good evening everyone and welcome to our township meeting i'll read the statement we'll rise for a pledge of allegiance adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with the open public meetings act pursuant to public laws 1975 said notice was advertised in the Asbury Park Press and the beacon and was
posted on the bulletin board showing the time and place of the meeting i pledge algiance 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 this evening proclamation honoring Peter Miles for his contributions to the Lacy Township Youth Athletic Association mr miles would you just stand up pop so
they can you can they know what you mean we know it's you we know just stand right there so we can see you there we go i'll write a proclamation and each of us uh will have uh time to make comments and take pictures so thank you for the
time whereas Peter Miles and his family became residents of Lacy Township in 1967 when the township was home to only 5,000 residents and whereas Peter's deeprooted love for community and sports strengthened by his close relationship
with his brother-in-law Terry Stewart led him to volunteer with the Lacy Township Youth Athletic Association in the early 70s and whereas upon retirement of then director Dan Mirs around 72 or 73 Peter Miles stepped into
the leadership role at the LT YAA and immediately began shaping the future of youth athletics in Lacy Township and whereas recognizing a gap in opportunity for younger athletes Peter worked with fellow officers including his good friend Bill Hebrew to establish
the township's first LTAA minor league boys baseball creating space for boys under traditional little league age to participate learn and grow the game of baseball and whereas upon receiving a call from a township resident asking if
there was an athletic opportunities for girls Peter again acted decisively rallying the support for his officers to create the very first LT YA girls softball league thus ensuring that
young women of Lacy also had a place to play compete and thrive and whereas Peter recognized the growing demand for safe and accessible fields for both boys and girls to play and partnered with then mayor Jim McNal to secure two
additional fields be fields behind the current town hall and whereas as participation in the leagues continued to grow Peter again took initiative to seek further expansion working with Mayor McN to successfully
petition the JC JCPNL for a land donation of approximately 15 acres which ultimately became known as Cloon Park a centerpiece for youth athletics in Lacy Township to this day and whereas the
work and vision of Peter Miles helped lay the foundation for a thriving inclusive and communitydriven youth sports program that continues to serve generations of Lacy families creating lifelong memories and friendships for countless children now therefore be it
proclaimed that the mayor and committee of Lacy Township do hereby recognize and honor Peter Miles for his tireless efforts selfless selfless leadership and pioneering spirit in the establishment and growth of both the LTYAA minor
league boys baseball and the LTAA girls softball league and extend heartfelt gratitude for the legacy legacy he has left in the hearts and fields of Lacy Township congratulations
Don't pick her up you'll hurt yourself hi so some comments uh this evening and people like you that were on the committee at that time and the town's
people and the sponsors and the umpires and the coaches and a lot of luck started something that the township needed and it has led to the two other fine parks
that you have now some of the best technology that's right great thank you thank you thank you committee women Juliana thank you may I appreciate that Mr miles Pop as I know you um it's a proud moment here in Lacy
giving this to you because you know what you well deserve it it's people like you that helped grow this town the way it is and we we really really appreciate it and it's so nice that our new president well she's not new she's been there for years now too herself Christine Repetti
is here and she wanted to meet you and talk to you too so I'm so glad she could make it and it's an honor it really is an honor for all of us thank you so much and your lovely family and friends are all here to support you it's a great thing Bob it really is thank you thank
you deputy Mayor Kenn thank you Mr miles um we just want to thank you for all your you know effort and that you put into all these organizations um there's a lot of history in that proclamation and a lot of old names uh that even I know of um so just really want to thank you for putting the time in and uh working with
our youth thank you committee man Laray first want to start with as he was reading the proclamation it was kind of sending chills through my body because when you a family that's grown up here in town and you start listening to many of these names and these fine
individuals that like uh Peggy Sue said you know help develop and make our programs and parks what they are today and the the sad part is many of them aren't with us today but it made me even go back to
playing little league in the late 60s and early 70s going off and you start thinking back and you're like "Wow." Mhm and but with all the youth athletics and everything if it wasn't for all you people and yourself donating your time
volunteering I mean that's one of the things that's given this town the great opportunities it has of having so many programs so many successful programs and there's not a proclamation big enough or long enough to thank you for all that
you have done for this community and I also want to thank you for my kids who are both athletes in this town and they prospered greatly by the efforts of those that beca worked with you and before you so thank you wonderful thank you
i I'll close comment tonight with uh saying that I I've been fortunate enough to be put here by the people this is my 12th year and when you're elected you see a lot of bronze uh emblems and plaques and you go to a lot of ribbon cutting ceremonies and things like that
but I never met a man who was responsible for one of our parks and to think about how many kids have enjoyed a day in the last 55 years um that is kind of makes a little
monument or a bronze plaque pale in comparison i had no idea about that i'm a little embarrassed that I didn't know i try to think I know history of our town but I only came online in 1968 so I apologize for that but to to have I
can't think of a greater I mean people move here for our parks gilly Park Hebrew Park i mean some of these are the diamonds of our Bayfront Park Bamber but to to see you when we throw out the
first pitch for little league this Saturday rain or shine we're going to do it and then we're going to um throw out the first pitch for our ladies as well because we want to do that for both the boys and the girls but you you started a park that's that's something that's some type
of legacy and I would take that before any plaque or any monument or anything else so God bless you and it's an honor to meet you i've never met you and thank you for being here [Applause] you're going to go down and take some pictures yes good i do have to say they
have deep family roots here in town though because both um Mr miles's daughter and son both teach t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t at our schools and um stayed in our community and she's now retired um so they do have a love for the community is always committed to our community so they've been here a long time thank you long
time long time yes Stewart terry Stewart was here but that's Nancy Stewart yep the train whistle used to wake me up in the morning coming out of the power
plant every day over here can you get in Heather you want to get over here babe you're right hey sweetheart come right here sweetheart it's kind of weird let's get that over to us for our Facebook page
thank you Peggy send it over thank you again in the committee thank you you guys man incredible mr mayor if there's one other person she's standing up i want to acknowledge that's in the audience nancy thank you come up here for a
minute as they say everybody's got a partner in crime and Terry Stewart was one of the first ones that was mentioned tonight that worked with Peter terry's no longer with us he wasn't only a big part of everything Peter was in he also with the
high school at the same token and I know the amount of time that you had to give up to support all that your family had devoted for this and I know there's a lot of family here but I've seen you in the audience and it's nice that you came
out tonight that was really nice honor thank you okay at this time I'd uh offer a polite exit to our guests here which is probably and they're going to take it justina I will okay good all right take
care guys bye now see you later wasn't the shirt a little whiter later i'm sure it was i'm sure it was you helped grand great grandpa thank you Pete thank you Air Pop
i also survived 25 years of bus driving yes you did yes he did yes you did you almost matched our dad thank you 29 26 26 26 with no sick days a I wonder where you got from i wonder
where you get that from well actually yeah okay item number two this evening close those doors possibly john can you close those doors for me thank you thank you mayor thank you thank you committee
item number two toll list removal hearing Lacy used auto and I will defer to our township attorney Senator Connors uh thank you mayor uh mayor the governing body received a request uh by the chief of police to remove Lacy used auto parts from the Lacy Township
rotating list of towing contractors in accordance with the provisions of chapter 309 of the township code which was adopted pursuant to NJSA 4048- 2.49 um your counter code specifically
uh subsection 309- 9 uh subchapter F provides chief of police shall also maintain a record of the regular response of records to police calls and any complaints from vehicle owners test for improper service or charges the chief of police may request contractor
removal from the rotating list pursuant to subsection G below uh Lacy used Auto Parts is entitled to be heard on this matter in accordance with the provisions of subchapter 309- 9G which provides upon written notice a
towing contractor may be removed from the rotating list by resolution of the township committee if after an opportunity to be heard performances determined to be unreliable or inadequate or in violation of this chapter or after close the state of New Jersey
you have in your packet there are three items uh as a matter of procedural history uh proper notice was provided to the uh contractor involved by letter dated uh February 21 2025 originally the hearing was
scheduled for March 13 in which case the contractor requested be deferred as his unavailability at that particular time and it has been moved to uh this evening there are three documents in in your packet as I had mentioned one is a request for removal by Chief Kenny dated
March 28 2025 which I've marked as P1 for identification a notice of hearing dated February 21 2025 which I've marked as P2 and a letter from Lacy used Auto Parts dated March 18 2025 which I've
marked as P3 now for the purposes of a hearing what we'll have is Chief Kenny uh provide testimony to the township committee uh in support of his letter uh which I've noted is P1 and the governing body would have an opportunity to ask
any questions of Chief Kenny at that time if Mr caputo here yes Mr capito you would have an opportunity to ask questions of Chief Kenny after he um speaks to the township committee if you have any questions of any of the information that he's provided to the
township committee i would also if you can come forward sir I'll provide you with copies of the letters that I referred to that are in the governing body's packet uh this evening two of which you already have when you're the author of and the other was the notice uh the other letter is of
course from Chief Kenny as to the reasons why he's requested removal after the conclusion of that uh Mr caputo you have an opportunity to address the governing body uh to elaborate as to why you feel that a removal uh should not be sustained uh by the township governing
body in which case the governing body if they have any questions may ask any questions at the conclusion of which a decision will have to be made by the governing body uh at that time uh Chief Kenny if you're available to speak before the governing body
I'd only ask that you raise your hand do you swear the testimony about to give is the truth the whole truth nothing but the truth yes okay you're Chief Kenny i am Chief Christopher Kenny and under the ordinance you're required to keep a rotating towing list is that correct that is correct and you're the author of
a letter dated March [Music] 28 which I've identified as P1 is that correct that is correct so you're familiar you're the author of that letter yes okay you may proceed thank you all right i didn't bring uh any
discovery only i didn't know so it was brought to our attention over we're talking in period of 2023 2024 uh by our dispatchers we maintain that rotating um tow list uh and it's specified in here by ordinance we're only allowed to have uh a certain amount
of towing contractors uh that have to abide by with chapter 309 of the township ordinance they have to comply with certain rules of that ordinance maintain uh at least two trow trucks uh in working order and they're required to
answer the phone when we call so over that period of 2023 our dispatchers are the ones that receive those phone calls uh anytime a tow service is needed um where a um a specific contractor is not
requested by the person who needs that toe so we have a motor vehicle accident in town uh and nobody requests a certain tow contractor we just call um the rotate you know the next person on the rotating call list for the uh towing
contractors so when that happens they just go in order um next one up our our dispatchers our public safety telecommunicators will call the contractor and you know as the ordinance says they should answer the phone so over the years 2023 2024 uh very
sporadic in which they would answer so if you uh in the report there's um so I'll just read from this um you know on February 21st 20 uh 2025
I submitted a request to your office for the removal of lease used auto from the lease township rotating list of tone contractors this was in response to repeated violations of chapter 309 of the Lacy Township Municipal Code over an extensive period of time lisa used auto failed to answer the phone
approximately 181 times from 2020 through 2024 in that same time they only accepted uh the call for service approximately 51 times and refused the call for service 70 times and um we have that documentation that's been attached that is how we document it so our like I
said in our communication center they just go down the list they handwrite it um they designate whether they uh accept the decline or not answer na on there is is not answer so with that um sometimes they've
gotten better over the years they're a local uh business they're one of the local tow companies so we give them the benefit of the doubt um and then they would drop off again and that would be brought to our attention um over I guess a period of I think in 2024 Lieutenant
John McKe reached out to him and they said they're they're trying to get the tow trucks up and running um to paraphrase and then uh Lieutenant Daryl Nick in 2025 uh because it was brought to his attention he took over um the tow list uh the list of towing contractors
it was brought to his attention he reached out and they indicated that um you know they were getting one tow truck up and running at this point so um in pretty much in conclusion unless there's specific questions they've been
very sporadic over the years in responding and answering our phone calls and actually going out and towing vehicles um which is detrimental to the operation of the police department because time is of the essence our dispatchers usually work alone a lot of the times they don't have time to call
somebody who's not going to answer and then uh the other part of the ordinance is they're required to have two tow trucks and my understanding they only have one um I said any questions pretty well documented so Mr caputo do you have any questions or
anything you heard yeah um I I did I did have some issues lately microphone I know that this is I'm going to be as informal as possible uh this is an opportunity to ask questions of Chief
Kennedy with regard to the information he's provided to the governing body you will have an opportunity to state whatever you want to the governing body to make your case okay so if there's something that Chief Kenny said that you feel is not correct or you think needs to be embellished you can ask him those
questions at this time okay chief Kenny yes i um the one call to from the dispatchers to one of my um personnel okay but did move on and he
was still getting the calls and I did give him a different phone number to contact someone else and he did call me a couple times saying that he was still getting calls uh I so what what I can say is the way it
comes into our dispatch you know that's the way we document it so whether you know we get a no answer or if it's a decline we just write no you know not accepted um but as far as I'd have to bring each dispatcher in and ask them on
this date was it a no answer or they can recall that right unless the phone number was mixed up i can't attest to that if they were provided with a with a different phone number I I cannot attest to that okay Mr poo while you Why don't you can
you remain standing there for a minute thank you anyone have any questions of the chief no uh I actually just got one here because I seen a couple dates how long have have they been running with just one truck um two years and I just purchased
another truck two months ago so you've been running two years basically not the past two years you weren't able to fulfill the requirements in this yes because you're down a truck i was down a truck i asked to be taken
off for that time period last year and was he off it then yeah as documented in the sheets they he was taken off for for a period of time and then brought back up and you know in their defense they they did answer some calls but it's just the inconsistency is
is the difficult part um the rotating call list the tow list I should say i apologize but any tow list you're limiting the amount of contractors you have so it's unfair to anybody else who's wants to get onto that tow list which is the re the reason i have a
question if I could so you had documented 49 times in 2024 uh that there was this company was unavailable um so what was the endpoint communication from Mr caputo back to our
police dispatchers was there communication as to why don't say anything yet Mr caputo it's not something at the the management end that you know we're we're monitoring constantly you know we rely on the on the dispatchers to um take those phone
calls um they're the ones who are making you know the the contact to the to the contractors um lease Used Auto you know has been on the tow list since pretty much I've been a police officer so we give them the benefit of the doubt i'm sure the dispatchers did that they waited you
know was crossed off until they received a phone call we don't have a protocol in place where they come to us and say "Hey just so you know you know Lacy used auto is now back you know on the tow list." We we truly leave it up up to them um
we're not monitoring it um you know each and every day it's just brought to our attention so we did at the management level we didn't take the phone call but it would be in at the communications level yes mike I understand the uh equipment issue mhm
can you refrain from asking Mr caputo questions at this point just ask the chief just the chief right now just the chief no I don't have one for you he doesn't have anything for you no no other questions okay thanks you've just hang there for a minute i could mr caputo you
swear testimony you're about to give is the truth the whole truth no truth yes okay so Mr caputo you heard testimony of the chief um I provided you a document with regard to the chief's uh recordkeeping and police department is there anything you wish to provide to
the governing body um yes I I did serve for over 35 years um we did have an issue in the past year and a half i believe most of it was after
hours and I have rectified that bought another tow truck and I would like the chance to be reinstated okay during the time that I'm going to ask you a few questions during the time that you you always had two tow trucks
but they were just not operable is that correct wasn't during the time that you had two tow trucks what would explain the reason why you had so many non-answers i I could say that most of it was after hours
and but you're required to provide an answer 247 after hours had left and that's where a little bit so it was not only the equipment but the personnel as well yes okay so your testimony to the governing body is that you acquired another tow truck you have two operating
tow trucks but what about the personnel that's involved personnel and you had the personnel and when did you acquire the appropriate amount of personnel um six months ago okay anybody have any
Well thank you because you you asked my question so that was good well 6 months ago we would have been into 2024 and that's when there was 2024 there was 49 unavailable i I didn't have the equipment at that time right he had the personnel but I didn't have the the two
records i had one and one was being fixed oh and then I just purchased one but The the biggest thing I see now you got the equipment which is great i got the equipment the one thing as we all know when it comes to police towing
accidents and anything else like that there is an urgency on it and not after hours being a problem because people don't decide to have accidents from 8 to 5 and then afterwards uh the roads are safe and
everybody drives properly uh what is your answer to this board on how you fixed so you have 20 247 availability to answer calls the
person I hired lives in town but he can't take the truck home and put it at his house okay yes run into that other problem we have that endlessly we'll run into the other problem i know that all right just so you know that yes
and he's got the help now and the truck now I guess so now you got the help and you got the trucks any other ideas any other questions for Mr caputo how many other companies do we have five five i think we're This is six right because I think our ordinance limits it
to six if I'm not mistaken yes is there a call tree as to who gets first at bite at the apple it's a rotate to us do you have many applicants for the like we might have one additional possibly possibly i'm not sure if there's anybody
right now well how long have you been dealing with Lacy Township Mr caputo how long um 1985 and I was in Bamber Lake for 10 years and now I'm on Route 9 next to Walmart
right for 32 years yeah good chief how many years has this been an issue that you're aware of i believe only about two years okay you know and and like I said it's not that they never respond it's just been very sporadic i
believe it was the after hours as well but you know not answering phones that's what I think if I can I make a suggestion if it's Am I allowed to do that sure okay my suggestion would be is that we we keep him on the list give him the to the rest of the year and monitor
how things go and then make a decision i don't know how that works for the chief well I I would there's one or two ways that I think might be appropriate one is to sustain the request of Chief Kenny to remove him from the tow list and make him reapply okay in which case that in
accordance with the ordinance he would have to provide all the new information with regard to the new vehicle as well as anyone else that personnel that you have and the chief can review all of that to determine whether he qualifies under the ordinance if that's the case
then we would do a resolution putting him on the list in which case the governing body can monitor it at that point right um I think if you as you suggested but I think there's new equipment involved that has to be they has to provide all of the in relevant
information and so forth and I didn't know whether there are any attached fees and so forth that are involved so that's reasonable do you understand Mr you remember what I said yes that you would be removed from the list this evening as they pass a resolution to do
so but you can reapply and you would reapply having your new equipments and have have to that reviewed by the chief to make sure it's compatible with the requirements of the ordinance and both these do we excuse me I just want to ask the attorney question does
it have to be done that way i it doesn't have to be done that way okay i'm just suggesting that way because there may be information the chief you're saying don't remove him perhaps right is on a list but maybe his equipment doesn't qualify maybe and I don't know whe the
chief has had an opportunity to do that now you can defer judgment having had the hearing um you know to another meeting but it I don't want to make it more difficult but I just want to make sure that we're not here again right do inspect you know doing this again you
I don't think anybody does it's reasonable for the relication to make sure that the chief is satisfied not only with the plan for calls uh being answered but that he can put his eyes on the equipment and it's a safety issue involved i mean not that you are not a safe operator and we know you have a
long reputation in our town but this is reasonable and then you can reapply and we'll review it stephen I would tend to agree with that that seems reasonable oh I agree with that okay yes that's fine we're going to review it i mean
we're not looking to exclude anybody we just need to know that the chief has his eyes on it that's the advice of council and I think that's reasonable and I know how hard it is for the chief or anybody else to come up before us or
even approach a longtime business person with this to start with it's not easy to do because the chief like some of us has been here forever we we don't only know persons as as a business but also as a person so um I think this is a real
reasonable way to uh handle this one okay so so as long as the chief's comfortable with it too just absolutely yes we just to go back over what exactly we're doing so I'm clear so
well the ordinance provides that you know if after a hearing you wish to remove him from the list has to be done by resolution of the governing body okay we would do that this evening removing from the list but he's entitled to
reapply he would reapply with all of the new information regarding his equipment and personnel to the satisfaction of the chief in which case then he would be put back on the the the tow list are we in the process of applications right now
right with everybody yes i thought we right because of the change the renewal we're in the renewal process right now we're in the renewal process right now so I just want to Okay motion so he doesn't miss any you're not missing anything by by a
cycle just like you have to reapply but reapply now because all the other ones have to reapply they're in the same process everybody's reapplying okay okay motion please then I have a resolution attached lacy county vote state New Jersey removing lacy use auto pars from the lacy tantrum of rotating
list of towing contractors in accordance with chapter 309 of the tantric code of tantal lacy entitled towing and storage move it second Mr kenn yes mr laray yes mrs juliano yes mayor Girel yes
then reapply thank you Mr chief thank you chief else okay motion to adjurnn move it second i township of Lacy Township meeting April
10th 2025 i'll read the statement we'll salute the flag and have a moment of silence adequate notice of this meeting has been given in accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act pursuant to public laws in 1975 said notice was advertised in the Aspbury Park Press in the beacon was posted on the bulletin
pulletin board showing the time and place of the meeting we'll salute the flag 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 first reading of ordinance 2025-08 amending Chapter 261 entitled parks an ordinance of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey amending and supplementing chapter 261 of the township code of the township of
Lake Titled Parks um the changes that are being made here is a slight increase um in the recreation plan fee from $175 to $200 um that's just to keep up with minimum wage increases move it second mrs juliana yes mr kennis yes mr ray yes
mayor Kola yes item number two second reading of ordinance 2025-06 vacating a portion of Plumstead Avenue the ordinance of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean City New Jersey vacating all of the right title and interest of the township of Lacy
and this is to the adjoining property owner of 720 Lacy Road and a second reading open the floor for public comment seeing none motion to close the floor second all favor i motion on the ordinance move second mrs juliano yes mr
kennes yes mr lay yes mayor Gola yes item number three resolution 2025-133 supporting S 3964 and A5103 in support of the Smaller Modular Energy Incentive Act resolution of the
Township of Lacy County of Ocean State New Jersey supporting Senate Bill S964 and Assembly Bill A5103 in support of the small modular energy incentive act uh this is to promote the use of small modular nuclear reactors introduced uh in the Senate by Senator Armado and in
the assembly by Senator Rump and Meer move it second mr kenned yes mr yes mrs juliana yes mayor Kurt yes item number four resolution 2025-134 authorizing a memorandum of understanding with the state of New
Jersey for dredging and material placement resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey authorizes the execution of a memorandum of understanding with the state of New Jersey for dredging and material placing this is for the um South Creek dredging
site second Mrs juliano yes mr kenner yes m yes mayor yes it number five resolution 2025-135 awarding contract to provide health reimbursement account services resolution of the township of Lacy
County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to ED employee solutions LLC DBA as the difference card to provide health reimbursement account services for the township lacy employee benefits program um this type of plan that employees would switch to for this
type of service um would be a benefit to the town as it would decrease the township's um spending on health move it second mr juliano got it mr penn yes mr la yes and for those that are interested in this the uh county has also gone to
this because the through the hope is through the years a lot of people sign on for it because that definitely helps bring the cost of health care to the resident uh to the township employees down thank you Mayor Khal yes item number six
resolution 2025-136 awarding a contract for purchase of a vehicle for the police department a Jeep resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract for the purchase of a 2025 Jeep Grand Cherokee to Kurt Rich Fleet Services
this is in the amount of $42,97 move it second Mr lay yes mr kenn yes mrs juliano yes mayor Karuto yes item number six resolution 2025-136 excuse me 137 awarding a contract for the purchase of vehicles
for the police department Ford resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract for two 2025 Ford utility interceptor vehicles to Winter Ford of Cherry Hill this is for two vehicles for the police department uh total cost is
$89,534 i should mention the resolution that was just read and the next couple are all resolutions for purchasing under our approved capital budget and bond move it second mr juliana yes mr pennis yes mr la yes
mayor Kel yes item number eight resolution 2025-138 awarding a contract for the purchase of computer equipment for police vehicles resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to Dell Technologies for computer equipment for the police department this is
computer equipment for the two new um patrol vehicles that we will be purchasing and this is in the amount of $5,77310 move it second mr juliano yes mr kennet yes mr ray yes mayor Herola yes item number nine resolution 2025-139 awarding a contract for the
purchase of antenna radar systems for police vehicles resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to Stalker Radar in care of Applied Concepts Incorporated for two DSR1 antenna radar systems this is again for those two new vehicles and this is in
the amount of $4,428 move it second mr juliano yes mr kennis yes mr rice yes mayor yes i'm number 10 resolution 2025-140 awarding a contract contract for the purchase of e ticket printers
for police vehicles resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean City New Jersey awarding a contract to Motorola Solutions Incorporated to repair of wireless communications and electronics for the purchase of e printers and readers for the new police vehicles this is in the amount of $4,73.30
move it second Mrs juliano yes mr kenneth yes mr lay yes mayor KTL yes i'm number 11 resolution 2025-141 awarding a contract for the purchase of mobile radios for the police department resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean City New Jersey
awarding a contract to Motorola Solutions Incorporated in pair of wireless communications and electronics for mobile radios for the police department this is in the amount of $19,41021 move it second mrs juliano yes mr kennes
yes m yes mayor K yes item number 12 resolution 2025-142 awarding a contract for the purchase of portable radios for the police department resolution of the township county of Ocean City New Jersey awarding a contract to Motorola Solutions Incorporated in care of
wireless communications and electronics for portable radios for the police department this is in the amount of $20,38820 move it second please sorry second Mr kennon yes mr yes mr lay yes mayor K yes item
number 13 resolution 2025-143 awarding a contract for the purchase of a new computer server for the police department resolution of the township county of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract for the purchase of a new computer server for the police department this is in the
amount of $15,32349 move it second mrs juliano yes mr kenn yes mr yes mayor Ker yes item number 14 resolution 2025-144 awarding contract for the purchase and installation of overhead garage doors for the Lenoka Harbor
Volunteer Fire Company firehouse resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to New Jersey Overhead Door LLC for the purchase and installation of garage doors at the Lenoka Harbor Volunteer Fire Company this is in the amount of $71,44.50
move it second Mr lay yes mr kennon yes mr juliana yes mayor Kerto yes i'm number 15 resolution 2025-145 awarding contract for an ambulance remounting service resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract
to VCI Emergency Vehicle Specialists to provide one 2017 ambulance remount for the Lenova Harbor Emergency Medical Services this is in the amount of $199,255.3 move it second Mr juliano yes mr kenn yes mr
yes mayor K yes number 16 resolution 2025-146 awarding a contract for ambulance remounting services for the Lacy Emergency Medical Service resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to VCI Emergency
Vehicle Specialist to provide one 2017 ambulance remount for the Lacy Emergency Medical Services this is in the amount of $156,94929 move it second mrs juliano yes mr laay yes mr canis yes mayor Kerata yes and number 17 resolution
2025-147 awarding a contract for the purchase of a vehicle for the Department of Community Development resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State New Jersey awarding a contract for the purchase of one 2025 Ford Explorer Active this is for the inspectors in the Department of Community Development and
this is in the amount of $43,717 move it second Mr mr juliano yes mr kenn yes mr ray yes and I wanted to say it before all these vehicles when people have questions about it you have to go out to bid to people that hold the state contract for these vehicles so it's
pretty limited to where we get our prices from but it's not like you just shop around they got to have the state contract yes thank you Mayor Kto yes item number 18 resolution 2025-148 awarding a contract for the purchase and installation of security
cameras for Lacy Township facilities resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract for the purchase and installation of security cameras to gridless power and authorized vendor of Kerosoft for the Lacy Township facility this would include cameras in the
municipal building police department at the Whibbit the Department of Community Development the recreation building and the community center and this is in the amount of $142,73148 move it second mr juliano yes mr kennes yes mr laay yes mayor Kola yes item
number 19 resolution 2025-149 awarding a contract for roofing services for the Bamber Lake Firehouse Building resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State New Jersey awarding a contract to LR Watson Fun Roofing and Construction Incorporated for roof renovation for the Bamberlake
Firehouse Building this is in the amount of $33,550 move it second mr juliano yes mr kennes yes mr l yes mayor Kerato yes and number 20 resolution 2025-150 awarding a contract for the
purchase of an asphalt roller resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to Cherry Valley Tractor Sales for the purchase of an asphalt roller this is in the amount of $38,425.20 move it second
Mr la yes mr kennes yes mrs juliana yes mayor Keruto yes number 21 resolution 2025-151 awarding contract for the purchase of a surf rake resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract
to H Barber and Suns Incorporated for one surf rake 400HD under the HGAC contract for the Department of Public Works this is in the amount of $60,568 move it second mrs juliana yes mr kennes
yes mr laay yes mayor Kola yes m number 22 resolution 2025-152 awarding a contract for the purchase of a Ford F550 resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract for the purchase of
one 2025 or newer Ford F550 regular cab with steel dump body and snowplow system United Ford this is in the amount of $116,573 move it second mr ray yes mr kenner yes mrs juliano yes mayor Ker yes and number
23 resolution 2025-153 awarding a contract for the purchase of a Graco line stripper resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to Sherwin Williams for the purchase of a line striper machine for the Department of Public
Works this is in the amount of $9,399 move it move it second mr lay yes mr kenn yes mr juliano yes mayor Curt yes item number 24 resolution 2025-154 awarding a contract for the purchase of Toro landscaping equipment
resolution of the town of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey awarding a contract to Turf Equipment and Supply Company for the purchase of one Toro Workman GTX utility vehicle and two Toro Grandmaster 72,000 sorry 7200 lawnmowers
this is in the amount of $75,232.75 move it second mrs juliana yes mr kenneth yes mr laorray yes mayor Keruto yes item number 25 resolution 2025-155 authorizing the release of
performance guarantee for Lacy Christian Assembly resolution of the council for Lacy County of Ocean State New Jersey authorizing the release of a performance bond posted for block 2600 lot 1501 by Lacy Christian Assembly um they've decided to not um move on with this project and they've had this bond for
quite some time so they're asking for it to be released move it sir mrs juliana yes mr pennis yes mr on the right yes mayor yes item number 26 resolution 2025-156 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 kennis yes mr laay yes mayor Cer yes item number 27 resolution
2025-157 authorizing the payment of township bills resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean state of New Jersey authorizing the payment of township bills this is in the amount of 6,858,643.36 move it second mrs juliano yes mr kennes yes mr yes mary Kla yes and number 28
monthly report all righty amy you can take a sip of water now the municipal clerk's office for the month of March collected receipts in the amount of $9,63146 municipal court for the month of February collected receipts in the amount of $18,685.98 for the month of March road
opening permits were collecting the amount of $1,620 recycling commodity in the amount of $1,889 truck parking in the amount of $10,000 and for the municipal docks we've collected receipts so far in the amount of
$64,85 motion to accept the reports as read move it second all in favor i and number 29 mo motion to approve caucus meeting minutes from March 27th 2025 move it second all in favor i and number 30 motion to approve township meeting
minutes from March 27th 2025 move it second all in favor i item number 31 motion to approve regular membership in the Fork River Volunteer Fire Company for Casler Cortez Gabriella
Beiel and Robert Arian Jr move it second please yes second all in favor i One add-on this evening resolution 2025-159 resolution of the Township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey
awarding a contract for the purchase and installation of a new pavilion to Ben Schaffer Recreation Incorporated for Hebrew Park um this project was approved in our bond ordinance and this is in the amount of $292,614.84 move it second Mr laay yes mr kennis yes
mrs juliana yes mayor yes and before I defer to Deputy Mayor for his comments I want to make a formal announcement we've also notified all appropriate parties instead of May 8th at this time uh the township committee meeting will be May 7th so we're changing from the 8th to
the 7th at 6 p.m also the meeting next meeting August April 24th is at 3:00 in the afternoon and the next meeting April will be in 3 at 3 in the afternoon and the date one more time April 24th 24th
Committee comments please deputy Mayor Kennis thank you Mayor um last Friday the um um the mayor myself walked the uh I call it the Parker property um the subdivision we've had a number of residents at last meeting um you know
asking about the the the proposed peers and um we just sort of walked out there to confirm that they were doing what they were supposed to do as in terms of what the planning board approved um and they are they uh the finger peers that they are proposing is not a township
approval the the uh pier that is being bulkheaded right now is part of their original planning board approval and that's the pier that um the D mandates them to uh have public access so it has a public access pier that's currently being constructed or under constructed
or under construction that is open to the public um one of the other things that myself and Veronica have been working on for a long time and I've mentioned it at length at different meetings is our our our COA um requirements and we've myself and Veronica have been working very hard on
it to lower our affordable housing number not that affordable housing isn't important it is it's just that I we don't like how they do it at the state level and uh Veronica and I have so far been pretty good at at getting that number re reduced so far and uh my last
comment will be on this uh you know we've all been paying attention to the the school budget um we understand the challenges that they have um in in in their budgeting process and uh they have some hard decisions and I just wish them the best of luck and hopefully they do
the best they can for the taxpayers of Lacy Township and my final note is I just would like to wish Veronica Laray a very happy birthday devil belated it was this past Sunday so you on that one devil those are my comments fantabulous
thank you Committeewoman Juliana thank you Mayor that's so funny cuz I was going to put that in there even though she told us she didn't want to talk about it i don't like to talk about it anymore and I wasn't aware of it well um just again wanted to go back over of having Mr peter Miles here just
an institution of what this town was about and should still be about we're very fortunate to have the beautiful parks we have in this town and the people that set the roads for those parks meaning they they put it out there they hardworking parents and they did
the job to make sure our children in this town have always had a place to go play their sports have their activities gilly Park is packed all the time with kids cloon Park is always packed with some kind of sports going on we're very very fortunate we should always be grateful
for the wonderful things that we do have here in Lacy Township um we had 38 calls this month uh for both of our fire companies and just on a note about talking about the roof that's being put on on Bamber out there in can in case
anybody has a question about it um that is our building so it needs to it needed to be replaced it has not been done so that's what we're doing on the um firehouse out in Bamber to keep up with making sure it's ready willing and able to go whenever our gentlemen and ladies
go out there and do their job so other than that I always say thank you to our firemen because we couldn't do it without them and to of course our men in blue i'm always grateful for them too so thank you thank you Mayor thank you
Committee Laray thank you Mayor first of all I want to ask the town because I know everything that we there was a lot Amy had to go over with resolutions tonight for purchasing and it's all stuff that has been breously brought up in these
meetings during the budget but we need to move with speed because we got to buy all this stuff before the tariffs kick back in we're trying most of it's uh we are obligated to buy Americanade so most of it is Americanmade but all all kind
uh one uh they just announced that the next meeting's got to be moved so everybody's aware of it to us it's getting moved for a very very important reason the Ocean County uh Federation Federation of uh Republican Women
uh honor somebody every year and this year the woman of the year happens to be our former mayor Peggy Sue so that happened to be the same time as our meeting so you know we all would like to be there in honor of her so that's why
that meeting got pushed back and for no other reason thank you um Steve brought up the one thing I was going to bring up uh you know is that pier situation out there at Paradise Point um I was actually on the property today um
because I know we had received some uh calls because the bulkhead and barge was out there and like Steve just said this is the pier the dock that's being put out there for the mandated public access and
for anybody that is familiar out there if they're in the audience tonight myself being quite aware of these uh waterways in this area being a boater for almost 60 years here that pier is in a position where it
does not come near the channel in that branch of the Fork River it's in the main part of it coming down before it splits off and goes north and south which once it splits off into that Y that's when them other properties
uh that's where the issues start with whether there's peers or not but this one that's going out now that's mandated by the state is before that actually if you know our waterways and how shallow they are there's a natural buffer between the channel and that pier
and it's called the bottom it's very shallow there so no boat's going to be able to get near that pier and it's you the channel's very deep there the other thing I I did today too was I was down at the township docks cuz
we've been talking about this for a while they've been working on them all winter uh this is coldest winter we've had in years uh we've had some weather issues the past rain this past week they were due to be done the beginning of this month they're not too far behind
schedule amazingly even with a few hiccups uh they've done a fantastic job i mean in my lifetime it's the best it's ever looked down there uh one one half of it's done now the other half will be done I guess next year in the fall in
the fall but uh give you an idea how close they are they were just uh it's pretty much all the construction's done they're down to where they're finishing up some of the catwalks and trimming them the most of the electric's in they're waiting for some stuff there a good
portion of the water's in and they got a little bit of paving so that that project is pretty much uh coming to an end and when you see it if you're a voter it's another project that the town should be uh quite proud of
the other thing that Steve talked about is there's a there's always issues in towns little small some more personal to somebody than others and even though we're the governing
body the biggest issue I see right now facing this town is our school budget even though we don't have any control over it or say we need to be quite aware of it because no budget equals a $6.6 million
deficit there's no answers of what we could do to help them and yes there's different ideas of where you can tweak here and tweak there but the state under S2 has slowly
been cutting a lot of districts aid some been getting more the one thing I found my few months up here my years a long time ago on the school board and even since then I'm finding one common denominator that
gives us mo everybody probably the most headache and that word is the state the state this year with the size cut that they got and where it's put us there's no one-time fix the last couple
years been a one-time fix a couple weeks ago me and Tim and Veronica had met with the board and lays on this week when I got back from vacation I had the opportunity i went in and I asked to sit down with the business administrator and
superintendent the school board president because this is huge this is huge $6 million is no joke some districts got more money some districts got less it's the same story we all hear and we've
been hearing it for 30 some years but when you see that the state department of education has a policy book which they don't sometimes share there's no consistency in it ever which creates a whole different
type of things last night there was a special meeting to for the board to approve uh tenative budget now they did this I guess a month ago and they approved one now in that tenative budget they were
directed by the county business administrator to put in it's basically called a plug it was a land sale is what it was now this was instructed from the county
VA to many districts and it was the way it planned out it almost looks like it was a setup so you put that in you submit your budget you approve the tenative you submit it to them guess what the first thing they do they reject it because
they know this is not an accurate number so they pull it now they can reject your budget they don't have no answers for you they told you to put it in there but that's what they use to reject your budget
and the one thing nice about last night it's probably one of the best attended meetings I've seen in a long time and people on both sides of the aisle pro con whatever positive negative whatever very respectful very informative and a
lot of good questions from everybody and the state's answer you got to remember the Ocean County business administrator is a state employee not a county employee and their bottom line answer to the
districts like ours is basically they want you to tax yourself out of it which nobody's in favor of that because it's a substantial tax and I bring this to everybody's attention at
this meeting because the word's got to get out there we got to really work on fighting the state we haven't had a hell of a lot of success as we see and this is all around Ocean County a lot of other districts we're not in this alone it's just that the numbers vary i know a
lot of times people compare us to Southern Regional you got to remember Southern Regional good school district just like us but they got a lot of tuition towns and what that means is the towns
pay to go to their schools years ago we were part of that with Central but back in the late 70s early 80s that changed and the problem is even last night because you know you look at that because they got the whole LBI they
got where town so they got money coming in so if they get in trouble they just raise the tuition when you're not a regional system you don't have that opportunity and even looking at regionalization which it has some pros and has some
The thing is is the districts around us really they would need a good reason to join us as much as them so you got to have somebody that wants to and the most prominent towns to do that are already
tied up with Southern Regional i just need everybody to be aware of this because Steve said it right god bless him because this is a toughy 6 point it was 6.2 last night we
got told the actual number is $6.6 million because there was a little change in the uh piece on the uh educational side but that is a huge number and you're talking over 14 cents
14% on the school budget of a tax increase nobody but nobody wants it they didn't want to do last year's at 9.9 they definitely don't want to do this but we need to reach out to whoever we
can and that's the end of my comments tonight oh happy Easter that's Thank you thank you sir i'll sum up um paraphrase a lot of uh what my colleagues said here tonight um and just raise a warning flag because I think a
lot of what was said here tonight is the state's overreach and wanting control they see a floundering difficult school system financially not really in any other way and they want to offer help and for that help they want control they
want control of the curriculum they want control of who gets hired when a builder like Deputy Mayor Kennes uh wants to uh you know build something somewhere especially on the waterfront takes a long time to get that permit or a Caffer
permit sometimes for a subdivision it takes two years another form of control so the the overreach we talked 14 days ago tonight right at this time about the state uh with that Senate bill wanting control of our planning board they want
multifamily and not single family homes they want control the way they they handle this control is through taxes and through laws and sometimes it's legislated from the bench with liberal judges and this is a problem because
even if there's as many different folks are in front of me right right now or within earshot of my voice or eyeshadow of my face on TV we're going to have different opinions the only value you have to Trenton is your your wallet and your checkbook for you to write those
taxes out they believe that some some bureaucrat in Trenton from a faculty lounge in a in a in a college thinks they can think better than you they want to control you i believe that uh I speak freely because I'm unencumbered i'm the
leazison to the people i I feel very confident i can debate anyone at any time it's what I I like i relish that opportunity and I will tell you just be aware because at every corner it's not this is not a Republican or a Democrat
thing it's not an independent thing we I always say we have to protect our house our house are these zip codes they want control and the only thing they want from you is your tax revenue and it's very very unfortunate now to address
specific concerns of our residents because that's who we work for less than 24 hours after our meeting a couple of Thursdays ago Deputy Mayor Kenneth and I as he had said we walked Parker's Paradise we walked it down there with Casey Parker um I was assured through
research and our staff our great staff here in town hall that everything has been done the right way in addition Senator Amato less than a day later uh last week probably the Friday after the Thursday night meeting wrote a letter to Commissioner Laterret of the D um
expressing his his concerns uh again everything to this day has been done the right way down there um we have people that want to um lay lay claim and pay 7 to900,000 or over a million dollars for a house i think they should have that
right i welcome that type of investment in our town uh and that's uh something that will help all of us and our businesses and they're beautiful lots uh they're beautiful homes so that'll add value that's a value ad to our town so I will support that and not impede it
um lastly on very short notice last Saturday at 12:30 in the afternoon I spent about an hour and a half with about 40 residents of that area down there answering their concerns i availed my time and that's my job i'm not I'm not playing the martyr here um they were
they were nice they were wonderful they had legit concerns uh and I met with them uh and I offered them Senator Amato's letter it wasn't addressed to them but I wanted them to know I wanted to prove to them and earn their trust that this is what's being done on your
behalf as a township and part of our community so uh we did three things within 72 hours so we addressed that the right the right way um I want to thank everyone so many departments who were involved in the health fair at the high school last week
um I mean there was outreach from every type of part not only part of our community but the county as well um and it helped a lot of our kids and there were businesses represented there well um and funding pathways for people in need uh I want to
recognize there's a dude in the town his name is Joe D carlo he turns 100 tomorrow he's one of ours he's a Navy veteran and when I went to go meet with him today I was almost getting teared up the man I I never This is living history
living history on the wall is his gunboat that landed on Normandy Beach so it was long before I was born he was a 20-year-old person i believe it was 1942 he had all the documentation on his wall
guy's fresh spry chipper getting around decent gentleman respectful and I said "Sir you don't have to i'm nobody." The other may No I'm Listen I'm here in awe of you guys a hundred i I like to think I'm okay but I'm going to be dead a long
time before 100 comes so thank you Mr joe D carlo of Lacy Township New Jersey for fighting with us for fighting for us on Normandy Beach and living and in that picture on his wall were over a hundred uh other gentlemen and soldiers he's the
only one left oh wow so in total awe of him i was going to honor him this Saturday at the VFW but because I know I want and need to be there for our little league girls and softball I'm sorry little league boys and softball girls I wanted to make the time so I left early
today to meet with Mr d carlo and it was a it was an unbelievable honor um lastly I'll close with our summer camp we have such high value in our summer camp our recck department so I want to talk about one of these items here today on the on the uh the revenue
sheet because that's what it essentially was tonight our agenda uh was we're going from $175 to $200 so uh Jim and our wonderful recreation staff will take care of a child essentially it's part child care but there are activities for these kids
too i know because several years ago my daughter was one of the camp counselors and I know there's folks uh on this board who had children before my child was there uh so I know the value over there $200 for about 743 days if you do the math and then
break it down to eight hours it's it's uh less than a dollar uh so it's a real value Ed and I and I'm I know that the product is good now those kids each year we only go up $25 because each year not only do the do the does the cost of the
employee go up but now we have to have training on how to um you know deal with children uh that may have special learning challenges we have to pay a nurse somebody there that can administer meds or different types of diabetes med medications as needed so
um it's it's something we're proud of it's something we do right and I believe I'm not with certainty but I believe that's the lowest price point in the county um so I'm I'm really proud to offer that to people and I I say I and that's a mistake there is no I there's
five and there's great township attorneys who I admire and respect and who provides me good counsel and there's Amy and there's Veronica and I will say happy birthday to Veronica and I don't care what she she doesn't like it's her 23rd birthday and um I'm proud of her
proud of her because she's sharp and I work in my other capacity and I'll close with this i I work in a professional capacity at the county and I have occasion to talk to other um clerks administrators and I will tell you our
administrator is held in such high regard when I'm on the phone with other people as uh from different municipalities so um this somebody that works tirelessly loves Lacy Township has Lacy Township going through her veins and there's nothing she doesn't know i mean I think I'm a sharp guy every time
I talk there's nothing she doesn't know so thank you for being there thank you Pete and you're you're good you're great people and so is Amy and uh I was a little long-winded but I had to be because it was important so I'd like to open the floor now for public comment pete can I just say something about
something you said yes sir i I just Pete when he's talking about recreation as you noticed I like to go back in history a little bit of course I was watching Officer Hutman over there too who grew up with my daughters at at my house but Pete was just talking about
the wonderful recreation programs that we do provide and uh yes this week's my sister's birthday and she knows I always wish her happy birthday but she is I'm not a significant number but believe it or not
she's one of the products of the early years in her teens that's when she started with Lacy Town lacy Township in the recreation department so talk about somebody that's grown up from the system she couldn't even drive when she started with Lacy Town no I took my bicycle and
now she's driving the town so happy birthday sis thanks and yes for you that are wondering she is the older one oh yeah don't believe that 23 mr bransport welcome good evening committee council and staff joe
Bransford from Fork River uh a couple of meetings ago I think Amy announced that uh the your preliminary township budget would be $91 on $300,000 of assessed value is that still holding
and when does that final vote take place april 24th at 3 p.m great uh Bob mentioned last night uh we're looking at probably a 14% increase on the on the school budget you're going to
be at 5.68 so whatever you can do to sharper in your pencil uh someone needs to do that uh there are differences of opinion uh my view is it's it's going to be that there's no other money coming our way and uh this is a battle with the
state the state's got to solve this problem but it's not going to be solved for this this school budget so the county thank God is zero this year i haven't seen the library and and those subsets but the county is going to be a 0% increase but the lion share of this
budget to a taxpayer we're going to end up paying over 10% increase this year when you put it all together this the state's happy that you you can do that they're going to take from you and give to other districts that's exactly what they do there's no way to sugarcoat it
so thank you for your efforts uh your budgets have typically been very sensible over the years and I hope uh the 5.68 can hold or even be diminished slightly thank you thank you other
comments yes sir two excuse me Richard Bidnik Lacy Citizens um for responsible government two things I want to talk about tonight uh one first of all we have a serious issue with the school it's beyond the
board's my opinion ability to manage partly because of individuals who sit on that body and because it's beyond I think their wherewithal to deal with the issues that are at hand last night because of the ineptitude that I see or
the lack of leadership I did a presentation where I went on behalf of the taxpayers of Lacy Township and I asked the teachers union and the staff to give up a 10% to take a 10% cut in their salary for one year so that we
could make it through this budget which would cover the amount that we need to do now Veronica question I have for you during the financial crisis I was told by a an employee of the town that some employees actually had to take a 25% cut in their salary is that correct in 2010
we had an issue with a former CFO and something that she did in the budget which caused us to have a shortfall all municipal employees with the exception of the police because they're exempt from it because they're essential personnel um had to take furlow days so it was about a 12% cut that all employees had to take and the preceding
contracts were zeros for three years okay very good so what I was presenting last night was not out of line asking for a one time in a crisis because we are in a serious financial crisis um Bob was there at the meeting i have to say
this and the people who are here from the audience will back up what I said the union was disrespectful they literally laughed at me i had to call them out and say how disrespectful and this is what is teaching our children and I'm sorry to say this there has to
be a public debate and there needs to be input from the public and last night's meeting was not that opportunity we could not really directly ask questions and get answers this is not the way a government body works during a financial crisis we want accountability and there
isn't any accountability now you as our government leaders need to show some leadership right now and I'm imploring you to step out of your element because you didn't do this last year during the 9.9% increase you did not do this during
the referendum you need to because a 14.5% tax increase is absolutely impossible and I mean you want to have a revolution in Lacy Township well we will have it if that's the case and the idea that the people who are benefiting from
all of this tax increase are unwilling to go halfway with the taxpayers is really a serious problem and again the sense of entitlement and I really do have a problem with these unions because that is exactly what we're dealing with
a sense of entitlement like screw you they laughed they literally laughed when I presented the 10% cut of doing this for one year mr bick yes straight up what would you have us do they are elected body just let me let me explain to you what I
feel you should do okay as our mayor and all of you you need to sit down all of you with that body that is in control and say you have to get this under control there's no ifands or buts about it you need to represent us as the
taxpayers because the government look the school board doesn't feel like it's it's accountable to to anyone i mean we come here I feel like we have some accountability i hope you understand we actually have a dialogue with you there is no dialogue at these meetings it's
like an oligarchy sitting up there saying "We're going to just throw this tax amount on you and you don't have any say about it and this cannot continue." And I am serious about this we are going to have a serious problem in this town if this is not handled properly now they
can do a three and a half% increase and that is all that I will support and I'm telling everybody from my group that's all we will support they can do that they can do 2% and one and a half for their health waiver do you realize I checked out the health plan for the teachers for this coming year if you're
on the family plan it's $53,000 we know that there are people in this town who do not have any health insurance and I am speaking for the people who don't who don't who are on uh who are living below the poverty level for people who may lose their homes i
mean this this we just can't I need you to really step up to the plate at this time and step out of this element and take a stand we have to we have to do this okay on another hand my other question is this a lot of people in this town may
not be aware of this this is the 2020 form form PAS1 which is to freeze your taxes we have to do this now every single senior that is eligible has to sign up for this and what I will do I will literally if the township will help
me with this any single person in this town who needs this I will make an appointment with them and I will fill it out for them go through because some people may have difficulty doing this and I will do it online for them with them present so that they can get this done we need to publicize this and let
everybody know is there a bullet point page of directions on the first page if you do have one we can post it to our website it already is posted okay and there's three programs that are listed in there that the residents understand they combined um programs now it is
somewhat confusing i It is i agree and also it is awful the one thing that's in here that is a little better is that you don't have to come and get the tax collector to I guess they have a database now where they can cover that always had the database so I don't know
why they made Yeah now all of a sudden I can if you don't file a New Jersey tax return this is where it gets complicated when you're looking at where you're what figures you're supposed to put in and this is where I'm concerned for a lot of seniors who may not be on this i want to
help them so if you guys can work with me i have a thought on that you should reach out to Heather Scallion you know when she has the senior lunches once a month on a Friday sure you should reach out to her she you know she's over in the recreation building right and she's the municipal alliance chair right she might have you come you know it would be
a good place for you to come to because there is a lot of seniors there maybe you could help somebody right we did have our tax collector present as well at the one of the senior lunches I think uh two months ago if I'm not mistaken and highlighted the the blue book as I call it and the programs that are in there and what they have to do she also
has offered her help to residents as well by appointment only to have it filled out right and that's what I will do very different from the prior form yes it is and what I would like is when you're doing our uh tax bill if you could put a page in there in the mailing
showing what's available and I would give you my email address and phone number and for anybody who needs help i'm seriously this is important that we do this and we help all of our seniors because I'm very concerned if look if the state what I really think is going to happen is the state is going to come
in and take over and they're talking about 29% increase so this is really important that we do this and I want to help everybody if I can so thank you very much and I appreciate and I'll talk to Veronica about how we can manage this
out if that's okay with you thank you very much to Rich for a second sir Rich Mr bnick committee mental array yes you you are right and you know when I said that last night was what I considered a decent meeting on both
sides but you are right when you did make the one comment they were very disrespectful to you um and something should have been said about that from the board there's no doubt but for overall I mean it was a lot better
meeting than I expected and the one thing I think you are right on also is there's got to be some kind of workshop because last night's meeting it was well attended before the thing but the thing is is it's set up as the regular meeting
yeah and I mean that was a special one but it's basically your five minute comment and you cannot uh go back and forth and ask too many questions because well there really wasn't an opportunity to do that it was you can make your comment and that was it now I have to
tell you when uh Mr pelino was the board president because I go to all these meetings when they did the budget presentation it was very different we literally were able to sit in the audience and have a dialogue with the entire school board which is the way this should have been handled last night especially with something so
controversial like this so I hope the next one that they're going to do I don't know what presentation that's going to be or what that's going to be like that they do that because I'm curious did you ask the um what would be like the superintendent and all of those if they would take a b It was for
everyone no it was 10% across the board for every single employee i'm not I'm not pulling out anybody it's like you work for the school you literally all the money and the the 9.9% tax increase last year went for all of them and so my
feeling is it's now your turn and you know last year I have to say and I remember talking about this that was the most awful meeting when they were doing that budget because a lot of people who were here actually got up and spoke and they were treated with such disrespect
by the teacher they banged on tables they screamed and yelled it was really really horrible and quite frankly and I asked them "Can you go halfway with us with that tax increase?" Like you know we'll do the half the taxpayers and you do the other half no absolutely not they
have no interest and they laughed at me last night about this because of the sense of entitlement that they feel that they have and I'm sorry i don't care if you worked in a private corporation if their finances are like this you don't have a choice you you lose your job or and that's the other thing I said last
night i said if you people are unreasonable a lot of you are going to get canned well there there's no reason for any disrespect you won't find that here no so what I will tell you because we answer to you and I answer to you is I just reached out to Committeeman Laray
we try to have quarterly meetings with our colleagues on the school board he just met with them right i know Veronica and and uh Tim uh Committeeman McDonald uh on March 24th I believe so it just happened to have another meeting right
now i don't I don't know what we what new we'll find out but we'll have one soon and you'll be informed as to when okay very good i appreciate that that's going to happen um that's what I was just uh saying um not the reanimate
sunday was Veronica's birthday but I got back Sunday monday I found out about this tuesday I was in the board office yes monday I was at the board office i didn't wait I didn't wait for them to set up a uh llayisons on meeting or anything like that because the urgency
of it right because I also found out this happened and then they're having a meeting so there was no Yeah it was very quick it was very quick just just and and I was like basically what the hell mhm and I went in there and I was in
there for like an hour and a half mhm and uh I had a meeting to and pretty much I got to say everything for the most part that was stated in the beginning of the meeting last night is what I had learned a little more
detailed um and yes uh in the near future there'll definitely be another meeting we're going to set up with them but um we're never not in you know questioning i know there's there's one there's one thing there's one thing that
I will be I don't need a delay on meeting to talk to them and and I won't wait for I didn't talk to any of my fellow committee members before I went in there and said I was going there i made a request they honored it and I showed up because I'm that concerned not
only as being a former board member and the times have changed this stuff that's going on with the state you got to remember it's been going on forever just not to this magnitude i mean I've been off the board for 15 years but back then we got cuts 300,000 400,000 they were
manageable plus the system had a surplus back then wasn't a lot might only been two 300,000 but it was on the plus side these numbers have gotten so big that you basically got to have brainstorming
sessions and every idea that's out there has got to be considered and looked at because Pete stressed on it in his comments the state is taking so much out of our hands and you just can't throw
your hands up and say let it chips fall where they fall because we let them get too much control right and I understand that but you know I remember speaking in
2018 at a school board meeting about what we're dealing with happening right now now how is it that I knew that I was smart enough to know that what is happening right now could have been avoided by planning and actively taking
a position knowing hey you don't want to be in a crisis right it's the worst to be in a crisis mode because you don't really have any choices as you know they're stuck they chose not to they basically th kicked the can down the road and I don't feel that the taxpayers in this town should be punished because
of a government body that refused to take action to protect its own interest i mean this is what we elect people for right i'm sorry to say this but you know we have somebody on that board who's been on there for 33 years okay so
there's the history going way back to when the school district actually was good it was many years ago and to what we are right now and also you know there everybody wants to make excuses all the time about and this is a big issue with
me about student achievement okay so I checked those scores you know they recently came out in the ratings and stuff and we did very poor or it's getting worse actually and I want to know why there are school districts that
repeatedly year after year after year are doing an excellent job those teachers are preparing those students for those tests and ours are not and they're failing and for that the school's ratings are low which affects people wanting to move into Lacy
Township it affects all of our property values but nobody is doing anything about it and quite frankly my voice is getting louder in last night's meeting i didn't mean to be as aggressive as I was but when they started laughing at me I'm
sorry you You just Rich Rich I agree with you and to close out the comments because I think there's other people that want to I I I I agree with you and I I will not disparage our schools i'm a product of education so I'm not sitting here but for it um but what I say what I
say to you is what I mean from the heart i answer to you i believe that and I answer everybody in this audience but to your point with accountability what my suggestion was last year 2024 when I was the school leaison and I had now deferred to Bob because of his um
you know his experience um I had said you know what you want to do maybe is consider putting something up on your website once a month or at least once a quarter and talk about what you're doing to improve scores
communicate with the people i convened a curriculum committee i met with counselors are there is there ancillary issues in a home or is there special needs issues or is it a learning curve issue talk to the teachers the teachers have the in the inside baseball in the
school they have the experience um so my suggestion was to put that up there quarterly i put it up monthly or every two weeks this is what we did to address this this is what we did to help this along and I and I think that would garner a lot of um goodwill uh with the
people of the township and tell the parents this hey look this is the improvements this is the value ad we're trying to make for you um so that's a suggestion that I would provide but that's as far as I will go because I respect them as elected officials and I'm not going to get into their
day-to-day but I would do that that that's a communicate that should be there as we do quarterly with the plant and we post that in but how about Mr mayor yes sir and members of the township committee going even further than that if they come up with some
outrageous number you have to take a stand on behalf of the taxpayers i don't care if it's another government body we cannot sit back and just say like we did with the 9.9% tax increase and the referendum and say "Oh it's your choice." It isn't our choice this is a
four or five people making a decision that's going to affect all of our households anyone up here can individually speak out against I I'm saying that but I'm asking you as in a coordinated fashion and you need to work this out amongst yourselves how you want to deal with it we need leadership and
the board is is lacking leadership you can go to the meeting and you can look at these people there's obviously a dysfunctional board working there and it's not working and this is all going to come back to haunt us if we don't nip this in the bud that's all that I'm
asking please be more proactive like I am i mean I'm really out there i mean I appreciate that Bob's come to the last several meetings because it shows that we have somebody from this body who's actively listening and it's there and available we've all attended several no I understand but I mean but he's been
coming and I mean he's a face that I can recognize and I talk to after these meetings and it's important that we have that thank you very much for your time thank you Mr bradford sorry to jump ahead again but Mr big could you hold that form up any senior in here should have that package
so I want to talk about that for a moment i I happen to know for the last several decades the senator in charge of the budget and uh the third item in that package there's there's senior freeze which is a tough bogey for most seniors
to make then there is the anchor program which is a little easier bogey for you to make and then there's this new plan called Stay New Jersey which is also in that package and it purports to say that uh if you make under $500,000 a
year the state will give you back starting in 2026 50% of up to $13,000 so if you're paying 13,000 in taxes which most people in Lacy are not you would get $6,500
back when I questioned the senator involved this was made a promise a year ago in January by a lame duck governor and there's no money to do this program as currently stated it's it's it's part in the way of a sham so you
will read in there that it's subject to the New Jersey state budget and we'll know on July 1st what that budget is so senior tax freeze is the same thing while your form might say you can make up to 150,000 when the budget is struck it usually says you can't make more than
70,000 so you have all these seniors that go through that effort of filling out that form because they're at 149 let's say or 150 right and then they don't understand why they didn't get it because the form says this well then you have to explain to them well no because once the budget was struck you had to make less than 70,000 so the bogey of
500 for this very generous give back of 50% of our property taxes up to a maximum of $6,500 in the first year if it survives at all it's going to be 250,000 and 30% back otherwise they're
totally embarrassed by saying there's no money in the budget to do it which is also a possibility so please fill the form in do it online so you get a confirmation u but don't expect the best of all three of those programs to come to fruition the way it's stated thank
you for listening thank you thank you any other comments this evening seeing none motion thank you i tried Stephen he tried so hard good evening good evening everyone linda Miller Port
River um I also have been going to the schoolboard meetings and um I was one of the people that was basically verbally attacked at the one where they were pounding on the desks and stomping their feet um my speech was that well I've
lived in this town since I was 26 and have any children had one son when I was 36 i always said our town is only as good as our school system all right so that was a long time
ago and now our school system just raises a bit above Lakewood um and so I also mentioned that about most people don't have medical insurance with
their jobs and I was told that they have to pay 30% of uh for their medical insurance which leaves everybody else paying 70% in our taxes
and then I was told when the next person came to the the speaker that came up the teacher said "You don't care about us so we don't care about you." Isn't that
nice and that's what happened to me um the person apologized to me later but it was too late to be getting an apology but my feeling now is our our school is pulling our town
down um for um you know the pie shape they get they get the majority of our tax money and so if they're way on the bottom now it's like we're funding a
sinking ship and they're pulling our town down and it just has to stop because people can't can't afford to have our our taxes raised so I'm I'm in
agreement with Mr biddik very much i think it's a great idea that it's not so much to ask the teachers to give back one year of that raise they got last year because we don't see where any of
that money is going except to keep all the teachers in you know working so if they could just you know say "Okay we'll give our our raise back for one year the whole school system not just the
teachers everyone that works there it would help us all it's it's only a fair thing to ask of them thank you as somebody who works in the school system I'm going I just would like to say two things what your comment was is that and
this and this is difference of opinions but your town you said that your school system is only as good as your how you said it was that your town is only as good as your school system school system and I'm going to tell you that my true belief is that your town and your school
system are only as good as the parents who parent the children that go to these school systems and that's where we're really lacking and I'll tell you as a person who works there this is a big big
problem okay whether it's Lacy Township Barnagate Township Lakewood wherever that is part of our problem we need we need to get on our parents and
help them support us get out get involved that's a problem i think that's always been a problem well it wasn't when my kids were in school we we never had that problem we had parents always involved always actively involved in doing whatever we had going on and I
think that's where part of our issues come in to be very honest with you well it may be an issue now but it it it doesn't that to tell the parents to come out and help or whatever that is not going to help it's not even just about
helping it's about raising about what raising their children well raising their children but we're talking about taxes in our town they'll help the scores but it's a it's a it's a it's a full circle though if our if our parents help raise the children in a better
situation our scores would go up too okay that may be but full circle full circle and it's the government i mean to reach out to the government you know we're going nowhere with that we have to take care of that in our own
town this isn't a problem that's going to be fixed in no like you know Mr kenneth and I were talking about this earlier this is a problem that that you know should have been addressed 10 years ago so I'm like I'm like I said I agree with Mr i think there's a way that this
could be at least calmed down for at least a year um because somebody's got to give here it can't always just be us the teachers also a lot of them live here it's going
to raise their taxes too so if I mean raising the taxes another 14% uh it it just doesn't make any sense to me of course it doesn't so doesn't make any sense to any of us okay so we need help we the people need help seeing
many of us either been products of our system or our kids had the benefit of going through this system when that the school system for a long time was the reason that people brought their families to Lacy Township that's why I moved here
and Miss Juliano just said the magic number it's about 10 years because up until 2010 12 somewhere in there it's true we we were still a really school system top
10 financially stable i don't know the exact year but I know but because of different reasons and there's many right we have spiraled downward in the last 10 years
and yes and to Mr bidnik's point uh going back to you know I I tried to take a hyenus after 2010 when I got off the school board for 35 years of being involved in volunteer things that only lasted a couple years until I got talked
back into getting back involved but this just happened to be the year lucky me but my commitment is and I really thank the mayor for giving me the opportunity to be on a llays on
committee because I am showing up i am trying to ask the questions not saying I'm getting the answers I want to hear but my commitment is same as everybody else up here i'm going to be involved
i'm going to try to do as much as we physically can do and that's all I can commit to to if I had the magic wand to fix this it would be nice i might win the lottery first and then pay off their debt but I
don't know if that would be enough no I think it was 72 million last night so they should do it for a little while but the one thing you said um that you know another year reprieve we want a reprieve bottom line right the one-year
reprieve has already been the last couple correct we've had some one-time fixes and that's exactly what it is and that was the one comment I didn't have to make last night because pretty much the audience covered everything I had wrote wrote down last night but we got
to stop the onetime fixes is because it only gets worse the year after because even the 9.9% last year took care of last year's budget we knew it wasn't going to go
down by anybody with a brain knew the budget wasn't going down by 10% this year so you knew this year was going to be as bad or worse and if it if something's not done it's just going to
unless and I don't want anybody hold their breath the government steps in and helps us out and you know I'm one I do not live on whatifs what if the government changes what if this happens what if that happens nothing happens
quick even if it's positive nope so all we can do is band together work together and hope i think well the school board has made some serious mistakes yes and especially this and this isn't
really we can only do so much as as you keep hearing from up here we're getting we're trying to get involved as much as we can um like I say I've only been here a couple months i'm trying to get his involved as much as he can but we're limited on what we can do we can throw out suggestions and everything else yes
uh sometimes when we speak to them they may listen to us a little more but they don't have to listen to us any more than they have to listen to you and that was and I I know I stressed
this at Mr forbidden meeting uh uh month or so ago when I attended the most disturbing thing to me this past year and this was before I even got elected to this board is know this controversy was out
there and I know why people wouldn't want to get involved but I cannot buy the excuse we got this type of issue and the incumbents ran unopposed and the two incumbents that
ran last year weren't even like they're on the same page so we'd think somebody could come up with another candidate i I understand a thousand% why somebody would want to step into the position but when you're backed up against the
wall you got to start getting people elected that can try to go in the direction that the public wants well and we all got different opinions on make the decision last night that they were not going for the
14% increase right everyone but the president voted no to that so that's a start but at the same time we cannot let this school system pull our our town down more that people don't want to come
and live here or the people that are already here need to leave thank you thank you other comments this evening seeing none motion to close the floor second move it
all in favor i resolution 2025-158 resolution of the township of Lacy County of Ocean State of New Jersey authorizing the convening of an executive session in accordance with the open public meeting to discuss personnel matters contractual matters pending anticipated litigation and matters of
real estate move it second second please mr kenn yes mr rice yes mrs juliana yes mayor Kola yes motion to adjurnn move it second second all in favor i no further business
together