Historic Preservation Committee

Meeting Minutes – January 16, 2014

A meeting of the Mountain Lakes Historic Preservation Committee (“HPC” or the “Committee”) was held on November 5, 2013, at the Mountain Lakes Borough Hall. In attendance were Co-Chairs Tom Dagger and John Grossmann, Michael DeWitt, and Ginny Cassidy. Also attending was new Borough Council liaison Frank Borin, who was warmly welcomed. Absent were Margaret DeWitt, Roberta Matalon, Pat Rusak, Chris Smith and Bridgid Walsh.

Approval of Prior Meeting’s Minutes

The Committee approved the minutes of the December meeting in the form distributed to the Committee in advance of the meeting.

Treasurer’s Report

John Grossmann presented the report prepared by Chris Sheasby:

Opening Balance as of 12/11/13: $29,952.23

Debits:

$53.52 Pat Rusak for historic photos

Credits:

$ 537.00 1 plaque, 4 walking tours, 2 centennial books, one notecard, historic photos

$ 400.00 Donation for salvage

$ 20.00 Centennial poster

$ 14.00 Plaque check returned to Roberta

$ 58.00 Historic photos

$1,087.00 Total Credits

Closing Balance as of 1/15/14: $30,985.71

Archivist’s Report

With Pat Rusak unable to attend there was no report this month.

Old Business

Transition to Borough Administration of HPC Bank Account

The transition of the HPC bank account to Borough administration was delayed a month (until the beginning of February) at the request of Bob Tovo, which allowed more time to discuss the arrangements with the Committee’s key vendors. John Grossmann reported that he had spoken with the vendors (the photo developer in Boonton, supplier of archive supplies, and historic plaque maker), and all three indicated they were willing to operate under the Borough’s vendor payment system going forward. Amy Connolly of the Borough finance department will work directly with the vendors to explain the system and make sure their payments are processed smoothly. Tom Dagger will follow up with Bob Tovo to confirm February 1 is still the target date for the transition.

Ordinance Implementation

Tom Dagger reviewed the background and current status of the ordinance implementation for Frank Borin’s benefit. An immediate issue is the fact that the ordinance has still not been published in the Borough’s ordinance database 17 months after passage, giving rise to a concern that the ordinance will be less effective if it isn’t publicized.

Tom updated the Committee on the status of ordinance modifications being considered, and suggested it might be useful to get Borough Council buy-in on the proposed set of modifications before any drafting was undertaken. The major substantive change is providing relief for homes with multiple street-facing facades so that only one such façade is subject to the more stringent regulation under the ordinance.

Tom updated the Committee on updates to the website photos, indicating he has obtained the complete set of jpeg files for the initial set of photos from Andy Bulfer.

Remote Monitoring for Archives/ML Library

Mike Dewitt said he had not yet tried to get a signal at the Library from the Optimum WiFi hot spot at the Train Station. He was waiting for an okay from the Library to test his home unit near the archives. John Grossmann said he would check on this with Librarian Peggy Bulfer on his next visit to the Library to check on their inventory of audio walking tour CDs and Centennial Books.

Old Briarcliff Magazine Photos

Michael DeWitt said that Board of Ed Superintendant Ann Mucci had not yet asked him for reimbursement for the framing work done on the old Seventeen magazine photos of the Briarcliff, which now hang in the school.

Walking Tour CDs

John Grossmann reported that Chris Smith had made 50 duplicate copies of the audio walking tour CD. He said he would pass them on to Tom Dagger so his son could again print labels for the CDs. John said he would contact Alpha Graphics in East Hanover and have them again make the jewel case artwork.

New Business

Mountain Lakes News Archives High School Project

Michael DeWitt explained that he had spoken with Frank Sanchez at the High School after receiving from him a digital copy of the complete run of The Mountain Lakes News (1917 to 1968, he thought). This valuable resource would be even more valuable, Mike noted, if instead of appearing as images, the articles were rendered as files that could be word searched to better facilitate research projects. He asked if the HPC felt the exploration of this re-rendering of the newspaper issues represented a student project that the HPC might want to aid with at most a few hundred dollars in support funding. That, he explained, might be along the lines of paying for Dropbox storage in the cloud to store the large data files while they were being assembled in the new format. The Committee voted in principle in favor of lending support and directed Mike to convey that to Frank Sanchez. Specific expenditures could be reviewed and approved as the needs are identified.

Date for Next Meeting

Due to conflicts on the normal meeting night, the next meeting was scheduled for Thursday, February 6, at 7:30 p.m. at the Mountain Lakes Borough Hall.

Minutes prepared by John Grossmann and Tom Dagger.