our Hub of our whole town so we've recently secured that office so that it is uh secured and that we just don't have walk you secured the one
office that's supposed to be open to everybody no no no you can come in you just have to have an appointment okay okay well I mean you know if I want to come in either pick up or drop off I you can go on the outside yes you just can't go past the glass so I just want to correct that that's fine so I'll call make an appointment because there's quite a few things I need to work
through with you and you know I got to give you a new chance a chance because you're new and it sounds sounds like from what I heard listening on the way in that there's you know also new people in your office as well so we'll try and hopefully it'll be nice and easy and painless um all right I appreciate that
sir um next uh Mr P I got a couple questions for you I I respect you like I said I voted for you but I I think your undying question and devotion and
backing of the police department might be a little off so I'm just going to ask you two questions do you think police officers are capable or ever make mistakes not maliciously just an honest mistake
ask both of your questions and then once you're done speaking and then uh the question of that is do you think they might ever do something wrong intentionally not outright you know I'm not talking about like shooting people but just the little things within their
power that could be very easily covered up just it's a simple yes or no to those those two questions so the first question is do I think people can make mistakes I think any anyone could make a mistake I I make mistakes I'm sure you make mistakes uh do I think that our police force does
small things on purpose maliciously I I would say no I don't believe they would do that however I'm not a police officer I don't wear the uniform I don't know what they go through every day I could I could I could tell you that they put their life on the line every day when they put that uniform on and I respect
that completely um so I will always support the the the uniform and the officer because I can tell you 99.9% of the time they're there and when you call them if you had to call them because you needed help regardless of what you say about them over the past few meetings
they will show up there and they will help you because they don't look at what you've said they look at the job and they honor the badge and their job so I will always support them that's thank you councilman sir your time experience but that's it I just wanted to ask those two questions we appreciate it um before
I guess we're gonna be up before we leave can I just get your email this way awesome thank you sir director k cido Joe candido director Public Safety um I just want to come up here and fill you guys in on uh some things that are going on in the police department but
first I want to thank the mayor and his administration for the continuous support uh and the council for your continuous support Mr pal Mary thank you um we've had a lot of open budgeted positions that were not filled in the
past uh and I'm proud to report that uh through some very you know tedious looking we finally filled all our dispatch positions our records positions uh we found a deficiency in our hiring process for dispatch we adjusted it because we did
hire some people and they just didn't make it and I asked the question why and uh I was like okay let's do this so now we're we're back on track we have a full staff in our dispatch Department we just hired the last guy who's super qualified came from Howell Township
um so we're good on that all our open and budgeted positions that were previously in the budget are now filled thank you um we are also in the process process of hiring six new officers uh we just finished all the backgrounds we'll be doing interviews in the next uh
Monday and Tuesday um I will say that the state has changed the requirements and has now made it even harder for us and dragged out the process it used to take us three to four months for backgrounds and the hiring process we're now at six
months uh six to seven months before we can actually put somebody in the police academy so there's a lot of upfront work that has to be done um I want to credit the detective Bureau for dropping everything and you know killing it and getting it done um so I want to thank
them um last year's capital budget you approved us to buy nine police cars um took a look at that and threw some tweaking here and there we saved about 25 to $30,000 an expense on purchasing those
vehicles uh also can you elaborate on how you saved that much money because that's a lot if you don't mind I not like quick just kind of give us a little bit it's kind of simple we have two tone cars right now believe it or not that cost extra yeah so I just made them a
single color um thank you the graphics are nice I also uh this round of cars we bought is what we call uh a stealth package so the light bar is not on the outside the lights are on the inside of the car uh I did that for two reasons and also changing the payt scheme I did
for two reasons um one it's cheaper upfront costs even with the which I was amazingly surprised the uh internal lights are cheaper than the light bar on the outside of the car go figure that out um but a lot of these cars down the road when we take them off the patrol
line become administrative cars you know you know for other people within the department well we used to spend about $7,000 to flip that car when it had the outside light bar in a two-tone paint Scheme now it's just a matter of taking the graphics off and it has everything and it's set to go so down the road if I
want to flip a car it's going to be about $500 to flip it to a uh an administrative car instead of 7,000 so uh I want to give a shout out to Donnie Lasco he is my rock he's awesome yeah he is he's my rock it comes
to um putting all this together and very detailed oriented um when I told them the capital was approved Donnie had already everything done hit a button and our cars got ordered we usually see our cars in around November um knock on wood
we might see them in June wow so great job to him um the other thing is I don't know if this was even brought up but um the department has passed its accreditation uh standard with the State uh so I want to thank Dave Watson Mike
Ballard who's here right now and uh Kevin shyan it was a daunting task um and that's a three-year correct it's good for three years it's good for three years um when I stepped in um there there was a lot of stuff that still needed to be done um through the process
we found some deficiencies as well and we've corrected them um quickly to make sure that we're doing good on that uh and hopefully we also put some things in process to make sure that the next accreditation process goes a little smoother and we're not running looking
for stuff when we could be in front of it instead of behind it so I want to thank those guys for a tremendous job uh I also want to thank the council for last year's Capital and the administration and the mayor um the weapons that we currently carry are no
longer in production and uh when I looked at the capital before it got put through I was like where's the guns because if they're not making them anymore if we get new cops I got to give them guns um our
um sergeant kinian and Wes Thompson who just got promoted to Sergeant um those guys did a tremendous job in testing new weapons uh we are going to a different weapon system which we just got um and I thank the administration for getting
that into the capital budget last year and not delaying it um it will also that will also save us a tremendous amount of money into the future we're going back to a 9mm the ammunition cost is half the price of the 45 so I want to thank
everybody for your support thank you sir I just one thing I just have just real quick so you had said you're hiring dispatchers so we had I had brought up um that their manuals are from 1988 but I believe working on them you're working on them so I just the new hires are
going to be working on new right now is going on policies have been updated and we're good on that it's it's the training policies that were actually were the real deficient part which I mean is the important part tring listen I just want to make sure we're full disclosure and I just wanted to bring that up and then also can you just
explain I know we have six new hires um can you explain the difference between getting somebody that has to go to the academy that can get in a vehicle and a patrol car over if we get a class two and we can flip them and have them just so people understand um the class twos
if we get some body who's already certified great it's a matter of just training them on how we do um Jackson policing as far as you know our systems and stuff like that um at some point and I've set a standard that I want to take those people use them for six months see
if they fit with the police dep Department see if they are fit for us and for our agency and our culture um if they are then flipping them over um saves the town probably about $40,000 in cost for training and
things like that um I'm going to be honest with you right now we're struggling to find class twos um even full-time I mean I started off with 30 people on the list we're down to 12 listen if we get the word out that we're hiring and there's some class toos out there that are not you know don't want
to be where they're at and they want to come to our great town of Jackson Township hopefully you know through marketing we can we can get them over to you I want to thank you for coming up and updating the council tonight um any other council members have one question council president yes uh Mr direct Mr director so we have six new officers
which is which is great um where does that put us with how many officers we have and um we have six new hires he's allowed to hire six new officers oh you're allowed to hire six not that we have six new no no we're in the process of hire how many do we need do we need
more above that six to make us whole you really want me to answer that question no please don't not during budget season no no no not during budget season we yeah no we do I mean um honestly resolution says we can have 135 allocated Al together and that's a
10year plan so 10 years well five okay thanks um we are losing a lot of people this year as well so this six is kind of G to break us even um so we are going to be looking towards the end of the year to hire some more to at least increase
the force somewhat because we are certain units are very short on Personnel right now um so that's what we're trying to do thank you sir can you uh please tell me what is the tradein are we trading in the older
weapons that and what is the trade in value on those weapons uh off the top of my head I think we're getting like $200 a gun okay thank you so that's where we're at so it it brought our costs down tremendously we always do the trade in um when we get
a new weapon system just to save the town money thank you anything else anybody else councilman you're good okay thank you thank you thank you sir seeing anyone else good evening Dan picark 17 Alaska
Avenue Jackson has anyone addressed the condition now of South New Prospect Road it was repaved last year Joy went of the storms there was a lot of damage done to the road at the
Jehovah Witness thing there's a divot in the road that's now painted with yellow things on it when you go up to 101 uh New Prospect South New Prospect heading North toward Aldridge there's
another divot with a patch on it that's bumpy drive a little bit further go to mcer Lane both sides of the road have big divots in it that are not smooth over patched then you go to one one 109 and there's another
divot town the county spent thousands of dollars repaving it and now we have a ruined road again that's not even a year old are you you did councilman you are LS on to County Roads could you yeah so I actually reached out to the County engineer last week they told me that
they were coming down and they were actually down there I think on Friday or Thursday of last week um I'm going to follow them tomorrow morning there's only one of the divots that now has yellow lines painted on it recently I guess the county so I will follow up tomorrow and then hopefully by the next council meeting you you won't have a
question about it thank you sir now would I applaud your ordinance with straightening out a safety issue with the buses picking up children but we have another big safety issue we have school buses by private schools driving on our roads with the yellow lights on
and speeding up not slowing down we have no idea when they're going to stop well we will look at I'm actually meeting with all the uh both private and public as well as councilman Bernstein so I'll bring that up if anybody does find anything with a bus that is doing
something inappropriate or that they shouldn't be doing if they could get a picture of the bus um and I can in a time what I can do is there is cameras on all the buses we can send it to um you know the representative and have it looked into it's kind of hard to take a picture when you're driving down the
road I'm not supposed to be using my cell phone so on on all the buses there's usually it's a bus company and then usually a bus number on the bus so if you just catch the number and the name name of the company um then we can send it to PD who could request a video of that and and look it into it okay
another one children in my development Under 12 years old riding bicycles on the sidewalk in the streets with no helmets again they're supposed to I know it's if we have rules for safety we have to enforce them I don't want anybody's
child falling down without a helmet on and getting a brain injury I agree as you had heard from our director we we are trying to hire police officer so we can get more police out on there to do more enforcement we we are trying so I do hear you I do agree with you you know
traffic safety and the safety of kids is again we're going backwards with parking I'm trying we I'm we're trying I I I'm telling amount of money you spent with flyers and policemen giving warnings last year and what we're going backwards again I'm going to answer so we are
working on something that we are working on an ordinance um that is going to be locations that are going to be targeted so we do have multiple streets we have again it's in the stage a if we got to get a to z we have multiple meetings set up with councilman with myself with
traffic safety and uh we are in residents we are going to put out a here to Residents that if they feel that their street they want it included on these target areas um we are going to put signage out and we are going to again as many officers that we have on the time but we will have targeted areas
and it's going to be we're working on the specifics of how we want to write it we know that how will did it how did it is a resolution it's not a resolution it has to be an ordinance so we want to make sure that we put 210% into it and make sure that we have the manpower to
enforce it because believe me I I realize that we're creating ordinances and I'm putting a lot of strain on our police department and it's really not right for Council to do that if they don't have the Manpower now with Administration allocating six new hires doing promotions backfilling what we've
needed to backfill for years we are finally filling in the gaps and hopefully we can get more than six men and women out you know during the day on a minimum shift and five at midnight and we can maybe get class ones and class twos that can take care of our traffic problem because I'm with you on that I appreciate it but if you just if you
just give a few tickets the word spreads through the neighborhood very very quickly council president if I could just address I think the question was more about parking um my understanding is that when the PD gets a lot of complaints in certain areas they actually go out there and there was one neighborhood recently they got dozens of complaints and they gave out over over a
dozen 19 19 tickets 19 tickets in one neighborhood and I think the PD will continue doing that that's my understanding thank you sir thank you again I'll keep you posted on it though all right all right appreciate it you have a great night Carlos hello
sir I apologize for not calling you back I did get your text message I just oh that's that's busy um okay you can hear me good all right Carlos Martins you don't have to swear no swearing that's right sorry Carlos Mar Jackson New Jersey um and I'm here as a resident
voter and taxpayer that's it nothing else um I have a a poper of items that are kind of unrelated but I'll I'll just touch on them really fast um so the first one is I'd like to tell you a story so this summer I'm outside doing
gardening and I get amb ambushed by this um gang of bikers biker gang these four to five young ladies stopped me and talked to me complaining about how cars
are speeding down up the road um there was a house that was purchased recently and there's like 10 cars parked there all the time and um you know a lot of them parked in front of the house and it's 24 hours right and so because of
that because of all the additional traffic the speeding all the cars parked on the side their moms are pre uh preventing them from riding their bikes so it's getting really serious because now they're complaining to me about it
um I know you guys are working on it um I think I sent an email about this right so I know we're working on putting to get the speeding to Mark the speeding um I think what you know the ordinance about the um that you recently passed and
um what you're doing with the code enforcement right to get that to get that aligned I think that will help a lot so I totally appreciate all that and I know these ladies will appreciate all that as well um because if you've ever been ambushed by a biker gang of force
young little girls it's not you caught me now I'm like I'm like oh he means kids yeah it's not fun no um we want the kids to be safe and we want them to be listen we we all want the same thing we know everybody loves to see kids running around having fun we all did it and but we also don't want to see a kid get hit
so we want to make sure that it's safe and again and then I just heard about the helmet and yeah probably they weren't wearing helmets no they have to wear helmets so I'm going to tell them yet um okay so so that was my little story um when Mr wall was here also I think in the summertime and asked him
about um maybe once a quarter doing kind of a small Financial summary how much money have we made what are we spending our money on something nice and simple right he said he was going to look into it I I know you don't have to do it right but just because let's revisit
that when we have a ba right and and so I know all the Pola that's going on but I want to keep it on the record and and just keep pounding on it I do think the the the town would benefit from it and you'll get probably get questions why are we spending this money and that money well so anyway count I'm just
letting you know the budget season is coming up and is coming up so you're going to know you're going to have that very very soon then after that yeah yeah don't worry that yeah um my whole thing was always you know the budget season comes around you do it once a year it's kind of like a surprise right so for the
town no surprises no surprises twoing we don't like surprises no surprises so doing it quarterly helps um okay and then oh the and then the another little story on the police because we talked about the police yeah I got time for this um so I was driving was it was a
Friday night and I was driving one of um one of my cars which is like the the midlife crisis car I've seen it you see so I got stopped by a police off a nice young police officer well I got stopped I was you know my attitude did I do
something wrong but with a tone that wasn't very pleasant right but um I was very surprised that police officer kept this calm said no sir you didn't do anything wrong um we just stopped you because you were going unusually
slow so you know he looked at the car I thought might have been you know yeah and going so because you were going unusually slow there could have been a medical problem a mechanical problem all that stuff so um I just say that because not every time the police officer there to stop you to do you know to uh annoy
you and do something bad he was actually watching enough of my my benefit so um than for Shing holds well for a new crop of uh see you get pulled over for going too fast or too slow I'm going too slow yeah I was going 35 was on a 45 and slow
for that area Okay um and then my last thing was the traffic light on diamond and and West Commodore is there any update on when I know I know Mr bernon you're working on it I I didn't have enough time to to
read the updates um and let you know off the time well we'll I'm going to read all these updates it's a lot of updates from the county meeting next at the next meeting uh councilman if you know off the top of your head on that one if you want maybe we could I don't I don't remember the top of my head but we put that out public yeah we'll go over them there's a lot of them so we want to do
them all in one great yeah yeah because you know with with the warehouse opening up and and then and and Wawa opening up traffic is getting crazy so yeah okay thank you thank you sir that's it that's all your time that's it and I appreciate you guys and the township for allowing me to get this off my chest thank you um
and vet and thank you very much thank you thank you sir seeing no one else come forward make a motion to close public comment all in favor I any opposed motion to close Mo SEC first
motion all in favor I I did you get a second I made the motion you made the motion I thought it was okay oh okay thank you everyone have a great night you