COUNTY — The Union County Commissioners announced last week that there will be a zero-percent tax increase in the county’s executive budget for the third year in a row. The county will still need to raise $367 million of the $510 million executive budget in taxes, officials said, but local residents...

WESTFIELD — One of Westfield’s oldest cultural institutions may need some help to stay afloat, health officials said on Monday. The Elks Centennial Lodge, located at 444 West Broad Street, was established in 1923 as a community organization for African-American men. In 1954, Mayor Emerson Thomas don...

WESTFIELD — Westfield residents and developers who are looking to build on, renovate or improve their homes and properties will be paying more in fees to do so going forward, town officials said Tuesday. According to General Ordinance 2022-06, adopted Tuesday during a regular meeting of the mayor an...

SCOTCH PLAINS – The planning board on Monday authorized a study by its planner to look into whether a piece of property owned by St. Bartholomew’s Church should be redeveloped into an age-restricted apartment building. Harbor Consultants, the board’s planner, will conduct the study of a 2.2-acre str...

SCOTCH PLAINS — In recent years, New Jersey has been battered by an alarming number of catastrophic weather events known as 100-year storms (like Hurricane Floyd in 2007, Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, Superstorm Sandy in 2012, Tropical Storm Gordon in 2018, and most recently, Hurricane Ida in 2021)....

COUNTY — After two years of abrupt policy changes, contentious debate and frustration on all sides, school districts across the state are now preparing to take back the reins and navigate the end of Governor Phil Murphy’s long-standing mask mandate. The mandate, which has been in place since the beg...

WESTFIELD — The Westfield Historic Preservation Commission (WHPC) took a stroll down Memory Lane (and East Broad Street, Elm Street and Prospect Street) as part of its annual meet-and-greet presentation, held via Zoom on Monday. “Downtown Westfield is a well-preserved collection of late-19th to mid-...

CLARK — During Tuesday’s meeting of the Clark governing body, Lieutenant Christian Lott swore in new officers and presented rewards to police officers who performed heroic deeds or deeds worthy of praise in 2019. Lt. Lott spent the first part of the meeting highlighting the actions that the Clark po...

SCOTCH PLAINS — The small clapboard house next to the Alan Augustine Village Green and across from the Stage House Inn has been there since the 1760s. Inside are four small, low-ceilinged rooms featuring colonial and early-19th-century furnishings, including tables, chairs, an old-fashioned oven, pe...

WESTFIELD — Tuesday night’s Westfield Board of Education meeting, while calmer than some recent meetings, covered a broad range of hot-button topics, from new state curriculum for sex ed, to new mask-optional policies and racial issues. In regards to the Governor’s lifting of the mask mandate on Mon...