For as long as I can remember, senior prom has been depicted in conversations and teen movies as the “end-all-be-all” event of my high school experience. It’s supposedly this epic, memorable night where some hypothetical climax happens and all the conflict of the past four years magically gets resol...

I ride down the elevator in my building, preoccupied with the worries or woes de jour. I step into the lobby, where Mengu, the doorman, greets me with a big smile and asks how I am. I pause to hear how his daughter is enjoying her junior spring semester at the University of Southern California (USC)...

AREA – Each year, on the second Saturday in May, the National Association of Letter Carriers organizes the largest single-day food drive in the United States. This year, The Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive falls on May 9th, and your local letter carriers are calling on you to help make a difference for ...

Eight years ago Westfield erected a temporary ice rink at Gumbert Park, as time has gone by it has become anything but temporary. Some years ago as a Councilman in Garwood I raised questions about the advisability of allowing this temporary structure - which as we have seen has been put up each Fall...

In the Garwood council meeting of March 12, 2026, I must have been teleported to an upside-down Garwood world.This meeting agenda had a final vote for 4 overlay zoning ordinances to satisfy the affordable housing and luxury market rate residential mandates. Sadly, with such a major impact of change ...

I recently witnessed an incident in Westfield that strengthened my belief that CAKE—Compassion, Acceptance, Kindness, and Empathy— is not just an idea. It is a community tool that depends on everyday people being aware, prepared, and willing to respond when an opportunity to serve presents itself.Wh...

Congressman Tom Kean Jr.’s latest newsletter ran close to 1,000 words and covered everything from local events to federal policy. The expanding U.S. conflict with Iran — a matter involving war, American lives, and potentially enormous long-term consequences — was addressed in just 25 words assuring ...

A collaboration with the Westfield High School Journalism ProgramThe lights dimmed and you could feel the electricity in the air as the curtain opened on Friday night. The first few dancers ran onto the stage and suddenly you were no longer sitting in the Westfield High School (WHS) auditorium, but ...

In announcing his bill intended to reduce the burdens placed on Roxbury residents, Congressman Kean omits several significant considerations.First, he fails to describe the enormity of this project. It is a 470,000 square foot detention center designed to house 1,500 ICE detainees at a cost of $129 ...

In the 1960s, my friend Lynn taught for two years in a rural community in South Korea, surrounded by rice fields. Homes and buildings had no central heating, no indoor plumbing, only occasional electricity, and modest school supplies for the children. Lynn was in South Korea as a Peace Corps volunte...