RED BANK: CHROMEBOOKS ON LOAN AT LIBRARY
The Red Bank Public Library has added Chromebooks to the information technology available for borrowing by patrons.
RED BANK: HYBRID SESSIONS TO BEGIN
A sampling of screen grabs from council sessions since April, 2020. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After 26 months of sequestration in ‘Hollywood Squares’-style boxes, the Red Bank council has scheduled an in-person session for next week.
But participation-from-home, a format adopted to minimize transmission the COVID-19 virus, will continue, the borough administration announced Wednesday.
RED BANK: HYBRID SESSIONS PLANNED
A screen grab from the council’s March 23 session via Zoom. (Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
After two years of meeting on laptop screens, the Red Bank council is moving closer to a return to borough hall, while continuing to offer participation from home.
RED BANK: GRANT BOOSTS LIBRARY WIFI
Scenes from the recent installation of enhanced wifi at the library. (Click to enlarge.)
Press release from the Red Bank Public Library
The Red Bank Public Library has been selected as one of 27 libraries and was recently awarded $10,000 of grant funding by The NJ State Library to
support the CARES ACT Mini-Grant for Public Libraries.
The grant award supplemented the cost of an improved WiFi system that is now strong enough to provide service to anyone on the library grounds, inside or outside the building.
FAIR HAVEN: LIMITS ON SPEED & 5G ENDORSED
A view east along River Road from 2016. Below, a 5G repeater atop a pole alongside Route 35 in Shrewsbury in 2018. (Photos by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Fair Haven’s council took two steps to slow things down on River Road Monday night.
One measure would reduce the vehicular speed limit on the road for the full width of town. Another would tap the brakes on an anticipated proliferation of wireless telecom infrastructure on utility poles along that road and and elsewhere in the borough.
The council also took action on upgrades to the historic Bicentennial Hall.
RED BANK: COUNCIL AGENDA
Borough hall would get a new phone system under a contract up for approval by the council. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Here’s a preview of the Red Bank borough council’s agenda for its semimonthly meeting Wednesday night:
LITTLE SILVER: LAW TARGETS 5G CELL TECH
The new cell tower in the heart of Little Silver inspired a citizen backlash in 2017. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge.)
By JOHN T. WARD
A year after a big new cell tower popped up in the middle of Little Silver’s business district, to the shock of many residents, two new borough council members hope to head off any similar, or even smaller, jolts in the future.
They introduced a proposed law Monday night that would give the borough some say over telecom carriers wishing to install new high-speed wireless equipment in town.
LITTLE SILVER: TOWN HIRES TOWER LAWYER
The tower looms over homes on Prospect Avenue. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
The Little Silver council hired an attorney Monday night to help it determine if it’s stuck with a new a cell tower that’s dialed up widespread anger in the borough.
As special counsel, Kevin Starkey is expected to start out by reviewing some two years worth of correspondence and other records for guidance on how the governing body might proceed in dealing with the tower’s sole user so far: Verizon Wireless.
LITTLE SILVER: CELL TOWER DIALS UP OUTRAGE
Many in the overflow crowd voiced concerns about health safety and the tower’s impact on property values. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Hundreds of Little Silver residents packed a school auditorium Monday night to give elected officials an earful about their decision to allow a 95-foot-tall cell tower to be built just 500 feet away.
Few appeared placated by either an account of how the tower came to be or the assurances of a telecom engineer that it’s safe.
RUMSON: RFH CELLPHONE POLICY CHALLENGED
Rumson-Fair Haven senior James Rue before the start of Tuesday night’s school board meeting. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A Rumson-Fair Haven Regional senior wants the school to drop a ban on student use of cellphones in school hallways between classes.
James Rue, 17, of Fair Haven, presented the school’s board of education with a petition Tuesday night calling for changes to the policy, which administrators said is being enforced anew after some unintended laxity.
Students, however, contend the crackdown was triggered by an incident last year in which a male student took “upskirt” videos of female students in stairwells without their knowledge.
RED BANK: GO FOR POKÉMON GO? GO NUTS
The Pokémon Go craze that’s gripped America this month continues to bring legions of visitors to Red Bank. Necks craned toward their cellphones, players can be seen wandering downtown in a virtual hunt for cartoon critters at 30 Pokéstops and five Battle Gyms.
RED BANK: POKÉMON GO’S NIGHT OUT
A week’s worth of Pokémon Go gets underway in downtown Red Bank Monday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
If you’re not one of the millions of multi-generational players who’ve bonded in recent days over the phenomenon that is Pokémon Go, feel free to go about your business. But if the pursuit of Pikachu, Pidgey, and Bellsprout has found you exploring your surroundings like never before, then the folks at Red Bank RiverCenter have a little promotion that might pump up your Pokédex. More →
RED BANK: YOUR 15 MINUTES HAVE ARRIVED
One of the new 15-minute meters on Broad Street, near White Street. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Street meters, off-street meters, permits, kiosks, an app: now, add one more element to the Red Bank parking mix.
The borough recently installed nine white meters on downtown streets to enable shoppers to park for just 15 minutes, at 25 cents a pop.
RED BANK: TECHIN’ IT TO THE STREETS
File this under “who knew?” Since February, visitors to Red Bank’s business district have been able to use an app to pay for parking from their vehicles via cellphones or tablets, thus avoiding the payment kiosks, which are no fun in bad weather.
But the only public notice of this service that redbankgreen could find was a notice taped to a parking kiosk at the White Street lot.
RED BANK: BASIE NETS $1M FOR STUDENT ARTS
Red Bank’s Count Basie Theatre is $1 million richer this month, thanks to a Brielle-based charity. The Charles Lafitte Foundation, founded by Vonage board chairman Jeffrey Citron and his wife, Suzanne, matched funds raised at the foundation’s annual single-beneficiary golf outing, held June 29 in Union County, to raise a record sum for the theater.
Adam Philipson, the Basie’s president and CEO, said the money will be used to create an endowment that will make the arts available to students of all backgrounds “for generations to come.” (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
LITTLE SILVER: ANTENNA PLAN ADVANCES
A new tower would be almost 30 feet taller than the existing antenna behind borough hall. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Little Silver officials endorsed a proposal Monday night for the possible construction of a new telecommunications antenna that could rise to 90 feet above the heart of town.
And the plan, which might have generated fierce pushback in the early days of cellphone proliferation, didn’t generate so much as a beep of opposition.
SEA BRIGHT: PROPOSED TOWER ON THE MOVE
The town’s first cell tower would now be sited east of borough hall, against the sea wall under a plan approved Tuesday. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A years-overdue cellphone tower contemplated for the Sea Bright municipal parking lot will now probably go elsewhere.
The borough council, acting under the threat of unilateral action on the siting issue from Verizon, authorized telecom consultant Declan O’Scanlon to work with the phone giant to get the tower approved and built on the ocean side of borough hall Tuesday night.
SEA BRIGHT: CELL TOWER GENERATES STATIC
The proposed 160-foot tower would be sited in the municipal parking lot. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
Sea Bright is facing an “ultimatum” over it’s long-discussed but never-built solution to spotty cellphone service, NJ.com reports.
Telecom giant Verizon has told the borough it will pull out as a planned user of a proposed cell tower if it doesn’t build it soon, the Star-Ledger’s website says.
MIDDLETOWN: PHONES OUT FOR EIGHT DAYS
Some 25 telephone landlines in the Shady Oaks over-55 condo community in Middletown remained out of service Friday, eight days after a weather-related outage, Verizon tells redbankgreen. “Verizon’s repair crews are working to restore the service and then implement a long-term solution to ensure uninterrupted service for these customers,” a company spokesman said.
A resident tells redbankgreen that he and others finally heard from the company – via their cellphones – after our inquiries. “Now, Verizon reps are knocking on doors” of the affected residents, he said. Hey, call – or email – anytime. (Click to enlarge)
WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS?
If this is an easy Where, well, you’ve urned it. Send you answers to wherehaveiseenthis@redbankgreen.com, please.
FAIR HAVEN: NEW FOOD MARKET OPENS
Before carving out a career with the likes of Balducci’s and Gourmet Garage, BFF Market’s Tony Balderose, below, spent years in the telecom industry. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Now open in Fair Haven: Balderose Fine Foods, an upmarket deli taking the space formerly occupied by Gourmet Picnic bakery at Fair Haven Road and River Road.
Branded BFF Market, the shop is the creation of Tony Balderose, who expects his decade-plus experience in serving Manhattan’s finicky foodies have prepared him to compete with the likes of Brennan’s Deli in Rumson and Sickles Market in Little Silver.
SMART: A SMARTPHONE WITH… A DUMB ONE
The Pop Phone merges old and new telecom features. (Photo by Alexis Orlacchio. Click to enlarge)
By ALEXIS ORLACCHIO
Travel back in time and answer the call on the POP Phone from Lucki Clover, a women’s clothing and accessory shop on Broad Street in Red Bank.
Window Shopping the Green finds the newest cellular accessory disguised as an old-fashioned telephone handset that boasts quality-improving features.
The POP Phone is a fairly new concept that marries modern technology and with a nearly outdated one: a 1950s-inspired retro telephone receiver. Created by product designer David Turpin for Native Union, the handset allows users to easily navigate their Smartphones while talking. Using a plug that fits any auxiliary outlet, it’s designed to function with any Smartphone, notebook, or tablet.
RED BANK STUDENTS TUNE IN FOR TECH JOBS
Students from Red Bank and elsewhere participating in a four-way conference in a telepresence room at AT&T Labs in Middletown, above. Coolspeak founder Carlos Ojeda Jr. addresses the students, below. (Photos by Lola Todman. Click to enlarge)
By LOLA TODMAN
Red Bank Charter School Intern
It was not a conventional office day for AT&T labs around the country Thursday. Instead of heading to their offices to deal with business matters, AT&T employees got ready for their fifteenth annual High Tech Day.
With more than 1,800 Hispanic students participating in 31 locations nationally, High Tech Day is an opportunity for adolescents to learn about the different jobs available in technology. Four of the schools involved sent a total of about 70 students to AT&T Labs in Middletown labs to participate: Red Bank Middle School, Red Bank Charter School, New Brunswick Middle School, and Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School.
SEA BRIGHT: UPLIFTING IDEAS FROM KATRINA
Rod Scott addresses Sea Bright residents on post-hurricane home-elevation techniques. (Photo by Wil Fulton. Click to enlarge)
By WIL FULTON
Sea Bright residents were greeted with a bit of southern flavor and optimism Wednesday night in the form of two men from the Gulf Coast who guided their communities in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Tommy Longo, ex-mayor of Waveland, Mississippi, and a home-elevation expert made presentations at the latest in a series of post-storm town hall meetings held in the aftermath of the Hurricane Sandy’s devastation.
Longo, who called his small beach town “ground zero for Hurricane Katrina,” saw more than 95 percent of Waveland destroyed, with the loss of approximately fifty lives.
There were 32 homes on my street, and now seven years later, there are only three, said Longo, who served as mayor for 16 years. Our town was very much like Sea Bright in a lot of ways, before and after the storm. Believe me, I know what you are going through.
RUMSON: REAL MAN CLIMBS FAKE TREE
Way up there, in a cell tower disguised as a ginormous tree, an unidentified utility worker made repairs Monday to telecom equipment damaged during Hurricane Sandy.
The tower adjoins Rumson’s public works yard on Avenue of Two Rivers. (Click to enlarge)