TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Rite Aid Pharmacy, which once had stores in almost every “Local Talk” town, has closed its last Essex County location here at 104 12th Ave. by March 1.
Contractors for the Philadelphia-based company had closed the University Heights section store Feb. 29 and more than cleared out its inventory. They had removed all signage, leaving a vacant commercial space, as they had earlier done at 35 Mill Rd., Irvington and 545 Central Ave., East Orange.
They were executing the latest directive from Rite Aid and new partner Gabelli Funds, of Rye, N.Y., through U.S. Bankruptcy Court-Camden Jan. 30. It and five other New Jersey stores are among 77 nationwide to close by March 17 as part of its Chapter 11 reorganization.
Rite Aid had entered Chapter 11 protection Oct. 15 to close 2,000 of its stores. Gabelli plugged a $7.6 billion loss with a $3.45 billion injection, but wants low performing stores to close.
There had been no big banners or large scale “Store Closing” announcement at 104 12th Ave. leading up to its Feb. 29 closure. This seems to fit a trend towards corporations quietly but quickly closing unwanted stores.
7-Eleven’s parent company, for example, closed its 728-736 Broadway store Feb. 22-28. They first took down all interior sales signage and quietly held a half-off sale; all items, with exceptions like tobacco products and Red Bull energy drinks, were discreetly discounted at the register.
Corporate’s cutting off of products and supplies were immediately felt; coffee cups and coffee ran out the first day and there were no pizza boxes to carry out cooked pies the fourth day. Contractors removed all contents and outside signage, down to its address, on March 1.
IRVINGTON – First responders Irvington and the New Jersey State Police-Bloomfield Barracks rescued a man who was dangling over the Garden State Parkway from the Chancellor Avenue overpass Feb. 23 – but not without halting northbound evening traffic.
Irvington police and fire units responded to 10:45 p.m. reports that Friday of a man who had gone over the overpass’ northside fencing by Milepost 143.7. The man was indeed found standing on a ledge over the highway’s center lanes, which prompted a call to the state police.
State troopers, on arrival, closed all northbound lanes at Exit 143. The closure, while diverting traffic onto Cleremont Avenue and other township streets, allowed the Irvington Fire Department to place a ladder truck and raise its ladder bucket under the man.
The man, after some 25 minutes’ negotiations with the IPD, walked off the bridge to responders’ custody. It is presumed that an ambulance had taken him to a local hospital for observation. There were no reported injuries.
Parkway and local traffic, both ways, had been snarled by then. Northbound traffic spilled back through the Union Toll Plaza in Hillside. Southbound rubbernecking traffic was spilled back up from Exit 143 South up to Exit 147 – Springdale Avenue, East Orange.
EAST ORANGE – A city man, wanted for a 2022 aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, was arrested by Boonton police in what started out as a Feb. 16 traffic stop.
Officers in that Morris County town were conducting a surveillance search along Powerville Road when they noticed a passing car with “heavily tinted windows.” A computer records check of its license plate found that the car’s registered owner’s license and registration were suspended.
BPD stopped the vehicle, which was pulled over and approached its driver – later identified as Bernard F. James, 29. His identification check discovered tan outstanding arrest warrant from a 2022 East Orange shooting.
James was arrested and eventually turned over to East Orange Violent Crimes Task Force detectives via extradition. Boonton officers added citations for driving on a suspended license and registration and his inability to show proof of insurance.
ORANGE – Morris County Prosecutor’s Office detectives, with the assistance of the Orange Police Department, arrested a resident at his home here Feb. 15 in connection to the Oct. 18 shooting of a man in a Roxbury motel’s parking lot.
Jean Omar Rockson, 33, said Morris County Prosecutor Richard J. Carroll March 7, was scheduled to be arraigned before a State Superior Court-Morristown judge March 11 simultaneously with the earlier-arrested Auraceli A. Maldonato, 24, of Irvington. Rockson is to be particularly charged for providing the AR-style rifle Maldonado used to hold up and shoot one of the victim’s legs.
MCPO and Roxbury police detectives had first identified Maldonado and, later Rockson, as the two people on video recordings who got out of a New York-registered Honda Accord at Route 46’s Roxbury Motel Oct. 18.
They had a planned meeting with the 36-year-old man on the lot – but they robbed him at gunpoint. A struggle ensued which ended with the woman shooting him in the leg and fled.
Authorities had traced the Honda to its registered owner – Maldonado – and arrested her in Middleburg, Fla. Nov. 2. They have not elaborated on how they identified Roxon.
Rockson and Maldonado were scheduled to be arraigned on the following charges that a Morris County grand jury had indicted them on: first-degree robbery; second-degree weapons possession for an unlawful purpose, conspiracy to commit robbery and aggravated assault and third-degree unlawful weapons possession.
WEST ORANGE – A charitable ice hockey game held at the Richard J. Codey South Mountain Arena Feb. 24 both honored the late DPW Director Joe Pelose and were honored in the DPW director’s name.
The annual match between the West Orange All Stars and the New Jersey Warriors held a remembrance ceremony for Pelose, who suddenly died Feb. 11, before dropping the puck. The game between a combination of West Orange police and fire officers and the Warriors – an NHL New Jersey Devils-affiliate team of disabled military veterans – ran normally until the first intermission.
During that 20-minute break, the Warriors received donations from the township’s PBA Local 25, FMBA locals 28 and 228 and the AFSCME Local 3469 unions in Pelose’s name.
The tribute was fitting for Pelose, 61, who died here Feb. 11, was an NHL NY Rangers fan. The lifelong township resident capped his 40-year public works career by being appointed DPW Director this January – 40 years to the month after being hired as a department truck driver.
Born Nov. 2, 1962, Joseph A. Pelose was among the West Orange High School Class of 1980 and had studied at the now-Kean University through 1982. He worked his way up the civil service until his directorship employment.
“Uncle Joe” was survived by sisters Margaret Delallave and Teresa Catania and several nieces and nephews, among other relatives. His funeral was held Feb. 17 at Caldwell’s Paul Ippolito-Dancy Memorial. Memorial donations may be made to the Disabled Veterans of America: www.dav.org.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood Board of School Estimate hopes that “third time’s the charm” in getting its controversial $29 million construction bonding vote taken here now on March 18.
The two-town board had twice scheduled reviewing of the South Orange-Maplewood School District’s ongoing $160 million Long Range Facilities Plan presentation and voting to approve or deny the 10-year $29 million bond to fund its next phase. A Feb. 13 snowstorm pushed that meeting to Feb. 28 – before that was also scratched.
BOSE, on its bond counsel’s advice, pushed the meeting to March 18 on Feb. 27. The attorney noted that the second meeting would exceed the 30-day expiration date of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education’s Jan. 27 bond authorization.
The school board passed a new 30-day bond authorization at their Feb. 29 meeting, giving their green light for the BOSE’s March 18 meeting and final vote. The Long Range Facilities Plan and the bond includes renovations for South Orange Middle School and Columbia High School – and the $4.3 million debated reworking of its adjacent Ritzer Field.
The three-acre grass field itself is to be replaced by artificial turf. Turf advocates point to flooding that postpones or cancels school and recreational use and that three times as many games can be played in a week over a grass field. The field, which was built with CHS in the 1920s, used to have a stream running through it.
Save Ritzer Field and other grass advocates say that plastic turf would negatively affect water runoff and leach its chemicals into the water.
SOMSD Business Administrator Eric Burnside, on March 4, said that the Ritzer Field work could not be severed from the $29 million bond issue projects list. Spinning Ritzer off would mean that “we’d have to reapply with the (NJ) Department of Education, which would take three months” and delay SOMS’ renovations. The Ritzer work will also remedy US DOE Title IX issues.
BREAKING NEWS
Columbia High School principal Frank Sanchez was scheduled to be arraigned before a Superior Court judge March 12 to answer to second-degree endangering the welfare of a child and disorderly persons simple assault. Sanchez, whom SOMSD had suspended since January, surrendered himself after learning that an arrest warrant was out for him since March 8.
BLOOMFIELD – A township man has been detained in Hackensack’s Bergen County Jail without bail since his Feb. 23 arrest here by Lyndhurst police for supplying narcotics that killed another man in one of their township’s hotels. Nov. 11.
Alberto Delgado, 43, said Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella Feb. 23, has been charged for first-degree cocaine possession with intent to distribute and strict liability in a drug-induced death, second-degree controlled dangerous substance possession with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school zone and within 500 feet of a park and third-degree distribution of cocaine and fentanyl and fentanyl possession with intent to distribute.
Musella and Lyndhurst Police Chief Richard Jarvis said that the latter’s officers arrived at the Winslow Motor Hotel 11:52 a.m. Nov. 11 on reports of an unresponsive man in one of their rooms. The man – identified as Luke Revellm 54, of Jersey City – was declared dead at the scene.
Lyndhurst police noticed “indications of a possible drug overdose” and called BCPO’s Narcotics Task Force. Both agencies – with assistance from ECPO and Garfield and Saddle Brook police – launched a joint investigation of Revell’s death and related drug activity.
Their probe found Delgado distributing a fatal narcotics dose to Revell. The evidence included his and Revell’s earlier cell phone call on Nov. 11 and finding 1.5 lbs. of drugs within a nearby storage unit in his name. Revell’s visitation was held at Lyndhurst’s Ippolito-Stellato Funeral Home Nov.16, followed by a Nov. Funeral Mass and Nov. 17 burial at North Arlington’s Queen of Peace Church and Holy Cross Cemetery. Five sisters and a brother are among his survivors.
MONTCLAIR – Coaches and student-athletes will have one eye on a March 19 Superior Court Newark conference between Montclair Township and Montclair Public Schools and the other eye on the calendar’s April 1 scheduled first games on Woodman Field.
That Tuesday conference is where Superior Court Judge Stephen Petrillo hopes to bring both sides of the Woodman Field renovation work to an agreement so that the diamond, pitch and oval could be ready for Montclair High Schools’ baseball, softball, track and field and lacrosse seasons. The Mounties first games are to be held there April 1.
Petrillo called for the conference after he had dismissed MPS’ call to lift Montclair Township’s stop work orders from earlier this winter. The judge had stayed construction and legal injunctions until at least March 19. The district started its Woodman renovation from Nov. 1 until zoning officers stopped the work.
At issue is whether school district property is exempt from township zoning laws. Although the school district’s plans were first presented to the municipality in October 2022, it was not until a year later when township officials realized that what the work required needed zoning approval.
The Montclair Board of Education approved a Woodman work contract Nov. 1. The township sent the district their zoning requirement notice Nov. 6. The district has since commenced construction.
The March 19 conference may or may not include an attorney from The Champlain Essex Conservancy. CEC, made of Woodman Field neighbors. filed an injunction to intervene Feb. 21.
BELLEVILLE – The mourning bunting that was put up and flags that were lowered to half-staff on municipal buildings since Feb. 29 for the late Mayor William Escott will remain up to honor First Ward Councilwoman Marie Strumolo-Burke.
Burke, 82, a 20-year councilwoman and Silver Lake fixture, died March 8 at the Heckel Street address that she and husband Charlie moved into from Newark 45 years ago. First elected councilwoman in 2004, the Belleville Democratic Committee Chairwoman founded the Silver Lake Civic Association in 1993 and was a Belleville Planning Board clerk. She was later a member of the Belleville Kiwanis, Tuesday and Friday Seniors clubs.
Born Marie Strumolo in Newark Sept. 6, 1941, the 1959 Central High School valedictorian and Charlie ran (Arthur M.) Pico’s Tavern on Heckel Street for over 20 years. She promoted the Belleville panhandle neighborhood with a weekly “Live in Silver Lake” newspaper column, with “We Love Silver Lake” as her tagline.
Renovating and reopening Silver Lake’s Friendly House and Firehouse and creating the Belleville SoHo City Park were among Burke’s accomplishments. She had received honors from the New Jersey General Assembly, Belleville Police Department, Belleville High School baseball team and the Belleville Public Library Richard Shafter Branch. (The branch, in School 4, has since closed.) She started and ran “Just a Party” along Franklin Avenue while councilwoman and recently had Lake Street honorarily renamed after the late councilman Angelo Risoli.
Son Anthony, grandchildren Alicia and Anthony and great-grandchildren Giovanna Lynn, Adrianna Wolf, Grace Marie and Lucy Mae Gammaro are among her survivors; Charlie and brother Peter Strumolo had predeceased her.
Burke’s visitation was at Bloomfield’s O’Boyle Funeral Home March 12 and her Funeral Mass at St. Anthony of Padua Church and subsequent burial at Glendale Cemetery March 12. Memorial donations may be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and/or the American Humane Society.
NUTLEY – An affidavit released to a New Jersey radio station Feb. 29 revealed some details on the driver involved in the Feb. 14 fatal hit-and-run of a Paterson man and his township companion.
The document stated that a Newark Police Division patrol had stopped the Toyota Camry implicated in the incident at Halsted Street and Norwood Place in the West Ward’s Vailsburg section. MPD officers had noticed the Camry without its front bumper and its front end damage.
Police officers ordered its driver – Gabriella A. McQueen – and her passenger, Dhkir Robinson, 43, of Lumberton. McQueen said that she owns the Camry and that Robinson had picked her up from work. She added that she had noticed the front end damage.
Witnesses told Nutley police at Milton Avenue and Linn Road that Robinson was behind the Toyota’s steering wheel when he struck Winston Perlaza and Jocelyn Pietri while they were walking on the avenue’s pavement. (Ice and snow had not been cleared on the Garden State Parkway overpass.) Perlaza, 22, of Paterson, was later declared dead at the scene and Pietri was left severely injured.
The witnesses added that Robinson got out of the Camry, walked over to Perlaza, paused and got back into the Toyota – and drove away without helping either victim.
Newark Police officers said that Robinson “appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol.” They said that he threw away two packages of crack cocaine from his rear pockets while they frisked him. Officers also found four pills of suspected Ecstasy in his right front coin pocket.
Robinson, said police, tried to free himself from their custody and refused to walk. He was dragged into the rear of a just-arrived Essex County Sheriff’s Office squad car and said he had trouble breathing. Robinson has been charged for leaving the scene of a fatal accident, drug possession and related motor vehicle charges.
