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New Oradell Biz Administrator With Regretful Past 'Deserves This Chance,' Board Prez Says New Oradell Biz Administrator With Regretful Past 'Deserves This Chance,' Board Prez Says
New Oradell Biz Administrator With Regretful Past 'Deserves This Chance,' Board Prez Says The president of the Oradell Board of Education said Monday that district officials are confident their new business administrator will succeed despite a regretful past. Peter Iapelli, who was appointed to the post earlier this month, "deserves this chance," Oradell School Board President Dorothy Watson-Nichols said, adding that the panel "conducted its due diligence" in hiring him. Iapelli made headlines when he was accused of cursing out and putting his hands on a 16-year-old coach in front of 75 or so people at a peewee flag football game in Westwood in September 2017. Iapelli, who’d b…

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by Jerry DeMarco
Police & Fire
Paramus House Fire Doused Paramus House Fire Doused
Paramus House Fire Doused Firefighters doused a nighttime attic blaze in Paramus. No injuries were reported in the two-alarmer, which ignited in a two-story, wood-frame home on Terhune Avenue, just off Midland Avenue, around 9:30 p.m. Saturday, June 24. Firefighters had it knocked down in under a half hour and under control minutes later. Mutual aid responders included firefighters from Maywood, Rochelle Park, River Edge, Washington Township, Oradell and Fair Lawn.

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by Jerry DeMarco
Police & Fire
Raging Overnight Fire Destroys River Edge Home Raging Overnight Fire Destroys River Edge Home
Raging Overnight Fire Destroys River Edge Home Sections of a River Edge home collapsed during a vicious overnight fire. A dog was killed in the blaze on Eastbrook Drive, near Forest Avenue and Route 4, at 1:40 a.m. Saturday, May 27, according to neighbors. No injuries were otherwise reported. Borough firefighters headed back to the scene when the blaze briefly rekindled around 11:30 a.m. It apparently began in the attached garage and quickly spread to some vehicles and through one end of the two-story, 3,500-square-foot wood-frame house. Some water issues initially were reported. A preliminary cause wasn't given. The overnight f…

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by Jerry DeMarco
Police & Fire
Specialized Paramus Police Unit Cranks Up Chainsaws After Pickup Crash Specialized Paramus Police Unit Cranks Up Chainsaws After Pickup Crash
Specialized Paramus Police Unit Cranks Up Chainsaws After Pickup Crash Members of the Paramus Police Emergency Services Unit got to work after a pickup truck toppled a pole at the Oradell border on Thursday. The 22-year-old Mosquito Squad driver from Basking Ridge apparently looked down at his GPS and looked up too late to avoid hitting the curb, uprooting a fire hydrant and toppling the guy-wire pole on Oradell Avenue at Terrace Drive at 10:20 a.m. May 25, Paramus Police Sgt. Todd Colaianni said. The driver refused medical treatment, Colaianni said, but Bergen Brookside Auto Body & Towing had to remove his pickup on a flatbed. The cross-trained membe…

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by Jerry DeMarco
Police & Fire
Driver Hospitalized After Rig Rear-Ends Sedan On Route 208 Driver Hospitalized After Rig Rear-Ends Sedan On Route 208
Driver Hospitalized After Rig Rear-Ends Sedan On Route 208 A driver from Oradell was hospitalized after her sedan was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer on Route 208, authorities said. The 32-year-old victim was headed south on the highway when her Honda Accord was struck by a Kenworth 310 cab just south of Morlot Avenue in Fair Lawn shortly after 2 a.m. Monday, May 1. The 44-year-old Passaic trucker apparently was checking his speedometer when the crash occurred, Fair Lawn Police Sgt. Eric Eleshewich said. Members of the Fair Lawn Volunteer Ambulance Corps took the female driver to Hackensack University Medical Center, Eleshewich said. Her condition…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Attorney From Bergen Charged With Assault Attorney From Bergen Charged With Assault
Attorney From Bergen Charged With Assault An attorney from Bergen County was charged with grabbing a woman by the throat, slamming her into a refrigerator and threatening to kill her, according to a law enforcement report. Brian T. Giblin Jr., 35, of Paramus was arrested by Mahwah police following the alleged domestic incident in the township on Feb 17, an affidavit on file in Superior Court in Hackensack says. A responding officer cited "visible signs of injuries" on the alleged victim's neck, the complaint says. "Their verbal argument turned physical when the suspect grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the refrigerato…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Bergen County Chef Gets Sweet Surprise While Filming Gordon Ramsay Cooking Show Bergen County Chef Gets Sweet Surprise While Filming Gordon Ramsay Cooking Show
Bergen County Chef Gets Sweet Surprise While Filming Gordon Ramsay Cooking Show Bergen County's Michelle Calcagni and her husband Anthony had been trying to get pregnant for about a year without luck. After months of high hopes and letdowns for the Washington Township couple, they decided to stop trying, and just relax.  But when 31-year-old Calcagni was abroad last September and one week into filming Gordon Ramsay cooking show "Next Level Chef," she noticed she was especially emotional, and her menstrual cycle was late. Calcagni, an Oradell native, took two pregnancy tests. They were both positive. "I was stunned," said Calcagni, who is competing in the Home Chef c…

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by Cecilia Levine
News
'Was That An Earthquake?' North Jersey Asks 'Was That An Earthquake?' North Jersey Asks
'Was That An Earthquake?' North Jersey Asks "What was that?" was the question that rumbled through a large swath of North Jersey and into New York State early Wednesday afternoon. Mine blasting? A sonic boom? Seneca guns? Unconfirmed reports of an earthquake or "seismic-like event" stretched from Newton and Sparta in Sussex County to as far east as the Palisades in Alpine beginning at 12:52 p.m. Jan. 11.  There were similar calls in several southern New York State counties, as well as in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. All are basically in the area of the Ramapo Fault Line. The longest and oldest in the Northeast -- at 185 m…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
UPDATE: Speeding Out-Of-Control Sedan Slams Into Home On Quiet Oradell Block: Police UPDATE: Speeding Out-Of-Control Sedan Slams Into Home On Quiet Oradell Block: Police
Update: Speeding Out-Of-Control Sedan Slams Into Home On Quiet Oradell Block: Police A motorist can expect summonses after an out-of-control sedan crashed into a home on a quiet Oradell street, police said Thursday. The driver was "operating at a high rate of speed" as the Nissan Sentra raced up Merritt Drive and then failed to take the corner onto Schlomann Drive near the Haworth border around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 28, Lt. David Gangemi said. The sedan barreled up a front lawn and slammed into the corner of a neighbors's two-car attached garage, responders at the scene said. Oradell firefighters made sure the house on Schlomann Drive was safe before the sedan was…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Bail Reform Was Once This Bergen Serial Burglar's Friend — Not Anymore: Authorities Bail Reform Was Once This Bergen Serial Burglar's Friend — Not Anymore: Authorities
Bail Reform Was Once This Bergen Serial Burglar's Friend — Not Anymore: Authorities Charges continue to mount against a one-man crime wave – and onetime bail reform poster boy – whom judges have kept held in the Bergen County Jail since mid-October. Police in Glen Rock and Wyckoff became the latest to charge Nicola Torres, 40, of Passaic, with commercial burglaries in their towns. That makes more than a dozen municipal police departments in four New Jersey counties just this year alone. Torres has a criminal record that stretches back more than 15 years, mostly for business break-ins. More recently, the 6-foot-2-inch, 240-pound felon has been repeatedly arrested and the…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Bergen Motorist Severely Injured In Rear-End Crash Receives $760,000 Settlement Bergen Motorist Severely Injured In Rear-End Crash Receives $760,000 Settlement
Bergen Motorist Severely Injured In Rear-End Crash Receives $760,000 Settlement UPDATE: A Bergen County woman received a $760,000 settlement after she was seriously injured when her car was rammed from behind on a busy Oradell street, according to a published report. Mary Kathlynne "Kat" Flanders, 47, was stopped in traffic on Kinderkamack Road on April 29, 2017 when another vehicle rear-ended hers, the New Jersey Law Journal reported. The impact knocked her vehicle into the one in front of her, the report says. Flanders suffered four herniated discs and nerve damage, among other serious injuries, according to the Law Journal. Spinal injections didn't work, forcing h…

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by Jerry DeMarco
News
Fire In Oradell Medical Building Doused Fire In Oradell Medical Building Doused
Fire In Oradell Medical Building Doused Firefighters quickly doused a Friday morning fire in an Oradell medical building. The apparently electrical fire broke out in an oxygen room in the three-story office building on Kinderkamack Road shortly before 8:30 a.m. Firefighters contained it to that room, kept the flames from spreading and had the blaze extinguished in minutes. No injuries were reported.

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by Jerry DeMarco