TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The U.S. Department of Justice, Columbus Long Term Acute Care Hospital/Silver Lake Hospital and the hospital’s investors have come to a $30.6 million settlement over what the former claimed were fraudulent Medicare compensation.
Silver Lake Hospital, said U.S. Attorney Phillip Sellinger that Tuesday, will be repaying Medicare $18.5 million plus interest over the next five years. Silver Lake’s investors will pay $12 million plus interest at the same time.
Sellinger and his attorneys said that the hospital inflated its service costs of its Medicare outlier care program to get higher reimbursement. The proceeds would be redistributed to its investors.
The investors group accused of violating the Federal Debt Collection Procedures Act and the False Claims Act is Columbus Management South LLC, of Paramus, and its principal investor Dr. Richard Lipsky, of Westwood.
Columbus LTACH’s parent, Prime Healthcare, of Ontario, Calif., changed the former Cathedral Health Care facility’s business name to Silver Lake Hospital Nov. 11, 2021. It has been designated as a long term care hospital since 2010. The Medicare outlier care program covers patients who have high care costs.
“Medicare serves to ensure that patients get necessary service which can be very expensive,” said Sellinger. “Medicare is not there for hospitals and their investors to gain unwarranted financial windfalls. This hospital falsely reported its costs to Medicare for years and reaped millions in unjustified payments.”
IRVINGTON – Relatives of resident Ty’Shad Campbell, 27, have been making plans for his Jan. 20 funeral, while the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office Homicide Task Force detectives have been searching for his killer in Newark, since Jan. 14.
Responding Newark Police Division officers told county detectives that they were called to the scene of a shooting along the 300 block of Grove Street at 4:25 a.m. that Sunday. Newark’s three-block stretch of Grove Street separates Irvington’s north end from East Orange.
Campbell was found there near 13th Avenue, critically injured by multiple gunshot wounds. He was rushed to Newark’s University Hospital, where he died at 4:42 a.m.
Campbell – a father, son and grandson – was an East Orange Campus High School Class of 2015 graduate. The EOCHS Jaguars Varsity Football cornerback and wide receiver had come up from the local Mustangs Pop Warner league.
Newark education activist Lyndon Brown has set up a GoFundMe.com page to help the family with his funeral expenses. His funeral had been scheduled for Jan. 20.
EAST ORANGE – City residents have until Jan. 31 to get first dibs on spaces for daily or monthly parking in The Crossings at Brick Church Station Parking Garage.
The seven-story, 900 space garage, whose ground floor has been open for Brick Church ShopRite customers since November, is to be fully open later this year. It is the first structure of the city block-sized residential/commercial complex to be open.
The Parking.com-operated structure features a fully contactless entry and exit practically next door to the NJTransit Morris & Essex Brick Church station. There is currently no waiting list to subscribe to monthly or daily rates.
Monthly permit rates are $99 for up to 12 hours Monday-Friday or $175 for 27/7 access.
Daily rates are $3 for up to four hours, $6 for up to eight hours, $9 for up to 10 hours and $13 for up to 24 hours.
Remaining spaces Feb. 1 onwards will be filled on a first-come, first serve basis. Parking permit requests are to go to: https://parkimng.com/national/lot/brick-church-garage.
Details may be found at: brickchurch@spplus.com.
ORANGE – Funeral services for Otris McRimmon, who died at home here Jan. 18, are to be announced as of press time.
McRimmon passed away 54 days after her beloved Maxie, A. McRimmon died here on Nov. 26. Maxie and the former Otris Smith were married on Aug. 27 1954. Both were childhood sweethearts here.
Maxie and Otris settled in Orange’s South Ward – in a two-family house Maxie had built – to raise Marti and Philip McRimmon and Pamela Mayo. Nine grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren are also among their survivors. Daughter Maxine predeceased them.
Otris and Maxie McRimmon lived in the same house that also served as the latter’s business headquarters, including McRimmon Associates tax preparation and McRimmon Contractors. Maxie was also a longtime City of Orange Construction code official, an Orange Housing Authority and Orange ABC Commissioner and an Orange Board of Education member.
O. McRimmon’s arrangements are to be likely handled by Woody’s Home for Services here, as they had had for M. McRimmon. She will be buried alongside him in Rosedale Cemetery.
WEST ORANGE – The township’s Board of Education has been sifting through letters of interest through Jan. 17 and been conducting interviews on Jan. 22 in the wake of former Board President Jennifer Tunnicliffe’s resignation.
Tunicliffe, without giving a reason, announced her resignation Jan. 13. The two-term board member was re-elected Nov. 8, 2022 with around 40 percent of the vote.
Tunicliffe is leaving from a three-year term which expires on Dec. 31. Whoever the remaining BOE selects as her successor will be at least filling out her term.
The would-be appointee also has the option to run for a full three-year term on the Nov. 5, 2024 General Election ballot — unless that person specifies that he or she will not run.
The interviews were held prior to WOBOE’s Jan. 22 public meeting. A finalist would be proposed at one of their February meetings. The selection was not listed as a Jan. 22 agenda item as posted on Jan. 19.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Ann Bodnar’s Jan. 10 two-page open letter on how Columbia High School and related agencies would handle an anticipated June 11-12 student walkout was one of the acting principal’s first actions.
Bodnar – who was appointed after Acting Superintendent Dr. Kevin Gilbert put Principal Frank Sanchez on leave Jan. 2 – outlined what the high school, the school district and Maplewood Police would do once the walkout happened. The contingencies included the continuance of scheduled classes, the school library used as a safe space, that walking out students will be marked as being absent and that MPD officers will be present to make sure that the “walkout is conducted safely and lawfully.”
Around 100 CHS students walked out after their third period classes Jan. 12 and spent an hour outside at adjacent Ritzer Field. An announcement by an unofficial CHS organization, “Student Voices for Peace,” said the walkout was calling for “a permanent ceasefire now,” in Gaza, “advocating for Palestinian freedom, taking a stance against both Islamophobia and antisemitism and preventing the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism.”
The 100 students is an estimate, given that there was a prohibition on any press meeting with the protesters or any photography. There was a group of adults, a few waving Palestinian flags, stationed across Valley Street from the field, although it is not clear whether they were concerned parents or were formal demonstrators.
“Student Voices for Peace,” whose statement did not include any contact numbers or named representatives, said that they “were told by Principal Sanchez that we should ‘hold off’ on talking about the slaughter of Gazan civilians in our school-affiliated activism spaces.” It is not known whether Sanchez’s purported “holding off” had contributed to his suspension.
The South Orange-Maplewood School District named Dr. Qawi Telesford as its Board President Arun Vadlamani its First Vice President and Nubia DuVall Wilson as Second VP at their Jan. 3 meeting. The duo then issued a “statement of full support” for Gilbert putting Sanchez on leave.
Two students and a parent appraised Sanchez at the in-person/Zoom hybrid meeting. Several residents called in to support “The Walkout for Palestine.”
UPDATE: The South Orange Public Library will open at its interim location, 298 Walton Ave. on Jan. 25. Construction continues on linking its 1968 building at 45 Scotland Rd. with its original library building next door.
BLOOMFIELD – Township police detectives are looking for two thieves who creatively shoplifted from the Home Depot here Jan. 4. The hardware store loss prevention officer showed responding BPD officers a store video recording of the two thieves’ actions that Thursday.
The recording showed the duo taking a $106.60 toilet out of its cardboard box and filling the box with $4,450 worth of DeWalt and Milwaukee batteries and a Combat drill kit. They resealed the box and paid the unsuspecting cashier the $106.60 that was rung up.
Gamble Named New Mayor
The Township Council appointed Councilman at-Large Ted Gamble, 6-2, in a contentious Jan. 22 vote, over First Ward Councilwoman Jenny Mundell as interim Mayor. Gamble then resigned his council seat, adding onto the June 3 Special Primary Election for mayor. Mundell, overnight Jan. 22-23, announced her June 3 run for mayor.
Monday night’s council meeting roll call came down to the Bloomfield Democratic Committee-favored Mundell and Jan. 17 straw poll runner-up Gamble. At-large council members Rick Rockwell and Dr. Wartyna “Tina” Davis, Second Ward Councilman Nick Joanow and Gamble voted for Gamble; Mundell and Third Ward Councilwoman Sara Cruz voted for Mundell.
Gamble, Jan. 17-22, had been crying foul over Michael Venezia’s conduct of the straw poll. Although Venezia had resigned as mayor Jan. 6 to take his elected seat as New Jersey Assemblyman for the “new 34th Legislative District Jan. 9, he remains Bloomfield Democratic Committee Chairman. BDC members that Wednesday gave 41 votes to Mundell over Gamble (16 votes) and social media agency founder/Bloomfield College graduate/Bloomfield Parking Authority member Nicole Williams (2 votes).
Gamble, whose appointed term expires Dec. 31., has not said whether he will run to complete Venezia’s remaining unexpired term – which runs out on Dec. 31, 2025. Venezia has meanwhile endorsed Mundell for the June 3 Special Election.
MONTCLAIR – Township police detectives are investigating a smash-and-grab burglary at a Bloomfield Avenue business here on Jan. 14.
MPD officers responded to an alarm sounding from The Clothing Connect store at 3:55 a.m. Sunday. Officers found 402 Bloomfield Ave.’s store front door’s window smashed by three cinder blocks found nearby.
A search of the Wellmont Building store’s premises revealed that its cash register was missing. It had also appeared that some sneakers and watches were also taken.
2021 Driveway Hijacker Pleads Guilty
The man who was accused of carjacking a Porsche Cayenne in a residential driveway here and abandoning it on Newark’s First Street off Interstate 280 in 2021, pleaded guilty of the hijacking and of a related weapons charge in a federal Newark courtroom Jan. 17.
Andy Cook, 24, of Newark, confessed to pulling a gun on the Porsche’s driver 7:26 p.m. Dec. 6, 2021 and ordering her out. Cook also pleaded guilty of conspiring to use the gun in the crime.
Law enforcers, who spotted the Cayenne along I-280 in Orange, apprehended Cook in a building along Newark’s Second Street. Cook also had been facing a count of using a firearm in a crime since an October 2022 indictment. He faces up to 15 years in prison for the carjacking, up to 20 years for the conspiracy and u to $500,000 in fines for both when he is sentenced My 30.
GLEN RIDGE – It looks like the Borough Council, after its Jan. 2 reorganization meeting, will not have to ask for prospective council member resumes.
The council, after watching Deborah Mans be sworn in as mayor that Tuesday, named Councilwoman Ann Marie Morrow as its Council President for the year. There had been a prior concern that Mans and Morrow’s promotions would leave a vacancy on the council.
BOE Leaders Named
The Glen Ridge Public Schools Board of Education, as of Jan. 3, is to be led by longtime Board President Elisabeth Ginsberg for 2024.
Jocellyn Gottlieb and David Campbell were named respective first and second vice presidents that Wednesday. Gottlieb succeeded Tracey St. Auburn, who declined re-election last year.
First-timer Darius K. Dehnad and returnees Duval Graham and Gottlieb were sworn into their new board terms.
BELLEVILLE – Two township residents have thrown their hats into their respective Ward Council and Congressional District race rings Jan. 16.
Current Board of Education Trustee Tracy Juanita Williams launched her run for First Ward Council Jan. 16. Williams, who unsuccessfully sought an at-large council seat in 2022, is running on her Believe in Belleville platform.
Williams, who was first elected as a trustee in 2021, has been Hillside’s Prevention Intervention Referral Specialist since 2018. She and her fiancé have been living in the First Ward’s Silver Lake section since at least 2019.
Williams is likely to contest the First Ward seat against “A Better Belleville” candidate fielded by campaign manager Mayor Michael Melham. Whoever is elected by a majority of registered First ward residents in May will succeed 20-year Councilwoman Marie Strumolo Burke, who had decided on Dec. 31 to end her incumbency on July 1.
Joseph Belnome, that same Tuesday, announced his pursuit for the Republican nomination to run against incumbent Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) for the U.S. House of Representatives 11th Congressional District seat.
“Jersey Joe,” a retired bricklayer and township building inspector, had contested for the State Senate 34th Legislative District seat last year against outgoing Assemblywoman Britnee Timberlake (D-East Orange). The “New 34th” also includes Bloomfield, Glen Ridge and Nutley and Passaic County’s Clifton.
Belnome got June 6’s primary nomination by write-in votes. Timberlake got the retiring Richard J. Codey’s seat 76 – to – 24 percent on Nov. 7 with a 12,802 vote plurality.
NUTLEY – Township authorities and the U.S. Secret Service are asking anyone who used the outside ATM at Capital One’s bank branch, 471 Franklin Ave., recently to check with their financial institutions on their balances and any unusual transactions.
Nutley Police and the Secret Service said that an ATM customer there found “a suspicious device” mounted next to the machine’s card reader early Jan. 18 and altered bank branch employees.
Branch security and NPD detectives identified the device as a “skimmer” – a card reader used to gather bank card data for criminal use. The skimmer was turned over to the Secret Service, who has taken over the investigation’s lead.
“We may have recovered this device before thieves (could) obtain personal information,” said Nutley Police Commissioner Alphonse Petracco that Thursday. “Police notified all financial institutions within the township and checked for skimmers.”
“Please check with your institution to ensure your account wasn’t compromised,” said Nutley Police Chief Thomas Strumolo. “If you find unauthorized charges or withdrawals, please contact your bank and report (it) to (the) police.”
