Poll: Pizza War!
Thanksgiving Screams: Shop G'wood! 
GARWOOD — In a move designed to increase student and staff accessibility in a user-friendly design, the Garwood Board of Education members got the first look at the district’s newly redesigned website.
Technology Coordinator Glenn Stott previewed the new district and school website for the Board of Education during a Nov. 17 meeting, including changes that will give the district a private network.
Giving a tour of the new district site, which will launch on Dec. 1, Stott said that on-line visitors will have full access to Garwood school information with the newly searchable page.
Featured are a sleek main page, which features photos from district events over time, and a merged calendar that will combine athletic events, student activities and district news into one larger page.
Stott said that in addition to being fully complaint with the Federal Rehabilitation Act, which requires websites to accommodate those with visual impairments, the new website will take the classroom environment to students at home. A large part of that effort comes from the private network and shareable drives that the new website will incorporate.
“The students have their own shared drive. If you (as a teacher) want to share something with the class, you can put it on the student shared drive and they can all access it,” Stott said of the benefits of the page.
Teachers and administrators will also have a shared drive and individual web pages on the site, allowing them to post everything from deadlines for long-term assignments to the worksheets for homework in a central location.
“The teachers will administer the sites themselves. I will help them with content,” Stott said the teacher sites currently being tested by a few staff members.
The site will also host a form page with digital copies of documents ranging from facility use applications to materials that pertain to the grant program run by the Garwood Education Foundation. Stott said that segments of the form page that would include new student registration and special services are still under construction.
The board members and Superintendent Teresa Quigley lauded the new website as an effective tool for students and staff to communicate better inside and outside of the school day.
Resident Bruce Paterson also praised the site, asking if the Garwood Schools could use the new platform to list student accomplishments in academic and athletic achievement. However, Stott said that because of state guidelines, the district must be careful in posting students’ information, especially photos, on the website. While parents can sign a release that allows student information and images to be released to newspapers and in newsletters, the internet has a more restrictive set of statues because of the access given to the general public.
“Anything we put on the Internet is viewed differently (by state regulations),” Stott explained.
The League of Municipalities Conference is only one of 30 conferences Union County Employees attended in 2008. Although they didn’t go as far as Hawaii where they traveled to a conference at a cost to taxpayers of approximately $18,230 in 2005, they’ve traveled around the country costing tens of thousands of dollars in travel expenses and conference fees.
No business could afford this expense; yet New Jersey which has the highest property taxes in the nation can. In the age of video conferencing there is no need for it. Of all the offerings at this year’s League’s conference “Saving Money on Travel by Video Conferencing” wasn’t one of them. After all, there is no need to travel to Atlantic City to their conference either; except for the partying.
Networking? Is it really in the best interest of the taxpayers to have this cast of characters meeting up and attending parties by vendors?
The 2009 Check Registry to date shows that Union County paid $3,500 to the League for a booth. It doesn’t say what they’re selling.
The League of Municipalities is a private entity that is funded by tax dollars through dues and fees. By an act of legislation their employees are enrolled in the public pension system. They are not subject to the Open Public Records Act.
List of conferences as found in the 2008 Union County government check registry:
NJ Recreation & Park Association, NJ child support council, Rahway River Association, Municipal Clerks association, Election Law Conference, The 26th Annual CSP Conference (Consolidated Solar Thermal Power), NJ Association for Elected Officials, NJ Health Officers, NAWB Conference (National Association of Workforce Boards), National Association of Counties, NJ Gang Investigators, IACREOT (International Association of Clerks, Recorders, Election Officials & Treasurers, New Jersey Association of Counties, NJWLE New Jersey Women in Law, National Partner for Juvenile Services, Kean University EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission), GSETA Conference (Garden State Employment and Training Association), COANJ – Constitutional Officers Association NJ, NJ Council Spec Transportation, GIS Annual Conference, NJ Public Safety, NJ Juvenile Detention NJJDA/JJC (NJ Juvenile Detention Association, Juvenile Justice Commission, NJAPA (NJ Asphalt Paving Association), EPEC (Education in Palliative and End-of-life Care), Governor’s Housing Conference, NJAPA (American Planning Association NJ Chapter)
Tina Renna is the President of the Union County Watchdog Association. She can be reached at tinarenna@unioncountywatchdog.org
On Tuesday, November 17 the water tower at the site commonly known as the Garwood Paperboard factory was torn down. Just after 11:00 a.m. the hulking landmark, which often drew less than favorable remarks for its rusted appearance, was wiped from the sky line of the borough.
The tower predates the borough of Garwood by three years, erected in 1900 when the Aeolian Company, manufacturer of player pianos and player pipe organs, built the factory that still stands today. While it has long been part of the borough’s landscape the water tower never served to protect the residential neighborhoods, kept instead to douse fires at the factory below.
During a meeting of the Garwood Borough Council Mayor Dennis McCarthy announced that a date had been set for the tower’s removal as safety concerns mounted. McCarthy explained that the council had given the site’s owner the chose to repair or remove the rusting structure.
The demolition had long been planned but the permits required for closing North Avenue for a short period took time.
Against the back drop of a clear blue sky, crews spent the morning circling the base of the 100-foot-tall tower. As the day moved forward the workers made their way around the cat walk attached to the reservoir of the tower, the pale green letters on the tank just visible on the rusted metal.
Residents from the surrounding streets as well as curious passers-by stopped to watch the work. At several points, ominous creaking from the metal frame brought most other noise to a halt.
On the sidewalks below, onlookers including Councilman-elect Timothy Hak watched with mixed emotions.
“It’s a piece of Garwood history,” Hak said as he watched the crews.
Others at the scene, making their way to nearby stores for a cup of coffee in the crisp morning air were less attached to the water tower, calling it an “eyesore” that should have been removed long ago.
Cranford native Steve Ryder watched the work with other visitors, talking about what the site’s significance. Ryder, who is in the mechanical music field, explained that the Aeolian Company was one of the guiding forces for early Garwood.
“People who live in some of these houses in Cranford and Garwood don’t realize that their homes were built for Aeolian workers,” he explained, shielding his eyes from the sun as he watched the crews.
So much of the town centered around the factory there was even a movement to have Garwood named Aeolian and the founders left their mark across Union County, Ryder added. William and Henry Tremaine, who both served as presidents of the company, were prominent figures in Westfield. Edwin S. Votey, who developed the Pianola and served as vice-president of Aeolian, was the first person to own an automobile in Summit.
While the water tower does not hold much significance for the site, Ryder explained that front office of a factory and the smoke stack in the rear of the property near the NJ Transit rail line, which spelled out Pianola until the first letter was knocked off some years ago, draw visitors who collect mechanical musical instruments.
“This is a regular stop off,” Ryder said of Garwood.
Oh the Irony: Its Linken, Not Linkin.
Garwood- Drivers making their way through the borough this morning will likely encounter some traffic when segments of North Avenue are closed to accommodate the removal of the water tower from the Paperboard factory.
According to the Garwood Police Department, crews will arrive at the site near the intersection with Lincoln Avenue at the Cranford border at 7:00 a.m. to begin assembling the large crane to remove the tower. The Department of Transportation is expected to close North Avenue to through traffic around 9:00 a.m.
The process to remove the water tower has been ongoing, with the Borough Council telling the property owner to either repair or remove the century-old structure.
Garwood Makes Headlines (sometimes)
...At the Borough Council meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 10, Councilman Jonathan Linkin said the governing body is “highly encouraging” residents to package leaves in biodegradable bags. The bags are available free of charge at the Department of Public Works. The leaf pickup on the south side last week generated 38.5 tons of leaves.
By Carolyn Freundlich
GARWOOD — A borough landmark, the water tower located on 93 North Ave., is scheduled to be demolished starting at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17. The water in the tower was used to put out fires. “Now the tower isn’t used for anything,” the Municipal Clerk, Christina M. Ariemma said. “It hasn’t been used in at least 50 years,” she said. Not only is the facility dated, Ariemma described it as “decaying and all rusted.”
GARWOOD -- Garwood’s North Avenue water tower, a borough landmark built in 1900, will be demolished next week because of complaints about its decaying appearance and concerns about safety.
“It’s an eyesore,” Garwood Mayor Dennis McCarthy, said at a borough council meeting on Tuesday. “We approached the owners and said ‘paint it or take it down.’ Obviously, it was cheaper to tear it down rather than fix it up.”
The 100-feet-high tower sits on the Garwood Paperboard site, a paper manufacturer and supplier that has largely ceased operations. The land at 93 North Ave. was originally owned by piano and player organ manufacturer Aeolian Company. The tower never served the town’s residents, but held water in case the factory below caught fire.
“There’s no way to preserve it, because that would be another expense to taxpayers,” said Christina Ariemma, borough clerk for Garwood. “It has rusted a lot.”
On Tuesday, Nov. 17, Garwood police will have two officers stationed to stop traffic as needed on a two block section of North Avenue between Cedar Street and Anchor Place. The demolition is scheduled to start at 7 a.m. and conclude at 3 p.m., according to Garwood Police Chief William Legg.
“It (North Avenue) shouldn’t be closed more than 10 minutes,” Legg said. “We will be stopping traffic when they take down sections of the tower.”
Legg said the tower will be taken down in four or five sections, weather permitting.
The water tower’s demolition has been in the works for several months but the plan required waiting for permits to close North Avenue, according to Richard Kozel, a lawyer representing Garwood Paperboard.
Kozel would not say how much the demolition will cost the owners.
“It’s an old tower and it’s not worth maintaining anymore,” Kozel said. “We want to be a good neighbor to Garwood.”
