Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors meeting. Please stand in a Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Mr. Gallardo, could you please do the roll call?

Absolutely. Ms. Hanna?

Here.

Mr. Layton? Here. Ms. King?

Here.

Mr. Kesiak? Here. Also in attendance, our interim township manager, Ms. Teoli-Coles, township solicitor, Mr. Esposito, and township engineer, Mrs. Kessler.

Thank you. A couple of announcements. We have upcoming meetings and events. Our next Board of Supervisors meeting will be on Monday, August 10th at 7 p.m. Our National Night Out is being hosted on Tuesday, August 4th from 5.30 to 8.30 p.m. at the Municipal Center parking lot. That's always a great time. So right now we have some special items and announcements. You may have seen them. They're pretty famous. We have the Neshaminy High School baseball team. We'd like to call them up, our coaches and the team up to the dais up here. And we have some certificates to present to them.

Second.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Congratulations. OK. The 2026 Neshaminy baseball team etched its name into school history with one of the most remarkable seasons the program has ever seen. Finishing with a 21 to 7 overall record, the team tied the school record for the most wins in a single season while capturing the first state championship in Neshaminy baseball history. Led by the leadership, experience, and determination of 14 seniors, the group embraced every challenge that stood in its way. Their championship run was especially impressive as they defeated four district champions that entered the state tournament ranked number one in their respective districts. Through resilience, toughness, and an unwavering commitment to one another, the district, the 2026 squad set a new standard of excellence and created a legacy that will be remembered for generations of Neshaminy players and fans. Congratulations. You guys want to come up?

Thank you.

At this time, could Chief Bartirillo please come up?

chief is going to swear in a brand new officer this evening good evening miss anna fellow board members uh tonight we are going to do this ceremonial swearing in of our newest police officer thomas peace so if officer peace could come on up to the podium here He has a lot of his family and friends here tonight, so I'm going to read a short biography on Officer Peace, then I'll have him go up to the dais with whoever he chooses to hold the Bible for him during the ceremonial swearing in. Thomas Peace was raised in Middletown Township and attended the Neshamity School District. During his senior year at Neshamity High School, Thomas was a member of the Neshamity baseball team that won the District 1 championship and advanced to the state semifinal. Following high school, Thomas answered the call to serve his country by joining the Pennsylvania National Guard as an infantryman with the 1st Battalion, 111th Infantry Regiment. During his military career, he deployed to Africa on a combat deployment lasting 10 months. After returning home, Thomas pursued a career in law enforcement. He's immensely proud to be hired by his hometown police department where he now has the opportunity to protect and serve the citizens of Middletown Township, including the friends and family who call this community home. Thomas brings five years of military knowledge and experience with him to the Middletown Township Police Department, and he looks forward to a long and rewarding career serving this community. So with that, Ms. Hanna, I will ask you to swear in. Officer Peace, you want to invite whoever's going to hold the Bible up? You can step up to the desk.

Would you like to hold the Bible for him? Thank you. Who do you have with you?

Nice to meet you. Thank you for your service. Okay, repeat after me. I, Thomas Peace, go ahead and put your hand on the Bible. I, Thomas Peace, solemnly swear to support, obey, and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution and laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, And the Ordinances of Middletown Township. And the Ordinances of Middletown Township. With duty, honor, and fidelity. With duty, honor, and fidelity. As a Middletown Township police officer. As a Middletown Township police officer.

Awesome, congratulations.

Good luck to you. Good luck to you, thank you. Thank you, you wanna stay up here for some pictures? Okay, okay, should you guys come up for some pictures?

so you get a center.

And Chief, you have another officer to recognize at this time?

That's correct. We're going to do a brief recognition tonight of Lieutenant Aileen Parker. So if Aileen could come on up. So we're going to recognize Lieutenant Aileen Parker, who recently completed the prestigious FBI National Academy in Quantico, Virginia. The FBI National Academy is one of the most respected leadership programs in law enforcement. And completion of this program reflects Lieutenant Parker's commitment to professional growth, leadership, and continued service to the Middletown Township Police Department and our community. With her graduation, Lieutenant Parker becomes the ninth member of the Middletown Township Police Department's command staff to attend the FBI National Academy. follows in the footsteps of other department leaders who have completed this program. The most recent before her was Captain Pete Feeney back in 2019. So I know it was a demanding 10 weeks, but he did a great job. So congratulations, Aileen, and we did get you a small plaque. It just says presented to Lieutenant Aileen Parker in recognition of your graduation from the FBI National Academy 298th session, April 10th, 2026 to June 18th, 2026. If you want to take a picture with the board, you're more than welcome to. So congratulations. And that is it for me, so thank you, Ms. Hanna.

Thank you very much, Chief. We have so many things to celebrate this evening in Middletown Township. Yes, if you would like to leave at this time, let's take a brief moment before we start our next series of proclamations. Okay, next up on our agenda we have a recognition of Linda Sally. We have a proclamation. We want to take the time to recognize Linda Sally whose efforts were instrumental in making the African American Museum a reality. Linda recently passed away and her absence was deeply felt on Juneteenth on the opening of the African American Museum. However, her presence was everywhere. when you were walking through the museum and listening to everybody share stories about her ability to bring everybody together. It was an amazing event. And so we want to take this moment to honor her and memorialize her by reading this proclamation. proclamation honoring Linda Sally. Whereas Linda Sally has dedicated her life to education, community service, and preserving the rich history and contributions of African Americans in Bucks County, and whereas Linda Sally was a founding member, president, and executive director of the African American Museum of Bucks County, where her vision, leadership, and unwavering commitment helped establish the museum as a lasting educational and cultural resource for the community, And whereas Linda's leadership was instrumental in securing a permanent home for the African American Museum of Bucks County at Boone Farm in Langhorne, ensuring that future generations will have a place to learn, reflect, and celebrate the diverse history of our community. And whereas beyond her professional accomplishments, Linda has faithfully served as a devoted wife, mother, grandmother, member of First Baptist Church of Langhorne, financial secretary of the church, member of the church choir, an accomplished quilter whose artistry has been recognized through exhibitions at the Mercer Museum and whereas Linda Sally's passion for education, preservation of history and service to others has left a lasting impact on Middletown Township, Bucks County and countless individuals whose lives have been enriched by her leadership and dedication. Now therefore it be resolved the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors hereby recognizes and honors Linda Sally for her extraordinary leadership, service and commitment to education and the preservation of the African American history. Signed the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors proclaim this day the 13th of July, 2026. Do we have a representative from Ms. Sally's family here today? No? Because of Ms. Sala, we also have the honor and the fortune of having the African American Museum in Middletown Township. We are truly lucky. It's an amazing museum. If you have an opportunity, please make sure that you attend. Several supervisors and I attended on Juneteenth, and we were fortunate enough to hear many speakers and an amazing poet that we'll be hearing in a little bit. We also read this proclamation on that day, the proclamation recognizing the grand opening of the African American Museum of Bucks County. Whereas the African American Museum of Bucks County has worked diligently to preserve, document, and celebrate the rich history cultural achievements and contributions of African Americans throughout Bucks County. And whereas the establishment of a permanent home for the African American Museum of Bucks County marks a significant milestone in preserving local history and ensuring future generations have the opportunity to learn from the stories. experiences, and contributions of African American residents in our region, and whereas the museum serves as an important educational and cultural resource, fostering dialogue, understanding, and appreciation for the diverse histories that have shaped Bucks County and our nation. And whereas the African American Museum of Bucks County reflects a commitment to honoring the past, promoting inclusion and celebrating the many voices and experiences that strengthen our community. And whereas the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors recognizes the dedication and vision of the founders, leaders, volunteers and supporters whose efforts have made this long awaited museum a reality. Now therefore be it resolved that the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors hereby congratulates the African American Museum of Bucks County on the occasion of its grand opening and proudly recognizes its contributions to education, history, tourism, and cultural enrichment within Middletown Township and beyond. Presented this 19th day of June, 2026 by the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors. During that presentation and the opening of the African American Museum, we were fortunate enough to hear many speakers and singers, and there was a memorable poet. We have Tiffany McKinnon, if you could come up to the podium. And Ms. McKinnon read her poem before the dedication of the museum. And if you could read it now, we would appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. And just in honor of Ms. Sally, I did not get the pleasure of meeting Ms. Sally, unfortunately. However, I did get a chance to be at the grand opening of the African American Museum that day. So there's a long line of hidden figures that kind of help history to become history and the trailblazers. And she joins that long line. And although she didn't get to see her dream realized and actualized, we know that she bears witness from paradise. So if we can just hold a moment of silence for her before I share this. Thank you. Before borders, before conquests, before one drop of sweat escaped the brow of a slave, before America was ever called America, this soil belonged to the people who already knew the language of the rivers. the Lenni Lenape, the Ramapo, the Cherokee, the keepers of the forest, the storytellers. They walked barefoot through the veins of this land while the Delaware River still answered to another name. They understood that earth was not property, but relative, not possession, but stewardship. Then they came. with their weapons, their greed, their grandiose dreams of conquest, separating families of the Fulani, the Hausa, the Ashanti, tribes that existed long before borders were ever drawn around Africa. They arrived in droves and with them arrived my people, my people, carrying pieces of ourselves and losing pieces too. And then came the chains.

Oh, the chains.

Meant to shackle our hands and feet, but not our souls. Ships arriving and departing from melanated coastlines to indigenous lands forever intertwining our histories. Heavy with stolen breath, ships crossed the Atlantic completely unaware that they were carrying future revolutionaries. Our shackled extremities did not arrive empty-handed or even light-footed. In us, we carried rhythm in our rib cages, recipes in our memories, spirituals in our lungs, resistance in our marrow. We turned suffering into blues, blues into jazz, jazz into hip-hop, pain into poetry, survival into soul food. and sorrow into the kind of worship that shakes heaven itself. And somewhere in the dark between bondage and freedom walked in Harriet, our Moses, our Moses, hell-bent on freeing us on this unpromised land. More than just a woman, she was a lantern in human form, a river that refused to flow backwards. Harriet didn't merely free slaves, she freed souls and then declared to the rest of the world that freedom is contagious. Her legacy is woven into every movement, demanding dignity and remembrance from our civil rights marches to our freedom songs, from our African drums to our cuisines, we, The descendants of the enslaved have defied our orchestrated destruction and reshaped the culture of this entire planet while still searching for a place to feel safe and accepted. So yeah, in every conventional way, I am an African American woman. I represent the memory of what humanity was designed to be. Rolls of gold and pyramids, columns of Egyptian ebony and ivory, lost African palaces draped in philosophy, math, and science. And I often stand in awe of those whose identities remain relatively untouched, and while the rest of the world passes down heirlooms as inherited customs, many of my people are still searching for the sound of our original names. And I wonder, was identity ever supposed to be a lock gate? Maybe humanity and identity are supposed to be inseparable. Maybe civilization didn't begin in the Nile or Rome or any empire carved into textbooks. Maybe, just maybe, it began in the imagination of God who scattered beauty across every tribe, every continent, every people, and every tongue. See, the tragedy of mankind is not that we are different. but that we have forgotten that we belong to one another. So no matter what maps they redraw, no matter what cages or warehouses they construct to contain us, no matter the firepower they aim at our willpower, or how they try to strip us of our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, let me be clear. We will again and again break through every border that tries to confine us because what our Creator has given to us, no man is powerful enough to take it away. Aho'ase, aho'ase. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. Thank you for that powerful reading. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, our next agenda item, we have the Parks and Recreation Month Proclamation. Mr. Kizak.

Yes, thank you. This is a proclamation recognizing July as Park and Recreation Month in Middletown Township. Whereas parks and recreation is an integral part of communities throughout this country, including Middletown Township, whereas parks and recreation promotes health and wellness, improving the physical and mental health of the people who live near parks, And whereas parks and recreation promotes time spent in nature, which positively impacts mental health by increasing cognitive performance and well-being and alleviating illnesses such as depression, attention deficit disorders, and Alzheimer's. And whereas parks and recreation encourages physical activities by providing space for popular sports, hiking trails, swimming pools, and many other activities designed to promote active lifestyles. And whereas parks and recreation increases the community's economic prosperity through increased property values, expansion of the local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses, and crime reduction. And whereas parks and recreation is fundamental to the environmental well-being of our community. And whereas parks and recreation ensures areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors. Now therefore be it proclaimed that the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors declares July as Park and Recreation Month in Middletown Township and encourages all residents to enjoy, support, celebrate the Parks and Rec programs and services that enrich our community.

Thank you, Supervisor Kizak. Next, we have Disability Pride Month Proclamation read by Supervisor Ryan Layton. Thank you.

This is a proclamation recognizing Disability Pride Month in Middletown Township. Whereas the American with Disabilities Act, the ADA, was passed in July 26, 1990 to prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities and to ensure the rights of citizens with disabilities. And whereas Disability Pride Month is celebrated nationally during the month of July to recognize the anniversary of the passage of this important legislation and whereas the Township of Middletown recognizes that one of its greatest strengths is the diversity of its people, and whereas disabled individuals contribute to our community's success and strength in an immeasurable number of ways, and whereas the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors created a Human Relations Commission in 2020 to express its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our organization and our community, And now, therefore, be it proclaimed that the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors declares July as Disability Pride Month in the Middletown Township and encourages the community to support inclusivity and the elimination of discriminatory practices. Proclaimed this day, the 13th of July, 2026, by the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors.

Thank you, Supervisor Layton. Next up, we have public comment. Eric Bruno, could you please come to the podium?

Eric Bruno, 7 9 Suica. Before I start, I do want to give a thank you to Levittown Now. All the research that I've done on this topic I'm about to talk about will be published within the next couple of days by Levittown Now. So you can review all the information yourself if you want to. So you all have, I did give them a, I did have a PowerPoint to do this, but there was some tech issues, we couldn't make them work, but the supervisors do have a copy of the PowerPoint, and I will try to get through it, as abbreviated as possible, just for time. So what I'm gonna be talking about is making sure that we're accurate in our decision making with decisions with the township. Because if we're not accurate and we don't have facts, we're going to make mistakes. And I don't like that. So if you guys will go to your second page, we're going to start with an example. The example that I have is going to be the discussions that we talked about during April's meeting. During April's meeting, agenda item number 10 had an area where we talked about a property out on old Lincoln Highway that we went ahead and we rezoned. Lots of conversations about this property being contaminated or a Superfund site or whatnot. And I just wanna make sure that we get this into the record. I'm only gonna play one, or I'm gonna play two. I'm gonna play what the petitioner said and I'm gonna play just one supervisor, but I wanna assure everyone watching at home and everyone watching the recording that this is something that all, well, let's say four of the supervisors talked about. The one who did not talk about it was Ms. Cain. Ms. Cain, we'll get back with you in a second. By the way, I just want to make this statement too. I'm not trying to throw anyone under the bus. Based on the information that you guys got, I would have made the same exact decision. Because what we did is we rezoned it based on

This site is a legacy superfund site.

Being told that. So that's what we were told. And like I said, I'm only playing one.

Buy with the Department of Environmental Protection and clean up what is the entire site.

They wouldn't be able to do anything until we knew that they had all those approvals from those higher agencies, especially on the federal and state level.

So just thinking sort of broadly, so in addition to getting the conservation easement, we also, assuming there's land development, we'd also get a cleanup of what is now a hazardous toxic property. That's right.

Okay, so it does go on again. the word Superfund in Brownfield is said a lot. I'll put timestamps on the Levittown Now material so everyone can look through it. So I actually have a little bit of knowledge about Superfund sites. So I went home that night and I was very curious about what was there, okay? So I went onto the Superfund website through the EPA and it said, no information provided. And it was not NPL properties on the NPL list. And I was like, what is this? So I called the EPA. And I got a guy named Mike McDonald. And he was very nice. Region 3 is our region in the EPA. He was very kind and said that it's not a brownfield site. It's not under his jurisdiction. He's the head of brownfield sites for Region 3. And he doesn't think it was a super fun site either. He said check with the DEP. So I called up the DEP and this poor woman, her name's Sarah, I feel so bad for her. I spent an hour on the phone with her just learning about things. And she sent me to the database. I guess it's called EMAPPA. And then she also told me to contact the records office in Norristown, which I did. They said that they had some information. And so I went out there and I looked and they said I had to come out there. They couldn't send it to me. So I went out there and it's so funny because they had they had it on something called for younger people here, something called microfilm. And they only had a microfilm reader. They didn't have any way to transfer it to digital. So I went there and I went to a blast from the past and dealt with that. And I had to take pictures with my phone. That was the only way I did it. The wealth of information that I got told a bit of a story. So there was a 67 permit about this being a landfill. And then there was a 67 letter, 74, 75, 79, and 80 samples were taken there. And the permit said the type of rubbish to be disposed at this site will include building materials, wood, glass, crockery, broken concrete, broken asphalt, and similar materials. So building materials, both inorganic and organic materials. So what happened was there was a couple letters that was sent out by Middletown Township at that time to the owner at that time in the 70s about something called leachate, which is also AKA garbage juice. There was some complaints there. So that's what the samples were taken. They went through and there were instances of ammonia TOC, which is total organic carbon and COD, chemical oxygen demand, and that indicates levels of high biodegradable mass, which makes sense because it's only, it's these sort of materials that are on there. There was also another letter there from the 1981. It was actually a letter from the Philadelphia Electric Company. They were out checking their natural gas lines and that they were, they found combustible materials that was not natural gas, it was methane. So that set off a request to the EPA to do a study. Now, we're gonna put a pin in that real quick, and we're gonna go over to Ms. Kane. Now, I'm not gonna play it, but Ms. Kane asked about a 200-foot buffer when we only need a 150-foot buffer. Her concern was about the change in ordinance, which is great. We weren't ever told why it was 200 feet and not 150 feet. We were only, it was kind of like inferred that it was only out of their goodness of the heart that they're gonna give us 200 foot easement, conservation easement. Well, the Philadelphia Electric Company having a gas line there told me, like, wait, what else is on there? Is there an easement there? Turns out that actually is on the roadside. But what I did find was a 20-foot high tide to low tide – I'm going to get this word right, wrong – Repertorin rights, which means that they can go into the water and people in the water can come on. And it's high tide to low tide, which is one and a half feet. And because that's up and down and it's relatively flat, it becomes 20 feet. And then there's also a 30 foot sewer easement, which is for the Neshaminy Interceptor sewer, okay? So 20 plus 30 plus 150. Yes, you can have overlapping easements, but this is just easier to do. So that's where we got the 200 and that's, and that's, we were assumed it was going to be out of the kindness of their heart. Not that there was a sewer easement there.

Mr. Bruno.

Yes.

Sorry to interrupt you. You have about two minutes left.

I'm going to go until this is done. Yeah. We all have things to do.

We have, we've given you 10 minutes. I, I just. Thank you.

Fine. Okay, so there was an 81 field observation that did find that there weren't that as many contaminants. But there was also an 83, after that, that's in this one, after that there was an 83 letter with another request for a deep in depth field study, which is this, which was done in 1985. So I FOILed it and I found the 85 report is there. And what did the 85 report said? It's remediated. It's done. It's not a superfund site. It was found not a candidate for national priorities list. And by the way, that interceptor, the leaky was able to be gathered and thrown down that list or thrown down the interceptor, which if it was highly toxic, the sewer company would not take it. So what do we have? We have ourselves where, realistically, you didn't have to do all this to find out this was not a Superfund site. The township was lied to that this was a Superfund site over and over again. And it got changed without anything. So what happened? All right, I want to know what happened, because that's what the, there is a forest that's over there, and the EPA, you guys can check in your thing, the EPA says if you have a toxic site, you can let it grow. So over and over again, we were told that this is a contaminated site, it's all sorts of bad, but no, this tells me that it's not. So three questions left. What do the supervisors do with this new information? Do we do a corrective amendment because we had fraudulent information that was given to us about this? How did we miss this? And most importantly, how do we not do this in the future because we're going to end up with things like the Wood School properties and the connector project for that, for one, where we're going to get false information or incorrect information and make decisions for the township over that. It's ridiculous. I don't think that we have any right to be telling us what exactly we're gonna be doing if we're gonna have false information here. It is a terrible situation and I'm sorry I'm not ending exactly how I wanna end because I was.

Mr. Bruno, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for the research. Thank you for being so diligent. Thank you for caring so much about our township. That is commendable, the amount of research that you've done. We all have concerns about the site, but I think we have Mr. Kessler, we have Mr. Esposito, and we have Mr. Ennis that are going to address some of the questions that you have. So hopefully that will relieve some of your concerns.

Okay, I just want to put out here, you don't, so, okay. You all said it was a super fun site.

And I think Mr. Ennis is going to speak to that.

Okay, I mean, he can.

I think we can put this out first.

Thank you, Mr. Bruno. Mr. Ennis, could you speak to some of the concerns?

Sure. So first, I do echo everything you just said. Mr. Bruno's concerns and all the level of research he's done is very, very impressive. And he's not wrong in the sense that when this was presented to everyone for approval on April 13th, the attorney representing the petition pretty much started the presentation by saying it's a legacy Superfund site. Now, you also might remember that I started my spiel by calling it a brownfield. Also, the term contaminated site got used a lot during that meeting as well. Superfund site, contaminated site, brownfield. They all got kind of used interchangeably in a sense. The site is part of the Pennsylvania DEP's environmental cleanup and brownfield program with an active status. I can absolutely show you the link that will take you to that. So whether it be a brownfield or a Superfund site, during that meeting it was absolutely understood that the contaminated site required environmental remediation if the development of a logistics fulfillment center is ever pursued at a later time. And one thing that Mr. Bruno does not cover is what's actually in the zoning text amendment that was approved, which is really the important part. In fact, there's a specific section that states, any site identified by the Pennsylvania DEP as a hazardous site shall comply with the Pennsylvania DEP and EPA cleanup requirements. And in no case does the zoning text amendment Yeah. Additionally, if anything was ever proposed there, we'd have to go through a land development process as well as a conditional use approval process. And as you guys know, through the conditional use hearing process, you can set conditions. And those conditions in something like this, in this case, if anything was ever proposed at that site, you would set conditions that would further fortify and strengthen the environmental remediation thing. Whether it's a Superfund site or not, doesn't matter. You can do that. That's gonna be the condition. They're gonna have to do that. The petition went through the necessary review process by the township staff and consultants. It also got a recommendation of approval from the planning commission. It was not reviewed during that process through the lens of the site being a Superfund site. It was reviewed with the knowledge that it was a contaminated site requiring environmental remediation. And so with all that, the point is that the board unanimously approved the petition on April 13th because of the positives, which are key things like a conservation easement, cleaning up a split zoned and unrealistic area of the zoning map, gaining open space or rezoned properties that are more accessible, realistic, and beneficial to township, and because the site will have to be remediated in accordance to DEP standards. Now that same meaning, which we don't have a sound bite of, is that in accordance with DEP standards gets used a lot. And you know, which, okay. And it's not because the term Superfund incorrectly used or interchangeably used with other terms like brownfield and contaminated sites. My point being is, yes, he's absolutely right, Superfund was used, but it's also a brownfield and it was also well understood that it's a contaminated site and it's also well understood that if you approve those tax amendments, it's absolutely required that that site gets remediated. and I will defer to the township engineer, township solicitor, or the township manager for further comments.

So we did confirm that it was contaminated, and it's still contaminated and needs to be remediated.

Okay, a couple things. One, I asked, and Jim, I'm not trying to throw you under the bus.

Mr. Bruno, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but you had your time. We have to address the concerns, and we have to move on to the rest of the residents. My apologies. At any time, At any time, you can reach out to the township, township manager, Mr. Ennis, Mr. Esposito, or Mr. Kessler, myself, anybody on the board, and we will hear your concerns. But we've answered your concerns.

Madam Chair, if I can just add just one thing.

I'm sorry, we have a number of people on one second, okay?

Joe Fitch, 346 Wyoming Avenue.

Hold on, Mr. Fitch, you're going to have to wait. We have a lot of people talking and we're going to address this.

I'd like to yield my time to Mr. Bruno about this situation.

Are you on the list? I am on the list. Okay, when it's your turn. Okay, when it's your turn, you can speak, okay?

It's about this subject.

You can speak about that subject. You absolutely can.

I'll give my time to Mr. Bruno.

Thank you. Mr. Kessler.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I did want to just help clarify a bit the difference of Superfund and Brownfield for those that may not be aware. The federal government has Superfund as a definition. Those are the most severely hazardous sites around the country. There's the list that Mr. Bruno referred to. Those are ones, the ones that are on that list are identified by the federal government for long-term large scale cleanups, kind of a continuous operation. And that's why it's not on that list. So the state DEP, the PADEP has it as a brownfield. It does not. The 1985 report that he did an excellent job finding, it states that it's not or it's not at the level that it needs to be on the Superfund site list doesn't say that it's not contaminated at all. And that's where the state DEP kind of takes jurisdiction there. So the 85 report does acknowledge that it's not at the Superfund level, but the measures that are in place with the gas collection, the leachate collection, Those are examples of an old landfill type site that is contaminated that would be remediated. And brownfields at that level, they're less severely contaminated than a Superfund. But those are in that realm where the local municipalities can have remediation done to then reuse a site like that. So that's, I just wanted to clarify kind of that different level of hazardous, right?

One is federal compared to the state. Yes, different act to correct.

I don't want to take up any more of the time. All of my information to the people of Middletown Township, I will give all of my replies on the Levittown Now article that will be coming out in a couple days because, no. I have information that shows that that is incorrect and I'm not going to I'm just not going to. I know there's people waiting, so I'm. Thank you. I respect other people's time, but that is incorrect information. Thank you, Mr. That information.

I just wanted to say two things real quick. First, there was no documentation presented by the applicant in the petition that specifically called it a Superfund site. It always said contaminated site in the information that was provided to us by them. It was the term was used interchangeably in the meetings, but they didn't present that in the documentation. Also, myself, Mr. Kessler, and Ms. Arenas would certainly be willing to sit down with Mr. Bruno in the next couple weeks and discuss this further with him separately out of here. So we don't take any more time of the township here.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Our next resident speaker, Paul Schneider. Hi.

Go ahead. Would it be okay, she's on the list too, would it be okay if she went ahead of me?

She's right after you.

Switch?

Sure.

I was here before at the last meeting, I don't know if you remember me, talking about Jeffrey Lane. Everybody here on Jeffrey Lane, please raise your hands. This is all of our street, a lot of our street, not everybody. I don't know how much more I can tell you other than one of the things I found out, and this is not to be disrespectful, but a court, meaning Fox Court, is a street that doesn't have a thoroughfare, okay? A lane, as in Jeffrey Lane, is a narrow residential street, very narrow. Avenue, as in Yumeville Avenue, is a wide, major highway. To bring all the cars up through Fox Court into Jeffrey Lane, which we had a problem about a month ago, there was a major fire out on the highway. And all the traffic was directed up the access road to Fox Court to Jeffrey Lane. No, people could not get out of their driveways. And this is how it's going to be if you take those access roads out, if you take them out. We're going to have everybody on Jeffrey Lane. And I know you guys don't live there. You maybe don't live on a street like Jeffrey Lane, which is a narrow street. But can you imagine people getting detoured from the superhighway up to Jeffrey Lane? This is how it's going to be if you take out our access roads. Humeville Avenue is a wide, and I don't mean if anybody's here from Humeville Avenue. It's a great road, but it's much wider than ours, and no cars park on it. So that would be a great, even Humeville Road is the same way. Not as wide as Humeville Avenue, but there's no parking. So cars could get detoured down there. Have you tried to, have you, because we had heard that the township, wasn't gonna pay for it, for the access roads, that you had signed off on it. Is that true?

So our township manager had a virtual meeting on June 16th. This year?

Do you want me to talk?

Yes, please.

So I attended a meeting related to the roads, related to the access roads and the potential. They drew up a plan of the potential for keeping as many aspects of the access roads open as possible. Right. The board of supervisors, that information was shared with them. They individually provided me feedback On June 16th, I, on behalf of Middletown Township, provided PennDOT with the feedback that Middletown Township's preference is to keep the access roads open as much as possible, and we agreed to continue to maintain them.

So you agree they're going to stay open?

Middletown Township went on record with PennDOT to say we want them open and we will maintain them. It is a PennDOT decision, but Middletown Township, your supervisors, heard you at the last meeting, and that is the direction they gave to me.

Thank you.

Thank you. That's all we needed to hear. Thank you.

Paul Schneider.

Taxpayer, not resident, property right over here at 10 Black Eyed Susan, and I'm with no cloverleaf. Obviously what you've talked about tonight is great for the people of Jeffrey Lane. As I've seen descriptions of what PennDOT is going to do, probably not so great for some other streets, including South Bellevue Avenue, where now all the traffic is going to be going. So this process was flawed from the start when Representative Hogan and Senator Fowrie reached out to PennDOT and said, can you save the access roads without, and they said, without connecting them to Route 1. That's a problem. because it removes options that would have made this project much better and for all the people. Easier travel, no problems on South Bellevue Avenue, et cetera. What I would ask of you people, I understand you've done a great job for your constituents on Jeffrey Lane. I applaud you for that. But there are other areas that are having problems still with this issue. I would request that you continue to hold PennDOT's feet to the fire and request a project that they come back to the table with a project that works for everybody rather than just primarily for PennDOT. So I appreciate everything you've done. I'm very happy for the people on Jeffrey Lane, but I really hope that we can make this project, instead of settling for half a loaf, that we can make this project even better. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Schneider, for advocating. Next up we have Caroline Mayle. Mayle? Okay, sorry, did I pronounce that correctly?

Yes, hi. Well, you already said Caroline Mayo. Sorry, a little nervous. I'm the president of the HOA at Windybush. I don't know if you know where Windybush is, where the townhouse is, the border, the golf course, the farm, and the Friends Meeting House Cemetery. I'm here tonight to discuss an easement that the township entered into with the association in 2003 regarding association property being used by Middletown Country Club. A portion of the men's and women's 10th tee boxes are on the cart path from the tees to the fairway are on association property. The easement allows the township to use the property for the golf course and in return for the easement, the township agreed to maintain both sides of the hedge line along the property line between the course and the community. This hasn't been happening. And I have correspondence from 2005 all the way back then asking that maintenance be completed. And this effort to have this work done is various different versions of our board dealing with this. So in April 2025, we reached out to the township about some trees in the hedge line. They directed us to the golf course. We met with the golf course. We talked about the trees. The guy was like, I have no idea what this easement's about. And that was that. So fast forward this year, tried to reach a resolution again. I emailed Nick Valla on April 6th and found out he was out on leave. And then I emailed the EA as directed, but never got a response. Then I emailed Nick again on April 30th because I thought he'd be back. And he was out till June, which is Fine. I mean, I emailed again the EA and never got a response. So then I emailed you, Supervisor Hanna, on May 27th and CC'd everyone else in the township. And then I got a response back that day that it would be directed to the acting township manager. And so here we are today and I've not gotten any response. So we on the board are asking for a meeting to discuss the township's obligations in this easement. We can meet here or at the property. However, the appropriate staff who can take the necessary steps to trim the hedge line and continue maintenance in the future need to be present. While the easement does state that failure to meet the obligation nullifies the easement, the association is not eager to take the property back. So I have a copy of the easement. and my contact information and I look forward to receiving notification in the next several days about dates and times. And I also want to take a minute to give a shout out to the golf course management because we did have a tree issue that kind of straddled our properties and he was very helpful and we had those trees taken out today so I do want to give a shout out to him about it and thank his efforts for that. But he has no idea about this easement so we really think we need to discuss it with the township. Thank you.

I'm the person and I will have our public works director involved as well. Absolutely.

Thank you very much. I remember your email. I'm sorry for the delay. I appreciate you coming and taking time to email us notify us and then also coming to speak tonight. They will be reaching out to you. Next up we have Lynn Evans. Okay. I have Mr. Dave Cahill.

Is there anybody else from Jeffrey? I can't wait until the end. If they want to go in front of me. They answered us, so we're good. We're good? Thank you.

Hello, Mr. Cahill. Hi, how are you? I'm well, could you state your address please?

Yeah, 462 Cynthia Pandell. I had a couple of questions about the loan payments, the payoff for Tower 8. So the supervisors voted in September of 2025 to an MOU to pay off the loan for Tower 8, $569,000. Is there a reason why the supervisors voted for that, for that payoff?

Mr. Cahill, we voted, it was time to vote for that. You were there at the meeting, I believe.

Yes, yes. Yeah, but it was, the money came from the truck fund and the supervisors voted. Is that something that by law needs to be done? to vote to pay that off with township tax money?

Mr. Esposito.

Yes, so the township agreed to take joint ownership of the truck, so now that fire truck is now in the joint name of the Pendell Fire Company and the township, so the township agreed to pay the remaining payoff, basically pay its portion, and yes, in order to pay the funds out of the township collection, we need to vote for that at a public meeting.

Thank you. Is there a reason why There was no vote for the supervisors for the annual payments that were made by the Pendell Fire Company using the truck fund money?

I believe because it's the Pendell Fire Company. They were responsible for those payments.

They made them with their own money or they made them with the truck fund money, the Middletown Township taxpayer truck fund money? Isn't that where the payments, according to Mr. Schramm's answers on the signed affidavit for the appeal that I made, he said that he was in communication with the township for the annual payments for 2024 and 2025. So is there a reason why there was no vote by the supervisors to make those payments?

Once the funds go to Pendell Fire Company, we don't vote on how they utilize the money.

So why did they, if they already had the truck fund money, why did they have to communicate with the township to make the $67,400 payments for 2024 and 2025?

I don't know what communications you're specifically talking to. I know you're saying you said that. I don't remember.

According to Rich Schramm, the president of the Pendell Fire Company.

I suggest that you talk to Mr. Schramm.

He was in communication with somebody from the township, and it doesn't say who from the township. So who, I asked this question the last meeting I was at. I think it was a couple of months ago. I asked who authorized the...

i think you need to mr cahill i appreciate your questions you said that you were going to look into this i i believe that we did and the and the answer is you're going to have to ask mr shran we don't have that information i believe we shared you know a lot of information with you does your finance department do checks and balances on the finances that are the money that's I think Mr. Esposito shared that once it goes to the Pendell Fire Department, then it's out of our hands.

That money is allocated to them. But did it go through the proper channels? Did anybody know that the Pendell Fire Company wasn't gonna be able to make their, that they couldn't afford the payments and that the township was gonna have to bail them out?

You would have to ask the Pendell Fire Department.

but the money came from the township, right? This seems to be a vicious circle, the money involving Tower 8. And your finance, does your finance department, I know that there was some information, does your finance department would keep track of the money, right? So they would know whether or not

If that's your question, we can certainly look into that and Mr. Esposito and township manager can get back to you on that.

So I believe, yeah, yeah. It's always goes back to Stephanie. I know that Lance Sager has put in a right to know request for audits and there was no information given back about audits. Are there audits being done with the millions of dollars?

Is your question about the Pendell Fire Department or is it about the audits? What is your question about?

Are there audits being done on all the fire companies' money, the millions of dollars involving the fire companies and the trucks? Is there anybody keeping track of what's going on with the money?

I think we can look into that and get back to you, Mr. Cahill.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. and Mrs. Flynn, I'm sorry, I'm having trouble reading the first name. I'm sorry? Oh, the baseball player. Okay, all right. Well, yay, they were here. Are they hidden, Joey and I guess Carol Zetterberg? Is Carol here? Okay, Carol. Thank you.

Good evening. I'm Carol Zetterberg. I live at 129 West Marshall Avenue. But I'm here tonight to represent the membership of Langhorne Open Space, which is a land trust located in this area that covers Middletown, well, we have members all the way throughout Bucks County, but about 100 of those members live here in Middletown. And I'd have to say that they have concerns about where the Middletown Township is standing on the RC3 issue. I am happy to hear Jeffrey Lane expressing themselves and I'm happy to hear that the township manager spoke to PennDOT and received some qualified assurances. I would warn you to be cautious about trusting Middletown. We've been dealing with Middletown now, we and the RC3 No Cloverleaf organization. We've been dealing with Middletown now for about five years.

PennDOT, excuse me, what did I say? Okay, well.

i'm hoping that you can trust us oh well oh well okay forgive me um so we we've just been trying to work with panda to be sure that the people of middletown and the other people in the area who are losing the access roads and having the traffic of Route 1 added to their residential streets. And this is happening not only with Jeffrey Lane, but of course the plan, if you've looked at it, calls for a lot of traffic going on to Gillom Avenue, which is just a regular residential area. We have complaints from our membership of over 200 families and 100 of them being in Middletown Township, that the plan calls for this increase of traffic coming off of Route 1 going onto Highway 413, which is ruining a lot of people's lives, going all the way to the Newtown border, Newtown Township border. It's about four miles right between the beginning of the influx, which is around Middletown Township and Langhorne Manor and Langhorne Borough, that this traffic would be coming in. I'm sure you have at some point in your life tried to go through the intersection at 413 and 213, which is known as West Maple Avenue locally. It's truly a mess and although it's located in Langhorne Borough, it involves thousands of the people in Middletown because everybody has to go through that. I would say that the people in our membership have been concerned about what might be perceived as a lack of interest in an issue that is not only has to do with health, it has to do with safety, it has to do with quality of life for your residents, our residents. I would just say be very careful about believing PennDOT because they left those weasel words in that statement. We will discourage traffic as much as possible. That they have said that in their plan. We've seen dozens of plans. And as long as they say as much as possible, you don't have any assurance at all. I appreciate the township managers contacting them. I appreciate your directing her to contact them. What we need in Middletown and from Middletown Township is a statement that says we oppose taking the traffic off of Route 1 through these roads, the access roads, And what we want is to have the traffic not coming up through 413 and affecting everybody along the way. Without a clear statement from you as township, you are the people who are protecting the people of your municipality. Without a clear statement from you, they will be disappointed in you. They will be bewildered why you did not protect them. And I hope sincerely that you will.

Thank you, Ms. Flynn. I appreciate your comments. Oh, I mean, Zetterberg, correct? Zetterberg? I'm sorry. Yes, Ms. Zetterberg. Thank you. Next up, we have Lance. Sayers?

Good evening, Lance Seggers, Middletown Township. Well, it's not my fight what Mr. Cahill, as far as Pendell Fire to come there. I did ask for some dates of audits because per the MOU, every fire department is supposed to be audited once a year by Middletown Township or a accountant of the fire department's choosing, and we're supposed to get that audit. So to sit back and go, we don't know what the financial situation of the fire companies, well, that's just either neglect or... you know just bad work all right and that mou is over 10 years old so you know the only reason i even asked for that is because we did bail out the fire department you guys sat there and presented for months mr bruno talked about it at the meeting presented for months one thing and then we pay off a truck with taxpayer money that they bought on their own on their own accordance and we were left with the bill Okay. So to sit there and go, we don't know the financial status. I know. And I said it before the meeting, we wouldn't allow our police department to do it. And our police departments run pretty good by our chief back there, but we wouldn't allow him to just buy cars and say, Hey, Middletown township pay for it. He's got to ask for it first. Okay, as far as Mr. Ennis' words about fortifying sites and being in accordance with DEP standards, this goes back to my longstanding issue with this board of changing zoning, giving overlays to builders and just rolling out the red carpet. And that's what you guys have done, okay? And we don't have all the information, okay? We use sort of vague words like the site is contaminated. Well, how contaminated? How much are we rolling out the red carpet? What are we making decisions on? Because I think a developer that only has to spend $100,000 to remediate a site, and we're approving that based on the fact that they're gonna do that, or $5 million that it saves the township, I think those are two different things that we're making a decision on, okay? So when we're changing zoning things, which we shouldn't be doing, period, We're already too congested. I think I see time and time again people coming up here complaining to you guys about the amount of development and you do nothing but continue to allow it to happen. Have we done one thing that other townships have done in this state to try to curb the building? Have we increased the percentage of water and permeability that we require of any kind of sites? Okay. Have we done any of that? Have we just said we're just not going to change zoning? Build it as R1. Build a single family home. I'm sorry you won't make $40 million, but you'll still make a couple million. Have we done that? We don't. And that becomes the bigger issue of why we continue to do this. Okay. We have a stormwater tax now. Taxpayers are flitting the bill for that. Why do we have a stormwater tax? Why is the stormwater drain is so bad? Because we've continued to build and now we're paying for it. All the builders that build all the houses that cause these issues aren't paying for it. So when we talk about making informed decisions, okay? And the fact that Mr. Bruno has to go do research that appears to contradict what the research of our own employees have done, okay? That goes back to who are we serving? Are we serving Middletown Township residents or are we serving contractors? Are we serving builders? Okay, and I would, you know, encourage anyone to watch a zoning board meeting and listen to what a resident that owns a single family home has to go through in order to build a patio or a deck. Or I watched one where Mr. Bruno was trying to get a windmill put on his shed that it took an hour and a half, you know, and he owns his home. He's a resident, pays taxes here. There's multiple people that ask builders all the time, where are you from? None of them are ever from Middletown Township, but we roll out the red carpet. So I think it's a travesty what you guys did to him tonight by cutting him off at 10 minutes. I think Mr. Bruno's always been respectful. I think he's always treated this board with respect and to cut him short when clearly he's done his due diligence to present information to people. And now they have to go to Levittown now to find it instead of being presented it to you guys. I don't know if that sends the right message is what this board is about. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Sayers. We have had quite a few people on our list. I don't have any, is this, Mr. Fitch? There's an arrow. You went all the way to the top.

Okay. I was on the top. I was the first one to sign. So it doesn't matter. I'm not going to beat a dead horse. You know, it seems like Middletown, as a hand, doesn't know what the other fingers are doing. Everything gets, it's like a hot potato. You know, oh, the variance board does that. Or, oh, the board of supervisors does that. Or the... You know, building department does this. You know, I don't see anybody talking together. We overbuild this community building on 50-foot lots when in the book it says there has to be a 10,000-foot lot. I mean, it's just crazy. we don't know what's going on with this property. Is it contaminated, is it not contaminated? If it is contaminated and that water's leaching into the Neshaminy Creek and going downstream and flooding other properties, why isn't Corman being fined for that? DEP pushes it to EPA, EPA throws it to somebody else. Nobody wants to take responsibility for what has been done in this community. And it's very sad. Like he said, we're footing the bill for this stormwater management that the township has created. My parents lost close to $200,000 in a 96 flood, and now I'm getting a $60 bill to fix it. And I don't see us doing anything to help resolve the problems. You know, so I'm not expecting an answer from you guys. I just, again, need to voice my opinion.

Thank you. I appreciate your comment. I appreciate you attending and voicing your concerns. That being said, we are all residents here. We all have the same concerns. The information that was shared by Mr. Bruno was very much appreciated, appreciated his due diligence, his research. We also have information that says that it was just imprecisely inaccurate. It is contaminated and it has to be addressed. So we need to do that. Stormwater fee, like you said, we had lots of flooding. People lost a lot of property. We have the fee in place. to help ameliorate the issue that is happening with the flooding because the houses that were built here a long time ago did not account for the types of rain and the water that we're getting now. We also have a lot more building now. So we do have that water fee to help with that so that we can address certain issues. And when we go to build, there are things in place We have requirements in place where you have to address the stormwater.

So I beg to differ with you a little bit. My father built his house in 1964, 65 in an area that was farmland. There was no flooding issues. There was no water issues until 95 came in. And then we allowed, not you folks, your predecessors allowed, which is now the Tech School or LTC, Lincoln Tech or whatever, that was a big pond, a big retention basin that absorbed a lot of the water from any storms. Fill it in, you're like, what's that song? Fill it in and make a parking lot, okay? All of the building from Reedman's, the Oxford Valley Mall, it all goes downhill into Mill Creek And that's what's caused the flooding. It's not the houses that were there from the 60s. It's everything that was allowed all these years afterwards. I've come to the board, I don't know how many times, and have told you folks, I've got video of it. I've showed you the sewer in a bad rainstorm. floods it the sewer water the toilet paper all that stuff overflows it all goes into mill creek and then where does it go it goes into highland park it goes into snowball gate forsythia gate all that flood water then floods over into that place where you guys have the picnic every year singing in the gates or whatever it is all that sewage water when that water raises is all in there where they're playing uh hockey and where the kids play and everything like that nothing gets done about it your retention basins or the retention basins in the township are supposed to be inspected i think it's every two years If you go to McDonald's on Route 1 and you look at the retention basin that they have, it is pretty much filled in from sediment over all of the years of flooding and everything like that. The retention basin that the township paid over a million dollars for, I think it was a million dollars, it might have been more than that, in my neighborhood, since 1999 has never been touched. They come down and maybe test for a mosquito or two. It has never been dredged. It has been never cleaned out. The stream that it empties into has never been cleaned out. So it's a shame that the township, whether Eric is underhanded with not having enough employees, which I think he was supposed to get employees, or whatever the case may be, nothing gets taken care of for the residents. Like he said, you're going to roll out the red carpet to these people down here that want to build another warehouse or something. You've got two warehouses right here. that we don't collect taxes on from, again, what I understand because there's no use of occupancy. Those buildings were built to the plans that the township approved. They are ready to be used for what they built them for. Why don't they pay tax dollars on it? Just because they don't have a tenant? Why is that my responsibility? It doesn't make sense. You know what I mean? We need common sense to figure this stuff out.

Thank you. Okay, we're gonna take a two minute break in between our next agenda item. If everybody's finished with their, I don't have any more names. Are there any more? Oh, I'm so sorry. No, no, no, you don't have to rush. I just thought we were finished. If there are more people who have something to say, please come up, state your name and your address. I just don't have any more names on the list. My apologies.

My name is Tom Walker, I live at 504 Perrywinkle Avenue. I feel a little sheepish because my problem is like so much smaller than all the other issues you've been dealing with. I can see the kind of stuff you guys have to deal with. I live on Perrywinkle Avenue, which is, if you don't know, it's on the border with South Hampton Township, kind of runs right along the, well, a street away from the Neshaminy Creek, so we're quite familiar with floods down there. And also, what's happening, there's two issues with our street. One, the road situation, the paving is horrible. Did anybody happen to get forward some pictures that I had said, oh, very good, happened. Yeah, I consulted with Miranda Colon and also Joe Hogan's Office they both suggested that I come to this meeting Although I can see my issue is really small compared to the other things you're dealing with and also the Citizens Traffic Commission Which is tomorrow night, so I'm gonna go there too to get their support So the condition of the roadway is awful Periwinkle connects Brownsville to Maple Avenue right at the point where the bridges are so when the Brownsville Bridge was closed all the traffic we were part of the detour and we had everyday trucks, massive trucks hauling building material and steel and stuff down our street to the bridge site. So the road's taken a beating. It needs to be repaved basically is what we're looking for. I was told from I guess Hogan's office, Tiffany there spoke to Eric Gartenmeier and supposedly repaving Periwinkle is considered a possibility to be part of the 2027 capital budget. So if that actually happens, I'd just like to ask you folks to help us out with that. there's from one end of the street to the other it's cracks potholes that the township has put band-aids on for like three years and it just looks like crap and it's not fun to drive and also the street has since it's really nice nice location we get a lot of walkers joggers bikers people pushing baby carriages walking their dogs It's just a lot of pedestrian traffic there. So that ties into the other issue, which is safety concerns there in that there's a lot of traffic. People ignore the stop signs. Some people speed. It's pretty dangerous. And that needs to be addressed, too. That's what we're asking for you to consider. That's about it.

Mr. Gartenmeier, do you have anything you want to say?

Yes, I did. Thank you. Okay, great. Okay. Tiffany reached out to me from Hogan's office. I did reply to your concerns. Yes. Talking with Isaac a week or two ago, we are looking to put that on a paving program. The reason it wasn't done sooner, the Maple Avenue bridge was out at one point. The Brownsville Ridge was supposed to follow that. It never did. So we didn't want to peeve the road and then, just like you said, have all the truck traffic. So now that they're both done, we're slating it for next year to have it peeved. And we have been down there patching. The road does need to be repaved. I mean, you're not going to get around that.

There's two stop signs on the street, and a lot of people just drive right through them. Some people don't even see them. So anything you can do. I personally hate speed bumps. But if that's a budget-friendly solution, I could live with it, I guess. Maybe with electronic flashing, it says what your speed limit is. We can bring that up to the police department.

That's more their area with enforcement.

All right, so it sounds like we can count on you to repave it sometime in next year.

Yeah, it's going to be on the list.

Okay, can't ask for any more than that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Can we have one more?

Yeah, come on up.

Hi there, thank you. My name is Barry Trueschel. I don't live in Langhorne Borough. I shop in Langhorne, I mean, I shop in Middletown, but I am mayor of Langhorne Borough, and I've been moved to speak because of some of the issues people raised about the access roads on the RC3. And one of the issues I'm just concerned about is public safety and public health. We did a truck study a while back ago that documented not only the traffic on 413, but the impact at the end of the service roads, the access to and off and onto Route 1 would cause. And there'll be people in Middletown on a certain area as well as neighboring municipalities that could pose a risk to health if someone had a heart attack, had to have a stroke, was in a serious car accident on Route 1 and needed where time is of the essence. And the elimination of the entries onto Route 1 and the exits getting off to Route 1 could, you know, sometimes you have a golden hour and we've documented, which I'm willing to share the studies that we have if anybody wants. You can just look me up on the internet and I'll be able to provide that. So there's also a public safety issue and a public health issue that I just wanted to raise to everyone's concerns. besides, you know, the traffic that people are going to have on their streets. Okay, thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Okay, we have one more.

Excuse me, I had to sit down. I pulled a muscle swim. You're old. My daughter said, walk it off. I said, I'm 74. I'm going to give you a handout. Just for a record, I'm a national, international corporate real estate expert, historic urban design expert. I've done about $1.4 billion worth of projects. I lived in Langdon all my life until I moved to Towson, Maryland. and made apartment stores. I didn't want to leave Langer. I lived on the 18th hole in Middletown Country Club. I bought the house from Judge Monroe, who was his caddy when growing up. He used to love saying, my caddy bought my house. But made apartment stores, moving to Townsend, Maryland, where I led the Northeast Division. We handled from Maryland to Chicago to Maine to South Carolina. My job was to study every historic central business district in the East. That's where I got into architecture. My daughters know what I do. I said, we're not going to bug everybody until we wait and see what Toll Brothers is doing on Bellevue Avenue and on the corner here. I said, there's a 90 percent chance I don't think they know where they're at. They really don't. What I see, and I know these guys by the way, I go to shopping center conventions with those guys. I said, they're not even close. When I saw Betts come in here with that planning commission last week, it really was horrible. You come in here with 290 units and then they're beating you up for another 400 units from Toll. They're not even talking about the history of They're in a community where you've got the AME church there. Nice families live there. I know many families that are going to grow up here. So we did a plan. It's a blueprint how to get this work. And I told my daughters from the beginning, I said, you know what? A nonprofit owns a corner of Flowers Avenue and Maple Avenue. And I'm going to get all the young moms and kids from Middletown Township, young moms from Langhorne Borough, Langhorne Manor Borough. And we're going to find some kids that are going to college for architecture or urban design. And we're going to give them a seat at the table. And we're going to design the corner of Flowers and Maple Avenue. and maybe we'll have it the right way. We don't need tax amendments, we don't need zoning changes. The first thing we do is come in, we get people walking, and we connect the existing boroughs. I can coach any architect in the United States tomorrow morning or any town planner. We know every inch of Langmore Borough. I know every inch of Long Island. I once toured Levittown, Long Island, and Levittown, PA on the same day, and Bristol Borough with the former CEO, Woolworth, former national real estate manager for Walmart, and former national real estate manager for Foot Locker. so i love art i love design we don't we don't need that you know it's about the community getting a seat at the table and young families thank you do you have something to share with us my daughter said you know we really like to get a meeting with stephanie jim and nick so they they'll be able to tell we can tell your new township manager where Middletown sits historically in urban design. If we could get a meeting with Stephanie and Nick and Jim, I'd really appreciate it.

Thank you, we will take a look. Any other public comments at this time? Okay.

One Zetterberg up here is enough and that's why I did not sign. I'd like to talk about the impact of this 20-acre wood service project. For Pete's sakes, don't let them destroy the woodland. Hold tough on it. I mean, if I was a millionaire, I'd buy it for you. But unfortunately, I'm not a millionaire. But please hold the line. Don't allow them to destroy Mill Creek by filling it in on the floodplain. It's the only way that they can do that. They can't build that type of complex without going into the floodplain and destroying all the trees. And those trees take away a lot of carbon that we're trying to do and control. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Any other public comments? Okay. Let's take a five-minute.

Ms. Hanna, is it all right if I wanted to say something real quick? Oh, yeah.

I'm so sorry. That's okay.

I wanted to just very briefly speak about the PennDOT project that we've heard a lot about. And I know we finally shared today that we have been in talks with PennDOT and, you know, have some promising news from them. Again, nothing is set in stone. But I just wanted to thank all the residents who are not here anymore, but they were here earlier, who all came out to speak and advocate. Supervisor Hanna and Garrido and I had met with them previously at the No Cloverleaf meeting or just out and about. And I just wanted to say that their advocacy had a direct impact, at least on how I viewed the project and they helped me be a better supervisor and advocate for our residents here by being so outspoken i mean i was sent letters and everything and i really appreciated that i also wanted to thank paul schneider and mayor trushill from langhorne for their advocacy for it as well And I wanted to thank Kristen Egan, who's here today. She's on the school board, who I ran with last year and got to know her a bit. And she has also helped keep me in the loop on what a lot of these residents are feeling up in that area, in the Parkland area, about the cloverleaf. So I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out and speaking and for advocating for your neighborhoods.

Okay, thank you. We have one last public comment. Supervisor Gallardo, I'm sorry, we were supposed to start with you. If you could make your comment, and then we'll take a quick break, and then we're going to come back for the rest of the agenda items, if that's okay. And if you were here just for public comment and you would like to leave, this would be the time after Supervisor Bilardo.

Go ahead.

Thank you. I will make this brief. On a lighter note, we had on the 4th of July, Supervisor Layton and I kind of decided while we were campaigning that we were going to try and do something for, you know, our area for the 4th of July because our parade was no longer. we came up with an idea that that wound up pretty good and it seemed like it was well received by the residents and it was a pretty good time and I just kind of wanted to thank Ryan and Helene and Missy Weeks-Kitzmiller for helping us get this thing organized and get it together and then there was also a handful of you know car clubs that were involved So Roberto, Mark, and George from 215 Mopar Car Club really helped get the cars that were in the cruise to come out for us. So I also wanted to thank Middletown Township's Fire and Emergency Services for getting us some trucks out there, wailing away on the horns and making all the kids happy. And then I definitely couldn't have done it without our police help. They We're awesome keeping everybody safe, doing their jobs, just keeping everything going tight. And it was very well received from a lot of neighbors and a lot of neighborhoods. And I just wanted to thank you guys for helping and doing what you do and letting us kind of put this on. So thank you.

OK, thank you. We're going to take a brief break, and we'll be right back. We're going to begin again? I feel like that's a song. Back to this evening's agenda items. We are now moving on to consent agenda items. I'd like to make a motion to approve the following consent agenda items. Item number A, consideration of authorizing payment of July 13th, 2026 bills listed in the amount of $3,634,411.32. B, consideration of approving the June 8th, 2026 minutes of the public meeting of the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors. Item C, consideration of authorizing execution of retirement agreement and general release of Scott Patrick. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda items as noted on the agenda?

I'll make a motion to approve.

Is there a second?

Second.

Are there any comments from the board? Any comments from the public? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those say nay. Motion carries 5-0, thank you. Our next agenda item is a conditional use, consideration of approving conditional use CU number 26-1, Paranormal Circus 2300 East Lincoln Highway. Mr. Esposito will open the hearing.

Yes, before I open the hearing, I just want to confirm that the court reporter and the representative from the circus is on the line. They were going to be attending through Zoom. If I can get a copy.

The court reporter is present.

Okay, thank you.

I would just ask, I'm sure you guys are very good about this. Since I'm not in the room, if everyone who speaks would please state their name, even though everyone else may know. Thank you very much.

And this is Mark Landon with the circus. So I am here as well.

Okay, thank you. So I will now open, this is James Esposito, the solicitor for the township. I will now open the conditional use hearing for the applicant Cirque Entertainment 3, LLC. The relief that the applicant is asking is a conditional use approval from ordinance section 500-2410G to permit a temporary community event in the GB General Business Zoning District for four days from October 2nd through October 5th. The temporary community event is for a circus. The property that the circus will be located will be at 2300 East Lincoln Highway, Langhorne, PA, 19047. Tax met parcel number 22-057-020-001. For everyone's information, that is the parking lot mainly outside of the JCPenney building at Oxford Valley Mall. The owner of that property is the Simon Property Group. uh the township planning commission did recommend approval of this event at their july 1st 2026 meeting at this time i would ask if anyone wanted party status that is mainly for people that would be interested in presenting testimony evidence there is time for people just to make public comment at the end before the supervisors do vote on this though Seeing none, I will now enter the board exhibits into the record. We will label as exhibit B1, the application for conditional use permit received on May 18th, 2026, with the attachments of a letter of intent with the schedule of the circus, an authorization from the property owner, Simon Property Group, and an aerial site layout plan for the circus at the property. We will label Exhibit B2, the notice of hearing and proof of advertising of the notice of this hearing, which were advertised on June 28th, 2026 and July 5th, 2026. We will label as Exhibit B3, the applicable provisions of the Township Zoning Ordinance, Sections 500-3209C, the general requirements and standards for all conditional uses in the Township. section 500-2410, which is for temporary community events, and section 500-2410G, which is for temporary carnivals and circuses for conditional use in the GB General Business District. We will label as exhibit B4 the review letters provided by the Township Engineer dated June 23rd, 2026, the Township Traffic Engineer dated June 25th, 2026, and the Middletown Fire Marshal dated June 1st, 2026. If there are no objections to the exhibits, I will submit them into the record. And we will now ask Mr. Randis to just give a brief synopsis of the requested event.

I'll be very quick. We've been here before almost on a yearly basis. You have to go through this process whenever a circus is proposed in the Oxford Valley Mall site. The applicant supplied the slide they had before you. It is black and white, so it's a little hard to read, but you see that's the mall site. You see there's the circus area. Just last week, during the July 1st Planning Commission meeting, it did gain the necessary recommendation of approval from them. Again, we've been there before. Impacts have been good. Any circus organizer has been very cooperative with the township, and we really never had any feedback that there's been any kind of detriment or issues with these events. You do receive my recommendation in my briefing. I recommend approval is granted to this application to allow the four-day circus event. They will still have to get the necessary permits, and there will be the necessary inspection process, as well as the necessary escrows will be posted for police, fire, and emergency services. So with that, you have my recommended motion stated in the policy briefing summary, and I will defer to Mr. Landon if he has anything to add to this.

I don't have anything particular to say, although I'm available to answer any questions you might have.

If the board has any questions, this would be the time to ask Mr. Landon or myself or Mr. Ennis. If there is nothing, we can close the evidence of the record and allow for any public comment from the residents. If there's no public comment, the board can consider a motion.

This is Mike Kizak. I will make a motion to grant conditional use approval to allow a four-day circus event running from October 2nd to October 5th at an area of the Oxford Valley Mall parking lot containing the address of 2300 Lincoln Highway, Langhorne, Pennsylvania, 19047 and the Bucks County Tax Map Parcel Number 22-057-020-001, CU 26-1. Is that a motion? I'll make a second. I'll second it.

We have a motion and a second. Any questions from the board? Any questions from the public? All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed say nay. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Next agenda item, consideration of awarding the 2627 fuel consortium contract to Petroleum Traders Corporation, Fort Wayne, Indiana for unleaded gasoline.

Ms. Hanna, we're skipping it.

Oh, which one did I, consideration of, oh, I'm so sorry, my apologies. Oh goodness, okay, sorry. Next one, consideration, I'm sorry. Can I go? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Are you good? All right. I'm a little tired now. All right, let me get it together. Sorry. All right. Number eight, consideration of approving preliminary final land development of Seven Brew at Langhorne Square Shopping Center, 1281 Lincoln Highway, S-LD number 26-4. Cannot forget the coffee, magical beans. Jen Ennis will lead us in a discussion on this item. Your counsel, Rob Lewis from Kaplan-Stewart will attend via Zoom to make his presentation. Thank you.

Yeah, so I'll be quick on this one and then let those representing the application do the heavy lifting. Yes, this did get the necessary recommendation of approval from the Planning Commission during their June 3rd meeting. You have their full recommendation stated. They had no objections to the waivers that were requested. Those waivers were also listed in my policy briefing summary. And yeah, you get to my recommendation of I do recommend preliminary and final land amount approval is granted to this application. And with that, I'll just go ahead and defer to the applicant's representatives.

Thanks, Jim. Appreciate it.

Good evening, everybody. Hopefully you can hear me okay. And I want to very much appreciate you allowing me to appear virtually. The scheduling was not Fantastic, and I happen to be out of the state at the moment, but in the room tonight are also other representatives of this project. We have Lindsey Breylinger from Boulder Engineering, Mark Brennan, who represents Federal Realty, the owner of the shopping center, as well as Zach and Chinori Roskam, who are the franchisees for Seven Brew. As Jim pointed out, this is a proposal to add a Seven Brew coffee stand to the Langhorne Square Shopping Center. For those not yet familiar with Seven Brew, Seven Brew is a standalone drive-through only facility. It's only about 510 square feet in terms of their actual building. And 99% of their service is done by drive-through. We attended a zoning hearing back in January of 2026 to obtain a special exception for that use. It is permitted in this district, the C commercial district. The only modification we were seeking at that time was for the hours of operation. Typically most drive-through restaurants don't have morning traffic, obviously a Seven Brew does. And the Zoning Hearing Board approved the special exception and that one grant modification request. We have since filed land development plans that have gone through the entire review process, a couple of rounds of reviews with your consultants, traffic engineer, civil engineer. We've worked through those comments. We attended a planning commission meeting back in June. Planning commission recommended approval of the plan as well as the couple of minor waiver requests that were included in that plan. Since that time, We've actually worked with the township's engineer and township's traffic engineer to resolve any remaining comments or questions that they had on our design. My team that's there, I believe, has plans. If you want to see them, I can also pull them up on the screen. It is, if you have not seen a Seven Brew, it's a very efficient coffee operation. They offer coffee, energy drinks, and smoothies. in an inefficient manner, as you might expect, mornings and evening commutes are their main peak periods. Our proposal provides two primary drive-through lanes with 18 stacking spaces. Peak hour demand here for stacking is typically no greater than 16. But in addition to those 18 spaces, we do have a bypass lane that can be utilized both for people that simply want to get out of traffic or if there were ever to be additional stacking beyond our typical peak demand, we have the ability to provide for that to make sure that we don't back out into any drive aisles. um if you have seen the plan you'll see that if there is any additional stacking that's internal to the langhorne square shopping center that stacking would not interrupt flow from lincoln highway it's all contained within the site important to some of tonight's discussion and therefore worth mentioning i think um This entire site is being proposed within areas of the shopping center that are currently parking lot are all impervious surface. So the net result of the project is actually a reduction in impervious surface within the shopping center. Nonetheless, per your ordinances, we do have some additional stormwater management requirements that we are satisfying. So with that, unless the board has any immediate questions, I can either share a plan or just answer questions.

Any questions from the board? I had one question. With respect to the lighting, I know our EAC has been concentrated on dark sky lighting. Is that part of what you're proposing in your development?

I'll let Lindsay may be able to answer some more specifics, but generally speaking, we have complied with the township code with respect to lighting. We are not proposing new parking lot lighting. So all the lighting with respect to the project is either under the canopy where drinks are served or actual on building lighting. So that lighting generally is directed very downward. So you don't have kind of that halo effect within the parking lot. If there's anything more specific, Lindsay can address that.

Thank you. Any other questions from the board?

Okay.

Okay. Oh, go ahead. One last. Any concerns about queuing or we think we should be fine? There's no concern for RS.

Okay.

Sorry about that. Lindsay Breylinger with Bowler, civil engineer for the project. There's no concerns on our end. This queuing number exceeds what we would typically see. So there's no concerns on our end.

Thank you. And this is on a pad site at the shopping center? Yes.

So it's along Route 1. And it's at the intersection with the traffic light. So it's that corner of that intersection just in front of where Redner's is. Thank you.

Okay, all right, with that, is there a motion to approve the preliminary final land development?

I'll make a motion to grant preliminary and final land development plan approval for the construction of a Seven Brew Drive-Thru coffee shop. an area of the langhorne square shopping center which contains the address 1281 east lincoln highway sld number 26-4 with the following conditions applicant shall comply in full with all requirements of the middletown township subdivision and land development ordinance and the middletown township zoning ordinance and left less relief was granted by the body having jurisdiction and that all remaining review comments shall be addressed in full we have a motion we have a second i second

We have a motion and a second. Any questions from the board? Any questions from the community? Go ahead, Mr. Fitch.

So you said that you're getting rid of impervious surface, but you're really not. You're creating more, right? No, actually. It's staying the same, rather?

Mr. Fitch, I'll address that. So the area, and I can put this plan up. I'll just show you real quick. Lindsay has it. When you look at the area that we are developing, the vast majority of that area today is impervious surface. It's parking lot today within the Langhorne Square Shopping Center. We are adding slightly to the perimeter buffer and the island. So when you look at the total calculation of impervious surface today, we will reduce that by the time we are done with the project. So there will be a net increase in green space.

Wouldn't it make more sense to just get rid of Wendy's and go into where Wendy's is at? It does not. Okay. So this is the gentleman that you aren't overcharge of the whole shopping center?

I'm on the development side for the app, yes.

Okay, so... Can I make a suggestion? And you're gonna lose a lot of parking spaces for the grocery store, but the company that you have snow plowing the lot, I think you need to have a talk with them because, and I don't know about the whole lot, but down by the dollar store and where the karate place used to be on the, I guess if you're looking from Route 1 on the right-hand side, they push all their snow down the bottom of the hill and take up handicapped parking spots and parking spots. And it causes problems for people to see when they're walking across that main road. So if you could do something also with them to put the snow out behind the buildings or something like that. And I know if you push it all the way up the top of the hill, it's only going to melt and cause ice down the hill. But if you can do something. But if we're going to hopefully get more impervious surface, that would be great.

Thank you for your recommendations. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any other comments? Okay, with a motion and a second, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Okay, next agenda item. Mr. Gartner, you are up next. Consideration of awarding the 2026-2027 fuel consortium contract to Petroleum Traders Corporation, Fort Wayne, Indiana for unleaded gasoline with an estimated amount of 270,000 and Ports Petroleum, Worcester, Ohio for low sulfur diesel fuel with an estimated amount of $85,000. Okay.

So good evening. Once again, this is a housekeeping thing. We have to do it every year. So we submitted our totals to the Bucks County Consortium bid, which we're part of. And this is the people that came back with the lowest price for fuel for gas and diesel. It is two different companies. We've used one in the past, the other one we haven't, but it's just setting up everything with that company. It's not a major process. I would recommend going with this since they are the lowest bidders.

Okay. Is there a motion to approve this contract?

I move to award the 2026-2027 fuel consortium contract to Petroleum Traders of Fort Wayne, Indiana for unleaded gasoline with an estimated amount of $270,000 and Ports Petroleum of Worcester, Ohio for low sulfur diesel fuel with an estimated amount of $85,000.

Thank you, Supervisor Cain. We have a motion. Is there a second?

I second.

We have a motion and a second. Any questions or comments from the board?

I do have a quick question. Just about where, how far out do we reach to look for bidding? I mean, at least in my experience being on the board for just a couple months, most stuff I've seen is based in Pennsylvania. These aren't. How far out do we, and this is just a out of curiosity, how far out do we look for bidding?

Like a national wide search. As you notice, some of these aren't in Pennsylvania, but they have affiliations with Pennsylvania branches. Easy way of putting it. We never had any problems with the service. They always come through for us. It's a county from the county consortium. So you have every township in Bucks County that wants to participate. The SALT will be the next one we'll do. That will be coming up shortly. But yeah, they reach out, it goes out just like a bidding process and they get all the information back and they tally it all up.

and it goes by the the obviously price of the fuel and the opus price is when it goes by so thank you thank you mr garmeyer all right so we have a motion and a second um all those in favor say aye aye aye all those opposed say nay motion carries 5-0 thank you thank you Okay, next up, agenda item number 10, consideration of purchasing 2025 F-150 from Fred Beans, Langhorne, PA, in the amount of $48,639, an upfit from SKD, Tryon's Vehicle Uplifting, Croydon, PA, in the amount of $24,984.96, totaling $73,353.26. Mr. Welsh, do you have information? Good evening. So this project was approved in the 2026 budget for I believe it not to exceed $75,000.

I partnered with public works to try and help us through the process a little bit so they could let us know the vehicles that we have. We have Durango's, Explorers that they're servicing often, and F-150s. And what we found is that the F-150 was the better choice for us as firefighters and for the emergency response vehicle. And we were able to get under the budgeted amount at just under $74,000. and it will be replacing an f-250 which we've been trying to get replaced i think probably about three years now it's actually starting to turn into a little bit of a rust bucket and falling apart and that's where we're at right now thank you for keeping it under budget okay is there a motion

I move to approve the purchase of one Ford F-150 responder for a total of $48,369 from Fred Beans and to upfit the vehicle with emergency lighting and storage for a total of $24,984.26 from SKD Trions.

We have a motion. Is there a second?

I second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any questions from the board? Any questions from the community? Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry?

Thank you.

No, you're welcome. We didn't vote yet. We didn't vote yet. We're almost there. We're almost there. Okay. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Motion carries 5-0. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Alan, Mr. Welsh. Great job. All right. Agenda item number 11, consideration of authorizing employment agreement for township manager. Interim township manager, Ms. Stephanie Thiele-Cools will present this item.

you could share please okay thank you i am extremely excited to report on the conclusion of the recruitment process for your new township manager in middletown township as the residents in the community will recall the post became available at the end of april The board really gave me the direction of making this as fast as possible to focus on getting a new manager here. So the position was advertised in early May. just to let the community know the process included the board really providing substantial input on the job posting and development of the job posting included, you know, the leadership qualities that the board was looking for, the professional experience, some of the key things that the board asked me to include in the posting were proven leader, collaborative, someone who can build culture, build community, high trust, and collaborative. So we sent the posting out. We had strong interest, really, really strong interest, significantly more than a year ago. There were 18 qualified candidates who submitted for the position. We engaged Rosanne McGrath, who is a human resources consultant. Roseanne and I together reviewed the candidates, presented them to the board, and there were five candidates who came in for a first round of interviews with the board. There were then three finalists out of the five candidates who came back for an extensive second round. The second round included meeting with members of the management team, interviews with department heads, tours of the facilities, And then that culminated with an in-depth second interview with the Board of Supervisors. And so at the conclusion of that process, The board was unanimous in the person that they selected, and I'm happy to share with you the name of that person, Christopher Hoffman. Chris is currently the manager in Lower Moreland Township in Montgomery County. He has more than 15 years of experience. went to St. Joe's undergrad, Villanova, for his master's in public administration, where he also has a city manager's certificate. He started his career right out of grad school at Lower Moreland as the assistant, so he has a history of being in one place for a long time. And he is highly respected in the community of municipal managers. He brings a great background well tailored to what the board was looking for, what the community needs. We're super excited for him. He will be starting on August 17th, and he will be sworn in here at the board's next meeting on August 10th, and he will then start on August 17th. Before you this evening, and I guess I wanted to add thorough background investigations, spectacular references, really off the charts. The people who have worked with him have so many good things to say. His town is sad to be losing him. But I have before you, for your consideration this evening, an employment agreement, which would outline the terms of his agreement. The term, an at-will employment, and the term expires on January 1, 2028, because you have the two-year municipal election cycle that the Second Class Township Code requires you. So it's all set and ready to go. I'm happy to answer any questions, but I think you have a great, great, solid municipal manager, and I expect him to be here for a very long time.

Thank you, Ms. Teeley-Coles. At this time, I would just ask if any board member had any comments that they would like to make about our new hire for Township Manager in respect to their feelings and their experience during the process of interviewing.

I mean, I'll just say it was a thorough process and there was a lot of interest. The last time we went through this process, Ms. Cain and I actually were sort of primarily involved in at least pre-screening applicants and meeting with candidates, the amount of interest we had this time around was much more substantial. And we had a lot of really, really great qualified candidates. And when we narrowed it down, it was a really difficult decision because really of the high quality of those candidates. I'm thrilled that Chris will be stepping into this role. I think he's gonna be a fantastic manager here in Middletown Township. I think the community is really gonna like him. I think he checks all the boxes that we set out for the ideal candidate when we began the process. I also just want to take an opportunity to thank my colleagues on the board for all the time and effort. It's a very long and difficult and frankly stressful process to interview and ultimately choose a new manager. I want to thank Ms. Teoli-Cools for Number one, coming back as an interim manager, which really sort of saved us in a large way and helped sort of really re-stabilize this organization, but also for leading the process to do the search, get Roseanne McGrath involved as a consultant, find candidates, interview candidates, and then ultimately arrive on the finalist. And I wanna thank Township staff, particularly the directors who were also involved in the process as they were the last time. We could not have done this without their input, which is really important to us, really valuable. At the end of the day, they have to work with this individual day in and day out in this building. And our staff, our directors, they really are what makes this organization so strong and so wonderful. And so we wanted to make sure that they were part of the process. So I thank everybody for going through this with us and for sticking with it. And again, I'm just really thrilled that Chris will be taking the job. I think he's going to do fantastic. And we can't wait to have him start on August 17th. Thank you.

Anyone else?

yeah i just wanted to say um you know i'm also really excited to see mr hoffman start here in middletown um and thank you stephanie for putting in a lot of hours not just to help us keep this ship afloat but to help us find who's gonna you know be our new captain so to speak um and i think for me during this whole process something that i i wanted to prioritize and i'm glad that we did was having staff feedback and really gauging how they felt about some of the individuals that we thought would be a good fit for the role. And while we have to deal with the manager pretty often, our amazing staff here have to deal with them every single day for eight plus hours a day. To me, that was a really important aspect on choosing a leader that would fit for the amazing team that we have assembled here. And I really do think that we have found that. And I am really excited to work with Mr. Hoffman for the remainder of his time here.

Thank you. I would just like to add also that I am truly grateful for Ms. Teeley-Cools and her input and creating a process where we were able to provide scenarios that really gave us a clear picture of the type of candidates that we were looking at. And it really was hard to come down to the last three. very difficult. I'm glad to say that Mr. Hoffman, he really does have a great deal of experience, great feedback from his current staff, the staff that is, well, I guess I should say previous staff because now he's here. And also from our staff and the department heads, truly appreciate your input and feedback. It's really important to us that we have somebody who fits into middletown and provides service and has a servant leadership mindset for our staff and most importantly our community so thank you for that okay with that being said is there a motion to accept the employment agreement i make a motion to authorize execution of an employment agreement between middletown township and christopher hoffman for the role of township manager have a motion a second a second i have a motion and a second any comments from the board the community okay all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say nay motion carries 5-0 okay next up we have the q2 financial report from laura hucklebridge and you're going to share our financial information thank you

Okay, there we go. Good evening board. We have our quarterly update for Q2. Q, wrong way. Q2 is historically our largest revenue quarter that we have during the year. This quarter, no. We received 62% of our annual budget through Q2, the end of the quarter. April is our largest revenue month with all of the taxes being due. This year we had 30% of our revenue received in the month of April alone. So if you look at the chart there, we have $32 million of revenue that we've received so far this year. That's 62% of our budget. The largest increase, it's $5 million higher than last year, and that was due to the tax rate increase that we passed for 2026. Our total expenses through the end of Q2 is 21.7 million, which is in line with prior years. It's a little higher due to the smoothing that I'm doing with the pension MMO where we're expensing a little bit every month instead of all at once at the end of the year. We have our breakdown of the revenue by category. The real property taxes make up 37% of that total revenue of $32 million. That equates to $12.5 million. And we're at about 97% of the budget line for that item alone. The sanitation fund, that's $5.8 million of the total. And again, that's at 99% of the budgeted line as well. I will mention about the stormwater fee. Those bills went out in April. We've collected $770,000 so far for stormwater fees, and they'll continue to come in through the rest of the year. Our revenue by category, again, this is breaking it down, looking at the previous two years. Our taxes, tax income for the local 511 and the real property taxes, you'll see that significant increase in this year because of the tax increases, the EIT and the millage. Here we have a breakdown by month of the revenue. You'll see the red line is the 2026 totals. So April is much higher than all of the other months. And again, because of the tax increase, it's higher significantly than the prior years. There is a slight dip in June below the prior years. That's related to the audit entries that we had at the end of the year, kind of pushing revenue back and taking it out of 2026. As we move to expenses, the personnel costs make up 63% of our expenses through the first half of the year, totaling about $13.7 million. Utilities is the next largest percent and that's $3 million. When we compare it to the other years, we can see the increase in personnel costs, again, from smoothing out that MMO and then just increases due to the contractual rates. As we look at it by month, again, because we're adding the MMO, the red line is higher than all of the other lines, and it will be, but it'll smooth out and not be as volatile at the end of the year. In June, we did have a slight increase in the expenses, and that's due to the payment of the tax allocations to the fire companies and the EMS. That totaled about $800,000, and we had some additional stormwater capital payments of $436,000 that was paid out in June as well. For the general fund, these trends mirror what we just went through for the total operating funds because the general fund is the largest and the one that handles all of our daily operations of the township. So the general fund had revenue through June of 15.3 million and expenses of 14.3 million. Right now, a surplus of just under a million dollars. When we look at our revenue numbers, as I said, the real property taxes were at 99% of our budget. Most of our tax revenue has been received. We will receive some taxes later in September and October timeframe. When you look at expenses at the middle of the year, you expect to be 50% of the total budgeted line, and most of these line items are around 50%, so we're on target with our budget for the expenses for the year. Our fund balance, I can happily report that with the increase in revenue, we can now cover 3.8 months of expenses, up from, I think we were at 2.4 months at the beginning of the year. So the increase in revenue has gone to bolster our fund balance so far, and it should continue to grow. The capital fund, we received $557,000 in revenue for the first half of the year. This was mainly from grant funds. We had $290,000 we received for the LED light project at the community park. We had some RDA money that came in as well for vehicles and fire work at the company, fire company station work. We're increasing our capital spending right now as projects get underway on the end of the spring and the summer months. So the expenses will continue to increase from the current 750,000 we've seen so far. We do have a budgeted transfer of $1 million from the general fund to the capital fund and 1.3 million from the investment fund to the capital fund if needed to cover additional expenses. For the investment fund, that balance increased 234,000 from the beginning of the year. As I said, we're gonna transfer 1.3 million at the end. This chart shows you the historic activity and the historic balance. The very high point at the end of 2024 was at the peak of all those interests. And then at the end of 2024, we transferred $2.4 million to the capital account. So we've recovered nicely over 2025. We had consistent increases in the balance with the increase in the blue line there. Right now for 2026, the investment income is not as steep as what we were earning before in 2025, but we're almost back to that high point that we were before we did the bank transfer. And we're only gonna transfer half of what we did that prior year. The pension plans, the police pension and the non-uniform pension, we'll be meeting with our pension managers later this month to get the rates of return and more details. This is just based off of the statements that I have. So for the first half of the year, the ending balance is $63.3 million for the police pension, which was a decrease from the end of the year of $430,000. There was an increase in the contributions, distributions to retirement accounts. Similarly for the non-uniform, we had an increase in the distributions due to retirements. So that plan also decreased by $229,000 to $13.3 million. So at the end of our six months for the first half of the year, we had a strong showing. We've got $24.7 million in revenue. Our Q2 expenses of $11.4 million are slightly higher due to those one-time payments to the fire company and the EMS. The general fund balance for at the end of Q2 can cover 3.8 months of expenses, which is a significant increase in what we were trying to do by raising the tax rates. The investment fund and pension plans continue to perform well. And I'll have more information after my quarterly meeting. And I have one other bit of information. Today we received our GFOA award for our 2024 audit for the 22nd year. So I was informed of that today.

Awesome. Thank you very much, Ms. Bridget. Thank you. Okay.

uh next up on the agenda we have policy discussions our underground utilities mr kessler could you help lead this discussion yes thank you madam chair uh board of supervisors uh the topic tonight are the uh road repaving requirements that we have currently in the township ordinance this is most commonly when the utility work is being done throughout the township the township ordinance is a bit dated it dates back to around the 90s and it's also fairly basic as far as what it requires for restoration when the roads are disturbed our ordinance pretty much focuses on just restoring the area that they cut out and what it does is it basically results sometimes in a nice area of road resurfaced other times it could be a little patchy and follow a trench so we took a look at some of the other similar ordinances with municipalities in the general area there's a wide range of what different towns have in there but we found one that was most similar to what we were looking for is upper gwenda township it requires um most of the time to have either the half width or full width repaves when utilities are disturbing the roadways so what we'd like to do is request from the board direction for myself to partner with the solicitor building and zoning director and some of the staff to update our ordinance that requires repaving when when the roads are disturbed to be more current with what would be required to restore our roads and more of a uh you know broader manner the slide there shows just some examples of different ways it can be restored our ordinance right now is pretty much the left two pictures there either a patch or a trench restoration and these are just examples you know of photos from other towns but as you can see the half width or full width just results in a better product when work is done for township roads

So this would be an ordinance to make sure that if they dig into the roads, they patch and repair the roads if they get too close to the utilities, correct?

Correct, yeah. It's our current township ordinance number 436209. And this would be to update it to have it have a little more teeth to it and be better described for utility companies to know exactly what they need to repave when they would come and do work in the township.

Right. Right. Thank you. Would this ever fall on a resident to repair the street?

So it is the same ordinance that talks about any kind of excavation in the roadway. And there's some subsections there. So that would be something we would review just in updating the entire ordinance to make sure, you know, a resident wouldn't have to repave the entire roadway, obviously. But depending on how much of a roadway would be disturbed. it would be much better in describing what would have to be the restoration. So it wouldn't be patchy or something that would be just off the curb and that kind of thing. We want to make sure that's a good product that was going to last a long time.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Alrighty. Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Kessler.

Thank you.

all right um we can move on to other business we're finished yes all righty other business uh mr kessler uh only other business i had this evening is uh two sets of record plans uh for some signatures this evening after the meeting nothing else thank you thank you uh mr esposito

I just wanna announce that the board did hold an executive session prior to tonight's meeting to discuss personnel matters.

Thank you. That's all I got. Ms. Teeley-Cools? Nothing, thank you. Mr. Layton?

Nothing, Adam.

Mr. Keseck?

Nothing, thanks.

Ms. Kane?

Nothing further.

Mr. Gallardo?

Nothing.

Okay, I make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

Second.

Meeting adjourned.