Michael K. Williams
IRVINGTON – There are those here, in Newark and elsewhere in New Jersey who believe that they would have read actor Michael K. Williams’ Sept. 6 obituary some 17 years earlier if it were not for the help from a well-regarded township pastor.
Williams, 54, who was found dead in his Brooklyn apartment 2 p.m. Monday, portrayed Omar Little on HBO’s “The Wire” 2002-07. Little was a complex character, best known for sticking up street pushers with a shotgun.
Williams, however, began to use marijuana and became a cocaine addict in 2004. The former Isabella Avenue, Newark resident said he was using “in scary places with scary people” here, there, in Paterson and likely elsewhere nearby.
A friend found and brought Williams to the office of Rev. Ronald Bernard Christian here at Christian Love Baptist Church. Rev. Ron, on one hand, was the shepherd of some 6,000 CLBC members. He had also been a homeless addict with a criminal record; he kept a pair of prison pants in his office closet.
“He was the first person who I laid it all out before him,” said Williams of Christian. “He never judged me. He loved me until I could love myself.”
Williams, who visited CLBC until at least 2012, went on to be a key character in “Boardwalk Empire” and was touted for an Emmy Award for “Lovecraft Country,” among other roles. He also worked with an inmate re-entry program with former Gov. James McGreevey.
Christian, 51, died suddenly at his office desk Oct. 20, 2015.
NEWARK – University Hospital fired at least two of its employees accused of trafficking fake CDC COVID-19 vaccination cards Aug. 30.
One of the fired workers – Jasmine Clifford, 31, of Lyndhurst – was charged Aug. 31 in a New York County District Court with second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument and first-degree offering a false instrument for filing.
Clifford is accused of selling about 250 forged U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccination cards through her @AntiVaxMomma Instagram account. She was accused of accepting $200 per card via CashApp or Zelle.
Clifford and a New York City woman, accused of entering 10 names into the New York State Immunization Information System, are the only ones named and charged Aug. 31. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr said they were two of 13 arrested; University Hospital President Dr. Shereef Elnahal said “a handful” of his employees were fired.
“We took a critical look at the cards and found noticeable differences between the cards looked and the real cards looked,” said Elnahal. “We were able to detect those cases. It makes everybody less safe if people are dishonest about their vaccination status.”
It is believed that Clifford was offering the forged cards to hospital employees and other frontline workers. The phony card ring comes when Elnahal said that over 90 percent of University’s 3,700 employees were fully vaccinated before Aug. 3. Aug. 3 was the date when unvaccinated employees faced discipline leading to firing.
EAST ORANGE – The husband-and-wife co-owners of a now-closed school bus operation here received more bad news from a State Superior Court-Newark grand jury Aug. 31.
The grand jury, said Acting N.J. Attorney General Andrew Bruck later that Tuesday, had indicted Ahmed Mahgoub, 63, and Fazia Ibrahim, 48, each on second-degree counts of false representations for a government contract, theft by deception, conspiracy and corporate official misconduct. The East Hanover couple were also indicted with third-degree public records or information tampering and fourth-degree records falsifying or tampering.
The bills of indictment the grand jury handed down are identical to the complaint summonses authorities had issued Mahgoub and Ibrahim Oct. 8, 2020.
The couple was accused of failing to have complete records of their F&A Transportation/Smart Union drivers and vehicles. They had allegedly hired drivers who used illegal drugs, did not have valid drivers licenses and/or had criminal backgrounds. They had failed to maintained or falsified vehicle inspection records on NJMVC forms.
F&A/Smart Union, who had been transporting students and patients since 2010, had $3.5 million worth of contracts with public school districts in Essex, Passaic, Union and Morris counties.
Newark Public Schools canceled its contract after a bus aide had lost consciousness while driving 12 special needs students and ran a minivan into a tree during a Feb. 20, 2019 snowstorm.
Prosecutors asserted that Lisa Byrd, 57, had injected heroin before driving; Newark police said they used Narcan to revive her and had found drug paraphernalia. Mahgoub, at the time, said Byrd had complained that her diabetes medication was not working and that she drove when the assigned driver failed to show.
Byrd is on five years’ probation after pleading guilty to a count of child endangerment.
ORANGE – Those who wanted to personally attend a council meeting here, for the second time in 18 days, found City Hall’s door locked Sept. 7.
The City Hall lockout Aug. 20 came out of a legality dispute between Mayor Dwayne D. Warren and five City Council members.
That impasse ended with the said council members voted to override Mayor Warren’s Aug. 14 veto of Orange’s five-year ban on Cannabis-Based Businesses. That override was recorded by City Clerk Joyce Lanier.
Tuesday night’s lockout, this time, came in an Aug. 30 public notice posted through Lanier’s office. The notice, posted on both the city and council’s websites and Facebook pages, said that this and future meetings will be held via Zoom Audio-Video Conference for the time being. The post said that this was due “to the State of Emergency directly related to COVID-19.”
“The State (of New Jersey) has recorded increasing COVID rates,” Lanier told “Local Talk” Tuesday morning. “It was decided it would be good to go all-Zoom.”
The public may send in their public speaking segment remarks to citizencomments@orangenj.gov for the next council meeting, set for Sept. 21, before 7 p.m. the night beforehand. See the public notices for the Zoom link address.
The on-in-person council meetings include the 4:30 p.m. Sept. 10 public hearing on PSE&G’s changing its balancing charge for residential gas customers.
WEST ORANGE – The West Orange Board of Education gave its Superintendent of Schools, Dr. J. Scott Cascone, a vote of confidence by extending his contract a year here at their Aug. 30 meeting.
The board unanimously approved extending Cascone’s contract to June 30, 2024. That contract includes another two percent annual increase, which will last kick in on July 1, 2023.
Cascone, who had earned $188,821 Aug. 27, is projected to receive $192,597.28 by June 30, 2022, $195,189.16 by June 30, 2023 and top out at $199,092.94 on June 30, 2024.
“Dr. Cascone has not had a normal year since he got here,” said Board President Terry Trigg-Scales. “That had a lot to do with extending his contract.”
Cascone was originally hired to a three-year contract July 15, 2019.
SOUTH ORANGE – Those who have been watching the Baird Community Center from Mead Street, Meadowland Park and/or passing NJTransit M&E trains may have noticed an activity resumption lately.
The Frankoski Construction Company is pouring concrete foundation footings in two areas of the 1898 clubhouse and is replacing a rotted wall framing. These are two additional major tasks that required a $189,970.49 change order.
The Village Board of Trustees approved almost $190,000 in additional expenses at their Aug. 9 meeting. Trustee Steve Haskins said Frankoski workers found the old print room having a rubble foundation and the wall framing hidden by cladding – making it impossible for Biber Partnership AIA architects to find them during their 2018-19 inspection.
The Baird Center’s renovation is a year behind in part fro0m the global COVID-19 pandemic and the discovery and immediate remediation of found asbestos.
The Trustees are hoping that the major change orders are now behind them. Construction at 5 Meade St. is now to be completed in October 2022.
MAPLEWOOD – Sept. 1’s flooding of the Maplewood Memorial Library and its resulting closure has advanced a scheduled Sept. 17 shuttering for “A Library for the 21st Century” project.
MML’s services here at 51 Baker St., in Jefferson Village, will be divided between the Hilton Branch, 1688 Springfield Ave. and the former Maplewood First Aid Squad/OEM Building at 189 Boyden Ave.
The Hilton Branch will be open 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays for Grab and Go and held materials now through Oct. 4. Returns may be made there or at any BCCLS-member library.
Hilton’s public computers will be limited to 60 mins per person per day. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.
The branch will offer children and teen services as planned on Sept. 18. Adult services only at 129 Boyden, next to the municipal pool, is to start Oct. 4. Those services include Grab & Go, lending materials, photocopying and public computers for adults. Its hours are to be 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays.
Both places will require mask-wearing to enter.
BLOOMFIELD – The body of 24-year resident Aventino Soares, 58, is on its way back to his native Portugal, after his Sept. 8 visitation in The Ironbound’s Buyuus Funeral Home and his Sept. 9 Funeral Mass at Forest Hill’s St. Francis Xavier Church.
Soares was declared dead at Belleville’s RWJBarnabas Health’s Clara Maas Medical Center Sept. 1. He was among the first identified victims of Tropical Storm Ida.
Soares, as of Sept. 1, had been a manager at Fairfield’s Beyband International institutional foodservice supply since 1989. He and his family had been living along Ampere Parkway since moving from North Newark in 1997.
Aventino Antonio Cabral Soares, who was born in Arcos de Valdevez, Port. Oct. 1, 1962. He had emigrated to Newark in 1986. He was a co-founder of Amigos de Vale USA, which raises funds to help repair a church in Sao Pedro do Vale.
Wife Maria De Lurdes Rodriguez Soares, son Pedro, daughters Patricia Soares and Silvia Amorim, sisters Maria do Ceu Soares, Rosa Gandarez and Olivia Fernandes; mother Maria Adelaide Magalhaes Cabral, four grandsons and a granddaughter are among his survivors. Father Manuel de Cunha Soares predeceased him.
Memorial donations may be made to www.amigosdovaleusa.com
MONTCLAIR – A Totowa pet care spa and alleged animal hospital remain closed since Aug. 21 in part because a Superior Court Judge-Paterson told its Montclair owner to stay away for the time being.
Alia Muslih, 39, was released to her township home while under pre-trial monitoring. She was arrested without incident by the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office Financial Crimes Unit at the Totowa Animal Hospital at 140 Furler St. Aug. 20.
County prosecutors plus members of the Totowa Police Department, Paterson and Clifton Animal Control, N.J. Division of Consumer Affairs and the U.S. DEA arrived during business hours that Friday. They also left there with evidence and closed the Seven Star Pet Resort.
Muslih’s husband, Dr. Adel Hamdan, was a licensed veterinarian and to run a practice there. Hamdan, 73, however, died Dec. 30 from COVID. Muslih said she had promised him that she would never sell the practice “to a corporation” and to take care of pets even if their owners have no money.
Muslih is accused of creating a false impression that she was a licensed veterinarian. The New Jersey Board of Veterinary Medicine said that she is not a licensed vet nor that the animal hospital is a licensed veterinary clinic.
Muslih has been charged with second-degree theft by deception, corporate misconduct and unlicensed possession of prescription drugs. Each count is punishable for five to 10 state imprisonment. She has also been charged with third-degree animal cruelty, a three-to-five-year sentence.
GLEN RIDGE – “Local Talk” has learned while walking by the borough’s active railroad station Jan. 3 that it is best to directly access a transit carrier and/or talk with its operating crew to get the most timely service updates.
“Local Talk” was pleasantly surprised upon hearing the horn of the approaching eastbound NJTransit Montclair-Boonton Line Train No. 6210 and ran to meet it before its scheduled 7:39 a.m. departure. Most radio stations, as late as five minutes before, were stating that the line was among those still suspended in the wake of former Hurricane Ida.
6210’s train crew said that all Montclair State University to Hoboken or New York Penn Station services had resumed that morning. The crew, while heading for NYPS, explained that MBL non-electric service west of MSU to Hackettstown remained suspended.
Montclair-Boonton’s west of MSU service resumed early Sept. 7 – the same day where the Raritan Valley Line was bypassing its Bridgewater station due to remaining flooding.
BELLEVILLE – The long-awaited Municipal Stadium’s new turf gridiron will get its first field test between the Belleville High School Buccaneers and the visiting Nutley High Red Raiders just after 6:30 p.m. Sept. 10.
The kickoff for the annual Mayors Cup Trophy will follow a ceremonial ribbon-cutting by NFL New York Giants stars O.J. Anderson and Stephen Baker along with Mayor Michael Melham and the Township Council.
The $5.5 million project, undertaken this summer, included replacing the 2010 turf field, installing an all-purpose infield for track and field sports, adding an encircling eight-lane quarter-mile track and putting in a new stormwater management system.
Friday night’s lights are courtesy of Belleville Public Schools, which kicked in $500,000 for the new LED system. The township bonded for $3 million and was awarded $2 million in State DEP Green Acres grants.
Sept. 10 means that BHS’ sports teams have a home. The football Buccaneers have been making ports of call at rivals’ gridirons since 2017.
The BHS track and field team has not had a home here since the 1980s.
Municipal Stadium, built as a 1930s Works Progress Administration project, came with a grass field and a cinder track.
NUTLEY – The township Board of Education will review and perhaps approve of a letter on mask mandates, being drafted by members Teri Quirk and Kenneth Reilly, as early as their Sept. 20 meeting.
Reilly and Quirk were tasked with drafting the letter to Gov. Phil Murphy after their resolution was passed by the board, 6-1-2, at their Aug. 23 meeting. The two members, who are up for re-election on Nov. 2, said they were responding to the will of that Monday night’s public speakers.
The speakers were predominantly critical of Murphy’s executive order requiring everyone on school property to wear face masks. Board President Charles Kucinski had waived the panel’s three minutes per person and overall 20 minutes’ public speaking segment limits that night.
The commissioners had approved mandatory mask-wearing in all township buildings on Aug. 2. The Nutley Public Library Trustees followed suit Aug. 4.
