News-pourri

A 52-acre parcel near the intersection of Routes 27 and 518 has been selected as the location for the Williams-Transco gas compressor station project. The site was selected over another option because it minimizes the effects of the compressor station on the environment and on nearby residents by about 80 percent, a company spokesman said.

Submitted by Franklin Food Bank. Stop & Shop has donated hundreds of holiday boxes to the Franklin Food Bank. When Food Bank clients came for their monthly food package, they received a holiday package which included a chicken, turkey, or ham, as well as a Nature’s Promise holiday box of side dishes – everything a family needed for a holiday …

Township resident Daryl Kipnis will kick off his 2017 state Senate campaign with a Jan. 5, 2017 reception at The Imperia, 1714 east Ave. Kipnis, an attorney, hopes to win the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent and presumptive Democratic nominee state Sen. Bob Smith for the 17th District seat, which represents Franklin, Milltown, New Brunswick, North Brunswick and Piscataway.

Nearly one in every 10 township school-aged child lived in poverty in 2015, a figure that is 41 percent higher than in all of Somerset County. In its annual Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates for 2015, released Dec. 14, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that 9.4 percent of children aged 5 to 17 years in the township live below …

The 2016 winners of an annual poster contest for the township’s school children were celebrated at the Dec. 13 Township Council meeting. The contest is sponsored by the township Municipal Alliance for the Prevention of Substance Abuse. This year’s theme was “We Can Be Above The Influence And Still be Influenced.”

The state Assembly’s appropriations committee recently advanced two military veterans’-related bills co-sponsored by Assemblyman Joe Danielsen (D-17). One bill would establish a pilot program to assist disabled and low-income veterans in paying for housing modifications, and the second would extend state civil service eligibility for non-combat veterans.

A township charter school will have to wait until after the new year to find out if it will be able to relocate. Central Jersey College Prep Charter School, which now occupies part of a building on Schoolhouse Road, wants to move into space in a Mettlers Road building. The school plans to take up two, two-storey wings of the …

The on-again, off-again dispute over amplification of Pop Warner football games at Middlebush Park is apparently on again. The topic resurfaced at the Dec. 13 Township Council meeting, and even though the problem has been rectified, it resulted in a minor dustup between Councilwoman Roz Sherman (D-Ward 2) and Councilman Carl R.A. Wright (D-Ward 4).

The U.S Congress’s Black Caucus is likely to take a more “in your face” approach starting next year in dealing with any Republican attempts to roll back Progressive gains, an audience at First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens was told Dec. 10. The speaker was U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-12), who appeared at a town hall meeting at the …

  A school district administrator recovering from two strokes said he “felt the love” Dec. 9 when more than 200 people showed up for a fundraiser for his recovery efforts.