Belleville residents blame Bloomfield businesses for flooding

From Bloomfield Life:

While the mayor and council argued they have no say over Bloomfield businesses(Glendale Cemetery and Forest Hill golf course), Hinton insisted that the cemetery's land closest the river is technically Belleville. Mayor Ray Kimble subsequently agreed to send Belleville code employees to Bloomfield, to issue violation notices.

Clark's Pond

Harvest Fest

The fun continues at the 19th Annual Bloomfield Harvest Fest on Sunday 11 AM - 6PM..
Yhe Entertainment schedule can be found here.

What's New on Bloomfield Ave?

It wasn't the traffic accident on Wednesday that temporarily blocked drivers in both directions. (A westbound car had crashed into
the front yard of a Glen Ridge Resident on the corner of Clark St.) It wasn't the scratch and sniff look to one of Bloomfield's finest police cars. Your're correct if you noticed the new banners for Bloomfield's 2012 Bicentennial festivities. Bloomfield history buffs can make the case for a Bloomfield Tricentenial as well.

Bloomfield College

Those Little Red Schoolroom Containers

To deal with overcrowding at Franklin School this year, the Bloomfield school district has brought in three trailers to serve as temporary classrooms, each with a 30-student capacity. Even with a fresh coat of red paint, the windowless cubicles still look more like industrial containers than school rooms.

Police Chief Chris Goul to Speak to Bloomfield Residents Saturday

Bloomfield Township Police Chief Christopher Goul will be the guest speaker.at Saturday's 10am meeting of Bloomfield's Neighborhood Association Committee. Goul was confirmed by the Town Council in January.

The meeting format is usually a brief overview by the guest then questions from residents.It will take place in The Mayor's conference room in the second floor of the Police Building at the corner of Montgomery and Franklin streets,

The BNAC is a loosely organized grassroots network of Bloomfield residents which meets bi-monthly to share interests, concerns and events. Anyone can attend meetings. The BNAC sponsors candidate forums and periodically invites local leaders to meet with residents.

T-Mobile Still Undecided on Cell Tower Plan, But ZB May Force the Issue on Thursday

The attorney for T-Mobile, James Pryor, has again requested the Bloomfield Zoning Board carry T-Mobile’s application to build a 120-foot monopole on the corner of Broad Street and Bay Avenue for “one last time.”
In a letter to the board dated September 9, 2011, Pryor stated that T-Mobile is “still evaluating this site based on current circumstances,” and requested that the Board schedule a special meeting to address the application on either October 13 or October 20, 2011, as the regular Zoning Board meeting agenda on October 6 is already full. Applicants requesting a special meeting of the board are required to pay for the expense of the additional meeting.
T-Mobile will provide legal notice for whichever date is selected, and the applicant will be prepared to either provide testimony at the meeting or request dismissal of the application at that time. The letter also waived the time constraint on the board to act on the application to October 31.

However the leader of the neighborhood residents opposed to the tower spoke with the secretary of the Bloomfield Zoning Board to confirm the Baristanet report. She reaffirmed that that T-Mobile is required to appear this Thursday September 15, 2011 at 7:30pm Bloomfield Town Hall to let the Zoning Board know whether they choose to proceed with the application.

Tuesday 5:PM Update:
Bloomfield Zoning Board Attorney confirms that that Mr. Pryor, attorney for T-Mobile will not be at this meeting and that the letter sent to the Zoning Board on September 9 will be read into record. For a copy of this letter please email: nobroadbaycelltower@gmail.com The zoning board is voting this Thursday to either accept T-Mobile's adjournment or not.

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The Doggon Biggest Pooch Parade in Brookdale

United Against Puppy Mills (UAPM) held a Puppy Mill Awareness Concert, Sound for the Hounds, in Brookdale Park today. This event was geared toward raising awareness about puppy mills and enlightening the public about how to put an end to the industry.

Along with many prominent jazz performances, the event also featured a Dog Look-a-Like Contest, sponsored by Rescue Ink; rescue groups representing many different dogs breeds; vendors; and much interbreed networking.

Foley Field Reopens

First game on the new astroturf....Bloomfield 42 - Belleville 7...Go Bengals!! A video clip can be seen here.
Bloomfield's Fitness Guru, Steve Crooks, wrote up his impressions of the event for his forthcoming blog:

This is what it looked like and felt like to me...
Like they say, "If you build it, they will come." Boy, those Friday-night lights were outstanding, weren't they? There could not have been a more perfect game to open not only the season, but the whole new era of Foley Field. I mean, it sounded like a great game; but to be honest, from where I was standing I couldn't actually see much of the action. And besides, there was as much action, energy and excitement in the crowd as there was on the field. It was everything vibrant and vital about a town like Bloomfield, people of all ages and shapes and sizes and walks of life. Kids big and small, engaging in that kind of life-celebration that, I'm sorry, but an I-Phone or a video game or texting your BFF just can't provide. Older folks with that look on their faces you only see in churches or movie theaters sometimes, as if something has been born and reborn, right in front of their eyes; something they never really believed they'd see again.

And more than that, there was a clear and visible lesson for our times: do the best with what you've got. Use a table for a ticket booth; use a tent for concessions. And the stands? Well, there'll certainly be more than just rented aluminum bleachers in Foley's future, but hey, as a fitness professional, I think people sit too darned much anyway. And to be honest, without any real stands to plant themselves in, there was a lot more mingling and neighbor-to-neighbor socializing going on.

Galvanized like a thrilling human chain of community, in the bleachers, against the fence (where my son and I first tied our red ribbons on a rainy Sunday morning a couple of March's ago), out along the ticket line, through the local blocks and parking lots, and iron-straight all the way up the column of Broad Street traffic; it was everything I could've imagined from the time I started imagining the revitalized Foley Field at all, how it would bring together and anchor all the diverse districts and neighborhoods and citizens of our fascinating town. (My 'social barometer' for the evening? The shopping-cart-collecting kid I spoke to later on that night at the Brookdale Shop-Rite, who said simply, "No one was here!")....

Steve's complete post can now be found on Baristanet.

Welcome to Foreclosuredale

Broad St residents paid scant attention to the home being boarded up a couple of days before the arrival of Hurricane Irene. But when the plywood windows stayed on for days after Irene's departurbanker sign was down, a new reality set in. The cozy corner cape had been for sale for months, but now the Caldwell Banker Realty sign had come down. The unsuccessful Short Sale was now a Foreclosure.

After receiving several complaints, councilman NIck Joanow prodded Bloomfield's Director of Code Enforcement, Glen Dominick to convey the residents' concerns to the mortgage holder.

Dominick took a cautious approach:

" …while it is not what I would like to see I do not recommend we ask the mortgage companies on this location or any other to alter their attempts to secure these structures it create less problems for us and protects the condition of the home to the best it can in order to insure the best possible potential for a sale. The Township potentially will face great numbers of properties being boarded up and as you are aware this national epidemic is not something we can cure on a local level it creates a great burden on our services and this method is one way of greatly reducing our burden. Once I compile a database of the foreclosed properties I can begin to formulate the contact information on the lien holders then I have a plan for the general steps that I will request of the banks in order to secure and maintain properties such as this."

The issue of maintaining property values in the face of an avalanche of impending foreclosures has no easy solutions. Neighborhood awareness is a good start. Just making sure that vacant homes don't attract vandals with accumulated trash or overflowing mail boxes can make a difference.

Plans for a Town Hall meeting on the subject have been put on hold.

This Wednesday, the plywood was taken down.

Brookdale Park

New Rules for Golf Drivers?

If corporations are people, are carts considered pedestrians when they drive across a crosswalk? Just wondering...

Where Bloomfield Gets It's Excess Water [Video]

In Search of the source of my basement pond. Since we're up the hill from Broad St., most of our runoff was donated by Glen Ridge. Shot this late Sunday Morning on Essex Sr..