photo by Boyd Loving
by the staff of The Ridgewood Blog
Ridgewood NJ, the Village of Ridgewood’s (VOR) CFO Robert G. Rooney relayed the bad news during Wednesday evening’s Village Council Work Session – YTD VOR parking revenues are 25%-35% of what parking revenue was projected to be.
Rooney hopes for the return of projected revenues beginning in September (coinciding with the expected return of individuals commuting to NYC located offices via public transportation), but made no guarantees to Council members.
At this point, Mr. Rooney has requested any and all suggestions for generating parking revenue be directed to his office ASAP. Mr. Ronney’s email address is: rgrooney@ridgewoodnj.net.
Blame it on COVID.
Of course the projections were always fantasy, but now you have an excuse the public will buy.
The downtown “parking problem” was always made worse by owners and employees repeat parking in the CBD. But the pubic yearned for a white elephant, and now they have one.
All these towns are extremely lucky that they’re receiving a lot of extra funds regarding Covid.
I have not paid for parking since they took the meters away – and no tickets (yet).
Commuters are not going to fill the train lot anytime soon. The days of getting in a tube of metal and dealing with the hassle of an unpredictable commute are over for good. Some will go back daily – more than half of commuters will not.
Have no fear, they can always just raise property taxes to make up the shortfall…..Doh!!
I know my wife’s place of business in the city there’s many incentives to work from home. If you can do your job from home you’re saving the company money. Office space, utilities, supplies, so on and so on and so on. So she’s going to work from home, it’s working out for everyone. And now that you can have legalized marijuana do even better. Enjoy
Mr. Rooney was the author of the proforma garage economics as he certified the initial Garage Study performed by the Village’s outside consulting firm. Those projections were fanticiful when originally offered to we Villagers some years ago. At current day, we are faced with the economic reality stemming from his professional sponsorship of the garage project (amongst others who’s names appear on the bronze plaque). Yes, he still has the job of being our town financial expert.
The obligations owed to the bond holders will be met through higher taxes and/or reduced services. We will pick up that tab. Deficits are what usually happen when you allow Village politicians and their hand picked experts to invest our resources in a business. If they were good at math, management, or business for that matter, they would not be seated at our Village controls. And they certainly would not have supported investments in businesses that have HOPE as a strategy to be self sustaining. We reap what we sow and water and parking spaces, things that should be easy to afford, will be less so in Ridgewood. Thank you Mr. Rooney and keep an eye out for that extra bonus for doing such a good job.
What about the people who live in the CBD? Isn’t it outrageous that I’m limited to parking my car in lots 3-4 blocks away from my apartment? Yes it is. Maybe cut the price of parking and more people will park, there’s not much to do here regardless so drop the rates!
Hey Mr. Apartment Dweller. Your apartment doesn’t have any parking spaces, stop complaining about parking 3 blocks away.
Just a matter of time before we open the garage to apartment dwellers. That has been the plan all along
Why not?
And commuters from surrounding towns.
We’re going to have to do it.
It should have been that way since day one.
We Got Hosed
Was foretold here Weekly
Paul and his latter henchmen arranged this boondoggle.
Any update on the melting snow fiasco that took out the garages Elevators wiring etc..
Towns a joke
The town was warned not to take on more debt but nobody listened. They were fixated on the garage. We all saw lower revenues coming due to the pandemic. Businesses closed, others pursued layoffs and furloughs to save money. Many households (including ours) lost jobs. What did the town do to cut costs? How many cuts? How many furloughs? Probably not a one. They faced the pandemic with blinders on. But plenty of residents lost jobs. And now we’ll have higher taxes. Well done Ridgewood. Well done.
This place sucks more and more every day.
Candidate Paulie. First cozies up to Dems, then supports every feel-good project in town, supports builders to over populate the CBD, then supports Garagezilla and its son. Then, if that weren’t enough, he backs closing Ridgewood Ave so he and a cabal of well placed restaurants can profit while others close. We are so screwed.
We took a ride around the Village today. My oh my the roads want to shit. All the damn weeds in the flowerbeds throughout the CBD clean it up.
This garage is Ridgewood’s version of a convention center or sports stadium. From inception to finish.