TOWN WATCH
BLOOMFIELD – Law enforcement officials are looking for why a township woman entered a Newark grocery store Sept. 18 – and did not come out alive.
Newark Public Safety Director Fritz Frage said his police division officers had responded to reports of gunfire from the 300 block of South Sevenths St. at 8:45 p.m. that Wednesday.
There they found Nakiyyah Blue, 26, of Bloomfield, lying with multiple gunshot wounds. All but one account had Blue within the store.
Officers and arriving paramedics tried to revive Blue but she was declared dead at the scene at 8:57 p.m. NPD then called for the ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force.
Blue’s funeral arrangements were not available as of Sept. 24.
NEWARK – The Municipal Council will, barring any last-hour surprises, has advertised for a special 10 a.m. Sept. 25 meeting to pass its amended Calendar Year 2024 Municipal Budget.
Although the special meeting’s legal notice had been published in the city’s “official newspapers” March 23, a copy has not been posted on the city’s web site as of 9:15 a.m. Sept. 24. The state’s Open Public Meetings Act requires public meeting notices be published and/or posted at least 24 hours in advance.
The council will first adopt an amendment that will increase the city’s public library funding above its current state mandatory minimum of $10.91 million. That amended increase of an anticipated $2.25 million would then be added to the $914.5 million CY2024 budget.
The Council, after a Sept. 5, public hearing, postponed voting on its final budget then and on Sept. 18 to ask the Newark Public Library, its AFSCME Local No. 2298 officials and a division of the N.J. Department of Community Affairs related questions.
Public speakers – including Local 2298 President Beth Zak-Cohen and NPL Director Christian Zabriskie – had pleaded with Newark’s elders to boost the city’s share to prevent building deterioration and an employee brain drain.
What may hold up final approval, as Council President C. Lawrence “Larry” Crump said to a reporter Monday, is an okay from the DCA’s Division of Local Government Services.
“We’re still waiting for final approval from the state,” said Crump.
The DLGS, on one hand, examines municipal and other governmental budgets for state adherence and to include those budgets in the N.J. 2024-25 State Budget. The problem, however, is that all municipalities had an April 30 deadline to make the June 30 state budget.
Newark is not the only town that is facing a DCA “get the budget passed,” statement. Orange and East Orange, for example, had recently held budget amendments this summer on their already ratified budgets.
While this publication will have a presstime before the aforementioned date and time for the budget, this is a reference for the reader to see what was presented in the potential final product.
IRVINGTON – A township man who was injured in a Sept. 6 police-involved shooting in Rumson will not be leaving the Monmouth County jail anytime soon.
Superior Court Judge Jill Grace O’Malley ruled from her Freehold bench Sept. 17 that N’Namdi Atumudo, 27, remain in county custody. O’Malley called Atumudo “a grave danger to the community” and that the jail has a medical dispensary. Brynn Giannullo, Atumudo’s attorney, tried to have his client moved to a local hospital for continued treatment.
“He sits in court with a bullet in his cheekbone,” said Giannulo. “He can’t really speak (or) eat properly. I’m asking this court to release him so he can get medical attention.”
Atumudo was shot by a Fair Haven police officer at Rumson’s Two Rivers Drive and Shrewsbury Drive around 5:30 a.m. Sept. 6. The FHPD officer, accompanied by a Rumson colleague, had stopped the car that Atumudo was in because it matched witness descriptions earlier that morning of two local burglaries.
The Fair Haven officer said he fired eight shots towards Atumudo after that the car’s driver – identified as Rasheen Yarbrough, 20, of St. Louis – had failed to stop at the intersection. The car had rammed a Rumson cruiser during a just-completed pursuit.
Both Atumudo and Yarbrough were taken to a local hospital for treatment prior to their arrest; what injuries Yarbrough had suffered is unknown. The shooting is under New Jersey Attorney General’s Office investigation.
Both suspects are being held on burglary and theft charges with other counts pending. Yarbrough’s detention hearing was held on Sept. 23. Judge O’Malley cited Atumudo’s being on probation for an earlier burglary charge Sept. 17 for her keeping him in jail.
EAST ORANGE – Oval Park area residents officially got a new basketball court – and, in a way, Naughty by Nature got another sold out event – here Noon Sept. 20.
Vincent “Vin Rock” Brown, Anthony “Treach” Criss and Keir “Kay Gee” Gist returned to their familiar “Down the Hill” location to dedicate the “Naughty by Nature Basketball Court” that Friday afternoon. The hip hop trio lent their name to this part of the Oval Park renovation project, including its dedication plaque and the court’s green-and-orange colors.
Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green must have known that the rap trio’s following would crowd the court. The city’s free dedication ceremony’s tickets were all sold out in advance on Eventbrite.
“These were our stomping grounds – from athletics to hip-hop to football – we always threw barbecues and cookouts,” said Vin Rock. “People from our hometown have been able to go out and do great things around the world; Whitney Houston, Dionne Warwick – now you can add Naughty by Nature to that list. If kids can see, smell, touch and feel your powers, they can go out and do it themselves.”
Vocalists Rock and Treach and DJ Kay Gee used to grow up in the Teen Streets and knew each other from junior high school. They used to hold improvised rap sessions in class while at the old East Orange High School. The Grammy award-winning trio released their first album in 1991.
“Naughty by Nature has left an indelible mark in the history of music and their achievements over the years have solidified their spot as one of the most influential groups in hip hop history,” said Green. “This recognition preserves a piece of their legacy and lets our young people know that their dreams, too, are possible. This court is a symbol of strength, perseverance, determination and vision.”
The trio and Green were joined by City Administrator Solomin Steplight, East Orange Pop Warner Rams Football Coach Johnnie Taylor, fellow coach and city employee Stanley Edwards, East Orange Education Association President Keith Hinton and nearby Mildred Barry Garvin School fifth grade teacher Jeannette Arnold, among other dignitaries and neighbors.
Oval Park follows Paterson’s Hinchliffe Stadium and Birmingham’s Rickwood Field as recently renovated or restored former baseball Negro League teams’ home diamond.
ORANGE – One South Ward community leader has taken to social media to decry the quality of the city’s Sept. 16 “Neighborhood Community Meeting.”
Kweli Campbell, of Friends of Metcalf Park posted on Facebook, Instagram and similar outlets to give his perception of the meeting called for and hosted by Mayor Dwayne Warren that Monday night.
Campbell asked about the status of lighting improvements for the city park and questioned the contention that city police officers were walking the property. He said that he was “silenced” and that the “meeting abruptly ended.”
The meeting was held in the wake of a Sept. 12 shooting which killed one man and injured a second one. De’Andre Smith, 28, was found with a gunshot wound to his leg on the baseball diamond by responding Orange police officers. Smith died at University Hospital Sept. 16; the second victim has been treated and released.
Other OPD officers found the suspect and pursued him through Orange, South Orange and East Orange streets until he crashed into a parked car at 172 Lincoln Ave, by the new Essex and Crane apartments and Orange station. Brandon. D. Beasley, 28, is being held on weapons, unlawful taking of a conveyance and arrest resistance charges.
Campbell, in his response, said he wanted to ask where improved lighting in the park’s renovation pipeline. He recalled an hour-long on-site lighting assessment made by city officials, NJDOT and Friends of Metcalf Park “last winter.”
Friends of Metcalf was formed to adopt the park during the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. They have since done monthly cleanups, which earned them a New Jersey Clean Communities Council “Public Lands Cleanup Award,” last May, plus Earth Day, “I Love My Park” and other special events.
WEST ORANGE – If Council President Rev. William “Bill” Rutherford, wants to make a West Orange Council re-election run Nov. 5, he will, as of Sept. 18, have to conduct a write-in campaign – at least for now.
State Superior Court Judge Robert H. Gardner, first ruled Sept. 10, that Rutherford had failed to get the minimum 395 signatures on his filed petitions – by three or four signatures, after Municipal Clerk Karen Carnavale’s verification.
Gardner, before Rutherford, his new attorney Raymond Hamlin and township-hired Matt Moensch, Esq. for Carnevale, denied the councilman’s appeal for reconsideration Sept. 16.
Gardner, from his Newark bench that Monday morning, stayed the order should Rutherford and Hamlin file an appeal in state appellate court. All parties are aware, however, that time is running out before the Nov. 6 General Election ballots are printed.
Rutherford, who had been pursuing a second term, is now off the ballot. There are six candidates, two of whom are his council colleagues, are vying for the three available seats.
Rutherford had filed petitions that had an overall 455 petitions between July 15 and 4:04 p.m. Aug. 26 correctional or “curing” deadline. He filed a partial 327 petitions July 15 and met the minimum level on the July 17 filing deadline. Carnevale, however, said that his petitions fell short of that standard after she had tossed some for illegibility and other problems.
The Orange came back to the clerk’s office with 97 more signed petitions on Aug. 8 – but Carnevale said he still fell short. Rutherford then began climbing up a downward escalator, filing more petitions twice more – and the clerk’s finding problems with them. He said that he did not answer Carnevale’s Aug. 23 notice that he was still short, in part due to his pastorship, and filed a last set of petitions at 4:04 p.m. Aug. 26.
Gardner, on Sept. 10, ruled that a candidate cannot repeatedly file replacement petitions after the filing deadline – which was what Mensch had argued.
“Why didn’t he (Rutherford) cure some of the petitions before time ran out,” said the judge Sept. 10. “The statute hasn’t changed since I’ve been practicing law in the 1980s.”
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Students and parents of the South Orange -Maplewood School District have seen Superintendent Jason Bing riding along with them on school buses since the start of the 2024-25 school year.
Bing, in a Sept. 11 open letter to the two-town district community, confirmed that he is indeed riding along and will continue to do so while coming up with a transportation improvement plan.
The superintendent has meanwhile redeployed some SOMSD senior administrators to the Transportation Department and has partnered with the Sussex County Regional Cooperative to help with rerouting.
SOMSD’s school bus drivers were making pre-school year dry runs when Transportation Coordinator Jerry Ford had suddenly died Sept. 6; he had not recovered from a fall he had had at his Glen Gardener home a few days before.
“Mr. Ford came out of retirement to work on the district’s new transportation protocol mandated by intentional integration initiative,” said Bing. “He had planned to re-retire before his passing.”
MONTCLAIR – The Montclair High School Mounties baseball team, when they return to Woodman Field in the spring, will be practicing and playing on a diamond renamed after the late Montclair Superintendent of Schools Dr. Jonathan Ponds.
The Montclair Board of Education unanimously passed a walk-on resolution Sept. 16 to rename the field at Essex Street and Chaplain Terrace the Dr. Jonathan C. Ponds Memorial Field. The board, after their vote, stood and applauded.
Ponds, who came aboard in June 2020, had suddenly died July 17. He had just received a contract extension to June 30, 2029. Ponds had brought stability through the global COVID-19 pandemic.
Ponds had brokered an agreement in March that resolved a zoning and legal dispute over Woodman Field between Montclair Public Schools and the township. The pact allowed the field’s $7.94 million renovation.
The school board will have to approve signage later this year for installation. The field opened Oct. 31, 1942 in memory of Clarence L. Woodman, MHS’ 20-year football and track and field coach and athletic director.
GLEN RIDGE / NUTLEY – Relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors of Erik Gumney will have an opportunity to celebrate his life at a to be announced time and place along the East Coast. Gumley, 43, who had died July 8 in Albuquerque, N.M., had an Aug. 15 celebration there.
Erik Alan Gumney was born in Glen Ridge’s Mountainside Hospital July 27, 1980. Family lore has it that parents Barbara and Alan had to leave a family barbeque in Nutley for his delivery.
Gumney lived in Nutley and had graduated with the Nutley High School Class of 1998 and, in 2002, a degree in English from Montclair State University. He was a Holy Family Church parishioner and member of the local Knights of Columbus.
Gumney, under his Exit 98 Yearbook senior picture, listed “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and Star Wars’ Boba Fett as two of his influences. He said he was raised on a diet of Marvel comics, Godzilla movies, video games, WPIX-TV’s “Chiller Theater,” Bruce Springsteen music and Douglas Adams’ sci-fi authorship.
He had another lifelong influence – cystic fibrosis – which he had contracted at four years old. The condition prompted him to move to Albuquerque in 2012 and undergo a double lung transplant in 2014.
Gumney had published science fiction articles before he and future wife Monica Rodriguez moved west. They founded “Jersey Devil Press,” which allowed him to publish anthologies and serial novels for himself and other sci-fi writers. The “Exponential Apocalypse” series and “The End of Everything Forever” omnibus are among his better known works.
CF may have cost him his last breath, but Gumney urges people to register as organ donors and/or contribute to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Older brother and sister Bryan and Kristin are also among his survivors.
BELLEVILLE – SoHo and Silver Lake residents are watching for when the Oct. 10 Belleville Planning Board posts and publishes its Oct. 10 agenda – and whether a site plan application for 11 Franklin St. will make that list.
The proposed site plan application, which calls for the construction of 175 apartment units, was pulled from the board’s Sept. 12 agenda with 24 hours to spare. Interested residents, when or if the plan resurfaces, will attend that meeting.
The 175 units would go up on part of the 11 acre lot on the southwest corner of the avenue and Mill Street. The 16-acre land, which sits across from Branch Brook Park and to Clara Maass Hospital’s north, is where a Wawa, a Starbucks and an Extra Space Storage warehouse stands.
The Wawa was first to be approved on the site where the Art Deco Roche Pharmaceuticals/Jergens building stood. There had been a couple of apartment building proposals since proposed on the former copper mine.
Some residents want a study that would project traffic volume on Franklin Avenue between Clara Maass and Mill Street. They are also concerned on how the projected traffic would affect ambulance trips to and from the hospital.
