September 10, 2014 • www.theobserver.com • Vol CXXVII, No. 16
COVERING: BELLEVILLE • BLOOMFIELD
Ferraro facing firing
Remembering a local hero
By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent KEARNY – The Kearny Board of Education is seeking to fire Frank Ferraro, the superintendent it placed on an involuntary paid leave in January, by bringing tenure charges against him. At a special meeting held Aug. 12, the BOE voted in closed session 7-1, with John Plaugic dissenting, to certify to the state Commissioner of Education the charges of “conduct unbecoming a superintendent and other just cause for dismissal” against Ferraro. Ferraro had been initially notified July 23 that the charges were being filed and Ferraro responded through his attorney Andrew Babiak on Aug. 8. That set the legal stage for the certification vote last month. At the August meeting, the board – by the same 7-1 margin – also voted to suspend Ferraro’s pay for 120 days, the time set by state school law for the Commissioner of Education – once apprised of the charges – to assign an arbitrator to review the charges and make a ruling. If the arbitrator finds that the charges have merit, then Ferraro’s contract with the BOE – which runs through June 30, 2016 – would be see FERRARO page
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• EAST NEWARK • HARRISON • KEARNY • LYNDHURST • NORTH ARLINGTON • NUTLEY
Photo courtesy Wikipedia, inset courtesy American Legion Post 99
Lt. Joseph E. Frobisher Jr. (inset) was a pilot with the U.S. 148th Aero Squadron. Those are the 148th’s Sopwith Camels, photographed in France in August 1918, a month before his death.
By Karen Zautyk Observer Correspondent KEARNY–
T
he following account of an air battle in France nearly 100 years ago is from Edgar Gorrell’s “History of the American Expe-
ditionary Forces Air Service, 1917-1919”: “It was on 2 September that the 148th [Aero Squadron] suffered its greatest losses of the war in one disastrous patrol. “A superior number of Fokkers were attacking several
artillery observation planes. The 148th, knowing it was their duty to protect the observation planes, engaged the Fokkers, who were ready for the fight. “The squadron attacked with five aircraft against 13 or 14 Fokkers, and soon the
Germans, all good pilots, had most of the 148th’s [Sopwith] Camels in distress. Additional Fokkers then appeared out of the clouds until there were at least 20 of them. . . .” The Germans “. . . shot down see FROBISHER page
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Ebola scare at postal center By Ron Leir Observer Correspondent
1200 Harrison Ave., Kearny, which handles priority mail. Postal inspectors and FBI agents responded to the USPS KEARNY – facility last Thursday mornThe U.S. Postal Service, in concert with the FBI, is under- ing after a postal employee taking a criminal investigation reportedly found a container with the word “Ebola” written into an Ebola scare at its Loon it. gistics & Distribution Center,
USPS spokesman George Flood said the container “wasn’t a mail piece. It was dropped in a postal hamper.” The item was sent out for testing “and it was determined to be benign,” he said. He declined to reveal the contents.At any rate, according
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to Kearny Health Officer Ken Pincus and Monique Davis, risk communicator/health educator with the Hudson Regional Health Commission, the container had neither powder or liquid contents. see EBOLA page
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