Nutley Officials Busy Despite 'Dog Days'

While Nutley residents have enjoyed vacationing this summer, Nutley officials have been hard at work.

That work will continue when the board meets tonight at 7 p.m. in Nutley Town Hall Commissioners Chambers on Chestnut Street.

At its last meeting, Nutley commissioners approved funding assistance for a special needs group, exempted artists from paying fees to attend an upcoming event, and OK’d an application to repair sidewalks and repave streets.

Commissioner Mauro Tucci said at the Aug. 21 commissioners meeting a bid was awarded for services to the Special Young Adults group in town, but a second bidder has contested the award, so the official vote had to be delayed.

The group, which provides an adult day program for special needs youth, was established in 1977.

The township was ahead of many communities in providing a place for special needs youth to participate in a number of activities like bowling, golf, arts and crafts, and shopping.

The township subsidizes the Special Young Adults as well as the group's building at 83 Franklin Ave. in Nutley.

The Special Young Adults is administered through the ARC of Essex County, a private, non-profit agency, serving people with developmental disabilities and their families who live in and around Essex County, Tucci said.

Township Attorney Kevin Harkins said, "There is no basis for the bidder to contest the award."

As a result, the commissioners awarded the bid after an Aug. 28 phone conference and vote and officially awarded the bid after the legal issues were settled.

In other action:

• the board approved a resolution to waive the $150 application fee for artists who want to participate in the first Art on the Avenue event, set for Oct. 21 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The event will take place in the pedestrian walkways adjacent to municipal parking lots 1 and 2.
Art on the Avenue is a program inviting artists, photographers, sculptors and painters to display their works in the heart of Nutley’s downtown area with the option to sell to the public, he said. 

Commissioner Steven Rogers explained he supported the resolution because, "We should exempt the artists so we can attract as many as possible to this first event."

Harkins said the board may exempt some people from town activities, which do not fall under the solicitors/peddlers ordinance. The ordinance is meant to require a permit only for sales people going door to door in town.

Mayor Alphonse Petracco added, "We have to clear up that language."

• Commissioner Joseph Scarpelli, the director of the Nutley Department of Public Works, discussed repairing sidewalks and several road repairs.

"We have a Safe Streets to Transit grant application to redo sidewalks on Washington Avenue, and state DOT (Department of Transportation) grant applications for parts of Passaic and Bloomfield avenues," Scarpelli said. "We are taking turns on those two streets, until we repave the entire parts that run through Nutley."

In fact, part of Passaic Avenue was closed the week of Aug. 20 for paving, from Kingsland Avenue to Chestnut Street.