The Central New Jersey Home News from New Brunswick, New Jersey • 11

Suspicious blaze guts New Brunswick dwelling. B2 TODAY IN HISTORY B2 TELEVISON B4 SECTION TUESDAY July 5, 1994 Serving Middlesex and Somerset Counties mn a tt TTOTTTTrjTnTO in) The tide finally terns i has played a key role in the re-vitalization project. "There were title clouds. There was no access to the property. And there was no coordinated plan for the entire area.

There were only plans for isolated areas." O'Leary said that city officials in the 1970s and 1980s started with selection of a 90-acre tract fbr development, city's waterfront area is expected to be-c the bustling home of new recreational facilities, a 300-slip marina, restau-rants, residential and sen-ior citizen housing, a new Bayside on rise in South Amboy By JENNIFER L. BALJKO Home News Staff Writer SOUTH AMBOY Motorists driving through the city see the signs: "Welcome to South Amboy The Gateway to the Shore." But for people passing through the 1.4-square-mile city, the motto may not fit expectations of a thriving waterfront community. The city features some bal-Ifields, a boat club and an area along the Raritan Bay where the locals go fishing. Other than that, city officials are hard-pressed to brag about other major attractions at least for now. Over the next seven years, the Ghalib Saleh of the Keasbey section of Woodbridge checks the tip of his fishing rod while baiting his hook on the South Amboy shoreline.

but no formal plans were approved. In recent months, the city has taken title to much of the remaining waterfront footage. "My theory was 'What built South O'Leary said, referring to the city's beginnings. "It was the waterfront that made it happen. Let's go back to the waterfront and turn the city's economic development around." Within the last five or six years, city officials embarked on a 359 Horn aplenty heralds opening of summer season Man allegedly set cousin on fire PISCATAWAY Police have arrested an Edison man who allegedly set his cousin on fire in May after she refused his sexual advances.

The victim, Deepali Dixit of Village Drive in Edison was released from St. Barnabus Medical Center in Livingston Friday after suffering severe burns and spending three weeks in a coma. Dixit told family members that her cousin, Alankar Jain of Maria Drive in Edison, poured a fluid which may have been a gasoline additive over her body and lit it with a match, Lt. Stephen Car-tmell said yesterday. Det.

Sgt. Kevin Harris, Det. Scott Cartmell and Patrolman Frank Hackler arrested Jain on Saturday in connection with the incident, police said. Jain is being held without bail at the Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick, police said. According to police, Dixit and Jain were driving in Jain's car on May 27 at around 11:30 p.m.

when Jain allegedly began making sexual advances. They said Jain, 22, then drove off the road into ta field near Metlars and Sutton lanes, pulled the 26-year-old Dixit from the car, struck her, and then 1 poured the fluid on her and lit it. Jain tried to put out the fire and drove Dixit to John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Edison, where he claimed the burns were the result of a domestic accident, police said. Dixit was transferred to St.

Barnabas Medical Center in Livingston. She spent five and a half weeks in the hospital, including three weeks in a coma. She was released Friday, ing to a hospital spokeswoman. Dixit was treated for third degree burns on the upper part of her body and second degree burns on her face, and for smoke inhalation. 2 Dixit's brother-in-law, Sharma Mahendra, a doctor in Long Island, N.Y., questioned her further about the incident, police said.

Eventually, she told him the injuries were deliberate, police said. The family confronted Jain, and he admitted the action to the family, police said. Jain may be arraigned today, authorities said. Ruth Rosander Civic League wins fair-housing grant NEW BRUNSWICK The Civic League of Greater New Brunswick last week announced that it had received a $99,708 federal Fair Housing Initiative Grant to help provide low-cost housing. The money will enable the group to hire staff to assist Middlesex County communities in developing marketing plans to attract black and Hispanic homebuyers.

The League has a rich history in the field of affordable housing. When it was known as the Urban League 20 years ago, the organization filed suit in Superior Court against 23 of the 25 municipalities in the county over the issue, League President C. Roy Epps said in a prepared statement. "Our legal action eventually became part of the state Supreme Court's Mount Laurel decisions," said Epps, referring to the mandate that required all communities to proyide homebuying opportunities to low- and moderate-income people. "This grant will allow for the necessary resources to assess to what extent the goals of the League's original suit have been realized through development of affordable housing opportunities for African-Americans, Latinos and the poor," Epps' statement said.

The group will advertise for the positions of program coordinator and housing specialist. The league will also create an advisory committee of housing experts, lawyers and advocates to develop a curriculum that volunteer municipal monitors will use to analyze each municipality's status. Susan K. Livio 7f? JASON TOWLENThe Home Newt created, to oversee the devel- opment; planners were hired to See SHORE, page B2 SAYREVILLE Sale of schools mulled By LEO REISBERG Home News Staff Writer SAYREVILLE As the Board of Education continues to grapple with the "eyesore" it calls the Roosevelt School, the district soon will have to find a purpose for another building it may not need. A blue-ribbon committee representing a cross-section of the community is being formed to draft a recommendation on the future of Selover School, which is on loan to South Amboy but is expected to be returned to Sayreville when the lease expires at the end of the 1995-96 school year.

"We're trying to do some long-term planning instead of scrambling around later," said school board member Barbara Anderson, who was recruited at last week's meeting to chair the committee. Anderson said the board and administration probably will come up with more specific instructions and some suggestions for the committee by August, and that the committee work will begin around September. If the Roosevelt School isn't sold by then, the committee may play a role in figuring out what to do about the dilapidated building on Washington Road near Minni-sink Avenue. But Anderson said she hoped that the Roosevelt School would be sold to a private buyer by the time the committee is formed. See SCHOOL, page B2 Heartbreakers is one of three go-go bars in the township.

The others are Virgo's, which is also located on Route 1 30, and The Top of the Key on Livingston Avenue. Township Attorney Leslie Lefko-witz at Tuesday's meeting drafted a resolution to approve the renewal after members of the council questioned Heartbreakers' owner Michael Landi who appeared without his attorney and discussed tighter restrictions. The council considered requiring a guard to be positioned outside the bar from dark until closing, seven days a week. But, just after the voting got under way, Council President Sal Liguori, who is up for re-election this fall, tried to introduce a new See BAR, pageB2 SOUTH AMBOY public library, a major transportation hub and several new industries. The idea of sprucing up the waterfront and making it more attractive to residents and visitors has been floating around for decades.

"In the early 1980s when the town started to think about waterfront developments, South Amboy did not own all the property," said Mayor John T. O'Leary, who Jewish students to spend the entire Passover holiday at home since Passover runs through April 22. The parents, members of the Monroe Township Jewish Center, attended last Wednesday's school board meeting to air their complaints. While they know the schedule can't always accommodate Passover, it would be easy to include it this year, said resident Susie Cohen. "As schools across our country are espousing multicultural curricula that attempt to make stu See SPRING, pageB2 million project to build up 485 acres of coastline property along the bay.

A redevelopment agency was PJT "4 JASON TOWLENThe Home News "There's no grounds for it. They have no reasons. You can't just take someone's license away." John Vassallo Heartbreakers attorney political," Vassallo said. "There's no grounds for it. They have no reasons.

You can't just take someone's license away." The renewal was denied after council members noted that over the past year police calls to the establishment had doubled over the previous year. The calls mostly involved vandalism of cars and fights in the bar's parking lot. jr I X'-. 'Zr i J- 'f y' V'U- Vfcf-. i Xv vi Dave Hackler of Marshall's Dixieland Band performs at the Franklin Summertime Fair Sunday.

MONROE Bar appeals loss of license Board turns deaf ear to spring break plea By SARAH WOOD Home News Staff Writer NORTH BRUNSWICK The Township Council may have voted decisively last week to deny the Heartbreakers club's liquor-license renewal, but the vote may not shutter the go-go bar. On Wednesday, a day after the council voted 4-1 against renewal its first in at least 30 years the bar's attorney, former state Liquor Control Commission Director John Vassallo, filed an appeal. The bar will remain open for the months it takes for the appeal to be heard by an administrative law judge. Vassallo believes the appeal will be successful. "I put in my motion (to the commission) that it was purely By TAMI LUHBY Home News Staff Writer 'i Li MONROE A group of parents has complained to the Board of Education about the scheduling of next year's spring vacation they want jt to take in Passover and coincide with school vacations in neighboring communities.

The spring break as planned is now April 10-18. Passover, which starts the same day as Good Friday, begins April 14; Easter is April 16. Eight surrounding communities have scheduled spring vacations for April 14-April 23, the parents said. That schedule will allow.