Township Council - Regular Meeting

Okay.

That should be it.

Okay, now that sounds better. Madam Clerk.

In accordance with the Open Public Meeting Act of the State of New Jersey, adequate notice of this work session regular meeting of the Franklin Township Council was made as required, indicating that this meeting would take place at the Municipal Building at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, 2026.

If we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by the invocation by Councilman Singh. 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.

Let us take the next few moments of silence to each seek in our own way whatever sources of inspiration will grant us the strength and power in our thoughts and decisions to be for the benefit of all people at all times. Amen.

Amen.

Madam Master Clerk, please call the roll. Councilman Embarrison. Here. Councilwoman Francois. Here. Deputy Mayor Karasi. Here. Mayor Kramer. Here. Councilman Onijaka.

Here.

Councilman Singh.

Yes.

Councilwoman Uddin. Councilman Vacinella. Yes. Councilman Wright.

We have three commendations and proclamations tonight. The first by Dr. Karasi, Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month Proclamation. Tonight is microphone night.

Good evening, everyone. I am the liaison for the Advisory Board of Health. And so I'd like to read this proclamation for the Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. Whereas ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death among women in the United States. And the American Cancer Society estimates that in 2026, approximately 21,010 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and 12,450 will die from the disease nationwide. including an estimated 650 new cases and 300 deaths in New Jersey. And whereas a woman's lifetime, lifetime risk of being diagnosed with ovarian cancer is approximately one in 91. And her lifetime risk of dying from the disease is approximately one in 143. And whereas due to vague, nonspecific symptoms and the absence of reliable early detection test, The majority of the women are diagnosed at stage three or later, when the cancer has already spread beyond their ovaries. And whereas, although the five-year survival rate for stage one ovarian cancer exceed 90%, only 15% of cases are diagnosed at this early stage. For those diagnosed in later stage, the five-year survival rate drops to below 30%. And whereas, while screening tools such as mammograms and PUP tests exist for breast and cervical cancers, no equivalent screening test exists for ovarian cancer. Make an awareness of symptoms and risk factor essential for early intervention. And whereas, increase public education. about ovarian cancer can help save lives by promoting earlier diagnosis, supporting access to gynecological oncology care, and encouraging research funding for better detection and treatment options. And whereas, during the month of September, The Township of Franklin joins survivors, families, health care professionals, advocacy organizations, and all those committed to raising awareness, remembering lives lost, and offering hope for a future with better outcomes and ultimately a cure. Now, therefore, we, Alex Karadzic, Deputy Mayor, and Phil Kramer, Mayor, do hereby proclaim September 2026 as Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month in the Franklin Township. New Jersey, and encourage all residents to participate in awareness activities where treat and support and engage in conversation that helps save lives and support the thousands of families affected by this devastating disease. in witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and cause the seal of the atonishment of Franklin to be affixed this eighth day of September 2026. Thank you.

Thank you. And you're going to stay up there for a commendation on Ava Gulcha?

Yes. Mr. Mayor, may I ask you to please join me as well? We have a young lady that I'd like you to be in the picture.

Sure.

All right. This is a nice part that I'm going to be talking about. You know, often we come across acts of generosity, and sometimes we see some good stuff done by our younger folks, be a student or otherwise not a student. A week or so ago, I came across a fundraising, which was by one of the young ladies who was selling lemonade. And I thought that she's selling it to make some money to buy something for herself. Then a few days later, I saw a picture of her in front of the Frankentonship Animal Shelter with a check for $175. I said, wow, this is incredible. So let me learn more about her and see if this is something that we can recognize during the council meeting. And when I talked to her mom, she said, oh, this is the third year in a row she's doing it. So I am pleased to invite Ava and her family to please come and join me while I'm reading this certificate or presenting the certificate of commendation. So please come forward. If you have any sibling, you can come, too.

Any sibling, you can come, too.

Yes, friends too. Sure. Sure. The more the better. All right. So I'm just going to go ahead and read the certificate. Whereas Eva Golcha has, for the past three years, operated a lemonade stand in Franklin Township with the goal of helping animals in need. And whereas, Ava has generously donated all of the proceeds from her lemonade stand to the Franklin Township Animal Shelter. And this year alone raised $175 through her hard work and dedication. And whereas Ava's deep love and care for all animals, along with her generosity and commitment to her community, exemplifies the very best of the spirit of Franklin Township. And whereas the Mayor and Township Council of Franklin Township wish to publicly recognize and celebrate Ava's outstanding compassion, initiative, and generosity. Now, therefore, the Mayor and Township Council of Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey, do hereby extend the certificate of commendation to Ava Golcha in heartfelt appreciation of her three years of dedicated service to the animals of our community, and with sincere thanks for the kindness of compassion she has shown to all creatures, great and small.

Congratulations.

And usually when I present something for children, I frame it. The others are not framed, but this one is framed. So, here.

Well, the animal shelter is something that's close to my heart. All the money that I receive and anyone else who has helped me do the Weddings, all the money, we get $50 a wedding. All of that has been donated to the animal shelter. So I like where you're starting. I didn't start at your age. So you're going to get a jump on me. So very good. Congratulations.

I can go.

I'll go get you a bag. Yeah.

Mr. Vasanello will be reading a proclamation about voting rights, disability voting rights.

Yes. Mayor, was there anyone here to receive it?

Oh, great.

Okay. I'll read it. It's pretty self-explanatory. Did you want to come up? Sure, come on up. OK, it's a little long, but I think it's important here. Whereas the right to vote is one of the most fundamental rights of citizenship, and people with disabilities represent one of the largest and fastest growing blocks of eligible voters in the United States. And whereas according to Rutgers University program for disability research, over 40 million Americans with disabilities were eligible to vote as of 2024. Roughly one in six eligible voters nationwide with the disability electorate growing more than twice as fast as the electorate without disabilities since 2020. Whereas the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Help America Vote Act guarantee every voter with a disability the right to cast a private and independent ballot, yet voters with disabilities continue to face inaccessible polling places, inadequate accommodations, and other barriers to fully participate And whereas research shows the voter turnout gap between people with and without disabilities narrowed to 1.5% in 2022, down from 4.7% in 2018, demonstrating that outreach, education, and advocacy measurably increased the participation among voters with disabilities. Whereas Disability Voting Rights Week, observed nationally September 14th through 18th, it's coming this week, was founded by grassroots disability advocates and is hosted by the American Association of People with Disabilities and its Rev Up campaign. Register, educate, vote, use your power. that's the acronym REV UP, to registered voters, educate candidates and the public, and build the political power of the disability community. And whereas ensuring full, equal, and accessible access to the ballot for residents with disabilities strengthens our democracy and reflects the township of Franklin's ongoing commitment to inclusion and civic participation for all residents. And whereas during Disability Voting Rights Week, the Township of Franklin joins disability advocates, self-advocates, families, service providers, and election officials across the nation in recognizing the importance of accessible, independent, and private voting for every eligible voter. Now, therefore, I, on behalf of Mayor Philip Kramer and the whole council, do hereby proclaim September 14th through September 18th, 2026, as Disability Voting Rights Week in the Township of Franklin, and encourage all residents, employers, and election officials to support voter registration and accessibility efforts, to help register and educate eligible voters with disabilities, and to help ensure that every voter can exercise their right to vote independently and with dignity. Thank you. And this isn't anything about mail-in voting or this or that or anything else. This is simply about anybody who comes out to vote, regardless of their physical ability to get around, needs to and will as far as franklin can what we can do and advocates like yourself to make it so that they can go voting whatever day they choose and vote uh the way everybody else gets to so please good evening everyone mayor kramer and the council

My name is Dr. Jackie Jackson, and I come before you with hearts full of gratitude and humility on behalf of the disability community, and I thank you for presenting this Voter Rights Disability Proclamation to me. As we all know, Voting is a fundamental right for all citizens, not just for people, able-bodied people, but for people with disabilities as well. It is an essential part of our democracy, and I really want to emphasize that, you know, people with disabilities still continue to struggle. disability suppression is on the rise, and people with disabilities still struggle. There's not enough accessible voting sites, and there's not accessible parking, so it's very difficult for people with disabilities to vote, even today, After the 36th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, just a few months ago, we still struggle in all aspects of life. So I'm here today on behalf of the disability community, as I said, to remind everybody that the disability vote matters. Our voices need to be heard. And again, I'm going to turn to the council and say that once again. to emphasize that the disability vote matters, our voice matter, our voice is our power. Thank you.

Oh, thank you so much.

Sorry. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Can we get the podium moved back?

Oh, I'm sorry.

I think we should make Alex do it.

Turn it around. Turn it around.

Thank you. Asking unanimous consent to open for public session. Without objection, we are open to public session. Anyone wishing to speak about anything to do with government may come forward. Five minutes each, no yielding of time. We'd like you to state your name and address. and bring a solar panel with you.

Can I start? Good evening, Council. Stan Yarich, 22 Heather Drive. I apologize, I brought this oversized panel. It's kind of heavy, but it's a 300-watt panel, and if you buy a new one, it will be only six pounds, so it's much lighter today. Now, why am I saying it? Because... Cheryl, government Cheryl, signed on September 1 a very important bill. It's called Balcony Solar Act Bill. So they came into law on September 1. Why is it important? Because this bill removes unnecessary red tapes for residents who cannot afford or who, for other reasons, cannot put solar panels on their roof. The purpose is really equity and make energy cost lower. I just want to demonstrate how easy it is, all that you need, and also I have to say that the system size must be less than 1,200 watts. So, solar panel, plus, minus. This is inverter. You plug one from here, one there. You cannot miss it because they are complementary. And this... is what you plug into your power outlet. When sun is shining, if you touch the prongs, you will not get electrocuted, because the microinverter needs to sense the grid first. When it senses, by plugging it, it will instantly convert the DC energy from the solar panel into AC, and it's very safe. So when you have four of these, you are maximizing your allowance. You don't need permit. You don't need a blessing from the utility. And this system, I actually got this panel from a person who thought that they don't need solar panels. And they sold it to me for $10 each. You can buy them, four of them, the modern for about $550. Inverter is about $180. So for less than $800, you can get a 1,200-watt system. Annual benefit is up to $400. So if you get it like this for $10, it pays back within first year. If you get new, it will pay back in two years. So I'm asking you as a council to celebrate This is this bill and to encourage our residents to install solar panels not just on their balcony, but wherever they can just want to make sure that they have some brackets and It's really great stuff and again, I want you to to promote it and and leverage environmental commission to To feel more education about this program. Thank you

Anyone else wish to speak? Thank you.

Good evening. Linda Powell, 22 Buffett Drive. A couple things I wanted to mention. One is to congratulate Ed Potasnik. Today there was a press release about him being sworn in as the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection. For those of you who might not know Ed, he is a long-time resident of Franklin. He was the president of the school board, he was the council member, and he left that position when Governor Sherrill asked him to be the acting um commissioner and today he became the commissioner no longer acting um the other thing i want to say some of you know me because between um 2016 and 2020 when the pandemic outbreak happened um i was at almost every council meeting talking about the nessie project the northeast supply environmental project of Williams Transco. And we defeated that in 2019 and 2020, and they let their certificate from the federal agencies expire in 2024. But on November 20th, 2025, which was I believe Inauguration Day, they again applied for the same project which includes a very polluting and dangerous compressor station here in Franklin and a pipeline under Raritan Bay where they would dredge up toxins that had been buried under the seabed for decades now. Today we woke up to some good news. And we had gone on July 8th, we had gone to a circuit court hearing because we were basically suing the NJDEP for not standing up for the water quality guidelines of the state and just you know, in November 2025, just giving in to New York's decision. And today I woke up to, and I'll quote this, this is from the National Natural Resource Defense Council. He said, today the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has unjustly approved a water quality certification for the Northeast Supply Enhancement, or NESE pipeline. The GEP has already twice rejected the project in 2019 and 2020, for its inability to comply with state water quality standards. The National Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit in November 2005, joined in a parallel suit brought by partners represented by Eastern Environmental Law Center. The court's decision today vacated the unlawful certification removing a key approval needed to build the pipeline through New Jersey state waters. So today was a good day when I was awakened with good news. The other thing I want to mention has to do with Resolution No. 26390, and we, meaning, you know, the... of Franklin Township Task Force on NSE agree with accepting a settlement as long as it is used to promote the health and safety of residents of Franklin and our neighbors. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor Kramer and Council. I'm Lorenda Harper, 164 Churchill Avenue. Just a couple of things I wanted to point out for the record on this council meeting. One thing, I'm happy to see our Public Safety Director here. I was going to address Carl with this question, but currently we have two speed radars on my street right now, Churchill Avenue. And I just wanted to make note, the one unit that is closer to Annapolis Street is not currently working, so it needs to be charged. So right now it's just there for decoration. Also, I just wanted to ask Carl, not Carl, Bob Hornlocker, if he could clarify what the active hours is for the township noise ordinance. Okay, just the hours. And the main thing I'm up here for is for the next topic that you guys will discuss, some of the ordinances. I'd like to talk about ordinance number 4518-26. It's a Habitat for Humanity home that's looking to be built by the Raritan Valley chapter. So I have some concerns about this. I live at 164, again, and this is my neighbor at 170. They're asking to build a home at 168, which is on Valley Township right now, and is currently between our two homes. The lot is very, very small. So right now it's going to go to the zoning board in September, in two weeks for a variance approval. So I'm totally against it, and he is as well. The site suitability is just not there. The lot is considered too small, I think, for a house. Both of our lots are 100 by 195, 100 by 195. The lot right now for the township is 50 by, I think it's 50 by 100, so very small. So I don't know how... How a house can fit there. It's a one-room house. I'm not sure. A driveway. I don't see it. So also the environmental and infrastructure impact. Removing the trees in between us. How I know, I had trees removed to the right of my home a couple years ago to make a lot for the church next to me. And my backyard flooded for three years. And I had to harass Bob, Department of Public Works, and this council in order for that to be remediated. And it took three years to do that. So I lived with my backyard flooding for three years. Also, there's no parking for this home. So that means they're going to park in front of my house, in front of his house, and I just don't see it happening. And there's no privacy anymore for us. So safety is an issue as well, and I'll address that to public safety director as well. That, where they want this house to be built, It's right directly in front of Wheeler Place, the corner that's very heavy to traffic for Baskin Park. There's cars that speed around that corner consistently. And I've seen cars blow by that stop sign. You may have seen it all the time. and they go right into that lot. So I would hate to see a home there with children or family living in that situation. So another thing I just don't understand, there is already a utility pole right smack in the middle of that lot. The fire hydrant is to the left of that. The light is always out at another corner. And I just, I don't see it. So the question remains, we already have two homes, Habitat for Humanity, on our street. Why a third? So I'm just thinking, is there ward equity? Are there any other Habitat for Humanity homes being built in other wards? Because it just seems like it's on our street, because we're already overcrowded. We have the food bank. We have two churches. We have a mosque being built. And they have no parking whatsoever right now. So we have to snake in and out of our street every day just to get by, because there's so many families with multiple cars. And the Habitat for Humanity home that's closer to him and his direct neighbor, they have about seven cars in their driveway. And where do they park? In front of his house, in front of my neighbor's house. They don't even cut the grass anymore because there's cars parked on their lot. So I just want to bring up those issues. Hopefully I can state more. things that are happening in my neighborhood at the zoning board meeting, but I just wanted to bring that to your attention. I have nothing against Habitat for Humanity. I think it's a great organization, but I just don't think that home belongs between he and I. Okay, so thank you. Those are my questions.

Thank you. Anyone else wish to speak?

Good evening, Mayor Cramer and council. My name is Maureen Taylor, 122 Winchester Way. I've been a resident of Franklin Township for over 40 years. And I wanted to express my disappointment in discovering that there's going to be a cannabis dispensary less than a mile from my house. Not only is it close to a residential area, it's also close to a school, a place of worship, and our library where our children go. To be honest, when I first saw the sign Franklin Roots, I thought it had something to do with Franklin Township history. Imagine my surprise when I Googled it and found it was going to be yet another dispensary. I believe that the propagation and high number of dispensaries will be a stain on our history. I found out too late that it was going to happen, and I take personal ownership for that. I will make sure I keep a closer eye on what the council proposes to happen. And to that end, I would like to know how many more dispensaries are planned for Franklin Township? Is there a limit for how many more there will be? Is Franklin Township reaping any revenue to offset our high property taxes? And are there plans to regulate the traffic at that intersection of Amwell and DeMott? Thank you very much for your service.

Hi, Jim Johnston, 34 Norwich Place. I'm going to talk about Flock. Since the last meeting a month ago, I've been doing some more reading up on it, and I've been talking to some more people, and I'm very grateful to their helping me to understand. But if I say anything that you know is incorrect, please feel free to correct me. Flock is a private company. They got a private database that is contained on the cloud, okay? You know what the cloud is, right? Cloud computing. And it's contained in a cloud called the American Web Services Cloud, the AWS Cloud. Okay, now, Flock has full control over this database. They got their own administrators who are Flock employees. They are the only ones who are allowed to have administrative capabilities to this database. So let's say if someone from the Franklin police, a Franklin police officer, wants to submit a query, he has a... a special login for police officers that he can log into to submit a query to the flock database. And that query goes to the database and it is handled by one of the administrators and they process the query and it produces the desired report which is then sent back to the police officer. That's my understanding. So Franklin Township or the Franklin Police do not have any administrative ability to administrate the database that Flock has. So Flock essentially controls everything. They control, they own the database and they control and own the data that's in the database. So let's say if Flock, I know your contract says that with Flock, that the township has a contract with Flock that says Flock is not allowed to sell data to third parties, but actually, if they wanted to, they could, without you knowing about it, because like I said, Flock is the only ones who have administrative ability to administrate the database, and they can do anything they want, including selling data. to third parties. And this is verified by a New Jersey state assemblyman, Balveer Singh. He's a New Jersey state assemblyman. And he put out a video a couple of weeks ago in which he says that Flock is indeed selling data to third parties, to the highest bidder. So check him out. His name is Balvir Singh, B-A-L-V-I-R, last name Singh, S-I-N-G-H. So I would tend to believe him because we heard to the contrary at the last meeting that they couldn't do it. But this assemblyman says they are doing it. And then there's the question of how much support, how much, there was bipartisan opposition in Franklin against Flock, overwhelmingly. You saw what happened at the mass meeting last month. We had how many speakers had come up here? 25 people came up here to speak, or 30 people? And every one of them, voiced objections to Flock. They were all against it. Not a single person was for Flock. Now, I don't know how many of you are on Facebook, but even on Facebook, you can see there's an overwhelming opposition to Flock. Last week, the Franken Reporter published two editorials. One editorial was against Flock. The other editorial was for Flock. The one that was against Flock got a lot of favorable comments, and 62 people liked the editorial that was against Flock. Nobody, nobody, not one person liked the editorial that was for Flock. Nobody wrote any comments. Nobody liked it. So the vote tally is 62 to 0 to cancel Flock and take down the cameras or cover them up, whatever. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Good evening, council. My name is Jacqueline McCaffrey, Ward 2. I am demanding the immediate shutdown of Franklin Township's flock surveillance system until residents receive complete answers and a genuinely independent investigation. Our analysis places Franklin near the top of the agencies with calculable hot list rate of nearly 48%. This is not targeted policing. Targeted policing begins with evidence of a crime. Franklin collects the plate, time, location, and vehicle information of hundreds of thousands of innocent people first and preserves it in case someone wants to search it later. That threatens our Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable government searches. Location records can reveal visits to homes, doctors, churches, protests, attorneys, and support groups. Driving through Franklin is not consent to government tracking. Township orders document roughly 26 license plate readers, four Condor video cameras, gunshot detection, block OS, and a three-year data retention. Yet residents have heard conflicting camera counts. Where is the authoritative inventory? In only 30 days, the portal reported roughly 664,000 unique vehicle reads and approximately 311 hot list hits, a calculated rate of nearly 47%. Extraordinary figure must be independently verified. A hit is not necessarily a wanted vehicle confirmed to match, arrest, or solve crime. Verified flock commitments approach $400,000 with more than $100,000 in estimated annual costs. That also excludes all the other surveillance software. I'm not going to list them, but we all know what they are. So that more outreaches our surveillance estimate to over $1 million. But the township has not produced the complete ledger of what that is, and that's what we're asking for. And then if we go to crime statistics, they do not justify. what we have done in Franklin Township. Franklin's population has more than doubled since 1976, while its serious crime rate was approximately 75% lower in 2024. The available evidence does not prove that Flock produced crime. The ACLU warns that Flock is building a nationwide mass surveillance network and has documented misleading representations concerning its capabilities and federal access. Flock now faces a proposed class action lawsuit alleging unlawful access to location data. We also demand an independent investigation into the police department restructuring, the displacement of the police chief structure, Lloyd Frederick's appointment process, and the township manager foreign locker's involvement. I believe... Far too much authority has become concentrated in the township manager's office. Tonight, we demand that you turn off the cameras and suspend collection, searches, alerts, and sharing. Preserve every contract, communication, hot list, and audit log. Commission a fully independent investigation. Release the complete inventory, sharing list, grant records, payment ledger, and actual public safety outcomes. terminate the contract, and ban flock from Franklin Township. Turn off the cameras, preserve the evidence, give the public answers before the system operates for one more day.

Thank you.

Bill Bowman, 51 Cherrywood Drive, and also the editor of the Franklin Reporter. You guys know how I hate doing this, but I have to. Clarification, we did not publish an editorial in favor of the flock cameras. What that was was a story, not an editorial, a story allowing the Public Safety Director to more fully explain what the situation is with flock cameras and other surveillance cameras in the township. We published an editorial opposing the flock cameras and asking... not demanding, suggesting that the contract be nullified and the cameras be shut down. But we did not publish an editorial supporting the flat cameras. Thanks.

Javon Walker, 15 Coon Street. Just a couple things. The first one I want to mention is what exactly is a protocol if if we believe that there has to be an improvement or reconstruction of sidewalks. A lot of sidewalks on the fourth ward are cracked, disfigured, blah, blah, blah, and it makes it much harder for kids to be able to go to school. I don't know if that needs to be a complaint submitted to DPW. I don't know if it, okay, thank you, Mr. Vornlacher. And also, in terms of dumping, would that also have to be formal complaints? Appreciate it. Okay, and the last thing is, along with a lot of what other people have said, again with the flock, I ask if the Township Council can, like the prior person said, suspend all activities related to flock until there's a larger gathering of people, unless there's a referendum for November ballot or next year, or some other type of meetings with the public along with the Township Council I think two meetings is not enough you've heard a lot of what the public said and the public said is over what the public has said is overwhelmingly against the flock cameras I think for the amount of participation that the Township Council averages in meetings what you've seen over the last two meetings is substantially higher than what you normally see. So I think that the township council should really consider what the public is overwhelmingly saying in regards to flock cameras. Like I said, I think if you really want to allow power to the people, at least set it for a referendum. Please don't be the eight or nine members of the council that want to decide whether we want surveillance in the township. and so forth that's all that i ask thank you

Hello, my name is Danielle Williams. I live at 32 Cobbler Circle in Park Hill Estate off of South Middle Bush and the intersection of 27. I think you guys know what I'm talking about. There is a flock camera in that intersection. As previously mentioned, we were not made aware of those flock cameras being placed. I drive past that road every single day, and I do not consent to being surveilled. by my government, right? I've lived in Franklin Park for a majority of my life, over 20 years. I've grown up here. I've gone to the public schools here. I have friends, family, all of that. There is no known crime, so I need to see some statistics from you guys showing me why that's necessary, right? We live in a very safe community, so I don't understand why we need to be surveilled, right? We don't have any crime. The worst thing that happens to us is a car accident, right? We need to understand why you guys have approved that contract, why you've spent our taxpayer dollars on these cameras' surveillances on us. You don't inform us. You didn't do a referendum. You didn't do a vote on it. You didn't even let us know that this was happening. I have to go online, see about these slot cameras, and as I'm driving, I see a camera pointed at me. I'm not a criminal. There's no crime in the area that is suggesting that we need this technology. It's an invasion of our rights, of our privacy, and at the very least, you need to let us know that you are making this decision, okay? I was not here at the last township meeting, so I didn't hear what other people were saying. But I'm pretty sure from what I've heard today that they have had similar feedback and thoughts. So I need you guys to actually really consider this and either pause. I don't even want it to be paused. I want it to be stopped. I want the cameras to come down. But at the very least, you need to do a vote and have the township, the people of Franklin, vote and make their voices heard. I shouldn't have to come down to this meeting and tell you guys that I don't want to be watched for no reason. There is no threat to our safety. Nothing happens. The worst is someone sets off a firework. You're talking about gunshot detection. What gunshots have been fired in our neighborhood, in our township? Maybe I'm privileged. Maybe I don't have to have that experience. But I don't think that that's necessary. And my thoughts are, if we're having this surveillance technology, what's the point of the police department? You guys are not doing your job then, right? Because you're supposed to be keeping us safe. If you need this technology to do your work, then maybe we need to revamp the police department or something. Because this doesn't make any sense why you guys need this help when for years, as that other lady said, our crime has been lowered since 76 or something like that. We are not having an influx of crime. So if you guys can't handle the little car accidents and things like that, let us know so that we can make the next steps to make that change. But you should not be surveilling us, watching us as we're going about our day. I don't know who has access to that data. I don't know who's searching for it. There's young women, people around, right? You don't know who's in charge of that data, who has access to it. I don't approve of that, and I just wanted to come here and let you guys know that that's not okay, and we need to have some type of referendum, some type of vote, discussion, or not even discussion. It needs to come down. End of story. That's my thoughts. They need to come down. Thank you.

Good evening. Frank Ciara, Ward 2. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I very much appreciate your ear when it comes to the flock situation and listening to me and reading my emails. I very much appreciate it. Councilwoman Houdin, thank you for serving Ward 2. Councilman Francois, thank you for asking very good questions and being attentive. Welcome to the Franklin Flock File Session. If nobody did get a packet and you would like a packet, raise your hand and the young lady in the nice flowered blouse will hand you one. Let's start with Carl Bock from Flock, who said, Flock can't unilaterally change terms and conditions in New Jersey. except they did for Somerset County in May, and then here in Franklin on June 30th. The contract says explicitly binding to terms on FLOC website. That's highlighted. Then we have FLOC doesn't continuously track residents, Lloyd said, except when I went to Advance Auto and it collected 20 plus location data points on me in a few miles. That is tracking by definition. to see the map. Lloyd said, Flock can find pets in clothing. Well, that's the Meraki MVAI system that has that feature. So Lloyd mixed up his tyranny toys. Why tell us there's 22 cameras when there's far more? I don't understand that. Lloyd said they're not disproportionately placed in the colored side of town. But the map tells a different story. Did the council approve these 2024 terms and conditions prior to the resolution passing in January? Because I find that odd. Then there's no opt-out in a 2025 contract, which I highlighted. Yikes. Did the council approve a second contract with FLOC on the 30th of June? This did subject Franklin Township to the February 16th terms and conditions that were on Flock website at the time. And I wanna know who specifically approved those terms and conditions. Take a look at the Flock portal stats for Franklin Township. And then on the next page you can look at Edison. This is disgusting. Lloyd is on the record saying that hot list hits Hit total is a national number, not all Franklin. And he said that to the Franklin advocate in the article that the gentleman was talking about from the Franklin advocate. But that is simply not true. There's no idea how the system works. And with all the backlash now that the hot list hits are actually hidden. And I mean, we asked for this to be investigated. I even put in a formal complaint about it. We didn't ask for it to be covered up. You know, real national numbers, I have them. They're right here. Out of 300 cities that have a public portal, You can see where Franklin Township sits on that. But keep in mind, now, the whole state of Florida has banned flock. Flock is banned in Florida, the entire state. So congratulations, Franklin. We're number one in the country for hotless hit percentage of all the public portals in the country. What an achievement. And, you know, I mean, if you go over to the email page, you know, Bob, I like Bob, but he actually thinks that the Merakai MVs are regular traffic cameras, kind of like my dad thinks that AI is just for asking questions. It's kind of like the same concept. And Lloyd is right in the other email. We did have Merakai cameras 10 years ago. We did have them. Just not the ones with AI that collected our data. And I have every date of each AI camera that was installed on each pole. That's the power of open source intelligence. And, you know, governments who have no understanding of AI surveillance or how it evolves should not be in charge of this technology. Nor should a town council be a rubber stamp for the police department so they can plant their tyranny trees. I have provided far more evidence than any other city that already canceled or banned Flock. Tons more. Some of these cities was just one. One. That was it. Just one. That's all it took. I just want to say one Ben Franklin quote here to finish this off. Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name's Kyle. I live off of Webster Road. I recently got this letter in the mail. I didn't preempt or preplan any of this. I figured I'd just come up here and voice my opinion. This is pretty much a letter of cowardice saying why my property taxes went up. It's not your fault, it's school district and everyone else. That's the way I read it as cowardice. I don't understand how we can sustain this. I got a, kid that's 10 months old. I've lived here for 12 years. I hope you guys actually listen that I wanted to start a family here and it's no longer feasible. I'm going to look for somewhere else to live because I can't keep this up. In the time that I've lived here, I'm a younger guy that lives here, 83% of my property tax has gone up since 2012. Since 2022, 37%. I don't make 37% more. This is the straw that's breaking the camel's back. I like that in here it's got what you guys do, the finest police force, yet now here we are all talking about how you need flock. Well, then it can't be the finest police force if you need the AI.

Just trying to add it in.

My biggest gripe here is I can't afford this place. You're making it unaffordable for everybody. You knew that the cost of the property was going to be valued at a extra amount. Call it 20%. That's outside of what you guys are able to do. That's set by the market. Yet even with that 20% increase, if your house is valued at now 100,000 more, you still chose to increase your portion of taking. Can you not work within the exorbitant amount that's already going up? Can you not balance a budget? What happens if there is any sort of correction in the housing market? Are you going to just run a deficit nonstop and bleed us dry? Or are you actually going to do something about it, cut costs, cut staff? This is getting too much. And then while I'm on it, since the crowd really likes it, I'll just say, here we are in Franklin Township, I think it was by Benjamin Franklin, someone already quoted it, but you trade, what is it, you trade security, you trade freedom for security, those who trade freedom for security deserve neither.

Safety for liberty.

Safety for liberty deserve neither and will lose both. I appreciate you knowing that.

Deborah Inman, 4-4. I don't know how long ago, but the ordinance, the noise ordinance was modified so that when a resident called and complained about a noise disturbance, the officers could issue summonses. Officer Fredericks, they're not doing that. I've called numerous times on one of my neighbors, and I do believe if they were issuing a summons, they wouldn't be violating the noise ordinance after 10 p.m. So what's the sense of modifying a noise ordinance if it's not going to be enforced? And when I call the dispatch, it's like we're disturbing them about a noise ordinance. So I really need you to check your dispatchers, check your police officers. And when they go out to a call about a noise disturbance, don't give them one chance. Issue the noise ordinance right then and there, because they're disturbing people's peace. We're unable to enjoy the confines of our home. I'm tired of turning my volume of my TV up to 50 to be able to hear my television when I'm told. And you have to be able to hear from the property line. If I'm inside my house and my neighbor is over there, that's over the property line. So I would appreciate that you have that conversation during your huddles with your police officers and have them reinforce that ordinance and stop playing with people's livelihoods.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Faisal Noor. I live out of 2 Vance Road, Somerset. I'm here to speak about property taxes. The last increase was 20%. And I got the same letter saying that everything is getting more expensive. Insurance is getting more expensive. It's getting more expensive for everybody. And for you to move your problem from your side to just my side, it's not fair. Because I'm going to be selling my house soon. If this continues, have we considered managing resources, control expenses? You're just sending me a letter saying that we are like paying more. But what have we done last year? What was our expenses last year versus how much is our expenses this year? Are we abusing? Is everybody paying an increase? I got 20%. Is everybody in this room got 20% increase? Because I heard some people like their home's worth millions and they pay a little bit because like they're working here. I don't know if that's true or not, but we should look into that. Because if you guys keep continue raising my property tax, I won't be owning a home anytime soon. I'll be selling my home. Thank you.

Good evening. Charlie Craddaville. I live at 143 Saddam Street in New Brunswick, and I wanted to say it's a great day for Central Jersey, and I'm so glad to be with you all here in Franklin Township. I may not be a resident, but I have many great friends and allies who call this community home. Of course, Franklin is... home to many great community organizers, political activists, journalists, and other civic-minded folks who make it such a great place. And I think you're hearing from some of those folks tonight, and I hope you listen to them and take to heart what they're telling you. It's also got a pretty good culture here with the— meetings being video recorded, shared with the public on YouTube. Not all of them are. You still don't have the Housing Authority or the Redevelopment Agency meetings up there. So I'd encourage you to look at that and ask why not, since you do share so many of the important meetings. And you have so many great volunteers on your boards. So I do enjoy watching those meetings. But I'm here today because I was troubled by what I saw here at your August 11th meeting. So firstly, I came to that meeting to correct what I believe was bad information given to the council, the mayor, and the viewing public. So through the mayor, for the township attorney, I wanted to ask again, the definition of a covered person in the state's Daniels Law statute, does that include elected officials? Mr. Mayor, through you, for the township attorney.

We answer at the end of the public session.

Now, here's the thing. Last time I asked that same exact question, I waited until the very end, and I didn't get an answer. So I'm back with the same question. When will I get an answer? That's what you told me last time. So I guess we'll stay tuned for that answer. I don't know why you won't just answer, but to recap, Mr. Raynone, the longtime township attorney, and Mr. Vornlocher, the longtime township manager, made comments at your July meeting that suggested it was inappropriate to discuss the alleged home address of Fourth Ward Councilman Carl Wright. It's obvious to anyone who's actually read the statute that the interpretation offered by your professionals was simply wrong. Now, we all make mistakes. No one is perfect. But the honorable thing to do when you're engaged in public service and you make a mistake like this is to apologize, correct the record, and move forward with dignity. Instead, what occurred was even more troubling. When another individual followed up on my questions about these misrepresentations, an unserious and unprofessional response was offered by Township Council Raynone. Quote, I don't answer questions from Mr. Craddeville. That's my policy. So I got to ask, were you joking? It certainly sounded like an attempt at humor at my expense. Either way, it was an extraordinarily unprofessional conduct beneath the office that Mr. Raynone holds. And I will also note, on the topic of respect, Public Safety Director Lloyd Fredericks also crossed the line during that meeting when he threatened to remove people from the meeting for being, quote, not respectful. Now, I will say this. I have great respect for you, Mayor. I've worked with a lot of different mayors around the state, and I truly like you and think you're a good public servant. So I have respect for you. I show respect for you. I thought it was great that you have a public safety director who comes to many of the meetings. But No one is able to demand respect in the government. You cannot make people respect you. And no one has to be respectful to participate in these meetings. It was wrong for the civilian police director to go well beyond the scope of his duties that night. And he too owes the public an apology. So I am eagerly awaiting the answers to my questions, and I hope that we can all move forward with dignity and earn each other's respect. That's all. Thank you.

My name is Sanchi Sharma. I live on New Brunswick Road. Also, if my voice gets weird, sorry. I'm dealing with a bit of allergies. OK, so I have a couple of questions. My bad if this was mentioned in the previous meeting and I just missed it. But I have three questions. My first question is, how long is the contract with Flock? My second question is, what are the consequences for canceling the contract? And my third question is, is there any coordination with New Brunswick in the placement of flock cameras between Franklin and New Brunswick? I want to read some headlines I found out of Wisconsin. So this is one of the headlines. Sheriff's offices in, and I'm so sorry to anybody in Wisconsin if I'm butchering this, Rasson-Fond du Lac counties ending agreements with Flock. Two counties in southeast Wisconsin announced Friday they are cutting ties with Flock license plate reader cameras. In a statement, Fond du Lac County said its decision follows the discovery that search data from our flock systems, including records tied to active investigations, was disclosed to the public by law enforcement agencies in other states in response to open records requests they received, making it accessible nationwide. Another headline, which is with the Sheboygan Police Department, was that Flock Safety offered to sell five years of speed and traffic data to the city of Sheboygan. The city's mayor said Flock never told them that cameras were tracking that kind of data, and now the city is looking to cancel its contract with Flock. The last article I just want to quickly quote is from 404 Media titled, Flock Taught Cops How to Surveil No King's Protesters. So this is from the article. Give me one second. Okay. So in that, this was like what, the article is basically talking about a webinar. You can read the article online too. And this is a paragraph in the article. Imagine that you're an incident commander and you're working this No Kings protest. Peak explains while a dashboard shows a surveillance of surveillance tools overlaying the city of Denver. If I'm somebody assigned a traffic post that's working this No Kings protest, I really don't have time to go in and look at all these places for different intelligence. This is an example of viewing all of that in one place. I'm an officer. I can see the response plan that's included. I can pull that up if I need it, but I can also see live video footage as that protest moves through the park. Last time I brought up, I think it was the false positive rate I brought up. I brought up the risk of, you know, stalking. And those are still valid concerns. But I think it's kind of concerning that every week we have new headlines about Flock Nationwide on different issues with this company and just ALPRs in general. So again, I call on Franklin to cancel their contract because... I mean, I could show up in two weeks with more headlines, but I just don't want us to become a headline as well. Thank you.

Anyone else wishing to speak? I ask for unanimous consent to end public portion. Without objection, public portion is closed. Address comments of the public. Well, Locke was first on the list. Did you want to answer the questions?

All right, good evening, everyone. First and foremost, I'm not here to lie or deceive anyone, all right? I'm a human being, I make mistakes. I quoted 22 cameras because there are four cameras that are attached to our video cameras that I totally forgot about. And two cameras that were moved. Those two cameras were, that camera was counted twice. That's what accounts for the 28 cameras on the portal. See, so if you ask a question, I'm gonna give you the answer and I'm gonna give you the truth. The reason you saw so many hits on our transparency portal is because we had every box checked off for the hot list, all right? Now, when I was a police officer, we ran plates randomly by hand. When you saw officers stopped at a light or in a parking lot and they're checking a license plate, they were doing that by hand, right? A flock camera does that, it's a machine. So we can do it 10,000 times faster than a human being. Now, as far as hits, I'll educate you some more. The most hit on hot list topic is suspended license plates. Okay, we know that as officers. I'm giving it to you in the public. That is a Title 39 violation, all right? A ticket, all right? Most police officers are not directly interested in that, but it is a hot list item, and the camera will pick it up. All right, now, on the transparency portal, you saw NCIC, you saw Amberlist, you saw DMV. Those are the platforms that the hot list go into. A hot list hit can be, like I said, suspended license, suspended registration, stolen car, missing person, a sexual offense, an armed robbery, a homicide. I can go on and on and on. If all those boxes are clicked off, you're going to get hits. We in New Jersey are not allowed to share our information with other states, but those states can share their information with us. Therefore, we'll get their hot list information. All right? Across the United States, and this is just a policing issue, every state has a different law. Some states release open requests, they release everything. Some states restrict that. All right? Idaho Falls or Idaho. Idaho was the state. That was the state that released all the information that all these other people were able to get on Flock, including information from Franklin Township. All right? That's how the information got out there. Okay? Now, again, we have a conversation. I don't... Blame you for your thought process. I'm here to give you every answer to every question that you ask, all right? As far as surveillance, yes. It's term surveillance. It's security surveillance. There is no officer sitting behind a computer watching a TV or a monitor 24-7. That's called a real-time crime center. Now, the big cities have it, New York, Newark, Jersey City, they can afford to do that. We can't here. Ours is an investigation tool. It's one tool that we use in our investigations. The young lady here that says, why do you have gunshot detection? Well, because we have gunshots. It might not happen in your neighborhood, but that doesn't mean it's not happening in Franklin Township. OK? OK. Be receptive. Don't shake your head. Listen. We do have gunshots in Franklin Township, mostly where we have our two officer cars, which we call Area 1. It's right along the New Brunswick borderline. And anybody who's lived in Franklin Township for any amount of time knows that's where the majority of the gunshots occur.

All right? Director? No, over here. So I had the opportunity to look. Since year to date, there's been 32 gunshot calls in town. So that just goes to... Yes, that means people either complaining that there were gunshots or that the gunshot detector detected the gunshots and the police officers went to investigate. 32 since January 1st. No, 32 gunshots that were investigated as gunshots. 32 reports? 32 reports of gunshots, yes. Yes.

Mm-hmm. It happens.

Listen.

Again... The fireworks do occur, and we know when they're fireworks. We know the difference between gunshots and fireworks. Anybody who fires a gun knows the difference between gunshots and fireworks. It's distinct.

Excuse me.

So let's not interrupt. Let's listen. I didn't interrupt you when you were speaking. I listened. All right? All right, so back to what I was saying. Gunshots are distinct. If you hear them enough, you will know the difference between a gunshot and a firecracker. All right? Those gunshot detectors, when we first got them, yes, they had to train, they had to learn, but they know the difference between a gunshot and a firework. There's no other way to say it. All right? So do we sometimes get a car that backfires that sounds like a gunshot and the detector goes off? Yes. It occurs. Right? So the technology is not here to follow or surveil anyone. It's here to assist us in doing police work, to do it faster. All right? You still need a good, wholehearted police officer to investigate. And as I said in the September 11th meeting, We're human beings, and some people are going to try to abuse the technology. They're going to do it. But we have orders in place to mitigate those problems. You might get away with it once or twice, three times, four times. Some places I heard they've gotten away with it 2,500 times. But who knows what their audit process was like? I don't, so I cannot make any comment on that. Facts before acts. You guys spit out a lot of facts about what's happening with Flock. Flock had some serious issues. They did. All right? But all of the things that you guys point to with flock issues have not happened in New Jersey. They have not happened in New Jersey. And if you have the information, please share it with me. Please share it with me. Please share it with me, all right? I am adamant about keeping the community safe. All right? The gunshot detection system, the flock cameras are, like I said, a tool that we use to help us in investigations. I support the system. You all are against the system. You feel like we're following you, but we're not following you. If you don't understand how the system works, the ALPR camera takes a picture of a license plate. That's just a license plate. You now have to have access to DMV, CJIS, or NCIC, or any of these other databases in order to look up that person's information. DMV abuse was happening a long time ago. People were looking up plates in DMV way back in the 80s. Officers were abusing that back then. When they had access to other databases, they would go in those databases as well. So again, it's our job to mitigate and hold those officers accountable when they do something like that. For my police department, that has not happened. I haven't had any officers abuse their authority or privilege where FLOC is concerned or DMV is concerned. All right? Our audits and our rules are so strict that if you run something in DMV, you're not even allowed to leave that piece of paper sitting on a desk. It has to be shredded. All right? It is... It's humbling, but I stand the ground and say, I hear where you're coming from. Anything that you want to explain, we can have a one-on-one conversation. We can have the conversation here. I'll explain to you how it happens. I'll show you and explain to you how the metric occurs. Everyone thinks of maybe the most egregious crimes when you hear hotless, but it's not the most egregious crimes. Like I said, a suspended driver's license, not really a big deal. Forgetting to register your car, it happens a lot. We have a lot of elder people. The mere fact that you don't inspect your car and do your registration at the same time confuses a lot of people, and they forget to register their car. So what do you suggest I do when I get a 77-year-old or 75-year-old who forgets to register their car?

Careful.

He forgot. He forgot. He forgot.

He didn't say 71, Mayor. I said 77.

But what do I do with that person and it's two weeks or maybe it's 30 days? Right? No, we're not stalking. All right?

No. No.

Not all the time. Not all the time. Not all the time. Please. Yes.

This is not a question and answer session.

You guys got to talk. Yeah. All right. So I'm trying to rebuff and answer the question that you all put out here. All right? And at the same time, give you examples. Right? It is, I think... more important to you to educate the person and say, hey, listen, you forgot to do your registration. No need for me to tow your car, right? You were summoned. Now, you do have officers that are going to do it, all right? I'm not saying that every officer is going to be that way. But at the same time, you stop a younger person who forgot to register their car, by the time I talk to them and come back, they have registered their car online. Right? It happens. It has a lot to do with it, right? The technology, like I said, is a tool that we use. Not something we use to surveil anyone, not something we use to follow anyone, not something that officers in my township continually abuse, not something that officers sit and watch constantly. We just don't have the time to do that. Okay, so why are we interrupting again?

No, excuse me, excuse me.

Why are you interrupting again?

You can't, you can't, excuse me.

Yes, I did. You guys got a chance to talk, and when you were talking, I didn't interrupt you, I listened.

No, sir, sir, you cannot, sir.

Okay, outside, outside, we can have it outside. Okay, we can have it outside, all right? So, as far as not letting anyone know, everything for Flock was done by resolution. It's all public information. You can see it. It's there. It's up here every time we have a council meeting. You can go back and watch the videos. They're all archived. You can look it up on the township website. No reason to hide. No reason to lie. All the information is there.

Excuse me. I said repeatedly, this is not the time for the public to speak. You spoke. Excuse me.

Answers aren't done yet, sir.

Excuse me, sir. Please. Thank you. trying to run an organized meeting. So I will make one correction of what you said, because I did get a demonstration today of a piece of the flock system. I saw the administrative capability that is available, some of the administrative capability that is available in town. I am very, I take what you people, you people that What you nice people, what you great people. I take seriously what you're saying. I honestly do. You feel that you are being, your privacy is being invaded, and I get that. Okay, counsel's going to hate me for this, but the Ben Franklin quote, I'm sorry, I can't leave it alone. So the thing that started the whole revolution was the Stamp Act. That was in 1765. Ben Franklin wasn't on board with the separating until 1774, and he wasn't really convinced about it until February of 1776 when he was humiliated before the House of Commons. People think of that quote as him doing that maybe at the convention, trying to get his delegates to vote for separating from Britain or maybe afterwards trying to get people to fight. He made that quote in 1755 and it was actually arguing for the liberty, was the liberty to tax more by the colonial government, not to tax less, not to fight for freedom. It was actually to fight more and the safety was about the French and Indian wars. So The words may fit your cause, but you do not have the wisdom of Franklin behind you when you give that. I'm sorry I'm a history nerd, and you just paid the price for that. The percentage of hit rate. is, again, it depends on what boxes you checked. In other words, what crimes are you interested in? Sir, you're shaking your head now, but... And then they probably would have gotten similar results. I saw, excuse me, excuse me. I saw as the boxes were being unchecked, I saw the rates go down. The biggest rate was for people, this is my correction, the biggest rate was for people who had forgotten to register their car. thousands went away with that. When you checked only the things, the crimes that you and I would be interested in, the rate dropped to less than 1%. So everybody's checking different boxes. And I saw it demonstrated that that's what matters. So the answer that it was national numbers, that was incorrect. I think someone was taking a guess, trying to figure out why this is. And when they looked, excuse me, when they looked at it more, that they figured out that's what it was. And I saw that demonstrated today.

Mr. Mayor, I think there's another important part about that, that it's not a ratio. The number of vehicles in 30 days is unique vehicles. That means that 640-some thousand unique vehicles had a photo of the rear of the vehicle taken. Unique vehicles. The hit is not unique. if you are an unregistered vehicle and you pass the same camera 15 times a day for 30 days you're 450 hits it's not unique it's it's in the aggregate so if those cameras are seeing unregistered vehicles traveling all around the township of Franklin, and those unregistered vehicles go past more than one camera, and they go past more than one camera more days than one, there's a numerical increase that takes place on hits. And that's for every violation, paperwork violation we'll call them, for a vehicle and its owner. So unregistered, unlicensed, suspended license, suspended registration, and the list goes on. Anything that the Motor Vehicle Commission documents as a violation for that vehicle or for the registered owner of that vehicle, then that vehicle becomes a hit. It's a hit for an unlicensed driver. It's a hit for an unregistered vehicle. And every time it goes by a camera, it's a hit. So there is no numerical equation that takes the number of hits and compares it to unique vehicles. That's not a relevant comparison, because you could have one vehicle that gets 1,000 hits, and you could have one vehicle that gets one. And every unique vehicle is considered a standalone entity on that 30-day cycle. So you can shake your head, but that's how it works. We're not, my chance to talk. You had yours, and we listened. That's the way the system works. And if you choose pick list MVC violations, it includes those motor vehicle violations.

so okay so so when um so aws by the way is amazon web services not american um it has um Franklin does have administrative capabilities. Flock does not own the data. Flock does not own the data. Flock does not own the data. Flock does not sell the data. Flock does not sell our data. If you think Flock sells our data, then please find me the name of someone it's sold it to. Because how do you prove that they don't say, how does one prove that you don't sell the data? That's like proving there is no mouse in the room. To do that, you have to look in every little place of the room, and you have to keep track that the mouse isn't running from place to place as you're looking. You can prove that there's a mouse in the room if you find a mouse. But if you can't find a mouse, it's very hard to find it. So prove that they're selling the data. I went to Google. chat GPT Claude rock and I asked all of them I don't want to buy flock data please how do I do that and it's it and it says and it said you can't find me a place find me a mark excuse me excuse me I'm making a point you find me a place where you can buy the data find find me who are they selling it to they don't they we own the data there's this is a nice rumor that has spread and people want to hang on to it but prove to me that they are selling data i'm asking you to do that no no no So now I am not I'm not sold on flock. I'm just I'm trying to get to the truth. And there's a lot of mist in the way of getting to the truth. Council has made no decisions on flock. I've made no final decisions on flock. When you ask questions, I often go to them and ask questions. And ask those questions. And I still have not made a decision on what to do. I want safety and I want liberty. And I want to try to balance the two. We're coming up to 9-11. We gave up some liberties for safety in that regard. When you go to an airport, it's not like it used to be. We gave up some liberties there. I want to balance these things, and if we can get a balanced system, then that's great. If we can't, then we can't. But that is my goal, is to understand the system. It's a very technically complicated system, and I'm looking for that answer. Taxes. so yes taxes went up um the tax and i can show a nice graph of this our taxes have gone up at about half the rate of uh inflation so we you can shake your head now i can but i can show you the figures if you look at the cpi And you compare that, the increase in CPI, to the increase in our levy. It's going up half as quickly. Excuse me. No. Excuse me.

Sir, it's on our website. Sir, it's on our website. It's on the finance department website. Go there. The presentation is there.

So also the understanding of the fact that assessments have gone up. When assessments go up, we don't get more money for that. Everyone forgets that the way taxes are calculated, is dividing your the amount of that your assessment is by the total assessment of the town so if the total assessment of the town goes up and your assessment goes up and your neighbors assessments go up the the it doesn't mean your taxes go up the your assessment The amount of money that we ask in the levy, that's the amount that we raise by taxes, and the school, and the county, that determines how big the pie is. What your assessment does individually is determine what slice of the pie you will pay. So the fact that your assessment doubles, if everyone's doubles, then you're still paying the same tax. With the exception of open space and library, those are taxed differently. But they're well under 10% of your taxes. So we're not increasing assessments so we can get more money. And I can talk to you in person about this more. But the purpose of that graph was simply to show you that, yes, we are sending you a $10,000 tax bill. We are 13% of that. We are $1,300 of that we have control of. There's just a lot of taxes out there that we don't have control of. And people misunderstand that. The opposition runs against us making people believe that and reinforcing that. We are 13% of your tax. All right. Mr. Craderville had a question.

Actually, I would like to answer Mr. Craderville's question, and it's a two-part, and you'll get a qualified apology, Charlie. The qualified apology is that while I may have been wrong, the basis for my mistake was that I was basing it on the State of New Jersey Department of Community Affairs Division of Local Government Services, Local Finance Board, Local Government Ethics Law Financial Disclosure Statements. Are you familiar with that form? I believe you are. Don't answer me. We're not supposed to exchange. That form for every elected official in the state of New Jersey says temporarily redacted to ensure compliance with Daniel's law. Now, I am subject to Daniel's law based on my prior employment here in the township before I became the township manager. So I am able to take advantage of Daniel's law. And so I'm certainly familiar with who... is eligible for protection under Daniel's law. However, I can't explain to you why it says that on the state website for every one of these elected officials that sit up here on the dais. So I would suggest that you direct that question to the division of the Department of Community Affairs as to why it has it redacted on every form. We had to go through a redaction process for Daniels Law here in all of our property tax payment online listings. Anyone who qualifies for Daniels Law has to have their information redacted on all of our website information, wherever it might be. It was quite the task. I don't know why it's like that, but that's why you get a qualified one. Yes, I know that it is not for elected officials, but I don't understand why the state of New Jersey redacts elected officials' information under Daniels' law. If I can... You can finish that, Mr. Raynaud.

And I, of course, Mayor, I also know what the definition of public official is and who's covered by Daniels' law and who wasn't. mr craderville was referring to a conversation in public that mr born locker and i had about what the dca disclosure form says and i did the same thing he did i pulled up on my computer i pulled my own up because you as you know i'm sure charlie you've checked it 10 000 times it lists every public uh position that i hold and it redacts my home address because of daniel's law I'm just, you know, that was the discussion we were having. Obviously, I, on the other hand, I'm not covered by Daniel's law because I'm not a former judge. I'm not a former prosecutor, though I did clerk in the prosecutor's office in Monmouth County 105 years ago, maybe before there was Daniel's law. And I can't explain that, but that was the discussion we were having in public. It wasn't a general discussion about what Daniels' Law covers. It was a question about the financial disclosure statements. In fact, I didn't answer the question first. Mr. Vornlocher did, and I just chimed in about what DCA says. So that's the answer to your question. I hope that answers your question. By the way, I didn't mean to be disrespectful, but that was the answer.

So can someone have Mr. come back?

Mr. Who? Oh, I think he's engaged with a resident in the lobby.

I know, but Sashi had it. Sashi?

OK, and we'll have him come back. I can address then.

Sanchi? Sanchi, okay.

He's coming back in. I can do one quickly for you before he gets back up here, Mayor.

So she asked, how long is the contract with Flock?

How long is the contract with Flock? Three years? Four years. Four years, 48 months. Four years.

What are the consequences of ending the contract?

Two years are already gone. So two left. Two left. Thank you.

He asked another question. What are the consequences of ending the contract with Flock? Like we just say, we're done right now.

It was a state grant.

Mayor, I think I'd have to look at the track to answer that question. I don't know off the top of my head either.

Okay. And use the mic to answer this. Do we coordinate with New Brunswick on placement of flat cameras?

Yes. Anytime a flat camera is installed, there's a process called deconfliction. And you have to deconflict with all the other police departments that have a camera so that your camera does not go in the same area as theirs.

I understand that it's not just where we would de-conflict with New Brunswick. There are county and state law enforcement agencies that also have placement of cameras, for instance, to state police, who is the largest recipient of funds from the grant for ALPRs. is the responsible party for cameras on state highways such as Route 1, 287, the Turnpike, the Parkway, wherever there may be ALPR cameras. They fall under the money that was received through Governor Murphy's program for the state highways. So that's the deconfliction. Don't put one here if there's already one here from another agency. So that's part of the whole state program.

And does that include coordination as to where private cameras are? So for instance, if a community has a license plate right at the beginning? Yes. Correct. Right. Because there are private communities that pay for flock cameras.

Correct.

They're not entitled to the data. And they're not tied to our system.

They're not entitled to the data. Only law enforcement can get the data that's retrieved from those privately paid-for cameras. But there are, in fact, privately paid-for cameras.

It's all over.

Is that the last of that, Mayor? I think so. I was going to talk about Churchill Avenue because my friend has waited very patiently in the back of the room and I can give just a basic answer here. One, there are now 23 Habitat for Humanity homes. The majority of them are in the fourth and fifth wards. There are also a number of them in the second ward. And The reason why they are where they are is because that's where the land was that the township owned that were buildable lots that we could give to them. We can't give them land that we don't own. And we don't own buildable lots in the third ward. We don't own buildable lots in the first ward. A regular practice since I became Township Manager back in 2012 is that I sit at various times with the planner, Mark Healy, and we go through the entire inventory of vacant land that the Township owns to determine if it is of some use to us and if it is capable of being built on and there's a lot of different factors that go into that and we have provided that list of lots that can be built on that the township owns, and we've given that list to Habitat for Humanity. And over time, they have gone through that list and they've employed their professionals to make a determination as to whether their professionals feel it's a buildable lot, meaning it has sufficient building envelope outside of wetlands and all of the things that go along with it. They engage a professional civil engineer, and they make that determination. In this particular case, and while I appreciate that it is a 50 by 185 or 195 foot lot, there are other homes in your neighborhood that are on similar sized lots, especially those across the street from you. So that, and I don't want to get into that because one of the things I just want to warn you is that if in fact The plan for Habitat for Humanity for this parcel will be that when we deed the property to them, their next step is to develop a plan to bring to the Board of Adjustment, which this Township Council can't comment on. So you said it when you were up at the microphone, and you were absolutely 100% correct. Your next step, and anyone else who lives in the neighborhood, is when that application is made to the zoning board, to attend the zoning board and make your feelings heard. This is something that if the zoning board denies the application, then Habitat for Humanity will tell the township they're going to deed the property back to us. That's how this would work. So there's no commentary on any application or anything like that because there is the quasi-judicial board that has to make an independent decision. But that's where it would go. So you're right about that.

Mr. Verlocher, I just have a question. We're being asked to vote specifically on what related to habitat. It was my first question tonight because I'm looking for the resolution. And the other question is, okay, it's ordinance that's probably probably couldn't find a resolution. Thank you. So I just want to know I'm not here to judge the house and big support habitat humanity, but I'm what is the zoning in that area?

I believe that it's R10. R10.

Okay. R10, which is a 10,000-square-foot lot. Right.

R10, which is a 10,000-square-foot lot, and this is just under 10,000.

Okay, that's what I was just getting at, because we're not here to make decisions for the zoning board, but we're voting. We need to be comfortable in what we're voting on. So it is indeed R10. Mm-hmm. because the numbers sounds like a lot of lots are like R20 but it is R10 and this one is basically at the board and that's up to the zoning board to deal with.

Multiply 50 by 195.

I did while I'm talking.

10,725.

Okay.

10,000 square foot lot in R10.

I don't want to ask the audience but I know legitimate concern is off street parking. And that's up to how it's designed and how the zoning board handles it. But my question, the other ones usually, and I've seen a few on the 50 foot wide in the fourth and fifth, which I represent. It's not mandatory that they have off-street parking, but this would be a lot that would allow... It's mandatory that they have off-street parking. Well, I don't want to speak for the zoning board.

I'm telling you, the issue is if they have to get... zoning ordinances, zoning variances, they have to go to the zoning board. They have expressed interest in this property. It is of no use to the township. We have no use for it. It's in fact I would consider a nuisance property because things on this property have caused damage to neighboring properties. Don't have to oversell.

I just wanted to make sure what the zoning was.

To improve the parcel that that then but if there's if there's a reason why the zoning board would deny it we're not here to just we're not up here to discuss it i just want to know what the zoning was and the size of the lot thank you for the clarification so mary i have a couple questions sure

So, actually, I was hoping the director would be here, but Bob, I'm going to be depending on you to answer these two questions. So, there were some comments about the flood cameras costing taxpayers a lot of money. So, we have already discussed that.

Up until this point, it hasn't cost the taxpayers any money because it was funded by a grant from the state of New Jersey specifically for a statewide ALPR program.

Very good. The second question that I have is we've heard a lot about different boxes. Is it possible to check individual boxes and let's say in 2026 to see how many of those detection was associated, for example, with the people that they had not done their registration and so forth, and how many of them was it?

He gives you a table of that.

what's that there's a table that shows okay so if is that public information that we can maybe make it available for people to see how these cameras are have been helpful in solving some crimes or so forth i'm not sure that would

answer that question, in my opinion, it should be available to the public. I'm not an Oprah expert.

I don't think there's an issue when you're talking about raw data like that. I agree. Because it's a rolling 30 days. That's one of the issues with the transparency page, is it's a rolling 30 days. So it changes every day, right? It's a new 30-day period. If you wanted to take a moment in time, a snapshot of periods of time, I think that that could be done. And it would say, in the month of May, there were... 357,000 hits and here's what they were. And it's gonna be categories. These were motor vehicle violations. These were missing persons. And I think that there's probably some ability to do that based on what I've seen and what I've learned from the people. But the mayor seems to know more than me because he got a firsthand demonstration.

I know people in the police force.

He knows people in the police department, exactly.

And Mr. Singh has been extremely eager to have a FAC, a Flock FAC, wow. FAQ. To explain these kinds of things. And we're going to uncheck some of the boxes, and we need to explain which boxes we're going to uncheck. Again, it's very complicated. I wanted to move on. Mr. Walker asked about sidewalks.

I nodded and gave him direction and cheated for that.

Everyone may want to know. But what do people do when there's an undeclared?

They send a notice to the Public Works Department either through the website for the website request, street request form, or they contact them by phone.

And dumping is? Mr. Mayor, may I just make a comment?

Dumping is the police department.

Go ahead.

So I was in Canada this summer. I spent a few weeks to visit my daughter. And so one of the things that I saw in their sidewalks is that there were some blocks that were a little bit higher, potentially for tripping. What they had done, shaved that. So there was basically eliminated the kids from falling down or when they're skating or riding bike. So I brought to Township Manager's attention as well. So I'd like to follow up on that, see if there's a way that we can

We have found no contractor or reference to any type of correction to sidewalks in anything that we have at our disposal. Both Carl Houck, the public works manager, and I looked into finding someone or something. And so I'll tell you what, Deputy Mayor, send me the town that you were in. I was in Ottawa. Oh, well, okay. So I mean, so I guess pictures. So if you have pictures, send them to me because I would love to talk to the Ottawa Public Works Department now, obviously, a much larger city than Franklin Township. And perhaps they bought heavy duty grinding equipment, but I don't know. I don't know where this is going either, Mr. Mayor. But I seem to be straight off topic of answering questions.

I'll start looking into to maybe I do have answers to another question, though, Mr. Mayor.

Go ahead.

Okay, so the nice lady from 12 Winchester. There you are right in front of me. No, 122 Winchester. I'm sorry, 122. I can't read my chicken scratch.

That's where I was going next.

Cannabis dispensary right here, right down the street. So it's interesting. The cannabis dispensary here is one of what we have a set – There was a lot of concern by council as the cannabis businesses began to explode here in our town. And they capped it at 18. We exceed 18 right now. I think we're down to 21. Two of them have gone out of business. Some have not yet opened. For instance, this one here at the corner has not yet opened. So it is a total of licenses of right now, I believe, 21 valid active. This is where there was a zoning board hearing for this business. So I, like you, have a difficult time wrapping my head around this sometime. That's why I kind of want to be the one that answers this. And I won't look to my left. I voted no when there was a vote in this state for cannabis because I didn't think it should be legal, but I lost. And we have to live with the fact that the majority of the people in this state voted to legalize it, and we did. And that made it a business like every other business. And this location is what they call a pre-existing nonconforming use. It's been a business since the 1920s when there were gas pumps out there. And when it's a pre-existing nonconforming use, pretty much any business can occupy that space. And the state has no laws about distance from schools or anything like that. So it's a legal business in a legal place. And that's why it's being allowed there by the zoning board. But they have to interpret pre-existing non-conforming whenever that situation exists, because it is actually in an R40 zone. Um, so your, your questions are good. Um, that's, I think the answers that you were looking for as far as numbers are concerned. Um, revenue is, revenue is, so we collect 2% of all, um, of all their net income. Gross. I'm sorry, gross income. We collect 2% of all the gross income from most cannabis businesses, meaning there's dispensaries, there's Wholesale operations, there's cultivators. Manufacturing is 1%. Everyone else is 2%. And thus, so far this year, and I'll look over, and maybe he'll nod at me because I send them to Mr. Bowman for publication. I believe as a result of the second quarter, we were at about the $600,000 range. which means we'll probably be in about the $1.2 million range for the calendar year, and tax revenue from those businesses. So, yes, and that tax revenue, the council has made the decision, and I believe as the manager who prepares the budget, the right decision, that that is general fund revenue. It is just general tax revenue. It is treated no differently than the tax revenue that we collect from you as a homeowner. It goes into the general fund for use in the next year's budget. I think that was all the ones that, oh, noise. So there's a traffic signal there. To be perfectly honest with you, I don't anticipate, that's a busy deli. It was a bike shop before. There's a hair salon there. I don't anticipate that this will increase traffic in any significant way. Just looking at the way that others are, I pass one on my way to work and back every day, and I have a background in traffic from my days in the police department. I would not anticipate that that business will increase the traffic over its current uses. Noise. 10 p.m. You're absolutely right. It's 10 p.m. I think that the director heard you loud and clear. Noise. The noise ordinance is clear that... Anything that's heard from a 200-foot distance is a violation. This is the real property line thing went away. If you're having a party and I can hear your party 200 feet away, you're a violation. And that's what the ordinance says. And it's in plain English. We wrote it that way so it was not difficult to interpret by both the people enforcing it and the people having it enforced on them. So, 10 p.m. After 10, they're a violator, and I agree with you. And I will emphasize that again in private when I'm in private. I think I got them all, Mr. Mayor.

I think we're done. I have one comment, Mayor. Absolutely. About the solar panel, the balcony solar panel act. I'm a big proponent of solar panels I have in my home. Great. I didn't feel the... a pinch of the rate increase of PHNJ this year because I don't pay electric bills. So it's a good bill. I think people would start to use it, especially people living in apartments and those who cannot really put solar panels on their home. But please make sure it is UL3700 compliant. Just don't go and get something from Amazon that is not

And you talk about if you give so that's a good segue. You made a comment about not being able to have solar panels on your roof. Some people who live in HOA properties, things like that, can't have solar on the roof. You live in an apartment, you can't have solar on your roof, right? But you can in a way. If you go to our website and go to the community solar programs that are operating here, community solar gives you the opportunity to reap the benefits of solar and not have it on your roof. Most of those solar panels are located on the various warehouses and large manufacturing facilities that we have here in town. And that's a program that the state BPU started. It allows these community solar companies to install these solar panels on the roofs of these big buildings and then offer the benefits of those solar panels to the residents who live in the town. So it's on our website under special programs, I think is where it's at. And if you're interested in that, you should explore that. It can give you a benefit on your electric bill. And it's not third party energy aggregation or anything like that. It's just a benefit that you reap on your bill. And it's available to anyone. There's no income requirements. So on our website.

Just to close the note, I think Councilwoman Dean is going to have a session on Balcony Solar Act very soon. I think she's going to give you more information on all of that.

Okay. I think that's it for addressing the public comments. Time for council comments. It's 9 o'clock and we haven't started the business of the meeting. How about if we do a two-minute council clock? Any objection? Yeah.

Are you starting with me first?

Yes. All right. I'll yield you 15 seconds.

I love you already. Real quick on that noise, I understand that very well. The township manager knows I understand it because that was the thing I had to fight for at Millbush Park was everybody complained about the noise and we had to beat them up on that system. So I understand that very well. Also, on the taxes of that cannabis issue, Unlike my colleagues, I wanted to go the other way. I thought that we could use that money for social action programs. As our attorney would tell you, I emailed him and asked him about things that I could use the money for, but we put it in our council treasury, and I would prefer to have put it in programs that benefited, excuse me, wrong choice of words, that we could use for social programs. But that's a whole other bottle of wax there. Also, coming up, something near and dear to me is called Sister to Sister, their annual walk in the park. The 21 years, the sisters have a run walk for life, brought our community together to celebrate survivors, honor loved ones, and stand beside women and families impacted by breast cancer. Some walk in celebration of survivorship, some walk in memory of someone they love, others walk because they believe every woman deserves support, compassion, and hope throughout their breast cancer treatment. It will be held Saturday, October 3rd, 2026 at Colonial Park here in Somerset. Now, you can walk with the program, you can donate money, form teams that will Go out and, you know, raise money together. And I'll give you the website. It is S2S, number two, S2SCNJ.org. Again, that's S2SCNJ.org. Also, being a cancer survivor, this is very important to me. So this is something that I think we should all go out and do because it benefits us. Is that Mr. Mayor? Is that all I need to say? Thank you. Oh, and we're also fighting for the Middlebush Park because we have a lag time in the scoreboard and the equipment that operates the scoreboard from the the booth. So we got to work on that. That way, Pop Warner can get back in there. That way, the soccer programs can get back in there and use Middlebush Park.

I'm reaching for my gavel. Councilman Onuchaka.

I don't have anything for two minutes.

Terrific.

Councilman Vasanthi. Okay. Real quick, that solar thing, that solar thing, I know that's not the right way to say it, but the idea that don't have to get involved in the utility company you don't have to get permits and you don't have to do this actually something that anybody can go and take advantage of those are great environmental initiatives and i hope we see more of those that don't involve towns and specialists and consultants and contractors and are just simple things people could do if they choose to make the investment and i'm sure you'll push to push that out including so people do it right even so there's not a permit involved you want to be Safe. Franklin Day coming up Saturday the 26th. Big day. I think we have one more meeting before then, but it should be. We don't. So please. No, yeah, we do. We do. OK. Bottom line, going to have a lot of stuff going on relevant to the Franklin 250 celebrations and all the other stuff we usually have. So please, that's a few weeks from today. Monday's a Hamilton meeting. We didn't have one in August. If you're interested in what's going on Hamilton Street, Monday's a Hamilton board meeting. And the only thing I want to mention, most everything that was of concern was brought up and I think well vetted. Thank you, counsel and manager and attorney. 9-11. I know there's a lot of talk about liberties and loss of freedoms, but I just want to reflect for a minute. For those who couldn't see, we had a wonderful celebration, acknowledgement today. Sad, but acknowledging what 9-11 was about and the six people we lost in this township. I knew only a couple, but we lost six people. I'm sure it's going to be on probably through Franklin Reporter or other areas if you want to watch it online. It was short, but beautiful ceremony. Don't forget, 25 years, some people in the audience were not born. Most of you were. Maybe were younger. Just remember what it was, and hopefully we'll never have to go through anything like that as a country again. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you.

Councilwoman Francois. Good evening, everyone. I sit on the Youth Services Commission, and there happens to be a really good program I heard about, so I just wanna let people know. It's called a Strengthening Families Program. It's free for Franklin Township families with children 12 to 17 years old. Believe it or not, it's First Baptist Church that is sponsoring the program. They're able to give $450 for families that complete the program. The program starts on October 1st and it runs for 11 sessions. They have to arrive at 5.30 p.m. for dinner and then the program starts at 6 o'clock. And the program is offered through a partnership with New Jersey Prevention Network. And this grant money was made possible and funded by the CDC. I think it's a wonderful program and hopefully we'll have some families that will take advantage of it. This is an opportunity for families to have 11 weeks of interactive family sessions. They're going to get extra support from family advocates. They'll have child care for younger siblings. They'll get family dinner every night, once a week, each week. I think it'll be a nice program for families to connect. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Barrison.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I was away in India for three weeks, so I really don't have much to report except that I attended the Sewerage Authority board meeting virtually from there. at 4.30 a.m., which is 6.30 here. Anyway, and I have one announcement to make. We have the annual Diwali celebration coming up October 3rd. That's the Festival of Lights that is celebrated throughout the world. So we have been doing that for the last five years. And this year, same place. October 3rd, we are changing the hours to 3 to 6 p.m., and we are making a small change on the food. Instead of giving it away free, we are going to do a fundraising on behalf of Franklin Food Bank. So the proceeds will – our restaurants donate the food. We are going to fundraise and give the money to the food bank this year. That's all I got, Mayor.

Thank you. Councilwoman Eugene.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. So a lot of momentum has taken place in our community over the past few weeks, and I want to highlight those. I wanted to do those last time, but we got a lot going on. So a couple of weeks ago, I hosted my second community meetup, which right here at the council chamber, bringing some of the residents together for conversations about ideas, issues, and concerns. Discussions were around the roads, the sidewalks, traffic, public safety, and our master plan that's coming up for renewal. So those discussions will continue occurring. The second thing I want to mention is, as you know, our governor recently signed The Garden State Balcony Solar Act. So a couple months ago, the Environmental Committee Commission and the township staff, including our fire prevention and a few residents, have been working on a solar education presentation, which we have just finalized. And I hope to bring it before council next time, along with a small demonstration. And thirdly, I'm hosting another scam prevention seminar with our Franklin Township Police Department at the Renaissance Adult Community later this month. Talking about seminars, we have done multiple seminars regarding property tax relief. And thanks to our staff and our assemblyman, Joe Danielson, who's also here, on hosting this important seminar. So I encourage our residents to look into New Jersey or NJSAVE. Every dollar of relief matters. And finally, our children are back to school. So please slow down and stay alert for our school buses. When that stop sign is out, flashing lights, you stop. You stop. Please. It's really important. I've seen a lot and reported. So please make sure you stop. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Singh.

So three things to cover this evening. One, we had my first ward community meeting a couple of weeks ago, and I had the privilege of hosting that community along with our mayor, our public safety director, and a representative from the Board of Education more than. 80 residents joined us and we had a candid conversation on some of the topics that we've talked about today. We've talked about taxes, we've talked about public safety, the proposed Nisi compressor station in our backyards. So the point is this is not the only avenue. to come and talk and discuss your concerns. There are many other avenues. Councilwoman Udine just did her community meeting in the second ward. I did one in the first ward, so the dialogue will continue. There was an event that I attended that was really well organized by the Youth Center. Councilwoman Francois, thank you for pointing me to that. This was a couple of weeks ago. The highlight was we gave away 100 school bags to local children that was made possible by a non-profit organization in our township called Karma Junction. And it was managed. by a high schooler as their youth leader for the nonprofit organization. Super excited to see young people stepping up. Super excited to see our students and our youth leaders making a difference for other young people. And lastly, I do want to congratulate the task force residents from the First Ward and many other residents who have stayed the course and fought the Nisei Compressor Station over the last 12 years. I'm one of them. And this vacation of the water quality certification is something that gives a lot of wind to our sails. And we will continue to stay the course. And thank you for everything that you guys have done as it relates to this effort.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and good evening, everyone. So I have really a brief one. So we had the advisory board of health. We have a visitor who came and spoke about the Medicare fraud. There is a senior Medicare patrol of New Jersey, which I didn't know about it. And some of the information that she shared with us was there's $60 billion Medicare fraud each year, which is, of course, impacting taxpayers because we suppose we are paying for it. And we are planning to invite them to senior citizens clubs. We have usually 80 or so people come. We want them to hear because senior citizens are the main group that they are victims of this fraud. So that's one thing that we will do. The other thing we discussed was hopefully having some sort of a monitoring, the air quality monitoring around the town to better understand the impact of air quality. Hopefully we'll get some data on the health issues and take steps to help the, to improve the health of our community. So those are the two main items that we discussed. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. I was fortunate enough to attend Mr. Protasnik's swearing in as DEP commissioner. Very exciting. It gave me the opportunity to speak to the governor and I spoke to her about Nessie. And she was here about three months ago at Elizabeth School, and I had 30 seconds with her, and I spoke to her about Nessie. So it was an amazing decision in our favor. I'm really excited about it, and the fight continues. I've also written a letter to the AG and to copy to Mr. Danielson about the ALPRs. Three years keeping the data is too long. That needs to be shortened. And I also presented the idea of keep it for X amount of time, but for a shorter amount of time, the first month or two, you can query it the way they normally do. But after that, you need a warrant to get at it. And... The other thing is we have stricter audits than the state requires. The state requires once a year. That's not enough. We do it quarterly with a random monthly audit now and again, and I think the state needs to tighten that up because other places – are getting at our data only from the they're only new jersey places no federal places but they have um they do have new jersey places have access to our data we want them to be auditing as frequently as we do and that's all i have good timing um approval of the minutes how about me

You haven't skipped me in a while, but there it is right there. It says manage your township. Approval of the minutes. Number nine. I have several township events that need to be announced, and while I appreciate Councilman Vassanella notifying the public of Franklin Day Festival upcoming, he failed to notify where it was or when it was or the hours of it.

I had to leave something for you.

So that's my job and it is on Saturday, September 26th here in the Municipal Complex from noon to 5. So we hope that everyone can come out. The day before, also something that I believe Councilman Vacinella has an involvement with, The Youth Mental Health First Aid Training will be offered on September 25th. The Franklin Township Stigma-Free Council is partnering with Empower Somerset to host a Youth Mental Health First Aid Training on September 25th, offering community members an important opportunity to learn how to identify and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges in young people. The free six-hour course provides practical skills to support children and adolescents age 16 6 to 18, and guide them toward appropriate care when they may be experiencing a crisis or developing a mental health concern. So I recognize that this is on a Friday. This is geared towards perhaps professionals. However, parents, grandparents, anyone who wants to attend, You just, you need to register online. It is in the banner of our homepage. So if you're interested in attending this from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Community Senior Center on the 25th, go and sign up because pre-registration is required. And so that is that, Franklin Day. And then for those who are interested in community solar, Township homepage.

departments and that'll be a pull down and go to special projects and it's on the home page for special projects if you're interested in community solar and that's what i have mr mayor thank you approval of the thank you approval of the minutes i present the following minutes township council for their approval um the work session regular meeting Oh, August. August 11th, 2026. Do I have a motion on the minutes?

So moved. Seconded.

Anyone have any changes they want to make? Any spelling errors? Madam Clerk.

Councilman Nevareson. Yes. Councilwoman Francois.

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Karasi. Yes. Mayor Kramer. Yes. Councilman Onijaka.

Yes.

Councilman Singh. Yes. Councilwoman Uddin. Yes. Councilman Bassanella.

Abstain.

Councilman Wright. Yes.

Warrants, time to pay the bills. In the amount of $2,546,333.30 on September 8th, 2026, it presents to the Township Council for payment to have a motion on the warrants.

So moved.

Second. Moved and seconded. Anyone have any questions? Pull an item. Madam Clerk.

Councilman Emberison? Yes. Councilwoman Francois? Yes. Deputy Mayor Karasi? Yes. Mayor Cramer? Yes. Councilman Onijaka? Yes. Councilman Singh? Yes. Councilwoman Udine? Yes. Councilman Vastanela? Yes. Councilman Wright?

Yes.

Public hearing and adoption of ordinances on second reading. We have a first reading to announce to the world that we're considering an ordinance, and we give a date for a public portion, for public to speak, and then we vote on whether we're going to pass the ordinance or not. Ordinance number 4517-26, an ordinance amending the Code of the Township of Franklin County of Somerset State of New Jersey, more particularly Chapter 112, Land Development, to make various updates regarding cluster subdivisions as well as related ordinances. updates is presented for a motion to move for a motion to move to public hearing and adoption on october 13th 2026 township council meeting at 7 pm in the council chambers for technical reasons madam clerk do you want to explain

If I can, yeah, this ordinance, because there is one section of it that rezones a small portion of property, requires individual notice for the public hearing, notice of people within 200 feet. So that was not done for this meeting, but it will be done for the October 13 meeting. So technically, we're asking for a motion to postpone the public hearing on this until October 13th. There will be a new public notice and a new individually mailed notice done for that meeting.

Okay. So moved. Second. Discussion? Madam Clerk.

Councilman Imbarrison? Yes. Councilwoman Francois? Yes. Deputy Mayor Karazi? Yes. Mayor Kramer?

Yes.

Councilman Onijaka? Yes. Councilman Singh? Yes. Councilwoman Udine? Yes. Councilman Vacinella? Yes. Councilman Wright?

Yes.

By the way, the clerk explained to me before the meeting what was going on, and I looked at her and she said, just read what I wrote.

So it worked.

Ordinance number 4518-26, an ordinance authorizing the private sale of township-owned lands located in block 173, lots 9 through 10, 56 through 58 Main Street, block 180, lots 111, through 112, 29 Cothick Street, and block 95, 20, 168 Churchill Ave, in the township of Franklin County in Somerset State of New Jersey. Habitat for Humanity is presented for public hearing and final adoption. Public hearing has been noticed as required. Without unanimous consent, I open to the public without objection. Are you leaving or getting up to speak? You may leave.

We will not hold you captive, I swear.

OK. Seeing no one coming up to speak, I ask unanimous consent to close the meeting, close for public session. Without objection, Madam Clerk.

Mayor?

We need a motion. Sorry, motion to adopt. We have a motion to adopt. So moved. And a second? Second. Mr. Vassanella.

Yeah, I had a question. The earlier conversation was relevant to the Churchill Avenue address that was brought up. I just wanted to see if we had any similar information about 111, 112 Cousett Street. Okay, great. We welcome new neighbors soon. Thank you.

Any other discussion?

I think what was brought up about 168 Churchill Avenue is a concern of mine. I'm sorry? I said I think what was brought up about 168 Churchville Avenue is a concern.

Yes, absolutely. For this introduction. No, this is a second reading.

This is adoption. Adoption.

Yeah, that's why, yeah. No, again, I'm not sure your feelings on it, but that's why I was concerned. Wanted to make sure we're not trying to squeeze too much into too little.

There's quite a few properties in here.

Well, they're all conforming lots, like I said. So I understand your concern. Went through land use committee. The Ames Committee vetted it, and it was determined that these were recommended locks. They served, like I said, no legitimate purpose to the township. We're not collecting tax on them. They're building lots, and Habitat for Humanity, when they build a house, goes to our affordable housing total for our obligation. So these are, I believe, in this particular case, three more parcels to add to our affordable housing list. That's the reason why.

I'm not against Habitat for Humanity, but I've been in that area, and I see where that lot is. I can vote no.

Yeah, absolutely. That's the recommendation of staff. And that's the recommendation of the land use committee.

Just to be clear, and not set some vote no, but I have concerns. Is it, and we can't speak for the Zoning Board, I don't want to suggest we are, but is it just simply part of our land use law that in the R10, which I guess is Cozist Street also, that off-street parking is required for first- RSI requires off-street parking. I'm sorry?

The residential site improvement standards requires off-street parking. Our ordinance requires off-street parking.

So they would have to have off-street parking.

So they will be required to have a driveway or a garage and driveway.

And again, it's at or very, very near what the square footage requirement would be for the Cousin Street? Yes. Okay. Thank you.

9,750, where 10,000 is required. It's 250 square feet off. I did the math. Can't.

No more questions.

We do have a public session on this. We didn't speak then, but we could reopen public session.

Yeah. Yes. Come to the mic.

I would motion to reopen public unless you could do it yourself, Mayor. As Mayor, that's fine too.

second we're open we're open for business okay one six four churchill and just make it clear the reason i'm doing this is because there was a public session no one got up maybe you didn't understand the rules so this is that don't expect this every time on everything go ahead i appreciate it mayor so um in regards to the

Habitat for Humanity house that's two doors down from me. Can you make modifications to those? I understand that you can't once they're built.

No.

And that neighbor did. So they had one car when they moved in. Now they have seven cars. And they expanded the driveway, which I was told, because I know two people that actually helped build that house, they were not supposed to do that. So I'm like, they have seven cars, most of them luxury cars. So I was like, how do they need affordable habitat for humanity? But that's not for me to question.

So this is, we have to keep it.

Yeah, I'm just, I just want to know, can you modify those homes? Because if you can't, This particular one that they're trying to build right next to me.

So let me cut to the chase. So can you modify? These people own the home like any other, like you own your home. You can modify your home to the extent that our zoning ordinance zoning ordinances permit. If it's impervious surface, if it's lot coverage, there's all of the things that they would have to comply with. And if they don't comply with them, then they would have to go to the zoning board to get a variance, just like you. A Habitat for Humanity home is just a home. Someone owns it, right? And the people, they have the deed, they have a mortgage, they pay their mortgage, the deed's in their name, and when they are done paying their mortgage, they own the home. And they can sell it like any other house.

Okay, so they can modify it.

So they can modify it to the extent that the zoning ordinances allow. Okay. And you mentioned that there was another home that modified their driveway, then you have my email address, then email me that address, because without a permit, you can't increase the size of your driveway. So if they didn't get a zoning permit, then they would be in violation, and then the zoning department can address it. Just like any other park, I mean, but your street allows parking. So if your street allows parking, then on-street parking is permitted. Oftentimes people get upset when their neighbors park in front of their house. It's a public street, and there is no law, and we cannot enact a law that says you can't park in front of your neighbor's street. It's not parking in front of your neighbor's street. No, no, I'm just saying, I understand. I'm just saying we can't regulate where they park. If it's a public street and parking is permitted.

So that particular lot... Mothers, parents, they stand there, basically. They park there just for a minute to pick up their children, because that's a school drop off at Churchill and Wheeler Place. So I work from home, so I could see all this going on. I would hate for a home to be there. And those parents have no way to pick up their kids. And also, whoever moves there, I know it's just not going to be one car.

And I understand...

There's going to be multiple families in that house. It is going to be an issue.

I understand your concerns. And all I can say is, you know, I don't know that... Someone building a house that the deciding issues are things like bus stops. Bus stops can be moved. They'll have to move down the street, whatever it is. The truth is people bring vehicles to bus stops. That's not the way bus stops are supposed to operate in neighborhoods like yours. The kids are supposed to go to the bus stop and wait for the bus. But everybody's parent wants to have their kid in the car now. So that's a problem throughout the town, not just there. I appreciate that problem. It is a problem. I agree.

Thank you, Mayor Cramer.

You're welcome. We already have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Madam Clerk.

Councilman Emerson? Yes. Councilwoman Francois?

No.

Deputy Mayor Karasi?

Yes.

Mayor Kramer? Yes. Councilman Onichaka? Yes. Councilman Singh? Yes. Councilwoman Uddin? Yes. Councilman Vacinella?

Yes.

Councilman Wright.

Yes.

Ordinance on introduction and first reading. Ordinance, capital ordinance appropriating $1,380,000 from the Open Space Trust Fund to pay for the construction of improvements to and the acquisition of equipment from Catalpa Park in the township of Franklin on the county of Somerset, state of New Jersey. foregoing ordinance presented the township council for adoption and first reading posting publication in accordance with law and public hearing and final adoption at a meeting of the township council to be held on tuesday september 22nd 2026 at 7 pm in the council chambers to have a motion to introduce so moved second moved and seconded any discussion

I have a question about this.

Just to clarify for the public, this is coming from the trust fund.

So there's two things that need to be clarified. The first is that, yes, this money will come from the Open Space Trust Fund, which is specifically intended to be used for things such as development of parks. The other thing is that's not how much the park is going to cost. The consent agenda is the award of a contract for the total amount of the Park which out the top of my head if I could look but if someone is curious, I think it's in the neighborhood of nine million dollars Yeah, and and this this ordinance will supplement previous capital ordinances out of the Open Space Trust for design and development of the park. There's, there's that much left of previous capital ordinances so that those monies can be used and this is the final amount for the total of the contract award.

So this is part, this will be part of...

Part of a larger number, yes. This is part of the total. Correct. $9 million. And it's in addition to what we have since 2015, there have been a number of capital ordinances passed by council for the design and development of the park. We are now at the point where we're going to award a contract for the total construction of the park, and we need this additional money to be able to award the contract. Can't award a contract without funding in place. Oh. That's why you'll do this and award the contract at the same time.

Mr. Mayor? Yes, sir. To everyone listening, I want to say I've never been to a park I didn't like. And I believe this park will do wonders for the people in the area. So wholeheartedly, the Capitol Park is definitely in the mix at number 14A. And if you go through the resolutions, number 14A, My comment is this park was an issue when I first ran for mayor against mr. Kelly in 2015 We're finally getting to it Any other discussion?

Madam Clerk.

Councilman Emberison.

Yes.

Councilwoman Francois? Yes. Deputy Mayor Karasi? Yes. Mayor Kramer? Yes. Councilman Onijaka? Yes. Councilman Singh? Yes. Councilwoman Uddin? Yes. Councilman Vacinella? Yes. Councilman Wright?

Yes. Consent agenda, the items A through AL? Aye. AI. AI. AI. As listed in the consent agenda portion of this meeting, I present to the Township Council for adoption, do I have a motion on the consent agenda?

So moved.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Then second. Any discussion? Anyone like to pull an item? Where's the manager? No.

Okay. No discussion? Madam Clerk. Councilman Barrison? Yes. Councilwoman Francois? Yes. Deputy Mayor Karazi? Yes. Mayor Kramer? Yes. Councilman Onijaka? Yes. Councilman Singh? Yes. Councilwoman Udine? Yes. Councilman Vacinello? Yes. Councilman Wright? Yes.

So resolutions to be voted on separately. 26390, authorizing Franklin Township to enter into a settlement agreement with Transcontinental Gas Pipeline Company, LLC, Transco. With respect to commendation. uh action filed in the united states district court of new jersey number uh three colon 36-cv-0018 is presented to the township council for adoption to have a motion so moved second moved and seconded discussion so Describe this settlement.

Mayor, this is a settlement, and I just want to thank Ms. Powell for her comments tonight. This is related to the Nessie project, but it is the federal government has given Transco the ability to condemn property in the township. The FERC certificate, and I want to make this clear, has two parts to it. One is to give them

Condemned means eminent domain.

An eminent domain. Take the property by eminent domain. I'm sorry. And the FERC certificate that was issued, it was 40 pages long, but it had two parts to it. One dealt with the ability to exercise eminent domain, and the second was their ability to actually build a project. Certainly, the lawsuit that Ms. Powell talked about today impacts that part of it. But as to the federal lawsuit with regards to the eminent domain action, the township has raised every defense that we can, including the fact that there was a Third Circuit Court of Appeals case pending. And the federal court still granted the property to Transco. So this case is now only about what the value is going to be paid to the township. This value is just short of 20 times what they offered. And the recommendation from the law department was to settle the case, take the money. You know, the township has already had some discussion about the purposes that the money would be used for. But it's just in the best interest of the taxpayers to do this. But if the decision of DEP is upheld and if DEP actually never issues the permit, the project doesn't get built and we just keep the $600,000. Mm-hmm.

So given that, because we're in an unusual situation, would we like to add to the agreement that they have, I'll pick a number, 30 days to sign, otherwise?

Correct.

This is off the table?

Yeah, I'm going to add that to the agreement. Mayor, you and I had that discussion earlier. Yes.

Well, I won't counsel to know that that's what they're voting for.

Yes. Sorry, can you repeat that? We're going to require them to execute the agreement and pay the funds within 30 days. Understand that we can do that, Mary, but I do have a federal judge that I have to deal with here. So I need to get papers filed in a federal court. I need to get the judge to sign them. I need to get that all to happen also. So I just... We need to do that, but we're going to start with trying 30 days, and then we'll work on the judge's timeline.

Right, and the reason we're doing this is because Nessie is like Chucky, just keeps coming back.

Well, the... That's not a legal term that I'm familiar with, but that's okay. The most important thing that we need to know as we sit here today is, as a result of the federal court action, they own the easement. The only issue here is not whether or not they get the easement. The only issue here is whether or not is how much money they paid. So it's like every eminent domain action that there is, you know, usually we're on the other side of it. So this is just about making the right business decision with regards to, you know, the cards that we were dealt by the federal government.

Mr. Renone, if for any reason the judge you got to deal with amends that timeline, do we have to come back and vote on this again? No. Okay.

Great. Just making sure. We're going to settle it, and at this point in time, as far as I'm concerned, we have a settlement once you guys, the council agrees to it. We'll sign it and provide it. If for some reason they decided they were going to stall, I would go to court to enforce the settlement.

Okay. Thank you.

So the only thing I'll add to it is obviously I've been very conflicted on this issue for several days. But the way I understand this is regardless of the outcome of this 10 plus year protest, there is money that can be received.

by the township, regardless of the decision.

So the idea is not to... The township has been very supportive of this effort, and I appreciate it. I don't think we are saying that we... stop to continue to support the protest. That's not what we are saying. What we are essentially saying is there is money that can be reasonably owed to the township, and we don't want to leave that money on the table.

Is that correct? That's correct.

Okay.

Anyone else? Madam Clerk.

Councilman Barrison? Yes. Councilwoman Francois? Yes. Deputy Mayor Karasi? Yes. Mayor Kramer? Yes. Councilman Onijaka? Yes. Councilman Singh? Yes. Councilwoman Udine? Yes. Councilman Vacinella? Yes. Councilman Wright? Yes.

Resolution 26392, authorizing stormwater detention facility maintenance agreement, IDIL, executive drive, LLC, one through three executive drive, block 469, lots 1.03, 1.04, and 1.07. On-site detention basin and associated stormwater pipes and structures to present is presented to Township Council for adoption. Do we have a motion? So moved.

Seconded.

Moved and seconded. Any discussion?

Madam Clerk? Councilman Emberison? Yes. Councilwoman Francois? Yes. Deputy Mayor Karasi? Yes. Mayor Kramer? Yep. Councilman Onijaka? Yes. Councilman Singh? Yes. Councilwoman Udine? Yes. Councilman Vacinella? Yes. Councilman Wright?

Yes. Boards, committees, commission vacancies, anyone have a nomination? Hearing none, there was an executive session scheduled. I think we've- It's not needed now. It's not needed now, so do I have a motion to adjourn?

Second.

Moved and seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion is carried. We are adjourned. Be well, Franklin.