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Crime Scene Tape
Jersey City Times Staff

Teen Arrested in February Shooting in Bergen-Lafayette

March 31, 2022/in Greenville, header, Latest News, News /by Jersey City Times Staff

A 17 year-old has been charged in connection with a February shooting death in Bergen-Lafayette.

According to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, the juvenile was arrested yesterday in the death of Devin Bryant, 15, who was fatally shot in Jersey City on February 12. Assisting in the youth’s apprehension were members of the United States Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, the New York City Police Department and the New York City Sheriff’s Office on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens.

The teen, whose name has not been disclosed due to his age, has been charged as a juvenile with Murder, Aggravated Assault, Unlawful Possession of a Weapon, and Possession of a Weapon for an Unlawful Purpose. He is currently in custody in New York pending extradition and his first court appearance. 

Bryant was gunned down in the area of 112 Myrtle Avenue at approximately 8:20 p.m. on February 12, 2022 and died of gunshot wounds to the torso a short time later at Jersey City Medical Center.

Letter to the Editor

Open Letter: Vicious and Capricious JCRA Wrongly Terminated our Organization

March 30, 2022/in Bergen Lafayette, header, News /by Letter to the Editor

 

We have published this letter at the request of June Jones, Executive Director of the Morris Canal Community Development Corporation.

 

Morris Canal Redevelopment

Cannabis Marijuana
Melissa Surach

Planning Board Approves Seven Locations for Cannabis

March 30, 2022/in Business, header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Melissa Surach

Last night the Jersey City Planning Board held a special meeting to evaluate a dozen Cannabis Class 5 (retail business) applications with respect to the city’s zoning laws. The meeting lasted seven hours, ending after 12:30 am without board members’ hearing from two applicants.

This is only one step in the approval of Class 5 cannabis businesses. Matt Ward, supervising planner, opened the meeting by clarifying that it was to address whether these businesses are in districts that permit Class 5 and outside the defined buffer zones around schools and existing cannabis businesses 200 feet from any school and 600 feet from any existing Class 5 business (with a carve-out for “microbusinesses”).

There are no Class 5 businesses in Jersey City yet. A business will not be considered to be in existence until it receives approvals from the city’s Planning Board, Cannabis Control Board, and Cannabis Regulatory Commission and until it has received all necessary construction permits

The meeting was open to the public but not for the purpose of hearing substantive objections. “If anyone wants to debate the evil of cannabis, tonight is not your night,” chairman Christopher Langston said.

Other issues considered per application were community impact and quality of life issues like noise, odor, ventilation, security

First on the agenda was Idyllx at 171 Newark Avenue, which is one of a cluster of applicants on lower Newark Avenue near the Grove Street PATH Station. Two people called in objecting that this location, among other smoke shops on Newark Avenue, was already selling marijuana — illegally. One of the callers was Shayla Cabrera, aka “Tia Planta,” who was recently awarded a Recreational Cannabis Class 1 Cultivator License. She said that by selling illegally, Idyllx cuts into her market and that additionally they have done nothing for the community.

To the illegal marijuana allegations, Matthew Miller, the attorney for Idyllx, said the shop sold only CBD and the psychoactive substance Delta 8, which is found in the Cannabis sativa plant.

He addressed the board, “I encourage you to stop by the shop, bring the police.”

The board and its legal counsel, Santo T. Alampi, emphasized that illegal marijuana sales was not a zoning board issue, but the bailiwick of the police and the local prosecutor’s office.

In addition to zoning, businesses described their proposed community outreach and impact. Some businesses will have employees do paid community service at organizations such as Liberty Humane Society. Others will have owners or employees teach about cannabis as a safer alternative for pain relief than opioids. Brett D’Allesandro, a veteran of Afghanistan, has devoted his life to helping veterans, especially those homeless and at-risk, with his organization Backpacks for Life. He plans on opening Golden Door Dispensary to expand on his work with veterans.

The night ended with Medusa NJ’s application for 759A Bergen Avenue. Haytham Elgawly, Medusa’s owner, said he was born and raised in Jersey City and was applying as a “social equity“ business due to a marijuana charge years ago. His business, Medusa, will be a cannabis retailer and indoor consumption area.

Discussion of Elgawly’s application was lengthy and heated.

Jersey City Planning Board Cannabis Meeting

Jersey City Planning Board Cannabis Meeting

Matthew J. Ceres, counsel to Hudson Catholic, and Eugene Paulino, counsel to Saint Peter’s, attacked Haytham Elgawly’s application from every angle, especially arguing that it violated the 200-foot buffer zone from a school. Paulino said it was next a Saint Peter’s University dorm.

The board asked if St. Peter’s was on the map, to which Paulino laughed, “I think we all know St. Peter’s is on the map!” referring to the Peacock’s recent March Madness streak.

The board struck down that argument saying the buffer only applied to primary and secondary schools.

Next, Ceres attempted to dispute the map provided by Medusa’s expert witness, DPK Consulting, a surveying company. The board sided with Medusa, saying the map showed that the main entrance of Medusa would be outside the buffer around Hudson Catholic. The board noted that Ceres could have provided a surveyor as an expert witness as he had had ample time since the notice on March 7 to provide one. Further testimony was provided concerning how Medusa employees would transport money and put it in a bank. Medusa’s team said that much of that information was confidential due to security concerns.

Ceres also challenged Medusa’s application on the basis of parking zoning around the proposed site. After an intense near-interrogation of Planning Board Director Tanya Marion regarding parking spaces required for the application, she snapped “I can read. And I can count …You are completely incorrect.” The board noted that Ceres could have brought a planner to challenge their findings, to which he scoffed, “What plans?”

Apparently, some application materials including a staff memo had not been uploaded in the agenda available to the public. After much back and forth, this interaction concluded with a grueling midnight reading of the full three-page memo.

The board decided to carry [extend] the hearing to April 5 to give Ceres time to read the staff memo and secure a surveyor and planner at which point Council President Joyce Watterman vehemently objected. “We’re done. We passed that.” She noted that the board had already taken their position that Medusa had had ample time to present a surveyor. Commissioner Joey Torres also noted that if the hearing was carried, the public would not have the right to speak at it.

Watterman said that it wasn’t right that the public wouldn’t be able to speak at the next meeting on this application but that they were making an exception for the attorney.

Ultimately the board sided with the recommendation of their lawyer, Alampi, to carry to avoid any potential litigation against the board.

Elgawly, exasperated, addressed the board, “I pay these professionals [out of pocket]. I’m a local kid; I’m not rich like a lot of applicants here tonight.”

He said that seven hours of consideration plus carrying the case to next week was hurtful economically. Medusa’s application had been discussed for over two hours.

Oceanfront LLC at 141 Newark Avenue was also carried to April due to lack of documentation.

The board approved licenses (with conditions) for Idyllx (171 Newark Avenue), Strictly CBD (394 Communipaw), Golden Door Dispensary (638 Newark Avenue), Decades Dispensary (404 Central Avenue), Local Modiv (155 Newark Avenue), Artistic Dispensary (365 Central), and MMDNJ (655 Newark Avenue).

The next Planning Board Meeting will take place April 5.

Photo by Jeff W on Unsplash

St. Peter's Prep
Aaron Morrill

Preservationists Alarmed by Renewed Effort of St. Peter’s Prep to Demolish Historic Buildings

March 29, 2022/in Downtown, header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Aaron Morrill

Preservationists are sounding the alarm about renewed efforts by St. Peter’s Prep to demolish two historic buildings in the Downtown Jersey City neighborhood of Paulus Hook. A hearing on the private school’s appeal of a 2019 decision that denied its request to do so, scheduled for Thursday before the Zoning Board of Adjustment, has now been adjourned to April 28.

Terra cotta "lunette" on St. Peter’s Hall and Parochial School

Terra cotta “lunette” on St. Peter’s Hall and Parochial School

The two York Street Romanesque Revival buildings — St. Peter’s Original Parish School and St. Peter’s Hall and Parochial School — date to 1861 and 1898, respectively. Woodrow Wilson launched his campaign for governor of New Jersey in the Hall in 1910. According to preservationists, The Original St. Peter’s School may be the only non-residential Civil War era building left in downtown Jersey City.

Local preservationists point out that the structures were included in the Paulus Hook Historic District when it was formed in the early 1980s. When St. Peter’s Prep bought the buildings in 2002, their historic designation had been in place for two decades.

Until St. Peter’s bought the buildings, the preservationists say, they were actively used as school buildings; since that time, they note, St. Peter’s has both left them vacant and failed to maintain them.

St. Peter’s has argued that the buildings suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and are too dilapidated to save. They would, according to a lawyer, be replaced with a surface parking lot with “attractive” fencing and landscaping.

St. Peter's Hall and Parochial School

St. Peter’s Hall and Parochial School

At the 2019 hearing, the Historic Preservation Commission voted unanimously to deny St. Peter’s request to raze the buildings, a decision St. Peter’s is now appealing.

Said Christopher Perez, President of the Jersey City Landmarks Conservancy “We can’t ever re-create these buildings. They are key markers of a time in Jersey City’s development. They are markers in terms of religion and schooling in Jersey City … I’m shocked as to why an institution would not want to preserve them.”

Diane Kaese, an architect and president of the Historic Paulus Hook Association, added, “They are a very important part of our historic district. St. Peter’s Prep purchased the buildings knowing that they were in the district and fully understood their moral and legal responsibility as owners of historic buildings.”

 

 

 

 

Laptop computers
Jersey City Times Staff

Hudson County Community College and NJCU Announce Joint Cybersecurity Degree Program

March 28, 2022/in Education, header, Latest News, News /by Jersey City Times Staff

Hudson County Community College (HCCC) and New Jersey City University (NJCU) have signed an agreement creating a Cybersecurity Dual Admission program.

Beginning September 2022, HCCC students can complete an Associate of Science in Computer Science- Cybersecurity degree at HCCC and transfer into attaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Cybersecurity at NJCU.

According to the announcement released today, “the increasing and evolving threats of data breaches, phishing, malware, and ransomware have fueled new interest in the cybersecurity industry and its challenges. Cyberattacks cost an estimated $6 trillion globally each year. Hackers target banks, colleges and universities, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, hospitals, and private citizens. As cyber criminals access sensitive information and cripple computer networks, victims scramble to protect their assets and regain control.”

“We are proud to partner with New Jersey City University in preparing students for stable, well-paying careers that offer many opportunities for advancement, and that ultimately benefit the community,” said HCCC President Dr. Chris Reber.

“A degree in cybersecurity will provide students with solid career skills and earning potential in a number of industries,” said NJCU President Dr. Sue Henderson. “We are pleased to work with HCCC to transition students to our bachelor’s degree program, which is among just a few in the country with designations in both cybersecurity and intelligence. Students will learn from some of the top security experts in the discipline and leave with cutting-edge knowledge as well as practical experience.”

“Employers across all sectors are investing in cybersecurity, the fastest growing industry in the United States, with job growth projected at 31%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Cybersecurity professionals work in education, energy, finance, health care, insurance, law enforcement, manufacturing, retail, and more. Their responsibilities include developing and maintaining secure digital infrastructures, preventing data breaches, analyzing and identifying potential risks, and implementing digital disaster recovery plans” said the press release.

“Hudson County Community College (HCCC) alumnus Stephen Cronin viewed the issue as an opportunity to work towards a career in combatting cybercrime. The 2020 graduate of the HCCC Cybersecurity program expressed that his classes, specifically Network Security and Ethical Hacking, gave him the skills and knowledge to be successful at a four-year university and in the industry. He strongly recommends the program to anyone who is interested in a career in technology or information security” the announcement went on.

“There are no other institutions that offer this cutting-edge knowledge at such an affordable and accessible level, right here in our community,” said Mr. Cronin.

The schools say that the HCCC Cybersecurity program of study has been validated by the National Security Agency and provides instruction in computer programming, computer hardware organization and architectures, network security, cybersecurity, data communications and local area networks. “Upon successful completion of HCCC’s Associate degree in Computer Science-Cybersecurity, graduates will enter NJCU as fully matriculated students with junior standing. The HCCC Cybersecurity program also includes Year Up six-month internship opportunities where students put their training to work at companies such as Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and BNY Mellon.”

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Fernando Uribe
Aaron Morrill

Fernando Uribe: A Proud Conservative Who Loves Interviewing Local Dems

March 28, 2022/in header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Aaron Morrill

His guests read like a who’s who of Hudson County pols. Yet in many ways, Fernando Uribe shares little politically with those who appear on his podcast “Talk on the Hudson,” where he conducts weekly interviews with movers and shakers on the local political scene.

On March 1, Talk on the Hudson celebrated its five-year anniversary. “In 2016 I had this epiphany … listening to Rush, Hannity, and Air America when it was still on … there really isn’t a podcast here in Hudson County that delves into Hudson County politics, and I decided to give it a go,” said Uribe, revealing some of his right-of-center influences.

Uribe settled on the platform Blog Talk Radio and put the word out that he was open for business.  “I made it a point to contact everyone locally and said ‘listen I’m going to be doing a political podcast … I’m not going to compete with anyone; I just wanted to stand out and be different.'” On March 1, 2017, Talk on the Hudson was born.

The podcast, which routinely runs over an hour, has featured everyone from Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla to New Jersey State Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro. Uribe has interviewed local newspeople including Steve Lenox of TapInto, John Heinis of Hudson County View, and this writer. Uribe has garnered numerous awards, including being named a “Top Latino” in New Jersey in 2020, 2021, and 2022 by The Latino Spirit.

At first blush, Uribe would seem an unlikely interlocutor for his overwhelmingly Democratic guests. But for Uribe, there’s nothing strange about it. Growing up in West New York, he was always interested in getting to know the local power brokers irrespective of their political affiliation.

Indeed, Uribe, who is a registered Independent, points out that his first vote for president was for Bill Clinton,

“On the social issues, I tend to be pretty moderate,” he says, adding “In 2013, I was working with Hudson County TV, and I was the first journalist to interview the first couple to apply for a same-sex marriage license.”

However, he parts company with what he calls the “woke crowd” on gender politics. “We can learn about Harvey Milk. He’s a guy that is important historically. I don’t have an issue with that. But where I draw the line is teaching gender identity to five year olds. It’s madness.”

Moreover, on economic issues Uribe is a classic conservative. Some of this, no doubt, is the result of his upbringing. While his Cuban mother is apolitical, Uribe’s Colombian father is not, he says. “Fernando, Sr., is much more conservative than Fernando, Jr., ” says Uribe. He attributes his father’s politics to “growing up in Latin America and seeing how socialism has grown” and how “countries go backwards … because of socialism.”

Uribe is proud of his Latin American roots. “I didn’t learn English until I was five. I’m bilingual. I’m really grateful for that.”

In 2011, Uribe ran for state assembly as a Republican. He knew it was a lost cause in the overwhelmingly Democratic 33rd district but  “did it as a favor to the chair.”  Of the experience he says, “never again.” On reproductive rights, however, Uribe broke with conservative orthodoxy. “I was the first Republican in 50 years to be endorsed by NOW [The National Organization of Women].”

Uribe, who conducts his interviews in a genial, non-confrontational style unlike some of his conservative role models, is proud of his reputation for being fair. He feels that he and his podcast have achieved a modicum of respect. “People keep wanting to come on the show and talk … [state] Senator Cunningham doesn’t do a lot of interviews, but she’s been on my show multiple times.”

Among others, Uribe credits his interviews of Hudson County Democratic Organization Chair Amy DeGise, Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis, and Union City Mayor and New Jersey State Senator Brian Stack as having helped to put his podcast on the map.

Conspicuously absent from the interview list is Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop. “I was the only journalist back in late 2012 into early 2013 giving [Fulop] any airtime,” Uribe says. In those days, Uribe was working for Hudson County TV. During his first summer in office, Uribe would meet with Fulop every couple of weeks. Over the following year, however, the mayor cut off communication with him in spite of a promise he had made to do regular interviews.

Fulop’s “fickleness” puzzles Uribe given the many other officials who’ve been on his show, including members of Fulop’s slate. “The bottom line is that the chair of the Hudson County Democratic Party has no problem talking with me. Brian Stack has no problem talking to me. Nick Sacco has no problem talking to me. The mayor of West New York has no problem talking to me: It’s annoyed me, but I’ve been fine.”

Notwithstanding the apparent friction with Jersey City’s mayor, Uribe appears to have good relations with Hudson County Democrats generally. Why is that, I ask. “This is very blue collar, working class area,” Uribe says. “A lot of the Democrats I talk to are middle of the road.”

I ask him what accounts for the weakness of Republicans in Hudson County. “Republican social stands turned a lot of people off,” he responds without missing a beat. “Democrats have done a very good job communicating that they’re pragmatic.” Republicans “know what’s wrong with New Jersey but haven’t been able to cultivate a good messenger.”

Uribe has his sights set higher than a local podcast, however. “I’d love to be on Fox or Newsmax. I think there’s no representation for Hispanics.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ukrainian Flag
Andrea Crowley-Hughes

School Board Turns to Ukraine

March 26, 2022/in Education, header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Andrea Crowley-Hughes

Members of the Jersey City Board of Education and the school community came together at Thursday night’s meeting to donate nearly $28,000 for survivors of the war in Ukraine and honor those who have fled the country, among them Zoya Tomash, the grandmother of board trustee Natalia Ioffe.

Natalia Ioffe was born in Kyiv, Ukraine, which was recently attacked by Russian forces. She immigrated to the U.S. with her family at age 11.

Tomash, a chemist and renowned scientist, had been leading a nonprofit in Ukraine before leaving her embattled hometown of Kyiv at her family’s urging. She attended the board meeting along with other Ukrainians.

Also at the meeting was Barbara Ioffe, Natalia Ioffe’s daughter. A sixth-grader at M.S. 4 , Ms. Ioffe briefly took the floor to read a poem she had written about her great-grandmother:

“My great grandmother lived there her whole life

and she would have stayed if it didn’t become a battlefront.

Siren after siren, bomb after bomb, she stayed unseen at home unable to flee.

That was until hope returned.”

The local school board’s efforts are part of a larger federal and statewide humanitarian response to aid Ukrainian refugees facing the conditions the younger Ms. Ioffe describes.

Gov. Phil Murphy wrote a letter to President Joe Biden on March 2, making it clear the state is “proud to do our part in welcoming Ukrainian men, women, and children who have left their generational homes.”

Biden on Thursday announced “plans to welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians and others fleeing Russia’s aggression through the full range of legal pathways, including the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

In Jersey City, home to a thriving Ukrainian population, the schools recently held a “Dress Down Day” fundraiser for the citizens of Ukraine with proceeds going to Razom for Ukraine, an organization providing critical medical supplies and amplifying the voices of Ukrainians.

Students and staff were encouraged to wear the colors of the country’s flag, blue and yellow, the day of the event, a fundraiser in which students pay small amounts to wear something other than a uniform or the dress code. Students paid $1 and staff paid $5 for the fundraiser, a flier said.

At the meeting, Acting Superintendent of Schools Norma Fernandez presented a large check showing the $27,935.50 donation raised by the school community.

“We continue to view the destruction, and we wanted to do something to help,” Fernandez said. “On behalf of the students and staff of the Jersey City Public Schools, I want to present a check to Ms. Ioffe to share with Razom for Ukraine for the individuals who will find themselves starting new lives filled with uncertainty.”

Ioffe said her grandmother’s message to the acting superintendent was “Thank you for bringing me back with this.”

Her grandmother’s main sorrow in leaving her country is being separated from the people she was helping, Ioffe explained.

“For 60 years she was a career woman. She was a scientist, but she was also an executive in this field of science. She managed power stations, and then when she retired — people like that don’t ever retire — she formed a nonprofit specifically to help the veterans of her field.

“This is beyond family. You guys brought her back tonight to what she’s used to, like, her life.”

Eastern Millwork Inc.
Jersey City Times Staff

Hudson Community College Announces Tuition-Free Apprenticeship Program

March 26, 2022/in Business, Education, header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Jersey City Times Staff

Hudson County Community College and Eastern Millwork, Inc., a high-end, automated woodwork manufacturing and installation company, have created an apprenticeship program to address the challenge of finding skilled workers. 

Eastern Millwork work for Goldman Sachs

Eastern Millwork work for Goldman Sachs

Apprentices with the EMI-HCCC Holz Technik program receive a tuition-free college education, a $24,500 starting salary with merit raises, and full benefits including health insurance, 401K profit sharing, and vacations/holidays. By the end of the fifth year, apprentices receive their Associate of Applied Science (A.A.S.) degree in Advanced Manufacturing from HCCC, earn their bachelor’s degree in Technical Studies from Thomas Edison State University, and receive a salary of $70,000, and have no college debt. 

Amber Gutierrez, a Union City High School graduate and a member of the Holz Technik Academy Class of 2024, said “I knew that once I graduated high school my focus would be taking care of myself. This opportunity is giving me the ability to do that.”

Praised by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy as an example of the blueprint for the Garden State’s economic future, the federally registered EMI-HCCC Holz Technik apprenticeship program’s earn-while-you-learn structure is modeled on proven European forms of education. Qualified high school students who are hired as apprentices each year split their time between practical, on-the-job experience and college coursework. 

Eastern Millwork prides itself on employing technological innovation to challenge the belief that high-quality woodworking can only be produced by hand.  It has worked on projects ranging from Rose Hall at Lincoln Center to Rockefeller University.

Applications for the HCCC-EMI education-apprenticeship program will be accepted until April 15. Contact Al Williams at 201-360-4255 or awilliams@hccc.edu for more information.

 

"Madame Pele," by Shamona Stokes
Tris McCall

“Mothership Connection” at Deep Space Gallery

March 25, 2022/in Columns, Eye Level, header, Narrate /by Tris McCall

One of the refreshing things about visual art in Jersey City is its gender balance. In other cities, some of which are quite nearby, decisionmakers at cultural institutions are mostly male. Not so here. A prominent exhibition is just as likely to have been curated by a woman as it is by a man. Art Fair 14C, the biggest annual show in town, is staffed and run by women. The city’s head of Cultural Affairs is female, and the enterprise she founded — Art House Productions, organizers of JC Fridays — remains a female-fronted operation. The prettiest gallery Downtown is run by a woman, and the galleries at the local colleges and universities are, too. Although MANA recently named a male director, much of its 2022 programming has been handled by the female-guided Monira Foundation.  Many of the officers of ProArts, our flagship arts advocacy group, are women.  Politics, music, journalism, real estate and development: in Jersey City, as elsewhere, all of these are male-dominated fields. But visual artists can approach Women’s History Month with their heads held high.

So it’s no coincidence that many of our best known artists are female. Nor is it coincidental that so many of those artists have been able to double as curators, or organizers, or leaders. “Mothership Connection,” an all-female show that will run at Deep Space Gallery (77 Cornelison Ave.) until Apr. 10, features more than a few artists whose local prominence isn’t merely about aesthetics. This was not a deliberate choice by curators and gallery-runners Jenna Geiger and Keith van Pelt: it’s just how we roll.

Danielle Scott, for instance, has been everywhere lately, showing her assemblages at Bridge Gallery in Bayonne, adding work to the permanent collection at the Newark Museum, getting written up in Essence, and generally doing Jersey City proud. A year ago, she curated the inaugural ProArts group exhibit at 150 Bay Street, a politically charged show, and she tucked some scalding work into “A Message From The Underground” at MANA, the only 2021 exhibition that was more incendiary than the one she’d organized. Yet her three pieces in “Mothership Connection” feel hopeful: explorations of childhood creative potential that are heartwarming enough to decorate a birthday card. “Little Violinist” fits a gossamer-winged African-American girl with a fiddle too big for her and a large pink bow, fashioned from a knitting needle and affixed to the work with resin. The look on her face is fierce and defensive, but there’s a crown on her head, and the song she’s playing (the work re-purposes the sheet music) is optimistic. The struggle is real, but talent will triumph.

“The Queen” is less ambiguous. Here, the young girl is captured in profile. There’s a laurel wreath on her head, she’s decked in gold and seashells, and her forward-looking face is bathed in white light. In “Girl With Holy Water,” just by being herself, a young Asian-American defies the massive field of proper names that form the background of the piece. The type of the name-register is fixed in cold black and white, but the flowers that bloom around her are colorful, as is the parade of butterflies that stream from her head. Kendrick Lamar would certainly recognize the symbolism.

Scott’s pieces resonate with the tight, radiant circles on the opposite wall. Rebecca N. Johnson was the star of one of Deep Space’s most inspired 2021 shows, and “Mothership Connection” brings her back for an encore. Johnson’s pretty girls are situated in chrysalis-like teacups, vases, and planters; there, they’re watered like seeds, and flowers spring from their bodies and snake toward the heavens. This is femininity imagined as the wellspring of creativity, and Johnson’s paintings challenge the viewer to treat women with care, lest the vessel shatter and their generative potential be destroyed. Like the subject of Scott’s “Girl With Holy Water,” Johnson’s heroines have their eyes closed — they’re engaged in an intense personal experience, and they’re drawing strength from their interiority, just as all blooming things pull sustenance from the soil.

Petals, planters, and images of butterflies also show up in the paintings and sculptures of another Jersey City art citizen and community leader: Shamona Stokes, who is currently directing the effort to turn the studio spaces at Elevator (135 Erie St.), a recent Silverman Company redevelopment, into a hive of arts activity. Stokes has one of the most recognizable styles around. Her ceramic sculptures and watercolor paintings are a little bit fairy-tale whimsical, a little bit winsome, and a little bit evil. Stokes’s work is one hundred per cent feminine and invariably fetching, even when it’s unsettling. “Madame Pele” is a black container bursting with oil pastel blooms, which smear and jostle, bunch and ooze, and draw the eye toward the boisterous pink storm at the chaotic top of the image. Pele, as every Hawaiian (and Tori Amos fan) knows, is the goddess of the volcano, and Stokes’s flower-bowl version of the deity is simultaneously lethal and delightful. She affixes a displeased and angle-eyed face, complete with a cute but judgmental downturned mouth, right in the middle of the charcoal countenance. This adorable vessel of magma and ash cannot disguise its disapproval. Like many of Shamona Stokes’s pieces, it terrifies me and makes me laugh out loud.

“Lepidoptera,” the largest work in the entire “Mothership Connection” at 55” x 77”, depicts a butterfly — or is it a moth? — with a feminine body stained a deep, hypnotic black. Its featureless face is graced with two antennae that branch like dried leaves. These curl up on the bug’s brow, and resemble carefully styled eyelashes. It’s enveloping, it’s sinister, it’s pleasantly suffocating, and it’s even, God help me, kinda sexy. Just as Johnson highlights the earthly, elemental quality of her images by painting in lime wash, and Scott makes her surfaces shine with resin, Stokes incorporates salt into the wings of her butterfly, bestowing a marble-like texture on the paint, and imparting her distinctive combination of fantasy and firmness to her great girl-insect.

Stokes’ butterfly-face shows us nothing but cilia, Johnson’s shuttered-eyed women weep tears of water, Dena Paige Fischer’s concrete sculptures on thin wires, impassive as mo’ai, have shadowed indentations where eyes ought to be. “Violet Muse,” her most arresting piece, presents a face with the top sawed off; somehow its nostrils and mouth are still able to communicate haughty disdain. Cortney Herron’s heavy-lidded female subjects, with thick fields of earthtone color for their cheeks, never seem to engage with the viewer directly. They look to the side, or past us; they dare us to follow their gaze and ask us, implicitly, to be worthy of their attention.

Yet the knottiest riddle in the show is provided by Delilah Ray Miske, who teases us with mirrors, and productively misdirect our eyes around her beige-walled interiors. In “On The Farm March 2020,” a woman in a sweatshirt and camouflage-green hunting cap is occluded from observation by the angle of her body — she’s throwing a thick shoulder at us, and staring in the opposite direction. Only in her reflection do we catch her measure: she’s as guarded as can be, with a yellow scarf wrapped around her mouth and black sunglasses covering the rest of her face. This is a bit of pandemic-era storytelling, to be sure, but it’s also a comment on the elegance of inaccessibility, the lure of the woman removed, under wraps, untouchable and distant, yet always keeping a wary eye on us.

If all of this sounds regal, even queenly, well, maybe that’s only to be expected in a town with so many independent-minded female artists and entrepreneurs.  But “Mothership Connection” is never inaccessible. Some of it is remarkably plush. Sarah Grace makes flat but huggable pieces out of tufted acrylic yarn, and chooses quotidian objects to mimic, including a lighter with a flickering orange “flame,” a house key, a glass of wine with a squiggle of sulfite, a pair of asymmetrically appealing breasts. All of these hang near the entrance, colorful, squeezable, and inviting, like vertical welcome mats. Molly Craig’s work is similarly homespun, and similarly endearing, but she uses glass beads and cardstock rather than bunches of fiber to replicate a pair of ordinary objects that share a color — a bottle of Jarritos orange soda and the front cover of Eat A Peach by The Allman Brothers. Glass baubles, yarn, salt, lime: art on the Mothership is made from humble materials. Kelly Villalba’s beautiful baskets appear sleek, but they’ve been cinched together with rope and jute, with careful attention to the rhythms of the colors of the thread. Their roughness is an asset. They look well-used and well-loved; containers for the preservation of keepsakes.

Even the architectural pieces in the show (and architecture is a running sub-theme of “Mothership Connection”) feel approachable and lived-in. Miki Matsuyama brings us acrylics of interiors, including an image of “Georgia O’Keefe’s Studio And Fireplace” with brown desert hills melting in the sun beyond the panel windows. They split the difference between sketches meant to preserve a memory of a trip and illustrations a buyer might encounter in a real estate brochure. The glazed ceramics of apartment windows fashioned by Francesca Reyes, by contrast, don’t seem motivated to sell anything to anybody. They’re snapshots of the city, and tantalizing hints of the lives that might be led behind those thick urban curtains.

Then there are the continuing experiments in pure structure, committed to the canvas in blue oil and Venetian plaster by the geometric-minded Kati Vilim. Her paintings are, as always, dances of shape and color, set to rhythms of her own invention. Like many of the artists here, her work has been exhibited widely, including recent shows at the Monmouth Museum and NJIT in Newark. On the Mothership, though, she’s among fellow travelers — deep space explorers developing their own symbolism, their own visual language and logic, reclaiming their own particular materials and honing their techniques in a strange place in the galaxy, far from male supervision. And yes, by that, I do mean Jersey City.

148 Mallory Ave. Jersey City
Aaron Morrill

Connecticut Man Pleads Guilty to Murder of Jersey City Political Operative

March 24, 2022/in header, Latest News, Narrate, News /by Aaron Morrill

Today a Connecticut man admitted to his role in the 2014 murder of Jersey City political operative Michael Galdieri.

According to U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger, George Bratsenis, 73, of Monroe, Connecticut, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire.

The murder for hire scheme, which came to light in January, has rocked the world of New Jersey politics and been the subject of numerous articles in the local and national press.

Bratsenis’ accomplice, Bomani Africa, a/k/a “Baxter Keys,” pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire in January.

At the center of scheme was political consultant Sean Caddle, 44, of Hamburg, New Jersey, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire in January.

In April of 2014, Caddle asked Bratsenis, a career criminal, to kill one of his associates in exchange for thousands of dollars. Bratsenis recruited Africa, an ongoing accomplice from Philadelphia, to join the plot. After Bratsenis confirmed his and Africa’s interest in the job, Caddle told Bratsenis that the target was a longtime associate who had worked for Caddle on various political campaigns named Michael Galdieri.

On May 22 that year, the Bratsensis and Africa went to Galdieri’s home on Mallory Ave. in Jersey City and stabbed him to death. Afterwards, they set the apartment on fire.

The following day, when Caddle learned that the Galdieri had been murdered, he met Bratsensis in the parking lot of a diner in Elizabeth and paid him thousands of dollars. Bratsensis, in turn, shared shared a portion of those proceeds with Africa.

Galdieri had worked on the campaigns of former Assemblyman Lou Manzo, Mayor Bret Schundler and Ward C Councilman Steve Lipski and for Caddle’s consulting group.

In 2005 he ran for Jersey City’s Ward B city council seat. According to a 2014 article in the Hudson Reporter, Galdieri was arrested on drug and weapon charges on the eve of the election. After taking a plea deal and then attempting back out, saying he was set up, he spent two years in prison.

At the time of the murder, County Commissioner Bill O’Dea told the Jersey Journal that Galdieri was “a friendly, regular guy.”

Caddle worked as an aide to former State Sen. Ray Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) and headed up several super PACs to funnel dark money into local races.  Caddle was executive director of the group Houston Votes which was accused of collecting fraudulent voter registration cards. According to the New York Times, he worked as a political consultant for Senator Robert Menendez when he was a congressman, from 2003 until early 2005, and billed almost $100,000.

“Eight years ago, these three individuals – Caddle, Bratsenis, and Africa – conspired to brutally murder the victim,” U.S. Attorney Sellinger said. “At Caddle’s direction, Bratsenis and Africa stabbed the victim to death in the victim’s apartment, and then set it ablaze. These guilty pleas bring a measure of justice to the victim’s memory and for his family. I commend the efforts of the FBI, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, and my Office for their determination over many years to bring this matter to resolution.”

Bratsenis faces a maximum potential penalty of life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine. Sentencing is scheduled for Aug. 2, 2022.

 

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News Briefs

The Hudson County Board of Commissioners has received a $900,000 grant from the New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism Destination Marketing Organization to provide financial assistance for Tourism and Marketing to promote Hudson County and New Jersey State as a premier travel destination.

Sustainable Jersey City is seeking volunteers for its 2022 Trees and Trash Action Campaign to help Jersey City’s mature trees thrive and is seeking volunteers. Each “environmental steward” who participates will add materials to the soil surrounding street trees while also removing trash and other debris harmful to the trees. In partnership with Clean Green Jersey, SJC will conduct the campaign at three different locations over the course of three Saturday mornings in May. Training and supplies will be provided

Riverview Jazz is announcing a Covid-Relief grant for Hudson County jazz musicians, aimed at professional musicians who have been financially affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The grant will award ten recipients with a check of $2,000. Applicants must be 18 years of age or older, reside in Hudson County, and be a performing jazz musician. The deadline for applications is May 16,2022 and the winners will be announced at the Jersey City Jazz Festival June 4-5, 2022. For more information or to apply for the grant, please visit: https://riverviewjazz.org/grants

 

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