Town Council - Regular Meeting

benefit of public notice as required by the Open Public Meetings Act. Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Here. Here. Here. Please rise for the salute to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Please remain standing for the invocation.

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

Amen.

Madam Clerk, please proceed with the agenda. I will do that right now. There has been an amendment to the agenda since it was posted to our website. There have been additions to the website. I'm sorry, to the agenda. CA 1526-334 is a resolution approving first change order number one to contract 24-327. Awarded to Edward H. Cray, Incorporated for annual traffic signal maintenance, emergency repairs, installation of rapid flashing beacons and driver feedback signs. For on behalf of the Department of Community and Economic Development. Increase of $47,041.56. CA 1626-335. is a resolution approving the first change order number one to contract 26-251 awarded to W.J. Gross, Incorporated for the purchase and installation of door access control systems for the new municipal building located at 1750 Whitehorse-Mercerville Road utilizing the Camden County Educational Services Commission co-op purchasing program Number 66, CCEPS contract number FY23-01. This is an increase of $187,355. CA 17, 26-336 is a resolution authorizing the settlement of a tax appeal. Harris Hamilton Holdings LLC versus Township of Hamilton, docket number 007734-2021. 005826-2022 and 005900-2023. 004323-2024. 010095-2024. 005788-2025. That's for block 1520, block 11.02. CA 1826337 is a resolution authorizing the execution of a memorandum of understanding with unity to improve services and outcomes for victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual violence and their companion animals. CA 1926338 is a resolution authorizing the execution of a representation agreement for professional legal services with the firm of Gustafson Glueck PLLC as part of a class action litigation arising from injuries and damages related to and caused by fire truck manufacturers and other defendants unfair and anti-competitive business practices in violation of antitrust laws. Can I please have a motion to the amendment of the agenda?

Council President, I move that we adopt the changes to the agenda. I'll second that. Madam Clerk.

On the motion of Mr. Carabelli.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

For your consideration, we have the June 16th regular council meeting.

Council President, I'll make a motion to approve the June 16th, 2026 council minutes. I'll second that.

Mr. Carabelli. Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Next we have communications for proclamations for the month of August. We have Overdose Awareness Day, which is August 31st, and Women's Equality Day, which is August 26th.

Thank you. Council President, I move Communications C1. I'll second that.

Mr. Caravelli? Yes. Mr. Tye?

Yes.

Mr. DiPera?

Yes. Is Ms. Margarita Leahy of the Mercer Council on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction? Is she here today? Hi, ma'am. Hi. I know you would like to speak. Can you please come to the microphone? The floor is yours.

Good evening, Council President, members of Hamilton Township Town Council, and community members. Thank you for giving Richard Council on Alcoholism and Drug Addiction the opportunity to be here tonight for recognition of this proclamation. I'm Margarita Leahy, the Executive Director, and I'm here tonight with two of my staff, Victoria McCain, she's the Regional Coalition Coordinator here in Mercer County, and Caitlin Allen. We are grateful for this proclamation recognizing International Overdose Awareness Month and for Hamilton Township's continued partnership and commitment to our community. Tonight's proclamation is an important opportunity to recognize why this day matters and to invite our community and municipal leaders to join us. Your support is a powerful reminder that no one should face the impact of overdose alone. Whether you come to remember a loved one, support someone in recovery, serve our community, or simply stand in solidarity, you are an important part of this movement. This year's global theme is still needed. It reminds us that our progress has been made for overdose deaths, and they are declining. The work is not finished. We are still needed to educate our community members. We are still needed to reduce stigma. We are still needed to support individuals and their family members affected by substance misuse. And we are still needed to make sure that people know there's hope, recovery, and support available. For more than a decade, Mercer County has proudly observed International Overdose Awareness Day because every life matters, every loss leaves a lasting impact, and every act of compassion makes a difference. We are especially thankful to Hamilton Township for continuing to partner with us as the host of this event at Veterans Park. We truly appreciate the township's support and dedication. A special note of gratitude goes to the grounds crew, police officers, first responders, and township staff who helped make this gathering possible through their assistance and hard work. This partnership is a wonderful example of how municipal government and community organizations can come together to serve our residents. So tonight we'd like to extend an invitation not only to the council but to all the Township residents to join us on August 27th at 5.30 p.m. at Veterans Park for this event. Come to remember those we have lost. Come and support those in recovery. Come and stand beside families who have been impacted. Come learn, connect, and be part of a community that believes every person deserves dignity, compassion, and an opportunity for recovery. Thank you again to the Council for this proclamation, for your continued partnership, and for recognizing that this issue affects all of us as a community. On August 27th, we hope you will join us. because we are still needed and together we can make a difference. Thank you so much on our behalf.

Thank you. We thank you for all the good work that you do as well.

Margarita and your team, thank you so much for coming tonight. Thank you for your support. I know most of us in the room can attest that unfortunately, you know, including my family, we've been impacted with individuals in our family that have been, you know, that have gone down the path of drugs or alcoholism and it's not a final Final say, there's definitely a tomorrow through your support and your team support and individuals like you that give up your time and effort. You make a difference, so thank you.

Madam Clerk, please proceed with the agenda.

Yes, next for your consideration is consent agenda item CA1 through CA19.

We do have a couple reappointments to positions. We have a line item that was added for an opioid settlement in the amount of $46,000. Pedestrian safety improvements around Klockner, large item that was awarded to us for $869,000. Grant application for $14,000 as well. Shared services agreement with Robbinsville for the ecological center. Pond restoration project. If you remember that's it's saying that money was already approved. Half is from the grant and half comes from us. One year extension for emergency repairs for WPC. Professional service agreement transferred from one person to another, one company to another rather. Our various rental and cancellation refunds of events and tax overpayments. An exciting one is the municipal building furniture. The dais that just wants to get us one step closer. And I'll leave it there. And if my council colleagues, I know, Rick, you were in the agenda meeting. If you have anything to add to our consent agenda items, and then Councilman Carabello can follow up.

I'm just glad to be partnering with Unity to improve the services and outcomes for the victims and survivors of domestic violence.

I'll just mention briefly on the consent agenda of the council president. And you mentioned that, you know, establishing the ongoing shared agreement and shared services agreement with Robinsville that, you know, our cooperative relationship with our neighboring municipality. I'd love to see that. And then also, I had one question for Kathy. Kathy, regarding the CA-7, Contract with Kevin Downs Tree Service. This is all part of the work that we're doing. I know that part of it's funded by a grant. Council President mentioned that part of it's funded by capital dollars. But this is just not only are we fixing the pond, but we're also removing trees and putting in trees. Can you just give me a little bit?

It's part of a whole plan that they've done, too, for restoration. But most of it is the restoration of the pond itself, which is a very specific type of work. And so we've gone out to bid for this to get the best that we can for that. But it also needs to be uniquely qualified companies and individuals that we end up choosing. And this one is. And so we're really looking forward to, we've been waiting to kind of kick off this project because it's a big one. But it'll be beautiful when it's all done.

Excellent. Okay. That was all.

Any other questions or comments from council on the consent agenda items? So at this time, we will take people from the audience that wish to speak. And remember, this is only on the consent agenda items on the agenda. If you would like to speak, please raise your hand. We'll call you up. You'll have four minutes to speak. And please remember, at this time, it's not public comment. This is only on consent agenda items. Yes, sir. When you come up, Please state your name and what town you live in for the record. And you have four minutes.

Sure. Kevin Ott, Hamilton Township. I have a question regarding CA 1426333, the $102,061.21 we're spending on a podium and dais furniture for the new council chambers. What are we getting for $102,000?

That's a maximum that we're allowing to be spent, and that's for the furniture for the new council chambers.

I mean, $102,000 worth of furniture sounds like an awful lot of furniture for a dais. I know we're excited about the new building and the new chambers and everything, but that just seems... I mean, I've never bought dais furniture or protium.

I haven't either, so I can't say whether it's a lot or not a lot. CA 14, 333.

It just seems like a... really really significantly high number for for Deus furniture in a podium I know we're excited about the new building but this kind of feels like you know we're just spending a lot of money and we feel like you know we want some nice new stuff so we're we're maybe just approving some some really big numbers for some maybe not so necessary things and I think the council should probably take a closer look at that because that seems very excessive. Thank you.

Understood. Anyone else? Sir, come on up.

Just your name and what town you live in for the record, please. Andy Kazma Hamilton. Thank you. I would just like to follow up with this gentleman. What are we doing with the furniture we already have here? I mean, that's going to get transferred over to the new building, I would assume. Yeah, that and the wallpaper we're going to take to the Smithsonian. Well, all the chairs you're sitting in, and that was a very smart answer that you just gave. I hate to say that to you. But all the things that are here aren't going to just get thrown out, I would assume. I would think you're taking some of this. I just wanted to know what's happening with everything that's here.

We talk every meeting about the furniture in here and the wallpaper. That's why it's a joke to everybody that comes to every meeting, because we talk about the wallpaper that's been up for so long. I wasn't taking a shot or being a wise guy.

Well, it sounded like it, though. OK. Well, it wasn't. Thank you.

You're welcome. Hello. I'm kind of new to Hamilton. Sure. So I just want to introduce myself. My name is . I live on Sundown.

Yes. I'm recording the meeting. Did we get permission to do so?

I'm sorry?

Yeah, you're not, we have, those rules are not just allowed to record any meeting. You have to put a written response in. You have to put a written request in for that prior to the meeting. Thank you.

Yes. So I wanted to introduce myself. I'm sorry I have not been in meetings in the past. I've been pulled by a lot of ICE activities, so it's been keeping me away from actually coming to the meetings. But I also have a question related to the same topic. I just wanted to know how you came up with this number, 102,000. So if you could please answer that for the public as well.

So there's going to be a bill similar to this. It's custom for the room. So it's a relatively high expense item because it's being built custom for that room. And then the entire room needs to be filled with furniture. It's going to cover all the furniture in that room. It's going to be a larger room than this room to provide more comfort to the members of the public in the future who will hopefully continue to join us at our meetings. There is a breakdown. There are flip top council dais tables. Each one of those units is a little bit under $8,000. There are 12 of those. There's council podiums, two of those like that, about 35, 3,800 each. So right there, that gets you to $102,000.

It's important to remember, too, that this is also shared with another governing body. So the Board of Ed is also utilizing this room. So the room is going to be utilized almost all the time when the new building is open. So it's really outfitting that. And it's the sound system that's within the dais as well, so that adds money to it as well so you know it's a construction prices have gone up and the last time I looked at them but this is bid like everything else that we're required to do so this was the lowest responsive bid that we got for the outfitting of the day it's true thank you and Kathy just in answering that gentleman's question regarding

the property that we have here, some of it will go over to the new building, but some of it will also be auctioned, I'm assuming, right?

For all of the files and in all of the offices here, we're taking all of the file cabinets to move them to the new building. Other furniture is not being taken. It's old enough. We haven't replaced furniture in many years here, knowing that we were going to have a new building at some point, and so we did not spend money on things like building upkeep and the furniture within. However, because we're a public entity, we're required to auction off anything that we don't use in the new building. So nothing will just be left here. We'll have to inventory it and then auction it off sometime after we vacate this building.

Thank you. Anybody else? Lisa, come on up. We're just going to take a timeout while they sign. Yeah, they're just signing their names for the next part. I have Lisa first. Well, we're, I called Lisa up. We're just waiting to give everybody an opportunity to sign in, and then we'll do the consent agenda.

It's okay.

Yeah, we'll just give them a minute. The sign in is to speak over here. The sign in is to speak during public comment, which would be the open part of the meeting. This is about the consent agenda right now.

Are you? All right, we're going to reconvene to meeting, please. Good evening. William Hamilton.

It's okay. It's the same topic. They're by board by now. So how many bids did we get on the?

Please give the speaker the attention.

How many bids did we get for the Dyess furniture?

Do you know? That was only one bid submitted.

So we have the lowest of one.

Fifteen prospective bidders viewed the bid. Only one submitted a bid. Only one actually submitted.

So we got the only bid. We don't know if there's a better deal because nobody else.

Well, there was 15 people viewed it, but only, sorry, Rick.

Right, but you only got one bid package. So when we said we got the lowest bidder, we got the only bidder. So there might have been a cheaper person if somebody wanted to get involved and maybe if they could fix it. I just think there's been a lot of public unhappiness on social media about our tax bill. So I think that we need to be very careful about every dollar we spend, and while this is being shared with the school district when there was that meeting at the senior center in the beginning of the process, even the mayor said that the reason that we were building the town was doing the building with the school district is because the school district couldn't as easily do it, and it's all the same taxpayers. So all the same taxpayers, no matter how you slice this, are paying for every single thing, and people are struggling. Our tax increases, whether you want to call it the municipal side, the school district, or the county side, were high. The school district would not have gotten authority to build them, would not have passed a referendum to build the buildings, primarily administration. Are we taking the TVs and electronics with us, or are we auctioning all of that off, too? I know this is just for the furniture, but people need to be careful. There are people in this town struggling. And they don't qualify for senior freeze because they're not 65. And they make significantly less than $172,000 cut off of a senior freeze applicant right now.

So the answer is yes. We are taking things like that, right? Cameras and things that are part of our video systems and all of that, those are coming with us. We're not replacing those. We're not auctioning those off. And in fact, some of the, say, the camera systems, some of those have been purchased recently, but we make sure they're portable so that we can just take them and bring them with us. Nothing here is done permanent anymore because we want to be able to bring it with us. Okay. Thank you. So it's only one bid.

Yes.

There was one responsive bidder. That's correct.

Yes.

Juliana Corella, Hamilton resident, same topic. Only because you mentioned the speakers, is this also going to include potentially the live streaming capacity, whatever we were talking about last meeting?

I don't know about the ability to. I don't know the answer to that. That's an idea. That's an idea. But we can find it. OK, perfect. Right.

Were you raising your hand? Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Anybody else that would like to speak on the consent agenda items? Okay, seeing none.

Council President Singh. Sorry about that. Seeing no members, no additional members of the public wishing to comment, I move that we close the public comment portion and move consent agenda item CA1 through CA18. CA19. CA19, excuse me. I'll second that.

A motion for Faraday.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Questions or comments from council?

No, we're expressly prohibiting these types of facilities with this ordinance. Agreed.

Do you have anything to borrow?

No. Questions or comments from the public on ordinance 126-026? Yep, ordinance number one. Seeing none, can I?

Hi. One, I want to say thank you so much for actually having an ordinance that would ban detention centers.

Ma'am, can you just state your name and what time you live in?

Charlene Walker.

Thank you.

And I serve the city of Hamilton, among other locations. Thank you. I'm the executive director of Faith in New Jersey. Thank you. I want to applaud you for actually having an ordinance to ban detention centers, but I would like you to strengthen it just a little bit. Can you please add in administrative offices that support those detention centers because there is a widespread thing that's happening where people are like, well, we can't build a detention center here, but we can put an office here. or check-in, and that is also part of the detention center pipeline.

So repeat your request?

To add in administrative offices.

That support?

That support detention, jail, and deportation.

Would that already be covered in the legal terms?

Included in carceral activities?

Not technically.

We're not interested in having those places here.

Any offices that support those systems. So like GEO Group will open an office in this township, and it would be for check-ins, it will be for processing, it will be for paperwork, it will be for a whole host of things. And that also contributes to the detention.

Well, relating to prisoners and check-ins and that type of thing, I would feel pretty confident that that would fall under carceral activities.

I'm going to have to look at that as a lawyer.

Not opposed to it.

I need to look more into it and see, you know, now that we have this, we'll see where we go. Because, you know, if it just, I need to look into it more. Please reach out.

Thank you. Hi again.

It's me. I also wanted to say we bought our first house here. So I'm actually going to stay here. I'm super, super happy about that. So I definitely want to make Hamilton safe and great. And I also want to say I'm so happy to see this. This makes me feel really like my heart is so warmed by this. And I wanted to know, as people who make sure that our immigrant community feel welcome here, if you'll also add something in there to ensure that our police department aren't handing people over to ICE through our jail systems through detainers. So if you don't know, I'll just explain this really quickly. I know that we see some confused faces. So basically in the Constitution it says innocent until proven guilty, right? There's something called due process that everyone is afforded, correct? Everyone understands that part so far. So if you accuse me of a crime, so say you say I assaulted someone and I get arrested, Simply by this accusation, and I get arrested, I didn't see a judge yet. If you are an immigrant in the municipality of Hamilton, the police department can hand you over to ICE. And so what I'm asking is just to make sure the Constitution applies to everyone. And can you just ban detainers without judicial warrants? So a judicial warrant says, ICE, we're not going to hand you over. ICE has to have that person with a judicial warrant. But most of the detainers, it's just like I said, people get arrested, they never see a judge, they're never found guilty, and they're handed over to ICE. So I would like to add banning detainers without judicial warrants. If there's a judicial warrant, no problem, hand them over tight. But if there isn't a judicial warrant for the safety of everyone, for equity, we hope that we can add that. So I'd love to speak more with you all about that, if that's okay as well.

We could talk offline about that.

All right. Thank you. Is it okay if I just hear any opinions you guys have?

I have questions for our attorneys on that same topic.

Wonderful. And may I hear everyone's opinion just on the fact that immigrants are being handed over to ICE without ever seeing a judge? Do you have an opinion on that? And without ever actually having been found guilty of anything, just being accused?

So we're gonna stick to what we're doing here.

This is a zoning law that we're, and part of our protocol is to stay on topic. So we're talking about a zoning law. At the end of the meeting, if you wanna come back up and readdress this issue, then we can talk about it more at that time.

Yeah, I was actually connecting it to the detention centers that you have here.

Yeah.

So yeah.

Yeah. What I think my question is, which will help you understand where I'm coming from. Does that apply to this? Or would it need to be passed with something else? Right? Is that because we are I know law enforcement in New Jersey already has orders from the governor's office on how this is going to happen and not happen. So would that would what is being requested? apply to this ordinance or would it be something separately because I understand your purpose totally understood totally respect that however does it go right are we trying to just shove it in with something else or does it have to be done separately or is that even our body of law and I'll let you answer that two things it is governed by attorney general of the state am I on yes it is governed by the attorney general of the state so we can't we can't

overstep what are the directives from. You can't hear me? I'm sorry. I mean, that's really unusual that people can't hear me. So what I was saying is that it is governed by the state of New Jersey and the Attorney General's office. There are directives coming straight down from that. So that's one question. Number two, it is not attached to this ordinance. and it can't be part of this ordinance, we would have to do something, we would have to figure out if we wanted to, if we could, if there was a way to do something more, but I think it's actually, It's really controlled at this time by the state government and the directors of the Attorney General's office.

If I may, thank you. So now I'll introduce myself as my actual position. My name is Esmael Huni and I'm a community organizer with Resistencia en Acción. So we do immigration work. We actually advocated for this law to pass, so we actually sat with people who passed it and just wanting you to...

Which law?

This recent law that says that police can't, you know, work with ICE, right? And other things like shared data, et cetera, et cetera, right? And so actually the law states that the state law is the floor. In fact, if you look at the video where it passed, We have legislators who stood up on the floor and said, this is the floor. We expect local municipalities to go above that to protect their community. So we're asking you to do that. So it's absolutely in your discretion to decide not to hand people over to ICE just because they're accused of something. So basically, just for you to know, it's an administrative request. So it's not a judicial warrant.

So that's why... No, I understand the difference between the administrative warrant and the judicial warrant.

So yeah, I advise you to just watch the video. I know a lot of lawyers aren't like... haven't really looked into the law, but because this is what we do. Our executive director is here. She can talk a little bit more about that. But this is literally what we do. So that's why we study this law. Faith in Action was with us as well to pass this law. We're happy about the law, but it's not strong enough. And as the legislator said, it's the floor because immigrants are still not being protected. And they're still being, yeah.

I apologize, but what was your name? It's very nice to meet you. We'll be happy to talk to you. Right now we're going to focus on this ordinance, which is about the actual facility. That process we can talk to you about, no problem. But let's focus on this, getting this passed to ban the facilities. Or if it passes, I can't say which way everybody's going to vote. But let's get this going and then let's have a conversation. We're happy to sit and talk with you and hear what you have to say. Thank you so much. But let's get this passed and then move on to the next fight. I appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Yes, it is. Yes, ma'am. You are correct.

Council President, seeing no further comments from the public on ordinance number 126-026, which is on second reading, I look to move this ordinance and bring it before our council body. I'll second that.

On the motion, Mr. Caravelli?

Yes.

Mr. Pai? Yes.

Mr. Perfero?

Yes. I must answer first.

That's a 3-0. Ordinance 2-26-027 is . And Madam Attorney, if you could just refresh my recollection. This is establishing the waiting period to coincide with law to update our local ordinances, correct?

So this is just more of a cleanup than anything because our ordinance didn't actually state how many days you had to hold the item. So this is just making it very clear in our ordinances to match what is said in the state.

Perfect. Thank you. Any questions or comments from council? Okay. Anybody that would like to comment on this ordinance only, 26028, number 3? I'm sorry, I apologize, 26027, number two. If you would like to comment, please raise your hand. We'll call you up and you have your four minutes. Seeing none.

Seeing no members of the public wishing to comment, I move that we close the public comment portion and move ordinance 226-027 on second reading. I'll second.

Mr. Canarelli? Yes.

Yes. Questions or comments?

It's very self-explanatory. Questions or comments from the public on Ordinance 3-26028?

Council President, seeing no further comments from the public on this, I look to close the public comment portion and move on to Ordinance 326-028. I'll second that.

Mr. Caravelle?

Yes. Mr. Cai?

Yes.

Mr. Caravelle?

Yes.

Ordinance 326-029. I need a question. Supplementing the code in terms of the town of New Jersey, Section 485, use of the traffic, Article 2, parking, Section 485-9. Parking prohibited at all times on certain streets. Establishing no parking zones on Randall Avenue and McClellan Avenue.

So Ordinance 3 was establishing a handicap parking spot and the difference here is Ordinance 4, 26029, is establishing no parking zones on two specific areas. Questions or comments from council on Ordinance 4?

Do you know why we need no parking zones on these streets?

I haven't looked at the details.

Where the school is? Yeah. Oh, this is where we were talking about doing the one-way.

No. No.

No, that's Kistark. This is a school. It's creating problems where people are parking. Okay. Got it. Questions or comments from the public on Ordinance 4-26029?

Seeing none. Council President, seeing no members of the public, wishing to comment, I'll move ordinance 426-029 on second reading.

I'll second that.

Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Ordinance 526-029, a property, only designated as block 2102, block 64, located on Cedar Lane in the center of the town of Mercer State in New Jersey.

Do you want to go ahead? Do you have anything else?

Well, the one thing that I would say is the township owns dozens of very small parcels of property throughout the township. It creates an added burden on public works to have to maintain these properties. We have an opportunity to sell this particular parcel, very small, less than a tenth of an acre to the neighboring property owner. That'll get it off of our books and they'll put it back on the tax rolls and be less work for us.

And it's going to be auctioned so it won't just be given to one person. They'll have the opportunity, equal opportunity to purchase it.

Right. And we, according to the statute, we have to get the fair, basically what it's worth, the fair market value. So the lowest bid. is that number. So we're not giving away the property for less than what it's worth.

Yes, 26,000. What's the number?

Yeah, so much, much like it was brought up with the excess furniture or material, we just did the excess mulch. Those things, those items go up for auction. This is done with a similar way. So similar to how stuff will be done here. That property is going to be auctioned off the same way.

Alyssa, is there, and I should know this, but I forget, do the neighbors get notified? Is it something where they'll get a specific notification that goes out to them? But it's an auction for anyone who wishes?

There's different statutes depending on the type of property that's being sold.

Okay.

In this situation, the property is not a buildable lot, we have no public use for it, and so there's a specific subsection in the statute that dictates how we can do the auction and to whom we can auction the property to. In this specific type of situation, because it's less than a buildable lot, there are neighbors on either side, it only can be auctioned And we have no public use for it. We can only be auctioned to the two neighbors on either side. It turns out we actually own a piece of property behind but we're not going to bid on our own property.

Okay.

So it's there's three contiguous property owners, two neighbors that are separate entities plus us so we're not bidding. So that those those two and they have a choice whether the only two that can bid on this correct and and and they're not forced to bid on it if they don't want to want to.

Okay. Makes sense.

Rick, do you have anything? Okay, anyone wishing to comment on Ordinance 5-26-030? Second reading and public hearing.

Council President, seeing no further comments from the public, I look to close the public comment portion and move on Ordinance 5-26-030 on second reading.

I'll second that.

On motion to paralleling?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay, so just to give an explanation, I know we have a lot of newer people to the meeting. At this time, this is public comment, so you're more than welcome to talk about something on the agenda, or you can come here with an issue that you had, whatever it may be. During this time, we ask to everybody be respectful to one another, right? Whoever has the floor has the floor. Don't shout. Don't belittle them. Show them the same respect we give everybody else, including what we want for ourselves. They get four minutes. Everybody here is going to get four minutes. If you don't want your four minutes, then you don't have to take a full four minutes. You can say, I'm done. After we go through the whole list the first time, if you want to come back up a second time, you can come back up for additional two minutes to talk about the same thing, or you can bring up something new, whatever it is you want to talk about. Everybody good? So we're going to go through the list. We have a lot of people signed up. I apologize if I screw up names. Some of the handwriting is not as clear as I would like it to be. So I am going to do my best. I will get everybody up here. And we try to keep the same order the second time. But if we go out of order, we just try to make sure, like I said, Give your neighbor the same respect that you asked for and everything works out okay. We're not always going to get along. We're not always going to agree. But we need you to come here because we don't hear things unless you tell us. Fair? All right. Now my eyes are not 20 years old anymore. They're almost 50. So I'm going to try and read some of this. I'm going to try and read some. Reverend looks like Eric. Sir, you are up first. You are first on the list. I apologize. I cannot read your last name. If you could state your name.

Absolutely, sir.

And you don't have to state your address for the record. We don't ask that. We allow that privacy. But your town. If you come here.

That's okay. My name is Reverend Eric Cussman. Thank you. I serve as lead pastor of St. Bartholomew Lutheran Church on South Clinton Avenue. I'm here to, I'm representing a coalition of folks in the family right now over the failure of the arrive together. On July 27th, there was a call of a crisis, a suicidal son, which was met with police violence.

Can you pause this time for one second? If you see us, yeah, pause this time not to record. If you see us looking down and we're not being disrespectful, we're not listening, take notes. Okay. There's a lot of speakers, and it's very difficult to remember everybody, what they say, so you take notes. If you see us looking down, I promise we're not fiendish.

No, that's fine. That's cool.

Just want to, like I said, we have a lot of new faces, and I don't want people thinking that we're not fiendish.

A lot of folks in this room were a part of that coalition also, so we're a concerned community.

That's why I'm trying to be upfront and clear. I swear we're not playing games. We're literally taking notes.

I got you. Thank you, sir. So if you see me looking down, I have some notes that I'm going to read. Tomato, tomato, you know.

You can pull a chair up. You can pull a chair up.

So I would assume that you all are familiar with the Arrive Together Act. If I'm correct, Hamilton Township was the pilot program which pairs a police officer with a mental health professional in times of crisis. I'm highlighting the failure of this program in the Township of Hamilton. As we know, there's been a lot of issues with the failure of this just all around the state right now between NIGC, Brooks, and Patterson. There was a grandmother in New Brunswick that was shot by police officers in a mental health crisis. Thank God this wasn't that. But these incidents are highlighting the widespread failing of a system that relies on its militarized police force. Police have come in with aggression looking for perpetrators without having the proper training and care to help those in need. I'm going to highlight putting handcuffs on a 17-year-old that slit his wrist is not okay. That's technically illegal. They're supposed to treat the wound in a mental health crisis. Instead of de-escalation, officers met a family on July 27th with aggression. left the five and 11-year-old unattended while they arrested the rest of the family in the house and charged them with an exuberant amount of charges that is ridiculous. I've seen house footage. I've seen cameras. The way your township's officers behaved was borderline racist because it was a Spanish family. There's comments and videos that I've heard. This is not okay. This is not who we are. I have a lot of respect for the Township of Hamilton and the community here. A lot of my members in my congregation are from the Township of Hamilton.

And this family are members of my congregation.

So I'm not going anywhere. Okay? But let me just highlight. The family called for help during a mental health crisis, and that's the main point. Right? They deserved care, safety, and support. And instead, they experienced force, arrest, separation, and further trauma. We're asking the council to use the authority it has now to stand with the family, pursue accountability, and change the systems that failed them. So number one, we're requesting an independent investigation. We demand the council pass a resolution formally requesting an independent investigation by the Mercer County Prosecutor, and where appropriate, the New Jersey Attorney General, and to the police response to this family. The investigation should examine the use of force, arrest, de-escalation, treatment of family members, disability considerations, supervision, and compliance with law and policy. And we ask that findings be made public to the fullest extent allowed by the law. Number two, investigate what failed inside Hamilton. We demand that council examine Hamilton's systems and decisions surrounding this incident, how the family's calls for help were received and dispatched, what officers were told, why police were sent, why de-escalation was not attempted, what role supervisors played, and what happened after the family was arrested and separated from their son. I also want to remind you, when they took the son finally to a hospital, they did not notify what hospital the child went to. That's not acceptable, and I hope that's not acceptable to anybody here. We demand the council pass a resolution supporting the family's call. Is that my time up?

You finished the thought there?

Yes. Please. We demand public reporting or at least three years of Hamilton mental health and disability-related police encounters, including calls for assistance, arrests, use of force, injuries, complaints, crisis service referrals, repeat calls, and outcomes.

You can come up for your additional two minutes. I want to get through everybody on the list.

Yep, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up is a minister, and I do not want to put your name.

It's okay.

Say it for the record. Say it for my...

Hello, everybody. My name is Minister Archange Antoine. I come with the St. Bartholomew Church in Trenton in solidarity with the Arkel family who were beat, mishandled, and had their constitutional rights violated by the Hamilton Police Department. Officer Atberry, Officer Hannon, Officer McCullen, Officer Kenner are all cowards. for choosing to mishandle a family and for being unable to handle a mental health crisis when a son tries to kill himself. And all the officers in this police department who have not checked and who have not confronted their fellow officers are also cowards too. More than likely, this behavior that we saw at Hamilton Police Department, it's been happening longer than this video came out. And we're not surprised that more than likely, some of these officers are aiding and abetting ICE or violating other people's constitutional rights in town, especially in the border town. Because in 2016, when they released the use of force case, Hamilton Township Police Department was ranked higher than over 364 police departments in the state of New Jersey. That's excessive. And this video today is nothing new. Members of the council and mayor, it's a shame that you did not suspend the officers without pay. We don't know why. somebody violates people's constitutional rights, handcuffs somebody trying to kill themselves and your response is absolutely nothing, burying behind an attorney. Are you afraid of the police unions? Are they your friends? Remember you are elected to represent the community and the community needs to know that their elected officials stands with them and not side with the police and those in power. To the members of the community, you do not have to tolerate any of this. If you feel that your rights are being violated, you have a right to file a report. And I stand with the family and the community today to demand that all charges be dropped against a family that had their rights violated, that there be an independent investigation, that you fire these officers. They do not need to be in the police department. We've seen it time after time, and people have lost their lives in the same situation. And Officer Atberry, Officer Hammond, Officer McCullen, and Officer Kenna, they need to be fired. Thank you.

I'm going to call up next on the list, number three, Chris and Ana Janela.

As stated, my name is Christian Elvis and my wife, Anna. We're the homeowners on 199 Applegate Drive. Since October 2025, my wife and I have endured an ongoing pattern of harassment, trespassing, stalking, vandalism, and intimidation from our group of juvenile individuals. Over the past 10 months, these individuals have come onto our property at least 18 times, often late at night, repeatedly banging on our door, stalking us, verbally harassing us, and damaging property. The incidents have continued to escalate, including one particular alarming event in which a large mortar firework was shot intentionally at our house, all right off a huge drive. Throughout this process, there has been little measurable progress made by the police department beyond the evidence that my wife and I have provided and gathered. We have personally provided 30 videos and pictures across eight police reports. In addition, we have what we believe is indisputable evidence of a juvenile linked to events on January, March, and this past Sunday. You would think it's the same exact picture. There are three different incidents. We were informed by juvenile detectives that following that March incident, confessions had been obtained from several individuals. That same juvenile continues to be involved today, was connected to those events, and should be identifiable either through those confessions or by the individuals who provided their confessions. This individual has also been linked to the black pickup truck involved in the firework incident, along with the eggings that happened all over George Dye this past weekend. We were further told by the juvenile detectives, the juveniles who confessed in Marsh were advised that if additional incidents occurred, they would be questioned again Since the latest events this weekend, we have repeatedly asked that detectives follow through on that commitment. However, despite our request, we have only been informed that no meaningful progress has been made. I'd like to understand why this matter does not appear to be receiving the level of attention that its severity warrants. Why, after 10 months of documented incidents, identified suspects, video evidence, witness statements, and prior confessions, has there been so little progress made? Why is a family that has been repeatedly targeted left feeling as though we must investigate these matters on our own? My wife is currently seven months pregnant and has been subjected to a tremendous amount of stress throughout this. We have invested thousands of dollars in security cameras and other protective measures, taken multiple days off from work to meet with law enforcement, provide evidence, and we spent countless hours documenting and putting this all together. At this point, we're simply asking for accountability, follow through, and protection. We deserve to feel safe in our own home. I'd appreciate an explanation of what actions have been done, what obstacles are in the way, and what are we going to do to resolve this? Thank you for your time. Any comment or we can talk offline is fine.

We will talk. However, we need to do some homework on that, especially if the individuals are known and they're not

10 months police reports Chris is it is it just your homework multiple homes along we are being targeted they walk past every other house and come right to our door in mass multiple kids banging on our door she walked outside she has four kids in mass with aggression on it they're trying to take down our door they're shooting fireworks at us they're harassing us we have videos of them driving by yelling at us they're hiding insane garden parks tell me to come get them going outside and just seeing if there was any damage?

For the record, we don't work in the school system. We have no relation to any of the high schools here. We don't have kids yet, and we would have no relation for why we would be targeting.

We have absolutely no idea why.

But I'll be talking with the chief tomorrow. Thank you. They have your contact information, obviously. Oh, yeah. Okay.

Next on the list looks like Charlene.

Is Charlene, am I saying it wrong?

Once again, good afternoon. My name is Charlene Walker. I serve as Executive Director of Faith in New Jersey, the largest power building vehicle that is statewide for people to faith and share values. to build a beloved community. We have leaders that live right here in this beautiful community. One of our most powerful leaders you probably walked past in the grocery store that had four beautiful children and you don't realize how she shows up in the world as a powerful woman of God. Outside of being a mom, she organizes in gun violence, serves as a coordinator to the food pantry, serving hundreds of families, and shows up for those that are being kidnapped in our streets. She may be the person that you walk past, but I want you to know my grandmother always told me that angels walk amongst us. And if Kristen isn't an angel, she's a reminder that the divine dwells within all of us. So you can imagine how our hearts across the state broke when we learned she had called for help when her baby was bleeding from the wrist. And her family and her scared child with developmental disabilities was met with force, with handcuffs, with arrest. And then her child was actually disappeared, not to be found. I can't imagine the terror that she felt I can't imagine the terror that he felt or that he's feeling right now. He's been shoved into a juvenile detention center, an act of further harm by the state. I have a background in mental health and crisis response for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. There's never a reason to meet crisis with force. There isn't. I've taken knives from 300-pound men that are six foot something. There's no reason. I speak to a lot of councils that quickly will say, you know what, this might not be our responsibility. I'm not quite sure what we can do. We have the police chief. We have the mayor that has this position. But I want to remind you that you actually have a responsibility and there's some things you can actually do. So our demands actually are actionable steps that you can do in your body. The independent investigation. You can actually set one up. You can have a committee. It can look into actually what happened. That independent investigation by the Mercer County prosecutor or the AG can be done. We can talk about de-escalation, all the things that Reverend Eric and I will give you the list of demands that are thorough. You can investigate yourself what happened and what fell in Hamilton. I would like you to actually hold hearings to ask those officers what happened. Figure out, look at that police cameras and everything and find out why de-escalation was not there. You can stand with the family. You can say through a resolution that you support their call for actual charges to be dropped and for their son to be returned home. to be returned home with the behavioral care that he actually deserves, the educational needs being met, and any form of community-based support. I know you can't dismiss the charges personally, but you can give this level of support. Also, I'd like you to show us the data. We demand public reporting of at least the last three years of Hamilton mental health and disability-related police encounters, including calls for assistance, arrests, uses of force, injuries, complaints, crisis service, referrals, repeat calls, and outcomes. I ask for this because our last thing is that we believe that you need to build a non-police path to care. Because according to the Attorney General's use of force, reporting for Hamilton Township this year, of the 49 people that force has been used on, 19 of them had mental health concerns. And of those 19, 10 of them were arrested. We passed the law to have a non-police response in this state. It's possible, and I know you can do it. So please stand with Kristen and the rest of your community. Will you actually put together a motion to make these actions possible?

Thank you. I'm not familiar with the case.

Was there a complaint filed with the PD? I don't know about that.

I don't know about, but I believe something is within internal affairs, yes. So I believe somebody did file a complaint with them. So that would still be under investigation, I'm sure. But I think there was, you know, again, it hasn't been communicated to all of us really very well at all. So and maybe they're waiting for the investigation. I don't know. But I can ask questions.

Okay. Thank you.

I feel like I should wait.

If you want to wait until the end, we can go out of order.

Yeah, let's go out of order. Okay. I'm just here to talk about the shelter.

Shelter's not important.

Okay, I have a name that I apologize I cannot pronounce and I cannot understand the writing. Last name looks like P-A-D-U-M-A-R-T-H-Y. Padmarthy? Sir, if you can just give us the correct pronunciation so we can address you properly.

Absolutely, sir. I'm Kailash. My first name is Kailash. My last name, it is a little bit hard to pronounce.

Kailash. That's okay. Thank you. Kailash.

Kailash. Yep.

Thank you.

We live in the new community here. The new community is called the Chapel Bridge community here. And it's a new community and they have elected me over there. And I'm an elected so-called member on that community.

I just want to interrupt. If you could just move the microphone.

Sure.

Hear you a little better.

So here are some of the concerns what we would like to address. Bring it to the notice of the council here. I'll read them. Please excuse me for my language. The Chapel Beach community concerns, the property taxes are too high. All the residents are complaining that we are not receiving Hamilton city services proportionately to the taxes that we are paying as a community. We need reduction of the property taxes. Regarding the property taxes, the tax assessment is too high as we are in a new construction. That is the first concern what we are having. The second concern is a little bit more serious, that is the speed breakers. We are having children, toddlers, elderly citizens walking on the streets. The traffic from Hamilton Avenue and the Ward Avenue, they are bypassing because there are three traffic signals and they are very, very sluggish. We need speed breakers installed on the roads of Misty Meadow Lane.

What road are you asking for the speed bump?

Misty Meadow Lane.

Which one? The Chapel Bridge community. Right, I know.

Misty Meadow Lane.

Offward.

Okay.

Thank you. The speed breakers installed on the roads of the Misty Meadow Lane. They are just one step closer to a mishap and a very serious accident has seen And I want the traffic coming in there, and then they're showing very obnoxious symbols there. And when I'm asking to slow down, and they're showing very bad. Children are playing all around there, sir. Just wanted to let you know.

I just want to make sure I understand the street. Ward? You said Ward?

The Ward Avenue and Hamilton. They are just a cross-section, and it is a bypass over there, sir. Just like Hamilton Avenue is the new one. The third one is the road and winter services. We, as a Chapel Bridge community, did not receive proper winter services during the hard winter what we had. There are pregnant women, there are toddlers out there, and they did not receive proper treatment of the winter services. So there was no plow over there on the cul-de-sac, and that's a bigger problem of what we had.

No, that's a secondary street.

The road wasn't plowed? Not the road, but the snow was not being plowed.

Right. The snow was not plowed.

Plowed. And there was thick ice over there, and there are some pregnant women, toddlers on that. They did not receive proper services on that.

I know that at least Misty Meadow, that's a secondary road. So especially we had a pretty rough winter as well. So we do all of our work first on the main arteries, Then we do roads around the schools and other public buildings to get them open as quickly as possible. And then they start on the secondary road. So they may never have gotten to that in a timely manner or whatever, or even been able to get to some of them, especially if it's a cul-de-sac and all of that. But I'm sure that the main road ward, and even at the other end on Hamilton Avenue when that comes through over there, those get cleared. It's really tough, especially with the back-to-back snowstorms that we ended up having, and it was some significant snow, so.

Sure, thank you very much. And the zero degree weather, that string at zero degree day, it's made it hard.

And the next thing is regarding the sweepers. If there are any sweepers coming around just once in a while, I am warning and I'm taking my responsibility to tell and to remind every resident that as responsible citizens that we should not throw the plastic debris etc. even after the cleaning and try to do our due diligence and putting it into the bins though. I do not want all this debris to clog our waterways and that's a very big serious issue. As an engineer I know that how hard it is. And the fourth, last one is there, what I'm having right now concerns is regarding the schools. We are no less than, New Jersey is the top rated school district in the world, in the U.S. as well. Next to Princeton, the residents are expecting the school ratings to go higher. For that, we are requesting the schools and all the teachers, there are a little bit of concerns like hygiene, et cetera. And we wanted to have the schools to be at a higher rating as well. That is one of the concerns of bringing it up here.

Thank you, thank you. So kind of you, sir.

Thank you very much for the entertainment.

Looks like Christiana Lewis.

Hello, my name is Christiana, she, they pronouns. I'm here for the community in Trenton. In 2020, I lived in North Trenton for the better part of the year. During that time, my house was raided by police due to a false claim placed on my roommate. First, I noted that they asked for identification for everyone in the household besides myself, being the only white person there. Then I witnessed Trenton police officers arrest my roommate unjustly, using excessive force against her sister by pulling her hair and then arresting her. Almost a month later, a detective with Trenton police reached out to me for an interview. What I didn't know was that until I gave my statement, my roommate would be held in jail for over a month. Until a white woman gave her testimony, she would not be released. That is just one example of corruption Mercer County and police departments as a whole perpetuate across this country. We need deep investigations going into the police force. We need excessive de-escalation training, and if that doesn't work, we need to fire the violent and incompetent officers. Our community shouldn't feel beatings and death due to police bias. If you are actively trying to protect your township and serve the public as a public servant, the people will remember that. I would also like to say if you feel being recorded in a public funded building by the public, sorry, I'll say that again. I'd also like to say if you feel being recorded in the public building by the public funded, you cannot come in to serve the public. Do better for our people. Thank you.

Next up, Kia Henderson.

My name is Kia Henderson. I am two years now in this community. I just wanted to come up and kind of clarify some of the things that my neighbors said. A few of us are here. We found out about the council meeting, so we said let's come out and see. We are a brand new community. Some of us have been here longer, but there are 44 homes there. And being 44 homes, now everybody's starting to gather and have community and talk to each other, which is great, but we're also experiencing some other issues too that we'd like to address. One of them being the taxes there. You know, as we look, it seems that our community may be paying the highest taxes in Hamilton. We know we're a brand new community. We know it's new construction and how that goes. But we'd really like someone to take a look, a hard look, at what we're paying for our taxes there and how that's allocated. Second, the highest allocation on most of the taxes is for the schools, right, which we agree with, right? We want our schools, we want schools for kids. However, the zoning for, Misty Meadow Lane. So there's Misty Meadow Lane, there's Ward, and there's Fletcher, and we're in between. There's a few houses on Ward and Fletcher. The main houses are all on Misty Meadow. It's not a cul-de-sac. It does go through. So when he was asking about the speed bumps and things like that, it's because they come right off of Ward, and they swing right around on Fletcher, and they go out, right? But more importantly, our kids, the schools that our kids attend and the hard times we're having. Originally, I was one of the newer residents, so my daughter was put in school. And then they said, when I went, they said, everyone goes to a, anybody can go to any school. And I said, well, how is that? Because you want your kids to kind of have a community and be in the schools. And I think it was Dr. Adebello at the time, he's not here anymore, he's there. Someone new said they could go anywhere. And we just want to understand what that is. Like, why do they go anywhere? Why are they pushed anywhere? Why do some kids go to Greenwood? Some kids go to Couser. Some kids go to Mercerville. They're all over the place. And we just kind of want to understand that and be able to zone them, especially because the majority of our taxes are going for the schools. And then lastly, when he was speaking about, we just felt like we were kind of forgotten because we were new as far as the weather and stuff, because even after, and we're talking about weeks after everything else was clear, we still weren't. You know, there was ice. We couldn't get through. It was really hard. The kids were having a hard time. And if the kids do go to Greenwood, there's no bus. Because of where we are, they have to walk through that. There's no sidewalk on board for them to walk to, so it's kind of dangerous for them. So those are, I just wanted to kind of clarify. I was going to pass once he came up, but I just wanted to give a bigger picture of the large community that we have, what we're facing, and kind of what we're asking for.

Okay, don't go anywhere. So her request for, can that go to Public Works, please, to make sure with this new book. Nobody wants summer to be over, but it's coming. So let's make sure that that's an area that is not forgotten, number one. Her other comment, Ms. Henderson, you brought up taxes. If she would like to file tax appeal or anybody else in the audience, is that process online or who does she speak to? Can you put that out?

You can find something online from the tax assessor's office.

Okay.

However, for 26, right, the tax rate is done, right? My suggestion would be you wait in January, you get a postcard from the tax assessor's office that indicates what your assessed value is and what your taxes at the current rate would end up being. And then you have a time period of until April 1st, right, to file an appeal if you'd like to file an appeal to get that assessment reduced.

Okay so I think the big surprise for us is that we moved in with one thing and now those taxes have exponentially increased about six to eight thousand dollars for some of us.

And that's why I brought up the possibility of an appeal so you can maybe check online for that. Get some information this way in January when you get that card you're prepared to move forward on that.

Perfect and I would really encourage to talking with our tax assessor even before the card that the postcard and all of that because He can be really good at looking at it, seeing if there's anything that's amiss or that doesn't look right, and very often being able to explain why things were done a certain way and that type of thing.

Does it have to be a one-on-one? Because we have a group. We have a community chat that all of the residents are in. And it seems to be the most common thing that all of us are complaining about. So can that be a group thing? It's not just me.

It absolutely can be a group thing. OK. It's fine. Yeah. Perfect.

Finally, you brought up about the schools. That's something you would have to address directly with the school system. We stay in our lane when it comes to that. That is a school district question, and I'm not going to attempt to even come up with how they came up with that formula.

Are there school board meetings that's posted? Mainly we came today for like information because we don't know all of us are brand new. So are there school board meetings posted?

They are on their website. I know we've been talking about the new furniture and the big move to the new building. We'll be sharing the building so those will be posted all there and all the meetings will be held there, right? But for the time being, they are posted on their website. You can check their website out and feel free to attend those meetings. You also could call their office and maybe set up an appointment for a one-on-one conversation. Maybe they can give you an explanation or if some of your neighbors wanted to join you, maybe you could do that too.

Great.

All right. Perfect. Thank you. Any other questions, just come back.

No, that's it. Thank you.

You're welcome. Is it Victoria McCann? Victoria McCann? It's definitely Victoria. Maybe I'm saying the last name wrong. Victoria. Okay. We'll circle her if she comes back. Margarita was also here. Ellen. Ellen Coyote, come on up. You know the drill. You have your four minutes. And please state your name and the town you live in for the record.

Ellen Coyote Hamilton. I just have one question, but I'd like to preface it with thanking you for the work done to do the major cleanup and putting up the floor, no dumping signs. But after the last meeting I attended on April 21st and their gas lighting presenting, after about two weeks, number seven hit me with her water hose over the fence separating our properties. And I know it wasn't an accident. She knew I was there. And I just said to complain at that game, and she's like, sorry. And they both left the back area. There's just other things I'm done tolerating. All I've asked them to do was not allow hunters back there with rifles, which they allowed over a decade ago, and no dumping. And I put up with them letting their dogs run at large, pooping and deprecating all over the place, going to my recently tarred driveway, hanging plants on my fence, all mowing down my pack of sandra, tearing up my ivy with throwing the ball from their yard to my yard with these dogs they had. And I put up with all of it, because I try to be friends with everybody and get along. But it's gotten to the, so my question is, so yeah, they let people back there with rifles. And I regularly walk those woods with other people, too. And I said no. And I disabled the deer stand and messed around some of the corn bait. So as I wrote an email to Catherine and the CC, the president and Fred from zoning and the public works director, since I haven't got any response, I was just wondering why haven't the Hamilton residents who have continued to illegally dump be held accountable and made to stop? The woods are continuing to be damaged as they continually, every week for years, decades, And even though this is fine wet, they keep illegally dumping these grass clippings. And the two trees, I did more research, and according to the Department of Environmental Protection, throwing these, and I sent you photos around 6 o'clock, dumping these grass clippings around the base of these trees. That's why one of those two trees fell down. And it's, what's the word, endangering other trees in the area. Plus they went back there and dug up some dirt for their prop to their garden and exposed tree roots of trees, endangering them. I asked if I could fix that. So I just want to know what's going on and how we make these people stop.

Ma'am, it's my understanding that everything was cleaned up. Is that not the case?

So we have been out there a number of times, and thank you for recognizing that they did go out and do a cleanup. And so, look, I'm sure that it continues to happen, as you say, right? They may be dumping things back there, the grass clippings. That seems to be most of what they continue to dump. It's hard to figure out exactly who's doing it. I know that you may know, but, you know, it's hard for us to know that. But when I got your photos tonight, we didn't get them until about 6 o'clock tonight, so I've already spoken to Director Dumont. He's going to direct his crew to go out tomorrow to check it out and see what's there and even to talk to a few folks out there just to find out if they're dumping and they continue to dump. If so, then we'll take care of it. We'll deal with it then.

Thank you. I think the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. I have a video of him dumping his bag of grass into the recycling bucket, but he waits hours to dump it in the back so he won't be caught. Nobody else is dumping them. There's just them.

But I do think that, right, the property as a whole out there is in much, much better shape than when we started talking, you and I, at least a year and a half, maybe longer ago. So, you know, it's working that we're going out and trying to keep it clean. We don't want to have to do that on a regular basis. Some of them do help us, right, by keeping the perimeters, which is township property, not theirs, keeping that mode.

That shouldn't give them a license to illegally dump in the back.

But it seems like they may be taking some liberties with some of their other things, too. So we're trying to get a hold of that. It's very difficult because we can't be there 24-7. But again, you know that we respond when you reach out to us the best that we can and have folks go out and clean it up if it warrants it. I'm hoping that this time if we go out and we kind of have some chats with some of the neighbors that stops and gets them to stop or we get them to say that they've done it and then we can take some action there too. Okay?

I'm sorry.

Does that answer your question or do you have more questions?

Trying to think straight. Oh, one of the meetings, past meetings, a former worker from public works said they had cameras. Can you just put a camera up and do it if they don't admit to it? The other two dumpers admitted they dumped

Yeah, I don't know. I don't have any knowledge of anyone that admitted to it. But I take your word for it. This has been going on for a long time. I have body cam, PIPLEA's body cam video. Well, that's good that you can have that. But again, let us go out again tomorrow. Let's see what happens. I'll touch base with you again. after they go out there tomorrow and I get a report back.

Oh yeah, and the parks guy who went out said there was no illegal dumping. He didn't go into the woods and he passed mounds. They call them big mounds or small hills of decades of dumping. So it's just being looked at. I think they have connections somewhere or something and I just, I don't know.

Not at least with the folks that I've been dealing with. So and again, this has happened for a long time and we've had different folks out there many different times. I can't say that that hasn't happened, but recently I know that we've been keeping on top of it as best we can. So let's see what happens tomorrow, and I will reach out to you again tomorrow afternoon. And if you want to still talk after this meeting, I'm fine with that. Okay, thank you very much. All right, Ellen.

Aserna, am I pronouncing that correctly? Last name is El-Huni?

Oh, I apologize.

Did I say it? Was I close?

It's Asna.

Oh, OK. It looked like an R. I apologize.

No problem. It's my handwriting as well. That's OK.

I'm fixing it on mine so I know how to direct it.

OK. Thank you so much. I also want to start off with you guys have quite a lot on your hands. I would not want to be in your seats right now.

You haven't gotten to the animal shelter yet? We're here. We took the job to help, and that's why we're here to listen. So you can go ahead.

I was going to say, you're leaders, and it takes a leader to really listen to the community and really hear our concerns. And so there's a lot of emotion today. There's a lot of anger. So I thank you for being patient with us as we're sharing our grievances with you. And so I'm going to start off with we believe that the action taken by the Hamilton Police Department on July 27 brought violence into our community in Hamilton. I cried watching the video. And before I go further, I just actually want to speak to the family, the Arcos family, and her mom, and the mom and the family, and I just want to say I am sorry. I don't want to look at you to expose you, but I know you're in this room. And I just want to say I am sorry for what you and your family experienced that day, not only on that day, but what you continue to face today as a consequence of that particular day, July 27. So as a Hamilton resident, I want you to know this is not what we as Hamilton will accept from law enforcement. And we will demand accountability on your behalf. I implore every single one of you today as city council to do everything in your power to hold our police department accountable, including ensuring that any calls that are related to mental health be addressed by mental health professionals and that our police department should make it absolutely clear that this kind of behavior is not acceptable from fellow law enforcement officers, and every law enforcement officer should try to distance themselves from accepting such behavior. As a responsible resident of Hamilton, I try to do my homework about this topic, and this is what I don't understand. The New Jersey Attorney General's use of force policy, so that the police department has to follow, it literally says, section 2.6 says, officers should generally not use force immediately when encountering noncompliance with verbal directions, end quote. It further goes on. Before using force, whenever feasible, officers are supposed to provide clear instructions and warnings and attempt to determine whether the person has a special need, mental condition, physical limitations, developmental disabilities, or language barrier. And then Section 2.7 specifically addresses people in behavioral or mental health crisis. It says officers should consider conditions including mental health, developmental disabilities, and age that affect a person's ability to communicate or comply. So now I'm asking Hamilton where was 2.6 that day? Where was 2.7? Where was the de-escalation? Hamilton also participates in ARRIVE program. It was one of the first two in Mercer County along with Ewing. So we ask for an alternative response to reduce the instances of violence and escalation. We are asking for accountability for the police department. And we ask that we just be better by actually making what the family is currently going through. The son is currently in jail now because of this last incident. So we have yet to make the wrongs right. So not only did we make a mistake that day, but we continue to make a mistake by not correcting our wrongs. So I ask that we be better, hold the police department accountable. Look at the video cameras. I know there's probably going to be some court around this, but look at the body cameras so you can see what happened. We don't want this to happen to any other resident.

We're not going to have access to that stuff while the investigation is open, so we have to let that take its course. We can't see that until the investigation is done. Also, just for the record, you don't have to record the meetings. If you want to record the meeting, you just could submit a request, and then you are allowed to. But all our meetings are recorded and posted online. So you don't have to have a camera in between chairs where we can't see it or can't see it. It's OK. All the meetings are recorded. We're not worried about being recorded. You just submit the request, and then you can record any meeting you want. But you can keep the cameras down. Everything is recorded. It's all audio and video recorded. Just for the record. Ma'am?

Thank you. I would just like to address the one concern about the independent investigation that was mentioned several times. When incidents like this happen, IA takes over, IA starts their investigation. Part of what they have to do is submit to the prosecutor's office of Mercer County. I have confirmed that it has been submitted to the prosecutor's office. That is all the information that I will know because I am a civilian. But I can state for the record, and I did get permission to state that, that this incident has been both reported both from Hamilton Township IA, and it has been also been submitted to the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office. And what about those police officers during this time?

Are they still out on duty?

Ma'am, I don't know the info. I don't even know which officers that they are, so I can't. They were named earlier. I heard that they were named earlier, but without me having had that to go to see what their status is, I can't answer that for you right now. The only thing I know that I can address at this actual moment is the fact that this incident that happened July 27th has been submitted to the Mercer County Prosecutors. So I did want to make sure that that was clear so that everyone was aware that things have happened, even if on the back end, things have been moving and that that aspect has been taken care of. So I did just want to make that clear.

And is there any way, is it in your purview or powers to also figure out her son is still arrested because of this last incident? Is there a way to look into that and to drop all charges that the family is facing instead of getting help?

they're being attacked? Unfortunately, that's not something that we can do from this end. That would be something that would happen because I'm assuming that there would have been, that there were criminal charges, and so that would be something between, I don't know what charges they were, I don't know if they're municipal charges or if they're indictable charges, so it's Superior Court. That would be between his attorney and either the prosecutor's office, either at the municipal court or the Mercer County prosecutor's office, and the judge involved. We as the attorneys for the municipality have no jurisdiction. We have no standing to enter into that type of a case to be heard on that matter. So we are not allowed to be heard by a judge to have anything to do with that.

So my understanding is that when a municipality puts charges on someone?

It's not, I'm not going to interrupt you, it's not the municipality. So the officers do it, but it's on behalf of the state. So even though, so there's different aspects, there's different people. And then the way that these court proceedings work, yes, we represent the municipality as a whole. the township, we represent those that work within the township. And so if something comes out of the IA investigation, then the township does what we need to do on that as far as administratively. But when it comes to these types of criminal charges, We are not involved in that. That is between the state of New Jersey and the individual that has been charged. So that is something that has to be taken care of in a criminal court, which would be in the superior court, or a quasi-criminal court, which would be the municipal court. But we, as the civilian municipal township attorneys, have nothing to do with that, nor can we be involved in that case.

OK, but with all due respect, I don't understand how you just told me within the sentences that you just said that you have power over those agencies. Like, you are basically their supervisors, right? No.

No, no, I never said I was anyone's supervisor. I said we represent them.

So we represent in court. You represent us. Is there any way for you to tell the people that put charges on this family that they shouldn't, your police department should not be putting charges on family members who have a mental health issue?

We are over the four minutes. We will bring you back up, obviously, for your two minutes. But I do know that some of the words, right, powerful words that people said tonight was they wanted it investigated. It's being investigated.

And accountability for other ones.

And the prosecutor is doing it, right? So let the process that was asked for is happening. I understand that the family's loved one is incarcerated and that's a separate issue that, again, their attorney should be working on, right? I would assume that their attorney's working on that. But the process is in place. Let's let that process work. We can't interfere with that process. We can look at it afterwards. But while that process is happening, this body cannot interfere with that investigation.

Okay, thank you.

Next up on the list, David Nicholas.

Good afternoon, council members. My name is David Nicholas. Quick question, is my attorney allowed to speak on before me. Well, you get four minutes and he gets four minutes, so you can both speak. Yeah, I want to give him my spot. The batting order is up to you.

Thank you, guys. So, Kenneth Lau from Warren, New Jersey, about an hour and a half north of here, representing David Nicholas and Prolific Grow House. So, long story short, we just want to bring a little bit of attention to the council, regarding my client and his company's multi-year efforts to try to move forward with opening a cannabis dispensary. I'm sorry, what company? Prolific Grow House. I mean, Prolific has been in contact with the town since 2021. And, you know, at this point has invested well over $150,000 into this project. But, you know, we've come to a point where essentially we're not sure what our next step can be because effectively, you know, we'll present a list of dozens and dozens of contact points we've had over the last two or three years. But the current situation is that we are locked into a long-term lease for opening a dispensary by the Wawa.

Excuse me, which Wawa? That was a trick question, right?

I don't work down here, so I don't know where all the Wawas are.

You can answer. It's on 691 Route 130. Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, but the issue here is that We've been working with Fred and the town to try to understand what the objections are because we only entered into this. Basically, we entered into the lease and signed it and grabbed it from the previous landlord. under some strict ultimatum and with a $40,000 deposit at risk on the premise that we got a zoning letter in 2024 that said that the location was zoned for cannabis and had some preliminary meetings that were promising. And given the fact that David is from Hamilton and has built one of the more successful cannabis businesses in New Jersey, he has been looking to bring his business to Hamilton and hire local workers and has a successful track record in the state already. So what we're looking for here is basically a way to understand what we can do to work with the town more to try to realize some return on this investment or alternatively to at least have something to give the landlord for why his location is not being permitted to move forward for a use, because the only reason for rejection we've gotten so far is that the town has told us that they don't believe there's enough parking spots in that center. But we've gotten the traffic study and presented it to the town, to show that there should be enough parking spots in the shopping center and, you know, raise the question of if a dispensary where you have three workers there and people going in there for ten minutes at a time and coming out is a use that can't be permitted based on the parking in the center, what would be permitted, right? Because the landlord's question is now, like, if this is being rejected for parking and we're not even gonna be given the opportunity to go before the planning board to work out whether or not there's something we can do, what's possible for that center and that empty storefront that's been sitting empty for over a year now?

So I am not, we're gonna let you come up I'm not familiar with the reasons why it has not been approved. You have to allow us the opportunity to ask those questions, and we will. I would definitely like to hear your client. I'd like to hear We like local success stories, so we like Hamilton residents doing good things. So I want to hear what he has to say, and we'll gather as much information as we can, go back to our professionals, and try to get some answers. But this is the first we're hearing about it, so if Mr. Nichols could come up, that would be great.

Thank you very much. Yeah, because we were told that you would go to your own professionals on the parking issue, but then we followed up over the last six months and never got an official.

Understood. This is just the first we're hearing of it, so just allow us to gather some information and get some answers.

Okay, and if I can provide... Yeah, bring him up.

Yeah, bring him up. We can give him to the clerk. She'll give him to us.

This is just a write-up that we prepared in terms of the efforts that we made to contact the town, as well as some letters of support on a petition online just to support giving David a chance.

Okay. Did you want to take Wolf? I know you're interested in that stuff. Sir, the floor is yours. Hey. What high school did you go to?

Pleasure, everybody. Sir, what high school did you go to in Hamilton? I went to Notre Dame High School, actually. I went to OLS on East 8th, but I'm a Notre Dame graduate.

Okay, congratulations.

I was hoping you would have said West. No, we used to meet them in football. Yeah, we know. We went around here. But yeah, pleasure to meet everyone. My name is David Nicholas. I'm 28 years old. I'm a local. As I mentioned, I graduated from Notre Dame High School. I've been holding on to this property for about two years now. If you guys haven't heard about my company, Governor Murphy actually came by our facility about a year and a half ago. I am a success story of this area. I was granted the first social equity license in New Jersey to cultivate. I actually came to Hamilton first in 2021 trying to bring my business here, to bring my story to light in Hamilton, but I was shut down then in 2021. 2024 came around, I found this new property located on 691. I spoke to the landlord, had to put down a hefty deposit which came out of some funding that I got. And I'm still 100% owner of my company. You know, with the funding that we had, you know, I started off with nothing. I had to build that from ground zero. We turned around success and with our business that we have right now located in Hamilton, I've been draining money. I'm feeding over 20 families now that also live in Hamilton currently that work for my cultivation in Mount Holly. I want to bring more economic opportunity to the fellow residents that are from this town. I've heard plenty of cases back here of those that are dealing with ice. That's another issue that I had to deal with in my company with some of the Hamilton residents that work for me. This has affected my business as a whole, from the ICE situation to now me dealing with being in a hole in Hamilton from me not being able to operate. I haven't brought any trouble to the state. I don't plan on bringing any trouble. I actually plan on bringing the Haitian community together, which is where I'm from. I think everyone does deserve a chance to at least voice themselves. You guys can see the stories online about me. about my company, about all the good that we've done in New Jersey. I just want you guys to please just put yourselves in my shoes. A young black man coming from this township, doing something successful with himself, being able to be the first person in his family to graduate college, do something bigger than anybody has ever thought. I'm the first millionaire in my family. I want to keep this going. I don't want this to be a one-stop road. I want to be able to keep providing these jobs and opportunities, like I said, to those that look like me that have been through my struggle. I've also been arrested for this plant. And, you know, I'm trying to do something positive and something that's actually, you know, beneficial that's going to help everyone in this township. I'm going to end it with this. I just want a fair opportunity. I gave you guys the petition that was signed off by 52 different people from all across that are shoppers in Hamilton that come to the Hamilton marketplace to shop. Once again, I'm just asking for a fair opportunity.

Thank you. Are you sticking around? Sir, Mr. Nichols, are you sticking around after the meeting?

Yes.

All right. Talk to you then. Thank you. I also have Davidson Pierre from Prolific Dispensary. Floor is yours, sir.

Floor is yours, sir.

OK. Good evening, council members. My name is Davidson Pierre. you know, member of Hamilton Township. Pretty hard act to follow after what he just said, but I second that. But I'm also, you know, I see what happens in a lot of the townships and certain people in certain business demographics get treated a little bit different. And I feel like, you know, we have an opportunity here to do something a little different, make history probably, or just in a sense of opening doors for for different opportunities within our own communities. So, like I said, I'm here on behalf of Prolific Row House, and I also second what he said, and I believe that this is an opportunity for us to make a change. And as we can see, it's happening all over. It's not just here in Hamilton, New Jersey. It's not just here in our community. Whether we like it or not is something that's going to be around. So, I think that it's something that can if done correctly, can move forward hand-in-hand with the community and the businesses to move forward. That's all I have to say. Have a good night.

Thank you.

Is it Carson or Paul? We're going to circle him in case he comes back. He'll get to go at the end. Sorry, my eyes are going. Natalie Perez. Are you also with Prolific? Yes. Okay, thank you.

Good evening. My name is Natalie Perez. I'm here as a Hamilton community member and I'm here to express my support for Prolific Girlhouse. I worked closely with David for the last three years. He's an exceptional person. His whole mission is to empower his community and make it better. I've seen him go through unreasonable, like too many delays with your township. And I want you guys to really listen to him and give him the opportunity because he's bringing something very powerful. And it's also going to empower your community that's made of immigrants. There's a lot of immigrants in here. And they don't feel heard. They don't feel cared for. They don't feel protected. So bringing someone like him to set the example for your community is what you really need to do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thanks for coming. All right, we're through the front page of the list. Alicia, is Alicia still here? Also from Misty Meadow? Come on up, please.

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening, Council. I guess this is just more so an introduction. My name is Alicia Calise. I'm joined by my neighbors who spoke prior, so I won't take up too much of your time, but just wanted to get on the record that we're here, we're a community, and we want to continue to voice our concerns until they're heard and addressed, and you'll be seeing more of us.

We appreciate you coming, thank you. All right, we're through the list of people that signed up to speak for the first time. Before we go into the second time for everybody to come up.

No, she forfeited her time.

Is there anyone else that would like to be heard for the first time? Anybody.

First, I want to talk about my volunteer application because I still do not have a clear answer about why it's being held or when it will be reconsidered.

Chris, the public health officer, told me via email that per the mayor's conversation with me, it would not be considered at this time. I'm sorry. But in my one-on-one meeting with the mayor, he gave me a much more specific explanation and he told me that the issue was my social media. And that the shelter employees didn't like me or my social media posts. And there was distrust around having me volunteer there because of my social media. I did not record that meeting, which I told them I wouldn't. Things like this are what makes me regret not doing that because I hear one thing in person and then when I ask for written explanations, I hear something completely different. So I really like clarification on that. Is it denied? Is it being held? Who's making that decision? And are there actual written criteria for rejecting or holding a volunteer's application? Because if it is just my social media and my public criticism and commentary, like, I think that's concerning. And if it is just being held, when will it be reconsidered? So if there is a legitimate qualification or safety or conduct-based reason that I do not meet the standards for volunteering, I want to know what that is. I also want to return to Merlin. He's clearly no longer at the shelter. He's thriving in his foster home. But that does not make the underlying questions irrelevant. This entire situation raised serious questions about how dogs are evaluated, coded, and ultimately handled. In my meeting with the mayor, he told me that Laura, the current trainer, will likely change Merlin's color code to blue or yellow. But the facility that actually evaluated him coded him as green. And this was by Laura's standards. And I can't find anything in that report that objectively supports him being blue or yellow. I even put it into AI trying to get it to prove me wrong, and it couldn't. So if Merlin did stay, what would Laura and the shelter have color coded him, and why? And what would support that classification? I think this matters because this entire situation began with decisions made under Laura. And if the township would override an outside evaluator's green classification that was following Laura's written criteria, I think us residents deserve to understand the objective basis as we're doing that. And my last thing I wanted to bring up was at the last meeting, we asked, do you believe that the neutral third party assessment was independent? And I know you were instructed not to answer that during the last meeting. And a lot of you hadn't seen it at the time, but I'm hoping you did and could give an answer now.

yeah my question is um as far as the application process for volunteers um we had met with um the health department uh councilman whalen and i with the mayor for transparency to everybody so everybody understands how it works uh we as a council We are not allowed to meet more than two of us at a time. That would be deemed a violation of open public meetings act. So we can't go and sit together and talk about things as a group because that's not fair, right? It's not legal. It's not transparent. So myself and Councilman Whalen did go meet with the health department to start working on some of these issues, start getting some answers because we had questions about how things worked during that meeting. One thing, and I see somebody else who put an application in that I would like to speak to you after the meeting also. We had asked, how do people know that you got their application? If there's no bounce back message, right? How do we know it was received? So has that process began that they're now getting a bounce back message if they submit an application? First question. I have more questions. Yes.

So the short answer is yes.

Okay. Okay. Next, I know that we were getting a volunteer, and these are all easy questions. I just want to put it on the record. The coordinator. Thank you. Appreciate that. That's why we're a team. The coordinator was hired. The coordinator, all the applications were told, we were told that it was put on hold because, We didn't have a volunteer coordinator. We have a volunteer coordinator. We got our choice of who we wanted. Has that process begun?

Yes, it has begun, and she did as we expected. She hit the ground running. I believe at current count there were 72 open applications that she faced, and all 72 have been addressed and are in some type of process, whether they aren't interested anymore or they are interested. She set up, I have to get this right because I wrote it down just to make sure, sorry.

That's okay. So all, while you're looking for it, I'll ask another question. So we save time. The people that didn't get a response when they first submitted their application before this new system, right, tells you that you got the, that was received, have those people, all those people at least been contacted? Yes. So that we now know we don't have people sitting waiting in the abyss.

Yes, they've all been contacted. Those are part of the 72. And so of the 72 applications that were addressed, she's conducted three orientation sessions, three different ones, where she signs up various volunteers that want to come. And from the 72 so far that have gone through, not all of them have gone through the orientation, we've gotten 13 solid volunteers from the orientation session, and then six additional volunteers went through the dog handling skills training. And she's going to conduct three more orientation sessions and two more dog handling skills sessions by the end of this month. So it's a very aggressive schedule, I think, to get those that are interested you know, trained and in the door and ready to start on their volunteer efforts. And the automated system is just like an email kickback first when you first do it, recognizing that. But then it's all addressed after that. They're keeping track and doing a tracking system on the application to make sure.

That sounds great because this is what we asked for. So now to answer her questions.

Why is it on hold?

Yeah, her application is currently on hold.

And again, I wasn't privy to your conversation with the mayor, but from what I understand, the mayor's directive went to Chris Hellwig, and that's how he responded to you. It is on hold. It will be reconsidered at some point, and I think from your meeting with the mayor and From what I understood, I thought you also agreed that there's a trust issue. There may be a trust issue. And so this might not be the good timing yet for you to start volunteering. And I think that's how it was put. But again, I wasn't there. So if I'm saying something that's not accurate, you can please.

I mean, yeah, he said it was distrust because of my social media and because of my social media posts, which I'm sure many of us have seen are criticizing, you know, the management of the shelter. But every dog that I've posted except one has been adopted. Every cat I've posted except one has been adopted. I've had new, I would like honestly take credit for most of those volunteer applications. And I think a lot of the attention that they're getting is because of me. So although management doesn't like my social media, it's having a positive impact. And I am a credential dog trainer, so I don't understand what qualifications I don't have.

Jules, the original reason that I had remembered from the conversations in the beginning was about... sticking your arms in the cage of the dog?

When I asked the mayor that, I said, is that the reason? He said, no, that's not the reason.

That was the original conversation. Because I do remember the dog that said, do not pet. You tried to hug through the cage.

No, I asked him because I said, is it because of that letter? And he said, no.

Yeah, she is a dog whisperer. But that was the dog. Yep. That was the original conversation. So anything after that? I don't have that answer. We will work on that. To get to the next one. You asked about what code Merlin would be if he was in. Um, I'm not going to speculate on where something would be. Yeah, let's hope he never comes back to the shelter and finds out. Right. Yeah. But to speculate and try to say where somebody would be, we would have to take the recommendations or whatever that report was. Yeah, because that's where it is. However, we're not going to speculate and say, where will it be if it comes back? Or where would it be if it wasn't adopted? The fact that you got you helped get the dog where it is, we should just be celebrating that and not looking backwards and saying what if or try to look into a crystal ball we don't have.

I just disagree a little bit because I mean, the mayor said, Oh, Laura is probably going to change him to blue or yellow. And at that point, we didn't know that he was going to the rescue.

And that conversation didn't happen here.

So we are Yeah, I just I think it's important. If we're, you know, judging Laura's criteria, I want her to read that report and tell us is Merlin green by her standards.

Okay. Your time is up. You can come back up for your two minutes and we will continue. Thank you.

Are we not answering the third party thing?

Your third party question, do we believe it was independent? So my own personal opinion, am I allowed to answer this question? Yes. Okay. My own personal opinion. is you do not have to handle a dog to train a dog to judge a dog. If you are handling a dog, I can take observations and make a judgment based on that, right? When, if it's baseball practice and I'm pitching to you, other people can evaluate when you're hitting, right? So yes, I do believe it was independent. Yes, I do believe a third person can evaluate a dog without actually handling the dog. Sometimes the dog needs to be handled. Sometimes it needs to be observed. Sometimes you can see behaviors watching the dog by not handling it, because you're not watching the dog come at you. You're actually watching what's happening.

Yeah.

Is it the perfect? Is it the perfect watch and handling? Is it the perfect scenario? Is it the end all be all is every situation the same? No, because every dog is different. Every dog's mentality is different. So they're all different.

Yeah.

So I don't know because I wasn't in that room watching. But my answer is, could it be independent? Yes, it could. But to say yes to something that I wasn't there or my colleagues weren't there, it's very difficult for me to just agree or disagree. We weren't there. I didn't watch that assessment. I never even met the person doing the assessment. It's very difficult for me to judge somebody I never saw, talked to, or heard from.

I just feel like what we thought was going to happen was that Laura was not going to be part of it and even if it was handled by another person maybe an animal attendant or something that the current trainer wouldn't be there.

So moving forward maybe things change but Merlin saved and Merlin is not in the shelter and I think that's the part we need to celebrate. You're right. We want to make sure things like that don't happen. We want to try to get all the dogs out.

I did pay for a new evaluator to come in.

Yeah, I want to thank you for the donations that you've made. I want to point out that Merlin was saved because of donations made by anonymous donors who don't want to be named, but members of the public making donations. make a big difference. It allows for the shelter to provide training that the shelter cannot provide without donations. In Merlin's case, he was categorized a red dog. After six weeks of intensive one-on-one training, he was classified by that trainer as green. So it did take some work to get that dog there. It's work that our shelter staff wouldn't have been able to do. So it is a testament to the dedication and generosity of folks who have made donations like you. So thank you. Thank you to all the donors. And, you know, thank you to all the folks who are interested in volunteering there as well.

Thank you.

Janice is next, and then you're up. She had her hand up. I apologize. You can come up next. You can come up to the on-deck circle if you want to move up. Okay. Janice Gronick, Cornell Heights. Hold on one second. Everybody just please give the respect to the speaker, okay? Thank you, ma'am.

Is Route 33 trying to make a record for how many car washes are on one road? There are three within three-tenths of a mile. And then, of course, Capital of the High Society was a little bit down the road. But four of them on one road? And the three of them, you could walk to each other.

You know, that's not must be a lot of dirty cars in Hamilton.

It's gonna be interesting to see if they all stay in business once they get rolling.

Competition is good for the consumer. Okay, looking forward to it.

And then what is being built in the farm place and merciful shopping center, you took the farmers market at the end just sprouts sprouts, which which is what

Yeah, grocery store. It's supposed to be all natural, organic type supermarket.

Oh, okay. Because I was just wondering, I was hoping it wasn't another fancy car wash. Okay. It's an indoor car wash. Indoor car wash.

Thanks, Janice. Yep. For anybody that doesn't know, Janice rarely misses meetings. I believe she went 16 years without missing a meeting. That's why when the comment came up, we routinely joke we're going to give Janice a piece of the wallpaper and a frame as they did it with the FIFA World Cup because it means so much. She's been a part of who we are as a town and a part of these meetings for a very long time, and we appreciate her being here.

I got a question. What's your name first, the wallpaper or Janice? The wallpaper.

Good evening, Amanda Ely, Hamilton resident. So I'm excited to report that I am, Kathy, based on your statistics, one of the 13 volunteers and one of the six people who went to the dog handling class.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. I felt kind of silly and now I'm like this is completely appropriate. Hearing all the things that are going to be coming, which is really great news to hear. So first I want to be clear that anything I'm saying, any of my comments, none is criticism of any shelter staff at all. Every person I've interacted with has been kind, professional, very welcoming to me. All lovely interactions. So I want to talk about some concerns with the training structure and procedures for volunteers, things that I think could be really helpful in these upcoming orientations and the dog handling class.

Can I make a request? Sure. When you give us those, can you just slow down because we do write these things down and you're talking fast.

I apologize. I'll slow down. Thank you.

Sorry. That's all right, guys.

There's a bigger crowd tonight. I was a little nervous. Okay. Hold on. My phone's messing up now. Okay. So first I want to say I have more experience with from having animals of my own so I recognize that I can feel more comfortable with handling a dog than somebody with very little experience and I think that is where some of the questions and concerns I'm bringing tonight are coming from. So during the dog handling class Laura taught us some leash handling techniques including how to hold two leashes which is the The only way that you would handle a dog being a volunteer is to have two leashes. How to shorten a leash and how to handle different situations that might arise. She demonstrated these techniques and we were told as volunteers too that like certain things we would never use. For example, using a loop leash to put a dog back inside its kennel. So certain things we were shown is not something that we would ever do. There were techniques that I found myself wanting more specific guidance. For example, we were shown where if a dog had a leash looped around its paw, how we might use a treat to get the leash unwrapped from the paw. And we practiced doing that. And one of my questions to Laura was, what was the preferred way that we should offer a treat to the dog? Because she did say that lots of the dogs had different behaviors and different things that they were or were not okay with. So the answer to that was it depends on the dog. We were also shown a leash wrap, I apologize, that's a tongue twister for me, technique for a dog that might pull hard on the leash. And the demonstration involved Laura straddling the fake dog in the lobby. And I asked how is a volunteer supposed to recognize whether the particular dog that they are walking is comfortable with somebody doing that positioning on them. So I don't bring up these examples to criticize the techniques that she showed us, but I do think it illustrates that sometimes a technique that is being shown is not the same as being given enough information to confidently know when and how to use something. There were six of us in the dog handling class. There were no green dogs available that day, and I was aware of that going to the training, so I was curious what we were going to do. And so we practiced with Marley, who is a blue-level dog. Everybody should know who Marley is because he's been there, to my knowledge, for six years. We did the training with him outside despite there being two lower level dogs than him. There are two light blue dogs currently in the shelter. When we took the group walk with the six of us and Laura, the trainer, we each took a brief turn walking him. Earlier in the training, Laura had explained to us that the leash wrap technique should only be used on a dog, so the technique where you straddle the dog and put the leash around him, but that should only be used, she said, when the volunteer has previously walked that dog before, when you have like a rapport and relationship built with the dog. And I was less wondering because when she brought Marley out, he was in fact, we walked him with the leash wrap method. So I was curious how this guidance applies when the only dog that we were available for the hands-on demonstration was already being walked with that technique. And I'm not suggesting that he should not have been used for the demonstration, but I'm just saying it does raise a question as to how volunteers can be given enough opportunity to practice.

Your four minutes is up.

Okay.

You can come back up for your two.

Come on up. Is there a party out there?

Hello, how are we doing tonight? Okay, good evening, Lori Hamilton, Township President. All right, I want to first off by saying that after 74 days, I'm officially a volunteer at the Hamilton Township Animal Shelter.

Congratulations.

Thank you very much. I completed my volunteer orientation with Faith on August 6th. And yes, I'm sorry. The dog came in the class with Laura on August 13th. Just like Amanda said, both Faith and Laura and the rest of the shelter staff have been very kind, friendly where I've been there. So I do appreciate that much and I know how much hard work that the whole staff goes into taking care of the shelter. I have had the honor to help walk Bodie, Achilles, Gordon, Molly and I'm excited to walk more dogs and get to know them. What I am bringing you tonight is a continued concern about the social media regarding the shelter. Every time I ask who specifically runs the shelter, whether it be a town council, or I actually did ask in my orientation meeting, it's always the same answer. The answer is some girl who works for the mayor's office. My questions are, what is her name, her title, her responsibility? What other job responsibilities does she currently have, or it's her only responsibility to update the social media? Who oversees that she's doing her job? You want me to wait till the end to answer those?

Yeah, answer all the questions, or ask all the questions, and then we'll answer.

All right, last time council meeting, Lisa spoke about the bios and missing bios and how the township needs to run like a business. I would like to double down on that. Okay. When we think about the purpose of the shelter, it's not only to house, walk, feed, love, take care of the animals. It's to sell the animals to good people. At the end of the day, it is a business as being ran. If you ran a business in today's world, the virtual world, how I spoke about last meeting, do we think we'd benefit from clear, user-friendly social media techniques or old, boring, worn-out standard posts? If you were selling your home, would you have someone come take pictures while it's raining? A car in the driveway? A tree that fell over? You don't focus on the negatives, you focus on the positives. I would assume you want a picture of a house on a beautiful sunny day. The first thing that catches the user's eye on social media is what they see, not what they read. When you take a look at the website, and I encourage people in the audience to do so, pictures of Lockwood, Elwood, Blaze or Chopper, I think we could all agree that we could get better pictures to advertise and represent these dogs better. On the Instagram and Facebook, posts are put up that say adoption spotlight. And there are many, many of these posts in the same font, format, et cetera. Most people who I speak to who read this think the wording is odd and I tend to agree. When you put adoption spotlight to the viewer, it makes it seem like this animal got adopted, here's the spotlight. I think this is a small but viable change that can make a big difference. I think using more than the same repetitive pictures will help and more videos could do wonders. Suzanne, who is a volunteer, is single-handedly providing better content when she takes these dogs on walks as a volunteer than a township is providing. Another example, so if you guys all want to follow Instagram, on August 10th there was a post made that says, thank you to our adopters for providing a loving home to Tucker, Karen, Adele, G, Lydia, and Eddie with a picture of all of them with their new owners. To me, As a viewer, something that would have meant a lot is each animal and owner getting their own post. Throw some music on there, tell the story, and make the person who adopted them feel validated in what an amazing moment this really is. This completes the buyer experience and gives the animal the well-deserving love of a true adoption spotlight. Also, jewels. Using her platform has been instrumental in getting multiple animals adopted, as she said before, because of the engagement she creates. I would also like to say, just as a side note, that her not being allowed to be a volunteer does not sit right with me and I'm sure many people, because all she's been doing is advocating for animals, wanting to see them get adopted, and just help. The way Chris spoke to her through email, completely disrespectful. And he should be ashamed that he speaks to residents in Hamilton like that and represents this township as a so-called leader. The other component I would like to speak about is a small but big change that can make a difference. If you were to walk into a store to purchase something, how do you know who to ask questions to? Usually, they have some identifying item on them that would let you know. I suggested at my orientation, that volunteers be given T-shirts or badges to clearly indicate who works there and who volunteers. When I go in, let's say, to the cat room, for example, I have no idea who's there to look at the cats, help the cats, feed the cats. It's confusing. When I've been walking the dogs, it would be great to know when I see a dog ahead that the person has a clear identifying shirt that they're part of a shelter walking a shelter dog, especially when we deal with the dog reactive dogs.

Lori, we're at your four minutes. You can come back up. Any other first-timers that would like to speak? Mr. Clegg, come on up. His hand goes up first. Laurie, Lucy, you're going to be next.

Steve Clegg, Hamilton Township. So nobody's happier than I am that Merlin's out of that shelter and he's been saved from our health officer and shelter manager. I disagree though that we should just celebrate that and not look backwards because he should have never been in that position. He should have never been labeled as red. He should have never been sitting in his kennel for months at a time. He never needed to go on those medications and his evaluation happened just before we killed hercules and if you remember hercules was labeled red after growling the emaciated dog growled when they gave him food and took him away that was his evaluation and he sat in his kennel for two years and i stood at this council and i asked to walk this dog two years until we finally killed that dog to save him from his poor quality of life So no, we don't get to just skip by again. Blue, who was killed after an employee went into his kennel to provoke this dog, who then bit his shoe, we were going to get an answer to that, and we didn't because we looked forward and not backwards. We keep coming to this same point. Merlin should never have been in that position. So I'm going to ask, we did ask for some other things. One of them, starting with Merlin last June, was in these evaluations, a plain language statement that says, this dog is this color because of these behaviors. Because we've all sat here and looked at Merlins, and nobody could figure out what the hell that evaluation meant. And we still don't. We also asked for video recordings. Has that been addressed so that we know for a fact what happens during these assessments. We can't just skip by this again. I'm not going to.

Can I answer this?

Yes, please.

I'm going to answer with a question. When a dog is labeled a certain color, is it stated that the dog is labeled this for certain reasons? The dog is labeled red because A, B, or C. Is that stated?

So I don't know what you mean by clear language because two people reading the same evaluation might answer that question differently, right? I've seen the notes on different evaluations and I could, you know, see why they might have made it that. But again, I wasn't present for the evaluations. I'm not anywhere close to a professional. I have a pet or an animal.

And that's the point of asking for this statement so that we all don't have to guess what the assessor was thinking. If there's a scale that says these are the definitions for the colors, and somebody does an assessment and comes up with these behaviors, then they map those behaviors to those definitions. And that's not being done. It's just they do something, there's no standard process for these assessments, and somebody picks a color. And then everybody else has left the debate. Why is it that color? And we've gone through this for many, many, many, many dogs, and we've asked different trainers directly and could never even get an answer from them why the dog was this color. So it's a simple ask. Can I have it back? Whoever is doing the assessment and assigning the color should be able to articulate why they assigned that color based on those color definitions and the behavior they observed. This can't be that complicated.

Yeah, I don't know what to tell you other than to discuss with Laura her method of doing the evaluation.

I don't think we're asking for a change. I know Councilman Tai wants to comment. I don't think we're asking for a change. I think we're asking for a summary. The dog is red because A, B, and C. And if the facts of A, B, and C are listed in the report, then it should just be easy to read.

It may be that in the, every industry has its jargon. And I'm sure that's true for dog assessors and dog trainers. I wasn't 100% clear on what I was reading. With that, it would be good if laymen like us who need to provide oversight on what this report means could understand it or that it's made a little more clear.

So I don't think I still have it in my folder. So the definition for a red dog, I know it's changed now under like four different shades of red. The definition for a red dog is he had an extreme issue or multiple serious issues. That was the definition to assign that color. But for Merlin, we could never get what matched that definition. For a year I asked that. We couldn't get an answer until a year later, we started hearing there's more to the story, he needed to be drugged, he tried to bite people. None of those things were actually supported by the trainer's own notes. We were left with he bites the leash. Those were the things we were told originally. He bites the leash, he's jumpy and bouncy. A clear statement in there.

We're going to have to have discussions with the shelter staff at the Board of Health prior to the Board of Health to get answers to that, to ask for more descriptive terms on there.

Okay. And the video recording.

Video recordings. Yeah, that's going to be part of the same conversation because I also, agree that it's easier to go back and watch something. Thank you. All right, we're back up. Any other first time? Oh, Lisa, sorry.

Lisa Williams Hamilton. I actually wasn't going to speak tonight. I know that's shocking to you guys. I've been asking for the website to be updated. I've commented on Multiple of the township social media posts, whether it is the township or the shelter, can you please update the website? Can you please put all found dogs as found strays? Not everybody has social media. I get some that can't be posted, whatever. There's 32 dogs currently on the website as of sitting in the back of the room. We have 36 kennels. One of those dogs is a red dog currently in a foster home. So I'm not really sure how red he is if he's in a foster home. And I've recently been told where he is. Foster home with children. Okay, that's a red dog. So that gets us down to possibly 31. One of the dogs is in a boarding kennel. So that gets us down to 32 sitting in kennels. We have two in cages. So we're down to 28 sitting in kennels. We have 36 kennels. So I guess we are really in a good place. We're not overcrowded, because we have so many empty kennels. Or are we not really updated? I don't know. Does anybody know how many dogs were at the shelter? As of a week ago, it was 49. But we only had 32 on the website. And then they put Lockwood back. Sorry, I'm rambling. Anybody know how many dogs are in the shelter?

We have 47 dogs in the shelter. Nine are red, rescue only. Okay. So we have four. 33 are available for adoption or rescue. Zero need evaluations. Nine are in safe keep. One is in a seven-day stray hold. One is pending adoption. Four in foster. One is available as a foster. And three are foster to adopt. We have one empty kennel. We have nine safe keeps. That's the difference. Eight crates. We have eight in crates. That's the mom and pups in one, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, there's six.

Mom and pups are six.

Okay.

Five puppies.

All right.

Okay. The big difference is the safe keeps that no one knows. Nobody commented. We have nine safe keeps. It's just some not available. We'll check so we can answer. I've commented in the past.

Can I interrupt you? We just need to give the respect to the speaker. There's a lot of different conversations going on. I know it's a long meeting. We're getting back to the top of the list. Please give Lisa the respect.

I'll be quick. I've commented a couple of times. I'm sorry, I don't remember the new volunteer's name that commented about adoption spotlight. I've commented about that on social media as well. And we still are using it. It makes people think that dog has been adopted. suggested that we use, adoptable pet, whatever, meat, whatever. And those are not. They're just pictures. And while it was great that there was a volunteer who was sharing videos, she also for some reason has blocked me. And I don't know how many other people are blocked. So I can no longer look at them. I don't even speak to this person. I was randomly blocked a week or two ago. So I'm asking that the township as a public entity Post these videos yourself so everyone can see and everyone can share. No, I was blocked by the volunteer. But that's like the big thing. And she can do whatever she wants. It's her page. But that's like the big thing. Oh, they're great ways to get information out. And she's sharing it. But not everyone's allowed to see it because I'm not. I've been recently blocked. I mean, she's in the Lost and Found Pets group that I run. So I can see what she posts. I can't even comment. I can see what she says in there because I'm the administrator. I can't even comment on what she says in there. So you have a volunteer who has blocked a member of the public from being able to see these videos. They're her personal page. That is fine. But the shelter should not be relying on that scenario to get the word out, because I can't see them. Who else can't see them? I'll go sit down now. Thank you very much.

All right, we're back. Everybody spoke one time, right? Oh, come on up. Edna, come on up. You have your four minutes. I just want to make sure we get to the second.

Hi, I'm Kelsey Krieg. I'm a resident of Hamilton and also a local business owner. I'm the one that adopted the kittens from Burlington after having the awful experience at the Hamilton Animal Shelter. So I just wanted to say I'm happy to hear that a coordinator was hired, and I respect you guys and appreciate all that you do.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm sorry you had to experience.

And we apologize for the bad experience, but we're happy you were able to help somewhere else. So thank you. All right, we're back. Everybody, first time. Anybody? Anybody? Come on up. She's easily influenceable.

Andy Kazimer, Hamilton. I have a couple of issues. I'm going to completely change the direction of the meeting for a few minutes anyway. Okay. The fact about the warehouses, we have so many of them. The one on Couser Road that's being built, there are some of them, I don't even know the name of the street that comes out of near Locust Hill and connects back to. Cabotron? There's a couple empty ones there and yet we're still building more warehouses and it just seems like it's a waste of really good space that we could be using for other things. Second issue, the warehouse on Sloan Avenue has grass that is at least two feet high. If they can get public works out there to take care of the grounds by that warehouse, that would be appreciated. Thank you.

Yep. Okay. Last call. Any other first timers? All right. If you haven't spoken a first timer and we start going with the second timers, you can still come up and speak for a first time. We're just going to try and go in the same order just to be respectful. Reverend, you'd like to speak for a second time? You both can go. Whoever wants to go first. It's batting orders on you guys. All right. I might want to adopt a dog now. Yep. Just so everybody is advised, don't start his clock yet because it's not fair. Everybody does get two minutes on the second time that they do come up. Please be advised of that. Maybe speak a little faster.

Sir. You heard of of community members and faith leaders and our concerns. Just based on just a lot of responses and concerns. So you're telling me that the Hamilton Council has no control over the police department? Because that's the message I got. So if you, there's known four officers that were named that could have some shady conduct to them. They're not sat down for review like other townships and municipalities in the state of New Jersey? Or does the family have to fear retaliation from these four officers? And if they have another mental health crisis, who can they call if 911 is doing the drive-by, as Jay-Z would say? Who are they going to call? That's my question to you.

My belief, from what you told me tonight, is the process is underway. Internal Affairs is investigating them, correct? That is the process that is followed. It's directed to the prosecutor's office. If it goes up from there, I guess it would go, is it going to go to A.J.?

Not to cut you off. Yeah, it's okay. I understand the clock's running here. There's a process. How long does this process take when these officers are on the street that can potentially do something else to the family to intimidate them, which is known to happen. That's my concern. What if we don't know if they have a squad car parked outside the house or they're outside their street watching and observing? Cops do this. This is documented fact in the state of New Jersey. My concern is the safety of the family. My concern is that they're calling for help. Who can they call for help if they can't trust the Hamilton Police Department? That's the concern. I would like that addressed before I leave.

Again, the IA investigation.

We're going back to the IA. Again, I understand you keep saying IA. You keep saying prosecutor's office. I understand what you're saying. That's a process. But you know you have four officers on the streets right now.

IA is our division. Okay.

They just provide the report to the prosecutor's office. Well, that's not fair.

It's an IA, and that's the process that we go through. If we got anything from IA that indicated that we had an immediate concern with any employee, then that would be addressed by the chief's office with our public safety director.

But you know, did you also notice that they...

Sorry, you have to come up to the microphone because it's the only way it's recorded.

Did you know Hamilton Township is the state headquarters for the Proud Boys? And I know what their address is, if you did not know that. And we do know some of your officers could be affiliated with that. Thank you. Have a nice day. Minister, you're up next.

We've heard time after time that it was sent over to the county prosecutors. The state of New Jersey literally passed an independent prosecutor bill because officers were not being held accountable by the county prosecutors. And this is why when an officer is involved in a police shooting, it doesn't go to the county prosecutors because the relationships were too tight between the unions and family members and friends and people they grew up with. So that's why they had an independent process where it goes to the state and the state would then dish it out to another county to do those investigations. So when we hear you say it's going to the county, you're literally describing a process that does not work in New Jersey. And so for me, I just have a problem when we talk about holding officers accountable and we continue talking about the process that exists. When you have the power, the whole point of all of this is how are you showing the community that you have their back? And right now, zip zero, we don't see it at all. You haven't even done the basic, which is release a soft statement that says, We stand against any injustice and we're praying for the families of anywhere. You could have been the basic statement. You didn't even do a basic statement. And then the third thing is you have the power to suspend an officer. You didn't use that power. You could have suspended them with pay, without pay. You could have suspended pending investigation, appending the attorney general, appending the county prosecutor. You didn't even do that. And my point is saying, you're trying to ensure people that they could live in Hamilton, that we can get justice. And for this case, when a kid splits his and is about to die, the officers who were told to call 911 are the ones that are the purveyors of injustice. And for me, again, I know this is tough because in politics you worry about unions, you worry about re-elections, you worry about family members, the community people thing, but there has to be a moral stance, especially today, in 2026. And that's the leadership that we're all looking for in all of y'all.

Do you want to comment?

If you want to, you can comment.

Listen, I appreciate the comments that have been made. I appreciate the folks that have come out. This is the first time that I ever heard of this incident. So I never heard of this incident at all. Never heard of it. Never heard of it. I've never heard of the incident. How am I going to make a judgment on against our police officers, our Hamilton Township police officers, when I haven't even heard this case before. So you made an assumption. You came up here and made an assumption. I'm telling you that I've never heard the case before.

And sir, I'm telling you, you're paying a salary based on tax payers.

Sir, you have to make a, sir, so your two minutes is up. You made your comments. You have to allow us at least to respond.

I you know I don't know when this this press conference took place or when this I was away for vacation over the last week and a half but I never heard of this incident before so so so you're bringing it to the table tonight the first time I ever heard of it

So we expect the when out when allegations are made, there's a process that's being followed. It is being followed. The allegations are taken very seriously. The officers are being investigated. It's out of the department's hands and in the county prosecutors, which is done through the Attorney General's process. This is the direct way it's supposed to be done. When it is done, if it needs to be raised up to the Attorney General's office, then they will take it. We have to at least trust the process and allow them to investigate.

And even if you don't trust the process, we still have to follow the process, right? So we have to give the, hold on, hold on. We have to give the process a chance to work. We haven't even had enough time to get full information about this. We're hearing from you today. We are taking what you have to say about this seriously. There's nothing that anyone up here has said that indicates otherwise. We're taking it seriously. I am concerned by what I've heard from the public today, and I can tell you I'm going to be you know, having further discussions and looking into it further, I don't have enough information to come to a conclusion. So I am concerned. We hear you. We take you seriously. And, you know, let's follow the process. Let's get more information. And let's see.

Next speaker is going to be Chris and Anna Gianella, if you wish to comment again. You finished? Next up, Charlene, if you'd like to comment again.

Hey, y'all. So I'm going to help you out a little bit. There are some things that you can actually do, right, that are actually happening concurrently while there's an internal investigation that's happening. You can actually request that the attorney general actually assign an independent county prosecutor. You have that right. As a council, you can launch a current legislative investigation into Hamilton's systems, policies, supervision, and decisions surrounding this incident. How the family calls went, all of that, you can do as the council. And it happens concurrently. And I have the town codes for it. Hamilton Township Code 512, Section A, NJSA 4069. I will email the whole thing. you can stand with the family by sending out a resolution that supports the family's call for a just resolution of the charges and for their son to return home with appropriate disability educational behavioral health and community-based support. You can do that as the council. Also, we all know that the mayor is the person that the police chief is supposed to report to. You can actually call the mayor here, question him, have hearings as to what is the process that is occurring within the police department. You can call for all the data from Hamilton to look and see what are the trends that are actually occurring within the police department to make sure this does not happen again. You can also work to build a non-police path and start hearings and meetings with people. These are all things the council can do concurrently while there is an IA investigation. Thank you.

I chose your tools you were next up but you deferred till the end. Do you want to speak now? Or do you want to wait? Okay. Mr. Kyle Ash, I believe he I saw him leave. Christiana Lewis, did she also believe she left also? Sorry, I didn't say

I would just like to say, right, you guys sitting here have so much more power than anybody back here. So if you want to sit here and say that you don't have control over the police department or you don't know what's going on within your police department that you have control over, that's the problem, Coley, right? You need to address that. You need to address what has been going on and why people continuously get abused by your police department. And like Charlene said, you can call a hearing. At this point, the ball is in your court.

Call the hearing. Read it and do it now. So I just want to take exception to one thing you said about people continuously being abused by our police department. I've heard of one instance where there are serious allegations and I'm concerned about what I've heard about it. There's one instance. I haven't heard of instances of continuous...

I just came up here and told you about an instance in 2020.

That was in Trenton. You lived in North Trenton at the time of that incident.

Mercer County covers Trenton. We're not going to, we can't take comments from the public.

Okay, thank you. You're welcome.

Kaya Henderson. She left. Mercer Council both left. Ellen Coyote. You have two more minutes. Come on up.

Hi. I just wanted to add that Mercer County Mosquito Control was called out by number seven again in the last three weeks or so. And number 24, Shawnee, was told to remove all his personal property from township property. He removed it from the woods, but not on the grass area that's cut there. And so they had to go down to him and for the 10th time or so tell him to not have containers where water accumulates that mosquitoes breed. And he supposedly drilled holes in some handles that were doing that. But there's, I don't understand why, too, he's still allowed to store his personal property on township property. Okay. And I'd just like, on another matter, if it ever comes to a proposal to the township to have a data center, please deny it. No data centers in Hamilton.

Thank you Ask me up Okay, so I do want to give you the benefit of the doubt I do believe you when you say you didn't know what happened But now you know You're informed. You heard the story. You heard the pain that families are holding. You heard that there are still consequences that families are facing now because of what our police department did in July. But also, I think you said this was the only use of force that you're aware of. I just want to give you statistics.

That wasn't what I said.

Oh, that's not what you said. Not exactly what I said. OK, I apologize.

But that's OK. Go ahead. Continue.

OK. So basically, this is the latest report between 2012 and 2016. Hamilton police reported, so total use of force, 742. Use of force incidents per 1,000 arrests, 42.3. And then it says Hamilton's use of force at a higher rate than 364 New Jersey police departments. So I just want to share, this is not the only one. So now that you've heard from us, And like I said, we want to give you the benefit of the doubt. We're bringing this to you for the first time. Will you take on some of the suggestions that we have said, including meeting with groups to discuss what can be done so that we can ensure that our police department is not going to ever do this again because when people call and there's mental health crisis, they shouldn't be going out. We should have specific people who can deal with that particular case. And also about what we can do to assure our community that we're not OK with what just happened because I'm hearing from everyone, you're hearing from everyone, that we don't feel that. We hear you listening to us, but you're not doing anything about it. So what can you do so you can reassure us that, one, This is unacceptable and will you take steps further moving forward to ensure that this doesn't happen again?

To answer your question, yes. Since this Mayor and Council have taken over We've made it a purpose to meet with groups, anybody that would like to talk to us. We've had faith-based groups. We've had community groups. When the George Floyd incident happened, the first thing we did was bring in some community groups. We brought the then prosecutor in to come in and explain how the process worked, what happened, how our process is different from that that happened in Minnesota we do listen we will listen if you want to have conversations then you should email us and the mayor and have conversations we're definitely open to listening and hearing concerns because the only way we hear of things happening I mean look you heard a lot of different things in tonight's meetings right ranging from this incident to a wide variety of things. And the only way we know about some of those things is if people come to us and tell us. So hearing the problems, hearing, it's definitely deserving of a conversation, right, to listen and exchange ideas and figure out where to go forward. And I just want to... So yes, the answer is yes.

I just want to... express my agreement with what our Council President just said. Yes, I want to get more information. Yes, I want to have conversations and figure out what the best course of action is. There is action being taken. And to be fair, I want to see. But I also need to learn more. So yes, I'm looking forward to having those conversations.

Okay, thank you so much. And any comments from Jennifer or Catherine?

Well, we're your elected officials.

Oh, okay, good.

There are five. It just happens to be two that are absent tonight. But the three of us are elected officials. Our business administrator, our township attorney, our deputy township attorney.

So I just also want to say, just like you, we love our community. So this is an important issue for us. So I'm coming today, and we're coming today kindly because it's our first meeting. And we hope the next meeting we would have something substantial from you all so that we can continue to be in community together. So thank you so much.

Thank you. David's still here? Come on up, sorry, did you want to speak again? Okay. Ken, are you in the same or did you want to speak? Come to the microphone, say your name, just so we have everything on the record.

Kenneth Liao, representing Crow House from Warren, New Jersey. So, you know, just as a parting comment, appreciate the opportunity that you agreed to speak with us later and look forward to, you know, working with the town because we're very invested in the town. David, back to the community. And, you know, looking forward to bringing some jobs to the town.

Thank you. Thank you. David St. Pierre, did he leave? Did all your colleagues leave? Yes. Oh, no.

I've got one here.

No, Natalie, do you want to be heard? You're next.

No, thank you.

All right. Just going down the list so I don't forget anybody. Alicia, she left also. She was from the neighborhood community. Amanda, you're next. You want to go? I thought you said you wanted to go last, sorry.

Okay, Juliana Crow, Hamilton resident. I want to follow up something else I talked about in my meeting with the mayor, which is what are the repercussions when a township employee violates the township trademark policy? He told me he would have to check with legal and Kathy, but I never heard an answer back on that. I raised this because the shelter manager appears to be using township logos, seals, and uniforms to promote her independent photography business. I specifically requested the forms or records that would show that she had permission to use it and it came back as no responses. So I took that as she didn't have the permission to do it. So the question is just what are the consequences for that? My other question is, is there an update on the third party evaluator that I paid for? Because that was like a week and a half ago and I just want to know where we're at in that process. And then we bypassed Justine's speech, but I just wanted to summarize it a little bit. We now have over 2,000 signatures. The majority are Hamilton residents who are asking for answers to that list of questions we submitted. And just like what do we have to do to get any of those answers? Because now this is the third meeting that we're bringing it up. And we also went through some of the past meetings where you guys on council asked questions. Like at the last one, you wanted a written explanation for why the bios weren't done. In the 519 meeting, your council president asked why Merlin's evaluation got pushed back five months. At the 5-5 meeting, Lisa brought up the food budget and what the budget was for the animals ordering food and why it wasn't being ordered timely. And you guys said that we would find out answers. And even if you can't give me the answers, did you guys ever get the answers that you requested?

I got the answers I requested. We did meet with... the director, the health officer, as I had stated. I did get the answers why those weren't done. Some of them, I don't recall which were which. I got all my answers. I was satisfied with my answers. Also, the big part of that meeting was about the application process, the adoption process. Those things, all of my questions that day were answered. The other questions you asked were, what was the first question? The trademark policy. Trademark policy, I don't have information on. Could you expand on that at all?

Yes. So as we know, the shelter manager runs her own photography business. And if you go to her website on her homepage, she has pictures of the ACOs in uniforms promoting that she does headshots. And then if you click onto that page, there's a subpage with multiple more photos with them. in uniform where you can clearly see the township seal and logos and stuff like that. And it was my understanding that that is not allowed.

All right. Thank you.

You're welcome. And then just how do we get answers to the questions we submitted? Could you submit an actual list of questions? Yeah, I handed it to Chris. And it's also in the petition online, which he's also seen. Okay.

I can send them again. Could you send them to me so that I make sure that we have them? Yeah. Because I thought you meant you submitted them to the Perks office and when I checked with the Perks office. No, I gave them direct, I handed them directly to Chris. It was the night of the. The Board of Health meeting. The Board of Health meeting. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You get them to me. I'm sorry you have to do it again, but yeah.

Okay. Amanda, you're up.

Okay, so I was talking about Marley. We went to the training and, okay, so I was less wondering how the guidance for how to appropriately walk a dog would apply when the demo that we were given on Marley was used with the leash wrap method. So there was no actual time for us to practice using a non-leash wrap method. Okay. So after I passed the class, I'm allowed to walk green level dogs. When I came for my first dog walk, though, there were no green dogs available. So with staff approval, I was allowed to walk a light blue color dog, which I felt comfortable and I appreciated them allowing me to do. Since then, they have allowed me to walk specific blue level dogs, and not light blue, the step up, when the lower level dogs are not available. I think the progression and the opportunities to develop these skills could be more clearly explained in the training and how to get from level to level and what qualifications we kind of need to achieve that. When I left the training, I felt like some practical questions were left unanswered like where should we walk the dogs? How long should we walk B? Are there preferred routes or areas of the neighborhood to avoid, especially if there's a pet in the neighborhood and we are walking a reactive dog? And what's the best way to even like manage the two leash method because we were told to use our two hands so when the dog goes to the bathroom, What is the guidance on what to do with the leashes? So little things like that I think could be really helpful for people who have a lot less experience with an animal. After we walked Marley, we went to the fenced-in yard behind gate one, where she said the volunteers can bring dogs to spend additional time outside of their kennel. She gave us directions for not putting our face in the dog's face and things like that. I appreciated her guidance, but I wonder how can we make the time outside of the kennel more meaningful. So the last part I want to talk about is just socialization of the dogs. Laura referenced that this was like a super important experience for the dogs to have outside of the kennel, and sometimes part of the routine is that the dogs aren't receiving socialization and love and affection, but they really need to become adoptable. I have a question like, how can volunteers be able to provide more human interaction for the dogs who may not be eligible for regular walks? I'm thinking like a red dog who might not get out of their kennel except for once a month or multiple months not outside of a kennel. So if they are a red level dog for a specific walking behavior, let's say, but they're affectionate and they like people, how can we have appropriately trained volunteers spend time with the dog without just taking it for a walk? How can we make these animals more adoptable and social Because in the couple of experiences I've had, I am noticing that the lower level dogs, even down to the light blue dogs, are not interested in socializing with humans that they are with. And that was something that she noted about Marley, who's a level blue, that they're not really interested in interacting with humans. And part of what makes them adoptable is being able to interact with human people. So part of the socialization goal is that, I'm out of time. Okay, no problem. Thank you. Okay.

Just to be clear, I went over who runs the social media and all that. I was talking about how just simple things like getting t-shirts, so if I'm walking a dog and Amanda's walking the dog, I could see her and if I have a dog reactive, I could move. I don't think the township has to pay for it. The people gladly spend $10 to $20 on a shirt to help get animals adopted. I know it sounds silly, but it's true. I know some of the t-shirt business. I'm sure they'll be happy. This may seem silly, but think of someone brand new walking into a shelter and going to look at the animals. People would feel more comfortable asking questions if they knew who to actually ask the questions to. It makes for a better experience for the buyer, which can lead to more successful results. The last thing I want to speak about is the play yard for the dogs. I think asking the public for help, whether that be donations or volunteering to put, I don't know, artificial grass, more enrichment for the dogs so that the play and exercise could be better, better pictures we can take and so on. The people in the town want to help, so why are we so afraid to accept it as a town? And Amanda was speaking and it just kind of came in my mind, but the people in the audience, When we think about these colored dogs, when I go to log dogs, it's like, I always use the teacher as an example. It's like, I'm only teaching the smart kids. The kids who need help, you just ignore them and let them suffer. And I feel like we just have to figure out a better way to give these dogs a chance. And the whole thing with the social media, we have to do better. Like anyone looking on Instagram or Facebook, it's just like, it's subpar. We could do better. And the goal is to sell these animals to loving people. And ultimately the goal is to clear the shelter. So I feel like that's all we want. If you have the answers to the questions about who runs the social media, I would love to know that. Does anybody know a name?

We'll get our own comments.

It's worked very hard to make it much better than it was.

I agree. I think we can also just be honest that Sometimes if you're not doing your job well enough, there's someone else who could do better. And I think that we need to take a pause and look at ourselves as if it's not being complacent. I don't know how much money she's getting paid, but like I said about Jules, She got a lot of engagement by just speaking about the shelter and constantly posting, posting, posting. I don't see that happening, and we're here to help. And again, I needed to say one more thing about Jules not being accepted as a volunteer. My dad always told me, Mark Twinkle, you're never wrong doing the right thing. So if the shelters aren't doing anything wrong, I don't know what they're worried about Jules coming to volunteer and walking dogs. Thank you very much.

So I know Steve, Lisa, Janice, Andy all did not sign up. The last name I have is Kelsey. Did you want to speak again? Okay. Anybody else that spoke a first time and wants to speak again a second time? If you spoke, if you didn't speak yet and you want to speak, you're more than welcome to speak also. I would like her to speak. You didn't have your first chance yet. You're more than welcome to come up.

Good evening. I'm Ana Paola Pasmiño. I'm with the Resistencia en Acción. We serve Hamilton, Mercer County in general. I'm also, I lived in Mercer County for a long time and I'm really close to Mercer County now. And I wanted to come up to talk about a couple of things. Just sitting here observing as a human, right, I wanted to give the chance to the people who are living in Hamilton and who have seen what is happening to the family and to the situation in general. I want to mention that law enforcement like ICE right now and police collaboration with ICE is happening and it's becoming violent. And what is happening is that the community is no longer trusting police. We have many women who have come to our organization saying that they cannot call police because they're scared of going to be given to ICE because they have maybe an abusive partner or that they have something happening with a neighbor or a landlord that is like saying them to hit them, to abuse them. And so what are we doing now here is not listening and not protecting a family, let alone the ICE connection that I'm making just because of our work. So it is crucial that we don't just sit here and listen, think about this as if you were part of the family or you knew them or it was a family member from your family circle that was going through this that called for help and then they were arrested, put charges, abused physically, and then not given any help. It's been a month now. I personally had to make calls to have a therapist and therapy for the family? Why do we as organizations or individuals have to pick up the pieces of what the government and city councils can do? Why is this just looked at nonchalantly and said, oh, I never knew about this or, oh, we need to investigate. I urge you, I urge you just as a human to make this a priority tomorrow morning, like all the other priorities that we have, please investigate and we need to put protection for the family, not calling them out in here, but it could be any family who the police is going to maybe Well, we already know the son is in detention right now, but what can happen is they're investigating the family. This is why there's a lack of trust with police and community, and we don't want to foster that. We want to make sure that people are being heard and that our tax dollars are being used. So please take into consideration what everyone has said and make this a priority tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you.

Janice, come on up.

Oh, the mic is the right size. Wow. All right. A short person before me. Fantastic. Okay. Janice, you guys definitely have a lot of homework to do from listening to all these people. And I must say, you did an outstanding job, Mr. President.

Thank you.

giving the leniency and the timing, how you called everybody, made sure everybody had their second chance. Very well done. You should be proud of yourself. And I didn't know we had the gavels still in existence. Okay? Thank you. But you did a very good job and giving everybody their fair shot and giving them the extra time, even you kind of let the time run a bit, and you gave them their extra time to finish and everything. That was very good of you. And you did a very nice meeting.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Lisa?

Lisa Williams Hamilton. I'm going to start with, I too, like Councilman Carabelli, did not know about this situation that the family experienced in July with our police department. So I want to start with that. I'm sorry to hear that this is going on in our town. No person, no resident, no visitor of our town should be afraid to call the police or call 911 in a mental health emergency. So I didn't know either. And I think I'm sort of aware, but I guess I'm not. So I just want to say that I don't think anyone should be afraid. And I feel for this family. I mean, I sometimes live in fear with stuff that I've spoken out about. And my property has been vandalized. And I have had terrible things say to me. And I have gone to the police department and Sometimes not gotten help either in situations in the past, say, six years. So nothing like these people have dealt with. So I don't want to run out of time. I just want to say I feel for them. I feel for you guys. I have cameras on my house as well because of stuff that has happened on my property. And I don't live far from you. I've walked past your house a million times.

I am sorry for what you are going through.

I also never got an answer on how much money's in the budget for, sorry, shifting to the shelter, for food at the shelter. The list of questions I believe Jules is referring to is the meeting, Kathy, that you weren't here. Your assistant attended that meeting, that members of council were saying, giving questions, we want answers. That's what I think she's referring to. I'm gonna try to be fast. I know social media's better than it was. For people who are new to the shelter situation, they don't know that there was never anything, and I've brought it up for years. But again, it wasn't until Jules got involved that we got movement on that. The fact that it took Juliana on social media to get help for the shelter really makes me question, like, seriously? If there's anybody who should be able to volunteer at the shelter, it's Juliana Carrella. Because without her, the movement would not have happened. And now she's not because people don't trust her. Because she speaks up and isn't afraid to? I know, I spoke up for years. You sit there and shake your head, Mr. Tai. But I've raised the same issues for years, same three issues.

You're not allowed to stick your hand inside the cage. That's my understanding of what the issue was.

That's not why she's been told she can't.