RED BANK: DOWNTOWN DEER
A pair of whitetail deer was spotted crossing Wallace Street in downtown Red Bank Monday.
RED BANK: COUNCIL SALARIES UNCHANGED
The council meets twice monthly at borough hall, 90 Monmouth Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Salaries for Red Bank’s mayor and council, which haven’t risen in at least 15 years, will remain unchanged at least through the remainder of 2023, under an resolution up for a vote Thursday night.
But whomever the governing body selects to fill the new borough manager post will have the latitude to give them specified raises under a related ordinance that’s also up for a vote.
Here’s a quick look at the agenda:
RED BANK: SALARY BUMPS & MORE ON AGENDA
The council meets twice monthly at borough hall, 90 Monmouth Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank’s council would clear the way to give itself its first pay bump in at least 15 years under an ordinance up for introduction Thursday night.
It would also reset the maximum salaries for the top three unelected positions at borough hall, one of which is open.
Here’s a quick look at the agenda:
RED BANK: PAWSING TO ENJOY ‘DOG DAYS’
Check out redbankgreen’s photos from the annual sniffathon known as Dog Days, held Saturday in Red Bank’s Marine Park.
RED BANK: WE’RE HUNGRY, MOMMY DEEREST
Twin fawns spent a sun-dappled afternoon in adjoining backyards on Madison Avenue in Red Bank Monday, watching other wildlife and awaiting the return of their mother.
RED BANK: NEIGHBORS RAPT OVER OWLET
Who’s there? A young owl surprised neighbors when it perched in a tree on Hudson Avenue in Red Bank last week.
MIDDLETOWN: RIVERFRONT PARK TO OPEN
In the works for more than eight years, Swimming River Park in the River Plaza section of Middletown is set to make its official debut Monday.
LITTLE SILVER: POLICE FIND MISSING DOG
Gemma with Detective Stephen Scherer, standing, and patrolmen Jeff Lewandowski, left, and Joe Calao. (Photo courtesy of Little Silver Police Department. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Little Silver dog taken by presumed good Samaritans was reunited with her owners on Thanksgiving after 10 days and a tip from a concerned citizen, police said Tuesday.
LITTLE SILVER: ‘GOOD SAMARITANS’ KEEP DOG
Gemma is a six-year-old pit bull mix with a brindle coat. (Photo courtesy of Cheryl DeLorenzo. Click to enlarge.)
See UPDATE below
By JOHN T. WARD
A Little Silver dog that wandered away from home a week ago appears to have been snatched by presumed good Samaritans, her owner says.
RED BANK: GETTING A JUMP ON THE HOLIDAY
A fox dashed across Madison Avenue in Red Bank at the sight of an approaching bicyclist Friday morning. Or was our foxy friend simply getting an early jump on the Memorial Day weekend?
The unofficial start of summer will bring warm-to-hot temperatures and ample sunshine Sunday and Monday, according to the National Weather Service. Check out the extended forecast below. (Video by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: 5K RACE, SYMPHONY TO RETURN
After being mothballed for two years by the COVID-19 pandemic, two events that bring in thousands of visitors to Red Bank are slated to return this summer.
The Red Bank Classic 5K and the New Jersey Symphony concert in Marine Park are among events filling up a calendar wiped clean in 2020 and only partly refilled in 2021.
RED BANK: SPCA CONTRACT UNDER REVIEW
Debbie Nagel, who then served as the borough’s backup animal control officer, with a raccoon pup rescued from a tree on Brown Place last May. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Just six months in, Red Bank is rethinking its deal for animal control services with the Monmouth County SPCA.
The agreement generated a firestorm last spring, in part because it ended an in-house service provided by a borough employee who many residents praised for his dedication to the task.
RED BANK: SEASONS ON THE WING
Maple Cove in Red Bank provided a summer-ending birder’s bounty Tuesday. Who can identify these feathered friends of our beautiful Navesink River?
Autumn flutters in at 3:21 Eastern Daylight Time on Wednesday, according to the Farmers Almanac. The new season will arrive under cloudy skies, and maybe some rain, with temperatures rising to the high 70s, says the National Weather Service.
Check out the extended forecast below. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: DOGS AGAIN FROLIC IN PARK
Like a dog aroused by the smell of food, Red Bank’s pandemic-interrupted Dog Days of Summer series snapped back to life in Marine Park Saturday.
The gathering, organized by the borough’s Animal Welfare Advisory Committee, featured live music by the Wag, displays by pet care organizations and several hundred wet noses.
Check out redbankgreen‘s photos from the event below.
(Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: FORECAST IDEAL FOR ‘DOG DAYS’
The weather outlook appears ideal for the 2021 installment of Dogs Days of Summer in Red Bank Saturday.
Organized by the borough’s volunteer Animal Welfare Advisory Committee and Parks and Rec department, the event runs from noon to 4 p.m. in Marine Park, and features live music by the Wag (naturally), as well as contests, pet-care information, vendors and animal welfare organizations.
The Red Rock Tap + Grill on Wharf Avenue, opposite the park, will host a Doggy After Party.
According to the National Weather Service, the event won’t need its rain date (Sunday), with lots of sunshine expected amid temperatures peaking in the mid-70s. Here’s the extended forecast. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
RED BANK: POLICE FREE JAZZED-UP DOG
A dog needed a Red Bank police assist getting to a jazz concert after it locked itself inside a car Thursday night, its owner told redbankgreen.
RED BANK: TURTLES & PLANTS SETTLE IN
Creating the turtle habitat at Bellhaven involved trucking in a special blend of sand. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Red Bank’s Environmental Commission has debuted a pair of completed projects spotlighting turtles and water conservation in recent weeks.
RED BANK: DEP SAYS RIVERS SAFE FOR HUMANS
A cluster of dead bunker in the Red Bank borough marina at Marine Park earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A massive die-off of bunker fish in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers this spring poses no health threat to recreational users of those waters, environmental scientists said Thursday night.
Meantime, experts are still trying to determine what environmental “stressors” might have turned a bacteria that’s common to the species into a mass killer that has littered shores with tons of dead, putrid carcasses.
RED BANK: FORUM ON FISH KILL SLATED
A cluster of dead bunker in the borough marina at Marine Park earlier this month. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Clean Ocean Action and local officials, including Red Bank’s, will get the virtual town hall with New Jersey environmental officials they’ve been seeking to address the recent “severe” fish kill in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers, the organization announced Friday.
RED BANK: ORPHANED RACCOONS GET TLC
For the second day in a row, a wildlife officer was called out to the corner of Brown Place and South Street in Red Bank to care for a raccoon pup that had fallen from a nest about 20 feet above the ground.
RED BANK: TOWN HALL ON FISH KILL SOUGHT
Fish carcasses on the shoreline at Maple Cove in Red Bank Thursday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
Red Bank officials this week called on the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to host a virtual town hall meeting to address concerns about a fish kill the agency has called the “most severe” in recent memory.
RED BANK: FISH KILL ‘MOST SEVERE’ OF LATE
Dead menhaden cluster at a Navesink River dock in Fair Haven last week. (Photo by Bernie McSherry. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A massive fish kill in the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers in recent weeks is “the most severe mortality event in recent memory,” but New Jersey environmental officials still don’t know why it’s targeting only one species, Clean Ocean Action reported Thursday.
The environmental advocacy group also pressed the state to remove at least some of the dead fish from Red Bank-area waters.
RED BANK: MENHADEN DIE-OFF IN SPOTLIGHT
Dead fish littered the Fair Haven boat launch on Battin Avenue last week. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
Clean Ocean Action has called on New Jersey environmental and health officials to hold a virtual town hall to provide updates and guidance for towns along the Navesink and Shrewsbury rivers, where massive menhaden die-offs have occurred recently.
“The cause, extent, and magnitude of the die-off is deeply concerning and raising alarm throughout the region,” COA executive director Cindy Zipf and staff scientist Swarna Muthukrishnan wrote Friday. “Feeding the concern is the lack of answers, conflicting answers, and lack of proactive response to the ever-increasing dead fish.”
RED BANK: CONTRACTOR DENIES RACIST POST
By JOHN T. WARD
An animal-control specialist who has a backup role with Red Bank government came under fire over the weekend for a racist post on Facebook.
But Randolph Tashman, who was appointed to provide supplementary animal control services to the borough in 2019, denied to redbankgreen that he wrote the post.
RED BANK: AFTER ‘NO-HO-HO,’ CHIMNEY’S A GO
The stainless steel chimney installed at 46-48 Washington Street will be replaced with one the owner says won’t be visible from the street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
It won’t be ready in time for Santa and his reindeer. But an “eyesore” metal pipe chimney on a home in Red Bank’s historic district is slated for replacement following review by the Historic Preservation Commission Tuesday night.
The case illustrated frustrations common among homeowners who live in the district about their absentee counterparts, the HPC’s chairwoman said.