TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The former Newark police lieutenant, who was convicted Oct. 3 for killing his ex-wife and wounding her boyfriend in Jefferson Township July 14, 2019, began his likely life sentence in a New Jersey state prison on Dec. 19.
State Superior Court-Morristown Judge Michael Gaus sentenced John Formisano to an overall 79 year prison term that Monday. Gaus’ sentence included 50 years for the first-degree murder of Christie Solaro-Formisano, 37, and 15 years for the first-degree attempted murder of Timothy Simonson, 52.
The Morris County jury, after a two-week trial, also found Formisano guilty of third-degree hindering apprehension or prosecution and two counts each of second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, official misconduct and endangering the welfare of a child.
Formisano, who was off-duty but in uniform, went to the house where he and his ex-wife had once shared at 11:31 p.m. July 14, 2019. He used his service revolver to kill Solaro-Formisano on the front porch steps and, inside the house, shoot Simonson. The shootings happened while he and his ex-wife’s two children were inside.
Formisano was arrested near his mother’s house in Livingston July 15. The revolver was found in his car and was arrested. The lieutenant, who has remained in custody ever since, had supposedly made a videotaped confession – a recording that the judge had allowed in the trial.
Gaus’ sentencing of 65 years alone means that Formisano, 57, will have to serve 55 years and three months before he would be first considered for parole. He would be 112 years old before the parole board will consider him.
Gaus consolidated the other seven charges into a concurrent sentence and factored Formisano’s three years, five months post-arrest jail time. Simonson, on Dec. 30, 2020, filed a suit against Formisano and the Newark Police Division. Formisano, on Dec. 19, told Gaus that he “would be back before you in two years.”
IRVINGTON – The Florence Avenue School community finished the 2022 half of this school year remembering one of their teachers, William Niskoch, 46, since his Oct. 3 death.
Although the school removed its mourning bunting on Dec. 23, Niskoch’s restaurant, Delenio, of Jersey City, remains closed. The 18-year science and social studies teacher here and in other Irvington public elementary schools, bought the Hamilton Square neighborhood eatery in 2019. The Chatham resident had been in the restaurant as late as September.
William John Niskoch, Jr. came here from his native Edison Township via Jersey City and Union. Born March 3, 1976, “Billy” graduated from Edison’s Bishop Ahr High School in 1984, got his bachelor’s degree from Kean University and his master’s from New Jersey City University.
“Mr. N” is survived by wife Jessica, parents Bill and Laura Niskoch, mother-in-law Alexis Garfield and brother Chris, among others.
A visitation was held Oct. 6 at Chatham’s William A. Bradley and Sons Funeral Home, followed by a private cremation. Memorial donations may be made to Jersey City’s See Spot Rescued.
EAST ORANGE – A little history lesson as a sidebar to an article from not so long ago…
New Jersey Transit Morris & Essex Line riders would have enjoyed over a century of taking a train from an East Orange Central Station had municipal elders had taken up the then-Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad’s offer in 1906.
The Historical Society of East Orange had recently posted a March 8, 1906 newspaper clipping about the Lackawanna’s offer on its Facebook page. The railroad would have replaced the East Orange and Brick Church stations with a consolidated station between Burnet and Clinton streets. The article added that the DL&W “has already bought the property with this object in view.”
The proposed central station was an early part of its grade separation project deal before the East Orange Council Aldermen. The Lackawanna came to them, like it had before other municipal officials from Newark to Montclair and Morristown, with a 10 percent “municipal contribution” appeal. East Orange would have paid $80,000 towards the $800,000 project for the 3.6 miles between Orange and Newark’s Roseville Junction stations.
East Orange Aldermen, however, wanted a fixed dollar figure, not a percentage. They also wanted the right of way depressed – like with Newark’s Roseville and Bloomfield’s Watsessing cuts. The railroad wanted to elevate its tracks.
An Essex County judge settled the dispute in a 1921 ruling: The Lackawanna would pay for the city’s share while East Orange accepted track elevation. The $4 million project was completed for a Dec. 18, 1922 public opening. The now-two-story Brick Church and East Orange stations remain in their places.
ORANGE – The City Council opened their Jan. 3 conference meeting here at City Hall with a moment of silence for one of their late colleagues – Donald E. Page.
Councilman-at-Large Wheldon M. “Monty” Montague III announced Page’s passing Dec. 31 on several Facebook pages. Page, 81, said Montague had died Dec. 28. Page had reportedly been ill for some time.
Page, a North Ward resident, often ran independently of the Essex County Democratic Committee slate. He, for example, challenged incumbent Rickard J. Codey in the 2001 state senate primary.
Page lost to former city policeman Eldridge Hawkins, Jr. in a five-way 2008 mayoral election.
Funeral arrangements had not been posted as of 11 a.m. Jan. 4.
WEST ORANGE – Township Historian Joseph Fagan, in light of what happened to NFL football player Damar Hamlin in Cincinnati’s Paycor Stadium Jan. 2, can be said as being on call 24/7.
Fagan, like many ABC-TV “Monday Night Football” home viewers here and elsewhere, saw the Buffalo Bills safety got up from tackling an opposing Bengals player in the first quarter and fell back on the ground unconscious. Medics quickly diagnosed his being in cardiac arrest and restarted his heart on the field.
Hamlin, as of press time, is in critical but stable condition in a University of Cincinnati Medical Center ICU. The NFL, within 30 minutes, indefinitely postponed the Bengals-Bills game.
“I think, like most fans, I didn’t immediately realize the seriousness of the situation,” said Fagan Jan. 3. “As the situation unfolded and answers weren’t forthcoming, I immediately thought of Albert Wibiralske and how he died.”
Albert Wibiralske, 17, would have been a three-letter West Orange High School basketball, baseball and football player had he graduated with the Class of 1910. He was a senior running back for WOHS while playing a tragic game against New York City’s Trinity Chapel team on East Orange’s Ashland Field Nov. 19, 1909. (Ashland Field, which became Paul Robeson Stadium, was WOHS’s home gridiron that day.)
West Orange was leading Trinity 17-0 in the second half, aided in part by the latter’s quarterback suffering a broken left arm, when Wibiralske was running with the ball towards the latter’s 30-yard line. An opposing player tackled him, causing Wibiralske’s head to double up onto his chest.
Teammates ended the game and brought the unconscious Wibiralske three blocks to a doctor – who then put him on an ambulance to Orange Memorial Hospital. He died of a broken neck while in surgery there.
SOUTH ORANGE – The volunteer South Orange Rescue Squad, since Dec. 25, is asking for the public’s help in their time of need.
SORS Chief Victor Rothstein said that an attic water main had burst on Christmas Day and forced its way through drywall and ceiling insulation onto its headquarters’ three ambulances.
The on-shift staff drove their ambulances away from 65 Sloan St. to safety. They and their shift commander’s car remain outside, still taking community and mutual aid calls.
Water and debris, however, damaged the 2015-built headquarters’ lighting, heating system, electrical outlets and garage doors. The mechanical, supply and laundry rooms are off-limits. A contractor was seen Jan. 3 putting the damaged insulation into a 15 cubic yard Dumpster on the property.
The volunteer squad coordinates with the paid South Essex Fire Department and takes mutual aid calls from Maplewood, Newark, Irvington and Orange, among neighboring burgs. The squad, who is awaiting its insurance carrier’s damage estimate, does not get a cent from village property taxes.
Donation details may be found at www.southorangerescuesquad.org.
MAPLEWOOD – A township man, accused of trying to carjack a federal DEA agent at a Manhattan traffic light Dec 9. is back home, nursing his facial injuries, since Dec. 14.
Do not ask Zachary Bell, 32, however, to go outside of New Jersey or New York State nor offer him alcoholic drinks, legal drugs or narcotics. Those are among the conditions, including regular drug tests, a New York County judge had set before granting him his release on $30,000 bail.
The DEA agent, who just got off his shift, and his government-issued Jeep were stopped at a traffic light at Manhattan’s Ninth Avenue and West 14th Street just after Midnight Dec. 9. The agent said that a man, later identified as Bell, had approached his driver’s side door and pulled on its handle, screaming, “Get out of the car!”
The agent said that the suspect then reached towards his waist as if he had a gun there. He put on his police lights, pulled out his own gun and struck Bell in the face. He called police after wrestling Bell to the ground and handcuffed him. Bell, who was found with a gravity knife on him, would be taken to a local hospital for facial surgery.
Bell faces charges of assaulting a federal officer and attempted carjacking. The Hudson Yards employee was never convicted of a crime.
Bell’s federal defense attorney, Ariel Werner, of New York City, said that what happened between his client and the agent “was a misunderstanding with very severe consequences.”
BLOOMFIELD – Township Councilman Rich Rockwell could have put on an accountant’s eyeshade when he started talking about “The Toll of the Garden State Parkway on Bloomfield” presentation for the Historical Society of Bloomfield.
“There were 200 homes demolished to make way for the Parkway with another 52 to 66 moved,” said Rockwell to the Bloomfield Presbyterian Church on the Green sanctuary audience Oct. 25. “There was a building boom in Bloomfield in the 1950s, so there was a net gain of 160 houses.”
Those lost housing units, by the councilman’s calculations, generated $3 million in tax ratables – of which Bloomfield received $187,975 in property taxes – in 1952. Rockwell calculated those respective figures to $3 billion and $2 million in 2022 dollars.
Rockwell’s presentation came on the approach to the 70th anniversary of the GSP’s construction through Bloomfield, Nutley, East Orange, Newark’s Vailsburg section and Irvington. The New Jersey Highway Authority and its contractors acquired property, demolished houses, rechanneled streams and cut or altered streets 1953-54.
The GSP as early as the late 1940s was designed to bring Northern New Jersey motorists to Jersey Shore attractions. It went through urban or “Metropolitan” centers so that a third of Garden State residents were within three miles of the Parkway.
“While officials in East Orange and Irvington opposed the Parkway’s right of way, there was no organized opposition in Bloomfield,” said Rockwell. “East Orange would lose its Oraton Parkway. Bloomfield had some open space, would relieve traffic on Broad Street and would remove row houses along Lake Street and Franklin Avenue.”
The GSP’s right of way was originally 150 wide and would use the Morris Canal Bed from Montgomery Street north into Clifton. The Parkway mostly ran parallel to the canal’s east after engineers said they needed a 250 to 300 foot wide right of way. A recording of Rockwell’s presentation can be found in hsob.org’s video archives.
MONTCLAIR – Jimmy Kreie, Immaculate Conception High School’s head girls basketball coach, may have written a letter of apology to his James Caldwell High School counterpart and team – and maybe have read Matthew 7:12 – before resuming his duties here Dec. 27.
Kreie had been suspended for “unsportsmanlike conduct” by MIC Athletic Director Jim Risoli immediately after their season-opening game here against Caldwell Dec. 15. The Lions blew out the Indians 104-30.
The problem with that game, however, was after MIC had scored 59 points over Caldwell’s 18 by halftime. NJSIAA and Super Essex Conference rules, since 2020, call for a shot clock to start running in the second half once one team has an at least 30-point lead on the other as a mercy rule. That clock never ran on Dec. 15 – which was the responsibility of the home team, MIC.
Other SEC coaches, once they had learned of the lopsided score, called for the clock to be used in future games. Risoli said that Kreie “was told to slow the pace of the game but that went unheeded.”
Kreie returned to the Lady Lions’ hosting the Immaculate Heart Academy squad Dec. 27 in the Hoopfest Holiday Invitational. MIC beat IH, 58-46. The Lions would win the invitational Dec. 29 over Union City, 55-34.
MIC continued its 4-0 SEC and 7-0 overall unbeaten string into Jan. 3’s visit to West Orange. The Lions were headed in scoring in only two of 24 quarters in six games played since Dec. 15. Their average margin of victory in those six games have been 23.9 points.
Matthew 7:12 is also known as The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
GLEN RIDGE – The late Robert S. Hayes, Jr., whose five decades of volunteerism put him most anywhere in Glen Ridge, remains here after a fashion.
Hayes’ cremains were placed in the Glen Ridge Congregation Church’s Garden of Memory Dec. 16. Hayes, 89, had died in West Orange Nov. 27.
The Boston native had been active in the community since moving here in 1960. He was a GRCC, Glen Ridge Rotary, Freeman Gardens and the (1992-3) Glen Ridge Public Library Expansion Committee member. He was best known as the longtime captain and EMT of the Glen Ridge Volunteer Ambulance Squad 1988 – c. 2015.
Hayes was an insurance broker for Equitable in Manhattan. The 1955-57 Army veteran earned an economics degree from Dartmouth and an MBA from New York University.
He and wife Joan raised son David and daughters Susan and Sharon here. Six grandchildren and four great-grandchildren are also among his survivors.
Memorial donations may be made to the GRVAS, 3 Herman St., and/ or GRCC, 195 Ridgewood Ave.
BELLEVILLE – State School Monitor Thomas Egan’s Dec. 30’s overruling of the Belleville Board of Education Trustees’ Dec. 19 denial of selling a .0795-acre remnant of the old School 1 site may well result in transferring that 3,463.02 square foot lot to the township and its purported redeveloper.
The trustees, in a 4-3 split vote Dec. 19, rejected township officials’ appeal to amend the School 1 deed to include that extra lot. Township Attorney Steve Martino and an attorney for the redeveloper made a presentation to them Nov. 15, stating that a mistake on the Jan. 24, 2011 re-measuring of the property had left out that .0795-acre sliver.
A past school board sold the School 1 property to the township in early 2011 for $1. The township demolished the elementary school building and sold (most of) the lot for $550,000 to a redeveloper in 2012.
The 190 Cortland St. site has since been rezoned for mixed commercial-residential use. One proposal calls for a Quick Check to be built along with apartments along the Academy Street side.
The NJDOE assigned Egan to Belleville Public Schools, along with a $4.2 million loan to keep the district solvent. Egan, who was also recently assigned to the Ridgefield Park Public Schools, makes direct or livestreamed monthly public reports to the BOT and Superintendent Richard Tomko.
Egan stays until BPS finishes making $420,000 annual repayments to NJDOE. The district has $840,000 to go before retiring the loan and Egan. The BOT could speed that end by drawing that $840,000 from the district’s $9.7 million general fund.
NUTLEY – A group of seven parents, who call themselves “Loud Mouths,” are considering their next move in light of the New Jersey Department of Education Board of Ethics Commissioners’ Dec. 20 dismissal of their complaint against Nutley Board of Education President Charles W. Kucinski.
The seven parents, who began appearing at the Sept. 20 Nutley Board of Education meeting wearing “Loud Mouth” t-shirts, had filed their complaint against Kucinski Sept. 21. They cited the long time NBOE member’s handling of the Aug. 23 meeting’s public speaker segment for ethics board correction.
Kucinski, in the Loud Mouths’ eyes, had disregarded the board’s long standing public speakers’ limits. NBOE meeting rules call for a three minutes per person speaking limit within a 20-minute maximum segment. Kucinski, as board president, is known to cut short speakers who become lengthy, repetitive and/or abusive.
The board president, said his accusers, had allowed many Aug. 23 public speakers to talk beyond their three minutes’ time for almost two hours. Several had returned to the public floor microphone a second time. Kucinski had commented to an audience member that the police may escort him or her out of the building.
New Jersey’s COVID-related mask wearing mandate was at the heart of most Aug. 23 speakers remarks. That debate prompted Board Member Kenneth Reilly to introduce a resolution to have a committee draft a mask mandate-opposing letter to Gov. Phil Murphy and put that letter up to a final Sept. 20 vote.
The “Loud Mouth 7” were among those in the Sept. 20 audience who witnessed the board rescind that letter’s transmission to Murphy (D-Rumson) on a split vote. Reilly, Frank DeMaio and Erica Zarro were absent; member Teri Quirk, who supported Reilly’s resolution, was the sole “no” voter.
