Borough Council - Regular Meeting

I'd say that it's there now, but I got to watch for an echo. So, give me just another like 10 seconds or so. Okay, we are recording. We're on YouTube. We're We're good to go. All right, I will call the meeting to order. Roll call, please. Mayor Kenos, here. Mr. Rivero, here.

Mr. Ruse is absent. Mr. M here. Mr. Trainer here. Miss Zamara here. Mr. Zazerino here. Notice of this meeting was provided to the Burnersville News and Courier News filed with the municipal clerk and posted on the municipal bulletin board on December 4th, 2025. Uh please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic the republic for which it stands. One nation one nation under God indivisible

indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome to the February 23rd, 2026 meeting of the Burnsville Burough Council. Members of the public will be allowed to speak during the open sessions and during formal public hearings on the agenda. Comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker which will be monitored and enforced by the burough clerk. Failure of the governing body to provide a live broadcast of this meeting or technological problems encountered during the course of the meeting that affect remote viewing and/or participation will not invalidate this meeting or any action taken including but not limited to the adoption of any ordinance, resolution or motion. All right. uh presentations. We have um rippled water engineering to follow up on the um dam removal concept plan. Uh where is Mary? There you are. I see you. Okay. Do we want to let There you go.

Okay, Mary, you're up. Thanks so much, Mayor. Um thank you all. I have a PowerPoint to share um to go over the Green Acres grant application um and then we'll take the public comments.

Okay, final.

All right, can you all see my screen? Okay. Yes.

Okay, great. Um, so the purpose of tonight's meeting is to talk about the upcoming application to the Green Acres program for park development grants for 2026. Um, we have previously conducted a survey, prepared a conceptual design plan, prepared an environmental impact assessment, and a cost estimate associated with this grant funding. Um and then like I said before I will take comments at the end of the presentation. So first I have an image here showing the concept plan um that Green Acres requires. There's a lot of information on this view. Um this map shows the existing impelment, shows some of the proposed improvements associated with the park um that are being considered for funding through um the uh Greenacres grant. Um but I'm going to move on to the next slide which is a little more readable for our purposes tonight. So this image here shows um a a closer view of the pond and the proposed improvements. Um the m municipal building is here on the lower left side for context along with the existing parking at the municipal building and the parking adjacent to the existing park. You can also see here the existing paved um walking trail um as well as then the proposed improvements. So on this um concept drawing, we are showing an exist an additional trail to be added um which is shown here in brown um going around the former pond um where

the dam is proposed to be removed. And that loop trail continues around and connects to um the existing uh pedestrian bridge which is in poor condition adjacent to the municipal building. um that will also be removed and replaced as part of the overall park improvements. In addition, we have several proposed fishing access points which will be designated fishing access points off of the main trail. Um there will also be park benches installed adjacent to some of those fishing access points. Um and educational signage will be added along the trail uh both in the vicinity of the existing dam as well as signage along the path denoting more of the pollinator um repairarian meadow which will be planted um in the former dam pond on the uh 202 side of the property. on the railroad side of the property. This will be forested um so it will be more trees and shrubs on that side um as opposed to an additional meadow. The other features worth noting on this page are removing the two small dams downstream of the main dam. There are two smaller dam structures downstream that would be removed as part of the project. And then these sort of paperclip um stapleshaped features are called rock riffles and cross veins. Um these features serve as grade control structures to basically take the elevation change from removing the dam and spreads that out over the full length of the restored stream channel. So that each of those

structures is much smaller than a dam. and doesn't impede fish passage um and also allows for free movement of the water through the restored river system. Um and the other feature on this map is the installation of root wad bank stabilization up here. This root wad bank stabilization is to be installed in an area of um higher velocity where there's a risk for the channel to move into the former pond. Um so that requires a bit of additional armoring which is done in the form of tree roots just like it sounds. Um it's a root wad structure in the stream bank which is then planted um and that serves to provide additional protection against the instream velocities entering the restored river reach. So that's an overview of the concept layout. We completed an environmental impact assessment which had to include a summary of the existing site conditions. So we know at the park right now that it's primarily lawn with some trees and shrubs and a small area of an existing wetland on the property. We have the existing mine brook which flows downstream of the dam and a 1 and a half acre pond at the site. The municipal building itself is a historic mill that's res recognized by the state of New Jersey. Um, and access and parking at the park is fairly limited. Um, and the parking is limited to what's adjacent to the municipal building. the dam removal benefits which you all have heard me speak about at several hearings over the last I want to say four or five years at this point um is

that we eliminate the liability for the burrow associated with dam ownership and I'll go into a bit more detail on that in a few minutes um we also restore fish habitat to the mine brook we improve water quality at the site by reducing both instream temperature and fecal colifform load. We will reduce geese usage at the site due to the reduced open water of the pond. When geese don't have an open water to land in, it's less desirable for them to land in a vegetated space. Um it's also reducing the risk to the municipal building and the downstream facilities. Mitigation measures that will be installed during the um construction phase involve all required soil erosion and sediment control measures. No construction will be taking place on weekends after dark on holidays or during inclement weather. The park will be closed to the general public during the construction period for safety and all construction safety standard measures will be in place um before any work begins. The alternatives to the proposed action involve a noa action alternative where nothing is done and the dam remains as is and a rehabilitation alternative. So with the noa action alternative um the property would basically be in violation of all of dam safety's requirements since they tasked the bureau back in 2019 with doing something about the regulatory compliance for the property. Um so that was deemed to be an infeasible action both from a safety standpoint as well as a regulatory compliance standpoint. And the rehabilitation alternative was also discussed um and reviewed that was

completed back in 2022 by Ferrero Engineering um and they had looked at a rehabilitation option for the dam and done a detailed analysis for hydrarology and hydraulics as well as a cost estimate. and that was ultimately um decided against due to the dam removal removing the long-term liability um and providing a permanent solution for the property. So our overall construction cost estimate which you saw me present on back in the fall um is 3.47535 47535. Um in terms of the cost, this involves not only the dam removal pieces um themselves, but it also includes work within the stream involving habitat features, grade control structures, plantings, the proposed walking trail benches and signage, the replacement foot bridges and abupment protections, the small secondary dam removals, the soil erosion and sediment control measures. um stream stabilization, mobilization, demobilization, extra stabilization required by dam safety at the location of the primary dam removal as well as sediment hauling and disposal and contingencies. The planned funding request to Green Acres is $690,525. that will cover the park amenities including the benches, the signage, the walking path improvements, um the plantings, some of the soil erosion and sediment control measures. Some of those are being funded by another grant we already have. um excavation in the former empoundment, some of the grading of the stream

channel, some of the stream stabilization, the fishing access points, and the small secondary dam removals along with contingencies and mobilization fees associated with those aspects. The results of our survey are broken down into two main sections. We had a series of questions which I've addressed on the left side of the slide as well as a series of comments um and I will speak to those now and then I have an additional um response to some materials I was provided separate from the official survey. The first question we got was where are visitors supposed to park? Obviously parking improvements are not proposed with this project. There is limited parking um at the municipal building and at the park. Um whenever I have gone to the site for dam inspections or for meetings, I have not had an issue parking. Um I haven't been there necessarily on a weekend, which I would assume maybe would be more crowded, but even during the week, the few spaces that are adjacent to the park um tend to be available. Is there a possibility of seeking private contributions to fund the project? Private donations could be considered as an additional funding source. I'm sure mayor and council would be happy if someone wanted to volunteer to privately submit funding. I think someone suggested a GoFundMe in one of the survey comments. Um I don't know about fees associated with that or if a municipality can do a GoFundMe, but definitely private donations are considered um as an option if there's someone who knows of a funding source for private donations. um we definitely would be open to that. Why does it cost so much? Well, the dam

cost includes all of the required elements that um are necessary to meet the regulatory requirements for DP. So the cost um that we had back in 2022 was a conceptual level estimate that shifted as time went on with comments and feedback from damp safety um as well as changes to the construction industry um and material supply in the region. What is the difference between a dam removal and a dredging project? Um, someone asked what the main difference is with dam removal. We are removing the structure that is in place next to the municipal building. That main dam is the focus of the dam removal project. But we also have to manage some of the sediment. When you do a dredging project, you can artificially lower the water using um structures or pumps and systems like that. Um, and then you're just removing the sediment, but the dam remains in place. Um, another question we had was, can't you just open up the dam and let the water flow out on its own? Uh, and the answer to that is no. The state requires that we manage all the sediment in the pond. We also have to document that there would be no off-site risk when the dam is removed. Meaning we have to run a whole bunch of engineering analyses, um hydraulic studies, complete detailed engineering plans to justify um that the removal of the dam will not cause any harm to any adjacent property owners or those downstream. With the comments, we received kind of four main categories of comments. A lot of people commented on the heavy geese population in the existing park, which definitely makes it hazardous. There's

goose poop literally everywhere all around that park. Um, you can't walk a few feet without stepping in some. Um, the nice thing about the dam removal is we will be reducing the overall geese population. I know there's an airator which definitely helps deter them. They don't like running water and that sound. Um, but when we take the dam out, the open water that is so appealing to geese to land in is removed. So, it will reduce the population of geese as well. The next comment we received was that the park is not wellmaintained. Um, dam removal reduces the overall maintenance responsibilities at the park. So there would be increased funds available that are currently going towards the dam safety compliance um on an annual basis that would be able to be used towards park maintenance. Uh there was nothing to do with the park. Well, the nice thing with this uh removal is that there will be increased recreational opportunities both in terms of the loop trail, additional bench benches, and the formal fishing access points to the restored river. Um and then the last group of comments was keep the pond and the dam. So the response with that is that it requires ongoing financial investment on the part of the burrow and maintaining that long-term risk and liability with dam ownership from a safety standpoint. And so this is um info@ripplebaterslc.com is our email address and our website. I am also going to speak about um some feedback and information I was given regarding a dam rehabilitation scenario um particularly in light of recent comments suggesting that that rehab alternative could save the municipality more than $2 million.

First, it's important to clarify what we're dealing with. This structure is classified by the NJ as a high hazard dam. That is the highest classification the state gives out. It is not to describe the condition of the dam. It describes the consequences of failure. A high hazard designation means the failure of the structure would likely result in loss of life downstream. Since the burrow is the owner of a high hazard dam, they have an obligation to address known structural deficiencies and to maintain compliance with current dam safety regulations. This is not discretionary infrastructure. It's a regulated structure that involves risk to human lives. You may recall the dam is currently documented to be in poor condition with structural deficiencies that risk exposure. continuing to own and operate a deficient high hazard structure carry significant liability and regulatory oversight by NJD in perpetuity. In 2022, the bureau discussed and reviewed rehabilitating the dam or removing the dam at multiple burough council meetings. The review involved reporting and conceptual level cost estimates as well as alternatives for both options. The public was offered comment and feedback opportunities at that point and the bureau selected removal as the desired alternative. The dam removal project currently under consideration for this funding has been reviewed and permitted by Dam Safety. This means that the state has evaluated the proposed approach and determined that the removal scenario satisfies all regulatory requirements and eliminates the ongoing high hazard classification. The cost comparison proposals that have recently been provided and discussed are not comparisons of equivalent scope.

Rehabilitation of the high hazard dam in Bernardville would require full compliance with current dam safety criteria. This includes an updated hydraologic analysis meeting present-day storm standards, including the probable maximum flood, completion of dredging in the pond, spillway capacity sufficient to safely pass the design storm, structural stability evaluation under updated loading combinations, evaluation and remediation of seepage and internal erosion, and an updated emergency action plan. ongoing annual inspection and reporting comp obligations and continued long-term maintenance and liability exposure. Any rehabilitation alternative that doesn't incorporate those elements is not a regulatory compliant scope. As such, conceptual cost summaries that don't include these requirements should not be treated as decision-grade comparisons to a fully engineered and permitted removal project. It's also important to distinguish between a capital cost and a life cycle obligation. Rehabilitation does not eliminate cost. It defers cost and extends it over decades. The bureau would continue to own a high hazard dam along with all required inspections, maintenance, regulatory compliance, emergency planning, and associated liability exposure. removal, by contrast, resolves those structural deficiencies and eliminates the ongoing high hazard dam ownership obligations. The dam removal project is a risk mitigation project, not a discretionary spending initiative. The primary objective is public safety compliance and elimination of long-term liability and loss of life exposure. I understand and respect concerns regarding fiscal responsibility. It's always appropriate. However, cost comparisons must be based on equivalent

regulatory scope. Any reconsideration of rehabilitation would require commissioning a new feasibility study prepared under the supervision of a licensed professional engineer incorporating all structural hydraologic and regulatory requirements. It would also require renewed review by NJD and it would extend the period during which the municipality continues to own the structurally deficient dam. At presence, the removal project has a clear path forward, has received our dam safety approval, and eliminates the burough's high hazard liability. Engineering recommendations are not based on preference. They are based on compliance with dam safety criteria and protection of downstream residents. Ultimately, this decision is about risk management, regulatory responsibility, and public safety. Thank you. Thank you, Mary. That was very thorough. Um, and now we have a public session if anyone would like to um comment. Uh if you would like to please use the raise hand icon and um when you are called on give us your name and address and you'll have three minutes to uh comment. Do we see Oh, I see a hand.

Uh Bob. Yes. Uh, nice presentation, Mary. Um, I disagree with a lot of the content of the presentation, um, I know the council when it made its decision to proceed forward on removing the dam, uh, the costs were dramatically lower, probably half of these costs, uh, it is worth going through a remediation reassessment, especially since the D has progressed with their technology and use of the technologies 3.4 4 million estimate is exceptionally high uh vastly more than a remediation project even including all the additions that Mary is suggesting. Um it's a hypothetical situation that we're mitigating risk for a PMF. Uh it's not even reasonable to think that will happen in our lifetimes. And I still believe that it's such a radical departure uh from the cost of remediation to the now uh vastly ballooned cost of uh the uh re removal of the dam that it is worth looking at. Again, um I'm not sure if Mary's firm is qualified to uh perform or is in trained on the software to do the hydraologic evaluations, but we would certainly want to use them first. Uh but it's it's 3 million. Even if you double the price, theoretical price with you factoring in Mary's uh concepts, that's still well over $2 million for that's essentially not providing us with significant value. There is

responsibility for maintaining that stream. It's not like the stream's going to be non-maintained over time. Uh sure, there's damn maintenance periodic and there's damn uh appraisals uh with uh engineering reports, but it's too much money. I could have possibly considered something under 2 million, 1.7, 1.6, six, something like that if people really wanted to get rid of it. But at this price, it's unreasonable uh to even consider and it should be uh reset and re redone. Uh you have all the information I've given you as Mary I think's been seeing all of it as well in terms of the uh costs. One point about the existing plan if you go forward, the mobilization costs are incredibly out of bounds. You need to look at that. That that's absurd. Those mobilization costs uh over half a million dollars. Uh that is not reasonable. So, thank you for listening. You have documents from me. Thank you.

Thank you, Bob. Um one thing I just want to mention is the first estimate um did not include rehabbing the park and that is now in the three million. when we had the it was a lot less because we did not include the bridges and restoring the park and all those. Am I correct Mary? Yes, that is correct. That was all added to the scope after the initial conceptual which was not half of the 3.4. It was uh roughly 2.2.

I was going to mention that it's not I think Bob's incorrect in his estimate that it was you know less than half. it was well into the 2 millions, not including any of the park amenities. So, just just for the record, he's way off on that one.

Yes, that is correct. Um, and then in terms of just to speak to the studies and the qualifications, um, yes, I am a fully qualified dam safety engineer. I've been practicing for 30 years. I actually teach hydraologic and hydraulic modeling, Bob, um, in the state. in terms of the bureau's decision to move forward with the permitted plans or to restart. Um I fully respect what the bureau decides on that front. But I was at those hearings where Ferrero presented the rehabilitation scenarios. Their costs were comparable. They were slightly higher than my removal um costs for the um spillway modifications proposed and evaluated. Mayor, do we are we is can the council have an opportunity to weigh in at the end of all this or should we do it now in connection with public comment?

Well, this is actually the public comment, so let's let them say what they want to say and Okay. then we can follow up. Um Carrie, I think you're next. Wait, wait for um You're on mute. It's got to unmute you.

Yeah, I unmute. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to comment and ask some questions on this plan. Uh I have about four or five things I just want to quickly run through because I don't think they were covered in the uh presentation. Um the dam is the big problem safety wise, but there are other problems with the park that have been outlined uh like the lack of usability and some of these issues are about that. Will the drainage issues on the railroad side of the park be addressed as part of this because it's wet over there nine days out of 10? Uh, and if we don't do that, it'll be difficult to have a a trail. Uh, secondly, will the knotweed be removed? Uh, and will there be followup to make sure that it stays away because it t it's it's all over the park. Um because there is a lack of parking, will there be bike racks installed so people can bike to the park since it's difficult to some it might be difficult to find parking? I haven't had trouble with that. Uh what is the time frame projected for this work and uh where is the money coming from? What will we be bonding? I know we have we're in for a grant um but will it be coming from a bond or the uh the development fund of open space? Um just wondering on some of those issues.

Sure. Um so first to address your question about um invasives and also um sort of usability of the park in general that drainage from the railroad side is addressed in the dam removal um project. There's extensive stabilization work that's needed to address that drainage situation and then the knotweed will be removed um and remediated by the contractor. Obviously, if it does come back, the the um the burrow may have to do some long-term maintenance, but we'll provide maintenance procedures to them as part of the construction close out for that because that's very difficult to get rid of. I know. Yes. It's not an easy and it's on both that is on both sides of the park at this point.

It is. Yeah. Yeah. And we had to remove some of it even um just to address some dam safety compliance issues a few years ago while we were waiting for these permits to be issued. The area below the dam, would that be included in the notweed removal as well? Because it's it's tree height there downstream of the dam is part of the stabilization including some of the increased costs that um that Mary Jane had mentioned as well. That's part of the park improvement cost. Um we expanded the the scope to include downstream of the dam.

Okay. Um, with regards to the bike rack comment, um, we don't have bike racks proposed at the moment, but we can certainly talk to the bureau about installation of that to be added to the amenities. Um, and then with regards to funding, we have um approached numerous different funders throughout the duration of this project. So far, we do have two um small grants. one that's fully secured from the Nature Conservancy and one that is um to be secured later this week from the corporate wetlands restoration partnership. We also have this green acres grant that we are submitting for and um we have been talking to US Fish and Wildlife. NRCS was going to give us some funding for the project, but due to federal funding cuts, um, they're no longer able to give us additional funding towards the project as well.

Mary Kerry asked about a timeline as well. I don't know if you timeline. Yes, thank you. I was like, I know I'm missing another point. Thank you. Um, the timeline is anticipated for us to do the removal this fall, Carrie. So, um, work would happen in what's considered the lowest, um, river flow time of year, which is generally, um, early October. Okay, Carrie, I love the idea for the bike racks. I'll I'll make a note of that. I think that's great. Oh, your time was up. What happened? Did you have something else? Go ahead. Uh,

Oops. I'm sorry. I keep doing this. I I know we will have some piece that will be our responsibility no matter how many grants we get. And I was just wondering where what the council was thinking they were going to do for whatever piece was going to be taxpayer responsibility. Um Nancy, can you answer that? Are you here? I know we were talking about bonding, but I think we had already we had some bonds. Uh, where is she? Nancy here.

Yes, she's on her she's on the phone. So, I will ask her to unmute. I can't make her a co-host. Oh, all right. Sorry, I had to press star six. Can you hear me now?

Yes. Okay. Um, you me starting to work here. You had bonded for over $2 million and then we recently increased the amount. Um, I believe we're up to 3.1 now. So, uh, we have theire thing already covered. So, any of the grants that we get obviously would reduce the amount that we have to ultimately fund. Thank you. Uh I don't see any other hands up. So um council, did you have some questions, comments?

Oh, wait. I see Mike Galloway. Wait a minute. I got another I see another hand now. Yes. Uh Mike Galloway, we unmute him. Uh, am I unmuted now? Yes. Hello. Hi, Mike. Uh, name and address and where I forgot to ask you. Just a can just give us your name 37. Thank you.

Uh, just a quick comment on the park. Uh, I mean, I I really, being a lifelong resident here, really don't see any use of the park that the way it is right now. Uh it's never been much of a use uh because it's always been kind of gross, but the fact that we want to put in uh an area for people to utilize and not have adequate parking and not think that people aren't going to start parking at the firehouse, which would be very irresponsible, and people parking down in the police department area and uh public works area. Uh, I think if we're going to invite people into this area, there needs to be a plan for parking. You can't you can't put something out there for people to utilize and not have the ability to have adequate parking. Uh, this town already has an issue with parking. And that uh I I think by starting to utilize the park in that way, if we start having individuals parking at the firehouse and parking in inappropriate places, it could be impacting our first responders and I I think that needs to be taken into into account.

Thank you. Yeah, that's definitely really good feedback, Mike. Um I think we can add certainly some increased signage and take a look at parking plans and discuss more with the bureau about that long term. Yeah. Thank you, Mike. See anybody else? I don't. Okay. Um, council, I think Rich, you wanted to say,

yeah, I'd like to weigh in briefly. Um, I I just wanted to say I I appreciate Bob Graham's passion for this issue. He's clearly passionate about it and I actually agree with him on a lot of lot of things around I think this is kind of being forced on us from the state from you know kind of updated revised regulations from the D. Um like a lot of other areas where the state is forcing us to do things that we probably otherwise wouldn't wouldn't want to do or choose to do. I agree it's very expensive. Uh it's it's shockingly expensive. Uh I disagree with him that uh after you know seeing all the input his input input from our experts my own research looking at it knowing how the D works and how difficult it is to get anything approved by the D let alone something that's somewhat controversial or or or not no novel. Um I think at the end of the day it's going to be probably ultimately cheaper to do the removal than to do the rehab. I mean, I sort of went into this think thinking that it would be great to look at, you know, if if we could if there was a way to rehab it cheaply. I just don't think that's a reality. Um, I do like the fact that we're going to get the park at, you know, a usable park at the end of all this. Uh, I think there's potential uh opportunities to do private funding in terms of naming rights, whether it's for the entire park or whether it's for benches, fishing holes. So, there are creative ways, things that the the town can do to excuse me, potentially raise some private funds, and I like the fact that we're more likely to get grants by removing it and restoring the stream uh than we are if we were just simply to do the the rehab. So, I obviously remain in favor of moving forward with what we decided, I guess, you know, um last time we talked about it. Just wanted to make a few those points.

Thank you. Anyone else on the council?

I I can jump in, mayor. Um, yeah, like Rich, um, and Rich and I both kind of came on this, you know, after a couple years discussion, also was very frustrated to see the cost increase as much as it was. And Mary's been very helpful in addressing a lot of the questions. And a lot of it, yeah, was, as Rich said, mandated by regulatory increases. a lot of it is hauling um potentially contaminated soil and things of that matter that you really cannot uh take the lowcost bidder on so to speak and so you have to care for these things. Um so as frustrating as the cost is and I like Rich also did my own research and could not find a a cheaper option. So um the price tag being what it is is likely the the most economical approach going forward. also reduces our long-term maintenance uh costs uh for the site and provides not only what is the most environmentally friendly option here because it allows the water to flow, but a nice uh amenity um for the town. And I agree with I think it was Mike saying it'd be great to have a few more parking spots there to get folks to use it more and make it a real park and bring folks to that part of town that's historically not been as used. Um and there seems to be some interest in using it based on the survey. Um, also think we could would continue to encourage folks to to think of uh any sort of private donations or philanthropy that we could utilize at the at the site as well as other grants. We're all all open to ideas and ears on that. All ears on that, I should say.

Thank you, Charlie. One more thing for me, Mayor. Yeah.

Um, Ner, you addressed this previously. Well, first let me say I agree with everything that Rich and Charlie had said, and I think those points are well summarized. I don't need to repeat those. Um Mary when we've talked previously um you know we've been talking about this for years and now we're at the point where the state um we have to make a decision and move forward right and the state actually have mechanisms to enforce if we don't um start to choose either option with you know I think there's consensus on council generally to move with um dam removal and stream restoration but I would love you just take a second given we've talked about that before but there's more public here than we've had previously. Just kind of highlight that for individuals as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Um so yes, so Dam Safety mandated the burrow either move forward with removal or rehab back in 2019 pre-COVID. Um and then uh the removal option was voted on officially in 2022. We moved through our permitting process. The state issued our permit um in 2025 with a requirement that we move forward with um the project into construction phase in one year's time because of the structural deficiencies with the dam. And if the bureau decides to, you know, switch gears and go back to the rehab option, you would be starting over that process. So that process has taken us um four years at this point um to get through with permitting. Um so you would be starting again at zero. There is um potential for them to assess fines and given the structural deficiencies at the main dam um with a bulging retaining wall adjacent to the building um that has in accelerated their interest in seeing something happen. So you would be um potentially at risk for daily fines from the state and definitely restarting the process from zero. They wouldn't consider it a modification. and it would be a a brand new start from zero um process to switch.

Good point. Thank you, Al, for bringing that up. Yeah, they're good. They're they're slow in permitting, but quick on finding. Not slow in doing the fines and turning you over to the attorney. That's true. Okay. Um well, thank you, Mary. I think you have everything you need and thank you. We're in good shape to get that grant. So, yes, I'm hopeful. And um and we will also look at ways to value engineer things where we can when we're preparing the bid package because that's the next step for us on the engineering side. Oh yeah, thanks for mentioning that. That was the other thing I want to mention is that you know we definitely you these are estimates and we're obviously going to be look for any creative ways we we can get to reduce the costs uh that are estimated. that long.

Yeah. One of the big things we're going to look at, Rich, on that front is um whether we can find beneficial reuse for the material from someone else in the region. So, I know that there are some potential construction sites that have um you know, some some places we may be able to have people take that material which would drastically reduce cost. Great. Any reductions would be welcome. We will do what we can. Yes. Thank you, Mary. Thank you, Mary. Thanks. And next we have Fran Daly, our librarian, who is going to give us a year-end review.

Hi, I'm just going to take a second to share my screen. It's good to see all of you. Thank you for this time to share what's been going on at the Burnersville Public Library. By the way, the hole-in-one was a great time. Well done. Thank you so much for attending. Everybody had a great time. Um it was a very successful event and um we're so thankful to the friends for putting it on.

So it was a big year last year for our library. Um 2025 saw a lot of change. Some of it obvious to the public, some of it not so much maybe. Um, I came to you last year and told you about our library objectives and they were to offer additional programming, especially our early childhood story times, restore our pre-COVID hours, and to completely renovate our library interior with minimal disruption. Um, while doing all of this, we also wanted to sustain and improve our key metrics that were set out in our strategic plan. So 2025 had some challenges. We had concurrent big disruptions. One was this full interior renovation. Two was the main Koha migration. We belong to a consorcia of um 50 odd libraries at the time uh who were changing their library computer system. Um in addition to this challenge, we also saw a lot of growth. We had many libraries including entire counties on boarding into Maine. And we also have the challenge of once we renovated our space, we had a lot of success. We had a lot of increased attendance and that success was itself an also a challenge. So our topline outcomes for library use. Our library visits were up almost 10% 9.2% year-over-year from 24 to 25 which shows a nearly 72% growth since growth since 2022. Um, and we think that this engagement reflects our durable community value and not a temporary rebound of any kind. So, you can see we have lots of people having a good time and learning a lot at the library. Um, programs are a big part of our success. Our total program attendance last year was up 10.5%. And mind you, this is while we had parts of the library were closed for a good two months and then we were shoved into just

the community room split in two with programs continuing there and on our patio in the summer. Um we also had a number of off-site programs that were uh wellreceived by the community and uh at places like the pool and Kuanas Park um the stables and the Ottabon. So, we've very deliberately con concentrated our investments on quality programming, scheduling tools, and outreach to bring people into the library and to bring a lot of satisfaction to library use. As you can see, lots of people again having a good time and learning a lot. Sorry, I don't have as many pictures of the grown-ups. They're just they're photogenic, but we tend to take I have like 3,000 children's pictures to choose from for these presentations and like 70 adult. Um, so community value, we have about 7,800 residents in Bernardsville and we have about 5,000 Bernardsville library cards. Some of those are about um 8% are through reciprocity agreements. A lot of Clarence Dylan patrons use our library and a lot of our Bernardville residents are able to use their library. We have a few Somerset County, but mostly they're Bernardsville residents. Um, our circulation per card holder is nearly double our cohort. When you look at main libraries that have between 2,000 and 9,000 library patrons, uh, we have something like we have over 12 circulations per card, which is very high. Um, our library is increasingly used as a civic space to have meetings, to have events. We host a number of community meetings, cultural events, and educational programming. And our community, in your own survey, 84% people identified the library as a community strength.

So, there's adults.

Yes. Right. Um, our operational excellence, we coordinated a very highly orchestrated construction project across 17,000 square feet. We were partially closed for 4 weeks. We operated in the community room and on the patio and throughout the town. And um we hosted seven off-site traveling story times. So how did we coordinate all this? It was through lots of support with our board, our friends, our foundation, and the community to align efforts. We have great events together. Mini golf and the my staff is a a huge wonderful thing. but library giving day, um our grand reopening and 25th anniversary with the foundation. All of these things are are great great parts of our community. Um we've had strong attendance, positive response, and lots of good media coverage. We also were able to cross off many items on our capital plan and was formally readopted this year. So these are some I won't read them all off to you. You can have my slides after this. But um we've achieved a lot of this success also through good communication. We've improved our channels. We've improved our channels that connect the public to our collection. Um we've tried to really hone in our collection to be specifically interesting and to be accessible. Um we focus on our large print community. uh our largely our seniors but not only our seniors uh through the donations of the friends and through the library budget. We also have been improving uh more out of the box things. We hopefully finally will launch our library of things in March. You'll hear more about that on social media soon. And did I mention during all of this last summer every day that we were open six days a week, we also served lunch. So that was a hugely well-received program um that was sp in initiated by the

friends and sponsored by the community. Our program offerings have climbed and our program attendance has also just reflected um if you make great things people will come to them. So again our attendance is up 10%. Um adult attendance is up 9 and a half. We've had the in renovation and our library was already beautiful to start with and people keep telling me it's beautiful, but it's also working much better now. Now we have a true place for children. We have great places to meet. We have great places to work from home from the library and uh it's been very successful. It was a really big undertaking, but we had a great plan and it came out wonderfully. So, that's the biggest part of last year, but it's certainly not the only part. We also just had our regular library business going on throughout the renovation. And we're so glad we had so much community support. And you see this in our attendance uh particularly since October or um actually September once the library was reopened. Our attendance numbers are extremely strong, which is impressive because they've been climbing and climbing. I'm sure we will reach saturation point soon. Uh, we didn't quite get to 100,000 visitors this year, but I'm I'm hoping we do next year. So, I before I go, I just want to say thank you so much to the library users, our board, our friends, our foundation, the library staff, library volunteers, and you, our local government, for making our library successful and serving Bernardsville. Do you guys have any questions?

Hey, you going to give a prize to the person who comes in as the 100,000 person? Oh, we should do that. Yeah. It's a great idea. That would be amazing. Yeah. Hey Fran, I have a quick question. Um Yeah.

First of all, congratulations. You're right. The renovations are beautiful. Thanks for your leadership. It's been great to see the growth and how much um support there is to the whole community. So, congratulations. Just had a very quick question. Um you know, you mentioned the the events that happen at the library. How many like what percentage do you think are events that are groups that are from outside the burrow versus in the burrow? And um is that an area for potential growth for the library? And the reason I bring that up is like I've been to events like a law enforcement recognition ceremony that was kind of countywide that that had um occurred at the library. And I'm just wondering if that's something you're seeing more of.

Sure. Um, we have uh we I don't know if we got on a list or what, but um last summer and into the fall we saw lots and lots of community room use requests and we had to actually throttle our policy a little bit. We had to change it up and and update it because we had additional room spaces that weren't covered by our policy. But um we now we limit it to Bernardsville residents um for making reservations which should be available for the pod soon. Um but we've also limited it to Bernardsville nonprofits and library co-sponsored programs for using the room because we just had more demand than we were going to be able to keep up with and it was going to sort of displace Bernardsville use of the room. And we have uh we have 900 programs going on a year. We have, you know, almost every day there's something going on in there. If it's not ours, it's something local. Um, we haven't really sought to increase broader use um outside of things like coordinating with the blood drives and the voting and um our own stuff.

Is that what you're asking, Al? Yep. That was perfect. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. We don't realize how much use that community room gets. I mean, it really is. We don't have a lot of meeting space in town. So, you're it. So, thank you for, you know, being so flexible when people want to use it.

Yeah. And it was a really great outcome of the design change that we sort of we call it liberating the quiet room. What used to be the quiet room um is still often the quiet room in the morning where people are reading their newspapers with the doors closed, but later in the afternoon um people are able to use that as a conference room and push the tables together and we can fit 12 to 14 people in there comfortably and that covers a lot of our meeting needs. Um, and also now that we have the extended hours, that extra hour of between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., um, the teenagers now have time to go to their sports practice or their theater practice or whatever it is, grab a bite to eat, and come to the library and continue to work together. So, we see a lot of a lot more use than I actually honestly expected with that extension of ours. I think we're we're experiencing more overall use between like 6:30 and 9. Well, thank you. Uh, appreciate you taking the time to get us up to date and I love the renovations. It's really magnificent. So, if anybody here has not been in the library, but I assume you all have because of the numbers. So, the make sure you you see it if you haven't. It's really beautiful, especially the children's room. I love that.

Really good. Thank you for Yeah. Thank you. All right. We are up to approval of minutes from January 5th, 20th, and 27th. Do I have a motion? I'll move to approve the minutes. Second. All in favor? I I

All right, that's done. Uh, we now have an open session for any items that are not listed for a public hearing. So, um, if you would like to make a comment, please use the raise your hand icon and, uh, state your name and address and if possible, put your camera on. Uh, I see Bob's hand. Bob Graham. I'll ask mute.

Hello.

Yeah, you're good. Oh, hi. Hi. Uh, yes, one quick thing for Mary Fran for Fran. Um, please be aware that the, as you know, the library is a key component of our emergency preparedness in the bureau. It will be codified in the master plan uh sometime in the future, but it's a very valuable uh use uh when it's really needed uh due to the facilities that are there in an emergency. And luckily this time we're not in an emergency situation, but it it could have happened. So it's worth that long list of benefits. It's worth adding that emergency service uh into it. Uh the primary comment I have is that I would hope that someone on the council will take it upon themselves to examine carefully the ClariS proposal for affordable housing to look at the number of bedrooms that are in the mix. uh that may be a mitigating factor for the the situation where it's over our density guidelines and uh that could be a uh counterbalancing uh activity if there were if three bedroom units were minimized and that may in fact be Claris' intent. Uh just want to be sure that we do whatever we can to uh mitigate, you know, try to get as close as we can to the uh zoning uh on that project. That was all I had.

Thank you, Bob. Uh, Mike Galloway,

can you hear me? Yep. Uh, are you going to be discussing the Church Street affordable housing project tonight?

Let me just check with Jack Pigeon because I know we there's something we were doing differently. Yes, mayor. As you know, uh the afford the fair housing act amendments from 2024 uh contain a number of deadlines. Uh the next deadline is March 15th. And since we're introducing tonight as ordinance 2043, I think it is uh which is a DCA model ordinance that we have to adopt, but it was not issued until after our last meeting. As a result, we're going to have to uh schedule a special meeting uh for the second reading and adoption of that ordinance. Uh in which case, I would like to have the council uh continue the public hearings on all the affordable housing ordinances as well as the implementing resolutions so that they can all be submitted as a package before the March 15th deadline. So then we're going to um continue it or we're not doing it

uh on the Yeah, we're going to continue them all uh tonight. So So the question is whether we want to have the affordable housing comments tonight. Yes. And you may want to because the may not be, you know, on a Monday evening like this. So I think be appropriate to allow public comment this evening. Do you want to do it here or do you want to do it at the We'll We'll do it then, right? We can do it when we get to the ordinances. Okay. However you want to do it, but we could do it that way for sure. Uh, how far along are we? Well, we just have a couple before that. Can you hang on, Mike? We'll do it when we get there in the agenda.

I was just wondering if I could really just discuss the project that's going to be on the street that I live on. Uh, yeah. to it. Uh because this if that's okay with everyone before I start. Oh, I you're asking if you're allowed to make a comment because you live near it. Absolutely. Even more so. Yes.

That's that's perfect because uh the issue I have is uh as I said before, I'm a lifelong Burnageville uh resident. My family's all grown up here. My grandparents went to high school here. Uh we're getting away from what the town is and should always remain as is the reason why people move to this town. I understand there's an issue with low uh income housing or moderate income housing which uh is a concern but I think we're opening the door for developers to come in uh to make their money and leave leaving us with with uh in my mind eyes. This is a colonial town. It's not Morristown. It's not uh even Summit. and I live on a street that can barely handle the school traffic regardless of what the the traffic studies say. The roads can barely allow two cars to pass and we want to put 96 units. Uh that's just unbelievable. That's that's honestly it's disgusting. Uh and talking about possibility of four stories. Uh I can actually see the sunset. I won't be able to anymore. Uh that's not what Bernardsville is. And the fact that you want to put 96 units on a street that can barely handle our school is just absurd. Uh the only the only people who are going to who are going to benefit from this is developers. Uh this is uh it's to me it's it's it's not what Bernardville ever wanted to be. There's other locations that this could be done in if we need affordable housing that the town could move on. Uh I I see no reason why where the post office is. I understand they're not renewing the lease for the post office. Why doesn't the town get a grant to develop their own low budget the lowincome housing for there? Why are we

trying to put in developments and overdevelop? Uh my father was a realtor in this town for for 47 years. Uh and he always stressed that the one thing he liked about Bernardville was that they didn't overdevelop lots. And this is the most overdeveloped plan I've ever seen. Uh it's terrible. U and I I would suspect that if you went to the developers and said, "You're welcome to uh only build 20," they would leave because it's not putting money in their pockets. We're just trying to fix a problem that the town created itself with offsetting our low bud, our low income, and moderate housing. uh we need to come up with a better plan by doing this at the end of end of a street. I I couldn't imagine how the people would react if we went to Tower Mountain and said we're going to take two of these houses here and we're going to put 96 units here. It it doesn't work. Uh and for for this type of area, it it can be solved with other ways. I know that the deadline is coming up, but there's even the the thought of Wells Fargo. Why can't the town purchase the Wells Fargo building that's currently for sale and put in low-inccome and moderate housing upstairs there? Why are we going

up? Sorry,

we get three minutes. Your three minutes was up, but um I you know, I I get what you're saying. I understand um what happens is you know the um property owners sell to a developer. We have no control over that. Um we they of course challenged our plan and so we had to mediate with them. Nobody likes this. You know I I don't think anybody on the council really wants this development but we have numbers we have to meet. We do have numbers in at the post office. That's already in our plan. I think there's 14. We have to get 14 in there. And what we've done with round three, um, and I'd recommend anybody, if you haven't read the FAQ on our website, it really explains every round and how we've dealt with it. Um, the third round, we used our own property and built our own, but we paid for that. you know, we had a a fair housing trust that is now drained. So, if you want us to build our own, that means we're going to have to bond and that means your taxes go up. So, you know, we're kind of between a rock and a hard place with these kind of decisions. Um, this is not anywhere exactly what you think it's going to be. I mean he started I think the first proposal was 170 houses there and we have with the mitigation got it down to 93. So there's a lot of steps yet where we can do more to make it and the picture that you saw is not what it's going to that's the Claris in Berkeley Heights. That is not the design that we will accept here. That is an ugly building. What Claris means to this company is it's the level of uh amenities like they

have a Claris level and then a I forget what the other ones are. So all Claris means is it's a a higher level of building but that process is going to go through a whole lot of scrutiny from the council in creating a uh developments a developers plan to the planning board who has to go through it. So please don't think this is a done deal. I mean that's that's one thing I can get through tonight. It is only an overlay of a possible place where something could happen. If this developer wants to keep going and if he manages to buy all those properties, there's a lot of steps he's going to have to go through and a lot of hoops. Uh, and we hear you. We know what Wesley and Church Street are like. Um, you know, there's a lot that's going to have to go into traffic and how it comes and how it goes. And honestly, I I feel your pain. We all do, I think. and we we are struggling I think as much as you are with having to meet this uh this burden they've put on us. So,

yeah, and I would add Mayor, you you touched on it, mayor, but I would also add um if this fair share element is not approved by on March 15th, we lose our um what's immunity. Immunity immunity.

Thank you. we lose our immunity to a builder's remedy suit, which we know um given the fact that the potential purchaser of this property has already challenged the plan would like nothing more than for us to lose our immunity. And if you think a four-story 96 unit apartment complex is bad, it would be so much worse and so much bigger on an order of magnitude and the there's nothing the town can do about that. So very frustrating.

So we we all agree like we would all love to see very minimal, cute, quaint little developments in town and and unfortunately we have this statemandated requirement to satisfy 113 additional affordable housing units. The plan has to be realistically achievable. So the court looks at that. So they can't we can't just like come up with like random, you know, uh places that we think are never going to be developable. Um because the court will reject that, the challengers will reject that. Um and so this is we, trust us, we we spent a lot of time scrutinizing every possible location in town where we could squeeze in affordable housing. And at the moment there's not that many um owners or potential developers that are, you know, that essentially say, "Yeah, we're ready to do something there, which is where what the court needs to see to to show that it's achievable." Um and so this is essentially the plan that we came up with, uh which we think is the, you know, is essentially the the bare minimum we could do to get through the the courts and maintain our immunity. Well, one of the things we did do, we did have in round, was it round three, um, a quarry overlay that that could be a site and this fair housing said this year they went, "No, that's not that's not a reality. You're not going to do it because you have to put sewers in, you have to put water in, and so you got to take that out of your plant." So then we had to make up those numbers. So they're really watching whether it's a viable site. You we can't just say okay make we'll make one up up a you know on the mountain where there's no sewer and they'll say no sorry not going to work.

Who's um could I just I think Mike wanted to get back in. Who wanted to get back in? Just one question. Yeah. I I guess then I guess I'm confused of how the state can mandate to tell us that we have to have a higher restriction of what we're allowed to have in this area. So if if we can only supposed to go up two stories, why are we getting four stories to fix a problem that they're forcing us to do? That to me I think

the state doesn't care about the state the state doesn't care about local zoning ordinances. What they what they're requiring is the affordable housing to be built. And if you don't do it, then the builder's remedy suit allows a developer to come in and effectively do a development that regardless of regardless of what the zoning is. And and the courts have time and time again routinely upheld those and said the town didn't do their job of providing a realistic affordable housing plan. We're going to let this developer who's willing to come in and build hundreds of units and a fraction of them are going to be affordable. And that's essentially what would happen. So yeah. So you ask how they can do it because the state can trump the local uh rules.

It's actually the court more than it's the courts have uh Jack, did you want to say something? Well, this time it's the state legislature as well. The the 2024 amendments to the Fair Housing Act really made things worse and gave us unrealistic deadlines which really didn't allow for adequate planning.

Just to add to that, it that's right. It was a state legislature that passed it. Therefore, the courts could uphold it a thousand% of the time. And Rich said time and time again. Just to clarify, they're batting a thousand. In other words, there there's no time that the anyone who's ever challenged this has lost. And um it's an unfunded mandate. It's been handed directly onto us. It's a statewide mandate. And uh you know, it puts a a strong burden on communities like ours. And um you know, we've talked about joining lawsuits and uh we almost joined one last year to try to challenge it. That lawsuit lost too. We would have paid taxpayer dollars to join a lawsuit that ended up losing. So, you know, um I just kind of wanted to re reinforce that that um because the legislature passed it and the courts are enforcing it, they're able to essentially ignore local zoning, ignore, you know, rules and regulations that we put in place to achieve the goal of putting affordable housing in communities.

Right. If I could just build on what uh Al and Rich and the mayor said. Um yeah, certainly that street in particular, Mike, your streets right there are really exposed to this and you know I think in the course of the fall talking to a lot of residents this was a number one issue. So we coming in I seeing this project also you know I felt personally uh personally frustrated by it. So, um, as as Rich said, unfortunately, you know, the alternative is not no project. The alternative is a project over which we have, uh, uh, less control. Um, uh, so we would certainly look to use every lever at our disposal to, uh, to mitigate the impact on your uh, street in particular and other streets impacted by other projects. Um, because that is our predominant concern here. Um the mayor said something too I just want to hit on from a finance perspective from third round. Um we had the benefit of some burough land and land that been you know within the burough for a number of years. Um we would have to go out and purchase more land which would add more as folks are saying to the uh to our to our debt burden. And as we just talked about uh in a prior session, we're having to spend at least a couple million dollars on this dam. And so we have to weigh both the costs of uh uh of add of basically charging everyone in town for this as well as meeting the mandates and while you know trying to achieve the best outcome for residents on the street. But I agree I moved here for the same reason and I think we all did. So, you know, we will try to use whatever level we can to mitigate this impact. And look, we're continue to be as creative as possible to find solutions and, you know, look at Google Maps and find anything to we can do to to figure this out um as a as a community, honestly, because we're facing this as a community, you know, not as a council. We're all, you know, we're all facing this. So, really thanks for your comments, too, Mike. And for everyone, I also just want to thank everyone else for showing up tonight.

It's great to see everyone engaged uh in these meetings. um uh and to have everyone voice their opinions here. Pleasure.

I think u going on to what Charlie said is when it's an area need of redevelopment, we have some at least control over writing the redevelopment plan. So we get to tweak the zoning. We can uh have some more control over the design um of a lot of things we normally would not have. So, um, and I think as Charlie said, you know, any kind of levers we can use, amenities we get back, things that we ask them to do that normally maybe they wouldn't have done, we're going to do that anytime, any chance we get. Um, I see a lot of hands up, so let's see who haven't you heard from. Uh, Moren Stevens, just make sure you give us your name and address. Where's Moren? Hi, how are you? Morning Stevens. I live on Woodland Road. Um I'm actually just a little up the hill right across from the parking lot that um I understand has been purchased and sold with the Wells Fargo building.

Oh, somebody bought it. We don't know who bought it. Do you know who bought it? No, but you tried to buy it through the grape vine. I think they're planning on putting in multif family homes.

Um I just have two or three comments. One was that I was informed or told that Mendum had fought the low-inccome requirements due to the high fiscal effect that it would have on the town as though that because they don't have a sewer plant, a sewer treatment. It It's worth it for us to go back to them and say we don't have the infrastructure with our roads. Our sewer treatment already has issues or our transformers are blowing non-stop like this. I think we do need to fight the state because we cannot afford this movement in our town with with the traffic. We'll never be able to get through. So that was one thing. The other was we should if we're required to have low-income housing. They should be in the Palmer building. If that's going through, it has to happen. Why not enforce it more there? The other issue is my my my other main concern is I think we need to crack down a little bit more on the design the fascia design of the buildings. Yes, I agree with Mike. We're a colonial town. The building at the bottom of Woodland Road does not look colonial. It looks like a countryside hotel. like why not look to represent our town with more buildings that are depicted in our school in the Bernard and that type of thing. So that's just my opinion. I really hope that you hear it. I appreciate the work that you have been doing but there's a long way for us to go.

Thank you Moren. Um Jack, did you know anything about the menum thing? No, but I can tell you from personal experience when you don't have adequate sewer capacity, which we do at this point, uh the courts will order you to improve the sewer plant and expand the capacity. And as you said earlier, mayor, uh when we had the quarry in our third round plan, one of the requirements to continue that was we would have to sewer the site which would entailed not only getting D approvals but also paying for the cost of the installation of the the sewer lines. Thank you.

I do know that that Menum appeal has has not been decided. They think they just recently filed the appeal. If you drive through Menum, you see all these little billboards saying fight, you know, fight the, you know, support the appeal. Um, that's actually for a five-story building right behind the the kings. Um, so yes, they're appealing it, but don't hold your breath. Well, it was first rejected. I mean, they're thrown out first round. Yeah. Yeah. And as said, I'm sorry, Rich. I thought you were No, I'm done. As Al said earlier, I'm not aware of any municipality that has won substantively when they fought. It's not a moral thing. Uh the courts have just unanimously ruled against municipalities.

Um okay. Thank you, Moren. Um let's see. We got Kathy Peachy. I saw Kathy. Where'd she go? She lowered her hand. That's why the box move she's Oh, okay. Uh Shannon, I think Kathy want to talk. Oh, I'm sorry. Kathy, go ahead. You go and then and then Shannon, go ahead. Okay. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. BT7.

So, um first I just want to say to Mike Galloway, whom I don't know, I really respect your comments and feel the same way. I think that's really atrocious trying to shove a 93 unit building in that little area. Council, you may be doing your best. let's try to do differently, maybe even a little better. Um, I also think that that goes to I want to make a comment about the Galla project off of Claremont where we're talking about four, you know, the zoning is three stories and now on uh Church Street we're talking four on Claremont, four and a half and five. They came in back in June when the town planner was presenting that. They even came in saying, you know, we'd like to um look for relief and get four and a half and a pilot as well. We'd be interested in and I bet they will be. And that leads me to another comment about pilot. When I was nosing around on the Burnsville website today, I was a little disappointed that I appreciated all of the information about what's good about a pilot, but I think a good argument has both pro and con, and there wasn't that. it was only like this is what's good about it and this is why we're accepting it. So, I would have appreciated a little bit of uh more neutral information about the pilot on both sides so that we as um citizens can make up our own minds. Um, I think that's Oh, and I just wanted to say thank you to Moren Stevens, whom I also don't know, but I appreciated her comments about the nature of the uh facades. This one looks this way, that one looks that way. So, here's another one going in. I really think that and and I said this years ago when I chatted with you standing there in front of you, it's like we're we're opening the gates. It's going to flood on in. And so it has. Um, so I'm I'm a little disappointed about that and I

just really hope that you all continue to really think about the the people that are already here. I can remember saying to you, Al, um, you know, they're islandizing the five neighborhoods that are up on the slope and that is exactly what's happening happening with all the construction along 202 and Claremont and just make sure that we can get out of our neighborhoods. So, thank you very much. Thanks, Kathy. Yep. Thank you. Um, so Shannon Calbertt, hi. Can you hear me? Yes.

Thank you. Um, Shannon Calvert, 9 Sunset Drive. Uh, I too have lived here for most of my life. I've been here for 45 years and I have the same sentiments that Mike has already uh covered in terms of growing up here and knowing why, you know, my parents used to tell me that we wouldn't build things and we wouldn't bring in different places because it was Bernardsville and I love that and it's part of the reason I moved back to this area um after college and leaving for a little bit. So um been here have have three kids. I totally agree with what Mike and Moren um have said already in terms of just the shoving the this into that one spot. And I appreciate what has been shared in terms of you've done the due diligence to look everywhere possible. It's it's really hard perception is reality, right? And it's really hard looking at all of the abandoned buildings in the town and knowing about places. I don't know if the place behind Walgreens is a place that you could build on, but if the but or the abandoned all over the uh Mike brought up Wells Fargo, things like that, it feels like instead of just picking one spot, you could pick a bunch of different places and accomplish the same goals. It feels like again perception is that we are squeezing something in to fix instead of looking at the bigger picture of what do we want our historic Bernardsville town to look like and how do we want the community to behave and how do we want to bring life back to the center of town and that's not the way to do it. That would be my one point. My second point is to reiterate I think what Moren said on function. Um, I am aligned with everything that's already been brought up around traffic. I also would add safety to that just because it's already a safety hazard. People walking across

that street right there right in front of um where the library parking lot is to go to school. Now, all those people and all those cars and all the kids that are going back and forth to the train or going back and forth to town, it just seems like if we want to protect the families and our community, this is not the way to go. That's not the place to put it. So, thank you for hearing me. Appreciate the time.

Thank you, Shannon. Um, by the way, that's not all that that's there are several spots. We have done a number of spots around there. Um and behind uh Walgreens is that's from round three. We do um are negotiating to that supposed to be an all senior building of affordable um it's been in negotiations for quite a while but um we are going to use that that piece back there but it's you know we tried in round three to do around town so that they're not you know we don't get a big development like down in far hills there that on the left but it's hard it's hard appreciate your comments um Carrie Yes, thank you. Carrie Hazelton, 397 Mine Brook Road. I had a question about the um latest maps for Church Street. It seemed like the Am I right that the area of that had been expanded? It used to be those two apartment buildings and the antiques and the bank, but now it seems to encompass the driveway to the library. Uh, and that seems to be part of the building envelope. Is that is that true that that is an additional um and does that does that driveway belong to the burrow?

Yes, the driveway does belong to the burrow. I think it's on there in the sense that part of their project um they're redoing the parking to add more parking. Okay. So, it's not, you know, they're not we're not giving them our property. They're just going to add some parking to what we So there would be surface parking there that they would be able to use as private parking on our land. No, no, it's going to be public parking added to the library lot. That was one of the conditions we we started with is that we wanted more parking. And there's a piece of property on the other side of the driveway that we own that um we're asking them to make into a pocket park

as another small amount of land there where the where there's a little bit of lawn area there. And yeah, it's actually bigger than it looks where the and there's trees, so that probably hopefully there's not bamboo, but Well, no further. There's bamboo somewhere down there. All right. Yeah, that was a question that I had. I was wondering if that was added to um mitigate the fact that we couldn't use the quarry, which I've never really seen as a a very good place to have people living um in general. And so, yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody thought that was great. But,

you know, I'm not going to just pile on. Everybody knows how I how I've I've spoken on several meetings about this. Everybody knows how I feel about what's going on. And but I just I would like to see us I don't understand why the the developers I understand why they want to do it, but they seem to be coming in instead of looking at our zoning and and coming in with things that fit in our new threestory zoning that was just done in 2020 by our planning board with months of work for what would be appropriate for our town. They all come in at four and five stories and and and they end up getting it. And I just think that we should we should wait until we have a three-story developer at least on one property. I'm just waiting to see that zoning that we work so hard on get upheld instead of ballooned into these buildings that none of us want. Um it's just frustrating to to watch the process and the fact that that zoning just means nothing in in the course of this.

Nobody is more frustrated than we are. Trust me, it is incredibly frustrating to have the state basically shove this down our throats and say it doesn't matter what your local zoning says, you have to come up. You have to provide this housing. Uh, I see Chris has his hand up. Chris, good morning. Hey, Chris Shank. Shank. Chris Shank. You got it. See, I recognized you from your Facebook page. Good evening, mayor and council members. As like you said, my name is Chris Shank. I live on 36 Old Army Road. Um, I want to first off, um, thank you, mayor, for engaging with me earlier on my posts.

Um, I think it really means a lot when you chime in. We really all appreciate that. Um, so again, thank you very much for that. Also, thank you council members for everything that you've said so far. Um and to every uh community member who's spoken thus far um and everybody who is here appreciate the engagement and um we I think we all really really are um coalesing around this. Um that being said um I definitely support our town's efforts on the affordable housing. Um I know it's really important for us to foster an inclusive and diver diverse uh you know sustainable community. And I also understand that this is being like Rich just said uh thrusted down our throats by the state. So that's kind of a a challenge that we're trying to overcome. Um I have just made some you know prepared remarks. I know this is kind of the start of these things and um it's going to be an ongoing issue but just like to read them and uh you know move forward. That said um you know I also am deeply concerned about the proposed projects as they are currently presented. Um, you know, I fully appreciate Mike's point earlier and everyone else that has has chimed in as well. Um, you know, the size, the locations are surprising. Um, given our town's infrastructure, roads, schools, utilities, public services, as we know, are all very limited. Um, we live in a tiny little space and I think again that's what we're all drawn drawn to and I think we're also very much a community. We all want to be part of that community. as you can see here is this engagement. Um, and that's what makes us want to be involved with these things. Um, however, I think the uh other thing too that has come up is this issue has become a kind of a source of divisiveness in our in our town. Um, you know, whether it's pushing partisan narratives, not focusing on practical realities and packs. Um, you know, we know most residents are opposed um to these proposals or just lack the

information to really understand them. So, um I really just think that decisions of this magnitude, you know, they require careful study, transparency, meaningful public engagement, um and really just kind of put a put aside our politics and come together to to really try to find the best outcome for our community as a whole, regardless of what side or align, you know, alignment that we find ourselves on. Um I again, I understand that none of this has been approved. Um, you know, we're we're just going through the motions and the proposals have to go through the planning stages as you would had said, um, mayor, especially in the FAQs that you had talked about. You know, my goal tonight again is just to start the conversation. Um, urge you council members to continue to fight for us on our behalfs. I'm I'm extremely happy to hear how much you are all, you know, working towards that end and and how much you kind of understand where we're all coming from. I think that that's something that we we all are very happy to hear about. Um, sorry. Is that me?

That's your time. That's your time. Yeah, that's our little timer. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for all your time and attendance. Thank you, Chris. Um, yeah, we uh Oops.

Trying to see who's coming here. Yeah, and I appreciate your um your comments have been really helpful, I think, to to a lot of people. So, thank you for kind of getting people together on this. I think it's been helpful and and we do want, you know, I mean, we never get 45 people at a council meeting. So, I think this is great because the big thing is, you know, is is educating people and when you come, you know, you learn. So, and we learn. So, that's a good thing. Um, Bob, you're back up. Bob Graham. Okay. Uh just a quick constructive suggestion and uh you may have already considered this but in terms of the Church Street or ClariS project, what about building on top of the driveway of the U library's driveway? Building over it. Just just think about that. Look at it total. Maybe we can get it down to three levels, three stories by expanding their footprint over the driveway. Just something to think about.

The driveway from Church Street. Yes. That goes to that goes to the library. Correct. The back side. The back one. Yeah. Essentially can like canlevered over that. Well, not even that. It the the driveway could be going through the bottom, you know. It could be deed, whatever. Just think there's a lot that gets wasted by supporting the driveway. If there's if there's just think about having the driveway be an exit through the build underneath the building basically. Um just just a thought uh because try to

try to satisfy the builder but also get the height down that would let you knock off a complete floor. Yeah, thank you. Uh, we're back to Kathy Peachy. Yep. Hi. Just one last quick thing. I wanted to um thank Jack for the information about the sewer because I appreciated knowing that. I think that was relevant. So, thanks, Jack. Oh, you're welcome.

Thank you. Um, Carrie Uh, yes. I just wanted to build on Bob's idea because originally when I asked the question about that land that appeared to be ours, that appeared to be part of the new building envelope. If we own some portion of the building envelope, then we we have that would be donated land essentially. We could we already have a driveway to the library on the opposite side. Maybe maybe they build on that and that is something that we that that then then we've done we've built affordable housing of our own essentially you know in terms of our the way we've handled things in the past some portion of that would be ours and I you know I'm just throwing that out there but it seems like there should be some financial benefit to us of that um I don't know um but I think Bob's idea is a good one

maybe for traffic flow it would be better to not have that driveway I don't know yeah that's a good Just just to be clear and we've mentioned it before, nothing has been proposed. I mean, we have no idea and we have a general idea like in terms of like we talked about numbers to in order to get through the um fourth round housing element, but there's been no specific proposal from anyone on any of these properties. So, you know, I suspect it will it will happen, but when it does happen,

we will be um very cognizant and very working very hard to come up with all the possible ideas we can come up with to minimize the impact of the development on the surrounding areas in the town at large. And is that be and and does the council have that input because it is an area in need of redevelopment and and it's not it's not it's not an area in redevelopment. Um it might be yeah actually the court said it has to be. Yeah. Okay. So so yeah we would go through that process but it has not been designated as an area development um at this point and it hasn't been granted a pilot. No. But but the benefit Carrie of a redevelopment is that the burrow has much more control over the aesthetics of the building.

Yeah. I mean I understand that but I've also been through the the Palmer project and we got zero affordable housing and we didn't get we didn't get any public park. So those are things that we were looking for out of that. So I've seen it not go too well. No, what uh Palmer contributed a million and a half to our affordable housing fund trust fund which is helping to pay for some of the round three projects. Yeah, I I understand that. But um I do understand that. But I was really hoping that we could we could see that open space in the middle there. That would have made a big difference for us uh residents. Would you like No, never mind. Oh, I'm sorry.

No, I was just gonna say if you're if they had opened that um center area to the public, if you had an apartment on the first floor, would you want to have to have your blinds closed all the time because the public is in there? I think that was the point of that not being a if if if your neighbors are using it too, then you would also have your you might also have your blinds closed. Yeah, that's true. We wouldn't be as busy. Yeah, mood point. All right. Thank you. Um, who do I Shannon, you're back.

I am back. I was just I just wanted to retouch on that uh sewer comment because I know it was brought up as like the reason that Mendum potentially, you know, used to or is currently using to try to get around it. I wanted to go back to the comment that was made around just the infrastructure of the the lights and the the roads that if and I know you said, you know, as things go through, we'll go we'll make sure we go through every possible, but is that something that we've looked at to say we have the infrastructure to handle this kind of volume in the center of town to be able to go through? Cuz what I'm worried about is that it's so shortsighted that we build it because we have to and check the box and then we can't get people through the town that all of the places become abandoned because no one wants to have their business there because no one can get through town and then people start leaving. So I just want to make sure that we exhaust every option of do we are we thinking far enough ahead.

Yeah. No, that's a great point. And unfortunately, you know, we're on a state highway. So, um, New Jersey DOT is a big part of how we do the the light and the traffic. And, um, you know, we asked them to look at the bridge coming over where the murals are, that kind of thing, you know, to make that corner wider. Yeah. and they told us they didn't think it was a problem with the additional pe with the additional and they said they'd look at it after the project is built. So yeah, I know it frustrating. Um

but yes, we will look at I think every project has to do a parking study, they have to do a traffic study. Um that's all part of their application process. So, um, the other piece is, you know, when people live downtown, they tend not to drive as much. Like I I'm part of the traffic because I'm always driving because I live, you know, two miles out of town. Yeah. Or schools, you know. Yeah. People going to schools. It's the hard I mean like I'm on, you know, the I'm on the mural side of town and I have to go across to go to schools. I'm not going to be able to go across to go to schools. So,

area. Yeah. And at one point, I remember uh Jack, you may remember this. Remember when the uh DOT wanted to put a suicide lane in the middle of 202 down by the shopping center? Yep. Do you know what that like the center lane where you kind of wait to make the turns and somebody always gets hit?

But yeah, we managed to fight that one. But I think we can take uh DOT to task on helping us with uh that traffic light some more if it comes to that. Uh Chris, you're back. Is that the same Chris? Yeah. Yes. Again. Yeah. Thank you everyone. Uh just building off of what Carrie said, Shannon said, um you know, Mike from earlier and and Rich again. I think um I think we're all just curious. It sounds like you as a as a council and mayor, you know, yourself are all in our corner and we just want to have the, you know, transparency, the tools provided to us to be able to, uh, build a coalition and support you all to be able to, you know, um, move towards these ends, these goals that we're trying to reach, whether it's, you know, these traffic studies, um, you know, as we well know, it's a it's a it's a too light town we live in and we love that. and you know we don't want to expand uh 202 and it's beyond our you know there's just so much going on here. Um, you you raised the question of, you know, schools, right? Shannon just just spoke to that, kids trying to get to parents trying to get from one side of town to the other. You know, how is it going to impact our schools? Are we going to find ourselves with an influx of, you know, new community members, which is which is great, but how is that going to in, you know, um, impact our school, its size, its ability to, uh, you know, obviously meet our our students demands, uh, and infrastructure standpoint. I understand, you know, it's pretty limited uh the amount of schools u classrooms that we have thus far. So, um you know, all that raises a question. So, I think as we move through this, my ask for you all is just to keep us in the loop. Continue to put out as much information as you possibly can. Give us the tools that we can do to help support in moving in in the direction it is. Whether it's coming with ordinances and support and surveys or whatever it is to

to meet the fascia demands that we talked about earlier, whether it's meeting all these things that I think we as a community, you know, treasure hold dear and want to make sure that we're obviously meeting the state's mandates, but also holding this community to what its values are, what us as members want to see, um the values that we want you all, you're all representing for us. Um we know this is a challenge. Um, I know you all are very very challenged with this situation along with others. Um, and as mentioned before, we're dealing with a a small park and a dam that's raising parking concerns. I can't imagine what this is going to continue to push forward. So again, I think we're all here. We're all aligned to support you to move forward in a directions that's going to be able to um, you know, support our community and what you guys are all here to do and just help us help you as best as we possibly can. That's all I think we we want. Mayor, can I pick up on that point that Chris said?

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a great point and um first of all, I'm really grateful for all the comments and the participation tonight and uh they've all been great, but Chris, I appreciate, you know, a lot your both of your comments very constructive and helpful to think about, including the call for just making sure that we're pumping out as much public information as possible so residents can be informed and can help, you And like I said previously, we didn't join a lawsuit. And given that that was dismissed with prejudice, I think we know that it was the right decision not to waste taxpayer dollars on this. But we have continued to advocate to change not only what's being done, but how it's being done on the communities like ours. Um we've joined just about every single time the League of Municipalities has sent something on this issue or passed something on this issue. We've been active on it. We've talked to all of our legislators, senators about that. Um, you know, we continue to I think we even sent a letter as a council one time. So, we continue to be beat the drum beat about ensuring that the state realizes um both what this means on communities like ours, but also how it's being done too um with being unfunded and sort of ignoring local zoning, etc. So, could certainly use more public support and public participation to advocate on that behalf as well.

Yeah. And I think you know as individuals uh people can certainly call their senators and uh assembly people and let them know how you feel. I mean I I serve on the board of the League of Municipalities and we are constantly um lobbying on these issues and they seem to fall on deaf ears a lot. But I think if more of the residents also backed us up, I think that would be a big help to just keep calling those offices until they can't stand it anymore. But uh Mike, you want to say something?

Yes. Sorry. Uh just one quick comment and also thank you all for explaining a lot that you have. Uh I think a lot of it was um be misinformation for a lot of it. Uh uh but I mean I'm I'm glad you all hear our voices on what we're saying about how it's changing our town. What I what I'm trying to understand and and I'm hoping maybe you can someone there can explain it to me is if we need so many affordable housing, why are we allowing 93 units instead of saying you can have 30 units but 10 of them have to be affordable housing? Actually, Jackie,

yeah, it's all mandated by the state and every development has to have 20% set aside uh in oil in order to make them economically feasible. Um, you know, and as everyone has said, the council's only doing this because we have a gun to our heads. Uh, the benefit to

have to come up with, you know, that would only get us 20% of 30 is six units, right? you have to come up with another 13 units somewhere else. Um, and so, you know, you sort of play this game where it's like a puzzle, you know, and it essentially has to be in the sewer service area. So, that kind of limits, you know, where we're looking at. It has to be a willing property owner who's willing to actually do the development. You can't just sort of like pick a random, you know, lot and block and say, "Well, we'll put 50 houses there knowing that it'll never happen." uh the the courts want to see like okay yeah can you actually get those built. So that's the reason you couldn't just go to the owner the property and say we'll give you 30 or 40 units. Um you could do that but you'd have to find them somewhere else. So you're you're constantly um you know every time you try and lower it some somewhere you got to raise it somewhere else.

And just one point on that too Rich because of the way we've gone about it we've and Jack you can explain this better. We've gotten bonus credits. That's correct. And so essentially, we've been able to lower overall amount of affordable housing we actually have to bring into the bureau that other communities don't necessarily by going the build a remedy route. You don't get that. And by by trying to be smart about it, methodical about it, pushing back where we can, keeping it within the zone of public transportation, you get credits that actually lowers your overall burden. And so, um, we could be in a situation now had, you know, the council's not been doing this over the last few rounds, um, where you're actually having more that you're trying to find inside the building.

Yeah. What did what did our numbers go from, Jack? Was it 113 to 70 something?

Yes. Now, one thing I'd like to add, and Rich mentioned immunity earlier, that we would lose our immunity. And what immunity does is protects us for the next 10 years from any other developers coming in and wanting to build multif family housing that doesn't meet our zoning ordinances. And as Rich said, if we lose that immunity, developers will come in and the courts will allow them to do almost anything if they're going to provide the the required number of affordable units. I guess I guess then what I'm what I'm hearing there I guess this is it almost seems like this is the easy way to get those 17 spots I believe you said it was or there's so many spots that we have to have for this next round.

Uh 73 it was we originally the number was 113 and with bonus credits and locations we got it down to 73. It's not the easy way. We just took advantage of some of the mechanism that would lower our number. Yeah.

I I guess the what how I see it is that we're having an issue or at least I'm having an issue that some of the people I've spoken with that we're trying to make up for all these spaces as much as we possibly can with each building which means they're only going to designate 20%. So, we have to go bigger and bigger and bigger to get this instead of maybe we do need to I mean I hate I hate to say pilot program because I'm not I'm not a big fan of them but places like the people buying Wells Fargo if it has sold offering them the pilot program to put in six or seven affordable housing units on the second or third floor there. uh instead of us just going to take this 20% from here and 20% there, why aren't we maybe we could investigate that a little bit more than just trying to get as many as we possibly can out of each development to solve this problem as quickly as we can. Uh I mean that because that all that's going to do is get us a bigger building every time.

Well, the the issue is as soon as you what is it go over five or five and up? Yes. you have to do the 20% of affordable. So if you're building more than five units, you're going to have to add the 20%. And the problem is, you know, if they're it it's about money really. You know, in order for a developer to have a profitable project and give us 20% affordable, he needs X amount of market rate to balance his his books. And that's, you know, where we lose out on that unless we build them ourselves and that's what we did with round three. Then it's all affordable.

Go ahead, man. Um, and I think Mike's point, and I think, um, maybe Shannon brought it up as well earlier, you know, just can we, you know, do we think about spreading these out, you know, fewer, you know, more smaller projects rather than smaller, you know, larger projects? I think basically your kind of point, right, Mike? Um and you know we we continue to look at those options, right? So, um I think you know as opposed we should certainly uh look at that. Um I will say you know because it brought up um the mayor just brought up on the funding of of building our own. Um third round we had a lot of uh burrow owned land uh that we could contribute. You so basically you contribute the land and then you there's like a gap subsidy. You know, some of you may recall some of the coverage from last year of the the blasting deficit that had to be funded uh for the property on Minebrook. Um so we would be engaging in that again those types of couple you know millions of dollars and more plus we'd have to be purchasing land um which would also be millions uh to then build our own. So it would be more expensive than third round which has already you know added to our our bureau debt levels which we have to weigh against being you know responsible taxpayer stewards taxpayer finance stewards. So um that's just the kind of the it's great when we can do that but we have to spread out and minimize the financial impact as much as possible and agree Mike we should look at that. Um, and then I I think it was Kathy um brought up um just putting more info out on the website about a pilot uh which I think is a great um a great point. I mean pilots like anything it's like a tool. It's like leasing or buying a car, right? You know, they can be good, they can be bad, they can be whatever. It's just a tool. Um you know, personally, I' very excited to kind of get into it and like look at it's a long-term revenue agreement, so you have to care for revenue share agreement, care for how that works over the long term. I think we'll definitely get into those details

and uh and try to negotiate the best deal the best detail the best deal for the town and then putting more detail out there. Definitely Kathy I think that's a great idea and we can as the plan goes on we're we can amend it. So if a project comes up I mean somebody says you know they're selling their house and they want to make do something there's the opportunity that we could say okay let's maybe now you know our debt went down we can buy something. So within those 10 years, we can amend the plan and if we can add something somewhere else, we can take it away from another place. Great point. That's that's what I wanted to

I wanted to bring on to Mike's to Mike's point about like using the example of the Wells Fargo building. So let's say a developer came in there and said, I want to turn this into, you know, 16 affordable house or 16 units, just rental units or or condo units. they would have to 20% of them would have to be affordable housing. So let's say it was 16. So 20% of 16 is basically three and a half. So they would have to provide you know three maybe four affordable housing units that that could potentially give us relief in some of these other areas where we're designating. One of the problems is you're saying well why not you know take our time and and you know kind of see if we can find other opportunities. The the the state doesn't give you any time. I mean we are the these are deadline these are very aggressive almost unrealistic deadlines that the state has set for getting your fourth round plan approved which is why we've been scrambling and working really hard you know for really over the last year but particularly in the last like six seven months um to try and get a plan that the court will accept uh through so that we don't lose our immunity is kind of the immediate goal um and then continue to work to find alternative uh options that you know could could give us some some more leverage down the line on some of these bigger developments.

So if I could uh the the spot on my street, what is you think is the timeline for something like that being approved long term? Is this a two-year? Is this a 10year? Is this a sixmonth? I'd say it's two-year. I was going to say two years. Yeah, they're ready to go.

Two years at best. I think by the time they get through all the processes because right now what would have to happen, the council has to make that an area in need of redevelopment. So, we have to have a study done. Planning board has to approve the study. Then we have to write a redevelopment plan and we have to enter into a redevelopment agreement. And that's all lawyers and that and then it had then they have to put their application into the planning board and have multiple hearings with the planning board.

So if you just look at you know like Palmer how long has that been under you know and there it's still there hasn't been a shovel in the ground yet. So there's a quite a process and a lot can happen during that process. So it's you know I'd say two years would be a best case scenario. that trying to figure out that timeline. So it once this gets if you can get this approved through the court, it gives and I'll even say me into this equation because I'm vested into this uh gives maybe a year or so uh time to try to come up with another plan that may be able to reduce the size of this as using other land or other options for uh offsets. that the court has already appro everybody should understand the court has already approved the the numbers and at this point in time we're just implementing the other requirements uh that the courts have imposed on us so we can use discuss some of those ideas when Matt Jessup negotiates the redevelopment plan he can discuss and try to negotiate some of the things that you all suggested but at this point in time those developers those three developments that are part of our fourth round plan that's been approved by the court have a vested right to those numbers. That's how we accomplish those numbers that we can try to mitigate it. And as Rich said, these deadlines, I I think they were unrealistic, not just almost unrealistic. And they're fatal deadlines. If you don't meet them, we lose our immunity. And you know, that's something no one wants.

Yeah. Okay. So I guess I'm hearing if this goes through that or if if the court accepts it no matter what there's going to be 93 units. Yes. The court the court has accepted that. Yeah.

And that had to be into the court by the end of December of last year. the court, the program judge who was retired judge Hanssbury had to submit a report to the Mount Laurel judge uh who's judge Menon who sits in Somerville uh to approve the plan. Uh so in that short time period we had to get all that in. Our planner had to come up with with the the sites and the locations and that has been approved. So yes, those numbers we're not going to be able to reduce those numbers unless the developer does so voluntarily. Yeah. But then they actually they challenged our plan. So then we were had to go and negotiate that

and and as the mayor said especially on ClariS those numbers were reduced substantially through the mediation process with Judge Hansbury. Yeah. Okay. So B so basically it's really there's not even much of a an argument at this point. It's going to happen. And this is how it's going to happen and when it's going to happen and and what it's going to look like and how it's and how it's going to flow and what they're going to do with their traffic and how they're going to, you know, not impact what their impact on the community is going to be. I mean, all that we can negotiate is I think we have some leeway in

at least that much. As Rich said earlier, the courts in Fair Share Housing Center and the legislature for that matter don't really care about any of that. They impose these fair share numbers on every municipality throughout the state. And if you read the papers or you drive through the state, it's happening everywhere and no one's happy about it. Have you gone to Warren over the when you go over 78, have you seen what's going on there? I mean, it's it's horrible. And that's all a kind of builder's remedy going on there. It's really then

I know but it's still adding all those extra people and I don't think there's anyone here who doesn't think there's a need for affordable housing you know it's it's difficult for a young family or a single person to find an apartment or a place to to live in New Jersey in general but the way it's done I think we all have a problem with um several of Yeah, some of several of the senators have talked about, you know, it should be done regionally rather than town by town by town so that there's areas like off 78 where you can put, you know, a a a big development rather than trying to force this on smaller towns like ours, but they haven't gotten far with it, unfortunately. But Kathy, you're back. You got your hand up again?

I am. Yeah. Am I on? Yes. Yes.

Okay. First of all, I wanted to thank Councilman Zam for excuse me acknowledging my comment. I appreciate what you said. Thank you. Um secondly, in regard to the um blasting deficit down at the affordable housing off of 202 there, um that was a little silly to me because I don't know why you wouldn't think there would be granite and bedrock there right across from the quarry. So that to me was a little bit like a what's happening? All right. And third, when we're talk, I don't know why I'm stuck on the sewer, but apparently tonight I'm sewer girl. So, I'm thinking, you know, just right down across the Bernardsville border into Far Hills, the PY development, as far as I know, they had an onsite sewer package. So, I don't know why some of the mountain uh compounds or properties might not be able to find a developer that would be willing to do that there as well. Just thinking out of the box and I just wanted to share that. That's all. Thank you, Kathy. Um, two things on that. First of all, um, you know, part of what fairshare is looking for is access to transportation. So, if you're not close to a train station or a bus line, that's why, you know, part of the reason of not not moving up onto the mountain with some of these developments besides the sewer thing. Um, the blasting actually saved us money. I think there's some misunderstanding about that. Uh, we knew there was rock there. Everybody knew it. Uh, the first when they first looked at it, they were going to do it manually and dig. and they said if we allowed them to blast we could save money and that's what we did and it was amazing because we didn't get a single

complaint the way they do blasting today you don't even know they're blasting so the blasting actually brought the cost down so I just wanted to clarify that yeah I think went from five to 2.6 six, right, mayor? Something like that. Something like that. Yeah. Well, the whole project in general, what we did with RPM? Yeah. Mike, you want to talk again or is your hand still up? I'm not sure if that was up from before. It may have been. I'm not sure. Yeah, because he's not his picture isn't there. No.

Um, anyone else? Um I just want to say a couple of things just factual things. um our region for the affordable housing falls on a chart and um I just want to make sure and clarify for people that because of the uh the way that it's calculated the moderate income housing if it's one person uh their salary per year would be about 85,000. So I don't think the perception here is like accurate in terms of you know what we're looking at trying to improve in our town is having places for people who make that type of income. It's not like a super low income for the moderate range. So that was one item. Um the other item is about uh what we can control and what we can't. So if someone owns a property downtown, they have every right to choose who they want to sell it to and they can control who they want to sell their property to. So for us, I mean, a lot of times in these situations, our hands are tied. Um, so that's just something to keep in mind when you think about uh the properties in question tonight and any other ones that come up. it's an owner of a property who's selling it to someone that wants to develop it. Um the other part of this is is that we have to be responsible when we decide because the experts in the industry of housing and urban development uh urban planning traffic engineers they all also have

professional standards that they have to follow. So if we know that 40 80 units per acre is actually within the guidelines of a responsible downtown development, then we know that if that were to go to court, you know, we wouldn't have a leg to stand on. And that's where our decision-m despite what people say 48 units per acre is too much, that's not really a fact that's proven that we would win court. Um, and then that also ties into the way our town is zoned. And I think we have to keep in mind that we have an area of town that's zoned with very very large parcels. We have an area of town that's 10 acres and more. And so it's our responsibility also to make sure that we have we have to find a balance between what's developed downtown in order to balance out the vast open space that we have in other areas. So those are just the things that came to mind because I think one person said that most people are against this. Um but I haven't found that to be honest. I do I know that everybody's voice matters and I have found that there are voices who feel like there is a need for this um and this would add vibrancy to our downtown. So I just throwing that out there for people for what it's worth. But thank you.

Thanks Christine. Um, another thing I wanted to mention is we are in the process of uh becoming a Highlands district or whatever to be in the the Highlands which um part of that process we had to designate um what we call our downtown center and that stays out of the Highlands and then it protects everything that's outside of the downtown. So for future development, we can that will help us protect a lot of our open space from being developed beyond the downtown. Um, and please, I want to remind everyone, please use our our web page. We really do put a lot of information up there. I know they're kind of getting p now with the web pages, but we try and put um all our documents up there. Uh we're working on getting a new one and we're also working on finding a u a communication software, an app where we can communicate more with the public. You can send us notices, we can respond and make it easier for us to communicate with you. So hopefully you'll be hearing about that in a couple of months. Um we want to be at as transparent and communicate with you as much as we can. So, um, just use the website. Uh, I see Chris has his hand up again.

I would say just real just to add on that real quick because I know a lot of folks go on the Burnersville bubble and it's unfortunately not the right forum and medium to for the town to provide because these are not these are not simple issues. These are very nuanced, very complicated issues, which is why we try and put out these FAQs where you can get all actual information uh as opposed to little snippets and responding to like, you know, millions and millions of little comments all the time. It's just, yeah, it'd be great if we could have if we had all day and we responded to comments on the bubble non-stop, but it's there's there's a reason for that. And that's why we're trying to put out as much information we can and as and as being as transparent as possible in the right manner in the right forum.

Yeah. And so as you said, a lot of these issues are very complicated and it's hard to respond in a one-s sentence kind of answer. So yeah, good point. Okay. Uh I saw Oh, no. I guess he doesn't. Chris, did he he he was, but now now he put his his hands down. Okay, his hands down. All right, I think we're done with the public session. So, I will close the public session. I forgot where we were. Let's see. We're up to ordinances.

Mayor, can I just once again thank everyone for coming? This is a great been a great discussion. All 45 or I guess we're done at 31. Everybody came out tonight. You know, it was really great and great questions and as Chris said, we got a lot of great ideas from you all. So, please keep sending those our way. Keep you coming to the meetings.

Yeah. Yep. All right, we're moving on to ordinances. Uh, we have a public hearing. Let's see. So, I will open the public hearing on ordinance 2026 2036 concerning sewer connection fees and sewer user rates and allocation and amending chapter 16 of the burough code entitled sewer regulations. Would anyone like to be heard on this ordinance? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Um, Rich, you want to take that? You're muted, Rich. You're muted.

Sorry. I guess I muted you when I went to look at the agenda. Can you hear me now? Yeah. Okay. Uh, I move to pass ordinance number 2026-2036 on final reading and adopt as published. Second. Roll call, please. Mr. Rivero, yes. Mr. Zon, yes. Mr. Mr. Trainer. Yes. Mamera. Yes. Mr. Zazarino. Yes.

All right. Uh, I will open the public hearing on ordinance 2026 2037, an ordinance removing kennel fees from the burough code so that so that they can be set by resolution and amending chapter 5 of the burough code entitled animal control. Anyone like to be heard on this ordinance? Give a minute. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Um, where are we? Ross, you want to do that one? Yeah. I move to pass ordinance number 2026-2037 on final reading and adopt is published. Second.

Roll call, please. Mr. Zazino, yes. Missra, yes. Mr. Mr. Trainer. Yes. Mr. Z. Yes. Mr. Romero. Yes. All right. I will open the public hearing on ordinance 2026 2038 concerning council meeting procedures and supplementing and amending chapter 2 of the burough code entitled administration. Anyone want to be heard on this one? Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Uh Al,

I move to pass ordinance 2026-2038 on final reading and adopt as published. Second. Roll call, please. Mr. Rivera, yes. Mr. Zam, yes. Mr. Trainer, yes. Miss, yes. Mr. Zazerino, yes.

Okay. I will open the public hearing on ordinance 2026 2039 calendar year 2026 ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank as of NJSA4A 4-45. Anybody want to be heard on this exciting resolution? No. Seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Um, who to know? Charlie, I move to pass ordinance 2026-2039 on final reading and adopt as published. Second.

Okay. Then we're going to continue these. Oh, I didn't call Mr. Zazarino. Ma. Yes. Mr. Trainer. Yes. Mr. Zam. Yes. Mr. Abero. Yes. Okay. So, Jackie, would you you want to how do you want to handle these? Do we Yeah, I think the first thing we need to do is set a special meeting date, which has to be before March 15th, but has to give Anthony enough time to advertise for ordinance 2043. So, sometime in the week of Can we do March 9th?

Does that give you enough time, Anthony? I think it does. Yeah. Good. I'll get in the Burnersville news uh this Thursday. So that's 10 days from this Thursday to March 9th. Yeah, perfect. March 9th works. Yes. Okay. That work for everybody? Everybody good with March 9th? I figure most of us have Mondays free. Yes. So So this Oh, no. I'll be back. I was gonna say I might be remote, but I think I'm back. Okay. What time are we doing this though? Uh let's do regular time in case the public wants to come again. Um since we're actually we're voting on the actual or introducing are we no we're

we'll be voting on adoption of a bunch this first ordinance 2040 uh increase we we currently have an ordinance requiring all developments downtown with five or more units to set aside 15% for affordable housing units under the new laws and regulations we need to increase that to 20% which this ordinance did. However, subsequent to our last meeting, uh DCA issued a model ordinance which is introduced as ordinance 2043 and that ordinance also includes the 20% set aside. So my recommendation is that we continue the public hearing on this ordinance to the special meeting on March 9th and then vote it down because you'll be adopting ordinance 2043. But when are when are we are we introducing ordinance 2023 tonight?

Uh 2043. Yes, we're introducing that tonight and second on that ordinance will be at March 9th. So my recommendation is that by motion we continue the public hearing on this ordinance until with no further notice of publication. All right. So do I have a motion to that effect? I move to continue the public ordinance public hearing on ordinance 2026-2040. Second. Second without further notice or whatever. Correct. Public notice. Okay. And then we doing the same thing for 41.

Now this the planning board is going to recommend a change to this ordinance. So I believe Councilman Trainer has a uh a suggested amendment to this. And yes, let me see if I can pull it.

Uh but so essentially it had to do with it's just a clarification uh around the height uh particularly around the ClariS um there was a uh so we we currently the the overlay zone essentially says um no no higher than four stories. Uh but my recommendation based on recommendations from the planning board is that we clarify that to indicate that the um uh uh elevation I guess is the grade the pre-development grade elevation be established um based on the um uh the front frontage on 202 the main street. So you basically would measure measure it from 202 not the average elevation around the entire lot. and the planning board is going to adopt a resolution Thursday night at their meeting recommending that change and it will be substantially the same as what Councilman Trainer has just put on the record. So, if you would adopt that mot or that amendment by motion and continue the public hearing on the amendment and the ordinance itself until March 9th, there will have to be further publication on that. Um, but it only has to be 2 days notice. Uh, and it will only affect Claris. So, Anthony will only have to send notices to people within two or properties within 200 ft of the Claris development.

Does does that amendment make it appear smaller? Yes. Okay. That's the goal. because the the the the lot slopes up and so the average elevation if you were to like like an imaginary plane it would be higher than 202. So this is basically measuring everything from 202. Okay. So we need a motion to uh what are we doing? To approve the amendment and continue the public hearing on the ordinance as amended until March 9th. That's what we're Charlie. I just got a motion to approve the amendment unless you want to call on somebody there. Okay. Um

and a second some second. Okay. And to continue and to continue the I found I found the exact if you want me to read the exact language I I pulled up um I can read it real quick. Okay. Go ahead. So and this would be in the section of the ordinance around height. Um, it would say, "Notwithstanding anything to the contrary herein or in the zoning ordinance, for the purposes of determining number of stories and building height, the pre-development grade shall be the lowest point along the front yard setback of the primary street, which for the avoidance of doubt of doubt shall be state highway 202. This is just going to apply to ClariS. Is that correct?" And the reason I ask

yeah we have similar language already um around the one on um the one on Claremont. So basically it's like you're measuring the height from the street because that's again another very steep slope and also on the Bernard's a one. So it's really just bringing this into line with the with the other two. Yeah. Thanks. I just wanted to clarify that because as I say that will cut down substantially the number of notices that Anthony has to send out. Yeah. Um, so then which one was we should have a roll call on on that motion just because Okay. Um, Anthony, roll call, please. Mr. Rivero, yes. Mr. Zam,

yes. Mr. Trainer, yes. Miss, yes. Mr. Zazino, yes. I just want to clarify the meeting on March 9th at 7 p.m. is that going to be on Zoom or is that going to be in person with Zoom options? Because sometimes we just have the special meetings on Zoom. So I just want to make sure when I notice that I get the right wording. We good with Zoom? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's Zoom only. Got it because it'll just be to do these ordinances. So um what are we up to now? 2042. Yes, we're doing

this is this is related to Mount Laurel, but it's it's not anything that has to go to the planning board and it's nothing that has to be filed with the uh the court. So, I suggest we just you just go ahead and adopt it this evening if if that's your uh Well, we're introducing it. Oh, I'm sorry. Just introduce it tonight and second reading will be on March 23rd is what I meant to say and not March 9th because it's not part of the uh Well, it's not part of this package. Correct. Got it. Okay. Um Rich, since you're already un unmuted, you can read that one. Oh, now I can't find the ordinance. Never like or I can't find the agenda. I like lost it. Anybody got it up? Um I got it. Um

I move that ordinance 2026 2042. I guess I should read the whole title. supplementing and amending section 12-12 of the burough code by adding an exemption from fees for a continued certificate of occupancy related to the extension of affordability controls under the bureau's fourth round housing element and fair share plan be introduced by title pass on first reading published according to law and that a public hearing be scheduled for a meeting beginning at 7 p.m. Monday March 23rd 2026 second all in favor I

Okay, so that one's done. for the residents mayor just so I can interject this is one of the mechanisms the council used to cut down on the number of total units and what we're doing is 29 units in Pineriidge and Rolling Hills are extending their affordability controls uh so that cuts down the number the 113 number by 29 units yeah I mean it's hard to believe that they have come up on 30 years you know when we did the first round that was 30 years ago Right. Yeah, that was the second round actually. But was it the sec? I thought that was the first round.

Yeah, first round was 1986 I think. And back then we could send half and it was before my time, but we could send Well, you could send we did first, which we did. Yes, I remember that. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for pointing that out, Jack. And I also just want to commend I think it was Nancy and the team for also working with the correspondents with those owners of these units to get that moving along. Yeah. Work. Yeah. To get them all reertified. That's work intensive. Um, so now we're doing we are going to introduce 2043. This is the DCA model ordinance that we've adapted for Burnersville. Right.

Both the council and the planning board have been provided with a clean version and a redline version to show the changes from the model ordinance. Okay. Uh Rich, you got it up now?

I I found it. Okay. Um Okay. So, this is the last one before we get to eight. So I move that ordinance number 2026-2043 an ordinance repealing and replacing chapter LD-13 affordable housing including LD-13-9 development fees of the burough land development regulations and adopting updated affordable housing and development fee regulations based on the model DCA ordinance be introduced by title passed on first reading published according to law and that a public hearing be scheduled for a meeting beginning at what do we say 7 o'clock on March March 9th. Second. All in favor?

I. All right. Moving on to resolutions. Um, we are tableabling 49 2649. We still don't have all the paperwork done on the transfer. We're not doing Yeah, the 51 52 53 we're taking off as well. So, um, and and they will all be on the March 9 special meeting agenda,

right? Uh, I don't think there's anything anybody want to talk about different I mean separately. I think they're all pretty standard. Um, right. And we did add the um if you see the look at the pool rates, we did have a new rate for um families that are in the school district. So maybe we'll draw more from Pac and for Hills and Vedminster that way. Great.

That was a good suggestion. Um so would somebody like to move resolutions 26 47 4850 and then 54 through 70? Just say so moved so you don't have to repeat that. So moved. All right. Second. Second. Somebody sec. Yeah, I'll second. Rich. Okay. We need a roll call for that. Mr. Zazino. Yes. Missra. Yes. Mr. Trainer. Yes. Mr. Zon. Yes. Mr. Rivera.

Yes. Okay, moving on to reports. Mayor's update. Um, I attended a regionalization advisory committee meeting. The, um, school district is looking into possibly well, you know, they're doing a regionalization study with Bedminster to see if they should join the region. And right now, they are uh, tuitionbased. So, we had an advisory committee and then they're going to be doing a lot more research on that. Um Charlie, I think you were on on this, right? The Civic Plus demonstration. So, we did have another demo of one of those communication um software apps.

I attended the Yeah. What you think? Yeah, it was great. And again, you know, commend Nancy on investigating that. It's going to help us communicate even better with the public.

Yeah. I think she's got one more next week to look at. So then hopefully we'll make a decision. Um, I attended the state of the county breakfast that the Somerset County Business Partnership puts on every year. Um, we hear from uh the, uh, county commissioners, the college, trying to think who the other one, of course, the partnership on businesses. I met with Steve Katz from the Somerset County Food Bank. uh they are looking for ways to address food insecurity in Bernardsville since we lost our feeding program. So we are looking at we actually I don't know if everybody knows this we do have a backpack program in Bedwell where the children get food for the weekend. Anybody that's on the free and reduced uh so we're looking at other ways that we can get food to people. So we'll hear more about that. Um, I was interviewed by a student at Leadership Somerset. I don't know if any of you know what Leadership Somerset is, but it's kind of an adult program that they do, uh, the county does. Um, you learn about government and, you know, everything that's going on in the county and how you can help. Uh, I was one one of four mayors on a panel, excuse me, for business owners at um the Park Avenue Club. They have a monthly meeting with different topics. They wanted to know how um mayors are dealing with the business community. So, I was it was Dun Allen, myself, Chadam, and Wong. We did have a Somerset Hill safety committee meeting talked about snow removal ordinances. Do you know Basking Ridge, Bernard Township does not have an ordinance that tells says who has to

clear the sidewalks. So we talked about, you know, what each town has a little different ordinance. So we talked about, you know, trying to get more uniform in that. um talked about sharing coffee with a cop, like maybe having um our coffee with a cop at the farmers market and inviting the Far Hills Police as well to join since we do get people from other communities to come and possibly sharing our national night out with Far Hills and Pep. They also have, if anyone's interested, PAC has a five ton US Army deep water rescue vehicle. wanted to know if anyone else wants it. They got it for free, but it's expensive, I guess, to keep it running. Why they took it, I don't know. I mean, but if we ever need it, we do have

pretty deep, mayor. Maybe we need it for the quarry. Yeah, we could use it for the quarry, but just saying. Can we take it and sell it to beach town? I don't know. Um, we did have the shared municipal court meeting and I think we're actually getting 6,000 back from this past year uh because the numbers came in better and I think for next year they're they're looking pretty good too. And then uh anybody else go to Whole Lot of Fun on Saturday? No. The golf thing? Mini golf? Oh, no. Couldn't make it. I had uh I was I was not around. I I was not there, but the family was there and they had a great time.

Yeah, I heard the kids in the afternoon had Yeah. Yeah. Many thanks to Fran for entertaining the my children. So,

um and then uh this year, I didn't get to it last year, but we're going to try and bring back the outstanding community volunteers program, which I think we did it two years ago, uh maybe even three. But I thought because it's the 250th, it could be part of that whole celebration, celebrating our volunteers. So, I'm going to uh I do have a application into the library to try and get the the room to do u you know a little ceremony and honor and I'll have a um nominating questionnaire go out. So, start thinking of outstanding volunteers that you might want to nominate. And that's my report. Um where's Nancy? Nancy, you have anything? I know we're down to only six people without power.

Yeah. Um, I think it's five. I think it's five. We're down to five. Yay.

I think it's five. Yeah. Um, so obviously the storm is the biggest thing on everybody's mind. And so I just want to take a second to thank uh DPW because they worked for, you know, practically 24 hours straight, maybe longer. Um, obviously they sleep in between, but you know, they've been out uh and all of the roads are now plowed. They're all salted and they're all clear. We had a couple of trees down, a couple wires down, but all the roads are open. So, um they will continue, you know, to clear spots. Obviously, today, yesterday and today was just to get everything open, but they will continue to clear um as the week goes on. Hopefully the two predicted storms for the rest of this week will not um you know come to fruition. But in that regard um I wanted to ask you what you thought uh after the last storm we spent um two nights of overtime to have PPW clean all the snow from the downtown. And um so I want to know how you feel about that. Now just for reference, we as of the last storm um had already gone through our DPW overtime budget already for the year and we transferred money in from the storm trust. Um so I guess I just want to know from you like what do you think about them spending more nights? It's approximately $5,000 a night to um clean the uh downtown and we are running out of places to put the snow. Um and that is particularly true if it does snow that um Wednesday

and Friday like they said. But I wanted to you know ask you what you thought. The only I would mention too, it looks like unlike the last storm where it looked like it was going to be subzero or you know sub freezing weather for like you know the foreseeable future which it ended up being like it was a good month before we got over over freezing. The weather other than these potential you know little storms it does look like it's it warms up significantly like Friday, Saturday, Sunday it's going to be sunny um and and in the high 40s. So, I think mother nature is going to do a pretty good job of melting a lot of this stuff quickly. So, I don't know if that, you know, that that probably factors a little bit into my mind.

Yeah, I know. I just hear we'll be hearing from the business owners if it's not clear. Yeah. Well, what what exactly are we talking about? Like, which area are we talking about getting clear? It's in front of like the movie theater there. you know that strip where those parking spots are from uh well it's the parking spots and if you noticed last uh the last storm I mean it was it was spotless downtown they removed all of the snow from you know where the state plotted up against it was both sides yeah they did both sides those you know those on street parking spots

yeah I don't know how the parking spots on 202 are but if state did it like they did it last time, then it probably it's probably got some snow in it. Um, and they would either come in super early to do that or, you know, do it overnight. So, I guess it it it depends how much you want cleared, whether they can do it early in the morning or they have to do it after, you know, everything closed.

I think maybe a focus on parking in the downtown just with the construction at the train station just temporarily here. Maybe that's a good thing to just ensure. The one thing I was going to say though is, you know, because it was on the warmer side today where it's been plowed, you know, the streets are things look dry. You know, it's not, you know, I don't think there's going to be as much maybe black ice as we had the first, you know, because of the temperature the days after, like Rich said.

Um, regarding the train station, u I'm glad you brought that up. the um New Jersey American Water uh the last storm was very cooperative and they their contractor who's doing the work in the train station um helped DPW by clearing um the the station and they had said they were going to do that today as well but then New Jersey American Water said that they were not allowing any of their contractors to work today. So, um, DPW did, you know, some of it and hopefully, uh, the contractor from New Jersey and Water will help clean it up tomorrow, um, for whatever's left. The station does look good, though, but

you know, to an extent. Um, and about well, well, I'll come back to I'll come back to that. So, are we we're going to focus on um parking areas and not sidewalk to to the extent you know what Nancy I was concerned you know what happened Nancy no I'm here I'm here

oh I thought you were Yeah I thought you were saying more you said you were concerned Oh, well saying my I was saying my concern for doing it last time is we were setting a precedent by, you know, clearing all of the um clearing all the sidewalk. Yeah. Not the parking so much. Oh, the sidewalk. Like I don't have a problem with that. Yeah, the sidewalk. No, we shouldn't be doing the sidewalks, I don't think. I Well, no. I mean, we just sent something out at the end of the year saying, you know, the sidewalks were the the um the owner's responsibility. Yeah. Yeah.

So, do the parking areas and see how I mean it to Rich's original point, it's supposed to clear up a little bit. The weather should help things. I um you could use your best judgment, you know, following that in my mind. Yeah. I mean, and and I think that I would lean towards getting it done like six o'clock in the morning before Yeah. anybody in rather than working at night. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And the only other thing I

I I want to say really quickly while we're on DPW and while there's uh still some residents here, I do want to thank um also the fire and EMS for just working through some really crazy conditions um over the last three weeks here, you know, amidst the cold snap and the snow and everything. So, just wanted to bring that up while there's some folks here. Thank you.

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, the fire that they, you know, that they fought in the quarry, probably one of the coldest nights in years was uh amazing. And I know that um a bunch of them stayed overnight in the firehouse last night and they were able to help out, you know, the DPW today um with the medical issues. So, uh definitely, you know, it's always uh amazing to see, you know, the volunteer spirit and what they sacrifice. So yes, I agree with you. Thank you to them as well. Um and of course sure our police who you know are not volunteering but are still you know putting themselves out there during this terrible storm. So thank you them as well.

Um the only other thing that I wanted to bring up was uh the New Jersey American Water Project uh hit a little bit of a snag. Um, so while I we were hoping that it would be done um you know around this time, there's a little bit of a delay because um they had a problem with drilling in the um parking lot of the train station. And I haven't been updated lately to see what their you know what their latest plan is, but um you know hopefully it won't go too far into March. Uh you know we're looking forward to getting the station back like in its entirety. Yeah. Um, but I will keep you posted as soon as I have more information.

Okay. Thanks, Nancy. Just one last time. Yeah. Thanks to off of the fire, EMS, and all our first responders and DPW for working those long hours. So, yeah, really amazing effort and uh I guess and OEM and uh Tim Richard who since we were in a state of emergency, he was kind of running the whole show. So, uh, he really he's just so organized and has everything working perfectly, you know, knows what's going on and where it's happening and he really does a great job. So, and actually, if you'll see later on, we do have that letter where he exceeded the OEM standards for the state. So, thank you.

I was at a um I went to a training last Wednesday with the county. It was one of these uh I guess we're supposed to do this incident management system training whatever which was pretty interesting. Um it was you know basically just about how office of emergency management works and their policies and procedures and

it's kind of it was it was kind of neat to see how you know kind of all that goes thought that goes into that. But I think the big takeaway that they wanted all the elected officials to walk away from was leave it to the professionals. don't don't get involved if there's an emergency. Don't run down to the fire. Don't run down and, you know, try and help out. They're like, just let your professionals do their thing. And it sounds like we have a good um OEM coordinator. So, we do. Yeah. He's he's in charge when once they call it an emergency, you know, it's it's all him. So, Yep.

All right. We have department reports. We didn't get a police report this month. No, they said they would have two next month that they uh were we're behind or someone was off or something like that. So, they didn't get it in for this month. Okay. So, we've got four of them here. So, uh somebody want to move to accept the monthly reports? I'll move to accept the February monthly reports. Second. All in favor? I I

oppose. Nobody. Okay. uh correspondence was just that that that letter. Um so congratulations Tim for doing such a good job. Um do we have any unfinished business? Any new business? We had a lot of business tonight. Yes, we did.

And we still have more, right? Oh, I have another open session. Got to do that. Okay. Uh, so I will open the public session for anything other than what was listed for a public hearing. So if anyone has something they want to say, not many people left. Um, no, no comments. All right. And I will close the public session. And we do have uh an executive session. So um I need a motion to adjurnn to executive.

Uh motion to adjurnn to executive. Hi Fran. Thank you again. Hi Fran. Thank you all for attending tonight. We'll second. Thanks everybody. All in favor of uh I Okay. All right. Right. So, we'll take a few minutes here and let Anthony