NEWARK – It is too early to tell whether Giordano Recycling’s clients, including those in Maplewood and South Orange, will have their regular curbside pickups postponed while city and county investigators trace the source of this South Ward transfer plant’s July 6 fire.
Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said that up to 80 city firefighters battled the two-alarm fire 6:45-8:22 p.m. Monday. The first units found all three stories of the building at 142-156 Frelinghuysen Ave. ablaze upon arrival, preventing their initial attempts at entry.
NFD personnel were able to enter when the second alarm was called at 7 p.m. They found the property unoccupied since their scheduled 4:30 p.m. closing.
Ambrose said that two firefighters were injured after falling off the plant’s loading dock. While one remained on-duty, the other was taken to University Hospital for observation and release. Traffic, including buses on CoachUSA’s No. 24 route, were detoured for nearly two hours.
Fallen Wires Fell
Rail Service
Commuters along NJTransit’s Morris & Essex and Montclair Boonton lines awoke early July 7 to the news that downed overhead power lines west of Newark Broad Street Station had suspended the line’s service among here, New York Penn Station and Hoboken Terminal until 1 p.m.
Riders heading east of here were told to take the Newark Light Rail into Newark Penn Station and/or substitute bus service 7-9 a.m. PATH had concurrently cross-honored NJTransit rail tickets and passes.
While how the wires came down were being investigated as of press time, it came about 12 hours after a tree fell on wires in Madison, halting westbound service between Summit and Hackettstown. The fallen wires came during NJTransit’s first two days of restored scheduled full service since March 16.
IRVINGTON – Funeral arrangements for a Newark man, who was found shot on a township street here late July 2, remain unannounced as of 3 p.m. July 7.
Anthony E. Young, 37, said Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and Irvington Police Director Tracy Bowers Friday, was found at the intersection of 18th Avenue and 21st Street just before 10:30 p.m. that Thursday. Young was declared dead at the scene.
Detectives from Irvington and ECPO Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force are continuing their investigation.
Driver Pulls Gun
on Off-Duty Cop
Bowers and his detectives are also looking for the driver of “a gray car” who drew a gun on an off-duty Irvington police officer early July 5.
Bowers said that the officer and a female companion were driving along Springfield Avenue when the suspect’s car pulled up at about 2:55 a.m. Sunday.
The other driver began an argument with the female rider which ended with his “pulling out a gun, pointing it at the officer and driving away.”
EAST ORANGE – A city man, who worked as a county juvenile detention officer, was shot dead along a street in Newark’s Vailsburg section July 3.
Stephens and Ambrose said that responding Newark Police Division officers found Laquan T. Nowlin, 32, at Sanford and Lanark avenues Friday night. Nowlin was declared dead at the scene 11:50 p.m.
Nowlin was off-duty from his job at Newark’s Essex County Youth Detention Center at the time. Neither Ambrose nor Stephens have confirmed or quashed whether his work and the shooting are related.
City Man Arrested for
Dec. 3 Track Push
Morris County prosecutors said that Paul E. Stewart, 57, was arrested, charged with second-degree aggravated assault and released on his own recognizance June 26-July 6 in regards to another NJTransit rider being pushed onto the Dover station railroad tracks before an approaching train on Dec. 3.
Stewart, said Morris County Prosecutor’s Office spokesman Paul Milo Monday, is accused of pushing a Parsippany man off the station’s high platform. The man, who suffered nine broken ribs and lacerations, was able to roll under the platform until bystanders lifted him back up.
Witnesses said that the victim was helping another rider with using a ticket vending machine when Stewart approached him, demanding that he get out of the way. When the victim said there was enough room for Stewart to get by, witnesses added that the city man pushed him twice – the second causing the five-foot fall.
Stewart, who stayed at the scene, told NJTransit and Dover police that he pushed the elderly man “as the result of an argument.” There is also security camera footage of the incident.
MONTCLAIR – The peaceful transfer of municipal power happened here at the Municipal Building Noon July 1 even though questions about how the county counted May 12’s Vote By Mail ballots continued before Montclair’s quadrennial inauguration.
Outgoing Mayor Robert Jackson handed his gavel to Sean Spillar moments after Gov. Phil Murphy swore the former Third Ward Councilman into office.
All six Township Council members were subsequently sworn into their new or returning offices. Former mayor Robert Russo and newcomer Peter Yacobellis, for example, took their respective at-large seats.
Returning First Ward Councilman William Hurlock was also named Deputy Mayor. Second Ward Councilwoman Robin Schlager was placed on the Montclair Planning Board. Schlager and Third Ward Councilwoman Lori Price Abrams were named onto the Board of School Estimate.
Newcoming Fourth Ward Councilman David Cummings completed Montclair’s 2020-24 mayor-council lineup about two and a half hours after Montclair’s League of Women Voters and NAACP Branch held a “Make Every Vote Count” demonstration outside.
Baskerville and 15 township voters, citing signature mismatches and late-delivered ballots, had sought New Jersey Superior Court-Newark’s injunction to hold the July 1 inauguration. The hearing judge, on June 19, let the inauguration happen – and granted Baskerville and Company for a hearing Sept. 11.
The NAACP and LWV locals want Essex County officials to ensure that future BVM ballots be accounted for. While they underscored Dr. Renee Baskerville’s claim that county officials had not counted 1,086 ballots May 12-14, they stressed that the outgoing Fourth Ward Councilwoman was not connected with their protest.
