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The Present West Orange Outlook West Orange has now achieved triple-A statusexcept the three A's stand for "Apathy Above All." After twelve years during which one mayor's unbridled ego brought about over-taxation, over-development, and over-expenditure, the town finally had a chance to get out from under with its May 2010 election. But it seems that nearly a dozen months of overflowing attendance at town meetings with citizens screaming bloody-murder about over-taxation, over-development, and over-expenditure were for naught. The citizens will undoubtedly continue to complain, but it's their own fault since only a third of registered voters bothered to turn out on Election Day. This after a non-party-machine candidate had come forward and sensibly connected all the dots for them on how to take the town back. His lawn signs outnumbered ten-to-one those of the outgoing mayor's crony councilman who was also seeking the mayoral seat. The crony councilman would be the same one who rubber-stamped every lame-brained idea which led to the town's over-taxation, over-development, and over-expenditure. He would be the one who, just like a stereotypical old-time movie politician, can never give a simple answer to any question which he does quite amateurishly and quite pathetically every week on televised town meetings. He would be the one who founded a civic organization which happily takes members' dues but when membership voting is required or if a particularly prickly subject could give rise to dissent, notification of those meetings gets postmarked the day after the meeting was already heldjust the same sort of transparency our town government has had for the last twelve years. The election was a no-brainer. The issues couldn't have been more black and white. But the crony councilman actually got elected mayor by a mere 160 votes which, in effect, gives the outgoing mayor a fourth term. So how could this have possibly happened? 1) Because those two-thirds of the voters never bothered to cast a ballot. 2) Because when the crony councilman was forced to go house-to-house seeking support and people wouldn't even answer their doors, it embarrassed the current-powers-that-be who were confidently expecting a coronation. With egg on their faces, that's when the political machine went into overdrive. A flyer was mailed from the local State Senator applauding the crony councilman. Of course, while the local State Senator's wife still works in town as one of our over-paid teachers, they themselves have moved out of town due to the tax burden heaped upon citizens by the very same crony councilman being applauded. To squeak by with a measly 160 votes with all that state political clout behind him, the crony councilman/mayor-elect should be too embarrassed to show up for the swearing in. But the weak turn-out of voters is what really doomed the town. It's like living among lemmings who are following one another jumping off a cliff. They'll spend an entire evening waiting to complain publicly on television but won't spend five minutes to privately cast a vote. Hence, West Orange, New Jersey truly deserves its new motto: "Apathy Above All." It is somehow appropriate that as a novelist who finds inspiration in his roots and as a local historian who tries to preserve those roots, John Dandola's family has been a mainstay in West Orange for generations. Unfortunately, both the inspiration and the preservation are becoming more and more difficult to sustain. During his grandparents' lifetime, three-quarters of the twelve-square-mile township was farmland and woodland. During his parents' youth and young adulthood, half of the township was farmland and woodland. During his own childhood, the farmland finally disappeared. In the last two decades, the woodlands were being encroached upon. In the last two years, the woodlands (with the exception of a few county-protected reserves) have been virtually eradicated and replaced with buildings in an unending pursuit of tax revenues. What it has also done is displace a great deal of native wildlife (which is now forced to forage the neighborhoods) and create a mishmash of uninspired new architecture alongside the old. In several instances, old historically significant buildings have been razed to be replaced by larger, uglier, new ones with more occupancy. It was only after all this damage had been done that the town council considered undertaking a study about the impact of over-development! To accommodate all of the over-development, the town council then escalated traffice problems by transforming thru streets into dead-ends; adding traffic lights upon traffic lights; further altering traffic patterns by posting four-way stop signs where they never before stood and are for the most part unnecessary; and using the pavement which should have filled potholes to create eight-foot-wide speed bumps anywhere and everywhere instead of posting a police vehicle to stop speeders. To travel within the town limits between 7:45AM and 9:15AM or between 3:30PM and 6:30PM, it can routinely take 45 minutes to go three miles. But the politicians are in complete denial about the mess they have caused. Such blatant short-sightedness in the name of so-called progress has not only cost the town an active sense of time, place, and history but it has allowed for the fabrication of historical elements to aid and abet political purposes even going so far as to feed misinformation about the town's historical development (along with an intentional half-truth about mayoral election returns) to The New York Times. The lack of historical appreciation and perspective even trickles down to the education system. In the late 19th century, Washington Street School was built specifically for the newly planned streets of what is termed "Watchung Heights." These streets run along side the school and have a clear view of it. But in the early 21st century, the children on those streets were suddenly bused two miles away while children from streets not even within Washington School's periphery were bused in. Is it any wonder why there is a lack of neighborhood pride? Reaffirming that lack of pride has been the introduction of the newest form of pollutionthe visual assault of an unending haphazard array of signs and poorly designed banners cluttering and choking every street and serving to only confuse motorists and pedestrians alike. The latest touch is a series of banners which mislabels entire sections of the town. West Orange politicians have never met a sign they didn't like. Christmas banners remain up until Valentine's Day; St. Patrick's Day Parade banners remain up until the end of July; the candidate signs from any past election can be found for months even years after the votes were tallied; and one school which celebrated its centennial more than a decade ago, still displays that banner across its front entrance more out of laziness than pride (this same school also butchered historic interior architectural features which were protected by a grandfather clause). When driving into West Orange, one can't help but notice how the speed limit, no parking, and any other municipal ordinance signs increase dramatically and needlessly from all of the other surrounding towns. As of late, the local politicians think that posting not only more roadside signs but also billboards for every and any reason or event proves some sense of accomplishment on their parts. In fact, their only accomplishment is a huge blemish on the landscape in what may arguably be more signs per square foot than any other municipality in recent memory. In April of 2002, New Jersey Monthly magazine ran an article listing eleven New Jersey towns where affordable houses can still be purchased. Aside from an inaccurate statement about West Orange possessing as much cultural and artistic sensibility as neighboring Montclair and a blatant side-step about discussing the traffic problem, the article pegged West Orange warts and all. But the extraordinarily large ego of the West Orange mayor then took over and he posted a billboard claiming that New Jersey Monthly had declared West Orange as "one of New Jersey's eleven GREAT towns"! There is no way that anyone reading the magazine article can come away with such a conclusion. In movie and book advertising there are general rules about how quotations from reviews can be used. What cannot be done is to alter a reviewer's meaning. Apparently, the same general rules do not apply to politics. The mayor's clear intent is to allude that New Jersey Monthly had ranked West Orange in an annual article it runs on "Greatest Towns"usually very upscale for which West Orange is never in the running. This is just another amateurish ploy in the mayor's continual and intentional misrepresentation of everything he undertakes. "Mr. Smoke and Mirrors" is how one politico dubbed him and that is pretty much the only truth in this latest bit of false advertising. One would think that a mayor should have been concerned about signing his name to a very public untruth but in actuality, this mayor is really only concerned about how large his name is printed on anything and everything. Just as his equally public pledge to limit himself to a two-term limit as mayor fell by the wayside when he reneged and sought a third term. This is the mentality which has caused West Orange to dissolve into government via press release. Even a simple litter problem can no longer be rectified by internal phone calls to the street department to do the clean up and the police department to enforce the litter laws. Instead, a press release must be issued and a very public display must be undertaken to form a "litter task force" when in fact the problem was needlessly and very visually allowed to exist for two and a half years until there was a lull in the press release schedule! In West Orange, amateurish hyperbole now reigns supreme and the newest phrase the mayor has fallen in love with is: "state-of-the-art"which by his continual misusage, he obviously doesn't comprehend. West Orange cannot simply have a new soccer field, it must be proclaimed by the mayor as a "state-of-the-art" soccer field! It begs the question as to how this can be so unless of course the grass seedlings were bionically reproduced. Then there is the new "state-of-the-art" outdoor theatre which is so "state-of-the-art" that it can only be used during the warm months and patrons have to bring their own lawn chairs! And is that theatre named for the bona fide stage and movie actress who grew up in town? No. Is it named for the three recognizable television actors who grew up in town? No. It is named for Oscar Schindler, a truly heroic figure but one hardly known for his theatrical talents. The mayor even wanted to build a new "state-of-the-art" library. The present library (circa 1960) of course has all the upgraded technical bells and whistles but the building has been poorly maintained and layed out in such a way as to maximize its shortage of space. But the mayor's newly appointed library board spent huge sums of money for outside experts to give self-serving answers about moving the library rather than using common sense and hiring an architect to easily enlarge the current facility. The real reason for this "state-of-the-art" move was so that the mayor could build a new library within an impractical redevelopment zone in an attempt to win over the very divided citizenry. Truth be told, they would have taken no better care of a new library than they did of the old one and, as always, they would not design it with any foresight which is exactly how they got into this bind in the first place. Thankfully, the proposed move was finally overturned in early 2007. Then there's prestigious Llewellyn Park. It has a long history but insists on inventing aspects of itself on whim. (No, just because someone found a photo of Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth on their wedding day in grandma's trunk doesn't mean the couple was married in Llewellyn Park. They were married at Santa Monica City Hall in Californianot only was in all the papers; it's mentioned in every biography written about either star!) Also, the locals have come to believe that Park residents get a Welcome to Llewellyn Park brochure which instructs them never to use their direction signals when turning into the Park entrance to make sure that they intentionally tie up traffic and create unnecessary annoyance among town residents. This is a spitefullness of which all Park residents are guilty. But then again, they don't really want to be part of West Orange. Their very own web site blatantly uses the untruth that they are "adjacent to Montclair." In real point of fact, Llewellyn Park is land-locked. The closest it comes to the upscale City of Montclair is one mile at one corner; it's the low-income City of Orange which can be seen only a few hundred yards from the Llewellyn Park entrance gate. For generations, the Park has made the conscious choice to alienate itself in such a way and they have been chided for it to no avail. Regrettably, when it comes to the matter of books, the town so warmly and thoughtfully celebrated in John's novels now only exists within those pages. In a laugh-out-loud twist of fate, the most recent West Orange debacle sounds like it was made up for a book. The impractical redevelopment zone mentioned above includes a proposed renovation of the Edison factories' old eye-sore buildings into condos. The landlord of the old factory buildings had schemed for years to get the town involved. Finally, the present mayor took the bait. Bidding was narrowed down to two architectural firms: one from a neighboring town and the other from New York City. The fix was in early and when the bid was awarded to the local firm, the New York competitors promptly turned around, bought the property from the scheming landlord, and pulled the rug out from under everyone! When it comes to skullduggery, West Orange politicians aren't the only ones who can play the game but they are usually the ones who can't play it well. In the summer of 2006, the ownership of the factory buildings was suddenly, mysteriously, and miraculously resolved. No real details have ever been forthcoming which, in and of itself, raises questions. Regardless, the downtown redevelopment began to proceed in late summer of 2008 but once the parking lot was torn up, the ground began to fill with water. For months they have waited for the water to subside. It won't. The very reason why the site stands on the corner of Main Street and Lakeside Avenue is because the area was once a lake. Edison had it drained and filled in in order to expand his factory. The water table is high, the topography is low, and a brook running through the area carries run-off there from higher elevations. But water is the least of it. The real major problem is that the area to be redeveloped is not physically conducive to the upscale shops, pricey lofts, and expensive condominiums which are proposed. The physical lay of the land is all wrong to make the venture convenient or attractive; the surrounding socio-economic climate is all wrong to support pipe-dreams of high-end shops and condominiums; and it is NOT improper to publicly state those drawbacks. Indeed, ignoring those facts and refusing to accept those facts is inexcusable. It is also inexcusable that since no elected official lives in the area slated for redevlopment (in fact, they all make sure to live as far away from that area as possible), not one has any firsthand knowledge of the present problems there nor have they bothered to try to understand the present problems there. No area can be redeveloped without such basic understanding. To proceed otherwise would be like slapping a fresh coat of paint on rotting woodit may pretty the surface but the material underneath will still crumble. The redevelopment zone is just the same as that rotting piece of wood and our politicians will slap it with a fresh coat of paint then tie it up with a bright red ribbon in order to guarantee that it's easier on the eyes just long enough for them to parlay it all into future political ambitions. The centerpiece of the redevelopment is the Edison Battery Factory which is to be transformed into luxury condos with "potential views of New York." That astoundingly asinine quote is exactly how they are billing this site. In truth, even though West Orange is sprawled across two mountains, the Edison Battery Factory is nestled in a valleyso much so, that when the factory was built, Main Street was known by its previous name: Valley Road. The only way the building would ever give tenants "potential views of New York" is if a multi-story ladder was erected on the roof and tenants were allowed to climb to the top of said ladder to stand on their tip-toes! What's more, the Edison Battery Factory overlooks a junkyard! The other enormous loophole in the redevelopment proposal is that if upscale shops cannot be attracted to the ground floor of the Edison Battery Factory and to the immediate area, that designated commercial space will then be redeveloped as residential. That, in turn, guarantees that the overpriced lofts and condos will not sell and that the building will wind up as low-income housing. By the spring of 2009, the developer of this ill-conceived project announced it has run out of money. That's correct. It ran out of money. Seemingly, their so-called wealth to foot the project was only on paper. So our mayor and the town council got together and actually thought it might be a good idea to back the developer by floating $47.5 million worth of bonds to overhaul a building which doesn't have views of New York and overlooks a junkyard. There hasn't been this much of an uproar by residents at a Town Council meeting in thirty years and the furor continued for multiple Town Meetings. But the politicians remained insistent to give the go-ahead on issuing bonds. Actually, this inexplicable stubbornness only served to raise the question which everyone has been skating around: Why would politicians watch their careers pass before their eyes on a project that is lame-brained, unwanted, and bankrupt? There can be only one answer and it certainly is not civic-mindedness. On Tuesday, September 1, 2009, the mayor finally threw in the towel and said that the town will not issue bonds to fund the Edison Battery Factory debacle. But there were lies perpetuated even in the mayor's statement. The $47.5 million talked about for months upon months had suddenly evaporated to $28.9 million. Then there was the his perception that one-third of the citizens was against the project, one-third for it, and one-third undecided. To reiterate, never has there been as big a turnout at town meetings let alone multiple town meetings as occurred throughout the spring and summer of 2009 and no one was for this project except the politicians. In fact, the only positive letters to the editor were from political cronies. But the mayor's take on those so-called undecided citizens is the most telling when he speculated that recent arrests of corrupt officials elsewhere in New Jersey for illegal involvement with developers could influence the "undecided" segment of citizens. Translation of that political double-speak into real English: Put in the context that this reversal comes just a week prior to the town going before the Municipal Finance Board to get approval to issue such bonds and due to all of the hoopla and news coverage about the Edison Battery Factory debacle, someone must have been scrutinizing or was about to scrutinize every minute detail of the project. When the mayor reneged on his very public promise to only hold two terms and then ran for a third term in order to push this Edison Battery Factory white elephant so that it could be his "legacy," he hadn't bargained for that legacy to be so appropriate. Adding to all of this is the continual nonsense involving the Edison National Historic Site itself. In the spring of 2003, the site was closed for a year's worth of renovations. That year was then extended to two years. Then it just seemed permenantly closed. It didn't reopen for six and a half years. In the meantime, they have painted the circa 1930 chain link fence not once, not twice, but three times one right after the other when it was "discovered" that the first two contractors had used the wrong black paint. Then, they chopped down the pine trees which stood in front of the red brick laboratory citing that they weren't there in Edison's heyday. No, they weren't; they were planted by Edison's employees as a memorial to him after his death in 1931. Yet that memorial was not to be respected. Shortly thereafter, the site went so far as to send a press release to the local paper explaining that they are going to restore the sidewalk to exactly the way it was in Edison's day. To that end, they have put in a new cement sidewalk, placed cobblestones between the sidewalk and the curb, then added Dickensian-style gas street lamps. It's a sin when any historic site feels the need to lie to the public. There is no need to pass off someone's half-hearted, misguided attempt at restoration as historically accurate when it's not. The Edison Historic Site staff has vintage photos of the property. They know that the original sidewalks were slate. There were never cobblestones between the curb and the sidewalk, the cobblestones covered the streets in the days before asphalt. There were NEVER gas lamps along Main Street. After all, Edison did invent the electric light! And Dickensian-style gas lamps are not even indigenous to the area. When street lights were installed in West Orange sometime in the 1920's, they were electric and of the typically ornate 1920's variety. They were certainly never these type of tacky Dickensian-styled ones which can only be found in theme parks. It's a shame that no one ever has the integrity to do things properly and correctly. This whole undertaking is reminiscent of how the site handled the removal of ivy from the red brick laboratory back in the 1970's. Ivy destroys brick mortar and it was, therefore, wrecking havoc on the exterior walls. But instead of just taking the initiative and cutting away the ivy, the then supervisor concluded that since the site is part of the National Park Service, he had to actually apply to Congress for permission to remove the destructive ivy because vegetation growing in a National Park is protected by Federal Government regulations. Better to wait for Congress to take up the issue and let the brick walls cave in rather than to use common sense and protect the site placed in your care. In October of 2009, the Edison Site finally reopened with a God-awful name change: The Edison National Historical Park (the adjective "historical" is used incorrectly* but the equally incorrect use of the word "park" sort of goes with the out-of-place Disneyland street lamps.) It seems that after fifty-five years of maps and references terming it "The Edison National Historic Site" some over-thinker concluded that since the "site" was comprised of both the original Edison lab on Main Street and his home in Llewellyn Park that it was actually two "sites" so a "park" reference was in order. Of course, the "park" terminology is even more inaccurate than the "site" terminology because the house and the lab are separate properties approximately a mile apart and the word "park" suggests that they are within the same massive enclosure. Unimaginative inaccurate governmental thinking at its finest. Why not just label each locale a separate site or, with the mere addition of an "s", acknowledge both under the same umbrella as "The Edison National Historic Sites"? It could have been just that easy and it would have sounded a heck of a lot more literate. But that is how the National Park Service has always handled West Orange history. Way back when, the Feds alienated the locals as soon as they took over the museum by refusing to believe that so many people in town actually knew Edison. They stepped on so many toes that, as a result, they lost a tremendous amount of oral history which can never be regained. Although West Orange history is treated no better by local government. Recently, the mayor gave a televised speech and got the facts about the town's development all wrong. Of course, the incorrect facts he supplied were perfect to substantiate a point which would politically favor himself. History be damned. Just as recently on our public-access television channel, West Orange High School aired a student's "documentary" about how West Orange is that overly-used and thoroughly-unimaginative politically-correct buzz word, diverse. This program (which was overseen by teachers), opened with a shot of the school and the voice-over narration: "If you had been a student in West Orange High School eighty years ago..." Of course, eighty years ago, the present West Orange High School was a field on a farm. The present West Orange High School was built in 1960 as Mountain High School. All the placards in the foyer are still present but no one (neither students nor faculty) reads them. Mountain was one of two high schools the town maintained at the time. West Orange High School was sold off to Seton Hall Prep decades ago. But knowing which school was which is the least of the "documentary" problems. From the opening shot of the school, the image dissolves to a group yearbook photo from the 1930's in which there is only one young lady who is black. The tone then taken by the narrator suggests that this was somehow unfair and orchestrated because now we are (here's that word again) diverse. In point of fact, all the way through the 1970's and into the 1980's, West Orange was predominently Caucasian. But there was absolutely no hidden racist agenda at play. Caucasians were predominent because they were the original citizens and generations of those original citizens still lived in the same houses in the same neighborhoods. Just as those generations of the original citizens worked for Edison. It wasn't that minorities weren't wanted or allowed. It was that no one was selling the family home or giving up the family job. To interpret that in any other fashion is revisionist history and interpreting history by using present standards is always wrong and always inaccurate and always simple-minded. The teachers should have known that. The Board of Education should have known that. The politicians do know that but it plays better for them this way. The same absurdity just keeps perpetuating... ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ * "Historic" denotes a solid, authentic, deeply-rooted connection to the past ("historic site" is the actual place where something took place). "Historical" denotes a link to or investigation of the past ("historical society") or something based on events from the past ("historical fiction") but when "historical" is combined with the word "park," it more than suggests a place which involves replicated structures and re-enactments. Other than the replica of The Black Mariah, that is hardly the case at the Edison Site. Author's Bio | West Orange Mystery Novels | Author Interview | West Orange History Connection | Charity Interview | Independent Fan Site | Home Copyright © 20002010 John Dandola, Ltd. All rights reserved. |
The proposed Edison Battery Factory development project which keeps filling with
water because its site was once a lake. |
The name on the mock sign alludes to that of our municipal pool which honors our home-grown Olympic gold-medalist. Of course, when she married and followed her husband to his new out-of-state job, the Town Council actually tried to remove her name because she was no longer a resident! |
Democrats and Republicans can best be summed up on the following elemental level: When it comes to municipal ordinances regarding parking regulations, noise levels, property maintenance, and general quality of life, Republicans always enforce such ordinances because they like to live in an environment devoid of eyesores. Democrats, on the other hand, are either too lazy to enforce those ordinances or they know the offending
party so they won't take action. As a result, Democratic towns appear untidy and unkempt and sorting through the bureaucracy to get action is almost impossible. Needless to say, West Orange is a Democratic town. |
From its very inception, the town was named and very clearly pronounced "West Orange"; the lack of pride in place and identity has become quite evident in the past ten years merely by the way the name has been lazily muttered and reduced into "Wes-Storange." |