Okay, this be the meeting of the sher commission August 7th and I'll take a roll call. Chair person call that's me. I'm here here. Godette is out. Gordon is out. Karns
here. Alternate Lutz here. Alternate Armstrong here. Councilman Weinstein He's on the call. Okay. Anyway, chair, we got you. Okay. So, the notice requirements of the open public meeting law for this meeting have
been satisfied. Copy of the annual notice was sent to the president poster posted in town hall be followed in township court from June 23rd, 2021. This meeting will be recorded and available on Ocean Township's YouTube channel.
So um we have the readings of the five meeting which I have to confess I've not had time to read. I thought they were very first of all I just want to say kudos there was a lot with the consultant here. So kudos to Donna for doing a wonderful job with minutes a great job and I think you
captured everything. It was a lot based on that. Um and we want to make a motion that we should approve the minutes seconded by Karns. All in favor I have to read two but I may as well
stay because I wasn't okay. Anyway, in any case so um so as far as Mr. Brooks isn't here this evening, but he did tell me that of the things he's been reporting on, he thinks the power company, you
know, is finished with what they're going to be doing this year, but that they have plans to be back. Okay. And that um there's no nothing uh of special note with respect to permits and so on and so forth. There
are some reasonably great projects, I think he said, on the commercial development side. That involves things that he gets to check out as part of that process, but they haven't been uh submitted yet. And that's private anyway. That's
zoning. Excuse me. And that's zoning anyway. It's commercial. It's not public land, is it? No. No. But it's not. It's either the planning board or the board. Okay. And then as part of the
what do they call it the empathy [Music] so Hey, can you all hear me? Yes. Yes, we can. Okay, great. Okay, so um anybody do an assessment of
what the power company does to the trees? I know they want to keep trees from hitting the wires without regard to the health of the trees afterwards. Well, theoretically the uh power company has a forester. Not
theoretically, they do have a forester. Yeah, they go around and and I know during the time that when uh Hank Klein was here and uh talking to Bill, you know, they they they're good and they try to, you know, see that those things are done right. Although some aren't and
Bill's been good about calling them back and pointing out things that weren't and but as far as to maybe ask them checks more because of that, that'll be good. The real problem we have is the state. Mhm. The state could care has problems. They could care
less. I believe Jean was at a site that Bill told me about that right here on on deal road and 35 the southwest corner. I believe they go around the thing. There's some trees there. They were hacking away and it was kind of like uh
this is state property. You're trespassing. Okay. and uh and and we'll be calling the cops on you any minute stuff like that. Now supposedly Bill's called someone you don't know who called somebody from the board of true experts
came up but they gave he works for you know the state it's like and they were said oh yeah we're going to get trespass but but they did have a meeting I see they were trimming on sunset and 35 today and it was looking a little bit it
was looking better but certainly what they were doing up there and what they did on the other side That's right. We should suggest potentially to our state representatives that the people trimming the state stuff should have the same qualifications
as everyone else. Somebody on the cruise, right? I mean, you know, I mean, I'm not saying everyone's going to be a professional, but someone should be someone who's there on each side should know what's going on. They don't appear to have a certified tree expert available because even when
they did that asberry circle when you when you finally found out who was in charge of it was a landscape right can I ask a question and that was criminal what asked them saying you're trespassing what happened before they said you're trespassing
they were criticizing them right as soon as you say so who was criticizing Bill was there um Howard Tan was there he's the one the He's the one that started all and yeah and Howard is tree service. Yeah. He he does big land.
He saw this stuff and he said this is I got to say something. This is great. I even when they were doing that the circle and I was there with Don Broco and Broco had a number for somewhere to stay. So he calls him up right right we're standing just right on the right
there. First thing out of his mouth, you do know you're trespassing. It's public property. That's their mentality, though. That's their mentality. Now, they're going to tell you you're trespassing and you would get you would get Yeah. trespass for sure.
But they should also get trespassed. What's that? They're on state state land. State state land. I think I think if I were to ask for anything from a state representative, I would ask for a better process for this. That municipalities have more rights. If there people see they're being abuses,
that there's more rights there. That they are not just You cannot you cannot threaten with trespass a state, you know, a town tree authority who's simply questioning and the board of tree experts guy, he
works for the state, you know, but they were going to trespass him. Yeah, he was mad. He was real mad. They had they did have a meeting or something. But we never heard whatever happened. Maybe do you know who the the board guy is? Yeah. Yeah, I know. Maybe he can share some.
I should call him. I I got Yeah. And that's just And first of all, good luck getting anybody arrested works for the town. You're doing something right. They can. Yeah, they do. Right. How dare you tell me how to do this? How dare you suggest?
Well, that's what the one lady said told me. It's like, you know, how how dare you would in insult, you know, the workers and that their cuts are good. Well, they're not. You know, that's that's their mentality. That's and and every time it's
you're going to be trusted. That's first thing out of their mouth. Go ahead. I That's like when you say, "All right, well, drag me away." You know, really, but the rest for left, the work was looking a little better when I drove by. Something to say to them, as soon as you
step off state property onto our township property, you're going to be arrested. That's what That's what it should be. Lorax Lorax is going to be handcuffed soon. mentality, you know, guillotine for the
ridiculous. Okay. Okay. Okay. So today today there was a meeting in town hall between representatives of the deal lake alliance
alliance and I both there was there was there the town was there so it turns out What was the purpose of the Okay, it turns out there's a small park
that exists that exists today off Wipeco right about where uh you remember when it comes out there again between Lincoln Drive. So if you keep Yeah. So if you kept
going across there, wind up part of the lake and u and he said even there's a path been beat down through some of the weeds that people can put canoes into. There's a little boat ramp kind of down here. The kayak things right on.
Yeah. So this this was the project that we discussed um a while back that they come to us with a fully grown project and they have a grant from the D. They have funding that they can fund raise themselves. They have the opportunity to get more money from the DP and they're asking for some extra money to put some
trees in. So that's why we were there just a tree piece, but they were also the Great Flash was there. They're reviewing every part of the plan because there's an agreement with the township for this project. Now that photograph makes it look like there quite a few trees there.
Yeah. But it's going to be Yeah. What they have in that area right now in the port that's cleared in the port that's cleared there's three fairly large oaks look like red oaks but there's three pretty goodized oaks there. This one's dead over on the side there's one that's
totally dead you know on the south side of of the property. There's a rain garden that was part phase one of this project to try and help with rainwater coming off of Wikipek and so on and so forth. Who paid for that? there. I think they got another mini
Ruters. It was Ruters. Ruters laid it out. Yeah, I think it was a Ruters. Ruters laid out the rain garden near the tennis place, too. New West. Yes. And they're proposing 17 new trees. Taking out the old tree. Taking out the old ones.
They're not taking out the old They're not taking out the big trees. No, cuz they're all up in here. This is pretty open right in here. Yeah. If you look at the thing, the three bigger things inside the middle of the thing, those three, those are existing books and um a path. Yeah.
And there so there's an assortment of things that they're they're hoping to do. They're planning on having they they talked about canoes and so on and so forth. They they want to have a nice set of steps which might be second part of the project so that people can get down to Yeah. Because right now the the kayaks
are way down here and it's that would probably still stay there. change much but they're going to have but you go to the next se where it says it have the kayak have a different system the idea is to have a rack there they say some of the other towns that they
have they have some racks that the town provides and there's a lot you'll see like you go to the next page they have some sign pictures of some of the signs that they have eventually that they have uh near their stuff in those towns you register and then
the lottery and you register and Well, what you do is they have the other towns have a lottery because they only have room for say 10 12 15 kayaks and it's a lottery every year and at the end of the year you know they have another lottery. I don't know
whether you stay in the lottery but but bottom line is that's what they so uh so these are all the kind of things we talked about. It looks like a reasonable project and the idea was that we said we would spend some money. Turns out originally we thought there were 23
trees and it turns out that yellow got to turns out there 17 trees you know and so on so so the cost went down but but we'll see you know so we'll see how the thing evolves but they've got basically they've got a grant already
they said which was nice and um the idea is that if if you know and it's matching basically what they got so far is they came up with all their fundraising they had previously all their They got money. They had they had about
40 I think it's $41,000 is the amount. So therefore the state has agreed to give 41,000 matching. Okay. Now if we give it put in some more money and so on and so forth. You know they're thinking that then they can say this is what we're going to do with more and so on and so and theoretically we're matching.
Now how straightforward that'll be I can't say. Okay. But um for the new sidewalk but conceptually it looks good. What the problem is? Would there be room for another sign that says that our shade tree fund that we can negot Yeah. We can say that
thanks to the shade tree for I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That that that part that's you know meanwhile. So part of it is though they've got one of the thing which you point out to the young guy who did this. They they've got basically a gravel pathway, but they also want to have and the state like this idea of
having a handicap accessible thing on the thing and then they got a what would be a more solid pathway and so on and so forth except that they're going too close to the big trees. You know, they're only going to be a few feet from the the trunk of the big tree.
So, but those giant roots are there. So, he's probably going to have to lay out the cleaner. Yeah. You know, a minute ago, Jan made a good suggestion that you got to put your hard surface surfaces in or at least know where they're going to be before you put I thought they were going to try and put a few parking spots, but no, I don't think so.
If you're handicapped, how you know? I don't know. Parking was an issue that was discussed. Okay. Well, it came what came what came up was the fact that it's Wikipo. It's it's narrow. Okay. people they know other
people um who do things like one of the guys who is the finance guy for the alliance lives right near there I guess because he says this people always parked in front of his house um when they're coming over there I parked off well that's like you say yeah try walking across they come around
well they have they actually have a marked out crosswalk now what's the one it's not the because yeah they're they're coming around very fast I mean just when it's link or whatever it is. The other one that's where they have a crosswalk now.
I want to put one over by Bill Biml also and then they want to try and get some sign better signage etc etc etc and Bill and Bill had a lot of things he pointed out about how what about this and Brad
who's Bill that's it right Bill anymore anyway maybe had a brother named Bill he hated Okay. So anyway, so overall the project it's a nice project. Okay.
Um but we also want to do the other you know I mean it's like we're putting all the things the other project all the other things we're proposing are all terrorist fighters. Even the thing I came up with to get this other grant that came out of the blue was to put a couple of elm trees
over near the entrance to the golf course. Bill and I talked about that a long time ago. And and there's the other project on the other side of colonial terrorist that's been starting right now. The one over there seems to be it seems to be stalled. Well, the one over there, there were two
parts of that. One was to take out cut down the u locus and and start treating them with garlon or whatever it's called and that's been but I think there's a few more of those and the rest the other ones we need to also get together.
Well, we need a plan and the question is who's going to write the plan? I know we have and I looked through the minutes and we did discuss this with Bill and May minutes. It says, you know, he would come back to us with a design plan where we have to do that. I think I saw something he had laid out,
but I saw like a list of a list of trees. The point is we do not have a plan and if we don't have a plan, we can't put it out to bid and that's why it's stalled. So, where do we go from here? I mean, I just What is the next step
here? Because this is this is kind of not working. Yeah. Who likes to pledge I can hear you this one. It's written. I'll talk to Bill. Bill's probably busy for the next couple days, but next week we'll have we'll have to next week.
All right. Because he had said you his response was you didn't ask me. And we did ask him. So I I just think there's a miscommunication or lack of understanding. Communicate that to him. Right. That would be good. Okay. So anyway, so the bottom line is the meeting was reasonable, you know,
and it got a plan and uh and we'll see how it plays out. It's about 10 grand, so that makes money for the other project as well. So Right. Right. Okay. So, um, next I didn't I just didn't have time to bring
my thing, but I I still have would like to find out um because right now the homeowners are responsible for uh everything in front of their home.
Okay. And and I would like to know among the towns of Mammoth County, which there's quite a number of towns in Um, I'd like to I'll send everyone something, but I'd like people to maybe take take it on themselves, but I've got a list of all the towns from the the
some kind of clerk's organization. I think it had a nice thing of all the towns in their homes and if everyone could u make some calls and find out what the stories in all these various other towns who's responsible for the trees in the
book right away in front of a Who pays who pays for work in some towns? Some towns, for example, freehold. It's their thing that makes the town. Matter of fact, I know someone in Freehold. He
want you he wanted a tree. They have a couple thing there. You call if you want a tree, you call us state commission. The shade tree commission comes, they plant the tree, they stake the tree, and then they say, "Okay, it's yours to take care of." Okay. On private property.
That's what they do. They called the guy and they said, "Don't you talk about easements and stuff." And he says, "No, that's what we do." They call us, you know, when we check it out and see what the situation is because it's camping in a place where it's not viable and, you know, and so that's so um but I actually
saw one of those trees live. So, uh and he was just telling me I saw recently that it's growing pretty good. So you want to find out what other towns do this issue. Yeah. Because I think I I still think that based on what the information I got
from the tax assessor of how many actual unit homes there are, you know, paying taxes, okay, that if you just put a few 50, if there's 10,000 taxpayers, let's say, okay, homes playing tax and
you and everyone puts in $30, okay, that's a quick $300,000. to go towards to go toward taking care of the trees in town, planting trees, any anything. The point is it's not that's hardly any
money per tax unit and that was only those were just homes didn't include commercial properties of course there's so many homes. So when you do it, it adds up fast and we don't have to nickel and dime any.
No, I I Okay, so that's my So I'd like to find out though how many other towns there are like Bill knows like Rumps and Fair Haven, they're responsible. Red Bank, they're responsible for the he said free
which is you know the township is rather Do you have a spreadsheet or something that we could go up? So we Yeah. Well, I've got a list I've got a list of all the towns in the form. So I'll I'll distribute it and so uh you know
because I'd like to come up with a with a proposal, you know, to go forward. Okay. So let's uh let's switch over now because we've got other stuff that's under this. Of course, we we had our meeting and so on and so forth. We got a meeting coming up. So Patty, please speak. Yeah.
Commission. Okay. So, um, we all met with Ted last week, which is great. He's on board. We have scheduled the meeting for the 16th at 7:00 downstairs in the big room. I sent out a spreadsheet for everyone. Please look at it. See if there's any
names you can add or anyone that you are able to contact. Jeff's uh got from the board board of ad. is looking into some business people and having some names. I haven't point of contact with the board, but I saw the board of had a name listed.
Yeah, they do. Um the Jeff came up with someone from there and I think they have a meeting that night, too. So, I'm not sure what the thing is. Also, I talked to Kelly Weldon at the school and she's also putting it out to some staff. So, there might be some other people coming.
uh contacted Deal Lake Commission. Um and uh Don can't come, but his deputy Brian can. The Deal Lake Alliance is going to send Wes, that young kid, and the other guy, the older guy who was there, I can't remember. He's going to come because Laura can't come. Uh and
there's just a bunch of folks that are on the list. I reached out to everybody and I'm going to be following up. So, please just look at the list. We need to have a good robust group of folks so we get good representation here. But that's where we are. It's going to be I talked to Jesse. She's to find out who has to
notice it. Um because it has to be noticed because we're going to have a borrow. So it should be has to be noticed. Donna. Do you notice it? Notice it in the paper. Jesse does that. I mentioned it to Jess today. She said she'd look into
who has to notice it. What about how many environmental commissioners are going to be there? Uh Julia's going to be there. I asked Ed to be there. have to notice the environmental commission. Yeah, I'm sure we'll have to put notices for
commission. Yeah. So, yeah. So, just uh that's the 16th. Uh be there. It will be broadcast by um Ocean TV. They said it was broadcast on Ocean TV.
They'll be doing that. Um hopefully it'll be reported then also. Um yes, I think everything that Yeah. I don't know. I've I know someone who likes to look at the meetings that are down there and everything. He says you cannot the sound system you cannot hear
what people are saying. It's very hard. It is hard. But may we may want to make sure that the people who are going to speak maybe give them a spot where they can be heard and come up. Well, we can use we can use those little the little, you know, mics they have on the for people who come and
testify and stuff. They have small mics. So, yeah, I'll I'll mention to Jesse that we need to have good mics so that people can hear. It's really a conversation. It's it's not, you know, Ted will be presenting or but it's going to be a lot. It's going to be like a conversation. So, it's
going to be hard to mic everybody, but when people testify at council meetings, there's that mic on the stand. if we just use that and hand it around to people, right? But I I I'm hoping that perhaps we can have it be a little more informal, too, so people can actually
have a conversation um can be heard, but also, you know, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see. I'll have to tell you what works and is there anything I'm not thinking of for this noticed you need to please look at the list and see if there's any stakeholders that I didn't
think of. If you know any business people or business folks in the township you think might want to be involved in this, invite them. So, I sent the invitation letter. What I did basically was cut and paste the letter, invitation letter, put it in the
in the body of the email and I wrote, you know, hi so and so, I really hope you can attend and have the letter personalizable just sort of a template that letter. So, use it however works for you.
If you you know there are tree tree service people or people who you think have an interest in keeping the town healthy. Good guys like you. You know, no people actually care about green
as in trees, not money. Exactly. Exactly. All paper. It's interesting. So anyway, that's where that is. um you have any suggestions if you don't not comfortable with the Google
spreadsheet and you just want to you know have me fill it in if let me know call me whatever I'll fill it okay so that's the good the good news is that's that's all good news is okay it's now 8:30 and
what are we talking about new new business. Business you have any business. I'll tell you about something interesting I recently just ever been near a paper mill.
I was in the army before I went to I was in two places Fort Georgia and Fort Washington. And both places had a paper mill. You know, it's like I get to go across the country, it's uphill there. And then there was some
big art in the times about some kind of paper mill that you know was stumped and people. I don't have anything. All right. Let's talk let's talk about this project a little bit. Okay. So his plan is, if you look at the plan a
little bit, plan is to have, you know, walking pairs and stuff, you know, so on so forth. You know, they're going to put in some flowering trees. You know, they're going to try and go with native trees and so on. Yeah. you know, he's he's thinking of the climate trees they're thinking of in
the the shady areas are supposed to be, you know, service berries and lacres and see we trimmed from like here over to here so that you can see the lake, you know, but that was a few years ago and
we've taken a few dead ones down over the years, but it hasn't been maintained in a long time. Now, who's going to maintain it? the town because the town has been maintaining it and that came up that came up it's not looking too good and the idea is that the town's
theoretically going to maintain and they also pointed out you see there with the lawn areas those light green areas are lawn areas but then the other areas are going to be kind of like plantings of you know native species of perennials and so on and so
which bill which uh Greg Lash pointed out that the leaf is There's a lot of trees in that area. You know, a lot of leaves, they come down and they don't it's not like they blow away, right? And they pointed out that that's when the town cleans up those leaves, it's
not good for the things under the leaves. You got to get the leaves out. You got to get them out or leave them. Yeah. Greg suggested that there was a special training. You know, like you say, you got the rain garden they put in, but believe me,
they're not going in maintaining that. And yeah, you know, if there's plantings, there's a lot of work. Architects said that anything they plant, they're going to plant very densely. Not so densely, but chokes are densely so that it's not going to have a lot of space for weeds. But it's like
you say, do you want the view so that when you come out you can see the lake or do you want it dense where you're not going to see the lake where you're just going to have I don't think they're talking about dense high. Yeah. Yeah. But you know those trees toward the back those trees
toward the back like a you know it's going to be what it's going to be. Yeah. And a lot of those things probably will probably nice thing it's it's drawn up. It's just
money. Yeah. And they got the money. Yeah. And it creates arguing the money creates more money. They got a lot of Japanese note over here. This this whole section is probably all Japanese. [Music]
You know what they do? They do someone who lives in Spring Lake and they live right near Reine. So, so there's that street called like used to be dirt but now it's stones. It's called terrorist right along right
and there's land between there and there. So last time I was done there's a big fence because they they brought in goats. Yes. They bring these guys with their goats goats on and the idea and the idea is the goats eat everything. Not so much to get rid
of the plants. It's just that if there's no there's no plants there, then the deer won't be over there stomping and eating everything. That's when they start rubbing those trees. Nice looking plant.
Oh, thank you. It's an invasive. Huh? Okay. What's that? Show me what Japanese notweed is. It's very It's very invasive. Yeah. Yeah. It's very It's tough thing.
I tried I tried I tried killing by cutting and painting it was round up concentrate and it's semi effective. It's not all that effective. So you know you see you see how I am. So
my no but course you don't I'm not spraying. They did a nice job. They came prepared, which was nice. Well, actually, here's something that's worth me actually, you know, because you brought it up, I think, last meeting. The field. Yeah. What you
No, I haven't attempted to find anyone had a chance to see, but I did drive past it two days ago. Whatever it was, I drove past it. You see what I mean? And as bad as I thought it looked when the last time I looked over there, it's 10 times worse. Where is this? the field by the uh by
the museum. Yes. It's terrible. Yeah. I mean, it's at the point if they don't do something soon, it's it's they almost have to they almost have to literally, which is what I think they did originally, right? When they first created that thing, they must have taken
out a whole bunch of stuff and just, you know, it was open. No trees. Yeah. Not like this. And then then when the town got it, you know, they they wanted to put like a little path like wanting path, but then the town guys just went like straight back
and that's it. And but now it's just you know what it was originally actually. I remember it was just it was just a lawn. Yeah, I think so. So when it's just a lawn cut, they mow it all the time. You don't even have to though. But you know, but by mowing it all the time, by mowing it all the time,
you sort of create, you know, nothing's going to grow. You know, we don't get any trees and all that sort of stuff because you just keep cutting, right? So when you stop doing that, let it grow and it was good for a few years, you know, but but then but then they didn't they didn't even saying, well, when do you cut it? Because you got animals in
there all the time, you know, but but so they didn't really cut it down. They just sort of let it be. It wasn't because even the me meadow itself should have been cut every year, you know. So then you just let it grow. So now it's just
there sweet gums in there. And there's this other thing. I forget what it's called. I think the sweet thing. But don't worry, they're going to put the new town hall there anyway. I hope you're not thinking. Maybe that's what they're saying. The
only way to save this is I think we should put the I think that would be a good place. Nobody heard you talking. Still recording, guys. Still recording. So So yeah,
so anyway, I think we I think there isn't any more. So maybe we should So maybe we should just end the meeting earlier. I'm good with that. I would make that first second. All in favor.