RED BANK: MORNING SNOW & QUICK MELT-OFF
April arrived Sunday, bringing springlike temperatures in the mid-60s to the Greater Red Bank Green. But the forecast for Monday, or at least a few hours of it, was somewhat more wintry.
RED BANK: GOP CHAIR TO SEEK COUNCIL SEAT
GOP Chairman Michael Clancy at last October’s Halloween parade. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With its two incumbents dropping out, the Red Bank Republican party on Thursday chose its chairman and a newcomer to run for borough council this year, redbankgreen has learned.
Party head Michael Clancy will be joined on the ticket by Bank Street resident Allison Gregory on a ticket in which the mayoral slot will be blank, Clancy said Friday.
RED BANK: GOP INCUMBENTS WON’T RUN
Mike Whelan, left, and Mark Taylor kicking off their campaign in 2015. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s two remaining Republican council members won’t run for re-election this year, they said late Thursday night.
The bombshell news from first-termers Mark Taylor and Mike Whelan would appear to end a chapter of brief resurgence for the local GOP after having been frozen out of power for a generation.
ON THE GREEN: OUT OF THE FOG, INTO…
Dense fog made for slow going on River Road in Fair Haven Thursday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Here’s the National Weather Service forecast outlook for Friday and beyond on the Greater Red Bank Green: Read More
RED BANK: CONCESSION LEASE TO BE RE-BID
The Red Bank council will try again to find a vendor for the concession stand in Riverside Gardens Parks this summer.
RED BANK: COUNCIL OKS ‘REVERSE’ APPEALS
Mayor Pasquale Menna shows off the 1925 and 1926 tax bills for a Red Bank property during Wednesday’s council meeting. How much were they? Read on. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The borough of Red Bank, hammered in recent years by tax appeals, is going “aggressive” at the urging of Mayor Pasquale Menna.
At its semimonthly meeting Wednesday night, the council approved hiring a law firm to sue commercial property owners whose assessments appear to be low relative to the real estate market.
RED BANK: PARK SESSIONS RESCHEDULED
Public-input sessions on the future of Marine Park in Red Bank have been rescheduled for Monday, April 9, at 4:30 and 7 p.m. at hall. They were originally slated for March 21 but were canceled because of a snowstorm.
For more information, check out redbankgreen‘s coverage here.
RED BANK: LIVE WIRE LANDS ON VAN
Charlie Velazquez said he was “still shaking” after his near brush with death. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Middlesex County man said he was “lucky to be alive” after a live electrical line landed on the van he was driving in Red Bank Wednesday morning. Read More
FAIR HAVEN: COUNCIL TAKES AIM AT POT, GUNS
Councilman Bob Marchese urged the council to ban recreational pot sales while allowing for medicinal trade. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Mixed in among discussions of yard sales and tree removals at the Fair Haven council’s semimonthly meeting Monday night were two issues of concern statewide and beyond: marijuana and guns.
RED BANK: VISCOMI ADDS WILD CARD TO RACE
Viscomi serves on the board of ed, where she leads the finance committee, and is on a number of borough committees. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The 2018 race for two Red Bank council seats looks like it will have a wild card.
Sue Viscomi, a board of education member and former Republican stalwart who has expressed increasing antipathy in recent years to the local arm of the party, has started gathering signatures for a run as an independent in the November election, she told redbankgreen on Monday.
Her entry would appear to add to the challenge for the two presumptive Republican candidates, already facing the prospect of an anti-Trump backlash in a majority Democrat town, and could eat into support for the two Democrats in the race, both newcomers to elective politics.
RED BANK: HUNDREDS MARCH FOR GUN LIMITS
Joining a movement that arose from the slaughter of 17 students and adults at a Florida high school last month, hundreds of protesters marched through downtown Red Bank Saturday as part of a nationwide ‘March for Our Lives‘ effort to demand bans on assault weapons and other legislation to reduce gun violence in schools.
RED BANK: STORM BRINGS TICKET BLITZ II
A car left on South Street during the storm. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
For the second time this year, a snowstorm that plopped about a foot of snow on Red BankWednesday and early Thursday came with a blizzard of parking tickets.
Police issued 260 parking violations during the storm, tying a one-day record set during a January 4 storm, police Chief Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
RED BANK: AFTER THE STORM
Rapidly rising temperatures began turning more than a foot of snow from an overnight storm into slush and puddles Thursday morning, as seen on Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank, above. And on Drs. James Parker Boulevard, the heavy, wet stuff made for good snowman-building.
Click more for other scenes from Red Bank in the aftermath of the spring snowstorm. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: OUTAGES ABOUND AFTER STORM
Downed lines required the closure of the eastern end of Madison Avenue, near Branch Avenue. Below, the JCP&L outage map as of 6:30 a.m. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The fourth snowfall of March, 2018, left more than a foot of heavy snow on ground and thousands of Monmouth County residents without electricity Thursday morning.
Dozens of homes and businesses on the Greater Red Bank Green had no power as of 6:30 a.m. after the wet snow brought down lines across the region. Schools that had previously announced delayed openings changed plans and called a snow day Thursday.
RED BANK: PRE-SNOW SNOW DAY
With a northeaster bearing down on the coast, a state of emergency in effect and schools closed, redbankgreen took a quick spin around the Greater Red Bank Green on a pre-snow snow day to find… not much happening Wednesday morning.
RED BANK: RAYRAP PROJECT GETS UNDERWAY
Motorists passing through Five Corners in Red Bank in recent days might understandably have gotten the impression that a vacant house there had burned down and been demolished.
They’d be mistaken. So What’s Going on Here?
RED BANK: CRIMES AND ARRESTS
The crime and arrest reports below were provided by the Red Bank Police Department for the period of March 1 to March 15, 2018. This information is unedited. For additional information, please scroll to the bottom of this post.
CRIMES
Criminal Mischief: On 03/01/18 in the area of Marine Park it was reported graffiti was spray painted on the Fire Departments Shed. Ptl. Patrick Kennedy.
ARRESTS
Emily Heun, age 33 of Middletown was arrested on 03/01/18 in the area of Shrewsbury Ave for Contempt of Court by Sleo Tony Ardon.
RED BANK: WET, HEAVY SNOW IN FORECAST
Neither snow nor sleet nor rain was falling on Red Bank as of 6 a.m. Wednesday. But school closings, event postponements and a state of emergency declared by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy had the region braced for a storm named ‘Toby’ that could dump some 15 inches of heavy, soggy snow on the area throughout the day.
RED BANK: CHARTER AID BOOST SLAMMED
District officials say they may have to eliminate a new cross-country program in order to balance the budget. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank school board members and parents reacted with outrage Monday night to an effective reduction in state aid under funding announced by the administration of Governor Phil Murphy last week.
Though nominally a $178,503 increase for the district, more than that sum is to be relayed to the Red Bank Charter School, Superintendent Jared Rumage said at a board meeting at the primary school.
With the district seeing an effective decline in aid while state funding to the charter school’s rises $1,025 per student, “I think the time has come to have the discussion about running two public schools in Red Bank,” Rumage told redbankgreen.
RED BANK: SPRING ARRIVES AS WINTER STORM
Spring begins Tuesday at 12:15 p.m., and while a forsythia bud on River Road in Fair Haven seemed ready to proclaim the new season Monday, a brewing storm threatened to dump a foot of more of heavy, wet snow on the Greater Red Bank Green Tuesday and Wednesday.
RED BANK: TWO NEW HOME LOTS APPROVED
The attorney for the property owners said they could theoretically build nine homes, though they were only seeking approval for two. (Image from Google Maps. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The infilling of Red Bank, where buildable lots are hard to find, continued with the approval by the zoning board Thursday night of a plan for two new homes on a West Side riverfront estate.
RED BANK: VACANT SHOP TO GET FACELIFT
The long-vacant building, last home to a seafood shop, is about to get a makeover, as shown in the rendering below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Rendering by S.O.M.E. Architects. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Red Bank retail space that’s been vacant for decades may be on track to revival, starting with a facelift.
The borough zoning board gave unanimous approval Thursday night to a makeover plan for 203 Shrewsbury Avenue, the long-ago home of Bayshore Charlie’s seafood shop.
Read More
RED BANK: CHAMPION HOOPSTERS HONORED
Players from the Red Bank Middle School girls’ basketball team, seen here with coach Amy Campbell and boys’ coach Issac Nathanson, won plaudits at the borough council meeting Wednesday night for nabbing their first Shore Athletic League championship in 24 years last month. Read More
FAIR HAVEN: WALKOUTS GET DETENTION
Fair Haven Superintendent Sean McNeil, seen below at a January event, expressed pride in Knollwood students who walked out, but told them there had to be consequences. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Seventy-two Fair Haven middle school students were ordered to report for detention after participating in a walkout Wednesday to mark the one-month anniversary of a mass school shooting in Florida.
Meanwhile, just half a mile away, hundreds of Red Bank Regional High students observed the nationwide walkout without penalty. But the fact that they were sequestered within the confines of the school stadium, and surrounded by police, irked at least one student.