Development fights, school lawsuits: The Morris County storylines that may dominate 2024
Triumphs, tragedies, milestones and new development - lots of it - were all part of a memorable year in Morris County.
Many of the storylines that captured our attention remain unsettled heading into 2024: a mammoth warehouse project proposed for Roxbury, the fate of the Drew Forest in Madison, controversial tax deals in Parsippany and legal fights over library books, parental rights and a stand of inappropriately logged trees in Kinnelon, to name just a few.
In no particular order, here are the some of most notable stories the Daily Record reported on in 2023, and the ones that could dominate the headlines in the new year.
Affordable housing mandates fuel wave of development
The effects of a 2015 New Jersey Supreme Court ruling forcing most towns to build more affordable housing could be seen across Morris County. More than 1,300 apartments and townhouses are going up just in Parsippany. Several hundred more won approval or began to rise from Montville to the Hanovers, Madison and Boonton Township.
Dissatisfaction with the current system prompted legislators in Trenton to consider a major overhaul of affordable housing mandates late this year, but it's unclear how far that effort will go.
Warehouses and distribution centers continued to proliferate as well. Among the most watched in 2024 will be Hartz Mountain Industry's application to build 2.5-million square feet of warehouse space at the former Hercules munitions plant in Roxbury and a plan to replace the former BASF office complex along Route 80 in Mount Olive with yet more storage space.
PILOTs, PLAs and political turmoil in Parsippany
The building boom caused headaches for local government leaders tasked with abiding by court rulings while also trying to bring in more tax revenues to balance their budgets.
The startling pace of redevelopment in Parsippany is central to a growing conflict in Morris County's most populous town, where Councilman Justin Musella has rallied public opposition against the developer tax deals known as PILOTs and project labor agreements that favor large unions. The young Republican's pushback has riled his fellow GOP council members and James Barberio, Morris County's only full-time mayor.
Does Musella have his sights set on unseating Barberio in the 2025 election? We'll learn more in the coming year.
Political backflips: East Hanover mayor, council switch parties; Dover rehires Dodd
East Hanover's elected leaders dropped a bombshell in February, announcing that longtime Mayor Joseph Pannullo and the rest of the five-member township council had switched their party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.
Pannullo, who's represented the town of 11,000 since 2007, didn't didn't cite a specific factor motivating the switch, but said: "Municipal leaders have a responsibility to best represent their constituents, and it is our belief this change of party is in the best interest of the community. As the nastiness, rhetoric and social media vitriol of national politics continues to infiltrate local governance, we collectively determined this was the best course of action to keep the focus on local issues impacting our community."
Meanwhile, in Dover, one of the county's few Democratic strongholds, conflict continued to define local politics. Four years ago, both the town and county Democratic committees endorsed former Alderwoman Carolyn Blackman for mayor, turning on incumbent James Dodd. This year, the tables turned as Dodd unseated Blackman in the primary and the committees backed him to an easy general election victory. Dodd is due to be sworn in for his fifth term as mayor on Jan. 1.
School boards debate book bans, parental rights
National debates over LGBTQ-themed books and the rights of students to choose their gender identity spilled into local school districts in 2023. Some parents and conservative groups such as Moms for Liberty spoke out in favor of parental rights and endorsed school board candidates favoring their views, leading to fireworks in Hanover, Roxbury and other towns.
Hanover's district ended up in court after adopting rules requiring school staff to report to parents any behavior that could have an "adverse" impact on their children, including sexual preferences and gender identity. Even after the board modified that language, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin said the measure still violated state policy 5756, which requires schools to accept a student's preferred gender identity and pronouns without parental consent.
Platkin responded by filing a lawsuit. A final decision is still pending, but Hanover voters sided with a slate of parental-rights candidates in November's school board elections.
In Roxbury, high school librarian Roxanna Caivano earned headlines when she sued four township residents. She said the quartet had harassed and defamed her in public, branding her a "predator" because district libraries included sexually explicit materials like the graphic novel "Gender Queer."
The lawsuit, and a countersuit by the defendants, set off a series of tumultuous board meetings that drew hundreds of residents and others eager to sound off on either side. Later in the year, the Roxbury board voted against scrapping Policy 5756. But with new board members due to take office in January, that could change. The two lawsuits, meanwhile, will proceed into the new year.
Three homeless deaths in Dover
Three homeless men in Dover died over a two-week period this summer, shedding light on an often-ignored population in affluent Morris County. Two of the men drowned in the Rockaway River, swollen by summer rains. The third, 47-year-old Rene Rivera Hernandez, died in a fight with another homeless man, struck in the head by a rock.
Wilfredo Cabrera-Masariegos pleaded guilty to manslaughter in October and was sentenced to five years in prison, after which he likely will be deported back to his native Honduras.
A spate of drowning victims
Sadly, the Dover drowning victims were just two of the five people who lost their lives in the rivers and lakes of Morris County.
The wave of tragedies began on July 12, when an 8-year-old Roxbury boy drowned in a stream in the Flanders section of town. Around the same time, authorities found the body of an unidentified 76-year-old boater below the surface of Lake Hopatcong, near an boat tied to a dock with the motor still running. A few days later at the same lake, State Police divers recovered the body of boater Edward Sikora, 80, of Upper Saddle River. The final tragedy came on Aug. 4, when 67-year-old Michael Rolli was found unresponsive in Lincoln Park Community Lake.
Rain floods Morris during holiday season
After a mild winter and a wet summer, heavy rains returned in mid-December, flooding entire neighborhoods and forcing evacuations in some areas. Denville's town administrator called it the worst flooding he'd seen since Hurricane Irene, a dozen years earlier.
From Dover to Parsippany and Florham Park to Whippany, basements were submerged and roads flooded. Among the most affected were residents along the Pompton and Passaic rivers in Pequannock ad Lincoln Park. Neighborhoods were swamped and one house burned to the ground after it caught fire and floodwaters kept firefighters from reaching the blaze. More misery followed on Dec. 27, when another 3 inches of rain fell on waterlogged areas.
Canadian wildfires bring dense, smoky haze
The rain wasn't the only atmospheric calamity In June, smoke from Canadian wildfires descended on the East Coast, blanketing New Jersey and the New York Metropolitan area.
The thick haze turned the skies over Morris County an eerie orange for several days, with skyrocketing air-quality indexes that triggered warnings of extremely unhealthy conditions for those with respiratory ailments.
A milestone for Mallory's Army
In July, the Rockaway Township School District agreed to pay $9.1 million to the parents of Mallory Grossman, the 12-year-old whose death by suicide in 2017 raised awareness across the nation about bullying. The settlement was the largest-ever payout in a bullying case in New Jersey.
The sixth grader at Copeland Middle School took her life on June 14, 2017, after enduring “relentless” harassment by her classmates, according to the suit filed by her parents, Dianne and Seth Grossman. The tragedy also spurred anti-bullying legislation named in her honor that Gov. Phil Murphy signed into law in 2022.
Kinnelon man faces $1M in penalties for cutting neighbor's trees
Poet Robert Frost once observed that "Good fences make good neighbors. A fence might have come in handy in Kinnelon, where a borough man faces fines and restitution penalties of up to $1 million after allegedly hiring contractors to cut down a swath of his neighbor's woods earlier this year. Grant Haber purportedly ordered the removal of 32 trees to improve his own view of the New York skyline, prompting his neighbor to call the cops.
The case drew national outrage and is still in the courts. After numerous postponements, a municipal trial is set for Jan. 19.
Retail pot comes to the county
Nearly three years after New Jersey residents overwhelmingly voted to legalize marijuana sales for recreational use, Morris County's first retail cannabis dispensary opened in August in Rockaway. Kind Kush held its grand opening on Aug. 19 in a borough shopping center along Route 46.
More retail cannabis dispensaries are expected to open in the county in 2024, including in Boonton, Victory Gardens and other Morris municipalities that are seeking to claim a share of the tax revenue generated by weed sales.
Leaf-blower ban in Morristown
Morristown voters narrowly approved a ballot question to ban gas-powered leaf blowers in the November election, after the town council punted on the issue. The town could find itself facing legal challenges from residents and landscapers seeking to overturn the law. In Essex County, Montclair faces multiple lawsuits after passing a similar ban earlier in 2023.
Rare Lincoln portrait revealed in Madison
The forgotten origins of a 9-foot-tall painting of Abraham Lincoln that hung in the Madison council chambers for eight decades were revealed in 2023, and the details were no disappointment: Experts declared it one of the most significant remaining depictions of the16th president.
Soon after the revelation was made public, the painting was transported to the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. It will hang on loan there for five years before its scheduled return to Madison.
Bonnie Monte exits the stage at Shakespeare Theatre of NJ
In 1990, Bonnie Monte assumed control of the moribund New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, which had been in residence since 1972. By 1997, she had transformed the Morris County company into one of the nation's most celebrated classic theater troupes, with a new venue on the Drew University campus, annual outdoor productions and thriving educational and outreach programs.
Her watch was due to end on Dec. 31 with the last performance of "A Midwinter Night's Dream," but Monte says she will continue to adapt and direct plays there in the future. Longtime associate Brian B. Crowe was named as her worthy replacement.
A Christmas Eve murder
One of the last stories of the year was among the most shocking: Gregory Meyer of Boonton Township died in his home on Christmas Eve, allegedly killed by his 33-year-old son, Kyle, who was arrested and charged with murder. Police say the murder weapons included an ax and a battery-operated pole saw, and the family said the son had long struggled with mental illness.
The killing came nine months after another tragedy that stunned the county, a murder-suicide in Roxbury that claimed the lives of Kellie Ventricelli and her 15-year-old son Anthony. Police said Peter Ventricelli killed his wife and son in March before turning the gun on himself.
"Our individual and collective loss is tremendous, and we will always grieve," Kellie's brother, Joe Voorhees, said at a memorial service. "But we are all better people for having had Kellie and Anthony in our lives."
William Westhoven is a local reporter for DailyRecord.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: wwesthoven@dailyrecord.com Twitter: @wwesthoven
This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Development, school lawsuits: Morris County stories to watch in 2024
