Gas drilling called safe in New York
ALBANY — The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times from an expert who did not believe it should be kept secret. N.Y. Times
New Jersey Choral Society nominated for JerseyArts.com ‘People’s Choice’ award
Have you been inspired by the passion, excellence and imagination of The New Jersey Choral Society? If so, visit JerseyArts.com and vote for NJCS in the category of “Favorite Choral Group” by January 22, 2013. The New Jersey Choral Society is one of the most prestigious choral groups in the state, well known for presenting outstanding and unique programs.
Nominations were announced in December in the fifth-annual JerseyArts.com ‘People’s Choice’ awards. Public voting takes place until January 22 for New Jersey nonprofit arts organizations, which also includes theaters, museums and art centers. Winners will be announced in early February. Complete details, including the public ballot, can be found at JerseyArts.com/peopleschoice. Discover Jersey Arts is a partnership between the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and ArtPride New Jersey Foundation to increase awareness of and participation in the arts in the Garden State. Other participating organizations include the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, South Jersey Cultural Alliance, and New Jersey Division of Travel and Tourism.
NJCS Artistic Director and Conductor, Eric Dale Knapp, is thrilled with the honor of this nomination. “Nowhere is the human spirit of aspiration for excellence more alive than with the fine people of NJCS – people that love the music, understand the discipline, and seek to serve the community through great programs of varied repertoire,” says Knapp. “What more could any conductor ask for than commitment to the music and the synergies of intellect and tremendous spirit?”
The New Jersey Choral Society will hold its annual Pops concerts on March 16 and 17, 2013 at Immaculate Heart Academy in Washington Township, NJ. The performances, entitled “Old Man River”, will feature songs from the musical Showboat and more. For more information, visit www.NJCS.org or call 201-379-7719.
Reader says Governor is more comfortable playing the victim than being a true leader
When Katrina hit, President Bush was derided for not stopping for a photo op, told that he hated blacks, didn’t care for poor people, etc. The president made sure that congress swiftly got tens of billions into the area within a month.
Now, Sandy hits, President Obama plays Christie for some pre-election leadership press, hugs a lady to make every cover of the nation’s liberal press and gets re-elected. As fast as Sandy swooped in and left, so did the president. He got what he needed and his new bosom buddy Chris is left at the alter.
Instead of realizing that he was made to be a useful tool for the Democrats, Christie lashes out at Boehner (not that Mr. Speaker is without sin) saying that he and congress won’t let him get a third of the Sandy Pork bill. If he were so chummy with the president, he would give him a call in HI, and ask ‘Can you please address these bozos in congress and get some aid up here? People are hurting.’
Unfortunately the governor is more comfortable playing the victim than being a true leader.
Reader uneasy with Christies Coziness with Obama
I find it very interesting that Christie cost the Republicans the election with all the cozy Obama pictures and now he is attacking the republicans for wanting to make sure that the money goes to the correct people in NJ.
The bill that the senate passed has more pork than substance. He should be calling out the senate for such a ridiculous bill. The senate is taking advantage of the devastation in NJ to pay off their cronies.
It is time that the people said no to pork. Congress should pass bills that can be read and only address the item of the bill not the add ons that are included to pay off some politicians to get their support of the major items.
Christie has lost his chance for any future in politics. I had no idea how small his thinking was until this tragedy happened in NJ. In hindsight he should have had Romney and Obama come to his state. He should be using the media coverage that he is getting now to explain the problem with the bill the senate passed, rather than whipping up the house for not passing such a loaded bill.
Sandy Hook Elementary School …slate.com
Totowa stations police officers at elementary schools
Thursday January 3, 2013, 8:36 PM
BY MATTHEW MCGRATH
STAFF WRITER
The Record
TOTOWA — The borough’s two elementary schools became the first in Passaic and Bergen counties to post armed police officers in their buildings as a protective measure following the shooting deaths in a Connecticut elementary school last month.
To general praise from the public, borough and district officials said, borough police officers, working two shifts, began on Wednesday to stand guard: two at any given time in the Washington Park School, with 700 students, and one at the Memorial School, with 300 kids.
Jesse Castillo went to the school Thursday to bring his son, a 3rd-grader, his asthma medication. He had to sign-in with the officer for the first time.
“I felt it was safe for the kids,” Castillo said. “They should do this from now on.”
N.J. budget shortfall grows to $705 billion
Thursday, January 3, 2013 Last updated: Thursday January 3, 2013, 10:42 PM
BY JOHN REITMEYER
STATE HO– USE BUREAU
Halfway through the fiscal year, Governor Christie’s budget is $705 million short of revenue projections, with more than a dozen income sources trailing his growth estimates.
The shortfall puts his proposed income tax cut in jeopardy. Also in potential trouble are millions in state spending now earmarked for property tax relief and for a payment to the public employee pension fund.
And the budget problems could also hamper the state’s ability to provide financial help to towns hit by superstorm Sandy.
New Jersey will need “spectacular revenue acceleration” during the final six months of the fiscal year to keep Christie’s budget in balance, David Rosen, budget analyst for the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services, told lawmakers on Thursday.
“Nothing in the national or state economic picture suggests that such growth is likely,” he said.
Superstorm Sandy’s impact on the state economy is a factor that analysts are still trying to fully understand, Rosen said.
Christie signed a $31.7 billion budget in June that projected an 8 percent growth in the economy, a financial outlook bolder than nearly every other state’s
estimate. Legislators in the Democratic-controlled Senate and Assembly passed that budget, but postponed Christie’s call to begin a 10 percent cut in income taxes until state finances improved.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/Spectacular_revenue_growth_needed_to_keep_Christies_budget_balanced_analyst_says.html
Ridgewood officials line up plans for new year
Thursday January 3, 2013, 9:12 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG AND DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITERS
The Ridgewood News
When the ball dropped, millions may have resolved to eat better, get more organized or work on a |personal hobby, but resolutions are not just |for individuals. What about Ridgewood?
Asked by The Ridgewood News for their resolutions for Ridgewood in 2013, several village officials offered up some thoughts.
Some resolutions were made and their implementation undertaken long ago, as Superintendent Dan Fishbein pointed out.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/185612552_Ridgewood_officials_line_up_plans_for_new_year.html
Village of Ridgewood Committee members named for 2013
Thursday January 3, 2013, 9:27 PM
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Council approved a set of resolutions last month to officially appoint members to various village committees for the new year. Volunteers named to the various boards and committees will serve terms that expire on Dec. 31.2013.
Community Relations Advisory Board (CRAB), which serves the Ridgewood and Glen Rock :
Pam Scarpa, Ridgewood Police Chief John Ward, Ridgewood Police Capt. Jacqueline Luthcke, Roann Rubin, Oliver Newton, Ridgewood Police Lt. Todd Harris, Rabbi Neil Tow, Sid Dawson, Avon Morgan, Catherine Robinson, Alice Newton, Yendi Anderson, Susan Donnelly, Simon Toffell, Rev. Jan Phillips, Mahmoud Hamza, Glen Rock Police Capt. Jon Miller, Medha Kirtane, Richard Majors and Richard Ostling. Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn and Glen Rock Mayor John van Keuren are also CRAB members.
The Open Space, Recreation, Farmland and Historic Preservation Committee includes: Planning Board Class IV member Kevin Reilly, Parks and Recreation Director Tim Cronin, Field Committee member Robert Lasky and Parks, Recreation and Conservation Board member Kari Sharry. Ralph Currey, William Gilsenan, Eleanor Gruber and Frank Schott were also named to |the committee as Ridgewood |residents.
Ridgewood’s recreation department, the Project Pride Committee : chairman Gary Cirillo, student liaison Kelsey Cirillo;, Alyssa Becker, Tonia Cohen, Barbara D’Amato, Donna Dorsey, Ann Leahy, Debbie Higgins, Janet Fricke, Maribeth Lane, Rita Bernstein, Samantha Gibble, Mary Anne Sage, Ann Schott, Samantha Turino;, Victoria LaChapelle, Katherine Cirillo, Tara Cirillo, Katherine Merck and Jeanette Vadeika. Holt, Neborsky, Stephan, Creegan, Stadulis, Saltalamacchia and Connelly families.
Sourced : https://www.northjersey.com/news/185613162_Committee_members_named_in_Ridgewood.html
Realistic Resolutions Joy Bauer TODAY Show at the Ridgewood Y
Sponsored by the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce
Ridgewood NJ, the Ridgewood YWCA, -Health Fair Thursday, January 17th From 5 – 7pm includes FREE blood pressure, body fat analysis, chair massage, reflexology, demonstrations and much more. Representatives from service providers and local businesses will be on hand to provide FREE information on helping you start your New Year healthy. 7PM – Joy Bauer,MS, RD, CDN from TODAY Show will speak and sign books. SNOW DATE: January 24 Information: 201/445-2600 Chamber of Commerce. YWCA, 112 Oak Street, Ridgewood
Grading the Fiscal Cliff Deal
Cato scholar Daniel J. Mitchell comments, “This deal is not good for the economy. It doesn’t do anything to cap the burden of government spending. It doesn’t reform entitlement programs. …
First, the good news: Oh, wait, there isn’t any.
Now for the bad news.
The top tax rate will increase to 39.6 percent for entrepreneurs, investors, small business owners, and other “rich” taxpayers making more than $400,000 ($450,000 for married couples). This is Obama’s big victory. He gets his class-warfare trophy.
The double tax on dividends and capital gains climbs from 15 percent to 20 percent (23.8 percent if you include the Obamacare tax on investment income).
The death tax rate is boosted from 35 percent to 40 percent (which doesn’t sound like a big step in the wrong direction until you remember it was 0 percent in 2010).
The alternative minimum tax will still exist, though it will be “patched” to protect as many as 30 million households from being swept into this surreal parallel tax system that requires people to use a second method of calculating their taxes – with the government getting the greatest possible amount.
Unemployment benefits are extended, ensnaring more Americans in joblessness.
Medicare spending is increased as part of a “doc fix” to increase reimbursement payments for providers.
https://www.cato.org/blog/grading-fiscal-cliff-deal-terrible-could-be-worse
Intel to offer People The Ability To Subscribe To Individual TV Channels
Jay Yarow | Jan. 1, 2013, 12:27 PM
Intel is reportedly on the cusp of delivering something that consumers around the world have been wanting for a long, long time.
Kelly Clay at Forbes reports Intel is going to blow up the cable industry with its own set-top box and an unbundled cable service.
Clay says Intel is planning to deliver cable content to any device with an Internet connection. And instead of having to pay $80 a month for two hundred channels you don’t want, you’ll be able to subscribe to specific channels of your choosing.
Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/intel-cable-2013-1#ixzz2GuGh6vcF
Deductions Limits Will Affect Many : A greater disincentive for people to give
By JOHN D. MCKINNON
WASHINGTON—One of the biggest tax increases in the fiscal-cliff bill is also one of the least understood: a set of limits on tax deductions and other breaks that will hit far more households than the bill’s rate increases for top earners.
The bill that cleared Congress Tuesday boosts the tax rate for single filers making more than $400,000 and married couples filing jointly making more than $450,000, or roughly the top 1% of filers.
But provisions that reduce the value of personal exemptions as well as most itemized deductions, including those for mortgage interest and state income-tax payments, will affect about twice as many people since they carry a lower income threshold—$250,000 for singles and $300,000 for married couples.
Those new limits drew complaints from some groups that benefit from deductions, particularly charities that depend on tax-deductible donations. They worry that new curbs on deductions, coupled with other taxes on higher-income Americans, will put a damper on giving.
“We are concerned,” said Diana Aviv, president of Independent Sector, a coalition of foundations, nonprofits and other charitable groups. “The big question for us now is, if we are [also] increasing rates on folks…does the combination create a greater disincentive for people to give?”
https://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323689604578217850195921128.html?mod=e2tw
Sorry Bob the Middle class took a big hit in the “Fiscal Cliff ‘bill
January 3,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, while middle class families all over New Jersey face the sting of higher taxes . NJ Senator Robert Menendez , no surprise didn’t read the bill and announced the following statement after the U.S. Senate passed legislation providing “tax relief to the middle class families”. This historic legislation will also bolster job creation by extending tax breaks to businesses that purchase American-made equipment and invest in America. …
According to Bloomberg more than 80 percent of households with incomes between $50,000 and $200,000 would pay higher taxes. Among the households facing higher taxes, the average increase would be $1,635, the policy center said and a 2% payroll tax cut, enacted during the economic slowdown, is being allowed to expire as of yesterday.
Spending was also increased in the bill kicking the can down the road just a bit to the next fiscal calamity .
$50,000 a year in New Jersey hardly qualifies for “rich ” ,in fact you can barely live in your moms basement for that , yet Menendez disrespects tax payers all over the state with his ridiculous comment .
As for Jobs the only jobs this bill will create is the need for additional CPA’s .
But don’t blame Bob ,the U.S. Senate had only 3 minutes to read the 154-page bill and vote for it, something that has become all to familiar in special interest driven DC .
sources : https://cnsnews.com/news/article/senators-got-154-page-fiscal-cliff-bill-3-minutes-voting-it
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-01/senate-passed-deal-means-higher-tax-on-77-of-households.html
https://www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/menendez-lauds-senate-passage-of-legislation-that-provides-tax-relief-to-middle-class-families
Photo bu Boyd Loving ,Captain Morgan gets big tax credit
Lobbyist on K Street “Win” big Victory in “Fiscal Cliff” agreement
Tim Carney: How corporate tax credits got in the ‘cliff’ deal
Corporate Handouts
Higher Taxes for all
January 2, 2013 | 6:00 pm
The “fiscal cliff” legislation passed this week included $76 billion in special-interest tax credits for the likes of General Electric, Hollywood and even Captain Morgan. But these subsidies weren’t the fruit of eleventh-hour lobbying conducted on the cliff’s edge — they were crafted back in August in a Senate committee, and they sat dormant until the White House reportedly insisted on them this week.
The Family and Business Tax Cut Certainty Act of 2012, which passed through the Senate Finance Committee in August, was copied and pasted into the fiscal cliff legislation, yielding a victory for biotech companies, wind-turbine-makers, biodiesel producers, film studios — and their lobbyists. So, if you’re wondering how algae subsidies became part of a must-pass package to avert the dreaded fiscal cliff, credit the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s lobbying last summer.
Some tax lobbyists mostly ignored the August bill “because they thought it would be just a political document,” one K Streeter told me. “They were the ones that got bit in the butt.”
wheres the money Mr President ?
New Jersey Media “Stuck on Stupid” loves Christies attacks on Boehner
January 3,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , Don’t you just love it the , same New Jersey media figures that wine and pout when Governor Christie unloads on their stupidity are now rejoicing at the prospect that the Governor is currently targeting speaker Boehner with his ire over Sandy Aid .
Mind you these are the same bunch of journalistic inbreeds who spent 3 moths reporting on seats belts for dogs and cats, that was until the Governor told them the obvious that the “Stupid’ doggie seat-belt bill won’t get his backing. ( https://theridgewoodblog.net/stupid-doggie-seat-belt-bill-wont-get-christie-backing/ ) All the while New Jersey-ians suffer with the highest residential property taxes in the nation and the worst unemployment rate in over three decades.
The New Jersey media is quick to point out its been 66 days since superstorm Sandy and no relief in sight from Washington Well its been over 4 years since President Obama was first elected and the USA is still operating without a budget ? And what about education reform, and property tax relief New Jersey Tax payers ,its been closer to 3 years .
Maybe its time to quite playing “cheer leader” and get back to doing your jobs. We don’t blame the Governor for being angry , but we know if Christie targetd the Obama administration with his anger he would be branded a loud mouth “meanie” by the press.
Unfortunately for all the folks hardest hit by Sandy the bill is so loaded with pork projects that they would be better served directing their anger at the Obama Administration, which is hijacking the aid meant for their constituents. According to the Heritage Foundation ” the bill is nothing more than special-interest money fest.”
Again according to the Heritage Foundation ,”The estimate of insured losses from Sandy comes in around $20 billion—but the total aid package proposed is three times that amount. Roughly $28 billion of the request is marked for future disaster-mitigation projects.
The bill includes funding for Head Start, the federal day care program. As Heritage’s Lindsey Burke, the Will Skillman fellow in education policy, explains, some Head Start centers may need repairs from hurricane damage, but handing the program $100 million—as the Sandy aid package would—is a large expenditure that deserves more scrutiny.”
Other questionable items in the package, which have received wide media coverage, include money for fisheries in Alaska, free money for the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and repairs to the Smithsonian. Heritage’s Patrick Louis Knudsen adds that “there is the truly audacious $17 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds, an embarrassingly transparent slush fund.” ( https://tinyurl.com/agrnpth )
How low can one go ,nothing like exploiting Hurricane Victims to fund special interests and pet projects .
