Emerson • Hillsdale • Montvale • Park Ridge • River Vale • Township of Washington • Westwood • Woodcliff Lake VOLUME 24 ISSUE 44
STANDOUT STUDENT
PA S C AC K VA L L E Y ’ S BEST H O M E TO W N N E W S PA P E R PASCACK VALLEY
TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON
TRAVEL TEAM ON A MISSION Westwood 12U Cardinals eye Cooperstown
Minche Kim of Pascack Valley High School named a Youth Afterschool Ambassador. SEE PAGE 15
PASCACK VALLEY REGIONAL
TOWARD A
Students, faculty convene to replace retired ʻIndianʼ
MASCOT
BY ALLISON VARGHESE PVHS STUDENT JOURNALIST
The new era has begun. Fifty-three Pascack Valley High School students and 15 faculty members met Jan. 7 via Zoom to lay the groundwork for the selection of PVʼs new nickname and mascot. The Mascot Selection Committee, as it is known, discussed how it will get to its end goal of choosing a new mascot after the Board of Education voted to remove the previous mascot, the Indians, in June 2020. These meetings are closed for non-members, but organizers John Puccio, one of the schoolʼs assistant principals, and Shawn Buchanan, the athletics director, made themselves available for questions afterward. Buchanan said the committee has no firm timetable, but the next meeting could take place Jan. 21.
See MASCOT on page 134
FUNDS ARE SOUGHT for the Westwood Cardinals 12U to make their games. Left to right, front to back: Dante Makula, Jack Turcina, Nick Klein, Jake Casimiro, Patrick Stark, Lukas Mehandzic, Brady Galligher, Max Biroc, Logan Stewart, and Cory Bernstein. BY JOHN SNYDER OF PASCACK PRESS
You can use a new PlayStation 5, sure! Who couldnʼt! Let us explain: The Westwood Baseball Association brings a group of kids to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown,
JANUARY 18, 2021
N.Y., every year, for education and a weekend of Cooperstown Baseball World tournament play with teams from far and wide, but needs your help to get there this summer. Coach- and family-led fundraisers, from football pools to a car wash to a designer handbag raffle to a PlayStation 5
PHOTO COURTESY WESTWOOD BASEBALL ASSOCIATION
raffle are in the hopper to help the three-season rec team reach its goal. Coach Brian Turcina says 12U tournament play at Cooperstown is “a treasured—and once in a lifetime—opportunity that the players will never forget.”
SEE TRAVEL PAGE 23
WORRIES OVER DPW Doghouse, Sherry Field neighbors complain
PARKING
BY MICHAEL OLOHAN OF PASCACK PRESS
Three families concerned about possible harm over large public works vehicles parked near their homes spoke out at the town councilʼs Jan. 4 reorganization meeting. Heavy-duty, multi-ton vehicles, including garbage trucks, dump trucks, and front-end loaders, need alternate parking locations given required demolition of the longtime DPW building, at the municipal center, and remediation of contaminated soil on site. Public works vehicles are being parked near Sherry Field, a borough property near the Doghouse Saloon—where residents were startled to see trees marked and felled in preparation— and a rear parking lot at Valley Bank, offered to the township at no cost One town councilman has proposed striking a deal with Hillsdale and Westwood for a one-year shared DPW service instead. Recently the town council authorized Mayor Peter Calamari to lease 28 spaces at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, a $2,500per-month taxpayer expense. That said, on Dec. 21,2020 in a letter to the editor, Calamari pushed back against ethics concerns lodged against him related to the deal and said that OLGCʼs spaces would not be needed after
See WORRIES on page 26
DONORS DELIVER!
B ck in time...
Correspondent Matthew Wikfors on Woodcliff Lake mother and son Stephanie and Davis Gannon and their charity shoe drive.
Pascack Road is stark in a winter scene from the 1910s, runnelled with wagon wheels and thin auto tires. In view: the old Park Ridge High School.
SEE PAGE 12
SEE PAGE 4