DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Remember the 1972 song “Dueling Banjos”? Now, 51 years later, Montclair has dueling Change.org petitions. Can you summarize this situation?

Sincerely,

Dee Liverance

The first petition wants the proposed Lackawanna Plaza redevelopment downsized somewhat, while the second petition wants the plan to basically stay as is. Ironic that the second petition is on Change.org when it doesn’t seek change.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Which petition has the most signatures?

Sincerely,

Names Sake

The first had 1,410 on February 1, while the second had 1,049 on that date. Of course, the second petition has been around a shorter time, which is ironic given that it doesn’t want shorter Lackawanna buildings.


DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

I think you’re overdoing the irony thing. Which petition do you prefer?

Sincerely,

Splaying Favorites

The first. As I’ve said before, I want the site redeveloped but in a less massive way. If that means the name of Lackawanna-adjacent Grove Street is downsized to Ove Street, so be it.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

You just referenced the Swedish novel “A Man Called Ove” that was turned into the current American movie “A Man Called Otto.” Seen it?

Sincerely,

Mel Ott, Not Mel Otto

I read Fredrik Backman’s excellent book but haven’t caught the film yet. It’s been playing at The Clairidge, from which one can roll a can of soup down Bloomfield Avenue to Lackawanna’s expected supermarket.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

You’re a lentil case. Meanwhile, a revised complaint by Montclair’s chief financial officer says Montclair’s mayor tried to take retaliatory action against her last year after she accused the now-on-paid-leave township manager of creating a hostile workplace. (The CFO is one of multiple women to make that accusation against the suspended manager.) Your reaction?

Sincerely,

The Ughs Keep on Coming

If true, not sure whether this was a man-protecting-a-man thing and/or a person-in-power-protecting-a-person-in-power thing and/or a something-else thing, but it doesn’t look good. My sympathies to all the women who’ve had to deal with a hostile workplace in a town where some officials have a progressive-regressive thing.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Many expect the mayor to eventually seek higher office. How will this very disturbing hostile-workplace fiasco affect that?

Sincerely,

Future Stock

If the mayor’s office moved to the top floor of The MC hotel, it would be a higher office.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

When’s the high-salaried, in-limbo manager going to be fired already?

Sincerely,

Fifty Shades of Glacial

As I’ve said before, a firing is overdue. I suggest it happen this past October if we can lease a time machine from the Ford dealership on Bloomfield Avenue east of Lackawanna.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

But that dealership is long gone!

Sincerely,

As in Model LG

What about a time machine do you not understand?

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

I wish there was a time when bitter hate didn’t exist. I’m thinking of an anti-Semite sickeningly throwing a Molotov cocktail at Bloomfield’s Temple Ner Tamid (which has many Montclair members) and of Memphis police officers viciously murdering Black man Tyre Nichols. How do residents of our town feel about all this?

Sincerely,

No Pride in Prejudice

Like they’re in two places: in Montclair and in despair.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

In other news less weighty but still important, changes are coming to improve motorist and pedestrian safety in/near convoluted Watchung Plaza. A welcome development?

Sincerely,

Where 07042 Meets 07043

Very. I live near that plaza and try to avoid driving through it. Once I even drove in the opposite direction and went 25,000 miles around the circumference of the Earth to get from one part of Montclair to another.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

I find that hard to believe.

Sincerely,

Skeptical Heiress on Skytop Terrace

Didn’t do it all at once. Stopped for lunch with Santa Claus near the North Pole and dinner with penguins near the South Pole. Neither place has Montclair’s impressive restaurant scene.

DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

Just how crazy IS the Watchung Plaza area?

Sincerely,

Val Ero

Retailers, restaurants, post office, gas station, bus stop, train station, apartment building, green space, etc., in a weird configuration designed by the inventor of bumper cars and the U.S. Congress.


DEAR MONTCLAIRVOYANT,

The same person invented Watchung Plaza, bumper cars, and the U.S. Congress?

Sincerely,

Tom Edison Wannabe

And wrote “Dueling Banjos”!

 

 

Dave Astor, author, is the MontClairVoyant. His opinions about politics and local events are strictly his own and do not represent or reflect the views of Baristanet.