call the meeting to order all right everybody stand for pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands nation for all a public notice of this meeting pursuant to the open public meetings act has been
given by the township in the following manner notifying the township clerk December 27th 2024 mailing notice to the carrier post essential record and Burlington County Times on December 27th 2024 and posting notice on the official municipal bulletin board on December 27th
2024 uh we ask that everybody please place their phones on mute um roll call Terry mr kaufman here miss Nunes here mr simon here mr mr radnik here mayor Tyler Rico here okay we have an ordinance and second reading and public hearing for ordinance number
2025-02 it's an ordinance of the township of Maple Shade in Burlington County New Jersey to amend and supplement Maple Shade Township Code Chapter 114 licensing and permits to add article 6 film making um open up to the public does anybody on the public have
anything seeing none motion to close so So made comments all in favor i motion to adopt so second comments roll call mr kaufman yes miss Nunes yes mr simon no
mr zadnik yes mayor Challica yes all right this is the public portion for the consent agenda items only if anybody from the public would like to come up seeing none motion to close so made second all in favor i i all right i'm
going to do the consent agenda in bulk resolution number 2025-R80 through resolution number 2025R-86 motion to approve the consent agenda i'll make the motion mayor it should be 87 oh 87 okay
is that here no I have 86 86 that says 87 on the end should be 87 87 is that resolution authorizing the board of You want the last one that was on you want to read that last Do you have it i'll read it i do it's on my back page
page my apologies no worries all right so resolution number 2025-R87 is a resolution to meet in executive session no no 87 is the um is the PEM law is the contact for professional services i don't have it
either okay start over resolution number 2025-R87 is a resolution authorizing the award of a non-fair and open contract for professional services with PEM Law LLP okay and I'll change that other one
to 88 I guess yeah okay all right motion to approve the consent agenda so I'll second comments what's the other which one resolution that was put in there for for the law he he didn't see the
copy of for 87 87 that's the conflict attorney for um that Nick PCR labor attorney has uh recommended for us for personnel issue any other comments roll call mr kaufman
yes miss Nunes yes mr simon yes mr radnik yes mayor Taylor yes okay approval of expenditure list susan B thank you our current fund bill lists 2,771,634.38 utility fund bill is $23,171.16 capital fund bill is $88,816.89 utility capital
$34,938.70 trust fund bill list is $28,4684 grant fund billist is $7,396.97 i do want to make mention that the current fund at the 2.7 million 2.6 million of that is our school tax payment that we have to make so that
only leaves about 170,000 in regular expenses i have reviewed the above billist as submitted and recommend payment when funds are available great thank you motion to approve so made second comments roll call mr kaufman yes miss Nunes yes
mr simon yes Mr znik yes Mayor Tico yes approval of the March 2025 minutes i have a motion to approve i'll make the motion i'll second comments roll call mr kaufman yes miss
Nunes i abstain mr simon yes mr zernik yes mayor Challica yes okay this is the public portion anybody from the public wish to speak please come up state your name and address for the record good evening steve Schmidt 520 Sunset um
just had a couple questions i don't know for um the solicitor's bills for February and March um I just want to say I appreciate that you uh you spent time educating yourself and you didn't charge the township for that that's awesome i want to thank you
for that i think that's fantastic um I'd also ask that your bill be a little more specific everywhere and not just on some lines the reason I say that there's about five and a half hours or just over $1,000 worth of building that just lists speaking to council member where all the
other ones got into who you actually spoke to um I know it sounds pathetic but I just think that uh you know it's the residents have a right to know that um I inquired as to why this councilman would reach out to you about items that are the responsibility of the clerk of
the township manager um didn't really get the answers I was looking for but um the items in question should have gone through the clerk or the manager instead of a $200 an hour so
Just not sure excuse me why that's happening it's something that should stop i'm confident why it's happening because uh of the I lost my place here confident this is happening because of Mr simon
Sex's ongoing and open lawsuits against our township and township she's township manager at township so do it right talk to the council member or the clerk in the As I said last time Mr simon is not suing the township and
as I said last time I don't believe that okay anybody else from the public no okay motion to close so made second all in favor i all right moving over to staff and professional comments councilman Simon
benny sorry i would like to wish everybody a happy Easter and um that's it okay Mr hoff yes thank you um this is the last call for pancake breakfast
tickets is having its annual pancake breakfast uh this weekend on Sunday at the Steinhower School um it is both eating and takeout it is our premier fundraiser for Rotary um and almost all
the funds that we uh all the proceeds go towards scholarships for the school um this year um it is uh from 8:00 a.m to noon uh the Easter Bunny will be there for the kids between 9 and 11 right now
tickets for adults are $8 children are $3 um it's rain or shine obviously and we do have a uh ticket auction which really is the big uh the big thing for for us um I think we have over 100
baskets now too to bid on and you can buy your tickets right there at the at the door so you also can buy tickets at the door if you want to see them but I have them here today if anybody needs any the other thing I I do uh want to say is
that uh let me Collins Lane Park again uh they did fill in a lot of the trenches which I talked about last meeting uh looks like they did some hydro seating um but I guess because of the rain there's still some spots that are that look
really look like they're still caving in so I I don't know what we can do or did the did the contractor redo that contractor came back and redo that was part of my reports that but he did come back and do it he'll come back that's okay that's all right um he will come back again he's going to look cuz he did notice that it is settlement yeah their
settlement really wherever they uh dug the trench to put the lights in yeah so he'll be back he was there uh Tuesday he was there and he's going to come back next week to talk just to look all right that's all there thank you okay sandy i just wanted to wish everyone a happy Easter i believe Passover is also right
upon us so uh just want to mention that thank you okay Terry no thank you Ellen nothing thanks Susie nope okay there's some events around town uh the OOLPH Easter egg hunt is this Sunday at 11:15 tony Ronis is having a Minecraft event
on Tuesday April 15th from 5:00 to 8 main Street Bingo is next Thursday April 17th and the township is having photos here with Easter Bunny next Friday April 18th at 4:30 and 5:15 p.m and everybody have a nice Easter what else moving over to all
business operations thanks so our last day to register for the annual townwide yard sale is tomorrow that event is being held on Saturday August 26th as it stands right now i think we just have just about 60 homes that are uh not August not August
i did write August too it's April sorry april 26th shoot I am like already in summer mode um the DPW generator project is underway that project will hopefully be completed in the next few weeks yesterday our director of public works met on North Terrace to discuss the paving project so it can be submitted to
NJ DOT that scope of work for the project includes new asphalt installation of sump pump collector system a sump pump collector system for the residential connections replacement of inlet grates curbing replacement and installation of ADA compliant curbs collins Lane as Councilman Kaufman
mentioned the trenches were backfilled and new soil was put down the contractor will go back out next week seating did take place earlier this week i wanted to remind our residents that we're now in grass mowing season grass clippings cannot be blown into the street leave leaving clippings loose in the street is
a violation of our storm water ordinance and property owners may be issued a fine for any violations grass clippings may be placed in a bag and placed curbside with your trash dpw however will not pick up loose grass clippings that are left curbside but a better solution to
that is just cut it and leave it uh they say that it's you'll save about 20 to 25% of your time because you won't have to stop and empty your lawn mower bag you'll avoid purchasing yard waste bags and hauling them to the curb and you'll need less fertilizer so since clippings return nutrients to the soil we ask that
you go for more information to nj.gov and they're in the search link just hit grass cut it and leave it um next week we'll be opening bids for the Fork Landing Road project in front of Yokum School that project includes repaving along with sidewalks and curbing replacement as well as relocation of the
crosswalk for improved pedestrian safety i know officer Shaw will be very very happy that's something he's been uh he's been on for for quite some time so on Monday the director of business and economic development and I had the pleasure of having lunch with nine students from the middle and high school
as part of the future forward maple shade initiative this program is designed to engage our youth and gather their input on the future of our community during the session students were divided into groups and we participated in activities where they shared ideas for the types of businesses they'd like to see in Maple Shade and
proposed a list of events that they'd enjoy it was truly inspiring hour it It really was it revealed that many students weren't aware of what's currently available in town um prompting a very very valuable discussion about how we as a township can communicate better with all of our community not
just you know our older generation but also the younger generation of how we get them information our next meeting with the students is scheduled for May 1st with another round of activities and discussion plan and then we'll compile all of their feedback and present our findings at the BEEDC meeting on May 20th
the hen committee that was proposed last month is in the process of scheduling its first meeting coordinating with everyone's availability has been a bit challenging over the past few weeks so it was agreed to hold off until just after the Easter holiday to finalize a date so I'll be providing more information and an update upon uh or
once that meeting has taken place um as the mayor had mentioned uh there's several Easter egg hunts unfortunately ours had to be cancelled last weekend um I did receive some emails and some phone calls as to why um yes it wasn't pouring rain when we had it but the ground was
completely soggy and a wet dirty bunny with muddy kids is always not a fun thing we also wanted to make sure that the field stays in place um you know and we maintain the field uh for the teams that are using it um but again as the mayor said Friday April 18th here in the municipal build municipal building the
residents can uh sign up for one of the two time slots come up and uh get a special treat and take a photo with the Easter Bunny and then just a quick reminder that all municipal offices are closed for both the Good Friday and Easter Monday holiday that's the end of my report thank you moving over to the
police report thank you Mayor uh so first I just want to start off by commending uh Detective Corporal Jeff Engel and Detective Sergeant Scott Wallace uh back on March 10th uh we responded up to an explosion near the railroad tracks on Front and Lipmancott
and the officers were able to uh quickly grab grab some um surveillance footage and we landed rather quickly on a potential suspect of what happened and you know keep in mind with these type of situations you're trying to determine because it's an after the fact type of call you know are we dealing with
juveniles are we dealing with an adult you know what is their motive you know what is their intent um so Detective Corporal Angel I know was pressing ahead with um you know trying to have an all-encompassing approach to looking at
this and because of those efforts um we ended up working with the New Jersey State Police hazmat unit the FBI bomb unit Rowland County Sheriff's Department we had the county involved prosecutor's office and um on March 12th just two days later we were out searching the
suspect's home and recovering numerous items from that home um they did an outstanding job and they really left no stone unturned oldfashioned police work just out knocking on doors talking to people connecting things up putting
things together and uh I think they did a great job and all their efforts obviously just to keep the residents of Maple Shade safe so I just wanted to express my appreciation to both of them because they did an outstanding job on this particular case uh had a discussion with our school
resource officer as well as our chaplain they've been handling a number of station house adjustments recently if you uh aren't familiar with the station house adjustment it's a diversionary program that we utilize here in the police department where we divert kids off the path of the juvenile justice
system and we have the chaplain uh work with our school resource officer and our juvenile detective to kind of set up community service and things of that nature where we're still holding kids accountable but we're not putting them into the system the two things that are landing kids there are juvenile fights
and kids taking intimate photos of one another or from their um significant other and then spreading those around um so obviously we're encouraging folks to sit down and have a discussion with their kids talk about the importance of obviously both issues uh ways to resolve
situations without uh resorting to violence um one of the things that we're starting to see is potential repeat offenders and the repeat offenders are going to get charged um I know uh just within the last 24 hours we had two different juvenile fights going on uh so
the school resource officer dealing with the um school district obviously they're expressing some concerns we're kind of seeing this unilaterally across the board at a lot of school districts right now i know the Easter break's a little later than it typically would be and I
think everybody honestly is feeling that a little bit uh so we just want to encourage folks to sit down and have a discussion with their kids just so they understand that there are consequences and accountability that's going to happen with respect to these type of things on Thursday April 24th Maple
Shape Police is going to have uh bring your kid to work day uh we started that a few years ago and it has just grown enormously uh we are such a young department everybody is uh most of the officers are newly married with young children they're all coming up we have
over 25 kids signed up to come up to the PD that day um so we have a bunch of things planned out we got a bounce house we're doing tie-dye shirts with the kids some crafts uh one of our athletic competitions that we do which is part of like your uh recruitment for uh physical fitness exam for the academy going to be
serving up pizza and wrapping up the day with some ice cream for the kids so looking forward to that and our team's excited and um again it's a great family and team building event that we do uh the other thing I wanted to talk about real quick is Narcan deployments um as
an agency in conjunction with EMS and we're usually in tandem with one another responding to these overdoses but we had 25 Narcan deployments in 2024 with July August September being our three heaviest months um there's a group
within New Jersey called the drug monitoring initiative and uh I get a report from them on a regular basis and one of the things that they're talking about is 96% of the heroin submissions contain fentanyl so basically it's fentanyl submissions
um the concerning part is the number one county is Camden right next door and a lot of our folks who are addicts are going to Camden to get their heroin and come back up um the other thing that they addressed in Burlington County
specifically is about 6% of our nor Narcan deployments are repeat offenders like people we've Narcan previously so one of the things that we do is called the leave behind uh if we go to a Narcan deployment and we Narcan a subject bring
them back from the brink of death and they recover there's nothing that says we can force them to go to the hospital unless there's certain criteria which is kind of a high bar to meet often times they don't want to go so we will leave a dose of Narcan behind because the Narcan
we administer is only going to last for so long it is there is a chance that you could relapse from that initial dosage so as an agency and just a reminder we continue to run the straight to treatment program every Monday night uh generally that's from 4P to 8P in our
lobby we do that at the request of the prosecutor in conjunction with court nights so if somebody's coming into municipal court because they've picked up for shoplifting or they had a drug charge it's been downgraded to municipal court that's an available option uh also
we do the gap outreach uh we were just out at Wawwa at 73 in Waverly they've been gracious enough to host us there where we do outreach work to folks coming in offering them resources uh to be able to get get into treatment and
then 24/7 365 we have access to what's called operation helping hand um we can contact central communications we can put the subject in touch with a recovery coach and start that process so I just wanted to kind of cover that because I think it's important uh whenever we get
around the holidays we always see an uptick so far in 2025 we've done nine Narcan deployments so we're up and I'm only expecting that to probably continue to climb the last thing that I'll cover is the Hope One bus uh that is a county
resource bus that includes services such as free Narcan kits and training chaplain services peer recovery specialists on-site photo IDs for treatment and housing purposes for the housing purposes that is a significant
issue you call 211 you try to get housing you don't have ID it's going to be a problem so they provide that um and then there's resources for families and also uh comm communicable disease testing uh our community affairs officer
Misty Weiss set this up it's going to be uh on location Thursday April 17th from 11:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m the last time we had them and they're going to be in the municipal lot right there off of Brew Baker and North Fork it was very busy much busier than we even expected um so
we just want to get the word out and we obviously been advertising that as well just to put the word out to the community but the hope one bus will be there i encourage anybody who needs any of those services to please stop over and visit the hope one bus and that's my report thank you Heather sure i'm sorry
Chief i forgot to mention in my own uh comments that uh condolences to Captain Weiss thank you his uh his father passed and uh he's that's also my uncle absolutely appreciate it sir thank you
okay um we do not have a BEDC report until May I believe uh moving over to the sustainable report um they are working on a regrow event it's going to be on April 22nd at 6 p.m uh you're going to learn how to regrow food from scraps that you would normally throw away uh
Arbor Day is April April 25th um they are working with the schools to plant trees at Yokum and the high school and they're also busy preparing for cleanup day in the green fair on May 18th as well as the farmers market that's all I have for sustainable next item is the
request to repurchase the fire truck um should we take this off of here should we leave it on here should we vote on something mr walters isn't here i suggest we table it that's the second
time table i think part of it too is does council want to repurchase it or is there another idea i mean I don't know what else Mr walters is going to be able to provide other than what he's already provided to everybody so the decision now needs to be made what does council
want to do do you want to do you want to consider purchasing it if so then we'll start that process uh both the solicitor and I have both reached out to the to the state to the different purchasing agencies um to get some to get some guidance uh there is a form that would
need to be completed by by Mr walters um if that's the way we're going to do we still have to get quotes there's still a purchasing guideline that has to be but I think the decision that needs to be made is is the township going forward with with the quotes going out there has to be specs for it so my suggestion is
we get the spec sheet and have it for when the bids go out so that's something that uh needs to be done because just repurchasing it or agreeing to it it could be anyone
it could be something that isn't what that is so the spec sheet has to be right to that truck we have the spec sheet that we had used um when we sold it so we can start definitely start there um you know everything's in there the VIN numbers there we know everything
that's on there we can get you know you know I I think that the big thing too is um Yeah I I do agree it'll be a spec sheet that has to be there so we'll start with what we put on that's if council wants to move forward with purchasing with purchasing it i would
personally like to see the truck donated back which is I would like to try to work with Mr walders to see if we can work some kind of arrangements out for that i agree i I mean I I see the need for the truck i don't think I do too yeah i think we definitely I know we definitely need the truck here um but I
don't know about buying it back um I would like to see it donated as well i don't know how you two feel or Andrew he's willing to do that i would rather have it donated but that would be donated i believe it should be to go to the IFC yep we have
to figure out a way to get this truck back so I could reach out i could send a letter to Mr walters if that's what you're agreeing to and ask if that's something at least get that conversation started and if you could start putting the spec sheet together in case it has
to go the other way it didn't seem like he had offered that but maybe he just wanted I don't know just didn't seem that way council's decision council needs to decide you know
I agree that he donate to the IFC okay so I will draft a letter i will send it all out to you so you can review it first and then we'll get that to uh to Mr walters okay um Okay go moving over to new business request for waiver of local raffle
license fees carnival yeah that was um part of your packet on Friday um the carnivals come in and they ask for this every year u Carnival is a big township event and they're requesting the local fees to be waved
your annual football conference call yes okay i'm okay with that i believe we do it every year yes yeah we do i'll make a motion do we need a motion just everybody's fine yeah we're good okay thank you going back to old business oh sure um I
just wanted to know where the status of the nursing home is have we received the appraisal for the property at this point in time no we haven't received it yet when I had uh researched and I had reached out to uh Mr mccale he said it would take anywhere from three to four weeks so we're just three weeks will be
Tuesday next Tuesday so we'll have it then i know that there's been some activity in that building the Yes yeah so um yeah we'll have to see what we get but I'm hoping to have it obviously right before uh either right before Easter or right after the Easter holiday
and uh was anything ever resubmitted for the playground on Buttonwood by the engineers so we are still in the process right now of waiting to see if we get the grant but yes the engineer did look into uh and we'll be redesigning the um the parking area
okay you want me to do site board under new business or old business um site plan you can do it now so site board we had uh four uh four people come up to the site board the
first one was for uh Main Street in the downtown uh the old Kamarskis building um they started adding scooters to the sales of what their original use was so
they came up before us um just to get uh an idea where to go to um and talk to them about everything they're going to be going to zoning to uh see about having a uh use change done and add the
scooters to their uh to their uh list of things that they'll be able to sell uh the next one was uh a uh voice studio music
um down at uh 1416 West Main Street uh basically it's just going to be a uh music school um that'll operate through the week uh it's just one student at a time so all the questions that they would be
receiving from planning uh they kind of went over with so they'll be moving on to planning also to West Main Street uh there's uh the old hair salon there's a gentleman that wants to
put a photography business in there basically he uh does uh menus so it's not an on street or off streetet thing where somebody comes in to get pictures taken so again uh he's off to planning uh after discussion with
him there was also ne 61 North Cedar Avenue um the house had burnt they were redoing it and they uh were changing the footprint of the house and they didn't realize they were in a business district instead of a res residential district so
um they'll be going on the zoning to uh get the approval for doing that and also it was recommended that we look into the zoning to change that specific area for the residential part of the houses that are there and then we had one walk in
which was uh for uh the Antonellis um and basically they're going to be going back to planning um you know they had had a resolution uh and when talking to them they had
agreed to all the things that they agreed to with the the former site site plan and planning so there really wasn't much we could do for them other than to tell them to go back and to reapply um
you know the resolution was done and it's something that they have to follow so that was it as far as site plan goes for this month okay question sure that Antelli one Andrew was that the uh the one that uh
right there on the corner the old thrift store okay there's a gentleman that wants to come in there for uh like a kind of a hardware store it's a chain okay um but as far as uh Antelli's goes
that's going to be up to them where it goes at this point in time whether they go back or not all right thank you okay moving over to the unlist policy i handed this out last council meeting and I shot an email out um we have to just discuss if we're okay with both
proposals one of the proposals none of the proposals i'm okay with doing both i think it's uh looking at what their plan I think they could accomplish these with our support yeah I think it shows great initiative i'm okay
with both also okay susan I don't think there's really money aspect coming from us or they're not asking they're not asking for anything you know I think they just they want to work closely with sustainable and then obviously whatever they propose they're just asking that they get council support to do so um you
know that that is one I know the the community tree and native bush planning initiative which is great that's probably something that we're going to want to get them involved with at least um our uh either our planner or our um planning zoning engineer okay to so that we have that um and then the
environmental awareness campaign which is theformational signs and website collaboration that that's pretty easy again you know anything that would have to go up as far as signage would need to be approved by council um but we can definitely get some sort of website initiative started and and go from there
okay great everybody's good on that anybody comments um were you going to reach back out okay just and then however they want to get started if they want to then reach out to me and then I can at least direct them into you know the different departments for where uh so that would be I just have a question
about the the 100 trees in five years 100 uh trees or and bushes uh are they overstepping with starting this project maybe they should start a little bit lower because that's a lot lot of work 20 trees a year 23 trees and bushes a
year we're not holding them to it is it a big deal yeah i mean you know we can just say 50 to 100 you know okay i mean I'm just saying I don't want them to you know over themselves actually i mean if they plant five I think that's great yeah you
know they they talk with the different departments and whatnot um you know it depends we have to locate the certain locations and whatnot so you know that's going to be an ongoing project most of the kids that are involved now won't even be there in budget graduated
so yeah self-sustaining you know none of our kids get involved in Right i just don't want them to fail before they store because it's a big undertaking keeping them all alive and you know as far as volunteers are concerned but you know I'm totally good
with everything else okay anybody else all right anybody else have anything for new business that's it do you Yes so we'll do resolution number 2025-R88 resolution to meet in executive session for the following Ellen
yes we need to meet to discuss a personal matter relating to the fire department okay motion to close so made all in favor i'll second i'm sorry john second it before I said all got all in favor i