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 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.
This time a year ago, Fair Haven was a town divided. The issue? Whether to allow a Dunkin’ coffee shop to fill a vacancy in the River Road strip mall anchored by an Acme supermarket. The back-and-forth on the Fair Haven, NJ Facebook page got so nasty that the moderator shut down commenting on the issue.
Well this week, seven months after the planning board approved the shop, the still-empty retail space got its Dunkin’ sign, and the moderator allowed a resumption of comments. So how’d that go?
By JOHN T. WARD
A Shrewsbury man claimed victory Tuesday in a yearlong legal standoff with former Fox News star Bill O’Reilly.
Former New Jersey Assemblyman Mike Panter, right, said O’Reilly dropped a $5 million defamation suit he’d filed over a Facebook post in which Panter recounted an ex-girlfriend’s allegations of sexual harassment by the combative TV host.
Council candidate Michael Clancy at the Red Bank Classic race in June. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
In the first attack of Red Bank’s 2018 election season, the two Republican council candidates claimed they saw one of their Democratic opponents “cavort” with a man who had made “menacing and threatening gestures” toward one of them at a local government meeting.
An status update on the Facebook page of postmaster Michael Angelo Ciano, below, showed an assault rifle with the comment, “Anti-muslim vaccinations.” (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s postmaster has attracted the attention of human rights activists over what they call “vile” Facebook posts promoting racism, misogyny and apparent endorsements of violence against liberals and other groups, redbankgreen has learned.
A United States Postal Service spokesman confirmed that the agency is looking into complaints about photos and comments posted by postmaster Michael Angelo Ciano on his personal page.
“Imagine the work environment in that post office for any employees that are other than white men,” one woman wrote.
redbankgreen now has 10,000 readers liking its Facebook page. Are you among them? Sure, not everyone a Facebook fan, but if you’re using it, it’s a great way to keep abreast of the latest posts on your favorite local new source, and even to get some breaking news that you might not see here.
And while we’re on the topic of social media, we’ve also got a new share tool on the right side of this page. It offers a quick way to repost news and features to your Facebook page or Twitter account, or email them to your friends.
Thank you to all who follow this site, advertise, send us news and comment. We’d be zero without you!
What’s this all about? Just a modest little celebration in honor of redbankgreen reaching 6,000 Facebook followers is all. Would you care to join them? Please click here. (Click to ginormous-ize.)
Author and Middletown native Dave Cicirelli kicks off the campaign for his just-released ‘Fakebook’ Thursday at River Road Books.
By TOM CHESEK
His adventures include an attack by a rabid coyote, abduction by an obscure doomsday cult and forced labor on an Amish farm, as a result of his having toilet-papered the farmer’s buggy (he also managed to impregnate and run off with the farmer’s daughter).
He’s Fake Dave Cicirelli, and beginning three years ago, the real Dave Cicirelli chronicled his ersatz odyssey in an epic series of Facebook posts, keynoted by the sudden announcement that he was quitting his job as a successful and award-winning art director in New York in order to embark upon a soul-searching, westbound walking sojourn.
By the time that the Facebook version of Dave returned to Intercourse, Pennsylvania, “to adopt the Amish way of life… leaving the world of Facebook with a heart full of sadness,” he had amassed hundreds of new friends and even a stalker or two — while an increasingly isolated Real Dave was lying low from the world in his former family home.
The River Plaza, Middletown native tells his double-life story with double-edged candor and humor in the memoir Fakebook: A True Story. Based on Actual Lies, to be released Tuesday by Sourcebooks. On Thursday, the first-time author comes to River Road Books in Fair Haven for a 7:30 pm reading and signing appearance that promises to reunite the real-world Dave with several of the Facebook friends who played a part, consciously or not, in the social media saga.
The Local Literary Desk at redbankgreen talked with Cicirelli about playful lies and rippling repercussions, before Oprah or Jon could get to him. Read on…
Bartender Gavino Siciliano sees the end of the roasted-peanut era at Barnacle Bill’s as a sign of an overly litigious culture. Below, a sampling of comments from the restaurant’s Facebook page. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
When tinkering with some traditions, it helps to have a thick hull, the owners of Barnacle Bill’s are learning this week.
The riverfront restaurant, a Rumson institution, opened for brunch Sunday having quietly ended its four-decade custom of giving out roasted peanuts, whose shattered shells would carpet the floor. Owner Todd Sherman said the change was made over concerns over peanut allergies and slip-and-fall claims.
Within 24 hours, however, the restaurant’s Facebook page was flooded with nearly 450 comments many of them supportive, but most harshly critical.
“Me and my wife were just there last night, this is such bull$***,” wrote a Vinny DiCostanzi. “Having a beer and peanuts while we wait was a tradition.”
A Joseph Costanza wrote: “Thanks! the 1 thing that kept my kids occupied ,as we waiting for a table for an hour and a half, you have removed ,,,, good luck good bye”
And now, an important message from the home office. Literally.
redbankgreen has joined with some 30 hyperlocal news sites across America in an effort to remind readers and advertisers of the community-enhancing role that independent news sites play.
Dubbed Authentically Local and including sites from Seattle to Tucson to New Haven, the group’s aim is “to remind readers and advertisers of the value that local ownership and local perspective brings to coverage,” says redbankgreen publisher John T. Ward.
Today, redbankgreen introduces a new reader-comments system.
Prompted by a rising tide of everything from petty name-calling to outright libel, nearly all of it from anonymous commenters, we’ve flushed our archive of comments posted prior to December 2, when we temporarily halted postings.
We’ve also adopted a registration system in the expectation that it will bring a greater degree of accountability to the commentary. With that, we hope, will be more civil and constructive behavior than we saw in the months leading up to the change.
Adam Kotkin in his Red Bank office. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi; click to enlarge)
By DUSTIN RACIOPPI
Adam Kotkin is freaked out.
As a longtime resident of New York City, it may be hard to imagine that, after years of living and traveling through the petri dish that is the Big Apple, he’d get freaked out by a little outbreak of something like bedbugs.
OK, maybe it’s an epidemic. No, it may be worse.
“They call it an epidemic,” Kotkin, 31, said. “I call it a pandemic.”
So what’s he doing about it, besides avoiding movie theaters and stripping hotel room beds before he even gets his luggage in the door? He’s doing his cyberduty by telling iPhone users where the bedbugs are.