TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Four city teenagers, accused of kidnapping and trying to sexually assault another teen at a Hudson County hotel Dec. 29, have been spending the new year in that county’s jail in South Kearny.
Newark police officers said that they got a call that Sunday morning that a 13-year-old girl was being held against her will in a Passaic Avenue hotel in Harrison. The girl, who was soon located by Newark and Harrison police, said that she was locked in a room by several acquaintances who had handguns.
NPD, HPD and the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office Special Victims Unit executed a search warrant on the hotel room at 100 Passaic Ave. – where they found the five youths, two handguns and hollow point bullets.
Kyle Green and Travin McCullough, both 18, have each been charged with endangering the welfare of a minor, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, unlawful possession thereof and possession of prohibited devices – hollow point bullets.
Two 15-year-old girls are in juvenile detention. They have been both charged as juveniles for kidnapping, conspiracy thereof, simple assault, attempted sexual assault, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of hollow point bullets. One girl was given a second set of attempted sexual assault and weapons possession charges.
100 Passaic Ave. is the address of the 2005-built Hampton Inn and Riverwalk lot. The lot, before the hotel’s construction, was where three scenes of “The Sopranos” were shot.
IRVINGTON – At least one unnamed township man may be breathing easier since a street gang member had confessed in a Newark federal courtroom Jan.17 that he had ordered his murder.
Jason “Freak” Franklin, 41, said Acting U.S. Attorney-New Jersey District Vika Khanna that Friday, had pleaded guilty before federal district Judge Susan D. Wigenton to a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization conspiracy charge going back to March 20, 2019.
Franklin, while in Irvington that 2019 date, directed other members of the Rollin 60s Neighborhood Crips “to kill an individual in retaliation for the murder of a Rollin’ 60s member. He had also confessed that he “instructed associates to retaliate against rival gang members April 5, 2021, resulting in the shooting that left the victim with serious injuries.”
Franklin, said Khanna, held a leadership role in the gang from 2015 through Sept. 22, 2022 and is responsible for ordering members and associates to commit violent acts. The Rollin’ 60s Crips are deemed as a criminal enterprise “responsible for acts of violence and distribution of controlled dangerous substances in New Jersey and elsewhere.”
He is set to go before Judge Wigerton at 11 a.m. May 21, where he may be sentenced for up to $250,000 in fines and life imprisonment.
Khanna thanked 18 federal, state, county and municipal law enforcement agencies for their assistance. They include Irvington Public Safety Director Tracy Bowers, Newark Public Safety Director Eugene Miranda, Sr., East Orange Police Chief Phyllis Bindi, Bloomfield Public Safety Director Samuel DeMaio, ECPO Acting Prosecutor Theodore “Ted” Stephens II, Essex County Sheriff Amir Jones and New Jersey State Police Col. Patrick Callahan.
Khanna is standing in for Philip Sellinger, who resigned Jan. 8 to make way for President Donald J. Trump and the U.S. Attorney General’s appointed successor.
EAST ORANGE – City and county fire investigators are searching for the cause of a Jan. 14 fire that heavily damaged two Third Ward houses and a pair of garages. The three-alarm blaze at 176 and 180 Oak St. needed mutual aid and station support from six neighboring fire departments and displaced four residents.
The first East Orange Fire Department crews, who responded to an alarm at 4:27 p.m. that Tuesday, found “heavy flames engulfing” the two-story house” The incident commander promptly called a second “all hands” alarm and a third for mutual aid. The four residents escaped unharmed.
Firefighters sought to contain the fire over the next 38 minutes despite the flames spreading to 180 Oak and two garages. Mutual aid from Newark, Orange and Bloomfield came to the scene. Units from Irvington, West Orange and Montclair covered the city’s fire stations.
The fire was brought under control at 5:05 p.m. Both 176 and 180 Oak were built on identical .094-acre lots in 1930.
ORANGE – City, county and state fire investigators are probing the causes of two Jan. 24 predawn fires that damaged two residences and displaced 30 people.
At least five people had to be evacuated from the roof of a two-story mixed use building at 103 S. Center St. between 1:41 and 5:30 a.m. that Friday. Fire Chief Derrick Brown told News 12 and FreedomNewsTV that the first units saw the stranded residents and flames coming from the cockloft space between the roof and the second floor ceiling.
Brown added that Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Pastor Fr. Bernard Mary, neighbors and bystanders had already erected their own ladders and were helping in the evacuation. The chief said that the 20-degree weather and evacuating 103 S. Center’s basement prolonged containment.
Mutual aid from the three-alarm fire included Montclair Ladder Company Truck No. 1’s crew and West Orange firefighters. The displaced residents were taken overnight to Our Lady of the Valley Church School building at 518 Valley St.
The 25 people who were evacuated from 138 North Day St. were there to greet them. Brown said his firefighters had responded to a two-alarm fire from that 2.5-story house at 1:05 a.m.
103 S. Center, built in 1908, was home to the HiTech Driving School and, in the 1970s, the Orange High School Key Club. 138 North Day was built in 1910. Brown’s first anniversary as Orange’s first African American fire chief was on Jan. 26.
WEST ORANGE – The Township Council may vote on hiring an outside lawyer concerning “the removal with cause of a municipal officer” as early as its Jan. 28 meeting.
The council, in a Jan. 14 special virtual meeting, voted to put the said resolution for introduction “at their next meeting agenda.” West Orange’s elders had discussed the matter at their Jan. 6 regular session.
The Jan. 28 meeting agenda had two resolutions to “approve a new township attorney.” R 84-25 is to appoint Gregg F. Paster, of Ft. Lee, and 65-25 for “Friend & Wenzel, LLC,” of Clifton.
What prompted the council’s desire to go outside its law department had to do with Mark Moon, Esq. and longtime Township Attorney Richard D. Trenk. Moon, who had been advising the council, practices with the Trenk, Isabel, Siddiqi & Shahdanian P.C. firm, of Livingston.
Public speaker and attorney Micaela Bennett told the officials that Moon’s advising on Trenk’s status constituted a conflict of interest. Council President Joe Krakoviak said that he and his colleagues Jan. 6 had been looking at hiring Stephen Trimboli, Esq. to handle the matter and that Trimboli’s maximum compensation has been set at $117,499.
Trenk had been the township’s top lawyer for 25 years and had his firm conduct specialized cases for West Orange. until January 2023, when then-Mayor Susan McCartney and that year’s council disputed his retention. West Orange spent $75,000 by April 15, 2024 over whether the authority to retain Trenk rested with either the mayor or the council.
SOUTH ORANGE – The village, for now, is paying $24,150.55 from its emergency fund to repair damage done by a burst water sprinkler pipe at the Baird Community Center Dec. 23.
The over $24,000 appropriation is to have RestoPros, of Bloomfield, continue the remediation they had started that Monday night. Village Mayor Sheena Collum and Business Administrator Peter Travers are meanwhile filing a claim estimate with the municipal insurance carrier.
RestroPros were called in immediately after the burst pipe sprayed water at the Baird center’s main entrance at 6 p.m., prompting that facility’s evacuation. Baird’s main lobby, basement, the temporary South Orange Public Library area and part of the Baird gallery.
The contractor immediately removed water damaged materials like sheetrock, flooring and drop ceilings. They also ran dehumidifiers. Travers, however, said that more restoration work needs to be done by RestoPros before the affected areas can reopen.
The Baird Center had just completed a $15 million renovation and expansion. SOPL’s services are split between here and the former Jersey Animal Coalition shelter at 295 Walton Ave. until its own Scotland Road renovation and expansion is completed.
SOPL at Baird remains closed as of press time, its services transferred to 295 Walton Ave.
MAPLEWOOD – Last rites for Kenneth M. Simpson – who knew the township’s sidewalks, buildings and people for at least 39 years – were a Jan. 4 Funeral Mass and entombment at Millburn’s St. Rose of Lima Church and Cemetery. His remains were placed alongside his late wife of 65 years, Blanche, 87, who died on March 6.
Simpson, 88, had died in his Wykoff home Dec. 23 The Maplewood native and longtime resident had been a township police officer from 1959 until his retirement in 1986. He was PBA Local 44 vice president plus a state delegate for the local and for FOP Lodge 70.
The 1936-born Simpson enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1955 and was stationed as a Military Police officer at Washington State’s Ft. Lewis. He returned to Maplewood, after graduating from the Essex County Police Academy, to Marry wife Blanche and to raise John, Lori and Jamie until the couple moved to Florham Park in 1984.
Kenneth and Blanche were Newark’s Barringer High School Class of 1954 graduates. Blanche went to St. Michael’s Hospital Nursing school while “Ken” was in the army and obtained a master’s degree in nursing from Jersey City State College in 1968. She served Newark Public Schools as a nurse at the Lafayette Street School for 38 years.
The retired policeman was far from finished serving Maplewood. He was appointed as the building department’s code inspector 1987-99. He became a community captain for the annual Fourth of July fireworks exhibition and coaching youth baseball and basketball teams.
Six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren also survive them. Jacob A. Holle Funeral Home here made the arrangements. Memorial donations can be made to the Parkinson’s Foundation and/or Covenant House.
BLOOMFIELD – Rehabilitating Bloomfield Center’s commuter rail station has been scheduled for this year since the N.J. Historic Sites Council and NJTransit reached a compromise in Trenton late last year.
The council, which oversees all Garden State structures on the New Jersey and National historic site registries, green-lighted NJTransit’s renovations with specific conditions Oct. 18 – two months after the state Department of Community Affairs division nixed the initial application.
The concrete canopies that came with the 1912 station will be replaced with steel canopies. The new canopies will be 60 percent shorter on the eastbound platform and 15 percent on the outboard platform.
Both boarding platforms will be raised four feet to meet federal ADA requirements and to avail itself of the transit carrier train car center doors. Ramps, including one to connect the $1 million inbound waiting room reopened in 2000, will be installed. Inbound commuters will also get an all new elevator.
The outbound waiting outbound waiting room on the McCarthy Lackawanna Plaza street level and connecting underground tunnel to the inbound side will be reopened and renovated. That waiting room was a pizzeria and a florist’s shop until a 1979 fire closed it. The former car pickup and drop off ramps to and from the outbound platform, however, will be closed to vehicles.
NJTransit and Stantec architects intend to spend at least $48 million to catch up on decades-long neglect. Daily ridership has climbed to 2,000, in part by the 2002 consolidation of the former Boonton Line and Montclair Branch and a pre-2020 commuter rail system wide 11 percent increase.
Most of the former Delaware, Lackawanna and Western railroad stations were placed on the national register in 1984. The DLW-built Bloomfield, Madison and Lake Hopatcong stations are also distinctive by their Gothic architecture.
MONTCLAIR – The Township Council may announce the latest Town Manager finalist – and its fifth since 2022 – as early as one of its February meetings. A resolution to appoint a search finalist was not on its Jan. 28 regular meeting agenda.
The council had scheduled first-round interviews with three candidates to succeed Michael Lapolla, of Brielle, at a Jan. 10 closed door Zoom meeting plus at least one more candidate at another session between there and Jan. 30. The candidates were recommended by Jersey Professional Management, a Scotch Plains talent search consultant hired by the council for $16,000 Aug. 13.
Lapolla, who was Union County’s manager 1997-2002, was immediately hired as an interim part-time municipal manager Aug. 1, 2023 but was immediately called to service on Aug. 7. His status was later elevated to full-time temporary.
Lapolla took the interim town manager torch from the late Thomas Hartnett, who was the former manager here 2003-10. Hartnett, 75, who was hired July 19, 2023, suddenly died at his Normandy Shores home Aug. 6, 2023. One of the Rahway native’s bequests was for donations to the Montclair Ambulance Unit.
Deputy Township Manager Brian Scantlebury was made acting manager to replace then-Town Manager Timothy Stafford at the council’s July 19, 2023 meeting. Stafford was first put on paid administrative leave Oct. 26, 2022 and was terminated April 20, 2023. Stafford had been accused by several employees of and later found in a report to have created a hostile workplace environment and had retaliated against whistleblowers.
GLEN RIDGE / BELLEVILLE – Glen Ridge, Belleville and Montclair would figure prominently on a prospective lifetime passport stamp or steamer trunk sticker that the late Judith Chaiken Granick would have carried while she had traveled among 10 towns in four states in her 85 years on Earth.
Granick, who died Dec. 27 in Dan Diego, was born into a three generation Chaiken family of six while in Belleville 1949-64 and, while in Glen Ridge, 1980-2020, raised two daughters with second husband Leonard.
The former Judith Nina Chaiken joined her grandmother, parents Lazar “Lou,” mother Helen Miller and sisters Cynthia and Wendy from her 1949 birth at 179 Smallwood Dr. and at 87 Beech St. from 1950 until the family had moved to Clark and Woodbridge’s Colonia section.
Chaiken and her family were Cong. Ahavath Achim members, and herself as a Women’s Club member, when the temple was at Court St. Where the prospective high school class of 1967 graduate had done so here, or at Woodbridge or at Clark’s Arthur L. Johnson Union County Regional High School remains unknown.
Chaiken came to Glen Ridge after she and Leonard Granick had met while studying at FDU-Teaneck in the 1970s and first moved to 352 Maolis Ave. in 1980 and, in 1982, 356 Maolis. It was from there where they raised daughters Jennifer (Glen Ridge High School Class of 1986) and Courtney (Class of 1990).
Judith was Montclair Public Schools Director of Planning, Research and Evaluation. She was part of the N.J, Department of Education’s core team in the agency’s takeover of Jersey City Public Schools. Len was Assistant Research Director at Newark’s UMDNJ. They retired to Las Vegas in 2000 but kept their house here in Courtney’s name.
Judith moved to be closer to Jennifer after Len had died in 2020. Her and Len’s remains were reunited at the family’s burial plot at Woodbridge’s Beth Israel Memorial Park.
NUTLEY – The Nutley Irish Association’s March 20 St. Patrick’s Day Parade may double as a memorial for one of its own, Patrick Morris. Morris, 77, who died Jan. 9, was one of the parade’s deputy grand marshals in 2000. Four grandchildren also survived him.
Morris had died of injuries he had suffered in a Garden State Parkway crash in Old Bridge. A State Police spokesman said that Morris’ car was going north when his car left the road and struck trees a mile north of Exit 120-Laurence Harbor at about 10 a.m. Jan. 4. He died at a local hospital the following Thursday.
Morris, who was born in Newark June 26, 1947 to a family of eight, came to Nutley via the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War era. He enlisted Aug. 1, 1964 and was honorably discharged as an E4 Dec. 1, 1968.
Morris was a 20-year bartender at the Nutley Pub at 229 Centre St. until it closed on Aug. 5, 2014. He then worked for the Original Mr. Bruno’s Pizzeria in Lyndhurst.
Son Stephen, daughter Kerrie, brother Kevin and sisters Helen Schedeman and Mary Davis are among his survivors. Wife Kathleen, brother Joseph and sisters Marion Vizzone and Charlotte Moncelsi predeceased him.
The family and Lyndhurst’s Stellato Funeral Home are planning a future memorial service. Donations may be made to the St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
