TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – A Georgia King Village tenant leader, who got the attention of Newark Police and a USPS-Newark Field Office Postal Inspector, intends to get Municipal Council attention at their Feb. 21 meeting over the Feb. 11 wholesale ransacking of an apartment building mailroom.
Gee Cureton told GKV landlord L+M Development Partners, the USPS Postal Inspection Service and a reporter Feb. 12 that she found the mailroom of 18-story Building No. 250 violated that Sunday.
Although individual mailboxes had been burgled before, the front panel of the communal mailboxes were pried and left open this time. Pieces of mail were left strewn and abandoned on the floor.
“GKV needs to replace all of their mailboxes because they are 40-to-50-years-old,” said Cureton Feb. 13. “We need tamper proof mailboxes.”
“Based on the boxes’ location, they’re property; they’re private mail receptacles for residents of that address,” said postal inspector Greg Kliemisch. “USPS is reaching out to the manager to rectify this issue to ensure mail that’s delivered to this address is secure for residents to acquire.”
L+M Development spokeswoman Claire Holmes, on Feb. 12, said that management had reviewed and shared local security recordings with NPD. “We’ve referred last night’s incident to law enforcement and implemented additional security measures around the mailboxes to deter vandalism.”
IRVINGTON – An NJ Superior Court-Newark jury convicted a Newark man in the second of what authorities said were a string of three sexual assaults and an attempted fourth from June 5 to Dec. 13, 2015.
The jury, on Feb. 7, told Judge Ronald L. Wigler that they found Kervin Joseph-Michel, 43, guilty of six counts: first-degree kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault; second-degree sexual assault and third-degree aggravated assault, criminal restraint and endangering the welfare of a minor.
Joseph-Michel, according to ECPO prosecutors, had tried to strike a conversation with the 21-year-old township woman while she was walking home with her three-week-old son in her arms – but ignored him – Nov. 4, 2015. He followed her to her address’ backyard porch, where he drew a knife on her.
County attorneys said that the victim heard her boyfriend’s car pulling up and she asked Joseph-Michel if she could quiet her son, who was also on the floor. She scooped up the infant and ran to the boyfriend. Joseph-Michel fled but not before lunging at and struggling with the boyfriend and leaving the disarmed knife behind.
ECPO Special Victims Unit detectives – with assistance from Irvington, Newark and East Orange colleagues – tied DNA on the knife to Joseph-Michel. He was arrested Jan. 28, 2016 and was held on an overall $1.8 million bail: $750,000 each for the Nov. 4 and 2 assaults and $300,000 for the June 5 assault of a 13-year-old girl.
The first assault happened at the girl’s Newark home and the Nov. 2 assault was of a 29-year-old Irvington woman at her place. The Dec. 13 attempted assault was of forcing himself into a woman’s car at a Newark gas station convenience store and driving her to another location.
Joseph-Michel faces 15-to-20 years imprisonment for the Nov. 4 kidnapping and 10-20 years for the aggravated sexual assault at Judge Wigler’s April 8 sentencing. Trials on the other three crimes are to be scheduled.
EAST ORANGE – City native Theodore “Ted” Stephens II, as of Feb. 16, can remove “Acting” from his Essex County Prosecutor title.
The former Essex County Surrogate’s confirmation was unanimously approved by the State Senate Feb. 12 and sworn in by Superior Court Judge Mark Ali in the county’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. building in Newark Feb. 16. The inauguration also confirmed Newarkers Romesh Sudkhedo as First Assistant Prosecutor and Mitchell McGuire as Chief of Detectives.
Gov. Phil Murphy had named Stephens as acting prosecutor Sept. 4, 2018. Neither the Governor’s Office nor the Senate Judiciary Committee have said why it took so long for the former Orange and East Orange municipal judge and former East Orange City Corporate Council to be confirmed.
“Teen Streets” Fire Routes 12
City fire detectives and the State Fire Marshal are looking for the cause of a fire here at 168 No. 17th St. Feb. 15. The fire forced out its 12 residents into temporary housing.
The first East Orange Fire Department units from the Grove Street Station found heavy smoke coming from the 1930 three story wood frame house’s attic at 2:55 p.m. that Thursday, prompting a second alarm. The blaze was quickly contained and firefighters found no one else inside.
ORANGE – City officials have been asking the current or recent tenants of 765-787 Vose Ave. since Feb. 13 to get in touch with City Attorney Gracia Robert Montilus as soon as possible.
“Based on the owners’ negligent management and maintenance of this property,” announced Mayor Dwayne D. Warren, “the City will file charges against your Landlord in Superior Court before (a) presiding Judge. The City will also file to Enforce Tenants’ Rights and seek sanctions against your Landlord.”
The display advertisement-like posting on the municipal Facebook page names the mayor, the Municipal Council and “Concerned Orange Tenants and Neighbors” as plaintiffs in the to-be filed civil lawsuit against “Unsafe and Deplorable Living Conditions.”
The graphic’s “Defendants” list includes: Cindy Phillips, Salah Mekkaway, Joe Friedman and Lyon Bob as officers or general partners; “emergency repair expenditure authorizer” Gene Cooper, “maintenance service provider Gerard Sivers, “manager” Rich Greco and “title owners of units in building John Does” and Vose Equities.
City inspectors and officials have found that conditions are affecting more than what Maguedala Filocsaint and her five children have been suffering. Filocsaint, her children and two relatives entered Warren’s City Hall office Nov. 8 and pleaded for help for she was facing eviction from her landlord at 756 Vose that day. She brought a suitcase of zoning violation copies and related notices from her landlord.
Deputy Planning Director Chris Mobley had directed Filocsaint to the county’s welfare division TANF Office. She and her children have been spending the winter with their aunt.
All three South Ward properties are owned by Vose Equities. The Brooklyn company bought 756 and 765 Vose in 1987 and 787 Vose in 2020.
A full copy of the city’s 39-page, four count complaint is to be found at www.orangenj.gov.
WEST ORANGE – Township police detectives are seeking to trace the calls of those who “Zoom Bombed” the Feb. 13 council meeting with antisemitic and racist speech and insults. The incident prompted condemnation against the callers and support of West Orange’s elders from a wide variety of quarters.
Council President Rev. William “Bill” Rutherford, in advance of the Feb. 13 snowstorm, switched what would have been Wednesday’s live in-person meeting to a live remote one. They were considering how to fine tune a prospective resolution that would urge a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas War for a later meeting’s public hearing and prospective final vote.
What would become a five-hour meeting started off as a debate over whether West Orange should join other U.S. municipalities in urging a ceasefire or that such a resolution would affect such an international matter. The council, which represents six percent Palestinian residents and nine percent Jewish residents among the 50,000 overall population, had been grappling for fairness regarding Israeli and Palestinian flag raisings and dueling demonstrations since Oct. 7.
The callers using fake names and addresses, however, seemed to be as plentiful as the snowflakes outside. One caller prefaced naming certain Biden Administration officials with “Jewish,” a second called the 1933-45 Holocaust as “The Holohoax,” among other antisemitic. slurs.
When a third caller called for building concentration camps for Jews, Rutherford began reminding callers not to use hate speech. The callers frequently responded with racist insults at the reverend. The Council, in a 1-4 straw poll, decided to table the resolution; the meeting’s YouTube recording was not aired.
The pro-Palestinian West Orange for Humanity group promptly decried “the depraved, antisemitic hate speech.” The 25-year West Orange African American Heritage Organization executive board denounced as being “appalled by the vile, abusive, insulting and racially offensive epithets spewed by a public speaker at the recent Zoom council meeting and called for “an immediate investigation.”
“We reiterate our commitment to do what we can to ensure that racism, sexism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia and all forms of hate have no home in our society,” said the West Orange Human Relations Commission. “I’m sorry that this event happened to such a great community,” added Cong. Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-Newark), “and I hope that the racist, non-resident attackers are apprehended and quickly brought to justice.”
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The independent investigator that the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education had hired Feb. 1 is looking to verify or quash allegations made by students and parents of a Columbia High School special dance instructor.
One CHS parent and student told the SOMSD board Jan. 25 that the teacher has conducted “occurrences of emotional abuse, manipulation and threats” that “have been going on for years.”
The student began by recalling that some students had approached her about rescheduling a rehearsal two weeks before a show so they could study for an AP test. The teacher had replied with, “You have destroyed the legacy of the special dance team,” and threatened to cancel the show. They are also being asked to raise $100 a year as a class assignment.
“For years, students have left the dance room defeated and crying, vowing to quit,” said the student. “It’s so upsetting that we must be here today publicly begging the board to take years’ worth of allegations seriously.”
The mother told of the instructor demanding prompt responses to students to her direct emails she sends daily, demands that students miss other classes, have students or supervisors “not approved by the board” lead classes. Students are being rehearsed for 12 straight hours daily, “far longer than what any union would permit professional dancers to be required to dance.
“Is the district okay with administration doing nothing when student after student has told guidance and the principal that they’re being bullied, intimidated, scared and not feel safe?” asked the dance mom.
The student and mother spoke without mentioning their names. Neither the special dance instructor under investigation has been named.
BLOOMFIELD – The Township Council’s newest member, after their Feb. 12 appointment and scheduled Feb. 20 inauguration here, is Monica Charris Tabares.
The council unanimously approved Tabares, a first-term Bloomfield Board of Education member, upon recommendation of the Bloomfield Democratic Committee. She will at least fulfill the 13 months left to now-Interim Mayor Ted Gamble’s unexpired term.
About 18.22 percent of participating registered township voters, or 4,362 voters, put Tabares onto the BBOE Nov. 2, 2021. She was the only successful member of the challenging “For Our Kids” slate.
Tabares had run because she wanted the Latinx population here, about 30 percent, to be represented on the school board. Now she will be the first Latina township councilwoman.
Orange Public Schools parents may remember Tabares when she was a Teacher of The Year there. Tabares holds Preschool-3, Kindergarten-5, Bilingual teaching, Education Supervision and Principal CE licenses. The education doctoral candidate has both a bachelor’s degree in English and a master’s in bilingual education and educational leadership from Kean University.
The North Hudson County Educator of The Year is North Hudson Community Action Corporation Head Start Program Director. The Barranquilla, Col. native emigrated to Jersey City with her family at three-years-old. She said that she and her husband moved here for the public schools.
Both Tabares and First Ward Councilwoman Jenny Mundell have confirmed that they will run on the BDC June 6 party primary ticket. Michael Venezia, who resigned as mayor Jan. 6 to take up his elected Jan. 9 State Assemblyman seat, remains the township party’s chairman. Venezia now bats .500 in having his council colleagues approve party recommendations; the council selected then-at-large councilman Gamble over Mundell.
MONTCLAIR – Current Councilman Robert J. “Bob” Russo, on Feb. 14, has chosen to run for at-large May 14 re-election – and not for another mayoral bid.
Russo, a 28-year civic and political servant, has not said why he made his decision. A majority of registered township voters had returned him as an at-large councilman in 2012 and re-elected him in 2016 and 2020. He was also named Deputy Mayor during his latest tenure.
Russo, 76, was first elected here as First Ward Councilman in 1992 and re-elected in 1996 before making his 2000 mayoral run. He was elected over first-term mayor William Farlie by about 325 votes – but finished third in his re-election bid to Ed Remsen in 2004.
Russo had several runs for Essex County now-Commissioner, starting with a District 5 bid in 1978 but lost to Nutley’s James Piro by 36 absentee ballot votes. He lost in 1987 to then-incumbent Arthur Clay by 4,000 votes, in 2008 by 300 votes to incumbent Ralph Caputo and in 2011 to Brendan Gill.
The Rutgers-Newark political science graduate came here by way of Newark’s Roseville section and Bloomfield – the latter as its Democratic Committee Chairman for five years. He is the son of first-generation immigrant and soda distributor Robert while in Newark.
Russo, who considers himself an independent thinker, looks up to Theodore Roosevelt and Robert Kennedy as his heroes. He is an adjunct political science/public administration professor at Montclair State University. He obtained a master’s degree in political science and public administration from Rutgers-Newark in 1968. He was on “The Observer ” newspaper staff and a member of Students for Robert F. Kennedy for President.
BELLEVILLE – Residents of a Soho/Silver Lake neighborhood and local motorists are hoping that the water woes and detours along the township’s part of Watsessing Avenue Feb. 16 and 20-21 are behind them.
The Belleville Water Department posted an advanced note Feb. 16 that its customers there “and surrounding streets” may experience low water pressure and discolored water that Friday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Those were the scheduled days, absent the Presidents Day holiday weekend.
The municipal department explained that its customers were being tied into a new water main beneath the avenue. That new main’s ownership – whether BWD or the Newark Water and Sewer Department – is unclear as of press time.
Drivers taking the Belleville part of the Avenue may have experienced detours those three days.
New PSE&G Washington Substation
Public Service Electric and Gas explained at a Feb. 12 Belleville Town Hall meeting that a new electrical substation is being built north of Bowlero and the Belleville ShopRite since the autumn.
The “New Washington Project” will bolster overhead power transmission line towers as well as building a substation to serve 12,000 local customers. It is part of the power utility’s drive to upgrade and weather-harden new or existing stations here and in Newark, East Orange, Orange and Bloomfield.
NUTLEY – ECPO detectives are still investigating the Feb. 14 Milton Avenue hit-and-run that killed a Paterson man and injured a possible Nutley resident although a suspect had been arrested Feb. 18 and a Feb. 24 funeral set for the deceased in Passaic.
Nutley police and fire units were called to the 100 block of Milton between Linn Road and the Garden State Parkway overpass just after 7 p.m. that Wednesday. They found two people lying in the road beside Milton’s north side and a utility pole. There was also evidence of car bumper pieces and other evidence of a vehicle collision.
Authorities said that the man and other person were taken to RWJBarnabas Health Newark Beth Israel Center – where the man, identified as Wiston Perlaa, 22 – was declared dead and the other person treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Nutley first responders and the ECPO Homicide Task Force kept that block closed for their crime scene investigation until dawn Feb. 15.
Erick Ferrer, who identified himself as Perlaza’s older brother, told a reporter at the family’s Feb. 17 Paterson vigil that Perlaza and his Nutley girlfriend were on a Valentine’s Day date when they were hit. Ferrar said that the girlfriend remains in hospital for treatment. He said that Perlaza’s covered body remained at the scene until 1 a.m.
Essex County Prosecutor Stevens said that area surveillance recordings led investigators to Dhkir Robinson, 42, of Lumberton, Burlington County, Feb. 15. Robinson is being held in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility on Nutley and Newark police detainers.
Robinson has been charged with causing a death while driving with a suspended license or being unlicensed, knowingly leaving the scene of a fatal accident, endangering an injured victim, obstruction of law enforcement and tampering or destroying evidence. He also faces a parole violation and two counts of possessing Class I, II and/or IV controlled dangerous substances.
A service for Peralza, who would have been 23 Feb. 19, is set for 4 p.m. Feb. 24 at Funeraria Alvarez, 66 Passaic Ave., Passaic. Ferrer has set up a GoFundMe.com page to pay for expenses.
