Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Good evening and welcome to the September 9th, 2025 regular meeting of the Jackson Township Council. Pursuant to the provisions 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 28, 2025 for publication. Notice of this meeting of the township council is opposed in the corridor of the municipal building and in the office of the municipal clerk. We will begin with a roll call. Council member
here. Councilman Brassie present. Councilman Paul Mary present. Council vice president Bernstein here. Council president Keune here. Also present this evening is township attorney Mr. Mucken, Township
Administrator Mr. Phillips, deputy clerk Jen Carelli, and myself, municipal clerk Martin. We will now hear opening comments from the township council starting with council president Hume. Thank you, Madame Clerk. Good evening. First, I want to congratulate our 12U
for being here and thank you for being here tonight. I wanted to take a moment to address something that is critical to the safety and well-being of our community. The need for a true collaboration among all of our first responders. Working together effectively
starts at the top with leadership. It starts with the chief of the Jackson Township Police and the chief and captains of our first responders including EMS, fire, and while leadership sets the tone when it prioritize proper training on process
and procedures, it creates a culture where teams can respond efficiently and confidently even in the highest emotion, most stressful situations. Unfortunately, our township is experiencing these high stress events daily. Accidents are at an all-time
high. Our community is growing rapidly. It is imperative that we implement universal training, not as a reaction to incidents, but as a proactive measure that ensures every responder knows their role and how to work seamlessly with
others. Personally, I believe this training should have been happening over the past 5 years. Regrettably, that is not the case under our Jackson Police Department's current leadership. Too often it takes a public newspaper article highlighting an officer or
responder to bring attention to the gaps in coordinating that should be should not be this that should not be the standard. True leaders bring everyone to the table before a crisis occurs. My hope is that our current situation becomes a turning point. I hope it
brings us to a place where all first responders, police, fire, EMS, and Hadzul can work together effectively responding to every call and provide the best care to the members of our community. Because when it comes to saving a life, there is no distinction
of religion, background, or title. We all serve the same mission. Together, with proper leadership, training, and communication, we can create a safer, stronger Jackson Township for everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Council Vice President Bernstein.
Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Clerk. Um, I just want to echo, unfortunately, as I'm sure everyone knows, there was a um a tragic shooting this week in Jackson. Um, a special thank you to our PD, our Jackson EMS, and our hatsa and our fire department.
Everyone responded and worked unfortunately as a team to uh take care of business over there. and our condolences to the family and to the to the entire neighborhood over there. Um I just want to echo really what council president just said. Um it's really a call for our leadership in you know
administration council and through our local um police department and all of our volunteers in town for them to sit down together, work together and ensure that we are able to respond together as one team as one Jackson because that's really what we are here in Jackson. Um I
a quick update I had opportunity in speaking um I guess I don't want to steal anyone's thunder. Um I had an update on ROVA but I'm not the leazison. I just don't want to steal I know there was a ROVA meeting. Um Mr. Brley, do you mind if I just give an update quickly on ROA? Uh with ROA I wasn't there at the meeting.
Okay. So I just haven't been to a ROA meeting in ages. We haven't had one. Okay. So fine. I just I didn't want to steal. So I called the engineer. My understanding was there was a meeting last week um where the engineer presented plans. I know the last couple months ago this council unanimously
um moved forward on ROVA and um they had a meeting where plans were presented and unanimously I think the entire ROVA committee voted to accept those plans and the message I got today from the engineer about an hour ago is that the entire um team unanimously agreed on the
site plan. the draft of the architectural plans will be available next week and um hopefully they'll be able to submit that to the governing body to move that forward. So I really appreciate the hard work of a our engineers from Oregon but b the resident the volunteer residents who put the time and effort in came in I think it was on
a Friday um a they had a team meeting additionally um with um councilman former councilman uh Steve Chisum. Um, also just want to take a moment and thank our board of ed. Um, as the school year begins, like we said before, we need to we need to make sure we have a collaborative effort between all of our
various um, emergency services. Um, I know they are working tirelessly to try to make busing as seamless as possible. Um, it's not always so easy, but I know that many residents I've been copied on emails. I know council president, I know Mr. Pome, you've been copied on emails where residents have reached out complaining about their bus stops and
they've been extremely proactive in um responding right away making sure that to the best of their ability that they're able to move any unsafe bus stops um off of those unsafe spots into a safer um place. Lastly, um it's that time of the year again. It is September 11th week. Um I don't know where
everyone was. Um, I actually was reminiscing today that my children and I have staff members now where I work who were not born in September 11th. I remember where I was I was in school. I I I I'll never forget that day and a everyone should take a moment on September 11th. Um, commemorate those
that that day. Um, say your prayers and let's not forget all of our local and people throughout the country who served and continue to serve on the war against terror. And um, and may God bless America. Thank you, Council Member Elli. Thank you, Clerk Martin. Um, that's
really good news to hear from um, Council Vice President regarding Roa Park. I know. Oh, jeez. Here we go again. Just turn it on. My most popular. Yeah, my f Yeah, my favorite president grow. Here we go again. Ronald Reagan. Um, no, that's
really good news to hear, council vice president, regarding um, Bernstein, regarding uh, Roa Park. I knew the engineers were I knew it was in their the plans were in their hands and all that. So that's really good to hear that that's moving ahead and forward. Um and uh I'm glad for the committee as well
that worked really hard on it. Congratulations to the whole Brook 12U little leaguers that are here and their coaches and parents. You kids uh put Jackson on the map and made us uh all proud. Keep up the great work on the field and in the classroom and don't
stop being champions. Um, our annual Jackson Day is finally here on Sunday, uh, September 14th. It's in our town's largest park, uh, Johnson Memorial Park from 11:00 a.m. to, uh, 8:00 p.m. It looks like so far we're going to have, uh, good, really good weather for it.
The rain is September 21st, but I don't think we're going to need it. Uh we had a huge turnout last year with over 11,000 patrons and are expecting an even bigger turnout this year uh with much to do from an ATV riding park for kids, uh monster truck, uh the king of roller
coasters, king, uh car photo op, and a drone show, bands, and many vendors and more. And uh hope to see you there. In in closing, um I know Council Vice President Bernstein brought up the tragedy that occurred over the weekend in the Paragon community in our town. My thoughts and prayers are with the
resident's family. Take care and have a good evening. Councilman Breie, thank you. First, my condolences to the family that was involved in that shooting and a and a great thank you as always to our first responders police
department for the job they did. Um was outstanding. Uh I got to speak to Mark Jenkee again, the Ocean County engineer. Uh he's having a hard time with the utility companies trying to get answers on these detours and getting work done.
He has been following up. As you can see, if you pass Diamond Road, every day there's people out there pulling wires and doing wires and getting set to put the traffic light in. He is working with the utility company to get the poles moved in that detour so they can get moving. It's not the county fault, but
the utility companies just aren't cooperating. We also mentioned September 11th. Days like that can't be forgotten. We have to move on. But to be remembered is very important. They remember it, think about it, and just sit down for a
couple of moments and reflect on it. Uh especially in this area, there were a lot of people lost. I know at the facility I was working at, there's three people lost in that facility that in that happening. So, it's something that we can't re, you know, just dwell on, but we do have to remember it. And we
have to remember what caused it and how we prevent it. and we have to stay together as a country to make sure it doesn't happen again. But most of all, congratulations to Brook Little League. You did a great job. The coaches, the parents, everybody. It's how you do it. You put a 100% into it all the time and
you'll come out on top. Good job. Have a nice night. Councilman Paul Mary. Thank you. I would like to start by just congratulating our champions. You've earned that title. You are champions. You made Jackson proud. You are
champions. So, just enjoy the moment because you work so hard for it. So, congratulations. Tonight, you'll see the municipal budget is up for review and a vote. This year's budget process took longer than usual, but for the first time in over a decade,
it was carefully reviewed line by line by many members of this council. Personally, I held three separate meetings with both our CFO and our auditor. Looking ahead, I believe the budget process will become much more efficient. With business administrator
Phillips now leading the way and Miss Marlin serving as our new CFO, I'm confident future budgets will come together more quickly, allowing this council to review and adopt them in a better time frame. You'll also notice some important changes in this budget.
Our Department of Public Works requires additional support and resources, which this budget will provide. And as everyone is aware, our Jackson Board of Education has been severely impacted by Governor Murphy's S2 funding cuts, losing more than 54% of its state aid
over the last eight years. These cuts have placed a tremendous strain on our schools. While this municipal budget cannot undo all the damage inflicted on our district, it does provide some relief. Specifically, the township will fund two school resource officers,
saving the district $235,000. That money can now be repurposed where it truly belongs, back in the classroom supporting our students education. Thorough work takes time. Yes, this budget was delayed, but that delay was
the result of diligence and careful review. For the first time in years, this council has shown real interest in the details. The days of simply rubber stamping a budget are over. This council is committed to doing the work line by
line to ensure fiscal responsibility and accountability for the people of Jackson. So, thank you. Clerk, could I council president? Can I add add two things? Yes. Um, Mr. McGucken notified council president and myself today and I just want to I guess get a
quick update for the public. Um the town had done a couple years ago a land swap and I know we had gone to court and the judge had ruled against part of the the township and the town then took a legal maneuver and could we just give a quick update. I think it's an important update for the public. Sure. The township actually won the case
at trial. Subsequent to that, there was an appeal to the appellet division. The appellet division reversed ruled against the township. I'm pleased to announce that today the New Jersey Supreme Court agreed to hear our appeal uh indicating that we believe the appellet division was incorrect and we'll have a hearing
before the New Jersey Supreme Court at some point in the near future. Thank you. And and just for the for the public, what percentage of cases are actually accepted by the Supreme Court usually? Usually 12 to 15%. Okay. Thank you. Also, I just want to update I know council had been circulating. We we had put together an
ordinance a couple months ago about landlords. Um and now now that we are in the budget process, we're able to move move on to the next step. I think council president has circulated a draft among some of our colleagues to create start creating those positions. So come January, all the various enforcement
mechanisms are there. Um and I'm just we definitely um solicit feedback if any residents have any feedback as we put together the ordinance hopefully for our next meeting. Uh you're talking about the new hires. So we're looking right now. So you'll see on the League of Municipalities where I I had a lot to say so I didn't
want to I know with the kids here but we are uh looking for a qualified purchase agent. We're looking for a uh we are losing Director Candido um himself but we are not losing the position for a director of public safety. Again director Candido will your thank you is
going to come after the children leave. Um we're looking for a police department IT. again our IT guy is absolutely amazing but he also we need officers we need sergeants he's a sergeant now and we need him we need him on the uh in the
police department and we want to get the police department an IT guy so we do have that role open um DPW is hiring I believe six employees he's looking for uh people with a CDL and labor workers um to have both to do labor and a CDL
would be ideal and then the Bureau of Rental Housing that would be a quite that will be the applicant will have to have the same qualifications as the code enforcement department has. They will just not be in code in enforcement which we'll get over when we go into the
budget. That is a whole new column and ordinance that we are creating tonight. Okay. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. The next item on tonight's meeting agenda is an update from the Department of Public Works, Mr. Shawn Bolinsky. Council President Hume. Yes. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Our streets
and roads crew are actively conducting seasonal trimming along township roadways. That is trimming of the trees that are that our DPW uh does with the focus of clearing overgrown and intersection dressing, low hanging limbs, favorable weather um in recent
weeks has allowed us to catch to catch up on some townwide grass mowing and performance necessary maintenance on dirt roads um using the road gra the road graater. I don't know what that is, but they're getting addressed. Uh we'll continue to deploy two street sweepers.
Um we'll let you know when they're in your area so you could hopefully rem uh move your car from the road so that they could properly do their job. And then in preparation for this year's leaf collection, crews are working to clear the compost site. Material is being hauled daily and we aim to have the site fully cleared by the end of October.
Improvements at our senior center are um are progressing. We've been working closely with Kate on a daily basis to address the contractor's punch list and resolve minor issues that are arising. Thank you. The next item for tonight's meeting is the proclamation portion of the agenda.
Council President Cume. Okay. All right. So, tonight we gather for a truly special occasion to recognize and celebrate a team that has made Jackson Township history. Please join me in c congratulating our 12U Little League state champions. This team
has achieved something extraordinary. They didn't just win games. They dominated going on an incredible run of 15 straight victories. The first time in our township's history that any team has accomplished such a streak. Their journey was remarkable. They went
undefeated in districts with two dramatic wins over our rivals from Tom's River. They went undefeated in sections, including two victories against Nottingham on their own home field. And then they went undefeated in the state championship, becoming the first Little
League team in Jackson Township to win 15 straight games and capture the state title. In total, they finished the season with an impressive 15-2 record. Even in defeat, they showed heart and resilience, taking Connecticut to extra
innings twice in the regional tournament. And as they as we all know, the same Connecticut team went to finish third in the entire Little League World Series. To our players, you've shown us all the power of teamwork, determination, and pride in wearing the Jackson name across your jersey. To the
coaches and the families, thank you for your support, dedication, and leadership in guiding this team to greatness. On behalf of Jackson Township, we could not be prouder. You have made history. You've inspired younger players and you have brought our community together in
celebration. Let us all give one more round of applause to our 12U undefeated state championships as they come up and collect their certifications or certificates. So, I'm going to ask the manager to come and give them out with me if you don't mind. Thank you. Congratulations.
[Applause] Yes, Ryan Blackburn. Congratulations, Cooper Brown. Congratulations. LJ Brown,
[Applause] Dominic Kisulations. [Applause] Uh, Deacon Flanigan is not here today. [Applause]
Nico Grievox, [Applause] Jake Henry. [Applause] Gavin Hobbs.
Chase Messer, Pablo Morales. Congratulations. And last player but not least, Gavin Reeves. Congratulations. Got to have the coaches come up here. I do not need to announce myself.
Congratulations, Jason Ballard. Congratulations. Thank you. and Rob Blackburn. Thank you. If council, we're just gonna Thank you so much, guys. Again, I'm going to shake all your hands just because I just think it's nice to do. I
got you. Got you. I want to see you guys what you do next year. You really did amazing. I actually have the all gamer or whatever it is. So, I did watch you. Um council's going to come down if you want to just merge in so we could do a big picture. Yeah.
[Music] And then tie back in. [Applause] You're welcome to go. The reserve seats are now open.
Oh my gosh. Christian, while the kids are going out, we're still live, right? Yes. Okay. Can you put up the traffic while they're going out? I just want to go because I didn't do it in my opening statement, but I want to go to Not that the Okay. No. Do you have the one that
has the email on it that we updated? The traffic safety email? Remember I I brought it in? I walked it into your office. That's okay. I just wanted to put it up so that they could that the residents of Jackson can see it.
Huh? That's okay. All right. So, we get a lot of complaints. We have a traffic uh safety email which is traffic safety@jacktwpnew jersey.net. Just while the kids are going out. NJ. NJ. Yes.
Thank you, Christian. Um, so if you have anything, we're having a lot of problems. We've had people coming into my office. Everybody's had we've all talked about it with buses. The the public and the private schools answered every single complaint that we've had. Um, we really have been working. It's been a couple year relationship that
we've been building. Boots on the ground was started, but this year I think was this seamless. Um, I had parents coming into my office. We we did a resolution. It's resolution 141205. And we had a meeting in this building right here with about 25 of the
different bus owning um partnerships, vendors, vendors, vendors. I apologize. Thank you. And uh we did kind of a gentleman's handshake and they really have been honoring that. We had a couple complaints, moved them right away. We had a couple complaints with the public schools. Councilman Palmary, our liaison
to the board of education, took care of it. So I just want to thank everyone. Um, we did not have the craziness that we had for the last two years when I was boots on the ground with Sergeant Hemba when he was in traffic safety and it was scary. Um, I haven't been out there as much as I wanted to, but I wanted to
again thank I I put that on thank you on our director that's back there, Candido. Um, as well as our police department and uh, everybody that is boots on the ground that works those early mornings when you see that's keeping, you know, kids in the residents of Jackson safe. So, I just want to say thank you. Again,
any complaints, please send it to that email. There's seven or eight of us on there. I am one of the people, Director Candido as well. Um, and if it's not applicable to something that the police department, it needs to go to another department, I always forward it out. But I just wanted to again um say thank you to everybody that's being courteous out
there, not parking in front of stop signs, not parking on the wrong side of the road, and and being courteous to your neighbors. It really is going to uh it helps the town a lot, and it helps everybody get along. So, thank you. Budget. No ordinances. Sorry. Thank you. The
next item of business is the second reading of public hearing of ordinance 202532 amending the township code of the township of Jackson so as to amend chapter 3 entitled administration so as to revise article 9 entitled department of public safety. 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'll have five minutes may only speak once. May I have a motion to open public comment? Motion. Second. All in favor. Any opposed?
Seeing no one come forward, make a motion to close public comment. All in favor? I. Any opposed? May I have a motion to adopt ordinance 202532? Motion. Second. Councilman Blli, yes. Councilman Bresie, yes. Councilman Paul Mary,
yes. Council Vice President, excuse me. C. Yes. Council Vice President Bernstein. Yes. Council President K. Yes. Excuse me. The next item of business is the first reading and introduction of ordinance
202533 authorizing the purchase of certain real property known as lot 2 block 19 uh 12913 aka 39 Georgian Boulevard pursuant to NJSA 48125. Council President C, are
there any comments on the ordinance 202533? Yes. So, this ordinance, if adopted, would authorize the township to purchase this property from the current property owner for its fair market value. The property has been the subject of
repeated flooding, resulting in a number of claims against the township. The seller has agreed to convey the property to the township for the amount identified herein. The purchase of the same would allow the township to correct, improve, and maintain a better drainage system in this area. This poor
woman has been going through this for three years. We had meetings, meeting of the minds, and we said, "Let's we we brought it to council. I brought it to executive with everybody to purchase this. We're going to preserve the land. So, we're going to have open space. We're going to fix our drainage problems." And if you have a drainage
problem, you know what I'm talking about. You go to your insurance. It's an act of God. It's it's it's a it's a bad situation to be in. And we're going to put a park on it. That is the the future of this area. And it's it's a great thing. and I think it's going to be great for the neighborhood because there's no parks in this neighborhood.
So, that is the introduction. Are there any questions or comments by the township council? May I have a motion to approve ordinance 202533 on the first reading and introduction to authorize the notice of the public hearing to be held on September 25th, 2025.
Motion. Second. Council member Elli. Yes. Councilman Brassie. Yes. Councilman Paul Mary. Yes. Council Vice President Bernstein. Yes. And just want to add a special thank you to Council President. I know she worked diligently meeting with the resident, meeting with engineers, meeting with our legal council, making
sure we could use open space. And I do think this accomplishes many things at one and gives a hopefully a neighborhood a little bit of open space and hopefully a little bit more of a park. So yes. Thank you, Council President Keune. Yes. You motion approve.
The next item of business is the first reading and introduction of ordinance 202534 amending chapter 111 of the township code bicycles. Council President Cune, are there any comments on ordinance 202534? Yes. Thank you, Madam Clerk. The
township of Jackson amending chapter 1111 entitled bicycles article one entitled low-speed electric bicycles and motorized bicycles. To clarify, the definition of low-speed electric uh bicycle motor motorized bicycle and
low-speed electric scooters um would not allow these devices to be used to increase immediate mobility of individuals with the limit or no ambulance uh ambulation abilities. What does that mean? I just want to make sure I understand it
first before I read into the record. So, the motorized wheelchairs. Okay. I'm sorry. That's what I thought, but I just because we were talking of bikes. Okay. Among other important clarification, the amendment described the safe operation of low-speed electric bicycles, motorized bicycles, and low-speed electric scooters within the
township, where are the same shall be prohibited. The amendment also clarifies registration requirements for motorci motorized bicycles. So, you have to get them registered, guys. You have to wear your helmet and stay out of Romeo's parking lot doing wheelies when there's
kids trying to go to school on and off the bus at the daycare. It's really not nice. I'm sorry. And stay off of County Line Road pulling your friends with no helmets on. Stay off of Bennett Mills Road pulling your friends with no helmets on. Stay off of South No
Prospect Road pulling your friends with no helmets on. Put your helmets on. Stay off your bikes. I've talked to my friends and told them I I we're outlawing them, so don't buy your don't spend the money on the bike. Put your helmet on. If your parents if you're going going your neighborhood, fine. You're going through one of the Brookwoods, you're going through Flair,
you're going through whatever you're going over in Caspel where, you know, Olly Burke or something like that, Miller Road. They're not that crazy roads. Don't go down County Line Road on a motorized bike with no helmet. I don't care if you're 40 or if you're 14. It's not a smart thing to do. Sorry. Not
sorry. Are there any questions or comments by the township council? We heard enough now. We heard enough. I don't. May I have a motion to approve ordinance 202534 in first reading and introduction
to authorize a notice of the public hearing to be held on September 25th, 2025. Motion. Second. Council member Belli. Yes. Councilman Brassie. Yes. Councilman Paul Mary. Yes. Council Vice President Bernstein. Yes. Council President Cume.
Yes. Thank you. The next item of business is the first reading and introduction of ordinance 202535 amending chapter 244 land use and development regulation of the code. Council President Kun. Are there any comments on ordinance 202535?
Yes. Uh this amendment will require at least 20% of all units in affordable housing overlay zones to be set aside as low and moderate income units. Yeah, I'll just add that this is this is to um really to bring all the ordinances that were passed by the last meeting in
par with each other. Um and I think it's important to to stress that if you make an agreement with the township, please keep your word and keep your agreement and don't turn around and say one thing and do it differently. This council doesn't stand for that. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any questions or
comments by the town council? May I have a motion to approve ordinance 202535 on first reading and introduction to authorize the notice of the public hearing. Motion second. Councilman Belli, no. Councilman Brassie, yes.
Councilman Paul Mary, yes. Council Vice President Bernstein, yes. Council President Cune, yes. Councilman, I just want to confirm you read the ordinance, right? I did. That you Okay. I just want to make sure that you you read it. Okay. Thank you.
That's on the record. Correct. Okay. Thank motion approved. The next item of business is the payment author authorization of bills and claims. I would like to note the following abstensions. Abstensions
include Councilman Blli AE1, DE1, NJO4, NJ13, NJ4, and STA76. and council president Keun's abstension R CSO2.
Council President Keun, are they are there any questions or comments by the township council? No, I just had to read Yes, I had to read into the record. Uh when I was reviewing the bill list, we had from our um appraiser, Mr. Mancini. Um he had an
invoice that um I personally thought it was something that was submitted. We were going to try to preserve land on West Commodore. Um, and when we found when we submitted it and our attorney did his due diligence, it had a reverter on it, which means the the they couldn't
sell it. Um, we couldn't pres preserve it. It's already is township. In essence, it already is township property. So, we're starting to do that. So, when we got the bill and we were charged $161,9.75 um for a canceled appraisal, that raised a red flag to me. So, I uh reached out
to the professional with the assistance of uh administration and the mayor and said, you know, in the exact words of the mayor, he said, I'm going to ask him to sharpen his pencil on that one. And uh he sharpened his pencil. First he said no, and then I said, then you will
not get paid. Um, we will remove it from the list until we can come to some kind of agreement because that's I don't care if it's a dollar or it's whatever, but seven I'm I I know what an appraisal costs and it is not $1619.75.
So, we got a credit and it's back on and he took off I think $400 and something dollars. I'll take it. Not going to be Thank you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He brought it down to $1,214.81. Listen, he sharpened his pencil. Not sharp enough in my opinion, but it's
sharpened. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve the bills list and claims with the extensions noted and the supplement explained by Council President Cune? Motion. Second. Council Melli,
yes. With those exceptions. Councilman Brassie? Yes. Councilman Paul Mary? Yes. Council Vice President Bernstein. Yes. And I really want to thank all my colleagues for reading through these bills. Um, it's definitely a new thing that hasn't always occurred from coming to these meetings for close to 10 years.
So, having colleagues who read through the bills and notice things that just some days need a question and ask, I think is is in the best interest of Jackson. So, yes, Council President Q. And there was another question that the CFO, our new CFO answered because it said the star ledger on there and I'm
like, that doesn't exist. I know that they were done in February. We're not paying that bill. And I go, she she's sitting right there. I get approval from administration. I go there with the bill list and and the clerk highlights my ones and I'm like we go through them and they they passed it. Just happens to be
a dropbox that they picked star ledger. So, and we were like, "Okay, done. Took that off the list." So, it does work if you do do it and it takes it's a little time, but at the end of the day, every penny counts, right? So, yes. Thank you. Motion approved. Thank you. The next
item of business is the municipal budget. Council President Kim. Yes. So, um I want to thank you all. I know that this is a new our our new CFO has been here. Uh she started in April. I did the timeline last council meeting, so I'm not going to bore you with that.
And Councilman uh Paul Mary um or Yeah. Yeah. Paul Mary, I'm like Borelli Primary um gave the gave the uh the the reason why we're here at a little later date. I'm very happy. I'm very proud of this uh presentation. It's amazing. It's going to be up on the board soon. Thank
you guys. You guys are a team that work very very well together. You all compleiment each other very well and it's great um to have you in our corner when we do have the tough questions and have somebody that we can go and answer even as council because I put you guys through the ringer as well as Councilman Bernstein and Paul Mary. I mean we
didn't stop you know we were finding and I know there was questions regarding the 1.4. Yes. And it was reallocated and it came out to $668,000 that has gone back to all of our departments going to our dog park going to everything. So no it's not in my pocket guys. So, I mean, I'm sorry. I know you guys want to think that somehow
it miraculously, you know, was printed and and went there. It didn't. Um, but the our CFO is going to come up with her team and is going to go over the budget and I think it's a great presentation. So, we're looking forward to it. So, thank you. Put in the budget for more mics.
You might need to put in the budget for new mics. Can I pick it up? Okay. Good evening, uh, council, administration, and residents. Thank you for having us here tonight. My name is Stephanie Marlin. I am the CFO, and I am accompanied by our auditors, Matt Hullman and Anthony Manino. We will be
walking you through the key points of our budget this evening. Next slide. Uh, we'd like to start about talking about the reassessment. Um, just to keep in mind, this does not raise taxes. the total tax. The town only collects what
is needed uh in order for it to pay its bills. The goal of the reassessment is uh fair share based on the true value of the homes. Um so let's talk about why why did the township do the reassessment? We were ordered by the
county of Ocean County um authority to do the reassessment. Our ratio reached 85% average um assessed value. how which just basically how close our um assessed values are to the actual market value.
Jackson was below 70% in 2023 and Jackson has been on the border since 2020. So it has come to the time that they um ordered the reassessment to be done. Next slide. How are taxpayers impacted? The one-third rule applies here. So about
one-third of properties go up, approximately one-third go down, and approximately one-third stay about the same. So if your property rose more than the town's average, your taxes may go up. If your property rose less than the town's average, your taxes may go down
or stay the same. Next slide. The tax calculation is a very important u section for us to go over. We start on the very left side column with the total expenditures. This is what it costs to
run the town. Um then we subtract the anticipated revenues. This is um how the town takes in money from state aid, fees, grants, etc. What's left there is the tax levy. This is the amount that has to be raised by property taxes. And
finally, we take that tax levy number and we divide that by the total ratables to get the tax rate. So in comparison, looking at this chart that's up on the board right now, the expenses are down slightly from 2024. The levy is very
similar. That's what we need to raise in taxes. The ratables almost doubled, which you can see made the tax rate almost cut in half. Um, the town is still colle isn't I'm sorry, the town isn't collecting more
tax dollars overall. The reassessment simply spreads the same levy across higher ratable values. So, the tax rate went down. Next slide. The local purpose tax levy. Local purpose tax levy is up slightly about
1.87% 87% but the rate is down nearly 50% because of that reassessment. The open space tax is a flat 0.03 rate and it is not adjusted for the reassessment. So the total local rate was 0.529.
It is down to 284. I just want to just make sure on that open space that was on a referendum and cannot be changed. Correct. I just want to make sure everybody okay just so that's clear that's where that number because that is president I just want to elaborate that referendum was something that the
residents of Jackson voted on in what year it I don't know what year I think it was 2020 I think councilman I think council yeah 2020 it was a 2020 referendum so that was which passed overwhelmingly yeah so that that's something that we can't change that I just want to be
clear on that so that stays at the 03 range correct next slide This slide is a comparison between the average home in 2024 versus the average home in 2025. So you can see in 2024 the
average home was 332,000. With the reassessment the average home is 652,000. So overall the uh average homeowner is going to see a slight increase in local purpose tax only of about a dollar. So the reassessment didn't increase what
the town collects. It just redistributed the burden fairly. Next slide. And this one here is uh shows the distribution of the tax levy over the past six years. It's a snapshot and you
can see overall it increased approximately 2% each year. And this is just for Jackson. Next slide. This is a visual of where your taxes go. You can see here by the biggest portion
the blue section um is 54.5% is going to the school district followed by the medium I call it the medium blue section down there on the bottom. Um this is 20.8% and that is sent to the county. Then we have the yellow section which is
18.6% 6% and that is your local municipal portion. Our fire districts come in at 5% that's the dark blue section. And finally, our open space is represented by the orange section which is 1.1%.
School district. Next slide. This one's really really hard to read even even in front of us. Um I was hoping it'd be a little easier up there, but it's not. This one um shows us where the revenues come from. Um surplus,
local revenues, state aid, grants, uh delinquent taxes, and local tax versus where the appropriations are spent. Salary and wages, operating expenses such as electricity, office supplies, and postage. Our statutory expenses,
expenses such as pension, health care, etc. Our debt service and our reserve for uncollected taxes. Next slide. I'm going to turn this section over to our auditors to cover the capital budget. Thank you. Great job.
Hello. My name is Anthony Manino as Stephanie stated earlier. Um I'm a director at Home for an Allison, the auditing firm. Um so I'm going to go over the capital budget a little bit. So the capital budget that's in the municipal budget is required every year
to be submitted to the DCA along with the municipal budget. Um, Jackson is required to submit a six-year capital budget. Uh, the rule is that if you have over 10,000 population, you have to do a six-year budget uh projection. This budgets uh the capital budget could
include roads, police, vehicles, equipment improvements. Essentially, the rule with the state is that any county capital project has to have at least a five-year useful life. So generally um there is some exceptions to the rule as we all know that the state sometimes
passes. Um so the other thing to keep in mind is the capital budget that's in the budget is only a plan. Uh it's an estimation of what the municipality wants to essentially go out and do within the community. Improvements, purchases, things like that. anytime
that a capital um ordinance or a bond ordinance is done that automatically amends this capital program and capital budget. Can can I just so that clarity because there's been a lot of confusion as regards to the 1.4 and this is where it came from. So I just want because I I just listened
I just want to make sure that there's clarity. So these bond ordinances were created for like you said for a plan, right, for our departments and say the department planned on doing a road improvement or buying vehicles or something with the five-year plus and we
allocated we did an ordinance or bond for $800,000 and they only used in that year $400,000 and then we kind of never went back to it and 2009 got away from us and we come back and we're going through with the new CFO and we pulled it and we found that $400,000. Then we
go to the next year with the bond ordinances. That was the plan and there was extra money. When you accumulate that all together, that's where we got the monies that we had found. Correct. Yes. Yep. Thank you. I just wanted to get that on the record so that everybody had clarity because I know it sounds weird like how do you just find this? This is the
section in the portion of the budget where I and council found it going through the budget and reading it and meeting with them and saying what is this? And this is that's where that question. So I just wanted to make sure there's clarity so everybody understood because it does sound a little crazy when you know you just find but it it
this is what will make it sense. So I apologize. Thank you. Please continue. I will say that is an important part of the capital uh entire ecosystem is it needs to be reviewed and evaluated every couple of years if not every year. Um so I will say that's something that not every municipality does unfortunately.
So that's for a second. When when was the last time from I mean it was 2009. I found one from 2009. So that guy can answer that for you. Okay. So that's this that's just going to say the council I I just want to say so that's the last time that that section of the budget was properly reviewed and it's not your fault. It would be on
us. We're the we're the job. It's our job. So I'm happy of our council that we found it and I'm very proud of that and I'm very proud of this budget. So please thank you. Yep. Uh next slide. Uh next slide again.
So like I said this is the plan that is in place right now. um that will be and could be adjusted by any kind of capital and bond ordinances. Um the capital budget is essentially broken down into three separate sections. The first section we have to go through and look
and see what kind of current year action items that the municipality wants to undertake. Um that could in this case include a lot of roadway repairs, drainage, and a couple um equipment purchases uh that could be undertaken by
various departments. Now these current action items uh they could be funded multiple ways. Capital improvement fund in the budget. You allocate money for down payments, grants um and debt authorization. And as we see here, there are some grants that have
been contemplated and could possibly factor in to reduce possible costs of issuance for debt and things like that. Okay, next slide. The second section that we're required to submit and uh project out is the next
five years. So we looked at 2020 uh five just before. Now we're looking at the next five years after that. So from 2025 through 2029. Um again we allocate expenditures across certain time frames, certain years. And as we know this is
just an estimate. We don't know if the work's going to be done sooner or quicker. We're just projecting out what the actual companies that are doing the work or if possibly DPW is doing the work inhouse. Um that kind of estimations gained from their expertise.
Next slide. And then finally uh the last section we submit is similar to the first section but the subsequent five years that we need to do we need to look at how are we going to fund the future projects 2026 through 2020. uh 2029.
So on here uh we could again same thing we have grants that are factored in that could reduce debt costs uh bonds and notes that we may issue down the future. Um and then of course an appropriation in the municipal budget from the capital improvement plan uh fund.
And then finally I want to talk a little bit about debt capacity. Um oh sorry next slide. Um, so debt capacity I want to talk a little bit about. Uh, the municipality of Jackson has three-year equalization
value of 11.49 billion. Essentially, what that's saying is the average of the last three years, how much was the municipality worth? Um, and in this case, these numbers were all provided to us by the state of New Jersey. Um, it was 11.49 billion. The
maximum allowable debt that you're allowed to carry is 402 million per statute. That's just three and a half% of your equalized valuation basis. So you're allowed to go up to 402 million. At the end of 2024, you were at 23.5
million. Um so you have a remaining debt capacity of 378 million. Now I'm not saying to go out and issue that right now. I'm just Yeah, I'm like we are not using that like make that clear. move past that slide because you know, wow, that's that's amazing.
Good good job. Uh, and now I'm gonna hand it back over to Matt Hullman. I just have a can I just ask a couple questions on this capital real quick. So, in essence, just to go back and I'm just I'm not trying to, you know, beat a stone or anything like that. So, we
we're I I deal with grants. I am on calls all month long with all different grants, infrastructure grants, park and recreation, um DP or the fire, police, like everything, EMS. If we have a we have a road project because right now it's going to it's going to start coming out. We have a lot of infrastructure. We
all have drainage problems as you can see with the ordinance that's on tonight with the property that we're purchasing through open space. So, I know we're meeting with the engineer and our our uh business administrator to look in drainage. They're doing a whole master plan throughout the whole I shouldn't use master plan but a whole re-evaluation throughout the plan to
look at our drainage issues. So if we put in that in the fivey year of the capital, you know, for improvements on drainage, but we sit there and we get a grant, say we put $3 million and we get 1.5, that $3 million is going to stay in there. If we don't go back and council say, "Hey, wait. I know five years later
we don't go and look at that fiveyear plan, that $ 1.5 million is just going to sit in there until a council member goes and says, "Hey, wait. We got to reallocal reallocate that 1.5. Correct. Yes. Because you're it's going to get offset by the grant money that comes into the CFO. Okay. And just so you know, the ordinances
that are created by your bond council usually has a caveat in there that allows for that type of reallocation, the grant in place of the debt. Um, so bond council is already probably covering that for you. It's more so just like you said, keeping in mind that that's a trans that's a movement that's going to happen behind the scenes later
because a couple of these I see on here are are in a three to five year project with that we're working on. So they would come off. Okay, that was a great Sorry. Thank you. That's one other question I had for the the debt capacity the three-year equalized valuation that does not include the
revalure. No. So um that is uh that does not include the revalue. Uh so the valuation of the town going up as part of the rebal, it'll be a smaller percentage of our permitted debt will be it'll be much less than even what's in here now.
Yep. So once we go through 2025 when we do that type of debt analysis uh at January of 2026, we'll see the number go even down. Um and your remaining debt capacity will go up. You get a new car, you get a new I'm kidding. Yeah. Just keep in mind too uh and a
mentioned it. This is an estimate that capital budget is reviewed every year and um there are changes that are substantial that happen every year. You know, things change, different projects come up. So, it's it's something that constantly has to be re reevaluated and looked at. We're already working on 2026. So,
that's great. Yes. All right. So, just a couple more slides. I swear just a few. Um the next one here, you'll see uh we just wanted to hone in a little bit on this levy number that you have here. So it's approximately we'll just use 36 million in this case. And again that's the
amount that needs to be raised by taxation. So we just want to take a look and see how Jackson stacks up against its closest neighbors here. And um as you might suspect slightly over where Manchester and how are coming in with their uh amount to be raised by taxation numbers. You can see Lakewood Brick and
Tom's River substantially higher. Just to give you a little bit of idea of where Jackson's stacking up versus neighbors here. Uh go to the next slide. So, another question we get a lot, why is a tax increase necessary? Um, if it's not obvious, I mean, we threw a couple things out here. Uh, you have to
maintain the level of services that have come to be expected in town. In order to do that, many cost factors contribute to these increases. Whether it be pension, workers comp, liability insurance, public safety, these all far exceed the 2% increase that the town is capped at.
So, when you look at the amount of different expenditures that are increasing on a year-to-year basis, it is a very difficult process to put together a budget that is only increasing by, in this case, we're raising taxes by under 2%. Um, so it it's diff difficult. There's a lot of
cuts that have to be made. There's a lot of considerations that have to go into really every line that goes into this budget. And obviously uh with the increase the cost of of the everyday goods and services that we're seeing in this um economy at this point um it just makes things even more difficult on that
side. All right, next slide. All right, then we're just going to do a quick review of what we kind of talked about already. Um just really wanted to hone in the reassessment that happened in town. Um there's some misconception out there that this automatically will raise
taxes. Again, that um amount to be raised by taxation number becomes very important because last year's amount to be raised by taxation um is 600 approximately $600,000 less than this year's which only represents a 1.9%
increase from year to year. Now, the town is only taking in that lump amount of money. Now, it's being divvied up differently based on the evaluation of the properties that happen, but as Stephanie had said at the beginning, generally a third of the town will see an increase, a third will see a
decrease, and a third will stay around the same amount that they were prior. Um, I talked about the 2% increase to the levy. It's $675,000 in additional revenue being generated to make this budget work this year. Um th this budget also allows for
continued progress towards the long-term open space and capital plans of the town and went into that a little bit on his capital side there. Uh we talked about the rate being uh 0.25% 25% of $100 of assessed value. And the average home
is assessed at $652,896 this year, which represents approximately $1,660 in municipal tax. All right, I think that's our summary for the night. Uh, just like to thank
Stephanie for her Tyler's effort in getting this budget done. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. and the council as well and the administration. You you guys definitely work so well and we're I Thank you. Just Thank you. Well, thank you everybody. I'm happy
we're at the finish line. Well, I'm going to see you in seven days to start 2026. I don't know. Can't wait. Now, we have um we're opening up to comments and questions from the public. Uh you just come up, state your name. Same way regular comment. Five minutes.
Yeah. F. Same same way. Regular. Five minutes. Hi, my name is Maria Fury. Oh, we just got to get you a microphone in. No, there is. Just come closer. Oh, it's lower. Oh, it's in there. Oh, sorry. Hi, my name is Maria Fury and I've been living in Jackson for 10 years. Okay.
Major change has begun. I am a senior citizen. I've lost my son. I have this neighbor that is harassing me to no end. This is for the budget, ma'am. Well, I need help. Okay. So, come back in about in a few minutes. We'll we'll call you back.
We're almost done, Jim. Maybe more than five minutes. [Music] Can you start ask five minutes? There we go. All right. I appreciate your comments that how hard you guys worked on the budget. I'm still
They don't understand why the information that is on the website does not give us correct information. What do I mean by that? Okay, first things first. We have a budget on a page and there's
number signs. We can't read the numbers. It's right there. Number signs. Have no idea what the numbers are. How can how can the public make a decision as to what's going on with the budget when the information isn't correct? Also on the user friendly budget, you guys
know I've been asking for this for a while, but this is the reason why. Let's go to page five. Okay, page five. user friendly budget 2025 is the exact same numbers
that was used in the budget page. Page five. Page five. Yep. It's UFB5. So not not page five within the budget. This is a user friendly budget. And basically the the page I'm looking at is the breakdown of the assess.
I have the page you're looking at for so you have for 25. I do the exact that number the numbers that are on there are the exact same thing that was posted in 2024 budget. If you look at it and again this is what I'm reading out there. So in 2025
it's it says 7 million for assessed value. He just told us tonight it's 14 million or 14 billion. If you go back and look at 20 24, it's still 7 million. Matter of fact, if you just look at the number of properties,
number of properties 19947 2025 19947 2024 exempt properties 1147 2025 11:47 2024. How does the public know
this? To me, this is one of the more critical pages for me because it allows me to see how we are doing from a you know, I get it. I said, well, I'm just I want to speak my mind. No, no, no. I'm agree. I want I want and the people want to I
want the people to understand. I want to know if we are getting more exemptions, are we picking it up by having more um commercial? Because that's pretty much how you do it. This doesn't tell me
anything. Okay, says the same thing. The other part on it I would like to understand is the other exempt is almost 20% of the total exemption. Can
we potentially look at what's in that other exempt and maybe consider that as another column? My guess is what that number includes are the exempt veteran fully exempt veterans, but it's kind of
hard to see. And that number's gone up pretty drastically in the last three years. Okay. Um, that's my comments there. Next part of it that I have a comment and you kind of talked about you brought up the whole
why a tax increase and you kind of showed the different municipalities. Well, we all know the biggest expense in this town is salaries, right? No one's going to argue that it's it's more than 50% of our total budget.
My question is, has anybody done an evaluation of the salaries that are we we are paying compared to what other townships are paying? Um I I can answer that. Yeah. Hold on. Okay. You I thought you got only five
because I want to kind of get I can tell you nine months I was able to do a lot myself. Okay. Jackson Township in Ocean County is first or second in the in the amount the sal in highest salaries that
we're paying and and where we really are highest is when it looks at the executive level salaries. And why do I bring that up is because the last two years I keep bringing it up. We use a salary range, but the range gets updated
just because you want to pay the individuals in that position at the highest level and and that's not how a salary range is typically used. Um, so that that's that question. Um,
one of my questions that kind just as I sat there, listen, regarding the open space and yes, I know it was a referendum and it was in 2020 and I voted yes for it and everything. I, you know, I remember it. I look at it now and see we're going
from 2 million to 4 million and what we're collecting. My question is, is there somewhere that you're showing exactly what's on the table to spend this money on so that the people can see it? And if we're not going to spend $4
million every year because I don't see our assessments going down anytime soon. So, we're going to, you know, at the three cents, we're going to collect that kind of money every year. You know, we that needs to be a section that the the people get to see as to where we're spending this money on. So,
because and let me tell you why I I I I appreciate the question. My my comment would be is if we're going to not spend that kind of money, do we put out a new referendum that lowers it? Because when we when 2020 we were based
on a seven7 billion dollar assessment, we're now at 14 billion. So, do we, you know, do you want to keep charging the residents to pay for it if we're not going to use the money in a timely fashion? So, that's a a situation. You said it can't be changed. Well, it can be if by if you do another referendum.
Okay. I'm going to answer you. I'm just going to answer that question and then they can email you the rest of your your questions or answer whatever questions that they want to do. Regards to the open space. I knew that this was coming up and that we were getting over $4 million. So, collectively, we're at $8.1 million in open space money. We were
trying to buy properties. We're taking one tonight. Um, we're we're we're not taking one. I apologize. We're buying one tonight. I didn't mean that. We also I created which this council created um in a recreation uh committee which there's seven members of the township that are on it that are all different uh
residents of the township. We've identified five parcels of properties that we're redoing across from the Wawa that they just closed that baseball park that is going to be completely remodeled. We're currently working on which I'm waiting for the plans to come back on uh the park. Um now I can't
remember the park. Oh for South New Prospect. Oh, Camp Joy Joy. Like I had Yeah, we're at camp backard. Yeah. So we're doing live there as a kid. Yeah. So we have that one. We're waiting for the numbers. We did uh Woodland Park. We we doing so many parks and soccer fields and everything like that.
So that is where it is going. And you will have a complete and total spreadsheet of and that's fine. Every where every penny is spent. It's fine that you're saying but but I just want to address important to see this stuff. I just want I'm trying. You know how hard it is to get things done? It's not it it's not fast.
I'm trying. Johnson Park. We're doing file now for you, but I not No, but Johnson Park that hasn't been looked at in 10 years. We have that all getting done. We have the engineer working on that. We're doing the dog park. Uh I met with them multiple times. I'm waiting for the bid for that to get the work done. Believe me, we have them out there. We're going to do it. That's
Go ahead, Councilman. I'm sorry. Um I'll turn it over to the to the professional team for a minute. Uh ju just to address the first I think the first question was the number signs on that one form. Um, unfortunately the state gives us that form and the cells are locked and if it's over a certain
dollar value it creates those number signs. That's an ancillary page to the budget. That's like a an additional page to the budget. So when you give it to the public and we see it right away, what do you go? What we can try and ex extract that out of
there and give another Excel file that could have that information. uh user-friendly budget sheet five that information comes from the county um act abstract ratables and because of when the res the reassessment values went into play the date on that is is
supposed to be October 1st of 2024. So that's why you're seeing those assessed valuations at the the dollar figures there the same as the assess. So in the prior year they they used a different they they updated it probably before it was supposed to be updated
and and and council I just want to add one thing is we did have a conversation among some of our colleagues about the$2 million and $4 million and if that's something that the residents would want I think we we we would definitely consider it but at this point we we felt that it gives us more of an opportunity to try to look for more open space
and and all I all I'm saying is if if you have the if you have the list of properties, hey, here's our properties we're going after and it's $4 million fee, I'm okay with that. But if you take in $4 million and your list is only a million dollars. No, no, it's definitely I I'll share it
with you. I have no problem. The question is, you know, is it new properties or are we spending most of the money kind of we've had trouble getting new properties with assessment and with the bidding wars that exist, but yeah. So, thank you. All right. Have a great night.
publisher. It's not a secret. Carlos Martins. Um I'm here as a Jackson resident. Um I want to thank the the gentleman that just uh just left. That that was great. Um and I totally support we're going to stay, you know, we're going to stay on
top of that open fund open land fund because you know it it is some things that I see in there is a little concerning. Um, so it's important to stay on top of We're cleaning it up with the CFO. Okay. Um, okay. So, so some quick yes or
no questions. The budget, does it break down by quarter? Was it only full year? Full year. Um, okay. Is it possible? I brought this up before the previous the presentation is great by the way, a lot better than last year. So,
congratulations. Um, but I would love to see on a quarterly basis like we do in corporate some kind of earnings release. How are we doing to budget? How we go run rate? Some kind of you're already starting 2026, right? So based on what
we see in act rolls, what implications does it have to our 2026 outlook, right? Something like that on a quarterly basis to to the residents here. Um, and I realize because when I brought this up last time, you're not obligated to do that. So, be the kindness of your heart.
Um, if you're willing to do something like that, I know I would appreciate it. I think others here would appreciate it as well. Um, just let us know how we're doing, you know. Can I can I make a suggestion, Stephanie? Miss Moore, I I was just if you want to answer that,
I mean, that's where we could do it and I'll read them. I'll make we get we get monthly department head uh updates, so I can read it. I didn't read it. It's going to be read next meeting because we had them. only had so much. But we can start implementing that if if if uh that's what you guys want, miss. Yeah. If if that's what you want,
we'll be more than happy. Yeah. I mean, I didn't take a survey. I don't know if everybody wants it, but I know I You want it and you're going to get it. Okay. Whether I like it or not. Our friend in the back would love it, too. Um Okay, that's it. Otherwise, thank you. I mean, I applauded when Mr. Pal Mary talked about you guys. No rubber
stamping, no vibrant auto pen here. We're reviewing the damn budget. I don't care how long it takes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. This is just for the budget, correct? Okay. Thank you, Donnie Adelman, Will
Point Drive. Um, I hate to be the Oops. I hate to be the bringer of bad news or to ask questions that haven't been put out to the public. Um, school tax, which I saw was what you said 54% roughly. Can you just talk into the microphone? I can't. tax, which is what about roughly
54% of what the money coming in is for. Um, Jackson Board of Education is currently with undergoing a lawsuit with the state because the state said with the new funding that you had to do 10% this year, which didn't happen, and 10%
last year, which didn't happen. You sued them. You're going to lose that lawsuit, not you, the board of ed. And the state has said, "Well, wait, we actually made a math error. it's going to be closer to about 30%. So, is there any accounting for what's on the horizon? Because not
only do we have that pending 30% school tax increase coming over two years, we have things like Mr. Cardonali's lawsuit for that he's going to file for them changing the zoning that he had agreed to. And I know that, you know, people
may not want to hear this, believe this, or whatever, but just due to the way of the nature of the lawsuit, what's going to go down between what he's suing for and extra damages, we're going to be paying basically double. So, if he sues us for the $120 million that he sues us
for, if we don't settle, we're going to be looking at about $240 $240 million hit. What about the accounting for that? Because again, these are issues that face the residents that are not being addressed that well certainly a 30%
school increase when it's at 54.5%. Sounds like a lot of money depend, you know, going on these new assessments even if we're essentially lowering taxes to keep the amounts the same. So, you got that. Um, next is the fact that with
all this doom and gloom, we are increasing the taxes, you know, and the average assessment based upon what it is that I saw in one of the slides went up about $300,000. Look, I understand no one wants to pay more and no one wants to pay more taxes. That that's a clearly
a given. Doesn't matter whether it's a property tax, sales tax, doesn't make a bit of difference. No one wants to pay more tax. But the reality is is that the residents always complain about their needs not being met in many different ways. And a lot of that is because of the fact that we don't have the money to
do it. Yes, there are things where you say we need more cops and all that. I don't agree with that. But um certainly it would be nice to be able to pay for it. You know, we need teachers. We need the ability to keep schools open, not sell them because we have no other option. You know, I know that the busing
issue for students has become a hot point in town, but I look at it as we're getting all the benefit of that 54.5% and we only have the responsibility of busing them instead of paying busing them and paying for their education, which is a significant financial difference as far as what we'd be
responsible for. Um, and then you know again we have salaries. Gentleman back there brought it up. What about the salaries for the work that is either not being completed by employees, selectively completed by employees, or you have employees that are put in
positions and they don't use the resources of their position. They don't use the resources of the town. They just go off of what they think it it is. They go off of what they think it how they think it is. or they go off of, you know, property managers, little things
like that because, well, code enforcement, you have problems there. Work's not being done. They're still getting paid for it. All right. I had an incident in my house where after all these years, it was finally verified to again to I guess the
business administrator, you know, at the time that an animal control officer called me a disabled loser. And Chen's best thing that he could say for it is he says that I interfered in a situation that has
nothing to do with me. That's not true. But even if it was true, there's no reason a Jackson animal control officer should be calling a resident disabled loser and then sending him a ticket. Meanwhile, he was there for me. You know, little things like this because, well,
it all affects us. We're throwing money away with lawsuits. were throwing money away trying to defend tax increases and all that. If we had accepted that 20% number when they first put it out, it would have been done and
settled. But now you're looking at another 10%. And again, at 54%, that adds up. That adds up because everybody's paying for it. I thought, you know, again, not having kids, not being having kids in school. I always thought like maybe people like in the
over 55 communities were relieved of that burden. Found out they weren't. Sorry. Thank you. I'll be back. All right. Thank you, Council President. Can I just touch on the school uh question he had? I can touch on that for the budget if you'd like. Yes, Councilman. So, I know that the the school board
budget is not controlled by the council. The the board of education create their own budget. The council only collects and then distributes to the school, the board of education. We don't have any say in their budget. I will tell you last year the school board voted no unanimously on the 9.9% increase.
However, the state monitor overrode the school board. This year the school board only raised the taxes by 2%, not the 20%. And I know currently from the uh school board president that the they are seeking legal action against the state
and that's what they stated publicly because the S2 funding formula cut so deeply over the last eight years. But the school board the schoolboard budget has nothing to do with the council in terms of controlling it or all we do is distribute it. Council P, I completely agree with you
and I understand that. My concern is not so much how it's being spent. I mean, there could be sides to that, but I've never gone to a school board meeting, so I couldn't even begin to fathom about that. I know we probably need more teachers. I'm talking about the money that's coming in. All right. Like again,
you said that they fought the 9.9% and it's going to be jammed down our throat. That 9.9% is going to be 15% and then that 2% that is going to be rejected is going to be another 15% and that's just going to add to the This is a different You know what? I'm going to
end this. Elections matter and this November, if you don't want to see the same thing happening, you need to vote for Jack Shidarelli for governor or you're going to have the same thing with anybody else. Elections matter at the state level. He's a loser and a reach. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Any more? I have uh two comments. One is in regards to the school. Can I just have your name in Oh, I'm sorry. Val Tudtor right road. Thank you. Um I don't know if any of you have gotten
to read Phil Murphy's budget yet. I have and he considers Jackson a wealthy town and we're getting $700,000 less next year. So, that's something that's always nice to hear, especially since he gave us the
gift of allowing us to raise our property taxes up to 9.9. And he gave the gift to Tom's River. they could raise theirs up to 13.9 because as you all know public school budget has to be it has to be um equalized out. It has to
be met carry. Now the other issue I have is are we still paying for Phil Stilton? Is that coming out of our money in the budget? He's Yes, he is still on and he's in the
council's budget. Well, I I don't know. I'm I'm paying for it, though. Right. He is on there. Yes. All right. I think we need to get rid of Phil Stilton. I mean, I've seen multiple articles on him, and I'm going to ask you all a question. Is he blackmailing
you in any way, shape, or form? No, ma'am. Well, that seems to be his his what he does. That seems to be his pattern and that's why people um end up using him and then if they don't, then he badmouths him. But my problem with Phil Stilton is in regards to the town
council seat in November. He was very complimentary about Ken Breie and he should be he was very complimentary about Al and I don't know how to pronounce his last name and he should be. What he wasn't very complimentary
was Chris Pollock. And he was he was very spiteful, vindictive. And since you represent me, the town council is supposed to represent represent me, a resident of Jackson, and the rest of us, it makes you look small, petty, and
vindictive. and consequently me if he has an issue with him. His personal his personal feelings towards anything is his personal in our what he does what he gets paid for for us is not on our council page. I actually have it in writing here
that it was on the Jackson Township Council page something political. It's never been on there. Well, the only thing he does is he posts our announcements on Jackson Township Council page. That is what we pay him for. Well, he's got these things out there, but that's not anything to do with
Jackson Township, nor is that what we pay him. Why aren't you going back at him and telling him that because his personal life is his personal life? You don't control his personal life. We don't control his personal life. What he does in his personal life is fine. Well, I don't appreciate the fact that you're letting him badmouth someone who doesn't I can't tell him what to do in his personal life.
Well, then get rid of him. I personally think he does a great job on our council page. Well, I don't want to pay for him. Okay. Does anybody here want to pay for Phil Still? All right. Well, you're representing us. We'd like him taken out of the budget
because we, like I said, he makes us all look petty, vindictive, and small. He says he crafts his messages based on your feedback. Thank you, ma'am. This is about the budget.
It's about the budget. Oh, okay. Fine. Making sure. Uh, my name's Adam. I live in Jackson. Um, I just had a question. Do you guys have any intentions of using any budget for you have this? They're here for Q&A. Sorry.
Do you guys have any intentions of using the budget for um just protecting land like buying land and just preserving it for wildlife or maybe hiking trails? I know um you guys were talking about like renovating the the dog parks and things like that, Johnson Park and stuff and
just hoping maybe things of that nature would come from the open space which would be approved by the council. Yeah, I just spoke about that before you came. We're doing the open I'll send you a copy if you want to email me. I'll give you a copy of when we get the concept plan. Okay. And I was I was listening on the way. I Is this like about like uh
Johnson Park and and things like that? Yes. Okay. I didn't hear anything about just You didn't hear what I said? No, I heard what you said. It just It didn't sound like it was anything relative to what I asked. I can't hear you. That's why. So, I heard what you said on the way here. I
was listening. Um but it just didn't sound What was your question that you asked? Cuz she pointed it to me for open space. If if any of the budgets money would be used like towards buying land and just open not doing anything with it, like not actually developing on it. If if we if it's not meant for a park or anything
like that, then yeah, we wouldn't do anything. Okay. Thank you. Seeing no one else come forward on the budget, make a motion to close the public comment on the budget only. Second. All in favor? I. Any opposed?
Thank you. The next item on the agenda is resolution 2812025 to read the municipal budget by title. May I have a motion? Motion. Second. Councilman Barlli. Yes. Councilman Brassie? Yes. Councilman Paul Mary? Yes.
Council Vice President Bernstein? Yes. And again, a big thank you to our entire team by the table there. I know how hard you worked all days of the week, all hours of the night and multiple emails, etc. And it's easy for people just to open snippets of of those emails, but I know how hard you guys
work. So, thank you. Yes, Council President Kim. Yes. And again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I couldn't thank you enough for all of your time and dedication to Jackson Township's budget. We appreciated working with you. It was a pleasure. Thank you. The next item of business is the
adoption of the 2025 municipal budget. Resolution 255 2025 passed for first reading on July 22nd, 2025 and amended by resolution 269 2025 on August 26, 2025. May I please have a motion to adopt the 2025 municipal budget?
Motion. Second. Councilman Belli, yes. Councilman Bresie, yes. Councilman Paul Mary, I'm going to vote yes, but I would just like to thank our professionals, our CFO, our auditor, our business administrator for all the hard work and and a special thanks for the countless
hours to uh Council President Cune. I know you are run your own business and you're very busy, but you put in a lot of time in going line by line and and that bond ordinance over a million dollars that you you you found with the CFO. uh this was scoffed at as some kind of conspiracy. It it wasn't. It was
actually something from 20 years ago almost that we can repurpose and use it for something that is actually good. So, thank you for your hard work. Council Vice President Bernstein, I know you as well. Um this was just an amazing act of working together. So, yes.
Thank you, Council Vice President Bernstein. Yes. And I before I thank the professionals, I also want to thank my colleagues. Council President Cune probably put in a couple hundred hours into this budget. A day didn't go by where she called with questions and comments and ideas and some of the ideas
made sense. Some of them and never stopped. And then my colleagues on council, especially Councilman Pulary, um I know you pushed you had multiple meetings at also crazy strange hours and councilman, I know you just joined the council and I know you took it in. I'm sure Councilman um Barelli, everyone really worked hard. So, we appreciate it
and um looking forward to starting to work next week on next year's budget. So yes, council president. Yes, everybody on the dance did amazing job. It was a council that worked together that we obviously found that we haven't done in a long time to go
through this budget. As a new CFO, uh I you hit it out of the park. Grand slam with your team and uh I'm looking forward to I'm sure there were moments that you got nervous, but we made it through like why did I come here? Um, no, but we, you know, sorry that we were so heavily involved, but now that we know the
process and procedures, it's going to be, we'll be there from the beginning. We didn't know we were supposed to be there when all the department heads were coming in. We didn't have that opportunity. Now that we have that, we could hear it, you know, right from, you know, the department heads um, you know, pen and paper and mouth and we can go
from there. So, thank you again. And, uh, yes, we're done. 2026. Thank you. The next item on the agenda is the consent agenda listed for tonight's consideration resolutions 282 through
291 2025 listed by title. Council President Kon, are there any comments on the consent agenda? Would anybody from the public or on the day like us to remove any resolution from the consent agenda and open have it
an open discussion? No, doesn't look like it. We're good to go. Thank you, Madam Clerk. May I have a motion to authorize the consent agenda resolutions 282 through 291 2025? So move second.
Council President Kim, excuse me. I was like, wait, what? I apologize. Council member Elli, yes. Councilman Bresie, yes. Councilman Paul Mary, yes. Council Vice President Bernstein, yes. And I would just ask, Council President, could you elaborate on
R2288-2025? designated custodian of record for the Jackson Township Police Department. What that means, I'd be more than happy to. So, um, it was this will rely on the resolution for our chief of police to handle his own records. Right now, there's a gap
between it goes through the clerk, it goes to the chief's office, through um their redaction uh team. uh we're going to have him hold all of his own records so that there's no, you know, confusion within the department and that everything that is in the police department with his records. The chief
will be responsibly and solely responsibly to take care of his own records instead of putting it in our in our in our clerk's office. It wasn't a good uh place to be. As you can see, we've been doing this, I think, since the clerk came in. We've been cleaning up the clerk's office. We have the bonds
now with the engineers. we have um you know escros with the CFO and now we're at the police department and saying you know what this should really be back with the chief where it always probably was I guess um but we're the right home for it so welcome home records
council president oh yes I just wanted to just bring light to resolution 291-2025 um and that is for our amazing clerk and uh she has been with us and We are just we are growing in our clerk's office. We
have all new clerks. She is absolutely absolutely amazing. She's bringing all these great things to light. Um so we wanted to what did they say? Put a put a contract on it so that uh she can't leave us and can't go anywhere. So um we really wanted to one thank you. I want to thank you. It working with you is an
absolute pleasure. We get the agendas done. You have a great team. you have the deputy clerk and the and the other staff and together I think we really we never miss our dates for the councilmen to get their agendas and the public always gets them on time. I don't know if anybody's noticed but you guys get them by 3:00 on Friday and let when she
was on maternity leave. I mean she was having a baby and we still got it on time with the deputy clerk. So um we're really proud of where the clerk's office and where we're at and uh I just want to thank you and um I hope our fellow council and I and I want to just echo that council president. I know this entire council worked very hard. Um it's
not a secret. Um we when many members of this council came on, we had some changing staffing in the clerk's office. It's all brand new staff and they come together. If you walk in there, the attit the attitude, the atmosphere is positive. Um they've modernized the office a little bit more, making more kiosks and other things all day.
Um and uh it's really come a long way. So we appreciate it and uh I'm happy to see you you staying here. I'm happy that you want to stay here. Yeah. And I know you have a great working relationship with administration and I'm wishing everyone lots of success in the next couple years. Yes. So I vote yes on everything before voting.
Motion approve. Thank you. Thank you. Council President Kun. Is there anything further by uh township council before we open up to public comment? No, 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 clear for the record. You have five minutes and may only speak once. May I have a motion to open public comment? Motion. Motion. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Just say your name and address into the record. If you don't want to say your address, you could say Jackson.
Okay. So, my name is Maria Fiori. I am a resident of Jackson. I live on Illinois Avenue. And for the last 10 years, I've been harassed by my neighbor. Okay. I can't sleep at night. There are storage
shipping containers put in the driveway in the backyard. Hundreds of children running. He's running an illegal business. He's bootlegging. Okay. I've called the police. I've gone to Mr.
Palmer who's told me in the code department right to my face that I am annoying and harassing him. Wait, in the code enforcement department? Oh, yes. And who did you speak with? Mr. Palmer. Who's Mr. Palmer? One of the officers there.
Okay, please. Okay. I've went to the mayor's office and they've tried to help me. I've had this man address me while my son has been dying. I put signs on my window. Please be quiet. This is all hours of
the night. Okay. He's supposed to be a religious man. Well, religious people do not drive on Friday night and sell alcohol imported from Italy. So, who is going to help me? Okay. Do I have to move out of Jackson? No.
These people are on welfare renting an apartment. There is garbage all over my lawn and I've been told to shut up. I am just a vessel. Okay. I am 62 years old. I have a heart condition and this man is
abusing me. Okay. And his children are abusing me. They are blocking my driveway. They are running all kinds of businesses and not paying taxes, but yet I'm paying taxes. And this is senior
citizen abuse. Okay? I tried to sleep at night. I've called the cops. I got cameras at my bedroom window and lights all night long. So, just think about the noise. And if he wasn't running illegal
business, then why are cars pulling up all hours of the night in the middle of the night and bottles clanging? And I've seen the alcohol because he's tried to bribe me. And I have a letter here about his illegal business that he's not
paying taxes. And I have pictures of truckloads of truckloads of car loads dropping off cases and the garbage cupcakes in the yard. Um, chocolate. I mean, the list
goes on. And no one wants to help me. My poor son had brain cancer and this man would not stop with the noise. I've tried niceness. Okay. And it's getting to a point where I want to sell the house.
And you know what? My grandparents, I am a Jewish religion, too. So, I don't appreciate somebody telling me that I am a vessel and I am beneath him. That is rude. Senior citizen abuse. And I need
help. And no one's been helping me. And I can't sleep at night. I've called the cops and they blind. They go to the cops and say they just turned the lights on. The lights have been on all night. Police department is for people in an emergency. I shouldn't have to call the
cops every night. I mean, I need help here. Someone needs to help me. Ma'am, can you can that letter can Can and I have Can you give it to the deputy clerk? Can you wait for me? I'm actually going to I'm going to step down. I'm just going to Can you just
hold me? talk to her. Ma'am, I'm going to come and talk to you. I really need help. Okay. All right. Speak to the council president next. Anyone Anyone else wants
Jim Seleia Jackson? Unfortunately, one of my comments was going to be to Miss Cun in with her stepping down. I'll pass it there. No, you don't want to pass this one to her. I want to say it to her. Um, listening to you guys tonight talk about the ordinances that are being put in
place. Ordinances are great, okay, but on one condition. Ordinances are great on one condition, and that is if they're going to be enforced. So, what I would love to see, and I understand that Director Candido is leaving his position
going back, I would love to see what our police department considers the top ordinances that they are actually enforcing and the ones that they feel like they they don't need to because if you guys are passing an ordinance and
they're not going to do anything about it, it kind of makes no sense. you can pass the ordinance to wear a helmet, but if they if they're not going to enforce it, guess what? You have the same risks. Okay. Um, so that that's what I that
that was my comment. My other one was Mr. Miss Cune. And basically my statement to her was she needs to stop questioning a another council person's vote. It's their right to vote any way
they want. when when she gets hears a vote she doesn't like, she turns away from the person, makes funny faces, and then kind of goes back at him as to like, "How dare you vote no to one of my ordinances?" I think that's totally
classless, especially when you're doing it here on the day. My other problem with her, and she just speaks so fast, you don't hear anything. She needs to slow down, you know, when she reads some of this stuff. I think I hear one out of every three
pages that she reads. My the other comment I have is a couple of weeks ago, a couple of meetings ago, I think Mr. Phillips had presented you guys with a department um review
and Mr. Dasty because Mr. McGucky wasn't here made a statement and Miss Cune agreed that that document would would be published on the township website. We're now six weeks later. I think it was six weeks ago that it happened. Four, six weeks.
Two meetings ago. Yeah. And it still hasn't happened. So, we can listen to the one to the items that she wants to talk about. But if it's 157 pages, she's not saying everything. So, give us a chance to look into it and maybe we can find things that we think you guys need to be looking at on top of
what you guys are finding. Because again, you're not going to find, as I've proven, you haven't found everything. So give us a chance. I thought when he he recommend putting it out on the the the website was a great idea. Haven't seen it. So
talked about getting another one and you know coming in it's great. I would love to go in and see these guys all the time but I don't want to go into the clerk's office and sit there and read through 157 page document. I I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable. So I'd rather sit in my home and read it. So
those are my comments. Thank you. I just want to respond to the first thing about about the police department. I will reach out and to speak to council president and to the business administrator tomorrow. I will tell you we've had a conversation about some ordinances the residents have brought to us and my attitude has been at a certain point there's no purpose to
creating more ordinances if if what we have on the books and we actually have some great ordinances on the books if they're not being enforced. So, um it's easy for everyone just to yell create ordinances create ordinances. But if we aren't doing anything about them, it's a waste. That's my attitude and I think most of my colleagues here in council agree. So, I will follow up with the
police department tomorrow. Let's find out what ordinances are really following because I can tell you I know a lot of the ones that you guys put in that kind of Yeah. And and again, comment is always we're trying. We don't have enough policemen to handle
this this town. Well, you know what? At some point, that defeats the purpose. You know, we're paying a budget. You know, we just talked about the budget tonight. Well, if we're not getting the services that we're paying for, what do we do about it? So, and I'm not putting
it on the police department that they're doing not doing their it's just again they there's a lot out there. So, correct. I think for our sake is where where are we getting the best best hits from because maybe it is something that you guys think is really important but they
haven't started looking at it and we can kind of switch things around. So, don't disagree. Thank you. Dan Pardrick Jackson. I just want to follow up on what this gentleman just said. I've been coming before this council for over a year and a half complaining about ordinances not being
enforced. Now, tonight you created a new ordinance for electric bikes and scooters. And anytime I complain about the children not wearing helmets when they're riding on the sidewalks and the streets. When I complain about the parking on the wrong side of the
streets. When I complain about traffic cones on three different roads in Brookwood one preventing people from parking on different streets and create a traffic hazard when I'm trying to get into my street. And when I complain about this, the answer from the council
is, "We don't have enough police. I'm tired of it." How can you in create a new ordinance when you don't have enough police to enforce the ordinances that are already on the books? It's a disgrace.
And I have one other question. There's a new mitzvah going up on Woodlane and New Prospect. There's signs of the builder and the excavator and whatnot. Now, there's a new sign up that's in Hebrew saying that a mitzvah is coming.
Do we have to have an ordinance that signs like that should be in English, too? I should be able to read a sign and know what's being built on that property without having to have a friend come over and translate it. I think I think there's a big problem
there. I'm not infringing on anybody's freedom of speech. Put up whatever you want, but when you put it up so that the it's on facing a public road and it's lit up at night, it doesn't seem right. If the sign is legal, and I don't know
if it is, I haven't seen it, but if the sign itself is legal, the township cannot control what it's on. So if the are we going to allow are we going to allow like in Lakewood when the buildings have just Hebrew writing on them? Can I just finish? Can I just finish? If the sign is legal, the township
cannot control what is on the sign, the language of it, what it says, anything like that. We have no authority to control that. Only thing we can control is whether the sign is legal or not. We can't control what's on the sign.
It just it just doesn't seem right. Basic first amendment. I understand. I'm not I'm not anti-Semitic. I'm not anti- anything. And I understand if we do if we control signs, we might have to say to the Latin community, you have to put up what in English what your store is too. The problem is where do you draw the
line? Is it only for It's America. We're English for what if someone is Spanish and they want to have a Spanish sign? That's where we draw the line. We're America. We're an Englishspeaking country. I don't necessarily disagree with you, but the First Amendment
permits it and the courts permit it. It's disgraceful. Thank you, sir. Donnie Adelman, 206, Willow Point. I just think it's kind of ironic that I come up right after having a First Amendment talk. Um, couple of things.
I'd like to volunteer for the revolution committee. It appears that quite a few people in this town forgot what the founding fathers fought for, what the founding fathers ingrained into our country, and what Jackson employees have
been allowed to do and run them up to violate people's civil rights. Also, I'm very interested in the town's history. I've done a lot of work over the past, I don't know, 19, 20 years since I've lived in town collecting and learning about the town's history. Um,
I spoke about the school taxes. Um, Mr. Stilton, I I'm really don't want to touch that one with the 10 foot poll, but I'll say this. Mr. Stilton created what is the de facto town Facebook group. Mr. Stilton is a paid
representative of the town at this point. There are public notices being posted on that group and I think that before Mr. Stilton gets another paycheck that somebody needs to say, "Hey, Mr. Stilton, you need to make everybody in Jackson allowed to be in that group. No
more kicking people out because you disagree with them." Um, quick question. Mr. Candido over there, is he now uh active law enforcement or is he police director? He is police
director until if he goes in I believe at 7 a.m. on Tuesday morning he will be a lieutenant. So he'll be back so he'll be back to an active cop. Yes sir. Okay. Um and again we will be replacing we will still have a public safety director. Okay. Well look forward to that one.
Thank you. Um next is it's all intermingled but I'm still have my my mouse problem, my toilet problem, my parking problem, plus my rent problem. All because I went to the executive branch as recommended
because you guys only make the rules. And the executive branch again told me that he's not interested in doing his job. He told me that he didn't use the resources of his position because I understand as somebody who's supposed to play Solomon here, shouldn't go off of
my word. Shouldn't go off my property manager's word. Use the resources that his position gave to it. It gave to him. Nah, he just comes and causes a problem. Um, it's been now five months I've been living with a mouse infestation. Cheney
has told me that in his many words that he won't do anything. He tells me that it's okay. His underlings called me a disabled loser. Mr. Phillips after hearing that did nothing. And apparently Mr. Phillips endorses the fact that I'm being called a disabled loser. So what is it that I'm left to do? Because this
is not hearsay. This is all available. This was all caught on film. And I have a business administrator who was willing to work with me. Something happened. He's no longer here. The new one tells me how benevolent he's being by meeting
with me. And then comes and not only does not not only does he do nothing, he actually causes more problems than I than I had before he showed up. There's no accountability. I have problems with the police
department. Everybody's worried about transparency and, you know, freedoms and everything else like that, but it doesn't show. You know, just hot on the press today. Um Jackson police officer is in a car accident because, well, he was speeding. He says he was on his way
to a call, but well, you know, it was one of those low priority calls. He just decided that he wanted to drive really fast because no one's going to stop him, give him a ticket. He got hurt. He wrecked a cruiser. Hatsula came and rendered assistance and then for his trouble the Hatzula driver and the
Hatzula people got tickets in the mail. All right, it's not accurate. Why is this being allowed? Let's Let's But can we move on? I don't Please. I'm respectfully asking to move on. Respectfully, that's a that's a question. Um,
as far as the I sorry that I missed the last time I broke a screw, so titanium is not what it's supposed to be or at least I thought it was. So, I wasn't able to come. But did you create I guess the right way to put it would be affordable housing zones where you're
going to put all the affordable housing communities or units and all that you're obligated to. So the town so far created I think the ordinance had four different two zones and four different locations in town that would allow for a 20% set aside for affordable housing as per state mandate.
Okay. All right. So we got that. Um next is weed sales in town. Um one of the reasons that brought me to this body was when in Wait, what did you say in town? Weed. Cannabis. Oh, all right. One of the things that brought me to the meetings when I
started coming here regularly was I know but wait after because I want to ask you something on that. You seem like you might be able to answer my question. Well, I I just want to make it known that the police department is actively allowing minors to access cannabis. So that let's
I'm talk about it after. I know what you're talking about and I I have addressed it and it's being looked into. if you're talking about the right spot. That's why I'll see you wait till I'm done. Okay.
I know. Really? Okay. Okay. Sir, no, no, no. We can't do that. Come on up, my name is Adam Mighty. I live in Jackson. Uh again, I'm just here speaking on behalf of the environment
and uh I just hoping there can be a shift in our perspective of the ordinances we pass and when we communicate with the zoning and planning board, I just really guys want you to be more environmentally cautious or conscious, excuse me. Um,
looking at uh, Bennis Mills Road and East Veterans Highway, the two wildlife refugees there, Eno and the Butterfly Bog, uh, we have like speed limits of 45, 50 miles per hour. I'm always seeing dead geese, dead turtles, snakes, everything's just pancake. I was hoping
maybe you guys can take a look uh, into places like that. And uh just before I was asking the budget people um maybe we could look into using some of our money to buy land and and just do nothing with it. Like I feel like our town is developing pretty quickly and I'm okay
with that if you know the environmental rules are abided by but we should also think about just doing nothing with some of our land for the sake of biodiversity and and wildlife. Princeton, Lawrenceville, Hopeville, they all do things like that where they just even
buy like develop development rights and just do just do nothing with the land. It's really good for the environment, really good for our habitats, flooding and and things like that. So that's that's all I'm asking. If you guys can please just be a little bit more environmentally conscious.
Thank you, sir. Okay, Carlos Martins's Jackson. Um, unlike in the P. Well, okay, I take that back. I just want to second what my m newly minted friend Adam said about the
environment. Um, and yeah, and especially the open space. Uh, you know, I have to agree. I know now that it's revised, so you can use it the money for recreation and other things, but maybe we should think about, hey,
how about we just leave it the way it is and and and allow um you know, the animals that live there to continue to live there. Um so anyway, I just wanted to second that. Okay, so I'm going to go now back to what I wrote down uh on my
agenda, which I usually don't get to. Um so last time or one of the times there was an ordinance that was being passed and I think it was um Mr. Sheay mentioned that hey you can go to the Pelands Commission and uh make your
yourself known and Mr. Uh, McCullen gave me the information. I signed up. I did my homework. Um, I got a notification. It was like middle of August, one of their meetings, right? Unfortunately, I guess all the discussions had already
been done. It was on the agenda. Jackson right there. I said, great. But it was in the section where now we're not taking any comments and um really wasn't up for the discussion. It was just to say, hey, we're going to we're going to approve. We've been negotiating. It's done. nothing that there was, you know,
there was an opportunity at the end for general comments, but that's not what I was there for. I wanted to give my opinion on the Jackson one, but it was too late. Uh, you had your first experience at the Pylons. That is the Pylons. That's how you deal with the Pylons. They're their
own entity. The D doesn't even regulate them. They're their own world and they're very, very hard to work with. Mr. McGuffin and I have had many experiences with them and uh you just happen to to learn it the hard way. Yeah. Right. So, you guys have no
dominion over them, but uh you're here so I'm going to uh vet and uh better than hiring a therapist and talking to them. Um, the other thing, right, their meetings on Friday at 9:30 a.m.
Well, who who I mean, come on. Do you really want public opinion and and you have a meeting at 9:30? You know, it makes no sense. I think to your point, Mr. Mr. Mark, if I could just respond for a second, I piggy back off what Mr. Paul Mary said before that's why we need to we need to change a governor because
that the piland's commission is a government is a is mostly a governor appointed commission seven commissioners seven seven of the commissioners are governor appointed commissioner commissioners and hopefully with a a good strong republican there we could actually have a voice and a way of getting through to the pelines okay
this is this has been a a you know there's a lot of pine in Jackson and even with the land use applications people don't understand that when a something's approved they want to know why won't the pylons final approval. The pylons will not give a final approval until a planning or zoning board gives
an approval first, then the pylons will put their two cents in. So, they they have total control over that. They're one of the hardest uh organizations to deal with. Uh and as far as 9:30 Friday morning meeting, we've had meetings, Mr. McGucken, on New Year's Eve at six
o'clock in the snow. Yeah. And then they wanted to cut it short. Or 3:30 and Friday afternoon meeting just the way they are. Right. Right. and and and it's all it's now I guess to their credit it's all via Zoom, right? Which doesn't benefit me a lot because my charisma doesn't seem to
come across as good as it when I'm in person. So, um I guess Zoom is okay, but 9:30 in the morning on a Friday, people got to work. Anyway, that I wanted to get that off my chest. Um, another
thing, so um, the tracking of speeds, right, with the and then you would come up and and say, "Okay, this road they're What happened to that?" It's No, we still have it. So, again, the traffic I deal with the traffic safety bureau. They've had a change in
um leadership. Um, so the team that I worked with for a year and a half is no longer in that department. um besides officer Lasco, which he is out right now and they were kind of behind with everything that's going on. So when they had the change over um I don't really
have the point of contact anymore in there to be honest with you. Um that I had uh because we were working very well together, but unfortunately uh the chief has removed everybody from that department that I dealt with. Yeah, cuz you know I requested I mean I get it once in a while.
It never happened. It has cuz we were on a roll. We were doing great and then you know extra bureaucracy you know there's Yeah and and now that biker gang keeps attacking me because I I promise them yeah we're going to track these feeds I'll follow up on coine I'll follow up
I understand thank you mic good evening uh I'm Paul Riverier. I live on West Conor Boulevard. Um I got a little upset today when I
read something from the lake uh was that the Lakewood alerts and um it talked about us spending more uh money on lawyers for the uh IORN
uh law land swap and um I was really shocked. I mean, why would we be doing that? Why would we be plowing taxpayer money into a land swap that just benefits basically Mr. Iicorn?
Okay. Now, what what I'm thinking is you have a lot of money for your open space. So, why don't we just forget about the land swap, condemn Mr. Iicorn's property, and make that open space? So,
yeah. Yeah. Can I can I just give a piece of before before the attorney part of it, can I just respond? The land swap was was the land swap was started. I think council president and Mr. Bell were on the council at that point. What happened was the residents of that neighborhood of the Leville neighborhood came to the council at that point and
begged the council to swap. It wasn't done for Mr. Iicorn. It was actually done for the residents of that neighborhood who did not want Mr. Iicorn to develop that neighborhood. Councilman Bell and myself were here. They begged us and came to every meeting and asked us to do a land. We don't have to pursue it.
Well, we don't want a school there. I just don't understand it. If you want open space, let's just condemn Icorn's property. Now, I know I has a background here with uh Mr. Bernstein and I'm I heard uh Jennifer that you used to work
for him. I'm just worried about undo undo. I never worked for him. I've never worked for anyone. I worked for myself. All right. Well, then that was wrong. I'm glad I brought that up. believe everything you hear. I'm glad I brought that up and you can clarify it. Good. But I I'm was worried about him having undue influence and I don't see how
Jackson Township is benefiting. I mean, if you wanted open space, no judge in the world if is going to stop you from condemning Iicorn's property for open space. I'm going to let our attorney answer you. Well, it's a you can drop you can drop
the idea at any moment. All right. As was indicated, that purchase, that land swap was a result of the residents of the township asking the township to do that. The township listened to those residents, adopted the appropriate ordinances, and did a land
swap to put the uh proposed development Mr. Iicorn wants to do out of that area of the town where more residents lived. where it's now was land that the township had that we had no use for was going to be developed at some point but it was not open space that was not well that's that's my point is that
the presidents did not want that where he was proposing to develop it whereas there's no objection to where he is proposing to do it now that was the genesis of the land swap well my background is I'm I'm a firm believer in open space and um when you buy the development rights or buy uh
property for open space it's a big big value increase for the town. It's like stock, you know, companies buying back their stocks. Now, uh when I did live in Milstone, we bought Topstep Farm that could have been a McMansion farm, but
you go by it now, it's absolutely beautiful. And it's like that for in perpetuity. We haven't been active in our open space. Uh I haven't seen any acquisitions. There's one on the agenda now today. today. You came with me right
now. Are you talking about paying 430,000 for a quarter acre? Yes. That's open space. Well, it's to drainage. You're going to create You're going to fix a neighborhood. Oh, you got to be kidding me. You're saying I mean you're paying 430,000. And
I'm not I don't mean to be No, that's fine. But did you hear the backtory what that woman's been going through? What that homeowner's been going through from the our drainage and our our township? You want to talk about flooding and animals and preserving? We've had floods. She's had three feet of water going through her house because
of our township roads drainage issues. And you're telling me that that's not making doing a wrong a right? It absolutely is. And yes, it's going to be a park. It's not going to be a big 5 acre park, but it's a little bit. It's preserved land that's going to clean up that neighborhood. Give that neighborhood a park and clean up drainage. I don't see a problem with
that. It seems like a lot of money. 430 for 10,000 square feet. That's 30,000. All right. The next thing I I got to talk to Oh, geez. Is this 1,00 home affordable housing? And how do you does
the town plan to accomplish 1,000 homes? There's a several ways to do it. You can do it by having the builders build it, but that for every one home, affordable home, you got to build nine or 10 homes. So, uh, or you can have the builders pay
for it through a cash contribution. Other towns are doing it organically. They're building it themselves. We're going to answer your question, but your time is up. I'm going to let the councilman answer your question. Mr. McGucken may want to put in here.
Years ago, you were able to sell your obligation to another town and uh eliminate like that. That's been gone for many years now. Correct, Mr. McGucken? I'm just going to go sit down. My time's over. That that's long gone and that's been
sold. We cannot do that and the obligation is not created by us. It's created by the state and that's the obligation that we have to fulfill. Good evening. Ryan Archer, resident of Jackson. It's been about a year since I've been here. I started an inquiry
into the town's hand mishandling potentially of the litigation and followup um consent order. I opened a line of questions to you guys. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get back here in a year. I just want to let you know that I'm back. I will be asking questions over the next couple
months and I've extended my inquiry outside the limits of the Jackson Township. Thank you. Thank you. Is is there a Jean here before Jean from Forest Drive? Okay. Anyone else?
Director Candido. Uh oh. Raise your right hand. Yeah. Raise your hand. Raise your right hand. Trouble. Good evening, council. Uh, it's with deep gratitude that I stand before you
this evening. I prepare to step down for my role as public safety director. Serving in this capacity has been one of the greatest honors of my career. Over the past year and a half, I've had the privilege of working alongside some of the most dedicated professionals in public safety, as well as numerous
civilian and community organizations that make Jackson Township an outstanding place to live. Together, these individuals form a true team commi committed to ensuring our residents receive the highest level of service and protection.
I would like to thank the mayor, administration, council, and most of all the men and women of Jackson Township Police Department for your unwavering support. That support has enabled the department to grow, adapt, and begin to meet the evolving demands of our
community. To our township partners, all the all the department heads, I am grateful for your collaboration and commitment. Your dedication to serving our residents is unmatched, and our ability to work as one team has been critical in delivering
the services our community deserves. To the officers and civilian staff of the police department, thank you. Your professionalism, resilience, and commitment to our mission have been the foundation of everything we've accomplished. I am humbled by the trust
you placed in me to help guide the department forward. Together, we have achieved significant progress, including filling filling vacant positions across all levels, sworn and civilian. Acquiring new equipment, quads, radios, and vehicles, while saving taxpayer
dollars, implementing a modern weapon systems to replace the outdated equipment we had, establishing a clear organizational structure across all divisions. Transitioning to more functional, cost-effective uniforms. fostering a stronger team environment to
encourage communication and innovation through meetings, replacing expired protective vests to ensure officer safety. These accomplishments represent only part of the progress we have made. The work, however, is far from complete. Jackson Township is growing rapidly, and
our police department must continue to evolve with it through staffing, equipment, and training. I sincerely hope the initiatives already underway will continue to receive strong support, ensuring that our officers have the tools and resources needed to serve effectively. I look forward to going
back and being a lieutenant. Honestly, I do so with a profound appreciation for the opportunity to serve both the residents of Jackson Township and the members of its police department. Thank you again for the honor of serving in this role. I am confident that the next director will continue the
important work we have started carrying forward our shared vision of progress and excellence. To the men and women of Jackson Township Police Department, thank you for allowing me the privilege of being part of your journey. May the path of growth and positive change continue with our community. Thank you.
Thank you, Director. Mr. Candido, Mr. Candido, I never really got a chance to officially thank you. I thank you that day. A while back there was a protest at the Bears Memorial Garden which you know I'm part of and the uh team you put together with
the prosecutor all our officers how you protected that place for us how you did it in such a peaceful way and I really want to commend you on that publicly. Thank you. It was a great undertaking and the officers did a tremendous job that day. You did. Thank you,
Council President. I just want to echo um my thoughts for a second. Um, I didn't know the director before too much before obviously the position was created. I think I met you in the back over there at one night. Um, I've learned a lot from you. Um, I hope that you will stay engaged. I think the most amazing thing that you really brought to
the table was your communication skills. The fact that you came and you listened to almost every single council meeting since you've been appointed was unbelievable. I think more department heads honestly should be here because it's really a way of getting to know the pulse of what's going on in in town. I know there are other departments who watch it online, but there's nothing like seeing you here in person.
residents having a chance to touch base with you. Um, I think you did an amazing job considering some of the restraints that you obviously had and we look forward to continuing that relationship and hoping to hear continued great things from your in your career as a lieutenant and who knows where else you'll you'll end up. So, thank you.
Wait one second. Can't let you leave without me. Um, so I know for a fact um how hard you work and how much the men and women of the police department wanted you in that position. um more you than the position, but they wanted you
um because they believed in you. Uh they worked with you. They knew they had faith in you. They knew that you would lead them as a leader and a leadership role. Um and I think that that's what you brought to your department. Um we're going through a little hiccup right now. We're going to get through it. It did it should have, you know, this hiccup
should have been united 5 years ago. Um I'll keep my personal opinions. I did my opening speech to myself, but you created policies and procedures um that the men and women I remember seeing them and seeing them. We all know I go to MACHA and just being able to show their
arms and their tattoos just being able to have a beard and giving to charity for you know I think it was November or October, you know, the months that they did that through March and then you extended it and extended it. But just knowing that they got that and they were they had somebody that
they could do but policies and procedures. You weren't day-to-day operations. So there was a lot of movement. Um and I know there's a lot of upset, you know, uh men and women that are are just being moved and in different departments not knowing where they're going to be in the next day. As you I don't even think you know where
you're going to start and you start on Tuesday. Um that's a problem. And and you know people might ask why is council constantly having meetings with you know the police? because we care. You know, we don't we don't have control. It's not our, you know, we're legislation, but we still care. And if we can create, you
know, things to help our Jackson Police Department and get you guys vests and get grants and get on calls and stuff like that, you've never missed a meeting, as he had said. You're always here. You always show up. Um, you contribute and the policies and procedures. I just went I hope I hope
that does not get taken away all the work that you put in for a year and a half in that police department because that will not be leadership that will be dictatorship and that will be just trying to take a total morale away from your department and I really really truly hope that doesn't happen and I
hope administration steps up steps in if it does because they don't deserve it. They got enough. What's going on with the accidents, the deaths, the shootings, everything that's going on in this town, the last thing that these guys, these men and women need to walk into is a department that they don't know where the hell they're going that
day. It's wrong. I'm sorry. I don't mean to curse, but it's wrong. Thank you. Thank you, Director Candido. Thank you for your service. Uh thank you for always making yourself available um to the residents and to us. And um I wish you, you know,
much much uh continued success. Thank you, sir. And uh you know, thank you for your service and your continued service to our township and stay safe out there. Thank you, sir. You and your guys and ladies, take care. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Seeing no one.
Anyone else? Oh, there's there's a woman coming up. [Music] Val Tuda right to Bo Road. Um I've been down here pushing for um something to be done about the illegals
in New Jersey. I brought to your attention how much they cost us um more than the spin that we get from most media. Yes, they do pay taxes, 1.3 billion, but we spend six uh I'm sorry, 7.3 billion on them. So, we're six
billion in the hole. Now, I did give you the information that I believe prompted you to do what Howell did already, and that was to declare us a non-sanctuary town, and I appreciated that. But basically, that's a financial thing. Um,
because Trump keeps saying that he's going to defund sanctuary towns and states. So, by us doing that, I'm hoping that he reconsiders if he actually puts it into effect. But on that note,
um I gave you a paper last week. It was the Immigration N Nationality Act and the had the rules that Trump put forth that were passed on August 3rd. Did anybody get a chance to look at it? Consider it.
It's Sorry, I actually sent it. You're talking about the one from How? We did that. Yeah, we did that one. Did you talking about the other one that you No. Yes. It's with the attorneys or they're reviewing it. Okay. Well, I um I to be honest with you, I
didn't know what you were going to do. Um I'm not the type of person that just sits and waits for people to do everything for me. So, um what I did do because my impression of that, and I'm not a lawyer, was that if you suspect
somebody is illegal, you can point that out to ICE. And they verified that to me in several phone calls that I've made to them. You mean point if they're illegal? Excuse me. Do you ma'am? Do you mean illegal? If you suspect that they are. Yes. Okay. Not
I didn't I have no way to prove that. If you suspect. Yes. How would you suspect? I'm just curious. Well, in there there was certain criteria. Like I say, if you're having conversation with someone and they're looking away, being evasive, not giving you direct eye contact.
Okay. you have ice going into a lot of places. Okay, not everyone can prove that they're legal or not, but anyway, in that regard, what I did was I actually Googled, is anybody how do you is anybody housing or employing
illegals? And of course, um, no one came back and said, "Well, definitively." Except I did get this interesting article from, uh, Lakewood. And apparently in May, they had a fire there
and there was, um, substandard housing and it was a bad fire. And when they looked into who owned the property, it was diversified capital. And um apparently Diversified Capital is known for taking underdeveloped
properties or troubled properties and and redoing them and making them better. They reached out to the a gentleman and owns it and apparently it went unanswered. But they also stated in the article that
a lot of um the realtor was warned that the investor would rent the home out to illegal immigrants. And the it mentioned that Jackson also has this problem. Okay. Jackson has a
housing supply of about 20,000 homes. 4,500 of them are rentals and the vast majority of those rentals are owned by Jewish investors. That means approximately one in four homes in Jackson are rentals squeezing the
housing supply. Specifically mentions Jackson 21, Pine Lake Park and Candlewood neighbors as investors. That's Howell, excuse me. That's how that's Howell. Candlewood is Howell and Pinley Parks is Manchester. Yeah. All right. Well, they say that's what they had in the article about death.
I know you shouldn't Google everything because that information is 150% inaccurate. Well, a lot like what uh Phil Stilton puts out and apparently you pay him and you're okay with it. So, my question to you is um are we renting to illegals and you
people are aware of it? You people? I'm sorry. The town council. Oh, no. Well, you're in real estate and this gentleman here is the golden boy. So, are you aware of it? I have to ask the question.
Ma'am, I'm excuse me. I know you're you're a little out of order the way you're speaking to us. If you have a question, I'd be more than happy to answer. I am asking you a question. Are you aware of anyone that's renting till illegal? No, ma'am. I'm not. Okay. It's not my job to go and and tell
if somebody if somebody's going scared and looking to the left. I'm not going to call ICE. I never said it was your job. I asked you since you're in realy in real estate. Yes. I'm a real estate broker. I do not do rentals. I don't do rentals. So, I couldn't answer that. But we do have code enforcement that you
could call and answer the questions to. That's your department that you want to reach out to, ma'am. Is code enforcement or ICE or ICE. The the problem that I have is your law. Well, your problem is you're on Google and your Google information is inaccurate.
Your ordinance says that the public does not have the right to check into rentals. Anybody can look at my address and see that Val Tutor lives there, but I'm not allowed to check on rentals. That's what your ordinance says. It's not open for public. Thank you, ma'am. We're over our time, but you're you're inaccurate. We're just
at a time when you don't want to answer. Council President, can I just You can look at anything. You can go in SDL. Can I just reiterate one thing? Absolutely. Absolutely. This is really important. In 55 days, again, we have an election. And Jack Cherelli said on day one, he will pull
New Jersey as being a sanctuary state. That is where we need to start with the right election in 55 days. Okay. But did you read in the small print about Jack Czecharelli? He is he is very much supported by LLC's.
All right. Thank you, ma'am. So then you could vote for the the opposition. You'll get Murphy 2.0. Sanctuary state. I don't want to vote for either. And that's why we got Democrats as governors. Yep. Thank you, ma'am. Seeing Oh, we got Mr. Jones.
Good evening. Eric Jones, Tyson Road. Just got a couple things I want to ask. Um, I didn't know if it was supposed to be asked to uh the uh CFO, but I was going through like the billing list. They change every month. The bills you guys pay, right?
They change every month, the bills. Yes. Every meeting. So, um, I was going through the bills that you guys paid last month. Um, are we paying to cut grass with open space money? Huh, that's a great question and I've asked that. We have two companies. We
have open space for a portion of it and we have cousins landscaping which we are going they're going out to bid for a new contract. Their contract is up at the end of but we are paying with open space funds for open space which I to maintain the open space open space municipal properties. I went through the whole open space and
yes I sent it to the CFO. So if you but yes okay then then not municipal property cuz that was taken away. Who's the guys cutting the grass around here? This is not open space. That's cousins. That's the landscaping. still paying them to cut municipal grounds when we have a municipal department.
That's a great question. It's a great question. Yeah, that's something that that's why we're we had a conversation when Mr. Bolinsky was here about that. Yes. Great question. Um, have you guys ever checked into um the amount per square foot that you pay
for uh open space? What do you mean the amount? Well, because this house that you guys are buying, I know we have not we do it. We do an appraisal. Are we just avoiding a lawsuit? I mean, it was right in my opening speech. She tried to It's right now. I
can't I can't talk about lawsuits, but it's been denied because it's because she threatened us with a lawsuit. No, that's not what I said. It was She did it three years ago. She met Mr. Wall and they they submitted it and it was denied because it was considered an act of I don't know how all of a sudden right
now we have a water problem. It's the fourth time that it's happened to our house. That place has been there forever. I don't know how long she's lived there. It's easy to fix water problems. Thank you. Okay. Anyway, uh let's see. Next thing. Space. Um going out to bid for tree
township tree removal. How do you guys Does everybody go out for bid? I saw something on the other that's through our quality uh purchasing agent. She does all the bids. We have a administration for tree removal. There was a bid processed for a tree removed. There's supposed to be an open bid if it's over threshold. Yeah. All right. because I find it kind
of coincidental that the guy that owns Trailhawk Tree got the bid but is on the Shade Tree Commission. Listen, Oprah, send an email. Send an email. We love We'd love to receive that email. Okay. And also the last thing, when I
walked in here, there was one officer here. Now there's three. Why? Because Director Candido, it's his last day, so they're coming to support him. Okay. And then and the last question is because last time you spoke about code enforcement, you you beat up on them for having cars idling. Right now there's three cars
idling and one has been idling since we started this meeting. That's in case they get called to a 911 call as a starter. That's ridicul. That's ridiculous. All right. Thank you. Seeing no one come come forward.
Seeing no one else come forward, I make a motion to close public comment. Motion. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Have a good night. I have a motion to adjourn the meeting. Motion. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Thank you everyone.
Coldest