Mt. Olive Township Council Minutes
October 24, 2006

The Regular Public Meeting of the Mount Olive Township Council was called to Order at 7:30 pm by Council President Greenbaum with the Pledge of Allegiance.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE & MOMENT OF REFLECTION in recognition of the men and women fighting terrorism and those who have lost their lives defending the freedom we all enjoy

OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS ACT ANNOUNCEMENT

According to the Open Public Meetings Act, adequate notice of this meeting has been given to the Mount Olive Chronicle. Notice has been posted at the Municipal Building, 204 Flanders-Drakestown Road, Mount Olive Township, New Jersey and notices were sent to those requesting the same.

ROLL CALL: Present: Mr. Tepper, Mr. Buell, Mr. Biondi, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Rattner
Mr. Greenbaum, Mrs. Labow (7:34)

Absent: None

Also Present: Rick Prill, Business Administrator; John Dorsey, Township Attorney;
Sherry Jenkins, CFO; Lisa Lashway, Township Clerk

Kiwanis & Mt. Olive Lion’s Club Presentation – to the Flanders Fire & First Aid for Pediatric Defibrillators

President Greenbaum: This evening we are pleased to have Mr. Siegelwax here. I assume that you are doing the presentation on behalf of Kiwanis to the Flanders Fire & First Aid for the Pediatric Defibrillators. Do you want to come up to the microphone? Please state your name and address for the record.

Brian Siegelwax, Budd Lake: Thank you, my name is Brian Siegelwax. I am president of the Mount Olive Kiwanis Club. With me is John Biondi, you might recognize him. John is a long time member of the Mount Olive Lions Club. The last time I was here I gave a serious speech so rather than repeating myself I will try tonight to give a more warm and fuzzy speech. To make a long story short, we threw you all into a dunk tank on Mount Olive Community Day so that we could raise money to help save the lives of children by adding pediatric capability to defibrillators. Already we have presented $ 2,625.00 to the Mount Olive Police Department to fully upgrade seven defibrillators. Colleen Labow was our first. She was initially concerned that men might hesitate to dunk a woman and that she consequently might not be able to raise much money but fortunately, her colleagues here on Town Council were more than willing to give her more than her fair share. In fact, Russ Tepper was up next and after getting dunked by Congressman Frelinghuysen he stood down for a few minutes so that a few late arrivals could throw at Colleen even more. At the end of the day, Colleen was the second top fundraiser for this event. Rob Greenbaum was up next and demonstrated great generosity. He used the garden hose that was supposed to be refilling the tank and shared the cold water with many of the people around him. When it was David Scapicchio’s turn, we were held up due to rain because his daughters waited over an hour for their chance to throw at daddy. John Mania was kind enough to share the first part of his scheduled hour, after all Kiwanis is all about the children. David also had the fundraising support of Ray Perkins and was our third top fundraiser overall. Guy Gregg and Dick Kamin shared the next hour. Thanks to one disgruntled woman in particular, Guy Gregg was probably our most saturated participant. In fact, I saw him last Friday and his hair was still wet. This woman was hitting the target maybe half the time and had so much fun that she has expressed an interest in joining our club. The Gregg/Kamin team worked with John Biondi and the Lions to finish in 1st place overall in fundraising. As Dick Kamin was finishing up, Jim Buell came walking in from the parking lot for the following shift. He came fully prepared wearing a Kermit the Frog hat and his swim mask...this one here for anybody that didn’t see him in it. Finally, there was Steve Rattner, the undisputed king of the dunk tank. Everyone wanted a piece of Steve. Township Employees who hesitated earlier in the day to throw at other participants all opened their wallets once they saw Steve in there. We saw emergency services personnel, volunteers from other organizations, everyone wanted a piece of Steve. While our top fundraisers worked both inside and outside the dunk tank for this great cause, Steve was the number one fundraiser in terms of money raised while actually inside the dunk tank. We are here tonight to present $720.00 to Flanders Fire and First Aid for their eight initial sets of pediatric defibrillator pads. They were able to get their voltage upgrades for free but they are still not technically “pediatric capable” without these pads. On behalf of the Mount Olive Kiwanis and Lions Clubs, I would like to thank all of you for making this donation possible. Hopefully, we will help replace these pads a few years down the road because they were expired and never needed. Thank you.

Mr. Biondi: Just real quick, a note from me. Brian used to be a member of the Lions and has gone onto bigger and greater things with the Kiwanis. He has done an outstanding job for the Township and also for his organization and I want to commend him, extensively.

Mr. Siegelwax: Thank you very much.

Mr. Hill: Could we have all of you come up for the presentation please and if I could have Councilmembers stand behind them I would appreciate it - one nice shot of all of you.

Mr. Buell: Sorry, I should have brought the froggy hat.

Mr. Hill: Steve, you’re okay. Colleen, you might have to stand on a chair.

Mr. Buell: She has her stool.

Mr. Siegelwax: Thank you very much Rob.

President Greenbaum: Thank you, thank you to the Lions Club and the Kiwanis for the excellent work that you do year after year on behalf of the Township. We are going to go a little bit out of order this evening because I know that Lutheran Social Ministries is here and has come from a long distance. So we are going to get to you next but we have to deal with an executive session issue. I am going to ask everyone to please clear the room except for the Rescue Squads. I would like the Chief to please stay and I expect this to be hopefully brief. It is a personnel issue. I am going to ask Mr. Perkins to please move us into executive session.

Executive Session – Emergency Services Personnel

Mr. Perkins: Thank you, Mr. President. In accordance to Sections 7 & 8 of the Open Public Meetings Act, I make a motion that we move into executive session for the reasons of discussions of emergency service personnel.

Mr. Tepper: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded, all in favor.

AYE

President Greenbaum: Calling the meeting back to order. Mr. Rattner, could you please make a motion, to move us out of executive session.

Mr. Perkins: I make a motion to move us out of executive session.

President Greenbaum: Is there a second?

Mrs. Labow: Second.

President Greenbaum: All in favor?

AYE

Revisions to the Housing Element/Fair Share Plan

President Greenbaum: Chuck, can we deal with Lutheran Social Ministries separate and apart from the Housing Element discussion?

Mr. McGroarty: Probably not.

President Greenbaum: Okay, so then let’s move to the Housing Element discussion.

Mr. Dorsey: Those are resolutions #20, 21 and 22, right Chuck?

Mr. McGoarty: Yes, I do agree. I don’t know if they were numbered?

President Greenbaum: Yes, we are talking about:

20. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Repetitioning With a Revised Housing Element and Fair Share Plan.

21. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Requesting Review and Approval of the Development Fee Spending Plan.

22. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Affirming an Intent to Bond or Provide Funds from General Revenue in Accordance with N.J.A.C. 5:94-4.2(a) 1 to Address Any Shortfall in the Allocation of Funds from the Township’s Revised Housing Trust Fund for Affordable Housing Projects as Set Forth in the Township’s Housing Element/Fair Share Plan and Spending Plan.

President Greenbaum: Can we move all three?

Mr. Dorsey: Yes, I think we move them as a group because they are all interrelated. Do you agree with that Mr. McGoarty?

Mr. McGoarty: I do.

President Greenbaum: Okay, I am going to make a motion then. We are going to take it off the Consent Agenda and move it to the Non Consent Agenda. I am going to ask that Mr. Buell move Non Consent Resolutions #20, 21 and 22.

Mr. Buell: I move Non Consent Resolutions #20, 21 and 22.

Mr. Perkins: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Rather than to open it up to the public right now, I am going to have Mr. McGoarty address Resolutions #20, 21 and 22. I will then open it up to the public for any further discussion.

Mr. McGoarty: Thank you, I will be brief. I know you have a long agenda. I have just a summary of the Housing Element Fair Share Plan and then the Spending Plan which will follow. As the Council recalls, last November....November 2005 we were here. We had a Housing Element Fair Share Plan. It was adopted by the Planning Board. It was endorsed by you and it was submitted to COAH in August of this year. COAH submitted a 40 page report taking issue with some of the credit allocation that we proposed and raised some other concerns. Perhaps the most important being, that the decision by the Township to include the Lutheran Social Ministries project, the Mount Olive Manor project which is a 50 unit senior citizen building. We needed to put that in the plan officially in order to get funding through the Housing Trust Fund. That brings us to this evening. Last Thursday the Planning Board did adopt the Housing Element Fair Share Plan that you have seen and now it comes to you for endorsement. If you do endorse this, sometime next week we will finalize the submission package because there are a number of attachments. We will submit it to COAH in advance of the November 15 deadline that they have imposed upon us and we will move forward, hopefully, to seek and to get substantive certification. A couple of the highlights, the changes that have been made as I mentioned, Lutheran Social Ministries, that 50 unit age restrictive project is now in the plan. As a result, we had to move age restricted units around and I won’t bore you with the details unless you’re interested. The long and short of it is, and that is why this board is up for you, we’ve satisfied, we have three components, three elements if you will, that we have to satisfy and we have done so. We have a 61 unit obligation which means, essentially, from 1987 through 1999 the Township is responsible and remains responsible for 61 affordable units. We have documented that those units exist and we’ve separated them out in accordance with the rules. There is a limit on age restricted and so on. The last time we thought we could concentrate our age restricted in the prior round. COAH disagreed. So rather than to slug it out, we changed our approach and I think it makes sense. So we have satisfied the 61 prior round unit. On the rehabilitation share, there is one thing that I want to bring to your attention on that. If I may, by the way on the prior round... just to show you, we have it funded. Just for your information, these are the units. That’s the distribution and you can see on the handout that you have 15 rental credits also come into the picture. We had to work with the units that we had and maximize our rental credits. On the rehabilitation, doing something a little different and this is subject to your approval and we had questions of the Planning Board last week but I think we satisfied them. We have a 30 unit rehabilitation requirement. There’s a $10,000.00 a unit obligation to fund major structural repairs to homes in Mount Olive where the homeowner qualifies as either a low or moderate income household. We have documented to date and when I say to date, from April 1, 2000, forward which is the starting point.

Mr. McGoarty (Cont’d): Nineteen units qualify, now that remains to be seen whether COAH agrees with us but we followed the rules and I believe we will get credit for all 19 which leaves us a balance of 11 units and last time...I said to you last year, we should continue, the Town, to work with the County, get funding through the County program and take care of the remaining balance. Now that would be a good idea but it puts a burden on the Township and this is why. COAH now requires that if we continue to go...if we have an outstanding rehabilitation obligation, the Township must develop a rehabilitation manual. You must either appoint someone, or hire someone to oversee that program and you must enter a contract to guarantee that the funding will be there. Now the County is a wonderful program but they....my understanding of the process is first come first serve. They are not going to contract with Mount Olive for 11 and so on. There is plenty of money in the Housing Trust Fund to cover this stuff but there is a lot of...I think it is an additional burden on the Town to do the things that I just described. What we would do instead is take 11 units from our affordable housing pool, if you will, and if you ever want to plow through this housing element and find it, I can tell you that the units come out of the 29 affordable units that exist at Paragon Village and we took that because they’re limited because they’re age restricted so we can’t use all 29 anyway. We took 11 of what is called new construction, even though they have been up for a while and we apply them to the rehab obligation. I have talked about this with COAH, I have met with COAH staff about this and they are perfectly in agreement with this, that you can use new construction and it doesn’t matter that they are age restricted. So if we do this, we zero out no more rehabilitation worries for the third round. So that’s two down and one to go. Then we come to the third round and the first two components are...those are exact numbers, those are numbers that we get to deal with. The third round is more educated guess work if you will. What we are looking at here is what do we believe the development will be in the Township through the year 2013 and as we talked about before for every eight market units that are built, one affordable is required, for every 25 jobs created, one affordable unit is required. In the Housing Element Fair Share Plan, if you are interested to look through appendixes A & B, you will see all the development projections and you will see they are almost entirely related to projects that either exist or have come to our attention that are likely to exist. This is not just guess work about what might happen and the question did come up, well if you are 82% in the preservation area of the Highlands, how can you have so much growth? If you would take a look at those numbers, you will see why. A couple of things we did do, we took out the Hovnanian project so that affected the numbers that went down. On the other hand, we added Phase II of the Morris Chase Development, worse case scenario, we assume 418 units will be built by the year 2013. If we are wrong, your affordable housing obligation goes down. You’re not stuck with this number. The best we can tell, that is the worst case scenario. We also anticipate about a half million square feet being built on the landfill. So again, just to anticipate worse case. So what we have done is, we anticipate that the number is actually...I should point to this. We anticipate an obligation, an affordable housing obligation of 227 units. What we are showing to COAH and trust that they will certify is that we have an actual inventory of 243 units. So we will have a surplus of 16 units and that includes the very important 50 unit Mount Olive Manor project. We have money in the trust fund to carry out the desire that the Council endorsed last year, the money to the Lutheran Social Ministries, $384,900. We also have a two family project tentatively at $90,000 which is... what’s called part of a buy down program. We have identified that likewise in the housing element and in the spending plan which I will say right now because there is not much really to say about the spending plan other than we have identified in that document how the money in the Housing Trust Fund will be spent. It will be spent on the Mount Olive Manor project and on the buy down project and that is all that we know to date. That may change in the future but to date, that’s all that we know. What we have done since last year, we have had discussions with the housing partnership, Susan Zellman, heads up that organization. I am sure some of you, perhaps all of you, know Susan. Discussions with Mr. Prill, I need to get to Mr. Prill a formal recommendation why I think it would make sense for the town to contract with housing partnership. They can then come in and run an affordability assistance program and that’s going to be something that we are going to have to do and it’s explained in the housing element and in the spending plan. In a nut shell, it means COAH requires a certain percentage, 30% of the housing trust fund money to be spent on what’s called affordability assistance. So we are looking to do two things with it in that area. One is to work again with the housing partnership to maybe purchase more of these buy down units. Actually, if we do that, it won’t be so much assistance as it will add additional credits to the town’s inventory. We are also talking with exploring the idea of having a rental security program for people in Mount Olive for assistance to meet their rental security obligation. Now those are some of the programs that COAH would approve because it is part of the rules and again we would have no choice. We would have to spend the money to some extent. Not to some extent, we have to spend the money, 30% of the money on those functions. Lastly, I will tell you that we have identified also, the 20% of the housing trust fund money would be spent on administrative costs. So helping to cover the cost of preparing plans and the continuing monitoring and the administration cost and also, to pay for membership in the housing partnership and so on. I know I raced through a lot of stuff but I think the long and short of it is we believe that the town will have a surplus, at least 16 units, and we anticipate that... and who knows if the development doesn’t occur the way it is projected, the affordable housing obligation will be less and we will know at the third, fifth and eighth year because those are the milestones at which point we sit down with COAH and they check our development situation and see if we are on target. What I should mention and this is the last point, when I was here last year, we were talking about doing an RCA which is a Regional Contributions Agreement, sending a portion of our affordable units, if you will, or our third round obligation out to another municipality in our housing region.
Mr. McGoarty (Cont’d): You might recall, I said the minimum amount is $35,000 per unit and we were thinking on sending out $20,000 I think initially. I recommend that we do not do an RCA now and so you will not see it in the spending plan nor in the housing element. The reason for that is because Mount Olive has so many age restricted units that in order for them to all qualify, we really shouldn’t and cannot do an RCA. When you do an RCA, when you send a unit out of town by way of an RCA it reduces the number of age restricted units you can do in town. So for Mount Olive, with the housing inventory we have and the project we have coming on with the Mount Olive Manor, I think it makes sense not to bother with the RCA now. Who knows, down the road you will still have money in the bank, it may make sense later on but you don’t need the credits and it will only hurt your affordable housing situation vis-a-vis the senior housing you have now.

President Greenbaum: Do you want to briefly, address Resolution #22 which talks about the general, the intent of the general revenue. This is something that you have dealt with previously and rejected and you had made some comments that this is something that we necessarily have to do with regard to any of our spending plan and that this is no different. I see now that even the plan is changed which now encompasses the Lutheran Ministries project as an integral part of our plan whereas before it wasn’t as integral of a plan that now...I don’t think everyone on Council understood previously and it was coupled with the DCA resolution at the time which was a much greater obligation that the Township was undertaking, that you are now prepared to recommend that the Township move forward with Resolution #22 as we are required to do for any of the spending out of our Housing Trust Fund. Is that correct?

Mr. McGoarty: Yes it is. What I am passing out just for your reference which is what I should have done last time because you were at a disadvantage not seeing that. This is just an excerpt from the rules, from the COAH rules. Highlighted and underlined is the language that obligates all municipalities to do what you just described Mr. Greenbaum and what we are saying in the resolution you just referenced. We cite the two projects, the $384,900.00 project for the Lutheran Social Ministries and the $90,000.00 for the buy down. Incidentally, you will have to....these projects will have to come back for your authorization and then ultimately go to COAH before money is ever released. That $90,000.00 may be less, we have to see the performa and that will have to be analyzed. The key thing is, even in the resolution we note that the Housing Trust Fund to date has $1.2 million in it. So we would never suggest projects that would even come close to exhausting the Housing Trust Fund and the wonderful thing that Mount Olive enjoys at this point is that you’re not working at the margins where you absolutely, have to use all that money to get credit. I think you will be in very good shape. I don’t see any reason why at any time you would ever need to exercise that option. It just doesn’t seem to be any possibility you would because you will have control over the spending plan anyway. I mean this spending plan has to be authorized and endorsed by you before we submit it to COAH.

President Greenbaum: I understand. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard on the plan or on any of these resolutions? Seeing none, I will close it to the public. Is there any further Council discussion which is necessary? Mrs. Labow.

Mrs. Labow: So wait, Chuck. We don’t have any credits now for rehabilitation of any houses in......

Mr. McGoarty: Yes, we do. Right now, you have 19.

Mrs. Labow: Nineteen and that stays the same, so we will have 19 that we have to meet...

President Greenbaum: No, we have 19 that we’ve met. We have 11 that we have to meet and that’s going to be met through Paragon.

Mrs. Labow: So then, there is nothing else?

Mr. McGoarty: No, but the program will still continue. Residents in Mount Olive can still avail themselves and it is on your website, the town’s website....

Mrs. Labow: For the County.

Mr. McGoarty: The County and to the extent... and that program continues. It’s independent of COAH and the fourth round. When that comes around, if there is another rehabilitation obligation, we will probably go back and count those houses too. From this point on, if we do those 11 as we described, we close the book on that part of it.

Mrs. Labow: Okay. So then, our only option is the County. I did call the County and I did speak with them about it.

Mr. Rattner: This is what I...or at least I thought we were getting to begin with and then we had some additional components put in the resolution the last time. You mentioned one which I won’t bring up, is the DCA component which said for whatever reason if we got our certification revoked, let it expire or anything else, we had to pay DCA a substantial sum. The other part was not just that we are guaranteed, we know we have the money, so that doesn’t concern me. It was if we didn’t get certification by December 31, 2006, we had to bond and provide the funds to them. This just says that we are certifying that we are guaranteeing the funds and as long as we get certification in a reasonable length of time which I think we are going to do, we shouldn’t have any problem at all. So there is nothing in here now and this goes back to the original intent and that was to help the Lutheran Ministries to build this much needed project without putting an additional tax burden or liability on our taxpayer. If anything, it actually helps us.

President Greenbaum: Thank you, any further discussion?

Mr. Buell: Are you now recommending the dropping of the $35,000.00 Hovnanian.....

Mr. McGoarty: Yes.

Mr. Buell: To the 1% at this point in time.

Mr. McGoarty: Not to the 1%. I appreciate you mentioning that, I forgot to mention that. In the Housing Element there is a discussion of the three affordable districts if you will, COAH requires it, so we did it. Of the three being, Woodfield and Abiding Peace or the senior citizen zone and those two will be built out. What I am recommending in the Hovnanian situation is we get rid of that $35,000.00 a unit payment in lieu option. I know it is a lot of jargon. I am going to come back to you in a week or two. Actually, Mr. Dorsey will have to see this first and review it. It is what’s called a growth share ordinance and I am going to recommend that it apply to all new residential development in the town. It will be at a higher number than $35,000.00 per unit but it will be universal for all projects. So it was just fortuitist in some ways....

Mr. Dorsey: So what the growth share ordinance does, it requires each development to procure its fair share in time and place.

Mr. McGroarty: Exactly, that’s right.

President Greenbaum: Okay, any further discussion? Is there anyone who wishes to deal with any one of the three resolutions separately or my thought is, to move them all...they have all been moved and unless someone objects to one vote, approving all three, that’s the way we are going to handle it. Roll Call on all three, this is Resolutions #20, 21 and 22.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

President Greenbaum: Congratulations, best of luck to you. If the Township can help you in any other way let us know. Thank you Chuck.

Questions on Bill List?

President Greenbaum: Has anyone identified questions on the Bill List, or does anyone have additional questions?

Mr. Rattner: The questions I had before I got answers to. I see that the bill for Dolan and Dolan is back on the Bill List. That was the additional legal work that the Planning Board had. Prior to the last meeting, I had asked for an explanation about why we had to spend this money and did we have it in the Budget. What I actually found out is that the Planning Board has exceeded their budget even though their litigation legal expenses are put in just a general legal account. At the same time, other than just saying that we got a letter from the Vice President of the Planning Board, what we wanted is a different view or a different opinion and for $20,000.00, I still want to know what that difference of opinion is. Looking at the amount of money and the legal costs and services there was for the Planning Board, I believe $15,000.00 was budgeted for litigation. According to the memo we got from the CFO they have exceeded that already, which means this will be now up in the $40,000.00 range and before I agree to take money from somebody else, I still need a better explanation about what it is we were hoping to accomplish. Just because it wasn’t successful, I understand that you really never know, but this is something that we got that we just felt that a different set of eyes would give us some sort of benefit. Most of the expense based on the hourly rates and everything I look at, it looks like we are just reviewing what’s been had in history so you come up to speed and before you knew it, the Supreme Court had already ruled that they weren’t going to take the case. I am not ready to vote for this yet because I don’t have an explanation why we spent this $20,000.

President Greenbaum: It was discussed at last week’s meeting and you can certainly raise the motion to exclude it at the time for those reasons and we will put it to a vote as to whether or not to exclude it from the Bill List.

Mr. Rattner: It was explained....

President Greenbaum: No, it was discussed. I am not going to say it was explained. We can go through the discussion later on.

Mr. Tepper: There is an item from Passaic Valley Sewerage, it says liquid substance acceptance from. If we are accepting waste, why are we paying money? It is on page #13 at the top. If we get rid of our waste, don’t we get rid of it through the MUA?

Mrs. Jenkins: Russ, the part that came after that is a particular timeframe, not a particular entity.

Mr. Tepper: Thank you. I just saw liquid waste accepted from and I just didn’t understand.

President Greenbaum: Anyone else with questions on the Bill List? Okay, we will get to the Bill List afterwards.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS

Sept. 12, 2006
Present: Mr. Buell, Mr. Tepper, Mr. Biondi, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Greenbaum
Absent: Mrs. Labow, Mr. Rattner

Sept. 26, 2006
Present: Mr. Buell, Mr. Tepper, Mr. Rattner, Mr. Greenbaum, Mrs. Labow
Absent: Mr. Perkins, Mr. Biondi

Oct. 17, 2006 CS
Present: Mr. Buell, Mrs. Labow, Mr. Biondi, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Greenbaum
Absent: Mr. Rattner & Mr. Tepper

Oct. 17, 2006 Special Meeting
Present: Mr. Buell, Mrs. Labow, Mr. Biondi, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Greenbaum
Absent: Mr. Rattner & Mr. Tepper

President Greenbaum: Mr. Rattner, do you want to move the Minutes please.

Mr. Rattner: Yes, I move the minutes for September 12, 2006, September 26, 2006 and Closed Session from October 17, 2006 and October 17, 2006 Public Meeting.

Mr. Perkins: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Does anyone have any additions, subtractions, deletions, corrections? Seeing none Roll Call.

ROLL CALL: Passed
Sept. 12, 2006 – approved by all with the exceptions: Mrs. Labow & Mr. Rattner abstained
Sept. 26, 2006 – approved by all with the exceptions: Mr. Perkins & Mr. Buell abstained
Oct. 17, 2006 CS– approved by all with the exceptions: Mr. Rattner & Mr. Tepper abstained
Oct. 17, 2006 Special Meeting – approved by all with the exceptions: Mr. Rattner & Mr. Tepper abstained

CORRESPONDENCE

LETTERS FROM RESIDENTS / ORGANIZATIONS

1. Letter received October 16, 2006, from Mount Olive Child Care and Learning Center regarding recent Annual Golf Outing sponsorship.

2. Letter received October 20, 2006, from Mount Olive Child Care and Learning Center regarding Annual Lease Payments.

MUA / HMUA / MSA

3. Information Letter received October 12, 2006, from Sussex County Municipal Utilities Authority regarding Proposed FY 2007 Rate Schedule Effective December 1, 2006.

RESOLUTIONS / ORDINANCES / CORRESPONDENCE OTHER TOWNS

4. Resolution received October 10, 2006, from the Township of Pequannock urging the Attorney General and State of New Jersey to provide defense and indemnification for voluntary law enforcement personnel working with task forces.

5. Notice received October 10, 2006, from the Allamuchy Township Land Use Board regarding a Public Hearing on the Master Plan.

6. Resolution received October 16, 2006, from the Township of Long Hill urging the New Jersey Attorney General and the State of New Jersey to provide for defense and indemnification of Municipal Police Officers and Police Departments Voluntarily Serving on State and County Law Enforcement Task Forces.

7. Resolution received October 18, 2006, from the Township of Hanover regarding restoring “cap banking” to its previous status as it existed prior to 2004.

8. Resolution received October 20, 2006, from the Borough of Mount Arlington urging the New Jersey Attorney General and the State of New Jersey to provide for defense and indemnification of
Municipal Police Officers and Police Departments Voluntarily Serving on State and County Law Enforcement Task Forces.

LEAGUE OF MUNICIPLITIES

9. Information received October 10, 2006, from the Morris County League of Municipalities regarding the
League Luncheon.

10. Letter received October 19, 2006, from the New Jersey State League of Municipalities regarding Bus Shuttle and Overflow Parking Locations for 91st Annual League Conference.

DOT / DEP / LOI / HIGHLANDS

11. Letter received October 10, 2006, from Tony Carpinello regarding application for a Highlands Applicability Determination Exemption for property located at 18 Whippoorwill Road, Block 2209, Lot 11.01.

12. Letter received October 10, 2006, from the State of New Jersey, Department of Environmental Protection, regarding Notice of Application in reference to Agricultural Certification Application (Forte Farm, Chester)

13. Letter received October 16, 2006, from the State of New Jersey, Department of Environmental Protection regarding Fox Chase – Single Family Residential Subdivision, Block 7801, Lots 41.12 through 41.32 (all formerly part of lot 41) 1 & 2 Berry Court.

14. Application Notification received October 20, 2006, from Molina regarding property at 117 Mount Olive Road (Block 7600, Lot 62) for general permit authorization (redesign of septic).

15. Letter received October 20, 2006, from the State of New Jersey, Department of Environmental Protection regarding Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act / Revocation of Certain Designated Sewer Service Areas in the Highlands Preservation Area. Proposed Amendment: Northeast, Sussex, Upper Delaware and Upper Raritan Water Quality Management Plans - all affected Water Quality Management Plans.

DCA

16. E-mail received October 6, 2006, from the Department of Community Affairs regarding Innovations Award Application – Deadline extended.

17. E-mail received October 12, 2006, from the Department of Community Affairs regarding NJ Historical Conference, November 18, 2006.

18. E-mail received October 17, 2006, from Department of Community Affairs regarding new Local Finance Notices.

TORT

19. Notice of Settlement and Availability of Benefits received October 11, 2006, from Superior Court of the State of New Jersey regarding Junto Investments, et al v. Verizon New Jersey.

MISC.

20. Letter received October 10, 2006, from Alan Goldstein regarding withdrawal of pending application for Hovnanian, Block 4100, Lots 80 & 85 (73 & 89 Route 46).

21. 2006 Abstract of Ratables received October 13, 2006, from Morris County Board of Taxation.

22. Information received October 16, 2006, from the National League of Cities regarding Leadership Training Institute Seminar, January 25-27, 2007.

23. Letter received October 17, 2006, from Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer P.A. regarding Public Notice that is being published in newspapers of general circulation in all areas of the State of New Jersey by New Jersey American Water Company, Inc., Elizabeth Water Company, The Mount Holly Water Company, and Applied Wastewater Management, Inc.

24. Newsletter received October 18, 2006, from Lieberman & Blecher regarding what’s happening at Lieberman & Blecher and upcoming events.

25. Certification of Average Ratios and Common Level Ranges for Use in the Tax Year 2007 received October 19, 2006, from the State of New Jersey, Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation.

26. Certification of the Table of Equalized Valuations received October 19, 2006, from the State of New Jersey, Department of the Treasury, Division of Taxation.

27. Letter received October 20, 2006, from K. Hovnanian Homes regarding Third State of the Industry Report and Seminar.

UTILITIES

28. Letter received October 10, 2006, from Jersey Central Power and Light regarding New Jersey Smart Growth policy.

29. Fax received October 11, 2006, from Comcast regarding Local Sports Programming.

30. Letters received October 16, 2006, from Comcast regarding High Definition local sports games offer.*

31. Fax received October 16, 2006, from Comcast regarding multiple channel alterations.

32. Fax received October 18, 206, from Comcast regarding multiple channel alterations

President Greenbaum: There are 32 pieces of Correspondence. Does anyone want to discuss any particular piece of Correspondence?

Mr. Buell: Yes, #2. The letter received vis-a-vis the status of the Mount Olive Child Care Learning Center regarding annual lease payments. Where does that sit? I would like to know a status report from the Administration in terms of did they agree with this or did they agree to the letter that was given to us by Barbara.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Prill?

Mr. Prill: It is currently being reviewed with myself and the CFO.

President Greenbaum: When are we going to have a response?
Mr. Prill: Hopefully in a day or two, we should be able to come up with a resolution of that.

Mr. Buell: Number two. There is one piece of literature that is not here that actually you probably received it too late. It was...actually a referendum or resolution from Summit vis-a-vis the Erie Lackawanna cutoff. I think we need to make a resolution vis-a-vis the cutoff because of how important it is in terms of the traffic on Route 80. I think our viewpoint of the Lackawanna cutoff or at least my viewpoint of it is, I would be in favor of having a resolution to approve or to ask the Federal and the State Government to continue to fund the Lackawanna cutoff.

Mr. Tepper: Look what happened last Friday when there was an accident with two hazardous waste trucks on Route 80. They shut it down for about 5 hours.

Mr. Buell: I would like to have a resolution prepared in favor of probably in opposition to the Summit resolution which was opposed to it.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Dorsey, do you want to prepare such a resolution?

Mr. Dorsey: Yes.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Buell, I would ask that you speak to Mr. Dorsey and provide him with the information necessary for him to prepare the appropriate resolution for your liking.

Mr. Dorsey: The Summit resolution?

President Greenbaum: No, it’s....

Mr. Buell: It’s not in there, it will be in next week’s, or next month I guess.

Mr. Dorsey: Okay, we’ll get it and we’ll do it.

President Greenbaum: Is there any other discussion on any particular piece of Correspondence? Seeing none, we will move on.

ORDINANCE FOR PUBLIC HEARING - None

ORDINANCES FOR FIRST READING (2nd reading November 28, 2006)

President Greenbaum: The first Ordinance is Ordinance #31-2006 entitled:

Ord. #31-2006 Bond Ordinance of the Township of Mount Olive, In the County of Morris, New Jersey Amending Section 3(h) of Bond Ordinance Numbered #27-2005 Finally Adopted August 9, 2005 in Order to Amend the Description of the Project Authorized Therein.

President Greenbaum: Boy, that’s a lot of language to say absolutely nothing. Mr. Perkins, do you want to move that please?

Mr. Perkins: Yes, Mr. President. I move that Ordinance # 31-2006 be introduced by title, and passed on first reading, and that a meeting be held on November 28, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at the Municipal Building, 204 Flanders-Drakestown Road, Mount Olive, New Jersey, for public hearing, consideration of second reading and passage of said Ordinance, and that the Clerk be directed to publish, post and make available said Ordinance in accordance with the requirements of the law.

Mrs. Labow: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Roll Call please.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

President Greenbaum: The next Ordinance is Ordinance #32-2006 entitled:

Ord. #32-2006 Bond Ordinance of the Township of Mount Olive, In the County of Morris, New Jersey Amending Section 3(i) of Bond Ordinance Numbered #37-2002 Finally Adopted September 24, 2002 in Order to Amend the Description of the Project Authorized Therein.

President Greenbaum: Mrs. Labow, do you want to move that for first reading please?

Mrs. Labow: Yes, Mr. President. I move that Ordinance # 32-2006 be introduced by title, and passed on first reading, and that a meeting be held on November 28, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at the Municipal Building, 204 Flanders-Drakestown Road, Mount Olive, New Jersey, for public hearing, consideration of second reading and passage of said Ordinance, and that the Clerk be directed to publish, post and make available said Ordinance in accordance with the requirements of the law.

Mr. Perkins: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Any discussion? Roll Call please.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

President Greenbaum: The next ordinance for first hearing is Ordinance #33-2006 entitled:

Ord. #33-2006 Bond Ordinance Providing for the Acquisition of Various Equipment of the Township of Mount Olive, in the County of Morris, New Jersey, Appropriating the Aggregate Amount of $122,000 Therefore and Authorizing the Issuance of $115,900 Bonds or Notes of the Township to Finance Part of the Cost Thereof.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Biondi, do you want to move that?

Mr. Biondi: Yes, Mr. President. I move that Ordinance # 33-2006 be introduced by title, and passed on first reading, and that a meeting be held on November 28, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. at the Municipal Building, 204 Flanders-Drakestown Road, Mount Olive, New Jersey, for public hearing, consideration of second reading and passage of said Ordinance, and that the Clerk be directed to publish, post and make available said Ordinance in accordance with the requirements of the law.

Mr. Perkins: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

CONSENT RESOLUTIONS AGENDA:

Resolutions on the Consent Agenda List are considered to be routine and non-controversial by the Township Council and will be approved by one motion (one vote). There will be no separate discussion or debate on each of these resolutions except for the possibility of brief clarifying statements that may be offered. If one or more Council member requests, any individual resolution on the Consent Agenda may be removed from the Consent Agenda List and acted on separately.

CONSENT RESOLUTIONS

1. Resolution of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Cancellation of Various General Capital Ordinance Balances.

2. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Requesting the State to Continue its Annual Funding for Waterloo Village.

3. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract to Tilcon New York, Inc. for the Resurfacing of Pleasant Hill Road – Phase II.

4. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract to Diamond Construction for Phase II Sidewalk Improvements on Rt. 46.

5. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract to R & R Construction Co. DPW Site Improvements.

6. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract to SMAC Corporation for the DPW Garage Office Construction.

7. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Rejecting Bids Received for Licensed Electrician Services.

8. Resolution of the Township of Mount Olive Supporting Relief from the Municipal CAP Law.

9. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Requesting Approval from the Director of the Division of Local Government Services for Insertion of a Specific Item of Revenue into the 2006 Municipal Budget ($8,134.54 for a Recycling Tonnage Grant).

10. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Cancellation of a Previously Approved Purchase Order for the Purchase of Playground and Recreation Equipment for the Mount Olive Child Care and Learning Center.

11. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing a Settlement of Tax Appeals filed by 220 Route 206 for the Tax Years 2005 and 2006.

12. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing a Settlement of Tax Appeals filed for the Tax Years 2005, 2006 and the Establishment of an Assessment for the Year 2007.

13. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing a Settlement of a Tax Appeal for the Years 2006 and 2007. (Toys R Us)

14. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Supporting Public Question #2 Concerning the Reallocation of Environmentally Dedicated Funds.

15. Resolution of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Use of State Purchasing Contracts.

16. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Rejecting the Bids for Fleet Maintenance Services and Authorizing an In-House Fleet Maintenance Service Program.

17. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Release of Performance Guarantees Posted by Maybury Douglas Associates. (Dunkin’ Donuts at Flanders Exxon)

18. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract for the Charters Farm Contaminated Soil Removal and Disposal Services to Norton Conservation Company, Inc. (NORCON)

19. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing an Interlocal Health Services Agreement with the Borough of Netcong for the Provision of Health Services Pursuant to Interlocal Services Act (N.J.S.A. 26:38A2-1 et seq.).

20. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Repetitioning With a Revised Housing Element and Fair Share Plan.

21. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Requesting Review and Approval of the Development Fee Spending Plan.

22. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Affirming an Intent to Bond or Provide Funds from General Revenue in Accordance with N.J.A.C. 5:94-4.2(a)1 to Address Any Shortfall in the Allocation of Funds from the Township’s Revised Housing Trust Fund for Affordable Housing Projects as Set Forth in the Township’s Housing Element/Fair Share Plan and Spending Plan.

President Greenbaum: Is there any resolution on the Consent Resolutions Agenda which any Councilmember wishes to remove?

Mr. Rattner: Number five and number sixteen.

President Greenbaum: Number five and number sixteen?

Mrs. Labow: Number two.

Mr. Tepper: I have a question about number one. I didn’t want to remove it. A brief question, why we weren’t doing the Library, included in that, and just doing one rather than doing multiples, if we were going to do cancellations in capital.
President Greenbaum: We are waiting for information from the Library, still.

Mr. Tepper: Thank you.

President Greenbaum: Any others? Number six, is there a reason you didn’t pull that as well Mr. Rattner, dealing with the DPW, if you pulled five? We might as well pull that too.

Mr. Rattner: Oh, okay. I don’t care it’s just that, I wanted an explanation.

President Greenbaum: We are removing from the Consent Agenda #2, 5, 6 and 16. We have already dealt with #20, 21 and 22. I am going to need Mr. Buell to move, #1, 3, 4, 7, through 15 and 17 through 19 please.

Mr. Buell: I move resolutions #1, 3, 4, 7, through 15, 17, 18 and 19.

Mr. Tepper: Second.

PUBLIC PORTION ON CONSENT RESOLUTIONS

President Greenbaum: It has been moved and seconded. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard? Mr. McDonnell, do you want to come up and please state your name and address for the record.

Ned McDonnell, Budd Lake: Number ten, the Child Care Center. I thought we weren’t still funding them for things like this? This $19,000.00, what kind of agreement brought that on?

President Greenbaum: Ned, all of the purchases and the bonding that was done for the Mount Olive Child Care is being paid back by Mount Olive Child Care. It’s not something which the Township is undertaking accept to provide the outlay of cash with the interest. The principal balance of which, is being paid back by Mount Olive Child Care. It is all related to the same project and it’s at no cost to the taxpayers of Mount Olive.

Mr. McDonnell: So this $19,000.00 really isn’t going to cost us anything?

President Greenbaum: It’s all being paid back by Mount Olive Child Care as part of their lease agreement.

Mr. Tepper: With interest.

Mr. McDonnell: Okay, thank you.

COUNCIL COMMENTS ON CONSENT RESOLUTIONS

President Greenbaum: Anyone else from the public who wishes to be heard on any of the Consent Resolutions? Seeing none, is there any brief clarifying statements required by anyone on Council?

Mr. Rattner: I will be abstaining from Resolution #10 due to my association with the Day Care Center.

President Greenbaum: Okay, anything further? Roll Call please on the Consent Resolutions Agenda.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously with the exception, Mr. Rattner abstained on #10.

RESOLUTIONS NON CONSENT

President Greenbaum: Okay we are moving on to the Non Consent Resolutions Agenda. The first one that was pulled was:

2. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Requesting the State to Continue its Annual Funding for Waterloo Village.

President Greenbaum: Mrs. Labow, do you want to move that please?

Mrs. Labow: I move for passage of resolution, what he just said...#2.

Mr. Perkins: Second.

PUBLIC PORTION ON INDIVIDUAL RESOLUTIONS

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard?

COUNCIL COMMENTS ON INDIVIDUAL RESOLUTIONS

Mrs. Labow: Yes. I just wanted to pull this off because I just didn’t want it to get clumped in with everything else because I think it is an extremely important issue with the funding for Waterloo Village. Kathy Murphy, Mrs. Lashway and I were working on this and it would be a terrible shame if the State did not do their usual contribution of $250,000. I think the Waterloo Village and all the historical value that it provides for the community is of the utmost importance. I really urge the public to reach out to the State and beg, whatever, tell them please keep the money coming for that. That’s it.

President Greenbaum: Any further discussion? Roll Call please.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

President Greenbaum: The next resolution on the Non Consent is:

5. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract to R & R Construction Co. DPW Site Improvements.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Rattner, do you want to move that please?

Mr. Rattner: Yes, I move Resolution #5. Mr. Perkins seconded the motion.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard? Seeing none, I close it to the public.

Mr. Rattner: Yes, why I wanted to discuss this one is because we had the same situation nine years ago when we were told we were in violation of public bidding laws. The first thing that we have done is we have been doing a lot of site work, some with the same contractor, breaking it up into little pieces to try to avoid public bidding. One of things that I noticed with the last couple of voucher packages over the last couple of weeks is that we have bought about $30,000 worth of drainage and sewer pipe which would normally have to be bought under the public bidding. So I am not sure how we feel that we can do that. Then again, a project nine years ago was Flanders Park and at that time, the Business Administrator thought that we could do better by breaking up the contracts into separate contracts, some of them small enough to go under the public bidding so we can negotiate it. We were told very plainly that that is inappropriate and improper. Nobody said it was illegal because we didn’t complete it at that time and it appears this is what we are doing. We just had site work, putting in some water lines by R & R Construction and now we are awarding a bid for other site work. I think that is the same thing we got in trouble for, saying the work was very similar and by splitting it up, it should have been all together. I don’t have a problem with R & R Construction. They are a very good construction company. I really think that we are treading on the edges of the public bidding law. So I wanted an opinion from Mr. Prill why he thought that this would be different than what happened a few years ago. If we talk about....like if this is steel pipe and drainage, $30,000.00 under five different purchase orders and calling it slightly different things for the same site, that that would not be necessary to bid.

Mr. Prill: Any of the purchases that we have made directly for materials were purchased through vendors who have been awarded contracts through the Morris County Cooperative Pricing Council. So they have been publicly bid and we are just piggy backing on top of those public bids.

Mr. Rattner: So you are saying that because they are....but what about R & R Construction which is bidding on the total project. They are on a State bid too? We were told because this is exactly what we did on Flanders Park, putting the water lines and the sewer lines and some other things in, is very very close. It is a similar type of work as doing the other site work and you can’t start breaking it up to avoid some of the bidding, whether it’s more convenient, even if you save money. So I just have a concern about that. I am not going to vote no on the contract but I do want an analysis on whether we are in good shape with the public bidding because the same thing happened when we built Flanders Park and it was done to save money. We were told we couldn’t do it, we even broke up site work from concrete work and something like that, and we were told we couldn’t.

Mr. Tepper: So if there is a chance then that it would violate, why would you vote yes?

Mr. Rattner: Well, the work is already done. There’s not much we can do at this point. I am just asking that we look at it... the other bid I believe was a lawfully awarded bid. We have to get the work done.

Mr. Tepper: This is awarding the contract. So you are saying we are awarding the contract after the work has been done?
Mr. Rattner: No, with the same contractor, we had them do $13,000-$14,000 worth of work. Then we put out a bid and he bids for the rest of the work at $100,000. It is really some of the same thing and I just want to get an explanation on it or at least put our documentation or whatever we have to put in there, why we did it this way. Maybe we found a way that it is correct, if we got it under the State contract, we probably can but if the labor work isn’t, I’m not sure you can break it up piece meal to avoid....

Mr. Tepper: I understand buying pipes and things like that under a cooperative purchasing agreement. How do you do site agreements that are unique to the job, under a cooperative bid?

Mr. Prill: That part of it, R& R Construction is not a vendor that is...has been awarded a public contract under the Morris County Cooperative or as far as I know under a State contract. The work that we had them do was done based on price quotes that we have received. So we had carved out that particular part of the project and received quotes on it.

Mr. Rattner: But that is what we were told you can’t.....that is a violation. At least we were told before. That is a violation because you carved out similar type work that can be done together. We were told that it’s not allowed just because they don’t want you breaking it up into so many different pieces, even with different vendors, just so you wouldn’t have to bid it properly. That happened, and it was only nine years ago, on another project. It may have even been some of the same contractors. I’m not sure because R & R has been around for quite a while and I’m really not sure. I’m not going to stop the other contracts. I don’t want to slow down the construction. I was surprised because when I went through the Bill List, I start seeing some of the different expenses. The first thing that got me was all the different pieces of pipe, wondering what we are doing. I understood what we did there but the vendor....then I saw the contractor is the same guy who bid on the rest of the work. I am not sure if that is allowed, it may be. It may be because we didn’t spend the money up to the bid limit and then we decided... but I do want an explanation on that.

President Greenbaum: What’s your pleasure Mr. Rattner, move forward?

Mr. Rattner: Yes, I am going to move forward on the bid we have in front of us.

President Greenbaum: Okay. Any other discussion? Roll Call please.

ROLL CALL: Passed - Mr. Buell, Mr. Biondi, Mr. Rattner, Mr. Perkins, voted yes.
Mr. Tepper, Mrs. Labow, Mr. Greenbaum, voted no.

President Greenbaum: It is four to three in favor. The next resolution on the Non Consent:

6. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract to SMAC Corporation for the DPW Garage Office Construction.

Mr. Rattner: I will move that.

President Greenbaum: You removed it.

Mr. Rattner: I removed it just to placate the Council President. It’s a completely different piece of the work. I move the Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Awarding a Contract to SMAC Corporation for the DPW Garage Office Construction.

President Greenbaum: It has been moved. Is there a second?

Mr. Buell: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard? Seeing none, I close it to the public. Any Council discussion?

Mr. Tepper: With the inclusion of these two, what would be the total expenditures to date on the DPW garage?

Mr. Prill: I don’t have that figure with me. I can provide it to you tomorrow.

Mr. Buell: Last week we discussed it. These two contracts we rejected, one bid I think because that would have put us over the limit.

President Greenbaum: Yes. It still keeps us under the budget but I have no confidence whatsoever that this project is going to come in any where near or close to the budget and that is why I am not voting for anymore expenditures related to the DPW garage. Roll Call please.

ROLL CALL: Defeated - Mr. Buell, Mr. Rattner, Mr. Perkins, voted yes.
Mr. Tepper, Mr. Biondi, Mrs. Labow, Mr. Greenbaum, voted no.

President Greenbaum: It goes down. The last item on the Non Consent Resolutions Agenda:

16. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Rejecting the Bids for Fleet Maintenance Services and Authorizing an In-House Fleet Maintenance Service Program.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Rattner, do you want to move it please?

Mr. Rattner: Oh, I have to move it too?

President Greenbaum: Just move #16, that’s all you need to do. You don’t have to, you can pass it if you want.

Mr. Rattner: Alright, I will move it.

Mr. Tepper: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there anyone from the public who wishes to be heard?

Mr. Rattner: I am sorry I wasn’t... because of personal reasons, not being at last week’s meeting. However, all I have gotten as a business case for setting up a new in house department for the cost of somewhere in the vicinity of $600,000 a year is two pages of just some rough numbers. I think with the problems that we have had with fleet maintenance and to say we can bring it inside to increase our efficiencies and level of service to the fleet, we need more than this. We used to have in house fleet maintenance. We moved it outside. Most corporations have moved it outside and it’s not saying that we couldn’t do it successfully inside. Roxbury appears right now to have a successful fleet maintenance operation after having it for years and it was only in the last year that they have been able... by reorganizing it, to get it back up to a level of service that satisfies them. Two years ago, they actually went out to bid and were going to dump the whole thing, and they decided not to. So I know it can be done. Now I don’t know where Mr. Prill, that you have done business cases or justifications but we know.....we have never gotten a list. We have 160 to 190 vehicles and pieces of equipment. How do we know that three people and a supervisor are enough to be able to service that type of equipment? We know that we are saying that the contractor we’ve had has not been able to keep up with the work. We weren’t able to oversee the contract to make sure they perform under the requirements of the contract. We didn’t move to terminate the contract because they weren’t performing, we just complained. Now, normally what you would want to see is, how many vehicles you have, what is the normal maintenance, how often it is, how many people or how many hours, or how many man days do you need to do that maintenance. Do you leave a certain allowance for what you are going to use for repairs. Then you also have to put in because of all of the computerization and everything today and I am not going to staff a department without giving them the proper training and education. I know if you go to a dealership or if you’re a certified mechanic, I would imagine it’s somewhere around at least three weeks, equivalent weeks a year or 15 days because every year the vehicles change, the computers the software changes and go forward with that. I’m ready to move ahead...bring fleet maintenance inside because I think it can be done. With this, this is not saying, this is more money than we are spending now. We are saying that we are estimating and we always know we usually underestimate, that this 10% is more than what the bids came in for the outside firm. It was actually put in this little piece of documentation that we also have a cap on the other. Here we wouldn’t if we have bad luck and we have more things that are broken. I want to move ahead but I want to see a real business case, a real budget. How do we know we can do it? It just says three people, a clerical person and a supervisor can handle this. I don’t know what level of service we are going to handle. Are we going to be able to buy the parts at the same price or cheaper than what First Vehicles Services bought it? I know we have it under the State contract probably most of the items. We are still going to have to go out. We are not going to have some of the same agreements they probably have with some outside vendors to do heavy duty things like engine overhauls, transmissions, that type of thing. I mean it is very possible we could do it cheaper but nothing is here. All it is saying, let’s spend 10% more than what the bids came in at and yet we don’t have any idea... I don’t even have any idea if it is even doable.

Mr. Tepper: Like Mr. Rattner, I was not here but in reviewing the numbers, I guess since we have already acknowledged we are going to have budgetary issues for next year, I don’t understand why we are rejecting a bid that is 10% less than what we say it will cost us in best case scenario and not accept the low bidder.

Mr. Rattner: I am not saying to make that case right now. If the service we are getting is not.......

Mr. Tepper: I am not saying the current vendor. I am saying the alternative vendor, that bid is 10% less than what our so called business case said it was going to be. If they are a qualified company and we can cap our expenses at 10% less, why aren’t we doing that?

President Greenbaum: I think that you needed to be here for Mr. Quinn’s presentation. I think he made a very compelling presentation and I think he really put his reputation on the line in terms of bringing this in house, to be able to do it at the numbers he suggested.

Mr. Tepper: So this will be part of his performance review for next year?

President Greenbaum: Oh, I think so.

Mr. Biondi: Absolutely.

Mr. Buell: In fact, we asked for quarterly reports on this whole program.

President Greenbaum: I think to be fair to Mr. Rattner there are a lot of unknowns because you can look at the maintenance which was previously done and you will not come up with a number that adequately reflects what is needed to be done. I think that’s the message that we are getting and I understand what you are saying, you can come to some averages as to how much it generally cost to repair a particular piece of equipment but I am not sure that without a track record that we were able to come to a conclusion and we thought that we were prepared to give Mr. Quinn a chance to do what he said he was prepared to do for us.

Mr. Rattner: Well for one thing I don’t see anything in here how are you going to measure the performance. I mean it could be just bad luck that you have a certain amount of vehicles go down. However, any place I have ever been, including different places in government, when you do a budget or a proposal, if you have a police car, you know a police car puts on a certain amount of mileage per month, so you can determine what the maintenance is supposed to be. So if we have 40 police cars or whatever it is, and if we have to do maintenance on them, the regular routine maintenance for 3,000 miles what do we do? 5,000 is going to be within 30-45 days based on the way they put on mileage. I think they do about 40 – 50,000 miles a year, the ones that are on the road and they are hard miles. So each police car needs, four to six full maintenance a year. How long does that take and what is the cost? Then we have all the other trucks, how much does it cost for the maintenance of the packers, I am not talking about the repairs. The repairs are always going to be an unknown. That was addressed, the only thing we are risking is the cap which our First Services Vehicle would have to cover but if I look at everything and I don’t care how it was done but it was under this management that the off contract, the off contract expenses, the last time I looked through seven months are up something like 400% over what we budgeted for. Now we were told it was because we put a lot of other expenses in there. So even with that, I just want to know if we have any time. I want to see and do it right. I am saying let’s vote on it, if we just got the bids in we probably have at least another meeting and let’s at least get down what it is really going to take, what is the level of maintenance that our vehicles need? That hasn’t been figured out. It just says three people can do it. If we have three people or even four I guess, it would be a supervisor to do a certain amount but it is going to be a lot of paper work and management but if you have four people and if they need three weeks worth of training, they get an average, I don’t know whatever you want to use for how many weeks of vacation, you have to leave an allowance for sick days and you have all of the other holidays, is that really the right number is part of the reason why that the level of service wasn’t good enough was because it wasn’t staffed at the proper level. Just maybe, but show me, I don’t want to vote for something, this much money, taking this much chance. Something like you said is going to cost us a little bit more and if we are getting a lot more quality, then it is cheaper in the long run. Then sometimes you have to bite the bullet. So I am willing to go with it but I will only go for it if you can show me what the level of service is that we are going to get.

Mrs. Labow: Rick, when do we have to either.... you know, take care of these bids, what’s the deadline?

Mr. Prill: There is a 60 day time limit to either award or reject a public bid.

Mrs. Labow: Do we have until November 21st?

Mr. Prill: That should be within the 60 day time frame.

President Greenbaum: The 21st is a workshop meeting.

Mr. Tepper: It’s the 28th.

Mr. Rattner: Well, make it a public meeting.
President Greenbaum: Let’s put it to a vote.

Mrs. Labow: I just want to mention one thing. I had asked last week how were we going to fund this, which department and I know the answer to that. You are supposed to sit down with the CFO and Tim Quinn and decide. Was it going to be separate accounting, was it going to go towards each department. Just how is it going to be done? So as much as I am very much in favor of bringing this in house, I want to know how the accounting is going to be done.

President Greenbaum: That question was addressed.

Mr. Prill: Yes, it was.

Mrs. Labow: It was not answered....

Mr. Biondi: Yes it was.

Mrs. Labow: No it wasn’t.

Mr. Biondi: Sherry answered it.

Mrs. Labow: They said that you weren’t exactly sure, that you still had more discussions to go on it.

Mr. Prill: No. It will be set up the same way it is currently, with one budget but within that one budget, there will be accounting by department.

President Greenbaum: That was specifically addressed.

Mrs. Jenkins: What we said is we didn’t know exactly what we were going to call the subaccounts. I did say we were going to have a separate salary account and a separate other expense account. It was not going to be within the departmental budgets.

Mrs. Labow: It seemed like it was, like you weren’t exactly positively sure but that was what you were looking to do.

Mrs. Jenkins: No. We are absolutely going to set up a separate salary account and a separate other expense account.

Mrs. Labow: Okay, so it’s not going to be taken from each department?

Mrs. Jenkins: No. We are not going to set up automotive maintenance or equipment maintenance within each department. We are going to have one budget for automotive and equipment maintenance. We are going to have a salary account and we are going to have another expense account. Within the other expense account, we are going to set up different subaccounts, probably by department, so that we can track the expenses by department.

Mrs. Labow: But each department will not be charged in their budget?

Mrs. Jenkins: No. They will not.

Mrs. Labow: Okay, that’s what I wanted to know.

President Greenbaum: Thank you. Let’s put it to a Roll Call.

ROLL CALL: Passed - Mr. Buell, Mr. Biondi, Mr. Perkins, Mrs. Labow, Mr. Greenbaum voted yes.
Mr. Tepper, Mr. Rattner, voted no.

MOTIONS

President Greenbaum: Okay, that takes care of the resolutions. At this point, we are up to the Motions and the first Motion is the Raffle Applications. I assume Colleen, that you are going to abstain on #2168 the Parents Club?

1. Approval of Raffle Application #2168 for the Mt. Olive High School Parents Club and RA #2169 & #2170 for the Mt. Olive High School Band Boosters Assn.

Mrs. Labow: Yes, that’s correct.
President Greenbaum: Mr. Tepper, do you want to move the Raffle Application?

Mr. Tepper: Yes, Mr. President. I move for Approval of Raffle Application #2168 for the Mt. Olive High School Parents Club and RA #2169 & #2170 for the Mt. Olive High School Band Boosters Assn.

Mr. Buell: Second.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously with the exception, Mrs. Labow abstained on #2168

2. Bill List.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Rattner, do you want to move the Bill List?

Mr. Rattner: Yes, I move the Bill List.

Mr. Perkins: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

Mr. Rattner: Yes.

President Greenbaum: Yes, Mr. Rattner.

Mr. Rattner: I would like to remove re-issued check #51095 to Dolan & Dolan.

Mr. Buell: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there discussion on removal? Again, it’s my position that it was approved by the Planning Board. They did the work and ultimately we are going to have to pay it or be subject to litigation in court and it should be paid.

Mr. Rattner: Obviously, the Planning Board of which the Mayor sits on the Planning Board, authorized money that they did not have in their budget. All we want to do is go forward. We don’t know... I don’t know at this point what the budget transfer and what we are going to be over and under. According to the CFO this account was already overexpended, their other legal account within the department was overexpended. I don’t understand why they were authorized. If they needed the money, they had to come back because even the Planning Board being an autonomous board by statute I believe has to live within their budget. I am not saying this man didn’t do the work, whatever the Planning Board asked him to do which I didn’t get a real good explanation on but the fact is, is they can only spend what has been budgeted for them. They can fight with the budget and sue on the budget but after that and then they can make their case to make a budget transfer and we haven’t seen that yet and the Planning Board still owes that to us.

President Greenbaum: Is there any further discussion? Roll Call please.

Mr. Buell: No, wait a minute. I would like to remove.....

President Greenbaum: No, this is just on removal of this one bill.

Mr. Buell: Oh, just removal of this one bill.

Mr. Dorsey: A yes vote will be to remove it from the list.

ROLL CALL: Defeated - Mr. Buell, Mr. Biondi, Mrs. Labow, Mr. Rattner, voted yes.
Mr. Tepper, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Greenbaum, voted no.

President Greenbaum: So it’s removed.

Mr. Buell: Yes. I would like to remove #062040, $100.00 for trophy donation, Mayor’s miscellaneous expense. It is on page #5.

President Greenbaum: Page #5, #051075?

Mr. Buell: Yes. I thought we had agreed as a Council, to not pay for these, that these were not to be paid for by tax dollars... previously.

President Greenbaum: Is there a second?

Mr. Perkins: Second.

President Greenbaum: Moved and seconded. Is there any discussion?

Mr. Rattner: I was at the band competition, awarding the ones that I personally paid for. I heard nothing said of the Township of Mount Olive Sponsoring a Trophy. So if that is the effect, then maybe we didn’t get the Trophy that the Township happened pay for. We did hear that the Mayor paid for a trophy because that is the way it was announced. If he did, I am not sure what happened but there was absolutely no trophy awarded from the Township of Mount Olive.

President Greenbaum: Mr. Prill, do we know what trophy this paid for? Mr. Prill?

Mr. Prill: I am sorry.

President Greenbaum: Did this $100.00 go towards paying the Mayor’s trophy?

Mr. Prill: It was my understanding that the Band Booster organization requested that we not actually purchase a trophy and donate the trophy. That they were requesting a donation for the purchase of a trophy and that they were coordinating those purchases themselves.

Mr. Rattner: Every one of us got a different letter.

Mr. Biondi: We paid for our own trophies.

President Greenbaum: What is the distinction?

Mr. Rattner: It was announced that it was sponsored and paid for by the Mayor. Who paid for it?

Mr. Biondi: We paid for our own trophies. Who paid for this?

Mr. Buell: The taxpayers.

Mr. Biondi: I would remove it. Remove it.

President Greenbaum: It is already paid.

Mr. Biondi: Well, let him pay it back.

Mr. Buell: My concern here is, I think this came up several months ago in conjunction with another $100.00 trophy or donation to some other group. I thought we had come to the policy decision, that this was not a responsibility that the taxpayers in Mount Olive should pay.

President Greenbaum: We most certainly did come to that policy decision.

Mr. Buell: Absolutely, so if that is our policy...

President Greenbaum: It has been a policy decision for as long as I have been sitting on the Town Council, not to pay for it. I am sure that the Mayor knew about it. Mr. Prill, has this issue been raised with you that this money was going to be questioned by Council?

Mr. Prill: I was advised that there would probably be some discussion regarding this payment.

President Greenbaum: Did you authorize this payment.

Mr. Prill: I indicated to the CFO to go ahead and put it on the Bill List, yes.

President Greenbaum: Has this, in fact, been paid?

Mr. Prill: I don’t believe the check has been issued.

President Greenbaum: Sherry, do you know whether or not this has been paid? It has been paid. You know what, at this point, we are going to need to pass legislation....let’s wait until after the election. We have raised the issue, he just doesn’t care and is going to do whatever the hell he wants to do, and the people of Mount Olive will do what they want to do. Mr. Prill, I am disappointed, as a business administrator that you let the Mayor get away with what is obviously contrary to Council policy and policy of the Township. In fact, you have authorized the payment of $100.00 of Township dollars that is not permitted. In some arenas that would be called something other than what you have termed it as, and that is payment of a bill. That, in essence, is wrongfully taking money belonging to the Township to pay for something, which was not approved by Council. It’s minimal in the scheme of things and it’s just more whip cream on the top of the rest pile.

Mr. Biondi: Just continues the pattern.

President Greenbaum: Alright, I would ask... the motion is to withdraw it from the Bill List. Is there a second?

Mr. Perkins: Second.

President Greenbaum: At this point, let’s get a Roll Call as to remove it from the Bill List.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

President Greenbaum: Sherry, I don’t know what it means but a payment that was made has now been removed from the Bill List. You will have to figure out what the ramifications of that are. I would hope that someone would go back to the Mayor and ask him to repay that $100.00. Any other items to be removed from the Bill List? Let’s move the Bill List then by Roll Call please.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS

Library Board Report

OLD BUSINESS

Status of Library Grant Monies to be Turned Over to Twp.

Library Handicapped Parking Update

President Greenbaum: Mr. Prill, please give us an update.

Mr. Prill: I do not have a specific report from the Library.

President Greenbaum: Okay Mr. Prill, and only Mr. Prill. When does the Library Board meet next?

Mr. Prill: We will have to get back to you on the specific date.

President Greenbaum: Okay, you don’t know?

Mr. Prill: Not off the top of my head.

President Greenbaum: Do you know when they met last?

Mr. Prill: I believe they had a meeting last week... last Wednesday if I am not mistaken?

President Greenbaum: Do you know if the Mayor was present at that meeting?

Mr. Prill: I don’t know if he attended.

President Greenbaum: Do you know what was discussed at the meeting?

Mr. Prill: No, I have not been provided with a report of that meeting.

President Greenbaum: Did you know that it was going to be on the Agenda this evening for discussion? It’s on every public meeting for discussion.

Mr. Prill: Yes it is.
President Greenbaum: Okay, is there a reason why you decided not to reach out to the Library to determine what had occurred so that you could update Council in light of the fact that the Mayor no longer attends the Council meetings.

Mr. Prill: I had a meeting yesterday with Rita Hilbert but we did not discuss what was discussed by the Library Board. We were discussing other matters.

President Greenbaum: What was discussed with Rita Hilbert yesterday?

Mr. Prill: Talking about the old capital ordinances applicable to the Library, to the Grant Funding issue, to the Handicapped Parking and there was a fourth item which I am not thinking of.

Mrs. Labow: Maintenance, the soffits, the summons?

Mr. Prill: No that is a different issue.

Mr. Biondi: The bats in her belfry?

President Greenbaum: Why don’t you give us an update on all the items you did discuss with Rita then?

Mr. Prill: With regards to the old capital ordinances, I was trying to get a clarification from Rita as to what outstanding invoices or charges with regards to their project that they have yet to submit to the Council for approval. These are primarily change order items, they have identified previously that the total amount of change orders that have been submitted but not yet approved amount to about $250,000. There has been a more recent addition to that of approximately $20,000 that is applicable to the roof repairs that need to get done. Those are issues that the Library Board is currently dealing with. The Blackstone Group and their attorney is working through those issues.

President Greenbaum: Let’s take one at a time.

Mr. Tepper: My question is number one, have they given us last year’s audit of their financials and are the $250,000 contingent liabilities included in there audited financial statement?

Mr. Prill: They have not yet received their audit report. She indicated that that is forthcoming from their auditor, supposedly very soon. So until I see that, I really can’t answer the second part of your question.

President Greenbaum: Anyone else on the issue related to the old capital? Do we have the bills, the change orders them selves, or is that something that the Library refuses to turn over to the Township?

Mr. Prill: Mrs. Hilbert indicated that last year a detailed report was provided to Council. I have not seen it.

President Greenbaum: I have no idea what she is talking about. Sherry....you’ve never seen it either and that is something that you would have requested on numerous occasions, documentation related to the outstanding change orders. I am going to put on the Agenda for the 21st the cancellation of the ordinance, the remaining Library bond ordinance unless they come forward with the documentation demonstrating the nature of their claims. We will put that on for the 21st. Mr. Dorsey, we are going to need the appropriate resolution.

Mrs. Labow: Minus that whole site for the handicapped parking.

President Greenbaum: Yes, accept for the handicapped parking.

Mrs. Labow: I have a question about the bond. I don’t know, didn’t Blackstone have to post a performance bond with the Township? That has not been released, it’s still here. I don’t understand why they