NEWARK – Tributes to former Newark Public Schools Board of Education Vice President Octavio “Tave” Padilla will likely continue after his Dec. 1 Funeral Mass at St. Lucy’s Church. Padilla, 57, had died suddenly Nov. 25 after his admission here to University Hospital.
Padilla was elected to the Newark BOE as a member of the “Unity Team” in 2016 and re-elected in 2019 on the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” ticket. Both tickets were a fusion of the former annually rivalling “For Our Kids” and “Children First” teams by Mayor Ras Baraka.
Padilla had 25 years’ prior administrative, legislative and youth team experience. The 12-year general manager of Rio Roma shoes’ Newark store had doubled as an aide or chief of staff for several state legislators.
The one-time North Ward Democratic Committee Vice Chairman has been the North Ward Center’s Casa Israel Adult Day Care Center administrator since March 2010. “Coach” Padilla was also the center’s Youth Development and Recreation Co-Director since 2004.
Padilla, who was born as a second-generation Puerto Rican-Newarker here Jan. 22, 1963, was Bishop Francis Essex (Boys) High School Class of 1981 graduate. He was among a class who had moved from 300 Broadway here to the former Essex Catholic (Girls) HS building in East Orange in 1980.
“I’ve lived in Newark my whole life,” said Padilla at a 2019 candidates forum. “I’ve lived in the South, West, Central and now the North Ward.”
Mother Carmen, son Andre, daughter Elysha Vega, granddaughter Isabelle Vega, brothers Elias and Fernando and sister Manda are among his survivors. Memorial donations may be made to the North Ward Center, 346 Mt. Prospect Ave., 07104.
IRVINGTON – Whatever “nonessential” township employees are doing Nov. 30 – Dec. 14, they are doing so at home.
Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss has directed the so-classified township, Irvington Housing Authority and Irvington Public Schools employees will be working from home those 15 days.
Those same 15 days may be used for quarantine should the said employees be found to have tested positive for the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus. All employees will be tested prior to their on-site return.
“With Thanksgiving approaching, I’ll take an aggressive approach to limit its spread and keep the residents of Irvington and surrounding cities safe,” said Vauss Nov. 23.
Irvington ians who show proper ID will have free COVID-19 tests available to them at Irvington High School, 1253 Clinton Ave., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Fridays. Residents, unless they are on Medicaid or Medicare, are required to bring a prescription from their primary care doctor.
EAST ORANGE – The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force’s investigation on a city man’s death continues beyond his Nov. 16 funeral. Relatives and friends paid their last respects to Wali H. Jali, 32, that Monday in Orange’s Bethel Baptist Church. Arrangements were made by the Woody Home for Services.
Jali, who was born March 18, 1988, was found by EOPD officers lying along Ashland Avenue’s 100 block 9:30 a.m. Nov. 6. He was declared dead from gunshot wounds a short time later. City and county authorities closed Ashland between Prospect Terrace and Carlton Street and taped off a house there during their field investigation past 2 p.m.
ORANGE – The former Tremont Avenue School and Orange Police Headquarters property here at 595 Lincoln Ave., as of Dec. 2, has returned to city hands.
The Orange City Council, on a 5-2 vote Dec. 1, revoked its 2019 sale to 595 Lincoln Avenue Urban Renewal Entity LLC. Resolution 461-2020 reversed their 406-2019 walked-on resolution that sold Block 6303, Lot 7 to 595 Lincoln URE and designated the latter as a developer in the Lincoln Avenue Redevelopment Zone.
The city, as of December 2019, was to sell the 1.02 acre lot to a subsidiary of Chadwick Capital for $1.2 million. Chadwick – founded by George Robb, of New York City and former Newark South Ward Councilman Oscar S. James II – was to have replaced the 1901 building with a $17 million, four-story, 60-unit market rate condominium.
“Lincoln Avenue Heights” was to have been completed in “summer 2021.” About the only development that has gone on at 595 Lincoln since 2019, however, is the ivy enveloping the 2.5-story former elementary and middle school building.
Council President/East Ward Councilman Kerry Coley, Vice President/North Ward Councilwoman Tency Eason and West Ward Councilman Harold Johnson plus councilmen Weldon M. Montague III and Clifford Ross passed the resolution. South Ward Councilwoman Jamie Summers-Johnson, who had a computer problem, and Councilwoman Adrienne Wooten were counted as absent.
The city will try to find another use or developer for the 15C public/government zoned site. It will not be returned to Orange Public Schools, who sold it to the city after folding Tremont and Central middle schools into the Orange Preparatory Academy in 1973. OPS had inquired with the city about renovating or replacing the building as an original STEM Innovation Academy of The Oranges in 2017.
WEST ORANGE – Those members of the public who attended the West Orange Planning Board’s virtual Nov. 18 hearing on the revised Executive Suites application are hoping they will get a chance to ask questions during the next scheduled meeting on Jan. 16.
Those who wanted to ask about “Executive Suites 2.0” were surprised when township-hired attorney Isobel Chou and Planning Board Ron Weston decided not to have them ask questions to planning consultant Susan Gruel that Wednesday night.
Chou said Weston’s decision was “completely at the discretion of the planning board.” She cited the New Jersey Supreme Court Lyons v. City of Camden ruling to add, “The statute doesn’t require that the public be provided an opportunity for cross-examination.”
“I’ve determined that it’s not beneficial to the board to make our determination,” concluded Weston.
Weston and Chou’s call was made after board members had themselves questioned Gruel’s presentation. Gruel – of Heyer, Gruel Associates – had presented the township’s case that Executive Drive Office Park’s 100 and 200 Executive Dir. and 10 Rooney Circle be designated an area in need of redevelopment.
The township brought in Heyer, Gruel and excluded 300 Executive Dr. and the Essex Green Shopping Center in their “Executive Suites 2.0” proposal and presentation. They were among several revisions West Orange had made to comply with a Sept. 11 State Appellate Court Ruling that struck down the original 2019 AINOR designation and its accompanying 30-year, $36 million payment in lieu of taxes.
The revised plan, brought on behalf of owner Clarion, still seeks to turn 100-200 Executive Dr. in residential units. 10 Rooney Circle would become home to a new West Orange Public Library and a dog park.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Essex County Sheriff’s Officers will not be crossing into South Mountain Reservation from here to cull deer for a 10th straight winter.
The Essex County Deer Management Program, said County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Nov. 23, will not take place. Its resources are being channeled into expanded COVID-19 testing and food distribution.
Sheriff’s officers and registered hunters have “aggressively removed” deer on selected January and February days. The population reduction supposedly tamps down on deer-car collisions.
Management days are announced in advance, closing the reservation to the public. South Mountain Reservation’s 1,200 acres borders South Orange and enters Maplewood.
DiVincenzo’s cancelation announcement also calls off a similar program for West Essex’s Hilltop Reservation.
MONTCLAIR – The Bloomfield Avenue restaurant and entertainment venue whose slogan was, “Make sure you don’t leave too early,” has come to a COVID-prompted end.
Montclair Social Club owner Jason Miller has turned the lights of 499-501 Bloomfield Ave.’s marquee Nov. 22, ending a two-year run here.
Miller, of Millburn, had turned Rascal’s Comedy Club’s last site into a 115-seat restaurant, bar and music house in June 2018. The former finance attorney and his staff were about to open a second floor events hall in March when the COVID pandemic forced its closure.
Miller, in his Nov. 22 open letter, thanked patrons and employees for their support and patronage. Collaborating with the Jazz House Kids and neighboring Montclair Film Festival as among MSC’s highlights. He said that his inability with landlord Richard Grabowsky to arrive at a rent compromise during the pandemic was the final blow.
MSC had replaced Rascals, whose clientele had failed to move with them from West Orange in 2007-13. Grabowsky, in 2018, said he had left the space vacant since 2013 until “the right tenant” was found.
BLOOMFIELD – The family and friends of township resident Daniel Crawford, 52, were scheduled to pay their last respects to the at Orange’s Woody Home for Services, followed by burial at Rosedale Cemetery, on Dec. 3.
The man who is accused of killing Crawford at a Queens, N.Y. intersection Nov. 20 meanwhile remains held on up to $300,000 in cash bail or bond and on charges of second-degree vehicular manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide plus two counts of driving while intoxicated.
Crawford was commuting east on Union Turnpike Queens Hospital Center, said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz, when he and his silver 2003 Toyota Camry were t-boned by a gray 2016 Mercedes-Benz driven south on Parsons Boulevard by Almin Ahmed, 22, of Albany at 3:50 a.m. that Friday. Two other vehicles were damaged and an FDNY call box felled by the collision.
EMS technicians rushed an unconscious and unresponsive Crawford from the Kew Gardens Hills intersection to Queens Hospital, where he was declared dead “by his second family” shortly afterwards. Friends and family, including his two sons and his ex-wife Lynette Harris, first knew something was wrong when Crawford had failed to make his 5:30 a.m. daily positive Facebook posting.
NYPD detectives meanwhile found an intersection recording where Crawford had the green light right of way. They found the physically uninjured Ahmed recording a blood alcohol content above New York State’s .08 percent limit. The Mercedes’ data recorder, recovered by search warrant, recorded it reaching 97 mph before impact.
Crawford, who was born Aug. 21, 1968, had been a phlebotomist at Queens Hospital the last 2.5 years. Harris said Crawford was planning a return to nursing school and had welcomed a grandson into the world the week before.
Ahmed is facing up to a 15 year prison sentence if found guilty. A Gofundme.com fundraising page for Crawford’s funeral expenses remains active.
BELLEVILLE – Township officers and police from neighboring towns broke up a large fight that had broken out in front of a bar and restaurant late Nov. 20.
Witnesses said the officers had arrived at 521 Joralemon St. 11:15 p.m. that Friday to find the altercation among several customers in the outside dining area. They quickly quelled the disturbance – but not before extracting a man who had suffered a non life-threatening head injury.
Police were last before Michael’s Roscommon House Oct. 20-21 to find a woman asleep behind the wheel of a parked car. Their finding resulted in the DWI arrest of Belleville Board of Education Trustee Erika Jacho.
NUTLEY – Efforts to curb the COVID-19 Novel Coronavirus pandemic have “grounded” Santa Claus this season and will keep marchers for the 2021 St. Patrick’s Day Parade home.
The Nutley Chamber of Commerce, on Dec. 1, has canceled its annual “Santa’s Arrival,” slated for Dec. 5, “out of an abundance of caution.” Its associated Holiday Party, intended for Dec. 1 here at Mamma Vittoria, may be rescheduled as a virtual event.
NCOC has hosted the helicopter arrival of “Kris Kringle” on the Nutley Oval football gridiron for decades.
The Nutley Irish American Association, on Nov. 23, has also set its next St. Patrick’s Day Parade – for March 5, 2022. The association also cited COVID-related health and safety concerns for participants and spectators for their 2022 reset.
