News-pourri

Privatization of some positions and the search process for an interim schools Superintendent are among the topics to be discussed at a special meeting of the Board of Education set for 7:30 p.m. Feb. 17 at Franklin Middle School. The school board will discuss privatization of the district’s paraprofessionals and substitute teachers, and the interim superintendent’s search process, according to …

There will be a new home going up on Ray Street soon, but it won’t be what its developer initially envisioned. The Zoning Board at its Feb. 6 meeting made it clear that the plan for a four-bedroom, two-story home at 57 Ray Street wasn’t going to pass muster, so its developer – Diamond Investor & Builders – substituted plans …

The design of a new recreation park, to be built by the developer of the Summerfields housing project, was approved Jan. 28 by the Township Council. And although a concept plan shows two bocce ball courts, they’re not included in the final design. What is included, though is a softball diamond, a “tot lot,” a high school-regulation size soccer field, …

The DeForest B. Soaries Jr. Senior Residences at Somerset building was officially opened on Jan. 28. Located at 630 Franklin Blvd., the 64-unit building is geared toward senior citizens and veterans. “Twenty years ago we embarked upon the mission of revitalizing the neighborhood along the Route 27 corridor south of the St. Peter’s cemetery,” said the Rev. DeForest Soaries, after …

[wpgmappity id=”10″]   Mylar balloons released near an overhead transformer at Pine Grove and Highland avenues the afternoon of Jan. 29 sparked a power outage that affected more than 1,200 customers in the township and New Brunswick. The outage was first reported at about 2:45 p.m., said Public Service Electric & Gas spokeswoman Lindsey Puliti. She said that all customers …

The school district has launched an internal investigation as to why a child left on a school bus for five hours Jan. 28 was reported as being in school. Franklin Township police are also investigating the incident, said department spokesman Sgt. Philip Rizzo. A statement from schools Superintendent Edward Seto said the student’s attendance was marked “verified,” even though the …

The Franklin Township Police Department officially has three new police officers and one new sergeant. The four were sworn in to their positions at the Jan. 28 Township Council meeting by Township Clerk Ann McCarthy. The force’s newest Sergeant is Robert Ellis, a 10-year veteran. Police Chief Lawrence Roberts said Ellis is “very professional, very thorough.” Prior to his promotion, …

Public Service Electric & Gas is still investigating the cause of a substation failure in Somerset Jan. 24 that knocked out power to thousands of township residents. In a release, the company said that about 5,900 customers in the township lost power shortly after 11 a.m. when a substation malfunctioned. The problem also caused outages in New Brunswick and North …

Franklin Township is the launching ground for a new training tool to educate food service workers about food defense. The tool is a set of cartoons used to illustrate what food service workers should do in four common scenarios: Being presented with an unknown food source, dealing with symptoms of illness, preventing employee contamination of food and dealing with suspicious …

Franklin got an average of 9 inches of snow on Jan. 21, according to the National Weather Service. Streets were pretty drivable by about 9 a.m., as crews were out all night plowing and salting. Now we have a few days of bitterly cold weather to get through, with wind chills expected to be in the double-digit negatives. On the …