Gloucester City Councilman Ed Cilurso and the present Democratic Mayor Dayl Baile
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ-The City ranks 17th among the state’s 20 towns with the highest property taxes. With 566 cities and towns in New Jersey, that’s not a distinction poor Gloucester City residents can keep affording. In past years, Gloucester City ranked among the top 30 cities with the highest property taxes.
The total cost for the 143 employees in 2026 is $15,015,348.
Half of this year’s $30 million spending plan went towards funding employee salaries, health insurance, and pensions. There are 113 full-time employees represented by four labor unions. And 30 part-time employees; seven of those include the governing body.
201:JAMES FRANCIS CLEARY, (John200, James1) was born on February 10, 1863, in Camden, New Jersey.. (1863-1924); He died August 13, 1924, at 555 Pine Street in Camden, New Jersey of organic heart disease. James was interred on August 18, 1924, at Calvary Cemetery in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The directories of Camden list him at various addresses between 1883 and 1892 near Pine Street, where his parents lived. After the death of his mother, Mary, he was left with lifetime tenancy in a house at 705 South Sixth Street. His occupation changed from laborer to collector to driver for Burnett and Betts, then to work in “wine and liquors” in 1892. From 1893 through 1897, he appears to have been in business for himself with a partner named Corbett. From 1898 through 1905, he lived at 225 Pine Street and was listed as a “bottler.”
His niece, Agnes (Cleary) Weatherby, remembers that he had a ‘soda fountain’ during the early 1920s. A news account in the Camden Daily Courier on Thursday, August 14, 1924, under the headline JAMES CLEARY DIES SUDDENLY, SOUTH CAMDEN MAN DROPS DEAD WHILE SERVING MAN IN STORE,
ILA, TEAMSTERS & AND HOLT BATTLE FOR THE GLOUCESTER TERMINAL
Gloucester City, NJ (October 11, 2026) – In 1994, the Holt family tried to dramatically lower operating costs at their newly expanded Gloucester Marine Terminal in South Jersey. At the time, Master Contract wages for ILA dockworkers were significantly higher, and the union imposed strict work rules. According to the SocialistWorker.org newspaper, Holt bypassed the ILA entirely and signed a collective bargaining agreement with Teamsters Local 676, a New Jersey-based union that primarily represents truck drivers and warehouse workers, not deep-sea dockworkers. Under this new setup, Holt paid Teamster workers roughly $15 per hour to unload cargo and fruit ships. This wage was roughly half of the total compensation and benefits package the ILA required at the time.
When Thomas Holt Sr. quietly signed a deal with Teamsters Local 676 to unload the Scandinavian Reefer at the Gloucester Marine Terminal, word instantly leaked across the river. To the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), this wasn’t just a lost contract; it was an act of war that threatened to break their decades-long monopoly on the Delaware River ports.
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ –Earlier today, a Red-tailed Hawk visited us; it landed on our backyard deck. I was able to watch it from inside my house for a few minutes before it flew away.
Some time ago, I was walking Peyton, and as we approached our home, a dove flew low above my head and into our garage. Seconds later, a Red-tailed Hawk appeared and landed on top of my parked van outside the garage.
Peyton and I stood across the street from my house for 15 minutes, watching this deadly scenario unfold. Would the dove be so foolish as to leave the sanctuary of my garage? Or would the hawk fly into the garage to flush its quarry out into the open?
As time passed, my patience wore thin. I let Peyton off her lead, and as soon as she ran up the driveway, the hawk flew away. I peeked inside the garage and found the dove perched on a rafter. When I checked on it an hour later, it was gone.
According to the All About Birdswebsite, most Red-tailed Hawks are rich brown above and pale below, with a streaked belly and, on the underside of the wing, a dark bar between the shoulder and wrist. The tail is usually pale below and cinnamon-red above, though in young birds it is brown and banded. “Dark-morph” birds are entirely chocolate-brown with a warm red tail. “Rufous-morph” birds are reddish-brown on the chest with a dark belly.
The website states that a person is unlikely to see this bird in their backyard unless the yard is quite large. Red-tailed Hawks eat mostly mammals, so they are less likely to visit a popular feeder than a Cooper’s Hawk or Sharp-shinned Hawk. It is very rare for a Red-tailed Hawk to go after dogs or cats.
The Red-tailed Hawk has a thrilling, raspy scream that sounds exactly like a raptor should sound. At least, that is what Hollywood directors seem to think. Whenever a hawk or eagle appears onscreen, regardless of the species, the shrill cry heard on the soundtrack is almost always that of a Red-tailed Hawk.
This week the Draconids meteor shower will be active. Although this shower is not a blockbuster, it can produce up to 10 meteors per hour. The best viewing is in the early evening. With a new moon on Oct. 10, the sky will be very dark, providing good viewing conditions. Generally, you have to stay up late to see a meteor shower, but this one will start just after nightfall around 9 p.m. Look to the north.
Why has the Gloucester City Housing Office allowed this to happen?–The present head of the department, Bill Gallagher, is being paid $75,000 plus to enforce the city’s property ordinances. Decades ago, the Holt family planted a row of evergreens along the Ellis Street corridor that runs parallel with the marine terminal. Today, branches from those trees have not only engulfed the pedestrian sidewalk but have gotten so large that they have swallowed up parts of Ellis Street narrowing the width of road. Parking is at a premium in that area and those same trees are blocking cars from parking next to the curb. If the trees were placed behind the fence that would not have happened. Another improvement that would make a big difference is a sound deflection walls along Ellis Street similar to the ones you see on state and federal highways.
Constructing engineered acoustic walls directly along the terminal borders helps intercept low-frequency industrial noise. When integrated with vegetative buffers, these structures force airborne dust and diesel exhaust upward, away from ground-level residential areas.
Gloucester City’s Freedom Pier was unveiled 15 years ago, on September 17, 2011. Approximately 100 people attended the dedication ceremony, including State Senator Donald Norcross; Assemblymen Gilbert “Whip” Wilson and Angel Fuentes; Sheriff and former Mayor Charles Billingham; Freeholder and former City Councilman Tom Gurick; Councilmen Nick Marchese, Jay Brophy, and Dan Spencer; City Historian Dave Munn; School Board President Louisa Llewellyn; and St. Mary’s Church Deacon Frank Crosson.
For over five decades Cleary’s Notebook News has written about the Gloucester City’s waterfront and the many redevelopment plans that promised transformation but ultimately fell short. The first plan presented to the City Fathers came from a North Jersey developer in 1987. He envisioned Hollywood East being built along the City’s waterfront. Mayor and council would not commit to the proposal until the develolper released his financial documents. The developer refused to provide that information until he was named the project developer.
That was followed by the King Street Corridor plan. In anticipation of that proposal the City purchased the corner bar at King and Cumberland Streets and demolished it. They also demolished the former King Theater. Those in charge announced the space were the bar and the theater were would be used for development plan. But that idea never got any further than the architect drawings.
Since then, a litany of proposistions have been announced with great fanfare, only to stall, collapse, or become entangled in lawsuits and political disputes. Those sketches ended up with all the other plans in the attic of the municipal building.
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ (October 4, 2026)(CNBNews) — The Gloucester City Fire Department has announced that it will begin staffing a second fire company, a change that allows the department to place a ladder truck in service with dedicated staffing — and to do so without adding to the cost borne by the community.
GLOUCESTER CITY, NJ (September 27, 2026)— As industrial logistics hubs expand along the Delaware River waterfront, the critical trade operations of marine container terminals come at a severe cost to adjacent residential neighborhoods. For frontline communities living under the shadow of heavy port infrastructure in South Jersey, the environmental footprint is defined by a continuous influx of air, water, noise, and land pollution.
The Gloucester Marine Terminal (photo courtesy of Holt Logistics)
The intersection of private shipping infrastructure and state operations forms the backbone of this regional economic engine. Headquartered right here at the Gloucester Marine Terminal on King Street, the family-owned Holt Logisticshas been a dominant maritime force since 1926. Today, the company also acts as a primary private operator for major assets owned by the state-run South Jersey Port Corporation (SJPC), including Pier 5 at the Broadway Marine Terminal in Camden and the newer Paulsboro Marine Terminal. While these public-private partnerships handle millions of tons of cargo annually and drive regional logistics growth, their round-the-clock operations concentrate localized environmental hazards directly in residential backyards.
The 1996 Waterfront Lease Controversy
Nowhere is the complex and highly transactional relationship between Gloucester City and its largest corporate tenant clearer than in the history of the 1996 ninety-nine-year lease agreement.
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE (September 18, 2026)–Located at the former Edgemoor industrial site, DCT will handle containers, retail goods and perishable commodities, nearly doubling container capacity across the Delaware River port complex. The terminal will also provide ocean carriers and cargo owners with access to Class I rail services and major highways, including I-495, I-95, I-295, the New Jersey Turnpike and the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
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