TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement retrieved the last of four June 12 Delaney Hall escapees July 18 – nine days after it had released another detainee here under federal court order.
Andres Pineda-Mogollon, said a July 18 U.S. Department of Homeland Security press release, had been re-arrested by “our brave ICE agents and law enforcement partners,” in Los Angeles. DHS did not say how and with whom ICE apprehended him; they had said that they were looking for him two weeks ago in Queens, N.Y.
He was the last of four detainees who knocked down a wall and, using tied bedsheets, climbed out a second-story window and a perimeter fence while 50 others “rioted” June 12.
Pineda-Mogollon, continued the release, had entered the U.S. from Columbia on a student visa in 2023 and overstated. He was arrested by NYPD April 25 for petit larceny; Union PD arrested him for possession of burglary tools, committing a residential burglary and conspiracy to commit thereof May 21.
The release states that Delaney Hall “houses dangerous criminals” since the industrial Ironbound jail was reopened under federal contract by the GEO Group May 1. Some observers, however, will ask what about Alan Junior Pierre, a Spring Valley (N.Y.) High School student who was picked up by masked ICE agents after his June 4 Temporary Protective Status hearing at a New York City courtroom.
A federal judge – stating that Pierre, 20, from Haiti, was neither a flight risk nor a threat to the community – ordered ICE to release him July 9. Pierre, on his Spring Valley return, said that Delaney Hall gave him only bread and water the first week but provided him three daily meals towards the end of his month’s detention.
“Alan has no criminal record – not a traffic ticket, nothing,” said Spring Valley attorney Vince Sykes. “He has a pending green card application. ICE has cast a wide net; innocent people are being swept up.”
IRVINGTON – The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and the Irvington Police Department, as of 11:30 a.m. July 22, is still gathering details about a human who was fatally shot south of the Springfield Avenue Business Improvement District the night before.
An ECPO spokesman said that Irvington police officers had responded to a report of “an unidentified individual” being shot along the 100 block of Union Avenue at about 10:30 p.m. July 21.
IPD officers arrived to find the unconscious and unresponsive person with gunshot wounds. The person – later identified as Anwar Jackson, 42, of Piscataway – was declared dead at the scene.
The 100 block of Union Avenue is a mix of private houses, the Red-Carpet Inn, Garden State Parkway Southbound Exit 143B and several closed Irvington Housing Authority Camptown Gardens low rise apartment buildings. The block is to the immediate south of Irvington Center’s “Other Five Points” – where Unio and Nye avenues and New Street meet.
Anyone who has information of the shooting are to call the ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Unit. This is an active investigation and a developing story.
EAST ORANGE – A makeshift shrine has been built around a light pole at the northwestern corner of Springdale Avenue and Grove Street for “Gary.” The Sheila Y. Oliver Academy’s flag has been lowered to half-staff across the intersection from Gary’s shrine.
Both have been present not long after the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and East Orange Police Department’s joint report of a fatal pedestrian versus car hit and run here in the Presidential Heights near here July 15.
Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi said that city first responders received word of an accident along Springfield Avenue east of Grove Street at about 7:30 a.m. that Tuesday.
They arrived to find an “unresponsive” person beneath a parked car along the avenue’s 200 block. East Orange firefighters were called to extricate the person and rushed to a local hospital – where the victim later died. It is not known how long traffic, including NJTransit’s routes 34 and 90 buses were detoured during the field investigation.
Authorities have not released other details – including identities of the victim, the driver and/or the striking vehicle – have not been disclosed as of press time.
ORANGE – If the Orange Public School’s business administrator seems to be distracted at times recently, it will not be because of the job he has had since 2021.
Ballard is a co-owner of M&J Global Transportation and SimpliSafe Transportation/Alliance Tours, a pair of school bus companies who have been subjected to accident lawsuits over driver qualifications. A creditor had gone as far as having an arrested warrant served on him over a $103,000 debt that M&J allegedly owed him in 2023.
Ballard and wife Tanesha are listed as owners of SimpliSafe/Alliance. The Jackson resident and Morris Snead, Jr., of Newark are M&J Partners. SimpliSafe/Alliance have similar websites but have respective offices at 18 Oliver St., Newark and 515-19 Prospect St., East Orange.
SmpliSafe/Alliance, which goes back to 2014, have acquired $2.4 million in service contracts with Newark Public Schools alone since 2021. Ballard told a reporter that the company only went for NPS contract bids after he left his assistant business administrator job there for his current day job. While neither bus company has an OPS contract, other clients include Fairfield’s Essex Regional Educational Services Commission.
A June Gannett-Bergen Record investigative report, however, found that the companies were sued by six drivers who said they were injured by their collisions. Court documentation of those cases found that between four and 10 collisions between a four- month and a 10-year period.
A Superior Court-Newark judge issued an arrest warrant on M&J principals Ballard and Snead April 11,2023 to collect a $103,000 debt a creditor said was owed. M&J parked their buses in 2017.
WEST ORANGE – Repairs to the sewer main backup that closed the “New” WOPL building here at 10 Rooney Circle since July 11 will be sufficient to reopen to the public July 21.
“Sufficient,” however, does not mean fully open yet. WOPL Director David Cubie said that carpet tiles covering 920 square feet of the lower level floor needs to be replaced. The replacement will finish with “Five full height ranges of shelving” be put back along with “159 boxes of books that need to be shelved.”
The lower level, including its public computers and printers, are therefore open only to library staff. The library staff can access library materials that are not still in boxes. Printing and public computers are available on the upper level. The library will be open on summer Sundays.
A July 11 “plumbing emergency” was called after “unclean water” spread across the lower level’s 920 square foot area. WOPL services continued online or through fellow BCCLS member libraries. Staff worked through the public closure. There is no word on how the top floor medical office was affected by the 10-day shutdown.
The library was also going through some accessibility corrections to meet US Department of Education ADA standards. The former 1970s-era Lincoln Tech/Beatrice Foods headquarters was converted to library use Dec. 11, 2023 for $6.7 million in public and private funds.
SOUTH ORANGE – The Village Council can be said since its July 14 meeting, is spinning off the Newstead Watersphere to New Jersey American Water. even though the water storage tank has not moved – and will not be moving from – 31 Crest Dr.
What the council did was subdivide the municipal lot known as Block 2602, Lot 12 where the tank, the Firehouse Playground and an EMS station stood into two. The loft with the tower and Newstead standpipe will be ready for NJAW’s purchase pending South Orange Planning Board’s Aug. 8 meeting approval.
The water utility has been purchasing and absorbing intellectual and physical assets of the South Orange Water Department since a majority of participating village voters approved its sale on the Nov. 4 General Election ballot.
Council Finds $1.5 m More for SOPL
The Council, at the same Wednesday night meeting, found $1.5 million more for the $17.5 million South Orange Public Library Connection project “cost escalations” even though its construction has not yet started.
Mayor Sheena Collum said that general contractor Grove Construction and PSE&G sent the village “final numbers,” each costing $200,000 more than allocated. Although village, library and contractor officials held a June 18 ceremonial groundbreaking, the project needs a final green light from the state Department of Community Affairs – which backers are confident on getting.
MAPLEWOOD – Township Committee, after hearing from 30 public speakers at their July 16 meeting, voted unanimously to build a controversial Parker Avenue bike lane between Irvington Avenue and Valley Street.
By “controversial,” 21 speakers favored the lane and nine disapproved. Those who were for the lane touted giving users the choice between biking and driving. The lane would add to the township’s growing network of bike lanes.
Those against said that Parker already has too much traffic. Several favored the concept but suggested putting the lane on Oakland Road. One Parker avenue resident cited the submission of a 277-signature petition opposing the lane, not all of whom live on Parker.
“I questioned why it wouldn’t be Elmwood (Avenue),” said Mayor Nancy Adams. “After living here for 36 years, I’ve come to the conclusion that this’ the right thing to do. It’s a great place to start and I think it would improve safety on Parker Avenue.”
Committee Member Vic de Luca cited the 2023 township’s master plan to “renew and strengthen our commitment to Complete Streets policy making. We’ve talked with our professional engineers again and again and we’ve developed a plan with travel lanes that are 10-11 feet (wide) and a travel lane five feet.”
BLOOMFIELD – A township woman is back home here after her July 11 arrest in South Hackensack – but will not be alone in her returning to the Bergen County hamlet to answer to prostitution charges.
The Bloomfielder, 37, was among a Reading, PA woman and five others from New York City whom South Hackensack Police officers and the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Crime Suppression Team had arrested from a sting of Route 46 motels there.
South Hackensack Police Chief Robert Chinchar said that the seven were arrested as part of a sting operation. His own officers and colleagues from Garfield, Montvale, Rutherford and Woodcliff Lake would arrange “dates” with the suspects – and called in BCPO detectives when money was exchanged in motel rooms.
Chinchar added that his department are checking with the seven suspects to see if they are human trafficking victims. For that reason, “Local Talk” is not identifying the seven.
“Big Red” (1919 -2025)
Those who want to pay last respects to “Big Red,” 106, at the southwest corner of Belleville Avenue and Broad Street, have until Aug. 7 before it is felled by a Bloomfield Public Schools-contracted tree surgeon.
Big Red, a purple beech, was planted in Bloomfield High School’s front yard as a sapling May 6, 1919. The community held a centennial party for it in 1919.
BPS Schools Superintendent Salvatore Goncalves, on July 18, said that Big Red is dying and needs to be taken down for safety. It is not clear as of press time whether a seedling will be saved for replanting or its wood recycled into a park bench.
MONTCLAIR – At least township resident Stephen Colbert will be working for Paramount-CBS until May 29, when “Late Night with Stephen Colbert” airs its last show.
Colbert told his Ed Sullivan Theater audience in Manhattan at the start of the live taping of his July 16 show that CBS executives told him the night before that they are ending “The Late Show’s” 32-year run, going back to its Aug. 30, 1993 debut with David Letterman.
“I share your feelings – I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners,” said Colbert after the audience boos. “I’m so grateful to the Tiffany network for giving me this chair and this beautiful theater to call home. I’m not getting fired but all of this is going away.”
“Late Night with Stephen Colbert” first aired on Sept. 8, 2015 after David Letterman’s May 20 retirement. CBS’ challenger to NBC’s “Tonight Show” has been performed in the theater made famous by “The Ed Sullivan Show” of 1948-71.
“We consider Stephen Colbert irreplaceable and retire the franchise,” stated CBS July 19. “This’ a purely financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It’s not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Industry observers have noted that Colbert’s rendition has topped late night ratings for eight years while there has been a widespread late night viewing decline to social media. There are other observers, including the Writers Guild, who see more than a coincidence that pulling “Late Night” came soon after CBS parent Paramount paid $15 million to the Trump Library Fund to settle a lawsuit over “60 Minutes’ ” handling its interview with Democratic Presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Colbert, who has been a Montclarion “for 25-plus years,” said in his later monologue, “I call the settlement a big fat bribe.”
GLEN RIDGE – The selected spraying of the borough’s South End cobblestone gutters went ahead as intended July 9 – but with adjacent Bloomfield neighbors watching. It was contracted out to TruGreen, of Randolph, to NJ DEP Pesticide Control standards.
Mayor Deborah Mans, in that Wednesday morning’s response to the Friends of Watsessing Park conservancy, explained that the contractor will be spot spraying the gutters and that the herbicide has an estimated 30-minute dry time. Mans added that the borough and contractor is using a herbicide that is also applied in The Great Swamp.
The friends’ conservancy, before July 9, expressed concern that the herbicide would runoff the gutters downhill into the Essex County-owned park, affecting plant and animal life there. Watsessing Park is where Wigwam and Toney’s brooks merge with The Second River.
The group had asked Glen Ridge July 1 to cancel the spraying. The Bloomfield Sustainability Group had launched a petition July 7 to ban the spraying.
Glen Ridge’s mayor said that the chemical used had been chosen with Glen Ridge Environmental Advisory input. Individual Glen Ridge homeowners could opt out of the spraying program – but are cautioned about using herbicides, pesticides and/or chemical fertilizers.
The conservancy has both Glen Ridge and Bloomfield members and have sponsored Boy Scout Troop 55 with its butterfly garden installation Eagle Scout Project.
BREAKING NEWS: Glen Ridge Superintendent of Schools Kyle Arington resigned on July 18. Arlington said that he has “decided to pursue opportunities that reflect personal interests and allows me to tend to personal/familial commitments. It has NOTHING (his capital letters) to do with Mr. (Gerald) White.” The resigned White is accused of grooming an 11-year-old student.
BELLEVILLE – The rumored appointment of outside legal counsel to handle an unspecified matter did not appear on the July 21 Belleville Board of Education Trustees agenda.
Whoever gets BBOET’s legal professional services contract or contracts over the summer will likely be handling four discrimination lawsuits lodged against Belleville Public Schools in State Superior Court Newark – Civil Part June 23 and July 14.
All four cases generally involve district employees being denied promotions, denied going to external professional development meetings when others did and were subjected to degrading sexual references, remarks, behavior or retaliation. The plaintiffs claim that Belleville School District administrators and the then-State Monitor failed to intervene. The cases named School Business Administrator Matthew Paladino and State Monitor Thomas Egan as among the respondents.
Deana Arena v. BBOE was filed June 26 – almost six months after the 20-year teacher and Belleville Education Association Vice President went on disability leave. Arena said that a group of male colleagues had acted with hostility several times between September and November 2024.
One October meeting incident, where Arena said she was “screamed and yelled at,” resulted in a complaint filed at the Belleville Police Department, who turned its Internal Affairs Department findings to ECPO. The New Jersey Education Association submitted an unfair labor practices complaint on her behalf in November.
Maria Calhoun, Diana Kucko, Heather MacIntire and Silvia Pastor v. BBOE was the first suit filed on July 14. The four supervisors claim that Paladino made inappropriate sexual comments either in their presence or, of them to colleagues outside their attendance. The BBOE and Egan, they said, did not intervene.
In Matthew Sullivan v. BBOE, the district’s safety and security director and Association of Belleville School Administrators vice president said he was retaliated against after confirming the above four supervisors’ claims. In Maria Calhoun v. BBOE, the then-acting Belleville Middle School assistant principal, said she was subjected to Paladino’s remarks, including one in the presence of the district’s IT officer.
The above are accusations filed in court. Neither the district or the board have commented on the suits as of press time.
NUTLEY – Mayor John V. Kelly III will be changing hats and handing his position to Deputy Mayor Thomas Evans while he takes military leave Aug. 1 – Jan. 31.
Kelly, in a July 18 announcement, said that he is being deployed to Iraq for approximately six months. U.S. Army National Guard Major Kelly will be serving as legal counsel as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. OIR is a joint task force with Iraqi and Kurdish forces plus Syrian allies in suppressing and overthrowing ISIS.
Evans got the temporary promotion by state law, where the Revenue and Finance Commissioner, in a commission form of government, first succeeds the “mayor.” Commissioners select a mayor and deputy mayor from among themselves instead of holding a voters’ election.
Senior Housing Gets $30m Loan
The proposed SoHo Park Residences for senior citizens here at 116 Harrison St got a $29.5 million from Kearny Bank here July 17.
The two-story Mid Century Modern house at the address and the Diamond Springs Swim Club behind it will be replaced by 85 one- and two- bedroom luxury units within a three story building. All units will go to residents at least 55 years old. Contractor Rock Solid Builders is to break ground in spring 2027 on a structure that is to include “a sun deck with a pool and clubroom,” a library, 148 parking spaces and “a fitness and wellness center.”
Diamond Spring Swim Club, 1956-2018, was a private club that also fielded the private Stingray swim team. It was the Le Terrace Club when a Bloomfield family and ACLU-NJ received a record settlement in an early 2000s discrimination suit.
