good evening read the statement april 24th 2025 adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with the open public meetings act pursuant to the public laws of 1975 said notice was advertised in the Aspbury Park press in the beacon and was posted on the bulletin board shown the
time and place of the meeting we'll let the salute to the flag in a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and
justice for all so it's caucus meeting let me start here right yeah just wanted to make sure yeah of course item number one special use permit Milp Pond PTA garage sale the Mil Pond PTA is seeking permission to host a garage sale
event um in their school parking lot on June 8th from 9:00 a.m to noon with a rain day of June 14th from 9:00 a.m to noon individuals will be able to purchase a slot to have their own um garage sale and portion of the proceeds will go to the PTA move it second
all in favor i motion to adjurnn move it second all in favor i and now we'll have our township committee meeting adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with the open public meetings act pursu of public laws in 1975 said
notice was advertised in the Asbury Park Press in the Beacon and was posted on the bulletin board showing the time and place of the meeting we'll salute our flag once more and have a moment of silence i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to
the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item number one second reading of ordinance number 2025-07 establishing a cap bank an
ordinance of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey authorizing to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank in accordance with NJSA4A 4-45.14 this is part of our annual budget process second reading open the
floor public comment seeing none motion to close the floor i second all in favor i motion on the ordinance move it second please second Mr kennis yes mr yes mr laay yes mary
yes item number two resolution 2025-161 authorizing the budget to be read by title only resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean City New Jersey authorizing the reading of the budget by title only move it second
mrs juliano yes mr kennes yes mr lay yes mayor Kerto yes item number three open the floor to public comment on the 2025 municipal budget so what I want to do here is before we go into it general appropriations of $40,210,665.71 the reserve for uncollected taxes
is1,653,3529 total general appropriations is $41,864,18 less the anticipated revenues of $18,930,121.92 and the amount to to be raised by taxation to support this municipal budget is $22,933,8968 what this means on the average assessed home is that the budget
will um be the increase will be reflected on a 288,000 $300,000 phone home at about $91 a year it's a little bit shy of a 3cent increase on the budget so we can open the floor to public comment on the budget go ahead
please regina Desa Sunset Drive Sunrise Beach um I hope this was the most merciful budget you can come up with because we know there is disaster waiting for us at the board of education and we don't know what that disaster will be like but I'm
told that they missed the April 15th deadline to extend the 2% cap to do the 14.24% 24% increase because nobody approved it so um I haven't heard from the county superintendent i made inquiry myself because I have been after the
county and the uh commissioner of education since August of last year for a fiscal monitor and I don't know what's going to happen but it's a crapshoot over at the board of ed i just wanted to make sure your budget was as tight as it could possibly be because this town's getting hard hit there are for sale
signs going up in my neighborhood like you wouldn't believe and it's people I never thought would leave appreciate thank you any other comments on this item only seeing none motion to close the floor second all in favor i
I number four resolution 2025-162 adopting the municipal budget resolution of the township of Lacy county of Ocean state of New Jersey adopting the local municipal budget of the township of Lacy for fiscal year 2025 move it second Mr kennon yes mr juliana
yes Mr laay yes i just want to say something quick is uh being this following this process a little bit being new at it uh Linda and the administration here have really been you talk about working hard on
trying to keep a budget down and I'm very confident that they really tried to squeeze everything they could out of this yes mayor Ker yes so we're going to deviate just slightly for just a couple of minutes uh today uh as all of you may
know there is a uh press conference with the Ocean County Prosecutor and that's scheduled for 4 p.m i'll have some very short comments i'll exit and I will pitch then appropriately to Deputy Mayor Steven Kennes to complete the meeting uh but I did feel that it was necessary to just say a couple of short things and
I'm sure my colleagues will um you know be probably by next meeting we'll have more of a complete picture of uh what's going on and we'll have an AAR what's known in government as a AR an afteraction report as well so we had a historic fire event here um several
people have uh texted me and and said they've seen me on different media there's a reason I went on as much media as I did we had spotty internet i needed to get a cogent message out there and repeat it in different venues i did Spanish speaking uh did uh international
Reuters Fox News had to get the word out there and the last thing you want in a in a desperate circumstance uh or what is perceived by some as a desperate desperate circumstance is the rumor mill flying and burning no pun on words i want to thank some very appropriate
people my colleagues up here who like me didn't sleep worked went door todo helped at the shelter um but for the upper echelons of the county Veronica and I were at the shelter with Miss Giuliano uh and what I
will tell you is having worked the Sandy shelter uh I know what it takes to do that uh and so the situation is we needed to move that shelter up to Manchester we couldn't do it alone so I want to thank publicly the board of county commissioners and Sheriff
Mastardi every single mayor from all around this state most every mayor called me or texted me or offered something it was text 1 2 3 4 a.m through office of emergency management appropriately not a text between Pete
and some other guy it was a text through uh through office of emergency management and there's been mutual aid that we had here from all around the state all 20 counties i wrote a lengthy letter for my lacy township.org today thanking each and every individual that
texted called or emailed me and I wanted them and their their good people and those respective municipalities to know that um what's the blessing the blessing in all this is as of today there's not been one single loss of life there's not been one single single family home loss
structure and we have mostly timber uh type created houses here it's not like Florida where there's a bunch of masonry and stucco and and tile roofs so it's very different over here um we wanted to pay extra attention to our good folks in Feeasant Run they were seniors they have
special needs they some of them may be infirm some of them may be immobile but for the chief reaching out to people the fire departments reaching out to people the communication we had no loss of structure single family home we had no loss of life we had no injury if you
could say that after 13,000 acres is burned then sit down get down on your knees and pray to the good Lord because that is truly a miracle and it's a testament to the work that those men and women did nothing that I did nothing that anyone up here really did although
we did play a vital support role it's work that they did out front so I'm going to head out now i I don't want to be late for the prosecutor you're in the good hands of our former mayor and and a great person here everyone up here has been mayor thank you to Linda Peggy Sue thank
you Veronica everything too many thank yous i'm going to leave somebody out and I'm sorry thank you thank you mayor be well you're in good hands thank you see you next meeting yep thank you sir
thank you all see you soon thank you all right been a while since I did this you're rusting you rusty in this one resolution 2025 163 nope second reading of Yeah second reading of ordinance
202508 amending chapter 261 entitled parks an ordinance to the township of Lacy County of Ocean State New Jersey amending and supplementing chapter 261 of the township code of the township of Lacy entitled parks this is to increase our recreation campaign from 175 to $200 second reading open the floor to public
comment seeing none close the floor second all in favor i motion on the ordinance move it you guys are jumping Bob or you guys are going to have to do it we're short we're short members i can
Yes mr l yes m yes resolution 2025 163 supporting revolution NJ resolution at the township of Lacy County of Ocean City New Jersey supporting revolution New Jersey second Mrs juliana yes mr lay yes america yes resolution
2025164 appointing a secretary to the municipal alliance committee resolution of the township of Lacy County motion state New Jersey appointing Ryan Horn as municipal alliance secretary for the township of lacy move it second mrs juliana yes Mr lay yes deputy Mayor K yes resolution
2025165 awarding a contract for police vehicle equipment resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to Elite Vehicle Solutions for vehicle equipment for a police vehicle this is for one of the new vehicles that we purchased at the last meeting and it is in the amount of $20,851.77
move it second mrs juliano yes mr lay yes deputy American yes resolution 2025166 authorizing the release of a of a performance guarantee resolution of the township of Lacy County motion state of New Jersey authorizing the reduction of a performance guarantee for Arya
properties at Paradise Point LLC conditioned upon the posting of a new performance guarantee this is at the recommendation of the township of engineering move it second mr yes mr lay yes deputy American yes resolution 2025167 authorizing a refund for a
municipal doc stock slip fee resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey authorizing the release of monies charged for a municipal dock slip move it second mr juliano yes mr lay yes deputy Mayor Cash yes resolution 2025168 authorizing the refund of a
building department fee resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey authorizing the refund of a building department fee issued by the Lacy Township Building Department move it second Mrs juliano yes Mr ray yes stephanie yes resolution
2025169 authorizing the refund of deposit monies resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey authorizing the refund of deposits held for the use of municipal facilities move it second mrs juliano yes mr lay yes deputy Mayor Cass yes
resolution 2025 uh 2025170 authorizing the payment of township bills resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State New Jersey authorizing the payment of township bills this is in the amount of 7,170,98782 move it second Mrs juliano yes mr ray
yes deputy Mayor Deputy Mayor Kennis yes yes mr mcdonald yes uh motion to approve caucus meeting minutes from April 10th 2025 don't you have any items
move it if you do second all in favor i I motion to to approve township meeting minutes from April 10th 2025 move it second all in favor i motion to approve executive session meeting minutes from April 10th 2025 move it second all in
favor i motion to approve auxiliary membership in Noa Harbor Volunteer Fire Company for Darthy Bonfonte move it second all in favor i mayor if we can go back to item number 13 resolution 2025 170 ask for a motion of
reconsideration so Mr mcdonald can record his vote again because he has some abstensions i have to abstain on uh T 0035 that's the only one thank you so to recall it or there's a motion to reconsider so all in favor signify by
saying I i opposed and I have a resolution 2025170 authorizing the payment of tantric bills now we'll have the recorded vote good roll call just do another roll call yes m juliano
yes mr laur yes uh Mr mcdonald yes deputy yes okay comments from the committee committee woman Juliana thank you Deputy Mayor um truthfully all I'm going to speak about is other than the fantastic
work done by our volunteer fire companies along with the many many towns that came to help our police our first aids we just need to be grateful we are so fortunate to
have no injuries this is just a wonderful thing with what happened that our town stood together and and it's just been an outpouring of love from everybody that's come about talking to us and telling us how this they feel so lucky that we are still standing with
very little damage thank God and um um that's all I have thank you commandment Lay yes i also want to thank everybody i mean Pete uh did a great job of uh going over everything and I just echo his
comments um the one thing um I know he had a lot to cover and he was uh in in a uh time crunch uh there was one building lost in the industrial park which as everybody has probably seen Liberty Garage Doors so our uh sympathies go out
to them as they as they rebuild and get through this but uh you can't say enough of how grateful we are for how quickly uh how fast other communities have come to our aid and the one other agency which most
people don't realize stepped right up to the plate uh our superintendent of schools had contacted the uh administration immediately offered whatever they could they called out any bus drivers that could get here uh they
put the bus bus buses in use and they were used for a lot of the evacuation so we also got to thank very good thank them um like I say and you can't echo enough of how this how this was handled and as we all
know pay attention to the real facts i don't do Facebook but I gotta look at Facebook today and I now I am reassured why I don't do Facebook uh so I will never be on social media you want to
speak to me speak to me in person that's right uh and just something real quick I usually mention the Ocean County Social Services has their outreach mobile this month it'll be in Lacy Township four times it'll be at the Lacy United
Methodist Church from 9 9:30 to 1 on May 13th and May 27th and it'll also be at the Ocean Medical Center uh on the 8th and the 22nd from 9:00 to 12 and that's
all I have today thank you Bob committee McDonald thank you um couple of things i just want to uh recognize that this township lost the mayor um and and Teddy Hutler passed away a week ago or so um
Teddy was a mayor and longtime uh warden of the jail in Tom's River uh lived in Lacy Township and had some businesses in Lacy Township i just want to make sure we recognize that that happened um I too also want to I want to thank all the
fire the volunteer firemen that came from out of town down here put their lives on the line because that could have been catastrophic and did what they did it's It was absolutely amazing i was going up to a
meeting at the library on Tuesday and what do I see coming down lakewood and then I get on the Parkway to come back about an hour later and what's behind me woodbridge and it was it was it's just an amazing effort and
back in in Supertorm Sandy there was there's a saying called Jersey Strong we proved it again today uh this week that's right and I want to thank the officers who have arrested this young man as quickly as they did tragic i mean
his life is ruined over well we don't know what over but it's it's it's it's ruined and and that's it and I just want to thank our guys who are still out there fighting that fire you know one of the things I picked up when I was watching the press conferences is one of
the guys said that there's a there was a forest fire down in Vinland about three weeks ago okay it's still burning it's still burning to today this fire here isn't going to be out for a while i mean they got it under control but it's going to be here for a while so
I think there's rain supposed to be here coming in on Saturday so let's hope that's a lot of rain that can put a lot of this stuff out and get these guys out of there so Deputy Mayor that's all I have thank you Tim yeah I'm going to echo some of these comments um I'm truly grateful and thankful for our volunteer
um firefighter organizations and our volunteer emergency services um the size and the scope of this fire was matched by the the response both locally and statewide it was a whole of government response um and it's uh it's truly something to see especially when you're
on our side of it um it was a lot like um co it's like when the when the government actually mobilizes to to do something they they are pretty effective doing it um and uh again Peggy touched on it is that um you know also thankful that the that the damage was very
limited um there's no casualties um I was getting a lot of texts i I own a building in a business park and I was started getting texts and some videos and uh I was getting worried i know Veronica's brother was out there the the whole time he has a business out in the business park and he was out there the
whole time and he was uh you know sending me texts and pictures and it was terrifying it really is when you see it like that up close and how close it was to the to the buildings um it was really something to see some uh to to see um and again just truly grateful for all of
our uh volunteers um and those are my comments and with that I'll open it up to the public does the public have any questions or comments before you start Virginia one thing I found really interesting being the first time up here was the amount of people that we realized around this
country especially while we were down with no electric the amount of texts and people reaching out from Texas Indiana all around this country realizing Lacy's on fire and you're like and they're coming in from all over the country and
you're like "Wow people how did they find out?" Yeah and but it it I found it very very interesting yeah i had cousins from Texas and Virginia reaching out to me it was pretty wild so um I would like to offer my extreme thanks to every police officer and firefighters that
came from all over the state i was up on Route 9 my son and I watched engine after engine after engine come southbound and all I had was memories of the Berkeley fire about 20 years ago so those engines were going northbound northbound northbound into Berkeley when the Jake's Branch fire jumped the
Parkway and into South Toms River and that was all I could think of and as I came home I was away for two weeks i come home at 4 5:00 voluntary evacuations and I knew the fire had jumped the Parkway and that was the one thing you know I had hoped wouldn't
happen and I was able to see the fire from 40 45 miles away i was up in Homedale and I was able to see the smoke coming south so there were emergency phone calls made to landlines mostly and if they had been sent to internet voice
lines no one got any of those calls because if they had to go through a modem you don't get a phone call i just recently connected my phone line back to Verizon copper wire service i was the only person in my neighborhood with phone service we had some generators so some people
were fortunate to be able to use the porch outlets on a couple of people that had um generators so we had electricity for cell phones but there was nothing like getting the calls on the hardwire line i got two or three maybe four from the police department i got a couple of
calls from JCPNL even at 2 or 3:00 in the morning I was getting phone calls but none of my neighbors were getting those phone calls so somehow someway the police department needs to get cell phone numbers into their system you sign up yourself right off of the the um the police department website people have to
sign up themselves yeah so you go on to the about us under the lacy pd.org you hit the tab for OEM all the way at the bottom of that are the links to sign up yourself for the NIXLE and the code red and all of that but it's only as good as
when the cell towers are up we had some spotty cell tower coverage during this event too so you are correct we've all transferred to this in our lives and you forget that sometimes if that cell tower is not working or you have a a company that's not as sophisticated as let's say
AT&T or sometimes it's spotty in town with the Xfinity service as crappy as it is I'm going to say crappy they know it um our bill had gone skyhigh we are now getting services AT&T Direct TV without a dish because they now have an internet box i went back to the copper service
for Verizon $37 a month worth every penny and my son is only getting internet now from Xfinity as a new customer with a lockedin price i advocate for anybody tell Xfinity to go to hell if you can um because the bill was just Yes real and now we have three
bills from three different companies with more reliable service not the same fee and less less than what we were paying to Xfinity xfinity needs to go but I don't know how you go about bringing in a competitor for that well they have a 25-year contract and the competitor the competitor has to come to
us and the problem with bringing in a competitor is they have to lay new lines they can't use and nobody wants to invest in that bios will not come anymore no they stopped at Tom's River and that's it we I've talked to them several times so when does the 25-year contract expire oh it's I think we're
only 10 years into it h because we've had it the whole 26 years we've been here well we be we'll be watching it in the nursing i'm sure with technology and changes in technology the way it's moving so fast there's going to be something else out there that won't require um the lines you know you're
going to feed it off of a satellite or something like that so we're going to see these things change that's how I think this TV service works you won't even have cell phones it' be a computer chip in your head we got a little tiny box they're going to give you a shot the AT&T box is only like 2 by 3 in big you put on the back of your TV and bang you
have t TV service it was amazing so yeah whatever we can do to get the the police department to just tell people to um Yeah they did that in a few of the messages that they put out um to sign up to sign Yeah to to people that were questioning how come we don't get anything we don't get the phone calls we
guys you got to sign up i mean we can't go door to door and get all the But I'm glad you're mentioning it now because people will watch this sign up for emergency service calls please it's important y Thank you thank you any other comments
i'm not even timing it only three things uh Richard Bidnik Lacy Citizens first um not to reiterate what everybody else has said but I'm going to thank God because if the wind hadn't changed things would be entirely different and that is out of
all of our hands so not to reiterate the praise of all the other people who did on the the ground work we need to be thankful to the man upstairs i said that too oh God i mean I sat literally at my neighbor's house down on the lake and we
watched oh you can see it right oh yeah and all the cars that were lined up at night like trying to get out and you could see the color of the sky right and we were just wondering what was going to happen like we were up all night long it took me an hour to get home from here that night and what time did you leave i
left sometime I got called to go set up a shelter but I was not appropriately dressed to go run a shelter i had heels on so I had to get home so I left somewhere probably around 5 5:15 and it took me an hour to get home yeah it was crazy yeah there was no And that was
early me leaving early that day but yeah it was ridiculous you remember the movie Armageddon yes that's what it reminded me of exactly on Route 9 that's the way it felt yeah it was kind of really scary it really I said if my house goes I'm leaving i think that's what the people I
was with said the same thing it was like we're leaving i jumped that lake that would have been pretty scary if it came that would have well we were talking about jumping in the lake because we weren't going to leave so we said well if we jump in the lake you know we've got the water there we're protected right okay so on another note I want to
thank the members of the committee and Veronica and her husband who all came to the meeting at the school that night um we were older I think um I'm the only one that was yeah she had a previous appointment okay okay so I thank you all
for coming and taking heed to my calls to pay attention to what's going on i don't like there were a lot of things that happened at that meeting the students being used that's the way I look at it um there were people who were taxpayers who could not get a seat um and this happened in the meeting the
next night in favor of students and I mean the people who pay the taxes are the one that support the schools so they should be able to hear all the information that's going on with all of that so uh yeah it's a big problem um the information that I'm getting is
there is no plan i'm just telling you this right now there is no plan they're waiting for I guess some kind of uh interaction from the county um I don't I I'm not believing a lot of the information that we're getting so I'm just going to leave it at that it's just
chaos as far as I'm concerned and um please stay involved because gosh if our taxes go up by 29% which is certain things you won't have a town to be looking after no many of us won't be staying here if
that were to happen so we I mean you guys need to get more involved and make sure that that doesn't happen that's the point that I'm trying to make uh my other question is on the budget um Veronica can you tell me with the tax increase what the amount of money that you're taking in from the uh rateayers
here in Lacy Township what the actual dollar difference is from last year linda do you can you answer that question for me please from year to year is 1,46,000 1,46,000 okay thank you very much and again thanks thank you thank you
anything else come on i just repeat everything that everybody else has said linda Miller Cork River um I do want you to know that I was one of those persons that I didn't know if I was supposed to evacuate um it's good to
have people outside of town that can call you on the phone and tell you what's happening in your own house um so I was thankful for that um I live on Glenn Oak and my back property is Sweetwood and
so to look out my back window or stand on my back street it looked like the fire was just even on this side of the parkway knowing it wasn't because there's houses right there but it was unnerving for sure and I do thank
everybody for what they did and um and thank you God that we're all good but and also thank you for coming to the school board meeting um it's thankful to see everybody there and um I think that's all I have to say right now but thank you thank you very much thank you
anything else seeing none I close the floor motion to make a motion to close the floor second second all in favor i anything else nope motion no we're good we're journing adjourning we're adjourning adjourning motion to adjurnn
family move it make a motion to close the floor we did we did motion second motion to favor motion to adjourn i I facilitate