News-pourri

Rejecting repeated calls for his resignation, Township Councilman Rajiv Prasad on Feb. 12 vowed to fill out his term, and accused those who oppose him with “political grandstanding.” Prasad (D-At Large) has been enmeshed in controversy at various times over the last three years, most recently over his handling of the approval process for the now-defunct plan for a “Peace …

Organizers of the upcoming “Empty Bowls Franklin Township” fundraiser have high hopes for their inaugural event. The founding executive team members – Susan Winston Seamon and Bob and Ceil Cheril – say they wanted to do something to help ease the concerns of people with food insecurity.

The township’s municipal prosecutor and a long-time educator are among the nine women chosen as the 2019 Outstanding Women in Somerset County by the Somerset County Commission on the Status of Women. Bernice Jalloh, an attorney who is currently the township prosecutor, will be honored in the Journalism/Media/Law category, and Wanda Brooks-Long, CEO of an educational services company and former …

A developer is looking to bring a Chick-fil-A and a second Starbucks to a lot adjacent to the Route 27 redevelopment area. The project is targeted for land now occupied by Frank’s Hardware & Building Supply and Sunny Seafood on Rt. 27/Somerset Street, bordered by Kevin Apuzzio Avenue and the WaWa convenience store.

Township Democrats tapped some home-grown talent in picking the newest member of the Township Council on Jan. 22. Township native Crystal Pruitt was unanimously picked by the council to fill in the one-year unexpired term of former Councilwoman Shanel Robinson.

Hundreds of attendees at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Breakfast were urged Jan. 21 to continue the slain civil rights leader’s legacy by acting as he would. “Dr. King’s legacy would demand that we not sit back, that we look inside of ourselves first, and that we launch out where we see injustice,” keynote speaker Tiffany M. …

PRINCETON – Hundreds of protestors from across the state gathered at Palmer Square here Jan. 12 for what they thought was going to be a counter-demonstration against a fledgling white supremacist group’s march. But the group – the New Jersey European Heritage Association – never showed up, so the protestors turned the event into a general ant-hate rally.

The township’s presiding Municipal Court Judge denies that a comment he made to a defendant in December 2017 was sexual in nature and violated any judicial ethics rules that would require formal discipline. Judge Hector Rodriguez in December 2018 was hit with charges that he violated three tenets of the state Judicial Canon of Ethics. The charges stem from a …

The Township Council picked a Deputy Mayor for 2019 at its Jan. 7 reorganization meeting, but did not choose to fill the seat vacated by the person who held the position last year. The Council also filled a number of positions on the various township boards and commissions, named a municipal court judge, prosecutors and public defenders, and the other …

SOMERVILLE – Two township residents were part of history at the Jan. 4 Somerset County Board of Chosen Freeholders meeting. Former township Deputy Mayor Shanel Robinson took the oath of office for her first Freeholder term, and former township Mayor and current Freeholder Brian Levine was elected as the Freeholder Director for 2019.