Mayor and Council - Regular Meeting

Adequate notice of this meeting of the Mayor and Council was sent to the Asbury Park Press and the CoStar, our official newspapers, and posted on the bulletin board in the Missville building. April call. Councilman McKinney? Here. Councilman de Blasio? Here. Councilman Maroney? Here. Mayor Donovan?

Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Please remain standing for a moment of silence for our troops their families and our first responders. We'll move on to workshop. We're going to do some things a little bit differently today. First, though, I'd like to thank our newest borough administrator, Mr. Joe Veroni, for being here with us tonight and for helping us right now in this period. And I have to say, I've had multiple conversations, I think, with everyone of this day about what a pleasure it's been to work with you as a professional and to have you on staff. So thank you very much. Four days, though. Incredible, though. Um, okay. So along with Mr. Browning, I'd also like to welcome Mr. Michael Bascom, who's not here tonight, but who is our financial consultant and who I tasked to focus on four main areas beyond examining our general overall spending. And those items are water sewer utility, itemizing the beach utility, opportunities for improving our procedures, and the office of the tax collector. So in regards to the Office of the Tax Collector, because I've been receiving a lot of questions about this, but first I want to say we've had a professional in since the last week working with us, and she is working on the size of a bullet point list of items. So those include reconstructing our tax lien related records, reviewing items for accuracy and appropriate posting status, communicating with our bean holders and our taxpayers to respond to current and past inquiries that were not previously addressed, preparing records, and addressing any other tax matters as they may arise. So we're very happy to have her working with us as well. I also want to say that yesterday I met with our auditor along with Mr. Broney and Mr. Mufascom, and I just want to say this because I've been getting a lot of questions and I want to be really explicit here. We've not yet found any evidence of wrongdoing, but certainly we've found many areas for improvement in our procedures and our management. However, if we have any evidence of any wrongdoing, we will, of course, immediately report it to the authorities. So if anyone has any further questions on that during public comment, please, or reach out at any time. So next, I'd like to go through our agenda just to make sure everyone understands what's on it. So on the consent agenda, we have our resolution authorizing our payment of bills and our resolution authorizing our refunds. The next item is a final payment to the library facade project. So congratulations to the library. Next, we have a resolution authorizing the support of bills to reduce our sales tax on the Main Street Bridge closure. So this is in support of A4425, which is sponsored by Assemblyman Keene and Assemblyman Schnall in the Assembly, and his companion bill, S3709, which is sponsored by Senator Popal and Senator Singer. So these are bipartisan bills. which would provide for a 50% sales and use tax for retail businesses impacted by, for instance, the upcoming bridge closure. So this is something that's really important for our main street businesses because of the impact these projects have on them, and I would urge anyone listening to reach out under support for these bills. Next, this is just a standard piece of resolution authorizing updates to the signatures on our proro checks from the former mayor and administrator. Following that, we have a resolution just affirming our shared service with the county to maintain our tax maps. We have some special events coming up. But these ones on this resolution are for the McGovern Shillelagh 5K on October 3rd. And then a couple events I wanted to bring to your attention anyway that are sponsored by the American Littoral Society along with the Environmental Commission, which is the river signing, which is a great event for kids and adults. But it's great. It's in August. It's $10 per participant. I encourage you to look it up. And we also have two weddings. and seeing what the names are on those, so good luck to those couples. And our ordinances. We have our bond ordinance for the Sixth Avenue Sewer Replacement Project. This is to cover about 1,000 linear feet of the sewer main and associated laterals on Sixth Ave, where it turns onto South Lake Drive, then up South Lake to B Street over to 7th and B. Then we have... We're just updating our water sewer utility language so that it reads correctly to water sewer collector and not the municipal clerk. And we have our bond ordinance. If you remember, we brought this up before and tabled it. This is the final product of a lot of negotiations. But on that bond ordinance, we have standing and permanent files. We have police department equipment, including the two Durangos, various improvements to the DPW building, turnout here for the fire department. They're resurfacing drainage improvements to 6th Avenue, that's covered by a DOT grant. Resurfacing 8th Avenue promotion to D along with drainage improvements and some landscaping, that's covered by a $1.3 million DOT grant. Replacing the municipal roof, which I can personally attest is leaking. And some matching funds for the Sharp River Basin grant. All of that we are participating in along with other towns and Long County. And finally, We have two ordinances at the bottom. These are ordinances that are promoting transparency and cooperation between mayor and council, and of course, ultimately, to the residents. So the first one that says that any applications made for a development must be submitted electronically to the borough clerk and then promptly sent to council. They say that the zoning officer must create a monthly report and share it with council, and that the borough attorney must make quarterly reports. Thank you, Mr. McGill. to the governing body about any pending litigation, and that the borough engineer must also make these quarterly reports. My goal here is that there shouldn't be surprises, particularly not to council. Up here, my general theory of government, everyone, is that it's a team project. Everyone up here is bringing skills and perspective that are really crucial. and no one should be regarding information. But also, importantly, we have to be able to make informed decisions, and that's going to severely impact our ability to do that if we're learning about litigation or proposed development live on the dais. So that's what that's for, and hopefully what you'll see is, with improved communication, it's just an improved government for all of you. And finally, the last one is the ordinance that clarifies that two-thirds of our governing body can vote to remove the borough administrator. So if anyone has any questions or anything on that, we can talk about it during public comment. And now, quite a long list, but thank you for bearing with me for all of that. We would like to just talk a little bit about items that could appear on our next meeting. We have potentially a draft resolution to amend the land use permit fees and a draft ordinance to create a mercantile license plate fee. And actually, what I would love to do is ask our borough clerk to kind of explain a little bit what the reasoning is there.

Sure. For the land use permit fees currently, we charge varying fees for different types of projects. It's a zoning permit for the zoning officer to review. And it's his recommendation that we charge a fee for resubmissions because what he's seeing a lot of times is architects aren't familiarizing themselves with our ordinances, perhaps. And they'll submit an application. The zoning officer will deny it for various reasons. They'll resubmit. they don't address all of his questions or comments. And then sometimes it's even been a third or fourth submission. So he was recommending that there be a second fee for additional reviews. I looked at what our fees are and came up with a suggestion. It was $50? Yes, so I went with the lowest fee that we have is $50. So I thought that that seemed like a fair plan review fee for a resubmission. That opened up to suggestions or feedback.

Is that each resubmission, if it does turn into three or four, every time they resubmit, they'll pay that?

um that's up to you we could do that that way or it could be just um i think councilman de blasio suggested that maybe the second submission is included in the initial price and only charged the fee on like the third or fourth submission it's common to get general feedback from the engineers or zoning officer with you know adjustments to plan and put them in and if you don't get it right the second time then let's let's be on the third

Comments are pretty, they'll be repetitive if you don't fix what's on there or you create a new issue with your plans. You'll just keep creating other variances. As a professional, you should understand the rules before you submit it.

Right, so that was my question too. So they do get comments back when you submit a plan saying this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong. Refer to some ordinance or et cetera. That's Mr. Allen. Okay.

And then the other item, so that would be a resolution to set that fee, which we could put on for the next council meeting. And then the other item was an ordinance to amend the mercantile licenses for our businesses. Currently, the ordinance reads that fees are due by December 31st of the prior year. And then there's, that's it. And what we're seeing is we ran into an instance where last year we had several businesses that didn't pay and we're in the summer months and they still haven't paid. And so code enforcement issued some summonses and one of the businesses questioned, where does it say they have to pay by a certain date? So my suggestion, and it's kind It's becoming an issue where we send out the renewals, a majority will pay within the first month or two, and then there's always about 10 to 20 that we're continually going after throughout the year. Right now, there's currently 10 that still haven't paid for this year. So looking at some ordinances from other towns, they do charge a late fee. And so what I was recommending was the fees would be due by December 31st. If you pay within the first 30 days of January, you'd be charged a $50 late fee. And then if you pay any time after that, it's a $100 late fee. And I just felt it would be a bit of an incentive to get them to file timely.

Because I'm a business in town, I should know this answer. When did the actual work in town license bills go out? It's around the holidays, right?

Typically, it was in the last few years. It was recommended that the renewals not go out until January, but re-reviewing processes with our new administrator, our new finance consultant, we can go back to the old way where we would send out notices in November letting them know that they have until December 31st to pay. And then one of the other changes in the ordinance was just something minor. It said that it shall be the duty of the chief of police and the licensed officer to determine that they are complying with the ordinance. I don't know who will have a licensed officer, so I just changed that to code enforcement. That makes sense.

Any other questions? Thank you. All right.

At this point we can close workshop. Do we have any petitions? I did not receive any petitions. Thank you.

Having no petitions, then we can move on to approval of minutes.

Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the June 23rd meeting? Motion.

Second.

Council McKinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Donovan? Yes. Can I have a motion to approve the minutes of the July 6th special meeting?

Motion. Second.

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

Mayor, can I just say one thing? Did you want to review the committee nominations for the vacant council seat?

No, our plan is to do that in the next meeting.

Very good.

Thank you. And now reports of council. Council President Kinney.

Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so a couple things coming up this week. Sandcastle contest is tomorrow, July 15th up on 18th Avenue Beach. So come up and check out all the sandcastles. Tomorrow's also the Belmar Life Bar Tournament in the evening. Belmar is hosting, I think, nine or 10 beaches. That starts at 6 p.m. That's at 10th Avenue Beach. I plan on being up there because we had to reschedule this a couple times last week, so it should be a good night. It's gonna be hot. Come out and support our Belmar Lifeguards. They, by the way, came in second on Monday, last night, at the Bradley Beach Lifeguard Tournament. So it's exciting. The Junior Guard Tournament is Thursday in Belmar on the 6th Avenue Beach. That starts at like 9 a.m. It goes about until 1 o'clock. So come out and support all our Junior Lifeguards. A couple other things around recreation. Fall soccer sign-ups have started, so if you want to sign kids up for soccer in the fall. We had to reschedule the Luckinville performance that was at Taylor Pavilion over the storms. The July 7th show was postponed and has been rescheduled to Wednesday, July 22nd at 7 p.m. at Taylor Pavilion. Friday night concerts on the plaza is little by little. This Friday at 6 p.m. at Piano Plaza. And the next thing I have is that the next shade tree committee meeting has been canceled for July. It will be held second Thursday of August. That's when the next meeting will take place. And that's all I have.

Thank you, Council President. Councilor de Blasio?

Okay, on planning board, we haven't met since our last meeting. We will be meeting Monday on the 20th at 7 p.m. That's when we will review the reports to council regarding our and glad we were determined regarding our department head meetings and our up to how we're going to update the master plan there will be a pretty big discussion on monday night uh as far as the harbor commission we also haven't had a meeting but there's been a lot going on in the harbor uh we had issues on july 3rd with the heat and the train bridge rail bridge not opening and then in Combination of that, the power going out, there were a lot of boats stuck in our inlet. We luckily saw a lot of people getting off at the inlet on the Belmar side of Terrace Road. So that was great that at least people were getting off the boat. The boats were stuck there until about 7 a.m. the next day. However, tomorrow there's another scheduled train bridge closure from 12 to 8. If you go out before 12, you will not be coming back in. from the transit, from New Jersey Transit regarding the heat, that it will not be able to operate the bridge. And then lastly, I just want to announce that we did get the part for the Lake Como valve. It was in Seoul two days ago. Was it finished today, Billy? Yes. It was finished today. So let's just give a round of applause for our DPW getting the part. And some further discussions on that valve and what we can do in the future to be

all right um the new jersey motor vehicle commission was scheduled to be here earlier in the month um but they got rescheduled because of the rain um they're coming back on the 20th if you did have an appointment they will contact you if they haven't already reach out to them but there are additional appointments so if you need a real id registration renewal title the title anything like that they'll be in town on the 20th i don't have the time so

It's 9-2. 9-2? And it's going to be here? Yes.

Do we know if there's still actually appointments available?

I do not know.

They do say that they opened up new ones, but I don't know if they've been full since we got that. July 20th. And that's all I have.

Thank you. If I could add on to the conversation about the New Jersey Transit Rail Bridge. I was on the phone with both New Jersey Transit and with a representative from the governor's office because what we've heard and I've been hearing for years now from our captains is that it is not enough to get an alert the minute the bridge is closing. We need to know as far ahead of time or ideally not have the bridge close at all. So what I asked of them was to try and have some kind of standard operating procedure so that we know, for instance, if the temperature reaches a certain height, that we know to start to alert our captains that the bridge closure is a possibility. If we have a certain number of days in a row with a certain level of heat, we can do the same thing. Just something so that we have something in place so, again, fewer surprises. We're also looking into seeing if we can get in place something less ad hoc so that if there is an emergency, if people are stuck east of the bridge, that they're not either stuck out there or disembarking onto private property, but we have something in place potentially for them. So we are working on that. We would love to make that happen for our boat captains because it is their responsibility It's their life. It's their business. It's how they make their money. And it's incredibly critical to our marina. So that is a high priority. Again, I just also want to say thank you. It's been a very, very busy first week. I've met with, I got to have breakfast with DPW. I've spoken with Chief Scott. I've spoken with most of the professionals in our office who, again, I just want to say are incredible people. They have been working so hard for all of us. That is all of the women in our front office, our UW, our police, all of our department heads. So thank you all of you for everything that you do.

Back to the train bridge. I feel like I've never heard of this before with the heat. Is this like a new injury to our train bridge? Is this something that is like a deteriorating problem with the train bridge that we need to be worried about? The Main Street Bridge, I'm a little concerned.

Those are really good questions. No, in fact, there are reports, and this is what I'm getting from our captains, that years ago, don't ask me how many, they would actually use fire trucks to water down the bridge. When I asked about that with New Jersey Transit, they said that because of the number of bridges that are out, they just don't have the capacity to be there all day continuously spraying it down, which is what would have to happen. And they had a bridge... just a few weeks ago that was stuck even after doing that for at least two hours. So that's why we were looking into other problems. So the other thing here everyone is that This is not a one-off. It's not once a summer. It's increasingly frequent every single summer. And the other thing I will say, too, is that he did mention that that bridge is slated for repairs, if not complete replacement at some point. So I did not get a timeline for that. 2028.

Bullets and bullets.

But these are really important conversations to have, and it's really important that all of us are advocating for Belmar and for businesses. So again, I mean, thank you to our vocab as they put up with so much, but they contribute a lot too.

Thank you.

On to public session. If anyone has a comment or a question about a resolution on the agenda, Please step forward and remember to state your name and address.

Barry Newman, 15th Avenue. Number one, the railroad bridge, Port Pleasant Beach got the same notice, because I still get info from them. Number two, I would like you to discuss, okay, fine the first time, as a member of the zoning board. First time, okay, I agree that there should be a penalty for that third, but when you're dealing in architectural fees and all that, is $50 even worth it? Just a thought.

Thank you. Any other comment? All right, seeing no further comment, we can close public session and move on to our consent agenda.

Can I have a motion to close the public session? Motion. Second. All in favor? Aye. Can I have a motion to approve the resolutions as listed on the consent agenda? Motion.

Second. Councilman Kinney?

Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Moroni?

Yes.

Mayor Donovan? Yes. Next we have a second reading and public hearing on ordinance 202613. This is a bond ordinance providing for the Sixth Avenue sewer replacement project appropriating $720,000 and authorizing the issuance of bonds. This is open for public comment if anyone would like to speak on this ordinance. Can I have a motion to close the public hearing? Motion.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. And a motion to adopt ordinance 2026-13. I'll make a motion. Second. Councilman McKinney? Yes. Councilman Delazio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Dothman? Yes. Next we have ordinance 2026-14. This is an ordinance amending and supplementing chapter 29 water sewer utility. This is open for public comment if anyone would like to speak on the ordinance.

Can I have a motion to close the public hearing?

Motion. Second.

All in favor? Aye. And a motion to adopt ordinance 202614. Motion. Councilman McKinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Donovan? Yes. Next one is revised ordinance 2026-9. This is a bond ordinance providing various capital improvements and acquisition of various capital equipment appropriating $2,833,920 and authorizing the issuance of $1,357,332 in bonds. Do we have a motion to offer for first reading and introduction? Motion. Second. Councilman McKinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Donovan? Yes. Next is Ordinance 2026-15, an ordinance amending and supplementing Chapter 40, and amending various sections of Chapter 40 pertaining to certificates and permits, powers and duties, borough engineer, powers and duties of the department heads, and of the... And creating a procedure for review and comment. Do we have a motion to operate this ordinance for first reading? Motion. Second. Councilman McKinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Donovan? Yes. And last one is Ordinance 2026-16, an ordinance amending and supplementing Chapter 2, Article 3, Section 13, Department Heads and Subordinates. regarding the office of the borough administrator, establishing the conditions upon which a borough administrator may be removed from office. Do we have a motion to offer for first reading and introduction? Motion. Second. Okay. Councilman McKinney? Yes. Councilman de Blasio? Yes. Councilman Maroney?

Yes. Mayor Donovan? Yes.

Okay. Now we're on to the regular public session. If anyone would like to speak, just please remember to state your name and address first.

Anita Buckley, First Avenue. In 1990, Congress passed the ADA law, and the Belmar Public Library is not ADA compliant. I see that we're giving them $10,000 more to paint the outside. I don't understand that. And last night they approved $30,000 for, I don't know, I'm completely ignorant when it comes to instruction and engineering and everything like that, but for something that seems to me like they're dragging their feet. They need an ADA bathroom and they need an ADA entrance, and I just don't understand it. And I just want everybody to be aware of that. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm happy to reach out to the superintendent and find out where they are in that process. Thank you for your comment.

Good evening. Linda Chardes, 4th Avenue. This week on Facebook, I saw a post that included our logo on a third-party provider. Our logo is very special. It isn't It hasn't been constructed for other vendors to be using our logo. And likewise, the logo on the marina is a far cry from what it should be if they're trying to duplicate the logo. And I'd like to bring Susanna, the creator of the logo, to talk about the restrictions what the logo means to our town. And it was implemented in 2012. Who knew? Susan.

Suzanne Pannon, Fifth Avenue, Obama. I just want to say, first of all, thank you for all that you do. I know that you're all so busy, and you all have your own lives. And thank you for everything you do on the council and as the interim mayor. So Linda brings up a good point about the logo. I designed the logo in 2012 and I designed it around the time of Hurricane Sandy. I also had the logo copyrighted and then in 2017 I had it trademarked. I did this because the administration at the time they weren't moving to go ahead and copyright the logo. And we started seeing it, just like Linda said, on different things. At that time, I created visual guidelines. I have a business of branding and design, conceptual design. And so I went ahead and created a visual guideline, uses for the logo, non-uses, and a term for the An industry term would be to not bastardize the logo. What Linda's talking about with the Marina sign is we're not sure who designed the sign, but they went ahead and changed the wave. The wave is resting on the word Belmar. And they added Manuti Marina, which it looks like it was just maybe put on with some decals. At that time, the other thing that Linda's talking about is the use of the logo by a third-party vendor. In 2022, I created a partnership with, when Mark Walsifer was mayor, his administration, we have a partnership with the use of the logo. I don't get royalties for the logo. I give Belmar free use to the logo. The only reason why we did this with the partnership was so we can police it, just for these reasons. And policing it in terms of you yourself could send out a letter to this third party to then say, you don't have permission to use this logo. And it's been done before. Some people had wanted to use the logo on their Facebook page, and they misrepresented themselves. by using our logo when it's not an official Belmar website, Belmar Facebook page, speaking of the borough. So it's not official. And so we created that partnership in December of 2022, which is prior to the last administration with Bucapusco as mayor. At that time, and I'll just introduce myself to you, Mr. Moroni, because as a business administrator, Since 2012, I have been designing the logo and volunteering to design it for so many uses in town. And I want to extend that out to you as well, because number one, I love our town. I want to beautify our town. I created the logo, and I just would love to have the opportunity to continue to serve. The logo is, I served on the, and I'm sorry to go on about this, but it's very important. I served on the Beach Committee after Hurricane Sandy with Matt Daugherty's administration when he was mayor. And I designed all the signs that are on the boardwalk. On the Howard Rowland building, I designed the logo and the type. I actually did a portrait of Howard Rowland. I did the basketball court, this rug here. Everything that you see the logo on has had my hand in it and volunteered it to the town. I also created the shade tree committee logo. I also designed the Belmar Women's Club logo. All this is in volunteering. So I ask if you have any questions going forward, and I would just ask for your courtesy if you would include me Because I have designed it, it's copyrighted, and if you need any additional support or any projects going forward, I would love to volunteer my time. And if you need any information of how we can police this logo, I would love to work with you in order to make that happen.

Thank you, and thank you for your time on this. A few things, actually. One, I know we've spoken about the importance of making sure that local uses and guidelines. I'm familiar with that process, and I think it's really important. Two, I think that letter in question was someone we were partnering with. I don't know if that's a gray area, Three, I'm happy to sit down with you and our attorney. I know there's a lot of questions about trademark law. We can discuss it and what the proper use is going forward.

Okay, that would be great.

Thank you.

was very confusing.

The blue environmental letter that goes out, I received one for my two family and called them and paid. Are there other, for people that get that letter, are there other companies that they can hire that really have to use the person that sent that letter? I'm going to give it, like, your car hits 36,000 miles. You get a letter. It looks like it came from GM. It's not from GM. It's from the guy that wants to extend it professional. So I do feel it looked very common. It came from us and it didn't. It came from a third party. I understand they had a partnership. I'm not saying you have the answer.

Yes, we have a partnership with them. Yes, you can also use an outside vendor, but then they have a $20 fee. Is that correct? Yes. And if anyone has any questions, please contact the office. We're happy to answer them.

Any other questions or comments? Mr. I'm back on the water sewer bill. I guess, you know, we get like four of them a year and try to make it less of a letter bomb. I think there's a way that we can tackle this to at least reduce the sewer charge. Number one, the way we're organized, we have a water utility, we have a sewer utility, but we don't have a stormwater utility. And what I'm advocating is the creation of a stormwater utility to try to shave that sewage charge, which is excessive. I did check with South Monmouth Regional Sewerage Authority and got numbers for the year 2025. And in 2025, Belmar sent SMRSA 331 million gallons of wastewater to be treated. I also over at our sales of meter of water here in Belmar and I had gotten that number and that was 183 million. So the way that things are working out with the field is that when you buy one gallon of water metered from the town, you're paying for two gallons of water being sent to the sewage treatment plant. One way perhaps of... The right number should be, you buy a gallon of water, you pay for a gallon of disposal. And that's why we have the seniors upset about the water bill. We're getting charged for two gallons of disposal. Instead of just paying for one gallon, that'll be purchased. You really can't do much with the price of water. That's a commodity, and yes, it's gonna increase in cost as time goes by because of chemicals, solids, and so on. But you could sell the water utility, and certainly New Jersey American Water Company would be willing to purchase that. Nobody wants to buy a sewer utility. It's a loser as far as money is concerned. You see us now, we're allocating millions of dollars to realign sewer pipes and so on. One method of approaching this problem would be the establishment of a stormwater utility. And we do have direct costs. that should be charged directly to the stormwater utility, including the $65,000 that we paid for the Lake Como pipe. And we're probably going to find a way to the A Street line, which has a similar check valve on it. I checked that the other day. We had five inches of rain, and you could see the plume running off into the river.

I believe the A Street line is one way. It's one way, as opposed to the common one, which I think is two. But I'm not even wrong about that. Am I correct? Yes. The Lake Como valve is two-way, which means it's letting water in and out. The one on East Street is only one way. So you can only go out down Silver Lake, down East Street, and then to the inlet.

I believe the Lake Como pipe, at least according to the authorization, is a check valve. Likewise, is a one-way valve. I stand corrected, but... In many cases. We have a growing stormwater issue in this town. I don't think we have to worry about future development with these big projects, you know, three acres over at the Repetti property and the other one west of Main Street here, because they have to comply with the So that infrastructure cost there will look for those bigger projects. Unfortunately, the MS4 regulations have a regulatory threshold, and the town has been dealing with this for years. Basically, it's impervious cover. And as far as regulation, I believe the regulatory threshold is disturbance of a quarter of an acre. And most of the home rebuilding and so on that's going on here, east of Main Street, doesn't come up to that regulatory threshold. However, if we had in place a stormwater utility, that would capture and bring it up to the same type of standard reduction of impervious cover and generation of some funds in order to make those payments. And the storm water utility is getting very popular. Most municipalities don't think about passing a storm water utility until they have fatalities. And unfortunately in New Jersey, that's what we're seeing. First, I checked with the city of New Brunswick. They have a ordinance that they have passed, which involves a lot of tax-exempt property, including Rutgers University. Then, I also checked New Jersey Future, and they had put out a model ordinance to be adopted by other municipalities or counties in the state. And I'll just read you what it says at the end of the year. It says, this model stormwater utility ordinance was researched, written, edited, and finalized by members of the flood defense coalition, including the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters, New Jersey Future, Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions, and Rutgers University. I'd like the Mainland Council to take a look at this and see whether we could adopt this strong-ordering utility. Thank you, Mr. Gamer.

I know there's some more people who want to comment so we can continue this after they have. But what I would like to do is if you could share your information with us, either in your paper copies or you could email them. Not only can we share it with council, but I can share it with Mr. Bascom, who is looking into issues like this. But I agree with you. The fact that we are processing so much stormwater is wasteful. And that's why it's really important that we're addressing our infrastructure to try and do that and save us all money on our utility bill.

Okay, fine. Can I give this to you? Yes, you can. I'll share it with them. Thank you for bringing that up. Interesting. Ms. Zero?

Hi, Kathy Diorio, 217 8th Avenue. We're the mayor and council. I wanted to address the car rally from last night. I'm wondering if we have any information about who the organizers were.

I'm unaware of the car rally that was last night.

Okay. Well, it was a pretty big one. I saw two police cars go down towards Ocean Avenue on the corner of 8th and B Street. Speeding, speeding, every car. No one's stopping at the stop sign.

My apologies, I was not notified that there was going on.

Okay, I'm sure. I didn't know either. Were they gathering at 7-Eleven? I did go down there because there were so many cars speeding by our house. There's, as we said before at these rallies, there's a playground. There's young families walking.

I'm just going to interrupt you right there, because we do follow social media, and we have been following them. And I literally have Instagram on my phone just to follow these people. I don't follow anybody else on Instagram, but these are enthusiasts, as they call themselves. I was unaware of it. I usually get a notification. On my phone. I seriously had nothing last night. I will look into it. Usually we'll get the notifications. We'll call the National Patrol. We'll call in the parking authority people to do the parking along Motion Avenue.

I was unaware of it. It was not as large as other ones. And I know you... you know, been looking at Instagram before. And, you know, we really haven't had, you know, too many, but this, when I saw the two police cars go down, I was surprised because usually what happens is one of the police cars will come on B Street and stay there, and the presence alone will make them stop a little bit of their racing. Oh, absolutely, we'll get to it.

I don't know why I wasn't notified.

You know, we have... People who are visitors who don't know that there's these rallies going on, they're walking with young children. They don't know that those cars aren't going to stop. You know, it's really, we've been very lucky. Other towns seem to be able to, you know, I know they've had the teen pop-up rallies, but we don't want anyone to get hurt.

I would also like to comment that I think part of the reason we have been, quote, lucky is because Chief Scott has been on top of us the past couple years. We really have been cracking down. So, yeah, we might miss this one, but I think overall, we have been really trying to stay on top of it.

Are they still around 7-11? You know what? I didn't go down that way. I just stayed where we were because I know how fast we're riding.

it looked like that's where everyone was going, because there were cars parking inside of my house. Unfortunately, we can't stop them from parking on Ocean Avenue or on the street.

They'll get to speeding, and they'll meet the stop signs. That's against the law. So that's what's scary. I don't care if they want to show off their cars, that's their business. But you can't be speeding down our streets. It's not right.

Any other comment or question?

Can I have a motion to close the public session and adjourn the meeting?

I think this will be quick. Hi. My name is Debbie Kinsley. I live at 512 13th Avenue. There's three things I wanted to quickly ask. One is, there's been a lot of construction on my block, and we're a narrow block. It's a one-way. I mean, I have a picture here from July second after five o'clock of the size of a vehicle parked on our block. I think we really have to consider some kind of controls after July, from July to August on construction, number of vehicles parked on the streets. It's a safety issue. Because there's construction going on on my block and there's eight vehicles, eight business vehicles, and you can't even get out of your driveway to see. You know, other towns have this, and starting with July, you know, only maybe inside workers allowed, or some kind of controls with their vehicles. I mean, is this something that we could consider? Because I know my neighbors, they're also asking about it. We've been, like, inundated with this.

I think that does have a lot of construction, you're right. I don't know if we can help all construction.

Well, I'm not against that. I'm not asking for that. I'm asking for some controls, like, You know, when there's eight construction vehicles on the block in July, that's a problem. It's a problem for your guests. It's a problem for the people on the street. It's a problem for us getting out of our driveways. And it's also a courtesy. I think it's a courtesy issue.

I think certainly what we need to do is very much focus down on parking on the town-wide level. And we can put that on the list. We're considering moving forward making a parking committee. So we can happily add that to the list of considerations.

Yeah, I'm not saying we should shut down construction. I'm saying there should be some limitations on what can be done in July and August.

Well, isn't there an ordinance overnight for commercial vehicles? Overnight, but during the day there.

Oh, you're not talking about overnight? No, one of them was there overnight. And it's just, you know, you pull up, okay, I'll give you another example. In January, you know how much snow we got. I shovel right in front of my house, the whole area, so my brother and I can park. And they come with all their trucks and start pulling up. They don't pull in the driveway of the house they're working on. Like, that's just rude. I mean, that is just not neighborly. And, you know, I just think that we need to have some, a little bit more courtesy to the people in the neighborhood.

Thank you. I understand.

And you start coming down, you must be really frustrated.

Yeah, this has been going on for me for like two years now. And I'm really now, I'm like, after the July 3rd, which was a federal holiday, and people are working on the federal holiday, that really shouldn't be happening. I mean, that's another thing is, there's no ordinance, because I called and asked, that says they can't work on a federal holiday. I think that's something you guys should consider. It's like a Sunday. You can't work on a Sunday. Maybe you shouldn't be working construction on a federal holiday. That's interesting. Especially when they fall in the summer. When you have all the people here for the beach. Okay, so that's my first question. My second question is, I had asked the former tax assessor this question about reassessment, and they said something about 10 years, but we haven't done it. What's the story of that?

We're on the 10-year program. A lot of the towns in Long County are annual, and our next assessment is coming up next year.

2027.

Okay, okay. Because then my next question is on the taxes. How do I find out more about like our real estate taxes, because I feel as if we have a lot of new construction in this town, but the people who have been here and have older houses are paying a lot of money, and when is it going to get sort of spread to these new homes?

That is a question for the tax collector or assessor, but it's all based on a tax rate, and we got schooled in that at an executive session, and I can honestly tell you I blazed over after. It's very involved, but I'm sure he'd be happy to explain the formula to you, but there's a tax.

I got an understanding of it, but I'm very surprised with the amount of new construction we have in this town.

Well, there is a formula, and I'm sure you'd be happy to explain it.

Then my question is, what are we doing to cut costs? Because if our costs are still rising as much as they are, and we're adding this much more buildings in this town, the numbers just don't seem to make sense to me, that they're not spread right. I mean, you know, I don't know, but I'm asking the question, like, how do we keep our costs at a reasonable level? I think adding new construction is one way. You know, you add more rateables, you should be bringing in more money. And that's what I'm saying. If we don't reassess, how do we gather that money back?

So you're assessed every time you do. project. Anytime you improve your home, you are reassessed and you get an increased rate, whether it's a special assessment and then it's tacked on to your taxes for the following year. So it's a reassessment of the whole home. If you put an addition on your home and you were not assessed in eight years, that whole home is going to get reassessed as a whole.

So is all the new construction, it's not covering the cost of... Again, there's a tax rate that does compare your lot to your lot to your lot to that big building.

I understand that, but I'm talking about math. Just general math. With the amount of new construction we have, and the amount that things go up, why are things rising so high with the amount of new construction?

That's my question. That's a good question. First, the major projects aren't up yet. So that's point one. But point two, the reason our tax bills are going up is a large percentage of that is actually our health care costs. So we have at this point more retirees on our health plan than we do active employees. And for those retirees, we're not only covering them and their out-of-pocket costs on Medicare, we're also covering their spouse and their families. And that extends even after, even if they pass.

Okay, so here's my question, which goes back to the beach, right? Does some of our beach money go towards that? Because those positions were for, partially for the beach.

Not really, no. The majority of our, I appreciate you thinking outside the box. I'm trying to think outside the box here. So a few things, though. One, our beach utility has to be spent on the beach 90%. I made that number up. Let me be more clear. Most of our beach staff are seasonal employees. So they're not going to be on a retirement plan. They're not going to be on a health plan in general. what we have to do, and that's why I tasked our new financial consultant with looking at this, is looking at our spending. Where can we reallocate funds? Where can we streamline our spending? And what are our opportunities to lower costs for the borough? So it is a priority. I understand your concern. We're all taxpayers up here as well. And I will keep updating you as we go along and we find out more things.

So for example, like Chief Scott just said, okay, we have to deploy more overtime or people, if these people are gathering at the beach for their things, right, their car things. To me then, that cost should be going from the beach fund. And a portion of the people that we hire, I mean, I'm taking you down the path.

No, I appreciate that, but again, the beach utility is very tightly regulated.

But I do think that this town is spending money because other people are coming into it. for activities. Yes. And if the beach fund is the reason they're coming here is for our beaches, obviously, our marinas. So if this is, you know, maybe we should be trying to get more out of that. Because maybe that could help our costs. That's all I'm saying. I'm just asking. Yes. I mean, I think it seems this gentleman was asking about the sewer, which I think, listen, anything we could come up with, we only have a fixed amount of revenue. So... How do we cut our costs or spread them better? That's what I'm asking. I'd like to stay here, but my taxes went up an awful lot last year, and I really didn't expect it with all the construction we have going on here. Thank you.

Johanna Robinson, 9th Avenue. I just want to piggyback off of what Mrs. DiOrio had mentioned about the pop-up cars. I just happened to be having dinner yesterday over at the Anchor, and I don't think it was a formalized pop-up, but the amount of cars that went through, driving through the main street and the noise that it made was just ridiculous, honestly. I've seen a few things that are concerning to me about 8th Avenue. The other day, just walking down the street, people coming down Main Street, making a quick right onto 8th Avenue, they almost hit you know, a gentleman and his two kids that were crossing the street and he flipped out about it. So I don't, you know, I know they were talking over the years about doing something as far as like lights and things like that over by the senior building and like 8th Avenue, but 8th Avenue and 10th Avenue, you know, eventually somebody's gonna get hurt. So I just wanted to get some feedback in regards to where do we stand as far as hearing from The state or whoever deals with the 8th Avenue project, because that's been several years, more than several years.

So one project that we're working on is pedestrian safety traffic at the Transit Village, which is 8th Avenue, where the senior building is.

So Mr. Orson, do you have anything you can put on the spot? I know you've been working on that. Do you have anything? Because this is all about pedestrian safety on 8th Avenue.

So from Main Street to Route 35, that corridor, the borough had been notified some time ago that the DOT had a pedestrian safety improvement project there. To complement that project, the borough applied for a transit village safety improvement project which would connect that crossing down West Railroad and over to the train station. So we're working with the DOT to better define who's gonna do what and when, right? Because they had already had a project planned. We have grant funding associated for that project. We had a meeting with DOT about permitting. And so that's the update. We're waiting on the next meeting with DOT to improve that location. In addition, in the overall plan for what the DOT had provided the borough was to take a look at the intersection with Main Street as you're heading away from the railroad heading east. To shift the center line over slightly, make enough room to create two formal lanes, which would then help with traffic configuration. So you can set it up and have a straight left, and a right only or conversely do left only and a straight right. So those are the things that we're working on with DOT. The other thing I wanted to point out with the DOT's project improvement They're moving, their proposal was to move the crosswalk about 50 feet to the east and move it so it's at a better location. Right now, basically you run into the 10th Avenue Burrito. So moving it over to the parking lot area makes more sense, but then they wanted to narrow the lanes down, right? So right now you've got almost two lanes and you have some parking. They want to throw it down so it's only one lane in each direction, which means the pedestrian has less distance to travel, but it's going to impact traffic. So we're looking at that pretty closely to see what are the best options you would know.

So that was DOT that wants to do that?

Yes, that's the concept of what DOT wants to do included that throating down of that location. So like there's one parking spot in front of 10th Avenue Burrito, that would go away. But by making it one lane in each direction and not have people kind of funnel through there, it's safer because you only have more protection. You don't have to cross.

The angle parking in front of the anchor and all that?

That would still, Correct. And I think there's probably one spot in front of the beach house that might be lost. So we want to make sure we're communicating all that to the mayor and council so that you're aware of it and we may need a public input session from the public to get some more information about what it is we at the borough want to have the DOT do.

The other question I have to that, being that there will be development with the Russo and Ruppeti, are they taking that in consideration? You're going to have far more traffic feeding into 8th Avenue also. So 8th Avenue isn't that wide. They really need to look at something that's going to support that. Because you're going to have a lot of traffic coming in. And 10th Avenue also. Those are the roads that we really need to look at. And that's those two... everybody into Belmont. It's like the main threshold, the main throwaway.

So West Railroad at that location runs one way heading south. So you won't see There'll be increased traffic on 8th Avenue. I'm 100% agreeing with that. But what I'm trying to say is that people are not going to be able to come out of that development, come onto West Railroad and turn left and go to 8th Avenue. And they're also reconfiguring the parking. The planning board approved it, and I believe the council is considering a resolution approving it to reconfigure the angled parking. and make parallel parking, and also create more, help us with our pedestrian paths, if that's the right way to put it, so that we can get people from Fifth Avenue, including the Senior Center, over to the train station, so it's improving that too.

Thank you for your feedback, thank you Mayor, thank you Council.

Any other questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, we will close public session.

We have a motion to close the public session and adjourn the meeting.

Motion. Second. All in favor?

Aye.

I'll turn it on.