good evening everyone thank you for for coming out this beautiful spring day adequate notice of the meeting of the Lawrence Council Council being held on Tuesday April 15 2025 has been provided for the
posting of the annual meeting schedule of said council in accordance with section 13 of the open public meetings act said notice was forwarded to the tranian the times and the Princeton packet on December 19th 2024
just a happy reminder that today is tax day April 15th um and just wanted to just give up this inspiration now is a time in spring for a symbol of hope meal
and new life offering a chance for reflection and celebration with family i just want to take this moment to um thank the recreation department and the police department for the beautiful
Easter egg hunt that uh took place this past Saturday it was a an honor to attend but more important to see the young children enjoy such a joyous occasion so thank you and now madam clerk if you have the inspiration
may we carry out our work at this meeting in a just honorable and sincere manner always bearing in mind our duties and continuing to keep Lawrence a wonderful community in which to live 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 madam cler if you could call the role please cannot be with us this evening um
Mr kaki here Miss Perry here Mr ryan Kaki with us as well and Mayor Farmer here thank you and now we will have a special presentation we will start um I'm sorry
let me make an amendment to the agenda um Councilwoman Perry if you wanted to just address the fire will not be here this evening yes i apologize the public safety subcommittee report will not happen this evening because
unfortunately the presenter has the flu we will um continue and it will be presented at the first meeting in May thank you in its place we will have a presentation by the mayor's task force
an update by Martha French who is the secretary of the task force good evening sorry you came right from work apologies um so this is the progress report to the town council and the manager submitted
by the mayor's task force on the future of the Lawrence Community Center and of course to the public uh I am the secretary and leadership Miss Woling is the chair and our task force members Olga Martinez Walling Jeffrey Vamos Heather Burman Luisa Robinson and Nancy
River good evening Mayor Farmer members of the council and manager Ninsky i'm here to provide an update on behalf of the mayor's task force regarding resolution number 346-24 about the future use of the Lawrence Community Center to review the
Laur Community Center task force was established to advise council of the c concerns of the residents of Lawrence Township address the mission statement and future vision of the center engage the community ensuring the decisions made reflect the needs of the Lawrence
Township community and preserve the cent's legacy for all the residents of Lawrence Township since the adoption of the resolution the task force has worked hard to develop an inclusive community engagement strategy our focus has been
on ensuring that all voices are heard as a reminder to the public our task force is to collect information from all Lawrence residents at least all who care to share on the future use of the Lawrence Community Center so that our final report might reflect the needs of
the entire community to facilitate this process we've planned a community engagement meeting May 13th at the Lawrence High School cafeteria this meeting is open to the public i'll say that again open to the public and begins at 6:30 for a historical overview of the
center with the public conversation starting at 7 flyers will be in the back of the room for all in attendance and will be disseminated to the community via print and digitally digitally and however we can in addition to planning this public meeting to ensure we have
feedback from as many residents as possible we're working to finalize and distribute a community survey to collect qualitative and quantitative data on preferred uses for the center i'm happy to report that the survey is ready as of today so on the back of each meeting
flyer at least here tonight we just quickly printed it out and we encourage all residents um to use it so we have the QR code and then we have a rather long URL sorry about that that you just type into your your browser in our efforts to get input from
the most Lawrence residents we plan to use all possible outreach strategies print media digital media local organizations sharing with their members and even radio in fact there was a recent radio interview on 92.9 with three of our task force members
highlighting the upcoming public meeting our task force is even meeting with the recreation department committee to ensure their voices are heard as this is a group of committed volunteers who work with the rec department staff to create programming for the committee for the
community if members of the public the manager council members have any other suggestions for how to engage as many members of the public as possible please reach out to Mayor Farmer who will share it with the task force thank you for your
time thank you thank you very much Miss Glenn for that detailed update and thank you to the task force for all of the work the hard work that they're doing um to make this a reality for our community here in Mars and now we will have uh coming up
will be from the growth and development committee she will talk with us good evening town council and and our mayor and our manager and our lawyer and
our clerk uh my name is Melissa Clark i am the world's redevelopment chairperson for the past three years and uh we've been trying our monthly meetings we've been discussing different things we have a networking event coming up on April 30th at the municipal building no sorry
the library um and that's going to be at 5:45 and we have some keynotes and some people just kind of doing some networking opportunities so this will be our second time doing that but we're looking to actually add a student representative um I'm an educator in the town and I see that we have one in our T
Lawrence Township Board of Education and I've been bringing it up at our meeting and everybody seems to be very much on board so um Councilwoman Perry and I have been discussing what this might look like and basically what we come up with it's uh the application is a Google
form because all the kids are on Google and anyway and it's going to be open to anybody that's currently in 9th grade through 11th grade um it we did say Lawrence High School but it is open to any Lawrence resident that is in those grades so maybe they go to Notre Dame or
if they go to the prep school as long as they're a Lawrence resident they can apply um we're hoping we get a lot of kids applying and then we would kind of read through the applications there's a couple of people that are interested in being on the committee to interview the person we don't want to intimidate the
child we don't want 20 of them so we have some core members that are interested in interviewing um potentially maybe three to five students um and some of the questions on there are like what can they do to help out with uh in like small business how can
they help with our networking events how can they just help organize and also to give them a voice um they will not vote though in this um we only have a handful of people that vote on the committee so they would not be a voting member and um I've already handed out the application
i think it looks pretty good we talked about it at last week's meeting um we would hope to set out the application for May so that we could start interviews for June and then have somebody in for the summer to get started does anybody have any questions
thank you i think it's a marvelous idea anytime that we can engage young people in the process specifically civics I think is a tremendous idea as you mentioned the school district added a school member and also the diversity
equity and inclusion committee has a student representative as well oh awesome maybe I'll have to check in with them and find out what they how they do so yeah that's pretty much it so we hope that you guys will accept this and this can pass tonight in your meeting i see
it's later in your agenda so it would be awesome to kind of get that moving forward i already have the application already in the email so thank you okay okay that concludes our presentations um we will now have the first opportunity for public
participation five minutes [Music] [Music] uh Eric uh good evening council and residents um I wanted to make it a point to come up here to speak first because I
feel that a lot of us are here for the same purpose um I see people from Colonial Heights Colonial Lakelands West Long Drive representatives of the neighborhoods along the Shavakon Creek and I've gotten to know a lot of these people for attending these contentious meetings and while it may seem like
everyone is here for their own pet issue that's affecting their own neighborhood it's clear that there is a unifying thread though nobody has been brave enough to state what it really is until today redlinining i say that word knowing the
full weight of the history behind it this is serious this is disturbing but it is real lawrence Township through the leadership of its manager and the eager support of numerous but not all council members both past and present have instituted a
policy of redlinining and it is the crux of nearly every major issue that has come before this body in recent memory the line itself coaleses around 295 and intersects at Route 1 you can draw it on a map and it speaks for itself tren block where public land was allowed to
be used for private profit colonial Lake where residents are reduced to begging our town to protect protect its prized trees while the town celebrates local businesses that damage them rpm where shady developers shrug and say "We're not forcing anyone to live there." Above
the Red Line north of 295 developers at 3131 were encouraged to ignore the town's affordable housing obligations so they could build luxury condos on pristine land for easy money and finally West Long Drive where residents had to fight tooth and nail for basic due
process and transparency all on behalf of protecting the public safety of our entire township all of these cases create a pattern all the strife strain and pain that community members have felt over these issues can be traced back to the seemingly intentional
redlinining of our town by developers with their hands being held every step of the way by our township manager and community development director these are strong words and behind them are strong data strong arguments and strong circumstances
i raised this issue with councilman Kaki and Bobbit at a recent meeting of the Lawrence Township Democratic Committee which I'm vice chair of i pointed out that open source data indicates that the township maintains a policy of arbitrarily and capricciously enforcing residential codes such as grassite and
brush collection while allowing businesses to blatantly violate the town's land use ordinances we all know that Trent Block is not the only example where we see township property being used for free by the for-profit entity councilman Bob's response was dismissive
saying that something like that couldn't be true because the West Long neighborhood complains about code enforcement the most though some time ago in another conversation he did admit that he thought Kevin Winsky effed up regarding Trent Block okay but I'm here
to talk about RPM which was the first harbinger of the callousness that this red light has imposed on our community we're not forcing anyone to live here said Kevin Kavanagh vice president of development at RPM during a Lawrence Township zoning board meeting apparently some local leaders support that attitude
the township appropriated dollars in support of that attitude and voting tonight on resolution 175 is support for that attitude you'll be told to rush to get this passed that this is a formality that it's part of an already finished
process but ask yourself then why does it need your advice and consent why is it at the request of RPM it sounds like it's to help RPM after all they made this request of you they want you to say to your residents "We're not forcing you
to live there." It is antithetical to the Mount Laurel decision which was decided to prevent exactly this kind of project developers are powerful we need to be able to say no and it starts with saying no to this small but unnecessary resolution i know I'll get push back
from the manager they'll tell me I'm wrong they'll say I don't understand I'm mistaken or misrepresented ask yourself would you live at RPM would you let your kids do you even know enough about the project to even make that
decision you don't i promise you don't the manager serves you and you can say no to him if you can't say no to him then something is deeply wrong you don't know enough about this project it goes deep when you dive in
there's a huge appearance of impropriy that should have stopped this a long time ago but it didn't largely because of certain individuals in this room you deserve to know the truth and I hope that you're curious enough to know the truth thank you Mr billy i would have to
disagree with you that our meetings are not contentious i would say they are a democracy at work i think that all of the residents have a right to express their concerns and their opinion and we are here to listen um so I don't believe
that our meetings are contentious i believe that we are here to serve the public to listen um and you have a right to your voice um I do not agree necessarily with um maybe everything that you said and as is right you know
redlinining is a very strong word um very strong word so um we take your comments okay and um you know obviously we are doing our diligence in terms of the work that we're doing so thank you
and yeah so it's a project for affordable housing on Texas Avenue that Laur Eric Chris ain't here tonight to
respond to f up and I can't believe you would say that it's on a recording it is recorded yes okay he will hear it okay i cannot believe you would say that about Chris B
he said it i was quoting him he's not here if he was here I would be questioning him right now okay just like I did tonight at the uh library with you okay i understand okay that's all I wanted to say thank you for your comments thank you
good evening Rick Flaw resident if you have been attending the township meetings for the last few years whether it be council or land use meetings one thing is for sure that the two biggest issues were the Trenton block saga and
the RPM land use approval if you attend the Treton block meetings you heard valid arguments that there was convincing evidence of conflicts of interest and selective code enforcement by the administration if you attended any RPM hearings you
witnessed board members being coaxed by the developer and the township professionals that they had to approve the project no matter how bad the design was for the environment or its future residents but the biggest unanswered question is about RPM and how they were chosen without any
competitive proposals to be the recipient of over $1 million in township funds for the project over $1 million that's real money i tried to find out an answer to that question through an open request to which I was denied and forced
to file a complaint with the New Jersey Government Records Council that case is being actively adjudicated as we speak in regards to council members having a hand in this decision at a recent public meeting at the Lawrence Library Councilman Bobett and Kaket were asked about RPM and their involvement the
audience was told by them that it was a zoning board decision shrugged their shoulders and moved on to the next question i did some research on their answer not only did they vote in favor to give the developer over a million
dollars without competitive proposals but they also voted on 12 other council resolutions in support of RPM 12 all well before the zoning board gave their final approval facts are facts and residents raising these legitimate questions at council
meetings get met with the same thing every time council silence and a shrug of his shoulders there is a problem in this town with land use decisions and this council is in denial thank you for your time
thank you Mr wait [Music] my name is Tom Rener i live in the Colonial Lakelands and I'm a member of the Friends of Colonial Lake Park Group i just want to uh thank manager and town
council and mayor for supporting Colonial Lake Park the friends of Columbia Lake Park the local neighborhoods and the Orange community for drafting and passing resolution
146-25 in opposition to the Elsa sword iron path going through the park thank you very much thank you for your comment thank you thank you guys for taking the time today
listen I do appreciate it today you're being asked to vote on the RPM or to at least endorse the RPM D application the crux of the D application is the storm water site management plan i'm sorry could you just get your name steve Bubba
the crux of their application is the storm water management plan that's basically what they hang their hat on that's their calculations they have two of them their preliminary application which was April of
2020 had cubic foot per second of 6.5 their updated storm water management plan existing conditions existing storm water runoff was increased to 7.9 i'm rounding the numbers off they go up to the thousand
the existing conditions on the site have not changed we all know nothing's been done on this site but what they have done is redesign the storm water detention systems they initially had that open storm water detention system with the
park in it and then when there was the concern over the sewage and the waste getting in there they went to a covered system which retains less water right we all know that retain less water so what did they do it seems that on their DP application on their storm water plant
they increase the runoff volume to meet the required percentages right they have to reduce this by 50% so on the old application which is the existing condition that's out there today hasn't changed go to Google Earth
yourself i did it this morning okay the 6.564 runoff would have to meet 3.2 2 cubic feet per second in runoff with the detention on the new it's 3.9 so what did they do they increased the runoff to 7.9 cubic feet per second and now
indicate 3.8 saying that they're in compliance the fact is when you look at the D application something is wrong something is wrong and you're being asked by this developer to go ahead and endorse this plan
today i don't think you guys can vote on this i don't think you should endorse this D application until the township engineer has a chance to go back look at what the changes were maybe they're legitimate i don't know i'm not an engineer looking at this i just looked
at the charts i looked at the numbers i looked at the existing conditions which did change according to their report but not according to what you see in satellite voters i don't think you guys should be voting on this i think you're being pressured to endorse a shady
application from what quite frankly is a very questionable development from very questionable means of getting it approved thank you comment i do have these reports if you would like yeah i mean I put my
handwriting there so you could see A B C gives you basically so you can understand what the percentages are any comments or at this time nothing we're going to let the
additional comments address Good evening my name is Kent Kieran from Gatesboro Road i'm not going to talk about the um facility or anything that's going on there i just want to remind all town
council and I'm upset that Mr ryan couldn't be here although he was in the parking lot right before the meeting um could don't understand how we can't show up again for another meeting but town council is responsible to support and
help 33,000 plus or minus residents and from what I see have seen in the the last eight council meetings is at least one town council member Mr ryan listening to
a special interest and then I hear today about the dollars that are spent from Mr pity about a million dollars yet he was responsible while he was on town council for Heritage Village that was sold at a half million dollar plus loss to Mayor
Palmer's wife for development while he was on town council who's also responsible for not allowing the Capitol Health Systems to come to the township and the residents to ask if we wanted a hospital here
yet those he wants you to believe that Kevin and this council is being irresponsible yet we have a surplus over the last eight years while Kevin was town manager we didn't have that while he was here you are responsible to
support all of us not just special interests thank you thank you for your comments you are correct i did say we have till 11:5 i am I'm Dr lazardo um sorry Lazardo um
yeah listen i I wasn't I wasn't going to speak today but I was disturbed by by something that just happened um listen we've we've come a long way uh as a community as a council um
because because I remember my first few meetings here and um what it looked like and and you you guys are shaking your head because of the shame what was happening in those meetings um and and and we've grown and matured
in so many ways we've gotten to know our neighbors we've turned over uh a bit of the council and gotten to know more council members um and it's been good honestly to an extent it's it's been really it's been
really really good um I I haven't been here in like a year and but I but I would always watch online and honestly I I appreciate some of the things you guys have come have done including not raising taxes and and treating the budget without most respect
and that level of scrutiny um fact that we have someone on council with a financial background is is key or to those wins um and if I could just remind everyone on this like this is the first
time I'm hearing about the RPM um and I I'll look into it and I'm I'm under the assumption that the council has thoroughly been in that process and if we over it we we should be able to see that but um Cornaki I want you to know you're
probably one of the people that I respect when also there because you served and it's something that that I mean you were willing to take a bullet for me to be able to speak here today um but at the same time when someone from
the public speaks your words exactly were I can't believe you said that this is a grown adult not a kid not a person and it was instances like
this that basically derailed the beginning where I was coming from uh when I started coming to these council meetings but again my respect for you stays just from the council's perspective maybe this is an opportunity
to say "Hey like someone a resident is bringing this up most of us didn't even know about it right let's just take a look at it and then if if one of the council members said "Hey Kevin effed up effed up." Great you know whatever was
said maybe was recorded bring it up hold hold hold him accountable to it but he expressed what he thought and it wasn't what he said right and I I think we just need to treat every with respect
one last thing and I promise I'll agree on this so I know there was supposed to be a public safety meeting today and I'm glad that there wasn't because actually it gives extra time the reason why we're going through this process in particular including the
subcommittee was because when we did the prior studies with the writers group and the carter group and the Oprah we realized that multiple executives were on one company and the same executives were at another the town decided to
exchange money with both entities without letting that but now we know we have a trusted council and a trusted subcommittee who I'm assuming is going to do their diligence with every one of these companies that are coming across and looking to see if those are the same
executives at those same companies so I just came here with a piece of paper with all the senior executives that were involved in the first three studies to go pass on to Olympia so she can make sure during this time process to review some of those executives i know you guys
are still with the RP process and I trust his diligence that's happening thank you doctor I'll respond to you 16 years I served on this council I never heard anybody come up and use the
f word never i'm from a school you use the word I'm gonna correct you i I said what I wanted to Eric and it's over with it's done i said because I'm defending Chris Bobby for not being
here chris would have responded so it was up to me to respond that's a school I'm from and I will always be like that yeah listen okay i understand what you're saying but I have to speak up great and listen that's okay
if that's how you want to carry yourself across but I want to let you know that's how we all ended up here when the residents were speaking up and felt disrespected he basically said "This is what Bob said you decided to step in not
him." That's correct this is what Bob said and I said "That's not appropriate in this." Oh you said it no absolutely not i'm only responding because Chris ain't here to respond because like I said to Eric I would have asked Chris
straight out right now did he say it all right I I'm done i understand what you're saying thank you the respect between you and I stays that doesn't change all I'm asking when people speak take the time to listen and treat them
with the same respect i listen thank you time's up time's up okay um yes go ahead yes i just want to um give up some
information that there okay yes hi Kathy Merkard West Long Drive um I just want to say a couple words about the Johnson Trolley Trail Plan um I don't know if anybody else has completed
the survey about that which has been made available online at least twice that I know of um the survey talks about what do you want to do above 295 and what do you want to
do past um rider there's a little chunk in the middle that seems to be a done deal which is where the original Johnson trolley tracks were and I want to object
to the plan that the trail is going to go through where the original tracks were i know intimately about that part of the trail proposed trail um because I my
backyard backs onto the new proposed trail um I think there are a number of environmental and safety concerns that have not been taken into account and
um I have been writing in in the survey about you know I I would like the trail to go wherever in the north and wherever in the south but I'd like to propose that the trail not have a new bridge built over
295 and down the original Johnson Trail but which is a populated area on West Long and a populated area and rider um I think it it would be a far better plan to have the trail
follow down the um high tension wire path which is an area that is not an environmentally delicate area it's an already staked out place there are
trails in other places in Maryland i know one for sure that follow under the hightension wires and it's lovely and it doesn't disturb anyone and I just like to put my two cents in that it shouldn't
be a done deal that the trail is railroaded again railroaded through the original spot so that's all thanks thank you for your comments that is still a work in progress i hope seems like a done deal but
Seeing no additional public comments at this time we will close public participation um just want to make one quick statement uh regarding the RPM what we have here before us tonight uh
for council is only a resolution which says that Lawrence Township is supporting the application for the connection to the sanitary sewer system it does not give RPM the authority to move forward with the
project and put any shovels in the ground so what we're looking to do today is only to support the silver portion of that
councilwoman would also like to add some comments so it is um it is very good that we have this process that everyone can come up and speak their mind and also as new council members we are exposed to what
has gone on in the past but most importantly we respectfully listen to everyone's opinion the the um the challenge that I have within myself is this we were not part of the situation
but we are here to go forward to make sure that we make the best decisions now those that were in the township prior to this just so you understand the process this went before the zoning board we are not involved with the zoning
board simply to keep separation of church and state when this was approved with the zoning board no challenge or um appeal was filed that was the time that the
township the residents should have stepped up to do something now that being said I'm not saying anyone missed the ball or anything else but this is the process i
want everyone to understand that we are following a process because we are led by the process in our bylaws so it went before the zoning board it was not appealed our prior PRA
predecessors approved the next step what we're doing now is we have no jurisdiction over ELSA or the D for this to move forward i want that to be
clear if they authorize according to their standards what should happen we are a m municipality we're not we're not a um state uh authority they have the
authority so I want everyone to know that we are following the guidelines according to a higher power that also being said we always want to engage in conversation that's how things get done
that's what's important for our residents to bring forward their concerns so that we can move forward in your best interest without conflict or sh or any shenanigans as
everyone tries to say because one thing you should have learned by now we are no nonsense this is not about me the mayor or anyone up here it's about all of you we have to make sure the town is safe
that it is following the rules and don't forget we have come about with no increase we have hired three additional firefighters three additional police officers our primary duty as council is
the budget and that is moving forward thank God in good order so we will continue to listen to you and act accordingly and we thank you for your support but I wanted you to make
sure you knew what the process was we may not agree with the process most of this happened before I was here but when I took that oath I have to abide by a process all of us
do thank you um any other comments i would just you know agree with Councilwoman Perry's sentiment um your comments are important to us and as we move forward in our decision
making we take that into consideration that it is the truth of the matter is that we are not the we are not Elsa and we're not the D so and there are um laws
that we have to abide by so that's that's the truth okay anything else on this matter okay we can close that out all right agenda i guess we've done some review
we should there's one more one more change madam clerk yes we're going to add a resolution um to add um Miss Pamela Fleming to the DEI committee and then we just had a little
small revision to 18 F1 um it was just a a typo in the account number thank you and with that this brings us now to the adoption of minutes oh I'm sorry second
i will move to um add Miss Tam Fleming to the DEI committee do I have a second the um agenda to the agenda well you also have the resolution the corrective resolution to do one mo you can do it in
one motion one motion okay so I move to um add the revisions to the agenda do I have a second second clerk you call the Mr bobby not here i'm
sorry i Mr mr kaki yes miss Barry yes mayor Farmer yes and the second motion i do i do now brings us to um the adoption of minutes
do you have a motion i would like to make a motion to adopt the minutes from regular meeting January 7th 2025 do I have a second second madam cler can you call the role please mr kaki
yes miss Perry yes mayor Farmer yes okay and now we have the bids and Mayor yes please i would like to make a motion to adopt um resolution uh bid
number 166 authorizing award of bid to Civilio excuse me painting and remodeling for the rehabilitation of 50 Meredith Merit Drive you have a second yes madam
cler Oh I'm sorry no it's it's a part of our affordable housing rehabilitation okay any public comment on number 166 seeing
none clerk you can call the role mr kaki yes merry yes mayor yes now for the introduction of ordinances madame Mayor I would like to introduce ordinance number 249125 ordinance amending ordinance
number 2084-11 amending chapter 15 article 1 of the Lawrence Township Administrative Code entitled growth and redevelopment committee addition of student representative may I have a second
second any discussion no discussion okay mr b I'm sorry i'm coming to my mind mr kaki yes m yes mayor Farmer yes
he should be first okay um now for the Okay the adoption we've done that okay manager's report i have nothing today okay um the attorney's report i have a matter that we will need to discuss in close session
mayor thank you and madam clerk your report for this evening just a few things financial disclosures are due um April 30th okay just a reminder um tomorrow is the deadline for anyone who wants to do a party a change of their
party affiliation for the primary election the 19th um the mailing ballots will start to go out may 20th um will be the deadline for voters registration i know I'm a little ahead of the game here but okay and um uh we just received in
our two that I did the 2020 25 to 26 license renewal which we will start to get that ready u for the new year the ABC and that's about it and then for unfinished business okay
um you've already heard from Miss Fleming okay then you need to address it there okay finished it's unfinished it was on a previous agenda madame Mayor I would like to make a
motion to add Tamila Fleming to the DEI committee well you already added her so she's going to just be the resolution number um number six 1886 18 when we amend it okay so
she's going to be under there okay okay when you do resolutions thank you okay new business seeing none this is our second opportunity for public participation few minutes
three minutes i won't use all three minutes don't worry um my understanding is for for the close session are we allowed to know the address or location of the potential land sale not yet okay
i just want to make clear when I came up here earlier right i understand you're not approving the job or you're not approving the D and you have to defer to that what this developer's asked of you guys tonight is to authorize the mayor
to sign off and endorse that application am I correct in saying that well no um what what is happening is the the resolution is to allow the application
to move forward to uh the Elsa board and to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection it's not endorsing the uh not endorsement but permitting the application it's permitting in essence under the statute it's permitting the application to move
forward for review by the professionals at Elsa and professionals at NJD uh this board is this council is not giving any opinion as to the validity or
or any issues with regard to those storm water management issues that you brought up which may be perfectly valid yeah no I understand that but I mean we do have a township engineer no but he he does not at this point the process is such
that it it has to go to Elsa and D for for review and if you don't mind sure sure our municipal engineer has reviewed this paperwork and it's the reason why it's on the agenda tonight as a
resolution if he had any problems with it it wouldn't be on the agenda as a recommendation for you to vote on so that that there was an internal process conducted by our municipal engineer who reviewed it because he's the one that's qualified to do it and that's um I think
we're just complying with the land use law and what our obligations are as a county and if I might he reviewed that based on the information presented and when the information presented of existing conditions which has not changed has been updated that wouldn't be a red flag that
would be something that maybe we just want to postpone this give him another chance and then you guys can talk about tomorrow or another meeting it's all I'm asking just push the vote tonight so you have an opportunity to look over what concerns
are thank you i I just wanted to It's kind of here again i just wanted to make one quick thing um as far you stated that your your sole responsibility is the budget but your the budget is just an avenue of your responsibility for the
representation of the township and that that budget is the vehicle to present and pass it was council although I agree the budget is the main focus i'm just correcting you
it wasn't made that comment can I finish yeah i'm just letting you know so you address it properly to council woman thank you um but the the budget is an avenue it's not your responsibility your responsibility is for the safety and for
the again for the representation of the residents here the the budget is just a vehicle for that support see any additional comments we are going to close out a few minutes public participation moving on to resolutions
comments on the agenda madame Mayor may I make a move to move resolution 18D 1 and two number 167 authorizing the refund of denied bingo license and number two
resolution number 168 authorizing recreation fee refunds may I have a motion you have a second second are you not moving in a block are you moving separately yes
just [Applause] just Mr kaki yes m perry yes mayor B yes to begin okay this brings us now to professional services agreements madame Mayor I would like to move in the block F1 through F4 resolution 169
through 172 prof under professional service agreements second any uh additional comments Mr linsky no
see you can call the role please mr kaki yes yes yes and grants via miscellaneous do you have a motion madame Mayor I'd like to move um resolution H
miscellaneous resolution 173 through 177 or should we make H6 178 yes you have to do 178 yes i would like to move resolution under miscellaneous under resol excuse me
resolution H miscellaneous resolution 177 through 178 in the block 173 173 through 178 second
um for discussion and I um if I could ask the manager a question with the with the discussions that we're having this evening with regards to RPM and um in the resolution with Elsa and the New
Jersey D i know that the public is very concerned about um the project for various reasons is there a possibility that Elsa or NJP could come back and say that there is something that is not
proper i will tell you that project I'm sorry yeah I will tell you that the engineers um our engineers job is to review the application and provide recommendations to the governing body the review of the technical aspects of the application are done both by Elsa
but primarily the New Jersey D so we can certainly um take the concerns that were represented by uh one of the speakers and make a note of it to go along with the application to have the D focus on that okay i mean I don't think that
there's a problem with doing that okay no so we could add some additional language to that okay well you're not going to No there's no there's no adding to the resolution but what we could do is with with the approved resolution we
could h ask our engineer to to review this meeting and the comments made by the individual who expressed some technical aspects that are beyond me and um we can ask him to highlight that to make that a part of a scrutiny process
for the D okay thank you Madame Mayor do you have do you have the paperwork that was submitted yes on the actual resolution yes um from the gentleman in the Yes I do have that as
well yes so we would forward that okay yeah we have this one he's still here okay good and also we'll need to review this because this is the first time that we're seeing this okay so thank you okay all right with
that um Madam Clerk unless there's any other discussion on any other items okay madam cler if you could call the poll please okay and we did have someone move in a second yes okay very good mr kaki
yes m perry yes Mayor yes okay now this goes to council initiatives on reports just a reminder as Melissa Clark mentioned the growth and redevelopment committee is having
a business networking event on April 30th at the library from 5:45 to 7:30 um we do have guest speakers coming from the town from the uh Mercer County develop economic development um the director Anthony Caribelli will be
speaking um and some other guests also just check the website for further detail details all right um and also I would just like to add um on behalf of the mayor's task force that um May 13th at 6:30 p.m at
Lawrence High School there will be a community meeting with regards to the Lawrence Community Center and we encourage all of the residents to come and attend that and have your voices heard and also there is a flyer that
will be at the back of the room with the code that also includes the survey that is a very good looking survey if I say so myself that would um give you an opportunity to give some input which I personally value tremendously
and I know the council does as well so um anything else with regards to our reports no um okay now this brings us to written communication i just want to um if I
could just publicly acknowledge um uh council leak for the wonderful article that you wrote on the railroad marker that was um a really nice um article and I just want to personally
thank you on behalf of the um the Indian very nice job done if you if members of the audience haven't read it did a very nice piece authored by uh Louis I encourage
um with written communication we also um have received a letter regarding uh new month um and I just want I'll just read the first paragraph uh dear mayor of Virginia May is National Lupus Awareness Month this month provides a
great opportunity for the township and law to educate the community on the devastating illness each May the entire Lucas community comes together to raise awareness by wearing purple telling their stories and encouraging others to join the fight against this devastating
disease so I just wanted to share part of the letter that we received from Miss Sherifa Keith who is the founder of Love Us Together New Jersey nonprofit here in Orangeville New Jersey um I don't any other additional
Miss Keith no she is asking for a proclamation okay um that she wanted that like we did last year and also uh a ribbon cutting that she would like to be done on May 3rd uh if we if the council is in agreement with but that would be
something you have to discuss and let me know okay thank you i will read further down the letter all right and um and get back to Miss Miss Ke i did participate last year um in her event and she does a wonderful job of bringing awareness um
to which affects many people in New Jersey okay madame Mayor I'm sorry are you on communications yes yes i have a communication I think uh has to be read uh handd delivered to me earlier today
uh addressed to me and to the clerk i have a copy for the clerk uh due to my ongoing medical conditions I am resigning from council effective immediately along with all boards and committees i'm turning in my keying computers to our township attorney
Arthur Cypek if I have to sign any pertinent paperwork please send it to my residence thank you regards John T ryan i have a clerk's copy here it is um it is with deep sadness
um it is a deep sadness to hear of that letter and that our uh fellow councilman is resigning okay thank you okay with that we would with that we now need a motion for executive session
executive session will deal with p personnel and possible uh land real estate matters involving the township so moved second all in favor okay with that um thank you
members of the public for coming um out this evening thank you for your participation