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 notice was posted on the bulletin board and the borough's website. Take roll call. Councilman Lubin? Here. Councilwoman Kinney? Here. Councilman Maroney?

Here.

And Councilman de Blasio is absent. And Mayor Donovan?

Here. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for a moment of silence for our troops, their families, and our first responders, and for Dolly Parton, who passed away this afternoon as a true American music legend and humanitarian. As always, I will review the items on our agenda and then move on to workshop discussion. First, I would like to congratulate Councilman Kevin Moroney on his appointment to the Harbor Commission. So that is one of our first resolutions there. Then we have an administrative item. We're required to appoint a fund commissioner and an alternate fund commissioner to attend monthly meetings of our joint insurance fund. These roles will be fulfilled by our clerk and our borough administrator. We have a resolution for some special events that includes the 9th Avenue Block Party and Pilates on the Beach in September. And finally, there's a resolution to fill a vacancy in the Belmar Housing Authority, which shall go to Lisa Orchard, who previously served 20 years in that capacity. We welcome her expertise back to the board in service of our seniors. And the one ordinance we have on the agenda today will amend our code. This is a result of an issue a resident actually raised here. It outlaws construction, maintenance operations, or utility work on any Sundays or federal holidays and establishes acceptable hours as 8 to 5 p.m. on Mondays through Saturdays. Okay. So we have a few items for a workshop. First, we're going to be talking about our dryways and impervious versus pervious materials. Mainly, this is to talk about grass. This is an item that has floated up on the zoning board's recommendations every single year, so we're happy to finally address it here as part of council.

Mr. Regan, would you walk us through the highlights of the issue? Right. The zoning ordinance deals with impervious surfaces. Every other town they have an impervious surface ordinance. Ours is called building lot coverage. So our lot coverage ordinance defines what is impervious and it talks about certain substances, stones, things like that. But what it does is It states that any area that is a driveway or a parking area is impervious, no matter what it's made out of. So it doesn't define impervious by the material. It defines it by the function. So in that ordinance, there's an exception, and there's an exception for stone and gravel. So you have the entire area that's impervious, they accept out stone and gravel to the tune of 50%, but since they haven't accepted out grass, grass is in. So while stone and gravel is at 50% and grass, which we all think is impervious, But because it's not subject to the exception, it is counted at 100% pervious. And a literal reading of the ordinance supports that. But it's ridiculous.

So we just need to rewrite it so that it says that grass is 100% pervious. Or does it not say that now? It does say that.

It does not say that. We can say that. And that's the simple fix that we want. Yes. That would be where I'd add on this. Totally, yes. Simple fix? Simple fix. Because I don't like defining impervious. by function. That eliminates all the new stuff that comes out that allows percolation. Every year it seems like there's a new engineer type thing. But we can look at that later. If you're up for the simple fix, simple fix it is. Works for me. Simple fix it 100%.

All right, the next item is the Tourism Commission. This is something that's been a conversation for the last three years since I've been on the Tourism Commission, which I've actually just appointed Councilman Barry Lubin in that seat. But if you read the ordinance for the Tourism Commission, it actually has no jurisdiction over events. The only thing that's in the Tourism Commission's jurisdiction is advertising money is spent outside of the borough, generally speaking. And we have all these people on the tourism commission and obviously it makes sense that events should be part of what they do. And that they should be doing it and making recommendations on how to better the events that we have and make them more in accordance and worthwhile to the goals of the chamber and our main street and for the residents themselves and what they want and what works best for the borough. So I put this on the agenda because I'd like to see if we have general agreement here as to what the function of the tourism commission should

Having my first meeting with them, very casual, very open, but no real authority, exactly. Basically, so my report of council is coming now as opposed to tomorrow. So on Wednesday the 12th, I met with them. Mayor was there for part of it. And it was, again, small but very good meeting. But there's so much crossover between tourism, events, chamber, recreation, And sometimes the library. The tourism really has no authority. My answer is some sort of coordination at the beginning.

I also, I mean we're a tourism based town. It's a big part. For them to only have that one small part of that, I just don't think it's a good utilization of the personnel there. Let's give them some more to do. some authority, and let's see what they can do.

I have always felt that tourism doesn't do enough in terms of special events, coordinating with it. I always felt that there was a separation between tourism and the Belmar League Chamber of Commerce. I felt like there we have Jenna, who is our head of tourism, who works for the borough.

My special events committee, too, technically Sorry. Technically, tourism isn't even in her title. And that's OK. It doesn't need to be, but. It's all the same thing. Or tourism and pertains to tourism to no more. Yes, and I also think partially that we should be thinking, we don't necessarily need to be a tourism draw particularly in the summer. We have that already happening. We should be thinking about how we bring people in to support our three different business zones, but also very specifically, how can we restructure our events so that they are worthwhile for the residents of the borough? And that goes to so many things, and the obvious example is Seafood Festival. I can tell you, and I know I'm speaking on behalf of the people of the Tourism Commission now, but I think they'd be okay with it, that they have been sending up recommendations about the Seafood Festival for years with Average Minder. to give them the ability to work more closely with our events coordinator, with the chamber, and bring forth solid recommendations that have to rise to us, I think would make them much more effective, again, for our residents. We can also argue that

Parade should be part of tourism as an event, but that's also separate and apart because there's a parade committee, right, who does the parade specifically, right?

Well, the parade is not even a Belmar event. It's the parade...

is it not an event that attracts tourism to our area so they get involved there too in some fashion well and then actually on a side note i would like to appoint a

a liaison from Belmar to the Belmar Lake Home Parade Committee. Like I said, and that is the organization, they are an organization that puts on a parade and they get that event permit from us. So again, it's not a Belmar.

I totally get that, but it's part of Belmar's tourism, you know? I mean, isn't that part of what draws people to our, that's why I never understood why the parade was just separate from all of that.

I understand that, but the same as the Chamber of Commerce is the Lake Como and Belmar Chamber. And that's fine. In my many years of dealing with the Chamber, where my business was, When I started there we had a business association which was not much bigger than our chamber now and now that chamber is over 300 members and going strong. and it's just it comes down to a matter of over a period of time deciding who's in charge of where and or coordinating for each or event who who's in charge of what event and who has to work together yes well i think that there's ways that the tourism commission can get involved that doesn't actually

involve the nuts and bolts of the parade itself. I mean, they could get in touch with the bars and get a band list and advertise that, you know, or do things that are going to attract people that are like, I don't know if I want to go, oh, my favorite band is playing, or a band that I like is playing. If we can get that kind of information out through them so it doesn't actually...

I agree. I think it needs to be coordinated all the events in town. It needs to be coordinated through tourism, whether it's run through... this committee, or that committee, or that organization, and it all should go through tourism as a borough-wide, and maybe, like, not a borough-wide offense happening in town. That's just my point.

Can you remind me how you started that? Because you need to think of something that was not an original topic. Oh, that's great. I would just say, I think, to gently reframe that, that Del Mar, despite the fact that the parade is not a Del Mar event, does spend an extraordinary amount of money on the parade. And so I don't know if I would boost our advertising monies there rather than other smaller events that perhaps would, that would more directly boost the businesses on ways that they don't even, since we have such an extraordinary high number of people into the town on a parade day. And that also being said, what I'd really like to see happen is for the chamber to take more control of some of these events so that it frees up our staff to focus on other things that we need to do. So what agreement have we reached here in general?

Coordination between the separate tourism events chamber I could in a heartbeat get the executive director of the Point Pleasant Beach Chamber up here for a meeting.

I agree. It's about getting together with the tourism commission and just kind of have you know, have a brainstorming thing, like what can we do, what will we do, and what are we willing to do that day.

And a representative from the Chamber who wants to participate and wants to go along with tourism.

And I think the way the Tourism Commission Ordinance is currently set up, it demands representatives from the different types of businesses that are in Belmar who are paying into that tourism fund. which is partially why we have the type of membership we do there. But it doesn't have formal representation from the actual chamber, and I think the idea of having a joint meeting, perhaps on the next one, that can be coordinated between them to dial up some formal recommendations is probably the better next step.

Well, doesn't a mercantile license mean that you're paying to tourism people? Yes, every business in town is a mercantile license fee, which we know now can't be a need fee because we have that one in. But if you have a business in town and you pay a mercantile license, like I do with my business, then you're paying a tour de.

Okay. So before we go any further, the tourist commission, tourist development commission is a creature of statute. Okay, so it has a certain flow of money from our mercantile license into it, and really its only power is to spend that publicizing or promoting Belmar at 50% has to be out of the cap. So those are the powers. So when we talk about authority, that's all the authority that they have. So they can't spend any of the money that comes in on the parade or on anything else. Unless, you know, there's always an art to the definition of promotion, right? So, I mean, I get that too. But we have to be careful there because it's a creature of statute. It has only certain powers. Now, we do have an advisory committee, I think it's called, in our ordinance that Because there's only five members by statute, by order, it's only five. But if you wanted to have a committee that would work in the manner that you're talking about, it would be probably through the advisory committee because you could get extra people to work. And anything that they're going to do, when we talk about authority, it's really your authority. It has to go up to you and then you have to say yes or no. We can't give them any rights to do anything else on your behalf anything the borough does has to be done by you so you know in that sense they're not going to have any more authority except they'll be you know operating at your pleasure and if you like what they're suggesting then you'll do it but they'll have no additional authority other than what's in the statute we have voting and non-voting members

As far as for sending or the recommendations for spending money.

You just wouldn't call them that. There's five members, five commissioners, that's it. But there's an advisory committee. So you would have, that's where they would be. They wouldn't be non-voting members. That's not provided for. Yeah. But that's not a semantics, right? It is. But that's how it would be set up. Okay.

Do we know how much money is in that fund? Let me know later.

I don't know now and I won't know later either. That's Joe's question. Or Mike's.

And the last thing here is a flood hazard development permit date. And for background on that, many, if not most, towns have something like this. We have to pay for our professional staff to review applications as they come in and cover those costs. And we would like to not do that. But for instance, the proposal here is for $150. I will say that the Highlands, for instance, has $150 for residential and $200 for commercial. So that was one of the things I wanted to bring up if you wanted to make some difference between residential versus commercial.

So this is for typically new construction or an addition that requires, that's in a property that's in a flood zone. They're required to fill out a flood hazard development permit to make sure that they're building above the flood elevation and meeting all the other requirements.

That's common in other towns, and we're catching up to that. We don't want to, you know, we don't, we, our taxpayers end up paying those fees where we can get the money directly from the applicant.

We don't have a fee right now, is that the issue? We don't have a permit at all. You don't have to get a permit, you don't have a fee.

We have a permit, we just don't charge a fee for it.

This is aggravating for residential and or commercial.

When they come to the zoning board, those plans?

No, this is during the construction process.

During, okay.

$150, but my one addition to that that I wanted to bring up to all of you would be whether or not we wanted to make it slightly higher for commercial properties. Actually, when I say commercial, I meant, I'm thinking more of a larger development, like large-scale developments that we have coming in. For instance, that, you know, I think you have. I think he has. He's charged them all the money we have. research and find out what other towns are doing that that one two tiers system two tiers yeah i like it great yes all right great workshop everyone Okay, so we have any petitions.

I did not receive any petitions.

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

Could I have a motion to approve the August 11th minutes?

Motion. Second.

Councilman Lubin? Yes. Councilman Kinney? Abstain. Councilman Maroney? Yes. And Mayor Donovan? Yes.

I'm just looking at my own stuff. Reports of council, please.

I'm pretty much set. I was just reading. There's nothing else in my notes to add.

Thank you, Councilman. Council President. Thank you, Mayor. Well, because I was in here last time, I can talk double tonight. OK, so there's quite a little bit I have. Recreation, fall tennis sign-ups, boys and girls and adults, happening now. Tennis lessons start in October. Fall soccer sign-offs also happening now. The season starts in September. A sixth through eighth grade co-ed team has been added. Mary, you asked me about coaching, and apparently we've found all of our coaches. So we're doing soccer coaches for the fall. The Gary Letizia Memorial Blood Drive is Tuesday, September 1st from 1230 to 630 p.m. at Tamar Familian. Please, everybody. coming with some dirt and some blood. Senior Gay Night is coming back to Taylor Pavilion September 14th at 12.30 p.m. Mahjong in Hanaska. Call the Recreation Office for more information if you would like more information about that. Jack Pink will be performing in the Plaza this Friday and the band Exit 102 will perform on September 4th. Those are the last couple bands that are gonna play in Piano Plaza on Friday nights. Movies on the Beach, the last one is tomorrow night at dusk. The movie is What a Girl Wants, and the Belmar Skate Park will be selling refreshments and snacks. So next Friday night is the Kids Race. Belmar 5 is Saturday, September 5th. The Kids Race is at 6. You do need to register your kids if they want to run the race. They say to show up around 5.30. The Belmar 5 is Saturday early morning. It kicks off at 8 o'clock. You can still register if you want to run. So Thursday the 3rd, September 3rd, at Goodwill, you can register to run 6 p.m. And you can register as late as Friday the 4th at Taylor Pavilion. You can get a registration on Friday the 4th as well if you want to run. And all kids and adults need to sign up and register. After the kids' race, around 8 o'clock, we're going to have our fireworks, which I had to cancel. I had five whole days in there. So we have to go back. We're counting down on the board. And that's all I have for recreation. The State Street Commission has been awarded now two big grants, a $25,000 grant and a $31,000 grant. Both of them have had matching awards made. Both of them have matching portions from the borough. The first one was the community forestry plan, which is going to refresh our inventory and pay to do a five-year tree inventory in town. We also have hired back Bill Brash as our arborist, and he's identified over 1,700 trees that we have in our planting strips in town. And we've also identified, I believe, upwards of almost 1,000 areas where we can plant new trees. Then we have the second grant, which is also going to provide pruning, maintenance, watering, tree removal. So there's going to be a lot of tree happenings because we have these fabulous grants over the next couple years, or the next five years or so. So that's really exciting. And they are also in the works of trying to find another grant And stay tuned, because hopefully that will provide us money too. And then the last thing I want to report on is that Belmar has created a parking committee. The mayor has tasked me with creating a parking committee in town. And so she and I have selected about seven or eight residents, Belmar residents, Belmar business owners, people who have experience with urban planning, with redevelopment, and we also graciously have as a lieutenant, Todd Lee, who's helping us with parking laws and enforcement and how we can get some more money out of our parking, which is right now called parking utility. The sad reality with all this redevelopment is that our very sort of fragile parking situation is probably going to get worse. So we need to figure out some solutions now. And we're in a very in between stages of this. We've only had two meetings. But we really need to figure out how we can maybe find some more parking in town. There's potentially going to be increased thorough paid parking in town with the possible ultimate goal of a parking garage in town. So all of these things are not off the table. but we're trying to get ahead of some of the redevelopment. We're kind of already behind because it's already starting, right? So we need to really see and take serious considerations about the capacity of parking that is really, is coming our way. And it's, you know, not only are a lot of these developments under parks, meaning there's not even enough parking for the people that are going to be living there. But if they have friends come and families stay, and guests, and where all these people are going to park. And it's going to be a burden on those residents. So the parking committee is going to be a real serious plan in the next couple months. We hope to have some solutions. But again, very early stages, very early conversations, working entirely with the police department and mayor and obviously with our business administrator and a lot of great um people in town to come up with some real solid solutions so i will keep you informed every step of the way of what we decide i'm sure there's going to be a lot of public meetings and conversations to come but it's it's coming okay so just letting you all know and that is what we have ma'am thank you council president all right uh council

a couple of notes for him as well, so do that. Planning board, they reviewed and finalized comments on the master plan. One more version of the updated plan will be issued 10 days before the next meeting, which is September 28th at 7 p.m. The plan for the next meeting is to do final review, redline, comments, and vote on the master plan. For the Harbor Commission, discussions continued regarding Marina Project's plan for the fall. DPW is continuing to repair finger docks that have been damaged for some time. A tee head replacement by 9th Avenue Pier. The bidding process is complete and will be reviewed. Harbor Commission voted to approve purchasing 20 beaches to be placed around the marina. These benches will be offered for dedication plaques similar to how other benches are around town with more info to come. The marina will now have a representative also on the parking committee, which is headed by Council President Kinney, as you just heard. The next Harbor Commission meeting is 915 at 6 p.m.

Thank you. And we do, in fact, have a representative from the marina on the parking committee. So, again, it's always trying to make sure that we're including all these neighborhoods and commercial areas of Delmar as we go forward and make these decisions. And thank you all for everything you're doing. What we're doing, too, on a larger scale, one of the biggest problems we have in front of us as a borough, and it ties in with infrastructure, is, of course, flooding and resiliency planning. So two major things happened in the last 24 hours about that. One is, thankfully, we have the Army Corps of Engineers here today to talk about our lake plan. They went over and took more samples, and they're getting ready to deliver us a draft in September of the demo review. And the other thing was that yesterday, we were lucky enough to host a large group of representatives from our neighboring towns, from the county, and from the Department of State DEP, along with members of the American Literal Society and the Sharp River Cleanup Coalition. Now this was all in service to a grant that I talked about before. I was lucky enough to be able to write a Belmar section of it, but we're working in tandem with all of those entities along with the county to come up with a resiliency plan for Shark River and the flood. And one of the areas we really want to focus on for our Belmar section is, of course, that River Road in the Cleary Park area, in the L Street area. That section of River Road there on 35 is one of the lowest, if not the lowest point in Belmar. It floods like that. We all know it. And then not only affects our traffic going north to south, but it also affects those surrounding neighborhoods as people veer off them. I see some smiles and nods there. And, you know, those streets are very narrow. We have just damage to property there. We have people getting sideswiped, losing their rear view mirrors. So making sure that we're addressing those, that issue in a coherent way is really important. And one of the things that I got to do is go down and look at the actual bulkhead. And we've known that the bulkheads need help there. But even if you go over to that area just south of the Clearview Park that is adjacent to 35 going up towards Belmont Boulevard, you can look and see that bulkhead needing help. And the land from 35, like next to 35, is sliding down. So it's really, really important, not just that we restore that bulkhead, but we look at nature-based solutions because those are actually going to be better, more resilient, better for the wildlife, but actually also better for the infrastructure itself. So I was lucky enough to be able to speak directly with the DEP commissioner, not only about that, but some of the other issues we have here in Belmar, everything from flooding to dunes to things in between. So we're really excited as a county to be able to do these projects, to make forward progress, and create a better realm for all of us. So there's that. I want to thank everyone who came out to coffee with the mayor. We did another solid three hours. And these sessions, I love them. People feel like, how do you? I could say another three, to be honest with you. I'm obsessed with this stuff. I'll talk about it to you guys all day. And it really has turned into such great brainstorming sessions. We had the Utilization Committee come out of the very first one a month ago, which has been being developed over time. So I'm so excited to present that final product to you guys. But even little things like bringing to my attention different code violations in town, to even talking about larger scale ways that we can address things like violations on the beach, for instance, and how we can help all of our staff in town. So thank you for everyone who came. I encourage you to come next month when we do it again. And one little tiny thing, we are in process, I made a resident at the last council meeting here bring up a memorial tree that was down. We are in the process of replacing that. And I'd like to give a little shout out that our superintendent isn't here, but DPW has been doing so much work. He will tell you, he's getting way too many emails and text messages from me. He's got us to do this a mile long. And they are really, every single member of our DPW is working so, so hard. I know so many of you saw the excavator out on Silver Lake. We are just really trying to move forward. We're doing things that we can do right now to make your quality of life better and to address all those issues that you've been bringing up to us over time. So, thank you.

Next, we have the public session on the resolutions. If anyone has a comment or question about a resolution on the agenda, please step forward and state your name and address. This is just the resolution.

What about workshops?

Coming later. 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. Okay, Councilman Lubin?

Yes.

Councilwoman Kinney? Yes. Councilman Maroney?

Yes.

Mayor Donovan? Yes. Next, we have the second reading in public hearing on Ordinance 2026-19. This is an ordinance amending and supplementing Chapter 16-3, 19-7, and 27-4 of the revised general ordinances. And this is amending and establishing times for construction in the borough. This is open for public comment. If anyone would like to speak on the ordinance, please step forward and state your name and address.

in the write up on that it says on Sundays the homeowner can still work on his house. So we have some homeowners that own 10 houses. So is he allowed to work on any one of those 10?

The short answer is probably yes.

I have to look at the wording of the ordinance. Does it say owner? yeah if you stretch it probably if you're a landlord you're a homeowner you own all those properties so technically that landlord yeah i understand what you're saying i don't think we're understanding the homeowner is like you know the resident the person that lives in the home can do it not not the problem yeah maybe it's

This is the second reading. Can we currently amend that, or do we have to go back to the beginning?

If we're going to amend it, we could just table it now and come back, and I could look at it. But right now, I don't have wording to do that. I'm not going to amend it on the fly and have everybody vote on it. So we'd have to go back.

I'm wondering, because I think there are those of us who would like this in place for when we're going to begin. Do you think we could pass that abysm and amend it in the problem meeting?

Well, you could just go through the process again and have the first reading amending it, yeah. And if you want to pass this as better than having this as better than having what we have in place right now, then you vote it in now and we'll go through the process of amending it. We may not run up against that issue, but we will have. It is a good point. It's a good point. But I'm going to have to take a look at it. That's the way things go. He's a good attorney.

And then Desharkis, 4th Avenue. I'd like to suggest that the construction hours be extended to 6 p.m., Monday through Thursday, because as the shorter days are approaching, these contractors are under the pressure to get their houses done on the outside, and that extra hour makes a big difference over the course of the project. Just my thought about it. And then end at five on Friday, half five o'clock on Saturday, and nothing on Sunday, so.

Thank you.

Thank you, I hope you consider that.

Mr. Kramer.

Eugene Kramer, Forth Avenue. This proposed ordinance modifies about three or four other sections of ordinance. One thing I didn't pick up there is what about emergencies? Does this have any effect on regulated public utilities or the county if they want to work on the bridge at night or DOT working on the bridge or the railroad working on the bridge 24 hours a day? Is there exceptions in here that allows for regulated public utilities and other government entities to do work beyond these hours?

No, and there haven't been any exceptions. We didn't eliminate any exceptions. There never were exceptions for those circumstances. You have to take everything, you know, one by one. In an emergency situation, nobody's going to say that you can't do work because you have an emergency. If you have an emergency, you've got to take care of the emergency. Now, whether we can tell the state that they have to be quiet after a certain period of time, I doubt that. And the same thing with the county. These are other, you know, government... entities that have their own powers. And we're on the bottom of that totem pole. So yeah, the state's going to do what it's going to do. The county's going to do what it's going to do. We can enforce the laws on the other property. And so that's pretty much the way we did it. And there are three sections that we amended. And it was interesting because the times, they're pretty much the same thing, but the times were different. So depending on what ordinance you were under, you could make an argument. So we made those uniform and eliminated the chief's ability to tell people that notwithstanding the ordinance, they can do it as long as the chief is okay with it. That was part of our ordinance too. Don't know how that got in there. It was in there for a long time. Don't know if it was ever acted upon. But it's certainly there, and there's no sense putting our chief of police under the gun because the chief would then have to make a decision if a contractor could work or not, and that's not the chief of police's job.

That's basically it. Regulated Utilities, New Jersey Natural Gas, they use Keeley as the contractor, one of their prime contractors. Actually, just as Pat Hooper, we had gas leaks on Fifth Avenue where the construction was going on. There were guys out there with jackhammers you know, in the middle of the night, talk about lab, that's what you were trying to consult.

If they're doing that, though, they had to do that, right? Absolutely. We don't want to stop people from fixing gas leaks, so...

As long as that's understood and doesn't get in the way of anything. We're watching these things every night on TV about power lines falling down. And I work for a power company, and quite truthfully, we never really had a problem. Police departments, quite truthfully, did everything that utility requested as far as street closings and construction. I did have one case where our own men were ear protection equipment, protective equipment, and had to use jackhammers in the street in front of a couple of homes, quite truthfully, on a 24-hour basis. And the way we handled that was giving them, the homeowners, actually personal protection equipment. So it wasn't a problem. That's all. As long as the town understands what it's placing.

So the other thing to consider, too, is we don't go out and wrestle people to the ground and make them stop. And then they go to the municipal court, and depending on how reasonable they were or they were not, the municipal court judge would then handle it that way. So if we actually wrote a ticket for somebody who's fixing a gas leak, I don't think the court would appreciate that too much and probably would dismiss it. So we have to have a lot of common sense when we're enforcing these things. I think that's what your problem was advocating.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments, please?

Can I have a motion to close the public session?

Motion.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

And can I have a motion to adopt Ordinance 2026-19? Or do we want to make amendments?

Well, if we're gonna make amendments, we have to table it and come back. If we want to have it ready for a later date, we'll do it right now. Now, one thing to consider is when we rewrote the ordinances, we didn't change any of that wording. That wording's been in the ordinance forever, so that issue's been there forever. And I'll have to take a look at it, and I don't have it in front of me right now, and I'm not gonna do the analysis right now anyway, to determine if that's a loophole. But if that's a loophole, we can close it, but I also want you to understand if that's a loophole, it's been a loophole. So if this is better than what we have, then let's do it and we'll go back and fix it.

I would defer to the consensus of council, but I'm happy to go forward with this now and then return to it at any date.

I agree.

Yes, I agree.

Great. Would someone like to make a motion to adopt the ordinance? I'll make a motion.

Second.

Okay. Councilman Lubin?

Yes.

Councilman Kinney? Yes. Councilman Maroney? Yes. Mayor Donovan? Yes. All right. And now we have the regular public session. Just remember to please state your name and address before you speak.

Has there been an update on the cost of remediation on the 12th Avenue property?

Yes and no. So right now we have a proposal, and I'll just explain to you in full what's going on. We have a proposal from our vendor to remediate, redo the roads and the sidewalks. And the total, if we go through the entire list, is about $750,000. And then we also, we can choose to bring some of those pieces out if we decide not to demolish the building. I know they have more proposals to take other things off the list, since I have one more to DPW, but unfortunately that doesn't necessarily minimize the cost. So we need to move forward with that. We are also looking into grants, and there are different grants we can push through, and they would allow us to bring back anywhere from 75 to 25% of that project. However, the 75% number would only cover things, it's recreation, Mount Laurel project, and there's a third one. Renewable energy. Renewable energy. So those are the three. If we go down to 25%, we can use it for almost any municipal purpose. And there really isn't a time frame for how long we have to use it for that purpose to get that 25% back. So we have to make a final decision. We have to make it very soon, because we would like that project to start before the end of September. Do we know the time frame? Do we do know the time frame?

Once it starts, it's about four or five weeks to be completed. And as the mayor said, we're evaluating the different options. They're adding some test wells to try to constrict the area that they have to excavate because they kind of did a broad brush to, and now they're trying to get at exactly how much they have to take out.

So it's somewhere between zero and 700,000.

Correct, but erring on the side of closer to $750,000. And then I don't know if you're asking the larger cost of the project.

Well, where I'm going is, where did this $700,000 come from? Another bond? General assets, but we're it's a capital project of bond. Yes. So this will be a bond another bond on top of the bond That was passed to buy the building.

Correct.

So we're like two million dollars in bonds on something. We can't use Can't use haven't been able to use for four years Correct. Okay And we're also paying interest on that bond for the last four years?

I'm not quite sure about the financing mechanism, but we're probably paying interest only, yes.

So all this money is affecting our taxes, correct? It is one of the many items. Right, but it's a major item.

It is a major item. Okay. And it is part of our debt, too. Obviously, we want to limit the amount of debt burden that we have as a municipality to maintain healthy finances. So we don't want to take on too much debt because that's not good for us because of the municipality.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Yeah, I've got to ask you about this because this really bothers me. Debbie Kinsley, 512 13th Avenue. I know I asked this question, but I want to ask it in this public because I want it to be stated. Who was the attorney that approved this? Because I think we should be going after that attorney. I really do. I mean, we have no, we bought a building that had all this contamination and an attorney just allowed the town to do it. I'm really, I'm questioning this because in today's day and age, you don't buy a building unless you check this stuff out first. Not later. So this is not like all of a sudden there's environmental rules. I mean, I've been looking at buildings for years and years and years in my business, what I did. And to me, this is like, how did we purchase something? I never went to the meetings before. I have no idea what went on with this. But it's just craziness to me that this could be this much money. I mean, I'm asking the question because I hope we never use this attorney again. And I'd like to know who this attorney is.

As our councilman quietly pointed out, the attorney question is deceased. The firm is no longer one of the firms that we use by the borough. There was, I believe, this was purchased, let me say, six years ago at this point.

We have to be fair here because the assumption or the premise is that the attorney didn't do something that they were supposed to do now That's that that has not been established. Okay, so I understand where our president's coming from but So it may not be.

I can tell you that what was told to us by the existing LSRP who was working at the time told us that there was so much money that we needed in escrow, we ended up, we put that money in escrow, it clearly was not enough, we blew through it, some new people came in, one administrator, new administrators came in. I just know what I know on my short one year that I was in the council at that point in time. So obviously there was a misjudgment there and it is what it is.

Okay, well you gave me a little bit of clarity here You were told something that was totally wrong-based, in other words.

I don't know if it was at the time. I don't think it didn't seem to be. I just, you know, the word I knew based on the information I had.

I mean, listen, when you buy properties with potential environmental conditions, you make assumptions based on expert opinions. I mean, obviously, you're not an expert. I mean, you know, so I just think that this amount is huge. It's a huge amount. And I can't go backwards, so I just.

Right, and I think there are two separate related issues. One is the amount that we had in escrow was not sufficient, and the other was that the borough, correct me if I'm wrong, it's real, and I have to be wrong, is that we could have taken 12 months to do more diligence on that property, get the full scope of what needed to happen, and perhaps go back into, to get money from the seller, and instead we closed in three months. One month. One month.

So this was, in other words, what I'm trying to understand, can this happen again? How do we prevent this from happening? Not on my watch. You understand what I'm saying? My concern here is this is a lot of money that we're burdening. And how do we put in place something so this doesn't occur again?

Well, I think we make smarter decisions as a council, and we have to make sure that we're bringing in professionals who will tell us hard truth. I don't want anyone who's working for me or working for anyone up here who will be just a yes man. I want to know when and why I'm wrong. And not only that, but if there's an alternative viewpoint to anything I'm doing, I want to know it. I only want to make decisions that are as sound as possible, and I think anyone up here would agree with me. No organization

Just because a bad decision or a decision was made in some manner four years ago doesn't mean that we're going to make that same decision today or next year or going forward. So that was its own decision, its own set of facts. We did certain things as a borough, and now we're, well, fixing it, if that's the proper word, but we're addressing the purchase of that property. It's an ongoing process.

Some criticism could be... No, I'm concerned, like Councilor Penny's saying, they presented it not... There was no indication, you're basically saying, that there was something... else to be concerned about. We knew there was contamination.

That was clear. My understanding was that they had gone through the professionals that they had at the time. They consulted the people that they had who led them to believe that there was an ability for it to be cleaned up with a certain amount of funding and that the building ultimately was going to be used as a borough property. That was the ultimate goal of that property.

So when they got these quotes, did

Shortly after this all happened, they got voted out. And then a new administrator, a new mayor, and a whole new administration came in who brought in their own LSRPs, their own professionals, their own engineers. So, I mean, in reality, you don't know. You might believe that the people who are talking to you or telling you what you think is the truth, but then other people have their truth, and then other people have their truth. You know what I mean? So this is what it is, and we can't beat a dead horse. It's over, it's really over.

I understand this part of it, but I'm gonna give you an example of something. Where I live in Florida, or a property in Florida, we had a situation where we did like a 10 year, whatever they called it, like analysis, you had to check the property. And the information was filed by an engineering group, but it was filed incorrectly. And the town came back 10 years later and said to us, hey, you gotta have this done again. to our HOF, and we're like, wait a minute, we already did this. Now this isn't like an insurance issue, because we hired a professional, they didn't do what they were supposed to do, and now there's liability here. And I'm just trying to, if there's some potential that we could go after somebody, For a breach here, I think we should be doing it wholeheartedly. That's all I'm saying. I understand your point.

The only thing I can say is that we understand that. And we're not going to discuss what we have done and what we know as to who did what plan. Because that's something that we may get into litigation about. Maybe not. Well, I can't right now. explain exactly all that I know and why I think the way I do. But we are looking at that. We're not aware of that.

It makes you feel better. It really does. I mean, because this is a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And I just can't, I don't think it should happen like this.

And ironically, the words I was looking for was omniscient or all-knowing, so. Yes.

Linda Sharpless, 4th Avenue. One of the things that's missing from this discussion is four years have passed. That's a long time and change in just the cost of things over four years. But I also want to mention that the standard for the cleanup has increased, and that is another big reason we have a higher cost here.

I'm not sure it's a big reason we have a higher cost. And I will defer to our LSRP about it. It's certainly a factor, and I think it's a good factor. I'm very happy to hold to clean the contamination to a higher standard for our residents. I think when you look at the general estimates of what this property has cost and what we need to do to fix it, you're still going to land in about the same place because we did clear that in the far-reaching handling. But the time function changed laws. I'm not disagreeing. I'm saying they did.

Not all. They did change laws in that time frame. Well, that's a fact. Yeah. They changed the laws to be higher structure standards

And let's face it, all our costs were lower four years ago.

If your overall point is that it's time to move on this property, I think everyone agrees.

Yeah, you're just a little slow. Get in there.

I've got my hand on the green button.

Tell me to shut up if I say it, but I just want to reiterate that when that building was purchased, there was a 12-month until it was closed upon or whatever. It was done within one month.

Good afternoon, everybody. Tony on the 10th Avenue. The saving grace, given my professional opinion, 17 years as a licensed and practicing real estate broker, when it's all said and done, we're ahead. So we could all focus on what happened in the past. or we can move forward and say, post cleanup of this property, the borough has a tangible asset that's worth more than the cleanup and the acquisition price combined. So that's my opinion for what it is, and I'd like to think that my colleagues in my industry would also agree. I do have some experience on commercial parcels in Belmar, so make that noted. Moving forward on that, So Mrs. Sharkis' point, you also have four to five additional years of water seepage on the roadway. I was here for the presentation that the engineering and LSRP did, so yes, there's an incurred cost for this. I also have a very extensive utility construction background, and I can tell you it's not that easy when there's other utilities in the way, which is driving the cost up. One thing I'd like to know is it's nice to see, actually, which I was not aware, that the demo of the building is in that number. Yes. Okay, so that's good, right? So maybe the burden, you know, I have a general gauge on what that might be, but I will say that there's probably, if that was removed, you probably can get some competitive bids from a couple local guys and some other companies that are involved. And concrete, although expensive to get rid of, does hold some value because it's turned into recycled aggregates. So there might be some other companies that might be interested in that. So my recommendation would be is to shop proposals on demo and removal. A nice clean site would be good. That's not why I'm here. To touch on the workshop issues, the permeable situation regarding drivers, right? I'm the vice chairman of the zoning board. I can speak on behalf of myself and the chairman of the zoning board who I spoke to earlier today and cannot make the meeting. The long and short of it is granulated stone and grass both in a park strip scenario should be, in our opinion, 100% permeable. And I'll give you this as an example. If you had, and if you understand what I'm saying, driveway strips, meaning a interlocking permeable paver application going up your driveway where the center of it is either filled with grass or stone. Do you have a visual on this? Okay. So if it's 40 feet long by three feet wide, if my math is correct, it's 120 square feet. 120 square feet that is counted against the homeowner for permeable application. It's 100% non-permeable. What we're finding is that the architects and engineers are not specifically drawing additional walkways, paper patios in their yards because they're losing it up front by trying to be accommodating to a driveway situation. If you have 120 square feet, whether in my opinion, it's filled with stone or grass, and it perks to the soil, then that allows for a 12 by 10 patio in the backyard. And no burden to the municipality and or the homeowner. So that's something that I think should be considered. I can speak on behalf of Mr. Fitzgerald, who's our chair, who again, I spoke before he came in here. He is in agreement with me on this. There are other members here of our zoning board that would also potentially might like to speak with that. Something else that I don't like is that if you're using stone in a landscape application, specifically instead of mulch, if you're putting a granular stone down, that also perks. So I don't see why it has to be counted as 50% when in my opinion it should be 100%. Now, from the municipality's point of view, and potentially a lot of my neighbors, I'm sure what we don't like is when the stone driveway in its entirety, potentially, encroaches on your driveway apron because then what happens is the stones get into the right-of-way and on the sidewalk and become a burden for the municipality, the neighbors, the sweepers, etc. Mr. Fitzgerald brought up that there might already be an ordinance in place where you have to carry pavers or concrete three to five feet from your sidewalk apron to prevent the stone or whatever coming into the driver. I mean, that's what I did on both my puzzles. With that being said, I'm in agreement. Mr. Fitzgerald's in agreement. I have a tendency to think that some of our going board members would be in agreement. I don't care if it's grass. I don't care if it's filled with stone. That should not be 100% non-permeable. That's my opinion. I'd also like the board to give consideration to switching the landscape aspect of that also. Stone perks. I mean, we're not talking about a DGA or recycled concrete aggregate or base. If you watch these professional paper companies that install driveway strips when they do this, the center is not filled with the recycled concrete aggregate or DGA composite material because they know they need it to perfect. And then indifference on that, some guys lay papers on stone dust, other guys lay papers on sand to each their own. Sand obviously perks, right? So it's something that's been burdensome, in my opinion, to the zoning board for a couple years. I know that we would like to get it addressed. I'd like to thank you all for putting it and getting that in the works. Maybe Mr. Fitzgerald might like to share his own opinion, but as of right now, we have my text message with him and communications. He's in agreement with me. Can I ask you a question real quick? Yes.

Do we need language that specifies what type of material we would need under the stones?

In between the... It's probably going to be no material under the stones. It'll probably end up being... Do we need language there? I think the language would be no compacted material in between the driveway strips. I think Ms. Bell might better speak to that. Ms. Williams?

Before you walked in, Tony, we did all agree that grass I heard, I'm pushing for the stone.

I just wanted to make sure. I made the mistake of cutting through Avon and got stuck at the bridge, so I apologize. But I did over here, but I would make the push for the stone too. I mean, a lot of people have stone driveways. I personally don't mind stone driveways if they carry it in your backyard. It's a nice look. If you have grass in your park strips and you don't do it the right way, it burns out. So to each homeowner, you know, it's a preference.

Anything matter there as far as like the size of stone or anything like that?

Yeah, you might have to give, yeah, you might, you know, that's a misspelled application, I think, or a recommendation for somebody like, you know, on the record, but off the record, Joe Kashub is an excellent ancillary. Mary Hearn is an excellent architect. They might have valuable opinions on these subject matters. However, yeah, you might not want certain types of stone. Yes, I would agree with that. Gravel versus rock versus real stone. Yeah, 3HP gravel, which is like the smallest you can get, has a tendency to roll over, has a tendency to compact. Three-quarter inch clean blue stone is a different type of aggregate. That's what I used in my driveway. It has a tendency to compact slightly, but it still lets the water current. It's at the preference of the municipality. But there's a strategic advantage, not only for the municipality, but also the homeowners, to allow it in the suspect application And then the last thing I'd like to add is I'd like to thank Council, Ms. Claudio, and a couple other people from the town. The job site over on 35 is a lot more visually appealing. I like to see the people who walk hand in hand without having obstruction in their way from weeds and et cetera. And I'd like to thank everybody for... However that happened, I'd like to give some credit to the developer there for addressing it almost immediately. It's nice. And look, the inside of their job site, I can tell, is a very tight project. They are very neat at what they do. It's nice to see they carry it to the outside. It's important for our company. It really is. And then also to the safety of the people coming over to our meeting sessions. So thank you all for what you've done.

Thank you. Mayor, we have statements here, and you guys are at a disadvantage because you can't respond. We have statements about the delay with this project. The project just didn't simply sit there. Sorry, I've been thinking about this because you're because I won't let you speak and you know, the appearance is that four years went by and nothing happened and that's simply, that's not the case. We had the LSRP on the job, recommended that we dig out the dirt, everybody knows we did. We dug out the dirt from 1200 Main. That dirt is gone. We did that work. The problem was, when we did that, it didn't clean up. We had more mess to clean up. Didn't clean everything up. And that's a problem, and then that was an issue that the borough came into. What are we gonna do with the property? How are we gonna pay for it? And the big question, where does it end? It was never delineated, and that was an issue that we were dealing with all the way up through present. Anything can get done faster, I'm sure. Anything, looking back in hindsight, you could say, oh, look at that and look at that. And I agree with that. But to say nothing happened and this property wasn't dealt with is just not so.

Thank you. And I think right now at this moment, we're the resident thing to hear, though, that this is a top priority. We want to have it handled and we want to move forward so that we can get some of that money back for the borough and that it looks nicer and is usable. Thank you.

As a member of the zoning board, I agree 100% with Tony, and you've actually had enough of a quorum here for the zoning board to have a meeting. The other thing is the annual reminder that September 27th is the New Jersey Run for the Fall. I thank the fire department, the police department, and everybody that comes out to support it. For those that don't know about it, it's a group of people that run from down in Cape May up to the, I'll say the Garden State Art Center. I know there's something else now, but that's what it was to me. And they run that over a course of four days. And it's an amazing experience if you're there. This particular run will start probably around 8.30. It technically says nine o'clock, but they're always growing. So I will say 8.30 this year to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to see it. Yes, yes, yeah. Right, corner of North Boulevard and Ocean Avenue and then also down at Fifth Avenue. I'll be back with the next meeting. Thank you. Thank you.

Any other public comment?

I'd just like to go on record that I think the council and the municipality should be of strong consideration to keeping that parcel. And I just, directly across from our elementary school, we're gonna have an increased populace of people here. We're gonna need increased fire, increased ambulance services, increased police. It's a rare opportunity to have a parcel of that size strategically located directly in the center of town, directly across from the elementary school on Main Street. So it's my recommendation that if the borough, council, and our residents can get behind it, there's probably some significant future use for that parcel for the town. Land is limited in our municipality, as we all know, so I just want to go on record for saying I hope you can consider

I'm Phil Gray, A from C, and I do agree with, I'm also a member of the zoning board, and I do, don't hold it against me. I agree with what Tommy said in regards to all that pervious and impervious stuff. And if you're gonna think about dragging stones and gravel out into the street or across the sidewalk, you have to kind of consider how many feet a revolution of the tire is. because that's where they all get caught up. They get caught in the tires and they get dragged out, besides the kids kicking them out. But you might have to make it even longer than three or four feet. But I do agree with what Tony said, and I hadn't even thought about keeping that property at 12th Avenue, but it's certainly a valid point.

I will say, and I'll jump into this, whether it should or not, that when we talk about fire there, the issue is that you not only need enough space to park all of our rigs, but then enough space to park all of the fire company as they come in for a call. And I'm worried about that when you think about the amount of traffic and people that descends on that around 8 AM, around between 2, between 2 and 3 o'clock p.m. And I think that could be a really big hindrance to having a fire company stationed there in the yellow line.

We would also lose significant parking on that because they would have the yellow line out in a very large section. So you'd lose all the parking on probably a quarter of that block. So there'd be some real limitations to what could be done there. Or going to be thought about.

Absolutely. Thank you. Any other public comment?

All right, can I have a motion to close the public session?

Motion. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Okay, our last item is a resolution of the borough of Belmar to adjourn into executive session. This is Resolution 2026-178, 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, which is contract negotiations, personnel, and pending 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 by the borough council as follows the council shall recess into a private executive session from which the public shall be excluded that the scope of the 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 and 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 of the council shall resume after the executive session at which time the borough council may take action in reference to the topics discussed. We have a motion to offer this resolution.

Motion. Second.

Councilman Lubin?

Yes.

Councilwoman Kinney? Yes. Councilman Maroney?

Yes.

Mayor Donovan? Yes.