Township Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah, yeah, okay. I got here. It's hard. Your one minute is left. 6.59.

i'd like to call the july 14th council meeting to order and start with the flag salute i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all Moment of silence. Remember the service and sacrifices of the armed service members who protect our nation and the first responders who protect our neighborhoods. I'd like to give a special mention to a serial Wachowski. Um, if a former member of the boot and council son is on the Birchwood fire department, a good public servant, uh, his father passed away, uh, yesterday, Eric's father, Cyril passed away, uh, late last night. So I wanted to mention that. That was the same. Yeah. Same as well.

Okay. Over 40 years, he was serving for elected office.

Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Salberg.

Here.

Council Member Wojtowicz.

Here.

Council Member Freelander.

Here.

Council Member Royuk. Here. Council Member Freyday. Here. Council Member Quinn.

Here.

Council Member Kelly.

Here.

Council Vice President Sackett.

Here.

Council President Morrison.

Here. Adequate notice of this meeting was provided to the Daily Record and the official newspapers for the Township of Rockaway. Notice was posted on the official bullet boards of Rockaway Township, the Township website, and notice was filed in the office of the Township Clerk. Before we start the business of the meeting, I'm going to hand over the room to Mayor Joe Jackson. I will also say that immediately following your presentation, we'll take a short break. Thank you, Council President. Excuse my back, Council.

So could I have the members of Rockaway Township Unico and Substance Abuse Alliance come up front? So we want to do a presentation today to the Substance Abuse Alliance. I wanted to say a few things before I turn it over to the chapter president. The Wechsler family created the Substance Abuse Alliance about 30 years ago. They're the type of people They saw a problem, they didn't complain about it, they didn't point fingers, they came up with a solution. And they executed the solution, and they've been deeply involved in the community, in the school system, with everything they've done for almost the past 30 years, and it made a difference to the lives of hundreds, if not thousands of children in our school system. So to honor them, The Unico Chapter Rockway, who, by the way, over the past two years has donated almost $60,000 to different charities in the area, scholarships to students. So again, this group of people does incredible work for your community. Day to day, food drives, probably 400 bags of groceries in the past two years we've collected for people in need. So just two great groups came together and did something wonderful. So I'll turn it over.

Hi, thank you for having us this evening. There's a lot of people to thank for this event. Friends and family, state, local, and county organizations, our local PBA that came and supported us. Rockaway Township Substance Abuse Alliance does a lot of great, wonderful things for our community, specifically for our youth, because they educate our children about the dangers of substance abuse and alcohol abuse. So every year we do the damn bell citizenship dinner we find a local organization that is very good to our Community and helps us in many ways, so this year we selected. The substance abuse rockaway township substance abuse alliance in conjunction with job Joe bell and his family, we held the dinner. And we are honored this year to present them with a check in order to help them continue what they do for our children. A check in the amount of $14,000 to hopefully help them in what they do going forward. We're very honored to do this for you. I can have Frank is our vice president from national Unico. So I'm gonna have him help present along with our members.

You guys can come up front if you want to take a picture.

Thank you all. Thank you. I'd also like to thank Councilman Friedlander, who plays a big part in the Substance Abuse Alliance, Councilman Quinn, his wife, who came to the dinner, Councilman Roy came to dinner, and Council President Morrison, who donated to the Substance Abuse Alliance. So on the theme, first of all, I'll just say it's great to see rtpd in the back with a great presence so appreciate you all being here um next you know along the theme of doing things for community i'd like to call up jared brenda and kathy if you're here tonight chief and uh we have uh special awards to give out and i'm gonna turn it over to the chief first

Good evening, everybody. We'd like to welcome you this at this time. And fortunately for us, we have three amazing individuals. They're standing to my left that decided on one evening in Rockaway Township not to just drive by an incident in a problem, but to actually engage, get involved, stop and help somebody that was in serious need of help. That being said, on behalf of the Rockaway Township Police Department, it is with great pride and sincere appreciation we recognize civilians and an off-duty police officer, Brenda Stopa, Kathy Finkel, and off-duty officer Jared Hoholik, for the extraordinary actions during a motor vehicle crash with serious injuries to a motorcycle rider. On April 28, 2026, at approximately 1839 hours, the Rockaway Township Police Department received numerous 911 telephone calls reporting a downed motorcyclist. Callers reported that the motorcycle rider had just collided with an SUV that was stopped in traffic on Green Pond Road south of the area of 789 Green Pond Road. While the Rockaway Township police officers were en route, three citizens, Brenda Stopa, Kathy Finkel, and off-duty officer Jared Poholik, began rendering first aid and life-saving measures on the injured motorcyclist, who was unconscious and unresponsive. Brenda and Jared immediately began CPR and were able to revive the motorcyclist and gain a pulse back again. Brenda Stopa and Jared Paholkis remained with the injured motorcyclist until responding officers arrived at the scene. They all assisted with ensuring he was safely loaded in the ambulance for ultimate transport to Morristown. Through their coordinated and decisive life-saving efforts, Brenda Stopa, Kathy Finkel, and Jared Paholkis were instrumental in saving an injured citizen's life. The actions taken that night truly exemplify the highest regard for others in need. Their combined efforts, their medical training, and their willingness to stop, help, and get involved for a person in need are a reflection of their exemplary character, as well as a demonstration of the care and compassion they have for others. So in recognition of their heroic actions and lifesaving efforts, the Rockaway Township Police Department would like to present them with a lifesaving award.

All right, we're going to take a five minute if anybody wants to come up for pictures.

Where's Mr. Atchafano, Italy? You don't know where your partner is? Okay.

All right.

We're going to pick up the meeting. What a, what a great show of like brotherhood for like all those police officers come here and support, you know, it's, it's really, really nice to see. Okay. Uh, approval of the minutes, uh, June 9th township council meeting. Can I have a motion? So move clerk, please take the wrong council members.

Yes. Council Member Boytovich.

Yes.

Council Member Freelander. Abstain. Council Member Royek. Yes. Council Member Freyday. Yes. Council Member Quinn.

Yes.

Council Member Kelly.

No.

Council Vice President Sackett.

Yes.

Council President Morrison.

Yes. Seven yeses, one no, one abstention. Motion passes. March 14th, special budget meeting. Council President?

Yes. Just a quick question. I did not see in the minutes anywhere about the discussion with a motion made or request made from the Councilman for opening a tab or reopening a tab. Okay. Was that an error? Was that something that was inadvertently left out? I didn't generate it. Can we shut that door?

Thank you. I haven't looked at all 461 pages of the minutes. You didn't read the minutes before approval? 461 pages?

Transcript.

Is there a motion on the table? So moved. I'll second. Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Sahlberg?

Yes.

Council Member Wojtowicz? Yes. Council Member Freelander?

Yes.

Council Member Royek? Yes. Council Member Freyde? Yes. Council Member Quinn?

Yes.

Council Member Kelly?

No.

Council Vice President Sackett?

Yes.

Council President Morrison?

Yes. Eight yeses, one no. Motion carries. Okay. Before opening the public portion of the meeting, I want to remind everybody of the rules that apply to anyone who wants to address the council. Any member of the public wishing to address the council will have three minutes to do so. While an extension of time may be requested, it should not be assumed that an extension of time will be granted. While addressing the council, members of the public may not address or question any individual council member. If anyone addressing the council violates these rules or conducts themselves inappropriately, their speaking opportunity will be terminated and they will be instructed to return to their seat. A refusal to comply will result in removal from the room. Members of the public in attendance may not make comments from the audience without recognition by the chair. Persons doing so will be subject to removal from the room. As council president, I have tremendous respect for my fellow council members and the public who take the time and effort to attend council meetings. The usuals are necessary to protect and respect, but also to permit the council to do its business in an orderly and professional manner. When I call your name, please approach the microphone, state your name and address for the record, and there will be a 30-minute time limit. Christy Kirulu. Kirulu. I'm sorry. Christy C. Yes. Thank you.

Christy Quirilaro, 562 Mount Hope Road. I had a meeting to come here, but I travel a lot for work. So my apologies for that, but I have been watching online. I just wanted to first take the opportunity, it's a shame they left, to thank the police department for doing so much to enforce the rules on Mount Hope Road. It really has made a difference, and it certainly hasn't gone unnoticed by our community. There's still a lot more to come, and I hope that we won't take our foot off the gas. Thank you also for attending that TILCON meeting. So, you know, there's still more to do. We're also still having problems at the pond, but I'm not prepared to speak about that tonight. So I'm going to save that for another day. A lot of people have been giving me information. I just haven't had time to process. Another thing I wanted to talk about is I hear a lot about decorum within the council. I was a little bit shocked at some of the activity during the first meeting that I attended. And I really call it behavior, almost like a toddler's behavior, right? Behavior. We all have different behaviors. And I know what it's like to sit on a board with people you don't get along with. I know what it's like to have the public coming in, yelling at you or saying things you don't like. I was on the board of education for six years. You know, we've been called clowns and everything else. But I will say that just because we don't like what each other is saying, just because we don't like what the public is asking, doesn't really give us a pass not to address or answer the questions. So if a public member is saying we're not following the process, I would like to see the council be able to be a council and say, you know, we are following the process and this is what the process is, whether it be that night or online some point later, because I want to have faith in my council that they're doing the right thing. I also want to just ensure that when there's things that are not being done that we understand the why. So for instance, not addressing, I know we're not supposed to call you guys out, but one of the council members addressing meetings with the electric company I've been having more outages at my house than I've had in the past couple of years. I don't know why. So if we're talking to electric company, I would like us to, if we're not, I'd like to know why. And then in addition to that, you know, there's been talk of, you know, that certain council members can't go out and represent the council, but then other council members can talk to like the managers at the Rockaway Township Mall, or, you know, you helped him with TILCON, you know, so I just want to understand where the balance is And so if we're deciding not to do something or not to answer something or to get or pay an attorney to combat each other, which seems like is the case as well. You know, I just want to know like the why behind it, because I am a taxpayer. I'm not trying to start a fight here. I'm not going to yell at anybody. I just want to understand the why. So thank you very much again for your help with the ponds and with the trucks. I appreciate it.

Just as a note, Al Knoth, our DPW director, has a very good relationship with our utilities. A lot of the communications and things get coordinated through him. Sorry to put you on the spot right now, Al, but there is not a void of communication between the town. It's Al's job, and he does it very well. You're welcome. Dana Tabadell.

Dana Tabadella, 31 Omaha Avenue. Accountability means more than making a statement. It means being able to support it. When public officials make statements to justify their actions, those statements should be truthful, consistent, and supported by verifiable facts. What started out to be a simple question about the budget process has evolved into months of back and forth discussion that exposed a much larger issue, a lack of transparency and accountability. In this case, Council President Howard Morrison publicly stated the budget tab could not be reopened because he had obtained a legal opinion during the lunch break. Yet when questioned, the attorney seemed caught off guard, said he was not prepared to answer something that he had already supposedly given an opinion on. Also, Mr. Morrison's explanation didn't make sense about getting legal advice at lunchtime when the refusal to open the budget didn't happen until 3.22 in the afternoon. A subsequent explanation provided by Mr. Morrison claimed that the legal opinion was sought because of Councilman Wachowicz had requested during reopening of the budget before lunch. However, this was not supported by the archive meeting footage. Furthermore, Mr. Morrison portrays that my questions were answered through OPA requests. However, he's aware that the responses have been that there's no government records responsive to my request or that the clerk is unable to identify the document that Mr. Morrison is referring to because it's not her job to research. Mr. Morrison was CC'd on the email, so he had the opportunity to identify that document, but he refuses to do so. Yet sitting behind this dais, Mr. Morrison repeatedly tried to discredit me, pretends my question was answered. The archived meetings and the open responses do not support this and actually discredits him. Public confidence depends on elected officials providing accurate, verifiable, explanations for their decisions when explanations change and supporting documentation cannot be produced it's reasonable for residents to continue asking questions an elected official cannot sink much lower than trying to portray the taxpayer as the problem when it's the elected official who refuses to be transparent and it's not a good look for any of the other council members to sit quietly while it happens and it's a little disturbing to hear that this reopening of the budget, I just heard Mr. Kelly say that it's not even in the minutes. We've been going back and forth about it for months and it's not even reflected in the minutes. So as a matter of fact, when I read some of the minutes, it seems like it's storytelling using words like contentious. Minutes are supposed to be something that is reflecting about what happens, not about people's feelings and trying to tell the story that you want to tell. Thank you.

thank you kathleen caroza did i say it right thank you is that with a c or a k

Kathleen with a K, Carozza with a C. Kathleen Carozza, 11 Debbie Place, Dover mailing address. I wanna first off thank you for bringing forth, for the mayor for bringing forth and the town council, the ordinance amending the land use. And I just wanna speak in favor of stopping data centers from being in Rockaway. Um, you've all heard all of the reasons why, so I'm not going to belabor it, but I also wanted to say two thank yous. So the first is to all of you who helped to bring the moving wall here to town. I was able to pay respects to a friend who, who a friend's husband who was lost at 21 when they were just married for five months and to four men who were friends of a good friend of mine who passed away recently. who were his brothers from West Point. And the second thank you is to the health department. I became aware recently, my daughter who went to Birchwood and Copeland was diagnosed with a prolactinoma, which is a benign pituitary tumor a couple of years ago. And as it turns out, I know of five other young adults from Rockaway, two who grew up in Birchwood and three who grew up in Birchwood and two who grew up in White Meadow Lake, all went to Copeland. They all have this. And we were able to ascertain through the work with the health department that this is something that the state does track, even though it is not a malignant tumor. So for any of you who might be hearing about this, it would be important for people to report it and track it and the physicians to do that. So I want to thank them for their help because they went out of their way to connect me with the Department of Health at the state level. Thanks.

Thank you. April Royal.

April Royal 142 Hawthorne Court. Good evening. I am asking you to take immediate action to prohibit or at the very least, severely restrict the use of flock safety cameras and all automatic license plate readers in Rockaway Township. This is not simply about technology. It is about whether our community accepts the normalization of mass surveillance. Every vehicle that passes one of these cameras is recorded regardless of whether the driver has done anything wrong. That means law abiding residents have their movements captured, logged and stored simply because they chose to drive through their own town. Over time, this creates a detailed record of where people live, work, worship, receive medical care and whom they visit. That is not targeted policing. It is indiscriminate surveillance. The question before you is not whether these cameras can sometimes help solve crimes. Nearly any surveillance technology can produce examples of success. The real question is whether those benefits justify treating every resident as a data point to be tracked. In a free society, government surveillance should be the exception and not default. Once the surveillance infrastructure is built, it rarely shrinks. Databases grow, data sharing expands, more cameras are added. The public gradually loses privacy one camera at a time. History has shown that powers granted to government are seldom surrendered voluntarily. If these systems remain, there must be strict safeguards, the shortest possible data retention period, no indiscriminate data sharing. complete transparency, independent oversight, regular public audits, and meaningful penalties for misuse. But I believe the better course is to reject this technology altogether. Rockaway Township has an opportunity to lead. by protecting both public safety and the constitutional rights of its residents. I urge you to put the privacy of your constituents ahead of the expansion of government surveillance and take immediate action to ban or severely restrict automatic license plate readers in our community. Thank you.

Council President, could I just make a comment or a question? Yeah, go ahead. Mrs. Royal, could you come back up here, please? Yes. I just wanted a question on something. And I appreciate you coming to the microphone and taking your three minutes at the public portion. In regards to the cameras that you're addressing just now, has there been any research in regards to a Supreme Court ruling that allows these cameras to be utilized in the exact way that you're against? Are you aware of one? Also, are you aware of the good that has come out that those cameras that you are addressing that you object to?

Mr. Kelly, I'm not looking for, this is not a cross, please have a seat. This is not a cross-examination. I appreciate where you're coming from, but that's not the- I just want to know if any criminals, traffickers, rape- Yeah, exactly. Excuse me, I have the floor. I'm rescinding your time, Mr. Kelly, you're out of line. I'm just wondering if she- You're out of line, Mr. Kelly. Yeah, I apologize, Ms. Royal. It's not how we should be operating here. Gina Fico.

Howard, is this for her presentation? Or is this for the open to the public portion? You may go ahead.

Thank you.

In the essence of time, do you want to give, we can forward this out if you like. I can put that, put the presentation on there. No, no, I understand. I mean, either way, I want to let you present that. Either you could do it. There you go. Yeah, I'll get you. So we could... well if it's got your desktop on it's just reading the wrong screen you put it in presentation mode mr speaker is there anything that the clerk could assist you with since you guys uh practiced it today yeah i just need sir yeah good thank you the clerks spent around 45 minutes with her so miss ego in the essence of time here's what i would suggest um i'd be happy to give you the time today without the presentation or if you want to come back the next time with the presentation

I'll start, and then I'll just see if I can get it to work, because I have it all ready for tonight.

Go for it. Thank you.

I'm sorry about the technical difficulties that we're experiencing today. I don't know what happened, because I was here twice, and it was able to work, and I don't know why it's not now. But... I'm speaking with you today on the importance of community mental health and I'm calling on the council here to be able to create a committee. I have a presentation and I just don't know why it's not showing up because this has all the necessary information. But I'm going to start with introducing myself. My name is Gina Fico, and I've lived here since 1996. I'm a certified trauma care practitioner. So that means I had to go through rigorous training to understand the nuances of trauma and how it affects us. So it's saying I'm not connected to the stick. It should be right there. That's my back.

No, no, I know.

Okay. So what I'm calling on the council to be able to do is create a committee that will address this ongoing crisis in our town and in our nation. So just to give a little information on what the slide show was on. So community mental health refers to So a few decades ago, a lot of the institutions that, you know, all stigmatize and belief, they started closing down and there was a focus to realize that mental health is a spectrum. So not everybody deserved or belonged in these places away from society. They belong to be part of our town and to, you know, be accepted. So what was going on then was the care became brought more to a community level. So the institutions closed down and aimed at giving care through services in the towns. So that's had a profound impact on how we work. went forward with mental health and how we integrated these people back into society. So, Let me get a little bit into trauma and what that is. So we hear the word trauma being tossed around all the time. People might say that was traumatic, or this was the trauma in my life, or we might hear people talk about it on social media. But I need to really speak with you tonight on what trauma really is because a lot of people really don't know. So trauma is an adverse experience that happens to us. And I have the data all up here in the slideshow that I would have loved to been able to show. I don't know why it's not working because it worked fine earlier today. But statistics are all there to back this up. Is it? Anything yet? Can I go back into the slide? Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. I just have to get the presentation back up. All right, it's okay.

I really do apologize for this.

so i'm going to try to get this presentation up once again because it's really um

You know, why don't we push this off a meeting? I want you to get the attention that you deserve.

Can we just read off this, to be honest?

Okay. Oh, it needs to pair. I don't know who, Kaczynski?

Somebody's phone? No, we're not going to be pairing.

Okay, so I'm just going to have to read off, and I'm sorry again. All right. Hopefully this will be sent out. So...

Yes, can I help you?

Yeah, thank you.

He's got his own computer.

So in the meantime, thank you so much. I'll just keep going into it. So trauma informed care, a lot of people, even though we hear the word trauma being thrown around all the time. don't understand what trauma-informed care is. But, you know, it does exist on both a clinical and organizational level. And that's what I'm calling on the town to really focus on. So trauma-informed care changes the mindset of what's wrong with you to what happened to you.

I'm doing fine.

This is mine. And I was here this morning.

Well, check. How are you? I'm doing fine.

It's all right. Okay. We got it. Oh, wow. Okay. There we go. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. You're a hero. All right. I am so sorry to the public for this blip today. So yeah, this is a perfect example. Perseverance. Okay. So it changes the mindset of what's wrong with you to what happens to you. So since, you know, for the essence of time, you can just read this up here. You can reach out to me later. if you have any questions or if we have time after this. But these are some of the pillars of trauma-informed care. I really like to focus on the safety and transparency piece, and it creates non-judgmental spaces. So here's some statistics. You can read over them. But just to kind of give an idea of how big of a problem this is, 70% of US adults experience one traumatic event in their lifetime, 62% of teenagers. I'm just going to go through a few of these. Three in four high school students experience one or more ACEs, which are adverse childhood experiences. This means incidences like experiencing violence in the home or community. Big number. I need for you to take this one point away. Trauma is objective. It is not about the event. It's about the response. So a big flood comes in and you're trapped with your family. One person might come out of that. Oh, my goodness, that was really scary. That was really hard. The other person might wind up developing PTSD. So it's not to say, oh, that was hard. That wasn't. You don't get to say that. It's only how the person internalizes it. So we're in a mental health crisis. This is why I'm speaking to you tonight. One in 10 people experience mental health. Young adults are the highest. So this is the group we should really watch. Here are some more statistics. New Jersey, which is like got it together kind of state, still ranks worse than it should be for the ratio of students to school psychologists. So that's an area we need to work on. I want to just talk about groups to watch, young adults, people with a family history of mental illness and trauma, PTSD for veterans and first responders, the LBGTQ plus community, people with physical conditions and the neurodivergent population. So those who have like autism, ADHD, They are at a higher risk of developing, you know, mental health conditions as they progress on in life and marginalized communities, low income individuals, minority and those without proper access to health care. How to destigmatize. So this is kind of the meat and potatoes of it. So normalized therapy and medication, just treat it like it's any health condition. Like, you know, it's hard because mental health is rooted in behavior and we have, you know, decades, if not centuries of stigmatizing beliefs. But, you know, just if somebody, you know, opens up to you that they're going to see a therapist or they're taking medication. You know, just try to respond to it in the same way you would respond to somebody who has to take insulin for diabetes or has to take an asthma pump. Be supportive to your family and friends who are struggling. Take the time. We're all busy, but take the time to listen. There's tons of information coming out. You know, social media can really be our friends with this. But just stay educated to what the experts are saying and watch your language. So this is not to be overly sensitive. You know, I love a good joke. I'm not like. You know, you got to watch what you say around me. But mental illness is hard for those who experience it. So, you know, comments that seem, you know, fun and, you know, a joke like, oh, I'm so OCD about my kitchen or my boyfriend's being bipolar again. It really, you know, undermines the struggle those face every day. So I just want to go into it. I'm almost done. I'm really sorry again about the delay tonight. why is this important for Rockaway? So it's a, we, we live in a huge town. I mean, we know all this, you know, where we're located, we're a military town. So those people that are coming out of, you know, service and we're just have that, you know, kind of impending doom of what might happen next, we got to watch out for that group because this military group is at a much higher risk of developing PTSD and just other, you know, adverse reactions to what they have to go through to keep our country safe. And we have a growing minority population. You know, diversity is something to really celebrate. And we see a lot of, you know, that population increasing, but they're also marginalized. So we have to keep an eye on for that. So my ask to the council and public tonight is to establish some kind of committee, involvement from public figures, private, hoping to get people involved with lived experiences. As it grows, hoping to get involvement from local politicians. local clergy, mental health professionals, local businesses, and stay committed to our values of acceptance, kindness, compassion, collaboration, and safety. I wanna like to, if this committee does kind of pan out the way I was expecting, I would love to meet with the council members from all different boards to address issues at a hyper local level. It's open to anybody. And I really think that together we can create a group free of judgment. It can set an example for other municipalities as we strive for positive change. So I don't know if I have time for questions tonight, but if I don't, this is my email address. I'll give you a few seconds just to jot it down.

So what I'd like, first of all, thank you. I think this was the great job. I'm speaking. Um, it was a great job. A couple of points actually, uh, councilman celebrating and I, that we didn't think about, we pulled out. Um, We, during our emails, Councilman Selberg asked for a list of all of the public and mental health resources that we have, a copious amount that I was not even aware of. What I'm gonna do after this meeting is I am gonna put you in touch with Brittany Bernstein and Peter Tabak. I want to see where you guys can join forces. I don't want to duplicate efforts, right? So I'm sure there's something in there. And I know it was only a short presentation. I think it was very worthwhile. But let me put you in touch with them. I'll do that tonight. And by tonight, I mean by tomorrow morning, if I forget tonight. And I'd be interested in hearing how that turns out for you. Thank you. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Okay. TV's off. Here, can you? Nice. Okay. I am going to move the agenda around. Before we do the ordinance or introduction, I want to open it up to new business. Council members with new business. I'm sorry. We're going to open it. We're going to do the new business portion now.

Oh, okay. That's great. Thank you, Council.

I'm sorry. I just want to remind everybody at the same three minutes, you're still going to have reports and stuff later. So. Yeah.

And just in case you're, if there's a thought at the end, just to add an extra small amount of time, but there may be some engagement too. To my colleagues and to the members of the public, maybe some of you may have witnessed throughout this year, uh third party uh work that's being taking place on our our public roadways a lot of it being county side roads assisting contractors jcp now natural gas um the uh the fair that we had recently but a lot of the times i do not witness rockaway township police officers doing the third party I see outside municipalities and police departments, Dover, Rockaway Borough, Sheriff's Department that are doing these third parties. And one, I was wondering why. Two, when I went and did research in some of the neighboring municipalities, comparing to what we have, there is some lucrative benefit that these other neighboring municipalities are achieving through admin fee, hourly rate,

Just to clarify, you're talking about the police officers when they're there? Third party.

Yeah. Nothing to do with taxpayers. It's paid by.

No, no, no. But like, there's always a cop there. You're talking about that.

Correct. Okay. Yeah. No, I know we don't pay for that. They're not on the job.

They're. Yeah. Security.

Yes, and I'll clarify that if there's any additional need for definition, and maybe Mr. Witowa could chime in too as well. So any event, when you look at some of these other contracts and agreements and policies in place in our neighboring towns, they do charge an admin fee, Rockaway Borough is $130, it's $50 for the car up to four hours, and it's $100 for the car over four hours up to eight hours. And it's time and a half. However, our agreement that we have, it's only $5 an hour for the car, which basically almost consumes the cost of fuel for that. And there's no benefit financially for us There's no profitability to offset some of the operating costs. In addition, third party and in my belief, create some morale boost for the police officers by getting this extra work, especially a lot of the newbies that come in that are cadets that are hired in their first step that will have the opportunity to get extra money. Third party does not cost the taxpayers any money. It's all paid by contractors and other individuals. So I don't see us do any outside third party and other municipalities like municipalities do in Rockaway Township. Contract allows it. but I don't see anything being taken place. Again, all of this third party is a revenue generator to offset operating costs and also give the ability for the police officers to make additional revenue during or off time when they're not on duty for the township. And as long as there's an effect there, they can't take a sick day in order to do third party. So what I would like to present to this council now, cause we're almost just under six months away, Can I just finish, since we're almost just under six months away from the contract to expiring for the PBA 287, which is December 31st of this year. we need to reevaluate the cost of these agreements that we then put upon the contractors to be somewhat competitive or the same with our neighboring municipalities. Again, since 2022 and even before that, $5 an hour is not, I mean, they don't even have to even fill up the cars again after they use it like a rental car would be. So one, I hope that there's no reason why that these police officers in Rockaway are not allowed to do third party work outside. I hope we can address that if that's an issue. And secondly, I think we need to encourage more third party work with a higher competitive rate for our administration fees and vehicle usage fees. And I just wanted to get some of that conversation because this is the only time we can talk about this. And we do have an officer that sits next to me, a councilman at large. Maybe he might have some insight being in this realm of potential third party that he's been a recipient of.

Can I just ask a question before you? I don't want to. Sure. All right. First of all, I know what these guys get paid and how I would do it for half of what they get paid.

couple questions chief i don't want to put you on the spot and i know you're not prepared for this one are the rates set by the union because this all goes through the union correct yeah well we're currently uh referring to i believe councilman kell is referring to the administrative fee which is five dollars per hour additional uh to the cost of the officer the officer makes time and a half top patrolman rate

third party and if it's in Rockaway because again I don't know years ago somebody told me about this so I just want to make sure jobs in Rockaway are offered to Rockaway officers first how does it work correct that all goes through an app so what happens is that goes out to bid

The officers get to put in whether they would like that job or not. When we can't get a response from our officers, it then goes to surrounding towns.

So our guys do get first dibs? Absolutely. Can anybody use, can we do it? It's all good money.

All right. And could you just ask the chief, what about outside municipality bids? Do you allow that?

So for officers to work outside of Rockaway to do third party? So like Jefferson, those guys don't, nobody in Jefferson takes a job. Does Rockaway find out about it? Do our guys get a shot at it?

We currently do not do outside unless an extreme emergency, but we have not been doing outside. And there are a couple other concerns in reference to that matter, but no, we currently do not.

But it's in the contract that we can, is that correct?

It's at my discretion, yes.

So you don't allow the third party to take place?

Well, no, but listen, Mr. Kelly, if they're not taking it in town, they're not going to take it out of town. That's not necessarily true. Listen, I'm not trying to paint him into the corner. You're answering something for a chief of police when you're not. I'm saying that we're not trying to, this is, again, it's not an interrogation. I'm not training him in the corner. He's not prepared to have this discussion.

He's a chief of police that signs an increase to the contract that also proves the third party well matters. I know the answer to that.

The chief doesn't approve the contract. It's the union with the administration. Have you read the contract? The other municipalities, when we do see them, other police departments, when they do work in Jury City, are those officers working when maybe they start the job in their town and the job moves with, I don't know, JCP&L and they move into Rockaway Township? Is that when we see, let's say, the borough working on Green Pond?

That can be the case, but that is not necessarily always the case. And again, what I believe is being referred to is when that goes out through the service that we have for the officers, when a contractor wants to bid a job, it goes in through the app. The officers all get first crack at that opportunity. If it does not go to them, it then allows that service to go outside the jurisdictional boundary of Rockaway Township. to fill that position.

Bottom line is our guys are not suffering because they're just choosing not to do it.

I don't think you want to answer that for the guys. I think there is a concern. I'll rephrase the question, Your Honor.

There are ample opportunities for our officers to take them, but they do decline them, in which cases the offers to go to outside of town.

But that's not true. The chief says that he doesn't allow outside. No, he said that. No. It's his discretion and he doesn't allow it. Mr. Kelly, that's not what he said. Yes, it is. Repeat that then, Chief. Okay.

So you're going to move on. Your time is up. You've got a lot more than three minutes. Is there any other council members? I would have business.

Yeah, I would like to ask if we could the township, the administration could look into maybe changing the ordinance with some setback on Green Pond Road. I had a resident of contacted me about a few weeks ago. And he purchased the house in Rockaway Township. Green Pine Road has a 65-foot front yard setback. And the house was built – Right, R88. And it was built way before that. So now he's looking to expand his front yard – I mean, I'm sorry, front stoop. And he can't do it without going to the Board of Adjustment. And – That's going to, you know, this person is a mason. He could do the work himself. I'm sure we have a lot of DIYers that could do the work themselves too. The project will cost them $1,000 in material, but to go in front of border adjustment, he's got to spend $3,000 to $4,000. So maybe if we could reduce that, I don't know, 40, 50 or whatever you guys look into other towns and reduce that, that could not only help out some of the residents that are DIYers, want to do some work to their properties, but also help out with the aesthetics on Green Pond Road. This could be something that's restricting so many residents to do that.

I see Mr. Novak chomping at the bit.

Mr. Novak, isn't there an exemption of a stoop in the zone? Mr. Kelly, I have the floor. He was not brought here just for this.

No, no, no.

But when it comes to setbacks, I know a couple of things.

There are certain allowances for a stoop as well as a covered entryway to it. Once that stoop gets expanded to, let's just say, like the front porch, that's when the barons can get triggered. So if it's something that's kind of in the front of the doorway, then it would be allowed. Anything greater than that, that's when the barons get triggered. um one of the issues that we have especially up in the north end of town is that we have very large lot zoning we have the r88 district the r5ac district which is five acres uh we have a 20 acre zone believe it or not um however we do have a lot of smaller lots in those zoning districts that are kind of leftovers so maybe 40 000 square feet 30 000 square feet sometimes an acre So there are opportunities to maybe consider reduced or lightened setback requirements for those pre-existing non-conforming lots in those larger zones. Something we can always look at that could be a potential solution or some sort of balancing act.

And just to follow up with that, though, is there a I know some towns and correct me if I'm wrong. They have an ancillary board for de minimis relief. rather than go through, like we have a tenancy board, just a couple of committee members during a planning board meeting and whatnot. If we were to make a motion to create an ancillary board or a small committee for review of the minimus request of this, of a small, if a deck needed three feet of a variance of some sort, or an eave or an overhang, or in this case, a stoop or a porch, was that something that you've ever dealt with with other municipalities in your field?

Not with B necessarily, no. I've done or I've dealt with smaller subcommittees, typically with minor site plans. I've dealt with, we'll call it, what do they call themselves? In one of my towns in Mercer County, it's a group of the zoning board that will actually go there and do the inspection, write the report. I am familiar with the concept that you're talking about to an extent. I think some of the larger towns do that. I can certainly do the research, but off the top of my head,

I mean, if we'd be complying under 4055D, doing something of that nature to minimize some of those impacts and financial burdens would be great.

Here's what I would suggest, Mr. Wadovich. If this is something you'd like to pursue, I'd love for you to connect with Mr. Novak. And then in turn, obviously, our legal counsel will find out what's going on. But I think it's a good call out.

Could we start with Mrs. Ferrante first? And she's no cost.

No, I will. Listen, we'll handle it. We will handle it. Mrs. Ferrante. Thank you. Mr. Kelly, please. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Novak. Okay. Sorry. Ordinance for, I'm sorry, is there anybody else in business? Ordinance for introduction, O2625, ordinance providing for municipal building ADA improvements and restoration in and by the Township of Rockway in the County of Morris, New Jersey, and appropriating $86,132.81, therefore constituting proceeds of a community developed block grant for Morris County. Motion. I have a motion. Second. Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Salberg. Yes. Council Member Wojtowicz.

Yes.

Council Member Freelander.

Yes.

Council Member Royick.

Yes.

Council Member Freyday. Yes. Council Member Quinn.

Yes.

Council Member Kelly.

Yes.

Council Vice President Sackett.

Yes.

Council President Morrison.

Yes. Nine yeses. Motion carries. 02626, an ordinance amending Chapter 54 entitled Land Use and Development of the Code of the Township of Rockaway, adopting a new zoning map and relocating specific ordinance sections. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Sahlberg?

Yes.

Council Member Wojtowicz?

Yes.

Council Member Freelander?

Yes.

Council Member Royick? Yes. Council Member Freyde? Yes. Council Member Quinn?

Yes.

Council Member Kelly?

Yes.

Council Vice President Sackett?

Yes.

Council President Morrison?

Yes. Nine yeses, motion carries. Ordinances for Adoption O2623, an ordinance amending Chapter 54 entitled Land Use and Development of the Code of the Township of Rockaway to include and designate data centers as a prohibited use in all zoning districts. Can I have a motion? So moved.

Second.

Is there any council discussion on this ordinance?

Yes. Good. Like I said, during the introduction, I think that we should maybe introduce an ordinance that again, addresses the residents concerns. And at the same time, allows the data centers in certain areas in our township being that we're 46 Governor Sherrill signed a new law last week, which is called the Data Center Fair Share Act, which actually mandates these data centers to generate their own power. So the issue of power usage, I think that could be addressed. I mean, it's addressed in a state law, but we could address it in the ordinance as well. When it comes to the water usage, again, there's a lot of these uh cooling systems that don't use a lot of water and and being the size of the township that we are you know we could have in a location where it doesn't disturb any residents when it comes to noise and things like that and a lot of these towns municipalities in new jersey seacoast there's there's a town uh in Union County, it's building a huge one. I mean, these data centers generate millions of dollars in tax revenue. One of the biggest complaints we all get on this council is the taxes keep going up. I mean, this could be a huge revenue source. Again, we don't have to start building one tomorrow, but I think an ordinance that is common sense, addresses the residents' concerns and allows us to generate some tax revenue would be something better than the current ordinance that is strictly prohibitive.

I just want to make sure I have my facts straight. So the law that was signed says that they can't tap into the power grid.

My understanding is they got to generate their own power or add back to the grid. With a lot of these towns, actually, what happens is that they generate so much power, they actually do add to the grid, so it does help the residents. What about... I'm sorry? Water. They could have a closed-loop system. A lot of these data centers now have the closed-loop system where the water is used once, and then it's recycled to cool the data centers.

So, Mr. Perron, let me ask you a question. Since the time this was introduced until now, right, the laws have changed.

A week ago.

A week ago, which kind of addresses some of the – Addresses water. Let's just say if for – let's say the council – let's say the council votes this down. Now, right? Is it does that preclude us from going back and taking another look at it like a different ordinance accounting for like, if they want to come in to, you know, an area neighborhood, obviously, we can look at it and deny that. But it doesn't if we voted down now, it doesn't, it doesn't open it up for anybody. And it wouldn't preclude us from putting in a Yeah, I just. Yeah, I just. It's fortunate, I guess, that the laws have changed since the last meeting that really addressed public concerns. But for me, it's quite honestly your point with the tax base. I mean, if we can. well all right so since there's a motion on the table mr kelly is it inappropriate to procedurally if the council agrees on it pull it for further consideration later how do we so we make a motion to withdraw the introduction who made the who made the uh this is correct

So we would have to vote it down and then reintroduce a new ordinance, right? Okay.

Okay. Well, we're in the middle of an open public portion right now. So the public has an opportunity.

Mr. Kelly, I know how to run a meeting, please. Okay. So the bottom line is, is we can make a motion to withdraw the motion and then is there another motion needed to table this for future consideration? okay thank you um any other council discussion on this i do go ahead unless somebody has it first mr freelander go ahead you have the floor go ahead man no mr kelly you have the floor i'm asking mr freelander to go just to give me an extra some thoughts on that this is your chance or you're going to give up your time you're only giving me the option now mr kelly i i don't understand why you could have given us manny we could have been this whole argument for now i could have i don't understand why everything has to be a battle this is your time i asked you the same question

so my question then is uh we have an ordinance that's been drafted introduced we had some public participation against this we had i'm assuming professionals mr perrone right you you you billed us for the ordinance and didn't mean to review we have um mr novak that reviewed it and if there was any negativity or any consideration to to not do this ordinance wouldn't our officials including yourself had raised those issues now i i don't doubt that You reviewed this. Did you see anything negative on going against the ordinance? Right. And was there any, anything that would, were you uncomfortable with what we were doing here today to ban data centers in Rockaway township?

Okay. No, because it's, listen, whether you felt uncomfortable or not. I'm on the floor. I mean, I don't. I know. Whether you felt uncomfortable or not is not really the question. You did your job. It's either black and white. You prepared the document as required. Your uncomfortability. Is that a word? is really not the point.

Well, I'm relying on a professional, Mr. Novak. I rely on you. Mr. Morrison perhaps doesn't. I do. And your expertise and specialization in land use and the common concern of data centers, you then applied that into this ordinance, which our town attorneys drafted. That's pretty simple, right? Oh, so you charge us for what he did?

Mr. Kelly, I'm saving your time. This is not an inquisition, Mr. Mr. Friedlander, you have the floor. You charge us to make this ordinance. Mr. Kelly, your time is rescinded. Please have some decorum, please. Mr. Perrone, please don't. Mr. Perrone, please don't interact. It's childish and I apologize. Why would you want to Mr. Friedlander?

Basically, we did the work.

We did all the work to accept this ordinance as it stands. Yes. Okay. You said that we can always go back when time comes, that it's working, and we could review it. So it's just why we're having all the discussion. Vote on it, pass it, and if things change down the road, we bring it back. So if we approve it, we can change it later?

No, no, but procedurally we can do that.

The issue with that is if you have data centers that are looking at a municipality to invest in – So we can talk again, right? Is that what we're doing right now?

I pulled your time, Mr. Kelly. Okay.

When you look at a company's data centers that are looking to invest in a town, if you have an ordinance that restricts it, they're just going to skip your town and go somewhere else. So you're just – Not if it's lucrative. You're just – well, then to come back to the council and change it. Again, we could propose a council – I mean an ordinance that – addresses the residents' concerns and allows these data set in certain areas that could benefit the residents of this township. Are we landlocked, by the way? Mr. Kelly.

We are, right? Mr. Kelly, you're... These are important questions, Mr. Marshall. Mr. Kelly, you're being childish. I'm not. I'm asking... You are. You're being childish. And again, I apologize to the council. You can make a drum all you want. This is not how...

I asked our engineer if it's been... Mr. Kelly, we're not going to do this again.

If you insist on... disrupting the business of the council, if you insist on acting like this, this is your warning. This is your warning. Or what? I'm gonna have to vote again to censure you. This council will vote for the second time to censure you because you have no decorum, you have no respect for the rest of the council, you have no respect for the public. If it doesn't benefit you personally, or you try to prove that you're the smartest guy in the room, that it's not worth it. Let me is there anybody from the public that wishes to speak on this ordinance alone? Please, please. Same thing name and address and three minutes.

Kathleen Carozza, Kathleen Carozza, 11 Debbie placed over mailing address. So one thing I would put out there, because I understand what you're saying the laws have changed and down the road, In five years, there may be a difference in what we realize could be the negative impacts. Right now, we don't know. What has happened in Andover is because somebody was looking at property and there was no ordinance, and then the town put in the ordinance, they're now being sued. So you may be opening yourself. I'm certainly not legally able to tell you that, but that would be one concern I would bring up based on what I've seen recently in Andover. I totally understand it may down the road, things may change. And I feel like you have the power at that point to make a new ordinance for maybe a very specific type of data center. But at this point, I'm really, hoping that you will vote for this ordinance as it's written. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, Mr. Wachowicz, did you want to make a motion to pull the motion and table this?

Sure. I'd like to make a motion to table this, the ordinance 26-23. I'll second it. I did.

Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Sahlberg?

No.

Council Member Vojtovic?

Yes.

Council Member Freelander?

No.

Council Member Royuk? No. Council Member Freyde? No. Council Member Quinn?

No.

Council Member Kelly?

No.

Council Vice President Sackett?

No.

Council President Morrison?

Yes. Seven nos to yeses. Motion does not carry. Now, do we need to reintroduce the ordinance? No. Yeah. Okay. So now we can just vote on the ordinance. The original motion carries. Okay. Clerk, please take the role.

Council member Salberg.

Yes.

Council member Vojtovic.

No.

Council member Freelander.

Yes.

Council member Royuk. Yes. Council member Freyday. Yes. Council member Quinn.

Yes.

Council member Kelly.

This is temporary protection. Yes.

Council vice president Sackett.

Yes.

Council President Morrison.

No. Seven yeses, two noes. Motion carries. 02624, an ordinance amending Chapter 28 of the Rockaway Township General Ordinances entitled Health and Environment to amend Article 3 entitled Food and Beverages. Motion. Second.

Can he wait until you finish reading? No, he can't.

He did finish reading. I didn't finish reading. You can watch the video later tonight.

Okay, procedurally, I would ask for a motion at which point but again, I'll make a motion again. Miss Feigl, I'll take some of your pamphlets. Okay, there was a motion there was a second. Is there any council discussion on this ordinance? Any public discussion on this ordinance alone? Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Salberg?

Yes.

Council Member Wojtowicz?

Yes.

Council Member Freelander?

Yes.

Council Member Royek? Yes. Council Member Freyday? Yes. Council Member Quinn?

Yes.

Council Member Kelly?

Yes.

Council Vice President Sackett?

Yes.

Council President Morrison?

Yes. Nine yeses, motion carries. Okay, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. I would like to point out that R26117 is the governing body certification of the annual audit. We have Serenelli's and we have Dave Novak in attendance. I want to thank you guys for the tremendous work that you've done. I know that, Ray, you've spoken to the council before. The bottom line is we're in very good shape right now. But I just want to thank you for the hard work that you did and for hanging in there tonight at this meeting. That's the president? Yeah. Can we vote on that separately?

To pull out the vote separately, just in case there's a question. I have one. Just make a motion. Okay, I make a motion on poll 26, that's 117. Second, Dan.

Can we do two at the same time?

Yeah.

Because we have Mr. Buzak here too, so I just wanted to add, or maybe you could add, John. That would be 125. Okay. And Mr. Boozak's here, that represents the town on that map.

All right, I'm fine with that. Just to officialize it all, motion to pull R26-117 and R26-125 for separate discussion and vote. Is there a second? Yeah, okay. Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Salver. Yes. Council Member Wojtowicz. Yes. Council Member Freelander.

Yes.

Council member Roya. Yes. Council member Friday. Yes. Council member Quinn.

Yes.

Council member Kelly.

Yes.

Council Vice President Sackett. Yes. Council President Morrison.

Yes. Nine yeses. Motion carries. Okay. Consent agenda items R26118 through and including R26124. Can I have a motion? So moved. Second. Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Satterberg.

Yes. What's that? I don't see 126. Yeah, right in the bottom above 12.

Where?

It's not any other one.

Okay. I apologize. I'm missing it. So let me rephrase my motion. Make a motion for our 26 2018 through and including our 26 124 and our 26 126. So motion.

second clerk please take the role that's weird i did council member salberg yes council member vojtovic yes council member freelander yes council member roy yes council member friday yes council member quinn yes council member kelly yes council vice president sackett yes Council President Morrison.

Yes, nine yeses, motion carries. Okay, opening up for Mr. Sacador, 26-117 for discussion.

Thank you, Council President, and thank you for the excellent report. As always, didn't have a chance to look through the monster book yet, but I did read the notes and everything, so thank you for that. Just maybe briefly, there was one or two comments notes in there about some improvements, a couple of small things that you recommended. Can you go over those again briefly? Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. Bryce Arnelli, Township Auditor. So there's several things that when we report on in an audit, the way we comment on the findings that we have. So there can be a comment without a recommendation. Normally that's something that was wrong, but was maybe wrong for part of the year, corrected before the end of the year. So that would be a comment without a recommendation. Sometimes there are things that while we're auditing, we'll find and then make what's called a management suggestion. So not something you're doing wrong, but a suggestion on how to do something better. And then worst case scenario is a comment with a recommendation. That means you have a comment, something was wrong, and then a recommendation, okay, this is how you fix it. So in the report tonight, there are no recommendations. So there's nothing came to our attention that was wrong and uncorrected. So no comment with a recommendation. We did have a few suggestions in there. And we did have one comment without a recommendation and then a few suggestions. So in the capital fund, Let's see, there is one improvement authorization in the general capital fund and one improvement authorization in the water utility capital fund, which are five years old with deficit balances. As of December 31st, 2025, the situation arises when expenditures are made from an improvement authorization without related debt being issued. as the township has already implemented a plan for future budgets to include the improvement authorizations over five years old, cash deficit balances, including a recently adopted 2026 budget. A formal recommendation is judged not to be necessary at this time. You guys all got that, right?

Break out the crayons for me. What does that mean?

So what that means is when you authorize an improvement authorization with debt associated with it, just because there's debt associated with it doesn't mean that debt is outstanding. Right now there's one improvement authorization in the capital fund and one in the utility that currently are not funded, even though there's debt outstanding. So you don't want that to go on for too long of a time. In those two particular instances, the decision was made to fund those through the budget and not go through the debt process. I can bore you with the details on why that was decided, but that's not really necessary. So they are being funded. So what's happening is, is by the letter of the law, something is wrong. There's a plan to fix it in place. It'll be fixed in two or three years through the normal course of the budget process. So something wrong, but a plan to fix it. So comment, no recommendation. It's already being fixed.

Okay. Any other questions? I do. Good. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Serinelli. And I hope your father's doing well too. Great guy. In regards to the negative, when you talked about those two amounts of those five-year-old capital amounts, Is there any negative dollar value of continuing the delay? Like you say that we're going to correct this in two or three years through the budget process. Is there any negative fiscal impact amongst the taxpayers or the budget itself for the delay? Why not sooner than later?

So there could be potential cash impacts on that. Your cash position is doing extraordinarily well. So outside of that, there's really no negative impact on taxes or the budget. Actually, it's saving you money because you're not paying interest on the debt.

The other question I have is will be the last one. As you're aware, we did have a audit through the comptroller's office, Kevin Walsh. And then there was things that were implemented, I think 13 out of the 15 items that were implemented that are there. And it's we're talking millions of dollars of issues that were created and caused and found and we're trying to correct that. Is that part of your review when you did this 2025 report?

So it's complicated. The initial audit that they did, I don't even like that they call it an audit. It's an operational audit. I have a financial statement audit. So it's two very different things. Once they have a finding, yes, I'm responsible for ensuring that following up on those findings. So when the comptroller came back and said 13 out of 15 were implemented, the two that were still remaining, they have, and all audits have a specific cutoff date. So their re-review was ended, I believe December 31st, 2024, or maybe even December 31st, 2023. They were both corrected immediately subsequent to that date. And we even had the conversation with them those two things have been corrected. Do they really, can't we just say they were implemented? And they said, no, our cutoff date is the date that we've decided. So the re-review was what it was, but they've both subsequently been.

But both audits, the definitions that you gave, your financial audit and the additional audit through the controllers, they still have the focus on the same money, right? So your focus on your audit versus the other description of the audit that you made between the comptrollers and your fiscal audit, they still focus on spending and money?

Very differently. Mine is just to make sure that the financial statements are accurate. They're doing an operational audit. So mine is more reporting. Theirs is more operational.

Thank you. Any other council members? Okay. Thank you. Right. Before I make the motion for 26 117. I would just like to let the entire council know that there's paperwork associated with this that everybody needs to sign off. I'm asking the entire council as soon as the meeting is done. Give us five minutes. Don't leave and then we can all sign this and we can close it out. Our 26 motion for our 26 117. So move. Second, clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Salberg.

Yes.

Council Member Vojtovich. Yes. Council Member Freelander.

Yes.

Council Member Royick. Yes. Council Member Freyday. Yes. Council Member Quinn.

Yes.

Council Member Kelly.

Abstain.

Council Vice President Sackett.

Yes.

Council President Morrison.

Yes. Eight yeses, one abstention. Motion carries. Discussion on R26-125? You know, I do. And Mr. Buzak, first of all, it's great to see you.

And I know that you've been involved in this matter since the get-go. And again, as I mentioned before, when I first saw you before the meeting started, all the attorneys involved, some of them that I know personally, have constantly bragged about the excellent work that you did spearheading this issue at Jersey City. Um, and the Rockway Valley. I don't know if you can just give us a small little synopsis of what is actually going on and why we should vote in favor of this resolution moving forward. He's looking for. Okay from you, Mr. Morrison. Good.

Yeah.

Thank you very much. My name is Edward Buzak. I've represented the township in this litigation, which is the Rockaway Valley Regional Surge Authority Jersey City litigation. Since the 90s, I've been involved in the case almost from the inception of it in 1968. What you're being asked tonight to approve is a resolution that will utilize or allow the utilization of an ADR, an alternate dispute resolution process, to address engineering questions that will then impact on whether Jersey City has to share in the cost of the contract that the RVRSA has let. Under a 2018 ruling, the RVRSA and the municipalities within the RVRSA, absent Jersey City, are responsible for the payment, their proportionate share of the payment, for enlargement, expansion, improvement, and upgrading of the plant. That's not something Jersey City should pay. On the other hand, Jersey City is responsible for operation, repair, maintenance, and upkeep of the plant. And there's definitions for each of those categories. There were seven contracts that have been let since the 2018 litigation. uh which in which there is a contest between jersey city and the rvrsa as to whether they are improvements expansions or they're just upkeep and maintenance and the result of that determination is whether jersey city contributes or does not uh that process to a litigation through trial to witnesses to cross-examination and so forth is a long, tedious and really ineffective mechanism for these determinations, because you're asking a court, a judge who handles all sorts of cases to deal with very complicated engineering issues to make that evaluation and make a determination as to what category it's in. So to their credit, both Jersey City and the RVRSA, despite the fact they've been in litigation for over 50 years, came up with an alternate dispute resolution process to substitute that process for the litigation process. And basically, it's a binding alternate dispute resolution process, which is why I'm here, because when that determination is made, It's binding, it's binding on Rockaway, it's binding on Jersey City, it's binding on everyone. But that process will be handled, the individual who will make the determination will be an engineer. It will not be a judge, okay? An engineer who's qualified, who understands this. The ADR agreement that was attached to the resolution establishes a mechanism for the selection of that engineer. And that engineer has not been selected yet. Jersey City picks three. The RVRSA picks three. Each side, I'm sorry, four, four and four. Each side has the ability to strike one of them immediately. So now you're down to six. And then there will be discussions between Jersey City and the RVRSA as to whether they can agree on one of those six. If they can't do that, they do the process a second time. If that doesn't work, then they have to revise the agreement. So we don't even know if we're gonna get to sort of first base here, whether we're gonna be able to select an engineer But in order to see, to at least get up to the plate, we need to have the agreement that if we can get up to the plate and get the first base, then we have a process to utilize. So that's, in a nutshell, what this resolution is seeking from you, approval of that process and approval to be bound by it, assuming that process works at the end of the day.

That's a big nutshell.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Buzak. Thank you. You want to make a motion for it? I do. I would make a motion to pass R26-125. I'll second it.

Clerk, please take the roll.

Council Member Sadler?

Yes.

Council Member Wojtowicz?

Yes.

Council Member Freelander?

Yes.

Council member Roya. Yes. Council member Friday. Yes. Council member Quinn.

Yes.

Council member Kelly.

Yes.

Council vice president Sackett.

Yes.

Council president Morrison.

Yes. Nine yeses. Motion carries. Thank you, Mr. Buzza. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Buzza. Thank you. Okay. We're going to go into council reports. This will be a strict three minutes. We'll start with Mr. Kelly. Hold on one second, Mr. Kelly.

A couple things. One, I want to congratulate Sergeant Gregory Albert for his award. He was nominated for Delegate of the Year of the PBA 287, so congrats to him. I also want to thank Mr. Knopf and his team. The men and women that work underneath here are doing a phenomenal job with coordinating with the paving projects that are going on. as well as the drainage projects that are taking place in Lake Telemark, and hopefully soon over in Denmark Road. But they're all doing an amazing work, Mr. Knopf, and thank you for that. I also want to make mention of Adam Power, one of our former chiefs in Hibernia Company One, and he works for JCP&L and he was very rigorous on getting a lot of the power outages that we had recently up and going and a little bit of the hiccup over there by Darlington Road on Green Pond Road. He was also somebody that facilitated that relatively pretty quickly. I also want to mention this Saturday, I did ask the clerk if she could pass some information around. Maybe she'll send it to you via email after this meeting or tomorrow. Marcella Community Center is having a festival for first responders. It will be the third annual first responder pig roast barbecue, and they do a phenomenal job. it's zero cost for any first responder. You go there, you're a first responder, there's music, there's drink, there's food. Uh, it's a great thing to do. Anybody that's not a first responder, it's only $10 for an open buffet to eat anything you want as much as you want. And, and, uh, The Marcella Community Center does a really great job, so I hope the acting clerk will circulate that information to you guys. I'm sorry? It's 2 o'clock, it starts. I know you have Festival Day, and I'll give you that. And there is... Oh, I guess the last thing would be... Happy belated Father's Day for all the dads out there. And also want to mention the moms that do dual roles for absentee fathers. So I do appreciate the moms as well. Thank you.

Mr. Wachowicz. Well, the only thing I'm going to say today is I want to thank the police department, like one of our residents said earlier, the issue with telecon, their trucks, you know, speeding and the material spilling from these trucks. I mean, I've seen a huge difference. Uh, it was a great collaboration with one of our residents, our police department, the traffic unit, and also till con, uh, you know, I drove in here today passing through tilcon. There was a truck going, I think, I don't know, 15 miles an hour. It's a 35 mile speed limit. So it seems like they got the message. I just hope we keep it going. And again, thank you. That's all I have. Councilman Friday.

Hello. I attended the Aldi grand opening. We're all very happy they're here. Also the library meeting. The library is still working to renovate their bathrooms. They picked up a tile sample and the librarians are very excited about it. Very excited about it. They added for, they have, excuse me, they have, I'm just trying to read my own handwriting. It's a challenge. They added more museums to their museum pass, including 200 tickets for the Natural History Museum. So if you want an excuse to get the kids out of the house and save some money, I highly recommend going to your library to get some of those tickets while they still have them. They have links on their website to help prevent the summer slide with kids. They're not reading. They're not learning. You know, there's links to kind of help encourage to try to keep their minds active. I attended the tour at the new water facility today. It's over by, was it Field A?

A Field.

A Field, sorry. It's surprisingly clean. They run a tight ship there. Everything's organized. Everything's very organized. doing a good job i have pictures online um they introduced us to one of the trucks apparently that was the hero of the water main break that cut the work time by half and i intended the moving wall when it was here was really just a very beautiful thing thank you to everyone to help made it happen it was incredibly moving and i hope everyone had a chance to to see it when i was here and i believe that is good i'm good councilman roy

I don't have my readers. I forgot them.

I attended the June and July Board of Education meetings.

In June, they honored retiring teachers. They were recognized and applauded. And they also canceled the Rutgers mental health program due to cost, I believe. But they did, I found out in last night's meeting, they are having a new district social worker that would be replacing them to help the students to be there for the students. And also the new principal, acting principal that'll take over in September. She was there, Dr. Ellen Giannakis. And she spoke briefly. There's two vice principals, Edwin Camacho and Penny Zotomir. They didn't speak, but they were there. So they were introducing them as well. I attended the Aldi grand opening as well. which is located across from Macy's in the Outer Mall. It was very nice. And I did attend the opening ceremony of the Vietnam Veterans Moving Wall on July 2nd, and it was very moving. And it was wonderful that they honored the Vietnam veterans. It was thank you to who planned that and did all the work. It was very, very nice. So thank you.

Councilman Quinn.

thank you uh yes i attended the aldi's opening the water department and the moving wall um it was quite moving for me because quite a few of my uh classmates were on that wall so um it hits home so um moving on um The Wexlers do a great job, and I'm very honored that they received this award tonight from UNICO. They really don't ask for anything, but they do it for the kids. And it's fantastic. Today, too, is the Junior Police Academy for this week. And thank you, Chief, for all you guys do with these kids. I know... I saw the helicopter, I saw the kids, and the exercises, and it's a great program for our kids. So thank you for all you guys do. And seeing this is the last meeting for the month. August, all the fall sports are going to start up. Football and cheerleading, of course, and soccer. basketball down the road but if you want to be a coach please reach out they do need help so please help keeps the kids busy and you enjoy it yourself that's it thank you

thank you mr morrison yeah did we cancel a meeting already i mean i'm not i haven't got a notice about a cancellation for a meeting at the end of this month yeah the notice will be sent out afterwards the next meeting will be august 11th it was part of my uh okay it was part of my um how did mr quinn know about it before anybody because it's in the packet everybody else right councilman freelander excuse me um

Well, I'm just going to give a couple of quick reviews because my wife superseded all my meetings for July. Just want to thank Les again. I've been with the Substance Abuse Alliance since the conception. And it's an amazing group of people. And I'm proud of being part of that group to oversee what goes on. And just because he got money, things don't stop. There's going to be a fundraiser at Orange Theory, which is by Dick's, the 24th at 530. And whoever exercises, the money goes towards the program. So it's a nice wall, yeah. Library, we got the $230,000 grant for the library at Marcella. So one of these days you're gonna be walking by and see brand new painted building. That's the project that we got the money for. The Ford Fage House, the other grant, which is quite extensive, will be starting after the summer, because we're pretty busy in the, you know, we have meetings on Saturdays for July and Sundays for August programs. There's also, if you're interested, you go on their new, they have the website now, different programs, first Monday of every month, at the senior center. So that's the library of that. Basically it, the chief, I wanna thank you for putting up the signs. People are starting, you know, the summer and the speeding, but you put a couple of real nice signs and I got a call the next day. You know, you put them up real quick and they were very thankful. Also thanks, Al. I got here faster. because you guys did a great job on after the milling, the paving at the end of White Meadow Lake. So you're saying you're speeding? No, no. Chief, I said I got here quicker. All right. Not speed. I don't speed. I get yelled at for going too slow because I yell at everybody. I slow up when people are rushing. Yeah, that's my wife. All right. Anyway, yeah, that's it for the night.

Thank you. Councilman Solberg. Thank you, Council President. All right, a few things. Just to add to Council Friedlander's discussion about the historic preservation. Resolution 2026-544, and it was approved. Total of $4.9 million. Total of 35 projects, over 20 towns. And as Manny said, we were fortunate enough to get $226,400 for the Hibernia Library exterior restoration.

So that's great stuff.

It really is. That's all that came out of the Commissioner's Open Space Trust Fund. Interesting. First time in 33 years. While we had applicants, not one of them was able to get the paperwork done in time. So we extended the deadline. We're going to be helping them shepherd it through. And hopefully we're still on schedule for reviewing them in September. So we still have time. No one else mentioned, so I certainly will. The New Jersey MVC mobile motor vehicle, yep, is coming to Rockaway Town Hall Thursday, July 16th, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. They'll be doing things like driver's license registration, veteran handicap and Purple Heart placards, permits, non-driver IDs, license plate drop-offs. You do have to register, though. It's not just a show up. The registration link is on the township website. And finally, again, just really want to thank Al and Brian for a great trip down to the water utility facility. As already mentioned, really is absolutely spotless, state-of-the-art technology. It was really great to see everything as far as the operation goes. And again, I think the water is going to stay on tonight. So I think that's all I got.

You have something else? I just wanted to say one thing. I'll be quick.

Microphone.

Joe, that wall, the Vietnam wall, that's the one thing I made before I left the town. And I just want to say I'm getting choked up from it because that's that's my friends. That's and I got called so I don't talk about it. It's a time of my life that gets me very say I'm getting choked up. I just want to say I forgot about it. And I'm amazing. And at that ceremony, what really?

That's that's thank you.

Thanks, man. Council President. Thank you, Council President. And I know a lot of the council members mentioned there's a lot going on and going on in town. So go to the stuff, check out the Facebook page, check out the council members. If they have their social media, check it out. There's a lot going on. I was at the Tri-County Fair. That was excellent. I went on the 20th of June at Christchurch, packed everything. the aldi's grand opening um i was able to give a couple remarks on that it was beautiful ton of people that were lined up so that's gonna be a nice addition across from macy's like you mentioned um man you mentioned we had the on the 30th very well attended in white middle lake was the rabbis with the rabbis of kabad probably over 100 people there so excellent event um the moving wall. I missed the arrival, but I was there over the weekend on the 4th of July. I had some family visiting from out of town. Just great to have it there. It was a hot weekend and I know Shannon was there all weekend. The scouts were there, and that was just great to have, an honor to have in Rockaway Township. We have coming up Thursday this week, starts the White Metal Lake Festival weekend. We have the parade on Sunday, 1130, and a lot of different activities going on with that. And I also... I wanted to give a thank you to Lisa because I've been getting so many emails, the most I've ever gotten since I've been on the council from residents, which I really appreciate that they send me an email that way. It's just easier that we have it and she's on top of it. And cause there's just so many different departments here, so many different people. And yeah, you know, as the BA and the CFO, that's her, that's her responsibility, her and Joe. And, um, I go right to her and, uh, she's probably like, ah, councilman sack it again. But, uh, and, uh, no, she's a, she's honest. She gets back to me and, and I reached back to the residents. Very appreciative. Whether, whether sometimes it's not the greatest, whether it is, we have to let them know what's going on. They have questions. And, um, so I want to say thank you. Got it. That's all I got.

Okay. Um, talking about the, the wall, um, it just mayor it's, I think it's like a once in a lifetime thing. And I think it's truly like one of the defining moments of your administration to arrange, to get that here, not only here, but on the 4th of July weekend. And I think you should be commended for that. Um, As far as Les Wexler, a nicer gentleman, you will not find him in this order. Manny, I know you put in, the first thing I thought about was you. I know you put in a tremendous amount of work with them amongst other groups. Every meeting we have, you have a very robust group detail of what happened. So thank you for what you're doing. I've gotten to know Les when I was PTA president. We had meetings a lot of times at the same time at Copeland. Tanya, too. Hi, how are you? And always not only you know looking to uh talk about his agenda but willing to help with anything else so i just you know that's well deserved for him um i want to talk about the the storm that came through a couple weeks ago um driving through other towns uh roxbury um ledgewood Kenville, Dover, no power. So from 46, from Dover all the way down to Ledgewood, no power. Al, I think that the work that you do behind the scenes in preparation and talking to these utilities, and I see the emails come out, um from your discussions like with pscng and you know storm monitoring um i think people really need to understand the amount of work that you do uh in the background uh again talking to these utilities we did have some outages in different parts of the town but they came back quickly you responded quickly and certainly nothing like these other towns have seen and a lot of that has to do with the preparation that you do ahead of time which sometimes unfortunately goes unappreciated so thank you for that um the water building I got a chance to go today. Again, you think you know what the water department, the sewer department does. Every time I'm humbled by what they do. It's amazing. The new truck is, Brian and Al could not stop gushing about the new truck. It's their new toy. I told Al when he retires, we'll put his name on the truck. uh and we'll do that um as far as sports are concerned in the last 20 seconds i uh i echo with mr uh quinn says uh my kids have been out of sports now for a couple years but i still volunteer um they are always always looking for coaches you don't necessarily have to know the sport in the beginning you have to know how to coach kids um so if you're looking to get involved talk to myself talk to councilman quinn be happy to have you um Okay, and just another reminder to the council, please stay after the meeting so we can sign the paper. Anybody from administration have, go ahead.

I'm just going to do a quick report. I just want to make clear, right, the moving wall was Shannon McCarty. She did the whole thing. She planned the whole event. She coordinated everything. As it got here, she worked with Morgan Morris and his guys were amazing, you know, helping set up the wall, break it down. but she gets all the credit for that. I had a run with it a little over a year ago, and it was great for our community. There's too many people to thank, but I wanted to make sure everybody knew that. We had a Boy Scout encampment the first two nights to guard the wall. They couldn't get signups for the fourth and the fifth, so Paul Manetta and I had a Man Scout encampment. So we slept over at Peterson Field, But we did a little glamping. We had cots and stuff like that. And the second night was kind of rough with that rainstorm. It was pretty brutal. But we slept over and watched. But Shannon was there all weekend. We had a lot of people come and visit the wall. So I'm glad it worked out. I did want to wish Jack mentioned Fall Sports, Rockets cheerleading. The original Rockets cheer coach, Elaine Howe, celebrated a birthday recently. think they put i'm not going to say i think she's 50. um so happy birthday to elaine um and lisa had a quick meeting with the new mall manager there's a new manager at the mall earlier today and talked about um partnering a little bit more um some things we want to do a walking club um you know we want to get access back in there again for the concerts if it's too hot or rained out so um he seemed to be uh very conducive to want to work with us and drive business both ways. So it was a very good meeting. And then I'll have everybody's reports posted by the end of the week.

That's it. Anybody else from administration? Okay. Make a motion to adjourn by consensus. All in favor?

Aye.

Meeting adjourned.

Yes, we do. Adele will come around. It's covered in ALPR. It has only one option in there.