this meeting is being conducted in compliance with the open public meetings act adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by advertisement in the Cape May star and wave on the township website and posted on the bulletin boards of township hall we request anyone wishing to address council please
wait for the mayor to recognize you um please state your name and address for the record please remember all comments must be kept to three minutes or less all right thank you please stand for pledge of allegiance and moment of silence i aliance to the flag of the United States of
America council member here council member Roy here deputy Mayor here mayor here okay in the work session we have a pretty busy meeting today we're going to have a budget hearing and go through a couple resolutions we have some certificates of recognition and Jason
will talk about autis autism awareness uh tonight so we'll start with the budget we have our CFO Lauren Reed here and our auditor Leon Costello and before we even get to the resolution is there any comments from council on the budget hearing itself anybody from the public by the
council on the budget hearing i see none moved in the resolution resolution number 2025 139 this is the adoption of the 2025 budget again any council
comments any comments from the public i see none is there a motion to move forward motion second council member Wearham yes council member Roy yes deputy Mayor Kums yes
mayor Civil yes resolution number 2025140 this is a resolution for the self-examination of the budget okay and council comments none public close the portion we need a motion for this
i'll make a motion to move forward with this i'll second it council member yes council member Roy yes deputy Mayor yes mayor C yes and the CFO Lauren Reed and want to add to the budget hearing today
that's the same budget they introduced no changes to it uh you you're self-exam's not going to look at it that will swear that everything's okay and off it goes so everything's in good shape you're one of the smaller tax increases around if you followed the papers yeah you last time I checked the
uh uh the data that's posted online uh if I remember correctly we had 564 municipalities in New Jersey and lower township had the 17th lowest tax bill and I give a lot of credit to the CFO the manager of the staff here for doing that so I want to thank you for the hard work thank you so you're in good shape
okay you guys you can exit if you want unless you want to hang out thanks again thank you [Music] can we have some certificates i do want to uh recognize this Simson here or AD
Simson whichever you are today i don't know maybe a little bit of both and the superintendent Greg Hash Lashel is here tonight so I want to thank Greg for coming out to support the students um we're going to uh deputy mayor Kun with certificates we're going to come down
and we're to call the uh one at a time to come up take a picture with myself and and uh the rest of the council anybody it's very informal anybody wants to come up family members or friends and take pictures please do so and after we get a certificate I'm going to ask you
please stay up here with us until the whole group's finished per sport and we'll take a we'll take a group picture so at that point let's go down to the podium and we'll call the athletes up and Eric and Greg you're welcome to come up with us if you want
where's he hiding at come on hide over there hello is this on test test test where's Greg at mr lashler there he is all right it's all good okay so uh these are all congratulations
uh certificates honoring the students student athletes uh this first one we'll start with winter track uh thirdyear varsity sixth place group state sectionals with new school record
9.8 between 88 seconds in the 55 high hurdles that's uh Jasmine Black [Applause] congratulations okay we're going to take a picture yourself turn around the
camera the group are all Can you get everybody members here come on you going to come up your parents are invited friends are invited coach come on coach come on now coaches coaches yeah I forgot to mention the
coaches sorry about that want to stay up here with us hey another uh winner track third year varsity third place group one state sectionals in the 1600 meters it's Jenna Hill okay okay congratulations okay this is for
you pictures for us okay okay you have somebody else from track too okay just stay here okay and this is the uh new school record in the 4x 55 meter hurdle relay 39.77 second set by Aiden Fmentoto
Lennon O'Donnell Colin Uitt and Joanil Deleó all right thank you coach are you finished with the track track come on over come on over bring your family over
we're going to take a group picture group of the track it's up to you if you want to bring your family to come okay fine we can make it do anything have your teammate here get your certificates all right thank you now okay thank you for coming
out okay on to the CL Allstars uh Cape Atlantic League swim coach of the year Britney O'Donnell [Applause]
congratulations okay good job cl first team swimming Drew Croninire there's some long strokes there you wore a swim cap congratulations again if any family members want to come up or friends you know make it way you
have more than one uh yes stay on for swimming yeah two more yep um also C first team swimming Eddie Fucci congratulations Eddie i know I might smile sorry
[Applause] and CE honorable mention swimming jakamo [Applause] Ruff congratulations young man are you guys getting in the pictures one more
thank you now [Applause] Okay we got two girls basketball and two boys basketball se first team girls basketball Alexandria [Applause]
V i'll watch some of your games over there it's good i didn't reference you though yeah you didn't have reference i didn't ref You don't want me over there come on okay coach you got to come up bring coach up here for another picture one more and uh
CL honorable mention girls basketball Brooke Robinson [Applause] have it coach sit right here good job we got CL honorable mention boys basketball Mason
[Applause] Cronin you're still growing young man jeez every time I see you're getting taller and CL first team boys basketball and thousand point score as a junior ty
[Applause] Bonnerations you must be on a court or what you Thank you thank God for Okay cl first team wrestling district 32
champion region 8 champion and fourth place state finish as a junior and first three-time district 32 and region 8 champ and threetime place winner in school history chase Hansen you've been here three years in a row
haven't you i know that coach come up here coach thanks for everything all right that's everybody congratulations all yeah congratulations want to thank everyone for coming out today not tonight still 5:15 want to thank the
superintendent of the AD for sending these list of names to us because it's really important we recognize all the athletes because uh one day you may be a mayor or councilman you go back into this yourself not you we're talking about Mr cron you're not going to never be the mayor but uh that's that's just
that's only a joke you don't want to come up here with us trust me but uh thank you for coming out we really appreciate everything you do for the the kids and community okay if you want to stay around for the rest of the meeting you can if not you can be dismissed okay thank you now
[Applause] He had a lot of stuff right [Music] keeps pants and pants him down while we're waiting here you go don't mess with our basketball time go rounds
it's okay good job Eric eric's not the mayor no more you're not the mayor good night you did issue all right okay we're going to move down the agenda
we have autism awareness uh I do have a proclamation I'm going to read out to the audience whereas autism spectrum disorder is the result of a group of complex neurological disorders that affect the normal function of the human brain and be exhibited by anyone and
whereas autism is urgent public health crisis that demands support from all levels of government whereas symptoms of autism may present themselves in variety combinations and can result in significant lifelong impairment of an individual's ability to learn develop healthy interactive behaviors and
understand verbal non-verbal communications and whereas Lower Township is committed to ensure that people living with autism have access to care and service need to pursue their full potential and happiness and whereas Lower Township is honored to take part the annual observance of autism awareness month and hope that it will
lead to a better understanding of the disorder and therefore I mayor Frank Simple and lower cancer council do hereby recognize April 2025 as autism awareness month and the town of lower and urge all residents of lower tenser to participate in the autism awareness month activities in order to become more
better educated on the subject of autism spectrum disorders and I want to invite Jason to the podium i want to thank you for coming out to talk about autism so come on up Jason the microphone's your bud hello mayor and council it is great to
see you all once again as you may know at this point my name is Jason Pazesco and this year marks my 17th year of coming over and speaking speaking in front of you i still remember to this day my first year
speaking to all of you back in 2008 in case you didn't know a fair amount has changed since last time I spoke with you for starters I am now in a brand new art program in a place called Maverick
Art Studios like with my internship at a place on Earth I was a little bit nervous at first since I it was a brand new place that I haven't been to before but after my first few days over there I happen to enjoy it very very much my mom
takes me over there once a week to go see Caroline and paint a picture sometimes it takes a couple weeks for a painting to be finished but with a little patience and a couple
of new painting skills thanks to Carol I managed to make a couple of amazing paintings i visualized the pictures that I paint through memory and I want I want to thank my mom as well as Carolyn for helping me do a creative a
creative talent that I love doing very much another thing that has been happening since I left high school was trying to find someone like a job coach to help me find a job that I can do very very
well at very well at as well as being some something as well as be as well as it being something that I love to do on a daily basis that being of course drawing and sharing
my artistic ability to the world i have been coming here since I was 7 years old i've been doing this for 17 years now and still giving out facts about autism and what it means for each
person it would it could be caring and being kind to others being a little optimistic of certain things or even being helpful to those in real need of help autism means a lot to everyone and that's why
we we always celebrate it each April every year and even when April is over we always be sure to never forget that autism awareness is always inside people who have the characteristics of it and of
course that autism does not end when April is all said and done there are many families with young children and young adults as well as adults who live with autism each and every day which is
why I think and uh feel uh that not only autism awareness but even more so acceptance and understanding even when it may be difficult is so very important a little kindness and and ability to try
our best to try your best to understand goes a very long way so uh with all that said I still do some traditional things that I love doing like going over to Seall City for Mike's annual seafood
walk which helps out a lot of families is in fact I actually got to meet a former Eagles player uh Jason Kelsey just before
or we left mom and I left plus I also enjoy the snacks they have over over there they have after the walk is finished another thing I love doing is going to the boardwalk and and of course Mory's peers
courtesy of Mike from Mike [Music] Seafood you know I love sharing my journey you know I love sharing my journey with you i have been very lucky to have great supports over the years including the mayor and his council
members there's all of my teachers Faces for Autism for helping my mom teach me on how to do well in life mr dietrich who brought blowing bubbles for autism in lower township elementary schools to help awareness and acceptance and of
course I cannot forget E eli who has always been so kind and has helped me to schedule me to come before you since my first time here so with all that said I would like to thank you all once again for once again
having me come over and to you and not only speak about facts on autism or even talking about stuff I still love doing but also with what new things that I am doing within this new chapter of my life
so in closing I want to thank our mayor council members and residents of Lower Township for supporting autism awareness and acceptance now um as you may notice as you can see here uh uh these are all my
uh painting there's at least some of my paintings that I made over at the art studio uh here's the first one I made with uh the trees uh some of which are being based off of holidays like uh
Thanksgiving and Christmas my mom th this one's inspire the Christmas one's inspired by the starry night sky which my mom loves very much uh this one is Sonic one of my uh favorite video game
characters and uh and of course in the middle of this is autism awareness uh love needs no words yeah and these are only some of the paintings that I have of Yeah and the
And I'll be sure to make uh I'm looking forward to seeing what next what picture I'm looking to make next for her mom oh and uh just a little heads up but before I forget uh I also have something for uh mayor and council
that I that I love very very much never important stuff right all right lesbian chocolate chip cookies thank you Jason thank you Jason thank you you're welcome so thank you
[Applause] Jason we couldn't say any better [Applause] can we take a picture we are i'm not there yet jason I want to thank you and your mother for coming out for the last 17 years hope there's many more years to
come okay i we do have a certificate the calculation for Jason so we're going to come down to take a picture we want to see his paintings for sure and I want to see if the former mayor wants to come up take a picture with us also because I know he's very involved so come on up former mayor you can't say no now
[Music] all [Music] right Jason come over here but we have I have a certificate for you this is for you good job [Applause]
good really good [Music] okay we're moving on the consent agenda anybody on council want to comment on the consent agenda no comment no comments i do have two comments the resolution 146 we're going to be add actually adding two more
concerts to the ferry concert series we're going from 6 to 8 and uh they'll take us to the very end of August and the ordinance 2025-12 is a bond ordinance and I want to kind of point out with that bond ordinance we're going
to be building six new pickle ball courts next door between here and the senior center so we're hoping to have them done by maybe fall is that right manager mr manager yes sir okay uh maybe before then even who knows okay but there'll be six pickle ball courts going
up if approved by council tonight weather permitting weather permitting okay anybody from the public want to comment on the consent agenda only no comment i close the public portion approval of the minutes for March 17 2025 approval of New Jersey State
Fireman Association membership v horton and S bolton Villas Volunteer Fire Company resolutions number 2025141 through 2025 162 and ordinance 202512 this is a bond ordinance
providing for various 2025 capital improvements by and in the township of lower county of Kate May state of New Jersey appropriating 2.82,880,000 $2,880,000 therefore and authorizing the issuance of
2,735,000 bonds or notes of the township of lower to finance part of the cost thereof this is the first reading of this ordinance the second reading of public hearing will be April 21st thank you i'll make a motion to approve this second
council member Wearham yes council member Roy yes deputy Mayor yes yes ordinance number 202508 an ordinance amending chapter 500 property maintenance of the code of the town below to establish regulations for
swimming pools this is the second reading and public hearing of this ordinance this ordinance has been published posted and made available to the public thank you any council comments on this none anybody from the public want to comment on this ordinance close the public portion is
there a motion to move us i'll make the motion we proceed further i'll second it council member Wearham yes council member Roy yes deputy Mayor yes mayor yes ordinance number 202509
an ordinance amending chapter 4 of the parks and recreation areas article 4 fees and reimbursements of the code of the township of lower to enact registration fees associated with the youth summer camp hosted by lower county recreation department this is the second
reading and public hearing of this ordinance this ordinance has been published posted and made available to the public thank you any council comments nope any public comments on this close the public portion is there a motion move forward motion second
council member yes council member Roy yes deputy Mayor yes mayor Civil yes okay we move to the public comments anybody from the public want to come to the microphone and to address council on any subject anybody from the public want to
come to the microphone this is your time to come up what is the time just go to the microphone to record it what's the um maximum amount of time three minutes three minutes okay um I wrote everything out index
cards and I have a print out of the budget do I want want me to hold the mic before I start i think we can hear you okay so the introductions a generalization i spoke over the phone to the director of New Jersey Transit's customer affairs government relations in regards to the
hardships and dissatisfaction with the transportation network it has been almost 60 years which is six decades for the buses to operate tediously in an untimely matter also from the jug handles they have to go through from south to north and north to south and
their network transportation system is not extensive with enough routing this is a universal problem both locally for Cape May and widespread for South Jersey i am here to discuss the subh highway nature of breakwater road this road is
unsafe for cyclists and pedestrians an affordable solution would be to add bus stops and sidewalks may need to be added but that was just something that Frank Bowman told me he was the um he emailed me he's the person who's in charge of customer
advocacy um to extend the 552 for the its route um though currently the 313 and 315 can be added with more stops this was back from New Jersey Transit cars are $50,000 due to high interest rates and will increase to $70,000 by
the end of this year um who knows and I noticed that there are 0% in for railroads that's where I was looking at under 5A5B under page six which is assess property val valuations exempt property property tax appeal data that could be
used for freight cargo or passengers um that's I guess it for that i didn't see any funds set aside for public transportation and there are not any reliable mechanics in Kate May County
there were shortages of parts from the past pandemic and local businesses are impacted and affected by the lack of public transportation which would help prosper and flourish economic growth it's hurting a lot of areas like all
sorts of like um different like topics it affects a lot of things not just getting around it it can affect economy and jobs and all so I'm here to talk about that there's like important reasons why people need
it um no one really can afford a car they're very expensive right now and you have to pay a lot just to get them in mint condition thank you thank you and I'll say you made some valid points today and uh if I'm not mistaken the manager has a tenative meeting with the
New Jersey Transit coming up maybe not too future um yeah yes sir we um I had reached out and was copied in on an email that Jesse must have sent to Robert Church at the county uh engineers office and uh since then I had
reached out to the New Jersey Transit as well to u have them identify the bus routes i'm not very privy to all the bus routes in lower township and how they come in out of the town and where they go um but we we are tentatively going back and forth on scheduling a meeting
with the New Jersey Transit to try and address some of the issues that Jesse brought to the county's attention and then we got uh you know looped into that uh with the Cape May County because it's a county road but we would have to support what we want to do when it comes
to bus routes and stops on that county road and that's what we're looking into right now just trying to see the most supportable option as well okay thank you thank you for your time and passion sir you're up yes sir uh state your name and address
please my name is Edgar Neil Vietnam veterans i live at 1057 Road uh I'm here to request that the uh bus stop uh across the street from me
and the other one on the other side of me be either removed or located because uh I am um uh disturbed and uh in the evening they
come and get off the bus 2 o'clock in the morning and uh uh There's no trash bin there across the street for me and uh this is what I wind up with every morning for weeks and weeks and weeks uh
there's trash all over my lawn and they wake me up at night and I'm requesting that they move the or relocate the bus stop away from my home either to the left or right of me so I can get a
decent uh night sleep and that's my request i'm uh with uh Atlanta Samuel is my advocate uh for crisis she's trying to help me along with this procedure and I asked the
mayor and uh council to try to help me resolve this problem okay the uh can you exchange your contact information with the manager so he can get back to you if we look in your situation the manager can you give me your phone number Mr lafy so he can
look into this us if you come to the microphone so we can hear you you can unless you can't get up just take the microphone to her that's fine yeah just so we can hear you it goes on the record that's all
so we called um New Jersey Transit and spoke with Donald Pigford who's the manager of the bus stop sign and shelter program and Donald Pigford said it would only take maximum
one week only if the mayor and the council approved it for the bus stop signs to be removed or relocated he has two bus stop signs um one well he would he he would explain that to you i just
know one's on Farmstead and one's across the street from his home at 257 Seashore Road and I know that there are people as several knights knock on his door and he has severe medical issues and it's severely affecting him so um it's an
invasion of his privacy so there is one person in Kate May County who went to one of the councils and they it took about a year to straighten that out but Donald Pigford uh said it only takes one
week only if the mayor and the council approve this to be rec relocated um well if Donald can get stuff done in one week we'll give us some more work for us because it takes forever when it comes to government work trust me okay um it
does take more than one week because we talking about we need to vote on a resolution which is done every two weeks here okay at meetings okay that starts the whole process okay right no we shouldn't take that long though but Mr laugh he's going to look into
actually out of the office i got an email back that he was not in the office he's on vacation for two weeks right okay but thank you for coming out though and thank you for your concern we'll look in it okay okay anybody else from the public want to come up to the microphone
i will close the public portion we'll go to council comments uh Councilman Wearham you have anything no I just want to wish everybody a safe uh Easter happy Easter anyone traveling you know it's a busy time of the year for people going away be safe enjoy the holiday and your
time off if you have it thank you Councilman Rory my comments would echo Councilman Warehouse said a letter i have nothing additionally to add thank you thank you Deputy Mayor same here happy Easter to all to all and uh that's it unfortunately I got to break the
trend i have a few things to put out here uh there's the Easter egg hunt/ springfling Saturday April 12th from 11:00 a.m to 2 p.m at the Freeman Douglas Field in Route 9 and the Easter egg hunt starts promptly at 12:30 p.m
there will be a beach sweep beach spring sweep at the Village Road Bay Drive on April 11th from 9:00 a.m to 12:30 p.m that's what'll be picking up a lot of debris along the beach youth flag youth flag football registration April 26 to the 2nd of May again lower town
recreation going to have a two four-week camp this year uh we have priority registration for lower cancer residents only from April 29th to May 6th and open registration from May 7th to May 14th there's a family fun night at the Clen
Field May 23rd from 5:30 p.m to 8:00 p.m there's a rabies clinic Saturday April 12th from 9:00 a.m to 11:00 a.m at the public works facility on Seashore Road and the leaf and branch spring calendar is posted on the website the first pickup starts today April
7th that's all I have then we'll move down to the close session resolution number 2025163 a resolution providing for a meeting not open to the public of the New Jersey openings act this is for attorney client privilege
thank you i'll make a motion to approve it second council member yes member yes yes yes that concludes our meeting thank you for coming out