>Governor on Dems’ budget: ‘unrepentant addiction to spending’
Gov. Chris Christie released a statement on the broad outline of the Democrats’ budget proposal release by state Sen. President Steve Sweeney yesterday. (Carroll, PolitickerNJ)
Month: June 2011
>Angry New Jersey unions see few options
>Angry New Jersey unions see few options
Published: Monday, June 27, 2011, 1:45 AM
By Chris Megerian and Matt Friedman
Statehouse Bureau
It felt like a bad breakup, complete with angry tirades and tearful pleading.
Special to the Sunbeam/Patty Irwin
Public worker unions have lashed out at Democrats who backed the pension and health benefits cuts.
New Jersey Democrats have spent years locked arm-in-arm with unions, but the historical alliance frayed last week as the Democrats who control the Legislature pushed through a plan to cut public worker benefits.
Now unions, like scorned lovers, are promising payback at the ballot box.
“You screw us today, we’ll screw you in November!” one union member shouted during last Thursday’s Statehouse protest, the first of three that drew thousands to Trenton.
But it’s unclear what, if anything, unions can do to retaliate against Democrats this fall, when all 120 seats in the Legislature are up for election. After spending generations as a feared political force in Trenton, they may be only a paper tiger come election time.
https://www.nj.com/salem/index.ssf/2011/06/angry_new_jersey_unions_see_fe.html
>Village of Ridgewood : Council Meetings
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photo by Boyd Loving
07/05/11 7:30PM Planning Board Public Meeting
07/06/11 7:30PM Village Council Work Session
07/12/11 7:30PM Board of Adjustment Public Meeting
07/13/11 8:00PM Village Council Public Meeting
07/19/11 7:30PM Planning Board Public Meeting
>the Village of Ridgewood new beginnings
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>West Bergen Tea Party Meeting 7 pm, Tuesday, June 28
>
West Bergen Tea Party
Meeting 7 pm, Tuesday, June 28
“Cut Spending” Freeholders’ Review
The 2011 County Budget
Meet Freeholder Candidate
Anthony Rottino
The Larkin House
380 Godwin Avenue, Wyckoff
(1/4 mile North of Stop & Shop on the right)
More Information 201 891-5918
conservative_caucus@verizon.net
>The James Rose Center is open to the general public from May 14, 2011 to October 29th, 2011.
>The James Rose Center is open to the general public from
May 14, 2011 to October 29th, 2011.
The Center will be CLOSED on July 4th
Hours: 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Tuesday – Sunday
Guided tours are available Saturdays and Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.
The Center is also available for group tours by appointment. Contact us (above) to schedule a visit.
Please contact director@jamesrosecenter.org for further information for your group tour and/or event.
Fee: $10 per person, $5 for children under 12
>Ridgewood Farmers Market Opens!
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Ridgewood Farmers Market
Sun, June 26, 2011 – Sat, November 05, 2011
Time: 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Location: West side of NJ Transit Train Station, Ridgewood, NJ
Ridgewood will be starting up it’s farmers market on June 26th, and it will continue every Sunday until November 5th ,Rain or Shine.
>Sarah Ferguson @ BOOKENDS
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Sarah Ferguson @ Bookends ,Wednesday, June 29th @ 7:00pm . Duchess Sarah Ferguson, will sign her new book: Finding Sarah; A Duchess’s Journey to Find Herself. Book available June 28th.
Appearing authors will only autograph books purchased at Bookends and must have valid Bookends Receipt.Availability & pricing for all autographed books subject to change.Bookends cannot guarantee that the books that are Autographed will always be First Printings.
Autographed books purchased at Bookends are non-returnable.Please call the store for details.
Bookends, 211 E. Ridgewood Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ 07450 201-445-0726
>Paul Aronsohn:Thank You, Clarence Clemons
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Thank You, Clarence Clemons
June 25th, 2011 – 7:28pm
By Paul Aronsohn
Clarence Clemons will be genuinely missed.
The music. The feeling. The sense of rightness. The sense of home. Through his saxophone, Clarence was able to do something that no other musician has been able to do. He gave sound to an emotion that is uniquely New Jersey – an emotion that is as tough as it is soulful … as distinctive as it is familiar.
It is a sound that transcends both time and place. No matter where you are or what you are doing, Clarence’s saxophone has the ability to bring you back to a special place – one where things are good, things are hopeful, things are right.
For many of us, his music has been the backdrop against which we have lived our lives. Growing up. Moving away. Coming home. Hanging with friends. Dreaming big dreams. Working. Dating. Mourning. Celebrating. Living. Through it all, there was Clarence’s saxophone – penetrating our moments, lifting our spirits, putting it all in perspective.
https://www.politickernj.com/48971/thank-you-clarence-clemons
>Celebrate the Constitution : Alexander Hamilton
>Celebrate the Constitution : Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton :Hamilton was born in 1757 on the island of Nevis, in the Leeward group, British West Indies. He was the illegitimate son of a common-law marriage between a poor itinerant Scottish merchant of aristocratic descent and an English-French Huguenot mother who was a planter’s daughter. In 1766, after the father had moved his family elsewhere in the Leewards to St. Croix in the Danish (now United States) Virgin Islands, he returned to St. Kitts while his wife and two sons remained on St. Croix.
The mother, who opened a small store to make ends meet, and a Presbyterian clergyman provided Hamilton with a basic education, and he learned to speak fluent French. About the time of his mother’s death in 1768, he became an apprentice clerk at Christiansted in a mercantile establishment, whose proprietor became one of his benefactors. Recognizing his ambition and superior intelligence, they raised a fund for his education.
In 1772, bearing letters of introduction, Hamilton traveled to New York City. Patrons he met there arranged for him to attend Barber’s Academy at Elizabethtown (present Elizabeth), NJ. During this time, he met and stayed for a while at the home of William Livingston, who would one day be a fellow signer of the Constitution. Late the next year, 1773, Hamilton entered King’s College (later Columbia College and University) in New York City, but the Revolution interrupted his studies.
Although not yet 20 years of age, in 1774-75 Hamilton wrote several widely read pro-Whig pamphlets. Right after the war broke out, he accepted an artillery captaincy and fought in the principal campaigns of 1776-77. In the latter year, winning the rank of lieutenant colonel, he joined the staff of General Washington as secretary and aide-de-camp and soon became his close confidant as well.
In 1780 Hamilton wed New Yorker Elizabeth Schuyler, whose family was rich and politically powerful; they were to have eight children. In 1781, after some disagreements with Washington, he took a command position under Lafayette in the Yorktown, VA, campaign (1781). He resigned his commission that November.
Hamilton then read law at Albany and quickly entered practice, but public service soon attracted him. He was elected to the Continental Congress in 1782-83. In the latter year, he established a law office in New York City. Because of his interest in strengthening the central government, he represented his state at the Annapolis Convention in 1786, where he urged the calling of the Constitutional Convention.
In 1787 Hamilton served in the legislature, which appointed him as a delegate to the convention. He played a surprisingly small part in the debates, apparently because he was frequently absent on legal business, his extreme nationalism put him at odds with most of the delegates, and he was frustrated by the conservative views of his two fellow delegates from New York. He did, however, sit on the Committee of Style, and he was the only one of the three delegates from his state who signed the finished document. Hamilton’s part in New York’s ratification the next year was substantial, though he felt the Constitution was deficient in many respects. Against determined opposition, he waged a strenuous and successful campaign, including collaboration with John Jay and James Madison in writing The Federalist. In 1787 Hamilton was again elected to the Continental Congress.
When the new government got under way in 1789, Hamilton won the position of Secretary of the Treasury. He began at once to place the nation’s disorganized finances on a sound footing. In a series of reports (1790-91), he presented a program not only to stabilize national finances but also to shape the future of the country as a powerful, industrial nation. He proposed establishment of a national bank, funding of the national debt, assumption of state war debts, and the encouragement of manufacturing.
Hamilton’s policies soon brought him into conflict with Jefferson and Madison. Their disputes with him over his pro-business economic program, sympathies for Great Britain, disdain for the common man, and opposition to the principles and excesses of the French revolution contributed to the formation of the first U.S. party system. It pitted Hamilton and the Federalists against Jefferson and Madison and the Democratic-Republicans.
During most of the Washington administration, Hamilton’s views usually prevailed with the President, especially after 1793 when Jefferson left the government. In 1795 family and financial needs forced Hamilton to resign from the Treasury Department and resume his law practice in New York City. Except for a stint as inspector-general of the Army (1798-1800) during the undeclared war with France, he never again held public office.
While gaining stature in the law, Hamilton continued to exert a powerful impact on New York and national politics. Always an opponent of fellow-Federalist John Adams, he sought to prevent his election to the presidency in 1796. When that failed, he continued to use his influence secretly within Adams’ cabinet. The bitterness between the two men became public knowledge in 1800 when Hamilton denounced Adams in a letter that was published through the efforts of the Democratic-Republicans.
In 1802 Hamilton and his family moved into The Grange, a country home he had built in a rural part of Manhattan not far north of New York City. But the expenses involved and investments in northern land speculations seriously strained his finances.
Meanwhile, when Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in Presidential electoral votes in 1800, Hamilton threw valuable support to Jefferson. In 1804, when Burr sought the governorship of New York, Hamilton again managed to defeat him. That same year, Burr, taking offense at remarks he believed to have originated with Hamilton, challenged him to a duel, which took place at present Weehawken, NJ, on July 11. Mortally wounded, Hamilton died the next day. He was in his late forties at death. He was buried in Trinity Churchyard in New York City.
https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_founding_fathers_new_york.html#Hamilton
>Celebrate the Constitution : New Jersey Delegates to the Constitutional Convention
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New Jersey Delegates to the Constitutional Convention
David Brearly (1745–1790)
Born near Trenton, Brearly attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton) and then took up a career as a lawyer. He was an avid patriot, arrested by the British for high treason but rescued by a band of Revolutionaries. He was a member of the New Jersey convention that drew up the first state constitution, and during the war he rose from the rank of captain to colonel in the New Jersey militia. He was an active member of the controversial Society of the Cincinnati, although his greatest organizational commitment appeared to be his Masonic Lodge and the Episcopal Church. When he came to the Philadelphia convention he was only forty-two but already the chief justice of his state’s supreme court. Elegantly dressed, his wig carefully coiffed, Brearly seemed content to take a backseat to the delegation’s acknowledged leader, William Paterson. He took a leadership role at the ratification convention, however, presiding over its deliberations. President Washington appointed him a federal judge in 1789, and he remained on the bench until his death.
Jonathan Dayton (1760–1824)
Only twenty-seven when he took his seat, Dayton was one of the youngest delegates at the Philadelphia convention. He was born in Elizabethtown, where his father, a local storekeeper, was active in local and state politics. Dayton graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1776 and immediately enlisted in the Continental army. During his military career he saw considerable action and apparently acquitted himself well, rising to the rank of captain by the age of nineteen. He was briefly a prisoner of war. When peace came Dayton returned to New Jersey and took up the practice of law. He sat on the New Jersey assembly for one year, from 1786 to 1787. He arrived late to the Constitutional Convention and entered into several of the debates—revealing in the process a hasty temper and a noticeable lack of political experience. Although he objected to some of its provisions, he signed the Constitution. When the new national government was established, Dayton became a leading Federalist, serving in the House of Representatives from 1791 to 1799. He proved a strong supporter of Hamilton’s fiscal policies as well as the controversial Jay Treaty with England. In 1806, however, Dayton narrowly escaped participation in Aaron Burr’s illicit expedition to conquer Spanish territory in the Southwest and establish an independent empire. Although illness kept him at home while Burr’s forces made their abortive conquest attempt, Dayton was indicted for treason. He was not prosecuted, but his national career was ruined. He remained in state politics, holding local offices and serving briefly in the assembly.
William Churchill Houston (c. 1746–1788)
A graduate of the College of New Jersey, Houston was one of the few professional educators at the Philadelphia convention. He served as master of his alma mater’s college grammar school and in 1771 was appointed professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. In 1775 Houston became deputy secretary of the Continental Congress but joined the military once independence was declared. He was a captain in the Somerset County militia and saw combat at Princeton. He served in his state assembly during the war and on its Council of Safety. By 1779 he was back in the Continental Congress. Despite his political activities, Houston found time to study law and was admitted to the bar in 1781. His legal practice ultimately led him to resign from his academic position at the College of New Jersey. Houston was a New Jersey delegate at both the Annapolis and the Philadelphia conventions. His participation at the latter convention was brief since illness forced him to go home after only a week. The following year he died of tuberculosis.
William Livingston (1723–1790)
At sixty-four, Livingston was one of the oldest men at the convention. Tall and reedlike, the son of a distinguished landholding family from New York’s Hudson Valley, Livingston was known to friends and enemies alike as the “Whipping Post.” Livingston rejected his family’s suggestion that he take up life as a fur trader or a New York City merchant, becoming a lawyer instead. Despite his aristocratic background, Livingston was a defender of popular causes in his native New York and an antiestablishment crusader during the 1750s. When the liberal faction he belonged to split over the Stamp Act in 1760, Livingston pulled up stakes and moved to New Jersey, where he built an elegant estate, Liberty Hall, and retired from public life to write poetry and live as a gentleman farmer. The Revolution ended Livingston’s seclusion. He served in both the First and the Second Continental Congresses, and when war began he became a brigadier general in the New Jersey militia. In 1776 he was elected the first governor of the state of New Jersey, a post he held for fourteen consecutive years. His duties as governor prevented him from attending every session of the Philadelphia convention, and he missed several weeks of debate in July. He was a supporter of the New Jersey Plan but worked tirelessly for ratification of the Constitution in its final form. Despite his many political commitments, Livingston managed to conduct agricultural experiments and to work in the antislavery movement.
William Paterson (1745–1806)
Paterson was born in Ireland, but his family immigrated to America when he was only two years old, settling first in Connecticut and later in Trenton, New Jersey. The family prospered and Paterson was able to attend the College of New Jersey. After receiving his master’s degree, he took up the practice of law. During the war he served in the provincial congress, the state constitutional convention, and New Jersey’s legislative council. From 1776 to 1783, he was the state attorney general. After the death of his wife in 1783, Paterson retired from politics and devoted his energies to his legal practice. His selection as a delegate to the Philadelphia convention revived his political career. The five feet two inch Paterson—fastidious in his dress, mild-mannered, and modest in his demeanor—played a central role in the Constitutional Convention as the author of the New Jersey Plan. Although he left the convention after the issue of representation in the Senate was resolved, he returned to sign the Constitution. Paterson was a member of the first U.S. Senate and later governor of his state. From 1793 to 1806, he served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The delegate biographies are excerpted with the generous permission of Carol Berkin, author of A Brilliant Solution: Inventing the American Constitution (Harcourt). Copyright © 2002 by Carol Berkin.
https://constitutioncenter.org/ncc_edu_Founding_Fathers.aspx
The Ho-Ho-Kus Brook is in major need of dredging, deepening, and cleaning
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photo by Boyd Loving
The Ho-Ho-Kus Brook is in major need of dredging, deepening, and cleaning
No question about it: the turf field served to exacerbate the flooding conditions at RHS experienced yesterday. I can recall a graduation ceremony held at RHS in 2001 during which thunderstorms, of about the same severity and intensity as those we saw yesterday, rolled through the area before and during the ceremony. The grass was very wet, but the field did not flood.
Here is what is going wrong: the Ho-Ho-Kus Brook is in major need of dredging, deepening, and cleaning; too, rules governing the construction of structures and fences within the flood plain of the brook need to be enforced. These are a few of the reasons why we are seeing the HHK brook overflow its banks with increasing frequency. And, of course, the turf field: located within the flood plain, it does not absorb the water but rather it collects it. Hence an area of pooled water that is very much in evidence in the photos provided
>The Graduation of 2011
>The Graduation of 2011
The kids looked great though, for a less than ideal setting. After the initial anxiety things seem to settle down. It was a shame they had to move the Graduation up to the lawn, but the parents cared more than the kids, who were happy and thankfully dry.
The field could have been used except for a ring of water around it that made it inaccessible until it receded which of coarse it did by the end of the ceremony. If the rain had been a couple hours earlier it would have been OK. Or had there been a way to get across the track it would have worked out.
Oh well. I remember 2 years ago the front lawn was the backup plan they almost went to with my son’s graduation but the rain came during the ceremony and was only a short downpour.
Congratulation class of 2011 , definitely a day to remember !
>Some interesting statistics on this list of 10 States that spend the most per student.
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Hello PJ,
Some interesting statistics on this list of 10 States that spend the most per student. NJ #2 but we do have high graduation rates. My daughter graduated yesterday. Just over 400 kids in the class. We had 550 (I think) in ‘82. Maybe that is part of the reason I remember seeing every Ivy and top school represented. Anyway it was a nice looking bunch of kids.
Total Elementary-Secondary Spending: $23.4 Billion (5th most)
% Revenue From State Sources: 41% (10th least)
Amount Spent Per Pupil: $16,271 (2nd most)
Graduation Rate: 85.3% (6th highest)
Only 4% of New Jersey’s education budget comes from the federal government, with revenues evenly split between the state and local governments. The state spends the second most per pupil in education, more than $16,000.
Recently, the state’s supreme court ruled $500 million in education cuts made last year were illegal because they deprived poor districts of the ability to provide a decent education to their students.
>Linker: Menendez’s Policies Have Failed Minority Workers
>Linker: Menendez’s Policies Have Failed Minority Workers
(Ridgewood, NJ): Conservative Republican U.S. Senate candidate from New Jersey Ian Linker issued the following statement criticizing Senator Robert Menendez’s policies, which have failed to create and actually destroy jobs resulting in continuing high unemployment rates in New Jersey and across America.
“With unemployment exceeding 16% among African Americans and approaching 12% among Latinos nationwide, Senator Menendez’s progressive policies have failed the minority communities he claims to support. Increasing taxes on small business owners filing as individuals as Menendez proposes will cause more unemployment. Massive spending bills supported by Menendez have caused ballooning deficits and mountains of debt and did little, if anything, to grow the economy and create jobs. In fact, 1.9 million fewer Americans have jobs since Menendez and the Democratic-controlled Congress passed President Obama’s so-called stimulus bill.”
“Amnesty for illegal aliens, supported aggressively by Menendez, takes jobs from American citizens and documented aliens and creates an environment in which the rule of law is overlooked merely to further apolitical agenda.”
“Imposing a punitive tax increase on oil companies as Menendez proposes is just bad policy – whether or not it’s popular – because it will end up causing more pain at the pump, especially for the unemployed. The moratorium on off-shore drilling, also supported by Menendez, kept the cost of oil high and killed American jobs. Down the line, Bob Menendez supports, and has voted for, policies that negatively affect the minority communities he claims to support and have had a deleterious effect on the U.S. economy as a whole. It’s time to reverse course and pass a pro-growth and pro-jobs agenda.”
