TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – City residents and most first responders awoke Nov. 12 to Newark Police Division Chief Emmanuel Miranda, Sr., as Acting Director of Public Safety.
Mayor Ras Baraka, in a Nov. 8 announcement, temporarily promoted Chief Miranda, the city’s top uniform cop, to public safety director – the department’s top civilian post. Miranda, for now, oversees Newark’s police and fire divisions, the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security.
Miranda succeeds outgoing director Fritz G. Frage (pictured), who had reportedly tendered his resignation at the Nov. 7 Municipal Council meeting. His notice may have been a “late starter” agenda item that did not make Thursday afternoon’s posted agenda.
Details on the how and why of Frage’s departure remain unclear in part because it came on the verge of the Veteran’s Day weekend. Frage came here from the New Jersey State Police as its Investigations Branch in August 2022.
It is not clear if Frage is outright retiring, based on his serving the State Police for 24 years.
It is also not clear whether Miranda, who was sworn onto NPD in 2001, will be considered to become a full-time director. Sharonda Morris, who started out as a Western Division foot patrol officer in 1998, has been meanwhile named on newarkpublicsafety.org as the new police chief.
IRVINGTON / WEST ORANGE – There are 366 reasons why the owner of his self-named tax preparation business in both townships and his native Milford, Pa. will be away from those offices forever.
Michael Ewell, Sr. – who owns Ewell Tax Centers at 1200 Clinton Ave., Irvington and 59 Main St. – Suite 341, West Orange – is currently serving a one year and one day sentencing imposed Oct. 29 by a federal judge in Newark.
Ewell had pleaded guilty earlier this year to a count each of willfully subscribing to a false tax return and aiding or assisting in preparing a false tax return.
He was accused, according to the IRS Newark Field Office, of filing 157 tax returns with false information 2015-22. It is not immediately clear whether the falsifications were made at one, two all three of his tax offices.
The dummied-up business expenses, charitable donations, educational credits and itemized deductions resulted in $824,835 in ill-gotten gain for Ewell’s clients. He now faces $536,581 in IRS restitution.
Ewell, when released, will no longer prepare anyone’s returns other than his own.
EAST ORANGE – A city man will be spending the holidays in Newark’s Essex County Correctional Center until his scheduled Jan. 10 sentencing before Superior Court Judge John I Gizzo.
Thomas Jonson, 31, has been there since a Superior Court-Newark jury told Gizzo Oct. 31 that they had found him guilty of aggravated assault and weapons possession in relation to an incident in Newark’s Central Ward Nov. 2, 2021.
The jury found Johnson guilty of following the three workers and their construction truck from Home Depot at 399-443 Springfield Ave. that Tuesday about six blocks west to 676-680 South 14th St. – and assaulted them at that work site.
The three workers were unloading their supplies and mounted a ladder to the single-story building’s roof when they testified that Johnson approached them with a drawn handgun.
Johnson kicked down the ladder, leaving the first worker stranded and then pistol whipped the second. He fired six shots at the third which missed him but struck the truck.
Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II said, on Oct. 31, that witness accounts and Home Depot and on-site surveillance recordings had identified the perpetrator as Johnson. The jury deliberated on Oct. 30-31 before reaching their verdicts.
NOTICE: The East Orange Police Department has been advising homeowners Since Nov. 9 that they should immediately call them at (973) 266-5041 immediately should they hear someone kicking their door. Although the Tik Tok “door kicking challenge” has been around the country since 2021, one home recently owner suffered $700 worth of damage. The stunt involves at least two masked people; one who tries to kick a door and the other recording on a cell phone
ORANGE – The Union Baptist Church intends to send off the pastor who had guided the congregation for a third of its 153-year existence with a retirement luncheon Oct. 16 at West Orange’s Wilshire Grand Hotel.
The Rev. William McKinley Freeman, who came to the East Ward church June 1, 1977, will be honored for his 47.5 years’ service to UBC-Orange and the greater community. First Lady Sis. Carolyn Cooper Freeman will also be hailed for her service at the RSVP event.
When the spotlight falls that Saturday on the Freemans, Rev. Freeman will likely point skyward and proclaim, “It’s All About God.”
The Corelian, N.C.-born Freeman is leaving UBC as its fifth and longest-serving pastor, who came here via three other states. The Powellsvile G.C. White High School graduate supplemented his 1967 bachelor’s degree from Shaw University with a master’s of divinity from Newton Centre, Mass.’ Andover-Newton School of Theology.
His first pastorate was at Newport (R.I.) Baptist and supervised its merger with nearby Mt. Olive BC, leaving it as the combined Community Baptist Church of Newport. He came to UBC-Orange fresh from Penllyn, Pa. ‘s Bethlehem B.C.
Freeman, within UBC, concentrated on Bible study, prayer ministry and gifts of the Holy Spirit. Outreach ministries during his tenure ranged from evangelism and a soup kitchen to awarding $1,000 and $1,500 scholarships to constructing residential housing for seniors in Orange and East Orange.
The former General Baptist Convention of New Jersey President has not publicly said why he is retiring on Jan. 1. The Deacon’s Committee began organizing the retirement luncheon in Sept. 9. The UBC congregation has had several guest pastors speak from Freeman’s pulpit since Oct. 27.
SOUTH ORANGE – The South Orange Planning Board ended a year’s application process by approving the JESPY House ‘s expansion onto 102-118 Prospect St. here Nov. 4 – but with 16 conditions.
The board has greenlighted JESPY’s construction of a four-story, 21 dwelling apartment building for its intellectual disability development clients. The center will help them with having affordable housing while having JESPY’s in- and out- patient services.
JESPY will go ahead with demolishing four Victorian or Edwardian era village center houses that have long been zoned for professional or office space. The new structure’s exterior will reflect its neighbors’ architecture.
The approval includes demolishing a fourth house – as amended in August – for a parking lot. The 100 spaces are more for the center’s employees, visitors and delivery vehicles; only one percent of JESPY clients own a car.
The approval was approved on 16 detailed conditions. Those approvals will be made public at SOPB’s memorialization at their Dec. 2 meeting.
MAPLEWOOD – The township police department have been advising motorists here since Nov. 2 not to leave their vehicles unlocked and idling for however brief a time.
The owner of a 2022 Chevrolet Equinox told responding MPD officers that he had stepped out of the car along Elmwood Avenue by Meadowbrook Road at 9:30 p.m. that Saturday to make a residential delivery.
He returned to face a masked man dressed all black and pointing a handgun at him. The suspect got in the Chevy and drove eastward. Newark police found the car abandoned at Bergen Street and South 17th Avenue.
There were no reported physical injuries but MPD has increased their local patrols. The suspect’s further description has not been released as of press time.
The incident is under township and neighboring police investigation.
BLOOMFIELD – The Friendly’s restaurant site conversion into a Wendy’s/Taco Bell took a recent step forward with the former’s reported demolition.
The eatery’s levelling, which had stood at 1243 Broad St. since 1969, is the latest step in a two-year saga that was staged in the Bloomfield Municipal Building and State Superior Court-Newark.
A Superior Court judge, calling the Bloomfield Planning Board’s December 2022 rejection of Finomus Bloomfield RE Holdings’ site plan application, “arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable,” ruled in the developer’s favor in late June.
Finomus has eliminated drive through windows for the combined eatery in late 2022 and kept that as part of its superior court appeal. The new restaurant is set farther back from Broad Street.
Neighbors and residents of the busy Brookdale intersection the incoming restaurant remain concerned about its potential impact on Broad Street/W. Passaic Avenue traffic. Friendly’s closed 1243 Broad Dec. 21, 2021.
MONTCLAIR – Township detectives are looking for at least two suspects who made off with $5,203 worth of meat, seafood and produce from an Upper Montclair supermarket on three occasions last month.
The King’s Supermarket manager told responding MPD officers Oct. 16 of the three occasions of theft. Suspects in the first theft shoplifted $2,198 worth of meat, seafood and produce. The next heist hefted out $1,279 and the last $1,426 in meat and seafood.
Detectives, after reviewing store security recordings, were able to identify two suspects as being between 25 and 35 years old. No further details have been given as of press time.
MPD and King’s management are working on loss prevention here at 650 Valley Rd.
NOTE: Members of the Glenfield Middle School voted to replace its president and governing board in an Oct. 30 vote under State PTA supervision. The election under watch was held after members at the Sept. 25 meeting removed their president at that time.
Interim President Jeffrey Pholwattama was made permanent for the rest of 2024-25 . Julia Savoca, Jared Miller and Betty Shvetz were respectively selected as vice president, treasurer and secretary in an uncontested vote.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Historical Society went above and beyond their call with its 11 a.m. Nov. 9 monument unveiling for Vietnam veterans – in Newark’s Woodland Cemetery.
BHS President Michael Perrone and his cohorts traveled some five miles south to unveil a marker honoring four of Newark’s fallen who are buried in its Central Ward cemetery.
The black granite marker bears the names and faces of USMC Cpl. Leon Earl Bell (May 2, 1946 – July 2, 1967), USMC Pfc. Vincent Samson Coles (Feb. 27, 1950 – May 16, 1968), Army Spl. 4 Eason Jasper Maxy (June 24, 1948 – Nov. 1, 1968) and Army Pfc Leroy Williams, Jr. (April 7, 1942 – Oct. 3, 1965).
“Vietnam War 50th Commemoration Partner – Belleville Historical Society,” gave a reason for Perrone and company’s activity. As the U.S. Department of Defense’s Vietnam War Commemoration Partner, BHS seeks to locate, mark, restore and/or clean gravestones and markers of that war’s dead throughout Northern New Jersey.
They intend to have the 225 Vietnam Killed in Action burial sites in Essex County located on or before April 25, 2025, 60 years after the official end of the Indochinese conflict. Perrone said that finding two of the honored foursome’s grades at Woodland were particularly challenging, given its decades of deterioration and vandalism.
“A chainsaw and a machete were used to access Army Pfc. Wiliams’ grave,” said Perrone. “Two soldiers were buried in unmarked graves. It’s incomprehensible that a young soldier killed in Vietnam didn’t have a headstone.”
“We’re here out of respect for our families and even to people who we don’t know, added Woodland VP Warren Vincentz.
NUTLEY – A 1913 Zinn-Buick race car, thanks to a Nutley garage that doubled as a time capsule, was able to return to its Paterson home at that city’s Hinchliffe Auto Racing Expo Saturday.
Although the revived annual race car display was to honor the midget cars, stock cars and motorcycles on Hinchliffe’s fifth-mile cinder oval during its 1934-41, 1946-52 era, the Zinn-Buick does share local lineage.
The 1913 Buick was one of several cars the Hinchliffe Brewing family used to collect beer money until it was involved in a street accident. (The stadium was named in 1931 after then-Mayor James Hinchliffe.)
Eugene Zinn bought the crashed Buick and converted it into an open wheel racer. He raced it at Ho-Ho-Kus Speedway from 1914 into the 1920s and then it was rolled into a Nutley garage and was forgotten for decades.
The No. 7’s current owner was looking for an Essex road car when he found is prize – and the Zinn Buick – in that garage in the early 1970s. He bought both and restored the Zinn-Buick to the Antique Automobile Club of America award-winning standard.
The 11th “annual” Hinchliffe racing expo was actually the first since 2016 – and after the stadium’s $105 million restoration and expansion.
