General News

Township residents whose employment was adversely impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic may qualify for a free job training program. The training program is sponsored by the township, the Somerset Community Action Program and Raritan Valley Community College. Under the program, the township will pay for attendees’ tuition, supplies for training, transportation and child-care services. To qualify, residents must show that …

One of the three entities from which the township buys water has asked its customers to conserve water as much as they can. NJ American Water put a notice out on January 3 asking its 45 customer towns in Somerset, Mercer, Hunterdon, Middlesex and Union counties to hold back on water usage. The reason, the company said, was because of …

Robert “Kash” Kashinsky for Community and the Franklin Republican Club are sponsoring a clothing gift drive for Franklin Township children in foster care. Working with a local agency, Kashinsky set up the drive which has donors pick a child from the provided list, purchase the gifts, and drop them off at his DeMott Lane home, from where they will then …

An artist’s rendering of The Cosmopolitan, the four-storey residential building planned for the former Kmart site in Rutgers Plaza. The three-year speculation of what would replace Big Kmart in Rutgers Plaza may be at an end. Levin Properties of Plainfield, the owner of Rutgers Plaza at John F. Kennedy Boulevard and Easton Avenue, has submitted to the Zoning Board of …

The state Supreme Court has publicly reprimanded a former township Municipal Court Judge over what it said was an “inappropriate” remark made to a female defendant appearing before him in 2017. The Supreme Court agreed with the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct that a comment made by former Municipal Court Judge Hector Rodriguez was sexual in nature and violated three …

Mail sent from Franklin Township post offices will be delayed under the new USPS plan. (File photo.) Township residents using the US Postal Service will have to allow for at least another day of delivery time for mail sent and received, thanks to new standards out in place on October 1 by the U.S Postal Service. The new delivery times …

Route 518 resident Lisa Kapsokefalos says she does not feel safe with the thought of hunters passing so close to her property. A decision by the Township Council to suspend hunting for this year on a newly acquired tract of land on Route 518 was supported September 21 by the Open Space Advisory Committee. The move was made as a …

The access trail to the Route 518 hunting parcel is located right behind an area homeowner Lisa Kapsokefalos uses to relax, she said. A Route 518 resident’s complaint about the access point to the township’s newest hunting spot has officials reconsidering its placement. The resident, Lisa Kapsokefalos, is upset that the tract’s access road is just about 12 feet from …

Township Manager Robert Vornlocker detailed the effect of Tropical Storm Ida on Franklin for the Township Council. Tropical Storm Ida was one for the record books, the Township Manager told the Township Council on September 14. Record flood levels of the Raritan and Millstone rivers, more water rescues than remembered in past storms and more streets flooded out than in …

The 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Arlington, Va. and Shanksville, Pa. – and the six Franklin residents who lost their lives that day – was commemorated in two separate ceremonies. Among the 2,977 people killed in the attacks were township natives John Collins, Stephen Joseph, Ganesh K. Ladkat, Vanesha O. Richards, Jeffrey Robinson …