by Walter Elliott
NEWARK – Authorities are looking for shooter who struck and killed a South Ward grandmother who was out celebrating on her birthday March 11.
Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said, on March 12 that his officers had responded to ShotSpotter multiple gunfire soundings from around 187 Lehigh Ave., at about 8 p.m. March 11.
They had arrived to find a woman – identified March 12 by Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II as Debra Derrick, 63 – lying on the sidewalk with gunshot wounds at 8:05 p.m. Derrick was rushed to University Hospital, where she was declared dead at 8:27 p.m.
Derrick, said relatives and neighbors, was performing two selfless acts before she was shot. She was launching balloons with her three adult children and two grandchildren when she heard the first gunfire and shielded two family members. The balloon launch was for her twin sister Diane who had died from an asthma attack in 2014.
Debra was standing alongside the parking garage of her former employer. The Shepherd Avenue resident had worked at RWJBarnabas Health Newark Beth Israel Medical Center nursing assistant until she went on disability after Diane’s death.
A sister and their 70-year-old mother are also among Derrick’s survivors. No funeral arrangements were released as of March 17.
Stephens and Ambrose are looking for a “silver vehicle” who sped away on Lehigh. Detectives counted 29 rounds recorded by ShotSpotter and “ballistic evidence” along 251-53 Lehigh two blocks west. Anyone with information are to call the ECPO Homicide Task Force, 1(877) 847-7432.
IRVINGTON – Local night owls and early birds were detoured around the intersection of Springfield and Lyons avenues while authorities investigated a predawn head-on collision there March 4.
Township Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers said that Irvington first responders had arrived there at 3 a.m. that Thursday on reports of an accident in front of 1227 Springfield Ave.
They had then found both an eastbound Volkswagen SUV and a westbound Honda Accord in Springfield Avenue’s eastbound lanes. Both vehicles’ front ends suffered severe damage.
One of the drivers, said Bowers, was taken to a local hospital with “severe ” injuries, prompting his calling the ECPO as a matter of course. What, if any, injuries to the other driver was not disclosed.
IPD detectives, in their preliminary investigation, found that at least one of the two vehicles was traveling “at high speed.” The rescue and field investigation prompted the detour of NJTransit’s Nos. 25 and 70 buses into mid-rush hour. No further details have been released as of press time.
EAST ORANGE – Relatives, colleagues and friends were recalling Mike Davis as being more than “The Voice of East Orange” during his March 16 funeral service here at the Elmwood United Presbyterian Church March 16.
Davis, indeed, was the public address announcer for most of the East Orange Recreation and Cultural Affairs Department’s home games and activities. As a recreation department leader, “Big Mike” was a mentor and shaper of thousands of city youth over his 35 year career – including future NFL players Jabrill Peppers on the NY Giants and Rasul Douglas of the Carolina Panthers.
Michael Jonas Davis, 56, died March 7. He was born as the youngest of five “rambunctious” children Feb. 15, 1964 and had graduated from the Clifford J. Scott High School here in 1983. It was at Clifford Scott where he became a master checkers player with interests in sports and weather forecasting.
Davis, from his first day at nearby Baldwin Park May 12, 1986, found his calling in EO Recreation. He became a liaison between the department and the metro New York City professional sports teams.
Access to teams’ sports camps and clinics, scholarships, field trips and giveaways came out of that relationship. Last year’s ribbon-cutting for the NHL NJ Devils-supplied Recreation and Pride Fitness Center is a recent example.
The 2019 Lifetime Citizen Award recipient is survived by brothers Paul, Ronald and Keith and sister Lisa, among others. His twin brother Mark died at six months old.
Davis’ remains were placed in Rosedale Cemetery, not far from his most recent residence in West Orange. Online condolences may be left of Newark’s Perry Funeral Home website.
ORANGE – The motorcyclist who was seriously injured in a collision with a car in front of Monte Irving Orange Park March 14, said officials, is expected to fully recover from his injuries.
Orange Public Safety Director Todd Warren said that his police officers and University Hospital EMS medics to the call of a motor vehicle crash on Central Avenue, just west of Oakwood Avenue, at 5:45 p.m. Sunday.
First responders found a Chevrolet two-door compact car that had somehow broadsided a motorcycle while headed east on Central The motorcyclist, assisted by a Good Samaritan, was lying in the westbound lanes in front of 85 Central Ave.
The rider was rushed to University Hospital. The Chevy driver’s condition, however, was not disclosed.
Traffic, including buses on CoachUSA’s Nos. 24A and 44 routes, were detoured via Oakwood and Wilson places.
WEST ORANGE – Parents and employees of the around 2,500 West Orange High School community should have been contacted on why the school has been closed since Monday while your read this. This closure includes the suspension of all WOHS sports until April 1.
Superintendent Dr. J. Scott Cascone, citing “multiple confirmed cases of COVID-19 in WOHS,” has closed that school building March 15 – April 19. Its students and teachers will continue learning by remote or virtual in the interim.
“Of the confirmed cases, there’re a few in which there’s no clear connection to outside events or exposure to positive cases that we know of at this time,” said Cascone. “The decision has been made in consultation with health professionals and building and district administration to close the building for two weeks. As the result of the building being closed prior to Spring Break, staff and students may return on April 19.”
Cascone added that contact tracing and notification was being conducted the week of March 15. The super said that one positive case had been on WOHS property “late last week” and a second, who “had been in the building” Monday.
The closure had put a March 7 WOHS cheer team formal banquet at the center of a controversy.
An online petition had started on Change.org claiming that the 80-person banquet was held with various people “violating CDC and WO guidelines. The petitioners are calling for disciplinary action, including fining each violating attendant $1,000, banning the cheer team from 2021’s prom and graduation and/or “disbanding indefinitely” the team.
Cascone, in response Tuesday, said there is no connection between the banquet and the two COVID cases.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange Maplewood Education Association’s Sixth and Ninth Grade teachers, barring the union filing an appeal, will be returning to South Orange – Maplewood School District classes on March 22.
That was the announcement SOMSD administrators have made here March 16 in the wake of New Jersey Superior Court Chancery Division Judge Jody Alper’s ruling that Tuesday morning.
Alper, from her Newark bench, delivered an order to affected SOMEA members to report to district -approved classrooms “as early as March 18.” Those classrooms were ones the district said had passed an earlier SOMEA leadership walkthrough.
The district, on one hand, has relaxed the said teachers’ return to March 22. SOMEA officials, on the other hand, were to hold a walkthrough that same Monday as part of a projected April 19 reopening.
Alper’s ruling came the day after some Kindergarten-Second Grade students and all special education and English language learners were to report to classes. SOMEA is respecting that district request after saying March 10 that they, claiming the district was negotiating “in bad faith,” withdrew from state-appointed mediation.
About 80 parents meanwhile held a front lawn sit-in at South Orange’s Marshall School March 12. They were members of a parental group who want a straightaway five days a week in-person learning reopening.
BLOOMFIELD – Bloomfield Public Schools Superintendent Sal Goncalves and his administrators intend to roll out a hybrid learning model for the district’s 5,400 students on April 19 – immediately after the scheduled spring break.
Goncalves, in a plan unveiled at the Feb. 23 Board of Education meeting, will have students in its eight elementary schools attending in a three group rotation. The first group will attend in-person classes 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and the other two voluntarily virtual or online. All afternoon classes will be online.
Bloomfield High and Middle schools will be all-virtual Mondays and Fridays with 36-minute classes. Students will return to the buildings for half-days. Special needs students in both buildings will be online Mondays and Fridays with in-person classes in between.
Forest Glen School students will be limited to 10 per classroom and two per table. While there will be daily outside time, the playground will be closed and classroom libraries will not be shared.
Special education or needs students will otherwise be following an A/B five-days-a-week in-class schedule based on their Individual Education Plans.
Teachers, including Bloomfield Education Association members, will be ramping up to April 19 by voluntarily teaching from classrooms March 29-April 1. All staff are to report in-person April 12-16. Students may retain all-virtual instruction through the school year’s end.
Goncalves said the plan was based on 5,400 survey responses from parents, teachers and students. The overall survey found a 51.9/48.1 percentage split between parents who felt comfortable sending their children back to school if safety guideline are followed – and those who are not.
MONTCLAIR – Respective Montclair Public Schools and Montclair Education Association officials are ironing out details in their agreement to re-open the district’s seven elementary schools for in-person hybrid learning on April 19.
Those details include cleaning materials and frequencies of school buses and classrooms, student entry to and exit from the buildings and whether and how snacks are handled. The said conditions and agreement also hinge on both parties walking through the seven buildings March 22. Teachers are to meanwhile receive a roster of in-person and virtual learning students on March 19.
District administrators and union members arrived at the agreement hours before they were to contest each other in New Jersey Superior Court- Newark March 9. Respective attorneys u=informed Judge James Paganelli that Tuesday afternoon. Paganelli responded by keeping the case docket open until April 15-30.
Around 100 parents meanwhile held a rally at Rand Park March 13 to press for full-time in-person learning. The 60, including parents from South Orange-Maplewood, Nutley, West Orange and Scotch Plains-Fanwood, cited the 100 public and charter school districts who are fully open.
Curbside Recycling Resumes March 15
Mayor Sean Spillar, citing a sufficient number of Department of Community Services employees having returned from COVID quarantine, declared a resumption of curbside recycling collection as of March 15.
Temporary recycling drop-off hours at the DCS yard has been reduced to 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. on March 20 and 27 Saturdays. Regular 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday hours return on April 3.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Planning Board, in a special meeting here March 8, approved Sound Development, LLC, of Newark, replacing the foam rubber factory near the Nutley border with six-story, 117-unit housing.
The planning board had approved replacing the Foam Rubber Fabricators building at 740-48 Washington Ave. with “The Kelsey.” The Kelsey, as presented by Rawlings Architects, of New York City, would be 114 dwelling units and street level retail space within a six-story structure.
The Kelsey’s features include 70 one-bedroom apartments, 44 studio apartments a two-floor split-level parking garage, a gym and a 4,000-square foot roof terrace and pool.
This name comes from 740-48’s previous building, which was the factory for the Kelsey Motor Company 1921-23. Inventor-businessman C.W. Kelsey tried to market three models of his gearless, friction drive cars here and fro0m a Newark showroom until it went bankrupt. Kelsey (1880-1970) was better known for inventing the anti-roll or sway stabilizing bar found on most cars today.
The current 1927 building was where the late Irving Lerner founded FBR in 1950. It is not known where that company will move on to.
NUTLEY – Family, friends and colleagues of Angelo “Mr. Nutley” Frannicola helped him round his last base during his Funeral Mass at Newark’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart March 1.
Frannicola, whose three decades as a physical education instructor was served in Newark and Nutley, grew up Sacred Heart’s shadow. The 1954 inaugural Sacred Heart page boy and future baseball and football official had played neighborhood football in the cathedral’s parking lot.
Frannicola, 76, died Feb. 22 from COVID complications at RWJBarnabas Medical Center in Livingston. Angelo R. Frannicola was born in Newark Nov. 21, 1942, where he and wife Toni lived until 1985.
The Sacred Heart School and St. Benedict’s Prep (Class of 1960) graduate served in the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne during the Vietnam era. He returned to attain education drees at then-Montclair State College (1974) and Seton Hall University (1981).
Frannicola first applied his degrees the first 27 years as a phys ed teacher and athletic director at Weequahic and the former Vailsburg high schools. Upon his move to Nutley, he was that high school’ AD/Health Department Chairman 2001-06 and was elected to its board of education for 2007-10. In between, he became a 50-year sports official in basketball, football and an ASA/USA Softball Metro Newark Commissioner. He was most recently a teachers mentor at Caldwell and Montclair State universities.
Son Robert, daughter (and Nutley teacher) Antoinette Giglio and grandson Michelangelo are among his survivors, His remains were buried with military honors in North Arlington’s Holy Cross Cemetery. Donations may be made to the Angelo Frannicola Memorial Foundation, PO Box 185, Nutley 07110.
