Financing for the Broad Street sewer project completed in July is on the agenda. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Capital financing and tweaks to the name and purposes of a committee stand out on a light agenda when the Red Bank council meets for a regular semimonthly session Wednesday night.
A 2021 view of the rear of the Senior Center, which overlooks the Swimming River. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A proposal to subdivide the Senior Center property to create a “passive park” is on the Red Bank council’s agenda Wednesday night.
Also on the table for the semimonthly meeting are matters relating to parking, parks and a committee name change. Here’s what to expect.
The mayor and council meet at borough hall for their first in-person session in 26 months Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A budget for 2022 is on the agenda when the Red Bank mayor and council hold their first in-person meeting since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic Wednesday night.
The session is also the first to simultaneously employ technology allowing participation from home.
On the ballot in November: whether to review Red Bank’s form of government, and who should do it. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It’s official: Red Bank voters will have 11 candidates to choose from when they elect a five-member charter study commission in November.
Also on the ballot: a referendum on whether the study itself should be conducted.
Running as a team, clockwise from upper left: Nancy Facey-Blackwood, Mark Taylor, Kate Okeson, Scott Broschart and Ben Forest. (Photos by John T. Ward and Chris Ern. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Five self-described “forward-thinking” Red Bank activists have united in pursuit of seats on Red Bank’s charter study commission in the November election.
A customer checks her email at one of the new seating areas at Coffee Corral. (Photo by Chris Ern. Click to enlarge.)
By CHRIS ERN
It’s a warm summer night as Jessica Olszewski relaxes in an Adirondack chair while her wife and young daughter dance to live jazz under glimmering lights outside the Coffee Corral in in Red Bank.
A new, post-pandemic vibe has captured the attention of locals at the busy corner of Shrewsbury Avenue and Drs. James Parker Boulevard. There, owners Courtlyn Crosson and Erich Reulbach have developed their business into what Reulbach said is now “more than just a coffee shop on the corner.”
“It’s family-friendly. I have my wife and daughter here, and she’s able to run around and enjoy the live music,” says Olszewski, of Tinton Falls. “It’s a lot of what we couldn’t do for so long.”
Mark Gregory at a Red Bank Charter School meeting in February, 2020. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank Housing Authority board member resigned this week, one month after the board censured him for “wanton disregard for his fellow commissioners.”
Mark Gregory’s resignation, accepted by the board at its monthly meeting Wednesday night, was the second by a Republican member in less than a year.
Michael Clancy at the Red Bank 5K in 2018. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[CORRECTION: Michael Clancy is no longer the GOP chairman in Red Bank. He did not seek re-election and was replaced July 27 by Jonathan Maciel Penney. Clancy now serves “as a placeholder on the county committee until I move out of Red Bank,” he told redbankgreen Monday evening. redbankgreen regrets the error.]
By JOHN T. WARD
Three years after he quit the Human Relations committee over a controversial text message, Red Bank Republican Chairman Michael Clancy mused about coughing on President Trump’s adversaries to “harass” them over weekend.
Red Bank as seen from on high. (Google Maps photo. Click to enlarge.)
A Q&A with J.P. Nicolaides, Lead for the Red Bank Complete Count Committee and member of Red Bank’s Human Relations Advisory Committee
The Red Bank Complete Count Committee is a broad spectrum coalition of communit
By JOHN T. WARD
A quiet final session of 2019 for the Red Bank council included the creation of a Census committee Wednesday night.
The 2020 Complete Count Committee‘s aim is to maximize resident participation in the federal government’s decennial Census and American Community Survey, said Human Relations Advisory Committee Chairman David Pascale, who will lead the effort.
Jonathan Maciel Penney. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Red Bank voters will choose two council members for three-year terms in the November 5 election.
On the ballot are incumbent Democrats Kathy Horgan and Erik Yngstrom and Republican challengers Allison Gregory and Jonathan Maciel Penney.
redbankgreen sent all candidates written questions. Here are Penney’s responses.
Hazim Yassin, with running mate Kate Triggiano, at the West Side Community Group candidates’ forum Tuesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
One day after a low-friction debate, Red Bank Republicans went on the attack against a Democratic opponent Wednesday.
The GOP, chaired by council candidate Michael Clancy, posted on Facebook a press release titled “Who is Hazim Yassin?” questioning Yassin’s rapid ascent within the local Democratic party and accusing him of “fraud” on either investors or voters.
Yassin dismissed the attack, telling redbankgreen it was “littered with fabrications.”
Marchers heading along Shrewsbury Avenue to an anti-hatred rally in Red Bank in August, 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The recent discovery of Ku Klux Klan recruiting fliers in two Red Bank locations has inspired a drive to eliminate hate and tone down divisive rhetoric in town.
Itzel Perez, left, and Karina Espana were among the ‘Dreamers’ available to assist others with the DACA renewal process during a clinic at the Red Bank Primary School Monday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Preparing themselves for the worst, more than a dozen undocumented young immigrants turned out at the Red Bank Primary School Monday night for guidance on navigating a future made less certain in recent weeks by the Trump administration.
“We are talking at and about each other a lot these days,” says Rabbi Marc Kline (right), a member of the Red Bank Human Relations Committee and rabbi at Monmouth Reform Temple in Tinton Falls. He hopes to encourage better connections with a weekly free “coffee and conversation” event that starts Tuesday in downtown Red Bank.
Several hundred protesters assembled at Riverside Gardens Park Saturday evening. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Hours after violent clashes between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, about 150 local residents and community leaders gathered in Red Bank’s Riverside Gardens Park for a “unity and peace” demonstration Saturday night.
But unlike a rally held in the West Front Street park one day after the start of the Trump Administration, this one did not avoid mentioning Trump’s name, as several speakers laid responsibility for the day’s outburst of hatred and deadly violence in Virginia on the president.
The T. Thomas Fortune House, as it appeared in November and as it’s expected to appear after rehabilitation. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Not so many months ago, the T. Thomas Fortune House in Red Bank was a place whose own fortunes were in doubt, prior to the announcement of a development deal (reported here in redbankgreen) that set the deteriorating structure on the path to a new life as a community resource “dedicated to human rights, journalistic integrity, (and) advancement for all people.”
The announcement was certainly a happy one for the volunteers of the T. Thomas Fortune Project Committee — and on Thursday, May 25, the nonprofit entity hosts “a festive night out to celebrate the rebirth, now underway, of the National Historic Landmark and support the opening of our soon to be T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center,” as well as the legacy of the pioneering 19th century African American journalist T. Thomas Fortune.
Press release from Mental Health Association of Monmouth County
Each May, the Mental Health Association of Monmouth County (MHAMC) hosts an annual dinner to celebrate Mental Health Month, and honor individuals who have made a significant and lasting impact in the lives of Monmouth County residents.
On the evening of Wednesday, May 10, the MHAMC celebrates 67 years of providing a prevention focused support network for all in need of mental health services, when the yearly event returns to The Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank from 6 to 9 p.m. Included are hors d’oeuvres, dinner, dessert, cash bar and a robust chance raffle during cocktail hour.
Monica Urena speaks to the borough council Wednesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A resolution that thrust Red Bank into a national debate on illegal immigration won narrow approval by the borough council Wednesday night.
A watered-down version of it, that is.
Michael Clancy, center, at the Red Bank Middle School in 2015. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Republican Chairman Michael Clancy resigned from the borough Human Relations Advisory Committee Thursday night, continuing to disavow a text message that the committee’s chairman had termed “extremely threatening” to immigrant children.
Michael Clancy in 2015. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank Republican Chairman Michael Clancy on Wednesday disavowed a text message that a party loyalist had termed a “disgusting” slap at the borough’s immigrant community.
Amid renewed calls for his resignation from the borough Human Relations Advisory Committee, Clancy sent redbankgreen a statement in which he expressed a “deep empathy for immigrants and children of immigrants, who live in fear of deportation.”
Sue Viscomi at a 2015 board of education meeting. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[Correction: The date of a controversial text was incorrectly reported in the original version of this article. References to it below have been corrected.]
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank Republican loyalist blasted party Chairman Michael Clancy Tuesday, one day after she was bypassed in favor of a political newcomer to run for borough council this year.
Sue Viscomi, who serves on the board of education, also took aim at Clancy for what she said was a “dumbfounding” and “disgusting” text she claims he sent to her and three GOP council members last month in February asking for a list of undocumented alien students so he could “mail it to ICE,” referring to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
Rabbi Marc Kline at Monday’s Human Relations Advisory Committee meeting. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
After weeks of silence, the Red Bank council is expected next month to consider a proposed resolution that has thrust the borough into a national debate on illegal immigration.
Human Relations Advisory Committee Chairman David Pascale told the group Monday night that he’ll be at the April 12 council meeting to “stand by” a statement that calls for town officials to “monitor and challenge” any costs arising from federal efforts to find and deport undocumented aliens.
The HRAC, meanwhile, rejected member Ashley Homefield’s proposal that the committee simply “make a statement on behalf of the community rather than pushing [a resolution] to vote by the council.”
Human Relations Committee Chairman David Pascale, seen above with member Kate Okeson, and his comment on a Facebook post by committee member Michael Clancy, below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The head of Red Bank’s Human Relations Committee has asked one of its members to resign for characterizing the testimony of Latino witnesses at a meeting last month as “sob stories.”
HRC Chairman David Pascale also questioned whether member Michael Clancy, who leads the borough Republican party, is committed to the panel’s mission of fostering a “welcoming and inclusive community” after Clancy said he thought he was joining a “nothing committee.”
Protesters outside borough hall on February 27. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
[See correction below]
By JOHN T. WARD
A controversial proposal to have Red Bank oppose “any forced collaboration” between its police and federal immigration authorities generated no official action by the borough council Wednesday night.
Meeting for the first time since hundreds of protesters from both sides of the national immigration debate packed an advisory committee meeting eight days earlier, the council still had nothing in hand to vote upon, Mayor Pasquale Menna told the audience at the governing body’s semimonthly meeting.