TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Sharpe James’ May 10 at-large council ballot bid – and, for at least this year, his public office holding career – ended in a courtroom here by 11:30 a.m. March 15.
New Jersey Superior Court Judge Thomas R. Vena denied James and attorney Thomas Ashley’s request Tuesday morning to postpone Newark Municipal Clerk Kenneth Louis’ March 16 ballot drawing. Vena also dismissed James and Ashley’s suit, which claimed that the former mayor and state senator’s 2008 federal bar from office did not apply.
“It’s obvious to me, if you can’t hold the office, you can’t be a candidate,” said Vena from his Historic Essex County Courthouse bench. “To have his name on the ballot for a position he cannot hold would mislead and confuse potential voters, The motion is denied in its entirety; the complaint, in this case, is dismissed.”
Vena’s ruling upheld Louis’ March 3 refusal to certify James’ petitions on the basis of Superior Court Judge Linda Fienberg’s July 11, 2008 order that barred James from any future office holding.
James’ bar was part of his serving an 18-month federal prison sentence plus a 27-month halfway house stay over his “dishonest public service,” mail fraud and conspiracy conviction. He was particularly convicted for not telling city employees that he was arranging to sell nine vacant city properties for his mistress – would later flip those parcels at a profit.
James and Ashley had tried to assert that subsequent U.S. Supreme Court rulings on Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling made “dishonest public service” moot. They also attempted to make a difference between “office-holding” and “running for office.”
Ashley will not appeal Vena’s Tuesday ruling. He is working to overturn his client’s four fraud and conspiracy convictions; a fifth had been overturned.
IRVINGTON – A South Ward welding company is carrying on the legacy of its late founder, Charles D. Curico.
Curcio, 84, who owned and operated Apollo Welding here at 574 Lyons Ave., died at his Livingston home Jan. 23. Although Curcio was born in Newark Nov. 8, 1937, he was raised here and was among Irvington High School’s Class of 1954.
Curcio returned here after a four-year tour with the U.S. Navy. He was a submarine technician based out of Norfolk, Va. He owned and operated Apollo Welding from 1972 until his 2002 retirement.
Son Charles, Jr., daughters Dawn, Hope and Cynthia; sisters Josephine, Rose Marie and Patricia and four grandchildren are among his survivors.
Burial was at East Hanover’s Gate of Heaven Cemetery after a Jan. 27 Funeral Mass at Livingston’s St. Philomena’s Roman Catholic Church. Memorial donations may be made to the ASPCA or the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
EAST ORANGE – Those watching the transformation of the Brick Church Shopping Plaza into The Crossings at Brick Church Station should not be surprised when separate redevelopment happens at an across-the-street landmark.
The Second Presbyterian Church of Orange/Temple of Unified Christians Brick Church, here at 7 Prospect St., is to be renovated and expanded by The New Brick Church, LLC, of Brooklyn’s Borough Park.
8,065 square feet of the 1850s-era church sanctuary will be renovated. There will be 75 residential units, some of whom in a new six-story wing, built plus 6,258 sq. ft. of commercial space.
The housing units are broken down into three three-bedroom apartments, three studio apartments, 50 one-bedroom units and 19 two-bedroom units. There are to be 19 on-site parking spaces and another 75 at a satellite location.
552 Main St./Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd predates the City of East Orange. It started life as the Orange Second Presbyterian Church some five years before East Orange broke away from Orange. It is a block north of Brick Church Station, where the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad had all of its express and long-distance trains stop, helping the neighborhood’s growth.
The edifice had been home for the Temple of United Christians Brick Church since 2007. Sr. Pastor Jean Maurice had opened the church for an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter and for the 2010 Haitian Earthquake relief drive.
Maurice and his congregation, however, had found making mortgage payments to TD Bank difficult. It sold the property to The New Brick Church Oct. 1, 2020 for $462,000. The East Orange Planning Board approved the plan Oct. 6, 2021.
The edifice became “The Brick Church” in the early 1970s when the Brick Church Shopping Plaza was erected. “Local Talk” remembers a church with a yellow terra cotta spire on the shopping center site in the 1960s.
ORANGE – A $10,500 settlement between the city and a retired police officer, which the City Council had recently approved, had more substance to it than at first blush.
The City Council, at its Nov. 16, 2021 consent agenda, approved Resolution 488-2021 in the matter of Trovato vs. Orange – ending a lawsuit the former party had filed in New Jersey Superior Court-Newark’s law Division earlier that year.
What the council had authorized was the $3,022 pension payment that retired OPD Lt. Brian Trovato said was withheld plus $7,478 in damages – more than double the pension installment.
Trovato, 55, who had retired from OPD in July 2015 after 20 years and one month’s service, noticed that a $3,022 payment was missing in early 2020. He had asked several City Hall officials – including Business Administrator Brian Hartwyk and Aaron Mizrahi, Esq. of the Law Department – about the missing amount.
The Nutley resident, in court filings, said he had to file an OPRA request after what he said was a yearlong runaround. Trovato said that City Hall had “flat out refused to respond in any manner whatsoever” to his request – a violation of OPRA law. The now-Belleville Public Schools security officer named Hartwyk and Mizrahi, among others, in his now-settled suit.
Revamped PSE&G Station Plan
Zoom viewers may want to reserve the Orange Planning Board’s March 23 meeting for the likely resumption of its PSE&G “Orange Heights Switching Station” site plan application hearing. The utility’s new renderings of its border wall, as posted on the Jersey Ology Facebook page March 14, has more of a two-story apartment building look. Its Forest Avenue and South Jefferson Street corner have been beveled for mural space.
WEST ORANGE – The man found shot dead here in Eagle Rock Reservation on March 4, as of March 10, has a name.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II has publicly identified the deceased as Kelsey Steels, 31, of the Bronx, N.Y. ECPO Homicide/Major Crimes Task Force detectives are still investigating the circumstances on why Steels was shot on a hiking trail off a Crest Drive parking area near the Montclair border.
Lunch hour hikers who had found Steels’ body that Friday notified the Essex County Sheriff’s Office – who then notified Stephens’ office. Steels was declared dead there at 2:16 p.m.
Steels’ obituary has not been posted as of press time.
MAPLEWOOD / SOUTH ORANGE – Morris and Essex commuter rail line customers have been seeing a gradual restoration of service since a March 8 overnight windstorm felled overhead power wires and their support pole.
A preliminary New Jersey Transit finding said the mishap began with an old tree toppling by the southwestern corner of the Jefferson Street and Dunnell Road railroad overpass. The tree knocked town a support pole which pulled down the overhead catenary wires and bent a second pole. It is not clear whether the tree was on the railroad right-of-way or on an adjacent property.
The two poles and overhead support beam that make up the catenary truss were erected around 1930 as part of the then-Lackawanna Railroad’s electrification project. That truss, like many others, was modified in the 1980-84 NJTransit re-electrification project and was regularly maintained.
The mishap knocked out the entire M&E Line service, including its Gladstone Branch, March 8-9. NJTransit crews have been since working to clear the trees at Jefferson Street and near South Orange’s Meeker Street and getting the truss and wires back up.
NJTransit restored limited South Orange-New York/Hoboken service March 8 when a second noontime March 12 snow and wind storm toppled a tree, pulling down wires and blocking all three M&E tracks outside of the village’s Mountain Station. The carrier ran substitute South Orange-Newark Broad Street buses until that was removed and wires restrung by 3 p.m. March 13.
As of press time, NJTransit is running separate and limited M&E and Gladstone Branch trains with both meeting at Summit. Commensurate rail tickets and passes are being cross-honored on applicable NJTransit Montclair-Boonton and Raritan Valley line trains, NJTransit buses and private bus carriers.
Maplewood’s municipal rush hour jitneys are starting and ending their runs at South Orange station. South Orange’s jitneys will run Lot 11-Maplewood shuttles, West Orange and Livingston’s jitneys may experience changed dropoff / pickup locations or delays.
South Orange’s police department and parking authority are relaxing enforcement of Lot 11 for the time being. Extra SOPD officers are in the Sloan Street area to direct pedestrian and vehicular traffic, inform drivers and enforce violations beyond Lot 11.
BLOOMFIELD – Gov. Phil Murphy has not taken a position on the controversy over having a Chick-fil-A here at the Garden State Parkway’s Brookdale South Connie Chung Service Plaza.
“I only have tangentially heard of the Chick-fil-A contract,” said Murphy (D-Rumson) Feb. 23. “I would put our record on the LGBTQ+ community up against any American state and we wear that as a badge of honor. I don’t have any particular insight on the potential contract.”
The NJ Highway Authority Board of Commissioners, on Feb. 22, awarded a $10 million renovation contract to Applegreen, Ltd. and Sunoco for the GSP’s Brookdale North and South plazas here plus Union’s Vauxhall Whitney Houston Plaza.
Bloomfield and Montclair officials objected to Chick-fil-A’s inclusion in replacing McDonald’s after learning of the NJHA’s initial Jan. 3 approval. They cited the Atlanta-based chain’s support of charities that oppose same-sex marriage. Chick-fil-Am in a 2019 statement, said it had moved its philanthropy away from said groups.
The State of New Jersey has divested its pension funds away from Unilever after its Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream division stopped selling its product in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.
It is now known whether the NJHA has considered replacing Chick-fil-A.
Brookdale South will also include a Burger King. It is presumed that Chick-fil-A will follow its corporate policy of closing on Sundays.
MONTCLAIR – Township officials and registered voters are preparing for a May 10 public question referendum on rent control.
Township Clerk Angelese Bermudez-Nieves said she had certified the Montclair Property Owners Association petition signatures and question on March 9 – 61 days before the May 10 election day.
The MPOA question asks the voting public to repeal the Montclair Township Council’s April 7, 2020 vote that established a rent control ordinance. The question includes a condition where the council can repeal the ordinance on its own or create an alternative “after a statutory period.”
The council, on State Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Beacham’s order, had kept the rent control ordinance from taking effect. MPOA and the Tenants Organization of Montclair had negotiated on an alternative plan until those talks broke down on Feb. 15.
GLEN RIDGE – Those who have long memories here at the Glen Ridge Public Library and other borough institutions may have paused March 16 to reflect on Ruth M. Shiels’ contributions.
Shiels, 89 – whose remains were given a Funeral Mass at Mendham’s St Joseph’s Church and entombment at Basking Ridge’s Holy Cross Cemetery Wednesday – was GRPL’s reference librarian 1975-94. She was a member of the Bloomfield-Glen Ridge Fortnightly Club for at least 30 years.
Ruth and husband Jack Shiels lived in the borough 1961-94 to raise daughters Margaret, Ruth, Patricia and Catherine. The Glen Ridge High School Marching Band Parents Association members never missed their daughters’ concerts, band competitions and football game halftime shows.
While Jack was elected to the Glen Ridge Board of Education and served as its president, Ruth was a Home and School Association member and a Girl Scout troop leader.
The former Ruth Besson was born in 1932 in Newark and was raised there. The St. Patrick’s Grammar School and St. Michael’s High School (Class of 1950) graduate put herself through the now-St. Elizabeth University for a degree in English literature.
Ruth met John “Jack” M. Shiels while both were St. Michael’s students. Jack, who was born in Newark in 1933, rose from NJ Bell Telephone’s coin box collector to sales vice president in the Glen Ridge office before both retired to Mendham in 1994.
Ruth died in Brightview Randolph March 10; Jack died there Feb. 16. Four grandchildren are also among their survivors. Memorial donations may be made to St. Elizabeth’s University.
BELLEVILLE – Mayor Michael Melham and the Township Council may be considering two bills that the Belleville Planning Board had recommended here on March 10, as early as their March 22 meeting.
Belleville’s planners approved PB-2022 which amends the township zoning code in 41 places. The changes range from automotive use and surface parking to site plans and land use procedures. A copy of the 35-page list of revisions is accessible from the Municipal Clerk’s office.
The BPB also sent PB-2013 to Belleville’s elders for their final consideration.
PB-2013 would make 705-757 Main St, also known as Block10001, Lot 3, as “A Condemnation Area in Need of Redevelopment.” The “Belleville Industrial Center,” in the Valley section, is owned by Lincoln Equities, LLC, of East Rutherford. The designation will grant the township with the power of eminent domain.
BIC, then of Elmwood Park, had objected on Sept. 9 to a topology study for the 15-acre lot and its 122-year-old building. Its site plan application process before the planning board goes back to April 2020.
Live March 22 Council Chamber and Zoom audiences may be looking to see if Melham, Deputy Mayor Naomy DePena and Third Ward Councilman Vincent Cozzareli will recuse themselves from the wholesale zoning revisions. Each has properties and/or interests that may be affected by the changes.
That the March 10 hearings went on with “business as usual” is remarkable in light of Planning Board Vice-Chairman Andre Conte’s questioning of Melham’s appointments to the board last month. The hearing proceeded after Planning Board Attorney Rose Tubito called the said appointments “a grey area” and consulted Township Attorney Steve Martino.
NUTLEY – Township officers found themselves booking a familiar face, after arresting him for setting another River Road lawn on fire for a second straight night, March 2.
Patrolling NPD officers noticed a log fire in the middle of a lawn that Friday night and called their firefighting colleagues. “Nutley’s finest and bravest” had to enter a fenced-in area that had a posted “Private Property – No Trespassing” sign.
Law enforcers found a man behind that log fire warming himself – just like he had done on the historic Van Riper House, 424 River Rd., March 1. NPD officers, instead of shooing the homeless man away and telling him not to return, arrested him on defiant trespass and disorderly conduct-improper behavior charges.
The arrested homeless man in question, at Nutley Police HQ, was identified as Dylan Waehner–Larson, 29. Waehner-Larson, whose last address was in Paramus, has been answering to a pair of burglaries each on Jan. 5 and 15.
The former Minneapolis native was released with an impending Nutley Municipal Court hearing date.
