TOWN WATCH
MONTCLAIR – Thomas P. Giblin, 76, within 24 hours March 24-25, has gone from being a General Assemblyman of the “Old” 34th Legislative District/”New” 27th LD to leaving.
Giblin (D-Montclair) announced Friday that he was calling time on his 18 years in the State Legislature and 50 years of political life, He will remain active as Essex-West Hudson Labor Council AFL-CIO President and CEO of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 68.
The 2020 Census-based redrawing has sent him, Montclair and Passaic County’s Clifton from the old 34th to the new 27th. He and any other state assembly and senate member from Montclair would have been pitted against fellow Democratic Party incumbents John McKeon, of West Orange, and Sen. Richard Codey, of Roseland. (Assemblywoman Mila Jasey, of South Orange, has earlier decided to retire.)
“It has been my greatest honor to serve as an assemblyman, freeholder, surrogate and party chair, working to improve the quality of life for the people of New Jersey,” declared Giblin.
The East Orange native and former Newark and West Caldwell resident was referring to his years as county then-freeholder/now-commissioner 1977-79 and 1982-90, county surrogate (1990-93) and New Jersey State Democratic Committee Chairman (1997-2001).
LeRoy Jones – chairman of the Democratic Party’s State, Essex County and East Orange Committees – named Montclarion Alixon Collazos-Gill as Giblin’s replacement for the June primary. Saturday. Jones asked Collazos-Gill after polling the party’s municipal leaders.
Collazos-Gill was an aide for Cong. Steve Rothman (D-Englewood). The Colombian immigrant is a public affairs executive of the Gill Group here. She is also the wife of Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill.
NEWARK – The third reported collision between at least one car and a school bus happened at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard and Muhammad Ali Avenue on March 22, sending students to two nearby hospitals.
Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage said that a school bus had struck a car – which in turn hit a parked car by the corner at about 8:29 a.m. that Wednesday. The bus was carrying 16 children from 6 to 11 years old.
Half of the students, who complained of pain, were taken to University Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. The other half was taken to RWJBarnabas Health Newark Beth Israel Hospital for precautionary examinations.
Another three students were taken to a hospital as a precaution after a bus and a car collided along the 100 block of Manchester Place at 8 a.m. March 7. Both drivers involved stayed to talk with responding Newark police officers.
The driver of a third school bus was checked after a 9:45 a.m. March 1 collision on Branford Place between Treat Place and Broad Street – and the driver of the other car arrested.
Frage said that the car was driven and occupied by three under-aged youths when they struck the bus. The car was reported as stolen.
The bus driver who had a pain complaint was taking 11 Central High School students, a teacher and a teacher’s aide on a field trip. None of those occupants reported any injuries.
IRVINGTON – Township police officers who were part of an investigation that had led to the Oct. 31 conviction of a Newark man for sexually abusing his two stepdaughters had looked forward in his March 10 sentencing.
New Jersey Superior Court-Newark Judge Verna Leath sentenced Thomas Crandell, 53, of Newark to 106 years in state prison that Friday. Crandell, under the No Early Release Act, has to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence – which means his first chance for parole will not happen until the year 2113.
The sentence came after a jury, on Oct. 31, had convicted Crandell on all 26 sexual assault and child endangerment charges lodged by the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.
Crandell was convicted of sexually abusing the older stepdaughter several times while she was 14-to-17-years-old 2014-17. He was also found guilty of similarly abusing the younger stepdaughter, then 14, three times in 2018.
The daughters reported the abuse to the Irvington Police Department in late 2018. Township officers had since worked in league with ECPO’s Special Victims Unit on the investigation.
EAST ORANGE – ECPO Accident and Compliance units had been investigating a March 26 police pursuit that led to a bus crash and a city police officer firing a shot.
At least two EOPD patrol cars were pursuing a suspected vehicle east on Springdale Avenue when the latter car veered into the path of a westbound NJTransit No. 34E bus west of North Arlington Avenue at Noon Sunday.
The NJTransit driver ran off the road to avoid the errant car, sending it through a fence of the Bethel Haitian Baptist Church and onto its side lawn. No one on the Doddtown-bound bus was reported as injured.
The car’s three suspects bailed out of the car and fled; they remain at large.
A police officer had reportedly fired a shot. It is not known whether anyone else responded with gunfire.
The said gunfire brought in county prosecutors, who are acting on the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office orders to investigate any police-involved shootings.
It is not known whether the church’s worship service, which usually starts at 11:30 a.m., was interrupted. Parishioners exiting 320 Springfield Ave., had to move around the closed Springfield/No. Arlington intersection.
It is not known whether NJTransit’s Orange Bus Garage dispatched a tow truck and a replacement bus for the 34’s East Orange-South Street Newark runs.
ORANGE – Parking, PILOT and ownership concerns were brought up by the Orange Planning Board over a pair of flanking residential housing proposals presented here March 22.
Brick City Reconstruction, of Newark, during that Wednesday night Zoom meeting, wanted to build a pair of 3.5-story residential buildings at 150 and 151 Taylor St.
150 Taylor would replace the 1940-built DMV Supermarket with four attached single-family homes. Each home will include a ground-floor garage.
151 Taylor would be similarly sized but to be occupied by nine residents and eight cars. It would replace a currently vacant four-bedroom two-story house built in 1930.
BCR, who has built other residential, commercial and worship projects throughout New Jersey, owns both properties’ deeds. Their addresses flank Taylor Street at its T-intersection with Hickory Street.
Developer attorney Elnardo Webster, Jr., saying that the projects “wouldn’t be viable without a tax abatement,” stated that his client is looking for a Payment in Lieu of Taxes. Board members and Council President Tency Eason said she would consider it, provided that the units are resident-owners who have to live there for at least five months.
Taylor Street resident Fiona Douglas said that she and her neighbors “are struggling for parking.” The hearing is to resume on April 26.
WEST ORANGE – The contention over renewing Township Attorney Richard D. Trenk’s contract was more than just the Township Council’s resulting split vote at their March 21 meeting.
Mayor Susan McCartney provided the tie-breaking vote that Tuesday night, approving the new $170,000 four-year contract for Trenk. McCartney had appointed the longtime township attorney during this January’s reorganization meeting, which needed either council confirmation or denial.
The new contract, which now runs until Dec 31, 2026, calls for Trenk to be paid $42,500 annually for “general legal matters” only. He is to also bill the township at $175 an hour for “litigation, arbitration or mediated matters” – which was set in a separate resolution.
Councilwomen Michele Casalino and Tammy Williams voted for the first resolution’s approval. Council Members Dr. Wiliam “Bill” Rutherford and Susan Scarpa voted “No.” Councilwoman Asmeret Ghebremichicael abstained, setting the stage for McCartney’s tie-breaker.
The other $175 an hour ordinance for “the other matters,” was passed on a similar 3-2-1 roll call. McCartney has likely signed both measures well within the 20-day signature window.
Trenk, who practices bankruptcy and litigation law from a West Orange office, was first appointed township attorney in 1998.
SOUTH ORANGE – Respective attorneys for the South Orange-Maplewood School District and a resigned Kindergarten teacher, barring an out-of-court settlement, may be headed for trial later this year.
Former South Mountain Elementary School teacher Sarah Barlow and her attorney, Gregory B. Noble, filed a complaint in Superior Court-Newark against SOMSD for violating the state’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act. The suit, filed on Dec. 22, became public by Feb. 15.
Although Barlow had not listed SMES Principal Kevin Mason in the suit as a respondent, their deteriorating work relationship eventually led to the four-year teacher’s resigning on Nov. 1.
Barlow had wanted paraprofessionals to assist her in teaching special needs students in her class but said she did not get the NJ Department of Education minimum. She said that the insufficient aides exacerbated the social anxiety that she has had since being a teenager.
Mason first rebuffed Barlow’s desire for support for a student who had expressed suicide and a parent’s agreement to hold back her child from graduating during the 2019-20 school year. Mason later moved Barlow’s class to a Mountain Annex room.
Mason sent an October 2022 letter to Barlow calling her “crying spells” unprofessional and to look for a corrective action plan. She took a six-week medical leave and, on the advice of her therapist, resigned Nov. 1.
MAPLEWOOD – The owner of a bridal store here in the Hilton section will be making a five-mile trip back to State Superior Court-Newark May 22 for a possible pretrial hearing stemming from her March 22 arrest.
Nidelka Mayers, 53, was released from Newark’s Essex County Correctional Center March 23 after pleading not guilty to five counts of theft by deception. Township police arrested the Maplewood Bridal store owner at her East Orange residence 24 hours earlier.
MPD’s Detective Bureau began investigating Mayer when five of her customers had complained at its headquarters across Springfield Avenue from her store.
The fivesome said that they had ordered and paid deposits for wedding dresses, going back to last August., that they never got. They accuse Mayers of stopping communication with them. They had to go elsewhere for their dresses.
Maplewood Bridal may or may not have reopened for business as of press time. Mayers, during March 22-23, had redirected calls to a Paterson bridal shop. Maplewood Bridal’s website announces that it is moving to “a new location.”
Mayers’ store is or was one of several at 1607-11 Springfield Ave., a mixed-use residential/commercial building. It has stood on the eastern corner of Springfield and Burnett avenues, replacing a long-time Shell station, in 2020.
BLOOMFIELD – The township’s rush hour minibus service will be expanded to help Decamp bus riders as of April 10.
Mayor Michael Venezia, on March 23, announced that the minibuses will continue north into Clifton’s Allwood Park and Ride in the morning. Former Decamp commuters may then board NJTransit’s No. 192 buses to complete their trips to New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Those same minibuses will pick up returning PM rush-hour riders at Allwood for rides home. The Bloomfield Recreation Department, which runs the rush hour jitney and midday senior bus service, coordinated the expanded service with its existing runs to and from NJTransit’s Bloomfield Station.
Bloomfield, as of press time, is the first municipality in Local Talk’s Decamp territory to provide an alternative to when the Montclair-based private carrier ends all of its commuter bus lines at the end of April 7.
Decamp, citing 20 percent of its pre-pandemic passenger ridership levels, will end its Nos. 33, 44, 66/66R and 99 routes 12:01 a.m. April 8. Its riders in North Newark, West Orange, Montclair, Glen Ridge, Belleville and Nutley are among those who will also be affected.
NJTransit is looking to add train runs on its Montclair-Boonton Line and runs and/or buses on applicable bus routes. Private carriers Boxcar and OurBus have been taking online and in-person rider surveys.
West Orange and Montclair also have minibus service. They, trailblazer Maplewood, South Orange, Irvington and Union’s Springfield are under a federally funded, NJTransit-awarded rush hour commuter service mostly to commuter rail stations.
GLEN RIDGE – What started out as a Glen Ridge official spotting an illegal dumping occurrence here on March 9 literally turned into a federal case.
The borough’s police and public works department plus the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency combined to locate and sanction the contractor they believed responsible for that Tuesday’s act.
GRPD Officer Joseph Anello responded to a DPW worker’s call from Ridgewood Avenue and Washington Street. The employee saw another person pouring “an unknown substance” into a corner storm sewer drain.
Off. Anello, summoned Nutley HazMat, who determined that the poured fluid was paint and an unknown substance. HazMat, in turn, called for the EPA before cleaning up the spill.
The officer and his colleagues meanwhile performed a records check, which led .to identifying a suspected but otherwise not publicly identified contractor. GRPD issued the suspect a borough ordinance violation ticket before turning the matter over to the EPA.
BELLEVILLE – Whoever has been shooting movie scenes here at the former Essex County Isolation Hospital at the northwestern corner of Belleville and Franklin avenues the last 10 days may have had to get permission from three property owners.
The Warner Bros. film production unit, purportedly shooting scenes for a “Joker” sequel, had to get permission from Alma Realty, of New York. Alma is converting the landmark nine-story, 200,000-square-foot 1932 building into a 245-unit apartment building featuring 5,500 square feet of retail space.
The film’s producers had likely got permission from two Bethlehem, Pa. owners of The Great Lawn to erect tents and park equipment. New Horizons Investment owns 6,53 acres at “233 Franklin Ave., and Azan International, 1.38 acres at “580 Belleville Ave.”
New Horizons and Azan bought the respective lots for an overall $455,000 at a 1999 delinquent property tax sale held by Belleville Township. The township held the tax sale when then-hospital tenant Garden State Cancer Center got behind on its tax payments.
The center’s 1996-2011 era here ended when it defaulted on a $5 million Essex County Improvement Authority loan and declared bankruptcy. The county awarded Alma the building for $3.7 million on Dec. 21, 2012 over eight bidders.
Belleville’s residents and elders, however, want to keep The Great Lawn free of any redevelopment. “Local Talk” remembers one proposal to build single-story retail stores on each of the lawn lots in the early 2000s.
Mayor Michael Melham and Town Manager Anthony Iacono, on Feb. 14, applied to the NJ DEP’s Green Acres State Land Acquisition Program as a funding source. The DEP, on Feb. 28, said that they will have to wait until the other three Green Acres-funded projects, which Belleville received an overall $1.445 million for, are finished.
Belleville had received $601,000 to refurbish a baseball diamond by the Second River, $260,000 to repair a riverbank retaining wall and $484,000 to turn a former rifle range at Hoover Avenue and Joralemon Street into a park. The DEP, counted three projects while Belleville officials counted two by combining the Second River wall and ballfield.
NUTLEY – The family of Anthony Di Petta have scheduled his 79-year overdue memorial service here at the S.W. Brown & Son Funeral Home for June 6.
The Department of Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency and Project Recovery had lifted Di Petta’s remains off the Malakal Island’s Pacific Ocean floor late last year. A Jan. 3 DNA test at a Hawaiian forensic match confirmed the township native and World War Two naval aviator’s identity.
US Navy Aviation Ordinanceman First Class Di Petta, then 25, was last seen alive taking off from the USS Enterprise aboard a Grumman TBM-1c Avenger torpedo bomber with two fellow crewmen on Sept. 10, 1944. They were on a target mission to Malakal which is now part of the Palau Islands.
Enemy fire shot down their Avenger, which crashed into the ocean. Di Petta and his crew mates were declared dead. Their bodies were deemed unrecoverable, after several attempts, in 1949.
The MPAA and Project Recovery conducted six investigations in the crash area from 2003 until Di Petta’s body was located in 2018.
Di Petta’s cousin, Loriann Harr, Nutley High School Class of 1980, announced the memorial service on In Memory of Nutleyites Facebook page.
