Passaic City Update: Fire Recovery, Free Shuttle, and Holiday Announcements - August 25, 2025
Passaic City Update: Fire Recovery, Free Shuttle, and Holiday Announcements - August 25, 2025
Mayor provided a live update on a tragic New Year's Eve fire, announced new public services, and outlined holiday schedule changes. The session included fire safety reminders, a new free bus shuttle starting January 7, 2025, and details on the holiday decorating contest.
Fire Update & Safety Reminders
- Fire at 361 Madison (New Year's Eve): The mayor reported a serious fire that resulted in a tragic loss of life. He thanked human services, OEM (Judith Sanchez, Walter Porto), Fire Chief Patrick Trenicos, Construction Official Alberto Ventura, police, Red Cross, and code enforcement for working to get residents back into the building today. He urged residents to prioritize immediate evacuation upon smelling smoke or suspecting fire, emphasizing that material items can be replaced. He also stressed the importance of renters insurance, noting that some residents have received $40,000–$50,000 for losses.
Public Comments & Testimony
- A resident (Jorgito) asked in Spanish about the bus routes. The mayor clarified that the free shuttle will cover Main Avenue, Market Street, Monroe Street, Passaic Avenue, and connect to the train station and bus stops.
Discussion Items
- Recycling Schedule Change: Wednesday recycling pickup moved to Saturday (Jan 4) for those affected by the New Year's holiday.
- City Hall Closure: Monday, January 6 (Three Kings Day) – City Hall closed, schools closed, alternate side parking suspended, but regular garbage and recycling pickup will occur.
- Free Bus Shuttle: Launching Tuesday, January 7, 2025, at 12 p.m. Operating hours: 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Monday–Friday. Routes include Main Avenue, Market Street, Monroe Street, Passaic Avenue, connecting to train and bus stops. The mayor noted plans to extend to weekends and explore a county partnership with Paterson, Clifton, and Passaic.
- FAFSA Assistance: January 20, 2025, at the Passaic City Hall Senior Center (330 Passaic Street) – hosted by the Mayor's Youth Council, free assistance for college applications and scholarships.
- Holiday Decorating Contest: Participants included homes (e.g., 368 Van Houten Avenue, 363 Paulison Avenue, etc.), businesses (Gold Star Jewelry), and faith-based institutions (St. Anthony's, St. Mary's, First Baptist, Holy Trinity). Community voting will determine winners. The mayor announced future plans for a ward-based contest with a rotating trophy.
Key Outcomes
- Fire Recovery: Families were allowed back into the 361 Madison building as of the update.
- Service Changes: Recycling for Wednesday Jan 1 pickup moved to Saturday Jan 4; City Hall closed Monday Jan 6; alternate side parking suspended Monday but garbage pickup continues.
- New Service: Free bus shuttle begins Jan 7, 2025, 10 a.m.–6:30 p.m. weekdays.
- Contest Deadline: Voting for decorating contest winners to be announced before the end of the year.
- Future Plans: Ward decorating contest and possible extension of shuttle to weekends.
Meeting Transcript
Live here at City Hall with a few updates. As always, I ask that you just give me a few moments to ensure that we could share this to various pages in order to maximize or be most efficient in communicating the information that we want the community to have. Of course, we want to ensure that you can share it as well. So please, when you get a chance, let people know either now or afterwards. Okay, let's compare unbok of information specifically the uh the current. So we'll be sharing it from uh the computer directly as it is that a feature seems to have changed, and we cannot share it directly here. But if you can assist us in sharing the information, as I do not have access to the live here presently, so I'm unable to see if there are any comments. But I do want to share some information with you. First, I wanted to give you an update regarding uh the specific fire that we had on New Year's Eve in the city of Passake, and located at 361 Madison between Gregory and Paulison Avenue. Unfortunately, we experienced a serious fire, which resulted in the tragic loss of life right before leaving the city of this unfortunate 361 Madison between active. I want to take this opportunity to thank all those that worked collaboratively to ensure that we can get residents back in to the building today. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge our human services, our office of emergency management. I want to highlight Judith Sanchez as well as Walter Porto, as well as our chief of the fire department, Patrick Trenicos, our construction official, Alberto Ventura, all of our firefighters, our police officers, our Red Cross, Nancy is always your remarkable asset to our city, as well as our code enforcement and all those that work to ensure that we can get the families back into the building today. Of course, we don't want to see anybody's life lost under any circumstances. And it is, I believe the book of Ecclesiastes says that there's a time for celebration and a time for mourning, a time for laughter and a time for tears that a span of one day, which covered two years. But we were able to mediate most of the issues. So I passed others. So information. Okay, I can now see some of the comments here, but I wanted to give you that update again. Ladies and gentlemen, residents of the city of Persake and neighboring municipalities and anyone watching. Your very first response when you smell smoke or believe there's a fire is to get you and your loved ones out safely, to respond immediately. There is a misconception. That is not the case. Sometimes we perceive a fire to be minor or something simple to resolve. And what occurs is in the process of trying to address it, we lose those crucial moments where you can get out safely and immediately an apartment or a home can be engulfed in flames, and in other cases because of smoke. So per favor, like investigating this, because I also want to remind everyone in terms of renters, insurance. Sometimes the fire may not directly impact your uh apartment or where you live, but water damage and result of fires, uh firefighters combating the fire can cause a great deal of damage. And if you have renters insurance, I've seen individuals receive up to 40 to 50,000 from the insurance company because of their losses in a fire at an apartment. It's extremely important that you cover these things. Again, these things can be replaced. Life is sacred and priority. My goal as your mayor is to inform you that your first response should be to get out of any situation that you perceive to be dangerous, whether fire, electrical fire, or if there's some kind of disaster or flood or any issue, to get to safety. All material things can be replaced. So I wanted to ensure that you receive that. Let me just confirm that people can hear that the volume is fine as we have resolved some of the issues in our city. Okay, now I want to go to some of the announcements in regards to city functions, activities, and events. Many of you know that New Year's occurred in the week on Wednesday. Those who have their recycling scheduled for Wednesday, I remind you, your recycling will occur tomorrow, Saturday. All those that were scheduled for recycling for Wednesday, your recycling will occur Saturday. So please put out your recycling this evening or tomorrow in the morning, but do it early in the morning as the recycling company will be going out for all those scheduled Wednesday. Those who have regular pickup for Saturdays, you can put your regular pickup out. Alright, with that stated, I also wanted to share with you. Um City Hall will be closed on Monday. Monday, City Hall will be closed for three Kings Day. We will have suspended alternate side of the street. There will be no alternate side of the street. Monday, the schools will be closed for three Kingsday, and City Hall will be closed for three Kingsday. Again, alternate side of the street rules are suspended. You can leave your car where it is. However, regular garbage and recycling pickup will occur on Monday.
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