by Walter Elliott
NEWARK – A former Municipal Council candidate was among the eight candidates of even towns whom the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission issued for filing violations.
The NJELEC has fined council candidate Shawn X. McCray, along with seven others, for having filed sworn campaign donation statements years late. McCray, as of April 7, was fined $450.20 for filing his candidate sworn statement “nearly six-and-a-half years late” from his 2014 campaign.
A majority of registered ward voters placed McCray, who ran on his own “New Hope for the Central Ward” banner, third to challenger Gayle Chaneyfield-Jenkins and incumbent Darrin S. Sharif in an eight-way election. May 13, 2014. Chaneyfield-Jenkins defeated Sharif in the June 10 runoff.
McCray, a Newark native and lifelong resident, finished second to winner LaMonica R. McIver in the 2018 Central Ward regular and runoff elections. The Central High School Boys Basketball coach regularly airs TheGrind podcast.
A Victory Gardens council candidate was fined an overall $45,600 for failing to report contributions or making a sworn statement from his 2015-17 campaigns.
The state commission levied $53,405.76 in fines from their May 5 and April 7 rounds of violation announcements.
IRVINGTON – The alleged trespasser who township police and Essex County Sheriff’s Officers “apprehended” in Irvington Park 5:30 a.m. May 7 was not an ordinary suspect.
Irvington Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers said that the suspect, who matched the description by residents at Levental Avenue and Wolf Place at 1:30 a.m. Friday, had to be treated like a cub.
Responding IPD officers, while taping off the county park, called for backup from sheriff’s officers and the N.J Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Fish and Wildlife.
The suspect, who Irvingtonians reported to authorities rummaging through garbage cans and then up a tree, was a mature black bear. It is the first bruin sighted and removed since one by the Burch Charter School/St. Leo’s Roman Catholic Church on June 8, 2018.
Fish and Wildlife wardens tranquilized the bear and transported it to a more natural habitat beyond “Local Talk” Land. It had taken the pear about four hours to walk about 1.1 miles or 10 blocks north to the park.
“I’ve told residents who asked me that this bear came to Irvington Park because it knows how safe, clean and enjoyable all of Essex County parks are,” said Sheriff Armando Fontoura. “Patience and tolerance paid off in making sure that neither the bear nor any of our Essex County residents were harmed.”
EAST ORANGE – What started as a fatal shooting of a Newark man in a Third Ward house’s after-hours party here May 1 has resulted in the arrest of another Newark man 48 hours later.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi announced that they have arrested Terance Nelson, 34, in the murder of Shakur Robinson, 34. Nelson is accused of walking into the basement of a house on the 510 block of South Clinton Street, shooting Robinson in the head at 3:30 a.m. May 1 and walking away.
Robinson, a father of two and an International Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 210 member, was declared at the scene.
Neighbors told responding EOPD officers and ECPO Homicide Task Force detectives that one of the house’s occupants have held post-2 a.m. parties “on most weekends” and that the occupant’s family members were involved with party operations. The same residents said that they had told authorities of the parties.
It is not known whether Nelson and Robinson were acquainted with each other. Early morning traffic, including NJTransit’s No. 94 buses, was detoured during the field investigation.
Nelson is being held on a count each of murder, an ex-felon possessing a weapon, possessing a weapon without a permit and possession thereof for an illegal purpose.
ORANGE – The Orange Water Department and its manager, Suez North America, while stressing that Orange’s water is safe to drink, has passed along an April 27 notice from the DEP that they violated two water quality standards since Jan. 1.
The state agency told Suez and OWD that it had exceeded standards for pH balance and orthophosphate 78 times – so far – since Jan. 1. By “so far,” The DEP is sampling and testing periods run until June 30.
Orthophosphate is a chemical added between Orange’s well fields in Millburn and East Hanover and the Chestnut Street pumping station. The chemical is used to prevent corrosion and lead buildup in pipelines and fixtures.
The DEP asserts that Suez had failed to adjust to the DEP’s tighter pH and orthophosphate standards that took effect Jan. 1. Suez has since readjusted. The state agency files the Tier 2 Public Notice when the exceedances go beyond nine days within a six-month period.
Orange Water and Suez have meanwhile been adjusting their water quality process to adhere to the DEP’s new PFOA content standards since March 15. The agency set stricter standards than the federal EPA to reduce the amount of the “nonstick” PFOSA family of “forever” chemicals.
WEST ORANGE – Councilwoman Michelle Casalino asked Council President Cindy Matute-Brown, Mayor Robert Parisi and the May 4 Township Council meeting’s virtual audience for, and was granted permission, to open the session with a moment of silence for “longtime Deputy Mayor Zal Velez.”
“Zal loved this community,” added Parisi. “He served as Deputy Mayor for almost 30 years, working with three administrations and has always been a trusted voice and friend to many. He had an infectious optimism, making it impossible to ever be with him and not feel good about the world.”
Then-Mayor Sam Spina first appointed Dr. Gonzalo “Zal” Velez Deputy Mayor in the 1990s. Mayors John McKeon and Parisi kept him there.
Velez and wife Josie came here from their native Philippines in 1974. Zal used his doctorate in Education to serve as Education Commission during President Ronald Regan’s Administration 1981-89 and to run the International Cultural and Education Association.
Velez, under his “Cristo Rey Aluman” pen name, wrote three Philippine historical novels and the “Apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” The longtime Our Lady of Lourdes parishioner has raised funds and supplies for Typhoon Haiyan victims and underprivileged Smokey Mountain children.
The father of Mary Jo and the late Anthony, grandfather of seven and brother of Alberto and the late Teodoro died from respiratory failure April 28. A Funeral Mass was held in Our Lady of Lourdes, prior to internment at East Hanover’s Gate of Heaven Cemetery, May 7.
SOUTH ORANGE – The four-way race for three Village Trustee seats up for May 11’s election, although votes are still being counted through press time, has been called in the “Devoted, Dependable & Diverse” team’s favor.
Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin, with 12 of 13 polling precincts reporting Tuesday night, has DDD’s Braynard “Bobby” Brown as its top vote-getter with 1,029 votes or 32.05 percent. The former NFL football player will start his first term on or by July 1.
Incumbent Karen Hartshorn Hiltron gets her second term with 1,008 or 31.39. Running mate William “Bill” Haskins received his first term at 991 or 30.86. Haskins and Brown will succeed the retiring Walter Clarke and Steve Schnall. Neil Chambers, running his “Vote for Kids” solo campaign, mustered 183 for 5.7.
The above results are unofficial for more than the usual fortnight allowance for challenges and recall. Durkin and Board of Elections Superintendent Linda von Nessi are allowing Vote By Mail Ballots that were put in the Village Center Sloan Street gazebo dropbox by 8 p.m. Tuesday to be counted.
VBMs that were postmarked Tuesday and sent via the U.S. Postal Service will be welcomed in Durkin’s Newark Hall of Records office – so long as they are received on or by 4 p.m. May 17. Durkin, in a Tuesday afternoon report, said that 1,732 VBMBs, or 12 percent of the village’s registered voters, were mailed.
The village’s trustee contest was “Local Talk’s” sole May non-partisan municipal election this year. Similar elections were held in Verona, Cedar Grove and 11 other New Jersey towns.
MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District’s $159.6 million 2021-22 budget, featuring a 3.2-percent local tax levy increase, is now in the hands of Essex County Superintendent Joseph Zarra for his inspection and approval. Copies have also been furnished to the respective South Orange and Maplewood municipal governments.
A majority of the two-town board of education passed the $159.683,232 budget on a May 3 5-3-1 split budget. SOMSD BOE Members Elissa Malespina, Johanna Wright and Kamal Zubieta dissented; Susan Bergin was absent.
The overall budget, as introduced March 15 by Schools Superintendent Dr. Ronald Taylor, is $2.54 million – or 1.6 percent more – than the current $157,141,232 million spending plan.
The new budget reflects several line item increases, starting with a 22.51 percent increase in state aid to $22.5 million. Trenton, through the state Education Department, added to the current $5,880,802 in part to help defray the expense of renovating the Seth Boyden Demonstration and Clinton, Jefferson and Tuscan elementary schools.
They are four of the district’s 10 schools whose improvements will be otherwise being funded by last year’s $157 million bond issue. The bond issue, on the other hand, boosts the district’s debt service by 45.98 percent to $9,311,827.
Although the overall district budget has increased by the two percent maximum, 87 percent of the revenue comes from Maplewood and South Orange property owners. The two-town district property tax increase is separate from what Maplewood, South Orange and/or Essex County elders set.
“If we purport to care about those families who are less financially stable right now,” asked dissenter Zubieta, “then why aren’t we worried about the money in their pockets?”
BLOOMFIELD – A Newark man will be seeing a lot of the Bloomfield Municipal Court this month after his second arrest for allegedly shoplifting from a hardware store here 26 days apart in April.
Bloomfield Public Safety Director Samuel DeMaio said that officers had responded to a shoplifting call from the Home Depot on April 26. They were met by the store’s loss prevention officer and a detained Alexander Carrion, 37.
The LPO accused Carrion of taking a $199 Ryobi toolset and “attempting to walk past all points of sale” without paying.
Those here at 1 Municipal Plaza and 60 Orange St. may have asked, “You, again?” to Carrion, who was last picked up by BPD at Bloomfield Avenue and Berkeley Place April 1.
Carrion, that Thursday, matched the description the LPO gave of a man who ran away from the store with a “$299 electric chainsaw.”
Carrion, both times, was given a summons with a court date. Both the toolset and the chainsaw were recovered.
MONTCLAIR – Township residents and officials may well remember when the late Olympia Dukakis won Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Moonstruck” at the 60th Academy Awards April 18, 1988.
Dukakis, 89, who died in her Manhattan apartment May 1, was unexpectedly bestowed a Golden Globe that January for portraying Cher’s worldly mother. She made it onto the academy’s stage, held her Oscar statue high overhead and shouted, “Go, Michael!” to first cousin and Presidential candidate George Dukakis.
Dukakis, to some, became an overnight sensation. The daughter of Lowell, Mass. textile workers, however, had been working some 58 years before the Oscar spotlight fell on her and Montclair.
“I went from buying budget jeans and working 10-to-12 hours daily in the theater to getting parts and money a lot better,” recalled Dukakis from the century-old Montclair home she and husband Louis Zorich had been raising Christina, Peter and Stefan and since 1970. “I never let the success get to my head.”
Dukakis, who was born in Lowell June 20, 1931, had 130 off-Broadway play roles and some television credits when author Nora Ephron cast her in 1986’s “Heartburn.” The Boston University Master of Fine and Performing Arts degree-holder had been teaching acting at NYU for 15 years.
She and Zorich co-founded and ran the Whole Theater Company here 1971-90. Dukakis, when a camera crew filmed her reaction to being nominated by the academy at their Upper Montclair home, made a point of mentioning the Whole Theater.
The “Moonstruck” awards started a string of movie and television credits, from “Steel Magnolias” to the 1993-2019 “Tales of The City” series. That string continued when she and Zorich – the Whole Theater closing in 1900 and their children grown – left Montclair for NYC in 2000.
Brother Apollo Dukakis announced her sister’s death on Facebook. Four grandchildren are also among her survivors; Louis died in 2018. No public memorials have been announced as of press time.
GLEN RIDGE – Not all of the recycling materials borough residents put curbside are not reaching Atlantic Coast Fibers’s Passaic transfer plant – and this is by an interim design.
The Borough Council had approved what Business Administrator Michael Zichelli calls May 6 “a temporary arrangement with Atlantic Coast with another vendor” for the time being.
Atlantic Coast’s Passaic plant has not been able to take all of Glen Ridge’s recycling since it suffered a major fire Jan. 29-30. The blaze, which brought 25 fire departments among four counties in mutual aid, did an estimated $22 million in damages.
What was left of ACF’s Passaic plant was demolished. The company has since transferred its clients’ materials to their Lakewood, Neptune and Tinton Falls facilities when practical.
BELLEVILLE – Township building code inspectors may be filing a report while you read this about how a Silver Lake backyard deck had collapsed Monday, injuring seven people – including three firefighters.
A Belleville Fire Department spokesman said that a group of officers suffered minor injuries when the back porch deck of a Belmont Avenue house gave way at about 4:45 p.m. They, and a fourth person who was injured, were taken to RWJBarnabas Clara Maass Hospital for treatment and released.
The firefighters and a local EMS ambulance crew were returning a resident back to her home through a sliding back door. It is not known whether that person was among the injured.
The incident was first captured by a WNBC News 4 New York traffic helicopter. Its footage was also carried Tuesday by News12 New Jersey.
