TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – A prominent Lower Broadway community institution is calling for Municipal Council intervention to keep the local Burger King owner from converting the fast food restaurant to a Chick-fil-A.
The Central Planning Board unanimously approved the conversion of 2-28 Broadway on June 10 and memorialized its decision on June 24. The plan includes rerouting and doubling the eatery’s drive-through lanes to accommodate an anticipated 35 cars per hour.
La Casa de Don Pedro, whose headquarters is practically across Broadway from BK, however, launched a petition on Change.org July 15 “To Keep Chick-fil-A Out of Newark, NJ.” La Casa cited traffic and ideological concerns for calling in the council.
La Casa disputes Chick-fil-A’s traffic study against Essex County and Newark crash data. The Broadway-Broad Street and Clay Street intersection was the site of 84 car collisions, mostly sideswipes and rear-enders, 2010-21. There were also “12 other types of accidents, including cars hitting pedestrians and cyclists.”
Additionally, La Casa added that it had never been told of the site plan public hearing although it is within the 200-foot neighbor notification radius.
La Casa also cited Chick-fil-A’s corporate headquarters having “a longstanding history of supporting anti-LGBTQIA+ groups and policies which don’t align with our diverse communities and values.”
This argument was served to the N.J. Highway Authority and Bloomfield when a Chick-fil-A was planned for the Garden State Parkway’s Brookdale South / Connie Chung Service Plaza in 2022. The company, back then, said that it had stopped contributing to said “anti” groups.
IRVINGTON – A township woman, who was babysitting a child that had died while in her care here Feb. 15-19, 2021, was convicted by a New Jersey Superior Court-Newark jury Aug. 9.
The jury’s foreperson, after a seven-day trial, told Judge Ronald D. Wigler Friday that they found Claire Gelin, 44, guilty of manslaughter and two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor. Wigler then set an Oct. 7 sentencing date for Gelin and remanded her to the Essex County Correctional Center.
ECPO attorneys asserted that Gelin had physically abused a two-year-old boy while she was babysitting around the clock Feb. 15-19, 2021. Prosecutors said the married mother of two had physically abused the child Feb. 17-18 but did not call 911 until Feb. 19.
EMS technicians who had arrived at the Irvington address that Friday said that the boy was already in cardiac arrest. They rushed him to Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, where the toddler was later declared dead.
Gelin told ECPO detectives that the child’s injuries were self-induced. Medical examiners contradicted her statements. She faces up to 10 years’ imprisonment or 8.5 years under the No Early Release Act, on the manslaughter count alone.
EAST ORANGE / SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The swift rainstorms that raked through the “Local Talk” area the week of Aug. 6-9 brought a large tree down on two houses in East Orange Aug. 8 and called off Aug. 6’s National Night Out events in South Orange and Maplewood, among other damage.
The “Local Talk” area was visited by three separate systems that Tuesday, Thursday and Friday that brought intense wind gusts and bands of rain. The accumulation caused the ground to oversaturate, prompting falling trees.
Residents of two houses along Roosevelt Avenue in the Fifth Ward’s Presidential Heights section said that the curbside tree, which may be as old as the houses, toppled onto their three-story structures when the storm band passed through that Thursday.
City responders and a PSE&G utility truck arrived to survey the damage. Although the tree’s limbs fell back onto one of the houses’ back porch, there was no structural damage. There were no injuries or power outages reported.
Municipal officials were meanwhile looking to reschedule what would have been their participation in that Tuesday’s 41st National Night Out. South Orange postponed its 5 p.m. NNO Movie Night at Flood’s Hill while Maplewood and Orange set back their activities. All three towns’ new dates were not posted as of press time.
Friday’s stormfront – a remnant of Hurricane Debby that coursed through Florida, the Carolinas, western Pennsylvania and New York’s Finger Lakes region – seeped through the Bloomfield Public Library’s 1968 building’s roof. Their 12 public computer terminals were closed that day due to the moisture.
ORANGE – Property owners here may be anticipating or dreading what their next quarterly bills will look like in the wake of the City Council’s Aug. 7 Budget Amendment virtual public hearing.
The council, in a 5-2 split vote at 7:33 p.m. that Wednesday, approved adding $5 million to the 2024 Calendar Year Municipal Budget. The $5 million will be raised from the remaining quarterly tax bills at an estimated average of 3.2 percent.
The “Why the extra $5 million?” question was not directly answered. There was $3.5 million in police and fire overtime that has been recorded since Jan. 1.
Finding a document outlining the budget increase amendment resolution was not immediate. That document was not posted on neither the city nor the council’s websites. While the meeting notice was posted on the council’s site Aug. 5, it was not on the city’s official site; some Facebook posters said that the said notice was not posted with at least 48 hours advance notice.
Both websites carried notices and agenda for the July 15 and 31 budget hearings – where no budget amendment resolution was discussed.
The amendment’s increase marks the 11th straight year of property tax hikes averaging 6.59 percent. A public outcry had prompted the then-Mayor Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. Administration from making an 18 percent increase in 2011.
West Ward Councilwoman Quantavia Hilbert and South Ward Councilwoman Jamie Summers-Johnson, for the record, voted against the amendment. Council President Adrienne Wooten, Council Vice President/North Ward Councilwoman Tency Eason, East Ward Councilman Kerry Coley and at-large councilmen Wheldon M. “Monty” Montague III and Clifford Ross approved the measure.
WEST ORANGE – If one wants to do business with the township’s chief financial officer this month, one will be meeting Victor Buono. Township elders hired Buono as Interim CFO by the Town Council to succeed the retired John G. Gross at their July 23 meeting. His contract is for $200 an hour and not to exceed $50,000.
Just do not take too long to congratulate Buono because he will be making way for the permanent CFO – John Ditinyak – on Aug. 29.
Ditinyak needed this month to help Roselle, where he has been CFO since January, find a successor. Ditinyak – when not running his own Ditinyak Group consultancy from Belleville – had been CFO and/or Treasurer for Orange, Bloomfield and Nutley going back to July 2011. His employment agreement runs until Aug. 31, 2028.
This is the arrangement the interim business administrator – Police Chief James Abbott – put to Mayor Susan McCartney and the council July 23. Gross’ last official day was Aug. 1; he had tendered his retirement notice April 1 and had been using up his unused time since June 1. Municipal governments, by state law, need to have a CFO in town hall.
Abbott’s interim position is thanks to the council – and Gross. The longtime BA-CFO had retired from the former position June 1, 2023.
The council was to approve Buono as temporary CFO July 13 but, because of the lack of its members, postponed their approval to July 23.
Buono’s presence will remain in the township’s computer memory. The VB Logic LLC founder had previously created the Finance Department’s software.
BLOOMFIELD – Bloomfield and Montclair riders on the 705 and 709 Community Transport-run bus routes will have to look hard to find any immediate service changes here on Aug. 16-17.
NJTransit, on Aug. 9, announced that they will have Academy Express, of Hoboken, operate those and 18 other local bus routes that CT had been running in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson counties until after Aug. 16. The statewide public transportation carrier will keep fares, routes and hours unchanged for the time being.
Aug. 17-Sept. 1 will be more of a transition period for the 705, 709 and seven other mainly Passaic County routes. Academy will be using their drivers and buses then while still under the new NJTransit contract. Community Transport’s nonrenewal, according to its 60-day WARN notice to the state labor department, will affect up to 250 CoachUSA drivers.
The Paramus-based CoachUSA division informed NJTransit on July 10 that it will not pursue renewing its operating contract. Its nonrenewal is part of CoachUSA, as the nation’s largest private bus company, holding a bankruptcy liquidation.
NJTransit found itself taking over the Orange-Newark-Elizabeth’s Nos. 24, 31 and 44 local buses when Coach announced getting out of that division’s service last autumn. Some individual buses and drivers on those routes have since been using Academy’s buses and/or drivers – as will be on the 705 Passaic-Wayne (via Montclair State University) and 709 Bloomfield-Paramus routes.
Riders on two other CoachUSA divisions – Community Coach 77 and Northeast Megabus – are still awaiting their fate as of press time. CC77, which runs among Livingston/West Orange, Orange, East Orange and New York City, is also garaged in Paramus. The Renco Group, a New York venture capital firm, has expressed interest in CC77’s charter and equipment.
The budget Megabus, until recently, shared the same Elizabeth garage with Coach USA’s ONE division.
MONTCLAIR – Michael LaPolla, who has been Interim Town Manager for a year, will be seeing the end of his service here sooner or later.
The Township Council, under Mayor Sean Spiller’s administration, hired LaPolla as an interim manager in August 2023. The former Union County Administrator, who said “I’m here until July (2024),” would leave once a permanent manager was found.
The council, under now-Mayor Dr. Renee Baskerville’s administration, is launching a town manager search. LaPolla, however, told a reporter July 23 that he was invited by the new council members (the all new council was sworn in with Baskerville July 1) but declined.
“It was never my intention to stay here,” said LaPolla. “While I’ve enjoyed my stay here, they’ve decided to do a search. I told them I’ll assist in any way and smooth the transition.”
It is not like township elders do not like the job LaPolla is doing. The previous mayor and council made him an open-ended full-time employee in January.
The problem is that LaPolla is Montclair’s fourth manager in as many years, starting with the firing of Timothy Stafford over harassment and retaliation charges. One interim manager, Tom Hartnett, had died in office.
BELLEVILLE – The roadbuilders’ “The Inconvenience is Temporary, the Improvement Permanent” phrase posted on construction sites may be getting a test along five blocks of Washington Street this and next week.
Contractors for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, with permission from Essex County and Belleville elders, are milling and repaving the center two lanes of Washington between Cleveland and Rossmore streets. It is the first such phase that will eventually run Washington’s full length in stages here.
Concrete Jersey barriers separating the two center lanes from the rest of the avenue were put in place along four blocks by Aug. 8. Curbside parking is prohibited, turning the curb lanes and right hand lanes on the north and southbound sides into through lane.
The contractors do mean “through lanes.” The barriers are preventing motorists and pedestrians from crossing the intersection or jaywalking. There are two midblock openings for construction equipment.
This work will be more than milling and repaving. Former Board of Education Trustee and activist Michael Sheldon has posted NJDOT drawings of the N.J. Route 7 work on Facebook Aug. 13.
The drawings show corner curb cuts, repainted crosswalks and new intersection signals. “Local Talk,” on Aug. 13, had noticed an electrical crew working on the said signals at the William Street intersection.
“Local Talk” will be looking for any NJDOT “town hall” meetings and/or feedback by business owners along the limited access street.
NUTLEY – U.S. Postal Inspection detectives are figuring out why – and who – dumped undelivered mail in dumpsters here behind the Abundant Life Academy July 30.
A resident was passing by the religious school at 390 Washington Ave. that day when he said he saw inspectors taking out the mail from the trash containers and sorting through piles of papers behind.
Inspectors are also examining the rounds of postal workers in or adjacent to Nutley, in the hope that no letter carrier did the dumping. Inspectors had also probed Vote By Mail Ballots that were left in bins – and not put in mailboxes – at two Belleville apartment building lobbies in April 2020.
The abandoned mail, whose dumping is a federal crime, is not connected to Abundant Life school or church, which had moved into the former ITT Avionics building in 1996.
ITT Avionics, best known for its 300-foot-tall research tower, had its campus built on a former country club here and in Clifton 1947-96. Part of the Nutley property became the Cambridge Heights townhouses. The Clifton Commons shopping center stands on the Clifton parcel.
