TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Music fans recently said goodbye to the iconic Cissy Houston, who passed away Oct. 7 at the age of 91. She had recently received care for Alzheimer’s Disease.
Born Emily Drinkard in Newark, she would make her name in a singing group with her siblings, specializing in gospel music. After marrying John Houston, Jr, in 1964, she would take on his last name as part of her moniker, all while putting out music over several decades and singing back up for the likes of Bette Midler and many others.
Of course, Houston is most known for being the mother of perhaps the greatest vocalist of all time, Whitney Houston, who tragically predeceased her in 2012. Her granddaughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, also perished before her time in 2015.
Cissy Houston is survived by many other relatives, including niece Dionne Warwick, another critically acclaimed vocalist. Warwick is set to be honored in her native East Orange on Oct. 11 with a street renaming ceremony.
The fate of a controversial natural gas-fired power generator station
The fate of a controversial natural gas-fired power generator station proposed for the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission Wastewater Treatment Plant here is in a state agency’s hands.
New Jersey’s Department of Environmental Protection has been weighing on whether to grant an air permit to PVSC in part on the comments made in the Oct. 1 public hearing here and comments coming by regular an electronic mail through Oct. 29.
The regional sewerage commission has been asking to build a gas-fired electric generation station on their Wilson Avenue property here since 2014. PVSC, which Newark is a municipal member, said that the generator is a backup in case of flooding and/or power outages.
Flooding and loss of power during Superstorm Sandy in 2012 caused them to dump 840 million gallons of sanitary sewage, which would be normally treated, into Newark Bay for two days. That discharge would be prevented by having the backup station at the ready.
Opponents who spoke at the Oct. 1 hearing here at Sport Club Portugues said that the generator is unnecessary since the PSE&G utility has been hard casing its generators, transformers and power grid. The generator, if approved, would be the fourth gas-fed plant in the Ironbound. Its approval would contradict Goc. Phil Murphy’s drive to have the state on all renewable energy.
The DEP, since July, has added “environmental justice” conditions to the proposed permit for consideration. Those conditions include having PVSC upgrade older equipment, install solar panels storage batteries and new pollution controls plus limiting the backup generator’s operating hours.
The DEP’s Kevin Greener is taking written and email comments now through 5 p.m. Oct. 29. He can be emailed at KevinGreener@dep.nj.gov and/or via physical mail at 401 E. State St., Second Floor, PO Box 420, Mail Code 401-02, Trenton, NJ 08625-0420.
IRVINGTON – Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss, since Oct. 2, has been pushing back on quality of life statements about the township supposedly made the day before by a banking website.
GOBankingRates.com, as reposted by Newsbreak.com Sept. 29, “5 Worst New Jersey Cities to Buy Property in the Next 5 Years, According to Real Estate Experts.” It listed Camden, Pennsauken, Trenton, Paterson and Irvington as “some N.J. cities presenting far more risk than reward over the next five years, as they struggle with economic stagnation, crime and low property values.”
The News Break version called Irvington as it “may not be the most appealing place to buy real estate, not the least because it has a murder rate eight times the state average. Like Paterson, Irvington has potential thanks to its proximity to New York City and Newark, but it faces continuing problems with the local economy. High crime rates and declining property values mean buyers looking for a quick investment return may struggle here.”
“Local Talk” found two discrepancies between the two web sites. The first is that the News Break posting was effectively dated as Sept. 29 while GoBankingRates.com posted on Oct. 2. GoBanking’s article leaves off Irvington and starts its title with “4 Worst New Jersey Cities. . . “
Vauss cited annual State Police Uniform Crime Report and Irvington Police Department data to refute the “eight times the state murder rate” passage. Irvington’s homicide rate has declined from 14 in 2015 to one in 2023.
Regarding “declining property values,” the mayor rebutted with two examples from the township’s tax assessor’s office. 1086 Sanford Ave., which was sold for $195,000 in 2019, “now holds a proposed value of $405,700.” 50-52 Lincoln Place’s value went from its $212,000 in 2012 to a “proposed $479,200.”
Whoever wrote the Irvington passage said Vauss had referenced from “a nearly 20-year-old ‘New York Times’ article and Wikipedia page rather than conducting meaningful research or consulting crime statistics.”: He has turned the matter over to the township’s legal department.
EAST ORANGE – Penn Station riders began noticing a rose taped by John Amos’ portrait, among eight of the New Jersey Hall of Fame inductees’ photos, posted where the pay telephone row used to be, since Oct. 4.
Amos, 84, whose five-decade acting career included portraying stern but good hearted father figures, died in an Inglewood, Calif. hospital Aug. 21 but was announced by his family and publicist Oct. 1. His death certificate listed congestive heart failure; he was working on a family documentary series with son Kelly Christopher Amos, or K.C., in 2021 when he fell ill.
Born John Allen Amos, Jr., in Newark Dec. 27, 1939 and raised here 1950-65, Amos’ resilience and creativity led him to award winning roles like James Evans, Sr. in “Good Times,” (1974-79) the elder Kunta Kinte in 1977’s “Roots” series and Admiral Percy Fitzwallace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in “The West Wing” (1999-2004).
Amos, who lived at 10 Division Place 1950-54 and 89 Crawford St. 1957-65, attended the Stockton and Columbian schools before graduating with the East Orange High School Class of 1958. He was running back No. 31 for the Panthers football squad all four years and was “News Cartoonist” for the student newspaper. “Amo” was a cast member of “The Man Who Came to Dinner” junior class play.
Amos’ path towards the New York School for Cartoonists and Illustrators, however, was diverted to Colorado State University by way of Long Berach City College and the U.S. Army Reserve. The CSU Rams player graduated with a sociology degree but played for the ACFL Jersey City Jets and several minor league teams before trying out for the then-AFL Denver Broncos.
The Broncos cut him on the second day of training camp after he pulled a hamstring; he expressed his disappointment in reading his own “The Turk” poem before fellow players on his way out. He switched to acting gigs and staff writing jobs in New York and Hollywood until his big break came as weatherman Gordy Howard in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”
K.C. said former viewers would come up to him, shake his hand and say, “Your father was my father.” K.C., daughter Shannon and second wife Lillian Lehman are among his survivors; first wife Noel Mickelson predeceased him. He was privately cremated Aug. 30.
ORANGE – A city man, who was found by a State Superior Court criminal jury Oct. 2 of shooting an East Orange man in 2022 by a supermarket wall, remains held in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Center until his scheduled Jan. 6 sentencing before Judge Michael J. Ravin– or should a yet-to-be-filed appeal be successful.
The jury – after a three-week trial and 80 minutes’ deliberation that Thursday morning – told Ravin that they found Darienne Murray, 37, of Orange, guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon and third-degree possession thereof for an unlawful purpose.
Murray was accused and found guilty of murdering Melja T. Oliver, 37, of East Orange, along 533 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd./Main St. June 3, 2022. The location is where the Brick Church Shopping Plaza is being transformed into the Crossings at Brick Church.
Responding East Orange police officers found Oliver unconscious from a gunshot wound to his head alongside one of the Brick Church Shop-Rite’s walls. at 12:51 a.m. that Friday. The supermarket then, as now, was open 24 hours. Oliver was declared dead at 1:31 a.m. at Newark’s University Hospital.
ECPO Homicide and Major Crimes Task Force detectives arrested Murray June 8, 2022. A surveillance recording found Murray confronting Oliver. pulling out a handgun and shooting him. It is believed that Murray and Oliver never knew each other.
Murray is facing a 30-year-to-life prison sentence.
WEST ORANGE – Township elders’ desire to bring back motion picture production here, for the first time in 123 years, took a major step forward when its municipal council awarded Matrix Development Group as its Film Services Overlay District agent Sept. 24.
The council, that Tuesday, approved Matrix, or MGD, in building an up to 350,000 square foot movie and television production studio. The building, to consist of up to six studios plus a full range of amenities – from equipment storage and editing to catering and security, will be built for $10 million on the overlay’s 12.2 acres.
Once completed, the structure is to generate up to 600 full-time employees. They will be using 200 parking spaces for cars and 60 for trucks.
The completed building will go up in literal sight of the original Black Maria site and its Main Street reproduction. Thomas A. Edison and his employees are credited with building the world’s first movie studio, where the Edison water tower now stands, 1892-1901.
Various short films were made there for Edison kinetoscopes and nickelodeon arcades until replaced by a New York City studio. Its replica was built in view of Main Street in 1954.
What MGD is building will be standing where the 1974-constructed West Orange Department of Public Works and animal shelter are to the Edison National Historical Park’s east. That building went up after two 1910-era Thomas A. Edison Industries factories were imploded.
Matrix, of Monroe, is tasked with the following: close on purchasing the lot in 18 months, conduct any environmental remediation and find an actual video production partner. It will meanwhile make an annual $400,000 Payment in Lieu of Taxes to the township, based on a 2023 assessment, until the studios are finished.
Several council members and public speakers, however, asked why Matrix was the only bidder. Resolution 282-24 was passed 3-2: Council President Rev. William “Bill” Rutherford and council members Michele Casalino and Tammy Williams voted “Yes;” ‘councilors Asmeret Ghebremichael and Susan Scarpa dissented.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The Village Council became the second “Local Talk” town, after Maplewood’s Township Committee Sept. 3, in passing a resolution endorsing Ranked Choice Voting here Sept. 23.
The council unanimously approved Resolution 2024-227 that Monday night, which supports State Assembly Bill No. A4042 and Senate Bill S1822, which would authorize municipalities and public school to use RCV.
South Orange joins Maplewood, Montclair, Hoboken, Jersey City, Princeton and Red Bank in endorsing the state bills, which would allow municipalities to vote on the question as a referendum.
Maplewood’s Township Committee passed their supporting resolution Sept. 3. The Montclair Council passed its approval Sept. 24.
Ranked Choice Voting would be employed on municipal and school board elections. The process would start when a voter checks off or writes in his or her first, second and/or third choice candidates for an office.
Should no candidate receive a “50 percent plus one” or a majority of votes cast, the county clerk’s election workers add the candidate’s second choice votes to the first, and so on, until a final majority tally is reached.
New York City, as the nearest jurisdiction, used RCV for its 2021 mayor and council elections. Alaska and Maine use the process for statewide offices on down. RCV’s appeal is that voters are given greater choice in who would represent them.
MONTCLAIR / NUTLEY – The news of John Allen Griffith’s Sept. 23 passing in Williamsburg, Va. was felt in Montclair’s municipal building, on Nutley’s Park Oval, in Newark and Seton Hall University.
Griffith, 87, was a Montclair Councilman-at-Large and Deputy Mayor 1988-92. The St. Paul Baptist Church trustee board chairman was a guidance counselor at Montclair High School and a Katherine Gibbs School of Business director when the latter was in Montclair.
To Nutley, he was a high school history teacher who was also the Maroon Raiders track and field and assistant football coach. He had worked for PSE&G for 34 years out of Newark and Elizabeth.
Griffith’s other activities included being then-Kean College’s adjunct professor and on its board of governors, a Union County College governors board member, New Jersey State Board of Education President and a member of the African American Heritage Parade and Festival.
Born Dec. 14, 1936, in Greensburg, Pa., Griffith came here by way of Beaver, Pa. public schools, the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and Farleigh Dickinson University. The scholar-athlete left IUP in 1960 with a bachelor’s degree in education and returned in 2013 to be enshrined in its hall of fame for his football accomplishments.
Griffith graduated with an MBA from FDU before completing guidance and counseling coursework in Seton Hall. A four-year hitch with the U.S. Army Reserve followed.
Wife Patricia, daughters Pamela and Jennifer and four grandsons are among his survivors. Last rites were held in Williamsburg’s Historic First Baptist Church Oct. 2, followed by internment at Bloomfield’s Glendale Cemetery Oct. 4.
BLOOMFIELD – Township Police Chief George Ricci reminds residents that “growing and cultivating” cannabis, marijuana, “pot,” “weed,” “ganja” or by any other name is illegal – and has a Sept. 27 Watsessing section search warrant as an example.
Members of Bloomfield’s police and health departments plus the State Police Narcotics Bureau executed the warrant on a Thomas Street residence that Friday.
They were tipped off that the cannabis plants were being grown in the backyard, which they confirmed with their own observation. They then had a judge sign a warrant.
They counted 84 plants which they uprooted or otherwise removed as evidence. Their likely fate, after their being cataloged and photographed, is to go “up in smoke” without anyone inhaling.
A Hillside man, identified as Aman Hamlett, 25, was arrested on premises. He has been charged with maintaining a drug production facility and possession with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school (Watsessing Elementary School) and within 500 feet of a park (Watsessing Park) among other charges.
GLEN RIDGE – First responders here and from Montclair paid an unusual house call at a borough residence Sept. 29.
Glen Ridge police and EMS plus Montclair’s firefighters converged on a Ridgewood Avenue home here by Tuxedo Road at 10:25 a.m. that Sunday.
They arrived to find a car that have gone off road by what MFD Chief Robert Duncan estimated at 75 feet through the wall of the house’s garage. Its driver was getting out of the car when the responders arrived.
Glen Ridge Volunteer Ambulance Squad medics checked the driver and the house’s occupants and found no physical injuries. MFD personnel installed a “T-Shore” to brace the garage’s roof and remaining wall – and stayed two hours until they were satisfied that the house was structurally stable.
An initial GRPD investigation has the white four-door sedan being sent into the wall after an earlier collision with another vehicle. The matter is under investigation. The car has been extracted; no drivers have been ticketed and the homeowner has started repairs.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Zoning Board of Adjustment’s “subject to change” clause on its October 3 agenda apparently came into play by the owner of a significant Main Street property.
Transform Lease OPCO, which owns the former Kmart here at 371-411 Main St., had filed for “a Certificate for Non-conformity” to the board for Block 9701, Lot 1. The filing made the Oct. 3 agenda as ZB-2024-09.
Then, before that Thursday night’s meeting, Transform exercised its option to postpone the certificate hearing to maybe Nov. 1. The real estate company otherwise appears to be working within the township’s 371-411 Main Street Redevelopment Plan.
The redevelopment plan, passed by the township Nov. 1, 2022, keeps the site within the BB-2 Zone for Retail, Grocery Stores and Retail Shopping Centers. The designation was passed after a plan was mulled to cut the 5.94-acre lot into quarters for residential development and two streets.
The application announcement noted that the Kmart was built “in or around 1977 with an addition constructed in or around 1986.” The department store replaced a longtime wire rope factory. It had been vacant since Kmart-Sears closed it in April 2021.
Transdormco Properties, of Hoffman Estates, Illinois has meanwhile stated on its website that the property has been leased to Aldi. The German grocery store chain opened its Bloomfield branch in 2016.
One could fit four Aldis, or four of its rival Lidl, within the 77.800-square foot ex-Kmart. Lidl had opened in the former A&P/SuperFresh supermarket at 414 Main St., – directly across the street – Aug. 18, 2021.
