The demonstration in Maplewood coincided with the People's Climate March in Washington, D.C.

MAPLEWOOD -- Demands for action to fight climate change rang out Saturday on Springfield Avenue as activists marked the 100th day of a presidency they say has been strikingly hostile to the environment.

The rally of approximately 150 people was a sister march to the People's Climate March in Washington, D.C., and hundreds of similar protests around the world in support of strong environmental regulations and investment in clean energy. 

"We're very concerned about all the changes that (President Donald) Trump has made to the progress we were making," said John Howlett, of Maplewood, as he walked down the street with a sign. "It's like everything is being reversed now." 

Howlett's wife, Rosemary Howlett, said the pair had not participated in any other protests, but they were "terrified" about the state the Earth would be in for their grandchildren's grandchildren if action were not taken to reverse climate change. 

"This got to be too important to miss out," she said.

Marchers walked about half a mile down Springfield Avenue to Maplecrest Park as cars honked in solidarity and organizers led chants of "No exchanges, no refunds. Climate change can't be undone." 

Activists organized similar marches Saturday in six other municipalities across New Jersey.

Trump last month signed an executive order that would reverse the Clean Power Plan, a rule meant to force power plants to cut their carbon dioxide emissions. He also issued an executive order this week to start eliminating restrictions on offshore oil and gas drilling, and his administration is considering renegotiating the Paris Agreement on climate change. 

Millicent Cooley, who came to the Maplewood march from Morristown, said she considers these policies unacceptable. She's anxious about the effects environmental deregulation could have on people's health, and she wants activists to be visible.

"We need to make more regulation, not less," Cooley said. "We need to make the government and many politicians be open about the fact that this is a problem." 

At a rally after the march, South Orange Trustee Walter Clarke expressed frustration with the appointment of Scott Pruitt to be the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and a proposed budget cut of $2.4 billion to the agency. 

Clarke urged the crowd to tell their governmental representatives they disagree and to seek respectful, productive conversations with people who hold opposite views.

"Engage them," Clarke said. "You don't have to wag your finger at them. That doesn't work." 

Alyson Miller, of Springfield, brought her 9-year-old son, Jonah Miller, to the march. She said she participated in the Women's March on Washington in January and wanted to involve Jonah in her next rally to demonstrate democracy for him. 

"This is something that really threatens his generation," Miller said.

After the rally, organizer Lillian Hawkins said she had been motivated to lead the march by worry about the effects that inaction on climate change could have on her young kids. "I want to leave the world a better place for them," she said.

"I want the future to be safe and healthy."

Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook. 

Shooting occurred Saturday afternoon.

EAST ORANGE -- An off-duty Jersey City police officer shot and killed an unidentified person in East Orange Saturday afternoon, prosecutors said.

The shooting occurred around 1 p.m. on the 200 block of South Clinton Street, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Carolyn A. Murray said in a statement.

The officer was not injured, according to Murray, who described the deceased only as an "unidentified male."

The prosecutor's office did not immediately release more information about the circumstances leading up to the shooting, which was under investigation by the agency's Professional Standards Bureau.

Police remained at the scene Saturday evening, not far from a commercial area on Central Avenue.

Man shot, killed by Newark police pulled gun, crashed car, document reveals

Investigators appeared to be focused on a damaged silver car stopped on the mostly residential block. The car had some front end damage.

Several people standing behind the police line said they heard around six gunshots earlier Saturday before officers flooded the area.

Jersey City spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said Essex County investigators were leading the probe. 

"Based on the preliminary facts provided to Jersey City, the officer acted with regards to his safety and the safety of others around him," the spokeswoman said in an email. "At this time, we will not be changing his duty status pending the results of the investigation."

Morrill did not provide more details about the shooting. 

Authorities declined to release more information on the investigation.

Anyone with information was asked to call Essex County investigators at 862-520-3700.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc and on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Injured man allegedly involved in gunfight fled to Newark, according to authorities.

Barry Edwards (Photo: Essex County jail) 

NEWARK -- A man wounded by police in Pennsylvania after a shootout there falsely claimed he was shot in Newark, authorities said Friday.

Newark police were called to a report of a gunshot victim around 1:30 a.m. Thursday at University Hospital, according to city Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose.

The injured man, Barry Edwards, 31, told officers he was shot at South 20th Street and Springfield Avenue following an argument, authorities said. Detectives, however, discovered that Evans was actually shot in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, more than 100 miles from Newark, cops said.

Newark police charged Edwards with making a false report to police.

In the Pennsylvania shooting, police heard gunfire late Wednesday as shooters in two vehicles opened fire at each other, according to the The Citizens' Voice newspaper of Wilkes-Barre.

Police chased one of the vehicles before it crashed into a parked car, according to arrest reports cited by the newspaper. Edwards allegedly jumped from the wrecked vehicle and ran toward a police officer while carrying a gun.

The officer first managed to hit Edwards with his car door before he fired at the gunman, according to the report. Edwards suffered a non life-threatening hip wound in the confrontation, the report said. It was unclear how Edwards left the scene.

A Wilkes-Barre police spokeswoman did not have details on the incident Friday.

Edwards faces charges in Pennsylvania, including aggravated assault of a police officer, the newspaper reported. Records show he remained held at the Essex County jail Saturday.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc and on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Several face weapons charges.

Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose (File photo) 

NEWARK -- Police arrested 48 people, seized seven guns and more than $10,000 worth of drugs as part of a four day city-wide crackdown, authorities said Saturday.

The arrests included 11 weapons possession charges and 25 others for drug offenses, Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose announced. The police operation came in response to crime complaints from residents.

Ambrose noted the support from residents, who reported suspicious activity to police and said similar operations would continue.

"I am proud of the results our officers achieved and grateful to the residents who partnered with us," the public safety director said in a statement. "It's a shame that so many illegal guns flow into our city. In the past two weeks, we have made 90 arrests, with several suspects being gang members or associates, and we recovered 10 guns from our streets. This translates to saved lives and safer neighborhoods."

Among the arrests, police said they seized 630 decks of heroin, 151 vials and bags of cocaine, 35 plastic bags of marijuana and 64 pills between Tuesday and Friday. Authorities also recovered $2,723 in profits from drug transactions.

Man killed by off-duty Jersey City cop in East Orange, prosecutor says

Police identified the people facing weapons-related charges as Shaquan Hyland, 21, Najie Barkley, 25, Najee Moore, 20, Marquel O'Neal,18, Barry Little, 47, a 17-year-old boy, and a 16-year-old, Zahkai Perry, 19, and Carols Sanchez, 18, all of Newark, along with Xavier Williams, 27, and Takia Reid, 31, both of East Orange.

Hyland and Barkely were also charged with drug offenses, including distributing narcotics within 1,000 feet of a school and 500 feet of a public housing complex.

Ambrose said some of those arrested in the operation included a Tennessee man and residents of Glen Ridge, Linden and East Orange.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc and on Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Civil rights lawsuits brought by public workers have tripled in 15 years, records show

The legal settlements and jury awards have come rapid-fire, month after month, year after year: $400,000 to the public works employee who claimed a hostile work environment; $2.1 million to the fire inspector whom a jury found had been harassed; $200,000 to the former police dispatcher who said she was improperly fired; $3.65 million to the NJ Transit workers who said they faced racial discrimination.

New Jersey, a state where property taxes and the cost of living rank among the highest in the nation, is increasingly hemorrhaging taxpayer cash as more and more public workers file lawsuits against the government agencies that employ them.

By one conservative estimate, the costs associated with such suits, including the legal fees to fight them, now top $100 million annually, a threefold increase over the past 15 years.

The payouts have strained budgets across the state, in some cases forcing municipalities to borrow, and have diverted cash that towns and agencies might have used to improve services or provide property tax relief.

Scores of municipalities have passed resolutions urging the Legislature to take some form of action, principally a cap on the staggering legal fees that result from the suits. But New Jersey's legislators, many of whom are practicing lawyers, have declined to take up the cause. A handful of bills has been introduced. None has passed.

The result, according to attorneys and government officials desperate to stem the losses, is a litigate-first culture in which even minor slights are elevated to the courts, in some cases by employees who smell a payday and in others by plaintiff lawyers who stand to reap hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, in fees.

David Grubb, executive director of the largest joint insurance fund in New Jersey, estimates public worker lawsuits cost taxpayers more than $100 million a year. (Courtesy David Grubb) 

"We've created a system akin to Frankenstein's monster where we're motivating anyone with any kind of squabble to litigate to the hilt in hopes of winning money," said David Grubb, executive director of the Municipal Excess Liability Joint Insurance Fund (known colloquially as the MEL), an independent government agency that coordinates pool insurance coverage for numerous municipalities, along with authorities and some school boards.

"The reason, frankly, is attorneys looking for fees. In the legal profession, it's called winning the lottery," Grubb said. "This is all at taxpayer expense, and unless we do something about it, it's going to get more and more expensive."

Few people have a wider knowledge of the government's exposure to lawsuits than Grubb, who served as a deputy insurance commissioner in the 1980s. In 1990, he was named executive director of the MEL, created to lower insurance costs for its members.

It is essentially a giant self-insurance pool that works with 19 regional joint insurance funds and covers about half of New Jersey's municipal workforce.

Over the years, Grubb said, he has watched as plaintiff-friendly judges, expansive court rulings and well-intentioned laws broadening employee protections have combined to make New Jersey a singularly attractive place to file suit.

"Other states don't have this problem to the same extent," Grubb said. "It is much easier to prevail in New Jersey in these actions that it is anywhere else."

No single agency tracks the number of public-employee lawsuits or the costs associated with them. The most reliable snapshot comes from the MEL, where Grubb had his staff chart losses from claims dating to 2002.

That year, the MEL paid out $5.3 million in claims related to public-worker suits. By 2009, the losses had rocketed to $15.5 million. The claims then dipped before climbing back to $15 million in 2016, Grubb said.

But that figure is only a fraction of the cost across New Jersey.

For every dollar spent by the MEL, Grubb said, municipalities that work with the agency typically pay out a dollar of their own for back and future wages not covered by insurance.

That brings the cost to an estimated $30 million annually.

Because the MEL insures just 50 percent of municipal workers -- it does not, for example, insure the state, large cities, counties and most school boards -- Grubb said it a reasonable assumption that public-worker lawsuits are costing taxpayers as much as $120 million every year.

William Kearns Jr. is acutely aware of the financial burdens placed on towns and cities by such suits.

A veteran municipal attorney in Burlington County and general counsel for the New Jersey League of Municipalities, Kearns said the number of public-employee suits has "mushroomed immensely" in recent years, with deep consequences for taxpayers.

Towns are viewed as low-hanging fruit, an easy payday, he said, because of a misconception that government has "an unlimited deep pocket."

"But these are taxpayers," Kearns said. "They don't have unlimited deep pockets. And people say the insurance company pays it. Well, baloney. Whether it's an insurance company or towns joined together, it's still coming out of taxpayer dollars. You're paying the premiums."

Who's filing suit?

The plaintiffs represent a cross-section of the public workforce. They are employed by the state, by municipalities and by authorities. Police officers are among the most litigious, accounting for more than half of the lawsuits brought against government entities by their own workers, Grubb said.

Some employees claimed they were improperly passed over for promotion. Others accused superiors of racial or sexual discrimination. Plaintiffs have complained of verbal abuse, arbitrary transfers and punishment for exposing wrongdoing.

The largest settlements and awards reflect egregious or systemic bad behavior by government employees toward subordinates.

The state's $3.65 million settlement with seven African-American NJ Transit employees last June came after the workers accused a former supervisor of regularly using racial epithets and of once placing a makeshift noose around an employee's neck.

They said they also had been paid less than white co-workers. In addition to the settlement, the state paid an outside law firm more than $1.5 million.

The settlement came four years after the state paid paid an even bigger amount -- $5.8 million -- to a group of African-American NJ Transit police officers who faced similar discrimination.

But for every clear-cut case of race or gender discrimination, municipal officials say, there are additional suits sparked by accidental rules breaches, internal rivalries or boorish behavior.

In Washington Township, Gloucester County, a lawsuit filed in December began with a sneeze.

A township police lieutenant, Patrick Gurcsik, sneezed into his hand, and, apparently thinking it would be a good practical joke, wiped his other hand on the back of an officer seated in front of him.

According to an NJ Advance Media account of the incident, the gag-gone-wrong nearly sparked a physical confrontation and led to a five-day unpaid suspension and a year of probation for Gurcsik. A hearing officer termed the incident "abhorrent behavior by a superior officer to an inferior officer."

Gurcsik, in turn, filed suit against his department, seeking his five days of lost wages and attorney fees. The case is pending.

The high cost of legal fees

The primary vehicles for the onslaught of litigation are the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination and the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, the state's whistleblower law. Both are considered among the broadest and strongest in the country in terms of protecting workers from harassing or retaliatory behavior, legal experts say.

Under the laws, if plaintiffs win any part of their case before a jury, the losing party -- in this case, government -- must pay the winner's legal fees, a process known as fee-shifting. The practice is meant to give lawyers an incentive to take on important civil rights cases for clients who might not have the wherewithal to pay a big retainer.

But often, the fees claimed by attorneys have no proportionality to the awards won by those who file suit.

Consider the case involving a Randolph police officer, Melissa Bailey, who claimed in a lawsuit she was subjected to harassment, retaliation and gender discrimination by her chief after she questioned the scoring process on a sergeant's exam.

In December, a jury awarded her $50,000 for emotional distress and $37,403 for wages she lost during a leave of absence.

One month later, Richard J. Murray, one of the lawyers who argued Bailey's case, gave Randolph his bill: $2.2 million, plus tens of thousands of dollars more in court costs. A second attorney working on the officer's behalf asked for $379,000, court records show.

Taken together, the fees the lawyers submitted to a judge for approval are nearly 30 times what Bailey was awarded in court, a ratio some call outlandish.

Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris), seen here in 2014, said taxpayers need better protection from big attorney fees when government entities lose lawsuits. (File photo) 

"If you've got a case where someone spent more than $2 million for $87,000 in damages, that case should never have been brought," said Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R-Morris), who last year sponsored a bill to bar punitive damages against public entities and public employees. "Sometimes cases are so small they're not worth pursuing."

Citing the hardship on Randolph and its taxpayers, Carroll said, "you're looking at a big part of the entire annual budget being asked for by one attorney in one case."

"Right now we have provisions to protect the employee," he said. "Where is the provision to protect the taxpayer?"

Carroll added he believes attorney fees brought under the Law Against Discrimination should follow the tradition of non-civil rights cases, in which lawyers typically take home one third of the total award.

Whether Bailey's lawyer is granted all that he requested remains to be seen. Randolph's lawyers are fighting the fee application, and judges routinely reduce fee requests.

But even when fees are reduced, they frequently remain far higher than the awards won in court.

A jury awarded Nicholas DiNizo, a Scotch Plains public works employee, $1,500 after a trial in which he claimed he was harassed and denied a promotion for raising concerns about the town's public works director.

DiNizo's lawyer asked for more than $315,000 in legal fees. In July 2010, a judge reduced the lawyer's fee to $141,905, or 94 times the jury award, court records show.

Finding even that figure excessive, Scotch Plains appealed the award to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. There, a panel of judges ruled against the town in 2011. Under the Law Against Discrimination, the judges wrote, attorneys are entitled to "reasonable" fees, even if those fees far outstrip what a jury awarded to a plaintiff.

"'Reasonable' does not mean 'proportionate,'" the panel ruled. "That DiNizo obtained a modest award of damages does not mean that the attorney's fee award must be commensurately modest."

A similar scenario played out in Deal, the seaside Monmouth County borough, after a police officer, Michael Rapolla, claimed in a whistleblower lawsuit he was improperly passed over for promotion to sergeant.

Once a jury ruled that Deal had violated the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, the borough and Rapolla's lawyer, Robert Renaud, agreed Deal would pay the officer $50,000 in damages and $21,000 in back pay, court records show.

Fearing the legal bill could top $700,000, the borough's attorney, along with the MEL, reached a settlement in 2009 to pay Renaud $450,000 in legal fees, or nearly six times what his client received, the agreement shows.

For years, town officials and the League of Municipalities have been lobbying the Legislature for help, proposing hard caps on legal fees and more flexible solutions that would award fees on a sliding scale.

Under a plan put forward by Eric Harrison -- a lawyer whose Edison-based firm, Methfessel & Werbel, frequently works with the MEL to defend against public-worker suits -- attorney fees would be capped at $150,000 if a jury awarded a plaintiff no more than $50,000. For a jury award up to $200,000, attorney fees would be capped at half a million.

"A graduated scale would give attorneys a disincentive to over-litigate a case out of self-interest," Harrison said. "That's something I've been floating for years, but I haven't spent much time on it lately because I don't give it a snowball's chance in hell. There are so many lawyers in the Legislature and so many people connected to trial lawyers, I don't see it getting anywhere."

A defense of fee-shifting

Neil Mullin has a full-throated response to those who object to high legal fees in public-worker suits: blame the government.

Mullin's Montclair firm, Smith Mullin, has won some of the largest civil rights verdicts and settlements in New Jersey in recent decades, and he has pocketed millions of dollars in legal fees.

He contends it is not plaintiff lawyers like him who prolong cases, driving up litigation costs, but stubborn government lawyers who don't move to settle cases even when it's clear they will lose in court.

"If they defend the case in-house, the deputy attorney generals act as if the taxpayers have no stake in this," Mullin said. "They just litigate and litigate and take the case to trial, and then they turn around and say, 'There should be a cap.'"

Corporate defendants accused in civil rights cases, Mullin said, are far more conscious about the costs of litigation and are quicker to bind a bleeding wound.

In other cases, state and local governments farm out defense work to big, politically connected law firms, which are "very expensive and cost the taxpayers a fortune," he said.

Mullin offered another argument for the status quo, saying that civil rights cases can drag on for years, and if he doesn't win, he doesn't get paid.

"Sometimes I get significant fees," he said, "but it's often after I've risked the farm. I pay for the expert witnesses. I pay for the lawyers on my staff without seeing a dime for years. I'm happy to do it because I believe in fighting for civil rights, and I know I'll get compensated. If they take that away, people won't get lawyers and rights won't get vindicated."

Settlement as self-defense

To Mullin's claim that government lawyers don't settle quickly enough, Grubb, the MEL's executive director, said defense attorneys for public entities are now moving more aggressively to shut down cases, even when they believe they are in the right, to avoid the possibility of enormous legal claims by prevailing lawyers.

"It's the threat hanging over your head," Grubb said. "As a net result, you've got to be pretty firm that you've got a really solid defense before you risk going before a jury. To quote a famous song, 'You've got to know when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.'"

Beyond reaching quicker settlements, Grubb said his agency trains more than 1,500 public officials annually on ways to avoid lawsuits. It includes seminars on ethics, discrimination and employment practices.

The MEL also has created a model employee-practice manual that municipalities and agencies can adopt without having to reinvent the wheel, saving millions of dollars in development costs.

In the end, though, Grubb and others maintain the pace and cost of public worker lawsuits will not ease unless the Legislature places limits on the pot of legal fees available in civil rights cases.

Marcus Rayner, president of the New Jersey Civil Justice Institute, a business trade association that has advocated for a graduated scale on legal fees, said he understands the need to incentivize lawyers to take cases, but he contends the pendulum has swung too far.

"A little too much of something leads to problems, and that's what we're seeing," Rayner said. "It's well-meaning, but it's run amok."

Mark Mueller may be reached at mmueller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkJMueller. Find NJ.com on Facebook. 

Isaiah House, a family and children's shelter in East Orange, is struggling to stay open.

EAST ORANGE -- In the nightmare, Zammeah Bivins-Gibson's phone is ringing off the hook. 

She couldn't make payroll, and her staff members at the homeless shelter are calling to demand their checks. They won't be able to pay their bills, they say, and it's all Bivins-Gibson's fault.

"It feels heavy," she said last month. "It feels like literally something is sitting on you and pushing you down." 

Bivins-Gibson, executive director of Isaiah House, has had a lot of these bad dreams recently. The agency has lost more than $2 million in federal funding since 2013, putting a significant strain on operations, she said.

Isaiah House is the only shelter in East Orange. It provides housing, food, support services and financial aid to people battling unemployment, illness, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy or other crises. The nonprofit also subsidizes rent for people who are homeless, mentally challenged or living with HIV/AIDS.

As the shelter has repeatedly tightened its belt in the past few years, Bivins-Gibson has tried to keep its clients from feeling the loss. She put her staff members on furlough, changed insurance carriers and contracted with cheaper vendors. 

Still, residents have seen signs of the difficulty. The agency is trying to sell a second building that housed 12 teenage girls, some of whom were pregnant. That program is no longer running. 

A lounge on the women's floor of the shelter, meanwhile, was mostly empty for a year after a couch and an armchair got too torn up to use. Bivins-Gibson recently maxed out the organization's credit card to replace the furniture and expects to be reimbursed by a grant. 

Loss of funding

The loss of the $2.1 million in federal Housing and Urban Development grants since 2013 has taken a toll on Isaiah House, which opened in 1988. In addition to closing the shelter's program for teenage girls, Isaiah House ended another program for struggling families, Bivins-Gibson said. 

"The more it gets cut, the more we have to find ways to cut here," she said. "And we don't have many more ways that we can cut."

A spokeswoman for HUD said the agency changed its funding guidelines in 2015 to prioritize supporting organizations that provide permanent housing, as opposed to transitional housing. Although Isaiah House helps pay rent on apartments for certain marginalized groups, its primary function is as a temporary shelter. 

The City of Newark distributes HUD's Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS grants to agencies in Newark and surrounding municipalities, including East Orange.

Vickie Donaldson, the city's director of homeless services, said Newark's HOPWA funding has been decreased by about $1.75 million in the past two years. As a result, she said the city has had to reduce funding to all of its programs that receive HOPWA money, including Isaiah House. 

"As HOPWA is a competitive grant, there is a process engaged in, including proposal reviews, that ultimately determine grant funding decisions," Donaldson wrote in an email.

Bivins-Gibson said closing the shelter is not an option. She said she is a product of East Orange and is far too invested in the agency's success to watch it fail now. 

"My heart is in making sure that we are a viable option for the people in this community who are good people, who are hardworking people, who sometimes just don't have enough," Bivins-Gibson said. "If we are not here to help them, they may not have another option." 

Making Isaiah House a home

Deveon Fleming-Robinson, 25, joined Isaiah House's Brothers with Brothers program for homeless young men in June 2008 after a serious argument with his adoptive mother drew the police to their home. A state social worker helped him move into Isaiah House, which he said last month was like being in a college environment without the academia. 

During his more than three years in Brothers with Brothers, Fleming-Robinson said he bonded with a staff member who taught him the difference between boldness and crudeness, became close with people he felt loved him unconditionally, and made the agency into a home.

When he went to South Dakota for a few weeks during the program, the director of Brothers With Brothers gave him $100 to spend and threw him a going-away party. 

"I couldn't wait to come back," Fleming-Robinson said. 

He went on to spend a year at Fairleigh Dickinson University and later transferred to Kean University, where he graduated in 2016 with a communications degree. Isaiah House has a relationship with Kean and has helped about 10 students gain admission.

Now living in Hillside and focusing simultaneously on improv comedy and paying back his college loans, Fleming-Robinson credits Isaiah House with forming his character. 

"Now I'm not afraid to say when something is wrong or to call out something that's misjudged," Fleming-Robinson said. "When people feel that they don't have a voice, I'm not afraid to stand up with them and say, 'Let's do something about this.'"

'Shelter from the storm'

Despite the agency's financial struggles, Bivins-Gibson said she is hopeful Isaiah House can stay on its feet.

She gets phone calls from former business executives who say they want to help. Encouraging notes arrive in the mail. Her newly appointed board of directors reaches out to their contacts and connects the agency with fresh resources. 

One local woman comes to Isaiah House every month with 15 to 20 bags of groceries, even though she has sometimes struggled to make ends meet herself. 

Although Isaiah House is not a religious organization, its name comes from a biblical verse from the Book of Isaiah that references being "shelter from the storm."

Bivins-Gibson said she is determined to keep the agency functioning that way for community members who may not have anywhere else to go. 

"I have these moments of clarity, and I feel like we've gotten here not by mistake," she said. "So many things have happened that could have been the end of Isaiah House, and we've gotten through them." 

Marisa Iati may be reached at miati@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @Marisa_Iati or on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

A training and recreation center commissioned by the Newark Housing Authority, and a buildings lab at Princeton University were honored with American Architecture Awards

NEWARK -- An airy training center commissioned by the Newark Housing Authority and a building for the study of buildings at Princeton University are among the 79 U.S. winners of this year's American Architecture Awards.

Sponsored by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, the AAAs are among the most prestigious awards in the field of architecture.

"The winning projects are each stunning and provocative new additions to their urban and rural locations--authentic connections to nature and to the very cultures in which they coexist," the Athenaeum said in a statement announcing the winners last month. "The selected projects have a positive psychological effect on the communities in which they are built and in which they serve--every detail looks handcrafted; every facade contextualized; every plan, diagram, and section particularly and exquistely well executed."

New Jersey's two winners are the Newark Housing Authority's Training Recreation Education Center, or TREC, on Ludlow Street near Weequahic Park, and the Princeton University School of Architecture's Embodied Computation Lab.

TREC, designed by Joseph Tattoni, FAIA, of ikon.5 architects in Middlesex Borough, is made up of two triangular structures: one solid-walled and containing recreation, fitness and meditation spaces; and the other glass-walled, with space for classes and community meetings.

"Its transparency conveys a sense of welcome and openness in the community," the Atheraeum said of the building. "The luminous container is a beacon of hope and a pleasant place to gather, learn and play."

Sharon McHugh, director of business development for ikon.5 architects, said she and her colleagues were "thrilled" by the recognition not only of their firm, but of the Training Recreation Education Center, which opened in January.

"We're just thrilled that a light is being shed on a facility that is providing vital services to an under-served community," McHugh said.

Princeton's Embodied Computation Lab was designed by The Living, a New York City firm, as a kind of deliberate work-in-progress, near the site of Buckminster Fuller's first Geosphere. 

"The new building will be an 'open source building' --specifically designed to be rewritten and to evolve over time," Athenaeum said of the rectangular, wood-surfaced lab. "The project includes a flexible plan, an 'incomplete' open frame to host new envelope systems, a 'quick release' facade system to allow swapping and testing of different panels, and a mechanical system with sensors and 'plug-and-play' equipment and heat sources."

The award for the 28,00-square-foot TREC center, whose roughly $10 million cost was covered by federal and state grants, is a bright spot amid dark days for the state's largest housing authority.

The Trump Administration's proposed budget cuts threaten further reductions for Newark's federally funded housing agency, where staffing has been slashed in recent years, and all 340 workers will be furloughed for 12 days each to help address a funding shortfall. Executive Director Keith Kinard will be out of job for good as of September, after the board voted last month not to renew his contract.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Purple Heart recipient Bill Haggerty, 98, of Brick recounts his life

 Bill Haggerty's smile shines like a sun that never sets. It's ever present, usually accompanied by a chuckle as he recounts his life, even the bad stuff.

Like getting strafed by German shrapnel in World War II during the invasion of Italy.

"I was just lying there minding my own business," said Haggerty, who first fought in North Africa and took part in the famed Battle of Hill 609 in Tunisia.

He curls his arm and shows the pieces of Nazi armament still lodged under his skin. They've been there for 74 years.

"I've got some in my side and my lungs," said the Brick resident, still smiling. "The doctors didn't want to go in there and fiddle around, so they just left it."

Bill Haggerty is 98. To put that in perspective, he has carried the shrapnel in his body for almost as long as the average American man lives.

Such longevity brings loss that only people like Haggerty can comprehend.

"Everybody's gone," he said. "But that's the way life is. I keep my faith. That helps."

He is the last of The Maples, a group of about 30 boys who grew up in the Vailsburg section of Newark, in the vicinity of 18th Street and Stuyvesant Avenue. From childhood pick-up games of baseball and football, through combat in World War II, fatherhood and careers and into retirement, they remained friends.

He is also the last of  eight siblings. Two of his sisters married his buddies in The Maples.

"Joe Connell married my sister Kitty, and Gene Farrell married Liz," he said.

As for why they were called The Maples, Haggerty has no answer.

"I never really knew why," he said. "That's just what we called ourselves."

Showing the innocence of the age, Haggerty refers to them as "a gang."

"We were always in front of Komishane's drugstore," he said. "That was our corner. Harry (the owner) said we had to pay rent, so we had to buy our Christmas presents and Valentine's Day presents there, and that was our rent for the year."

The meeting corner unified the neighborhood boys, even though some of The Maples went to public school and some went to Catholic schools.

"By the time we got to high school, half of us went to West Side and the other half were at Seton Hall," he said. "But we still got together after school."

In summer, they might venture down to Belmar or out to Lake Musconetcong, but mostly they stayed in Newark.

"Everything we needed was right in the neighborhood," Haggerty said. "There was no reason to go anywhere else."   

The simple life of pick-up games and movies at the Stanley or Mayfair theater on South Orange Avenue gave way to war.

In the collection of brittle paper and black-and-white  photographs from the day is a collage of snapshots of the men, most in uniform.

Haggerty names each without hesitation: Freddy Litzbauer Danny Pasquale and his brother Tommy, Jack Rogers, Connell and Farrell, and on and on, each in their Army fatigues, sailor suits or civilian clothes before or after leaving the service.

"Every one of us came back," Haggerty said. "That was a miracle in itself."

Two who didn't go -- Bill Wussler and Lou Reiss -- collected letters from the other men and printed a newsletter called The Leaf to send overseas and distribute to the families in Newark.

"The St. Patrick's Day issue of 'The Leaf' appropriately salutes Corporal Bill Haggerty the first of The Maples to receive a Purple Heart," begins one copy Haggery kept.

He also has the abrupt and chilling telegram sent to his mother, Martha Haggerty, to their new home in West Orange.

"WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR SON CORPORAL WILLIAM J HAGGERTY WAS SERIOUSLY WOUNDED IN ACTION IN ITALY ON TWENTY THREE OCTOBER REPORTS WILL BE FORWARDED AS RECEIVED."

"That was it," said Haggerty's daughter, Pat Repstien. "She probably didn't know if he was going to live or die."

But live he has. Another seven decades.

He married Catherine Gladys Williams, a friend of his niece.

"I moved in with my sister for a while after the war, and she came around one night and we went to the movies," he said. "And I guess that was that."

They had two daughters, Pat and Cathy, and bought a house in Bloomfield.

He did not follow his father, Anthony, in the Irish tradition of joining the Newark Fire Department but instead got a job maintaining the mechanical equipment at the Essex County vocational and technical schools.  

"I worked all over: Bloomfield, Irvington, Newark, West Caldwell," he said.

As his friends passed, he made new ones.

"I love people," he said. "I'll talk to anybody."

These days, he sits outside of his one-story house when the weather is warm enough and talks to neighbor after neighbor.

"He never gets tired of talking," Repstien said.

It has been a normal life, made extraordinary by its length and the size of the family with which he surrounds himself. Life. It gave him a grandson, Michael Repstien and as many nieces and nephews as there were original Maples.

"I have 28 first cousins," said Pat Repstien.

It gave him more great- nieces and nephews than he can count, and more are coming.

As his brothers and sisters passed, Haggerty emerged as the valued patriarch of this ever-expanding family, the last ancestral link to the generation and city from which they all came.

"He's the head honcho," said Repstien.

Among his grainy photographs of the past are sharper ones of the present. The birthday parties for him the past few Aprils at the Manasquan Firehouse. In those photographs, he is surrounded by those generations, squeezed together to fit in the picture.

In the center is Bill Haggerty, his smile preserved forever. 

Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@starledger.com. Follow The Star-Ledger on Twitter @StarLedger and find us on Facebook.    

Local school taxes will increase by an average of $118 a year for an assessed home of $175,000, district officials calculated.

NEWARK -- The Newark school district will not impose massive layoffs and instead hire 109 new employees under its proposed $915 million budget for next year. 

The new hires include 67 teachers and school support staff such as guidance counselors, social workers and security guards. 

"It is a budget built to support the district. It has put us on back on what is a strong foundation for future years," business administrator Valerie Wilson said during a public meeting on the budget this month. 

The School Advisory Board approved the budget last week, days before a school board election and as the district readies to take full rein of its schools. The district has been under state control for more than 20 years. 

Under the budget, the school portion of city residents' tax bill will increase by an average of $118 a year for an average assessed home of $175,000. That means on average, residents will pay $1,864 in school taxes, compared to $1,746 the year prior. 

Earlier this year, the district faced a $30 million deficit but was able to whittle that down by selling empty buildings, signing a cheaper lease for a new central office, receiving special support aid from the state and using "banked cap" to raise the local tax levy beyond the 2 percent state-mandated limit.  

Banked cap allows a municipality or district to increase taxes by more than 2 percent if taxes were not increased in prior years up to the 2 percent maximum. 

Schools Superintendent Christopher Cerf said putting together the budget was "a colossal effort" given the flat funding the district is expected to receive from the state. 

Cerf said only about $130 million of the district's budget comes from local taxes, the rest -- $742 million -- comes from the state.

He said flat funding amid rising health care costs and salaries means the district is spending less per student. 

Where is the money going?

The district's dollars will largely be spent on salaries ($397 million) and benefits ($123 million). Another $242 million will be redirected toward charter schools, which receive money for every student they enroll.

The budget also calls for a $3.7 million to reduce class sizes and $3 million for a new science curriculum. The district said it restored its "rainy day funds," to levels required by the state. The district also plans to reallocate money from the high schools to the elementary schools to more equitably distribute dollars.

Members of the public, however, expressed concern about cuts in their individual school budgets.  

"We already don't serve our students well enough," said Brandon Rippey, a teacher at Science High, which he said will receive about $165,000 less next year. 

Wilson said the Legislature still had to approve the state budget, which in turn, could impact the district's funding. 

"Until that is complete, we're still living in a world of uncertainty," she said. 

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook. 

Jim Johnson was a Treasury official in President Bill Clinton's administration. Now he's running an underdog campaign for New Jersey governor. Watch video

EDITOR'S NOTE: The first state-sponsored debates for Democrats and Republicans running for New Jersey governor will be held May 9. Leading up to that, NJ Advance Media is profiling the four Democrats and two Republicans who have qualified for those debates, leading off with this simple question: "Why are you running?" 

WOODBRIDGE -- The massacre occurred more than 700 miles from Jim Johnson's hometown of Montclair. But it was part of the reason he entered this year's race for New Jersey governor. 

Public service isn't new to Johnson. He spent much of the 1990s as a U.S. Treasury official under President Bill Clinton. And later, in between his time as an attorney for a prominent New York City corporate law firm, he tackled civil rights, law enforcement, and gun control issues as chairman of multiple panels and organizations.

But he had never even run for elected office. And few people in New Jersey had ever heard of him.

Then, in June 2015, a gunman murdered nine people at a black church in Charleston, S.C.

Johnson, who is black, recalled how the victims "looked like some of my family members."

2017 N.J. GOVERNOR CANDIDATES

JIM JOHNSON

Party affiliation: Democrat

Age: 56 

Residence: Montclair

Occupation: Former U.S. Treasury official in President Bill Clinton's administration; former corporate attorney; former; former chairman of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University

Family: Wife Nancy Northup; four children: Abby, Amalya, Natalie, Miles

Click here for his website

And he began to wonder.

"Do I continue to do this work part-time or do I push forward in a way that's about bringing a broad possibility of change to a very wide group of people?" Johnson recalled in a recent interview at NJ Advance Media's headquarters in Woodbridge.

"The more I sat back and thought of what has been happening in our nation, the more I felt we needed leadership prepared to make hard decisions but also prepared to listen and do the hard work to bring people together and move us to a much higher ground," he added.

Flash forward two years, and Johnson is now one of six candidates running in the June 6 Democratic primary for the party's nomination to succeed Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican who is prohibited by law from seeking a third term.

And since he declared his candidacy in October, the soft-spoken Johnson, 56, has become an unexpected player in the race. 

His chances are still steep. Phil Murphy, the former U.S. ambassador to Germany and a millionaire former banking executive who has lent his campaign at least $10 million, will get a favored spot on the ballot after being endorsed by Democratic county chairs and is widely considered the favorite for the Democratic nod.

A Quinnipiac University poll from March showed Johnson tied for third with 4 percent of the party's primary vote, far behind Murphy's 23 percent.

But 57 percent of voters said they were still undecided. And Johnson became the first candidate to qualify for the state's matching funds program -- in which gubernatorial candidates who raise at least $430,000 receive $2 in public money for every dollar they raise. Hopefuls receive a maximum of $6.4 million in public funds in the primary.

"We're in a time in this nation and in a time in this state where there is very little appetite among the public to be told whom to vote for," Johnson said  

Johnson -- who has received $1.16 million in matching funds so far -- is helped by one significant source. More than $130,000 of his donations have come from members of his former law firm, the New York City powerhouse Debevoise and Plimpton. 

Johnson is also the only black contender among the race's 11 major-party candidates and would be New Jersey's first black governor if elected. 

Matthew Hale, a political science professor at Seton Hall University, said the smart money is still on Murphy, but Johnson has "done much better than expected."

"Part of the reason is because he really is an outsider," Hale said. 

That's a key word in the race, in which multiple candidates are echoing the populist undertone's of last year's presidential race, pitching themselves as the non-establishment candidate who can fight New Jersey's "insider" political culture. 

Ben Dworkin, director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said Johnson is doing something unusual for statewide candidates in New Jersey: He's not "currying favor" with the Democratic machine. 

"That makes him unconventional, and to his critics, naive," Dworkin said. 

When the candidates for governor are debating

But Johnson stressed that he does have a resume filled with government experience.

"I have worked deep within Washington," he said, "and I've helped people to find their way to do much better at what they do."

He has also filled his team includes political campaign veterans who have worked for former President Barack Obama, current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick -- a longtime friend and one-time colleague whom Johnson considers a mentor and a role model.

Johnson grew up in Montclair as one of three children to a father who was a Marine veteran and small businessman and a mother who was a legal secretary and music teacher. Johnson still lives in the Essex County township, about five minutes from his mother.

In the mid-1980s, Johnson received both undergrad and law degrees from Harvard University. Later, he worked as as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Johnson moved to Washington to work for the U.S. Treasury department after Clinton took office in 1993.

When a number of black churches were set on fire in the mid-1990s, Clinton picked Johnson and Patrick to look into the issue by co-chairing the National Church Arson Task Force. 

Patrick remembers Johnson as always having "a cool head."

"He projected confidence without cockiness or swagger," the ex-Massachusetts governor told NJ Advance Media. "He had a very even way of leading in the midst of pretty emotional situations." 

In 1988, Johnson, then 37, was named the Treasury department's undersecretary for enforcement. There, he oversaw the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; the Secret Service; and U.S. Customs. That included managing 29,000 people and a budget of $6.4 billion. 

Your guide to the 2017 N.J. governor race 

After Clinton left office, Johnson moved back to Montclair and joined Debevoise & Plimpton. He became a partner in 2004, holding that job until he resigned in March. 

Johnson said he wore "a lot of hats" at the firm, from working on civil rights cases to representing large corporations with "massive problems."

In one case, Johnson was "lead enforcement counsel" for Toyota when the federal government investigated the car giant for allegedly hiding safety defects from the public. The company was hit with a $1.2 billion criminal penalty. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder called Toyota's actions "shameful" and a "blatant disregard for the law."

Johnson said he worked with Toyota to "cooperate with the government."

"There's no question: I was a partner in one of the world's most productive corporate law firms," he said. "And I used that platform not only to represent large corporate clients but also to work toward reform."

From 2004 to 2011, Johnson also served chairman of the board at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. 

Over the last 10 years, Johnson chaired an advisory committee on policing in New Jersey in the wake of racial-profiling accusations against the State Police, served as the federal monitor of a legal settlement on affordable housing that the federal government reached with New York's Westchester County, and headed a task force that led to the implementation of police body cameras in New Jersey.

Johnson's first marriage ended in divorce. He and Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. worked together in the U.S. attorney's office years ago and were married in 2014. 

Johnson is the biological father of two daughters: Abby, 24 a school teacher in the Bronx, and Amalya, 19, a student at Columbia University. He is the step-father of Northup's two children: Natalie, 25, and Miles, 23.

Johnson vows to lower New Jersey's notoriously high property taxes with a plan that includes proposing a constitutional amendment to make sure businesses are taxed higher than residential homes and banning the practice of letting developers donate to a city's affordable housing trust fund instead of building affordable units on their site.

He is also seeking to reform ethics in the state through the elimination of no-bid contracts and imposing restrictions on lobbyists down to the local level. 

NJ Advance Media staff writer Matt Arco contributed to this report.

Brent Johnson may be reached at bjohnson@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @johnsb01. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.

Immigrant rights groups will march in Newark and Jersey City on Monday in a national day of protest.

Immigrant rights groups and their allies are staging what they hope will be the largest May 1 rally since 2006 -- when hundreds of thousands across the country poured into the streets to demand immigration reform. 

In New Jersey, marchers on Monday will assemble in Jersey City and Newark.

"We're going to be standing together, all the diverse immigrant populations across New Jersey," said Sara Cullinane, state director for Make the Road New Jersey, an immigrant advocacy group in Elizabeth. "It's a day where immigrants are coming together to show their strength."

Some organizers are also calling for a nationwide boycott of businesses and schools billed as "A Day Without Immigrants," to highlight how immigrants are embedded in communities and the economy. 

"May 1st is the first step in a series of strikes and boycotts that will change the conversation on immigration," said Maria Fernanda Cabello, a spokesperson from Movimiento Cosecha, an immigrant rights coalition organizing the Newark rally.

In February, some businesses shuttered and kids were kept home from school in a similar "Day Without Immigrants" boycott that spread through social media and was not organized by a formal group. Organizers expect Monday's boycott to be more widespread.

"There is no U.S. economy without immigrants," said Whitney Strub, an organizer of the Newark march and a history professor at Rutgers-Newark. "This is all part of a national movement. It's multi-nodal. It's happening in Jersey City, it's happening in Newark. It's a collective show of strength and support."

Cullinane said 50 businesses in Elizabeth have already agreed to shut down on Monday.

"In the past several months President Trump's executive orders have terrorized our communities but also pushed us closer together," she said. 

Kevin Brown, vice president of 32BJ SEIU said it's important for labor unions to join the fight for immigrant rights. May 1 is also International Workers' Day.

"Many of our members are immigrants, this country has always been built on immigrants and immigrant labor," he said. "The cross section between unions and workers and immigrants is all the same fight."

Groups will call on cities, counties and the state to offer more protections to undocumented immigrants. Newark and Jersey City have already declared themselves sanctuary cities, meaning they will limit their cooperation with federal immigration officials. 

Trump has threatened to cut federal funding from such jurisdictions but a federal judge temporarily halted the move earlier this week. 

The demonstration in Jersey City will take place at Liberty State Park starting at 2:30 p.m. Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop and gubernatorial candidates Phil Murphy and Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) are expected to speak at the rally. 

In Newark, demonstrators will gather at Lincoln Park at 2 p.m. and later march to the Peter Rodino federal building on Broad Street. 

"This agenda of hate against immigrants is simply un-American. That's what we're going to stand up and fight," Brown said. SEIU will rally in Jersey City.

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook. 

With Alyssa Wilson, Sydney McLaughlin and Cory Poole, New Jersey left its mark at Franklin Field.

The four-day sweep last week was in response to citizen complaints, authorities said

NEWARK -- Newark police arrested 48 people, recovered seven guns, and seized large amounts of drugs, including 630 decks of heroin, during a citywide narcotics operation last week, authorities said.

Responding to citizen complaints, Newark police officers conducted the operation Tuesday through Friday, taking off the streets more than $10,000 worth of drugs, police Director Anthony Ambrose said on Saturday.

The arrests included a Tennessee man and residents of Glen Ridge, Linden and East Orange, he said. Of all the arrests, 25 were drug-related and 11 are for weapon possession, he said.

Police seized a total of 630 decks of heroin, 151 vials and bags of cocaine, 35 plastic bags of marijuana and 64 pills, he said.

The drugs have a street value of $10,227, he said, noting officers also confiscated $2,723 as proceeds of drug sales.

In a press release, Ambrose thanked the officers involved for their "hard work" and thanked the concerned citizens who reported suspicious activity that spurred police to develop the operation.

"I am proud of the results our officers achieved and grateful to the residents who partnered with us," he said.  "It's a shame that so many illegal guns flow into our city."

In the past two weeks, Newark police arrested 90 people - several of whom are gang members or associates - and recovered 10 guns, Ambrose said.

"This translates to saved lives and safer neighborhoods," he said. "We will be vigilant in continuing these operations going forward,"

The following Newark residents were arrested for unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose: Shaquan Hyland, 21; Najie Barkley, 25; Najee Moore, 20; Marquel O'Neal, 18; and Barry Little, 47.

Charged with unlawful possession of a weapon were Xavier Williams, 27, and Takia Reid, 31, both of East Orange, and Zahkai Perry, 19, and Carols Sanchez, 18, both of Newark, and a 17-year-old male and a 16-year-old male, both of Newark, he said.

Hyland and Barkley are also charged with drug possession, drug distribution, distribution within 1,000 feet of a school, and distribution within 500 feet of a public housing complex. Both suspects, along with Moore and O'Neal, also face charges of criminal trespass and resisting arrest.

Little was charged with drug possession, drug distribution and receiving stolen property.

Sixteen others were charged with drug possession and one was charged with drug possession with the intent to distribute. Another 20 people were arrested for outstanding warrants.

MaryAnn Spoto may be reached at mspoto@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @MaryAnnSpoto. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Thousands of pets of all shapes and sizes await adoption in New Jersey.

Here's a little test: hand someone a camera and bring around some puppies or kittens. Afterward, look to see what they shot.

If they didn't manage to take ridiculously cute photos, take the camera away from them and ban them from ever handling one again.

It's pretty much impossible to take a bad photo of a pet. Some are the biggest hams this side of Hollywood, and the rest seem to have an instinct to be as photogenic as possible.

 

The history of pet photography goes back quite a bit further than the founding of icanhas.cheezburger.com. The photo at right has long been accepted as the oldest photograph to show a human being. Taken in Paris in 1838 by Louis Daguerre, the scene captures a man having his shoes shined in the lower-left portion.

But Amanda Uren notes on mashable.com that modern researchers believe they've also located a child and a dog on the opposite side of the street. They have not yet been able to determine if he was leashed or being properly curbed ... yet.

 

Cats weren't too far behind. Cyriaque Lamar states on i09.com that "the progenitor of shameless cat pictures was probably English photographer Harry Pointer (1822-1889), who snapped approximately 200 photos of his perplexed, albeit jovial, Brighton Cats. Pointer began his career shooting naturalistic photos of cats, but he realized in the 1870s that coaxing felines into ludicrous poses was an exercise in delicious absurdity."

"Pointer often arranged his cats in unusual poses that mimicked human activities -- a cat riding a tricycle, cats roller-skating and even a cat taking a photograph. Pointer increased the commercial potential of his cat pictures by adding a written greeting such as "A Happy New Year" or "Very many happy returns of the day."

Had the internet existed in Pointer's day, he would've been a very wealthy man.

More photos of pets in New Jersey in need of adoption can be seen by clicking here and here.

Greg Hatala may be reached at ghatala@starledger.com. Follow him on Twitter @GregHatala. Find Greg Hatala on Facebook.

An Edison man of Pakistani descent is suing American Airlines accusing the air carrier of years of inaction on harassment claims

NEW BRUNSWICK -- A Muslim flight attendant from New Jersey has filed suit against American Airlines alleging his co-workers repeatedly called him a terrorist and FBI agents came to his house after he complained about the harassment to company officials.

Farkhan Mahmood Shah, an Edison resident of Pakistani descent, claims he was targeted for religious and ethnic harassment after the attacks of Sept. 11. American Airlines failed to stop the harassment after he reported it, Shah claims in the suit filed recently in Superior Court in Middlesex County.

Shah, who started working at the airline in 1999 as a flight attendant, says in the suit he was called a terrorist, part of Hezbollah or Taliban, and other offense names. On one flight, he claims another flight attendant tried to convert him from Islam to Christianity. 

American Airlines spokesman Matt Miller said the company is reviewing the complaints in Shah's lawsuit.

"American does not tolerate discrimination of any kind," Miller said. 

Shah said he reported the alleged harassment in 2008 he began to notice erroneous marks on his record for lateness and missing work.

The complaint escalated to the airline's New York human resources office in 2013 following numerous complaints where he also brought up the record errors, the suit said. 

He said he was told his record would be fixed, but it was never corrected. The next year, the harassment "escalated quickly," the suit says.

In 2014, Shah and his coworkers were having a conversation about 9/11 and one of the workers said, "it was the Muslims and that Muslims are evil," according to the suit.

Shah responded that some had said the terrorist attack was an inside job, and ISIS was created by the CIA, citing a Hilary Clinton clip he saw, the lawsuit said. Shah claims only his comments were reported to supervisors. 

Weeks later, Shah claims in his suit that he was placed on a "watch list" by American Airlines, and FBI agents showed up at his Edison home. 

Shah claims the harassment continued over the next two years, as his case was moved around to a number of different human resources representatives without any resolution, according to the suit. 

In 2016, he filed a complaint with U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the suit. Less than two weeks later, Shah claims FBI agents showed up at his house again, asking him if he planned on hurting anyone. 

Calls to FBI's Newark office by NJ Advance Media were not returned.

Shah received his Right to Sue letter from the EEOC earlier this year and remains on airline's staff, according to the suit. 

The suit, which names American Airlines and the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, seeks damages, attorney fees and other relief. 

Craig McCarthy may be reached at CMcCarthy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @createcraig and on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Check out what former New Jersey high school stars heard their name called in this year's NFL Draft -- and others who are latching on to NFL teams as undrafted free agents.

New Jersey is one of the nation's most densely-populate states, but white-tailed deer thrive here. They also present a danger.

The $1.7 billion extension includes a station in Newark's South Ward

NEWARK -- Newark officials are applauding a decision by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to include a new PATH station in Newark's South Ward in plans to extend the commuter rail system to Newark Liberty International Airport.

"I thank the Port Authority Commissioners for keeping the PATH extension on track," Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement Sunday evening. "This is another step forward for a project that will have an enormous impact on Newark's economy and that of the region. In addition to spurring housing and economic development of the Dayton neighborhood, the new South Ward PATH transportation hub will provide increased access to jobs for Newark residents."

On Thursday, the Port Authority Board of Commissioners voted to authorize $57 million for planning and design work on the proposed 2-mile extension of the PATH system from Newark Penn Station to Newark Liberty.

The extension, estimated to cost a total of $1.7 billion and be completed in 2026, would provide a direct link from the World Trade Center PATH station in Manhattan and points in between to the airport monorail, which would then carry passengers, airport employees and others to the terminals.

In announcing the approval of the planning funds, the Port Authority specifically noted that, barring environmental or other obstacles, the extension project would include a new PATH station in Newark's South Ward.

"Subject to completion of the environmental review process and project authorization by the Port Authority board, the project would include a new station in Newark's South Ward Dayton Street neighborhood," the Port Authority said in an announcement of Thursday's vote.

Thursday's action including the new station follows an episode in January that angered Newark elected officials and forced the bi-state agency to retract statements by two of its executives. On Jan. 17, the executives testified during a legislative hearing in Trenton that a new South Ward station would not be included in the project due, after all, to physical constraints.

Word of the testimony angered proponents of the new station, including Baraka, South Ward Councilman John Sharpe James, and state Sen. M. Theresa Ruiz (D-Essex). They and others envision the new station as a key to redevelopment of the South Ward's Dayton/Seth Boyden neighborhood, just east of Weequahic Park, where Frelinghuysen and Haynes avenues meet. 

Ruiz is a member of the Joint Legislative Oversight committee, before whom the executives were testifying about the PATH extension and other projects in the Port Authority's 10-year, $32 billion capital plan, and she and other committtee members immediately expressed their concerns. Baraka and James soon followed suit, issuing angry statements demanding the South Ward station be included, and the next day the Port Authority assured them it would be.

An agency official who insisted on anonymity told NJ Advance Media at the time that the executives had confused talk of a South Ward station with a separate, defunct proposal to construct a station near South Street in Newark's Ironbound neighborhood.

Officially, project documents refer to the South Ward station as the Dayton Street Neighborhood Station, the official said.

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

From Joe's Lunch to the Hall of Fame

Frankie Valli, born Francesco Castelluccio on May 3, 1934, is pictured here in a checkered shirt (second row).

Valli was 17 when this photo was taken at Joe's Lunch on the corner of Harrison and Franklin streets in Belleville in 1951. Photo courtesy of Joe Fornarotto.

This and other photos of historical happenings in the Garden State will appear in a gallery titled "This month in N.J. history: May" on Thursday, May 4 on nj.com.

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Political insiders weigh in on what Tuesday's School Advisory Board elections mean for the state of politics in Newark.

NEWARK -- Hours after the North Ward political powerhouse helped propel the so-called 'Unity Slate' to victory in Tuesday's school elections, longtime political operatives and education reformers had declared an unofficial winner: Councilman Anibal Ramos. 

Tuesday's election was as much about control of the schools -- and electing three new board members -- as it was about competing political factions positioning themselves for a 2018 mayoral race and the future of education reform in the city, political insiders told NJ Advance Media.

"Anibal comes out as definitely the current political power broker in the city," said longtime education activist and consultant Lavar Young. He said the dismal turnout -- about 7,500 votes were cast in a city of nearly 140,000 registered voters -- sent another message.

"It also signifies that folks weren't 100 percent satisfied with the quality of candidates that they did have. It's another wake up call, similar to our last presidential election, folks really have to be engaged and come out and vote."

The North Ward tallied the highest voter turnout in the city, though overall showings remained low. And, the ultimate winners, Reginald Bledsoe, Josephine Garcia and Flohisha Johnson -- candidates hand-picked through an alliance of Mayor Ras Baraka, Ramos and reform group PC2E -- were saturated with the heaviest support in the North.

Newark Unity Slate (Courtesy of Newark Unity Slate)
 

"If Anibal Ramos wouldn't have been heavily involved, they wouldn't have swept," said Kevin Jenkins, husband of Central Ward Councilwoman Gail Chaneyfield-Jenkins, who supported her own two candidates in the 15-person race and is rumored to be a potential challenger to Baraka.

Ramos could not immediately be reached for comment.

Garcia, the North Ward candidate whose three boys attended Robert Treat Academy, won 41 percent of her 3,566 votes from North. Baraka's candidate, Bledsoe, who is the legislative aide to Councilman Eddie Osborne, received 33 percent of his 3,382 votes from the North. In Baraka's South Ward base, Bledsoe received 21 percent of his votes, or about 703 votes.

Johnson, the charter candidate, came in third and earned 40 percent of her 2,717 votes in the North.

Members of the charter community bristled at Johnson's third-place showing and said it was indicative of infighting among reformers in the lead up to the election and a wake-up call for PC2E, the group funded and tasked with creating a pipeline of education reform leaders and growing a voter base. 

A call to PC2E was not returned. 

But in an email to its supporters, obtained by NJ Advance Media, PC2E celebrated the win.

"While last year's victory was sweet, Tuesday's is one to savor," PC2E president Muhammed Akil wrote. "An incredibly bold effort was necessary to bring our candidate, Flo Johnson, into the winner's circle in spite of the myriad of challenges we faced. Clearly, it was not a level playing field for our candidate, but we won nonetheless." 

He said the campaign succeeded despite misinformation and confusion caused by fake Unity Slate flyers featuring Garcia, Bledsoe and another candidate, Patricia Bradford, instead of Johnson.

Shortly after winning Tuesday night Johnson told NJ Advance Media: "I ran a clean campaign. I'm proud of myself and I'm proud of my team. Now, it's time to get the real work done."

Young said PC2E was still new and had a ways to go to develop the same groundwork as other long-standing political machines. 

"When you look at PCE2E, they are two, three years old. To do that type of work it takes trust. I still think they are trying to develop that," said Young, who headed the now-defunct Black Alliance for Educational Options chapter in Newark. "A lot of parents in the ed reform community didn't agree with the candidate but at the end of the day that candidate won."

But others said the poor showing in the polls was far from a victorious run and showed weak mobilizing efforts on the part of of PC2E. It also sent a message to Baraka and Ramos that they don't need the reform community to win elections moving forward.  

Jenkins added that PC2E didn't have the support of parents. "The parents that wanted to participate in the process were left out in the cold," he said. "PC2E, they failed at their job."

He also criticized Baraka's showing in South, where only 4.9 percent of registered voters came out or about 1,640 voters, compared to 1,950 in the North Ward or about 6.4 percent. 

"That tells you that there's something happening in the city of Newark and they want better candidates," Jenkins said. "When people are interested in something they come out."

Chaneyfield-Jenkins supported Charles Love, a longtime parent advocate, and Deborah Terrell, the former interim superintendent of Newark Schools. Love came in fourth and Terrell in fifth -- without the significant mobilizing arm of the North and South wards. 

Michele Mason, executive director of the Newark Charter School Fund, who supported the reform candidate said the community "should be really focused on supporting the candidates, moving forward and empowering them with the right information and making sure they are prepared to make the best and right decisions for all kids in Newark." 

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.