Town Council - Regular Meeting

630, let's get the meeting started. This meeting is being held with the benefit of public notice as required by the Open Public Meetings Act. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Here. Here. Here.

Here.

Here. Please rise for the salute to the flag and the invocation.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Dear God, as we gather to conduct the business of Hamilton Township, we humbly ask for your guidance, wisdom, and discernment. We give thanks for the residents of Hamilton, for our families, seniors, veterans, business owners, first responders, health care workers, educators, public employees, and the many volunteers whose dedication and service strengthen our township each day. May our work this evening reflect respect for one another and a commitment to the common good. We ask all these things in your name. Amen.

Amen.

Okay, there have been, just bear with me, we have some changes. There has been an amendment to the agenda since it was posted on the website. Removed from the agenda is CA 16, which is 26-291. That's a resolution approving the second and final one-year extension to contract 23442 with Ted Dolce, Waters and Bugsby, and Joseph Gingoli and Sons, I'm sorry, NJ Fletcher, Kramer and Sons. For underground infrastructure, New service repair and emergency repair for the Department of WPC not to exceed 950,000. CA25 is 26-300, resolution authorizing the execution of a contingency agreement for professional legal services with the firms of Barron and Budd PC, Simonson and Sussman LLP, Young and Partners LLP, and Folkman Law Offices PC, outside counsel to serve as special project attorneys for litigation arising from injuries and damages related to and caused by firetruck manufacturer and other defendants unfair and anti-competitive business practices in violation of antitrust laws. Additions to the agenda include CA-25, 26-291, resolution authorizing the acquisition of solar project, including the assignment of agreements between Hamilton Township and SolOps, Hamilton Solar Redevelopment LLC, to NJR Clean Energy Ventures III Corporation, resolutions 26-233, 26-234, and ordinance 26-020, and approving amendments to contracts. Bless you. Can I please have a motion to the amendment of the agenda? Motion. Second.

Mr. Caravelli?

Yes.

Mr. Pai?

Yes.

Mr. Caravelli?

Yes. Mr. Phillips?

Yes. Mr. Carano?

Yes. And before we move on to the next one, I want to wish a happy early birthday to our very own sixth council member, Ms. Janice Kalanick. We'd like to wish you a happy birthday and appreciate you being here. And going out of the order on the agenda that you see in front of us, we are going to start with Ordinance 4-26024, Ordinance Authorizing the Lease of a Portion of Hamilton Township Property Located at 1750 Whitehorse-Marshallville Road, the Municipal Complex, to the Hamilton Township Board of Education. I believe we have some dignitaries in the back. Dr. Rocco, if you would like to come forward. School board members, I'm sorry, school board members, Dean Thornton and Mr. Kanaka, if you'd like to come up also. Oh, Christine, I didn't see you. I apologize.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone.

Dean Thornton, Hamilton Board of Education. So first, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening. I just want to make a few comments on the proposed lease agreement between the Hamilton Board of Education and Hamilton Township, the whole complex. We would like to truly thank you for the opportunity that you have given to the Board of Education. This is such a wonderful opportunity, not only for the Board of Education, for the township, but for our community. And we are looking forward to the continued success and the continued partnership with the township for many years to come. which will benefit our community.

So again, we would like to truly thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good evening, council. As part of the negotiating team for this particular project, I want to thank Ms. Monzo, the mayor, and Paul, the support from the township, and the three people behind me, for the amount of work that it took for us to all come to an agreement that is beneficial for this township and for the population of this community.

Unfortunately, there's another unfortunate thing, but our former business administrator, Catherine Atwood, has retired as of June 3rd.

She was also a big part of that negotiations. Again, thank you very much. Looking forward to a long, prosperous relationship. And good luck to all of us. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Rich. Thank you. Good evening. I also want to share in a short and certain remark. This has been a long process, and I appreciate the opportunity to have worked together with the Township to bring it to fruition. And I look forward to the joint partnerships that come. I think that this is a step closer to revitalizing our schools that will help our children learn better. So thank you for that.

Thank you. Good evening, council. Thank you for having all of us here tonight to speak. Ms. Monzo, mayor, council members, I want to thank all of you for the collaboration that we have had together for over two years. Having us have a heated table is greatly appreciated. Being able to sit down and talk about how this building can serve the community the whole community, from the town government to the Board of Education is greatly appreciated. From the Board of Education's perspective, we are combining two buildings. Now the community needing either the board, my office, curriculum office, HR, special services, and other departments can come to one location. At the same time, they need you, they can come there also. We appreciate the opportunity to work with you. We look forward to the opportunity when we all move in together. And as my board members have said, a long and prosperous time together. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Before I open it up, I'll open up council comments prior to opening it to the public.

Go ahead. You go first. Council President, I'll just say, Although I haven't been intricately involved with this ongoing process, I know the school and the administration and the administrative officials have been at the table with our team here, and I'm just thankful to be a part of this process. I think it's a necessity for our community. I think it's an important, as we move forward, We've foregone the days of the corn farms, and we've transformed ourselves into one of the seventh or eighth largest populations, and we have a burgeoning community with different needs, and to have a central location where we can access, whether it's a school issue, whether it's a permitting issue, a zoning issue, at a really, the center of our town, I think is, and have a good community space Not to say that, well, this is a little bit. Not the best space, but just to have a better space for our community is something that I think is important. And so I stand with you. I appreciate your comments this evening. And I'm thankful for the administration for all that they've done along the way, along with our mayor, Jeff Martin. So that's all I wanted to say.

Just to echo a little bit on what Councilman Caravelli said, being naturally we're probably the eighth and ninth largest municipality in the state of New Jersey, we have one of the largest school systems in the state of New Jersey, and to come under one roof and anybody that's been at either one of them schools, and I'd be dating my age, I went to kindergarten on Park Avenue. you know, back in the early 60s. And you could see that the buildings are they're not adequate. This building's not adequate. That's not adequate. We need to show that, hey, you know what? We're one of the biggest municipalities in the state of New Jersey. We need to have facilities that we need to be proud of. And I think at the end of the day, when this is all said and done, I think the residents, once they have a chance to go to that facility, are going to appreciate not only the workmanship and craftsmanship that's done, because this job, as a former tradesperson myself, That job had a project labor agreement on it, ensuring that local tradespeople had the opportunity to work on that job in their hometown. Many times people have to go to work in other towns, but to have an opportunity to work in their hometown is tremendous. But one other thing that we did, not only with the PLA, is we did a 30-day payout to our contractors, our subcontractors, to make sure that they're getting paid in a timely manner, that the GCs ain't holding their money. So that was one of the most important things we did. And I'd like to say, and I don't know many municipalities that ever put that into a project labor agreement, I'd like to think we were probably one of the first to do 30-day payouts to subcontractors. I'm proud of all the work that went into that by this administration and with the school board administration, everybody coming together to build what I think is going to be a fantastic facility, one that we all could be proud of.

Thank you. This building has served our community for the past 100 years. The Township Library was originally in the basement of this building. That's how much this community has grown in the time since this building was first built, and I'm looking forward to working in a new building that is going to serve our community for the next 100 years. I want to thank our superintendent and our school board members for the extraordinary level of cooperation that has resulted in this arrangement that is going to benefit the community in a multitude of ways, access to services, but also financially. We're going to be recognizing financial benefits and savings for our community as a result of this cooperation between the school board and the township. And we're going to be able to repurpose this property. And I'm looking forward to seeing that happening in the future. So this is a milestone moment. I'm proud to be here this evening to be a part of it. Thank you.

Thank you to all my colleagues on council and to the board and, of course, to Dr. Rocco. I just want to also, I mean, you guys have said everything I was probably thinking, but I do want to thank the administration, thank the board, thank Dr. Rocco, and everyone who's been involved, trying to give me excellent points to be able to keep our labor local has been huge. And just seeing the progress that we've made, I know along the way it's only been better and better as it's come along. But as a resident with two kids who went through the Hamilton Township school system and have had to get permits, and as we all have, to be able to have all of us under one roof, I just think it also shows our community how unified we are as a community. We're here together. It's not the Board of Ed and then the township separate. We work together collaboratively, and I believe that will only grow under one roof. And again, for our residents, I can't think of a better And more than 20 years ago, when I moved here, would I have ever thought that that strip mall was going to be our new municipal complex in Port Abed? Never had thought. But what a great job that they've done, and you all have done in negotiating this. So I just want to say thank you.

I'm going to take a little lighter road. No offense, but we'll start off with a little humor. I saw the World Cup was selling their turf for about $300 or $400. I'm thinking about selling the wallpaper. I'm not sure we're going to get that much, maybe $300 or $400, but we will take offers. But really, it's a testament to the cohesiveness and the workability. the friendship and just the business partnership that we have together. It's nice to see the solidarity that you're here and we look at also coming and supporting you as well. So thank you for being here. We did move you up because I know we have a long agenda and I know you have other stuff to be attending. So that's really all I have. Do we make a motion already? Oh, I'm sorry. Any members from the public wishing to comment? I thought we did that already because they were up there. Seeing none.

Council President, I'll make a motion to move on ordinance 426-024. No, no, no. 24. 26024.

Did you get it right? Yes. Okay, I'll second that.

Mr. Carabelli?

Yes.

Todd?

Yes.

Mr. Whalen?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. We would like to thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Moving into our normal agenda.

We have a presentation on the orders report. My name is Bob Swisher.

I'm a partner with Company. We just completed the 25 audit.

Is that microphone on?

So I was here not too long ago actually. Last year was our first year and it took a long time for us to get the audit done. I think I was here in November. But this year we're having more knowledge of what goes on here in Hamilton and the records are better on top of that. It was a much easier audit. Everything's done. The due date was moved to August 31st this year, but it's done well in time. Just a little talk about our audit process. Okay, we're here to determine whether your financial statements are fairly stated and whether you're in compliance with the rules and regulations of the state of New Jersey. And so we test the records of the township to see if, in fact, they are in compliance. Have it report that it's an unmodified opinion. I mean, it's a clean opinion. There's no issues there. As far as the compliance, we did have two areas of noncompliance that I think you have a corrective action plan on the agenda later on. One dealt with your fixed assets. You're required to, any assets over $5,000, you're required to keep a listing of those. And the attachment's not done that for many, many years. And it's a very cumbersome task. And with the idea of moving into a new municipal building, it makes sense to hold off on that until you move into the new building and not have to count things that you're going to get rid of ahead of time. So I think that, you know, it'll probably be around for a while. Maybe by 27 you'll get it done. And then the other one dealt with some items in the tax office as far as reconciling liens and things. So we have somebody from our office working with your tax collector to try to get that rectified before the end of this year so it should be taken care of. Overall, the tax was in very good financial shape, which is helpful for bond ratings and things like that when you do out for notes or bonds. You know, if you have a good rating, your interest rates could be lower, and the tax was in good shape with that. Other than that, you know, I'd like to thank the administration and the finance office. They did a great job. It's really, you know, we were here, last was our first year of auditing, but we were here years back trying to help out in finance, and it was, a mess, you know, what Jenny and the team came into at that point. It's really been cleaned up a lot. You know, from our perspective as the orders, just seeing what was there before to where we are now in two years has been leaps and bounds. I imagine we'll get better going forward. So I just want to thank them for that also. I'd be glad to take any questions from anybody on council about the audit process or the audit report or anything like that.

I was just going to say, Council President, Bob, the one issue that you brought to mind was the one corrective action plan for the one item that deals with I think the inventory of equipment and also tangible things that we're going to bring over to the new municipal building. We then should then keep a a log of that information.

What most towns do is you get a company come in, and they take the first inventory for you. And then as you purchase things, you add them to that. Okay, because you didn't have a list forever, as far as anybody else here has ever been, they've never kept the list. So to start from scratch, and the point being, you can do it now that your inventory stuff that you may not even keep. So why pay to have somebody come in and take care of all that for you that you're just going to throw it out? Wait till all the new stuff is together. Then you go around, they'll go to public works and all the things that are over $5,000. Then you have an inventory of it and you're able to keep track of what's going on.

So you maintain a value and a depreciation rate on them? Don't appreciate it.

You know, we're not actually, some of the companies actually do it. You're not required to under New Jersey statutes.

Okay.

Okay. In a normal business, you would appreciate it. But in New Jersey governmental, you don't appreciate it. But again, it's another control. It's a control that if you have a listing, ideally what you do is you have a listing, and then you go around and spot check, okay, are these five things in this where they were? Or did somebody walk off of them? The things that people are going to walk off of are probably lower cost items, so they're probably not going to be on that listing. But again, it's just another control to have in place to keep your assets in line.

Thank you.

Sure.

Very good.

Thank you.

Good job.

Have a good night, Bob.

Ma'am.

Ready to move on? Next consideration, we have the minutes of May 5th and May 19th.

Council President, I'll make a motion to move on the minutes of May 5th and May 19th.

I'll second that.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Resolution 1-24-275 is the resolution approving the rule of the Texas Laboratory Legislature 192C-LB-001-001, inflecting the new issue to green analytics HLLC for the remainder of calendar year 2026, June 18th, 26th, and December 31st.

Motion, please.

I'll make a motion on resolution 1-26-275.

Any questions or comments? questions or comments on Resolution 1 from the public. Now I'll take a motion.

Okay, I'll make a motion to move on Resolution 126-275. I'll second it. Mr. Carabello?

Yes.

Mr. Pott?

Yes.

Mr. Whalen?

Yes.

Ms. Phillips? Yes. Mr. Capero? Yes. Next in consideration, we have consent agenda item CA1 through CA43. Only 43?

Only 43.

Running through this list, one through seven, there's several grants. $1 million for a fire apparatus. $50,000 for smoke detectors and CO2 detectors. I'm sorry, carbon monoxide detectors. Wrote that down. $650,000 for breathing apparatuses for our firefighters. Also a drive sober or get pulled over grant. Nine, temporary fee waiver for the shelter for August 1st to the 31st. Twelve is an online auction for surplus properties and material. Fourteen, adding vendor purchases of equipment. Seventeen is item for sludge disposal. 19 through 22 are all change orders for paving jobs. All our decreases saves approximately $217,000, which we all like. Number 20, which is also one of those paving jobs, we did have somebody come to a past council meeting and complain about one of the roads that was paved. or that needed to be paved. We did not pave it with this job, and they are giving us money back because the road is going to be paved once PSE&G puts a new gas line in, and PSE&G is actually going to pay for the paving. So two jobs. So we just pushed the job off, and then PSE&G is going to put the gas line in and pave the road, so it saves us money. Why pave it, rip it up, and then repave it? So we're saving money there. 20-foot is a small increase. That's for our WPC project. That was a small increase of 13,000. 26 is a project we're all proud of. That's the Cruiser Road property that we purchased. That's the demolition of that structure there. 27 is a fence for DPW around their maintenance yard. 28, another one we're proud of, three-year contract with the Wilson Center. 33, was a week right on Route 130. That was emergency work. Then we have some refunds and overpayments. 42 is accepting and approving the corrective action plan for the audit. And 43 is a certification to the local finance board for the review of the corrective action plan for the audit. Questions or comments? I know there's a lot. Anybody from council wishing to begin?

Just one question and one comment. On the sludge removal, it's our ultimate goal, right? We purchased, I think I may have asked our director that before. I mean, we're paying a lot of money for sludge hauling, right? And we went and purchased containers, right, to haul the sludge ourselves. Are we any closer to starting that or we have restarted it and this is addition to it?

We have. This is the continuation of the contract that we had in place before we got that started. We have gotten it started. It's running very well. But we keep this in place and we keep renewing it to use it just in case We have more than, we only have one driver and one roll off that's taking the, making these budget trips, okay. So if we needed more than that at any given point or for whatever reason, that person was off or we were down the vehicle, then we would use this contract. It's only, we don't pay it out unless we need it and use it. So it's really just in place as a safeguard and backup.

That's perfect. And I just wanted to make one comment, and it regards paving. And obviously, and like Council President Paparo stated, one of the roads wasn't being done because public service had to run a gas main. And one of the things that this council and this administration what to do was to make sure we ain't disrupting our roads. The last thing you want to do is pave a road, and whether it's Trenton water or aqua water coming in, or in this case, public service, the sooner you get done paving the road, then you're tearing the road up again. So, you know, does it happen occasionally? You know, especially if there's a break, it might happen. But to get all utilities done before we pave the road is very important to do. Hopefully we continue in that manner. And the good thing is the gas man will be replaced, and that road will be paved next year. coming up. That's all I have.

I guess my Kathy, I hate to put you on the spot here. If you don't know, that's fine. But I mean, we have several grants that are on the docket tonight, which I think is great. Are they like the childhood lead grant that recycling tons? Are they similar in previous years? I didn't do my homework, actually research back go back a year. But like, is this something that's kind of the same typical things that we're seeing. There hasn't been a reduction.

No, there hasn't been a reduction in them. And again, we're not sure exactly how much we're going to get any given year. And we were happy though with the health ones. A lot of times those, we're not sure they're going to be renewed and whether they're going to find the money for that. But in this case, we did for that one, which is good news. And the recycling grant is money that we get back depending on how much We recycle and how many reports we turn in and all of that. So that's been very consistent. We have a really good recycling program within our public works.

Okay. That actually leads into my question that I was going to ask, which is the public health infrastructure grant, is there a specific project that we have earmarked for that?

Which number is that? It's CA3.

And I want to commend the administration for uncovering several hundred thousand more dollars in grants.

I have to give credit to all the departments and the directors and the divisions because we have our directors and even supervisors down to the supervisor level are very active in taking out grants and making sure that they're handling the grants that we do get properly in terms of reporting and use because A lot of times they won't renew it and you won't have a chance at getting it again if you're not following all of the rules. So it's not easy, but they do a great job. They work on it a lot and they love doing it because it really helps us serve the public so much better. I don't know off the top of my head what this is for. It's for the $119,372, so I can get an answer for you, and I'll give it to all the accountants.

Thank you.

Yeah, I just wanted to, and you already highlighted it, but just happy to see the New Jersey state budget instead of the grant for our fire division of $1.1 million, and the decreases. Always good to see. Just to clarify, on the CA-26, that's open space that was donated to us or re-inspired? We bought it. We bought it through open space. That's open, just so everybody knows. I just wanted to point that out. That's open space that's preserved. Once we have those dwellings down, they'll remain that way.

And by the way, that's a project. A developer was trying to build a warehouse on that property. So that's a warehouse that we prevented

From being built and now are going to be preserving that land is open space Look up Councilman Phillips the property and that we're looking to take down fronts on on Couser yeah, and it's a it's basically dilapidated Once it's like I just want to be clear for the public that it was it's gonna remain yes Yes, we're not demolishing anything to build anything correct

And just on behalf of being on the board of the John Wilson Center, I'm very happy to see the three-year contract. As, you know, many people are aware, you know, there's many needs in our community, and they really, they're so important. We had a very successful Trippie trade this year. It was great. So we're getting out more and more, not just to fundraise for the organization, but also so people know where to come to get help. So I'm very happy to see that.

Any members of the public wishing to comment? Come on up.

Juliana Carella, CA9 about waiving the fees. So I understand this is part of the clear the shelter campaign. Normally I'm not for waiving fees, but I understand why it's being done. But my concern is more that if we're going to generate all these applications when the current applications aren't being processed, it's just going to make people more upset. Because I went twice this past week trying to help someone get a cat that is actually already sponsored for adoption. And both times I took her, no one was able to process her application, and also on all the days that she called and stuff as well. So I'm just worried that if we're promoting waived adoption fees and we're going to get all these more people applying and they're not being answered, there's already some outrage about that. So I fear that's just going to get worse.

We'll have to look into this. This is the first time hearing it, so thank you for raising this as an issue. Why would that be true? I don't know. So I can't imagine. I mean, we clearly have staff there, and I don't even know who's responsible for that, if there's multiple people, and if something is just falling through the cracks. But let's find out, because that's something I'll look into starting tomorrow.

Thank you. Come on up, please.

Lisa Williams, I also want to comment on CA9. I've commented multiple times when we do this that B is not our issue. You know, you factor in what Juliana and her friend went through. We lose people to adopt to other towns and other counties when they get frustrated, and our animals continue to sit in cages. And a month ago, we had a Board of Health meeting where they said they were going to go back and update the bios. I just counted them. Out of 32 cats, you've got 22 cats with no bios. So we waive fees, but we don't do anything to find these cats home or these pets home. I reached out on a post today because I saw a dog in one of the videos Juliana did, and it wasn't posted on the website as a found stray. It's a yellow lab. The dog is still there. It's being spayed tomorrow. So some dogs get posted on our website as found strays. Some do not. I was curious about the little tiny senior dog, PJ. because it never showed up on the website as well as the found stray. And a volunteer had posted, so I knew it existed. And then I saw that the volunteer updated it went to rescue. We're not giving owners a fair shot at getting their animals. We don't do our job. The shelter manager sat up there and said, I will get this done this week on that meeting. 22 cats. One's been there since March, some since April, some since May. I don't agree with way too much. waiving fees. I totally support clear of the shelter, but not in our town because we don't do our jobs first.

Anyone else from the public wishing to comment? Yes ma'am.

Hello, how you doing?

Lori Sarney, 62 Aspen. All right, so I came on last month. May 24th I applied to be a volunteer at the animal shelter. June 16th I believe the board meeting was. I did give concerns about the no response to the email. I want to say Danielle did email me back about a week later. In the email it did say when the position was filled I would be reached out to about orientation and being able to help. As of now I still have not been contacted. Do you know if the position has been filled?

I think I just heard today, yes, we brought in somebody and I don't know at what stage her onboarding is. So again, I can get a better answer for you in terms of the timeline now going forward and what her priorities are going to be in terms of going through the applications for the volunteers. Right.

I think my concern is it's been a long time. I'm a teacher. So, summer I actually have time to help and volunteer. So, it actually is just like frustrating that I want to do something good and can't. And I feel like we should be the town that has the most volunteers. That would be really cool. So, I will be, I'll wait, I'll come next month and see if I respond to, hopefully I will.

Well, I'm hoping you get an answer for that. I hope so too. Because this is somebody that has experience doing it as well. So, we're hoping that she's going to hit the ground running.

Okay. Also, just a, random question. On the website, it says due to overwhelming number of dogs in the Hamilton shelter, as of June 14, 2024, they're closing dog intakes to surrenders and public drop-off stray animals. Is that still current? Does that still apply?

Yes.

We have changed that. You have to change that? We have not changed it back.

It's still applied.

All right. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments on the consent agenda items only?

Seeing none, do I have a motion?

Council President, seeing none, I look to close the public comment portion and move on consent agenda item CA1 through CA43.

I'll second that.

On the motion, Mr. Parabell?

Yes.

Mr. Tai? Yes.

Mr. Whalen?

Yes.

Ms. Phillips? Yes. Ms. Farrell?

Yes.

So first, because this was tabled, we need a motion to remove from the table. So moved. Second. Mr. Caravelli?

Yes.

Mr. Tye?

Yes.

Mr. Whalen?

Yes. Mr. Phillips?

Yes.

Mr. Garrow?

No. I'm confused. I think we need to know. Was the motion to remove? To remove people not to vote. I'll vote yes. I'll vote yes.

Continue your discussion.

Any questions or comments from council prior to my opening remark?

Well, this is the one-way street.

Yeah, this was the ordinance that proposed making a street a temporary one-way street. It's opening up traffic problems. It's opening up potential accidents. I've just never heard of a temporary one-way street. We're asking people to put their phones down and pay attention to the road. This is a terrible ordinance. You can tell how I'm going to vote. I welcome anybody try to persuade me or any other comments.

No, for Council President, the issue was that this was even brought up was because it was near a school, right? There was that, you know, and that's why they were trying to come up with a way to the flow of traffic with some of the parents picking up their children, stuff like that. So that's why this was. But Council President makes a really good point that, you know.

We have found an alternative.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Any questions or comments from the public? Every year, just to put it on the record, every year we do adopt a traffic plan. So the traffic plan would be that the police have the ability to change traffic, shut roads down. So we are going to adopt this road into that plan so that they can just close the road down for 20 minutes or 30 minutes every day as kids get picked up from the school. No need to put a sign up. The sign was going to be a paragraph long, and we want people to read that while we're driving and trying to avoid grandparents and kids. Not a real great idea. I thought you were left. Do we have a motion? To reject it. No.

Wow. Motion to vote. I just need a motion to vote. Seeing no more comments from the public, I move on ordinance number 126-012. I'll second. Second reading.

Oops, sorry. I'll second.

Mr. Caravelli.

Wait, just to make sure. I'm voting this down, correct?

No.

No.

No.

No.

I thought about it just to wake everybody up.

I don't know if you voted no or not.

Questions or comments from council? Any specific areas that this is being used?

No, this is the request from all of our departments and divisions. Okay. So we kind of call it a multipurpose capital ordinance. And so it has a number of things in there. You can see in the detail of the ordinance, right, all the different categories of things that are on our capital project list for this year.

Everything from tech to park improvements and various miscellaneous other things. Equipment, yeah, vehicles.

This was all the fun we had during the budget cycle, whatever these items.

Things we already approved as far as capital. Yes. With each of the directors.

Anybody else? Any questions or comments from the public? Madam Clerk?

Council President, I'll make a motion, seeing no members of the public, wishing to comment, that we close the public comment portion and move ordinance 26-022 on second reading.

I'll second. On the motion, Mr. Parabelli?

Yes. Aye.

Mr. Whalen?

Yes.

Mr. Phillips? Yes. Mr. Papera?

Yes.

I find your ordinance 3.6-023 is an ordinance in the Township of Hamilton in the county of Marshall, Missouri, providing for improvements to the Township Wastewater treatment has been banned for the township, appropriating $8,330,000. Therefore, an authorizing issuance of $8,330,000. The general utility bonds are known for the township's refinery and savings. Second reading of health care.

Questions or comments from my colleagues?

Our Director Kerry at Water Pollution Control has spelled out a multi-year plan of critical and necessary improvements, and this is a part of that plan.

Agreed. Just one comment, and, you know, I know sometimes I beat this a little bit, but we approved on our municipal building a project labor agreement, ensuring that we get skilled tradespeople on these projects, And I'm hoping that the township administration will commit to a project leave agreement on this particular project, which is now a law in the state of New Jersey on wastewater treatment facilities.

Well said. Any questions or comments from the public? Do I have a motion?

Council President, seeing no further comment from the public on this ordinance, I look to move on second reading and adoption, ordinance number 326-023. I'll second it.

On the motion of Mr. Tarabelli?

Yes. Aye.

Mr. Rowland? Yes. Mr. Phillips?

Yes.

Mr. Romero? Yes. Ordinance 526-025, an ordinance authorizing the settlement of litigation and authorizing the Council to enter into an agreement with DASWDW LLC for the acquisition of land, premises, improvements, and fixtures located at 1768 East Street in the Township of Hamilton designated as Block 1637-6 of the Hamilton Township tax map for the public purpose of affordable housing and the protection of public health and safety, purchase price of $200,000. That is my next comment.

Questions or comments from the Council on Ordinance 5?

I just have one quick question. This was based on our appraisal, Alyssa.

The appraisal was a little bit lower.

But you can go.

But in order to, so this was an eminent domain action.

Right.

This, just to step back a little bit for anybody in the audience, this relates to the 20, I think 2015 fire that took out almost a full block on East Bay Street. We have spent now six years, either arm's length transactions, tax sale foreclosures, And now we're at the point of eminent domain. This is one of the eminent domain cases. And so in order to settle the case, we were able to offer a little bit more than what the appraised value is, the market value. Because actually, in reality, it's been going up since this all started. And so we believed that it was a fair negotiation for the settlement of litigation and to buy the property. It's just the last piece of that that block that has to be negotiated one more okay, and that's also an eminent domain litigation and And then and then we're very close and so we've actually not only bought either be a bot or somehow taken partnership of That whole strip in front of East 8th Street. There's actually we bought an arm's-length transaction There's a piece of property behind those houses. So there's a corn for the business as a garage was a triangle And so we're going to take that down. We now own that as well. We're going to take that down as well. So what will enable this to happen is when we build affordable housing there, the owners will be able to drive on that road directly behind it and be able to come park and be able to come in. So it actually provides a much safer better piece of property overall for affordable housing.

But once that's completed and we finalize everything, we'll be able to start moving forward with actually seeing some development, good development in that area.

Absolutely. We'll be able to take down the remainder of the houses and that piece of property in the back and then affordable housing will be built and we'll put a few restrictions on it and it's part of our plan and it's a great renovation of the whole area.

Good. Yeah, I just I just want to thank our township attorney for the tremendous amount of work over the past several years that has gone into and continues to go into this project to consolidate all these postage stamp sized properties. In some places, ownership wasn't even entirely clear. And so a lot of work had to go into getting rid of an eyesore for this neighborhood, a burned out property that sat neglected for several years before Mayor Martin came into office. Under Mayor Martin, the legal team has been doing the hard work to get this project done. This is gonna be a nice improvement once we have reached that point where we can build affordable housing. It's gonna help us meet our affordable housing need and it's gonna just beautify the neighborhood too. So I'm looking forward and grateful for the continued progress on that.

Thank you. Questions or comments? Questions or comments from the public?

Do I have a motion? Council President seeing no questions from the public, I move on to Ordinance Number 5, 26-025. I'll second that.

On the motion, Mr. Caradale?

Yes.

5?

Yes.

Mr. Whalen?

Yes.

Ms. Phillips? Yes. Ms. Becerra?

Yes.

Mr. Spivey, your ordinance 126-026, The ordinance adding and amending, supplementing the code of the Council of Hamilton, New Jersey, Part 3, land use legislation, Chapter 550, Land Development, Ordinance 1. Title, Section 550-8, Detention Centers, Parcel Facilities, Professional Facilities, Gales, and Prince. First reading and introduction.

Motion, please. I'll move Ordinance 126-026 on first reading.

I'll second. On motion, Mr. Caravelli.

Yes. Mr. Aye. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I'll take a motion to move on Ordinance 2 on First Reading and Introduction 26-027. I'll second it. On the motion to parallel it.

Yes.

Aye.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. in the South Shanahan-Tapartin State at 209 Norway Avenue. First reading and introduction.

Council President, I'll move on to ordinance number 326-028 on first reading and introduction. I'll second that.

On the motion, Mr. Farabella?

Yes.

Mr. Pryor?

Yes.

Mr. Whalen?

Yes.

Mr. Phillips?

Yes.

Mr. Farabella? Yes. 5-0-4-26-029. Orders demanding supplementing the code of the Township and Township of New Jersey, Chapter 45 . Parking section 45-9, prohibiting parking at all times on a certain street. Establishing new parking zones on Randall Avenue and McFarland Avenue. First reading and introduction.

I'll make a motion on first reading and introduction of ordinance 426-029.

I'll second that.

On the motion, Mr. Caravelli.

Yes.

Five.

Yes.

Mr. Raimonds.

Yes.

Ms. Phillips. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. I'll make a motion, Council President, to move on Ordinance 526-030. I'll second. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Code 5-0. Resolution 1-22-392, the resolution referring to the code, amended to the code of the Council of Governors in Part 3, Ranging for Exploration, Chapter 550, made available in Article 1, item section 550-8, intention set of public spillings, correction of the code in detail, or use beyond the control of the Board of Regents to determine the advance date, 4-5-2-2.

Questions or comments from council?

Just a quick comment for the public. We're forwarding this to the planning board with this resolution. This is pertaining to Ordinance 126-026. And what we're doing there is we are specifically prohibiting corrections facilities, jails, detention centers in any zone in Hamilton Township, and also expressly prohibiting warehouses from being used for temporary or long-term detention activities.

Isn't that one zone excused for that?

No, any zone or expression, sorry. The way it's written is, Subsection A is non-municipal detention centers, non-municipal detention centers, carceral facilities, correctional facilities, jails and prisons are not a permitted use in any zone and are expressly prohibited.

I thought RD was still allowed?

Not according to the way it's written.

Okay. The backup material is not in the, we don't have that yet, right? We don't have the backup yet for that?

Is it with the ordinance? Yeah.

It's not in the ordinance.

The backup material is not with ordinance one right now. I'm sorry. In our agenda package. Oh, that's what I got. Oh, yeah. No. There is a memo attached.

Okay.

Thank you.

You got nothing? I want to look at this first. Do you have yours pulled up that I can look at?

Yeah, the memo.

Our wonderful wife.

It's hard loading. Let's see. This is I think it's under the ordinance 26.

Sorry.

I just wanna make sure we spoke accurately, that's all. Okay, thank you. I didn't see that. Any members of the public wishing to comment on resolution 126319? Yes, ma'am.

I'm very glad that you did this because like that empty warehouse at Congolium, I was beginning to get a little paranoid that all of a sudden we're going to see immigration people and everything in there being held. So I was glad to see this is going through, that we're not going to allow that kind of stuff in this township. That's stupendous. Good job. Thank you.

Anyone else from the public wishing to speak? Seeing none, do we have a motion?

Council President, I'll make a motion on resolution 126-319. I'll second.

On the motion of Mr. Carabello.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Ms. Corral, you're up first.

Okay, the shelter. So let's start with one of the most frustrating parts of this entire situation, that the township continues to double down on a flawed process while residents are actively offering help and reasonable solutions. I've repeatedly offered various types of support, including to personally pay for legitimate independent evaluations for the red designated dogs. Friday, I met with Mayor Martin, and he agreed to request an estimate from an outside evaluator and trainer that I provided to him. I do not know this person. I found them through the IAABC, which is the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants, where she is an actual certified dog behavior consultant, not just a member like Laura and I both paid to be. I appreciate that step, however there is a major problem with the process as it was explained to me and everyone needs to understand it. Even if this outside professional comes in with these verified accreditations, way more than I've been able to verify for the current trainer, The current trainer, Laura, would still retain the final say, meaning Laura could completely disregard the professional's findings and continue classifying the dogs however she chooses. We cannot bring in a more qualified outside professional, call the process independent, and then allow the person whose original decisions are being questioned to overrule the results. Merlin remains one of the clearest examples as to why this matters. His reports from the training institute describe a dog who is learning, progressing, and responding to training. This does not mean he had no behavioral challenges. It means those challenges required someone to actually train him and give an honest assessment of the entire dog, not just a label that followed him without opportunities to improve. Every positive report about Merlin further calls the current evaluator into question. Residents were promised in this room a neutral third-party assessment. Watching your friend handle a dog and then writing an opinion is not the same as independently evaluating that dog. And if the township considers the outside assessment meaningful, then the actual findings need to matter, not just the parts that support decisions already made. Take Lockwood and Maverick, for example. The report described both of them as not appropriate for novice handlers. That does not sound like dogs who should be completely restricted from every experienced volunteer. So why are they still being treated as though no qualified volunteer can work with them? Why have they not been moved to Yellow? And at the very least, why is Steve not still permitted to work with them? The Township cannot use Amy's report to defend keeping dogs restricted while ignoring descriptions in that same report that suggests a dog may be appropriate for experienced volunteers. Either the full report matters or it does not. I am also now hearing from multiple people who applied to adopt animals after seeing my post. Days or in many cases weeks have passed without receiving follow-up. These are people who are actively applying, calling, leaving messages, and emailing the shelter because they want these animals. The township cannot continuously say that the shelter is overcrowded and desperately needs adopters while allowing willing applicants to sit unanswered. And then there's my open request for the third-party evaluation. I was told the township did not have it yet, and my request was extended. And then later it was closed, saying that there would be no report. Only after I raised the issue very publicly online was the report produced. I then requested the original email, which confirmed that the township had possessed it since June 9th. the same day that I requested it. That document should have also been responsive to other related requests, including mine and Steve's, but it was not produced, and this is completely unacceptable. And to be clear, my concern is not with the clerk's office. I understand where the information came from and who participated in the decisions, and I intend to ensure that the responsible parties are held accountable. The growing response to my petition makes it clear that concerns about the shelter and lack of accountability from this township are not just ours. And if anyone is waiting for me to lose interest, get tired, or move on, that is not going to happen. I will continue asking questions and sharing what I uncover with the public. The people in this room are not the enemy. We are residents offering time, money, expertise, connections, and solutions. So please stop treating us as a threat and start using us to make this shelter better.

Thank you. Who's treating you as a threat, though? I don't think we have. I think we've been welcoming to your comments and taking them under advisement.

I think the next speech will address that a little bit too. But I mean, at the last meeting, you were basically accusing me of making up lies about the water situation.

I didn't accuse you of anything.

You said I was making unsubstantiated claims or whatever the exact words are. I'd have to look back at the thing. You said I was saying it without evidence, and then I offered to send you all of the evidence.

Listen, I welcome...

When I go to the shelter, they are not happy that I am there. They're not happy.

Go back to her statement. A couple questions. Well, one thing I'd like to find out. I mean, it's just twice tonight I've heard about adoption procedures that people want to adopt that's being held up. So I'd like to know maybe tomorrow what the problem is because that can be concerning. Yeah, I can talk on it more if you want. And then the other question is, because I've asked it, but how did you get the report on Rowan because he still being evaluated he still with the trainer is the report out yet

So if there's no final report on that, we get updates. And I think that's what you got.

I got the over request from BARC sends updates each week about Merlin's training. But I was referring to the third party evaluation that Amy did lead the way training, which is what was withheld from me for over a month.

We could get them updates. I'd like to see them updates too.

I have a printed copy of it.

They can forward it to me.

I'll be happy to forward them to you.

Thank you. I'd just like to comment on the first one. I went to a shelter today, spent about an hour and 15 minutes there, and spoke to them about that exact topic. Well, that was one of the topics. So to alleviate the potential people from being frustrated and leaving, I offered a solution of why can't we have people who are potential dog walkers or animal people who want to come and take care of the dogs. We have volunteers to call if they know they're going to come. Sometimes a Saturday is busy, and we're already short one staff member. So I said, why can't we have some volunteers call ahead if they know they're going to come? This way it alleviates that, hey, sorry, we can't get to you right now because we're busy. If they already know they're coming and they're working on something, they can at least take that five-second break to say, OK, here's the dog. somebody coming to look to adopt a dog, it is a problem. I think the more obviously staff that we can get, if there's a way that we could alleviate some of that work to maybe help them. But I would like the information on that, too, because that was a question that we had right off the bat today. Why do people get turned away? If you're busy, if you need help, say something, you know, those types of things.

Yeah, and especially if you're there to see a dog or see, you know, one of the animals, whatever, we should be able to accommodate that. And I think, again, you know, I think incorporating the volunteers in some of that is a good suggestion and will probably be, you know, looked at very closely. But I'm going to find out tomorrow what their process is and, again, I feel terrible that this is the first I'm kind of really hearing about that being an overall problem. So, and it bothers me as well. So, and I know that it bothers all of you.

And yeah. And I also attended today with Council President Papparo. And listen, they were, it was a great tour. It really was. We got to see the cats. We got to see the dogs and try to interact with some of them. Some of them you can't interact. I mean, you know, as soon as they hear you, the barking all starts throughout the kennel. So it's kind of entertaining in a sense, but seeing some of the red dogs and reading some of the problems that they have and some of the other dogs, their evaluations and whether they could be adopted to a home where it's just a husband and a wife without kids and without another pet. Some of the dogs don't interact with other dogs. you know in the hour that we were there you know i got a little bit of an education too you know because i always raised the dog as a puppy right you had a dog as a puppy it was easy i i never had a dog a rescue dog i could only imagine how difficult it must be at times and if if you have the patience um to spend with that that animal i'm i'm sure that You know, you could do tremendous things with them. I mean, a lot of people have rescue dogs, and I know many a friend that has a rescue dog, and they've been very... adaptive to their families or to a single person or a married couple or an elderly couple. I did see some of the red dogs that would get up to the fence where you can actually kind of scratch their back a little bit, but that doesn't mean I could take that dog out of the kennel and take him for a walk, right? Number one, I don't have the training or would I feel comfortable doing it? So there's a lot of variables that go into this. There was a dog that just had been brought in, was dropped off so it was in a cage and they kind of had it covered in a sense because a couple of the dogs were covered in the cages that they were in. But one of the attendants kind of said the dog was kind of going bonkers. you know, got a treat and kind of fed him a treat through the fence and through the cage and he calmed down for a minute, but guess what? He went right back to barking and being aggressive and I get it, you know, he's in a new environment. But one of the things we did, we toured the outdoor facilities where the dogs get to run and we asked about some suggestions about how we can improve them areas. And so I think they're gonna come back with some good ideas there. We actually talked about some of it, but it costs money, right? And we only have so much to budget for the shelter itself, and we're doing the best we can. I think all the employees there are doing the best they can on a daily basis. I think Pat's idea was tremendous because people get discouraged. You go there on a Saturday, maybe you're short staffed, and they want to take a dog out, and they ain't getting to him right away, right? So what happens? The person leaves. So I thought his idea of scheduling, calling in and saying, I'd like to take the dog and take the dog out for the day. Some people do take the dogs. I'm going to pick the dog up at 1030. and I'll be back at one o'clock. So they take the dog and when they get there they know that so and so is coming here at 10.30 to pick up the dog. I thought that was a great idea and we're hoping that they're gonna move forward with that and try to get the ball rolling there to streamline the volunteers so they can get in and get out. Last thing we want them to do is have to stand around waiting. I thought today's visit was very productive, and like all a council, we're listening to the concerns, and we want to address the concerns, and hopefully, you know, we can get some resolve. But, you know, I think it takes cooperation, you know. I think it takes a point of where we collaborate together on the more, and I'm not saying, by any means, I'm not taking anything negatively. I'm not. Okay, but I think the more positive influence that we can have instead of you know, negative, negative. Let's look at some positives. And we need to produce positives, too, to make people feel like things are moving forward. So hopefully Kathy will get information tomorrow on why these adoptions are being held up.

Do you want me to elaborate on what they told me?

I'd be happy to take your detail that you have, because that helps. I want to find out overall, right?

both times I was told that Nolan's the only one that processes applications, and it's my understanding that he's a part-time employee.

Applications to adopt?

Yes, applications to adopt. And when I went, what was last Thursday's date, the 16th, my friend had handed in her application I think on like Monday or Tuesday and we asked them to pull it up to see if they could review it while they were there and they said they were only printed out until the 6th. So that's 10 days that they weren't even printed and the ones up until the 6th weren't even processed yet. And then yeah, every time I was there I basically just said is there anyone I can talk to and then they'd be like oh let me go get you an answer and then I would wait for like 30 minutes and then I would start flagging down employees because no one came back, so. Yeah, this is not a criticism of Nolan by any means. Everyone was blaming him, not blaming him, but saying that it was his responsibility. And I was like, isn't he a part-time employee? It just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't think we're into the blame. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know you're not either, so it's fine. We'll look at this, the whole process. Because look, if it's one more process that really needs to be looked at and redone.

Yeah, because I don't want to keep, I post these animals and people message me and say they applied for them and then They're getting mad at me, which I can take because I'm like this is not my fault that they're not responding to you, but like I'm then trying to follow up too and then I can't get answers for them either and it's just frustrating. Thank you. Thank you.

Kathy, do we have any updates on staffing since the last meeting? So just on the coordinator, the volunteer coordinator. So again, I believe it was this week she was starting. So hoping that again she hits the ground running because she's done four. But we're still down in ACO. So we are down in ACO. We have somebody in that acting capacity that we think is going to be promoted to that. But then that will open up a full-time animal attendant position. So we're going to end up having to fill that vacancy as well. And we have another staff member who's out on leave. So that creates, you know, a gap in there too that we can't do anything to fill that, right? So thank you.

Anybody else? Next up is John Tartaglia.

Good evening. Good evening. John Tartaglia, Mercerville. If you're not aware, I am Juliana's husband and a lifelong Hamiltonian. I understand that members of council are now required to personally visit every township department and that you have jobs and schedules that may not allow for visits as often as my wife goes. So Lisa has asked several times during these meetings whether members of the council have visited the animal shelter. Considering how much time has now been spent discussing the shelter, do you think the people sitting in front of us would want to see it for themselves? Well, it sounds like you guys took some measures today. You're being asked to make decisions, evaluate concerns, and determine whether residents are accurately describing what is happening here. How can you confidently do that if you have not personally visited yourself? And that's her tie. At the last meeting, you and the public health officer appeared to suggest that my wife was making accusations she cannot substantiate in regards to the water situation. My wife may not be 100% correct about every single conclusion she reaches. None of us are perfect. But she does not stand here and publicly make claims without records, emails, report, photo, or video evidence supporting what she is saying. And she was not certainly wrong about that one. Luckily, thanks to a member of the council, it was fixed immediately, as it needed to be because it was illegal. Quite frankly, the amount of evidence she has uncovered should concern all of you. It concerns me, and I love the whole. I see how much time she spends reviewing things and making sure she can support what she says before saying it publicly. So rather than dismissing her concerns as accusations, I would encourage all of you to look at the evidence she has provided and investigate the issues for yourselves, or better yet, call for third party investigations like she and Justine brought up at last time. With that said, I have two direct questions and I would like an answer from each person sitting in front of us. Sorry.

I need some water.

Excuse me.

First, when was the last time you personally visited the Township Animal Shelter? Sounds like a few of you have been here today. Would any other council members like to comment on when they made the last visit?

I was there in June.

Spent several months.

I have not been there this year. I've been there, I think it was there last year.

And Councilman Whalen, it sounds like you went today, it's only about an hour and 15 minutes. But before that, have you been there? Frequently before that, or?

Probably beginning of the year.

Beginning of the year. Okay.

I wouldn't say frequently, but I've been there in the past few years, different occasions.

Okay. And second, do you believe that the so-called mutual third-party assessment was truly independent, and whether honestly the residents were promised in this room?

On advice of counsel, I would ask you not respond to that question.

Well, hold on. Why? Why can't we respond to that?

We haven't seen the report, so how do we know if it was independent if we didn't see it? Right? I didn't see any report.

Did you? Well, I have an understanding that the third party observed the township employees handling the dog. Isn't that right?

That wasn't... No, a township. There's Laura.

Right.

They need their Laura.

She's the consultant. So we had a third party observe the consultant that we had already hired.

Again, I do not want anything on the record that they may use against you in any future litigation. I think it would be wise to wait for a copy of the report.

So look, we've been advised multiple times by counsel now not to comment. So I'm not going to say anything further on that. Okay.

And if you haven't gotten the report, I'll be happy to send it to you. I could probably do it.

I really don't understand the sensitivity from a legal standpoint, but I'm going to stand for comment.

I just would like to see the report before I say anything or don't say anything. I agree.

I'll be happy to comment after.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, I would also just like to say it wasn't my intention insinuate that you were lying at all. My intention is to be receptive to the criticism that you bring. I actually think a lot of the criticism has been helpful to us And I think we all strive to be receptive to criticism because we do want to see these facilities function as well as they can. And that's my intention. And I think that's the intention of everyone here.

Is there anyone else?

Justine Chartist. Hello, everyone. More than a month ago, we submitted a list of questions regarding the animal shelter and specifically requested written answers. Still, we do not have those answers, and our list of concerns has only continued to grow. We do not expect every member of council to personally know every operational detail about the shelter, but we do expect council to exercise oversight, direct these questions to shelter management and the appropriate department and hold them accountable for providing complete answers. We have attended meetings where council members directed questions to shelter for follow-up, yet it appears that even council did not receive meaningful answers. Why is that acceptable? Where is the accountability when residents submit questions, council requests follow-up, and shelter management still does not respond? We asked who is responsible for dog classifications, behavior plans, rescue outreach, website listing, social media, and public communication. Now we also need to know who is responsible for processing adoption applications, how applications are tracked, and what prevents interested adopters from receiving timely responses. We requested plain language statements explaining every dog's color designation, why the dog received that classification, what behaviors led to it, what the dog is working on, and what measurable progress would allow the classification to change. We also requested the completed association of shelter veterinarians internal audit. Has the shelter gone through the ASV checklist? If so, where are the findings? If not, when will it be completed? We still need answers about social media. Is the person managing the shelter social media visiting the shelter or communicating directly with the people caring for the animals? Recently a dog was promoted on social media for adoption, but that dog was already adopted. Also, the social media page gave the wrong address of the shelter when asked about where to send donations. There was also another post that was referencing adoption of dogs, and the picture was promoting cats. That was all within July, actually. That raises serious concerns about whether the person publishing adoption information has current accurate information from the shelter. Again, a simple solution, create a space where workers and volunteers can submit pictures and videos. Volunteers are already posting pictures and videos every day. Use what you have. Why are they not being reposted by the shelter social media page? Since we submitted our questions, more than 1,600 people have signed the petition calling for transparency, accountability, and meaningful reform, and the majority are Hamilton Township residents. Your residents want answers. Not responding does not make the concerns disappear. It creates more confusion, more distrust, and more questions about who is actually responsible for ensuring that basic shelter operations are completed. If shelter management does not answer residents or even council, what consequences are there? If no one is required to respond, meet deadlines, or take ownership, how can residents have confidence that anything will change? Silence is not transparency and delay is not accountability. So tonight I'm asking council to direct shelter management to provide written answers to the questions already submitted, complete the ASV checklist, plain language explanations for every dog's color, and clear information about who processes adoption applications. Please provide a specific deadline and then hold the responsible people accountable for meeting it. It has been over a month. We should not still be waiting for answers.

I have a question. What was the address given? You said the wrong address.

I think it was this building.

Yeah, they gave this building. Well, they come to finance, which is this point.

The donation?

The donation? It's a check donation or are you talking about like supplies?

Supplies.

Supplies would probably go to the shelter.

Yeah.

If it's a financial donation, if people are writing checks, then it would come here to the finance office. Okay.

I'll have to check the thing again.

Okay. I have a couple other things. The post with the dog being adopted, how long was the post posted after the dog was adopted? It was the next day, right? It was done on a Friday or Saturday or Saturday, Sunday? So I don't know if the post was scheduled, because I know the page that I run, I schedule posts for things that I know I have to do it. Somebody taught me how to do that. I didn't learn it on my own. But we're missing the point that the dog was adopted. The great point of this is the dog was adopted. And we can't complain that it was a day late, right? Because maybe it was scheduled. And I don't know the case. But let's focus on the good part of it, right? The dog was adopted.

Yeah. Well, they could post success stories. Like, I'm not, like, that's, I worked with a couple different rescues.

Just because there was a cross in time of the dog being adopted and that post. We have to celebrate the fact that the dog was adopted and accept that sometimes mistakes are made, right?

They could have did that. But also it's the fact that they're just taking the pictures and the bios off of the website and that information is outdated and they're not getting any new content to post. And that's like the real issue with the social media is that there's no videos and they're just taking pictures and bios off of the website and we hear so much that the website is outdated and no one's updating it. So that's the real issue. It's not that the dog was already adopted and they posted it. It's that they're not getting relevant information from the shelter.

Okay, I wouldn't even brought it up. I was just going based on your speech. Anything else from council? Yeah, look, obviously newer videos, right, are going to, if you're trying to promote something, you want the most up to date and you want things there, right? I understand that. I appreciate the comment. As far as the questions being answered, do you know if shelter management, they have copies of this? Is this something we're going to provide? Is there any information there that we can present answers to?

If we have any kind of requests for any information, if we have documents or something written that we can turn over, we're required to. When we do that, we've answered hundreds of requests just on the animal shelter. So, and we treat every request like that as a request, but again, a lot of times people want more than what the law allows us to provide. And so, you know, I'm just sitting here trying to think, is there a way for us to, you know, easily answer some of those questions, or all of them? I mean, and again, I don't recall them off the top of my head, and thank you for giving us an idea of what some of them were. But I'm not sure that there's a responsive document to that. So short of somebody at the shelter sitting down and writing out or typing out whatever what an answer is, a lengthy answer to these questions, which are pretty detailed from the sounds of it. So I don't know that we've allocated somebody to take the time to do that at this point.

So we've gotten to the point where the website has been updated. I saw even the stats for June are now updated on the website. We had asked for that and they came through. Could we put that chart, you know, the descriptive chart of where the dogs belong? Is that something that is not public record?

So it is not because, again, I believe that comes from the outside consultant. The outside consultant owns that information. We get that from them. in various ways, but most of the time it's the notes that are included in the animal record. So I don't know that we get documents directly from Laura. Again, she's a consultant, so she owns the data that she does, and we don't have the ability to turn that over. If I'm saying anything wrong, please tell me. I think that's my understanding of it. And so what's in every animal's record is the information that we get from these sources that we document in there. And it may not be as detailed as you like, but that's what we get, and that's what we end up recording on our document.

I want to jump in. Just a couple of comments. One, if we're paying a consultant, we ought to own the data that's being provided by that consultant. And if we don't own the data, then future consulting contracts should specify that that's our data. They're producing the data for us.

I'm saying it wrong. I don't think, again, I don't know how she takes notes on when she does an evaluation. I don't know what she does. But she provides with us afterwards her evaluation on that, which we do record in the animals and pet point, but in the animal's record as well.

It's always in there. And that's public information.

Correct. And we've provided those any time that it's been asked for. And again, it just may not be as much detail as you would like and, you know, maybe that's the discussion we have to have with our consultants at the time and say, you know, this is how we'd like the detail or we'd like more detail. I don't know, you know, the complete answer without seeing everything that's in there. It's not like our consultants are keeping anything from us. They're not. We just don't get it in that format that I think is expected. And so, I mean, if there's something that's not in animals or dog or cats, you know, let's talk about the dogs, because that's what Laura does the evaluations on for the most part. You know, if there's something that's not detailed enough in there. You know, I'm certain that we could ask for more detail if, you know, she's willing to give that. But, you know, at this point, I think we're looking to do, right, the third-party evaluations, another one, which I know that you discussed, Juliana, with the mayor. I believe they've reached out today and I don't know if they responded to you yet with the proposal and we're trying to get a couple of different proposals for that.

Do we have someone specifically that's daily working on the social media portion?

Yes, it was being done by an employee at the shelter. Now the shelter provides some of the information but that's done through the mayor's office and through the administration.

There has been improvement in what we're doing. Some inaccuracies were pointed out. I think the most important point is that we are promoting that we have animals available for adoption. I share the concern about if there are obstacles to adopting.

Oh, I agree. The applications, I have to look at that.

It just seems like, well, like you said, there may be some training that needs to be done that, you know, we need to be public focused, right, and responsive to the public when they come in. And, you know, there should always be somebody at the shelter who's going to drop what they're doing to talk to a member of the public when they walk in the front door. People shouldn't be made to wait around for long periods of time. before getting a response. We're over capacity. We should be eager to interact with the folks who want to adopt animals.

Yes, but it's also a balance, right, because we are over capacity. In years past when we weren't at full capacity, right, it was probably a little easier to do. And it may be more training or more discussion with, you know, the employees that are there to talk about that, you know, and maybe give them some ideas on how to, I don't want to say manage their time better, but maybe manage their time better because it's built, right? When they're there and so, but I agree with you. I think, you know, to look at the priorities would be a good exercise for all of them.

I have no one left on the list. Anyone else wishing to speak during open comment? Yes, Lisa.

Lisa Williams, Hamilton. I'm not nearly as organized as these guys. I wasn't really going to comment on a lot of the stuff. Bodie was posted on Sunday and had already been adopted. That's the dog. The post for donations was a July 10 post requesting stuff. Somebody asked, where's the shelter? Let me just pull up my screenshot. I'm the one that found it last night, because I've got nothing better to do at 11 o'clock at night. Somebody said, which places are the drop-off destinations? The response from the shelter page was, the shelter is located at 2100 Greenwood Avenue in Hamilton. I responded, the shelter is not on Greenwood Avenue. The address is. So somebody put the wrong address. So I guess if anybody here got bags dogged through, they're probably confused. This is why. The shelter has been over capacity since at least 2023. Sadly, I've been going back and watching old council meetings. So I watched the health, Board of Health section, the public comment, and I watched starting January of 24 where we got the update. And it's been over capacity since at least 23. So also, since at least then, during budget hearings, you guys have offered staff. It is always turned down. I don't understand. So my question is, what is the budget process that directors and managers are given? Because I don't understand why Chris always says that we'll be okay. Like, who is telling him that adding staff is not good? You know, we hear at every Board of Health meeting, they talk about the capacity in the shelter, and it takes 15 minutes per animal to take care of it, and they calculate how many hours that is. January 16, 2024, they said it was 22.75 hours just to do the bare minimum. We've heard even before that about how we're not required to walk dogs. We only do the bare minimum because we're short staffed. I don't understand how this has been allowed to go on for so many years. So can somebody explain to me? It's not a needs assessment when they come to you guys. By then, someone's been told don't accept additional staff because I don't get it. How are directors?

and managers told to build budgets in this town? I think they're given a direction at the beginning of the new budget process because it's really kind of a rolling process. But let's say when we start the budget for the 27, they'll be given some direction, right? And so nobody tells them don't put in for this, don't put in for that. It's an honest request for what they feel. that their operation needs, whether it's the animal shelter or public works or police or fire or any of them. So those requests come in first. We pull them all together. Eventually, we meet with all of them first as well. When I say we, I mean administration as well as the mayor's office. you know, eventually comes to council and they do their budget workshops where they get the directors in front of them as well. So again, I'm confident that they're asking for it if, you know, you may not always agree. And maybe it's a department director or division manager that is coming to us and, doesn't want to increase their budget for whatever reason. I don't know. But I have to trust them, and I do trust all of them, that they know how to run their operation. Staffing is a tricky thing, and I'm sure you know that. You worked for a long time in finance, and so you understand that. you know, the animal shelter, as well as many other departments and divisions, right? You can't always staff for your worst case scenario. And so, and maybe that goes into it, right?

And again. Can I run out of time, just throw one more thing in this, because we're going to run out of time.

Yeah, I didn't mean to take up your time. Unless somebody lost my time.

We'll give you more time.

There is, yes. Oh, okay.

Go ahead. Sorry, Kathy. I didn't want to lose. No, that's okay.

We have a history of this being a bad situation in the shelter. Go ahead. So I'm not familiar with the history of a bad situation, but I do know that we've made significant changes, and you know that too, since 2018 and prior. And so while I am not one that always reps on their laurels on that, because I love to see progress and move forward, I think we've continued to do that. And when we get issues that are brought before us, you've brought issues, Stephen's brought issues.

And honestly, mine never got addressed until Juliana started. I bring the same thing every single time. You know, even tonight, we got 22 cats with no bios, and we heard at the last meeting they were going to be six that week. Hello, that was a month ago. The staff, they went up today. I've been looking for them every single day. They went up this morning. They weren't there on Friday. So it took three weeks to post them. But we know that this shelter's been over capacity. We've raised social media. Thank goodness we've got something that's much better than we had. The adoption application thing is ridiculous. When you go to reclaim a pet in a shelter in New Jersey, the first, municipalities are allowed to charge what they say is the cost of bringing the pet in for the first day. And then a $4 maintenance amount for every day. So even if you use $4 and you calculate how many days some of these animals have been there, that's a cost to the taxpayers. That's a $4 statewide thing, it's an old number, but it's an average of what they say cost of care for an animal per day. So we have over capacity and if we could get that down we could ultimately pay less to run that shelter. But it's been since at least 23. And I'm going to go back and I'm going to watch all the videos that are out there and take my little notes because this has been going on for so long.

The overcapacity you know is not unique to Hamilton Township. I don't care about other towns. I live in Hamilton. But I'm just saying that the overcapacity is no surprise because that's been the case since 2023. We had a couple years in there during COVID where we weren't over capacity because of the phenomenon of people wanting animals during that time. It was wonderful, right? But then after the fact, in 2023, and it's not just happening here. Now, I'm not trying to excuse anything. We would love it when they're not over capacity. This has been a long haul, and we didn't know if it was going to lighten up or not. We had no idea. We still don't know. But I agree with you. If the applications are not being responded to, that's our big priority here. Let's get these animals adopted. There are people that are interested. Social media posts are great. But if we're getting responses to those social media posts and we're not acting right away, and we have to act right away. So I'm committed to finding out how do we do that better. Do it. Please, period, right? But let's do it better. And I want to continue to keep doing things better. I don't care if we have to go through the entire standard operating procedure for the animal shelter and let's review it all. I think you need to.

I think we might need to. You know, I think that for all of your time, you probably would like to stop listening to us, bring up the same stuff.

No, I enjoy it. I don't mind it.

I don't want to be here having to raise this issue.

I got a question for you though. You said there's how many cats listed?

There are 32 cats on the website. 22 don't have a bio. Let me just explain what a bio is because you might be making the same thought that Pat made many, many months ago. There's a picture and there's a chart, but underneath that, the bio part I'm referring to is something about their personality. Start at the bottom, and the top 10 have bios, so scroll down.

I'm reading it, and that's why I'm just trying to get, I get the gist of it. You hit on Tabitha, it comes up, and you can read about Tabitha.

Let me talk, please, Lisa.

Sorry. Okay, so when I push on Tabitha, I get this information. It talks about it's a cat, the breed, the age, how long, you know, two months, gender, size, color. It said been declawed. No. House trained. Unknown. It's at the shelter. Cat adoption room. Intake. It came in on 6-26th. you're saying it should have more information regarding the cat's behavior and like they do on the assessments, I've read the dog assessments. Which, I see it here.

You'll see on one of the, more to the top of the cat list, you'll see that same chart and then scroll down, it'll tell you about the type of home or the personality of the cat. That's what I mean.

Okay, I see that. Okay, so that's legitimate. My question is, and might be to Kathy or somebody else might have a better answer for me. I go to adopt a dog.

Do you want to?

No. I'm being perfectly honest. I don't have the time. But anyway, I love dogs. I have dogs. I have a door retrievers. Okay, I'm going to get into all of it. I go in and apply to adopt a dog. It's not just me throwing out a piece of paper and saying, I want a dog. Here's where I live. I think that dog's cute. I want him. Can I take him home today? What goes into it? Do they have to do a background? Do they look into me? Have I brought dogs to the rescue before? What's the process? I don't think it's just as easy as throwing out a piece of paper and saying, I want to take Spot over here home because he's cute.

You're accurate. I don't know the exact process and how much time, and it may be different depending on the applicant and their experience, et cetera. I don't know how much they look at. But I do know if it's, you know, if that process is taking too long, that you lose interest and go somewhere else because as we just talked about, every other shelter has an over capacity or at capacity And so you can go anywhere and adopt, even though you came to your hometown once to adopt. So I wanna make sure that whatever they're doing, that it's still safe and still appropriate, but at the same time, Let's get it done.

So hence like reading bios in the past and today was the first day I read a bio on a dog. I've been there in the past. Okay, but you read the information about, you know, is it friendly with other animals? Is it good for kids? There's like a criteria, so to speak. So for instance, I might like that particular dog, but he's not good with children. So, obviously, I can't force the issue and say, well, hey, I want that dog anyway. I know I'll be able to handle it. I have two kids. I got this. We have a responsibility, too, to make sure that, God forbid, we just let that dog go with that family that wants him because the dad thinks he can handle the dog, and next thing you know, Junior's bit. and bit dead or whatever, or attacks another dog, we have a responsibility to make sure that that dog is going to the proper home. So I would think at times that could hold up that process possibly. There is no excuse. We need to make sure that these animals are getting adopted to the proper families that are looking to adopt them. I don't want to belabor this much longer because it's a sensitive subject with many people in the room and I get it.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but when people walk in the front door, how they are treated by our township employees when they're looking to adopt or volunteer and they're turned away, turned away.

You have to look at it as it's a business and the people coming are your customers. I mean, our application is pretty simple. You know, some rescue applications are four or five pages long. They want your first born. You know, ours is pretty simple. I'm not in this administration adopted dogs from our shelter, but I have in the past. So I've adopted two. It was also a simple application. I've adopted birds from our shelter. It's the same application. So if you have a a current vet, they get a vet reference. It's not, they probably would take a friend, you know, another reference, but it doesn't ask for another reference. It asks for a vet reference. And they just, you know, look to see if it matches up. If you rent, they have to get your landlord's approval. It's nothing that justifies 10 days of applications not being printed. You know, we have a very, supposedly very full shelter. Like we need, and I asked a couple of meetings ago, Council President Papera, please form a committee to look at how the shelter's operating. I mean, Somebody needs to do this or you're going to hear speeches, I think, for a very, very long time. And it's not going to go away. I mean, I went away for almost a year because I just got tired of raising the same issues. I know my time's up. I'm going to leave.

We were, but since everybody was also talking, I wasn't going to cut you off since I didn't cut them off.

It's okay. I'm thankful that others are raising the issues so maybe I could just stay home and... It's much easier, in my opinion, to adopt a rescue than a puppy, having just an 18-month-old puppy at home.

We'll see you next month. Anybody else wishing to speak? Gentleman here. Just state your name and the town you live in. You don't have to state your address.

Cole Solak Hamilton.

You can raise that up if you would like us.

All right, thank you. You're welcome. address some concerns about the wastewater treatment facility. I don't think that we should be discharging the amount of ammonia that we are discharging in the facility. That can lead to eutrophication, which can deplete oxygen levels and kill fish and other aquatic insects and wildlife. And the facility has received multiple citations of the levels of ammonia and OED that are being discharged and affluent into our waterways. So I just came up here to request that somebody needs to look into that because it is a big concern. And we can't be just discharging things that are over the limits and we're just not doing anything about it. It's been like this for quite a while.

We appreciate you coming. We also were made aware, and I know that is being worked on. That was a concern of all of us. We were made aware of that earlier in the spring. All right, thank you. Thank you. You could have came up and took the picture from up here if you wanted. You're up next. Do not state your address, just to tell.

I wanted to apologize. I'm new to town council meetings, so when you said anyone from the public, and I was asking all my questions, and I got back. So my apologies. That's okay. It's all good. Very embarrassing. Okay. Just a couple random questions. I know we're talking about social media. Just your name. Laurie Sarney, and I will not give you my address like I did last time. We respect your privacy. Who is in charge of the social media? Is there a clear person, or is that just the township? Do we have like a person in charge? For the shelter or for everything? For the animal shelter, yes.

Well, it's a couple of people, but I think the posting, if you want to talk about that, we have an employee in the mayor's office that is handling that. But she gets the information from the shelter, from those folks. She also engages somebody else that works in the mayor's office that helps her create the posts or the content that goes

Right. I respect that. I feel like we live in a digital world now. Okay. So for the members of the staff or the council, how many of you have a TikTok account? There you go. All right. It is all about social media. I've mentioned many times I'm a teacher. I don't agree with it, but even our kindergartners are getting iPads. It's all about social media. I feel like we should be looking into what other shelters are doing. I know we're worried about ours, but Burlington County, they have a nonprofit all run by volunteers. It's a whole TikTok page. It's all about adoption, success stories. You click on there. on their link. It goes right down to volunteer sponsoring applications, adoptable rescue cats and dogs, shelter cats and dogs, friends, rescue dog wish lists. what we need for the shelter. I think it would, like, bios is not hard. I feel like every answer seems, like, it's just not that hard or not that complicated to get the bios done, to update the website, to hire a volunteer coordinator who you're paying 22 bucks an hour to do an all-around job. So, I mean, kudos to that woman. So I just think that we really need to take a step forward into the digital world, even though I don't like it, but that's just where we are now, and I think we'll be much better for it. Thank you.

I visited that Burlington shelter back when we were originally looking at ways to reform, you know, how to reform our shelter. It's a great shelter. It's a county shelter. It's a bigger building. They have these separate visitation rooms where you can sit with the animals in comfort when you're trying to figure out who to adopt. It's a great facility. They get resources from all the towns in that

I feel like, just like, you know, obviously a joke, but not a joke. I mean, like, me and Jules could run this, and we could get this social media thing going quick. I was going to say, is there maybe anyone in this room who would be able to do that? Exactly. I feel like you have to, you got to go to where the people are, you know, and I feel like with the shelter itself, being a teacher, obviously, being in many schools, you've got the best staff in the world. If you don't have a great leader, it's not going to work. So that's just what I'm hearing about the shelter. Just seems like a lot of excuses, and things could be taken care of right away. So I'll be back next month, hopefully letting you know that I'm a volunteer at the shelter. If I don't hear something back, will we take it seriously enough that they are not doing their job?

You don't hear something back about what?

About my volunteer application that I submitted in May.

I'm going to take care of that.

Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good night.

Thank you.

I just want to ask you, that was a very good comment. I actually got an education today. I showed my age with my kids. And TikTok is an amazing resource that they use and they're constantly on it. And I think it's a good idea for us to consider. Yeah, I got a lesson at lunchtime today with my son. My one son posted something and he got so many views or followers and we got into this whole discussion today at lunchtime. So it was timely that you said that and I feel like I'm 95 years old.

We'll get you coffee. Like the Burlington TikTok, they have almost 15,000 followers over 500,000 likes. That's a lot of love to give animals. And along with like the success stories are just as important. When I'm scrolling on TikTok, I will watch a success story and that makes you, oh, let me look into the show. You know, I just feel like we just got to go with the times. You know, I don't agree with it. I think kids should be writing with a pen and paper. Nope, they're typing in school. But I don't agree with it, but that's the way of the world. I'm with you. I'm trying to help the change. I don't want to listen. All right.

Thank you. Thank you.

You get teacher of the year.

You can't get it every year, Nikki. Janice, you're up.

But they can come back up. Come on up.

That's all right, come on up.

We can move that mic down.

Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you for my birthday gift of Clockton Road being paved. That was very nice of you. Just got it done. Greatly appreciate that. And for the well wishes, that made my day. And the tree pickup, the branch pickup, Is that like every two weeks or so? I was told it was like every two weeks. And my neighbor cut down these huge branches off her tree because they were interfering with her wires, and she had them all piled up on the side of the street. And so I called, and they said no, they had to be four foot length and tied up. I mean, you've got a branch like this big with 24,000 branches hanging off of it. I mean, how are you going to do that? They always just came and picked it up. I would just leave it there in my neighborhood because everybody just puts the branches and leaves them. And they eventually do come and pick them up. But I had branches picked up in the first week of June. And these branches were not picked up to the second week of July. And so by then, all the leaves were dead. So when they picked up the branches, the streets covered with dead leaves, which you now have to clean up on your own because if they had picked them up in the two or three weeks, the leaves were still green and everything would be gone and beautiful, but you could see every brown pile where they picked them up. So they do, right, you're allowed to just put it there and they will come and pick up supposedly like every two to three weeks. You can't tie everything with, you know, all these little branches sticking off of everything at all.

Well, I think it's supposed to be in bundles of a certain size, but they may have picked up just anything in the past, but again, a large branch or a large pile is going to take a different machinery, different vehicle, and different crew than if they're in smaller bundled piles. So that could be why it was delayed so much. Okay. And again, I'm not familiar with the schedule exactly how they do all of that. It's worth a question to Public Works about that. Okay. I actually spoke to Chuck this week on this exact matter. Okay. In my neighborhood, my own backyard, we had a major tree come down my neighbor's fence. That was our tree and that was my, so I know he, when he let me know that they're working through different zones, so he might be able to, if you wanted us to get in contact or if the resident wanted to, because he was, I said, like, I knew someone, you know, was looking and he would need to know the address to know like what zone they are and then you'll probably, it seems like you'd be able to get an approximate, like they spend a certain amount of time. Again, I don't know if they're holding fast to what's in the ordinance because the ordinance basically says you can only have these four foot lengths and so, you know, but that's basically impossible with some of these branches.

I mean, you have a branch like that big, you need a saw to cut it off, you know, and you sit there forever trying to get it down. I mean, so they need to come around, you know, and like my neighborhood, they all always just put them in piles, you know, and then they usually do come and pick them up, but that was usually a lot quicker than what they're doing now.

Well, and there also might have been delays because of a weather event, because we had a lot of water and trees down in other, from other weather events. I don't know if that was the same timing or not. There's trees down all over town.

Yeah, and that was the impression from,

And that's what happened. I'll take them off to the brush crew to go do the clean up after a storm. So I don't know if that coincided and made it delayed as well. But I'll talk to the director tomorrow. No, I mean, you know. But I have a feeling that they're sticking to what's in the ordinance and it may be, you know, just a little different than what they've, relaxed and done in the past. Yeah, but then then what are you supposed to do?

Well, Janet, have they if you have to? Yeah, I'm glad they got them finally, you know, you come around eventually, like every five, I was gonna ask you, Janice, have they left branches on your curve?

Because they weren't bundled a certain way? Have they have they left branches?

Well, I don't have that many to bundle.

But well, I'm saying the piles of branches that you're talking about, have they left them?

No, they're picking them up. Because there were four huge, huge branches.

With the weather, I think there was so much.

Oh, it's not only the weather. The weather contributes to it. But remember that they only have so many crews that they send out to do that. And this is a very big township. So I think you said in the beginning of June, they did a pickup. Right. And then they didn't do one again until July. Well, think about how many streets are in Hamilton Township. It's almost like plowing the snow, right? How long does it take to get to certain areas? And at that point, they still have a lot of trucks on the road plowing, but we're not putting all our resources into picking up branches throughout the town. There's a certain crew that probably does it with Public Works, and it might take them some time to get there. But there has been times, and I know I've called, I've had some people ask the same questions, and like Kathy said, they do require some of it to be bundled up. now you know listen some people cut huge limbs and put it in the thing and expect the town to come up which means they have to come out with a machine and that that front end loader that's got that claw on it or whatever they pick it up then they got to put it in the truck and all that so You know, and then again, how many people are having their trees cut or trimmed, and the person that's doing the trimming, the company that they hired, are putting it to the curb too, right? Yeah, but I thought that's a no-no. That's a no-no. They're not allowed to do that, right? They have to, that company is. What are they supposed to do? That company that takes the tree down or cuts your tree limbs, comes out and trims your trees, they're required to take them personally, not you. Yeah, they dispose of it. Yeah, they have to dispose of it.

Because I thought if they took it to our township, our township wouldn't take it because they were a company. Right. Right. Right.

You're going to spend your entire four minutes of your birthday meeting talking about trees?

Sorry. What are you doing for your birthday? Thursday my girlfriends are taking me out and Saturday my sister and brother-in-law are taking me out.

Very nice. I hope you have a good weekend.

I will. When we move into the new building, I will miss the coziness of this building.

You're going to walk into New York. Wow.

Look at this. For only $300, I'll give you a piece of wallpaper.

Thank you. And you'll be able to walk in. No elevator needed. And do we know what we're doing with this building? I got some ideas.

For the record, even when our meetings get tense, we appreciate seeing you come to the microphone because I know you bring a sense of normalcy to us. I hope you have a happy birthday and I hope you have a great weekend.

Thank you so much.

You made my day. You're a Leo, right? You and I have the same birthday.

Anybody else from the audience wish to speak?

Steve, come on up. So at the May council meeting, Councilwoman Phillips recounted how she met with the shelter management regarding the disposition of many of the dogs and stated that she was told all the dogs get an assessment and if they are anything other than green are assigned a plan So there is a plan for every dog, and the shelter is taking them all out.

I don't believe that that's what I stated at all.

I have it on my notes. I watched the video again this morning. But in either case, that is the shelter's policy. It's been the policy since 2020. And I've stood up here many years talking about how that's not done. So when the dogs get an assessment, right, any dog that is not green, meaning he's blue or yellow or red or however many variations of red they have this week, they are supposed to be assigned a behavior modification plan. And you'll see in the assessments, in almost all of them, it'll say behavior modification required. But I've asked many years what behavior needs to be modified and who's doing it and how and when. they're supposed to be assigned a plan. So from May 19 at that meeting, I called BS because it is, we know for a fact that Merlin had no plan. We know that Merlin sat for months and months and months with no plan. And without all the public exposure, probably would have sat many more months. We know Maverick was changed from yellow to red, which essentially meant nothing more than the one person who walked in, me, was no longer allowed to walk in. We know he didn't have a plan because he spent the next 45 days in his kennel without coming out. So I went backwards from May to about February, and there were seven assessments that were other than green. Three of them had plans, which over the years is an improvement. From then forward to July, which is my latest data, there were five dogs assessed other than green, only one has a point. So it's still not being done. That they would say that, you know, and I've watched them where they've kind of misled you many times or given you not quite correct answers, but to see them just flat out lie and say this is being done when it clearly is not is a bit concerning. And we know that one of the questions was, at least for me, beginning last year when I first started raising the issue of Merlin, we were told he was getting a second assessment, already scheduled, but it took four months before the trainer even looked at him. And one of the questions is why? And we've never gotten an answer to that. Every other dog that came in after June within days was given an assessment. Some were given two assessments. Basically everything that could be done other than have the trainer look at Merlin, who was already scheduled, was done. So it's almost a rhetorical question at this point. That's what happened. They wanted to do everything except address the issue with Merlin, which we now know his behavior was at best exaggerated. We didn't hear anything about other than leash biting until this year. We didn't hear anything about it for the year. The assessment the trainer originally gave him last September when she first looked at him mentioned nothing about intensity or trying to bite anybody. It was exactly what I had said for multiple months before that. The same experience I had documented the three times I had him out. The same experience the staff documented when they had him out. So all of this is at its core caused by a complete lack of honesty by the shelter manager. And I think that underpins everything that gets raised here about the shelters, time after time after time.

Do you want to respond or can I ask a question first? I have a question. I know you want to respond. Have we come up with, do we have a way to speed up when the dogs are evaluated? I know that the trainer's there a certain amount of times and different people are there. The fact that it was four months is a long time, right? Absolutely. You know, just a longer time to get more energy. Is there a way to speed up that process to at least get to where we have to go?

Yes. The short answer is yes, and it has been done. So, again, notwithstanding the history, right, because every dog has a different history there. But it is on. But number one, shelter management does not lie. Okay? They give their best assessment of what they are doing with any particular animal. They get pumped for lots of information all the time. They respond. They may get frazzled sometimes because it's high stress sometimes for them. So, but that's no excuse. They don't lie to you. All right? Everything in Merlin's record was documented. There was, every time the, and, And there wasn't a ton of times, but every time Laura worked with Merlin or evaluated Merlin, it was noted in Merlin's record. And everybody had access to that. You all had access to that when you asked for it, right? And so we did that. And we talked about a behavior modification plan, like there's a piece of paper for every adult. There's not, all right? They have a spreadsheet that they work on based on the evaluations that talk about each individual animal, when their assessment is done, what their issues are, right, that are common to some dogs or whatever, whether they have stranger danger issues or some of the other lingos that you probably know much better than I do. And those are all documented so that when the trainer gets to work with them, they know what they have to work on. They're not going to work on a leash issue if the animal has a stranger danger issue. They're not going to work on a stranger danger issue if the animal has a leash issue. So all of that was documented and I think a lot of it is people didn't necessarily agree with the evaluation that was put in by one person. Thankfully, Bark came along, and probably because of some of the additional attention that came from Merlin, and said, let's just take a look to see if this is an animal that would qualify for our program. And they felt in their report and their evaluation that Merlin would qualify and probably do well. They've done that for other dogs. And we have good success stories with Bark and Train, to go to their Bark and Train program. But we've also had some that didn't do well, but we tried, right? Because we got an evaluation from BARC that said we're willing to try this, right? And they know what their issues are too when they come in and what they end up having to work on. So I can't comment on the professional evaluations because I'm not a professional in this area, right? I do a very different thing. I don't know what it takes to do that. All of you are much better with that, I'm sure, because you deal with that more. I don't do behavior assessments on animals, so I can't really comment on that. But I do know that we document all of that. And I think it's a good thing that we're getting other folks to look at it, other evaluators to look at them, because, you know, we don't want. But to answer your question too, right, Laura is a very part-time consultant came here on a regular basis, and did what she could do. And so we had a meeting with her recently, and she expressed an interest in needing more time to do the things that really needed to be done. So we doubled the amount of time that she requested it, and we said, yes, fine. Let's do that, because we think that that'll be helpful. hopefully it's not going to be four months that an animal doesn't get any, you know, training from her or any attention from her. And in fact, I think she made a commitment to us to be able to see, you know, again, to be able to work with every one of the, I believe the red dogs, I don't know if she extended that to other colors as well, but at least once a month with all of them to do that. in the last couple of weeks that we approved her working more time, she's actually worked more with them than she had in the past. So again, it all being documented so that we know what she's doing and where. But also, those evaluations that she does, it's not like she's the only one that can do anything. It goes to the animal attendants as well. so that they can see what the dog's issues are. Some animal attendants are allowed to do more than others because they have more of a comfort level with this dog rather than that one and all of that. But they all work with all of these and use those assessments for each animal to be able to know how to handle them better. And you do the same, right? You determine a lot of it by yourself as well because you work with them a lot. You know, so they're paying attention, but it's probably not as much as, you know.

How many times, for instance, Merlin's away right now being evaluated and trained, not evaluated, but being trained. Now, after his six-week period, if his evaluation doesn't come back good, what's the next step besides a rescue, right? A rescue to take them?

That's the next step, and it's a rescue. And we've had dogs that haven't passed right through that program, and we've had to have discussions with the professionals and bring that all to you all, too, to let you know if there's decisions being made about certain animals.

Can I just clarify something, Pat? almost all the evaluations or assessments are done rather quickly. It was only Merlin, who was already scheduled, who waited four months.

Why?

That was the question.

Okay.

And that's why, for me at this point, it's a rhetorical question. It's already scheduled. We had dogs who got assessed within two days. We had dogs that got an assessment and a reassessment in that time period. Can I? Sure.

You don't like to answer? That's okay.

I know part of one of the things with Merlin, I know we're focusing on this aspect of it, but if you look on his medical record, he also needed to go on behavioral medication that took several months in order to get in his system to find the right dosage. I don't have the documents in front of me, so I can't tell you when he got the medication, when the doctor provided it. how long it's been, I know they had to up his medication, he's on several medications. So you have to, it's not just, we can't look at one thing and say, well, they're doing everything wrong because of this. You gotta look at the totality of the circumstances. We have to look at the fact that we have to, the medication, we have to look at the fact that there's the evaluation and how you're gonna do an evaluation on a dog that you can't control because he's not high enough on the medication. So there's dual parts that we need to look at. And if we're gonna talk about these dogs, I would like to talk about these dogs in the totality of the circumstances and not looking at one aspect of it that's not giving you the full picture.

And that's fair. The one thing in the totality, the question that Steve raised is the behavior modification plans and the lack. of behavior modification plans being in place. That is something that we've been told about.

If I could speak to that, since I was referenced from.

Please do.

So see, I honestly don't remember saying anyone but Green, but yes, I can, I 100% agree with you. I know my notes. I have that. I was told by Kathy and Chris that any dog that had, especially the red dogs, had a behavior plan. maybe we need to clarify what a behavior plan is. Maybe a behavior plan to me, especially coming from teaching, you know, and maybe a plan, like you're saying, like, he's gonna be medicated, we're gonna wait three months, we're gonna do a reassessment. Is that, Steve, does that sound more like what you're looking for?

So there's, on the assessment, right? It'll go through, this dog happened to be blue. It'll say behavior modification required. It'll say assign treatment plans, if any. And of course, this is blank. So there are none. Most of the plans are actually pre-written. How do you deal with a dog that bites a leash? How do you deal with a dog that pulls too hard on a leash? Those are pretty generic training plans. And if they're in here, You know, it shouldn't just be the trainer we have to pay to do this. That's why you have volunteers. So they should be handed out. And we were promised years ago those things would be in a binder in the lobby, et cetera, which has never happened. But I do want to clarify for the totality of everything. Hold on a second.

You're out of time. Let's see if everybody has their first shot.

Got it.

And I know we went way over time, but everybody else was talking, so I let you keep going. Let's see if everybody else has a first shot, and then you can come back up and we'll discuss that.

Don't go far, Steve. I don't think anybody else has any questions.

Anybody else wishing to speak for a first time?

Oh, I was wrong, Steve.

Hello. Amanda Ely, Hamilton resident. I am just concerned with the lack of accountability happening here. I am concerned with the defensiveness against people who continue to volunteer at a place and be met with such resistance. I am deeply concerned about how we are just like not up to date on times like Ms. Sarney said about social media. Like why Kathy said that somebody in the mayor's office is running the social media and not somebody directly in the shelter. It's just very concerning as a resident that these things are not being answered. Mr. President, last time when I came to the meeting, it was my first meeting I attended, I heard you ask Donyell to do the bios. and to hear today that they're still not completed is concerning, alarming. It's concerning hearing about this adoption process that we have people interested in animals and not being given an opportunity to adopt these pets. I think I am concerned by some of the apathetic attitudes that I'm hearing today. which is not moving us forward to a solution for the shelter. And I think social media-wise, we're having a lot of people willing to give their time, energy, willing to collaborate. And I'm just like unsure of the resistance that's happening and why some things that I feel like would be inexcusable. Like as a teacher, these animals don't have a voice. You have people coming to voice. concern for animals that have no voice we heard last meeting about some of the just like sheer negligence happening to these animals and I would just ask that like we really look into our hearts and be able to like move forward to a solution because these things are just plain not okay not okay and if this was your pet or your child it's not okay and just because it's an animal that doesn't have a voice does not make it acceptable and I think um Kathy, to be honest, when you said that management can't lie, I'm really concerned as a resident to sit in the audience and hear you say something like that because I don't think you actually can say that, that we don't know that people can lie. People are human beings. We all have the capability of lying, and hearing just many times through social media of things that have been said that are present or behavior plans documented and then those things aren't there. There's just so many examples of evidence where that's clearly not the case. And I would just ask that we do better moving forward with this situation. Thank you.

You're welcome and I was going to address the bios during my public comment because, and I'm going to, but I agree with you. The lack of following through is unacceptable. The fact that someone sat next to me and said it was going to be done and it's not done for a large percentage is not okay. I'll save the rest for a private conversation.

I just, you mentioned the word apathetic, meaning us. When you, were you directing that towards council, not being apathetic?

I think like more just, like maybe apathetic's the wrong term. Like I can feel like the tension when certain people come up to speak, almost like the people who are having courage to raise the voice about something that is going on that's clearly negligent. that it's like there's more concern for why that person is speaking out instead of addressing like the root of the issue and that is like really what I would like to see happen. I'm really glad to hear that you Councilman Whalen went on a tour today with the President and I think that Maybe like all of us having more opportunities to go to the shelter, not just like for a specific tour because sometimes those things can be like a dog and pony show, especially like I know you've been in education. We know how those things go. Having opportunities to see what's happening on a daily basis because it should not be this difficult. It should not be this challenging to get animals adopted.

Even in a perfect world, it's probably still a challenge to get animals adopted. In a perfect world.

It can be a challenge.

And I'm not arguing with you that, but I just want to make one quick statement. Before I ever became a councilman, I think everyone up here, I'm almost positive, was on council when they fought the fight with the past administration to make the corrections that are made currently. This council did. Fought the fall. Fight. Right? It was in the papers. Every day you picked up the Trentoni, it was something new. And they took this on to fight that fight, to make the improvements. No kill shelter. A lot of things that were changed. And I can't say that, you know, when I came on council, you know, I can't be happier to serve with my fellow councilmen and council colleagues. Because we sit and we do listen. And we do try and get the answers. Does it always come back in a timely manner that everybody wants? No, it doesn't. Okay? But, you know, I think we've heard some comments and some questions that we're looking for answers. And I think we've all responded that, Kathy, can you get us the information? We want to know why is it taking so long for adoptions to happen? So to think that we're not listening, I beg to differ with you.

I do believe you're listening. I just would like to see the leadership at the shelter being held more accountable because believe it or not, even with few people, when you have other places locally that are running great organizations on the backs of volunteers that are not being paid to do these jobs, Our shelters are capable of so much more with people who can delegate and be able to appropriately do, like, Delegate task.

Again, nobody's arguing the fact. I think we all have questions that we want answered, and hopefully we're going to get them answered, especially since we're overloaded and we've got people I'm hearing for the first time. We have applications that are not being addressed in a timely manner. I want to know why. I think everyone up here wants to know why. So we are listening to what you're saying. Okay, so I just want to make that clear that we are listening.

Don't take our frustration with certain people that we don't want people coming to the microphone. I would actually like barring a rice notice or whatever I'm going to be told I need. I would like a written explanation as to why 22 bios aren't done when they were told to me two months ago they were going to be done. I want it in writing. You do what you have to do. Give anybody any kind of notice you want, but I would like that in writing why they didn't do their job and why they didn't do what they told us they were going to do in an open meeting.

I would like to encourage them too that AI is not great for some things, but when you're looking at... Lori mentioned about Burlington County Animal Shelter. Every day they are doing a post with a dog that's available. They are consistently daily posting adoptions that happen. And they're definitely following some sort of template. So if they could just generate one template and be able to work off this, this isn't something that somebody's going to need to take hours of their life to do. It should be quick and easy and get this out so these animals can get into homes. hearing that the veterinarian is prescribing tons of medication to animals who have not even left their kennel in months is also concerning as a resident because who's not to say that we're not over-medicating these animals because they're just under stress and anxiety from a shelter environment and from not being able to get out of the box. I think we'd all go crazy. So I would just like to see, I'm willing to collaborate. I would like to see more collaboration, whatever we could do to help this shelter to move this forward in a positive way for the animals. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks. Any other first timers who would like to come up and speak tonight?

About the fireworks on the 4th of July, how nice they were, anybody? It was hot.

It was hot on the spot.

Anybody would like to speak for a second time? We'll go with the same order. We'll start with Jules and then Lisa.

I'm old. I got to use the men's room. Sorry.

No, no. I believe you. I want to circle back to your statement about them not lying. I think in the last meeting at the Board of Health meeting, we proved that they, We're lying because, you know, they said that the water situation was not happening, and it was, and they didn't even have the equipment to do it. They also said that the kennels are only shut for, I forget what they said, 10 or 15 minutes while they're cleaning was their statement, but I was there. No, I think they said 45 minutes. 45 minutes, whatever it is.

45, and we corrected it the very next day.

Well, I was there yesterday. I was there yesterday for over an hour, and the dogs were outside, locked outside the whole time. in this heat, which is a whole other topic if we want to talk about the temperatures. But, and the air quality, that's like a whole other thing. But yesterday I was there for like an hour and 15 minutes and they were locked outside the whole time. So it might have got, with water, but this heat. Yeah, different issue, but still like if it's truly that 45 minutes or whatever time frame was given, again, I was there for over an hour and that's longer than 45 minutes. So it clearly was not fully corrected. What else was I going to say? Oh, I thought it was funny that Chetty brought up Tabitha because she was adopted over a week and a half ago while we were there. So the fact that she's still on the website is kind of comical. Our list, too, wasn't about specific dogs. Yes, it did have stuff about explaining their classifications, but most of the list that we provided was about responsibilities. who's responsible for website listings, who's responsible for different things. So I can provide the list again. We did hand it directly to Chris at the last meeting. I don't know if that counts as on the record. I thought it did because we were in a meeting. Okay. So that and then, oh, Bodie, the dog that got adopted. I don't want to harp on it too much because, again, we're very excited that he got adopted. But I think when we're talking about this adoption process, like, He clearly did not just walk in and get adopted in one day. So if the social media person was actually talking at the shelter or to the shelter, they would have known that someone was already in the process and he wouldn't have been posted in the first place.

Well, there's multiple applications that come in for dogs, so there could be... Yeah, but if someone has multiple applications, why are we promoting them? Because they all could fall through. We all know that there's bad people out there trying to get dogs, right?

Yeah, for sure. And then my last thing real quick, is there a potential to live stream these meetings when we move to the new building because a bunch of people weren't able to come tonight because of the weather and they were freaking out at me that I wasn't live streaming, which I don't want to do, but they would really like these meetings live streamed so that they can attend.

Even if they live streamed, we wouldn't do it through Zoom, so it would be like YouTube, right? Like we do now.

Whatever. They just want to see it in real time.

I think the Board of Ed, they stream it, but the public can't interact with it.

Yeah, I think they're fine with it. I think they just want to see it in real time.

We were, during COVID, we were, I think we actually were live streaming, and we got feedback from DCA, from the Department of Community Affairs, that we had to stop doing it the way we were doing it because you have to allow for public comment, and if you have people remote, And we were having to, like, take written comment and read it into the record, which means somebody at home could type any old thing on their computer, and somebody up here has to read it. So we discontinued doing that. And if we found some way that logistically works.

Yeah, if we could just look into that, I guess, more.

It's a topic for when we move on.

Yeah, because I don't want to be in charge of live streaming.

Thank you. Lisa, come on up.

Lisa Williams, I'm just gonna talk about brush pickup.

You excited?

I know, right? I just wanted to comment since Janice brought it up that we definitely have much longer lead time in getting brush picked up. It used to be a 10-day rotating cycle. And I'm just gonna read you a HAMSTAT thing that happened on my street earlier this year. So someone on May 4th did a HAMSTAT request. saying that brush had been out for a month. And it got sent to someone. On the 5th, they said, we'll pick up soon. On the 6th, they picked it up with the truck number. Just that one house. Every other house on the street did not get picked up. So when I'm driving home from work and I see their brush is gone and mine is still there, I pulled it up in Hampstead to be like, how did this happen? So I responded. This is the ridiculousness that goes on, OK? Can you come back out and pick up the rest of the street? Does everyone have to submit separate requests? I did that, my comment was May 6th at 8, 10 p.m.ish. May 8th at 3.36, picked up truck number, same truck number as above. I responded back at 8.30 at night. No, they only picked up house number, blah, blah, blah. The rest of the street needs to be picked up. The garbage man took some of it. We haven't had neighborhood brush pick up since March. So please keep that in the back of your mind. It's crazy, I think my garbage men feel bad for me because I don't put out a lot of trash and then they took some and the next time they took the rest. I do my own trees, I have to do trees for Two and a half other properties that have weed trees. Like, I understand if somebody has a beautiful, nice tree and it hangs over your property, you're responsible. But seriously, if you have a weed tree that is, like, less than maybe a foot from your property and you let it grow. There's a house in the back corner of mine, one that you came out for the dead magnolia tree. There's a green giant arborvitae in a section that's, like, six feet. Like, are you kidding me? Like, from my property line? My shed, the tree you thought was dead, well, it's not dead. It's a female box elder in my tree. My shed is full of bugs every single year. And I cut that. So I put a brush out. I cut it. I bundle it. I do it right. It sits for months. Like, it's crazy. Thank you.

Sorry.

No shelter. No shelter. Anybody else wishing to speak for a second time? Come on up, Steve. Now, you have to remember where you ended up. That's all right.

He's got bookmarks, always. Yeah, right? Steve Clegg, Hamilton Township. So I just want to clarify something again about Bobby. Before I asked for his color to be changed or for me to be able to walk him without staff assistance, I had taken him out three times. I introduced him to other staff, as I've done with a lot of dogs. He didn't need medication. I proved I could handle this dog with no issue. So that's part of the totality. And rather than drag the conversation of Merlin out for the next two dozen council meetings, I'm going to make a proposal. His case dragged on for more than a year. And it encompasses several systemic issues with the shelter, I think. I would be willing to meet with shelter management and at least one council member to go through the totality of Merlin's case to settle this. Because it's not going to get cleared up. Nobody's going to provide me an answer in a four and two minute increment once a month. I think that is a reasonable request. To move to a slightly different, I'm sorry, go ahead.

to settle what?

Let's just sit and discuss the Merlin background with shelter management and at least one of us.

Two of us could sit.

Yes, but at least one. But why did Merlin wait four months to get an assessment if he was already scheduled? Why did he sit in his kennel for five months? I'm willing to sit in that meeting. Okay. Thank you. To slightly shift a previous conversation tonight was I think somebody requested in one of their questions, which was one of my requests, is a plain language statement in the assessment that says how that dog's behavior meets the shelter's definition for that color. It's been something I've been asking for a while. We've agreed it's a reasonable request. It's still not in there. I think that's what you were alluding to, Kathy. There's no reason that the trainer can't make a single statement of why. I read the assessments. Most of it's gibberish. It's just copied and pasted from the test results. Just strings of words. It doesn't say, okay, based on all of this, this is why he's red or yellow or blue. And if you don't have that, how do you know you need to change it? So I'd still like to see that. Can I have one more minute? One of the other things about the short staff shelters and not being able to get dogs out for volunteers on the weekends, Previously, myself and there was at one point another yellow volunteer were occasionally asked when they were short-staffed, can you get these dogs out for these volunteers? And I've always done that. That ended last year for no specified reason that was given to me, but it happened immediately after the trainer called the health officer that I was talking to an animal attendant and the police showed up. Nothing was said to me directly, The staff was told no. I used to be, given the key, I would go and lock the door, return the key and take my dogs out myself. Occasionally they'd ask me to take dogs out for volunteers. That was told to stop, not to me directly. It was kind of a whisper. Everybody was now afraid to let me have a dog. I had taken dogs out for volunteers. I didn't assign the dog to volunteer. I was asked, can you get this dog to volunteer? And that worked well. there were many volunteers who wanted to work up a level with the dog. So I would walk that dog with them and at least introduce them. That all ended because the police showed up for me talking to an animal tenant and there's still been no answer for why that happened. But for them to keep complaining they're short staffed and they can't do this is just nonsense at this point.

We keep talking about nonsense because they're not that sure enough or well that and and if they're saying they don't have resources and I'm standing right there if we keep hearing that you know this dog can't be handled by a novice or we need trained people to do it well I would I would hope that now if we did in fact hire a shelter volunteer coordinator that the application should be processed and a lot of these problems should not go by the wayside so we'll wait

Oh, yes, but I can also look into your role in assisting and I don't know what trigger is.

It was the police showing up. It was literally the next day it happened. They show up on, well, two days. They show up on a Thursday night, Saturday morning, I went to get a dog and there was, you can't have the key. They don't do anything other than unlock the door and walk away. I still get the dog out and there are still, eight or 10 always kennels that don't even have locks on them, like get them out.

So why all the nonsense?

I take them from the outside is a total ridiculous, petty retaliation. It is, it is Kathy. What other justification is there for it to happen right then?

We're not gonna go back and forth. We hear you, we are gonna work on this. but you did bring up a good point, and I think my point is very simply, you brought up the police. If the police officer gets sent to a job and he doesn't show up, there's repercussions. Right? Sure. If the bios are supposed to be on the website and they're not done and they said they were going to be worked on, typically there would be repercussions. If it's good for one township employee, it's good for everybody.

I agree 100%.

Okay.

I know where you're going, and I agree.

Thank you. If you want to schedule the... We'll do it after the meeting. No, I was just going to say if she wants to do it, just send it to me.

Let me know how it goes. Anybody else wishing to speak for a second time? In the back, you have nothing? Just came to witness tonight. I'll get it. Okay, going once, going twice. You wanna start us off or you wanna go first?

Sure. Of course, where do I start? Listen, I get it. You know, I got on council a few years back now. It seems like yesterday, but it's been probably about five years at least now that I've been here and listened to the public when they have problems. And it's a good thing. I just, you know, I there's so many things that we have to worry about. Right. And we're concerned about the animal shelter. You know, I'm concerned about a lot of things. I'm concerned about I used to be concerned about my kids going to be able to afford a house for my kids going to be able to have a job secure job for their family. Now I worry about the future for my grandkids. You know, the things that are happening around this world, we don't talk about here at a council meeting, right? We've got an ongoing war overseas. We're spending trillions upon trillions of dollars. We're watching gas prices go through the roof. We're watching food prices. People can't afford to go shopping. You get two bags of groceries, it costs you $100. You worry about so many things. We talk about social media. I'm the biggest proponent of social media. Okay, I think it's our kids are indoctrinated into social media, a book face and all the other stuff that's out there. You know, tick tock, we're talking about just got off using crayons. But, you know, I do I worry about the future. But yet, we're talking about everything, you know, with the animal shelter, which is good. And we're trying to respond to them comments. And we're trying to get the answers because truthfully, I don't want to talk about this every meeting. I really don't. I want to talk about other problems, public safety. I want to talk about kids being able to go to the park. And as a parent, you feel safe that they could go there on their bicycle. Okay, we don't talk about them here in meetings. okay and that's disturbing to me because our focus should be on many things and i think as council members our focus has to be on many things besides the animal shelter which we are focused on i don't want anybody to take what i'm saying wrong okay but i worry about so many things you know i'm glad that hamilton township's banning cell phones in schools thank god kids will actually be able to add and subtract without using their phone what's this world coming to You know, I want to see a kid drink out of a hose or go play kick the can or go play a little jump in a mud puddle without getting yelled at. I mean, our world is changing dramatically and it scares the living hell out of me. Okay. I'm a short timer. I look at it, you know, I say we all, we're all given quarters and I'm in my last quarter. Okay. And I'm trying to enjoy my life. I'm trying to enjoy my grandkids and, but I'm scared for their future. And we all should be scared about what's coming up because Lord has no idea what's coming down the road. Politics is changing every day. Progressive movement, you name it, it's happening. And these are things we all should be focused on. And I'm sure you are. I know that you're focused on a lot of the questions that we hear on the animal shelter. I get it. And I don't want to belabor this anymore. I think we're getting our point across that we want answers. Okay, there's other things that we need to be concerned about. You know, we need to be certain certain certain about our kids, our grandkids, what the future holds for them. Okay, along with our animals. So I'm going to just end it there. So I've said enough tonight.

Council President, that's a tough act to follow. No, I think, though, Chetty really does make some good points. I think that I appreciate the folks that come to the meetings, and I'm sorry I had to leave a little earlier from our last meeting because I didn't hear all the comments that were made. But, you know, I think that there's some really low-hanging fruit items that we can really see through. And I know you've been bringing it up in the bios. Council President's a little bit upset with that today, but I agree with him. I mean, and then I thought the one comment about social media and just TikTok and putting stuff, although I'm not a user of that, or do I have that app on my phone? I think it's, you know, I think that people use it, and it's a way to... potentially could adopt dogs or cats and it brings more attention to our animal shelter. And Merlin was a particular case, I know Jenna mentioned this, that Merlin was a particular case, but just doing the evaluation, a little bit of expediting that evaluation process I think is important. And honestly, some of these items can be addressed, it doesn't have to take a lot of a lot of money to dedicate to the animal shelter. It could be just having an intern who's really skilled and wants to have a career in marketing or whatever. So that could come in and potentially assist us there. But I think that if it can't be done by our internal staff right now, I don't think it's a really huge insurmountable hurdle. You know, it is a little bit frustrating because it's some of the topics that we hear every meeting. And I just think there's a little bit of resistance and that shouldn't be there for some of these quick fixes that could be really quick. And I think that, you know, Teddy really hit the nail on the head. So I also want to say we had Choose a topic. I also want to say that I know there's a lot of division in our world today, especially in our country, but it was really nice to see being on July 1st, being at the July 4th fireworks celebration, just seeing People are proud to be Americans. You don't have to be a Democrat or Republican or independent. That's the most stupidest thing I ever heard, that you have to align with a particular party to love this country. And it's the imbecile information that you hear just through social media. But you see it in Facebook or whatever. It's frustrating that I'm a proud American. You know, I have family members that serve this country, and it was a beautiful thing to see that we all came together for our 250th anniversary and something that we should all be proud of. And so we want the best for this country and our township. So thank you all.

I'll echo Councilman Carabelli that if you don't go to our 4th of July fireworks, I encourage you to go next year. It's always a great community event to see everyone come together the way that we do. Every single person that I have the privilege of serving on this council with, I know that they're all serving because they care deeply about this community. we do care about the feedback and the input. There are times when we are gonna push back on you when you're up at that podium, because we wanna make sure that we understand the issues that we're talking about. We wanna make sure that we're getting the best information to act on and react to. And there are a lot of things that we're talking about, like for example, the volunteer program. And the frustration with there hasn't been a volunteer coordinator. The reality is that position didn't even exist until this mayor created that position, this administration created that position. And we have had a vacancy, and sometimes things do take longer than we want them to to have these types of positions filled, but, you know, The fact that we have a volunteer coordinator is an improvement over what we had prior to that. The fact that there are errors in social media posts, the fact that there are social media posts right now is an improvement over what was happening not too long ago with that. It's an improvement that's been made. There's more improvement that can be made. Maybe we can look at the Burlington shelter and see how they're doing it and maybe copy know what they're doing right and learn because there are some great shelters i think ours is a good shelter i think we have room for improvement that's always going to be true but certainly where we can kind of take a practice that's working in another place and apply it here we want to do that um You know, as far as social media, I think you raise a good point. We should be platform agnostic. I don't happen to be on TikTok. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be on TikTok. And I don't know what TikTok is.

We're going to have a little after meeting.

And also, as Councilman Carabelli did, I'm just going to change the subject for a quick minute and point out some of the progress that we made in this meeting today with the preservation of open space, the work that we're doing to improve open space, avoid warehouses, avoid having detention centers that we don't want in our community, you know, investing $8 million in our water pollution control. This is all important work. And this is an administration and a council that hasn't shied away from doing the hard work. And the shelter is a tough It's a bad day for a dog when they wind up in the shelter. I don't care how well a shelter is run. It's a hard thing, and it is a high-stress job. And I know I'm always open, and I think everyone's always open to how we can continue to improve at this facility. So I want to thank you all for your input. I know it seems like it gets a little acrimonious at times, but this is the process, right? What do they say about democracy? You don't want to know how the sausage is made. You just want to, you know, and this is it, right? This is how it works, right? We get the input and we work to respond to that. The one constituent meeting I had this week was about the shelter. So it's not, you know, it's not that we're not thinking about this or working on it. We are, and we are taking your input and working with the mayor's office and the administration to make improvements that need to be made. So I thank you all for your participation, and I'll see you at the next meeting. Thank you. Ma'am?