The Jersey City Board of Education appointed Dr. Norma Fernandez interim superintendent of Jersey City Public Schools at a Monday night special meeting.
The appointment is effective immediately and runs through June 20, 2023.
“I’m honored to be part of this district,” Fernandez said. This is my 40th year in the district; I worked with many of you over the years and together; I know we can continue to move this district in a positive way and for the betterment of our children to get them ready to have a world-class education.”
Most recently, Fernandez served as Deputy Superintendent and took over posting messages to parents on the district’s website after the retirement of former superintendent Franklin Walker.
The school board took nominations for the interim superintendent position after a brief public comment and a closed executive session on Monday,
Board Trustee Noemi Velazquez nominated Fernandez. No other nominations or discussion points were put forward.
Eight of the nine board trustees voted in favor of Fernandez’s appointment. Newly-elected trustee Paula Jones-Watson abstained.
A resolution read by board counsel Michael Gross includes “the condition that the interim superintendent appointment shall be a minimum of six months with a 30-day notice of termination provision.”
While Fernandez is interim superintendent, the board will conduct a national search for its next superintendent.
“Not only can they give us information, but they can help us educate us in the process,” she said.
Board President Gerald Lyons said the board would also consider existing employees and Fernandez herself, should she so wish.
Lyons said the board will develop a search committee, gather input from all trustees, and look into the NJSBA and other organizations. In the end, the trustees approved a second resolution to hire a search firm or other organization to identify candidates.
As Fernandez steps into her new role, she pledged to return to in-person instruction after schools were closed for a second week this year, from Jan. 10 to 17.
“Students return to school next Tuesday, Jan. 18,” Fernandez said. “We all understand that aside from the child’s home, no other setting influences a child’s health and well-being more than their school.”
Fernandez said that since Friday, the total number of school staff and students testing positive for Covid-19 each day has decreased. Those who tested positive going into last week — 490 staff members and 310 students — will be finished with their isolation and quarantine by next week, she added.
The district is working with a vendor to make Covid-19 testing available for students in two phases. Testing will be available for schools in the first phase the week of January 18.
Testing for students will be voluntary and will involve the collection of saliva, according to the interim superintendent. The option to register children for Covid-19 testing will remain open throughout the school year.
A Jersey City man has been charged in connection with a motorcycle accident that killed a Jersey City police officer last year.
Rafael Rodriguez-Rivera, 30, surrendered to detectives with the Hudson County Regional Collision Investigation Unit today. He was released on a summons and is scheduled to appear in court on February 8, 2022.
Police Officer Morton Otundo and Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop
The accident took place on July 16, shortly before 2:00 a.m. Rodriguez-Rivera was traveling west on Communipaw Avenue in his 2012 Ford Escape when he attempted to make a left turn onto Woodward Street and collided with Police Officer Morton Otundo who was traveling in the opposite direction on his Yamaha motorcycle. Otondo died a short time later.
The investigation found that Rodriguez-Rivera did not have a valid New Jersey driver’s license.
The motorcycle website A Ride Apart, calls Otundo’s type of collision, “The most common motorcycle accident.” A Ride Apart explains how such accidents happen. “A car fails to see you or judges your speed incorrectly, turning in front of you at an intersection. Blame inattention, distraction, blind spots and even psychology; a driver looking for cars perceives merely an absence of cars, not the presence of a motorcycle.”
Rodriguez-Rivera has been charged with one count of Causing Death While Driving Unlicensed.
It was 2:15 in the afternoon on Saturday when a group of four people gingerly ascended Fairmount Avenue on a treacherous ice-covered sidewalk. Next to them stood a chain link fence enclosing an empty lot. A sign on the fence read “Maintenance Company, Skyway Realty LLC” along with an email address and phone number.
At the same time, ice also covered a sidewalk in front of an empty lot on Martin Luther King Drive. It too, bore a Skyway Realty sign.
Icy sidewalk at 250 Martin Luther King Drive
Later that afternoon, other pedestrians could be seen slowly negotiating a sheet of glare ice running along an empty lot and in front of a row house on Wayne Street. Just around the corner on Barrow Street, the sidewalk fronting a large commercial parking lot was ice covered as well.
Every year with the first snowfall and drop in temperature, the problem of icy sidewalks and the property owners who fail to clean them, reemerges. This year has been no exception.
In a thread on Nextdoor.com, Downtown residents vented frustration over the perennial problem of uncleared sidewalks along the Sixth Street Embankment.
“Ridiculous. 20 years the same thing,” said Rachel E.
Told to call Jersey City’s Resident Response Center, Joseph V. replied, “I’ve tried that in the past. Very slow to respond, and then they’ll say ‘conditions abated.’ Yes, because it melted a week and a half later!”
Several residents lodged formal complaints about other icy sidewalks with “SeeClickFix,” the city’s portal to the Resident Response Center.
Glare ice on Wayne Street
The Jersey City Municipal Code requires that “Every Owner, occupant or Person having charge of a residential building or vacant lot shall … clear any snow and ice from the Sidewalks … within eight hours after the snow has stopped falling. If the snowfall ceased during the night, removal shall be completed no later than eight hours after sunrise.”
A drive around Jersey City on Saturday revealed that most property owners had indeed cleared ice and snow from their sidewalks. But where they hadn’t the consequences could have been serious. A 2017 study reported that falls are the leading cause of death among the elderly and that fully ten percent of the 4.5 million falls annually occur on parking lots, sidewalks, curbs, and streets. “Surface contamination,” i.e. liquids, ice and snow ranked as the third leading outdoor hazard.
To learn more about the city’s efforts to enforce its own laws, the Jersey City Times filed a request for data from the Resident Response Center under the state’s Open Public Records Act in April last year. Many months after the city’s deadline to produce the data, JCT filed a lawsuit against the city. The suit remains unresolved.
The extent of the city’s efforts to enforce the law remains unclear. Yesterday, Municipal Prosecutor Jake Hudnut, who heads up the Quality of Life Taskforce, did not directly respond to a request for information on the city’s response to the problem. Instead, he forwarded the request to the mayor’s spokesperson, who has not replied.
This morning, following yesterday’s thaw that melted much of the ice around the city, Rafael Toral of Skyway Realty, responding to an email from the Jersey City Times, wrote “We will take care of it this morning.”
Shooting broke out in Greenville and Bergen-Lafayette today putting several people in the hospital.
According to sources, an individual was shot at the intersection of Woodlawn Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive at approximately 2 a.m.
At approximately 230 p.m. two people were shot in the vicinity of Communipaw Avenue and Garfield Avenue.
Two people were taken to the hospital in connection with the Communipaw Avenue shooting. One person, listed in stable condition, was shot in buttock and suffered a broken femur. The other individual was shot in the chest and back and listed in critical condition.
A third individual was shot over the eye and listed in stable condition. The circumstances of the shooting were unclear.
Since returning from winter break Monday, North Plainfield students have attended school on a half-day schedule. Steven Rudyz’s son — who tested positive for COVID-19 and is quarantining — gets one hour of online schooling daily.
Arlene Chuisano has three children in Sayreville schools, and kept her two sons home after they tested positive. But the school said her vaccinated teen must still attend classes while she isn’t showing symptoms, even though they all live in the same home.
After Jaquetta Baker received a Sunday night text alerting parents all Elizabeth schools would be virtual until Jan. 18, she stressed over whether to call out from work or juggle her job while making sure her kindergartener is focused.
“The communication is so last minute, which is very inconvenient for me as a single parent,” said Baker, who has a 5-year-old named Aubrey. “I feel like schools should be working to keep them in person, because as a working parent, I can’t sit and interact all day. It’s bogus.”
Baker is among countless parents across New Jersey agonizing over balancing fears of their children getting sick and wanting their children to be properly educated. The state’s rising cases of COVID-19 have reignited the contentious debate over whether kids should learn virtually, or whether the value of in-person education is greater than the risk of children and teachers catching the virus.
Jennifer Gawronski and her daughter, Angelica.
“It’s a catch-22,” said Jennifer Gawronski, whose 14-year-old daughter attends high school in Elizabeth. “I don’t know what to do. I reach out to parents, we speak, there’s a crisis hotline. It’s hard to be their cheerleader but you want to cheer yourself up, and you never know if what you’re doing is right.”
New Jersey eliminated the option of remote-learning for the 2021-2022 school year after the coronavirus pandemic had students out of schools for months. But districts with high infection rates are able to temporarily return to remote learning.
More than 100 of the state’s 600 public school districts have switched to some form of remote learning, including Newark, Jersey City, Camden, New Brunswick, South Orange-Maplewood, and Lower Cape May Regional.
The Department of Education did not respond to an email seeking comment.
When asked in March 2021 whether parents would have the option for remote learning, Gov. Phil Murphy said he expects “Monday through Friday, in-person, every school, every district. Obviously, if the world goes sideways, we have to revisit that. But as of this sitting, the answer is no.” He’s expressed concerns over how remote learning hurts students, particularly low-income families.
Rudyz saw how remote learning affected his children, who “were miserable” at the computer and saw their grades drop. His daughter with a learning disability wasn’t getting any extra help, and the ESL students in his town were struggling, too. Nineteen percent of the district’s students are English learners.
“I work remote, so I couldn’t help that much. It’s really challenging, so I’m like, ‘Go to school!’ It’s the best place for them,” he said. “They’ve put in safeguards and they’re being careful. And everybody’s getting this variant, vaxed or not, so it’s almost silly not to go to school.”
The night before his kids were set to return from winter break, his son tested positive for the virus. Now that they’re all quarantining, he’s thankful the district took steps for a temporary, part-time schedule. He supports sending his kids in person, largely due to lack of child care and the impact of remote learning, but said a more hybrid schedule would give parents different options.
North Plainfield Schools Superintendent Michelle Aquino told parents on Jan. 3 the remainder of the week would be on a half-day schedule, largely due to staffing shortages during lunch. Half-days also give teachers the chance to provide after-school support for students in quarantine, she said.
“Last year, they gave us the option of hybrid. So the parents that were fine with sending their kids to school did that, and the parents who were freaked out kept their kids home. It’s about giving everyone the opportunity to do what they’re comfortable with right now,” Rudyz said.
Chuisano, a stay-at-home mom to her three kids, echoed that the state should have given parents an option while the pandemic continues to throttle along. The messaging is confusing, she said, on when to send kids to school in person versus when to keep them at home while they show symptoms like a runny nose or slight cough.
Jaquetta Baker and her 5-year-old daughter Aubrey, who is attending kindergarten virtually for two weeks.
Her oldest daughter has missed 15 days of school since September because she had COVID symptoms, which prompted a letter from the district warning another absence could result in her being held back. Chuisano called the school and an employee told her to disregard the letter, said Chusiano, who caught the virus in early December and gave it to her two younger kids.
“First they said my kids had to quarantine for three weeks, and to come back after winter break. Since they got COVID, they should’ve only been out of school for 10 days. Then my middle schooler, I call the school to tell them she’s (had a) close contact, and they make her come in because she’s vaccinated, and if not they’ll mark her absent,” she said. “It’s very confusing, and you know how guilty I feel sending her to school?”
Chuisano said she understands school officials have their hands tied, and are just following the best guidance they have at the time. She believes it’s time for the governor to get involved and give parents the option of virtual learning as long as the pandemic is around.
Jaquetta Baker, a single mom from Elizabeth, also wants Murphy to help working parents. Her job gave her the flexibility to work from home this week, but she doesn’t know what child care will look like next week.
“Now I have to worry about Aunt Sally watching my kid, then Uncle James the next day, then another babysitter, and now it’s like, I have to worry about all the people they came in contact with,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s conducive to reduce cases by having your kid be in multiple people’s care, but I guess that’s some of our reality right now.”
A colleague of hers quit Monday because she needs to care for her toddlers. On Wednesday, 11 of her coworkers called out.
“I don’t have a Plan B, I don’t have any alternate options, and I don’t get any welfare or food stamps. Everything I have, I work for, and I wish they would provide parents with some support by putting something in place granting parents to work from home while your kid cannot be in school,” she said.
Gawronski has also struggled with what she’s comfortable with, trying to find the balance for the physical and mental well-being of her 14-year-old daughter, Angelica. Her extroverted daughter’s depression and anxiety has worsened since schools shuttered, so she wants her to see her friends and engage in person, but fears she could bring the virus home.
Angelica said she was upset when she found out her school was returning to virtual learning. She’s worried she might fail her classes and have to do virtual summer school, like she did last year, because she has trouble motivating herself at home.
“I was not happy at all. I’m nervous to get COVID, and our lives matter the most when it comes to COVID … but I want to see my friends and I really don’t want to do summer school again,” she said.
Five Jersey City gang members have been charged for their roles in two gang-related shootings and face death or life in prison.
U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced today that Shaquan Rush, aka “Nut,” aka “Sha,” 21; Darby Shirden, aka “GoHard,” aka “GH,” 21; Jeremy Perez, aka “Smoov,” aka “JSmoov,” 23, Devon Tutten, aka “Joker,” 24; and Tyree Witherspoon, aka “Surf,” aka “Sonny,” were each charged with murder in aid of racketeering and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
Rush, Shirden and Perez were also each charged with attempted murder in aid of racketeering.
According to the complaint, Rush, Shirden, Perez, Tutten, and Witherspoon are all associated with neighborhood-based street gangs in Jersey City – specifically, a street gang that operates in the area of Rutgers Avenue and Triangle Park.
On April 1, 2020, in retaliation for the murder of a high-ranking Rutgers Avenue gang member on March 31, 2020, Rush, Shirden, and Perez traveled to the territory of rival gang members that associate with the Salem Lafayette Apartments and opened fire on a group of people on the street. Two people were shot: one individual associated with the Salem Lafayette street gang and a 17-year-old girl who was walking down the street. The girl died the following day as a result of her gunshot wound.
Then, on April 4, 2020, in retaliation for an attempted shooting on April 3, 2020, Tutten and Witherspoon traveled to the territory of rival gang members that associate with Wilkinson Avenue and opened fire on a group of people on the street. An individual associated with the Wilkinson street gang was shot in the head and pronounced dead shortly thereafter.
The charge of murder in aid of racketeering activity carries a mandatory punishment of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. For discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, all five defendants face mandatory minimum terms of 10 years in prison and a maximum sentence of life, which must run consecutively to any term of imprisonment imposed on any other charges. For attempted murder in aid of racketeering, Rush, Shirden, and Perez also face additional terms of imprisonment of up to 10 years.
The defendants will make their initial appearances at a date to be determined.
The first floor of the Hamilton Square Condominiums (232 Pavonia at Hamilton Square Park) has become one of the most reliably accessible art exhibition spaces in Jersey City. If it’s business hours and you’ve got your mask on, you can walk right in and check out the show. Silverman, the rare local property developer with a genuine interest in aesthetics, hired Kristin DeAngelis to keep Hamilton Square and a sister property, Majestic Condominiums, filled with interesting things to look at. She used to run an art space of her own: the modest but adventurous 107 Bowers near Central Avenue in the Heights. All year round, DeAngelis manages to make Hamilton Square and Majestic resemble an art gallery.
But a gallery it is not. The ground level of the Hamilton Square Condominiums is a passing-through zone, a gateway to a place where people live. That means mailboxes, and door people, and Christmas trees partially occluding some of the sightlines, and lots of residents walking in and out who aren’t necessarily there to stop and stare at paintings. The image-driven storytelling that a curator can do in a dedicated space isn’t easily available to DeAngelis. At past shows, she’s acted in defiance of the inherent limitations of the space, mounting shows that advance arguments about who we are as urbanites, and make their emotional trajectories manifest — just as she would if she had her audience’s undivided attention. For the first four months of 2022, she’s playing things differently. “Color Continues” by New York City artist M. Dreeland (on view until Apr. 30) is the first Hamilton Square show that feels like an exhibition of the sort of art one might encounter in a lobby.
That’s not a knock. Dreeland is a fine painter with a firm sense of balance, an eye for arresting hue, and a knack for knotty texture. DeAngelis notes that Dreeland is the rare visual artist who doesn’t mind if you touch his work — and his thick curlicues of pigment and tin ceiling-like patterns of acrylic do call out for tactile exploration. The collisions of color on his canvases are exciting when you square up to them: he’s the kind of artist who charges to the edges of the frame and ceases setting his colors aswirl only because he’s run out of room. He transitions riotously from shade to shade, smothers Pop Art-inspired prints of milk cartons and paisley patterns with paint and drops color-saturated nests of string over the tops of his pieces. It’s all flamboyant, simultaneously cheerful and stormy, and designed to cut through the gloom of January and, perhaps, reinvigorate a worker coming home to Hamilton Square in a rainstorm after a long day.
Yet for works that are intentionally loud, they slip into the ambience of their surroundings without much resistance. Many of Dreeland’s images feel largely decorative: studies in the interplay between color and material, a riff on traditions, an infusion of energy to a pair of styles (abstraction and Pop Art) that have grown stark and monochrome. Some illustrate the pleasing quality of ombré, and others highlight how a painter can conjure a chaotic mood by mixing colors violently and complicating cheerful yellows and pinks with darker pigments. Yet they do not take a passerby by the wrist, spin her around, and make a point about the body under pressure, or about the changing perceptions of Hudson County, or aesthetics, or art history. They allow you to appreciate them the way you might appreciate an acquaintance on the street who you admire, but who you don’t stop to talk to. They feel suited for a space which, pretty as it is, is not a destination in itself, but a conduit to other destinations.
Appropriately, then, the best pieces in “Color Continues” are clustered around the door. These all sing in a similar pitch, but sing they do. They bring out M. Dreeland as a forward-looking alchemist of objects and shades — one with an irreverent attitude toward the Pop Art signifiers he’s enthusiastically painting over. With a hash of cris-crossed string in the upper left corner and stripes covered with Dreeland’s trademark milk carton in the rest of the piece, one of these resembles an American Flag for a looser, froot-loopier, pastel-minded nation. The most puzzling piece is in the back. On one large panel, Dreeland has stenciled a roll call of tourist destinations in New York City: The Bronx Zoo, Junior’s, FAO Schwarz, the Chrysler Building, many others. The crowding of the place names does connote bustle, and activity, and maybe even excitement. But by drawing no distinctions between the names and presenting them all as if they’re equivalent, he’s giving us New York as it most certainly isn’t. New York, as we in Jersey know better than anybody, is a city of hierarchies, and associations, and traceable paths, and constant jockeying for supremacy. This is New York as a first-time tourist might apprehend it, and the piece, striking as it is, plays like a souvenir.
“Color Continues” is the first show mounted by Kristin DeAngelis since her success as one of the prime movers behind Art Fair 14C. The Juried Show at 14C was busy with work by artists who, in classic Jersey style, were determined to communicate something very specific. If she wants to step back from that urgency and intensity and give us something a little more lobby-like, it’s not hard to understand why. It’s a credit to the owners of that lobby that they’ve always been willing to let DeAngelis do what she wanted with their residential space. The Silvermans aren’t alone in their faith in us. One of the most interesting autumn art shows in Jersey City was hosted by Art House curator Andrea McKenna at an open house hosted by realtors Sawyer Smith. Shuster Management enlisted Drawing Rooms to decorate the landings of the Dvora Condominiums with work from some of the most respected artists in town.
I’ve often written about the too-cozy relationship between Jersey City real estate and visual arts, but it’s with no sarcasm whatsoever that I say that the enthusiasm and patronage are net positives, especially for artists looking for places to display their work. I’m glad they’ve turned their landings over to the aesthetes. There’s no substitute for the real thing, though: actual galleries. Here’s hoping we get a few more of those in 2022.
A Jersey City man was sentenced today to 108 months in prison for receipt of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.
Benigno Gonzalez-Mendoza, 37, of Jersey City previously pleaded guilty by videoconference before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton to one count of receipt of child pornography. Judge Wigenton imposed the sentence today by videoconference.
According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:
From March 9, 2019, through July 27, 2019, Gonzalez-Mendoza knowingly received images and videos of child sexual abuse, including videos of adults sexually abusing prepubescent children.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Wigenton sentenced Gonzalez-Mendoza to 10 years of supervised release and ordered him to pay restitution of $18,000.
U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge George M. Crouch Jr. in Newark, with the investigation leading to today’s sentencing.
Jersey City’s decision to reduce street sweeping from two days to one day per week is being hailed by some motorists as a welcome respite from parking tickets and the hassle of car moving. However, if the experience of other cities is any guide, the tradeoff may be dirtier streets, clogged sewers, flooding, and water pollution.
In September, the New York Daily News reported that city streets had become noticeably dirtier following Mayor Bill De Blasio’s pandemic-driven decision to cut the city’s alternate side parking rules and street sweeping, requiring drivers to move their cars only once a week instead of twice.
“Our streets are much less clean now,” Howard Yaruss, transportation chair of Community Board 7 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, told the News.
The problem of dirty streets and stopped-up sewers initially leaped to the fore during Hurricane Ida, when 153,000 New York City catch basins became clogged. In some instances, according to the News, residents were forced to clean catch basins themselves to prevent flooding.
In Bushwick, a mutual aid group took it upon themselves in the wake of Ida flooding to clean trash filled drains. The website Curbed noted the fifty percent decrease in street sweeping as a contributor to the Bushwick mess.
Here in Jersey City, a manager overseeing the upgrading of sewer pipes under Wayne Street yesterday morning said, “People don’t realize that if the streets aren’t swept, the trash ends up clogging sewer pipes or in the ocean.”
38 Wayne Street
Like many older cities, Jersey City has a combined sewer system that manages both wastewater and stormwater runoff. When debris and litter enter storm drains, they can cause sewer main backups.
Some cities, like Camden and Seattle, have increased street sweeping to mitigate the pollution problem. In 2015, Seattle increased street sweeping in an effort to reduce stormwater runoff pollution. “We have been able to show definitively that street sweeping is one of the most cost-effective measures we can use to protect our waterways” the program manager, Shelly Basketfield, told the Seattle Times.
Some Jersey City residents are expressing concerns about trash-strewn streets. Said Kevin Link in response to the news that street sweeping would be reduced, “I think reducing street sweeping to once a week per side will reduce parking turnover and actually reduce the amount of available parking. People will drive less and park more resulting in less parking and dirty streets and sidewalks.”
Upon learning about the new street sweeping schedule, Lea B. said, “Ugh, dirtier streets: just what we need.”
Steve Krinsky of the Hudson County Sierra Club considers trash just one component of the problem. “Street cleaning is not just an aesthetic issue, it’s an environment issue. Will Jersey City be paying closer attention to keeping storm drains clear? I hope so. It is common, especially during the fall, that they are clogged with trash and leaves, and rainwater cannot drain as it should. Jersey City needs to fix the CSO [Combined Sewer Overflow] problem. Trash in the storm drains is bad enough; sewage in our rivers is worse.”
According to Debra Italiano, president of Sustainable JC, the city was onto something when it created the “Adopt a Catch Basin” program. “It was a great idea but isn’t being sold to the public very well. So, that’s an opportunity. Street cleaning does not correct the buildup of debris into catch basins, and it’s exacerbated when street cleaning is reduced. If the street cleaning is being reduced, then someone needs to attend to the clogged, debris-laden catch basins.”
The threat to health posed by sewer system backups caused by a combination of climate change and human refuse was illustrated by Samantha Bee in a YouTube video.
Asked if there was a plan to deal with the potential issues, Ward E Councilman James Solomon said “As far as I know, there is no formal plan, however, the staggered implementation is in part to observe the changes in street trash, etc. to see its magnitude and work on a response.”
Mayor Fulop’s spokesperson, City Council President Joyce Watterman, Councilman-at-large Daniel Rivera and Councilwoman-at-large Amy DeGise did not respond to our emails requesting comment.
