City of Brigantine Council Meeting

you're muted and you're starting to look
like phil i was trying to look like phil
tonight too i was going for that
i told you when i get my haircuts i go
in and it's the same uh barber and i go
give me the gunther
and she laughs
that's great oh yeah it's so funny she
laughs every time
said happy new year happy new year
happy new year charlene said happy new
year to all of you i hope it gets a
little better
it will i have faith good good we're
counting on you
oh boy
hey fred happy new year happy new year
are you sir
how's the mayor doing life's good
and never had a bad day never had a bad
day in brigantine there you go
all right what's that slogan it's an
island you'll love for life that's right
yeah yeah but i've never had a bad day
there
ah beautiful hey john how are you
good evening how is everyone ah life's
good man happy beer
there you go me too
[Music]
uh
okay
you
hi guys hey karen how are you
i'm fine momentarily
hi shirley and sid happy new year
happy new year to you and your family
good evening rick
again good evening everyone there we go
gotcha thank you
okay
lynn can i get a sound check please
can you hear me gotcha now thank you
mr mayor i have 5 p.m
i guess i just want to make sure we have
a quorum because i know some people are
at city hall and some people are zoomed
so i'm not sure who's at city hall
should just be dennis uh if he's
arrived yet i haven't seen him yet
mike's here buddy i think he's out in
the hallway
okay just to let people know uh this is
our reorg meeting
uh there's a few council members who
needed to be sworn in so we were trying
to space things out and
um kind of stay cautious with some of
the social distancing things so some of
the council members
are at city hall some of us are home a
couple council people
came in earlier today to get sworn in so
we just want to make sure that
you know we do our best to keep
everybody safe
um i think we have a quorum now one two
three and rick makes four so we can open
the meeting
and then uh we'll roll from there all
right so i'd like to welcome everybody
to our january 6th
council meeting i'd like to wish
everybody a happy new year if you could
please rise for the flag salute
pledge allegiance to the flag of the
united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation
under god indivisible with liberty
and justice for all if you could please
remain standing while our deputy mayor
karen bu leads us in prayer
heavenly father we come to you at the
beginning of a new year
asking for your blessings and help as we
are virtually gathered together
we ask that you heal the many sick and
suffering members of our community
we pray for peace calm and understanding
in our country
we pray for guidance as we enter our new
terms of office
and ask that you help us to work
together and encourage
each other to reach higher and farther
to be the best we can be
we ask this in your name amen
and i would like to ask everybody to
please remain standing for a moment of
silence
our island has lost another matriarch
with the recent passing of katherine
quinlan
catherine has been an active member of
most organizations in brigantine
she was pta president for many years
and served as treasurer of the chamber
of commerce
the historical society and the lions to
name a few
many longtime residents also remember
catherine as being their girl scout
leader
catherine is survived by her son joe
from texas
and her daughter katie of brigham team
please be seated
let's say it's uh sad loss finding out
about catherine passing i know uh she
was an ad very active member of the
lions club and probably
one of my favorite persons uh to see she
always had a smile on her face and
she was just an incredible just caring
generous person
lynn could you read the open public
meetings act announcement
this is to advise the meeting notices
covering this meeting have been set and
posted as required
under the open public's meetings act
perfect thank you lin uh today's
schedule as i said we have a couple of
swearing in
some members have already come in early
to kind of get it done to speed the
meeting along and some members still
need to do it now
we're going to do that we'll break for a
short executive session and then we'll
move into our regular agenda
after that so right now we're going to
start off with our swearing-in of our
deputy mayor and first ward council
person karen bu
okay i have my sister right here
my sister is going to be swearing me in
this is june
wait a minute sorry june burns is a
councilwoman
and uh council president pro tem in
lynwood
and two years ago i had the pleasure of
swearing her in
so now she's reciprocating to swear me
in happy new year everyone
happy new year oh i can't you're going
to
hold it yeah
i see i can't do solemnly swear
do solemnly swear that i will support
the constitution
of the united states and of new jersey
that i will support the constitution of
the united states
and of new jersey that i will bear true
faith and allegiance to that saying
that i will bear true faith and
allegiance to the same
and to the governments established in
the united states
and to the governments established in
the united states and in the state
and in this state under the authority of
the people under the authority of the
people and i will
faithfully and i will faithfully
impartially impartially
and justly perform and justly perform
all the duties required
as a member of
the first as
of the first war councilwoman as the
first word councilwoman
according to the best of my ability
so
help me god so help me god
thank you congratulations thank you
we're elbow bumping
congratulations thank you thank you
uh thank you congratulations that's uh
awesome to see you guys be able to swear
each other and
uh next up we have our third board
council person dennis haney
and he'll be sworn in by our city clerk
lin sweeney
hold that down and i mean that's good
can you see us on here
okay yes hi
dennis haney hi dennis haney do you
solemnly swear
do solemnly swear that i will support
the constitution of the state of new
jersey that i will support the
constitution of the state of new jersey
that i will bear true faith and
allegiance that i will bear true
faith and allegiance to the same to the
same and to the government's established
and to the government's established in
the united states in the united states
and in this state and in this state
under the authority of the people
and
that i will faithfully and that i will
faithfully
and partially and impartially and justly
performed and justly performed
all the duties all the duties required
as third ward councilman
required as third ward councilman
according to the best of my ability
according to the best of my abilities so
help me god so help me god
congratulations
thank you
congratulations dennis
earlier today we had our second ward
council person paul letteri was sworn in
and also our fourth ward council person
rick delucry was sworn in as well
and again uh congratulations to all our
council people and uh
definitely we all make a great team and
i'll say one thing for all the things of
this pandemic i think it's really
brought this council together
and i know i feel very privileged and
honored to be able to work with all of
you so thank you for your service to the
city and i look forward to a great
couple years together
all right so at this time um i know
we're going to give uh
we're going to take a short recess i
think we're going to give our council
members who are at city hall an
opportunity to get home and we're also
going to be breaking for an executive
session so if our city manager jim
bennett if
i think he needs to give us instructions
for the executive
yes mayor so we'll wait until uh
councilman uh riordan and councilman
haney get home
and get on the meeting once that happens
uh
members of council fred and the city
clerk
will see something pop up on their
screen that they're being invited to a
breakout room
please accept that it should just be
something you click on or touch on your
screen
and then once our executive is over it
will uh transport you right back to the
main meeting room
and for those in attendance the main
meeting will stay running
you just won't see any of us all right
perfect thank you
so just to give people kind of an idea
we're going to take a short recess
probably
about 15 minutes to give people an
opportunity to get home and then we'll
probably have about a 10 or 15 minute
executive
and then we will start our meeting again
vince i'm just going to read the
executive session perfect i was just
going to ask thank you
whereas the open public's meetings act
permits the exclusion of the public from
a meeting in certain circumstances
and whereas this public body is of the
opinion that such circumstances
presently exist
and whereas the governing body wishes to
discuss matters of contract negotiations
minutes will be kept and once the matter
involving the confidentiality of the
above no longer requires that
confidentiality
then the minutes can be made public now
therefore be
resolved that the public be excluded
from this meeting this resolution shall
take effect immediately
ah thank you lynn
all right so we'll break for a short
recess and then once our other council
members have joined then we'll break for
executive
councilman handy are you going to stay
with the city clerk are you going home
i didn't get any of that you're muted
here now you can say
i'm heading back home okay thank you
bye everybody and good luck
hey paul can you uh unmute real quick
and give me a sound check
one two three four five gotcha thank you
very much john doran looks he's got a
head shot
for a modeling agency
i think that's from one of the polar
bear plunges his sister-in-law took a
couple of pictures of he and i down
there
and i think that's the from the same day
maybe two years ago or three years ago
when i was still chief
yeah looks good
oh there's vince
hmm
you
so
hello gotcha mike
all right
test one two three loud and clear dennis
thank you
as soon as the mayor comes back uh we'll
let him make the announcement about
executive again and then we'll shoot
over
yeah absolutely all right so welcome
back everybody for those of you who are
just joining the meeting
uh we opened our meeting as normal and
we had a couple swearing-ins we had four
of our members who needed to be sworn in
tonight some people did it earlier today
some people did it
at home and some people did it at city
hall so we're trying to keep everybody
spaced out and keep everybody safe
we're going to be moving into a short
executive session so uh
council members and our professionals
will have the opportunity this meeting
will continue to run
but you won't have access to that point
and then we should be back in about 10
or 15 minutes
lynn i don't know if you need to read
that announcement again if we're good
all right so we're covered so jim
whenever you're ready
uh move us to executive
oh my god
like a beam me in scotty uh moment huh
we're back bones bones where am i at
it's science 2021's already on a better
path
all right then i guess i'll turn it over
to fred do you have to do a summary or
something for us in order to move
forward you're muted just so you know
okay in executive session mayor and city
council discussed a
certain number of professional service
contracts
uh and the retaining of professionals
for uh certain functions
additional information will be made
available to the public in regard to
this discussion later this evening
that will be made through agenda items
that are on the public agenda which will
deal with
the issues discussed in the executive
session
with that said mayor i believe you're
ready to go ah perfect that uh fred
appreciate that all right so we're going
to move into our regular
uh agenda so we have approval of
december 16th council meeting minutes we
have a motion
second so i'll move second
uh any questions or comments
seeing none can we have roll call
i don't think lin got back in time
all right so we'll we'll follow this
beamer we got a hyper beam can we beam
around hyper
all right and then are we ready lin i
don't know if you can hear us or not yet
ready now thanks okay no problem i was
just checking in back i don't know if
he's back in his office yet
okay we'll wait for jim then
so
all right we got jim back i had to help
lynn take care of a technical issue
okay good it support always on the scene
all right then i guess we're ready for
roll call on the december 16th council
meeting minutes
did we have a motion in a second yeah
who who made the motion i
made the motion and then who said mike
seconded
i believe i believe mike seconded
maybe he's mike muted yeah
second yeah you
yes i'm sorry the terry
yes amy yes delucary
yes burden yes
here sarah yes motion carry
all right so we're going to open up for
public comment this is public comment on
agenda items only there'll be a second
public comment on the end when you can
speak about anything but the first one
is for agenda items only
if you wish to speak on any of the
agenda items
please signal to our city manager and he
will recognize you
i have no one trying to get my attention
mayor all right at this time we're going
to close the public session
alright so we have ordinance number one
of 2021
which is an introduction and this is
removal of the handicapped parking space
in front of
216 third street south can we have a
motion and second
i'll make that motion
second any questions or comments from
council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes terry yes
yes dude yes
burden yes sarah yes
mission carry
resolution 2021
[Music]
uh dash one award professional service
contract for city solicitor
and this is for parker mckay we have a
motion and second
i'll make that motion second
questions or comments from council
being none can we have roll call you
yes terry yes meanie
yes luke yes
bearden fred's the best yes
mayor sarah yes
resolution 2021-2 and this is award of
professional service contract for
conflict solicitor
uh sorry i make sure the right one here
all right this is for uh
barker gelflin james and cervas of
linwood
uh can we have a motion in second
so move second any questions or comments
from council
sing none can we have roll call you
yes terry yes genie
yes delucary yes
bearden yes sarah
yes ocean carry
resolution 2021 number three this is a
board of professional service contract
for bond council and this is for
mcminiman
scotland and bauman uh we have a motion
in second
some vote second any questions or
comments
from council seeing none can we have
roll call
you yes for terry yes
genie yes lukery yes
riordan yes mayor sarah
yes motion carry
all right give me one second hold on
um jim can you do me a favor can you
send the link again to
councilman neil cain he's having an
issue getting into the meeting yes if
you could resend the link
okay uh tell him i will uh text it over
to them
thanks
all right so we have resolution
2021-4 award professional service
contract for labor attune
attorney and this is for ruderman and
roth llc
can we have a motion and second
i'll make that move second
any questions or comments from council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes cheery yes
amy yes delucary
yes payne
i don't think he's on yet i think he's
coming in right
[Music]
i just sent him the link or probably a
minute
there he is
neil were you able to hear us about um
labor council
muted
he's on now but he's muted
and you know just to catch you up we're
on uh resolution
2021 number four which is municipal
labor council
and uh award of professional service
contract to reuterman and roth llc
and uh we're okay so votes to you
uh yes or no
kane yes
riordan yes here sarah
yes motion carried there
yes
all right resolution 2021 number five
award of professional service contract
for a municipal auditor and this is for
uh ford scott and associates of ocean
city new jersey can we have a motion
second i'll move jacket any questions or
comments from council
seeing none from we have roll call you
yes terry yes
any yes delucary
dean
yes riordan yes
mayor sarah yes ocean carry
resolution 2021 number six award of
professional service contract
for consulting engineer pool so this
would be for
dixon associates de blasio and
associates
cme associates who are in engineering
and robert's engineering group do we
have a motion and second
i'll make that motion second
any questions or comments from council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes terry yes
annie yes delicry
yes kane yes
riordan yes here sarah
yes ocean carried
resolution 2021 number seven award of
professional service contract for
municipal prosecutor
and this is to uh william reynolds uh do
we have a motion and second
go moved second any questions or
comments from council
seeing none can we have roll call view
yes erie yes amy
yes delucry yes kane
yes riordan yes
mayor sarah yes motion carry
resolution 2021 number eight award of
professional service contract for
conflict
prosecutor and this is for jenna cook
and we have a motion in a second
second any questions or comments from
council
sing none can we have roll call you
yes letieri yes
amy yes lukery
yes kane yes
riordan yes you're sarah
yes motion carried
resolution 2021 number nine award of
professional service contract for public
defender and this is for
jerry steiner can we have a motion in a
second
somehow jacking any questions or
comments from council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes the teary yes
genie yes delicate
yes kane yes
riordan yes bear sarah
yes motion carried
resolution 2021 number 10 award of
professional
service contract for alternate public
defender
and this would be to darren lord we have
a motion and second
i'll make that motion second
any questions or comments from council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes it's terry yes
amy yes delucary
yes kane yes
riordan yes mirror sarah
yes motion carried
resolution 2021 number 11 award of
professional service contract for risk
management consultant and this would go
to uh gene syracuse of syracuse
kauffman insurance agency we have a
motion and second
so second any questions or comments from
council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes
the teary yes genie yes
delucary yes
yes riordan yes
mayor sarah yes push and carry
resolution 2021 number 12 award of
professional service contract for health
insurance
broker services and this would uh be a
contract with innovative risk solutions
we have a motion in second i'll move
second any questions or comments from
council seeing none can we have roll
call
you yes the terry yes
yes deluca
resolution 2020-13 award of professional
surf
service contract for planner and grant
consultant and this would be for james
rotella
associates llc uh can we have a motion
second any questions or comments from
council
being none can we have roll call you yes
terry yes kanye yes
delivery
yes motion carried
resolutions 2021-14 award of
professional service contract
for continuing disclosure agent and this
would be
with phoenix advisors we have a motion
and second
some move second
any questions or comments from council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes terry yes
amy yes lucree
yes dean yes
yes yes
ocean carried
resolution 2021-15 award of professional
service
contract for registered municipal
finance advisor
and this would be with phoenix advisors
we have a motion in second
second any questions or comments from
council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes materi yes
eenie yes lukery
yes yes
riordan sarah
yes motion carry resolution
2021-16
and this is a resolution appointing
municipal joint insurance fund
contact person for the employee
practices liability attorney can
consultation services for the city of
brigantine
and this would be appointing uh james
bennett as the contact person
and molly o'neil as an additional
contact person
we have a motion and second one move
any questions or comments
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes
the teary yes amy
yes duluth yes
kane yes reardon
yes mirror sarah yes motion carried
resolution 2021-17 this is our temporary
budget
can we have a motion and second i'll
move
back exactly perfect uh just so people
know we do a temporary budget to make
sure that we can pay the bills
um this budget will stay in place until
we need to amend or adopt or until we
officially adopt our budget for the year
and this is just standard practice
so roxanne i don't know if there's
anything more you wanted to add with
that or if i covered it
i think you did just fine mayor you're
absolutely correct
thank you been raising me appreciate it
all right so are there any uh questions
or comments from council
ding none can we have roll call you
yes terry yes
amy yes
yes kane yes
your name yes you're sarah
yes motion carried
resolution 2021-18 this is our temporary
budget
debt service we have a motion and second
set mode
uh any questions and comments from
council
seeing none can we have her you
yes the teary yes
beanie yes delucary
yes kane yes
riordan yes air sarah
yes ocean carry
resolution 2021-19 and this is award of
contract for inspection services
for proposed installation of new
electrical services
and this would be to during engineering
um
can we have a motion and second some
moves
i just give people some background on
this this is part of the atlantic city
electric
infrastructure project that's coming in
they're running new power lines
and upgrading our system here as well as
their substation
we wanted to make sure that we have one
of our inspectors doing the work on this
and i believe that the money that's
being paid for this is being paid to the
city by atlantic city electric
those are um i guess any questions or
comments from council
seeing none can we have roll call you
yes retiri yes
amy yes delucary
yes kane yes
riordan yes mayor sarah
yes motion carried
all right so next up we need a voice
resolution for planning board
appointments
um lynn can i do them all together or do
i have to break them out separately
you can do them all together all right
perfect so for the planning board
um people who need to be replaced are uh
myself so vince sarah who would be a
class one this is for a one year term
uh we have trevor cohen who will be
representing the fire department as a
class two again for a one year term
uh councilman paul leteria is a class
three
for a one year term dory herndon
as a class four this will be for a four
year term
and frank alberti as a class four for a
four year term
we have bill hannon who is alternate
number three which is a two-year term
and jay ferreira who is alternate number
four which will be a two-year term
uh can we have a motion and second
second any questions or comments from
council
saying none can we have roll call you
yes the teary yes
any
haney stunned into silence
might be frozen yes is it did i come
through i don't know
yes ocean carried
all right so uh i see there's nothing on
our consent agenda for this meeting
so we will move into uh council manager
and committee discussions
uh jim do you have any updates for us
i'll try and keep it brief mayor as most
everybody has seen
uh the gas company has finally shown up
uh they're beginning their work on
glacier avenue
uh i should say they're about halfway
through it now they should be done by
thursday
the major paving the section from
sheridan square
to 15th street they'll also be making
the repairs to the cuts that they did
we are anticipating uh and i'll use the
word anticipating again
roosevelt boulevard to be paved starting
next monday
that will go out and i'd also like to
make sure that everybody's aware
we have a lot of work going on around
the island uh this week and into next so
we'll have the lighthouse circle
portions of it closed off and on
jf kylie and some of the other companies
for the gas company are still
out there doing the work so ask
everybody to please
take extra care and pay extra attention
when they're out there driving our roads
and that's it thank you perfect thank
you
all right let's get our first word
update from our deputy mayor karen bu
i first want to wish everybody a happy
new year hope everyone has a
healthy new year we haven't started it
off too well that
around here but we're gonna get through
it
um it was a great honor to have my
little sister
swear me in tonight even though it's not
the
celebration we had hoped for in uh
in city hall but it all went very well
my mom was able to
to witness it from a distance so that
made it special
um i wanted just like jen said ask
everybody to please be patient trying to
navigate
around the island it'll certainly be
worth it when
when every all the projects are finished
um and i'd like to wish a happy birthday
to vince
whose birthday will be the 17th before
our next meeting so
mr mayor happy birthday in advance
and that is it for this evening
thank you very much karen i appreciate
it uh let's hear from our
second word council person paul terry
yes first and foremost i'd like to
wish everyone a happy and healthy new
year
if you have any concerns i'm always
available
by email or phone um
there was some concern earlier today
about some of the black pines that are
missing from the
in front of the ramen units over by the
church
so if anybody sees anybody cutting down
any any
trees on the dunes please report it
immediately
that's all i have thank you
let's go to our third ward council
person dennis haney
thank you mayor i just want to
start off by saying that everything is
uh relatively common the third word
nothing of note
uh just the most part uh most of my
communications whatever i have to do
goes to john during and john's always on
top of stuff so
once again thank you john for your
efforts throughout the year
and uh with that i want to just as paul
stated just before me i
i too want to wish everybody a happy and
healthy new year
especially with everything that's been
going on
uh this past year i don't uh
obviously you know there's no need to
really go into it that further because
we see it on the news every day
but i wish everyone the best and stay
healthy i wish i hope everybody had a
nice merry christmas hanukkah whatever
holiday you celebrate and just i hope
everybody's holiday season
went well um i want to thank for over
the course of the year i did mention
john so our public service
uh workers who did such a great job i
know everyone gets paid for the job like
i've noted before in the past but uh
it's nice to give everybody a tip of the
cap for the good condition to keep our
city and
keep everything up to date and keep
everything safe
so public works police fire
our beast patrol in particular i want to
uh
thank our police department because this
was a quite the turbulent year
as we saw across the country just by
flicking on your tv at
certain points in time uh they did
an outstanding job uh we had a an event
here
back over the summer that they which was
a uh i guess i'll just call it a
social justice event uh and they handled
that
with uh to the utmost highest standards
and uh
a tip of the cap to everybody in the
police department for that
not just those that work the uh that
detail but
the entire police force uh from chief
rich cosmeto down to all the other
brazen members thank you very much
um i also just want to uh
i do want to speak uh mayor i could
speak even though it's been tabled i
could talk about the livestock uh
ordinance that's been tabled is that
correct uh
yeah you can speak about it but in order
for us to take any action i think it
needs to be advertised
okay okay um thank you
so i i just want to say that
it's first of all it's a beautiful story
and i'm not trying to
this is not meant in any type of
patronizing way or anything of that
nature
um the starlight nova and the young girl
in the family and rescuing this horse
i mean it's hard so uh
i don't want anybody to get the uh the
wrong message but i think we would be
remiss in the type of town that we have
uh basically being residential small
lots of seashore community
i really think at some point in the very
near future
we need to address this and i think we
need to get something
on the books um
uh starlight nova in particular being a
horse we have
uh if we were to move forward and get
some going on the books
the horse would be able to come during
those certain
months i guess that's april to october
or whatever it is it might not be the
exact month with
there abouts so the horse would still be
able to come and visit the island so to
speak
um i just think that if you when you
look at some of our other neighboring
shore towns
i for instance uh vetner margate
ocean city they have laws on their books
that
don't allow farm livestock and
things of that nature
and before something word ever happened
i think it would just be our best
interest
to do something and to get something on
the books and i know there's other
people people there's a great outpouring
on social media speaking up for the
horse and i appreciate those people and
and uh and their remarks and their
their sensitivities towards the
situation but there's a lot of other
people i think that would
would you know that might not even want
to speak up to
because they want to want people to get
the wrong idea about things there's
reasons that like i said that other
towns have things in the books i think
we
eventually need to move forward on on
something uh on an ordinance of that
nature
so uh other than that that's all i got
to say and uh
let's hope for a better 2021. thank you
thank you let's go to our fourth word
councilman rick delucry
thank you mayor um
i want to start as karen did by wishing
everyone a happy new year
my fellow council members our city
employees and everyone
in town uh and i made a point of staying
up even though it was a stay-at-home new
year's to make absolutely sure that 2020
left
there's no last minute switcheroo uh and
the transition went smoothly
2021's been a little challenging but
it's got to be better than 2020.
so that's good and one good thing and i
i suspect maybe vince will touch on this
a little bit
is the the rollout at the county level
of the vaccinations
um which can only be good news and
i don't know where council members stand
on the priority list
gotta be right near the top i would
guess um but whenever they get to us
you know let's let's do it in the right
order and get the people who need
protection
the protection they need uh and uh also
as
karen um recognized the person who swore
her in
i had the opportunity to go down to city
hall earlier today and i want to thank
lin sweeney
extraordinary city clerk for swearing me
in
uh i had i had hoped to do a little more
of a ceremony
than we were able to do i was talking
with the idea of maybe getting
starlight nova with mike reardon the
board to do a little parade
uh it didn't work out for various
reasons you know they couldn't decide
who was going to get top billing
uh and i think it was money issues too
but even with that
it it was good to be sworn in again and
thank you lynn
thank you very much rick all right let's
go to our uh
at large counseling joe king
well i want to start off by wishing
everybody a happy new year um
i appreciate being on the team and
working with everybody
uh congratulations everybody that was
sworn to say i'm sorry as you can see
i'm on the road and wasn't able to
attend um
please stay healthy i think everybody's
touched on pretty much everything that's
going on around the island with all the
construction
it took me 10 minutes to get off the
island today um but it's
like you said it's all going to be worth
it everything's going gonna fall into
place
uh all they could say is please uh stay
healthy
do the best we can we'll get through
this and uh that's all i've got so
thanks again perfect thank you that's
here for um
our at large councilman mike reardon
all right i want to thank everybody for
tuning in here
see a couple new faces and it's always a
pleasure to and appreciate everybody
taking the time to tune in here
um happy new year and
best wishes to everybody uh for the new
year uh i want to invite everybody to
the 26th street parking lot this
saturday for pony rides with dennis's
house behind dennis's house
uh just kidding
uh other than that you know
uh despite what it what the
the year that was last year uh such with
the pandemic
when i look around some of the other
communities in south jersey
and our businesses and things uh the
number of cases we had
and um a small a couple deaths
i mean we we did very very well i was
talking to a few other council people
earlier on
how we see other businesses closing up
in communities and
i don't think there was a business that
closed in brigantine
so uh we're looking forward to a good
year
i know uh there's some prospects we've
been approached for some new businesses
coming up which is
are going to be exciting so that's very
very good news
um and uh that's basically it so
uh that's it thank you perfect thanks
mike
again i'd like to wish everybody a happy
healthy and safe new year
and i hope everybody had a great holiday
season and again congratulations
more council members who were sworn in
today and to our entire team
you know thank you for everything that
all of you and each and every one of you
do for our community
you know and mike touched on some good
things you know brigantine is in a very
good position and it's because of the
teamwork you know the council our
professionals our
you know people in the community in our
chamber of commerce like we've
worked hard to get through the pandemic
and make sure that we could be in the
best possible situation that we could
potentially be in and um
i think our community has really been
successful with that
i know councilman delucary talked about
the vaccines i know one of the first
things
that they tried to roll it out for is
our healthcare workers to make sure that
the medical professionals and healthcare
workers had first access to it
i'm not sure if anybody saw the
announcement from the governor today
but um they're rolling it out for uh
police and fire
next i believe that our firefighters at
least a number of our firefighters have
had the first round of vaccination i
believe the police are coming up next
and um they're trying to make sure that
we get this out i don't know where
council members or
elected officials stand on that list i
know some of the very high high level up
people who
received it but i don't know where we uh
we are on that list i believe teachers
are coming up in the next round too
so you'll see that come out and as more
information is available i believe the
governor will be
releasing that information but i'm very
happy to see our health care
professionals and
you know our police and firefighters who
are out there on the front line every
day to keeping us safe
just a side note i guess because we
didn't do rice notice i won't do the
specific name but
i received a really nice phone call
about one of our firefighters who went
above and beyond in a situation uh covet
situation there was a
elderly woman who went to the hospital
who had coveted
when they sent her home she was healthy
enough to come home but i guess still
a risk of contamination i guess somehow
her medication didn't make it home to
her
and they were not able to get it to her
and she was obviously not able to go get
it i know one of our firefighters went
above and beyond and made sure that um
was able to go to the hospital and make
sure that she had her
medicine so she could stay healthy so
i'm very very proud of
our uh firefighters and the work that
they do every day and i just wanted to
know that um you know we get a lot of
phone calls about all of our city
departments but that was something that
atop was
you know really touching uh for us i'm
going to give kind of an update too
on um uh
tennis and uh pickleball i know we had
uh looked to get that out we're supposed
to have those contracts up and running
there was an issue with the sewer line
that was
being run for the new bathroom i guess
the way the pitch didn't work had to be
sent back to the design phase
and also with the electrical for the
lights in the parking lot
i believe so that was sent back those
issues have now been resolved in the
design phase and we should be having
that go out to bid
soon on the construction so it's a
little behind cover to slow things down
but we're now in a better position to
move forward
and i think as soon as those bids come
back we should see something in the next
couple weeks about being able to award
that contract
uh one of the things we've also been
talking about too uh here at city
council is kind of
moving the city into the 21st century
and starting to look at some of the
digitizing i know the city manager and i
have
met with some different businesses and
are looking at some different options
and something i'd like city council to
start to kind of think about
is an area i really think we could
digitize and benefit from
would be with our community center we
have a number of programs
and classes that we run down there and i
know that people have to come to the
community center they have to line up
they have to be there at certain times
to fill out paperwork
then that paperwork has to be digitally
entered uh some of the other cities i've
kind of looked into that have moved in
this direction
have actually set up online forms and
online payments
to kind of streamline that process and
this especially with covid i don't know
that we want to try to bring groups of
people together
but even um just for the convenience of
the people the community to be able to
sign up online and you know have that
data available instead of having
somebody have to retype and figure it
out
and it's something that i would like us
to explore and if it's something we
could make work you know as a council
i'd like to move forward on that so i
just wanted to give
you know kind of council an idea that we
were working on this on the background
and it could be a huge benefit
to the city um
that being said we will move to our
public comments so public comments at
this time can be on any topic you'd like
to speak about
if you'd like to speak here at the
meeting just signal to our city manager
and uh he will recognize you
i see uh dennis the gentleman with the
glasses on go ahead sorry not mute
yourself
hey dennis
i think you're actually still muted
there you go
i'm okay now yes you're perfect uh yes i
i want to
this is dennis riley 28th street
here in town let me start out by
wishing all of you our council
members a happy
healthy and safe 2021.
i want you to know i really appreciate
uh
all the hard work that you do um
the commitments that you've had to make
uh in 2020 uh given the
very difficult situation with the
pandemic
um if if you don't hear it often
you should thank you very much for uh
all you do
uh for keeping brigantine the
wonderful uh island that we all
love and enjoy and um
kind of dovetailing my comments into my
council member dennis haney's earlier
uh remarks regarding the um
keeping of animals
uh in private residences um i did a
little summary here so i
would ask you to bear with me and be
patient so i don't miss anything
but in going through the ordinances i
found that we have an ordinance that
prohibits fouls
such as chickens pigeons turkeys
pheasants quails and roosters
along with their associated poops and
cages
from being kept in the city and i think
that was a very prudent war prudent
ordinance we also have an ordinance that
governs the keepings of dogs and cats
and other wild animals
and their associated behaviors and the
behaviors of the owners
i also found that horses are only
allowed on
public beaches after securing a
permit from the city then i did a search
on the word livestock and could not find
it anywhere in the code
now i'm not purporting to be an expert
on our code believe me but
i then checked our zoning ordinances and
found that r1 residential does not have
any prohibitions
against keeping livestock in private
residences
livestock not only includes horses but
it also includes cattle
sheep goats poultry and pigs that's the
addiction
very definite these are animals that are
commonly raised in agricultural setting
of course we all know that
and that's where we would hope that they
would continue to be raised
without some type of ordinance to
clarify the city's position
any of these animals could be housed at
a private residence
and the city would have no legal
recourse
to deal with it under our current
laws that's my big concern
what will you do what can you do what
recourse do you have
should my neighbor your neighbor or
anyone else's neighbor decide that
members of the livestock group are going
to be part of their private residence
and so uh not to be overly dramatic but
simply to
to ask council to perhaps revisit
in light of what i just said tonight uh
some of your thoughts regarding
uh the possibility of an ordinance to
to at least clarify
what the city's position is relative to
that subject that's it
[Music]
and that's actually something we started
the process on uh we do have the
workings of an ordinance now and i think
one of the things that we're trying to
work with council and actually
with um you know the owner of the
property too is just
how to make it work because we want an
instance where like you said
you know you don't have it getting out
of control or the city does have some
kind of recourse but we also want to
make sure because there does seem to be
a lot of support for allowing
at least a specific course to be able to
come to the island
for short periods of time i know right
now in the last meeting even the owner
agreed that um
horses and other livestock should never
permanently live here in brigantine
but is asking for some type of
understanding if if
they could bring their horse especially
when uh during the months that we allow
horseback riding on the beach
for like two and they said maybe a long
weekend
i know some of the enviro uh some of the
animal rights groups that were kind of
concerned with that said that as long as
the owner didn't agree
or didn't want to keep it here full time
that being here for
for a day or two wasn't a big deal so i
think we're trying to work out with our
attorney
how we construct that language that it
makes sense the problem we get into is
the more you
try to define it the more you kind of
create
more of a situation that allows it so
that's what we're trying to figure out
legally how we do it
and uh dennis i want to thank you uh for
speaking up about this and your concerns
and uh
you know we've all talked about it and
the one situation that brought this all
on
of course was very special like
councilman haney
mentioned earlier um but
we are protected realistically we are
protected
i mean um dr frank
on bayshore i mean their property's
almost an acre
large you know an acre of property there
but um are ours our zoning laws already
in place so if anywhere just
anybody would start bringing livestock
on their property
at that time it's a farm and we're not
you're zoned residential so we do have
protection right now
without having to jump in and and get
get uh crazy and have something on the
books we realistically are
protected right now by our zoning laws
uh this uh exception that we had with
starlight nova
they came to the city manager and mayor
simpson at the time
and they're very good people so i really
don't we don't have to worry
about this and uh that that's not going
to happen
they're not going to be milking cows
next to your house although i was
counting sheep the other night here on
kirkwood circle
um uh before this meeting you know the
night before
but uh we'll we'll be okay
thank you okay thank you thanks mike
well
again um you are checking on
the ramifications uh as it pertains to
our protections under
as you say mike zoning and
lot sizes and so forth yeah you're not
going to find very many lot sizes
the size of the doctor's house and
i certainly don't have one that large
and my neighbors don't either
and that's where my concern comes in
you know
the private residences and all the
private residences across the island so
i appreciate it thank you very much for
listening yeah
uh if i could just jump into uh dennis
and mike
um and nobody doubts for a second that
that's not a
wonderful family and a beautiful act
that they did rescuing now and i alluded
to that
earlier the the thing is why i decided
to speak
about this this evening and bring it up
was we are zoned residential
we're not zoned livestock we're not
zoned farm
what's to prevent anybody we really we
can't just
give someone in a residential area a
certain
right to have a livestock or farm animal
without
really extending that to maybe even a
small animal per se
like a miniature goat or whatever it
might be next thing you know you have
someone's there's there's all kinds of
details a lot of these
different statutes that i was looking
over for instance there's things that
address
even beekeeping and people if they have
chickens and
next thing you have someone with a few
chickens out there or pot belly pig
or whatever but we just we are not
zoned we are we have residential zones
commercial zones
business zones we don't have farms we
don't have farmland we don't have
livestock
and when mayor of god bless his soul
when
mayor simpson was here he went and
he spoke to him and you know the
understanding is
when i was talking to andy after this
was you know that
the horse would be you know at a certain
point in time if he was nice and healthy
be
moving offshore and we really can't have
a
gray areas i don't think where any
anyhow not not just
starlight nova any animal can be brought
in uh
we just need to that's why we just need
to have something
in place and and that's the same exact
reasons why
a lot of our other bordering towns have
ordinances that are structured just as
the one that we had
introduced a couple weeks ago so i you
know
it's it's something that needs to be
done and thank you for your words dennis
uh you spoke uh quite well thank you
thank you
mayor uh next up is uh william reynolds
good evening everyone first and foremost
thank you for
the opportunity to serve the city again
while i was on zoom i just drove from
port republic back to my office in
brigantine
and i was able to keep on the zoom call
and listen to everything everybody said
and
i agree that there's been a great team
assembled here in brigantine and i'm
happy to be on it and happy to serve
uh as many of you know i have
uh returned to the city i moved back i'm
now on barton circle
it's a uh it's a wonderful thing for
both me and my family my boys love
living here
love playing with all the kids in the
neighborhood and
you know quite frankly it is so
nostalgic and great that it's a great
feeling for my family my brothers myself
and my sons that
i'm looking forward to creating
new memories here in brigantine and
serving the island and i really
appreciate the opportunity
brigantine was the first town to give me
the opportunity as the
prosecutor in atlanta county and i have
now accumulated
numerous towns and i was appointed
tonight eht as well
and it's one of the things that i can
tell you that i'm very proud of that
i was given an opportunity in brigantine
and i was able to
capitalize on that and expand my
practice and
you know provide for my family and it's
been a great experience and i look
forward to serving the island and being
on the island all the time thank you
very much i appreciate the opportunity
uh thank you very much we you've done an
outstanding job for the city and we're
happy to have you here and i'm glad to
hear your success in
your other towns
good stuff bill i've been in that court
in port republic
people aren't familiar with that area
they make a wrong turn they're lost
mayor i don't see anybody else trying to
get our attention
all right so at this time we're going to
close public comment
is there any final council comments
i see none can we have they i guess
motion to adjourn
don't move second all in favor
even people in the audience are raising
their hand so i'd like to
thank everybody for joining our council
tonight and watching your city
government at work and we look forward
to seeing you guys
at about two weeks you know have a happy
and safe new year and we'll see
everybody soon
bye thank you thank you thank you i
gotta go out and feed the cattle