TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Newark Public Schools Board of Education Member Crystal Williams had the rare and unusual experience of having her motion, regarding Superintendent of Schools Roger Leon’s latest contract, met with silence here at their Jan. 31 public meeting.
Williams made a motion to halt Leon’s contract from being sent to the New Jersey Department of Education on Feb. 1. The first-year panelist said that the stoppage would allow the board “to reassess his contract” and “give the public the opportunity to voice their concerns.”
None of Williams’ colleagues, however, never moved to second her motion. The motion, without any support, was killed without leaving “Square One.”
Williams’ failed motion, barring the unforeseen, means that Leon’s five year, $290,050 annual contract will take effect July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2028. The new contract reflects an $8,625 per year cost of living increase from his $282,425 2021-22 contract extension.
The Leon contract controversy may be over except for the public’s shouting and the board’s apparent damage control.
Many members of the public, including parents and education advocates decried the board’s “automatic” awarding of the superintendent’s new contract on May 2022. That approval was made without the stipulated public hearing or 30-day public comment period.
The board may have hired the outside legal counsel on the matter that they have been seeking since Jan. 26. It is not clear whether the specialized lawyer will investigate the “automatic renewal” clause or respond to public outcry or both.
IRVINGTON – The township’s fire and police department personnel who remember Fr. Theodore W. Osbahr III joined 11 other faith communities within and outside of the “Local Talk” area in mourning his Jan. 18 passing.
Some of “Irvington’s Bravest and Finest” may have joined representatives from Newark’s St. Ann, Irvington’s St. Paul the Apostle, Maplewood’s St. Joseph and Bloomfield’s Sacred Heart parishes at Osbahr’s Jan. 24 Funeral Mass at Caldwell’s St. Aloysius Church.
Osbahr, 81, was living at the Msgr. James F. Kelly Residence, next to St. Aloysius, Jan. 18.
Born July 17, 1941 in Rahway, Osbahr came to the Archdiocese of Newark by way of Roselle’s St. Joseph Parochial School, Bayonne’s Marist High School and South Orange’s Seton Hall University. The Immaculate Conception Seminary resident was ordained in Newark March 11, 1967.
Osbahr’s first assignment was as teacher in Summit’s Oratory Prep, where he was eventually promoted to dean. His last assignment was at Roseland’s Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament. All of his assignments – which included stints in Union, Hudson, Bergen and Passaic counties – were within the archdiocese.
Brothers Robert and Richard and sister Mary Jones are among his survivors.
EAST ORANGE – A city man, who was arrested in Robbinsville Jan. 26 for allegedly possessing $25,5000 worth of heroin bricks, remains detained in the Mercer County Correctional Center in nearby Lambertville.
How long Melvin Leonard, 34, will be away from East Orange is a matter of jurisprudence.
Mercer County Prosecutor Angelo J. Onofri said that members of his Narcotics Task Force, Robbinsville Police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration ended their month-long surveillance when Leonard pulled up in a Black Nissan Altima onto a New Clayton Way warehouse parking lot at 6:40 p.m. that Thursday.
Although Leonard was “detained without incident,” County Detective Sgt. Tom Paglione’s K9 detected “the scent of narcotics in the passenger side door. An executed search warrant found a shoebox in a reusable shopping bag containing “approximately 150 bricks of heroin.”
Leonard is being held without bail in MCCC at Onofri’s request to State Superior Court-Trenton. He is also being held on multiple narcotics charges.
ORANGE – Members of the Essex County Sheriff’s Office said that they have an Orange man under custody on stolen car, weapons possession an fleeing charges since Feb. 2.
Sheriff’s officers on patrol on the Orange-East Orange border said they were waiting for a light to change at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and South Harrison Street in the latter city at 11:10 p.m. Feb. 1 when they noticed a car nearby matching the description of one that had been reported as stolen.
The officers watched the suspected car collide with a second, parked vehicle. The striking car’s driver got out and, instead of writing and leaving a contact note at the scene, started fleeing north on South Harrison.
The sheriff’s patrol, aided by East Orange Police officers, apprehended a man identified as Basir North, 20, of Orange. A search of the suspected car yielded two handguns – one of which had its identification numbers filed off.
Further details of the pursuit and arrest were not immediately available.
North is being held in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Center on two counts of possessing a handgun without a permit plus a count each of: Possessing a defaced weapon, Knowingly possessing stolen property (the car), Resisting arrest by fleeing, Resisting arrest by using or threating force on a law enforcement officer, Aggravated assault of a said officer.
WEST ORANGE – The owners and staff here at The Manor may want to hire a band to play “Auld Lang Syne” when their last customer leaves 111 Prospect Ave. on July 5.
“Auld Lang Syne” was played when Harry Knowles, Jr., Doris Herdman Knowles, their staff and first customers welcomed New Year 1956 at their-then Bow and Arrow restaurant on Jan. 1. They have since built it into a noted fine dining and special events venue. Knowles’ children and grandchildren, however, announced their institution’s closing on Feb. 2.
Those who have scheduled dates for after July 5 are being called to receive their refunds. The Knowles ended regular dining with the March 2020 advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and had reopened for special events only in 2021.
“Operating through the pandemic and then record inflation brought us to a point where the family had to make a hard and abrupt decision,” said communication manager Keith Sly. “We were hoping to go for 100 years.”
The Knowles, led by Harry Jr., are a three-generation restaurateur family or five if one adds Doris Herdman Knowles’ Robin Hood Inn management. They reopened a former Moroccan restaurant as The Bow and Arrow Dec. 31, 1956.
Harry Knowles was half-restaurant owner and half-builder. The World War Two Army Air Force veteran flyer bought the Pleasantdale Chateau, built the Marriott Residence Inn, bought the Robin Hood Inn and revived Essex County’s Highlawn Pavilion.
The Manor was the scene of a “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” episode and, at its height, held nine special events Fridays through Sundays. Ronald Reagan, Stevie Wonder and comedian George Burns had visited here. Harry, who died in 2021, and Doris, who died in 2019, had their memorial service here Oct. 18, 2021.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The Dec. 7 fire near Jefferson Village that damaged a 95-year-old house and had sent its 60-year occupant to a local hospital has later resulted in the said person being charged with burglary and aggravated arson.
Maplewood police and the South Essex Fire Department reports state that they had responded to a fire at 60 Maplewood Ave. at 7:05 a.m. that Wednesday.
The MPD detective’s and two-town fire department reports said, after the latter quenching the fires, that they had found a 60-year-old woman “with four apparent stab wounds to the chest” inside and brought her out for hospital treatment. The reports indicated that the house’s locks were broken and that four fires were set in as many places about the house.
It was later learned that the woman was the home owner, who lost an eight-year fight for the property with a Dec. 6 eviction order. Essex County Sheriff’s Officers changed the locks. Movers for full owner Effect: Lake LLC, of McLean, Va., with State Superior Court permission, hand began boxing possessions later that Tuesday.
The homeowner discovered the changed locks after the previous 25 hours’ psychiatric evaluation. MPD, which had acted on a neighbor’s wellness check request, had called for an ambulance. She was in a place where she was unable to prevent the eviction order becoming final – the latest in a series of being blindsided by opponents and/or missing opportunities to sell the house short.
The arson suspect/foreclosure victim moved in with her parents in 1960. The Columbia High School graduate tended to her parents until their deaths in 2000. The house eventually went to her after a three-year probate fight with her sister but had amassed $12,809 in unpaid Maplewood property and sewer taxes by 2015.
The township awarded 60 Maplewood Ave.’s tax certificate to Effect Lake in an October 2016 sale. Effect outbid others with by paying a $92,800 premium and charged 18 percent interest on the homeowner-turned-occupant to up to over $100,000 in arrears. Effect started foreclosure proceedings in 2019; the woman was meanwhile taking chemotherapy in 2021.
The woman was released, on “home detention,” to a South Orange friend’s custody since Jan. 14. She faces up to 10 years’ state imprisonment if she is found guilty and given maximum sentences. Effect Lake still owns 60 Maplewood Ave.
BLOOMFIELD – Temple Ner Tamid’s Shabbat services here Feb. 3-4 were held with more than the usual Friday night and Saturday morning security and volume of worshipers.
Rabbi Marc Katz, temple leaders and families have been receiving an outpouring of support and solidarity in the wake of an attempted Jan. 29 arson by a lone Molotov cocktail hurler.
That igniter and hurler – identified as Nicholas Malindretos, 26, of Clifton – has been held without bail since his Feb. 1 arrest. Malindretos was formally charged with one count of attempted use of fire to damage or destroy a building used in interstate commerce before a U.S. Federal Judge in Newark Feb. 2.
FBI-Newark office agents had arrested Malindretos in the basement apartment of a friend’s building by 4 p.m. that Wednesday. Authorities had identified the black Volkswagen, whose license plate was read at Watchung Avenue and Broad Street before and after the 3:19 a.m. attack, and one parked on a Clifton street as the same vehicle. Another street surveillance camera’s recording of a man parking and leaving the VW as the same as the one hurling the firebomb.
An executed search warrant found a black hooded sweatshirt and white gloves in the car. A second search warrant on the apartment found gasoline, wicks – and a 10-mile radius map marking TNT and other police and governmental buildings as potential targets.
A law enforcement spokesman said that Malindretos has no felony record. He does face an up to 20 year federal prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
TNT held an interfaith “Rally Against Hate” late Feb. 2 that drew an overflow audience of 1,000 people. Temple officials had lunch with Bloomfield police officers at the latter’s headquarters that same Thursday.
MONTCLAIR – Montclair Fire Department Chief John Hermann has asked the Township Council – again – that he can use 13 more firefighters.
Hermann, during his part of the Jan. 24 department budget hearings, asked that his squad’s budget be increased by 17 percent. The budget increase, for Fiscal Year 2023-24, would allow the chief to hire “13 firefighters, a training officer and an office worker.”
The additional 15 people would bring MFD’s uniform and civilian roster to 91 – which was its staffing level before March 2020, when the global COVID-19 pandemic struck here.
“We’ve been consistent in our request for staffing for years,” said Hermann to the Township Council Budget Committee. The committee is to forward a budget draft for a final public hearing and full council approval before July 1.
Hermann’s request, added Montclair CFO Padmaja Rao, would add $1.7 million to its current $10.1 million budget. Much of that increase, she said, would go into pension and health benefits.
The chief’s proposal was the largest among the department heads’ requests during that Tuesday night hearings.
GLEN RIDGE – An overcapacity Glen Ridge Congregational Church sanctuary of mourners came here Jan. 23 to pay last respects to Nathan Everest Latifi.
Several rows of folding chairs were added to the fixed pews. TNT Rabbi Marc Katz and Montclair’s First Evangelical Lutheran Church Rev. Margarette Ouji helped GRCC Pastor Jeff Mansfield in the officiating.
It is not known whether the three injured borough teenagers who had survived the Jan. 16 car crash that killed Latifi attended. The 16-year-old Glen Ridge High School soccer player had died after the car they were in struck a light pole and a tree along Bloomfield’s Brookdale Park West Circuit Drive.
Members of the GRHS boys soccer team, during the service, formed a line by holding each others’ shoulders – as they normally do on the field.
Parents Jon and Tina and sisters Fiona and Mia are among his survivors. A makeshift memorial remains at the crash site.
Memorial donations may be made to the Nathan-LatifiScholarshipFund https://venmo.com/code?user_id=3115568999694336105.
BELLEVILLE – Township elders’ pending decision on authorizing Belleville Recreation to charge for at least some of its offerings may bring the free recreational program era to an end in at least “Local Talk Land.”
Mayor Michael Melham, Town Manager Anthony Iacono, Recreation Director Tom Agosta and the Township Council began considering a fee schedule for at least some of its youth sports programs at their Jan. 24 council meeting.
Iacono and Agosta, that Tuesday night, presented a survey of neighboring municipal recreation programs. They had found that practically all charge for some of their sports, cultural, facility rental, transportation, day camp and/or pool membership offerings.
Some town recs – including East Orange, Montclair, Nutley, South Orange and West Orange – use a Community Pass system for access. Some others, including Maplewood and South Orange have an assistance plan for the financially challenged – a feature that Agosta, Iacono and Melham want to include.
A fee structure, which may start at a base $25 per child, would help Belleville Recreation in maintaining equipment used in football and more “expensive” sports. Agosta added that Belleville Recreation would become a stronger feeder for Belleville High School’s programs.
Iacono used the council’s honoring Elijah Franklin and Anthony Lopez, Jr. earlier that meeting, for their parts in Newark’s Brick City Lions 12U football team, to underscore his point. The BC Lions recently won the American Youth National Championship in Orlando, Fla.
“The two young residents we honored tonight,” said the town manager, “left their hometown to play for another team.”
NUTLEY – The Nutley Free Public Library has begun a countdown towards its Feb. 27 temporary closing for four weeks’ construction.
NFPL Director Michelle Albert told “Local Talk” Feb. 6 that the month-long work includes roof and drywall repairs to the 1914 original building and its 1942 and 1990 additions – and replacing the entire structure’s HVAC system. The HVAC work is covered by a $568,230 N.J. Library Construction Bond grant.
Feb. 11, for example, is the last day for patrons to request Bergen County Cooperative Library System interlibrary loan materials for in-person pickup at NFPL. Local Talk’s Bloomfield, Glen Ridge Maplewood, Montclair and West Orange libraries are BCCLS members.
Feb. 13-25 is when in-house, NFPL materials can be borrowed. Interlibrary hold requests may also be made with the other 76 participating BCCLS libraries during those 14 days. may be delivered and/or picked up at the BCCLS libraries.
From Feb. 27 until reopening, hold requests may be delivered and/or picked up at the above said libraries. Materials may be returned in the NFPL dropbox at the building’s northeast corner or at the other BCCLS libraries. (Dropbox materials will be processed in a timely manner.)
Nutley library card holders are asked to set up a password or PIN number now for 24/7 access to NPL digital collections before Feb. 27. Library staff will be available at the usual “open” hours to answer emailed or phoned-in questions.
Details may be found at nutleypubliclibrary.org, library@nutleynj.org and/or (973) 667-0405 ext. 2604.
