NEWARK – A police Funeral Mass has been scheduled for Sgt. Hector Moya here at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The Mass is to be preceded by 6-8 p.m. Jan. 22 and 9-9:30 a.m. Jan. 23 visitations at the nearby Alvarez Funeral Home.
Moya, 55, of Jersey City, died Jan. 13 at Summit’s Overlook Hospital. He is the seventh Newark Police Division officer to die from COVID-19 complications. Police colleagues escorted Moya’s body from Overlook to Alvarez, at 240 Mt. Prospect Ave., that Wednesday afternoon.
Moya, who was born Nov. 23, 1965, joined the then-Newark Police Division in March 1998. Ptl. Moya, who would be promoted to sergeant, was assigned to the Fugitive Apprehension Unit, Auto Crimes Division and Special Victims Division among the 2nd, 4th and 5th precincts.
“The City deeply grieves the loss of this beloved 22-year police veteran,” said Mayor Ras Baraka. “We extend our deepest condolences and prayers to Sgt. Moya’s family.”
“Sgt. Moya was a highly respected NPD member,” added Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose. “He always had a kind word on his lips and a bright smile on his face. He fought a valiant fight against the virus and will be sorely missed.”
IRVINGTON – A DPW crew found themselves completing on Jan. 9 what a contracted backhoe operator inadvertently started on a South Ward house.
Irvington Deputy Fire Director John Brown had confirmed that Sunday that 73-75 Welland Ave, which was built in 1892, was levelled. The demolition came 10 days after township firefighters and police had fielded a house collapse report there 3:47 p.m. New Year’s Eve.
The first fire and police units had arrived to find the 2.5 story wood frame house’s front porch having fallen into its basement. They also found the backhoe operator standing nearby.
First responders found no one else in the house – it had been vacant for renovations – and had called PSE&G to cut all electric and gas supplies there at 5:03 p.m. IFD and Building Construction Department investigators found the backhoe operator uninjured.
“The preliminary investigation appears to be operator error,” added Brown. “There was a single worker on the scene using the backhoe without a permit. The owners have been issued violation summonses and a $4,000 fine.”
Township and county property records Jamie Huerta and Martha E. Dutan bought 73-75 Welland for $110,000 July 30, 2018. The property had been sold in the county sheriff’s 2008 and 1999 tax foreclosure auctions.
“Local Talk” found 73-75 Welland’s front fence and a cavity where the house had stood Jan. 19. A newly-constructed garage, a new western basement wall and a construction apparatus also remained on-site.
EAST ORANGE – Relatives and friends of the late Richard Turner, Jr. have had to postpone their formal mourning and life celebration for nearly a month after his fatal accident.
They postponed making funeral arrangements until their GoFundMe.com page had exceeded its goal set on Dec. 28 – the day after Turner, 20, and his passenger, Laiken Nicole Salyers, 23, were found in an Athens, Ohio creek.
A passer-by altered the Ohio Highway Patrol that a 2103 Chevrolet Cruze was partially submerged in the creek early that Monday. OHP detectives believed that the Turner-Saylers vehicle had lost control on an ice-covered Dairy Lane bend and had rolled over. Both Turner and Salyers were Ohio State University-Athens students at that time.
Turner’s city neighbors may best remember him as a St. Joseph (elementary) School graduate and an East Orange Pop Warner Wildcats and Jaguars football player. “Pudge” applied his scholastic athleticism at Paramus Catholic High School, where he was part of the Paladins’ 2017 NJSIAA Non Public Group 4 State Championship team, and with the OSU Bobcats.
Turner, PCHS Class of 2019, was the oldest of four children raised by Iraqi war veteran Richard Sr. and Angela Turner. Brother Malcolm and sisters Amelia and Amirah are also among his survivors.
ORANGE – Some who remember Joyce Dwyer, 87, who died in Caldwell Jan. 13, may recall her longtime residency here and as a person who was destined to dance.
It came to no surprise to those who remembered her growing up here and in West Orange that she was a Radio City Music Hall Rockette for 38 years.
The former Joyce Madeline Hector, WOHS Class of 1951, was written up in that year’s “West-O-Rama” yearbook as ready with a wink, a smile, and to dance. Hector, in her WOHS senior year, had also begun to give dancing lessons. to younger people. Her dancing got her a mention in the 1948 yearbook while still a freshman.
Her 1951 yearbook credits included working on the junior prom’s floor and decorations, being a student council alternate and being awarded the class’ best female brunette.
Hector, although born in Newark Aug. 20, 1933, grew up in West Orange with parents Edward and Gertrude. The newly-graduated WOHS “Cowgirl” (The school’s mascots were the Cowboys) moved to Orange, married a Mr. Dwyer and made the Rockettes audition.
Dwyer, who also lived in Spring Lake, is survived by nephews John and Michael Weinhofer, Robert and James Merriam and Carlo Corvaja and nieces Cecile Corvaja and Jodie Weinhofer.
Dwyer’s burial, arranged by Codey & Jones Funeral Home of Caldwell, was held at East Hanover’s Gate of Heaven Cemetery. memorial donations may be made to your choice of charity.
WEST ORANGE – The West Orange St. Patrick’s Day Parade Committee, on Jan. 13, has postponed their 2021 march down Main Street to a later, to be announced date.
“In consultation with the township, the committee has decided to postpone the 2021 parade in March due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation,” said chairman Kevin Brennan in his open letter. “We’re currently evaluating other options for holding events in 2021 when the current situation and restrictions improve.”
Brennan’s announcement raises the possibility that what would have been West Orange’s 69th parade may not step off for the second straight year.
The committee, township and participating organizations had first postponed the 2020 edition from March 15 to August in the face of the pandemic and its resulting shutdowns. All parties, after unable to find a way to maintain social distancing, canceled that year’s parade Aug. 5.
2020’s Grand Marshall Mellen Dangler and her deputy marshals John Demars, Patrick Giblin, Bobby Lamb and Robert Swenson will have to wait later into 2021 or ’22 to lead marchers from Our Lady of Lourdes Church to the West Orange Municipal Building.
The Committee, said Brennan, had held mask and food distributions and donated 230 coats to Holy Trinity Church in the interim. They were joined by the likes of the Friendly Sons of the Shillelagh, Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Women of Irish Heritage in the committee’s “off season” events.
“Remember, we will march again,” finished Brennan. “Stay Strong. Stay Safe. Stay Irish.”
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – There are a lot of parties within and from outside the South Orange-Maplewood School District who are monitoring its hybrid learning model since its Jan. 19 launch.
All Kindergarten-Second Grade, Grades 6-9, special education and English language learners, since Tuesday morning, have the option to be taught in classrooms. The entire SOMSD student body, their parents and teachers have had virtual or remote learning since the COVID-19 pandemic struck in mid-March.
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Taylor, on Jan. 12, is keeping all Grades 3-5 and 10-12 students on-line only until at least next month. Taylor had based that postponement on local and Essex County COVID transmission rates. School nurses are reporting their daily findings to South Orange and Maplewood health officers.
Members and officers of the South Orange-Maplewood Education Association are also on the hybrid learning and COVID watches.
SOMEA President Rocio Lopez, on Jan. 8, had asked for a further postponement until all of his teaching members, who are in Tier 1B, get their vaccinations and all 11 building’s ventilation systems have been completed.
MONTCLAIR – Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) is not the only Congress member who wants to know which of her colleagues gave guided tours of the Capitol on Jan. 5 – the day before its invasion by extreme supporters of then-President Donald J. Trump.
Sherrill sent a letter to the acting U.S. Capitol police chief and acting Congressional sergeants-at-arms Jan. 13 calling for “an immediate investigation and access given to Capitol Complex visitors Jan. 5.” Her letter was co-signed by 33 Congressional colleagues – including Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-Newark), Albio Sires (D-W. New York) and three other New Jersey delegation members.
Sherrill, in her letter and Jan. 12 social media video, said she had noticed “extremely high number of outside groups in the complex” and had reported it to the then-House of Representatives Sergeant-at-Arms that Tuesday.
She and her letter co-signees said that what they saw that day was an “unusual, noticeable and concerning departure” on at least three levels. The first is that public tours had ended last march due to the COVID pandemic.
Second, Sherrill, a former USAF helicopter pilot, is among those Congress members and staff who “have served in the military and are trained to recognize suspicious activity. Some of the same Congress members and staff, on Jan. 6 noticed that “members of the group that attacked the Capitol seemed to have an unusually detailed knowledge of the complex’s layout.”
“I intend to see that those members of Congress who had groups coming through the Capitol that I saw on Jan 5,” said Sherrill Jan. 12, “be held accountable and, if necessary, ensure that they don’t serve in Congress.”
Sherrill and her 33 colleague’s call for an investigation is in addition on why some U.S. Capitol police fraternized with the insurrectionists Jan. 6 and how and why the USCPD and related law enforcement had underprepared in the face of pre-Jan. 6 social media chatter and in comparison, to the BLM protests. Both Congressional sergeants at arms and Capitol police chief had resigned soon after Jan. 6.
BLOOMFIELD – Township Administrator Matthew Watkins may introduce legislation at the Township Council’s Jan. 25 Zoom meeting that would affect the Oakeside Cultural Center’s future operation.
Watkins, on behalf of Michael Venezia, is to introduce an ordinance that would create a “Bloomfield Arts Utility,” that, if passed, would oust the Oakeside Cultural Center’s Board of Trustees.
Oakeside’s trustees had been running the 1895 Oakes mansion here at 240 Belleville Ave. on the township’s behalf since the lease was passed by Township Council resolution, under Mayor John W. Kinder’s administration in 1982. The OCC was then established as an independent 501(c) (3) corporation.
The mansion was once owned by the Oakes family, who ran their textile mill across the avenue until its last descendant, Jean Oakes, 92, died here in 1980.
The self-sufficient OCC board had held tours and special events into the pandemic’s start. The mansion, carriage house and grounds are on the national and state historic places registerers.
Township Attorney Michael Parlavecchio told OCC Executive Director Kim Reilly last summer, however, that the township will assume Oakeside control Oct. 1 – 12 years ahead of the lease’s expiration.
Parlavecchio cited that Bloomfield’s elders should have accepted the lease as an ordinance and not as a resolution. “Bloomfield’s top lawyer” further claimed that the carriage house should never have been rented out.
NUTLEY / BELLEVILLE – Last rites for Vincent LoCurcio III, 64, co-owner of the Nutley Park and new Belleville ShopRite supermarkets, were held here at the Biondi Funeral Home Jan. 13 and at Bloomfield’s Glendale Cemetery Jan. 14.
LoCurcio had died here at home in the company of relatives Jan. 9. His cause of death was not disclosed. “Vince,” except for his Passaic birth and bachelor’s degree from Midland, Mich.’s Northwood University, was a lifelong Nutleyite.
The Nutley High School Class of 1974 graduate was the third of four generations of LoCurcios and Infusinos who own and operate the Nutley Park ShopRite. Grandfather/Park Foods founder Vincent LoCurcio, Sr. and butcher Thomas Infusino joined forces in 1953. Father Vincent, Jr. assumed the helm after they joined Wakefern Foods/ShopRite in 1954.
Vince and co-owner David Infusino bought the former PathMark at 726 Washington Ave after parent A&P’s 2012 liquidation. They reopened the mini-mall’s remodeled anchor store in 2013. (It is not immediately known if they had any connection with the 1950s ShopRite at 165-83 Washington Ave,)
LoCurcio and Infusino received the Nutley Irish-American Association’s 2019 Dr. Virginus D. Mattia Award. The longtime Nutley Chamber of Commerce President was on the Wakefern and Nutley Family Service Bureau’s board of directors.
Wife Carol, mother Antoinette, sons Luke LoCurcio and Joseph Frusteri, daughter Michelle Yasso, Vincent LoCurcio IV and four other grandsons, granddaughter Ellla and sisters Ann Bator, Jeanne Clark and Carole Casale are among his survivors.
Memorial donations may be made to the Nutley Family Service Bureau, 169 Chestnut St., 07110.
