TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – One of Newark’s higher-profile developers and his Newark-practicing attorney, on Nov. 23, have pleaded to one count each of conspiring to commit bank fraud in a 2007-08 mortgage scheme that cost the federal Fannie Mae fund $3.5 million.
Victor Santos, 63, of Watchung, and Fausto Simoes, Esq., 69, of Millington, now face up to 30 years’ imprisonment and $1 million each when U.S. District Judge Michael A Shipp sentences them April 12-13. Santos and Simoes had pleaded before Shipp’s Trenton bench via teleconference.
Santos may be best known for being the private half of the private-public partnership with the City of Newark that built the new DPW garage and headquarters at 52 Amsterdam St. in 2016. Santos’ 52 Amsterdam Newark LLC is in the midst of receiving $151 million in rent from the city as part of their 25-year lease.
Santos and Simoes confessed to defrauding Fannie Mae by applying phony mortgage applications through a shell corporation and 10 straw buyers on 12 Newark properties from September 2007 through November 2008.
The straw buyers lent their legitimate personal and financial information to Santos’ shell company. Santos, through that third party, paid the buyers $5,000 each, supplied tenants and covered their properties’ expenses.
Santos, once the federal mortgage loans were approved and received, broke his promise to the straw buyers to cover expenses. The 10 buyers defaulted, costing Fannie Mae and federal taxpayers $3.5 million.
Arsenio Santos – home builder and Victor’s cousin – and home mortgage consultant Raquel Casalinho were also named and indicted as co-conspirators in 2018. A. Santos, 64, of Millington, and Casalinho, 37, of Union, have meanwhile pleaded guilty; their sentencing is still pending.
IRVINGTON – Authorities have not identified the man, as of press time, who was struck and killed along the 1110 block of Springfield Avenue Nov. 27.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and Irvington Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers said that township police members and local EMS medics converged on Springfield Avenue and Lincoln Street at about 6 p.m. Sunday.
Responders found a man who had been injured while trying to cross Springfield Avenue. The man was pronounced dead at the scene. Local traffic, including buses on NJTransit’s No. 25 and 70 bus routes, were detoured during the field investigation.
The driver whose car struck the victim remained at the scene. No charges against the motorist have been lodged as of press time.
The incident happened by 1111 Springfield Ave., which has been the Taco Bell’s address since 2018. It had been the address of a 250-year-old house last used as the Irvington Servicemen’s Club House 1921-2014. The Colonial era house was replaced by the fast food eatery.
EAST ORANGE – County and city law enforcers are looking for at least two suspects who injured three people in a Park Avenue drive-by shooting here Nov. 22.
Stephens and East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi said that city officers had responded to a gunfire report by 455 Park Ave., across from Paul Robeson Stadium, at 3:05 p.m. that Tuesday. They found two men and a female suffering non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
The three victims, who were taken to Newark’s University Hospital for treatment, said that a vehicle had pulled up to them and one of its occupants began firing. The vehicle then fled on Park Avenue.
There were no reports of NJTransit’s No. 41 buses, or other traffic, being substantially detoured during the ECPO Homicide/Major Crimes task Force-EOPD field investigation. The shooting happened minutes after five public schools had dismissed their students for the day.
ORANGE – That 30-second siren sounding some had heard from the Martin DeMaio Memorial Fire Headquarters here Noon Nov. 26 was for an individual reason.
The siren blast was the city and Orange Fire Department’s final tribute to firefighter and Interim Fire Director Rudolph Scott Thomas. Thomas, 82, was the first minority and African American firefighter to retire from “Orange’s Bravest.”
Thomas – who was born in a taxi on way to St. Mary’s Hospital Feb. 19, 1941 – had already been a housing inspector and gasoline station attendant for the city when he took the N.J. Civil Service Exam for firefighter in 1973. He would serve for 20 years before retiring on Aug. 1, 1994.
Then-Mayor Joel Sain commissioned Thomas to recruit, prepare, mentor and counsel other minority firefighters who followed him. The late Mayor Carmine Capone named Thomas Interim Fire Chief in 1981.
Thomas, a city resident most of his life, was an Orange Tornados three-letter scholar-athlete and Class of 1960 graduate. “Fella” ran his own shoeshine business at age 12 and, at 17, owned and operated his grandfather’s moving and hauling company.
Councilwoman Adrienne Wooton, who sponsored Thomas’ Sept. 20 honorary resolution, and Mayor Dwayne D. Warren organized Saturday’s siren call for Thomas.
WEST ORANGE – Family and friends are preparing D’Andre Hull’s last rites as of press time while NYPD detectives investigate his fatal Nov. 28 car crash.
Hull, 24, was identified as the driver of a gray 2014 Nissan Altima that had “struck a utility pole at Canal Street and Broadway and rotated to the curbline” at 1:42 a.m. Monday. NYPD’s Highway District Collision Investigation Squad had determined that Hull had been going west on Canal from the Manhattan Bridge “failed to properly navigate the roadway and struck the pole.”
EMS rushed the unconscious and unresponsive Hull to NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue where he later died. Hull, West Orange Class of 2016, played as a wide receiver and a defensive back for the Mounties football team 2014-16.
WOHS Principal “Clapped Out”
Members of the WOHS community lined the halls Nov. 18 to applaud Principal Hayden Moore as he left his office for the last time. The sendoff included members of the school’s orchestra and choir performing when he stopped at the band room.
Moore, after 21 years, left his office keys behind for the incoming Oscar Guerrero. Moore will visit WOHS as the public school district’s Assistant Superintendent of Schools for the remainder of the 2022-23 school year. He will succeed Dr. Lauren Schoen as WOPS Superintendent July 1.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – An internal report on how a South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education member allegedly misused confidential material in his presentation last summer has been completed, filed – and remains internal.
Board President Thair Joshua said, at the school district’s Nov. 17 meeting, that the report and its findings will be confidential. Only fellow board members and the panel’s attorney have access to it.
The investigative report came in the wake of Board Member Dr. Qawi Teleford’s July 18 presentation on floor plan options for Columbia High School’s indoor pool. Teleford, who is also the board’s Safety and Security Committee Chairman, was said to use material that was not vetted for public consumption.
Board 2nd Vice President Kaitlin Wittleder had introduced a motion at their Aug. 1meeting “to admonish Teleford’s actions.” Board member Erin Siders, however, countered that motion with one of her own: remove Wittleder from her vice presidency for “dereliction of duty based on her failure to communicate with the board before taking public action.”
Board Attorney Frances Febres revealed that an investigation on Teleford was underway that meeting when he tried to interrupt Wittleder’s explanation of her admonishment motion.
The Aug. 1 public chain of events ended with Siders’ motion to strip Wittleder of her powers in defeat on a 4-4 vote. Teleford, who could have provided the tie breaking vote, abstained.
BLOOMFIELD – It can now be said, as of Nov. 14, that Lion Gate Park has gone from controversy to acclaim in two decades.
New Jersey Future has named Bloomfield winner of its 2022 Smart Growth Award for the 18-acre park and wetlands preserve. The North Center tract, which borders the Third River, includes a turf soccer field and a field house.
Its wetlands help absorb and naturally discharge up to 10 million gallons of stormwater runoff which would otherwise flood the township park and the neighboring apartment building. A 2000s townhouse development proposal would have used underground detention basins.
The Lion Gate tract, off Broad Street and Lion Gate Drive in the Second Ward, had been the site of the long-closed Scientific Glass plant. The township used its own Open Space Trust Fund money and a state Green Acres grant to buy and remediate the site.
NJ Future, in its 20th year of bestowing its Smart Growth Awards, is an environmental group that hails what it sees as sustainable civic projects.
“I’m so proud to announce this award as it’s an acknowledgement of all the hard work we’ve done in remediating this location and making it a safe green space for our residents,” said mayor Michael Venezia. “Our ability to open this park is a testament to the hard work and advocacy of so many people in our community.”
MONTCLAIR – NFL NY Jets defensive tackle Solomon Thomas more than paid a visit to the Montclair High School football team here Nov. 21.
Thomas, joined by MHS Mounties Head Coach Jermain Johnson, consoled the team over their “lost” season. They were about to face Ridgewood in the NJSIAA sectional and regional playoffs when they were told that their season became null and void overnight on Oct. 28.
Montclair Public Schools administrators’ self-reporting of “an academically ineligible player” on the Mounties’ roster to the NJSIAA prompted a quarter final forfeit to Ridgewood. Their 4-4 regular season record was also vacated. An off-schedule game for around Thanksgiving Day, to give the senior class a sendoff, was briefly considered.
“Other than our banquet, this is the last thing we’ll do this year as a team,” said Johnson in his introduction of Thomas. “For the seniors, there’s no good answer for what happened to you; all we can do is put a bandage on it. For you underclassmen, you already know what the motivation is for next year.”
Thomas, a Chicago native and five-year NFL player, came as founder of The Defensive Line. He founded the non-profit organization to “end the youth suicide epidemic, especially for young people of color, by transforming the way we communicate and connect about mental health.”
“Mental health isn’t only about illness; it can be tied to your relationships and your games,” said Thomas. “Mental health is about having a presence of mind in all situations.”
GLEN RIDGE – Borough elders and Public Service Electric and Gas more than fielded recent Lorraine Street residents’ complaints of power outages this season.
Mayor Patrick Stuart and Borough Administrator Michael Zichelli had scheduled PSE&G representatives for the latter’s public presentation at their Nov. 28 council meeting. The utility spokespersons will talk about this autumn’s outages along parts of Lorraine and Madison streets, Astor Place and Hawthorne, Maolis and Midland avenues.
The said streets form an area Public Service calls Toney Brook 4003 Circuit. The utility has scheduled that circuit’s maintenance “early next year.”
Lorraine Street resident Henry Passaperra told borough elders at their Nov. 14 meeting that power outages along those streets have become more frequent that he and neighbor Rick Deutsch have resorted to buying portable generators. The blackouts, said Deutsch, last “12 hours or one-and-a-half days.”
Zichelli meanwhile confirmed that there were six recorded outages along Lorraine and Madison in the last 24 months, lasting from “25 minutes to 17 hours, 30 minutes.” The administrator added that the utility had to trace many failures to power lines and poles in residential backyards, adding to the repair time.
BELLEVILLE – The township’s planning board is reviewing a proposal from Mayor Michael Melham and the Township Council to draw the Kmart site into quarters for “consistency” since Nov. 10.
Belleville’s planners had received the Mayor and Council’s 371-411 “Main Street Redevelopment Plan” that Thursday night. That plan first calls for the 44-year-old, 77,800-square-foot Kmart building to be demolished.
Two 60-foot-wide streets would then cross the 5.94-acre property. Ralph Street would be extended south from Terry Street to Joralemon Street. An unnamed street would run east-west between Main and Stephens streets.
The quartering for the former wire factory lot would be divided into four “pads” for future residential and/or commercial use. There has been no discussion on what would go on each “pad” – a plan similar to the Starbucks, Wawa and self-storage building now on the former Jergen’s/Roche industrial site in SoHo.
There will be a 20 ft.-wide landscape buffer along the site’s Stephens Street side and a 10 ft.-wide similar buffer along its Terry Street border. There has been no traffic plan submitted.
The proposal, should it pass planning board muster, would have to go back to the council for their formal approval.
NUTLEY – It is not clear as of press time whether the driver who was injured in a Nov. 22 rollover here in the Avondale section remains hospitalized or has been released.
Nutley Police Chief Thomas Strumolo and Public Safety Commissioner Alphonse Petrracco said that some of their officers had responded to the rollover report from 911 callers by the Washington Elementary School at 3:50 p.m. that Tuesday.
NPD officers promptly called for their fire department colleagues and local EMS when they found a 2014 Subaru that had hit a tree and nearby signage and overturned. The driver, a 67-year-old woman from the township, was entrapped and, said witnesses, “was turning blue.”
Nutley first responders extricated the driver and took her to a local hospital. They had meanwhile closed the immediate block around 155 Washington Ave. “for several hours.”
Traffic – including NJTransit’s No. 13N and C, 27N and 99N buses – were detoured during the field investigation and car removal.
