TOWN WATCH
IRVINGTON – Last rites for the recently retired Municipal Clerk Harold Wiener were held at Union’s Galante Funeral Home March 1, at Hillside’s Christ the King Church March 2 and a later burial at East Hanover’s Gate of Heaven Cemetery.
Wiener, 67, considered The Wizard of Municipal Clerks, died at Summit’s Overlook Hospital Feb. 26. He had ended his 36-year clerkship here, citing health reasons, July 31. He had served seven mayors, 60 council members, township officials, residents and the public.
Harold Edward Wiener was a lifelong Irvingtonian from his birth here at Irvington general Hospital. The Union Avenue Elementary School and Irvington High School Class of 1975 graduate went on to now-Montclair State University to attain his psychology/sociology bachelor’s degree in 1979.
Wiener first went to the Municipal Building for a job while he pursued a master’s degree in teaching social science. First hired as a consumer affairs officer in 1980, he passed a typing test and was appointed assistant clerk in 1982. He went on to attain his degree – and a state Registered Municipal Clerk Certificate – in 1986.
Wiener’s scholarly pursuit continued before and well after being appointed as Irvington’s Municipal Clerk Nov. 24, 1987. He became a Certified Municipal Clerk in 1991, and the International Institute of Municipal Clerks’ Master Municipal Clerk designation in 2005. The Municipal Clerks Association of Essex County and New Jersey member was named 2010 Municipal Clerk of the Year.
The Wizard – known for his expertise, impartiality, supervisory ability and judgement – lived his last days in Union. His 35-year attendance streak, broken by a 2007 pout with pneumonia, was blotted by health issuers his last year. Then-Assistant Clerk Shawana Supel filled in for him.
Mother Josephine, wife Joanne, brothers Richard and Tom and sister Eleanor are among his survivors.
NEWARK – The life of Edwin Ivan Martinez, 13, was remembered with a March 7 visitation here at the Alvarez Funeral Home, a March 8 Funeral Mass at St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church and later burial at North Arlington’s Holy Cross cemetery.
Martinez – who was to graduate from Park Avenue Elementary School’s Eighth Grade in June – was also remembered with a Feb. 26 vigil at the southwest corner of Clifton and Montclair avenues, where a shrine marks the spot where he and his older cousin’s car ended after a two car collision there Feb. 25.
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office said that the collision between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. Feb. 25 had killed one person at the scene and sent a driver to a local hospital with serious injuries.
Martinez’s family said that Edwin was in the passenger seat where the other car impacted. He told his mother that he was going to ride with his older cousin from their uncle’s house instead of walking. They had stopped to take home food along the way.
Edwin Martinez, who was born March 28, 2010 at Belleville’s RWJBarnabas Health Clara Maass Medical Center, was remembered as a cheerful but serious student who would play soccer at the drop of a ball. His teammates added a soccer ball to the shrine. He flew solo to meet his grandparents in El Salvador over the Christmas holidays and recently had his first communion at St. Michael’s.
Mother Xenia, younger sister Daylin Yaeli and grandparents Maria Magdalena and Jose Francisco are among his survivors. A GoFundMe.com page for his funeral expenses, set up Feb. 26, may reach its $30,000 goal by March 8. ECPO Accident Scene Unit detectives are still investigating as of press time.
EAST ORANGE – A quick thinking carjacking victim and alert Newark Police patrols helped apprehend a city man who was accused of taking the Range Rover in Totowa and crashing it by a South Ward intersection Feb. 25.
The driver/mother told Totowa police that she was about to pull out of her parking space from the Abill Plaza lot on Route 46 West when a black car pulled up and blocked her in at about 11:30 a.m. that Sunday.
A man in a camouflage ski mask, black clothing and a watch on his left wrist, got out of the blocking car, pulled her out of her SUV by her arm, saw her one-year-old son in the back seat and told her, “Just take your son and leave.” The thief – and a second driver in the black sedan – then sped away onto 46 West.
The victim, however, took a front windshield photo of the carjacker aboard the car and posted it on Twitter. She gave a copy and her description to Totowa police – who then put out an all points bulletin on the vehicle and suspect.
NPD patrol officers, said Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage, noticed a Range Rover matching the APB’s description that afternoon and began a pursuit. The SUV’s driver had collided with a parked car before crashing into a pole at Maple and Vasser streets that afternoon. Its driver was still inside, complaining of pain.
Police computer record checks, conducted while local EMS technicians treated the driver, uncovered what the late commentator Paul Harvey would have called “the rest of the story.”
Desi S. Lee, 43, was arrested and charged on counts of unlawful taking of a means of conveyance, assault by auto and resisting arrest after being told to stop. He is also being held by Superior Court-Newark and Totowa Municipal Court on two counts of possessing a dangerous controlled substance and a parole violation. It is not known whether Lee, who is being held in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility, will be extradited to Totowa.
ORANGE – The redeveloper of 275 Main St. and 27 Ridge St. is hoping that incoming apartment dwellers and retailers will proclaim, “The Elks Are Dead – Long Live The Elks” in Spring 2025.
That is when Vanta Development, of Brooklyn, hopes to have a seven-story apartment building with ground floor retail space open at where the 1864 BPOE Elks Lodge No. 135 and a 1920’s 2.56-story house around the corner stood.
The 126 unit “multi-family residential building” is being named “The Elks.” Www.thelksnj.org” are on the banners lining the perimeter fence since Feb. 28 while two contracted excavators are digging out foundation space.
Elks Lodge 135 had closed by 2020, its members and front lawn Elk statue moved to the then-Newark-Bloomfield Lodge at 292 Bloomfield Ave., Bloomfield. Their new home has since been renamed The Greater Essex Lodge.
Vanta bought the properties as VA 475 Urban Renewal LLC June 3, 2021 and received “a community events agreement” with the City of Orange Oct. 3, 2023. That agreement includes a “voluntary community service contribution to the City” long term tax exemption payment of $441,000.
Vanta had meanwhile used 275 Main/27 Ridge and four other properties here, in East Orange and Vernon as collateral for a one-year, $6 million refinancing loan from JG Funding Corp. of Staten Island, NY. The other properties, holding an overall 1.507 million square feet, are: 91 Main St and 748 Berkeley Ave., here, 636 Central Ave., East Orange and Vernon’s 114 Rt 94. McAfee.
91 Main St. is a former car repair garage that had most recently been the Omega Kingdom daycare center and 748 Berkeley is an Edwardian-era South Ward house. 636 Central, East Orange was the home of the Doops store/discotheque and 114 Rt. 94, Vernon, is vacant land. Vanta has not said what they will otherwise do with these properties.
WEST ORANGE – The township’s two-year contract to do Dover’s bookkeeping, which came to light in the Morris County town’s Feb. 20 council meeting, could become an episode of a hypothetical “When Shared Service Agreements Go Bad” television series.
Dover Mayor James P. Dodd, the Council and meeting witnesses became upset at how West Orange had conducted itself 2021-22 when John Mooney, of Mt. Arlington-based Nisivoccia auditing, presented his 2022 financial report. Dodd was a four-term mayor but was replaced by Carolyn Blackman in 2019 – who replaced Nisivoccia with the West Orange Department of Finance in 2021.
Dover had paid $65,000 in quarterly installments to West Orange in 2021 plus an annual two percent increase thereafter. Dodd, who was returned to office Nov. 8, canceled the interlocal services agreement and brought back Nisivoccia. Dover’s new Chief Financial Officer Tom Ferry, who was hired in September, is to file a 2023 financial report to the old-new auditor in March.
Mooney, in his 2022 financial audit, called West Orange’s 2022 reports, “by far the worst condition of any records I’ve ever seen in 27 years. There was a lack of records that were provided to us. We couldn’t do anything – there was no one to ask questions to. It was really, really bad.”
The recordkeeping conditions were such that Mooney believed it helped leave Dover with a $1.8 million budget deficit. Dover officials had improperly applied $1.8 million from federal COVID relief funds to fill a 2022 budget gap – but the township had to take $2.1 million more from its fund balance to reconcile its books.
After Mooney said that he found no fraud rising “to the level where it’s in somebody’s pocket and they walked out the door with it,” Dodd said that West Orange’s CFO, John Gross “clearly stated, ‘I’m responsible for 2022.’ “
Gross, who has been added Mayor’s Chief of Staff and Comptroller’s jobs here, has not responded to a Morris County reporter’s request for comment.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – One of the legacies of retired Maplewood Fire Lt. Bernard Maran – who died in Stuart, Fla, 15 – may be found in South Orange’s fire stations.
B. Maran, 89, who was among “Maplewood’s Bravest” 1959-89, has sons Spencer and Steven follow in his firefighters boots up to becoming the village’s deputy fire chiefs by 2020. Spencer Maran retired from the South Essex Fire Department Aug. 1; Steven still serves the two-town squad.
B. Maran, who was born July 25, 1934 in Summit, had lived in several places, including Irvington, before the family arrived in Maplewood. “Ben” first worked with the Maplewood Department of Public Works before taking the firefighters exam and academy training.
Lt. Maran was last placed in Station 2, 105 Durand Rd., – by the then-police headquarters and the train station. He liked to talk with children about fire safety as much as he liked saving people.
Ben and wife Irene Maran raised Spencer, Steven, Scott, and Victoria Maran-Reiss here before moving onto Bricktown, West Palm Beach and Stuart, Fla. Ben continued in Florida as a school crossing guard and as an active member of the Army National Guard plus the local Knights of Columbus, the Firemen’s Mutual Benevolent Association and the Elks Club.
Three grandsons, two granddaughters, brother Frank, daughter Agnes, companion Joan Melluso and the Melluso family are also among his survivors. His visitation and funeral at Stuart’s Aycock Funeral Home Young & Prill Chapel, followed by a graveside service, were held there Feb. 23.
BLOOMFIELD – Neighbors of the former Peerless Tube factory complex here, who have been irked over a proposed new use of the site last month, got to practice their presentation and civic skills here at the Feb. 26 Township Council Meeting.
The mostly Williamson Street homeowners came before Mayor Ted Gamble and the council that Monday night to voice their objections to a proposed apartment building on 78-88 Locust Ave. in the Watsessing section. The Zoning Board of Adjustment postponed the Golemis Realty LLC public hearing from their Feb. 22 meeting to 7 p.m. March 17.
Golemis, of Tenafly, is proposing to build a four-story, 44 apartment building at 78 Locust Ave. and resume using the parking lot at 88 Locust. Golemis had bought the .964 acre 78 Mocust lot from Bloomfield Parkside LLC for $1.9 million Aug. 26, 2021 and had brought questions before the ZBA Traffic Expert at their April 6 meeting.
The neighbors of Williamson Street, to the lot’s south, ate saying that Golemis has not done enough planning to mitigate any dust or debris that the proposed construction may dig up. They are also concerned about the noise wafting west on Locust to the Watsessing Elementary School on Prospect Street.
78-88 Locust used to have a four-story brick factory that was built by Peerless in 1920. Bloomfield Parkside had that building demolished Aug. 7, 2021 after they bought it from neighboring Parkway Self Storage in 2015. Parkway, in turn, bought the Peerless complex on 56-76 Locust Ave. and JFK Parkway from a Peerless Holdings federal bankruptcy judge in 2003.
Peerless, who held patents on aluminum aerosol cans and collapsible tubes, came here from Newark in 1912. It hired 750 people to produce two million tubes a year in the 1970s, however, before it dwindled to 150 by 1994.
The company known by locals and Garden State Parkway drivers for its paint tube sign and aerosol aroma had built a second factory in Freehold in 1970 and a third in Puerto Rico – but failed to dispel its decline. Peerless Holdings were in a New York City judge’s hands when Parkway pitched plans for converting the main plant into 676 self-storage lockers in 2001.
MONTCLAIR – A New Jersey State Fire Marshal and Montclair Fire Department inspectors are tracing the cause of a Feb. 21 fire that damaged three cars parked in Montclair State University’s Red Hawk Parking Deck. The blaze, which also brought first responders from the township, MSU and Clifton. limited parking garage and adjacent bus stop access into Feb. 22.
The MSU campus community first got word of a car fire on the seven story garage’s third floor on the Red Hawk Alert Rave system at 11 a.m. that Wednesday. MUS Police, who has its headquarters to the deck’s west, and a campus EMS crew promptly responded, as well as the first of Montclair’s fire and police units.
The garage’s public access was promptly closed. The adjacent bus stop for MSU campus shuttles and NJTransit’s No. 28, 191 and 705 services were moved south to Normal Avenue. The Red Hawk Parking Deck is about 10 feet south of the Montclair, Essex County-Little Falls, Passaic County border.
The fire had spread to two adjacent cars at 11:30 although mutual aid from the Clifton Fire Department had arrived. The fire was extinguished by 12:30 p.m. It is not known whether the attached Alexander Kasser Theater and George Segal Gallery were evacuated.
Although structural MSU engineers deemed the garage as structurally safe at 3:26 p.m. directed parkers to remove their vehicles to other lots by 6 p.m. The garage reopened at 7:30 a.m. Feb. 22 after contracted towers and MSU maintenance crew had finished cleaning up.
No Mayoral Re-election for Spiller
Mayor Sean Spiller announced on social media Feb. 29 that he is preparing “to pass the baton of leadership to the next elected leader of our community,” ending his 12 years as Mayor and councilman. Spiller, who will be still working as New Jersey Education Association President, has been rumored since late 2022 to be running for the Democratic Gubernatorial nomination in 2025.
BELLEVILLE – Mourning bunting went up on Belleville Town Hall, the Belleville Public Library and Information Center, Belleville Fire Station No. 2 along Washington Avenue and on other township buildings by Noon March 1 in tribute to the late Mayor William J. “Bill” Escott.
Escott, 78 – who served Belleville as a councilman, mayor and police and school safety officer for five decades – died Feb. 29. It is not clear whether he moved here soon after his March 12, 1945 birth in East Orange or after his Vietnam era honorable discharge from the U.S. Navy.
Escott first served the Belleville Police Department for 25 years, retiring as Captain in command of the Detective Bureau. He was first elected as Third Ward Councilman in 1996 and was re-elected in 2000.
His then-Township Council colleagues named him as their mayor 1999-2001 before his council term ended in 2004. (Belleville was on a Council Commission form of government then.) He ran for an unsuccessful return in 2016.
Escott was meanwhile appointed as the Belleville Public Schools’ Supervisor of Safety and Security 2012-14. Wife Cecilia and sons William Jr., Michael and Thomas P. are among his survivors.
Escott’s visitation was held March 5 at Nutley’s S.W. Brown & Son Funeral Home and his Funeral Mass March 6 here at St. Peter’s Church. Memorial donations may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, www.stjude.org and/or the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, www.t2t.org.
NUTLEY – The township and its police department are nearly two months into reviving and expanding a neighborhood watch program. There are groups, like the Newark-based ACLU-NJ, who are interested in what the resident watchers will be instructed on.
Nutley Public Safety Commissioner Alphone “Al” Petracco and Police Chief Thomas Strumolo, at their Feb. 22 in-person and Zoom meeting at the township’s courtroom, introduced the four lieutenants, captain and deputy chief who will make up the Nutley Neighborhood Watch Command Staff who will supervise team watchers and block captains.
Petracco and former commissioner and retired NPD lieutenant Steve Rogers recalled how the watch worked decades ago. Rogers told of how an observant resident called police about suspicious activity at an apartment complex here – which led to the activity “being linked to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.”
Petracco and Strumolo, at the Jan. 17 meeting, had volunteer team watchers and block captains sign up after explaining the intent and logistics of the watch program. Volunteer residents and/or business owners will be assigned a block or a neighborhood to observe.
“We’re partnering with our neighbors, our residents, because when there are more eyes on the street – ‘When you see something, say something,’ ” said Petracco to a reporter Feb. 26.
Participating watchers and block captains are being instructed to call in any suspicious activity – and not to personally intervene. How and what constitutes suspicious activity has given ACLU-NJ Senior Supervising Attorney Alexander Shalom cause for concern.
“You have untrained folks who can’t identify the difference between someone borrowing a friend’s car and someone stealing a car,” said Shalom. “(They) wind up playing police officer when we’ve trained people who should be doing that.”
