yes okay that's why i called you up i'd like to call the march 15th budget meeting to order i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation
under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all moment of silence to remember the service and sacrifices of the armed service members who protect our nation and the first responders who protect our neighborhoods [Music]
clerk please take the role councilman freellander councilman sacket councilman quinn here councilman brooks here councilwoman noun here councilman salberg here councilman vtovich here
council vice president brooks here council president morrison here notice of this meeting was published in the daily record in the official newspapers for the township of rockaway notice was posted on the official bullet boards of rockaway township township website and notice was filed in the office of the
township clerk is there any member of the public that wishes to speak at this time okay uh we're going to have a presentation uh by ray sarinelli from the our order good morning everybody um at your
budget meeting each year i like to come and give you a review of the prior year uh so you can know how your previous budget went how the previous year financially went uh try and help you uh give you a basis for the decisions you're going to make today so i always
like to start talking about the current fund that's your general operating fund that's where taxation comes in um it's the overall general operation um and it's what we look at to make sure you know there's good financial stability uh for the township um which uh the current
fund did have a very good year this year so the opening fund balance which is the primary indicator very similar to retained earnings uh in a public company your fund balance uh you started the year at 7.389 million 4.5 million was used in
the budget and generated 5.37 million during the year so your ending fund balance was 8.26 million so very good year financially um number of reasons for that the biggest being your interest collections um everybody knows you know
in the economic cycle that we're in right now interest rates are high your cash position uh during 2024 was also relatively high there was a number of grants that have come in uh over the past few years so your cash resistance is very good interest rates are high you
collected over $2 million of interest in 2024 i would say something that's probably not going to be repeated uh anytime soon historically definitely the highest interest you've ever collected uh probably in rockaway township's history so very good year for interest
earnings which uh really helped bolster the financial position most of your other revenues came in as expected as budgeted for there were a couple of open grants that were collected in 2024 which also helped the fund balance uh the
conservativeness of new jersey accounting you have to reserve any receivables that you have open including grants even though you're probably going to collect them that restricts your fund balance in prior years so that helped boost the fund balance up as well uh tax uh tax collection was down slightly
probably back to what its historical average was the last two to three years and we've seen this across most municipalities um tax collection was very good the past two to three years yours was up over 99% um historically you've been around 98
and a half percent so um probably back to historical averages probably what we'll be seeing going forward um with a good financial year we ensured that the area of tax appeal reserve for tax appeals is very strong there's a couple appeals out there um so just trying to
insulate yourself from future damages during a good uh financial year so overall the general operations very very good year um i think that's a testament to the good budgets that have been put together over the past couple of years when you put together when you don't
overly rely on your revenues and cut your your expenses down to nothing you're planning for the future um those are good things that'll keep your financial stability very strong um one thing that is kind of unique any any questions on the current fund i'm i'm going to cover a couple of other topics
but overall you know good results in the current fund any questions there so one area that i want to talk about and it this is uh kind of unique to rockaway township is you have a sewer district which operates within your current fund um and right now the sewer
district so it basically has its own budget within the budget of the current fund and uh currently you know the the sewer district is experiencing higher than normal expenses there's some capital issues going on there um some things that need to be provided for and
uh so the fund balance for the sewer district specifically is down a little bit year-over-year in um the sewer district so um i think this budget calls for uh planning for some some capital things uh for specifically a truck i
think to um you know try and lower those costs so you're you're spending money to save money basically um but so the overall plan there would would be to try and stabilize the sewer district and make sure that um that that fund balance stabilizes uh in your other trust funds
they operated as expected um your reserves are very strong in in the other trust funds uh capital in 2024 you continue to plan of reappropriating old funds uh to get these funds working for you without having to issue debt uh i
think moving forward into 2025 that reappropriation plan has been complete and we're moving back to um pay as you go capital and uh issuing debt in order to fund capital projects in the water utility uh also continues to be strong
financially the fund balance there started the year at 2.2 million and it increased $100,000 to 2.3 million uh the collection remained very strong um in the water utility fund um there are some pretty major projects uh coming uh
forward in the next few years so i think the fact that the fund balance is strong now is a very important thing and i think the the upcoming budget plans for um you know these projects that are going to come online in the next few years so um good plan good long-term
plan coming up in the budget water capital uh is very similar to your general capital fund there was some reappropriating of old ordinances over the over the last few years coming off of that plan and moving to pay as you go capital and some debt for those things um so overall finance is very good the
issues you're seeing in your utilities your sewer district and your water utility not unique to rockway township um what we're seeing across the board is that you know these utilities um have high capital costs and so
there's been some changes with some regulation at the federal government level uh you have to invest in your utilities so a lot of towns across the board towns that haven't had debt outstanding for years in their utilities are now issuing debt to try and handle
some of this capital cost so not unique um to rockway township but definitely something that you're going to have to deal with over the next few years but i would say starting 2025 you're in a great place financially to to handle some of those issues that are coming up so you're going to be dealing with the
budget today um you've all done a nice job over the last several years of having a good long-term plan for that budget i'd urge you to continue you know with those good plans uh you know seeing years down the line even though it's a one-year budget any questions on
anything that's it for me appreciate your time yep thank you uh okay just a couple of notes before we dive in here one um i i just want to take some time and and thank administration for i know that this is
very intensive um thank all the department heads and the departments for reviewing your budgets getting them submitted on time and then um again thanks to you guys for uh for providing the budget um council president yes
first i'd like to thank the council members that are here for taking time out of your saturday to do this um i'd like to thank you on behalf of the administration the staff for um getting so many um highquality questions to us over the past several weeks um about the
budget and affording us some time to uh respond um i'd also like to thank the professionals um that are here in this room on a saturday morning also to to support the township and i just like to say um i've been to a lot of other
municipalities in the area and the the team we have here um starting with lease and brian all the folks behind us are more more as competent as anybody you're going to find out there and and they're knowledgeable about their specific um uh
area that they control and their span of control and they are passionate about the residents of rockway township and um i appreciate again all your time that you put in so far to to reviewing this budget and thank all them for putting together conscious budgets that you know
are are financially sound but also address the needs of the residents of rockway township thank you and and on that note mr sarinelli did make a point to say over the last couple of years you know we between the administration and the council you know
we've put ourselves in a very good strong financial position and this council has been intact for at least four years so again it just it's a testament to you guys um so we're going to go through uh the sections as we go
through the relevant section um whoever section you know we would be uh requiring will come up sit at the table up here uh i also want to remind the council that with two council members absent we still need five votes uh should any motion
carry as in years past there are a number of sections of the budget that are non-negotiables um either through contracts or grants you know money coming in so i'm going to make a motion here um we are going to
vote on these sections together uh again as they are non-negotiable and it's really just procedural so i'd like to make a motion to pass sections four 7 10
14 16 18 19 and 22 as written can i have a second i'll second that clerk please take the role councilman freellander
yes councilman sacket councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman non yes councilman salberg yes councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes
council president mars yes that's eight yeses motion carries and uh clerk just in as we go in the future we don't have to call out uh council members if they're not here okay thank you okay let's start with tab one we are going to open this up to
council discussion anyone from the council yes i'm sorry and just to remind uh the council um we cannot discuss any specific persons by name and or position so for example if there's one person in
that position uh we cannot discuss them mr clint [Music] jack mike under page one if you would go down to provision for salary adjustments all right i have uh
requested 13,000 and i just wanted to get clarification on that because last year there was nothing the year before was nothing the year before that was
8,07 so i want to know if there's wiggle room in that and i would like to uh adjust that if there is the adjustments are um to reward and compensate certain
employees for the jobs they've been doing over the past several years especially through time where we lost our ba and then we lost another ba um and so they've taken on different roles and responsibilities further and based on some of the things we've had going on
the township they've taken on um a deeper role and more responsibility so those um increases are reflected in that number i'd like to keep that number where it is okay all right thank you
is there any other questions on tab one i'd like to make a motion to pass tab one as written can i i'll second it clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes
councilman brooks yes councilwoman new yes councilman salberg yes council councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes that's a yes this motion carries i'd also like to point out um to
everybody that the the council got these budget books some time ago and there have been a lot of questions and answers that have come back between us and administration so um for those unaware this is not the first time obviously that council is looking at these budgets most of the questions we have had have
been sufficiently answered moving on to tab two are there any questions from the council on tab two open for discussion i'd like to make a motion to pass tab two as written can i have a second second clerk please take the role
councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman noon yes councilman salberg yes councilman votovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president
marson yes it's eight yes this motion carries section three any council discussion i just have a comment so first i want to thank um the administration i did send in some last
minute questions yesterday in the 11th hour that were just kind of weighing on me um and they really came you guys are just awesome by 4:15 they were just you so you guys are awesome on that um but i did want to just make a note i did
question the vacancies um in multiple departments but specifically zoning and just to clarify uh mrs palmary that we do have the um a potential candidate to fill any of those vacancies or we have the ad up we have
the advertisements out we have resumes that we're reviewing and we have intentions of filling that position perfect thank you excellent any other council [Music] discussion listen i see
vacancies they worry me any other council discussion one yellow i make a motion to pass section three as written can i have a second second clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes
councilman brooks yes councilwoman noun yes councilman salver yes councilman votovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes that is eight yes this motion carries
miss paul mary i neglected i forgot about section 17 is there still a desire to make that move um i believe yeah that would be okay um miss paul mary had asked me to move up section 17 and i apologize i skipped that um so we are
going to jump to section 17 and open it up for discussion council president if you could mention what 17 is i don't know that the department heads behind me know what those sections are section 17 uh section 17 deals with our municipal court and
our public defender i apologize that was me i was okay waiting my turn i don't know why i pushed that that's that's all me that was miss paul mary's request sh don't complain i know it's like that's on you i work with them every day that's on you right now it's
like fastass at disney all right is there any council discussion on section 17 i make a motion to pass section 17 as written i'll second that clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes
councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman noon yes councilman salbert yes councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes that's eight yes motion carries
we're going back to section five yeah uh we're going to take a quick uh 10-minute break okay we'll come back at 9:30 okay [Music] okay thank you everybody um thanks rachel for noticing that and paul
and paul for noticing that council needed some assistance uh we are going to continue without him at this point um we're going to jump right back into this uh i guess that's a good segue to our emergency services department
uh i reached out to u aaron okay lisa is overseas right now okay before we do that can i can i make a motion to reopen section one that's a good question if we already passed section one it's not open if we can't reopen it we reopen it how do you
feel without the attorney present i would advise against it let me we'll move on i'll message the attorney okay and see if we could do that but we still have the whole meeting to go back to it okay um okay
uh section five if i could ask uh our fire personnel also okay any council discussion on section five police we'll start with police and fire
i just i just want to make a comment that i just questioned what a knock box was and i just want to thank the very thorough answer i got and i'm good with it thank you if you want to maybe explain to
everyone else i don't know uh so knox is a rapid entry system that the township uses uh it provides us immediate entry without damaging businesses and buildings in in case of an emergency um rockway township has a
great relationship with our police department uh and we share the access to our two sergeant vehicles and esu unit so if they're on scene first they can get access to the building and it's been working fantastic for a number of years and we continue to use it and put it out
into the community every day i'm sorry i'm sorry yeah the only thing i i probably maybe should have made this uh in tab one but since the police is the biggest chunk of our budget i uh i was looking to make a motion to
appropriate some funds for a grant writer now uh there's a lot of grants out there i see that you know there's a lot of grants for policing and and other sections uh so i don't know if it's appropriate to do it here again section one maybe even more appropriate but if i
can i would add to add $40,000 or try to make a motion to add $40,000 for a grant writer and i'll second that because i believe we do need a grant writer a town this big we should have can i can i just interrupt we we actually have an appropriation in there already for a
grant writer um i believe it's under t it is under tab one and it's under account 029 page 4 it's for $20,000 for a grant writer but lisa is that for an in-house grant writer or a company that's for a company
good what page is that on on page four it's account 029 on page four it's under contracted services that's what most towns use now
i see a it's number 29 0 29 so council president i guess you're waiting for a response from attorney if we could reopen tab one if i can't do it in this tab four i guess i missed the opportunity to do it here now when we're done with this section um councilwoman noun is going to make a motion to open
up tab one again and we can address it at that sounds good thank you so are you withdrawing your motion you did make a motion you did make a motion i did i did yes i'll withdraw that motion okay
all right is there any other questions on section five yes turn on your mic turn on your mic please page 75 i know we have an opening for uh public safety telecom that's the
dispatch do we have an application yet correct we're we're in the process currently good uh and that should be within this month actually excellent thank you you're welcome okay i have a question for the chief um
chief uh since the addition of the additional officers have you seen a a decrease in the overtime or or are we not up to speed with the amount of officers that we need to where we thought we were going to kind of streamline it correct that's that's currently in the process now of the
interview process with a start date on all of those officers may 7th right so obviously once we bring on and that's for seven as noted so we have seven officers we're looking for to
bring them on by may 7th academy start date which will obviously have impact on current overtime excellent great thank you good question any other council discussion
i'd like to make a motion to pass section five as written i'll second that clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman noune yes councilman salberg
oh sorry councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes that's seven yeses motion carries councilwoman oh can i uh make a motion please to reopen tab one i'll second
that okay cler please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman sack nope councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman noune yes councilman vilovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president
morrison yes at seven yes his motion carries it is new okay so and uh i'm a little bit confused from last year so salary increases are they three and a half% the salary increases yeah so the
contractual salary uh increases you know people who are covered under a union contract it's in their contract for the non-un members it's at 3% budgeted okay so for some it's over 3% for for some it's for it's 3% for all
non-union but there are provisions for salary adjustments for the mayor to use at his discretion okay i okay anybody else have any questions yeah with tab one like you said i would like to go back to that uh page four account number 29 to increase make a
motion to increase the grant writer expense from 20,000 to $40,000 that's a contract service can i ask no it's contracted it's not a contract no no but it's an outside
service but i don't know if it's been well i there's a motion on the floor so let's and then we'll open up for discussion so is somebody going to second mr wovich i'll second okay clerk please take the role what are we opening up for discussion no
no he made a motion to increase uh account 2229 by $20,000 so a total of $40,000 for a credit can we have an explanation from we are going so we we we address the motion and then we'll open up for discussion and then we'll vote on it
yeah so we're discussing so you're not no we have to vote on his motion so if we vote on it then we right we're discussing i'm sorry no we want to discuss first before we vote it's been a long has thrown me off a little bit we're all good howard
i wasn't going to let you go to vote yet thank you oh my god i wasn't i wasn't a good i had a good rhythm okay so i'm going to ask the councilman to uh stay his motion for a few minutes we'll have some discussion and is that okay and then you
make a motion okay would you like to let great let her explain what they just real quick i know just real quick i have i have i think two quotes from grant writer services that are roughly in this area but the more we use the service the more grant writing obviously that price
is flexible so um you know i have no objection to increasing it from 20 to 40 so that's a question is does going from 20 to 40 give us more time more more service more service so in a realist i would say that doesn't
necessarily translate that we're going to get more grants we don't know it gives us more opportunities for grants how much of the service have we used already we haven't we've never had it so
zero service we all did it in house all the grants that we've received have no i understand that i understand that so could maybe i make a like i think our recommendation on the budget was let's start with this and we could always
increase it you know next year during even during the year we can ask for an adjustment right to see if it's worth it yeah to see if it's even worth it right yeah so miss palmary this is something that we could adjust throughout the year should we see good results well i would have to do if i ran short in
administrative and executive because we went from 20 to 40 just say i would have to do a transfer from another line item in which you would all have to approve which we've done before okay but if we if we go to 40 we don't use it that goes back to the budget i
mean if we don't use it it would lapse into fund balance at next year don't do it okay okay is there any other discussion on this so i just have a question in terms to the service so you received a quote and that quote in or two quotes and that
quote entails a service that we think like for example what they're going to give us like are they finding the grants and reaching out to us are we reaching out to them i think it works both ways again we haven't used it yet so i'm not 100% sure but our intention hopefully is
$20,000 is going to get us a hundred that's what i hope possibly yeah i mean you have to spend money to make money exactly yeah whatever grants are out there right so for example they would have a meeting with the mayor and the team and the mayor would say "look i
want to do this to my town right i want to see light poles i want to see this." now they'll go and look to see what's grants are available in that realm and then that's where they'll do it they usually isn't just carb blanch usually the mayor has a vision or the administration has a vision and that
grant writer will detail their work to that vision essentially how it works yeah you have to be specific just like with the ford face house every year we apply but you find out what we can do with the next grant application right
and you take it from there services like that just always worry me a little because it's like are they all writing six grants for the same grant for six different towns right and it's like yeah i think that's part of why we only were starting with the 22 i think i agree that it should stay there just to see
how it works and then if it's lucrative maybe somewhere down the road finding someone of our own based on based on discussions now then if we could if it's going to be more than 20,000 throughout the year we could
reappropriate funds to that i mean 20,000 is not a huge amount i'm sure we could do that i would withdraw my motion leave the 20 and then if needs be we'll we'll i'm sure make a motion and i just like to say along the lines of what councilman brooks stated you know i
certainly look for impact or input from all of you um i know you have passion towards grants for police and you know a lot about those so anything all of you have you know ideas for where you'd like to see opportunities um and improvements to the town that we could leverage as
service certainly reach out to administration this is a good progress on that sounds good any other discussion on tab one i would like to make a motion um i'd like to make a motion for the provision
for salary adjusted to be lowered to $10,000 which page page two council president if i could just yeah before you vote on the motion right so $3,000
um in the township budget is a drop in the well $3,000 to people who you know we're trying to compensate fairly is a lot of money okay there's a motion on the floor is there a second okay any other discussion on tab one
okay i'd like to make a motion to reclose tab one can i have a second second cler please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes
councilwoman new yes councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes at seven yeses motion carries uh okay okay we're going to open tab six public works
favorite we're open for discussion i'll start um again i sent the questions over but i just want to get a little more clarification lots of vacancies are in here um but we're confident that we
have out the ads andor the resumes or the personnel to fill those vacancies to ensure we have a complete team yes oh sorry jack we should take two if i could just add some color to what mr null just said um i think it's kind
of the nature of public works um you know people move around to different towns um opportunity to get salary increases all those things i can tell you that our personal officer michelle moran does a phenomenal job like i don't know how many dpw workers she's hired in
the past year and it's not easy um you know getting qualified candidates interviewing all those things so yeah it's kind of it's a great question councilwoman brooks and it's just kind of the nature of the beast it seems like and plus you know we have a lot of long-standing employees that have
recently retired retired so you know getting al's done a great job of getting uh moving people up in the ranks and getting them prepared to take over um for some of the people who have retired and are planning retiring any other questions on tab six i just
have a quick question to follow from what the mayor said with the movement out from like you know they move from one town to the other and it's always about salaries and you know trying to make the most are are we are we good with our salary allocations for each of
those positions or would you consider us to be on the low end in the county where we have to maybe reconsider what we're putting out there in terms of salary um funny you mention that i just did a uh study with through
public works association in new jersey um we are right on par if not ahead of other towns as far as our salaries oh good thank you any other discussion on section six um i just have another just question in terms
of increased of cost of things you know the salt and all of that stuff you need for the roads you feel that will be appropriate even if things continue to creep up in price for now yes okay a big fan of global warming exactly
exactly also just so you're aware we do have a snow and ice removal trust if should we fall short in 2017 yeah we just don't know where the increases may unfortunately so i just worry that i want to make sure they have everything
they need because again i i've said it before and i'll say it again i'll put our town up against any other town especially when it comes to snow roads all of that yeah and and along the lines of what councilwoman brooks says i think that
you know mr nice probably has the most unpredictable department that we have and i think that you've done a very good job in lisa loves it okay any other discussion on section six i'd like to make a motion to pass
section six approve section six as written so move second cler please take the role councilman frelander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman news yes councilman
boyovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison abstain that is six yeses one abstension motion carries okay uh we're going to do health department
and recycling section 8 any discussion on section 8 i'd like to make a motion to pass section 8 as written i'll second that cler please take the role councilman
freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman non yes councilman boyovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes that's seven yes motion
carries thank you for your preparation pleasure thank you very much he had a five page thing he i'm sure he did practice in front of the mirror last night for an hour but would you like a few minutes just to say that i'll go all right i'll go i appreciate it
peter had a short statement it was only i've never seen someone turn nice job uh okay opening up section nine uh environmental committee recreation section nine for discussion
any council discussion councilwoman dune uh yes i'd like to put on the table of the just opinions for everyone uh discussion on lifeguards any anybody have any thoughts on lifeguards especially with the voting
ordinance that we have and either increasing the lifeguards or or making more positions for lifeguards i just like to get everyone's opinion on that um i know we had a nice discussion about that at the last council meeting
um i would like to um challenge our lifeguards uh to come back with some proposals uh i am not an expert at all um i don't think you can challenge i don't mean challenge i mean to come back
whoever our head lifeguard is or whoever is writing that budget i i think that we need i always think that would be okay then i i'd like at some point again this is something that we can adjust in season um i i'd like to hear your perspective
hear your perspective on changes that we could possibly make um the answer may not necessarily just be adding more payroll it there could be i know mr quinn had suggested correct me if i'm wrong you know more enforcement or signage of life jackets on watercraft
you know um things like that our lifeguards do a great job yes i think they could probably use some assistance so i just want to make sure you know that there's not any other options besides just adding payroll on the line item there
is for each manager turn on your if you look above uh uh lifeguards which page uh well page 142 recreation you see a beach manager mhm so obviously if your discussion is with the
lifeguards that person well that would be mr dire correct we have are you considered the beach manager too no no we have a beach manager and so i think we have all our lifeguards are returning this year except one became a police officer so we have a senior staff coming
back and then we have a posting now for limited positions available two or three to add but to your point um they can up their game a little bit and be a little more v vigilant to what we have before
we add three more lifeguards um maybe we should talk to the lifeguard who became a police officer because he's got both i already tried him i saw i ran into him he doesn't he's he's uh yeah i think i'll speak to the
lifeguards okay but i also noticed that their their pay has been flat for the past three years i've actually the reason we do have eight returning and seniors because i like bumped it up last year last two years they've gotten they're back at the market we were losing a lot of them to
white metal lake and other areas so they're they're at par with the surrounding area okay any other discussion on section nine i have something no one else does sure um so i probably bring it up every
year and i ask the question every year um i don't necessarily have a solution and again i thank everyone for responding but i i i just look at our our recreational costs in terms of what
we give back to the programs and just based upon what i see are we doing residence checks right so if a program has denville participants and burough participants and rockway township participants you
know are we subsidizing essentially giving dville a check because we're now subsidizing a program that's you know merged with another town um and again it's not looking to take anything away from our residents but these are their
tax dollars and they're going into a program for their their kids to participate in or the seniors and all of that stuff so it just seems to me sometimes that it doesn't really feel that we have a good grasp on who's
actually participating in these programs so if you have a hundred participants and um i'm not going to call out any program specifically i know one there's one program that i can probably confidently say is 95 to not 99% rockway township residents then
there's other programs that i don't think are i think maybe they're 50 40 and you know we're giving them not only the use of our facilities our fields our grounds guys are out there lining fields lights um to find that there's potentially a
percentage that are danville residents or burrow residents and again i have no issue with them coming in and participating but are the rockaway township families being subsidized for those programs and i know they kind of operate as separate entities in some
respects but long-winded answer is that's just something that's been weighing on me for quite a few years i feel like we're we're writing checks to denville or the burrow and so we're writing checks just to the soccer program pick any one of them so
when we let's say we give them a check for a reimbursement of let's say hockey we we we cover their their league fees or a portion of it right but do we know how many of those participants are rockway township your point is valid right it's a very valid point and we we
don't have a grasp on that right now and hence some of the conversations um we've had with the council i just like to put on the record yep absolutely is there reimbursement in kind like for example lacrosse i know lacrosse um we use dville's fields right right as
opposed to ours so i mean is there if we don't have an answer on or do we know if dentville is funding any of these programs as well right um i mean my my day in day out is two things the budget line and the ordinance
so if there there's a need to change the ordinance that can be done i wonder if there is room to to do that research and come back in the future with some some numbers it's easy to get i can get a list for every program who's
out of town and who's in town tomorrow but then also if there is any other contributions by the other towns you know and how does that weigh out i think miss brooks has a very valid point there right like i've been told danville charges to
use their lights sure and and the maintenance right i think the the question is bigger than the the issue is bigger than just that and i think we got to look at everything right my point just is we're looking to make sure our our residents have
services and and resources and that's what we're here to do and i just sometimes you know not trying to be mean but you know we got to take care of our own mr quint yeah and dave if you're looking at that and you're getting numbers see
what the inind contribution is as far as field usage in those towns that they're contributing to us right because like softball i know sometimes uses denville's softball field all right so and i know lacrosse uses just as you
said denville's fields also mr yeah i i discussed this with councilman quinn also uh outside organizations not affiliated with our wck programs want to use our fields
okay for their own benefit and making you know money are we in place to charge them yet we discussed this years ago right we don't rent our fields out to anybody that's not true that's should i
no also no during the summer there's also c uh club uh companies that run uh baseball camps that's through that's the only that's through the baseball program through your registration you that is paid through the the baseball reg let's
say baseball registration is 100 bucks in that you're going to have a the mcdonald camp show up so that's not paid to us it's paid through the baseball programming they circumvented it what about like i know we have some groups or
individuals that will run like a basketball camp and take one of the courts there or personal trainers on on the turf field that's just got show up that's someone's just showing yeah and and again this gets back to some of the conversations i've had where it's a bigger issue right we got to get our arms around it it's a big issue and i
know we've talked about it and i brought it up to the council months ago um around some of these things so i think we just need to come to it's it's a it's a it's a very complex um challenge in the issue and there's a
lot of things that play into it it involves children so i want to be mindful of the decisions we make so i'm probably taking longer than i normally would to you know or we're taking longer than we normally would to make decisions around it but i think you know within the next few months we need to move
forward with a plan on you know all the things we're talking about everything as it relates to recreation with that being said dave other words like you said you mentioned mcdonald correct they go and
pay baseball to use the fields they have no they're it's incorporate when you get baseball it's like our summer camp when you sign up for summer camp we have functions that show up for summer camp like a a face painter will show up one day with your registration fee for
summer camp for baseball for example you're getting that that camp to show up so baseball's paying the guy running the camp and then inviting baseball kids to come to the camp yeah but so who's liability i mean they all insurance they
all have insurance they yeah yep coi so you're getting to the point where they're kind of are circumventing a private company coming onto municipal property but with that said we don't rent out i get phone calls
every day hey i'm a men's soccer club from paramis we want to no you know i i don't have time for our own programs for all these fields let alone rent out anything so but we're respon we're still responsible for the upkeep of that those fields when they're using it so the town
is paying the upkeep for the organization to get money from that company so the organization is running a camp for township children that's it's a it's it's it's
they're bringing in an expert they're bringing in an expert it's like i'm sure lacrosse probably runs clinics through a third party for lacrosse players it's it's no different than that they just advertise it that it's mcdonald's camp or whatever oh i mean it's it's a company it's a the camp is profit you
know they're doing it for a profit to make money so it's just like soccer has profession they they've hired all trainers mhm but like like i said it's it's a big topic to discuss i think so
and so you know brian did work on an ordinance with jack myself on fees for our fields and it just never got implemented past the point at which brian had it i think ready to go right i
mean as far as i know then you're saying fees for our own programs not outside programs what no no outside no it was outside programs so so again i don't i don't i i don't want to put band-aids here or there i want to
let's talk about recreation how we're going to handle recreation in rockway township fields fees reimbursements all these insurance all these things and let's come to a determination of what we're going to do with all these things and move forward with it and like i said
i've taken longer than i probably want to because it's it's a big part of our town it's always i mean you grew up playing these sports in this town and it's it's morphed over the years there was a time when the township used to control all the sports and run all the sports now it's gone just the opposite
now all the programs are run by volunteers right so it's it's changed it's multiaceted there's different sports have different needs you know we have our township sports all of them use township facilities except the hockey hockey has to pay for a rink so like
that's got to be built into it right because we don't have a facility right now for hockey to use right so we got to look at all it's it's just a lot and we need to come together and and i promise in the next couple of months we'll we'll have some recommendations we'll sit down with the council and go through it and
then um have discussion and and start moving forward very good point and i and i got two things to that right um the the first thing to that and i i know i've brought it up many years now um and and joe and i have talked about it too is is i feel that our our town programs
which really need to keep kids out of off the street and off of running around the mall and and doing all those things off the ipad off the ipads 100% um is really almost not direct director
but in that sense they're pretty much like you know at the school right like you go to the high school they have an athletic director right we'd almost need the same person to be able to establish everything we would avoid the conflicts with fields because they would be in control we would you know they would be
able to go out and get all the uniforms and and prepare your basic necessities for recreational sports right there's too much club sports out there right and daddy ball and and mommy play this and everybody pay that to play right and
there there's ton of that and we don't we shouldn't want that in our town we should want to be able to provide you know a systematic thing where we say you know what rec soccer is only in the fall boom we don't have to worry about doing anything in the in the spring for because the spring is for baseball like
let's take that back as a community not let these guys just run things haphazardly you know i i've been in a position where i ran baseball for years i thought i wasn't running baseball anymore but now all of a sudden i might have to again because it was taken away
from the kids that needed it the most the wreck kid not the kid that plays high school not the kid that plays on a travel team you know the kid that maybe just yeah inhouse that's what we're about that's what recreation sports is supposed to be about it's a training program and there's different absolutely
different different approaches um to handling it and i think right it's it's also you got to look at it's changed over time when we were kids there weren't travel programs there weren't club sports they're prevalent now mr mayor you know and i think we're kind of diverting away from gohead can i just
one thing just the budget yeah we we need to keep this in the budget no this is a budget this is a budget thing i know we're all very passionate about recreation no no this is a budget thing and and i know it's going to sound odd right when what i'm bringing up and because kind of goes a little bit with what the mayor just requested
um there's a a fair amount of money that's allocated to babe ruth baseball and i have streamlined that program for years and i don't believe i need the funds that are there can i reallocate
some of that money and present it to the hockey program which needs it because of the renting of the ice and everything else like that which page are you on um i'm on page 144 which lines uh lines 135 and 136 motion i would like to make a motion to
take on 10,000 from the babe ruth program and senior babe ruth and allocate it to the hockey program because of the ice costs that have increased over the years is is crazy yes yeah the last item 145 so you're
taking 10,000 from line item 135 and adding 10,000 to line item 145 correct so so just for the budget purposes we need specifics how much out of line 135 how much out of line 136 okay um i would say no we didn't i i would say take all
of it out of 136 because we no longer have that program anymore and uh take out the rest balance out of the 135 and apply that to 145 got that so it's 10,000 out of 136
no 4512 out of 136 and then 5,498 or 888 5488 5488 yep out of 135 makes sense and then move that to hak
correct correct do you want to sum it up before you do can i just ask uh the director what's your input on this request i mean i agree okay i would like to make a motion to
reallocate some of the funds from 135 and 136 as noted you need to be specific specific oh my gosh the the numbers joe just calculated hang on a second i can make the motion if you like cuz i have the numbers so uh like to make a motion
to reduce line item 135 by $5,488 i'd like to reduce line item 136 by $4512 and increase line item 145 by $10,000 correct thank you net zero yes
thank you council i'll second that okay cler please take the role councilman freellander yes go hockey councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman new yes councilman vtovich
yes council vice president brooks no no council president morrison yes that is six yeses one no motion passes any other discussion in section n page 145 250 special events um in the
past years we've you we've always adopted a budget and it's never expended and this year it's over doubled yes so we've hired a special events coordinator and she's got um about a half a dozen
new events planned one of them not that it's new but coming back rockway day we're having the seniors prom um we're doing some events for lake appreciation day so that's what those chiefs come up with budgets based on advertising vendors um you know we're probably going
to be spending more on rockway day we're we're going out and getting and soliciting from businesses to be sponsors i know pnc is going to sponsor a couple things but that's what that budget is for for all the new events for running in town um that's what it's for all right but we've we've we've never
spent what we've budgeted for in the past we've never had a community event coordinator so she has a whole calendar planned out for the year of events every month um i think it's been posted on facebook so we haven't done events like we're doing and national is part of that
too right built in there too right but do we ever spend anything unlike the memorial parade or hanukkah but it's it's it's new events too so this accounts for the events we've had
plus the new events that she has planned okay but so i think it' be a valid question for next year if we look at it and this year we only spend 40,000 then maybe we know i ask every year we never spend oh we're going to we're going to we again we've never had a community event
coordinator and she she has a whole calendar for the year we're basically doing two to three events every month within the township so um my goal obviously is in hiring her is to do this so is there any other discussion on section
9 mr freedellander line item 140 oh i'm sorry uh then the expenditure the end of uh the year was only 3,000 uh the same page 145 oh first line item i mean you're adding
you know $50,000 to not get funded this well here here is girls softball reimbursement there this is for 23 so by the time we get all this paperwork together these that number will be
completely wiped out so that will come from the 2024 budget and it'll probably be at the 176 right by the time this is print all these programs get paid out to the penny everything on this budget line yeah so they run a year behind basically they're all volunteers by the time they
get their stuff together the same for soccer if you look at soccer so that's why they in yellow everything trust me every every every penny in those budget lines for those programs are spent reimbured it's just i just want yeah i just wanted to confirm because
you're going 50,000 above in the others and yet there's nothing on top you know before it's just a matter of when this is printed and the calendar year but every program gets reimbursed their budget line right who who does this do it
because well as long as it's getting done that's that's the important thing okay thank you any other discussion i'd like to make a motion to pass section nine conclusive of the changes that were approved do i have a second i'll second clerk
please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman nun yes councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president
morrison yes that's seven yeses motion passes section 11 any discussion on section 11 section 11 is utilities accubac i'm sorry any discussion council
i'd like to make a motion to pass section 11 as written second clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman noun yes councilman vtovich yes council vice
president brooks yes council president morrison yes yes that is seven yes motion carries opening up section 12 for discussion i just wanted to know we we accounted
for i know i got a letter in the mail at my house for 20% so just want to make sure we're accounting for all that again you took my question and mine rachel thanks just we're all getting the letter so we just want to make sure yeah
any other any other discussion on section 12 i'd like to make a motion to pass section 12 as written so moved cler please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes
councilman brooks yes councilwoman noon yes councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes at seven yeses motion carries opening up section 13 any discussion i'd like to make a motion to pass
section 13 as written i'll second please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman noon yes councilman boytovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison
yes seven yeses motion carries opening up section 15 any discussion for the public tax appeal is section 15 i'll make a motion to approve section 15 second
clerk please take a role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman new yes council member boyovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison
yes seven yes motion carries uh opening up section 20 reserve for uncollective taxes any discussion uh 17 that's automatic uh everything else is automatic section 16 was automatic we
covered section 17 18 was automatic 19 was automatic 20 yeah okay once again any discussions on section 20 can i actually can i have a question yeah about our taxes just in general
no mary um in the past we've always relied on uh accuring additional taxes with you know say pond view or other other complexes you know being completed during the year right that kind of gives us a bump that
we don't expect right so do we have an idea like where we are with um any future projects in town that would allow for additional or are we at the point where we're maxed where we're not really getting huge chunks of money that we as
a council should be aware of to say hey you know we're not getting any additional funds and you know in terms of anticipation for budgets hey we're not getting any additional funds no i think we're you know so our
town i i you know our strategy um has been to um not overdevelop our town like some of the surrounding towns are so um we have been choosing to protect um a lot of the land in our town to prevent overdevelopment um so there are no
um future uh you know development projects we see that are going to greatly increase our tax break base okay and and that's great to know because that also has to go back to the school board right because they also have to understand that correct
yeah okay thank you i just wanted to point that out thank you i guess the only thing that's going to impact us is as the surrounding towns that send students to nles it's going to impact our regional taxes you know what my idea for that is
any other discussion yes mr quinn yeah and based on what the mayor just said uh sitting on the planning board there has been nothing large coming into town so um yeah and i agree with the mayor that we're doing the right development in
this town not overdeveloping and i'm still waiting to see what coa has to come back to us with because that's a joke and a hand thank you any other discussion i'd like to make a motion to pass
section 20 as written second second cler please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman nune yes council vice president brooks
council sorry councilman boyovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes seven yeses motion carries opening up section 21 water utility i make a motion to approve this as is no
hang on a second sorry i have a hang on ah with all due respect i could have i'm going to run these sections mr i know we have an opening but so uh i i do have a question
so page 227 water sewer repair mhm are we really going from three we're going from 212,000 down to $55,000
i know that we uh no we're not there were three of them now there's only one repair one there's repair one and repair two 9 um what we had approved in 2024
212,000 and we had one we're bringing that number down to 55,000 understanding the amount of water main breaks uh other issues that we have here are we comfortable with that number i would just say if you look at the bottom numbers of full-time employees
they're the same from 2024 and this year i think they the department's just reallocated yeah correct we've had retiree moving uh internally people to fill that back fill that position and hiring mills laborers as laborers again
as long as you guys are the experts as long as you're comfortable with it then i'm comfortable with it okay yeah it's within the salary range and salary orders so we have okay any other discussion on section 21
oh go ahead okay page page 230 is your mic there you go page 230 let's do the first one okay uh sub sub account uh 071 one of the things that was discussed
with lisa uh if you see where is it uh 290 down to 250 recommended but there is some wiggle room in that i suggest we drop it down to 225
and lisa did say it was feasible i'd like i'd like a opinion on that did we have that discussion or i had that with yes yes okay um i mean i'm just concerned because of the notice we were all just speaking about with the bpu and increase um you know again if it if it
runs over i'm going to have to be able to transfer it from another line assuming that conversely if we don't use it it goes into we don't use it it goes back into water surplus okay uh would you like to make a motion yeah i'd like to make a motion that it goes from 250 down to 225
is there a second okay any other discussion on section 21 yes i'm not finished i'm sorry mr quinn uh page 231 uh cell phones uh sub sub account
077 we've been spending 10,000 on cell phones uh up to uh 13,000 was fe i want to drop it down to 10,000 feasible 10,000 the the reason the
reason why we upped it we uh currently went through some upgrades on our scada system everything is now cellular so we're using cell service on our scada system and what is that system um that's what controls the whole water system everything from sending our tank levels to telling pumps to turn on and turn off
vice versa and our alarm too so little yeah we because we were radio at one point and the radios get a lot of interference it kept dropping out the cell service is a little more reliable for us so that's unlimited data constantly going back and forth at a
flat rate okay so that's the reason for the increase okay 3,00 3,000 seems pretty reasonable for that okay i'm for two man sorry okay let's go for uh for three uh next
page uh sub count 168 water sampling that varies year to year depending on what the d and the epa sampling schedule uh lines up with some years it could be low some it could be high um if they require us to do additional sampling especially with all this
pas that could hit us any time right and that's at the discretion of the state yeah the the state sets a sampling schedule every year and it varies every year so one year who's running the department yeah one year could be 40 leading copper samples and next two years you're not doing it so it
fluctuates a lot no i'd still like to cut something uh i'd like to recommend 80,000 which was there if you look at past history i would go down to 60,000 on that is there a second
anything else mr freeland for three i have to stop you're gonna so much for coming jack your mic's on turn your mic on mr quint all right 2:28 and there's an opening i just want to know that we're
back filming that yes yeah we have advertisements out thank you any other discussion on section 21 i just have a question it's just a general question so two years ago we entered into an agreement with an outside company correct for the water towers yes
yes you're correct okay how is that working out versus the way we were doing it it's working out pretty good um there they just completed the the last tank was our low erie um we're working towards doing the tank at sanders road booster station but um we put it on hold until we get our fox hills treatment
plant up because there's a lot of logistics to figure that out um they've been very responsive um they've actually been doing projects ahead of schedule okay so like for instance uh the lower tank they were planning on being out of service until this time uh they started
uh i guess it was septemberish it was in september and they were finished by the uh end of the new by the beginning of the new year so they're they're they're pretty good and they're very responsive all right so you're happy with them yes okay great thank you um can i jump in
real quick here um with the overtime i saw that it was decreased by 30 grand is that we're okay decreasing that without an issue we hope so i just want to make sure i love decreasing overtime but you know i just
want to make sure okay yeah well positions filled correct you know that'll they'll bring us to full staff and and we'll be all right with that and that includes the assistant superintendent correct okay perfect thank you
anyone else i'd like to make a motion to pass section 21 as written second clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman nune
yes councilman boyovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes seven yeses motion passes hey council president before we move on i just want to say uh since we brought on brian um to run the water department i think mr north will agree it's just
running great and uh bringing on vinnie and working with dennis the three of them really are coordinating in their efforts to run a very complex and uh outdated water system in our township and they do a phenomenal job with it and i just wanted to make that statement
thank you thanks okay we are going to move on to section 23 capital improvement if we could also have our fire and police take the hot seat okay
um opening up section 23 to discussion so i have a note it's not necessarily listed but um it's more so in terms of our trash collection and contracts so i had i had sent the question over and i
was just wondering if the township would consider obviously 2025 we've probably missed the boat but we pay a lot for vegetative waste pickup um and i just they come five days a week
essentially i find that to be a bit excessive would it be something that maybe the municipality could look into in terms of maybe limiting that and then looking to see if we could get some sort of trash collection as part of the service in town um i love that we have a
zero increase budget but i think it's fantastic our portion you know does a lot with you know what we need but i do think that it would be something that would take a burden off taxpayers as well because we're all paying i i think i just i personally got another bill for
200 bucks for the quarter um for my own tax my own trash collection um and and i'm shopping around but um i'm that lady that's right i'm not that lady and if you look at social media and just having conversations with residents and i specifically will speak for my ward you
know i keep joking that the water tab is great and you guys are amazing but i get my water from my backyard so you know there's a reality where up in the six w they would love trash collection and they would even love um the leaf truck and things of that nature that if
there's ways that maybe we could start looking longterm at things we can bring back to in house or provide a service even if there was a small increase to that tax it would still relieve a burden off our t our taxpayers because they're paying almost $1,000 a year to have
trash collection potentially depending on who you're using and whatnot anyway that being said it's just something that's i just hope we could even look into and potentially maybe find a way to do it not today but maybe tomorrow or the year after and so on and so forth
yeah it's a valid point it's a conversation i've had with al in the past like you know to me it's probably a break even point like you know $500 say right so right now everybody i guess you're gonna have a portion of people that maybe don't have garbage pickup that live in certain section of town maybe they burn the garbage or whatever
but um probably if yeah if you they better not burn if you average i'm not saying they should i'm saying if you average it out right it could be if you know so let's say we outsource garbage pickup like i i i would struggle to see the town doing it themselves the the
cost to get trucks and staff up but so but then then when you start to go to outsourcing part of the issue i think and al you can grab a microphone correct me if i'm wrong like it's going to be probably one company bidding on it maybe two and it's kind of going to be at
their mercy of what they want to charge so i don't know if when you look at what they're going to want to charge if you break it down by household is it going to be more than a $500 tax increase or is it going to be less than that's what i that's how i look at it right if it's less than 500,000 then maybe that makes
sense um but i know al did an assessment on this about four or five years ago because i asked for it and and he did a full assessment it didn't work out and and yeah and i can just tell you in my um conversations with other mayors it's it's um the garbage companies are kind
of a monopoly to some level and they are they are controlling the pricing and there's just no negotiating and and that's correct um so it's going to have to be a townwide bid uh you know multi-year contract um it's going to
they're pretty much you know there's there's three heavy weights that are close to within town it's going to be waste management tielli or blue diamond i would suspect that it's going to be between blue diamond or or waste management that would win that contract um and then you know the reduction in
the vegetative waste that that contract is from april 1st to december 31st for leaves grass and brush okay so um you would have to drop that to a bare minimum for those people that need to cut their lawn every every day you know
an every other week collection schedule uh for for town so as a monday through friday from up north to uh the border of dover you know from uh wharton to uh boom township that that's townwide that's the fiveday collection schedule
for vegetative all right um we would have to see what that that number is i mean literally we would have to go out to bid um and have that as just a line item on what you would what would cost rockway township to collect garbage
within the within the town and then look at that number and if that number is something that we can afford then then it's a no-brainer and if it's completely out of the ballpark um you know we'll we'll we'll have to take it as that can i can i ask a question now like we know
when it's recycling right because everyone has all the recycling cans out right i never see anything out for the vegetation pickup i've never used it that service either so i didn't know that do we have like an idea of how much vegetation is really being picked up for
us to pay to have it happen so i got to tell you the the amount of of uh the the increase uh has been fairly dramatic in the last few years with the vegetative collection more people up north are taking advantage of it um we can't
absorb a hit with what's once you go up north the people that have three or four acres of of of property and they blow it all onto the street the d ruling on that to put it to the curb is is is 10 days it can sit there we can't collect it
within 10 days it's impossible we're we're uh you know 13 38 miles of roadway um so like i'll i'll give you if you're familiar with crescent ridge that would be mountains of leaves on both sides and
you'd be lucky to get a smart car through the center of it okay so that's that's a monumental task once you start going further up north of the end of town i i would suggest everybody get a go i have plenty of them and i have no
vegetative issues if anybody wants to borrow them i'll i'll be more than mr quinn is your question or comment on this i believe we do have a contract right now waste management for bulk and for
bulk and um that contract if you we can't renegotiate it at this time so we have to wait because if you want to do a contract negotiation you got to do it as a package deal so um it's something we
can eventually look into if that's what your thought is and maybe bring it up at future budget meeting but right now we're locked in and that's correct the the contract is up this year uh so uh brian and myself
um and and allison stein and dennis kther sat down with with waste management kind of went over some some things um but we are we are coming up with with a new uh contract for to go out to bed um and one of the things that
we discussed internally was to go out and and give a pricing for uh trash collection townwide thanks are there any local towns that actually do pick up their own trash anymore still wharton is the only one right i know jefferson had someone else wharton and paripony are
the only two that i know everyone else is kind of private everyone else has privatized mua correct what i so i have looked at and tried to contract through mcmua for recycling collection and for
uh for trash uh collection and they're not capable of of collecting a town of our size they collect small towns rockway burrow mel etc like that yeah i i'll just share uh in in the discussion with waste management our current provider one of the things that uh that
they shared was due to the the way that the new jersey state laws around purchasing are they have to have uh vehicles newer than a certain date and that means if they're going to take on an overall townwide contract they have to purchase trucks um one of the things
that's a little odd about rockaway is you have very very tight streets you have green pond road you have uh areas where you don't want employees out of the vehicle you have areas where you can't get a pickup truck to up that road to get the trash so it's a very diverse set of equipment that they would need to
purchase in order to get this contract going um so we're obviously working very closely with them to get a spec together to do a solid waste uh alternate in our bid to get household garbage in the bid to see what that number is but it's going to be interesting to see uh
because they're they're obviously going to be taking on a big capital cost in order to do that um and it does impact who can do it too uh so i would think they have the proper equipment since they've just switched over all to those self-dumping cans sure uh the
self-dupping cans can't serve as much of white metal lake so they that that was one of their concerns they don't have those in white metal lake the truck i'm just curious they don't use there there are a couple of streets in white meadow that i have seen uh blue diamond uses it's called the one-armed
bandit comes out side of the truck there's an area limitation with that with overhead wires once you start getting congested with parking on the side you can't get the truck in there without ripping the front bumper over someone's car um so that's where it still becomes a
person coming out of the truck waste management utilizes a system it's called a curado system where you actually dump the waste into the front and they get to an intersection they can dump it into the back um so there's different ways of collection but they are pretty much
across the board everyone's looking a way to getting rid of or limiting the amount of rear load packers that are out there thank you all right i have oh and i'm sorry one one other thing to answer your question everything is advertised it's
on uh recycling uh you go on to recycling through the website it's on the recollect app punch in your address oh no i i know the little i've just never done i get i get the alert i just never used the
vegetation to close around by three and a half acres okay uh i have a couple questions are we done with the trash i am okay i have a couple questions for our couple questions for our chiefs um i know that mr heindelman you and i have
spoken about this before with the wildfires that we have had we have heard about how invaluable drones have been i don't see drones on the budget right and i'm wondering i'd like your opinion on looking into or even purchasing
specifically a thermal camera drone so we do not have to rely on other towns i would think it would be helpful for hotspots i also think it would be helpful if should somebody get lost while hiking out in the woods um opinions
i think drone technology is valuable uh training a pilot to faa section 107 is is an expense um and then that resource becomes potentially limited
because somebody could get lost or a fire can happen 24 hours a day so who's who's going to be the holder of that license and then what vehicle is it going to be put in to deploy and have available for the town what do you how
what is the cut hang on mr mayor i mean it depends on what you if if you get a a unmanned aerial aircraft and it's greater than i believe it's 105 milligrams you need that faa section
certification um if you're going to start putting sensors on it for thermal imaging it's going to bring that weight above that point and you're going to need that certificate um and the cost of that vehicle is thousands of dollars you can get tethered aircraft where you just
open the suitcase and there's a wire that connects it that's cheaper easier to deploy you know we can keep it here the the building the police can access it if they need fire can grab it if we need it um but i don't
know how far horizontally that can travel from where you dropped that suitcase and deploy that that wired or tethered vehicle into the air all right so a couple questions one how much does licensing cost for that roughly a
training class i think it was $800 coming up in the next two months um not terribly expensive but again it becomes a a critical resource and then how many people do we want to get trained so that you have reasonable
coverage so that the township has that asset available but then also you can maintain a work life balance for the employee would that be something that you know the police department guys i have the floor sorry um again that's a question i mean and
again for our our fire and police in in my mind because because i'm very in favor of it right i mean would it be reasonable to start with one person per firehouse and you know maybe our sergeants or whoever we know that would possibly cover each shift
i'm open to any solution um because i think the the technology is is there and valuable um if i think maybe a sergeant or somebody in the police department maybe even the the one detective that has fire
investigation training and me fire official or the fire inspector we have at least then we have two people or three people that can be deployed in that time and and then roll it out to more police or fire personnel if we see
a value to it um the county has a program that that we can use so in-house is good but is it worth the training and investment in well that's a question would you say that the return that we would have seen if those drone again during the wildfires i've heard nothing
but good things about them and i would think that there was certainly uh a life and property saving component on the deployment of those drones unfortunately the fires that carry on for so long that we were able to you know how if we had those in house how much sooner could we
have deployed them right and that's a question you can't answer i'm just saying who knows but hopefully we don't have any of those events happen for right but the whole point of you guys is having you and not you know we hope we don't need you no offense you know but that's the whole point of this is a it's
a preventative measure hopefully if we you know do talk about it we would never need them i can certainly look into the cost of training and and vehicle acquisition and bring it back chief i am interested in your perspective yeah again that's certainly
a valuable tool right so it's both law enforcement for uh operations right uh again across a a large spectrum for a lot of reasons uh there's advantages to the unmanned uh as well as the tethered
craft one of the things that we have available to us currently is uh mars county and their facility which they come out you know and again depending on the response time half hour 45 minutes maybe you know depending on traffic uh one of the things that they they also
have their communication center which uh provide a lot of graphics to those that were actually in the command center all right so vehicle rolls up it gets attached that you can see all the way around uh so there's a lot of value uh
to that but some of the concerns ultimately are supporting that program in its entirety from the time that you uh decide that you'd like to support that to get the correct craft and again we could be talking about so for example one of the things that happened during
that event and it wasn't ours it was the counties uh they lost uh one of their craft came down was destroyed obliterated uh so again there's some other things involved in again insuranceances and different things like
that but that whole package again an excellent resource it's just whether uh you know the town would like to bring that here uh whether fire and police and the training that needs to happen on a on a regular basis as a matter of fact i
i literally just there was a presentation within uh within the last week of another police department using that technology and and really started talking about a lot of complexities but they certainly enjoyed having that for a
lot of law enforcement purposes and but realizing how complex that is for the operator and the certifications that have to take place in terms of uh flight patterns you know where you can fly where you can't and again we're in a lot of areas for flight patterns for
aircraft uh things like that so so certainly as a program in and of itself it's an excellent tool for weather fire weather search and rescue all right excellent tool it's just there will be an ultimate cost to us in order to
actually bring that not just a $30,000 craft with with a high resolution camera which again is is part of that package so again excellent tool certainly if if the town would look to get involved we can we can get some
information and get back uh to the council in reference to it hate to break it down this far do you want a drone uh again i will i would take a drone program anytime absolutely yes okay so can i just ask a question if you wanted
a drone why didn't you put it in the budget well again uh the logistics right the monumental i i just i see a lot in town and this is not a bad thing but i see a lot of things even within the council is we're we're hesitant to
get involved with things because we think it's too much or we think like it's too much to administer or we think that we can't enforce it things like that i i just coming off of the wildfires you know i kne i know they used them in west milford right um and
unfortunately they lost somebody up there you know could that have helped you know god forbid somebody gets hurt or we lose a substantial amount of property and we say if only we had a drone i think there's value to it um to answer the mayor's question um why it wasn't
put into the budget at least with respect to the fire department's budget the chiefs and i move towards identifying needs and i think the drone program more falls into a want category so
to answer the deliver budget the drone program just falls outside of that scope but sometimes you would admit there is new technologies and we should possibly take advantage of them i would agree with that but the reason it wasn't put in the budget because it's not it's not
a day-to-day need for us it's it's a want and i want it it's a wish list but i can't i can't sit here and advocate that versus something else that the fire department or maybe the police department needs today when we can rely
on those oneoff opportunities with our county partners how many times last year did we use the boat for an actual rescue but again it's one hand you can count okay but again that's the point is you know but how many times do we use the
county's drone twice still on one hand right you have a question about this yeah as the chief said there is faa restrictions because of arsenal drones
are not allowed to fly over that area yeah they i'm sure they would give you a quick approval should it be for something like that and then second as we get certified a new version and
programs until you're not going to make a motion for an ai controlled fire truck right um okay so miss palmary here's my question should i make a motion to initiate a drone
program what kind of effect would let's say a $40,000 budget line have on the overall tax burden per citizen some will be capital down to the penny capital right so the purchase of a drone itself i
assume it has a fiveyear life as long as it has a fivey year life and it's over 5,000 we can put it in capital um as far as the the uh education and the training that would not have an impact on the on the 25 so it would not have an impact it would have an impact but it would be so minuscule that it would be minuscule
sense yes okay um i'd like to make a motion to add a $40,000 line item for the research and purchase of a drone system inclusive of training understanding that this is just getting
the program off the ground we may come back next year and look to expand it and or kill it there's a motion on the table do i have a second clear are you are you asking for the 40,000 to be added to the capital budget you tell me what so the
training portion which is minimal would the operating the purchase of the drone itself which i don't know what that number is would be added to capital so i would imagine again not knowing what these cost i would imagine a $10,000 capital expense for a drone and maybe we
can reduce that and say 10 thou if we think it's around $800 per person we could just maybe say $10,000 for training and you know look to get at least 10 people trained up on it so i'll amend my motion for $10,000 to capital
$10,000 to training uh for a total of $20,000 understanding that the tax implications are minuscule to non-existent do i have a second i'll second that clerk please take the role council member freellander
i wonder if it's it's really necessary at this time that's why you're going to vote yes or no no councilman quinn i'll vote yes councilman brooks i'll go for it yes councilwoman new i
think there needs to be more research done before we do this so i'm a no councilman vtovich yeah i mean based on what was just said with uh mutual aid and we used the drone twice i don't think there's a need for that right this time so i'm a no council vice president
brooks no council president morrison yes it's three s's four nos motion does not carry okay my second question is uh aeds so i know that we have 17 units
they are in each of our recreational facilities i'd like opinions on looking into more i believe like at peterson field we have two right and there's one on the concession stand or in the concession stand and there's one in one
of the dugouts right um okay um again opinions on now that we know you know during sometimes basketball court is used a heck of a lot more yeah okay see how fast we get a you already
made it happen nice your wish i know do you want drones for peterson field drones with aeds yes you just hover and shock somebody thanks um again just an opinion if you
feel i know aeds are very inexpensive for what we get on them if there is any concerns or if there is any thoughts on needs for more of them around town so around town there's an ordinance that
um was put in in i think 2012 requiring aeds in buildings of of specific size and occupancy a couple years ago i was asked how that program is going um so during our periodic fire inspections i do my
best to note where these are um identified 54 in private buildings throughout the town um five of those are compliant with the ordinance that was passed in 2012 i
think it's if you have more than 500 people in the building you need to put an aed in so in addition to the town own properties and sports facilities and buses that we operate there's also these in commercial buildings throughout the town so they're out there i think i
think they're incredibly valuable um seconds matter when somebody's having a cardiac event um and and these devices are even if they're expensive they're worth their weight and we all agree right so the question is is do in our
public spaces is there any gaps is there any need for more of these i believe they're less than $1,000 per mr der 1,50 per and are they are they not maintained by an outside company or is
that us or was i wrong we maintain them okay is there any public spaces that we're not thinking of that would benefit well currently council president one of the recommendations that we just made is for the supervisor vehicles for dpw
being that they're always out and about then that would be six additional aeds okay is there one at park lake yes i believe in the gaze on our side so we may want to consider that um what about the senior center
wow um any other public spaces that you can think of that are township control i don't think so mr dire that'd be and how many dpw trucks were we talking about six six um and then one
at park lake that's what i that so my yeah my motion is going to be um i'd like to make a motion for we can purchase them in capital i'd like to make a capital a motion to place $10,000 in the capital for the purchase
of six aeds for dpw supervisors um would we need maybe two in parks lake or just one one in the gazebo maybe one on there's already one on the borrow side okay so that's seven
so $10,000 for 10 another three provisionary provisionary provision write that down i'll second okay clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman
quinn yes money well spent councilman brooks yes councilwoman noun yes councilmanovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison yes at seven yes this motion carries thank you council
it's all public safety all right any other discussion on section 23 this is our last section i'd like to make a motion to pass section 23 with the changes noted
second clerk please take the role councilman freellander yes councilman quinn yes councilman brooks yes councilwoman newton yes councilman vtovich yes council vice president brooks yes council president morrison
yes seven yeses motion passes all thank you again for a very productive budget meeting i want to thank everybody for their time i'd like to make a motion to adjourn by consensus all in favor i thank you very much we don't have to approve anybody who
doesn't want their book i'll