WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=V0wHXJZMHyQ

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: V0wHXJZMHyQ):
- 00:02:26: Meeting Start and Introductions: Roll Call and Communications
- 00:03:13: Referendum Discussion: Architect Presentation Introduction
- 00:03:45: Referendum Process: Transparency, Community Involvement, Needs
- 00:06:53: Referendum Dates, Success Rates, Strategy for Everyone
- 00:09:38: Balancing Capital and Educational Projects, Community Engagement
- 00:11:14: Community Surveys, Communication, Transparency, Avoiding Negativity
- 00:14:48: Referendum's importance, debt service aid eligibility, public relations
- 00:17:13: Public Relations Campaign, Every Door Mailers, Municipal Partnerships
- 00:19:21: Public Relations Timeline and Various Communication Strategies
- 00:21:12: Tax Impact Calculator Tool and Multimedia Promotion Outlets
- 00:24:40: Concluding Architect Presentation, Ad Hoc Committee, Long-Range Planning
- 00:25:45: Long-Range Planning Committee Update, Demographic Study Finalization
- 00:28:37: Thanking Architect, Transitioning to Public Comment on Action Items
- 00:29:38: Public Comment on Action Items: Martin Wells Muller
- 00:31:35: Board Approves Expenditures and Reports, Moving on Public Comments
- 00:32:11: Public Comment: Martin Wells Discusses Referendum and Taxes
- 00:35:57: Board Responds to Public Comments
- 00:37:49: Old Business: Dome Violations and Sewer Company Lawsuit
- 00:41:10: Board Member Comments, High School Achievements, Meeting Close
- 00:42:01: Motion to Recess into Confidential Session
- 01:13:38: Resuming Public Session: Resolution and Residency Hearing


Part: 1

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I direct this announcement to be entered into the minutes of this meeting. Roll call. >> Mrs. Aquino >> here. >> Ms. Brett >> here. >> Mrs. Fitzgerald >> here. >> Mrs. Melendez >> here. >> Mrs. O'Neal >> here. >> Mr. Orizillo >> here. >> Mr. Petri >> here. >> Mrs. Faggera >> here.

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>> Dr. Gerardano >> here. Thank you. Um, superintendent, any any uh communications? >> None. So the board we did receive one communication from a parent. I did respond and I BCC the rest of the board on that. Um and it's my understanding it's it's being looked into and I will

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get back and Dr. Bjo myself will get back with that information. Um superintendent report this is I guess where we'll we'll do this or do you have something? >> No, I think that's all I So, I thought the finance committee, we were talking

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uh last meeting or two meetings ago. Um, and Lauren, jump in here anytime you want, start the conversation with the board since I'm the only one who who or some of us did a referendum last time and then the last time we did a referendum was a kindergarten referendum. So, a lot of us are new on the board. So, we thought it was a good

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time to start talking to our architect about the processes um and time frames um on a higher level what we should we should be expecting. So, we asked Frank to come here, give his expertise. He's done this a lot of districts. And I'll turn it over to you. >> Terrific. >> Then we can ask him questions

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afterwards. >> All right. So, we'll um talk a little bit about the process. Everything about a referendum for us is about process. So, um, our system is about creating transparency, district and community involvement, conveying the need, why

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we're doing this, what exactly we need to get out of it, as well as what we offer, and that's single source referendum planning and marketing, public relations. The entire piece comes from solutions. There's no outside people. 2026, we just passed $94.5

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million worth of referendum. We passed three out of four uh referenda in March. Um we were four of the 11 referenda that happened in March and uh that's a 75% success rate. Since 2019, we passed $544

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million worth of referenda, 14 out of 15. Um so the system works, the way we do things works. Um and it's a process that's collaborative and involves everyone. So our steps are pretty straightforward. We would want to meet with the administration, meet with the board,

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determine which what the direction is, what exactly are the needs, select the target date for the referendum. We want to look at the facilities audit. We've already started to look at the facilities and establish a capital project listing. We also want to look at the educational side and we want to look

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at the building capacity and understand the need for demographic studies or updates. Our process is obviously understanding the enrollment projections, understanding the demographics and developing a scope and a budget that we can get us to a place

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where the board and the administration can select the priority projects necessary that go into the referendum. We also want to involve the community. We want to we knew that there was a a referendum that was put up that was unsuccessful. Why was it unsuccessful?

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what were the things in that referendum that didn't speak to the voters? How do we obtain that input to that will help us make decisions moving forward? So, we want to try to do that. Um, and we do it a number of different ways. We either do it through meetings, we do it through uh

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community surveys. We'll put out a community survey that has a host of questions. It will actually specifically say, would you support a referendum if, how would you support a referendum if we did this? so that you're getting that feedback direct from the community. The

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more feedback we get, the better apt we are to be able to put something through that's going to be successful. Bond council, financial adviserss, those are people that are critical to this process as well. When we start to put together scope, the bond council is going to help us prepare the questions.

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Financial adviserss are going to help us establish the tax impact for the community. So, those are critical things for us to look at. referendum dates. There are five referendum dates, five dates for special elections that can be can be done.

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Fourth Tuesday in January, second Tuesday in March, last Tuesday in September, November 7th, which is the general election, second Tuesday in December. Those are the dates that are out there. How do they fare? How we've we try to we're very statistic based. So, we try to look at how do these

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referenda fare when they're in different different months. So right now if you look at the chart, this chart looks at referenda from 2010 to 2018. January, not many referenda in January. It's after the holiday season. People's

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people are getting bills. People don't choose to put up referenda in December. So 38 59% passed uh from during that you know uh period of time 18 year peri uh 8year period. um from March uh uh 62 62

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referenda uh 18 um 52% passed April 22% not a lot of referenda in April September 82 referenda total uh 60% passed November 31 referenda 73% passed now there's 31 referenda it's a general

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election a lot of times you do get more people coming out to vote the other side of that is that it could politicize the referendum. If the people are going for council or mayor or are, you know, worried that people won't vote for them

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if they vote for the referendum, they will draw a line sometimes. So, it can often politicize the referendum. December 59 uh referendum total uh 61% pass. So, the most popular month was September with 82 referenda followed by

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March at 62 and December uh 59. But the success rates were actually reversed. 61% of December's referendum passed handily. September just shy of that mark at 60 and March at 52. September used to

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be kind of a no nogo because people are away for the summer. You couldn't get the information out. But now with social media and communications, September is just as good as any other time. Especially back to school, people are excited. It's a good time to do it. So

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September is another considerable time to do uh referenda. We analyzed all the referenda that we looked at and we passed and you can see that March was a big date. December was a big date. We've only had a couple in

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September. One was October. It was supposed to be Septe September, but it conflicted with the Jewish holiday. It moved to uh October. I've only done one referendum in November, and it was a small uh roofing referendum for 2.4 4 million and uh it did pass.

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>> It did or didn't? >> It did. It did pass. Um our strategy for referenda is we try to include something for everyone. There's going to be capital project needs. There's going to be educational project needs. We want to make sure that we are doing things that

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the district needs and that speak to uh direct impacts to students and and staff as well as facilities infrastructure. Long time. Unfortunately, what most people don't see, roofs, boilers, windows, infrastructure items, that doesn't bring in votes. People want

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things that impact their children. So, that's also the second piece of this. We still have to do the capital projects. We still have to do those infrastructure projects because without them, the school could close. If the boiler goes down in the winter, you're out of school. So, these are things that need

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to be included. And that's where the facilities audit comes in. The facilities audit will address a lot of the capital and then we start to look at the educational needs. Um we want to have meetings to understand what the programming needs. What are the big educational wants and

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needs for the district? Capacity analysis looking at the DOE model as well as how the buildings are actually functioning. Developing concepts that will will accommodate those programming needs. Coming up with the projects that we we want to address. developing

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concepts if there are for expansion as well as do we want to have a community committee or an ad hoc committee or do the community survey. These are all part of the planning and analysis process. I mentioned the community survey quickly but we want to engage with the public.

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We want to display transparency have open communication. It develops a sense of buyin from the community that their voice was heard especially if things are selected. And obviously this communications needs to start early on in the process in order to make that happen. And you know again snapshot of

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what that survey could look like. It's a series of yeses and nos, questions, very little in commentary, but we do have commentary sections. Uh but it will get a general sense of where people are as far as strategies for the referendum.

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Um you know there's a lot of forums out there that people talk and they talk about referenda stuff. We focus on the yes. Our concentration is always about the people that are vested in the people that have a yes interest in the referendum. We try not to focus on the nos. There's a lot of moms and patch

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pages that there's a lot of negative commentary. We never directly engage. It's not something we do. However, if we see a negative comment come out and we have a contrary response, we will respond via our own social media post. We never directly engage the district as

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board members and as administration. You can remind people to vote. You can talk to people about the referendum date, but you cannot tell them to vote yes. It's something that you can't do as board members. Um you can do that through community groups. We will uh go out and

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speak to community groups uh whether it's UNICO or uh the Lions Club or the Senior Citizens Club. Um, one of the things that we want to do at these community groups is make sure that people are getting the right information and you as board members are going to be met in the supermarket or on the ball

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field and people are going to ask questions when when and if what this is all about. We prepare cheat sheets. We prepare a trifold brochure that everybody carries with them. So, you're all giving the right answer. The the wrong answer at the right time is bad.

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The right answer at the wrong time is bad. So these are things that we'll all go through. Obviously your PTO PTAs, they're your boots on the ground. These are people that have a true vested interest here. We want to rely on them as much as possible. We want to involve them and we want to make sure to send

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consistent messages. How do we do it? It's a collaborative process. It involves the board, the administration, whatever committees, parents, PTOs, architects, financial adviserss, and bond council. We must explain to the public why this work is needed. It's not

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something that we wish for. It's something that's needed. Why? We either establish a theme so people can understand that message and we have to be make sure that we're controlling the timing for the release of information. As I said before, the the timing is everything. Consistency in the message.

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Everybody involved in spreading that word has to have the same story. Once somebody says something contrary to what we believe, what we have said, now there's in there's uh uncertainty there. We try to avoid that. And then obviously opportunity for review and comment. We

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establish an uh an email address for the for the referendum itself. People can ask questions. Those questions go on a uh frequently asked questions page and we respond and we keep that loop going throughout the entire process. Um, so public forums, surveys, presentations,

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they all allow that positive public comment or negative public comment, but we want to know what those comments are. Um, understanding the message. We try to create uh things that keep it simple. A lot of words, people don't tend to read

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a lot of words. We try to create graphics and emojis that help uh the public and the community at large understand what it is that we're going for. Are we attacking projects in the arts or learning or wellness? Are we doing capital projects? If there's

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funding available, how is that uh you know uh uh uh communicated to the public? Obviously, the big thing for any referendum, the reason that referenda are important or positive is because it's the only time without rod grants

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that you are eligible to receive up to 34% in debt service aid for your projects. It's the only time. It's a a 30% off sale on the work that's being done. And with construction costs rising, we want to take advantage of everything that's

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available to us. the 34% and the reason that it's up to the state legislation calls it 40%. The state has only paid out 85% of 40% in all the time they've been doing this. So we calculate it based on what you're actually going to get, not what the the the rules say. So

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you'll see in the question when the question goes out, it'll say 40%. You'll never get 40%. So we we calculate all our debt service aid only on 34. The only projects that are truly eligible for 100% or 34% in debt service aid are

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capital projects that meet the DOE's list of priority projects. HVAC, roofing, windows, doors, all of the capital renovations. If you're gutting and renovating a space, it's eligible for up to 34%.

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Additions or new construction are not eligible for 34%. There's a formula. It's $143 a square foot, which is a number they developed in 2000 when they established this whole thing. So that number hasn't gone up like construction

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costs are have. >> So it's 34% of $143 a square foot, which comes out to about $38 a square foot. That's what you would get on eligible new construction costs. So if it cost you 700 to build a new facility per

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square foot, you would get $35 off based on that funding. So we try to set up these projects in a way that you're going to maximize state aid. So the best way if additions have capacity and they need uh they have unhoused students, you'll get more funding. So we try to

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make sure that we can prove that through the process. public relations as I said before we offer we have an in-house marketing team an in-house public relations team they are the ones that are going to be putting out the the information we are

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going to prepare content we are going to run that by the board make sure that the board is comfortable with the process and the direction once you are we will continue to open up you can provide us with either your information to your

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social media pages if it's uh uh Instagram Instagram or Facebook and we will do the posts for you or we will provide you the content and your your people will do the the updates. Either way, we provide a uniform strategy. Everything that goes out for the

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referendum has the same look. Everything that goes out for the referendum has the same feel. We hit a an intense public relations campaign 90 days out. We want to make sure that uh our social media teasers go out and people start to understand this is happening. 60 days

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out it goes intense because 60 by 60 days out we should have DOE's final numbers. We should know exactly how much debt service aid we're getting. And then 20 days out we actually issue an every door direct mailer. It goes it's a paper copy goes to everybody's household in

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the in the district. Now if the district has a great relationship with the municipality we often piggyback on their email uh uh system and send out posts through them or piggyback on their website. um we try to have that work. Otherwise, we're doing printed

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literature, the trifold brochures, banners on the schools, banners on buses. Um in the spaces in the building where we're doing uh actual doing work, let's say we're renovating the media center. Outside that media center, there will be a QR code. People can scan that

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QR code. It'll give a description of the work to be done as well as 3D renderings and models so people can actually see what they're going to be getting at the end of the day. This is a process that involves a lot of tech and a lot of understanding of what you're getting at

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the end of the day. People want to know what where what does this actually mean? Pretty pictures on a screen is one thing, but seeing the space and how it would be transformed, that's another public relations timeline. This is just an example of the kinds of of campaign

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that we go on. Renderings for the public website on the district's website. There'll be a full page dedicated to the referendum. Uh agree on dates for all the meetings, initial presentation to announce back to school night, PTO meetings, social media, uh campaign

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starts, social clubs for the school, band, choir, sporting events. You can have tables at the football game. You can have all sorts of things. and we'll be there as much or as little as you want us to. Um, so there's a whole whole way to reach the public and our goal is

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to get as much information out as possible. Now, the other side of it is we'll have meeting after meeting and we try to do hybrid meetings, but we've been to meetings where there's been five people in the audience and it's just the way it works. The idea is to get as much

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information out in all the different uh um venues as possible. uh information packages on the website. You're you're going to get an overall uh referendum presentation that will describe to the public everything that's in the referendum, what it's going to cost,

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what the tax impact is, photos, renderings, everything about the referendum. It's probably 75 pages. What we do is break down that presentation into information packages. If someone wants to learn about the tax impact, all they have to do is look up

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the tax impact. If someone wants to see the plans, they can look up the plans, the renderings, etc. The other thing we do is we put up a tax impact calculator on your website. Most people in most presentations say the tax impact on the

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average assessed home is X. Well, not everybody in town has the average assessed home. So, they start to guess. They start to run numbers in their head. We provide a tax impact calculator. They input the assessed value of their home into the calculator and it will tell

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them without guessing what the amount of their impact will be. So it's not on the average assessed. It could be less, could be more, but that tax impact calculator takes the guessing out. >> Can you use that calculator afterwards? Use our home. >> You might be able to. It's the It's based on the tax rate. It's so it could

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be used for a variety of different things, but yes, it's a very useful tool. >> Absolutely. multimedia produ promotion. We are social media, web, news local. We have good contacts with news 12. Uh we've done press releases and print uh

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brochures face toface. We'll go to PTO, PTA, back to school site and building walkthroughs if you feel the need is there. Public information sess sessions as well as community organizations. Typical social media posts, you know, these are the kinds of things that we'll

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throw out there for the public. They'll be on Instagram. They'll be on Twitter, Facebook, or X. Now, um we'll prepare a video that talks about the referendum, what's included, how it's working. We'll make sure we send out voter registration

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forms early on in the process. Make sure you're ready to vote. We send it we we attack uh graduates, recent graduates that may still be in the area that have the ability to vote. Um we'll send out notifications on what the polling places are, where they're going to vote. So all

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of these things are out there. Many a time we'll put a presentation on the website and in years past we would put a presentation up on the website, your website, and the public would click on it and go through slide by slide and they'd formulate their own interpretation from looking at the

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slides. They may interpret something right, they may interpret it wrong. We stop that. We now do a voiceover presentation which is me or the superintendent or however that works talking over the slides. We create the script. We prepare a presentation and

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someone can sit in the comfort of their home home and watch the presentation as if I were delivering the presentation to them. So nothing again we try to eliminate things left for chance people making the wrong interpretation. So these are things that we'll do as well.

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informational videos, print, trifold brochures, uh newsletter style. If you if the district puts out a newsletter, we have a newsletter style that we marry into. Um every door direct mailer. This is that mailer that goes out to the to

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every uh door in the community. Banners, you can see we'll do any kind of banners, lawn signs. Uh these are things that are all put out. Um, we did vinyl bus graphics and again those QR codes and that's really what we're talking about is to be able to let the public

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know what's going on. We'll even go old school. We'll put uh, you know, old school boards up in your lobbies and wherever you want, but there's always going to be a QR code next to it so that they can log in. That's the process of putting this out there. It's again, it's

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about transparency. It's about information. And obviously the beginning part is about figuring out what do you really need and how can we really put something together that's a responsible palatable for the community and gets you

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guys what you need in the long term. So that's really the process here. >> Thank you. There's any questions from the board? >> No, I think it's clear. So, what I was thinking of in the next week or so, um, maybe put together an ad hoc committee

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of board members to start and and and then present as we go through this process, present the information back like we would another committee at board meetings where we're at, the dates, um, recommend dates, meet to talk about that, um, things of that nature. Um, so I think this is just the the start of it

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all. I know we have one more long range uh, planning uh, meeting, right? That's at Mountain View. >> Um, that just happened. We have one meeting back at the board office. >> Oh, they're back at the board office. That's right. Thank you. >> June I want to is it June 6th if I remember correctly? >> It is June 6th. >> I don't know why.

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>> So, and then we'll have the the the demographer study done. >> So, just in reference to Thank you, Frank. Great presentation. Really appreciate that. >> Can you can you share that with all the board members? >> Of course. >> So, going back to Frank's um process, we're actually in the middle of it a little bit. You know, we've been really

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thoughtful about ensuring that we have a collective understanding of the needs of the community. That's why going back to the start of the school year, we had reached out about the long range planning committee in which we solicited, you know, anyone who'd want to join us to really get a handle on what's going across going on across the

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district. So, we started that um back in the fall. We're wrapping up, as Dr. Gardano pointed out um this committee made up of cross-sections of individuals whether it be residents, parents, um um staff members, students, board members.

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Um so we visited every single building. We had the principles really give an overview of the state of their building, which was a great opportunity for the community members to get a really sense of what's going on because I'm sure some of you only had your students attend one elementary school, but you may not be familiar with the three others or they

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left for high school or whatever reason. So, this was a great opportunity for community members to get a real understanding of all six buildings. So, we're going to be um you know moving through this coming back together in June here at the board office with the expectation to start going over some of the studies that we've been in the

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process of getting our a handle on. First of demographic study which we are on the final um stages. However, we are looking to make sure that our data is accurate and um true because fortunately our community is growing which is wonderful. We have some really great

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opportunities here as we have new developments coming in. We are working with the planning board reached out to them this morning to make sure the numbers are correct as soon as that's finalized. That's something the committee is going to be looking at as well as the capacity studies to make sure that how our buildings are being utilized can be monopolizing some of

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that money that's available through a referendum. So we are already through that phase um as far as planning. So with the long reach planning committee, we are in the process of finalizing our demographic study as well as our capacity study in addition to the ad hoc committee. I do maybe looking at doing a

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community survey. >> So maybe as far as that's something we would want to discuss. >> Yeah, because I think we have two things. One, we have obviously data that we need and you just listed a bunch of data that we have to have and have already started, right? We've got facilities audit, demographic study, capacity analysis, all important things. The other part to your point is going to

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be that we're going to have to have feedback and involvement from the community. long-range planning is a great place to start. We're going to need some kind of survey because we need to know where we are, where the temperament is for sure. >> Um, but the other thing that is really important that I just want make sure anytime anybody says the word

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referendum, you think savings. 34% is no joke. We can get a lot done through a referendum with 34% savings. So, it's just something to keep in mind um as we move forward because that is going to be really key for us as we maximize our budget. And to punctuate that, any work

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that you do out of your capital budget, you get you're paying 100%. >> Exactly. >> Right. >> And the date of that meeting is Thursday, June 11th >> for the long-range planning, the final final meeting. >> Thank you, Mr. >> Any other questions or comments for architect? Any want to add anything to it?

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>> Thanks a lot, Frank. We'll be in touch. >> Thank you so much. >> Got it. >> You guys, >> thank you. >> Anything else, Dr. Brewer? >> That's all I have. >> That's all you got. Super public comments on action items. The board of education welcomes encourages

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input from the public being mindful of the privacy rights regarding students and board employees to avoid any potential liability on the part of the speaker. The board discourages your comments or uh reference. The board discourages references to specific individuals. While directing your comments or questions to the board

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president, please understand that the public comment portions of the meeting are not structured as a question and answer sessions, but rather are offered as opportunities for you to share your thoughts with the board. The board president may need to refer an issue to the superintendent. If the particular issue has not been handled through the

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appropriate chain of command with the school district, however, responses may be provided at the end of the session. There are times when comments and questions will require additional fact gathering before response is provided. And we encourage, as always, to be polite. um and not use any curse words.

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Um so stand up, say your name and address on any action items from 5.1 down to 6.1. >> No, >> no, it's not. >> It is not. >> Because we're not voting on a referendum >> tonight.

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being talked about just >> there'll be you can ask your question at the next public public comment on anything going on in the district >> this is part of the district >> this is public comments for action items action items only >> a discussion about the referendum for the board please Mr. Mr. Wells, you'll

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have an opportunity to speak at the public comment on other stuff >> as long as it's about an action item. >> What I want to talk about >> Martin Wells Muller, 25 Woodrest Avenue in Bud Lake, New Jersey. You know, talking about the referendum as it was put out publicly to be about

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>> not just the Mr. Wells. I don't care what you say. I'm going to brief you just need five minutes. Mr. Wells, >> I'm going to finish. >> Yeah, I was going to say let let's follow the protocol. >> Let's follow you able to talk about the public comment session on anything on the district, Mr. Wells Miller, >> I'm not done. >> Mr. Wells Miller, you're you're not

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you're not we're not wasting our time as a board members. Listen to this is not the part is >> I'm step away from the mic. You heard you ste you're interrupting me. >> This is not public. It's a second public comment. Mr. B and >> now he's threatening five minutes. >> Now you're threatening.

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>> That's not a threat. >> You just said it's not going to end well for all of us. That's what you just said. >> If you don't understand English, I can't >> I just understood what >> Mr. Muller, this is a public meeting of a governmental agency. If you can't behave yourself, I'm going to have Mr. Crefy escort you out.

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>> We're good. >> I told we're good. >> Action items 5.1 to 6.1. Anyone from the public? Closing it to the public. Consent agenda. Miss Aquino for action items.

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>> Yes. I'd like to approve monthly expenditures and reports and our administrative action items 5.1 through 6.1. Second >> question or comments from board? >> Seeing none, roll call. Miss Shingy. >> Mrs. Aquino. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Fitzgerald. >> Yes.

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>> Ms. Brett. >> Yes. Ex. Excused on anything related to the township. >> Mrs. Melendez. >> Yes. >> Mrs. O'Neal. >> Yes. >> Mr. Orazilo. >> Yes. >> Mr. Petri. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Faggera.

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>> Yes. >> Dr. Giodeno. >> Yes. >> Public comment. Others. The board of education welcomes encourages input from the public being mindful of privacy rights regarding students and the board employees to avoid any potential liability on the part of the speaker. The board discourages references to

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specific individuals while directing your comments on questions to the board president. Please understand that the public comment portions of the meeting are not structured as question and answer sessions but rather are offered as opportunities for you to share your thoughts with the board. The board president may need to refer an issue to the superintendent if the particular

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issue has not been handled through the appropriate chain of command with the school district. However, responses may be provided at the end of this session. There are times when comments or questions will require additional fact gathering before response is provided. Again, we ask for courtesy, politeness,

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and no curse words. Now, anything of interest going on in our district, please state your name and address for the record. Martin Wells with 25 Woodrest Avenue in Bud Lake, New Jersey. First place, I don't make threats. Number one, if you don't understand that, that's not a

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threat. You have no idea what a threat is, but that was not one. >> Mr. Wells, will I please ask you a question? >> I am going to get there. All right. Number two, this was put out as a referendum meeting. That means when you talk about a prior to things, that's supposed to be included in the discussions. All right? It's decorum, something you can read up on. All right.

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Number two, how what you need to find out is how many referendums have ever been approved when you had such a high tax impact put on the residents prior to what you don't trying to do. Now, I've always been for a referendum. I'm still for this referendum, but from what I'm hearing from a lot of people in the community, none of them are in favor of

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this because what they just got a double whack in our town, mostly from the school district. Okay? So, you guys need to think about the priorities here. Okay? This is not about egos. It's about what's best for Mount Olive. Okay. And when you're having something put out

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publicly as a referendum meeting, that's when they're supposed to open target. When you're supposed to be able to talk about this as a community, all right, you guys are elected officials to represent me. Okay? That's what you're elected for. Now, some of you I may have voted for, some of you I didn't vote for you. It doesn't matter. What matters is

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that you're supposed to represent every single taxpayer and student in this town because we are the ones whose dollars you are spending. So remember that when you go home tonight. All right. So what you need to figure out is how are you going to get a message across when people already right now are shell

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shocked that their taxes between the school board and the town are going up a thousand dollars. Okay, we missed the opportunity last time because it was a poorly delivered message because of all the past laxidasical efforts from past administrations. I'm not it's not a summit issue this. It's not a ziki. It

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goes back to Reynolds when he failed to do a lot of the repairs. It goes back to one of our past uh supers who did nothing and people got upset in this town because they have all this money they spent over all these years. It didn't go anywhere. You've done a lot of fixing over the past few years of doing some of these repairs. That reason why I

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got bul down last time. Okay? But you need to keep doing more. You got to explain it better and not have attitudes sitting there in your whole high and mighty thinking you're everything. But you're not. And I am addressing that to one person. Okay? Remember you represent everyone. All right? And you got to handle yourself with decorum and

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dignity. All right. And when you have a meeting publicly put out there for the referendum, you have a comment on the referendum. All right. In that section before the public comments that's supposed to be included as one of the action items to be discussed about hopefully you can take time to read the

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bylaws. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> You want me to take that? >> Posing public comment. Would you like to take an Fer? Okay. >> Um, completely agree on the fact that we are going to need to be able to go, we

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need to know what the community thinks. We, like we just talked about, we have to have a bunch of data and a lot of feedback before we can even remotely begin to encourage, you know, a referendum. I think um, we also need to remember we're all taxpayers up here, too. Some most of us, sorry. But, um, we

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are taxpayers, too. We're not planning to do anything that's going to hurt ourselves or hurt other people in the district. And we are not talking about this being tomorrow. This is a long range thing. This is something that has started a long time ago. It is going to take a lot more time and it is not happening next year. Obviously, there's

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not no going to be no tax impact next year. Um, but we are very much taking the feedback and involvement from our community into account. It has to be one of the most important things we do. Otherwise, we're going to be wasting time and dollars >> and that is built into the process as you saw and we're gonna be very

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conscientious about that. So, I agree. >> Thank you, Miss Fish. I'd also like to comment on, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Attorney, and I want to make it clear to our public eye here, our meetings are to be held in public. They are not for the public. We just have to do the business of the board in public. That's what the

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Sunshine Law is about. Am I correct about that? >> Yes, we're here to hear the public make their comments, too. But I mean, the public, we handle a number of matters here in the course of >> Absolutely. And and correct me if I'm wrong. This meeting was for the board to get information as a board from our

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architect as a group and the only time we could do that is to have a full open meeting for the open public speaking act. Correct. >> That's correct. >> Thank you. So we do have a section where we allow people to come up on a myriad of things and talk about anything in the district. That was the thought behind it. We weren't cutting the public off to

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anything. So the in the intention of what I disagree with you about is we did everything right. Whether you agree with it or not, that's a different story and I appreciate everyone's difference of opinion, but we did everything right. Am I correct, Mr. Gert? >> Yes. >> Thank you.

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>> Moving on to old business, Miss Brett. Just want to update the board on two things. I'll wait for Miss Brett to leave the room. Is she out? Okay. Super. Um I just want to follow up um something that has been going on with the dome and we've been working with the township on. Um so

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following the deflation of one or two inflatable indoor recreation facilities in the state last winter, the Department of Community Affairs, DCH, has launched an aggressive effort to inspect and identify potential construction code violations at these facilities across the state. The district was notified

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that the dome at the high school was in violation of some of these regulations because local construction code officials are actually employees of the state DCH, the Mount of Code official was directed to issue a notice of violation to the district as required by the regulations. The notice stated the

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dome would need to be closed if the conditions were not addressed. The district and its architect have carefully reviewed these allegations. Because most of the allegations were not correct and should not have been made, the district has appealed to the Mount the Morris County Construction Board of Appeals. A hearing has not been scheduled yet. Meanwhile, the district h

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is having productive discussions with the township to address certain conditions, but also explain that some of the allegations are not supported by the facts. It is important to remember that this facility was granted all necessary approvals in a certificate of occupy occupancy when it was open. We are hopeful that we can resolve all

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these issues short shortly so that the dome can remain open and operate in a manner that is safe for all to use it. And I I think Dr. Banio backs up and and and and so will Miss Faggera. The town has been very very good at working with us and trying to work these things through. So it's very appreciated from the township side. Any questions about

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that from the board? Okay. something else on the um on the uh Mount Olive Villages Water Company and the Sewward Villages Company. On May 14th, New Jersey D filed a suit against Mount Olive Villages Water Company and

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Mount Olive Sewage Mount Olive Villages Sewer Company seeking an injunction and penalties due to the long-standing violations of the state air pollution and water pollution law of the villages sewer plant. The papers filed by NJD included cert certifications by

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residents and reports of NJD inspectors regarding the numerous violations at the facility. At NJ's request, the court has a scheduled a hearing on what is called an order to show cause asking the court to order the defendants to act quickly to address these problems. The hearing is scheduled for June 10th. We will file

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a motion as a board to intervene in that case to make sure that the court is aware of the effect of the odors on our employees and students at the middle school. Any questions about that? So, we're in essence jumping in on filing our own motion with the with the NJPS. We're good. Any questions? I just want

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to give the board an update on that. Super duper. >> Can I bring Lisa back? >> Yes. Can you get Miss Brett, Mr. Crefy? Any other old business from board members? Oh, I see if Miss Brett has any old business.

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Thanks, Mr. Brett. >> Anyone have any other old business? New business. >> Oh, super. Moving right along. Uh, board member comments. Anybody? just the the high school students participated in the Special Olympics

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walk. >> I have to say they conducted themselves with >> such kindness. It was just overwhelming. >> That's good to hear. >> Uh Mount Olive baseball, come on. High school baseball boys, congratulations.

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>> Congratulations baseball for sure. >> That was incredible. Awesome. Well done. Yep. >> Anyone else want to jump in there? I figured a quick meeting. We didn't have to do that. Excuse me. Confidential session. Motion to recess in confidential session. Resolved.

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Excuse me. The board meet in confidential session for the purpose of discussing negotiations. Excuse me. Personnel, matters, attorney, client privilege, pending or anticipated litigation. Uh, confidential pupil matters be further resolved that matters discussed in confidential session be disclosed to the public when the reason

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for confidentiality no longer ex exists. Action may be taken. Oh, action will be taken. >> Action will be >> action will be taken. We're all those in favor. Hi, >> we're in close session. Roll call. Missing. >> Mrs. Aquino >> here. >> Ms. Brett

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>> here. >> Mrs. Fitzgerald >> here. >> Mrs. Melendez >> here. >> Mrs. O'Neal >> here. >> Mr. Ozilo >> here. >> Mr. Petri >> here. >> Mrs. Faggera >> here. >> Dr. Gordano >> here. Motion for resolution

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62. >> There's a sentence on the back. >> Okay. Uh resolution for residency hearing of the students assigned ID numbers 310416 and 65019898.

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Whereas on May 4th, 2026, a committee of the Mala Board of Education held a residency hearing for the above reference students. And whereas the parent of the above reference students attended and participated in the hearing. And whereas the committee after after hearing after having heard and considered all

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the proofs and testimony presented gave the parent opportunity to supplement the record with additional evidence concerning the students residency and to postpone further deliberation until such time as additional documents were produced by the parent. Whereas having provided further documents and information, the parent was afforded an

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opportunity to speak before the full board in executive session on May 18th, 2024 and did appear before the board for such purpose. And whereas upon further consideration of testimony and evidence presented at the May 4th committee hearing, the supplemental evidence provided and the parents statements before the full board at its May 18th

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meeting, the committee recommended to the full board that it find based upon the residency investigation performed by the board's director of security that the students were not doiciled within the mal school district during the 2025 2022 school year. Now, therefore, be it further resolved that the board finds that the above reference students were

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not legally entitled to attend school in the district during the period from August 31st, 2025 through May 18th, 2026. And be it further resolved that the parent be assessed tuition for the students ineligible attendance in the school districts in a total amount of

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$43,98. and be it further resolved that the board will consider entering into a payment plan agreement with the parent for the above tuition and hereby authorizes the board's business administrator to negotiate such agreement subject to the board's approval. Be it finally resolved that written notice of this decision and of

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the family's rights to contest saying before the commissioner of education be served upon the parent as required by law. Do I have a motion? >> So moved. >> Need a second. >> Second. >> Second. >> Roll call. Missy. >> Mrs. Aquino. >> Yes. >> Mr. Petri. >> Yes. >> Miss Brett. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Mrs. Fitzgerald,

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>> yes. >> Mrs. Melendez, >> yes. >> Mrs. O'Neal, >> yes. >> Mr. Orzillo, >> yes. >> Mrs. Faggera, >> yes. >> Dr. Giodeno, >> yes. Motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. All those in favor.