Starting in 1976, county officials approved a lease of a portion of the building to house its welfare department. The only dissenting vote came from Edward O’Byrne. Then the county commission director, O’Byrne said the county would save money in the long run by buying a downtown office building outright.
Auctioned in a tax sale in 1984, the site was bought and expanded soon after by current owner Bascom Food Products. It has also been used recently as a distribution warehouse and as a storage area for county voting machines and other items.
Passaic County through its lease obtained the first right of refusal to purchase, DeNova said. The deal will see the county use $11 million in cash and borrow another $9 million, he added. The county currently has about $85 million in cash reserves, records show.
Amid growing opposition to its plans to place an electric-driven compressor station in West Milford, the Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. will hold a virtual public presentation on the proposal this month.
Pipeline officials said the informational session is “to provide additional information about the compressor station and address some of the recent concerns expressed by the local community.”
The meeting, set for March 22 at 7 p.m. on Zoom, could prove pivotal, as elected officials at the municipal and county levels have yet to take a stance on the controversial project to install a 19,000-horsepower natural gas compressor along an existing pipeline in West Milford.
The COVID-19 pandemic has saturated Passaic County like no other county in New Jersey, officials said one year after the area s first cases were identified.
In the 360 days after the pandemic hit on March 14, 2020, the northern county’s per-capita rates of COVID-19 contraction and related deaths were the state’s highest. The positivity rate of more than 9% also ranked near the top in New Jersey.
Countywide, the disease burden remains high, said Charlene Gungil, the county’s health officer. The second of the pandemic s two distinct waves to hit Passaic County has been more pervasive, records show. It has nonetheless been less severe and appears to be waning, she said during a March 9 presentation to county officials.
Credit: (Governors Office /Tim Larsen; CC BY-NC 2.0)
Jan. 15, 2021: Linda Leeman gets vaccinated at the Edison Vaccination Facility.
In New Jersey, COVID-19 vaccines are now available at more than 160 locations including hospitals, pharmacies, community health centers and government-run clinics and four of the state’s planned six mega-sites are now immunizing eligible individuals.
But six weeks after the first New Jersey resident got her initial dose, the statewide operation continues to run at far less than full speed. Concerns include public confusion, a complex sign-up system, an initial workforce shortage in some places, and perhaps the biggest hurdle of all, not enough vaccines to meet the demand.