Area NAACP president William Poku addressing Councilmembers John Jackson, Michael Ballard and Ed Zippich during the special session. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Controversy over an ordinance restricting short-term residential rentals such as Airbnbs in Red Bank continued at a special hearing Friday morning on whether to override Mayor Billy Portman‘s veto of the law.
Councilman Michael Ballard, seen here at a June 29 forum, cited . (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Red Bank council tabled a plan to put armed police in the borough’s primary and middle schools Wednesday night.
The council’s second session of the month ended with quarreling among members over a requested change to the meeting schedule.
Red Bank’s parks – including Riverside Gardens, above, and Marine Park, right – were off-limits to visitors Wednesday after borough workers erected barricades at their entrances.
Riverside Gardens Park as seen last Saturday afternoon. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials plan to indefinitely close borough parks starting Wednesday.
Residents packed a hastily organized community meeting on the recent shootings Tuesday night. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank police believe they know who’s behind a recent spate of West Side shootings, including one Monday night, but are hamstrung by a lack of evidence sufficient to obtain search warrants, Chief Darren McConnell said Tuesday night.
“Do we have an idea who’s doing this? Yes, we do,” McConnell told a packed community meeting at borough hall, less than 24 hours after the latest gunfire, on West Westside Avenue, “but we can’t prove it yet.”
A string of shootings on the West Side, including one Monday night, has prompted Red Bank officials to schedule a community meeting for Tuesday night.
From an announcement sent out by the borough at noontime Tuesday:
Mayor Pasquale Menna and Police Commissioner Arthur Murphy have scheduled a Community Meeting for 7pm tonight, Tuesday, December 23, 2014 in the Council Chamber/Courtroom on the first floor of the Municipal Building at 90 Monmouth Street to address concerns about a recent incident on West Westside Avenue. Police Chief Darren McConnell will be available to address the situation.
A view east along West Westside Avenue, the scene of Tuesday night’s shooting, in which a parked car was struck by two bullets and at least eight shots were fired. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Off-duty Red Bank police officers out delivering Christmas presents for the PBA heard the gunfire in Monday night’s shooting on the West Side, police Chief Darren McConnell tells redbankgreen.
“They were literally a block and half away” and immediately responded to the scene, on West Westside Avenue just a few doors east of Leighton Avenue, arriving even before nearby residents had called in the 8:39 p.m. shots, he said.
By the time they got there, however, the shooter or shooters, and any intended targets, were gone, McConnell said.
By JOHN T. WARD
A shooting in which a vehicle was struck by at least one bullet Monday night is believed to be related to two shootings in November, Red Bank Mayor Pasquale Menna tells redbankgreen.
“The good thing is no one was injured” in the latest incident, which occurred at about 8 p.m. near Leighton Avenue and West Westside Avenue, Menna said.
By JOHN T. WARD
A vehicle was struck but no one was injured when shots were fired on Red Bank’s West Side Monday night, NJ.com reported.
The shooting occurred within the same three-block area of a November shooting that left two people critically injured and another shooting in which a parked car was shot up in broad daylight two days later.
Kirsten Ramirez speaks with police Captain Mike Clay after Monday night’s council meeting. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank residents put elected officials in the hot seat Monday night for their response to two shootings on the West Side earlier this month.
Addressing Mayor Pasquale Menna and the six-member council at a bimonthly meeting, West Westside Avenue resident Jill Burden criticized what she called a “lack of communication or even acknowledgement” of the concerns of neighbors following the shootings, which occurred less than two days apart.