Home Care In Leonardo, NJ

A dead dolphin washed ashore at a Monmouth County marina Wednesday evening, marking the sixth to be found dead at a New Jersey beach since mid-February.

The dolphin was discovered around 6 p.m. at the Leonardo State Marina, located on the banks of the Sandy Hook Bay in Middletown.

Middletown Mayor Tony Perry told NJ Advance Media that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection was alerted as the marina is owned by the state.

He asked the public to remain clear of the area while the mammal was removed.

Since mid-February, at least five other dolphins have washed ashore — three in Sandy Hook, one in Atlantic Highlands and one in Avalon on Feb. 27. While the dolphin was found alive in Atlantic Highlands, it was later euthanized. All the others were deceased.

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center said on March 1 that the initial necropsy results of the dolphin that washed ashore in Avalon indicated severe pneumonia with necrosis of the lungs, and that no food was found in the stomach. The results of the preliminary necropsies performed on the other dolphins were unclear Wednesday night.

In addition to the dead dolphins, eleven dead whales have washed up on the New York-New Jersey coastline since Dec. 5. The finds have made some Jersey Shore climate groups, mayors and state legislators afraid offshore wind work could be the root cause and are calling for a halt on development until more information is released.

However, the DEP said Wednesday that it did not believe wind turbines were the cause of the deaths of the whales.

“As of March 2023, no offshore wind-related construction activities have taken place in waters off the New Jersey coast, and DEP is aware of no credible evidence that offshore wind-related survey activities could cause whale mortality,” the state agency said in a statement. “While DEP has no reason to conclude that whale mortality is attributable to offshore wind-related activities, DEP will continue to monitor.”

The DEP added that it remained concerned that ocean temperatures, which it said were projected to increase due to human-caused climate change caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels, will continue to adversely impact marine mammals, including whales, their food sources, habitats, and migration patterns.

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The familiar bright orange signs inside Home Depot stores direct customers to items such as lightbulbs, paint, power tools and plants.

At one Home Depot store in Mount Laurel, N.J., the heating and air conditioning aisle has a different handwritten sign: “Please do not take Leo’s shirt off.”

It’s written on a cardboard box that often contains the store’s lounging tabby cat, an internet star who has a varied wardrobe, but often wears a striped T-shirt.

“People kept taking Leo’s shirts off because they thought he was hot,” said shopper Jeff Simpkins, who works as a commercial floor installer in Mount Laurel, and is a regular at the store.

Home Depot employees initially bought the cat T-shirts and dressed him up to keep him from removing a bandage after a trip to the vet to treat a scratch on his skin.

“Then they kept dressing him because they thought he looked cute,” Simpkins said.

Simpkins first met Leo in June when he was shopping at the store and came across a cat tree, a used litter box and a large planter filled with pillows and plush toys in the garden center.

‘Please write me,’ she scribbled on a random egg in 1951. Someone just did.

Simpkins is a cat lover with two cats at home named Will and Grace. He said he figured there must be a cat living in the store, so he asked an employee, who led him to the heating and air conditioning aisle and introduced him to Leo.

“I thought he was a pretty cool, plump-looking cat. He was also very friendly,” Simpkins said. “I’ve always been a cat guy, and I wondered if there was something I could do for him.”

The employee told Simpkins that the cat was adopted by staffers from an animal shelter about a year ago to help with a rodent problem at the store. Several employees take turns cleaning Leo’s litter box, filling his food and water bowls and changing his T-shirts, Simpkins said.

“I learned that he lived there year-round, and they didn’t close the store until they could find Leo and put him in the climate-controlled garden center for the night,” he said.

Simpkins decided to start visiting Leo several days a week. During one of his visits in June, he took along his cat Will, and he decided to shoot a video and put it on TikTok. The video, which showed Leo lounging in a planter in the garden department, quickly racked up more than 1.5 million views and hundreds of comments.

“I’m complaining to my local Home Depot, we don’t have a Leo,” one of his followers commented.

“He needs a Home Depot vest — he’s working hard!” suggested someone else.

“He’s an emotional support animal for everyone who spends too much money there,” one commenter noted.

Dog kept escaping shelter to sleep in nursing home. Staff adopted him.

Over the summer, Simpkins would sometimes go every day to see Leo and make a TikTok, hoping the attention would help draw awareness to the importance of adopting homeless cats.

“People loved Leo, so I decided to keep going to the store to shoot videos,” he said.

He posted Leo in his element, greeting customers, being dressed by employees, napping in the toilet aisle and hanging out on tall shelves. A video of the cat being locked into the garden center at night has amassed almost 13 million views.

In total, Simpkins’s Leo videos on TikTok have been viewed more than 35 million times over the summer, he said.

“A lot of people who live around here tell me they started coming in to visit Leo after they saw one of the videos,” Simpkins said.

Sometimes they bring cat treats when they stop to pet him and praise him.

“He loves that, but he also likes mice,” Simpkins said. “When I was here the other day, I was told he ate an entire small mouse.”

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Leo always eats what he catches and doesn’t usually leave remnants behind, he said.

The cat has been known to occasionally chase customers’ dogs around the store, but Leo generally gets along with everyone, Simpkins added.

Home Depot’s corporate office declined to allow employees at the Mount Laurel store to comment publicly about Leo, but a company spokesperson said the cat is a welcome addition to the store.

“We understand that Leo has become a big sensation. But the store team is extremely busy, and we don’t want to distract from the business,” Home Depot corporate communications manager Terrance Roper wrote in an email to The Washington Post.

“I can tell you that our store was proud to have adopted Leo, and we’re thrilled that Leo loves taking care of our people as much as we love taking care of him,” Roper added.

Simpkins said he recently started an Amazon wish list for the home improvement feline to keep him supplied with outfits, treats and catnip toys.

Although he bought Leo a new cat bed, he said the dapper feline seems content to lounge on top of cardboard boxes or inside of them, which at a Home Depot store, is like reaching feline nirvana.

Leo isn’t the first cat to take up residence inside a Home Depot — a cat named Cat runs free in a Home Depot in Chandler, Ariz., and an orange cat named Oscar lives in a store just 20 minutes away from Leo in Cherry Hill, N.J.

But Simpkins said Leo is probably the best dressed. A “Hocus Pocus” T-shirt he bought the cat last Halloween is among Simpkins’s favorite outfits.

“He doesn’t have any pajamas yet, but the people who work here love to dress him, and he’s getting quite the wardrobe,” he said.

For the past couple weeks, though, Leo hasn’t worn clothing at all. The cat has a small spot of irritated skin — brought on by excessive licking and scratching — that needs to heal. Simpkins said a T-shirt could cause it further irritation.

He said Leo should be back to his fashionable self soon.

Customers who come to the store to visit Leo enjoy the challenge of finding him, he said, since the cat roams wherever he likes, from the bath and hardware sections to the door department — probably Leo’s least favorite place, since cats famously hate closed doors.

“You’ll find him almost anywhere, but the strangest place I’ve found him is in the plumbing aisle, curled up inside a box, sleeping on top of some of the merchandise,” Simpkins said.

“Like any cat, he’ll sleep anywhere,” he said.

Date: Tuesday, April 11, 2023 Contact: [email protected]

Leonardo, N.J. — Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland today visited New Jersey to tour the Old Barracks Museum in Trenton, which is playing an important role in the effort to tell a more complete story of America. Secretary Haaland also toured the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s (BSEE) National Oil Spill Response Research and Renewable Energy Test Facility (Ohmsett), where new technologies and training are helping the United States and the international community better plan for and respond to oil spills. With enthusiasm growing around a clean energy economy, BSEE is also using Ohmsett to advance new renewable energy science and technologies, such as marine kinetic energy.

Secretary Haaland, Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman and Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora toured the Old Barracks Museum and met with local and state leaders. The museum preserves and maintains the barracks utilized during the French and Indian War and by both the British and Continental Armies during the Revolutionary War. It also focuses on the colonial and revolutionary history of New Jersey, the people who made that history, and why it matters. The museum is currently investigating the role of Black and Indigenous soldiers in the Battle of Trenton.

Serving as a museum for over a century, the building has been used as an iconic symbol to represent the state of New Jersey, and along with the Crossroads of the American Revolution National Heritage Area, promote a greater understanding of the state of New Jersey’s Revolutionary-era historical sites.

Secretary Haaland later traveled to Leonardo to tour the Ohmsett facility with Congressman Frank Pallone and BSEE Director Kevin Sligh. Ohmsett is one of the largest outdoor saltwater wave/tow tank facilities in the world where full-scale oil spill response equipment testing, research and training can be conducted with oil in a marine environment under controlled conditions. At the facility, BSEE is spearheading new technologies and training for responders in America and around the world to better plan for and respond to oil spills.

Many of today’s commercially available oil spill response products have been tested at Ohmsett and a considerable body of knowledge, including equipment performance data, has been amassed from the facility over the past several decades. The above ground concrete test tank is filled with 10 million liters of saltwater from nearby Sandy Hook Bay. In the tank, facility staff and engineers can use real oil and dispersants, generate waves of various heights and frequencies, and drive a moveable bridge to monitor experiments and training activities.

Hackensack, NJ - The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation's board of trustees (NNJCF) announced the appointment of Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP as the organization's Executive Director. Vazquez comes to NNJCF with more than 30 years of experience working as an urban planner, community economic development professional, creative placemaker, educator, journalist, and author.

The NNJCF, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) group with its main office in Hackensack, New Jersey, was established in 1998, and this year it marks its 25th anniversary. The work of the Foundation is mainly focused on public health, philanthropy, civic engagement, education, and climate action.

"Leonardo Vazquez 's long history of leadership in the fields of urban planning, community economic development, and creative placemaking will substantially benefit northern New Jersey. His impact across the region will be maximized by his extensive nonprofit management experience in building collaborative community partnerships," said Michael Shannon, President of the Northern New Jersey Community Foundation.

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“This is an exciting opportunity to serve northern New Jersey and to help communities through planning for climate change, creative placemaking, environmental justice and social justice initiatives. The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation undertakes many great things by promoting collaboration, bringing people and communities together to help them achieve more than they could alone. I am honored to join the Foundation and to be a part of this effort,” explained Vazquez.

As the founder and director of The National Consortium for Creative Placemaking and Creative Placemaking Communities, he used cutting-edge networking and professional development initiatives to expand the creative placemaking industry across the United States. His two organizations worked with over 8,000 individuals from the fields of cultural heritage, the arts, public policy, and other fields to investigate how to use the power of culture and the arts to improve communities.

Numerous national awards have been given to Vazquez for his work in urban planning, civic involvement, creative placemaking, and social justice. He received the National Planning Leadership Prize for Advancing Diversity and Social Justice in Honor of Paul Davidoff from the American Planning Association (APA) in 2012. Additionally, he authored or contributed to plans that were recognized with statewide honors by New Jersey Future and the APA's New Jersey Chapter.

In addition to two master's degrees in planning and public administration from the University of Southern California, Vazquez holds a bachelor of science in journalism from Northwestern University. At the following institutions: The New School, the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers State University of New Jersey, and The Knowlton School in the College of Engineering at The Ohio State University, he also taught a variety of subjects, including urban planning history and theory, economic development, creative placemaking, and planning ethics. He has written for several publications, including Leading from the Middle: Strategic Thinking for Urban Planning and Community Development Professionals and co-edited Dialogos: Placemaking in Hispanic Communities.

Vazquez, an Argentinean native who was raised in Staten Island, New York, has resided in New Jersey for more than 25 years and is a Maplewood resident. He participates in the Maplewood Arts Council and chairs the Sustainable Jersey Arts and Creative Culture Task Group. He is an advisor to the APA's Arts and Planning section as well as co-founder of the Latinos and Planning division.

Construction will start in August at the absolute earliest, or most likely in the fall of 2022. Learn more!

|Updated Thu, Apr 7, 2022 at 4:33 pm ET

Another angle of the skate park (Middletown Twp.)

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — At their meeting this past Monday night, the Middletown Township Committee approved a $1.3 million bond to build a new skate park at Bill Kunkel Memorial Park.

This is Kunkel Park located on Brevent Avenue in Leonardo. There is currently an unused roller hockey rink there that local kids have turned into a skate park. However, now Middletown Twp. wants to invest in the park and officially make it a skate park. The Henry Hudson Trail connects to that park.

Spohn Ranch, a skate park design firm, designed the proposed skate park and showed these renderings to the Township Committee Monday night on how it would look.

"It's an old roller rink that was not being utilized that was turned into a DIY skate park. That wasn't necessarily the best thing," said Mayor Tony Perry Monday night. "It's a great location, with the Henry Hudson Trail right there. It's something we can all really be proud of."

"The scoreboard will be turned into a cool design and really clean up that area of Kunkel Park," continued Perry.

Find out what's happening in Middletownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Middletown Twp. is still in the design stage and hopes to send this project out to bid this summer, with construction starting in August at the absolute earliest, or most likely in the fall of 2022. There are some wetlands around Kunkel Park that Middletown has to address there, too.

The bond means Middletown will borrow the money and Middletown taxpayers will pay it back.

As Patch already reported in February, Highlands is also getting a skate park at Snug Harbor; construction on that is supposed to start this spring.

Also on Monday, the Township Committee voted to purchase via eminent domain a lot at Fairview Fields on Oak Hill Road for $3.2 million, as reported by the Asbury Park Press. Middletown will also take out a bond to pay for Fairview Fields as well.

There will be a public hearing April 18 on both the new skate park and the Township's purchase of Fair View Fields. All are welcome to attend and give their thoughts.

Here is Monday night's Township Committee meeting; they start talking about the new skate park at 9:57:

Prior: Highlands Borough Getting A Skatepark: See Renderings

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