The consolidation plan contemplates the borough buying 623 River Road for $3.4 million. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
With little more than a day’s notice, Fair Haven has announced a public presentation over a proposed plan for a new borough hall and police station.
One council member called the alert “terribly short notice” and asked that a key vote on the proposal be tabled.
The borough plans to buy 623 River Road, outlined in red. The star indicates the firehouse property. (Google Maps image. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Over the objections of business owners and residents, Fair Haven’s council initiated a plan Monday night to buy a River Road site, where it would create a new borough hall and police station.
Even the council’s two newest members, Democrats whose November election signaled a change in the status quo, agreed that the new facilities are “a need, not a want.” But tenants of the target building said the changes would tear at the fabric of the town.
The borough plans to buy and raze the office building at 623 River Road, the mayor says. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
[See clarification below]
By JOHN T. WARD
After getting derailed last year, Fair Haven’s ambitious plan to consolidate borough facilities in new locations are expected to get back on track Monday night.
The town now plans to acquire and demolish the office building at 623 River Road and replace it with a new borough hall and police station, Mayor Ben Lucarelli told redbankgreen Friday morning.
Memone Crystian with Red Bank Little Leaguers in 2010. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A lawsuit claiming racism and gender discrimination against a former director of Red Bank’s parks and rec department will be settled for $175,000.
The former Sunoco property on River Road could get 14 apartments under the plan. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A vacant gas station envisioned as the site of a new Fair Haven borough hall just a year ago would instead get 14 apartments under an affordable housing settlement detailed by officials Monday night.
At a special council session held at Viola Sickles School to address the town’s legal obligation to accommodate low-and moderate-income earners, residents also heard about a plan for a two-family home to be built by Habitat for Humanity in a residential neighborhood.
A Singapore-based restaurant has threatened to sue Cé La Vi over its use of the name. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Less than two weeks after it opened, a Red Bank restaurant with an Americanized French name has been threatened with a trademark infringement lawsuit.
The OceanFirst Bank headquarters was the subject of a reverse appeal case settled Wednesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Bombarded by criticism from the business community, the Red Bank council on Wednesday dropped a plan to pursue a new round of “reverse appeals” against commercial properties it believed to be undertaxed.
But first, the council approved the settlement of an older reverse appeal that will boost the taxable value of a downtown building by 69 percent over three years. And battles over cases filed in 2018 continue.
A law firm hired by the borough says 8 East Front Street, which sold last year for $5.68 million, is improperly assessed at just under $3 million. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A year after authorizing a law firm to go after owners of properties believed to be undertaxed, the Red Bank council is expected to renew its “aggressive” approach this week.
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A new overlay zone centered on the western business district would encourage development of low- and moderate-income housing, officials said. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven residents packed a hearing on zoning changes written to show “the right gestures” toward providing 370 new homes for low- and moderate-income earners Tuesday night.
But the planning board board’s determination to immediately vote on a complex proposal it had just unveiled irked many who sat through the three-hour session as much as the substance of the changes.
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.
The borough’s attempt to revoke Riverview’s tax exemption for two years amounted to a “fishing expedition” in search of justification, the court ruled. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank can’t retroactively revoke the tax-exemption for Riverview Medical Center, New Jersey’s tax court ruled last week.
In attempting to do so, the borough was improperly hoping that a “fishing expedition” in the form of legal action would turn up evidence that the hospital, owned by Hackensack Meridian Health, was being used as a for-profit facility, the court ruled. Read More
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.
Memone Crystian with Red Bank Little Leaguers in 2010. (Photo by Dustin Racioppi. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A former director of Red Bank’s parks and rec department is suing the borough and former officials, alleging she was forced out of the job by racism and gender discrimination.
Memone Crystian quit the position in May, 2015, “after years of being subjected to a hostile work environment” that included discrimination by then-borough Administrator Stanley Sickels and then-councilman Art Murphy, the suit alleges.
By JOHN T. WARD
A Rumson woman settled a trip-and-fall lawsuit against the Red Bank SuperFoodtown for $850,000, the New Jersey Law Journal reported Monday.
A New Jersey appeals court said Friday that the longtime live-in girlfriend of late Red Bank mattress retailer Stuart Paer was not entitled to a share of his estate, according to a report by the New Jersey Law Journal.
Bill O’Reilly has filed a lawsuit against former New Jersey Assembly member Michael Panter, who claimed in a Facebook post earlier this week that the former Fox New star sexually harassed Panter’s ex-girlfriend, according to Bloomberg News.
Panter, of Shrewsbury, told redbankgreen by email early Saturday that he had not read the Bloomberg report, and referred to a statement posted Friday on his Facebook page, in which he said he was “speaking the truth,” and expects his account to be “fully corroborated.”
Sergeant Peter Koenig’s lawsuit alleges he blew a whistle on department wrongdoing, but doesn’t disclose the wrongdoing itself. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
A Rumon police officer has sued the department and the borough, claiming he faced retaliation for blowing the whistle on undisclosed wrongdoing, according to a report by the Two River Times.
In a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in Freehold in June, Sergeant Peter Koenig alleged he faced a “a hostile work environment” after “calling attention to what he said was improper behavior from his fellow officers,” the TRT reported Thursday, citing court documents.
Superintendent Carolyn Kossack, seen here in 2012. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A lawsuit that accused Little Silver’s school superintendent of same-sex sexual harassment was settled for $290,000, a website focused on government settlements reported Monday.
The case, which also alleged wrongful termination, was resolved last November, but its monetary details were not previously disclosed.
The new Navesink River bulkhead at the Red Bank Public Library, as seen from the natural shoreline at Maple Cove. Below, a June, 1906 Red Bank Register article reported on Sigmund Eisner’s plans for the property, including the installation of a bulkhead. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
This month 110 years ago, the Navesink River site that would later become the home of the Red Bank Public Library was about to get its first bulkhead.
Over the ensuing century, such hard-stop bulkheads came to be regarded as a flawed means of protecting shorelines: less effective at blunting storm ravages than natural shores, and unfriendly to marine life. So when it authorized a controversial new bulkhead two years ago, the borough council relented to public pressure and asked that the replacement incorporate whatever elements possible to make it more like a so-called living shoreline.
In the end, however, the new bulkhead, completed this month. is pretty much the same as the old one.
Superintendent Carolyn Kossack, seen here in 2012. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Little Silver Board of Education has approved a proposed settlement of a lawsuit against Superintendent Carolyn Kossack alleging same-sex sexual harassment and wrongful termination.
The case involved allegations by JoAnn Riley, of Edison, who claimed she was just four months into her job as a $105,000-a-year special services supervisor when she was abruptly fired.
Damien Brennan’s vehicle after the September 21, 2014 crash in Red Bank. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A former Rumson cop who crashed his personal vehicle into the back of a Red Bank store while enroute to his moonlight gig guarding Bruce Springsteen’s mansion has sued for reinstatement, according to a lawsuit.
Sergeant Damien Brennan, 38, of Howell, was axed from his borough job last month, even though a DWI charge against him had been dropped, according to the suit, first reported by More Monmouth Musings.
A lawyer for the planned 7-Eleven said signage lighting would be turned off, and other lighting would be reduced to the minimum needed for security, during the hours when the store is closed. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Ending months of wrangling and litigation in just 35 minutes, Red Bank’s planning board approved the conversion of the Welsh Farms convenience store on East Front Street to a 7-Eleven Monday night.
Not your typical 7-Eleven, though. While the parent corporation usually insists its franchisees keep their stores open 24 hours a day, it’s making an exception in this case, agreeing to limit the shop’s hours of operation to 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. That’s unusual, said lawyer Philip San Filippo, representing Welsh Farms owner Dina Enterprises.
“In my experience, 7-Eleven will not agree to anything less than 24 hours,” but was allowing it at this location out of a desire to be “a good neighbor” and comply with local laws, he told redbankgreen after the hearing.
The owner of the store had sought a variance for an expansion and signage, but was derailed by a last-minute change in the noise ordinance. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank planning board’s rejection of a proposal to turn a Welsh Farms convenience store into a 24-hour 7-Eleven has triggered a lawsuit.
Dina Enterprises, owner of the East Front Street store, filed suit in state Superior Court in Freehold August 8, claiming the board kowtowed to public opposition and exercised “palpable abuse of its discretionary authority” in rejecting an expansion variance in May.
Lawyer Ron Gasiorowski clashing with Councilman Mike DuPont last week, above, and relaxing at Zebu Forno on Monday. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
As an attorney, Ron Gasiorowski is used to verbal conflict. It’s inherent in the adversarial work of representing a client’s interests against someone who’s doing the same.
But as he prepares to file his third lawsuit against Red Bank over a proposed Hampton Inn, Gasiorowski is stewing over the reception he got when he appeared before the borough council last Wednesday.
Not the way he was treated by borough Attorney Dan O’Hern, who challenged him on procedural points at nearly every turn, but did so respectfully, Gasiorowski told redbankgreen last week. And likewise not by Mayor Pasquale Menna, who despite his resistance to Gasiorowski’s point of view, “is always a gentleman,” he said.
No, Gasiorowski said, he was put out by the the third lawyer up on the dais: Councilman Mike DuPont.
“In 40 years of practicing law, that was the most unprofessional and rudest I’ve ever been treated,” said Gasiorowski, a 71-year-old former Marine captain.
The Welsh Farms store on East Front Street, site of a planned 7-Eleven, would be banned from opening all night under a law passed Wednesday night. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
In a contentious exchange that appeared to foreshadow a lawsuit to come, a lawyer for a Red Bank convenience store challenged the rationale for a new local law that banned all-night businesses Wednesday night.
Squaring off against three lawyers sitting on the council dais, store attorney Philip San Filippo said a revision to a noise ordinance passed by the governing body just moments later was overly broad in scope and designed solely to torpedo his client’s plans, now pending at the borough planning board, to convert the store to a 24-hour 7-Eleven.
The law, cast as an amendment to a noise ordinance, was “absolutely” designed with his client’s plans in mind, San Filippo told reporters afterward.
“It absolutely was not,” insisted Councilman Mike DuPont, even as he touted the hastily enacted law as a “creative” response to a problem.