Bernards to Continue Extended Dump Hours for Sandy Waste

But township officials confirm there will not be curbside pickup for storm debris on private property.

Bernards Township officials agreed on Tuesday night to continued extended hours, with extra days open, at the recycling center at the Pill Hill dump, where residents can bring their storm debris and damaged trees. But members of the Township Committee also confirmed there will be no curbside pickup of trees or brush destroyed by Sandy on private property. The Township Committee, on Township Administrator Bruce McArthur's suggestion, will continue an extended schedule of keeping the Pill Hill Road facility open on Tuesday and Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at least until January. The township can re-evaluate at that time whether to continue the longer hours, he said. That will allow …

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Bernards Chamber Seeks Volunteers for 'Restore the Shore' Project

Group will head down the shore to pitch in on Saturday.

After already loading up and sending three tractor trailors of supplies to shore relief sites, the Bernards Township Regional Chamber of Commerce (BTCC) is hosting another project, Restore the Shore, and is seeking help for this Saturday. The Chamber Volunteer Team will head to Pompamora Park Beach in Highlands, near Sandy Hook to be part of a community clean up effort, said Al LiCata, chamber president. Volunteers will help clean up parts of Pompamora Park Beach's most damaged areas, including the beach and homes, he said. Volunteers will be asked to work from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. "The goal is to provide 50 volunteers to assist this hard-hit community," LiCata said. Those wishing to volunteer are asked to sign up with the Chamber either …

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After Sandy, Weekend Nature Walks Back at EEC in Basking Ridge

Hour-long 'wanderings' along trails are scheduled through January.

Naturalist-led Nature Walks, “One Hour Wanderings,”  at the Environmental Education Center in Basking Ridge are scheduled for various Saturdays and Sundays through January, with each of the free walks focusing on a different theme each week. No preregistration is required for the hour-long interpretive walks, which meet at the EEC, surrounded by 450 acres of the western portion of the Great Swamp Basin of the Passaic River. However, the walks are not designed for organized groups. The park, located at 190 Lord Stirling Road, had been closed following Hurricane Sandy, particularly while South Maple Avenue had been blocked by large trees, wires and damage to the road. Saturday walks from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. noware scheduled for Nov. 24; Dec…

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Moms Talk Q&A

Moms Talk: How Would You Like To See School Days Made Up?

Hurricane Sandy has left us with a deficit of eight school days to make up. What approach do you favor?

One can hardly say that school days are completely back to normal, even though Bernards Schools now are back in session for regular hours after two full weeks of being closed. Bernards Schools reopened on a two-hour delayed start schedule on Monday, just a day or so after the last school building regained power in a municipality where power outages dragged out for two weeks after Hurricane Sandy. Schools Superintendent Nick Markarian noted at Monday night's board meeting that the two-hour delay allowed parents and buses to find their way along streets that still had not been cleared of storm debris and wires, as well as to readjust in homes where power may have not yet, or had just been, restored. Teachers also needed to regroup after an …

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Sandy 'Unsung Heros' Lauded in Letter

Local resident thanks those workers from many states who answered call to help restore power for the area.

Editor's Note: The following open letter was submitted to Patch. To Our Unsung Heros! We were driving home from Pittsburgh on Route 80 yesterday, and we saw caravans of Cherry Pickers on their way back to Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan, etc. I realized that these people had come all this way to help us in N.J.! Mind you — it felt like we didn't have much help at times, but seeing the number of trucks that day was a reminder that N.J. did have much help from across the country! I decided today to thank any of the people in town working to restore our power! I chatted with a few men from Indiana in the Kings parking lot as they rested in their truck and told them how grateful I was. They admitted they were exhausted and so I gave them a 10-…

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Board of Education Meeting, Life After Sandy This Week

Fellowship Village hosting lost Trick or Treating fun on Monday afternoon.

The Bernards Board of Education meeting scheduled for last week was the night that Hurricane Sandy arrived on everyone's doorsteps. While that meeting never happened, the school board is scheduled to get back to business this Monday at 7 p.m. at the William Annin Middle School. Along with regular business on the agenda, schools Superintendent Nick Markarian said last week that the subject undoubtedly will come up about how to make up the school district's unanticipated two-week absence. Two of those days, this past Thursday and Friday, already were scheduled to be off this past week to accommodate the annual teachers convention in Atlantic City, later canceled due to Sandy. Meanwhile, school officials already have announced that the …

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Bernardsville Shelter Open For Cold, Hungry and Medically in Need

Red Cross Shelter at Bernards High, also staffed by Bernardsville volunteers, serves Somerset County and beyond.

Almost two weeks after opening as a shelter to serve those fleeing Sandy in the northern Somerset County area, the shelter housed in the lower gymnasium at Bernards High School in serving an expanded region for those for whom the hurricane's impact is more than a memory. The American Red Cross, along with volunteers and emergency workers from Bernardsville, has been running the shelter since Oct. 29 as a place to go either during the day or overnight for those who need shelter, showers or found themselves stranded by the storm and its aftermath. The shelter's operations manager, Janet Murnick, said on Friday that the Bernardsville facility was gearing up to accept some of those staying with the Sisters of Christian Charity in Mendham, …

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Outages Expected to be Restored This Weekend, Locals Still in the Dark

Officials in Bernardsville and Bernards Township said they have had difficulty finding out when and where restoration is happening.

Jersey Central Power & Light announced on Friday that additional professionals and utility workers arriving in the state will return service by Saturday evening to the majority of customers who do not have power, including those who may have experienced new outages as a result of Wednesday's storm. The announcement added that 168,000 customers within the state remained without power on Friday, even as about 100,000 had their power restored on Thursday. Local officials said they lack information In Bernards Township and Bernardsville, officials say they were frustrated by lack of specific information regarding power restoration. "They can give us no specific information," Bernardsville Police Chief Kevin Valentine said at about 4:30 p.m. on…

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