--------- thank you all for coming and thank you for being online to watch as well streaming um please take notice that action will be taken on the following items sorry wrong one and bear with me please because this is my first Council
I am leading so please bear with me and we will get through this uh please take notice that action will be taken on the following items at the special budget council meeting on Tuesday March 25th 2025 in council
chambers Spa Township Municipal Building the uh it is now 607 and the special budget meeting will commence uh adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the public and the Press on March 21st 20125 by
delivering to the press and posting on the township website a copy of the notice of meeting uh all Council meetings are now live streamed and can be viewed at the following link of the www.youtube.com at Sparta Township
streams excuse me Rox Sam may I have a roll call councilman Scott yes councilman blumetti here councilman shell I'm here Deputy Mayor Murphy here and I'd like to say that U mayor Clark will not be here tonight
unfortunately he had a personal family emergency so we wish everything the best to him uh I am going to restrain doing the suit of salute to the flag and we're going to do it at the seven opening the
7 o'clock meeting okay and now we will proceed to the budget discussion okay do I need a motion on that we're good okay yes thank you good evening deputy
mayor council Sparta residents both present and on our webstream tonight's special session is where my finance team and I inter term CFO Don crumper and our Financial Consultant retired CFO Mike Gino will discuss our proposed Municipal budget for
2025 with considerations audit confirmation and Council input we would like to introduce this budget at our next council meeting April 8th after the mandated 28-day period for notifications and advertising the budget will be open for public hearing and
considered for adoption at the May 13th council meeting for the past two weeks the council's been provided budget worksheets showing factual data of our finances along with a list of Department's expenditures and proposed budget these sheets have been shared on
our website along with the most recent 2024 annual debt statement I've also received several questions from Council regarding the worksheet my finance team has done their best to answer them as I had shared with all of you yesterday afternoon the annual budget serves as a
framework and determines what services Sparta can provide to its residents in the upcoming year it ensures that the municipality's obligations are adequately funded I.E payroll and Debt Service property tax bills are issued based on the property tax levy set by
the municipality the budget is required to be balanced whereby the Appropriations are offset by the revenue revenue and spending decisions made for the current year budget will affect our municipality's financial position in future years this year's proposed Municipal
budget tax rate has increased expenses and anticipated expenses for this year many Department's budgets went down or remained the same some were increased due to Professional Services additional legal counsel and others for inflation on materials and
Services I now invite the council to ask questions or make comments as we prepare this budget for introduction thank you any questions I'll start down
here coun Chell none for me at this time councilman blue medy uh yeah so the the first question is the reserve for uncollected taxes uh um I I saw that it is the highest it's been in quite some
time it's an increase a significant increase over last year I saw the response too so I understand that there's multiple reasons for having a reserve un collected taxes um have we run into trouble in past
years using that Reserve level um and if not what's the reason to increase it now go ahead as you've seen in the past the um the
uh analysis of surplus goes for 2018 through th 2024 and in 20123 the the amount was decreased by
a million 200 uh mil 150,000 roughly and if you see what happened when that was uh because that was reduced you can look right up the amount collect raised from taxation line three
and that line item dropped $12,000 it directly affects your regeneration of surplus okay and the high
number is there to for a safeguard and also roll that number into your Surplus for regeneration if you do not regenerate your Surplus and use that for I I like to use Surplus for or fund balance for a oneoff in other words like
a firet Tru or repair some roads not for operating expenditures okay so that's where that rolls into if you have an additional amount of surplus available I fund balance I'm sorry so you say it's a way to hide some margin it's not hiding
margin it's creating a margin of safety you never know where your budget's going and you need that and if you don't regenerate what you're using as you can see online I understand the point of regenerating Capital but you putting it in a certain spot you could
put any any bucket couldn't you it just happens to the purpose the purpose of the reserve for collected taxes to begin with it goes in every budget of course it does yeah it's to because sometimes we don't collect taxes people don't pay tax you get your 100% tax collection
rate so so whatever we have funds to pay the school board and everybody else understood so if so that's what that's for and by adding to the reserve for uncollected taxes at the end it also helps us regenerate money into our fund balance I understand all that yeah
but so your your your reserve fund collected tax could never be more than 100% right you can't add the tax collection plus more than 100% it is more than 100% yes yeah in 20 so how can we collect more than 100% of our taxes no
no I understand you never collect 100% of your taxes I know you don't so you reserve because some people have hardships and don't pay the tax whatever so let's say 2% of the people we don't collect tax l so you put a reserve of 2% corre but you but if if it can't be more
than two if if it could be any number you want but you should keep it within margin of what you plan on using for Surplus in your next year so in other words your Surplus and the reserve for Uncle taxes should be on par you should
not have one that exed the other let me ask the same question differently if we put 2% in there and we because we have a magic Bond and 100% of the people paid our taxes we did some that then that 2%
was pure margin then right in that case yes but it will never happen but of course but okay on the backside of that how much of that 100% that you collected are you going to utilize that's the
key we'll use 100% of it if you do that you've wiped it out so you have no possible Reserve flowing for the next year are you going to collect 100% two years in a row you can't do that you can't you can't fathom that and you can't utilize
the overutilize the Surplus created from the reserve fored taxes could I just say it differently so the strategy is twofold right it's to literally protect against uncollected taxes yes and equally important is just intentionally to build up the Surplus
not not intentionally point the Surplus utilize should match that in other words you're not trying to create something that you're not going to use but you're get giving it back so you want to keep that level equal on both sides so so what you use in one you want to try to
recoup with the other in the level playing and if you look at what happened in the same year yes in 2023 you had a million eight in your reserve how much Surplus did you use LINE eight $4.7 million you used use five
million 2023 2022 5 million yeah there's a big dispar there and we generated 1.8 you're hoping to regenerate 1.8 but you use five that's danger
zone yeah never mind I think we're we're we're arguing different points but go ahead line eight opposed to line nine on 2023 so if we if we say that we're going to have a a a
surplus we think we're going to collect 98% of taxes just throwing it out there right yes and we're setting this to be at 102 or 100% it it not percentage well it can be
but you always tried 102 is is a safe area us sometimes it's a 103 actually the the calculation is reversed it's divided into so in other words you expect your uh collection rate to be say 97.5% you divide that into what you need
and it gives you the gives you the number the number okay that's actually the way the U the state guidelines set it up for us the state guidelines did yeah we don't the numbers well we do pick the number but we the calculation and the
way it's calculated is uh given to us by the state it it there's a formula we we put the uh the percentage in but it's always a formula based upon what you need for the schools what you need for the county what you need for the library
and so forth while we're on that can I ask you how did the calculation come up for the county being new the county the town why does the county get so much more than we get of our own budg of our own tax collection um who came up with
those numbers the county uh this sheet that I could provide to you this is what we get from the county this is what they need this is what the school needs this is what the county needs for open space this is what the library needs so we don't and I just want to remind one of
the reason the county is a little higher than us is is they do provide our Health Department Services uh we don't have our own health department as you know but we used to but we we pay we used to but we don't now it's
dep left in and we pay a portion of that tax goes to the county because of our health services are are derived out of the county did that benefit us or hurt us with the price of with the price of healthare and
everything else I think it's fine yeah yeah okay so well the county doesn't provide health care for us they not the healthare the health department depart vaccines uh U Steve Le are rep but they
expect septic systems right you know they do they do the septics also they they provide a a lot of the services that an in-house Health Department would provide so we don't have to pay benefits for them that was the point right emploees but it's not a direct item that
we would carry in our budget okay so just wrapping up the reserve fund collected taxes I I follow everything I just so this year we're collecting 984000 more over last year's
number okay and what is our Surplus anticipated usage it's there on line nine for 2025 what I'm sorry line eight line eight okay yeah that was the same as last year so using the same amount as
last year yes but but look you didn't regenerate it and you're we still have to use it for because the the budget can't handle the uh the tax rate so
so and look where the the um the Surplus ends up by because we're using 470 4.7 we're trying to create more to to help us we're trying to get that in line
with what we're actually using okay okay and can I ask you why between 23 and 24 it went this our Surplus went down so much you didn't regenerate it all back what you used you didn't get you didn't collect back actually could I
interject would this be a good time to spend a few minutes maybe if Dawn can walk us through this Surplus spreadsheet sure if you don't mind on or that's what we're here for yeah I think that was something I would hope was hoping for very nervous yeah I think that just a just a high level say the
the the the the the best part of this is going to be under line8 where you see your ending with a balance your use of surplus and you're anticipated for the next year I'm going to tell you concentrate more on that line what line um under line eight if you go to ending
with a balance right there you're going to see those numbers I'm going to say if you start to look at 2021 where you started the year or you ended the year you had what 11,639 th000 that number you see that y
now that year you used 4.5 out of your Surplus for the budget you ended that year with 7139 and that at the beginning of the next year which is on the line the next line up on 2022 and three in green that
11039 okay the bottom line the 7 million1 is what you ended with on 1231 on January 1st you started the year with the 11039 okay so if you subtract the $7 million from the
1139 that difference right [Music] there doesn't cover the 4.5 million that you used in the budget that year and if you keep doing that all across the board and if you look at the top
from 2022 you take that 11 63975 and go down to where we are now at the 5109 you're going to see that we have not recouped $6.5 million through the years because you're
not bringing in enough to generate what you were spending you're not recouping that so we have a budget shortfall when our expenses don't meet our Revenue there's three things that could happen
we it um we need to raise revenues we need to cut our expenses or we take it out of our Surplus and you can see right now we we dipped into our Surplus by 4 million or so three 4 million from 23 to 22 to 23 we dipped again into our
Surplus by 2 2.7 million from 23 to 24 and um yeah our Surplus will be in effectively almost gone by 20 end of 2025 because we're not taking in enough money just to recover our expenses and
that's why the 3.1 this year yeah if you do the math you'll look at 2021 and you used 4.5 million but you only regenerated back 3.9 so you were still short $599,000 in 2022 you spent $5 million but you only
recouped 1.8 million you were down 3 3,1 184,000 and in 2023 you used 4.75 million and you only recouped 2 million 593 and you were short 2.7 million so
the math brings it out to 6,529 79 so dun and Brad street sets a level set a a healthy Reserve at about 20 5% about a quarter of your total revenue
which bring which would be about s or8 million that's what I said today to Mr Scott so we should be about s or 8 million do in Surplus uh just that's the oopsy the Rainy Day stuff and um you're bringing it down to zero the only other the only other recourse we have is to
borrow money to if if we if we can't recoup it if it goes below zero well you wouldn't borrow money for operations you can only borrow money for for Capital I'm sorry you're right okay yeah um if you another item to really
look at is line item five and you can see that unexpended budgets that means two years out so in other words at the end um of
24 All the Monies left over from 23 that have not been spent have not been used for o and have not been used for salaries had not been used for healthcare the money was that came back in to help regenerate that Surplus
500,000 on line five I'm sorry 24 that 23 was actually 628 th000 I'm sorry on that so wait a minute I'm sorry in 24 is actually 23's leftover Budget on line five okay of 628 when you
think about it this way so this year whatever we have line items for 2025 whatever is not used at the end of the year goes into reserves from 24 from 24 is now in reserves at the end of this year in 2025 what is not spent in 2024
will go into your Surplus right but if you follow the trend like Mike is showing you on line five it's gone down through the years you're just less and less and what we know of what is remaining in 24's budget
is uh I think 450,000 and we still the year left a couple of ways to regenerate the Surplus one is having a budget surplus as we just discussed you know half a million a million whatever it is another way is to have um uncollect your your margin part of your uncollected taxes actually
realized and you you can put that Mar anything that you've any difference back into your uh to cover any revenues uh any expense shortfalls yes you and and again the way I've always worked budgets
your uh use of surplus in your reserve should be on par and that that got out of whack starting big time in 2023 yeah yeah it's not being cured here is it pardon we can't cure one one spell swoop no we're trying to make a
corrective path so again we cut services or we increase revenues so it increases Revenue uh you get either increase your uh your ratables base um and there's two ways you can do that one is you can generate more um Revenue by having U
more property that's generated Revenue uh the other way is to um when you have valuations when we if we uh value do a valuation across the town and um and look at your property your property values and I think didn't Sam talk about having a rolling valuation that we're
going to do a portion of each of the property he did however in order to enact a rolling valuation you have to have an initial evaluation done to to to establish a Baseline and that's going to cost you 34 of a million dollars to do an initial what was the last time we did
a full valuation uh 2016 wow and I'm told that uh when it comes to revaluations it's usually advocated by the state and the County however if a town desires to to have a revow uh they have to meet a bunch of
criteria first and it has to be approved by the State and County um the township can't decide to just automatically do a re-evaluation so our property tax base is based on 2016 property values that's what I'm told it's an equalized the county does a whole big calculation
don't ask me how to do it but they do our our um market value is 4.8 billion the County's uh assessed value of the town is three billion um I want to point something else out I'm sorry if you wanted to ask
Mar no I just wanted to be before we go too far Dawn you had said dipping you had said um you use the term dipping that it that what did you mean by
dipping I think you was I think you meant uh I think she meant dipping in uh using Surplus using too much Surplus supposed to be trying to regen generated and that was done
because keep the tax rate flat yes there that's what I was going to bring up next if you look at 2019 just above line nine there's a municipal tax rate which is only the municipal has nothing to doing anybody else yes only here not I'm sorry line
nine just above line n just above all right 2019 if you would would Deputy Mayor would you please read those going to to the current year start at 2018 2018 yes 2019 start
in 2019 the tax rate yes 59 582 no wrong one that's 18 but go to the next one that's what you said starting from the beginning that's fine go ahead please I'm sorry where do you want me to start from 19 because after 19 okay. 592 588
582 580 574 45959 look at the trend and during that time inflation in the United States RIS went up 20% yeah yeah so
so and we didn't we didn't raise the tax rate rate for the and you know because there was a Ral in 2016 20% yes but your houses never went up in value from what they're being Char I shouldn't be yes they did no no the value went up but not
the assessed value the assessed value so as you were going on the municipal rate that you were paying for your homes went down so you were being under under tax under tax exactly correct from the municipal portion yeah we took money out of the savings account to keep taxes
flat and that over the past couple years that's not a long-term strategy yeah well you use up cplus right right yeah use up Surplus you see that uptick though in 24 at 0 595 that's because we did an increase last year yeah we did an
increase yes right and what was the dipping though into the the Surplus besides the offsets the taxes so you don't have to increase the tax rate you take it out so that you have money to put into operations so you don't have to up the tax rate is that a is that a
fiscally sound strategy no but I wasn't here then that's going to change no you were here and that's what we're trying to do here I understand and last year you guys started so pardon me last year you started putting us on a path of of more
solvency better practice uh a better fiscal management yes so the top the Topline number balance the Surplus balance yes what is
that going to be in 2026 what unnotable me I'm hoping throwing D okay just from past practice if we go back stry if we go back to even uh 2019 okay uh maybe that's a bad year
yeah actually go to 18 18 you had 3.1 in your reserve frle the taxes and you generated your collection in 19 49 uh no I'm sorry wait a minute that was correct one
point almost 9 million okay so you you collected you were going shooting for 3.1 but you got 1.9 okay so we're shooting again for 3.1 we're hoping we get 2.9
again I'm sorry 1.9 or 2 point something million in line three to regenerate in 2025 at the end of 2025 it's not going to be a one-year fix no and we weren't here last year so I can we go back back a second because I
I got lost there okay you you said you went back to 2018 let's let's correct can can we stick up here in the in this all right decade and and you're saying that the reserve for
uncollected taxes on line nine in in column 2024 is 2,145 correct 970 mhm okay and you anticipate collecting how much this year you got at the end of
24 for because of that Reserve you collected 800,000 over your the tax base and that's line 3A correct three
yes three yeah I'm sorry that's okay okay so let's assume that this year coming up in 2025 is also 803 right is that what you've assumed is
is what what have you assume for the the uh what is line three going to be in 2025 I'm hoping around the two million Mark two million more no not more 2 million Mark million Mark two two million 2 million so an increase of $1.2
million yes but that's not the trend is it the trend has always has been the trend dropped because look what you happened between 22 and 23 in the reserve you dropped $1.1 million out of it I I I I
understand and that's exactly what happened to what you collected so I mean what what seems to me is is that we have to make up for past sins and that this this number of 61 basis points or I'm sorry I guess you
would call it a mill rate right uh that that number's really too low for safety correct the municipal tax rate yeah yes we we cannot because of this the cap
guidelines the Appropriations and the and the levy cap in other words the revenue cap we are with with uh we are just within the guidelines on the spending cap so we've pushed the limit to that to start the the corrective Trend that's the highest we can raise our taxes according
to State caps um no you could go we we can go higher but there's things outside of the operational budget that we cannot raise right now we can go with capital or Debt Service that is outside the cap and we have room right now in the levy
cap in other words the revenue side to to bring that up if we wish but that's across all of the the three components right uh more if you count the library it's the the the school it's just our budget has nothing to do with library library is outside that that calculation
I'm sorry so the school the county if they they're they're all outside that too I understand okay I'm sorry but the 2% cap I thought was across all of the components of the tax rate it is but everybody is on their their own uh to
present their budgets to the count to the state in the county we are responsible for only our but if the county wants 3% and the school wants 3% we can't also take 3% because collectively would be more than 2% right
on the levy no no they are separate they on their own they have their own again we can go above the 2% on the overall tax rate because of what we can raise funds for on the The Levy in other
words the revenue side that are outside are 2% on the appropriation side our spending side again I said they were the capitals and the uh Debt Service I understand that part but I thought that 2% cap was
across was a taxpayer Centric no I'm a tax payer I don't care where the money's coming from you can't raise my taxes more than 2% understand within the within the limits that you just talked about but that's not you're telling me that's not true no it is not true okay all right and and I just want to say at this point if I'm I don't if I'm if I
sound Cross or accusatory um I I'm very happy that you're here I'm I'm not thank you both for being here doing all this I'm a lover not a fighter I'm I'm not I just one example okay just just sorry off off topic real quick but just for
morgie so she understands do you remember when Mike was saying that you want to try to keep your your I call it raw reserve for uncollected taxes and you want to keep that close to what you're taking out of your fund balance right so if for example you go to the year
2019 and you see that the reserve for uncollected taxes was three a little over $3 million you see that down on line nine right there and under year 19 more do you see um line n the
3,15 I almost want to get up and go up there and the use of surplus that year was 3.5 million no okay 3 right here no that was in the following year was 3 but you're still you you were kind of in line with
that right see how Mike was saying you want to keep them in line so what happened is you ended the year with the 6.4 you started the year with the 10.7 so the difference between those numbers means you regenerated 4.
4,289 th000 so you recouped back your 3.5 and you made a little extra that's where he's trying to tell you how you want to keep those eventually somewhere where what you spend is what you put in your rut and is
accentuating on what dawn said if you follow line nine with line eight you'll see where we start to get in trouble we start to use more and more Surplus so what caused that this is unsustained so what caused that CU we
didn't raise the taxes we didn't raise the tax rate we didn't raise the tax and we didn't lower the budget pardon we didn't lower the budget we didn't lower our expenditures or lower your expenditures you should you have to cut Services somewhere tax rate should have been increased yeah
yeah is that the only reason I mean one of those two we should have either cut expenditures or raised taxes remember as you stayed flat all these years the economy was going up right so sooner or later you got to close that Gap inflation rate was going up the inflation rate was going up taxes were
not inreased I'm just looking if there's any other factors we need to consider but that was just it's that simple it's it's the keeping the making the tax rate that's why I made marjerie read it yeah yeah and they're the tax rate is going
down you're going even if you kept it flat you'd be in so much better right because inflation yeah it's like keeping your savings in cash versus investing it even in so how can we cure this direction well I think we do year by year yeah to started
last year as long as you understand that we are going to do our best to actually Jim more so than us we we prepare the budget but it's his his uh guidewire as what he has to do with the Departments and as long as you
understand that we are on the corrective path and yes there's going to be tax increases the rate I should say increases not tax increases but rate increases and we've done a major one already to try to bring the reserve in line with what we are using in Surplus
that's going to be still a big factor that we're going to have to deal with next year but it's going to be a less Factor than we had to deal with this year to bring it in line correct yes by how about reduced spending we you can we we if you look at our operation expenses if you were to go through that with Jim
you'd realize we are pretty much level in operating expenses we have an increase anything in the department so that that's accurate you if you've been in my department head meetings um I'm crying pretty pretty
loudly to my staff but I'm actually uh pretty proud of my staff they have been able to hold the lines on their budgets um a lot of them they haven't overexpanded uh you don't see any really crazy spending on on items um the one
the one position I did add was the uh purchasing agent which is Christy Ray she's our qpa and you know what I the benefit was is that we're able to really control our spending by having a qualified purchasing agent evaluate all
of our purchasing making sure that it's prudent it's done effectively follows public contract law uh and she does that and I find that you know I've always sought the many years that I've been here that the town always needed a a specified qual qpa contracts now
everything's but piig about Kim this is a amazing staff and no one really does any overspending so to reiterate what Jim just said and these numbers are actually stunning
compar in a stunning Performance Based on the fact that you've been able to hold it together while this in interest while inflation has been going up at this rate why not holding the taxes I while
holding taxes level and that really may may or may not may not have been the most prudent policy and so here we are in 2025 we're hoping that our recoveries or tax recoveries I guess you would call it line
nine right well line nine is one of it I was going to put another line but I'm sorry that the recoveries in 3A right is is that correct yes right that the we're we're we're hoping that the line that 3A is going to be $2.45
million right yes and and without that we will be draining the Surplus even further and this is unsustainable and so how do we cure this if we we are capped at a
2% per year increase we're we're gonna that's what we've done this year we've done we've gone the to the limit on our appropriation cap uh our spending cap this is where actually I was going to point out if you see the amount to be
raised it's two lines up from the res from line nine there okay follow that across that's what you're used to operating on that's your that's your tax what we have to collect in taxes for the
municipal portion only yes okay it as of 23 compared to 17 it only went up 300,000 $300,000 are you kidding me right correct that's not a lot of
spending and inflation in that year was uh you know 4% so I mean yeah and in in 22 was 8% and and you don't it's
I'm just concerned that we're I think we're doing as much as we can now yes and we started this last year because we raised taxes last year so at least that started raising the levels a little bit of everything year yeah for the first year in a long time what I like to point out is that yeah this spreadsheet should
have been shown much sooner and show in the past right this really shows a reflection of how you can operate and how you shouldn't operate and you know now that we are on the trying to do the corrective path in and bring us to a
level where we are sustainable and we aren't behind the eightball and and again the uh line five you can see how that you you're spending almost every dime you throw into the budget in the past so which
is yes you're you you narrowed that gap of where you're spending opposed to what you budgeted but that Gap is always put back in so you're not losing that money it's always it's a rolling factor and that's what
basically I'm trying to show with this spreadsheet is that this is an ongoing flowing item it's not a One-Stop deal or two two-year deal it's constant and as I said when I was working this is like a
chess match you make one move I've got three others I have to deal with I I I understand okay so we can we move on to others now I just want to be cognizant of time because we have I think we have probably like 30 40 questions well between all of us right this was just going to be a review of the Surplus I
know the Surplus is important but for to finish up well if you feel I've used up my question mark we're moving this way Mark sorry we're moving now remember okay we gotel actually maybe at this point we discuss we need to continue this meeting back we were working this way I'm not comfortable introducing a
budget because I think we still have some discussions that we need to have discussions yeah a lot so um yes we do we still have lots disc I guess what can we do in 12 minutes or 15 minutes well I think one thing I'd like to do is to discuss what our when we can meet again on the budget because um we're not going to get this done in 12 minutes and so
and and I'm not comfortable introducing a budget that we haven't gone through yet yeah so can we schedule another meeting that would be prudent yeah we could do that okay more than an hour H more than an hour more than an hour fine
sure oh yeah are you agreed to that that's fine okay yeah I I certainly want the council to be comfortable with what we're presenting and explaining uh the the reasoning behind um what we're
suggesting I mean it is our proposal to you you ultimately have to make that decision um I think we're we're disclosing a lot of good information that you guys are are getting um you know a good understanding on so it doesn't surprise me at all that this
goes to another meeting and if we do have another meeting I think we could uh if the council agrees I would suggest having a component that discusses um that it would be a more executive decision executive session discussion of um some expenses that
might need to be um could be um I I agree uh councilman be I think I had voices before because um there are items that aren't really uh for the public um when you're talking about uh
Staffing numbers uh collective bargaining contracts all their impacts Professional Services all their impacts on the budget itself um normally these budget sessions are actually done behind closed doors so you can have that uh serious conversation and get to a
comfortable area right so whether we if we're buying a truck or not that happens in public but if we're going to talk about something that affects have have always the the budgets been done in public like this budget the budget requires a public hearing which is usually but our Workshop has typically
been on a Saturday I used to buy bagels and it was like three hours sitting here the budget workshops which is what this is has always usually been done on a Saturday here yeah one year we had it during the week because actually I wanted I would like to try and FASTT track it and and
still introduce uh uh by the April 8th council meeting so if we could do that second meeting sooner than later that'd be great I think we need to do we have a Time with the state just so you know that you know well in the council meeting tonight you'll see we have a uh resolution to
extend the budget um because we're just bad out of money because we're on the an abbreviated budget right now understood okay okay any other questions before we well yeah should we dip into a few more
before yeah might as well we have time um okay I'm going to just go out of order maybe this is a quick one uh I saw the planning board not the planning department the planning board budget which was 253 and my
question I think 75k is being budgeted specifically for the master plan work um correct my question is is that enough how much is that ass do that assume NJ Highlands Council Grant still and then for some reason inexplainable the
planning board replaced our professional planner for the master plan subcommittee with someone new so I'm just saying that because that could change the calculus of the the work plan the time frames the costs for the master plan work I don't
know if that's considered also uh it it's a good question there councilman um 75,000 for the fin remainder of the B plan was given to me by Katherine sarot who was doing the master plan um I had got that number before the transition
um I stuck with that number the highlands grant money in in my opinion is tenuous at best um they keep wanting more and more commitments from the town and um I just don't know if we'll ever see that money we may see it I'm I'm not
holding that but I didn't want to slow down the process of the master plan uh group and so I felt it most prudent to put the money in the budget you know if we're lucky it'll get reimbursed if we're not it's there and we progress as as we want to with that um if you look
at the 202 24 expenditures uh 64,000 was expended so there was a you know remaining balance in that so you take that in in conjunction with the increase that we put in there um I'm hopeful that we're going to have enough to carry that
department and its uh objectives and is that all where the money comes from for the pl uh the planning board for the M master plan well it'll come out of that department line and if they need more is it emergency funds um we'll assess it if
that when we get to that point because we can't stop the master plan we also have the option of what we tried last year was doing the emergency Appropriations right where you take it out in five years you pay back fifth it's it's an option that because it was an off budget cycle we can't do it during a budget cycle no you have to DOD
yeah right yeah but I'm saying that's that's why we include it right yeah but it it's there so I mean I'm I'm pretty head strong that the master plan is going to get done wasn't wasn't the total anticipated cost of Master Plan
$180,000 there were estimates back but that was under different professionals and there was a different climate at that time um as we move along and I have the expenses uh for the work that's already been done and how much is that and we've counted for I got a approxim I got to check check for you but it's like
75 that we there's also two components one is actually doing the master plan and the second one is the um ordinance review against the master plan and cleaning up all the ordinance to make sure that we they're they're now consistent with the new master plan right right yeah kind executing it take
75 expended and 75 budgeted for this year we're really you of the number that the T the target number ination there's there there's there's remaining balance in that planning board and I I'm comfortable with numbers I got
there and from what I I've spoke to but we do have flexibility if it comes down to it but I'm committed to getting getting it done right but you can't do a half a job right we even if you do finish the master plan we still need to revise all the ordinances or take a look at make
sure there's cons and when I asked for the quote from the planner I you know I I made sure she understood that I mean she's done many of them when she gave me the quote so yeah but we have a new planner now right so we don't have a commitment that the new planet can the same budget we have some new things but
uh we also have the advantage though of adapting and utilizing those those Vehicles like emergency appropriation or transfer funds when we get down to the year we we do have uh a flexibility um unfortunately as as Mike had alluded
though you know you get down to the end of the year you're spending on most of your budget um you like to have some remaining balance to carry over in the next year and you know with that we try and keep it a tight budget budg I don't want to throw a lot of money just for
what ifs I I we try to calculate it and I try to get professional um um estimates to to to base it on and we also look at the prior year expenses coming back briefly to our meetings scheduled we probably need two more meetings right because we can't one meeting will be for things that can't
need be to be done in executive session and the second one would be the things because we you can't talk about things in executive session that should be talked about in public so we should probably have a two meetings one to bifurcate that we can those that stuff we can talk about in public and that stuff that we can't when does this have
to be done by committed I'd like to be ready for the April 8th introduction for the meeting well April 8th is quite a day is it realistic to get two meetings done in the next two weeks though I'm Wonder um for what it's worth you could knock it
out in one meeting and it could be under okay executive session but you know what everything we do here is is as transparent as we can be I I post the handouts on the website um it it's you know the public will have its opportunity during the hearing to ask
any questions and I'm also going to assume that they reach out to you folks uh in between um I think there's enough of that that you know what let's knock it out in one meeting right but if we say maybe we need to reduce this ex Department staff that's not a discussion
you can have in public I'm not suggesting that we're that meeting though we could do the whole do do what the the Maring balance of these questions and get it done but the point is we might not need to come back to another public session until we actually have the exactly um
I'll be honest with you I don't I don't uh Anna maybe you can answer uh bu budget Workshop generally I don't know if that's open to the public uh that's consistent that's what I think Dan was saying I mean you or you could do like he's suggesting you could do an hour of executive and then do an hour of on the
same day and and then address the public portion like can just in an hour to the public if you wanted to and take two hours and get to get it done so you don't hold up the schedule that you proposed I think if you check with roxan roxan didn't didn't didn't they do that in the past they did the executive then
they invited the public in we never had an separate executive session for sorry but you prior to you okay maybe yeah we usually have them on Saturday like on a Saturday we'd have it um right but there was in public there
was yeah there would nobody came right public could come to the Saturday budget discussion now Mr YouTube is there so you so if if if Dan you know councilman Cher wants I think you can just schedule it one day have the executive session and follow
Follow That by an hour and then you'll be done with it in one day extra coffee extra coffee I don't think we can do this in two hours is that what you're suggesting I mean one one one executive one public we few issues here three
hours maybe three hours three hours yeah on a Saturday we would do it like 9 to 12 you know were there were times we did that yep we can bring food we've got bathrooms we can go so the next dates are the 29th of March and then we have the 5th of
April those are Saturday dates all right well can we can uh all look at our calendars and get back I'm just giving if you want April 5th is my daughter's bridal shower so I'm off table for that
one unless you want to do it on a Friday Friday dates are the 28th which would be this Friday I have to have 48 hours notice it's a special meeting 4 so I need at least 48 hours notice to notify okay well I don't want to Rush this because this is something it's going to
take time and we need to all be together right you send an email out just checking the council's availability you know mayor Clark's not here I see his availability and get back get back quickly to we'll do is everybody okay with
that okay continue to send me your questions too okay I I'll I'll try and answer them in short shorten this uh yeah is there there's no expense bank there's no bank
they the Board of Education if they don't spend in a certain amount of years they don't spend their 2% as if that's the cap they they can bank that correct you have nothing wait there's
there is called a cap Bank on both the levy and the um the appropriation side yes of what you do not raise to the 2% level you get to utilize that that bank it's not actual monies it's it's a
number that you can utilize in future years we have used that um that cap Bank this year to get to where we need to go so that bank only has a oneyear life no uh I think there's a three-year life on
the the banks okay but okay so you lowered taxes in 2020 to 2021 that would have generated a bank or that would have generated a Sur whatever we call Surplus number no a bank there's no Surplus it's
not actual money this is these These are numbers now and so that okay and then the number the next year is once again Lower so that would ALS would that add to the bank yes right but then they start to fall off after three years so
then and then we go from 22 to 23 and the number drops again and so that would add to that bank correct yes right and then in 23 to 24 you raise taxes 2% when you really could have used gone higher
correct yes because banked so much right yes so you're raising it here it looks like 2 point something perc and how much of the bank do you have left using it where' it go yeah here I'm
sorry I don't understand where it went we're using every I I'll have to bring in the sheet but they we're using every available cap bank that has that was available to us in the past to get well we're raising
3.5% so we're using that Levy capap the actual it's almost $600,000 you're yeah 645 I think you wrote that Jim right that's what we're using those B banks are being used up by that there's a 2% and then there's what
was backed this we need to get lucky this we need to get lucky I'd have to bring you that sheet but this is also back can provide that okay we can go over that session yeah okay
we should probably start okay um one last comment um just so people aren't panicking our Surplus right now is we're still okay we're still we just need to protect it but right now as of January 1 we're okay even according to like recommendations I don't want people go
away if everybody's watching thinking zero we're doomed like I I think we're just we're okay we're just being very purposeful about we're making as we speak yeah yeah just want to make that clear to everyone who's watching just so we're not panicking because you hear parts of this conversation tonight it could be a little scary yeah no we're
good yeah okay okay um should I make a motion take a five minute break first we have to close ation I make a motion to close our budget meeting second all in favor I I I and can we adjourn for five
minutes we adjourn for five minutes yes understand this Part: 2
meeting thank you very much um please take notice that action will be taken on the following items at the regular council meeting today March 25th in council chambers Sparta Township Municipal Building 65 Main Street the
regular meeting is opened at 7:15 all Council meetings are now live streamed and can be viewed at the following link www.youtube.com at spart Township streams okay um adequate notice of this meeting
was provided to the public and the Press on January 10th 20125 by delivering to the press and posting on the township web copy of this notice roxan would you do the roll call please councilman Scott here councilman
blumetti here councilman Chell I am present Deputy Mayor Murphy here and mayor Clark is not present tonight unfortunately he had a family emergency so we wish everything well and
he will be here next time thank you I'd like to thank everyone for being here and all of you on live stream and may we have a Rog may we have the may we salute the flag pled Al 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 thank you
okay and we have a presentation this evening for Ford stewardship plan for Miss Sharon petsinger from the DP please come forward thank you guys thank you for coming out to Spartan spending time with us that's probably a long
drive yeah thanks and thanks to the council Deputy Mayor um for giving us some time to present on the sparta Mountain Forest management that we've been doing up there my name is Dave golden I'm the assistant commissioner
for njd overseeing fish and wildlife program Sharon Petzinger is with fish and wildlife endangered and non-game species program Sharon's going to give the presentation but I just wanted to address the coun just for a second before she begins um so first I did want
to thank you for for having us here New Jersey fish and wildlife our agency is responsible for managing all Wildlife species within the state everything from beetles to black bears um often when people think about a state fish and
wildlife agency they think about what that agency does for hunting and fishing throughout the state that's typically how people relate to uh fish and wildlife agencies however our agency has a fairly large endangered and non-game species program where we work to manage
habitats for like all the species that that not only are hunted and fished for but those that aren't and part of that responsibility includes managing for rare species so those species that are either have formal listing as threatened endangered or those that are moving in a
direction that gives us concern so as Sharon presents here one thing I want everybody um the council and in the audience um the public those watching virtually to keep in mind that this diversity of species that we have in New
Jersey certain species have narrow habitat requirements and so what that means is habitats that they require to carry out their life cycles are different right so just like we have diversity in human beings we've got
diversity in species and they need different things some species require Wetlands some species require Uplands some species require old growth forest some species require very young Forest some species require grasslands if we
don't have all those habitat types in our landscape across New Jersey then we won't be able to do our jobs to make sure that we maintain species in New Jersey the wide diversity that we currently have um for all the public and all future Generations so that's an
important thing to keep in mind Sharon presents is that not all habitat types work for all species that's the diversity that we're managing for so we can keep species in New Jersey's future so I'm going to pass it on to Sharon but
please keep that in mind as she's presenting thank you good evening can you hear me okay all right great um as assistant commissioner golden said thank you for the invitation to come here to provide you with information about our forest stewardship plan on spart Mountain
Wildlife Management Area and the results that have come from the management that we've that we have conducted to date um just a little bit about myself I am the project manager for forestry activities on Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area I am a wildlife biologist however
um I have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in natural resource and wildlife management and I've been working with end danger threatened species and non-game Wildlife particularly Birds uh for in New Jersey for over 20 years and about 10 years ago is when I
volunteered to become the project manager for the forestry activities on Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area um in 2016 I believe we met with not the full Council in Sparta Township but with the mayor uh Christine Quinn at the time
as well as the former Township manager William close and I think a staff member Janice Stevens who I I'm saddened to hear that she did pass away a few years ago um and that is that is a shame so we discussed the draft for
stewardship plan with a subset of your Council back in 2016 and in 2021 we met with the township uh Sparta Township engineer uh on site to discuss concerns with any Ingress and egress of the equipments and and trucks onto Sparta
mountain roads and here we are again to uh give you another update so just a little background uh Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area was was first purchased in 1994 um and that's the area in red the southern part of um The Wildlife
Management Area and New Jersey udon also helped with the purchase and acquir the area in yellow which I call the heart of Sparta Mountain that's basically Edison bog and the wetlands and so it's kind of co-owned by both we own it separately but it's pretty much Cooperative
cooperatively managed between the two of us um in 2002 and 2007 um the northern part of the Wildlife Management Area which if you could see is outlined in purple that was purchased through a grant that Green Acres received through
the USDA Forest Service it's called the forest Legacy Grant through the forest Legacy program and a requirement of accepting that Grant is to have a resource management plan and so soon after the purchase in
2007 New Jersey fish and wildlife started developing the first Forest stewardship plan on Sparta Mountain Wild life management area that was approved in 2009 uh the a new Forest stewardship plan was then approved in 2017 and that's what we're currently operating under and in July
2021 we um finalized an addendum to that uh for stewardship plan and it was basically as a um the addendum was created in conjunction with a lot of the concerned stakeholders as a compromise to move forward and so when we're talking about
the goals and objectives the plan we need to understand what uh our goals and objectives are as land owners and managers of public trust resources so the new New Jersey DP um is tasked with managing and promoting natural resources down from there is New Jersey
fishan Wildlife who owns the Wildlife Management Area and their goal our goal I guess because it's me is to is about fish and wildlife species as assistant commissioner golden talked about so maintaining their habitats their populations um and keeping that
diversity and then the bureau that I work for the endangered non-game species program is within New Jersey fish and wildlife and then our focus with that is for endangered threatened and non-game Wildlife and their habitats within uh functioning
ecosystems we also need to consider the purpose of a wildlife management area which is basically to maintain and manage habitats for diversity of wildlife as well as to uh maintain and manage public access for wildlife related Recreation so all of that I know this is
a lot of writing all of that came together as well as um public Outreach and stakeholder Outreach and internal conversations with five goals and a number of objectives underneath each goal and so the forestry activities
revolve around basically the first three goals primarily maintaining ecosystem health and diversity so this is where the objective would be to establish up to 10% of the entire Wildlife Management Area as young Forest stands as well as
to uh enhance biological diversity of native wildlife and um enhance vertical structure through grab Gap disturbances managing for Mass producing tree species which would be like oak trees and hickory trees um goal two the forest activities
would revolve around Wetland overstory removal for turtle habitat and then for inventory monitoring Wildlife populations managing the property to ensure the existence of rare threatened and endangered species that does not look good
okay so it's easy to talk about the answer the question of did we accomplish the objectives but the controversy around the Forester activities is less about that did we accomplish and more I think about why why are we cutting the trees
why are we creating young Forest um why are we doing things to enhance oak oak forests and so this slide is a little little off but what this tells you is in order to understand the why we need to go back
a few hundred to a few thousand years ago and what our forests looked like before European settlement and so the in the Upland forests it it wasn't like the old growth
forest that you might imagine it's not the super huge large trees in a closed dense canopy and Tangles of vines in New Jersey it did not look like that it was primarily an oak Hickory forest for the last 10,000 years and estimates based on Forest
disturbances such as um really strong hurricanes that occurred every 85 to 150 years that toppled most of the trees in a stand um and fires that occurred every 20 years not as hot as what the pilins occurred but has but still fires that
were enough to keep an open canopy open that is what the forest look like so less than 7% of the forest of new Northern New Jersey was that old growth Eastern Hemlock Forest that you would imagine the rest was open canopy Oak
forests um as well and so that was about 25 to 40% kind of a multi-age semiopen canopy Oak and then we had a range from 10 to 50% of really open canopy and young Forest just from hurricanes alone
that doesn't account for beavers or fires or other disturbances and the so in the old growth forest was less than 7% and then the rest was probably a mature closed canopy Forest like we have today on Sparta Mountain Wildlife man area over
90% of the forest is mature closed canopy so we're missing a lot of the multi-age semiopen oak forests and we're missing a lot of the young forests and we're missing some of the old growth forests as well and so the graph if you can that
one actually you can kind of read That's the age class distribution of the forest on Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area in 2010 and so what that tells you is that in 1930 when Thomas cison abandoned his mining operations up there all the trees
started to grow back around the same time and so that's what gives us what we have today the past land use gives us a forest that is not entirely natural um what it would look like giving the estimates of less than about 7% old
growth forest which would be roughly 140 years plus and the 10 to 50% young Forest which is the 0 to 19y year age class that is a distribution of a natural Oak Hickory Forest that would have occurred
before European settlement based on the literature in there and so the wildlife is very intertwined with the vegetation and we use birds as indicators not just because I study
birds and I like birds but because they're good indicators they're easy to Monitor and they have very specific habitat and vegetation types and structures that they need for breeding for postbreeding for migration and so the wildlife have
evolved with a mosaic of different habitat Patches from the disturbances from the Hurricanes from the fires from the beavers and so Wood Thrush will nest in the photo on the left a closed canopy mostly closed canopy forest with a lot
of vegetation um vertical vegetation structure but after their Chicks leave the nest they go to the the young Forest which is the photo on the right the young Forest has a lot more cover in the shrubs and the saplings and a lot more
food and so the longer the distance the chicks have to move to find that young Forest the less likely they are to survive but on the other hand we have the goldenwing warbler which is one of our endangered species in New Jersey they nest in the young Forest on the right but when their Chicks leave the
nest they go and find that more mature forest with that vertical vegetation structure and so they all have evolved with having these diverse Mosaic of forest patches age classes and different structures and what's what we found from
1986 to 2015 and this is on PRI primarily on private lands the early successional habitat the young Forest is targeted for development so between those years we've lost over 322,000 Acres of early successional
Habitat to develop vment on private lands roughly 11,000 Acres a year Shar can you just make sure people understand what that slide show okay so the green the green bar that's
slightly looks like it's moving down a little bit the center line is zero and then it goes negative below that Center Line and positive above that Center Line so this is the change in the amount of acreage between 1986 and 2015 and so the green bar is Forest so
it shows we lost less than 50,000 Acres of forest in that time frame we've gained less than 50,000 Acres of other natural habitat which is likely wetlands and we've lost 332,000 Acres of the successional
habitat while gaining um about that same amount in urban so from that that's how we can tell that the early successional habitat was lost to development because of that change in land cover thank you on state lands where you don't have
that development pressure we have also lost the early successional habitat so same time frame 1986 to 2015 we've lost 44,000 Acres or around, 1500 acres per year and so again the green bar is above
above zero so basically it's it shows you the acreage that has changed over time and so the green bar is the forest that has increased over time and the orange bar is the successional habitat and you can show the you can see the decrease
and what happens if you leave successional habitat alone is it grows up into a mature Forest that is exactly what we have here on state lands from 1986 to 2015 so if 90% of your Forest looks like
the photo on the left left which is a closed canopy Oak Forest that is converting to a northern hardwood forest um so you can see the on the left photo the big tree marked with orange that is an oak tree but the trees around it are
um black Birch Beach and Maple and that's a northern hardwood it's a different Forest type so we're H seeing that on the on Sparta Mountain Wildlife Management Area so that's 90% of our Upland Forest but our Wildlife need the photo on the left they need areas with
that young forest with the shrubs with the saplings with the herbaceous vegetation the grasses the sedges and in the site we've had four bird species on um in the site on the left before management 32 bird species on the right and sgcn are are great
species of greatest conservation need these are the rare threatened and endangered species and so we had two in the closed copy Forest on the left 15 on the right and this was just three years after the treatment so if you're going to take what's on the left and you want more of
what's on the right or if that's what you what you have on the left you want more on the right this is what you have to do and this is where people get really upset because we're cutting a lot of trees it looks horrible but it turns into something
wonderful so because a lot of people are upset with cutting trees we worked with a lot of State holder groups that had concerns about what we were doing and we created the addendum to the forest stewardship plan in 2021 this reduced the forest management
to a maximum of 10 acres a year limited the treatments to Sea tree and shelterwood only now the reason for this is because the she seed tree and the shelterwood treatments are the ones that create the young forest and help to regenerate oak trees and help enhance
that biodiversity of Wildlife and so with the addendum we took the plan was supposed to manage was proposed to manage 630 Acres 18% of the wild management area in five different treatments and the addendum removed all
the treatments except for the two and reduced that Anchorage so that in the 10-year time frame we are only managing 87.7 Acres or 2.5% and that is what we've been doing since 2021 so what we have done to date
through both plans 20 2009 plan and the 2017 plan is we've managed 129.5 acres and 15 different sites between the winter of 2011 and 2012 through the present this
winter on each site that a seed treat or a shelter words um treatment was conducted we have done vegetation and bird response we have monitor that annually on each site and we have site specific reports on our website um and the the addresses there there were two
two of the reports I sent earlier today uh for you to see so this is the average of all the sites on Sparta Mountain where we've done um surveys before treatment so this is stand 12 where but overall we've had an average of 10 bird species in the
closed canopy Forest before treatment three of them are rare and declining and the photos of the birds are the ones that are most likely in those sites that are rare and declining the Eastern wood peee the Great Crested Fly Catcher And The Scarlet
Tanager we then do the treatment and the trees marked are the larger more vigorous and healthier Oak and hickory trees we also retain Wildlife um Wildlife trees cavity trees for bats and birds and least a third of the trees are left
on the ground after they're felt and it looks like a disaster hit because that's the intent the intent is to mimic a hurricane with strong enough winds like an F2 tornado that will topple 75% of the trees in the
area 3 months later so that work is done in the winter usually ends by the end of it's completed by the end of March 3 months later this is what it looks like the average bird species have already increased from 10 to 16 and the rare and declining species have doubled from 3 to
six on average the species that were there before the treatment are there after the treatment plus a few more such as the VY in the Baltimore oral we have sedges native sedges and grasses that come in as well as wild flowers and Oak seedlings start to regenerate and this
is all because there's ample sunlight from opening the forest canopy to let this vegetation grow and this is pretty much the results of the bird survey so it's I know it's a lot um before treatment is all the way on the left and
then it's amount of time after treatment on the right the orange bars are the bird species of concern the're rare um rare endangered and threatened species and then the blue are other bird species detected that are not bird species of
concern and so you can see before treatment um the uh the average and how it increases up to two to four years after treatment and then pretty much plateaus after that the the red
triangles or are they triangles diamonds sorry the red diamonds with the error bars is the bird conservation score and basically what that is is another way to talk about how many birds and how many bird species of concern are in each site
and so basically each bird it has a score and the higher the score the greater the conservation concern so um a bird that is state in danger would would be have five more points than a American robin that is not so to speak
if that makes sense the bird response um and the bird conservation score which is the Blue Line in this graph basically tells you that the conservation value of the forest increases dramatically after treatment now this graph shows the changes in vegetation because that's
what the bird conservation score us what the birds are responding to and so the green is the tree cover the yellow is the herbaceous cover and the Orange is the shrub cover and so you can see after the tree cover is removed and opened up
the herbaceous cover in yellow starts to grow very very quickly and over time the orange bar which is the shrubs and the saplings start to increase over time and that's what the birds are responding to now this is mostly native vegetation and
I say mostly because sometimes we find invasives but the amount of invasive non-native invasive plants is on the red line it's way at the bottom and that's a combination of the herbaceous the shrub and the trees that are not native and
invasive that have been found in the site so it's not it's not a big concern because most of the vegetation that regenerates from the sea bake we are not seeding we are not planting it's all natural and it's almost all Native
so three years after the treatment we've more than doubled the number of bird species using the site and quadrupled the number of rare and declining species using the site during the breeding season and these are all of the birds that are rare and declining that are likely to use the site 3 years
after treatment so to answer your question are we accomplishing the plan objectives yes for the most part we are creating the young Forest stands we are enhancing biological diversity of native Wildlife we are managing for the
growth of mass-producing tree species um we are managing the property to ensure the existence of rare threatened and endangered species we are not creating habitat for Basking turtles because that was removed in the 2021
adendum and we are only partially increasing the forest structure or the vertical structure in the forest by mimicking natural Gap disturbances so we are doing large gap disturbances with the young forest and with the sea tree and the shelter WS do the young forest
and the op canopy Forest but the smaller Gap disturbances we are not doing because we removed that from the addendum so this is my last slide um what is being proposed for next winter which is open for public comment now is
um a seed tree treatment similar to the previous ones that I've talked about that have that create young Forest um and it will be on 10 acres is still um in accordance with the plan and the addendum and it is not in Sparta town the site itself is not in Sparta
Township but the access is off of is an unpaved existing unpaved Road off of Edison Road in Sparta Township so we know this will accomplish what we set out to do we establish the young Forest that'll regenerate Oak and Hickory able will enhance biodiversity and ensure the
existence of rare threatened and endangered Wildlife so we comment period is open till March 31st and you can submit comments by emailing me right there that is all I have thank you that was very very very knowledgeable most
thorough one I've seen thank you thank you um does anybody have any questions from the dis Dan no I think I'm good thanks again for taking your time to come out here it's probably a long
drive not that bad for me I'm on Northern office okay it's good who exactly owns this land the property is owned by New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and managed by New Jersey fish and my life
just to clarify did you I think I heard you say that at least onethird of the trees that are cut down are left on the ground okay yes okay thank you that's it one3 so roughly onethird it really
depends on the treatment and the site um all of the crowns are left and probably about a third of the trees that are filled are also left so it's you probably more than a third but to be safe I say about a third Roots uh The Roots Stay The Roots stay yeah no
there's no there's no root digging or root raking everything is left okay how many total acres are we talking about that that the DP owns here in in this subject site yeah it's roughly 3500 acres oh SP yeah spart Mountain Wildlife
Management Area is 3,461 Acres approximately and that's the reason you get 346 Acres or for 10% for 10% yes and that's 10% of the total that's the entire disturbance of this
effort uh currently because of the addendum in 2021 the disturbance will only be 87.7 Acres 2.5% of the entire wild total so total in this in this plan the total currently is 100 that we've managed is 129.5 acres and I believe
we'll add another 20 acres before the plan expires so that'll be 149.5 Acres total how many years is that is that over this plan is for 10 years but the cumulation the um 149 Acres would be
from 2011 2012 through um 26 and 27 the winter 2026 27 and I'll just add the addendum itself which extends Beyond this plan so like our plan Beyond this plan um when we sat down with stakeholders and came to an
agreement on the addendum it would be a Sharon mentioned 10 acres per year and we identified 20 sites and so over the course of 20 years would be 200 acres and then if we moved on to year 21 we
would go back to areas where we've already worked so there'd be a rotation that we went that we went around so based on that math if we if we're able to achieve our full goals here Beyond this plan um and into the future it
would be2 acres in management over the course of 20 years 3500 that's correct and I think the original scope was between five and 10% and was we're still going to be within that range it sounds like the yeah so the goal for the young forest was up to
up to 10% uh the plan prescribed management for 6% to be young up to six% to be young Forest okay so roughly about that is the Autobon own odan own
property separate and distinct from this and not affected correct okay yes I know you were specifically talking about birds but do you have any data that I know that's your specialty but like the bog Turtles
which are an endagered species up here and there's certain bats MH that we have yeah so we monitor the birds because they're the easiest um but do have a lot of measures to um consider what the bats
need especially Indiana bat which has been endangered because of habitat changes but also Northern longard bat that um populations have tanked from white nose syndrome which which is separate from the habitat uh so that's why one of the objectives in the plan
which we still carry out is to leave Roost trees for bats and cavity trees for bats and for cavity nesting birds and so we definitely do that um we do not have the the capacity to do the bat surveys
per se although we have done some it's just not as easy to do as monitoring the birds every year um in terms of the bog turtle that is in the wetlands habitat and that is why the two and a half acres of overstory removal was targeted for um
basking Turtles and that was removed from the plan in the addendum so we're not doing that you're not doing that no okay can you just briefly explain how do you how you handle uh veral pools other
environmentally sensitive areas at or at or near on the way to a selected site to protect those areas there are a number of things that we do um with the 2021 addendum there's specific site uh selection criteria and
one of those criteria is to have the site at least 400 feet from a Verna pool and so the sites that we picked are at least 400 feet from Verna Pooles um every activity that we do is reviewed internally so it's assessed for impacts
to rare plants to veral pools to other endangered threatened wildlife and any recommendations that they provide during that review We Implement um we also with any other with Forester activities we have to you abide
by the forestry and Wetland best management practices which also dictate what to do in certain areas with um in regards to ver a pools and wetlands and things like that thank you anybody else from the dice have any
questions I have a question who from the d uh monitors the work of the loggers at the same I do well I do from the D yes that would be me on on what basis on what temporal basis how
often I share the responsibilities with the Forester in charge that's also hired to oversee the activities and who planned out the the treatment on the site um but we try to get out there at least three if they're working five days or six days a week we try to get there
at least three days half the time as much as we can thank you El I'd like to open it up to the public for about 20 minutes so we have questions I make a motion to open to the public and we're gonna abide by the
abide by the five minute rule per we don't have a public session on the agenda I know they need to I think that has to be managed by the the people that are traveling far to get here is that okay with you if we have questions from the public yes thank you
thanks okay anybody from the public please come up and state your name my name is Julia sumers I'm the executive director of the New Jersey Highlands Coalition um I'm also a board member of The pincho Institute the Pino
Institute was created by gford pincho uh who also created the US Forest Service um I uh I think that you probably have realized that
that that the management of spart mountain is a very controversial issue it continues to be a very controversial issue um and in light of that I have a request of Sharon and Dave would it be possible to share the raw
data that you collected and the sampling methods that you collected on bird species presence of bird species on site um no and I say that because we're not allowed to give out locations of
endanger threaten or special concerned species well I think you know that the people who are interested in seeing this are hardly going to be sharing this it's it's policy um but what I do provide is I um created the site specific reports that gives you the
number of species in those reports I consulted with my um the chief of my Bureau asking if I can provide the list of species in that site and she said no for that reason um that said I can absolutely tell you about the methodologies and all of that I hope
that we can offline we can pursue this because I'm told by the scientists who are very concerned about this that uh there is real issues here um I have uh a question of the members of the council if you've had an opportunity to watch a
video that the New Jersey Highlands Coalition created about what is going on on Sparta Mountain um you will see this is a video made about two years after another stand and what has happened on that site um and how it is recovering
and whether it is producing the results that have been represented here today and you will see that it is not um and I I recently heard that we have been accused of manipulating the video that you're seeing and that is simply not the
case and um we're happy to share all of the video taken um with you with the DP uh so that they can see that that is not the case um there are as you know there there's been lot of interest in this we
were told that um the the division of Fish and Wildlife this evening they've come a long way I appreciate that and uh have a limited amount of time but there are a lot of other people that you should be hearing from about this site in particular there are three people
three uh scientists we would like to bring at a future meeting perhaps in May at which point we will have been able to go out onto the site and see what is happening on the site because um you know unfortunately that can't happen before we have to finish submitting our
comments because they close um before the growth period really begins which is very unfortunate but it will be will have started by May uh your may maybe your May meeting if that is possible but we would like to bring somebody a doctor somebody who's a doctor you know Dr Amil
DeVito who will talk about um the plants on the site Dr Sharon wander who is one of the best bird experts in the state of New Jersey who will talk about birds on the site on spart Mountain as well and Dr J Kelly
who will talk about deer on the site because when you look at the video that I just referred you to there is a second video associated with it that was made by a hunting group the exact same treatment that is happening on spart mountain is the treatment that they
recommend for creating deer habitat and we have a terrible problem with the over presence of deer on Sparta mountain and um I am kind of surprised that Sharon referred to the golden wing warbler because it has not successfully returned
to the site um uh and I also have a request or a comment that this site that's been proposed in 2018 the only time that we have met or the that the division of Fish Wildlife agreed to meet with us they met with us
in 2018 on site and they agreed that this particular site will never be logged and of course now it is being logged uh so we're extremely distressed about that we don't believe that we have been heard and we don't believe that our
comments as they have never been you know addendum or no we don't believe that our comments on what's being proposed will be heard either none of them have been thank you thank you very much good evening I'm Richard kelsky the vice president of the New Jersey
Forestry Association I'm just going to keep it very short um I've visited the site several times with other members of our association uh everything that Sharon said was observed by us but I thought it
might be helpful also for you to know that the highlands Council actually commissioned their own review of the site and all of the site all of the components of the site and I thought I would provide you with copies of their meeting report and their site
visit report and I'd like to just read three lines from the summary of findings activities align with those specified in the forest stewardship plan anticipated tree regeneration is occurring on multiple sites no observed
activities of concern relating to Highlands resources I I really it's as simple as anyone could say it and I mean typically the highlands council is very critical of these types of projects and that's
not reflected in either of these two documents may I hand this to you sure thank you so much and other than that we're available if you need any information from our side um we're really what I would call
the go-to resource for forests in New Jersey we've been around for 50 years we just had our 50th annual meeting and so um we look forward to helping you in any way if you have any questions but other than that I thought that those documents were particularly instructive so thank you very much for your time great thank
you did you give roxan your information on that as well sh that with you guys when thank you now thank you hello I'm Sylvia Salone executive director of New Jersey Forest watch I
live in Sparta to Megan um I encourage the town and everyone to really review the peer-reviewed science a great article um piece is the kellet at all which I will provide for you because it
clearly debunks the young Force push which um we're hearing it's not only happening here in New Jersey but it's happening all across the country and our public land as well as Sparta mountain in particular was purchased with 100% Green Acres funds
it's on the D's website and we New Jersey residents do not want to see our public Force continually degraded and destroyed under the guise of making them healthier this is what's called the Young Forest initiative this is what you heard just a little while ago to review
the whole Sparta Mountain plan over 2500 comments 5 to one against the plan were submitted to the DP the first purported goal was to increase habitat for the golden wing warbler a species that is doomed and who has hybridized with the
blue wing warbler now you're hearing various morphed reasons purported um for the continuing of logging our group proudly includes original members who in the 1990s played a key role in preserving
this area now we find ourselves in a difficult position advocating against the very Department that should be working to protect our natural resources and not harm them but unfortunately the intact species that
need the forest to be a closed canopy their needs are being ignored not only that the vernal pools that were discussed before we've seen impacts negative impacts soil compaction soil uh degradation as as well as other
environmental concerns um I thought the forest Legacy piece was going to come up today and I have an email from our Green Acres Department in questioning the acquisition of Sparta Mountain because all of us here if you're a Sparta
resident or New Jersey resident we paid for Green Acre lands it is the state that yes is tasked to manage the lands and no offense but I would give our state right now an F for managing specially Mountain it is an area that
has 140 documented rare and threatened endangered species that are being harmed in many cases but you're not going to see that on these bar graphs um the green acr's memo this email says the bottom line Sylvia is correct the
majority of smw was not acquired by Forest Legacy funds the forest Legacy reimbursement accounts for about 8% of the cost of the entire acquisition so Sparta Mountain belongs to the people Sparta Mountain as you can
see and you've heard um invasive species are now spreading because of the logging trees are not growing carbon sequestration has been lost the iconic golden wing warer has not been reported nesting in the logged areas as I mentioned what about soil compaction
water impacts all of these are being ignored um you do need to read page page 11 of our analysis of the lack of success on the Spartan Mountain plan where you'll see the measurement of success is based on the number of species but ignores all the other
effects in their actions we want to encourage a science-based methodology it must be used and shared if it's not going to be shared it's not real data um in fact when you look at who
promotes and advocates for deforestation typically there's a financial incentive behind that people involved in this program whether it works or not are incentified and promoting more logging and it's their job now to greenwash all
of this I ask why is it that we can agree deforestation is bad in other countries I've mentioned this before let's keep the facts the facts deforestation is
deforestation why is here in the most densely populated state of New Jersey it is being called to be something that we should be doing are we crazy we will not believe this greenwashing and we ask that the logging
and deforestation stop over 138 Acres so I have about 10 acres difference than what you folks have um it's football fields have already been created don't forget we already have the power lines running through that's 140 Acres so we
already at more than almost the 300 when you include marshlands and you include the other quote early sessional habitat that exist so lastly let's protect our forest and not degrade them thank you thank you something I want you to know
is we would like to invite the forest watch back at another time at another meeting to also give a presentation so if anybody else from forest watch is here I would please get together put a
presentation and we will let you know um when we have the next available not unfortunately next week but very soon we would may I will check the calendar and I will get back to you thank you very much but does anybody else have any
questions for the Jenny derk's happen is Florida um where does the money come from to pay the loggers the the money for this particular work I mean comes from varied sources but most recently we've been
using our federal grants to pay for excuse me Federal grant out of our answer sure okay um so the my time my salary is uh for for this work is under state
wildlife grants I'm sorry state wild wildlife grants and so that is a grant that um we've had I think since 2008 and that pays for the loggers no that pays for my salary okay for planning and for
monitoring and for evaluation um only and so that's the state wildlife grants is basically to manage the species of greatest conservation need as identified in the wildlife action plan and to implement the wildlife action plan I don't mean to interrupt but my clock is running so who
pays for the loggers so that is um CBT CBT so uh corporate business tax so it's state money uh corporate business tax that actually pays hires the Forester to do the work it's not a grant it is not a grant no and who does the whole
hiring uh Contracting and all of that who the D does d not you I am the DP so yes okay so you and so when you're talking about monitoring part of the Amendment plan at least and the the original plan from 2017 discusses I'm
I'm concerned mostly with the actual day-to-day activities that the trucks are supposed to be washed before they come back in So does that happen where does that happen how does it happen I don't see it happening I live right around the corner so it is in the contract um to
par wash the vehicles and all the stipulations that they need to abide by before they return onto the site to reload before they before they enter the site and their activities on the site and so you don't know where they're doing it you're monitoring them but you don't know if or where they're doing that I don't go to where the vehicle
station to see if they power washed before but I am on site when they bring the equipment on and so you're qu you're confident that they're clean uh to the best of their ability yes and the the action of the trucks um is there a
requirement that the land is supposed to be Frozen that the ground is supposed to be Frozen um the the ground when you're doing the skidding activities it's recommended that the ground be dry or frozen so what if it's not they do not skid so why are there deep ruts that's
visible right from Edison Road I'm talking about 12 Ines at least so from Edison Road to The Landing that is just the vehicle driving onto the landing so that doesn't count that is that's not that is not the skidding activity so the
the whatever happens until they get to the place where they're cutting the trees down I'm sorry I'm not up on the vocabulary but what you're talking about skidding is that when they're cutting the trees down the skidding is the large the vehicle with very large tires that goes to the site and drags the logs back to The Landing okay and so you're not
worried about what happens from the road to that place the impact that those trucks have on the land you're not concerned with that I am not concerned with with that on the existing Access Road um when they're done with the work
that will be they what what's called back bled which means they'll take the little skid skar and smooth out the dirt and then we'll Reed it okay so I can invite you back when it's done and we'll walk the land and you can see that the that the land is still rutted that the
big rocks that they put in for fill is still remaining so that it it's impossible for people who want to enjoy the forest to continue to enjoy the forest you don't pull those rocks out no that is the gravel tracking pad that will poly stay and that stays
and so you don't count consider that as part of disturbing the forest either that's not counted in your calculation no that is a tracking pad so that when the vehicles move off the site they're not dragging dirt onto the Township Road so the total impact of your logging
experiences in the woods really only counts you only count where they're cutting the trees down you don't count the roads that you're creating in and out and I know you're going to say that they're existing roads but often times especially the one that is being logged right now was a single track walking
path the the access road being used right now is an old railroad that was constructed over 100 years ago that was used for vehicular vehicular access um from the site that was managed in 2015 and is being used again okay I'm
going to go back to the wood to the money who gets the money from the trees that are cut down that is up to the discretion of the contractor so the contractor you pay the contractor contractor to cut the trees down and they keep the money from where they sell the trees too what they do with the
trees that are allowed to be filled is at their discretion and do you have any so you have no idea excuse me five minutes is up okay I than give Miss Derek some more time it's okay Mark we you can't do that you can have my
time thank you very much okay I think our 20 minutes is just about up as well I mean have to leave it up to you fine they can continue you all right um sorry I'm new to this so I'm um
just catching up Rob Auto 41 Northshore Trail um so my understanding of the process uh the the need to involve um humans in this which has been handled since the last ice age is
basically to uh return uh to this early Su successional habitat more of a um heterogeneous Forest if I understand it correct um so because we're control
we're better at controlling forest fires we have a need to kind of replace that action because beavers have lost habitat we're stepping in um we still have hurricanes right we still have floods so some of that is is taken care of um so
post Edison 1930s you're saying that we basically got a clearcut uh trees grew in that space and they're approaching end of life when a tree falls it creates a snag right that creates habitat for um
these animals but you want to kind of goose the process and open it up to encourage the sucession successional growth those Frontier species that would come in and occupy those 10 acre swaths is that my understand that's so that's
the process I'm just trying to understand it so then if if that's all true what accommodations are you making to control the deer that that are going to graze I think on the native species that would try to occupy those spaces
immediately um and then are those spaces I know they're they're back bladed but are they uh able are are the native plants and and non-natives I guess able to take root in that do do you prep the soil um
it sounds like you maybe do some seeding if I have a uh correct um but and then what about yeah the deer the deer are going to go after the young trees that are going to try to come in there my concern is that I I think as presented I
understand the rationale but the real reality might fall short right the deer are going to come in after the fact they don't know the plan and they're just going to eat everything in sight and they're going to prefer the stuff that's on the menu that they like to eat which is the native plants right the native
trees the young saplings and then it's going to it's going to kind of leave a space for the non-natives to proliferate the invasives to proliferate do you guys have a control okay you do so great so could you tell me about that sure sorry that's
yeah that's a lot of questions so I'll start with the deer um so when you have a an large area with a lot of forest and not a lot of Agriculture and not a lot of residential areas by default you have a lower deer
population you add to that high hunting pressure like we find on a Wildlife Management Area and that helps to keep the deer in check at a population where when you do this work it does not prevent the Regeneration and we have
seen that we start we actually put in a deer exclusion fence in 2011 2012 on the first site we that we that we managed to determine if there were deer impacts and people measured the vegetation inside and outside of the fence in the cut and
in the closed canopy forest and found no difference between the two so you determine that you don't need the fencing probably so we don't need the fencing is still up but we do not need the fencing we have not needed the fencing for regeneration so that that was your first one was that WMA stand
one then yes so stand 12 is like you showed a picture of that that like great and heterogeneous um so but I'm hearing that that might not be indicative of the reality of subsequent stands or other stands can you speak to that which which
is one of the reasons we monitor the vegetation if it is not regenerating the way we expect it to or want it to and it is because of deer we will likely put up a deer fence deer exclusion oh and so with with the heavy machinery coming in
um dragging stuff out what what accommodations are made I know that you it sounds like you locate vernes you avoid them um what can you do to kind of protect the forest floor all the animals and the invertebrates that call the forest floor
and the leaf litter their home it sounds like I get it you're using birds as your proxy that's an easy and good proxy but what accommodations are you're making to protect the forest floor so doing the management in the winter time is the first step that we do um the equipment
used to move the wood is limited to a single access road or what we call a skid Trail and then when it moves across the site we do that when the soil is dry or frozen So to avoid to minimize rting if
some ruts occur we back blade it and then the landing and other some areas that might be disturbed we then after everything's back bladed I do seed it with a native with a a cover crop uh for fast growth and also with Native grasses
and wild flowers and at my time's up but I was just curious because I thought uh Leaf litter and all that surface material provides crucial habitat for overwintering organisms but I guess we're not worried about that not not on the access roads as much all right thank
you very thank you very much and I sorry we're going to have to move on if anybody has any other questions um they may email you or email us and we will get the questions to you is that okay that's
fine thank you okay thank you very much I want to thank you both for your presentation and thank all our residents for coming out and any other like I said any other questions pleas please email us we will get them to you and do we
have both contact information or we have yours both of yours Sharon and share I I can I can email you to the clerk okay and we will email you the questions and then get back to our residents okay thank you thank you very much thank you
both very much appreciate you thank you very much thank you safe home with the sink holes yeah hey okay okay next I have minutes on the agenda
and uh the minutes are three of them councilman Scott and I cannot vote on because we were not here at the time we were not elected so um I make a motion that we table the approval of the
meeting minutes for March 26 2024 April 9 2024 and June 11 2024 Dan before you do I understand why you might want to do that um I just ask that the council reconsider that
um because you do have the two uh you and Dean are here and Mark and Margie councilman would not otherwise have a chance they otherwise would not be voting I so you do have two of the three
um if if you if you are I don't I think we need three to to approve anything I think two Z is not I think we need a okay well you tell me we can do it with two I think we can do it with two under the circumstances
okay I will resend my my motion to be majority anyway right yes I'll resend my motion to approve the um so then the um the me minutes that I read mentioned okay so uh could we do them
all together any reason why we can't sure unless you'd like to do them separately I can make a motion for all three Dan no sure okay I have no objection okay I'd like to make a motion that we approve the following executive meeting minutes
March 26 2024 April 9th 2024 in June 11th 2024 and I will second that okay all in favor all right so all in favor I I and you two will abstain and we
abstain Mark abstain okay and then may I have a motion to approve the January 25 25th 2025 regular meeting minutes as presented may I have a motion make a motion to approve the
regular meeting minutes of January 28th 2025 may I have a second second all in favor I I I okay motion carried and now Mr Zep may I have a
manager's report moving along thank you good evening deputy mayor council Sparta residence both present and on our YouTube stream our planning and zoning department would like to remind our spar business owners at all portable advertisement signs must be renewed
annually before the deadline of June 15th each year more information on this can be found under the sparta Township General code sections 4-71 through 47.7 or call the planning and zoning
office at 973 729 8093 for f further information the recreation department is looking for Sparta seniors to participate in the annual Sussex County Senior Olympics please contact Emily fiser senior coordinator 973 729 2383 or
stop at the recreation office located at the lower level of the sparta Library the recreation and senior citizen division are finalizing details for the spring summer program activity calendar for 2025 information will be going out next week with registration starting on April
16th please be reminded that April 5th and 6th are the sparta baggot days to help keep Sparta beautiful please see the Township's website for additional information on how you can participate a big Thanks goes out to Mitch Morrison who heads up this event every year for the
town our public works department has been busy these past few weeks addressing storm debris and tree cleanups around various Township roadways the DPW has also completed its first round of street sweeping this is a good indication that winter weather is behind
us our annual paper shred event will be held on Saturday May 31st at Town Hall rain or shine from 9:00 a.m. to noon this year we are adding to this event electronic device recycling commonly known as ew please see more information on the Township's
website Chief mccarrick will now present his portion of the manager's report thank you very much Mr zap before we go on may have a question um so the Senior Olympics doesn't that in September I notic it's Sussex County
Senior Olympics so I I I would have to check with Jean or Emily she's the senior coordinator on this but um this is this is what she had given me so if you'd like we'll we'll double check on that okay thank you
sorry go ahead Chief no problem good evening thank you manager Z thank you Deputy Mayor councel the police department was awarded $77,000 to the new New Jersey Division of highway traffic safety distracted driving Crackdown program the money will be used for police to enforce texting and
driving distracted driving laws this campaign of put the phones away or pay will take place during the entire month of April 2025 and you will see extra patrols during this campaign in sorida on March 13 2025 Captain Snider
and I went before the New Jersey State Association a Chiefs of police accreditation commission board for our hearing with our accreditation status I'm very proud to say that it was unanimous decision by the board to approve the sparta Township police Department as an accredited agency again
I would like to thank our Township uh Administration manager Zep mayor Clark and the council for their support in this achievement and most importantly I'd like to thank all the employees of the police department both sworn and non sworn for their Buy in on the professional
achievement a very special thank you to uh retired lieutenant Adam Carberry and Captain Snider in the back for their extended efforts with this accreditation management it's a lot of work it's a lot of extra work on top of everything else that they were doing and the New Jersey
state accreditation program director Mr Harry Delgado will be attending an upcoming council meeting I believe April 22nd uh to present on the accreditation program and um that's all I have to report thank you thank you thank you very much
Chief you're more than welcome you don't have to sit through the whole meeting if okay okay I ask oh you did oh thank you thank you for staying uh okay I think we need to approve do we need to uh may I make a
motion to accept the manager's report in Chief's report now moved I have a second I'll second all in favor I I thank you and now we have an open to the public
session please State and spell your name for the record each speaker is limited to one comment of no more than five minutes and no yielding of time to another items not on the agenda my name is Robert Moss I live in
Bloomfield and I'm involved in hiking and Sparta Mountain issues and so on I did not get a chance to ask questions i' seriously question how the council handed that handled that not letting everybody ask questions of Miss petsinger
however I'll just make three comments some of the things she said were very problematic like she said if I understood it correctly rare threatened and the the data on rare threatened and endangered birds could not be shared because their locations can't be known
well I was once shown the location of a swamp pink you may or may not know it's a very rare plant but it doesn't fly birds fly if they announce there's rare threatened endangered birds returning to Sparta Mountain people are going to go looking for them they're going to go walking around till
they see them I I I just don't buy what what she said about that next case I believe she was being disingenuous about the source of funds for um paying the loggers she said the corporate business tax or Corporation business tax well I
have data I have spreadsheets showing in certain years Green Acres funds were used for Habitat Management in Spartan Mountain Green funds now mostly come from the corporation business tax and I believe Miss Pinger did not want to say
that she didn't want to say Green Acres I believe that was disingenuous I can't ask her now I will be sending emails to her you guys and one other thing just a comment they talk about natural conditions is really drives me up the
wall cutting down trees and removing the lumber grade logs is not creating a natural condition storms don't blow the logs into the law uh Sawmills thank you should I put my name here
please thank you very much for your comments and by email I will give her a chance to respond thank you thank you Mr Moss one comment for everyone too while we would appreciate getting your emails and forwarding to the D Personnel feel free to directly email them too because we
don't necessarily need to be in the middle we would love to hear what they say I want the council to hear her but I will use her address she she had it up there yeah yeah definitely contact them and just a reminder that the council's jurisdiction here and Authority is you know what it is I mean it's very limited
just to be clear so we want everybody to know yes now you've got my address here oops does somebody else want to speak yeah let me just I'm having trouble writing
good evening my name is Frank vollo I'm an attorney with SS cson gross my address is one Riverfront Plaza in norc I represent Diamond chip reality which in November
2021 filed an application to construct a rail dependent warehouse at 33 demerest Road rail dependent Warehouse is a per use in the Ed Zone District over the past four years
instead of providing Diamond chip with a timely Fair hearing on its permitted use application mayor Clark Anand Dash the planning board Sparta responsible development members of this Council tap
into Sparta and others have engaged in an illegal conspiracy to delay obstruct and defeat the Diamond ship application among other improper acts you purged nearly every member of the planning board and replac them with conflicted
SRD members who refused to recuse themselves from this application forcing Diamond chip to sue you you have repeatedly tried to force the diamond chip application to the zoning board by characterizing the project as a Trucking terminal even though your own attorneys
and planners testified that it was not you hired the co-founder of SRD and primary objector to this application a non Dash to be the township attorney and then you appointed Mr Dash's lawyer in his objector case to be planning board
attorney when we demanded that Mr Dash Mr Warner and other SRD members recuse themselves from this application Mr Dash response was I'll look into it by these and an improper by these and other improper acts you have violated Diamond
Chip's constitutional and civil rights to a fair Hearing in Sparta you have also tortiously interfered with diamond Chip's prospective business opportunities and you've also violated IRS Rules by using SRD as a political
machine to churn out conflicted Sparta elected officials and board members enough is enough yesterday I filed a 50 page sixc count complaint in federal court against Sparta Township the mayor
the council the planning board the town attorney SRD and the highlands Coalition we have also asserted claims against the following defendants personally because their improper actions were outside the scope of their official duties Neil
Clark Anand Dash mark Scott margorie murphrey Daniel cheer and Dean blumetti we are asking the court to move the diamond chip application out of Sparta into a different jurisdiction so it can get a
fair hearing we're also asking the court to award Diamond chip $100 million in Damages and attorney's fees board members if we cannot resolve this matter the next time you see this
face will be acoss the table from you during your depositions trust me it's not where you want to be thank you for your time this evening next please good evening I'm Lori kriger susex County Bird Club
member I had a private conversation with Miss Pet singer outside regarding my questions there weren't enough there wasn't excuse me enough time during your panel discussion so I'm I allowed to project our conversation that was taken
outside to the council men it's on the agenda so we were taking it not taking questions that were on the agenda but you've already discussed it with her so yeah I just wanted to Enlighten um the members of
front you may send us an email is that the way oh okay is that correct or go ahead I think since we allowed to well you can you can make your comment man' okay it it would it's just quick and okay and I've never done this before so
that's okay this is my first time doing this too so thank you uh thank you so um I asked about how it's How the bird um population is monitored up at the um Reserve up there
and um Miss petsinger is the sole person I believe and she monitors between May of 15th and June 15th in intervals and I did ask her if the public was invited to join her and how we could get data on the population
there could be one Scarlet CH Tanager for example and then that gets recorded but she did tell me Miss Clark M who works for the state of New Jersey and head of her division um she makes the final call so
so I just wanted you to make aware of that that we're not presented with enough data that she was releasing today okay thank you thank you very much thank you good evening everybody and thank you
very much for hearing us all out tonight I am going to talk about Sparta Mountain as well Steve oresnik uh Megan teris and Sparta here so I I did also wish we had a few more minutes to ask and a couple questions uh because I did catch a few things that didn't seem On Target and I
think you should be aware of some of these things and the audience as well um while I appreciate Miss Peter's passion for this it's her passion but it's also her job and as the the kind woman who just spoke Sharon is the sole uh
arbitrator executioner data collector project manager and I have a problem with that um all the data is going through her if it was my job I wanted to succeed so we have to be careful with the data that we see here uh and was presented with so
you can build we all heard this expression you could build it but will they come the golden wing warbler Sylvia talked about this a few other people I have it on my phone it's gone it's not coming back they're measuring it or originally were measuring it for the
golden wing warbler but other bird species the the D she's presenting is it real we don't know um I also want to talk about the endangered species and why Sparta Mountain was saved in the 90s all the threatened rare and dangered
species right they're not taking that into account they're looking at the birds and the birds only we we have to be cognizant of all the other species that use this environment for their habitat they're ignoring it all so there's a lot of questions that I wanted
to ask I'm not going to bother you with all that we I will email Sharon with it but again Sharon mentioned for us a thousand years ago were hit by hurricanes and forest fires did she get
that in stone somewhere is that chipped in stone I don't think there's a record of that so where's that data coming from so again I can't wait to you know have a a formal presentation in front of you all in May and looking forward to that
so thank you again thank you very much thank you H and what what jurisdiction I mean what what ability do we have to influence this the state
d uh owns the land with respect to the funding that came about with the Green Acres however any interested party that determines to research and experts that the state is not complying with their own regulations Andor the forest
management plan May raise question and that question if further investigated leads to non-compliance any interested party can file in fact the D has a specific statute that makes reference to any
Citizen May file an action challenging the actions of the D and the burden of proof would be on those citizens to challenged to dp's compliance with their own plans so Sparta Township has standing um whether or not it wants to
pursue such a investigation is up to the council's discretion thank you thank you any other questions okay um and now we have the expenditures mark would you like to read
the expenditures please sure I move that I move I move that we approve expenditures of 6,571 th73
.97 for the month of March 20 as of March 25th I'll second all in favor I I I I thank you so
approved um there are no ordinances hearing introductions but we have the title ordinance we have ordinance 25-10 in ordinance of the township of Sparta amending portions of chapter 8 of
the Township Code entitled filming I move to table this until next time since mayor D mayor Clark is not here and so we can make a informed decision and he
so made help make this ordinance I would prefer him to be here Z all in favor we have a roll call vote please councilman Scott yes councilman Vetti yes
councilman shirell no Deputy Mayor Murphy yes okay then that means it will be tabled the filming until next week or until next meeting April April 8th thank you um now
we have another open to the public comments please State and spell your name for the record each speaker is limited to one comment of no more than five minutes and no yielding of another time to another person any other comments resolutions resol limited to
the resolutions on the agenda right resolutions below anyone no okay thank you then I have the reading of the resolutions
um resolutions I'm going to read resolution 9-1 resolution authorizing tax collector to refund tax over payment may I have a motion to approve resolution 91 no mo
all in favor you'll second second all in favor I I I uh 9-2 resolution authorizing the extension of temporary appropriation for operating
budgets may I have a motion to approve so Mo second all in favor I hi I uh resolu collectively pardon me could we do these collectively could uh these two we
can resolution 9-3 and 9- one day ABC social Affairs permit Sparta Community food pantry and 9-4 1 day ABC social Affairs permit cois Club of Sparta may I have a motion to approve these I make a
motion to approve resolution 93 and 94 I have a second second all in favor actually um uh do you need to recuse your yourself if you're a member of the sparta food pantry um board oh
yeah yes you should yeah okay so I recuse myself we should back all this out and do them separately that's why I was doing them separately okay sorry okay would you so
-3 one day I'll make a motion to approve 9-3 second all in favor i i i abstain 9-4 one day ABC social Affairs permit kuanana Club of Sparta may I have
a motion to approve make a motion to approve 9-4 I have a second second all in favor say I I I and 9-5 resolution authorizing an updated fixed asset management plan of the township of Sparta in the county
of Sussex New Jersey may I have a motion to approve Jim what does this mean I'll go to my finance team that was yours so yes so every every year when we do the audit we have a company that comes in that
does all of our fixed assets and they have to inventory everything years ago the limit was $1,000 and the state has lifted has has increased it to $5,000 this is a resolution to bring it to the $5,000 oh sorry yeah can you speak into
the microphone please yes so home you can't hear my loud mouth anyway this just brings it up to the state level of the $5,000 I make a motion that we accept uh resolution 9-5 may I have a second I'll second the
approval all in favor I I I so approved uh may have uh 9-6 resolution authorizing trans ER of calendar year 2024 budget Appropriations
amending resolution number 24-25 attachment are we allowed to vote since we were not here in 24 no okay so no no can do you make a well you're
we're authorizing the transfer of the funds you're amending the ordinance so I'm sorry the resolution so I believe you can vote council is now brings a current yes okay the budget is still in place for 24 so you can vote on that okay I think so
thank you so I make a motion to approve 9-6 may I have a second I'll second all in favor I I I 9-7 a resolution authorizing the
transfer of calendar year 2024 budget Appropriations anybody like to make a motion to approve make a motion to approve 9-7 I have a second second all in favor say I I I -6
9-7 approved okay you're thank you very much for attending this evening well that we still have Council on updates and new no no no just letting them the finance group the finance group okay oh
sorry oh thank you unless you want to stay thank you both thank you very much okay Council council is on updates um Dan would you start with your
Liaisons I have nothing to share oh okay none for tonight Mr Scott I have nothing to share at this moment okay um I have for the environmental committee which will be
meeting this week and I will have more updates I was not there last time but what I do know is that uh Mrs Chell Lisa Chell was at the meeting and gave a terrific speech on plant This Not That
and it's uh native plants that we need and what ones will not work well in our environment and it was extremely successful um and I am working on the Sustainable New Jersey land use Pledge
and um pardon me that is all I have and I will be back in town for my on the senior committee and my other committees thank you I yeah could I report on the planning board yes okay uh
the planning board um last week uh had a review of the Cannabis ordinance and saw and how that related and how that related related to the master plan the planning board indicated that
the Cannabis proposed cannabis ordinance was not in line with the current master plan and offered 10 plus reasons why they
believed that the Cannabis resolution should not be approved honor about April 8th that's all I have at this moment councilman Scott why was the planning board opining on the merits of the resolution because they wanted
to and their their job was to uh evaluate the ordinance proposed ordinance against uh the master plan for a consistency review the township planning board under njsa 40 colon 55
d-26 has the referral power to in addition to advising on the consistency can make recommendations that are not binding on the council but they are entitled under the municipal land use law to make recommendations for the
council's discretion whether or not those recommendations go to the Merit uh Merit merits of the ordinance is is a um arguable point and those merits can be part of a consistency review the to the extent that the
recommendations are intertwined with the consistency review again it's an arguable point Thank you thank you thank you Mr Dash I just wanted to point out that the vote uh to include all those items was
unanimous by the planning board in their concern about allowing cannabis in Sparta thank you thank you I are there any uh unfinished or new business none for me none for me
no any unfinished or new business Mr Zepp nope now we have our final open to the public any comments from the public Jenny der tap into Sparta back revisiting the issue of minutes planning
board minutes for 2024 there are only six there are missing 16 of 26 meetings 26 meetings in 2024 only and there are only 10 minutes approved
2023 of 19 meetings in 2023 there are only there are missing 11 meeting minutes so there are only eight approved for 2023 these this is in violation of of the open public meetings
act especially two years out um do you have an update Mr Zep on the Brownfield I thought that you had conversations with my planning board uh Department my planning department head no Miss Fox because I know she has been
working diligently at him uh since her return she was out on leave for a while and now that she's back I know that she's been working hard at getting caught up on those minutes and um she's been putting them on the agendas as as fast as uh possible um so I know it's a
slow go but she is getting them done and uh I I know you cite that Viola VI that violation uh however it is uh a lot of them are on the the YouTube record video for those who are adamant to to see the you know the the sessions if they care
to uh before we can get them into a minute format and have them approve properly through the board but um it's it's I'm not going to argue with you but that's not the same thing as having minutes I appreciate I understand but uh it it is an an outlet that with this day and age the technology that we have that
uh it's nice that it's an option as opposed to not having anything as opposed to not having anything thanks um and then the brown field do we have an update on the Brownfield uh nope I I I've seen emails where they're they're uh waiting for the uh permit now that
the uh proposal has been accepted who's waiting for a permit um the township is okay the Township's waiting for the permit so that would allow them to them fill in those two acres of wetlands out on the on the Brownfield right from the D Wetland Council um and
we're we're waiting for that permit um and is there any other work that can be done in the interim by the contractor for the um utility the contractor has done a lot of site work they've done density readings uh getting ready for
for ballast locations and all that and I do know that they will be uh in front of the planning board shortly to present their uh their application for the and do they need any further approvals from the state they need to get approval
from the BPU is that correct uh right and I think they're applying for that Brownfield incentive okay as well um but we know that that was contingent on closing the landfill and we can't close the landfill until we mitigate the wetlands so it's that domino effect that
we're waiting on okay thank you thank you uh Rick finle 13 Haywood Road um a couple things comments and a question one is I was concerned that we limited the conversation with the D to 20 minutes you have a five minute clock
that means you're limiting four people to share their input I know they drove a long way but they know it's a a controversial issue I think we need to allocate more time to the public when we have controversial discussions like that
um speaking of controversial discussions there was a lot of strong I'll say evidence that not everything we were told by the state is accurate or at least there's two opposing
discussions um I was a little concerned that we as a council didn't go back to this State and have them comment on some of the comments from the public I think it would have been wise for us to have them
share their opinion on why they're accurate in the opposition is not I would have liked to see that dialogue or at least the rebuttal um some of the questions we already answered Green Acres is part of our tax
isn't there a two cent per 100 or something like that no that's an open space tax it's different than program tax part of money that goes toward open space uh funds taxpayers are not directly funding not through the municipality the municipality funds the
open space our own open space fund but the green eus program is a Statewide fund 86% of a penny goes to6 basis points yes it's less than a penny Okay I just personally
I don't want to be funding the acquisition of land for the state to come in and strip it down and sell it off for a profit and tell us they're doing a good thing right well take I just have a problem with that um the other thing is I don't know if it was
the state or the the council but we had this presentation four business days before the deadline for public comment and I don't think that leaves enough time for the public to become aware of it and then submit their comments by next Monday so I don't know who does the
scheduling but I think that's something to pay attention to and um the only other thing is I know we do a lot of transfers from accounts to accounts I don't see where we're going to fit aund million into that transfer
So based on the guy who was they H the attorney here so anyway that's sort of a joke but anyway thank you thank you Mr fle anyone else um I would like to make a comment
and uh our sincere heart and and wishes go out to the ragad family um Chief Rad's mom passed away so we just want to offer our condolences and our heartfelt love for
that for him and his family I unfortunately didn't know her but I've known him a long time and his kids so we wish him all the best anybody anything else Council no
okay may I have a motion to adjourn all second all in favor I motion carried meeting is adjourned thank you all very much and thank you everybody on YouTube