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July 3, 2025 The Record Prospect Park school board names new leader, OKs three-year contract by Philip DeVencentis A
school administrator with nearly 30 years of experience in education
has been chosen to be the new superintendent of the borough’s K-8
district.
Hector
Montes, most recently the principal of Somerset County Vocational &
Technical High School in Bridgewater Township, was appointed by the
Board of Education at a meeting on May 7.
Trustees
then passed a resolution to approve his employment agreement on June 27.
Montes,
56, is the fourth person to hold the position of superintendent in
Prospect Park in the past four years. He succeeds Michael Parent, who
served in an acting capacity after the sudden and unexplained exit of
Tyeshia Reels in the fall.
Parent,
53, the former principal of Passaic County Technical Institute in
Wayne, announced his retirement two months ago.
Montes
will be paid a salary of $195,000 under the initial year of his
three-year contract. That figure includes a $5,000 stipend for assuming
the added position of principal of the elementary school on Brown
Avenue. The district, one of three school systems that send students to
Manchester Regional High School in Haledon, has an enrollment of 763.
In
a letter to families, Montes said it is a privilege to serve a
community with such “diverse perspectives” and “strong values.”
“I
believe that the most effective schools are those in which trust,
transparency and collaboration are at the heart of all we do,” Montes
wrote. “As I step into this role, I do so with a cleareyed
understanding of our challenges and our potential.”
Montes,
who is bilingual in Spanish, began his career teaching fourth and fifth
grades at an Episcopal school in Trenton. Before his role in
Bridgewater Township, he was a principal at Public School No. 12 and at
New Roberto Clemente School in Paterson.
The
incoming superintendent holds a master’s degree in education leadership
from Saint Peter’s University. He is pursuing a doctorate.
May 30, 2025 The Record
Prospect
Park councilman facing illegal gambling charges is released from jail
by Philip DeVencentis
PROSPECT PARK — The councilman who allegedly helped
to orchestrate an underground gambling ring has been released from jail
after a judge reconsidered a decision that kept him there for a month
and a half.
Borough Council President Anand Shah, 42, was
allowed to walk out of the Morris County Correctional Facility in
Morristown on May 30, pending 11 charges of illegal gambling, money
laundering and racketeering for his alleged link to the complex scheme.
Michael DeMarco, an attorney for Shah, said his
client will remain on home confinement, except for professional
appointments and to go to work as a Subway franchisee.
K-12 district: Wayne school board OKs deal to share
armed police officers with township
“We continue to maintain his innocence and to
vigorously defend the case,” DeMarco said.
State Superior Court Judge Thomas Critchley Jr.,
sitting in Morristown, granted a motion for pretrial detention, but
that ruling was remanded on appeal.
DeMarco declined to say whether Shah will attend
council meetings, but he insisted that his client will not resign from
his position despite requests from local leaders to do so.
Shah, a Clifton native, was arrested on April 9
after a state probe said he allegedly hosted unlicensed poker games and
used a Costa Rica-based sportsbook with 38 co-conspirators, including
members of the Lucchese crime family. Hundreds of thousands of dollars
were funneled into shell companies that were formed to launder the
illicit proceeds, investigators said.
Map of locations alleged to be involved in the
Lucchese Family organized crime investigation.
The gambling activities took place in backrooms of
legitimate businesses, including cafés in Garfield and in Woodland
Park, authorities said.
Shah, a Democrat finishing his third three-year
term, is uncontested in a primary election on June 10.
His name appears twice on the ballot as he is also
running to serve his party once again on the Passaic County committee.
January 31, 2025 The Record After 41 years, this underdog North Jersey wrestling team is back in the spotlight by Sean Farrell
One wrestler is competing with frostbite after biking to and from school each day. Most step on the mat with shoes from a team bin of recycled equipment. Many are raised by single mothers or aunts or grandmothers. Seemingly everyone on the Manchester roster has a story and a challenge to overcome. But the word coach Dave Heitman refrains from using is excuses. The Falcons keep finding ways to win in a place where almost everyone comes in with no wrestling experience. "Once you touch that mat, all your life problems go away," senior Khaleel Santiago said. "I found this to be my peace, my therapy. I put my all into it and we're here now." Perhaps no team in North Jersey has written a more unlikely success story than the small Passaic County school that once produced Olympic champion Bruce Baumgartner. Manchester Regional High School wrestling coach David Heitman congratulates Roberto Vargas during the Passaic County Wrestling Tournament in West Milford, NJ on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. The Falcons (11-2) locked up their first division title in 41 years this month and keep soaring closer to their first winning season in over a decade. A dream ride got even better Wednesday night when Manchester upset Emerson/Park Ridge, 41-34, in the NJIC semifinals, knocking off a blue blood that had won all seven conference playoffs. Hearing the sweet sound of Frank Sinatra after each home win means a little more after so many lean years. The year before Heitman took over, the Falcons won only one match in 27 tries. "There's not a kid in [seven] years that I've been here that I didn't like," Heitman, 65, said Tuesday. "I've been very blessed. I've been to the mountaintop with teams and it's all relative. I think the happiest I've ever been was last week." Before coming to Manchester, Heitman spent 13 years at Northern Highlands and six at Mahwah. Despite that experience, he was in for a rude awakening when he took the reins in Haledon. On his first day on the job, he went up to athletic director Rande Roca and didn't understand why the banner had not been updated since the Reagan Administration. And when told that three of his wrestlers were academically ineligible, Heitman wasn't sure exactly what that meant. Now, Heitman has come to see that explaining technique is only one small facet of the job. Two years ago, he had an orphan on the team who ended up in culinary school. One rule in Heitman’s practice room is no cursing. "We spend a lot of time on their academics," Heitman said. "Our goal and the reason we're here is so they have a better life. That's all. Whether they're tradesmen or go to college and get a degree, they're better for it. And wrestling teaches you how to fight through adversity and get back up." Turning around the program has taken a full team effort for Heitman, who’s enlisted his son David Heitman and assistants Joe Ickles and Ryan Pro. On the mat, Manchester is strong in the lower-weights and balanced overall with eight wrestlers with at last 12 wins. The Falcons sent three to the Passaic County podium this year in Hamza Hemaid (third at 113), Roberto Vargas (fourth at 126) and Santiago (fourth at 175). Roberto Vargas from Manchester wrestles Rayan Mohammad from Passaic County Tech in a 126-pound match during the Passaic County Wrestling Tournament in West Milford, NJ on Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025. Santiago has been in touch with college coaches about the possibility of wrestling at the next level. “I wouldn't know where to be without wrestling,” Santiago said. “It really changed my life. I went from a point where I grew up playing football and baseball. Before wrestling, I was in a dark spot and I got to a point where I didn't want to play sports at all. But my coach took me right out of it.” Before a match this week, Heitman perked up when senior Kishon Hamilton approached him in the stands. Hamilton is one example of a collaborative effort with football coach Burim Ala, who’s encouraged his athletes to try wrestling. A senior and two-way lineman, Hamilton has slimmed down from 265 to 208 pounds since getting into wrestling last year. The soles on both his shoes are taped up, but Hamilton doesn’t seem to mind his pick from the team bin. “Honestly, I haven't retaped these since the beginning of the season,” said Hamilton, whose last-bout pin against Glen Rock clinched first place in the Colonial Division. “I come out looking like this and feel like a king when I walk off.” “His matches are over too quick,” Santiago chimed in. In the NJIC championship, No. 20 Manchester will head on the road to face the other returning finalist in No. 12 Hasbrouck Heights on Thursday. Heitman thinks it's been at least a quarter-century since the Falcons were ranked. With only three senior starters gone from last year’s 11-12 team, Manchester has been building to this year and this moment. Whatever happens next, the Falcons have put the program back on the map and done it their way. “We put so much time and effort over the summer,” Santiago said. “All we did was wrestle. We had no choice but to come back and flip the script.” January 21, 2025 The Record 'The only word was welcome': Syrian Americans triumphantly return to native land by Hannan Adely
Mohamed Khairullah crossed the border into Syria
and headed straight to the Rawdah Mosque in Aleppo, the city where he
was born.
He walked by the skyscraping stone minaret, passed
through the white columns and prayed under the dome roof over the great
hall — the same hall where his grandfather, the late Sheikh Taher
Khairullah, delivered sermons in the 1980s that cried for dignity and
freedom under the fist of the Assad regime, inspiring the faithful to
protest for their rights. Those sermons made his grandfather a target
for execution, and the family had to flee the country in 1990.
But one feature of the mosque disturbed Khairullah
on his Dec. 26 visit. In the mosque's former library, which a
regime-aligned mufti had turned into a reception space, he spotted an
old Syrian flag, the one that has been replaced across streets, homes
and institutions with the three-starred flag of the revolution since
the overthrow of President Bashar Assad a month ago.
He marched up and tore it off its staff before
dropping it on the ground. Then, as an insult to the old regime, he
stomped on it. It was an act of defiance after seeing his native
country wither under decades of repression and a 13-year brutal civil
war.
"Listen," he said, "I've been upset at the old
regime since the time I had to be removed out of my house when I was
almost 5 years old. So it’s a sense of closure. The desire to be free
has manifested itself into reality. This regime is now behind us, and
it’s a memory to us, really, something that we step on and we step over
as we move forward. At least for me, I feel free.
"I wanted my family in Syria," he added, his voice
breaking, "to enjoy the same freedom that I enjoy in the United States,
and now they have an opportunity to do so."
For half a century, the Assad family governed Syria
as a totalitarian police state, crushing dissent, imprisoning and
torturing critics and engaging in systematic corruption. In 2011,
inspired by the Arab Spring, Syrians launched mass protests demanding
democratic reforms. Assad responded with a brutal crackdown that
spiraled into civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people and
caused 13 million to flee their homes.
The regime crumbled last month after rebel forces
launched an astonishing offensive, capturing city after city over 12
days, facing little resistance from the Syrian Army. As they converged
on Damascus on Dec. 8, Assad fled the capital city, boarding a plane to
Russia. Opposition fighters declared victory and an end to Assad rule.
Syrian Americans were rapt as events unfolded,
feeling that an end to a long nightmare was finally within reach. When
Assad was ousted, Syrians in the diaspora broke into celebrations
across the world, including in New Jersey, where they joined parties,
car parades and flag raisings. Some, like Khairullah, promptly booked
travel, wanting to be in Syria to witness and revel in an end to war
and a newfound freedom after years of estrangement and exile.
In interviews, they described emotional family
reunions, triumphant visits to landmarks of the revolution, and
sorrowful stops in places leveled by punishing airstrikes and gunfire.
Mohamed Khairullah, mayor of Prospect Park, is
photographed in front of the Aleppo castle. He visited Syria in late
December 2024 after the ousting of President Bashar Assad, to reunite
with family and celebrate the country's newfound freedom.
‘Happiness and relief’
Khairullah rejoiced as he went through the Bab
al-Hawa border crossing from Turkey into Syria, where he found his
cousin waiting for him at the gate.
"We said 'Alhamdulillah,'" he said, meaning "thank
God" or "praise be to God." "We embraced each other and cried."
“I’m choking up now just thinking about it — the
fact that I knew I could walk in and not fear being kidnapped or being
taken to prison and tortured, not having to worry about barrel bombs
being dropped on us or Russian jets firing at us, or snipers targeting
us while walking through the streets,” he said. “It was just a big
sense of happiness and relief.”
Along the way, he met families that had been
displaced during the war and were coming home. More than 115,000 people
are estimated to have returned from countries including Turkey, Jordan
and Lebanon since the fall of the Assad regime, according to the U.N.
refugee agency. Still, return is fraught with challenges in a country
where destruction and poverty are severe. Many simply have no home left
to return to.
Khairullah, an assistant principal at Passaic
County Technical-Vocational Schools, has lived in the U.S. since 1991
and served as mayor of Prospect Park for nearly 25 years. But he never
forgot the plight of Syrians, and he organized several humanitarian
missions to help refugees during the war. He also aided families who
settled in the U.S. as refugees.
Now he is calling for the U.S. to hold talks with
Syria's new leaders and lift sanctions so people can begin the enormous
task of rebuilding. The cost of reconstruction is uncertain. A 2019
report by the Carnegie Middle East Center estimated it between $250
billion and $400 billion. Another report, by the humanitarian group
World Vision, put the total far higher, at more than $1.2 trillion.
Waddah Azzawi and his son Moawya Azzawi visit
Syria's Old City in late December 2024 as they tour the country after
the fall of the Assad regime. It was Moawaya's first visit to see the
country where his father was raised.
Hugging a border guard
Waddah Azzawi of Wyckoff had not visited Syria
since he came to the United States in 2009. As an activist, he worried
he would be targeted.
“I was involved in every protest in the U.S., in
lobbying and any activity against the regime,” said Azzawi, a
pharmacist with a business in Prospect Park. “That put us directly
under immediate threats, immediate danger. If any one of us would come
back at that time, we would be arrested immediately, and you knew what
would happen.”
Crossing the border from Jordan on Dec. 29, he had
tears in his eyes. “I hugged the first Syrian person I saw,” Azzawi
said.
That person happened to be a border guard working
for the rebel coalition now in power. Azzawi said he was overcome with
joy to return, but also was moved by the guard's treatment of him and
his fellow travelers, including his 15-year-old son, Moawya, and a
friend, Hamid Imam.
In the past, crossing the border took hours.
Assad's guards would interrogate travelers, rifle through belongings,
demean them and solicit bribes. This time was different.
"He was very respectful," Azzawi said. "He greeted
us and said 'Welcome back.' He asked us if anyone had asked us for a
bribe, because it was common practice in the old regime. He asked if
anyone bothered us, and we said no. He told us, 'Welcome home. This is
your country.'"
After entering, he headed to Damascus and walked
the streets for hours. In the morning, he joined crowds in Umayyad
Square, where people rallied in the early days of the pro-democracy
uprising and which today is a central site for celebrations. There, he
joined in singing, chanting and flag waving.
Azzawi reunited with an uncle, but most of his
family no longer lives in Syria, having been displaced or killed, he
said. His former city, Deir ez-Zor in the north, is largely in ruins.
Imam, a former New Jersey resident now living in
Colorado, also had not visited since 2009 because of his involvement in
Syria’s pro-democracy movement, he said. Retuning, he said, was a
longtime dream.
“Every time we would have a rally, and it would
end, I would say, ‘Next time I hope we meet in a free Syria,’” said
Imam, who also aided displaced refugees.
Imam was also elated that no one interrogated him,
detained him or asked for a bribe as he entered Syria. “No one asked me
anything,” said Imam, a mental health and addiction counselor. “The
only word was welcome.”
From Damascus, he called his mother, surprising her
with news of his visit. She was in disbelief, so he sent her a photo of
his ticket to Jordan to prove that he had traveled there. She journeyed
from her seaside village of Jableh to the capital, about four hours
away, to reunite with her son. They posed for photos with the flag of
the revolution with the word "freedom" written across it in Umayyad
Square.
Hamid Imam reunited with his mother in Umayyad
Square in Syria, a central square in Damascus where celebrations have
taken place since the fall of the Assad regime. He visited Syria in
late December 2025 for the first time in 15 years.
Imam then traveled through Syria’s main cities on
what he called a “tour of freedom,” stopping at places where “the
biggest protests took place, and the biggest sacrifices took place.”
Along his trip, he waved flags in Freedom Square in Homs. He danced
outside the citadel in Aleppo to revolutionary songs. He surveyed the
destruction in Daraa, a city considered the birthplace of the
revolution.
"I don't recall being happier than this," Imam said
in a call from Syria. "There's a lot of pride and relief, but there is
also sadness to see destruction and the brutality of the regime. Every
single spot you go through, you see buildings burned and destroyed,
bullet marks, everything — schools, hospitals, houses, even one of the
oldest mosques destroyed.”
After years of war, poverty was stark, he said.
Many were out of work and begging for money. Electricity and heat were
lacking in the cold of winter, and people bundled in jackets and
blankets. Posters of the missing, many of whom were detained by
government forces and never heard from again, hung on public walls.
A new year, new hope
As they welcomed a new year and new hope, Syrian
Americans also acknowledged the difficulties ahead.
The Syrian civil war was among the most devastating
conflicts of the century, with over half of the country’s population
displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. Bombings and sectarian
violence ravaged Syria. Before the war, about a third of Syrians lived
below the poverty line. Today, more than 90% of the population lives
below the poverty line, according to the U.N.
Alaa Kamnaksh, director of operations at the Syrian
American Council and the American Coalition for Syria, organizations
advocating for a democratic Syria, said she was "cautiously optimistic"
about the country's future.
"They are going to need a lot of support," she
said, "and I think that support is going to come from easing of
sanctions and a lot of communication with the international community
that has showed goodwill and confidence. Keeping it in a silo is not
going to allow for rebuilding and reopening and a transition to a
democratic free Syria that we really want to see."
The U.S. on Jan. 6 issued a sanctions exemption,
known as a general license, allowing some energy transactions and
transactions with governing institutions. But it's unclear what will
happen in the months ahead.
The Biden administration declined to take Hayat
Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, the Islamist rebel group that led the military
offensive and heads the transitional government, off its list of
designated terrorist groups. Biden indicated he will leave the decision
to Trump, a move likely "to substantially extend the timeline of
powerful U.S. sanctions," The Washington Post reported.
HTS was placed on the list in 2018 due to its
affiliation with the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate. It broke
from the group years ago and has taken a more moderate approach.
International observers are watching to see if its leaders keep their
word to protect all ethnicities and faiths and form a power-sharing,
inclusive government.
Amid political upheaval, Syrians do not want to see
a repeat of events that took place in other nations with Arab Spring
uprisings, where new despotic leaders replaced old ones, and corruption
and repression persisted.
Syrians also must overcome ethnic and sectarian
divides that hardened during the war. Many are also calling for
accountability and justice for war crimes and theft by the Assad family
and regime officials. In a regional tinderbox, Syria also grapples with
the possibility of proxy clashes between Turkey and Israel, which sees
Turkish support for Syrian groups as a security threat and has bombed
its military and intelligence bases over the past month.
Kamnaksh hoped the international community would
act to support a transition to democracy in Syria. In the meantime,
many Syrian Americans are eager to go back and provide support and to
invest, she said.
Azzawi is among them. He felt the same optimism and
inspiration as in the early days of the uprising, saying that "we have
that spirit again."
"We want to rebuild," he said. "I am willing to do
anything to help rebuild the country, emotionally, financially,
whatever."
January
11, 2025 The Record
Wayne health official fills position of Prospect Park borough administrator by Philip DeVencentis
A public health official from
Wayne has been hired to fill the position of borough administrator.
Nagiyan
Sylejmanovski was appointed at the Borough Council reorganization
meeting. She will be paid $80,000 per year. She did not return a phone
call Thursday.
Pension
records show that Sylejmanovski of Haledon was paid $57,000 per year as
one of five environmental health specialists in Wayne. She previously
worked for health departments in Rockaway Township and in West Caldwell.
Route
23:Here's how a Wayne convenience store is trying to upstage local
competition
The
full-time administrator role was vacated in August, when Intashan
Chowdhury left the position through a mutual agreement with the
borough. He held the job for five and a half years.
Chowdhury,
who was the youngest municipal manager in New Jersey history at the
time of his appointment, is now an adjunct professor of business
management at Borough of Manhattan Community College and a part-time
internal management consultant for the city of Englewood.
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