TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Newark Public Library Director Joslyn Bowling Dixon may present the results of June 15’s “first Sidewalk Talk” about the Clinton Branch before the Board of Trustees as early as their July 27 meeting.
The talk, which updated interested parties of the branch’s status, was also a listening session from the public. Their comments may well have bearing on the future of the Clinton Branch or an alternative.
The branch at 739 Bergen St., had been closed since Sept. 21, 2021. The 1924 two-story brick building was shuttered due to what an NPL posting said “hazardous building conditions which have escalated beyond sustainable remediation.”
NPL, at that time, had “permanently closed” that branch. The library administration was also looking for a temporary branch location to fulfill the needs of the South Ward’s Clinton Hill community.
Branch patrons and employees were distributed among the Main Library at 5 Washington St. and six other branches. The Weequahic Branch, at 355 Osborne Terr., is the nearest location and the only one serving the South Ward.
IRVINGTON – Township police are on the lookout for the occupants of a motor vehicle who robbed a Clinton Avenue gas station at gunpoint here on June 16.
Employees of Irvington Auto Center and Curvington Auto told responding Irvington police that “a white four-door vehicle” had pulled up to 959-61 Clinton Ave.’s pumps at about 6:45 p.m. that Thursday.
One of the occupants, said workers, displayed a handgun. The weapon holder “stole an undetermined amount of cash” from one of the employees and returned to the vehicle. The vehicle then fled.
The filling station and garage on the northeast corner of Clinton Avenue and Harrison Place had, until recently, been Tierney’s Exxon Servicecenter.
Fallen Tree Injures Child
Two houses on the 30 block of Laventhal Avenue were evacuated and a child treated for injuries after a tree toppled here June 18.
Responding Irvington police and fire units plus the American Red Cross arrived to find a tree that fell into the upper floors of 37 Laventhal at 5:20 p.m. Saturday. 37 and 41 Laventhal were both evacuated in case the tree would fall onto the latter 2.5-story wood frame house. A child, who was in an upper floor bedroom, escaped with “minor injuries.”
EAST ORANGE – A N.J. Superior Court-Elizabeth judge had sentenced an East Orange man June 10 to 30 years’ state imprisonment for the July 9 murder of his girlfriend – and taking their son and her body to Tennessee.
Tyler Rios, 28, said Union County Prosecutor William Daniel June 14, will have to spend at least 21 years and three months, or at least 85 percent of his aggravated manslaughter sentence. Rios, who also had a Highland Park address, will also have to serve the bulk of a five year sentence for desecrating human remains before being considered for parole.
Rios took a plea bargain on April 5 where he confessed to beating and strangling ex-girlfriend Yasemin Uyar, 24, at her Rahway address July 8, 2021. He admitted putting Uyar’s body in the trunk of her 2018 Ford Fiesta, abducted their son, Sebastian Rios, 2, and drove all three into Tennessee.
The killing and kidnapping triggered a regional Amber alert. Uyar’s relatives notified RPD when Yasemin and Sebastian had failed to arrive at their respective workplace and daycare center.
Putnam County, Tenn. Sheriff’s officers found Rios father-and-son in a Monterey, Tenn. hotel July 10. They had to seize the barricaded T. Rios but found S. Rios unharmed. T. Rios then brought federal and sheriff’s officers to where he dumped Uyar’s body in the Cookeville woods.
ORANGE – A city man has been held in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility since June 8 in connection of the June 3 fatal shooting of an East Orange man by the Brick Church Shopping Plaza.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens and East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi announced on June 9 that they have arrested Darienne A. Murray, 35, over the killing of Melja T. Oliver, 37, of East Orange. Neither Stephens nor Bindi have said how Murray was connected to Oliver’s murder.
Responding East Orange police found Oliver shot and lying on a sidewalk of the 500 block of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard/Main Street 12:51 a.m. June 3. Oliver was rushed to Newark’s University Hospital, where he died at 1:31 a.m.
Murray has been charged with first-degree murder, second-degree unlawful possession of a firearm and third-degree possession thereof for an unlawful purpose.
Last rites for Oliver remains unannounced as of press time.
WEST ORANGE – The Hazel Avenue Elementary School community may be forgiven for giving one of their own – Principal Ana Marti – a retirement ceremony five days ahead of their own June 22 promotional service.
Kindergarten through Fifth Grade students and teachers, among others, sent off Marti with a “clap out” here June 16. A West Orange Public Schools tradition, the school community applauds and cheers a member on his or her last walk out of their building.
Wearing a tiara and holding a bouquet, Marti wiped away tears while making her way out of the Valley hillside school building.
Marti retires after 15 years with the district, topping out as Hazel’s principal since Aug. 1, 2019. She first came aboard from the Union City district as an English as a Second Language supervisor July 1, 2009.
Marti was named WOPS’ first Elementary Schools Assistant Principal July 1, 2013. She floated among several of the district’s elementary schools until she was appointed to lead Hazel.
It can be said that Marti was a mid-career changer. The CCNY 1985 computer science graduate got her master’s in education diploma from St. Peter’s University in 1997 – after 10 years as a programmer in Kearfott’s Wayne office.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District and the South Orange Maplewood Education Association long road to a new teachers contract ended here on May 17.
The SOMSD Board of Education ratified the July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2024 contract at their May 16 public meeting. SOMEA members, at an early May meeting, approved the new agreement 297-5.
Negotiation teams from both sides came to a contract agreement on March 28 after a 14 hour marathon bargaining session. It is not clear why it took the parties involved up to seven weeks to give their thumbs up or thumbs down.
Details on what SOMSD and SOMEA had agreed to were not available as of press time – other than whatever raises and new items approved will retroactively take effect from July 1, 2021. The old contract, which expired June 30, 2021, was honored in the interim.
Both sides had declared an impasse Feb. 28 and had sought an impartial fact-finder as a mediator. The fact-finding process, however, would have taken up to a year to conduct.
June 27 Jefferson School Renaming
The SOMSD board may well select a new name for the Thomas Jefferson Elementary School at its June 27 public meeting. The BOE may select from a list submitted by Jefferson School students, take suggestions from the community or hold a proposed new name to a community-wide referendum. The board, citing that Jefferson had owned slaves, passed their renaming Resolution No. 4190 last August.
BLOOMFIELD – Those who want to see what the traffic plan will be for what replaces the Friendly’s restaurant may be in for a midsummer wait.
Finomus Holdings Bloomfield LLC, for its part, sought and received an extension on presenting its traffic plan from the Bloomfield Planning Board June 10. It is the second monthly postponement since its initial presentation on April 12.
The BPB, without explanation on June 21, has canceled its July 12 meeting. All continuing and new site applications are to be next heard on Aug. 9.
Finomus wants to replace the Friendly’s at 1243 Broad St. with a combined Taco Bell and Wendy’s. The board, on April 12, had asked the developer to present a traffic flow plan.
Friendly’s, from 1969 to its Dec. 19 closing, had its traffic face a “No Left Turn” sign across from it to prevent its departing drivers from taking southbound Broad Street. The 25 mph street, which takes a 90-degree northbound turn towards Clifton, is fronted by Brookfield Elementary School, a Bloomfield fire station, a bank, an auto parts store and the western end of West Passaic Avenue.
GLEN RIDGE / MONTCLAIR – The New Jersey Attorney General’s office has recently released recordings of the events that led to the fatal May 10 car crash in The Glen and the identities of the car’s three occupants.
NJAG’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability detectives showed the seven video, audio and 911 recordings to the survivors of Gregory K. Dukes, 42, and Cecil Richardson, 47, both of Philadelphia, prior to the June 13 public release.
The video footage from three Montclair police cars’ dashboard cameras, showed them following a Hyundai Elantra with handicapped Pennsylvania plates turning east onto eastbound Bloomfield Avenue from northbound Maple Street.
MPD officers Michael Kupchack and Brandon Taylor said they began following the Hyundai since its description had matched that of one being involved in a robbery in another part of the township.
The Elantra accelerated to an estimated 64 mph before its driver lost control and plunged into The Glen just east of the Ridgewood Avenue intersection. Two of the dashcam recordings show officers leaving their cars to look down The Glen.
Dukes’ visitation was held May 18 at the Victory Garden of Prayer. Richardson’s Janazah was held at Lenwood Jones Funeral Home May 14. Both were laid to rest at Cheltenhills Cemetery. All locations were in Philadelphia.
Driver Todd Hill, 45, of Philadelphia, was treated for his injuries at a local hospital and was released.
BELLEVILLE – Kearny police have not said whether the body of a man found on the Newark side of the Passaic River May 26 was that of Hector L. Nieves, 33, of Belleville – other than saying they had stopped their missing persons search for him.
KPD started their search after Nieves’ wife had reported him missing by Noon May 23. She said that she had dropped him off at the LA Fitness parking lot at 175 Passaic Ave. at about 1:15 a.m. that Monday.
He called her minutes later, saying that he was going to swim across the Passaic River and to meet him by Newark’s Comfort Inn at McCarter Highway/Route 21.
The owner of a truck parked at that lot told the KPD that he had disturbed a man trying to break into his vehicle at around 1:30 a.m. and scared the suspect off. The owner and the wife gave separate but matching descriptions.
Newark police officers said that they had found a body along Riverbank Park near the Jackson Street Bridge at 11 a.m. May 26. The body was taken to the Regional Medical Examiner’s Office in Newark for identification and an autopsy.
There has been no funeral services or obituary announced for Nieves as of press time.
NUTLEY – The Nutley Board of Education has apparently come from within the district’s administration to name a successor to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Julie Glazer.
The NBOE, at its June 27 meeting, is to formally appoint Assistant Superintendent of Schools Kent Bania as its new superintendent effective July 1. Bania’s appointment had received the approval of Essex County Superintendent of Schools Dale Zarra, also of Nutley, June 16.
Bania, a 23-year district employee, was brought to NPS’ central office as its Grades 6-12 curriculum, instruction and assessment director in 2016. He became Dr. Glazer’s assistant when she became superintendent in 2020. Bania was acting superintendent this season while Glazer clocks out her accrued leave time.
The board selected Bania from a field of 27 applicants. The Roland Biondi search firm conducted the advertising, community survey and community and district meetings on its behalf.
Bania started in NPS as a high school and middle school science teacher in 1999 and had been NHS and Montclair State University’s lacrosse coach. The Essex County resident holds a masters of arts in educational leadership from Lamar University, a masters of science in biology/science education from MSU and a bachelors in environmental science from Rutgers’ Cook College.
“Mr. Bania is ready to lead the district,” said NBOE President Daniel Carnicella June 20. “He has a deep and extensive knowledge of NPS and community – and is a forward thinker.”
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