Vol. 25 - No. 5
In This Week’s Edition
THE BERKELEY
TIMES
FOR BREAKING NEWS
JERSEYSHOREONLINE.COM | July 13, 2019
Your FREE Weekly Hometown Newspaper For Bayville, Berkeley, Beachwood, Pine Beach, Ocean Gate and South Toms River
Community News!
Small Businesses Weigh Impact Of Minimum Wage Increase
First Aider Thanks Town For Help
Don’t miss what’s happening in your town.
Pages 8-12.
Dr. Izzy’s Sound News
Tips For Hearing In Noisy Situations
Page 16.
Dear Pharmacist
Mullein Has 5 Tremendous Medicinal Benefits
Page 17.
Inside The Law
–Photo courtesy Berkeley Township Megan Franzoso and her uncle Kevin Geoghegan thanked the township for their help. By Chris Lundy BERKELEY – When a medical emergency lays you low, you need to be able to dedicate all your time and energy to getting better. It helps when your town has your back. Megan Franzoso, who worked for the town’s first aid squad,
suffered a medical emergency which wiped her out last year. She went into cardiac arrest and was on life support for two weeks. But at the latest Berkeley Township Council meeting, she was standing there to thank the town for their help.
She is now going to Bancroft NeuroRehab regularly and is making progress, her family said. She didn’t do much of the talking, since she’s still on the mend. Her uncle Kevin Geoghegan spoke on behalf of the family, and read a letter (Help - See Page 4)
Page 13.
Business Directory Page 18.
Classifieds Page 19.
Wolfgang Page 23.
Horoscope Page 23.
Judge Apologizes For Courtroom Comments
By Chris Lundy TRENTON – An attorney representing a local judge said he was remorseful and would accept any discipline handed down for inappropriate comments he made. Superior Court Judge John F. Russo, former mayor of Toms River, is facing suspension without pay for several issues of misconduct,
including asking a rape victim if she tried to keep her legs closed. Amelia Carolla, the attorney representing him before the New Jersey Supreme Court on July 9, said that it was not his intention to imply that the rape was the victim’s fault. However, he has learned that his intentions do not matter, and that it is the effects of his words on
those who hear them that are important. A re cord i ng ha d caught him later say to his staff “What I lack in handwriting skills, I am the master of on the record being able to talk about sex acts with a straight face.” Russo had claimed that his comments were to educate his law clerk on how to handle complex domestic violence cases.
At the Supreme Court, his attorney was questioned about what part of his comments were supposed to be educational. One justice asked “From the dialogue, it sounds like the judge and everyone was yucking it up. Am I wrong?” The judges asked whether it was ap propriate that Russo seemed to indicate that (Judge - See Page 5)
By Chris Lundy TOMS RIVER – A law increasing minimum wages went into effect July 1, and will top out at $15 an hour for most wage earners in 2024. Several local businesses said they’ll be able to shoulder the additional cost, but mostly because they don’t have too many employees. Frank Kenny from Ken’s Hardware in Toms River has been a family-run business since his father opened up shop 42 years ago. “We’ve always paid our employees more than minimum wage because we want to keep them here,” he said. “This $15 minimum wage is not going to affect me.” At the time of the interview, the store had eight full time workers and four part time, not including Kenny and his brother. He said he wasn’t concerned about employees leaving for better paying jobs, because there are some that have been here a long time. The owner of Perfect Swing Golf in Toms River, Mike Hovance, said he is only unaffected by it as he has a very small number of employees. A few years ago, when they were located in Lakewood, they had a driving range with nine employees. Many of them were pensioners with didn’t mind making $8-10 an hour. If he would have had to pay them almost twice as much, it would have crippled the business. “We were at the highest end of what we could charge our customers anyway,” he said. “I couldn’t raise the prices anymore. People would stop coming.” Further, it wouldn’t have helped his workers that much. There are a lot of retirees working in the golf industry. Those retirees just enjoyed coming out to the range, talking shop, and getting perks of working for a range. “I understand people needing more money, but then you are charging more for goods and services,” he said. The minimum wage increase is “long overdue,” said Ed Iannone, owner of Steve’s Comic Relief in Toms River. However, “it’s just going to put a lot of stress on mom and pop shops (Wage Increase - See Page 5)
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