is that you is that today no I was going to say it was a little clearer than that for that if you're on vacation you're not wasting any time yeah absolutely [Applause] yeah we're good all right good evening
everybody in compliance with the open public meeting law excuse me in compliance with the open public meeting law I wish to state that on April 25th 2025 the notice of this meeting of the upper township committee was posted on
the official township bulletin board and on the upper township website emailed to the Atlantic City Press the Ocean City Senate led to the Herald Times and filed with the township clerk tonight's meeting is being video recorded up until the close session portion of this meeting and will be available on the upper township website i hereby direct
that this announcement be made part of the minutes of this meeting we are going to start with our sleep the flag and I'd like to invite Cub Scout 279 to come up and come on up all the way up around this way watch the pool
i aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all joey can you please call the role mr
casaceio here Mr nappen here Mr san Pondo here Mr zachondo here and Mayor Corson is out today as long as everybody April 14th regular session take a motion to approve last meeting i'll make the motion second
mr cassaceio yes mr nappen yes mr san Palumbo yes mr zach Palumbo yes motion carried we're going to do uh are the extra that we All right so we want to go straight to that they're waiting on one they're waiting on one let's do our
minutes and then So let's do uh report of the governing body and then we'll be honoring Cub Scout we'll just go left to right start with Thank you Deputy Mayor so nice to have you here running the GAW tonight no um
not a whole lot to report this week mayor I did go to the uh Cub Scouts event where they were uh move uh graduated from Cub Scout to scout level here last week it was nice to see a bunch of the county officials there and Congressman Vandrew and some state officials there uh networking connecting
with them and celebrating the scouts and their accomplishments that they uh bring to the community sports are fun sports are great but learning skills for real life and still being able to work as a team with scouts is a great thing we advocate here for in this community and
uh just really proud of the work these guys have done and happy to continue celebrating their accomplishments tonight awesome okay uh piggybacking on uh community events on May 10th from 9 to 12 the Great Red Great Red Great Red
Great Egg Harbor River Council is looking for volunteers uh to help with the cleanup of uh debris that's in the uh Great Egg Harbor um the already committed are the Great Egg Harbor uh historical water association
Scout Troop in 79 Upper Township Rescue and Public Works is going to be removing the debris uh they're looking for boat owners to help pick up debris and transport to Mosquito Landing uh and like I said public works will be uh hauling that out of the Tahoe Beach uh
also while we're talking about the water on June 14th at 11 o'clock is the annual Strathmir Beach Patrol tryyouts uh there again uh location yet to be determined but uh if anyone is interested please check with their website also I know uh
you know Strathmir is been a hot topic that's going on uh you know Ryan has reached out for certain uh documents and also we have been in contact with other government officials above the township level to try to resolve the issue as quickly as possible so I know I know
it's not a answer that no one wants to say but it's a wait and see right now for all of us up here thank you very much Sam thank you Deputy Mayor um obviously you know it's that time of
year it's getting nice out finally uh feels like we kind of beat the cold um I got to go enjoy some opening base opening day baseball um great fierce competition uh but really the facilities are incredible and all the work that public works does needs to be recognized
um how they're able to maintain those fields uh obviously you know we're taking a look at cost in every capacity um our last brick advisory board meeting we kind of dove in deeper uh to kind of figure out where we could possibly figure out how we're going to spend our
money and stretch it to its maximum ability but I just want to say I appreciate all the work that public works does maintain those fields and how much work Larry does and making sure that we're organized u with all those youth sports um and also I just want to say before I forget uh everyone here is
cordially invited to attend the Upper Township National Day of Prayer Ceremony and that is Thursday May 1st at 10:00 that's all I got thank you and I'll be very brief tonight um I had a very nice I was on the phone zoomed in
um meeting with senator's office uh regarding obtaining the grant for the public safety building that we've been working on and that's moving forward very nicely and that's all I will say so far tonight um normally we would go now
to uh the administrator overview but want to skip that i think I got the signal that we're all here we're all here okay and also a public comment to follow that so I would like to invite Cub Scout Pack 79 come on up
if we could just do a quick motion to adopt that resolution read it first just do a quick motion to adopt it okay uh I'll make a motion to adopt resolution number 127 2025 i'll second it mr cassaceio yes mr nappen Mr sam Palumbo
yes mr zack Palumbo yes motion carried chef that's why you're not a baseball player is that why you're baseball owen's on my baseball team uh so I'm going to read this as nervous as you guys are this is the first time ever rambling with me so I'm nervous come right with me okay uh this is Scout
Pack 79 uh Navin Joseph Haywood Emily Hman Logan Doe Max Baron sorry if I'm saying your names incorrectly Owen Steve and Chase they've recently received the Hour of Light Award which is an incredible achievement this is the
highest rank of achievement for club scout the township of upper wishes to acknowledge this outstanding accomplishment therefore it be resolved that the township committee of upper township extends our sincere congratulations to these graduating cub scouts on the occasion of their
receiving the hour of life award and commends them for this outstanding accomplishment it is further resolved that the tax committee extends its congratulations and best wishes to the parents family and friends on this happy occasion and further the potential committee also extends its
congratulations and appreciation to the dead leaders Julie Kwood and Frank Bower who gave so freely and generously of their time to benefit our gentlemen and both ladies are going to be getting a copy of this all signed by all of us
all [Applause] right newspaper oh good baseball get ahead yeah you do not have to sit here for the remainder of this boring exciting meeting but probably your video games
baseball we know you have other obligations thanks guys all right congratulations thank you okay let's get to administrative over I'll embellish on what committeeman said the beaches and strap
mirror an ongoing problem for for us getting people on the beach in a safe and orderly manner i know public works has been working hard on it the engineer has been working with the mayor and council committee on evaluating all the
alternatives and D has been responsive to us and they've been a a a good partner in this but short of a uh a replenishment p project or a permanent structure it's going to be extremely difficult to correct the problem and I
don't know in the in the short term that you you know we're looking at a replenishment and the the heart heartscape of of of a stone wall or some sort of bulkheading air is going to be a longer term project so it's something that we you know you have to keep your
eye on the ball there and uh the good news is D has sent us me and I I think I forwarded to you all our permits and necessary uh uh documentation so you can move forward with Ryan's help and uh and public works help to to to do what's
best for for that whole area so you can get people uh uh safely on the beach and and enjoying the beach um again this summer is going to be uh a bit of a challenge and I think that you know with the our engineering work of mayor and committee and public works uh uh we'll
see i know we've been in touch with the uh with the joint insurance fund to help us with wording on signage we you know we know people are going to be on the beach but I think we have to tell them that some of the conditions are a little rough down there and uh so the the joint
insurance fund is doing uh what they can to uh to give us some guidance on that and I think we'll have some as early as tomorrow perhaps um summer employment's gearing up and a number of departments are starting to do that for uh for obvious
reasons uh number one obviously is the is is your uh your beach department um they're they're doing their outreach to see who's coming back who's not coming back and and and where the openings are uh um the the the uh EMT uh community is
doing theirs for uh the EMS beach staff and uh and Chief Britain is putting a lot of work in and his staff on that to try to get uh some EMS staffing there uh and the boat ramp staff uh is being notified and will be uh asked to come
back and and there are some others in the public parks summer help that that is uh that is uh we're we're trying to see who's coming back and who's not coming back so uh Mayor N just ending the
recruitment process uh for the township administrators proceeding well uh I'm optimistic that a decision is forthcoming shortly you folks have been kneede in it and know where you stand on that but just for the public uh I think you folks are uh are are doing a great
job trying to trying to put the position in place so thanks for all your help on that we'll talk more about that later that's it i have nothing thank you nothing nothing
thank you Deputy Mayor um I just have a quick update for tonight on the living shoreline uh so great news strathner Fish and Environmental Club received their grant from Noah um and they have also agreed to allocate $915,000 to the township in order to
facilitate the construction of the project uh so we're waiting on two permits from D and Army Corps of Engineers anticipating to have them in June send it out to bid in end of June uh and potentially starting construction
as early as August or September of this year which is two years before we thought this project would be in place so great news with the progress of the living shoreline that's all I had for tonight i have nothing this evening thank you
we'll open up public comment on agenda items only so if you have a specific question about an agenda item we invite you to come up and address the committee natalie N uh 759 Route 50 Petersburg um I would just like if you could speak to
number six oh I sort of explained that so Triad is our grant writer we approach them for possible ways for us to obtain money that would be the cost of the taxpayer we received the local recreation improvement grant so they'll
be implementing the the grant the grant process for us okay okay and that payment of bills does that come under agenda item or is that Yeah yeah you can hear that yeah mhm well I I was
um with regard to um efficiency and um Gary Demarzo I was hoping to get some kind of a status update because we're out what three months now since the end of January and um there's been a lot of
money spent on the bills list what are you looking for i'm sorry what specific request are you making uh some kind of a status update of what well with regard to the financial end of it of what
the firing of Gary Devarzo I mean the BA position was $35,000 so the only thing we we that is currently something that we're discussing it's a personnel matter no decisions been made so I'm going to recommend that we don't say anything in regard to it in open right now once a
determination's been made on it it will all be made public to to the public okay well um Miss Ludy do you have anything to say with regard to the certifications i mean are we coming up to the limits of the um the monies that were budgeted
uh no thank you anyone else before hi Elsie Jamson Five Sparks Court could you tell us more about the Strathmir project it sounds awesome yeah so uh if you don't mind me jumping in um so living shoreline project is
something that the township has been considering for years uh really in off the boat ramp on Bayiew uh near the marsh land uh to the south of the boat ramp um so it's really to protect and I
won't say stop all of erosion but slow erosion along the back bay uh the township was submitting uh applications or funded the permits for the project uh and our goal was to then look into
grants to fund the construction cost but luckily Strathmir Fish and Environmental Club has worked with us and received their own grant through Noah so it's becoming a great partnership between us and Strathner Fish and Environmental Club they have the grant already in
place we'll have our permits in a couple months now we could work together to bring a great project to the bay to stop erosion which is one of the primary issues in that area cool thank you and I've set up a couple of those mean what a living shorine actually is they use
real life barriers to things so they exist in lots of different ways oyster shells and bags old Christmas trees just a very eco-friendly thing as a science teacher so we did sign a memorandum of understanding with with Strathmir um
regarding this so they are the they're the recipients of the grant we're a sub awardee for lack of a better term so all the grant funding will go to them we're responsible for obtaining contractors etc and they will then pay us for the work to be completed up to that 915,000 mark
all right hearing none we'll move ahead here a consent agenda items listed below are routine in nature and will be enacted by one motion if the deputy mayor or any committee member wishes a particular agenda item to be considered separately it will be removed from the consent agenda and acted on separately
i'll make a motion i'll second mr casachio yes mr nappen yes mr zan Palumbo yes mr zach Palumbo yes motion carried under new business we have Michelle and Robert Salvuchi Jr request to purchase
Township own land block 802 lot one so uh residents uh located really at 1400 Commonwealth Avenue uh they are looking to purchase the property existing to the rear of their current property uh this property is completely
constrained by uh or environmentally constrained flood hazard area wetlands um so it is not developable i'm looking for a motion from the committee to allow the applicant to move forward with an appraisal and then after the appraisal
come back to the committee for further review and that's more of a buffer property my understanding is they want to purchase the property in or in order to ensure that is never developed and provides that buffer to the rear that all sounds good for me i'll make a
motion that 15 purchase of 802 i will second that motion mr cassaceio yes mr nappen yes mr san Palumbo yes mr zack Palumbo yes motion car on bills i hereby move that all claims submitted
for payment at this meeting be approved and then incorporated in the full in full in the minutes of the meeting i have to abstain on one bill tonight Deputy Mayor that'll be bill 25-00615 and I think I'm getting a second small check
from doing online training with Do we have that number by chance yes um that would be 25-00574 okay just need a second mr cass Mr cassaceio yes mr nappen yes
mr sam Palumbo yes mr zack Palumbo yes motion carried all right open up to the public for any comment here to the committee yes just like to remind you uh that you just say your name and address yes
sir um good evening my name is uh Greg Hefron i'm a resident of uh Osprey Cove in Seville and just a little bit of background of Osprey Cove for people that aren't familiar with it it's approximately 110 modular homes for a 55
and over community and this consists mainly of retirees and seniors the property was originally owned by Harry Vanderlice and recently Harry sold the property to the uh people
that own um Avalon Campgrounds and shortly after acquiring the property they increase the lot rent by 30% that really poses a difficulty and a a
strain on some of our seniors is some of them live there uh and mostly uh from check to check social security and for an immediate 30% increase in lot rent really puts a strain on on their budget
and their finances and there are even some that have mentioned that they can't sustain that increase and they're going to have to uh leave the community our question is and and I'm also here with other residents of the
community and our my question is and they may have more later is the um committee aware of this increase and is there
anything that is being proposed or considered for further legislation to possibly mitigate an increase of this nature or put a cap on the amount of increase that can be imposed on the
residents um just sir is what increase was it your lot rent fee or your HOA fee well it's it's they're both the same it's both it's incorporating the same bill yeah um in the breakdown of the bill did it specify either way in which
it went and how he what his reason for the increase was no sir there was no breakdown as to what the expenses were it was just a an overall uh increase uh we don't know how much is being paid out
in taxes we don't know how much is being paid in in maintenance and upkeep uh we we you know we understand there are tax increases and it does cost money to operate a uh an area of of of that size and you got to pay pay people to
work there but 30% I mean and and I've been living there since 2019 and we've had about five increases all uh under 12% and if for some people that was even a
little difficult to to uh absorb but a 30% increase and they want the the increase to start within 30 days 30 days is kind of tough for some people you know we could if they could break it up into increments you know so much each
year for a period of three years or change the percent or do something to to help u uh absorb that that increase into some of our famil family's budgets um would you be would you share what the current rate was and what it is now
current rate was uh for me uh 726 and it's going to uh 925 $200 a month so I'll say it like this this is the first time I've been made aware of this and thank you for your bravery to come
out fighting for seniors is something that's important to the committee um personally my mom ran the upper senior center for a number of years when I was a kid we spent a lot of time there i don't want to see seniors being taken advantageally i'm not sure what we can do and what the state has told but I'll
turn that to to our comment so we can if if you can provide your contact information to me when you leave i would like to see a little bit more of if possible what they're basing this on what exactly the breakdown looks like because there's little that we can do sometimes with a lot of the private cost
right there are some costs that are out of the control of the governing body but there may be something that we'd be able to help you out with uh but we'd have to really take a look at what the bill looks like what the breakdown is before we can speak further on it i know you're somewhat familiar to what I'm bringing some towns do have rent control absolutely yes we do
so we can take a look at that for you okay thank you for your time thank you i don't have anything prepared but I'm also from Osprey Cove i'm Mary Alice Calhoun and what Greg says is uh completely accurate but something that
nobody realizes that's they gave us a new lease uh however verbally they told us that if we were not happy with the way they were doing the landscaping we could do it ourselves now our original lease says they will do all the lawn care and we had excellent landscapers
now we have a bunch of kids that come around and do it so they want to give us less services and charge us 30% more um that's a big issue because I moved there because so somebody would do my landscaping i lived in Sea Alis i moved over there because I wanted glass and um
so that's that's one of the things that's really upsetting and they the fact that they didn't they only gave us 30 days and as you said no breakdown one of the residents just came out today and found out that the owner paid $74,000 in taxes on the property last year well if
you multiply 110 homes by the new amount $925 it comes to about almost $1.2 million uh okay he's got these kids to pay and he has to pay for the lights and the outdoor water we uh but it's not
$1.2 million so I really hope somebody can look into this and see i I my personal opinion is there's a bill in in um Trenton that's supposed to be put through but it hasn't it's been bounced back and forth i think he's trying to get this in before this in goes into
effect because he knows he's not going to be able to increase the rent substantially after that like it's going to be about 3% I believe is what the bill is does anybody know what I'm talking about yeah we've we've reviewed it but we haven't anything beyond that i'm sorry
so we've have been noticed we haven't Is there anything we as individuals can do to get this sped up i'd say in terms of the legislation out to your state level representatives we did test it he told us to be here tonight and he told you to come to us
well let me just go with this real fast if there's a bill pending in Trenton there's going to be very nothing that I mean aside from encouraging our representatives to take action on it as a municipality there's nothing that we can do to further that process along at this point so you have no suggestions for what we
can do to you've already done it continue to contact your assembly members and your state senator and ask them to push that's your best move is there's a bill in Trenton but I spoke to um the chief of staff at Ta's office yesterday and he said that it went to one or the other the house and then they
approved it and the assembly didn't so it's got to go back to the house and it's got to go back to the assembly i mean it's all BS to me but eventually uh Murphy's going to sign it we hope so he said that should happen by the end of June well that's not going to help us so uh we're looking for suggestions
you have any idea what we can do you're you're on our radar at this moment in time no but we will do whatever we can to try to help you start tomorrow morning okay i'll uh I own a bunch of mobile home parks um I
own them in Atlanta County where rent view and rent controls in effect there in middle in Middle Township egg Harbor Township okay um that's probably something that would be the remedy in the future obviously that can't help you right now right um I
think the township here really hasn't had to deal with kind of an outofc control owner of of a $55 community or HOA community like that or a land rent charging community so like I said I I'd like to get your
information see if I can talk to you well if you'd like to come to supposedly the the owner of the property is going to have a meeting for the residents nancy when did you say it was may 12th at 1:00 um and we need all the help we can get
okay yeah absolutely thank you thank you maria Buzz six Gardener Lane good evening committeemen i live in the area of the mercury wellwater debacle of last year my water was tested again last week
for mercury by the DP to verify that the results are truly negative which we're pretty hopeful they'll be negative an incidental finding of all this testing is an elevated level of POS at my home and several of my neighbors so after the
mercury investigation is wrapped up the DP will begin another unknown source investigation dealing with PAS as you can imagine it's frustrating knowing the water man on route 9 is literally feet
away and simply too expensive to connect via New Jersey American water at an estimated cost of $200 per foot the township and Beasley's Point Development Group have grandiose plans which I'm sure will include city water
we feel like we're living in the 1800s still relying on wellwater my treatment system now includes a salt tank a neutralizer an iron exchange tank an iron blaster tank and a peroxide pump to get rid of iron reducing bacteria now I'm going to have to add an activated
carbon tank for the POS other neighbors also have UV lights for E.coli coli or reverse osmosis systems as a resident here it should be a given that portable water be available my ask is that the township explore any grants to subsidize
the costs of connecting the few streets around Gardener's Lane including Bayair Lake Horson Red Wish and Diane that don't have municipal water for some reason another resource is the New Jersey Infrastructure Bank whose sole
purpose is to provide low interest rates loans to qualified municipalities for the purpose of financing water quality infrastructure projects to ensure the safety of drinking water many of my neighbors would gladly pay a fee for the opportunity to hook up to municipal
water and be done with all this wellwater nonsense so please help us out and look into options to extend the water main it sounds like there's a lot of grants that were given for various things obviously there's good grant
writers here so that's my ask thanks for listening thank you thank you okay anybody else i forgot we hi my name is Kathleen Hower and I live in Memorial i live in a place similar to
these folks over here i live in Pine Hill Mobile Court and we were told that there was two bills that were passed by someone in Upper Township and it was supposed to go before the governor and those bills are
A3361 and S2953 is anybody aware of those bills so those are A is the assembly and S is the state senate so they're not bills that get passed by a local municipality who's the one that passes those that would be our state legislature okay well we were told
that they were passed by the legislature and that they were supposed to go before the governor to be signed and when I they were told we were told to call the governor's office which a lot of us have done and um when we call we get a
secretary and we you know tell them what we're calling for and they said "Okay we'll let the the governor know." And and it it doesn't sound like any of you up there are aware of this can you give me those bill numbers again sure it's a
3361 and S2953 okay now someone uh told me today that they called Senator Costa and he said that both of those bills have to be combined into one bill
and that it has to be passed through the Senate and the House in New Jersey and once that's passed then the governor hopefully can sign it is that correct that's how the legislative process would work and depending on what those bills state and I have no idea just based on a
number what they are but there may be a mandate that comes down to local municipalities based on that the language of the bill but can't really say here without knowing more but it's all about capping the the ground rent because we're in the same situation unfortunately we didn't get raised as
high as Osprey Cove um they only raised us to 3% but who's to say that they're not going to come January turn around and and do the same thing that they did to us and we don't even have the same amenities that they do i mean you guys
are sort of lucky you have a nice pool and clubhouse we don't have anything sometimes our trash doesn't even get picked up so and it's not as taken care of as Osprey Cove but regardless it shouldn't
be raised 33% like that for them or anybody else for that matter so I I'll take a look at the the two other legislation i'll I'll advise the committee members and then we can take any action i'll let them know great thank you so much sure all right have a good night
hi Susan Stidle Osprey Cove one note to all of this every year we get a new land lease agreement the beginning group had a cap in theirs 4% but as the renewals go through they change them at will so
whether it's state level cap or town level cap it would be important to have that because they're changing whatever they want to change at any moment in time where we have no control we have to sign or get out that's our two options
you sign it or see it it's been fun i'm kind of looking at can I pick up my house and move it since I own it you know so but to think about it if the state doesn't go through the township really needs to look at this and make a
point to address the needs of the seniors that moved here like we moved down from North Jersey i think we're the only ones from North Jersey but we love it here we don't want to move but this is really causing stress every night thinking I have to come up with more
money but what are they going to do to the lease agreements in the future they already wrote 4% cap no we'll just throw that away and start new so whether it's state or whether it's here it's important
thank you thank you hi um Caroline Kim live on one bay air or I live at one bay air on bay air I I would like to just emphasize the water situation does need to be taken there are grants and funding out there to to
pursue that and instead of just getting this head nodding I mean this has been um quite a ride this year from the mercury discovery to that is uh u deliberately contaminated to uh now
it's a PAS issue um it would be really wonderful if we could get in and so just coming to these meetings some sort of um more than head nodding just to be able to know that we're going to get some work towards that so that it's like
third world in our neighborhoods we are our septic systems are grandfathered in but they're right on top that they're really just many of them are seepage pits and then you have wellwater so um it would be very comforting as you talk about plans for other developments to
ensure that the neighborhoods and people that are already here have access to public water clean so is there anyone I can follow up with to work with or that you or you can think about it and get back in touch with us because now D is
doing a whole another round of investigations um POS is generally associated with agricultural farming and now we have an agricultural farm i'm not pointing fingers but it's a small neighborhood
it's a tight area and it was never it used to just be farmland so it's it's a serious issue that really needs to be looked at and maybe some of these to flip um this is your affordable housing over here if you have problems developing does the state require you so
many buildings of affordable housing in different areas you've got people that can't afford to live in the housings that they're in now might be an idea i don't know i just heard about Thank you an employee that wants to go to class
yeah all right we're going to close the public portion um Mr birdie has one additional item that we have to consider uh Chief Britain had asked if one of his uh EMTs
uh full-time EMTs could uh attend a uh emergency medical dispatcher class for a cost of $400 uh from May 12th to the 15th um so uh it would be a recommendation that we uh allow the
employee to go to the to the class motion to approve second Mr casaceio yes mr nappen mr san Palumbo yes sir zach Palumbo yes motion carried thank you take a break it's under
all right i hereby may move that a resolution be incorporated into the minutes authorizing the township committee to enter into executive session for the following matters pursuant to open public meetings act matters are as followed one personnel two contract negotiation Delta Dental
three contract negotiation state health benefits four contract negotiation engineering services five contract negotiation 2028 Tahoe Road cell tower six contract negotiation municipal court services seven litigation Township of
Upper versus 315 Washington Avenue LLC eight litigation Demarzo versus Township of Upper i also include my motion the estimated time and circumstances under which the discussion conducted in close session can be disclosed as the public
is followed a it is anticipated that these matters discussed in close session may be disclosed to the public upon deter det termination of township committee that the public interest will no longer be served by such confidentiality be with respect to employment and personnel matters such
discussions will be made public if and when formal action is taken or when individuals involved consent that it can be made public c with respect to contract negotiations such as matters will be made public when negotiations
have ceased and there are no longer reason for confidentiality and D with respect to the litigation matters such discussions will be made public when litigation is complete and the applicable appeal period has expired
motion that's my motion Mr cassaceio Mr nap Mr mr sam Palumbo yes mr zack Palumbo yes motion carry