OLD BRIDGE TOWNSHIP COUNCIL
AGENDA MEETING
December 4, 2000
An Agenda Meeting of the Township Council of the Township of Old Bridge was held on December 4, 2000 in the Municipal Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:00 p.m. by
President Maher, who invited all to participate in a salute to the flag followed by a short prayer.
Roll call by Deputy Clerk Stella Ward showed the following answering present:
Councilmen Butler, Cucchiara, Greene, Redmond, Testino, President Maher.
Councilman Sohor arrived at 8:05 p.m.; Councilwoman Marinaccio and Councilman Hoff were absent.
GUEST PRESENTATION - INSURANCE PROPOSALS
President Maher: We have our consultant, Steve Edwards of BGIA who has reviewed the proposals from Central Jersey JIF, Mercer JIF and Middlesex JIF. I have asked Mr. Edwards to limit his comments to 5-10 minutes on who he is recommending and then we will give the representatives from each of the JIF's a chance to present their proposals and then the Council will formally take action on this at our December 11, 2000 meeting.
Councilman Testino: Councilman Hoff is ill this evening and he asked that we not take action on this till next Monday.
Steve Edwards: I want to thank the entire Township Committee as well as Alayne Shepler whom I have been working with for the last several months and I hope that I have the opportunity to work with her again. We were hired in May by the Township to solicit property and casualty insurance quotations from the brokerage in connection with the Township's upcoming January 1st annual renewal of all property, liability, worker's comp exposures. We placed an ad to begin that process on June 2nd in the Home News requesting that any broker interested in receiving a market assignment should contact us. We received notice from two brokerage firms in particular; Heiden Planning Risk and Insurance Consulting Services. They requested the Central Jersey Fund, the Middlesex Joint Insurance Fund, General Security and Trans-America Insurance Group as the markets they wanted to approach respectively.
We granted each the right to approach these markets on behalf of Old Bridge. I wanted to point out that no other interested parties notified us in writing of any interest to provide Old Bridge with a quotation. Based on those proposals that we received, it is our recommendation that the Township move its property casualty insurance program from the Mercer County JIF, which I do want to say is a very good well run JIF and their representatives are here in the audience tonight. However, it is our belief that you would be better served to move the program to the Central Jersey JIF. At this point I would like to go to the overhead and elaborate.
By way of background, BGIA is a public entity insurance group and we represent about 50 public clients throughout the State and Municipalities as well as school boards. Our exclusive purpose is to work with public entities around the State. The first sheet is a spread sheet on the various proposals we received. Two commercial carriers General Security and TIG submitted quotations and we did not consider them because in both cases they did not include a worker's compensation proposal, so we disqualified them for that reason. The Central Jersey JIF and the other two JIF's submitted their quotes and are very similar in pricing. There are a couple of reasons why we recommended the Central Jersey JIF. The first reason is environment coverage and Mike Avalone from Central Jersey JIF will be able to explain that to you. This is coverage that you presently do not have with the Mercer JIF. The other reason that we are recommending the Central Jersey JIF over Mercer is for the same price, actually a little cheaper, you would receive the services of a risk manager. I have a listing of the various services that a risk manager would provide you with. Suffice it to say that all of these services that I have listed are services that are not currently being provided to the Township by an independent risk manager. I think it is an important point to make that probably 90%-95% of public entities in the State of New Jersey have a risk manager, or some sort of insurance professional who is between the Township and your carrier. In this case the JIF really is just another insurance carrier at the end of the day. It is our view that you need an independent company to give you objective advice. As a matter of fact, Jack Coughlin before he left, was very interested in selecting a risk manager. His position was that he was not an insurance expert and he was not in the market place and he felt it was in the best interest of the Township to have someone who was in the marketplace. The coverage between Mercer JIF and Central Jersey JIF are basically the same except for the environmental coverage and the services of the risk manager, essentially everything else is the same. Let me say I am not making my recommendation based on the price difference because there really is not any significant difference.
On Friday evening about 6:00 pm, I received a letter from Alayne Shepler that was sent to her by Mr. Kurtz, who is in the audience tonight, who would like to submit to you a proposal from the General Security Company, who I mentioned earlier had submitted a quote a few months back. This time, Mr. Kurtz wants to submit for your consideration a program in which you would have a separate self-insured program for your comp and that you be fully insured with General Security for all other coverages. I have some reservations about that. You have been insured with the JIF for over 14 years now and let me say I am not in the position because I just received this information to make any kind of recommendation one way or the other. While I have some concerns, I think it would be unfair to General Security to rush to judgment. The problem is that we establish guidelines for a reason to keep it fair to both the broker and carrier community. Those guidelines are very clear, we place an ad in the newspaper and if they want to quote they could based on the guidelines. It is the prerogative of the Council to meet Mr. Kurtz and talk about his application further that is up to you. The problem is that we do not have a lot of time. This Council has to make a decision by the end of this month because the renewal date is January 1st. With regard to Mr. Kurtz's letter there are some discrepancies and I feel compelled to point them out to you.
Mr. Kurtz talks about the fact that we went out into the market in July 2000 and he indicates that is highly unusual because carriers will not provide valid quotations more than 60 days in advance. I want to point out that Mr. Kurtz submitted a proposal which he later withdrew on November 2nd, and I did not receive anything in writing. What I want the Council to understand is that you had to give notice to the Mercer County JIF by the end of September as to your intentions. When reviewing Mr. Kurtz's proposal lots of things came to mind and these are questions that I need to review and get answers too. Right now I have more questions than I have answers.
Councilman Redmond: When will you be prepared to discuss this other quote?
Steve Edwards: I need some direction from the Council on this. I am sitting on a proposal that is invalid based on the guidelines that we put out.
Councilman Redmond: We went through this whole process a while back and we were asked to wait because Mercer had not submitted their proposal, so we waited. Now, you're saying "guidelines", why did we wait on Mercer and you were not here and we were asking where you were and Ms. Shepler said that Mercer wanted some time to put their proposal together. Why wouldn't we extend this same courtesy to Mr. Kurtz?
Steve Edwards: Again, that is completely up to you.
Alayne Shepler: I just think that you should know that Mr. Kurtz did not present his proposal to us until 4:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon. The quotations on the spread sheet that I sent you represent the quotations from Middlesex County JIF. In the letter he submitted on December 1st, Mr. Kurtz stated that the proposal included in his letter is under Governmental Risk Management and is not the Middlesex County JIF. Mr. Kurtz is not proposing that you go back to the Middlesex JIF, but rather to a commercial carrier.
Councilman Sohor: How long would it take for you to reconstruct the analysis that you gave us including Mr. Kurtz's proposal?
Steve Edwards: I don't know exactly how much time it would take, but it is my job as your consultant to do whatever you ask me to do. For the sake of continuity I would like to have Mike Avalone of the Central Jersey JIF give you a brief review of this proposal.
President Maher: You have analyzed two proposals am I correct?
Steve Edwards: I analyzed both the Central Jersey and the Mercer County JIF's and earlier I also reviewed General Insurance, which Mr. Kurtz is proposing now, but they did not have a comp alternative at that time, but now Mr. Kurtz states they do. I also analyzed the TransAmerican Insurance Group as well.
Mike Avalone: I am from the Central Jersey JIF and a quick note to add on to Steve's presentation with respect to risk management and loss control is something that Old Bridge has enjoyed with its membership in the Mercer fund and is something that has contributed to the positive results of that fund. This is due to the risk management and loss control fund that is part of the membership of the JIF fund. Another point is the Environmental Fund, it is very difficult to condense five years of success into two minutes time, but the last financial report of the N.J. Environmental Management Fund shows definite growth. The fund has had a very tangible effect with regard to coverage and services. The environmental package not only includes assisting municipalities with an assessment not only from a general safety standpoint but from a regulatory standpoint. It includes engineering services that assist membership continually not only for a one time assessment but continual assessments, trains and updates and looks at the regulatory environment in fact EJIG is connected with the regulatory agencies and we have a liaison relationship with the DEP. The EJIF currently has over 3.1 million dollars in surplus so it is well funded from a claims standpoint and services standpoint and hopefully in time we will have the dividend posture in place.
President Maher: Can you give us some background on the Central Jersey JIF?
Mike Avalone: It was formed on July 1, 1998 with three charter members, Woodbridge, Edison and Piscataway. In 2000, we added Township of Franklin and Hillsboro.
President Maher: So if Old Bridge were to join you would technically have the three largest townships in the County. Will the representatives of Mercer please come forward.
Dave Coughlin: I am the chairman of the Mercer Joint Insurance Fund and in real life, I am the manager of Ocean Township in Monmouth County. I have been the chairman in the Mercer JIF for the past seven years and have been a participant since 1989. The Mercer JIF was formed in 1987 at the time it was appropriately named because it was 100% Mercer participants.
Mercer is probably now a misnomer, our participation involves four different municipalities in four different counties and more participants are from outside of Mercer than from inside. In fact, we are in the process of a name change to make it more generic to our membership. Old Bridge we were pleased to have join us in 1998 and at the time we looked very carefully at Old Bridge and we considered it to be a good fit in terms of your losses. We were also fortunate to save your community $171,357.00 at the time, which is fairly significant. In the time that you have been with the Mercer JIF your assessments have dropped down to $1,016,000 which is the price before you and you actually started out at $1,089,000. The Mercer philosophy is highly tied to stability of assessments and we try not to have any fluctuation because we are sensitive to the municipal budgets. We have a very conservative funding philosophy designed to avoid special assessments. There is a possibility in the JIF movement of special assessments and we have never had one in our history.
We also have a philosophy of maintaining a pattern of refunds and a concentration on loss control. Part of our loss control is that part of the assessment comes directly back to you, close to $5000 is immediately rebated back to Old Bridge so that you can institute some loss control programs, so our assessment really nets down to $1,011,000. As your consultant stated there is a very small difference between the two JIF funds dollar wise.
As an example, Ocean Township has been in the fund since 1989 and in the year 2000 our refund is $146,174.00. Of that refund 71.5% is from the JIF assessment and the remaining 28.5% is from the MEL assessments, so almost 3/4 of our refund is coming from the JIF as opposed to the MEL. The success of the JIF is really is in the word "joint". I would ask you to take into careful consideration who you are sharing your risk with. In the Mercer JIF we have communities such as Holmdel, Colts Neck, Pennington, Montgomery, Princeton, all of which are very stable communities, although smaller than Old Bridge, when you talk about the loss pattern of these types of communities, you have something that you are going to share in their positive experience. One of our larger communities East Brunswick, is the poster child in our JIF in terms of their loss control program and they have an outstanding profile in loss history and very positive situation and we are very happy to share risk with them just like we are happy to share risk with Old Bridge. The reason that is so important is that it relates directly the potential for special assessments and the pattern of assessments over time as well as to your refunds and I can't stress enough our positive refund history. The Central Jersey JIF is not in a position to really address you on that point because of their only being existence for 2 ½ years and they have not been able to show it because you have to be in the movement for 3 years in order to allow the State regulators granting you permission to grant any type of refund. There are other subtle differences between Mercer and Central Jersey JIF's, we have different attachment point and we have $100,000 before the MEL kicks in and if you were with the Central Jersey JIF you would have underlying risk of one quarter million before the MEL would kick in.
They provide their worker's comp through the MEL, we provide ours as part of our underlying coverage and we think our smaller group has a better worker's comp exposure history than all of the Municipalities that are part of the MEL. With regard to the environmental JIF, we were approached by them when it was formed and we made a conscious decision not to join. We thought that if you look at New Jersey and some of the more urban areas where industry started early on, some of the potential for risk and who we would be a part of, was not necessarily in our best interest. We considered the possibility of special assessment if there were any kind of catastrophic losses and our members sharing in that cost for the environmental problems of others. Obviously, I don't think you had environmental coverage with Middlesex and I know you did not have it with us and you obviously have not had a problem in that period of time.
In conclusion, I think that we can offer you continuity and in terms of your present membership with us, you have proven good fit with our group and we have a proven track record over 14 years and with that, I will turn it over to Mr. Neeley.
Mr. Neeley: Thank you for allowing me to speak on this and I have worked with Steve Edward and I respect his opinion and he has given you two reasons why he thinks you should go to Central Jersey JIF as opposed to remaining with Mercer. I just want to give you a little perspective on that. I am the Finance Officer for East Brunswick and I look at insurance as an investment; I would hope that you would do the same. There is always some company looking to buy your business first year, but what are you really doing with the million dollars that you are putting out for your claims. That million dollars is not going to be spent the first year, in fact it takes 2-3 years before a claim is spent, and that money is reinvested. That is the key point. Since 1987, the people that initially joined the Mercer JIF have received 100% of their initial premiums back. We have given back from 1987-1997 the total premiums collected of 49 million, we have given back 10 million dollars in the form of dividends. As soon as we receive your money we invest it and we process your claims. As your experience goes on, you are going to receive, in fact as part of the Mercer JIF you will receive dividends because next year you will be eligible to receive them and you will receive money back from us. This year we are giving back to our members in the Mercer JIF over one million dollars. The comment about the MEL giving back 4½ million dollars among the 287 communities in the State, you are still going to get that because you are part of the MEL through the Mercer JIF. So you will be receiving dividends back from the MEL as well as from Mercer JIF because we invest the money prudently. That is a real important consideration because you don't have that with Central Jersey JIF. I would suggest that you ask you finance officer to look at the investment you are going to make. Workmen's Comp is your biggest risk. The 305 Old Bridge Employees are your biggest risk. Those people are out protecting you, police and safety, public works and all of your recreation people are out there on the line everyday, if they get hurt, that is the expense. The attachment point is $100,000 for the Mercer JIF, so if you have an employee who has gotten hurt it is very easy to spend $100,000 and once you exceed that it goes up to the MEL and you are covered and through our fund you are only at risk for $100,000. Through the Central Jersey JIF the attachment point is $250,000, so the money you are putting in is another $150,000 of exposure that you have and reduce the amount of money that you might have coming back in the form of dividends. The difference between the bottom line price of the Central Jersey JIF and Mercer JIF is a little over $12000.00. However, for $12000.00 you don't have $150,000 worth of risk for every one of your employees who may as a worker's comp claim exceed the attachment point and that is a significant difference. We think that is important because we have a proven experience and through our management committee and our executive committee we take those claims and under those conditions you have a very good experience. You have had employees who have exceeded the $100,000, in fact you had two this year and if you were not part of the Mercer JIF you would have spent additional money and that would shrink your potential dividends or refunds in a later year. That is why I am suggesting that you look at this carefully.
I would suggest that you ask your financial officer to look at the finance records of what might be happening with Central Jersey vs. Mercer JIF for investment opportunity and the rate of return. We have a fund balance of over 7 ½ million dollars in the Mercer JIF for our grouping.
That is a significant layer of protection that you do not have through the Central Jersey JIF and I have our financial statement with me tonight if you would like to have a copy. To review we are financially solvent, we have a 14 year history of giving dividends. If you look at the environmental risk, I think that your environmental risk is greater by joining with those communities that you may have a special assessment with as opposed to having your own environmental control. You are essentially watching what happens in your town; your fire districts watch and report. Essentially, you don't know was is going on in these other urban communities. We have made a conscious choice not to be part of that. The other aspect is the risk manager. We believe that by giving back and allowing your own safety committee to have an operating fund and allow your people to be part of the process, they feel ownership and that is our concept of risk management to have your people involved. I would suggest that you have your financial officer look at the investment because this is not for today but for the next three years as these claims go through and how much of your investment are you going to return to you and how much is going to be spent because of attachment points. I think I have made my point and if you have questions, I will be happy to answer them.
Councilman Butler: You mentioned something about 100% return, is this on investment?
Mr. Neeley: The initial charter members of the Mercer JIF, seven of them, the assessment premium that they paid in 1987 the year it was formed, they have gotten back 100% of those dollars, because of claim management, investment over time and on-going dividends.
Basically, you are going to invest 1 million dollars with whatever company you choose, and what will you receive back from it? Besides the protection level because we are all going to give you the general protection for the excess, the stop loss, et cetera, you are going to get the same level of protection.
Councilman Redmond: What communities are in the Mercer JIF?
Mr. Neeley: There is Aberdeen, Colts Neck, Cranbury, Heightstown, Holmdel, Hopewell, Montgomery Township, Ocean Township, Old Bridge, Princeton, Washington Township and East Brunswick.
President Maher: Himanshu, can I have your reaction to Mr. Neely's comments?
Himanshu Shah: I would have to look at the financial information.
Mr. Neeley: First of all, you would have to be in it for three years and in the fourth year you would be eligible to start on refunds. You will receive a portion of your first year's assessment that you paid which was $1,089,000 and until we do a financial audit I will not be able to tell you what that number will be. The following year you would receive a portion of that figure again plus your second year and every year that you are with us you will receive on-going refunds. For example, East Brunswick has been in the plan since 1990 and this year they will be receiving approximately $71,000 from Mercer JIF and about $46,000 from the MEL as a dividend. East Brunswick is 100% self-insured and your refund would probably be greater than that of East Brunswick, because you are a full participant. That is why I asked that your financial officer look at money management of each fund and there are certain guidelines that he can look at and he can see what he thinks about the money management and that is a real important question that you might want to consider.
Steve Edwards: May I suggest that anything you want the Township Committee to consider that you send it to me and I will review it and forward it to the Council and the Mayor.
President Maher: Himanshu, I would like you to look at it from an investment direction and advise us.
Mr. Kurtz: Old Bridge is one of the charter members of the Middlesex JIF, joining in 1986. Quite frankly having had the Middlesex JIF pay out $1.12 for every dollar that they took in from Old Bridge we were quite surprised that they left three years ago. We found the bidding process here a little unusual to say the least; to go out in July for a premium to be held in January.
You note that Mercer JIF could not give a quote that early and neither could Middlesex JIF. We did issue a proposal subject to review and board approval on September 15th. For the next several weeks, having not heard anything and we issued through a broker Highview Planning, we withdrew the quote because we felt we were the only ones in and our quote was going to be used merely to get numbers from other carriers. When I withdrew the quote, I figured I was out. I then learned that the fourth person coming were submitted by the same broker, Highview Planning and the Middlesex JIF and the Central Jersey JIF, the other two were Risk and Insurance Consulting who works for Highview Planning and in addition Mr. Edwards and Highview Planning are partners on a good number of deals. Also, Mr. Edwards is the underwriting manager for the Central Jersey JIF and I find it unusual that the consultant is coming in and recommending his own program. When we learned that I put together a program, we use General Security in the Middlesex JIF for our excess carrier. I contacted them about giving us a fully insured quote for the Township. So we have this quote from General Security which fully insures your liability protection and your limits are up to $70 million dollars. In addition to that under the public official liability we do not have a $5000 deductible per claim and we do not have a 20% co-insurance for up to the first $100,000.
I also took a serious look at your workmen's compensation. Prior to Old Bridge leaving the Middlesex JIF we instituted a managed care program where in 1994 and 1995 Old Bridge comp losses were $449,000 and $482,000 respectively. With the managed care program we now use in 1996 and 1997 they were cut down to $238,000 and $299,000 respectively. With the program in the Mercer JIF for the past two years for 1998 and 1999 your losses were $454,000 and $444,000. So we too feel that controlling your losses is going to be the way to controlling your premiums. So I offered a program where we self insure your workers compensation coverage with a $400,000 self insurance fund, which Old Bridge would keep in their bank account and manage it with our master care and pay on an as-needed basis and in the meantime you would be getting interest on the money. Mr. Neeley was a little off in saying that the Middlesex JIF never paid a dividend, we did twice. It is a philosophy of the commissioners that we take a large self-insurance retention in Middlesex County JIF in order to reduce our excess insurance costs. We now have 13-14 million dollars in assets with a pure surplus of $1.6 million.
The commissioners will vote in January as to whether or not to return a dividend. So I have a little problem with the way the bidding process was done and that is the reason I submitted the quote this way. The claims would be managed by Middlesex JIF with Mastercare and I think you have heard enough about JIF's, this is a guaranteed cost program with a possible savings on a return for your losses in your worker's compensation program.
President Maher: Getting back to Mr. Sohor's question, how many hours would it take for you to analyze Mr. Kurtz's proposal and lay it out for us?
Steve Edwards: It will take a few hours of discussion with Mr. Kurtz and then several hours of analysis and research depending on what we uncover. Let me just point out one quick thing so there is no misconception on how this was put together. I talked about the bidding process and I am not going to repeat it. I am not exactly sure what Mr. Kurtz was trying to say before, but what he fails to tell you is that only a handful of carriers who can handle this type of business and we all work together so we all have close relationships. As a matter of fact, I worked very closely with Mr. Kurtz a year ago when I tried to convince Mr. Neeley in East Brunswick to leave the Mercer JIF and join Mr. Kurtz's JIF. I had recommended Mr. Kurtz's JIF in the past. I have also served as risk manager for the City of New Brunswick and I have made recommendations in the past to try and improve that fund. Nothing against the Middlesex JIF, and I want to add that one of the other carriers proposed a TIG and I have an exclusive arrangement with New Jersey, I have placed over 20 public entities with the TIG, so one could suggest that I wanted the business to go to TIG. I have been as objective as I possibly can and you can be the final judge of that, but no one tried to steer business in any particular direction.
Mayor Cannon: I just wanted to ask why Middlesex withdrew their proposal?
Mr. Kurtz: Quite frankly because we thought we were being "back doored" by the other brokers.
Mayor Cannon: I was not aware that we ever received a quote from Mr. Kurtz.
Mr. Kurtz: Well Mayor, I gave the quote to the broker and I withdrew it through the broker by letter.
Mayor Cannon: The other thing is why would you recommend that we go back to what we had essentially fourteen years ago when we are having relatively good success being in the JIF? Wouldn't it be going against the tide, the idea was that we would get together with other municipalities to try have a better way of funding this and stabilize the insurance costs, so again I ask why would you recommend that we go back to the commercial market.
Mr. Kurtz: Well there are times that the commercial market is the best deal and there are times that the JIF is best. Overall, I think it is best to stay in the JIF and I don't believe that you should hop around from one JIF to another and if you are going to stay with JIF, I think you should stay with the Mercer County JIF. Your premium is going to be driven by your loss history.
Alayne Shepler: Mr. Kurtz is it a coincidence or did I just read the numbers wrong, that the quotes submitted by Middlesex JIF is exactly the same as this quote as you submitted under the General fund?
Mr. Kurtz: You are correct and the coverage is exactly the same.
President Maher: I know that it is difficult for all the representatives from the JIF to be here this evening. This is not how I wanted to plan this meeting out when I heard that Steve was giving us his proposal tonight. So I appreciate the opportunity that you folks did come down and I would like Himanshu to follow up with the Mercer JIF as far as that investment direction. Let's set the record straight, we have to the end of the year to make a decision, and we have meetings scheduled for December 11th and 18th. There is a lot of information to be reviewed and I would like Steve to analyze the Government Risk Management proposal from Mr. Kurtz and report to the Council. We are just going to extend the time frame to review Mr. Kurtz's proposal.
HEARING:
Release/Reduction Performance Guarantee - Yardley Manor - Suggested New Date - Tuesday, January 16, 2001.
Councilman Testino: I received a letter from the association complaining about the make-up of the association, namely that the builder is dominating the board and that the homeowners are not having an appropriate say, so if we do adjourn the date, and I hate to do this to Jonathan, I think we should renotice the homeowners so that they have the ability to come out and let us know their concerns. I know that the builder has the right to do this because it is in his construction documents, but it seems that there might be some disagreement so we would like to hear from the homeowners when we ultimately do have the hearing.
Jonathan Heilbrunn: We did notice the public for this evening and we respectfully request that it be adjourned without further notice. The proposed date by the Council of January 16, 2001 is subsequent to the date when the government of the association is turned over to the homeowners and therefore we respectfully request that it be extended to the January date without further notice or publication.
President Maher: The Clerk's office has just notified me that they spoke with the engineer and he wants the republication and it would be acceptable for renotification of residents by regular mail. This is acceptable to all parties.
Councilman Sohor: At the preliminary meeting that was held in the engineer's office about a week ago, we agreed and with the consent of the homeowner's association to only notice by ordinary mail and no need for publication in the newspapers; this was accepted by all present.
President Maher: For the record the meeting will be for January 16, 2001 and all the residents will be notified by regular mail.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
October 23, 2000/Regular Meeting
No Discussion
ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING
FR-1 Town Centre Ordinance - Amendments
President Maher: We need to give Sam Rizzo some feed back with regard to the town centre.
Councilman Testino: Is there any way we can have a workshop with Sam? I have read it and personally I am having difficulty getting through it and I would like someone to go through it and explain it step-by-step.
Councilman Redmond: I agree with Mr. Testino, there is a lot to digest in that plan and we have to make sure that we know what is going on.
Sam Rizzo: This ordinance was to implement the Master Plan and incorporate all the comments and feedback that we got back from the joint meeting of the Council and Planning Board. Between all of the subcommittees of the town a task force was formed with the Environmental Commission and the Transportation Committee as well as the Engineering Department and the EDC. All of these groups got together in a task force to try to implement what we presented in the Master Plan.
President Maher: I don't have a problem with a workshop. I was going to suggest that we pick a date and we all give our feedback to Sam or we give him a list of our concerns and Sam can respond directly to the individual Council member.
Councilman Testino: Roman makes a good point. There is no way to get this ordinance processed this month, so we would have to start over again next year. So let's have a workshop before the end of the year.
President Maher: We will put it on for the first regular meeting in January and we will have a workshop some time before that.
Councilman Testino: I will set up the workshop and notice the Council and those that want to attend may do so.
Sam Rizzo: Do you want a presentation at the workshop or just a question and answer type meeting?
President Maher: It will just be a discussion and Q&A discussion.
DISCUSSION ORDINANCE
DO-1 Amending the Administrative Code to reflect proper information for the Housing Authority.
Councilman Testino: The same comment applies, you cannot do this till January.
President Maher: We will put it on for the January 16, 2001 meeting.
CONSENT AGENDA
C-1 Bingo/Raffle
No Discussion
DISCUSSION RESOLUTION
DR-1 Resolution Authorizing Software Maintenance Contract with Q.E.D., Inc.
Himanshu Shah: That is for the maintenance contract on the computer software that we acquired for Police Department last year. We need annual maintenance and it is critical, but the good thing about this is that the cost of the previous maintenance was over $50,000, this is in the range of $15,000. Move-up
DR-2 Extend Contract #00-31 Biodegradable Paper Leaf Bags for $3,500 to purchase additional bags Move-up
DR-3 Authorize Leave of Absence - Personal Illness - Alfred Walsh Move-up
DR-4 Authorize Leave of Absence - Personal Illness - William Majeski Move-up
DR-5 Resolution to cancel outstanding Current Fund and Payroll Deduction checks totaling $1399.16 Move-up
DR-6 Resolution - Van Tines Lane - Developer to finish paving the road and OBMUA to run water lines
Councilman Cucchiara: We had put money away approximately $50,000 in 1999 to have the water line extended and another $50,000 would be provided by the OBMUA. I believe it was Presidential Estates had run a 4 sewer main down that street and the street has to be repaved and I would like a resolution sent to the OBMUA to get an idea of when they are going to put the line down that road. They had said it would be done in the spring we are now into the winter of 2000 and it still is not done.
Councilman Testino: So the resolution would be not only that we request that they do it but that they give us a timetable. Move-up
DR-7 Resolution authorizing Old Bridge to enter into a Cooperative Purchasing Agreement for the purchase of energy.
President Maher: We tabled this about a month ago. This is entering into that Energy Aggregation program with the Middlesex County Improvement Authority. This is a contract till the end of the fiscal year June 30, 2001 and is a net savings of 8%. The other contract would have been a three year contract and there was no "opt out" clause.
Himanshu Shah: There was an opt out clause, but it was counter-productive to what they were saying. So we changed it to the one year contract. Move-up
DISCUSSION
D-1 Vacancies on the Housing Authority
Councilman Sohor: A vacancy on the Housing Authority was declared at the end of the summer by the Department of Community Affairs, there will be another vacancy soon. That is two members out of the seven members that should be on that board. I would like us to advertise for two people to fill those spots. One of the things of which you may not be aware is that in 1998 Congress passed laws amending the rules under which Housing Authorities operate. One of the provisions of the Quora Act is that Congress has mandated that Housing Authorities of a particular size must have at least one commissioner that has been appointed by our appointing body to be a member of the class of people served by the authority, in our case Section 8 residents. We currently do not meet the mandatory requirement because we are not large enough to be required by law to have this type of commissioner. Also, Housing Authorities should have a representative on their board of those people that they serve. If they go forward with their building plan, we will reach the mandatory levels. I would suggest that we serve through the Authority two client bases; one would be the people of Section 8 and the other is senior citizens. While it is not legally required, I think as a good faith or moral thing to do is to afford the opportunity to for the client communities to be represented on the Housing Authority board. We should specify in our advertising for these two openings and that we will appoint one from each group.
President Maher: I had asked Rose-Marie to take a look not only at the Housing Authority but all the volunteer boards.
Councilman Sohor: The advertising for the Housing Authority has been the same as for all other boards and I would ask that this time it be specific with regard to the two groups I have mentioned, in essence narrowing down the group that we are looking at. I think broadening the base of the Housing Authority membership would benefit both the residents and the Authority.
Also, because of the condition of membership on the Housing Authority where there is a requirement whereby commissioners complete six courses over a period of 18 months, I think that we should include that in the advertisement.
Councilman Redmond: The courses are not given locally are they?
Councilman Sohor: Basically, they are given throughout the State and you can attend most closely at Rutgers in New Brunswick. It is really not difficult to get those six courses completed in the 18 months and it is done at Housing Authority expense.
Councilman Testino: There is no doubt that no matter who the applicants are they should be aware of the requirements regarding schooling so that we don't go down another path and waste more time with someone who does not want to do it.
President Maher: I would ask the Clerk to update the advertisement on T.V. adding that there is certification required for service on the Housing Authority.
Councilman Testino: I ask that these two appointments go on the January 2, 2001 reorganization meeting agenda.
SET DATE
SD-1 Release/Reduction Performance Guarantee - Ticetown Hills (Suggested Date: Monday, March 19, 2001)
SD-2 Release/Reduction Performance Guarantee - Mirada Realty/Bell Chase (Suggested Date: Monday, February 5, 2001)
SD-3 Release/Reduction Performance Guarantee - J.L.R.S. (Heilbrunn Building) (Suggested Date: Monday, January 22, 2001)
Move-up
CERTIFICATION OF APPRECIATION
Appreciation to Salon 527 and its workers for the first annual Cut-A-Thon benefiting Camp Robin - They raised $2,055.00.
Move-up
HEARING
H-1 Release/Reduction Performance Guarantee - Parks Edge
President Maher: It is my understanding that there is a recommendation from engineering not to do this, am I correct? Can we get something from Engineering before that hearing?
LIQUOR LICENSES
LL-1 Renewal of Plenary Consumption License #1209-33-007-003 - Janela, Inc. (2000-2001 licensing term/inactive license/special ruling received)
LL-2 Liquor License - Birch Hill, Inc. T/A Birch Hill/Stingrays
President Maher: These will just be updates on the status of these licenses.
Motion to adjourn at 9:45 p.m. made by President Maher, seconded by Councilman Butler and so ordered on the following roll call vote:
AYES: Councilman Butler, Cucchiara, Greene, Redmond, Sohor, Testino, President Maher.
NAYS: None.
ABSENT: Councilman Hoff, Councilwoman Marinaccio
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Council President Dennis M. Maher
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Rose-Marie Saracino, Township Clerk
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