Medical Weight Loss in Prospect Park, NJ

2-minute read

When it comes to providing top-notch resident services, small towns often struggle to keep up with larger municipalities. In an era characterized by rapid modernization, increased constituent expectations, shrinking budgets and unpredictable outside disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic, local governments’ reliance on arcane paper-based processes were draining the borough of Prospect Park's scarce resources and limiting its ability to fully serve residents.

That is why the borough has made it a priority to lead when improving residents' access to municipal services. We decided it was time to take action and embrace digital transformation by going paperless as well as adopting a modern, cloud-based, government management platform, launching a custom-branded mobile app and updating its community facing website.

In 2022, the New Jersey State League of Municipalities and National League of Cities recognized our borough for innovation in governance in honor of our work to digitize access to municipal services through our town’s MyProspectPark app. The unique and custom-branded app, available on the Apple and Google Play Stores, through a partnership with GoGov, provides residents an easy-to-use information hub that allows them to report potholes, apply for permits, submit service requests, contact borough staff and access town policies and other municipal resources. As a result, community engagement has increased significantly and residents have enjoyed the ability to access services and town resources right in the palm of their hands.

Our work to improve access to municipal service is part of our wider initiative to improve our municipal infrastructure, including resurfacing our streets and remediating our water and sewage line infrastructure. Maintaining reliable roadways and water and sewage lines is as essential to the borough’s responsibility to its residents as the town’s duty to provide residents with always-on access to resources of all kinds.

Equally important to making things work more smoothly for the borough was the desire to reinvent the experience our residents had when engaging with our website, www.prospectpark.net. Our website now allows our residents to accomplish borough business such as locating online fillable forms, documents, various portals and making payments in two clicks or less. While we have taken these steps in technological innovation we have a lot more room for growth to modernize the borough’s technology position with cloud services to increase scalability, security, and efficiency.

The town’s success is primarily attributed to our cross collaboration and interdepartmental efforts designed to improve resident experience and well-being and finding the right partners to team up with in the private sector who could help us reach our goals. In an effort to initiate a solution for Prospect Park that would address ongoing and antiquated methods of dealing with physical paper, improve operational efficiencies for files located throughout the building and make it even easier to fulfill requests from our community, we became the first among municipalities in New Jersey to digitize all borough files with the help of Foveonics and use of federal funds as a part of our two-year technology plan. We consider long-term planning crucial to provide uninterrupted access to municipal resources.

Throughout this process, we enlisted the help of Fairfield, New Jersey-based business technology solutions leader Quikteks, which has extensive experience working with municipalities. Quikteks has a strong understanding of how to set up, manage and support the key processes and systems that are necessary to deliver high quality IT support, so we can look to the future with solutions to serve residents and our employees' busy and evolving needs. This includes ways to offer free Wi-Fi throughout the borough's public spaces and parks and evaluating how our staff can use mobile tablets and cloud services to improve productivity even further.

Partnering with local businesses in the private sector helped Prospect Park build a fully functional, user friendly document management solution, creation of a mobile app and up-to-date website. We look forward to working with Quikteks and our other partners to ensure our IT strategies keep us growing toward the future, prepare us for any challenge that lies ahead and improve the quality of resources for our community. Empowering our community and future administrations with easy to use, always on solutions and ensuring our government continues to work by remaining proactive with planning, efficient, effective and fiscally sound when bringing innovative progress that builds upon the quality of life in our town will always be priority number one for Prospect Park and should be for other communities across the state.

Municipalities big or small need to focus on both their town's physical infrastructure, such as roadways and open space, and its digital infrastructure, like the MyProspectPark app, to improve and make residents' access to municipal services more efficient and reliable. Every municipality must remain current with digital technology and make digital services more available and easier to access to accommodate the evolving needs and preferences of residents. Prospect Park remains a model for what can be accomplished when a town prioritizes efficient and reliable access to resident services and dedicates itself to delivering high quality municipal services.

Intashan Chowdhury is borough administrator of Prospect Park. Nick Tammaro is vice president for consulting services for Quikteks, LLC.

PROSPECT PARK, N.J. -- A Muslim mayor in New Jersey says the Secret Service racially profiled him.

The Prospect Park mayor was disinvited from a White House event, and now he's demanding an apology.

"Our crimes are our names, ethnicities and religion," Prospect Park Mayor Mohamed Khairullah said.

Khairullah says he was disinvited to an Eid celebration at the White House because he's unfairly on a secret government watchlist that targets Muslims.

"I call on President Biden to correct the injustices of the pervious administrations by disbanding this illegal list," he said.

Khairullah, who's been been the mayor of Prospect Park for 17 years, stood with several civil rights groups, saying as he was about to arrive to the Eid party, someone from the White House called to say he was banned from entering because the Secret Service wouldn't give him clearance.

"He pretty much told me that I should turn around and return home," he said.

The Secret Service confirms Khairullah wasn't allowed into the White House but adds the agency doesn't comment on protective security measures.

The New Jersey chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations is demanding an apology and asking the White House meet with the mayor.

"We're asking that the White House take this as an opportunity to once and for all disband the watchlist comprised of primarily Arab and Muslim names," CAIR-NJ Executive Director Selaedin Maksut said.

"The government has adamantly refused to disclose what standards they use to place people on this watchlist and denies existence of these watchlists altogether," CAIR-NJ civil rights attorney Ayah Zaki said.

The mayor says he's been detained before -- at John F. Kennedy International Airport and other places -- and no one's given him a reason as to why.

"I was returning from Canada by land, where I was held up in a glass holding area for my children to watch me and ask why can't we be with you," Khairullah said.

In a tweet, Gov. Phil Murphy called Khairullah a personal friend and promised to get answers from the White House.

We reached out to the Secret Service for comment, but no one has gotten back to us.

Christine Sloan

Christine Sloan is an Emmy Award-winning reporter, who covers New Jersey for CBS 2 New York. Sloan re-joined the station in January 2023. She also worked at CBS 2 New York from 2004 to 2016.

Twitter

3 minute read

PROSPECT PARK — The Board of Education has approved a three-year contract with Tyeshia Reels, who has assumed the dual roles of principal and superintendent of the local school.

Reels was first hired to be superintendent in an acting capacity after the retirement of former school Superintendent Allison Angermeyer in January. The principal position was vacated in July by Kerri Waibel, who is now the principal of Brooklake School, serving third, fourth and fifth grades in Florham Park.

Reels, who holds a doctorate in education leadership from Seton Hall University, will be paid a base salary this school year of $190,000, plus a stipend of $5,000 for taking on the duties of principal.

The second and third years of the pact build in 2% increases; therefore, her salary will be $202,676 when the contract expires at the end of June 2025.

Reels did not return a call placed to her office on Monday.

Since Reels was hired, the school's leadership has undergone a seismic shift. Virtually every important position, from business administrator to director of curriculum, is being held by someone new.

"The word for the year is 'reset,' " she said to parents during a recent broadcast on Facebook Live. "I know that there's been a lot of past practices that you didn't like. There were a lot of complaints. I hope from your time of seeing me as your superintendent that you've noticed how I've tried my best to communicate."

Reels, 42, was employed by the Paterson K-12 district for more than 15 years before her appointment to succeed Angermeyer. She also sings in a gospel group, called Anointed Friends, which is based in the neighboring city.

Reels' salary is the third-highest among superintendents of K-8 districts in Passaic County, behind only Nicholas Bernice of the Ringwood district and Tracey Marinelli of the Little Falls district.

There are nine K-8 districts in the county.

Story continues below table.

Prospect Park School, on Brown Avenue, has 67 teachers and 807 students, according to the most recent state data.

Reels has overcome multiple obstacles in her brief tenure as superintendent.

Less than a month into the job, for example, evaporator coils in rooftop air-handling equipment ruptured and caused water damage to parts of the school. The incident, which happened on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, meant that classes had to be held remotely for three weeks.

In August, the school board approved a $221,000 contract with Totowa-based Coppa Montalbano Architects to design a new HVAC system for the building. Trustees are using pandemic-relief funding from the federal government to cover that cost.

The same architecture firm designed the Diana C. Lobosco STEM Academy at Passaic County Technical Institute, among many other improvements at the magnet school in Wayne.

Philip DeVencentis is a local reporter for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.

PROSPECT PARK, NJ – This season has seen several ribbons cut, and three new businesses welcomed to the borough of Prospect Park: a boutique shop, a tempura restaurant, and a pet grooming salon.

“The Borough of Prospect Park is thriving!” Mayor Mohamed T. Khairullah said. “We were proud to support the grand opening of not one but three new businesses in our community. The Governing Body remains committed to promoting economic development and the growth of new businesses in commercial corridors.”

The mayor, council, and Economic Development Department hailed the boom in the borough.

Sign Up for FREE Hawthorne Newsletter

Get local news you can trust in your inbox.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The first ribbon cutting was held at “Lorin’s Shop” which is a women’s boutique in the storefront of the veterans housing project found at 308 North 8^th Street. “This grand opening reflects the vision of the governing body via a redevelopment agreement secured a few years ago to the old silk factory that is now rehabilitated into a 44 residential unit and two commercial space mix-use development anchoring the North 8th commercial corridor designed and built by Bleeker Architectural Group LLC,” the borough said.

“Lorin’s Shop” is a minority-woman owned business and the first to occupy the commercial real estate as a part of the Borough’s historic redevelopment agreement for the housing project, according to borough administrator Intashan Chowdhury.

Owner Lorin Nunez said, “It is a great honor for me to be part of the Prospect Park community, and I am very happy to have chosen this place to start my business, I am very grateful for all the support I have received from both the mayor and his team who are extraordinary people as well as each one of the residents here. I want to tell members of the community that you count on me for whatever may be useful to you unconditionally and with all my heart, thank you very much and may God bless you all always.”

“Tempura Place” found at 356 Haledon Avenue had a soft-opening for the business which is now under new management. Originally opened in 2018, Tempura Place is back and joins the borough’s expanding and varied ethnic restaurants, offering sushi and Korean food.

“I have received such a warm welcome not only from the town employees but also more from my customers,” said Sejin Belviz, the owner. “I am very happy that I can provide my service to people that really bring about a sense of community. I hope to spread joy to Prospect Park and help the community grow.”

The third business officially welcomed to the borough this season is “Pet Stop Grooming Salon,” found at 305 North 8^th Street. This is Prospect Park’s first pet grooming salon, adding to the diversity of the borough’s business community.

Martha Ruiz, who co-owns the Pet Stop Grooming Salon, said, “We have felt very good and comfortable, the community is great, and we are very happy to be there and provide our service to the community.”

Chowdhury said that the borough administration and Economic Development Department is planning to coordinate a new initiative. This is a Business Directory portal which will display helpful information such as business hours, contact information, links, and social media accounts of all the Prospect Park businesses. The directory will also include a description of the goods and/or services they provide.

“The future is Prospect Park, and we are open for business,” said Daniel Cabrera, Economic Development and Business Coordinator. “There is room for growth and expansion in our town. We have been proactive guiding and helping our businesses to be successful, our town is booming and this is certainly just the beginning. We will continue working hard to make businesses invest and shoppers feel welcome in Prospect Park.”

PROSPECT PARK — Despite facing a threat of lawsuits, the Board of Education has taken steps toward consolidating the positions of three of the local school's administrators.

The K-8 school board's action at a special meeting last week will result in the termination of Vice Principal Ciro Spinella and the demotion of Principal Catherine D'Arrigo to vice principal.

School Superintendent Allison Angermeyer, who objected to merging the administrative duties, will take on D'Arrigo's former job, in addition to her own.

"Prospect Park is not experiencing this need, which would result in a negative impact on students and staff," the school chief said at the meeting.

Reasons of "economy" and "efficiency" were spelled out in a resolution the 5-2 majority of the school board passed to accept the consolidation plan — action that still must be approved by the county superintendent of schools.

Citing confidentiality, trustees would not respond at the meeting to questions by parents and teachers about the consolidation plan.

School officials moved ahead with the plan in spite of almost certain litigation.

Angermeyer, who is paid an annual salary of $176,544, ended her address by pointing out her "binding contract." D'Arrigo, who makes $143,900 per year, said unequivocally that she will sue the school board.

Local: Prospect Park cops: Man broke into six vehicles

Trending: Chakra restaurant in Paramus to close on Saturday

School board: Prospect Park trustee's ethics charges tossed

"The kids lose," D'Arrigo said after the meeting. "They're not acting on behalf of the kids, and that's the worst part."

Spinella, who did not attend the meeting, immediately hung up when reached by phone. He was paid $102,888 last school year.

Part of Angermeyer's objection was the fact that Prospect Park School, which enrolls 915 pupils, has the highest number of students per administrator, compared with nearby districts of similar size.

Lakeland Regional High School, which serves students from Ringwood and Wanaque, recently let go of its principal, handing his responsibilities to other administrators.

Lakeland officials justified the move due to a $344,052 cut in state aid. Angermeyer said, "In sharp contrast to Lakeland Regional, which experienced a 7.3 percent decrease in aid, Prospect Park's aid was increased by 7.8 percent."

Prospect Park trustee Frank Caraccio, who voted against the consolidation plan, said Thursday that he could not wrap his head around the idea.

"We're going to be absolutely financially strapped, based just on litigation," Caraccio said, alluding to the cost to defend lawsuits by the involved administrators. "This is where we're at — this is the dysfunction of this board."

Email: [email protected]