Municipal Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you, Brandon. The agenda is agenda. The meeting of Lawrence Township Council will now come to order. Welcome everyone. Thank you for uh bearing with us while we had a few technical difficulties we need to work through. So I appreciate everyone hanging tight for this um really exciting and important meeting where we're going to hear from all of our department heads. So with that statement of proper notice, adequate notice of this meeting of the Lawrence Township Council being held on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026 has been provided through the hosting of the annual meeting schedule of said council in accordance with section 13 of the open public meeting. Said notice was forwarded to the tronium of the times and the Princeton packet on December 12th, 2025. Miss Carter, may we have the inspiration, please? May we carry on our work at this meeting in a just, honorable, and sincere manner, always bearing in mind our duties and continuing to keep Lords a wonderful community in which to live.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nation indivisibley and justice for all. Miss here, Miss Gabriel here, Mr. Kaki here, Miss here. Thank you.

Um, let's start with um special proclamations, recognitions, and presentations. Tonight we are going to have the 2026 department head budget presentations. That's not um we'll start with Keith Lavine, our health officer. Welcome Mr. Lavine.

Thank you very much. Uh Mayor Bin um fellow council town manager attorney and welcome everyone. So in preparing for this we were asked um some questions um one being the purpose um our purpose of our department. So the purpose of uh local health department is to protect the community by preventing disease investigating public health complaints enforcing sanitary regulation and responding to health emergencies. That's easily said but it's no small task. I can assure you much of the work we do is in prevention. Um the amount of disease we prevent with the activities we do is hard to quantify because we've prevented it. But one can imagine when you look at regions of the world that don't have a strong public health infrastructure, how much disease we might otherwise have. And I think it's important to say that we should all always remember not to take that for granted. Our core responsibilities uh plan review and health inspection of restaurants, commercial pools, new and repaired septic systems, portable wells, tattoo parlors, tanning salons, youth camps, and more. We also perform public health nuisance complaints and environmental related complaint investigations. We respond to childhood lead poisoning cases and we provide education to the community. In our nursing section, we provide physicals for school age children as well as mandated vaccinations to children without health insurance who would otherwise have um no means to see a doctor. Our nurses perform routine screenings of and blood pressure checks at our senior center at home front and

our Lawrence library. They also track, mitigate, and mitigate disease in uh in the community in partnership with our state health department. In our animal control division, we handle various types of domestic animal and wildlife related issues and we perform rabies clinics to keep the community safe. Since rabies is lethal and there is no cure, we provide certified copies of vital statistic documents such as birth stats and marriage certificates. and we pivot at a moment's notice to meet any public health emergency that comes our way. Uh we have an excellent team of professionals at the Lawrence Health Department. I'm proud to be working along alongside of them and serving uh the Lawrence community. Three achievements that I'd like to highlight for 2025 for our work in flu prevention and vaccination. and the New Jersey Department of Health awarded us top honors for their 2025 honoral award. This is an achievement held by only one other health department in the state aside from us. We completed a year-long voluntary immunization quality improvement program in our child health clinic uh with the the department of health, New Jersey department of health to improve the efficiency uh and also uh increase the number of vaccines that we provide. The results of this program are listed on page three of my annual report. This program as well as uh the vaccines that we give out in the child health clinic are provided um to Lawrence Township free of charge. We also distributed um over 3,500 free COVID test kits to the community this past year. Um and those test kits were

also received for free through our county and federal partners. Another question that Mayor Bobett typically asks is um challenges in the next five years, which I always appreciate that question. Um as a lifelong environmentalist, climate change issues are always number one on my list of concerns. uh since climate change touches every area of life. Um issues like increased flooding in some years and increased droughts in other years. More heat related um illness especially for our seniors uh a population which is increasing every year and we are seeing more consecutive days um above 90 degrees something that none of us can change. um an increase in vectorbor diseases from mosquitoes and ticks are also a problem. Re-emergent diseases like measles, tuberculosis and aven flu in particular. We're seeing uh right now in Lawrence a lot of sick and and dead birds related to aven flu. One of the biggest concerns with aven flu is if it mutates, how easily it would spread from human to human. um something that is is definitely not trivial. A key takeaway um and message that I'd like to leave you with tonight is with an increase in health misinformation, it becomes harder and harder for local health departments to effectively do their job. Add to that funding cuts like we've seen in public health in the past year as well as global funding cuts and we can see a future where more disease and more deadly disease becomes the norm.

Supporting your local health department is the best way to stay prepared and to be able to adapt to any number of current and future threats our community may face. Now, generally, um, Peter Kerry assists me with, uh, with budget, uh, numbers. Um, I just want to touch on the the fact that the Lawrence Township Health Department that had a budget last year of $39,550, uh, we completed all the work that we did, uh, and came in under budget at $25,627. If there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer.

Could you repeat could you can you repeat the top honor that you receive from the state?

Yes, absolutely. Um so each year the state health department um in an effort to encourage um you know better vaccination rates around influenza they issue an award um to institutions and health departments that do a good job in their promotion in their vaccination rates. Uh there's various criteria that they use. Um so the award that we achieved this year for 2025 was uh top honors for their 2025 honoral award. Um and um I believe it was West Windsor was the only other health department that achieved that. So it is it is a a nice um notoriety for us for our team.

Thank you very much. If there was no questions, I have I I have one question.

I do have one question. Um it's more of a I guess comment. Um I know in the past I've um used uh I've come to the health office because you're giving away sort of radon testing kits because we live in a place where radon is a gas that that can come into your basement. Um, are there other and so I appreciated that the township offered that at no cost to me and I I'm sure that's grant funded somehow or it's a partnership with the state or county. Um, are there other services like that that residents can take advantage of from the health department to come in and and see you about certain testing?

Well, of course the the co test kits which which has been very popular. Um, I would be more than happy to search for grants and uh and other programs. Um, you know, if I hear from the community on things that are important to them, I'd be more than happy to find grants that would provide um, you know, such benefits. You also do vaccination, right? Vaccination program.

We do. We do vaccination for homebound. So people who are truly homebound um we will visit them and and provide uh certain vaccinations. We do that in partnership with the Princeton pharmacy which is in Lawrence Township. Um Jake uh just a phenomenal group of individuals over there who has um they've been great in in helping provide us with the vaccine and then billing for us so that we don't have to hire an outside agency to do that. So there's no other questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Next we have Mr. Fort Construction.

Mayor B council on Mr. Dwinsky. Mine's not as long as involved as uh Keith, but basically this year we pretty much hold our own. We have four full-time clerical staff, one part-time. We have four sub codes, including myself, one part-time inspector. This year, we took in 2,627 permit applications. Added 115 were solar, 143 were EV chargers. The uh staff performed 120 certificate of occupancies, 1,700 um excuse me, 39 certificate approvals, 119 temporary certificies. the total uh inspections between our staff or inspectors 8,020 inspections we performed this year we do have a lot of projects coming up currently we are uh we have Texas Avenue which is multif family there's spruce street Lawrence prep school we have projects both at the BMS campuses on 26 and Princeton Pike and we have several additions we have a couple new family homes going in Ryan homes finished up their end this year and so did Dr. importance of those projects being completed. We met with the folks for 299 Princeton Pike um few months back they came in and basically went over their project with us and we're still waiting for demo permits for them. I don't know when what the story is with that but uh they said they would be in and that'll start that project on the three buildings out there.

Uh we currently have um project on hold on Spruce Street which is the commons up behind the girl and boys club. I believe there's some ground mediation issues. They said once that's cleared up, they'll be in to talk to us. Our pipe plan tables are up and running. Uh we are not taking electronic submissions at this time. We will be in May. We have one more round of training to do with our clerical staff and that be the submission part that they have to learn. Um and I'm hoping to have that done within the next two weeks. And we're looking to go live hopefully by first or second week of May. uh once we get on board with e-plan, e-plan is the contractor that works with fasttrack in a joint venture for all this electronic filing. Uh currently we um the documents downstairs I spoke to Mr. Ninsky about this. We we're looking into doing some scanning. We have over 630 file boxes downstairs that have to be scanned in the future. So with the new e plan, uh my staff is basically all the applications before they go out, they are actually getting scanned into the system. Now this is the stuff that's downstairs is prior to all this. So we definitely have to look into that little bit because we do have to keep the files. We don't have to keep the plans for only 10 years, but the files themselves we have to keep in store. So that's a little bit of a problem. Um and that's pretty much all I have for this year. Nothing has changed with our department. just seeing um my staff. I lost a full-time inspector, electrical inspector, but I did pick up a part-time inspector. So, Bob is Bob, our part-time electrical, and he's been a really great asset, big help to us. Any questions or of course I'll have questions, but I would like the rest of the council any anything.

Well, it's great. you know, as an architect. I I'm curious how how the um the e plans are going to work in terms of is that going to lighten your load some? Is that gonna Yeah, it will actually. Um it it's great because in fact is like it's paperless. So, we're not dealing as much paper. Uh everything that's scanned now is actually on our iPad. So, we go out, we can actually see everything. Plans are a little hard to read, you know, that that kind of, you know, but uh you know, we're getting there. I mean, you're more than welcome to come down and see him, meet with Adam. He's there most of the day. I'm out doing inspections, but he's there. he'll show you. And it's a pretty neat tool that they'll have. It'll save us a lot of time because we can basically do plan reviews all at the same time, the same

instead of waiting. So, we're hoping that cuts down our 20-day, you know, review process. Right now, we're doing pretty good right now. We haven't gone for 20 days in a while. So, that's great. It speeds things up. And and one last question I have for you and the digitized plans and submissions and stuff. Will that help the clerk's office in terms of or the two of you, you and the clerk's office in terms of over requests for people getting plans and I hope so. I mean, didn't I was it 300 was 300 and some so far and I was in the office the other day and I heard someone asking I'm here for plans for my house.

Yeah, we I mean we try to get we can like I said the plans we keep for 10 years and files are kept forever. So yeah, hopefully that'll speed process up. Right. Thank you.

Thank you. Right. Next we have Mr. Oakley, Emergency Management. That's my IT level right there. Handed in the thumb drive. Let's get you. Okay,

and deputy clerk Nicole in the corner over there. Nice and quiet, right? Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be able to present the uh 2026 uh budget for emergency services and we'll get started. So the mission statement for our our department it's uh the acronym for us is service and we're we produce safety for the community. We protect the personnel protected. The education through programs for our residents and youth. Responsiveness to the suggestion, influences, appeals or efforts of others. Vision from the past, the present, and into the future. Inspections, investigations, and pre-inccident planning and training. Commitment to our community, our families, ourselves, and each other. And empathy for all. This is our table of organization for the department. As you can see, the governing body is the uh is the lead. It drops down to municipal manager, our director of public safety, myself, our fire and EMS operations, and it breaks down to the deputy chiefs and the chief of uh emergency services and the fire official fire. We have three battalion chiefs as well. They are basically uh station oriented uh chiefs. They take care of the stations for us and then we break down into the divisions and the inspectors that we have. Chris, I want to start off with the emergency management division. The definition of emergency management is an organized analysis, planning, decision-m and assignment of available resources to mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from uh the effects of all hazards. Uh we operate as an allhazard plan here in the town. our emergency operations plan. That means that no matter what comes down the road, whether it's man-made, whether it's weather related, uh we can handle it and the emergency operations plan is uh

toolled just for that reason. This year, we completed our emergency management plan uh at the FEMA level. Uh there was a template that was produced by FEMA and the state of New Jersey uh contracted with an outside agency to help us and uh we have now streamlined our emergency management plan from a book that was probably about this big down to a thumb drive like you see right there containing all of our information and we were able to uh disseminate that thumb drive to the responsible people that would need it uh in the township. So it uh it definitely streamlined our operation. Our vision in emergency management is see we seek to promote safer less vulnerable communities with the capacity to cope with hazards and disasters. Emergency management is the managerial function charge creating the framework within each community to reduce vulnerability to hazards and cope with disasters. And the role of the emergency management office is to establish policies and procedures which will assure the maximum and most effective utilization of all resources in the township, minimize the loss of life and/or injury to the population and protect and conserve the resources and facilities in Lawrence Township through emergencies resulting from natural disasters or maninduced technological hazards. Okay. in the office of emergency management. This just uh lays out a policy of what we do. Um there's a five-fold mission in emergency management. That is to warn of impending danger when required. Support local emergencies with timely effective deployment of resources through the public information process. We keep affected residents informed about the situation and how they can protect themselves. coordinate direct restoration and recovery operations when local government resource resources are exhausted and assess local needs and coordinate support from the state of New Jersey and federal government as necessary and appropriate that comes in when we claim a disaster which mayor Bobett has so kind to declare two

disasters so far since he's been in office uh storm related disasters so he's quite familiar with uh with how that process goes Okay, this is just the uh the five mission areas that that I just explained to you. Okay, first our emergency operations plan as I just spoke of. It's a all hazards plan and uh again that has been disseminated to all of the uh the important uh people here in the township that would need to uh call on that plan. get into the fire division. Uh we have three fire stations which used to be fire departments. We are now the Lawrence Township Fire Department. Uh two the three stations are the Lawrenceville station located on Gordon Avenue, the Lawrence Road station 206 by Barc Dunkin Donuts and then also the Slackwood station which is down at the south end. We have a career staff and a volunteer staff which makes us a combination department. So, we're not all one or the other. It's a combination department um between the career and the volunteer. Okay, Chris. Some of the major accomplishments of the uh the fire division uh we acquire acquired a uh a Lucas uh system. The Lucas system we've uh we've demonstrated here before. It's an automated uh CPR unit. It straps to the chest of a of a victim and instead of uh manual CPR, it automatically presents a a CPR uh rhythm uh through a machine which then allows the first responders, the EMTs and the paramedics to continue treatment without having to do CPR. It's highly effective. It's very good and very, very expensive. uh one of our firefighters, one of our fire lieutenants applied for a grant and he received the grant through Crystal Marqu Squib and we were able to purchase two of these uh two of these machines.

One which rides on our our first responder engine and the other one that was given to the EMS division. Um says that the fire department both career and volunteer have been dispatched to a total of 1,255 assignments and that was as of November 13th. Uh that changed at the end of the year and ended up being 1440 responses that we went. Um I can tell you this much when I first joined the fire company many many many many years ago uh we were lucky to break a 100 calls and you see yourself now forward u with almost over 1,400 calls. Uh car seat inspections which we're showing up here that's a special uh community outreach thing that we do. Um, we have car seat uh technicians that install the uh car seats for families that um have newborns or uh a lot of grandparents mostly are the ones that come to see us uh and we install the the car seats for them. So, it's a safer way. The technicians actually teach the people how to uh put the seats in, but it just seems that when those people that we were already taught how to put the car seat in, when they get a new car, they come back for a refresher course. So, it's kind of a a roundroin that we do with them. Um, and we did several hundred uh we did we did fire safety presentations to several hundred students from township elementary schools and a number of daycare centers. Now you see the community events that we participate in. One of the favorite ones for these guys is always the police department's trumpet or treat which we look forward to here. Okay, Chris. EMS accomplishments. uh our EMS division resol responded to over 4,291 uh calls last year. Of those 4,291, they transported 2569 people to a secondary uh medical uh facility for uh further treatment. We

have uh I'll get to the numbers of how many employees we have, but you could also see some of the activities that they squeeze into their day. uh they do blood pressure screenings, they uh they do basic CPR and AED familiarization. Uh they also participate in trunk and treat as well. So uh they're happy to do that. And uh one of the things that they do, they assist the Santa Claus uh uh time of year, they uh the EMTs put up a mailbox for letters to Santa. And uh when they first started out with this uh with this little uh program that they wanted to do, they didn't know how well it was going to be um participated in. So now they receive hundreds of letters that they have to sit there and answer and they do a really great job. They they interface with the community quite well. Okay. So fire incidents for the year just shows you some of the things that uh that are in the top of our our responses. Um you'll see that there is a a a big part of ours are uh emergency medical services that the career staff um participates in during the daytime. And then we also have the uh the nuisance calls, false alarms, which were like 338 of them out of the 12,000 or the 1200 that you see here. Um and those are the biggest percentages of our responses. Okay. Emergency medical calls. We have one supervising chief, Chrissy Vincent. We have 10 full-time staff and we have about 20 uh coming for games. This goes to show you some of the calls that we've been on. I want to point out one which is uh is kind of interesting. You'll see almost all the way down five 10 gunshot wounds. Uh we go into the city of Treton on quite a few b uh uh calls and we've responded in there for gunshot victims on a regular basis. If you see our EMTs, you'll notice that they are wearing bulletproof vests. They wear these bulletproof vests for safety

and it's because they enter into the uh the city of Trenton where there is a higher rate of of violence and violent people. We tried to outfit them with these vests and thankfully the uh the council approved that and this last year we were able to replenish all the vests for uh for our EMTs to give them that little extra edge of safety when they go into uh the uh the different environments that they have to have. Okay. uh the fire marshall's office uh which is our code enforcement. Um you can see that they uh they conducted a uh a large amount of u business inspections and uh they also do fire safety permits on food trucks, uh fireworks, bonfires and large gatherings and they are tasked with investigating all fires and explosions that occur within the tent. Okay. their housing department, which is a oneman show right now. Um they uh they did about 332 or I'm sorry, 3,430 multiple units that they were tasked with uh inspecting. Those multiple uh units are also the uh the houses when regular residential houses exchange hands, they have to go out and inspect those as well for particular items that are needed on the exchange of the house. and uh they're a they're a pretty busy group for only one person as you could see. So it's a it's a it's kind of a a big uh undertaking. Okay. Want to quickly touch on our budget for 2026. You can see under the office of emergency management uh $8,000 our OSHA expense, that's our occupational safety and health. Uh that's uh split across the board with a bunch of the the different departments in the uh in the township. uh our emergency medical service and volunteer fire station uh stipens that we give our ambulance services which is the uh some of the uh the things that we uh that we provide uh our VIP which is the volunteer incentive

program that's what our volunteer firefighters do when they respond to a call they receive a uh a small stipen for uh for responding to the call and uh as they respond to more calls it it gives them a nice little um piece of change to uh help out with the wear and tear on their vehicles, clothing that they might uh uh ruin if they go to a call. Um our fire services, $35,000, fire inspections, and our utility costs, which are basically the utility cost of running the uh the three fire stations and EMS company building. uh our 2026 capital budget under fire services, $140,000 for a new ladder truck that's going to be put in. We have now reached the point where we will be able to if the when the budget passes, we'll be able to uh actually go out now and start to uh do the specifications uh for a new ladder truck, which we are uh in desperate need. One of our ladder trucks is 32 years old. Um, thanks to Greg Whitehead's group uh at public works, we've been able to keep that truck in service um for quite a while and uh they did did a bangup job with this thing. But 32 years on something that's only supposed to last service serviceability wise for 25 years is amazing. We're getting turnout gear, which we constantly have to uh have to replace the turnout gear. There's a 10-year shelf life on most of our turnout gear. So, as the uh as the stuff cycles through, then we have to replace it. Um, our self-contained breathing apparatus, this is probably the last year we finally caught up with getting all our SCBAs, that's the air packs that the firefighters wear. We've got that pretty well caught up now, so we're in good shape. That's another $125,000 that we've asked for, radios, and uh this says papers. That's not papers, that's pagers. Okay. Uh $100,000. We had a grant that was uh authorized by the

county back in 2015 where we uh took uh a lot of our radios. It was a sweeping grant across all the fire departments in the in the county. They got a uh they gave us different uh types of radios to use. All those things have reached their serviceability and now we have to uh bore the uh the bear the end of the replacement cost of getting those radios because nowadays a radio in six months it becomes obsolete basically because they come up with a new idea or something else that they add. Parts are very difficult to get. So we just have to put the uh the old uh stuff aside and purchase the new stuff. Um we're looking for a new fire reporting system. our our system that we use right now is antiquated and it's been put out of service. So, we need to uh to get a new fire reporting system. Uh three deputy chief's vehicles. The deputy chiefs have global responsibility within the department. When there used to be individual fire companies, those cars that they were driving um were were owned by the fire department. That doesn't exist anymore. So, we need to replace the vehicles. the vehicles have definitely used up their uh their their serviceability and we really need to replace them. So, we've asked for some money to be able to uh to do that. Um emergency management, we're going to get a another response vehicle and then vehicle maintenance on the fire trucks from $50,000. Those are two grants that we obtained. It was an American Rescue Plan for $75,000 and then the Bristol MP grant for $41,000. Okay. Under departmental collaborations, uh the department constantly interfaces with construction department, public works, health, recreation, engineering. These incidents involve both planned and emerging events. Anything that's coming down the road, uh we meet especially with the uh with the weather events that go on. Uh we meet with public works and and the police department constantly and the director of uh public safety, Chris Longo, uh in that uh in that role that

he has right now. And it works out well. we uh we uh we interface very well and be able to get the job done uh which is a a credit to everybody that's involved. Okay, our fiveyear strategic uh outcome targets. The first one is a response performance 10% of improvement and 90th percentile response times. It has to do with emergency services responding to a scene and we want to try and get into that 90th percentile which means that we have to be able to get to the calls a little bit quicker. um capital readiness 100% compliance with replacement schedule that has to do with our radios, our u our gear and our fire apparatus and our ambulances. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make sure that we're compliant with those particular things. Uh technology, the fully integrated CAD RMS and pre-planned ecosystems. The Mercer County Central Communications is in the uh is in the process of creating a CAD system. uh once that comes on board, it will make it a lot uh a lot more uh easier for us and the interface between our agency and the county will be a lot better especially when it comes to uh report writing because then they can actually send the reports to us um electronically. So it gives the EMTs a leg up uh when they're doing their reports and in the fire department with our fire reporting system will be able to complete the reports in a timely manner. to work towards. We want to document succession for uh all chief officer ranks. Uh this has to do with uh not only me, but it also has to do with the volunteers. Uh there has to be a succession of who's going to be taking over next because as we know the volunteer um core that we have, they do a great job along with our career staff, but they uh they they come and go nowadays. um our uh our core people that we have right now. We count on them a lot, but there's only a handful that are out there and uh they do uh they do one heck of a job when the career staff's not on after hours. Um overtime, we want

to try and reduce our overtime by about 15%. Um that has to do with proper scheduling. There's some things that that are unavoidable like we just had the winter storm event where we had to have extra people on. Um and then of course filling in for people who caught out sick or get injured. So, we're going to try and keep that under wraps a little bit. And then our community risk, we're going to try reduction in preventable residential fires, which is going to be the responsibility of not only the fire department to conduct um I get conduct, but anyhow, conduct the uh the things that we do. Okay. So, uh we they'll be out there doing the uh doing the different shows for people and then the fire marshall's office will also get involved in uh in being able to uh to actually educate people in fire prevention. Okay. Goals for 2026. A modern fire emergency services agency must evolve beyond reactive response. Strategic focus on data-driven deployment, capital discipline, workforce resilience, and community risk reduction ensures improved service delivery while maintaining fiscal responsibility and public trust. We want to maintain the levels of service that we provide, increase efficiency while managing time, and provide a more robust schedule to extend the hours of coverage provided by our services. And that goes for our career and volunteers. Thank you.

That's all I have. Thank you. Um, I don't know if you have any questions from council.

Councilman Kaki,

I'm glad to see that you got the vest for your EMTs. What about the lock boxes for if they're going in the train and there's a weapon, they got to be able to lock it up if there's not a cop around. Did we ever get the lock box? We did not purchase the lock boxes last year, but it's on the agenda for this year. That also has to do when they uh when they actually have people, police officers or anybody else that may be injured uh if they're transporting, they can actually, you know, lock the weapon up and hold on to it. Yeah, we we we have the lock boxes actually in the fire station too as well because there are police officers that belong to the volunteer fire company and since they carry weapons all the time um when they come into the station they they uh actually lock their weapons up in lock before they get on the truck.

Yeah, but I'm talking about on your rig. Yes, on a rig too. Yes, that's that's what we're talking about. All right, but I have two questions for you. Oh, they should be easy for you. First, um you mentioned about sort of the the organization of the fire service. Um some people said in the in the um in the presentation that our consultant gave they're concerned about consolidation, things like that. Sounds like operationally right now we are one fire service. Is that correct? That's correct.

Okay. So, so just just to uh to enhance that a little bit. Yes, please. We have been consolidated for some time. We have a consolidated service where we've combined all the volunteer stations into one where they all respond from and then the uh the career staff also is part of that program as well during the daytime. So all of our assets all of our our our volunteers go to one station and man the apparatus out of one station. And then my followup is um there's been comments both from council and from the public in the past about mutual aid and what that means. Can you just briefly for everyone's benefit explain what mutual aid is for both for mainly fire service but also

so so the mutual aid program in in the county uh we participate in the mutual aid program um that means that when your assets are either overwhelmed or they are tied up doing something else at another incident that you will receive assistance from a outside agency from another town um it's automatic when it comes to EMS MS and it's also automatic when it comes to fire. Uh I'll give you an instance. We have a we had a fire not too long ago uh behind a red roof in on Brunswick. Um that fire when it came in, we automatically received mutual aid from Hamilton Township and West Windsor and from Euing Township Prospect Heights. That's the way our we we have what's called box alarm plans. That's the way our plans are built. Our plans are built so that if there's an incident that comes in that is, I guess, more involved than just a regular fire alarm kind of uh situation, we automatically receive aid and then we also give aid. We aid other uh towns with with our ambulances and and our fire apparatus. So, it's a give and take situation as far as that goes. But that's basically what the mutual aid covers,

right? So, and just to follow up then that means that say if if I live in Lawrence and I see a Trent truck in Colonial Lakelands, that's not necessarily a failure on our part. It's more that this this the plan is that they would assist Lawrence if the fire was a certain size or something like that.

Correct. And and in addition to that, you want to just uh keep in mind that um the way the county is moving and the way the dispatch center is moving very soon when the new CAD system gets put into place, the closest staffed geographic unit is going to be sent to a call. That means that automatically when a crawl comes in, it may be on the south end of Lawrence Township on the Euing Township border, but Prospect Heights Fire Company, which is just our our neighboring one to the south, is automatically going to be sent to that call if we put it into our plane that way. That's just redundancy that we need in order to provide uh you know the level of of service that we have right now and to make sure things get to the scene quickly.

Thank you. Any other questions? We have Chief Re.

By the way, Mr. Ninsky, did you know that Mr. Hart was also an IT specialist? We wear a lot of hats.

It's not just public works that's cross trainined. Good evening, mayor, town council, town administration. Appreciate the opportunity to present the 2026 police department budget. If you don't mind, I am going to move around a little bit. I don't like to sit still. So, um, we'll get right into it. So as far as the staffing is concerned for the police department um in 2025 63 full-time sworn police officers that is up from 60 as a result of town council last year um allowing us to add three officers to the department. So we are now at 63 sworn police officers. If you remember last year, we now have one full-time um mental health coordinator who is our SLE1 officer. And that was something that we talked about last year. We have five full-time so three school resource officers, three full-time records clerks, one full-time secretary to the chief of police, one part-time secretary to the investigative division, a part-time clerk who does our firearms backgrounds, two part-time property and evidence clerks. One does our digital media and the other does all of our physical evidence and destruction. And we have now nine full-time dispatchers now that we've uh we've taken on dispatch from the private company. So Lawrence Township Police Department's purpose is to protect life, property, preserve the peace, and serve our community with integrity, professionalism, and accountability. Organ organizational staffing structure is designed to support patrol operations, investigations, traffic

safety, community engagement, and administrative oversight. Every division works together towards one common goal, delivering highquality, responsive police services to the residents of Lawrence Township. Our officers in 2025 responded to a total of 28,019 calls for service. So, our 2025 accomplishments, these were uh a lot of these are as a result of of town council of what I presented last year um in the beginning of the year for 2025. Um I do want to thank our command staff, our Captain Joe Le, Lieutenant Sean Ston, Lieutenant Dan Glatty, Lieutenant Mike Whitmore, Lieutenant RJ Lair. um as a result of the entire command staff, this is why we were able to accomplish these things um working together because these were these were major um accomplishments and major transitions for the police department last year. We had a success successful CAD system transition um in December. The entire command staff worked closely with enforces. Our old CAD had have been police department since 2008. So, we had just changed this new CAT um in December of 2025. So, the the enforcement staff was on site at the police department for uh two weeks straight. They did hands-on training with all our all our officers, all of our dispatchers. We had a go live week, which was very efficient with the enforcers personnel. Um they worked alongside all of our shifts. Um and this this change through enforces allows us now for ny scoring which is the way we report our crime to the state and to federal government. Um and this is a is a far more advanced system than our previous way of of operating through our

had. So it was a major operational upgrade completed with with really without any disruption to to our service. So thank you to town council for that uh for that change in our cat. We successfully completed our accreditation process. This is as a result of Lieutenant Mike Whitmore and Sergeant Dylan McLister who are both here tonight. They both spend a significant amount of time with the accreditation um demonstrating adherence to the best practices, professional standards, and accountability. And accreditation, it reinforces public confidence and strengthens our internal operations. and uh Lieutenant Lmore and I will be attending the final hearing for our accreditation uh next Thursday. So, credit to to Lieutenant Lor and Bill for for the work that they had put into our accreditation process. Some community and safety investments from 2025 increased uh traffic cones and barricades uh we purchased to enhance uh visibility and safety for the officers and and the public at crash scenes and emergencies. We uh created the department's first full-time mental health uh lean on it, Edward Dasher. Uh we established a full-time community policing officer, Na Campbell, who's here tonight. He handles now all of our events and our uh increased presence in social media. Um and as far as grants, we we did we had two successful traffic safety grants. Put the phone away or pay and move over for law enforcement, which we'll continue to pursue in 2026. So, moving into 2026, proud to report that there's a 0% increase in our budget. Um, and I'm going to really focus on capital expenditures uh moving forward. And the primary areas for this are going to be our Axon body warn camera technology and storage, our art artificial intelligence tools for police officers as well as um community engagement initiatives.

So, as far as Axon Axon body warn cameras, we're we're in a five-year program and we're in year four of our five years for Axon. In year three, we received an upgrade in our cameras. As a result of the upgrade, the technology really, really changed with the new cameras that our officers are wearing and the capabilities are pretty amazing. So, that's what I'm going to get into. Um so we we do have these new cameras. Axon has introduced um a program called draft one uh technology allows the officers to generate their report narratives in seconds using audio auto transcribe body one camera audio. So everything that the officer does is already captured on audio and video. And then they go back and they and they essentially spend sometimes hours if not an entire shift writing a report. Um putting everything that they did on paper. They then submit that report to the supervisor. The supervisor has to review it before the end of the shift, make any corrections, send it back to the officer. The officer has to correct it, send it back to the supervisor. Um draft one essentially uploads body camera audio into a secure cloud storage. It automatically transcribes the officer audio. It generates a structured um narrative within minutes for the officer. It requires the officer to then review that entire report, edit it. It will it will give you areas that it wants the officer to elaborate on and then the officer will approve it, send it to submission or uh submit it for completion. The supervisor will then review the report, send it either back to the officer for any corrections that they want or um approve it and then after that approval, it will go to our investigative division for approval. So we have three levels of approval for our reporting system. Um so really the result of draft one it's it's a more

standardized, clear, detailed reports. Everything everything is standardized. Um and it kind of it supports a far more efficient process. Um, it gives the officers time back, time for patrol, time for investigations, time for training, time for wellness, rest, and and more community engagement. So, it takes the officer away from sitting at a desk for hours writing to report. And uh these reports are drafted in sometimes minutes. Axon also offers um uh pushto talk translation. So currently the police department uses language line. Language line if an officer encounters someone that uh does not speak English or or whatever they have to then notify dispatch or call language line on their cell phone. Dispatch will call language line. The officer will determine which language it is. They will find a translator. They will get in touch with the officer over his cell phone. And a lot of times you officer will put the cell phone on speaker phone as they're encountered. This this obviously takes time. With these new cameras that we have um Axon has a pushto talk translation feature. They have over 50 languages um already stored in in the system in Axon. Um the languages can either be manually selected or auto detected right on scene as the officer is um you know speaking with with an individual. The translations occur within seconds. It improves understanding when you know a human uh translator is not immediately available at that second. This takes time when you call the language. Um so it's automatically going to reduce confusion. It's going to increase safety. It's really going to build trust across across different language barriers. We all know that Lawrence Township, you know, very, very diverse community. So, the officers do encounter a lot of residents that just, you know, don't

speak English. Um, I'm going to show a real quick 30 second video just so you have an understanding of exactly how the body camera does translate and works. Chinese. He shouted at the employees, then brought some things and ran away. He went that way. Okay. Sir, can I get his full name, please?

Okay. I need this full name.

So, our officers have these cameras as of last year. Axon is by far the the lead body camera company in the country and we do have, you know, the most updated cameras that have pretty amazing capabilities right now. Um, so yeah, the the pushto talk translation is pretty pretty amazing. Uh next, Blue Voice uh AI assistant. So, right right now there there's there's tens of thousands of pages and documents that that that are are policies, procedures, laws, things of of that nature for police officers. been noticing younger generation utilizing um AI through search features in Google and chat GPT and things like that. As far as the chief of police is concerned, as far as I'm concerned, Blue Voice has been talked about. It's utilized in a lot of other states. Um it's now coming to New Jersey and it's a closed loop AI policy search system. Meaning the system is only going to have New Jersey Attorney General guidelines and directives in it. It's going to have New Jersey Title 2C, New Jersey Title 39, New Jersey case law, prosecutor's office directives that we put in Lawrence Township Police, procedures, rules, regulations, memos, special orders, township ordinances, we add to the system. Now, when the officer has a question, what whatever the question is, could be just Lawrence Township related or could be attorney general guidelines. Um, I want the officer searching the system. At the end of the day, um, any any Google search is going to come up with some type of, you know, generic response or essentially may not be totally accurate. This is simply going to search

all everything that has to do with New Jersey law enforcement. So the answer that you're going to get instantly instead of having to possibly sort through a 40 50 60 page document to try to you know get a few answers. This will be able to search that instantly and and be able to give the officer the direction needed immediately. Um, so really the benefits, it's going to reduce errors, it's going to promote deescalation, improve legal accuracy, it's going to obviously save a lot of time, protect both officers and citizens, and it really does uh strengthen the constitutional policing while improving operational efficiency. So this is another capital um request that I have listed. Community engagement. I have a lot of officers that are really seeking interest in um in bicycle patrol. So, um, police ebikes are really the up and coming now. Um, we do have a handful of officers that are that are certified in bike patrol and we do send out the bikes during our special events. Um, but these these ebikes are really the up and coming. Um, we all know we have township parks that are that are that are big. We have the Lawrence overall trail. We have the DNR canal path and we have some large community events like the fireworks memorial day parade community. As far as the canal path, hope trail we the officers get calls for service all the time on the canal path and on the trails. Um there's areas where they cannot bring the police car. There's been times where they've had to walk a half mile, a mile just to get to um you know somewhere in need. So it has happened. These uh the the ebikes are are efficient. they um um will really enhance uh the ability to to respond to areas like that and and it's it's going to create increased approachability and and you know

community interaction. I mean when when we can't take a police car through park in the middle of the day if the officer just wants to go through. So the ability to be able to ride a bike through the park like this is um you know it's it's it's important to us. It's very important and the officers are really showing an interest in in bicycle patrol. So, so in closing really the um 2026 police department reflects uh fiscal responsibility with 0% increase in budget. The capital expenditures in my opinion they reflect their strategic investment in technology um that include enhanced officer efficiency, increased community engagement and improved transparency and accountability. Um there'll be a continued dedication to progressive and uh responsible policing. And our overall goal for 2026, very simple, it's to provide smarter policing, safer community, stronger relationships. We're going to continue to move forward um thoughtfully, responsibly, collaboratively, and thank you for your time, your support, and partnership in public safety. And any questions that you have questions for you mentioned AI tools in your um report. Are there other AI tools that you're currently utilizing or plan to utilize? We are not utilizing any AI tools right now. No. No. The only AI tools are the um the AI policy search and the the AI um and the AI on that. This

where does this blue voice AI assistant where does this live? Is it on their phone and they're just looking? Yeah. or the the laptop computer in the police car. Yeah. Yeah. So, if the officer is, you know, on an ebike down in the DNR canal path, a mile down, they don't have the police computer. Yes. Blue voice has the ability the officer can, you know, and and so the ability to search it right away.

I just want to um again thank you and congratulate you on the mental health portion of policing and the excellent job that you do with community policing as well. Um ebikes are right. It's also wellness not just you know for officers going out to That's cute. But I think I appreciate it. Thank you.

I'll just say congratulations again on the accreditation. I know that's a big deal. I know it's a it's a lot of work, but um it just goes to show that our police department is on top of things and recognized by others as being top-notch. Um, and I just echo the other comments about it's great to hear about um, using AI to sort of um, streamline processes um, and to sort of add some sort of consistency to the reports. I'm assuming that you've sort of figured out how to put it into sort of what your standard format is so that you get the right outcome. I suppose, you know, AI can also give you some pretty strange things too. Um, and then just for the benefit of those in the audience, um, and are watching at home, what is a CAD system? Because as an architect, that's computerated design, but for you and for Mr. Oakley, what does CAD mean?

Computerated dispatch. So, I just want to say thank you again. Um, appreciate all the hard work you do. Thanks. Appreciate. Thank you. And next we have Mr. Whitehead, director of public works. Welcome. Thank you.

Good evening, council. Thank you very much, Mayor, Council, Clerk, for having me tonight. Um, I'm going to start off with a quick 40inut public works video.

I'm start off the present. We're in here. This was one of our projects, in-house projects we did last year. Um, as a team came in under budget and a lot faster than we thought, but it was a good in-house project. Joe Sinsky really spearheaded it and and got this job done. The whole room was torn out and redone and I think they did it in six, seven weeks. It really shows the talent and flexibility our employees and our department has. It's they show it time uh after time and I'm just very proud of their work. A little division summary. Uh we have a director, two an administration. Our street division has 16 people. Um we have one inspector which is basically does our brush inspection and leaves and and is out on the road doing that. Uh buildings and grounds park division, we have 10 full-time folks. vehicle maintenance. We have four um mechanics who do an amazing job. If you think about the number of police cars, fire trucks, ambulances, uh snowplow trucks, uh park maintenance, vehicles and mowers, those guys are the core of our department and make things happen. these last snowstorms. 3 in the morning, they're changing blades, changing tires, you know, snow

dripping on their heads at 5 in the morning. They're amazing employees, and we're very lucky to have that staff working at Lawrence Township. Our ecological facility is staffed by our street division, might permit. We have to have someone there every day for the D at the gate. And then we staff the facility with Princeton and we're still doing a joint service there. It's been working out very well over these years. We're in right now we're in the middle of renewing our fiveyear D permit. Um working with D on it, it's not an easy task, but we've been working on that. Clyde, who's here in the audience, has been spearheading that and doing a great job. Um, our reduction efforts over the years continue. We contract out services when we can instead of hiring new employees. U shared services when we can. Uh we do a number we have a number of shared pieces of equipment with Princeton. Uh we share the ecological facility. Whenever we look at something, we look to to perhaps share it with another town. Crossraining has been really big for us. um getting other employees involved in different things so we we don't have to go out and contract out um a different work part uh 2026 public work staffing request no new staffing um we uh

continue to cross train and work more efficient to get our tasks done. And that's how we've been doing it for a number of years. This this winter obviously has been very demanding on on us, the staff. 2025 we had four snow events, 19 in 17 salting events, uh almost 3,000 tons of salt. Uh that's 2025. 2026, we had eight salting events, five snow plowing events, and over 35 inches of snow. The guys did an amazing job. I couldn't be more proud of a team. This is my 28th winter here in Lawrence and I can't remember a team of employees that did a better job. We have a lot of routes. We have a lot of different equipment. Um, we're working around the clock this last storm and the average guy worked 25 26 hours uh with minimal breaks. And it it goes to show that um with council behind us getting us the right equipment, building our uh labor pool, the right training, we really can accomplish a lot. Um, it's just a great job by by these individuals. Our parks division, there's no zero increase. Our operating budgets 125,000. That's for everything. That's for lining the fields. That's for fertilization.

That's for irrigation. That's for paint. That's uh lawnmowers. That's everything. Our capital request is to replace two of our zeroturn lawnmowers. We really made an effort to keep our capital budget down this year and only there's no new purchases. We're only looking to replace old obsolete equipment that's really not giving us peak efficiency anymore. You can see we we with those 10 employees, we take care of a lot of territory. Um those park workers also turn into snow workers. Those park workers are in a route out on the road plowing snow. We have one of our mechanics that's assigned out on the road plowing snow. Building maintenance out on the road plowing snow. Everybody in our department is engaged in snow removal. That's how we make it happen at once. Our daily activities, we we have 100 garbage cans that every day they got to be checked and emptied. Restrooms, walking paths. Um, obviously in the summer and spring, uh, athletic fields, cutting grass, they're all at the top of our list. You could see we're loaded with fields, 21 soccer fields, football, baseball, lacrosse, tennis courts, basketball, volleyball, pickle ball, botchi court. Um, and we have a lot of playgrounds. Playgrounds have to be inspected

and they have to be dealt with very quickly. So, so nobody gets hurt. Um, so we are on top of that and it's it's a little time consuming. All these things take time. buildings and grounds. Uh zero increase in our operating budget. Our capital request is for some heating unit replacements and our public works garage. Now, when we don't increase the operating budget the last couple years, all of our costs are still increasing, right? parts, heating, electric, plumbing, everything is increasing uh 10, 15, 20%. We have to find better ways, cheaper prices, better contractors, more efficient ways to get the work done. And we've been doing that the last few years. It's just getting harder and harder to keep keep that pace up. So, as we hold and freeze costs, everything else is going up and we have to work smarter to figure it out. We do have a lot of facilities and they all have to be upkept 100%. As you can see, a lot of square feet. Uh, and all these fall under our responsibility. uh public works, town hall, police court facilities, senior center, EMS, the Brley house. Um we take care of all these facilities, not only during the workday. These facilities are 247. So police don't have heat in the middle of the night, the tenant at the Brley

house loses power. We're getting all those calls and we're responding to those calls. uh buildings and ground responsibilities. I'm not going to read all of these, but the guys do a great job. They they do a plethora of everything. We run the gamut in facilities. Uh they have the skill set, everything from carpentry to electric to plumbing, street division, zero increase. We do have a few capital requests. These are all replacement. You can uh a 2026 refuge truck that h will have a plow on it that we use for our popular uh leaf and brush pickup uh program that'll also be outfitted for winter use. Uh replacement of a pickup truck. um and additional funds for our automated uh pickup garbage carts. Now, we did have a meeting with MCIA today. The county is continuing to um progress with possibly going to automated pickup for recycling. So, uh that'll be a cart instead of the buckets as well. The county is looking to maybe bid that out with the carts included in the contract and the replacement and repair carts in the contract. Obviously, that's a price we pay as part of being in the MCIA. So, um I'll be giving when we get all those costs, I'll be giving those to Mr. and

to start reviewing those to see how much more the program will be. But we expect the program will become more efficient with less um employees on the trucks which hopefully will drive down the cost to absorb uh the costs of the cars. So a little breakdown of our street division. I like to show this because it's easy to see our brush collection, our leaf collection, and our ecological center. How much of the pie that takes up? I mean, obviously, brush and leaf collection dominate our hours uh that we have available to us. Tree work, now that we have an in-house uh tree crew, it's incredible the amount of work they're getting done. But that also takes uh labor hours away from the total pool of work we do uh within the township. The street division is responsible for really a gamuton of work from street signs to concrete work to asphalt repairs to paving to storm drains to all our Dmandated uh items we have to do on a yearly basis and obviously snow removal, tree removal. I I can't give these guys enough credit. Um this year, uh we removed 212 street trees, trimmed 374 trees. And the parks, 89 dead trees, and

trimmed 841 trees. These guys are are worker bees. I mean, they we bought them the truck, and we we've paid back that truck already. That truck doesn't owe us anything. These guys do a great job and and tree work is so expensive now. You know, you could spend $2,000 to take down one tree. So, you could easily see we're we would never have the funding to take down that amount of trees. Now, we used to budget maybe $25,000, which will get you 25 trees if you're lucky. So, we're we're really doing great. Um, very proud of that new division. Uh, brush collection program. That's one of our biggest things. We do it year round. 1,700 tons of brush. We collected 2,000 tons of leaves. Our street sweeping program. Um even our metal collection program picked up 56,000 pounds of metal last year from residents which they really love the program. Roadside mowing, storm drains. Obviously we talked about snow removal. our e-waste program we still run uh at public works. 1,900 pounds of computers, 15,000 pounds of TVs. Um so we continue that program. It's very popular with the residents and all those items stay out of the waist stream. Our mulch delivery program we like to run again for 2026. It was very uh uh

very well um received last year. We made 274 deliveries um getting rid of over 800 cubic yards of wood chips from our facility. And that's really the name of the game at our ecological facility. DP wants it out of there as quick as we get it in. They want it out of there. So, we're we're constantly um inspected. Our books are inspected. So, I can't have this I can't have uh brush and chips in there for more than six months. We we have to get it off the site. Vehicle maintenance, uh zero increase. We we do have a mobile lift system. Um we're trying to get away from our underground system because of the uh water issue uh um down at public works. Um so we continue to work on that. Uh like I said before, the mechanics are great. Uh they save us tons of money in the long run. If we had to send these items out, forget it. Um they do just a great job. They do everything from transmissions to pulling engines out uh to uh regular maintenance and they do a terrific job. Our ecological center we still run with Princeton. It's just uh you know some um numbers here of what we do down there with leaves and compost. Um, like I said, we're we're trying to renew our fiveyear permit uh with the state. Now, we had uh over 2,000

uh Lawrence residents come through our facility last year. This is our current list for paving for 2026. Avalon, Federal City, Baker's Basin, Titus Phillips, Craraven, Gordon, James, George Tequa, Banister. After this winter, I'm working with engineer. There might be a a cold soil. There might be a few pill areas that didn't do very well with these winter storms. We we're going to add on or maneuver. I make it in 10 minutes. I forgot to start.

That's all I have. Thank you. Any questions? Any questions from council? It's not a question. I just want to commend all the public works on the snow removal. All we heard in the moment you leave Lawrence, you notice you see this the town line very quickly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh, sorry. I do have a couple questions. The lawnmowers, um, are they going to be electric or are they are you looking at that or is that something We We have one right now, one electric, uh, zero turn in our fleet. Okay.

Uh, all right. That's fair. And then for the uh heating unit replacement ports, are you looking at sort of does does PSG have any programs that Yeah, we we are looking to see what they have to offer right now. These units are very special to our building. They heat the big area. So what what they basically are is a burner. They suck in the cold air from outside and there's flames and it blows the warm air right into the big garage. So these are efficiency.

No, there's no efficiency. It's it's so the equipment really can start in the middle of the night if it snows. But we are looking at what what alternatives are there out there to heat you know 15,000 square feet bag uh other than what we have now. So, we are looking at that.

No. And I I'll just say for the public's benefit, I had a chance to visit a public horse building last year and their garage is the cleanest garage I've ever seen in my life. Um, and and it just goes to show the sort of care and dedication that the employees have up and down. It's not just sort of keeping clean, it's keeping their workplace clean. And again, kudos to you. I I I will say something that you know we've done for a long time and Clyde Clyde sent me and Clyde was manager of motors for a long time. We strain every ounce out of every piece of equipment to get it to the finish line. So something that might last a turnpike six years, we're getting 13 years out of. And we do that with everything we know to really when it's ready for auction, it's ready for auction. Um we we do that to make room for other things we need. If we're constantly replacing things we have, you're never going to get ahead of the game. You're never going to get more efficient. You're never going to get quicker. You're never going to need less people. So we do that with a purpose and folks like Clyde D'Angelo, they do it very well. They do it very well.

Quick question. Of course. I just have a a question about the the automated recycling. What does that mean? Again, it's a different So if if we go to this, it'll be like our garbage. You'll get a cart with a lid with two wheels and it'll probably be a 65gallon cart. You'll put all your mixed recycling in it. Cardboard, aluminum, everything. And you'll instead of dragging your buckets out, you'll you'll wheel this out for automated pickup.

Now, the cost break is what we're all interested in. like how much more is it going to cost or is it going to save us? So, that's kind of where it is right now and then how fast will we go through carts? Um, our automated garbage, we use a lot of carts. They get hit by cars, they get hit by trucks, they get broken by the the vendor. Um, we just had the vendor buy us $600 worth of carts. We take pictures of them. We have them come down and look at them, show them that they broke them. So, we're on top of that, but it is it's like another thing, right? You know, it's like another thing we're managing. You think it's easier, but you really got to stay on top of these things because one cart's $50 and we're ordering, you know, hundreds of carts at a time, tractor trailer load. So,

thank you. Thank you. Mayor, may I have a comment? I think Mr. Mayor W. I've been quiet. Um, you saving your time.

No, I just listen I just to highlight uh what Greg just said. Um, and that it's it's not really in the in the the mindset of the average taxpayer that we have department heads that are experienced, professional, problem solvers that care enough to try and do their work in a way that respects the taxpayers and the money that it takes. And Greg just highlighted it, but it's it's across the board. That's one of the benefits of our municipal government is we have experienced people in in the places that we need them to be. And though it may not be very readily apparent to taxpayers, especially if you're on Facebook, um it's really clear that to me at least when you and you see it when these guys are presenting, these people are presenting that um they care and they are they have the tools necessary to really do their jobs. You guys help with that for sure.

Is it fair to say without balances in their budgets? Yeah, there's no doubt like you know maybe other towns who don't put in the time and effort to get the everything out of equipment and just asking for new equipment soon you know so thank you and finally miss birding recreation superintendent welcome Hello everybody. I'm just going to be presenting three different divisions that I do have under me. It could be recreation senior center which is also also on aging um and special events. The recreation time we do have three staff members which includes myself, Jeff Rison and Sudan. What we work on uh we deliver different programs. We also which includes camps, youth sports, aquatics. We have community events and we do a lot of field scheduling, permits, rentals. We and work with a lot of different uh local organizations for their their field permits. We also have the nature center and we do the communication which we do our website our website page Facebook and then we also um Emily does a nice job on she does the latest newsletter. With our programs, we reach about 2,000. We had about two a little over 2,000 people that signed up for recreation programs throughout the year. These are just our recreation programs

that we do have. We do anywhere from camps to swimming to adult programs, sports leagues, but uh we do have a lot of programs that we do offer throughout the year to the community. our senior center. Senior center is also we have three full-time staff members who live in the staff. Natasha and Kevin is our new uh senior band driver and clerk. We do have um the senior center is located at over on Daryl Lane. We offer services to 60 and older and we have a full calendar of programs, activities and social events that we do run over there. We also offer transportation for our seniors and it's trips to the seniors and then when available we do shopping or medical appointments. We also at the senior center that also serve lunch through the Mercer County nutrition site. These are some of the programs that are offered at the senior center. We did have about 17,000 people come through the senior center last year and uh either with our programmings or our special events that we do have. We offer any art classes, lectures, and nature walks. And you can see there's a lot of different programs that we offer there. And these are just the special events. And when I say special events of the seniors, you know, we to have different um different holiday events, flower arranging or there's a lot of different uh great activities and social events at the senior center. Our special events, we do a lot of different special events throughout the

year. Um, and that is also that's under the recreation department with the three people and our three full-time members including myself in the recreation department. So, we do have we coordinate, deliver, and we do a lot of um from start to finish there. Um, we also have do two different recreation I mean we have our patriotic committee that helps us out with our patriotic events and then we have a a great recreation advisory committee and what they do they're always hands-on with us and uh very involved in our special events and these are special events that we do run throughout the year. We start out with our colonel hand march and we do usually have a special event that we have usually every month. We do um we are running something throughout the town to bring the township together and we try to get everyone to feel like they are part of a community in this and we do um some of these we just had our Valentine's Day walk which were I think believe it was our biggest that we've ever had our turnout for that. So, we run different events. We do run um some of our events with the police department and then uh public works. And we do always have all of these. I can't thank these guys enough for when I when I come to them, they kind of run sometimes, but um they all come out and support everything that we do. And we do work together as a team. That's very that we do a good job. I think this is our operating budget cost for all three of these divisions. Our recreation budget will stay the same. We also have our special events uh budget will also requesting that stay the same. Our senior center on aging budget, we are requesting um for that to be increased and that and that the reason for the increase in that would be that

they um we're getting more seniors would like to do more bus trips. So we like they'd like to have more bus trips and we'd also like to enhance our programs at the senior center and things are costing a little bit more such as like even supplies that we do need for the programs that we do run there. And again these are just what the allocation for what we use the budget for. We have a lot of uh programs for the recreation department, our camps, our clinics, travel cam, travels a little expensive with as far as the busing and the trips themselves, community events, parks and field um and usually our office stuff and even our online software that we use. The a office on aging like I said it was increasing to expand trips offering and maintain program quality. Uh we like I said we use a lot of our for food or refreshments and anything to run our events that we do have. And our special events is usually if we have any wreaths or you know a lot of our special events fireworks bands and um even for Memorial Day we have expenses there as far as like bands or anything marching in a parade or I can't go over everything. It's a lot that we do have. Um but uh that was just a little bit. I think I gave you a different report that has everything in a little bit more details of what we do. But um like we do all of our funds that we use, we really try to get the community to come out and and uh meet each other's neighbors or meet the neighbors or do we do try to do a lot of activity for the township. So

it could go on for a lot detail, but um if anybody has any questions or anything,

I'm Nancy. Um, I was on the rec advisory committee for the last eight years, so I've seen NY's work uh up close. Um, she's very modest and I can go on for hours about what the wreck uh department does. Um, I am consistently amazed at what you can do with three staff members and your advisory committee of course. Um, and I just want to say thank you so much and keep up the good work. I do have to say I mean for our three for the three of us we do um some of our hours everyone thinks we're here 8:30 to 4:30 we're not we do have you know our pool that we do manage from 5 we have the high school pool that we manage for open swim team swim lessons that's open till 9:30 and then we do run um all of the organizations that use the fields or anything like that they're open you know they're usually in practice and we do get calls lights off lights on So, and Saturdays, of course, um we just finished up our basketball program. Um Saturdays, but thank you.

Again, I I want to echo the amazing job that you do with your staff and the level of community engagement that you bring to is wonderful. I'm just hearing so those staff members work. We have lifeguards. Yeah. But you know,

I just want to say I see firsthand what you do with recreation and along with the pay driver for me, what you do with us. The residents don't really get to see all the work that you do behind the scenes and what you presented is only a small fraction of what your people do. You and your volunteers. I thank all of them. Thank your department too. Thank you. I'll just end with it must be nice to be part of a team that usually sees a lot of people smiling. other other groups. I can imagine police chief head of public works get a lot of angry phone calls but for the most

part is undefeated. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. We do. We get a lot of requests for different things and people don't understand like you know like I said we get a lot of requests for we have a lighting green request or you know lighted um a skate park is one of our and um we do get a lot of those requests and if we can't you know manage them we're sometimes that we do get but we do have a lot of people that it's when we have our events is when we hear which is very

I I want to follow up something more serious about. I appreciate that from the pandemic on just the incredible growth of the the recreation committee in terms of the the events that you do, the community building events. I remember how great it was to have these events that were outside where we could kind of do things on our own and to sort of see that continue. Um, I know the police doing a wonderful uh national night out event and just to see that community day and others just bring people together and the idea of people coming out on a cold Friday night for Valentine's Day at Columbia Park is incredible. So, thank you. Thank you.

And I'll just end with um thanks all the department presentations. Um, one of the things that strike me about and and the manager sort of made me think to this as well is how fortunate we are to have so many experienced people, so many people who are dedicated to this community and it really shows and I think we're all grateful for that. It makes our jobs up here a lot easier. Um, so keep up the good work and also proactively think about how do you sort of teach the Lawrence way of doing things to the next group of leaders for our town because I know you're not all going to be here forever. Um, you deserve a retirement at some point, not next year, the year after. Um, but um, how do you continue that effort and also it's great to see technology sort of being used appropriately to sort of improve the delivery of services to our community. So, thank you for being proactive about

that. I think they're dismissed. Yes. Yeah. Unless you want to stick around. But with that, we'll open it up for public participation by I think I think there's a request for a a motion for a brief break. We need to

All right. We're taking a five minute. So, It's

getting harder to get up. of course and rebuild And you know what?

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Hey guys,

how you doing? I can't tell myself. and they're very

I don't know. Yeah. before dead 75. I'd like to see and make sure especially Lois sees that okay and copy everyone who do even all of them even though it's a totally religious nature it's it's a continuation of what okay and uh

I spoke to the governor's office on Friday and I told this to Tanya earlier I spoke to trees are big the chief of staff of Turner for some time, Meredith if you know

and I spoke to the dasis, female and they agreed that this information not getting out to girls is a type of child abuse. Okay. And then I found out that there was a legal obligation to report it. I also spoke to a police officer and she agreed with me tentatively as we could speculate about the law that it does not meet if this is not given information is given then it could be said there's an insufficient level of care that's not the exact words but you know what I'm saying because there has not been any way to get girls to this level before it has they considered impossible to get them to choose their cycles in terms of who they are as so I was forced to call New Jersey to protect my son. Okay. So I mentioned here it's 19 out of 20 women about including you who have agreed that there's a problem with this information.

Okay. It's serious business. Okay. So I had to say because Shirley Turner knows about this, I have to report all the children. Oh, really? Okay. Okay. And I spoke to the dasis, a director at the dasis yesterday, female a lot of time over the phone. It has to be from there.

There's no other way. will be sometimes, you know. So, yeah. So, that's that's going on. I can get it done.

I tell myself that I'm not like sad. must get because every word of English. I got I got to do it. I do anytime like we cover my dude, you know. Yes.

Yeah, you have to come. All right, start up again. We are now to public participation. Five minute limitation for speaker. Hello, I'm David Meno and I'm here represent the jails and open space stewardship advisory committee and thank you for listening to our presentation about a month and a half ago. Um since then we've had an additional meeting and have consulted with our council leasing farmer and what we've decided to do is um kind of digest down what we were talking about to three priorities and that is the Amazon to trail the southern chemical mediation and the bridge at Colon Colonial Lake Park over the Staff Creek. So, I'm going to be as brief as I can in um talking about that. And what we're looking for is um you know, we're providing our advice to council, which is our obligation as an advisory committee. And what we would like is for there to be discussion amongst you and with the town

of administration and manager about which of these um objectives you think are achievable that the township is willing to pursue and you know they can present various complexities. So I can understand if there are there's feedback to us on it. But uh what we're looking to is to find out if the township is able to take one of our initiatives and if not to um let us know so that we can um move on to other things and we'll probably be back with other ideas. So the first one would be the Amazon warehouse to the DNR canal connector which you know we've already talked about with you and um that one we see as an extension of the circuit trails. Now I know you're going to be voting on an grant application to the DVRPC for a bridge over the cyber punk for the county's ports county connected trail. So that's that's a very good thing. And um and so you wouldn't want to so our idea would be to have the DV RPC also fund our trail, but you don't want to compete with that application. So it would be for a future funding cycle. Uh the other thing about it is that it's only partly on launch township property through an easement on the Amazon lot. The rest of it is on state park land. So that could be both a um blessing and a curse because the blessing would be that if it is built it's mostly on state property so the state has the responsibility for maintaining it so it's not I've heard the presentation so it wouldn't be an

additional strain on the public works department so that's the blessing the curse is that of course we have to work with the state and try and get all that approved But um anyway, we'd like to see if the township is willing to move forward on that and see if we could get the state's buy in on it. I've already been in touch with the superintendent of the state park and also the trails uh the green acres trails coordinator in the DP. The um second item I want to bring up is Savin Chemical. Um in a lot of ways that's one is much easier because it's funded through the state's brownfields fund. The official name is much longer and um we already have two properties that are being addressed through that. the pit stop and crab cleaners and they're both moving into the remediation phase and um I know um that Jim Paris is working with the um consultant on putting in the next grant application and and it's looking like that's going to be like several hundred,000 for the next funding cycle. long screen. Okay. For the 30 seconds,

what? 30 seconds. I used four and a half minutes. Oh my gosh. I have I'm trying to be equitable.

Okay. Um so anyway, um we have $3 million per year available. So, we would like to um uh see this thing move forward and that wouldn't wouldn't be much of a burden on the township because um the consultant would really handle all the paperwork and then very quickly the other one would be a bridge over there at the end where the um one bridge is and that would be a nice thing to have within the park. There's grant money available from the county and I'm sure we could help you come up with further grant money and then all of these things. Um the committee would be very willing to actively participate in helping.

So thank you for for coming. This is I appreciate I appreciate all the enthusiasm about it. I' I'd ask the council on Miss Farmer. Have you been in conversations with uh Mr. Mr. Ninsky or others about these three items yet or this is is this the first Mr. Ninsky or so? Yeah. No, I I just want to make sure Mr. Ninsky as well. So, um thank you for that. We'll definitely keep an eye on it. Um as as you're well aware, I mean, you seem very aware of the sort of competing interests and priorities right now. I appreciate that you put these before. Okay.

Oh, I'm sorry. I know this Start. Yes.

Okay. How you doing? Good evening everyone. My name is Charlie. My last name is Pici. I'm a resident in Colonial Lakes. I'm here tonight to have a video for all you to see which is a minute long. There's a health crisis at the Lawrenceville Shopping Center right now. I have found 20 dead over I don't even know how many dead deer are on this property. There are dead deer thrown on the ground with gloves, plastic thrown there. People are dumping these deer there. I don't know whom. Right. I also today pulled over 20 contractor bags from construction sites that construction workers threw in the woods or someone and I'm the person that pulled it out and put it on the parking lot and it's sitting there right now in that parking lot and someone has to pick it up. This is a serious crisis. There's also a log that has fallen over the creek that he wants to build a bridge over. It is clogged up with debris and trash. Someone needs to backhoe and get out the debris first and then they have to move this lock to get the trash flowing back. Like this is the It is disgusting. I have never seen anything like this in my life. There's so much trash in this creek and a smell that is coming off it. This water has to be tested. the groundwater. Me and my friend here have picked up in the one week since I discovered this on Saturday, me and him have picked up over a,000 pounds of debris from the field right there behind the trucks that parked there. There is a dead deer right behind this truck that is rotting right now that I found today that has flesh on it. It is disgusting. There is a oil spill in the parking lot, but the I swear it is like this big, right? It goes like this long and it there's it's going towards the trees in the woods. There is even more. The most surprising thing that I saw out there. Okay, this is impersonal to me. Every single morning I wake up and I walk on

the Delaware Canal at 5:00 in the morning alone. I have a family of beaver that I visit every single morning. And I tell you this is important. That land back there is not just some random parking lot in a random field. This is a wet land. It's filled with cattail and all the plants and vegetation in there only grows in a wetland. This is important. The beaver are important. Is a keystone species. It and the the wetlands that it creates, they trap water and they keep it out of our neighborhoods. And this is contaminated land that needs to have specialists come and look at this soil. There are hundreds of people that work in this shopping center. They just put in something for kids. Thousands of people visit. This is a hightraic area. This creek is polluted. It is linked to the lake. The lake dumps into the asen pink. The asen pink dumps into the Delaware. That's where the drinking water for 250,000 people comes. This is not a little problem. This is something that needs immediate attention. There's so much plastic in colonial lakes and I'll tell you we just had the 100redy year anniversary for that lake and I live there. I love that lake and there in a 100 years there are generations of fathers and sons that have gone there and fished that the best memories in their life were there that this is an important place and you cannot the the creek is connected to the lake. You can't treat it like it doesn't exist. The township has to take responsibility. There is a solution called a trash a trash trap. I have a picture I can show you. I I studied this. It we already use it in the canal. I'm sorry I'm getting upset. I'm trying to calm down. But this is a serious problem and I need to get it across. A trash trap can be installed upstream and catch all this track. After every rain, someone has to come and empty out all the trash with backup. So

this needs to like you guys a regular citizen cannot be googling how to install one of these in their lake. This can a professional has to come out. It has to be installed, monitored, checked. So it does disturb wildlife. There's a lot of people that has to get on the same page, but there's not enough time. And one all the vegetation is going to turn green. It's going to be impossible to get any trash, any litter or even get back there at all since you build the ticks. This is needs immediate action. This is why I'm doing this. I know how important this is. In that creek right now is a beaver dam or beaver lodge. I'm sorry. That is 11 ft long. There are chewed up trees everywhere. This is their habitat. I know this is strange to care about, but this is why I am doing this.

All right. No, no, no. I You had a few more seconds. Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to know that you had a few more seconds. Oh, okay.

Yeah. But also, this area is important. It's historically important. Right down the road from the Princeton Pike in the shopping center is the battlefield. This is the 250th year anniversary. This animal is historically important as well. The bird trade pushed westward expansion in this country. It is an important animal that people need to know about. And this place is perfect. It could be a park. I swear all I've hiked all over and track beaver all over this wershed. And this park is important. I swear everywhere else if you want to see a beaver in a lie, you got to walk through the woods a mile, mile and a half through all this stuff. People don't want to do that. You could park in this parking lot, walk up a trail 90 ft, and you can see a beaver in the end. There's an Olympic size swimming pool beaver pond right there. It's 6 in of standing water. And it this oil is leaking towards this pond. This is very serious. I didn't go to school for ecology. I study this stuff because of the B-roll. I know this is crazy, but I need your help. I need someone to please reach out to those people and tell them to not park there. They need you to turn their exhaust pipes the other way around. Their exhaust pipes are going right to the lodge.

So, I will say someone has to ask nicely, please. Like the mayor, someone in charge like that is important. So, I I've spoke with the township manager already. No, no, the manager, the person with the trucks that parked there. I'm getting to that. Okay. So, give me a second to explain myself. All right. Please. Um, so I I've spoken with the township manager. I I think we've already I I think you mentioned to me in email conversation that you've also spoken with the health department. I did. They came out. I saw the lady twice, but I mean like I told them about the oil spill a week ago. I mean, this can't I'm throwing kitty litter on this. I'm a citizen. It's also

I know it takes time, but this is a diesel oil spill. I'm sorry. Sometimes it's also private property. It's owned by it's not owned by the township, right? So we have to I I I understand but I understand sorry but this is the windmill state. This is you can't use a plastic bag and mandating individuals to do better which I agree with. But letting a property owner of the property trash their property I'm not saying we're allowing a property I know you're not allowed I know you're not allowed. So let's let's take it down. I'm just I'll sit down. I'll sit down. But I'm just really upset and everyone else should be too. Everyone else should be upset what's going on in that creek.

No one wants to I swear I invite you all to look at it in person with me.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. I was just going to say the residents, I've been impressed by the beavers that are there. I've been not maybe not as happy about them taking down some of the trees on on the the bowling alley side, but I understand the importance of the beavers at that lake and so I understand the importance of that lake and I think all of us on this council appreciate nature and and its importance, right? So, we're going to get to the bottom of it, but it's going to take a little bit more time. And I understand your urgency about it. And I think the managers heard that loud and clear. So, we'll stay in touch and keep you. So, but thank you for your passion. I appreciate that. Um, anyone else for public? Thank you.

If I can say again, thank you for your passion and bring it to our attention. Thank you, Mark Ruber. Thank you for this honor and thank you for all that you do for the township. It's very appreciated. And hello everyone. I'm new to the community. Today is my third month anniversary. I want to say something about the art that when you come in here I have two things to say. First I want to speak about the art that when you come in here there is an image that says take a risk which is of a man jumping over a chasm that 99.9% chance he would die if any human being took this risk. And it's a dangerous subliminal influence. I just spoke to officer Lee about it. He gave me permission to use his name. And I said, "Officer, is it possible that this could do any good for somebody?" And he said, "No." And I said, "Do you see how it can have no effect? It could be neutral." He said, "Yes." And I say, "Do you see it how it could have a bad effect?" And he says, "Yes." And today, Mr. Oakley, the coordinator, spoke of public safety, preventing hazards. This is a hazard right here. I know someone from Denver who became a paraplegic because when he was young, someone told him, convinced him to take a jump, you know, as these things, daredevil things sometimes happen. And

this has an effect time and time again. Okay, I mentioned in the police station now at least for six days in official places the most stunning propaganda, Chinese propaganda in some manner that has been in the police stations. And in the same way that this is not noticed, those things are not noticed. and I've spoken to the mayor a couple of months ago about it and I complained and I don't want to say what the mayor said earlier. Okay, I will now move to my second order of business. I'm a sociologist and I have been doing a study for seven years in Europe nearly before I came. I was away far from a Native American from Manhattan originally, although I used to live in New Jersey also when I was young and in Essex County on about 2,000 women and a number of ladies here know about my study. There has been an enormous breakthrough on the female mind. So that what has been discovered is that what is most important to every normal woman on earth is for her to be herself. Yes, we have a yes this so we know that this is true. The men will not understand this because I'm a Berkeley trained sociologist. I did not understand. There has been a major breakthrough regarding what is most important to the female mind and it is very distinct from the male mind. And this past the last week, I was in conversation with the governor's office, a female there. I was also in conversation with the chief of staff of Senator Turner's office about this issue

because it has an enormous effect on employment because when a woman cannot be herself and this is something again a man cannot readily understand. She is under an enormous amount of stress. And in fact, it is likely the reason why the formal council woman Olympia resigned was because for long enough she could not be herself on her job. You understand what I say is true or please at least deny it if what if okay if there's something wrong please deny it because God is the truth. So if I am saying something wrong, ladies, please immediately let me know because otherwise the men would be deceived and it would be ungodly.

I'm nearly done. Okay, I'm just trying to be quiet. The conversation had to do with female bus drivers going through menopause ladies. And these female bus drivers cannot be themselves on the jobs enough of the time because if they were, they would explode. So that means they're in a catch 22 and it's a very dangerous situation. Do you understand this? Does everyone understand the safety issue? Because danger they don't have.

Okay. You understand this ladies? This is very serious business. Okay. And this was the conversation with the governor's office and also with the Senate promp. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. and I happen to be here. I happen to have the the knowledge on this information. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Anyone else? Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. At the last meeting, I brought to your attention a public court deposition by the township manager for the recent $3 million lower lawsuit that the township settled. I asked council to read the deposition because it was very concerning that it revealed that the township manager under oath intentionally gave false misleading information to a council member. In the deposition, the manager stated, "I called each council member in advance and I said, I'm going to be sending an email out regarding negotiations. It's going to not be true. It's going to have things that are designed to get a result. I asked each member of council to contact me to have a conversation concerning what appears to be unprofessional and unethical tactics, but none of you bothered to get back to me to at least say that his actions were concerning. Each one of you have reached out to me in the past seeking my endorsement and my goals to get you elected. But when I have a legitimate concern about corruption in a township government, this council remains silent. False misstating information was provided to an elected official to get a designed result. How is that not official misconduct? This council took an oath of office to uphold the rule of law. I asked you publicly, mayor, to make a statement regarding what appears to be official misconduct.

Mr. Ble, um before we had a conversation with our township attorney, and he first of all, three of the five members sitting before you today have no firsthand knowledge of that era time period. There were no comment questions given in the deposition just numbers numbered sections of that of a partial copy of the deposition. Um and so under advice of council and I'll let Mr. fill this in we decided to not respond. So Mr.

Thank you mayor. Yeah. Yeah. This was referred to me and we have done some research and I appreciate you know Mr. Clay's questions and issues. We we're issuing a memorandum which will be uh made public uh to the mayor of council and Mr. through the clerk's office uh with regard to uh our legal position as to if any members uh would uh want to meet with Mr. the ground rules for same uh or similar to New Jersey statutes and uh that'll be available uh probably before the end of the week. It'll be available through the clerk's office

and and it'll be delivered directly to all members of council. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. But, you know, again, I'll just say you know what I'm Thank you for your comments. That's all. It's very concerning and we can all be concerned about about behaviors of people.

Anyone else comment? Mr. Mayor, may I make a comment? Uh, not that. Uh, you know what? Yes. But please keep it brief. Yeah.

Um, I continue to be outraged and disappointed by the disingenuous statements by Mr. Politi. He knows the truth. He just made a statement to you that completely eliminates the nature of what transpired. He did it purposely. And for whatever reason, he believes that by standing up there, he's immune from liability. I am at the point where I said I was done before the last time. He's This is all he does. He comes up here and he makes discrediting remarks about me and sits down and is very pleased with himself, but it's disgusting. It's inaccurate. You know the truth, Mr. Kaki. You know the truth, Mr. Cybec. You know the truth. There's a bigger story out there and he knows the truth importantly and it's disgusting. And also after 25 years of knowing this man and him supporting me throughout my entire career, it continues to devastate me as a human being because all I do for this town is I try my best to do the work that you guys asked me to do. And that's all I have to say.

I will say that I appreciate the work that can really quick as a point of uh clarity. I've never asked for your um endorsement. Anyone else for public comment? Seeing that I'm going to close public comment. We now move on to review and revision of the agenda. Any changes? Do we still have any for uh close session? Mr.

Uh I believe we do, but solely with regard to certain personnel matters that No, no personel matters. I'm sorry. It's labor negotiations, but also in addition potential acquisition. Yes, that's going to be the change to the session. That's all we'll need tonight. Mayor, so do we need to should we modify um 18H7 to reflect that it's labor negotiations or remove uh OPRA actions and litigation and add can you repeat potential acquisition potential the OPRA action litigation may be another meeting.

Thank you. Anyone would like to move that motion? Motion to modify 18H7.

I'll make a motion to move uh to modify H7 on close session council meeting following the regular meeting discussion of labor negotiations and potential acquisition. I second. Miss Farmer, yes. Mr. Jl, yes. Mr. Yes. Miss Santos, yes. Mayor Bob, yes.

Seeing no minutes of previous meetings, we move on to 9A, awarding and or rejecting of bids. I'd like to move 9A number 109 authorizing awarding of bid 26-01 2025 road improvement program phase two connect second Mr. This is just a part of our continuous road improvement program second phase 2025. Thank you. Any questions from council? See none. Any questions from the public? Seeing none. Mhmer. Yes. Mr. Cleo? Yes. Mr. Kaki? Yes. Miss Sanchez? Yes.

Mayor Bobett? Yes. Now we're on to introduction ordinances 10. Uh, I'd like to move ordinance number 256-26, an ordinance amending chapter 15 of the Lawrence Township Administrative Code entitled boards, committees, and commissions and committees, ordinance number 2084-11 to rename the Burough Growth and Redevelopment Committee as the business and economic growth committee. Second. Thank you. I I'll ask Miss Santos because she's the one who put this on, not the manager.

And in time, I'll keep it quick. So the growth and uh growth and redevelopment committee last year uh took a look at their mission and devised a focus plan built around four strategic priorities. Um those are to facilitate local business networking and support, promote local spending, advocate for technology to improve their business environment, our business environment and enhance integration and advisory and planning and development. So they recommended a new name which reflects these four pillars and their new mission uh which is the business and economic growth committee. Thank you vote.

Miss Farmer yes Jio yes Mr. Kaki, yes. Yes. Mayor Bob, yes. 11, adoption of ordinances. Have to move ordinance number 255-26, an ordinance amending chapter 435 of the Lawrence Township administrative code entitled vehicles and traffic designation of one-way traffic pattern for public alley. Second.

Miss Farmer, Mr. Uh this just designates a one-way traffic pattern for a public alley between Pear Street and Strawberry Street. This uh action arises from a request from nearby property owners was investigated, considered, and recommended by our municipal engineer. Any questions from council? I have to say when I saw when I looked at that street, I that alley, I was surprised it was two-way. Um so thank you. Um any questions from the public? Seeing them as well. M Miss Farmer. Yes. Mr. Bear. Yes. Mr. Kathy. Yes. Santos. Yes.

Mayor B. Yes. Manager's report.

Um I just have something um quick to report. Uh the township um had been in extended communications and negotiations with Ryder University to acquire a uh significant piece of open space, the woodlands behind the campus. Um for more than actually almost two years, we've had the deal uh in place. Um but circumstances required Ryder to um engage in the county of Mercer County um who is now taking the lead and they've had a public meeting and a vote um on this issue and other issues relating to uh the county and Ryder teaming up together um which represents very good news for Ryder University and um I along with Mr. Cypac, we're going to be working with the county um to partner up and share in the acquisition of this open space because Ryder is important to our community. And I want the community to know and to Ryder to know that we are here to support their continued success um actually getting through this difficult time uh to return back to um a successful private institution which is challenging private institutions around the country. So really good news. Uh the county really came through big. Um our work was not in vain because they use a lot of what we did and the information that we compiled all the uh the survey work um it was relied upon to allow the county to act very quickly to get this done for Ryder. So congratulations to Ryder and to the counties of

Mayor that just just minor clarification that the meeting that the matter spoke of was the formal meeting of the board of county commissioners where they passed multiple resolutions uh with regard to uh Ry University and I've had discussions some of the callers county commissioners and county executive and there is a a concerted effort concerted effort on the part of the county uh through available funds not just county funds and state funds and other funds uh to help uh this great university u right next to us uh survive and uh I think our participation especially Mr. Winsky's uh concerted effort with the meetings with Prder has been very fruitful and and you can only imagine if that were to no longer exist the problems we would have here in large township.

Thank you. Anything else?

Yeah, I so I'll share with you Mr. Council and the public. I had a meeting today with the county executive and we discussed that a little bit and so I had there's I have a little bit of download to give you later and and the rest of my colleagues on council but again the the county executive was very clear about how important writer is not only I expressed the importance of it to Lawrence Township but he expressed it in terms of the importance to to Mercer County. So it's it's it's nice to see that it is it's known and and recognized as an important piece of that Importantly, the LHT segment um that was envisioned to go through the Ryder uh campus, we were able to um redirect it in a way that it's going to be a really meaningful segment within the Woods area uh that Ryder is happy with, the county is happy with, and that we are certainly happy with to further extending LHC trail system.

Right. and and you just remind me I'm sorry to take a little bit of time but just the importance of the big woods how special that forest is both for our community today but also for Alder Leopo who went to Lawrenceville school and who roamed the big woods and was one of the founding people of the environmental movement. Um and so to know that that piece of land is going to be preserved forever is just a really special attorney. Any questions from council work this evening mayor? Thank you report.

Just two things. Uh just a reminder that um March 23rd at 400 PM the nominating petitions are due um for county committee and also for our council vacancy. Um for those who are going to apply um Democratic Republican that will come to the clerk. For the independent you have up until primary day at 4:00 that will be filed with the county clerk. Uh also, uh public notices. Um there was a new law that went into effect March 1st. Um so now all of our public documents will be posted on the website. Um and also under the uh secretary of state website as well under legal notices. So that's where they will be on our website. We've been trying to work on it to make sure that it's there and um that will go um and that will be what the future is for legal notices. Our Oprah program is up and it is really popular and running efficiently like it should. Um I think we got close to if not over 300 requests since January when we uh did our kickoff. So that's it. Thank you. No unfinished business. New business appointments and committees. Do we have any right now? Are we going to hold off on a few or Yeah. boards committ? We have the one from last month that I asked to hold off. Then we got one and it's really says recreation advisory committee, but I know this person was also talking about the senior center.

Okay. All right. So, can we hold off for one more? Yeah. I defer to the leazison if you want to have a comfort level and and especially miss member councils that just have time to review. So all right I did also give you new ones that we received a new for environmental I think I can look at and then also uh well we have two for environment. All right.

And the other boards are uh recre uh recreation, public safety, um and two more uh two more zoning. So some of them that apply the board is already fielded. Okay. And and and you would also given us the most current uh I did that. You had that. Yeah.

Wonderful. Okay. Thank you. So we can also figure out Okay. public participation this time and we'll take a second to make sure that you just state your name again for the record. Mark, welcome. Something very serious is going on here. um which three of the female counselors are uh two of the counselors I'm sorry are aware about well please don't

to some degree more Amanda but direct sorry just one of the direct

pardon there was a breakthrough in my study that happened at the end of December and council member, then mayor Patricia Hendricks Farmer was involved. And the breakthrough was something a parenting practice for mothers to guide their daughters to get them to be able to less painfully experience their monthly cycle. Again, the women who know about this, including the clerks, if there is anything that I am saying that it is not true, please state

I don't understand what this has to do with Lawrence Township. I'm about to explain that personal. It's not right. It is personal. I don't want to hear it. I have been sent by the dasis to report child abuse. Okay. I have spoken to the secretary, I'm sorry, the chief of staff of Shirley Turner and she could understand how this is child abuse if this information is not given to the daughters.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're indicating that you were here at the direct direction of the Dascese of Trenton. I'm sorry. Repeat your question. You you just indicated you you were sent here or speaking for the Dascese. You said Dascese. I did say Dascese of what? Of Trenton. So are you are you an official representative of the Dascese of Trenton? I'm sorry. You misheard me and No, I didn't misheard you. I'm very careful when I listen. I have a recording. Maybe I spoke fast. I will repeat myself. Okay. The Dasis of Trenton gave me the thumbs up.

So, so you you have official recognition of the Dasis of Trenton. Are you saying that? That is not what I was saying. Oh, you have a thumbs up. What's that mean? Not to come here. I was not given the thumbs up. Well, then you can't make representations involving the Dascese of Trenton in a public meeting if you're not an official representative. Please refrain from doing that

to contact New Jersey because of mandatory child uh abuse reporting. This is that I went because it involved the dasis. So I went to the dasis and this is what they advised me to do. This is not this is not a forum. I'm just letting you know this matter that the township could be sued. So you're So you are aware this governmental entity. That's all I need.

Let me let me respond. Let me respond. This governmental entity has no jurisdiction over the the criminal laws involving the child abuse. Uh but there's mandatory reporting that No, this church, this government on entity does not have mandatory reporting. Uh the police department may

No, there's mandatory every citizen. There's mandatory reporting of child abuse for every citizen. So if there are members of the council or if there are people who are aware of this and I said if I'm saying something not true, then they should say something. I'm letting you know, mister, there are girls at risk and you may be liable financially. Thank you.

Anyone else? Yeah, you can. That's fine. All right. I'm sorry. All right. Just state your name for the record. My name is Charlie. My My last name is M. Um, welcome again.

Thank you very much. I I really need help. I'm not and I don't have a background in taking care of talking to government people and making all this come together. But this is really important. I'm trying to um I just really need help is what I'm trying to say. And this is a really serious issue. I really think that there's something going on in the ground back there in that field. There's the nastiest stuff that I used to have. My worst job I ever had. I used to work as a baggage handler. People don't realize every time a plane lands, someone has to empty the laboratory. They have to hook up a thing and pull this leg and it's sometimes it leaks. That job is a cakewalk compared to what is out in that field and what me and him been pulling out there. This is stuff for years. The plastic is deteriorating. The only way to get it out is to lift it up with your hands or it'll crumble into a million pieces. There are suitcases out there. There are cages out there. We found a trap, an animal trap. There's a bed in there. There's all I mean, this stuff has been there piling up for years. I I'm really sorry, but I know no one really goes back there. The reason why I haven't been back there in years is because for years, this place, crackheads, used to smoke back there. That's why I have never been back there in years. I didn't even know the beaver the lodge was there. But what they have done to the creek and the bank is eroding on the creek. It needs to be reinforced. It is literally about to fall off. This is It is dangerous back there. And also the beaver have dug a canal right into the field. They have flooded the field and there is a beaver pond there. It's literally the size of an Olympic swimming pool. This is the pollution in there. This is really a serious problem. I mean, someone that has like a degree in this kind of environmental science needs to like come to the site and look at it. And the EPA, I talked to all these people. I have texted, emailed,

report every everyone I can imagine because this is an important spot to me and to all the people in this community and I'm just really tired like exhausted emotionally and I need to sit down. I'm really sorry, but I'm just tired. I never stay up this morning. I have to go to bed every night at 8 because I have to wake up at 4 to see my beater at 5. So I bring that every day. I mean most people do not get to experience this. I know my dad told me not to do this. So I think I have you got a little bit of time. I'm not done. 30 seconds. I'm not sure. But anyway, I will share this.

Yeah. Right. I appreciate your passion. I appreciate you coming up. I know it's not easy to come up in public and speak about something that you're passionate about and sometimes it can get I'm not the most particular person here. I'm just a regular guy. I work at a grocery store. I mean it's I've read books and I've studied but like this is

but I think I think one thing that could be super first of all I would suggest and and has a different idea but I would suggest first of all stop going into the woods and pulling out stuff because you don't know what's in there you know. Um, and second of all, if you could, you know, you have my email address. If you could send me um another email with sort of the exact video as you can see in the video where it is that show where you had sent me one video and it was very tightly cropped so I wasn't quite sure where it was. Okay. So, that's the thing. If you could kind of tell us in that Mayor, we had first of all, message received. Thank you for coming tonight.

Thank you. Um, and you were here to help, right? No, this is my name. We've communicated with each other, Mr. So, we've we've reported it to the health department who's going to investigate it. I reported it to the chief of police. We have the director of public safety here. Tomorrow morning, we're going to get together. We're going to discuss engaging the D in this, okay? Because it involves negative impacting of the waterways. And I'll certainly inform Senator Shirley Turner about this issue as well. It's been going on for this site. I don't know if you guys know, but I'm sorry.

It's okay. In 1950, it was built on a dump site and there's uplift going on. I'm not see the property owner to let this happen. I don't know anything about that. I'm sorry. No. So, listen. It's the subject of illegal dumping. Not by the property owner, but certainly it's the property owner. What is the point of contact that we have to engage? My question is this. I work at Wegman's in West Windsor and they pick up the trash in the morning. They have guys buckets that do this every single morning. I see them. I've never seen anyone in that shopping center. I know you guys that area.

So, I mean, what what I'll end with is we hear you loud and clear. It sounds like the manager's on it. And thank you. Thank you. We'll stay in touch. All right. Okay. Thank No worries. And Charlie, if you didn't give me your cell phone number, email it to me. I I sent it sent you a email later this afternoon. So, okay. Just send it to I'll keep you. Thank you. Anyone else?

All right. With that, we're on to 18 resolutions. I'd like to move 18 A through 18 H8 and

Miss Bmer. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Kaki. Yes. Miss Santos. Yes. Mayor Pap. Yes. council initiatives and leaison reports. I mean, we've heard from one of your So, we heard uh this evening from the uh trails and open space committee. Um and the DEI, the diversity, equity, and inclusion committee met last week. Um basically, uh we're looking at uh the events for the year. Uh there is an interest mayor for you to possibly um visit one of our upcoming meetings. Okay. They would love for you to um have a conversation with them

about or is it just about No, you you'll be proud. Yeah. A friendly friendly conversation. Um and then um yeah so potentially that and looking to maybe fill uh we have an opening for a student on the committee as well as you know there's a a space for a police officer on DEI committee. Should I ask the chief about that?

I know he he's not here but I have the public safety director there. Um yes so that's it. historic as has nothing and as you know um on Saturday uh he historical society honored our former mayor Pam Mount as well as um Danny Hagerty who has done a lot of work in our community. Sorry. Anyone else? Back no written communications motion to go into session.

Motion Chris. Thank you. Appcate. I said nothing.