Friday, March 19, 2010
Yet another sign of spring!
NEWS|2 hours ago
Director of Public Works Eric Burbank wants to remind Maplewoodians that the garden debris pickup/spring rake program starts Monday, March 22. You can get the dates for your zone (there are 12) on the township website under "Spring Rake Out Program." The details of the program are as follows: Each area is scheduled for five pick up days. Materials to be picked up are limited to branches, leaves, and garden rakings when packaged as follows: (a) Branches must not be more than four feet in length and tied in bundles that can be handled by one man. (b) Leaves and garden rakings must be placed in returnable containers that can be handled by one man. Materials to be picked up must be placed at the curb not later than 6:00 a.m. on the scheduled…
The crowd was light but the discussion was heavy at the Hilton Neighborhood Association-sponsored Board of Education candidates debate Thursday night.
Two major news stories of the past few days dominated discussion at the debate for candidates running for election to the South Orange Maplewood Board of Education. School rezoning and state aid cuts dominated the questioning, as incumbents and challengers alike acknowledged the difficult situations the school district is facing. Answering those questions were incumbents Beth Daugherty (one term) and Lynne Crawford (two terms) as well as challengers Wendy Sachs and David Giles. Incumbent Rowland Bennett has withdrawn from the race. After each candidate introduced him or herself, debate moderator Carol Buchanan got the ball rolling with the first question, asking the candidates their positions on the rezoning/redistricting question. Beth …
A little fun and a lot of food in Luke's Kitchen
On Tuesday March 16, Luke's Kitchen held the reception for artist Joshua Zaitz, whose mixed-media pieces are currently on display at the restaurant. Chef Rod Hernandez hosted the evening, along with his wife and co-owner Patty Lee, and their son Luke, for whom the restaurant was named. Zaitz's work is a pop-up book of sorts. Influenced heavily by the art of Charles Fazzino, a renowned 3-D Pop Artist, Zaitz's quirky and playful style takes "doodles" to a whole other level–literally. Many of the figures in Zaitz's pieces physically step off the page, having been printed in triplicate and then assembled as 3-D images. "Growing up, I always drew little cartoons," said Zaitz, who never thought he could make a career out of his art. "You can't…
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175 Maplewood Ave
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Superintendent Brian Osborne says the district is in the process of reworking the draft budget and invites suggestions to handle "unprecedented" cuts in state aid.
SCHOOLS|6 hours ago
This letter from Superintendent of Schools Brian Osborne to the community has been posted on the website of the South Orange-Maplewood School District: Late Wednesday afternoon, the state released state aid figures for the 2010-2011 school year. Governor Christie had previously signaled that districts should plan for a 15% cut to state aid; however, the figures released yesterday cut state aid to SOMSD by over 80%, or $5.3M. These cuts are in addition to the current year state aid reductions imposed by Executive Order 14 in February. As a result, the preliminary budget that I presented to the Board of Education at the March 1 public budget workshop meeting, which already included $1.5M in non-personnel reductions and eliminated 29 …
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The Township Committee crafted the draft 2010 budget based on an assumption of a 10 percent cut.
Maplewood will receive $471,646 less in state aid in 2010 than it did in 2009, according to numbers released by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs. The 20.45% reduction will force the Township Committee to "open up" the budget planning process that they had thought was wrapped up, said Mayor Vic DeLuca. Last year, Maplewood received a total of $2,306,339 in state aid. The 2010 number is $1,834,693. The Township had built its draft 2010 budget based on an assumption of a 10% reduction in state aid. The news comes as the Township is still reeling from last night's news of the 80.9% reduction in state aid for the South Orange Maplewood School District. The mayor was still processing the information after a candidates debate for …
Basketball runs in the blood of the Wright family.
For as much history and tradition that the Columbia girls basketball program has, there may be just as much, if not more, sitting on the sidelines and in a small chair next to the basketball office in South Orange Middle School. The girls' program has been led by head coach Johanna Wright since the 1982-83 season, with the nationally known coach amassing more than 700 career victories (more than 500 with the Cougars), and countless conference, county and state titles since then. Wright was also the coach of the very first McDonalds' Girls' All-American East team in 2002. Add that with multiple coach of the year awards and several other honors, Wright would be best described as a super-accomplished and established girls basketball coach. …
Maplewood and South Orange declare Census Competition. Completely unrelated (or not?), officials of the two towns will battle in a foul shooting contest.
Things are heating up between Maplewood and South Orange. Perhaps it's been all this talk of mergers and which town will be lead agency on potential joint library, police, fire, recreation and other services (It has already been decided that Maplewood will lead and house the new joint municipal court, planned for January 1, 2011 operation.) Who knows. But yesterday Doug Newman, President of the Township of South Orange Village, and Vic DeLuca, Mayor of Maplewood, announced "a friendly competition" to promote increased participation in the 2010 Census. As the joint press release read: "The competition encourages all residents to promptly complete and mail back their 2010 Census forms, now arriving by mail, to achieve the highest percentage …
Author Zohar Adner offered advice to the Maplewood Professionals in Transition group on living through difficult times.
The last week's regular meeting of Professionals in Transition at the main branch of the Maplewood Public Library attracted about two-dozen attendees. The guest speaker was Zohar Adner, author of "The Gift of Stress." Adner pointed out that stress will be a reaction if you're not mentally prepared. "You'll feel stress when you're caught in traffic," he said, "but there's nothing you can do and getting upset won't help. It's really a perfect opportunity to do anything but stress." Members of the group shared stories about the stress of unemployment. "At first I was excited about interviewing, but now I'm petrified," said one. "I've been out of work for so long that interviewing is much more important. Even getting a nibble has stress to it…
CHS freshman fiddles medley of Haste to the Wedding and Irish Washerwoman at Just Jakes in Montclair.
Paul Mooney, 14, of Maplewood brought the house to its dancing feet on St. Patrick's Day, playing under the tutelage of his fiddle teacher, Dave Rimelis of West Orange (on banjo), and with David Langworth (percussion) of Millburn, Ted Brancato (keyboard) of Springfield and Van Manakas (guitar) of Montclair.
The reval contractor has a map on their site of areas currently being inspected.
It's like tracking Santa on NORAD but it doesn't quite bring the same feelings of anticipation and delight. The company hired by the Township of Maplewood to perform the year-long property revaluation—Appraisal Systems, Inc.—is providing a pdf map on their website showing the current locations of revaluation inspectors. The site also has a chart with names and pictures of each inspector and the list of streets each is serving. Currently, the four inspectors are in the Hilton area—that is, south of Springfield Avenue. The website explains that the inspectors are starting at the Newark/Irvington borders and are working westerward through town. The map shows them starting at the Irvington and Union boundaries. The inspections started on March…
Hope Vic Brings Doug to Crane's Deli and Cheese Shoppe more ›