TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Newark Police Division Sgt. Victor M. Ortiz III has been remanded to home confinement in Hillside pending his next pre-trial hearing, since his Jan. 1 surrender to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and being arraigned in the Dec. 11 vehicular death of his colleague.
Ortiz, 34, has been charged during Jan. 2’s remote court hearing from the Essex County Correctional Center with first-degree vehicular manslaughter and second-degree vehicular homicide in the death of Jairo Juan Rodriguez. He was also issued several motor vehicle summonses, including one for DWI. He is only to leave home for church and court.
Essex County Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II’s Jan. 2 announcement of Ortiz’s arrest and charge was met later that Thursday with a “Justice for Jairo” rally at City Hall steps. The 15 protestors, many of whom are Rodriguez’ relatives, ask why it took 21 days from the Broad and Lafayette Street incident to Ortiz’s surrender.
Ortiz is accused of striking Rodriguez, 53, with his personal vehicle while at that intersection. Rodriguez, as an NPD Traffic Control Officer, was assigned to that corner to assist traffic leaving a Prudential Center concert at 11:43 p.m. Dec. 11.
Rodriguez was rushed to University Hospital – where he was declared dead at 1:37 a.m. Dec. 12. While the off-duty Ortiz had cooperated with fellow police and received medical attention at the scene, it is not known whether he was in his uniform. Ortiz’ attorney said he is in the case’s discovery stage.
IRVINGTON – Dec. 19’s ceremony here at the Irvington Fire Headquarters was more than the retirement of 34 year IFD dispatcher “Captain John” Santos Velez.
The presence of Velez, 60, here at the D. Bilal Beasley Civic Square headquarters goes back 53 years. Velez himself said that he started coming here as early as seven years old.
That fascination continued during his attending the nearby Irvington High School. The IHS Class of 1984 graduate eventually joined “Irvington’s Bravest” full-time after 10 years in the neighboring Irvington Rescue Squad and the Office of Emergency Management.
Velez’s specialty was with communications hardware and “software.” While he officially maintains the department’s radio equipment, he frequently gave incoming mutual aid departments directions to the township’s incidents.
“Captain Jon’s” informal title – given by area colleagues – was “retired” Dec. 19 by Mayor Anthony “Tony” Vauss, Sr. The mayor named Velez an Honorary deputy chief and handed him that rank’s white dress shirt.
The Irvington native now spends full-time at his Union Vauxhall section home.
EAST ORANGE / SOUTH ORANGE – Village attorney James H, Davis III, from his office Dec. 29, that the daughter of city resident and actor John Amos family has retained him regarding the circumstances of his August 2024 hospital admission and death.
The Aug. 21 death announcement of Amos, 84, who lived here during his 1950-54 and 1957-65 formative years, was made by son and caretaker Kelly “K.C.” Amos and the actor’s publicist Oct.1. The East Orange High School Class of 1958 cartoonist and football player was best known for his television roles in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Good Times,” “Roots” and “The West Wing.”
Davis said that daughter and estate co-trustee Shannon Amos wants him to get several answers from Inglewood, Calif. Centinela Hospital Medical Center, where Amos’ son had admitted him.
The questions include:
- Who was the woman with Amos who misidentified herself as his daughter.
- John Amos’ health and condition upon admission and admission date.
- Why was son/caretaker Kelly not with him at admission.
- Did the LAPD and Adult Protective Services review the actor’s previous condition and death? S. Amos had filed elder abuse complaints with APS going back to February 2024.
K.C. Amos, in a Dec. 27 statement, said that no foul play was involved with his father’s admission and death. He has hired Homeland Security Services’ Operation V.P., Kevin Faler to investigate “two years of civil and criminal wrongdoing” regarding missing money and valuables in Colorado and “connected incidents in Memphis, New Jersey and Los Angeles.”
ORANGE – City, county, state fire inspectors plus a private investigation firm are probing the cause of a Dec. 13 daylight East Ward residential blaze that left one house uninhabitable and a second damaged. The fire injured one firefighter and displaced 14 people from three families.
OFD Deputy Chief Rivera and the first units arrived at 213 Snyder St. just after 11 a.m. to find heavy flames coming from the first floor that were extending to the second. They also found Orange police officers at the scene; they found the fire first and had evacuated the residents. An OPD officer was taken to a local hospital for smoke inhalation.
OFD called for on-scene mutual aid from East Orange, West Orange, South Essex, Montclair and Livingston. Support services from the city’s fire and building officials, OEM and Older Adult departments, OFD Chief. Derrick Brown, Essex County’s OEM and fire coordinator, University Hospital EMS and PSE&G had also arrived. 219 Snyder suffered melted vinyl siding on its east side. A yellow-green “Investigation” notice from Sommerville’s O’Neil Associations remains affixed to 213’s front door since Dec. 20.
Parking Space Lottery Held
Winners for the parking space lottery here at 416 Highland Ave, according to a Dec. 15 city announcement, will be contacted by the Parking Office Jan. 10. Those who had registered with the office by Dec. 20 and did not win a space will be part of a waiting list.
Those who were selected get the privilege of using the gated garage on The Highland by Peek for $50 a month. The Highland is a five story, 138-unit apartment building – with 136 parking spaces – on the southeastern corner of Highland and Lincoln avenues since 2024. Being short two parking spaces was built into the city’s planning regulations as a means for residents to rely less on private passenger automobiles.
It appears that the Orange Parking Office is trying to redress a growing curbside parking space shortage, in light of recent new residential construction in the Orange Valley, with this lottery. It is not known whether other lotteries for new spaces will be offered in the future.
WEST ORANGE – A lawsuit by a township couple against three “forever chemical” corporate producers has been circulating in federal court since its Nov. 20 filing in Newark.
Marcia and Elihu Feldman, both 77, through their lawyers, have filed a wrongful product suit in U.S. District Court against 20 respondents – including 3M, Chemours and DuPont. They and the 17 other companies have produced PFAS from the 1960s to before its recent discontinuance.
PFAS is known for its waterproofing, fire extinguishing and nonstick applications from raincoats and frying pans to airport runway foam. It is classified as a “forever chemical” for its persistence in bodies of water. They have been linked to cancer and other health problems.
The Feldmans believe that the existence of PFAS in West Orange’s water supply for decades has led to Marcia’s contracting kidney cancer. Since her November 2020 diagnosis, she has found “elevated levels” of PFAS in the drinking water as supplied by New Jersey American Water. (Neither NJAW nor the township are not respondents in the filing.)
The couple claim that the 20 defendants knew about PFAS’ cancer link since the 1960s but neglected to warn or act on the elevated levels. Florida attorneys Madeline E. Pendley and J. Caleb Cunningham filed on the Feldmans’ behalf.
The N.J. Department of Environmental Protection placed a maximum content limit of PFAS and PFOA to 14 parts per trillion in a liter of water in 2021. It is the most stringent limit in the nation.
MAPLEWOOD – A Dingmans Ferry, Pa. driver may be making an appearance at the South Orange Maplewood Municipal Court this month to answer to five motor vehicle summonses involving the striking of a “juvenile pedestrian” near Columbia High School Dec. 16.
The Maplewood Police blotter records police officers responding to a car-pedestrian strike at the corner of Academy Street and Parker Avenue early that Monday. Officers found a youth who said he was hit by a van at that corner.
An investigation had found that the van driver was attempting to make a left-hand turn onto Academy when the boy was struck. The driver got out to check on the youth – who waved him off, saying he was late for school – got back in and drove away. CHS is about a block away from that intersection.
It was not recorded how the out-of-state driver was found and ticketed. The unidentified man has been charged with failure to yield to a pedestrian, careless driving, leaving the scene of an accident and failure to report thereof.
Three New SOMSD Leaders
The South Orange-Maplewood School District’s board of education selected and installed Nubia DuVall-Wilson as its president and Will Meyer and Regina Eckert as first and second vice presidents at their Jan. 2 reorganization meeting here at its administration building.
DuVall-Wilson, of South Orange and Maplewoodians Meyer and Eckert were unanimously elected by their peers. While all three are into their first board member terms, DuVall-Wilson was 2024’s first V.P. Their selection came after Nov. 5 election winners Jeffrey Bennett, of South Orange, Deirdre Brown, of Maplewood, and Bimal Kapida, of South Orange, were inaugurated by new Board Attorney Patrick Carrigg.
BLOOMFIELD – The Bloomfield High School community entered the Holidays mourning two scholar athletes who played five decades apart but had died within 24 hours Dec. 11-12.
Last Rites for Tyiana Sears, 42, who died Dec. 11, was held here at the New Light Baptist Church and Glendale Cemetery Dec. 20. The township native scored 1,922 career points and an 87-15 win-loss record while helping the Bengals girls basketball team to four straight New Jersey Interscholastic League Championships 1998-2001. She was named to the All- NJIL First team plus the Essex County First or Second teams those four years. Sears – who was promoted from Demarest Elementary and Bloomfield Middle schools – was also an All-Essex team volleyball player.
Tyiana Simone Sears continued her basketball career with the St. Peter’s College Peahens, attaining the 2001-02 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year by scoring 18 double points that freshman season.
Sears, who was named to the BHS Athletic Hall of Fame in 2015, moved to Newark, where she raised Jason Elijah Cadesrin and Ta-Marrae Elizabeth Sears. Companion Kiel Williams and sister Tamisa Covington are also among her survivors.
News then came from the Heller, Pa. Funeral Home that William E. Van Riper, 81, of nearby Berwick, had died Dec. 12. The BHS Class of 1961 graduate was shortstop and co-captain of that year’s Bengals baseball team.
Born March 3, 1943 in Glen Ridge, Van Riper served as a U.S. Army medic in Italy and Vietnam. He returned to Bloomfield to work for CE Lummus, then Newark’s Prudential Insurance and eventually retiring from R.R. Donnelly in Maryland. His last address was at Berwick’s Celebration Villa.
Brothers Gerard and Kevin are among his survivors; sister Carol predeceased him. The family has requested no public services. Recollections may be sent to Condolences@HellerFuneralHomeLLC.com.
MONTCLAIR – Some scholar-athletes here at Montclair State University and MUS at Bloomfield College are deciding whether to stay here without their NCAA Division II and III sports teams or transfer to schools and continue playing.
MSU’s Board of Directors, in what President Jonathan Koppel said was “a difficult decision,” will have its men’s and women’s lacrosse and women’s flag football teams trade levels as of Fall 2025. The flag football club will be elevated to Division III. Both lacrosse teams will remain but as club squads.
The directors meanwhile dropped MSU at Bloomfield College’s NCAA Division II baseball and women’s volleyball teams to club status. The public Division III MSU brought aboard the private Division II Bloomfield College in a July 2023 merger.
The changes are to take effect pending approval from the NCAA after the Division II and III seniors have graduated in June 2025. The lead time will allow underclass student-athletes to decide whether to stay or transfer. Students who were enrolled on said sports’ scholarships will have those scholarships honored should they stay at MSU or BC.
Elevating women’s flag football, said an MSU release, would allow more players to compete in one of the nation’s fastest growing sports. It is another step in aligning both schools’ athletic programs.
MSU’s men’s lacrosse team won the Skyline Conference 2009-2017 with a 53-1 win-loss record those years. The Red Hawk women won six of eight championships 2006-13.
The BC Bears baseball team had advanced to the Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference second round and junior Amdres Varas was named to the CACC All Star Team last year. The women’s volleyball team had advanced to the CACC state sectional final round in 2021.
GLEN RIDGE – The Dec. 22 car accident response and apprehension of its driver here at Bloomfield Avenue by Clark Street missed ending in Bloomfield by several yards.
Glen Ridge and Montclair police officers caught the driver – identified by local law enforcement as “an 18-year-old man from Newark” – after a brief foot chase. It was then when MPD officers explained to their borough colleagues that they were pursuing the suspect, and the 2023 Kia Sportage he had taken from Montclair’s Bloomfield Avenue Business District.
The first MPD officers met the Kia’s owner along Church Street earlier that Sunday. He said that he was unloading the Sportage while it was running. He said he had left his SUV unattended for a moment – and saw it leave east towards Bloomfield Avenue.
MPD has charged the suspect with theft by unlawful taking, theft of motor vehicle, unlawful taking thereof, motor vehicle burglary and resisting arrest by flight.
There were no reported injuries. The Glen Ridge-Bloomfield boundary crosses eastbound Bloomfield Avenue some 25 feet east of Clark Street.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Planning Board may continue considering on Jan. 9 the proposed replacement of “Old Belleville Hall” and adjacent Elks Lodge on Washington Avenue with a five story, 108-unit apartment building as was introduced at their Dec. 12 meeting.
Belleville Ventures LLC, in its Dec. 12 introduction, wants to replace the three-story hall at 258-60 Washington Ave. and the single-story lodge at 254-56 Washington with the said new building holding an overall 110 units. Those extra two units are for street level commercial-retail.
The replacement of the structures, which goes back 79 to 174 years, has been a long time coming. While the Belleville Elks had moved to merge with Kearny, “Old Belleville Hall,” which is surrounded by perimeter fencing, has been vacant for decades.
Belleville Hall, believed to have been built in 1850 and was used as a meeting place by various groups into the 1940s. It was Belleville’s municipal building until the current Town hall opened in 1913. It continued as a place for sports and recreational teams since 1930 but was eventually rezone for commercial/retail use.
The Township Council had received the overall 254-60 Washington Ave. “Area in Need of Redevelopment” designation from the Township Council in 2023. It is part of the larger Washington Avenue Redevelopment Area created in 2022. 258-60 was bought for $800,000 in 2021. Belleville Ventures’ application also includes the vacant lot at 143 Valley St. behind it.
NUTLEY – Those who attend the to-be-announced memorial service for LSCW Theodora “Teddie” Blume McKee, who died after a short illness Dec. 28, will probably have as likely come from here as Montclair.
The Brooklyn-born McKee was a longtime Nutley Family Service Bureau social worker who fully retired in 2021 after “semi-retiring” in 1992. McKee commuted from her just as lengthy residency in Montclair.
Brooklyn’s Abraham Lincoln High School Class of 1947 graduate came to the Nutley-Montclair area by way of New York University and marriage. The then-Theodora Blum had earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from NYU and was pursuing her masters there when she met Elmore “Mike” McKee. They married in 1957 and moved to Montclair to raise Seth and Daniel.
McKee more than threw herself into her NFSB social work when Mike died in 1999. The Montclair Adult School and YMCA regular ran book discussion groups at the Montclair Public Library into early 2024.
Three grandsons, a daughter, brother Henry Blum and sister Susan Linder are also among her survivors. Sister Frances Lewin predeceased her.
