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OPEN SPACE COMMITTEE MEETING
MINUTES
May 15, 2006
Attendees:
Lucille Panos
Jack Cocozziello, Chairman
Colleen McGurk, Secretary
Robert Nagler
George Millet
Old Bridge Open Space Committee President Jack Cocozziello called the meeting to order at 7:00 pm.
Jack Cocozziello read a resignation letter from Carol Hodes who will no longer be a member of the Open Space Committee.
The next meeting will be June 26, 2006 because Jack will be out of town.
We voted unanimously on the new criteria for open space.
George Millet asked for a new category for the open space rating/ranking criteria. The issue of the remaining tax liability on properties was raised.
Jack stated that the Township Clerks office clarified that the Open Space referendum does expire after 10 years which will be 2010.
Jack discussed a recent request by the Business Administrator. We have been asked to review a list of Township land that is up for sale and determine whether or not any of the land is appropriate and should be recommended to be preserved as open space or to sell the land. The lots will be going before the Council in an upcoming meeting.
George Millet said that anyone with property in Old Bridge can have access to township tax assessor records by block and lot. Some of us will be able to do the research that way.
Lucille stated that any profits from the sale of the land will not go back into the open space budget.
I, Colleen McGurk, had also been informed of this and the reason for this is that the Township purchased the Cedar Ridge property and preserved it as open space out of the Township general budget not the open space budget.
I asked whether or not we had a deadline for our response to the B.A. Jack said no deadline was given.
Jack again stated that we need to find out whether or not the Open Space Committee can solicit donations of property (not money) and if so we should actively pursue this. Our options are to put letters in the next round of tax bills or advertise on the tv channel. He will contact Himanshu Shah about this and hopefully have an answer by our next meeting.
Lucille Panos left the meeting to attend the Council meeting.
I notified the committee that the engineer who was working on the map we requested has since left his position so there will be a delay in obtaining the map.
Jack divided up the list of properties that I provided. There are 50 properties that currently have liens on them by the township tax department. We each took approximately 10 properties and will research each property and make our recommendations as a group according to the open space criteria.
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