PARSIPPANY — Tension has been high at Morris County, Parsippany, and Board of Education offices, and in many homes this week after hackers released lists of millions of email addresses that were used to access the Ashley Madison online dating site for married people.

The website, whose tag line is, “Life is short. Have an affair,” was hacked by a group called the Impact Team in June. Earlier this week, it exposed the names, email addresses, credit card numbers and sexual preferences of upwards of 37 million users of the site.

With the help of a forensic expert, Parsippany Focus did an analysis of the massive leak and found that hundreds of the site’s members worked or lived in Parsippany. While virtually all members used a personal email address to sign up, Parsippany Focus uncovered a few members who joined the site using their government issued email.  One person used his County of Morris email address, another used a Parsippany Board of Education email, and another was a high ranking officer in the Parsippany Police Department with the email address Sxxxxxxx@parpolice.com (Parsippany Focus has made an editorial decision not to publish member names or full email addresses. Websites have popped up in recent days that allow a person to search whether a specific email is included in the leak).  The Parsippany Police email account in question also links back to the officer’s home address when a simple Google search is done.

Parsippany Focus spoke with a member of law enforcement on background and was told that if a police investigation was ever being conducted on the Ashley Madison website, an official police email account would never be used to access the dating site.

Parsippany Focus was able to confirm that the Parsippany BOE employee was a former district principal, but has since taken a job in another district.

Aside from the one police officer who used his police issued email account, Parsippany Focus uncovered two other former Parsippany Police officers who were regular users of the site.  Of the two, one was already retired from the force when he signed up for the dating site, but the other was an active member of the Parsippany Police department at the time, and evidence reveals that the officer accessed Ashley Madison from police department headquarters and paid nearly $200 to Ashley Madison in the days immediately after Hurricane Irene.  Although the officer used a fictitious name on the website, credit card records show that the officer used 3339 Route 46 (Parsippany Police Department HQ) as his mailing address, and he was required to use his real name when he provided his credit card information.

In addition to government email addresses, 191 accounts were associated with a rutgers.edu account, 25 with a County College of Morris student account, and three with an email account provided by the Parsippany-Troy Hills School District.

Government employees were not the only users of the cheating website. Records show that literally hundreds of Parsippany residents paid upwards of thousands of dollars to connect with other cheaters.  Not surprisingly, all Parsippany members who paid were male, except for one woman from Lake Hiawatha who was looking for a “discreet partner who isn’t a couch potato.”

PARSIPPANY — Celebrate fall harvest and Craftsman Farms’ agricultural past at The Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms’ 9th Annual Fall Family Day. 

This traditional fall festival set for Saturday, September 19 from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. is the museum’s biggest family program of the year.

A day of old-fashioned family fun for the young and young-at-heart! Join for Hayrides• Pumpkin Painting,• Games & Races,• Handcraft Demonstrations like Woodworking, Embroidery, Pottery,• Scavenger Hunts•, Craft Activities and More.  Inside the Log House, tours will be suspended for the day and families will be invited to stroll through the museum Open House. 

This is fun-filled and memory-making afternoon at Craftsman Farms! $5.00 Member Children; $7.00 Non Member Children; Free to Adults accompanying children; $7.00 Adults without children. Admission fees are paid at the event.

Stickley Museum at Craftsman Farms is located at 2352 Route 10 West, Morris Plains.

For more information, click here.

PARSIPPANY — The band Street Hassle performed during the final concert at Parsippany’s Summer Concert Series on Thursday, August 20.

The weather forecast was for rain, but Parsippany Parks and Recreation Superintendent Joseph Plescia decided to move forward and have the concert.  The luck was with him. It didn’t start raining until the concert ended for the evening.

“There was a nice crowd of people came out to Veteran’s Memorial Park to see Street Hassle,” said Karen DeChristopher, a member of Parsippany’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM).

Street Hassle is no stranger to Parsippany, performing the last Friday of each month at Mount Holleran Town Tavern, with the next performance scheduled for Friday, August 28.

Street Hassle is a “Powerful Horn Band” with skilled area musicians that enjoy performing interpretations of Classic Rock, Blues, Motown and Pop. They are energetic and an entertainingly enjoyable band. They also cut from 60’s classic rock to 70’s disco and can ease their way through a 200+ song catalog to excite the most diverse crowd. I heard exhilarating renditions of classic from Chicago, The Rolling Stones, Dusty Springfield and Tina Turner. They also choose the right song for the moment, and don’t not fall into repetitious medleys of just number one hits.

The band has turned a lot of heads. When you see a blazing horn section in action, or see and hear the sound of a real Hammond

Organ spinning a whirl of sounds through the air, you can rest assured that  this band is not aiming for the slickness of a cruise ship lounge act. They are a real band playing real songs and sometimes that just takes 12 people to accomplish. “We cant cut corners like our competitors,” jokes the bands leader and founder Steve Hantis.

Street Hassle has open for John K & Steppenwolf, Blood Sweat & Tears and many other national acts. They enjoy a loyal following centered in the NY/NJ Metro Area. In addition to Parsippany’s Summer Concert Series the group performs at large outdoor events including Millburn and Fredon’s annual concert Series in addition to Florham Park, Rockaway Boro and Berkeley Heights Feast Of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel Fireworks.

They are the house band at The Legendary Stanhope House and continuously play the club scene all throughout the year. The band is also proud of their affiliation with The Blue Knights MC and have been the headline act for 5 consecutive Gooch’c Garlic Runs.

PARSIPPANY —  Parsippany’s Boy Scout Troop 72 provided four staff members/instructors and four participants for the latest Wood Badge course. Pictured clockwise from back left, Kevin Wall(P), Chris Kennett(P), Keith Hawkins(S), Adam Sonzogni(S), Trish Sonzogni(S), Tristan Vidreiro(S), Ron Knowle(P), Rich Kaiser(P).

Wood Badge is the pinnacle of adult leader training for all scouting programs. Starting in England in 1919 by Robert Baden-Powell, Wood Badge has grown to be a worldwide training program.

The BSA started official Wood Badge courses in 1948, and the training has grown and adapted with the times. Current training takes cues from corporate team building and management courses, while still utilizing the scouting Patrol and Troop structure. The first three-day weekend consists of the “classroom” portion, with most of the instruction taking place indoors. The second 3-day weekend is the “mountaintop experience” with most of the weekend spent outdoors. This portion of Wood Badge is called the “practical phase”. Scouters then develop a “ticket” of five goals that will improve scouting in their local unit, district, or council. This is the “application phase”.

They then set off to accomplish these goals, and have 18 months to complete them.

To take Wood Badge, a scouter must first complete the basic training for the leadership position they hold. The level of commitment given by these scouters shows their deep dedication to the scouting program, and the youth we serve.

Once a scouter completes both phases, they are awarded with the Wood Badge training award consisting of a special neckerchief, woggle (neckerchief slide), certificate, and 2 wooden beads on a leather strap. It is these beads that the course derives its name.

Wood Badge staff members are hand-picked by the course director, and must have completed both phases of Wood Badge before being eligible.

Troop 72 now has eight leaders that have completed Wood Badge, with four that have staffed multiple courses. With these 4 new participants, more than half our adult leaders will be Wood Badge trained.

Troop 72 has been serving the youth of the Parsippany area since 1954. We invite all boys between the ages of 11 and 17 to come out and learn more about scouting and all that way do.  Which includes, but is not limited to, camping, hiking, canoeing, rock climbing, and lots of service to our community.

 For more information or to join Troop 72 email info@boyscoutsofparsippany.org or click here.

Troop 72 is doing its annual popcorn fundraiser. If you live in the Parsippany area and would like to support scouting, email us at popcorn@boyscoutsofparsippany.org

PARSIPPANY — The results are in and with many comments both for and against, the overwhelming majority of people feel that it is not ok to park a vehicle on the lawn of a home.

The Township, like virtually every other municipality in the State, strictly forbids the parking of any vehicle on any lawn.  Parsippany’s parking ordinance is enforced by the Township’s Housing Department.  Parsippany Focus recently spoke to a former housing inspector and was told via email that “inspectors are out every day citing people for illegally parking and we received complaints all the time.  People may feel that it is ok to do whatever they want on their own property, but that is not the way society and zoning laws work.”

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PARSIPPANY — Parsippany-Troy Hills Township Council made a presentation to the participants in the Clean Communities program with a certificate of appreciation at its meeting of Tuesday, August 18.

Each year, Parsippany-Troy Hills Township receives grant money through the New Jersey Clean Communities program. Parsippany received a grant of $111,553.58 of the total distribution for fiscal year 2015 of $18,494,161.22. (Click here to review full report)

The young people were an enthusiastic group who seemed truly appreciative of being able to perform duties for the Township; they were paid through the Clean Communities grant, and they were very happy to have summer jobs.

The program is designed to support municipalities in their effort to educate citizens and abate littered areas.

They did a great job assisting the Road Department with repair of catch basins, picking up garbage along the roadside, helping out the water department and performing tasks  to show how proud Parsippany can be.

The Clean Communities Program was created in 1986 with funding from taxes levied on the sale of litter generating products. In 2002, the Clean Communities Fund was reauthorized. Twenty-one counties and five hundred fifty-nine municipalities are eligible to receive funding.

PARSIPPANY — Jacqueline Smith, 16, a Parsippany resident recently completed summer service projects for Eleventh Hour Rescue and the United Nations Foundation’s Nothing But Nets program.

Smith a rising junior at Mount Saint Dominic Academy in Caldwell, conducted two events during the Parsippany Adult and Communication Education’s (PACE) “Wide World of Summer” camp program held at Central Middle School. “Wide World of Summer” is an eight-week camp program filled with outdoor sports and indoor activities, educational enrichment programs and field trips. Smith is a third-year member of the camp’s Counselor in Training leadership program.

Eleventh Hour Rescue is a local non-profit focused on saving pets from kill shelters, and educating the community about the animal overpopulation problem and the importance of spaying and neutering. Smith’s camper education program included a service dog presentation from the FBI Bomb Detection K9 unit, and included a pet food and shelter supply donation drive for the group’s headquarter facility in Randolph.

Smith’s second program raised money for the UN Foundation’s Nothing But Nets campaign. The campaign aims to prevent malaria, a leading cause of death among children in Africa by purchasing and distributing long-lasting, insecticide-treated anti-mosquito nets, and educating families on their use. Smith’s fundraising activities included a soccer goal shootout, basketball shooting contests and a collection jug for spare change. She raised $510 in donations, equal to 51 lifesaving nets. This was her third event for Nothing But Nets, and she has now raised a total of $1,740 for the organization, enough for 174 nets for families in affected countries. Smith was named to the Nothing But Nets “Champions Council” for her efforts, and will travel in February to Washington DC for the group’s global conference as a student representative to share her work and gain ideas for future fundraising efforts.

MORRIS COUNTY — The end of summer is bearing down on us, with its dog days of autumn heat that is driving many Morris County residents to the Shore and mountains, and local and county lakes and beaches and pools – all in search of some fun and cooling water.

Which is why the Morris County Office of Health Management is joining the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) in offering one last summer of 2015 warning to be especially watchful of children – especially very young children — near water during this time of the year.

“It only takes a few inches of water for a child to drown,” said Carlos Perez, Health Officer for the Morris County Office of Health Management. “So please make sure the kids have constant supervision when they are in or near the water, so we can avoid any tragedies.’’

“Adults must be vigilant when small children are near water, and under no circumstances, should a child ever be left unsupervised near water,” said DCF Commissioner Allison Blake.  “It just takes a moment’s distraction and very shallow water for a child to drown.  This water safety video will help parents and guardians keep children safe and make sure this summer is fun for everyone.”

A video from New Jersey DCF offers important water safety information at https://youtu.be/1BoMrq4y_CA

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), drowning causes more deaths among children 1 to 4 years of age than any other cause except birth defects.  Drowning is the second leading cause of unintentional injury-related deaths among children ages 1 to 14, trailing only motor vehicle crashes.

The CDC notes the primary factors affecting drowning risks are: lack of swimming ability, lack of barriers to prevent unsupervised water access, lack of close supervision while swimming, location of the body of water, failure to wear life jackets, alcohol use, and seizure disorders.

The Morris County Office of Health Management joins DCF and the New Jersey Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics in recommending that parents and caregivers follow several tips to help keep young people safe in and around water.

Never leave children swimming unattended. Drowning can occur in an inch or two of water. Stay within an arm’s length of small children in water to protect against rapid drowning.

• Warn children to never swim at a pool or beach alone or without a lifeguard.
• Train children to swim at an early age.
• Teach children swimming in a pool is far different than swimming in open water.
• Be certain only qualified and undistracted adults are entrusted with supervising children in water.
• Always empty inflatable pools, buckets, pails, and bathtubs after each use.
• Personal floatation devices do not guarantee water safety.

PARSIPPANY — In June 2013, a sewer pump station located in the Skyview section of the township failed.  Constructed in 1988, the pump station was designed to pump sewage through a force main which traveled up Meadow Bluff Road and over the western slope of Watnong Mountain to a gravity main on the other side of the mountain near Route 10.  The pump station handled an average of 50,000 gallons of wastewater each day by servicing 194 townhomes, 66 single family homes, and a bath house located in Skyview Heights.

According to Township officials, the failure was the result of a collapsed force main which was over one mile in length. The collapse caused severe pressure which resulted in multiple failure modes for pump station operations.

As a result of the failure, emergency operations were forced to install a submersible pump and via a temporary bypass line, the township pumped the waste down the street and into neighboring Morris Plains’ sewer system.  (Morris Plains officials claim that they were never notified that Parsippany was diverting sludge to its borough and state that it wasn’t until months later that they became aware of the situation).

With three options available to the township, only two were viable; repair the pump station and force main and continue to treat the wastewater in Parsippany, or build a new, half-mile gravity line to a small wastewater plant owned by the State of New Jersey  and located on the grounds of the former Greystone Hospital.

The projected 10 year cost of repairing the pump station and force main line was anticipated to be $2,179,695 whereas by creating a new line to Greystone, the price tag over 10 years would be around $1,187,913. Even though the price tag for sending the wastewater to Greystone was nearly half the cost of repairing the existing line, after 10 years the cost would significantly drop if the township continued treating the wastewater as opposed to continuing to pay the State for accepting the waste indefinitely.

On June 17, 2014, one year after the pump failure, Parsippany’s Director of Utilities, Paula Cozzarelli presented the Township Council with her findings, and along with Business Administrator Ellen Sandman and Mayor James Barberio, recommended that the best option for addressing the Skyview Pump Station failure would be to contract with the State of New Jersey by building a new line to Greystone.   The Council agreed, and voted unanimously to send the wastewater to the State owned facility.

During that same Council meeting, two other issues were passed. Resolution R2014-102 authorized the Township to rescind its intention to revise Parsippany’s master plan and development regulations for plan conformance for land in the Highlands Planning Area.  In plain language, the Council was required to vote out of Highlands conformity in order to move forward with building a new sewer line to Greystone.

Also voted on and approved by the Council that same evening was resolution R2014-089, which awarded a professional service contract to the engineering firm Adams, Rehmann & Heggan, Inc. (ARH). Although no specific engineering work was spelled out in the resolution, Parsippany Focus has since learned that ARH was the firm which received the lucrative no-bid contract to provide engineering work for the creation of the new sewer line to the Greystone wastewater plant. The contract was also backdated and retroactive to January 1.

Much has already been written about the influence of Super PAC’s.  When the Super PAC, America’s Future First was created in the summer of 2014 for the purpose of influencing Parsippany elections, the engineering firm Adam, Rehmann & Heggan, Inc. was listed as it’s very first donor.  In fact, ARH donated $21,000 to the Super PAC, just weeks after winning the lucrative no-bid sewer contract.  In 2014 ARH donated $33,950 to the Super PAC. Parsippany Focus reached out to ARH for comment several times but has yet to receive any response.

At the most recent Township Council meeting on August 11, 2015, Parsippany resident and environmentalist Nick Homyak asked Township Attorney John Inglesino whether opting out of Highlands Conformance would expose Parsippany to a greater number of affordable housing obligations.  Mr. Inglesino replied, “…Highlands conformance may present an opportunity to enact an ordinance that may help the town with regards to this issue [housing obligation]. We opted out of the Highlands in order to get that [Greystone] done.   Once that’s done there may be a legitimate policy decision for opting back in.”

This is a developing story.