As a courtesy to our SHPOA Members, we’re bringing you this summary of the Stone Harbor Work Session and Council Meeting on November 2, 2021.

Work Session

Administration and Finance Report: Initial Budget Request Review
CFO Jim Craft reviewed the 2022 budget requests from all Borough departments. The Construction Office had the largest request due to the need to use conflict inspectors, who inspect Borough building projects because the Borough’s construction official is not permitted to inspect them. The Borough Clerk and Elections Office requested an additional 35% due to legal ads, Zoom and meeting expenses. All others range from no increase to less than 10%.

Engineer Marc DeBlasio reported that the total street/pipe laying project is on schedule at 102nd and 103rd Streets. The pilings and brickwork for the new Beach Patrol building are done and framing will begin shortly. He expects to have the building under roof by the new year.

Ray Poudrier, of the Construction Office, reported zoning fees to be on track with 2020. He noted that Federal Emergency Management Agency is ordering that a new 14- page application be used for flood elevation mapping. He suggested that the Borough might want to start charging a fee as this application is significantly longer than the current one. He also reported that the state Department of Environmental Protection wants to see a copy of the Borough flood prevention ordinance to review before it is submitted to FEMA.

(All of these documents will be on the Borough website (stoneharbornj.org) soon.)

The Tax Assessor reported 26 new deeds and 25 active listings as of the end of October.

CFO Craft said the Borough was well rated on the annual survey conducted by the State of New Jersey of municipalities’ best practices.

Borough Administrator Bob Smith discussed the applications for helping to fund three local non-profit organizations in 2022. All three had submitted their paperwork properly and were deemed by Council to provide services which benefit Stone Harbor. They are: Cape May County Coast Guard Community, Volunteers in Medicine, and the Marine Mammal Stranding Center.

Public Works Report
Councilman Ray Parzych spoke for Public Works. All summer-related work is almost complete and winter-related work has begun. He reported that the flood gate did not work well in the recent very heavy rain storm and the boat ramp appears to be a problem.

Utility Report
Councilman Reese Moore reported that water usage was 19% lower than usage last October.

Discussion
The draft of an ordinance amending a general ordinance was circulated and should soon be available to the public. The question is whether or not to prohibit private events on Borough property. The draft essentially allows the use of public property with permission only to non-profit organizations acting within the scope of their purposes. The draft was approved to be presented at the November 15th meeting.

Council Meeting
A resolution to hire a full-time police officer, Evan Michael Hallowell, was approved and the officer was sworn in before the full Council and his family.

Also approved was the Memorandum of Agreement between the public works employees’ union and the Borough.

Council approved moving several line items in the budget into different categories as well as engaging Jersey Professional Management to help with the recruiting of a new Public Works Director.

For legislation referred to at this meeting, please follow this link: https://stoneharbornj.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/November-2-2021.pdf

To view the meeting on line, please click this link: https://youtu.be/AUF8z5X6omM
To read past Stone Harbor Council Meeting summaries, please click here: https://www.stoneharborpoa.org/news/.