TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Mayor Ras Baraka, knowing that he had to find a successor to now-South Ward Councilman Rev. Patrick Council as Deputy Mayor for Recreation, Cultural Affairs and Senior Services July 1, used that Friday night’s inauguration ceremony to announce four other department head changes.
Baraka named Donnell Redding as Council’s department successor. The pastor joined West Ward Councilman Dupre Kelly, East Ward Councilman Michael Silva and At-Large Municipal Council members Rev. Louise Scott Rountree and C. Lawrence Crump, Esq. in being sworn into their first full four-year terms on the NJPAC stage. (Council members would later select second-term LaMonica McIver as their Council President.)
The mayor tapped outgoing South Ward Councilman John Sharpe James as the Office of Emergency Management Director. James is moving into a Public Safety Department that has four key personnel changes.
Outgoing Public Safety Director Brian O’Hara is now deputy mayor of the new-Department of Strategic Initiatives for Police Services/Public Safety. O’Hara’s move elevates Raul Malave to Interim Public Safety Director while Baraka’s administrators seek a permanent director.
Emanuel “Manny” Miranda has been promoted to Acting Police Chief. The 21-year Newark Police Division member succeeds the retiring Chief Lee Douglas. David Whatley is now director of the Public Safety Department’s Alcohol Beverage Control Unit.
Dolores Martinez-Wooden is now Acting Engineering Director. Ketlen Baptiste-Alsbrook is now acting Health and Community Wellness Director.
The acting and interim positions are subject to Municipal Council confirmation.
IRVINGTON – The 21 people who had been living here at 837-841 Stuyvesant Ave. until its early morning July 11 fire may have had found more permanent residency when you read this.
Irvington Fire Department personnel were dispatched to the address between Prospect and Chancellor avenues at 2:40 a.m. Monday. The first units that had arrived found smoke and flames coming out from the two-story brick building.
IFD personnel evacuated the 10 families who had lived in the 13 apartment unit brick building. The local American Red Cross chapter later arrived to find them emergency housing.
Firefighters had also evacuated neighboring residences as a precaution while Irvington police officers closed Stuyvesant and detoured traffic.
That rerouting partially ended in time for NJTransit to run its No. 94 route buses. Firefighters brought the blaze under control within an hour. No injuries were reported.
Several real estate websites have listed a Maplewood resident as 837-41’s owner. 837 Springfield Avenue LLC had bought the property for $615,000 in 2007.
EAST ORANGE – The ECPO’s Crime Scene Investigations Bureau is continuing its investigation of the July 1 motorcycle-fire truck collision here – and, as of July 5, has identified the victim as a Monmouth County man.
The family of Barry Bernard Dowdell, Jr, 29, of Allentown, had held his last rites at Newark’s Cotton Funeral Home, followed by burial at Evergreen Cemetery, July 10.
An initial investigation has Dowdell, who was born Aug. 7, 1992, being ejected from his motorcycle after striking an East Orange Fire Department along the 90 block of Greenwood Avenue 6 p.m. that Friday.
Dowdell, who was given CPR at the scene, was rushed by local EMS to Newark’s University Hospital – where he was declared dead at 6:28 p.m.
Details of the collision – including whether the fire apparatus was responding to a call and the extent of its damage – remains undisclosed as of July 11.
ORANGE – Orange Police Director Todd Warren and Police Chief Vincent Vitiello are asking for the public’s help in finding the man who shot another man in the face at an East Ward intersection here July 5.
OPD officers said that they had converged at Oakwood Avenue and Wilson Place of gunfire reports there at 5:35 p.m. that Tuesday. They found a man with a bullet wound to his face – who was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Canvassing officers found several bullet shell casings along the 30 block of nearby Berwyn Street.
Wanted is a 6-ft., 1-in. tall African or African American male wearing dreadlocks and a white t-shirt.
Hilbert Sworn Into West Ward Office
Quantavia Hilbert was sworn into her first term as West Ward Councilwoman during Orange’s Inauguration and Reorganization Meeting here July 1. A majority of participating West Ward voters selected Hilbert to succeed the retiring Councilman Harold Johnson, Jr.
Kerry Coley (East Ward), Tency Eason (North Ward) and Jamie Summers-Johnson (South Ward) were respectively sworn into their additional terms that same Friday session.
WEST ORANGE – Although Mayfair Farms may have ended its 80 year run here as a banquet and catering hall, its facility may not yet be completely out of the food service business.
Mayfair Farms Holding, owned by the four-generation Horn family, quietly posted a “Thank You and Farewell” notice on its website June 30. Why the Horns have closed 481 Eagle Rock Ave. – after thousands of weddings, proms, political functions and charity fundraisers – was not disclosed.
Locals may remember family patriarch Martin L. Horn, Sr. and his sons for opening Pal’s Cabin restaurant at Eagle Rock and Prospect avenues in the 1930s and, after World War Two, started a golf driving range at 235 Prospect Ave., that is now the West Orange (shopping) Plaza.
Horn, Sr. bought a mansion west of the golf range and initially cast it as the Mayfair Luncheon Club. Dining demand and building additions revamped it into Mayfair Farms.
Mayfair Farms Holding and architects Monarch Development JV LLC have meanwhile presented a land subdivision application before the West Orange Planning Board since a special June 9 meeting. That application calls for part of the land dedicated for a 3.5-story assisted living facility.
The remaining part including the mansion would become the kitchen for the Wonder food service. Wonder’s vans, offering on-site food preparation at customers’ homes, have been appearing on West Orange and Maplewood streets since Jan. 1. “Local Talk” had noticed a Wonder job fair announcement posted in Newark last month.
That application may be continued during the board’s July 21 meeting.
SOUTH ORANGE – South Orange officials have indefinitely banned a resident from visiting village offices or calling employees after making what Village President Sheena Collum said were repeated “hostile and angry” phone calls.
Collum, at the the June 27 Village Trustees meeting, said that the individual is to no longer set foot on village property without risking a criminal trespass charge. The resident does have a 30-day period to dispute the charge should he be ticketed by the South Orange Police Department.
Village employees, added Collum, will not accept or take any phone calls from the said man.
Collum said the last straw came when the unnamed man recently called the responding employee “girl” and used “n—-r” five times in his last two sentences.
The Village President announced the ban after consultation with SOPD Chief Ernesto Morillo.
“I can assure you that we’ll always protect our employees from this type of garbage behavior and will take any and all legal means to ensure a safe work environment,” said Collum. “Words and actions have consequences and my colleagues on the Board of Trustees join me in fully supporting the actions that’ve been taken to date.”
MAPLEWOOD – The Township Committee, desiring more information, has put a Cannabis Based Business’ application for a cultivation facility on hold since July 5.
Applicant Green Lift LLC wants to expand a cultivation business here at 97-99 Newark Way. It would be in the former single-story 10,000-square-foot 1952 Goetz & Rauschman building in an industrial zone by the Union border. The applicant said it would be using only 2,500 sq. ft. of the building.
Committeeman and former mayor Victor de Luca asked Green Lift and its two lawyers how the additional employees and increased truck traffic would affect the neighborhood. Committeewoman Jennifer Cripe, who lives in the neighborhood, said that the Tuesday night meeting was “the first I’ve heard of the cultivation going into that location.”
De Luca and Cripe voted “no” to the expansion application – but Mayor Dean Dafis and committee members Nancy Adams and Frank McGehee declined to vote. The trio wanted how Green Lift would curb any odors coming out from the two loading docks.
Green Lift co-owner Ajay Kejiwal said that the building’s .30-acre lot holds 26 parking spaces and would bring a sample air filter. That presentation may come during the Township Committee’s July meeting.
BLOOMFIELD – There is a reason a Bloomfield DPW GMC dump truck stands between a torn down fence and the rest of the yard since June 19.
The DPW Recycling and Maintenance Yard supervisor brought in a couple of township police officers to 230 Grove St. and ran a video surveillance recording from earlier that Sunday.
The recording showed three males getting on the property and entering several vehicles in an apparent search for tools.
When no tools at hand were found, the thieves turned their attention to another parked vehicle. They broke in, bypassed the ignition switch and drove the vehicle out of the yard.
The car thieves broke out of the yard by running down some 70 feet of boundary fence with the vehicle. They got onto the former Erie Railroad Newark Branch right of way and, threading their way between concrete blocks, fled onto Bloomfield Avenue.
Pedestrians who use the now-Norfolk Southern RR-owned right-of-way as a shortcut between Bloomfield Avenue and Grove Street have since noticed the torn down boundary fence and parked dump truck.
Descriptions of the stolen vehicle and the suspects have not been released as of July 11.
MONTCLAIR – Those who gathered at a Glenfield Middle School public room July 5 for “Game Night” also got an unwanted fireworks display from six intruders.
Those attending the game night at the Catchings-Owens Community Suite that Tuesday said that six masked teenagers entered the premises, lit firecrackers and threw them about the room. The sextet then fled south on Maple Avenue.
The suite room’s walls and floor, said responding police officers, sustained “moderate damage.”
Montclair Police officers were given descriptions of at least two female intruders; genders of the other four, as of July 11, remain unknown.
Montclair Public Schools had reopened the renovated community center Feb. 26. The center, first opened in the 1980s. The facility is named after two longtime neighborhood residents and activists.
The Catchings-Owens center is having increased use since the Wally Choice Center, next door in Essex County’s Glenfield Park, is undergoing its own renovations and expansion.
On a lighter note, Glenfield alum and Montclair native Christina Ricci was recently nominated for an Outstanding Supporting Actress Emmy for her work on the show “Yellowjackets.”
BELLEVILLE – While those attending July 5’s reorganization may debate who has character or who are characters within the Council Chamber, one recent audience member who has been IN character did not make himself known that Tuesday.
Mayor Michael Melham, the Township Council and local media were graced by “Elmo” at their June 28 meeting – as in the Sesame Street Muppets monster.
Former Belleville Board of Education Trustee and local gadfly Michael Sheldon had just finished his public speaking turn before township elders when a pitch-perfect “Elmo loves you!” shout came from the character. Melham instantly gaveled the session back to order.
Council gallery audience members believe that “Elmo” was the same individual who appeared the previous June 14 meeting as a clown.
By “clown,” the individual resembled the “Bozo the Clown” character made famous by the late Larry Harmon. This Bozo, however, remained silent June 14.
State Sen. Richard Codey (D-Roseland) swore Melham plus At-Large Council Members Thomas Graziano and Naomy DePena to their respective second terms July 1. Graziano was also named Deputy Mayor, succeeding DePena, that Friday.
NUTLEY – Mayor Joseph Scarpelli, who had introduced an ordinance June 21 to have a plan for the former Diamond Springs Swim Club drawn up, has put that measure on hold July 5.
Scarpelli, after a long executive session here that Tuesday night, announced that Ordinance 3495 has been put on hold. The measure’s tabling also calls off a projected July 19 public hearing; that entire July 19 Board of Commissioners meeting has been canceled.
Scarpelli, responding to a public speaker’s question, said that the ordinance will be taken up and a public hearing rescheduled to later dates.
Ord. 3495 calls for DMR Architects to study the former club and restaurant site at 35 Evergreen Ave. and come up with a redevelopment plan. That plan would be put before the Nutley Planning Board, who would then open a 45 day window for the public to comment on DNR’s recommendations.
Township elders’ mulling of the Diamond Springs property goes back to a preliminary investigation launched on Oct. 6, 2020. The Commissioners named DMR as the plan’s architect Nov. 1, 2020-June 30, 2021.
