Week in Review: Deadly Blaze Accidental, Fort Lee to Build 9/11 Monument, School No. 4 Turns 100

The fire that claimed the life of an elderly Fort Lee woman Saturday night was determined to be accidental, according to Fort Lee’s fire chief, who also said fire officials believe there may have been a delay in reporting the fire to the police department or 911.

Fort Lee Fire Chief Jeff Silver said he believes the fire in the two-story house at 290 McCloud Dr. had been burning for quite some time when firefighters arrived on scene and was already fully engulfed in flames. That made getting to 94-year-old Rosa Morell, who ultimately died in the blaze, impossible for nearly two hours.

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It was fitting that Monday’s regular business meeting of the Fort Lee Board of Education opened with a moment of silence for earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. It also provided a perfect segue for Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow to highlight the activities of Fort Lee students and what they are doing to try and help.

Students at Fort Lee School No. 3, for example, which has a large concentration of Japanese students—“we were told by the Star Ledger that it has the largest concentration in New Jersey with about 11 percent of our children who speak Japanese at home”—are doing a fundraiser called “helping hands.”

“They’re cutting out of paper hands and decorating them and making a contribution that will go to the Japanese Red Cross,” Bandlow said. “Also some of the younger children are collecting stuffed animals that will go to some of the evacuation centers in Japan.”

Bandlow also noted that the High School Student Council is working on collecting donations and that School No. 1’s SADD organization is making a contribution to the Red Cross as well.

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On Sept. 11, the tenth anniversary of the tragic events of 9/11, Fort Lee will dedicate a monument in Constitution Park built with a girder and other pieces of the World Trade Center donated to the borough for that specific purpose by the Port Authority, Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich said.

The monument itself, which is still being designed by a special committee the mayor formed, will feature the roughly 12-foot steel girder, which weighs several tons, standing straight up with a thick steel plate—one of hundreds that lined the perimeter of the base of the building—tilted in front of the girder featuring a placard identifying what the various pieces represent. There will also be four plaques placed around the monument, each devoted to Fort Lee’s own first responders: Police, Fire, Ambulance and Emergency Services. A wrought iron gate, a paved path and a planting area will surround the entire monument.

The monument will also feature what Sokolich called “Fort Lee’s first eternal light.”

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Six candidates will be vying for three seats on the Fort Lee Board of Education in the April 27 election, and three of them are running for the first time.

The terms of current board vice president Peter J. Suh, Michelle Stux-Ramirez and Joseph J. Surace are set to expire this year, and all three incumbents filed petitions to seek re-election before last Tuesday’s filing deadline, said district business administrator and board secretary Cheryl Balletto.

The other three who filed to run were Paul Umrichin, Tracy Mattei and Helen Yoon.

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Friday’s PTA-sponsored dinner dance commemorating Fort Lee School No. 4’s 100th anniversary may have been sold out, but the real celebration, or at least the one that some of the school’s current teachers and students care about, is still a couple of months away.

On May 25, School No. 4 is having a 100th birthday party.

A dedicated group of teachers and PTA members have been planning exactly what the celebration will entail and what they’ll be giving the school as a “birthday gift,” meeting every two or three weeks during the teachers’ lunch break.

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The Oradell Veterinary Group of Fort Lee will be offering a complimentary client seminar on pet nutrition on April 5 at 7 p.m. Dr. Laura Eirmann, the nutrition specialist at Oradell Animal Hospital of Paramus, will be speaking to pet owners about the importance of keeping your pet’s weight at a healthy range, the difference between holistic, natural, organic and the bevy of other pet food choices and the dangers of obesity.

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The public portion of the Fort Lee Mayor and Council meeting was brief Thursday evening, with few items on the agenda, but the highlight of the evening was Mayor Mark Sokolich praising the work of Fort Lee’s volunteer firefighters during Saturday night’s fatal fire on McCloud Dr.

“This past Saturday evening, we had a fire fatality here in Fort Lee,” Sokolich began. “And I had … the privilege along with [councilman Harvey Sohmer] of first hand experience of our volunteer fire department in action. It was the most incredible orchestration of effort and of commitment and of bravery. And it just re-confirms that we here in government are doing the right thing by devoting the resources to these emergency services that we’re doing.”

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