Shelley-Ann Bates remembers when a good night’s sleep was a commodity in her neighborhood on the north end of Liberty Avenue.
That was two years ago, when the Ranch Bar & Grill was still open and its often riotous clientele liked to take the party outside at all hours of the night. Residents who slept in the homes surrounding the bar, once located on Liberty Avenue between Oakland and Bernard terraces, were desperate for help, Bates said.
“We complained to the the council, to the [Alcoholic Beverage Control] Board, to the police chief, to the fire chief. Everyone pointed fingers but nobody took responsibility for the situation we were forced to live in,” recalls Bates, a Bernard Terrace resident.
Mayor Karen McCoy-Oilver says she knows what everyone is waiting to hear: her decision on whether she will seek re-election off the Hillside Democratic committee line — or whether she’ll endorse one of the candidates seeking to take her place. Or maybe none of the above.
This past weekend she said she’d have an announcement to make regarding the subject “in a week.”
One of the candidates, Andre Daniels, has supported the mayor in her battle against the Township Council, and at one point contemplated running as a council candidate on her ticket.
Jeffrey Dykes, who’s running for council on Daniels’ slate, said whatever the mayor decides to do, “We wish her luck.”
When Joseph Menza unsuccessfully ran for mayor four years ago, his big issue was property taxes.
This year, as he makes a second bid for Hillside’s top political office in May’s nonpartisan election, the big issue is still. . . property taxes.
Chances are he won’t sound like a broken record to Hillside voters. Since losing to Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver, township property taxes have climbed year after year as township spending increased and state aid decreased.
A lot more has also changed — for the worse. The economy is in shambles, the number of home foreclosures in Hillside is rising, and home values have plummeted.
Perhaps the tax issue this time around may convince more voters to pick Menza, the 49-year-old owner of Menza Realty on Liberty Avenue, over the insiders at Township Hall.
Saturday’s weather held up nicely and a good number of residents stopped by the 2nd Annual Hillside Street Fair held at Central Avenue near the community pool.
The general consensus was that the event, sponsored by the township’s Urban Enterprise Zone office, was a success — and an improvement over last year’s fair near the Municipal Building.
The fair featured 80 vendors, including a food court in the pool complex.
The Hillsider stopped by for about an hour. While we did see plenty of well-known folks (more photos after the jump), we didn’t see the mayor while we were there. Did anyone else see her?
If anyone would like to share any of their photos, please send them, or a link to them, to tips–at–thehillsider.com
The members of the new Hillside Alliance Against Drug Abuse (previously the Hillside Mayor’s Alliance) were announced this week.
Not a member is George Cook, who during the last four Council meetings lobbied for a seat on the panel.
It probably didn’t help Cook, who ran for a seat on the school board in April, that he described the new Alliance in a newspaper article as “a little toy and they are pulling it back and forth to see who gets it.” Even if it is true.
The Hillside Township Council last night elected 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish as its president and 1st Ward Councilman Edward Brewer as vice president.
KULISH
Councilman-at-large Leonard Gilbert did not seek another term as council president, just as he had promised last week.
Neither Kulish — a registered Republican allied with the Democratic machine — nor Brewer are up for election next year. Could this be a plan to keep the at-large candidates, whose terms expire next spring, under low profile to avoid taking the blame for this year’s (and last’s) property tax increase?
As expected, the two independent council members, the 2nd Ward’s Shelley-Ann Bates and the 4th Ward’s Gerald “Pateesh” Freedman, were not appointed to any council committees.
It has long been a show of force by the majority party on the council and Board of Education to excluded opposition members from committees, although the practice seems a bit odd. First of all, being on a committee isn’t fun. It means extra work and extra meetings. Secondly, all final decisions are made by the full council or school board, not by a committee. And finally, not being on any committee sure makes it a lot easier to sit back and be the critic.
In any event, President Kulish told Freedman and Bates not to be concerned about the lack of assignments, promising them they’d be kept busy “up to their necks” in the upcoming year.
In other news:
Richard Bauch, of Democratic moneybag firm Schenck, Price, Smith & King, and Kathy Hatfield are in as Personnel Attorneys
Robert Renaud was reappointed as Special Tax Appeal Attorney
Toy-Ling Washington, a Hillside political activist who was convicted in August of stealing more than $166,000 from an elderly woman in her care, was sentenced Friday to seven years in jail and ordered to repay $118,000, the Star-Ledger reports.
Speaking at sentencing [Friday], Washington said she loved Knight and maintained her charge that the case was politically motivated because of her political involvement in Hillside.
“I knew Ms. Knight was my elder and I loved her and took care of her,” Washington said. “If I had do it all again, I’d take care of Ms. Knight again.”
But Assistant Union County Prosecutor William Kolano argued that Washington viewed Knight as the goose that laid the golden egg and targeted her money from the very beginning.
Washington’s attorney, Dawn Nee, said she would be filing an appeal on Washington’s behalf. Donohue maintained bail at $500,000.
Washington had most recently been a township council candidate running against Joseph Menza, ousted incumbent Deborah Stroud and Councilwoman Shelley-Ann Bates. Two years ago, she ran for council-at-large under Menza’s mayoral ticket.
Previously, she had mounted campaigns under the Green Party for the state Senate against Sharpe James and for Congress against Donald Payne.
Push for family leave law in N.J. — A plan to make New Jersey the third state offering paid time off from work to care for a sick relative or new child is endorsed by AFL-CIO.
The Ranch Bar and Grill became the defining issue for 2nd Ward Councilwoman Shelley-Ann Bates’ campaign in the Liberty Avenue district. Now, after the council-operated Alcoholic Beverage Control Board voted last week to suspend the soon-to-close bar’s liquor license, the councilwoman says she wants to make sure the controversial bar isn’t replaced by another watering hole.
“It’s time for something new,” Bates told the Union Leader. “The residents of that area deserve a rest.”
Bates said that once The Ranch is out for good, the township should rezone the land to prevent another from being built.
The Ranch, located on the north end of Liberty Avenue a block from the Municipal Building, has been the focus of neighborhood complaints of late-night noise, litter, vandalism, crimes and violence allegedly caused by its patrons.
The polemic came to a head this year when Bates — who lives across from the bar — used it as an issue to propel past incumbent Councilwoman Deborah Stroud in the spring ward elections.
Both this week’s Union Leader and today’s Star-Ledger have stories about the condescending comments made by Council President Leonard Gilbert about 2nd Ward Councilwoman Shelley-Ann Bates.
Gilbert’s diatribe-of-the-week was prompted by Bates abstaining from a vote to introduce the 2008 budget. Bates sat out the vote last month because she said the council’s Democratic-controlled majority gave her little time to properly review the figures.
SHELLEY-ANN BATES:Target of attack.
The Leader paraphrased what some called Gilbert’s “insulting” public remarks:
“He said instead of her trying to ‘put on a show’ for her supporters in the audience to make her views appear independent . . . she should have just cast a vote.
“Gilbert said he doesn’t know where Bates is getting advice on how to vote and conduct herself on the council, but he claims she’s being misguided. . .”
Gilbert went on to recommend government training classes to Bates and claimed she has resisted — what the Leader termed — “friendly overtures” by the council majority.
Bates unseated the machine-backed incumbent, Deborah Stroud, in a nonpartisan ward runoff election in June.
Bates has remained true to her independent platform, questioning the council’s actions and refusing to follow party boss Charlotte DeFilippo.
Fourth Ward Councilman Gerald “Pateesh” Freedman, another independent, told the Ledger he scolded the council for attacking Bates.
“The problem with these guys is they all answer to Charlotte DeFilippo and she’s put word out that Bates is not welcome,” Freedman told the Union Leader, adding that the freshman Bates still has much to learn.
But Bates said she won’t allow Gilbert to sit her at “the little girls’ table.”
“I watched the passion of (3rd Ward Councilman) John Kulish in fighting for contracts for department heads, and wish he had the same passion for people who pay taxes here,” she said.
It looks as if Hillside officials are taking the media skills they’ve honed with public access channel 35 to the Internet.
The underused television station, which is designed to inform residents of what’s going on locally, is oftentimes off the air. Not much more can be said about the township’s Web site, which earlier this week was offline.
In recent weeks, the site has promoted the Hillside Chamber of Commerce . . . of Hillside, ILLINOIS!
On the council’s Web page, most members don’t have profiles. And their photos have all been taken down for some reason.
From time to time, we all find ourselves asking, “Who’s running the town?!” Well, you won’t find out by logging onto the Hillside Public Library’s Web site.
A page on their site lists the council members, but gets four of the seven wrong.
For the record, Joe Pinckney resigned as 1st Ward councilman and was replaced by Edward Brewer. Deborah Stroud was ousted in a 2nd Ward run-off in May by Shelley-Ann Bates. And Peter Corvelli, who the library lists as the council president, passed away in April. Councilman-at-large Leonard Gilbert has been the council president since then and 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish is the vice president.
The Ranch Bar & Grill on Liberty Avenue was given permission by the state to let the good times roll for another three months before it must move, the Star-Ledger reports today.The controversial bar has long been a sore point for its residential neighbors who’ve fought to close the rowdy hot spot. In the past, the bar’s liquor license had been suspended by the township only to have it reinstated by the state. The battle culminated in the removal of 2nd Ward Councilwoman Deborah Stroud by neighborhood activist Shelley-Ann Bates in the May election.
Previously, the bar was supposed to have moved before this month, but now will get 90 more days to relocate. Under the new agreement, the Ledger reports, the bar must impose a no t-shirt dress code, an age minimum of 25, an 80-person capacity, and stop serving booze at 1:30 a.m.
Rahway Dems investigated — Election Law Enforcement Commission looking into Mayor James Kennedy and the committee’s campaign contribution reports, which weren’t filed. Freeholder Rick Proctor is the Rahway Dem chairman.
On the campaign trail she promised to be an independent voice in Town Hall — and on her first day on the job, 2nd Ward Councilwoman Shelley-Ann Bates did just that.
Bates, along with three other ward councilmen who won re-election in May, were sworn in this afternoon in an annual reorganization meeting which tended to spare the niceties between rival factions.
“I can see that my colleague is already making her presence felt,” said 4th Ward Councilman Gerald “Pateesh” Freedman, agreeing with Bates to abstain on the votes to appoint Councilman-at-Large Leonard Gilbert as council president and 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish as vice president.
SHELLEY-ANN BATES: Newest council member.
Both Bates and Freedman — no longer the lone independent on the Democratic majority council — said many items on the re-organization agenda were placed there without prior discussion.
“I didn’t get the necessary communication to make an educated vote,” said Bates, who often abstained on votes to appoint top fire department officials, township attorneys and members to local boards and committees.
With Bates on the council, the political makeup of the seven-member body changes slightly. Bates defeated Democratic machine-backed incumbent Deborah Stroud in a June runoff, bringing the total of independents on the council to two. Party Chairwoman Charlotte DeFilippo still maintains a veto-proof five-member majority.
Also sworn in were 3rd Ward Councilman John Kulish and 1st Ward Councilman Edward Brewer.
In May’s nonpartisan race, Kulish eked out a four-vote margin over Joseph Puglise, who ran on a slate with Joseph Menza running in the 2nd Ward and school board member John O’Shea in the 1st Ward.
Freedman creamed former school board members Sip Whitaker, who also ran as an independent, and Beverly Lynn, who ran with unofficial support from the Democratic organization.
In the runoff, Bates received support from the other challengers seeking Stroud’s seat: former mayoral candidate Joseph Menza, Myrna Wiessman and Toy-Ling Washington. Mayor Karen McCoy-Oliver, a Democrat who is now on the outs with the machine, also backed Bates in the runoff.
COUNCIL BRIEFS
Resolutions appointing fire department officials:
Dominick Naples as Fire Chief effective Aug. 1 at $127,096.
William Pellettiere as Deputy Fire Chief effective Aug. 1 at $117,682.
Thomas S. Corso and Jude M. DeLane as Deputy Fire Chiefs at $117,682.
Thomas Mateer and Jeffrey Albrecht as Fire Captains at $94,460.
John Pienciak as Fire Captain effective Aug. 1 at $94,460.
Richard Vonden Steinen as Training Officer at 94,460.
Appointments by resolutions:
Robert Renaud of Palumbo and Renaud as special tax appeal attorney for a total of $95,000 per year.
Steve Rogut of Rogut and McCarthy as bond attorney for a total of $20,000 per year.
Bruce Bergen of Krevsky, Silber, Brown & Bergen as special township attorney for a total of $15,000 oer year.
Francis McIntryre (sic) of McIntrye & Kirshenbaum as special township attorney for the Board of Health for a total of $8,500 per year.
Kraig Dowd as legislative research officer in the Township Clerk’s Office at $45,000 per year.
Harbor Conultants, Inc, of Cranford, as township engineers, at $100,000 per year.
Robert Varady of LaCorte Bundy Varady & Kinsella as ABC attorney for a total of $15,000 per year.
Suplee Clooney & Co. as auditors (rate not listed on agenda)
PMK Group for special engineering services for a total of $40,000.
Richard Bauch of Schenk, Price, Smith & King as contract negotiations attorney for a total of $65,000 per year.
Board appointments:
Two-year terms on the Board of Health: Georgette Corvelli, Dr. Irving Carno and Arthur Kobitz and Deborah Stroud for the unexpired term ending une 30, 2008.
Four-year terms on the Board of Adjustment: Dennis Kobitz, Frank Volturo, Radomir Vlaisavljevic and Richard Semiac as alternate.
Vivian Monroe as member of Senior Citizens Advisory Council for five-year term.
Martin Hollander and Joseph Menza as four-year member of Planning Board and
Candace Harris and Andre Daniels as alternates.
Five-year terms on Recreation Advisory Council: Nicola Drezaj, Gerald Russel and Leonard Dupree.
A resolution to appoint members to the Board of Swimming Pool Commissioners did not receive a second, and therefore was not voted on. The names submitted by the mayor were: Jeffrey Dykes, Sip Whitaker, Angela Menza, John O’Shea and Amy Ketchem.
Public comments:
Resident Rudy Brown said if the township can afford to hire “one attorney to look after another” then surely the Council can abolish the municipal pool fees for children.
Jeffrey Dykes said the Council spends tax dollars “like Monopoly money” and that “taxes are higher than the services that our children receive.” He also agreed with Brown on the pool, claiming he’s seen children at the pool entrance begging families to give them money to be able to afford the $10 fee.
