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MINUTES OF THE WORKSHOP MEETING OF THE ALLAMUCHY TOWNSHIP COUNCIL HELD JANUARY 9, 2019 AT 6:00 P.M.

The meeting was called to order at 6:25 P.M. by Mayor Lomonaco.

Mayor Lomonaco: Would everybody be so kind as to salute the flag, and then we'll have a moment of silence after.

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: Thank you very much.

Mayor Lomonaco: This is the workshop meeting of the Allamuchy Township Council held January 9, 2019, which has been posted in advance and complies with the Open Public Meetings Act, Chapter 231, PL 1975, otherwise known as The Sunshine Law. Notice has been posted on the Allamuchy Township Bulletin Board and by legal notice, published in the January 5, 2019 edition of The Daily Record, and the January 5, 2019 edition of The Express Times.

Mayor Lomonaco: Roll call please.

Municipal Clerk: Councilwoman Tuohy?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Present.

Municipal Clerk: Councilman Cote?

Councilman Cote: Here.

Municipal Clerk: Councilman Quinoa?

Councilman Quinoa: Here.

Municipal Clerk: Councilman Ochwat is absent, for the record. And Mayor Lomonaco.

Mayor Lomonaco: First, on the agenda is the approval of the minutes from 11/28/2018. I've been asked by Councilman Ochwat if we were to push that to next meeting. Does anybody have a problem with that?

Councilwoman Tuohy: No.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. So be it. We'll do it then. He wanted to be here when that was addressed. Thank you for that. If we can put that on the agenda for next time.

Municipal Clerk: Sure.

1065 (Completed 02/10/19)Transcript by Rev.com

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Mayor Lomonaco: Mr. Sterbenz, with the Engineer's report please.

Engineer Sterbenz: Thank you Mayor. Thank you Council Members. Good evening. I issued a report on January 7th, which reviewed some of the projects that are involved with. There's also a few things that are outside this report that I want to review with you tonight.

Engineer Sterbenz: Going to the report first, there's only four items on there. On the first page, it deals with our 2018 Roadway Resurfacing Program. Since my last appearance in December, on the 12th of December that is, H. Burd & Sons did do the required shoulder work on Gibbs Road. That work is done. They've subsequently submitted an invoice for their work in the amount of $14,880.00, and I'm recommending that you pay that invoice as part of this meeting.

Engineer Sterbenz: With that shoulder work being done, the only remaining improvement in order to close out this job is guide rail work. We're looking to get that organized and get that done during the winter here.

Mayor Lomonaco: Was the fix that was done in December successful?

Engineer Sterbenz: Yes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. All right. There's no more icing on the road?

Engineer Sterbenz: No.

Mayor Lomonaco: We're good to go. Good job. Thank you.

Councilwoman Tuohy: That's ...

Engineer Sterbenz: Oh, that's actually ... You're talking about Catswamp Road?

Mayor Lomonaco: Catswamp.

Engineer Sterbenz: This is Gibbs Road. Yeah. I'm gonna get to Cat ... Catswamp Road's on the next item on the top of page two. Catswamp Road at the last meeting in December that I attended on the 12th, you authorized me to have H. Burd & Sons perform some paving work over a roughly 400-foot stretch of roadway, adjacent to houses 67 and 71, to eliminate an area of tire rutting, which was channelizing water and creating an icing situation. Mr. Burd was able to do that work on 12/19. He did the work the entire width, from gutter to gutter. I believe the work, in my estimation, turned out very, very good and has alleviated the problem.

Engineer Sterbenz: Obviously there's more work to be done. We have a grant application with the Department of Transportation now to update that section of roadway between Bountiful Drive and the Independence Township Municipal Boundary. So subsequent to the work being complete, Mr. Burd submitted an invoice in the


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amount of $12,640.00 for that work, and I'm recommending that you pay that invoice at this meeting. Any questions on that?

Engineer Sterbenz: The third item, which is on the bottom of page two, has to do with the traffic signal evaluation for the intersection of Catswamp Road and Route 517. The traffic counters actually have been set, they were actually set out there last Thursday, so we'll be removing those in the next three days. We'll have a week's worth of traffic data, and then we'll be able to do our preliminary analyses and issue a memo to you to tell you if that particular intersection would meet the warrants in the manually uniform traffic control devices for a traffic signal. We'll have that letter out before your meeting in February.

Engineer Sterbenz: Actually, that's the third and last item on the monthly report at this point.

Engineer Sterbenz: Going off the report, I was authorized to prepare an ordinance to amend Chapter 270 of your code. It has to do with streets. As I indicated to all of you, there was no section in that particular ordinance chapter that dealt with road openings and excavations, so we didn't have any permitting process or any standards to how to restore a road, so you agreed that was something that we needed to do and asked me to do the ordinance. I prepared that ordinance. I forwarded it on to Ed to review. Ed reviewed it, has made some edits to the original ordinance, which I have no problem with. So if that particular council subcommittee is okay with what I did, with the edits done by Ed, it could be introduced this month by the council.

Mayor Lomonaco: Have you had a chance to redo that yet?

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, I did. I looked at it. I mean, I took a look at Ed's also and there was no changes.

Attorney Wacks: There's no substantive changes, just a lot of [crosstalk 00:06:11]

Councilman Quinoa: Your changes. Yeah. I agree with your changes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. We can put that on for two weeks? Okay. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Manny for checking that.

Councilman Quinoa: You're welcome.

Engineer Sterbenz: I just wanted to let the Council know, regarding the lower section of Cat Swamp Road, did happen to talk to the head of local aide in Roxbury, that's the office we deal with here in Allamuchy Township, and he indicated to me at the end of this month, the technical review committees within the Department of Transportation will be getting together to look at all the grant applications that were filed statewide at the end of September 2018. He thought that it would probably not be any earlier than April 1st that there will be a decision on those grant applications as to who the recipients of grant money would be. We'll see how it develops, but that was his feel on it, and he's been with the Department for a long time, and he's been a district manager for a long time. I think that's


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probably where we're going, we're not going to hear on that grant application until sometime on or about April 1st.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, thank you.

Engineer Sterbenz: Regarding roads, I just want to report to the Council that I did have a meeting with Jim Kozimor, and also Kevin Murray, tonight, to go over our 2019 Road Program. We do have an updated roadway priority list that I have updated last September for you.

Engineer Sterbenz: There's six roads that were targeted for 2019, including the lower section of Catswamp Road. We've discussed all those roads. We've discussed some data collection that has to be done in order to fine tune some of the budgets, and to get final number to Jim so that he can create a capital ordinance at this point.

Engineer Sterbenz: Right now, due to the fact that Catswamp Road is pending funding at this point, and we may not be resolved until a little bit later this year, we're not going to look at that roadway right now. We're going to look at Shades of Death Road, which we do have $140,000.00 grant on to perform the middle section, that's the section that wasn't done yet. The two outer sections were done previously with the other monies.

Engineer Sterbenz: Main Road, which is a road in the Village. It's also Puffer Road, it's the one-way section of Puffer Road. Young's Island Road, which has not been done since 1991. Allaquest Court and then Fox Run Drive, those are two subdivision streets that are connected to one another. We're going to move ahead based on tonight's meeting with Jim to do some data collection and fine tuning of the budget.

Engineer Sterbenz: One thing that we talked about tonight, maybe to save some money, 'cause there's so little traffic on this, is I suggested perhaps we look at doing an oil and chipping of Young's Island Road. Kevin's going to talk to Ed, Junior. About that tomorrow. I know Ed and I have talked before Kevin was hired about this particular program, but it's just an idea possibly of doing something different in our program and possibly saving some money. Again, we'll want to get some opinions. Kevin's got to look at it further, too. That's something that he's going to look into himself at this point.

Engineer Sterbenz: We are moving forward with a 2019 program and as we get more details and we get some fine-tuned numbers, we will get back to you. We do have $140,000.00 which is probably about half of the program along with five streets right now.

Councilwoman Tuohy: And we have data ready. We have data -

Engineer Sterbenz: We have a grant, which is good. Any questions on that?

Engineer Sterbenz: The last item I want to review-


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Mayor Lomonaco: Wait, one second, if you don't mind.

Engineer Sterbenz: Sure.

Mayor Lomonaco: Just for Council, I asked Kevin Murray, who's our new public service on public ... works-

Councilwoman Tuohy: D.P.W.

Mayor Lomonaco: I'm not used to the title yet. Public Works Supervisor, to start attending and working with the roads, and to have Jim, who's paying for it, the Engineer, Paul, and then also the gentlemen that maintain them, so that everybody together meets and agrees on a project before we do it, so that it's done once and we move on to the next one, and that one's done for 15-20 years.

Mayor Lomonaco: By having the three of them all meet together, empowers everybody. I sat in the meeting for a little while, and it went very well. I was very, very pleased with the exchange of ideas and the discussion. I just wanted to bring everybody else up to speed with that.

Engineer Sterbenz: Yeah, I think we had some great discussions. I know Kevin was talking about getting some more information on the roads and the meeting. He's going to go and get some lengths and widths of roads. I want to update this spreadsheet to add that. That's not something we've ever had in a spreadsheet, but I think it is some good information.

Engineer Sterbenz: We talked about perhaps maybe some of the roads, it wouldn't be Shades of Death Road, which has D.O.T. funding and I had to certify on that, but maybe Allaquest Court, maybe the road department can do the inspections on that, and I wouldn't even be involved in the inspections to save money. It's an idea. We'll see if the staff can handle that with their schedules, but the idea was thrown out there, and try to streamline things, and to try to save some money. Any other questions on that?

Engineer Sterbenz: The last item I want to talk to you has to do with our water system. I don't know if the Council is aware, but back in 2017, the state legislature passed a statute known as The Water Quality Accountability Act, and it required owners of water systems, and we are an owner of a water system, to prepare an asset management plan for our water system, and there's certain things that have to be performed in that asset management plan, including going out and locating all your valves and hydrants by G.P.S. coordinates, and assessing all the infrastructure that's part of the water system, and coming up with a priority list as to maintenance and capital improvement projects for that water system.

Engineer Sterbenz: We do have some needs with the water system now. Probably the most prominent improvement is the water tank at this point. This is something that has to be done by April 19th of this year, and there is enough time to do that, so I've given Jim Kozimor a budget to do this work.


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Engineer Sterbenz: There were three phases in the work. One had to do with data collection, actually picking up all these coordinates for the valves and the hydrants. One was actually to update a distribution map. We actually have the distribution map, but there needs to be significant upgrades to it because there's been a lot of construction in town, and we've done a lot of work on water mains ourselves, and then we also want to add this G.P.S. coordinate data for the hydrants and the valves to it.

Engineer Sterbenz: The third is actually to do the asset management plan, which involves an in-depth review of all the infrastructure and coming up with a priority list for future projects in maintenance, and also looking at the overall maintenance procedures of the department. That's probably the most in-depth of the three phases. Just to give you an indication here, the data collection's a $9,000.00 phase, the mapping is $6,500.00, and the plan is $19,500.00.

Engineer Sterbenz: The Mayor and I have talked about the data collection phase, and he's evaluating a self-performance of that whereby our office would not do that, and the Township would find a way to get that work done with its own forces. That would save possibly $9,000.00. If I do a kickoff meeting with whoever's doing it, it would be about $500.00 to do that. It would be an $8,500.00 savings, so $8,500.00 to $9,000.00 that would save to do that. But, the other two phases -

Councilman Quinoa: Who would be doing that? Would it be Kevin?

Mayor Lomonaco: I put out an email to Bruce, to Kevin, and to Dan.

Councilman Quinoa: Oh, I'm sorry, this is water.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's water.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, you're right.

Mayor Lomonaco: But Kevin is doing the roads also, so the three of them, I asked them to come up with a plan because they have until the middle of March to do it. So to come back with a plan and say how they would be able to do it in order to save us that money. I haven't gotten that back yet. I'll share that once I do.

Councilwoman Tuohy: And don't we have a fire hydrant done already?

Engineer Sterbenz: There's a red line. I think the fire department actually is instrumental in clarifying last year the number of hydrants that we had in the town. It was thought that we had about 75 hydrants last year, and it's 156.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah. Well, Panther Valley, one of us have it where all the fire hydrants are.

Engineer Sterbenz: This is going to be a map that's going to be a digital map, it's going to be put on ... it's going to be available to the Township ... for use, and for easy updating in the future, so it's going to be a part of a geographic informational system.


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Engineer Sterbenz: Anyway, the most critical part is the asset management plan. We really need to get to work on that, and according to Mr. Kozimor tonight, he has money in the budget for us to start that work. $19,500.00. He's okay with us starting, so I wanted get the Council concurrence on doing that, and that would ... and if we're able to do that, that's a major chunk of the work.

Engineer Sterbenz: We need to interface with Bruce and with Dan. We have to do a lot of field work on that. I can get going on that. In the meantime, then, I know the Mayor is doing his research with Dan to see if phase one can be self-performed. Phase two really can't be done until phase one is done anyway, so that's going to sit for the time being anyway. I don't really need the map updated, but I really need to get moving with the plan, so I wanted to get your concurrence to do that. Again, I think Jim is still here if you wanted to hear from him personally, but he indicated there is money to do this, and he's okay-

Mayor Lomonaco: When does it have to be done by?

Engineer Sterbenz: April 19th of this year.

Mayor Lomonaco: And the fine is, if we don't?

Engineer Sterbenz: I don't know if there's a fine in the statute, or if there is one, I didn't focus on it. The state last year was sending reminders out. The previous Mayor had distributed in our water and sewer committee meetings, the correspondence, the reminder correspondence, so I think the state is going to be on this in April.

Councilman Cote: My recollection was, 'because this was discussed before I departed in 2017, that there was a significant fine. And it was a fine that continued on. And I questioned the former Mayor that we had a real potential problem here. Somebody needed to get moving on it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: And $19,500.00 is the top number?

Engineer Sterbenz: Yes. Not to exceed -

Councilman Cote: Well, it sounds like he's got it under control right now. I think there's a set plan that we have in place. Once we get that plan in place, we'll be all right, I think when we have it under control - but we gotta keep those dates in mind.

Mayor Lomonaco: But you need to authorize -

Councilwoman Tuohy: Wait, I need to authorize the work.

Engineer Sterbenz: We Phased three and in our budget.

Mayor Lomonaco: Can we do that tonight? [crosstalk 00:17:23] Oh. Okay.


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Councilwoman Tuohy: I'll make the motion to authorize $19,500.00 for phase three of the asset management plan to Paul.

Councilman Cote: Where's that going to come from, Paul? What budget? The water budget?

Engineer Sterbenz: The water budget.

Councilman Quinoa: What if it's in a motion that just encompasses all three phases

Mayor Lomonaco: We don't know phase one yet.

Councilman Quinoa: Okay, but he's got. So, Paul is there already. Okay

Engineer Sterbenz: The motion would be to authorize phase three of three of a January 7, 2019, budget prepared by Maser Consulting for a water system asset management plan. Your authorization does not extend to phases one and two. Those will be dealt with at a later date once the Township determines they want to self- perform phase one.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Do I have to repeat that motion?

Attorney Wacks: No.

Mayor Lomonaco: Can I get a second?

Councilman Cote: I'll do a second. Let me understand this, Paul, if you get starting on phase three right now, if failing the ability to do this internally on phase one and phase two, you would still have enough time to get phase one and phase two done.

Engineer Sterbenz: Yes. We'll be able to do that data collection.

Councilman Quinoa: But phase three is the critical-

Engineer Sterbenz: It's the critical one. We're really gonna get moving now.

Mayor Lomonaco: We should know about phase one within the next week, week and a half.

Mayor Lomonaco: Roll call, please.

Municipal Clerk: Councilpersons Cote?

Councilman Cote: Yes.

Municipal Clerk: Tuohy?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yes.

Municipal Clerk: Quinoa?


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Councilman Quinoa: Yes.

Municipal Clerk: And Mayor Lomonaco?

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes. Still can't get used to that.

Engineer Sterbenz: That's all I have tonight, Mayor and Council. Thank you so much.

Attorney Wacks: Before we finish with Paul's report, I have one part of my report if I may go into that at this point in time.

Mayor Lomonaco: Anything you want.

Attorney Wacks: There was some issues that I've become aware of that Paul made me aware of with regard to the Village of Bowers Glen.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah, that was mine.

Attorney Wacks: The Siltation and so on.

Mayor Lomonaco: Were you brought up to speed on that?

Attorney Wacks: I was brought up to speed on it. I know what I have to do. In fact, I was a drafter of the resolution and the developer’s agreement, so I know fully -

Mayor Lomonaco: Will you update the residents? So that ... will you update the residents that are here so that they know?

Attorney Wacks: That are here?

Mayor Lomonaco: Just let everybody know. Can you do that?

Attorney Wacks: Yeah. Sure.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, if you would, just so that everybody knows what we're talking about.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah. Bowers Glen, the development in Bowers Glen, in Panther Valley, as you all probably know if you're familiar with it, it's on the side of the hill, and it's got real steep grades and everything else, and one of the big concerns we had with that is that the developer was building that development, was the runoff and siltation into the lake. The lake was already impacted by siltation and otherwise, and we were very concerned that Carragino was going to have a significant impact upon it.

Attorney Wacks: The developer's agreement that we had prepared, this goes back a number of years ago, required Carragino to remove this siltation from the lake, which we had him do, but he didn't finish the development and he hasn't finished the development, and he has an ongoing responsibility to remove the siltation.


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What he is suggesting or saying is that the siltation is not his fault, it's not silt that's coming off of Bowers Glen, but rather it's the grit that you're using in Panther Valley to treat the roads. He said, “That's not siltation, that's grit, and that's not my responsibility.” We don't agree. Paul and I do not agree with that position. Your former Counsel was supposed to have sent a letter to Carragino advising Carragino that we didn't agree and that we were demanding that under the terms of the developer's agreement, that he remove the silt.

Attorney Wacks: At this point in time, the question is, am I authorized to proceed with what you had previously authorized your attorney to do? Because your attorney took a pass on it and said, I'm going to leave it up to the new attorney.

Mayor Lomonaco: So, the letter was never sent to Carragino?

Attorney Wacks: The letter was never sent. I just need to know your authorization to send that letter.

Mayor Lomonaco: Comments?

Councilman Quinoa: No.

Councilman Tuohy: No.

Mayor Lomonaco: You good with it?

Councilman Quinoa: I agree with it, yeah.

Attorney Wacks: Okay. Doesn't have to be a formal motion or anything. I just need to sit down and authorize the procedure. Okay. That's all that I have so far as Paul's concerned.

Engineer Sterbenz: I have one other issue, actually, and this has to do with the discussion Anne Marie and I had before the meeting. Last January, there was an ordinance that was introduced that became known as 2018-02. It had to do with the Land Use Ordinance and the makeup of the Land Use Board. There was a conflict between the ordinance and what was indicating the ordinance as a number of members and how our LUB was actually constituted. We actually had nine members. The ordinance actually said seven. So the ordinance was updated to reflect that there be nine members.

Engineer Sterbenz: We also took advantage of the provisions of the Municipal Land Use Law to allow for four alternates of that ordinance as well. This went through the process and it seemingly was adopted. But Ann Marie doesn't have any proof that this was ever published on second reading.

Municipal Clerk: My confirmation that was sent. But I also don't have my surrounding municipalities. And I had a note on my file from the previous Attorney regarding a conflict with something with the Land Use Board Attorney. So I'm not really


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sure. And I said to Paul, with these appointments coming up, if you have any applications or applications coming before the Land Use Board, I don't want them to get challenged for something administrative in error.

Municipal Clerk: The Land Use Board, the one that the attorney's looking at right now, that is the official ordinance that they did approve. The language that Ed had in his hands. They did approve it. And I have an email from them confirming that.

Mayor Lomonaco: Who's name? Who approved it?

Municipal Clerk: The Land Use Board. Mm-hmm (affirmative). At the end of last year, January. End of January of last year. I said to Paul, what are your thoughts with maybe reintroducing it at this meeting, as is, because it's already on the books. Send it back to the land use board, just to reaffirm it, and then do it ... unless Ed says that original recommendation from them was okay, that this is the ordinance and we can use the recommendation or send it back to them. If that's the case, we could do it at the end of the month. If not, we could do it in February 13th meeting.

Attorney Wacks: The composition of the land use board is critical. If you don't have it properly composed, anybody who gets denied is gonna have an ability to challenge the denial, because the board is not properly composed. I think the best way to do it would be to go do it over again, get the Land Use Board to approve it.

Municipal Clerk: Okay.

Attorney Wacks: Publish it, then you're absolutely certain. When you do the publication, you'll just indicate that this is a republication of an ordinance, and the purpose is to justify and verify the existence of the statute.

Municipal Clerk: Okay. Is there any objections, since it was professionally reviewed, to do the introduction tonight of this ordinance making the clarification that we're going from a seven member to a nine member, and allowing for four alternates?

Municipal Clerk: Otherwise if we ... well, we could do two options. We still meet before the Land Use Board. If you want me to circulate it, why don't I do that.

Attorney Wacks: Why don't we spend the two weeks and research it to make sure we're doing it right.

Municipal Clerk: Right. And that's another thing that Paul and I talked about with the staggered terms. Because the Land Use Board questioned whether the four terms should be one year, two for one year and two for two years, two for two years, then starting ... I've gotta work with Paul on this, just to make sure with the Municipal Land Use Law.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's okay to use the next…


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Engineer Sterbenz: Seem to be staggered.

Mayor Lomonaco: Two weeks to get it right. So whatever you present to us-

Engineer Sterbenz: Do this a third time. [crosstalk 00:25:49]

Municipal Clerk: Yes.

Engineer Sterbenz: If you're having a meeting on the 23rd, you can introduce it that night. It can be referred. And the land use board meeting is on the 24th. So, we can take up the issue at that meeting and provide a response back to the Council.

Mayor Lomonaco: Whether than rushing it now, I think that's the best way to do it.

Engineer Sterbenz: Yeah. This way, it gives Ed a time to look at the ordinance [crosstalk 00:26:07].

Attorney Wacks: Let me just make sure I understand. So, right now, we have nine members? We have a nine-member land use board?

Attorney Wacks: Positions?

Municipal Clerk: Right now, we have eight. We're missing one class four.

Mayor Lomonaco: No but, position.

Attorney Wacks: But positions are there.


Attorney Wacks: We have nine positions.


Engineer Sterbenz: Correct.

Attorney Wacks: Ok. Because the statute originally said, and this may be the reason, the statute said your Land Use Board can either be a seven-member board or a nine-member board, depending on how you want to do it. I'm looking at the ordinance, the statute right now.

Engineer Sterbenz: The issue was that-

Attorney Wacks: Create a planning board of seven or nine members.

Municipal Clerk: So, does that trump the local ordinance? But the local ordinance says seven?

Attorney Wacks: This is the bible. The ordinance is not a bible.


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Engineer Sterbenz: The issue was, if we were operating as a nine-person board, but we never updated section 700 of our Land Use Ordinance from saying seven to nine, we're functioning all those years at nine, and we continue to function that way.

Attorney Wacks: Do we have anything before the land use board now?

Engineer Sterbenz: No.

Attorney Wacks: Then I would, if you all don't mind, let Paul and I make sure that this is correct the way we're doing it. We'll have something for you at your next meeting, which you can introduce. If you're in a hurry to do it, you can pass it at your February workshop meeting, because it's an action meeting. Otherwise, you can wait til the end of February.

Attorney Wacks: If they have nothing on the record, there's no rush right. As long as there's no meeting held by land use-

Municipal Clerk: There's no applications.

Mayor Lomonaco: Or we could take the proper time.

Attorney Wacks: Take the time to do it right.

Municipal Clerk: I'll let Ed-

Councilman Quinoa: Are we having problems filling a nine-member land use board?

Mayor Lomonaco: No.

Councilman Quinoa: So that's not an issue. It's not likely to drop down to seven if we wanted to.

Mayor Lomonaco: No, I think nine is better.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, it's always better.

Mayor Lomonaco: I'd also like to be able to leave it to the Chairman to make the recommendations, much like we leave it to other things, as far as appointments are concerned, because they have to work with them.

Councilman Quinoa: I was just wondering, because if there was a problem, could we drop it to seven? If we had a problem filling it, could we drop it to seven? But no, if nine was good then-

Attorney Wacks: That's why the State Statute was drafted that way, because in smaller municipalities, you have trouble getting people to serve. That's why they did it that way. It's a good question, Manny.


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Engineer Sterbenz: I think what we need to do, Anne Marie, as far as the alternates go, we'll have to sort this out. It looks like alternates one and two, their terms expire at the end of this year.

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, Mr. Evans was moved up to a full-time class four.

Engineer Sterbenz: Right.

Municipal Clerk: Okay. He's got a full-term. That leaves now, I think, a position for two alternates.

Engineer Sterbenz: Yeah. I guess the question is, alternates three and four, when we appoint alternates three and four, we should probably have their terms end in 2020 so they're not all expiring at the same time.

Attorney Wacks: They have to stagger the terms.

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, that's why Alfia and I have been trying to coordinate and we just couldn't get that done. So you guys will deal with ...

Engineer Sterbenz: Yep.

Municipal Clerk: Thank you.

Attorney Wacks: Paul and I will have it ready for your next meeting.

Municipal Clerk: Great. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you, Paul.

Engineer Sterbenz: Thank you so much.

Mayor Lomonaco: Much appreciated. One question before you begin, did you receive all your records from the previous Attorney?

Attorney Wacks: Not yet.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay.

Attorney Wacks: We're working on it.

Mayor Lomonaco: If you have any issues, please let me know. Can we do the Attorney's report then?

Attorney Wacks: Okay. I have passed out a draft ordinance tonight just for your consideration - it's nothing for you to act on tonight. I wouldn't expect you to look at it tonight. The concern that we have is that there's a counterbalancing of the First Amendment right of free speech, and the right of the municipality to manage meetings so that they're not disrupted by video or audio taping. So this


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ordinance, what this does, this is solely for public meetings, it has nothing to do with internal meetings among members of the local employees. That's gonna be handled by your employee manual.

Attorney Wacks: But from the standpoint of this, this ordinance basically says, number one, somebody who wishes to either video tape or audio tape any of our meetings, they need to give us notice in advance of doing that, so we know that something's going to happen. It'll also allow us to say to them, fine. If you're going to do that, here's where we want you to stand. This is how we want you to do it so it is not disruptive of our meeting. Because obviously, when somebody's out there with a video tape and they're walking around, or with an audio tape, and they're walking around, they can be very disruptive. And it also can have a chilling effect upon all of you in your efforts to get the business done. So you're going to see that what we've done here, we first of all required notice. And secondly, we've set forth certain rules and regulations as to how audio and video taping will be taken care of. You can't eliminate. You can't say you can't do it, because that would be a First Amendment problem.

Attorney Wacks: If you would all just take a look at it, have the Ordinance Committee take a look at it, then we can decide whether you want to move forward with it, either at your next meeting or at some later meeting. I thought it was important for us to have this. It seems that many municipalities now have people showing up with video and audio recording. It can be very disruptive.

Mayor Lomonaco: Manny, has ordinance had a chance to look at it, yet?

Councilman Quinoa: [inaudible 00:31:36] Doug and I have to look at it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Please.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, I haven't had a chance to look at it.

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, I wasn't expecting that it would introduce yet. That's why it's marked draft, also.

Councilman Quinoa: And once we get that, we can probably extract some of this language to our Personnel Manual?

Attorney Wacks: Yeah.


Councilman Quinoa: I'll take a look at it.

Attorney Wacks: I think that was only other thing that I had. I had this business with Bower's Glen. That was my only other issue. So thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you, sir.


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Attorney Wacks: This will be discussed further, once the Ordinance Committee has the chance to review it?

Attorney Wacks: Yes. If any of you have any suggestions or comments, give it to the ordinance committee and then I can revise it, do whatever needs to be done.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, now for my first Mayor's report. The first thing I wanted to go over, obviously you noticed there's some changes being made. We're trying to make this more open, more friendly, during the workshops, anyway. When we do the regular meeting, we will still be up where we're supposed to be. But I always like the idea of having it down here. I like the idea of opening up a little bit so that you can see everybody's face, and hopefully you can hear us a little bit better.

Mayor Lomonaco: We are also looking into microphones, so that we will have a system put into place that everybody will everybody hear us better. What you see here is taping. But we're going to be looking also at microphones. Once we get pricing and stuff, we'll bring it up to Council and we'll decide if that's the way that we want to go.

Mayor Lomonaco: You may have noticed binders, under the recommendation of Councilman Quinoa. We all have binders where all of our sections are put in here. I'll give you an example, agenda, minutes, engineering, lawyer, ordinance. This way, we're not passing out, everybody has something to refer to. The only thing that I want to remind Council is if you want to keep something, take it out after each meeting, because whatever is left in will be shredded. And the next meeting, we'll start again. They're not to leave. They're just going to be here for the next time, for when you're here.

Mayor Lomonaco: Computers, we have purchased five computers. In the past, the computers are outdated to some extent, at least for the use by Council. There's presently three Council people that I'm aware of that are using them. What we would .. I've asked Councilwoman Tuohy to look into updating and getting us three different ones. And what we would use the five that we presently have for. One has been requested for the courts. The others could be the department heads, such as water and sewer. I think that the public works already has one. And then they would be able to work off of government computers so that they don't put themselves at risk for OPRA.

Mayor Lomonaco: The ones that are older are not going to waste. We couldn't trade them in because they have government information on them, so we have to use them ourselves. But at least for the people that are doing it, now we can bring stuff more up to speed. Should the other two Council people want to join in, we would look at getting them computers also.

Mayor Lomonaco: Manny, would you tell us please about the wonderful proclamations that are going to be done at the next meeting?

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, and there's a correction.


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Councilman Quinoa: After the “I” on the bottom portion of it, that should be a comma and not a period. Renee Feldman picked that up, believe it or not. But, we're going to have a pretty crowded room. We're gonna have 16 players, boys and girls, one head coach, three assistant coaches, and the kids and the families, and the Rec. department and some of the parents will be here. I believe that you'll be presenting to each of them with a proclamation declaring the following, that is the teams day.

Mayor Lomonaco: I think that's wonderful. I think if we had more events, one of every meeting, that would be ecstatic. I really would. I think we need to recognize ...

Councilman Quinoa: We'll try.

Mayor Lomonaco: These kids much more than what we've done in the past, I think. I just think that it's a wonderful idea. Thank you for even suggesting it.

Municipal Clerk: This is going to happen on January 23rd, by the way.

Councilman Quinoa: The 23rd. And by the way, John LaPadula, he'll be here for pictures. The editor from PVPOA. We'll put something out real big and then we'll probably even try to get where we are. You're right. I think we gotta do these a little more often as a community. And we will.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's gonna end up in the The Panther, obviously.

Councilman Quinoa: I hope so.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I think we might manage that.

Councilman Quinoa: Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: All right.

Councilman Quinoa: That's it.

Mayor Lomonaco: I wanted to float a notion. I hadn't really discussed this with anybody, so I apologize for that. But I want to do a little research first. I was part of the committee that helped name the firehouse in honor of Frank Hafner, who was with us for 35 years. I'd like permission from Council to possibly look into the naming the Public Works Building, which is the DPW building, in the name of Mr. Tracy, for the 41 years of service that he had put here for us. Just as an idea, as far as pricing is concerned, what it took to do the front of the building, which is actually in two spots, was only $1,900. It's not a lot of money that I'm talking about. What I'd like to do is present the Council a design and pricing of what it actually would look like down at DPW.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Should we go through with it, we have a ribbon cutting ceremony, like we had done with the Hafner family, give people a chance to come out and share the day with us. If I can get permission from council to proceed, you don't have to give me permission to do it, I just want to be able to proceed, then we can adjust it again once pricing and design are here. Sorry for the late notice with it, but I was doing my research.

Councilman Quinoa: Sounds good with me. [crosstalk 00:37:58] We don't need a motion for that.

Mayor Lomonaco: No, it's really nothing financial yet. But I just wanted to be able to proceed with that. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay, I just want to give people an update on 1 Oak Crest, which has been addressed by some of the residents in the past. I had a meeting this morning with the construction official, Mr. Miller - and I got a better idea as to what's happening. I'm still going to meet with Judge Mellinger next week, because I understand that there's been some court time that's been addressed to the owner of that building. So I want to get a full story before I do it. But I what I did do today, I took it upon myself to spend six hours of labor and $250.47, which we're going to hold as a lien against the property, should we go that route, to put orange fencing around it, at least, to secure the property from that regard. So now, somebody's going to go into it. They're going to have to actually damage the fence to do it. If you're passing by, you'll see it's connected with the iron gates that are there. The gates are secured.

Mayor Lomonaco: And then, orange fencing was done very professionally by our public works people today. I can give a better update once I meet with the Judge next week, as to which way we're gonna go. Then, after I see the judge, we can bring it up and have a look at it legally from our perspective. I didn't want to spend any money on this yet until I found out what the court had to do with it.

Attorney Wacks: Are there "No Trespassing" signs up?

Municipal Clerk: No.

Mayor Lomonaco: No. Do you recommend?

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, I'm not familiar with what the whole scenario, but if we want to try to enforce to keep people out of there, that's what we're trying to do?

Rick Lomonaco: Yes.

Attorney Wacks: Put up "No Trespassing" signs.


Attorney Wacks: And then there's a state statute that we can enforce to go after people who do enter the property.


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Municipal Clerk: We can do that even if it's not ours?

Group: Yeah.


Mayor Lomonaco: Are we legal, going on there and putting a fence up?

Municipal Clerk: A little late now!

Mayor Lomonaco: Honestly, I was talking with Mr. Miller. He was in court, he came out, he was told that he needed to secure the structure. He told David Diehl, the Zoning Officer, he says, "I'm paying taxes, I can't even live there." So, he was pretty much belligerent in the way that he was doing it [crosstalk 00:40:31]-

Attorney Wacks: We have an ordinance in town that deals with vacant abandon structures, structures that are unsafe, and we can have certain self-help rights. You certainly can't go in and start bringing carpenters in to fix it up and do things, but you can certainly secure the property against the possibility of somebody getting hurt on the property.

Mayor Lomonaco: And the way that Mr. Miller was going with it was an unsafe structure. Now that you've said that, that's the reminder that…

Councilwoman Tuohy: Jim Miller pulled me aside, I think last week, and said that going the state route wouldn't benefit us.

Mayor Lomonaco: We talked about that also. We're going to try and avoid that.

Municipal Clerk: Avoid it.

Mayor Lomonaco: And do it internally, and see what happens, because there's no benefit for us on that.

Municipal Clerk: He said about the town possibly taking it down.

Mayor Lomonaco: That's a possibility. Putting whatever the cost would be, we would put a lien against the property for when it gets sold.

Attorney Wacks: Did we ever adopt the property maintenance ordinance? Okay, so technically, yes, we ultimately could do it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Then we'll discuss, once I meet with Mr. Mellinger, the implementation of the fine process, which is a hundred dollars a month until he gets it fixed. Again, that will go against a lien also. But I just wanted to secure the property for now.


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I don't want kids, animals, and such, going in there. That's a good first step. I'll update more as we get to the second step.

Mayor Lomonaco: I've sat through a couple meetings in November and December, I believe, where the Allamuchy Green First Aid Squad was looking for a LOSAP plan in Allamuchy. It was discussed that the plan for the Fire Department has does not work for them, because it's specific to fire. So, what I overheard was that they wanted to see if for 2018, we could make a donation from here to their LOSAP program. And then in the Fall, put out a referendum to the town in order for them to create their own.

Mayor Lomonaco: What I'd like to present is two options. It's my understand you guys all agree that was a good thing for us to do. The amount that's a cap, $1, 150, that's the one that the firemen receive, should they meet certain requirements. In Green, they're already getting $500. What was decided was, the difference, Allamuchy would make up, so that everybody gets $1,150 in total, whether it's $500 from there, $650 from here. I spoke with Mr. Kozimor. The amount that's budgeted toward the LOSAP program is somewhere between $33-$34,000.00 a year. The firemen are using $26,000. The reason it varies is because it depends how many people qualified will get the money.

Mayor Lomonaco: There is a buffer in there already, so the additional money, which in this case, is $9,100 in order to send over to them, the majority of it is already budgeted. There's very little, if any, that would have to be pulled out of the general fund. So, what I'd like to do is to ask two things. One, how does Council want to proceed? Do we want to do the referendum? Or do we want to continue on an annual basis, just to pay Green? And not be able to do that if we can do that. And two, if you can research those choices for us, to give us options to be able to do it. I tried reaching out to the Green's Mayor. He is unavailable at the moment. He says that, through his secretary, that he will get back to me when he can. I'll still wait for him in order to make a formal introduction of the plan. But I've already spoke with the captain of the squad, he's for it.

Mayor Lomonaco: He presented to me the number of people that actually qualified. I wanted to wait until now, because he had to wait til the year was over. There are 14. So there's 14 people that now, $650 at $9100, we would send over to Green in order to bring then up to what the fire department has.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Would you speak with Green about splitting, so we pay half, they pay half, to get them up to the $1,150?

Councilman Quinoa: The way to do that, I was going with Rick, because I really wanted to sit down with the Green captain, or whatever, and really get a full understanding of how each town works, the number of people, and things of that nature, the way it works. Then prepare a report for us to go into it. It obviously had nothing to do with this, but I think, especially if you're meeting, if their mayor is not responding right away. But I think that we need, which I would like to do, a full report to you and to the Council, with more detail, exactly. You know, what equipment they have, what equipment Allamuchy has, number of members and


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all that. And get a better understanding of their administrative structure. Then do a report for the Town Council, especially when you meet with the Mayor.

Attorney Wacks: Frelinghuysen contributes to the Allamuchy-Green First Aid Squad.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah.

Attorney Wacks: That is the situation-

Councilwoman Tuohy: And you can see where…

Attorney Wacks: Frelinghuysen provides a stipend to Allamuchy Green.

Councilman Quinoa: See that's where we don't know, I don't know all the details. I don't think any of us know all the details.

Mayor Lomonaco: I do. To my understanding, Frelinghuysen pays both Hope and Green in order to cover their town.

Councilman Quinoa: That's right.

Mayor Lomonaco: I know pretty much what the amount is, I don't want to necessarily say it, because I'm not sure that it's correct. But the fact that they don't have service in town and Frelinghuysen themselves, they're paying mutual aid in order to do it. But that's not part of the LOSAP program that I'm aware of. But I will ask that question when I talk with the mayor.

Councilman Quinoa: It could be.

Mayor Lomonaco: That may be part of the $500 or ... it may be the whole thing for the $500. I don't know.

Councilwoman Tuohy: It depends on, I guess on what Councilman Quinoa comes up with, if it's an even ... you know, we can split it 50/50. I'm all for the program.

Councilman Quinoa: I would ... my thing is just to do a factual report.


Councilman Quinoa: And then let Rick talk it over with the Mayor. I'm not gonna make any determination as to what-

Attorney Wacks: I'll give a memo on what the legality is, whether, can you make the contribution, can you create your own LOSAP for them? I'll give you a memo on that.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, again, I'm just going to do factual stuff.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah, let Manny to the factual part that he wanted to do. And then you work with me on the others, so that I have that information when I talk to the Mayor.

Attorney Wacks: Okay.

Mayor Lomonaco: If he calls back, I'll give him a general, and then I'll ask to set up the meeting, and by then, I'll have what you both have. So, I appreciate-

Councilman Quinoa: I'll probably do that

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. The Communication Committee had begun work on the website. Councilwoman Tuohy and I are reaching out to the present vendor and another vendor in order to try and see if we can enhance it in any way and come up with some specific ideas. And then, Abby Christmann is also on the committee. So we'll be meeting, hopefully towards the end of this month, so that we can sit together, get a game plan as to where we're going, and then bring in the two vendors in order to do presentations to us, so that we know pricing, and we know more information as to what they know what we want.

Councilman Quinoa: Any possibility to getting your mug up there and updating the…

Mayor Lomonaco: No.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Can we take down the old mayor's picture.

Councilwoman Tuohy: It should be done, if not.

Mayor Lomonaco: Two quick last things. One, the minutes. We had never really posted the minutes, I believe, on the workshop before.

Municipal Clerk: Right. It will all get sent. We just started doing-

Mayor Lomonaco: Before?

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, before.

Mayor Lomonaco: We're just starting to do that now for everybody. So, the way that the minutes are being done now is, the recording is being sent to be transcribed. Every word, every "um" , everything that's being said, is going to be in the minutes. The minutes now for, say the workshop, as they get back in time, will be approved at the general meeting. The general meeting, if they get back in time, will be approved and put on for the next workshop. So we're gonna cut down from a month to two weeks, and the only reason that you have to wait is because they have to be approved first by council before we post it. So we're working very diligently on providing a website with a source for the residents to be able to search out everything on a much more timely basis.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Just to give you an example, Anne Marie, if she had a three-hour meeting, would have to listen to the tape for three hours. When she sent it away, it cost $50. No-brainer. Absolutely no-brainer. Frees her up to do more things. We're spending very little bit amount of time, and if you don't happen to make it to a meeting, you know exactly what was said.

Councilman Cote: It makes for some great reading, too.

Mayor Lomonaco: You talk about transparency, we're giving you transparency. We're committed to that.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I whispered something and it got picked up.

Mayor Lomonaco: And the last thing is, what we're doing for the agendas is, by Friday, the word goes out to council that anything they want on the agenda, to please get to us by the end of the day. And then, 48 hours before we're required to do it, which is the end of the day, Monday. Did we meet at this time? Was it on the website? 48 hours before…

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, I sent it over. It should have been over.

Mayor Lomonaco: We sent it over for it to be on the website 48 hours before. So, this is something we're gonna do for every meeting, so you don't have to come in, be surprised or anything, because once it's on the agenda, if it's not there later, unless it's something that got approved, as Ed had said, in between that, we weren't able to get on the agenda, then it's not going to be voted on. All of our meetings have the ability to vote on. So if we need to do it, we can do it. But for the most part, most of the major things are going to be done at the regular meeting, at the second meeting.

Mayor Lomonaco: That's all that I have for the Mayor's report. Any questions.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Page 4B.

Mayor Lomonaco: What did I miss?

Councilman Cote Charlie.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes, Charlie. I'm sorry. Charlie, in 2018, was the Chairman of the Environmental Commission. I would love to reappoint him for that same position. Is everybody okay with reappointment for that?



Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Is ... how do I do that?


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Municipal Clerk: Attorney, is it a concur with his appointment?

Attorney Wacks: Yes.


Attorney Wacks: Mayor makes the appointment with the concurrence of the Council.


Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. I would like to reappoint, as Chairman of the Environmental Commission, Charles Fineran. Do you accept?

Charles Fineran: Yes. I do. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Thank you.

Councilwoman Tuohy: We need a motion.

Attorney Wacks: Somebody needs to move to concur with the Mayor's appointment.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I'll make that motion to concur with the Mayor to appoint Charlie Fineran to the Environmental Commission.

Attorney Wacks: You're doing that for the tape now, aren't you?

Councilman Cote: I'll second it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Second. Okay. Do we need a roll call?

Municipal Clerk: Councilpersons Cote.


Municipal Clerk: Tuohy.


Municipal Clerk: Quinoa.


Municipal Clerk: Mayor Lomonaco.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes. And thank you, Charlie, for your service.

Charles Fineran: Thank you.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Council reports. Ladies first.

Councilman Quinoa: Real quick before you do that.

Councilman Quinoa: Listen, it was great measures report, and on behalf of the Council, I am pleased at the changes that you're making. I think it's going to make a better Council. I really do. I think the changes that you made with the minutes, the changes you're making with the agenda, the book, and all the changes and all that ahead of time, I think it's a great start. I just wanted to say.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you. Again, it's all of us as a group. As I said, this was your idea. It was a great idea. And we'll implement it. And whoever has ideas, we work together. Thank you so much for saying that. Councilwoman Tuohy? Council report?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah, two things. On the Board of Ed, their reorg. meeting, unfortunately by the time I got there, it was over. It was over in 20 minutes.

Mayor Lomonaco: What did you think it was seven instead of six?

Councilwoman Tuohy: I was ... I think it started at seven. And they're changing their hours of their meetings. I think they used to be six. And now they're gonna be seven.

Municipal Clerk: It's generally seven.

Councilwoman Tuohy: It was seven, then they're going to 7:30.

Mayor Lomonaco: When is that meeting actually? Every month?

Councilwoman Tuohy: The last Monday.

Municipal Clerk: It's like the fourth Monday.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Fourth Monday of the month.

Mayor Lomonaco: If there's five Mondays it's still the fourth Monday?

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah, I think it's ... they're making some changes.

Mayor Lomonaco: I looked in The Panther, and I didn't see it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I'm gonna speak to get it in The Panther.

Mayor Lomonaco: In their calendar.

Municipal Clerk: It's posted on their website. On the board's website.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I am meeting with Joe Flynn on Monday, on something to do with Rutherfurd Hall. I will get their schedule.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Please. I appreciate it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I know they're changing the hours. Second thing, I passed out to Council, and the Mayor had asked me to do an analysis on the municipal court. Everybody has that. I'm just gonna be brief. I think everybody should look at it, maybe we can discuss it more at the next meeting. I know the Mayor's looking into it. But I think it's something that we really need to put on the forefront before the budget is done. Because we can't continue to take this loss year after year. I know you met ...

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah, I can update you. I had a meeting yesterday with Mayor Giordano. Along there, there was the police commissioner and there was also the town clerk, Debbie, what's her last name? Hrebenak? It was a very good meeting. I didn't go in there to talk details with them. I wanted to go in first of all to introduce myself. And secondly, while research is being done for me on both the government website's stuff and I'm gonna ask Mr. Quinoa to look at our stuff internally, since he's on budget with me, so that we can get exact numbers. And tonight, we did get more things that were exact.

Mayor Lomonaco: Unfortunately, there is a loss, there's different reasons for it. One, as far as the bail bonds and things like that, the lost change, there's a lot less money that we're able to charge in the court process. The State Police are fighting for a better contract, or they have over the last year. So, not many tickets, as many tickets, I'll put it that way, were written as in previous years, as, I'm assuming, a sign of protest, which means there was less money brought into us.

Mayor Lomonaco: And plus, the last part that I had discussed with them was that they had an agreement here verbally in order to use our house for court, which is twice a month. I wanted to be able to discuss with them the possibility of a financial arrangement where we can help benefit to cut our loss. Because, I know from the figures that I've seen, there's not a lot of money that they're making. But it is positive. Part of it is due to the fact of usage of our staff. That happens to be here because of the locations.

Mayor Lomonaco: So, there were three parts that I was interested in discussing with him. One was the rental fee, however you want to call it, which would include certain things that need to be discussed. Secondly, I would like our insurance to be listed as additionally insured on theirs, should there be an incident during their court time, whoever they're going to sue, whoever's place this is, that's us. I would much rather be additionally insured by them than not. And then third, any things that we do to fix the lobby, to make it much more secure, that they would split the cost with us. And they were open to that, because what we need to do on the right, we have obviously a metal detector. To the left, where most of the people are, we have nothing. So, we need to look at a better way of doing it. Also, the glass there for the receptionist is not bullet-proof. So, there's a couple of things that we really need to look at this year, on possibly making it much more safer for the people that are here. And they'd be willing to split the cost on that.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Once I get more information from them, I didn't want to present a number to them.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah. But you know what, I think we really need to consider going into local shared services agreement. A joint agreement, a joint court.

Mayor Lomonaco: What I did, I brought that up to them, to the fact that we wanted to look at that as a possibility.

Councilwoman Tuohy: That's the only-

Mayor Lomonaco: And what they said was…

Rosemary Tuohy: Mitigate everything.

Mayor Lomonaco: We're not sharing a judge.

Councilwoman Tuohy: But then they be ... they need to get their court [crosstalk 00:58:12]

Mayor Lomonaco: They said we have a Judge, and you have a Judge. We've gone through pain-staking things to take the judge that does a good job for us. So, a shared service agreement at this time is not on the table. All I'm gonna say is for you guys to consider, that if they bail on us, then we get nothing. Anything that we have here is, if we got a loss, we got nothing to go against it now.

Councilwoman Tuohy: We're not getting anything from them now anyway.

Mayor Lomonaco: We don't. But that's the reason for the meeting. So if I'm able to go and get something that we can all agree to, which of course I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna make an agreement. It's gonna come back here. And we're going to decide what we're going to do.

Councilman Quinoa: I think that, again, going with the same kind of plan that we're setting forth going forward, either where you put on this if it's you and I. I think what we need to do, put something in paper and pencil and present all the options to you, whether it's an option of by ourselves, an option of a share, or an option where we do some sort of like a rental agreement or a charge back or whatever. I think what we should do is present a document of all our options, and then go forward as to what we want to do.

Mayor Lomonaco: That's basically what I asked from them.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah.

Mayor Lomonaco: I want them to come back to us with something to start with.

Councilman Quinoa: I think we should do our own first.


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Mayor Lomonaco: I want to get that first. Then I want to work with Councilwoman Tuohy on exactly what you're talking about. No offense. It's just that the idea was hers. So I want to be able to follow through with you, working our end for a counter offer to be able to see if we can come up with this. If it turns out that it's no, then it's no. But again, then we get nothing. You know, in this case, maybe we can get something. I was thinking of a longer period of time with a 2% increase every year, so we don't have to keep going back on this. We settle it once. And then if they agree to that part. But let's see what they come back with first.

Councilman Quinoa: I guess my question, are we getting anything from them now?


Councilman Cote: We have no income, no revenue-

Councilwoman Tuohy: No cash, no checks, nothing from them right now.

Councilman Quinoa: Nothing at all. So, right now, the way it stands is, if we were to do a charge back or whatever, some sort of deficit. But Councilman Tuohy has some numbers for you that can back up probably what you're talking about, the number of volume, etc.

Mayor Lomonaco: No, she's provided.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah, I have more stuff.

Councilman Lomonaco: Oh, more, okay.

Councilwoman Tuohy: I have to go over it.

Mayor Lomonaco Sounds good.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's all part of the process that we're working on.

Attorney Wacks: Let me also just make sure you understand, you have three possibilities. You can rent the space and make an agreement with regard to the use of the facilities and people.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes.

Attorney Wacks: You can have shared services, which is what you're familiar with. And you can have a joint court. The difference between shared services and a joint court, the joint court, you could have two judges and two prosecutors. So you could, that's permitted. But you need to have the administrative director of the courts approve a joint court, and approve agreements. It's a pretty complicated process. But I don't want you to think that a joint court or shared services are the same thing. They're very different.


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Attorney Wacks: But that's another opportunity that ... basically three opportunities. Joint court, shared services, and a rental agreement.

Mayor Lomonaco: Then we can discuss as a counter.

Councilman Cote: Repeat the last one.

Attorney Wacks: Joint court, shared services, and a rental arrangement.

Councilman Quinoa: A rental arrangement.

Mayor Lomonaco: Or they walk away.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Did you ever find out why they can't use their court?

Mayor Lomonaco: Their facility isn't up to the requirements.

Councilman Quinoa: The Administrative Office of the Courts has certain requirements of what you need to have. If you don't have it, you can't hold a court there.

Councilman Tuohy: Do you know what they are?

Municipal Clerk: Security.

Manny Quinoa: Glass, and-

Councilman Cote: My recommendation would be to go with the rental and get them to agree to share any cost of upgrading.

Mayor Lomonaco: I don't want to get into that part yet, to be honest. I want to see really what they did. Because they said, "How much are you talking?" I said, I'm not giving you a number. Because if I say this, and they were willing to do this, ah! I'm not…

Councilwoman Tuohy: Their profit's very small.

Mayor Lomonaco: It is. There's not a lot-

Councilwoman Tuohy: Our loss is very big.

Mayor Lomonaco: It is, but we would have that loss regardless. So we have to look internally, which I'm doing from a personnel side.

Councilman Quinoa: We could offset the losses.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah.


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Councilwoman Tuohy: Our losses [crosstalk 01:02:54]

James Cote: Another way to look at it is, take the average over the years of their revenue and our revenue. And come up with, if they're two thirds of our revenue, then we should share on a prorated basis.

Councilman Quinoa: I tell you, Jim and Rosemary have done a lot of research on this, and I think once she makes the presentation, on the things, I think that Rick will be able to go back and actually hit a solid number based on the number of tickets. She's got it all broken down to DWI, indictments, traffic violations, parking violations, it's all broken down. It all came from the New Jersey Municipal Courts website. All that information, she got it from. I think once she gives it to the Mayor, I think that we'll be able to come up if we're gonna go with charging them. We'll be able to come up with a real figure based on documentation. Based on the work load right now. Real quick, if you look at the last number, I think, that I saw from your spreadsheet, basically, the grand total-

Attorney Wacks: Manny, don't use numbers.

Councilman Quinoa: Don't use numbers. All right we'll let it go.

Mayor Lomonaco: I like the idea of using an average of ... you've got 15, 16, 17, 18. Right. I like the idea of using an average, because 18 is a spike year. And it's not really fair to use that, because of the reasons that I had just given. But it's also good to take what their income was over that same period of time, and that's what we compare. Because I'm in favor of keeping them here, because why would you not help out a town that, to be honest with you, I gave 'em my business cards, and they said "We can't afford business cards." They saw that Allamuchy hat that you had given me, the black one from Rec. They're like, "Look at that. They get hats and shirts." That's how tight they are over that way. Remember, they have a police force and so they have a large expenditure. Yes, ma'am. That's a lot of where their money goes.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's not big things. I'm looking for somewhere that's fair. We have to decide what's fair. But I just want to let you know that we're in the process. You're being very helpful with your stuff. I really like it.

Municipal Clerk: May I ask a legal question? Joint courts, who appoints the judge? Is it a Governor's appointment?

Attorney Wacks: No.

Municipal Clerk: It's not?

Attorney Wacks: You agree upon the appointment of the judge. And you have a judge and you have an alternate judge. You always have two judges.

Municipal Clerk: I thought that was just shared. Okay.


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Mayor Lomonaco: Two questions. One, what is the average ticket price?

Municipal Clerk: $18.50.

Mayor Lomonaco: Actual ticket price.

Municipal Clerk: Fines and costs?

Mayor Lomonaco: Just a fine. An actual ticket.

Municipal Clerk: $54.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. And how much of it do we get?


Mayor Lomonaco: So, we get $18.50 no matter what that-

Municipal Clerk: Per ticket. Yeah.

Mayor Lomonaco: What’s the number that you're using for ticket price?

Councilwoman Tuohy: I'm a little confused on it. We get $18.50-

Municipal Clerk: Per ticket.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Even for tickets that are issued in Allamuchy Township, and not on 80? Or is it different?

Municipal Clerk: Everything on 80 and Bald Eagle is $18.50.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay. Why Bald Eagle?

Councilman Quinoa: What is the municipality if a ticket issued by a municipality, what do they get?

Municipal Clerk: Same. $18.50.

Councilwoman Tuohy: That's what I'm saying. It's the same no matter Catswamp for everything, one ticket.

Mayor Lomonaco: That's where you need to look. If the cops aren't writing a ticket then we're not even making the $18.50. If they're writing a lot of them.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Now who-

Mayor Lomonaco: Then, that's only going to make up a little bit of difference. We have to look at it from a personnel side. I understand that part. But overall, we need to start first in helping a neighbor, because they always say, if your neighbor's house is on


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fire, you don't argue about the price of the hose. They don't have an ability to do it. They don't have the financial backing to upgrade to where they need to do. I really would love to have 'em here, but it has to work, we all have to be comfortable doing it.

Municipal Clerk: And don't ask me how, but they are doing are weight limits on Catswamp road. They are enforcing tickets on that-

Mayor Lomonaco: I asked about that, which is great. Because it's helping us on our part of the road. But they have to wait to get to their part of the road to actually issue the ticket.

Municipal Clerk: No, they're doing it in our town to. The state sets the fee.

Municipal Clerk: The State does it. Yeah. You can have a 3:40, Driving While Suspended, could be a $1,000.00 fine. We still get the same-

Councilwoman Tuohy: $18.50.

Mayor Lomonaco: When we're doing it, this is part of what we have to take a look at. But thank you for that. Anything else?


Mayor Lomonaco: We can come back if…

Councilwoman Tuohy: Yeah I can always email you questions.

Councilman Cote: What about court costs? We get $18.50 for the ticket, is that out of the ticket?

Municipal Clerk: That's the court costs.

Mayor Lomonaco: It's out of the fine.

Municipal Clerk: And we can only charge nine dollars extra if they come to court.

Councilwoman Tuohy: So, $18.50 plus nine dollars.

Municipal Clerk: If they're coming to court. That handles the administrative side of scheduling it and process the ticket.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay. And is there any other fees we collect?

Municipal Clerk: We can get on a DWI, we get surcharges. They just started allowing us to collect surcharges on that.

Councilwoman Tuohy: And how much are they?


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Councilman Quinoa: And court costs.

Municipal Clerk: And court costs. $18.50, or plus nine dollars. Yeah. The court cost is $33.00 when they come to court, on criminal, 33 or 30. The judge has discretion. And criminal is the same thing. Unless it's a local ordinance, we do not get any of that money, other than court costs.

Manny Quinoa: We violated local ordinance, it's a fine. You keep the entire fine.

Municipal Clerk: And the state has now forbidden any criminal cases to be downgraded to local ordinance. So that was a significant financial impact.

Mayor Lomonaco: I know since we're fighting a losing battle, we can at least slow the water. We have to have it.

Municipal Clerk: And that's state-wide.

Councilman Cote: Anything you can get out of them is better than nothing.

Mayor Lomonaco: Plus, you make a friend to where if you need a favor, you can get it.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Ann Marie, how long has Independence been using the court?

Municipal Clerk: 2001. Before 2001. But it wasn't as big as they've gotten. They didn't have a bigger police department. They only had maybe five members back then.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Right.

Municipal Clerk: So, it was a smaller one. It was the last five, seven, ten years.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Since they have police, they get to keep their fines? Or those go to the state, too?

Municipal Clerk: No, their fines go to the state. Nobody ...

Councilwoman Tuohy: The local police department --

Municipal Clerk: Get nothing. It's all $18.50. They keep nothing.

Attorney Wacks: The tax payers pay for the cops.

Municipal Clerk: Yeah. We don't ... fines are, all of them go to the state. And we can't do-

Councilman Cote: So, the argument out there that the towns are pushing their police to write tickets to get more revenue really doesn't hold water. To a certain extent. But it's-


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Attorney Wacks: Very little.

Mayor Lomonaco: You need to write a lot of tickets.

Attorney Wacks: And fine a lot of drunk drivers. Because the surcharge can be reasonably large.

Municipal Clerk: And the municipality has to pick up the public defender fee.

Councilwoman Tuohy: They've been averaging….

Municipal Clerk: It’s $200.00 each.


Municipal Clerk: Each. If the Judge waives that, we pay for that. If he waives it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Any questions, let me know, I'll research for you.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Perfect. Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: You good?

Councilwoman Tuohy: We're good.

Attorney Wacks: Mayor, could I just make a comment about Doug's report? For Doug Ochwat?

Attorney Wacks: On the SMSD.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes please.

Attorney Wacks: Doug asked me to mention that the SMSD will reorganize before your next meeting on the 23rd. And Chairman Sarno will advertise the meeting. So, he just wanted to let everybody know that the SMSD will reorganize and begin to commence work on that date. Thank you.

Municipal Clerk: 4:00 PM?

Attorney Wacks: 4:00 PM.

Councilman Quinoa: Rick, are you gonna try to get, which I thought it was a good idea, get everybody on an end of the year calendar for all these appointments? For all the commissions?

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah, I wanted to start with Rec. As you saw, I asked the Commissioner if any future Rec that we have would end on December 31st, because in Rec, it doesn't necessarily matter. But when we have appointments like Land Use and such, where you have different years that you have to do it, we have to follow


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different rules to that. But if I could do it for anybody else besides Rec, I'd love to. It just makes it easier.

Municipal Clerk: Land Use does run to the end of December.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yeah, but ... okay. Was there another you were thinking?

Councilman Quinoa: No, I'm just saying, on SMSD, we have-

Municipal Clerk: January to December.

Councilman Quinoa: January – December - Okay, good.

Municipal Clerk: Unexpired terms.

Mayor Lomonaco: If there's anything else that come up, let me and we'll try, I'll reach out to the committee.

Municipal Clerk: Environment Commission is January to December.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay good. Councilman Cote?

Councilman Cote: Until a few hours ago, I had nothing, but I received a contract for review from a company called APPI which is one of these firms that sell power generation. We had some folks come earlier in the year to discuss doing it for the Township as a whole. What Allamuchy had done in the past for several years, they contracted for the township consumption of electricity. So, when I got this, I spoke with Anne Marie via email asking her if this was something new or had it just come up, because all of the communication that I got was directed to the prior mayor. Evidently, they came up back in April for council review. Council at that time had opted out and had decided instead of renewing the contract, they wanted to go with JCP&L as the provider for most services.

Mayor Lomonaco: Is this the one that we're ... signs up everybody. And you have to back out?

Councilman Cote: No, no, no, no, no.

Mayor Lomonaco: That's a different one? I remember that [crosstalk 01:14:10]

Councilman Cote: That was what this gal was here trying to pitch to us September time frame, August-September time frame. This is one that the Township on its own had contracted for probably for two or three contracts.

Mayor Lomonaco: So, we're in place?

Municipal Clerk: We have Constellation right now.

Mayor Lomonaco: Is it expiring soon?


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Municipal Clerk: They go out and get us rates. He's broker.

Councilman Cote: Yeah. What I got out of this was that our term must be coming up, because he's looking for renewal. That's why I asked if we're going to go with this.

Municipal Clerk: I don't see your email. You sent it today?

Councilman Cote: Yeah.

Municipal Clerk: I was checking them, but I didn't see. Let me check my junk. But Constellation is the one that we currently have here.

Councilman Cote: Yeah. The one I asked you if we're going to renew it. You said this was taken care of council back in April.

Municipal Clerk: No, that was the garbage contract.

Councilman Cote: Wait a minute.

Mayor Lomonaco: I sent you two contracts. One was the garbage, which had to be signed.

Councilman Cote: This was.

Mayor Lomonaco: The one I just sent you was the one that I got from the previous Mayor about energy. It wasn't Constellation.

Councilman Cote: APPI.

Attorney Wacks: Energy Aggregation Contract.

Municipal Clerk: The Township has Constellation.

Mayor Lomonaco: This is a sales call? This email?

Municipal Clerk: It might be. It might be up. We do have Constellation right now. We have a broker that we dealt with.

Councilman Cote: No, I'm sorry, it wasn't you, Ann Marie. It was Doug. Doug told me that we went through the six months ago or so ago, and we passed after looking at it. He also passed on it a couple years ago. I recommend we do the same. But now I'm questioning whether he's confused between the one that this gal was pitching for a Township system, and one that we have with Constellation.

Municipal Clerk: Why don't I send you what I have from Constellation, my contacts. And when it's due, and the broker. Then you can do the research.

Mayor Lomonaco: Would it be okay if contracts and grants takes a little bit more time to take a look at it?


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Municipal Clerk: Constellation's not up yet.

Mayor Lomonaco: The procedure that we had in place is that anything that's a contract or grant, we have a committee for, which is Councilman Ochwat and Councilman Cote. I send that to them to review to present back to Council. When we have an ordinance at this time, it's Councilman Quinoa and Councilman Ochwat. For the present ones. And then we'll switch that around. Next time, it may be myself and Councilwoman Tuohy. This way, everybody gets a piece of what we're doing. They're just reporting back now as to what I had sent them. So if it's okay, we'll take a little more time on that.

Councilman Cote: I asked Ann Marie to take a look at the email to see if that's the same contact.

Municipal Clerk: No, we dealt with Jeff Sherman.

Councilman Cote: Jeff Sherman died.

Municipal Clerk: We dealt with him. This is not the same-

Councilman Cote: No, that's the same guy. Noel Temple replaced Jeff Sherman.

Municipal Clerk: Right. I don't know him, I never spoke to him. But yeah. I don't have a problem with that.

Councilman Cote: The only reason I'm clear on that is because this whole thing came about when I was Mayor. I used these guys for my business. I put Jeff Sherman in contact with the town here. And we went with them back when I was Mayor. So I'm assuming that at some point, it was renewed again, because they only usually run three years. It probably renewed twice since then.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. They were talking about a ten percent discount, which caught my eye.

Municipal Clerk: The previous Mayor was handling this.

Councilman Cote: His email is mixed in with this thing. That's why-

Mayor Lomonaco: He had forwarded it to me, which is why I sent it to you. Please check when-

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, let me pull up-

Mayor Lomonaco: When they're due to end. Then get Mr. Cote and Mr. Quinoa an opportunity to look at it a little further. Ochwat, sorry.

Attorney Wacks: By the way, just for the record, I think it expires in December of this year. It has not expired.

Municipal Clerk: 19.


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Attorney Wacks: Yeah, December of 2019.

Councilman Quinoa: How do you know that, Ed? Jeez.

Mayor Lomonaco: Anything else?

Councilman Cote: That's all.

Mayor Lomonaco: Mr. Quinoa?

Councilman Quinoa: We went over the Rec proclamation.

Mayor Lomonaco: All right. Thank you. Any Board or Commission reports?

Councilman Quinoa: You know what, I'm sorry. Does Council want to see the rules? The Dog Park rules have been updated? Is there a need for Council to approve those?


Councilman Quinoa: There is? Should they go thing you then for review?


Councilman Quinoa: Okay. I guess we'll get Commissioner Lomonaco to send that to you.

Mrs. Lomonaco: I'm just updating that one part.

Councilman Quinoa: Yeah, he'll probably change it[crosstalk 01:19:54].

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. We'll get that to you.

Councilman Quinoa: Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Municipal Clerk’s Report?

Municipal Clerk: I have nothing at this time.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. This time, we'd like to open to public session. Can I have a motion?

Councilwoman Tuohy: I'll make that motion.

Councilman Quinoa: Second.

Mayor Lomonaco: All in favor.

All: Ayes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Anybody from the public like to come up and try our new table?


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Betty Schultheis: I'd like to say something but can I stay here?

Mayor Lomonaco: You can stay there if you like.

Municipal Clerk: Just identify yourself.

Betty Schultheis:: 25 Sandpiper Drive. Back on the issue of the electric thing, just to throw in something, JCP&L has started checking to see a lot of these alternative vendors have tiny fine print that says we can choose the rate in a certain period of time. So all of a sudden you've been getting charged a certain rate and now your bill is very big. What JCP&L is now doing, they check to see if any of those vendors are in fact exceeding the amount. And they send letters out to the people who are signed up with them. I know that because that happened to me. I thought, what is happening? All of a sudden, my electric bill doubled. I thought that's strange. The next week, I received a letter from JCP&L telling me that they were cancelling my contract with that vendor because what they were doing was illegal.

Betty Schultheis: Then they give you a choice of whether you want to go into the search pot for another vendor who is within the rules, or if you want to come back with them. So, it's um ….

Mayor Lomonaco: Did you get credited for the overcharge that you had?

Betty Schultheis: Well, what they tell you is that you can refuse to pay it.

Mayor Lomonaco: Okay. Thank you. Anybody else from the public?

Mrs. Lomonaco: 18 Cornerstone Drive. My question to you is, I will get you the rules and regulations, and then you'll say they're okay. Do you want me to send you the only ones that I changed? Because not every rule I changed that was already approved by the previous Attorney. There was just one major rule that was changed to better help the…

Attorney Wacks: The answer is, send me whatever you want me to look at. I'll be happy-

Mrs. Lomonaco: Okay.

Attorney Wacks: But from the standpoint of the approval of the other Attorney, it's not the Attorney that does the approval, it's the Mayor and Council that does the approval.

Mrs. Lomonaco: Then why are they going to….

Attorney Wacks: It has to be read by a formal action of the Mayor and Council.

Mrs. Lomonaco: Then am I sending them to you or to him?


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Mayor Lomonaco: Him to review, and then he'll send them to me.

Attorney Wacks: Send them to me. If I find them to be legally okay, I will then send them to the Mayor and Council, and they will then authorize them. The reason is, they need to have the force of law. If somebody violates one of the rules, we want to be able to find them, bring them to Municipal Court, and do the things that with have to. The only way you can do that is by having approval of the Mayor and Township Council.

Mrs. Lomonaco: We never enforced, we decided that we were not doing fines. Just so you know. There's no fines. Nellie does that on her own for Animal Control. We don't do any fines. My question to you is, we have sign ups starting next week for the dog park registration. Do I use the old rules and regs and then when the new ones are approved, we send out to anybody who registered like next week?

Attorney Wacks: Use the new rules and regs. Use whatever you have.

Mrs. Lomonaco: The new ones that I just did?


Mrs. Lomonaco: Okay.

Attorney Wacks: Get 'em to me as soon as you can.

Mrs. Lomonaco: I'll get 'em to you tomorrow.

Attorney Wacks: By the second meeting of the month, it'll be approved.

Mrs. Lomonaco: Okay. But go ahead and give them out next week. Okay. Only because we're having people sign a waiver now, it's kind of like what you do when you have an employee handbook, stating that they have read them, just because of things that happened from April til now. We've gotten smarter, stating that they have read them and they accept them, and that there will be no issues. I don't want to have to go back and do that. Okay great.

Attorney Wacks: Give them the new rules. Have 'em sign it. We will make sure that they become legal documents.

Mrs. Lomonaco: Perfect.

Attorney Wacks: By the time the next meeting comes around.

Mrs. Lomonaco: Thank you.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you Mrs. Lomonaco. Anybody else from the public?


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Greg Malejko: I got a question, Greg Malejko, 5 Peter Drive. Over the last for example months, you guys were wrestling with this whole affordable housing thing down in the Old Farm. I was tracking it. I came to the auction. I was just interested in the whole thing. I was curious the way the whole thing was going to come out. When I came to the meeting, whenever it was, last month, it was the first thing on the agenda. The Council went into executive session, and just disappeared basically with no explanation and said we're going to accept the bid.

Greg Malejko: I was just disappointed, because I was just curious to see the rational, the numbers. I'm a numbers guy. I want to see if we make this much, we lose this much. The rational, which I never got to hear. Then I stopped to think more, I was looking online. I don't even understand, Wacks wasn't here at the time, maybe he can explain why that even went to executive session? I don't see ... nothing I see in the open public meetings act dictates when that should have went into executive session.

Attorney Wacks: There's a specific exception for the sale and purchase of real estate by the municipality. That can be discussed in executive session because if you're going to make an offer on something, you don't want to say it in public, "I'm going to offer ten thousand, but we'll be willing to pay 20." You don't want to say that in public session.

Greg Malejko: Right.

Attorney Wacks: There is a very specific public contract, open public meetings exception to the discussion in closed session. From a standpoint of how it was handled-

Greg Malejko: No, that's-

Attorney Wacks: I can't tell, I wasn't here. I don't know. I will tell you, just so you have a sense, the municipality was kind of, I'm going to use the word conned into having to create affordable housing many years ago. We were lead to believe that if we did it by purchasing affordable housing, that we would get, we would be done for ever and ever. That's when Mayor Resker was here, the Council was here. The municipality bought from Baker a number of housing units that were affordable and were dedicated that way. They paid a certain amount of money. They actually paid a little less than what the market rate was for those units. But they bought those units. They bonded it. Everything was done. The problem is that, after that happened while we were buying it, the State changed all the rules. So we ended up having to buy affordable housing that we didn't need to buy.

Attorney Wacks: We didn't get credit for it. Everything that we were supposed to get as a result of that didn't happen. The town ended up with housing that they not only had to manage, because that was an expense that they had to hire a manager to manage those housing units, but the amount that they were able to charge for rent was less than what it was costing on the bond issue that they floated to be able to buy the units. Every year, the township was losing money, losing money. And that was a good 20 year bond. So, you're talking about a long period of time


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that the town was going to be losing money. During the time that I was here, former Council clearly tried to sell those units and we had a couple of auctions, and nothing happened. We were unable to do it.

Greg Malejko: I remember back then.

Attorney Wacks: This time around, somebody was successful in bidding, and you were accepting the bid.

Mayor Lomonaco: They did 'em as bulk as compared to individual.

Attorney Wacks: So at this point in time, they're trying to cut their losses.

Greg Malejko: No, I was tracking the whole thing, I just wanted to hear it. I saw the numbers that were generated. Even so, I was curious how it come out. I never felt satisfied with no explanation. I understand what you're saying.

Attorney Wacks: I hope what I just said-

Greg Malejko: I knew all that. But it just ... dollars and cents is all it is. That's all.

Councilman Quinoa: After, let's say, after the transaction is complete, those executive minutes will be available. So he would-

Attorney Wacks: Yeah, once the Township takes action to sell the units, accept the bid, whatever it's going to do, then the minutes become public.

Greg Malejko: Just as an aside to that, do we know exactly what that money is going to be used for? Pay out bonds? Put in capital reserve?

Mayor Lomonaco: It pays back-

Attorney Wacks: The bond, you can't repay back ahead of time. Bonds are bonds. You just gotta pay 'em. The way it goes. Right now, the money will probably be deposited into a capital account and-

Mayor Lomonaco: Along with the other money from the previous units that were sold. So when the bond comes up, we pay what it is. But we need to continue to pay the interest on the bonds until they expire.

Greg Malejko: Makes sense. Thanks.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Okay. Seeing no one, I need a motion to close public session.

Councilman Quinoa: I'll make that motion.

Mayor Lomonaco: Second?


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Councilwoman Tuohy: I second.

Mayor Lomonaco: All in favor?

All: Ayes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you. First reading ordinances.

Municipal Clerk: Ordinance 2019-01 - Calendar Year 2019. An ordinance to exceed the municipal budget appropriation limits and to establish a cap bank in accordance with N.J.S.A. 40A:4-45.14

Mayor Lomonaco: Are we moving that tonight?

Municipal Clerk: I'd like to.

Mayor Lomonaco: For the first? Okay. Ordinance, have you had a chance to review that?


Mayor Lomonaco: And we’re fine?

Councilman Quinoa: Yes, we are.

Mayor Lomonaco: Can I have a motion for that?

Councilman Quinoa: I'll make that motion.

Councilman Cote: Second.

Mayor Lomonaco: All in favor?

All: Ayes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Roll call.

Municipal Clerk: Councilpersons Cote.


Municipal Clerk: Tuohy.


Municipal Clerk: Quinoa.



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Municipal Clerk: And Mayor Lomonaco.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes.

Attorney Wacks: Second reading, Ann Marie.

Municipal Clerk: January 23rd.

Attorney Wacks: Thank you.

Municipal Clerk: 7 o'clock.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Seven?

Municipal Clerk: 7 o'clock.

Mayor Lomonaco: The first three workshops are at six.

Councilman Quinoa: I take objection to that, Jim. You told me you were gonna be late, I wouldn't have rushed up here. I was late too.

Mayor Lomonaco: But all regular meetings are at 7:00 p.m. Once April comes, we'll move everything to seven if everything goes the way we think it's supposed to go.

Attorney Wacks: Mayor, before you go further, Rosemary has something.

Mayor Lomonaco: Yes, ma'am.

Councilwoman Tuohy: When Paul was giving his report, he requested that we approved the two road work bills.

Mayor Lomonaco: That's part of the regular billing cycle, which to me, was the second meeting.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Oh, you're going to do it the second meeting.

Municipal Clerk: Yeah, because it involves finances.

Councilwoman Tuohy: Okay. Perfect.

Mayor Lomonaco: We haven't signed any purchase orders or anything yet. So I don't know if you guys have. Anybody sign purchase orders as council yet?

Councilman Cote: No.

Municipal Clerk: She doesn't have them ready for this meeting yet.

Mayor Lomonaco: Oh. So it's best to wait. Second reading, none on ordinances?


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Municipal Clerk: No, none.

Mayor Lomonaco: Any resolutions?

Municipal Clerk: None.

Mayor Lomonaco: Any other business?

Municipal Clerk: None.

Mayor Lomonaco: Motion to adjourn. Wait, is there a need for an executive session?

Attorney Wacks: Not that I'm aware of. [crosstalk 01:32:24]

Mayor Lomonaco: Motion to adjourn?

Councilman Cote: I'll make a motion.

Mayor Lomonaco: Second?

Councilwoman Tuohy: I make the motion.

Mayor Lomonaco: All in favor.

All: Ayes.

Mayor Lomonaco: Thank you, everybody, for coming. [crosstalk 01:32:33]

James Cote: Wow-

The meeting was adjourned at 7:55 P.M.

Respectfully Submitted,

Anne Marie Tracy, Municipal Clerk

Rick Lomonaco, Mayor


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