TOWN WATCH
EAST ORANGE – Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green and Cong. Donald M. Payne, Jr., may be inviting themselves and East Orange Community Charter School teacher JaNiece Jenkins to a City Council meeting as early as the latter’s April 25 sessions.
Green and Payne, as of April 11, have said they want to bestow Jenkins their proclamations for her in-class April 6 heroism. Jenkins, before her third grade class of 14, dislodged a bottle cap from the throat of a choking student with the Heimlich Maneuver.
What started out as a normal 11:15 a.m. Wednesday mathematics class took a life-or-death turn when Robert Stonaker, 9, approached her pointing at his throat and looking pale. His shirt was stained with water from both the class sink and the bottle of water that he had tried to open with his mouth.
Stonaker later said that he tried to open the water bottle with his teeth after failing to get it open with his hands. He said that the water and the plastic cap suddenly rushed into his throat and first darted to the sink.
Jenkins, a 14-year teacher who just had a first aid refresher course, turned the boy around and applied the Heimlich Maneuver. The cap, before the other stunned students and the classroom surveillance camera, was dislodged within seconds.
“I don’t think I really thought,” said Jenkins, who has been teaching at the school for the last five years and is also a Montclair cheerleading coach. “I think I was just like, ‘He needs my help -Let me help him.’ “
The video, released by EOCCS April 8, became viral. Its footage was repeated on NBC Television’s “Today” show and covered by “People” magazine.
NEWARK – A city man has been scheduled for a June 13 sentencing by N.J. Superior Court Judge Michael L. Ravin after a jury, on March 30, found him guilty of felony murder, vehicular homicide and related counts.
The jury told Ravin that Wednesday that they found Najeeh Green, 30, guilty on all 11 counts put forward by Essex County prosecutors. They included manslaughter while fleeing police, aggravated assault, said assault of a shooting victim, carjacking a Newark driver in East Orange, conspiracy to commit said carjacking and multiple weapons offenses.
Prosecutors said that Green was on a May 5, 2018 crime spree that led to the death of Priscilla Godoy, 29, of Newark, along South 14th Street.
Godoy was trying to avoid Green’s stolen white Jeep Cherokee by getting in between two parked cars at 11:44 p.m. Green struck one of the parked cars, crushing Godoy’s skull.
Godoy was rushed to University Hospital, where the three-year West Essex First Aid Squad member and mother of a 12-year-old boy died. Godoy’s father, Samuel, who was with her, was also seriously injured.
Green had earlier shot a man in Newark on the 100 block of Hayes Street t 10:55 p.m. He and an accomplice had carjacked a 2011 Ford Taurus from a woman, who was unloading packages, in East Orange. Newark police officers began pursuing the Jeep from Bergen and Chadwick.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II that Green had been convicted on two prior indictable offenses.
IRVINGTON – A former United States Postal Service employee has pled guilty on April 14 to fraudulently obtaining unemployment benefits.
Ross Clayton, 31, confessed to one count of conspiring to commit wire fraud before US District Judge Julien X. Neals’ Newark bench via teleconference.
Clayton had admitted that he had taken unemployment-related benefits mail, including debit cards from a USPS location in Newark in 2020-21 and “used that mail to obtain unemployment insurance benefits to which he was not entitled.”
U.S. Justice Department-New Jersey District attorneys said that Clayton had applied for Californian unemployment insurance July 13, 2020 and received two $18,000 benefit debit cards. He was seen on ATM camera footage using two cards to withdraw cash on Aug. 16, 2020.
There was $7,000 left on one card when he was arrested and charged in August 2021. The stolen funds came from the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and the Federal PUA under the 2020 Federal CARES Act.
Clayton is to receive Neals’ sentence on Sept. 7. He faces a 20-year maximum prison sentence and the greater of a $250,000 fine.
ORANGE – City and county arson investigators, as a matter of course, are searching through what is left of the Masonic Temple and Old Post Office building at 229-235 Main St. after its devastating April 19 fire.
The first of what would be all Orange Fire Department hands and units from seven neighboring towns arrived on the scene at 4 a.m. Tuesday. Although the worst of an overnight storm that dumped 1.78 inches of rain in Newark had passed, up to 20 mph wind gusts would hamper firefighters all day.
They found a heavy fire condition within the four-story late-Victorian Era building. Firefighters from West Orange, East Orange, Montclair, Maplewood, Bloomfield, Belleville and Millburn supplied ladder trucks and engines at the scene. Traffic, including buses on five routes, was detoured from Park Street and North/South Center Streets out to Scotland Road and East Orange’s Harrison Street.
Fire personnel went into defensive mode by 7 a.m. The building’s main roof and the green copper roof to its six-story tower would collapse.
The distinctive Masonic Temple had been the subject of postcards since the 1890s and even after the founding lodge had moved out in the 1970s. Five storefront businesses moved in after the main post office moved to 384 Mian St. in 1922.
Tuesday’s fire is the latest to change the face of Main Street. Previous blazes included the one in 1971 that destroyed the North Orange Baptist Church at 164 Main and one that damaged Orange Drugs at 239 Main in 1967.
The single worst blaze destroyed the First Presbyterian Church and the Music Hall/Bijou Theater April 5, 1927. Wind gusts brought embers from the church across North Day Street onto the music hall’s roof, catching fire. “First Pres” moved to a new edifice on the Old Burying Ground at 420 Main.
WEST ORANGE – Interstate 280 drivers through the Watchung or Orange Mountains here have had to be extra alert here since April 13.
Westbound drivers who were used to taking Exit 10 for Northfield Avenue, for example, have had to continue to Exit 7 Pleasant Valley Way and return onto 280 East for Exit 10. They picked up Northfield by taking Brennan Drive.
NJDOT had to completely close the exit when an underground drainage pipe collapsed, causing a sinkhole, at 1 a.m. that Wednesday. That ramp was closed until emergency repairs were completed by 6 a.m. April 14.
Motorists who took the detour still had to take Northfield’s left-hand lane to continue. The repairs had also affected Northfield’s right-hand lane and shoulder.
Eastbound drivers had also had to stay away from 280’s right-hand lane between Exits 8 and 7 (Laurel Avenue) 7 a.m.-7 p.m. April 19 for repairs.
Eastbound drivers have had to navigate a natural sinkhole area between Exits 7 and 8 since Sept. 1. Former hurricane Ida runoff had undermined up to three lanes.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Pre-eminent casting director Jay Binder, 71, who died in his Manhattan West Side apartment April 15, may have inadvertently left behind a mystery over his South Orange connection.
Many of Binder’s obituaries state that he was a village native when he was born on March 11, 1951. Binder would then be a part of Columbia High School’s graduating Class of 1969.
A Binder was found, but not Jay, in the 1969 CHS yearbook.
If Jay and his parents lived in South Orange, they must have moved out by 1954. The 1954 and 59 real estate directories list three Binder families in Maplewood; Jay was not listed among them.
“SOMA” would likely want to share in the four-decade casting director’s limelight. Binder cast over 100 Broadway plays and as many more Off-Broadway and regional theater plays, movies, television shows and commercials. The 11-time Casting Society of America’s Artios Award winner had cast all of the late Neil Simon’s plays 1990-2009.
Binder’s village nativity may be clarified when relatives and friends hold a future “curtain call” memorial.
BLOOMFIELD – What is – and is not – proposed for the former Friendly’s restaurant here at 1243 Broad St., has been the subject of an April 12 Bloomfield Planning Board meeting and an upcoming May 10 session.
The township’s panelists and its traffic expert, on May 10, are to take up the Broad Street entrance and exit plans to be presented by Finomus Bloomfield Holdings LLC. The plans supposedly include vehicular traffic to enter from and exit onto northbound Broad Street.
A prospective traffic plan would prevent motorists from regularly disregarding the “No Left Turn” sign that was posted across the street. The sign was placed between the Brookdale Elementary School and a private home plus Brookdale Road to its south sometime in the last 51 years.
The 25 mph stretch, going northbound, includes a Bloomfield fire station and an eye-care office building before Broad Street turns towards Clifton. Eastbound West Passaic Avenue splits off at the traffic signaled bend.
Finomus Holdings want to replace the Friendly’s building with a 3,000-square-foot structure for a Taco Bell and Wendy’s. It is applying for three variances concerning a drive aisle and signage.
Finomus, explained Mayor Michael Venezia in an April 11 open letter, is not
asking for a drive-through window and 24-hour operation. The property is in a B-2 Zone, said Venezia, which bans drive-throughs and Midnight-6 a.m. opening hours.
GLEN RIDGE – A Funeral Mass was held April 7 in Moneta, Va.’s Resurrection Catholic Church for borough native and GRPD Chief Thomas P. Dugan. Dugan, 81, died March 28 at his home in Roanoke.
Dugan, who was born here Nov. 24, 1940, enlisted with the USAF shortly after graduating from Glen Ridge High School in 1958. He returned to the borough with an honorable discharge and being an Air Policeman (the USAF’s version of Military Police).
He then followed his father and grandfather’s footsteps by joining the borough police in 1964. Dugan was promoted to sergeant in 1979, lieutenant in 1982 and chief in 1986. He had also served as the local PBA representative, Essex County Chiefs of Police president and a member of the International Chiefs of Police along the way.
Thomas and wife Mary Page Dugan retired to Roanoke upon his 1995 retirement. Son Patrick S, grandsons Kevin and Michael and sister Judith Grace Wohlgemuth are also among his survivors. Memorial donations may be made to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation “or your favorite charity.”
MONTCLAIR – Township detectives have reviewed a convenience store’s parking lot security recordings to find the person who slashed one of MPD’s own vehicle’s tires.
One of the Montclair Parking Enforcement Officers said she had parked her marked vehicle on the Quick Chek, lot on April 4. 10 minutes later, after making a purchase at 146 Valley Rd., she found three of the car’s tires slashed.
As of presstime, the incident is still under investigation, and the tire slasher is still at-large. There have also been reports of catalytic converter thefts.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Planning Board will not be considering site plan applications until the status of six of its members is settled.
Planning Board Chairman Ray Veniero, after listening to Board Attorney Rose Tubio’s opinion of a letter from Hackensack attorney Michael B. Kates, suspended the panel’s operations at their April 14 meeting.
Tubio had likely received Kates’ letter after resident and gadfly Michael Sheldon presented his copy of the pre-eminent land use attorney’s letter to Township Attorney Steve Martino at the April 12 Township Council meeting.
At issue are the appointments of six BPB Class IV members since July 8, 2018. Mayor Michael Melham, who was at the April 12 meeting, has maintained that he has the appointing authority.
Belleville’s mayor had that authority until 1990 – when its government structure went from Township Commissioners to its present Township Council-Township Manager form. There had been members of the public who have maintained that planning board appointment power rests with the manager but is subject to council confirmation.
“A new municipal manager became the chief executive and administrative official of Belleville, not the Mayor or Council Members as so-called ‘commissioners,’ ” said Kates in his letter. “Belleville opted for professional management, with the consequence that the Mayor’s appointive authority significantly diminished.”
Township Manager Anthony Iacono may be reviewing the six planning board members’ resumes to determine which, if any, are sent to the Township Council for consideration. Melham has told a reporter that the suspension over his appointees “campaign noise 25 days before the (May 10) election.”
The last four years of Belleville Planning Board rulings, should the appointments are deemed illegal, would be put into doubt.
NUTLEY – A visitation for Anthony A. Biondi, Sr., was held in one of his own parlor rooms here April 11.
Biondi, 86 – who co-founded the Biondi Funeral Home with wife Michelina “Mickey” (Rossi) Biondi in 1968 – died April 4 at his Boca Raton winter home. Anthony and Mickey would have celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary April 19. They were honored for their service at the annual Holy Family Parish Community Gala Dinner in March.
Biondi came here by way of Newark and the USAF National Guard. The Ironbound native was a National Guard medic 1954-63, acquiring a diploma from New York City’s American Academy of Funeral Services in 1956.
“Mr. B.” became a Nutley community pillar, starting with Holy Family’s Parish Council, finance committee and as past school PTA president. The one-time Nutley Shade Tree Commissioner was a life member of Elks Lodge No. 1290 and the local Amvets.
Biondi was recently honored by the Columbian Foundation for his community service during the COVID pandemic. The 1995 Nutley-Belleville Columbus Day Parade Grand Marshal was named by the “Italian Tribune” in 2013 is Columbus Day Business of the Year Award.
The oldest living Unico Nutley Chapter member is also survived by son/funeral director Anthony, Jr., daughter Ann Marie Belas, grandson Jude Belas and granddaughter Julianna Belas, among others.
Biondi’s body was entombed in Union’s Hollywood Memorial Mausoleum, after a Funeral Mass at Holy Family, April 11.
