have minutes. We'll call this meeting to order of the environmental commission. Statement of compliance. The notice requirements of the open public meeting law for this meeting have been satisfied. A copy of the annual notice was sent to the Asbury
Park Press and the poster posted in town hall and filed in the office of the township clerk on June 28th, 2024. This meeting will be recorded and available on Ocean Town's YouTube channel. All right, roll
call. Member Colton here. Member Godette, he's not going to. Member Janetti. Member Lutz here. Member Brennan here. Member Mammy here.
Alternate here. Alternate Baxi here. Fabulous. All right. You want to review the minutes from the April 3rd, 2025 meeting for approval? Does it matter that I did the roll call after the statement of compliance?
Okay. Let's go back time. I'll make a motion to approve the minutes. Do we have a second? Second. Got that? Yep.
Great. You can always edit the YouTube. So, we have to vote. All in favor? All in favor? I I I'm abstaining because I wasn't here. Great. All right. We have no presentations this evening. Old business. We'll jump right
into it. EC website. Jack, no update. I know we threw around a whole bunch of stuff last meeting about um you know what we would like to put on the website. I
think Ken recently just shared um the tree website that you had Donna facilitate to everyone. That would be a good thing to put on the website as well. So I think pretty soon we'll start gathering stuff and and run with it. Yeah. Just compile a big list and we'll
Yeah. and just you know fun stuff like you know clickbait almost to get people there. Uh so I did talk to Tracy Burkowitz this week on an unrelated matter and she was unaware of the shift in chair so that is being updated on the website. Okay, great. Thank you. Uh
storm water ordinance Ed and Jack I have nothing on it at this time. Um I've been trying to sit down with uh Greg Blash to talk about this a little more. So, it is still just tabled for the moment. Great. Do we have Mary on
this evening? No. No. Um, community energy plan. So, the community energy plan is called in the DP grant. I got to choose my verbiage appropriately for a public meeting.
Um, black hole. Um we have not received money for it yet and so we have not done anything until we get paid to do something on it. Um there's a number of grants in it. Deal Lake Commission is doing the same thing and Jack a number of entities they're having problem processing grant funds. So until we get
money we're not doing anything else on it. So stay tuned. Great. And Jack and I volunteered to do something. Yeah. But there's nothing to do to do because they haven't paid us. Excellent selection.
I'm most excited for the update on the recycling contest. Yeah. And we had 20 21 we had 21 submissions. Um so the breakdown the good news is um that we had 21. Um the bad news is we
didn't really get a lot of high schoolers. Uh we got uh it's 57% were middle schoolers, 42% were K through four. Um so we have all of the So that means zero high schools. Zero high
schools. Yes. Well, I mean that zero is not a lot. That is that is not a lot. Very small number. um pay attention to. So, however, so we have all this
information we captured in the Google form. Um, however, we want to divvy it up for the review committee to share that information. We can export it out um to whomever needs to get it. So, the next step now is to pull the review committee together and get that going.
I'm happy to be on the review committee. Okay. I think we said it, didn't we? Oh, did we? Yeah. because we need to have a member of council. Um, which I think Jeff would like to be that member. I'm sure he would. Um, uh, yeah, we we had written that
down. So, I will distribute that to the members of the review committee. I mean, we'll all review them anyway. Correct. As a as the Okay. Yeah. Um, we can all sit down and watch them. So, they're all YouTube links. Um, at
least they should all be YouTube links. We have a list of YouTube links. There will be 21 YouTube links that you can click on and then watch. Send it to you. A quick meeting. Um,
so so yeah, so we'll be able to to review them. Um and again we said that the uh everyone will get a certificate of participation. Um so a number of these have multiple people participating. Some of them were were
sizable groups. So I'll work on designing that. Um and we'll get it printed and then make it look nice and we can hand sign those. And then for the winners, um they'll get the proclamation from the council and we can coordinate
that with um Jesse and Tracy and Jeff. Yeah. Um but I guess the the question is how long I would like to try and get this done sooner rather than later. We're coming up on the end of the year. We got about a month, six weeks. Yeah.
Yeah. Um left. So, um, if we can I I'll get the list together of the review committee. I think giving everyone two weeks would be enough and we can do it whatever the last council meeting at the end of May is the first one. So, I think there's one this upcoming Thursday, a
week from today. So, then technically three weeks from today is probably the last meeting of the month. Yeah. Hold on. Just pull it up. All right. Well, my phone does not want to uh load our town website. Sometimes
we have a spotty connection in here. Yeah, it's terrible. Um, so yeah, we'll we'll look at tentatively on when the last meeting of the month is so we can get it to them before the end of the year. Perfect. I'm excited to see them. Yeah,
I have I have not I have not looked. Um I'm waiting for everyone to get them. Okay. I am cautiously optimistic. Yeah. So, it's okay. We'll all review them. Like when I said I'll be on the review committee because I I really want to see them, but you know, I'm don't have to be
on that list if it's not necessary. Um all right, moving on to new business. Um, so we have some upcoming meeting dates for review. Well, the shaker commission did some of the heavy
lifting based on whether it was combinations. Okay. Passover. And July 4th. Oh, and July 4th. in several days. Yes. So, do we want to have a meeting on the 10th? The week. So, so we selected the 10th. Okay.
Is that meeting? July 10th. Then room tour is the second. So, we'll have a meeting on the 9th. We went to the 9th. Right. 9th. The 9th. Yes. Then December 11th, it's already on the list. Close. Done is
partying on the 4th. Okay. All right. Or we could cancel. Rightfully so. Right. Well, like I said, you can schedule it and if it needs to be cancelled because of the holiday, it can be cancelled at a later date. Okay.
Okay. So, we'll keep the 11th on the Passover gets complicated. The second is actually a Sab. It's the holiday until sun. Yeah. So, we race over here, you can still make the other night. Yeah. It'll be very dark at
that time. Genesis take off the tubes from where I rocket myself over. But anyways, no, but we still pick that night and someone else could run the meeting or as if in March, we can re reevaluate it and see what's we can put it on the calendar for the 9th and if we need to change it, we can change it
then. Okay, fabulous. At least it's on the calendar. So that's what we So now going to Did you guys look into 2026 or just got as far as 2025? No, we just this is we only do it for
the fiscal year. Okay. So, it goes to June. Perfect. July to June. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. So, so now we can vote. I'll move. Okay. Brandon seconded. All in favor of
this calendar. I All right. plan review committee. Any pending plans in order? We haven't planned very many plans at all in a long time, but just the other day I picked up a set of plans. The uh temple right up the street
here is planning a you know some renovations. You know, I don't just glance into things today, but the front they're going to redo this the front of it, you know. But they're going to put some storage type space in the front that they need. And then in the back
when they got the patio now they're going to put something there that's building and then either move the patio or part of it. So it's not giant that I saw but I did see a whole lot of you know trees and everything but I saw they were going to put um sugar maples what
looked like right along Deal Road. So I was curious. So I was driving here and said yes it does have like you know wires along Deal Road. at least that's the short I don't know where to look at it but it's not gigantic renovations I
don't think but uh that's the only thing that that's come in like that storage in the front like facing Dale Road well no the the entrance is still going to be the same entrance but when you look at interiorly storage yeah they're going to they're going to blow out they're right
they're going to blow out the left side of the door when you're looking at the building a little bit so something else will be there Okay. I'm sure there's they do a very nice job. Yeah. My first experience was when my daughter got married
there. Considering my grandson got married, a lot of weddings. Thank you, Norm. Uh, planning zoning board report. Ed, any update on the planning board? Yeah, June 12th there's going to be a special meeting of
the planning board for our fourth round affordable housing plan. So stay tuned for that. Um I think more details will be made available prior to it. There is a very tight time constraint on what needs to be approved and when and gotten
back to the superior airport. So um we're having our meeting I think it's 6 or 6:30. It's an early meeting and then immediately followed by a council meeting. So that's where it's going to go. We'll be voting
on it. Then they'll be voting on it and it's going to the court. So um the affordable housing attorney um and affordable housing planner will be there to answer any questions that folks have. What's that date again? June 12th. That's a Thursday. Let me just
double check that I'm not steering you wrong. Nope, that's right. This is at 5:30 in the 6:00 meeting. Yeah. All right. Zoning board update. So, just for context, zoning board, we used to have a rep
um the chair has not sent us any uh information on the zoning board, but it's a follow-up conversation with uh Colleen to be getting that because the chair pointed it to her. So okay well we can zoning board seems to be
inudated where planning board has been very light. So yes interesting because everyone's afraid to take it to the planning board. They are which is wild to me. Get zoning. I can count on one hand in all the years that I've now been
on the planning board the number of applications we voted down and of those applications the number that we voted down that weren't later overturned I think is one. So it's not that we vote things down at the planning board it's just we have higher expectations of what
the final plan should look like uh that I don't think the other board has. So, and we also like trees. We No one asks us for tree waivers anymore and almost no one asked us for sidewalk waivers.
And if they do ask us for a sidewalk waiver, it's it's usually there's really a good reason for it. Whereas when I started on the board, no one wanted to plant trees ever and they all wanted waiverss or variances to not have to put sidewalks in. So it's really important
because it sort of sets community standards by having such expectations and then and then it just sort of raises up the quality of all the So do you ever have any conversations with the zoning board at all? No. As
to really having the unified front or something like that. So, one of my and I have been on this since like 2018 is every year the zoning board by law is supposed to send a report to the planning board and to
the council detailing all of the their the disposition of all of their applications. Were they approved? Were they denied? what variances did they grant with the intention of the boards, the planning board and the the council
reviewing them and saying, "Hey, well, we see you're giving X number of variances for this. We either think that this is a really nonsensical ordinance and we're just going to change the ordinance that we don't need to be giving variances and wasting everybody's
time that this is a common thing or going back to them and saying no, we have this ordinance for a reason. We really shouldn't be granting variances. That report has never been sent. We have never had that discussion. Has the council ever proved the mind? I do not
know. Maybe we should guess Mr. Winston when he's We may as well start him off with with Barn. Well, I I uh I had him going over to the uh the issue on Carbury that he has dug
into deeply. So once that's finished, we'll we'll have them working on other things. Yeah. There's a drainage pipe between two houses on Carbury that is actually the headarters to the popularbrook that has been an unfinished project that is
eroding the stream banks leading to a lot of sedimentation upstream. Um and the issue was that they needed to get permission from the property owner which happens to be hell to install rip wrap and that process just had not been done. Um but my understanding is that Mr. ling
is make sure that it is moving along at a much faster clip than it has. You're talking about recovery and all that stuff was put in 40 years ago. No, talking about 2019 they put in the the pipe was I'm blanking on the technical
term for it right now, but it was the erosion where the outfall erodess and the section of the pipe falls and then it erodess back. And there's a technical term for that that I'm just I'm blanking on. Breaking loose. Well, no, but there's a there's a more specific one. So, they put in the concrete piece to
stop the erosion at the site of the outfall. But what they needed to do because so much velocity is coming out of the outfall, they need to put rip wrap downstream to keep it from scouring the stream banks, which are now cliffs and the trees are falling in. They're they're beyond 45 degrees. They're
they're almost turning into bridges, right? Um, so they need to put the rip wrap in along the stream banks to stabilize it. And they probably need to do some planting, too. They also need to extend the rip wrap on the base to slow it down because now you can walk, I don't know, 100 150 yards downstream and
the banks are scoured because of the velocity of water that's coming in and ripping all that dirt out. Right. And as time goes by, it goes further down. Correct. So, we're talking about all these flooding issues that we have in the popar brook on this side of 35. Well, they're all starting up there at
the headarters, so it needs to get fixed. That's a good one. That's what I thought. I mean, that's a meaningful thing. You had helped to build the tension base over there as
part of the project. Well, so that's that's that's a whole other thing because that's all wetlands and other stuff. water there instead of having it through
gas hydroelect electric there while we're at it. All righty, moving on. A green team report, sustainable jersey update, Jack. So, um, we had to suspend green fest.
Okay. Oh, no. Um, suspended. So, we'll have another date selected. No, it's just um we're just going to push it to next year. Okay. Um between everyone that worked on it, I
must have contacted like 50 50 like different vendors. Out of the 50, this is going back in February, March, uh only a handful have gotten back to me. And of the handful, only about four or five confirmed. And then
of four or five, two dropped in the last two weeks. Uh so, you know, with three vendors, it didn't really make sense to move forward. So, what impact does that have on sustainable jersey? So, we're not going
up for renewal until I think two years from now. So, I mean, I thought someone mentioned that push there. It's really only it's only when when we make the applications that we have to show that we did agree there.
Oh, so it shouldn't affect. Does it help not for this year but for next year to do it like have school the school participate with the green fest like have like certain like have the
science classes come you know like is that or is that something separate with the school then? No. So Diane usually pushes the middle school to participate. Uh she really wasn't involved this year because she had other things going on. Um the high school I think we've reached
out but they're kind of busy doing their own things and not they never really jumped on green fest. Um maybe it's just a matter of finding the right person to talk to at the high school. Yeah. Have you thought about like reaching out to
the guy? Yeah. he's the but like maybe the vocational schools I mean to to reach out to their school district because you know those kids are go-getters and um but they they may be looking for
projects and this would be like a capstone project like to to do you know what I mean like or to participate or have hours or something you know work towards some sort of community project. It's a good idea for next year for next Yeah. So yeah, maybe because a lot of our
students go to those schools, you know what I mean? Like a lot of our ocean people go there, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, next year I would love to start planning in October. Yeah. I was going to say maybe like we can have like a summer meeting just with an outline so
we are ready to attack in September, October. Get on like a school syllabus for, you know, like you said, an end of the year project to be maybe presented there. A lot of stuff I feel like is very, you know, when you're at a
festival something to like grab your attention. So for, you know, the high school garden club to make, you know, one of those cardboard things where you put your face in and take a picture, you know, and give out like plant seeds, like something as simple as that as a booth, I feel like would be fun and
engaging. So, um, yeah, I'm just kind of surprised because last year we had a similar timetable. We started reaching out in like the beginning of February to all these vendors and we got 30 Yeah. or 35 vendors and uh this year I guess people were
just not interested or busy wanted to come back. I mean did they not get enough interest at festival? No people I there were there were some vendors that were interested in returning um and I think a lot just never even
responded. So I think maybe they were just too busy to I don't know maybe there's economic uncertainty people are not you know feel like they're trying to save money they're not going out to do events I'm not sure it's going to be staffing it could be it
could even be the date you know what I mean like if it could just be circumstantial from the date because May May tends to be like from like I know from my perspective May starts to become like a super busy month of like it's like games and awards and and you know
like there's just like a ceremonies and and recital like it all just it's like you know like the end run you know what I mean and so um pretty much from the middle of April onwards it becomes like that so it could be just
the circumstance um of this year because I think last year was like May 19th or something like that right it was later yeah it was the it was the third Sunday it was the Sunday after Mother's this year was the Sunday before. Yeah. And that's because we wanted to line it up 5K. Yeah. And
all that. Yeah. I thought I think there was another reason decided not to do the Sunday after. I think the park wasn't available. Thanks, Jack. Lollipop Pond Committee
report any update? There is no real update at the moment. Okay, thank you. Uh committee leader remarks, chairman's report. I do just have two things. Um I overheard your uh the shade
tree meeting. Um you guys were discussing the D grant that we are submitting for the community forestry management plan. Um Jack, I sent you an email. Um I don't know if you got it. I think it was earlier today, might have been yesterday, just seeing if you had
the PDF of the um sustainable jersey certificate. Um I got the email. I don't know if I have the PDF. Yeah. No one in the town does either, so I'm like, "Okay, Hail Mary, let me check with Jack." I I have to look through. So, I
remember getting like that. Did you speak to Nicole? Nicole and Tracy. So, yeah, that's usually where you go. situation for me. Certainly. Yeah. They had sent this email like congratulations
on Fron. So that reply to that email. I'm sure maybe you went to the club. I remember getting that email. Yeah. I said to you I was like I'll check with I'll bother Jesse if you don't um you know I remember getting that email from Sustainable Jersey and it was me and
Tracy and Nicole and Yeah. Kate was on it. Margie was on it. And this is going back to I guess you know two years ago maybe. So yeah. So I did email you and then Norm from you. I heard you guys discussing it. I just need um a PDF of
the inventory Davies did whether it was a draft or whatever. I I just need that attachment. So if you could just forward that to me that'd be great. Yeah. Do you mean I'm conclude tomorrow for business? Catch me later in the day on Sunday.
Okay. You can have my number, right? Yeah. I'll give you a call and I'll say just hit forward. I don't know where you are and where you're not because I was looking at that. Yeah. I just need the the few attachments and I upload it and we're good to go. So, I mean I I don't think it's going to I haven't tried to
submit everything lacking some attachments, but since we do have these under our belt, I would like to include it in our submission. started doing the thing with the u budgetary thing for the you know whether it's you have to have the thing that says yes so I have all that with all of our you know CVS and
usually last time we did that Ricky Gart had us sign off yes so I feel like I'm going to hit them up last once I have everything together for what's remaining that have to do I don't know if it's just that's is that
it is that the certificate it that's what they sent in the No. Oh, I didn't know if it was like a specific like this is to Ocean Township. Was it done at like a Right. Yeah. at Was it done at a ceremony? Maybe that's it. I don't know. You had to go I thought something was
hanging in here recently. So, you have to to pick up the actual certificate. You have to go to the league to get it from them. Yeah. And I think that was not last year, the year before. I don't think anyone went to the league to pick it up that year. Somebody did. I thought someone did. Somebody
did. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure someone did. I don't know. I know people. I feel like there was a picture. I feel like there was something in here. No. No. It's in It's in the manager's conference room. That wall. Yeah. Yeah. That's the plaque. Yeah. But that could be it. No, I think there was other stuff
on that wall, too. There should be like like a paper like, you know, like a diploma certificate. But it seems like that would do in the meantime. That looks like that's their like signature. No, but it says Ocean Township on Oh, it does. Oh, I didn't
see from here. What does it say? It says Ocean Township certified. Oh, fabulous. Okay. Sustainable Jersey Ocean Township certified. Okay, I'm going to attach that. Yeah. And if they give us kickback, we'll deal with it then. Um, yeah, it was attached for an email, right? First of all, the people with
Yeah. They're trying to keep their money. No, absolutely. So then then I can quibble a little bit. What's your email again? Uh serant jgmail.com or send it to me, Jack. Oh yes, I got it. Thanks, Donna.
Send it to Donna, too. Um yes, that's good to have on file. Just one more thing. Um just piggy back off being um last meeting I had mentioned to everyone the leaf blower um complaint that came in. I'm not sure. Did you disseminate that uh PowerPoint that was shared with
us that was shared with me? Did to Did you guys get to see that because I mentioned the spring life ordinance that was passed. So, if you could disseminate that to everyone, that'd be perfect. Sent it to me. No, you sent it to me. Okay. And then I mentioned it under my
chairman's uh chairwoman's report last meeting and um yes we had a lot going on so it wasn't so crucial to uh but I would like you guys to review that because again this review the complaint or the poweroint the PowerPoint on how
Spring Lake turned into a um 100% electrical only um and it's funny I was home not feeling well on Monday and at 3:00. It's It's very loud. The lead at I was like,
"What?" 8 9 1 When you work from home, it's like It's right when your conference calls are always 4:30. It's so upsetting, too, because you know, we're home all winter and then the second it's nice out, you know, you're you're in your house because windows
and exactly. So yeah, it's just a very interesting report that Spring Lake adopted and I just, you know, I know um Mont Claire has also adopted it and I think there's in Princeton they I think they did too. Yeah. So I would just like you all to review it because it's you
know it's just interesting to see what neighboring towns are doing. Um even though our the size of ocean compared to Spring Lake is very different, it's still um you know something that we could reach towards one day.
Um, I don't know if I'm Yes. Well, no. I was thinking if I was overthinking anything. Um, but go ahead. Do you have a comment? No. No. I have a report. Do you have a report? We went to the council. Yes. Yes. Yes. That was on my
uh back there. You want to talk about it or Yes. So, Ken and I uh visited the council at their workshop meeting. Was it April 10th? Um, and thanks to Jeff. Yes, thanks to Jeff, he got us on their agenda and we had introduced to them or just brought to their attention the
difference between the development tree ordinance. If you take down a tree, it's 350. If you don't replace it and you're a homeowner and you take down a tree and you don't replace it, it's 750 and up and up. It increases from there. It goes up to I think like $3,500
um a tree. So, we said to them, if anything, it should be even. And the attorney had agreed and said actually it's statemandated that it has to be the same. There can't be a difference. So we are going to draft
something up for them to change the ordinance and to make it 750 for a developer. Yeah. Um I put this up four year five years ago. Yeah. I'm but it's not going to be 750. We're going to put in the same table that we have in the
helmet. Yeah. And you said the state starting at 750 stuff like that in there too, right? Statement and something similar to that. And then Ken, do you want to mention again about the differences? remember we're saying like west of the highway
has the So the other thing that the mayor had brought up a couple years ago for the residential tree ordinance was um the fact that we it's b the tree ordinance as it stands now is based on having the number
of trees uh you're allowed to take down rather than tree density and and uh I had followed the mayor's suggestion a couple years ago and made some changes that actually
uh but we never implemented it or even reviewed it. But I have some changes that I'll have to go over again that I'll basically go by zone so that the number of trees you're you need to have on your property is based on tree
density rather than just an absolute number. And I think it's a lot fairer and it really achieves the goal that we want in in tree coverage. Yeah. So, but I but I think the the mayor um
is really open to that, too. So, yeah. It was very refreshing how welcoming and receptive they were and said, "Get it in front of Jesse and let's do it." So, that was nice. you know, you sometimes go in there ready to clean a case and
they were like, "Amazing. This is all." So, it was good. Some lots have like there's this, what do they call French speaking Baptist churches going in on Avenue? The lots comes up. Okay. But it's mostly just garbage stuff that
comes up on just a bare lot, you know. Um, and I don't know what. And they're going to put a lot of trees in here, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Some of those like the 32 acres were such a stink made out, right? So, but that was mostly garbage too. One of
the invasive species now was the uh what called calorie pears that flower first thing that flowers in the spring, right? And when they first were introduced, they weren't invasive. They were the first one was called the bread fruit pair. That was
the first one. Of course, that one was split in half. you have crotching ants, but they kept developing new cultivars and somehow it started a fruit. They started to get fruits and it became a thing because that was a corn field, right? And it got filled with just pear trees and so a lot of that stuff really
wasn't great stuff anyway and have these, you know. So it's it's tough though to put a burden on people who have a lot like that to spend $750 a tree to take out a hundred garbage trees. I
mean and also thinning I mean if if you have a two acre property with a lot of trees in your backyard thinning them out actually is healthy for the trees that remain and it keeps the same canopy. You don't lose truth. I get to clean out the
two sweet gums I put in because I was an idiot when I first. All righty. Anyone else with any reports or comments? No. I second. All third. I
I thanks everyone. pregnant.