TOWN WATCH
NEWARK – Among the five individuals and a men’s basketball team honored here at the inaugural Essex County College Wolverine Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony May 9 was a recently deceased public official.
Former Mayor and State Senator Sharpe James, who later died May 12, was honored for being ECC’s first athletic director in 1968. The three-letter South Side/Malcolm X. Shabazz High School scholar-athlete played for and graduated from the now-Montclair State University with a degree in physical education.
The ceremony was held in the late Cleo Hill, Sr. Physical Education Building gymnasium. The former collegiate and professional basketball player was one of AD James’ first hires as a basketball coach, who went on to a coaching career at Winston-Salem (N.C.) State, died at his Orange home in 2016.
ECC’s 1974-75 men’s basketball team were inducted for setting national community and junior college scoring records. Hill and James had to arrange practice times for them at the YM/WCA and city high schools.
Russell Rogers, now 86, hired as track and field coach in 1969, became the first African American national coach of the year five times in 1971-78.
Kerron Stewart, Melanie Walker and Novlene Williams-Mills – all Olympic medalists – were also enshrined for their ECC and later achievements.
IRVINGTON – A township man, already detained for a parole violation, was charged by Maplewood police March 15, in the shooting of a fellow Irvingtonian along their Jacoby Street May 31, 2024.
The Maplewood Police Department, in their May 20, 2025 release, said that Jerry Menard, 25, has been charged on two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, criminal mischief and related weapons offenses.
The charges were made on Menard while he was – and still is – detained at an unnamed state prison. Menard was taken to that jail on a parole violation July 31.
MPD did not say how they had linked Menard to the 1130 p.m. shooting of another Irvington man along Jacoby Street, by Brown Street, May 31, 2024. That is where responding police and South Essex Fire Department EMS medics found a man lying on the street suffering from “multiple gunshot wounds.” The residential location is about a 15-minute walk northwest of the Irvington border.
The 24-year-old victim was treated at the scene and was admitted to “a local hospital in stable condition.”
EAST ORANGE – The city’s teachers union and public school district – after three years’ negotiation and a budget deficit-induced round of layoffs – have a new labor contract.
Members of the East Orange Education Association voted by a 5-to-1 ratio May 15 to approve a new labor contract spanning Sept. 1, 2. 2022 – Aug. 31, 2027. 473 voted “Yes” and 86 “No.”
The collective bargaining agreement covers the first three years’ salaries already paid out but without any pay grade step-ups.
2022-23 salaries will be boosted two percent, payable by EOSD on June 30, 2025. 23-24 wages be hiked 2.25 percent, payable on July 15. 24-25 paychecks are to be upped 2.75, payable Sept. 1.
The 2025-26 paychecks will rise four percent, payable on Sept. 1, 2026 – with a one-step upgrade. The last year, 2026-27 features a two-step upgrade and another four percent pay hike.
The district had honored EOEA contract that had expired on Aug. 31, 2022 while talks continued. A $25 million EOSD 2024-25 budget shortfall, discovered Sept. 15, resulted in laying off or demoting 93 teachers and other union members.
ORANGE – Metcalf Park is midway through a May 16-June 30 closure for its latest round of renovations.
Mayor Dwayne Warren and work involves the DPW, in their May 15 handbill and online notice, said that the South Ward park between Chestnut and Valley streets is closed for “Construction and Environmental Remediation.”
It appears that some of the work involves “The Baseball Field,” going by the city’s Facebook page. There is a nine-point outline of the work underway, including requiring the field’s size to “proper dimensions” and the application of sod and other specialized earth for e infield and outfield.
The question asked by neighbors is, “are you doing one or both baseball diamonds?”
Friends of Metcalf Park started a Moveon.com petition to have one of the two diamonds replaced by space for alternative use: soccer, Frisbee, cricket and the like. The petitioners cite the changing demographics of the neighborhood for the change.
The city used a $481,500 DEP Green Acres grant in 2023 to revamp the basketball courts and install a dog part “at community request.”
WEST ORANGE – About the only clear activity here at Mount Pleasant Plaza is that at least two stores will be leaving by Sept. 1.
No Limit Martial Arts is moving uphill to 1001 Mt. Pleasant Ave. The Metropolitan Plant Exchange is leaving Aug. 30. Loyal customers are left to travel to sister stores in Closter, Fort Lee or Paramus.
There are secondary sources who say that their space will be filled by Trader Joe’s. A Trader Joe’s spokesman confirmed that his company is looking at West Orange but not an address. Their nearest stores are in Millburn and Florham Park.
455-471 Mt. Pleasant started life as a Mid-20th Century A&P supermarket. A&P was building Colonial-styled supermarkets with parking lots.
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD – Paper in Plane Coffee of Montclair, who has a bar is South Orange’s Baird Center since last year, is advancing further south to Maplewood’s Jefferson Center.
Jonanthan Echeverrry announced that he has the keys to the former Nelson’s Garage at 145 Dunnell Rd., May 18 and intends to start opening the century-old building in phases by the end of summer.
‘It has over 7,000 square feet of space, so we can open in stages,” Echeverry told a reporter May 20. “We can open the front for grab-and-go fare.”
“The front” was the customer lobby where Nelson’s patrons would explain their automotive problems, make appointments and wait while Dave Germain and his two mechanics performed their maintenance and/or repairs.
Germain ended Nelson’s 100-year run Nov. 30. He said that he could not cut back on hours and make the monthly rent. Echeverry intends to honor Nelson’s with automotive-theme decoration. Paper Plane’s latest outpost may have some ready customers given that the Maplewood Concierge, in its various forms, closed its Maplewood Station stand last year.
BLOOMFIELD – When Timothy Fox officially reaches the top of his profession July 1, his promotion will likely be followed by a homecoming here.
Fox, who was born and raised in Bloomfield through the Eighth Grade, will be succeeding the retiring Kieran Barrett as Montclair State University Police Chief and Associate Vice President of Student Development and Campus Life.
Timothy Fox, who joined MSUPD as a dispatcher in 2001 had worked his way up the ranks. He was promoted to Deputy Chief March 27.
Fox’s beat as “Top Cop” includes MSU’s main campus and, since 2023, Bloomfield College of MSU. MSU, a state university with NCAA since been Division III sports, has since been integrating with the Lutheran Church-founded Bloomfield College and its Division II sports.
Fox will be far from a complete stranger when he returns to Bloomfield. He said that he has been developing relationships with his hometown’s first responders and officials like he has been doing with colleagues in Little Falls and Clifton.
MONTCLAIR – Dr. Renee Baskerville confirmed, on May 15, that Chief Financial Officer Padmaja Rao will be leaving for a position closer to her home.
Rao, who had served this township, will be setting up shop in Piscataway. That town’s council appointed Rao as their CFO and Financial Director at their May 6 meeting; their current CFO is retiring.
Rao may be best known for uncovering improprieties with the Montclair Fire Department’s personnel timekeeping and that some council members were on the state health insurance plan while they were only part-time employees.
Rao and the township had settled her harassment and retaliation lawsuit in 2024. She claimed that the then-town manager, after presenting her findings to him, created a hostile work environment, including his cutting her out of meetings and other employee contact.
Montclair has since had four other town managers. Voters replaced the mayor and entire council in 2024.
GLEN RIDGE -Two middle school leaders have found themselves on indefinite leave for at least the rest of their school year in the wake of a claim that one of their teachers had been “grooming” one of their students.
Ridgewood Avenue Principal Michael Donovan and Vice Principal Jonathan Heitmann00, said Superintendent of Schools Kyle Arlington May 19, have been suspended “effective immediately.”
The super and nearby Central School Principal Kesha Harris, as of May 20, will supervise RAS through June 30 in addition to their regular duties. Arlington mentioned “safety concerns” and working with law enforcement regarding “a complaint” for the change.
This comes after Glen Ridge Public Schools had a tort claim levied against it in Superior Court-Newark Civil Part May 12. Westfield attorney Justin Drazin said he represents “Minor of Court” and her family.
Drazin said that an RAS teacher had had a developing non-consensual relationship with MOC from when she was an 11-year-old RAS student into Glen Ridge High School.
BELLEVILLE – The Belleville Board of Education Trustees – after a seven week nationwide search and scouting of 35 candidates – appointed Dr. Erick Alfonso as its latest Superintendent of Secaucus remains a bigger mystery.
Alfonso was unanimously appointed by those panelists who voted. Board President Gabrielle Bennett-Meany and Trustee Jeannie Gillis, without explaining, abstained.
Belleville Public Schools, as of May 27, has not posted Dr. Alfonso’s salary. Whether he will get predecessor Dr. Richard Tomko’s $183,977 salary – which he accrued in his ninth and last year here – or more like the $183,977 Secaucus had paid him remains a mystery.
What led to Alfonso’s April 21 resignation from Secaucus remains a bigger mystery. He resigned after that school board put him on paid leave March 20, 2024. He was hired in late 2023 and given a three year contract, but was suspended after eight months.
