[0:00] All
[0:07] right, we're ready to start the meeting.
Very good evening everybody. I just want
[0:12] to uh apologize for uh the mayor. He's
out of uh state today. So, you got me.
[0:19] Um
so, let's get the meeting started.
[0:23] Accidentate notice of this meeting has
been given in accordance with the open
[0:26] public meetings act pursuant to public
laws 1975.
[0:31] Said notice was advertised in the Asbury
Park press and the beacon and was posted
[0:35] on the bulletin board showing the time
and place of the meeting.
[0:40] Please stand and salute the flag
[0:46] to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for which it
[0:51] stands. One nation under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice
[0:56] for all.
>> And please stay standing for a moment of
[1:00] silence. Uh I will make it a little
longer tonight because we've had a
[1:04] tremendous amount of tragedy in the area
on our waterways. So I want to spend a
[1:08] little extra time for those families and
people uh around
[1:22] All right.
[1:28] Uh before we get started with the uh
business, um
[1:33] while you're here,
um something new we're doing. Uh take a
[1:37] look around the room. Uh, it's Lacy Art
Community in cooperation with Lacy
[1:43] Recreation Department
Group art exhibit. It's called Exit 74.
[1:49] And you're going to start seeing these
uh pictures posted around town from
[1:52] local people and it's from eight local
artists pos participated in this event.
[2:00] The theme to speak the be that's why I
got these local environments for faults
[2:07] and inspiration around Lacy.
So, you get a chance before you leave
[2:11] tonight, just take the time to look
around because it's uh it's actually
[2:15] even sitting up here, it's definitely
brightened up the room. Thank you. All
[2:20] righty. Get down to business discussion
regarding the 2027 fee increases for
[2:25] facility rentals. All
>> right. Um as you you have received a
[2:29] report um this week to review with
regards to the rentals at the community
[2:33] center. Um what we've been doing is
analyzing the costs of the community
[2:38] center um versus the rental revenue and
the impact that some of the rentals have
[2:43] on our facilities. And there is um a
need to consider uh raising the fees.
[2:49] I'm going to turn it over to Mr.
Restitar to recap and highlight some of
[2:52] that stuff that we are looking to
increase for 2027.
[2:57] » So basically um we're just looking to
modify our rate schedule for the
[3:02] community center. uh the park pavilion
rental fees. We did some analysis from
[3:07] local establishments in the county,
other establishments in town that
[3:11] utilize uh similar rentals. We're well
under that threshold for sure. Um in
[3:17] addition to we want to keep it
reasonable for our guests. We put a lot
[3:21] of money into the community center
between maintenance repairs. We know it
[3:25] is another aging building and we want to
continue to keep it fresh. There's been
[3:29] work done to the floors um several
several times
[3:32] » to uh
>> to last the last the length.
[3:36] Additionally, the park pavilion, we've
put um a tremendous amount of money and
[3:40] effort and time into the
Hebrew Park pavilion. If anyone hasn't
[3:46] gone through Hebrew Park and seen that
yet,
[3:49] » absolutely beautiful.
>> It's absolutely beautiful. We just did a
[3:52] dedication on Sunday, not to cut anybody
off for Mr. Broccol. Um, finally, the
[3:58] third thing we're looking for is a block
party permit. We get a lot a decent
[4:02] amount throughout the summer months. Uh,
block party rentals. We don't charge
[4:05] anything for that currently. Uh, there
is fees. There's administrative costs
[4:10] involved processing applications. Uh,
very simply, if somebody's looking to
[4:14] have a block party, they submit
application. The police department gets
[4:17] it. They have to review it. Has to be
sent out. If it's granted, our public
[4:21] works staff takes the equipment, brings
it down, drops it off, collects it. So
[4:24] there's there's cost involved. It's
minimal. So we're looking to just bring
[4:28] ourselves up to a better, more
achievable letter where we can uh excuse
[4:32] me address those costs internally. We
get hit with the same rates as everybody
[4:37] else. Electric's up, gas is up, cables
up, all these facility uh charges that
[4:42] we don't put onto our printers.
>> Just did the research and presented to
[4:47] the govern body.
>> Wonderful. So, I believe um George, what
[4:51] were we looking for? Increases to So,
for uh the ballroom, which is the big
[4:57] room down at community hall, we were
looking for an increase of $200 per
[5:02] rental. And the card room, which is room
C, the smaller one, um $150 per rental.
[5:08] And this is for um private non not the
organizations and the uh you know, the
[5:15] groups that use it. for private rentals
and and fundraisers that people will do.
[5:20] Um, so we're looking again, so the
ballroom that's $200 increase, the card
[5:24] room $150 increase, Gily Park, we're
looking to propose a $100 increase. The
[5:28] same with Hebrew Park, and the block
party permits, we were looking for a
[5:32] nominal fee of $25 per block party
permit. And this will be effective um
[5:39] 2027.
And again, like I said, we charge the
[5:42] clubs and organizations that utilize it
for their meetings $20 a meeting and
[5:47] that will remain the same.
>> Same.
[5:48] » Okay. Right.
>> I I do we charge for the use of the
[5:54] kitchen and the ballroom because
>> it come it comes with comes with room.
[5:59] » Have we ever looked at separating it
because you're using electricity? You're
[6:02] using more electricity, etc.
Refrigeration, gas,
[6:05] » separating
>> the use of the kitchen. In other words,
[6:08] I want to rent the ballroom, but I don't
want to rent the kitchen.
[6:11] » Well, that never really happens. They
use the kitchen anyway. So, understand
[6:14] that, but I'm just saying refrigerator
in there. They're using the kitchen.
[6:17] There's no way to separate things of the
package when they
[6:22] » Okay.
And one of one of the uh examples of
[6:26] these costs going up, which we know
they're they're hitting everybody,
[6:31] but basically the community center in in
2021 the electric bill was $3,67.
[6:40] So far, it's estimated in 26 we will be
at $11,460.
[6:47] That's a $217
uh% increase in five years. So,
[6:52] » like everything, we're seeing it going
up. So, I mean, it's
[6:56] » I'm on board.
>> Um,
[6:59] » do we need a motion?
>> Chime in, Deputy Mayor.
[7:03] » Yes.
>> Um, a lot of these, you know, we don't
[7:06] take this stuff lightly, but a lot of
these are uh rentals of choice. And if
[7:11] you want to have a a spot in the South
Dots and you have a boat that there's a
[7:15] cost. I mean, if you want to have a spot
>> at one of our venues, there's upkeep,
[7:22] costs, uh, everything involved.
Maintenance, repair. So,
[7:29] we do what we can to I mean, our our
summer camp is about $4 a day. Comes out
[7:34] to about $4 a day. So, we're losing on
that. I mean, we do everything we can
[7:39] for the residents, especially for the
parents and the seniors and really
[7:43] everyone in between. As deputy mayor
said, I mean, we're talking about 200%
[7:47] increase. I don't want to pass that on
to everybody. I do think it's fair to
[7:52] give it to the person who's renting the
venue rather than tax every citizen a
[7:56] few bucks.
>> Thanks, Deputy Mayor.
[7:58] » Welcome. Anybody else?
>> I just I'd like to make a motion for us
[8:02] to
>> prepare an audience for this to be go
[8:06] forward because I do believe we need to
increase the prices.
[8:10] » Anybody else?
>> I'm good with it.
[8:13] » All right. Is that a second?
>> Is that a second? Tim.
[8:17] » All in favor?
>> I
[8:21] » All righty. Next. The request to post
signs on township property for the Fork
[8:26] River Fire Company's Ride Through the
Pines fundraiser.
[8:30] » The Fork River Fire Company is seeking
permission to post a 4x6 um sign at the
[8:35] community development property, which is
124 South Main Street. And this is to
[8:39] promote the annual motorcycle ride
through the Pines fundraising event. Uh,
[8:43] the event is September 27th at 10 a.m.
and the rain day is October 11th also.
[8:47] That would be at 10:00 a.m.
>> Move it.
[8:51] » All in favor?
>> Irighty.
[8:55] Requested for the use of Jones Roadfield
for a private event hosted by Ocean
[9:00] Residential Community Homes Youth
Justice Commission.
[9:04] » So, the Youth Justice Commission is
asking for permission to use the Jones
[9:08] Road Field from October 7th to October
9th. Um they're looking to host a
[9:11] private event for their residents and
families um for a resident funfest. The
[9:15] event itself would be on October 8th. Um
but the tent setup and breakdown would
[9:19] be the day prior and the day after. So
they're asking for 3-day use of the um
[9:25] » Anybody got any comments or
>> Well, I I have I have a question before
[9:28] we go any further. We've we've Have we
ever done this before?
[9:31] » They've never they've never asked the
the justice uh commission.
[9:35] » This is their first time doing this
event.
[9:36] » Okay. this. So, they're just trying to,
you know, encourage the families to get
[9:40] together um with the the residents at
that facility, you know, and encourage a
[9:45] family day. It's not a community public
event.
[9:48] » That's what I wanted to know. It's not
community.
[9:51] » It's right in their backyard, so to
speak. Um because some of these, you
[9:54] know, they don't want to take them off
site, you know, um so they thought it
[9:58] was better to do that.
>> All right. Is this in conjunction with
[10:01] the facility that's behind it?
>> Yeah. Where where Ocean Fields is. Yes.
[10:07] » Okay. Motion to approve or deny.
>> Move it. Move. Second.
[10:10] » To approve.
>> To approve.
[10:11] » Approve.
>> All in favor?
[10:13] » I.
>> All right.
[10:17] Special use permit for the VFW
historical event on September 13th,
[10:22] 2026.
>> The VFW is hosting a historical event
[10:25] for General John Lacy. It would be on
September 13th from 9:00 a.m. to 400
[10:30] p.m. The event is rain or shine, and the
event will include uh vendors, a food
[10:34] truck, music, pony rides, a children's
musket drill, his story um history
[10:38] lectures and films, and um a couple
other historical I think there's a a
[10:42] musket drill um for children, and
another uh event for children to
[10:47] particip.
Yes,
[10:51] » they have the county um involved in it.
the county Tim Hart in the county
[10:55] historical society. They have a Liz
McGrath. They've been talking to the
[10:58] Lacy Historical Society. They have some
reenactments going on, glass blowing,
[11:02] all of those types of things. There is a
fee for adults and children to get in,
[11:06] but it's very family oriented and it
look they have a gentleman coming in I
[11:10] think from Pennsylvania to be General
John Lacy uh to do some reactive work.
[11:15] » Okay.
>> Second.
[11:17] » All in favor?
>> I
[11:20] further business. Motion to
>> Okay. Motion journ caucus meeting.
[11:24] » Move into the regular meeting.
>> All in favor?
[11:27] » I.
>> Okay. Township of Lacy Township meeting
[11:31] August 13, 2026. Adequate notice of this
meeting has been given in accordance
[11:36] with the open public meetings act
pursuant to public laws of 1975.
[11:42] Said notice was advertised in the
Espbury Park Press and the Beacons and
[11:45] was posted on the bulletin board showing
the time and place of the meeting.
[11:51] Okay, we got first reading of ordinance
2026-14
[11:55] amending chapter 165 entitled docks.
>> Ordinance of the township of Lacy County
[12:01] of Ocean State of New Jersey amending
and supplementing chapter 165 of the
[12:05] township code of the township of Lacy
entitled docks. This um ordinance is to
[12:09] amend some of the language so that the
code book matches the um lease agreement
[12:13] and the application that um we give to
residents.
[12:16] » Move it.
>> Second.
[12:18] » Second,
>> Mrs. Juliano. Yes,
[12:20] » Mr. Keratollo.
>> Yes,
[12:21] » Mr. McDonald.
>> Yes.
[12:23] » Uh, Mr. Laay.
>> Yes. And I'm glad to see this uh
[12:28] ordinance tightened up. First reading
ordinance 2615 amending chapter 335
[12:34] entitled zoning.
>> Ordinance of the township of Lacy County
[12:37] of Ocean State of New Jersey amending
and supplementing chapter 335 of the
[12:41] township code of the township of Lacy
>> entitled zoning so as to revise the
[12:46] regulations pertaining to fences. Um
this is to um revise the regulations
[12:51] pertaining to fences. Specifically to
clarify that fences don't include trees,
[12:55] plantings or other ve vegetative
materials um by deleting the term
[12:59] screens or planted in various sections
of the existing ordinance.
[13:02] » Move it.
>> Mrs. Juliano,
[13:05] » yes.
>> Mr. McDonald,
[13:06] » yes.
>> Mr. Herito,
[13:08] » yes.
>> Mr. La,
[13:10] » yes.
[13:14] Okay.
Second reading ordinance 2026-13
[13:19] setting salaries for non-bargaining
employees.
[13:24] » Ordinance of the Township of Lacy County
of Ocean State of New Jersey amending an
[13:27] ordinance entitled an ordinance of the
township of Lacy County of Ocean State
[13:30] of New Jersey affixing and determining
the salaries, wages and compensation of
[13:34] the officers, employees and members of
the governing body of the township. This
[13:38] is for um the non-bargaining employees
and this is second reading. So open the
[13:41] floor to public comment.
Seeing none.
[13:44] » Seeing none motion to close the floor.
>> Second.
[13:48] » Second.
>> Okay. All in favor? I
[13:50] » motion on the ordinance.
>> Move it.
[13:52] » Second.
>> Mr. Kerato.
[13:54] » Yes.
>> Mr. McDonald.
[13:55] » Yes.
>> Mrs. Juliano.
[13:56] » Yes.
>> Mr. Lret.
[13:57] » Yes. Resolution
2026-250
[14:01] urging for state legislation
requiring the state to reimburse
[14:05] municipalities
for the 100 dis 100% disabled veterans
[14:11] property tax exemption
>> resolution of the township of Lacy
[14:15] County of Ocean State of New Jersey
urging the New Jersey legislature and
[14:19] governor to enact legislation requiring
the state of New Jersey to fully
[14:23] reimburse municipalities for the cost of
the 100% disabled veterans property tax
[14:27] exemption.
Move it.
[14:30] » Second.
>> Second.
[14:32] » Mr. Kerata.
>> Yes.
[14:34] » Mrs. Juliano.
>> Yes.
[14:35] » Mr. McDonald.
>> Yes.
[14:36] » Let me just say something. This is This
is something I don't think people
[14:40] realize. We're not against veterans in
any way, shape, or form.
[14:44] » What we are against is that the state is
demanding that we do this. And I believe
[14:50] last year this cost us $1.5 million.
Okay. We're not against veterans in any
[14:58] way, shape, or form, particularly those
that are disabled. The state wants to
[15:02] mandate this. Reimburse us that. That's
the only fair way.
[15:07] » Yes. If I could, Mayor, and I'm glad Mr.
McDonald spoke up. There's Listen, Mr.
[15:12] McDonald's, we all have military people
or veterans in our family, most of us.
[15:18] » This is another unfunded mandate. And
this meeting alone, unless I'm mistaken,
[15:22] and administrator Lar will uh correct
me, I think there was $68,000 worth of
[15:30] veteran exemptions, 100% disabled just
in this meeting alone. This this a
[15:34] regular pedestrian meeting in um and
they're all important meetings, but this
[15:38] is just one meeting out of this whole
year. So, and look, we love our
[15:43] veterans. If the state makes us do this,
they can't keep handing down unfunded
[15:48] mandates and then tell us how to do
everything, how to run everything, what
[15:51] we're allowed to do with our land, what
we have to close during CO. Come and
[15:55] give us the money. You want us to do it,
come and give us the money so we can
[15:58] support these veterans. That's all.
Thank you.
[16:00] » You're welcome. Anybody else?
>> Yeah. So, basically, so everybody's real
[16:05] clear. It's nice and simple. We're just
asking the state to reimburse the money
[16:10] for the people that we support. We
support the programs, but in simple
[16:14] terms, it's just we would like the money
back so that it doesn't fall in the laps
[16:19] of everybody else in our community.
>> The reimbursement for the $250 senior
[16:24] tax deduction that seniors can get and
the $250 veterans deductions that they
[16:29] get, the state does reimburse us for
that. Of course, they take the smallest
[16:33] one out of the pot,
>> right?
[16:35] » And I got and I probably should vote
yes.
[16:39] » Thank you.
>> You should.
[16:42] All righty. Resolution 2026
251 supporting the designation of the
[16:48] Malikica River and his tributaries as
components of the National Wild and
[16:53] Scenic River System.
>> Resolution of the Township of Lacy
[16:56] County of Ocean State of New Jersey
supporting the designation of the Mica
[17:00] River and its tributaries as components
of the National Wild and Scenic River
[17:04] Systems.
>> Move it. Second,
[17:06] » Mrs. Juliano. Yes.
>> Mr. McDonald. Yes.
[17:08] » Mr. Cerutoo.
>> Yes.
[17:09] » Mr. La.
>> Yes. And this is just another thing that
[17:13] uh helps uh keep our wildlife and and
rivers uh protected.
[17:19] » Resolution 26 2026 252 approving the
fourth round rehabilitation program
[17:26] manual.
>> Resolution of the township of Lacy
[17:29] County of Ocean State of New Jersey
approving the fourth round
[17:31] rehabilitation program manual.
>> Move.
[17:34] » Second.
>> Mr. McDonald.
[17:36] » Yes.
>> Mrs. Juliano.
[17:37] » Yes.
>> Mr. Cerutoo.
[17:39] » Yes. Mr. La.
>> Yes.
[17:43] Resolution 2026 253 authorizing the
filing of an application with the Ocean
[17:49] County Community Block Grant Committee.
Move
[17:53] » resolution of the township of Lacy
County of Ocean State of New Jersey
[17:57] authorizing the filing of an application
with the Ocean County Community Block
[18:00] Grant Committee for various projects
related to handicap accessibility
[18:04] improvements.
>> Move. Second.
[18:06] » Mr. McDonald.
>> Yes.
[18:07] » Mr. Curuto.
>> Yes.
[18:08] » Mrs. Miss Juliano.
>> Yes.
[18:09] » Mr. Laay.
>> Yes. Resolution 2026 253 authorized
[18:15] Oops, that's the same one. Resolution
2026 254 authorizing the execution of
[18:21] amendment with CJ Hess Inc. for the
Hayne Street Improvement Project.
[18:26] » Resolution of the Township of Lacy
County of Ocean State of New Jersey
[18:29] authorizing the execution of an
amendment to the contract with CJ Hus
[18:33] for the Hane Street Road Improvement
Project.
[18:35] » Move it.
>> Second.
[18:37] » Mr. McDonald. Yes,
>> Mr. Kerutoo.
[18:39] » Yes,
>> Mrs. Juliano.
[18:40] » Yes,
>> Mr. Laay.
[18:42] » Yes.
>> Resolution 2026 255 appointing a
[18:47] full-time account clerk in the finance
department.
[18:50] » Resolution of the township of Lacy
County of Ocean State of New Jersey
[18:53] appointing Thailand Demato to the
position of full-time account clerk in
[18:56] the finance office for the township of
Lacy.
[18:59] » Move it.
>> Second.
[19:00] » Mrs. Juliano.
>> Yes.
[19:01] » Mr. Certo.
>> Yes.
[19:02] » Mr. McDonald.
>> Yes.
[19:04] » Mr. Laay.
>> Yes. Resolution 2026 256 authorizing the
[19:09] employment of a seasonal employee of the
department of public works.
[19:13] » Resolution of the township of Lacy
County of Ocean State of New Jersey
[19:16] authorizing the employment of a seasonal
employee for the Department of Public
[19:19] Works.
>> Second,
[19:21] » Mr. McDonald.
>> Yes.
[19:23] » Mr. Certolo.
>> Yes.
[19:25] » Mrs. Juliano.
>> Yes.
[19:26] » Mr. La.
>> Yes. Resolution
[19:29] 2026 257 authorizing the assignment of a
tax sale certificate.
[19:35] » Resolution of the township of Lacy
County of Ocean State of New Jersey
[19:38] authorizing the assignment of tax sale
certificate
[19:42] um 2011-0478.
[19:45] » Move it.
>> Second.
[19:47] » Mrs. Juliano,
>> yes.
[19:49] » Mr. McDonald,
>> yes.
[19:50] » Mr. Curuto,
>> yes.
[19:52] » Mr. Laay,
>> yes. Resolution 2026 258 authorizing the
[19:57] tax collector to cancel taxes due to dis
disabled veterans tax exemption.
[20:03] » Resolution of the township of Lacy
County of Ocean, State of New Jersey,
[20:06] authorizing the tax collector to cancel
2026 taxes due on a prop on properties
[20:11] granted the 100% disabled veteran
exemption and refund the resulting
[20:14] credit balance.
>> Move it.
[20:16] » Move it. Second,
>> Mrs. Juliano.
[20:18] » Yes.
>> Mr. McDonald.
[20:20] » Yes.
>> Mr. Cutollo.
[20:21] » Yes.
>> Mr. La.
[20:22] » Yes. Resolution
[20:27] 2026 259 authorizing the placement of a
lean on block 1272 lot 30.
[20:34] » Resolution of the township of Lacy
County of Ocean State of New Jersey
[20:37] accepting the certification of the
director of public works concerning
[20:40] costs incurred in the removal of debris
and the cleaning up of the property
[20:43] located at block 1272 lot 30 and
authorizing the placement of a lean
[20:48] against said property for said costs.
>> Move to second. Mr. Keratollo,
[20:53] » yes.
>> Mr. McDonald,
[20:54] » yes.
>> Mrs. Juliano,
[20:56] » yes.
>> Mr. Laorray,
[20:57] » yes.
>> Resolution 2026 260 authorizing a
[21:02] release of a performance bond.
>> Resolution of the township of Lacy
[21:06] County of Ocean State of New Jersey
authorizing the release of a performance
[21:09] bond for White Oaks at Lacy Grocery
Portion Project.
[21:13] » Move it.
>> Second,
[21:15] » Mr. McDonald.
>> Yes.
[21:16] » Mr. Certo,
>> yes.
[21:18] » Mrs. Juliano,
>> yes.
[21:19] » Mr. Laray,
>> yes. Resolution 2026261
[21:24] authorizing a refund of deposit monies.
>> Resolution of the township of Lacy
[21:28] County of Ocean State of New Jersey
authorizing the refund of deposits held
[21:31] for the use of municipal facilities.
>> Move it.
[21:35] » Second.
>> Mrs. Gulino.
[21:37] » Yes.
>> Mr. Futoo.
[21:38] » Yes.
>> Mr. McDonald.
[21:40] » Yes.
>> Mr. Laay.
[21:41] » Yes. Resolution 2026 262 authorizing the
payment of township bills. Resolution of
[21:49] the township of Lacy County of Ocean
State of New Jersey authorizing the
[21:52] payment of township bills. Move.
>> Second.
[21:56] » Mr. McDonald.
>> Yes.
[21:57] » Mrs. Juliano.
>> Yes.
[21:58] » Mr. Kerto.
>> Yes.
[21:59] » Mr. Laay.
>> Yes. Next is monthly reports.
[22:04] » Sorry.
>> Okay. For the month of July, the
[22:07] municipal clerk's office collected
receipts in the amount of $10,397.50.
[22:12] Uh road opening permits for the month of
July were collected in the amount of
[22:15] $4,320.
Recycling commodity was collected in the
[22:18] amount of $1,317.50.
Truck parking was collected in the
[22:22] amount of $100. And boat slips were
connect collected in the amount of $390.
[22:30] The municipal court for the month of
June collected receipts in the amount of
[22:34] $17,4242
[22:38] and the department of community
development for the month of July
[22:40] collected receipts in the amount of
$71,19.
[22:43] Motion to accept the reports is read.
Second. All in
[22:46] » favor? I
>> I.
[22:49] » Motion to approve the caucus meet
meeting minutes of July 9th, 2026.
[22:55] » Second.
>> All in favor?
[22:58] » I.
>> Motion to approve the township meeting
[23:00] minutes of July 9th, 2026.
>> Move it.
[23:04] » Second.
>> All in favor?
[23:06] » I.
>> Motion to approve executive session
[23:09] meeting of July 9th, 2026.
>> Move it.
[23:13] » Second.
>> All in favor? I
[23:17] » motion to approve the caucus minute
meetings of July 30th, 2026.
[23:22] » Move it.
>> Second.
[23:24] » All in favor?
>> I
[23:26] » motion to approve the executive session
meetings minutes of July 30th, 2026.
[23:31] » Move it. Second.
>> All in favor?
[23:34] » I.
>> Okay. Motion to approve membership in
[23:36] the Fork River Volunteer Fire Company
for Drew Douglas Robertson.
[23:41] » Move it.
>> Second.
[23:43] » All in favor? I
>> and congratulations and thank you to
[23:47] Drew.
>> All righty. Any addons?
[23:52] » No add-ons.
>> Could I ask one question?
[23:54] » Sure.
>> The board up here direct um
[23:58] » people's attention to resolution
2026-254.
[24:04] I'm looking at the third whereas where
it says uh this will result in a
[24:08] decrease of the original contract price
by 30,36188.
[24:14] Then you move down towards the bottom of
the page and it says it'll provide an
[24:19] increase to the original contract price
of the same number. So was that a typo?
[24:24] » Typo.
>> It's a typo.
[24:26] » It's supposed to be an increase if I'm
not mistaken because it was for
[24:28] additional drainage work. Am I right,
Amy?
[24:30] » Correct.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[24:31] » Okay. So it's for probably the the
template that we pulled up, the last one
[24:35] was probably a decrease and it probably
forgot, but yes, it is an increase due
[24:39] to the additional drainage work that
needed to be done on Main Street with
[24:43] the crossing of the one pipe
>> and I apologize for not bringing that up
[24:47] earlier like days ago, but thank you for
the clarification.
[24:52] » I just noticed it now.
>> All right, there is no add-ons. Okay, we
[24:57] got comments from the public and from
the committee.
[25:01] » Excuse me. Yes,
>> I need to change my vote on the campaign
[25:05] of the township. I have to abstain on
T0035
[25:11] to follow.
[25:16] » All right. Comments from the elected
officials and members of the audience
[25:20] are invited at this time.
[25:27] » Please uh just state your name and
address.
[25:30] » Sure. My name is Joe Lamb. I live in
Brick. I've got a granddaughter that
[25:35] lives here in town on Alpine. I've got a
sister that lives in town and um her son
[25:42] got the Army Commenation Medal for
fighting in Afghanistan. He went to the
[25:46] school system here. I'm a vet Marine
veteran myself. But anyway, what I'm
[25:51] want to talk about is that, you know,
you're proposing at this YMCA center for
[25:57] the 41.5 million dollars and the people
in this town have been hit with with
[26:02] plenty of taxes over the last couple
years. Just over the last three years,
[26:06] the municipal taxes have been 16% and
you use $6 million of the surplus in
[26:12] order to get it down there. For every
million dollars of surplus that you
[26:17] used, if you hadn't used it, it would
have raised it by another 3%. You only
[26:22] have 6.7 million left for next year. And
the thing about is everything running
[26:28] equal, that 7.7 is going to be gone.
whether you divide up the six million
[26:34] over next year and reduce it with three
million or and three million thereafter.
[26:41] After that, you're going to be raising
the municipal tax rate 20%. Uh the
[26:47] county taxes the county over the last
five years have raised our county taxes
[26:52] 49.3%
practically 10% a year. And and it and
[26:57] the thing about it is that they say that
they kept the tax rate stable. They put
[27:02] it in the Asbury Park Press. That's how
they write it up. But as you know,
[27:05] they're dealing with 33 towns in this
county. And to keep things fair, they
[27:10] use the present value of the properties,
not when you assessed it. All of the 33
[27:16] towns used that assessment that was
done. And so you can't claim that when
[27:21] you have your taxes. They used the $40
million to reduce it and they only have
[27:27] 40 million left. If they use use that
next year, all of it or again how they
[27:34] divide it up, it could be because
they're already hitting us with 9.3%
[27:38] this year. If they didn't reduce that 40
million surplus, it would have been in
[27:44] the neighborhood of 17% increase. And so
looking at next year, if they keep
[27:50] everything the same, it's going to be a
12% increase. And after that, then we're
[27:55] going to be running into another 20%
county tax rate increase. So we should
[28:02] have ne you should have never thought
about having this u project going
[28:07] through. If the YMCA thinks that it's
viable, then they should take it on.
[28:12] That's what they do. Not the town. the
town shouldn't be involved with that at
[28:16] all. You're boosting people's taxes on
top of everything they're being hit
[28:21] with. And from what I understand from
talking to my relatives, they said the
[28:25] school taxes raised 27% over the last 3
years. They're choking on taxes and they
[28:32] need help and this should never have
gone through. So, I really hope you
[28:37] take, you know, uh, you know, I I told
my relatives I was going to do this
[28:42] hopefully as a public message that
people vote it down because like I said,
[28:47] it's just too much on all of them. And,
you know, getting back to it, you know,
[28:51] and I understand what you're talking
about with veterans. My father landed at
[28:55] D-Day. I I've they've been in my as a
Marine veteran of Vietnam, I did two
[29:00] tours, 68 and 69. They've been in my
heart eight times. I'm dealing with all
[29:05] kinds of stuff, but you know, this is
you got to look at what the people are
[29:10] dealing with in this town and and really
this county. So, I just hope you keep
[29:15] that in mind. I really appreciate your
time today.
[29:17] » Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
[29:18] » Thank you for your time, SIR.
[29:25] » YES. Thank you for your comments, uh,
Steve.
[29:44] Steve Borl, Forker River, New Jersey.
I represent the taxpayers that are 100%
[29:53] opposed to the YMCA.
Keeping in mind, our township is $32
[29:58] million in debt currently and growing.
As Mr. Kenneth always tells me, taxes
[30:05] are always going to go up. So, get be be
like, "That's the way it is." But it's
[30:10] not.
What I want to know, I've researched
[30:15] this YMCA thing for over a month now.
I've yet to find any nonprofit
[30:22] of the YMCA or any other one that got
free land, a free building
[30:30] paid by township taxes, and we got to
pay a membership fee, too. They're not a
[30:37] nonprofit. They're a self profit. They
have administrators and a CEO all
[30:45] enjoying sixdigit salaries. I wish I
knew that when we did have a few of them
[30:50] here so I could have cornered them at
this meeting when they came up to talk.
[30:55] A nonprofit is something that's done for
free. Just like they say with their
[31:02] literature, which is untrue, that the
money gets recirculated back to that
[31:07] facility.
Maybe some of it does, but a lot of it
[31:11] goes to pay for the benefits. Benefits
that none of us that I've ever in my
[31:18] career, and I spent a lot of time
looking at a lot of different things, no
[31:23] one in my career ever got a free 12% of
their base salary put into their
[31:29] retirement account.
They are selfserving the organization.
[31:36] And you know what? I want to offer my
services to renegotiate that YMCA
[31:44] contract because you all you all got
your underwear pulled over your head and
[31:53] agreed to things that no one on earth
would agree to. There is no way that any
[32:01] any organization
should get a free building, free land,
[32:07] and enjoy all the perks. And we also got
to administrate it. We also got to fix
[32:13] it. And it is very untruthful
the way you guys worded that that
[32:20] non-binding referendum.
As I suggested last meeting, the $45
[32:26] million is the initial
initial payment.
[32:32] There is much more money beyond that
initial payment. The mortgage, the
[32:37] upkeep. I don't know how many of you all
got a swimming pool, but I got a
[32:42] swimming pool and it costs a lot of
money to keep that thing running every
[32:45] year.
You guys are trying to fool us and it's
[32:50] a disrespect to our intelligence.
I'm also here to complain about the
[32:57] $164,000
that the township Oh, don't worry. It
[33:03] came from the opioid front cont uh fund.
Oh, it came from the land use fund. I
[33:09] don't care where it came from. That
money is still our tax money and you
[33:14] diverted it. I don't know, legally
diverted it from people that might have
[33:20] needed that money that are fighting an
opioid crisis. I don't know enough about
[33:25] the land use what that is, but I'm going
to find out.
[33:31] And I also asked that this $164,000
we paid that company $92,000
[33:40] to draw pictures to make posters that
technically if not illegal, they're
[33:48] unethical because you put the township
slogan
[33:54] on them things. They should not be put
on them posters until after
[34:00] it gets approved. Not before. You're
using our tax money against us again
[34:06] with those posters.
>> That's right.
[34:10] » And I still want to know
each one of those companies should have
[34:15] had someone front and center explaining
all them thousands of dollars that were
[34:20] spent. And it's all tax money. Whether
you got it from the opioid account, the
[34:26] land use account, the outer space
account, doesn't matter. It is still tax
[34:32] money.
And again, I'll offer my services
[34:37] to renegotiate
the YMC contract because you all don't
[34:44] know what you're doing.
[34:53] How y'all doing? Uh Brett Murphy, Fork
River. Two questions before I get
[34:58] started. Do you guys choose where you
sit?
[35:02] » Do Do we choose?
>> Just It happened to be funny because
[35:04] you're all based on height.
>> It's assigned in January. So,
[35:09] » yeah, that's why usually I'm down that
end because I got the seat pumped up.
[35:12] » Fair enough. Uh something I ask most of
my clients just one out of five, how
[35:17] you're feeling today. just kind of have
an understanding of who I'm talking to
[35:19] and how you're feeling. So, how you
feeling today? Five being the best, one
[35:22] being the worst.
>> Okay.
[35:24] » One out of five.
>> You said one to five.
[35:26] » Sorry.
>> Can you speak, please?
[35:28] » Four. Sorry.
>> How you feeling?
[35:32] » Fortunate to be alive with air in my
lungs. Standing upright. Great.
[35:37] » Mr. Connors,
>> what was it?
[35:42] » How you feeling?
>> Not playing games.
[35:45] » What's the point of this? Just a
question.
[35:49] » Just want to know.
>> My turn.
[35:51] » Yeah.
>> Five.
[35:52] » Cool. Because I'll tell you what, I'm
happy to be here talking to you guys. I
[35:57] appreciate your comments, their comments
all the time.
[36:01] » It's an honor to be sitting here. Not
all going to agree, but
[36:04] » yeah.
>> And I'm still breathing yourself
[36:08] » five all the time.
>> Okay. Uh, so what I want to know is do
[36:13] you think data centers are good for this
town? Well, I think what a good first
[36:18] » data centers.
>> Oh, I can I can tell you right that I
[36:22] mean
>> I don't like the premise of them at all.
[36:25] » Okay.
>> Oh, with that said, can
[36:27] » I I will say something.
>> Mhm.
[36:29] » Data centers is something that and I
don't know if you have been at some
[36:33] previous meetings or watched them.
>> Yeah.
[36:36] » This has blown up because of social
media like most stuff does. One, data
[36:41] centers are not an approved use in this
town. Number one. Number two, the mayor
[36:48] at a courtesy let the public know that
he was invited to a meeting of mayors
[36:55] who have property in the Pelands.
>> Mhm.
[36:58] » On a Zoom meeting regarding
data centers. He was only took time of
[37:04] his day was only one of three mayors out
of this whole state that went and that's
[37:09] all he was letting the public know. Um,
and it's basically a resolution
[37:15] uh being uh proposed of restricting no
data centers in the Pineelands. It's as
[37:22] simple as that. There's no talk of data
centers at this end. Uh
[37:28] that that's all it was. And
you know, he was he's trying to be
[37:34] upfront about them. And even though you
know the power plant keeps coming up,
[37:39] the power plant is nowhere's near being
redeveloped. We're talking 6 to 8 years
[37:43] away.
>> And even if something was to go there,
[37:48] remember data centers are not an
approved
[37:52] use in this town. Myself,
I don't like the premise of them at all,
[37:57] but I'm just speaking for myself.
restio.
[38:01] » Okay, first of all, let me just say the
Ptech came out and said that the small
[38:05] modular reactors won't be ready until 20
36. So that's 10 years away. Nothing is
[38:11] going in there until the small nuclear
reactors are put in place.
[38:16] » Okay.
>> Okay. So that's 10 years away. Who knows
[38:19] what the technology is going to be?
However, what I have said from day one,
[38:24] they need to be self-contained. status.
They have it's like a freon type liquid
[38:29] that they use now in the newer ones to
cool it so they're not drawing water.
[38:34] And the other one is they need to build
their own power supply. If they get
[38:37] enough power and they need to sell it
back to the grid, so be it. I would vote
[38:42] for something like that. But if they're
going to draw water or they're going to
[38:46] use our electricity, no.
>> I'm in an agreement with Mr. McDonald.
[38:52] But I I will tell you this,
and I I don't think they're ever going
[38:57] to happen here, and I don't think
there's the political support for it
[39:01] ever to happen here. And the deputy
mayor said it's not an approved use. But
[39:06] I will tell you this, a lot of people
are here today because of the cost and
[39:09] taxes. We got guys in the back that are
are public servants and and so on and so
[39:14] forth. There's a lot of needs. We got
part of our town with roads that are
[39:17] underwater every time it drizzles. A lot
of needs. So, I'll tell you this.
[39:22] If there were a data center in somewhere
in the south part of town across Route 9
[39:29] near or around the uh industrial park,
you wouldn't see it, know it was there,
[39:36] you wouldn't smell it, and you wouldn't
hear it, and it wouldn't bother a single
[39:40] single family home in this town. But
what it would do is that anyone up here
[39:46] would drill down on a community host
benefit agreement. And in Pennsylvania,
[39:50] in one town, what that looked like was
3,400 a kid for schools. And we have
[39:56] schools with serious problems. So when
guys like you, no offense, come up and
[40:01] you don't like one ounce of what we do
when we develop. No one wanted and
[40:06] initially a Walmart. No one wanted
everyone had to go to Tom River to buy a
[40:11] nail or a hammer. There was no there was
no Home Depot.
[40:14] » There's no hardware store. years years
ago. Well, generally speaking, now
[40:18] there's the amount of services we have
here are are just far and above. And
[40:24] when you look at our Route 9 corridor, I
always say this, it looks better than
[40:28] our neighbors. No offense against our
neighbors to the north and to the south,
[40:31] ours looks great. It's planned well. Is
it perfect? No, it's not perfect. But
[40:36] between Mr. McDonald, Mr. Canis uh
deputy mayor um Laray
[40:42] there's a little over 150 years of land
use and then we have a former
[40:47] commissioner with another 40 years who
serves on our land use board. So yeah,
[40:52] sometimes, you know, when people come up
here and they say no, no, never, never,
[40:55] never. I say have I'm not saying I'm
going to be for data centers, but I'm
[41:00] saying we listen, we're Americans. We're
the greatest people on earth. The
[41:04] greatest gift to this planet is being an
American citizen. We put somebody on the
[41:08] moon 58 years ago, right? So there's no
way we can't do something like that. If
[41:15] it if our backs were against the wall,
we could do it. Am I going to vote for
[41:18] it? No. Isn't it an approved use? No.
But I want to keep money in your pocket.
[41:23] Everybody's going to come up here
tonight and talk about the YMCA. I want
[41:26] to take care of the cops and the firemen
in the back. And you have to bend a
[41:31] little bit sometimes to get money back
in the coffers. Okay. The technolog is
[41:38] there. We're second to none. People talk
they want about China, Germany,
[41:41] Switzerland. Money in my money in my
pockets on our It's American
[41:46] exceptionalism. I know we know how to do
it because we're the greatest there is.
[41:50] No one even comes close. So, I'm getting
a little off on a tangent. It's not
[41:54] going to happen. But if it was in that
if it was down there in south part of
[41:58] town on the other side of Route 9, you
drive up and down Route 9, you'd never
[42:01] even know it was there. Thank you,
Mayor.
[42:05] » We honestly, this conversation had never
come up. It was simply what our mayor
[42:09] had gone to a meeting and was just
advising. We had no conversations
[42:14] on my life about the data center. So it
wasn't a conversation that we've even
[42:19] had to talk about because it's not
anything that was on our agenda to put
[42:25] through. So at no point are we looking
for a data center.
[42:29] » But have you discussed it since?
>> No. No one approached us. I didn't mean
[42:32] to co-op the floor for my
>> No. No. You're fine. No one no one has
[42:36] there's been no conversation about this
because it's not on our agenda. We
[42:40] haven't looked into it. We haven't
decided this is something we should have
[42:43] down the line. It's not been on our
agenda. So Can we commit to a ban on it?
[42:49] » And I mean,
>> there's things we're looking at as we
[42:53] move on. This is so far off. Yes. If we
all decide on a band and everything
[42:58] because even when this came up the first
night that that uh the mayor brought it
[43:01] up, I personally myself said I don't
like the idea of it.
[43:06] » I mean, my you know, people get tired of
hearing it, but my family's been here
[43:10] since 1938. to your point. So the issue
is if we're not ahead of it, it gets to
[43:15] us before we can stop it.
>> You're you're exactly right,
[43:18] » but we're so far ahead of it, it's not
even a discussion.
[43:22] » Okay. We got a lot of lot of other
things.
[43:26] » The public is starting to make it a
discussion. My but I want to tell my
[43:30] feelings are I don't ever want to see
one here. Okay.
[43:33] » Okay. Because I live in this community
because it's not industrial. So, so to
[43:38] have to give you an interesting fact
though, just so sorry to interrupt you,
[43:42] sir,
>> but even if we banned it, I'm just going
[43:45] to let you know like everything else in
this lovely state of New Jersey,
[43:49] » they can still come in and
>> push it for us.
[43:52] » That can be said about anything. And
actually, committing to a ban would tell
[43:55] us that you're with us on it,
>> right?
[43:57] » Well, but but we weren't on we weren't
with we weren't against you before it.
[44:01] It's already banned
out in the Pineelands.
[44:04] » Yes, we're not talking about Pineland.
It's banned here too, right now,
[44:09] » unless we change something. If we were
all of a sudden to go, but we're not
[44:12] going to. It's not an allowed use now.
Nowhere's in town. So, you don't have to
[44:17] put anything in the code book to say
what's in the code book when you read
[44:21] the zoning descriptions as to what's
allowed are the allowed uses. Nowhere's
[44:25] in the code book does it say data
centers are an allowed use
[44:29] » unless you decide to change it.
>> Well, this is
[44:31] » right. And then you would have a voice
during the time that that ordinance is
[44:34] introduced at sec I mean uh second
reading adoption to and planning board
[44:39] also has to weigh in on a change on
zoning
[44:42] » before we can have a final adoption.
>> Let me just say this I would be against
[44:46] any prohibitions of of that
redevelopment property down there the
[44:50] power any right now. That's the main
going to be the main driving force of
[44:55] the economy in Lacy Township going going
going forward because of the the four
[45:01] small modular reactors going in. That's
about a thousand employees, a lot of
[45:05] money coming in. So you want us to touch
something and prohibit something that we
[45:11] don't even know what the technology is
going to be like in 10 years that could
[45:14] actually hurt Lacy Township. No, let it
be as it is. Let you just shook your
[45:20] head. Why do you say that? Because what
you're the the rate at which they're
[45:24] being built is outpacing anybody's
ability.
[45:27] » Do you know how many do you know how
many data centers in the state of New
[45:29] Jersey today
>> as of right now? Six.
[45:32] » How many?
>> Damn.
[45:35] » No. How about 714?
714 D in the state of New Jersey right
[45:40] now. And by the way,
>> server farms or data centers?
[45:43] » What?
>> Server farms or data centers?
[45:45] » AI data centers.
>> Data centers.
[45:46] » AI data center.
>> Every research university has a data
[45:49] center
>> by far. AI data centers.
[45:52] » Yes, that's the one we're worried about.
>> Now, let me finish it. The the the phone
[45:55] call that our mayor was on was for West
of the Parkway, which is in the pine
[45:59] lane. Yes. As we have said, why would we
change something that would hurt Lacy
[46:04] could possibly hurt Lacy Township?
>> Money.
[46:09] » What do you mean? We're not If we change
it where they can't do anything, we're
[46:12] not going to get any money for that.
>> If you allow a data center to be built
[46:15] here, the idea is that you're going to
get money.
[46:16] » Right now, they can't be built
>> right now. That's the issue. We're
[46:20] looking for a commitment on a ban.
>> Do you know what the future's going to
[46:23] hold?
>> I want I don't want to bet that you guys
[46:26] won't do anything. Some of you aren't
here to stop it.
[46:29] » Can I let me let me just say
>> under the present state of law in the
[46:34] state of New Jersey unless something is
>> yes
[46:36] » permitted is prohibited.
>> So as it stands the state of law in the
[46:41] state in the township of Lacy is that
data centers are not permitted.
[46:45] Therefore they're per prohibited. So, as
you're stating,
[46:48] » they can enact a ban. Okay? They can
specify that they're not permitted,
[46:53] which they don't have to do. That
language would be superolous because
[46:57] they're already not permitted. It would
not stop an applicant for filing a use
[47:03] variance. No matter how you change the
ordinance, you agree with that, right?
[47:08] » I was asking. So, it can be changed with
the variance. They can apply build.
[47:12] » They can whether you ban it
>> ultimately for is super It gets whe
[47:18] excuse me sir.
>> I'm not agreeing. I'm not disagreeing
[47:22] but like looking for
so many we've already
[47:25] » I'm just trying to explain.
>> Of course our zoning won't allow it.
[47:29] » One person at a time Mr. Connor just
>> I'm trying to explain.
[47:32] » I get it.
>> Okay. Whether we change the ordinance or
[47:36] not will not prohibit an applicant for
coming in with a use variance. But it
[47:43] will tell us whether or not you're
willing to fight with us. If they try to
[47:45] apply
and regardless,
[47:49] » it makes no difference.
>> What what you'll have to be what you'll
[47:54] have to watch for and you need to keep
your eye on the state legislature
[47:58] » because if they make it an inherent use,
then no matter what we do in any
[48:05] municipality in the state of New Jersey,
a person applies for a use fans, they're
[48:09] denied. they'll go to court and under
the doctrine of inherent use they'll
[48:14] probably get their application approved.
So what I'm suggesting is you need to be
[48:19] standing in more than one place
>> in your quest
[48:24] » to prohibit right and the governing body
I think has made their point. They're
[48:28] not changing the ordinance to ever allow
it
[48:32] » as of right as as of right now. Peggy,
did you want to add something?
[48:36] » No.
>> Okay. One of the things, and I'm glad
[48:39] I'm seeing younger people coming up here
getting involved and asking questions,
[48:43] because all of us, and I'm sure you're
already learning, no matter what
[48:47] decisions are made at the ground roots,
the state and federal government roll
[48:53] over us like uh steamrollers all the
time. As we know, in government also,
[48:59] money, lobbyists, and power roll over
you. We can do whatever we want. Like
[49:06] Mr. Connor just said, and let me finish
because I know you're ready to say
[49:09] something.
>> The problem is is number one, by the
[49:14] time data centers are sitting here, you
want a commitment out of us.
[49:18] » I can almost tell you,
>> we got to talk to him.
[49:20] » 10 years from now, you're not going to
see any of us up here. Okay? I just
[49:25] turned 70 this week.
No matter what decision I make today,
[49:31] whoever sits in this seat next can make
whatever decision they want. whether
[49:35] it's you, somebody else, there's a lot
of good people and that's why I want
[49:40] people, like you said, let's get let's
be proactive, but let's get proactive
[49:44] younger people involved because things
aren't always working the way we need
[49:49] them. Things can be changed constantly.
You've already heard out of my mouth, I
[49:54] will never support them, no matter where
they are. But Mr. Connor is right. No
[50:00] matter whether we say yes or no at this
point,
[50:04] the way the law works is they can't
happen right now. And even with the
[50:10] board of adjustment, if they got a comm
or the zoning board for a change of use
[50:15] variance, it depends on who's sitting
there at that time.
[50:19] » Yes.
>> So then of course the public input and
[50:22] everything else. I mean, it's just the
way it works. I know you're looking for
[50:26] a big support thing. I'm telling you, I
sub I support what you're asking, but
[50:32] that's just me. But things can change.
And when we say we haven't had a
[50:38] tremendous amount of discussion over
this, one of the reasons is there's
[50:41] other things more pressing right now on
the table because this is so far off for
[50:46] us. Nobody's asked, nobody suggested it.
It all came out of a simple courtesy
[50:53] Zoom meeting that the mayor talked about
and social media took it and ran for it
[50:59] because
the day
[51:05] » caucus meeting was posted that was on
the agenda.
[51:10] Social media lacy chatter had data
centers being built in Lacy and all it
[51:14] was was Steve was going to talk about
the conversation he had there. So, we
[51:18] didn't even make it to this meeting.
>> Some of us only heard about even his
[51:22] meeting a couple hours before here,
>> but by breakfast because it's posted our
[51:28] agenda, we were getting data centers
built and we didn't even know it.
[51:34] » You did maybe or whoever. I mean, shame
on me. I am one of them weirdos that
[51:38] does not do social media.
>> So, just to be clear, you're saying no
[51:42] one has approached anyone on this
council about
[51:44] » my knowledge. No.
>> No.
[51:46] » Nope. And have any of you been to a data
center within the state?
[51:49] » No.
>> Like the one in Vinland?
[51:51] » I don't care to because I don't want
one.
[51:53] » Would you be willing to meet me down
there to see what it's like to live next
[51:55] to one?
>> Nope. Because I as long as I'm living
[51:59] » do with this
>> will never support one. It's as simple
[52:01] as that. I don't care what it was like.
>> Are you willing to put it in writing?
[52:05] » I ain't putting crap in writing. You
just heard me on the tape.
[52:08] » It's on record. It's on It's on a record
right now.
[52:10] » On a record. Yeah,
>> it's in the It's in the minutes. I mean,
[52:14] » that's just my feeling.
There was 4,000 people in town when I
[52:18] was little. Now there's over 4,000
school system. The place has exploded.
[52:22] I'm not disappointed in the way that
some of it exploded, but people moved
[52:26] here and they have the right to. Lacy
Township built a beautiful place to
[52:30] live. That's why we've expanded the way
we have. I know Steve down there. We
[52:36] grew up together and we sat grew up in
this little town of 4,000 people and now
[52:40] we're 30,000. things change and we don't
all like to change but it's called
[52:45] progression
and like I say I'm hoping more and more
[52:50] of you young people get involved because
we need your input we need your youth we
[52:55] need your thinking
>> when you say that though like things
[52:58] change after just saying that you will
ensure that there will be no data center
[53:02] here like that kind of talking out of
both sides of your mouth like
[53:04] » no I'm not cuz I'm not going to be on
this committee long enough for that to
[53:07] happen okay because we're talking 8 10
years away
[53:11] I'm 70 years old.
>> I'm only sitting up here because I love
[53:15] this town, not for the $192.30
a week it pays me
[53:20] » every two weeks.
>> No, it's every week.
[53:23] » Is it?
>> Yeah. And that's before taxes. So if you
[53:26] think you I'm up here for the money, the
glory, the pictures, or anything else,
[53:30] you're wrong. I'm here because I love
the town. I love them guys in the back.
[53:34] I love the community. This is a great
town. Is it perfect? No.
[53:40] But as I said and I repeat it
constantly, I will never support them.
[53:44] » So hypothetically, a month from now, we
start to see that there's a possibility
[53:49] of one being developed.
>> Ask me then.
[53:52] » I come back here, none of y'all are
changing your tune. You're all against
[53:55] it.
>> I gave you my
[53:58] » Yes. But we come up up to this because
like you said, is running it right now
[54:03] and they are open to the possibility of
a data center and they will always push
[54:06] things to kind of make
>> Mr. McDonald was real clear.
[54:11] Two years ago, I was involved. It was a
grant program on uh looking forward
[54:17] towards the redevelopment of the power
plant property.
[54:20] » And we're sitting in these Zoom
meetings. These were
[54:24] there was no charge for me sitting in
these. And I had asked them, you know,
[54:28] because when you're talking
redevelopment, is redevelopment going to
[54:30] happen three years from now, five years
from now, or 10 years from now?
[54:37] Well, they weren't sure. could be eight,
could be 10 years.
[54:41] » You know why? You can't make decisions
today for what's good for redevelopment
[54:45] today
>> because 10 years from now it could be
[54:49] totally totally different. The world
could change. And you know what?
[54:52] » At that time,
yes, you're what you're looking for is a
[54:57] blanket thing. It doesn't protect you at
that point. I'm going to fight as hard
[55:01] as I can while I'm here to fight.
Hopefully, everybody else will. And
[55:05] that's where we're at because WholeTech,
the NRC, all that are way, way bigger
[55:12] than we are. It's a thing of principle.
It's knowing that we're not going to
[55:17] have the rug pulled out from us should
it come to fruition that they start to
[55:21] build one that that they know you guys
are with us and not all of a sudden just
[55:25] kind of like step to the side and walk
around us.
[55:28] » Well, I think everybody's giving you an
answer.
[55:31] an answer, but not a committal answer.
Like,
[55:35] » it's not the answer you want to hear.
>> Yes. I want to know that you're with us.
[55:38] » You want us to flat out come out and say
we're not going to allow them to be
[55:41] built.
>> That's what you want.
[55:43] » I would like to know that you're in that
indication.
[55:45] » That's what you want. Yes or no?
>> I want to know where you stand.
[55:50] » Who said that?
>> You said there's a possibility that you
[55:53] don't favor it now, but if something
changes, you might.
[55:56] » I said, well, I told you how I feel.
>> No problem. time.
[56:00] » Yeah, I'm aware of how that works.
>> Stopping the clock when you guys
[56:02] interject. So that's why it's normal 5
minutes.
[56:06] » To be clear,
>> August 21st, I'll be down in Vinland. I
[56:11] invite you to come down with me 3 p.m.
to see what it's like and I leave it to
[56:14] you.
>> Thank you.
[56:15] » Thank you.
>> Thank you for your comments. And so
[56:18] everybody knows,
>> I know that that one went on when we do
[56:23] the five minutes when we respond that
clock stop. That's what I do.
[56:28] » We always give back. We don't run the
clock while we respond. So, you get your
[56:33] full your full time,
>> Mr. Flynn.
[56:39] » Oh, I'm sorry. I would have took ladies
first. I didn't see your hand.
[56:44] » Kevin, I I Kevin, I promise I'll get you
that coffee.
[56:47] » Ladies Thursdays, Tim. Kevin Flynn,
Barnett Pines. Don't worry, in 10 years,
[56:51] good Lord willing, I will be sitting up
THERE AND YOU
[57:00] AND KEVIN does know that I'm one of his
number one supporters.
[57:04] » Or I like a good fight.
>> Or or when I decide not to do this or
[57:08] you just vote me out, he's my
replacement.
[57:10] » All right. You're not allowed to talk no
more because we got to do a five
[57:12] minutes.
>> I'm not going to be up here long. I just
[57:13] have a quick question.
>> The individual hired in the finance
[57:16] office, was that to replace someone that
left or retired?
[57:19] » No, it's the part-timer that went to
fulltime.
[57:21] » Oh, so we added an additional person to
the
[57:23] » Yeah, half of a person, so to speak.
she's already here um doing our payroll
[57:28] and based on some changes and some
additional um you know stuff that has to
[57:32] be done with payroll and other items.
Now we we do a lot of the work for the
[57:36] bank. The bank really doesn't bank
anymore. So we have to open up our own
[57:39] accounts, create our own things. So
there's additional duties and she um is
[57:43] taking on that role.
>> Okay. Thank you.
[57:47] » Now it's this young lady's turn.
>> Hi guys and ladies.
[57:52] » Hi
>> Linda Cafia. You're going to have to
[57:54] speak into the microphone because you're
very soft spoken.
[57:58] » Normally I'm not.
>> Say that.
[58:01] » Could you say your name again?
>> Linda Capitan.
[58:04] » Thank you.
>> So, you know, I'm I'm hearing a lot of
[58:06] worry about property taxes,
but I also have to appreciate what Mr.
[58:12] McDonald, Mr. Curlah said. You can't
hamstring the township. You want lower
[58:18] taxes. you don't want them to to
increase, but you want to take away the
[58:23] possibility that you can find ways to
increase revenue to offset them. So,
[58:28] what I think I'm really hearing is
people are scared about continually
[58:33] increasing property taxes. Fair enough.
Also, I hear that we can't handstring
[58:40] us. Now, what I'd like to know is if
while you're looking at these increases,
[58:46] electricity, do you have a list of
things you're looking at that could
[58:50] potentially decrease property taxes?
Just like you're think you know what the
[58:55] increases are going to are you
constantly looking at ways to cut costs
[59:00] and if so, is there a list or can we
generate a list people's ideas because
[59:05] that would be a way to mitigate
[59:09] » what we do. review the budget. There
are, you know, employment costs,
[59:13] unfortunately, are the biggest chunk of
the budget. And I don't care if it's our
[59:16] budget, the school budget, you know,
county budget. Um, so we do try to
[59:21] reduce employment costs. We do try to
give incentives for people to opt out of
[59:24] health benefits. Um, you know, there are
laws in place that that do that. Um, we
[59:28] try to work things out going part-time,
so then some of those perks aren't there
[59:33] for the employees. Um,
>> do you study efficiencies of the staff?
[59:38] » Actually have because I
>> actually just got a grant for an
[59:41] efficiency study that we'll be embarking
on as soon as we get the RFP done to
[59:45] determine um if some of our offices
could be reduced in staff size. And this
[59:49] is for municipal offices, not for police
or public works. Um, uh, combined offic
[59:54] » that would be one to look at public
works. I
[59:57] » we are down
>> I often observe
[1:00:02] » I'm laz on the public works
>> and one thing I learned I know you can
[1:00:06] observe what's an indiv
[1:00:12] since I've been there I come to find out
we're down approximately probably 10
[1:00:16] people over whether it's through
attrition
[1:00:19] » more like 20
>> non-replacement different things like
[1:00:21] that believe it or not this whole town I
mean like I've said before is not
[1:00:26] Perfect. A lot of stuff's done.
>> Agreed. But a lot of it has is
[1:00:31] investment in in technology or better
equipment. So the efficiency could come
[1:00:36] from investment in capital.
>> And that's where I want to go with this.
[1:00:39] Our town, most towns around us are
envious of our town, the way we maintain
[1:00:44] it, the way we keep it, and the whole
bit. And that's all thanks to public
[1:00:48] works. They're down people. We're trying
to put people on, but like you wanted it
[1:00:53] as far as efficiency, we're we're doing
that right now. But also, we got to be
[1:00:57] careful when we hire somebody because
the one cost we can't control is the
[1:01:02] health costs.
>> When you got 20 to 30% per employee
[1:01:06] going up every year, that's something we
have no
[1:01:11] change on whether you're still working
or whether you're retired. So, we're
[1:01:15] dealing with that when we when we look
at all this stuff. But as far as public
[1:01:19] works, even the equipment, it wears out.
It's going bad. These guys back there
[1:01:24] are stealing parts from one piece to
another piece. When you go out and to
[1:01:28] buy a truck and you need a dump truck,
you know, it was one thing when we used
[1:01:32] to look at them and yeah, we could get a
dump truck for $40,000.
[1:01:36] Now they're 125. So, it's like
everything
[1:01:40] it moves up. I mean, we just we're in
the process right now of taking an old
[1:01:44] truck that last year we put a new motor
in, but the body shot. So, instead of
[1:01:50] spending $150,000 on a new truck,
>> we're spending say $20,000
[1:01:56] on putting a new body on it. So, yes, a
lot of that stuff's done, but the
[1:02:01] there's costs out there that are that
strangle everybody.
[1:02:05] » I know
>> that are eating up any
[1:02:07] » I'm not complaining about Lacy. I love
Lacy. But you you can hear in everyone's
[1:02:13] voices the concern about one way up and
the pace. So if there's a way to
[1:02:21] the pace and find ways I'm thinking we
could think outside of the box
[1:02:25] » could be 100,000 could be 200,000 but
something. So I I haven't heard whether
[1:02:30] or not you have a list in your heads
things like that on a daily basis.
[1:02:36] » Well maybe you need to share that.
>> I can tell you this. we get our our
[1:02:40] health insurance premiums which gonna be
for 27.
[1:02:44] » That's ae inevitably
>> Veronica and her staff will call our
[1:02:49] broker
>> give us give us a quote and because of
[1:02:54] our assessments
we can't we can't go private. If we
[1:02:58] could go private and save money I think
everybody up here would say yes. But we
[1:03:02] can't. We are stuck with the state and
the state, just so that you know, the
[1:03:08] New Jersey health benefits program last
year lost $250
[1:03:13] million.
You want to call that I call it
[1:03:16] mismanagement. That's crazy.
>> The job is not
[1:03:20] » Let me let me finish. So we somehow they
got to make up that 250 million and they
[1:03:25] got to give us a good a good product.
It's not happening.
[1:03:30] » I'm not saying it's easy. I'm saying you
can hear the fear in people that there's
[1:03:34] never an end to the increase in taxes.
So, I'm just bringing it up. Never would
[1:03:40] want to take away any ideas to develop
for taxes. I'm all for that. Never
[1:03:45] promised never to do anything.
>> And you're exactly right because we're
[1:03:48] getting nickeled and dime everywhere.
But to give you an idea, a real strong
[1:03:52] idea on one of the things we did this
year, I'm going to turn it over to our
[1:03:56] administrator because we did something
this year that because we're we're
[1:04:01] looking at efficiency where we can move
people and where we can save money. We
[1:04:05] did something within the DPW this year
that uh was huge, which the
[1:04:11] administrator, if you talk about the
janitorial services.
[1:04:13] » Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
So we um we we were having
[1:04:17] » I can step down and let you talk. Will
you Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. You can stand.
[1:04:21] Um
>> so we um were we were faced with a
[1:04:25] retirement in the janitorial staff of
the DPW department. We have three people
[1:04:30] that oversee the um cleaning of our
buildings, all of our public buildings,
[1:04:34] public bathrooms, parks, you know, the
you know, those kind of things. Um with
[1:04:38] and now with the benefits, salaries, and
employment costs, it was it's about
[1:04:43] $463,000
for three people. One of the people were
[1:04:47] retiring. So what we did is we went out
for an RFP to look for an outside
[1:04:51] company. Could an outside company do it
cheaper than us and cover all of our
[1:04:55] needs and maybe expand the needs of
cleaning, right? Because if you call in
[1:04:58] somebody at night, it's overtime. You
call in somebody on the weekend, it's
[1:05:00] overtime. Sundays are double time,
right? And there are sometimes where
[1:05:03] there's emergencies, especially in the
police department, that require
[1:05:05] additional cleaning. Police department's
a 247 operation, so they need additional
[1:05:09] cleaning compared to um our municipal
offices. Can we cut what how many days a
[1:05:13] week we're clearing the municipal
offices? is really how dirty does our
[1:05:17] building get, right? So, we went out for
an RFP and the RFP came in at $191,000.
[1:05:24] So, we jumped on it, right? So, we only
entered into a one-year contract to make
[1:05:27] sure that it is something that's
feasible and it's working. So far, so
[1:05:30] good. I do believe that the majority of
the employees are very happy. Um we're
[1:05:35] getting um more coverage on different
buildings that get heavier use such as
[1:05:39] the community center and of course the
park bathrooms at this time of the year
[1:05:42] get a lot of use. So they're getting
cleaned as well. Those two individuals
[1:05:46] left in the janitorial staff were put
out into the labor force to help with
[1:05:50] the other items that um need to be done
by public works instead of hiring
[1:05:54] additional people in the labor force. So
again with my management efficiency
[1:05:57] study which I didn't get to finish
speaking about, we are looking again it
[1:06:01] was a grant. You're limited to how much
you could get. So, we wanted to start
[1:06:04] first with the municipal offices um and
look at the municipal offices. Could we
[1:06:08] combine departments? Could maybe
somebody only need to be a half a day in
[1:06:11] one office and work a half a day in
another office where there was other
[1:06:14] duties that needed to be done. We are
preparing we have to I just can't hire
[1:06:17] any company off the street to do it. Um
so, we are preparing our request for
[1:06:21] proposals to take solicitation from
interested companies to perform the
[1:06:24] efficiency study. um that will probably
the you won't see a report probably for
[1:06:29] at least 12 months from that and uh you
know to see what we're going to do um
[1:06:33] with regards to moving staff around
sharing resources instead of continually
[1:06:37] hiring um part-time people uh full-time
people I will tell you that I've you
[1:06:41] know with technology as fast as it rolls
and changes and it's rapid um I can see
[1:06:47] where um you know c things could be
reduced things could be done um in a
[1:06:52] part-time basis versus a full-time basis
you know um office hours might be
[1:06:55] reduced if you can do a lot of
e-commerce so to speak you know you know
[1:06:59] again tax collection you can't tell them
that they can't bring in cash to pay
[1:07:02] their taxes because if they use a credit
card there's that convenience fee that
[1:07:06] you the user has to pay so those are but
over time I think a lot of that's going
[1:07:10] to change and we probably won't be
taking cash we probably won't be taking
[1:07:14] checks it's all going to be in
e-commerce so do you need you know
[1:07:17] individuals in the tax office tax
assessment I believe eventually the
[1:07:20] county is going to take over the
assessing of all the municipal assess uh
[1:07:24] tax assessor's offices. You know, we we
see that because it's it's county
[1:07:28] controlled now to a certain point. You
know, those kind of things. You know, we
[1:07:31] do out some of our pay payroll for the
reporting to the outside agencies are
[1:07:36] done by an outside agency, you know. So,
those things, there are ways to reduce
[1:07:41] um staffing and items like that. But as
long as we keep our parks the way they
[1:07:46] are and all those things, you're going
to see certain departments like public
[1:07:48] works and police of course because the
more people you have in town or the more
[1:07:52] people that trans transiate through your
town, you have more calls for services
[1:07:56] for the police. You know, they they are
averaging about 20. One officer on a one
[1:08:01] day shift is averaging about 20 calls
per officer. And some of those calls
[1:08:06] require more than one officer to be on
depending on the type of call. And
[1:08:10] again, sometimes they're dealing with
calls where my neighbor's dog is
[1:08:14] barking, you know, and sometimes they're
very serious calls, but all of those
[1:08:17] calls for service have to be addressed.
So, and then again, all the state laws
[1:08:21] that come down and all those things
require sometimes additional staffing
[1:08:25] and additional reporting because it's
not just as simple as, you know, writing
[1:08:28] a report, you know. So, but we are
looking, the municipal offices were the
[1:08:32] easiest way to go first to look at it.
We do plan if the state offers the grant
[1:08:36] next year, apply again. We are um and
I'm going to make this announcement and
[1:08:40] whether the committee likes it or not.
Um we are looking at consolidation of
[1:08:44] our emergency services. There's a lot of
duplication of equipment and um vehicles
[1:08:48] whether it's the first aid squad or the
fire company. So could we have one Lacy
[1:08:53] Township first aid squad and one Lacy
Township Fire Company and we have
[1:08:57] separate to have resources that are not
duplication of resources. So you don't
[1:09:01] need four chief's vehicles. Maybe you
need one and one assistant chief vehicle
[1:09:05] and you have some substations. So those
things that we are looking at.
[1:09:09] » This is good stuff that you need to
share with us.
[1:09:13] » Well, sometimes it's not comfortable
stuff because I'm sure after I just said
[1:09:17] this about the fire companies that
they're going to be breathing down my
[1:09:20] neck a few of them and same with the
first broad shoulders.
[1:09:24] » They all like home rule. You know, we
all like home rule. It's the same with
[1:09:27] the municipalities in New Jersey.
There's these some little verbs that
[1:09:30] maybe consolidation might be the way to
go. That's the kind of stuff that helps
[1:09:34] to mitigate people screaming about that
is when they hear you're trying.
[1:09:38] » We're trying. High
>> applause. We're trying. Thank you.
[1:09:41] » Thank you.
>> Yeah. And sometimes it just gets lost in
[1:09:44] the soup with doing all the other
business. We just You're right. It needs
[1:09:48] to get out there, but sometimes it just
gets lost with all the other business.
[1:09:51] Next
[1:10:02] I like this here.
[1:10:07] » He's He's gonna run out.
>> You're in trouble now.
[1:10:11] » Uh Alisa Waller, Crestwood Drive. Um I
guess I just have a few points. So one
[1:10:18] of the things I found out January, uh
the legislature of New Jersey gave
[1:10:23] themselves a 67% raise, right? So at the
beginning of this meeting we're talking
[1:10:29] about increasing facility rentals for
people in our town and then decreasing
[1:10:34] thing benefits for veterans. Now I know
what you had said but what I'm talking
[1:10:38] about on one hand we can increase
something on the other hand we can
[1:10:41] decrease it and it just doesn't jive
>> nobody's decreasing benefits.
[1:10:46] » Also I'd like to
>> what for
[1:10:50] decreasing
>> we're not decreasing anything. We're
[1:10:52] looking for the state of New Jersey to
reimburse us for that reimburse tax.
[1:10:56] » Right. But that's what I'm Well, it's
the point is that you want that money
[1:10:59] back because we lost it. So, you're also
it's it's just a mixed messages about
[1:11:05] taxes and the YMCA comes into it because
our taxes are going to pay for that and
[1:11:11] the uh pool at the Ocean County College
was shut down because of the expense of
[1:11:18] maintaining it. So, um, I just wanted to
make that connection that, you know,
[1:11:23] Back to the Future is a great movie to
watch. Anything we decide now is going
[1:11:26] to affect the future. Like you're
saying, in 10 years, you may or may not
[1:11:29] be here, but whoever's here is going to
have to endure whatever we decide now.
[1:11:34] So the data center that was brought up
is also something that I feel like if
[1:11:39] you're not on social media uh and then
the data center discussion they don't
[1:11:42] jive either because without social media
you know the data center is supposedly
[1:11:48] you know powering social media. Social
media just mentioned that Manchester is
[1:11:53] proposing a data center right on their
property west of the pro parkway which
[1:11:57] is also protected land. So, the fact
that you can say, you know, that it
[1:12:01] wouldn't have that you don't want it
here,
[1:12:04] » they they're not supposed to have it
there and now they're have they're
[1:12:07] trying to repeal it and it was
rewritten, the ordinance was rewritten
[1:12:10] or the zoning was rewritten in a way
that included it and now they're in a
[1:12:15] battle.
>> Mayor, if I could through the floor,
[1:12:17] please, and I apologize, ma'am, for just
give you 30 seconds.
[1:12:21] Social media has caused more stress in
this town and more information that is
[1:12:26] really may may not be accurate during
the fire last year, during COVID, during
[1:12:32] Sandy. If I I say to our and we have
some great social media um out there and
[1:12:38] we put some of our social media out
there, but if you have questions rather
[1:12:42] and I heard awful things about the
nuclear plant during the fire, not
[1:12:47] seeing on any so social media avenue out
and there are some great ones. If you
[1:12:53] have questions about the town, about
your taxes, and you want accurate
[1:12:58] answers, please call 6931100.
I'm going to cut you off there because
[1:13:02] it's my time and I have this has nothing
to do with the information I'm getting
[1:13:06] from social media. I'm trying to tell
you that social media is where people
[1:13:09] get information. So, the idea that
Manchester had this issue, I found about
[1:13:13] about it through scrolling through a a a
channel that I follow that it shares
[1:13:17] local news, you know, that's not unheard
of to follow something on social media
[1:13:22] that's local news. And then that's when
I went and attended the meeting and
[1:13:26] that, you know, cemented the fact that
it was true. So, social media also does
[1:13:31] tell truth, but sometimes you do have to
investigate. I agree. But, um, that's
[1:13:36] all I wanted to say. Just pointing out
that the YMCA is a big no for me still,
[1:13:40] just because I don't know about you
guys, but anyone up there who makes more
[1:13:43] than uh $89,000 a year, good for you.
But there's people who make less than
[1:13:48] that. And I'm a teacher who does make
about that. So the fact that we have to
[1:13:53] pay for this YMCA when the Toms I mean
the Lacy Township School District has
[1:13:59] the most employees that we pay in this
town that's the highest amount of I
[1:14:03] think there's 750 teachers in that
district. So our river
[1:14:07] » no in Lacy. So that's the highest
employment of our dis our town, right?
[1:14:12] Is there is there a business in this
town that we pay for that's more than
[1:14:15] that?
>> I'm just trying to make a point that
[1:14:18] that's something that we should invest
more in. Not saying about anything to do
[1:14:22] with the argument with insurance and all
that, but I'm talking about our
[1:14:25] structure and the pool that and the YMCA
that I don't think we need in this town
[1:14:30] even just for our schools. So that's it.
Thank you.
[1:14:33] » Thank you.
[1:14:39] » Next, uh Steve, I'll get to you after
everybody's m
[1:14:44] » I'll take the young lady there.
>> Huh?
[1:14:47] » You
>> young lady. That's what he said.
[1:14:49] » Oh, okay. Well, I'll take it. Take it.
Take it while I can.
[1:14:52] » I'll take it while I can. Hi, my name is
Elaine Brandon. I'm from uh Fork at
[1:14:56] River. Um I have a question. With all
due respect, everybody was talking
[1:15:01] about, you know, high taxes and high
this and increases in which I totally
[1:15:08] understand all that. Why is it that the
YMCA is not going to pay any rent at
[1:15:13] all?
[1:15:16] » Okay, that that's not necessarily true.
We are in the process of negotiating
[1:15:20] with them what would be an agreement,
right? We're not we can't sign an
[1:15:24] agreement until we obviously know what
happens with the question, right? Yes or
[1:15:28] no. So, we are negotiating while we've
talked about some of the uh uh
[1:15:34] membership discounts, uh business
discounts, um rental space, naming
[1:15:39] rights, right? So, there have been some
back and forth dialogue during our
[1:15:42] deliberations and negotiations to
increase the resident discount, to
[1:15:47] increase the business discount, um to uh
get revenue because there's a space for
[1:15:52] like a physical therapy place proposed
in the plans that you saw around um the
[1:15:56] room or the town or on the website that
we would get a portion of the rent of
[1:16:00] that to offset some of our debt. There's
possibility that all naming rights and
[1:16:04] those kind of things, all of that
revenue would come to the town. There's
[1:16:07] also financial assistance that they
offer to um anybody that's on the uh
[1:16:13] 100% uh reduced uh lunch program for the
schools with kids. There's programs for
[1:16:18] them to get an additional reductions in
membership fees if they wanted to um uh
[1:16:23] have membership there, plus other
programs for seniors and other items for
[1:16:27] veterans where there are reductions in
fees and stuff for um people who want to
[1:16:33] join. So, we are still negotiating what
that final contract looks like, but it's
[1:16:38] it's we're not signing it or doing it
until obviously we know how the question
[1:16:43] goes.
>> Yeah, but can't sign a contract.
[1:16:45] » Yeah, but you're asking you're asking us
a question to answer without all the
[1:16:52] proper facts. We We can't do that. We
This is our money and it's your money.
[1:16:57] » And in all honesty, you're exactly
right. And it it's it's
[1:17:01] » the meeting two weeks ago which had Yes.
had a tremendous amount of input and the
[1:17:07] whole bit uh a lot of good questions
came out.
[1:17:10] » Yeah. And and you still but you but with
all due respect you still approved it.
[1:17:14] » Well let me let me finish.
>> Go ahead. Go ahead.
[1:17:16] » Okay.
We're a big proponent of to ask the
[1:17:22] taxpayers so we wanted to put it out as
a question. The bind we got in, let me
[1:17:27] finish, is we didn't want to put the qu
we didn't want to do it last week.
[1:17:33] The problem we ran into is
>> wise
[1:17:36] » to get it on November's ballot.
We had until August 7th. We thought we
[1:17:42] had until the end of August to get this
question prepared and have some
[1:17:45] meetings, but the county came in and
said we had to have it to them by August
[1:17:49] 7th. So, we had that meeting. Now, with
that said, we're currently in
[1:17:56] negotiations with them. We're getting
more and more answers. All the factual
[1:18:01] factual answers are on the website right
now. The ones that we're still
[1:18:06] negotiating
are not. As those facts come out, they
[1:18:11] will be posted.
>> Okay? But because if we
[1:18:17] throw a number out there of anything,
>> it will change
[1:18:20] » an improper number out there. $45,000 is
not the proper number.
[1:18:23] » Well, 45,000 isn't isn't on that to
start with. That's 45 million. But who
[1:18:29] knows that
>> 45 million. Okay. I'm I'm not debating
[1:18:32] whether whether you like the question or
no question. What I'm saying is we were
[1:18:36] under under a
>> It's not about liking it or disliking.
[1:18:39] It's about giving the the the correct
information to the public who's voting.
[1:18:44] » We will you let me finish. I just said
that as we get all our information, it's
[1:18:50] being posted. And I had some people
lately tell me they don't have time to
[1:18:56] look online. Well, if you can sit for
hours on Lacy Chatter
[1:19:01] and on your computer,
>> I don't go on Lacy Chat. I'm banned from
[1:19:03] Lacy Chatter.
>> Yeah, probably everybody else is too. Uh
[1:19:07] if you can spend a lot of computer time
on the screen, you can take a few
[1:19:12] minutes and go to the township website
and the stuff's posted. There are stuff
[1:19:17] there. The number the things people are
looking for right now. We're in process
[1:19:21] of trying to settle and get them
numbers. And with that said,
[1:19:26] because I know myself, I repeated it
constantly tonight. If you don't have
[1:19:30] the answers
you need
[1:19:34] » by November's vote, vote accordingly. If
you're not happy with it, vote no.
[1:19:39] » All right. My other question is very
quickly or not quickly, but
[1:19:42] » I mean, because there's a lot of
questions. I don't know the answer.
[1:19:44] » So, you're saying the deadline was
August
[1:19:46] » 7th.
>> Seventh, what happens if you do not meet
[1:19:48] that deadline?
>> You couldn't put the question on the
[1:19:50] ballot for this year.
>> For this year. So, why couldn't you have
[1:19:54] wait till next year? What is the big
rush? What is the big hurry when you
[1:19:57] have all this stuff going on? And
and now it's like a crunch time. Why?
[1:20:03] This is That's crazy. It doesn't make
any sense.
[1:20:07] » Why? Because because last week I mean
last I say last week, last month with
[1:20:11] all due respect, you said you don't want
to deal with it next year and you did
[1:20:14] say that. I mean that's not our problem.
>> No. You know what? This has been going
[1:20:18] on for saying
>> this has been going on for a couple
[1:20:20] years.
>> We got to either move ahead or settle
[1:20:23] it.
>> And you know what? There's there's
[1:20:25] there's one there's one thing I hate
about government. It gets stuck in
[1:20:30] quicksand and it
>> drags things out and drags things out.
[1:20:34] This has been going this has been going
on for a couple years. And yes, I would
[1:20:38] like to see the public make a decision
in November. And if it's no, it's no. If
[1:20:44] it's yes, it's yes. Because the other
thing with a yes vote, remember even if
[1:20:48] the public votes yes in November, if
that does not mean it's happening
[1:20:56] because there still is things if we're
not happy with the deal and we see the
[1:21:01] town's not happy with the deal. It
doesn't mean just because it's voted
[1:21:05] yes, that just
>> does not mean we have to do it.
[1:21:08] » Okay, I'm going to reverse that for you.
And if it's voted no with a close
[1:21:13] margin, it was said up here and I know
who said it that they could overturn
[1:21:18] that. Can you guys vote against the what
the public votes?
[1:21:22] » Yes, we can. It's a nonbinding
>> referendum. Can you explain
[1:21:29] everyone up here, madam?
>> Respectfully,
[1:21:33] my recollection is the way it comes out
in that vote is the way we're voting.
[1:21:38] I'm not voting against the will of the
people.
[1:21:40] » I know what you I know who said what. I
was here.
[1:21:42] » In the booth, I will take a picture of
my
[1:21:45] » No, I'm not talking about the ballot.
I'm talking about do you vote
[1:21:50] as Tim? I think you know where I'm going
with that. You You vote. We We our our
[1:21:55] vote was No, not an overwhelming vote in
November. It was a close mor.
[1:21:59] » We said we said we were going to follow
the people's choice.
[1:22:02] » Well, not you.
>> Oh, absolutely.
[1:22:04] » Yeah. No, no, no. I don't mean you. I
don't mean I don't mean you. I meant
[1:22:07] there was somebody that up there that
actually said if it was a close margin
[1:22:11] I'm still voting yes. So my question I
don't want you guys to give me
[1:22:14] » that's not what he said.
>> Oh yes he did.
[1:22:16] » He said if it's a close margin we could
override
[1:22:21] » and he said he would under the statute
there are certain things that are
[1:22:24] binding and there are certain things
that are nonbinding. Okay. This is a
[1:22:28] non-binding question. Whereas the school
every bit of capital that they want to
[1:22:32] spend on that they have to go and ask
the public and abide by the public's
[1:22:35] decision. But in that's the school that
is for the schools only. Municipalities
[1:22:41] are different and attorney Connors and I
almost called the mayor Connors. Oh my
[1:22:45] gosh, was I taking myself back? Don't do
that.
[1:22:47] » Bad bad enough being the attorney can
explain it or if you'd like to hear from
[1:22:52] it. But New Jersey law for
municipalities is different than it is
[1:22:55] for school law when it comes to bond
ordinances.
[1:22:58] » Okay. All right. I just wanted to
clarify some of you remember
[1:23:03] » Kevin Flynn pointed to each one of us
and asked us and
[1:23:08] » future mayor Flynn.
>> Yeah. Future Mayor Flynn.
[1:23:11] » Damn right.
>> Oh. Oh. I'm like Chris that guy.
[1:23:16] » And you're at the meeting. The even if
one person said something that you're
[1:23:21] debating.
>> Well, correct. It takes a majority of
[1:23:27] this committee to override this. And I'm
sure if you took count, there was a lot
[1:23:33] of us up here that said we will not go
against the will.
[1:23:39] » I just remember the one person who
started it and I know who it was. I And
[1:23:42] I think
>> we all we all do. But it doesn't
[1:23:45] » but everybody but I'm just it was just
like what what good is it if that's
[1:23:49] » it doesn't matter in the fact that the
majority of this sitting committee
[1:23:53] » okay
>> who will still be sitting in these seats
[1:23:55] in November
>> well
[1:23:57] » possibly
>> in November
[1:23:59] » oh that's right said that they will
abide by the will of the people.
[1:24:04] » Okay. Well that's good to know. And the
other thing is you know
[1:24:08] » I might also add you really shouldn't
have rushed it.
[1:24:11] » That's not fair. I'm just saying if it
went to next year then so be it because
[1:24:15] I don't know what the big rush is. I
really don't I mean we we're fine.
[1:24:20] » Yeah. We're doing
>> myself like I just want to know does the
[1:24:23] people want it or don't want it. It's
it's it's a simple question.
[1:24:25] » I know. Yeah. But the I but the rushing
part of the whole thing just
[1:24:29] » and I'm fine if they don't want it they
don't want it. I'm fine with that.
[1:24:32] » Not all the answers aren't there but
that's all right. Thank you.
[1:24:36] » I would also add that
thank you. Under New Jersey statute, the
[1:24:42] New Jersey bond law, which I believe is
NJSA 48217,
[1:24:46] requires an affirmative vote of 2/3 of
the full membership of the governing
[1:24:51] body. So, it requires four affirmative
votes. So, it couldn't be passed by
[1:24:56] three. It would have to be passed by
four.
[1:25:00] » Okay. Who's next?
>> Rich.
[1:25:03] » Richard,
>> can we not talk? Can we just let them
[1:25:08] talk?
[1:25:15] Richard likes it on there. That's it. He
wants it over there.
[1:25:20] » Uh, good evening, uh, Lacy citizens and,
uh, the mayor and township committee
[1:25:26] members. First, I want to start off with
something nice.
[1:25:30] » Okay. Um,
on my walks every day, I pass Will
[1:25:37] Wallace Park.
>> Okay. And um I see all the kids out
[1:25:41] there, especially during the summer
during with the recreation program
[1:25:46] and it's so nice. It brings smiles to my
face cuz they're laughing, having fun,
[1:25:50] doing things kids don't normally have
the opportunity to do very much today.
[1:25:56] And it reminded me of many moons ago
when I was young and I participated in
[1:26:01] the summer parks program in my own town
and the many happy memories I had as a
[1:26:06] child. And it's just nice to know that
we do that for our kids
[1:26:10] » and I appreciate that because every day
I walk by there and the kids are
[1:26:14] laughing and having fun and it's a great
thing. So, um, thank you again. So, on a
[1:26:19] more serious note, um, and I want the
township committee to know this because
[1:26:24] I've been the subject of five police
complaints filed against me by the Lacy
[1:26:30] School Board President Kim Clauss. All
of these complaints have been unfounded
[1:26:35] and all based on Miss Claus's extreme
paranoia.
[1:26:39] What is even more disturbing is the time
and energy that she has wasted taking up
[1:26:44] our police department's precious time
and resources with her nonsense. This
[1:26:49] last complaint of hers didn't even have
anything really to do with her. And I
[1:26:54] personally think she should be spending
her time running to a therapist instead
[1:26:58] of wasting our police department's time
on her ridiculous complaints. I bring
[1:27:02] this up because the police department is
under the guise of our township
[1:27:06] government. Miss Clauss obviously feels
very paranoid about the horrible
[1:27:11] decisions she has made which have made a
very negative economic impact on all of
[1:27:16] us in this town. She doesn't like to be
held accountable. But people like her in
[1:27:21] elected office should think before they
act, especially with issues that can
[1:27:26] force many individuals out of their
homes because they can't afford the tax
[1:27:31] increases. It saddens me though that
this is going on and even worse that
[1:27:36] those of you sitting up here have
allowed this to happen without publicly
[1:27:41] speaking out against this outrageous
school tax increases over the past
[1:27:45] several years. It makes all of us think
that you just don't care. And maybe it's
[1:27:50] true you don't care because if you did,
you would have spoken out against them.
[1:27:56] What kind of a town are we, I ask, if
our government bodies just make such
[1:28:00] dire financial decisions without
considering the economic impact on our
[1:28:05] town's residents? We also have endured
very hefty tax increases from the
[1:28:10] township over the past two years. Now,
this idea of trying to raise our taxes
[1:28:15] even more with a $96 million YMCA is
just totally ludicrous.
[1:28:22] A caring, good town with an emphatic
government does not make dire financial
[1:28:28] decisions on its residents and claim
that it's a nice town. A nice town looks
[1:28:33] after its residents, not make their life
more financially difficult. Take heed.
[1:28:40] Which leads me to this. Deerhead Lake is
a recreational facility that has gone to
[1:28:46] hell over the last several years because
our town government does not want to
[1:28:51] spend the money to maintain and fix it.
It sounds outrageous to me that you want
[1:28:56] us to take on another large financial
burden on a brand new facility when you
[1:29:01] don't even take care of the facilities
you are ready already responsible for.
[1:29:06] This is the epitome of financial
incompetence. Dearhead Lake will not
[1:29:11] cost $96 million to restore to its
former glory. It would be a much better
[1:29:17] beach for the Wibbit, especially
concerning the parking situation over at
[1:29:20] Lake Barnagget, which to me is somewhat
dangerous and inadequate. Restoring the
[1:29:26] platform that used to be out in the
middle of the lake along with the wibbit
[1:29:30] would make Deerhead Lake into a
multi-recreational
[1:29:33] facility. I would love to see outdoor
volleyball on the beach along with many
[1:29:38] other activities. Let's take care of the
facilities we already own and are
[1:29:43] responsible for before even thinking of
a pie in the sky YMCA, which by the way
[1:29:49] should not be built with our tax monies
because it is a nonprofit organization
[1:29:54] and not a government entity. Yes, a YMCA
could bring some good things to our
[1:30:00] town, but not at the taxpayers's
expense. And it's important and I I find
[1:30:07] a lot of times with government bodies,
you make decisions, you don't seem to
[1:30:10] care about the effects that it has on
the people in our town. And as I've
[1:30:15] spoken at this body before, my
neighbors, both of them had to sell
[1:30:19] their houses last year and get out of
here because they couldn't afford the
[1:30:22] high tax increases.
And you know, you have to look at
[1:30:26] yourself in the mirror and say, "Do I
really care about the people that live
[1:30:30] here?" I know I do because I speak about
this all the time. It's on record. And
[1:30:35] yes, I can afford the taxes. My life has
had dramatic changes in the last past
[1:30:39] two years. And God has looked
wonderfully upon me and has, you know,
[1:30:44] given me the ability that I can do
whatever I want in my life. But the fact
[1:30:47] of the matter is most of the people are
not in the position in this town that I
[1:30:51] am in. But I will fight for those people
because I care for them. And I'm not an
[1:30:56] elected official and I will never run
for public office because the role that
[1:31:00] I play between what I consider myself as
a conduit between the government bodies
[1:31:05] in this town and the people is a very
important role. And if I were to leave,
[1:31:10] there isn't anybody in this town who's
capable of standing up to the bodies and
[1:31:13] calling them out the way that I can. And
it's not personal. But I got to tell
[1:31:17] you, these police complaints are very
personal. And I've had to file two sets
[1:31:23] of ethics violations against the board
president, which is going to cost the
[1:31:26] taxpayers $10,000 each because of the
insurance plan that the school has. The
[1:31:33] first 10,000 must be paid by the school
district. Now, she also has other ethics
[1:31:37] violations by other people.
The fact of the matter is is that this
[1:31:42] cannot continue. The police department
cannot be used as a political porn.
[1:31:47] » Rich, are you close close to done? Yes.
>> I I know you went over, but if you're
[1:31:52] close to done, I want you to finish.
>> Okay. I'm just saying you can't use the
[1:31:56] police department. Are you guys going to
come after me because I'm saying things
[1:31:59] you don't like.
Is this what's going to is this what
[1:32:02] it's going to turn out to be?
>> Well, let me just if I might, Rich, any
[1:32:07] complaint, any complaint, how
>> I know
[1:32:10] » frivolous it is or whatever, the chief
will tell you they must act on it. They
[1:32:15] must investigate it and determine. And
that's that's the role. Now, you think
[1:32:20] it's frivolous. Obviously, she doesn't.
>> Oh, well,
[1:32:23] » you do you do understand, Mr. McDonald,
that there is unfound it's a criminal
[1:32:28] thing to fi file unfounded
complaints.
[1:32:31] » That would be up to the chief and his
investigators to determine. And if and
[1:32:35] if it is that way, he'll refer that to
the prosecutor for charges. It's that
[1:32:40] simple, Rich.
>> Well, that may happen.
[1:32:42] » It may happen.
>> Yes. But to sit there and say that that
[1:32:45] she's crazy or whatever you said she's
nothing
[1:32:48] » paranoid.
>> Paran okay paranoid and that then say
[1:32:52] that it's the chief. No, the police
wait, let me finish. They have a job to
[1:32:57] do.
>> How f however frivolous it is. I mean,
[1:33:01] I'm sure if you talk to the chief, he
could tell you some great stories about
[1:33:05] some complaints that are bad. I'm sure,
>> you know,
[1:33:07] » but the fact is I'm being targeted
because I am speaking out against
[1:33:13] » decisions that have been made by a
political body. I'm asking you because
[1:33:16] I'm calling you guys out for things that
you're doing. You're going to be filing
[1:33:19] criminal charges against me or, you
know, going to be filing complaints
[1:33:22] against me because I speak out. Are we
going to have we become that kind of a
[1:33:26] town
>> that we can't file I have never filed a
[1:33:30] complaint against anybody?
>> Well, and Rich, I think you already know
[1:33:34] that answer.
>> Yes. You're you're you're in front of us
[1:33:37] enough that that we appreciate what you
say. We respect what you say. And that's
[1:33:43] the nice thing about this country is we
can agree to disagree, move on. You
[1:33:50] know, it's it's you have your opinions,
others have theirs, and we respect that.
[1:33:56] And that's why you won't see that here.
>> Well, I kind of figured that because
[1:34:01] I've been doing this for 15 years,
>> right? So yeah, but the fact of the
[1:34:05] matter is is that this is going on and I
being targeted the way I am and I just
[1:34:10] don't like it. I mean it's
>> for myself. Thank you for letting us
[1:34:14] know and
I got to let somebody else speak.
[1:34:18] » Okay, very good. Thank you.
>> Is there anybody else before I know
[1:34:24] Steve wanted to come back up. No, Steve.
[1:34:34] Clean up.
[1:34:40] Steve Borrow Fork of River. A couple of
questions. We're going to go back to the
[1:34:45] YMCA and I plan on attending every
meeting until we get the proper answers.
[1:34:52] » Okay.
>> Let me ask you first about non-binding
[1:34:56] versus binding. How about
>> I'll let Chris answer that one.
[1:35:00] That's
>> why couldn't that vote be binding?
[1:35:04] » Because
>> and who makes the decision on whether
[1:35:07] it's binding or non-binding?
>> The statute itself, Steve, the statute
[1:35:11] requires that the question be
non-binding.
[1:35:15] » So, municipality. Yeah, it's I think
it's NJSA
[1:35:19] 1937-1.
>> Next meeting. Can you give that number
[1:35:24] to me so I could read because I really
want to read read the law because a lot
[1:35:28] of people don't understand
>> that if we vote it down you all can
[1:35:33] change it.
>> Correct.
[1:35:34] » So what was the purpose of putting it
out?
[1:35:37] » It's merely to give municipalities.
It's merely to give It's merely to give
[1:35:43] municipalities an opportunity to acquire
the sentiment of the town on a
[1:35:49] particular matter. and not all
municipalities use them.
[1:35:53] » I mean, logically speaking, and you hear
it enough when you come up here, you all
[1:35:58] know you're $32 million in debt. You
word the the question
[1:36:05] without revealing the actual cost of
that building. there should that that
[1:36:12] question needs to be reworked
and all the truth be put in it because
[1:36:18] as it's worded now it only gives the one
number 45 million and there's a lot more
[1:36:24] involved
>> well I I will say I will say this and I
[1:36:28] don't totally disagree with you but
where the questions are required by law
[1:36:36] such as bond issues general obligation
bond issues issued by the state of New
[1:36:41] Jersey. You'll often see on your ballot,
you get your sample ballot, there'll be
[1:36:45] a bond question on there. It'll it'll
say the total amount of the bonds. Shall
[1:36:51] the state of New Jersey issue x amount
of bonds? It doesn't give any other cost
[1:36:56] factors because you don't know what the
exact cost figures are going to be. It's
[1:37:00] quite possible that those bonds may be
paid off sooner than their maturity
[1:37:06] date. That happens or refinanced. That
happens. So, you can't put you can only
[1:37:13] if it were to go out 30 years, and I
think that's what you're trying to
[1:37:17] indicate is that the bond is paid over
the 30-year period that yes, it's going
[1:37:22] to cost more than the $45 million.
There'll be the interest charges
[1:37:27] themselves. But I think that most
individuals would be able to make that
[1:37:33] assessment on their own. But I'm but
what I'm but what I'm pointing out is
[1:37:37] the boilerplate typical bond issue when
they are required
[1:37:42] » with other entities public entities they
don't list the total they don't list the
[1:37:46] total cost because
>> meaning you can give me the exact
[1:37:49] » I would be happy to
>> I will research it so I can understand
[1:37:52] it because people are asking me why it's
non-binding and what's the purpose if
[1:37:57] it's nonbinding if you all can change
it.
[1:38:00] » Correct. only only to getting a flavor
of how the people think and feel
[1:38:06] » and it's it's only only to gauge it's
only to gauge the sentiment of the
[1:38:12] people that live within the township.
That's why the statute was written the
[1:38:16] way it's written. And furthermore, the
statute also imposes a limitation that
[1:38:20] they can only be on questions that
involve um items in which the
[1:38:25] municipality has a control over. So, we
couldn't put a question on a ballot
[1:38:29] non-binding
expressing the sentiment on some other
[1:38:33] issue, a state issue or county issue or
anything else like that. Even though we
[1:38:39] might like to get the sentiment of the
people, we can't. So, that's but that's
[1:38:44] all it is. It's not it's only
instructive to the governing body as to
[1:38:48] how the people feel on a particular
issue. And and Steve, let
[1:38:51] » me clarify that somewhat. What I
>> But I'll give you I'll give you the I'll
[1:38:56] give you the the information, Steve.
>> All right, switching gears.
[1:38:59] » And Steve, just for one real second,
>> just one quick thing, and I I understand
[1:39:04] the skepticism between a bonding and
non-bonding thing.
[1:39:07] » People are saying, "Well, what the hell
is a good understandable?" Because I
[1:39:11] talked to a lot of people, and I'm
trying to explain it, and I said, "I
[1:39:15] really don't know." But on the minutes
on tape, like Chris said before, you
[1:39:21] need two it would be take two/3 majority
of this governing body to override it.
[1:39:27] Number one. So that's four of us set out
of five. Okay. Everybody's been pulled
[1:39:32] on camera here.
There is not the support no matter what
[1:39:39] to override that vote.
>> And you know me long enough. I know your
[1:39:45] word is good. Yes, your word is good.
and and and a lot of and a lot of other
[1:39:50] committee people had had said they would
>> what about me
[1:39:54] » and
>> and
[1:39:56] » but
>> how could I leave you with
[1:39:58] » you know and and I only say this because
it it keeps coming up and I I think
[1:40:02] people do need to know that the
information you're talking about but
[1:40:06] this committee as a whole for the most
part has said they are not going against
[1:40:11] oh don't
>> the feelings of the people binding or
[1:40:14] not let's get his other question
>> real quick Yes.
[1:40:19] » Tell us about the initial meeting with
the YMCA.
[1:40:24] Who put the proposal on the table
regarding free land and free building?
[1:40:32] Because you're saying you're still
negotiating this. The the bottom line of
[1:40:36] negotiations is to find out the purpose
and find out the bottom line.
[1:40:45] You don't do that afterwards. You do all
the fringe stuff. Tell me. I need to
[1:40:51] know what happened. Who initiated
the free building? Was it you guys? Was
[1:40:58] it the YMCA convincing you? We need to
know. People ask me, "How in the world
[1:41:06] would any government body use the
township tax money to provide an alleged
[1:41:14] nonprofit?" And after I seen the
salaries of what them people make and
[1:41:19] the and the golden benefits they have,
it it really first of all, like I said,
[1:41:26] all
nonprofit unions have organic law on how
[1:41:32] they run because they control their own
money.
[1:41:36] And it's a falsehood when they put
specifically in writing that the money
[1:41:41] goes back into the building. That is BS.
Some of it goes back. But who's paying
[1:41:48] the salaries of the YMCA executives? How
do they get paid? How does the national
[1:41:54] YMCA CEO who makes $830,000
a year? What does she do? Just like with
[1:42:04] the YMCA here, we're going to have a
committee of volunteers to see how it
[1:42:07] runs. Yet, we're going to pay a CEO
$420,000.
[1:42:12] Administrators, overseers, there's a
whole line of them. And they all make
[1:42:17] six figures from like 115,000
up to 420.
[1:42:24] Tell me how
the initial meeting happened, who said
[1:42:30] what, and why did they say it? Did you
guys go in with a plan or you just went
[1:42:36] in with a blindfold on? What happened?
How did we get to this point? I have
[1:42:44] researched a month now to find any
nonprofit that had the land given and
[1:42:50] the building given to them and there
isn't one that I found. So, I'm going to
[1:42:55] t I I want to put you guys to test
because next meeting I'm going to ask
[1:43:00] you what other nonprofit operates solely
on tax money and all their
[1:43:06] administrators make all this money. It
It just It doesn't make sense to me.
[1:43:13] Like I said, if I ran my family like you
guys are running this YMCA thing, I'd be
[1:43:18] living in a straw hut out in the Pine
Baron somewhere.
[1:43:24] So someone tell us what happened at the
initial meeting, how who set the
[1:43:30] parameters because the first thing is I
would say who owns the land, who's
[1:43:35] paying for the building, who's going to
maintain it, blah blah blah. That's the
[1:43:40] everything else is window drafts.
>> Yes.
[1:43:42] » Thank you, Steve.
>> Thank you.
[1:43:44] » You don't have any other
>> Steve. I thought you had another
[1:43:47] question. Did you have another question
you want to ask?
[1:43:49] » No, I asked enough for
>> All right.
[1:43:52] » Don't worry. I'll be at next meeting.
>> All right. Is there anybody else?
[1:43:56] » Seeing none, I'll make a motion to close
the floor.
[1:43:58] » Second.
>> Second.
[1:44:00] » All in favor?
>> All in favor?
[1:44:02] » Resolution.
>> So, no one's going to tell us.
[1:44:04] » Oh, you want it?
>> Oh, we
[1:44:06] » I want someone to tell us and no one's
going to answer.
[1:44:09] » Well, someone mayor is not her talk.
>> I've been sitting through all the
[1:44:14] meetings with him. So, in August of
2020, I need to go back that far. As you
[1:44:19] know, we were embarking on possibly
building a new facility for um the
[1:44:24] municipal building and police department
and an indoor recreation facility on our
[1:44:27] own. And um what happened is um during
COVID there was a lot of um different
[1:44:33] meetings we all sat in on and Johnson
Controls um offers a lot of um
[1:44:38] incentives were like HBAC, clean air,
you know, a lot of that stuff came out
[1:44:42] during CO and they had um I was talking
to one of the representatives about you
[1:44:48] know we have we have very faulty air
conditioning here and stuff like that
[1:44:50] and we talked about the age of the
building the whole 10 yards and then he
[1:44:53] said hey listen we um are a reinvestor
in properties to build a municipal but
[1:44:58] to build new facilities. Would you be
interested in talking to us about a
[1:45:02] financing program the P3 public private
partnership where we would be your
[1:45:07] financer and we would um o you know
oversee the building and do all of that
[1:45:11] and help you build a new building. So
that's where that started. Fast forward
[1:45:15] to when all of that fell apart as you
know during that time frame John Kelly
[1:45:20] who is the CFO of the YMCA and he has
since passed away reached out to me
[1:45:24] probably what is this 2026 probably four
years ago to say hey listen we've been
[1:45:29] I've been following the new you know all
the items in the news and on social
[1:45:32] media related to your uh public private
partnership would you be interested in
[1:45:37] sitting down and talking with the YMCA
about building a facility in your town
[1:45:41] because we're looking to expand into
this the mid into southern part of Ocean
[1:45:45] County. So I spoke with uh I believe
Steve was the c Steve was mayor that
[1:45:49] year as well and I approached Steve and
he says yes let's engage and take the
[1:45:53] conversation to see what they have to
offer. So at the time it did not come
[1:45:57] out in meeting one that we want to
maintain control over the land. Okay
[1:46:02] that that is one of the things we didn't
say that in meeting one. So we sat down
[1:46:05] we talked about you know what are they
looking for? What are they looking to
[1:46:08] do? H how you know none of those
intimate details about ownership and
[1:46:13] financing or rent or no rent came out in
the initial details and we had a second
[1:46:18] meeting and then we started to engage
committee members to say is this
[1:46:21] something we want to pursue is this
further because you know time is money
[1:46:25] so you know you have me sitting in our
meetings Steve sitting in our meetings
[1:46:28] other you know our recreation director
our CFO sitting in our meetings so time
[1:46:32] is money so right so do we even want to
embark on that so as time went on and it
[1:46:36] was quite some time before it came out
that they are not favorable in paying
[1:46:43] rent. Okay, so let let's put it that
way. And we were all shocked. We were
[1:46:47] all shocked. We're like, "Oh, okay." Um
that that's not a model that we
[1:46:51] anticipated, you know. So we are still
negotiating to get some kind of rent.
[1:46:56] It's not
>> you just paid why don't they pay the
[1:46:58] mortgage?
>> Why don't they It's 3.2 million.
[1:47:02] » We're not saying that. We're not saying
that they rent, mortgage, however you
[1:47:05] want it. However you want to equate it.
Okay, rent would go towards the the bond
[1:47:10] payment. Okay, so um they would they
would run the facilities. Um they would
[1:47:15] run the programs, they would hire the
staffing, they would pay for all of that
[1:47:19] based on how they receive their money,
membership fees, uh donations, grants,
[1:47:25] stuff like that, right? And that we
would jointly apply for grants to try to
[1:47:29] see if we could get money to build the
facility. There are a lot of grants out
[1:47:33] there. there maybe are benefactors that
might want to cough up some money to do
[1:47:37] that. So this is like I said this is
still a work in progress as to whether
[1:47:41] or not they're we're paying 45 million
for a building or maybe we're only
[1:47:46] paying 30 million for a building. Okay,
if we get grants and benefactors and so
[1:47:49] on and so forth and whatever other um
additional money that they can get. But
[1:47:53] yes, it did come out gosh months I have
to say of what their proforma would look
[1:47:59] like as to an agreement they would like
to see with the township of Lake Real
[1:48:03] quick, I have seen where there are
grants and opportunities. Is the
[1:48:07] township engaged in getting grants and
some kind of money help on the cost of
[1:48:15] the building?
>> We plan to but to to expand being done
[1:48:19] now.
>> No, to expand the expense because
[1:48:21] sometimes inhouse we're not necessarily
capable of filling out the grants and
[1:48:26] doing that. you have to hire maybe some
grant writers to help you because it's
[1:48:29] all about creative writing and all of
that and it it's very proprietary
[1:48:33] certain grants. So why again you're
yelling at us for spending the money on
[1:48:38] the professionals to do some of the leg
work that they did. Now you want me to
[1:48:41] spend more money to write a grant that I
might not even be building a building
[1:48:44] yet until we know what the question is.
But we do I mean a few years ago I was
[1:48:48] very successful with getting a
congressional district spending grant.
[1:48:51] That's where and the YMCA got quite a
bit of money out of congressional
[1:48:55] district spending for upgrades to their
facilities throughout Ocean and Mammoth
[1:48:58] County. We got 6 million to finish the
railroad rightway road which again will
[1:49:04] complete that on the south side and the
north side. We are working with the
[1:49:07] federal government to get the funds
released. So there is funding out there
[1:49:10] that we can definitely apply for and a
joint application may be looked upon
[1:49:14] more favorably than a single application
if the Y and US partner. Sometimes it's
[1:49:18] looked upon more favorably but we plan
to do that. There might be recreation
[1:49:21] grants out there. There may be, like I
said, benefactors out there. There may
[1:49:26] be um other types of mental health
grants and everything. And you can
[1:49:29] combine all them and work them together
to help you offset the costs.
[1:49:33] » Okay. So, the answer is the YMCA
initiated. Yes.
[1:49:38] » And it wasn't favorable to them to pay
any rent.
[1:49:41] » Well, that's their model. That's their
model. They said that's what they say.
[1:49:45] And did they give you any examples of
other buildings that they had built for
[1:49:50] them that they now occupy?
>> Most of the time they have occupy not
[1:49:54] new buildings. I would have to say um
repurposed buildings um in most of them.
[1:49:58] Um but I believe uh I think Bridgewater
is Bridgewater Townships building
[1:50:05] » uh there's a
>> bridge
[1:50:08] » uh what's it Berkeley Heights um summit
>> the bridge wise
[1:50:12] » there are there there is that model out
there that yes like they'll run it on
[1:50:17] behalf of the town and it's the town's
facilities. Uh, in fact, uh, Berkeley
[1:50:22] Heights, the pool is an outdoor pool,
not an indoor pool, and it's Berkeley
[1:50:25] Heights pool, and the the YMCA runs it
for Berkeley Heights, but it's there.
[1:50:30] » I'm not seeing that.
>> Yeah, it's there. I I mean, I looked at
[1:50:34] a big um there's one out in
I want to say Nebraska. There's a huge
[1:50:40] facility out in Nebraska and it's a
joint effort between multiple entities
[1:50:44] including the YMCA. And you know there's
you know reduced revenue that they're
[1:50:50] paying or rent that they're paying in
the town is offsetting it with what the
[1:50:55] property and the buildings are.
>> So when is the rent issue going to be
[1:51:00] made public?
>> I guess once we settle that discussion
[1:51:04] the new one that's going up in Hopewell
Valley area the town I think it's uh
[1:51:08] Pennington if I'm not mistaken it's
three municipalities. They are um it's
[1:51:13] part of a redevelopment plan and the
town owns the the um the land and the
[1:51:19] town will be um three towns will be
looking to possibly build the building
[1:51:23] that's under negotiations. It's very in
its infancy stages.
[1:51:28] » Yeah.
>> Three towns.
[1:51:29] » Yes.
>> Get Bayville and they're small little
[1:51:32] towns out there um next to each other.
So yeah, I mean listen
[1:51:36] » and we don't know we don't know the
financial
[1:51:40] » status of the townships
>> because
[1:51:42] » you're correct.
>> The administrator the administrator from
[1:51:47] million
>> the administrator from Hopewell Valley
[1:51:49] was here at a couple of our meetings and
sat in the audience and listened to what
[1:51:52] was going on.
>> Is it possible I one of the next
[1:51:56] meetings have a YMCA executive
come to the meeting because I I got some
[1:52:03] real
uh questions I want to ask them about
[1:52:06] their organization.
>> You can ask
[1:52:09] » I mean I know
>> ask you don't get
[1:52:10] » I know myself I you know I've actually
even mentioned to uh Veron I refer to
[1:52:16] the word Veronica professionally not my
sister
[1:52:20] uh I would like to see somebody from the
Y at some of these meetings myself. So
[1:52:25] because there are questions there are
questions that I myself and you have
[1:52:30] that we might not be able to answer but
they can. So I I think it's very
[1:52:35] important myself. But with that all
right let's move on. We close.
[1:52:39] » Our next meeting is September 10th
though just so you know that
[1:52:43] » it's not in two weeks. It's September
10th.
[1:52:46] » All right. Committee comments and I'm
going to switch it.
[1:52:49] » We're done.
>> No.
[1:52:51] » Yes. Yes. We close that.
I'm going to switch it around a little
[1:52:54] bit.
>> And Mr. Cartello, you're first.
[1:52:59] » Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Um, just want
to thank everyone for coming out
[1:53:03] tonight. I encourage whether there's
agreement or disagreement uh for folks
[1:53:07] to come out and say their peace. A lot
of people were in the military and died
[1:53:13] for your right to do so. So, I'm glad
you're here. I'm glad you vote. And I'm
[1:53:17] glad you're active. Um, so that's the
people's m microphone.
[1:53:22] And as I have said last time,
if I don't do the will of the people,
[1:53:29] kick me right out. I'm going to do the
will of the people. I will take a
[1:53:33] picture of it. I will stand true to Mr.
Flynn and the other 30,000 people in our
[1:53:39] town. Regardless of what that is, that's
what I'm going to do. I will take I will
[1:53:44] take a picture of how I vote in that
booth. If I'm allowed, I would call
[1:53:51] the Division of Elections and ask that
because the people deserve that, not
[1:53:54] just somebody saying something. They
deserve that.
[1:53:58] Um, there's some good stuff in the town.
We had the 100th anniversary at a
[1:54:02] library and so I want that to be
recognized as well and do things for our
[1:54:06] seniors, our school children, and
everybody in the middle. I was at a
[1:54:10] meeting uh 48 hours ago uh in our
community hall. So, I want people to
[1:54:15] know about this. So, I'm always talking
about controlling what we can control.
[1:54:21] And there's a Senate bill 1786 that
talks about accessory dwelling units.
[1:54:28] This is this is big brother on overload.
This is this is real steroid stuff. I
[1:54:33] mean, this is them coming into your
town, literally in your house and in
[1:54:38] your backyard. Um, will affect every one
of our municipalities. It'll affect our
[1:54:43] home values. It'll affect our way of
life. And it'll affect our schools. So,
[1:54:48] an accessory dwelling unit as defined by
S1786,
[1:54:54] that's Senate Bill 1786. You can see
this right on Google, establishes
[1:54:58] statewide standards to permit accessory
dwelling units or ADUs. I'm just saying
[1:55:03] » bill requires municipalities to allow
attached or detached secondary housing
[1:55:09] units as of as of right on single and
two family lots uh to combat quote the
[1:55:17] state's housing shortage and crisis.
Permitted usages mandates that towns
[1:55:23] allow accessory del uh accessory
dwelling units as a ministerial action.
[1:55:29] Fast track approval
[1:55:34] applies to internal spaces, basement,
attics, attached additions, garage
[1:55:39] conversions, or detached backyard
cottages.
[1:55:44] So, if there's ever anything that can
almost immediately impact quality of
[1:55:49] life, traffic for our good friends and
families out in Bamber, most of those
[1:55:53] folks are on uh septic and sewer. And
you have a three bedroom or a
[1:55:58] two-bedroom home, a cottage uh built
back in the 60s or early 70s. All of a
[1:56:03] sudden, now you got a big enough yard,
you could have seven, eight, nine, 10,
[1:56:07] 11, 12 people. Now, it's a health issue
because your septic and sewer can't
[1:56:11] handle 12 humans because it was built to
handle three. Um, and we see that at the
[1:56:18] county level in different areas. So, I
want you to pay attention to this.
[1:56:22] Regardless of whether you agree with us,
don't like us, vote for us, don't vote
[1:56:27] for us. The skin in this game is real.
This is real. And you got people outside
[1:56:32] of here want to enforce and tell you how
you can live. Require us to give out
[1:56:39] permits for this. This will change the
face of the town like nothing else. So
[1:56:44] if you don't like data centers, you
don't like building. Imagine this.
[1:56:49] You're just having your coffee and all
of a sudden maybe you don't see the
[1:56:52] water anymore. All of a sudden you see a
20 foot structure on your back door
[1:56:57] neighbor in the fence and it just blocks
everything. It's for real, folks. It's
[1:57:02] happening. I want you to know about it.
I want Senate Bill
[1:57:08] 1786.
And if I'm not mistaken, and I'll I'll
[1:57:11] ask our our former mayor and our current
uh township council. So when the bill
[1:57:16] reaches the Senate level, it already got
through the assembly.
[1:57:19] » Not necessarily.
>> Okay.
[1:57:21] » Uh there's no um
>> means of origin. It can it can begin in
[1:57:28] the Senate or it can be get in assembly
or there can be companion measures. In
[1:57:33] other words, that they move
simultaneously in each house. That
[1:57:37] usually speeds up the time with which an
bill can get to the governor's desk. But
[1:57:43] just because there's a bill in the
Senate doesn't mean that the bill has
[1:57:46] passed through the assembly. So the
take-home point, thank you, council. The
[1:57:50] take-home point is please stand
shoulder-to-shoulder on this. Regardless
[1:57:54] of where you come out, regardless of of
your political strike, stand
[1:57:58] shoulder-to-shoulder on it, educate
yourself, and have a voice. This will
[1:58:02] change the face of our town. Thank you,
Deputy Mayor. Thank you, Pete. Uh, Mr.
[1:58:07] McDonald.
>> Thank you, Deputy May.
[1:58:11] » My big beef lately
has been what was discovered
[1:58:17] by our current governor about the
illegal
[1:58:21] people in the voting roles
and that 440 of them of the 6,500
[1:58:28] absolutely voted. Now, they say how it
didn't affect any any elections. Okay.
[1:58:35] tell me where they voted and then let's
look at the elections. So I would
[1:58:39] recommend to this council that we write
a letter to the attorney general for the
[1:58:45] state of New Jersey who is in charge of
elections and demand what steps he's
[1:58:52] taking to make sure that our voter roles
are clean and they have only people who
[1:58:57] are eligible to vote. And two, if he
catches people who are voting illegally,
[1:59:03] what steps is he going to take? This is
craziness. What's going on? You know,
[1:59:10] it it's this is only New Jersey. Can you
imagine what's going on in California?
[1:59:16] How about Illinois? How about Michigan?
How about some of these other crazy
[1:59:21] states that are out there? Indiana
>> happened in Texas.
[1:59:24] » What's that?
>> It happened in Texas. that happens. I I
[1:59:27] firm I I firmly believe Wait, let me
finish. Let me finish.
[1:59:30] » All right.
>> I firmly believe this happens in every
[1:59:34] state. And I think it's time for our
state official who is in charge of these
[1:59:39] elections
to take a stand, get involved with this,
[1:59:44] and tell us how is he going to stop it?
Because if it's one election now, it's
[1:59:51] now let me explain. It's not going to be
the governor or a a a congressman or or
[1:59:57] a senator.
>> It's going to be here that these
[2:00:00] elections are going to be affected by
the local level, maybe the county level,
[2:00:07] but that's wrong. You're going to get
the wrong person that the people didn't
[2:00:11] want sitting in these spots. So, I would
hope that we could do that and we all
[2:00:18] sign it and send it up and see what
happened. Deputy Mayor, that's all I
[2:00:21] have.
>> Thank you for that good suggestion.
[2:00:26] Juliano here.
>> Thank you, Deputy Mayor.
[2:00:32] Yeah, that was what I informed them of
the last time. Okay, first I just want
[2:00:35] to say thank you to Mr. Bitnik for
saying something nice about our our
[2:00:40] township tonight. I I truly appreciate
it. I I KNOW. That's why Did you see me
[2:00:47] clapping my hands?
I WAS SO HAPPY about that for a change.
[2:00:53] Um
>> we'll see Rich on the swings on
[2:00:57] » on another happy note. We got a nice u
little message about our um
[2:01:03] » yeah EMS Captain Ray Benedict and his uh
another gentleman that was with him was
[2:01:09] Matt. The situation that a family had a
medical emergency. they were out at a
[2:01:13] restaurant and she just wanted us to
know how wonderful they treated her and
[2:01:18] took care of her and followed up with
her. So I it's always nice to get those
[2:01:22] kind of compliments to tell you the
truth. Um on August 6th I had note told
[2:01:28] everybody about this at the last meeting
about there uh going to hold a tax
[2:01:33] relief uh filing event and it really
turned out very well there. Um it was
[2:01:39] for the senior freeze the anchor the New
Jersey program there. There were 49
[2:01:43] people that showed up for the
information and that's really wonderful
[2:01:46] that they had the opportunity to do
that. That's why I had announced it
[2:01:50] because even myself filling out
paperwork sometimes is a little tricky.
[2:01:54] So, it's nice that somebody was there to
kind of walk them through each step of
[2:01:58] that which was a good showing from for
the people and they were all very
[2:02:02] appreciative of that. Um, the other
thing I wanted to tell you is that next
[2:02:07] Saturday is our 5K here. Our municipal
alliance runs a 5K race. Um Heather does
[2:02:14] a phenomenal job, but it's it's a big
undertaking and anybody that has extra
[2:02:20] time next Saturday, come on out and help
her. Mr. Bidnik, she would love you to
[2:02:26] help her.
>> A water station. Maybe a water station.
[2:02:29] » Water station. Anything. Sometimes it's
just even even just watching that you
[2:02:33] know the kids because there's a lot of
kids involved. There's a little thing
[2:02:36] for them to do. So, she can always use
the help. So, if there's anybody that's
[2:02:40] available next Saturday, get that's it.
Get your steps in. All of the above. So,
[2:02:45] it it would be a great uh opportunity
for you. But other than that, Deputy
[2:02:49] Mayor, I'm I'm good.
>> Thank you.
[2:02:52] » First of all, I want to thank everybody
for coming out tonight, you know, with
[2:02:55] your questions and comments. We do we do
we do hear you, you know, whether we
[2:03:00] agree or disagree, but I do appreciate
you coming out. I want to give a warning
[2:03:04] on the 5K.
with good intentions. Sometimes you go
[2:03:10] to help
and then if you're stupid like me, you
[2:03:15] listen to everybody that's going to walk
the 5K and you join in. At 69 years old
[2:03:20] or anywhere like that, do not do your
first 5K cold duck.
[2:03:25] » I did finish. Time wasn't bad, but I
ended up with a knee problem for almost
[2:03:31] another year or so. But it's easy. It's
a great event. It ra it's uh fantastic.
[2:03:37] It's well attended, but it's easy to get
sucked in and join everybody because you
[2:03:42] know what? Everybody says they were
going to walk and we all walk a lot of
[2:03:45] steps a day. When they shoot that gun,
everybody takes off like a rabbit. So,
[2:03:50] just be careful. Again,
I want to thank uh the ex uh exit 74 for
[2:03:57] their art exhibit and putting it around
because I tell you what, all night long
[2:04:01] I've been looking
>> really nice
[2:04:02] » looking at this and it looks a lot
better than the
[2:04:05] » I think some of them pictures were older
than the walls in this room.
[2:04:09] Uh this past month, one of the big
events that did go on was the uh library
[2:04:16] event. Uh I guess it was 50 years for
our library being part of the system.
[2:04:21] It's also the library system's 100 years
old.
[2:04:24] » 150
>> 150 years old. And
[2:04:28] » no it's not 100.
>> It's older than us.
[2:04:32] » And our old and our oldest librarian got
to speak that night and she's actually
[2:04:37] in the audience tonight. Uh Mrs. Pat.
[2:04:47] with her big smile.
>> It was fun and thank you very much for
[2:04:52] attending.
[2:04:57] » Oh, I wanted to make a comment towards
something you said, Pete, about voting
[2:05:02] and vote get taking a picture of it.
If I'm right, the what we're committing
[2:05:09] to is not our vote in the voting booth.
What we're concerned about, which will
[2:05:14] be on tape in front of everybody
>> and on TV, is the vote of how we're
[2:05:21] going to stand behind the people.
>> So, I don't I don't think I don't think
[2:05:25] the voting uh having to check with the
county on that. Uh this is something
[2:05:29] personally we got to do up here. So, uh
we're going to be front and center,
[2:05:33] right?
>> So, I just wanted to clarify that up.
[2:05:36] Just a quick uh couple things I just
want to hit real quick. I know a lot of
[2:05:40] people's been asking about that nice,
beautiful job on Route 9.
[2:05:45] » That is the new surface of the highway.
It's called Chip Seal. Uh pretty much
[2:05:52] the town's they've been pretty much
north and south of the town. The towns
[2:05:56] next to us are getting it. According to
the state, it's a state highway. We have
[2:06:01] nothing to do about this. It's to
prolong the life of the asphalt for 10
[2:06:05] to 15 years. Whether they're right or
wrong, people been asking. I researched
[2:06:10] the question. Our director of public
works got me all the answers.
[2:06:15] What you see out there is what we got.
So if you don't like it, you can write
[2:06:19] the state and see how much luck you
have. Uh big thing going on right now is
[2:06:25] uh stay away from Hane Street tonight.
Uh last night they started uh pave
[2:06:30] milling and paving it because the curbs
and the sidewalk improvements on Hane
[2:06:34] Street on both sides are done and
completed.
[2:06:38] Phase one paving westbound has been
milled and completed. That was last
[2:06:43] night. And phase two is tonight. So I
would suggest if you're going that
[2:06:49] direction, find another route around
town. Pen Avenue North,
[2:06:55] uh, Stuben Avenue and Court and Stony
Port Point. The curb improvements have
[2:07:02] been done and the paving's going to be
begin sometime in the next couple weeks.
[2:07:07] And other than that, that's all I have
tonight.
[2:07:11] » I can respond to Mr. Barley's question.
The statute.
[2:07:16] » Steve Chris going to
>> answer for your statute.
[2:07:19] » I don't know whether you had a pen. If
you don't have a pen to write this down,
[2:07:22] I'll write it down for you.
>> Especially when I come here. Um,
[2:07:28] as I stated before, it's uh NJSA
>> NJSA
[2:07:33] » 1937-1.
[2:07:38] We just haven't set a new one.
>> Um, hang on a second.
[2:07:41] » Okay. NJSA-1
>> 1937-1.
[2:07:48] » And that's at the end. And yes, it says
when the governing body of any
[2:07:53] municipality or county desires to
ascertain the sentiment of the legal
[2:07:57] voters of the municipality or county
upon any question or policy pertaining
[2:08:02] to the government or internal affairs
thereof. And there is no other statute
[2:08:07] by which the sentiment can be
ascertained by the submission of such
[2:08:10] question to a vote of the electors in
the municipality or county at any
[2:08:16] election to be held therein. The county
body may adopt at any regular meeting an
[2:08:21] ordinance or a resolution requesting the
clerk of the county to print upon
[2:08:25] official ballots to be used at the next
ensuing general election a certain
[2:08:30] proposition be formulated and expressed
in the ordinance or resolution in
[2:08:35] concise form.
Such qu requests shall be filed with the
[2:08:39] clerk of the county not later than 88
days previous to the election.
[2:08:45] Now NJSA19 colon 37y
4
[2:08:58] states such result shall not bind the
governing body from which the ordinance
[2:09:02] or resolution emanated nor be taken or
construed as any other than an
[2:09:08] expression of the sentiments of the
voters to be followed or disregarded by
[2:09:13] the governing body in its discretion.
So it the governing body's hands are
[2:09:19] tied. If it has a question, it must be
non-binding
[2:09:23] and it's free for the government.
>> Everything's known about it.
[2:09:27] » Yeah.
>> Is that the reason?
[2:09:29] » What's that?
>> Everything's not known about it. Yeah,
[2:09:32] just
>> it's just that
[2:09:35] it's just no the question on the ballot
means that it's nonbinding on any member
[2:09:41] of the governing body or the governing
body itself as a whole either the
[2:09:45] current or future governing body.
>> Why?
[2:09:49] » Because they don't this they felt that
when they enacted the statute that a
[2:09:53] governing body shouldn't be bound by it.
That it was simply asked as an
[2:09:58] expression of the sentiment of the
voters. That's all.
[2:10:02] » And what would constitute a binding
resolution?
[2:10:06] » A binding resolution would mean that
whatever the voters decided, that's in
[2:10:10] fact what would take place. Such as a
binding vote on a bond
[2:10:16] referendum by the state of New Jersey or
a school board when they have a bond
[2:10:21] issue, whatever the expression of the
people are at that time would carry. It
[2:10:26] would be out of the hands of the
governing body, whatever that governing
[2:10:29] body may be.
And we can sit and debate the wisdom of
[2:10:34] having that there as to whether it's
binding or non-binding, but that's the
[2:10:39] statute. So that's what they're
following. But take a look at it and and
[2:10:43] if you have other thoughts on it, be
happy to hear.
[2:10:47] » Okay. Okay. Thank
>> I know how your attorneys are.
[2:10:53] » I know. I know. I know. You have three
attorneys. You get four different
[2:10:56] opinions.
>> Yeah. All right,
[2:11:00] » I hear you.
>> Thank Thank you, Mr. Congress.
[2:11:02] » Motion.
>> Okay. Motion to adjurnn.
[2:11:05] » We have to do the resolution.
>> Yeah, we got to do the resolution.
[2:11:07] » Resolution 2026-263,
resolution of the township county of
[2:11:11] ocean stating authorizing the convening
of an executive session in accordance
[2:11:15] with the open public meetings act to
discuss personnel matters pending
[2:11:17] anticipated litigation to matters.
>> A second.
[2:11:21] » Second.
>> All in favor?
[2:11:23] » I motion to move it.
>> It pass unanimous.
[2:11:27] » All in favor? I
>> I