SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The South Orange–Maplewood Board of Education passed the 2021-22 budget, which came in at $159,683,232, at its May 3 meeting. The measure passed with a vote of 5-3; BOE members Elissa Malespina, Johanna Wright and Kamal Zubieta voted against it. BOE member Susan Bergin was absent. There will be […]
GLEN RIDGE, NJ — Sojourna Walker started feeling COVID-19 symptoms at the end of March, so she quarantined at her home in West Orange to avoid spreading the virus. But eventually she had to go to the emergency room. “I was quarantining and was fine,” Walker said in a phone interview with The Glen Ridge […]
WEST ORANGE, NJ — Members of the West Orange School District community spoke out at the April 19 Board of Education meeting against the elimination of Hazel Elementary School librarian Joyce Soto and Liberty Middle School chorus teacher Craig Sanphy in next year’s budget, advocating for the district to keep the positions on the payroll. […]
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — The Bloomfield Township Council honored Gary Iacobacci at its April 26 meeting, remembering the life of the former councilman. Serving as 3rd Ward councilman from 1990 to 1996, Iacobacci had lived in Belleville before his family moved to Bloomfield and he graduated from Bloomfield High School. He died in February. “Gary was […]
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD, NJ — Students and staff at Columbia High School asked the South Orange–Maplewood Board of Education and district administrators to address sexual assault and harassment among students at the April 19 BOE meeting, after students identified themselves as victims and shared their experiences online in early March. BOE student representative Lily […]
WEST ORANGE, NJ — Louis LaSalle’s last day of work was April 30, the same date as his first day at RWJBarnabas Health in 1990 as the vice president of external affairs. He’s finishing his 31 years at the hospital as the senior vice president for corporate external affairs, a job that has seen him […]
SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — A cold and windy Earth Day didn’t stop South Orange residents from stopping by the library on April 22 for Makers Mayhem, where they could play games, do crafts and plant flowers in stations around the building. A patch of grass was dug up and reserved for a garden in front […]
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Hundreds of people spread out across Bloomfield on April 24 armed with rakes and garbage bags to participate in the townwide cleanup, picking up trash and other debris in every park in town, plus a few other locations. The 500 volunteers in 70 different places included Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops, […]
NUTLEY, NJ — Like all libraries, when the COVID-19 pandemic took hold of the country in March 2020 and forced shutdowns of nonessential businesses, the Nutley Public Library had to completely shift how it operated. A year later, things are slowly getting back to normal: Residents can browse the stacks in person a few days […]
BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Members of the Bloomfield Township Council and Essex County Board of County Commissioners held a meeting about the proposed Essex–Hudson Greenway project on April 14, updating residents about the 9-mile park that could run through Essex and Hudson counties. The park would be built on an unused freight train rail line owned […]