TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The city’s July 12-14 tribute to fallen fighters Augusto Domingos Acabou and Wayne Marcellus Brooks, Jr. concluded with the latter’s remains being taken to Montclair’s Rosedale Cemetery July 14 for a private cremation. A northbound NJTransit 92 bus was held for two minutes at Thomas Boulevard while Brooks’ 70 car procession, 56 thereof being motorcycle police officers passed by.
Brooks, starting with his June 3, 1974 birth at Glen Ridge’s Mountainside Hospital, was familiar to the “Local Talk” area on many levels. Raised in Irvington and Newark, the 1992 St. Benedict’s Prep graduate was also the first minority Sabre fencer to reach the Junior Olympics.
“Bear” worked at Newark Liberty International Airport’s Continental Airlines’ hub for 29 year before taking Newark police and firefighters exams. He chose firefighting, graduated first in his class and served for 17 years.
Brooks meanwhile met and married the former Michele Vaughn, initially moved to Union but settled in Maplewood. Their two daughters were Columbia High School fencer-scholars; Dasia Vaughn graduating in 2014 and Taylor Brooks in 2019. Mother Linda Terry Brooks and brothers-in-law Richard Lee Vaughn and Tanner Lee are also among his survivors.
“Augie” Acabou preceded Brooks in his July 12 visitation and July 13 Funeral Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart July 12-13. Acabou was born Oct. 6, 1977 in Newark and was a lifelong Ironbounder.
The 1996 East Side High School graduate was a 15-year linen department-turned security guard at Edison’s HMH JFK Hospital when he applied to the Newark Fire Department. the NFD academy class of 2013 graduate was a nine-year firefighter.
Parents Manuel and Maria Acabou, brothers Joao and Miguel, grandfather Augusto Da Cunha and life partner Cynthia Gulics and her daughter Gillian are among his survivors.
Memorial donations may be made to the Acabou and Brooks GoFundMe.com family pages.
IRVINGTON – The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office is trying to determine how a motor vehicle lost control and struck three pedestrians by a major intersection here July 13.
Irvington police units were first called to Springfield Avenue, near Lyons Avenue on report of “a car striking a pedestrian” at about 8 p.m. that Thursday.
They instead found three people with blunt force trauma injuries – and the driver of a car at the scene. IPD officers promptly called for assistance from local EMS and the ECPO’s Vehicular Incident Unit.
Ambulance workers were taken to Newark’s University Hospital for treatment. There are no further details, as of press time, on their condition.
It is also not known whether the driver, who has been cooperating with detectives, will be charged with any motor vehicle offenses or battery. The field investigation closed at least one lane of Springfield Avenue, delaying traffic including NJTransit’s Nos. 25 and 70 buses.
EAST ORANGE – ECPO Homicide Unit detectives are looking for the July 3 shooter who killed an 18-year-old city man who was 13 days into his post-high school life. Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura, through his CrmeStoppers outlet, had posted a $5,000 reward July 5 for information leading to Nicholas Edwards’s killer.
City police officers were called two two locations at around 7 p.m. that Monday. One group of EOPD went to Ashland Avenue, where a Mercedes-Benz had run into a couple of parked cars. The Mercedes had evidence of a shooting, including blood.
A second EOPD detective group meanwhile responded to CareWell Health Medical Center. A CareWell official had called police headquarters, saying that a man was brought into their emergency room with a gunshot wound at 6:55 p.m.
That wound proved fatal to Edwards, who was pronounced dead at 8:05. Edwards had graduated with the East Orange Campus High School Class of 2023 on June 21.
Edwards’ friends, who brought him to the hospital, said that they were in a car following his Mercedes when someone from along Ashland Avenue shot at him. Edwards the lost control and struck the parked cars.
Edwards’ funeral arrangements have not been publicly announced as of press time.
ORANGE – The Noon, July 29 memorial service for Walter R. Elliott at Bethel New Life Community Outreach, 450 North Maple Ave., East Orange will also celebrate the life of his wife, Ann Brown Elliott.
Ann Elliott, 85, was a 57-year city resident here and was also the yoga instructor for Orange Public Schools’ Alternative Learning Center 1970-71. The professional art and Spanish teacher authored and illustrated the Infinity Natural Foods Cookbook in 1972 and was an award-winning artist on the bi-state art show circuit.
Elizabeth Ann Brown Elliot, who was born in Springfield, Mo. Sept. 15, 1935, was teaching in Flint (Mich.) Public Schools when she and Walter R. Elliott met on a blind date in 1957. The Southwest Missouri State College Class of 1957 graduate married the General Motors Institute (now Kettering University) dealership management major Feb. 18, 1958 and settled in Orange to raise their only son, Walter F., in 1964.
Ann Elliott, who created “Mugwump” rag-and-sock dolls and ceramics, specialized in surreal oil-on-canvas paintings. She was a regular at the Irvington, South Orange and Greenwich Village art shows. She and Walt were Cleveland Street School PTA members who also supported the effort to build the current Orange High School.
Curiosity over a tapestry’s lettering on exhibit at Independence, Mo.’s Harry S. Truman Museum in 1975 led her to learn Tibetan. She and Cornell linguistics teacher and brother-in-law Charles Elliott learned the language by first learning Sanskrit – South Asia’s equivalent to Latin – and created their own textbook.
Ann used her skills to translate everything from monks’ meditations to application forms at New York City’s Jetsun Sakya Center 1977-81. She had also held memberships in the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Montclair and Paramus’ Maranatha Church of the Nazarene at different times. She eventually took Roman Catholic Initiation for Adults classes and considered herself Catholic in her last years.
Elliott died in East Orange General Hospital May 3, 2021. Daughter-in-law Naomi and Tompkins County, N.Y.’s nephew Charles “Chaz” and niece Carol Elliott are also among her survivors. Memorial donations may be made to Indycar Ministry, PO Box 24297, Speedway, IN 46224. Condolences may be sent to ggwoodyfuneralhome.com and/or c/o 56-62 Halleck St., Newark 07104.
WEST ORANGE – Municipal authorities had confirmed on July 13 that two people were arrested and one person was injured by an illegal firework set off during the township’s official July 5 display on the high school grounds.
Mayor Susan McCartney said that township police, fire and medics quickly contained a brief stampede towards the display’s exits after the alleged firework went off after 9 p.m. that Wednesday. She said that “thousands” of people had been there since 11 a.m. for the nighttime display, listening to musical performances and eating from food trucks since 11 a.m.
Medics found and treated several people who suffered minor injuries from either the stampede or the unauthorized pyrotechnics or both. One person, however, was taken to the RWJBarnabas Health Cooperman-Barnabas Medical Center Burn Unit.
WOPD officers meanwhile arrested two people who are accused of bringing in and igniting the illegal fireworks. Details – including their names, ages and charges – remain undisclosed as of press time.
This year’s increased public safety presence was due to three factors, starting with the Township Council not approving the July 5 event until their concerns were satisfied on June 30. The additional enforcers were due to closing off the adjacent Degnan Park complex at 11 a.m.
Three out-of-town high school-age girls suffered minor injuries after fighting each other just before July 6, 2022’s fireworks display. They said that their bed with each other started on social media earlier that day.
SOUTH ORANGE – Village elders have scheduled a July 19 public meeting and a July 24 Board of Trustees meeting – both to start at 7 p.m. at SOPAC – to consider revising its 154-year-old charter.
Village President Sheena Collum and the Village Trustees, pending locals’ approval, will ask the State Legislature to rename their job titles to Mayor and Village Council.
They are asking to change “The Village of South Orange Township,” made in the 1980s, back to “The Village of South Orange.” Orange and South Orange had added “Township” to their names to take advantage of state and/or federal funding programs.
The charter changes mirror those that were put before the State House before the 2020 COVID pandemic. This bid, however, is more than just name changes.
Village elders also want to move their nonpartisan municipal elections from May onto future November General Election ballots. (The proposed election day move will not affect the two-town South Orange-Maplewood School District school board elections.)
The State Legislature granted South Orange’s request to become independent of South Orange Township (now Maplewood) May 4, 1869. It also became one of five statewide municipalities to be named a village.
MAPLEWOOD – Retired federal judge H. Lee Sarokin, 94, – whose Maplewood youth. and Newark legal practice led to his ruling on at least three historic cases in the 1980s and 90s – died June 20 at his La Jolla section home in San Diego.
Sarokin, perhaps best known for overturning the conviction of former boxer Ruben “Hurricane” Carter’s murder conviction on Nov. 7, 1985, had died from pulmonary fibrosis. He and wife Margie had retired in San Diego since 1996 to produce thought-provoking plays at the North Coast Repertory Theater.
Although Haddon Lee Sarokin was born in Perth Amboy Nov. 25, 1928, his parents moved to 127 Parker Ave. here. Lee, who was Columbia High School’s “Mirror” yearbook editor, graduated in 1946 and went on to get his juris doctorate from the Harvard Law School in 1953.Newark to start a private practice and joined as a Lasser and Hochman LLC partner.
President Jimmy Carter appointed Sarokin to federal court-Newark in 1979. President Bill Clinton appointed him to the federal appeals bench in 1994 which he stayed until he resigned to avoid becoming political campaign fodder in 1996.
Sarokin issued 2,500 rulings while on the federal bench those 27 years – including his overturning Carter’s 1968 conviction for allegedly shooting three white people in a Paterson bar on the grounds that state prosecutors had “fatally infected the trial” with an unproven racial revenge theory.
Sarokin, in 1991, overruled the Morristown Public Library’s ban on a homeless man for his odor. “If we wish to shield our eyes and noses from the homeless,” said Sarokin, “we should revoke their condition, not their library cards.”
Sons Jeff and Jim, daughter Abby Mantini, stepchildren Ted and Kathy Schlein and 11 grandchildren are also among his survivors. His memorial service was being planned as of presstime.
BLOOMFIELD – It is to the understanding of “Local Talk” that the Township Council earlier this year had hired an environmental consultant to evaluate the two remaining Bakelite factory buildings here on the DPW yard at 230 Grove St.
The two long vacant World War One-era brick buildings – one two-story, the other three-story – may be revamped as a garage and/or office or replaced with a new building for that purpose. Bloomfield Township, after receiving the factory complex from Bloomfield College in the 1960s, replaced the Bakelite office and back buildings with the current garage bays and an office trailer.
Bakelite’s inventor, Leo Baekeland, moved into the then-10 building complex so he can produce his resin-based products – from insulators to napkin rings. 230 Grove St. made sense because it was next door to the Erie Railroad’s Orange Branch Bloomfield Station and across the street from the freight yard.
230 Grove St. became Bakelite’s R&D lab after moving the factory to Bound Brook in 1939. Rooftop panels to rate Bakelite color fade were a common site until the company donated the complex to Bloomfield College in the 1950s. They were the college’s science labs until they gave the property to the township.
Second Ward Councilman Nicholas Joanow has long advocated bringing DPW trucks and equipment permanently indoors. He said that outdoor exposure to the elements have shortened department vehicles’ lifespan.
MONTCLAIR – A late June vote among “Montclair’s bravest,” as revealed on July 8, have signaled their lack of confidence in their fire chief.
The 70 electors representing Montclair Firefighters Benevolent Association Local 20 were asked online to agree or disagree on the following statement: “I have confidence in Chief (John) Hermann’s ability to lead our department.”
Fifty FMBA Local 20 electors, representing 75 percent of the vote, disagreed with the statement. There were 16 electors who agreed; the remaining four abstained.
Local 20 President John Fierro, on July 8, more than confirmed the vote. Fierro, however, would only add that the “secure, anonymous vote” was taken online and that it is a means of its members to “voice grievances.”
At-Large Councilman Peter Yacobelli – after explaining that the Township Council is not involved in a fire chief’s hiring, disciplining and/or firing – said that he understands that Acting Town Manager Brian Scantlebury and Human Resources Director Alisha Dawkins possess the survey.
“The Fire Chief reports to the Town Manager,” said Yacobellis. “I expect (the Town Manager) to ensure that our employees are happy and thriving.”
Hermann and fired Town Manager Timothy Stafford were named by two MFD firefighters in an April racial discrimination suit. The aggrieved firefighters pointed at how Hermann, with Stafford’s consent, created a September 2021 promotional exam process that led to the promotion of fire chief’s son over otherwise more experienced or qualified personnel.
GLEN RIDGE – Motorists, pedestrians and bus riders who use the Bloomfield Avenue Bridge linking Glen Ridge and Montclair may want to dust off their 2018-19 detour notes for the next five or six weeks.
The Glen Ridge Police Department will help refresh memories by setting up detour signage at the Glenridge Avenue intersection. Montclair police will likely do the same at its Pine Street and Maple Avenue intersection.
Public Service Electric & Gas informed both police departments and Essex County Division of Roads and Bridges that it will be closing three of the bridge’s four lanes two or three days a week until either Aug. 26 or Sept. 1. That single “open” lane may shift with the work on different weeks.
PSE&G said that they have to repair or replace underground electric cables or natural gas mains underneath the bridge deck. They were last worked on during the 1911 bridge’s $11 million renovation 2018-2020.
NJTransit’s 11, 28 and 29 bus service is expected to be among the detoured traffic. Service on the Montclair-Boonton Line, which runs under the bridge, is not expected to be delayed. Toney’s Brook is also expected to be unaffected.
BELLEVILLE – It can be said that a revenue issue had cropped up at the July 11 Township Council meeting between Belleville School 10 and one of the owners of 571-73 Belleville Ave. to its immediate west.
Anthony Tuituriello, who is one of the building owners, said that the solar roof array and car sun shade over School 10’s parking lot is obstructing the view of three billboards on 571-73’s east side Tuituriello, during the July 11 public comment segment, said he is concerned that the billboard companies will not renew their contract with him.
571-73 Belleville is a two-story brick retail and apartment building constructed in 1937. Its billboards go back to at least the mid-1960s.
School 10, a three-story elementary school, was built in the 1920s. The solar panel array and car shade between the school and the brick building was erected last year.
Mayor Michael Melham redirected Turturiello to the Belleville Public Schools and its Board of Education Trustees. Melham explained that, aside from a courtesy hearing before the Belleville Planning Board, the panel/sunshade was a BPS project approved by its trustees.
The solar panel array on the sunshade roof was built as an energy saver. It can theoretically charge back the power utility after it has paid for itself.
NUTLEY – A Franklin Avenue dance studio and part of an Italian delicatessen appear to be continuing business as usual despite a July 8 police pursuit whose end came with a crash there.
A Nutley Police Department blotter entry has its officers responding to a car crash between 152 and 156 “South Franklin Ave.” that Saturday. They arrived to find a blue Subaru against a brick pillar between A&S Italian delicacies’ southern and the Angelic Dance Studios’ northern walls.
Responding officers promptly summoned local EMS, who took the Subaru driver to a local hospital for treatment of serious injuries. The car was extricated without major delay to NJTransit Route 74 buses or other traffic.
156 Franklin Ave. is a 2.5-story house that was long converted to street level offices or stores and second floor apartments. A&S, at 152 Franklin is another 2.5 story mixed-use building with a single story northern extension.
The crash is still under investigation since witnesses told NPD officers that a second car had been pursuing the Subaru. The second car’s driver, should he or she be found, will be charged with fourth-degree assault by auto.
