The meeting was called to order by Joe Criscuolo, Chairman, at 7:35 pm. He introduced the two new student representatives, Megan Condran and Anthony Marinos. In attendance at this time was: Tom Badcock, Joe Criscuolo, Paul Taguer, Tim Kozlak, Joe Dunn, Rich Bezeg, Harold Reck, Joe Rumolo, Megan Condran, Anthony Marinos. Carol Norberg was present to take the minutes. Denis Kilduff arrived at 7:45 PM Gerard Haran, 8:05 and Joe Pruiti at 8:08 PM
Absent for this meeting Frances DiRocco, Janet Phillips and John Piovesan. Barbara Felice was on vacation.

Joe C. welcomes the members who are representing the High School and thanks them for their time to sit on the advisory committee and hopes they will be able to give a lot of input and learn and that the committee can learn from them. He states they were selected from all the students in the Junior class in order for them to be able to stay with the committee through the Oct-Nov. time frame. The committee hopes they will remain on the committee until the end of next year. It is explained that, naturally, if they want to remain on until the first couple of months for next year they would be welcome, and the committee would probably add two more juniors at that time.

Joe C: Welcome. We try to be informal. I'm Joe Criscuolo, the Chairman of the committee and everyone else has introduced themselves. Tom Badcock is the Director of the Parks, Recreation and Social Services Dept. and Carol, who works with Tom in the Department, takes meeting minutes.
At any time, if you have any comments, please feel free to voice your opinion. I'm sure at times we will ask you what you think. We do value your input and want you to know that. I was happy that Mr. Petrillo was able to get students for us in the short time.

Approval of Minutes for January Meeting

Joe C. mentions that Anthony and Megan will receive this month's minutes in the mail and that they are asked to review them before the next meeting and let the committee know if they agree with them or if there are changes that need to be made. Joe C. asks everyone to review the committee's contact list and make necessary changes. A motion was made to approve January's meeting minutes by Paul Taguer and Joe Rumolo. All members were in favor of approving minutes.

Old Business

By-laws of Committee
Joe C: In our package last month was the ordinance as it is written from the Council and was approved in January 1997 and updated amendments in April 1998. The first set are primarily who can sit on the committee and the duration of their terms. The second part of it was some amendments. Would anybody like to bring up changes to that at this point in time? We can update these at any time and put it in front of the council and they can ask us questions, approve it or not approve it.

Paul: Just one suggestion that we can either put a motion on the floor or discuss it was the term right now for our positions is a one-year term. Last year we had discussed that, because of a lot of work that we get involve with sometimes extends to more than one year, that having the appointment for a two year position might make us more valuable to the committee. I actually lost sight of if because I thought last years group agreed that we would do that, but I guess we never did request from council that we addend the appointments to a two year position.

Joe C: We could do that now if you'd like if everyone is in agreement to request the council to change the ordinance to have the appointments be two years, I would see every other year bringing in half one year and half the next year is how they will probably want to do it.

Paul: I'd like to make a motion that we extend the appointments to a two-year position.

Harold: How many members are missing tonight.

Carol: Six

Harold: Should we wait till we have more people?

Joe C: We have a quorum of seven. That's all it requires. We can defer till the end of the meeting. Would that be all right with you, Paul?

Paul: Yes. It would not effect our appointments now, it would be for the next group that comes in.

Joe C: In January our recommendation would be for them to appoint 6 for two years and another 6 for 1 year. And then you would restart the cycle of doing it in two-year increments. I personally feel it is a good idea.

Joe R.: I don't know if that's going to work.

Joe C: Why?

Paul: Who's the chosen six?

Joe R.: How do you decide who's coming on for two years, who's coming on for one.

Joe C: That naturally would be the council's call. Because it is a Council appointed committee.

Joe R: I would think if your current numbers are being considered, then they would be considered for their second year.

Paul: I don't know if there is a demand where we actually competing against folks for these positions. Maybe that is part of the request for the position, we have to apply each year, maybe we can specify we are applying for a two year or one year, or taking one year as an option.

Joe C: I understand what you are saying. But I think they would probably prefer, especially during election time period, that it would be a six and six.

Joe R: It's their problem.

Harold: Just for the first year it would be a problem.

Joe R: I think what we do is make a recommendation to go split it two and two.

Joe C: We will hold this off till the end of the meeting. We have a lot of Old Business, but I would like to defer that to right before we talk about the New Business and the skate park Fees.

Recreation Program Update and Camp Robin Update
Tom: Nothing much new on this. You have the booklet, and we are taking registrations now.
I would like to add that Michael Gordon is our Special Olympic athlete. He will be leaving tomorrow for Anchorage Alaska for the International Special Olympics. Barbara Erosh - Anderson has raised about $3,000 to defray the cost of the trip for his family and his entourage.

Paul: Tom, do you know if he was able to get that stipend?

Tom: Yes, he got the $200 stipend.

Joe C: When will he appear on the cereal box?

Tom: In April

Joe C: I'll add to that that the children from the Robin Program who competed in the Special Olympics naturally did another good job as you pass the municipal center you will see they won numerous medals. The kids have a great experience. Hat's off to Tom and his organization and the Ice Rink for sponsoring that. That is a vital program that those children look forward to.

Capital Projects

Tom: I'll give you an update on some of the things going on:

1. Civic Center - Gallant Construction is working on the job. They are right on schedule. Today they are starting to block and move the sheet rock for some of the walls. Estimated to be completed the first week of June.

2. Soccer Complex - The parking lot has been stalled because of the problems we've had with the contractor. Our legal staff is now involved in that and they are trying to get the contractor, which is Tarheel Enterprises to give us a proposal on how they are going to come back in and do the work. If not, then we will have to get rid of them and get somebody else. Hopefully we can work it out with them and get started in the next couple of weeks. It's a small project, about a 16-day project. 29 car parking addition.
We had a preliminary meeting with the contractor about the restroom building, it got held up because we had some particular problems with the MUA which had nothing to do about this project and we received a bill from the MUA for this project for connection fees for water and sewer for about $65,000 which is high. The project itself is only a little over $200,000. This was just part of it, because there were many other projects that the town has done that have been on hold as far as payments to the MUA. We had a meeting with the board, Art Haney who is the executive director of the MUA and Alayne, myself, and our attorney. I think we have it worked out. They have released their engineer to work with us to get the thing moving. Until they gave us the OK, we were stalled on that. The contractor's a good contractor, and I don't think we'll have any problem completing it by June or early July.

Paul: Was there a negotiation on the fee, or did it stay at $65,000.

Tom: The fee has been adjusted. The MUA is working on just charging us those fees that are absolutely required. What their requirements are by law that they have to charge us. Some of the fees will be taken up in kind services that we'll do reciprocal work by giving them information from our Engineering. Some of our topo, our drawings, some of our computerized layouts for land mass, land elevation that they will be able to use for their work.

3. Queen Yacenda - We did get the state LOI (Letter of Intent) back from the Wetlands Division, which basically told us that there is roughly 111 acres of upland acres there. This is in agreement with what our engineers found in the field. Most of that is contiguous, which is basically roughly a half-mile square of upland area that can be used to develop. Ruggierio, the township attorney, and I are working with the Mayor of Perth Amboy, Joe Vas, in a number of things. One of which is to change the entrance way to line up with Owens Road, which is to acquire a small property about 200 feet by 150 ft, from Perth Amboy, to put our entrance into the Park and line it up with Owens Road, where there will be a traffic light. We can go through the park, contrary to what you may have heard, there is some wetlands along Rt. 516, but it in no way impairs getting into the park. Its easy to get mitigation, because we have so much property in there. But we don't want to put another light on that road. We are trying to pick up this little piece, Mayor Vas has been very receptive. In this mix, there is also some payment for the use of two complexes, football complex, and the little league complex, and we will have that worked out as part of this agreement and also have long term leases, finally for both of these league organizations. Mayor Vas has been very receptive and on board with this thing.

Joe C: Just so the high school students understand. The soccer property on Higgins Road, they are trying to put a parking lot in for them and a restroom and concession stand. Similar to what the other Soccer League in town has. The Queen Yacenda property is by Old Bridge Tire and the Rebels Football field. That piece of land the town was able to get through foreclosure. That land Tom has been looking at it to develop over the next ten-fifteen years into another park space. As Tom says, there is a lot of wetland that you can't build on. He is working with engineers to see what pieces are useable. If you have any questions, please ask.

4. Skate park - We have about an $8,000 balance left. I met with some of the kids on the committee and they are proposing another piece that I think we will add into the skate park. They are doing a rough drawing of what they are looking at, then we will send it in to get a proposal from the guy who designed the skate park course about putting a new piece into that skate park. We'll talk more later about the fees.

5. The Beachfront is a little behind schedule still as far as the North End Building. I don't know if that will be ready in time for the summer season. The rest of the work is progressing very nicely. There is a problem there, as it always happens, when you have to compact the soil. The amount of time they had to wait to get releases from the State to go ahead and build on that. What happens is that when you build a new building you have to keep compacting the soil before they deem it to be sufficient enough to lay a building on so it doesn't sink. It took a long period of time for that to happen. Also, that's piggybacked on this project, about 2-3 years ago we received a grant from the State to renovate the old jetty, which is the existing jetty down in Laurence Harbor that we are going to develop that into a 7-foot elevation jetty similar in length to the new ones that were built that are a 12-ft elevation. This project, which I just signed the paperwork for the permits for the state, so this will be very close to going out for bid by the State of New Jersey Core of Engineers, it's a great project because it will rebuild the old jetty to a 7-foot elevation. All three jetty's now will have concrete piling fishing piers on the end of it, they are 29-ft piers. So when people fish over the edge of the jetty's, they won't get their lines tangled. Of course the beauty of this thing is that 75% of the cost of the project is being paid by the State. That should be going out to bid sometime in April. It will be summer work. Sometime in the Fall we should see it being close to completion. It is a great project. It will improve the whole area down there, coupled in with the beachfront renovation.

6. List of Capital Projects to Mayor: As you know I submitted a list for review and then to forward onto the Council as a priority list for the next round of bonding, which I will anticipate the council would get into sometime in April.

Joe C: The projects that you submitted, were they ones that we talked about here?

Tom: Yes. Do you have any questions? I put in for some of the things we talked about, and I also put in for a building down in Veteran's Park to be used for cheerleading, primarily. Mat sports, it would be primarily for that. It is much needed. That was really the only new one that was added on. The problem is always going to be, that Himanshu Shah has already come out with that we could go to about $3.5 million without increasing our debt service, with new projects. That sounds like some money, but it really isn't very much. The only good thing is that it does not include land acquisition. Which is great, because some of the land acquisition that we are sitting on is going to be well over that. Another thing I wanted to let you know, the Lambertson property, which piggybacks on the Rose Farm, I have had a reappraisals done by our two state certified appraisers, in hopes of getting more money out of the State. I've sent them off the Green Acres and I am hoping that within the next few weeks I will hear from the State that the Fair Market Value that they have assessed has been upped based on the current market value of the property.

Paul: How long ago was the previous assessment done?

Tom: Its about 15 months. It's a difference of what the property was appraised at and the Fair Market Value is certified at. I think it was actually August of 1999 till this past month. I am very confident that Green Acres will up the anti. The 50% of which we are eligible for in a grant, which originally was based on about $2.3 million, I think it will be closer to $3 million, and therefore our grant will go closer to $1.5 million. Once I get that number I will take it to the landowner and try to make an actual offer and try to get the thing locked up.

Goals & Objectives of the Committee

Joe C: Before we move into New Business, which will include the skate park Fees, I know in our last meeting I made some references to thinking about what our goals and objectives would be for this year to look at and accomplish. I don't know if anybody had spent time thinking about the possible goals and objectives for the committee. There's really nothing in the ordinance that says anything like that. It's always better for me when I'm working on something to know what the end goal and the objective is. I also feel that the objectives should be something that we could reach in the period of time and that are tangible, that should make an impact, which would help us all to want to stay on the committee as it moves forward in the subsequent years. Anybody have any opinion on this.

Joe R: A couple of comments. I guess there is a couple of models you could use for this. One is, and I don't have the ordinance in front of me, we can set our own objectives. I'm not sure how successful we can be with that. Another is to ask the Council who appoints the members to decide what our objectives are. That certainly is a viable way to go. Just from past experience, I think it is clear that we need objectives, it is not exactly clear to me that if we set up our own objectives and come up with anything that anything would be done about it. At least in the past the council has given us some tasks to do, which we try to do. That didn't work out very well either.

Paul: Which tasks were those, Joe?

Joe R: One was the document that we had. The recommendation paper that we had to give back. I can't say that I feel that was successful. I don't think we brought that to a conclusion.

Paul: Was that ever addended? Did we ever go back with the changes that were mentioned at the committee?

Joe R: Not that I'm aware of.

Joe C: I think at that point in time I think there was a lot of confusion on who was doing what and so on. What Joe has just said is naturally a viable alternative to doing it. We could write a letter to the council to say what they feel should be our goals and objectives for the year 2001. Naturally they might ask us what we feel they are.

Denis K: Wasn't there supposed to be a council member as a liaison anyway? They don't even come to the meetings. Why do we have to ask them for our objectives?

Joe C: According to the ordinance, there really isn't a council member appointed to the committee. That is something we were going to pursue with them. To have somebody that would be available.

Denis K: Maybe that is the first thing we should do is have them get somebody. They have a liaison for every other committee. We should have one here.

Paul: Is there something in the ordinance describing our roles?

Joe C: No, there isn't. It's very loosely coupled. There is no stated objectives. Maybe we should look to do this. Two year appointments and a council member for the committee.

Denis: I think we should get someone from the Council. At least have them in the discussion. Maybe we can discuss things here with them and he could go back to his council meetings which they have every week and relay our feelings to them. That way he can come back with their objectives instead of us sending a letter and waiting a month. Things never get done. If he's here at the meetings, and is on the spot, something will get done.

Joe C: We can make both requests, for a council member to become a permanent member of the committee and what they would like to see as our objective for the year. What their views are on this. I would be more than willing to write the letter to them and getting it to them quickly. I think they have an agenda session on Monday. I don't know who they would select. If they made the selection Monday, they could call me right away and I would tell them what we are looking for. Maybe they can do it in one of their work sessions. How does that sit with everybody?

Joe R: I guess it's the reasonable thing to do. I have a fundamental problem with how we go about these meetings and what it is we are trying to accomplish. I mean the council appoints this advisory board. I would assume they would appoint the advisory board to do something. Aside to figure out what to do ourselves. There must be some reason to appoint the board. So I would look to them to give us objectives.

Paul: Do we know if there is any precedent at all with the other advisory boards in the town? As far as having written objectives or goals?

Joe R: I don't know of any.

Paul: I think, absolutely, the role of what each of us are here for. That is something that needs to spelled out. It would help me. Because at times you say "What is my role?" We may have discussed this briefly at last meeting I think. I guess there is the advisory nature of what we do which could certainly be turned into objectives or goals. Maybe a mission statement, or what our role is.

Tom: This is an advisory board. That's is how it is written. It is not a commission. I know that you have all made statements that you want to do something, accomplish something. Your mission, the way our form of government is, is to be advisors. You are here to give input on what is in your own spectra, in your own area, whether it is a league or organization, or part of the community, or something that your people, your constituents may want to see. That may be recreation programs, it maybe a facility, it may be any of the above. Bring it back to the committee and make that voice be known from your people. That is the mission of the advisory board. I'm just listening to all this and you could go your own path, but this is not a commission. We don't have our own checking account. We don't have our own ways to do things separately from the system the way it was designed. The role of advisors is an important role. But it is that. It is a role of advisors. And I'm afraid, I know some of you are getting hung up on this thing of doing, but the doing is to try to provide information to the council, to the profession staff which is myself and my staff on some programs, or facilities, that you may want to see achieved and accomplished with in the townships. That is what your mission is. You can ask them to amend it any way, but the gist of what your function is and your mission is that. What's happened in the past, and I think what Joe is alluding to, in past years its been almost like we sit here and we report on what we are doing. We don't get any input from anybody. We are looking for input. We are not looking for you to do the work. That's what I'm paid for and that's what our staff is paid for. We are looking for input. This is the town you all live in. What I try to do is use my expertise and what I have been trained in and what I've been doing for the last 20 years to be able to do the best thing for the town to deliver a recreation program and a parks management program to the citizens, but to do that to the best function you need input from the citizens. That's the reason idealistically, why you were appointed to the board. Not because you are affiliated with a certain league, but because you have an interest in improving the quality of life in your town. I think what's happened in the past, not in recent years, is that people would get appointed from a league, and their whole focus for being on the rec. board would be just to get extra money, or to get an improvement for their league. They had tunnel vision, they didn't care what happened anywhere else in town. That's not the function of this board. The function of this board is to pull ideas from all aspects of the community for the overall good of the township and then to try and give us input from the citizens of the town so we can try to develop things. For example, Paul and the cheerleading, and adding that to the list. Some of the things we've done with Joe and the little league, and trying to help out. We've done some things with capital improvements with some of the little leagues. General things, sometimes specific. This is the way I've always seen it. It is a very important function, and it is doing things. I just think you have to watch the fine line of actually doing the things, and recommending what you'd like to see done. We try to get things done with the help of the council. Obviously, they have to approve the funds for whatever is done. But I think the first input should come from the citizens and you are to represent the citizens of the town. That is a very important job. This town had nothing. The reason they had nothing is that nobody gave any input. Nobody cared to do anything. Things get done with your help and your input because you represent people in the community. Obviously, there is only so many dollars available. You try to use it wisely. You try to get the most out of the tax money that Council will allocate. That is a very important function.

Joe C: I don't think we want to do the work, I think we want to make sure that what we do here every month or meetings in between, or whatever, is worthwhile and constructive. And like you said we should be giving input to you, but also to the council as appointees to the council. The council can agree or disagree with you; I see them disagree with you a lot.

Tom: Because there is a lot of politics in this town, and that's one thing that has hurt this town. Because the two sides don't get along. I've known that, and no one knows that better than I do. I've been the administrator in this town, I've been through the war years, I've been here with Russ, I've been here with Barbara. I've seen it all. And that is what kills this town. That political element. And until we get passed that, especially in what we are doin, there is no place for it in this. That's why you've seen me get frustrated and angry, I have never been anywhere where I've seen this behavior on this level. Maybe in something else, not in recreation. In creating a quality of life for the people of this town. That's where the frustration is. It either comes together with the help of the committee or it breaks down. But when political games get in the way, it breaks down. That is something I can tell you from experience. It is the importance of all working together and trying to strive for good common goals, and not be politically motivated. That is something the committee can really assist in.

Joe C: The only thing I can honestly say, in the three or four years that I've been here. That no one is here for their own league or purpose. I'm happy about that. I think if I saw that I'd be the first one to say that is not the direction. I think you hit the nail on the head in your comments. We are here to give you input and we'd like to be asked and we'd like to have input on that. Just like when you said you submitted on the capital projects list, I'm thinking to myself that I can remember some of them, but for the good of the rest of the people who weren't here, it may be valuable to have that project list. For Joe and Rich, they weren't on the committee last year. We want to partner with you, to naturally give you input, but I also feel a responsibility to the Council, who in the appointments, to see what they want us to do too. I think partnering with you and the Council is how we can get that done. I know we don't have a checkbook, I know we don't have any money that we can spend on things, but I think working with you and the Council and other parts of government, we can get things done. I think one of the things I know that Paul and Joe have worked on in between meetings, and we've had some discussions about surveying and trying to get input from residents, we had some discussions with Himanshu, who has the MIS Dept. under him. We can get to that later on. I think I would like to ask the Council to have a full time member and to ask them what they are looking for us to do. Likewise, I would welcome you to come down with a bullet list for next meeting too. Just so we are on the same...

Tom: I don't need a list. I'm telling you tonight, what I have told you in the past. I don't need to make a list. It's in my head. It's been in my head since I've been here. I'm not being vicious I value all of you. The people on this board are very good people. And there isn't one person here for selfish interests. Which is a very nice thing. What we need to do, this is a very critical time in Old Bridge. We got a lot of opportunities. We've talked about some of the things sitting on our doorstep that we can do. We are starting to get information. We are starting to compile information, like we are compiling on the Queen Yacenda. There are a lot of comments made about the Queen Yacenda tract before it was even deemed available upland or wetlands, which is unfair. They were politically motivated comments. That is not the way to pull together. What we are looking at now, at least we know what we have there. That is a very viable future park for the township. Anything that is 2 mile square is a huge piece of property.

Gerard: Forgive me for breaking in. Did I miss a meeting? Was there a meeting where we reached a consensus? Because you are saying we want to move in a certain direction and I don't know anything about the consensus we reached to know what direction we are going. If I missed a meeting...or if certain things are being discussed just among a couple of folks...

Joe C: It was discussed 15 minutes before you came here.

Gerard: Oh, the Awe. So I did miss it.

Joe C: The meeting started at 7:30. We were talking about possibly getting goals and objectives for the committee and setting some goals and objectives for the year. Which I didn't see as a bad thing to do.

Gerard: I'm sorry. The whole thing vis-a-vis the council, things like that. I missed that too.
Thank you.

Joe C: As a matter of fact we held off on our changes to the ordinance until the other people arrive. We could have voted on that with a quorum that we had, but we didn't. We tabled it until everyone was here.

Paul: Joe, how would you suggest we move on that? I'm the first guy to say I like instructions to help me with whatever it is I'm supposed to do. Tom's description of what our role is was kind of my understanding when I came aboard. It's an advisory role. I do have interest in leagues. I have been involved in more than one sport. I have a family in town, kids in school. When some of these issues come up, I'm here to say that sounds like the right thing or it doesn't sound like the right thing. You have heard me say before at this table, I don't make decisions. I look to
Tom to make a decision, and ultimately it is the council's. Our input, I do feel maybe at times has not been set forth. For example, we have all received stuff directly from the council. I don't know if anyone has acted on it. It was from Dennis Maher on the assessment of the property that potentially was going to be looked at to purchase and make into a recreation facility. Has anybody done anything with that stuff? Has anyone gotten back to the council?

Joe R.: That's my point, what are we supposed to do with that? It looks like an assessment of some property. Now what? It seems like it will cost a lot of money to renovate the place. I'd like to know how much so we can go back and say, "Maybe this isn't a good idea." This is the Birch Hill property?

Tom: I'll let you know that the Mayor and Dennis asked me to do an assessment. I went to Birch Hill. I did a map and I did an assessment of all the facilities over there.

Joe C: We have that. I think your report is excellent and its right on target.

Tom: That's one thing that we've done. And I think that this is something too, thank God you have that, because I think you need to know what I've found. We are certainly all in concert that we'd all like to have more property, and Dennis obviously, which was good, the first time you hear about something you want to investigate it, and all we are saying basically, and you should read it so you have a common back to the council from you guys too. But my professional input is that it is something to take very slowly because without doing a full investigation by a certified pool engineering firm, you are really at risk.

Joe R: Given what I seen, its more than just pool.

Tom: It is a lot. Everything over there is a problem.
Megan: I don't really know much about buying Birch Hill. I just heard about it. I desperately more than anything would love to have a pool in this town, because I'm on the swim team. But I have been to Birch Hill and it is a dump. It is not worth it. The renovation would have to be so much money. Nobody would want to go there, it is so gross.

Tom: That's sums it up.
END OF TAPE ONE, SIDE A

Tom: ...A recommendation to the Board of Ed. In combining Sandburg and the East Campus into one school, if there was any way possible to put in a pool onto that renovation. I don't know if that would be possible, but I would like to see that. My feeling is different from some other people. Some people don't agree with me. But I think that the indoor pool, should be, it at all possible, should be part of the High School because more usage will come from that and we can use it as a community school for recreation in the evening, summer programs, but the indoor pool for the competition end of it for classes, or whatever, should be at the school for convenience. We also talked about the YMCA, a lot of these things are great, but they are very hard to achieve. Even if we do something at the Queen Yacenda, or whatever, as far as an aquatic facility, that's great. We could put an indoor pool there too. Even the survey we sent out three or four years ago, there was some interest in having some type of aquatic facility by the community. It is just a matter of when. As far as your input, if we get into this Queen Yacenda property, one of the things Joe asked what I sent to the Mayor and then to the Council recommendation, one of it was the building that Paul and I and we all talked about for the cheerleading, and one of it was obviously was to just keep up and keep ahead of the game on our parks maintenance equipment, our turf management equipment, to replace the old and get new. Another project would be ongoing to create more soccer parking at the Ticetown Road complex. That also is going in. Another thing going in would be to do a preliminary master plan for the Queen Yacenda property. If that is funded by the council, then this is where you would come in. This is where the input comes in. How are we going to do this? Now we could do a whole master plan, but what need to come from the committee, from all the people you represent in the community, what types of fields do they need. I know Joe has talked about practice soccer fields, we've talked about game football fields with Denis, we talked about roller hockey. We have to get it where, the input of this committee is vital in trying to get us, when we do the professional end of the design, to know what we need in each of the phases based on what you feel the needs of the community are. That is important work. Because without you giving input there, as far as the designs, whatever, other than the statistics that I'm working with, I'm basically going with my gut reaction without any input. That's why your input is vital. Those things are vital. Those are the things that are real important. I don't think your work is important in identifying land masses, buying land masses, negotiating with Green Acres, getting the property, keeping it in the bank for future use. You are very important in how that property should be developed. And to cover the needs of what you see in your area. There are other things we have talked about. We talk about things like golf courses. There are going to be times now and in the future that things will come across our plate that will be revenue producing opportunities that will be; you've heard me talk about a golf course because the revenue potential is so astronomical that it would fuel many of the things you want to see happen in this town in the years to come. Those are the things that need to be acted on. And I know that you want to have input in that. That is something that can come and you can have some input on, but some of these things will happen and fuel the things that will happen later on down the road. You will have input later on what is developed. Basically our recreation facilities should be developed around the needs of the town. How they are funded, goes to a different level than that. That is when the council, and basically what I have to do from a professional end of it and doing the research financially on what can happen and what is the possibility. Those are where there is a little bit of a difference in who does what. I have to say, the input in designing any of these parks, coming up, especially a big thing like this, it will probably be a five or six phase park. This is going to be an expensive park. We want to make sure that what we do in there is right. We want it to serve the needs of the people that you know.

Joe C: When I received this memo from Dennis, my first concern was twofold. I want to make sure, and I know Tom that sometimes we rub you the wrong way, we want to partner with you. We are the people that pay the taxes in this town. We are the people with the kids in the town and future kids and we want to see good things for them. Megan, I'm sure, in five years from now and she sees that pool, she'll be happy because she served on this committee and had input to that. I think that's what we all want, as being part of this committee. I think if we come into things rather than with our fists up, we are here for the good of the organization of the people in this town. When I got this from Dennis I went through it, I've been through Birch Hill before, if we buy that, the best thing we could do is bulldoze it and use the land and put a minor league team on it. That would be my dream.

Tom: We had the guy come in about Cricket, he wants to put a cricket facility in there, again, his perception is that we could put a 10,000 seat cricket stadium in there. I was trying to explain to him you couldn't fit the parking for a 10,000 seat stadium. You have made good points. Where it is and the location that it is, it is such a mess. If there was any other to use park property, in a more convenient location, and a better location, we are better off having. If we weren't lucky enough to foreclose on a place like Queen Yacenda, with a 165 acres and 111 that we can build on, then you know, I might be at the point for recommending maybe we should go in there and negotiate a good deal and bulldoze it and start over. But my gut feeling as a professional is that even if we did that, the land is a nasty piece of property, the topography is bad. It's a bad location, even if you bulldoze it, unless that is all you had, to me it isn't worth doing it.

Joe C: My recommendation after reading that I was planning to come to this meeting and say I would like to make a motion for this to be sent to the Economic Development Corporation for them to pursue a private entity to look at the possibility of taking over that facility and make it a recreational facility that they run as a business. Just like they do in other towns. That's why I was putting it off till the end. That would be my motion for this and then I would ask Tom and Carol to write a letter on behalf of this committee to go back to the Council to ask them to forward it to the Economic Development Corp. for them to pursue a private entity to develop the land as a recreational place. Like they are starting to do in other towns.

Joe R: Is there any pressure to buy this property?

Tom: I don't think so. I think at this point we are just doing the investigation. Dennis and the Mayor wanted that done, and we tried to do that quickly. What Megan is saying is very true. Everything out there is so outdated and probably a lot of things aren't built to code. Even if you can get it for a song, you would have to invest a huge amount of money.

Joe: Nobody is questioning what it would take to develop or redevelop it.

Tom: No, we haven't even gotten into that. I talked to Art Stock on the phone, but we haven't got into what he wants for it, because of this initial review, to me it is more of a liability especially in light of the fact that we are sitting on some nice parcels that are beautiful for development. That we own outright. That we don't have to spend another couple of million dollars of the taxpayers money to get.

Denis: If I know Art Stock, he will want a lot of money. I know the guy pretty well, he wants a lot of money.

Joe Dunn: He's tired, he wants out.

Tom: He wants out, he wants something to happen there. Of course he is looking at the Township figuring that they are the ones that would come in at the first chance to unload the thing maybe to the township. I can't blame him for trying.

Joe Dunn: He'll find someone to buy that property.

Tom: I agree with what both Joe's are saying. I think if we are looking at it from a recreation standpoint, then ideally what we want to do is have somebody come in there, a developer come and develop some type of community recreation that we could work with them with our planning people, and whatever it is we could wind up getting a deal for the kids or for the people of this town, which we can manipulate in his development. And if you can't do that, then secondly because of where it sits, would be to get some type of ratable in there that will at least give us some type of tax relief and won't require any services. That would be the second thing.

Joe C: I was thinking along the lines of a good sports, indoor soccer, something like that. That's why, personally, I'd like to send that message back to the council to give it over to the EDC to pursue that. I think that Tom's report is very, very good. It's right on target. I think it could be used then by another firm that would be interested in ascertaining that property. They could point out that these buildings are dead, somebody else takes over they will have to go through code enforcement, fire inspection, those buildings would be closed permanently if they went through those inspections now.

Harold: It seems to me to be the place of the Mayor and the Council President to request that of the Economic Development.

Joe C: They sent it on to us.

Harold: They sent it on to us for our comments concerning the letter that we got. I think based upon that we can make comments on behalf of our board, but I believe that its really the place of the people who initiated the discussion, meaning the elected officials to go ahead and make the recommendation to the other sitting board. Rather than us directly communicating to that board, what we really ought to do is follow the pattern backwards as it came. Make our recommendation back to Tom, and then through the Mayor and the Council, have them request that of the other board.

Joe C: That's what I'm saying.

Tom: I think that's what Joe means.

Harold: That wasn't my understanding of it. I thought we were going to draft a letter and send it to the EDC.

Joe C: I said we would ask Tom to get a letter on behalf of this committee if we vote on it and agree to send it back to the council by Monday night. To be in their packets on Friday so that when they pick it up over the weekend, that our recommendation after looking at the Birch Hill assessment by Tom, that our opinion is that we agree with his assessment, but we would also like it to remain a recreation facility and that we would like it for them to turn it over to the EDC and to a private entity to put in some kind of recreational facility. I think it's a great place for that. You got that Marlboro, Manalapan area, if you brought in a place that had something like Good Sports with soccer, indoor soccer, hockey, batting cages

Tom: They can do a skate park, they could do anything in there. You could make a lot of money in their because of the location.

Joe C: It is an ideal place to do a skate park like we did at Vets.

Tom: Couple it with indoor soccer, or indoor roller hockey. I think it would be a money maker. If I had the money, I'd like to do it myself. It's a good thing. Because our kids would be able to get involved with it at a cheaper rate because we would work that as part of the deal.

Joe C: We have a motion, everyone in favor. No one is opposed to it.

Gerard: I'd just like to see the draft before it goes out, and before its signed off.

Tom: We can do that. We'll put it together and then we go back and send copies back or, fax them.

Gerard: So that every board member is on the same page. We can initial on it.
Joe C: That will be tight to get it done by Friday.

Tom: I don't know if we will get it done by Friday, we can try. There agenda meeting is on Monday, and the regular meeting is the following Monday.

Joe R: Unless you want to draft the verbiage now.

Denis: You can letter and get it to everybody and we can make a phone call Monday and we can say we agree with the letter. Then the letter can be put in their packets Monday morning.

Tom: This is a tough week. As you know Alayne's sick in the hospital, so I'm the administrator, the Mayor's away so I'm acting Mayor; I have a hundred people in my ear all day long. So it is not going to be an easy week for me to sit down and concentrate on writing a letter. I can try to do it, but I can't promise that I'll have it ready by Friday.

Joe C: Plus, it's supposed to snow Monday, so don't plan on going anywhere. I'm glad everyone is in agreement; I thought that would be a tough one.

Paul: Just one question on how this would play out. The Economic Development Corp. they are a separate private entity. And our suggestion or recommendation to them is that we feel that it is a valuable piece of property; location, location, location.

Joe C: No, we will not get into that.

Tom: No, we are not going through them at all. We are recommending to the Council that although based on the report you don't agree that we should buy it for recreation, you would recommend that they reach out through the Economic Development Corp. to see if there is an interest in finding a buyer for a recreation facility.

Joe C: It's their charter to get business into the town. So we would feel that this is probably a viable business for somebody in the town and we would recommend, or we would even help them in the design and the implementation of the facility. We would be glad to work with them on saying we need soccer fields, or indoor football, batting cages, whatever. Part of what we discussed last time is when Carol gets something out, when she sends something out, if you get back to them as fast as possible.

Joe C: We still have this thing on the table about asking, well we are definitely asking for a council member, we will talk about that. The two year appointment, and I'll think we'll ask the council about what they feel our role is. We could bring that back to the table and discuss it. I guess if we don't agree with it, we will at least have a councilman in the room and we can say to him what we agree and don't agree. Is everyone in agreement?

Gerard: Are they looking to change what it is that we do? The Council?

Joe C: We are unsure, we understand what Tom sees us...

Gerard: What have the Council members told you?

Joe C: They only thing they ever asked us was that report last year.

Gerard: I mean you specifically. Has any of the Council members spoken to you as to what their will is?

Joe C: No, the only thing I got from them before they sent out the Birch Hill letter, I got a call requesting us to take a look at it. I think that's our charter. But I like to make sure we all, fifteen of us now (including two students), have an understanding from them. We know what Tom's understanding of the committee is, but if we have these elected officials we should understand what they think we should be doing. And if we disagree with that, then its our responsibility to go back to them and say we don't agree with that. Because if they have a certain expectation, and we are not hitting it, we either got to normalize that expectation or raise our ________ up. We have a decision to make.

Gerard: Sounds great. Why don't we get it in writing first. Let's get what their sense of the Council is in writing first. Whether from each individual council member or as a consensus, you know what, it would be best probably if they met and took it up and gave us a consensus of what they believe this committee's mission is. I think that's a great idea.

Joe C: And if it's the will of this group to do that, I will call Dennis tomorrow and ask to be put on the agenda for Monday.

Gerard: That's great.

Joe C: And if he going to assign a councilman or, I'm know a couple of them are interested in that anyway, if somebody is assigned to...

Gerard: There was always supposed to be a council person here.

Joe C: Not really according to the ...

Tom: I think some of them just had an interest from time to time.

Joe C: There's nothing in the ordinance that says there is one person... What's interesting is that it says there's 13 members.

Tom: Yes, there's 13. It used to be seven, then 9, then 11, now 13.

Paul: Let's hope that our input is valued by the council. Last year I recall one issue where the council reached out to Tom, and Tom said this decision should not be yes, and this is the advisory boards decision as well, and the vote was 8 to 1,yes. I hope there is a little more support for us, the advisory board, when we do bring a suggestion to the council that they follow through on it. Just so that no one is guessing it was awarding money to teams to go on to a travel competition. There is an ordinance that's in the books on how that should be. It's a national competitive nature teams getting there. We talked about it. We said that we didn't think that the high school marching band and the cheerleading team should be awarded money. And they were awarded money. Tom sat there and said the board, and I as the recreation director, said this is not the ordinance. And the vote was 8 to 1 to give them the money.

Gerard: I think we requested that all such requests should go through us before it went to Council.

Gerard: There's and objective and certainly I think... A lot of these teams come forward. Actually, there was a team afterwards that went before council and said we are involved in this thing, we qualified, it was a grey area whether they really did. Most of us on this board have been involved in some sports, we know youth sports, whether it be Pop Warner, Williamsport Little League, Babe Ruth. To know if it is a legitimate moving on that deserves some sort of township funding or contribution. There's an objective, Joe. I would be more than happy, hopefully the council will listen. We said don't give them the money and they gave them money.

Joe: Like we said before, we can only make a recommendation. We can make a recommendation to Tom and he could say, I'm not listening to it. We can make a recommendation to the Council. We don't always have to agree with Tom and we don't always have to agree with the council, and I think that will make us better. I think the main thing is that we are all in this for a purpose. We think we are doing what's good. Tom might get annoyed with us because he doesn't like the direction we are going. But when we go to the council, it's ultimately their decision along with the Mayor and instructing Tom on what they want done. If we go to the council and say we want to pursue bringing in a minor league baseball team, well he might not agree with that. But if we go to the council and we convince them and the mayor, did we do our job? I think we did.

Tom: That is a bad example. Not to toot my own horn, if I say you can't bring one in, after spending 10 years in professional baseball, and they listen to you guys and bring one in, then something's not right here.

Joe C: So Carol, Tom, you'll handle that. I will get in touch with Council President and ask him to get us an appointment. I think we need to make an amendment to the ordinance regarding having a full time council member. I think that will be important. As you said, Tom went before them and said we don't support your recreation committee's decision, If we had Richard Greene here or someone like that, and he was up there and he could tell the Council that the Recreation committee said to send it back to the Board of Ed, it is really not any of our business as a town. We think that money should be used for Youth Athletics regardless of age, that is a Board of Ed.

Tom: I think that is a good point. The problem is when you look at how the freeholders operate and every county, that's why they have a freeholder director that's affiliated with one of the department's, but on the county level you are only talking about a small number of freeholders. Here it is harder because, Joe is right, you could have one guy come in here and whatever it is, and convince him, but he still has to go back and convince everyone else. He would know how you really feel. He can make the statement.

Joe R: I think we are all in agreement. Let's stop discussing and move on.

Joe C: I will make those phone calls tomorrow.

Gerard: Very clearly, what is it that we are asking for?

Joe C: We are going to ask them to assign a council member to the committee and a request to change the ordinance to include a council member as a full time member of this board. And his role would be to listen, give input and bring that knowledge back to the council.

Dennis: Are you also having it changed to a 2-year term?

Joe C: I think that was the other thing we are going to discuss. We'd like to see the appointments rather than being a one-year appointment to be a two-year appointment. I would see that being six a year. Joe R. brought up a good point, we should leave it up to them on how they will do their appointments. Sometimes it just doesn't make sense doing it every year. For continuity, I'll make a verbal request on this tomorrow and I will follow it up later on when we can agree on it. They will not change the ordinance right away. He has to have Bill Ruggierio write it up anyway. They will throw it back to us and they will want signatures on it as well. We will make that recommendation right away. At least we can get a first reading. I don't think them appointing a council member should have any bearing on the ordinance, but we can make it formal. As long as we get the 2-year appointment done by the first of the year.

Joe R: How about the mission statement? Are you going to change the ordinance to add that, or are we just going to request that?

Joe C: I think for now we'll ask them what they think it should be and we can work it in committee, have a discussion with them and maybe by 4th quarter we feel confident that that's the new mission statement and it should be incorporated into the ordinance.

Paul: You expect back and forth dialogue. If they say this is what we feel the mission of the advisory board is, we are then going to say we don't agree...

Joe C: I would ask them to throw it back to us to see for our input.

Joe R: I kind of hope we agree.

Joe C: I think they would be open to that. As Tom said, its not a commission, we don't control millions of dollars, I think they would be willing to have a dialogue with us.

Paul: When Tom was giving his assessment of what our role is, I think he said some real good things as far as how we would work with him, how we do work with him and then as an extension to the council.

Gerard: For basis of discussion, could you please have a copy of what you send accompany the letter that goes to the council requesting what it is they think our mission statement is.

Tom: Carol can pull that from the minutes.

Gerard: This way before they begin in a black box someplace. At least they have a concept of what page you are, and it will give them a good place to begin. Let's hold off on the letter to the council until we have that description.

Joe C: We should be able to get it into this cycle within the month. So we don't lose another month.

Gerard: I'd rather be accurate then expeditious.

Joe C: OK, we'll do that. I want to bring up some things that occurred. Paul and Joe had got together because they volunteered that they would look at putting a survey together about skate park fees. Since then, Joe and I have talked on the phone a couple of times about how, I think we need to move on how we can better collect data. Being that we are familiar with that, being in that field, that we had quite a few ideas on how to do it. One way, and I know most of you who have E-mail addresses, know you can subscribe to services or downloads of e-mail messages. Joe and I both felt, and Joe, please correct me if you are in disagreement, we discussed this probably the day after our last meeting. We thought it would be a good idea...

Paul: Excuse me, I'm sorry. The day after our last meeting, I volunteered to be a committee member of that committee, Joe, you and I traded e-mail's The last e-mail I sent to you has gone unanswered, and now you are sitting here having meetings with Joe about the issues.

Joe R: No, we are talking about a different issue.

Paul: You are talking about surveys and collecting information. That's what we were discussing.

Joe R: No, what we discussed was the possibility of using Web site and subscriber sign up lists to send e-mail out when events are coming. That's as far as that went. There was no discussions in terms of doing this particular survey or anything like that.

Paul: That was the segue for what you are talking about.

Joe C: That thought made me think that we need to have a better way of data collection. Which is fine, but you said that on the heels that Joe is a committee member and Paul was, and they were meeting, we traded e-mail's, and then you were talking to Joe. It came right on the heels of discussing the committee of which I am a part of. My comment was that I was interacting with Joe and then it stopped. Now I'm hearing...

Joe R: You're right. It stopped.

Paul: .... and it continued with Joe. That is not how committees work. Absolutely not. We said the last meeting we didn't do a good job with committees. You are the one who said we need committees. I volunteered to be a part of the committee, I fell off the committee midstream. That is very disappointing.

Joe C: I think I had a conversation with Joe for about data collection, not the data collection you were working on with the skate park.

Paul: OK. If you changed topics, I missed it.

Joe C: It was a general discussion on how to better collect data.

Paul: OK, separate and distinct from the skate park.

Joe C: Right. What prompted me to think of that was the message I got from you all, kind of what was done to date. So since then, I thought about how these firms that I deal with on a daily basis on subscriptions and how they collect data. How they work in the industry. So one of them is that you subscribe to a mail list. We were just talking about how things can occur. We can come up with a way that if a person in town was interested in how the future of recreation is in the town, they could subscribe to be on this broadcast list. Like I said, we were brainstorming. Nothing in secret. It just happened to be we were on the phone together. We also talked about, Joe has actual experience with building web sites, he knows the capability of type of data collection into a database. Likewise, I had a discussion with Barbara Felice about problems I had with a link from the town's web site to the little league web site and I had talked to the woman in that data processing dept. I was saying in conversation that I think we need to come up with a mechanism for data collection. The least expensive as possible. That's why industries use e-mail, its cheap, it doesn't cost you anything. You send out an e-mail message that says we are trying to collect the data, what do you think? At that point in time you can choose not to respond, respond, usually what you do is you put a URL and you ask for somebody to click on that and fill out the answers to the survey. That's what we were thinking. If a person is tired of receiving e-mail's, they could unsubscribe. It would be a voluntary thing. We felt that we could ask questions like: "How many children are in your family?", "What are their age groups?", so we could do some demographics. I know last year we talked about trying to do that. It's a costly process. Its very costly to send out survey and gather them and do some analysis on them if you are doing it from the mail. People don't answer them. People are tired of phone calls. But we do need a way to get that data.

Joe R: I have a reservation about this.

Tim K: Wait, this is all stemming back from the question about skate park fees. Trying to get information back. As you guys said, I went back to my community and I talked to three or four families I know within town. One family isn't very wealthy. They are lower income in my town. They have five children. I just stopped by, I know them well. I bounced some questions off them. I got some input from them. Then I went to a couple of other families. It took me maybe an hour on a Saturday. And I got some information. I thought that's what our job was. To go out. To make it basic and simple so we can have this information back within a reasonable amount of time. I understand what you are saying. It's a good idea to get these survey information back and all. But in the amount of time that we work as a committee, we are limited as to our access and everybody's free time. I felt that we are all coming from different sections of the communities, we can go to different people. The old fashioned way. Talk to these people verbally. I feel you get a better input and an actual feel for what these people want to have happen. Not everybody's going to have time when they come home to answer an e-mail or open and envelope and do any type of survey.

Joe C: That's fine.

Gerard: I agree. Part of the reason that the individuals, in my estimation, are on this committee is because of their standing in the community, they are people in their particular areas very well known, have been in positions of very high viability, in sports and recreation or other aspects of the township. Are easily accessible either by telephone or in person. These are easily accessible people. We are kind of in a way ambassadors to the community. Even though we are not elected officials or anything, it doesn't take a budget, it doesn't take a lot of long range planning on our part as committee people to come back to get as much information as we can as to the sense of what the community wants given on a particular project, or how they feel about it when we go to the community and say, listen, the reason that we are looking to put in fees is because, well, quite frankly, we are trying to limit the use from the outsiders. So that our guys can get it. We can say this. Where you can't communicate this really, you cannot communicate flavors as well in a written sense as you can verbally. Because I can say don't worry, look, the thing is if the kids don't have any money and they live in Old Bridge, don't worry about it. Put a phone call into Tom and they get their card. What we are looking to do here is keep the guys from the other towns out. We built the park, and we want if for our people. That's why we are putting the fee in, that's the deal. It is far more difficult to communicate the flavor of that as you are saying, and what we really need to do is focus on what that is too. Bring that flavor back. It's that flavor of the person.

Joe C: But the best surveys are done in multiple modes.

Gerard: I think surveys are, again to me in this particular case, is the purview of the councils and the elected officials and those people. Surveys, I mean, the federal government does census, and the state has a census. I don't see that really as our mission. That should be the mission of the elected officials. Let them worry about how you are going to develop a proper survey that demographically meets the needs of all the people and doesn't disenfranchise on group or another group. It is not our place. Our place is to say to them "Listen, we need a better way to gather information." They may come back and say let's triple the number of people on your committee. So we can have better exposure from the committee. That's the cheapest way to go since we are free. Then comes e-mail. What I'm saying is should we be taking our energy and focusing in on things that are clearly the responsibility of another group. Shouldn't we be making the suggestion to them instead as to the need for it, and then allow them to go ahead and develop. That's why they got elected.

Joe R: I think that's why we are asking them to define our mission. I don't think it is clear at all. I don't think we know.

Dennis: With reference to the skate park fee, I live right around the block from there. All the kids in my area skate there. There is kids all over South Old Bridge that skate in that park. I have talked to a number of them. Parents who have 4 or 5 kids. They said no problem with a fee. I didn't have to set up an e-mail address.

Joe C: Don't think that the skate park is the only thing we are trying to gather data on.

Dennis: I know its not, but it is just as easy for us to go out and find out what they want.

Joe C: What about the needs of the people that aren't in youth sports. What about the fact that, I'm looking at multiple modalities (different ways) to collect data. I would think that us as a committee members are out in the community collecting data, but I'm sorry, most of the data I'm getting from is from Little League or baseball leagues. We are missing large pockets of people who maybe don't feel that way.

Tom: I think what you are saying and what Joe is saying is valid for a true valid survey done professionally. Which is great for long range use. But the point you must remember to, one thing Gerard said, in delivery, it is not easy to do it with a valid survey. I agree with Gerard, in delivery when you approach these people. I think what Tim did is the essence of what we are looking for. Just to get multiple families, just to hear what their input is...

End of Tape One, Side B.

Tom: ... it is not going to make a dent in, we allocated the money of $100,000 for the park, there is $40,000 that has been allocated by the Council for Special Police to comply with our insurance and protection of our kids. We are not going to put a drop in the bucket if its $50 for an annual fee. But the key is, the reason we need some fee, and the more steeper it is for an out-of-towner, the more you will restrict their use. If it is delivered in that way, we may have a more valid impact on what we are trying to accomplish. Timmy, I'd like to hear what you found out. If you don't mind Joe.

Joe C: I wasn't ready to move into the skate park fee area. What I was talking about is once again a conversation I had with Joe because he has experience with this, and the fact that we did get in touch with Himanshu and ran it past him. Who is the professional people that would do it? Just because we are the committee that is concerned about recreation, I think we can make recommendations on other things as well. I think, and it is still my personal feeling, is that we will need in the future a way of gathering data. And the sooner we can either start collecting e-mail addresses, or whatever means you want to do it, I'm not saying take away the knock on your neighbors door and say what do you think about this, what I'm saying it would be good for us to have a way at some point in time, if we do want to do a big survey, we are not starting from scratch. The beauty of doing some kind of mass mailing through e-mail and data collection over the web it doesn't cost a lot of money. That's why all the businesses out there do it.

Tom: Joe, I agree with you. What you are saying is a valid point. It is a more professional approach, but its going to take a little time to do that. In the meantime, summer's coming and I have a problem because we are going to have kids from a hundred towns out there, and we are going to have a real problem. The point, Dennis, is well taken. Go ask the kids. I think it would be better suited to compile a mini-survey in here. We can have the special hand them out at the skate park and ask those kids to return them to the recreation dept. We need to know, if this is going to be implemented, and it has to be by ordinance, this is going to be a tough situation come the good weather. I'm not dismissing, Joe, what you and Joe R. are saying. It would have a tremendous impact, its very valid for our future use. I think we should pursue that concurrently with this. The things that Timmy and Dennis are talking about, we need to do that right now while you and Joe are doing the professional preparation of something that you guys are talking about. In the meantime I think what Timmy has done is terrific. We need to do that now. For this particular project we need to have the grass roots thing.

Gerard: Let's just cut to the chase and say that we recommend the council, take a better way of collecting data in the future. That's what we think.

Dennis: It doesn't even have to come from the committee. It could come from Joe himself who has a business. He could go to the council meeting and say as a member of a committee, we need to collect information and I think you, as a council, should do something about it. Not us as a committee, it has nothing to do with us.

Tom: I know you are working with Shah, those kind of things can continue.

Joe R: Why don't we table the whole data collection, it certainly seems to be unproductive right now. We started going back and forth with a survey we can use. The biggest problem I had at that point was trying to identify who do you give this stuff to. Handing it out at the skate park sounds like a reasonable thing to do. We can either accept what we put together or not, I don't really care, or we work something out that we can collect data quickly since we are trying to get an answer on this.

Joe D: I don't know if we want to hand this out at the skate park, half these kids are out of towners.

Joe C: I think the input from the people you talk to, I have input as well. I was trying to do data collection and then I was going to move on to Skate park Fees.

Gerard: I think we have the kids from school here, maybe this might be the perfect venue for something that the student senate can do. It seems to me it is right in your ball park because you are the constituency that this park serves. Certainly not us. This could be something I think better directed to the High School Senate and perhaps to the councils of the middle schools. And perhaps you folks can go back and hold a vote among your constituents, however you want to do that. Maybe you want to put flyers around. And say we are going to put a ballot box in the lunchroom for the next two weeks, and here is the deal. This is what those people on the Rec. Committee are thinking about. They are talking about putting in a fee to use the skate park. Just like when you go for tennis, you'd have and ID or something. It would cost you money. It would be an annual fee. What we are talking about is access to the park, let's cut to the chase, what we are really talking about is to find an acceptable way so that the park doesn't get jammed without of town people because all those other towns don't have a skate park and we do. So we want it for our kids first. That's why we set a fee, because some money's are used that are not just township money to build that skate park. And when that happens, the law says you have to give access to other people in the county and in the State. But the law also says that we can massage that and one of the ways we can do that is to charge a fee. What Tom can tell you, and what I'll tell from being on this committee for all these years, and this is important to get out and make sure you get it to your people, if somebody cannot afford it, or if somebody's mother or father doesn't want to pay for it, but they are allowed to go, there are scholarships available. Nobody in this town, as a resident in this town, will get shut out of the park because they cannot afford a fee. I will tell you that right now. I don't know how the rest of the board feels about this, but maybe this is a perfect venue for you guys to get involved in a data collection process from the exact constituents that we need to give us the authority and to give us the moral right to go ahead and do this. How do the rest of you feel about that?

Dennis: Just let them know that the reason for the fee is to keep the kids from out of town out of there.

Paul: Please don't put that in the survey.

Tom: Let me give some input. I think what we need to do if Megan and Tony can come in at some point next week and I'll brief you on that so as not to hold up the whole committee. How we can charge based on Green Acres legislation, charge double for a nonresident. And you give some ideas and give you and information sheet and maybe make a flyer. We'll make it a day that is convenient for you guys.

Paul: Did anyone come against any opposition to fees at the skate park?

Joe C: I did, a couple.

Tom: I think once they understand that you have a skate park that can hold probably 60 skaters comfortably and in the summertime when there is 120 kids trying to get in there. What are we going to do here? There is only one way to try and limit that, the chance on an out of towner laying down a big chunk of money as an annual fee is greatly reduced when you start talking about numbers that are significant.

Megan: From gathering the information from the students, I think that if we are provided with a written survey to give to the student senate, then they could go around and hand them out during lunchtime. That is done with a lot of surveys. It is a good way to get from all the different kids.

Joe C: I think maybe Joe R. and Paul have...

Paul: Just to make myself and maybe some others feel good, let me kind of paint a different picture of what value we bring to this recreation department. When Tom brought this up last month, that there is a control problem with the volume of kids coming into the park, kids from outside the town, which are preventing our kids from using the park. I don't think anyone of us thought there was a problem with extending some sort of fee to use that park. I spoke, as Timmy did, with several of my contemporaries, and no one was opposed to a fee. Let's turn that around. Let's say Tom said we need a fee. We as a board said absolutely not. We pay a lot of taxes in this town, its not fair, we shouldn't do it, I would like to think that if Tom heard that from us, he would say, you know what Mayor Cannon, there's 13 people in that room that's representative of the community and they said absolutely not. But yet we said this has merit. That we can reach out to the kids and certainly I would hope that if put together properly...very important. Because to ask a school age kid do you want to pay money for something, they will say no. I'm concerned that might be a easier answer to say than thinking through what the reason is.

Megan: Maybe if you put certain questions on it, like, do you feel it's overcrowded because of people not from our town? You have to word it right. So they understand why.

Tom: I can tell you its going to be a problem, especially when school gets out. I'm worried about that. I'm worried for, not just the safety when there skating, but I'm worried about the safety of the turf war we are going to end up having. We are not going to be able to eliminate all of it. If you put in a $25 or $50 annual fee for a resident, they may think its a lot, but the way I look at it, I have done the research on what the private parks are $10 for three hours, our park is open 300 days a year, when the kids are off from school the park will be open for 12 or 13 hours a day, its pretty reasonable for a kid to skate. A $50 for an out of towner, or upwards of that is a deterrent. They can't just go to the park, the special will turn them away. He will tell them they have to pay this fee at Town Hall and get an ID card. Then you will be allowed in. That will be a deterrent. There will be some kids who will do it from out of town, but a lot of them won't do it.

Joe D: Don't they have an out of town fee for the Ice Rink?

Tom: I hope we don't get caught on it, because the council put in to have ID cards. The only thing that is saving us that they are free for the township people, but we are not giving an ID card for out of town people. If there is a free ID card for our kids, then it has to be free for the out of town kids. The thing that saves us at the Arena we are only doing ID cards just for residents. So there was a fee and the council decided to eliminate the fee. This case, there will be two ID cards, one for residents and one for nonresident. So if you charge a $5 annual fee for a resident, you can charge a $10 fee for nonresidents. If you charge $0 for a resident, you can't charge anything for a nonresident.

Paul: Is the question what the fee is? What's the difference in the fees, Tom, if the kid has a card...

Tom: If they don't have a card, they pay the nonresident fee.

Gerard: Can there be an option of a one-time fee?

Tom: No, I don't want money collected at the site. It would be disastrous.

Gerard: No, not money collected at the site. I have a suggestion you might want to consider, we can bargain with the schools as we've done in the past, since the kids are already at the schools, maybe through student services we could have it done right there.

Tom: The ID? No, we can do it here. We can color code the ID's and do a picture ID right here. Doing it isn't the problem. The ID's could be free, but if they are free for residents, they have to be free for nonresidents. Then there's the annual fee to go. If it's $50 for an annual fee for a resident for skate park usage, then it would be $100 for a nonresident. For residents, $50 annual fee for the first kid, the second kid might be $10, the third kid, might be $1.

Gerard: Then when the kid goes, they have to pay to enter.

Tom: No,he shows his ID. If he doesn't have his ID, then he doesn't get in.

Joe C: The only negative comment I got about the fee, and this is from people who live in Madison Park, well, what if you have kid who only wants to go once or twice. Maybe they just want to try to see if they like it, they might hate it. Or that parent doesn't want to drive there. Or if a kid is hanging out with a friend in South Old Bridge and they want to skateboard, but he doesn't have a pass. Or parents that don't want to keep driving there, if it was my child, I'm not a drop off parent. I don't drop them off and say I'll pick you up in two hours. I'll sit there in the car, or do something while I'm at the park. I know that was a major concern for some of those people. Especially people from Laurence Harbor. What if their kid just want to try it.

Joe R: Can't you sell a one-time ticket and have the attendant just take a ticket.

Tom: You can do that, but now you are talking about more logistical problems. I understand what you are saying. It's like a kid who wants to try a recreational program and doesn't like it, he gets a refund. That's the other thing. We can give a refund to a resident. We are not going to let him go twenty times and give a refund. Within a course of a couple of weeks in getting a ticket, we will give a refund. It's easier to give a refund.

Joe C: One of the comments I got, and I got a chuckle out of it, was you know with the leaf program we get seven bags. I told them this is not the leaf program.

Gerard: What about a free three hour session every third Monday on alternating months?(members laughing)

Tom: All I can tell you that if there is no fee schedule when we get to the summer, what we are going to have to do, not only having the special down there pulling his hair out, what we will have to do is let the kids go in waves.

Joe C: People didn't object to having the fee, but they just felt...

Tom: We give refunds for every other program.

Joe D: I think we are overanalyzing this problem. The fee is the last of this kids problems. He has just laid out a lot of money for equipment. I saw something in the paper last week. Jamesburg is putting one in, South Brunswick. Because its popular. Until they put one in, everyone of those kids will be in our skate park. We need to do something soon. I haven't heard one thing about what anybody got in as far as the data collection. What did people say. We've been talking about this for 45 minutes and I haven't heard anything yet.

Paul: Joe R. drafted what would be a questionnaire and I kind of tweaked some little things on it. It had down what would be suggested fees. You check which one you felt was reasonable. Now that we have this thing, how do we get it out and who do we get it out to? As far as verbally doing it, I did a lot of talking to my neighbors and people in the league, and I didn't hear anybody say they shouldn't do it. Everyone seemed to agree, if it was a nominal fee, that it made sense. Because the park will become a big problem.

Joe D: Don't you think we can make a decision as a committee right now? Are we going to over examine this for another month? And get a survey out, we know what the survey will say. The kids are not going to want to pay nothing. We know what the reality is. Everybody here has talked to somebody and I think we can make a decision. For 45 minutes we haven't talked about anything but this. Let's make a decision.

Tom: The council will not implement anything unless they get some feedback from you guys what you think and what you've found from the community.

Dennis: I talked to one family that has 4 boys, the father had no problem with a fee. Yes, I think there should be a fee because when I take my kids there, it's crowded. It's a family pack, fine. He had no problem with it. Even families with one kid, had no problem.

Joe C: I agree with Joe D. I don't think we need to beat this around. I think we could come up with...I think Tom you through out some fees last week.

Tom: It is whatever you guys feel would be appropriate based on your talks with people are. I think the high end, which really isn't high, was scaring the council. The annual fee for a resident would be $50, $100 for nonresident. Or you could drop it down to $25/$50. I also think for multiple family members you need to reduce it greatly for the second, third, and fourth person. If we did $25, the second kid could be $10, the third kid, $5 and the fourth kid, free. Something like that. You don't want to penalize multiple family users. Then do the same for a nonresident. But, the chances are nonresident multiple family members are greatly reduced. I would like to give the residents a decent break. Whatever the fee you think to set. We can start at the low end $25/$50. Have the second child at $10, the third at $5 and thereafter would go free. I think when you start to get towards $50, the diehards will still do it. Until other parks are opened up. It really is a matter of what fee that you want to do. If you want to be conservative, do $25/$50. If you want to go right to the core of it, go $50/$100. It really is whatever choice you feel is best suited by the people you've talked to.

Joe D.: I've talked to a couple of people, $25 a person, $50 a family.

Tom: I think you should get away from this $50 a family. If you got just two kids then you are not getting a deal. How about you go $25/$10/$5/free. That gives the resident's a break. For an out of towner it would be $50/$20/$10/free. At least you are doubling it.

Paul: Just to try and play that out, I don't know if the John Doe family comes down and they have two of their kids with them, because the other one isn't interested. They pay $25/$10. A month later the other one wants to play, some of this will be tough to execute. I'm cautioning it may be confusing.

Joe C: You have that in your database anyway.

Tom: Joe is right, we have it in our database. It's not hard to track it. I guess you'd say we'd have a free ID card whether it is resident or nonresident. To get a picture ID. We don't want to charge the residents. I want to identify for the specials too, the residents. We can use different color cards. The special can chart how many resident and nonresidents on a given day. Get some statistics.

Gerard: Will this create any jobs for our teenagers?

Joe R: They'll be selling band-aids.

Joe C: Ice Packs.

Tom: We could do that, Gerard. That is not a bad idea for the summer. I thought of that for the summer season. Just to have a skate guard just like you'd have at the arena. On a weekday, we may have a couple of people working. I think it would be a good thing to do. Kids that are interested in skating, just like at the arena.

Gerard: Do you have any plans to utilize the concession stand that you have there.

Tom: We don't have one. I wish we had one.

Joe C: I think we agreed upon $25/$10/$5/free. And double for nonresidents. Thank you
Megan and Tony for offering to do the project through the school, but I think we'll use you later on to do something.

Tom: I'll put the thing together from the board to give to the council. We would look to implement this sometime in the spring. It will take two meetings and then a 20 day period. It will be close to spring break, but we'll try.

Paul: I think the other thing that will be critical in making this thing not upsetting to folks is how we get the word out.

Joe D: We can get the word out through these two students who were nice to come down and be a part of this committee.

Tom: Once they pass the second reading of the ordinance, then you have a twenty day waiting period. You want to give them some time. We could do a big sign and put it at the skate park, effective May 1st, you will need an ID card, post the resident rate and nonresident rates.

Harold: I have a question. One of the things for the ID was to keep the 7 year olds and under out. How are you going to do that?

Tom: When they come in to register, they can show their birth certificate. Like we do for the other programs. We will need a proof of age.

Joe D: What do you think about having the registration at the high school or at the middle school?

Gerard: Maybe its possible to have a couple of your staff to go over there to East and West and do registrations there. I realize it's inconvenient.

Tom: We need all the information to load up into the computer too. You'd be bringing all this stuff back, it would be a mess.

Joe C: Don't you want to give out to an adult so they get the rules etc.

Paul: Can I make one more objective that we have as a committee? That the meetings don't go more than 90 minutes.
Member discussion, cannot differentiate between different voices. Someone brings up about missing two meetings there would be a letter.

Joe C: If any body wanted to change the ordinance. According to ordinance we should be asking, John P. Did John get to you whether he would attend the meeting?

Carol: He did call and say he would be here tonight.

Joe C: By ordinance, and he signed it, if a member is absent for two consecutive meetings without cause, the recommendation shall be sent to the Mayor and council requesting they review their appointment. If you could please call John and ask him if he wants to be a member of the committee, that he missed the first two meetings, and actually he missed the last two of last year. Find out what his intentions are if he is planning to stay on it or not. I believe he did miss the last one of last year.

Dennis: The last one we didn't have a quorum.

Joe C: Then the one prior to that. If you could check, well regardless he missed last one and this one already, so you could ask him what his intentions are.

Carol: Would that be better coming from you?

Paul: Carol's thinking, I'm not a truant officer.

Joe C: Yes, I'll do it. I'll call him.

Joe R: We better find out, it might be a family emergency or something.

Joe C: Right.

Gerard: Has he missed two meetings this year?

Paul: I guess the way its worded, which is a little open ended, it says two without cause. So if he intended to be here tonight, something came up, we'll find out what it is.

Joe C: I'll call and see what's up. Motion to adjourn?
Motion passed.

Township of Old Bridge
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Old Bridge, NJ 08857
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