TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Four of Newark’s 16 fire stations will be getting immediate repairs thanks to a Municipal Council’s April 7 $750,000 emergency appropriation. One ward councilman, however, wants a fourth added to the list.
The $750K are for stations in the East, North and West wards who are getting repairs by summer’s end to meet Public Employee Occupational Safety and Health standards. The four stations were made priorities through NFD’s two-year-old “Project Phoenix” for infrastructure.
Engine 18’s station at 395 Avon Ave., for example, will get its floor slab repaired.
Engine 16 station at 473 Ferry St., will have its second floor frame stabilized, a new floor finish and its ceiling repaired. Engine 5 station at 65 Congress St. will have its apparatus bay floor reconstructed.
West Ward Councilman Dupré Kelly, however, is asking why Engine 26’s station was not prioritized. The station at 420 Sanford Ave., Plane St. and South Orange Ave. is suffering from apparatus exhaust ventilation problems. Kelly said that fire personnel can only meet in the meeting room because that is the only room free of exhaust fumes.
“I’ve received calls from the fire captains (and) the firefighters,” said Kelly. “This house is in so desperate need of repair that I’ve visited three times to figure it out. When I see this (appropriation list) come across my desk and that station isn’t included in the structural improvements and repairs, it’s absurd.”
Kelly was told that “a qualified contractor” had installed a flexible exhaust duct after March 18 “free of charges as a pilot/test.”
IRVINGTON – Two township roommates found themselves being arrested by New York law enforcement here March 27 and were arraigned afterwards in a White Plains federal courtroom regarding a Dec. 16 $1.7 million “smash and grab” jewelry store robbery in Hartsdale.
Kevin Williams and Byron Wilson, both 26, said Acting U.S. Acting Attorney Matthew Podolsky that Wednesday, have been charged with counts of conducting a federal Hobbs Act robbery and conspiracy thereof plus crossing state lines to commit a crime, possessing stolen property and weapons. There may be additional charges for possessing a stolen license plate.
Podolsky said that Williams and Wilson were one half of a black clothing clad quartet who pulled up to the front of Tarrytown Jewelers in Hartsdale’s Westchester Square shopping plaza at 11:07 a.m. Dec. 16. The foursome left a dark blue Jeep Grand Cherokee that wore a New Jersey license plate that was reported as stolen.
“Armed with sledgehammers,” said Podolsky, “the defendants smashed their way in and then plundered the store of about $1.7 million in jewelry, diamonds and luxury watches – all while innocent customers and employees hid for their safety.”
Law enforcement, including the FBI’s Newark Field Office and the Newark Police Department, assembled a Hartsdale-Irvington trail with toll plaza cameras and GPS trackers. Wilson later left their Irvington address to fence the ill-gotten goods in Manhattan’s Diamond District.
Wilson returned to the Irvington address by 4:56 p.m. where he, Williams “and another co-defendant displayed large stacks of cash” before one of their cell phones. Wilson, at 7:40 p.m., found a News12Westchester video report of their robbery. Detectives, armed with a search warrant, found the said photos on one of the defendant’s phones at the residence Dec. 19.
EAST ORANGE – Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green and other city elders may make it worthwhile for area motorists to search their records for parking tickets issued here 2019-24. Affected drivers and/or vehicle owners may get those tickets retroactively dismissed in East Orange Municipal Court.
Green, on April 2, launched the East Orange Ticket Review program to dismiss parking tickets given out those five years. EOTR is to redress tickets made due to “limited overnight parking options, unclear restrictions and enforcement practices that no longer meet the community’s needs.”
The review is the first step in Mayor Green’s Park Easy East Orange comprehensive citywide parking plan revision. The mayor’s next step is to modernize the residential permit parking program.
Green, since his first mayoral election, has wanted to “bring fairness, modernization and relief to the city’s outdated parking program.” East Orange has had a quiltwork of curbside free and metered parking, free and paid lots and permits for some ward residents and overnight visitors for most people’s lifetimes.
“Let’s be clear – this issue should’ve been addressed years ago,” said Green. “Back in 2017, no one wanted to touch this. Parking should never be a source of economic hardship.”
Residents must schedule an East Orange Municipal Court date and bring their documents to be considered for 2019-24 ticket dismissal. Dismissal is not an option for residents who have previously entered agreements with the courts. EOTR is also not applicable to tickets issued for parking in handicapped spaces, in emergency zones and for any condition that posed a safety risk.
Green and East Orange Parking Authority Executive Director Tyshammie Cooper have meanwhile made parking permits available at all times through an online portal and through posted QR codes. At least 300 new overnight parking spaces have been created by eliminating the 2-6 a.m. parking restrictions on selected streets.
ORANGE – The Orange Planning Board has scheduled an April 23 Zoom meeting on an application that they had thought they had denied last year.
The State Superior Court-Newark, on Jan. 30, had accepted 492 Conover Terr. LLC’s appeal and has directed OPB to re-hear the developer’s preliminary and final site plan application.
492 Conover Terr., LLC, is asking on April 23 the board’s approval to build a four-story, 12-apartment building at the said address. The structure would be built on a long vacant grass lot bordered by Conover Terrace, Scotland Road and Waverly Place in The Valley Section.
It appears on the public notice that a question of parking space size is what brought on the appeal and new board hearing. The developer is asking to create 10 on-site parking spaces at nine by 18 feet each. Orange’s zoning calls for a nine-by-20-foot space minimum size.
The lot, which slopes downward and westward, was cleared of old growth trees and brush in the 1970s.
WEST ORANGE – Most of those who came to April 8’s Mayor-Council meeting left the Council Chamber both disappointed that an ordinance that would revise building height and dwelling unit density upward at 481 Eagle Rock Ave. was withdrawn in the 11th hour.
Ordinance 2914-25, as posted in that Tuesday night’s agenda that would elevate maximum building height to 60 feet and increase unit density to accommodate over 200 apartments. The maximum height at 481 Eagle Rock Ave. is zoned for 55 ft. and for less than 45 units per acre.
The Our Green West Orange environmental advocacy group, earlier that Tuesday, sounded its alarm that the height would tower over neighboring single family homes. The additional residents, employees and visitors traffic would cause traffic spillback east to Eagle Rock Avenue’s intersection with Prospect Street – and, with the blind drop or rise just west of 480-481 EAR, a greater potential for accidents.
481 Eagle Rock Ave. had been the Mayfair Farms banquet and catering hall for 80 years until its 2023 closing. Wonder mobile catering has been since using its kitchen for food prep.
Mayfair Farms was recently rezoned to be converted to the New Jersey Black Inventors Hall of Fame and Museum. The property’s eastern half, abutting the West Orange/Target Shopping Plaza, has also been rezoned to allow the building of a three-story senior citizens residence.
Police Chief and acting Township Administrator James Abbot said that property owner Marty Horn had pulled his application. Horn told a reporter that he had wanted “low rise apartment buildings by the Hall of Fame” and was surprised that the ordinance made April 8’s agenda.
Horn and his family had also owned the golf driving range that became West Orange Plaza in 1957 and Pal’s Cabin restaurant, off Eagle Rock and Prospect’s south west corner, 1932-2013. Pal’s Cabin has since made way for the CVS Pharmacy.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The Durand-Hedden House’s lobby chair by the front entrance, which used to be occupied by Marylin S. Schnaars, will likely remain vacant in tribute.
Schnaars, 92, a longtime two-town historian, died in Turnersville March 11 – 55 days after the Maplewood Township Committee proclaimed Jan. 14 as her day of honor.
Schnaars, who usually greeted Durand-Hedden visitors and often demonstrated 18 century cooking there, was also historian of the South Orange-Vailsburg United Methodist Church. The former Maplewood Senior Club president and vice president supported the Women’s Club, the Garden Club, Spring Egg Hunt, Mayfest, Maplewood’s Fourth of July activities and National Night Out.
Marilyn Siri Schnaars was born here Dec. 22, 1932 to Henry and Marie Schnaars and the future Elsie Schnaars at 128 Second St., South Orange. Henry Schnaars and brother-in-law William Gruning ran the latter’s namesake ice cream department in the Village Center and their flagship parlor.
The Columbia High School Class of 1951 graduate, where she was known for “sympathetic nature and sportsmanship,” worked at the Prudential Insurance Newark headquarters and at their Roseland location. Although Schnaars had moved to Maplewood by then. She had been a SOUMC member since 1939. The Vailsburg UMC had moved west to the village in a 1973 merger; it is not clear whether she was on the church’s board of trustees at the time.
Schnaars was an aunt to six cousins and great-aunt to three others plus “many more nieces and nephews.” Her memorial was held March 15 Egizi Funeral Home at Gloucester County’s Washington Twp.
Interim Maplewood Library Closing May 2
The Maplewood Public Library will be closing its interim location at the former First Aid Building at 129 Boyden Ave., May 2 and its computer terminals will be turned off April 26. All adult and children’s services will be moved to the Hilton Branch May 5 at 1688 Springfield Ave. The move is in preparation for the opening of the 21st Century Maplewood Memorial Library, 51 Baker St., in Jefferson Village.
BLOOMFIELD – When Mayor Jenny Mundell asked for ideas and comments during her March 31 community meeting on the future of 209 Franklin St., — the former Essex County Bloomfield Tech High School building – Bloomfield Public Schools officials put in more than their two cents worth that Monday afternoon.
BPS Schools Superintendent Sal Goncalves, Board of Education President Kasey Dudley and Vice President Benjamin Morse sent a letter that day to Mayor Mundell that the district would not be using the 1930-built school and 1970s annex itself but may consider using the land surrounding it. They cited a March 6 tour of the property they took with Mundell, Township Administrator Anthony DeZenzo and Township Attorney Michael Parlavecchio.
“We thank the mayor and township officials for the opportunity to assess the site collaboratively and that the visit was informational only,” said Dudley in the BBOE letter. “Based on our observations, the property isn’t safe or suitable for educational use. There are serious concerns, including visible deterioration and potential presence of asbestos.”
Dudley added that the township had not made a formal offer to PBS to use the building. The board president said that township officials’ photo taking within Bloomfield Tech was done without the Board’s knowledge and its public dissemination may lead to misrepresentation.
“We thank the mayor for clarifying that items currently in the building may be repurposed by the district instead of being discarded,” added Dudley. “We appreciate the mayor’s recent indication that the property may be used for bus parking. Superintendent Goncalves proposed that the Berkeley (School) community be allowed to use the space for parking during snow days.”
The township bought 209 Franklin St., on Essex County’s offer, for $10 million in 2023 from U.S. American Rescue Plan funds. Essex County Vo Tech closed “Bloomfield Tech” after last using it as a temporary “Newark Tech” while its once and future Market Street building was being renovated and expanded.
Bloomfield’s elders bought the property with the intention for “Open space and/or recreational/athletic use.”
MONTCLAIR – The Montclair Public Schools will have Ruth B. Turner, late of Rochester, N.Y., as its new Superintendent of Schools on July 1.
The Montclair Board of Education unanimously selected Turner in a special meeting here at the Montclair High School George Inness Annex April 9, ending a six month search to succeed the late Dr. Jonathan Ponds that attracted 48 candidates.
Ponds had received a five year contract extension from the board when he suddenly and unexpectedly died in July. The MBOE appointed Secondary Education Director Damen Cooper as interim superintendent.
Turner is coming from the Rochester City School District, where she was its deputy superintendent of administration and supports since February 2023. She had a previous stint as that district’s director of student support services and social emotional learning. In between, Turned had been appointed to the New York State Board of Regents and was one of See 3’s diversity and equity program design consultants.
The dual master’s degree holder in social work and educational administration from the University of Buffalo and SUNY-Brockport has earned a reputation for fostering restorative justice and anti-racism work. She started her career two decades ago as a Rochester district social worker.
Ruth, husband Bishop William Turner and their three children are beginning their move to the Montclair area. Her five-year contract, which starts July 1, will draw a $250,000 annual salary with successive three percent increases the next four years.
The three-month transition means that Turner will not influence the 2025-26 school year budget that Cooper and the BOE have been grappling with. MOS has been striving to fill a $2.7 million gap in part derived from the latest state education aid funding formula.
Cooper is to return to his previous directorship role July 1.
GLEN RIDGE – An inter town incident at a Glen Ridge T-intersection April 10 sent a Montclair woman to a local hospital and a borough motorist with a summons to answer.
GRPD Lt. Timothy Franada said that borough officers and volunteer first aiders plus Montclair firefighters responded to “a pedestrian hit by a driver” incident at Ridgewood and Watchung avenues at 12:45 p.m. that Thursday. They found a 57-year-old Montclair woman lying in a crosswalk and a 64-year-old Glen Ridge driver parked nearby.
The preliminary investigation found that the driver was “turning left from Ridgewood onto Watchung when he hit the pedestrian who was walking in the marked crosswalk.”
The pedestrian was rushed by medics to Paterson’s St. Joseph’s University Medical Center for non-life-threatening injuries. The driver was issued a summons for failing to yield to a pedestrian at a crosswalk.
Any changes to the T-intersection will involve Essex County. Both Ridgewood and Watchung are county roads. (Ridgewood Ave. technically continues, but only into a dead end.)
BELLEVILLE – Mayor Michael Melham and the Township Council took the first step in turning the vacant lot at 128-130 Washington Ave. into a pocket park by approving an appropriation resolution here at their March 25 meeting.
Township elders passed Ordinance 22-25, which authorizes the purchase of the 3,045 square foot lot where a 2.5-story mixed residential-commercial house had stood until recently for $500,000. That half-million-dollar purchase may not exceed that cost but can be made whole or on payments.
The ordinance allows the municipality to purchase the lot through municipal bond proceeds. One real estate website has listed the not-for-sale lot being assessed at $464,000.
The lot stands between a three-story apartment building-cell phone store, 126 Washington, to its south and a house with a pediatric doctor’s office, 132 Washington, to its north. The adjacent houses, according to real estate records.
It is too early to see what that pocket park will look like; there are no filed plans or artist’s renderings. The lot, like most buildings along Washington’s eastern site, has a declining eastward slope towards The Valley section.
NUTLEY – Resident Desiree Bernasconi, by starting a petition drive to improve a township intersection on April 2, has taken the “act of remembrance” to mean taking action in one’s memory.
Bernasconi, in her Change.org said that her aunt and brother “were unfortunate victims, hit by vehicles as pedestrians.” She did not name her relatives nor the intersection in question.
Nutley police records, however, show that there have been two dog walking pedestrians being struck by cars 15 months apart at Franklin Avenue and Chestnut.
One, in October 2023, was of a woman and her dog suffering non-life-threatening injury, despite the canine wearing a vest, and a motorist being ticketed for failing to yield to a pedestrian. Most recently, Lee Gilbert, 77, suffered fatal injuries after being struck by a car there March 27.
Bernascone’s petition, which has drawn 666 signatures as on April 15, seeks to “Implement Flashing Crosswalks and Delayed Traffic Lights to Prevent Pedestrian Strikes” on at least the said intersection. The petition, once its signature goal is reached, will go before Nutley’s Commissioners.
That same petition will also go before Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo and the county commissioners. Franklin Avenue is also County Rd No. 645.
