TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – A city company is among the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s latest additions to its “WALL of Shame” with Treasury Department support, Oct. 29.
Tiger Builders, LLC was among the nine businesses cited for outstanding noncompliance to the state’s employee hours, wages, benefits or related compensation law that month.
The Ironbound-based company was placed on the DOL’s Workplace Accountability in Labor List for owing the state and its own employees $259,597.50 despite receiving a final judgement and/or order on May 21, 2021.
Tiger was accused of violating the Unemployment Compensation Law, the Temporary Disability Benefits Law and the Compensation for Family Temporary Disability Leave Law.
The state labor department posted its first WALL deadbeats with 36 businesses on Labor Day 2023. The WALL roster has grown by seven to 217 businesses statewide as of Nov. 4. The list now includes 19 businesses from Newark, Irvington, East Orange, Orange, Montclair, Bloomfield, Belleville and Nutley.
None of the 217 will leave the list until they have paid their worker recompensation and state penalties in full. Business additions and removal are done by the joint DOL-Treasury’s Office of Strategic Enforcement Compliance.
IRVINGTON – The land being used for the Sankofa Enclave at Twenty-First Street mixed housing and community center project was first earmarked for a new Irvington Public School.
“Local Talk” was reminded of that fact when a WNYC radio local broadcast Nov. 19 said that the land between North 21st and 19th streets and 5 Standard Place in the East Ward was first cleared for a school. The lot was bought in the late 1990s or early 2000s by the then-New Jersey School Construction Corp.
The land will now have 15 two-family homes, a five-story affordable housing building holding 240 units and a 300,000-square foot community and education center being built in a $100 public-private partnership. Its groundbreaking was held here on Oct. 17.
The SCC bought land adjacent to existing schools who were deemed wanting in physical and educational need. To this day, one can find state-owned vacant lots by Newark’s Hawthorne Avenue, West Side High School and the High School for Global Studies, among other schools.
To SCC and successor N.J. School Development Authority have built all new school buildings and/or renovating and expanding others here and in Newark, Orange, East Orange, South Orange-Maplewood, Bloomfield and Belleville since the 1990s. Two developments in the 2000s, however, made some developers drool over those lots.
The first setback was when the SCC found itself $6 billion in debt. Gov. Jon Corzine replaced it with the SDA, with greater fiscal control, in 2007.
The second was Gov. Christ Christie’s “go slow” order on the SDA school planning in 2009. The “by the book” drawing reviews slowed the pace of building or rebuilding needy schools. It would then take Newark Public Schools 100 years to replace all of its then-70 school buildings.
Whether the projected now-Sankofa lot would replace the nearby Berkeley Terrace School remains an unanswered question.
EAST ORANGE – The city and the family of James Amos are holding a celebration of the late actor’s life here at the Cicely Tyson Community School of Performing and Fine Arts 4 p.m. Nov. 23.
What may well be the public’s only celebration of “America’s Father” is set that afternoon at the school’s Jean L. James Theater at 35 Winans St. The A.J. Calloway-hosted program is to include “select speakers, musical performances and a special video tribute.”
Part of the Tyson school complex stands on the site of East Orange High School, which Amos had graduated from in 1958. “Amo” was a Panthers football running back, the student newspaper’s cartoonist and was a member of the junior class play’s production of “The Man Who Came to Dinner.”
Amos, 84, became more widely known a s portraying father or father-like figures on television series from 1974, including “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Good Times,” Roots,” “The West Wing” television series and the “Coming to America” movie. His family and agent announced his Aug. 21 death in an Inglewood, Calif. hospital on Oct. 1.
While the service is free, the public is urged to secure limited theater seating via: A Celebration of Life and Legacy, Honoring John Amos Tickets Sat. Nov. 23, 2024 at 4 p.m./Eventbrite.
ORANGE – “Local Talk” has learned that the arc of Dana LePine’s life, which took early form here in the Orange Valley, has ended in a Camden hospital Oct. 9.
LePine, 65, was born in East Orange March 24, 1960 to tile setter father Albert and mother Leah. The LePines, however, lived at 259 Reynolds Terr. and later 297 Lincoln Ave. near Orange High School. The LePines were parishioners at St. Venantius Church.
Dana’s friends, in their Oct. 26th tributes, recalled him being a regular at Romeo’s Pizzeria at Lincoln and Central avenues – and Central Field across the street, where he played baseball for the Orange Rotary Club little league team. He also played pickup ball on the then-Cong. Oheb Shalom parking lot.
Dana graduated from St. Venantius School for Seton Hall Prep, then still in South Orange, in 1974. While he graduated from “The Prep” in 1978, it is not clear as of press time whether he made the Pirates baseball team. He did carry a passion for baseball and the New York Yankees in his adult life.
LePine, after some studies at Ramapo College, joined ShopRite Village Supermarkets for the next 44 years. It is not clear whether he had worked in the Doddtown Orange, Brick Church East Orange or West Orange’s ShopRite of Essex Green, friends remember his being on the Absecon store’s customer intercom system.
“Big D” moved to Smithtown and Galloway in Southern New Jersey until his fight against esophageal cancer began last year. Parents Albert and Lea, wife Cindi and son Alexander are among his survivors.
LePine’s memorial service was held Oct. 26 at Galloway’s Wimberg Funeral Home. Memorial donations may be made to your favorite Charity.
WEST ORANGE – The late John “Jack” Sayers’ devotional legacy to the township had lasted to where he was named Grand Marshall of the 2015 West Orange St. Patrick’s Day Parade even though he was a nearby Roseland resident by then.
Sayers, 78, who died in Roseland Nov. 8, has been hailed as one of West Orange’s police directors and business administrators into the 2010s. He was known to volunteer for several township charities, often cooking for fundraisers.
Born in Newark Feb. 17, 1956 to sheriff’s officer James, Sr. and Viola, John K. Sayers was raised at 18 Kingsley St. in the St. Mark’s Square section. The WOHS Class of 1974 graduate went on to attain a bachelor’s degree from now-Kean University in 1978 and his juris doctorate from the Seton Hall Law School.
Then “Big Jack” switched from “Law” to “Order,” becoming an Essex County Sheriff’s officer in 1990. The 275 Valley Rd. resident became the first rank and file officer to become undersheriff in 1995 until retiring in 2001.
Sayers was police director when nephew William Sayers, Eldridge Hawkins, Jr., Brad Squires and four others were hired as officers in 2004. The younger Hawkins named both Sayers, Squires and the township police chief in a 2010-14 discrimination lawsuit, claiming that the younger Sayers and Squires received preferential promotions due to their Irish heritage over Hawkins and the four other officers.
Wife Rosemary, sons Jeff and Mike, daughter Jaclyn, three grandchildren, brothers Bill and Bob and sister Pattie also survive him. Brother James and parents Jim and Viola predeceased him.
A Funeral Mass at Roseland’s Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament Church, where he was a longtime parishioner, followed by burial at East Hanover’s Gate of Heaven Cemetery, were respectively held on Nov. 14-15. Memorial donations may go to the Elanor and Lou Gehrig ALS Center at Columbia University’s Neurology Department and/or St Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
SOUTH ORANGE – Village police officers, with help from their Orange colleagues and a Millburn Municipal Court judge, said they scored nearly five pounds of narcotics and prescription legacy drugs and the arrest of two residents here Nov. 13.
Academy Street neighbors may have noticed SOPD officers and ECPO detectives arriving at an address where Idris Carter, 24, and Zakee Moxey, 23, at 6 a.m. that Wednesday. They were more than exercising a search warrant signed by a Millburn judge; Millburn police drones hovered overhead and Orange police’s K-9 units were on the property.
Village and county authorities said that their search yielded 4.55 lbs. of marijuana in what SOPD Chief Ernesto Morillo said was its “largest drug bust” in its history. They also hauled off 956ml of Promethazine syrup, “cannabis edibles,” mushrooms, packaging materials, grow equipment and $982 in cash – mostly in $20 bills.
Although Morillo left Carter and Moxey’s identification to the county, he said that they executed the search warrant after several weeks’ surveillance of their address. Detectives said that they saw several “hand-to-hand” transactions.
The chief said that the stakeout came from a tip from a neighbor and that he called Essex County, Orange and Millburn for assistance.
Both Carter and Moxey are charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance, possession thereof with intent to distribute, possession with intent to distribute of a prescription legacy drug, possession of a schedule 1 narcotic drug (or psilocybin mushrooms), CDS possession within 1,000 feet of a school (Columbia High School), paraphernalia possession and related conspiracy counts.
MAPLEWOOD – A 30-year-old YouTube influencer and township native went on that very social medium on Nov. 12 to apologize to some 20 million subscribers for speeding on a local road – big time.
Marques Brownless – on his MKBHD (Marques K. Brownlee High Def) channel to show a five-second clip of him getting a Lamborghini up to 96 mph on a local road.
Although the Lambo’s main speedometer was blurred, a second one showed the speed. (The car’s year and model were not disclosed.) A corner of the view outside the window showed a 35 mph speed limit sign and a second stating to slow down for children.
The five-second clip had been cut from a nine-minute video spotlighting new video equipment. Brownlee’s stock in trade is as a reviewer of high tech equipment for the last 14 years – from the time he was a Columbia High School student (Class of 2011) through his Stevens Institute of Technology studies (Class of 2015).
While cutting the speeding clip because “it added nothing to the video,” he added, “All I can do is apologize and promise not to do anything close to that stupid again. That’s a terrible example to set and I’m sorry for it.”
Only Brownlee knows where he speeded. The now-Closer resident commutes to his studio space in South Kearny.
Brownlee, since 2014, has been highly regarded for his gadget appraisals. He received an honorary degree from Stevens in May.
He has also been weathering some recent controversies. He has been selling cell phone video wallpaper for $19.99 on his channel. Some of his product reviews had been sponsored by the product’s company.
BLOOMFIELD – The decades-old Bloomfield Avenue-to-Grove Street shortcut here in the Ampere to some 20 million subscribers, as of Nov. 17, is closed to all but authorized NJTransit maintenance of way workers.
The shortcut, formed by the former Erie Orange Branch right-of-way, was being fenced in at both ends by six NJTransit workers Sunday morning. There are gates for the company’s staff and vehicles – if they have the padlocks’ keys.
An NJTransit spokesman is looking into whether the agency has leased or bought the property from Norfolk Southern-Conrail Shared Assets. The freight railroad owns what is left of the Orange Branch/Bloomfield Industrial Track not used by NJT between Newark’s Forest Hill Junction and its western terminus at West Orange’s White Street.
What is clear is that the state public transportation carrier is using the now-gated property to store ballast stone for its Newark Light Rail/City Subway. Similar stone was piled – and pedestrians were still walking through – last summer. “Local Talk” speculates that an adjacent business had “paved’ over the Orange Branch tracks with some left over asphalt in 2021. NS had removed the Bloomfield Avenue grade crossing gates before the pandemic.
Riders who got off NJT’s 11, 28, 29 and 72 buses tended to use the shortcut to catch the NLR or the No. 90 bus since the old subway was extended from Newar’s Franklin Avenue in August 2001. Its cut, which dates back to when the Erie had a passenger station where the Gino’s Hamburgers-KFC/Wendy’s parking lot is, may have gone as far back as the 1890s.
Rider and freight use of the Orange Branch, however, diminished after World War Two. The Erie stopped passenger service on the branch May 10, 1955. NS filed for Orange Branch/Bloomfield Industrial abandonment Nov. 7, 2014 after its last “Bird Seed Express” run to Hartz Mountain ended in 2009.
One may stand beyond the new locked gates and wonder what if other proposals were pursued. The Essex County Freeholders (now Commissioners) had proposed extending the Newark City Subway on the Erie’s Orange and Caldwell branches in 1964. A proposed 1950 grade separation project would have depressed Bloomfield Avenue. The Orange Branch, however, suffered with dozens of grade crossings.
MONTCLAIR / NUTLEY – An otherwise unidentified motorist from Nutley who had struck a school crossing guard last month in Montclair may well have a date here before one of the latter township’s municipal judges this month. The unnamed driver was charged at the collision scene with reckless driving and for failing to comply with a crossing guard.
The 62-year-old crossing guard may meanwhile be home convalescing after surgery at Paterson’s St. Joseph Medical Center for a broken left tibia and a spinal compression fracture.
Oct. 30 dismissal time at Montclair High School said Montclair Police Sgt. Terence Turner, began like any other Wednesday afternoon. The guard had deployed himself by the intersection at Chestnut and Park streets.
Montclair police officers and a Montclair Ambulance Unit crew, however, were dispatched there at 2:33 p.m. They found the guard – a township employee – and his hand-held stop sign down on the northern crosswalk. The 2019 Nissan Rogue SUV and the 47-year-old driver had stopped by northbound Park Street.
MPD officers promptly diverted traffic, including buses on NJTransit’s Nos. 28 and 34 routes. Atlantic Health Care services medics treated the guard’s injuries, which included bleeding and abrasions from both forearms plus pain in one of his knees.
A preliminary investigation found that the SUV driver was trying to make a left hand turn onto Park from eastbound Chestnut when she hit the guard. The guard, who was walking from east to west, was wearing a reflective vest. The intersection traffic light was green for Chestnut traffic.
MHS Principal Jeffrey Freeman, in a subsequent email, reminds “everyone to remain vigilant and exercise caution while driving during arrival and dismissal times.
BELLEVILLE – It took just 24 hours after a “New Jersey Globe’s” Nov. 12 article about Second Ward Councilman Frank Velez joining Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop’s gubernatorial primary candidates’ team to get a reaction here.
Fulop told the news site that Velez and former East Orange Second Ward Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks will be challenging incumbents Michael Venezia, of Bloomfield, and Belleville resident Carmen Morales in the June Democratic Party primary.
Mayor Michael Melham posted on his own Facebook page on May 13 of his objections to Velez’s running for higher office. Melham, who is also campaign manager of the nonpartisan “A Better Belleville” municipal slate, said that Velez was elected by ward voters in May and had been serving for 135 days or five council meetings before running in the 34th State Legislative District primary.
“You need to put the work in AND stick around a bit,” said Melham, who called Venezia and Morales’ representation in the 34th LD “strong.” He added that Velez, who was elected as the Belleville Board of Education Trustee in November 2020, had lost that year’s May campaign for council.
The irony for some is that Melham, after he was elected as Fourth Ward Councilman in 2000, ran on the Republican Party ticket in 2002 for a then-28th LD General Assembly seat. He was the lowest vote-getter in that November’s General Election.
