Tuesday, January 24, 2012
CHRISTMAS IS OVER
Found a worker taking down the Christmas lights from the big tree at Ricalton Square in Maplewood Village today.
DID COUNTY CHIEF MISUSE CAMPAIGN FUNDS?
Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo Sunday said he will amend his campaign finance reports to specifically disclose how he has spent money donated to his campaigns over the past several years.
In a four-month period last year, DiVincenzo used campaign funds to pay for more than 100 meals, 28 golf games and airfare for a planned trip to Puerto Rico, according to a Star-Ledger review of his campaign finance reports. Since late 2002, DiVincenzo has racked up about $250,000 in charges to his personal credit cards, then paid the bill with his campaign account.
Itemized lists of the charges were not included in his reports. Instead, they were labeled only as a lump sum payment to the credit card company identified as "food/travel" or "various expenses." According to regulations by the state Election Law Enforcement Commission, candidates who use personal credit cards are to treat them as loans and must report "the purpose of the purchase, including a specific itemization of the goods or services acquired."
Monday, January 23, 2012
CRIME DOWN IN TOWN?
The streets of Maplewood were safer in 2011.
Police reported a sharp drop in burglaries that contributed to an overall 8.9 percent decrease in major crimes.
Homicides and car thefts also decreased, said police Chief Robert J. Cimino Jan. 11 when releasing crime statistics. Cimino lauded the work of the officers in the department, and cited the benefits of intelligence sharing with other police agencies.
To Cimino, the “biggest, most dramatic drop” was a 39-percent decline in burglaries — to 64 in 2011, compared with 106 in 2010.
“We have the officers out making checks and inspections of areas where we either anticipate crime may occur from certain intelligence that we may gather, or where there has been a crime already,” said Cimino in an interview at police headquarters last week.
He said that if a home has been targeted in a neighborhood, the department will send officers to that area to check for suspicious activity.
Read more HERE
BARISTANET SHOWS US SOME LOVE
My Favorite Place: Joe Strupp’s Love Letter to Maplewood
BY Carolyn Maynard-Parisi | MONDAY, JAN 23, 2012 10:30AM | COMMENTS (0)
Sunday, January 22, 2012
TC AIMS FOR LOW TAX INCREASE
PATCH reports:
Maplewood's elected leaders agreed that they would aim for a tax increase of 2% or below for the 2012 budget — in keeping with the state-mandated cap and eschewing any banked cap or exceptions that the town is allowed.
Township administration said that the task was possible but presented some challenges.
As Township Administrator Joseph Manning noted at the beginning of the Town's first budget meeting on Saturday, Jan. 21, the town faces some fiscal constraints.
MAPLEWOOD WOMAN HIGHLIGHTED IN WSJ STORY ON WORKING ELDERLY
Next time you go to the Maplewood Theater, see if you can find 87-year-old Erika Weidner, who is a ticket-taker and among those in this week's Wall Street Journal story on working seniors:
After retiring in 2003, 87-year-old Erika Weidner recently landed a job collecting tickets at a movie theater in Maplewood, N.J., making $7.25 an hour, four hours a week. She wants a second job but worries about her stamina.
Ms. Weidner grew up in a "cold-water flat" in nearby Millburn before moving to Los Angeles to work for TV and movie writers. She later sold crypts for Mount Sinai Memorial Parks and Mortuaries in Southern California and thought the $28,000 she set aside in the company's retirement-savings plan would be enough, along with Social Security."I'm just going to see how it works out," said Ms. Weidner, a former secretary, saleswoman and professional singer. "If I have to work in the daytime, as well as night, I don't know what effect that will have on me physically."
But the money went fast—to support a late sister and for medical expenses not covered by Medicare during a battle with colon cancer in 2010.
These days, Ms. Weidner's rent devours all but $31 of her $1,566 monthly Social Security check. She said she "allows" herself $15 a month for gas.
In her youth, Ms. Weidner dreamed of being an opera singer and spent her spare money on singing lessons.
Her younger sister, a professional dancer who followed her to California, persuaded Ms. Weidner to move back to New Jersey in the early 1990s. She worked as a secretary for a decade until her last employer retired.
After her sister died in 2008, it got harder for Ms. Weidner to keep up with the bills without her sister's $500-a-month contribution. The two women, who never married, had lived together for years.
Ms. Weidner recently started getting food stamps. Her brother, a retired teacher, buys food for her three cats. While walking in downtown Maplewood last month, she saw a "Help Wanted" sign at the theater and was hired several days later.
Ms. Weidner enjoys the job though she didn't like having to pay for her own uniform: a black turtleneck, shoes and shirt. She said she would like to work longer hours but the theater has only one showing the nights she works.
Ms. Weidner reminisced about her years working in Hollywood and would prefer a typing job.
She recalled welcoming actor Robert Redford into a studio office. She asked Mr. Redford to remove his sunglasses so she could see his "beautiful eyes in person," she recalled. He did.
For now, Ms. Weidner is brushing up her secretarial skills by helping type her brother's memoirs. She said she was keeping her eye out for more "help wanted" signs.
"Even if it's $5 an hour," she said, "it will be good."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)