TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Some of St. Michael’s Medical Center’s most critical patients were temporarily moved out some 12 miles to another hospital here Aug. 4-5 when a major heating, ventilation and air conditioning component had failed during that Thursday’s heat wave.
There were 12 St. Michael’s Medical Center ICU patients who spent the night in Passaic’s St. Mary’s General Hospital. Both hospitals are under parent company Prime Healthcare’s umbrella.
The failed unit, as a hospital statement put it, caused “elevated temperatures on some areas of the hospital, including the Intensive Care Unit.”
They would not return until after St. Michael’s contractors had replaced the failed HVAC chiller unit. A chiller transfers out heated air and cycles in cooled air to hospital rooms.
Less seriously ill patients, explained SMMC spokesman Bruno Tedeschi Aug. 5, were moved to a floor that still had air conditioning.
It is not clear which building or area of a building on the St. Michael’s campus suffered the chiller failure. The hospital’s operation and HVAC failure has no relation to the Hanini Group’s transformation of the 1871-built original hospital into a mixed-use residential, commercial and office building.
IRVINGTON – Relatives of a township man, who was fatally shot on a Newark street Aug. 2, is left to arrange his last rites while law enforcers search for his killer.
No public funeral arrangements for Gregory Scott, 27, have been posted as of Aug. 9.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens and Newark Public Safety Director Fritz G. Frage said that responding police officers found Scott “seriously injured by gunfire” along the 100 block of Lehigh Avenue at 11:17 p.m. that Tuesday.
Scott was rushed to RWJBarnabas Health Newark Beth Israel Medical Center – where he was pronounced dead at 11:40 p.m.
(The Scott case is among the first to be handled by Frage. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka appointed the 24-year New Jersey State Police official to succeed Brian O’Hara on Aug. 1.)
The ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force is continuing the investigation.
EAST ORANGE – County and city authorities have named the man who was fatally struck along Central Avenue Aug. 1 and have since questioned the involved motorist.
Services for the late Aaryn Terry, 40, have included a 9 a.m. wake and 11 a.m. funeral at Orange’s St. Matthew AME Church Aug. 12. Interment in Montclair’s Rosedale Cemetery is to follow. Orange’s Woody’s Home for Services have made the arrangements.
Terry, said Acting Prosecutor Stephens and EOPD Chief Phyllis Bindi, was found “with serious injuries” by Mr. G’s Restaurant & Lounge at 2:10 a.m. Aug. 1. The lifelong resident was rushed by local EMS from 428 Central Ave. to Newark’s University Hospital – where he had died on Aug. 4.
Terry, who was born Dec. 27, 1981, was among the Clifford J. Scott High School Class of 1999. He was a popular employee at South Orange’s Papillion 25 Restaurant and Martini Bar.
A woman, reportedly the motorist who had left the scene, had surrendered herself to authorities on Aug 7. The investigation remains active.
ORANGE – The Essex County Clerk’s Election Division has received signed petitions from six prospective Orange Board of Education candidates for the three seats up for city voter approval on the Nov. 8 General Election ballot.
Three candidates – Board President Shawneque Johnson and members Guadalupe Cabio and Sueann Gravesande – are seeking their second three-year terms.
Former BOE President Tyrone Jon Tarver, who narrowly lost his seat in the 2020 election, is making a return bid.
Sendy Gordon and Anthony S. Nimley are waging their first school board campaigns.
Prospective Nov. 8 voters are to register or transfer their registration with the County Clerk on or by Oct. 18. Nov. 1 is the last day to apply for a Vote By Mail Ballot by mail. Voting machine polling station locations for Nov. 1-5 early voting and Nov. 8 Election Day are to be announced.
Visit essexclerk.com for details.
WEST ORANGE – Three township residents have filed their petitions with the West Orange Public Schools and the County Clerk’s Elections Division office to vie for two board of education seats on Nov. 8’s General Election ballot.
Current West Orange Board of Education President Jennifer Tunnicliffe is seeking her second three-year term. BOE Vice President Gary Rothstein has declined a second run.
Robert Ivker and Gregory M. Tynes, both first-time campaigners, have also filed.
All three candidates are hoping to pass the County Clerk and Essex County Board of Elections petition muster to make the ballot. Petition signers must be on the county’s registration rolls, for example, and be township residents at least a year before signing.
West Orange’s BOE and Mayor-Township Council races are the only municipal level nonpartisan contests on the township’s prospective Nov. 8 ballot.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The unauthorized use of a proposed Columbia High School floor plan by one South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education member here July 18 had led to the Aug. 1 near-demotion of a board vice-president.
Kaitlin Wittleder came within one vote of being removed as Board Second Vice President by her peers during the Aug. 1 board meeting. Colleague Dr. Qwai Telesford abstained from making the decisive vote that Monday night, leaving the demotion as a 4-4 tie and killing the motion.
Telesford may have started the chain of events by using a floor plan of either a restored CHS indoor pool or its conversion into a student commons – an $8 million question – during his July 18 public presentation before the board. That plan, however, was not for public consumption.
Wittleder tried to “admonish” Telesford’s “release of confidential information” late in the July 18 session and in public on Aug. 1. Board Member Erin Siders, however, moved to strip Wittleder of her position “for dereliction of duty based on her failure to communicate with the board before taking public action.”
Wittleder tried to explain her admonishment resolution but was interrupted by Board Attorney Frances Febres that the Telesford floor plan matter was “currently subject to an investigation by my office and may be subject to litigation.” Wittleder countered, “We owe a public apology to the community that this was done.”
Telesford, who heads the board’s Safety and Security Committee, abstained to kill the removal vote. SOMSD administrators have meanwhile removed Telesford’s July 18 pool vs. common presentation video and materials.
“This takes dysfunctionalism to a whole new level,” said member Elissa Malespina. “We’ve moved on to attacking the messenger instead of dealing with the message at hand.”
BLOOMFIELD – Township voters, going by what the signed petitions the Essex County Clerk’s Elections Division office have received and reviewed, will be picking at least one fresh face onto their board of education in the Nov. 8 election.
Registered voters have two incumbents and three challengers vying for three three-year seats.
Current BOE President Jill Fischman and Member Benjamin Morse are two of the three incumbents who have filed for prospective re-election. Board Member Daniel Anderson, however, has declined running again.
It is not clear as of press time whether Fischman and Morse will run on a common ticket or platform. School board candidates, by state law, are allowed to run together – so long as their organization does not mention any political party.
Phyllis Gerber, Josefina Rosairo-Simone and Joshua Trojak are running first-time campaigns.
GLEN RIDGE – Five borough residents – two incumbents and three challengers – are those who registered Glen Ridge voters are to choose from here on Nov. 8 to fill three three-year board of education seats.
Current Glen Ridge BOE President Elisabeth Ginzburg and Dr. Heather Yaros-Ramos are seeking re-election. Board Vice President Michael de Leeuw, however, has not filed petitions to run.
Challenging are Tricia Akinwande, Darrius K. Dehnad and Steven Lord.
All borough school board candidates, like runners for mayor and borough council, are nonpartisan – but in Glen Ridge fashion.
Municipal level candidates are seeking the endorsement of the borough’s own Civic Conference Committee. The home-grown CCC has members from various groups, with a representative each from the Republican and Democratic parties.
MONTCLAIR – The township, among 34 other named and unnamed respondents, have until Aug. 23 to reply to harassment charges filed by a Bloomfield attorney.
Theodore Bohn, Esq., in his July 23 filing in State Superior Court-Newark, is accusing the township government, Newark Fire Department firefighter Alex J. Timoff plus unnamed members of Montclair’s fire, police and EMS personnel and their benevolent associations of “15 years of harassment.” Bohn, a 45-year lawyer specializing in civil and gay rights, is representing himself.
Bohn said that the train of harassment began when he was working on a case of a New York City firefighter who had allegedly acted as an accomplice to a 2007 assault on two AIDS organization volunteers. The incidents began with the theft, opening and vandalizing of his mail, cut phone lines, slashed tires and the unauthorized use of first responder vehicle lights and sirens.
The harassment later elevated to first responders trailing his vehicle with their service lights on plus blocking the intersection before his house and telling him that they monitor his every move.
Bohn has leveled a count of privacy invasion and two counts of “violating the State Constitution.” He is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the respondents plus compensatory and punitive damages and attorneys fees.
Timoff, 30, of Bloomfield, was named by Bohn for allegedly wearing an NFD uniform and using an NFD vehicle to block Bohn’s on March 22, 2019.
Bohn and Timoff had been in court before, starting with the former filing suit against the latter in May 2019. A judge granted a default judgement for Bohn when Timoff had failed to appear for a deposition in November 2021.
BELLEVILLE – Township police officers said they had stopped a July-long house burglary string when they had found their suspect walking along Washington Avenue and Essex Street July 26.
The walker – identified as Jose Lopez, 45, of Newark – matched descriptions given by the victims of burglaries on July 8, 22 and 25. Two juveniles said they hid in a Stephens Street bedroom at 10:22 a.m. July 8, while the burglar took $7,000 worth of jewelry.
A Division Avenue resident reported on 1:45 p.m. July 22 that someone had forced a door open and left with $600 cash, two sunglasses and jewelry. A Rossmore Place resident reported on July 25 that someone pried open the front door and took $300 cash, Social Security cards, passports and other documents.
Lopez, who was also linked to a 2020 burglary recording, remains in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility since July 26. He has been charged with three counts of theft of movable property, two counts of burglary by entry and a count each of burglary by remaining inside and possession of burglary tools.
BPD also found Lopez as having three outstanding warrants from the Mercer County Sheriff’s Office and a charge each from Mercer County Superior Court, Linden Municipal Court and the Newark Police Department.
NUTLEY – Township police officers said they had arrested a resident July 23 for, among other charges, attempting to break into a locked patrol car.
Two NPD officers on motor patrol said they were responding to a report of an auto theft attempt along Centre Street that Saturday when they had encountered a man later identified as Timothy Murphy.
Murphy, said the officers, then tried to assault them and tried to enter their cruiser. Murphy, 32, was taken to Nutley Police Headquarters where he refused to be fingerprinted.
Murphy was charged for refusing to submit fingerprints, third-degree assault of a law enforcement officer, third-degree burglary to a motor vehicle and conspiracy to commit auto theft.
He was also given a Nutley citation for improper behavior before being remanded to Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility.
