LI'L VILLAGE

The Rutgers African-American Alumni Alliance (RAAA) held its Eighth Annual Hall of Fame Awards Ceremony on October 15th at New Brunswick’s Hyatt Hotel with cocktails, dinner and music.

Evelyn Sermons Field praised generations of activists, including white college students, who lobbied for integration well before the 1950s. “I am mostly indebted to people I never knew, who made it possible for me to be one of the first two African-American women to live in the dorms on the Douglass campus,” she explained in her acceptance speech at New Brunswick's Hyatt Hotel

Just hours after Gov. Jerry Brown signed the California Dream Act, which will allow illegal immigrant students to be eligible for state-funded financial aid at public universities and community colleges, celebratory email began circulating.

"Wow, this great and wonderful news for our Hispanic students. This is winning!" said one jubilant respondent to a mass email about the new legislation.

The corner of North 4th and Madison Avenue is soon to be transformed from a scrubby nondescript corner to a neighborhood garden project with educational twist.

Jason Ruggieri’s vision for the corner is a showcase that teaches residents how to use native plants in landscaping on their own properties, and the benefits of doing so.

Highland Park’s “A Better World" Café opens its second summer in operation with an exciting expansion. Starting June 17, patrons will be able to enjoy ‘suggested price’ dinners on Friday evenings.

The new hours -- 11 AM to 9 PM on Friday and 11 AM to 3PM on Monday through Thursday -- coincide with the opening of the borough's "Jersey Fresh" Farmers Market located outdoors at 222 Raritan Avenue, adjacent to A Better World Café.

Pulte Homes, the developers of “Overlook at Highland Park” at the intersection of River Road and Cedar Lane, have applied for relief from two conditions of their site plan approval: first, a mandate that the historic Cenacle House on the property be turned over to "a public entity" for the purpose of preservation; and second, the timeline for completion of the project’s 18 affordable housing units.

Next Tuesday evening, May 10th from 6 PM to 9 PM at Highland Park High School, spring brings the third annual joint event celebrating healthy living in Highland Park.

The combined personal / environmental health fair -- dubbed 'Healthy People, Healthy Planet 2011' -- will include home energy savings, healthy cooking, dancing, bicycle repair, massage, edible gardens, preventive health screenings, and more.

The Independent Center and Citizens' Campaign recently unveiled a prototype database of municipal budgets online at www.TownStats.org.

Fifty-four municipalities including Highland Park and Edison are on-board, with partial information for New Brunswick. The Independent Center plans to have all 566 municipalities online by June.

Following months of debate and controversy, Highland Park's Board of Education elected to cancel its current contract with Sodexo, America's leading provider of food and facility management services.

The Board of Education will begin accepting bids for a new maintenance provider in April. The contract, originally set to expire in November, will be officially terminated on June 1st amid allegations that Sodexo has committed wage theft and has opposed employee efforts to unionize.

That was then, this is now.

 

It is a common refrain from politicians explaining a shift in positions, but it essentially summed up an appeals court ruling affirming the diversion of $158 million in clean energy funds to plug a hole in the current state budget by the Christie administration and the legislature.