The Atrium at Navesink Harbor, the buildings at center and right, as seen from the Navesink River in 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Six more residents of an assisted-living facility in Red Bank have died of COVID-19 in recent days, data released by the New Jersey Health Department Monday indicate.
The crime and arrest reports below were provided by the Red Bank Police Department for December, 2020. This information is unedited; see below for additional information.
CRIMES
Theft: The victim reported several items were stolen from an unlocked garage in the area of Pinckney Rd on 12/14/2020. The items taken are described as a Black & Decker 60 volt string trimmer valued at $170.00, a Black & Decker 40 volt hedge clipper valued at $155.00, a Scott’s outdoor long hedge clipper valued at $120.00, a Taylor tool branch cutter valued at $58.00 and a Corona super lopper valued at $51.00. Ptl. Ashon Lovick.
By JOHN T. WARD
An animal-control specialist who has a backup role with Red Bank government came under fire over the weekend for a racist post on Facebook.
But Randolph Tashman, who was appointed to provide supplementary animal control services to the borough in 2019, denied to redbankgreen that he wrote the post.
The Senior Center has been out of commission for most of the past two years following a pipe leak. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Tension among Red Bank Democrats over the future of the borough’s Senior Center erupted in public over the weekend.
Joined by Mayor Pasquale Menna, four of the council’s six Democrats lit into the other two, one of whom is the party chairman, as having “placed their own popularity over what’s best for our residents and taxpayers.”
The Emergency Room entrance at Riverview, as seen last May. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
A Sea Bright man shot in an attempted robbery in Paterson turned up in the hospital in Red Bank late Friday, Passaic County law enforcers said Saturday.
As reported Saturday by the Daily Voice, the unidentified 27-year-old victim was wounded in Paterson, 60 miles from Riverview Medical Center, where he landed in the emergency room.
The Senior Center has been out of commission for most of the past two years. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s Senior Center is not for sale, Mayor Pasquale Menna insists.
But two years after extensive damage caused by a burst pipe, multiple questions surround the still-closed Shrewsbury Avenue facility. Among them: will it reopen anytime soon, and will it stay where it is?
No, that’s not a forecast map. It depicts snowfall totals from the three-day blizzard that ended 25 years ago today, in 1996. The northeaster is one of only two storms to be classified as “extreme” on the Northeast Snowfall Impact Scale,” a measure of intensity. Who remembers that whopper?
By contrast, the coming weekend will be “tranquil (some would say boring,” with “plenty of sunshine and near-normal temps,” according to a tweet Friday by the National Weather Service‘s Mount Holly office. Check out the extended forecast below. (PNWS visual. Click to enlarge.)
Monmouth County Prosecutor Christopher Gramiccioni speaking at forum on police and systemic racism at Pilgrim Baptist Church in Red Bank in June. (Photo via Zoom. Click to enlarge.)
New Jersey’s prosecutors on Thursday issued a denunciation of what they called mob “terrorism” in Washington DC a day earlier.
They called the attack on the Capitol building a “sickening display of everything America is not,” and contrasted the law enforcement response with the treatment of Black Lives Matter protesters in June.
The crime and arrest reports below were provided by the Little Silver Police Department for November and December, 2020. This information is unedited. For additional information, please scroll to the bottom of this post.
November 1– A resident from Prospect Ave. reported Theft after discovering that an unknown subject(s) removed political signage from her property. P.O. Keith Ludwig investigated.
[See UPDATE below]
By JOHN T. WARD
Anthony Sims, who was found guilty in the 2014 shooting of a man seated in a car parked in Red Bank, may get a new trial following an appellate court decision issued Monday.
Sims, 32 years old, was wrongly convicted in part based on statements he gave to detectives without having been told why he was under arrest, the three-judge panel found.
Additionally, because the victim of the Willow Street shooting did not testify at trial, but his statements to police were used, Sims was denied his constitutional right to confront his accuser, the court found.
The Atrium at Navesink Harbor as seen from the Molly Pitcher Inn in 2014. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Three residents of a senior assisted-living facility in Red Bank have died of COVID-19 since mid-December, according to data released by the New Jersey Health Department Monday.
The deaths at the Atrium at Navesink Harbor occurred as pandemic-driven hospitalizations, and the need for critical care, rose across Monmouth County.
Greg Cannon, Fair Haven’s new borough attorney, at a Red Bank council meeting in 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Now in the majority, Fair Haven’s Democrats swapped out the longtime borough attorney Monday night.
On a bipartisan vote at the annual municipal reorganization meeting, conducted via Zoom, the council replaced Sal Alfieri with Greg Cannon, who also serves as borough attorney in neighboring Red Bank.
Councilman Hazim Yassin at a council meeting in February, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After a year of butting heads with most of his fellow Democrats, Red Bank Councilman Michael Ballard lost his seat on the budget-shaping finance committee Friday.
He was displaced by first-term Councilman Hazim Yassin at the borough government’s annual New Year’s Day reorganization meeting. Read More
Ho-hum: the first Monday of 2021 brings a week of unremarkable weather to the Greater Red Bank Green. Would anyone object?
According to the National Weather Service, our area can expect daytime peak temperatures around 40 degrees daily through Sunday, and not much precipitation. (NWS visual. Click to enlarge.)
Trap Door Escape has signed a lease to expand into the former home of Hobbymasters. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The former Hobbymasters building in Red Bank will become the site of America’s largest “escape room” entertainment facility if its new tenant has his way.
Read all about his plans, and other downtown comings and goings, in this pandemic-year-ending-edition of redbankgreen‘s Retail Churn.
The planning board approved the demolition of 95 East Front Street in July, 2019. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Turning aside pleas by historic preservationists, Riverview Medical Center demolished a 19th-century Red Bank mansion Monday.
Meantime, the hospital is planning to gobble up more real estate, redbankgreen has learned: a vacant lot directly across East Front Street from the mansion.
Jon Bon Jovi chatted with Pastor Terrence Porter of Red Bank’s Pilgrim Baptist Church for a ‘Season of Giving’ segment on the Christmas Eve edition of NBC’s Today Show last Thursday.
The stainless steel chimney installed at 46-48 Washington Street will be replaced with one the owner says won’t be visible from the street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It won’t be ready in time for Santa and his reindeer. But an “eyesore” metal pipe chimney on a home in Red Bank’s historic district is slated for replacement following review by the Historic Preservation Commission Tuesday night.
The case illustrated frustrations common among homeowners who live in the district about their absentee counterparts, the HPC’s chairwoman said.
Red Bank’s Molly Pitcher Inn is going on winter hiatus until March, the hotel’s owners announced Wednesday.
The new shop as it appeared before dawn Wednesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After nearly two and a half years of town-splitting arguments, Fair Haven now has a Dunkin’ coffee shop.
Considering the wringer he went through to get to this point, owner Domenic Sequeira was in a pretty affable mood Wednesday morning.
The former Anderson Storage building in Red Bank was named one of three recipients of a 2020 Monmouth County Planning Board Merit Award Monday.
An Immediate Care COVID-19 testing tent in Red Bank’s White Street lot Monday night. The company has been offering free tests at the site for weeks. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
COVID-19 pressure on Monmouth County hospitals continued to increase in the past week, according to the latest data from the county government.
At the same time, demand for intensive care and ventilators to treat patients with the virus showed slight signs of easing.
Separately, Red Bank Regional High announced a plan for free COVID-19 testing for staff and students.
The agreement ends a lawsuit alleging the hospital illegally connected its Blaisdell Pavilion to the borough water system. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Under a “confidential” settlement approved by the borough council last week, Riverview Medical Center will pay Red Bank just $850,000 for water and sewer usage the town contended in a lawsuit was worth at least $5.3 million.
The hospital also will get 10 more years to pay off the obligation, some of which dates to 1984.
Red Bank Regional High School goes back to a full-remote schedule Monday after a student who was present for two days last week tested positive for COVID-19, Superintendent Lou Moore announced Sunday.
Minus their customary caroling, to minimize the spread of COVID-19, neighbors on South Street in Red Bank went ahead with their annual display of luminaria Friday night.
Monday at 5:02 a.m. marked the solstice, the passage from autumn into winter in the northern hemisphere. This year, by coincidence, December 21 is when the two largest planets in Earth’s solar system, Jupiter and Saturn, will appear to nearly merge in the night sky in a rare phenomenon called a ‘Christmas star,’ according to Astronomy magazine.
A clear sky is needed to see the “great conjunction,” but the outlook for the Greater Red Bank Green is less than ideal, as detailed by the National Weather Service in the extended forecast below. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)