BOE Candidate Kits are Now Available for April 16 School Election
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Board of Education will have two vacancies in the Tuesday, April 16 Annual School Election. A full term on the school board runs for three years.
Candidates must file a nominating petition with the local school board in order to get their name on the ballot for the Annual School Election.
The current deadline to submit the nominating petition is 4 p.m., Verizon cell phone time, on Monday, February 25. Prospective school board
candidates can obtain a “School Board Candidate Kit” at the Education Center, located at 49 Cottage Place or online at www.njsba.org/candidacy.
GDP Shows “Surprise” Drop for U.S. in Fourth Quarter
Official start of NEW Obama recession?
Published: Wednesday, 30 Jan 2013 | 8:11 AM ET
The U.S. economy posted a stunning drop of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter, defying expectations for slow growth and possibly providing incentive for more Federal Reserve stimulus.
The economy shrank from October through December for the first time since the recession ended, hurt by the biggest cut in defense spending in 40 years, fewer exports and sluggish growth in company stockpiles.
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that the economy contracted at an annual rate of 0.1 percent in the fourth quarter. That’s a sharp slowdown from the 3.1 percent growth rate in the July-September quarter.
The surprise contraction could raise fears about the economy’s ability to handle tax increases that took effect in January and looming spending cuts.
Yoga Retreat
Fri, February 01, 2013 – Sun, February 03, 2013
Time: 9:00 AM
Historic Mansion on the Hudson River, West Park, NY
Cost: $670 per person
Join us to a relaxing, inspiring, and transformative weekend. No Experience Needed!!
A weekend of: Yoga, Healthy cooking, Meditation, and Listening from the heart workshop.
Allow Yourself a transformative weekend. Enjoy the quiet retreat while recharging your body, spirit, and mind.
This weekend fits anyone who would like to take some time off of their busy life while nourishing the soul with gentle physical activity, fantastic good and profound spiritual awareness.
About the Yoga: 2 Yoga classes will take place daily and will include: Basic Poses, gentle stretching, breathing and meditation.
The Instructor: Yael Shapiro Licensed Acupuncturist and a Yoga instructor.
Accommodations: A luxurious double room (king size bed) with a private bath and breathtaking views.
Cost: $670.00 per person, all inclusive (in a shared double room).
For more information Contact: Yinside Out Acupuncture and Yoga 201-873-2397 yael@yinsideout.com
About the house: “Hearts Ease” is a place of healing for couples and individuals. The house, built in 1891, was named “Heart’s Ease” due to all the engraved hearts found there. In the early 1920’s, Hilda Worthington Smith, fulfilled a lifelong dream of turning the home into the “Hudson Shore Labor School.” The school taught female immigrants variou trades, as well as English. Eleanor Roosevelt, a board member, was instrumental in empowering these women to make a new life of meaning in America.
Unfortunately there have been other experiments with shared services, even regionalization, as far as cost it really does’nt work out.
Long Island is a prime example their property taxes are higher than ours and their services lag way behind us, bigger isn’t always more efficient . Don’t get roped in by the initial purchase cost savings, once your are into maintenance fee’s and usage disputes all benefits are out the window. The adjoining municipalities could actually lose out in the overall picture.
Ridgewood had an agreement with Midland Park for gasoline and that ended, Ridgewood and Glen Rock had a “joint meeting” to enable” Central Dispatch” Midland Park is out and Glen Rock and Ridgewood pick up the slack. There has been change at central to make it appear cost efficient but the last time I could get documentation of village cost expenditure it was in the area of 750,000.00 dollars. That was when Chief Corcoran was the boss at rpd I would hate to see what the numbers are now especially after someone who knows their way around a budget looks at them. So don’t think outsourcing is always the answer.
Consumer confidence socked by payroll tax hike
By Patrice Hill
The Washington Times
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
U.S. consumer confidence took a dive this month, wiping out all the gains of 2012, a drop fueled by the expiration of the 2 percentage point cut in payroll taxes, the Conference Board reported Tuesday.
The tax increase took effect on Jan. 1, and though long expected in Washington, it appeared to take consumers by surprise. It was included in the $650 billion “fiscal cliff” tax package passed by Congress in the early morning hours on New Year’s Day. The bill was dubbed by the media as a “tax hike on the rich,” but the payroll tax provision hit the paychecks of primarily middle- and low-income consumers.
“The increase in the payroll tax has undoubtedly dampened consumers’ spirits and it may take a while for confidence to rebound and consumers to recover from their initial paycheck shock,” said Lynn Franco, economist at the Conference Board.
The index fell to 58.6 from 66.7 in December. Confidence also slumped in December as Congress and the White House battled over the tax package, spoiling what started out to be a strong Christmas spending season.
In the end, as the din from Washington over the budget and taxes crescendoed in the weeks surrounding Christmas and New Year’s Day, consumers withdrew from the malls and the shopping season had a weak finish.
Cats killing billions of animals in the US
By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC World Service
Cat Feline friend or feline fiend?
Cats are one of the top threats to US wildlife, killing billions of animals each year, a study suggests.
The authors estimate they are responsible for the deaths of between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds and 6.9-20.7 billion mammals annually.
Writing in Nature Communications, the scientists said stray and feral cats were the worst offenders.
However, they added that pet cats also played a role and that owners should do more to reduce their impact.
The authors concluded that more animals are dying at the claws of cats in the United States than in road accidents, collisions with buildings or poisonings.
The domestic cat’s killer instinct has been well documented on many islands around the world.
Felines accompanying their human companions have gone on to decimate local wildlife, and they have been blamed for the global extinction of 33 species.
Bob Menendez Underage Prostitution Scandal Barely Being Reported By Mainstream Media
Kristin Dross
Last month it was revealed that Senator Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) hired a registered sex offender turned illegal alien sex offender as an intern. It was also revealed that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security delayed the arrest of the intern until after election day Another scandal is materializing for the former private practice attorney who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Human Rights, Democracy and Global Women’s Issues: The Daily Caller alleges that Menendez had sex with underage prostitutes on several visits to the Dominican Republic from 2009 to 2012.
The research director at the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) in Washington, Carrie Levine, is said to have received information from an unnamed source regarding the senator’s alleged dalliances with prostitutes as young as 16. Levine apparently shared this information with ABC News senior investigative producer Rhonda Schwartz in May 2012, but ABC News did not break the story, and, as of January 28, 2013, I was unable to find any article about the allegations on abcnews.com. Instead the Daily Caller broke the initial version of the story on November 1, 2012. The story is gaining greater headway of late because Daily Caller published a follow-up on January 25, 2013 asserting that the FBI is investigating the allegations against Menendez with a slew of FBI emails published as pictorial evidence.
According to the Daily Caller, CREW asked the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate the allegations on July 17, 2012. Additionally, the original source, a “Mr. Williams,” apparently shared the information with an FBI Special Agent in Miami on September 11, 2012.
Ridgewood historian seeks stories about Hurricane Sandy
Tuesday January 29, 2013, 9:54 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
With the Internet and a 24/7 news cycle, some might wonder about the importance of historians chronicling modern-day news developments, as if all that had to be said has been said.
The Ridgewood Public Library’s resident historian, Peggy Norris, feels differently.
She believes Ridgewood’s residents need to maintain control of their past by preserving recent events as well as older ones – starting with contributing to the library’s online record of Hurricane Sandy.
“It’s personal. It wasn’t taken to show a writer’s story,” she said, comparing the online archive to the news. “It does have to do |with Ridgewood … especially the insight into how people were |coping.”
The Heritage Center keeps records in its physical archives of past village-centered events, such as Ridgewood High School’s original graduation ceremony or the dedication of the various village monuments and landmarks.
Proposed 7-Eleven in Ridgewood disputed by neighboring convenience store
Tuesday January 29, 2013, 9:51 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
A developer’s application hearing to build a convenience store along Route 17 South in Ridgewood has been delayed until March after the proposal’s main opponent disputed the contents listed in a public notice.
Robert Inglima, the attorney representing owners of the Exxon Mobil station at 490 Route 17 South, argued during Tuesday’s zoning board meeting that 657 Ridgewood LLC’s hearing notice was incomplete, as it failed to list several variances that are required to construct a 7-Eleven store less than one-quarter mile down the road from his client.
The property owned by Inglima’s client, Bergen Convenience Flagship Inc., features a gas station and a convenience store. The developer’s land, located on tax maps at 657 Franklin Turnpike with access via Route 17, includes a Shell filling station in addition to the proposed convenience mart.
Scheduled to commence this week, the start of the application hearing was doomed before it began. John Marmora, the developer’s attorney, said he had not yet received a Ridgewood planning report, dated Oct. 26, 2012, that detailed various site specifications. Additionally, a traffic study performed on behalf of the developer was not received by the village’s traffic expert, John Jahr.
Land use ordinance under revision in Ridgewood
Tuesday January 29, 2013, 10:00 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
The Ridgewood Council will consider a new version of a controversial ordinance intended to clarify and define specific ways that businesses, houses of worship, schools and public utilities, among other entities, use and improve their properties.
According to Village Planner Blais Brancheau, a revision to the Village Code’s Land Use and Development chapter is needed, in part, to conform to the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. The Ridgewood Planning Board has been working on an amendment for several months and last fall passed a draft ordinance to the Village Council.
The subsequent public hearing on that ordinance drew many concerns from residents, and the council requested that the Planning Board rework the language and several guidelines. The Village Council ultimately defeated the first ordinance in December before introducing a second version on Jan. 16.
The most recent version already has the full recommendation of the Planning Board, according to Village Manager Ken Gabbert.
At previous Village Council and Planning Board meetings, several residents spoke about the “near and dear” issues that impacted residents’ quality of life. Without appropriate buffers between his South Hillside Place residence and an adjacent busy church, Michael Lenhard claimed that he could no longer sleep with the windows open because of the noise emanating from late-night activities at the house of worship.
Earlier this month, Brancheau highlighted some of the clarifications and substantive changes that were made during the Planning Board’s second crack at the ordinance. The municipal planner primarily focused on buffers, specifically how they are used between residential and non-residential zoned properties.
“The main things are that the buffer regulations were changed to provide enhanced buffers in certain cases on more large-scale projects,” Brancheau said.
If you owned your own museum, what artifacts would you have on display? That is the question children will answer when they visit the Schoolhouse Museum on Sunday, February 10 from 2:00–4:00 p.m. for an afternoon of stories and show and tell.
Children in grades kindergarten through 5th grade are invited to the museum to hear Mrs. Diorio, Willard School Librarian, and guest readers share stories about the importance of historic preservation. Children are encouraged to bring an item that they think should be on display at a museum and share with other visitors how that item would help others understand life in 21st century Ridgewood. Children will have the opportunity to tour the museum’s exhibit, The Collection, featuring treasured 18th and 19th century artifacts and textiles donated by local residents who believed that these artifacts were worth preserving to tell the stories of people who lived in our village.
Stories will be read at 2:15 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. and opportunities for show and tell will follow the story times. Children must be accompanied by an adult. A donation to support the museum’s operating budget of $3 per child, $5 for an adult, or $10 for a family is suggested. The Schoolhouse Museum is located at 650 E. Glen Avenue in Ridgewood. For more information about Children’s Day email us.
The Hermitage, a National Historic Landmark and house museum
Special Exhibit: Valentines and Victorians
January 25-February 28, 2013
In 1847, Esther Howland of Worchester, Massachusetts, designed the first American handmade Valentine. Coincidently, the first U.S. postage stamp was issued on July 1, 1847—perfect timing to mail Valentine’s Day cards!
Also in 1847, Elijah Rosencrantz hired the architect William Ranlett to renovate his 1760s farmhouse as a prestigious family home. Today, the romantic Gothic Revival-style Hermitage is a National Historic Landmark and a historic house museum that showcases the Victorian era of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Rose-motif wallpaper gives a romantic feeling to the front parlor of The Hermitage, a room where the Rosencrantz family entertained during the nineteenth century. Hand-painted vases and vintage Valentines—and of course, red roses—adorn several of the rooms to celebrate Valentine’s Day at The Hermitage. Valentines exchanged by members of the Rosencranz family from the Hermitage Archives are also on display.
The Hermitage will celebrate Valentine’s Day from January 25 through February 28, 2013. The museum is open for guided tours Wednesdays through Sundays. Tours begin at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 pm. Please call ahead to be sure a volunteer docent is scheduled to conduct tours and to check for closings in case of inclement weather.
335 North Franklin Turnpike, Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ 07423-1035 • Telephone: (201) 445-8311 • E-mail: info@thehermitage.org
Ridgewood’s Got Talent 2013 Finals
Sat, February 09, 2013
Time: 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Porch Light Productions, 555 Broad Street, Glen Rock, NJ 07452
The Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce is proud to present Ridgewood’s Got Talent”. This event is for the community of Ridgewood and will be held at Porch Light Productions.
The grand prize winner will be given a spot in the 2013 Downtown for the Holidays performance on Stage! There will be a selection of judges from Porch Light Porductions and From the Top Music Studio.
We are on facebook, become a fan of the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce today!.
For more information call/email
Joan Groome
201-445-2600
info@ridgewoodchamber.com
27 Chestnut St.
Ridgewood, NJ
Tiger Team Recommendations : Evaluate Outsourcing Services of the Central Garage
The Village Council is expected to discuss the future of the Central Garage in December 2012. The Central Garage is located on over 1.3 acres in a commercial zone on Chestnut Street north of Franklin Ave, below and along the rail line that bisects the Village. As a Village owned property, the large lot is tax-exempt. The facility is responsible for maintaining Ridgewood’s fleet of Village vehicles. The 2012 budget for the Central Garage was $802,763.
In our discussions with Village representatives, we learned that the Central garage has high costs from Workman’s Comp and the facility is highly capital intensive. It was clear from our conversations that the Central Garage is widely viewed as operationally and financially inefficient.
The Ridgewood News reported on November 4, 2012 that the “Village Council unanimously approved the appropriation of $40,000 from the municipal capital account for (a project to purchase and install a new hydraulic lift), which has a total sum in excess of $76,000.” In the article, the Village Manager defended the purchase and answered a question about why we could not use a neighboring municipality’s lift, by explaining, “for us to take our vehicles to another municipality when our full fleet staff is here, that would be difficult…every single opportunity, we explore shared services.”
We understand that “borrowing” another municipality’s lift is not a practical solution. However, the right questions do not appear to have been asked. We do not believe that the Village has scratched the surface of exploring “every single opportunity” for shared services. As Village management acknowledged, they do not account for the cost savings and/or benefits that may be realized through shared service arrangements. Nor, according to Village management, are shared services usually entered into for economic efficiency. This should be the primary reason for entering into shared services.
This is an example of how the lack of a metrics-based management process in Ridgewood results in inefficient expenditures. The failure beyond repair of a major piece of essential equipment and the prospect of a capital expenditure that will add almost 9.5% to the Central Garage budget in 2012 provides an appropriate opportunity to evaluate long-term alternatives for the Central Garage. If a long-term Strategic Financial Plan was in place, we expect that two questions would have been posed; 1) Can we afford to replace this piece of equipment? And, 2) Is replacement the most appropriate or cost effective solution? When considering the alleged inefficiency of the Central Garage and its long-term impact on the budget, our view is that the answer to both questions is probably “no”.
Ridgewood has an existing fleet maintenance contract with Paramus at a labor rate of $65/hr. Under the Paramus contract, Ridgewood is billed for parts at the state contract rate (40% discount), which is the same as Ridgewood’s cost. According to the Village Manager, the Village has a high level of satisfaction with the quality of work and responsiveness provided by Paramus. Since an external service provider would bill the Village only for time actually spent repairing Village vehicles (eliminating non-productive hours), we believe the services provided by the Central Garage could be delivered more cost effectively by outside providers at a substantial savings, which would offset any perceived convenience offered by the Central Garage. Thus, we recommend that the Village Council evaluate outsourcing the services to at least two (2) neighboring municipal garage facilities by expanding Ridgewood’s fleet maintenance contracts with Paramus and/or establishing new ones.
If a thorough cost/benefit analysis, endorsed by the FOB, supports our view and these services are outsourced, we recommend that the land be leased (not sold) for commercial redevelopment in a way that thoughtfully addresses needs within the Village while generating a sustainable source of revenue. Given the zoning of the area, proximity to the rail line and numerous proposals for housing developments currently in-process in the Village, we are not convinced that this is a suitable site for an additional multi-family housing development.
