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 26 ISSUE 10
Coffee klatch
MAY 23, 2022
HAPPY 103rd TO COACH DRAPER
TOWNSHIP OF WASHINGTON
SHERIFF’S
SALE HELPED TOWN NET Parade for Tuskegee Airman — an American hero DEAL ON SWIM CLUB Open space grant application says a developer was ʻready to purchaseʼ 6.1 acres
BY MICHAEL OLOHAN OF PASCACK PRESS
The Park Ridge Police Department’s Coffee with a Cop on May 7, its first such event since 2019, delights all ages. SEE PAGE 17
HILLSDALE
SURVEYED PARENTS BACK NEW SCHOOL
$82.5M project draws nonbinding support at three forums; BOE to announce its plan
BY MICHAEL OLOHAN OF PASCACK PRESS
Eighty-nine percent of parents and residents who responded to an informal survey taken following three parent information forums held at the middle school favored the full replacement of George G. White Middle School, estimated to cost $82.5 million with an annual tax increase of about $1,300 on the typical Hillsdale homeowner for 20 years. A final board decision on what option to take — repairs or replace-
See SURVEYED on page 104
Pvt. Roscoe ‘Coach’ Draper greets well wishers from far and wide at his home in Westwood on May 14, there to celebrate his 103rd birthday. Draper, born in 1919, was one of the first 10 flight instructors with the U.S. Army Air Corps Tuskegee Experience, which trained Black pilots who served in World War II. His students flew and maintained combat aircraft. Above, American Airlines pilot Victor Castro of the Roscoe Draper Chapter of the Black Pilots of America Inc. congratulates Draper (also inset).
F
BY JOHN SNYDER OF PASCACK PRESS
ELLOW AVIATORS, fellow Westwoodians, and so many more whose lives were touched and are guided by the historic wartime and peacetime service of Pvt. Roscoe Draper were honored to salute him on his 103rd on May 14 in a drive-by birthday procession. Paying grateful and cheerful
respects along Kinderkamack Road, stopping at the home Draper shares with his daughter, were the Bergen County Sheriffʼs Honor Guard; Westwoodʼs police department and volunteer fire and ambulance corps; the New Jersey wing of the Civil Air Patrol; the Federal Aviation Administration; the Tuskegee Airmen Philadelphia Chapter; the Roscoe Draper Chapter (Philadelphia) of the Black
5PHOTOS VIA RICHARD FRANT/FRANTVISUALS
Pilots of America; the VFW and American Legion; students from the Westwood Regional School District; Mayor Ray Arroyo; the Borough Council, led by its president, Beth Dell; veterans; family; and many friends. Derek Grier, president of the Roscoe Draper Chapter of the nonprofit Black Pilots of America, on May 17 lauded the
Continued on page 30
Township officials revealed that the 6.1-acre former Washington Township Recreation Club on Ridgewood Boulevard North was foreclosed upon in January and asserted “a real estate developer was ready to purchase this land to construct additional single-family RELATED homes and infras t r u c t u r e ,” • Poller: No before the townswim club ship had a pendreport yet on ing sheriffʼs sale possible fill postponed and a bond ordinance contamination — Page 3 was passed to purchase it. That is revealed in the townshipʼs Bergen County Open Space Trust Fund grant application filed May 6 by GLD Associates, of Summit, its grant consultant. The application notes the bond ordinance that acquired the property for $750,000 “purchase(d) the property for what we believe may be below fair market value so that it may now be used to meet our own recreational needs and also preserv-
See SHERIFF on page 234
RETIREES IN SERVICE
B ck in time...
The Westwood Volunteer Ambulance Corps reports a surge in a new type of member: recent retirees. Here are a few of their stories.
Downtown Emerson thrives, with its restaurants and strikingly inexpensive gasoline (to our modern eyes), in scenes brought back to light by Kristin Beuscher. SEE PAGE 4
SEE PAGE 6