NEWARK – It appears that students at North Star Academy’s Lincoln Park High School who walked out and held a protest rally before City Hall March 18 are facing more than that Friday’s lockout, unauthorized leave and lost class time.
Several LPHS students, a parent and a staff member told a reporter March 23 that seniors and juniors were put on remote home learning March 21-25. They were allowed into 377 Washington St. that week only for individual or small group interviews with administrators.
The several hundred LPHS students walked out to publicly call out the charter school administrators’ “culture of anti-Blackness” in recent years. They cite the departure of a significant number of African American teachers who told their charges that they were overworked and undervalued.
“(We) wanted to give our seniors and juniors what we believed to be the most effective time and attention to fully discuss and process their concerns as we moved to collaborate on solutions that are meaningful to them,” said North Star spokeswoman Barbara Martinez March 23.
It is not clear whether Julie Jackson, president of North Star parent Uncommon Schools, had any consent or input with the remote learning and interviews. Jackson happened to be in the Lincoln Park campus building, on an appointment with school officials, March 18.
Martinez, that same Friday, said that LPHS “respects their peaceful protest” and “look forward to listening, discussing and working with students and families on the challenges raised.” It is not clear whether the five remote days, normally used in emergencies, would count towards the state’s 180 days of instruction.
The North Star Academy Board of Trustees did not mention the March 18 walkout nor LPHS’s response at their scheduled March 21 meeting. The 10 trustees held a private session before their 6 p.m. public meeting at 18 Washington Place without prior public notification.
IRVINGTON – How many Open Public Records Act requests are too much may be answered when or if a Superior Court-Law Division judge sets a hearing on “Township of Irvington vs. Elouise McDaniels.”
McDaniels, president of the Irvington Block Association Coalition, on March 24, said she had been served with a civil lawsuit by the township Sept. 17. The suit’s plaintiffs consider her 75 “voluminous” OPRA requests over a three-year period, “unduly burdensome, time-consuming and expensive.”
The township further asserts that McDaniels’ OPRA filings fuel her “frivolous” complaints about Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss and his administration to the N.J. Attorney General’s Office and other state agencies. those complaints, they said, had “the sole purpose and intent to harass, abuse and harm Plaintiffs and Employees of the Township, including its Mayor.”
The plaintiffs also label the IBA, “a mere sham,” and cited McDaniel’s pleading guilty for disturbing the peace at a council meeting. The retired Newark teacher had pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor court in Newark Municipal Court May 18, for allegedly telling Councilwoman Renee Burgess that she “is going to get you” after the latter had closed a December 12 council meeting public comment segment.
Township Clerk Harold Wiener, as OPRA Custodian of Record, is the only named plaintiff. The longtime clerk first said that “I haven’t requested the lawsuit against Elouise McDaniels” and that “she files a lot of OPRA requests; it goes with my territory.” Wiener later added that he is refraining from further comment on the legal issue.
Vauss said in a telephone conversation with a reporter that “I did not file the lawsuit against Elouise McDaniel; Harold Wiener is the plaintiff.” Township Attorney Ramon Rivera has also declined to elaborate.
McDaniel said that she had reduced her OPRA requests since the March 2020 COVID pandemic to focus on her health. She added that she does not have the funds to hire a defense lawyer.
EAST ORANGE – A city man remains in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility since his March 21 arrest by Newark police in a reportedly stolen car.
Newark Public Safety Director Brian O’Hara said that a Fifth Precinct patrol team was “suppressing quality of life issues” when they got a “Be on the Lookout” bulletin 10 a.m. that Friday. The officers were to keep an eye out for a blue Jeep Wrangler that had been reported as stolen from Branchburg on March 20.
The officers said they noticed a Jeep matching that description on Avon Avenue near Treacy Avenue later that day and attempted a vehicle stop. The driver, they said, began to flee on Avon.
The driver soon lost control and collided head-on with a silver four-door car that was parked curbside. The impact backed the latter car over the curb. The driver – identified as Elijah M. Harden, 31 – was apprehended after a brief foot chase.
Harden has been charged with receiving stolen property and resisting arrest.
Harden’s arrest, added O’Hara, was one of seven in a four-day stretch involving cars that were either left running or had their keys left in the ignition switch.
ORANGE – Authorities are looking for who they call “an armed and dangerous man” who fled after shooting at another person along Monte Irvin Orange Park here March 25.
Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and Orange Public Safety Director Todd Warren said that they are looking for a Howard D. Parks, who will likely be charged with aggravated assault.
Parks is accused of shooting at the other person multiple times with a black handgun by 314 Oakwood Ave. that Friday. Instead of striking the person, at least one of the bullets struck “an uninvolved parked vehicle.”
The suspect sped north on Oakwood Avenue towards Freeway Drive in a 2014 black Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck whose license plate reads C10-JUN. It may be used as a landscaping truck with some decals on the side. There also may be a female passenger aboard March 25.
Court records show that Parks had been released after serving time for three prior armed robberies on Dec. 1, 13 and 28, 1999. One sentence was for a federal bank robbery and a second robbery included a kidnapping.
Parks, said the March 26 release, “is possibly under the influence of narcotics.”
WEST ORANGE – Both the township here and Jersey City’s St. Peter’s University are sharing the March 22 passing of Elnardo J. Webster, Sr.
The township, on its Municipal Building electric sign March 24, lowered its flag to half-staff both in honor of the late councilman and also for the late U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 84, who died March 23.
Local and international media members, who came to St. Peter’s Run Baby Run Arena basketball court during the school’s drive into the NCAA Division 1 men’s March Madness basketball tournament, learned of Webster’s contribution to the Peacock’s 1968 National Invitational Tournament run.
Webster, 74, who died of a brief illness in Morristown, was a 6-ft, 5-in. power forward who helped the Run Baby Run squad into the 1968 NIT semifinals. Both the 1967-68 and 2021-22 Peacocks upset some nationally known teams along their runs.
The March 6, 1948 Jersey City native had transferred to St. Peter’s from Wharton County (Texas) Junior College in 1967. He would be drafted by the NBA New York Nicks in 1969 but was picked up, after a bout of tuberculosis, by the ABA New York Nets and Memphis Pros 1971-72 He played the next five years with the Eastern Basketball Association New Jersey Colonials, then of Roselle, plus Italy, Spain and Switzerland.
Webster returned to New Jersey to become a Hudson County Freeholder before earning a doctorate in education at Seton Hall University in 2000. Dr. Webster became a Newark Public Schools administrator and was Roselle Public Schools Superintendent 2007-09.
Webster, who had moved to West Orange in 1999, was appointed to Robert Parisi’s seat after the latter was elected mayor in 2010. Best known for drawing a 10-year strategic plan, Webster declined to run for election.
Son Elnardo, Jr. who played football for Rutgers and the NFL Pittsburgh Steelers, also has his lawyer’s practice here. Wife Sandra and second son Damarko are also among his survivors. His funeral arrangements were not announced as of press time.
SOUTH ORANGE – Lt. Ernesto Morillo will be officially sworn in as South Orange’s new chief of police at the Orange Lawn Tennis Club 7 p.m. March 31. The Board of Trustees approved his promotion during their meeting here March 14.
Morrillo, who has been among “South Orange’s finest” since 2005, was promoted from lieutenant and shift commander. He was first promoted to Criminal Investigations Unit detective in 2013.
The Seton Hall University doctoral candidate in higher education, leadership, management and policy is best known on the force for developing a new standardized developmental training program for incoming police academy trainees.
The first-generation Dominican-American is married and is raising two children in Essex County.
Morillo succeeds Kyle Kroll, who capped his 33-years with the SOPD as its chief 2017-21. Village President Sheena Collum and the trustees thanked Capt. Stephen Dolinac for being interim chief since May.
Collum said that Morillo more than scored well on December’s N.J. Civil Service exam for the job. He was also interviewed by the trustees, Village Administrator Adam Loehner and the Community Police Collaborative.
MAPLEWOOD – What started out as a two-car collision report here on Tiffany Place March 12 turned into a still-continuing investigation of three men who were taken to University Hospital with gunshot wounds.
MPD officers who came to the area of 88 Tiffany Pl. on what Police Chief Jimmy DeVaul said were “multiple reports of gunfire,” found a Honda Accord with heavy front-end damage at 3:45 p.m. that Saturday.
While an officer was taking down the female who was with the Honda’s account, another officer discovered a nearby shell casing. More MPD officers plus an Essex County Sheriff’s Office K-9 unit were called to conduct a neighborhood search.
That search, said DeVaul, yielded four men standing at Elmwood Avenue and Elmwood Terrace. The fourth man said that the other three had crossed through his Elmwood Avenue backyard on their way to Elmwood Terrace.
It was during MPD’s interview of the trio that officers noticed that they were suffering from non-life-threatening gunshot wounds. They were taken to University Hospital for treatment by local EMS.
MPD detectives have meanwhile found witnesses who said that the shot trio was seen fleeing from the Accord after it and suffered a head-on crash with “a dark-colored BMW SUV.” A “black male got out of the BMW’s passenger seat” and began shooting into the Honda.”
All four people in the Honda have refused to answer further questions, including identifying the fled BMW passenger and driver. Several more 8 mm. shell casings, but no handguns, have turned up in the search. Detectives believe that none of the parties involved knew they were in Maplewood and had no connection to the township.
BLOOMFIELD / GLEN RIDGE – Township and borough property owners within 200 feet of the former Sacred Heart School building at 675-699 Bloomfield Ave. are learning that the Bloomfield Planning Board has more than recommended its redevelopment since March 8.
Owners of 30 properties in Bloomfield and another 15 in Glen Ridge, pending Township Council approval, may be notified of whatever a Bloomfield Planning Board-hired planner will come up with for 675-699 Bloomfield Ave, and 34-40 State St.
The township planning board, after a presentation by Paul Phillips, recommended designating Block 244’s Lots 10 and 41-42 “an area in need of redevelopment.” That recommendation, which would also call for the removal of the three lots’ “church and charitable organization zoning classification, is to go before the Township Council for final approval in a future meeting.
Bloomfield’s planners, on March 22, discussed whether to hire an outside planner to draw up a redevelopment that would adhere to the township’s master plan.
The planning board had received public input for a conceptual “683 Bloomfield Ave. – a 212-unit, 315-parking space apartment building – Nov. 9. It would replace the 1911 Sacred Heart School building, whose last parish school class graduated in 2002.
That building and surrounding parking lot is owned by First Church L&D/Sacred Heart, 349 Prospect St., of South Orange. It currently rents its classrooms for a daycare center and the lot to a landscaping firm.
The Archdiocese of Newark, by property deed, clearly owns Lots 41-42, a single-family house at 34-40 State St., since 1962.
MONTCLAIR – Township renters, landlords and the municipal council, as of March 25-28, have agreed to replace the May 10 rent control public question referendum with a new ordinance on April 19.
The Township Council, in a special March 28 meeting, has agreed to support a new compromise rent control ordinance that Montclair Property Owners Association and the Tenants Organization of Montclair had reached 11:45 p.m. March 25.
Montclair’s elders, by agreeing to the MPOA-TOOM’s new ordinance, would have to rescind their own April 5, 2020 original ordinance, which never took effect, and introduce the new ordinance at their April 5 meeting. The council will then hold a public hearing and a final vote on the new measure April 19.
The council would have taken the first two of the three steps that Monday afternoon but the new ordinance was not posted or walked on as a late starter. Councilman Peter Yacobellis said that the presented draft had typographical errors but its body is “incredibly consequential.”
TOOM and MOPA offials held a marathon session March 25 to hammer out their new ordinance before the withdrawal window on the May 10 referendum closed. Its features include:
- An immediate six percent rent increase upon adoption, provided no increases were made since March 2020 plus yearly four percent increases (or 2.5 percent for senior citizens).
- Vacancy decontrol once every five years.
- Two- and three-family homes are included unless the owners occupy one of the dwelling units.
The new ordinance ends a two-year struggle over Montclair’s first rent control law. MPOA had successfully brought a court injunction to suspend that ordinance since April 20, 2020. The landlords group had also sought placing the measure on a special election ballot.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Board of Education Trustees has done its part March 28 towards a Belleville Public Schools-Belleville Township joint purchase of 249-251 Washington Ave.
All seven trustees present at the special Monday night meeting approved BPS to buy what is currently the Eastern International College Building for $5 million plus transferring $250,000 from the district’s budget surplus for a down payment.
Belleville’s Township Council had meanwhile introduced a $12.5 million bond issue to fund joint township-school district projects. The 30-year, $11.9 million bond issue ($600,000 taken for banker’s fees) includes provisions to demolish both the 1925 EIC building and the 1936 King showroom at 259-265 Washington next door plus the construction of a loading dock and a “parking deck.” (259-65 Washington was not named in BBOE’s purchase authorization.)
The prospective BPS purchase of 249-51 Washington would be the fifth buying or leasing of previously private properties in the township the last two years.
The trustees, for example, approved a five-year, about $2.5 million lease on the 522 Cortlandt St. Valley industrial property last winter for an “athletic training center.” It had also leased a Union Avenue office across from an elementary school and bought two houses adjacent to Belleville High School.
249-51 Washington’s purchase may make sense in that the .449-acre lot abuts Belleville Middle School. Its building was constructed in 1915 as Belleville High School and its Art Deco gym was added in the 1930s. BHS moved to its present site in the 1960s.
There has been no discussion on EIC’s exit plans. School founder Bashir Mohsen bought the corner building in 2004 to move the then-Micro Tech Training Center from East Orange. EIC has since opened a “Main Campus” of Jersey City’s Journal Square.
NUTLEY – Township police officers have stopped the early morning March 24 crime spree of who they call “Umbrella Man.”
“Umbrella Man” was not a graphic novel super villain but a New York City man who entered five unlocked cars parked along North Road Oak Street and May Place and stole items.
The suspect was so named because he was seen on security cameras using the umbrella from his first car while burglarizing later vehicles during that Thursday morning’s rainstorm.
NPD has identified “Umbrella Man” as Elijah Augustin, 27, of Brooklyn’s Ozone Park section. Augustin has been charged with five burglaries and multiple counts of theft and attempted theft.
Ho-Ho-Kus police said they found Augustin March 9 asleep behind the wheel of a 2016 Kia Sorrento that was not his. The SUV was reported as stolen from Nassau County, N.Y. HHKPD said they found several electronic key fobs, crack cocaine, drug paraphernalia and several arrest warrants on him.
Augustin will not be returning to Nutley or other municipal courts with the umbrella. NPD has taken it for evidence.
