Author: ECCYC

The first time Bruce Springsteen called Max Weinberg, it was to join The E Street Band.

Countless conversations with The Boss have followed, part and parcel of nearly 50 years spent drumming for one of the most vaunted rock groups on planet Earth.

Springsteen can still surprise, however, as he did earlier this week, unexpectedly notifying Weinberg and his bandmates that their sprawling, Jersey-bred outfit would finally resume touring — the E Street Band’s first roadshow in six years, kicking off in early 2023.

But first, Weinberg is returning to one of his favorite venues, the South Orange Performing Arts Center (SOPAC). Max Weinberg’s Jukebox, set to hit the Essex County stage June 9, is “really not a concert, it’s a party,” he says.

Weinberg recently spoke with NJ Advance Media about his undying love for New Jersey (his family lived in Newark, Maplewood, and South Orange) and his upcoming show. Days later, when the Springsteen tour was announced, Weinberg talked with us again, explaining that even he hadn’t known about it, aside from the constant Springsteen online chatter, which he tends to dismiss until he gets the official word.

But when The E Street Band plays, all else changes.

“My contracts all contain a force majeure, a legal term for an act of God – or Bruce Springsteen,” Weinberg explains. “That is in all of my contracts. And I actually had to institute that at times to change the date on something I was doing.”

Talking from Delray Beach, Fla., where Weinberg, 71, lives and proudly sits on the planning and zoning board, he says that however long the tour runs, wherever it goes, is grand as far as he’s concerned. He doesn’t have details other than he would be playing.

“That is above my pay grade,” Weinberg says of the particulars. “I just take them one show at a time. That is why they call Bruce The Boss – he makes all the decisions.

“I sort of take it as it comes,” he continues. “I like playing my shows. If all of us are getting back together, my metaphor is that show ‘Brigadoon.’ This very special thing comes around every once in a while. Since the very early days, when I joined one year into Bruce’s recording career, we were working all the time. It was not even a tour. It became bigger places and more logistics; in the early days, the tour wasn’t named; we were just playing. And when the details that need to be addressed but don’t necessarily impact me, I don’t ask, and I don’t need to know.”

And so Weinberg plans his own tour, this party where the audience calls out songs, and three musicians – Glenn Burtnik, John Merjave, and Chris Holt – play requests. The Jukebox series grew out of a show Weinberg first staged in 2017, though the performance is different each time, depending on what the audience wants. It’s also evolved over the years.

“I tell a lot more stories now,” he says. “People enjoy a peek behind the curtain of my career. I have been fortunate enough to do that and I am happy to share those stories. I tell a lot of stories and it is a bit of a Neil Simon approach to a kid who caught up to his rock and roll dreams.”

Over the years, Weinberg was the bandleader and sidekick on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” He began with the talk show host in 1993 and left to tour with The E Street Band (that act of God or Springsteen) six years later, but returned. Weinberg even moved to Los Angeles when O’Brien assumed his ill-fated brief run on “The Tonight Show” which only lasted a few months in 2010. Weinberg has also regularly played The Rainbow Room.

Yet it’s for the marathon Springsteen concerts that Weinberg keeps himself fit. He watches his diet, gets his sleep, and works out with a trainer.

“I have been playing since we last played,” he says. “I am ready. As my trainer says, ‘if you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.’”

Sure, he’s sitting while keeping the beat but make no mistake, this is a high-intensity workout.

“Physically, The E Street Band is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life,” he says. “If the schedule holds, I will be 72, and I play with the same intensity and vigor I did 49 years ago. That’s why I stay in shape because it’s hard work, and it’s fun.”

Weinberg’s work is also essential to the E Street Band’s thunderous sound. He is the timekeeper, the steady-sticked straight man setting the pace. It’s his rhythm that makes it impossible to sit still during “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” and ”Rosalita (Come Out Tonight),” his snare cracks that open “Born in the U.S.A.” and “The Ties That Bind” and never lets up. Springsteen and others in the band have long praised Weinberg’s ability to sense what’s coming and keep the show moving, even when a fan request taps mammoth Springsteen’s songbook — more than 330 tunes and counting.

Weinberg doesn’t yet know what songs from the latest album, 2020′s pumping “Letter to You,” will be performed.

“I particularly enjoy ‘Ghosts,’ which we played on ‘SNL,’” he says. “We have only played (together) once in the last six years — on ‘SNL.’ That and ‘I’ll See You In My Dreams’ tears at your heartstrings. Like the shows, I take the songs one at a time. I love them all.”

The E Street Band’s songs are often requested at the Jukebox shows. It’s akin to the world’s most accomplished bar mitzvah and wedding band – a setting with which Weinberg has tremendous experience, especially in Essex County.

“I made a career playing every church on Wyoming Avenue from South Orange to Millburn,” he says.

The seven-year-old pro

By the time he signed on with Springsteen, at 23, Weinberg had already been a professional for 16 years. He was still in college, but the drummer had started making money as a musician very young. Weinberg recalls his first paying gig at The Chanticler, which had been a swanky catering hall in Millburn. He was seven years old.

His mother approached the bandleader, Herbie Zane, and told him that her son is a drummer. She asked if the dressed-up little boy could sit in with him. Surprised, Zane asked if he could play. Weinberg volunteered to play “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

“He got such a kick out of it that he would start hiring me at his club dates, for 50 cents or a $1 for each,” Weinberg recalls.

By the time he was at South Orange Junior High School, Weinberg was earning $100 to $125 a weekend. It helped, especially as his family found itself stretched financially.

His mom, Ruth, was a physical education teacher at Weequhaic High School for 46 years, taking off some time with each of her three kids. His dad, Bertram, was a lawyer whose avocation was summer camps. Further cementing Weinberg’s place in New Jersey history, legendary Newark-born author Philip Roth was a counselor at his father’s now-shuttered Camp Pocono Highlands in Marshalls Creek, Pennsylvania.

About five years ago, Weinberg’s manager heard from the chief archivist of the Roth archives because a trove of his letters had been found. Among them was this line about camp: “It would be perfect except for that little Weinberg bastard.”

Weinberg laughs, explaining he would have been only one year old at the time, so the writer was likely referring to a cousin. While Weinberg is very much in the present, happily married to Becky for 41 years, a proud father to journalist Ali, and drummer Jay, of heavy metal titans Slipknot, he enjoys reminiscing about his childhood and teen years.

He holds dear parts of Essex County, some of which are now memories. And his recollections are of South Orange as a Norman Rockwell kind of place.

“When you grow up somewhere, you notice trees you remember, and you see things that aren’t there anymore,” Weinberg says. “When I look at SOPAC, I see the lumberyard, Sikley’s, that was behind Reservoir Pizza and the Raritan Brook running through the park. These memories you have as a child, wherever you grow up, is very much like a Springsteen song — you remember the touchstones of your life.”

Some of his cherished memories include getting air as he soared down a snow-covered Flood’s Hill on a saucer sled. He loved the ice cream at Gruning’s and sloppy joes at Town Hall Deli. Weinberg also loved attending Columbia High School. The class of ‘69 has stayed close, and he hopes to see former classmates at his SOPAC show.

“On June 9, whoever’s in South Orange that day will see my driving around my old haunts,” Weinberg says.

After Columbia, Weinberg studied at nearby Seton Hall University by day and worked on Broadway by night. When he was only 21 credits shy of graduating and had landed in the hit “Godspell,” it looked as if all were working out. Still, he had that childhood dream — to play in a rock band.

Like most musicians at the time, he scoured The Village Voice want ads. Some guy was putting together a band, and one of Weinberg’s lifelong friends, Joe Delia, a keyboardist, told him: “‘This guy Springsteen is still auditioning drummers. You would be perfect for that.’ Several people I knew auditioned. I said, ‘Well, everyone else is auditioning, I’ll call him up.’”

“I went down and played, and one thing led to another,” he said. “It was an open-call audition, a multitude of piano players and drummers went down. It was a huge pay cut from Broadway.”

A few of his friends told him that he was nuts. “Godspell” could run for 20 years, and he was taking a chance on some guy from Freehold with a band?

“This guy is good,” Weinberg told his friends. “I played with him twice, and I am telling you, he is going to be big. At that point, I had been playing for 16 years. I knew talent when I saw it. And with Bruce, anybody knows just immediately you run out of superlatives when discussing his songwriting, performing abilities.”

Then the rest of the world learned what New Jersey had known for a while, and the band became a global phenomenon. Flash forward to when the band was breaking up in the late ‘80s, after “Tunnel of Love.” Springsteen and Weinberg stood on the lawn of Springsteen’s California home on a gentle summer night as Weinberg thought hard about his next steps.

“I am looking at, if the band is not there, what am I going to do?” Weinberg says. “I had to change my childhood fantasy of playing in a rock ‘n’ roll band.”

He had long been interested in the law and in representing performers. Plus, he was captivated by the burgeoning online world. He finished Seton Hall and enrolled in Cardozo Law School.

“I realized there might be opportunities as an attorney in that field, way before Apple, the internet, and everything else,” he says. “Turns out I was right. I ultimately went to law school – for six weeks.”

Then he got a call from Dave Edmunds, so he left the tortures of property law and returned to rock n’ roll. Weinberg also remembered what Springsteen had said to him on that summer night in ‘89 – not to stop drumming. “You’re too good,” Springsteen told him.

And so he kept playing. He made a name for himself outside of The E Street Band. The years on TV, and his own band, The Max Weinberg Big Band, where he played Sinatra and Count Basie. The music has never stopped just because he’s not on a stage where people are chanting “Bruce.”

And now, with another call from Springsteen, he’ll be off again. This time, as the world reels from one miserable tragedy to the next, Weinberg considers how very welcome an E Street Band tour is.

“This is the sort of joy that the world needs now with the intensity and commitment of live Bruce Springsteen songs,” Weinberg says. “I think the whole world really needs a shot of Bruce and The E Street Band, given what we have all been through, particularly in the last three years. The thing he does and the thing we do with him is unique in the world of presentational performance — not to take away from anyone else.

“Playing his songs strikes a chord that is immediate,” Weinberg continues. “They are built for tough times, and times are tough. Just his whole songwriting career is about addressing those issues, and the way he does it, I can honestly say I don’t know anybody else who does this. It is a point of pride to play this material.”

Jacqueline Cutler may be reached at jacqueline.cutler@gmail.com. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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At the massive sewage treatment plant in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark, crews are building a fortified 12-foot cement wall, with a deep foundation, around the entire perimeter to guard against a repeat of the disaster that took place during Superstorm Sandy.

That storm put the 140-acre facility under water, knocking it offline for 12 days as massive quantities of raw sewage gushed into Newark Bay, the Passaic River, and New York Harbor, a disaster that haunts the place to this day, a decade later.

“That’s a day nobody here will ever forget,” says Greg Tramontozzi, executive director of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission. “We weren’t able to do our jobs, and that led to an environmental disaster. If we had heavy rains, too, we would have had raw sewage backing up into basements.”

For the people who live nearby in the Ironbound neighborhood, the wall is no problem. But to keep the plant dry inside those walls, the PVSC wants to build a small gas-fired power plant in case the electricity fails, as it did for nearly three days during Sandy.

And that has sparked rage in the Ironbound, a tightly packed neighborhood that is stuffed to the brim with polluting industries.

For Gov. Phil Murphy, this is a test with no easy answer. He raised hopes by coming here in September of 2020 and promising to put a stop to it, signing a groundbreaking bill that was designed to protect neighborhoods like the Ironbound. “I’m incredibly proud,” the governor said. “We will no longer allow Black and brown communities in our state to be dumping grounds.”

So, he has to find a green alternative to this if he wants to live up to his own words, to protect a vulnerable neighborhood that’s been abused for generations, to prove that his promise was no political stunt.

To the people living in the Ironbound, this is the last straw. They already live with the stench of sewage, with the toxic fumes coming from three existing power plants, a smattering of chemical companies, the nearby airport, and the non-stop parade of diesel trucks moving cargo along filthy streets full of teeth-rattling potholes, making an average of 7,000 runs each day to and from the largest port on the East Coast.

The state’s largest waste incinerator is squeezed in here, too, and some days its spews pink and purple smoke. The single largest cause of school absences in Newark is asthma, with a rate that’s triple the national average.

Ana Silva, a mother of three children, two with severe asthma, has lived in the Ironbound for two decades. “Once a child gets sick and starts coughing, and you do the nebulizer, it begins to seem normal,” she says. “You kind of get used to it, and that’s the problem. It begins to seem normal. But it’s not normal.”

* * *

Joe DiVincenzo, the Essex County executive, convened a meeting recently in his office with some of the key players to search for a solution all sides could live with. “It’s a tough one and I’m working on it directly to see if we can work something out,” he says.

There are two big questions: Does the plant really need its own source of power? And if so, can the PVSC rely on green power, rather than fossil fuels?

The power grid is far more reliable today, and PSE&G officials say it’s extremely unlikely the plant will lose power, even if another Sandy hits. The utility has spent huge sums in the decade since Sandy fortifying the grid, lifting entire facilities off the ground by 10 feet, and building three redundant power cables to the sewerage plant.

But no one can rule out the possibility, and PVSC officials say the utility will not guarantee in writing that power will never be lost. Still, this is the first question the Department of Environmental Protection will consider as it evaluates PSVC’s permit application, a needed approval.

The next question is whether green power can do the job. The DEP insisted that PVSC explore that question, and PVSC solicited proposals, and received six of them. But it won’t release those studies until after its board votes on them.

Community activists and environmentalists have done their own digging and learned some of the ideas in play: A plan to build arrays of solar panels to charge huge batteries that could theoretically run the plant, or burning hydrogen, which produces no carbon, while using scrubbers to filter out pollutants.

But those proposals are impossible to evaluate because PVSC will not release them, and that secrecy that has undermined trust in the Ironbound.

Maria Lopez-Nunez, of the Ironbound Community Corporation, attended the meeting with DiVincenzo, and calls that secrecy an act of bad faith. She wants PVSC to withdraw its request for a permit to open the gas-fired plant while alternatives are being considered.

“If this was a good faith dialogue, the permit would be off the table, and we’d have the information we need,” she says.

PVSC has modified its original proposal to reduce the maximum hours of operation for the plant. But it’s not just for emergencies, as advertized. On its permit application, PVSC spells out several other instances when it could be turned on, for maintenance once a month, to prepare for a bad storm that risks cutting power up to 10 times a year for two-day stretches, and to lighten the load on the PSE&G grid during times of high demand.

Add that up, environmentalists say, and it could average about four hours a day. PVSC challenges that math but would not offer its own estimate on average daily use.

Meanwhile, on June 6, the DEP intends to finally issue regulations to implement the environmental justice law that Murphy signed in 2020. Commissioner Shawn LaTourette says he’s already enforcing the law’s provisions through administrative orders, and that has allowed DEP to pressure PVSC to reduce the hours of use and to study alternatives. But one of the law’s co-sponsors, Assemblyman John McKeon, says the law has much sharper teeth and the delay has done damage.

“They’re understaffed,” he said of the DEP. “When they come out with the regulations, this project is dead.”

The lawyers will have to settle that one. But I would be surprised if the gas-fired plant is ever built. The governor made a promise to protect this neighborhood and he has the power to kill it. DiVincenzo and McKeon want to find a different path, as do civil rights leaders, environmentalists, and a long list of legislators.

Lopez-Nunez showed me around the neighborhood, pointing to Superfund sites, lead contamination, small factories mixed into residential neighborhoods, the huge power plant next door to the sewage plant. “On a hot summer day, you can taste the air,” she said. “It’s disgusting.”

Tom Tucci, the affable chairman of the PVSC, gets high grades for listening to the complaints, and trying to accommodate critics. Like the staff at PVSC, he is determined to avoid a repeat of the sewage release during Sandy. But he says he wants to find an alternative to the gas-fired plant, too.

“The DEP are the ones that told us we have to harden the plant to make sure it works,” he says. “We’re not looking to jam anything down people’s throats. I grew up in Newark and I have family that still lives there. My wife is from the Ironbound. We’re the good guys on the block.”

He could prove it by ordering the release of the proposed alternatives, and by withdrawing the application for the gas-fired plant until the public has a chance to offer informed feedback, as Lopez-Nunez demands.

My guess is that’s where this is headed.

More: Tom Moran columns

Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @tomamoran. Find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.

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An ex-con who kidnapped and raped his ex-girlfriend in Pennsylvania, torched a used car dealership in Paterson and crashed a stolen SUV into police cars on either side of the George Washington Bridge rolled the dice and lost.

After originally pleading guilty to several charges, Luis Figueroa, 41, withdrew his plea and took his chances with federal jurors in Newark. They ended up convicting him following a two-week trial.

So now, instead of the 26-year deal that he originally accepted from the government, Figueroa could be sentenced to nearly 50 years in federal prison.

The rampage had an “almost unimaginable level of violence and depravity,” U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.

Figueroa had been wanted on outstanding DWI warrants when he waited outside the Hazleton, PA apartment of his former girlfriend, with whom he had a young child, the morning of June 6, 2014.

“I told you I was going to kill you,” he said after hitting her in the face with a 12-gauge shotgun.

He also tangled with the former girlfriend’s sister, who was eight months pregnant at the time, knocking her down a flight of stairs. Another family member pulled the child into a bedroom for protection.

Figueroa then pointed the shotgun at his ex-girlfriend and forced her into the back seat of his car. He drove to New Jersey, eventually stopping at a rest area near the federal Kittatinny Point Visitor’s Center, 60 miles from Hazelton.

Figueroa got out to ditch the shotgun, and the woman quickly slid into the driver’s seat and drove to a local post office in Warren County. She was bleeding from the head and fading in and out of consciousness responders said at the time.

Back at the rest stop, Figueroa assaulted a national parks service worker, slamming his head against a door and threatening to hurt him worse unless he handed over the keys to his minivan.

Figueroa took the minivan and then drove another 60 miles to Hosanna Motors in Paterson, where he tried trading in the stolen vehicle for an Escalade, authorities said.

When the salesperson refused, Figueroa got a portable gas can, filled it at a nearby service station and then returned to the dealership.

After a brief struggle with a dealership employee, Figueroa doused an office shed with the gasoline and ignited a fire that engulfed it.

He also set himself on fire in the process and extinguished the flames with a garden hose. He then headed to New York in a stolen SUV.

The vehicle later struck a marked Port Authority Suburban with one officer inside at the George Washington Bridge’s upper level toll plaza, pushing it onto a concrete divider.

Figueroa continued across the bridge, hitting a PAPD sedan at the 179th Street ramp.

He abandoned the disabled Cadillac at the ramp to 179th Street and tried to run, but Port Authority police captured him. They also found a machete in the car.

Figueroa was brought to Weill Cornell Medical Center for treatment of burns from the dealership fire. Three PAPD officers were treated for cuts and bruises at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck.

Figueroa – who had addresses in Ridgefield and the Bronx when he was arrested — will continue to remain in custody until he’s sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez in Newark on Sept. 8 in Newark and assigned to a federal prison.

Figueroa will have to serve nearly all of his sentence because there’s no parole in the federal prison system.

Sellinger credited special agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives for the investigation leading to the verdict.

He also thanked:

• Hazelton City, PA police, the Luzerne County, PA, District Attorney’s Office, Pennsylvania State Police;
• New Jersey State Police; the Warren County Prosecutor’s Office, Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office and Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office;
• the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

“All of the federal, state and local law enforcement agencies that worked on finding, capturing and prosecuting [Figueroa] did outstanding work in this case,” Sellinger said. “This conviction, and the severe punishment the defendant now faces, should ensure that he is no longer a threat to public safety.”

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Vera Varshavsky and Naazneen Khan of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division in Newark will handle the sentencing. They secured the guilty verdicts from federal jurors against Figueroa this past week for kidnapping, criminal sexual assault, assaulting a U.S. government employee and firearms possession.

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CEDAR GROVE, NJ — Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. and the Division of Senior Services announced the four winners and four honorable mention recipients of the 2022 Essex County Senior Citizen Legacies Writing Contest during an awards luncheon at the Robert O’Toole Community Center in Cedar Grove Park. The Legacies Writing Contest encourages area senior citizens to write essays about the people and events that have influenced their lives.

“Our Senior Citizen Legacies Writing Contest is a unique way for our older population to share their life stories and describe the people and events that helped to shape their lives,” DiVincenzo said. “Our seniors’ stories make you laugh and they touch your heart. They provide us with a different perspective on historical events and what our society was like.”

This year’s contest winners are Newark resident Maryam Bey, who wrote “Experience is the Best Teacher”; Livingston resident Susan Levine, who wrote “Finding My Way Through the Woods”; Bloomfield resident Joseph L. Mazoine, who wrote “Lunch with Mrs. Roberts”; and Irvington resident Ruth C. Steele, who wrote “Not College Material.” Receiving honorable mentions were Maplewood resident Marie Walton-Jackson, who wrote “Reflections”; East Orange resident Carol T. Jenkins, who wrote “My Little Blue Bank Book”; Nutley resident Rosemary Valese, who wrote “Cabbage Patch Doll Blessings”; and Bloomfield resident Paula R. Zaccone, who wrote “The Medical Menace.”

In her story, Bey wrote that just because someone ages and gets older does not mean they have to retire. Bey opened a licensed day care center when she was 24 years old and closed it 10 years later. She went to school and earned two degrees, graduating when she was 46 years old, then worked as a government aide. Currently she works with inmates who are preparing to reenter the workforce after being released. “Why would I retire when the Creator has blessed me with so much wisdom based on my life experiences, trauma, tragedies, successes, victories and education?” she wrote. “It was given to me for a reason: to inspire and encourage young people. … As seniors, everything we’ve been through prepared us for our purpose.”

In her essay, Levine shares how the COVID-19 pandemic changed her life. No longer traveling to visit family, she now keeps in touch with relatives via Zoom or other computer apps. She and her husband eat out less frequently and cook at home more. Levine also has altered her exercise routine by taking more adventurous walks along nature trails instead of at the local track. “Someday, I hope this will end and life can resume with some semblance of normalcy. But, despite all, there have been a few silver linings,” she wrote.

Mazoine wrote about a former mentor.After graduate school, Mazoine took a job with the NJ Commission for the Blind, where his supervisor was Edna Roberts. On his first day of work, they went out to lunch so they could get to know each other better. Mazoine immediately was impressed with his supervisor’s passion for her job and the close relationships she had developed with the commission’s clients. A few years after Roberts retired, he was in the midst of planning to have lunch with his former supervisor when she died. Mazoine still has regrets for not staying in touch and continuing their friendship. “I promised myself that going forward I would never delay telling the people I care about how grateful I am to have them in my life,” he wrote.

In her piece, Steele describes the effect teachers and mentors have on youth. While attending eighth grade at Madison School, Steele’s teacher remarked that she was “not college material” and should reconsider her plan to take college prep classes. This greatly affected Steele because she respected her teacher and his opinion. With her high school years coinciding with the civil rights movement, Steele realized her eighth-grade teacher’s assessment was wrong and that she had been affected by systemic racism, and she began to strive for more. Instead of just wanting to attain a high school diploma, she set her sights on going to college. “I am extremely grateful for those who inspired me to be persistent, to know my worth,” she wrote about the teachers she had in high school who were more supportive.

In her piece, Walton-Jackson reflects on the challenges she had to overcome to receive an education. Public schools in Prince Edward County, Va., chose to close in 1959 rather than integrate white and black students. It was the only place in the United States that did not abide by the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. To complete her high school education, Walton-Jackson was sent to Kittrell College, an African Methodist Episcopal school in North Carolina. Away from her family, she became homesick and experienced bigotry. “I believe that life’s journey with its twists and turns sets your core values and makes you the person that you are today,” she wrote. Although she did not pursue her dream of becoming a math teacher, she did have a successful career in the financial industry.

Jenkins recalled in her story saving money as a child. Every Friday, a representative from the Howard Savings Bank would come to Jenkins’ elementary school and accept deposits from the students for their savings accounts and teach them about the importance of saving money. Jenkins’ grandfather would give her a quarter to make her deposit. Because she had been so responsible in depositing her money, her grandfather gave her two quarters at the end of the year: one for Christmas and one for her birthday, which is Dec. 24. She was proud to have earned the extra quarter and by then had saved $5.

Valese’s story tells a touching story about kindness. When Valese was working at Romance Emporium in Clifton during the 1980s, Cabbage Patch dolls were popular. One day a family whose daughter needed brain surgery came to the store and the child wanted a Cabbage Patch doll. Valese was so touched, she offered to buy the 8-year-old whatever dolls and accessories she wanted. Soon, the other salespeople had taken up a collection and raised $500 for the young girl. Unfortunately, the girl did not live long after having the surgery. Despite this, Valese felt good knowing that the young girl enjoyed her final wish of having a Cabbage Patch doll.

Through poetry, Zaccone tells her story of getting a colonoscopy and not having faith in her doctor or the hospital. Several days after getting the procedure, she was not feeling well and went to the hospital; the doctors there told her not to worry. When her symptoms worsened, she went to a different hospital, where she was admitted into the intensive care unit for several days and was told she had internal bleeding and was anemic. “For wellness, be thoroughly informed and on guard, / Even when being treated by a practitioner who is alleged to be of high regard. / It took a third set of nurses and physicians, and a second hospital to result in my benefit, / And I am forever grateful that I survived to tell of it,” she wrote.

During the ceremony, the winning stories were read by Essex County West Caldwell School of Technology students Lucia Nufio, Roselyn Ramos-Guzman, Corey Newman and Liana Figueroa.

Photos, courtesy of Glen Frieson, show honorees, second from left, being honored by, from left, Gloria Chambers-Benoit from the Essex County Division of Senior Services, Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. and Senior Services Director Maurice Brown.

  County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr., Essex County Department of Senior Citizens, Senior Citizens

NEWARK, NJ — New traffic signal equipment was installed at the intersection of Park and Mount Prospect avenues in Newark on Wednesday, May 25. The improvements are part of a $6 million project to upgrade nine intersections along Park Avenue in Newark, East Orange and Orange. The intersection upgrades are part of the county’s ongoing initiative to modernize infrastructure to enhance pedestrian and motor vehicle safety.

“Traveling along county roads and through these intersections are part of our daily lives. We use county roads to go to work, school and shopping. This project is part of our ongoing initiative to modernize our infrastructure to ensure it meets current traffic demands,” Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr. said, adding that he followed the recommendation of Senate Majority Leader and Deputy Chief of Staff M. Teresa Ruiz to have new traffic signal equipment installed at this intersection. “Park Avenue is one of the busiest county roads in Essex, providing east to west access. The high volume of cars traveling this way made it necessary for us to make sure our infrastructure here meets the current traffic demand.”

“The danger that existed here was extraordinary with parents dropping off their children and students walking to school. I’m so happy the improvements are here now to protect children and their families. The students now have some additional protection because of the lights,” Ruiz said.

“This is part of the county’s commitment to reinforce safe passages to schools. The traffic signal at this intersection will ensure a safer walk to Franklin School for our students,” Newark North Ward Councilman Anibal Ramos said.

“This has always been a challenging intersection ever since I came to Franklin School 17 years ago. We are very appreciative of the county making this happen,” said Franklin School Principal Amy Panitch, who was joined at the event by members of the school’s Student Safety Patrol.

The equipment includes LED traffic signals, modern poles, high-visibility crosswalks and roadway striping, and pedestrian countdown timers that can be activated by pushing the crossing button. LED lights are brighter, easier to see, more energy efficient and last longer than traditional bulbs. Sidewalks, curbs and roadway pavement was replaced only where it was disturbed by the construction or broken. The signals also are outfitted with GPS clocks to ensure they remain coordinated with other traffic signals along Park Avenue.

The new traffic signals installed at the intersection of Park and Mount Prospect avenues are part of a larger traffic signal improvement project that also includes eight other intersections in Orange, East Orange and Newark. The other intersections are where Park Avenue meets: Garside Avenue in Newark, Ridge Street in Newark, Parker Street in Newark, 19th Street in East Orange, Lincoln Street in East Orange, North Clinton Street in East Orange, North Day Street in Orange and Cleveland Street in Orange.

NV5 from Parsippany received a professional services contract for $168,262 to design the upgrades at all locations. Assuncao Brothers Inc. from Edison was awarded a publicly bid contract for $4,349,263 to perform the construction work. Pennoni Associates from Newark was awarded a $903,886 contract to provide construction inspection and project management services. The design, construction and construction inspection for each intersection cost about $602,000. Essex County received a grant from the Federal Local Safety Program to fund the project. The Essex County Department of Public Works monitored the project to answer questions and prevent delays.

  County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr., Essex County DPW, Franklin Elementary School, Pedestrian Safety, Teresa Ruiz

TAP Into Another Town’s News:

Passaic County to Host 1st Book Festival

PASSAIC COUNTY, NJ – The County of Passaic, in conjunction with the PALS Plus Library Consortium, presents the first Passaic County Book Festival at Weasel Brook Park on Saturday, June 4^th from 11:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

The book festival is a full-day event that aims to bring awareness to literary arts through exchanging ideas, encouragement of continued research, creative expression, and the promotion of local libraries. This event will feature over fifty (50) local authors, scholars, and poets across every genre. This event will include author meet and greets, moderated author panels, arts and crafts, food and refreshments, poetry sessions, story time for children, reading to dogs, and live acoustic music.

“The Board of County Commissioners is excited for the launch of Passaic County’s inaugural Book Festival at Weasel Brook Park,” stated County Commissioner Director Bruce James. “The written word is a treasure for children and adults. We’re thrilled to have the partnership of PALS Plus Library Consortium on this great community event.”

PALS Plus is a consortium of 30 public, and academic libraries located in New Jersey’s Passaic, Essex, and Hudson counties. Their libraries share resources to better serve the needs of their diverse communities.

“Connecting readers and books is one of the things librarians do every day, and no one does it better. The Passaic County Book Festival is taking it one step further. We’ll be connecting readers, books, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 writers,” said Luca Manna, Executive Director of PALS Plus. “We are honored to be partnering with the County of Passaic to bring this inaugural festival to Clifton, New Jersey. We hope to see Weasel Brook Park filled with people on June 4^th.”

“We couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to partner with the Passaic County Department of Cultural and Historic Affairs to bring the residents of Passaic County access to authors, writers, and a multitude of activities for every age,” stated Linda Hoffman, President of PALS Plus. “We hope that this inaugural event will be an engaging experience for festival goers, and participants, making it the first of many more to come in the future.”

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NEWARK, NJ — On Thursday, May 19, the Essex County Board of County Commissioners held its annual Jewish Heritage Month event. This year, the board recognized Rabbi Max Edwards of Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston; Caren L. Freyer, regional public affairs manager at PSEG; and Jill Hirsch, district director for U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who attended the ceremony.

“We look forward to this event every year as it gives us an opportunity to recognize one of the many communities that contribute to our county’s greatest strength — the diversity of our people,” Commissioner President Wayne L. Richardson said. “Last year, due to COVID-19 gathering restrictions, our Jewish heritage event was held virtually. Thankfully, through the diligent work of our county leadership, we are now able to resume holding events in person.”

Hirsch oversees the operations of Sherrill’s 11th Congressional District office and supervises constituent and political outreach. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with honors and earning a joint degree in law and social work from Washington University in St. Louis, Hirsch started her career in the child welfare field focusing on adoption. During her time as a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Society, she represented children in abuse, neglect, custody and guardianship cases, and worked on the Education Advocacy Project, a grant-funded project that provides early intervention and special education advocacy for foster children with developmental delays.

“This is truly an honor that Jill deserves,” Sherrill said at the event. “She agonizes for hours over casework and people we need to help, and New Jersey would not run the same without her.”

Prior to his rabbinic ordination from Hebrew College Rabbinical School in Newton, Mass., Edwards received a Master’s of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Bachelor of Arts from Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minn. In his role at B’nai Abraham, aside from service leading, regular teaching and providing pastoral care, he has worked with his clergy colleagues to increase the community’s role in social justice causes. He is currently working with Refugee Assistance Partners New Jersey to explore options for refugee resettlement in the Livingston area.

Freyer provides strategic communications, problem solving, public policy support and regular testimony at commissioner and town council hearings on behalf of PSEG. Additionally, she manages local relationships with public officials and stakeholders to support the PSEG regional public affairs team. During her career in the energy sector, she has held a variety of leadership roles, including: vice president of governmental relations with Parsons Brinckerhoff; manager of state governmental relations with Ebasco Services; commissioner and vice chairperson of the Essex County Utilities Authority; and energy analyst with the New Jersey State Department of Energy. She is also a member of several civic and community-based organizations, including the Mental Health Association of Morris and Essex County; the World Trade Center Scholarship Fund; the Newark Workforce Development Board; and the New Jersey Business Alliance.

Rabbi David Vaisberg of Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston delivered prayers during the occasion, and the audience was captivated by the musical talents of Cantor Peri Smilow of Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield.

  Essex County Board of County Commissioners, Mikie Sherrill, PSEG, Temple B’nai Abraham, Temple Ner Tamid

© Ed Murray/nj.com/TNS People received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck, N.J. December, 21, 2020

New Jersey on Friday reported 4,145 COVID-19 confirmed positive tests and 14 deaths as federal officials continue to recommend people where masks indoors in 11 of the state’s 21 counties due to “high” transmission rates.

The state’s seven-day average for confirmed cases was 3,725 on Friday, down 7% from a week ago and up 88% from a month ago.

The statewide rate of transmission for Friday was 1.08. When the transmission rate is over 1, that means each new case is leading to at least one additional case and the outbreak is expanding.

There were 865 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases reported at 70 of the state’s 71 hospitals as of Thursday night. One hospital did not report data. Hospitalizations still remain significantly lower than when they peaked at 6,089 on Jan. 10 during the Omicron wave.

There were at least 172 people discharged in the 24-hour period ending Thursday, according to state data. Of those hospitalized, 106 were in intensive care and 43 were on ventilators.

The positivity rate for tests conducted on Sunday, the most recent day with available data, was 18.87%.

The state on Friday also reported 1,149 probable cases from rapid antigen testing at medical sites.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now lists 11 New Jersey counties with “high” transmission rates — Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cape May, Gloucester, Mercer, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Salem and Sussex. Those in high-risk areas are recommended to wear a mask indoors in public and on public transportation and stay up-to-date on vaccinations, according to the CDC.

Ten counties are in the medium risk category: Bergen, Cumberland, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Passaic, Somerset, Union and Warren. Masks are not recommended in the medium and low regions.

TOTAL NUMBERS

New Jersey has reported 2,043,979 total confirmed COVID-19 cases out of more than 17.7 million PCR tests conducted in the more than two years since the state reported its first known case March 4, 2020.

The Garden State has also recorded 337,194 positive antigen or rapid tests, which are considered probable cases. And there are numerous cases that have likely never been counted, including at-home positive tests that are not included in the state’s numbers.

The state of 9.2 million residents has reported 33,678 COVID-19 deaths — 30,615 confirmed fatalities and 3,063 probable.

New Jersey has the seventh-most coronavirus deaths per capita in the U.S. — behind Mississippi, Arizona, Oklahoma, Alabama, Tennessee and West Virginia — as of the latest data reported May 17. Last summer, the state still had the most deaths per capita in the country.

The latest numbers follow a major study that revealed even a mild case of COVID-19 can significantly affect the brain. Long COVID — the term commonly used to describe symptoms stemming from the virus long after a person no longer tests positive — has been found to affect between 10% and 30% of those who contract the infection, regardless of whether they have a mild or serious case.

VACCINATION NUMBERS

More than 6.91 million of the 8.46 million eligible people who live, work or study in New Jersey have received the initial course of vaccinations and more than 7.8 million have received a first dose since vaccinations began here on Dec. 15, 2020.

More than 3.79 million people in the state eligible for boosters have received one. That number may rise after the FDA on Tuesday approved booster shots for healthy children between the ages of 5 and 11. U.S. regulators authorized the booster for kids hoping an extra vaccine dose will enhance their protection as infections once again creep upward.

SCHOOL AND LONG-TERM CARE NUMBERS

For the week ending May 15, with about 56.4% of schools reporting data, another 11,135 COVID-19 cases were reported among staff (3,008) and students (8,127) across New Jersey’s schools.

Since the start of the academic year, there have been 125,550 students and 37,197 school staff members who have contracted COVID-19 in New Jersey, though the state has never had more than two-thirds of the school districts reporting data in any week.

The state provides total student and staff cases separately from those deemed to be in-school transmission, which is narrowly defined as three or more cases linked through contact tracing.

New Jersey has reported 876 total in-school outbreaks, including 6,234 cases among students and staff. That includes 69 new outbreaks in the latest weekly report ending May 23. The state reported 82 in-school outbreaks the previous week.

At least 9,113 of the state’s COVID-19 deaths have been among residents and staff members at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, according to state data.

There were active outbreaks at 343 facilities, resulting in 3,751 current cases among residents and 3,489 cases among staff, as of the latest data.

GLOBAL NUMBERS

As of Friday, there have been more than 527 million COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, according to Johns Hopkins University, and more than 6.28 million people died due to the virus.

The U.S. has reported the most cases (more than 83.8 million) and deaths (at least 1,004,156) of any nation.

There have been more than 11.48 billion vaccine doses administered globally.

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Deion Johnson may be reached at djohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DeionRJohhnson

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