Hurricane Irene, Bandlow's Resignation Top Local News

By early afternoon last Sunday, Fort Lee had seen the worst of Hurricane Irene. Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich said the borough’s emergency operations center at the Fort Lee Police Department was going to shut down, and the cleanup began in earnest.

Earlier in the day, Sokolich had told Patch, officials were dealing with a couple of downed trees, “pockets of flooding,” limited power outages, a pump station with a faulty generator and failed transformers behind Borough Hall, but that otherwise the borough was in pretty good shape in the wake of the storm, which passed through early Sunday morning. (Full Story)

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Borough leaders and volunteers assembled at the Fort Lee Police Station last Saturday night into Sunday, setting up Fort Lee's emergency operations command center and taking control of emergencies and various crises -- from felled trees to flooding -- during Irene's visit to the area. (Video)

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Photographers Donna Brennan and John Ford captured these images in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene.

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In non-Irene news of the week, Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow announced his resignation from the Fort Lee School District effective Oct. 31. Bandlow accepted a position in the Beacon City School District in Beacon, N.Y., a Dutchess County community about 55 miles north of New York City and about 90 miles south of Albany. (Full Story)

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The state of New Jersey Department of Education's School Ethics Commission dismissed ethics complaints filed by a current Fort Lee Board of Education member against school administrators and current and former members of the BOE stemming from a campaign kickoff and fund-raising event in March for then incumbent board members Peter Suh, Joseph Surace and Michelle Stux-Ramirez.

Named in separate complaints filed by Helen Yoon on April 28—the day after she was elected to a first term on the board—were Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow, Assistant Superintendent Steven Engravalle and Business Administrator and board secretary Cheryl Balletto, along with current board member Suh, former board president and current board member Carmello Luppino and now former board member Stux-Ramirez. (Full Story)

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Fort Lee High School teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, PTA members and parent volunteers welcomed the school’s incoming freshmen class Friday for orientation, or what high school principal Priscilla Church called “convocation.” The 250 students, who will officially make the transition from middle to high school Tuesday, are Fort Lee High School’s first to be part of the school district’s new Freshman Academy. (Full Story)

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Fort Lee students returning to school this year will join their counterparts statewide in being the first to be covered by what the New Jersey School Boards Association (NJSBA) considers “the most stringent anti-bullying laws in the nation.”

The Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act, as it's known, was signed into law in January with the staunch backing of NJSBA and takes effect this school year. (Full Story)

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Beginning this year, the Fort Lee School District will start using a new district-wide student information system (SIS) that will enable administrators, teachers and parents to more effectively monitor students. (Full Story)

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Cathi Goldfischer of Fort Lee lives to donate. The blood and organ donor has been a member of the Fort Lee Ambulance Corps for 30 years, and she got her start with EMS at the age of 16. Goldfischer says she knows a number of people who have illnesses that will eventually require organ transplants, and she wants to tell those people that she would be happy to assist them if she is a match.

“I think being a part of EMS is that you’re just so interested in helping people,” Goldfischer said. “You see tragedy around you, and you recognize that out of that tragedy comes life. So many people can be saved by organ donation and it’s something that I felt passionate about for a number of years.”      

Goldfischer was one of the veterans who returned for Fort Lee’s sixth annual Emergency Services Blood Drive last Friday at the . The event attracted both veteran and first-time donors. (Full Story)

The week in review appears every Sunday on Fort Lee Patch.