by Walter Elliott
NEWARK – The 2013 bus rider versus NJTransit negligence damages case had reached its final stop before the State Supreme Court in Trenton Feb. 17, where it upheld a lower court jury’s awarding of $1.8 million in damages.
The state’s highest judges, in a 4-3 split ruling that Wednesday, upheld last July’s State Appellate Court ruling and earlier State Superior Court-Newark jury’s finding. All three judicial levels found that NJTransit had “the same heightened duty of care as a private carrier.” (NJTransit is a public carrier.)
The case began when the rider/plaintiff Anasia Mason boarded a bus at Broad and Market streets 1:14 a.m. July 22, 2013 and was soon harassed by a group of riding youths. Their insults and pelting Mason with objects seemed to have stopped when she switched seats; she moved after one of the youths displayed a knife in a threatening manner.
One of the males, however, threw a liquor bottle at Mason while disembarking at the Hayes Circle stop, leaving the victim with a 22-stitch cut on her forehead. The driver then stopped the bus and called NJTransit’s control center who, in turn, called police and EMS from Newark Beth Israel for service.
The plaintiff maintained that bus driver Kelvin Coats had not stopped the bus, nor confronted the youths, ordered their ejection or called police. Coats had testified that his priority was to get his passengers “from Point A to Point B safely” but “it’s not my job to get involved.”
NJTransit had appealed on two counts, the first that it, as a public carrier, should not be held to the higher private standard. Its attorneys further asserted that damages under the Tort Claims Act should not be entirely drawn from one party but shared with the bottle-thrower. (That suspect remains at large.)
The state’s highest court has returned “Mason v. NJTransit and Coats” back to a lower court jury to determine the responsibility split between the state’s largest public carrier and the bottle-thrower. The case was argued before the state justices Sept. 29.
IRVINGTON – ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force detectives have been investigating the circumstances of a three-year-old boy’s fatal condition since his being found in a South Ward apartment here Feb. 18.
Responding Irvington police officers and local EMS technicians told county detectives that they were answering “reports of an injured child” at 395 Union Ave. 3:30 p.m. that Thursday.
They found the child in an apartment with an adult male inside. Witnesses said the medics were performing CPR on the boy while dashing off to a local hospital.
Irvington called ECPO when the boy had died later that afternoon. County detectives, assisted by IPD, collected items from the apartment and brought the male in the apartment into Newark for questioning that Thursday night.
The child’s death, as of press time, has not been labeled as suspicious. There have been no arrests or charges made.
EAST ORANGE – The city’s planning board approved its latest development in the “Lower Main Street Arts District” Feb. 3 – but one can still get takeout orders from the Soul Food Factory in the interim.
What the East Orange Planning Board approved Feb. 3 was to replace Soul Food Factory at 431 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd and two adjacent parking lots with the five-story, mixed-use “Hue Soul Apartments” building.
“Hue Soul,” as presented by Novus Landmark East Orange Urban Renewal LLC, of Jersey City, since April 2020, features 113 residential units above a 3,562-square foot street level retail or restaurant space. Its amenities include a one-parking-space-per-unit” garage, bicycle racks, outdoor seating, an “exterior amenity deck” at its center and an “interior amenity” area.
Novus picked 429-33 MLK Blvd. in part because it is halfway between NJTransit’s Morris & Essex Line Brick Church and East Orange stations. The location allows Hue Soul to take advantage of the state’s Transit Village Zone and East Orange’s Lower Main Street Arts District amenities.
Novus has also received from the city a 22-year Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes plan.
Hue Soul, as drawn by Kitchen & Associates, of Camden, will replace the brick-and-mortar diner restaurant that has been there since at least the 1960s. The former Main Street Diner was recently home to Metro City Diner, Ma Cuisine Cafe and – from Newark’s 683 Springfield Ave.- Soul Food Factory. It is not known whether SFF will get first dibs on the new restaurant space.
Hue Soul will take up 433 MLK Boulevard which, until recently, was East Orange Auto Sales. It used to be Maxon Pontiac’s used car lot until the dealership moved to Union’s Rt 22 West in 1970 and became Maxon Hyundai-Buick. The new building will take up 429 MLK Boulevard, where a Gulf Oil filling station and a Blue Coal hopper chute used to front South Burnett Street into the late 1960s.
ORANGE – The corner of Oakwood Avenue and Clay Street was busier than on a usual Saturday here Feb. 20 while people filed into and out of St. Matthew AME Church for four hours to pay respects to the late Councilwoman Vivian M. Gaunt.
Gaunt, 83, who was a three-term At-Large Councilwoman 1996-2008, died Feb. 10.
Born Carol Robateau June 15, 1937, Gaunt eventually came to Orange’s South Ward to teach and raise April Gaunt-Butler and Laurence Gaunt. Gaunt-Butler followed in her mother’s footsteps as a teacher (in Irvington Public Schools Early Childhood department) and as an at-large councilwoman (and Orange Council President 2015-16).
Gaunt was employed by the Archdiocese of Newark as a grade school teacher. Mayor Dwayne D. Warren, in his Feb. 15 open tribute letter, recalled first meeting Ms. Gaunt while she was Newark’s Blessed Sacrament Fifth Grade teacher in 1976 – and he was a student.
Gaunt started her eponymous African Heritage Scholarship Foundation, for the education services field in 1988. She was the foundation’s president at the time of her death.
Sister Carol Robateau and grandson Christopher Roy are also among Gaunt’s survivors. Her 9 a.m. Feb. 20 visitation at St. Matthew was followed by an-invitation only funeral there at Noon and burial at Montclair’s Rosedale Cemetery. Arrangements were made by Woody “Home for Services.”
WEST ORANGE – The West Orange Public Schools community and Toms River, 68 miles apart, are linked in mourning this week for Robert Kuczmarski, Jr.
Kuczmarski, 50, a lifelong Toms Riverite whose entire professional career was with WOPS, lost his two year battle against Stage IV colon cancer Feb. 21.
“Bob,” or “Mr. K,” was last assigned as the Gregory Elementary School’s physical education teacher. He was first hired as a West Orange High School health and physical education teacher and, later on, as an assistant athletic director.
“WOPS lost an esteemed colleague and terrific person in Bob Kuczmarski,” said Schools Superintendent Dr. Scott Cascone Feb. 22. “As a school community we mourn this loss together but may be comforted by the many memories and countless young lives which he touched in his time as a professional West Orange educator.”
Kuczmarski, who was born in Toms River April 4, 1970, came here by way of Montclair State University. The Toms River HS-East Class of 1988 graduate earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at MSU.
Wife Vanessa and daughter Marley Rose are among Kuczmarski’s survivors. Respective visitation and funeral services were respectively held 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Feb. 24 at the Silverton Memorial Funeral Home. Entombment followed at the Ocean County Memorial Park, Toms River.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Village President Sheena Collum said that she, Maplewood Mayor Frank McGehee and their respective elders are talking with both sides of the SOMSD-SOMEA impasse Feb. 22 – about two hours after 100 parents rallied in front of the Maplewood Municipal Building to push for fully reopened schools.
Collum, during the village Board of Trustees meeting, said that she and McGehee have been talking with South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education members and have been looking on how to get COVID tests and vaccinations to South Orange-Maplewood Education Association members sooner. The Village President stressed that she and Mayor McGehee are working within institutional limits.
“We obviously have a consolidated district and the way it works is that we’re a separate entity,” said Collum. “We’re a separate taxing authority. We’re great partners in that we always welcome the opportunity to work with our schools.”
100 members of SOMA for Safe Return to School held a 5 p.m. rally at Maplewood’s town hall, calling for a return to full-time, in-classroom instruction for all elementary and special education students. This was held on the 100th day of the 2020-21 school year – and the 345th day since SOMSD closed the physical schools to help curb the global COVID pandemic.
Respective SOMSD and SOMEA leaders have been talking with a mediator to try to get their Jan. 27 school reopening plan revived. Disagreements over classroom readiness had closed a limited reopening Feb. 15 and kicked out its next step to either March 15 or April 19. Teacher continue to remotely instruct from their own homes.
The SOMSD school board has filed suit in State Superior Court-Newark Feb. 23 to end SOMEA’s “illegal job action” and bring teachers back to the classrooms “immediately.”
A new group – the SOMA Community Alliance for Education – announced their existence at Monday night’s SOMSD BOE meeting. SOMA CAE posed a 10 point plan to comprehensively bring about safe school reopenings.
BLOOMFIELD – To say that two-term Councilman Gary Iacobacci, 64, who died Feb. 16, had his heart in Bloomfield may be an understatement.
While some may look at Iacobacci’s two terms on the Township Council 1990-96 as his career highpoint, the adopted son had been involved in Bloomfield’s political and civic activities for the last five decades.
Iacobacci had helped campaign for several other council members. The one-time Bloomfield Little League coach was also a member of the Municipal Youth Guidance Council, Bloomfield-Newark Elks, Bloomfield UNICO, Bloomfield Friends of the Library and a Brookdale Park walking group.
Iacobacci, who was born in Newark Aug. 17, 1956, came here by way of Belleville. His family moved from Stephen Crane Village and Gary the Abington Avenue School to Belleville in 1966 and settled in Bloomfield.
The Bloomfield High School Class of 1974 graduate, except for his schooling at Nutley’s RETS Institute and his medical equipment technician field calls, pretty much stayed here.
Son Gary, Jr., daughters Marie Iacobacci and Kristina Reese, brother Frank, sisters Mary Ann Mignone and grandsons Giovani Iacobacci and Donovan Reese are among his survivors. Visitation was held Feb. 21 and funeral Feb. 22 at Nutley’s S.W. Brown and Son Funeral Home. Burial was followed at Glendale Cemetery.
MONTCLAIR – The township government is now working on a 20-day clock, set by a State Superior Court judge Feb. 22, to decide on a landlords group’s “cured” rent control referendum petition.
Judge Jeffrey B. Beacham is asking Montclair’s township clerk to either certify the Montclair Property Owners Association’s petition and schedule a special election or repeal its April 27-approved rent control law – on or before March 15.
Beacham’s Monday ruling reverses his Jan. 15 ruling that upheld Township Clerk Angelese Bermudez Nieves rejection of MPOA’s “cured” petition. The judge took up the landlord group’s appeal to stay his Jan. 15 decision and re-evaluate.
MPOA had twice brought their “cured” petitions, with the corrections to match corrections in registered voters’ signatures and addresses. Nieves’ rejection, however, left the petition 27 signatures short of Montclair’s 1,530 minimum to have the referendum question considered for ballot placement.
Beacheam allowed MPOA to conduct their signature drive electronically due to the global COVID pandemic. The judge ordered the township to turn over resident’s email addresses from a reverse-911 list – which Montclair elders felt was an invasion of privacy.
BELLEVILLE / NUTLEY – The dispute between particular protesters, including a Belleville man, and individual Nutley police officers during the June 26 demonstrations at Nutley’s Columbus monument has resurfaced in U.S. Federal Court-Newark Feb. 17.
Attorneys for Kevin Alfano, 21, of Belleville, and Georgana Sziszak, 20, Queens, N.Y., have filed a First Amendment suit against NPD Det. Michael Rempusheski.
Attorney Robert Friedman, of New York said that Det. Rempusheski’s July 1 issuing a summons for cyberstalking and filing the said criminal complaint with ECPO was meant to stifle Alfano’s freedom of speech.
Rempusheski had filed his suit against Alfano, Sziszak, one other Nutley man and two Belleville women because Alfano had posted a photo of another NPD detective between the demonstrators, asking for his identity.
Rempusheski said that his colleague, identified as Det. P.J. Sandomenico, told him that he was fearing harm to him and his family by Alfano’s posting. The ECO dismissed Rempusheski’s complaint by July 15 for “insufficient evidence.”
Alfano, said Friedman, has since suffered from anxiety and sleeplessness, had stopped attending protests and made his online accounts private.
Alfano had posted Sandomenico’s photo because he had hid his name on his badge June 26 and appeared to have befriended the counter-protestors. NPD officers stood between those by the statute, who erroneously thought the Nutley for Black Lives protestors were arriving to topple the Christopher Columbus marker.
