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Village Officials cannot disregard laws

Village Council

file photo by Boyd Loving

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015    LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

Officials cannot disregard laws

To the Editor:

Certain elected and appointed officials in Ridgewood increasingly disregard local ordinances. This is unacceptable.

The organizational chart was revised, creating some positions. A human resources director was hired and working for quite some time before the position even existed. The chart should have been rewritten, then a discussion should have taken place among the entire Village Council at a public meeting, followed by a vote. Then, and only then, should a person have been hired to fill any new position.

Instead, the revisions were introduced and voted in by three council members well after the fact.

Village Code indicates that new hires for civil service classified positions and employees in newly created positions should be hired at the lowest possible salary in the range. At least one new employee has been brought in at a higher salary. Now, the village manager wants to change the ordinance to allow some leeway with new salary offers. While flexibility should be allowed when hiring, this should not have happened before the law was changed.

Laws should be amended as needed, but they cannot be disregarded because an elected (or appointed) government official feels like it. A law should be modified when necessary, and then (and not a moment sooner) the new regulation can be followed.

In the same vein, the third line of a recent grant application regarding the Schedler property states that all members of the Village Council had reviewed the document. This is false. At least one elected Village Council member indicated not even seeing the application before it was submitted.

First, I do not understand why everyone on the council had not seen the document; who is it that decides to bypass the input of certain elected officials? But, since it was not distributed to all, the application should have been withdrawn until all had the opportunity to read it. On Sept. 9, the response from some on the dais about this was that this is common procedure, as long as the final resolution is accurate. I am appalled that some of our officials would willingly sign and send a grant application that starts right out with a known lie.

In a true emergency a rule might be broken. If your child is bleeding heavily, you would rush to the hospital, disregarding speed limits. But these cases have not even remotely been urgent. I am left with the impression that laws are, to certain of our elected and appointed officials, merely suggestions that they can take or leave.

Those who are not diligent disciples of our Village Code, who submit official documents that are known by them to contain inaccuracies, are not appropriate representatives of the citizenry of Ridgewood. They make a mockery of our local village government.

Anne LaGrange Loving

Ridgewood

 

https://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-letters-to-the-editor/letter-to-the-editor-elected-appointed-officials-must-follow-village-code-1.1412560

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Valley Renewal : Valley, Village officials and the media try to silence the opposition

>I was disheartened, but not surprised by the events that occurred and the subsequent reporting by The Record and Ridgewood News after last weeks PB meeting.

The media chose to report on a ‘raucous’ crowd rather than investigate efforts by Valley, Village officials and the media to silence the opposition.

Look at the facts:

The venue for the PB was moved to a location that could not handle the crowd. This should not have surprised the PB since this was not the first time that residents were shut out of a Valley hearing. In addition, at the last minute, residents were informed that parking would be limited, and they should carpool. If BF wasn’t available, should the PB have considered rescheduling?

Valley employees most of whom are not residents to fill seats are shuttled to the meeting. The Village reserved half the seats for Valley employees.

The police responded to a crowd of 250 people chanting ‘Stop Valley Now’ by calling in support from four other communities, as well as Bergen County Police and the Sheriff with canine support. Was this a measured response to an out of control situation, or was it designed to intimidate opponents?

The Bergen Record, has consistently supported Valley’s expansion plans, and their reporting has been short on facts. The editors of the record also opposed plans to reopen PVH. Does The Record editorial policy have anything to do with the fact that Mr Borg, President of the newspaper, is a member of Valley Hospital’s Presidents Council?

Valley is mobilizing it’s PR machine to divide and discredit the opposition. We have to stand together in opposition to Valley and public officials who thus far have refused to listen to residents.

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