With the year coming to an end, the Mantua Sun takes a look back at the top news stories of 2025.
No to illegal solicitation
After several incidents, the township committee approved an ordinance to increase fines and punishments for illegal solicitation.
The people of Mantua had a problem with illegal solicitations in 2025.
Solicitors went door to door without a license and to houses with “no soliciting” signs, and arrived at late hours to engage residents. All three actions are illegal, according to the municipal code. But for most of the year, the township received no applications for a solicitation license.
“Let me be clear,” said Mayor Robert Zimmerman. “Our community and the police department will have a zero-tolerance policy for unlicensed canvassers and any other solicitation violations moving forward. Any solicitor who wants to knock on doors in our township must comply fully with our local ordinances, including securing the appropriate license.
“That process exists for a reason,” he added, “to safeguard our neighborhoods and to ensure that our residents are not harassed, misled, scammed or put at risk in any other way.”
The issue would compel the township committee to introduce then approve an ordinance that would punish illegal solicitors with a fine of $2,000 per violation. Those with a license who break any of the rules could also have their licenses suspended, and permanently revoked if there are too many repeat offenses.
“I think (the ordinance) is one of my new favorites,” noted Committeeman Jack Steen, “because I had someone knock on my door just before 9 p.m. the other night. I live on a dark street and it’s a little alarming when someone knocks on our door and you’re not really expecting it.
“Aside from it being annoying, I can see it being a safety issue.”
A ‘driving’ force for cars
Community members gathered at the Toll House shopping plaza on July 28 to mourn the loss of Mondays in Mantua founder Jay Hill.
The Mantua community was in mourning in July, when it lost Jay Hill, the 58-year-old founder of Mondays in Mantua, in a car accident.
Mondays in Mantua is a weekly gathering of car enthusiasts set inside the Toll House shopping plaza every year from spring to fall. Hill himself could be spotted at the gatherings with his own custom 1966 Chevrolet Nova.
Fellow enthusiasts, family and township officials united at the end of the month to celebrate his life and accomplishments. Some wore a T-shirt with a picture of Hill in front of his beloved car. The township credited him with helping to revitalize the plaza and area businesses, and presented his family with a proclamation.
“He told me, ‘I’m not telling anybody I’m doing this,’ and look what it’s turned into,” recalled Hill’s father, Nob. “Now he’s getting proclamations. The township loved him, the mayor loved him, the township committee were here on numerous occasions.”
“Jay was basically the driving force in keeping (Mondays in Mantua) a family friendly force and make it so great,” said Bill Wilkinson, a regular at the car events. “It’s amazing what it’s done for everyone. It left a lasting legacy all because of a car show.
“He wouldn’t want us to mope around.”
Several classic cars, hot rods and modern vehicles lined the plaza parking lot of the plaza on July 28, when a parking space was left empty for Hill and a cross with his picture read, “Though tears may fall, and hearts may ache, your love lives on, in every breath we take.”
Though Hill is gone, car enthusiasts are picking up the torch and will continue to host the event he founded.
“Car lovers are like policemen and like firemen,” Nob Hill explained. “They bond together all over the world, all over the United States.”
The “epic” dinosaur story
The replica of Sea Rex created by sculptor Gary Staab welcomes visitors to the Monstrous Seas gallery at the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum.
After several years of anticipation, the Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park and Museum of Rowan University finally opened its doors on March 29.
Its exhibits are glimpses into the dinosaurs that roamed the Earth tens of millions of years ago.
“Our mission at the Jean and Ric Edelman Fossil Park and Museum of Rowan University is to be a catalyst for good through the power of understanding the past,” notes the museum website at efm.org. “We deliver this through first-hand discovery of fossils and an immersive experience in the epic, real story of the dinosaurs.”
The museum spans four acres situated near a 65-foot-deep quarry once used for sand-mining. The site had fossils of dinosaurs dating back to the Fifth Extinction, when an asteroid struck the planet 66 million years ago and 75% of all life on Earth was wiped out.
An ocean once stood where the museum is, and the fossils of several sea creatures were also discovered there. Heading the museum as executive director is Kenneth Lacovara, a Rowan University professor with more than 20 years of experience in paleontology.
“A remarkable, 6-foot mosasaur skull was discovered in the lake next to our museum,” he explained. “Although not a dinosaur, but a marine reptile, mosasaurs roamed the oceans during the last Cretaceous period alongside their land-dwelling counterparts.
“This has been a long journey.”
The museum’s opening ceremony was sold-out event that included the township and Rowan, as well as community members. Among its other exhibits is the Sea Rex, a look at sea lizards, shrimp, clams, snails, dinosaurs, 36 species of sharks and four species of turtles. All were excavated at the park.
The hope is that the story of the dinosaur extinction will be a lesson for the future.
““The first half explains the Fifth Extinction, when the dinosaurs and three quarters of the species on Earth went extinct because of an asteroid crashing off the coast of Mexico,” Lacovara noted. “The Sixth Extinction is happening now because of the climate crisis and the bio-diversity crisis. We are losing our wildlife.
“The second half is about hope,” he added. “It is about taking action, doing something and exploring ways to make a difference.”
