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MINUTES OF THE WORKSHOP MEETING OF THE ALLAMUCHY TOWNSHIP COUNCIL HELD

MARCH 13, 2019 AT 6:00 P.M.

Municipal Clerk: We are on the record. Give me a minute.

Municipal Clerk: I can go get it.

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, you can get started.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. If you'd rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mayor Lomonaco: John, would you lead us for the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

Group: I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mayor Lomonaco: We just take a moment of silence for any good thoughts you want to send to somebody. Thank you very much.

Mayor Lomonaco: This is a workshop meeting of the Allamuchy Township Council, held March 13, 2019, which has been posted in advance and complies with the Open Public Meetings Act, Chapter 231, PL 1935, otherwise known as the Sunshine Law. Notice has been posted on the Allamuchy Township bulletin board and by legal notice published in the January 5th, 2019 edition of the Express Times and the January 5th, 2019 edition of the Daily Record. Roll call please.

Municipal Clerk: Councilman Cote.

Councilman Cote: Here.

Municipal Clerk: Councilwoman Tuohy.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Here.

Municipal Clerk: Councilman Ochwat.

Councilman Ochwat: Present.

Municipal Clerk: Councilman Quinoa.

1070 (Completed 03/16/19)Transcript by Rev.com

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Councilman Quinoa: Present.

Municipal Clerk: Mayor Lomonaco.

Mayor Lomonaco: Present. Has everybody seen the minutes? Okay. I'd like to get approval of the regular meeting dated 2/27/2019. The minutes for that please.

Councilman Quinoa: Are we passing this stuff tonight or is this just ...

Mayor Lomonaco: We can.

Attorney Wacks: We've advertised these as action meetings. It's up to you whether you want to...

Councilman Quinoa: Oh, no, I just want to know. I'll make a motion for them to be accepted then. [crosstalk 00:02:09]

Councilman Cote: February 27 is what we’re looking at - I’ll second that.

Municipal Clerk: Councilpersons Cote.

Councilman Cote: Yes.

Municipal Clerk: Tuohy.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yes.

Municipal Clerk: Quinoa.

Councilman Quinoa: Yes.

Municipal Clerk: Ochwat.

Councilman Ochwat: I “absent.”


Mayor Lomonaco: Yes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. For the first time, what we're going to be doing now, we're asking all of the departments and organizations in town to submit their approved minutes and or/monthly reports to us. So, as they come in, I present them to Council, they are placed in our book.

Mayor Lomonaco: What we're going to do now at every meeting is we're going to accept them. We're not approving, we're just accepting them so that they become part of our


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minutes so that when our minutes get posted on the website, those minutes and monthly reports follow onto the website. This way every organization that

wants to participate will have their information put out there for the town residents who's not able to make the meetings to be able to later review them and go back effective today forever, okay?

Mayor Lomonaco: Can I get a motion just the acceptance of the minutes and reports which we received and are in our books?

Councilman Ochwat: I'll make that motion, but I'd also like to ask a question. This is a generic question about these reports, when we get them and then we bring them up to accept that at this meeting, if we had any question on any of them, would that be the time to do it or a separate time to do it?

Mayor Lomonaco: No, we're just accepting.

Councilman Ochw at: No, no, I understand that but-

Mayor Lomonaco: It's not for us to question their minutes.

Councilman Ochwat: I didn't mean questioning minutes. I probably misspoke. What I meant was questioning or talking about something that's in the minutes, not questioning the minutes themselves but an issue.

Mayor Lomonaco: Oh, sure. The issue would then ... Once you received the minutes, which is usually a week or two hopefully before we get to here, then it's for you to feel free to reach out to the department head.

Councilman Ochwat: Got it. Okay. Anyway, I made the motion.

Councilman Cote: I'll second it.








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Councilman Ochwat: Yes.



Mayor Lomonaco: Paul, Engineers Report?

Engr. Paul Sterbenz: Thank you Mayor. Good evening Council Members. Good evening members of the public - I'm here to present my March 8th reports to the Council on my engineering activities.

Engr. Sterbenz Just before I go through the items that are in the report, I just wanted to update the Council on the State's Municipal Aid Program. I've talked to the District Engineer several times from Arlington and the office where we deal with the local aid group there on all our grant applications and all indications are that the State is going to be looking at making decisions somewhere around April 1st, we'll see what happens. We'll see if, in fact, they make those decisions on April 1st. It could be after that, but that's what the goal is at this point is to get the decisions out to the municipalities on the applications that were filed last September.

Engr. Sterbenz: Our application here was for the lower portion of Catswamp Road to improve that section in the area between Independence Township and Bountiful Drive. So we'll see what happens, but we should be hearing a decision on that shortly.

Engr. Sterbenz: Also, the department already has their program for 2020 already organized, there is some potential, which really would be a first for it actually to get out before the fiscal year starts, which was on July 1st so we'll see if that happens. If not, we'll hear about it right after they started the state's fiscal year on July 1st and we'll have to react and decide upon an application for fiscal year 2020 sometime in July or August and make sure it's submitted by September again.

Mayor Lomonaco: I understand you're doing the ride around with Kevin and Ed from DPW to take a look at the roads for that reason?

Engr. Sterbenz: I am. I have a meeting set up with them on the 27th. We have analyzed a number of roadways including one that has local aid funding, Shades of Death Road, and I want to get Kevin and Ed. Jr.'s opinion on the road improvements

before I finalize the budget and give it to Jim and then to you to create a capital ordinance to fund those improvements. I'm also going to be looking at


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stormwater issues with them that same day as well on the 27th.

Mayor Lomonaco: We're looking to do that basically in-house now? I believe Kevin feels [crosstalk 00:07:08]

Engr. Sterbenz: Yes. I'm looking for Kevin's assistance with logging and recording stormwater maintenance and then providing that to me so I can provide that to DEP when asked and also to include it in our annual report to the DEP, which has to be prepared every roughly April 1st.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, very good.

Engr. Sterbenz: They're just about to start the 2018 report, in fact, sir.

Engr. Sterbenz: Just going into my report, on page one, the first side of them is a 2018 Roadway Resurfacing Program. For the most part that program was done including the Gibbs roadwork, which was done through a local aid grant. The only item that remains from that whole program is there has to be some guide rail replacement on Gibbs Road. The guide rail that is on that roadway, at the various stream crossings, is very nice conforming and I have to get a contractor through our membership and the co-op to come out and give us a quote for that and then get the work done.

Engr. Sterbenz: Once that work is done, I can prepare reimbursement package to the DOT to get the remainder of our grant monies. I believe, I think we had $150,000 grant if I'm not mistaken and we got 75% of our money last year after we awarded a contract, so we will be eligible to get the remaining 25% of our grant monies after we complete the work. That would be $37,500 so that's the goal to get that organized at this point. All the other work on Gibbs Road is done and all the other work I know well the other roadways that we had as part of that program has done.

Engr . Sterbenz: Any questions on that particular project?

Engr. Sterbenz: The second project which is on the bottom of page one and extends onto the top of page two is a proposed traffic signal at the intersection of Route 517 and Catswamp Road. Our office prepared two separate reports on your behalf.

Engr. Sterbenz: One report that analyzed whether the warrants for a traffic signal and the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, that's a Federal document, are being met? There are nine warrants. Approximately half of those warrants deal with traffic volumes.


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Engr. Sterbenz: So, the study we did look at specifically whether those particular warrants and MUTCD, that's the acronym for the Manual and Uniform Traffic Control Devices, having to do with traffic volumes were met and we found that two of those volumetric warrants had been met. So, you could install a traffic signal at that particular section as a result of that.

Engr. Sterbenz: Obviously, that intersection involves a county road and we need to, obviously, get the county to buy in on that. There are several vantage points. First of all, the overall allowing that that construction to take place, and, more importantly, if we want to follow a grant application with the DOT to get money to build a traffic signal, we're going to need the county's consent to the file that application.

Engr. Sterbenz: In a separate meeting, Councilman Cote and I were at the County Engineer's Office last Friday. We introduced the topic of the ... Actually, it was on Thursday, excuse me on that, Thursday the 7th. We introduced the topic with them and we had a good conversation with them. There was no commitment from the County Engineer to support the signal construction or to give us a consent letter to file a grant application, but they did listen to what we had to say.

Engr. Sterbenz: They did offer to do some of their own independent study work including doing some topographic survey work out on 517. We mentioned that the high point on 517 is that located right at the intersection, it's offset, it's actually to the north going toward Panther Valley, which creates some sight distance challenges. So they agreed to do some of their independent study to confirm some of the things that we said.

Engr. Sterbenz: Prior to the meeting, I actually prepared a second report, which was a report summarizing accident activity at that location. There have been 15 accidents at that intersection over the last five years. There's been a number of that have involved injuries as a result of the accents. In fact actually they were glad we, we did that report and gave it to them because our report was more contemporary than the report that they had in their own system. They didn't have all the accidents that we had compiled and we're able to give that to them that day in report form.

Engr. Sterbenz: Really where we're at right now is we've had the meeting with the county, we've told them what our findings are. We gave them some new information. They're going to be doing some of their own studies and checks and evaluation of our reports and are going to get back to us. Again, it's good that we got to them very early. We have several months before this new DOT funding round takes place and we want to make sure that they had time to review this so that we could get their consent when we want to file, if we want to file, grant


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application for that particular project, which is to put the signal at that intersection. I think that's a very good project. I think we would get funding.

Engr. Sterbenz: We were funded, as you may recall, for the signal that went into the intersection of 517 and Bald Eagle Road many years ago. In fact, I think we had $237,000 that we got from the DOT to build that signal, at that time, and do some of the other ancillary work. So I feel strongly that we could get this funded if that was our application.

Engr. S terbenz: Any questions from the Council Members or the public on that?

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, Paul, I have a question.

Engr. Sterbenz: Sure.

Councilman Quinoa: I noticed that on your data, you've got all of these incidents from the State Police because I see their case number.

Engr. Sterbenz: Correct.

Councilman Quinoa: I don't know if you have a complete set? There are motor vehicle accidents that morphed into a motor vehicle stop. So, in other words, let’s say it was an accident at that location and it was called in as a motor vehicle accident, they get there if there's some violation or, I don't know, if there's something else to it, that particular accident gets morphed into a motor vehicle stop. So therefore, it's no longer characterized as an accident. Did they explain that to you? Do you know if?

Engr. Sterbenz: No, we were just using the Voyager System which has all these, has the accidents compiled. We didn't go to the State Police Barracks in Hope, and prior to that filed and OPRA Request to try to actually pull the accident reports which may be more comprehensive. I guess we did the low hanging fruit, which was to use their software and to pull this information out quickly to try to reduce costs and prepare all the way out.

Councilman Quinoa: Okay. So you didn't get this one, so you got that from another, a third-party source? Because to tell you the truth, I think it was probably a lot more accidents than this, especially with injuries. I understand if you were going the other route.

Engr. Sterbenz: If the Council wants, we can certainly take the next step in filing an OPRA request and talk to the police barracks over and Hope and try to verify what we have already and see if there's more.


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Councilman Quinoa: Right, if you feel that this is more than adequate. That's fine.

Councilman Ochwat: Manny, do you have access to that?

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah.

Councilman Ochwat: Well is something that you could?

Councilman Quinoa: No. No, I can't do that.

Councilman Ochwat: No, I mean, could you research it simply to see if what you think might be true?

Councilman Quinoa: No, it would be inappropriate for me to do that. It's outside of my ---

Councilman Ochwat: Okay.

Councilwoman Tuohy: We could do a simple OPRA Request.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay.

Councilman Quinoa: Well no, if Paul feels that it's that this is more than enough, that's fine. I just thought, you know, if they needed some more information?

Mayor Lomonaco: 15 in five years, as he said, it seems ample.

Councilman Quinoa: Does it? Yeah. That's fine, if you feel that way, that's fine.

Mayor Lomonaco: To get us to the next level.

Engr. Sterbenz: Continuing on. Actually, while we were getting prepared to attend the meeting with the County to talk about the proposed traffic signal, the township received the letter that's dated March 1st from Mattar Enterprises. What Joseph Mattar from Mattar Enterprises indicated to the Township was that there was interest from an investment group in building possible Walgreens at the intersection of Ridge Road and route 517. An inquiry and this letter was to the effect as to whether the township would support the project and the addition of a traffic signal at that particular intersection of Route 517 and Ridge Road? Apparently, part of the contract with Walgreens would be, or one of the parts of the agreement would be, that there would have to be a signal established at that particular corner.

Engr. Sterbenz: I guess, Ed actually, Ed had copy of this letter. I don't think we can make that type of commitment first of all, because we don't control that intersection. We

have a leg of an intersection just like the Catswamp Road intersection, the


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county controls that particular intersection. But what we could do to see if the signal is warranted, very similar to Catswamp Road, is we could do a study of, again, looking at traffic volumes, which is pretty simple to do.

Engr. Sterbenz: We advised Mattar Enterprises that we could do that type of volume metric analysis to see if it's even warranted at this point. It would require them to put money into escrow to be able to do that. So, that correspondence has gone out to Mattar Enterprises at this point to see if they want the Township to do this study. It would be really be subject to, again, them funding the study and then we can give them an answer as to whether or not it's warranted.

Engr. Sterbenz: If it's not warranted, then it's not something we're going to, we're going to support.

Councilman Ochw at Paul, just ballpark, like you did the study at Catswamp and 517, ballpark what did that?

Engr. Sterbenz: $3,000 we told Mattar Enterprises they would have to post into escrow to have that looked at.

Councilman Ochw at: Okay, so they would be paying for the study?

Engr. Sterbenz: They would be paying for it. The way I framed it on tonight's agenda was, I guess, seeking your authorization to do this study, but it will be subject to the money being posted first. Really, that's your call tonight. I mean, just going back to the letter here, we need to know if the Township would support the project. I don't think that's something we can do at this point either because we have to see what their plans are.

Engr. Sterbenz: I mean they could have a plan that as 15 variances and create all sorts of traffic issues and that would not be a plan that this Township and including our Land Use Board would support. So I don't think we can, we can advise them that at this point.

Councilman Ochw at: This would go to the Land Use Board first, wouldn't it?

Engr. Sterbenz: For site plan approval. Yes, if it became a project. [crosstalk 00:18:20]

Mayor Lomonaco: No.

Councilwoman Tuohy: No Land Use.

Engr. Sterbenz: It seems to me from reading this letter, the big issue is whether or not a signal

can go in. So, I think we can give them an idea as to whether or not that's


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something that could be done through the type of study we did at Catswamp Road. So, if you're okay with me doing this study, you should authorize me in this meeting cycle to conduct the investigation. It will be subject to the monies being posted by the developer.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I just have a question. It won't come before us, it will go before the Land Use Board. Did you speak with Land Use Board on it?

Engr. Sterbenz: No, we had a meeting on February 28th, this letter came in after that.

Councilwoman Tuohy: So is it really our?

Attorney Wacks: Well, it wouldn't be anything that Land Use Board anyway until they actually made an application.

Councilwoman Tuohy: No, oh application.

Attor ney Wacks: We don't give an advisory opinion on it. They have to make an application.

Attorney Wacks: The other thing I want to make sure we don't get in trouble with is that we are interested in the intersection of Catswamp and 517, if they put a traffic light 1,000 feet closer to that intersection, then that might impact our ability to put a traffic light at 517 and Catswamp.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Catswamp yea.

Attorney Wacks: So, I think that's why, you know, Paul's request I think is the proper request. If Mattar wants us to look at it, let them pay for it. We've already told them that, you know, it certainly doesn't mean if they give us the money to do the study, it doesn't mean we're going to say to them it's perfectly fine. It very well may be that that study's going to reveal that is it is within a thousand feet and we're not going to want to do it because of our Catswamp Road situation. So I think it's the right approach.

Councilman Ochwat: Ed, wouldn't it be appropriate that we send a letter to Mattar rather than just talking to him so nothing gets confused?

Attorney Wacks: A letter was sent to them, I think, Paul you sent the letter?

Engr. Sterbenz: The Mayor did, yes.

Attorney Wacks: The Mayor did, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Mayor Lomonaco: When the issue came up, I brought it to the attention of Paul and to Ed. So, they


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presented the options and then also what the proper response would be, I think that Mr. Mattar, from my interpretation of the letter, was just looking to see if it was something that could possibly work before we put any more money into it.

Councilman Ochwat: Right.

Mayor Lomonaco: Knowing that it is a County road.

Attorney Wacks: We reminded him it was a County road.

Mayor Lomonaco: We did.

Attorney Wacks: Right.

Mayor Lomonaco: We just threw it back on him saying, "You know, the first step is you doing this study." Similar to what we did, and after that, we'll see how it goes step by step.

Councilman Quinoa: The only question I would have then, is it by by them putting the money up, asking them if they want to do study, they have to incur all the costs and everything. Are we implying that if that study comes back positive that we are in a round-about way endorsing the program?

Councilman Ochwat: That's why I was asking about the letter.

Councilman Cote: I don't think so. Even our conversation with the county, they said just because it meets the requirements for a traffic light, it doesn't mean that they're going to agree to put it in.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, no, what I'm saying though. If for argument's sake, let's see if, let's see if they put up the money and we did the study and the study came back positive at does that mean, is there an imply that you know what, it's a positive and because we asked you to do this, that we're-

Attorney Wacks: The study would not come back positive. The study would come back that it is feasible and it would be subject to them making an application to the Land Use Board, getting all the other approvals, getting the County's approval before we bless anything. So I mean I'm not concerned about the letter putting us in any kind of committed state.

Councilman Cote: Thank you.

Councilwoman Tuohy: They can go out and use their own engineer to do the study?

Engr. Sterbenz: They could do that too.


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Attorney Wacks: They could.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah.

Attorney Wacks: Sure they could.

Engr. Sterbenz: That's their call, they approached us about this.

Councilwoman Tuohy: All right, so I'll make that motion.

Attorney Wacks: Well it's already been sent.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Oh, okay.

Mayor Lomonaco: No, she's making a motion that should they send the money in that Paul is authorized to do the study.

Attorney Wacks: Do the study, right. Okay.

Mayor Lomonaco: Only based on money.

Attorney Wacks: You know what? Hold on that.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay.

Attorney Wacks: Let's see if they send the money in, if they do. In two weeks, you can always approve it at that time.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Make the motion, okay.

Attorney Wacks: I think you should just hold on, at this point.

Engr. Sterbenz: Thank you.

Engr. Sterbenz: On the bottom of page two onto the top of page three, the Water Asset Management Plan. Back in January, you authorized our office to prepare the Asset Management Report. When we discussed this issue, that was one of three phases in the proposal that I prepared. A decision was made on the first phase to self-perform and the Water and Sewer utility and the public works department have been collecting information under that self-perform goal, and I have a lot of that information already. I should have, by the end of next week,

the remainder of the information.


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Engr. Sterbenz: The information that they're collecting has to be taken and we have to create a map of the water system, which is the second phase, which we did not deal with back in January. So I want to get your authorization once I get all this information from the water and sewer utility to create the map and the fee for that is $6,500. This is a GIS map, geographic information map, and that will be appended for the report that we're also preparing this point. So I need your authorization to do that. This plan has to be in place by April 19th, under the Statute. The in the report as well along at this point.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I'll make that motion.










Municipal Clerk: Mayor Lomonaco?


Engr. Sterbenz: Next item on the middle of page three, also has to do with our water system, the existing water storage tank. As you may recall, in 2013, a study was done by Mumford-Bjorkman Associates, as a consulting firm from Delaware whose primary focus is water storage tanks. They've actually done work on a number of projects for the Township over the years. They came out and evaluated our water storage tank and found that a number of work items need to be addressed.

Engr. Sterbenz: In that report, they indicated that the Township should budget $715,000 to do the work that is cited in their report. That does not include work that the

Township is going to have to do either through that particular contractor or


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through its own forces to keep domestic and fire protection services going while the tank is out of service, while they are doing that work.

Engr. Sterbenz: The last time we rehabilitated the tank, and I was involved with that, was in 1996. We had the tank down for about a month and we had to run our booster pumps 24 hours a day, seven days a week to maintain a water service for our residents here in Panther Valley. It was a very tense time actually for everybody and why we're doing that. So there's a cost associated with that and there's also going to cost to actually put the bid documents together and to inspect the project.

Engr. Sterbenz Due to the large cost associated with rehabilitating the tank, the thought came to mind, in 2018, with the Water and Sewer Advisory Committee and that thought continues now, into 2019, that perhaps the Township should evaluate a complete replacement of the tank. That evaluation would involve looking at an alternate site, and I actually did a very rough concept plan last year for the committee.

Engr. Sterbenz: There is a, a plateau adjacent to the current plateau where the tank is, where you could build a parallel tank. It would be certainly a different construction, so we didn't have all this painting that has to be done periodically up there. The thought of the committee was to have the Township, subject obviously to your authorization, do a study to see if it's feasible to build a new tank up in that particular area. You have a 23 acre site around the existing tank, those 23 acres were obtained when the Village of Bowers Glen subdivision was perfected. There was a dedication to the Township, so you own 23 acres of land. So again, there are a couple other small plateaus up there where a tank could go.

Engr. Sterbenz: The issue is, and I gave you a copy of the proposal that I wrote, is do you want to analyze first before committing to building a new tank and committing to doing rehabilitation, looking at whether it's feasible to do a tank, and, if so, what the cost of that is?

Engr. Sterbenz: Then you had these two projects that you can evaluate doing. Either the rehab here, which has a report on from last year or doing a new tank. So again, the committee would like to see that evaluation done. I believe, and I know Mr. Smith is not here tonight, but I think Mr. Smith's a big proponent of looking at doing this study as well. I think the cost of the study, it was $6,700, which would include doing the actual concept plan for the tank and coming up with a bonafide cost estimate for the tank, so you knew how to compare the two

alternatives and make a decision as to which way you wanted to go.

Councilman Ochwat: I imagine one of the things that would go into the comparison would be the fact that if you did build brand new facility, your downtime to address what you


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mentioned earlier happened in '92, it would be a lot less you'd be switching over from A?

Engr. Sterbenz: Virtually none because we would build a tank in parallel and the or the current tank would stay in service throughout. The only interruption would be is when we would connect the water main coming down from the new tank into the existing water main.

Councilman Ochwat: So that would be part of the costs.

Engr. Sterbenz: Correct.

Attorney Wacks: Could the existing tank remain as a backup tank, or will you look at taking that tank down?

Engr. Sterbenz: That would be part of the study too. I think there is a possibility that might be able to retain it as a back-up tank.

Councilwoman Tuohy: The last report, the company that did the inspection last year. I never saw that report. He only did a report for a rehabilitation, not replacement?

Engr. Sterbenz: Just rehabilitation. They came in to evaluate, actually, it was an underwater study. The tank didn't have to be taken out of service when they did it, which cost us $500 more to do it that way to not inconvenience the customers. Yeah, they just looked at the existing tank specifically.

Councilman Ochwat: Well Paul, I personally don't see how you could go forward without doing that study? So I'd like to make a motion to do this study.

Councilwoman Tuohy: and I'll second it.

Councilman Quinoa: Well, I don't think that we are done with discussion.

Councilman Ochwat: Oh, I'm sorry.

Councilman Quinoa: I think Jim was going to say something?

Councilman Ochwat: Sure.

Councilman Cote: I lost my train of thought now.

Councilma n Ochwat: While you're thinking, Paul, how much did the last study cost us?


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Engr. Sterbenz: Approximately $3,800. What I can do, since Rosemary says she didn't get that report, when I get back to my office tonight I'll email that information. I'll email the report and the cost to you.

Councilman Quinoa: Just curiosity because I don't recall who authorized that? Council didn't authorize that report?

Engr. Sterbenz: It believe it was authorized by Council last year.

Councilman Quinoa: It was?

Engr. Sterbenz: I believe it was.

Councilman Quinoa: Do you recall that? I don't recall.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I don't recall that either.

Mayor Lomonaco: I wasn't here. Nope.

Mayor Lomonaco: [crosstalk 00:31:03]

Councilwoman Tuohy: No.

Engr. Sterbenz: [crosstalk 00:31:00] I will check my reports, it would have been authorized-

Councilman Quinoa: It was never authorized by Council.

Engr. Sterbenz: ... in February or March of 18, but I'll confirm that. I got 3 things to confirm with you.

Unknown: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Councilman Cote: If we're to go with a rebuild and the study that was done, did they give any estimated life on what this reconstruction or refurbishment of the tank would yield? How many years?

Engr. Sterbenz: It may be in the report, but I would say just based on what has transpired since that last big rehab in 1996, in 2018 we really had a lot of issues. That's 22 years, so it’s probably a 15 to 20-year life. I would say 15, we've probably been stringing this thing along. It's probably a 15-year life.

Councilman Cote: And a new tanks life would be... much longer?


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Engr. Sterbenz: A lot longer. Yeah. We're not going to have as much steel or metal in this.

Councilman Cote: Different material.

Engr. Sterbenz: It's a glass fuse type tank.

Councilman Cote: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Engr. Sterbenz: Bruce is familiar with it apparently. The HMUA has a few of these tanks and there's significantly less maintenance in these tanks.

Mayor Lomonaco: That last report that you had going with the pictures right?

Engr. Sterbenz: Yes

Mayor Lomonaco: Can you distribute that to everybody?

Engr. Sterbenz: Yes

Mayor Lomonaco: To make sure that they have it. Because I've seen it, and when you see the pictures it's sort of self-explanatory.

Attorney Wacks: Does it matter where the cost comes from? Would it come from the water and sewer budget, or would it come from our budget?

Councilman Quinoa: I would assume it would come from the water and sewer-

Attorney Wacks: If you're going to authorize it, then I think you make it clear that its going to come from that budget.

Councilman Quinoa: Because there's residents of the town that utilize.

Councilman Quinoa: But Paul, let me ask you... on page 2 it says that your company previously prepared a concept plan for the Allamuchy Water and Sewer, to depict where the new tank would be constructed. Do you have that?

Engr. Sterbenz: It's a red line. I do, I can actually-

Councilman Quinoa: So why... if there's one already that is out there-

Engr. Sterbenz: It’s a dot on the plan, and you're up on the hill you gotta get a driveway up to it, you gotta grade around it to create and area... the ability for the staff to get


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around or the contractor to get around the tank. So there's more to it. I just found a plateau and I found that, that plateau was of a diameter to be able to accommodate a similar tank to what we have right now. Which I think is 46 foot diameter.

Councilwoman Tuohy: You know maybe a replacement might be cost prohibitive?

Engr. Sterbenz: Well it could be, we may find out its a 2 million dollar tank.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Should we do it like in two steps and find out what it would cost first to replace it before doing all of these studies?

Engr. Sterbenz: [crosstalk 00:33:59] If we can do it, if there's real estate up there to do it, and what's it going to cost. And then you'll have 2 alternatives to evaluate which way you want to go. You gotta do something, the existing tank is not in good shape right now.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Right.

Mayor Lomonaco: And then once we have that, we can take a look at see how it affects the cost for the residents that it is affecting. Then we can start working to inform them as to what we're doing and what's the benefits might be.

Engr. Sterbenz: And the state has a very vigorous low interest loan program for these type of projects so that would be the next step. Either way, actually. Either project you could talk to the state about getting some low interest loan monies to help you will this project and try to spread out the cost.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Do they have money in capital right now?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Water and sewer.

Engr. Sterbenz: Not for this project.

Councilman Quinoa: Not for that kind of project.

Engr. Sterbenz: We're not there yet.

Attorney Wacks: You might have to bond for this, if your going to do it.

Engr. Sterbenz: Okay I will get all that information to you tonight. Then just the last item on page 3-


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Councilwoman Tuohy: We have to do the motion.

Engr. Sterbenz: Oh sorry.

Council man Ochwat: I had made a motion?

Councilwoman Tuohy: I second it.

Council man Ochwat: I don't know if... and that it would be paid for if the discussion is over with from the water and sewer.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Second

Mayor Lomonaco: Any further discussion?


Councilman Cote: Yes

Municipal Clerk Tuohy.



Councilman Quinoa: Yes




Mayor Lomonaco: Yes

Engr. Sterbenz: Thank you.

Engr. Sterbenz: Just the last item on page 3 and also the item on the top of page 4, we already did discuss it the outside of the meeting. I have looked at all the roadways that we're looking at to include in our 2019 road program. I have measurements and


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conditions assessment and I want to meet with Public Works to get their feedback on what they think the scope of work should be. And then I can come up with a budget for Jim as well as yourselves on this project so we can get a funding mechanism in place.

Engr. Sterbenz: Then of course storm water compliance and the same time a meeting with the staff I am also going to review stone water compliance as well and preparing the annual report for 2018. And I'm going to review with Kevin what I need him to do, in the way of logging his activities so that we have a record of that right now, which is in sync with the new stone water permit that went into effect on January 1st 2018.

Engr. Sterbenz: So in the type of maintenance that we need him to do on a periodic basis to our facilities.

Mayor Lomonaco: You need a signature on this proposal?

Engr. Sterbenz: That would be good, yes thank you.

Engr. Sterbenz: I have nothing more, unless you have any questions or the public has any questions?

Mayor Lomonaco: I'd like to open it to the public, why Paul is still here before he leaves if there is anybody who would like to come forward and ask any questions?

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay seeing none, then we'll close it to the public. Paul thank you.

Engr. Sterbenz: Thank you very much. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay what I'd like to do before we get to the Attorneys Report, is I was requested by Mr. LaPadula to have a presentation done this evening, which we do have on the agenda. John if you would speak first and tell us what the plan is in summary and introduce the young lady that's going to be giving us the presentation?

Councilman Quin oa: Do you mind real quick? I don't know if Paul and Ed would like to fill in on Mr. Mattar, because he's probably here for that issue that was just discussed. He's probably going to sit here all night waiting for that discussion that's never going to happen-

Mayor Lomonaco: Do you want to meet with them privately while we're getting the presentation?

Attorney Wacks: Sure


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Mayor Lomonaco: If there's anything public you can bring it back to us, and we'll announce it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay John if you would?

John LaPadula: Okay, about a month ago we we're having a meeting and we invited Lakshmi Baskaram and she comes from the Warren County Division of Aging and Disability Services. She noted that Allamuchy has a very high percentage of seniors, by the township. And active seniors. So she made a proposal to utilize the firehouse, or half the hall to put in a health initiative program. To give programs to the Seniors. Exercise programs to keep them healthy. Maybe entertainment programs with bingo, knitting, card games, mahjong whatever to keep them active. But more importantly, it's getting into a lot of health initiative programs and a lot of health awareness programs.

John LaPadula: I took this and I started to look at my experience with the Seniors and what they ask my questions about and what the issues are. And we have issues with fall prevention, managing medications, transportation, paying bills. They don't know how to balance a checkbook. Mental health... to advise them what to do if they're... if they have some needs. Heart disease awareness and prevention, blood pressure screening, blood pressure awareness, and the list goes down stroke awareness, diabetes, emergency procedures. What do you do in a case of an emergency? Health records; I find this very important for seniors. They don't keep adequate records on hand for emergency contacts on hand. I've had seniors that have medical issues and when you try to help them, they can't tell you what the issues are or what the medications are or who their doctor is, or who their emergency contacts are.

John LaPadula: So we have to set up a program to make that... show them how to do that, how to keep track of that.

John LaPadula: And then I went out to the Township and started to talking to Professionals in the area and I found out that Dr. Fedich has offered a Dexter scan machine. Seniors do need bone scans because it's an issue with breaking bones and how to prevent that and how to look forward to it. And we have a Surrogate that's going to come in, to talk about wills, trusts and whatever else. How to set it up.

John LaPadula: Charlie has offered to do exercise program and outreach programs for the Seniors. Atlantic Health is willing to come in and put on education programs on all types of diseases prevention, disease awareness, stroke awareness,

whatever.

John LaPadula: Shoprite is going to come in and do, which we've been doing for many years now, Shoprite gives in September, Flu shots, shingles shots, whatever else. Plus


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they can tell you the needs for immunizations, which they should be getting. It's not just flu shots, they might need updates on their measles, rubella, and whatever else. There is a time limit that you have to have that second shot.

John LaPadula: Those family clinics, USPS post office, has a fraud identification program, that they'll come in and advise the seniors... not on the seniors but a lot of people need to be aware of what's fraud. How to look for it, and how to prevent it, how to protect yourself from it. Phone fraud... and then lastly they'll probably explain a little bit more about the services that she will give [inaudible 00:42:40] to our on county division of aging, the senior services. There's a lot of programs; The Wise program, the PAD program, the [inaudible 00:42:46] program, all these things are available.

John LaPadula: This would be a great advantage to the Seniors. It would give them one place to go if they have a question, they can come in there and say, "Oh I need to know about blood pressure, I need to know about diabetes, I need to know about doing my will, setting up a trust. Who do I go to? Where do I go?" So all these will be available on a monthly, weekly, whatever we see. Whatever the participation of the seniors dictates is when will have the meetings.

John LaPadula: So it either will be on a weekly basis on a Thursday or it will be biweekly or whatever. But I assume we're going to try and have a kickoff meeting on 18th of April and try and get as many of these professionals to come in just to show their face and say, "I'm available if you need me, here's my card, give me a call, I'll come back and talk to you on weekly sessions".

John LaPadula: So basically that's what it is. It's just taking care of the seniors, making sure they have the information they need. Knowing where they can go to get the information to help the need to keep them safe.

John LaPadula: Lakshmi?

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you so much, and I'd like to stand up so that everybody can see me. Thank you all for having me here today. Thank you Mayor and thank you everybody for inviting me over for this meeting.

Lakshmi Baskaram: I'm Lakshmi Baskaram I'm from the Division of Aging and Disability Services of Warren County. As the director, I took over this position about 9 months ago, but prior to that I've had about 20 years of experience in social work and social services and in Warren County specifically for 2 plus years. Prior to that I was in

Morris, public health all that stuff.


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Lakshmi Baskaram: So well... my resume is not important at this point. My goal of coming here today, is one thing I constantly hear about is people don't know about our services. Seniors, caregivers, they are never aware. They say that we are the best kept secret in the world. Well, I don't want it to be a secret anymore. When I took that mission and I started the job, I said, "I don't want it to be a secret", because we are not here to be a secret about our services. I want the public to be able to understand why we are here and count upon us when they need us the most. And call us. Ours is called the AAA, which is the Area Agency on Aging, but also call us the ADRC which is the Aging and Disability Resource Connection.

Lakshmi Baskaram: So I have brochures here which talk volumes about our services, and could you kindly pass this on? So, the purpose of my meeting today is to let you guys know, how did I stumble upon Mr. John? We went for a meeting, I basically said, "hey I want to pass the message about what services we have for Seniors in the County of Warren".

Lakshmi Baskaram: We do have 4 Seniors Centers in the County. One is run by Phillipsburg Town, they provide us the facility and we provide the meals in that facility for people in the Township to come and take advantage of our services. There is one which is run my Warren County itself. That's located in Hackettstown. That's a small facility so not many people are inclined towards thinking that it's part of Warren County. They think that it's part of Hackettstown Township Seniors center. It's not, it's one of our seniors centers.

Lakshmi Baskaram: We have one in North Warren, right on route 94. That's a Seniors Center that we have. Plus we also have one in Washington. What do we do in those seniors centers? We provide meals, we also provide activities, we provide health education, we provide opportunities for socialization and anything else. Like prescription assistance. There is somebody who wants to sign up for a PAAD. My Counselor sits down and talks to them and signs them up for programs and services.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Medicare, that's a big problem in the county where there is a lot of Seniors that go through changes in Medicare options and they are not sure which ones to take and how to change their plans. Our counselors are there to sit down and talk to them and help them set up a plan.

Lakshmi Baskaram: So the bottom line is, I wanted to partner with Townships and say, "how can we come to your towns and helps the senior groups and senior clubs that you have". Get the information because knowledge is power. Not everybody can do

great things, but everybody can do small things with great love. And I am here to do a small change with great love. That's what I'm here for.

Lakshmi Baskaram: So that being said, what are my services? We offer information and assistance for people. When I say seniors, it's not just seniors. It's caregivers. I am a


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mother, but I am also a daughter, I am also an aunt or an uncle for somebody, and I'm also a niece or a nephew for someone that may need my help. So I am playing multiple roles as a caregiver and as a person, a community resident, a neighbor next to me, who made some help. And I am always looking out for somebody who needs my help. So why shouldn't I be informed? I should be informed about what services are out there, not just for my benefit, but for the benefit of my family members, or a neighbor, or a community citizen who is right in the community who needs the help at this time.

Lakshmi Baskaram: I want to share a small story, real quick. Two minutes. An 83-year-old individual has been going through a tax lien, never had a mortgage on the home, was referred to us through an agency just less than 2 days ago. And now I find out that the tax sale has already happened and she's going to be homeless on April 30th. What do I do? Tell me what do I do? It's too late in the game? When it's too late in the game because the person was not referred to us ahead of time. We could have put some services in place, we could have signed her up with housing assistance programs. We could have put her on a housing list to say, "Okay remain on the list a tax sale is going to take 2 years for you, so until then wait on the list so that we can help you get your senior housing, or we could have referred you to legal assistance", because we do contract with the legal services provider in the county.

Lakshmi Baskaram: So there are so many things or strategies we could have followed with this individual to help her out. But she did not think about seeking help and she did not even know that we existed, which is sad and devastating. There were no area agencies that knew of her to refer her to us on a timely manner. And now I am going back to legal services and saying, "try to stop it. See what you can do to stop it". It's too late. It's too late now.

Lakshmi Baskaram: So my goal is not to have another person like that come to me for assistance and we are here to see how best we can help you. I'm not promising the world, I am not promising the Himalayas. But please contact us because information is power and I might have that little ray of hope to give that individual to get the services that they need, through my office.

Lakshmi Baskaram: It could be money management. It could be somebody who cannot get to a doctor’s appointment on a timely manner. We have transportation. I know ways to refer people to. I say, "Call this number", we're going to have a good connection between the service providers around the county. And that's what

we do every day, with that job.

Lakshmi Baskaram: The point it, we are here to connect people to the resources that are out in the community. And one of the things I thought about is, I cannot start a seniors center in Allamuchy, but I do know that there are a lot of individuals who could use my help. And I said to John, "let's see how we can collaborate" and one of


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the choices were, maybe we can do a health initiative in the county so that people know that we exist. And they know how to reach out to us.

Lakshmi Baskaram: So let's start with some basic surveys. So we sent out a survey, and John was very helpful with that. So we're trying to get information on what are the topics that they're looking for information on. What would they like to see in the community here, and how can I best serve their needs. It could be just an informational session, it could be blood pressure screenings, it could be anything that they're looking for. Not everybody is able to come to my office or to my seniors center. I would like to bring the services here. Not every one of them, but what I can, I'm willing to bring it here. That's the goal at this point of time.

Lakshmi Baskaram: But it's not just for a Senior, it could be a caregiver, a friend, a family member. Anyone who could take this information back and bring it back to their homes or wherever they need.

Lakshmi Baskaram: I do have an informational overview, but we have a thorough presentation coming up with the Senior Club at some point in the future. So I don't want to go into a great lot of detail here because your purpose of the meeting is something else. But I just wanted to give you gist of what our purpose of collaboration is. It's just to make sure that you get the right information at the right time so that we can make a difference for that one or two people who really need the help.

Councilman Quinoa: If I may ask, your exercise programs?

Lakshmi Baskaram: Yes

Councilman Quinoa: Real quick overview. What is that exactly?

Lakshmi Baskaram: Yes, we do have contracted providers for Tai Chi, which is a manor of balance class. Which teaches individuals how to balance, especially for seniors, because they are more prone to trip and fall accidents. So that is an evidence-based program by the Department of Public Health and also the ACL which is the Older Americans Access provide services which promote people’s independence. And one of it is the exercise programs, so that they're able to remain independent in

their own home in a matter of safety.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Tai Chi, is one of them. Yoga... we provide yoga lessons in the Seniors Centers. We also provide Zumba, but sometimes it could be chair Zumba or chair Yoga depending on the audience and their ability to participate. Those are currently all through seniors centers. But recently what I did was, let me piloted some


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medals. I wanted to think outside the box and I said let's offer it in the library. So we started offering it in Stewartsville library and that has really taken off. And there are about 20, 25 people who take those lessons on a routine manor. It's for seniors, not for anybody who is younger, because the funding for older Americans Act says it's only for people who are about 60. So therefor there is an age limit there.

Lakshmi Baskaram: So that being said, if somebody is under 60, they would have to pay for the lesson, however for somebody who's over 60 its free with a suggested donation. Because, again-

Counci lman Quinoa: So, you work with Recreation Departments within the town?

Lakshmi Baskaram: I would love to, but I would love to partner and get around to be able to partner and see how I can make it happen. But not yet.

Councilman Quinoa: Because I'm over 60 and I do all these exercises because you can see my physical shape extraordinaire. So I would endorse it.

Charle s Fineran: Manny, if I may, when I heard John talk about this program, with some of the other organizations I've been involved with, I see some opportunities here because we already have some infrastructure with our different trails within our Town and the County. Which would not require any modification or anything, it just requires, number one, allowing the seniors to be aware that there's places out there. So, I've already gone to the Board of Rec to the Parks Foundation, mentioned it to the State, to maybe take an inventory of their trails and ones that are flat and that are fairly easy to get to so that you're not out there actually hiking all over the place. Make up a list, where we could give it to the individual towns, or in your case the county, so that there's an inventory out there where people, if they're fairly healthy it would be under the line of prevention.

Charles Fineran: As I said, we gotta trail over here. Its 1000 feet, it connects to the Lehigh Hudson Railroad. The town went out of its way to put 4 benches in there. So even if a person's fairly not a hiker, they can certainly go in, sit down and go enjoy themselves and feel as part of the movement. Rutherfurd Hall has 4 benches. A lot of these places now are being pretty aware of the fact that, if

we're outside the box as you said, we had the trail, why not invite everybody? Let the tax payers, let everybody get their chances, and it doesn't need a lot of infrastructure.

Charles Fineran: And also maybe get ahold of some of the doctors so that if you have a leg injury or something and he says, "I want you to do some walking as rehabilitation".


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Instead of going, I want to say instead of going to the gym, that's the wrong way. But instead of just going, taking a mundane walk, maybe if you're mobile with a car or something you could go to some places where it's actually an interesting visit, that other people go to for recreation and incorporate that in on a very basic light scale form remediation of an injury.

Charles Fineran: So, I think there's a lot of potential possibilities. We don't have to recreate a wheel, but it gives us a chance to reach out with what we have to a new audience and I think it's a nice idea.

Lakshmi Baskaram: And since he was mentioning about grants and grants applications, the Engineer, I was listening. The USDA has a lot of grants to be able to give it to the Townships. Especially loans and grant also. If you are looking for a community based project. Say for example you want to put 3 benches in a park. You potentially apply for that as a grant, and I just had a presentation from USDA like less than a week and a half ago. Where they said they always look for innovative ideas. So it could be a solar panel thing, it could be building a building. Whatever that is. They have some grants and some loans that you could be looking into to improvise you own township. And putting certain things in place, like Mount Olive Township. They have a beautiful walking area in the park, in Mount Olive Park. Fantastic. Flat land, you can go around in a bike or you can walk and they have benches to sit around and everything great. I haven't seen one in Warren yet, I would love to have one in Warren. Would I have funding for it? Probably not from the county, but that's my vision, the vision is that.

Charles Fineran: Well the good news for you, at least in Warren is, you have the Morris Canal Green Way.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Yes

Charles Fineran: Which is already, it's got the mule trails that pulled the boats. It's flat, the County itself has 80% of its infrastructural so they're trying to make that a green way. There's benches, there's kiosks so you're not only having a chance to rest, you're also having an opportunity to have a pretty meaningful and interesting visit. Which I think is one of the problems with a lot of people that exercise. You know unless you're really in to it, you kinda need a few incentives to maybe go

out and do these things. And with some signage recreation and enjoyable visits, I think that would help in the long run.

Charles Fineran: So, as I said, most of these other groups that I belong to are very aware and we are trying to push ourselves outside the envelope and looking for younger and older citizens.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Intergenerational activities too. Yep, absolutely.1070 (Completed 03/16/19)Transcript by Rev.com

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Councilman Quinoa: Who's ever idea this was, is a great idea. This Town needs it I think. We have nothing for Seniors Citizens. I know in the Rec, you know years ago, we always try to do an adult type of thing. We just can't get to it. Not get to it, but it just doesn't seem to be able to get it off the ground. So if I may, the day you have this April... If it's alright with you, I think our Commissioner from Rec should be there, or he should at least hook up with you and see what he can offer or vice versa and be part of it.

Councilman Quinoa: Because I think it's a great idea

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you

Councilman Quin oa: And we do have gymnasium available. Times are limited, but you know we could work something out. I think it’s a good idea. I don't know who thought about this, but it's a great idea for our Senior Citizens.

Mayor Lomonaco: Anybody else from the audience want to get a comment before she finishes?

Lisa Lomonaco: I just have one thing to say if everybody doesn't know this. The Powerhouse Gym in Panther Valley, is now accepting insurances for seniors and regular people to be able to go to that gym and work out.

Mayor Lomonaco: So there's more opportunities.

Lisa Lomonaco: There's more opportunities. [crosstalk 00:59:10]

Lakshmi Baskaram: That's fantastic. That's good to know.

Lisa Lomonaco: For you to know that the gym in Panther Valley Mall, and they're offering to pay for it, monthly.

Councilwoman Tuohy: If you have Aetna. [crosstalk 00:59:21]

Lisa Lomonaco: He's looking into other insurances, or if other insurances pay, but right now it's

Aetna and he's looking into more. So that's something that you can use to your advantage.

Lakshmi Baskaram: And there was a program called Silver Sneakers. I don't know if it’s still active, I'd have to look into that, but Silver Sneakers is for Seniors who are able to walk and kind of put some miles on their exercise and things like that. I'm going to explore that and come back to you with that information and if you could start


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talk to the recreation department and start something like that. And say, "Okay every Friday we're going to have Silver Sneakers Day" Seniors in the township just go for like a one hour walk in a particular trail. You pick a trail, and then you do it during summer hours.

Lakshmi Baskaram: And again if they don't want to do it in Winter it's fine, but at least during spring and summer and fall you could still have that on a weekly basis. Just to kind of motivate and get people out.

Lakshmi Baskaram: And more than exercise, I just feel it's an opportunity for socialization. Many of our seniors are left alone in their homes and they do not have somebody to talk to or check on them to say, "Did you take your medication? Did you eat last night?". You know simple stuff like that. And it's very important to have a friend at that age to be able to continue to look forward to something nice every day. You know?

Abby Christmann: Just so you're aware, they're actually 4 Recreation Commissioners sitting here. So, one of them, and unfortunately our regular meeting was last night, but I'm pretty sure it will come up at our next meeting.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah but at the minimum. I don't know if our meeting is going to be before theirs, but we should have our Director be in contact with you.

Candy Church: I will definitely be there Manny.

Abby Christmann: She's trails and park. Yeah.

Councilman Quinoa: Whatever you guys, as long as somebody gets involved. The Director should be involved.

Candy Church: Yeah, we'll ask Mike to come.

Candy Church: Yeah but it's during the day, he works during the day.

Councilman Quinoa: Well whatever, okay.

Mayor Lomonaco: We can appoint somebody.

Mayor Lomonaco: Anybody else from Council have any questions before she's done?

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, the way that it came to me, was John. And what John was doing was he was reaching out to the Senior group, which how many members are there?


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John LaPadula: 134 now

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay so out of 134, there's a heck of a lot more Seniors out there. So, the job now for us as the Town, is to get this word out. The word's already there with the seniors, we need to get it out to people that aren't seniors, right? So we'll work in collaboration with both of you to get it out to others whatever that means may be, we'll try and figure out on our own to be able to get the word out. But I think everybody here agrees that setting up this type of program is something that we're in dire need of.

Councilman Quinoa: Wonderful program.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay I think you got the approval that you're looking for.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you very much, and again we're going to try it as a pilot...

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you very much, and again we are gonna try it as a pilot on a monthly basis. One session a month so that we don't overwhelm and over bombard our seniors, but it's also something that we wanna pilot and see, okay, how is it going, and next year if they show more interest, we're gonna bring more stuff, more programs into the area. So, let's see how it goes over a period of one year.


Lakshmi Baskaram: And again, it's baby steps.

Mayor Lomonaco: We just ask that you work with John because-

Lakshmi Baskaram: Yes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Of the availability of the hall.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Yeah.

Mayor Lomonaco: It needs to be reserved.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Correct.

Mayor Lomonaco: So, John being ahead with the Seniors will work with the Town to make sure that the space that you want is available-

Lakshmi Baskaram: Awesome.

Mayor Lomonaco: And reserved.


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Lakshmi Baskaram: Awesome. Thank you again.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Thank you so much for coming.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you for the opportunity.

Unknown : We'd like-

Lisa Lomonaco: Don't you have a program for the Seniors with the Fire Department that they could also come off of? Didn't you have a program with the fire department?

Mayor Lomonaco: Not at this time.

Lisa Lomonaco: The Seniors - Okay.

Mayor Lomonaco: Not at this time.

John LaPadula: They come in every year and speak to us, but it's not-

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah, we do fire prevention-

Unknown: Fire prevention-

Lisa Lomonaco: Okay.

Mayor Lomonaco: And things like that.

Lisa Lomonaco: Right.

Mayor Lomonaco: In November at the same time we do with the kids.

Lisa Lomonaco: I thought with smoke detectors and C0-

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah, that's all part of the program.

Lisa Lomonaco: Okay.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah.

John LaPadula We'd like to really push to have an open house over there on 18th of April, 11-1, gonna try to get as many people here to speak, just as introductory, let everybody know what's happening.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, can you just work with Anne Marie on the availability of that time and date?

John LaPadula: I've already checked with Maria. It's available.

Mayor Lomonaco: Oh, the boss? She said it's good?

John LaPadula: She said it's good.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, so you're on the calendar.

John LaPadula: Yeah.

Council woman Tuohy: What date is it?

Councilwoman Tuohy: 18th.

John LaPadula: April 18th, 11-1, unless it extends longer. Getting something started and keeping it going is gonna be difficult part, we have to get the people in, let them know what it's all about.

Mayor Lomonaco: Once you get the flyer and the information ready, I'll send out something from the Mayor in my email blast.

Councilman Ochwat: What did you say the time was?

Group: 11-1.

Councilwoman Tuohy: 11-1.

Unknown: 11-1.

Mayor Lomonaco: 11-1.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes ma'am.

John LaPadula: And we're gonna provide them with lunch so, Seniors like to eat and so they'll be there.

Candy Church: John, I think we also need to address Seniors who are not, and this is for the Council, that are not members of the senior group. It's open to all seniors, you don't-

John LaPadula: Rick actually is gonna help us get out to the people.


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Candy Church: Yeah, you don't have to be a member of the Senior group to come to this thing.


John LaPadula: It's open to the public.

Mayor Lomonaco: [inaudible 01:04:22]

Abby Christmann: Are we going to have something in the Panther Valley soon?

John LaPadula: I'm gonna try to put a flyer together. Maybe Claire's gonna help put that flyer together.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you for volunteering, Claire.

Claire Arcaro: Also, we should put the flyers at the pharmacy so when they fill the prescriptions for the seniors, they can put a copy inside the bag so that they can-

Mayor Lomonaco: We can do that. We could work with Doctor Fedich as you had said, because there's a lot of Seniors that go there that may not be part of the group.

John LaPadula Yeah, you can put them over there. I stopped in to see him, he's very excited about it. He thinks he could really help out.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. I'm sure there's others in Town that will too. Once we get the word started, it's gonna spread.

Lakshmi Baskaram: And some of the things that I have been trying to do is to definitely take these brochures and these kind of stands to every Township in the area, in Warren County and leave them there because sometimes people are even afraid to ask the question. So, if it's available for people to grab the brochure, and call us

when they need us. Okay, so that's what it is, so please keep us in mind, keep our number in the back pocket, it may not be for you, it may be for somebody that you know in a scenario that we can help.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you for your time, we really appreciate it.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you again.

John LaPadula: Thank you for your time, we really appreciate it.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you very much again.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you.

Charles Fineran: You got a table out here.

Lakshmi Baskaram: Yes, and actually those are a similar packet, they're just different color, that's all. So, I'm gonna leave it here, and whatever's excess you can [inaudible 01:05:46] leave it with the Township. Yes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, at the last meeting-

Lakshmi Baskaram: Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: You're very welcome. Councilman Ochwat had asked about us having groups come in on a monthly basis to do their reports and bring up us as Council, and as residents up to speed on their activity, this was the first one. Okay? We did this with the Seniors. What I'd like to do for next month is to invite the Rec. Department. Okay? I'll put the email out to the Commissioner and the Rec. Department can come give a presentation on each of their councils, keeping it to fifteen minutes for whatever, what they're doing, and any updates that they wanna give us going into the Spring. Alright, and each month we'll pick one and we'll start getting anyone in for just little fifteen minute demonstrations. Okay? Everyone okay with that? So, I'll reach out to Rec on that.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, Attorney’s Report please.

Attorney Wacks: Thank you Mayor, Members of the Council. The Mayor asked me to get involved in an agreement with Baker, with respect to High Point, their most recent development. The issue really came up with the question of installation of curb stops and water meters as construction was progressing. You probably all don't remember this, I'm sure Jim might remember this, but we had a problem with

Carco in which they were taking water, they were going to the curb stop, connecting up, taking water, and without a meter. So, what we ended up

doing is we have prepared and I worked with the Water Department, and by the way Mayor, they were terrific in working through this, and so we now have an agreement whereby the water utility will give Baker the right to control a curb stop for a meter that's installed in a specific dwelling while it's under construction, so that we will get paid for the water that's used during construction and then once that unit is sold to a third party, that meter will then be turned over, registered to the third party who is now the new owner, and Baker's right to control the curb stop will end, and we'll do that as they construct various units.

Attorney Wacks: So, there is an agreement in place, work with water, utility, and I'm very, very pleased that it's gonna work out. Baker is taking full responsibility for any


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damage that they cause to the curb stop or to the meter, so I think it's gonna work out nicely. Any questions on that?

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. I'd like to have the authority to have it signed by Water and Sewer at this point and then present it to Baker for implementation. Does anybody have an issue with that?

Attorney Wacks: Somebody wanna move that?

Councilwoman Tuohy: I'll make that motion to have Water and Sewer present it in writing to Baker.

Mayor Lomonaco: Can I get a second?

Councilman Quinoa: Second.

Mayor Lomonaco: Roll call vote:









Muni cipal Clerk: Mayor Lomonaco.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes. I've spoken also to Adam who's the one that you were working with. Dan is away, and Dan has given him the authority to sign it so it could be in effect tomorrow.

Attorney Wacks: Excellent. Under the Mayor's report you have the appointment of Charlie Zukowski, just for education purposes, if you all remember, I sent you around a memo indicating how reappointments for various members of the Land Use Board will occur, and there's nothing further for me to say. It is a Mayoral appointment and the appointment will be for the balance of the term of that


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particular Class 4 member, and then you're gonna need to potentially fill the alternate position as well now that that's vacant.


A ttorney Wacks: I just, just it's information that I passed around to all of you.;

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Did we do the appointment at the last meeting? We didn't? Okay, so I would like to put on record that we're going to appointment Charles Zukowski as a Class 4 member to the Land Use Board, which will not vacate an alternate spot. I will now reach out to the head of the Land Use Board and ask for a recommendation on the filling of that spot.

Attorney Wacks: And your appointment, Mayor, is for the remaining term of that Class 4 member that was vacant?

Mayor Lomonaco: Correct?

Attorney Wacks: Is that correct?

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes, thank you.

Attorney Wacks: You can authorize consent but you don't have to, it's a Mayoral Appointment.

Mayor Lomonaco: I would like to.

Councilwoman Tuohy: When does that term end? This way we just have it on record. He's filling somebody's position, right?

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, we're filling an expired term but we have to figure out who's that term's

gonna be. I have to check with the Land Use Board Secretary.

Mayor Lomonaco: We can get that.

Councilman Quinoa: Who's term expired? Who are we replacing Charlie with?

Municipal Clerk: There was a vacancy.

Councilman Quinoa: Who stepped down? That's my question I asked.

Mayor Lomonaco: The one that expired was - Mrs. Gibbs expired.


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Municipal Clerk: She's expired, she was a Class 4, and then we moved Rich Evans up to one, and I think there's one more, I have to look. I think Alfia has a list posted in her office.

Councilman Quinoa: I thought there was an Adam that - Adams maybe?

Municipal Clerk: I'll have her email me the list right now.

Mayor Lomonaco: I don't recall.

Councilman Quinoa: Okay.

Attorney Wacks: Alright. Next is the COAH Units, as you all know twelve O’clock tonight was the night that-

Mayor Lomonaco: 15th.

Attorney Wacks: 15th, sorry, was the night that this closing was supposed to take place. We've been notified that it's probably not going to take place. I would like to go into closed session with you and talk about whether we give this fellow any further extensions. There are some issues that I want to make sure you all are aware of. So, that's gonna be for an executive session tonight.

Mayor Lomonaco: There is still a possibility that Friday will happen. We can discuss it should it not happen, but there is still a very good possibility that it will happen on Friday. We've been working with Ed and Mr. Ursin, who is the Attorney last year that started the whole process and they've been asking us for information over the last couple of days in order to complete whatever they need in order to be able to clear liens and whatever they're doing. The possibility is then, if not an executive session [crosstalk 01:12:16].

Attorney Wacks: I think we're gonna be in a position for us to deliver title, and the question is

whether they're gonna be in a position to buy the property.

Mayor Lomonaco: Exactly.

Attorney Wacks: So ...

Councilwoman Tuohy: Well then maybe we should still do executive session, this way we're not pushing it off two more weeks.

Mayor Lomonaco: Exactly.

Attorney Wacks: We definitely need it. Yeah.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah.

Attorney Wacks: Next is two matters regarding Carco and Carragino. As you all know, we've been talking about the siltation and the removal of silt from Lake Eagle Rock, and the question that arose was the removal of the silt once it's taken out of the lake. Carco has agreed to remove the silt in there but has not agreed to remove it from the property, and we went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and what we've now finally agreed to, subject to your approval, is back in the 90s, Caragino posted 20,000 dollars in escrow for the purpose of doing a study on Lake Eagle Rock. Now, most of you probably don't know this, but the ownership of Lake Eagle Rock is in question. Panther Valley doesn't take credit for it, we the Township have said we don't own it, and it's kinda no man's land, and there were some issues with regard to that lake that needed to be addressed including title searches and some other things.

Attorney Wacks: Carragino agreed to give us a 20,000 dollar deposit towards that study. That study is for another day, for another discussion, but what Paul and I have worked out with Carragino is that we would use a portion of those moneys to do a test on what's in the lake, so that we know exactly whether or not is there any contamination, whether it's siltation, whether it's grit as Caragino has suggested that it came from Panther Valley's roads when they were clearing the roads. At least we find out what is there and once we know what's there, then if it's not contaminated, Carco is willing to remove it. If it's contaminated and it happens to be stuff that Carco put in the lake, they're gonna have to remove it because the DEP's gonna require them to do it. So, I just need your approval tonight, to utilize - Carco has agreed to allow us to use that sum, it's about 3,000 dollars, to use those sums to get-before we take the stuff out of the lake and create a major problem, let's find out what that stuff is. So, I need your consent to us using some of that money that's in escrow to do this.

Mayor Lomonaco: We have a motion?

Councilman Cote: I'd make a motion to do that.

Mayor Lomonaco: Councilman Ochwat? Questions?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Why would we do this?

Attorney Wacks: Carco is willing to remove it-

Councilwoman Tuohy: I know. Right, but-


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Attorney Wacks: Once we have it above ground, we don't know what the material is. Carco isn't willing to just take responsibility for it because their position is that it's grits. It's not stuff that they put in the lake. It's not stuff from their development.

Councilwoman Tuohy: But their position according to the developer's agreement they have with the Town is the last ten houses, they were to do this.


Councilwoman Tuohy: It didn't say they were gonna do this based on what was found in the lake, so why are we giving into them again?

Attorney Wacks: Well we're not giving into them. They're agreeing to get rid of it, they're agreeing to take it out, we just need to know what it is that they're taking out.

Councilwoman Tuohy: So, regardless of if it's contaminated or not?

Attorney Wacks: No, cause if it's contaminated, it can't be taken off site, cause then the DEP's gonna get involved.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay but if it's contaminated.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, but we don't know who owns it. We don't know if it's Panther Valley, we don't know if it's the Township, we don't know who owns the lake, and whoever the owner is, is the responsible party for that stuff. So we gotta figure out what it is. We're hoping that once we get the borings done, it's just a couple of soil borings.

Councilman Quinoa: So let me understand this, he agreed to remove it from the lake but he didn't agree to dispose of it.

Attorney Wacks: Take it off site, right.

Mayor Lomonaco: Unless it wasn't contaminated.

Councilwoman Tuohy: That wasn't part of the original developer's agreement.

Attorney Wacks: The problem with the original developer's agreement just says that he's gonna come in and remove it from the lake.


Attorney Wacks: Doesn't talk about-


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Councilman Quinoa: It doesn't talk about disposal.

Mayor Lomonaco: They can put it on Bald Eagle and meet the requirement.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Alright.

Councilman Quinoa: I don't know if you recall this, you probably do, some of the Council people might, remember, I don't know how long ago, remember that lake got contaminated. It spilled over to the lake and they put some barriers in. That was caused my Carco, I don't know exactly what caused it. I believe it was one of the retention.

Councilwoman Tuohy: When their retention basin collapsed.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, there was a dam that collapsed.

Unknown: Yeah.

Councilman Quinoa: So, I guess my question would be if there's any contamination could it been from?

Attorney Wacks: No.

Councilman Quinoa: It could not been from, okay.

Attorney Wacks: This is clearly from Carco’s Development, goes right straight down and it's only about, I'm gonna estimate, it's about thirty feet from the shoreline to where this contamination is. It's only from the shoreline to about thirty feet into the lake. That's it.

Mayor Lomonaco: The silt, not the contamination.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, it's silt, and it's only three truckloads of material. We're not talking about thirty truckloads, we're talking about three truckloads of material, and the problem is, once we find out what it is, we really need to address it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: So, what if it is contaminated?

Attorney Wacks: If it's grit, it's not contaminated. So, if it's stuff that Panther Valley using to deal with their roads, it's not a contaminated item. Grit is definitely not, I talked to Paul about that. So, if it's not grit, then it's silt, and if it's silt, it came off of Carco’s site, and if it came off of Carco’s site, the question is, was there any contamination on Carco's site that found its way into the lake, so it's Carco's


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obligation. It's gonna be their responsibility, and they have admitted to the fact that if it is silt, if it's their responsibility, then they will have to take care of it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: So if it's grit in the lake, they're not gonna do anything.

Attorney Wacks: No, they're gonna still take it out and take it away. They will take it away cause it's not contaminated. They have a place to dump it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Alright, so if it is contaminated, they're still obligated to remove it?

Attorney Wacks: They will be because if it's other than silt, they were the ones that put it in the lake.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Now if it comes back and it's grit? They're not gonna remove it?

Attorney Wacks: Yes!

Councilman Cote: If it's contaminated Rosemary, what they probably have to do is get it incinerated somewhere-

Councilwoman Tuohy: And get the DEP, DEP will be involved.

Attorney Wacks: Right, but if it's grit, there's no contamination. Grit is not a contaminated substance.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I just have a hard time, us using up our money.

Councilman Ochwat: Well the only good part is that the money if I understand it, is from an account that they put aside that's 20,000 dollars many years ago.



Councilman Ochwat: Probably the reason they're willing to do it is it's their money, but they're not gonna-

Councilman Quinoa: They'll never get it back.

Councilman Ochwat: Never gonna see it anyway, so they're willing to do it, and so, why not?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah, and on the lake, I did some research on the lake and I'm gonna try to find the documents that I found, but I think somebody bought it and they went into a tax default on it. Right?


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Attorney Wacks: Right, and then that organization just disappeared.

Municipal Clerk: But it's back on us now because nobody owns the lien so it's unknown ownership with our address.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, and the problem is right now, and I talked to Paul about it, we estimated the cost to try to get to the bottom of the lake, about 75,000 dollars in the 1990s. Okay? Right now it probably would cost us about 250,000 dollars to do the study and figure out exactly who owns that lake.

Councilman Quinoa: The only thing I would say is that, I know you included Panther Valley, and the Township, and Carco I guess, and the Township, the Country Club also, cause it was their property-

Attorney Wacks: What happened is it was originally Washburn Wright. His company was the owner of the lake. Panther Valley was developed, Washburn's company continued to own that lake. That company went out of business, it disappeared. We then had tax liens on that lake cause it was private property, and so we were hitting them with taxes every year which they weren't paying. When they went out of business and disappeared, we then sold those unpaid taxes for a tax lien, nobody bought it. It went to sale, nobody bid, so we ended up with the tax liens, okay, and the question is, do we foreclose the tax liens and take on the responsibility of the lake? At that time the answer, unanimously among all of you was no, we're not doing it, and so the question then became was there some other ownership? Was there some other title issue that we could come up with that shows that notwithstanding the fact that there are tax liens, who was entitled, other than Washburn Wright’s company, because when he finished building Panther Valley and walked away, there were succession companies that

owned different parts of Panther Valley, different easements and so on, and so forth.

Attorney Wacks: It would take an incredible amount of title work to try to figure out some reasonable relationship to that lake and to the ownership of that lake. So, it's still right now, in limbo, we have no idea, and I don't think you all wanna take responsibility for that lake. The cost to maintain it is enormous.


Councilman Ochwat: And the issue is, it resurrected itself for different reasons over the years, with no particular timing, but it seems like every three, four, five years it comes up for one reason or another. It came up because of the dam on it, back a number of years ago, and that was a major issue and everybody's just crossing our fingers that the dam holds up because we don't know who owns it.


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Councilwoman Tuohy: [inaudible 01:23:17] we still get a lot of flooding-

Councilman Ochwat: Right.

Councilwoman Tuohy: In Panther Valley with the [inaudible 01:23:21].

Attorney Wacks: I would just like to get us beyond this situation, so if it's okay with all of you, somebody move to-

Councilman Cote: We have a motion.

Attorney Wacks: Okay.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah.

Councilman Quinoa: Oh, there's a second? I'll second the motion if it was already made.

Attorney Wacks: Okay, Anne Marie.

Munici pal Clerk: Yes?

Attorney Wacks: They made a motion to authorize the use of those funds.

Municipal Clerk: Okay.

Attorney Wacks: Seconded by Mr. Cote.

Mun icipal Clerk: Councilpersons Cote.


Municipal Clerk: Touhy.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Abstain.







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Attorney Wacks: Okay, thank you. I just want to fill you in, by the way, just so you know, Mr. Mattar indicated that they were willing to give Paul the money to get that feasibility studied, and I made it crystal clear, we gave them an understanding of why once we got that study done, it's possible nothing's gonna happen. So, he understood that, and he understands that it's truly a feasibility and that he needs to go to Land Use Board, and get the Land Use Board involved. So, that was the discussion we had about.

Councilman Ochwat: Yeah, and the flip side of that is that nothing's gonna happen if something doesn't happen.

Attorney Wacks: That's right, that's right.

Mayor Lomonaco: I have a question. Sorry, go ahead.

Councilwoman Tuohy: No, you can go first.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Why does the Mattar study have to come through us? Why can't he just hire Mattar?

Attorney Wacks: That's exactly what he's doing. He's giving-

Mayor Lomonaco: So the town is not-

Attorney Wacks: Right. Yep.

Mayor Lomonaco: And we don't need to collect the three thousand and pay Maser.

Attorn ey Wacks: He's paying Maser the three thousand.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay, then we don't need a motion. Yeah. Good.

Mayor Lomonaco: That makes sense. Okay, that makes sense. Your question, is that where you were going?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah, [inaudible 01:24:59] motion.


Attorney Wacks: We don't need anything.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Good.


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Attorney Wacks: Alright-

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you.

Attorney Wacks: I wanna fill you in on one more quick thing and then one other thing that's happened, which is litigation, potential litigation, that I wanna talk to you about in closed session. The quick thing that I wanna fill you in on is McCormack Family in Panther Valley, just so that you all know, we have removed ourselves from responsibility and liability, and we've given Mr. McCormick some direction, with respect to where the water is coming from and who owns those waters and so on, and he's made application to various individuals at the state to try, and correct this problem, so we're not getting involved. He's copying me with information but he understands that neither Paul, nor I, nor any of you were involved in his situation. He's now on his own, working it through.

Mayor Lomonaco: And expanding it to his neighbors. He's giving them the same information because they're affected also.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, but again Mayor, we are not involved in this discussion at this point in time and I wanna make it crystal clear that none of us should be involved. You can feel for them, understand what's going on, but we're not involved. The potential litigation that I want to tell you about is very quick. A request has been made by an organization for certain tax information which we believe we don't have to give them under the Open Public Records Act. They've also requested that information from Vital. Vital has taken the position that they don't have to

give it to them under the Open Public Records Act because it's proprietary information.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Who's Vital?

Attorney Wacks: Vital is the tax people who provide us with our tax information, and so it looks like litigation is going to ensue. They're going to file suit under the Open Public Records Act, and I wanna fill you in on what potential liability, if any, there is, and what you want me to do about it in executive session. It is-

Councilman Quinoa: And just to be clear, is that just about Allamuchy or is it about various towns?

Attorney Wacks: Well a lot of towns were involved but this is specific to Allamuchy. Okay. Mayor, I believe that's it for me. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, thank you. Okay, since we've been extended here, I'll go very quickly with just a few items that I have. I had put out to council and also the organizations in Town, there was an event today, which was sponsored by Fulton Bank for


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leasing lunch and learn where you can get large pieces of equipment from firetrucks, all the way down to small pieces of equipment. When I spoke to Mr. Kozimor about it, what he felt was this is for towns that are really handcuffed by the two percent, that that would be beneficial to them. In our case, it may not be so important but we wanted to send everybody to go take a look, Ann Marie went, and she has all back up information from it, she went and then DPW, Public Works also went. We put it out to the squad and the people from Green went also, and I don't know who else ended up going, but I just want to let you know that it's just an initiative that came out that we are paying respect as much to Kathy Klein who helped us out with the carnival and a lot of other things that we're doing in town, but the project that everybody seems to be looking toward gives us options as far as leasing versus buying.

Mayor Lomonaco: Early on, when I first started this job, I was contacted about the development which is Cobble Hill, which is up near the Green border, the fact that they do not have internet service, so I tried working with the company. We talked about it last time, Altice USA, so I got the information last week, I just want to read you a one paragraph letter that I had sent to them, it says:

Mayor Lomonaco: "My name is Rick Lomonaco, Mayor of Township of Allamuchy, New Jersey. I received in inquiry regarding internet service from a resident on December 12th, 2018. His neighborhood did not have internet service. I made contact with Enterprise account executive Irwin Paget. Mr. Paget assured that he would investigate options and get back to me. After numerous unanswered update requests, I made contact with regional manager Gary Kotzen.

on January 14th, 2019. I received an apology and the same promise to investigate options. Once again, my request for an update goes unheard. I am now contacting you, you being Mr. Hakim.”

Mayor Lomonaco: He's the COO of Altice. Jim had given me a list of people, I figured I would go to operations.

Mayor Lomonaco: "As an operations person, you know the importance of customer service. Please refer me to the proper individual within the organization, that cannot only make promises, but follow up on my requests."

Mayor Lomonaco: And I have not received anything from this letter. So, what I wanna do next is, who is the organization that I can go to? Utilities?

Municipal Clerk: Board of Public Utilities.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Board of Public Utilities. Alright, so I that's my next step using this letter as ammunition, and the other part of the ammunition, is that we're due to renew their ten year contract this year and they're doing this to us.

Municipal Clerk: May.

Mayor Lomonaco: And this is happening in May.

Councilman Ochwat: How long since you sent that letter out?

Mayor Lomonaco: This letter was February 19th.

Attorney Wacks: Does Green Township have service?

Mayor Lomonaco: I asked that question to see if maybe for that little section we could ask them to carry over. The question was can we do that and do an exception and they said no, because it's franchised. So there's no way due to franchise.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah but in Frelinghuysen right now, we're involved in three different communities, trying to accommodate areas of Frelinghuysen with a co- agreement, a co-franchise agreement with Hope, I forget who else, but there is a way of doing it, and it's all involved with the office of cable television.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I believe going on down Alphano Road road close to the Independence, they're not Cablevision. They might be a different company.

Greg Malejko: We're in the same situation when we first moved up on Ridge Road, because there's no telephone poles going up Ridge Road, so we're isolated up there and I

didn't have cable up there for the first however many years, was up there five or ten years, and actually somebody fought and then did exactly what Mr. Wacks is talking about, so I have Comcast from Independence. It's a development, so if it comes up that way-

Mayor Lomonaco: That information is what he gave me.

Attorney Wacks: I think that letter needs to go to the office of Cable Television and explain that we're not getting any kind of response from them.


Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah [crosstalk 01:32:13]

Mayor Lomonaco: Getting no response period.


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Councilwoman Tuohy: Actually check with [inaudible 01:32:17], she might be one of the houses on Alphano that have Comcast.

Mayor Lomonaco: Because that was an idea, just saying just let us tie into that, and they gave a flat no due to franchise.

Councilman Cote: Along the same thing, if their contract is coming up, I think we ought to look at other opportunities, you know, other sources.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's their infrastructure, so we're kinda stuck with them. The idea when the renewal comes up is to see what you can get out of them at the time of renewal.

Attorney Wacks: We may be stuck with them but we're not necessarily stuck with them with the conditions that we [inaudible 01:32:52] are.

Councilman Cote: I know if you go to FIOS and some of those other folks, they don't have service up here but I contacted Usenet and Usenet indicated they had service.

Attorney Wacks: But Usenet is satellite.

Councilman Cote: They're satellite. Yeah.

Attorney Wacks You have to put it inside the roof. [crosstalk 01:33:09]

Mayor Lomonaco: That's an option that is available to them, but their speed is so slow that they can't watch Netflix. [inaudible 01:33:15]

Councilwoman Tuohy: Years ago, I believe it was Verizon came and hit the valley, and laid lines, and then disappeared.

Mayor Lomonaco: Well, they come offering nodes. But now that they're going to five, they stopped doing the nodes because everything's going to change for Verizon, and all of the service is going to go up. That's why they stopped doing the little small things.

Councilman Cote: That's why it is?

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah. Because I had asked about the nodes, too. Because Bountiful is dead, that whole area ... Well, you'd know that.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Maybe they can go to Comcast.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Alright, I'm going to take the next step then.

Attorney Wacks: I'll send you by email some of the letters that we've been exchanging with the Office of Cable Television. So, you get a sense of what's been going on at Frelinghuysen.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. And anytime I dealt with this organization, I copied the resident. So he knows we're trying and he appreciates the effort. But we're just not getting anywhere at this point.

Municipal Clerk: I don't think Comcast has wires out there. I think it's Service Electric.

Mayor Lomonaco: And really, when I talked to the first guy, he says, "If you have 25 houses in a one-mile span which now most likely they do, they're required to put service in there." When it first started, at that time. There may not have been 25, so they were able to get away with it. They're not even performing a study that would give us an answer one way or the other.

Attorney Wacks: It's usually a petition of the homeowner's has to be sent to Service Electric requesting service. That's when they'll tell you whether or not there are sufficient number of homes within that area for them to justify the service.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. I'll work with Counsel to work with the resident. And then also with Anne Marie to see what the next step can be. But we'll definitely try and use this

as an advantage when renewal time.

Councilman Quinoa: I think that if you send the letter to the Board of Public Utilities. At the minimum, Board of Public Utilities will contact them and ask them to respond to you. I don't think you should skip that step. I think it's a good idea, send your complaint to the Public Utilities.

Attorney Wacks: I'll get the Mayor with a particulate person's name to whom to send it. Because she's familiar with Service Electric and what's going in Frelinghuysen.

Councilman Quinoa: That's Great.

Councilman Ochwat: Rick, I wonder if also parallel to that. Both because it's this year and also because this is going on. The reference to this, that we should contact someone from the company to come in and talk to us about renewal without getting into that because ...

Mayor Lomonaco: How does that process work?


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Municipal Clerk: It used to be Gary Shaw. Gary Shaw used to come in. It was him and another lady. We would have to find out who Altice .... Since they went with Altice, still Opt-online, but it's not Cablevision. Gary was with Cablevision. I don't know if they took him on.


Municipal Clerk: I think the best thing to do is probably get the point of contact on their documents, like their attorney which I can provide you tomorrow.

Mayor Lomonaco: Oh please.

Municipal Clerk: And you can go through their attorney.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Okay.

Councilman Ochwat: But I think the sooner we have them in because of the renewal. And then it might dovetail into this other issue.

Mayor Lomonaco: That'll give us more time to negotiate. Instead of being stuck with like one month and ...

Councilman Ochwat: Yeah. Right, right.

Municipal Clerk: Ed - Don't we have to do a public hearing on the renewal?

Attorney Wacks: Yes.

Muni cipal Clerk There's a certain amount of time?

Attorney Wacks: Yes.

Municipal Clerk: 60 days, 50 days, 20.

Attorney Wacks: 60 days.

Councilman Ochwat: You know ...

Mayor Lomonaco: Are there extension put into these contracts should we not be on time? They're not going to cut our service off?


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Attorney Wacks: Yeah. They won’t cut our service off. They have to continue until the franchise is renewed.


Councilman Ochwat: If I remember from previous times before it became Altice and was Optimum or maybe even before that. I'm not sure. Or when they called it Cablevision. They'd be contacting us by now in this year.

Mayor Lomonaco: You would think.

Councilman Ochwat: Because of the renewal, but because it's Altice, I think it's the same reason you're not getting a reply. Because the other issue.

Councilman Cote: Their strategy is probably wait til the last minute. And here, you guys got to renew this.

Councilman Ochwat: Right. That's just what I'm thinking.

Councilman Cote: And avoid the negotiation.

Councilman Ochwat: Right. That's why I'd like to get them in.

Councilman Quinoa: [crosstalk 01:37:20] the prices. I agree.

Councilman Ochwat: Being that their franchise expired May 15th. Do we need to do an extension with the Office of Cable Television, Ed?

Attorney Wacks: No. I mean, it's their obligation to come to us and tell us what they're planning on doing. [inaudible 01:37:36] the obligation ends and then we go to court Cable Television. They have authority to force them to provide service until it's over with. There lot of things have happened.

Municipal Clerk: So, nothing that we need to worry about.

Attorney Wacks: No. We have to worry about it. It's nothing that we have to do.

Councilman Cote: I've got some specific things that I think we should negotiate for.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah. But the sooner we get them in here, the better.

Councilman Cote: We'll discuss it.


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Councilwoman T uohy: [crosstalk 01:37:54]


Councilman Ochwat: If we can get them in for the April meeting, it would be good.

Mayor Lomonaco: Alright. We'll start the process first and once we get into negotiations, we'll work with Mr. Cote. Two more things real quick. I made a visit and spent the day with Water and Sewer in DPW, two Fridays ago. It was amazing to see. If you haven't seen how that plant works, I'll tell you, it's incredible. They showed me from entrance to exit. It was absolutely incredible.

Mayor Lomonaco: One of the things that we had found when we were down there. There's a room in there that was used for water softener. The tanks that they have are huge. They're not being used at this point. It's taking up like this room where they can use either storage, vehicle, parking. It's big enough. It has a big roll-up door on it and such. So what I'd like to propose is that they reach out to a salvage company in order to have the salvage company come and take it away. Then we just negotiate with them a certain percentage as to what we would get back based on the value of it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Of what, the softeners?

Mayor Lomonaco: But we have to actually deem it as unusable anymore, as a council. Then come up with just a small thing. The work to take to get it out the door. It's higher

than this room and wider than from me to you. So, they'd have to weld it and cut it and everything else. And that's where they would get their benefit. By taking the steel and getting rid of it. But the benefit we would have in this would be tremendous for space, storage, and other things. Because right now, it's a waste. It's a complete waste. If we can get back a certain percentage, I don't care how small it is, just for doing this, I would like to be able to at least look at the option.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Oh there are companies that come in and do that?


Councilwoman Tuohy: Did they research it?


Councilman Ochwat: So these salt tanks will never be needed again obviously?

Mayor Lomonaco: No. No. They said they're just idle now and nothing will ever be of use for them.


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Attorney Wacks: Individual owners have their own water softeners. So you're not obligated to provide soft water.

Mayor Lomonaco: If anybody's interested in seeing what we're talking about, please feel free. I assure that Water and Sewer will show you. But there's tremendous amount of steel that's down there that we could get a niece little piece for and then give us great space for well needed space. They're actually putting stuff out in trailers and stuff.


Mayor Lomonaco: Do you need more time Ed?

Attorney Wacks: No, go ahead.

Mayor Lomonaco: Oh okay. I didn't know if you were done.

Attorney Wacks: I want to see if there's anything unusual about in the law that regards us from doing anything.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. The last thing is just I wanted to mention that tomorrow night is Paint with the Mayor night at Rutherfurd Hall. They've been averaging anywhere from 12 to 15 people. We put it out, and as of today, they were up to 36.

Unknown: Wow.

Unknown: Nice.

Mayor Lomonaco: The money is all being used to help Rutherfurd Hall.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Foundation.

Mayor Lomonaco: They had an adult and a child section. The child section didn't have enough to go through with it. So these are 36 adults, all bringing wine. So if you want to come and be entertained tomorrow night is the night to come. Right? But I think it maxes out around 40 or so. It's just a fun night and it's a way for us to promote Rutherford Hall because I guarantee, it's probably the first visit for at least half of those people to see how beautiful the place is. We're going to do more and more events like that. Alright. That's just a little ...

Charles Fineran: Do you anticipate the painting toward the end of your session being a little bit more sloppy?


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Mayor Lomonaco: It could look better. For those of us that don't know how to paint. Yes. Yes, it's very possible.

Councilman Ochwat: Actually there was an email that went out that said, "Paint the Mayor."

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah. That's my next thing to look into. But that's going to cost you a little bit more than $25 bucks and a [inaudible 01:42:00]. Alright, that's all that I had for the Mayor's report. Councilman Cote, under Council members' reports.

Councilman Cote: I don't have anything that was really covered with Paul's report on the traffic light.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Councilwoman Tuohy.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah. Two things. I passed out to Council and the Mayor a website proposal. I spoke with Abby, Monday 6:30, works for us ...


Councilwoman Tu ohy Will be here.

Mayor Lomonaco: That's the 18th?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yep.


Councilwoman Tuohy: After we do the webinar with this company, I will come back to Council with more information. But that's scheduled for Monday at 6:30.

Mayor Lomonaco: We won't have something to compare it to with our present website good list. What you're going to see now if you look at the website, please, is that with all the additions that we've made with the minutes and the agenda and everything else that it has come up to be a legitimate website. Now we'll take a look and see what other municipalities are using and compare to either flip over to something new or improve what we have.

Councilwoman Tuohy: It's not compatible, like when you do it from you an iPad or you do it from your iPhone.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah. That was the thing. You're on the computer, it looks one way. You're on your phone, it looks ... different. There's no way to correct that, that I'm aware of.


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Councilwoman Tuohy: I believe in like doing the research, we have to be handicapped, disabled function for it as well.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah. We're going to learn a lot and then we'll pass that up [inaudible 01:43:38].

Councilman Cote: I have a question on page 14.

Mayor Lomonaco: Sure.

Councilman Cote: Where they talk about budget multi or budget rates. The outline at the top of the page. Your one, two, and three rates. And then they drop down to the bottom where it's itemized fees. You have $10,195 total at the bottom and the numbers at the top come up about, in round figures, $14,000. Are these separate fees? Is it $10,000 plus the $14,000?

Councilwoman Tuohy: These numbers are generic. Worst case scenario in speaking with him. Because we're a small municipality it will be less. But we're not going to use them to do everything. We're probably going to use them to recreate a new website. Host it, because you need a host, and then we would have communications or certain employees updating it on their own which they [inaudible 01:44:35]. That's what the meeting on Monday is going to be about.

Councilman Cote: Okay.

Councilwoman Tuohy: It depends on what you do.

Councilman Cote: Yeah. Yeah. I understand. It was just that the numbers don't jive. I was wondering which is right or is it a case of, it's the three year numbers plus the numbers at the bottom.

Mayor Lomonaco: [inaudible 01:44:58] a la carte. If you choose all of these, you're going to be this. If you're going to choose this, it's going to be that. They're really push us, if I remember from speaking with Rosemary is that they want us to do it ourselves.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah. They did.

Mayor Lomonaco: They're going to teach us so we can upload minutes and agendas and everything else.

Councilman Cote: Yeah sure.

Mayor Lomonaco: So, there won't be that cost anymore. Once we get it up and running. Unless we do a major change, then we need to go to make it to them.


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Councilwoman Tuohy: Right. It's very simple once you have a website that's easy to use. I'll go over the pricing on Monday. This was just a generic that he sent on what the fees could possibly be.

Municipal Clerk: Are they state contract?

Councilwoman Tuohy: I'm sorry.

Municipal Clerk: State contract.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Are they state contract?

Municipal Clerk: Or co-op?

Councilwoman Tuohy: No. They specialize in municipal websites. But ...

Municipal Clerk: [crosstalk 01:45:52] that's something we could get quotes on.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah, I know. We will get quotes on it. This is just a first step to see what we need, what we're going to do. I spoke to the attorney with Ed earlier. If we need to RFP it and he agrees we would. This is a good step. Just to see, so when we RFP, we know exactly what we're RFPing for. I’m all for going through the co-op.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Anything else?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Oh yes. Second, the Mayor requested that I go out and get some additional information for an alternative to the DPW dedication. I supplied everybody with some information I got regarding a plaque for town hall, a bigger plaque. Thinking about it, there probably are several members in our community that should also be recognized. Just off the top of my head: Betty Drake she's been with us for how many years when she was the tax collector? There are all different ones. The good thing is you can keep adding to it. They come with the bronze lettering. Council has it if you want to look it over and discuss it.

Mayor Lomonaco: At the last meeting I tabled it.


Mayor Lomonaco: Just for further investigation which I'm doing also.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Right. Right.


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Mayor Lomonaco: We can include this as part of the options that we're doing. But it will probably be towards the end of the summer before I'm ready.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Oh.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's just, we'll use it and hold it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay good.

Mayor Lomonaco: If anybody else wants to add to it, please feel free to research. But we'll have options later.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Good.

Mayor Lomonaco: Good.

Attorney Wacks: Before you move on Mayor – 40A:12-13 involves the sale of a capital or improvement. This would qualify as a capital improvement. We have to go to a public auction.

Mayor Lomonaco: For what?

Attorney Wacks: To sell those tanks and have them decommissioned and removed, unfortunately.

Mayor Lomonaco: Really?

Attorney Wacks: Yeah. Actually, it says right in the statute, "Demolition, repair, or reconstruction of structures."

Mayor Lomonaco: So a structure would be?

Attorney Wacks: Well, the capital improvement is what these particular ...

Councilwoman Tuohy: Tanks are.

Attorney Wacks: Tanks are. They're capital improvements.


Attorney Wacks: So, we would have to go to a bidding process.



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Attorney Wacks: But what you should find is what would a salvage company charge us. Because it might be below the requirement for us to have to go to bid.

Mayor Lomonaco: Most are saying that they'll do it for free.

Attorney Wacks: What's that?

Councilman Ochwat: What's the requirement?

Attorney Wacks: I forget what the number is. Anne Marie, what's the bid limit now?

Anne Marie: 40.

Attorney Wacks: 40?

Municipal Clerk: With a qualified purchasing agreement.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah. We have a QP, that's right.

Mayor Lomonaco: The word that I'm getting is that they'll do it for free. Then what they do is they take the metal and they go and sell it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: They sell it.

Attorney Wacks: Okay.

Municipal Clerk: And we get credit for it.

Mayor Lomonaco: All we're asking for is 10% back on, or 15 or 20, whatever we decide, back on that for ourselves as a big….

Attorney Wacks: Yeah.

Mayor Lomonaco: Alright?

Attorney Wacks: But in essence ...

Councilwoman Tu ohy: Do they have what possibly they can get for it?

Mayor Lomonaco: Til we bring somebody in, they can estimate the weight and everything else. But there is really a negligible amount.

Attorney Wacks: As long as the 10% that we're going to get back is under the bid law.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Under $40,000? Yeah. I'm pretty sure of that.

Attorney Wacks: Then I think you'll be okay to do it without a formal bid and without having to go and ...

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Yeah.

Attorney Wacks: I was very surprised when I took a look at the statute that it ... I thought the statute involved only real property.


Attorney Wacks: It's not. It's capital improvements or personal property. Anything of those three things are involved in the sale or exchange or lease of property.

Mayor Lomonaco: If I could find two or three, I'll try and get that have a ... as a record.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah. It wouldn't be a bad idea to see if you can get a couple of offers on it. That would certainly legitimatize it.


Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah. And what they give us.

Councilman Cote: Just so you know, when we were selling steel scrap, the last price I was getting was 10 cents a pound for steel.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. So we're not talking huge dollars here. It's probably more work for them than it is what they're going to benefit, but they're doing it as a business and we can benefit from it. So I'd like to at least take a look at it.

Councilman Ochwat: Win, win.

Mayor Lomonaco: Mr. Quinoa [inaudible 01:50:29].

Councilman Quinoa: On the Council Member's report ...

Councilwoman Tuohy: I have one more thing. I'm sorry. Did we ever hear from Independence, from the Mayor Giordano on the court?

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes. I'd like to discuss that in public session as a negotiating issue.


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Attorney Wacks: In executive Session.

Councilwoman Tuohy: In Executive Session.

Mayor Lomonaco: In Executive Session.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry.

Councilman Quinoa: The only items I have left to be is in executive.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. We'll save that executive til the end. Not to make it inconvenient for everybody. Because it's going to be a little longer than it normally would be.

Councilwoman Tuohy: We'd appreciate that.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Councilman Ochwat?

Councilman Ochwat: Two things. A real quick one is that prior to our next council meeting on the 27th at four o'clock in the same room will be a meeting of the SMSD and the public is always welcome. So that's Wednesday the 27th at four. Then secondly, a little update on the remaining things to do with the signs. Where we stand is

Rick has found a volunteer who's going to work on securing plants for the project. Then our Public Works Department will be able to, once we get these plants through donations, will be able to plant the bushes and do the mulch around the four signs. Sign number two which is the west bound exit of 80 is going to need some special treatment because of the guardrail there. We're probably going to end up with some sort of a box to hold the plants and put them in an appropriate line with the signs themselves.

Councilman Ochwat: The other thing is on lighting, we've been doing some experimenting. We've got one light, it's a solar light, on sign number one. That would be the sign coming out of Green Township and our plan is to put a second solar light on that and then do the same thing with sign number four. Once we see how that works out, we're going to see whether we need to do anything at all with sign two and three, in terms of lighting which are the ones that are right off of 80.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Oh yeah.

Councilman Ochwat: Any questions? Okay. That's it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Thank you. Any board or commission reports?


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Councilman Quinoa: Yeah. Very quick. The basketball season will be over Friday night, this Friday for the 5th and 6th grade boys. Just an update, third and fourth grade girls and boys, they don't keep track of wins and losses. They don't have tournaments. So, the only thing that I can report this day, everybody enjoyed it. They did very well and we had quite a number of teams there. At the 5th and 6th grade girls level, I can tell you that we lost in the semifinals. In the 5th and 6th grade boys which is going on right now, all three teams are in the semifinals. So we're guaranteed definitely a team in the finals because there's two Allamuchy teams that will probably wind up playing each other.


Councilman Quinoa: So I'm pretty confident to say that the 5th and 6th grade boys will win the championship. On the 7th and 8th grade girls, again, they had lost in the semifinals. But our 7th and 8th grade boys did win the championship. With that, I'm coordinating an event, most likely at the firehouse where we would have all the teams there like we've done in the past and give out the medals and stuff like that. And just like we did with the soccer, recognize the championship teams. But I will fill you in on when that date will be.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Didn't the 3rd and 4th and 7th and 8th go on undefeated so far for basketball?

Councilman Quin: No. The only team that went undefeated was the 7th and 8th grade boys, 5th and 6th grade boys, the one team that's heavily favored to win the whole thing, they lost the game because they have a coach like Mr. Malejko. That's it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Municipal Clerk's report.

Municipal Clerk: I have nothing at this point. Maybe later.


Councilman Ochwat: I have a question for Anne. We normally fill out, sometime around this time of the year, some kind of financial disclosure things. Are those coming up?

Municipal Clerk: Yep. You'll get them by, usually, by April 1st. They're due by April 30th.

Councilman Ochwat: Thanks. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. I'd like a motion to open to the public please.



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Councilman Ochwat: I'll second.

Mayor Lomonaco: All in favor?

Councilman Cote: Aye.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Aye.

Councilman Quinoa: Aye.

Councilman Ochwat: Aye.

Mayor Lomonaco: Will anybody from the public like to come up and speak?

Charlie Fineran: Just very quickly. Charlie Fineran, Director of Open Space. Yesterday afternoon, Joyce Estey from WRNJ sent me an email asking if I could do a phone tape interview about the freight house. I did that this morning from 9:30 to 10:00. So if you're listening at RNJ, you might happen to hear a nice discussion about the freight house and also tied in with Rutherford Hall and a few other articles.

Mayor Lomonaco: Did she say when it was going to play? Was it a tape or was it live?

Charlie Fineran: It's a tape.


Charlie Fineran: So I don't know when that's going to ... and she might edit some of that.

Mayor Lomonaco: They keep those tapes on the website, right? So we can refer to the website.

Charlie Fineran: I'm assume so. Yeah.


Mayor Lomonaco: They did with our election stuff.

Charlie Fineran: Yeah.

Mayor Lomonaco: So I'm assuming it's the same thing.

Charlie Fineran: It's good. She's interested in what we're doing and I know she does a lot with Rutherfurd Hall.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Good. Good. Thank you for that. Anybody else from the public? Seeing nothing, we'll close to the public. Can I have a motion?


Council I'll second.






Mayor Lomonaco: I see nothing for first reading on ordinances. Is that correct?

Municipal Clerk: Yes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Nothing for second reading on ordinances. Correct?

Municipal Clerk: Yes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Resolutions please.

Municipal Clerk: We have two resolutions. One's going to be discussed now. Resolution A which is recycling tonnage grant. This allows the Recycling Coordinator to apply for recycling monies for 2018. That is done by reporting all your tonnage that's been collected. That's how the grant's disbursed. It has to be done by April so it's included in your notebooks. I put it under resolutions.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Can I have a motion?

Councilman Ochwat: So moved.

Municipal Clerk It’s an annual event.

Mayor Lomonaco: Second?


Councilman Quinoa: Second it.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Any discussion? Roll call.



Municipal Clerk: Councilwoman Tuohy.






Municipal Clerk: And Mayor Lomonaco?

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes. Okay. As you said, the 2019 Salary Resolution will be discussed in executive session. Okay. Okay. Okay. We do have a need for an executive session.

Attorney Wacks: We do.

Mayor Lomonaco: So we have a motion to go into executive session?

Councilman Cote: I'll make that motion.

Mayor Lomonaco: Get a second?

Councilman Ochwat: Second.



Mayor Lomonaco: Aye.

Mayor Lomonaco: Two-minute break. Aye.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you all for coming. Feel free to stick around if you like just in ...


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Councilman Ochwat: We go on the new time next month, but if it was tonight. It'd be 11 o'clock.

Councilman Quinoa: Tonight was an anomaly.

Mayor Lomonaco: Tonight was exceptional.

Councilman Ochwat: I know that's right. I've heard that before.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Because it's a good shot.

Councilman Quinoa: It was an anomaly.

Councilman Cote: Motion that we come out of executive?

Mayor Lomonaco: Can you say it louder?

Mayor Lomonaco: Is there a second?

Attorney Wacks: Second?

Councilman Ochwat: Second.

Councilman Cote: That was authoritative.

Mayor Lomonaco: Alright. All in favor?



Attorney Wacks: Are we on? Alright. In closed session, the Council has determined a few things to take action on. The first action is that with regards to the late Ed Tracy, that the Council was approving payment to him of $15,000 and $7,806 for a total of $22,806 with respect to the sick time and vacation time. And that the monies will be paid to the Estate of Ed Tracy. The second is that the council is going to create a position with regard to Water and Sewer.

Councilman Ochwat: No. DPW.

Attorney Wacks: DPW.


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Attorney Wacks: I'm sorry. That position will have all of the details. During the time that the Council is determining that, the Mayor has been authorized to continue Ed Tracy, Jr. on the same terms and conditions as previously done. The third is with regard to the Independence use of the Court. The Mayor has negotiated with the Mayor of Independence and that an agreement will be prepared that will permit Independence to continue to use the Court on the same basis as before. Paying us $300 a month for the use of the Court through the end of 2019. By the end of the year, a new agreement will be negotiated with Independence with regard to the court.

Mayor Lomonaco: And that's effective April 1st.

Attorney Wacks: It's effective April 1st. Thank you mayor.

Councilwoman Tuohy: But isn't there ... They can terminate it early or ...

Attorney Wacks: I'll negotiate that. Okay. I'll see what I can negotiate.


Attorney Wacks: The other matters that were taken under consideration. No decision has been made on them. That with regard to the sale of the COAH units, if the closing does not occur through the fault of the buyer by this Friday, close of business on this Friday, the buyer will be deemed to have defaulted under the terms of the auction of those properties. Somebody needs to make a motion to approve all of those things

Councilman Quinoa: I'll make that motion.

Councilman Ochwat: Collectively?

Councilman Quinoa: Yes, for all.

Councilman Ochwat: I'll second it.







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Municipa l Clerk: Ochwat.


Municipal Clerk: And Mayor Lomonaco.


Attorney Wacks: Somebody want to move 10 o'clock?

Mayor Lomonaco: Back to nine. Yes. Motion is ...

Attorney Wacks: You're going to stay here all night?

Mayor Lomonaco: Motion to adjourn?

Councilman Ochwat: Adjourn.

Councilman Cote: Second.



Councilma n Cote: Aye.


Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you all for your work.

Attorney Wacks: Thank you.

Councilman Quinoa: Thank you.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 P.M.

Respectfully Submitted,

Anne Marie Tracy, Municipal Clerk


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Rick Lomonaco, Mayor


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