Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

Adequate notice of this meeting of the Mayor and Council was sent to the Asbury Park Press and the Post Star, our official newspapers, and notice was posted on the Bulletin Board and the Barlow's website. Take roll call. Councilman Donovan? Here. Councilman McKinney? Here. Councilman de Blasio? Here. Councilman Maroney? Here. Mayor Bucklefusco?

Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance. for a moment of silence for our troops, their families, and our first responders. Thank you. Tonight we're gonna be doing a few things a little out of order. We have first thing on our agenda is resolution 2026-99, which is the, vote on that, and then we will administer the open votes.

Okay, would someone like to make a motion to adopt Resolution 202699? I'll make a motion. Second. Okay, Councilman Donovan? Yes. Councilwoman Kinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Bugafusco?

Yes.

Just a quick little bio on Joseph DeFeo. Joseph Joe, as they all call him, DeFeo, 29 years old, was raised in Brayel, New Jersey, and graduated from Madison High School in 2015. Inspired by his father, who retired from the New Jersey State Police as a lieutenant colonel in 2004, Joe decided to pursue his career in law enforcement. Joe began his career in law enforcement here in Belmar in 2016 as a class one police officer, and then continued on to Class II while he was attending Bloomberg University of Pennsylvania. 2018 is when he became a Class II here in Belmar. In August of 2020, Joe accepted a full-time position with the Spring Lake Heights Police Department, where he proudly served for the last six years. He was honored by the opportunity to continue his law enforcement career here in Belmar and remains committed to serving the communities, residents, and visitors with dedication and professionalism. Joe.

I, Joseph R. DeFeo, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to same, and to the governments established in the United States And to the governments established in the United States. And in the state. And in the state. Under the authority of the people. Under the authority of the people. And I will faithfully, impartially, and justly. And I will faithfully, impartially, and justly. Perform all the duties as patrolman. Perform all the duties as patrolman. For the Borough of Belmont Police Department. For the Borough of Belmont Police Department. To the best of my ability. To the best of my ability. To help me God. To help me God.

in the badge on, but since he's in a suit, I'm just gonna pant in the badge. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Let's go back down.

an update on 1200 mains. And we're going to have a short presentation by our LSRP, which previously was known as Persege Environmental. We have here, who's an engineer and an LSRP, and Chris is also an LSRP. I'm going to go over the materials and the things that they found in their investigation of the 1200 main site. And I will, if it's okay with the council, I'll grab a microphone so everyone can hear.

So good evening, everyone. I'm Chris Salonico. I'm an LSRP, and I am the side LSRP for the 1200 Main Street project with what is now Lavella Associates. But when we started this project, We merged with Lavella at the beginning of this month. And also with me here is Karish Mehta, who initially started Prestige and Brightwell.

Say what? 1993. Yeah, we started in 1993, and we just merged with .

So yeah, I've been doing this since the 1900s, as they say, with over 25 years experience. Garish has even more than that. So we're now part of Labella, which is a 2,200 employee company with over 40 offices, and we do a lot more than just environmental. We do civil engineering, architecture, landfills, and power management. But today we're here to talk about former Amco station, 1200 Main Street. It operated as a gasoline station since the 1940s. It was originally developed in about 1905. It was actually a church for a little while. But for the past 70 years, it's been a gas station of some sorts. For the environmental history, back in January of 1987, there was reports of gasoline-type odors So TEP came out and did some investigating and was able to determine that the owner of the gas station had not inspected or tested the underground storage tanks in the 35 years of operation there. So subsequently, they found out the tanks were leaking and they drained them, they rewired them and put them back in service. They also installed some wells in the ground into the groundwater and were able to, they found free-floating gasoline on top of the water table, and they started to pump out the gasoline and water as it accumulated. Then in 1990, when they were re-doing the watering along 12th Avenue, adjacent to the So it was kind of confirmed that this contamination migrated off the property. And then finally in 1991, they removed the OSTs from the site and they dug out a little bit of the contaminated material that they found when we bolt the tanks. Following that for the next 30 or so years, there's very limited work that was done on the property. DEP did come in and do some testing of the vapors inside the building at 1200 Main Street, which there were none. they also as a result of the work that they did they ended up placing two liens on the property then in 2022 the consultant gibson and stout were hired by the borough to do the pre-purchase investigation due to due diligence They did find some environmental concerns, and they also identified that there was soil and groundwater contamination. After that initial due diligence, the property was purchased on June 12, 2022. And with that, $300 was held from the purchase price and put to escrow. And that was based on an estimate that Gibson and Staddle determined at the time. Following that, that did some more soil and groundwater investigation, and they also excavated some of the contamination that they did find, but it also kind of determined that the escrow was insufficient. So yeah, Wilson-Staddle installed monitoring wells to try to delineate the groundwater contamination, but in the two years that they were investigating, they were not able to find the end of the contamination to find the extents. They also generated a lot of data, but none of that data was reported. There was no preliminary assessment or separate evaluation done, and no site investigation or annual investigation reports were prepared or submitted to the state. And then this figure here, you can see that were not contaminated than the red ones were contaminated. And this is the information we used to base their $300,000 escrow on them. Then in September of 2024, the dotted line on the corner around that whole section of the parking area was excavated. And again, blue dots are post-excavation samples that are cleaned. that there's still residual contamination on the sides. So following the excavation, they went out to try to delineate the soil and they collected additional samples in the street and on the eastern portion of the parking area there. And you can see that the contamination is migrating across 12th Avenue. And then this is an estimated plume of where the groundwater contamination is. Lots show where elevated contaminants examples if you find contamination you do a remedial investigation where you try to determine the extent of the contamination which leads you to your remedial action which is the cleanup of the contamination and then your final document certifying that the cleanup is complete is called a response action outcome or an RAO. So where we are in this system right now is in the remedial investigation to remedial action portion. Another element of the work is doing a receptor evaluation to identify potential receptors which are you know parks drinking water food for intrusion land use ecological stuff none of that has been completed up until recently so prestige starting in 2025 we prepared a preliminary assessment report and we identified five areas of concern. We also started the receptor evaluation, and based on that, there is a community supply well that supplies drinking water to Belmar and Three Acre Park right across the street. letters out to people within about 500 feet of the property to do a survey to determine if there's any unpermitted wells on young people's properties. So you might have received letters from me specifically. And then back in April, we also did some additional sampling in 12th Avenue to try to do any soil contamination. And then we expanded upon that. And again, we have blue samples kind of providing delineation on the east, south, and west. But we still do have that one soil sample that is at the far end of 12th Avenue that still needs delineation. So next steps, because we have groundwater contamination that's contaminated with gas form a vapor intrusion investigation at properties that might be influenced by this groundwater plume. within the roadway since most of the property was already cleaned up. Once the soil is cleaned up, then you have to monitor the groundwater. Once you take that source soil out, groundwater tends to naturally clean itself up through a process called monitored natural attenuation. And once we can confirm that we have decreasing concentrations in groundwater, we can then issue that final REO between five and eight feet below grade, so there's some clean soil on top of it. So we would come in, we'd scrape the road and sidewalks off. We would come in, stockpile that clean soil so that we don't have to pay the dispositive, find that sandwiched five to eight feet of contaminant soil, scrape that out, take that out, load it onto tractor trailers or onto trucks and dump trucks, and they'll load it off. But because the water table is very shallow here, you'll tend to get running sand and it might start collapsing in your excavation a little bit. So we use what are called trench boxes and kind of hold up the sides and allow us to dig through that. We'll also dewater by pumping the water and storing it into something like that, which is a frack tank. And there are some utility lines that are running through the excavation. who want to be supported during the whole process. And in the end, everything will be restored to where it was, So a section of 12th Avenue just off of Main Street at the corner there will likely need to be closed. that keeps changing and keeps being re-evaluated. And we also did some soil remedial investigation. Most of those costs were covered by money that was remaining in escrow from the sale of the property. But a large portion of this final $760,000 and then once this property is remediated you know likely it will increase the property value and depending on what the borrower chooses to do with it they

Thanks, Chris. I appreciate you coming back and filling us in again. One of the things I wanted to ask last time, and I forgot to, was where the image of where the clean well is and the one well is still on the north side.

Yeah, I'll get there. Yeah, that. This one?

No, go back.

That one.

Yeah.

So that north side well, what is, how much further do you keep going to monitor into that property?

Like do you go a foot, three feet, five feet, or how far, how often, how, yeah, when do you find out?

Yes, so that's soil. This is soil results, so we would still continue to step out, we would probably do it in like five foot increments, collect another sample to try to find it.

out in 2025 seems like from 2022 to 2025 um is that where some of this has spread that the groundwater grab that moved across the street it doesn't seem like there it seemed like there were clean wells in the initial report we don't have that reported properly um is it is that assumption that we can all make or not um the amount that would have moved in those two years

That's when it started to travel, but of course, it would have traveled some over those two years.

There are two aspects of this. This is 80 years of documented contaminated site. The other thing that kicked in in February of 2025, Now, you know, they pose a challenge for us. Two things. We've been looking at about 100 years of history that we found. 80 years of Hayamako service station with documented contamination. There was a church before that, so we don't have to think about it, what happened before Hayamako. That's what we are dealing with right now. They are here to offer a solution, which is to remove the soil, which is the source of groundwater contamination. The simple analogy or example I can give you is like when you brew your pottery and you pour water through it, what you get in your mug is like this is how the contaminated groundwater works. When you throw away your coffee and you pour water, it's going to be clean. That's the idea here. I'm an engineer. We have designed this system to solve the problem. It's a little bit tedious because of the groundwater situation. We have to use the trench box. Then we have to leave water and then go in section by section.

Thank you. I have two questions. The first two, because I'm not quite sure from what was asked and what was answered. In 2022, were samples ever taken beyond the perimeter of the property line?

Samples were not collected during leave.

This is the pre-purchase sample locations.

And then this is post-purchase.

So we don't know for sure if it was spreading so much as we don't know the full extent to which it went out.

Right, there was that 1990 utility, the watering that shows that it had extended by that point into 12th Avenue.

And my other question I hope is a little more straightforward. Can you give me any type of timeline, however broad, for as soon as this property would be usable?

The property can be used very shortly because most of the issues on the property have been resolved. What we are dealing with mainly is the groundwater contamination, which has spread in almost eight years. And as you can see in the figure, the groundwater flow is towards the north. so the contamination started on the property with leaking tanks and everything else and then it slowly slowly spread started going offside to the north and that is confirmed by the soil stand soil results also as you can see the red dots increase in numbers and also in concentration as we go offside So, that's the situation we're living in.

So, to be clear, the actual property itself right now is relatively clean?

The property can be, the property can be, it can be made use of, like, you know, you might want to demo the buildings or start using it for some purpose. but under the state regulations, we have to address the contamination, groundwater contamination, and we think that without removing the soil, your groundwater levels will not drop. And we also have to address some of the issues on some of the properties on the other side of the .

Oh yeah, if you see on this figure here, that is still remaining. So yeah, once the soil contamination is removed, then the site is fairly usable. You'll still need access or monitoring wells to continue monitoring the groundwater. But the destructive nature of the remediation would be complete. It's just monitoring from that point of view.

Question on this, where B1 and B2, would that area be excavated? ground be removed from that portion of the property? Yes. Just like it would be in the street?

Correct.

What about B7 all the way by Main Street?

That one will need to be addressed somehow.

or inside the building itself. So I think at some point, this building's gonna be demolished and property will be used that way. What are the chances of finding more contamination under the building itself?

Our assessment did not indicate any major issues inside the building. I think it's a solid building with concrete slabs and everything else. And we have evaluated areas of concern inside the building, so we are not too worried about that.

Yeah, there doesn't seem to be, you know, there were samples collected inside the building previously and there wasn't, you know, no real contamination of .

And just to clarify, when you say inside the building, do you mean like getting to the soil underneath the building or you mean like the slab itself? Below the slab.

So are we permitted While the cleanup is ongoing to develop this site or sell it or do something like that, as long as we've got a plan moving forward for the contamination that reached into 12th Avenue and beyond.

Yeah, there's no real regulation saying what you can and can't do with the contaminated property in terms of development, but it's easier to complete the remediation when there's limited to no structures. So you can continue, you can market it, you can do whatever you want concurrently with our work.

Regarding the cost of construction, I'm assuming the borough will be able to see a full breakdown on the bids for each one. And are we able to choose certain areas that we can bid out or do work with our DPW, road work, anything like that?

Yeah, we looked at those possibilities, but is the regulation like the OSHA, anyone working on this site has to be like 40 hour trained for hazmat, things like that. This is also a specialized kind of trade. We have contractors who specialize in this type of work. Number one, you're working in shallow ground work, and go in section by section. So we can actually look at that. It's not just what I'm trying to get at. It's not just simple machine and excavation and loading the soils. We'll have to be discreetly off, like first five feet, we have to scrape off stockpile and all that. So as long as the people are 40-hour trained and also they have a refresher and has

that we would have the opportunity to review that and that you're getting competitive bids or we're bidding out certain sections through the borough itself. That was my only question. Yeah, that's not a problem.

Okay, why don't we open it up to the public. Does anyone have any questions?

Bob Lynch, 316 9th Avenue. First, you called it a three-acre park to park across the street. It's not a three-acre park. It's Memorial Field. Three-acre park. About the cost, you said $760,000. Now, I'm assuming that was for mostly disposal of the materials, cleaning the material up. Now, there's going to be road work, repaving sidewalks. So all the repairs, the 12th Avenue and the sidewalks all surrounding it. Right.

So for budgetary purposes, we include everything. And then once we get on the job, we try to scale back. Like if we have an estimate of three to four weeks, if we can do it faster, you know, from supervision to cooperation. Again, the roadwork can be sidewalk, roadwork, curbs.

And the $760,000, the $300,000 in escrow isn't applied to that, is it?

The $300,000 is gone, or mostly gone. Used by the prior LSRP to do the additional work after the property was purchased.

So it's $760,000 plus the $300,000 is what the investment is, right? In cleaning.

Yeah, the $760,000 is starting now to completion. That's our budget.

Is there anybody to go after Amoco?

That's a legal question. They're not attorneys, so I'm sure they're not going to answer it.

And you were talking about the tanks. I think you said the tanks at one time were relined. That's right. But also, were they completely, were they removed? The tanks were removed, too?

Tanks were removed after many, many years, but initially, you know, when they found the floating gasoline in the monitoring well, that was an indication that the tanks were leaking. So what they basically did was they lined the tanks to continue operation of the Amoco gas stations. conducting the investigation and taking out the tanks or removing soil contamination.

And then once the tanks are empty and removed, there's no more source of contamination, but the contamination that's there is just going to be mold and move with the... Yeah, that's the theory, but again, we don't know.

Before they repaired the tanks, we don't know for how many years the tanks were leaking. Early in the first thing. The way I remember is like a timeline. Reagan was the president at that time, if you go back to those many years. So it is long-term. We believe that the tanks were leaking for quite a number of years, and the problem is still there. And as you can see from our investigation, as the soil samples moved outward towards and also the groundwater samples, contamination is more on the street than on the property. So that's how it goes because the contamination follows the groundwater flow direction.

And you're saying the groundwater is only maybe five feet below the surface? So the contamination is going to stay in that ground level or water level, right?

Yeah, and also I think with the fluctuation in groundwater, you have the smearing effect in the soil. So that's also appearing. Thank you so much. Anyone else? I have a question. Has anyone received one of our letters for asking you for any monitoring wells or any wells on your property?

I have. Okay.

If I'm understanding this correctly, when the property was purchased, some study was done

But did we have all that information documented? I know we put $300,000 into the escrow on that. Did we have all this information prior to that? Do we know if we had all that information prior to it?

How bad it was, and it was spreading for years and years and years? Well, we had to ask the previous consultant to give us all the documents. And that's how, and we also generally check with the, the website but there was nothing there so we contacted the consultant and requested documents from him and we got those documents we reviewed everything and that's that's how we were able to put this presentation together so we did a lot of stuff before we bought it and i was even at the groundbreaking

They didn't actually break the ground because of the contamination.

I think my understanding is that the previous LSRP didn't even test underneath the street, right? He just basically tested the property or didn't come up with a clean line, something like that, right?

That's kind of what his challenge is.

I think it's a puzzle for us, but if we go back to the initial investigation that he did, as you can see, The red dots are very limited. And I believe that, I think he might have thought that if I dig up some soil in this area, it will all work out. I'm only speculating, but as a, you know, a person with 35 years of experience in this business, that's the thought process. That, you know, roll the dice and maybe everything will be fine. And if you see the next slide, this is what we did. We got the soil and everything else, but you can see some red dots along the sidewalk on 12th Avenue. And then after all this excavation and everything, as you can see now, there are surprises coming up. I think that the correct procedure is that you go to a site and you look for what we call the areas of concern. You know, you find a tank, you find something else. And then you say, well, so let's say, for example, we said there are 10 areas of concern. Then we decide maybe five do not, we don't need to do anything with the five. Let's investigate five. So we take samples, we do whatever we need to do, Out of five, we say, well, we're done with three. Now only two requires more work and all that. And you dig up those areas and do whatever you want to do. That's how we solve the problem. It's just step by step. You don't start digging site and start digging the soil out. We have to know what the extent of contamination is and then go in and do the work. That's how it works.

Thank you very much. Excellent presentation. I wish you were here in 2022.

Thank you so much. We have our cards. If anyone has any questions afterwards, feel free to contact us. We can answer all your questions, any issues that come to your mind. Any other comments, questions?

Anyone else have contaminated property that they need to investigate? Hi, Suzanne .

I was just wondering at the time I was listening back, and I just want to make sure I get this correct, that in 2022, when we purchase this property, how much did the town purchase this property for?

I'm talking off the top of my head. I think it was 1.2 million.

Okay. I mean, we know the property value in Belmar is extremely high, keeps growing. So in 2022 was $300,000 that was set aside in the escrow for the cleanup. If that was done at that time, when we purchased this, would that have been enough?

I don't think it would have been enough, but you would have achieved a lot more work because the work, proper work would have been done before the new regulations kicked in.

And the new regulations of the state did not kick in. What would our situation be now? I know it's, you know, hindsight that we're looking at this, but I mean, has this happened because three years now have passed, the state regulations changed, and now all of a sudden, we have to do extra work on this to clean it up. Now, I'm a resident. I'm looking at this as this could have been a useful site for so many different things that we need for our own town, for EMS, for fire, for lifeguards to have aid. an area, do you feel like this area, after $760,000, after a million dollar purchase, it doesn't seem like that much money, a million one, correct? So do you feel like how long, let me ask you this, how long do you think it would take to clean this property? How long would we be able to utilize this property? And I feel like, listening to all this, that this property still has value. I mean, I grew up in Sarahville. I mean, if anybody knows Sarahville, there are so many contaminated areas. I mean, even now when you pass the Driscoll Bridge, you see the Bass River being, all these areas could be remediated. And I just feel like, unfortunately, time wasn't on our side to set. It leaked. There's a school right across the street. And it's a huge concern. But is this salvageable?

Any property is salvageable. That's why we come in. We come in and solve the problem and make proper use of the property. I personally, as a licensed engineer and environmental professional, I'm involved in many deals in Jersey City, Hoboken, which has been on many sites. Those properties are highly contaminated. And somebody comes in and hires us. We solve the problem. We take care of issues. I like this location, it's nice. It can be good to good use and fortunately there's not much left to be done on the site in terms of disturbance and excavation and everything is limited. We have to deal with the street, take care of those issues and I think we'll be done.

That's great to hear, thank you.

The question I have for you, sir, is in the past, I don't know if they'll do it this year, but because hurricane season's coming, they'll test the pumps on Silver Lake and lower the level of the lake while they do it. Is it wise to not mess with the level of the lake until remediation's all done? Because in the 30s, Silver Lake extended a few blocks towards that area. Would it be wise to not do that until remediation's done?

Well, the remediation is first. Soil is first, without removing the source. Unless you throw the coffee from your filter, you're still going to get coffee in your mug.

I understand. That's how it works. Do you think the lake has something to do with the groundwater in that area? I don't think there's an influence. No, there's no influence there. This is shallow groundwater we are dealing with.

Thank you. Mr. Cain or directly to the gentleman right here. Thank you again.

Do you want to put it up here? Yeah, that's a good idea. I think it's okay. You can keep it. April can keep it. But the public can't really see it.

April can keep it so people can come and look at it. So I am here just to talk briefly about the NJDP. Can you wait one moment?

We're going to sit down.

I don't mean to interrupt. Does somebody have a white Ford truck? The alarm's going off. It's parked out here on the side.

All right, so I'm here just to give a brief update on the NJDEP, NJPAC REAL rules, which stand for New Jersey Protecting Against Climate Threats, Resilient Environments, and Landscape Rules. So these rules were kind of in the works for a number of years, but on January 20th of this year, they were, signed into effect, they were adopted, but there has been a 180-day grandfathering clause, so they'll really go into effect on July 20th of this year. These rules, what I'm talking about tonight, there were a number of different aspects of them, but they expand the coastal flood hazard regulated areas throughout the state of New Jersey. These new areas, which is known as the CAFE or CAFE, it's the Climate Adjusted Flood Elevation, and it takes into consideration future flood levels based on climate change projections for 2100. So it greatly expands the area that's regulated within the flood plain. And it also requires an additional four feet over the base flood elevation, whether it be the preliminary or more effective, whatever's more restrictive. throughout that regulated flood hazard area. So there has been some kind of back and forth over this. It was not enacted by the state legislature, but through executive action. In 2020, Governor Murphy signed an executive order in which DEP was to incorporate the impacts of climate change into the rules governing coastal zone management, flooding, stormwater management, and other state regulations. So that's where these rules came from. Originally, the elevation was an additional five feet. That was reduced to four feet in July 2025. But because these rules were just signed by executive action and not introduced through the legislature process, there's currently Cape May, Ocean, and Monmouth County have a lawsuit against these rules because they feel they're unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious. The New Jersey Builders Association and the New Jersey Business and Industry Association also have a lawsuit against these rules. There has been a resolution introduced in, I believe, both the Senate and legislature that determines the DEP's rules are inconsistent with legislative intent and that NJDEP overstep their authority. But I do not have any updates on any of those legal actions, so as of right now, today, on July 20th, these rules will be fully in effect. Other parts of the RealPAC rules, they previously updated some of the storm water requirements, but these flood hazard areas are really the big ones. So this map that I have up here illustrates the new regulatory area. Everything that's kind of in hash mark is what is currently in the 100-year special flood hazard area. And then the yellow is the expanded TAF regulated area. So you'll see it dramatically increases the area regulated within Belmar. There has been, in addition to the lawsuits I just mentioned, there has been a lot of concerns, I think, over the increased cost of rebuilding or housing. Basically anything within this area would be impacted with a substantial improvement. They would be required to, you know, raised to that additional four feet. So that is, for example, if you're currently in a special flood hazard area with a base flood elevation of 10, that means with the one foot of free board required, your design flood elevation is 11. This would add another four feet onto that. So that would make the first floor livable space at 15 feet. So I know there's been concerns up and down the coast about how that will kind of affect the landscape of our communities going forward. NJDEP has released a new model flood damage prevention ordinance incorporating these rules, which personally I find a bit frustrating because you all recall not that many years ago we had to adopt a new flood ordinance So with the model they put forth at that time, I believe they're requiring municipalities have until January of next year to adopt the new model flood ordinance. Most towns I work in are kind of, they haven't been, you know, running to adopt it. They're kind of waiting to see what happens. And I think that's how I've been directed in Belmar. And that's really, really it, just a general overview. If you guys have any additional questions, I will try my best to answer them.

Yeah. Is there training that people on relevant committees should be taking to make sure they understand and are in compliance with these rules?

Every once in a while, there'll be a webinar, but there has not been any full training for this.

So if you're zoning, if you're planning, nothing? Correct. What can we provide for them so that they understand the changes?

So I have gotten quite a few phone calls as your floodplain administrator from people that are Mostly either interested in selling or buying a property or thinking about making any new improvements to their property. If you have a complete permit prior to July 20th, your grandfathered into those old rules. So I know in a number of towns, people are, even if they don't plan on doing any work until the fall, they're kind of, trying to make sure they have those permits complete. But I've been providing as much information as I can when people call me. I can, send you all some additional information. The DEP's website is there.

I think it's incumbent upon us to make sure we put together all those materials and get them out to people as quickly as possible for the public, and like I said, the relevant committees so that we're in compliance with state law unless it's over-trend. What'd you say? Yeah. I know We met with the former commissioner while he was in office, and I asked a lot of questions, and I know the board walking won't have a problem with that, even if a storm wipes it out, there won't be any issues there. But can you remind me what it would be like for a building on Main Street if they have to rebuild anything after July 21st? Is there going to be an issue there?

There are some. It depends on the type of building. the elevation and you know, so I can't tell you just generally because the flood rules are very, you know.

Is it something where they're keeping the underlying structure? They wouldn't have to?

If it's a substantial improvement, so if it costs over 50% of the assessed value of the structure, they would need to come into compliance with the regulations for commercial structures that doesn't necessarily mean elevation. There are different types of flood proofing that you can do. Yes.

I have so many questions, but initially you're saying if someone knocks down a home after July 21st, as the rule stands down, the first floor has to be 15 feet.

Well, so that was just an example. If you're in the special flood hazard area with a base flood elevation of 10, which is What is pretty typical if you're in a flood hazard area in Belmar today, then yes, instead of 10, it would be 15.

And then what if you wanted to build multiple stories? How does that work?

So that is something that the borough will need to contemplate, whether we increase the overall permitted height or people are

And then what about the homeowners now? Do you think that this will impact homeowners insurance or flood insurance in some way for us current homeowners who have homes that are three feet, five feet above sea level?

So this is separate from flood insurance. Your flood insurance is still based on the FEMA effective maps. This theoretically, could reduce your flood insurance premiums because it's requiring you to bill to a much higher standard than what is required by the FEMA maps. So if you had a substantial improvement and you were billed to that new higher standard, it was.

What about the existing homes? That's what I'm asking. It shouldn't change.

It shouldn't change.

Do we also have to do ancillary updates like ramps If you have a ramp and you have to go to 15 feet, how do you... Oh, this can afford an elevator. Especially in a flood zone.

I bet there's a flood zone.

Also a problem.

We don't, but there might be.

Yeah, but the ramp, you're going to need a lot more.

Right, so it may affect, not even a ramp, if your house is five feet taller than it used to be, it may affect your setbacks, your...

um you know permitted area for porches and stairs even into your house it sounds to me like there's a lot of work to be done on our zoning that has probably not started yet is that you have thank you i think some of them yeah so the height is one thing even after sandy you know home elevations i was doing a lot of them in manascon manascon actually raised their building height from 35 to 38 feet at that time, because those houses went up so much more than where they were. We're in a better situation than them. We have higher flood zone, higher roads, and the homes are typically higher. But for a home to go from 9 to 15, we're going to be way above our current 35 foot height restriction. So that's something to be discussed. And again, setbacks, steps. but have, you know, side steps that are at grade, that are going to a driveway. Those are major implications that are gonna affect everyone. And I think you answered Mrs. Kinney's question, is that, let's say I built a home last year and it was in a flood zone X, not required to have flood insurance. These now change, I'm in an AE zone 10, or whatever it is, or 15, technically. It's not gonna be a FEMA requirement to get the flood insurance? because these are the DEP enforcement?

Correct. So even today, Velma regulates to a higher standard than the FEMA regulatory floodplain. And that's the state of New Jersey as a whole. But we regulate to the more restrictive of the best available data, basically. So that is the effective firms, the effective flood maps, and the preliminary flood maps. And then the state of New Jersey has a one foot required free board. So that's above that elevation number. So there are properties in Belmar that do not require flood insurance or not in the FEMA regulatory flood claim, but when they come in to do work, we require them to get a flood permit and, you know, be built to that higher standard because they're in Belmar's regulatory flood claim. So this really just, expands that even more.

So let's go back to the legislative part of it. It was, it was an executive order in January. It was challenged. It's now allegedly going to be effective again in July.

Well, no. So it was, it was signed, it was adopted, you know, signed into effect on January 20th. But at that point there was this 180 day grandfather clause it is being challenged currently I do not have a status update on any of those challenges but so we can only act under the assumption right that it will go into effect completely on July 20th and when it's in effect in July Belmar still has the option to not

No.

Belmar is required to enforce it, but we have until January to adopt our new flood ordinance.

Let me just back up for a second. The average homeowner, how do they right now know what the level of their home should be if they build a new home on their property. How will I find that out? I want to know, if I knock my house down today, and I build another one tomorrow, how high must my house be? Where do I find that?

So, as part of, you know... If you're hiring professionals or as part of your permit process, you know, when you submit permits to the borough, we would let you know whether or not you are in compliance with our requirements.

The requirements aren't posted anywhere or printed anywhere?

We have the requirements. We have our flood damage prevention ordinance. The DEP requirements are on their website.

but there's no place I can go and say, oh, 409 Fifth Avenue, let's see, you have to be three feet above.

There is, we link to mapping, which includes these rules, and then DEP has their own versions of that mapping, so you can, if you're looking to find what flood zone you're in, you're able to do that at our website.

I think that would be a first step, before we even talk about the real rules, I think it would be nice to put something out to the public to say, this is how you can find out where you are in this whole flood game and elevation game that the DEP is forcing upon us.

The borough does do that every year as part of our requirements for the community rating system. I believe we usually send that information out over the summer.

But does it tell each homeowner what their level is based on where they're located?

No, but it gives them the information as to where they can find it.

If I could.

Will Forerunner be updated to include this? Forerunner has like a little toggle.

Okay, so to the mayor's question, we do have a website where you can search an address and it tells you what's required. to know what your property actually is at, you have to hire your own professional to determine that.

Oh, that's nice. I can't find out what my, do I have to hire, what, an architect?

You have to get a base flood elevation certificate by an engineer that's going to come in and destroy it.

and you should be able to tell me what the base flood elevation is.

Because we don't know the elevation of your property.

Why not?

If I could help. So to answer your question, if you purchased a house in a flood zone, you more than likely got a flood elevation certificate as required by your insurance company. So that homeowner that's in a flood zone may have that information as to what's their current first floor elevation and or they may have it on file in the building department.

I think the issue is homes that were purchased and were not in a regulatory flood zone at the time that now as they are either for sale or people just want to make improvements to them. That's where some of the issues are. When you purchase your property, even if you're not in a flood zone,

I have all the papers that my grandfather purchased my property in 1946, and I can guarantee you there is no floodplain elevation included in those papers.

But you should have had a survey of your property, which may tell you what... the elevation of your property actually is starting to go.

This is like a confusion on top of confusion. Because people are going to see this and they're going to say, oh my god, I have to go 15 feet. But then there's all these. You've got to know where you're starting, though.

If you're not making improvements to your home, you don't need to raise your home. It's only if you're doing anything that triggers the substantial improvement. which there is a whole process that requires you to have much of that documentation as part of it.

And the council, or the zoning, the other issue that's going to arise is we're going to have houses that are high, and then you're going to have low, and then you're going to have high, and then you're going to have low, low, low, and then you're going to have high. It's going to be...

I think we're all hoping that the challengers to the legislation pull through. Write a letter, call your legislators, support the fight, because this is drastically affecting every town, Monmouth, Ocean, Cape May counties. It's gonna affect home values for the immediate future, and it needs to be, hopefully, fought successfully.

Is there any indication that the Assembly and the Senate would not pass these rules eventually? Because the challenge is based on the fact that only the legislature can do this. So let's say they win the challenge and they say, oh, the legislature can do it. And the legislature turns around and says, we're going to do it.

Well, so there is also a resolution in the legislature saying that these were not the DEP overstep their authority, and the legislature should be the appropriate body to craft state legislation.

Well, the Senate president had a whole hearing on this issue, what, was it about a month ago?

As we were talking about it?

Yeah. And as far as I know, it hasn't gone anywhere yet, so I was very curious to see how much of that was moving forward and how much of it was passed by the public? I know. That's a very dumb question.

Yeah. There's a lot. It's unfortunate, right, because this is something that dramatically affects everyone that lives in any of these expanded flood hazard areas. But I think everyone would like more

So that's what my next question was. Is there nowhere, a website, an updated, like, this is what's going on with the legislation today? There's no information out there right now?

Correct. Somebody has something. But I mean, you had mentioned the DEP has the map, and these are based off of 100-year projections, and I believe like the worst case scenario in 100-year projections.

So they did, it's based on a Rutgers study, and they, Originally, like I said, it added an additional five feet of elevation. They went back, I think they got a lot of comments about them. They went back and said they revised the science and based on newer sea level rise projections, they could reduce it from a five feet to the four feet. And they did that in July of 2025.

What tools are surveyors using to determine elevation? Are they using GPS?

I'm not a surveyor.

You can use your iPhone.

I don't believe your iPhone is as accurate as surveying equipment.

I have a separate GPS antenna at my house and I get, I believe, accurate information with eight space vehicles. But that should be more than sufficient to determine the elevation of your actual property. And I believe the iPhone does use GPS to establish elevation. There's a compass function right on your gizmo. Check that. And you'll get a pretty good idea of the elevation of your property.

It's not just the elevation of the property, right? Okay. Mayor, if you don't mind, I'm just going to open it up. This is not a concern of elevation of the ground around your house. It's going to be reflective of your first floor, okay? This just doesn't impact Del Mar, it impacts everywhere. In my mind, when I think about these things, if you're driving through Lavalette or Seaside, it's gonna be indicative of what not just this town, all of the towns will look like. You're gonna have garages on the first level, high basements, and then the houses are gonna be above. Tony, I'll be the 10th act. I am the Vice Chairman of the Zoning Board. Ultimately, we need to do something about this as quickly as possible. With that being said, I firmly feel that the DEP is negligent in this. Spring Lake is suing. Manasquan is suing. Monmouth County is suing. The New Jersey Builders Association is suing. Cape May County is suing. Ocean County is suing. I make the stance that this municipality doesn't roll over like a neighboring town has and automatically adopted these rules. Kate, to your point, or Ms. Donovan, it's gonna drastically increase pipe requirements and restrictions in this municipality, and it's gonna change the demographic of what we do regarding housing.

Do you know, I thought that,

spring lake and anagon have bio with monocline on separate offices i don't know the answer to that all i know is that um what i've seen on social media checkbook question i know manisquan is leaving look there's glimmer glass section there is my concern right the concern for us really should be honestly is and this is my question for miss bell if it's main street okay so How do you have first floor accessibility for boutiques, restaurants, et cetera, if you're in a flood zone and you have to comply with this base flood elevation plus? Can you do that?

Commercial space can do some flood roofing measures. Flood vents? Flood vents in addition to flood proofing. I mean, alternatively.

So we're not anticipated that we would have to change elevations on Main Street, not just for Belmar, but in general, unlikely.

I don't believe so.

We're talking nothing on the first floor.

I had asked the former commissioner that exact question, and he came back with the waterproofing one. It was interesting, too, if you look here. I feel like I'm awake. Not in a good way, either. But it's not a good comparison for her.

Not all of Main Street is in that, you know? From what street north? Exactly. From which street north?

Do we know?

Yeah.

So there we go, it is. Approximately. Yeah, we start around 13th and go up. So the 13th number would be here?

Yeah. At every home growth, B Street. And then all the projects that we have ongoing in this municipality right now, what are their requirements?

So they would be, if they have their approvals already, they would be grandfathered.

Grandfathered. Approvals, do you need a building permit or approval of zoning and land use?

You need your DEP permit complete. It doesn't need to be approved. It needs to be deemed complete.

Can you just clarify again, so people don't understand. You mentioned substantial improvement. It is 50% of the assessed value of your structure only. That's correct. And that's the construction cost So if you're, you know, and all of our structures have been reassessed, and now they're all worth more, and taxes have been adjusted, all those things. So if your home is assessed at $800,000, you can do up to $400,000 worth of work without having to comply with the new rules. If you do $401,000, your home has to go up to the right levels.

But you would agree that the land values in this municipality are assessed significantly higher than the structure.

Absolutely.

And that's what's alarming to all of us. because you're selling million and a half dollar houses in this town where the assessed values on the structures are 200 grand, okay? And then the lands assessed at $750,000. They were a very high number for the structure.

So that is correct. An alternative, if you were to do a project that could be a substantial improvement based on... the assessed value of the structure. A developer, a property owner is always able to get a licensed appraiser to submit their own assessed value of the structure if they believe the number in the the tax value is not correct.

With that being said then, would the municipality reassess based on that arrangement? No.

Perhaps once the work is complete.

I'm saying it used to work, right? So this is something else that has to be strongly considered too. You don't want to go and do that and then have your taxes go up significantly until your renovation costs are complete. Your hands are tied, I know that firsthand. I look every day because it's directly impacting what I do, and most people are not aware of these changes. Hopefully they get shuffled down the road and we deal with it. It's gonna change every municipality.

Yeah, and I do know, perhaps the Mayor can speak a little bit more, but I think it was kind of referred to Basically every southern Monmouth County coastal community from Bradley Beach to Mattisquan, so including Belmar, Bradley Beach, Avon, Belmar, Spring Lake, Seegert, Brielle, and Mattisquan are all in a little group where they're talking about these issues. I just know the group is, the northernmost town is Bradley Beach. Asbury Park might be doing something on their own, but I don't know.

Thank you.

Okay, why don't we continue up online. Thank you. I'll leave this with you.

Can we keep it? Yeah, you can keep it. I think I did a long time ago, but I will re-email it to you tomorrow.

Very interesting.

Thank you, Christine.

Okay. Yellow's the new one. Yellow's the new one. Orange and slushed was existing. The town looks like the same as yellow.

or, you know, I want her to fly over the ground, and now we have our streets all the way down there.

And that can't happen unless we adjust our, you know, that roofing type, which I don't think is fitting, and that's how you end up with that, you know, that roof back. I mean, it's just all, we're looking at flooding, though, and that's a real issue. And Tony, on the other side, I have family down in Long Beach, and he's right.

That whole area, that's the sand beach, the houses are gigantic, flooding is worth it.

How long was this going on and all of a sudden we find out Tuesday night at what? It was just January. The what, I'm sorry?

This just happened in January.

We are in May of the year of our loan, 2026.

We're still trying to figure it out.

We have brought it up at other council meetings.

You can come up after the meeting and speak to us too. I want to continue because we have a bunch of things.

Thank you.

is the hiring of our new chief financial officer. Some of you may or may not know that our current CFO, Lorraine Carafa, will be leaving us sometime in June. And she's not here tonight, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her service. She has been a key member of I always value her opinions and advice pertaining to the financial management and our budget issues, and I wish her the best of luck and a long, healthy retirement. Which leads us to the, a posting was done recently for a new CFO, so if you know anybody who may want to do that, it's a good job. Welcome to VA Cane. We were talking about the selection committee, and I kind of changed gears a little bit with that. Initially, it was going to be myself and the borough administrator and Council President Kinney and April. and work on it together as to pick the new CFO. The CFO is the only position that I know of that must be filled in the municipality. So we must have one, but there are some things we can do in the meantime to cover any short term for a little bit, but the We can't do four at one time. We can only do two council members at a time. I understand. So we'll have reports back for sure. Okay.

Thank you. Are you aware of the person you were referring to who you could appoint the interim? Are you going to share that information with us?

I don't know. We haven't mentioned it to the person yet, did we?

No. Most likely the treasurer, but we have to work through that to find out the exact details on when we need to do that.

The treasurer?

Jane. We have a treasurer. That works for us. Her title is treasurer. She's the number two person in finance.

Is that who you were talking about? That's more what I was asking.

It could be anybody.

I think that was the primary person to look at.

But we'll work through that.

i think you received a copy of the letter from a resident about the leaf blowers it's always an issue people don't like them they make a lot of noise and i'm just throwing it out to the council for a future maybe at the next meeting or the meeting after that or whatever but i think and not ignoring it. It is an issue. The other side of the coin is that the people who do the landscaping rely on it. That's how they can do a lot of lawns and whatever very quickly, which I agree with. I'll just throw in my own editorial thing as I look when I go out. I see four people with things from the same It's two people. And I think that magnifies the issue. But again, I think it's worth discussing and seeing what we want to do.

Mary, the Builder Environmental Commission has discussed this before, I think, before the council. Right before, if you want to believe it. But it's come up again in the context of the noise ordinance. And the intention of the Environmental Commission was actually to survey different landscapers to see what their capabilities were before we moved forward so that we weren't hindering anyone's, if we were to make a recommendation, we weren't hindering anyone's ability to have their lawn done the way they would like. So that was part of the conversation.

Well, maybe that's another thing you could bring to that first. Did they survey everyone?

This has been an ongoing conversation. Oh. So yeah, the one step was going to be, sorry. One side was going to be serving landscapers to see what their capabilities were, and the other was to serve residents before making anything, because anything like this should be done in accordance with the wishes of the residents, because that's who we're here to serve. I know that there are a lot of other towns that are looking into these. Some have successfully put in vans, some have not. It's all kind of all over the place. But if anyone has any thoughts, please contact me.

with the environmental commission if they want to do that, and they should let the council know. Yay or nay, if they want to follow through with that little project. Okay, I think we should move on to petitions. Do we have any petitions?

Mayor did not receive any petitions.

Okay, approval of the minutes.

Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the May 12th meeting?

I'll make the motion.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Motion to close. Thank you.

The reports of council. Councilwoman Donovan.

First of all, I'd like to say thank you to our borough staff, our volunteers, and our fire department for beautiful ceremonies yesterday for Memorial Day. Thank you. The Belmar Environmental Commission presented its community energy plan for public input. We are glad to have members of the public come forward to see the presentation, and if you missed it, it will be available on the Environmental Commission's website. But this was to remind you that grant-funded initiative to examine the borough's energy use and recommend ways to become more efficient and save the borough mine. First Farmer's Market. I hope some of you made it out. I spoke with vendors afterwards, and everyone seemed very happy. I encourage everyone to visit it. That will be Sundays in Piano Plaza. And that is about it. Thank you also to the borough staff, our PD, our EMS, our DPW for the Seafood Festival. We had a beautiful weekend. I also hope everyone made it out to that. And that is about it. Thank you.

Okay. Council President King.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. Seafood Festival is a wonderful weekend. Thank you to our Tourism Director, Jenna Madden-Nest.

I think she did a good job her first year on Seafood Festival.

Or was this her first or second year? First full year. First full year. But all our participants and the bands and our restaurants and obviously PD and TBW and everybody involved made that successful. Are there a particularly good band? No, I got one. Oh, you got one? Okay. Okay. All right, so recreation. Friday night concerts are every Friday at 6 p.m. This Friday, the 29th, is Dragonfly. Old-time baseball game is coming back. The 1864 rules, it's going to be held on June 13th at 11 a.m. The game will be played on Memorial Field on 12th and Railroad Ave. Teams will be the Monmouth Furnace versus the Hoboken Nines. Movies on the Beach are going to start Wednesday, July 1st at dusk. Location is 7th Avenue. July 1st, dusk is like 9 o'clock, guys. Just be careful of your young kids. First movie is going to be Ratatouille. Summer basketball sign-ups end June 7th. Summer tennis lessons for kids and children are still going on. Lessons will start the week of July 6th. Kids' running club sign-ups are still going on, and the running club will start July 8th. Completion of the Dempsey Park basketball courts should be done soon. The girls' middle school league will start their season on June 22nd. Games start at 5 p.m. And Marina Mabry, who is a Belmar resident and plays in the WNBA for the Toronto Tempo, purchased a floor cleaner, scrubber, donated it to Belmar Recreation. It will be used to maintain the gym floor. So thank you so much to Marina Mabry. State Tree Commission is doing a joint meeting with the Environmental Commission. When is that? I was going to ask you. The next one. Is that June 11th? Is that the 30th? Okay, so stand by for Councilman Donovan. Yes. So June 11th, right? That's going to be a joint meeting between the State Tree and the Environmental Commission. I think it's going to be here or the library. I thought library. Library at 630, yeah. The graduation banners have been ordered, and I'm sorry if you missed the deadline, which was the 21st, but they should be out for print now, and DPW, I think, is gonna try to get them off by the first week of June, hopefully, right? That's the plan, okay. And then the last thing I have is St. Rose High School. Graduation is this Thursday, May 28th at Monmouth University. And their scholarships, again, exceeded like $20 million for all the kids that got money to go to all the schools that they were, you know, promised potential scholarships.

Okay, planning board meeting did not happen last month, but we do have a meeting on June 15th. Harbor Commission did a walking tour last week. We took to look throughout the front. We walked from courthouse down to the marina and all the way down to the boat ramp, which was very informative. We've talked a lot about the iDoc, which is the closest dock to Marina, sorry, not Marina, but a night dock here. Some of the fingers on it are, the finger docks are sideways or turned upside down. There's actually a bid out right now for that to be demoed. In the meantime, for this summer, we did request them to be moved so it doesn't look the way it kind of disheveled and make sure we had enough safety in place. We had a really good report on the boat ramp. They added some sensors so it's easier for people to back in and be able to pull out without the gate closing on them. I know that's been a problem for some boat trailers. They did note over by the token machine, which is still cash only and no change, or you could get quarters, so be careful. There was an ATM machine there. The ATM vendor throughout our town opted not to put their ATM back there. So I didn't bring this up to you, B.A. Cain, or maybe we could talk to that vendor about putting the ATM back there, because we do have a cash-only machine right next to it. I'm not sure why I got pulled. Jay wasn't sure either, but something to discuss putting the ATM back.

Sorry? Fisherman's Den is out.

Fisherman's Den has an ATM.

Okay, so if we need it, that's what we do at 1 a.m. The next harbor commission is June 9th, and that'll be at 6 p.m. And again, just to say that we had a very eventful last couple weeks. Seafood Festival was in return on perfect weather. Memorial Day was not perfect weather. We had a very rough weekend. I did take the opportunity on a rainy day to go meet with our lifeguards after the beach We're still out there in full force with no beachgoers sitting in the rain all weekend And just a reminder that lifeguards are not full-time throughout the week until June 12th So Monday through Thursday, there will be no lifeguards It'll be Friday Saturday Sunday until for a few more weeks until we can enjoy the beach every day safely That's it Thank you Councilman Maroney

The ADA committee is going to have their anti-bullying and awareness on July 14th. We worked with on that, so that's going to be the date. I don't remember if I gave that date last meeting. We're going to be meeting early in June to start the planning process for that. And apparently it's been a very successful program in the past, so I'm looking forward to my first year getting involved with that. And that's it.

Okay, thank you. I just have actually two things. First, the Seafood Festival was very good, of course Mother Nature went along with us and let us have two and a half beautiful days, so that's always a good omen. The second thing is, I'm holding up something here. It's an order from the court, and this order was worked on very very diligently and hard by by us on the council and our redevelopment attorneys this order is the final represents a lot of very, very hard work. So I just wanted to let you know that we actually have that. We're waiting for that same order for the fourth round. Everything has been approved by the court. And the only thing we're waiting for is the court to essentially produce this document for the fourth round. So we're inquiring to see if the judge will do that soon. But when I get it, I will sit here and hold that up also and say, and that's the end of the fourth round. And that will, we actually have completed our constitutional obligation to meet our affordable housing requirement. Public session will be on all of the resolutions that are on this.

Resolution 2026-101. Review Dean Creamer, 4th Avenue. Resolution 2026-101. First paragraph. Please change River Road to River Avenue. River Avenue is east of the railroad. River Road is west of the railroad. There's a big map in the hallway over here, right next to this room. You can check it there. It's River Avenue. Just a general question, Mayor. That's in reference to submitting a, I guess it's a sewer extension permit. Is that going to connect up to 8th Avenue and everything go down 8th Avenue?

I don't know. I don't know at all. Our engineer happens to be here, having nothing to do, sitting with us here. He nodded yes. So, okay. Yes.

I'm just wondering, these are going to be five-story buildings.

Yeah, it's going to connect to 8th Avenue and head towards the beach.

Right. A lot of us live in one- and two-story homes. Now, we know the toilets on fifth floor look flush. Does that mean our toilets, if the pipe gets stuffed up or something, does that mean the water then backs up into our homes?

I'm sorry, I don't think.

This is what happened in the aftermath of Sandy. We actually had toilets with the water coming up and making messes on the lower floors of buildings.

I can't answer your question. I don't know if that, Jeremy, that's not a usual situation.

It would be very unusual. You would have to have multiple lines that were clogged for that to happen. Similar to after Sandy, it wasn't just one sewer line, it was several sewer lines. And I would venture a guess that the pump station may not have been working either. So to answer your question, no, there's zero chance that you're gonna see. Unless we have a Sandy. Or bigger, yeah.

Thank you. All right. Any other comments? We have a motion to close the public session.

I have a motion to approve the resolutions as listed on the consent agenda, which also includes Resolution 2026-101 being amended to Save River Avenue. Motion.

Second.

Councilman Donovan? Yes. Councilman Kinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Bethesda? Yes. Next we have Resolution 2026-110. This is a resolution authorizing the issuance of plenary retail consumption of license to Klein's Fish Market for a period ending June 30, 2027. Do we have a motion to adopt this resolution?

April, I have to abstain from this due to the fact that I work on this restaurant and also my son works there.

Same. My daughter works at Klein's and I have to abstain.

Someone else would like to make a motion?

Motion. Second.

Okay, Councilman Donovan?

Yes.

Councilman Maroney?

Yes.

Mayor Rathen-Cascio? Yes. Okay, next is resolution 2026-111, resolution authorizing the issuance of a club license to the order of the Friendly Sons of Shillelagh for the period ending June 30th, 2027. Okay, that's good. Motion. Second.

I believe Mr. McGill had clarified that . I don't know what George's thinking is. Do we have enough votes? Non-complicated votes yet? You have three votes. Okay. And Councilman Maroney?

You're a member, right?

I'm a member. I'm going to understand.

Okay. So Councilwoman Kinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Mayor Ocosta? Yes. So next we go on to ordinances. The first one is ordinance 2026.6. This is an ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 40 development regulations section 7.24 signs. This is open for public hearing. If anyone would like to comment on the ordinance. Please step forward, state your name and address. Can I have a motion to close the hearing? Second. All in favor? Aye.

Can I have a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-6?

Okay, Councilman Donovan? Yes. Councilman McKinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Michael Pascoe? Yes. Next is Ordinance 2026-10. This is a bond ordinance providing for various water sewer utility improvements and the acquisition of water sewer utility equipment appropriating $192,500 and authorizing the issuance of the same in bonds. This is open for second reading and public hearing. If anyone would like to comment on the ordinance.

Okay, seeing none, can I have a motion to close the public hearing?

Motion. Second. All in favor? Aye.

And a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-10. I'll make that motion.

Second.

Councilwoman Donovan? Yes. Councilwoman Kinney? Yes. Councilman Colasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Buckafusco?

Yes.

Next we have Ordinance 2026-9. This is a bond ordinance providing for various capital improvements and acquisition of capital equipment appropriating $2,448,345 and altering the issuance of bonds in the amount of $2,379,783. This ordinance was tabled from the last meeting. After speaking with our CFO, she advised to put it on the agenda and ask the council to decide if you wanted to make any changes, if you want to introduce it or table it again. I would actually like to table this again.

First, I have questions about, I know we still have to do 6th and South Lake, and it would be my preference if we're bonding to bond for multiple roads because that is one of the biggest priorities we're facing as a borough. I question putting $9,500 in a bond ordinance. And just some of these, we just raised taxes over 9%. And so I just think we should be very, very careful about how much more we're spending. And I'd be curious to hear everyone else's thoughts.

I had a number of conversations with their department heads. I don't think you could do that now, but there was quite a bit on this that I thought should be pulled out completely. And some that I think I agree would not be necessarily worth a bond.

One of the biggest ones that stuck out to me is that some of the road improvements on 8th Avenue.

We have two of the largest construction projects about to commence on 8th Avenue, whether it's the top 35, also 35, 8th and Main. I don't see how that new streetscaping now bonding for it is valuable.

Oh, I think we absolutely need to do 8th Avenue as quickly as possible. And I believe that includes, we've already done the water main there.

It's just for streetscaping. I'm aware.

But, you know, you do the underground before you do the top. But that also includes a bond and rather a grant that we have to use for it. So I wouldn't advise more than that. I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Is there a time clock on that?

There is a timeline on the timeline to award a contract, yes.

Do we know when that is? It's typically two years after award, so probably November I'm shooting from the hip now, but I'm thinking it's like November of 27.

And remind me, it's not all of APHAB, it's ocean to sea? It's from ocean to deep. Okay. Which would be affecting the construction of the top of APHAB now.

Have we established engineering estimates for this? Have we established any construction estimates for some of this work?

Yes, the estimates were done as a part of the grant application. So depending on when you choose to undertake the project, if you push it to next year, bump it up by 5% at least, just because things don't get cheaper as we move into the following year.

on it yet, we don't have a design on it yet. Then we end up going out to bid and we get bids and they're over the grant application and then we're forced to approve that and take money from somewhere else. I'd like to see a little more detail on the project

that they were gonna reach out and get more information on what was going on and it would be shared amongst the council members. I haven't gotten anything, but if you could please, if you're talking to department heads and they're giving you information about items that are on the ordinance, please share that with all of us so that we can make an informed decision at the next meeting. The second thing I think to be fair to the CFO is we need to, figure out what you need to figure out which ones of these items you're ready to approve and which ones you're not so that we don't do this at every meeting moving forward in other words so if we can identify two or three or even one item here that everybody is on board with You know, at least we know we've got that done. If we know that there are items that are not going to be approved, then we know that those are done. And then if there is a third category, which is like in between, then those need to be discussed. I just want to, you know, get to the point where either we're going to do the bond ordinance for a number of these things. We're not going to do it for any of them. If we can do that, you know, obviously we can't do that as a group through email because that would be a violation of the Open Public Meetings Act. But I think you could let April know, you know, I'm okay with, you know, one, three, five, six. And I think she could put it all together so at least we can let the CFO know, you know, all right, these five things are ready to go. And she can make the decision if she thinks

I did have that, Fred, I actually had a kind of, this is just my take, it wasn't anybody else, and it kind of got missed by the CFO, she just sent it out. We were going back and forth, so when I do all the reports that I was going to share with the public, I think we could table that to the next year and everything.

Yeah, I think that in the future, too, sometimes it's better to give it to April. She's on top of all this stuff. Thank you. Okay, so is there a motion to table this? Is that heard?

nine nine twenty twenty six oh nine okay do you have a second yeah okay councilman donovan yes councilman kinney yes councilman de blasio yes councilman yes mayor buck yes okay now we're on to the regular public session if anyone would like to make a comment please step forward state your name and address first

I'm not a fan of the loud leaf blowers, but at the same time I'm not a fan of the batteries exploding from the battery operated ones. So when we start to look at the neighbor's neighbor, I should say where they used to live, the garage from the battery just exploded. Yeah, yes. So it's like ever since then I've been unplugging them and everything else versus with them all on the chargers. So when we start to have the workshop on the noise, that's including the batteries still for safety. Thank you.

Good point. Anyone else? Anyone else?

I decided to put in 14th Avenue. And I'm about to replace the sidewalk, the entrance to the garage. I had to file for a permit. And then I have to put $1,000 in escrow. The house is 21 years old. I figure I'll replace wherever is not efficient. And I'm questioning if I get a permit, because somebody has to come and check it out after it's done, why do I have to put money in escrow? $1,000.

I think that's an April question, but it usually is to guarantee performance.

We discussed this. It covers the engineering inspection that is done. Okay, so the permit fees only varies. It's usually around 65.

Those fees get deducted from the escrow. Yes. And then you get the balance back.

I'm sorry, but I thought it was from the whole panel, the legislature that does that. They sent the ordinance that sets an hour amount. So maybe they should revisit it because the sidewalks will cost a pretty penny. Things are not exactly picky. And the $1,000 in escrow, it amounts to something.

I think what April was saying, though, is that the borough incurs a cost to do the inspection and everything. It varies, and that's why there's the escrow.

Half an hour, an hour.

It's easier to go to the escrow group than to come to you after the fact and say, we need X number of dollars to pay for the...

And what is the fee for the permit, may I ask?

I don't know. It starts at $65 and goes up depending on how much energy is being done.

Forgive me if I do not agree. Your title did not agree. Okay, perhaps you should revisit it. I don't know if anybody agrees with all that. I guess anybody has money in this town.

The fee, we don't set the fee. I think that was set by ordinance. But any money that's left over from an escrow inspection is returned. So if it's one inspection and it's $250, then the applicant would get the $750 back.

Yeah, I think we try to explain that also. Okay, go on.

Leila Marks, 605 Ocean. I have two feature-related questions. First, this weekend is... the volleyball, right? A lot of things have been happening at the shore. And I'm just, I know that you guys talked about it when you did the presentation, that they're gonna have their own security. I know Bellmark PT is on top of things, but.

We're also gonna be there.

Yeah, that's what I, you know, given the circumstances, just was curious. The other beach question, instead of that, we have a breeding area, a nesting area for birds, and My recollection from the birds breeding two seasons ago was that that extended well into July. Now they were down closer to the ocean that year. Now they're up and they're right, so I know you said July 1st is the first movie on the beach. Has there been any consideration about maybe moving that? I mean, because of the area that's, it's fenced off. If you take a walk up the 7th, you can see it. I just, the birds don't mind. They're very friendly. We talk to them every day. They like people. They realize that people being around actually scares away their predators. But I just...

I honestly didn't even think about it.

Yeah, it's worth taking a look at if there's another area, because I know the beach is wide there, which is part of why it probably was chosen for the beach.

Yeah, we've done them at 5th. We've done them at 7th. I think we did them at 10th. Yeah, it's just something to consider. I'm sure we can, if that's still happening.

Well, right, because I think based on DEP, we don't have any control over how that gets set up, correct, Mayor? Correct. Right. So, you know, we're working with them. And, you know, frankly, I came up here and asked about it last time about this legislation that may or may not happen. But, you know, if they're going to start looking at how, just to wrap up on this with the birds, because we've got at least two areas that I know of that the DEP is roping it off. We can't use it. We can't sell badges and people can't sit there. I'm just wondering, down the line, if we were to come into a circumstance where we have to produce these, not only beach revenue, but then projections, who would be the party that would take a look at that and see what impact that might have on our projections? Because it could be a significant projection change if it extends through a large part of the season.

These birds. When did they hatch?

I mean, my recollection is they hatched late in, I mean, I have videos of them, I can't tell you the date, but it was late in July of 2024, I guess. And the only reason that they took down the ropes is because, sadly, the bird chicklets, whatever they're called, they got eaten by foxes. And so that was the end of that. They took down the ropes and that was that, but I mean, if they had survived longer, they could have been up for pretty much the whole summer, at least into August, because it was very late in July, and they were still not fine yet, which is how they had eaten.

I'm going to let the cane wander into this conversation. I don't know. I don't expect you to have an answer. I'm just wondering.

He has recent developments. It's monitored on a weekly basis. I mean, DEP just is always at the beach, and they look for signs of, nesting and no rope at all. But the birds have had an issue with the fox for quite some time and it's an ongoing thing. When they see activity, they try to protect the nesting. But sometimes it doesn't last that long and then they're constantly moving.

Do you have any comment if we were to be part of some kind of TDP oversight based on the beach utility How would that figure in?

I think the question you're asking is basically, why does DEP have the right to say what we can and cannot do on the beach? And that's very simple. The beach is not ours. No, I know that.

I'm saying that if we have to produce numbers for projections.

We don't need to produce numbers. The beach is there. It's a public trust. And we sell X number of badges. that's fine, that goes into the utility, and we use that money to serve the beach. If we make less money, then we spend less next year. It's just an in and out thing.

I don't understand that, but people in the state legislature that are not from beach towns, they don't understand that, and they're making it out. I mean, there's a lot of nerves surrounding it. These beach towns are making all this money, and it's, you know, who knows what they're saying to people, but There's people throughout large parts of the state who don't have any appreciation for what the beach operation is. And I'm just thinking about the impact. I mean, the birds are there. Those are areas that are roped off. We can't sell that.

You just can't go in those areas. Unfortunately, we have a very large beachfront. We do. If I wanted to argue the other side, I would say, you know what? That little bit of area is not going to impact your revenue because people will just go to 6th Avenue or they'll go to 8th Avenue or they'll go to 2nd Avenue.

Who's required to enforce that? The lifeguards? Who's required to enforce that on the beach? Are the lifeguards required to enforce that? Who comes in? Who's the bird police? I mean...

My experience is that people are very respectful. They're interested. There's not any issues. When there were a lot of kids on the beach last week when it was nice, the kids were fine ball, whatever. It didn't seem to bother the birds. They liked people.

The birds were there first. That's the deep piece. They were.

I'm just, you know, curious about what kind of impact that might have. You know, you pass the ordinance so that you can only do ball sports, and that's the area where the birds are. So it's just another thing to consider.

We'll move the movies if the birds are still there.

We'll take her down. Okay, thank you.

Any other comments?

I wanted to say thank you to everyone for the memorial ceremonies. I feel like I have a suggestion that might involve bringing in the elementary students as part of the festivities, maybe a choir. They have their own marching band. I know this was done in the past. I know we have an opportunity November 11th would be Veterans Day this year. Maybe we could read the names. We have, I think, 14 names on our plaque that gave their lives for us.

I think we've done all that in the past. I know we've had the choir from Elkhorn Elementary School. I don't remember exactly which holiday it was. Veterans Day. Veterans Day.

I think if they were involved again, the kids would appreciate it as something they can grow into. I'm all for it, actually.

Can I have a motion to close the public session?

I'll make a motion.

All in favor?

Aye. Next we have our last resolution, 2026-112 resolution permitting the council to adjourn into executive session. Whereas it has been determined by the Borough Council that it is necessary to discuss the following specific matter at its regular meeting in the absence of the public, attorney-client privilege matters and pending and potential litigation, whereas the Open Public Meetings Act permits the Borough Council to exclude the public from that portion of a public meeting during which such matters are discussed, now therefore be it resolved that the Borough Council shall recess into a private executive session from which the public shall be excluded The scope of the aforesaid executive session shall be limited to the matters as stated, that those matters discussed in executive session shall remain confidential until such time as the need for confidentiality no longer exists as determined by the Borough Attorney. That minutes of the closed session shall be taken and kept free from public review until such time that the need for confidentiality no longer exists. and that the regular meeting shall resume after the private executive session, at which time the Borough Council may take action and reference the topics discussed. Do we have a motion to adopt this resolution? Motion.

Second.

Councilman Donovan? Yes. Councilman McKinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes.

Mayor Buxtehude? Yes.

Let's go, guys.

All right, we're back in public session. Can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting?

Motion. Second.