Taking the first steps to discharge their new and likely significant responsibilities, the Jersey City Immigrant Affairs Commission reviewed and gave its blessing to the new city identification program at their inaugural meeting on May 15. Their action enables an ordinance creating the program to be reintroduced at the May 24 City Council meeting for possible final passage in June. After naming Imtiaz A. Syed as chairman and Mussab Ali as vice chair, the commission examined a slightly modified version of the city’s proposed identification program. The city council tabled a first attempt at the ordinance last month to settle some unresolved issues about the program. The nine-member commission was founded early this year to advise the city on immigration issues. It followed threats from President Donald Trump to withhold federal funding from cities like Jersey City that have declared themselves to be sanctuary cities and refuse to assist federal efforts to deport or detain immigrants without benefit of warrants and other protections offered to American citizens by the U.S. Constitution. Click here for more.
After a local teenager was murdered in his apartment in the Hoboken Housing Authority four months ago, the Boys & Girls Club in the southwestern part of town has created a Saturday night haven where teens can congregate to play pickup basketball or video games. “We changed our hours on Saturdays [to remain open] between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. at night and we have been getting a tremendous crowd,” said Gary Greenberg, CEO and executive director of the Boys & Girls Club, in an interview last week. “Teenagers in the community seem to embrace it.” Click here for more.
A local DPW worker spotted a two-and-a-half-foot alligator in the town’s Duck Pond on Wednesday, May 3, Mayor Michael Gonnelli confirmed last week. The Duck Pond has no fence around it and children were able to go right up to the edge of the water when competing in the town’s actual “Fishing Derby” on Saturday, May 6. Gonnelli was questioned by the Reporter after a sign was spotted at the event on that day warning people that the animal was spotted. When asked why the public wasn’t notified beyond that, Gonnelli, a former public works supervisor, said, “People should always be concerned with an alligator like that, but we haven’t seen it again. But it could be underwater; it could be in a million places, or it could’ve died.” Gonnelli said that he and DPW workers searched for the reptile on a boat for two days before the Fishing Derby, but did not locate it. Click here for more.
