TOWN WATCH
DISCLAIMER: The following items are primarily drawn from first responders. Responders’ accounts may not be their full activity range. Grand juries hand down indictments when evidence presented them warrant a trial. Named suspects/defendants are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
NEWARK – Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II and Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Fragé announced Feb. 1 that the Essex County Prosecutor’s Crime Scene Investigations Bureau (CSIB) is investigating a hit-and-run that resulted in the death of a 5-year-old girl.
On January 31, at 6:44 p.m., Newark police notified CSIB of a vehicle-pedestrian collision at the intersection of 6th Avenue and North 9th Street. The girl was pronounced dead at 6:30 p.m. Her father and younger sister were taken to University Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The investigation is active and ongoing. No arrests have been made. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office tips line at 1-877-TIPS-4EC or 1-877-847-7432. Calls will be kept confidential.
Maryland Man Found Guilty in Deaths of Essex County Girls
A Prince Georges County jury in Maryland, on Jan. 27, has convicted one of their own in the Aug. 18, 2017 murder of three girls he was babysitting – including two who were visiting from Newark and Irvington.
Antonio Shareek Wiliams, 25, was found guilty, after three hours’ deliberation, on three counts of first-degree murder of sister Nadiara Janae Withers, 6, and cousins Ajayah Royale DeCree, 6, of Irvington, and Ariana Elizabeth DeCree, 9. of Newark. Ajayah and Ariana were visiting from Essex County that summer.
Williams’ mother had Antonio supervise the three girls in their Clinton, Md. home while she left for her overnight nursing shift. She returned to find all three girls’ stabbed; Antonio pretended to know nothing.
The Prince Georges County Prosecutor’s Office said Williams stabbed the girls for making noise with a kitchen knife he later put away The jury had listened to three recordings of a confession Williams had made to prosecutors.
Williams faces three life sentences without the possibility of parole in May.
Ajayah and Ariana DeCree and mother Bathsheba Q. Sumpter were buried in Newark’s Fairmount Cemetery. The girls’ funeral was held Aug. 27, 2017 at New Hope Baptist Church.
Sumpter, 44, had her funeral Oct. 28, 2017 at Newark’s New Point Baptist Church. Relatives said she had died Oct. 22 of a broken heart.
IRVINGTON – While other municipalities scrambled to replace St. Hubert’s for its animal control services, Irvington kept most of its services “in house.”
“Local Talk” has learned that Alex Kelly remains as animal control officer under its health department. Kelly has handled Irvington’s domestic and feral cases since at least 2006.
Kelly had been coordinating the township’s animal sheltering with St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center. St. Hubert’s, in Oct. 25, announced that it will be ending its sheltering and control services to Irvington, South Orange, Maplewood and 16 other municipalities statewide.
The Madison-based St. Hubert’s, after decades of municipal service, cited dwindling revenue and a specter of bankruptcy to dissolve its 19 contracts on Jan. 1.
Maplewood and South Orange have temporary animal service and sheltering contracts with the Bloomfield Health Department until a permanent provider is found.
It is not clear as of press time, however, where Irvington currently shelters its found animals.
EAST ORANGE – Authorities have been assisting between 20 and 25 people who were displaced by a three-alarm fire here in the Elmwood section Jan. 29. City and ECPO fire investigators are meanwhile searching for the fire’s cause off the southwest corner of Central Avenue and Shepard avenues.
Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green and Interim Fire Chief Bruce Davis credited an off-duty firefighter who called in the incident at 11 a.m. Sunday. The firefighter noticed the blaze in an alley separating 81 and 83 Shepard Ave. and went inside to evacuate the residents.
The EOFD’s member’s first call grew to three within minutes. The original exterior fire was brought under control by 50 firefighters – including those who responded on mutual aid from Orange, Irvington, Bloomfield and Montclair.
Damage to 81 and 83 Shepard, going by an “All County News” YouTube clip, appear to be greatest on their top floors. Both three-story wood frame buildings were constructed in 1930 and are separately owned.
The local American Red Cross chapter, said Green and OEM Coordinator R. David Williams, were looking for temporary housing. The mayor said that city officers will also “work to support the families.”
ORANGE – City police officers, despite stopping and checking several cars matching an at-large bulletin description, are still looking for the vehicle – and its driver – involved in a Freeway Drive hit-and-run here Jan. 27.
OPD officers, responding to a pedestrian-motor vehicle incident 9:55 p.m. Friday, found an injured and unconscious woman at Freeway Drive West and South Essex Street.
Locally contracted EMS took the 45-year-old woman to Newark’s University Hospital. She was admitted in critical but stable condition.
The victim and witnesses told city detectives that the woman was struck by “a light colored van or pickup truck.” The vehicle sped away on Essex and other local streets, prompting the OPD traffic checks. One such vehicle was tracked for “several miles” before it was broken off.
The intersection, since the early 1970s, is where Freeway Drive West splits into historic Crane Street and the Interstate 280 West on ramp. While the former Spina’s Gulf station remains as a Delta station, two recent apartment buildings have gone up with a third under construction on Crane.
The injury may well become the latest entry on Orange and East Orange public officials’ appeal to NJDOT to curb injuries and deaths along Freeway Drive West and East and to make the surroundings more pedestrian friendly.
Orange Mayor Dwayne D. Warren and East Orange Mayor Ted Green were among officials from among both cities joining Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake in calling out Freeway Drive’s conditions before the East Orange Public Library Main Branch Jan. 12. Timberlake (D-East Orange) called upon NJDOT to paint crosswalks, increase traffic light timing and make curb cuts, among other safety measures.
WEST ORANGE – The West Orange Public Library, after being at 46 Mt. Pleasant Ave. since 1959, has closed to the public on Feb. 1. The staff will be preparing its holdings for its new quarters at 10 Rooney Circle.
That “moving day” will take until 10 Rooney, a former corporation headquarters, has been fully renovated. The $6.2 million project is funded by a $3.1 million N.J. Library Construction Bond Act matching grant. Its neighboring 200 and 400 Prospect St. office buildings, all to the Essex Green shopping plaza’s north, are also being repurposed.
WOPL Director David Cubie, after the board of trustees’ Jan. 26 agreement to close the 64-year-old building, said that WOPL will anticipate reopening at its more central location in the late spring.
“A recent survey conducted by library staff found that West Orange’s 47,000 residents have 37,000 active library cards,” said Cubie, “yet 22 percent chose to check out books at neighboring libraries.”
WOPL staff will answer cardholders’ over-the-phone questions about their accounts and digital services through Feb. 28. Their valid cards, borrowing requests and computer use are to be honored at participating ReBEL and BCCLS member libraries.
The 1959 building and 1979 eastern annex will be replaced by a five-story senior citizens apartment building. That new structure’s 7,500 square foot ground floor community center is to include “library services.” That feature, should it come to fruition, will be WOPL’s first satellite since losing its Tory Corner Branch at 250 Main St. in the early 1980s.
Details are found at www.wopl.org/digital-resources.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – There are 44 students who can use their bus passes to board the South Orange-Maplewood School District buses as of press time, thanks to the two-town district’s Jan. 31 settlement with their parents.
The district’s Board of Education, in a special Tuesday night public hearing, approved the SOMSD-44 parents’ settlement in a 5-4 split vote. The settlement’s approval ends a parental lawsuit after the previous BOE had ended discretional school busing last summer for this 2022-23 school year.
The past board had approved the 2022-23 budget without a discretionary budget line item. Then-Board President Thair Joshua, at the August meeting said that there was insufficient time to continue that program.
Joshua and two other board members declined re-election. A majority of participating voters replaced them with three new members, who were sworn-in on Jan. 6.
Affected parents appealed to the board to restore the service for Calendar Year 2023. They, including those who took SOMSD to Superior Court, cited the lack of sidewalks and 45-minute walks to local schools for the restoration.
Tuesday night was scheduled in the wake of negative public reaction to their Jan. 23 vote, which rejected the district-parental pact.
Board President Kaitlin Wittleder and members Nubia DuVall-Wilson,Regina Eckert, Bill Gifford and Elissa Maplespina approved the agreement. The roll call was taken after an hour’s closed door deliberations. Panelists Susan Bergin, Quai Telesford, Arun Vadlamani – who said that the settlement “applied only to those who had filed a lawsuit,” and Courtney Winkfield dissented.
BLOOMFIELD – Police here and in other “Local Talk” towns have increased their patrols and presence at synagogues in the wake of an attempted Jan. 29 firebombing of Temple Ner Tamid. Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura, on Jan. 30, posted a $10,000 reward on his CrimeStoppers line for information leading to the suspect’s arrest.
Temple workers knew something was wrong when they found a broken glass bottle by its main entrance at about 9:15 Sunday morning. They also found evidence of spilled flammable liquid and a wick.
An on-premise video surveillance camera recording revealed a man walking up the driveway at 3:19 a.m. The man – dressed in black, including a ski mask and an MLB Chicago White Sox hooded sweatshirt – lighted the bottle’s neck, threw it at the main doors and fled. The device was a homemade Molotov cocktail.
TNT workers called the BPD and cancelled that day’s Hebrew school classes. Bloomfield police were joined in the investigation by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office and Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, the FBI and the U.S Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Police here, Newark, Maplewood, South Orange, West Orange and Montclair have increased patrols of synagogues and Chabad centers and/or stationed themselves on their property. Their raised profile may remind some of Nov. 3, after the FBI “received information of a credible bomb threat.”
Police presence bolsters the security guards some temples have hired in recent years. Authorities are working with the houses of worship, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest, the American Jewish Committee and the Community Security Service. Montclair Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jonathan Ponds, citing that “many Montclair families go to Temple New Tamid,” said he has added security and made more counselors available on Jan. 30.
“Everything worked as it should; our cameras recorded the incident and our shatter-resistant doors held,” said TNT Rabbi Marc Katz Sunday. “No act of hate can stop the power of religious freedom.”
MONTCLAIR – Mayor Sean Spiller’s name has been particularly added to a whistleblower’s harassment suit against the municipal government, Township Council and the currently suspended Timothy Stafford as of Jan. 24.
Township CFO Padjama Rao, in her amendment filed in New Jersey Superior Court-Newark Jan. 24, said that Spiller had approached council members about Rao’s job performance in early October. The mayor then talked about amassing a dossier of Rao’s actions that can be used for disciplinary action.
Rao’s filing is based on the deposition of Councilman-at-Large Peter Yacobellis. Yacobellis told Spiller that create a folder on Rao was “inappropriate,” given that Montclair Affirmative Action Officer Bruce Morgan had just completed his internal investigation on Rao, Stafford and the municipal administration.
Morgan, in a leaked copy of his report, had found that Stafford had created “a hostile work environment against Rao.” The council had put Stafford on paid leave since Oct. 26 based on his behavior and other administrative workers.
Spiller, said Yacobellis, had not talked with him or other council members about Morgan’s investigation and conclusion when he asked them about making a Rao file.
Rao further accused Spiller of insinuating that the CFO, at a public meeting, was recommending switching the municipality from the Garden State Joint Insurance Fund to the N.J. Intergovernmental Insurance Fund because “she had a claim” against the former.
Rao said she had no claim nor any other conflict of interest against GSJIF. Assistant Township Manager Brian Scantlebury (who is now acting manager) had recommended the switch and a 7.2 percent savings in premiums.
GLEN RIDGE – The Glen Ridge Public Library Board of Trustees will be hearing the appeal of a group, who wants to have six in circulation books “reconsidered,” heard here at the Municipal Building’s Borough Council Chamber Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m.
“Citizens Defending Education,” who filed the appeal on behalf of two borough residents, asked for the hearing on Jan. 12. CDE is asking the board to reverse Library Director Tina Marie Doody’s Nov. 7 decision to keep the said six titles in GRPL’s collection.
Doody said that the library had received “requests for reconsideration” of six titles from eight residents among five addresses in October. The director added that she had sent individual responses on Nov. 7 to each requestor after having found that the said books had met its Library Materials Selection Policy.
The works in question are:
- “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson.
- “Here and Queer,” by Rowan Ellis and Jacky Sheridan.
- “It’s Not the Stork,” by Gregg H. Harris and Michael Emberley.
- “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Harris and Emberley.
- “This Book is Gay,” by James Dawson.
- “You Know, Sex,” by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth.
Members of Glen Ridge United Against Book Bans are also expected Feb. 8. The ad hoc group has a petition signature drive, to keep the books on the shelves, through Feb. 6.
BELLEVILLE – The two Newark drivers who were injured in a major intersection accident here on Jan.25, may well have been released from local hospitals by now.
Township police firefighters and local EMS were summoned to Washington Avenue and Mill Street at 10:54 a.m. that Wednesday regarding a collision with the entrapment of a driver. They had arrived to find a box truck on eastbound Mill Street and a white four-door car on Washington Avenue’s sidewalk in front of the Dollar Tree.
First responders had to cut apart the car Angel Chico-Nieves, 20, was trapped in. The responsive and conscious Chico-Nieves was taken to Newark’s University Hospital for treatment of a non-life-threatening head injury.
John McMillian, 61, was taken to RWJBarnabas Health Clara Maass Medical Center. The box truck driver had complained of chest pain.
McMillian’s absences meant that the paper company truck had to be pulled away by a Nicolette Towing heavy-duty truck.
Traffic, including NJTransit’s No. 13 buses, had to be detoured until midafternoon.
NUTLEY – Although the Nutley Board of Commissioners approved Resolution 3501 that approved the North Franklin Avenue Redevelopment Plan here Jan. 17, members of the public brought up some “proof in the pudding” questions during that Wednesday night’s public hearing.
That resolution keeps four municipal properties centered on 537 Franklin Ave., and four adjacent private properties as a non-condemnable area in need of rehabilitation. It keeps JMF’s Nutley Town Center Redevelopers as its redeveloper and allows it and the township’s planners to work on a detailed application for the Nutley Planning Board’s consideration.
The eight properties include the township’s three parking lots and the site of the Ciccolini Brothers appliance store. Nutley, after buying the 1950s-era showroom for $3.45 million in 2019, had to demolish it after its roof collapsed on June 8, 2021.
The resolution, on one hand, will not change its zoned residential, civic and commercial uses. The township will keep its 120 public parking spaces and will coordinate with the 20 adjacent properties between Vreeland Avenue and High Street/West Plaza. Apartment density, however, will rise from 24 units per acre to 54.
Several Hillside Avenue residents, however, expressed increased traffic concerns with whatever apartment buildings are built. They said that their avenue, which forms the block’s western border, is already used as a Franklin Avenue rush hour bypass.
The owner of a car dealership-turned 25-year dance studio was concerned about losing any of his 12 on-site parking spaces. Those spaces are grandfathered in so long he has a dance studio – but added that he may have a more difficult time renting out space there if he loses those spaces.
