Red is okay. On Does that mean it's on? Good evening everyone. Okay. In accordance with section five of the open public meetings act, be advised that a notice of this meeting was made by posting on the bulletin board in town
hall and forwarding to the officially designated newspapers at this meeting would take place at town hall ex at the board of ed center at 7 p.m. on May 6, 2025. Meeting details in the draft agenda were also posted on our township website. Please stand to salute the
flag. Roll call vote, please. here. Mr. Crossro here. Mr. Sakamandandy here. Mr. Stolen present. Mayor Romano here. Thank you.
May I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. May I have a second? Second. All those in favor? May I have a motion to approve the April 1st, 2025 township committee minutes? So moved. May I have a second? Second.
All those in favor? May I have a motion to approve the April 1st, 2025 special township committee minutes? So moved. May I have a second? All those in favor? I I
Okay. Reports. Um committee recommended. Do you want to start? Sure. Um, so next week, uh, at the Bower Center, uh, at 6 PM right before the EC
meeting, there's going to be the Great Milbour, uh, blowout, and there's going to be some representatives from a local hardware store demonstrating, uh, some various types of leaf blowers. Uh the township also will have a DPW
worker uh there as well to demonstrate a low-noise gas powered leaf blower. So we should have the full spectrum of you know equipment uh and you know people will be able to see and hear the
differences between uh the various types of equipment. Um affordable housing uh update. So, the citizens uh affordable housing advisory committee um met recently. Uh it was a
public meeting. I think only two members of the public attended um but we did have our municipal attorney there as well as our township planner. Uh and we went over um you know where we are in the process. Um and uh I believe that
towards the end of the month we'll be releasing a draft of the housing element and fair share plan. Um so stay tuned for that. Um, additionally, um, related to affordable housing, I actually reached out to all of the gubernatorial
candidates running on on both sides of the aisle, uh, to explain um, a little bit of Milbour's situation visa v the dump uh, and the alternative proposal. And I asked uh for any of them if they'd like to come visit Milbour to see the
sites uh to hear our side of things and um you know asked if there's anything they can do to help. Um I have talked to uh two of the Republican uh candidates. Uh they were um they were supportive of our our plight. Um, and I haven't heard
back from any of the uh, Democratic candidates, but just wanted to put that out there that uh, some of us are trying to um, you know, work work outside uh, the the bounds of the municipal level
uh, to um, see if there's anything that can be done to resolve that. Um, additionally, um, Ben Stler, myself, and Annette Romano signed on to be plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit. This is a extension of the Montville lawsuit,
uh, and it seeks to take that federal. Uh, so the three of us are um involved in that lawsuit and, uh, we'll see what the result of that is. Um, and again, this is for the fourth round affordable housing obligation.
Those are my updates. Committee. Yes. Thank you, uh, mayor. Um, I have an update from historic, um, the committee that they had their, uh, their first meeting, uh, last week. Um, a number of matters were approved.
The, uh, what happened mostly was a a pretty large or timely discussion about the, uh, new Main Street entrance to Taylor Park and how would that would be uh, configured. Um, and that's it. Thank you. Thank
you. Recreation committee pools opening on May 24th. So hopefully everybody got their tickets uh their memberships etc. Uh the annual four mileer registration is now open. That event is on June June 1st at at Jurro. Uh special improvement
district girls night out is scheduled for June 5th from 5 to 8. Huge success last year. Uh they're looking forward to that. Explore has raised over 10,000 in cash and inkind sponsorships already for that including St. Barnabas, Gem Dental, NJ Sweat House, Game Changer Fitness,
uh, and others. Uh, Explore has recently recorded and posted an interview with Erica Russo of Mnt Bank downtown on fraud pro prevention for small businesses. If you have any, uh, that you could find that on their website as well. Uh, BOE uh, leazison board of
education. Uh, the search for the principal continues. Uh and the baseball team is off to an unbelievable start, knocking off two rivals early. Uh joint facilities, uh we've agreed to enter into a contract with Arbiter scheduling software that will help school fields
and township fields collaborate more efficiently with scheduling. Uh this helps tremendously because there's not a up, you know, when we're looking at new fields and such. Uh making sure that we have a optimization of the current field availability is very important. And this
allows uh the wreck and the um school system to work hand in hand. Mountain Valley Emergency Communication Center. Uh no no updates. We had a meeting um nothing of uh of substance to really report there. Flood
mitigation. I'll defer to to uh to Annette if she has anything on that. Affordable housing defer defer to council. Um others um we're planning the 250th celebration that's well underway of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Uh that also coincides
with the 2026 World Cup which we found out that the players are staying where? Short hills Hilton. So we're trying to do some things that there to bring them downtown and uh try to get that involved as well as like some large watching games. You know it's much more you know
it's a world game but uh it's going to be huge. Um other update um on uh you I know I spoke about this before. I requested that Mayor Romano uh help me get a meeting in uh in uh Essex County with the powers that be. So on April
21st, Mayor Romano, uh Alex McDonald and myself met with the Essex County representatives. Uh these officials included the county executive Joe uh D. Venenzo, uh, county administrator Robert Jackson, Sanji Vargas, who's the county engineer, uh, and the director of public
information, uh, Anthony Buglesi. Uh, the meeting was very productive in discussing several areas that Essex County can provide additional services. You know, this is in response to me just not and and the township, you know, we pay $46 million a year in and year out.
Um, and what benefits do we get back for those taxes that we pay to the county? Um I was quite surprised. Uh they were very warming, very uh receiving of us. Um it was a really good meeting and you know they were saying we hadn't been
over there since I guess Tim Gordon was the uh BA. So it was a great response. Uh they were very appreciative of us coming over. Uh uh uh Joe De Vincent was very generous with his time and I think uh Annette
would agree. uh discussion items uh that we c that came out of there um that we expect to get. We're doing a response letter. Alex is working on that. Uh so we'll be more set in stone as we as we get to it. But uh we talked about Brookside Drive. The county agreed that
we can extend that closure until 4 p.m. Right now it's till noon. So there's more time for biking and hiking and such on Brookside Drive. Uh we discussed pedestrian safety on all county roads. This includes u uh complete plans to improve signalization and safety. We
always talk about Wyoming and Milbour Avenue. Uh and they were very very receptive to helping us with that. Uh and then um uh they're also going to help install pedestrian beacons on Glenn
for increased safety crossing to Locust Grove. Locust Grove is right across from the emergency and the library parking lot. uh the entry to the reservation from here. Not only are they doing that, they're doing brand new bathrooms. Uh you know, they already put the cherry blossom trees in there, but brand new
bathrooms, brand new picnic areas with updated barbecue grills, uh barbecue pits. If you've seen them lately, they're rusted and dilapitated, etc. So, they're putting a lot of money into that. Uh and it's very important from that crossing from lot seven and nine to get across there. There needs to be
better vis visibility, especially as we come into the the summer months. Uh we asked to consider uh a pedestrian passage uh along JFK Parkway. Uh this is a you know I I call it a sky bridge which is a way for the pedestrians from
the office buildings uh and housing if there you know because the new housing is going in over there the Woodmont uh and the Short Hills Hilton to make it a much easier commute over to the mall uh to so you don't have to play Frogger crossing you know eight lanes of
traffic. Um what else? Uh discussions with East Orange to work on a lease agreement for additional playing fields across from the par 4440 uh back up by the aquifer uh by the the water reserve there. Um and then they've also agreed that if you know we're looking at this
open space tax and acquiring things and such and one of the specific uh units is at 132 Milbour Avenue that old Exxon station on Vox Hall. you know, they were like, "Well, if you buy that, we'll pay for redevelopment of it." So, there's
just a lot of things that they were very instrumental and very positive on and and welcoming to us. Uh, I got like four or five more things I can put, but I think we'll put this list out, Alex, as we respond to uh to the township or to u
Essex County. Uh, that concludes my reports. Okay. Sure. Since since the last meeting, um the zoning code subcommittee uh met, we uh worked on revising a couple of ordinances that I would expect to see coming to the township committee
very shortly. One of them is uh takes a look at the definitions of multifamily and apartments. Um we'd seen that one. It had some it had some defects in it when it came to the township committee. We sent it back and now it'll come back with uh with clear definitions of of
those items. There'll also be uh characteristics of a public zone. We've always had them, but we've never had anything that discusses what happens when there what something is being built in a public zone. Uh at the library, um the the replacement of the elevator is
underway, as is the second floor renovation. So, the elevator was really on its last legs anyway, and it was a good time to do it. Since the second floor is closed off, um there's no impact to not having an elevator for the time that it is being replaced. Um I
attended the the budget meeting, the public budget meeting, and thanks to Alex and and Matt for an excellent presentation. Um there we also saw the list of projects which was rather extensive potential projects. That list needs to obviously be refined and
prioritized, but there's certainly no shortage of things uh coming up that need to be considered in the future. Um I also attended the Earth Day meet uh celebration in uh Taylor Park. It was nice to see all the environmental groups sharing information with the public. And
lastly, tomorrow night is a planning board meeting. We there was no second meeting in April. So the uh they'll on the agenda tomorrow night is a review of the town hall renovation but also then the uh the Kai Center application
continues. Thank you. Um as committeeman Stler mentioned earlier, representatives from Main Street America and Main Street New Jersey were here today for the full day meeting with um uh various departments including uh Special
Improvement District and um the Explore Board. Um uh as you know, we received a $150,000 grant last year to improve the sidewalks in the downtown. Uh there are only 29 towns across the state with this
designation. So, uh I met with them earlier this morning with um Mr. McDonald and with Tim and just went over various various projects that were going on and they were very impressed. they were very impressed with um what the
township has to offer um its residents. So, uh I just wanted to share that information. I also received an email from someone that works in town that I wanted to share with you. On the evening of Wednesday, April 23rd,
2025, my 18-year-old son was driving home through Milbourne when he became disoriented with his location due to the closure of Main Street and the various detours and closed roads that surrounded the milling and paving work. In operating his vehicle, he struck a storm drain inlet and punctured his tire near
Washington School on Spring Street. He called me at approximately 9:40, requesting that I come to render assistance because he had never been in this type of situation. I left our home and proceeded to this location. When I arrived at the scene at approximately 10
p.m., he was well into changing the tire. He was being assisted in large measure by officer, is it reinos? Reinos, who I believe was on traffic detail due to the closed and detailed roadways.
Officer Renos was providing guidance and muscle to assist in the tire change and was of great assistance to ease the anxiety of my son in this minor emergency. By 10:05, the tire change was complete and we were on our way home. This was the first situation of this
nature for my son as a young driver. I was happy happy to say that my son could understand and have a positive first impression in interacting with law enforcement. Officer Renos, thank you for helping my son. I appreciate that you took the time to assist him. More importantly, I'm appreciative that you
provided him with a positive view view of law enforcement in his first interaction as a young driver. I wish you the best and appreciate your continued service of Milbour. Just wanted to share that with everybody. Um the fishing derby Saturday
was a huge success. There were 113 people registered. The park was loaded with families, children fishing, grandparents fishing with their children. It was a lot of fun. I wanted to thank, of course, the recreation department, public works, community
police were there, police and fire for all of their donations, including the prizes and maybe the trout. I'm not sure. Um the the grand prize winner was a four-year-old girl who caught a 14-inch catfish.
Um, and lastly, I just want to say a huge thank you to Mr. McDonald, the staff, public works for a seamless move. I mean, your timeline was spoton and up to the last three days and the weekend
and and everything and ready to restart on Monday morning was absolutely amazing. So, you guys get enormous kudos. Thank you. And I want to mention one more thing. Um uh the township committee uh and others
stood in solidarity and compassion with the local Indian families and neighbors and such uh to um reflect on the terrorism that happened in India last month. And I thought it was just a great coming together of community, compassion as I said and
people just caring about each other. It was a fantastic event at the U Taylor Park um gazebo. Uh was it last Sunday? So just want to appreciate say appreciate everybody coming out thing too. Um I don't know if you if
you've seen it um it's been disseminated but the uh community policing unit has joined into uh the blue envelope program and it's for drivers that are on the that are on the autistic spectrum. And there's a program where you put all of
your information in into a blue envelope and when a policeman sees it, he immediately knows that certain things like flashing light, shining a light in your eye, something like that could trigger an unintended reaction. It's a national program. Milbour has joined it and um if you have any questions, you
should contact the community policing unit. But it's a it's a wonderful thing that Milbour is participating in. Thank you, Mr. K. Uh thank you, mayor. Um, uh, committeeman Sacramento provided a pretty good update on the fair share
housing and where we are. The only further update I have is, um, we're going, we have a case management conference scheduled, uh, for tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. before Judge Russo, um, to discuss, uh, where we stand and and where we are as far as, um,
determinations on the pilot. Um, I can only disclose that the pilot agreement was discussed in closed session tonight as it was on our close to session agenda. Um, we'll be reporting to the court tomorrow uh as best we can. And if there's any any further questions,
do you want to expand on the uh on the uh federal lawsuit that we're party to and uh such? Yeah. So the federal lawsuit is essentially challenging that certain municipalities um were excluded from having fair share obligations um which raised the fair
share a portionment to towns like the township of Milburn. Um it it doesn't seem right or fair that that has happened. Um the case was largely uh dismissed in the state courts. Uh it was refiled as a federal action challenging
some uh federal uh statutes. Um there was um there is there is case law out there that a municipality doesn't have standing to bring the types of claims that are being brought in the lawsuit. Um so individual governing body members
were asked uh to sign on to the lawsuit. Um and as uh committeeman Sakamundi stated uh mayor Romano committeeman stole committee Sakamandi are individually are individual plaintiffs uh in that action. Um, and as that case proceeds, I will continue to uh update
this committee and update the public on any um if anything occurs. Um, the goal of that lawsuit is to um is to essentially have the statute be deemed unconstitutional and have the the calculations be thrown out. Um, and it's
filed and it's it's it's currently sitting in federal court. Thank you, Mayor. Just uh one one update. Um you know, thank you for your recognition of the the town hall move. I think it's important just to let everyone know that uh we are uh
officially moved in. It was a process, but it was uh it was a very smooth process and thankfully done over spring break for the community um so we could uh get back up and running on Monday and start servicing uh the residents. Uh this as as the mayor stated, the staff
did an amazing job and really all all pitched in to make sure it was a success. Just a couple things of note. Um please do not come to the board of education building to pay your taxes. Um we are at 22 East Willow. Uh you can
come there to visit us. You can come there to pay your taxes. You can come there for any of the departments that are located in town hall that were located in the old town hall. They are located in uh and at 22 East Willow. Uh all of our phone numbers are the same. Um you know, the vote by mail box is at
22 East Willow. Uh it is not at the old location. Uh we do have signage around the old location. that will um uh you know be and it is currently shut off to anybody quite honestly uh even staff at this point because on May 12th uh the
environ environmental remediation of that building will start. Um so there will be a container in lot 5 uh for that work uh and the job will be secured in accordance with the contract and and and uh with the contractor. But again, just
want to let everybody know um everything is happening at 22 East Willow with the exception of board meetings. Um all of the boards are currently meeting here. Uh we will do some re-evaluation of those boards in August, but right now we
are um we are all here with the exception of uh recreation and uh environmental commission. That's it. Yeah. I have one more thing. Sorry, just one more thing. Um for those who commute into the city, um there's a uh New
Jersey Transit's been under a ton of stress of late. Um and they actually handed out u flyers today on the on the trains which ran late again, but that um there's a possible strike coming to New Jersey Transit. So I just wanted to say
that um there is a bus that comes from the Milbour train station and Short Hills train station called Boxc Car. They have an app that you can put on the uh iPhone or I would assume a uh the other Samsung Android, right? So, uh
they do have an app. Uh I'm going to try it out tomorrow. I'll let you guys know. Uh but um just know that that's coming and uh the frustrations are great with the u with the uh commuting right now. So, uh, public comment. When invited to speak to
offer your comments, please come to the lecture 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 readily available to the public. To help facilitate an orderly meeting and to permit all to be heard, speakers shall limit their comments to one three minute
session. You'll be prompted with prompted when there are 30 seconds remaining. A reminder that this is not a time for dialogue or to debate a matter and this is a time dur during our business meeting for the public to offer comments. I will now open public comment. Um good evening. My name is
Jeffrey Feld. I live in the poet section. First, I do agree that the fishing derby was an excellent event and brought the community together. I got my junior badge and also seen the younger kids playing T-ball, but do they still do T-ball on Saturday mornings at the
park? Because it was a great outing. Also, before I get into the consent agenda, last week or a week ago, there was the SIDS meeting here. Was that recorded? cuz I I have not I was not able to attend cuz my granddaughter had just flown into um to the state. But I
just like to know it was posted because because it ties into some other stuff that's on agenda tonight. Um I guess as issues of the bill list tomorrow we'll find out where we stand as to the pilot. Um on the bill list there is a lot of payments for 22 East Willows uh
renovation moving cost. Um were they included? Do we have a list and where are they getting paid for? You know, you have mold removal, I think, electrical um and wiring in there. So, we should I think we the public should have an idea of what the cost of this whole process
was. And also, there's a payment to the Goldstein group regarding the um renovation of town hall uh through Oprah. I only saw a request for um RFQS. I could not find an RFP and I just was
wondering the process that was used to select the go gouling group for this project. Um later on you're going to approve an estimated tax bill. Uh, I have a suggestion because this year there's going to be a new item in that you might want to have a chart
explaining um why because we try to recoup on these bills for the year some of the payments so people will see an increased bill that they understand that there's the open space tax um and various other parts. In addition, last night I attended the board of education
um meeting where they approved their budget and they have a page uh on there it's page 2T where the amount that they said that's allocated for 2025 which is split is $13,48 400
8,453 which is less than the amount that's in the um friendly uh user friendly budget. So, when you're doing your estimated taxes, the question is which number will you be using? Will you be using a higher amount that's in the userfriendly budget or will you be using the amount that was approved last night
by the um the board of education? Finally, there's going to be about the paper mill playhouse parking lot BNC. Um I still have questions about it. You know, what were the original costs for this project? Um these parking lots I believe are still subject to the
original sale lease back agreement. How are we the public or the township going to recoup the monies for this project? And also based on what happened at the last few meetings, how was this cost estimated when we did it? Because prior to the meeting, I sent you uh the bond
ordinance notice which did not really break out the cost for all the other projects. Thank you. I'll speak later. Sorry, I just want to get organized here. Sorry, I'm a little OCD. Ah, and five foot tall. Perry Erso, 514 Milbourne Avenue,
Upper Milurn Avenue. I'd like to state that there have been no recent reports from Attorney Caner on the Bear Property One or Bear Property 2 matter. March 12th, 2025, in-person case management hearing. Um, seven or eight assigned Judge Spencer set an in-person trial on
April 7th, giving both attorneys the opportunity to state how much time they would need for oral arguments. Cancer stated he would need approximately a half hour, where attorney Feld stated he needed half the day. Spencer blocked off the afternoon. Trial day, April 7th. Attorney Fel argued for approximately
one and a half one hour and 15 minutes and Caner argued for approximately 15 minutes. In addition to myself, bare property principles. There were several members of the public observing observing including the SID board attorney Slattery whom I believe is beyond the scope of his retention
agreement and BA McDonald who both left during uh midway of the hearing. As one of the principles of the plaintiff, I am privy of emails. Uh, I would like to address one in particular, the phantom offer of the bear property one comment from attorney Caner's email on May 1,
2025. History matters. Twice in April and again in September of 2021, George Judge Gardner stated on both occasions recommending mediation. On October 26, 2023, my husband and I met in a uh a meeting regarding one of our properties with the
BA McDonald and building department head Frank Cantonese. Feld was not privy of that meeting. Regarding um after the meeting concluded, my husband had a gentleman conversation with BA McDonald's like we always do. Happened to be on the sidewalk in front of Keller Williams on upper Milbourne Avenue. My
husband suggested that we all could end this lawsuit by suggesting keeping the SID where it belongs downtown because everything is downtown. Mr. McDonald is not the only one who my husband mentioned this offer to. This offer has been on the table since its readoption of the expanded five district SID,
formerly known as the DMDA. We rene we never received benefit, rightfully so, for we have not paid into the DMDA from 1994 to this dissolution of 2018. To date, we still received no benefit from the monies levied by tax by ordinance
2561-20. May 3rd, 2024 to May 8, 2024. Attorney Feld correspondence with the courts informing them of a scheduled upcoming meeting. That meeting was held on May 7th at with uh at Mr. Attorney Caner's office. There is the phantom
offer. The offer was uh settlement offer was made to Caner. Once again, our BA McDonald was present and um two associates. Uh later on in Oh, sorry. But we there was an agenda um item on resolution 24186 that you approved a
bill list anonymously for u billing from May 13th to um the May 2024 summary. I'm sorry, but in that summary, there was uh it needs to be looked clearly. I know it's uh nearly a year later. Um but there's heavily redacted items within
that bill summary which I did review and inside there I just if you can kindly give me one courtesy that okay I'll add it later. Evening Jerry Kong Short Hills resident. Um, I noticed on the township committee
website that um, public comment needs to be done in person now that we've moved to the ad center. I was wondering if there are plans in place to allow for a Zoom option um, given that, you know, I think there's a lot of busy people in our town and they would appreciate the opportunity to be able to speak without
showing up in person. Um, so just wondering if there were plans because um, we don't know how much longer we're going to be here and I think it would behoove the committee to allow public participation and make it as easy as possible. Thank you. Richard Cyber, town resident. I
just wanted to commend you. I I guess I have to make this towards Alex. So, I went over to the new building 22 Willow Street. Signed up for uh the
pool. Signed up for the part three. Went smoothly. Paid my taxes. Went smoothly. Good job. Dean Pastornac, resident. Uh, I have a couple questions. I learned uh that
there was a federal case and that some members of the township committee signed and some didn't. Uh, why would some people what first of all, why did they even have to personally sign? And then second, why did some people not? Dave, I guess, and Michael. Um, I also want to
commend uh committeeman uh Stler for what he has uh advised us today about the meeting with the Essex County Executives and his deem. Um I mean 500 million dollars or half a billion dollars based on your estimations have
been paid to the county in that period of time since last seen by Tim Gordon. That's a lot of money. And then we hear about, mayor, you mentioned the $150,000 I think that we got from Main
Street, New Jersey. Where are we concentrating our energies? A half a billion and no conversation, but 150,000 we get all excited about. Something's not right. Thank you, Ben, for taking the lead and really pushing and doing
what's right for our town. Um, I happened to go to Earth Day, which I thought was really excellent. and I learned a lot. My husband came. He's interested in getting involved, having listened to a lot of the members there. Um he spent some time with uh a number of people and is very impressed with
some of the efforts that are going on. Um one thing I did notice though in walking through Taylor Park is we really should look at how that's kept. Um it's our crown jewel, the center of town. It just doesn't seem to be well uh maintained. So, I wondered if there's
some things that we could do as a community volunteer-wise, but also can the town put some energy into making Taylor Park sparkle as it should. Um, I also wanted to mention because Jay's not here that the Short Hills Association is doing a session to educate the community
about uh the upcoming referendum topic uh of looking at our uh form of government. So, I hope people will attend that on May 10th. I think it's from I forgot the time, 4 to 6. That's at the um where is it? The rackets club
I think. And um the budget meeting also attended. Thank you very much, Alex. Uh and um Matt, sorry. Um for a really good job. I think it came a lot uh far from where we were last year. Uh but I still
think there's much more that should be done, especially uh regarding setting priorities for the different projects that have been laid out that will be long term. And I really still would advocate strongly for a citizens budget advisory committee so that the public can get involved in those priority
setting activities. And lastly, electricity. I think we've had three outages in our neighborhood in Glenwood over the last about eight weeks. It's getting to be like a third world country. Thank you. Uh Phil Kersh, uh township president. Um
because we do give a substantial amount of money to the county every year, so I'm sure a lot of towns do. I think it would be good if the uh county would have someone come and explain where that money goes. I mean, some of it obviously goes to maintaining the county roads in town. Snow removal the the county does.
Also, I think there are services like I know in Verona there are a couple of very large um public works buildings where that money goes into and I think we're indirectly served by that. People may not realize they may see that as just money we give away, but I think it would be good for us to find out
specifically from the county um what services we get directly. A lot of times uh people don't understand how their government serves them. So I think if we could have a a knowledgeable representative come and uh present that to us and answer questions, I think
that'd be very helpful. Thank you. Charles Bambber, resident 28 years. U I was really wasn't planning on coming to the podium and speaking tonight. Then I heard the magic word gazebo and I know I've talked to you before about it and I heard about the fishing derby and what
Jean said about Taylor Park and I've always advocated for a nice gazebo in the middle of Taylor Pond with a bridge to the shore by the Bower Center. I'm willing to personally get involved in that and be on a committee
to do that. What do we have to do? what do I have to do to propose that and get that moving because I think that would be a beautiful thing to see and it would be everybody would enjoy it and it's a photo opportunity for people uh for
weddings and uh and graduation too. So thank you Christine Bass Township. Um I want to thank the environmental commission for um hosting Can you hear me? Sorry. for hosting the
wonderful celebration at Taylor Park. There was a lot of work that goes into that and I'm very thankful that people put that much time into uh all the presentations that they did and I picked up a sketer shooter. Um so uh I fully support that and not spraying uh
pesticides all over your lawn. So thank you very much for supporting them and doing that. Um, and I wanted to just I don't really have that much to talk about tonight, but um I wanted to I I was sitting um with the HPC this past
week and we were looking at plans for the Taylor Park Gateway and I just wanted to bring it to everyone's I know Dave was there as well and maybe you guys talked about it earlier. I just wanted to bring it to everybody's attention the importance of going through the HPC sort of an initial
process um because the the gateway to the park um you know it's just designed in a very narrowed focus and it's a lot of money to be spent and I I feel very
strongly to go to a total redesign. Um and I'm sure everybody has their opinion. I'm just giving you mine. Um, and the reason why I do is I think it needs to be designed holistically as an entire piece and looked at from the perspective of the original architects in more of a natural way. And I actually
think there's a lot more um interesting things that you can do like for example um Charlie's suggestion of a gazebo would be a showstopper in the middle of the pond. Um I think just basic things we're neglecting. We have big patches of earth that are mud. There are um
actually um picnic benches that are slammed on tree roots. I mean, I literally walked by them. There's a broken water fountain that's probably been there for 50 years. Um there's weeds everywhere, broken asphalt, and just simple stuff like weeding,
mulching, planting grass would be a huge win right now. And I I highly recommend spending the money to do that because you build this entrance that's a really sort of gated off thing that feels like quite frankly like I'm in a downtown urban environment that blocks off the
view anyways and then you go in and it's like kind of a letdown. So I think just opening up the park and just making it look a little cleaner before you do a redesign. But I really support the redesign on that. Um and then I also wanted to quickly ask about the trees
and the lowest bidder. Um, I believe Mr. Feld was nice enough to do an Oprah request on the tree planting, and I commend Stacy for all her work on that with Alex and Mr. Dodie. Um, but I wanted to understand, you know, why there were certain areas where certain
business owners um did not have trees planted in front of their um, you know, businesses, why it was cut off at a certain amount, and also why somebody didn't the lowest bidder. We I know that's the whole thing, the lowest bidder. I just I'll be one sentence. I can I can say less time. I understand,
Annette. It's totally fine. Thank you. Sorry. Hi, Ryan Santos, a resident of Milbourne. Uh, I just want to discuss the overnight parking policy that we have here. I understand it's a safety concern for the town, but I think there should be some sort of system in which
allows residents to have overnight guests once in a while or some way that we can add a system which can help all residents safely which ways that you know we can add that. I know recently we just changed that or it was you know
some way to call the police department but um I've been having issues with that. I have guests and it's kind of a pain in the neck when I have to figure out ways in my house to get cars around. So, thank you. Uh, sure. Um, so Ryan, um, uh, you know,
my daughters, I have four kids and three have gone through the school system and they have a lot of friends. um the call to the so I'll we could talk later but the call into the uh police department and just tell them they're going to be overnight give a thing it's it it has worked for me in the past and we'll
discuss it later I'm happy to talk to you about it um and also too you know it comes to you know do you want the kids pro possibly embibing and driving and things along those lines too so you have to really make sure that that that happens but you know there's a solution
to that um Jean, uh, thank you for that. Uh, you know, our taxes have gone from and and Matt, please feel free to jump in. Our taxes have actually gone down from 50 million a year to $48 million to $46
million this trailing 12 months. And that's a result of the revaluations of other properties being raised up and our percentage going down. That's fantastic. Now, a thing something that hasn't got a lot of uh play uh in the township is um
the and I commend all the fellow TC members is we pushed back on Essex County for a revaluation. They were going to revalue us and we pushed it back to 2029, which means that we haven't been revalued in how many years, Alex?
Last time was 2017. 2017. So, um that is huge for our community, for people who live here. uh and values as you guys have known since co has done have done nothing but spiked. Uh so we now have it out to I think 2029 is the first time
they can bring it back. Uh and we did get a final letter from the county of Essex uh of Essex County uh confirming that. Uh so that's huge for everyone in this room and and and folks um
uh and uh oh and I had brought up the gazebo before uh you know really just to enlighten and and to tell the positive message the positivity of us uh gathering in solidarity uh and having compassion for our neighbors and
families of Indian descent. who all came out to uh have a a vigil. It wasn't uh really for the uh building of a new gazebo, even though it sounds like a fantastic idea. Uh so that's it for me.
Okay. First of all, um you know, I agree with Mr. Kersh that we uh we should have someone from Essex County explain where all the where all the funding goes. And while he named a bunch of things, things he didn't name were things like the courts and the jails and there's a hospital, none of which are in town, but
you know, I don't know if that's saying the jails is a service that's provided to us. I guess in some sense it is, but you know, that's also part of it. So, it would be great to get a better sense of that. Uh, Miss Passag, I'm not I I I had we had our first uh power outage tonight and I we live pretty close to each
other. I don't know if it affected you, but about 5:30 we we lost power. That was the first time for me. You said three. So if if that's an issue, I think we need to deal with JCPNL to find out what's going on because it only gets worse uh when the weather gets warmer
and people are using their air conditioners or or whatever. So if this is, you know, I thought this was the first one, so you know, you don't want to get crazy when it happens once, but now that you said three times, we need to look at that. Um, and as for the
lawsuit, I do I do believe that um that it that the uh the municipalities that are not included in the affordable housing should be included. I I was concerned about the level of public information that was required to remain
as a as a individual um as an individual litigant. Um but I certainly support the outcome of the you know the intention of the suit. Um, Mr. Feld, um, I I too would like some clarification as to how the
Goldstein group um was picked for the town hall project. Um, I'm sure there was a process. Uh, perhaps uh, Mr. McDonald when he gives his update could explain um, what the process was for that. Uh, let's see. Dr. Kung, um, I
agree with your concerns about the lack of a Zoom option. It's something that I've brought up numerous times now to the business administrator. Um I think even if we have to spend some money and you know donate equipment to this room uh to accommodate uh the Zoom option, we
should do that. Uh I think we're going to be here for a while and you know I think we saw the reaction from the public last time when the Zoom option was inexplicably taken away. um you know it's not an insurmountable thing to do and it probably wouldn't cost more than
you know I imagine it would stay in the uh in the four figures. So um definitely something that uh I hope uh we can look into and maybe others on the TC would be in agreement so that we can um push that through. Um Mr. Kersh um so I'll give
you one example of where the county spends our money. while back they did the whole turtleback zoo and a giant recreation complex top of South Mountain there. Uh and they added a ton of imperous pavement uh and imperous surfaces which is only uh made our
flooding problems worse over the years. So um that's one example of how we pay money to the county, they take the money and do something that then has a negative impact on us downstream. That's unfortunate. I really hope the county in light of, you know, what they've done to
uh make the problem worse with flooding, uh will take a serious look at, you know, helping us solve the flooding uh problems once and for all. Um you know, we definitely are going to need county, state, and federal funding to permanently solve this problem. And uh I
think it's time for the county to to step up and pony up. Um let's see. Um, regarding the overnight parking, I'll defer to Mr. McDonald on that. Um, you know, I think there's an important distinction between, you know, an
occasional overnight guest or, you know, if you're having your driveway paved and and, you know, needing to keep your car on the street for the night versus, you know, if if someone is repeatedly having overnight guests and it becomes, you know, a daily uh or multiple times a
week occurrence, then I think that's uh a more complicated situation. And um you know I I I think in in in that regard you know we we have to be mindful of the fact that uh there's a reason that we don't allow overnight parking uh and that's because we don't want the cars on
the street overnight and and you know the um ills that can come along with that. So um you know I will defer to Mr. McDonald as to what the official policy is but I think the policy exists for a reason. Uh that's it.
Yes, thank you, mayor. Um, I I agree as well that that I'd like to see us have the Zoom option, you know, for these meetings. I think that's important. I certainly in the past used it um before I was elected. Um, Miss Pasnack, on the
on the lawsuit question, I do support the suit. Um, but um I had originally said I wanted I would be a named party to that u but I thought about it further and decided that I did not want to be. Thank you.
Um my opinion on the Zoom option, I think that we should um play it by ear and let's see what happens meeting by meeting and if it really turns into a problem, then we can revisit it. But that's just my opinion.
Um Taylor Park when I at the fishing derby Saturday, um the park is beautiful. Uh, I don't I think it's it's spectacular the way it is. It was a gorgeous day, the fountain, and I didn't see
um any any issues wrong with the park. And as far as the meeting with the county exec not happening since Tim Gordon, we have monthly mayor's meetings with all of the mayors in Essex County. And at that meeting, different directors
from different um departments speak. Uh if there's any issues that are happening in the township, we bring them up whether it's a car blowing out on a pothole or a tree that needs to be taken care of on a county road and they're very responsive. So even though I mean
back Tim Gordon, those were the days before Zoom. So maybe we haven't been down there in years, but um we do communicate at least monthly. So I just wanted to add that. Okay. Uh Um just to speak to the question
regarding 22 East Willow. Um as we anticipated uh so the township uh authorized a um bond or note for $2.5 million for the purchase of 22 East Willow, which cost $2.2 million within
the anticipation that we would have expenses down there to fix up the building to make it um right. Uh we had to fix some sprinklers. We had to uh do a a tiny bit of mold remediation. We we repainted the outside of the building.
We put in new flooring in some locations. So there was work to be done to make it a hospitable place to receive the public and serve the public. Um so those funds came from uh that authorization. Um
the I I I I agree that the the the the it's a bit of a blanket statement saying that Taylor Park looks, you know, terrible. Uh Certainly if there are specific concerns or the things that we can address, we would we would be happy to do that and um would appreciate that
um people you know provide that information to us so we can you know provide that service um and they could put those reports into SDL right for I I mean there's a danger hazard or something like that. Of course. Yes. And
and and please keep in mind too that Taylor Park is you know there are certain parts of Taylor Park that are um you know sometimes utilize this plating surface but generally it's a natural park in which you know planting grass and trying to make grass look beautiful
and takes other elements and and chemicals and different things like that to uh do a to do a uh a good job with that. Um, so it is more of a natural park in the sense that there will be, I'm sure, dandelions there and and some weeds within the grass and and um, you
know, again, if there are specific issues that we can address, we will certainly do that. It's my understanding that the Environmental Commission is actually looking at water refill stations for those broken um, water fountains uh, or water fountains that are in Taylor Park. Um, we're in the process of helping them utilize clean
communities money to do so. Um, so again, just provide the information and we're happy to uh be of service. I just want to say it doesn't have to be an emergency. Um, just put it in and if it's something that the town is not willing to do, you'll get that answer, too. But put it in and then it'll be
documented and recorded. Correct. I will um certainly take the information uh regarding the three outages in that area of Hobart Avenue and uh your area uh committee or deputy mayor Cohen um to JCPNL and see if maybe there's something that needs to be done in terms of
resilience um on that particular circuit or system. So, um I can have that conversation. Uh overnight parking, I too uh would uh welcome that conversation, but it is my understanding from the police department that you know when there are instances that the
overnight option and call-in is being overused, um they will cut that off and they will um uh deny those requests. Um but but certainly you know willing to hear uh what your thoughts are and what your uh what your concerns are and whether you know again you know whether
there are any solutions. Um to answer the question regarding the RFP or the RFQ and uh you know process for the town hall architect that took place two and a half years ago. Um the
the town should put in an RFQ. We received approximately I you know I'd have to go back and look at the entire process you know speaking off the cuff um but received um quite a few responses narrowed it down to two um and had them
prop uh provide a proposal. Uh those proposals were evaluated um based on their uh cost for sure, their uh experience in doing municipal projects. um their interview uh with those uh that were involved at that time. And um we
chose the Goldstein Pro uh partnership because of their extensive experience in doing municipal buildings, their experience with dealing with historic buildings um elsewhere in Essex County, um their commitment to lead um and the ability to get lead silver certification
and their um quite honestly their organization uh and how um you know they interact with their clients. Um so again that was two and a half years ago. So, we're going to have to we're going to have to kind of kind of dig that up a little bit, but it did go through a
process and it was approved every step of the way at the governing body level. Just to confirm, right, that was in 2022. So, there's nobody that is currently on the governing body that was on the governing body at that time. Correct.
And also to uh just one last comment. I don't I've never I didn't want to uh imply that we haven't met with Essex County and the mayor's meetings etc. Uh but as they say the squeaky will gets the gets the oil and us being able to
sit in front and I tell you he did a fantastic job bringing those people together for us to discuss it. Uh and the amount of reception we got was very very warm. I don't want to say it was negative whatsoever. Uh and they've already agreed to do a number of items
that may not have happened if we had not gone. And I think we should do that quarterly for us to go down trunch, you know, trekk down to Newark and meet with these guys. Um and and to have Mr. Kur, I think that's a fantastic idea to bring them in and understand where those tax dollars
are going to. Um uh there's a you know we have some of the be one of the best when I moved here when we moved to Essex County what 20 years ago you know they had a turtle at the turtle bag zoo that's about it and the growth there has been fantastic they have the Cody arena
uh every golf course is world class uh so they and and the education system that they've put in place is very good uh so it would be nice to have somebody come and articulate that is uh Mr. Kam, he's not here. Okay. So, we do have a
Captain Kamacho is our Essex County liaison and he's been coming to the meetings. I don't know if he would be the right person or not, but I think so. Maybe somebody from the administration. Yeah, I'd have to. Yeah. And uh and and they also too, the couple things I didn't mention were helping us with
flood mitigation uh and putting monies forward to help that on the orange uh the uh bypass uh and such. Thank you. I would just like to add I do believe the county representative used to sometimes attend in person but also by
Zoom and uh now now we don't have Zoom. So yet another reason why he's going to have to drive why we need uh the Zoom option back. Just need a third TC member to agree to that. Do you have anything? Uh no mayor unless there's any questions from the
committee. Thank you Frank. I'd certainly be your third member on the Zoom. Uh, so it's not that's not an issue. We just have to discuss it. I don't think I was specifically asked. I mean, I'm in favor of it as well. So, I don't think that's
Well, I guess the question didn't wasn't there something that were able to do Zoom when we did stuff at the second floor of the library like a portable carrier carry on Zoom. Would that work in this I I will certainly look into it.
I would also um ask that like there are there are systems involved here and there are um obviously the system in which the board of ed currently operates their meetings on um and and a way in which they operate their meetings. Um,
you know, the the only thing I would mention is that um, you know, I would like to I I think it's important that maybe also the township committee have that discussion with the board of board of ed so that they um have a level of comfort that we're Yeah. And at the very
least my firm has a corporate Zoom account. I could set my laptop up there. You know, there's solutions that are in the four figures. Yeah. It's up to them. Oh, right. Okay. Understood. portable solutions that we could bring in and take out so it doesn't interfere with
any of their equipment or utilize any of their equipment or intrude on them in any way. So, uh, I'll talk with you about it offline, Mr. McDonald. Okay. 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? I would just like to provide one explanation of uh resolution 251312-132. These are um the aggregation of the township's energy. Um the
aggregation of our main load electricity as well as our street lighting. Um this resolution authorizes myself to um execute the uh strike price uh if it should be reached during an auction um
at an off at an you know on a day that we wouldn't have a meeting that day. It's it's just basically an authorization to be able to execute that contract. May I have a motion to approve resolution 25-123 through resolution 25-132 which
are listed on the consent agenda. So move. May I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please. Deputy Mayor Coleman. Yes. Mr. Cosro? Yes. Mr. Sakamandandy? Yes. Mr. Stler? Affirmative. Mayor Romano. Yes. Are there any comments from
the committee in regard to resolution 25-133? May I have a motion to approve resolution 25-133? So move. May I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please. Deputy Mayor Cohen. Yes. Mr. Cosro, yes. Mr. Sakinandandy. Yes. Mr. Stler,
affirmative. Mayor Romano, yes. Thank you. Are there any comments from the committee in regard to resolution 25-134? May I have a motion to approve resolution 25-134? Motion. May I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please. Deputy Mayor
Cohen, yes. Mr. Costro, no. Mr. Sakandandy, no. Mr. Stler, affirmative. Mayor Romano, yes. Okay. The resolution was adopted, mayor. Okay. Okay. The adoption of the 2025 special
improvement district rule. This was be for the committee in February and is before us again this evening due admin due to an administrative error. There are no changes to the role. I hereby open the public hearing for any comments on the 2025 Milbourne Short Hills
Business Organization Inc. Special improvement district assessment role. I know I'm not going to be able to finish because I don't have more than three minutes. Perry Erso, Upper Melin Avenue. I'd like to give a synopsis of what a SID is to so people can
understand. If I talk about a SID or special improvement district, a lot of people don't understand. If anybody has a second property or retirement home, it's something called a condo association. When I purchased our properties together with my husband, we
were not part of any type of condo association until 2020. You are fiduciaries of the public trust fund monies. In my opinion, you have an obligation to report public wrongdoing. December of 2024, TC
unanimously approved roughly a4 million for a 2025 SID budget. January 23, 2025, commercial property owners were initially noticed of a special uh hearing for the 2025 special assessment. February 4th, 2025, 2025 special
assessment hearing. This hearing uh is the opportunity for commercial property owners to state their objections and appeal the assessment. The resolution was passed unanimously by this body without providing a direct benefit analysis. One guest vote in particular was casted by the sitting deputy mayor
who thought at the time the Trader Joe's building was excluded from the assessment role. He failed to know the boundaries until I was corrected by um his mis I corrected his misunderstanding. February 20 uh 4th, 2025, shortly after the SID assessment role approval, three of the five members
of this body agreed to a SID re-examination. February 11th, 2025, attorney Feld and myself met to discuss the special assessment appeal process with both tax assessor and tax collector. We were then directed to the tax board uh Joan Durkin. February 18th,
2025 TC meeting, new business, Milbourne Special Improvement District. It was number one. Two members, Deputy Mayor and Committeeman uh Sakamandi took this took on this task. Unfortunately, to date, there have been no reports or updates. February 19th, 2025, I emailed
the TC respectfully requesting that the DM deputy mayor be removed from this for he was not qualified for the reason of his approval of the sit assessment role without prior knowledge of specially assessed properties. casting a yes vote for a resolution to approve appropriations of the use of taxpayer
trust funds money without having knowledge of which properties were and not included within the 2025 SID assessment role. March 7th, 2025, it's my understanding both design for the SID ex-examination uh met with Mr. Grillo.
April 1st, no joke, special improvement assessments were due, payable to the township of Milbour, collected by the tax collector. April 22nd, a notice was received and dated postmarked the same. Notices received by certified and regular mail. Please note that this published notice differs from the
written uh mailed notice. April 24th sit agenda which appears to be not recorded. I'm not sure why, but their meeting documents state clearly that they are in receipt of $108,000 for the calendar uh 2025 special assessment. How these funds are distributed to the SID is detailed in
Thank you, Miss Erso. Um I am Jeffrey Feld 11 Alexander Lane. Um I am also the council in the two bare properties one and Bear Properties 2 case. I think the public should understand the context of these two
resolutions. There was a court hearing on April 7th. township and the SID requested a two-eek extension to follow a response to the bear properties to complaint. We gave them the consent
sent to that two-e extension. Township related defendants did not file a response by the twoe extension. We requested entry of ministerial defaults.
It's very important when you say administrative error that the public understands on April 17th, the clerk notified the item to publish a notice of this special
meeting. It says by order of this committee. I am aware not aware of you ever have taking official action in public to take action. On April 22nd, a letter was sent to the various assessed
owners. The disclosure in the letter is more expansive than the disclosure that was published on April 24th. Judges will look at your resolutions. They're going to look at the four corners and they're going to
ask, "Why don't you disclose what is the error?" And the question is, what error is there? You already collected the monies. In my view, based on what happened in Fel versus Melbourne, this is another attempt where the township after the
fact seeks to take action to render a case move. I just ask you, who drafted the resolutions? Why isn't the disclosures that are contained in the written notice to the assess to the assess property owners included in the the notice?
because the judges will be looking at the four corners of the document and they will be asking why is it excluded and just remember their properties too is in front of Judge Gardner. In September 2020 one judge Gardner shut down
um attorney Falcon when was attacking me in December of 2022. Judge Garner when he was pressed by citizens reprimanded attorney Buzzac claiming that he had told them never disclose the terms of the settlement.
Thank you. Thank you Christine Best. I'm reading on behalf of someone I support highly, Perry Erso. I'm finishing her statement for her and I agree with her. Friday, May 2nd, 2025. I found on the township
bulletin board at 22 East Willow notice was emailed to the item on April 17, 2025 in CC to tap and star ledger township requesting notice to published in the April 24th, 2025 edition. Take note, the April 17th notice was just 2
days after April 15, 2025 TC meeting. Coincidentally, there was no mention nor reports of the reason for this purpose, this notice. However, the posted notice states, "By order of the township committee, Christine A. Gotti um RMC municipal court, I respectfully ask,
when did this body take official action before the public? May 6, 2025 TC agenda item special resolution 2025 assessment role public hearing confirming township has collected somewhere in the sum of 136 to 240 thou 244,000 of public trust
fund monies. Resolution number 21-135 adopt 2025 special improvement district role resolution 25-136 resend the original resolution from February 4th 2025 resolution 2559 be reminded that on February 4th
2025 the 2025 SID roll was approved unanimously. Please explain how this body can you make such changes after already collecting taxpayer trust fund monies. Should the monies be refunded? Is this process being done procedurally
correct? Attent attention Mr. Caner I mean Mr. Attorney Caner, who can explain what's going on here? Hence, the BP2 case, which has been assigned coincidentally to one of the seven or or judges from BPI, BP1, and who also answered my one question on January
28th, 2022 fairness hearing that he never directed the township to conceal the terms from the FSH settlement agreement from the public prior to taking official action. It should be known and understood that the ordinance 2561-20 does not state the special
assessment appeal process and this is not the correct form for community property owners to do so as it has been repeatedly stated over the past several years. Thank you. Thank you. I will now close the public hearing. Would anyone like to address any
comments? Thank you, mayor. Um so um there was a lawsuit filed um which was a prerogative of RIT and a prerogative writ essentially challenges a government action. Uh so typically what you we
would establish as a township is that the government action taken was proper in all in all aspects and the first thing most lawyers do either when they're challenging a resolution or an ordinance is they make sure first was it procedurally accurate before they check the process. So the first thing my
office did was conduct an investigation and it was determined that the publishing of the notice was on January 30th due to the publishing um schedule of the newspaper. Uh the hearing date was February 4th. The statute requires
10 days between the publishing of the notice and the hearing. Um so in the utmost of caution and given that there was a prerogative writ notice date is and that we follow each of the statutes like we did in bear properties one. So what I advised um
this committee was we should uh renotice the hearing with the 10 days notice and put the hearing out. The resolution is exactly the same. And I will point out that although this is typically when you handle prog this is the first thing you do. Nowhere in bare properties too does it mention this as a flaw and even
sitting here today the attorney handling that case is unaware of the procedural flaw. But this township decided on its own that it was going to correct that. And tonight we're correcting that because we published this uh 10 days before and it's up for consideration. Um, as far as the default being entered,
a prerogative rate challenges a specific government action. The specific government action which is being challenged um is the resolution uh that was passed um which is being rescended tonight um because we believe it may not have been adopted properly and without
the correct notice. Um I filed a letter on the court uh docket uh responding. I also want to say this, what made this most interesting was well, I'm going to go in sequential order. So, Mr. Feld uh
sent an email and it's attached to the court papers uh on April 28th, which was the date in which our response was due. And he says, quote, "Prior to follow prior to filing your response to pleadings, you may wish to consider."
And he attaches our notice of the hearing tonight. So most lawyers and again he could extend this up to 60 days by consent. He's asking me to please take a pause and explain, I think, why, you know, before you file responsible pleading, please consider this. That
email came in at, you know, in the morning, before noon, I got back to him. I said, "Hi, Jeff. Could we have a call or Zoom on Thursday to discuss?" He responds in the A.M., I said, "Let's do a call at 10." Thank you. What that
means to me as a lawyer is let's have this conversation before I'm going to take any further action. I presume that although our response was due on Monday, he's saying don't file anything. Let's discuss. Here's the notice. Had he had the phone call, I would have said, "Mr.
Feld, the resolution, which you're challenging, is going to be rescended. You're going to have to amend your complaint." And by rule, we get 20 days after you amend it. And rather than having your complaint dismissed out of hand and you having to pay another $400 to refile the complaint, the township will consent to you amending, changing
the resolution number and the adoption date, and then then we'll have our 20 days to respond. Rather, what Mr. Fel does is put the township in default, which no court is going to let a municipality go to default. They understand that we're well represented and we have a committee and we're not
sitting on our rights. And what does he do after he files the the entry of default? Does he send it to me? What does he do? He posts it on the political page in Melbourne. Again, it's in in my sightings. And it just goes to the heart
of what this litigation is. It's not about the SID. Bare Properties One was about the SID. This is this is sincerely a political stunt. And And if you look at some of the complaints, this complaint is 30 pages long. What does
what does and I quote Cohen declined to debate attorney Feld during the last contested 2022 countyline local Democratic party Jared just that's coming right out of the seem that you're insinuating that Mr. Fel's using his position as an attorney for political
favor. If that's not correct that's literally defamatory and egregious behavior. Is that what you're saying? I mean beyond and and the township's going to respond in kind. I'm just reading the allegations from your complaint. Cohen declined to debate attorney felt. I'm
not sure what that has to do with the sit assessment. He also talks in his complaint that they didn't let him march in a parade. What does marching in a parade have to do with the sit assessment? And these are just two or three of the allegations in a complaint that relate to a SID. It's an
embarrassment. Very little in this complaint has to do with the actual assessment. It was challenged and bare properties won. the court's going to decide it. He realized after that hearing that he was going to lose. So, he filed another complaint to keep the process going so he can come up here
every week and advise the public. And and and the other thing that's really interesting that Mr. Phil does is every week he gets up and talks about my legal fees. So, what he does is, and it's very funny because I have teenage kids and they use words that I don't understand sometimes, but I finally understand what gaslighting means. I'm gonna run up a
huge bill for the township and you're gonna spend all this money defending it and I'm gonna come up here and complain about it. I mean, that is truly like gaslighting and I was my kids were proud of me that I understood what that meant finally. Um, so, you know, it's it's a complete lack of courtesy to tell me it'll give me to Thursday and then put
the township in default and then refuse to give us additional time. So, I want everybody in this room to know that my firm is spending hours, associate time, taxpayer dollars to file a motion to have the default vacated when Mr. Fel knows we're going to respond and he
knows we're going to move to dismiss. We've already told him in a 148 letter, but rather than consenting to it and saving the residents out here thousands of dollars, he's going to make us file a motion and fight him in court on it. Um, and that's pretty much where we stand. Um, that's my that's my update. Mayor,
if there's any questions, I'm happy. So, so my understanding that you know really that we did this as to rectify an error that was not brought to the attention through any lawsuit or anybody else, but you're uncovering it in your preparation. Correct. And it was again, it was administrative error. You know,
things happen. Anyone else have any comment? May I have a motion to approve resolution 25-135 which authorizes adoption of the 2025 Milburn Short Hills Business Organization Inc. Special improvement
district assessment role. So moved. May I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please. Deputy Mayor Cohen. Yes. Mr. Crossber. Yes. Mr. Sakandandy. Yes. Mr. Stler. Affirmative. Mayor Romano. Yes. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve
resolution 25-136? So move. May I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please. Deputy Mayor Coleman. Yes. Mr. Costro? Yes. Mr. Sakamandi? Yes. Mr. Stoler? Affirmative. Mayor Romano. Yes.
Committee. Second, you are scheduled to sponsor 2703-25. Did I miss something? The budget. Oh. I'm sorry. The 2025 budget was introduced by the township committee at our April 1st,
2025 meeting. Oh, he does. Oh, I'm sorry that I'm sorry. Thank you, Matt. Committee. All right. Uh, I guess it's my turn again. I present for consideration an
ordinance entitled ordinance number 2703-25 calendar year 2025 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriations limits and to establish a cap bank NJSA4A 445.14. Tonight is the time set for
public hearing and final passage as advertised in accordance with law. I declare the hearing open. I move that this public hearing be closed and the ordinance be adopted on final reading and that the township clerk be directed to publish the ordinance by title as passed on final
reading in accordance with law. May I have a second? Second. Deputy Mayor Collins. Yes. Mr. Costco. Yes. Mr. Sakamandi. Yes. Mr. Stler. Affirmative. Mayor Romano. Yes. Thank you.
The 2025 budget was introduced by the township committee at our April 1st, 2025 meeting. May I have a motion to approve resolution 25-137, which authorizes the township to read the 2025 municipal budget by title. So move. May I have a second? Second.
Roll call vote, please. Deputy Mayor Cohen, yes. Mr. Cosro, yes. Mr. Sakamandi, yes. Mr. Solar Affirmative. Mayor Romano. Yes. Does anyone have any final comments on the
proposed budget? I just want to thank um Mr. Larissy for all the hard work you've done. You know, being on the finance committee and and seeing all the work you've put in. Uh thank you very much. I'll echo that and we talked and you mentioned it. You know, we uh we had an
initial meeting. The tax increase was higher. We both uh committee miner and I asked you to take another look at that. you were able to bring it down to something that was we all agreed to. So, I appreciate all your effort. I hereby open the public comment for any
comments on the 2025 municipal budget. I'm Jeffrey Feld, 11 Alexander Lane. Um, if you did not attend the April 22nd public forum, which I compliment what was told, we were told as a community for the first time that the state had
her sign off on our budget and they was told it was a a three-year cycle, but this is I've been following budgets for five years and this is the first time that was ever told to the public that the state had to approve it. Have we received a sign off from the state? If we get a
certification, that should be part of the record. Also, tonight when you do your resolution approving the budget, you're not approving the user friendly budget. You're approving the big thicker document. And I think the public and I support Jean's suggestion
that there should be a budget advisory committee because there are a lot of questions as to the capital budget because this was the first year that we had a very detailed document about a capital budget and in that document when came out in April
22nd about the 22 East Willow project where originally was told it's about 2.5 on that sheet it shows up to about $10 million. In addition, one of the issues that came up on the 22nd was what are we doing about Nine Main Street? You know,
if we're on the hook for that, why isn't that included in the issue? Um, but I think there I applaud the last few years that being more participation, but we really should be looking at because we didn't get an answer as about the estimated bill whether what number
you're going to be using from the the um school board and also looking at how much money we have. We sit about $32 million about 18 of that is for various reserves. The other ones is surplus and have we been overpaying and should we be getting some credits for this? Thank
you. comment. Um just further Jean Pastor Knack, I just wanted to um add that I think some of the things that I raised or one question I raised at the budget meeting was there doesn't seem to be a lot of um thinking about infrastructure
impact of the de the future developments and the ones that are just coming on stream now. So that's why I think it is important to have feedback. I know there's some things in there. I I'm not saying there is nothing, but it's just it's going to be, you know, substantial over time. So, I think that's something
that needs to be really focused on. Thank you. I'm just going to make a general comment about like line iteing line iteming everything. Um, just in support of what Jean just said, I don't see a lot of strategic short-term, you know, six to
nine years out planning on this township's behalf. And it's really concerning to me even if you look at things like flood mitigation and all the developments going up and how that's going to impact the South Mountain neighborhood in particular even developments in West Orange for example as I think Ben know um Frank had
mentioned um and then also the school system impact of all these developments coming online I mean our schools are really old it's kind of they don't look nice and go to Livingston living look fabulous it does and you know and I sit
and I go how is it that we have as much money as summit per resident actually more and almost the same amount of residents and we just never spend any money on anything. So that's my overall comment and then strategic thinking. Thank you. I will now close public hearing. Anyone
like to respond? I'll start. I'll start. Um so Christine scores matter. We have the highest SAT scores in the in the state 1882. So big kudos to the school system. uh we won the world na the worlds in robotics not the state not the
country but the world's handily defeating uh you know some of the larger uh repeating world champions uh so that was huge for us uh and then um also too on infrastructure uh ton of we agree ton
of work to be done but I would expect that is part of the ongoing budget which it is I'll let you address that uh and by the way I I met with the uh head the head of the infrastructure bank of New Jersey. I'm going to set that meeting up for us as well. So, there we go.
Also, uh you know, when you compare us to other towns, sure, some other towns might have shiny new buildings, but that's because they took on debt to build those shiny new buildings. Do those shiny new buildings really improve the quality of
uh services that are provided? I don't know. Um, I I would say probably not because I think we have pretty good services here in town. We have some of the best schools as Mr. Stler said. So, uh, it's not always about what the building looks like, but it it's more
about who's inside doing the work and, uh, you know, educating our students or providing services, uh, to the municipal residents. Um, so newer is not always better and uh, I think our town does a fantastic job
most of the time, paper mill being the exception, um does a fantastic job of being conservative with spending. Uh and when we do spend, then we will, you know, do so in an appropriate manner. Uh because, you know, government is not
just a a piggy bank of individuals taxpayer dollars that can just be spent willy-nilly. We have to be responsible with that and that's what we strive to do here. Thanks. Just want to see if Mr. Larissy has any comments to some of the questions. Just answer some of the questions. First, I
just want to say thank you to the mayor and the township committee. This whole process has been uh smooth and I appreciate your support and all the work that goes into it. Also, the department heads and employees of the township have done a great job amongst a big move of prioritizing what we needed here. So, I
want to thank them as well. Um, regarding the state review, um, it's every three years when we don't have the state review, we pass a resolution specifically saying that we're self-exempt and, uh, exempt from the state review. So, that's always brought up, uh, every year. Maybe not as explained as much as I did this year,
but there's a if we're not under state review, there's a resolution exempting us from that state review. And we did get back uh, I think it was Tuesday when we got back heard back from the state that we were approved to adopt. Um the estimated tax question um you
know this year it kind of lined up where the school finalized their budget yesterday so we technically maybe could have changed the resolution but um those timelines don't always match up. So what we do is we estimate the tax rate and then the final tax bill comes out and it trs everything up. So um we don't get the final school rate until we get the
A4F document that is signed off by the county, the school and the municipal clerk. And then we eventually get a certified tax rate from the county once the county, the municipality, and the school all have hard rates. Once we get that, we have a final tax rate and then final bills are sent out. So, it's
always chewed up at the end of the day. Um, usually we estimate based off of historical increases. I think that was it in terms of specific questions. If anybody else has questions, otherwise again, thank you uh for for support along the way.
Thank you. Thank you. May I have a motion to approve resolution 25-138 with which authorizes the adoption of the 2025 budget? So move. May I have a second? Second. Roll call vote, please. Deputy Mayor
Cohen. Yes. Mr. Crossro. Yes. Mr. Sakamandi. Yes. Mr. Stoler. Affirmative. Mayor Roman. Yes. Mr. McDonald. Historic designation of municipal owned property. Yes. Um just to provide an update to the township committee um who uh directed me
to look into the designation process for three particular properties at this moment, Town Hall, Taylor Park, and Paper Mill Playhouse. Um I reached out to the township's historic preservation consultant, Barton Ross, and authorized
him to move forward with uh local nomination reports, which he is in the process of doing now. The process in which uh designation takes place is outlined in chapter 82 of the zoning code. And so that
process looks like this and will generally follow this schedule as it relates to these three properties. Um once the local nomination reports are done, there will be a there will be a hearing at the historic preservation commission which needs to be noticed 20 days prior to that hearing taking place.
Um once they approve at the Historic Preservation Commission, those nominations, they will be referred back to the TC most likely at our second meeting in June, which will then um um a first reading of that designation will take place and the township committee
will refer to the planning board. I believe the planning board timeline has changed as a result of changes last year and they have uh 35 days uh to review uh the the ordinance for designation. That will be done at the planning board
meeting on July 16th. Uh and uh the August meeting for the township committee will be the final reading of those designate those properties for designation. Just to provide you the timeline, the process um and the the the items that go into it. Um if there's any
questions regarding that, I'm happy to answer them. But and again, this is obviously tentative and what you know what I anticipate it to be. That will depend on certainly those processes uh with other boards going smoothly. Thank you. Welcome.
Uh new business, Deputy Mayor Cohen, Climate Super Fund Act. Yeah. So, um, we all got an email from the, uh, food and water watch committee. Um, and I just wanted to get some, uh, get an assessment of how the rest of the
committee feels rather than dealing two by two and also to give the public a chance to speak about it in the second public comment. Um, we were requested to support um, a bill um that is currently sitting in the state legislature called the client super fund act. Um what it
aims to do is to hold the uh large the large fossil fuel companies accountable for things that they have done that have caused climate change resulting in thing amongst other things that but but specifically affecting us flooding. And so given the fact that we've lost
federal funds that we were expecting and whatever else is going to go on as as funding uh dries up, um I just wanted to get a get a um get a sense of the committee as to whether we should uh work to have an ordinance and they
provided a sample ordinance, but of course we we can change that um an ordinance in support of this bill. I have no sense as to how likely it will be passed in the legislature, but we would be adding our name as a as a supporter. And as certainly some as a
township that has been so severely impacted by flooding, I think it's something that we should be doing. Anybody comment? No one wants to do it. I I didn't really look at it. I have to be I just have to
body. Yeah, I I think if we leverage, you know, Milburn's environmental commission, which is doing a a fantastic job and and moving things forward, we just need more information about it. I read through that twice and I still a little bit lost. Yeah, if we could refer it to the EC,
have them review it. They have people that are, you know, I mean, that's why we have these committees and we don't have to be experts on every single thing. So, I would like to push it down there. let them draft a resolution or re-engage engage regional partners or you know address economic concerns
things like that just because you know I I did I read through it twice and I was still lost when I read through it the second time in that's fine but I couldn't even do that without the consent of the committee so if we have that consent then that's perfectly fine let's do that so um Mr. recommend as our
representative. I assume you'll take that to the environmental commissioner. Well, I'll have Miss Gaddy send the official email. No, but I mean you'll you'll Yes, I will certainly uh speak to it at the at the next meeting and uh have them look into it and make their recommendations to this committee.
Great. If you want Bob Palestine, who I guess is the person who sent it or the organizer, he attend Livingston passed this resolution. He attended the meeting and sent an email. So, I have his cell phone and his email. So, I'll pass that along to you so you can so you can ask him questions and and get a better
understanding. Yes. Um, we've been asked by the uh uh recreation director to um address a a situation that had occurred as well as, you know, obviously future
situations that may occur regarding township parks and the flying of drones, uh, model airplanes, you know, other aerial devices, uh, within the park and and put a prohibition on that because it does uh create a safety situation for
those enjoying the park. I think actually we had somebody um actually a child get hit in the head by a drone. They were they were fine uh I believe. But the but the but the idea is that this could you know be a growing um concern and so um a simple change to the
township code uh regarding parks and what acts are prohibited in the park. um that information was provided to the township committee and that would be reflected in an ordinance should there be consensus to move forward with that change. I you know I'm I'm opposed to
this um at this point um simply because there are plenty of federal and state regulations with regards to drones. Um I could see maybe implementing some sort of age restriction. Um but you know we want individuals to be able to enjoy
parks. I remember growing up, you know, we'd have boy scouts and and uh we'd have model rockets and, you know, we do stuff with model airplanes. I I think that uh individuals should be able to use drones responsibly. Um as long as they're following federal guidelines,
they should not have uh we shouldn't have issues with drones hitting people in the head. Um so, while that sounds like an unfortunate accident, I don't know that it warrants uh taking uh action at this point. You know, for me, I I spoke to the head
of the wreck program about it and the and thankfully the kid was okay who was hit in the head by the drone and all my kids played sports on those same fields. Um, and there's, you know, understanding what we're limiting I
think is important and I'd like to see that and understand, you know, more about what's going on. Um the the biggest issue I have too is uh with that is respecting the privacy of young children as well. I don't want them ending up on front page of something or
other. Uh and understanding if it's in the park, no one's there, it's not a sporting event, etc. Fly all the drones you want. Land a helicopter there for all I care being facitious of course. But if you're looking if you're flying it over sporting events or wreck fields
while children are playing, uh, I think it's multi-pronged and looking at safety and looking at privacy issues and looking at other issues. But, you know, if somebody wants to go out and enjoy flying, I mean, like you said, we were kids, we had those uh remote control helicopters or whatever that would fly
around. you know, if you're not impeding that, I don't see what there's currently, I believe that there are federal regulations, and I think there might also be state regulations that prohibit flying drones over where people
are actually underneath. Um, you know, drones can be used for many purposes. You can take great scenic uh photos, videos, uh, photography. I mean, there's there's a lot of uses that are legitimate for these drones. And if you're following the federal guidelines,
and actually most drones on the market now require you to get a federal license. I know because I have a drone and I've gone through this process. Um, and they make you take a a test and and um, you know, I think that this is an instance where we don't necessarily need
to add additional regulation because if the existing regulations are followed, uh, then we shouldn't, uh, run into these issues. Everybody needs a license to fly a drone. uh if the drone is over a certain size, you need a license. And they keep uh making they they keep
changing that size so that uh it encompasses more and more uh drone models uh you know almost on a yearly basis. Can we find out? Yeah. So, so I I think that more is just more education as I said before, understanding what the FAA requirements are, etc. what our
local requirements are if we have any in place right now for flying anything over the the the kids heads etc. If there's an age restriction or a height or I Yeah. So certainly I can try to gather some additional information regarding the um the FAA regulations um regarding
drone flying. I might also make a suggestion that um should there be a desire to move forward with something like this that that much like we did with dogs um in the park, right? We originally provided a pilot in Taylor Park. Um, but I think that, you know,
also, uh, you know, not every park is the same, right? And so you have a park like Old Short Hills Park, which is a a passive recreation park that could be a, um, a suitable location for this type of activity should we move forward with that. Maybe it's more of a restriction
of those heavily utilized parks that will always have people in and people generally shouldn't be flying drones and it's difficult for maybe the enforcement of federal regulations on that. Maybe maybe that's a solution as well. But I'll certainly go back and get some additional information for the township committee and we can further discuss it.
Find it hard to believe that a realer has to have a license to fly. Oh, they do. Really? Yes. Yes, indeed. Okay. um extra duty assignment security. Uh yeah, just this is pretty simple,
straightforward. Um the township has an ordinance regarding um offduty employment of its police officers. Uh for those that sometimes, you know, uh see a police officer sitting at a construction site, keep in mind that that is not the township or the taxpayer paying for that um duty. uh it is the
contractor, the company, the the you know whether it's the the Paper Mall Playhouse or the Short Hills Mall. Um this um comes into uh play when it relates to security particularly at the Short Hills Mall, but you know, police
officers being hired for security rate. Um they do so a lot of that at the Short Hills Mall. uh this is looking to increase that rate um based on um you know the uh discussions with the short house mall as well.
Okay. Yeah. I mean crimes dropped 63% in the last year and a half or so year over year over year. Uh so anything we can do to help benefit our police officer men and women in blue we we should do. I would I would go on record for that.
Agreed. Good. Agreed. We're agreed. Okay, I'm good. Thank you. 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 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 readily available to the public. A reminder to help facilitate the meeting an orderly meeting and permit all to be heard speakers shall limit their comments to one three minute
session. Um Jeffrey Feld poet section um I just want to correct some of the factual statements that are made about the BP2. There is a request for the entry of default. default has not yet been entered in a TR in when we talk about
prerogative RIT. This is a unique prerogative RIT case where the the county tax court um county tax board said if you wanted to challenge a special assessment of a SID you had to file a prerogative RID action. The guts of the
case is is that D that for fair for for this one tax this group of taxpayers they were not located downtown and there was no net benefits study supporting the special assessment changing whether it was
approved the notice doesn't go to the heart of the matter in addition it's not just also a prerogative Rick case there are civil rights act violation notices in because various council members were put on notice about the difference between a
regular tax, general tax, and a special assessment which requires a direct benefit study. They were put on notice. Willful blindness. That's a factual fight that will have no continue to
attack my integrity, character, and professional competence. This has been the standard operating procedure of this township for more than 5 years. Judge Gardner shut it down in September 2021 with Judge Falcon. I I'm
a big boy. I've been around. But don't say that I'm I gave you asked for additional time. I gave you additional time. The question as to statute. But one thing that never come up was during the oral argument on April
7th where the municipal attorney made a representation to the court about what the local finance board did. I had to correct them. The judge was shocked by what was represented that the documents did not did not um support. In
addition, when you look at bare properties one, just understand what happened in that case about how we wasted a year, not us. The township, remember the township always said, "We will litigate and not mediate the matters." The judge Moore twice told the
township to mediate this dispute because he knew who I was. Thank you. Charles Bambber, resident. Um, uh, in the old business, you talked about historical designation. I just want to echo J. Marieli's uh comment uh
at the last township committee meeting at the end uh recommending that the par three golf course in town be declared historic and uh uh while while you're looking at properties and township properties to the municipal owned
property to declare historic uh I wish you'd consider that uh there was some talk uh several years ago a few years ago about uh putting ball fields there. Um I did some engineering calculations.
You would need a 60 foot high retaining wall uh because of the elevation difference and you'd have to move 30,000 dump trucks full of soil assuming there's no rock underneath there to level that. So there's no option for
that. It's sloped property. It's a it's a beautiful golf course. It should be designated historic. Many people in town learn to play there. Um, kids, uh, at at young children take lessons there and learn to play golf
there, as Jay pointed out. Uh, so I I think it it belongs on the township register of historic properties. Thank you. Bill Kersh, Milbourne resident. I want to say something else about our contributions to the county, especially in light of a comment made tonight. Um
there's been skepticism about our financial contributions to the county over the years again and again even to the uh um to the point of people talking about seceding from the county a number of years ago. I think very ill advised but it was brought up and it gives you an idea of some people's uh feelings
about this. Now um you know we all we all pay taxes that aren't there's no guarantee they're all going to be used every dollar for something that we are in favor of. And uh as a matter of fact, in the past, I have been active in opposing what I considered um overextension of the
Turtle Back Zoo. On the other hand, my family used it has used it for generations, and we've used the reservoir walk and other things. Um and I think that, you know, certainly my federal taxes have been used at times in ways that I object to, but you know, we
are all part of the United States of America. Like we are all part of Essex County. And I think to forget that um and even in some ways go to war with them is a mistake. And I think we all prosper more when we work as a group.
So, I think as we debate this and get more information, let's just uh keep that in mind, not take a negative view, not feel we're being taken advantage of before we even know if we are, and just look at the whole picture and look at how, however it comes out, cooperation
is going to get us to the best place. I thought it was necessary to bring this up in view of some things that were said. So, thank you for listening. Hello everybody. Good evening. Um my name is Puja Periq. I'm a short house resident. I for firstly I want to thank
um committee committeemen Sakamandi Cosgrove and Stler for allowing to uh restore the Zoom option since we've moved locations. I think that participation through Zoom is really important because it, you know, as a
mother of two very young children, um, with work and other volunteer obligations, it makes it really hard to always be able to, you know, come in person. So, this would, you know, option would, I think, allow a lot of other residents to participate between bath
time, bedtime, whatever it is, but to stay connected to our, um, you know, local government and, um, this allows it to be more accessible. So, I appreciate that. Thank you. Um the other, you know, a couple things I had a few questions, maybe comments. Um I noticed, you know,
with this year's, uh budget, we uh lost about uh 6.67% in state aid. So I I I may have the numbers wrong. I'm not financially um you know, I don't have the papers with me, but I believe it's about $170,000.
So it, you know, it seems very modest, uh, given, you know, how large the the multi-oll multi-million dollar budget that we have. But, um, you know, I'd like to understand like how, uh, this this aid is being, I guess, determined a at the state level. What, you know,
functions or core operations does it support in our township? Um, so, for example, you know, losing this, what does that what does that mean for us at the township level? So, I'd like to understand, you know, how we're addressing this. Um and again I wish we
would continue to advocate and try to get the aid that we um should be getting given, you know, the support that we do provide county and state level. So um that's one. And the other thing I wanted just some clarity on was there was about
I think a million dollars less received in grants based on last year. I was looking at the comparisons based on the presentation. Um, so please correct me if I got that wrong, but it showed about a million dollar difference between grant funding. So that's that's a pretty
large amount. I'd like to understand, you know, what type of grants we're applying for, what was lost, who's applying for it. You know, I don't know. Do we have internal staffing? Um, somebody who's dedicated and able to as an employee pursue these these tasks so
that we can get the funding and not lose some meaningful opportunities. And lastly, um you know, I think it's crucial that we have more thoughtful and proactive long-term planning um in terms of our town. So, I
do think uh you know, I'd like to propose the creation of a citizens budget advisory committee because I believe this would be a thoughtful, proactive, and and meaningful way to uh link our master plan to long-term capital spending. and I appreciate your
time. Thank you so much. Hi, Perry Erso. Going back to the phantom settlement offer, attorney caner legal fees charges for May 2024 were $8,142.58. In that bill, the uh ninth summary states a draft to the
adversaries reject this rejection of the settlement offer and the case management um order. On May 13th, 2024, Attorney Caner sends a corresponding stating after due consideration. The township has rejected the plaintiff settlement proposal. Attorney Caner and BA
McDonald, can you kindly advise to the public what the settlement offer was by attorney Feld and rejected by the township committee? When was the settlement offer discussed and rejected in 2024? Since the uh TC already approved in its invoice and minutes, can
you either explain the sixth and 7th um May 13th completely redacted summaries? Hold on one minute. It's okay. You don't have to stop the clock. Based on the demeanor this evening brings me back to 21 and 22
committeemen Vignyaks publicly stated mediation five of us again unanimously has said no we'll litigate and do not mediate where we feel or at least I feel my vote will lie there and I have clearly said I would like to litigate
everyone else has said litigate so I think we have made up our mind by thinking in our own way litigation versus mediation. All five of us again unanimously has said go litigate and do not mediate
where we feel or at least I feel my vote will lie there and I have clearly said I would like to litigate everyone else has said litigate so I think we have made up our mind by thinking in our own way
litigation versus mediation all five of us again unanimously has said we'll litigate and do not mediate where We feel or at least I feel my vote will lie there and I have clearly said I would like to litigate.
Everyone else has said litigate. So I think we have made up our mind by thinking in our own way. Litigation versus mediation. Thank you. Have a nice evening speaks for itself. Jean Pasternac. Um, I just want to get
back to the um, uh, comment that Mayor May mayor Romano just said about the, um, involvement of Essex County and also uh, what Mr. Kersh said, we're not mushrooms. We want data. We are taxpayers. We want to understand how our money is being used and we also have the
right to ask for return on our investment and get money back into our town. That's what we're asking for. And it also to your to the to to your point about um working together. It would be nice if our assembly people, our senator, our county executive met with
more than just the Democratic uh committee. It would be nice for them to meet with people who are not in their party who also have a voice and have come here repeatedly for year after year and would like to have some some uh interaction with them as well. Uh the other thing I would like to say on
Taylor Park, it's not a criticism at all. We're asking to work together to make it look better. It would be great. We can walk through the park with you one day, Alex. We'll take you on a picnic and we'll show you the things that we're talking about. It's not bad. It's just we can improve it and we all
want to work together to do that. Uh the other thing that someone had mentioned, uh Goldstein, the architect, someone uh mentioned that they might be involved in a lawsuit with another municipality. I hope that's not going to affect us in any way. As far as Zoom, I can't imagine
anybody who wouldn't want to allow the public to be maximally involved in our meetings here. Uh the last thing, uh last couple things, the enforcement of the drone ban. I mean, really, honestly, how many bans are we going to put on our citizens? I mean, our people are really smart. They know better. They know what
to do. They know the rules. We don't need to ban people from something like that. It's just over the top. Uh, as far as the um, uh, oh, I just want to mention, uh, sorry about Jeff Feld. Uh, let's just step back, look at the forest
through the trees. All of you are neighbors. Those of you elected here, you're giving your time voluntarily. He's given his time voluntarily. We all are here giving our time voluntarily. You're a professional. You're paid, Mr. Caner. So are you, Mr. McDonald. So is Mr. Grill in terms of this SID stuff. I
mean, honestly, we are trying to beat up a neighbor, people that have been here for 30 years, over 30 years, doing their business and their person that's representing them, it just doesn't make any sense. I'm sorry. It really doesn't. It's gone on way too long. It needs to
be settled. Anyway, and on a positive note, the mention of robotics, which I think is wonderful, what's going on in our high school, watch the film produced by our neighbor Laura uh Overdeck called Rule Bro Breakers. It's about an Afghani girls team, a robotics team, and it's a
really excellent uh film. Good evening, Jerry Kung, Shor Hills resident. Um I just wanted to make a note of something um that Mr. Kers's comment actually made me think of. Um so actually the Essex County uh budget is public. Um, and I just pulled up, you
know, one of the larger items in the budget for 2023 was a $7.5 million appropriation for Irvington Park Community Center. Um, as best I can tell, this is a community center similar to our Bower Center in Ter Park. And
sure enough, I found a patch press release dated June 21st, 2024, new 11 million community center in Irvington Park unveiled. where you can see a pretty picture of our county executive. So, you know, I'm sure the county does a
bunch of essential services. You know, they help run our elections. They help clean the county roads. Um, I actually, ironically enough, was making a point about the condition of JFK Parkway, a county road, I believe, at the prior meeting. So, yes, I'm sure the county
does a lot of essential services, but it seems they also have at least $7.5 million for Irvington Park Community Center. Um surely they could spare a couple hundred thousand maybe a million or two on the Bower Center in Taylor Park. Um you know we we could use that
extra money considering we do contribute $50 million a year to the county. So uh just wanted to point that out. Thought it was interesting. Thanks Christine Best. There's like a lot of things I want to talk about, but I'll have to pick. So, I just want to go back to um the trees that were just
planted um and just call out. Um Jeff Feld's constant barragement of the township committee. I support this man is a true I like to use the word patriot even though it's Republican patriot and I
fully support um a lot of the cases and the work that he does. He's actually done a lot of opra requests that were benefiting to me in my research. Um he's a very smart man and he talks so fast he's really hard to understand. So um and I want to go back to the plant the planting of the trees I want to
understand when we go after and this is an Alex question. Um when we go after a vendor to do trees for example when we're doing an applesto apples comparison on a bid project and one vendor comes in with 2.25 25 caliber trees and the other vendor comes in with
1.75 caliber trees. So talking like one's at 19K and the other one's like a 22K. I think that the Blanco landscaping was actually probably at a lower price point. It offered more value. And I kind of want to understand like why we always have to do everything on the cheap side.
Again, I know I'm being willy-nilly and I'm a designer, but I was responsible for um being a chief merchandising officer and had full P&L responsibilities, so I know how to do five-year forecast statements. It's not hard. So, um you know, so I don't
appreciate being gaslit actually about that and asking questions. And I also as a taxpayer pay a lot of money just like everybody else does in this town. And I'm like, can you spend some money on me? I'm like, I think everybody wants some money. like can we just have a couple of nice things? Just a few things, you know, not asking for
designer shoes. Um, so going back to the park, the park is unacceptable. I'm sorry if it hurts people's feelings to say that. Um, you can grow grass without chemicals. I use a organic lawn lawn care company and you can grow grass without chemicals. You can. You just
have to actually plant grass seed. And I think you should go up to Natier out in Gladstone, Peep Gladstone, and look at their very beautiful and natural park and how they've done clay walkways. It's quite gorgeous and it's very simple and inexpensive to do. That's one place
where you might want to go up to Mohawk Mountainhouse or um you know Lake W Minowasa or even just look at what Essex County has done. How did Essex County accomplish that park and our park is is is not suitable for our towns? I'm sorry
to say that. And I also wanted to ask I would really appreciate if the EC could be more involved and also the flood mitigation committee when we're doing big development projects in our town because we have the impact of 165 OSA
Old Short Hills Road. We also have the impact of the big building that's going in um by the Short Hills train station that will impact and have downhill consequences to people in South Mountain. Thank you. Sure. So, there were a number of
comments made about litigation um that's going on against the town. Um I I will say that at this point I feel that some of the litigation that that the town is facing uh from some of the residents is frivolous in nature. Um you know the
thing about taxes is no one likes to pay them right. I don't like to pay taxes. I'm sure none of you like to pay taxes. Um and actually my taxes and your taxes go to a lot of services. You might not always use those services. you have the
option to do so. For example, I have the option to use the public pool uh and the tennis courts. I choose not to, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't pay the tax, right? I think the SID uh some of those
same concepts are at play here. I think there are opportunities for people to take advantage of the SID uh and to get benefit from the SID. Um, but if you choose not to participate, that doesn't mean you don't get to pay the tax. I mean, it I I wish that were how it
worked. Think of all of the things that uh, you know, you don't use or I don't use. If we didn't have to pay taxes on them, I think a lot of those services probably wouldn't exist for others. Um, so, you know, we are looking at making
uh some modifications to the SID uh having nothing to do with the litigation. Um, uh, Deputy Mayor Cohen and I are working on that. And in fact, one of the things that's holding that process up is are some of these frivolous lawsuits, uh, because we have
to wait, uh, and and see what the outcome of some things are in in order to start making, uh, some of the changes that we'd like to make. Um, so you know, I I I I would say to those that are litigating, um, it's not the town that's
choosing to litigate, it's you guys that are choosing to litigate. And additionally, I think complaining about our municipal attorney's fees, um, when you're the cause of those or a lot of those fees is kind of like setting a fire and then complaining that it's hot,
right? Um, perhaps don't set that fire. perhaps don't file those frivolous lawsuits. Um, if you want to get things changed, then do so through the political process. Um, let's
see. Uh, that's all I have to say. Thanks. Can I just jump in? I just want to follow up on what Committee Second said. I think a lot of times we sit back and we don't say things because of litigation privilege. But what what I'm going to suggest is um there may be a confusion on the part
between a special improvement district assessment and a special assessment. A special assessment is when say you have a sewer system in town and there's a group of properties that are still in septic and they're saying we really want to tie into the sewer system. So the
township says, "Well, we don't want to." They do the work. That's a special assessment. Those property owners get taxed special because of the sewer line. Sometimes the township decides to pay for the entire thing and some municipalities or state law allows to do what's called a special assessment. You
have to find a direct benefit study. A special improvement district assessment does not require a direct benefit study. And I know the statute's complicated to read because they actually include the special improvement district assessment role within the special assessment
provisions of the statute, but they're separate and apart. But the the reason we have special improvement districts, the legislature has found, the statute has found that they do provide a benefit. They provide a benefit to the business owners. They provide a benefit to the community. They provide a benefit to the consumers. So you don't need to
do a direct benefit study when you do a special improvement district assessment. And I think that's some of the conflation and some of the confusion on the part of of of of the litigants. Here we go. Committee Cosby, do you have anything? No.
Okay. So, so when we manage companies in my day job, we look to maximize the value for shareholders while maintaining and mitigating any financial risk and operational risk in those companies.
Same thing for our township. When we went and met with the Essex County leadership under opices of how can we work together to enhance the relationship we didn't go there looking
for a quote unquote Mr. Kers war, we went there looking for collaboration, for partnership. How do we move it forward to help and benefit our residents and constituents? Um, there was nothing negative at all
about the meeting and I would tell you if there was, we came out of there with a good understanding of how they operate uh and their willingness to cooperate with us. um when I said you're not going to get what you
don't ask for. So if we don't go in there and we don't ask for, we're not going to get it. And this is more than the mayor's the mayor's meeting, which I 100% support. I've heard great things about it from Ed Minhartt, the mayor of Livingston, and your participation as well. We're talking about how do we
engage with Essex County and create a meaningful collaboration going forward to ensure that we're working together because we do pay a lot of taxes and and we do our Uh we do expect some return on those taxes. Um uh but I'm not going to
belabor that point. Um I think the uh Mr. Feld and the legal side uh you know I think Frank and these guys have addressed it. Um uh and Pua uh Periq uh in terms of uh thank you for those words on restoring
the Zoom options uh and such. I think a lot of that I think Alex can address it or we could talk about it offline is that the grants weren't available or we didn't go in for the grants. So the year-over-year comparison is probably not really a a good comparison. Uh, and I'll let Alex talk about the grant
writers and the grants we do go after, uh, such as the Main Street grant, which we couldn't get unless we were in the Main Street program, which we are now. We got the $750,000 for the uh, ADA compatible park in in Taylor Park. It was fantastic. So, we're raking a very
big push to go after those grants. So, that's kind of why you saw that negative downturn, but I'll I'll let Alex address that. Um um and and you know, you'll never catch me on this day arguing against safety of our children or privacy issues, etc. So,
you know, I always say we have to do the work. You know, just like the paper mill, we did the work. It's self-unding. We're getting $360,000 a year from them. We're paying out $148,000 on a note to give them $7 million to keep the economic driver of our town here. all of the restaurants downtown benefit from
that which benefit our tax roles and I'm sure Larry can sit up here and talk for for hours on how that works. It may be a myopic view that we're just giving out handouts but that's not what occurred. Uh and I I think it'd be good to understand you know for everyone to understand that and you know it's it's
done in past and going forward but you know those are kind of things that we're going to learn and and people take. That's it. Okay. Two just two things um for Mr. Bambra. Um I believe in order to be
designated as historic the uh property has to be on the historic element of the master plan. I don't know if the par three golf course is but if it is then that's something I would support. Um and you know we can but you know you can't I don't know I don't have it committed to memory. We should we should look into
that. We have to look into that. Um and of course you can't do you know each of these things requires a report and Mr. Ross can, you know, is a is a oneperson operation. So, you can't do everything simultaneously, but you know, that would be project number four, I guess,
assuming it's on the it's on there, I think we can if it's on there. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Miss Periq, I'm sure was an oversight, but I also supported the Zoom and you seem to have left me out. Um your yeah your um and and just echoing
we I asked the same question about the grants during the finance committee that uh committeeman Stler and I sit on and the answer I was given was you know don't count your chickens before they hatch. So we can't put it in the budget expecting to get it un when we don't know whether we will. So the
conservative thing to do is to leave that number small and as the grants come in which we will get but we can't say exactly which ones they are that will then that will then change over the course of the year and if I misdated that Mr. Larry, feel free to correct me. We get during the year. We add them to
the budget as they come in. And then also last year, are we diversifying other? Oh, let me add one more thing before you jump in. Um, you know, we sit up here and, you know, it's been a great privilege to sit
up on this day and the civility and the uh and the collaboration from all of the TC members have been fantastic over the last year or so uh since I've joined and and Frank have joined and how do we keep that in place? All the issues that are
highlighted here, it seems like the sky is falling. Well, the sky is not falling. We've never been in better financial uh situation than we are today. Uh the finances are great, the operations are great, everything is crime is down 63% as I said before. We have a new town
hall coming. Uh paper mills here for another 30 some odd years. You go out to restaurants are booming. The township plaza has been a phenomenal hit. We're doing it again. Um, so the schools are ranked backwardly belong in the top, you
know, 1% of all of New Jersey. So, you know, over SID and lawsuit this and that. Let's not get lost in that that everything is going, you know, well for our for our town, for Milbour Short Hills. I just want to leave that thought in everybody's head. Thank you.
It's a it's a it's a great segue. Uh, Committeeman Stiller. Uh so because I just want to address the tree planting um question uh because you know we had
the intention to plant um 28 trees in on Milbour and Upper Milbour Avenue. Um, and quite honestly, we're being questioned over $3,000 to a particular contractor because, as I understand it from the Oprah request, the question
was, why did we award it to a M a South Orange company as opposed to a uh Milburn company? Um, here's the thing is that we have a forester, a an arborist, a licensed tree expert on staff. She
went out, she got multiple quotes for a project. Um, she chose because it was under the bid threshold. Um, she chose the company that she thought would do the best job and it actually ended up
being the cheapest uh uh amount. you know, we're we're we're we're we're answering questions about a a great thing. Um and and a positive project um you know, and and business owners that are that are happy. Um and
you know, a streetscape improvement, something that has been talked about since I think Kristen Hall, if anybody remembers her, was on the EC. She wanted to do things on Upper Melbourne Avenue to plant more trees. It's done right. And that I think that speaks to a little bit too regarding the operation and and
and how you know you know things are um we're doing a lot right now. Uh and I don't think um I I just want to be you know obviously cognizant of the fact that like there's a lot of work going on, a lot of positive things happening. Um and certainly always room for
improvement on various things. And you know, as much as I would love to walk Taylor Park and take that, it's also just as easy to send us what your concerns are and we can help address them. So, um, you know, it's it's just, you know, I think, you know, please be
communicative and we're happy to help and happy to address those things. Um, just to answer a couple, uh, Mr. Larie, since you stuck around and now you get to answer some questions, um, the, uh, budget, I'm not aware that we lost um,
state aid. Yeah, I didn't think so. No. So, there's there's a regular state which is not increased in the number of years, right? That's the 2.3, right? And then statutoil should be increasing. We're under underfunded from the state. Yeah.
Oh, I know. Okay. That aside, for two years, we did get extra states, right? One year was about 140,000. One year was about 170. the numbers you put 170,000 which was a municipal relief fund the state had a good budget year due to co they started spending that money they
gave a little bit back to municipalities that ended right I think right I think that is I I think that's a a clear dist is it was um it was something that obviously you hope that it's a permanent installation but
but it wasn't um and so to answer the question about the im impact of that I mean certainly there are other revenues within the budget that are performing and outperforming you know some of our estimates um from previous years. So we are we are able to to capture that with
those other revenues. And when those revenues coming in aren't kind of longterm revenue necessarily use that to fund operations, we'll maybe increase our capital spend by a little bit. If there's a oneoff project we can kind of mark that internally towards that, but
we don't rely on those oneoff revenues, right? And just to further answer the questions about grants, um you know, I think it's been answered. Uh certainly we don't get the same dollar amount with grants every single year. Uh we have been very aggressive in applying for grants whether safe routes to transit,
safe routes to schools, um firefighter assistance grants, uh you know, green acres grants, um all of these grants, you know, and sometimes that is when they're available, uh what what they're um what they're applicable towards, whether we have a project that's ready
to do that. And so uh we have a grant portal that we receive a email um you know when new grants are available we can evaluate whether those grants are applicable to any sort of project that we have. We also um do have someone that
does an initial review of the grant whether it's applicable to a project. um will write and uh work on grants um should it be necessary we can establish um our grant uh company which is Millennium um to assist us in grants.
Also a lot of departments write their own grants um and do and do grant uh the fire the fire department has done a fantastic job in applying for grants themselves um for the last three years and receiving a firefighter assistance grants each of those three years. So um it's a continual process and it will fluctuate from year to year.
That's all I have.