Strange accidents, education assessments, police indictments AND MORE in this Week in Review. Watch … if you dare.

Podcast file:

Flash video:

Links to related articles:

Ramapo fires cop accused of sex abuse

Train hits car left on Haverstraw tracks

Rockland students surpass state average in Regents, graduation rate

BOCES, transgender teen face challenge

Legislature denies Rockland exec’s raise

Wii tournament stops in Nanuet

Hey Rocklanders, I’m back on the Week in Review after taking a break for my nephew’s bris. Here’s the latest news. Anyone can e-mail me if they want to join my quest to make flonkerton an official Olympic sport.

Podcast file:

Flash video:

Links to related articles:

Man’s death ruled suicide in Clarkstown hanging

Man’s hanging upsets Rockland yeshiva

Cops: 4 pickpockets worked as team to steal wallets across region

Native American festival dancers shine after rain

NAPA Auto Parts eyes expansion in Lower Hudson Valley

Rockland’s police departments embark on joint minority recruitment effort

Hey everyone, I’m heading off but our new MoJo, Ben Rubin, will be hosting the week in review podcast from now on. Check out his very first one below and feel free to leave a comment!

Download:

Links to related articles:
Nanuet mourns teen, prays for friend
Spring Valley cop accused of corruption
Ex-Ramapo cop indicted on federal charges
For military moms, a bittersweet Mother’s Day
4 face felonies in Nyack gang fight

Don’t forget that the monthly Nanuet Civic Association meeting will be held this Thursday, April 3, same time, same place – at 7:30 p.m. on the second floor of the Nanuet Public Library. At the meeting, Clarkstown Supervisor Alexander Gromack will talk about new projects in the hamlet, including an update on the plans to revitalize the Nanuet Mall. Erika Moschetti, who works in Gromack’s office, told me they’re waiting for the mall’s owner to submit specific plans to the town for approval and that they should have more details within a month.

Podcast file

Flash video

Paterson calls for cooperation, confidence in state government
Lower Hudson vigils mark 5 years of war
Feds fault patient care at RPC
Former Clarkstown soccer coach gets prison for raping girl
Costco’s ‘secret’ riles rival gas stations
Nanuet Costco welcomes wave of visitors to bargain gas station
Animal experts warn against Easter pets

Download:

Links to related articles:
‘Truth’ hurts for Piermont couple on reality show
News of Rockland couple’s fight travels globe
Rapper who spoke of cocaine use in New City charged with possessing the drug
Former prosecutor offered choice of jail or prison if she admits having sex with teenagers
Rockland artist, mother of county exec, dies at 86
Retailer’s closure mutally agreed

Don’t forget that the next public forum on developing Clarkstown’s comprehensive plan is scheduled for this Thursday at Clarkstown North High School. Officials said they’re looking for suggestions from residents on what should be included in the comprehensive plan, which they want to complete in 2009. Some of the topics include housing, recreation, transportation and cultural resources.

The workshop begins at 7 p.m. and ends around 9:30 p.m. and is one of several meetings to discuss the plan.

UPDATE: The meeting was actually held on Monday, Feb. 4 and we missed it. There is no meeting scheduled for Thursday. Sorry for any inconvenience!

Just a reminder that Clarkstown officials are holding their next public forum on developing the town’s comprehensive plan on Thursday, Jan. 24, at the Congers Community Center. The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. and last until about 9:30 p.m. People are invited to offer suggestions on topics such as housing, recreation, transportation and cultural resources.

The workshop is among several meetings that officials are going to hold in Clarkstown to get input from the public. Town officials said they hope to complete the comprehensive plan in 2009.

In fact, Clarkstown officials plan to spend much of 2008 studying, consulting, planning and evaluating. There’s the energy audit, the mall study, the parks and recreation forums and housing for volunteer emergency services among many other issues the town is looking at.

As Clarkstown Supervisor Alexander Gromack said in a phone interview yesterday afternoon: “2008 is the year of the plan.”

Download:

Links to related articles:

Gregg Brie released without bail on charges of stealing $100,000 from woman
Philanthropist said to defraud P. River woman of $100G
Cops: Mom burned son, 7, in oven
Suffern Islamic house of worship divided
Nanuet Mall’s future in limbo

It’s December, and that means we’re gearing up for the annual Year in Review, a look at the 10 biggest news stories in Rockland in 2007.

The main criteria we look at is that the news has to be Rockland-specific, so the war in Iraq would not qualify, but news regarding the criminal military case stemming from the fragging death of U.S. Army Capt. Phillip Esposito would.

We’d love your thoughts and suggestions. Some stories we’re looking at so far, in no particular order:

• Election defeats of District Attorney Michael Bongiorno and Haverstraw Mayor Francis “Bud” Wassmer.

• Wyeth Pharmaceuticals celebrates 100 years in Pearl River.

• The rabbi banned from baking matzos on a converted bus in his backyard.

• Rats, roaches in Clarkstown North.

• Scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades share in the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore.

Gobble gobble, I’m back and here with another Week In Review.

Download:

After the break, check out the links to related articles, videos and blogs. Note: These Week In Reviews only show portions of the videos our photo staff puts together, so be sure to view the full videos by clicking the links.

Earlier this week, I visited St. Agatha Home in Nanuet moments after the bell tower was removed from the top of the Little Flower House, which was one of the first buildings built on the campus. It was an emotional moment for many, like Kevin Donahue, who has been working on the campus for 31 years. After all, the he and many members of the alumni association had been working to save bits and pieces of their former campus ever since they found out it was going to be sold to the Nanuet school district. I wrote a short story on it.

While there, I took a ride with Donahue to a grassy plot of land on Duryea Lane where the group hopes to construct a museum from the bell tower. On that bare hill, Donahue and another member, Victor Castro, shared fond memories of adolecent mischief. They reminisced about the former dump where they would find interesting knick-knacks and the adjacent grassy slope on which they would roll down in garbage cans. And that’s not all.

“There were many a clandestine meeting with members of the opposite sex near this dump,” Castro said with a chuckle.

In the coming months, members said they planned to restore the bell tower and that they would prepare to move it to the top of the hill once other buildings on the campus were demolished. Many well-known people who live in Rockland County grew up at St. Agatha’s, according to members, and they hope those people will preserve and share those memories on their web site’s guestbook, which can be found at www.stagathahome.org.

After the story ran on August 7, I received an e-mail from a woman named Anne, who said she will greatly miss St. Agatha Home. She said:

“I spent 7 yrs. at St. Agatha’s from 43 to 50 and I must say my only place of solace while there was the chapel. For awhile I even worked in the dormatory [sic] where the cables held the bell so it’s a very sad thing to know that the home is no more but I’m so happy the bell could be saved. It was a symbol of peace for me and for many of us who were raised there, our spirits will always be with what was good about the home.”

So got an e-mail from CJ Miller, spokeswoman for County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef, updating us on the second homeless couple who moved out of “Woods Way” — the plot of land between Route 59 and the New York State Thruway.

Miller wrote on Friday that a caseworker at the county’s Department of Social Services got a call from Mary Hussain on Thursday who said she and John Howe had arrived safely in Tennessee. She also said Hussain and  Howe “seemed happy and getting on with their life.”

As for the almost completely vacant homeless encampment, Miller said the county’s legal department will check with state officials on cleaning up the area. (A portion of the land is owned by the county while another by the New York State Department of Transportation … the joint ownership had previously complicated efforts to clear the area.)

Vinnie Reda, Rockland Republican Committee chairman, took a break from his Cocoa Beach, Fla., trip to read off the names of the Republican candidates vying for Clarkstown seats.

They are: Frank Borelli Jr. and John Miele for Town Board; Wayne Ballard, an incumbent, for superintendent of highways; and Duncan Lee and Thomas Mascola for town justices.

“I’m very exicited,” he said. “I think we have a wonderful selection of candidates.”

Vincent Monte, Rockland Democratic Committee chairman, said the party was still screening candidates for Clarkstown seats.

When Rockland’s sun gods and goddesses reveal their manis, pedis and bronzed tans.

With 70 degrees out and it being flip-flop weather, this reporter figured she’d stop by a few of the county’s grooming salons

and … er … talk in the third person… Read more of this entry »

As this blog reported Friday, Nanuet resident Bruce Brown is behind an effort at Texas A&M University to sell T-shirts to raise funds for the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

Since then, the effort has ballooned to include the University of Texas, and you can even buy the T-shirts online. The shirts say

“Orange and Maroon support Orange and Maroon We Remember 04.16.07” on the front and “The eyes of Texas are upon you…For your spirit can ne’er be told; In times of greatest tragedy; You have a hand to hold” (One of A&M’s colors is Maroon and one of UT’s is Orange. Virginia Tech’s colors are Maroon and Orange.

Check out the group’s Facebook page, plus you can buy the shirts online through TAMU’s box office (click on “online tix” in the left-hand sidebar).

Available sizes are adult: small, medium, large and XL and they cost $10 to cover the cost of shipping. The sale started at 9 a.m. Central time today and ends at 5 p.m. Central (that’s 6 p.m. here in on the East Coast) May 2.

Wanna know more?

Read this article from A&M’s student newspaper, The Battalion, or this press release from A&M’s News & Information folks

Where:

UT sales: Main mall @ 7pm on Monday April 23rd

A&M sales: MSC Box Office @ 9am on Monday April 23rd

How: With the support from CC Creations we will be able to begin distributing over 3000 shirts on Monday!!

Why: Because Texas A&M and University of Texas students feel a strong commitment to their friends in Virginia.

For More Information please email orangeandmaroon@msc.tamu.edu!

Texas A&M University Contact: Andria Groover ‘08

University of Texas Contact: Jordan Davisson ‘08

Nanuet resident and Texas A&M freshman Bruce Brown is working to raise money for the Hokies Spirit Memorial Fund.

According to TheBatt.com, the Web site for A&M’s student newspaper The Battalion, Brown is working with fellow mechanical engineering major Stephen Peck, Brown is working to bring varied campus organizations together to sell T-shirts to benefit Virginia Tech’s fund. They’re getting the T-shirts and Bruce Brown are bringing organizations on campus together to sell T-shirts to benefit Virginia Tech University in its time of mourning.

The T-shirts will arrive Monday and will be on sale through May 9, the last day of classes.

They’ll also hang a huge banner with Virginia Tech’s logo on it that anyone can sign.

Want to know more? Send an e-mail or join the Facebook group “Aggie VT Support.”

Also raising money:

• NY Jungle Hair, Body & Soul, a Tappan spa, will donate $5 for every client they serve today (Friday, April 20) through Sunday (April 22). They’ll also collect any donations folks would like to give — make checks payable to Virginia Tech Foundation Inc. and write “Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund” in the memo line. The spa will forward all donations to Virginia Tech on April 30. Wanna know more? Send an e-mail, call 845-398-0511 or stop by 15 Route 303, Tappan.

SUFFERN — For Mary Hussain, finding shelter from the pouring rain is a matter of flexible scheduling.

At about 12:30 p.m. this afternoon, the 46-year-old woman who lives on a plot of land in Nanuet was seated on a bench at the Rockland Community College bus stop.

Snugly dressed in a fur-lined, aviator-style jacket, she looked as comfortable as one could possibly be while sitting on a wooden bench inside the RCC lobby.

“It’s a little warmer than standing in the cold,� she said, smiling.

Hussain, for all intents and purposes, is homeless. So staying warm requires a bit of savvy planning on her part.

(Mary Hussain, 46, of Nanuet, waits at the Rockland Community College bus stop to stay warm and dry) … Read more of this entry »

The group of giggling girls today were hopped up on hot chocolate and mags like “Seventeen,� “CosmoGirl!� and the new “Grey’s Anatomy� zine. They had just gotten kicked out of the Barnes & Noble on Route 59 in Nanuet and were now taking over the retro orangey couches at the new Starbucks next door.

(Mikalea Breit, 13, Kerri Brevosky, 13, Kerry Dolan, 14, Nisha Flinn, 13, Alex Fein, 13, and Christyne MrGarvey, 13, all Nanuet Middle School students, while away the day with sugar, magazines and girl talk) … Read more of this entry »

to make a low budget film look like a million bucks.

On the set of “Elan� today at the Haverstraw Marina, Spring Valley local filmmaker Michael Cesaire says if it weren’t for Rockland’s residents, he’d be spending thousands.

(Gianna Dazza, 21, a student at the Capri Cosmetology Learning Center in Nanuet, shows 6-year-old Gabrielle Kaufman her makeup. Kaufman plays the character Elan.) … Read more of this entry »

You can get an iced grande caramel drizzled macchiato within the gates of Beijing’s Forbidden City and now at the Rockland Plaza on Route 59 in Nanuet (the plaza with the Panera Bread).

The new Starbucks opens its doors to coffee lovers at 5:30 a.m. tomorrow.

The company’s goal this year is to open an additional 1,000 company-operated locations and 700 licensed locations (the ones you see at Barnes and Nobles stores and Targets) in the United States. Eventually it plans to open 40,000 stores in addition … Read more of this entry »