with section five of the open public meetings act be advised that a notice of this meeting is made by posting on the bulletin board in town hall and forwarding to the officially designated newspapers that this meeting would take place at town hall at 7 p.m on Tuesday March 18th 2025 meeting details in the
draft agenda were also posted on our township website please stand to salute the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible
liberty and justice for all vote please deputy Mayor Cohen here mr cosgrove here mr sakami here mr stler mayor Romano here may I have a motion to approve the agenda so move may I have a
second second all those in favor i I May I have a motion to approve the February 18th 2025 Township Committee minutes so move may I have a second second all those in favor i have a motion to approve the February 18th 2025 special township committee minutes so move may I
have a second second all those in favor i okay uh reports um Deputy Mayor K would like to start uh just briefly um the construction at the library is underway um uh the barbaretum which is getting ready for a big strategic planning
session uh at the end of the month um we had our initial meeting for the f of Mr sakamandi myself and Mr gillo uh on the sit it was a constructive meeting it was an initial meeting there more to come on that uh going forward and then tomorrow
night uh it's as the planning board uh the Kai Center uh application will continue thank you uh committees recommended sure um so for the EC um the EC is working on putting together a leaf blower bake off
so that members of the public and the township committee can come see how the electric blowers perform and they've been asked to also include some of those new fangled low-noise gas blowers uh because I think there's been a lot of
information uh from both sides and I think it's time the public you know see and hear some of this stuff for themselves um so we're looking forward to that um see
um the planning board have a separate update um so there's a subcommittee working on the housing element and fair share plan uh which will uh be used in for affordable housing so that's getting worked on um some of the members of that
subcommittee are also on the citizen advisory committee for the affordable housing so the ideas are flowing through um and the citizen advisory committee for the affordable housing is probably going to be having a public session uh
in early April um so stay tuned more more to come on that that's it committee Mano yes thank you um not much to report other than the next historic preservation committee meeting is April
3rd thank you committ St do you have reports uh yes I do uh recreation committee pool golf and tennis pickle ball memberships are still available uh discounts of 10% are available for those who purchase uh with
their pool membership uh the Jurro the Jurro Park LED light project is now complete uh the recck department opened up online court reservations early this season uh and we'll be keeping it open through November 30th uh congratulations to eighth grade boys travel basketball
team who upset the number one and number two teams in the league on their route to winning the championship so we're honored so to honor those guys uh Special Improvement District Explore Milbour Short Hills third annual restaurant week is back and runs from
March 20th through the 30th over 30 local food estab establishments are participating and there are 50 uh specials from local restaurants cafes bakeries and wine boutiques um in addition uh the entire list of specials is on the explore website under
restaurant week tab uh and you can also follow them on Instagram uh with some influencers uh daily uh BOE liaison uh Dr myron the principal of our high school uh has announced he'll be retiring at the end of the year he's
been a staple in our community for 25 plus years three of my kids my kids went through the school under him uh his professional he started in 1981 in mathematics uh at the high school uh and became principal in 2007 through the
present uh he was also on the wrestling team and won a state title the first uh state title champion for for our township so that's a great uh uh he has a great focus on student athletes um so he'll be missed other um no updates on
joint fields no updates on uh Mountain Valley Emergency Center at this time uh communication center uh flood mitigation uh really um a propo the only thing really mention of real substance right now is a proposal for video monitoring of select floodprone areas has been
submitted and is under review uh the modern would help accelerate response during floods and provide valuable insights to identify additional flood mitigation solutions and we could all sit and watch it during the rainstorm um and then lastly it's official bernard
Bernie Zen uh the gentleman we just did a proclamation for who turned 100 World War II veteran uh will be the grand marshall of the Memorial Day parade on May 26 this year so everybody's going to hopefully turn out uh to to wish him the
best as Marshall thank you you say April 26th may 26 may 26 that's my birthday so uh it's a good birthday good to know okay i have just a couple quick updates a senior
citizen advisory group met last week uh for obvious reasons there's not going to be any more bus trips to the Livingston Mall so instead they're going to go to the Short Hills Mall twice a month they also go to Target and Whole Foods and other um trips and appointments to the
seniors within the township in April they are planning a trip to the Somerset Patriots game couple of things going on in Friday Friends they've had various speakers and coming up um fire safety Medicare fraud um and uh decluttering or
hoarding which is which is a a big issue in in town it has been for a while uh they're also introducing line dancing on March 27th uh they also uh one of the members also recognized the senior citizen club that's over at the high school and gave
them the kudos for uh the amazing job that they've done with snow shoveling they're also pulling garbage cans for our seniors and help them with other tech is tech issues so we're really grateful to those kids um local assistance board uh Corey
Cheryl Lonzio who is the um adviser there she reported she had assisted 16 cases from January through March six seniors eight families six single adults provide them with provided them with resources on SNAP benefits Medicare and
Medicaid a lot of questions utility assistance um disabled housing mental health and of course the food pantry and I think that's all I have thank you um just a reminder to our residents that town hall will be moving
uh on April 18th uh which is the projected date uh to 22 East Willow um in order to help facilitate that move we are going to close town hall a few days um on Wednesday March 26th as well as April 16th 17th and 18th leading up to
the move uh that is actually the week of spring break so we're hopeful that's a uh a quiet time and uh we're able to get a lot done in those last few days leading up to the move uh on April 18th we will be um pretty out of commission
so we're going to be moving phones computers different things like that so um we will be sure to communicate this get this out on the township's website we will have a phone message up uh but just wanted to let everybody know to keep that date in mind uh April 18th we will be moving to 22 East Willow so on
Monday the 21st you can come down and see us um we uh we've started meeting with the 250th anniversary committee as everyone knows 2026 is the 250th birthday of the United States and the signing of the constitution and so we uh we have formed a group the committee had
formed a group and we have started meeting uh what we are doing at this point with those members on the committee are breaking ourselves up into large buckets whether it's events promotions uh different things like that and those individuals who are leading those large buckets will then be reaching out to the wider community to
seek other volunteers and help and assistance with what uh you know will turn out to be I think a really fantastic uh celebration and series of history and events and different things like that uh sort of all culminating on Saturday July 4th 2026 with the you know
the uh usual fire display uh at the high school um so just keep uh keep an eye out for opportunities uh in that regard and to be a part of that and uh part of that um that celebration just uh two quick dates uh pedestrian safety advisory board will be
meeting in person um on April 7th uh here in town hall at 7 p.m um normally our meetings are in Zoom uh at uh at 9:00 am uh but uh this year we will have an evening meeting so if people want to come out and discuss uh pedestrian
related um concerns or issues with us we'd be happy to hear from you and also just to save the date for the annual hurricane preparedness meeting with the township's OEM on May 15th and just as a side note um members of our OEM um uh
personnel actually went to the Meadowlands recently to start discussing 2026 which is going to be a really busy year for the state of New Jersey uh with the World Cup being here and so there will be a lot of activity and a lot of different uh uh things going on and certainly a lot of people uh here uh in
the state of New Jersey the finals will be held at the medal end so just wanted to let everybody know thank you mayor good evening uh just a brief report tonight um so we have two rounds of fair share housing now to give reports on uh third round fair share
housing we were in court on March 12th for case management conference um the only thing left for compliance for Milbour is a pilot agreement although we did not enter into the redevelopment redevelopers agreement the court deemed
that um agreement executed obviously we've reserved our appellet rights on that agreement um the court ordered us to negotiate uh through April 30th 2025 um to see if we've come to agreement with RPM on the pilot agreement if there's any open issues the court uh
will address them at that time either through briefing uh and make a ruling um the court set down June 2nd as a compliance date to see if Milburn is compliant uh with its third round obligations uh we'll have a better update following our April 30th court
appearance as to whether or not that's going to move forward on June 2nd um as far as the fourth round I updated the public at the last meeting new Jersey Builders Association uh had a blanket objection to all municipalities that lowered our D our DCA number um the
state gave us an obligation of 555 units um we reduced that to 522 units all objections are supposed to be resolved by the end of the month u Milbourne has not yet had a date scheduled to attempt to resolve that issue um raised by the New Jersey Builders Association other
than that Mayor I have no further report thank you um Mr kamancho do you have anything our six county lesson on Yes good evening Mayor good evening uh want to uh just want to just cover a couple of um event dates for the Branch Park Cherry Blossom Festival on Saturday
April 5th from 7:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m uh they'll be having the Cherry Blossom bike race over in the Oval North Division on Sunday April 6 at 10:00 a.m the Cherry Blossom 10K run which will be at the Cherry Blossom Welcome Center
Fields on Saturday April 12th the onem fun run walk at 9:00 a.m followed by the Essis County Family Day 11:00 a.m to 3:00 p.m at the Credential Concert Grove the Southern Division on Sunday April 13th from 11:00 a.m to 5:00 pm will be
the Bloomfest also at the Oval Northern Division that is all I have to report mayor thank you public comment when invited to speak to offer your comments please come to the lectern and clearly state your name and whether you are a Milbourne resident and/or property or business owner please
do not provide your full address seeing our meetings are recorded and are readily available to the public for the convenience of our community there is a remote option if you called in and would like to comment please press star six now if you are attending by computer or electronic device please click the raise hand button and be sure your video is on
when you comment all members of the public wishing to speak will be put into the queue to address the committee to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to one three-minute session you will be prompted when there are 30 seconds remaining a reminder that
this is not a time for dialogue or to debate a matter and that this is a time dur during our business meeting for the public to offer comments i will now open the public comment period right hello everyone good evening good evening my name is Michael Williams
Olabi um I live at 46 Maple Street in Milbour i'm a high school senior i'm an um a candidate to be Eagle Scout um and I'm doing my project to address food inequity in Essex County specifically Eastern Essex County uh the Irvington uh
East Orange Newark area um a couple statistics on food inequity because um I feel like it's an issue that as Melbourne residents we we might think about but not really know all that much about uh about 16% of residents in
Essex County are affected by food inequity 10% uh is the rate for all of New Jersey so Essex County has a rate above the average for the state uh and it's actually the fourth highest in New Jersey uh about one in 10 residents can't get enough food for two days which
is about one in five households and many people can't qualify for state assistance because even if they're at such a low income as uh like 26,000 they can't qualify um so my project essentially is I'm uh setting up
donation bins at locations um including community community congregational church my church um possibly town hall and possibly the library i'm still in planning uh but generally I want to spread awareness i want to hold two public sessions at my church
um next uh Friday and Saturday um inviting panel speakers to uh to speak on this issue um and I'm open to questions and offers of support from anyone here um and my contact info is 973-665-4686 um if anyone wants uh to
offer support or uh ask questions or clarify anything about about my project that's essentially what I'm working on thank you so much thank you everyone thank you thank you very much speaking go ahead
you You just don't have to say your address you just say your resident okay um my name is Mishka Williams Awabi and I'm a Mland resident i'm a part of Boy Scouts Troop 19 and I'm a volunteer for Michael's Eagle Project um today I'll be discussing food inequality and its
impact so Essex County among others has the fourth highest insecurity problem in New Jersey um Essex County also holds the highest rate of food insecurity among children in New Jersey and there are several factors that contribute to food insecurity the primary driving
force is economic challenges often unemployment people who lack the necessary funds are unable to regularly purchase food and live in places where healthy food options come at a high price in addition those who are paying so much for a place can can wind up having little money to pay up to pay
towards paying for food discrimination also plays a role in the cause of food insecurity for example marginalized communities such as people of color and those with disabilities are at higher risk of food insecurity due to poverty and systemic discrimination in many cities abundant with food insecurity
such as Newark residents lack access to affordable food many of which is still not nutritious food inequality goes far beyond not having a well- balanced meal to eat on the table it has a significant impact on communities food insecurity affects mental health often resulting in
depression anxiety and stress and children facing food insecurity often experience difficulty concentrating leading to lower academic performance and ultimately creating long-term struggles along their educational journeys food insecurity also has been linked to various health issues such as
malnutrition and obesity thank you thank you so much thank you good evening diane Egllo Milbourne resident i got involved in politics when I held an information session at the library where over 100 people attended
this was to inform the public about the Army Corps's plan to construct an 800 foot dam in the reservation which would have destroyed Cherry Lane this was over 10 years ago i proudly helped and worked with the movement against this and thankfully it never happened i saw how
my actions had results and ran and won a seat on Milren's Township Committee where I proudly served for two terms while I was on the TC we formed a group of neighboring communities that flood to work together to find solutions to the flooding that often starts at the reservoir and slams water downstream
flooding Milbour first we all know what happens next is a disaster i believe West Orange may have been part of this group the law is clear one community cannot construct a flood mitigation project that will protect itself and in turn send its water downstream to its
neighboring communities why then can a town potentially construct a huge development that will have severe negative consequences on neighboring communities i was stunned to hear on WNYC of a prominent New Jersey real estate's family plan to build a 500 unit
apartment complex at the top of the West Orange Mountain this plot of forest land forested land is owned by Garden State Homes own billionaire and Milbour Township resident the Wil family billionaires are having a heyday lately
in 2000 on this exact location Mr wolf and Garden Homes was denied his application to build 136 houses because it was deemed a public safety risk now they have been given an initial green light by West Orange to build a much
larger development of 500 apartments why because they have included 100 affordable units which West Orange like every other New Jersey municipality is being forced to build was our town and other towns informed of this has an environmental impact study been provided
to every town downstream who will absolutely be affected when this reservoir overflows the president of the West Orange TC quoted in the Gothamus article "The project proposed has tremendous environmental dangers and uncertainties to the surrounding communities and residents." A West
Orange residence is quoted "This place floods now with 85,000 trees this plan will remove thousands of trees and replace them with concrete i ask you all to get involved as your sworn duty to protect this town please read the Gothamus article by my case published on
March 17th i did speak to my neighbor Sarah Sherman part of the flood mitigation she said she would talk to the people in that group um next thing I know I heard that it's start of fire season i want to know what the town's plans are if god forbid there's a fire because we are all in Mil Hill
surrounded by trees and forests and the Jess here's the article for the Thank you hi everyone my name is Anisha Agal i'm a resident at the poet section and I'm a 10th grade at Milbert High School i would like to ask the township committee
to please pass a seasonal restriction on the use of gas leaf blowers because it causes air pollution air and noise pollution the pollution they generate contributes to poor air quality aggravating respiratory issues especially in children and seniors while the excessive noise disrupts daily life
for these reasons I please ask the township committee to implement a seasonal restriction on gas powered leaf blowers to protect our community's health wellbeing and quality of life thank you thank you um good evening my name is Jeffrey Feld i live also live in the poet section
first I'd like to clarify a historical fact next year we'll be celebrating the 200 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and Not Constitution um as to the agenda sorry on the bill list the
question that we've had pending is how much have we paid attorney Caner in calendar year 2024 was it 420,000 420,000 was it 500,000 or was it more than $500,000 regarding the resolution
regarding the delay of the re-evaluation I think the public should know is when did we know that we would be subject to this was it when we introduced last year the user-friendly budget and showed us that we're below the 85% ratio when did we receive the letter um what are the
adverse consequences of this reevaluation will there be increased revenues to the open um space tax the library whose library is based on our assessments and will our county taxes share go up because we're reevaluation will show we have more monies and I
believe the public should understand that typically when you have reevaluation cost is advertised over five years but that takes us back to the last meeting um you left a question for our attorney to get back to us about a sunset provision in the open space tax and I'm just wondering what the status
of that investigation was um also tonight there's a $2.1 million capital bond ordinance first reading um according to section 9 of the bond ordinance there's supposed to be a supplemental debt statement that's submitted or to the clerk um I've looked
at the finance department's website because they usually post it it's not been posted and that's usually a precondition of any first reading is a supplemental debt statement i don't know if that's happened and this ties into the ongoing issue about our capital um capital needs budget you know it ties
into what do we expect and also is there an updated list showing the public what streets are going to be repaved now I just want to return to last Wednesday's um case management conference which was originally supposed to be on Tuesday it was cancelled pushed to Wednesday the
public should understand that I asked the court at 6 o'clock in the morning on Wednesday to have a link at 8:45 a.m the judge said "Get in a car and get to New York by 9:30." 10 minutes later based on other requests by citizens the link was started being
shared but a lot of the public did not know i think it has to be a little elaborated what happened at that hearing there was questions about whether RPN had supplied information to the town we said we hadn't received it there's also the judge specifically Judge Russo at
the beginning of the hearings start make references to orange and my relationship with litigation and again I offer my opportunity to explain to everyone my knowledge about long-term tax exemptions um as to this H1FA
of course Charles Bambara Milbour Township President for 28 years uh I applaud the Environmental Commission's uh uh sidebyside testing of leaf blowers i think that's an excellent way to prove
once and for all uh what what the status is there with the leaf blowers um there's a lot of hype there's a lot of rumors i encourage people to get the facts uh uh just before I headed here I
Googled I asked uh Google's AI assistant which was more damaging to hearing high frequency sounds or low frequency sounds and I will read you the answer while both high and low frequencies can damage hearing high frequency sounds are typically the first to cause hearing
loss due to the anatomy of the inner ear and the way it's structured to process sound and this goes on but there's been articles about low frequency sound causing more damage uh I encourage you to do your own research and and don't just take what's
presented to you as fact uh once again I'm happy to help in that regard thank you thank you hi everyone richard Cyber town resident so the first time I got involved in coming to township committee meetings
was because of the RPM project that was um wanted to be built on the DPW site so I just have one question or two maybe two so we're talking about um the pilot
right the pilot point so the there's two ways to look at it so you have the pilot which is starts with a percentage that has to be negotiated and then it's either a percent of the gross revenue or the net
revenue back in the 80s when I was in the record business and the record companies would came out with the net nobody ever got paid because you can always create a lot
of expenses nobody ever got paid when I inherited some oil wells in Texas 10 years ago the company that wanted to drill the oil they wanted to play the net per barrel my sister who's
a very smart person negotiated and said "No we will get paid for every barrel that comes out of the ground we don't really care what your expenses are you just pay us." So I'm just wondering does RPM make the percentage
as to how much the pilot's going to be and is RPM the one that says it's a percent of the gross revenues or the net revenues that's all thank you good evening good evening uh Reed Cam
resident I just wanted to comment on two environmental issues one that's already been touched on but firstly I just wanted to thank the town for its initiative about the um unwanted newspaper uh registry um I as someone who tried to cancel that a few times by calling the number on the plastic wrapper and it didn't work i had to go
through my newspaper delivery person um I think that's a great role for the town to play to coales all the people who don't want that and I think it'll really cut down on litter it obviously clogs drains and causes other problems it's unsightly so thank you for that and uh I'd be hopefully that hopefully it's
promoted by the town uh the second one was just on the um the seasonal restriction um just like to come out in favor of that um I think if you'd like to go further I would encourage you to do that as well um I think the EC has done a great job um having information
sessions and they committee has been a great sponsor of of that process i think it's the issues are really out on the table and I think you could probably make a pretty good informed decision about it now um the only thing I would also add is that if you're going to do a bake off add a rake to that selection
because I think that's also a very viable form still and and I and I would be happy to volunteer to demonstrate so thank you very much thank you anyone before we go online hello every Oh sorry hello everyone my name is Genevie
and I'm currently a sophomore at Milurn High School i am a star scout and I'm currently the senior patrol leader of my scouting America troop i would like to ask the township committee to please pass a seasonal restriction on the use of glass leaf blowers i love the outdoors and I hike and go camping very
regularly as I previously mentioned I'm a high school student so so um I spend a lot of my time studying and school work and doing school work the gas fired leaf blowers and their constant noise is extremely distracting when it comes to studying and can ruin the quiet of nature on the hikes I love so much the
passing of the seasonal band would would reduce the loud noise and distraction while I am working and would greatly reduce the noise while camping and hiking thank you thank you jonathan Baxter Far Brook Drive resident uh I'm going to speak to the gas leaf
ban and I'm sure you're sick of it but I know I won't take longer than 3 minutes um so the main thing I want to talk about today is I submitted testimony to the the entire committee which was uh in response to I submitted that last week in response to Matthew Giller's
testimony from March the 4th and I just wanted to speak to some highle points that I want to make about that there's a lot of misinformation about what the science says there's a lot of very clever advocacy from those who are supporting a leaf blower ban but the science doesn't support it at the bottom
level a gas leaf blower ban and the main reason is is there are low-noise gas leaf blowers so everyone who comes up here and says we want a gas leaf blower ban what they want is a ban on the noise levels and I totally understand that i completely agree but there are low-noise gas leaf blowers that are virtually indistinguishable from electric leaf
blowers in terms of their noise characteristics you will hear some claims i can speak to that maybe later but about the frequency differences between the two but it's really a distinction without a difference at the end of the day if you look into the research so what would make more sense rather than picking a particular
technology for my mind is a seasonal band still 3 months whatever we choose to do but just a restriction on the decibel rating of the equipment that's used the gas leaf blowers the manufacturers all rate them you can set 65 dibels as the limit instead of saying
you must use an electric leaf blower you just must use a leaf blower that has a rating 65 dB or less and then the landscapers can decide if it's cheaper to use electrics they'll use electrics if it's easier for them to use gas they can use gas now against that of course is the claim of the pollution from the
gas leaf blowers and that's where a lot of the science is misleading there's a lot of comparisons that people make they'll pick some compound that's emitted by the gas leaf blower it's a two-stroke engine so it has different emission characteristics from your car which is a four- stroke engine and they'll pick some compound that the two-stroke emits that's almost never
emitted by the the car because it has a different kind of fuel and then they'll say well the ratio there is 30 to1 or 50 to1 and therefore the gas leaf blower is as polluting as a thousand PS and so everyone imagines wow a thousand cars driving down the road all polluting all the noise all the extra but it's a false
equivalence we could pick some compound that the car emitted take platinum that's in the catalytic converter leaf blower emits none of that so cars are infinitely worse it's equivalent to running a billion leaf blowers for a thousand hours right just driving your car out of the driveway these comparisons don't actually get to
the true underlying issue which is what are the actual emission levels from gas leaf blowers and they're negligible 053% of CO2 emissions come from gas leaf blower so you'd ban them all together you'd still have 99.5% of CO2 you'd have 99.2% of nitrous oxide emissions you'd
have approximately 99 exactly 99.73% of volatile organic compound emissions would still be even if you ban the leaf the gas leak wells all together thank you thank you Dean Pastnac resident um I have just a
few things I want to say i noticed Michael um Olabi is here i'm I'm aware of your project Michael um I just want to say that I think it's really important the work that he's doing i hope that that the township will um support him i happen to have a young woman who lived with us who was homeless
for about four months and I have to say that I got a really weak response from Essex County and trying to help her um she was in need of shelter food um I have to say even the groups that are set up to help these people that are nonprofits um they were not really well
equipped to help so I'd just like to um suggest that if there's any way that we can use the experiences that we all are learning from uh from people who are far less fortunate than we are to try and help them in a more efficient way i know I contacted and I know you tried to help
uh Mayor Romano but also uh I think we have the Essex County person on the phone i mean it was really frustrating i have to say it opened my eyes a lot to have that person living with us and to understand the the different um difficulties that she went through and I really don't feel that our county is
very well responsive to people in this situation so uh if there's any feedback that I can provide and certainly any help I'd like to volunteer my time to help with that um as far as the gas leaf blower ban I just would I know it came up but I never really heard an answer is
there any is there any feedback on what it's going to cost residents uh to have this ban in place i I think that's all that we really would would like to also add in addition to whatever else is being um provided as far as feedback um
I'd also like to say again the $1.2 million capital spend that's on the agenda tonight um I know we're supposed to have a long-term plan and it's come in at the budget time but again you know this is a lot of money that we're spending where are the priorities where
does this fit into the priorities uh that the town has for our budget and over over not just this year but over years i just don't feel we understand that or know it and things are money's being spent projects are being put on top of other projects based on what what
are the criteria who gets what money i I just feel like we really don't have that um that kind of guidance and strategic planning going on and I hope we will have it soon um the the other thing is uh I I sort of took exception to the comment that you made um township
committeeman deputy mayor sorry Cohen about political retaliation i really don't feel it was appropriate i think that that people um saw an unethical situation and they brought it to the attention of the township committee and for you to reduce it to a political retaliation issue is very very
disrespectful um I didn't hear you speak out against the uh uh criminal complaint that was filed against me as the head of the of the Republican party when the former mayor uh did that kind of retaliation so I I'm I'm a little disappointed i know you're you can do better thank you
anyone else before we go online hello hi um I'm Carrie i live in town um and it's too early for me to talk about Rocktoberfest so I am here to talk about Milbourne baseball um this uh upcoming uh April 5th it's a Saturday we are
going to be doing our annual uh Wally Krug tournament where we honor one of the great volunteers of Mil who helps Milbour baseball this year it's Melissa Sefue uh who was an amazing volunteer for our team for many years um but we are also celebrating the 10-year
anniversary of Milbour Millers winning the state championship so we would like to invite the entire community to come out on Saturday April 5th um at 1:30 uh for the ceremony and then there is a 2:00 baseball game after that um and it
is I mean cheaper than going to City Field or Yankee Stadium and you can see our amazing high school players before they play in the MLB because we now have several players um from Melbourne who have made it to the MLB which is really exciting um so uh we will be spreading
the word on social media um and this would also be in support of our many many coaches um who have done such an amazing job um including Chris Meyers um our rec department chair um who was a Milbourne baseball coach for many years so please come out and uh we will start
posting and annoying you all the time thank you thank you hi Bill Brazelle resident of South Mountain um I appreciated Jean's question and it's been one that a number of people have asked and a lot of people
have speculated about on Happy Milbourne and other social media groups is a seasonal restriction on gas leaf blowers going to lead to price increases for our residents um that's something we have heard people say in this room and and
elsewhere the thing I want to point out uh is that we have absolutely no evidence that that is the case by now if restrictions like this led to price increases we should know that um it's
happened in maybe 150 municipalities in the United States um surely if there was evidence that it led to a price increase somebody who hates these kinds of restrictions would have done a paper about it i'm not saying there isn't a paper anywhere but I'm saying I've dug
hard and I can't find one i think sometimes we can infer something from the absence of that evidence and I've asked other people who have said prices are going to go up where is the evidence that prices go up particularly for a seasonal restriction um these things are happening a lot you know uh Cambridge
Massachusetts they had one that went into effect over the weekend as some of you know West Orange passed one last week um basically u and I've and I've spoken also to people in towns where this has been in effect uh James Fowls
in Washington DC said there has been absolutely zero impact on the landscaping industries there they are flourishing everything's fine um locally here uh Maplewood Mayor Nancy Adams I got in touch with her and asked her "Has anybody complained about a price
increase?" They have a year- round ban so if there was a price increase that would be the place to see one she said "Not a single person has come to her about that." As many of you know Nancy Adams is sort of the public face of this kind of restriction i can guarantee you that if somebody's prices went up they
would have come to her door and said "Mayor it's your fault it's on paying more for landscaping." Nobody has done that i spoke to Christine Simington in Princeton she said the same thing no one has reported any kind of price increase a lot of people say "Well it's logical to expect one." And but the thing that's
funny is that it doesn't seem to be happening we have spoken with a number of landscapers and also read a lot of other landscapers who have reported that when they switched over there was no need for them to raise their rates so I want everybody to understand that and
and I'm not again I'm not saying there's no evidence that this happens there may be some that I haven't found but I think it's it speaks to something important that it's hard to find and that most of the people that I've tal everybody I've talked to has said there's no increase
in rates thanks very much thank you anyone else before we go online seeing none one second i'm putting my video on hi I have a quick question before I start um will I have time to talk about um the
Taylor Park from an HPC perspective because Alex said he was giving time in this meeting i just need to know or do I need to use my three minutes so okay okay so um let me talk about um I'm going to talk about Taylor Park first
and um I wanted to say Alex um I have no idea as a newly appointed HBC alternate why HBC was not consulted um early in the process before an architect was even hired and designs were done um Barton
Ross is on staff i said that in the prior meeting and that should never happen again um you know and also it also puts concern to me as to why the HBC was not consulted before 165 Ultra Hills Road was um torn down because it
was on the master plan as a historic building indication and in addition to that why are we not having the HPC be consulted on the redo of town hall that's another historic building so just because it's not indicated as historic
if it's historic it's historic so I wanted to go into Taylor Park actually one of the co-designers was um actually Olmstead's brother um John Hull Mstead who designed Central Park and also South Mountain and so one of the things to me
that's really important there's a lot of history behind these people they're extremely extremely talented designers as anybody knows who's walked through these park systems and so one of the things that I wanted to talk about was that we really need to do a full park design with a master plan before be doing peacemail designs such as this
this is why we have zero design consistency in town um the plantings you know I I I just I'm going to give some recommendations and I will finish up this deck and send it to you guys um the biggest thing for me is um I don't see
any need for putting a rot iron fence that's probably where you're adding a lot of expense with that iron custom iron work um it makes the park kind of look like it's dangerous and oh we have to keep it gated um total like waste of money i think you could actually just
keep the peers and um you know have a low sitting wall where people can actually sit and then consider putting shrubbery behind it so it looks more organic and green in keeping with the native plants sort of agenda so I also want to talk about the park benches i
think they're dated and heavy looking and we have to have consistency in color they're not very historic looking um I I think we need to stop with the blue colors and the blue and white colors like a Miller's moment we don't have to match the high school colors to make something aesthetic it's not aesthetic
we're not trying to sport a jersey for our high school even though I love Milburn High School and the Millers so I just also think that the wagon not the wagon wheels the mill wheels are also kind of a little bit of a gimmicky aesthetic and I would recommend putting
a um bronze mill wheel in place thank you so much oh close public comment um committee and second would you like to go first not really but I can we can start the
other one it's up to you oh I can let someone else go first sure i don't have much um for Miss Egllo I also I did see the article that you were referencing and I also called Miss Sherman to uh refer that to the flood
mitigation committee it is very concerning that um a a development I I don't have the details and you can't get that from that article as to what the impact would be but she has told me that the flood mitigation committee will be trying to do additional research to understand the impact uh if it you know
what it does to the river and how that will work so I guess great think alike um that's really all I have to say committee um so we've heard people tonight for and against the leak lower ban um I'm I'm
very happy that uh some members of the EC are working as I said earlier uh to put on a lower bake off i think that will allow all of us that are interested to see the equipment try it out hear
firsthand you know uh how loud it is etc also see the runtime on the battery models so hopefully that will help dispel um you know any myths that are floating around from either side and uh we're
looking forward to that um and I think that once that's uh been accomplished then uh hopefully the uh the TC will take it up for vote that's all I have thanks thank you
um Commander Stellar uh sure um let's see uh Michael Mishka thank you guys for everything you guys are doing in the community these are examples of of fantastic Milbour Milurnites uh who just give back to
community so much and Oen great job raising these children um I I think uh Captain Kamacho if you could help look at the Essex at the West Orange build and report back to us if there's anything you see we can do uh and that we're speaking to the right
people i am on the flood mitigation committee as well and I know we will look at it uh I think everyone read that article and it's just horrific that you would that someone would build there with the downstream effects uh so we will absolutely roll up our sleeves and
uh do what we can there diane also uh Captain Kamacho if you can reach out to Michael and uh talk about his project uh and I would love to see Essex County become involved um and uh and actually offer up some help with the project for
Michael's Eagle Scout project uh Carrie thanks for reminding me that 10 years fly by so quickly it's like yesterday we won the state championship with Chapman uh so uh it's crazy that 10 years have already gone by uh and uh
we'll certainly make sure we advertise uh the event uh and the celebration that's all I have thank you thank you um I also I just want to thank the young people that chose to spend their Tuesday night with us and thank you guys um both for for your uh project and just um if
you could just send me the details of the event at Community Congregational and whatever I can do to support you and help you please just let me know you just email me or um I can give you my number later however you want to do that
um the uh the the what we were talking about before with the the SNAP benefits and the um housing and every and everything else it's it's not just an Essex County problem it's a it's a state problem and I can just tell you you know
now there's even more worry that there's going to be even more cuts so everything is kind of in limbo um with with all of that um just back to um Mr brazil's comments west Orange they've had a
seasonal ban for I think two two or three years now they did not move it further they're actually considering uh doing a putting it on for a referendum this year and Maplewood that's not that's not true i spoke to a committee person last week the the the
full year ban is going through a referendum in 2026 but the seasonal ban they passed just last week on second reading i'm sorry I have wrong information that's right i'm sorry and um Maplewood took six years to um put
their restriction in place so just wanted to make you aware of that um that's all I have mr mcdonald do you want um sure i'll just speak to two things one is uh with regard to the $2.1
million uh bond ordinance uh bond anticipation note that is on for the uh township committee this is the the continuation of the township's uh road reconstruction uh projects uh we have
been aggressively going after um doing roads in the right way uh addressing drainage addressing breakage uh any sewer lines that are broken under the road curbing uh as well as a full mill and pave of those roadways um we have
done this for the last four years uh we do it at this time of year so that we can authorize the money prior to the budget being adopted um and that that money would be available in time to bid the project so that work can be done over the summer and not be disruptive to the schools uh this year's um roads uh
contain quite a few um as it has in the past as well uh in particular um a lot of the area that's being addressed uh is as a result of the work being done by PSENG um what we do is we sit down with PSENG we go through the roads that
they've impacted through their improvement to the township's utilities and their own utility um and the service that they're providing to our residents and we go through those roads and we do a square yardage swap so that we can start to pave full roads uh as many may
remember in the past uh some of these areas that were impacted by PSAG would be done they would restore the half that they impacted um so we we sit down and we work through the roads um to be able to to have a um make sure as many roads as possible are paved in full curb to
curb full length whatever has been impacted by PSG additional roads being addressed um in addition to you know Silvin Athens Rolling Hills um Sparta those roads up in that area um in the Deerfield section that's been impacted
by PSNG are uh the stretch of uh Glenn Avenue between Brookside and Ultra Hills Road um the uh a section of Metobrook between Campbell and Glenwood um and what people will notice about the approach that we're taking with that
particular road is that um they have that Metobrook has a um sort of a swailed gutter system but what's happening is that many people are paving over that swale they are impacting the ability for the water to drain from that swale and so uh what we are going to do
is start to add in additional drainage normalize that street to be curbed uh so that the flow of water and the drainage of water will be better facilitated um so there's a lot of work going on um with with the road reconstruction and making sure that we're addressing a lot
of roads uh I don't think that that aggressiveness will continue uh at that level going forward but certainly is something that we're using data that we we we did uh full scan of every street in the in the municipality we we
assigned a a pavement condition index of those streets uh and we approached those streets from poor to marginal and so as we continue to work up that list um we're addressing uh those roads that are most in need that helps avoid some of this you know where oh please pave my
road or whatever it may be and it's based on data and the ability to make sure that we're addressing those streets that are most in need um as it relates to um the last meeting uh or I I think uh it was it was asked that the township
uh reach out to not only the art advisory committee but also the historical uh historic preservation commission we did that um in providing them the information and the ability to um um make their comments um we did
receive comments from the art advisory committee regarding the gateway many of them were just general comments like we received uh at the public discussion meeting um the historic preservation commission I think is a little bit more complicated uh in in what they feel
needs to happen going forward um but Mr cosg Grove and I are meeting with the Historic Preservation Commission tomorrow to continue to discuss what that process looks like but in the end the reason that the Taylor Park Gateway was not provided to historic preservation commission is because it is not an application before the land use
board uh which is usually the trigger but we're going to work out a system in which that uh you know I think that projects are are better communicated um but you know going through going before the board as a full application and having a review and and things like that I think there's there's a better way to
do that um certainly many of the comments that Miss Best just gave as a member of the Historic Preservation Commission uh didn't really uh relate to the history but more so the aesthetics and what the what the design is which is great and fine and that's exactly what we're looking for um but I think that
the project that was put forth at the public discussion uh was very respectful to the history of the park um you know understanding that the Rose Garden uh was you know the Wallbridge Rose Garden is is historic in nature that the Bower Center is historic in nature that um
they're respecting that and the pillars that are being designed there and making sure it's the same stone um so anyway I just uh and and as far as the comment about the fence I think that part of that is not to to provide a a sense of of of uh of security but more a
protection to the plants and to the tree um that are there that we set out to protect um and making sure that people do not just sort of go through the park but are funneled toward an entrance and open you know are are are invited into the park through that entrance and not
just sort of uh you know walking through wherever they may may choose um so I just wanted to provide that information we are working uh obviously with the HPC to make sure that we get a a process going forward thank you Mr k thank you mayor i really have no response anything
from the public unless someone from the committee has a question thank you the township committee will now consider consent agenda resolutions are there any comments from the committee in regard to any items listed on the consent agenda may I have a motion to approve
resolution 25-082 through resolution 25-089 which are listed on the consent agenda so move may I have a second second roll call vote please deputy Mayor Cohen yes mr cosgrove yes Mr sakamandandy yes Mr stoler
that was a yes yes Mayor Romano yes are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 25- 090 may I have a motion to approve resolution 25-090 so move may I have a second second roll call vote please deputy Mayor Cohen yes
mr cosgro yes mr sakamandi yes mr stler affirmative mayor Roan yes are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 25-091 may I have a motion to approve resolution 25-091
so move may I have a second second roll call vote please deputy Mayor Cohen yes mr cosgrove yes mr sandy yes mr stler affirmative mayor Romano yes thank you uh Deputy Mayor Cohen you are scheduled to sponsor ordinance 2701-25
yes uh I would like to present an ordinance entitled ordinance 2701-25 bond ordinance to authorize the undertaking of the 2025 road improvement program in four the township of Milbour in the county of Essex state of New Jersey to appropriate the sum of
$2,100,000 to pay the cost thereof to make a down payment to authorize the issuance of bonds to finance such appropriation and to provide for the issuance of bond anticipation notes in anticipation of the issuance of such bonds this is as Mr mcdonald explained
this is the uh road improvement for this year i move that this ordinance be taken up and passed on first reading and that the township clerk be authorized to have the ordinance published in accordance with law in the item and for hearing and final passage on Tuesday April 15 2025
may I have a second second roll call vote please deputy Mayor Cohen yes mr cosgrove yes mr sakandandy yes mr stler affirmative romano yes okay i am going to sponsor
ordinance 2702-25 i would like to present an ordinance entitled temporary ordinance 2702-25 temporary closure of town hall plaza between Essex Street and Milbour Avenue pursuant to NJSA4067-16.9 in the township of
Milbourne County of Essex the purpose of this ordinance is to establish a temporary street closure pursuant to NJSA4067-16.9 on Town Hall Plaza between Milbourne Avenue and Essex Street for outdoor dining and other permitted uses beginning June 18th 2025 and ending
September 2nd 2025 um this is obviously for the closure for the summer i move that this ordinance be taken up and passed on first reading and that the township clerk be authorized to have the ordinance published in accordance with law in the item and for hearing and final passage on Tuesday April 15th 2025
may I have a second second roll call vote please deputy Mayor Cohen yes mr cosbro yes mr sakandi yes mr stler affirmative may Romano yes thank you okay we have no old business
we have no news with new new business we have public comment this public comment period is to allow for final comments from the community when invited to speak to offer your comments please come to the lectern clearly state your name and whether you are a Milbourne resident andor property or business owner please do not provide
your full address seeing your meetings are recorded and readily available to public a reminder that in order to help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to one three minute session okay charles Banara 28 year residents of
Milburn Township um regarding the costs of uh uh switch to electric blowers that the assumption is made that everybody in this town has a landscaper i don't i do my own landscaping okay i I mow my own
lawn i do my own trimming and everything else so there's a very real cost to me and that's I've got to go out and buy new equipment so you know don't forget about the private citizens that may not have a landscaper we're going to see at the
right cost thank you thank you um Jeffrey Feld I live in the poet section three major points to talk about i wish the county person was still on here regarding the pilot that we have to negotiate by April 30th there are two other parties that should be part of
these negotiations one being the county to see whether they get a 5% payment and one being our board of education whether they get any percentage of the revenues these are set forth in various reforms and in the third edition of the
redevelopment handbook um as to be bare properties one and bare properties 2 I suggest that you get a transcript of what occurred in the court last um um Wednesday
um especially in light of the um letter that was submitted to the court today on behalf of the township um about political persecution that's a phrase that we're starting to hear a lot of um but what about September 1st 2020 when I stood up and asked about a
walk-on um black lives flag mag to be uh arrested what about January 5th 2021 when Nancy Stone was removed by the police from this this place because she objected you take suppressing our free speech at that time or January
2023 the municipal criminal complaint filed by a former mayor against a a loud dissident that didn't have an executed dated probable cause findings um please also on February 13th I filed
a notice of a civil rights act violation regarding the special assessment i still have not heard a response from that because of the the notice requirement i had to file a complaint on February 18th the committee said that the two of you
would start negotiating whether there are changes of amendments um the court has se said an April 7th trial date for Bear Properties won finally there was a great production this past weekend at the high school musical was off the chart it was Big Fish and one of the
themes of that musical was you never know who you're going to meet in life and what influence they can have on you when I was a younger man I was able to meet and hear Zachary Carter zachary Carter when he was a student at Cornell took over the
straight but about 30 years later he ended up being the municipal corporation council for state New York City and when he starts talking about being a municipal counsel he says there's an inherent conflict of interest that you have who is your client is the client
each of the individuals up here or is it the entity or is it all the people in this room and what he said is as a municipal attorney the most important thing he has to do is take all the interest of people and squeeze justice out of the law thank
you thank you sorry um Jean Pastor Neack Resin I just wanted to clarify um what what I was talking about as far as the Essex County services is not about the amount of money it's about the management and customer service aspect of the services and the people who are supposed to be
there to interact with individuals who need that assistance i can tell you it was abysmal i mean really abysmal um the people eventually it became clear that you there was sort of like an underground knowledge that you had to have about how to present yourself to
get certain things and it was just horrendous so I I really think it has nothing to do with federal uh funding i I was doing this during the time when uh the former president was in charge and the budget from 2024 was in place so it
had nothing to do with the amount of money it had to do with how it was being managed and how the people who were seeking services were being treated and it was not good so I really feel that there's a lot of room for improvement from our local level all the way up to
uh the state level so that's my comment thank you anyone else before we go online good evening Christine Best coming back um Alex I just want to make a comment i will I'm going to send in my comments can you guys hear me okay yep yep thanks
so um design is a big part of HPC and matching the Bower Center which isn't really a classic Mstead aesthetic isn't necessarily always the way to go and some of the points that I'm going to be making are actually pulled from design elements from those parks because
they're very natural looking and so that's why I made those comments and it's relevant to the actual original architect of the park and their intention so just throwing that out there i wanted to bring up an issue that came to mind for me on the native plant species and I was actually at home and
some person that was hired by the town was on my property touching my tree like looking at the branches that I planted four years ago it's actually a coutura tree and it's about six caliber now and it was quite expensive and I planted it because it's quite durable in this area
and it's a gorgeous tree it leaves out it's not invasive like um some of the maples are and I planted it because I lost so many oak trees and ash trees which are native trees and so the reason why I'm concerned about it is I get that we did this whole thing with the 7030
split on township land but he's telling me "Oh that's in the rightway because it's x amount of feet from the curb." So what I want to ask you guys when you p approve this whole thing is does that mean if I want to plant a hydrangeanger bed with a cute picket fence 10t off the
pro the edge of the street that um it's now got to be defi decided by the EC like and how like can you control the overall aesthetic of my property because like all of this works together and I think this is just needs to be refined a
little bit more because that was a major thing that wasn't thought through in the language in in this thing and one of the reasons why I was concerned about overreach so I just want to bring that up to everybody and I'd love to know from Alex what this person is doing because he's telling me he's going to trim my tree and I have my own arborist
that's certified who's quite talented so I don't want the town trimming my trees so just letting you know um and then in terms of going back to um I want to fully support um Charlie Bambber um and um uh Jonathan Baxter's amazing work in
actually presenting all of the science because I think that's really really important and I also want to talk about this this board right now is Democratic controlled um this is a democra mostly democratic town and I believe in democracy and putting this to a vote and a referendum just because West Orange
did it this way doesn't mean we have we're not followers we're in highly intellectual township people and we don't follow other towns we do what we think is best for this town and what is best for the democracy of this town and I've talking to four landscape people including people that I've worked with in in the past or people I just know on
the street and basically they're talking 34 to 40% thank you thank you hi Jay Morelli Township President two things real quick i'd like to um say I support uh Gene Pasternac's uh call for
a long-term capital plan i think this has been discussed um I don't know for at least three years um uh it seems like it should be a relatively straightforward process um and I uh anything we can do there I think would
be beneficial i'd also like to follow up on a point from last week's meeting and I'll thank Mr feld for reiterating it regarding the question regarding the sunset uh option for the open space tax
it seemed uh during the comment period at the TC last meeting that the TC had instructed Mr canantern to determine whether or not that was a viable option um maybe I misunderstood uh the
direction from the TC but if there's any information on that uh I would be appreciative thank you very much thank you muted hello hi how are you hi yes hi thank you for having me and thank you for all you do i am Tammy Kong i am a
longtime resident of both Short Hills and now Milbour i've lived here for a couple decades and um um just recently the leaf blowers are a major quality of life issue for me and many of my
neighbors and friends and um I support fully any restrictions that you can apply to them especially the se the um current seasonal restriction that you are considering um I um I as a physician I'm aware of both the health effects and
the annoying effects of the blowers and I'm happy to discuss uh either the science or the real life um quality of life problems if um anybody should want to talk about them with me i'm happy to
talk um just wanted to voice my support thank you for all you've done you're doing thank you thank you anybody else yeah hi um I'm David Jacobs can you hear me yep oh great hi David
Jacobs of Milbour um I too would like to first of all thank the the EC and the work that Bill's been doing over the really past couple years to investigate the the leafblower issue it's been a long process it's not been thrust upon
anyone from like last week i know there's been a lot of research that's gone on to it and and everything has pretty much evolved tech technologically speaking but the reality is we all recognize I think at some level that this noise problem and to a certain extent the pollution issue but
especially the noise and quality of life issue is an issue and I think um good people are all trying to figure out a solution here i think that uh the solution that's on the table is modest by comparison to other communities and I think it's one that we really ought to
figure out how we can support and make work um I realize landscapers have issues um we do too as residents and the reality is many of us work from home many of us are affected by it daily um
and frankly it's it's a problem that we can solve at this point maybe not six years ago when Maplewood started but certainly now when when technologically uh we're we're capable of doing so so thanks to EC thanks to uh the the
township committee for reviewing this and hopefully we can move forward thank you thank you i will now close public comment does anyone have any comments yeah I actually I did uh want to defer to Mr
on the sunset if that is allowed given that it was a public referendum oh yeah so um in order to change to allow for a sunset provision you would need another referendum uh that amendment would have to be by referendum also so you would be able to change the current that referendum thank you do you
want to answer anything else uh no matter unless the committee has any other questions thank you committ uh no questions no comments okay second yeah real quick on the uh long-term capital plan um that's
something that uh I think a number of us uh have certainly been and I've advocated for in the past um you know I thought we were going to get a presentation on it last year at the end of last year and one reason or another um that hasn't happened so uh
what I would suggest is that if we don't see um the long-term capital plan soon then we may need to revisit the idea of having a committee um to look into uh this and work on this and um you know
the last time this idea was brought up we were told that uh the township would present the long-term capital plan so um Mr mcdonald this is a friendly reminder to make sure we get that scheduled and make sure it actually happens otherwise I think we will have to revisit a
long-term capital plan committee committer do you have anything to add no no but I do want to reassure everyone that you know I'm on the finance committee with I believe M with Michael uh and that's at the forefront of the
finance committee i believe you'll see that the long-term uh strategic um capital dispersement budget when the um when the budget is presented and I guess Alex you can can confirm that that's correct yeah
you did say that Mr mcdonald i was just going to say Yeah you did say at the budget the budget at the meeting after the introduction of the budget we'll have the long-term capital plan a lot of that will mirror the five and 10 year capital plans that are in the normal
budget but also bring into account uh obviously the township strategic plan which is the master plan of the of the township and some of those items and also some items that I don't think a whole lot of people may necessarily know about or or pay attention to at times
you know rightfully so but um including our building infrastructure our sewer infrastructure um and things that you know don't nec necessarily have a lot of visual impact but certainly do have a lot of how we operate impact so uh we'll be happy to share that as I said last
meeting uh in that in that budget discussion in the interim between the introduction and the adoption of the budget and the one other thing too is if we could just make sure that we do a a public announcement of when that uh gas power leaf blower versus electric leaf
blower versus gas power with a uh a noise reducer or a low decel uh model when that pro when that's going to be done so residents can come oh okay i think if you share EC shares it with us
um and they have that set up we'll make sure yeah they're they're working on getting uh that set up and as soon as we have the information it'll get great may I have a motion to adjourn so praise