TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – The Newark Public Schools Board of Education, with institutional speed, appointed two new members to fill vacancies at their Jan. 25 meeting here at the Newark Vocational High School.
Kanileah Anderson and Helena Vinhas were sworn in on the NVHS auditorium that Thursday night to respectively succeed A’Dorian Murray-Thomas and Asia J. Norton. Murray-Thomas resigned after Essex County District 2 voters elected her as their County Commissioner Nov. 7. Board President Norton resigned Sept. 18 to become a law clerk for Superior Court-Newark Judge Sheila A. Venable.
Anderson is a Supervising Family Service Specialist for the state and a member of Science Park High School’s Parent-Teacher-Student Organization. Vinhas is Vice Chairwoman on the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women and Vinhas Jewelers President.
The duo were among seven appointee candidates who were interviewed before Jan. 25; the seven were among others who had submitted their resumes to the NPS Central Office.
Vinhas and Anderson will be serving on the board until June 30. Their successors are to be elected in the April 18 school board and budget elections and sworn in to complete Norton and Murray-Thomas’ unexpired terms before July 1. There will be at least two candidates, complementing the usual annual three, fielded by the “Moving Newark Schools Forward” team.
IRVINGTON – Township resident Mary G. Bennett has been on her new job as New Jersey State Board of Education member since her Jan. 23 inauguration. Gov. Phil Murphy (D-Rumson) had appointed her and Jeanette Pena, of Union City, to fill two vacancies among the 13-member board.
Bennett’s name may be more familiar among Irvington’s neighboring towns. Before Murphy’s recommendation and State Senate confirmation, Bennett has been an instructor and education mentor at Montclair State University and Seton Hall Academy for Urban Education Transformation’s educational consultant and adjunct faculty member. She has held both jobs since 2007.
The Rutgers University-Douglass College BA attainee worked her way up Newark Public Schools, from English language arts teacher to principal, 1973-99. She headed the Newark Educational Services Board, created to implement NPS’ transition back to an autonomous district, in 2016.
Bennett and Pena succeed Middlesex attorney Elizabeth Gazi and Ernie Lepore, of Hudson County. The NJ State Board of Education applied the administrative code and educational law across New Jersey’s public, charter and renaissance school districts.
EAST ORANGE – The Renew and Inspire Souls Everywhere Church here at 400 Dr. Martin Luther King., Jr. Blvd., absent its longtime congregation, has been on the commercial real estate market since last summer.
The sanctuary, up for sale or lease, is a 90-by-180 foot two story building on the northwest corner of MLK Boulevard and North Walnut Street constructed for its 550-member congregation 1992-93 for $6.5 million to replace a 107-year-old edifice that was destroyed by fire.
RISE Church was Calvary-Roseville United Methodist Church in the 1990s. Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church, formed in 1869, constructed its original building in 1885.
Calvary and its denomination went through several name changes into and beyond the 1990s. The Methodist Episcopal denomination became UMC in 1939. The church absorbed Newark’s Roseville UMC church, renaming itself Calvary-Roseville, in 1974.
The church had a 300-child Tender Loving Care daycare center and was finishing a six-week, $80,000 renovation when the April 9, 1992 fire struck. The blaze damaged $50 worth of windows of Christ Episcopal Church to its west but did not touch the Bishop Taylor Manor to its north. Congregants held services in East Orange High School’s Dionne Warwick Auditorium, Grace Apostolic Church (formerly Munn Avenue Presbyterian Church) and the Park Avenue UMC until the current sanctuary was completed.
Calvary-Roseville changed its name to RISE UMC in 2017. Although the Greater New Jersey UMC still owns 400 MLK until its sale or lease, RISE’s trustees decided to sell the building. “Local Talk” has been told that RISE, whose last Facebook posting was May 4, 2022, has moved to a new location.
ORANGE – A New Jersey State Appellate Court-Trenton ruling Jan. 25 is keeping the city man convicted of murdering three women in 2016 behind bars.
The appellate court judges, in a 34-page ruling, turned down Khalid Wheeler-Weaver’s five-part appeal to have at least a retrial. Wheeler-Weaver and his lawyers said that the police had violated his Fifth Amendment rights in questioning, that the presiding judge should not have informed the jury of the Miranda warning, “among other errors,” and that his sentence by Superior Court Judge Mark Ali was “excessive.” He said he should have had four separate trials.
The three-judge panel, while stating that the trial judge erred on the Miranda rights. it was an “error (that) doesn’t rise to the level of plain error warranting the reversal of the defendant’s convictions.” They rejected the other claims as well on merit.
Wheeler-Weaver was convicted in 2020 and sentenced in 2021 to the murder, kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, aggravated arson and desecration of human remains of three local women in 2016. He was found guilty of killing Sarah Butler, of Montclair, Robin West of Philadelphia and Union and Joanne Brown, of Newark.
Wheeler-Weaver, who had met the women online, left Butler under a pile of leaves in West Orange’s part of the Eagle Rock Reservation. West’s body was found at 472 Lakeside Ave. here after first responders extinguished a fire there. He was also convicted of the kidnapping and attempted strangling of Tiffany Taylor, of Elizabeth, who escaped.
Neither the state nor media attention is finished with Wheeler-Weaver. His lawyers, as of press time, may appeal to the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
Wheeler-Weaver has also been indicted in 2023 in the kidnapping and murder of Mawa Doumbia, 15, of Newark. Although Doumbia’s remains were found in a vacant South Main Street carriage house in 2016, she was not identified until Nov. 5, 2021. Wheeler-Weaver – should he plead guilty or is convicted by a jury – would face more jail time.
WEST ORANGE – The Township Council here have until their Feb. 13 meeting here to either override Mayor Susan McCartney’s Jan. 24 veto of their latest gas leaf blower ban bill or draw up a third version.
McCartney, in her veto of Ordinance 3-17.3, cited “the current state of the technology and the substantial burden it will place disproportionally on various people, including but not limited to seniors and the business community directly impacted by the proposed ordinance.”
The council had passed a seasonal – to – permanent ban ordinance on gasoline internal combustion engine-powered leaf blowers Jan. 18. Their second ordinance called for gas i.c. blower use prohibited between Jan. 1-March 1 and May 1-Oct. 1, 2024. A year-round ban on individuals and businesses would take effect Jan. 1, 2026.
McCartney, whose 20 years on the Township Environmental Commission predated her elections to Township Council and Mayor, said that the vetoed ordinance fails “to provide sufficient resources for the implementation of the proposed ban,” and therefore places a burden on West Orange taxpayers.
The mayor added that the ordinance’s landscaper registry needs a definition of “landscaper” and what the registration fee would be. McCartney said that such an ordinance needs a 90-day advance notification. She said she would welcome revisiting the matter in 2026, when she hopes that technological advances in charging electric blowers and disposal of lithium ion batteries have advanced by then.
The council, citing a need for refinement, withdrew their original blower ban ordinance at their Sept. 26 meeting’s second reading.
SOUTH ORANGE – Village police officers and detectives are looking out for a man who recently molested a jogger while both were in Farrell Field.
The jogger said that she was with several fellow girls in Farrell Field at about 10:30 a.m. Dec. 9 when the molestation happened. The victim said that a man ran up from behind her, grabbed her buttocks and fled north onto Walton Road.
SOPD posted the incident on their blotter Jan. 13 likely as a means to ask the public’s help after exhausting leads.
The suspect is described as: “a white male in his late teens or early 20s, wearing white pants and a black hooded sweatshirt.”
Anyone with information is to call SOPD Det. Hipolito Felix at hfelix@southorange.org or (973) 763-3000 ext. 7795.
MAPLEWOOD – A Newark man and the Maplewood Police Department, since Jan. 23, gave one more reason why motorists should lock their parked cars.
MPD Officer Adrian Verdin said that he encountered a car with fogged up windows parked along Millburn Avenue while making routing business checks at 4 p.m. that Tuesday.
He looked inside and found a sleeping man – and his vomit – within the unlocked vehicle. The man would be identified as Alexis Lluminquinga, 27, of Newark.
Lluminquinga, when he resumed consciousness, said that he just got off a NJTransit bus and was looking for warmth when he found the unlocked car.
It is not clear whether Off. Verdun determined that Lluminquinga was intoxicated on entry or if Lluminquinga told him. What is clear was that the uninvited man threw up on himself and the car’s interior before falling asleep.
Lluminquinga was arrested for criminal trespass and released with a later Maplewood Municipal Court date.
BLOOMFIELD – It looks like that Interim Mayor Ted Gamble and First Ward Councilwoman Jenny Mundell, as of Jan. 30, will be going head-to-head for an elected mayoral term come the June 3 Primary Election – but who will be appointed to Gamble’s At-Large Council seat will not be known until at least Feb. 2’s Township Council meeting.
Feb. 2 is when the Bloomfield Democratic Committee will formally present its three recommendations to fill Gamble’s council seat for Bloomfield’s elders to interview and choose from. Who will be selected from the resumes the party committee receives, however, will be done by party members Jan. 31 pass press time.
The prospective man or woman appointed to Gamble’s council seat will have the option to run for election to complete the unexpired term. His or her name would be listed on the June 3 party primary ballot.
That June 3 primary ballot to elect someone to complete former mayor Michael Venezia’s term will have at least Gamble and Mundell’s names – and it appears that there is no love lost between them. Mundell, who led two other Democratic committee candidates in their Jan. 16 “straw poll,” was passed up for Gamble in a 4-2 Jan. 21 vote.
Mundell, who announced her intention to run for mayor Jan. 22, followed up with announcing on Jan. 24 that Phil Alagia will be her campaign manager. Alagia is Essex County Executive Don DiVincenzo’s Chief of Staff since 2003, after the former managed the latter’s campaign against fellow then-Freeholder Tom Giblin in 2002.
Venezia started the chain of events after voters elected him as one of two of “the new 34th Legislative District” General Assembly members Nov. 7. The three-term Venezia resigned as mayor Jan. 6 to be sworn into the State House Jan. 9.
Venezia, however, retains his position as the Bloomfield Democratic Committee Chairman.
MONTCLAIR – If the Montclair Public Schools Board of Education vs. Montclair Township’s lawsuit dispute over Woodman Field renovation was a springtime baseball game here, the head umpire would have called to stop play until further review be completed.
The Board of Education filed a complaint in Superior Court-Newark Jan. 9 against the township after the latter had filed a court injunction Nov. 6.
The Township’s injunction included a stop work order and order MPS to bring a site plan application before the Montclair Zoning Board of Adjustment – which caused the BOE to balk. The public school district had begun renovating Woodman Field’s baseball field as part of implementing its November 2022 construction bond issue project.
“The Board’s architects engaged with the Township’s Planning and Community Development Department multiple times in 2022 and 2023 (in) respect to the 2022 referendum project, of which Woodman Field is a part,” said part of the MBOE’s filing. “At no time prior to Nov. 6, 2023 did anyone ever raise any zoning concerns with respect to what are, in essence, field and site improvements to Woodman Field.”
MBOE’s filing includes a statement that vendor contracts were awarded on the basis that no Montclair zoning or planning improvements were needed.
The Township, as of Jan. 30, has a 35-day period to respond to the BOE suit ending on Mon. Feb. 5. The Municipal Council had discussed the lawsuit in its Jan. 2 executive session.
The baseball field’s $7.94 million renovation was scheduled to finish in mid-March. Several Woodman Field neighbors, on Oct. 11, expressed their disappointment with MPS on the felling of 13 trees and a perceived lack of transparency in the project.
BELLEVILLE – A Superior Court-Newark jury convicted a former resident Jan. 25 of killing his disabled roommate here some 8.5 years ago.
Edwin Andujar, 53, remains in Trenton State Prison until his anticipated April 4 sentencing by Judge Michael J. Ravin – where he faces 30 years to life in prison. The jury told Ravin Jan. 25 that they found him guilty of murder, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a firearm for an illegal purpose. Andujar has a prior conviction for endangering the welfare of a minor.
Andujar was found guilty of fatally stabbing Thomas Parent, 59, 12 times in his abdomen, back and on one of his arms with a serrated steak knife at 23 Wallace St. Aug. 7, 2014. He was living with the permission of the wheelchair-bound Parent at the time.
A witness’ trial testimony had Andujar standing over Parent’s wheelchair with a bloodied knife in his hand before Belleville police had arrived. PD detectives testified that Andujar had confessed to the stabbing on his arrest and the knife was found under Parent’s wheelchair.
Andujar’s defense lawyer claimed that his client stabbed in self-defense. ECPO assistant attorneys, however, admitted Andujar’s confession and physical evidence in their murder case. They said that Parent, who just returned from a rehabilitation center, told the unemployed and living rent-free Andujar that day to move out.
Andujar had been convicted and was given a 45 year prison sentence in 2017 but a State Appellate Court, in 2020, granted him a new trial. A prospective juror, identified in court papers as an African American initialed F.G., had been arrested by law enforcers in a courthouse hallway after dismissal from the trial’s jury selection.
Andujar’s attorney at the time later discovered that an ECPO assistant prosecutor’s background check at the time discovered prior drug and gun arrests and an active arrest warrant on F.G. and told Ravin. F.G., in a private conference among Ravin and the lawyers, said that he grew up while selling drugs and that two of his cousins were murdered when they were 13 and 15 years old.
NUTLEY – The Nutley Fire Department HazMat unit and firefighters from Montclair were among the mutual aid from three counties the Fairfield Volunteer Fire Department had called to help them fight a predawn Jan. 21 industrial building fire there.
The fire at 9 Ray Place, whose first alarm was called at 2:42 a.m. early that Sunday, also brought units from West Essex’s Caldwell, North Caldwell and West Caldwell, Roseland and Cedar Grove, Morris County’s Pine Brook and Lincoln Park and Passaic County’s Wayne to the two-story industrial building.
The 10 mutual aid towns helped FVFD to control the fire into Jan. 22’s morning drive time. The Fairfield incident commander pulled the extra alarms when the first unit found heavy smoke and flames coming from the second floor offices at 2:49 a.m.
The flames engulfed the building before neighboring units had arrived. Units from West Orange, Verona and Millburn were put on standby.
It is not known whether Fairfield had called for mutual aid when the fire reignited five times, starting at 2:15 p.m. that Monday. The fire displaced Dodo Logistics, Complete Garages, Fairfield Brake and two more businesses. An investigation on the fire’s cause is ongoing.
