Some of the township’s professional and amateur chili cooks squared off Feb. 20 for the Franklin Food Bank’s Chili Cook-Off. Contestants were divided into two groups, restaurants and fire houses. Participants tasted samples from each of the contestants, and then voted – with red and white beans – for their favorites in each category.

A settlement agreement involving a township Fire District and a former fire commissioner must be turned over to the township resident who requested it, a state Superior Court Judge ruled on Feb. 20. Judge Yolanda Ciccone, sitting in Somerville, also ruled that the Pennsylvania-based insurance company, Volunteer Fireman’s Insurance Services, Inc., must pay the to-be-determined legal fees of the resident, John Paff.

Members of the township Open Space Advisory Committee are willing to shoulder some of the cost of laborers to help maintain township parks, but they want the township to chip in, too. The committee on Feb. 17 voted down a suggestion from the Township Committee that it shoulder the entire $100,000 cost of two new laborers in the Department of …

Township drivers will continue to face detours and construction sites throughout the year. In addition to emergency work currently being done on the Delaware & Raritan Canal bridge on Amwell Road and the County Route 518 reconstruction project, a state official said bridge replacement work on Rt. 518 is slated to start later this year and road reconstruction on Route …

Township police say they have solved about 20 cases of criminal mischief occurring over the past several months with the apprehension of three people on Feb. 19. Stephen Weingart, 20, of Skillman and Tony Fresolone, 19, of Kendall Park were charged with criminal mischief after they allegedly damaged a mailbox on Old Georgetown Road, police said. A 17-year-old South Brunswick resident …

  The Quail Brook Senior Center on New Brunswick Road held its annual Chinese New Year party on Feb. 19, aided by performances from the Edison Metro Lions Production company.

A redesigned plan for Catalpa Park – about one-third smaller than the original, controversial plan – was reviewed Feb. 17 by the Open Space Advisory Committee. The current proposed plan eliminates the two softball fields, three soccer fields, four basketball courts, a tot lot and bathroom that comprised the third phase of the original three-phase plan.

A dozen years after it was ended, a program through which township police officers read to children at Pine Grove Manor School has been given new life. The program, Police And Children Engaging in Reading, or PACER, allows elementary school children to see police officers in a different light, said township police Sgt. Sean Hebbon. Hebbon and Officer Nick Gambino were …

Feb. 5 $1,000 worth of plumbing supplies were stolen from a trailer on School House Road.

  A 32-year-old township man has been charged by Middlesex County authorities with the Valentine’s Day murder of a Perth Amboy resident.