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November General Elections Prospect Park Council *Christina Peralta - 730 *Adnan Zakaria - 716 Karl Hoffmann - 300 Nabil Rehim - 268 Manchester R.H.S. Board Of Ed - Prospect Park *Tom Magura - 327 Write-In - 4 Prospect Park Board Of Ed. *Paul Birch - 397 *William Willemsen - 266 Maria Emma Anderson - 237 Write-In - 2 * = winner other vote totals in Prospect Park Governor Barbara Buono - 684 *Chris Christie - 396 Kaplan - 4 Welzer - 4 Sare - 3 Boss - 3 Schroeder - 2 Araujo - 3 Senate District 35 *Nellie Pou - 776 Lynda Gallashaw - 251 General Assembly District 35 *Benjie Wimberly - 688 *Shavonda Sumter - 671 Maria Del Pilar Rivas - 282 Rhina Tavarez - 279 Passaic County Sheriff *Richard Berdnik - 711 Frank Feenan - 312 Board Of Chosen Freeholders *Terry Duffy - 691 *Pat Lepore - 685 Christian Barranco - 281 Philip Weisbecker - 260 Public Question 1: Permit Veteran's organizations to engage in games of chance. Yes - 413 No - 97 Public Question 2: Raise The Minimum Wage through State Constitutional amendment Yes - 408 No - 125 Proposed 2013 Prospect Park School Budget pdf file #1 pdf file #2 March 18, 2013 The Record
Prospect
Park Mayor Aids Syrians
by Hannan Adely
Mohamed Khairullah woke up one night in December in Aleppo
to feel the ground shaking as a bomb landed outside with a boom and a
plume of smoke. The Syrian sky never quieted during his next three days
in the embattled city.
"You’re always watching the sky above you and when it comes
there’s not much of a warning," he said. "But we had a purpose and a
cause and we had to continue."
Between his jobs as mayor of Prospect Park and as a high
school administrator, Khairullah has rallied to help his native Syria,
where, where rebels have been fighting for the past two years to
overthrow the Assad regime, whose fight to stay in power has cast the
country into war.
He raised $18,500 for a 12-day trip in December that he used
to bring supplies to schools and hospitals in Syria and to a refugee
camp in Turkey.
Khairullah is going back in April, in spite of the danger,
and aims to raise $50,000 by Sunday to bring more food, clothing and
fuel to Syrians. He is appealing to donors in large part through daily
social media posts to Twitter and Facebook.
Khairullah, who left Syria as a child, is part of a larger
community of Syrian-Americans in New Jersey that has rallied to help,
either by raising funds or by putting political pressure on U.S. and
international leaders to help oust Assad. A few, like Khairullah, also
have traveled to Syria, including a Haledon medical student who
volunteered at a hospital in Aleppo for 17 days in February, and a
Clifton activist who said he has helped rebels in Syria with
communications and computer technology.
The activists say they feel compelled to help because their
families in Syria are suffering and because they identify with the
people losing their lives. They say their own families have faced
persecution or harassment under the Assad regime.
Khairullah said his grandfather was jailed because of his
support for anti-government demonstrations, and his uncle disappeared
30 years ago in a tragedy his family ties to the "mukhabarat," or
Syrian secret police, known and feared for abuses and disappearances.
"I’ve helped for campaigns for other countries, but this is
very close to me," said Khairullah, 37. "This is where I was born and
where my family is and this is where the people I love are."
The support, Khairullah said, sends a message to the people:
"We’re letting them know we haven’t forgotten about them. The fact that
we’re expatriates doesn’t mean we’re removed from them."
One of Khairullah’s online posts includes a video from his
last trip that shows images of destroyed homes and schools, and
children digging through trash.
Khairuallah narrates, walking through hospitals and refugee
camps, thanking donors and describing how their dollars were used: 300
cans of baby formula, hundreds of boxes of bologna, stacks of staples
like bread, rice and olives to feed students and hospital patients; 11
barrels of oil and 38 tanks of oxygen he brought to field hospitals,
with help from local leaders in Aleppo.
On the way to one of the field hospitals, Khariullah said a
mortar shell landed on a street a minute after he drove past.
"It landed nearby," said Khairullah, a supervisor of
instruction at Passaic County Technical Institute. "We were told that
night a second one landed and killed three people. We can only assume
they were targeting the field hospital."
Khairullah says it’s important he deliver the goods in
person. People are more likely to donate when they know he is traveling
there and giving 100 percent of donations directly to the people.
That was the case for Ayman Jouejati, of Paramus, who said
he worried about delays and overhead costs in large aid agencies. "I
know Mohamed very well," he said. "He’s trustworthy and I need to
support his trip to Syria. I need to get the money to the right path."
At least 85 people have donated so far; mostly, donors are
members of New Jersey’s Syrian community, but funds have also come from
elected officials, including Prospect Park Councilman Samir Hayek,
former councilman Andre Greer, former mayor Al Marchito, Passaic County
freeholders Terry Duffy and John Bartlett, Paterson Councilman Andrew
Sayegh, and Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly.
Khairullah is also bringing aid to an area that’s borne a
large brunt of the government onslaught and that has had limited access
to foreign aid because of fighting and government restrictions on
travel there.
His activism extends to politics, too. With the New
Jersey-based Syrian Americans for Democracy, Khairullah has led
protests, lobbied elected officials, and spread news about human rights
abuses and killings. He helped organize a "Walk for Syria" from the
United Nations to the Syrian Mission on Second Avenue in New York City
on Sunday – one of many events that was held across the U.S. to mark
the second anniversary of the uprising.
The conflict began on March 15, 2011 with nationwide
demonstrations for reform inspired by the Arab Spring. President Bashar
Assad responded with a violent crackdown which spiraled into a
full-blown war. Some 70,000 people have been killed, according to the
United Nations. More than 1.2 million have become refugees and another
2 million are displaced within Syria, according to the UN’s refugee
agency.
Although many parts of Aleppo have been reduced to rubble by
relentless government shelling, Khairullah said people are determined
to continue fighting the regime until it is toppled.
"They are determined to get freedom and we just have to
support them," he said.
January 17, 2013 Hawthorne Press Prospect Park Council Reorganizes At the the Prospect Park reorganization meeting on January 5, Councilmembers Samie Hayek and Richard Esquiche took the oath of office. Both were sworn in by Mayor Mohamed Khairullah. Councilman Robert Artis was elected council president for the new year. The following appointments were made by the mayor with the advice and consent of the Borough Council. William Smith was appointed to a two-year term as fire prevention official; Scott Hoek, fire inspector; Paul Birch, housing official. Hana Hataf is deputy tax collector; Naomi Kasib, court administrator; Heidy Amaral, deputy court administrator; David Ferrante, prosecutor; Richard Baldi, public defender; Ken Valt, safety coordinator; RJ Dansen, DPW worker; Anthony Lovell, custodian; Damian Serafin, recreation director; Raymond Dansen Sr., superintendent of alarms. Named OEM deputy coordinator was William Mullanaphy; police physician, Dr. David Rasa; alternate physician, Dr. George Guariglia. Also sworn in were officers of the Prospect Park Volunteer Fire Department officers: Captain Mark Sweetrnan,, Captain Chemil Oumar, Lieutenant Leelon Webb and Lieutenant Eric Nelson. The oath of office was administered by the mayor to the Volunteer Fire Department's Ladies Auxiliary: President Jacqueline Connolly, Vice President Tracy Struyk, treasurer Linda Van Lenten and Secretary Barbara Nelson. Diana Pleasant, Mary Ann Cakl and Heather Hayden were re-appointed as adrninistrative assistants. Among the dignitaries in attendance at the meeting were State Senator Nellie Pou, Freeholder Director Bruce James and Passaic County Democratic Leader John Currie. |
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