Emerson • Hillsdale • Montvale • Park Ridge • River Vale • Township of Washington • Westwood • Woodcliff Lake
PA S C AC K VA L L E Y ’ S H O M E TO W N N E W S PA P E R
VOLUME 29 ISSUE 42
Lasagna love
DECEMBER 29, 2025
CALLING FOR BIKE RACKS
WESTWOOD
Westwood fifth-grade scouts go for Bronze Award on strength of civic proposal
INCURABLE FUNGUS SPREAD QUICKLY
Chainsaw artists in talks on how best to memorialize venerable ʻKissing Treeʼ in Veterans Park
BY JOHN SNYDER OF PASCACK PRESS
Park Ridge Girl Scouts spent a recent Sunday assembling meals for neighbors in need. PAGE 5
WOODCLIFF LAKE
FORMER PARTY CITY SITE DEAL ON HOUSING
91 units, including 18 ʻaffordableʼ age-55plus apartments BY MICHAEL OLOHAN OF PASCACK PRESS
The Borough Council voted unanimously Dec. 18 to approve a mediated settlement with Fair Share Housing Center and an intervenor that would permit 91 housing units — 73 market-rate townhouses and 18 affordable, agerestricted apartments — on the former Party City world headquarters site, 100 Tice Boulevard. On Dec. 19, Council President Joshua Stern told Pascack Press the agreement was “a very good settlement that protects the borough.” The settlement will be folded into an amended Housing Ele-
See HOUSING on page 64
Backed by seasonally attired Westwood Mayor Ray Arroyo and land use liaison Lauren Letizia, fifth-graders from Berkeley and Brookside Elementary schools stood out at the Dec. 16 meeting of the governing body. They are Lainey Joy, Seraphina, Isabella, Victoria, Hayden, Siena, Toby, and Rebecca. John Snyder photo.
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BY JOHN SNYDER OF PASCACK PRESS
WESTWOOD fifth graders came to Borough Hall on Dec. 16 with a simple, civic-minded request: more bike racks downtown, in the Central Business District IGHT
The girls—Lainey Joy, Seraphina, Isabella, Victoria, Hayden, Siena, Toby, and Rebecca—are Junior Girl Scouts from Troop 98178, led by Jeanine Farfalla and Jamie Hogan. They took turns reading a prepared pitch as part of a Girl Scout Bronze Award effort. “We love riding our bikes to
school, parks, and local stores,” the girls told the mayor and council. “Bikes help us stay healthy, have fun, and feel more independent. But when we get to places around town, we often donʼt know where to put our bikes because there arenʼt
Continued on page 16
A copper beech that may have taken root before the nation itself was born — our storied “Kissing Tree” in Veterans Park, where young love has flowered for generations and residents recently packed in for Valentineʼs Day photos under its canopy — has been diagnosed with an incurable fungal disease that experts say cannot be treated and will likely require removal for public safety, borough officials said this month. Mayor Ray Arroyo, in a reflective essay that ran in our pages Dec. 15, breaking the news that soon attracted network news crews, wrote that the tree is “estimated to be somewhere between 168 years old … and 252 years old,” and that it is now “dying” from a fungus that hollows out the trunk and destabilizes its base. In a followup provided by Shade Tree Advisory Committee chair Dan Zambrano, the boroughʼs advisers traced the diagnosis to a June inspection and documented the risk-assessment steps
See TREE on page 194
TOWN CLEANUP
B ck in time...
The Hillsdale Environmental Commission and the Pascack Valley High School National Honor Society team up for an inspiring downtown cleanup. PAGE 27
When the old Campbell wampum mill was photographed 125 years ago, on Jan. 1, 1901, it was already a relic of days gone by in the Pascack Valley. Kristin Beuscher reports.
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