pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you good evening and welcome the January 23rd 2024 meeting of the Jackson Township Council will now come to order councilman barelli here councilman Bernstein here councilman Chism here Council vice president sergeant presid and council president ke here as Clerk of this meeting I hereby publicly announce that in compliance with the provisions of the open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting has been advertised in the manner prescribed by law we'll continue with opening comments from Township Council council president Q thank you good evening residents of Jackson thank you for joining us tonight I have breaking news from our mayor that I'm honored to share just hours ago the mayor received a communication from the state the mayor and the Jackson Board of Education were instrumental in getting 2 million $137,000 in stabilization Aid which um will help to offset the monies lost with the decrease in state funding and state school funding the mayor has um notified superintendent Miss por porm Milly and Board of Education president Mr Paul Mary this is really really good stuff I am proud to update all of you here and at um home on the work of the council Administration have accomplished thus far the council along with Administration took a deep dive into our Township website to ensure accurate and current information also we are super excited to tell everyone the launch of Jackson Township new jersey. newws this is your Goto designation for facts it's just taking off and we will get um we will only get better with the amazing content that Christian from the IT department puts out there puts on there I apologize Christian has been in the driver's seat taking any updates the administration or Council find and updating the website right away thank you Christian residents of Jackson please be sure to bookmark the website you will find it to be the goto news outlet for Jackson Township so if you see something on Fakebook you can fact check it on our website just a few updates from some of the Committees the veterans committee led by the mayor met and they are looking to reinstate the honor of one of our local veterans every month to be displayed on our LED light out front of the Town Hall please subit your n uh nominations at our Township website the email link is there and the mayor will pick and announce it at our Jackson news uh website every month Roa it is great that we are able to work out having three council members engaging in the meeting without breaking the Sunshine Law thank you to our new engineers at Morgan engineering for turning a proposal around so quickly and answering the committee's questions on the spot we now have a game plan and a solid direction for the project our open space committee has also met and I just wanted to update everyone this one also has an email address that owners of parcels around the town can submit their properties to if they are interested in preserving the land the email address is open space at Jackson Township new jersey. net which can be found on our website I've been busy attending numerous meetings from our firehouses to mua meetings to Coalition meetings last night and I will continue to do so our economic advisory committee will be meeting the first week of February as well as our trade tree committee I will continue to keep the residents of Jackson upto dat with bimonthly updates on our town Township business thank you and have a great night and get home safe thank you Council vice president Sergeant good evening uh thank you uh council president C for the unbelievable update I'll wait further comments thank you thank you councilman burelli uh thank you clerk Moss uh that is great news and um I'm really happy for the school district for the state aid that's been announced um it's a long time coming also I do want to thank council president cun for out since the last meeting um you know we're not going to always agree on things but at least the line of communication was open so thank you um and secondly but not least much thanks and appreciation to our Township's public works department and private contractors for keeping the road safe and clear during the two snow events last week and thank you to Christian uh for the updates with the website looks great thank you have a good evening thank you councilman Bernstein good evening and thank you everyone for coming out um a couple of things first of all I have a lot to go after after the council president and everyone else spoke first um but also um it really was a pleasure over the past two and a half three weeks working with so many different people from so many different commissions and Boards um I had the pleasure of attending the open space committee um already the town has already um received ideas and Terren and the office of administration already looking at different ideas so the news and excitement is definitely out there in Jackson um additionally I had the the honor and the privilege of attending my first Roa Farms committee meeting before that I also had the opportunity of sitting with councilman Chisum for close to an hour to un have a better understanding of the history of Roa and understand the progress so thank you councilman it was a pleasure um and as the council president said we have a phenomenal team of Morgan Municipal who are using all the the the background that the previous um professionals have put together to really continue moving the project forward and I think the consensus of the committee was to take the dream of the past two three years and hopefully have some form of a groundbreaking this year so I guess hold our feet to the fire but later in the year um additionally I do serve on the economic advisory committee um that committee has not met yet but it will be meeting in February um and they look forward to working together with our various boards with the chamber and everyone everyone else to continue fostering a a Pro bus environment here in Jackson um um as as many people may know to drive down County Line Road today was a very exciting day for the residents of Brookwood Park Brookwood neighborhood Brookwood one um the light finally went up um the light by Brookwood and County Line Road I can tell everyone that my first email to the to the County engineer was in October I think it was October 11th 2020 so um it took a little over three years for the light to get up we could all do better um and definitely we strongly encourage residents um from all um whether you're on a board or commission where you're not you see something please bring it to our attention and we'll use our megaphone to try to um alleviate the issues with that with that in mind next week um I will be um attending together with um the mayor and I think council president a meeting with the county Engineers um to discuss some of the road struggles that we have here in Jackson we're hoping that the county will continue to not just improve the current roads we have but continue to upgrade our roads to to handle our our our traffic patterns here in Jackson um as the council president said last night it was a a wonderful event that the county uh sorry that the County prosecutor hosted together I think with the Department of Justice and Attorney General's office um hosted by the Jackson Public School System in Liberty High School um and it was great to continue that process um lastly I just want to Echo what the council president just said um congratulations to really the entire all residents of Jackson especially the children in the schools who will benefit from this maybe the district doesn't have to take such a big loan I see the board of head president back there so I just want to give a special shout out to him and to the entire Board of Ed for all their hard work a special shout out to the mayor who I can personally attest to I've been many times with him when he's picked up the phone and call legislators and other people on the state level advocating for our school so congratulations um we need more than $2 million but it's definitely a huge step in the right direction so congratulations thank you for coming out and have a safe trip home thank you councilman Chisum good evening everybody uh thanks to the DPW for doing a great job after clearing all the roads last week with the snowstorm it's always appreciated when you can get out there and keep everybody safe um we heard something about the business community and some things going on so I would like to make people aware if you're not already uh tomorrow evening the Jackson Chamber of Commerce is working with seven other Chambers around Maman Ocean County and we will have more than 350 attendees coming to Jackson tomorrow Adventure Crossing so it should be a pretty great event and I look forward to seeing more people uh brought to Jackson and encouraging the growth of our business Community uh outside of that uh we had mentioned that there will be a Roa Farms work day we'll be doing some charity tree work with a couple of tree companies in town unfortunately the snow did not cooperate with us last week so look for that uh coming up in the next week or two so those dates will be rescheduled and uh hopefully we can uh make that first step in the right direction for uh clearing up some of the trees and just making it a better place over at Roa and with that I just thank you all and have a great night thank you consideration of ordinance public hearing and final consideration this is a second reading of ordinance 0124 entitled an ordinance of the township of Jackson County of ocean state of New Jersey repealing ordinance 03-17 04-17 and 20-7 this ordinance was in introduced on January 2nd 2024 I need a motion to open the public hearing motion second all in favor I I if any member of the public has any comment 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 may only speak once Elanor Hanam Jackson New Jersey um I suppose this would go to uh Mr mcgucken can you please clarify what uh ordinance 4-17 and 20-7 are because when I looked them up in the code they were not there I I thought those were had a different number on them okay okay thank you thank you John Puchi 17 shol Road uh question on ordinance 3-24 um I'm wondering sir unfortunately we're not there yet at that time you can come up I'm sorry we're only speaking on or I'm sorry I'll see you I'll see you on number three seeing no one else come forward move to close public portion are you Canna talk on this one yes Peter Vin Jackson New Jersey um you just made mention of the open space committee being meeting I'm sorry we're talking about ordinance 1-24 right now if you like that's I'm sorry if it's okay thank you sir I'll see you at public a comment okay uh still move to close public portion and roll favor I I this is a third reading of ordinance 0124 entitled an ordinance of the township of Jackson County of ocean state of New Jersey repealing ordinance 03-17 04-17 and 20-7 I need a motion to adopt on third and final reading and advertise according to law motion give me a second second roll call councilman burelli councilman Bernstein yes councilman Chisum yes Council vice president Sergeant yes and council president cun yes thank you thank you ordinances first reading uh council president are there any comments regard regarding ordinance 0224 yes councilman Bernstein thank you I just want to give a little context to to this ordinance ordinance uh I think it's z0 2-24 it's a um a very simple ordinance is adding a second alternate to the to the MUA um the background and this is that part of the MUA does fall while it is a separate entity it is something that the council I think everyone here is aware does make those appointments um in doing research um it came to my attention that many muas have two alternates many other muas in Ocean County every mua that is in our former government has two five members and two alternates and with the reasoning logic being that more people includes more more oversight more transparency as a governing body we've recently received a lot of questions about the MUA and the processes going on over there and we figured I figured and my I think my colleagues figured it would be worth it to have someone else over there also thank you thank you ordinance 0224 entitled in ordinance of the town Township Council Township of Jackson Ocean County New Jersey amending chapter 3-1 149 of the township administrative code to provide for an additional alternate member of the Jackson Township Municipal Utilities Authority I need a motion to approve ordinance 02-2 24 on first reading and to authorize the notice of approval and public hearing to be held on February 13 2024 motion second roll call councilman belli thank you councilman berstein yes councilman Chisum yes Council vice president Sergeant yes and council president cun yes thank you council president cun are there any comments regarding ordinance 03- 24 yes I would like our business administrator to please address that one uh certainly council president um ordinance 3-24 is U uh salary range ordinance and the um municipalities are required under law to any particular salary that may be in the uh municipality needs to fall within a range low to high range we change it periodically we modify it periodically it might be to um add add a title maybe to remove a title uh that's obsolete no longer used or and maybe to uh adjust the ranges accordingly which is why it's called a salary range ordinance so we um took a look at first of all the market um as it relates to some of our part-time salaries and we also had two additional titles that we've added Road repair supervisor and also Municipal registar to provide more flexibility as far as uh Administration so the the ordinance that's um here now is in addition to or it's periodic it's usually annually sometimes more than annually but it it follows the ordinance that was um approved approximately November um by the governing body and just by way of examples it has about 20 20 or so different changes to it um adding assistant supervisor Public Works title with a minimum Max maimum range um and some of the titles it's it's changing the range a little bit for for example construction official um housing inspector Municipal registar is adding a title and putting in a Range network administrator Plumbing uh plumbing inspector like just for an example a plumbing inspector uh the market is changing dramatically it's um and Jackson's growing exponentially and we need to meet the market to to attract and retain quality staff uh and the laws are changing as well as far as the timeliness of being able to turn around inspections and things of that nature so that that office and that market is changing dramatically in the next few year in every municipality but certainly in towns that are experiencing quite a bit of growth we also increased uh the range for example for special police officers now again this is not setting a a salary this is setting a range right um and frankly many municipalities are not not comp client uh as they should be we do our best to stay uh ahead of the U you know to to Future proof our salaries but just to wrap up senior computer service technician in addition to some of the just briefly um School traffic guards our CDL truck driver special police officer one our special uh police officer two uh supervising School traffic guard and uh a handful of the other stipend positions to increase additional flexibility and occasionally you know actually Often by having a stien position you're able to avoid having an additional full or part-time full-on salary with the additional cost for pension and benefits and things of that nature thank you sir I appreciate that Clarity Madam clerk ordinance 0324 entitled an ordinance of the township of Jackson County of buan state of New Jersey amending ordinance number 36-23 establishing the salary range for all the various officials and employees of the township for the year 2024 and thereafter I need a motion to approve ordinance 03- 24 on first reading and to authorize the notice of approval and public hearing to be held on February 13 2024 motion second roll call councilman barelli yes councilman Bur berstein yes councilman Chisum yes Council vice president Sergeant yes and council president C yes thank you council president cun are there any comments regarding ordinance 04 d24 yes um I will be answering that and going over that ordinance so there was a construction ordinance that was done um that I felt going through in reading it and and again as you heard I spoke with all of the other council members um I just felt it was a little a little bit uh intrusive on my home ownership um for me to have to uh pay for a permit to put a dumpster on my property that I paid taxes for I just felt was um over stretching but I do feel that a permit for the municipal roads I do think that that was warranted so what we did was we Revisited that there was also a fee for a survey that anytime you wanted to get a dumpster you had to have your property surveyed and coming from a surveying background as my father's a surveyor I know the cost of that and if you're just buying a home and you're young and uh you want to renovate your bathroom or do anything like that um average survey is a minimum of $750 to upwards to thousands of dollars and I just thought that that was not something that we should put on our uh young homeowners and any homeowner so we Revisited that and um you know the new ordinance has removed that and also there is no Fay you'll have to just register the dumpster up to two on your own property as long as you're not obstructing anyone's View and also are not in the setbacks um it's a simple plug it online if you would like to go to the town you still can go to the town but if it is on the municipal roads we don't want dumpsters on our roads just like we just had a snowstorm we don't want a dumpster on the road for 180 days 45 days is more than ampal maker contractors you know put the fee on them I don't know it's $100 and it's 45 days and you get one renewal um thank you madam clerk thank you ordinance 0424 entitled an ordinance of the township Council Township of Jackson Ocean County New Jersey amending chapter 163 of the Township Code of the township of Jackson entitled construction containers I need a motion to approve ordinance 04 d241 reading and to authorize the notice of approval and public hearing to be held on February 13 2024 motion second melli yes councilman Bernstein yes councilman Chisum yes Council vice president Sergeant uh question real quick yes um Madam president um is there a time frame on that that did you mention a time frame if it's on your if it's on your home like on your property that you own it's 180 days there is no fee it's a simple just go in there and say that I need an additional 180 days and if it's on the municipal roads it is 45 days and if you need more you go in there and you get a one more time that you can submit but it is $100 um on Municipal roads nothing on your own property thank you yes thank you sir and council president cun yes council president cun are there any comments regarding ordinance 05- 24 yes ma'am there is so I will also be making comments on that one um this is something that I am so so so excited about this ordinance if you look up at the township website you will see kind of a draft of what's to come I've been working with traffic safety Bureau you have uh our one of our officers here tonight that's in the traffic safety I've been working with him since last year um and other offers in the division also the chief of police uh our administrator um engineers and we have been kind of meeting of the minds and going up with ideas to come up on how we can help the parking situation in our town I personally feel it should have been addressed a long time ago but when I uh got sworn in on councel this was something that was um near and dear to me that I wanted to do so as you can see we have County Roads into Municipal roads so there'll be no parking to the right of the where you can see the stop sign 100 feet to the right on the county Street and to the left and then in the Municipal Road it'll be 100 feet so you can't park from 0 to 50 and from 51 to 100 you will be able to park with a permit it's not going to cost you anything to obtain the permit it's the clerk it's going to be given by the clerk's office you will just have to reside in the home uh that falls within that 100 feet so um we're also going to have um the stop bars are going to be painted at all of these locations the curbs are going to be painted and you're going to have two strips in the middle of the road so I'm going to use my my location um a lot of you know where I live so I'm over in Brookwood for so if you're coming into my development um it's actually Heartfield but or whatever it's anyway if you're coming in 50 feet there's no strip there's no center strip lines me myself I'm I'm going to be honest with you I'm not going to say I'm the you know the A+ driver I tend to go in the middle and I don't realize it it's an unconscious move that I make and when people are coming into my neighborhood buses they're almost we're all almost hitting each other there's cars parked up to the stop signs it's a problem so I'm hoping that with clear visual looks of the two lines in the middle of the road that we're going to say to the right or the left we're going to make a right and make a left and then we'll stop and not Park you know in front of stop signs and hopefully start to make a little way of moving forward and and working on our parking um issues and crowding of our streets and letting the buses and the apparatuses of the fire trucks be able to get in you know to our neighborhoods so um I hope that that I've spoken to the council and I hope that we can you know all move forward on this I did speak with the county and once it's approved tonight the county is going to have their blessing and give us you know me and Mr Bernstein are constantly speaking with the county um councilman Bernstein I apologize and uh we really do have a good relationship with them we hope we can really move Jackson forward thank you Miss Moss um Miss cun yes sir quickly on the uh on the painting piece did did you uh did anybody figure out who's goingon to do all the painting on it I did speak with DPW after I got approval from our business administrator and he is working on bids to send it out it's too big of a job to keep in can I speak on this Mr okay I apologize I didn't mean to overstep um I did speak with the business administrator before I did call um DPW and they are bidding it out to see what the costs will be um I believe it it is in the budget um and it is going to happen so we are we are making things happening this is a first step in my continued efforts along with councilman Berns and the other council members on this along with our Engineers our Traffic Safety beer our business administrator um into really addressing this problem thank you thank you thank you thank you ordinance 0524 entitled an ordinance of the township of Jackson Ocean County New Jersey amending chapter 103 of the Township Code of the township of Jackson prohibiting parking within 50 feet of the intersections at County roadways and regulations and permitting permit parking only between 51 ft and 100 ft from set intersections at County Riv roads within the township of Jackson I need a motion to approve ordinance 0524 on first reading and to authorize the notice of approval and public hearing to be held on February 13 2024 so move second roll call councilman burelli yes councilman Bernstein yes and I also just want to take a quick moment and thank council president C for getting it here I know much time she put in over the past over year um working on cleaning up our streets and I know this is a small step forward but it means a lot to everyone thank you thank you councilman Chisum yes Council vice president Sergeant yes and council president Q yes thank you bills and claims motion to approve or hold bills and claims I need a motion please motion second councilman burelli thank you councilman Bernstein yes councilman Chisum uh abstain on c44 R4 rut4 yes to the rest thank you Council vice president Sergeant yes and council president C abstain from rcs2 yes to the rest thank you council president if I may before the motion to approve the consent agenda r98 d24 schedule a there was a number in a column that did not transfer over that has since been corrected thank you thank you madam clerk I need a motion to approve the list of resolutions under consent agenda motion second roll call sorry councilman [Music] burelli [Music] many all of you and other res outside this Building supp B myself also en reassessment ofer I just think not right message to the resents and taxpayers serve and represent first and foremost I'm not here for the pay yes to the rest councilman no actually said [Music] no1 Thank You councilman Bernstein um I'm just a little bit startled um we passed an ordinance ordinance 3623 unanimously I think it was two Council meetings ago which in which we all um clearly um agreed on the salary range of all of our employees and in that was the salary range of council so I guess now that it explicit explicitly said Council certain council members have a problem um I guess justifying their vote but they had no problem justifying their vote a month ago so I vote Yes and everything thank you councilman Chisum so I would vote no on R 9724 to clarify uh that has come before us and I have voted no repeatedly actually five times in the last three years for a pay rise and we tied it last year to Cola as a cost of living so to clarify but thanks to the Reckless spending increased taxes and overprinting of money by sleepy Joe Biden Americans have $111,000 less in their pocket than under Donald Trump with the same money that they earned it cost you $11,000 more per person to buy those same Goods so it's kind of toned deaf for me to rail against Mr King Phillip and sleepy Joe on a regular basis and then go along with exactly what they do it's not really a republican value and while this is not strictly a volunteer position and yes our time is worth something and obviously you know you can value it for what it is I also kind of feel somewhat like our founding fathers did and that this is more of a servant leadership position so I'm here to serve the public and as a result U while maybe tying it to Cola is worthwhile um I do not see the uh large increase all at once as um a good idea so I'm going to vote no on R 9724 and yes to the rest thank you thank you count Council vice president Sergeant our founding fathers um certainly would appreciate any type of monies that go towards making our Township better I value my time I value each and every Council person's time up here we haven't had had a race since 2012 I'm not sure that that's good government as well I'm voting yes thank you thank you council president cun yes thank you public comment any Topic at this time if any member of the public has any comments to make please address council at the microphone and state your name and address clearly for the record you will have five minutes and may only speak once Jim Sakia um I'm G to talk about what you guys are just talking about your your pay raises I get it there are um ranges I've worked in the finance world for 40 years I understand what to pay range is I have never seen an employee gets started at the top of the pay range it's always mean towards the middle so they have some growth in the position before they're ready to move on to the next position now it doesn't fit in perfectly with you guys but that's that's what I've seen you say a large increase let's be honest it's 369 per. all the senior citizens in this Township that are on Social Security if they're getting 3% this year it's about right maybe more how long does it take for them to get a 369 per increase 123 years none of is are going to be there no no one's here in 123 years so while you say you haven't had an increase since 2012 that's fine I understand an increase but to go to the top of the range and 369 per in one step is Way Beyond what the people of Jackson should watch happen that's what I'll say on that the next part is I'm going to talk about your plan for the the roadways I understand what you're trying to do I live on a road that is impacted by this my only concern is there is a traffic rule that says you have to park 30 feet from a stop sign today so we're gonna add it's 50 isn't it no it's 30 it's 25 I apologize 50 no 50 is what you're going to if I read one what I saw online it was it's 30 I mean whichever whichever it is okay we have three answers so the the concern I have is on the street I'm at if and I'm the third house in so I'm probably beyond the 100 foot but if I look at my neighbor's house the Corner House you get to their 50 feet the next thing is their driveway so we're taking away all the parking because they have a driveway then there's the next house has the driveway right next to it so 50 to 100 feet for them is gone okay so they're losing parking spaces and the other part of having to have a permit for one car that you're only allowed one car per homeowner a 50 foot range you can put more than one car so why would you limit a homeowner to just one car if they have the full 50 feet there and with and this is kind of just a sidebar as I was going through this ordinance I went to attachment code because it talks about based on schedule a schedule a wasn't attached to the ordinance in the the meeting agenda so I don't know exactly if it involves all roads that intersect with counting roads or not but as I was going through the the Township Code something struck me as very interesting and I'll pinpoint it out it's section 10351 schedule 7 oneway streets it has it list one road there's one road yes you know the road that's list on I do have you driven it uh I have not but I know it's not one way but it's supposed to be by ordinance it's supposed to be one Ro not one way I know I've I've pretty1 years and it's not one way I know believe me and um I believe that that is going to we are we listen baby steps we are trying um no I know and I said that's one yeah I I know exactly what roach you're talking about so and where where my point of that is is if that's in the code what else is in the code that we don't have you want to put in more ordinances this is what got you into trouble you know 2017 is we go in and we just want to put Gordon and say in if they make sense yes I'm not sure this this parking ordinance I understand what you're trying to do I see see it every morning and I don't want to go down this path you know you talk about having the buses having troubles our roads are narrow to begin with one one of the reasons Andover Road should be one way is because that road is so narrow I can tell you because there was a house fire on that street and as the fire trucks were getting to it one of the fire trucks hit one of the park cars yeah what's the name of the road and over roadware Prospect to Al Road it's to be one way from New Prospect to Aldrich and if it is then the police department should issue me about 50 summonses because I've made that turn many of times and they use that road when there's an accident at the corner that is on our radar I I can tell that's how I knew what you're talking about I'm just I'm just thank you sir those my pieces Madam president if I could absolutely sir njsa 39 call 4138 prohibits parking within 25 ft of the nearest crosswalk or side street of a street or intersecting Highway that's what the current stat okay so now you're adding an additional 25t on to the the people I apologize but your time is up I apologize thank you [Music] [Music] though Elanor hannam Jackson New Jersey uh first and foremost I'd like to address uh resolution 9724 the 250% raise increase it truly is an egregious disregard for the residents of this town um especially at these times these Economic Times um this council is going from 8,668 to $32,000 um council president is going from 9,668 to $35,000 um again I I to me in my purview this just screams of arrogance and entitlement I'd like to also address the Roba committee and I suppose I'll just make a note of this new Jackson news that was announced today and how it is all going to come into play um I did uh attend the Roa committee meeting on Thursday um as all residents it is open to attend any meeting of the Committees and to my dismay uh Miss Q cun decided to introduce Morgan engineering let me take a step back Morgan engineering is owned by county commissioner Frank sedeki and County GOP chairman Gilmore's wife is also employed as well as uh CEO and partner Lauren plump this screams and her who's a real estate agent custom builder um who is very politically embedded but what is more disturbing to me is that after two years of working on this project and we made sure every we handpicked everything to be placed with the historical value of Roa the history of that Russian Community was being placed intentionally where it should be but instead I was told that uh or the Comm was told that Morgan engineering needs to do a new survey or has to do a survey and a Wetlands delineation I'd like to know why we are doing another one when it was already done uh we paid $12,500 to TNA to do the exact same thing that now we're going to pay another engineer to do the exact same thing it makes absolutely no sense that we are wasting this kind of money it also screamed when I read on the website the passive uh Recreation passive Recreation just took out our Amphitheater that we designed that embraced the history the music that took place at that Pavilion that took place with the Russian community at that um the restaurant um it also screams that our small museum with all the artifacts that we handpicked and we handook out of that restaurant on and we labored over making sure that we maintained the history so this passive Recreation that was being stated takes that out and I'd like to know why is this all being changed because I just looked at a blank slate and everything that we did in two years and paid tens of thousands of dollars to Karen who was wonderful with the design why it's going back to swear one because now you just wasted tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars are you done ma'am yeah my question Mr W yes thank you through the council president miss hannam would be very pleased to know that everything you just shared tonight was wrong in regards to Roa you'll be happy to know and I'll share why Roa I negotiated on behalf of Mayor Arena and the governing body from the beginning when I arrived here around 2019 hold on I'm going to interrupt you before I am told I'm Sor I will tell you that I did I will tell you it is my time I did speak with Alex the business administrator is trying to talk we stopped your time to allow you to going to take my time we stopped your time ma'am if you would if you would stop screaming and have add five or 10 minutes list I've watched the game so go ahead would you like the facts ma'am I'm listening okay I negotiated the Rover purchase on behalf of May Arena and the governing body when I first arrived here very very deeply involved to the point where the the the money folks that had the property Out of Philly tried to reneg on the deal after the community was fully aware that it was to be preserved as a park so a developer I don't recall who I don't recall the name actually they went to reneg on the deal they went to go back on a um a negotiated purchase I'll wait to do you need to get that no I do my own timer okay great um and so the commitment to the community was profound to the point where the governing body introduced an ordinance emminent domain to condemn it to ensure that this was preserved as a public park as you know this goes back a number of years I'm fully aware of all of it okay great the other folks that are in the audience are watching this streaming may want to know the facts as well okay so the money folks in Philadelphia back down and we ended ended the negotiations and acquired the property uh fantastic program I believe it ended up being about $600,000 for 34 plus or minus aces of gorgeous open space with history Springstein at the site the restaurant and we've had multiple sit visits at the site um folks that are in the music industry visited the site we sub quently had a contract or resolution with tnm uh they did not expend 12,000 but it was in the area of 10,260 or thereabouts to look at Wetlands delineation also working with the architect of um the gorgeous uh Orthodox Church there because there was some consideration of moving the the property lines a little bit to they had historically used the property as most folks know that may be familiar with the site for parking for their congregation and different things like that we also had different conversations with prior members of the governing body uh Council vice president ker being one of them to the extent that we were able to acquire property across the other side of the lake and different types of uh attempts to expand the the the uh the footprint as it were for the enjoyment of the public however there private property owners whether they choose to sell all or part of the property is up to them and uh those items didn't come to fruition so tnm was involved prior to it was during the 2020 year so when covid hit they were authorized to do um initial Wetlands delineation work there is to be no redundancy no duplication of efforts uh no squandering of taxpayer resources whatsoever and any Wetlands delineation or any work product I have uh Remington tnm and and um uh Morgan engineering partnering together to communicate on every aspect of work that they've done for that very issue I think that's a legitimate question I could just assure you and the public there will be no duplication of efforts so some some of these items that happened back during covid and and some of the items that remained dormant when folks were wor worried about dying um were on hold um as far as pass Recreation or Pavilions and the Fantastic planning that the Roa committee was engaged with and the designs are fantastic um while Administration for whatever reason I'm not judging it I was not included in the Roa committee but we ensured that the professionals were available to the Roa committee um so they can work on various designs and these these kinds of things so the qu to the question of what's happening right now what's happening moving forward um the the items that um Ernie Peters and his team put together various pricing structures um had certain requirements from the state I don't have the file in front of me but I can certainly uh get a report or copy that out of of work that the permitting that the state requires that has um frankly too long an arc of time between application and approval which is a different story because one of the questions may be well why is it taking so long it's a fair question we have to uh we had to navigate asbest uh and how we were going to close out the building the question was to what extent can we keep the building uh just as an example the police chief is a is a as who's here is uh quite the historian whether it's the police department or in other aspects and so we fashion site visits by interested party citizens uh to look to look at the site because before you would take down this site and it was in a very very very terrible state of disrepair if not dangerous and frankly it was dangerous um to what extent are there mural murals and artwork and bar pieces and other different things and I've been in there many many times probably should have had a mask on um and there has been drone video taken to the site and I believe the local the students had been involved we met with the schools the elementary school to see to what extent can students be involved in the in the reimagining of the site moving forward all of these things so the U to the positive you're looking at one ele of time which has no bearing on what the what the product uh and what the programs will be when it's complete and that's just fact which is a good thing so where we are now we have the professionals coordinating uh we have the site um being prepped the there is work to be done with the state as far as disrupting soils disrupting the parking lot even if it's already been disrupted so the question is to what extent can you work on the site now to what extent must you get permitting first and so there's there are conversations going on in that regard because the uh the public is eager to see the property uh maximized for example kayak launching maximizing the the viewshed uh the lake all of these resources in there um but none of the items that you would reference as being forone are forgone the the final uh it's it's a work in progress that's true it's not completed yet that's true but when it's completed it will be the most magnificent asset to the taxpayers of Jackson in a coste effective way where there is no redundancy to the to the best extent possible but specific to the wetlands delineation we're aware of the T I'm aware of the tnm resolution I'm aware of what work they have done Steve shraer and his team is connecting with the Morgan folks and connecting with Ernie Peters and his folks to make make sure that there there's not a single dollar that's squandered but we are spending the dollars investing the dollars carefully uh the property uh will be when it's perfected will be perfected for many many many years to come so if it's a additional few weeks additional few months maybe additional uh year or two when before it's it's designed to fruition it'll be transparent public facing and gorgeous that you can be assured thank you thank you sir can you please start the time again Christian you have 52 seconds so then um uh Morgan engineering will not do another survey and wetlands delineation because the land really didn't change it didn't really move um I grew up on that Lake the only resident that grew up on that Lake that uh Morty and Jen here decided to take off the river committee because of whatever their angst is with me probably because I'm very vocal um but my concern is the history and to make sure that that building that small Museum and the artifacts that were taken out of that restaurant and the history will not be wiped clean because I have watched history be wiped clean in many towns throughout this County thank you thank you ma'am have a great night John Puchi 17 SCH Road uh a question um on uh the business administrator's salary of $ 28,5 62 um uh there's other compensation of $3,600 included can you explain what that is $300 motor vehicle allowance pardon $300 car allowance a $300 a month car allowance a 300 month car um uh also I'm here to discuss um I sent the business administrator a an email back in September 19th of last year I had read in the Asbury Park Press about the um settlements from the Discrimination uh uh $5 million I believe was uh originally put in the uh uh the asberg Park Press uh I never heard back from the business administrator that's why I'm here tonight um I I happen to be familiar being a public official in another Community many years ago I know about the Jeff can you tell can you tell me maybe the residents here where the $5 million came from and I believe there was um another $170,000 on top of that for prior litigates uh that uh with turned down by the municipality so can you tell me and the residents where the $5 million came from attorney excuse me sir I don't think the number was $5 million I think it was less than that there's a combination of coverage from the municipal excess liability fund the Ocean County Jordan Insurance Fund and the Tatu combination of those three one so they have roughly the numbers that make up to $5 million so how much did The Joint insurance F I can't I couldn't tell you I'd have to would the business administrator know that number yes first off I don't recall your email I apologize you didn't get a response but I can tie that together within a day or so you might have gotten another one for me yesterday but I saw that there was a meeting tonight I thought I'd come up here oh no thank you it's your your meeting so thank you for being here I can have that information turned around in about a day yeah I appreciate it only because you know if you hit the GFF enough the the policy pay we going to come back to the administ you know to my council president so if you could just tell me what your email is so I'll look forward and make sure that you responded I sent you another one yesterday correct what's your name I'm sorry Puchi John okay thank you thank you thank you [Music] sir Peter vieno Jackson New Jersey um in regard to the open space committee um we've gone over this numerous times Mr rain has been ducking me since August so he's not here to speak for himself again um but back in August he said there would be seven and nine people on the committee there were seven and now I understand there's six one was removed correct I'm sorry sir what committee the open space that's not a committee that I I would have to advise to our business administrator our mayor I don't appoint people to the open space committee I'm a leaz on to it so unfortunately you'd have to speak we move on to zoning then pardon the zoning excuse me I I can't hear you I apologize we'll move on to zoning oh uh once again I was not selected for zoning and when me and you had the conversation you said there was 10 to 15 applicants there was only six so we were way off on that number number one um I have the OAS right here if you'd like to see them but can I ask why I was not selected this time last time it's du to your social media sir and you've been asking me for that social media for a while so if you'd like you can grab a copy from our business administrator or our Township Clerk whichever one you'd like to say thank you and you think you deserve a 400% raise oh my [Music] God good evening good evening sir my name is jeppie Paul Mary I'm a jack resident I would just like to thank uh May Arena and the council for your support and for advocating for the Jackson School District it does not go unnoticed so thank you and uh keep it up thank you sir thank you for what you do one good evening can you hear me yes sir okay um sorry I apologize name my name is Donnie Adelman I'm a I live on Willow Point Drive in Jackson thank you okay so I have a couple of issues I'd like to be addressed um first I remember 2019 2020 there was talk of opening a second dog park what happened with that that's number one number two in the town's codes and rules and regulations uh I had spoken with the town attorney I believe that's Mr rump I it was 20 again several years ago so I'm not entirely sure there was a change made to the rules as far as uh service dogs being exempt from fees for dog licenses and that change was made as damn near immediately as far as I could tell uh the problem is is that his honor judge does not understand what a common means as far as legal parlay so there is some ambiguity as far as the exception um it's Jackson code 9810 um C I guess colon four is the proper way to address it in regards to service dogs not needing leashes under certain circumstances it reads um the exception is when the dog is a service animal comma Guy dog comma or seeing ey dog used by a visually or Mobility impaired individual his honor does not understand what a common means and it's sad to say that we've gotten some back and forth so I wondering if maybe the town can fix that and maybe just clarify that in the future it's not something that's meant for me to operate Oliver without a leash all the time but there are certain times like when I'm bringing groceries in where my hands are unusable and it' be unsafe for me or unsafe to my service dog where using the leash as long as he's under vocal control not menacing not running around so forth like that that we're allowed to do under both federal state and local laws so if we could just clarify that that would be wonderful um next um big issue I've had and I've been uh trying to deal with uh Mr Mayor and the administrator wall for years I guess my first time coming here and I do uh regret that um I live over in Willow Point which is right by the intersection of commodore Jackson Mills and uh North County Line they redid that intersection several years ago to make it you know two lanes put up all the lights and everything like that at that time they didn't do the curve Cuts right they didn't do part of the legal standard you're seeing me on a good day bad days I'm in a wheelchair and they put they input the buttons in or they put the buttons in there's no way to get up to the buttons if you're in a wheelchair so forth like that big issue that I found and I've got caught a lot of flack for it uh on the town social media is the fact that at this time that all this work was being done being proposed even though it's a County Road there was some interaction with the township as far as what's being done to the Township's roads all right and with the township property at that time the township seated a 10 I think it was a 10 foot or maybe a 12ft strip of land on that corner of uh Commodore and J and Jackson Mills so that the county was supposed to install a sidewalk all right so this way there' be continuous sidewalk so you can get navigate that whole double intersection at that at that time the county uh shows that it was built with sidewalks are approved of course the piece of paper that has all the uh certifications as far as okay it's built as it was designed you know everything's done to code all that all the inspections all the stuff that would normally done if it was a regular home or business were not done there were no certifications so there are no sidewalks the bridge that's there is not handicapped accessible which again would lead to a safe continuous path through that intersection and then that little strip beyond the bridge to the intersection of uh County Line there are no sidewalks now the town seated the land and I'm not really sure who's responsible for putting the sidewalks in because all that paperwork from the county seems to have gone lost all right everything is just missing and of course Mr Raina being the bridge master of Ocean County certainly you needs to be involved for the simple fact that part of this the biggest portion of this uh strip that needs a sidewalk is a bridge all right people go fishing there people wanted to sit there the police sit there they run their radar hey no problem everybody Parks everybody does the thing but you can't get to it safely or legally whether you're on in a wheelchair or you're walking and you're forced to be out in the street it's there's just no other way around it the the county has gone through over last summer they did correct the curve Cuts they did put in all the buttons to the right height and everything like that but like you heard about the bridge to know where that they built in Alaska sir I don't mean to your every time but I'm meeting with the along with councilman Bernstein and the mayor we are meeting with the county can I do can I after this meeting can I give you my card and you can kind of recap that in email and I could bring it and ask him at the county I would appreciate that I absolutely I have no problem doing that sir have a great night everyone thank you so much and be safe and council president if I may sir the gentleman had asked about the park um it's right down the way and part of the challenge was the permitting needed to go through the state and it was deemed by and I'm trying to refresh my memory that's why I was looking down to Google to see exactly um prohibitively expensive it's a heavily area councilman CH may know the area but it's that that park down I'm aware I was I was actually on the committee with councilman Kern uh we looked at it tnm um had laid out some plans we tried to do it so that you'd have the least amount of impervious surface it was just going to have fencing it really shouldn't have been a big deal but because Pinelands commission is involved we mapped it became they thought too cost prohibitive um considering they don't seem it's uh cost prohibitive to I don't know level 7,000 Acres of trees for anything else uh to put up a chain link fence and a well for dogs I think is kind of ridiculous but then again that's for another day and along with King philli I think the Pinelands commission should go the way the dinosaur so as a dog park regular we appreciate at least knowing him because it's been a long topic of conversation as far as whatever happened to the second dog park we're there every day just as long as it's not pouring rain we'll start seeing stuff like that on our on the Jackson news um we're really going to put try and inform all the residents of all the changes and all the updates thank you so much thank you sir have a great night make a motion to close public session second all in favor I motion to close motion to callose Second all in favor I I I thank you