TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Customers who use the city’s water supply and infrastructure, in light of a new monthly billing cycle enacted Sept. 16, have an interest amnesty until Oct. 31.
Newark Water and Sewer Director Kareem Adeem said that any customer who has an outstanding water bill balance has until the end of business on Halloween to pay it all off. Doing so will mean that the customer would be spared from paying an interest penalty.
“We created a temporary amnesty program to encourage customers who’re in arrears to get a fresh start,” said Adeem Sept. 16. “People who don’t take advantage of this program, however, will find their unpaid balances in full – including back interest and penalties – transferred to water liens against their property.”
The amnesty is in part to help customers adjust to Newark Water and sewer’s new billing cycle, which started on Oct. 15. Customers will henceforth receive their water bills on or by the 15th of the month and have 15 days from reception to pay their bills.
“Interest and unpaid balances,” said NW&S’s statement, “will begin to accrue 30 days after the billing date.”
“We’re improving the system so customers will know exactly when to expect their bills, when to pay them and when they’ll be subject to interest charges and other penalties,” added Adeem. “This way, the billing cycle is more transparent and user-friendly.”
Water customers may have noticed higher than usual billing charges in August and September as part of the department’s change to 15th of the month billing cycle. This may also affect those customers in Belleville’s Silver Lake section and part of Hillside where Newark’s infrastructure is used.
Questions and details for Newark Water and Sewer are found at www.water.newarknj.gov and/or its (973) 733-6370 customer service phone line.
IRVINGTON – A township man and his teenage accomplice were respectively held in separate detention facilities after their Oct. 9 arrest in Maplewood.
Aaron Ellis, 18, is being held in Elizabeth’s Union County Jail after being charged by Maplewood police for possessing a handgun without a permit. He was remanded there because of an unrelated outstanding arrest warrant from the Union County Sheriff’s Office.
The “17-year-old juvenile,” as identified by MPD, was detained in a township jail cell until his release into a guardian’s care.
Township officers were called to the area of Parker Avenue and Peachtree Road Oct. 9 on residents’ calls of two youths cutting across their backyards.
They located and stopped Ellis and the 17-year-old based on residents’ descriptions.
EAST ORANGE – City elders are telling their taxpayers that, by taking out $16 million in loans to improve water supply infrastructure, will save them $8.2 million.
Mayor Theodore “Ted” Green said, on Oct. 9, that the city is taking out the loans from the State of New Jersey’s DEP and Infrastructure Bank joint low-interest rate program. East Orange will be repaying “I-Bank” the $16 million over the loan’s 27-year life.
East Orange, by going through the I-Bank, is saving $8,282,448, or 52 percent, in project costs which compared to what it would have attained by going to the commercial loan market.
“By borrowing from the Water Bank, we’re able to revamp our water infrastructure while providing (a) substantial cost savings to our taxpayers,” said Green. “Additionally, the creation of nearly 200 jobs to complete this project is an added benefit.”
The 192 jobs the mayor is referring to would be found among project partners CME Associates, CP Engineers and Boswell Engineering plus contractors Faigon Electric, Shauger Property Services and VNL Inc.
The work entails upgrading the White Oak Ridge Pumping Station system and generator in Millburn, replacing water main and service line connections and large and small water meters. The loans will also pay for purchasing new billing software.
Project and water operations are administered by the East Orange Water Commission. The EOWC and CP posted a photo of the newly installed 2-Megawatt diesel backup generator at White Oak Ridge.
ORANGE – A mystery apparently resides here at 71 Cleveland St., since at least Oct. 10.
71 Cleveland has been listed as being available on six real estate websites since that Thursday. It is an 1889-built two story wood frame single family house listed as having four bedrooms, 5.5 bathrooms, a basement and, on most sites, going for $850,000.
What had been giving website viewers a double take is an architectural drawing to the house photo’s right and the following description:
“Land for sale at one block away from the train station. The project can be approved fort 34 condos. This is a great investment opportunity. The information provided for the listing is for reference only. For more details, your client needs to verify with the zoning and building department.”
The drawing is the front view of a five-story apartment building, prompting people on the “Orange NJ – Real Talk” Facebook page to question whether 34 condo units can fit on the .31-acre site. The 1889 house, which would make way for the proposal, takes up 29,997 square feet.
The prospective building’s preliminary and final site plan application has not been listed on any of the available Orange Planning Board 2024 agendas.
A phone message service for Ruian Zhu, agent for Jersey City’s Alpha Metro Realty, was not set up as of 10:30 a.m. Oct. 15.
WEST ORANGE – A former Ron Jolyn Apartments resident, her two daughters and council candidate Joyce Rudin asked the Township Council Oct. 8 that the $135,000 settlement given the township by its landlord should go directly to the 45 displaced residents instead.
“This settlement should go to the victims,” said Christine Catalano that Tuesday night. “I appreciate that the township put out money for the residents. They were promised money until they were promised housing until thy ere fully rehoused.”
The council had just unanimously approved the $135,000 settlement with Ron Jolyn Realty and PS Realty to recover what they had spent on temporary housing and immediate needs between Sept. 2 and Dec. 31, 2021. West Orange had filed suit April 22, 2022.
Township officials sprang into action when they had learned that a landslide in the wake of Hurricane Ida Sept. 1 had pushed debris into the rear of Jolyn’s two buildings at 275 Northfield Ave., displacing 45 families. Municipal officials used township money to evacuate and temporarily rehoused them until the budget item was exhausted.
Catalano pointed to the West Orange Zoning Board’s permission for Seton Hall Prep to remove 1,000 trees on the bluff above the apartments as part of the school’s playing field renovation. She believes that the trees, had they stayed, would have prevented water runoff from weakening the rock wall that cascaded into the apartments Sept. 2.
“This was something that was foreseen, was warned against, was preventable,” said Catalano.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – The South Orange-Maplewood School District is working with Maplewood authorities on how to prevent a future pedestrian versus car collision like the one that happened at Prospect Street and Oakland Avenue Oct. 7.
Maplewood police were called to that intersection about a pedestrian strike at 7:52 a.m. that Monday. That morning rush hour was like most others, with pedestrians walking to school or work along with similarly destined motorists and bikers.
They arrived to find two junior high school-aged students and a motorist who had been traveling south on Prospect. The two girls, who were part of a Maplewood Middle School walking group, had their parents arrive at the scene.
One 13-year-old girl and her parent were taken to a local hospital for treatment of a broken ankle. The other girl’s parent refused any medical treatment. The driver is to go to South Orange-Maplewood Municipal Court to answer summonses for failure to yield to a pedestrian and careless driving.
Prospect and Oakland traffic were forced to detour around the accident scene, causing a “chaotic” student drop off scene at Columbia High School some three blocks northwest. MMS is about a half-mile to the intersection’s southwest.
The Maplewood Township Committee fielded short- and long-term solutions at its Oct. 9 engineering, public works and planning subcommittee meeting. Whether to deploy school crossing guards at the intersection at their Oct. 9 public safety committee meeting.
Motorists and pedestrians were greeted Oct. 10 with the following changes in the intersection:
- “Traffic calming” traffic cones to restrict and allow travel.
- More pedestrian crossing signs along Prospect between Parker Avenue and Tuscan Street.
- A vehicle speed sign along Prospect for the next three weeks.
- Increased traffic enforcement along Prospect.
More permanent improvements from the Oct. 8-9 meetings are to be announced.
BLOOMFIELD – A township man who is currently in the Monmouth County Correctional Institution in Freehold on a child luring charge since his Sept. 18 arrest.
How long Jonar I. Arenas, 48, will not be away from home is a matter of jurisprudence. He has been charged since his arrest in Freehold with second-degree attempted sexual assault of a minor and third-degree attempted endangering the welfare of a child.
Monmouth County Prosecutor Raymond S. Santiago said, on Sept. 19, that the investigation within his office’s High Tech Bureau in August. A bureau detective, who was acting undercover, said that he was contacted on a social media app by a user. That user, later identified as Arenas, continued discussions and “attempted to set up a sexual encounter with a person who he believed was a 14-year-old boy.”
Arenas, said Santiago, “was arrested without incident.” A preliminary Superior Court-Freehold hearing date was not announced. He may face five to 10 years’ imprisonment, Megan’s Law registration as a sex offender and parole supervision for life should he either plead guilty or is found guilty by a jury.
The incident’s investigation continues.
MONTCLAIR – Township administrators have started a 120-day period for Lackawanna Plaza’s current owner to show them what can really be done with the former Pathmark shopping plaza and historic Lackawanna Terminal.
Attorney Anne Barbineau, representing BPD Holdings, LLC and Managing Director David Placek, explained before the Township Council Sept. 24 what they and township administrators have agreed with them for a Lackawanna Plaza redevelopment plan.
BPD has first agreed to adhere to the Lackawanna Plaza Redevelopment Zone Plan the Council had passed in October 2023. BPD next has to show the council some site plan details, from the location of plazas to what the real estate investment group’s public commitment will look like. Local redevelopment and housing law commits BDP to present a preliminary and final site plan application to the Montclair Planning Board on or before June 1.
BPD and Placek, both of Montclair, bought Lackawanna Plaza from a prior redevelopment group in 2021. They had proposed on Feb. 12 the Iris at 641 Bloomfield Ave. – a five-story, 130,000-square foot office building that would replace a long-standing warehouse and a row of vacant stores between Valley Road and Midland Avenue.
Montclair’s elders’ October 2023 redevelopment zone is asking for a developer to include up to 300 mixed income housing units, office space plus retail-commercial stores without compromising Lackawanna Plaza’s national and state historic register status. The township is hoping that the third time in 40 years will be the charm for the landmark location.
The first redeveloper converted the 1912 Lackawanna Terminal and train platforms into an award-winning “Pathmark Plaza” design. The supermarket entered bankruptcy liquidation in 2016, starting a retail exodus that leaves only a restaurant open in the terminal/anchor store.
The Pinnacle and Hampshire redevelopment proposed attracting a new supermarket by opening up the railroad platforms and moving some of its support pillars for greater street level access. Legal challenges bogged down that proposal.
BELLEVILLE – A Belleville Public Schools elementary teacher and district officials may find themselves in New Jersey Superior Court-Newark testifying on their treatment of a seven-year-old boy.
The boy’s parents, as per their recent superior court filing, accuse his School No. 4 teacher of having to eat his lunch in the parking lot outside of the building one February 2023 day. It was one of a claimed train of bullying and harassment incidents by teachers and the students’ classmates for two school years.
The parents and their attorney said that the boy was being mocked for his Latino heritage and his health condition, resulting in bad grades. The mother said that she tried to speak with his teacher and the principal – but was instead intercepted by a person “from the superintendent’s office at their home, who said the mother could no longer enter the school to pick him up.”
A doctor had diagnosed the boy as having “maladjustment disorder due to his being bullied allowed by the school and fostered by his stigmatization.
The parents, as plaintiffs, want a jury trial to prove “institutional abuse, negligence, retaliation and failure to properly supervise and reprimand staff.”
School 4, 30 Magnolia St., is in the Silver Lake section. It used to house a Belleville Library branch for many years.
NUTLEY – A memorial for Nutley Little Theater and Nutley Rotary mainstay Janis Wolfe was set for Oct. 17 here at the Biondi Funeral Home. Wolfe, 72, died suddenly here Oct. 10.
Wolfe was a 32-year Rotary club member who was on her third term as its president as of Oct. 9. She was similarly involved with the community theater, most consistently as its historian and social chairwoman.
Born Janis Ann Falk in Newark Presbyterian Hospital June 5, 1952, she left Nutley only for Rutgers’ Douglass College to attain a bachelor’s degree in American Studies 1970-74. The Nutley High School Class of 1970 graduate earned a Juris Doctorate degree from Newark’s Seton Hall School of Law in 1980.
Falk, who married first husband Jeffrey J. Wolfe in 1982, was an attorney for the federal Small Business Administration’s Newark office. She later joined Ann Greenburg’s Fairfield practice as the firm’s Chapter XIII bankruptcy standing trustee.
Wolfe, noted as being a group’s “Voice of Reason,” more than embraced Rotary’s “Service Above Self” slogan upon her 1992 membership. She was its president 1998-99, 2013-14 and 2023-34 and a district assistant governor. Wolfe received several Paul Harris Awards, named after Rotary International’s founder.
Wolfe took on most any task with NLT – from the backstage and as its president to acting.
Second husband Frank, son Joshua Wolfe and sister Diane Falk-Romaine are among her survivors. First husband Jeffrey died April 14, 2017.
