TOWN WATCH
ORANGE – When the city’s building inspector placed a red “Uninhabitable” label on the former Rossi Paint headquarters at 401-03 Main St., Dec. 5, it added a similar one on 407 Main St. next door – although it was not touched by flames, soot or water from the Dec. 1 fire.
407 Main St., which used to be Ca Sabor Equadoriano until it was bought by the city in 2018, was ravaged by vandals and/or copper pipe salvagers, as it had appeared to “Local Talk” through an open side door (since boarded up) Dec. 3.
401-03 and 407 Main were bought by the city to make way for the Orange REC Center and apartment building at the old YWCA 395 Main. The public-private partnership calls for those buildings and a single-story structure at 12 High St. be replaced with a community fitness center on the first two floors and apartments on the upper four.
When the city put up perimeter fencing around the old Orange YWCA and Rossi buildings in April, they did not do so for the corner property at 407. It had since been subject to occasions of vandalism since the restaurant moved out in 2020.
The building at the northeast corner of High and Main had been a restaurant since at least 1974. It had been one of several places for Guy’s Restaurant 1990-2007 before finally settling at 333 Valley Rd., West Orange.
407 Main’s first use was as an automobile service station since at least 1922. (Main Street was renumbered from 1918.) William Bonnet, of Orange and Armand J. de Rosset, of East Orange, opened a repair shop in 1922, starting a string of garages and as an Atlantic gas station into 1970. (Atlantic Petroleum, of Philadelphia and Richfield, of Los Angeles, merged as ARCO in 1966 and moved out of the Northeast by 1975.)
Demolition dates for all four buildings have not yet been announced. The Orange REC project has been in the works since 2015.
NEWARK – Public Safety Director Emmanuel Miranda Sr. requests the public help identifying some suspects who robbed a victim at gunpoint on December 3, 2024.
At approximately 8:18 p.m., two Black males brandishing weapons approached the victim from behind in the 400 block of South 9th Street. The first suspect pointed the gun at the victim, demanding that he give up his wallet and cell phone. When he complied, both suspects shoved the victim toward an empty lot before they ran away southbound on 9th Street toward 16th Avenue.
Suspect #1 wore black pants and a ski mask and suspect #2 wore a white checkered jacket, black pants, and a black ski mask.
Director Miranda Sr. urges anyone with information about the suspect’s identity to call the Police Division’s 24-hour Crime Stopper tip line at 1-877-NWK-TIPS (1-877-695-8477). All anonymous Crime Stopper tips are confidential and could result in a reward.
IRVINGTON – ECPO and Irvington police detectives are investigating the circumstances of an assault that left an East Orange woman fatally stabbed and a Newark man in that city’s Essex County Corrections Facility here early Dec. 1.
The first IPD officers had responded to a 911 call of a woman injured before 121 S. 21st St. at 3 a.m. Sunday. They found an unresponsive woman with multiple stab wounds on the sidewalk of the Olympic Apartments.
Township officers summoned local EMS, who then rushed Shanniiya Major, 32 to Newark’s University Hospital – where Major died.
Officers soon found a barefoot man near the crime scene which matched a caller’s description of the stabber. An investigation of Major and Denzel R. Dozier’s second floor apartment found signs of a struggle.
The initial investigation has Dozier stabbing Major while she was asleep. Major tried to flee but Dozier fatally caught up with her outside.
Dozier, 33, is being held on a first degree purposeful murder, a count each unlawful possession of a weapon and possession thereof for an unlawful purpose plus a parole violation.
EAST ORANGE – Authorities said that the search for a missing city woman had ended in a closed Newark Housing Authority building Dec. 4.
ECPO detectives are meanwhile asking for the public’s help in tracing the late Rhanasia L. Knight’s last steps – from being last seen here along South Clinton Street Dec. 1 to her being found “unconscious and unresponsive” in an NHA Bradley Court Building 66 apartment.
Knight, 30, was last seen alive leaving from 151 South Clinton here at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 1. She was headed in the direction of Newark’s North Munn and Tremont avenues.
ECPO detective said that they believe that no foul play was involved in Knight’s death.
Knight’s funeral arrangements are to be announced after the New Jersey Regional Medical Examiner’s autopsy.
WEST ORANGE – A township police detective’s peeled eye on a shopping plaza’s surveillance recordings and some information from his Verona and Cedar Grove colleagues led to the Dec. 2 arrest of a Newark man on several parked car break-ins there.
WOPD Det. Austin Vanderhoof had reported to LA Fitness and The Shops at Essex Green to record reports of several car burglaries and/or attempted burglaries on Nov. 25-26. Although the break-ins happened mainly on the gym’s parking lot to the shopping center belt road’s south, there were other reports elsewhere on the plaza’s lots – and all happened at night.
Det. Vanderhoof turned to the video recordings – where a similar man appeared to be in all burglaries. He asked neighboring departments if the suspect looked familiar; Cedar Grove and Verona detectives confirmed that the same one hit their residents’ vehicles.
The detective continued undercover surveillance, interviews and searches until he attained the suspect’s positive identification. Hakir Hodges, 28, was arrested Dec. 2 on eight counts of car burglary/theft and two attempted burglaries/thefts from the Essex Green area.
Hodges was remanded to Newark’s Essex County Correctional Facility Dec. 2 until he had posted bail by Dec. 10. It is not known whether Cedar Grove and Verona had lodged their charges against him as of press time.
SOUTH ORANGE – May 14, 2024 was the last date where village voters had participated in its nonpartisan municipal elections – and will be for at least for the next 10 years.
The Village Council, in a practically unanimous vote Nov. 25, has moved its mayor-council elections onto the November General Election ballot. The move takes effect on Nov. 4, 2025 and is to last until November 2034, where village elders may review whether more village voters had participated in the said elections compared to the traditional second Tuesday in May vote.
Ordinance 2024-21, which has the State of New Jersey Legislature and Board of Elections blessings, automatically extends the three council members’ terms who are up next year. Bobby Brown, Bill Haskins and Karten Hartshorn Hilton’s terms, whose terms were to expire (voters’ choices pending) July 1 now expire on Dec. 31.
Village Mayor Sheena Collum said that the village would save “north of $60K” in not having to hold a May election. Collum, who exclaimed, “I’m excited – it’s game time!,” considers the shift a step towards trying out ranked choice voting – which would be a first in “Local Talk” land.
The village, after a decade-long effort, had the State Legislature provide the May-to-November move option in the latter’s changing South Orange Village’s charter last year. That charter change also included replacing “Village President” and “Village Trustees” with mayor and council members. South Orange remains one of New Jersey’s six villages.
All Village Council Members, except for the absent Councilwoman Jennifer Greenberg, voted for the election calendar move.
MAPLEWOOD – Township Committee member Deborah Engel and her Maplewood Democratic Committee colleagues have been explaining since Nov. 26-27 on why she will not succeed Deborah Adams as mayor on or around Jan. 1.
The five Township Committee members, like in Nutley, select one of their own as mayor during their annual reorganization meeting, which is usually held on or right after Jan. 1. They usually select a mayor in a caucus meeting before public observation ahead of Jan. 1 – which is how Mayor Adams was picked to stay on for a second year.
All five committee members are MDC members – which is where Engel and the party committee have contrasting views.
Engel, on Nov. 26, said she was passed up because she did not sign an endorsement for Cong. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) for Governor that was being passed around – and lost her mayoral support from another TC member.
Sherrill announced her gubernatorial primary run Nov. 18, joining five other Democrats and six Republicans, as of press time, in pursuing space on the June 3i, 2025 party primary ballot. The 11th Congressional District representative is competing against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, former Montclair mayor Sean Spiller and former State Senate President Steve Sweeney, of Pennsauken.
MDC Chairman Ian Grodman, in a Nov. 27 statement, said that she had talked with Engel after the caucus meeting. Grodman said that “Ms. Engel’s comments clearly set forth that her frustration lies not with the MDC but with an individual or individuals on the TC. Engle said that such was the case and she apologized if it appeared that way.”
Sherrill, also on Nov. 27, said, “As Deb said, this didn’t come from our campaign and it has no place here.” Spiller and outgoing Jersey City Mayor and candidate Steve Fulop criticized those caucus members who would make a gubernatorial endorsement a selection condition.
BLOOMFIELD – The ECPO, Bloomfield police and the Paterson Police Department have issued limited information on one of the latter city’s finest allegedly exposing himself to a child here before his Dec. 3 arrest.
Authorities said that Angel Acevedo, 31, was identified by the victim as calling out from a green 1997 Honda along Franklin Street, exposing himself and driving away towards Belleville at about 4 p.m. that Monday. BPD officers, using the car’s description, spotted him at Watsessing Avenue by Florence Avenue afterwards.
The officer has been charged with disorderly conduct – lewdness and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child by a non-caretaker. His detention status is unclear as of Dec.8 other than his having a scheduled Dec. 17 first appearance hearing.
PPD said that Acevedo has been suspended without pay for 90 days and may be facing internal administrative discipline. He had joined the force in July 2019.
“Bloomfield Tech HS” Ideas Wanted
Newly sworn-in Mayor Jenny Mundell is asking for ideas on reusing the former Essex County Boys Vocational-Technical High School building – and her listening tour may come near you in early 2025. The township, under Mayor Michael Venezia’s administration, bought the building and its five-acre lot for $10 million in October 2023.
Mundell, on Nov. 19, said that she had Township Attorney Michael Parlevecchio ask Bloomfield Public Schools Superintendent Salvatore Goncalves if he had any ideas for the closed 1930-2018 high school at 209 Franklin Ave. Mundell said she will be scheduling a public town hall meeting early next year. The Essex County Schools of Technology Board of Education, which folded the Bloomfield Tech and Newark’s North 13 Tech communities into the new Donald M. Payne, Sr. School of Technology Sept. 1, 2018, had moved Newark Tech’s community 2021-23 while the latter’s school building was renovated.
MONTCLAIR – Last rites for the late Montclair Public Schools STEM Director, Jennifer E. Goforth, was a Nov. 29 visitation at the Rossi Funeral Home and a Funeral Mass at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, both of Scotch Plains.
Jennifer Elaine Bloch, who was a Scotch Plains resident before recently moving to North Plainfield, died suddenly on Nov. 22 – the same day as her 49th birthday. The Los Angeles native first moved to New Jersey to attain a bachelors of arts degree in mathematics from Rutgers, then to Detroit for a masters in teaching from Mary Grove College and back to the Garden State for a supervisor’s certification from Kean University.
Bloch was working at Rutgers as a tutor and a mentor when she met Karlefe Goforth in 2009. They married on March 9, 2017 and settled in Scotch Plains – where they raised Jamir and Jylena Blanding. They were Immaculate Heart of Mary parishioners and, later, members of Summit’s Fountain Baptist Church.
The family joined Jennifer’s battle against Stage Three breast cancer.
Parents Ricardo and Remedios Bloch and brother Jeffrey Bloch are also among her survivors.
BELLEVILLE – Those who drive, ride or walk along two more major roads here are experiencing two more sets of closures here Dec. 2 – 20.
The township had announced on its website Dec. 2 that “a possible road closure” could occur on Belleville Avenue between Washington Avenue and Main Street. This section of the 13-mile Essex County Road No. 506 is along the south side of Belleville’s Town Hall and Public Safety Complex.
Although that section of Belleville Avenue is a county road, it is not clear what sort of work was being done – and whether it is weather sensitive.
The Belleville site also listed a “possible closure” of Mill Street Dec. 9-20 from “Franklin Avenue to the Bloomfield line.” This section runs on the north side of the Extra Space Storage, Wawa and Starbucks where Roche Pharmaceuticals/Jergens stood for decades.
This is on top of the continuing NJDOT State Rt. 7 centerlane project that has been going on since Nov. 26 and is to last until Dec. 22. between Rossmore Place and Little Avenue. This is the third phase of a northward utility installation, milling, repaving and streetscaping project that had started between Mill and Academy streets last summer, that is headed north into Nutley.
