TOWN WATCH
IRVINGTON – Township and county authorities have been tracing a fourth bomb threat called to the Union Avenue Middle School in a month since Nov. 29. They are also looking for links to the first three threats called in Nov. 1-3.
Irvington police dispatchers, upon receiving a call from the Union Avenue main office of a threat called in at 1:50 p.m. that Thursday, called the Essex County Sheriff’s Bomb Squad Unit.
Several IPD cars have closed the surrounding streets and met the bomb squad truck. The junior high school’s students, faculty and administrators had been evacuated to nearby designated meeting places.
Township and county officers combed the building for any explosive or suspicious objects. The remaining school day resumed when law enforcers gave the “all clear” sign and allowed the community back in.
An anonymous caller had phoned in a threat at noon Nov. 1, 1:30 p.m. Nov. 2 and again on Nov. 3.
NEWARK – “Newark’s Finest” teamed up with their Newark Public Schools Security colleagues to field two on-the-property incidents at two separate schools Dec. 2 and 8.
Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage said that “a male juvenile” was taken into NPD Juvenile Services custody from Weequahic High School midafternoon Dec. 2. The unidentified student is accused of bringing a loaded handgun into the school earlier that Friday.
Members of the NPD bureau were called to the South Ward high school on an on-premises weapons possession call at 1:45 p.m. Officers met with NPS security guards, who transferred the youth and gun.
Details, including how the weapon was detected, remain unavailable as of press time. The incident remains under investigation.
NPD and NPS are also investigating what caused several fights – including those between students and adults – after Dec. 8 dismissal at the North Ward’s Rafael Hernandez School Dec. 8. Security guards called for nearby Precinct Two police when several fights broke out after 3 p.m. Friday dismissal.
Responding officers found the Prekindergarten through Eighth grade elementary school locked down to secure after-school students and administrators. Order was returned by 3:30 p.m.
EAST ORANGE – Relatives and friends of a young city mother of two have been making her funeral plans since Dec. 7 after her succumbing to injuries from an early Dec. 3 Irvington Center hit-and-run.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II and Irvington Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers had announced that Shauntice Paynes, 26, had died from a severe head injury.
Paynes, a Newark native, was a 2014 Arts High School graduate majoring in dance.
Paynes and another woman were walking across one of the five streets that make up Irvington’s Five Points intersection at 2 a.m. Dec. 3 – and never made it across. A “light colored Mercedes-Benz ” felled them and kept going.
It is unclear whether the other woman, who was admitted to Newark’s University Hospital in stable condition, remains hospitalized. “Five Points” is where Springfield and Clinton avenues cross and where Maple and Union avenues start or end.
The Mercedes and its driver remain at large.
ORANGE – Riders here and East Orange may have noticed that one of Decamp Bus Lines’ routes, the No. 88 to New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, remains missing from the carrier’s offerings for nearly three years.
The Montclair-based private bus company, on one hand, has been gradually increasing its runs on the 33, 44/99 and 66/66R routes in northern and western Essex County town since June 2021.
Decamp’s No. 88 route, however, remains offline since the carrier canceled all operations March 25, 2020 in the wake of the global COVID-19 outbreak.
The 88 used to run weekdays from either Central Avenue and Scotland Road here or from East Orange’s Prospect and William streets. Its Jan. 1, 2014 schedule listed eight eastbound and nine westbound runs. Only the current 44/99 routes, as of July 5, 2022, do not run on weekends or major holidays.
“Local Talk,” to date, has heard an outcry over the 88’s absence. That lack of loss may be due to the range of alternative transit services.
Orange Valley riders, for example, are within walking distance of either NJTransit’s Morris & Essex Orange and Highland Avenue stations. East Orange’s Central Evergreen Arcade and Brick Church riders can access the M&E Brick Church Station or, from Main Street/King Boulevard, the Community Coach No. 77 route.
Messages to company vice president Jonathan Decamp about the 88’s future were unreturned as of 10 a.m. Dec. 14.
WEST ORANGE – The news and sorrow of Sister Joan Eileen Butler’s Dec. 10 death by motor vehicle accident on the Garden State Parkway has been felt here in the Eagle Rock parish she had long served.
Butler, 88, was remembered for her health ministry teaching, sense of humor, wide reading and generosity here at Our Lady of Lourdes Roman Catholic Church. The Jersey City native and College of St. Elizabeth elementary education graduate stayed here after her 2006 retirement until June, when she moved into Convent Station’s Convent of St. Elizabeth.
Butler, who was ordained as a Sister of Charity Sept. 6, 1955, was assigned to several parishes and schools in New Jersey and Massachusetts across 67 years. Her nurse’s aide work at Montclair’s Onma Health Care Services is among her latter assignments.
New Jersey State Police-Holmdel Barracks Sgt. Aljandro Goez said that Butler had died after a two-car collision in Aberdeen in the GSP’s southbound local lanes at 10:44 a.m. Saturday.
Butler had first stopped her Ford on the right shoulder at Milepost 120.5 – and then tried to drive across all three lanes. She was struck by a Lexus NX and rushed to the nearby Holmdel’s Bayshore Medical Center. The Lexus driver, a 49-year-old man from Middlesex, sustained minor injuries.
Butler’s Funeral Mass was scheduled for 11 a.m. Dec. 15 at the convent’s Holy Family Chapel, followed by burial at Holy Family Cemetery. Memorial donations may be made to the Sisters of Charity Development Fund, PO Box 476, Convent Station, NJ 07961-0476.
SOUTH ORANGE – Shoppers and delivery drivers who stop or park in the South Orange Parking Authority’s Sloan Lot should savor the free holiday season now through Dec. 27. for two reasons.
The immediate reason is that the free parking (for no more than three hours) will end on Dec. 28, short of the New Year’s Day holiday. SPOA Executive Director Mark Hartwyk, on Dec. 8, said that the shorter Dec. 13-27 period was a “compromise” between balancing his agency’s budget and meeting merchants’ needs.
The more permanent reason was found by the “Local Talk” delivery crew with SOPA’s removal of the lot’s central ticket machine Dec. 8. A “Happy Holidays” sandwich sign stood in the kiosk’s place – with its last line declaring that future parking charges will be made through license plate readers.
One can say that SOPA believes that license plate readers are not just for toll crossings anymore. Authority parking employees have been using hand-held readers to identify permit-holding parkers throughout 2022.
What is not clear is whether the license plate readers will be installed by the lot’s entrance and exit aprons. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and all three state toll roads mount their readers on overhead gantries.
Nor is it immediately known whether plate reading at Sloan is a pilot project or will be also installed in other SOPA lots.
Drivers, either way, will be receiving SOPA parking bills in the mail for using the Sloan lot around Feb. 1.
MAPLEWOOD – Dec. 7’s morning rush hour, thanks to a pair of unrelated incidents, was a busy one for township first responders.
Members of the Maplewood Police and the South Essex Fire departments first responded to a house fire at 60 Maplewood Ave., 7:05 a.m. that Wednesday. Five SEFD units and four others from Irvington, East Orange and Union, were able to extinguish the second story blaze within 30 minutes.
SEFD officers, however, found a 60-year-old woman with injuries while searching the 2.5-story house. That woman was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
MPD officers and a SEFD Rescue unit meanwhile responded to a Good Samaritan’s call from the 1600 block of Springfield Avenue at 7:45 a.m. The first responders found a 50-year-old woman “with multiple injuries.” That victim was also taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Township detectives, after interviewing the latter woman’s son, had determined that a domestic violence incident had happened. The son was “taken into custody” and ECPO detectives were summoned. No charges have been lodged as of press time.
Both incidents are under continuing investigation.
BLOOMFIELD – Nicola Palmieri, 90, whose tailoring and alteration shop helped anchor the Bloomfield and Watsessing avenue intersection here for 60 years, died on Dec. 9.
Palmieri, who came from Italy to join his family here in 1961, hemmed in, let out, lengthened or shortened his clients’ clothing at 227 Bloomfield Ave. for six decades. His storefront was graced with several solar-powered moving figurines and his craftsmanship graced with a sense of humor.
“Nicholas” or “Nick,” who was born in Deliceto, Foggia, also saw a lot of change from his southeast corner, starting with the Tung-Sol/Hartz Mountain plant replacement by the 192 Grove apartment/shopping plaza complex in 2015.
Norfolk Southern rail service to Hartz Mountain ended and its tracks were decommissioned in 2010. The White Circle Diner. after several changes, became a Taqueria Los Gueros.
Palmieri himself closed his shop last summer. 227 Bloomfield Ave. is becoming a neighborhood deli.
Wife Gina, brothers Raffaele and Vincent and sister Carmela are among his survivors. His funeral at Florham Park’s Leonardis Memorial Home and committal at East Hanover’s Gate of Heaven Cemetery were held on Dec. 15.
GLEN RIDGE – The life curtain of “Parks and Recreation” actress Helen Slayton-Hughes, which was raised here Oct. 30, 1930, has closed in her Los Angeles home Dec. 7.
Slayton-Hughes, 92, said son Duncan on her Facebook page, had died in her sleep overnight. No cause of death – nor much else of her personal life – has been disclosed.
Born Helen Slayton into a family of five here, Slayton-Hughes’ portrayal of Pawnee court stenographer Ethel Beavers in the 2011-15 comedy series may be the best known of her over 200 television, film, theater and video game credits since 1980.
Slayton had earned a drama degree from Syracuse University, her family having moved to Mamaroneck, NY by 1940. Slayton, outside of local theater, had deferred her professional career until 1980.
When she first became “Selma ” in the 1980 movie “Mafia on the Bounty,” she had married a Mr. Hughes. The status of that marriage remains unknown as of press time.
Most of Slayton-Hughes’ credits were of single-episode characters on television, including on “The Drew Carey Show,” “The West Wing,” “NYPD Blue” and “That’s So Raven.” Her parts were roughly halved into either dramatic or comedic roles.
“I love doing drama but I’m always hired to do comedy,” said Slayton-Hughes, whose last public appearance was at an Oct. 8 movie screening. “The universe is getting ready for a big project; preparing for my departure.”
MONTCLAIR – The township has counter filed papers in New Jersey Superior Court on Nov. 23 against former CFO Padmaja Rao’s Oct. 16 hostile workplace and harassment lawsuit.
Township lawyers are seeking to have Rao’s suit dismissed, asserting that “Boorish, unprofessional behavior” is not grounds for suit.
Rao’s suit against the township and Township Manager Timothy Stafford has led to the Township Council placing Stafford on paid leave. There is at least one more suit in court against Stafford and the township in court.
Station, Playground Bias-Tagged
Township police detectives are looking for any links between graffiti tags that were left on a respective playground and on a railroad station here Nov. 29 and Dec. 7.
Wednesday morning riders told responding MPD officers that they found “gold stars” painted on one of the NJTransit Upper Montclair Station’s platform railings. This follows a swastika and other “vulgar images and phrases” made with a magic marker on seven Edgemont Park playground fixtures. Montclair’s Commission on Human Rights have also been informed.
BELLEVILLE – “Local Talk” is hoping that relatives and friends of “a 57-year-old Belleville man,” whose body was found in Nutley’s part of The Third River Dec. 2 have gone on with the deceased’s funeral arrangements.
Neither the State Regional Medical Examiner, nor ECPO, have publicly identified the man, let alone his cause of death.
Nutley police officers and firefighters, responding to a dead body call, converged on 3 Kingsland St. late that Friday morning. The river flows through the property, which includes the historic Kingsland Manor.
The first responders found the man’s body at the base of the river’s waterfall.
Neither Nutley Public Safety Commissioner Alphonse Petracco nor Nutley Police Chief Thomas Strumolo wanted to speculate on how the dead man got there.
Petracco noted that the manor and waterfall is “a popular location;” Strumolo said that heavy rain earlier in the week may have carried the body there.
NUTLEY – The township’s volunteer fire chief is awaiting the results of a Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office investigation of his actions on the North Bergen Walmart parking lot Dec. 6 – which led to Nutley police and Township Attorney Jonathan J. Bruno bringing him in for questioning here from Bloomfield and Raymond avenues.
Nutley, ECPO and Hudson County have asked Henry Meola, 33, if he was intending to meet a 14-year-old boy for sex. They are reviewing three-hour Instagram footage, recorded live by OBL Nation, had documented a sting or an entrapment.
Meola thought he was greeting the teenager, whom he had met on an app, at the parking lot – but encountered “Remy” and two other male assistants instead. Remy runs a “To Catch a Predator” – inspired program.
Meola and the OBL trio then drove over to Petracco & Sons restaurant at 507 Bloomfield Ave. – where the chief’s night went from bad to worse. Bruno and several NPD officers, tipped off by live Instagram viewers, met the foursome.
Remy has given testimony and a copy of the three-hour recording to prosecutors. He said that a shorter, edited version will be reposted on Instagram.com/obl.nation.
Nutley Public Safety Commissioner Alphone Petracco said that Meola had called him and told him that he was coming to his family’s eatery. Petracco said Meola only added that he was in “a bad situation.”
A spokesman for Acting Essex County Prosecutor Stephens, on Dec. 8, said that the suspect (Meola) was not arrested nor had charges had been lodged against him. That was before Stephen’s office transferred the case to Hudson County colleague Esther Suarez.
