News-pourri

Work has begun on a Bennetts Lane bridge replacement project. A segment of the road between Route 27 and Clyde Road was closed Oct. 5, and will remain so for about the next two months, said Matthew Loper, an engineer with the Somerset County Engineering Division.

Several members weren’t happy about doing it, but the Board of Adjustment Oct. 1 approved a developer’s application to build a house on an undersized lot on Hollywood Avenue. The target lot, at the corner of Hollywood and 12th Street, will hold a 1,700-square-foot three bedroom colonial.

Hopeton Richards knelt down before the plaque mounted on a boulder and said a few words to the teenaged girl standing next to  him before photographing the plaque with his cell phone. Richards, a former township resident who now lives about 90 minutes away in Berlin, was one of about 30 people who gathered near the library Sept. 29 for the dedication …

There are still a couple regulatory hurdles to overcome, but all indications are that the long-shuttered Kingston School will soon once again be a center of learning. Plans call for the school, located on Laurel Avenue in Kingston, to be leased by the Tuchman Foundation for 24 years. The foundation plans to sub-lease most of the space to a private school, …

Township Councilman Rajiv Prasad on Sept. 8 apologized for charging that opponents of a proposed park were motivated by racism, but the main targets of his attack maintained that he should resign his office. Prasad’s apology, delivered during the September council meeting, was primarily directed to Middlebush residents Brian and Gina Ulrich. Brian Ulrich is the creator of a social media site …

Mayor Chris Kelly ( R) has called for the resignation of a Township Councilman and the head of the township Democrats over a controversy concerning opposition to the proposed Catalpa Park. Kelly said that Councilman Rajiv Prasad (D-At Large) should resign because of comments he made at a July 27 meeting of the Human Relations Commission, in which he said …

A Township Councilman who has charged that opposition to the proposed Catalpa Park is racially based requested in July that the FBI be asked to interview two outspoken park opponents “so that they will think twice before resorting to any violence.” “At least they will know they are not operating under the radar,” Councilman Rajiv Prasad (D-At Large) said in the …

Updated (At end of story) The township councilman who earlier this month came under fire for claiming that a social media page opposed to Catalpa Park is race-based – then denied making the claim – has now apologized to his fellow council members for “any lapse in judgment” in making any “inappropriate statements.”

The complete sell-out of the Somerset Gate development on Route 27 was celebrated Aug 17 by the developer and township officials. The 106-townhouse development saw its final resident move in in June, said Charley Avery, a partner with the developer, Redev Group.

(Update: School district steps in to clarify that Potosnak is the school board’s representative to the Chamber. See update at bottom of story.) The legitimacy of last Spring’s Franklin Township Chamber of Commerce executive board election has a surprising challenger: the Board of Education’s president.