Mt. Olive Township Council Minutes
October 8, 2002

The regular meeting of the Mount Olive Township Council was called to order at 7:30pm by Council President Scapicchio with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag.

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

OPEN PUBLIC MEETINGS ACT ANNOUNCEMENT

According to the Open Public Meetings Act, adequate notice of this meeting has been given to the Mt. Olive Chronicle and the Daily Record. 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. Guenther (8:35), Mr. Greenbaum, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Rattner,
Mr. Scapicchio, Mr. Spino, Mrs. Miller (7:37).

Absent: None

Also in attendance: Cynthia Spencer, Business Administrator; John Dorsey, Township Attorney; Sherry Jenkins, CFO; Nicole Whittle, Deputy Township Clerk.

MOMENT OF REFLECTION in recognition of the men and women fighting terrorism and defending the freedom we all enjoy.

President Scapicchio: Council Members, I had a conference call with our DPW Director Mark and Jim and Catherine this afternoon and they have an emergency situation that they wanted to bring to the Councils attention in reference to the old Municipal Building. I asked for them to come to the meeting this evening, I told them I would put them first on the agenda. Charlene is going to be about 15 minutes late. When I mentioned it, Charlene has her own thoughts on what should happen there. Do you mind waiting for Charlene to show up?

Mark DiGennaro, Director of Public Works: Not at all.

POLICE BASEBALL TRADING CARD PRESENTATION - Chief Katona & Officer Abrusci

Chief Katona: It is a pleasure to be here again, before I introduce Officer Abrusci I would like to just make a few comments about the officer and his effort for this program and this cop card program really has exceeded all of my expectations. It represents the effort of what one officer does to enhance the standing of the Police Department and we have 48 other ones who are willing to do that for Mt. Olive. To really show what this program has done I received an E-mail from a fifth grader, 10 years old who contacted me through our website which was also created by one of our officers, if anybody wants to see it, MOPD.org. In the email she requests one of my cards, I do have my own and after some arrangement she comes in to see me. After that she writes this; she thanked me for the cop card and she states that the hardest thing about getting the cop card would be asking for it the first time but she says that after she did that she was actually embarrassed but then she was very happy to meet the other Police Officers. She goes on that after that meeting; my brother was hurt on our trampoline and my mom had to call 911 for the first time. Well my dad called because my mom was with my brother. It was very scary for my brother and for us waiting and not knowing if he was going to be okay. To make it worse my brother has a developmental disability and his speech is not very good Officer Eric Anthony was the first one to arrive, there were two others there but I don't know their names. The reason I remember Officer Anthony is because he was great with my brother. He calmed my brother and my mom down a lot. Last week my mom brought my brother Michael down to meet Officer Anthony because my brother would not stop talking about him. Officer Anthony again, was so nice to my brother. He gave him a cop card, that my brother brings everywhere and slapped him a high five. He also told my brother he could bring the cop car over so he could see it one day. My brother loves cops and cop cars and now he calls Officer Anthony his friend. When we put programs in place we say how do you measure the outcome, what is the outcome? This is one of those things that you really can't measure and we are very proud of this program and Officer Abrusci.

Officer Abrusci: Thank you for taking a few minutes out of your time. I know most of the Council people here have grown up in Town for those of you who do not know me, my name is Joe Abrusci. I know Mayor Licitra had made a brief presentation in reference to this and I just wanted to bring a few things out and explain to the Council the program. I had seen the cop cards out on the west coast in California. A Los Angeles Police Officer had befriended me and showed me the program that they were doing and I thought it would be something neat to bring back here to our Department. I addressed it through the Chief and the Fraternal Order of Police, I got their blessing. Basically I spoke to several of the businesses in Town who underwrote the expense of doing the program, they absorbed all the expenses through sponsoring the program so that there was no cost to the Town, no cost to the Police Department. Additionally the Fraternal Order of Police backed the program to help push the program and further it along and fronted approximately $1500 in savings bonds so that the first 25 kids here in Town that collect Officer Abrusci (cont'd): all 54 four cards would be given a savings bond as an incentive to help meet the officers and help start the program along. As the Chief has said this thing has taken off tremendously, much better than we thought. Basically the idea behind it was to form Community relations between the officers and the youth here in the Township; for them to see us and be able to speak with us and meet with us, invoke some conversation and talk with them and let them see that we are not out there just to lock people up and write tickets, but we are there as friends in the Community. This has also sparked several other investigations; we are now speaking with the children, parents have come forward, it has led into some other investigations in other areas where now they are basically speakers with the officers where they may have been reluctant to do so before. Surprisingly a lot of adults in Town have actually approached the officers and approached several of our members to try and get the full sets and collect all of the cards because they feel like it is pretty interesting to them as well. Like I said it has taken off much greater than we had any idea it would. What I would like to do tonight is to give each of the Council members, I would like to present to you for you own keepsakes or whatever a set of the cards for each of you here. There is a card for each member of the Police Department, and a cover card right on the top of the original Police Department which still stands, the building at least on the corner of Mt. Olive Road and Route 46. There is a little history on the Department, a little bit of background on each of the officers and again, a program where we are just trying to help the community help further things along with Public Relations and for the Public to see us that we are friends here of the residents and the Community. Thank you for your time.

Chief Katona: I would just like to say that a tremendous amount of time was donated by Joe to get this project off the ground. I think he went beyond what he was allotted to get this done. As I said we have 48 officers out there willing to do things for this community. This particular problem that this officer solved was what do we do? How do we remove that window between the Officer and the Public. This was one way to do that. So everybody here I would like you to join me to give Joe a hand for a job well done.

President Scapicchio: Joe, thank you very much.

Mayor Licitra: Joe I can't thank you enough. I know your mom is going to be very proud of you and if she wasn't she would let you know. The Chief and I have been trying to find ways of outreaching but this is past everybody's expectations. There is not a day that goes by that I don't get around the Town that one of the kids are asking me for cards. I tell them if you want the cards, you have to go see the Officer. I said it is easy for me to give you the cards, I could walk around all day the and hand out the cards but the reason is to go see the Officers. Let me tell you something, I get asked at least once a day. I know there are kids that come up here all the time with lists of what cards they want and which cards they don't. It really a great concept, thank you very much.

Mr. Greenbaum: I found it very interesting, the few times I have been up here, the line at the dispatcher to get the cards. It is really quite an amazing thing. Just another thing, having nothing to do with the cards but the police force itself; I was in Philadelphia on a Friday night and my wife was at home and I have an Norwegian Au par who was trying to dial out to Norway at about 2:00 in the morning and for some reason could not the number and she kept dialing 911, it happened two or three times. I think within two minutes 2 police cars were at my house. I do appreciate the efforts of the Police Department.

President Scapicchio: Okay getting back to DPW, we have Mark and Jim. Yesterday Catherine faxed me a report. I am assuming it was prepared by DPW. They have an emergency situation that they wanted to bring to our attention with regard to the old Municipal Building roof. Mark, with that do you want to take it over?

Mr. DiGennaro: Again we apologize for such short notice but this is something that came upon us rather quickly on Friday. In the old Municipal building on Route 46 that the ceiling tiles within were saturated due to the leaks and they collapsed in several areas. Immediately we were concerned because we do have assets in that building from various departments and what we had done was we had placed an order on Friday to get a storage container delivered at a very nominal cost for Thursday and we can transfer some of those assets to keep them dry and secure. This morning Jim and I had an opportunity to go there and give it a more thorough look and see what the problems were. It is clearly the fact that it is a flat roof and it is seeing the effects of time. The roof is ripped open in several areas. The Flashing around the power pits has separated causing water to leak in to the building and I did some rough estimates on size and what we need to look for to get this thing repaired in some sort of reasonable and useful method. You are looking at about 11,000 square feet which is roughly $55,000 - $60,000 of re-roofing. We are here tonight for some direction. We don't know what the best course of action is going to be for this building since we don't know what the future is and what the future holds for it. We are taking the steps to try and preserve and protect our assets that we have in there. Every department has different issues and different materials stored in there. The Building and the Parks and Recreation Department uses that for the beach equipment and beach gear and naturally I don't think we are going to fit everything in a 40 ft. container, however we can make our best efforts to protect the more critical assets.

President Scapicchio: Mark, are we buying that trailer for $1,500, or is that a rental?

Mr. DiGennaro: We are purchasing it. With that I would like to get some direction as to which way we should move to try and whether to repair the roof or move to completely abandon the building and vacate it.

President Scapicchio: Mark, after I had that conference call with you and Jim, I called the Administration's office back because I had recalled that some time ago when we were studying the idea of using that for a Senior Center we had a report done. Did you guys have a chance to get that report and did you look at it. What are your thoughts with regard to that?

Mr. DiGennaro: Well the report was prepared in 1997 and it talks about different types of repairs that the building would need to undergo for proper renovation. In summary, the building is in poor condition from a structural standpoints well as from a utility standpoint for HVAC, heating, electrical. It says here that there is inadequate ventilation supplied to the interior spaces of the building. The building envelope is poorly insulated and the exterior plaster finish was failing. It also indicated what I had indicated in our phone conversation this afternoon that the concrete slab had settled in several areas, it is progressively worse. In a nutshell, they had gone to prepare a cost estimate of what they felt at that time in 1997, what it would cost to rehab the building to bring it into standard and to quote it, it was roughly $692,000. Then the replacement of the roofing alone was nearly $43,000. Where we are today with our estimate is pretty close considering we are five years down the road.

President Scapicchio: Council, these gentleman are here looking for some sort of direction. I shared with them this afternoon my thoughts and the facts based on this report, based on the condition of that building. Based on just the cost of just repairing that roof, I was of the opinion that rather than put money into that facility, that we should probably consider demolishing the facility and any funds that anyone thought would go into that could probably be better used elsewhere. Mark had talked about a small pre-engineered building to put down at the old sewer plant in Flanders on Route 206 that could be used to store the material, the files and the paperwork and the documents that are in that building now. They could then use that for the trucks down at the sewer plant. I shared with him that we wanted to revisit the new DPW Building and see if we can somehow get that cost down and somehow design it so that we could build it in three stages so that we could begin that process. That was the general gist of the conversation that I had. I suggested that they come before this body to get some direction from the seven of us, and that is what they are here for tonight.

Mr. Rattner: Well obviously the first I heard about this was about 15 minutes ago. I will just say that I am disappointed because I remember that first report. I remember the different teams that were put together to look at the uses of the building. I know at the time we can go back to the minutes at least four or five different meetings, I brought up the fact that we should stabilize the building and repair the roof. We knew it was leaking at the time and I was concerned not just with ceiling tiles falling down, but obviously if water leaks into the concrete, that is what weakens it. Through the last five years or so the building has been left to set the way it has been. I think it has been brought up a couple of times by different people that it was being done intentionally just to watch it deteriorate so it would have to be torn down. I know there has been a lot of different groups that have been interested in doing fund raising to try and make use of it. That could never be used as offices or something like that again, however it does make sense, it is right on the lake for some of the different committees, some of the different organizations. I know there was one organization that has a lot of funds in Town that has made inquiries into being able to lease it and they were willing to refurbish it and now I just have to look to see how much damage. Obviously if the last five years of leakage have deteriorated the building to the point that it becomes cost prohibitive to try to strengthen it, then maybe it has to be torn down. I was not in favor of tearing it down five years ago, I think it should have been stabilized. We have the need for a certain amount of space there. We had a developer willing to put a sewer line in so we could hook it up into sewers at no cost to us and we never did anything with that. So, just to hear this right now; it's not something that I didn't expect would be happening, but it is very disappointing and I would like to see the current status, what we have, compare it to the old status before I make a decision.

Mr. Greenbaum: I have to disagree with Mr. Rattner on this issue. In campaigning through Town a year ago, the Municipal Building and the eyesore that it presents was one of the most discussed issues. That is a valuable piece of property that the Township owns that the Township could possibly make revenue on if done appropriately and also provide a service for their beach goers through some kind of commercial establishment that could be leased on that property. I have been in favor of removing that building since I have moved into Town. I have been in that building several times over the past few years and it is a pigstye. I don't know whether or not that has changed. Whatever was stored in there was stored in a haphazard manner. If there are any valuable items in there they should be removed immediately and put in some kind of storage whether it be in rented space or in space that the we as the Township are going to provide but as far as putting any money into that building I think it is a waste of money and I would not be in favor it. I find no historical value other than the fact that the building is several years old with regard to saving that particular building, so I would not be in favor of spending any money to fix that building.

Mr. Perkins: Mr. DiGennaro, the backhoe that is out there right now on the site, what work is being performed?

Mr. DiGennaro: We are installing a sewer service lateral from the existing cleanout on Route 46 to tie into the Budd Lake Sewer to service that location.

Mr. Perkins: That work is being done by?

Mr. DiGennaro: It is being done by a contractor hired by a developer.

Mr. Perkins: That sewer line, should be opt not to stabilize the deterioration of the building. Would that sewer line be appropriately used to provide adequate sanitary facilities for your personnel now utilizing the Road Department vehicles garage?

Mr. DiGennaro: At some point sure. I think there was also some talk about bringing up some mobile bathroom facilities for the beach goers, that would be able to tie into that as well.

Mr. Perkins: One more question. The well is still considered abandoned, am I correct?

Mr. DiGennaro: That is correct; the Township is not using that well.

Mr. Perkins: On your cursory review and understanding that you may or may not have expertise in structural engineering, were there any other noticeable structural damages other then the ceiling tiles and concrete or any of the wall joists, beams or anything else apparently looking toward failure?

Mr. DiGennaro: Just from our review and it was supported also by the review of the report which was prepared in 1997. The settling in the center of the building which I believe was the old Municipal Court area, there is some settling in the slab and you can see that by the separation from the ceiling and the walls and the trim moldings. It has dropped about three inches. Also there was another section that was built outside on a beachside which houses the stairway and there is a separation there, the second floor of about two to three inches just indicates that it was not tied in properly and that's settling over time. We could see where we have actually sprayed foam insulation to try and fill the gap and that has pulled away as well.

Mr. Perkins: The file system and understanding when people take file systems and the first day everybody stacks them up real nice and then after about eight or nine trips of going down to try and find something they look like a pigstye after that. All of those files, historical documents, records for all the departments; I understand you want to get a trailer.

Mr. DiGennaro: Well, that was the quickest thought to get something dry and secure where we could padlock it, but that is the intent. We have been in the process where all departments have been going through their records over the years to archive what is important and then destroy for others which is a process to be filed with the State and the Clerks Office.

Mr. Perkins: Then I guess one last question, and this probably goes over to the Mayor; the committee that was formed in August of 1998 when we formed the Pride Committee. Is that still a viable committee?

Mayor Licitra: I talk to the Chairman maybe once or twice a year. Their recommendations other than most of the recommendations of that committee as far as the beach has been completed, but as far as the building, again it is a matter of just trying to find the funds to either do something or not do something with the building. What we have been doing all these years is maintaining the building as best as we could. Again, this roof would have been this roof no matter what. There is nothing other than repairing the whole roof, this roof got old and it leaked. It is as simple as that. It is five years older than it was five years ago. The roof and this is just a portion of the roof, it is the whole roof and I don't see anything that we could have done except repair the whole roof at the cost of whatever it was at that point.

Mr. Perkins: My concern would be to see how the Historical Society, the National Preservation Trust Fund or any other funding that might be available should that be deemed appropriate that we look at that. Obviously I would like to see the records and everything else I think you gentleman are moving in the right direction for. I wouldn't be ready to vote for not preserving the building at this point. The building is at a deterioration point, whether we do anything today, tomorrow or next week it is not going to slow down the deterioration process. So, unfortunately I can't vote to not provide the funding someway.

Mrs. Miller: I find it very sad that we have to discuss this again after so many years of discussion a few years ago. Committees were formed and polls were taken and it seemed to me that the Community at large was in favor of saving this historic landmark. My biggest concern as it was years ago when we first discussed this is if we tear that Mrs. Miller (cont'd): building down because of lack of funding to stabilize it, I rather doubt the DEP is going to allow us to build another building in that exact location because of the wetlands regulations. That building was built before we had wetland regulation. You tear it down and you want to build a new beach facility, but I think you are going to be surprised that you may not be able to do that and I seem to recall that when the discussion of what to do when the municipal building cam up and there was so much debate that we had asked for someone to look into the DEP regulations that if that building was torn down, if we could build in that location and if not how and where can we build. I don't ever remember hearing anything about that. I would like to hear from the DEP as to what will happen if we tear that building down and what would be the building envelope for building any kind of beach facility before I will vote to tear that building down.

Mayor Licitra: We will get you an answer for that Charlene. I don't know if you asked this Administration.

Mr. Spino: From what I could remember regarding what Charlene had just mentioned, we did contact them I think through Chuck McGroaty. However, they would not give us a definite answer before the horse is out of the barn. They didn't really know. We got the impression that it would be possible to rebuild it but having said that I am not in favor of that, I have never been in favor of tearing the building down. Some people say, well it is not a historical building. What makes it historical? We make it historical, if we feel it is a historical building to this Township regardless how old it is. This is part of what Mt. Olive has been whether it is a few years old or many years old. The fact that it was something else before it was the Town Hall and how the Town got it. It was given to the Township from what I remember what I was told about it anyway. I think it is something we should keep. Having said that I think we should look into making some minor repairs if it is possible, if it is not possible then I am not going to beat a dead horse and say we should do it. I do think that we should work to the most extreme extent that we can and try to maintain it. I am not talking about spending $600,000. I am talking about using part of that building; to maintain part of it as the History of the Township. Looking at other property that is much older, down the road here, I think that is part of what we are missing as a Township. I think Steve has mentioned it a few times. The Mayor asked, was it last year or maybe the year before an article came out in New Jersey monthly and part of what we were missing were cultural things, historical things. I think that is part of what we have to keep. It is part of what this Township is whether you like it or not. Whether it is an old casino where they used to have a nightclub, that is part of what the Township was and we should keep it.

President Scapicchio: I think the issue for the Council is whether or not we are prepared to invest any money, some money, or a lot of money into a facility that has no useful life left.

Mr. Spino: I don't agree but I don't want to get into an argument.

President Scapicchio: There is nothing to argue Earl, if you look at the Coppelson analysis six years ago you are looking at $650,000 and $750,000 to bring that building into a condition where it can be used.

Mr. Spino: That is what I would argue and I don't want to get into that.

President Scapicchio: Well how would we argue that?

Mr. Spino: That fact, is that was done at a time when the majority of people wanted a Senior Citizen Building and the Municipal Building out of there. That is why it was done like that. The report we got before said we should have built up at the Flanders Valley Tennis Courts.

President Scapicchio: I don't think anybody Earl, that, has any idea of the cost of renovating those types of buildings and would question the amount of money needed to rehabilitate that to a safe useable condition. So again the question is are we prepared tonight to authorize these gentleman, the Administration, to spend money to either secure, protect or fix that roof.

Mr. Rattner: Again I will say, even though I said what my personal opinion was and what's happened up until this point, how could I make any decision. I have know idea, for one thing we need an estimate, how much is it going to cost us to tear down the building and take it to the transfer station or wherever it has to go? If we tear it down do we have to clean it up under the brown fields and those types of issues where we also have to do all the remediation on the land? We also should know; can anything be built there? Is there a way of doing it so we can preserve the pad so then it is rebuilding rather than a new structure? A new structure you are not going to be allowed, anybody can read the wetlands ordinances and some of the laws that have been passed, they are getting more strict all the time on what you can build there. So one of the issues that has to come up; maybe if you leave the foundation you don't have to build on the foundation. So there are a lot of different issues. It is going to come down obviously to economics. We have heard a lot in the last year or two with a lot of our projects, it is nice to have, has to have and that type of thing. It is going to come down to can we afford to do what we want. Can we afford to do a little less than we want or is the only way out and it may be, that has to be torn down because there is no way we can
Mr. Rattner (cont'd): financially afford to keep it up. But we have absolutely no data. We got some heresay, we got an old report, I remember that old report at the time. Emphasizing what Mr. Spino said, we even discussed at a couple Public Meetings that, that report was based on the fact of the input that was given to it. That they were looking to put everything that they could find in there because they were trying to show that it would be cheaper to build a brand new building back here. We know there could always be a little bit of a slant to it that way. I said it at the beginning, it may have gotten to the point where the building has to come down. I have know idea. If we are told that the roof and whatever else is not anything different other than cost than what it was back in 1997, because in 1997 I felt we should have put a new roof on it, got the sewer hooked up so at least we would have the bathroom and then start looking for the different groups; the Historical Society, the Lake Committee, the Italian Club said that they were willing to do something because they would like to have a place to meet on the Lake. The Knights of Columbus, which have made a couple different inquiries into actually leasing the building and then spending their own money to fix it up and still leaving it open to the public. So there are a lot of different options and we don't have anything. I think that is a whole workshop in itself.

Mr. Greenbaum: I don't necessarily disagree with Steve this time as not knocking the building down. I think it really comes down to a question of whether or not we are going to put money in at this point. We are not deciding whether or not to knock the building down. Steve has not told me what his position is on that yet. I know that Steve does not have the number. You don't know what it is going to cost to put money in to the building, but somebody has to make a decision as to whether or not we are going to actually go out and spend money to at least keep the building in the same condition that it is in today. So we can't just put off the decision because we don't have the information because in the meantime, the building is going to sustain more damage.

Mr. Rattner: We have to get the information so that we can make an intelligent decision.

Mr. Greenbaum: I am not in favor of spending any money to fix that building. I agree with Steve that we need to figure out before we knock the building down; we need to figure out what our options are in terms of moving forward.

President Scapicchio: Mayor you heard Steve's comments for the additional information. Can you and your Administration somehow put together that information and come back to us so that we could then make an informed decision based on the information you have come back with and if you need some help from an outside source, let us know, we'll see if we could give you the authorization to do that. Maybe Schoor Deplama's firm could be of some assistance. But lets try to put the tools on the table so that Mr. Rattner and the rest of us can make an intelligent decision.

Mrs. Miller: Also add to that information how much it would cost just to fix the roof where it is leaking because at a bare minimum I would like to patch the roof. The cost he gave us was to reroof the whole thing.

President Scapicchio: I had this discussion with the both of them this afternoon. When you get a roof that is that old or in that condition, all you are going to do is chase it and you will continue to chase it until you spend twice as much as if you ripped it off and put and new one down. So I am not sure that is a realistic option.

Mr. Perkins: Are we still directing these gentlemen to go ahead with the trailer?

President Scapicchio: We have no choice, but I think before we are asked to put any kind of money into that whether it is remediation or a canvas to protect it in it's present condition.

Mr. Dorsey: Let's itemize the questions. The first question is, what is the estimated cost to stabilize the building? What is the estimated cost to demolish the building? If the building is demolished, to what extent can we get reassurances or to what extent or how can one demolish and still get authorization to rebuild on that site. That is a particularly interesting question.

President Scapicchio: Does size matter John?

Mr. Dorsey: To build anything on the site, that is the real trick question and obviously you are going to have to call on Gene Buczynski to get some help there.

Mayor Licitra: The fourth option is to bring it down to the original building if you wanted to save it something like the original building that was put up without the extensions and just demolish the rest of it and see what it what the cost would be to…

Mr. Dorsey: That's like 2A. First is to demolish the entire building, and 2A would be the cost to demolish everything except the main structure.

Mr. Rattner: From our discussions two years ago, I think Mr. Spino may remember, I think that was really what we wanted to do. We wanted to take down all the added on stuff because we felt that the base building and the walls were not going to come down and it was basically going to be a big open area because it was a dance hall and that is what we were going to use to take down the non-bearing walls because they served no purpose.

President Scapicchio: Mayor, do you think about a month is sufficient time?

Mayor Licitra: I was just talking to Jim and Mark. They cannot stabilize that building without either repairing it or taking it down, so I mean you can't just put tarp over it and hope the rain does not come in. How does two weeks look?

President Scapicchio: Just do the best you can. Get back to us as quick as you can and when you are ready, tell Lisa and we will put it on the next Workshop.

Mr. Rattner: We rather get the good information. We are going to get the records out which have to be done. Right now it has been sitting for five years, if it is another month or two it is not going to make that much of a difference. Lets be sure that when we look at the options that we are satisfied with the information we got, and then we can make a decision and be satisfied that we made the right decision.

Mr. Perkins: Once that snow load starts getting on that roof that is going to be a lot heavier than any rain water and that could be the final straw. Whatever we do, we need to get something moving, we're in the middle of October.

Mr. Spino: I would like to bring up a point that Steve mentioned, I don't think any of us have been in that building in quite some time. I would like to arrange a visit so that we can all look at it.

President Scapicchio: Mayor, you will work that out and let us know?

Mayor Licitra: No problem.

President Scapicchio: Are you guys clear on what you think the Council is looking for?

Mr. DiGennaro: Yes. One question; I understand that walking on the roof alone causes more damage to it than anything else. Should we make an attempt to try and get some roofing cement up there to see what we can do is that worth the $500 investment?

Mr. Rattner: If you are talking the matter of a month, I don't think that makes a difference.

President Scapicchio: Will have solid direction with this in a month.

Mr. DiGennaro: Thank you. Thank you for your time.

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD

Bob Elms, Budd Lake: I don't always agree with Earl but in this case I do. When I first moved up here in 1969 and my parents came to visit, they reminded me that when they were dating they used to come up and go to the casino at Budd Lake and it took them almost a day to drive up through Summit, Morristown and probably five tires on the car to get here because the roads at that time were just earth and roads. It has been there before I was born and I don't know what it takes to get a historic building, but certainly 65 plus years should put it in that category. I also agree with what Charlene said, when we were talking about a new Municipal Building and they were talking about what to do with the old Municipal Building it was said at that time that was in DEP designated flood hazard area and if we took it down we could not replace it with anything. If we take that down we have I think six garages in the back of that building that are accessory to that so if you can't have accessory buildings on a building lot according to our zoning ordinance we have to take everything down that is there and I think we will be doing ourselves a big in justice in not trying to do something with a building, even if we spent the $600,000 that you are talking about to bring that up to some sort of a code so somebody could rent it as a restaurant or whatever. It is better than spending $6 million on a new building that we seem to do pretty easily. Thank you.

Russ Tepper, Flanders: Good evening, my name is Russ Tepper, I am here tonight on behalf of the Mount Olive Jr. Mauraders Football Association. I would like to publicly thank the Council and the Mayor for the support that they have provided the organization and specifically recognized Jim Lynch and his Department the Parks and Grounds Facility for what they have done for the Football Association in helping us realign the fields so that we can better share it with soccer. And as for the condition update kept it in maintaining it this year. They have done an
Mr. Tepper (cont'd): outstanding job, it is in the best condition I have seen it in the three years I have been part of the organization and I just wanted that recognized. Thank you very much.

President Scapicchio: Thank you Russ.

Dave Jones, Budd Lake: I just want to say the old Municipal Building is older than a lot of people here, if not older than everybody here. If that does not make it a historical building I don't know what does. I also want to say it's a landmark and I believe it is probably one of the most recognizable buildings on Route 46, if not in Morris County, in Northern New Jersey. You found the money for Turkey Brook Park and you found the money for the new Municipal Building. I think you can find the money to restore the old Municipal Building. One thing that bothers me, if it is indeed a pigstye like Rob said, who is accountable for that? I believe the finger should be pointed at the current Administration.

President Scapicchio: Dave I don't agree with everything Paul does, but I can't see how anyone can point the blame or lay the condition of that building at the feet of anyone up here. That building is an antiquated building but no fault of anyone here.

Mr. Jones: When I hear it is a pigstye; I would like to see photos of the inside to be totally honest with you. If it is really a pigstye, how did it get to be a pigstye? Who's negligent there?

Mr. Lynch: Before I was employed with the Township, there were files that were stored in that building when this building was occupied. Those files at some point were transferred to the Police substation that was rented in Flanders when the lease was terminated or that place was sold. I am not sure of the history of that particular piece of property. The Parks Buildings and Grounds staff was in charge of moving those boxes back into the old Town Hall. Because there is not climate control in that building, the boxes that the files were stored in have deteriorated over the time they have been in there. Those boxes periodically give way. The glue on them gives way, they are moist in the summer, they dry out in the winter. That's why many of those files have spilled on to the floor. My staff is responsible to some extent for trying to keep some order within that building, however with the other duties we have in town, we cannot focus daily efforts in that building. A lot of the "pigstye" is a result of lack of climate control, substantial water leaks. We have been chasing the leaks on that roof. My staff regularly patches that roof, we are on that roof to replace the spotlights over the flag on the font of that building, we try to keep up with it, but the pigstye was created because there is no climate control and at that point you cannot maintain documents, they absorb boxes and the water climate.

Mr. Ratter: Jim, I have been in there, it is not just files, and I can understand that. Then it becomes how come we let them if they were important files in there to deteriorate if they are needed and if they are not they should have been dumped. Although there is broken furniture, computer equipment piled up from the floor to the ceiling from day one. There is a canoe sitting in the middle. There is a lot of stuff that was put in there and I know that has nothing to do with you. I think a lot of it is because it was used to store garbage.

Mr. Spino: It's used as a warehouse.

Mr. Ratter: The stuff that is in there is garbage, it should have been thrown out.

Mr. Lynch: Yes, there is furniture that is broken, it is furniture that has been transferred out of this facility over time or was never transferred to this facility. There is a plan and I am not sure what the status is, I cannot be 100% positive as to what they are trying to do. The computer equipment and some of the furniture was warehoused to possibly auction off. There is a general hesitation by the staff to demolish anything that is owned by the Township. So we try the warehouse as best as we can and then auction when the time is right. The Police Department has bicycles stored in the back portion of the room. It has escaped us at times to get order in that building. We will make an effort to clean it up. If you would like, we can take some of that.

Mr. Ratter: I am not blaming you; I am just saying that the files and all of that have been in there for years.

Mr. Lynch: I apologize for the canoe, but that is storage for the Beach use so they could set up their stuff in the Spring.

Mr. Spino: But somebody has got to go in there with the authority enough to say this is junk, get rid of it. I don't think a Township Employee is going to take that responsibility, but the fact that somebody might come in and say, who threw this away, I wanted it. Somebody has got to make that decision and then get it all cleaned out.

Mr. Jones: The only other thing I wanted to say is that I think it would have a great second life as a museum or something for the benefit for the Township. That's all, thank you.

Ned McDonald, Budd Lake: The question of what's historical is certainly debatable, but maybe 50 or 100 years from now the President, Administration and the Governing Body of this Town will look back and say, gee if we only saved this building. I look at the Seward Mansion, what if a group of people decided 50 years ago; well we have no further use for that. Let's tear it down because it is going to cost us a lot of money to keep it up. Maybe it will cost a lot of money, and maybe it isn't worth saving, but we are too quick, not in just this Township but in this whole country, to tear things down. We have nothing of historical value unless it has a monetary value to it. So if we can't make money on it, we don't keep it. Some countries look at that different. They look at the heritage that is being worth something and I thought that we went through this, we were going to form committees and the Town residents were going to have an input. That sort of dies on the vine and nothing really came of it. I know there were some plans made with and intentions, but now we are at the point to let it deteriorate and now we have to tear it down, it is almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Almost like somebody is looking for a reason to tear this building down. Maybe it has to be torn down, maybe it doesn't. Please look at our Township of what few things we have here that have some value other than just in the present and what can be made money as a tax base or as a commercial institution. The only one I could, think of right now is the Seward Mansion and that has almost been lost through neglect. Myself as one residents opinion, I think we should put it back to the original condition of when it was first built and try to do the best we can, if not bring it up to modern specs at least to stabilize the building and maybe in future years we can find funding to do more with it. Thank you.

President Scapicchio: Thank you, I am sure we are going to have some significant discussion on this.

Richard Bonte, Budd Lake: My first opinion, and I have said this before, the Township probably possess one of the ugliest pieces of property in the Town. That building really has a limited historic value. For about three years it was an unsuccessful business establishment that could not make it as a casino/restaurant/dance hall. It went in to bankruptcy and that is why the building was given to the Town and it became our Municipal Building. It does not have any great hey day to it. All of those buildings which are extremely ugly, thousands of people drive through Mt. Olive Twp. everyday on Route 46 and that is what they see. That piece of property with decrepit buildings and they say this is Mt. Olive. That site could be cleaned up and be turned into a beautiful site that that would enhance the image of this Town if we do something. Now I was the head of a committee in 1999, I resigned from that committee in late 2000. We investigated whether or not you could rebuild on that site. Verbally, Chuck McGroaty got commitments from the DEP that yes, you would be able to rebuild on the existing footprint or smaller. They advised us that we needed to contact them in writing and then they would write us back. We had Mr. McGroary at a number of our meetings that we had here in this building and Mr. McGroaty advised us that the Administration would not allow him to write that letter to the DEP, so we never got it in writing. When this building was built, and that building became vacated, some of you were here, everything was supposed to come out of that building. There was not supposed to be anything left there. Many of us took a tour of that building in September of 1999 and those of you who were on that Tour knew what was in there. Files, garbage, junk. Mr. Jones, you can't blame Mayor Licitra for this, it happened long before he was the Mayor. The fact is, nothing has come out of there and in fact more has been stored there. There were files up in the attic that had been shoved up there and they are probably still up there. That building should probably be torn down and all those back buildings, we had gotten an estimate of $60,0000 to get them torn down. The committee fell apart because we had done an evaluation throughout the Township, I think we've received back almost 1,000 surveys, I don't know where they are right now, we've gotten some input from the community, but the community was relatively split on what should be done. I resigned from the committee because at that time in late 2000, the Mayor was making arrangements with Senator Littel without the committee's knowledge, it was supposed to be getting some money to do something at the site. I don't think we have ever gotten a nickel. We need to take a very serious evaluation of that facility because I think we have a site that could be enhanced, maybe with that building, maybe not. But I still firmly believe that through some type of public.private setup, we could set up some type of establishment that would make some commercial endeavors some money, make the Township some money and make an exquisite site over there. Whether it be restaurant, bathing, entertainment, whatever. But you have an asset there that when people drive by this Town, they would look at that and say wow, this is a nice place to live. But I am not in favor of putting any money into that building under the present conditions.

Mr. Spino: I don't think anybody argues the fact that with or without the building we could make it into an exquisite site. Some of us just believe that with the building it could be just as exquisite, even more so because it will have in some of our minds some historical significance. I did want to mention the fact that you talked about the back buildings like we want them there. We were ready I think in last years Budget or this years Budget to remove those buildings when we started construction or under completion of construction of a building here. It was not kept in the budget for very simple reasons, monetarily, so we were told we needed to keep those buildings because there is equipment stored there. Once we are able to put that equipment somewhere else, then those buildings will come down. That was part of the plan from the very beginning and that is one of the reason's the committee I was on really stopped it's deliberation and meetings because what needed to happen at that time was for the Township to expend some funds. Luckily we did expend some of our own funds and State funds to do some of the things that our Mr. Spino (cont'd): committee recommended, I am just waiting for myself personally, for us to be able to knock those other buildings down, I would like to be there for that.

Cheryl Goodwin, Drakestown Road: I find it kind of disturbing to hear someone say, well you found the millions for Turkey Brook and I am not real happy reading about that. You found the millions for the new Senior Center, and you find the millions for this, etc…It seems as if we've gone into a period where we could find the millions for anything and everything. We are discussing the historic value of a building in this Township, I just hope we are remembering that historic value; there are many people who have lived here most or all of their lives, we are on fixed incomes who have worked for big companies, with the buyouts, which is more and more common where they are on very limited means and with all the millions we are finding for everything it is going to get to a point where only the people who are able to come in and buy the very big expensive houses are going to be able to afford to live in Mt. Olive and I think Mt. Olive is going to lose a lot of historic value in losing all of those people who could no longer afford to live there. Thank you.

President Scapicchio: Thank you.

Colleen Labow, Budd Lake: Lets do something, enough is enough, 23 years I have been here, 23 years nothing has been done. Not that anybody isn't trying, but lets get a committee, lets just follow it through. I keep hearing committees are formed and they are disbanded and we just have to really kind of complete it. On a lighter note, and I really hate to bring up the subject of the billboard on Route 206, but I have to say it is the nicest billboard I have ever seen. I don't know if anybody has driven by, it's gorgeous. I drove by and it's all lit up it says Fall into Mt. Olive and it has the park bench.

President Scapicchio: I am disappointed the Mayor's name was not on it.

Mrs. Labow: I did not look for the names, I just saw how beautiful it was and I just thought that it was absolutely gorgeous I just want to thank the Pride Committee, who ever chose this, it is absolutely the nicest one I have seen yet. Thank you.

Mr. Jones: Everybody knows me and everybody knows that I am the biggest stickler here about money being spent. We are talking about Turkey Brook Park which is $6 million. If there is $600,000 spent on the roof to save a historical building in the Township, I won't complain about that, but as far as $600,000 spent on a park we could have spent half that and have just as many fields and everything like that. I think it is money well spent for a historical building. That's all, thank you.

President Scapicchio: Anybody else from the Pubic? Seeing none.

ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS:

Mrs. Jenkins: I just wanted to update everybody on the School Board Sewer Project, Gary Higgins and I are going to be meeting with some representatives from the School Board next week because we are just about ready to actually finalize the close out of that. We were saying before to the Mayor, that is the one pending issues that goes back at least for me to the previous Administration. Just to let you know that we are pretty much ready to wrap that up, the numbers came out to agree with the information that Gary has prepared in his report back in December of 2000.

TURKEY BROOK PARK PROJECT STATUS

Jim Lynch: Since Cindy is not here, she asked me to read a prepared statement. GPU has been on the site and working to install power since Wednesday October 2, 2002. The rain on Friday delayed the work so we were hoping that it would be out and finished by today. Dakota soil tests will be received for the soccer fields. I have received preliminary test results today. The PH was slightly high but that could be corrected, we expect the contractor to put in the proper amendments and precede with sodding as soon as the irrigation system is tested. The building contract has been released to the firm of Consolidated Building Court. The preconstruction meeting has been scheduled for October 25, 2002. It is anticipated that the building phase will take approximately 4 ½ months to complete. Areas of the fields which have required regrading have been remediated and inspected. This needed to be completed before the laying of sod to ensure proper irrigation and drainage. Sewer line testing has been completed on site, Century Pump has been asked to reconsider their price quote for the two 24 hour static water tests. We anticipate the test to be done within the next two weeks. An example will be scheduled prior to the start of the sodding. Verizon is coming on the site they will remove the overhead lines from the old utility poles and run new lines to the baseball tower. There will be a payphone installed at the beginning of the loop Road. There will be a phone line run to the barn facilities in the event that is utilized down the road as maintenance facility. Myself and Tom Malavasi are currently working to create
Mr. Lynch (cont'd): directional signage plans for the park, we will still need to identify the type of entrance Mr. Lynch signage to be used. We plan to discuss this at the next Turkey Brook Park Developmental meeting and get some recommendations.

Mr. Buczynski: Just to clarify a couple of the items too that Jim mentioned. Relative to the Sewer lines, they haven't all been tested. There are still two laterals that need to be finalized. Some problems with the test, they did not pass and they are going to come back and finish those two lines. The electric irrigation pump will be done by tomorrow and GPU will be on the site on Monday and I think next Monday is when they should get the site going as far as electric goes and then we will move ahead getting the irrigation system going and get the sod on the fields. Regarding the paving, there is black all over the place, the only thing we don't have is the top course, and we will wait until everything else gets to the point and put the top course down. As far as pavement, the base course is down throughout the site. As far as the wells I am not sure what was said last week when I was away but the second well we drilled does have the capacity and has not been tested yet. Century Pump should be out there actually tomorrow to do the test, and we were given the names of the two homes. One was on Sunset and one was on Flanders - Drakestown, when he does the 24 hours test in those pumps and I think Council requests that it be done simultaneously so it will do that. It looks like we will just be able to use the one well full time which is the further one away by the football field and we will still have a pump in the second one. Just to kind of go ahead regarding change orders. To date, the only thing that I know of at this point are a couple of small ones. We have not received cost yet, but relative to the location of the new pump, we have to give power to that pump. So it's about 200 ft. that we are going to have to pay for a line to get power into the new well location. I would say that is probably going to be between $1,000 - $2,000. Also regarding that there is a pipe to go from the well to the inlet where we are going to discharge into the storm drainage system to go toward the pond, again that is a small item. That is probably 100 feet of pipe so we are talking minimal money. Other ones we talked about regarding Conte and regarding the football field, just to know that is still out there. Also the fence, we all know about the fence around the distention basin, I guess Conte is not going to be doing it, we are going to do it later on but that is still going to be an additional cost to the project, not a change order to Conte, but additional costs.

President Scapicchio: We are going to talk about it later Gene.

Mr. Buczynski: Okay. Then the poles and netting around the soccer field adjacent to the detention basin, but that is all I know of at this point. I have to apologize because I only spoke to Rob and I know it was brought up at last weeks' meeting regarding the change order resolutions up tonight about construction management services. I was not misleading the Council at the time, when I was asked I always talked about construction costs, as far as the cost were discussed last week, I was really trying to get all the back up together I did not want to discuss it until it I had it in writing and it did take me longer than expected but I apologize. I was not trying to mislead to you that all the cost were previously taken care of.

Mr. Greenbaum: Several questions, with regard to the Schoor Depalma contract, was that something that we are going to be able to ask Gene questions about later when we actually discuss it?

President Scapicchio: Ask him now.

Mr. Greenbaum: Your original estimate of the $80,000 was based on time and materials at the site
and you had estimated about four hours worth of time at the site per day, correct?

Mr. Buczynski: Correct.

Mr. Greenbaum: As a matter a fact your firm spent about six hours of time per day at the site.

Mr. Buczynski: That is what it averaged, correct?

Mr. Greenbaum: What is the difference? How did that difference in terms of your need to be at the site? How did that occur? Is that because of additional difficulties?

Mr. Dorsey: The one difference that was discussed last week was his original estimate that was based upon a six month period for construction. That estimate was made before the contract went out to Conte which in it of itself had seven months in it. So his estimate at the time was a month off to begin with through no fault of his own.

Mr. Buczynski: That is true. Thank you John. Regarding the costs on a daily basis, there have been problems that have been well documented by people and we are out there on a much longer than need basis than we have to be out there. I don't know how we could say four hours and pack our bags and go home. When there are problems that we have to deal with during the day.

Mr. Greenbaum: I am not questioning the time that you have actually had to put in the site. I am not questioning why there has been a need. For additional time, I understand that you have been there because you have been needed to be there. What exactly is Olympus doing at this site?

Mr. Buczynski: They are not at the site, they are only at the site every two weeks. Every week we talk on the phone. That's the limit of their contract as far as that goes.

Mr. Greenbaum: I had a question, I had walked the site on Sunday after the paving had been put in and I understand that the final top coat of the pavement has not been put in but there were a number of areas where I noticed significant puddling.

Mr. Buczynski: Leveling will be taken care of prior to the top course.

Mr. Greenbaum: Is leveling not done on the base course? I am not familiar with the process.

Mr. Buczynski: You do your base course and sometimes they don't finish as perfect okay, then your tope course on that you might do a little leveling course before you do the top course to get rid of those puddling areas.

Mr. Greenbaum: Okay so that is something that your firm is going to look at prior to?

Mr. Buczynski: Our intention is not to have a final course of paving, yes, we are looking at that.

Mr. Dorsey: Gene, the Council President wants to know something. Under the contract with Olympus, weren't they supposed to come once a week for their "construction management?" Wasn't that the original plan?

Mr. Buczynski: Yes it was.

Mr. Dorsey: Your are telling us today that they show up once every two weeks.

Mr. Buczynski: That is correct.

President Scapicchio: Thank you.

Mr. Rattner: A couple things, on tonight's Bill List we have a Bill for Conte for $616,000 and what it was on the worksheet that the CFO has it says that the work is 85% done. I also walked it on Sunday, I must have gone in the afternoon because I didn't see many puddles, I saw a little bit of mud and I was surprised on how rough it still looked for being that done. For one thing I noticed that it looks like Round Up doesn't work because a lot of the fields have weeds that are probably about knee high to thigh high.

Mr. Buczynski: It's got to be done before they put the sod down.

Mr. Rattner: Okay.

Mr. Lynch: Any Round Up that was applied, Mr. Rattner, does not have a residual affect. So since the last time Round Up was applied anywhere on that site, after that day when it was applied, any new weed growth, is not checked by Round Up. It is a contact; the plant has to be in physical existence.

Mr. Rattner: Why didn't we just wait and do it once rather than put down chemical a couple of times.

Mr. Lynch: I think for the most part, it has been spot treatments in areas where work has been focused to minimize how much chemical goes down on the site.

Mr. Rattner: I just noticed a lot of weeds and I wasn't sure. I used round up, I thought it worked great and weeds have not come back. Anyway, the big question is 85% done and we hear about the schedule. The original schedule was going to be done by the end of September/ beginning of October. You said we are only a few days behind, I guess you said maybe about two weeks, I think the Admisistrator last week said eight or nine days. When are we actually expected to finish, including the building? When are we expected to actually finish up. When are all of the fields going to be sodded and everything else?

Mr. Buczynski: I think the last time we talked about seeding and sodding the fields was September 20, 2002. We had the delay with GPU and all of that, getting all of these things together. Really 85% is probably based on dollars. That is how 85% was arrived to. The biggest item out there right now is the sod. Once the sod is completed, they Mr. Buczynski (cont'd): say they get going next week and however many weeks it takes pretty much that is going to be the last issue before the fields get complete.

Mr. Rattner: What is the end date right now based on the current schedule? That is my question.

Mr. Buczynski: I could not give you an exact date right now.

Mr. Rattner: What is the projected date? You must have something because you gave us a change order for how much extra work you are going to have to do.

Mr. Buczynski: I think we are a couple weeks behind. I hope by the end of October or the first week in November.

Mr. Lynch: Whenever the first piece of sod hits the ground, if the contractor can hold to the schedule with the weather from the day the first field is sodded to the day the last field was sodded is roughly four weeks.

Mr. Rattner: So right now we are talking about the middle of September.

Mr. Buczynski: First or second week of November.

Mr. Lynch: That is what we are looking for. November 15, 2002 is what we are aiming for at this point. Being that sod should not be laid down now, GPU will be done on Monday, October 15, 2002 would start the sodding, November 15, 2002 ends it.

Mr. Rattner: The question was, what is the current schedule?

Mr. Buczynski: As long as you don't have problems with irrigation and all that, everything goes.

Mr. Dorsey: You are becoming very tenuous Gene.

Mr. Greenbaum: I wouldn't leave until after this discussion, I would wait until after the resolutions.

Mr. Rattner: The other thing on the Bill List tonight, I noticed that Olympus bill for $12,000 is back. Didn't we pull that off at the last meeting for specific purposes?

President Scapicchio: Sherry, do you know why that got back on? You requested it right? You don't just put that on?

Mrs. Jenkins: Well, yes. Cindy had requested that we put it on as a supplemental which is what we did at the last meeting.

Mr. Rattner: But if you look on page six, it is back on here again.

President Scapicchio: Steve we will get to that when we get to the Bill List?

Mr. Rattner: Okay, well I figured while we were talking Turkey Brook, I wanted to get all the questions out.

President Scapicchio: Mayor, anything else on Turkey Brook that you want to bring to out attention? Seeing none.

LEGAL MATTERS

Mr. Dorsey: The one settlement with Voller's was finalized, Sherry issued another check to me for a $160,000 without it being on the Bill List but it was okay because it was included in the resolution we have there. The Appellate Brief that we are filing in connection with the Dattolo Properties which I really like will be filed this Friday. There is a copy here I have left it with Nicole. The brief that I hope is the final brief if we ever have to file in the Mt. Olive Complex Case will also be filed at the end of this week. This is referred to now as the supplemental brief. We have waited 15 months from the last event in this career case which started in December of 1995. But I do think after the filing of these briefs, both sides are to file their supplemental briefs by October 17, 2002. I do believe that we will have a relatively quick reaction from the Appellate Division because they have been directed by their bosses in the Supreme Court to advise whether any modification in their June 1, 2001 opinion is necessary based on a series of decisions. The MOTPEA contract was drawn by the Township's new low priced labor council, John Horan in my office. To his great disappointment I had him mail it directly to Mr. Greenbaum and to the Town Mr. Dorsey (cont'd): Hall because I thought it would get some immediate reaction. Greenbaum who negotiated says he is not that familiar with the form of the contract to critique it, but it is here if anybody wants to look at it.

Mr. Greenbaum: I would like to comment on that for a second. Although I negotiated the contract, the contract terms that I negotiated were subject of the MOA, it was not the specific 40 page document.

Mr. Dorsey: I am only repeating what you said to me.

Mr. Greenbaum: You leave the wrong impression.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETINGS:

July 9, 2002 Present: Mr. Rattner, Mr. Guenther (8:30pm), Mr. Greenbaum, Mrs. Miller, President Scapicchio
Absent: Mr. Perkins, Mr. Spino

August 6, 2002 Present: Mr. Guenther, Mr. Greenbaum, Mrs. Miller, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Rattner, Mr. Spino, Mr. Scapicchio
Absent: None

September 17, 2002 CS Present: Mr. Guenther, President Scapicchio, Mr. Rattner, Mr. Greenbaum, Mr. Perkins (excused), Mr. Spino, Mrs. Miller
Absent: None

Mr. Rattner moved for the approval of the meeting minutes, Mrs. Miller seconded that motion.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously with the exception of Mr. Perkins, abstained on July 9, and September 17, 2002. Mr. Spino abstained on all.

CORRESPONDENCE

Resolutions, Ordinances, Correspondence from other Municipalities

1. Resolution received September 23, 2002, from the Township of Hardyston urging the State of New Jersey to Reimburse Municipalities for Costs Associated with Black Bear Population Management.

2. Ordinance received September 23, 2002, from the Township of Roxbury Re: Land Use.

3. Planning Board Resolution received September 25, 2002, from Township of Roxbury regarding Amendments to the Master Plan Land Use Plan Element and Housing Plan Element and Fair Share Plan.

4. Resolution received September 26, 2002, from the Borough of Madison regarding the Highlands Stewardship Act.

5. Resolution received September 26, 2002, from the Borough of Madison regarding the Amendment to the Open Space and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund to Include Historic Preservation.

6. Resolution received September 26, 2002, from the Borough of Florham Park regarding the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

7. Resolution received October 2, 2002, from the Borough of Mount Arlington regarding the "Pledge of Allegiance."

8. Resolution received October 2, 2002, from the Borough of Mount Arlington regarding Discounting Sewer and Water fees for Affordable Housing.

9. Resolution received October 2, 2002, from the Borough of Mount Arlington regarding increasing fees on Registration of All Terrain Vehicles.

10. Letter received October 4, 2002, from Washington Township Regarding Notice of Public Hearing on Revised Historic Preservation Element of the Washington Township Master Plan.

DOT/DEP/Permit's/LOI's

11. Application Checklist received September 23, 2002, (corrected letter received September 30, 2002) from the Town of Hackettstown regarding Freshwater Wetlands Application re: property at Seber Road, Block 119, Lots 82.01 & 82.02, Hackettstown.

12. Application for Permit received September 27, 2002, from Frank Maione regarding property at Block 7100, Lot 28 (River Road) for Freshwater Wetlands.

13. Letter received September 30, 2002, from Simoff Engineering Associates regarding NJDEP Application for Letter of Interpretation Block 4100, Lot 80 & 84 (73 Route 46, & 95 Route 46) Applicant: Mt. Olive Center Associates.

14. Letter received September 30, 2002, from Environmental Technology Inc. regarding Request for a Letter of Interpretation, Footprint of Disturbance / Block 7100, Lot 28 (River Road).

15. Application Checklist received September 30, 2002, from Mt. Olive Center Associates regarding property at 73 & 95 Route 46, Block 4100 lots 80 & 84 regarding Letter of Interpretation.

MUA/MSA

16. List of Allocations received October 4, 2002, from the Musconetcong Sewerage Authority regarding participating Municipalities.

Correspondence from Organizations / Committees / Boards

17. E-mail received September 23, 2002, from the Morris County Chamber of Commerce regarding "Doing Business with the U.S. Government."

18. Letter received September 26, 2002, from Killian Group regarding New Web Site, Public Relations, Client Services, and New Name Change to Hatch Mott MacDonald.

19. Local Finance Notice received September 26, 2002, from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, Division of Local Government Services regarding Amendments to the Open Public Meetings Act.

Utilities

20. Letter received September 25, 2002, from Jersey Central Power and Light regarding Aerial Inspection of Transmission Facilities.

President Rattner stated there we have 20 pieces of Correspondence on the agenda and asked if Council had any questions on same. Seeing none.

ORDINANCES FOR PUBLIC HEARING

Ord. #38-2002 An Ordinance of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Purchase of a Conservation Easement/Development Rights Across Lot 16, Block 7100 and Lot 54, Block 5300 on the Tax Assessment Maps of the Township of Mount Olive Which Property is Commonly Referred to as the Devlin Property and Appropriating the Sum of $142,500.00

President Scapicchio opened the Public Hearing on Ordinance #38-2002.

Richard Bonte, Budd Lake: I would like to address this in conjunction with resolution number four which is the environmental testing I believe above this property. Is there a reason why we are going to pass the Ordinance to purchase this property prior to our having don tests on this property and know whether we want to purchase these development rights.

Mr. Dorsey: We will not close on the property until the tests are completed, we are primarily buying development rights on this entire piece of I think about 72 acres. In addition to buying the development rights we wouldn't really care whether there was any small amount of contamination. But we are also buying what they are known as public access easements for an extension of Patriots Path and it is along that path that the tests are going to be taken.

Mr. Bonte: What happens if we find out that there is pollution on this site?

Mr. Dorsey: Not on this site, in the trails?

Mr. Bonte: Wherever we do testing. What would happen?

Mr. Dorsey: We will do what we did in terms of Charter's Farm. We would probably ask for some allowance in connection with the purchase price. An allowance or credit sufficient to do whatever cleanup is appropriate.

Mr. Bonte: Who would pay for that clean up?

Mr. Dorsey: An allowance means that the seller would grant us some concession to absorb those costs.

Mr. Bonte: Because this is a gray area, the seller stills owns the property, all he is selling is the rights to development. Does the Township incur any liability whatsoever if we know that there is pollution on this site and it is in use for Public Purpose.

Mr. Dorsey: Not until we close and before we close we would make arrangements for the remediation to be done presumable at the cost of the seller.

Mr. Bonte: Supposing we found that there was extensive pollution on the site?

Mr. Dorsey: We might not go through with the sale.

Mr. Bonte: Could the seller then be held in some type of jeopardy that he would be forced to clean up this site.

Mr. Dorsey: Yes he could. If contamination is found there is certain statutes under which he could then essentially be reported to NJDEP and they could issue the necessary orders.

Mr. Bonte: The preverbal can of worms. I would really suggest that we delay the passage of this ordinance until
Such time as we have completed the necessary testing to determine whether we want to get involved in this.

President Scapicchio: Thanks Rich. Anyone else? Seeing none. I will close the public hearing.

Mr. Rattner moved for adoption and final passage of Ordinance 38-2002; Mr. Perkins seconded the motion.

President Scapicchio: Council discussion?

Mr. Rattner: I look at what we are doing tonight no different than if you were going to buy a house. What usually happens is that you actually make an offer, put down good faith money and then you due diligence you do your inspections and everything else. Then if it is not right, then you decide well there is something wrong, I am not going to close on the house and your contract is written that way. Correct me if I am wrong, I feel that's what we are doing really at this point. We are making an offer then we are going to go back and do all our work. If there is a problem we are not going to close.

President Scapicchio: Thanks Steve. Council discussion? Seeing none.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously.

President Scapicchio declared Ordinance #38-2002 as passed on second reading and hereby directed the Clerk to forward a copy of same to the Mayor and Publish the notice of Adoption as required by law.

Ord. #39-2002 An Ordinance to Vacate a Portion of Clinton Avenue. (Dan & Fran Nelson Subdivision)

President Scapicchio opened the Public Hearing on Ordinance #39-2002.

President Scapicchio closed the Public Hearing on ordinance #39-2002.

Mr. Greenbaum moved for adoption and final passage of Ordinance #39-2002; Mr. Perkins seconded that motion.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously.

President Scapicchio declared Ordinance #39-2002 as passed on second reading and hereby directed the Clerk to forward a copy of same to the Mayor and publish the notice of Adoption as required by law.

ORDINANCES FOR FIRST READING (2nd Reading October 22, 2002)

Ord. #40-2002 Bond Ordinance Amending Bond Ordinance Numbered 26-2002 of the Township of Mount Olive, In the County of Morris, New Jersey Finally Adopted June 18, 2002 Providing for various Improvements to, and Acquisition of Equipment and Vehicles for Turkey Brook Park and in Order to Amend Such Bond Ordinance in its Entirety.

Mr. Perkins moved that Ordinance #40-2002 be introduced by title and passed on first reading and that a meeting be held on October 22, 2002 at 7:30 PM at the Municipal Building 204 Flanders-Drakestown Road, Mt. Olive New Jersey for a 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 Requirements of the law. Mr. Rattner seconded that motion.

President Scapicchio: Council Discussion? Seeing none.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously with the exception of Mrs. Miller, voted no.

Ord. #41-2002 An Ordinance of the Township of Mount Olive Establishing Linwood Road as One Way during Certain Designated Times.

Mrs. Miller moved that Ordinance #41-2002 be introduced by title and passed on first reading and that a meeting be held on October 22, 2002 at 7:30 PM at the Municipal Building 204 Flanders-Drakestown Road, Mt. Olive New Jersey for a 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 with the Requirements of the law. Mr. Guenther seconded that motion.

President Scapicchio: Council discussion.

Mr. Rattner: Are we going to be contacting these people again just telling them it is on for a public hearing to make sure they are aware of this?

President Scapicchio: That is not a bad idea. Nicole, will you make note of that for Lisa.

Ms. Whittle: Yes.

CONSENT RESOLUTIONS AGENDA:

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously.

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

President Scapicchio: I have been informed that we are going to remove resolution number five because the Business Administrator had not had an opportunity to review that final proposal in contract form. Is that correct Rob?

Mr. Greenbaum: That is correct as far as I know.

Mr. Rattner: Could we move Resolution six to non-consent, I just have a question.

President Scapicchio: Not a problem Steve.

MOTION TO APPROVE CONSENT RESOLUTIONS AGENDA

1. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Acceptance of a
Conservation Easement on a Portion of Lot 3.02 in Block 4500. (Morrison/Senatore Subdivision)

2. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Request for Additional Budget for Construction Management at Turkey Brook Park. (Extension of Schoor DePalma Contract)

3. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing the Acquisition of a Brush Truck/Mini Attack Pumper from Absolute Fire Protection.

4. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Authorizing a Limited Number of Test Borings or Environmental Tests Along the Easement for Patriots Path at the Devlin Property.

Mr. Greenbaum moved the Consent Resolution Agenda 1 through 4; Mr. Perkins seconded the motion.

Dave Jones, Budd Lake: I am sorry this is going back to the other resolution, the Ordinance of Linwood Ave. I am just curious, were they going to put up a blinking light or something like that.

President Scapicchio: They will put up the appropriate signage. Dave I would suggest you come to that Public Hearing. Mayor, could we have someone here from the Police Department in case there is any additional public questions at that public hearing?

Mayor Licitra: We will get Officer Galop here.

President Scapicchio: Anyone else from the Public? Seeing none.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously.

Mr. Ratter: I just have one question on number four. It says that the issue with the warrantee, for the pumper was resolved.

Mr. Rattner: They issued a three year warranty. It just says it was resolved. It doesn't say…

Mr. Dorsey: We did get it.

Fred Ulhman, Chief of Flanders Fire Department: At the last meeting I guess a week or so ago, the item came up of the two vs. three of the Warrantee on the pump for the brushtruck. We went back to the dealer and he has agreed in writing to absorb the third year of that warrantee and he apologizes for any confusion on that.

Mr. Rattner: That is fine, it may have been that the Council President may have been notified but we didn't get anything.

President Scapicchio: Sorry, Steve, I got an email from Fred.

Mr. Rattner: That's okay. I kind of figured you did.

President Scapicchio: Just as a note, I think that Mr. Rattner did a good job in picking up the fact that somebody should have looked at that before it came to us and, in fact, there was a fault in the warrantee and we got the warrantee as was specified in the original specifications. Good job there Rattner.

PUBLIC PORTION ON CONSENT RESOLUTIONS

ROLL CALL

RESOLUTIONS NON CONSENT

6. Resolution of the Township Council of the Township of Mount Olive Waiving Time Restrictions in
Connection with Construction Activities of Clemens Construction/Commerce Bank.

Mr. Guenther moved Non Consent Resolution No. 6; Mr. Perkins seconded that motion.

President Scapicchio: Public Comment on this resolution?

Mr. Rattner: On this with the bank that was asking us, I noticed on there, I wasn't sure that we were changing the hours, I thought the big thing we were doing is that if they work in side we said that was fine, and another item which we felt was reasonable, was that Columbus Day is considered a holiday in Government, not anyplace else and we were going to say that they could work on a celebrated holiday for Columbus day. So all we really did, is we did say again that as long as there was no noise and there was no deliveries, if they worked inside we would allow them to do that outside of hours and second, that they could work on Columbus Day.

President Scapicchio: I think you're right.

Mr. Dorsey: The construction they are entertaining is interior work. What is he saying that we don't need this resolution?

Mr. Rattner: The one that I didn't know if we were changing. I thought it was 7:00 to 5:00 or something like that, but the big thing was we said that they could work and we could just change it, they could work on Columbus Day.

Mr. Dorsey: Well, we could say Saturday's, Columbus Day and work days, okay?

Mr. Rattner: Yes. I will go along with that.

Mr. Dorsey: On your resolution Nicole, after Saturday add Columbus Day.

Mr. Spino: And this is for only inside work.

Mr. Rattner: They could work on Columbus Day as a regular weekday?

Mr. Dorsey: Yes.

Mr. Spino: Why are we adding to the resolution?

Mr. Rattner: Right now our Ordinance says it cannot work on Columbus Day.

Mr. Spino: That is what I am saying, this is only for interior.

Mr. Rattner: But then we have to say on it that they can work outside on the 12th?

Mr. Spino: That is what I am saying.

Mr. Dorsey: Okay, I will add something and give it to Nicole.

ROLL CALL: Passed. Mr. Rattner, Mr. Perkins, Mr. Guenther, Mr. Scapicchio - Yes.
Mr. Greenbaum Mrs. Miller, Mr. Spino - No.

MOTIONS

1. Bill List.

Mr. Rattner moved for the approval of the Bill List with the exception of the $12,000 check on page 6, number 000681 to Olympus International. Mrs. Miller seconded the motion.

President Scapicchio: Mayor do you know how this got back on the list. Did we have some questions and questions were answered?

Mayor Licitra: I would rather pull it off. I am talking to Sherry and Sherry says one of the reasons it's on there at least in her understanding was that fact that Cindy had thought that there was no problem with it.

Mr. Spino: Is this indeed the same bill?

President Scapicchio: It's the same amount of money

Mrs. Jenkins: This is the same bill. I was told that it was pulled off the last bill list, I assume that Cindy had addressed whatever questions you had and we put it back on the bill list.

President Scapicchio: We took it off for several reasons, one of which I believe they have already received monies in an accelerated fashion above and beyond what the contract calls for. That was only one of the reasons. We wouldn't expect to see this back on without any discussion at a workshop.

Mrs. Jenkins: Not a problem.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

2. Approval of Raffle Application #1046 for the Women's Association Morristown Memorial Hospital and Raffle Application #1047 for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish.

Mr. Greenbaum moved for approval of the of Raffle Application #1046 for the Women's Association Morristown Memorial Hospital and Raffle Application #1047 for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish; Mr. Perkins seconded the motion.

ROLL CALL: Passed Unanimously

COUNCIL REPORTS

Library Board Liaison Report

Mrs. Miller: The good news is they went before the Planning Board. I was not able to be there but I did get a fax and I understand that all of the questions that were raised by the Township Engineer were reviewed and resolved and there are just some final revisions to the clarifications to the drawings by Goodlin and Clearwater. The Planning Board approved their application and the other news is that they have tickets available. I have some here for anybody that would like to go to the awards dinner on November1, 2002. I would assume that tickets were sent to the Council. If not, I have tickets.

President Scapicchio: Thank you Charlene.

Recreation Report

Mr. Guenther: There was a meeting this last week, nothing too unusual. A couple things that came up. A report given about the fund raising activities for that the Soccer Club has organized, they have actually hired a professional outside firm, on a monthly retainer to do various fund raising activities first of which is the dinner next week which I think has been widely publicized as well as other things for the benefit of Turkey Brook Park. That's the whole brunt of their fundraising activities. An item that came up which Harvey Kessler the Chairman of the Committee, there's a significant complaint about the poor condition of the softball fields that the girls play on vs. what is done for baseball and that is under investigation. I think Jim was also looking at it to see how that could be improved. So that is something we hope to address, I know that has been a recurrent complaint as we've gone along.

President Scapicchio: Thank you Bernie.

Board of Health Report

Mr. Perkins: There is nothing else to report Dave; there is nothing on the agenda for this upcoming meeting, so it has been canceled for this month.

President Scapicchio: How about the status of the committee representing the Lake and environmental issues. Have you guys done anything else with that?

Status of Committee RE: Lake/Environment Issues

Mr. Perkins: Yes we have. We had the first summary meeting on October 1, 2002. We had quite a few attendees that were there. Cynthia Spencer, the Chief of Police, Frank Wilpert, Fred Detoro, Herb Gerdes, David Tomb, David Thiel, Chris Ide, Hank Titone, Mark was there and myself. We discussed quite a few items, some of the outfalls, they are going to help along with the maps for some of the small streams and outfalls that go into the Lake, so those can be plotted appropriately by our administrative staff. Mark has been working together with some of the Sewer map updates as well as GIS format that he has been working on for the Phase II, permitting for stormwater outfall. All and all the meeting went very well, it lasted just about an hour. Everybody had a lot of input which was great. The one thing I had recommended to the Lake Association, we had talked about the different times when you may or may not want to be notified. I did not want to put any burden on the Township from the standpoint. If you
Mr. Perkins (cont'd): want to be notified, then you are notified regardless of whether the spill has been contained. An example would be an oil spill from an accident that goes into a sewer line and it outfalls into the Lake. Well, if that has been remediated by our emergency response people, Fred Detoro's folks and we haven't had to call anybody in, do you notify the Lake people or not because there are already booms in there? They said well maybe we wouldn't want to be notified. I didn't want to put the burden on them; I said let's notify you anyway, put it in your database that there was a problem, the Township has taken care of it, and that way it becomes part of the record. Then the Lake Association has that on their file as well as us having it up here.

Mr. Rattner: I have a question for Ray. I got a regular email from the Lake Committee because I am a member talking about the next meeting and they put a default clean up. But then they requested that they are looking for a large number of volunteers for this week saying that they have been giving the responsibility to find the street drain entries and stream entries into the lake. They are looking for volunteers to map that out. I was wondering if we have been maintaining or hopefully maintaining a lot of out storm drains and stuff like that. Is that what was really said.

Mr. Perkins: We didn't ask them to find them they volunteered but I will let Mark.

Mr. DiGennaro: I am sorry, I did not see the email that you are referring to, however, what was suggested was there was concerns in what they felt was strategic areas of danger to the lake where they felt that contaminants could easily enter and they volunteer basically to help us identify those areas and point out because there are some very small tributaries to the lake that may not be easily tracked down. The people may know they fall through yards or what not, so that offered to help us out. Our mapping is in different areas, we don't necessarily have comprehensive maps that I am aware of at this point. We are trying to put something together where we could try to get it at least in some format of a standard paper map where we have a master plan for all the storm sewers. Ideally we would like to focus on getting in a GIS format and take advantage of the County's efforts however that is an expensive proposition.

Mr. Perkins: Dave there is one other thing that the Council probably needs to be aware of. One of the recommendations if something was happening and we had to close any portion of the Lake down, whether that be the entire lake or just a portion was, how would you notify all of the residents. One of the suggestions was the possibility of having one of the three marinas that was there, have flags. Example; red flag, no swimming. We haven't gotten any further along, but if we do that, that's is more than likely something that is going to have be passed in the form of an ordinance that is going to require the marinas to have those flags up there. They do business on the Lake, I don't know if that is something that the Township would contribute to the overall cost of, the pole would be there on their property and as part of the notification, if you had to evacuate and you did not want people at the beach, then maybe the Department of Public Works or Emergency Response Team would be able to go along. We are going to have to address that somewhere down the road if that option is chosen.

Mr. Rattner: With that, I grew up in Rockaway and White Meadow Lake, I moved out of there almost 30 years ago. The way they did it is on either the beaches or the clubhouse, which is on the Lake, is they use their flagpole, they used it to notify whether it was safe for ice skating or not, and whether or not it was safe for swimming. It would be good if we could get cooperation and we could probably pass an ordinance for the Marinas. But the Municipal Building, you can actually see that flagpole from across the Lake.

Mr. Perkins: That was brought up and some of the association people did not feel that you could actually see the Flag at the Municipal Building from all points of the Lake.

Mr. Rattner I think that should be the main one, that we can get that up first and if somebody looked, they could probably tell. It is a good indication.

Mr. Perkins: I think Mark had suggested that we were going to put that on the roof, but I am not sure he wants to go up there right now.

Mr. DiGennaro: We did agree with a phone chain and a contact list of three or four members of the Lake Committee and they would at least be able to start that process of notification amongst their committee people as well, so that is the start. But I think the lines of communication of opened up and we are looking to work to together and find a suitable answer to it.

President Scapicchio: Thank you Mark. Thanks Ray

Planning Board Report

Mr. Greenbaum: Very busy as usual, we met on October 3, 2002 the first matter that was discussed was the reexamination report which was adopted by resolution of the Planning Board, which leaves the Master Plan left for Mr. Greenbaum (cont'd): discussion before the Planning Board. We discussed I believe four development matters; the first being Callaremi, Lincoln Mercury; they were looking to remodel or expand their building. It was interesting because their site plan necessarily required them to utilize an easement with the next door car dealership, I guess there had been some infighting in the Callaremi family at some point in time and there had been a split. It just became an interesting issue as to whether or not their site plan technically did not need to use that easement, but in fact they were parking cars on that grass easement and ultimately the Planning Board after Legal Advice came to the conclusion that we could decide the issue based solely on the site plan which was before the Planning Board which didn't include the easement and ultimately Callaremi was granted their approval, however it now leaves the situation where Callaremi is going to be parking vehicles on an unimproved lot which is a violation of zoning ordinance, but ultimately they got their approval. The next issue that we addressed was the Mount Olive Public Library. It was a very quick meeting; on that issue the main topic of discussion was related to the access to the facility, whether or not it was wise to access it through the main Municipal Building driveway or whether or not they should have their own driveway accessing the building. As you may recall that it is actually a flag lot, it appeared to be an area where there could be a driveway, but it was determined that particular flag piece was to close to our entrance and it would not have made good engineering sense. In any event as Charlene said, it was granted approval. Dan and Fran Nelson were back with regard to their three lot sub-division behind their house, it relates to the vacation of Clinton Ave. and ultimately they were able to work out the issues with the adjoining home owner with regard to fixing their property once that portion of the cul-de-sac is removed and ultimately that approval was given. The last issue which was addressed was Longhorn Steakhouse which is going to be going up in the Trade Center South across from Wendy's, it joins the main Road and they willingly agreed to put up several lights along the roadway to help out effort to resolve the lighting issue on ITC South.

Mayor Licitra: I understand Mr. Greenbaum that there is two voices. We play good cop, good cop. We get additional benches for waiting outside; for people to wait. Also we'll get as many street lights as we could, so at least people will be able to see where they are going over there.

Mr. Greenbaum: We are meeting Thursday night 6:30; Hashemi, it should be an interesting meeting. Then on the 17th there are several matters on Woodfield. Final site plan, final major sub division approval Gen III builders. Rezamir estates which is going to generate a lot of participation from the residents.

Mr. Dorsey: Rob, did Planning Board get the report from Dick Cushing that the Federal Court dismissed the discrimination claims?

Mr. Greenbaum: No.

Mr. Dorsey: I have to go back and check that, I think all the counts were dismissed.

Mayor Licitra: That means that we could also counter sue if we wanted. I could go to the meeting, I checked with the attorney.

Mr. Dorsey: When is the next meeting?

Mr. Greenbaum: Thursday, 6:30. We were under Court Order to resolve this by September the 15th there were some scheduling problems. Mr. Hashemi graciously granted us an extension to this Thursday and I assume that this is going to be the last meeting on this particular application. That is all that I have.

President Scapicchio: Thanks Rob.

Open Space Committee Report

Mrs. Miller: I don't think I really have to give a report. We have a wonderful memorandum from Kathy Murphy dated October 8, 2002 and it tells you the status of all the Morris County Open Space.

President Scapicchio: Thanks Charlene

Legislative Committee Report

Mr. Guenther: Nothing new to report.

Pride Committee Report

Mr. Perkins: If you haven't already seen the new bill board, take a look. "Fall into Mount Olive is the theme, I think the Pride Committee is doing a hec of a job.

Mayor Licitra: I am getting a lot of compliments because of what they are doing and they are doing a great job.

Mr. Perkins: For a small group of people that are actually out there, they are doing a good job.

Richard Bonte, Budd Lake: The resolution that we passed this evening increasing the contract with Schoor Deplama, I have missed the last few meeting so I wanted to clear up a few things. Were there funds expended by Schoor DePalma that were not in the previous contract that he had for Turkey Brook?

President Scapicchio: Prior to this degree of being memorialized Rich, I do not believe there was. I think that's why it was brought to the table because the funds either had exhausted or were close to being exhausted.

Mrs. Jenkins: We can't spend more than what you have authorized by resolution.

Mr. Dorsey: The monies are in the project they simply had not been allocated to Schoor Depalma and there was a presentation last week about that.

Mr. Bonte: And I realized I missed that, but did Schoor Deplama incur expenses for which there were insufficient approved funds. It was reported in the paper.

Mr. Dorsey: I think the answer to that is Schoor Depalma did not submit vouchers, and has not submitted vouchers until their budget was appropriately increased to permit them to submit additional vouchers.

Mr. Bonte: But they did actually incur on their part more expenses for the period of time that they had worked than was anticipated. Is that correct?

Mr. Dorsey: It's debatable.

Mr. Bonte: I got the impression from what I read in the newspaper is that once again a private contractor did work over and above what was originally contracted for.

Mr. Dorsey: Let me ask you it this way. Schoor Depalma is very much aware of those restrictions and instances. They submitted their request for an increase in their Budget before they found themselves to the point of submitting vouchers for which there had not been authorization from money. So they haven't done the usual thing that you are mentioning and that is submit vouchers and then say gee there is no money you have to up the money up.

Mr. Bonte: Right. For that I commend them I don't have any problem with Schoor Depalma. Gene is very competent and so is his staff. But my concern is that every time we enter into some type of contractual arrangement with somebody we always find ourselves in the situation where more things had to be done than were anticipated and in order to keep the project moving we have already done a bunch of these things. Well we've haven't billed you yet because we know we can't but we'd appreciate an amendment to our contract.

Mr. Buczynski: What's really tuff in construction projects is I could start the job and say okay, it is going to be six months, I am going to have a guy out there for eight hours a day, and five days a week full time it is going to cost you $160,000. I might spend six hours out there, I got a contract for eight. What we try to do with the discussions of the Town is to get what we thought was; if everything was fine and we didn't have a lot of the problems we had on the job that we could give you half time inspection, four hours a week But if I could at the beginning said, I want time materials and eight hours a day, it is very difficult to limit, because like you say asking for more money. On a day to day basis, It's like me saying okay I will start at 8:00 and at 12:00 I am leaving because I said four hours a day. I can't leave that site vacant the rest of the day. So it is very difficult on construction services on a contract that we are not constructing to get a set number on what's the right price.

Mr. Bonte: I fully understand that Gene. My concern here and again, Schoor Depalma has not done to us what a lot of people have done to us. But we really need to start putting contractors on notice; that we can't have them working at rates; for example your contract I believe originally was four hours a day. He finds himself in a position where he's putting six to eight hours in a day and this goes on for weeks on end. The next thing you know we are in a position of where we are either out of money or how he comes in for additional funds because "I had to keep the project going". We have gone through this before this year. There has been a bunch of cases this year that have been on the verge of being fraudulent or illegal. For example what happened with the Oddessy debacle on the

Mr. Bonte: generator on the truck? Contractors and businesses that deal with this Town need to know that we're going o deny payment, we are not going to approve payment for something that was not authorized. The contracts Mr. Bonte (cont'd): specifically says, you are going to provide services at x number of days, x number of hours per day. At least certainly on a weekly basis if it is four hours a day we should not be exceeding 20 hours a week. If it has to, that information needs to come back to the Township immediately that I need to spend additional time or because I spent 28 hours this week I am only going to be able to spend 12 next week to keep this contract in line. We can't find ourselves in a position all the time of always playing catch up. In the 11 years I have been involved in coming here, it happens year after year after year. Millions of dollars in the Sewer Project. The same thing happened. Work was expended, people are told don't worry, we will get the funds. It is illegal to commit those funds if they have not been approved by the Council. The only way we are going to show that is to start denying people, even if they have actually expended the work effort or the funds if it was not approved. So, I think we need to start taking a much tougher stand from this type of stuff. Thank you.

Mr. Spino: I disagree wholeheartedly with this case. I think that Schoor Depalma was there, if they had walked off after four hours, the drought would probably cost us twice as much as were doing because we would be back logged with work because the work that did continue would be done improperly because they would not be there. I think they took charge and I would commend them maybe, on the fact that they took a chance on staying there and doing the work and knowing the possibility that the Towns would do what you say. I think it is unfair at this point to what I consider the Township Engineer. They are the Township Engineer.

Mr. Bonte: They are the Township Engineering firm that we contract with.

Mr. Spino: They are looking out for our benefit. Had they not been there, like you said I think either the work would have gone undone or would have been done improperly. I don't understand, we are talking about the company that is there for our benefit.

Mr. Bonte: I understand that but, he was asked to give us a price to provide those services. If you are an expert at providing said services, you should have a very good handle what it costs.

President Scapicchio: Rich, there are things that you are missing here that play into the scheme of things that you are discounting. One of which, Olympus's contract required them to come out here twice a week. They have failed in that regard. There are other issues that we have with Olympus that in my opinion required Schoor Depalma to take over some additional responsibilities. I think we all knew, although I don't think they ever exhausted the total amount of money we allocated to them in the very beginning before this project may have even went out to bid, they estimated what they thought would be the supervision needed for this project. I don't think we ever exhausted the total amount of that dollar amount even though we all know that they were providing more than four hours as this project went along then they had originally told us what was needed.

Mr. Guenther: First of all I think that Earl touched on it. There is a difference between supervision and the big contract. You make a good point Rich. You don't want to go over if it is a big contract, but this was not a big contract, this is a supervision job that we gave and Dave is absolutely right, that we gave Schoor Depalma because of the efficiencies or quite frankly we did not trust Olympus anymore. We wanted somebody that was close to us that could supervise our activities. On the other side of the coin, I do find fault with the Administration in not advising us early on that this was happening. In other words, early on as Schoor Depalma got into it and realized that four hours a week were not going to be sufficient, we should have been informed.

Mr. Bonte: That's the point really Bernie that I am trying to get at. How long did this go on and why? Once you start realizing what is happening, it should be brought back to the people that authorize the funds immediately. You should not start incurring. I realize that it may have been for the benefit of the Township, but there are set prescribed ways of doing things in Government. One of them is you don't knowingly allow somebody to start exceeding what you have authorized without saying hey; wait a minute. We are a quarter a way through the contract and we have already obligated half the funds. Good contract and we have already obligated half the funds. Good contract management says you look at what is happening at that point and make an assessment of what needs to be changed.

Mr. Dorsey: But you are really being unfair because that is essentially what Buczynski did five weeks ago when he sent in his memorandum.

Mr. Bonte: What was done five weeks ago?

Mr. Dorsey: It takes a while to get on the agenda. The memorandum was issued to the Administration and it…

Mr. Bonte: Well I guess at some point Government needs to say we'll go back to the contractor and say, if you keep spending at this rate, money will stop at this point and there are no guarantees what so ever that your services will be renewed, whether we can continue on this contract. But you have an obligation to do what you said you were going to do. If that means he has to cut back to four hours a day, alright so be it and then Government has to deal Mr. Bonte (cont'd): with that. I just don't think that we can continue to expend funds and allow contractors to spend funds at their own choosing, or at wink that they get from some public official. That is basically what happened with Oddessy. The Business Administrator went off and negotiated on his own and basically overturned the whole bidding process and awarded thousands of dollars and told you after the fact that he had made this
decision. It needs to stop.

Mr. Rattner: This particular contract, if anything yes, the Council got notified late, the original contract was
signed with Schoor Depalma, it was an estimate. How many hours do you think you need? We put a not to exceed on every one of our contracts. It does not mean that we are not going to but it means they can't exceed it and they didn't. What happened with this contract with the four hours a day is what they estimated they would need to oversee the inspection of all the work being done. When there were different issues that came up, and some of the hours came up. The Administration told them to fix it, redesign it. The couple of them that come to mind is the sewer line. By redesigning it and not going as deep, that was a twenty thousand dollar savings. We knew what was going on. Also this thing with the water and the wells. I believe it was Schoor Depalma that came up and said based on the specs, it is $100,000 to bring water up from this other development, however if we dig our own well, of course we are hoping that we only needed one, it is going to cost us maybe $10,000 so instead of about $20,000. I think what happened is what Mr. Guenther and I brought up last week. We just didn't know until they ran out of money and said hey, if he wants to keep working when they should have known. You are right, contract management if it said that they should be spending on x amount of dollars a week and they are under the direction for the Administration so it wasn't that they were just doing whatever work they wanted, it should have shown up long before when you have it projected out; $80,000 over six months should be $12,000 or $13,000 per month or what ever it domes out and if it was going at $17,000 we would have known right away and we should have been told that it is going to go longer, they project is going another month or two. From my understanding, they didn't overspend the contract. They work that they did under the direction of the Town; it was what they call Value engineering and we saw the savings, the only thing that did happen is we got notified late. I had the same questions. When I first saw it I called Mr. Buczynski, what happened? Didn't you know? We started looking at it; they started putting together the costs when they thought they would run out of money. It wasn't that they overspent it because as far as I know they didn't. They didn't do work, they just didn't spend 6 hours because they wanted too. We gave them additional work to do. The place that fell down I guess is an internal thing where we just weren't notified earlier saying that there was going to be additional costs because it is going to go longer and we have given them extra work to do to fix the problems as designed. But this is one that we knew. They just didn't pick it. We told them to do some of this extra work as a Town.

Mr. Bonte: Someday we are going to all sit here and see a project brought in on cost. I don't know when that is going to happen, but someday we are going to see a project brought in on cost.

Mr. Buczynski: I have one comment, any other construction observation projects, I will be glad to give you estimates for eight hours a day for the total amount of the project and will be the number we start from, not to exceed. That is the whole thing, it is not like it's not brought under cost, I could have told you from day one not to beat a dead horse, but I could have originally sent you an estimate to the Mayor to say eight hours a day, six months would have been x dollars. That's what would have been the number. We tried to a little check and balance, Paul asked me too, what we would do. I said well if everything works out right, it could be about four hours a day. That is what we put in and there were caveats in that proposal where we said if everything goes right and there's a budgetary number, and as far as when we gave the price, we gave the price probably about three weeks ago at the most. We did discuss it earlier with Cindy and I was delayed with getting the final numbers because I wanted to make sure when we are going to be working until; the end of September, end of October, or how far. I said I'll give you a number, well I wanted to say come back a month later and say well it might not be $35 it may be $55. So we want to be sure what the costs were and where we're going to be. I delayed that portion from when I first mentioned it to Cindy on the phone that we're going to exceed the costs based on where we are going right now. But I did not get a number to Administration for a couple of weeks because I wanted to make sure I gave the right number and to drop the letter. I didn't want to just say it was going to be x dollars without the back up.

Mr. Perkins: Not to beat a dead horse, but Rich in standard AIA format documents as well as CSI documents, we are all familiar hopefully with change orders and there are also things called, field change directives. So if you have a field change directive, it is because somebody directed you to make a change. You really cannot agree upon the costs yet, because you really don't know what cost is involved. So that Rich I think would have solved the problem had somebody had a field change directive every time as Steve has said when we told somebody , well yes, go out and negotiate when we talked about the water and the sewer and instantly somebody should have typed out a field change directive and said we are going to have a change. We don't know whether it is going to be a credit or a debit, but there is going to be a change. Now you have the document to follow up with. Without the document you are
right, people come expo facto, and make a presentation. I'm not happy about that. As a matter of fact I am the one who kind of brought it up last week, on that resolution that we had approved tonight. So there are venues within the

Mr. Perkins (cont'd): AIA and CSI that provide for those in standard construction documents. If they are not adhered to, then it is an oversight problem of somebody that should be running the project.

Mr. Bonte: I just want to make one other comment, in my business I deal with the public, I do two types of work for people. I give them a quote on a fixed price basis for certain types of work and if I screwed up in that estimate, I eat it. I would never expect a customer to pay one nickel more for something that I told them was going to cost x. Even if there were extra materials, time whatever. I also do probably half of my work on a time and materials basis. Most people don't like that, but there are certain types of work where you don't know what is going to happen. I always give the customer the worst case scenario number for two reasons. No intension of leading somebody down a black hole that is going to end up costing them twice than what they thought it was going to cost because they might not have done the work in the first place. Secondly, there is some hidden motivation for me to do that. You always look good when you are done because it usually comes in under. That's what we need to start seeing here. We need to start seeing the worst case scenario numbers. A contractor should not come in here thinking well, I know they are not going to buy the $80,000 this is probably going to cost. They would probably like to hear $50,000 and then we will change order it up to $80,000 once we are in.

Mr. Perkins: Rich do you understand at a public bidding law that you have to take normally the lowest responsible bid.

Mr. Bonte: In this case you did not do that. This was not publicly bid, Gene's company is a professional service. If you are in the business and you know your business you should be able to come in here and say to the Town, if everything goes good, this is what it could happen. Because if you have been in the business as long as Gene's firm has been in the business, you have seen it all. You should be able to tell this Council the other horror story of what could happen. This guy couldn't do this, that, blah blah blah. This thing could end up costing you $90,000. The Council needs to know that. You need to know what the best and worst case scenario's are. All I have done over the years is come in here and see everybody come back in afterwards because this did not work out, that did not work out and we need more money and everything goes up far in excess of whatever the contingency funds are including Turkey Brook. So you need to start getting a better handle on especially these service type contracts that you don't go out and bid. It is bad enough what happens with the bid contracts. But on our professional services, the people that are giving you good numbers, they should have good expertise behind that to give you those numbers. I don't question Gene's firm. What they did was they slipped you a number that maybe they knew would fly then, best case scenario and now we ended up with almost doubling this contract.

Mr. Greenbaum: Rich, good point, bad example. I don't think this is the example where your point makes the most sense. What I am most troubled with is I sat here; and I was going to let this go Gene, but I sat here and asked for two months, where are the change orders? What change orders can we expect? Gene's explanation is that he thought I was only referring to Conte. I basically got anything, there's stuff out there, Conte has talked about this, other stuff, minor stuff, I can live with that then all of the sudden I get an $45,000 change order from Schoor Depalma. I am troubled by that. Obviously I have another job full time, I have to rely upon the information I get both from the Administration and from the other people who are working for the Township. Here I am asking the right questions and not getting the answers that are appropriate. I was convinced after reviewing the contract, speaking to Gene that Schoor Depalma was entitled to the money and I don't think in my mind it was anything which was unexpected. I would have liked it to come in at the numbers, but after reading the contract and giving it some it some thought and having thought about it at the time, it wasn't unexpected to me that there was going to be additional monies which we were going to have to pay to Schoor Depalma. I just don't understand why we weren't given that information and that's really what bothers me. I think they are entitled to their monies. I think that under the contract they are being paid what they are entitled to be paid.

Cheryl Goodwin, Drakestown Road: I would just like to ask the Council a question on a totally different topic. But I would comment that if I had any idea how many millions of dollars it could cost to preserve Open Space, I am really not sure I would have voted to tax dollars to preserve Open Space. I could have never imagined it could cost so many millions of dollars and then to hear about well, and having to irrigate and to plead further the aquifers that are already imperiled and herbicides and pesticides. It's not whatever I imagined as far as Open Space goes. The question that I had actually was that I read and I think we have eluded to it tonight. I read in the newspaper that Mt. Olive and I believe Roxbury are the only towns that in their noise ordinance that you cannot use power equipment on weekends and holidays. Does this include leaf blowers and lawn mowers? I read that Mt. Olive does not have a problem with complaints and I suspect it's because none of us imagined that anything like that might exist. Does it in fact include lawn mowers and leaf blowers?

President Scapicchio: I don't know either. I was a bit surprised when I saw that article myself.

Mr. Rattner: I believe that our noise ordinance exempts certain homeowner type of items. Contractors are held with their feet to the fire, but I know it came up during discussions; most people do their yard work on weekends. I Mr. Rattner (cont'd): am pretty sure that lawn mowers and basic things are exempt. I think at the time we had discussions about leaf blowers because a lot of people just don't like them anytime.

Mrs. Goodwin: I have a situation where it is fortunately no longer every single day, I am pretty regularly wakened at 5:15 am or 6:15 am by a neighbors dog. Apparently that's legal.

Mayor Licitra: The dog has 10 minutes.

Mrs. Goodwin: And if you're wakened at 5:15 or 6:15 the cops say move if you don't like it. Second, prove it that it's 10 minutes and third, if you have already been wakened at that hour I sure can't go back to sleep. I find it absolutely mind boggling. Does anyone know where to look?

President Scapicchio: We could get that ordinance for you but I think that article was incorrect.

Mr. Rattner: If you look on the internet, Welcome to Mt. Olive, under I believe Council you can go right to our Code, put in the words you want. Put in noise and it will go every place that noise comes up in the Code and everything will be right there.

Mrs. Goodwin: Thank you very much.

Mr. Rattner: We try to make it as easy as possible for people to look for it.

Robert Perkoski, Stephens Park Road: Members of the Council, Mr. Mayor, it's been eight months since that fence issue. Mr. Dorsey, you asked him as legal representation, what can you do about? He says you can't go to court, you can't do this you can't do that. He says, he just talked to him a few seconds ago and he said you have to present it to Mr. Mayor, see what he says about the issue. There is documentation that says that fence has to be there from Chuck McGroarty. All you have to do is go back into the files and get it and read it and enforce it. All I want to know is when is it going to be done?

Mr. Spino: What's the issue?

Mrs. Miller: That housing development.

Mr. Spino: I think I know what we're talking about but I want to make sure everybody else does as well and then I know exactly what we are talking about.

Mr. Perkoski: Maybe I should just read it.

Mr. Spino: Talking about the fence between your property and the development.

Mr. Greenbaum: I don't know that we need to have him read the whole letter, the issue is that the Planning Board approved an application which required a type of fence to be installed, and it was not installed and Mr. Perkoski would like to have the Planning Board Resolution enforced. We don't need to get into specifics.

President Scapicchio: When was the CO issued on this piece of property?

Mr. Percowski: This one here is dated June 22, 2001 asking for a modification in the original plan.

President Scapicchio: Mayor, you can handle this in house, right?

Mayor Licitra: Absolutely. There will be no reason why a CO should be issued when they don't check with the Planning Board Resolution on what was required.

President Scapicchio: But Mayor even if it was an oversight…

Mayor Licitra: Maybe it is, but I don't know anything about it.

President Scapicchio: We could still enforce that. If that was a requirement we can enforce that and impose a time limit and if it is not done we can then fine them under our Ordinance.

Mayor Licitra: If it is on the resolution, absolutely.

Mr. Greenbaum: Can you come back in two weeks and let us know if this has been resolved so it does not fall through the cracks again.

Mr. Perkoski: I will let you know.

Mr. Greenbaum: I just want to make sure, I don't want you to have to come back and say another eight months has passes. If we are going to resolve this, in your favor or not in your favor, let's resolve it.

Mr. Perkoski: The thing was is that it was an agreement between the two parties and there is no reason why it shouldn't be done. It was made with the Township. That's it, bottom line. Otherwise there is no problem.

Mayor Licitra: I agree with you, let me find out and we will have something back.

Mr. Perkoski: I could call your office and let you know.

President Scapicchio: The Mayor will take care of it for you Mr. Perkoski.

Mr. Spino: Just to make sure that we make sure who is responsible, I would assume the developer.

Mr. Percowski: It is nothing to do with the developer, this is a private entity.

President Scapicchio: Okay. Anyone else from the Public? Seeing none we will close the Public Portion.

COUNCIL COMMENTS

Mr. Rattner: We heard about a lot of problems and we discussed a lot of issues tonight and the one thing I don't want to lose sight of is the things that it sounds like we are doing very very well. You heard about the police and their outreach program. We know how busy they have been and that is something that I think the public should be very proud of and that is something that they should be recognized for. Also, we keep hearing, tonight was the first complaint that we got that may not be up snuff. I am sure that Mr. Lynch has been doing such a good job on all the different fields maybe this is one he didn't get to yet to really make the improvements, so it is not that it is not being taken care of, but he has not brought it up to the same speed he has done on the other fields. But really with what I hear from all around Town, people are very happy with what he is doing. That we are improving the fields. Those are the type of things that I want to make sure we don't lose sight on. We know there are certain things we need to do better, there are certain things we don't do exactly right, but I think the majority of things are. If you look around, 80% of the items that are done by the employees in Town, that's handled by the Administration, people think things are really good and we heard two tonight. The other is just an observation; I saw another four car accident at Connelly and Route 46 yesterday afternoon. For the DOT to constantly tell us that there is no issue that they can't find any problems there. This was not a rainy day, this was not rush hour, this was probably about 2:30 pm yesterday afternoon. There are constant accidents there. This just happened to be one that involved more vehicles. Nobody got hurt but all vehicles had to be towed. It was not just a minor thing; it was a pretty good crash.

Mr. Guenther: We have the data, Steve. They did these traffic studies two years ago before the heavy traffic really started in there and they have to update it. To get them off the dime to do anything is impossible.

Mr. Rattner: I know that it's just the fact that there are accidents happening. They say that they wait until somebody really gets hurt or a number of accidents. Well I think it is happening now.

Mr. Guenther: I'll have to keep following up on it.

Mr. Greenbaum: I got my 2002 final tax bill, thank you Sherry. I find it very interesting, my house was assessed above the Township average, and my taxes were approximately $7,500 for 2002. Of that approximately $700.00 went to the County and $1394 was for running the Municipal Government and $5,000 was for school taxes. I have to say for $1394, I think I get a pretty good bang for the buck out of Mt. Olive Township with tall the services that I get.

Mr. Perkins: Just to say real quick. I found it easier to work with the Administration, the Old Municipal Building is going to be a tough nut for us all to look at. I don't think anybody is going to be able to have a quick answer for that. Traffic studies I know my co-partner over there Bernie has been looking at that. I know the Mayor has been out. Earl was out I've been out there. I have watched, I have lived close by. I will reiterate what I said before, until we can convince the DOT that a Jersey barrier needs to go down there. People will continue to make left hand turns where they shouldn't. That's all.

Mr. Guenther: Real quick, a question to the Administration, I noticed here in this Freeholder Newsletter Paul, about the improvement authority. Have you had meetings with them at all to see what…

Mayor Licitra: I just wrote them the letter that you had asked me to do after October 9, 2002.

Mr. Guenther: That has nothing to do with this that is the Historic thing, this is the improvement authority.

Mrs. Jenkins: Bernie, are you talking about the new improvement authority they just created for financing purposes. Cindy and I attended a seminar at the Birchwood Manor a couple of months ago on that and did get a lot of information.

Mr. Guenther: Let's just see if we can get money out of them.

Mrs. Jenkins: The only problem is the time constraints. They want to know fairly well in advance what you are going to capitalize and obviously with us; sometimes we have a little bit of a delay. That was the one issue.

Mr. Guenther: My last comment is I just want to offer my condolences to Yankee fans on the Council for what happened. I guess they don't have to worry about getting the Yes Network anymore.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion was made for Adjournment. All in Favor, none opposed. The Meeting Adjourned at 10:05 pm.

______________________________
BERNHARD D. GUENTHER
Council President

I, LISA M LASHWAY, Township Clerk of the Township of Mount Olive do hereby certify that the foregoing Minutes is a true and correct copy of the Minutes approved at a legally convened meeting of the Mount Olive Township Council duly held on February 11, 2003

_____________________
LISA M. LASHWAY
Mount Olive Township Clerk

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