Ridgewood Schools Alumni Principal Jean McTavish Prepares ‘Hard to Reach’ Kids for College
April 23, 2012 8:22am | By Leslie Albrecht, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER WEST SIDE — Principal Jean McTavish sometimes describes the students at Edward A. Reynolds West High School as “hard to reach and hard to teach.”
The 550-student school on West 102nd Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues, is an alternative transfer high school that serves students aged 17 to 21-years-old who’ve had trouble finishing high school for various reasons.
Some have been in jail, some have been pregnant, some are HIV positive, some have lost parents to crime or violence.
“We have every kind of possible issue that you can imagine here,” McTavish said. “Just about any problem that you can think of that’s associated with poverty.”
SUPPORT RHS ORCHESTRAS: BUY PLANTS AT GOFFLE BROOK FARMS
The RHS Orchestras and Goffle Brook Farms are joining together to raise funds to support the RHS student musicians. Between April 28 and May 28, Goffle Brook Farms will donate 10% of purchases to the Orchestra Parents Association.
Goffle Brook Farms, located at 425 Goffle Brook Road in Ridgewood, sells a wide selection of annuals, perennials, herbs, planters and much more. Shop as often as you like! Click here for the form, or simply tell the cashier you are participating in the RHS Orchestra fund raiser.
NJ Task force looks for ways to collect from tax-exempt nonprofits
As more municipalities cut services and real estate values plummet, state and local government officials are pushing to form a task force that will examine methods to collect in lieu of tax payments from tax-exempt and tax-abated properties.
“In good times, we wouldn’t be considering these types of things from nonprofits or tax-exempt organizations,” said Bill Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey State League of Municipalities. “But now … with costs coming in above the 2 percent cap and energy tax revenues not going to towns … towns are looking at all options possible. Many nonprofits already understand that, and some of them may be working with their host municipality for a reasonable fee.” (Eder, NJBIZ)
Christie sees job loss as argument against tax hike
Gov.Chris Christie said the 8,600 jobs the state lost in March bolster his case for cutting taxes and not increasing them.
“I think the good part of it is, I think that anyone around here who thinks that, ‘Oh, things are getting better around here so we can raise taxes on people,’ — this is a good cautionary tale to the folks in the Legislature who decide they want to raise taxes on people in New Jersey, because they think this comeback is bulletproof,” Christie said at a press conference on Friday. (Kitchenman, NJBIZ)
PSE&G prepares for spring storm; crews and equipment on hand to restore service in the event of outages
(NEWARK, NJ – April 22, 2012) Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) Company is preparing for heavy rain and potentially damaging wind gusts that are expected to affect its service territory beginning late tonight into tomorrow morning. The state’s largest utility is ensuring that additional crews and equipment are available to respond to outages that may occur as a result of the spring storm.
Electric crews work to restore power to the largest numbers of customers first, taking into account “priority” customers, such as hospitals, police stations, fire stations, water and sewer facilities, communications facilities (TV, radio, and telephone), and customers on life-sustaining medical equipment. At the same time, the utility restores power to homes and businesses, starting with the circuits serving the largest number of customers.
To report downed wires or power outages, customers should call PSE&G’s Customer Service line at 1-800-436-PSEG. PSE&G uses an automated system to handle customer calls as efficiently as possible. Customers who get an automated response when calling PSE&G are encouraged to use it, as it is designed to route their calls to the right destination quickly. The system also provides the option to speak directly to a customer service representative. If you have specific information regarding damage to wires, transformers or poles, we ask that you speak with a representative to provide that information.
Customers with a handheld device, or who are at an alternate location with power, can also report power outages and view the status of their outage by logging in to My Account at pseg.com. General outage activity throughout our service territory is available online at www.pseg.com/outagecenter and updates are posted on pseg.com during severe weather.
If outages are widespread, the utility will activate its Twitter page to keep the public informed about our restoration progress. Sign up as a follower at https://twitter.com/psegdelivers to monitor restoration progress.
DOWNED POWER LINES
Heavy rain and strong winds can cause power lines to come down. Downed wires should always be considered “live.” STAY AWAY FROM ALL DOWNED LINES. Do not approach or drive over a downed line and do not touch anything that it might be in contact with. Parents are urged to check for downed wires in areas where their children might play and to remind the children to stay far away from any wires. If a wire falls on a vehicle, passengers should stay in the vehicle until help arrives. To report a downed wire, call 1-800-436-PSEG and tell PSE&G the nearest cross street.
GENERAL TIPS:
Mother Nature can be unpredictable. It’s wise to have an emergency kit on hand year round. Here are some things to include:
A battery-powered radio.
A corded telephone (cordless phones will not work if the power is out)
Flashlights and extra fresh batteries.
A first-aid kit.
Bottled water and an adequate supply of non-perishable food.
A non-electric can opener.
Matches and candles with holders.
Extra blankets and sleeping bags.
A list of emergency phone numbers, including PSE&G’s Customer Service line: 1-800-436-PSEG. Call this number to report power outages or downed wires.
Economic fundamentals will remain weak until pro-growth policies are enacted
April remains a cruel month. New jobless claims are the highest they’ve been since late January, with the four-week average stubbornly hovering around the 375,000 mark. Though we’re technically in a recovery, nobody believes it. A Rasmussen Reports survey earlier this week shows a majority is under the impression America is still in recession. That’s for good reason.
To dig America out of the hole created by the financial sector’s collapse, we need an explosion of industry. Instead, we’re seeing a fizzle. The Philadelphia Reserve Bank found manufacturing output growth slowed slightly in the mid-Atlantic region, with its index of general business activity for the factory sector falling from 12.5 in March to 8.5 in April. The lackluster performance dampens the rest of the economy. People who don’t feel secure about their economic future aren’t investing in homes, so housing inventory remains substantial, with 2.4 million houses listed for sale by the end of February. In a healthy market, an average of 6 million homes changes hands in the course of a year; today, that number is closer to 4.5 million. With a significant chunk of the market still in the process of foreclosure, housing won’t recover anytime soon.
NASA Astronauts: Global Warming science is NOT settled
By: Mark Johnson, newsnet5.com
CLEVELAND – Forty-nine former NASA scientists and astronauts sent a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden last week admonishing the agency for its role in advocating a high degree of certainty that man-made CO2 is a major cause of climate change while neglecting empirical evidence that calls the theory into question.
The group, which includes seven Apollo astronauts and two former directors of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, are dismayed over the failure of NASA, and specifically the Goddard Institute For Space Studies (GISS), to make an objective assessment of all available scientific data on climate change. They charge that NASA is relying too heavily on complex climate models that have proven scientifically inadequate in predicting climate only one or two decades in advance.
Mort Zuckerman: President Obama’s Economic Programs Have Failed
The recovery has not yielded job vacancies, but here are five ways to cure our labor woes
By MORTIMER B. ZUCKERMAN
April 20, 2012
America has long been a country where almost everyone, including the poor and unskilled, could get a job. Given the will to do a reasonable day’s work, a job was a passport to economic and social well-being; it was the fount of self-esteem and the foundation of family life. Indeed, work was Life.
More than 15 million Americans no longer have that passport to Life. Think of it as roughly the entire population of the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Arkansas, Iowa, and Oklahoma, all standing idle—every man, woman, and child. The traditional breadwinners, namely men between the ages of 25 and 54, are among those hardest hit. According to an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll, some 25 percent of households include someone who is unemployed and looking for work. As well as laying waste to work, to the equivalent of losing every job created in the last decade, the Great Recession has visited us with reduced incomes, declining home equity, and a growing contraction in credit.
Historic homes appeal to a smaller, but enthusiastic, market
SUNDAY, APRIL 22, 2012
BY KATHLEEN LYNN
STAFF WRITER
Living in a 1678 stone house allowed Marlene Casey to “take something that has been in existence for hundreds of years and lovingly restore what needs to be restored and preserve it for future generations,” she said.
But after raising two sons in the house, Casey is ready for a smaller, one-story place, and has put her home — the Jacobus Demarest Homestead in New Milford — on the market.
The property, one of the oldest in Bergen County, is among a number of pre-1900 properties for sale in North Jersey. Finding the right buyer for these unusual homes can be a challenge, experts say.
Ridgewood police investigating thefts from unlocked vehicles
Sunday April 22, 2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
(RIDGEWOOD_NJ) Ridgewood Police are urging all residents to make sure your car doors are locked after three instances of burglars of unlocked vehicles were reported last weekend.
The Police are urging residents not leave valuable items, keys or key fobs in your vehicle. Authorities put out the alert after an unlocked vehicle on Undercliff Court was burglarized and two unlocked vehicles, one on Red Birch Court and one on Cliff Street, were also burglarized on Sunday.
Ridgewood’s interfaith community joins together to remember
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012
BY KIMBERLY JONES
CORRESPONDENT
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Members of the Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Hindu communities came together at Temple Israel on Sunday to honor the memory of lives lost in the Holocaust and to celebrate the sense of interfaith unity.
A member from each participating faith read relevant excerpts and poems that were interspersed with songs during the Interfaith Religious Leaders of Ridgewood’s 26th annual Interfaith Holocaust Remembrance Service.
In Nothing We Trust
Americans are losing faith in the institutions that made this country great.
by Ron Fournier and Sophie Quinton
Updated: April 21, 2012 | 5:43 p.m.
April 19, 2012 | 4:00 p.m.
MUNCIE, Ind.—Johnny Whitmire shuts off his lawn mower and takes a long draw from a water bottle. He sloshes the liquid from cheek to cheek and squirts it between his work boots. He is sweating through his white T-shirt. His jeans are dirty. His middle-aged back hurts like hell. But the calf-high grass is cut, and the weeds are tamed at 1900 W. 10th St., a house that Whitmire and his family once called home. “I’ve decided to keep the place up,” he says, “because I hope to buy it back from the bank.”
Whitmire tells a familiar story of how public and private institutions derailed an American’s dream: In 2000, he bought the $40,000 house with no money down and a $620 monthly mortgage. He made every payment. Then, in the fall of 2010, his partially disabled wife lost her state job. “Governor [Mitch] Daniels slashed the budget, and they looked for any excuse to squeeze people out,” Whitmire says. “We got lost in that shuffle—cut adrift.” The Whitmires couldn’t make their payments anymore.
Bolger Fitness Center offers “Be the Winner” program
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2012
BY GLORIA GEANNETTE
MANAGING EDITOR
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The recent awards night for the Bolger Fitness Center (BFC) “Be the Winner” program celebrated the weight losses and fitness gains of the group’s seven participants. The final weigh-in determined that Kevin Tarleton was the winner, having lost the highest percentage of body fat over the course of the program. Tarleton was a second-time participant in the program and a two-time winner.
FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY MORNING
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN UPTON HAS ISSUED A
* FLOOD WATCH FOR ALL OF SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT…NORTHEAST NEW JERSEY AND SOUTHEAST NEW YORK…
* FROM SUNDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY MORNING.
* RAINFALL WITH A COLD FRONT PASSING THROUGH TONIGHT SHOULD BE LESS THAN A HALF INCH. THIS FRONT WILL THEN STALL JUST TO THE SOUTH ON SUNDAY…AND SERVE AS THE FOCUS FOR HEAVY RAIN SUNDAY AFTERNOON AS AN INTENSIFYING COASTAL STORM MOVES NORTHWARD AND
TRANSPORTS CONSIDERABLE ATLANTIC MOISTURE ALONG WITH IT.
* RAINFALL WITH THE COASTAL STORM WILL BEGIN SUNDAY MORNING…AND BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES LATER SUNDAY AFTERNOON. THE HEAVIEST RAIN SHOULD OCCUR DURING THE FIRST HALF OF SUNDAY NIGHT IN THE NEW YORK CITY METROPOLITAN AREA…WESTERN LONG ISLAND AND THE LOWER HUDSON VALLEY…AND OVERNIGHT SUNDAY NIGHT IN SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT AND EASTERN LONG ISLAND…WITH HOURLY RAINFALL RATES APPROACHING AN INCH PER HOUR IN THE HEAVIEST RAIN BANDS.
* TOTAL RAINFALL OF TWO AND ONE HALF TO THREE AND ONE HALF INCHES…WITH LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS…COULD CA– USE SIGNIFICANT FLOODING OF URBAN AND POOR DRAINAGE AREAS…AND FLOODING OF FAST RESPONDING SMAL STREAMS. HARD DRY GROUND DUE TO LACK OF RECENT
RAINFALL…AND STORM DRAINS THAT HAVE NOT YET BEEN CLEARED OF WINTER DEBRIS…MAY ACTUALLY CONTRIBUTE TO ADDITIONAL RUNOFF IN THESE AREAS. MAIN STEM RIVERS ARE UNLIKELY TO EXPERIENCEFLOODING.
Where’s the recovery?
NASA Astronauts: Global Warming science is NOT settled
Ridgewood Lightning alert system up and running
In Nothing We Trust
