NEWARK – The Dec. 7 carjacking, kidnapping and abandonment here in North Newark may be another entry in “What Were They Thinking?”
Newark police officers, responding to a report of “a carjacking in progress,” arrived at 420 Bloomfield Ave. 4:30 p.m. that Tuesday They found the driver of a missing white Toyota Highlander by the Wells Fargo bank branch.
The driver, who left the Highlander with its engine running to make an ATM transaction, said that a male jumped in and sped away. The motorist added that two children – 9 and 11 years old – remained in the back seat.
Police began canvassing the area when they got a phone call from one of the children two blocks away. They were along the 200 block of Abington Avenue, by North Sixth Street, when the suspect bailed out and ran away.
No one was physically hurt in the incident.
IRVINGTON – Homeowners and residents’ questions on how the municipal sewer system backed up into their basements here Dec. 12 may linger long after the cleanup has been completed.
Occupants of 12 houses along the 100 block of Washington Avenue began calling Irvington’s DPW and private contractors when raw sewage began backing up that Sunday morning.
The sewage was reportedly more than a foot deep when a local Sewer Equipment Company of America crew had arrived. They were unable to unblock the main due to debris blockage.
Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss and Township Administrator Musa A. Malik, later that day, pledged to bring in DPW employees and equipment for pumping out. Dumpsters are to also be brought in to take away unsalvageable items.
At issue, however, is how the blockage happened. Some residents believe that it was the result of items that were swept away during Tropical Storm Ida Sept. 1-2.
The 12 known flooded basements are a third of houses between 57 and 122 Washington Ave.
EAST ORANGE – A city letter carrier is home, but has been off his appointed rounds, since pleading not guilty to a federal count of mail theft Dec. 2.
Parrish Brookins, 29, was released from federal jail after posting a $50,000 bail bond to US Magistrate Judge Jessica Stein Allen that Thursday. He had entered his not guilty plea before Stein’s Newark bench by videoconference.
Brookins, said acting US Attorney Rachel A. Honig, is accused of taking credit cards from January to July and federal stimulus checks from March to September from customers along his Montclair and Verona delivery routes.
US Postal Service agents planted a hidden camera in Brookins’ delivery vehicle Sept. 17-20. Honig said the footage showed him “apparently stealing US Treasury checks” from the mail he was delivering.
The inspectors were acting on an Instagram account of an unnamed Verona resident, who was arrested for carrying stolen mail in his car in July. That person’s account posted a photo of 21 Treasury checks meant for Montclair and Verona residents and discussions about the stolen items. Brookins was identified as among the discussion participants.
Brookins, in the US Inspector General’s complaint, is accused of giving the stimulus checks to others and of personally using the credit cards.
Mail theft carries a maximum five-year prison sentence and a $250,000.
ORANGE – The city’s eastern Main Street gateway would get a subtle but distinctive look should the Orange Planning Board permit an application submitted by VA 100 Main LLC.
VA 100 Main intends to build a five-story, 307-unit apartment building along 92-112 South Main St. and 13-23 Prince St. It will be sited directly across Orange’s Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the Orange Common’s east tip and across Prince Street from First Fellowship Cathedral.
The proposal, as presented before the board Nov. 29, includes 367 parking spaces. 60 of those spaces would be “used for future development within 500 ft.”
The building would be constructed on nine lots for a combined 1.42 acres. It will require the demolition of seven buildings on those addresses, five of which were built 1860-81. The lots were bought between July 2019 and March 2021.
The said nine lots, on one hand, are within a combined residential-commercial zone, where the Victorian-era houses were allowed to double as professional offices.
All of the lots, however, are within Orange’s Main Street Historic District. VA 100 Main will most likely be brought before the Orange Historic Preservation Commission prior to any private approval.
WEST ORANGE – Anyone who wants to purchase a 12-acre property above Pleasant Valley Way – known as “The Ridge,” the “Loree-Bowood property” or “West Orange’s last forest” can do so for $1.875 million.
Kevin Baris of the Jordin Baris real estate firm has recently put the tract up for sale on redfin.com. It is being sold as a two-lot package of 5.8 and 6.967 acres. They are zoned for R-1 residential use requiring 80,000 square feet per lot.
Baris is calling the property as having “an unobstructed NYC skyline view and 742 feet of frontage along Ridge Road.” The property’s address is 2-10 Ridge Rd., which runs south of Pleasant Valley Way about 1,000 ft. east of PVW’s intersection with Prospect Street.
Purchasers may receive financing if qualified but “offers subject to approvals will not be considered.” Buyers will also take possession of two structures – including the Hecker carriage house – which are the last remnants of railroad executive Lenor F. Loree’s Bowood mansion, dairy farm and football field.
The listing comes eight months after the Township Council unanimously rejected a proposal to buy The Ridge with municipal open space trust fund money. The council, on Oct. 19, 2019, also rejected a settlement with resident-lawyer Kevin Malanga to buy the property for open space or a park.
Malanga and Our Green West Orange’s argument is that felling up to 500 of the 800 trees there would cause more water erosion of the former O’Rourke Quarry cliff face onto the Cedar Ridge garden apartments below. (The defloration and erosion rates were based on six houses built on two-acre lots.)
SOUTH ORANGE – Village elders want to hear from to Seton Village residents and stakeholders now through Dec. 31 on how to best apply the five-year, $675,000 state grant they have just received.
South Orange’s Seton Village, which includes the Irvington Avenue corridor, was awarded a Neighborhood Preservation Program grant by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. NPP intends to help designated “viable but threatened neighborhoods” with a $125,000 grant for five years.
The grant may be applied in six areas: direct grants to district businesses, a local business gift card program, trees and other shade features, outdoor dining areas, performance spaces, parklets and streetscape improvements.
The Village President, Trustees and administrators are asking Seton Villagers through a survey available through a QR code. NPP Coordinator Sally Unsworth will present the surveys to an NPP Stakeholder Team – who will then develop a five-year implementation plan.
Lt. Governor Sheila Y. Oliver, as NJ DCA Commissioner, announced South Orange among 40 NPP municipal awardees across the state. “Local Talk” area awardees include Maplewood (for its Hilton-Springfield Avenue district) and Newark (for the Lincoln Coast Cultural District).
Contact Unsworth at nppcoordinator@southorange.org for details.
MAPLEWOOD – Many township residents went from no water to too much water on the same Dec. 11 here, thanks to a pair of water main breaks that day and an evening rain squall.
Residents and New Jersey American Water customers in the Jefferson Village, Seton Village, College Hill and Hilton sections began reporting little to no water pressure and/or brown water 10:20 a.m. Saturday. NJAW, in its updates, later added some Irvington customers among the affected.
Utility crews promptly found two water main breaks: Dunnell and Oakland roads in Jefferson Village and Highland/Essex/Irvington avenues in Seton Village by 11 a.m. The Dunnell/Oakland break was of a 26-inch diameter transmission line that was being worked on. There was a search for a possible third break in the Maplecrest Park area.
NJAW deployed two crews at each break. They had assistance from Galbraith Landscaping, of Scotch Plains, at Dunnell Road. The Maplewood Fire Department put a pair of 3,500-gal water trucks and neighboring departments on mutual aid standby in case a fire broke out.
Residents said that while they received reverse calls and e-alerts from the utility and Maplewood Police, they said that NJAW had not posted alerts or updates on its websites. Maplewood Township’s response, beyond posting an update on its website, was hampered while its IT team was locating and destroying earlier reported malware and spoofware.
Water pressure was gradually restored before 6 p.m. – just in time for a rain squall to pass through. It was preceded and carried by 15-to-50 mph wind gusts that had arrived by 11:30 a.m. The storm was the same one that triggered tornados in six Mississippi River Valley states, killing at least 81 people as of 6:30 p.m. local time Dec. 13.
BLOOMFIELD – Patricia McGarry Drake, 82, a Bloomfield resident who rose from being a secretary in the Essex County Clerk’s office to become Clerk 1991-95, died Nov. 25 in Belmar.
The former Patricia McGarry, who was born March 28, 1939 in Newark, had settled in Bloomfield in 1985. The 22-year County Clerk’s Office employee had been Deputy Clerk for six years when the legendary Essex County Clerk Nicholas V. Caputo decided to end his 30-year career in 1990.
The Essex County Democratic Committee backed Drake, who ran unopposed in the 1991 party primary. A plurality of 15,000 countywide voters chose her over former Bloomfield Councilman Timothy Kane in the 1991 General Election. (Kane, who returned as Bloomfield’s Information Technology officer in the early 2000s, died July 16, 2020.)
Drake found herself running off the party line in 1995 after the ECDC decided to back Irvington Council President Patrick McNally. Drake ran with incumbent 28th State District General Assemblyman Harry McEnroe (D-South Orange) and former Irvington Mayor Michael Steele in the 1995 primary.
A majority of county primary voters chose McNally over Drake by one percent. The former New Jersey County Officers Association president retired to Belmar in 2001. She had been named Deputy Grand Marshall of Newark’s 1986 St. Patrick’s Day Parade and Grand Marshal of Nutley’s 1991 parade, among other honors.
Sons Theodore, Bill and Robert, daughter Kathleen, grandchildren Melanie and Ted Drake III and great-grandchildren Natalia and Lorenzo Boccia are among her survivors. First nephew, fellow Bloomfielder and Essex County Emerald Society bagpiper Jack McGarry is among her predeceased relatives.
Drake’s Funeral Mass was held Nov. 30 at Belmar’s Church of St. Rose, followed by burial at Wall’s St. Ann Cemetery.
MONTCLAIR – The council will be using Assistant Township Attorney Gina DeVito’s services while finding a permanent successor to 11-year Township Attorney Ira Karasack, who retired over what he called a “thoughtless” and “flippant” remark in a Trenton elevator.
Karasick, who has represented the township and the planning board for 16 years, sent Mayor Sean Spillar his retirement letter and an open letter to the community Dec. 1. While he said he was retiring over “health and personal” to Spillar, he apologized over his remark to Montclair Housing Commission Co-Chair William Scott in that state judiciary elevator.
Scott, Karasick, HHC Co-Chair Deirdre Malloy, tenants advocate Toni Martin and a fifth person entered the elevator after a contentious State Appellate Court hearing that September day. They had taken sides over the Township Clerk’s rejecting a petition’s electronic signatures that would have brought Montclair’s rent control ordinance before township voters.
One of the five openly noticed the elevator’s four-person capacity limit sign. Karasick then said to Scott, “You’re only three-fifths of a human, and don’t worry.”
Scott, who first told Township Manager Timothy Stafford and Spillar of Karasick’s remark in October, publicly broached the subject Nov. 22. The NAACP-Montclair Branch official said that he had heard nothing from the council since October about investigating Karasick other than an outside attorney would be hired for the probe.
Karasick, by retiring and not resigning, has gone on “terminal leave” to use up his sick and personal days until his annual July 1 contract expires. He will be receiving the 2022 half of his $149,379 salary until July 1.
BELLEVILLE – A township man and his Hoboken acquaintance are each facing 10 years to life in prison and up to $10 million in fines after recently pleading guilty to fentanyl possession with intent to distribute.
Coco Latre, 32 pleaded guilty for possessing 1.6kg of the synthetic drug Dec. 6 before US Magistrate Judge Kevin McNulty in Newark. Bryant Agurto, 33, of Hoboken, had pleaded guilty to the same charge Nov. 10.
US Department of Justice prosecutors said that Agurto drove to Latre’s house and picked up the 1.6 kg package March 5, 2021. Law enforcement officers, conducting a motor vehicle check, found the fentanyl. That find led officers back to Latre’s residence, recovering more fentanyl.
The 10-year sentences are mandatory minimums – which McNultyy can extend to life. Latre is to be sentenced April 22 – after Agurto’s March 23 sentencing.
NUTLEY – A three-day, tri-county search for a 19-year-old resident, reported as missing and endangered, ended some 600 feet north of the township border.
Nutley police confirmed that they and Clifton police officers found Morgan Panzer, 19, safe while at the Wendy’s at 83 Main St., Clifton, Dec. 3. The eatery is two blocks north of the Nutley border.
Panzer’s parents had reported her missing to Nutley, Paramus and Bergen Council Community College police plus the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office Dec. 1. She was last seen walking into the BCC parking garage alone at 11 a.m.; she was dropped off at the campus by her mother at 9 a.m. earlier.
The student had left her cell phone and backpack in the college cafeteria. At least two news agencies said she had also left a note, saying she would be gone for three weeks and that no one should look for her.
The search, including a K-9 unit and a helicopter, expanded to the neighborhoods in Nutley, Clifton and Glen Rock where she was known to frequent. She had eluded Clifton officers who had spotted her at the Clifton Petco.
