TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The firefighter who suffered “severe” burns while at Aug. 13’s fire at 782-786 Clinton Ave. remains in RWJBarnabas Health Cooperman-Barnabas Burn unit in Livingston as of press time. The four-story multiple unit apartment building, including its residents and storefront tenants, remains off-limits for structural reasons found by a Newark Code Enforcement inspector.
Both on-scene Fire Chief Rufus Jackson and Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage said that the fireman incurred burns to his hands, arms, neck and head when the building’s roof partially collapsed in its southeastern corner. He was promptly removed and admitted in stable condition.
The fire, which was first called at 2 p.m. Saturday, grew to three alarms by 2:33 p.m. NFD firefighters managed to limit fire damage to the fourth floor’s southeastern corner. Mutual aid from neighboring towns’ fire departments covered several of Newark’s fire stations.
Traffic, including buses on NJTransit’s No. 13 T and N routes, were detoured via Clifton Place, Hawthorne Avenue and Irvington’s So. 20th Street before rejoining Clifton Avenue that afternoon.
782-786 Clinton includes Clinton Pharmacy, Ahmad & Brothers Barber Shop and Liberty Tax Service. All three were closed as of 9:20 a.m. Aug. 17. Only two workers for a New York City boarding up contractor were present then.
Both 782-786 and the identical 790 Clinton are owned by a Brooklyn real estate company. 790 – including Platinum Sound Recording Studio and four other storefronts – were unaffected outside of a precautionary Saturday evacuation. The Newark Public Library’s Madison Branch was a 790 tenant until its Aug. 27, 2010 closing.
IRVINGTON – Neither Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II nor his spokes persons, as of press time, have publicly identified the man who was found dead here in Irvington Park Aug. 12.
Both Stephens and Irvington Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers said, on Aug. 13, that Essex County Sheriff’s Officers and Irvington Police had responded to the report “of an injured person” within the county park early that Friday morning.
Officers had found a male body just within the Lyons Avenue side of the park – and immediately called for the ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force. The Lyons Avenue entrance was taped off during the field investigation.
Stephens and Bowers would only add that “foul play is suspected.”
County and township investigators were last called to the nearby 1100 block of May Street, about a block south of the park, where a 19-year-old woman was found inside with a fatal gunshot wound 3 p.m. July 17.
The man and woman’s homicides are considered separate. Both investigations continue.
EAST ORANGE – The owners of Manufacturers Village here in the Franklin section have asked its tenants – artists and small business owners – to propose until October on how to save the 19th Century building.
The descendants of building founder George Seabury have asked its occupants for the existential request for proposals Aug. 9. Seabury and Robert Wood Johnson had the factory built here at 356 Glenwood Ave. in 1880 to make medical supplies. Johnson & Johnson also had its corporate headquarters here before moving in the early 1900s to New Brunswick.
The Seaburys, on one hand, have repurposed the 4.5-acre Manufacturers Village for fine artists and entrepreneurs in the 2000s. There are 60 artistic and business incubators nearly filling the building’s capacity.
Its tenants had created the 9,000-square foot “Black Lives Matter” mural, the largest in New Jersey, on its parking lot in 2020. They run Liquidtex Artist Residencies and hold an annual October Open Studios festival.
The owners, on the other hand. had signed on Sheldon Gross Realty in 2021 for daily management. That, and the fact that the village building is not on a state or national historical site registry, have left the possibility that Manufacturers Village can be demolished.
The tenants are welcoming the Arts Council of East Orange’s pending move into the village. ACEO has started a Gofundme.com page to save the village and its arts community. Details are found at www.manufacturersvillageartists.com.
ORANGE – There is a new OPA – as in the Orange Parking Authority – in town as of Aug. 3.
Mayor Dwayne D. Warren promptly signed Ordinance 42-2022, establishing the authority, just after City Council Members present that Wednesday night unanimously approved the measure.
This OPA, not to be confused with the Orange Preparatory Academy, will construct, provide and operate municipal off-street parking. Its functions include managing “off-street and other parking meters” through at least one of its own parking enforcement officers.
OPA, to be overseen by seven expenses-only commissioners, will have the power to borrow funds and/or mortgage its properties for new parking projects.
All but the absent South Ward Councilwoman Jamie Summers-Johnson approved OPA’s establishment after holding a public hearing Aug. 3. Councilman Weldon M. “Monty” Montague III was absent and East Ward Councilman Kerry Coley had dissented on the bill’s July 6 introduction.
Orange now joins Newark, East Orange, South Orange and Bloomfield in having a parking authority. It is not known whether 42-2022 sponsor Summers-Johnson nor anyone in Warren’s administration had considered the self-liquidating utility model like what Montclair has.
WEST ORANGE – The Township Council, just to be clear, has not and will not be pausing its processing of Cannabis-Based Business applications.
West Orange’s elders voted down a resolution here July 27 that would have temporarily suspended the administration’s processing of 14 CBB applications. Only Councilwoman Michelle Casalino voted for the suspension.
Township Administrator John Gross said he had placed the resolution on that night’s agenda “from a workflow point of view.”
“The intention was to never stop the process,” said Gross. “It was to take a pause to deal with the applications we’ve had in hand before stacking up additional applications.”
Gross added that “five or six of those applications have been acted on,” as of July 25. The township is coordinating the process with the state Cannabis Regulatory Commission.
Two applicants, both West Orange residents, urged for the resolution’s denial. Spencer Randolph said that his application had passed the CRC’s first approval round and was awaiting township judgement on opening either at 428 Valley Red. or 11 Central Ave.
James Jackson, who said he had been in CBB for eight years, had been waiting to hear from the township on his application since June.
SOUTH ORANGE – Those who want to thank and/or wish Village Trustee Robert Zuckerman well before he leaves for Red Bank and Asbury Park have the trustees’ Aug. 22 and Sept. 12 meetings to do so.
Zuckerberg, on Aug. 15, said that he had been hired as Red Bank RiverCenter’s Special Improvement District Executive Director earlier this year. He and husband Grant Neumann have decided to move to Asbury Park by Sept. 1, however, for it is closer to Red Bank than South Orange.
“We’re super excited about the possibilities this move creates for the two of us but we’re also very sad to leave South Orange,” said Zuckerberg. “We LOVE South Orange and the entire SOMA community – and the Village will ALWAYS be our home away from home!”
Zuckerberg is stepping down after 3.5 years on the Board of Trustees. He ends his official duties on Sept. 1 but will attend the Sept. 12 meeting “to finalize my transition.”
Village President Sheena Collum and the other trustees are to decide on whether to name an interim successor to Zuckerberg or to leave his seat vacant and let village voters make the call.
South Orange’s next nonpartisan trustees election is set for May 9, 2023.
MAPLEWOOD – Township detectives are still looking for the youth who stole a car from the Wawa parking lot Aug. 11 and had abandoned it on Newark street.
Maplewood Police Chief Jimmy DuVal said that two of his officers had met a 72-year-old man at 1515 Springfield Ave. who just called 911 after 4:30 a.m. that Thursday.
The man said that he had just left the store and was approaching his car when he was accosted by a teenage male at 4:30 a.m. and demanded his keys. The suspect shoved the victim and demanded the keys again before taking them from the driver’s pocket.
The suspect fled with the car east on Springfield Avenue into Irvington. MPD detectives used the victim’s cell phone to track the car, which is how they found it by Newark’s 138 Hunterdon St. The uninjured victim said that no weapons were shown.
Wanted is “a black male 16-19-years-old, shirtless and no facial hair (but) wearing blue jeans.”
BLOOMFIELD – Temple Ner Tamid held a funeral for Stanley Skolnik, who had been the congregation’s Rabbi Emeritus since 2010, here on Aug. 7.
Skolnik, 79, who received the title since first walking into TNT, died Aug. 5 at Mountainside Hospital after a 14-day bout against COVID. The New York Hebrew Union College-ordained rabbi first came to the area as spiritual leader of Passaic’s Temple Beth Sholom in 1975.
Temple Beth Sholom, which served reform movement Jews in Clifton and Passaic since 1959, began losing members to more conservative and orthodox congregations nearby. TNT, a conservative-reform congregation, agreed to welcome and absorb TBS in 2009-10.
Skolnik, however, had moved himself, wife Norma, son Jonathan and daughter Julie from Passaic to Upper Montclair earlier. Julie Skolnik-Miri said his father had wanted to live in a “progressive political and racially integrated town.”
Skolnik, as TNT Rabbi Emeritus, continued his work as a social activist and as a leader who would help a congregant in an instant.
Sister Eva and grandchildren Robbie, Tosha, Sonia and Jake are also among his survivors.
Skolink’s burial was immediately held in Clifton’s menorah Cemetery.
GLEN RIDGE – While borough officials weigh Montclair and Bloomfield’s fire suppression contract proposals received on or before 4 p.m. Aug. 18, at least one Montclair resident has voiced her desire for one contract change.
Eileen Birmingham told the Montclair Township Council July 26 that Montclair flushes Glen Ridges fire hydrant system “for free” and that the borough have been “paying less and less” for the shared fire service over the decades.
Glen Ridge had asked Bloomfield and Montclair for proposed fire contracts since June 8. The borough is offering a 2023-32 contract with a further five-year extension. The current contract, with Montclair, is to expire in Dec. 31.
Glen Ridge has traditionally awarded the Montclair fire contracts since disbanding its own fire department in 1992.
Birmingham also asked that Glen Ridge separate its George Washington Field shared service RFP and contract from the fire service. She said that Glen Ridge players and teams are given priority on the field, forcing Montclair players and teams to reschedule to “other muddy (grass) fields.”
Glen Ridge has asked Montclair and Bloomfield’ s recreation departments for a concurrent shared service contract for Washington Field. The 1995 turf field alongside Glenridge Avenue, while mostly within the township, is shared by both rec departments.
MONTCLAIR – Starbucks Coffee workers here at 40 South Church St., as of Aug. 10, are on their way to become unionized – making it the fourth of the chain’s New Jersey stores to do so.
An AFL-CIO press release said that a majority of Church Street Starbucks employees who had turned in their ballots July 15-Aug. 5 voted to become Starbucks Workers United under AFL-CIO affiliation. Those who were store employees as of June 26 were eligible to mail in their ballots.
An AFL-CIO representative and an employee-selected SWU shop steward will be negotiating with store management for a collective bargaining agreement. SWU-Montclair have also been sharing notes with unionized employees in Summit, Hopewell and Hamilton.
Copies of the election results have been sent to the federal National Labor Relations Board and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. It is not known whether Schultz or his attorneys will add the South Park Street store to their list of shop elections where the company said that the NLRB had an unfair influence.
Store employees said they had turned to the AFL-CIO after being unable to address complaints of understaffing, undertraining and malfunctioning equipment for fear of job security. Church Street organizer and barista James Cruz said that worker scheduling became more difficult since July 15.
The NLRB has said it has received unionization process petitions from 314 Starbucks stores and 286 unfair labor practices complaints from across the country. Another 140 – including Montclair – have voted to unionize with 170 more elections pending.
The South Church Street Starbucks is part of The Ciena residential/retail complex. The Ciena replaces the long-standing Lord & Taylor clothing store.
BELLEVILLE – The votes are also in at RWJ Barnabas Health Clara Maass Medical Center and, as of Aug. 10, a predominance of registered nurses have voted to unionize with the SEIU.
A SEIU 1199 United Healthcare Workers East release said that “nearly 80 percent of the over 500 registered nurses” voted to join the union. Eight of every 10 Clara Maass nurses vote to unionize with SEIU Local 1199. The local had been previously representing long-term care nurses in New Jersey.
Organizing nurses said that they are seeking a better nurse-to-patient staffing ratio and improved working conditions. They were hoping during their last contract negotiations with hospital management that they would reach wage parity with other RWJBarnabas Health hospital workers.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration had fined the hospital, among others across the country, for failing to provide enough Personal Protective Equipment and other protections to its health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Three of Clara Maass’ staff had died from the Coronavirus.
Clara Maass, on Aug. 15, had received a four star rating (out of five) by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. CMMS credited the hospital for timely and effective care, patient experience, readmission, safety of care and readmission.
“We acknowledge and respect the right of our nursing staff to decide on whether or not union representation is in their best long- and short-term interest,” said Clara Maass President and CEO Dr. Mary Ellen Cline. “We’ll do everything we can to make the hospital the best workplace it can be.”
NUTLEY – Ownership of a 16-story ON3 campus office tower has recently changed hands here for a record price last month – although most may not see a difference.
Prism Capital Partners, who has owned the 116-acre ON3 campus here and in Clifton since 2016, has parted out 200 Metro Blvd. to Cantor Fitzgerald for $131.7 million on July 17. The sale is the largest in the state so far this year.
Cantor Fitzgerald, whose staff was decimated in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers, financed the purchase through a $66.7 million acquisition loan from JP Morgan Asset Management.
200 Metro was – and remains – Eisai’s U.S. headquarters. The Japanese oncology and neurology pharmaceutical company had moved here from Woodcliff Lake (formerly West Paterson) by Feb. 28.
Cantor Fitzgerald is retaining Prism as 200 Metro’s building manager. Prism, prior to being hired by Nutley and Clifton as ON3’s redeveloper, had converted West Orange’s Edison Battery Factory into Edison Lofts.
200 Metro was Hoffmann La Roche’s longtime headquarters until the pharmaceutical giant left in 2013. ON3 remodeled it and other Roche buildings for office, commercial and scholastic uses.
