News

You’ll need to think twice about watering your lawn now. New Jersey is asking people in Essex, Bergen, Hudson, Morris and Passaic counties to cut back on their water use as our dry summer drags on. The state Department of Environmental Protection has issued a  drought watch for our county and the others, which...
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Oooops. That’s about all you can say about a story in yesterday’s Star Ledger. The paper reported that a 14-year-old girl from Verona took her mother’s car this past Saturday and drove it out onto Route 46, where she got into a pre-dawn crash. Not much in the way of details, but you can...
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When Julia took a look at the algae bloom on Verona Park Lake the other week she noted that the hot weather that was causing that problem also seemed to be bringing more sharks to the Jersey Shore. So we maybe shouldn’t have been surprised when Verona native Barry Battista posted to his Facebook...
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An Iraq war veteran who received a medal in Verona’s Memorial Day ceremonies this year has voluntarily returned that medal. The award, a Verona Distinguished Service Medal, is given by the town to honorably discharged veterans. The recipient, Angelo Otchy of Verona, was honorably discharged from the Iraq war. Following the ceremony, however, in...
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“Geez,” a fellow pool-goer said to me the other day, “did you see all that state aid Montclair got for its schools? How come Verona didn’t get it?” The short answer is, because it would have been a really bad idea right now, and here’s why. New Jersey, in its infinite tighten-the-budget wisdom, just...
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Essex County has installed 417 electronic devices on county roads in Livingston, Millburn and West Orange to prevent deer from wandering onto roadways and causing accidents. The so-called Deer Deter devices emit a high frequency noise to scare deer away from the traffic. Sensors in the devices are activated by vehicle headlights. Verona’s town...
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This is different: The Essex County Environmental Center will be holding a twilight hike through the woods along the Passaic River in Roseland on Tuesday, August 10, at 7 p.m. The hike is open to all ages, and before you step out on the trails you’ll learn how to make your own environmentally friendly...
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Peaches, peaches everywhere and plenty to do with them! Peach pie, peach cobbler, peach ice cream, and just eating peaches. There’s plenty to do at Alstede Farms in Chester, N.J. too. It’s one of my favorite day trips in summer and fall. Alstede is less than an hour’s drive from Verona and each year...
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People enjoy mysteries. Just look at how many folks are reading Stieg Larsson’s books around Verona Pool this summer. But I have to admit that I am baffled by the mystery mail that I got the other day. Addressed to “VERONA RESIDENT”, it looked as if it had been typed on an old Remington;...
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A report in today’s issue of the Star Ledger says that Angelo Otchy, who received a medal in Verona’s Memorial Day ceremonies this year, fabricated stories about his service in Iraq. While Otchy did serve half a tour of duty in Iraq, the paper says he was not a survivor of a Humvee bombing,...
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