TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – It is hard to tell whether who wanted to honor Peter Francisco in his namesake park and/or the Portuguese American Veterans Memorial had actually done so here on July 4.
The triangular park east of Newark Penn Station has been surrounded by an eight-foot-tall iron fence since June 5 – right before the annual Portugal Day festival. Anyone who wants to use the park will have to get a permit from Newark City Parks. The permit includes a $500 per-event fee.
“The park is open to anyone who wants to do a farmers market or a flea market,” said East Ward Councilman Michael Silva. “We want the homeless situation addressed – but Peter Francisco Park isn’t the place.”
The park’s fencing off may be the final move in city officials’ dispersing the poor, needy and/or homeless people there which goes back several years into Augusto Amador’s council tenure.
Amador had pushed for mobile homeless food services getting food safety lessons and permits, fencing off nearby Mother Cabrini Park and having more police patrols around there.
It is a chicken-and-egg situation – which appeared first – the homeless waiting for the charity services or the said services attracting local homeless. Many of those services have moved to other blocks as far away as Lincoln Park.
Making “quality of life improvements” in this part of The Ironbound have gained momentum thanks to zoning changes. An inclusionary zone is allowing taller and denser apartment buildings.
Peter Francisco came from Portugal to join the patriots’ side of the American Revolution.
EAST ORANGE – The family of rapper Chino XL also known as former city resident Derek Keith Barbosa, have not disclosed his funeral services as of press time.
The family said XL/Barbosa, 50, had died at his latest home, “surrounded by family,” Aug. 1. His cause of death has not been disclosed.
The Bronx-born Barbosa was raised in East Orange and as a preteen started “The Art of Origin” with DJ Kerri Chandler. The group soon gravitated to the New York City rap scene. XL, at 16, was signed to an album contract by American Recordings’ Rick Rubin.
XL’s first album, “Here to Save You All,” included hit tracks “No Complex,” “Kreep” and “Riiiot!” A Riiiot! lyric is said to have ignited a feud with Tupac Shakur. His follow-up albums were 2001’s “I Told You So,” 2006’s “Poison Pen” and 2012’s “Ricanstruction: The Black Rosary.” He and Rakim had recorded “Pendulum Swing” the week before his death.
Mother Carole, longtime partner Stephanie, children Chynna, Bella, Lyric and Kiyana; stepson Shawn and five grandchildren are among his survivors.
ORANGE – Orange High School scholar-athlete-turned basketball coach Cleo Hill, Jr. has landed the University of Maryland Eastern Shore men’s basketball head coach job June 1 – and his namesake father must be smiling from above.
The younger Hill, 57, was a scholar-athlete here at Orange High School 1980-84. Three of those years was while an Orange Tornado, becoming the third student to score 1,000 points and, in his junior year, helped OHS win the state championship.
Hill continued as scholar-athlete with the North Central Colina Eagles before returning to OHS as an assistant coach 1991-94. His coaching resume, before UoM Eastern Shore, included Elizabeth High School, University of Nebraska, Shaw University, Univ. of Pennsylvania-Cheney and the Winston-Salem State University Rams in NCAA Division I and II play.
Hill, Sr., (1938-2015) came from Newark but lived in Orange in later life. The Southside Malcolm X. Shabazz High School Class of 1957 Bulldog guard was a Winston-Salem Hawk guard 1957-61 before embarking on a professional career that included the ABA St. Louis Hawks and the CNAS then-Trenton Colonials. That he did not make the NBA is a matter of controversy.
Essex County College, before the COVID pandemic, named their Newark Main Campus arena in his name.
WEST ORANGE – The Manor, which has been closed and dormant since July 5, 2023, may be getting new life from a different banquet hall owner.
The Manor’s new owners had requested – and received – transferring its 67-year-old liquor license to them before the July 23 Township Council meeting.
Robert C. Williams, Esq. said that Frank Pombo and his family want to reopen The Manor as The Grand Chateau – after renovations and repairs.
The Pombos had been owning and operating The Grand, now the Bethwood, at Totowa since 1965. They also own and operate The Royal Manor in Garfield.
The family-owned Manor cited COVID and “unforeseen circumstances” for closing the Pleasantville facility.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Village Council, as of July 29, will ask for its registered voters to have a say on whether to sell the South Orange Water Department to New Jersey American Water. as a Nov. 5 ballot question.
The council, on a 4-2 vote in that Monday’ night’s virtual meeting, will draft the public question before sending it to Essex County Clerk Christopher Durkin (D-Roseland). The question, pending Durkin’s approval, will be atop the village’s General Election ballot.
The village is asking to sell the infrastructure to NJAW for $19.7 million. SOWD has a $5 million annual municipal budget allocation for operation and capital projects. Village Administrator Julie Doran said that $3.75 million is used to pay the department’s expenses. SOWD has around 4,700 customers, including residents and businesses.
NJAW has been operating, maintaining and managing – but not owning – the infrastructure since succeeding the East Orange Water Commission in 2018. That current contract expires in 2026. The company also supplies water to adjacent Maplewood and Irvington.
The company has also offered up to $50 million to replace and lead service lines it finds in the village for the next decade. That offer is not part of the public question.
Council members Karen Hartshorn-Hilton and Bill Haskens voted against the second and final reading.
BLOOMFIELD – That proposed Wendy’s/Taco Bell to replace the former Friendly’s Restaurant at 1243 Broad St. will proceed, thanks to a Superior Court-Newark judge’s late June ruling.
The judge called the Bloomfield Planning Board’s December 2022 rejection of Finomus Bloomfield RE Holdings’ site plan application “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable” The jurist saw the applicant’s contention that the BPB effectively spot zoned the Brookdale section property.
BPB had downed Finomus’ application on the basis that it had not remedied projected traffic congestion at the Broad Street and West Passaic Avenue T intersection. Broad Street bends north to northwest, with W. Passaic Avenue jutting out at a right angle.
The lot has an adjacent eye doctor office and a Bloomfield fire station. Brookdale Elementary School and the closed Provident Bank branch are directly across Broad Street. A Krauser’s convenience store is on the Broad/W. Passaic northeast corner.
Finomus had conducted a traffic study where left hand turns from the eatery onto southbound Broad will be banned as in the past. The applicant had offered to have a traffic safety officer on premises.
Friendly’s, which built and opened the restaurant in 1969, closed the Bloomfield site Dec. 21, 2021.
MONTCLAIR – Montclair Public Schools Board of Education named Damen Cooper as interim Superintendent of Schools July 22 – 72 hours after last rites were held for Dr. Jonathan Ponds.
Cooper is being at least temporarily promoted from his position as Montclair Public Schools’ Personnel Director. The Teaneck resident had been Montclair High School’s assistant principal 2011-15 before leaving to become a middle school principal in Hackensack and Summit. Cooper, who was once a Teaneck Board of Education member, returned to MPS in June 2020 to direct personnel.
The MBOE started the virtual meeting with a moment of silence and a proclamation from the Essex County Board of Commissioners. Cooper’s appointment is pending the approval of Essex County Superintendent of Schools Joseph Zarra, of Nutley.
Ponds’ memorial service was held here at St. Paul’s Baptist Church, prior to his final journey to Alabama, July 19. He came aboard in the midst of the COVID pandemic and supervised the MBOE’s transition from a mayor-appointed panel to one directly elected.
A GoFundMe.com page was established to help wife Jenna Ponds’ with a college fund for their three sons, aged 10, 12 and 14.
The board, on July 12, had meanwhile appointed Sean Long to fill out the remainder of the resigned Crystal Hopkins term. Long will complete the term Dec. 31 and is not running for election.
BELLEVILLE – Edison police have identified the motorcyclist who was killed in a collision with another rider and an SUV there July 29 as resident Alexander Teshima Chong.
Chong, 50, said Edison Police Chief Tom Bryan, was with a pack of other motorcyclists at the intersection of US Route 1 North and Old Post Road at 8:15 p.m. that Sunday.
Chong and another rider said EPD and the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office turned from Old Post Road onto US 1 North when he clipped the other rider and got thrown off their bikes. Both ran into the rear of a BMW SUV. that had stopped for a red light.
Both riders were thrown off their bikes in the impact and Chong ended up under the car. Ching was declared dead at the scene and the other rider was admitted to New Brunswick’s Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in stable condition. The BMW driver was not physically injured.
Chong’s funeral arrangements have not yet been announced.
