TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Those who remember actor Taurean Blacque, 82, who had died in Atlanta July 21, may best recall him as the quiet, patient and street smart Chicago Police Det. Neal Washington on NBC’s 1982-97 drama series “Hill Street Blues.” He was also the series’ “Previously on ‘Hill Street Blues’ ” opening voiceover.
Those here and around New Jersey’s largest city, however, remember Blacque as Arts High School graduate and USPS letter carrier Herbert Middleton, Jr. His Arts HS’s 1958 yearbook self-description has him marching with its 20th Century Drum and Bugle Corps whenever he was not on the skating rink.
The son of a dry cleaner and a nurse, who was born here May 10, 1940, listed his ambition as “to be a happy and successful commercial artist.” The 476 So. 12th St. resident began to realize that goal by first leaving the postal service for New York’s Negro Ensamble Company in 1970 and later, coming up with his Taurean Blacque stage name.
Middleton, as Blacque, began getting credited parts in episodes of “Good Times,” “Taxi,” “Sanford and Son” and “Charlie’s Angels” before landing the Det. Washington part in “Hill Street.” He was nominated for an Emmy in 1982 as best supporting actor in a drama series.
Blacque, post-“Hill Street,” held major parts in NBC’s 1989-90 daytime serial “Generations” and in the WB Network’s 1996-97 series “Savannah.” He moved to Atlanta to become part of the local acting and production scene until recently.
Blacque adopted 11 children to his own two biological sons. The adoption advocate led President George H.W. Bush to appoint him as the national spokesman for adoption.
Son Henry Middleton announced his father’s passing on the latter’s Facebook page that Thursday. Two great-grandchildren and 18 grandchildren are also among his survivors. No public services have been planned as of press time.
IRVINGTON – New Jersey not only lost a gubernatorial aide and pioneering bond counsel in John Kraft’s June 28 death, but Irvington lost the last of four natives who used to play on the township’s playing fields in the 1940s and 50s.
John Leonard “Jack” Kraft, 86, who was born in Irvington May 25, 1936, used to play baseball, basketball and football with Leonard Schneider and the brothers Joe and John Baumann until high school called. Kraft and Schneider were enrolled in New York City’s Xavier High School, where they graduated with honors in 1956.
Kraft returned to the Essex County or “Local Talk” area on at least three extended times. The Georgetown University and Yale Law School grad first joined Newark’s Toner, Crowley, Woelper and Vanderbilt law firm. He rose through several public finance-oriented law firms until he became Gov. William T. Cahill’s associate counsel in 1970.
In 1971, Kraft left the Cahill Administration to work in the new field of bond finance law, becoming bond counsel to Essex and 17 other New Jersey counties. The former USAF pilot, in later years, operated a practice from Livingston.
Kraft, who died in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., follows Schneider and the Baumanns in death. Schneider, 83, a former RCA vice president, died in 2000. John Baumann, 83, a 42-year PSE&G meter department supervisor, died in 2019; Joe Baumann’s year of death was not immediately known.
Wife Anne “Joy,” six children, seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren are among Kraft’s survivors. A private service was held in Florida. Memorial donations may be made to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, cff.org.
EAST ORANGE – A high school student has turned a harrowing escape and being late to his summer job here July 22 into an effort to help the 18 families who were burned out in that day’s fire at 161 Prospect Ave.
Jaylen Dukes, 16, reported to 44 City Hall Plaza and the Office of the City Council late that Friday. He had said that fire, police and related units responding to The Villa’s blaze had blocked the intersection of Prospect and Park avenues, hindering his commute.
While Dukes started his duties as a Summer Work Experience Program member, he kept thinking back to what he and his family had experienced just after 12:33 a.m.
Dukes had finished his prayers and was about to go to bed when his brother Donnell began to yell at him and mother Doris to get up because their fire detector had gone off. They looked out to 161 Prospect next door – was ablaze. All three got out but later learned that Cherry A. Davis, the grandmother of Donnell’s friend, had died.
Jaylen, with the help of Doris, had posted an appeal for new underwear and new or gently used outerwear and shoes for the 161 Prospect families on social media. The response has led to the Dukes collecting adult and children’s clothing and footwear across Essex County and into Bergen County.
Those wanting to donate to the Dukes drive for 161 Prospect Ave. are to call (973) 800-6681.
ORANGE – City detectives are looking for the man who stabbed a Good Samaritan while breaking up a fight by a landmark Valley restaurant here on July 30.
Orange Public Safety Director Todd Warren and Police Chief Vincent Vitiello said that their officers had responded to an injured person report from the 400 block of Valley Street at 1:35 a.m. Saturday.
Officers found a man with stab wounds to his stomach. A local EMS ambulance took the unidentified man to a local hospital and was admitted in stable condition.
OPD officers had meanwhile learned that the victim was trying to break up a fight in front of Hat City Kitchen, 459 Valley St. One of the other individuals in the altercation pulled out a knife, stabbed the man and fled before the police’s arrival.
Hat City Kitchen had closed at 11 p.m. July 29 before the outside stabbing incident. The establishment has been the latest one on the southwest corner of Valley Street and Forest Avenue since 2010.
City detectives are reviewing area video surveillance recordings as of press time. The suspect’s description has not yet been publicized.
WEST ORANGE – Police here and in Hanover Township are pooling their information while searching for the two suspects who robbed two of their respective gasoline stations minutes apart on July 28.
Workers at the Prospect Avenue Exxon station told responding WOPD officers that they were held up by “two black males” who had arrived and departed in a blue BMW at 4:30 p.m. that Thursday. one of them held a firearm while robbing the cashier.
The pair left the southeast corner of Prospect and Eagle Rock avenues in the BMW, whose N.J. license plates read “E68-MBB.” The station at 270 Prospect, except for its brief budget branding as “Alert” in 1979-80, has long been an Exxon.
When West Orange detectives put out an all point bulletin, they got a prompt response from Hanover police. They said the two males and their car matched the accounts made by workers at a Route 10 West Shell station near Reynolds Avenue some 15 minutes earlier and 11 miles east.
While a handgun was used in both robberies, it was not fired. No one has been physically injured.
WOPD later found the BMW abandoned in town – and that it and the two suspects have also his gas stations in Union and Secaucus. No descriptions of the suspects have been posted as of press time.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Those who were hoping that South Orange-Maplewood School District would reconsider their abandoning courtesy school bus service for the 2022-23 school year left the SOMSD Board of Education meeting here July 18 disappointed.
“After reviewing the analysis and discussing the options with the administration and our attorneys,” BOE President Thair Joshua told the gallery audience that Monday night, “it’s clear that the district cannot provide additional transportation at this time.”
Joshua’s statement came after he and the board had listened to public statements from South Orange Village President Sheena Collum and affected parents to reinstate courtesy busing Sept. 1.
The board had approved the district’s 2022-23 in May which reduced its transportation line item to $117,000. The allocation effectively eliminates courtesy busing for elementary and junior high students within two miles of their assigned schools and high schoolers within 2.5 miles of Columbia High School.
The 2020-21 school board, citing the district’s building and integration plan, had intended to drop courtesy busing in the 2021-22 budget – but had extended it to that year.
One resident, Jeffrey Bennett, may be presenting a petition in August to urge the board to conduct a transportation survey among 2021-22 Kindergarten and 2022-23 First Grade parents. The survey would tweak the algorithm that SOMSD assigns students to district schools.
Bennett had drawn signatures through Change.org.
BLOOMFIELD – A man who has been held on narcotic and weapons possession charges in 2020 has confessed in federal court July 28 to owning more firearms and drugs found later in his apartment here at 21 Lackawanna Plaza.
Cedric Lewis, 31, told U.S. District Judge Brian R. Martinotti by videoconference that Thursday that the cocaine and heroin – plus a 9 mm. and a .40 caliber pistol – found in a Sept. 25, 2020 warrant search were his. He added that he had intended to distribute the said drugs.
That search had also discovered an extended magazine for each of the said guns, $800 cash, a scale and related drug paraphernalia. The warrant was served in the wake of Lewis’ Sept. 20, 2020 arrest on the Newark-Elizabeth border, where he and/or his car held an AR-15 rifle, 30 rounds of .300 caliber ammunition plus more cocaine and heroin.
Elizabeth police had originally pursued a 2012 Jeep Cherokee, with passenger Lewis holding a rifle, chasing another vehicle, Sept. 20, 2020. EPD followed the Jeep onto Newark’s Frelinghuysen Avenue where it was later abandoned with the AR-15 inside, on Van Vechten Street. Lewis would be found and arrested in Atlanta in December 2020.
Lewis, on July 28, has pleaded guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Each charge carries a maximum 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. Each narcotics charge carries a 20-year maximum sentence and a $1 million fine.
Lewis’ sentencing is set for Dec. 6. U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger thanked the Bloomfield and Elizabeth police departments, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Marshalls in Newark and Atlanta and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives for their assistance.
MONTCLAIR – Township Council members began apologizing to the few remaining gallery audience members about their 2.5-hour executive session, before ending their regular session before 11:59 p.m. July 26.
There were around 20 people in the gallery when Mayor Sean Spillar started the meeting at 7 p.m. that Tuesday night. Spillar and the council had completed their presentation of proclamations when he and the council agreed to hold an executive session at 7:30 p.m.
When Spillar resumed the public regular meeting after 10:30 p.m., the gallery audience was down to a literal handful. Councilman Robert Russo had also departed – some said in anger – so that he could support workers’ unionization efforts at the Church Street Starbucks.
Fourth Ward Councilman David Cummings started the apologies, during his council member comments, for the executive session’s inconveniencing the public. Cummings, Councilman Peter Yacobellis and Spillar said that “a couple of urgent matters had come up” and the executive session speaker was only available at that time.
“I think, in general, in the future when we have such a packed night, I’d advocate that we start earlier,” said Yacobellis. “Voting on important business until nearly midnight isn’t anyone’s dream scenario. There were a lot of questions I withheld in the interest of time – and I don’t think that’s ideal either.”
Spillar and the council have recently abandoned live public speaker participation by Zoom and had denied a petition for its resumption. Spillar called conducting the pandemic-era hybrid meetings “a disaster.”
The mayor added that the agenda change had been posted on the township’s website, been e-mail and text-blasted.
BELLEVILLE – The township’s latest Chief Financial Officer, Frank DiMaria, has been reconciling line items within Belleville’s $70 million Calendar Year 2022 budget since his hiring by the Township Council on July 12.
The council approved DiMaria’s $100 an hour, 10-to-30-hours a week contract that Tuesday night. The 30-year veteran, fresh from being an auditor for Lodi and Hackensack, was Bogota’s CFO 2014-17.
DiMaria is Belleville’s third CFO in as many years.
DiMaria succeeds the resigned Kimberly Kientz. Kientz was hired in 2019, when Judith Curran left to become Bloomfield’s tax collector.
It is not clear whether Mayor Michael Melham’s criticism of how the water rates were calculated in 2020, in the wake of that year’s increase, was a factor in Kientz’s departure.
NUTLEY – A 142-year-old house, slated for demolition since May 4, will be used for Nutley Fire Department training prior to its leveling.
NFD may have been practicing on 285 Nutley Ave. since July 20. The Township Commission, the night before, approved an agreement for such use between “Nutley’s bravest” and property owner Jeff Blank and Joseph Haines. The agreement has the township providing general liability insurance until NFD’s training there is done.
The Nutley Planning Board approved Blank and Haines’ application to replace the 2.5-story house with two smaller houses on its .48 acre corner lot.
NPB’s 9-1 vote also granted variances on lot setback and width. A 1,418-signature petition to deny the variances, which would have scuttled the subdivision, was also presented to the board.
The co-owners, who bought the property for $600,000 Dec. 31, had originally sought subdividing the property into thirds.
