Township Committee - Regular Meeting

I'd like to open up the meeting at 8:04 p.m. And we're going to stand up to a flag salute and then a moment of silence. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you everybody. May be seated. If you could read the statement.

All attendees and participants agreed to conduct themselves in a manner appropriate for public gathering. Individual speakers should be advised that no right of privacy protects a person's public comments made in a public forum. Accordingly, all participants bear responsibilities for their own statements and commentary. Correspondence resignation letter from Maryanne Hesy, Environmental Commission and Shade Tree Commission Secretary, effective January 1st, 2026. And I'd like to point out 49 years with Milstone Town. Wow. Yes. Wow. Impressive. We'll miss her. Yep. Definitely.

Ordinance. Okay. First reading 25-13, an ordinance amending chapter 35 land use and development regulations various sections in chapter 5 fees section 5-16 fees for trailers and mobile homes of the revised general ordinances of the township of Milstone County of Mammoth and state of New Jersey. Explanatory statement. This ordinance amends chapter 35 land use and development regulations various sections and chapter 5 fees section 5-16 fees for trailers and mobile homes. Motion to adopt the table or have committee discussion. I'll make the motion to adopt. Okay. Thank you. Second.

Second. Any committee discussion? Nobody have any questions? Okay. Roll call. Committee person Davis? Yes. Deputy Mayor Morris? Yes. Committee person Zroski? Yes. Mayor Pharaoh? Yes. Second reading and public hearing to be held on December 17, 2025 at 8:00 p.m. at the Milstone Township meeting room, 215 Milstone Road, Permineville, New Jersey. Resolution 25-190, resolution to transfer funds on current year's appropriation number one. Motion to adopt the favor, please.

I'll make the motion to adopt. Thank you. Second, please. Go ahead. I'll second it. Thank you. Roll call. Committee person Davis. Yes. Deputy Mayor Morris. Yes. Committee person Zoski. Yes. Mayor Pharaoh. Yes.

Resolutions. All matters listed under item consent agenda are considered routine by the township committee and will be enacted by one motion in the form listed below. There will be no separate discussion on these items. If discussion is desired of any item, that item will be considered separately. 25-191 payment of vouchers November 5th, 2025. 25-192 Resolution approving the recreation and open space inventory for filing with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Green Acres Program 25-193 Resolution authorizing an award of a contract for emergency tree removal services on Conover Road on October 21st, 2025. 25-194 resolution awarding contract for sodium chloride rock salt as per Mammoth County contract F-11-2025 25-195 resolution authorizing purchase of unleted fuel under state contract number 19-fleet-975 25-196 resolution supporting Milstone Township's participation in the state agricultural Development Committee's Municipal Plan Incentive Grant Program 2027 Planning Round 25-197 Resolution authorizing release of cash bond for Arvia Antico land subdivision block 60.02.02 application number PB 2306.

Thank you. Motion to adopt the table consent agenda. Motion to adopt. Thank you. Second, please. I'll second. Committee person Davis, yes. Deputy Mayor Morris, yes. Committee person Zabroski, yes. Mayor Pharaoh, yes. Township committee minutes, regular meeting minutes, October 15, 2025. And Committeeman Davis was absent. Motion to adopt the table. I'll make the motion to adopt. Thank you. Second, please. I'll second. Thank you. Cole, Deputy Mayor Morris. Yes. Committee person Zoski. Yes. Committee person Davis. Yes.

You want to abstain? Sorry. Abstain. Thank you. Okay. Mayor Pharaoh. Yes. Executive meeting minutes October 15, 2025. Motion to adopt the table, please. I'll make the motion to adopt. Thank you. Second. I'll second. Thank you. I'll call. Committee person Zoski. Yes. Committee person Davis. Abstain. Deputy Mayor Morris. Yes. Mayor Pharaoh. Yes.

Um, regarding the environmental commission and shade tree, you already mentioned the resignation of Mary and Hayy. I just want to say a few things about that. Um, I've been associated with the environmental commission probably for about 30 years now. much of that time as chair and now for the last four years as the township liaison and Maryanne has been the 49 years has provided exceptional service to the town always on top of everything uh never missing any meetings without notification and uh was a glue to the environmental commission and now the last year as a shade tree. So I just want to formally acknowledge her service to the town and u just say to you Maryanne I will miss you being part of the committee but I wish you the best going forward and we'll look forward to the last couple meetings with you. Thank you. That's all I got said. I got a few things mayor. So, uh, as Milund Day wraps, uh, up, Winter Wonderland, uh, starts to get into full production. Uh, this year it'll be held Friday, December 5th between 5 and 900 p.m. uh, at Milstone Park, which is for Red Valley Road. You can go to the township website for more information. There is some sponsorship available uh, through a QR code or link. Uh, you can find that at www.fivehelp.com. fivehelp.org. I'm sure we're link it through our uh site for those of you who have not attended in the past. There'll be live music, uh food trucks, vendors, uh Christmas tree lighting, pictures with Santa, crafts, inflatables, lot of fun. Hopefully the weather holds up. Usually that time of

the year, uh it's still nice enough, but still feels like winter. Um go to uh the mil website for additional information. Um, I was emailed something earlier today. I want to uh congratulate the&m Redbirds junior pee-wee team who took first place at regionals on Sunday out of 20 teams. Uh, next stop for them is North Carolina for nationals. So, great job for that team. Um, I heard a rumor there was another team that may have also uh this weekend uh placed also, and if that is the case, then we'll represent them in the in the following meeting. But uh congrats to those uh those those young young people for that. Awesome.

Um that's all I have there.

Thank you. Uh in addition to the winter wonderland, uh we have this time of year toys for tots. And to promote the spirit of giving, Milstone Recreation is accepting new unwrapped toys for children ages 12 to 15. Collection will be now through December 12th, 2025. Donations will be collected at the municipal uh building. Uh there's going to be a box in the hallway near room 103 uh located at 470 Stage Coach Road. Uh Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Uh any all toy donations will be distributed to local area children. If you have any other information that you need, please contact the recreation department at 732-9172954. uh as well as when I just give the numbers for September for fire and EMS. Uh there was a total of 136 uh responses, 87 were medical, 21 were motor vehicle and 22 were fire calls. In addition to that, there were 58 transports to Center State Hospital, 10 to Jersey Shore, seven to Princeton, one to Robertwood Johnson Hamilton, and four to Robertwood Johnson, New Brunswick. The incidents on the day shift, which is 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 p.m. at night, were 85. From the night shift at 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., there were 42 calls. So, thank you again for uh all that you guys do on the fire and EMS side. Uh in addition to that, I just want to send our condolences to the to the Ron Trust family. Uh he passed away recently and uh our sympathies and and heartfelt condolences go out to the family.

Uh in addition to that, uh Kevin, do you want to talk about the best practices report?

Yeah. Uh but first going on the other stuff, we're uh 21 accidents is still way too much in Milstone. So, we need people to slow down and the troopers are going to be out again in force, you know, doing another detail. Um, the school buses actually are going to take a lead and they're going to have a a piece of equipment on their buses, it's going to be related to ways. So, when they go to stop and you're coming in your car and you have a ways on, it's going to actually notify you that a school bus stopped. So, they're actually rolling this out. They do it for emergency vehicles already. and our our schools are going to be picking that up. So, uh you know, ple please, you know, have your ways and play pay attention to what you're doing. So,

there'll be more on that to come. Oh, yeah. As it gets implemented. Uh the technology from what I understand is very good. Yeah. And it's it's going to prevent accidents. It's going to prevent injuries. So, we'll once we understand more of that technology and the concept and it gets implemented, uh we'll let the whole town know what's going on.

Yeah. No, it's uh they they we need to stop. You know, there people are driving too fast, blowing through stop signs, and you know, very just careless, just not paying attention and going too fast. All right. So, the uh the state puts out a best practice inventory re uh survey and they send it to every town and we and we do it this time of year and ba basically they they have it set up where if you don't make enough points if you don't have it they start taking funding away. And uh you know we're we we've been very happy since I've been here. We've never had any funding reduced. Our total score came in at 37. Um like 0 to 23 they take 100% of your your your final pay aid payment away. Then 24 to 27 50 28 31 25%. And at 32 or better you get 100%. So we had actually another five questions above what we needed to be and we expect that uh some of those will be improved. uh some of the ones we had a budget and u some a financial report that was delayed and that was because we had uh waiting on information that wasn't given to us. Um another one is an audit that's not been you know completed yet and submitted. Our audit firm has come in taken the detail and they're going through everything diligently. I don't expect anything. Uh we don't have uh electric fleet. So that's another thing maybe we will be looking at to put on some electric charging stations and maybe gradually add to that. So I'm hoping that you know I I doubt it's very tough to get a perfect score because every year they add new questions. So like you know you you might have been there and then all a sudden they add a couple um they they give you a couple questions where you don't get any points for and that gives you a lead of where they're going you know like some lead

abatement type of stuff and do you have programs and we answered we had it already covered but this year they don't get a point for it but I imagine next year you'll be getting points. What's a perfect score? What's that? What's a perfect score? I I don't even know how many questions we had this year. It's it's tough to tell 50 something questions, but a lot of them aren't, you know, you know, scorable and stuff. What he what Kevin's referring to is that those questions are for survey purposes. Yeah.

So when they collect all the data and they see how people respond, they may put that on to the next best practices of the following year. But what what Kevin is not telling you is that we've always exceeded the you know that number by a big margin and we're always striving to do better.

Yeah. No, we we it's stuff like do you have a cumulative absence liability trust fund? That's like the first question. And of course we do. And so there's other towns that may have not have been, you know, as diligent and prepared for certain things or um so they they're trying to make sure that this is the best practice. This is what they're recommending and and we try to adhere to it and try to you know outperform it as mentioned. So expect to do better. uh appreciate a lot of the time finance Melissa had put together to do you know going through this and uh we actually start looking at the next years pretty quick. Anything else? Good.

Okay. Any old business? We have uh two pieces of old business. is the the Ford brush drop off and there's only one date left and that's this Saturday at uh 8:00 p.m. I'm sorry 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. located at 15 Bad Road across from Wagon Park. Uh if you have any brush and you want to drop it off, that is the last day of the season to do that. There's also uh one paper shredding date left in 2025. That's November 15th. Uh it's going to be located in Middletown at the Middletown High School North, which is on 63 Tinddale Road. Uh so if you have any paper shredding that you need to have done and you want it for free, take over to Middletown. They'll definitely accommodate you as a Milstone resident. Thank you for that. Uh anything else from the day? Any comments?

I do. Oh, okay. I just want to congratulate Mayor Sparrow on his uh on your reelection to the township committee. Thank you for your service and we look forward to three more years. I I hope I fulfilled everybody's, you know, needs and and wants and future future asks. I I'll be more happy to accommodate them. And I like I say at every meeting, I welcome innovation. I welcome questions. I welcome, you know, creativity and and concerns and comments. and we take that and we just try to make the town that much better. So, thank you for all your uh your comments. It's appreciated, Kevin. That's exactly where I was going, but congratulations.

Thank Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. At this point, I'd like to open up to the public and we have one resident here in the public. If he'd like to come up and say something. Well, first of all, we're opening it at 8:20. Okay. Would the only person in the audience like to come up and say something? Okay. Getting that uh we have nobody here that wants to make a public comment. We would like to close it at 8:21. Thank you. And at this point, I would like a motion to adjourn. I'll make it. Thank you. Second, please. I'll second. Thank you. All in favor? I. I. Timeout is

8:21. Awesome. Thank you.