TOWN WATCH
ESSEX – Michael D. Cherry remains in the Essex County Correctional Center since his Jan. 5 arrest for assaulting three Newark police officers in a domestic violence incident. NPD Off. Ramon Aguirre, who suffered back arm and hand stabs, was meanwhile released from University Hospital Jan. 7.
NPD officers were responding to 911 calls of a domestic violence incident in the Aston Heights apartments, 665 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., 4:40 p.m. that Thursday when they encountered Cherry and a woman resident fighting in a hallway. A third person, who tried to intervene, had been injured.
Two officers suffered stab wounds while trying to disarm Cherry. That second officer was listed in University Hospital Jan. 7 in stable condition after Jan. 6 surgery. A third, who was kicked in the knee by Cherry, was also taken to University.
King Boulevard was closed between W. Kinney and Montgomery streets until 6 p.m. Cherry also faces counts of aggravated assault, disarming a law enforcement officer and weapons possession.
NEWARK – The Newark Department of Public Safety is asking for the public’s help in finding the man who shot another in a new Lower Broadway apartment building here Jan. 6.
Newark Police Division officers had responded to reports of shots fired from 2 Spring St. at 3:15 p.m. Friday. They found “a male” shot within Spring Street Commons – who was then rushed by EMS to University Hospital.
The victim remains listed in serious but stable condition. There are no other identification or details of him as of press time.
Authorities have a wealth of information regarding the suspect, starting with a surveillance video of him carrying a gun and firing it at the victim.
The suspect is described as “a black male wearing a black North Face coat, dark-colored pants and black-and-white Nike sneakers.” The footage has him wearing a black baseball cap with a silver or white scripted capital “A” and a light mustache.
Spring Street Commons, on the southeast corner of Spring and Bridge streets, was built in 2020. The five-story, 84-unit structure replaces a long-standing tile warehouse and sales store.
IRVINGTON – A Philadelphia lawyer said, on his blog Jan. 9, that the township is recommending his being prosecuted on perjury after filing two Open Public Records Act requests. Adam Steinbaugh, on his Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said he had recently received a letter from Township Clerk Harold Wiener.
The letter stated that only New Jersey residents can file OPRA requests and out of state filers are therefore subjecting themselves to perjury charges. Steinbaugh countered that New Jersey is not one of the few states that have that out-of-state restriction.
The same letter further stated that, because the FIRE lawyer was from out-of-state, “that the instant Complaint and all future Complaints filed by the Requestor must be dismissed on their face and/or the Requestor’s perjury must be reported to law enforcement for prosecution.”
Steinbaugh said that he had filed two complaints to the New Jersey Government Records Council. He made those complaints after the township had failed to respond to his two requests.
The FIRE lawyer’s first request concerned the cost of Irvington’s hiring outside legal counsel to handle litigation against Elouise McDaniel’s 75 OPRA requests over a three-year period, The township filed a lawsuit against McDaniel, 82, fir what it said was “frivolous” requests and for “threatening” Irvington officials – a suit that was subsequently withdrawn.
Steinbaugh’s other request concerned a pair of “confidential” cease and desist letters from another outside legal firm to Christopher Glorioso. The WNBC News4 New York reporter was investigating the McDaniel-township request matter at the time.
The second legal firm accused Glorioso of “biased and harassing journalism” that was “assist(ing) Elouise McDaniel, a well-known political operative and adversary” of Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss.
EAST ORANGE – Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green and all 10 City Council members have kept last year’s leaders on board for 2023.
The council, during its Jan. 9 annual reorganization meeting here in the City Council Chamber, has decided to keep Christopher Awe as Council President and Vernon Pullins as Vice President. The respective Second and Third Ward Councilmen were first selected by their peers last year.
ORANGE – It is not clear as of press time whether Des Moines, Iowa authorities had caught up with Charles Simon Bigsen Jan. 2 here or in Newark. What was important, however, was that Des Moines police and animal rescue league officers got Bigsen’s answer to his leaving behind a dog at their airport Dec. 29.
A Des Moines International Airport employee noticed a midsized dog tied to a sign pole with a short leash on the property that Thursday afternoon. The worker put a blanket on the year-old female dog, called police and stayed with her until the police’s arrival.
Employees of one DMIA airline said they had first turned away a man with that dog from a flight to Newark with that dog because he did not have a required pet carrier. That same man returned – alone – in time to board his flight.
DMPD detectives had identified Bigsen, 24, because he had previous addresses in Newark and Orange. Bigsen said he had been living in a Des Moines apartment since April and received “Stella” from a friend in September.
Bisgen had intended to take “Stella” with him on board but was told that he had to bring his own animal carrier. After getting no takers from four strangers he had approached to take the dog, and with departure time looming, he tied the dog to a pole and left to board.
He told DMPD and the Animal Rescue League of Iowa that he will not reclaim the dog and had forfeited her to the ARL. Bigsen has been charged with misdemeanor counts of animal neglect and abandonment.
The ARL of Iowa is caring for the renamed “Allie” and will put her up for adoption after she is microchipped and spayed. There are “dozens of” Des Moines are families in line to adopt her. City man charged by Des Moines ASPCA for leaving dog behind in their airport.
WEST ORANGE – The West Orange Board of Education had selected all-new leadership at its reorganization meeting here at the West Orange High School Liberty Media Center Jan. 5.
The board almost unanimously voted for Brian Rock as their board president. The Eric Stevenson-nominated Rock succeeds Jennifer Tunnicliffe.
Melinda Huerta, nominated by Tunnicliffe, was similarly voted in as vice president. Huerta succeeded outgoing member Gary Rothstein.
Both roll calls were abstained by newcomer Robert Ivker. Ivker and Tunnicliffe were sworn into their respective first and second terms minutes beforehand.
Essex Equestrian Center (1923-2022)
A century of rider training, horse housing and show competitions here at the Essex Equestrian Center, ended with the last horse moving out on Dec. 3. The Hall family, without elaboration, announced the 60-horse capacity center was closing on its Facebook page Dec. 2.
The facility at 12-22 Woodland Place in the Pleasantdale section had opened in 1923 as the Montclair Riding Club. There had been four previous owners – operating as Woodland RC and South Essex Equestrian Center – before the Halls took over in 2002. It was the last horse riding schools in Essex County.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The public may be seeing more of the 2023 South Orange-Maplewood School District Board of Education since its new leadership was selected here at the Administration Building Jan. 5.
The just-reorganized panel considered newly-sworn-in Board President Kaitlin Whittleder’s resolution to double up on their erstwhile monthly meetings. The panel had been meeting on selected Thursday nights so far this school year.
Whittleder succeeded outgoing president Thair Joshua earlier that Thursday night by a vote of her peers. She had been Second Vice President under Joshua’s leadership.
The panel then selected Elissa Malespina and Nubia DuVall-Wilson as their new first and second vice president near the top of their agenda. They succeeded Susan Bergin and Whittleder.
DuVall-Wilson, Regina Eckert and William “Bill” Gifford III were inaugurated near the top of the Jan. 5 agenda.
BLOOMFIELD – Mayor Michael Venezia and at-large council members Dr. Wartyna “Tina” Davis, Ted Gamble and Rick Rockwell were sworn into their new terms before a capacity Council Chamber gallery audience here in the Municipal Building after 6:30 p.m. Jan. 6.
The newly reconstituted Mayor and Township Council panel then followed up with their first regular meeting of the year. That part of township business was held before an estimated gallery audience of 10. Both occasions were recorded by WBMA public access television.
What the ceremonial audience had missed was the council approving a temporary interlocal service agreement between the township and clients South Orange and Maplewood. The Bloomfield Health Department will be providing animal control and humane law enforcement services to South Orange and Maplewood through June 30.
South Orange, Maplewood and Irvington had been searching for animal control services since St. Hubert’s, of Madison, announced on Oct. 25 that they will end their services with 19 municipalities statewide on Dec. 31.
There were no Township Council president or vice president selected or named. Mayor Venezia acts as the panel’s president.
GLEN RIDGE – The Glen Ridge Board of Education left the Glen Ridge High School Media Center Jan. 4 with both familiar and new faces among their leadership.
Longtime member Elisabeth Ginsburg, second-term panelist Dr. Heather Yaros-Ramos and the incoming Tricia Akinwande were first sworn onto the board.
The newly installed panel then re-elected Ginsburg as president and David Campbell as second vice president.
Tracy St. Auburn, in between, was elected as first vice president. St. Auburn succeeds Michael de Leeuw.
De Leeuw had declined re-election last year.
MONTCLAIR – Appointed Montclair Board of Education members Allison Silverstein and Crystal Hopkins, in a pair of unanimous votes by their peers, became the panel’s new board president and vice president Jan. 5.
Silverstein and Hopkins succeeded Latifah Jannah and Priscila Church minutes after Mfreke “Monk” Inyang and Yvonne Bourknight were sworn in. A majority of participating township voters bestowed Inyang to his first three-year term and second-year candidate Bourknight her first-ever term.
Silverstein, who was appointed by Mayor Sean Spillar in September 2020, may have a busier than usual year. ahead of her. Her board seat is open for the Nov. 7 General Election.
Fellow panelists Melanie Deysher and Phaedra Dunn, who were elected by voters in 2021, also have their board seats open to re-election.
The Montclair Board of Education is in the midst of a three-year transition from a mayor-appointed panel to a voter-elected one. VP Hopkins’ seat and two others are scheduled for the 2024 election.
BELLEVILLE – Longtime construction code official Frank DeLorenzo, through attorney Lee Vartan, has filed a harassment suit against the township in New Jersey Superior Court-Newark Jan. 9.
DeLorenzo had been cleared of embezzlement charges by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office in late 2022. Mayor Michael Melham, in 2021, had accused him of writing up fake invoices to draw from prospective developers’ escrow funds.
The Township Council, in September 2021, denied Melham’s resolution to suspend DeLorenzo. The Attorney General’s office, however, had the State Police execute a search warrant on Belleville Town Hall for relevant records in early 2022.
Monday’s suit is separate from DeLorenzo’s August 2022 whistleblower suit against the township. Superior Court Judge Richard Sules has not scheduled a trial date as of press time.
DeLorenzo is a 31-year township employee 1981-88 and since 1991, mostly in its building department. He was promoted to building inspector in 1995 and as been construction code and zoning official since 1999.
NUTLEY – Deputy Fire Chief Paul Cafone entered the Nutley Municipal Building Jan. 3 for the first Board of Commissioners meeting of the year – and left it as the township’s first full-time paid fire chief.
Cafone was appointed minutes after the commissioners unanimously passed an ordinance that Tuesday that restructured the Nutley Fire Department’s leadership.
The formerly volunteer fire chief is now a $175,000 a year full time job, in answerable to the Public Safety Commissioner. The traditional structure for the part-volunteer/part-salaried department is to have a volunteer part-time chief and a full-time paid deputy chief.
Cafone, since Jan. 3, became NFD’s last deputy chief. That post has been abolished, leaving its fire captains to report to the new fire chief. He had been paid $175,000 there in 2022.
Public Safety Commissioner Alphones Petracco, who authored the paid full-time chief resolution, would not say whether former fire chief John Meola’s Dec. 16 arrest here drove the change. Petracco said that Meola’s case, where he is accused in a freelance predator sting of attempting to meet a 14-year-old boy in North Bergen for sex, remains under investigation.
Nutley Board of Education member Charles W. Kuchinski, speaking in favor of the change, said that the ranks of volunteer firefighters have declined from 76 in 1990 to less than 15 in 2022 while salaried firefighters rose in that same period from 30 to 41.
Kuchinski was a paid NFD member who had retired in 1997.
