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Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=dx6cwI-yeRM

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Please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance. >> 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.

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>> Roll call. Mrs. Fuscellaro. >> Here. >> Mr. Franco. >> I'm here. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> I am here. >> Compliance with the Open Public Meetings Act, Chapter 231, Public Law 1975, and there's requirements have been satisfied as to the time, place, and date of holding

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said meeting by posting notice on the bulletin board here in Borough Hall, and by mailing and emailing same to the Herald of Cape May County and the Press of Atlantic City on September 24th, 2025. In the event of an emergency, your emergency exit is the door you came in,

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our front left, your back right, just by uh Sergeant Webb. Sergeant Webb, give us a give us a wave. Good morning. And the door just behind our CFO, underneath the exit sign. Um couple quick announcements before we move on to the agenda. We're doing a quick sound check. Mr. Kenefick, how are

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we sounding? Brian, welcome to the Borough of Avalon Crest. Nice to see you. This meeting is being streamed live on the Borough's YouTube channel and the Facebook page. In the event you want to make a public comment, there is a dial-in conference line

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to be used by the public. That number is 888 363 4734, and when prompted, you're going to enter the access code 96990 20 followed by the pound or the hashtag. If you are uh happen to watch the

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recorded version of this meeting and you want to like to a question, you're more than welcome to email our clerk at clerk@wildwoodcrest.org or you may phone her at 609-729-8040. And when uh if you're watching this meeting live and you and you're asking

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questions on the on the on the comment page, um just know that that's not being monitored. That's the only way to make a public comment or ask a question is by dialing in. Madam Clerk, I believe we covered all that, so I believe we have two ordinances on for introduction.

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>> That's correct. The first is ordinance 1495 and it reads as follows: An ordinance of the Borough of Wildwood Crest amending and supplementing section 79-32.3, schedule IC, restricted parking zones for persons with disabilities of the

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Code of the Borough of Wildwood Crest. >> Motion that ordinance number 1495 be passed on first reading, advertised according to law, be brought up for second and final reading and public hearing on August 19th, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. >> I second the motion. >> It's been moved and seconded that

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ordinance number 1495 be passed on first reading, advertised according to law, be brought up for second and final reading and public hearing on August 19th, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. >> Roll call. Mrs. Fasselero. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes.

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>> Next we have ordinance 1496 and it reads as follows: An ordinance amending chapter 53, police department, section 53-4, composition of the Code of the Borough of Wildwood Crest. >> Motion that ordinance number 1496 be

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passed on first reading, advertised according to law, be brought up for second and final reading and public hearing on August 19th, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. >> I second the motion. >> It's been moved and seconded that ordinance number 1496 be passed on first reading, advertised

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according to law, be brought up for second and final reading and public hearing on August 19th, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. >> Roll call. Mrs. Fassler. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Next we have [clears throat] the resolutions. The first is authorizing

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cancellation and refund of taxes for a totally disabled veteran. >> I make the motion. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded that the foregoing resolution be adopted. Roll call. Mrs. Fassler. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Next is authorizing the appointment of

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members to the Wildwood Crest Youth Advisory Council. >> I make the motion. >> I will second. >> It has been moved and seconded that the foregoing resolution be adopted. Roll call. Mrs. Fassler. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> [clears throat] >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Next is authorizing waving all fees

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required by application to T.J. Hunt Memorial Foundation 5K 1-mile foot race on November 26th, 2026 from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. >> I make the motion. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded that the foregoing resolution be adopted. Roll

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call. Mrs. Fassler. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Next is authorizing advertisement of a notice to bidders for fiscal year 2025 NJDOT reconstruction of Stockton Road. >> I make the motion. >> I will second. >> It has been moved and seconded that the

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foregoing resolution be adopted. Roll call. Mrs. Fassler. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Next is authorizing a service agreement with Husk Plus for healthy food station for employees at the not to exceed sum of 1125 and authorizing the mayor to

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sign the agreement and utilizing wellness incentive funds for payment. >> I make the motion. >> I will second. >> It has been moved and seconded that the foregoing resolution be adopted. Roll call. [clears throat] Mrs. Fassler. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Next is accepting the Drive Sober or Get

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Pulled Over grant from the New Jersey Division of Highway Traffic Safety from August 14th to September 7th, 2026 in the amount of $2,800, and authorizing the Chief Financial Officer to pay the flat rate per hour to law enforcement. I

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make the motion. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded that the foregoing resolution be adopted. Roll call. Mrs. Fassler Aro. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Lastly is authorizing amendment to the 2026 municipal budget to account for additional funds from the New Jersey

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Division of Highway Traffic Safety for the 2026 Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over Statewide Labor Day Grant Crackdown Grant. >> I make the motion. >> I will second. >> It has been moved and seconded that the foregoing resolution be adopted. Roll call. Mrs. Fassler Aro. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco.

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>> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera. >> Yes. >> Motion that all bills properly authorized as submitted be paid. >> I second the second the motion. >> It has been moved and seconded that all bills properly authorized as submitted be paid. Roll call. Mrs. Fassler Aro. >> Yes. >> Mr. Franco. >> Yes. >> Mr. Cabrera.

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>> Yes. >> Mr. Clerk. >> Mr. Clerk. >> All right. Uh nothing listed under correspondence. I'm just going to read an excerpt from uh for the public uh Open Public Meetings Act uh before we start our public comment section. The Open Public Meetings Act requires that a portion of every meeting

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of a municipal governing body be set aside for public comment on any issue that a member of the public feels may be of concern to the residents of the municipality. To ensure an orderly and efficient meeting and to provide everyone an opportunity to be heard, here are the guidelines. When recognized, please come to the

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lectern at the microphone and clearly state your name for the record. All comments and questions should be addressed to the governing body as a whole and not to individual members of staff. Each speaker will be limited to 5 minutes. Speakers may only speak once during this portion. Time cannot be

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allotted to another speaker. Decorum. Speakers and members of the public are expected to maintain proper decorum and shall civilly make their comments. Personal attacks, obscenity, derogatory or slanderous remarks, and disruptive behavior will not be tolerated. Please

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do not mention any employees or professionals by name. The governing body is not required to respond to the questions during the public comment period, but may choose to do so at the end of the session or refer inquiries to appropriate staff for follow-up at a later date. Comments should relate to any

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governmental issue affecting the municipality. If you're participating remotely, you'll be acknowledged by me and must state your name before making any comments. The chair reserves the right to interrupt or terminate a speaker's privilege if decorum is violated or if comments become disruptive or exceed the

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time limit. I thank you all in advance for your cooperation in ensuring a respectful and productive dialogue. I now open the floor for public comment and we will start with anybody here in the audience. >> Good morning. My name is John Carl Shaw, and I just have a an issue that I think is a safety issue that I'm not sure

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anybody knows about. I live over by Sun's up on New Jersey and and East Palm. It's a one-way going towards the beach. The problem that I've noticed is when you're going if you walk towards Sun's up and you're on New Jersey, you

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can't see the traffic light that's this way on New Jersey going south, and you can't see the traffic light that's going north on New Jersey. So, you can't see the lights. The problem is the the um the light that shows the hand and when you can walk,

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never changes from red. The other one shows you have 7 seconds, 6 seconds, 5 seconds. So, here you want to go to Sun's up, you can't see what color the light is, and the hand is always red. So, there's people that stand there.

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It's just a safety issue, I think, and I don't know if it's good for the town to have that. I think somebody needs to check it to make sure. So, at least if they can't see the lights, they know how much time they have, cuz they don't even know when the light turns red or green. And the red hand is always there, so you

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never know when you're able to cross to go across New Jersey. >> Okay. >> So, I just think that somebody needs to And the other thing is there's a lot of people going the wrong way down that one-way street because Sun's Up has the parking lot which is on >> Yeah. On the south side >> uh uh East Palm or on Palm. So, what

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happens is they're all turning in there. They realize that the parking lot's full and then they go straight down. >> Okay. >> So, that's another issue. I think maybe the signs may The one-way signs may have to be lowered a little >> Okay. >> cuz they're not at eye level. >> Okay. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you for bringing it to our

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attention and uh team public safety commissioner Franco >> Is it Would that be a uh the county since county road or no? >> Chief, I don't know if they're you could answer that or not. Would that be county issue? >> does all the work on the lights, but that's an obvious malfunction, so I'll address that immediately and make sure

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that we get that fixed. >> Got it. Thank you. >> All right. Thanks for bringing that to our attention. All right. Anybody else here in the audience? Public comments. Mr. Messer? Amy? Nothing? All right. Anybody on the conference line have any public comment?

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Conference line public comments? Hearing none, we'll go to the discussion items. There'll be another round of public comments shortly. Uh nothing listed under new business. Uh under old business, uh historical museum, no action. That's a budgetary 2027 item.

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Back Beach excavation is directly tied to the Army Corps, which I'll give a quick summary on that here shortly. Judging, Commissioner? >> No, sir. >> Anything on that? Washington CDO Beach fallen outfalls in capacity, so it that's tied to uh two FEMA grants. Uh

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we're moving closer to one FEMA grant, although not official yet, but um we we expect to hear good news on the uh on the one on the west side of uh of of the borough uh specifically on to the

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in the triangle area from Cressy to Aster in that area. >> But Mayor, can that I discussed this with Francine. Is that pump station is pump station you're talking about, correct? >> It's it's actually it's uh pump station.

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It is raising the bulkheads that weren't raised in this most recent project. Potentially raising the street. >> Right. >> Uh as well. >> My question I guess was for Mark. I didn't know he was wasn't going to be here today. Could that pump station be moved

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towards the ocean? >> I >> Since we're doing all this work for >> So >> raising the bulkheads and I've noticed a substantial amount of well, reduction of of flooding on the bay. And it seems to have a lot more flooding

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towards the ocean, Pacific Ave, Seaview Ave. >> So So the uh so the pump station that was one for this particular project is a much smaller one. The one the the pump station if we go to the easter side easterly side of the borough. So in other words, similar to what Wildwood did where we tied in all our outfall

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lines into one big pump station. That is a that's a major project. That also means a lot of streets get to get tore up because the the piping from Seaview to the beach to the one pump station would all have to be changed in the street to give you give you increased um

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capacity in the lines that to to the all of them can drain to one. So that was that was a if I remember from Mark it was like it was like a 10 to 15 million dollar project. This one is is like a little under 4 million. Majority of this one would be covered by the grant. So but then >> That that was my question. Could the

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grant does the grant it specifies bayside. Can it be shifted to the ocean? That was my question to Francine. I don't know if that was if that's allowed or not. >> The answer to that is no because they cuz they're approving it based on what the actual project is, but the second grant that's out there in the queue

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>> Got it. >> it could be used for the what for the one on the east side. >> Okay. >> That's the That's the one we're we're waiting to hear back on that one as well. But, that's a that's a that's a a much bigger ticket item. big one. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> All right. Um

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Army Corps NJDEP, so I participated along with uh uh Francine and Trish on a on a uh um a Teams meeting call with representatives from the Army Corps and the NJDEP. Um so the GRR is which is what they're

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calling this this uh revised plan from the original plan. And if you go back and refresh everyone's memory, the original plan didn't work for the borough for many reasons. I won't get into that, but the second plan that they're discussing now looks uh a lot better than the original did. So,

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kind just to kind of give everybody an overview, I think we have some common ground on not taking uh as much sand as they originally intended to. In fact, it'll be enough to uh expose our beach outfall lines to have uh better um

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uh better, you know, drainage from when we do get the the the the the floods. Cuz everything on I think everything east of everything east of Seaview Avenue goes towards goes towards the beach. Um so that's that's actually good news. They do still intend to The walkways

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that go down into to our dunes um to elevate those ramps and actually gradually take you down and turn you south to enter onto the bathing beach. So, uh so the the the the dunes So, part of the sand they're going to take would be to fill in those gaps, if you will.

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So, we would have one contiguous dune, but it would not be to the point where folks would have to travel downward and then turn around and and climb up over a huge a huge dune. It would be much more gradual because they they reduced the size of the dune to

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from 16 ft down to 12 ft, which is actually lower than some of our dunes that we already have on the beach, which is actually good news. Um >> Mayor, do they do they have a rendering of that cuz I I I'm a visual learner. >> so we asked them for we did ask them for an overlay on the original plan. Um they

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have a a rendering that is coming, so I did ask them that when we do get that, we will meet uh and go over all the details. I know it's hard to kind of visualize, but that's kind of where it's at right now. Nothing set in stone until we get that there's additional plans uh with our requests, and I think uh at the

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end of the day, um from where the project was originally to where it is now, I think it's it's it's it's completely in a different direction. Um so we'll we'll wait to see though. Anything could happen though, but I I wouldn't I wouldn't count anything out this point or count anything in.

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Um but also part of that is that I touched on the uh the back beach excavation, so a part of that project they do still intend to grade the back part of our beaches south of Rambler. So, if you're familiar with our beach, Rambler Road, there's dunes, uh there's a back beach area that

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uh public works rakes, but sometimes, you know, you get those storms and the water sends the pond because the elevation is lower, so they're going to they're intending to to to uh raise that as part of this uh project as well. Um there's a follow-up meeting with the NJDEP next week. Um I

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did ask them because the Army Corps is intending to expose our alpha lines, is it possible that they would consider uh extending our alpha lines as part of this project. The NJDEP has agreed to a meeting with us to to to talk about that uh in more depth.

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All right, any questions on that? I know that's a lot that's a lot. All right. Uh Borough Hall renovations, I guess we're we're still waiting to get everybody together. It's been a busy summer, a lot of lot of uh lot of balls in the air, but we we will this this hopefully we sometime in the fall up post summer to uh get all the department

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heads back to the table and take that catalog version and get it to a more realistic plan I'll call it or at least a phase plan or something. All right. Um we'll go to last round of public comments. We'll again we'll start with anybody here in the audience. Any any

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public comments? Sergeant Webb, you have any public comments? Uh it's nice to see you here, Sergeant Webb. >> Yes, sir. >> All right. Um Anyone on the conference line? Public comments? All right, we'll go to commissioner comments before we head into close.

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>> I have two things. Um I just want to say thank you to everyone involved with National Night Out last night. It was a excellent turnout. There was a lot going on. It was You guys did a great job. It was awesome. Um and then on the other part is that I want to thank and congratulate the members of our new

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youth advisory council. They all received their letters um appointing them to the council. We approved them today. So, it was a nice group of kids and I'm really looking forward to meeting with them. >> Awesome. Do we get to initiate them? >> I'll leave that up to you, Elizabeth. Make [laughter] them Make them run

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around the the block or something. >> Uh for me it was just Trish, I don't know if we received an updated coastal title chart from Mark. I had one from 2018 that's outdated, obviously. So, if if I could get something that's more

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I I vaguely remember him putting something together maybe 2 years ago. I'd like to try and see track that down. That would give me a better idea of what we're dealing with back there. That's all I have right now. I'm fine. Thank you. >> And I'd like to reiterate same thing Commissioner Vassilara indicated, great

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job team public safety and the PD and all departments in public safety did a nice job. There was a lot of I saw a lot of the local residents and our vacationers there and our staff there. It was nice to see a great turnout. The weather was perfect on a on a on a nice community uh

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community event. Um I think a lot of people come for the free stuff and the and the free food, but it was I only ate hot dogs and sausage, but it's all good. All right. Um Anybody else? Last round? Commissioners, you good? >> I'm good. >> You good? All right. Uh Trish, you have a resolution for a closed session?

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>> Um we need a resolution of the Board of Commissioners [snorts] uh authorizing executive closed session in accordance with the provisions of the Open Public Meetings Act, specifically NJSA 10:4-12, to meet in potential negotiation on the property dispute with the gym. Can I get a motion? >> I'll make the motion.

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>> Second. >> All here? >> I.