MORRIS COUNTY — New Jersey no longer has a statewide universal directive requiring people in all healthcare facilities such as hospitals and doctor’s offices to wear masks to fight COVID-19, Governor Phil Murphy confirmed Monday as he defended the decision.

“We have lifted these mandates,” Murphy noted during his call-in TV show when a caller said he was “deeply concerned” about the move. “It was a very important decision. We did not take it lightly.”

Three years after the start of the pandemic, masks are optional in most locations in New Jersey — unless individual businesses or facilities choose to require them.

In September, the CDC ended its recommendation that masking be universal in healthcare settings and instead shifted to a risk-based approach, with facilities recommended to require face coverings if there is a high level of community spread.

MORRIS COUNTY — For Autism Acceptance Month, the Morris County community can help Rose House residents without costing a cent!

Answer multiple-choice questions about your shopping experiences, and Rose House will receive automatic donations from HundredX of up to $150 per participant from now until May 2, 2023. ($2 per survey, up to 75 surveys)

Sign up today by texting “contribute” to 90412, or click here on any device. Please share this info with friends and family members aged 18 and up.

Your personal information is safe and secure, as HundredX Causes will not give it to any third-party company.

If you have any questions about this campaign, please email [email protected].

MORRIS COUNTY — Chatham residents and Sorriso Kitchen owners Jimmy and Karen Bellas announce the launch of Reasons to Smile Foundation Inc., a public 501(c)3 charity to support, promote and expand employment opportunities for young adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

About 19% of physically and developmentally disabled people are employed, compared with 64% of the non-disabled population, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics. They want to help change that.

To help improve this number, Sorriso Kitchen has been offering real-life job training classes in service and hospitality for students of ECLC of Chatham and The Center School of Somerset. The eight-week session of the Monday Job Training Program (the day the restaurant is closed) was inspired by the Bellas’ son LJ, who has Down Syndrome.

Starting in 2019, the program has had multiple graduates and is expanding. For their ‘graduation exercise’, the students meet, greet, and serve family and friends lunch at the restaurant, followed by a graduation certificate presentation. “This is always our favorite part of the program”, says Jimmy Bellas. “Everyone is beaming with pride! Especially the kids”.

The foundation’s mission is to offer and support job training, education, and community programs that provide the skills, experience, and services to empower students and young adults to reach their potential in the workforce and community. This benefits not only individuals but businesses as well. “We want to help the businesses understand how little it takes to have a few young adults in for an hour or so a week to learn a new job skill. This can change their futures,” says Karen Bellas. ”And it is simpler than you think.”

“We’re grateful for the enthusiasm and support from this amazing community we’re in,” says Karen. “We quickly realized this program was bigger than our one-day-a-week training sessions at Sorriso Kitchen. The Reasons to Smile Foundation came out of that. Together we hope to make a difference.”

Last month we had our first “Breakfast for Dinner” event at Sorriso Kitchen, where graduates from our Monday Job Training Program served a full dining room of customers. The students did everything from greeting guests at the door, seating them, taking both drink and food orders, and serving and clearing. And “They did a fabulous job! We were so proud of them and their skills, but even more so, they were proud of themselves.”  Watching that was everything, remarked Bellas. “And it was a great fundraiser for the foundation. We plan on scheduling these monthly, with the next one coming in May.”

The foundation is accepting donations and will host the first Annual Spring Gala fundraiser on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at The Frelinghuysen Arboretum’s Haggerty Center in Morristown, with Jazz pianist Jerry Vezza providing entertainment. Executive Chef Ryan Chatfield from Sorriso Kitchen has created a wonderful menu for the event.  Several students who have graduated from the training program will also attend.

For more information, donate or purchase tickets to the Gala, click here and follow them on social media.

MORRIS COUNTY — Melissa Albright, the vice president of marketing, public relations, and enrollment management at the County College of Morris (CCM), has been named the 2023 Rising Star by the National Council of Marketing & Public Relations (NCMPR). The award recognizes an up-and-coming communication professional at a two-year college who has demonstrated creativity and ability in college marketing and public relations and has shown evidence of a promising future.

After two years in higher ed marketing leadership, Albright uses her relationship-building skills to help 25-year industry veterans grow. She has years of experience in the corporate world and as a middle school teacher, and the lessons from those items on her résumé help her in her current role. But it’s perhaps her time teaching special education helps the most, she says, both in her vice president duties and as an employee celebrating the success of community college students. Her seven years teaching special ed taught her a level of compassion and understanding not to put ceilings on any students she worked with, she says.

Albright prioritizes employee learning, speaking of one employee who has been with the college for a quarter century. She recently told Albright, “I’ve been doing my job for 25 years and doing it the same way for 25 years. I thought I was pretty good. Then you came along, and you invested in me. You’ve taught me to collaborate differently, and now I feel like I’m doing my best work.”

CCM recently was named one of 10 finalists for the Lumina Foundation’s Million Dollar Community College Challenge. As a finalist, CCM will receive $100,000, which it will use for a website redesign. Albright co-wrote the college’s submission and developed strategies for the challenge.

“She is also responsible for a huge morale boost within marketing and communications,” writes CCM president Anthony Iacono, who nominated Albright for the award. “Today, we have a team that is proud of their work, each other, and our college. Melissa has taught them their importance and value as people and professionals, and their results have exceeded anything we could have imagined.”

MORRIS COUNTY — The DeGroot campaign formally objected to the candidacies of Robert Snyder for Commissioner and Andrew Agliata for County Clerk. “Our campaign is aware that their petitions were improperly circulated and notarized. This was confirmed by eyewitness testimony and video evidence,” said a spokesperson for the DeGroot Campaign.

Eyewitness testimony and video evidence of the petition signers confirmed that the circulator was not present when Republican voters signed the petitions for Snyder and Agliatta. It was circulated instead by a woman who was identified as an Executive Board Member of the Morris County Republican Committee and a Montville School Board Member, also an elected Morris County Committee Woman. The Morris County Republican Committee had previously chosen their “Line” candidate for Commissioner Tyfun Selen.

DeGroot stated, “This shady scheme of collecting signatures for these two “last day to file” candidates was solely to create confusion among Republicans and to hurt DeGroot’s campaign by pushing his bracket further off the ballot and diluting DeGroot’s chances for victory. Make no mistake, shady things are going on, and schemes were hatched to protect Selen and the Line.”

“This woman did not identify the candidates she was collecting signatures for and misled the signers as to who they were signing for. One signer stated that this woman requested they sign the petition twice but did not inform them that it was for two candidates. Further, this woman did not sign the petition as the circulator; however, a young man did sign the petition under oath, knowing he was not the circulator.”

“Paul DeGroot is supported by the real Republican voters of Morris County, who will not fall for the establishment’s last-minute ballot-fixing schemes for their gain.”

“Collusion with phantom candidates to manipulate the ballot is a shocking and grave threat to voter integrity and a dirty trick. The Republican Party has long opposed the Democrat’s careless election schemes. We cannot allow fraudulent petitions and back-door deals to manipulate the ballot in our own Party. We must do better.”

“As a former Chief Assistant Prosecutor of the Public Integrity Section, his unit sought out and prosecuted corruption. When elected to the Board of County Commissioners, DeGroot will be a breath of fresh air and shine a bright light to expose backroom deals and prevent things like this from happening,” stated DeGroot.

Last week,  a slate of off-the-line candidates running in the Republican primary received Column 1 after the deputy county clerk Anna McMahon conducted a ballot draw. Column 1 is headed by Paul DeGroot, a former Passaic County Prosecutor, and 2022 Congressional candidate now seeking a county commissioner seat.

That placed Tom Mastrangelo (R-Montville), a county commissioner seeking the GOP nomination for State Senate, at the top of the ticket in Morris County.  Mastrangelo is joined in Column 1 by BettyLou DeCroce (R-Parsippany), who seeks to regain the Assembly seat she lost two years ago, and another Assembly candidate, former Parsippany Councilman Robert Peluso.