Reflecting on Three Years of Progress: How Ridgewood is Building a Stronger Future
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Tomorrow marks a major milestone for the Village of Ridgewood as Village Manager Keith Kazmark celebrates his third anniversary steering the municipality’s day-to-day operations.
Reflecting on three years of collaborative leadership alongside the Village Council, municipal employees, and local volunteers, Kazmark issued a community-wide update highlighting the strategic investments that are modernizing local infrastructure, stabilizing finances, and elevating the quality of life in one of New Jersey’s premier communities.
Financial Stability and Major Infrastructure Wins
At the core of the Village’s recent success is a rock-solid financial foundation. Over the past three years, Ridgewood has successfully maintained its elite AAA bond rating, a distinction that protects taxpayer dollars by ensuring the lowest possible interest rates for critical town projects.
By stabilizing the municipal budget and aggressively securing millions of dollars in external grants and low-interest financing, the administration has injected vital capital directly into local infrastructure without placing an unfair burden on homeowners.
Key achievements over the past three years include:
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Clean Water Initiatives: Advancing Ridgewood Water’s nationally recognized PFAS treatment facility build-outs and aggressively expanding lead service line replacements.
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Safer, Smoother Roads: Executing a comprehensive road resurfacing and paving schedule throughout the Village.
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Revitalized Parks & Recreation: Partnering with passionate local groups to expand, upgrade, and beautify neighborhood parks.
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Fully Staffed Emergency Services: Ensuring community safety remains a top priority by fully staffing local police, fire, and emergency response teams.
A Modern Approach to Public Communication
Recognizing that an engaged community is a stronger community, the Village has completely overhauled how it connects with residents since the summer of 2023.
To bridge the gap between local government and neighborhoods, the administration successfully launched the My Ridgewood mobile app, redesigned the official Village website, and dramatically increased its social media footprint. From expanded weekly email newsletters to interactive open houses, neighborhood meetings, and community events, the goal has remained simple: make municipal government completely transparent, accessible, and responsive.
Looking Ahead: The Future of Ridgewood
While the progress of the last 36 months is clear, municipal leaders emphasize that the work is far from finished. Moving forward, the administration is locking its sights on long-term initiatives designed to safeguard the town’s prosperity while preserving its historic appeal.
Future priority areas include:
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Flood Mitigation Efforts: Implementing proactive engineering solutions to protect vulnerable properties.
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Downtown Vitality: Supporting local small businesses to keep Ridgewood’s central business district thriving.
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Responsible Long-Term Planning: Modernizing aging water and utility systems while responsibly protecting the unique local character of the Village.
“The progress we have made over the past three years belongs to an incredible team of public servants and engaged volunteers who work every day to make Ridgewood one of New Jersey’s premier communities,” Kazmark stated. “I look forward to continuing our work together to get things done and to serve the residents of Ridgewood in the years ahead.”
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Tags: Ridgewood News, Bergen County, Local Government, Infrastructure, Public Safety, Clean Water Initiatives
KK is just fabulous, ask him.
His arms are long enough to pat himself on the back.
My guess is that he released this solely to dispel the rumors that he had accepted a job in the new governor’s administration.
We should be so lucky
The Staff of the Ridgewood Blog wrote this? It reads like a PR release. It would be nice if it was true, but not likely.
Reading this is worse than going for root canal.
No drinkable water any time soon
No Schedler solution, millions more wasted
No Performing Arts Center any time soon
Congratulations!
This is an AI generated joke right?
Hey Mr. manager, we know that this was putting your lap regarding the contaminated soil, but you are the manager nothing came from the mayor council the manager health department to Union on recording health and well-being of employees that worked at a few locations in the future. No one was proactive with reaching out to them to have them tested. So I guess you’re on the list of passing the book, I’m sure you’re listening to the village Attorney. But just remember this doesn’t go away, as of yesterday documentation stands that this is still an open case. And all this information is documented throughout the state DEP so the bottom line what are you going to do?
Outstanding work being done by Keith. It’s remarkable that the haters just pile on. They will be negative no matter what. Keith has improved communications with residents and is getting things done. Keep up the good work. Don’t let the lunatic fringe get you down.
Well heck Keith has got Carol B Director of Communications to handle his social media posts on Facebook/Insta for 6 figures while he concentrates his time to important Ridgewood special interest initiatives like a ball field on a highway and other great things. Kudos!
It’s amazing how he’s talking about police fire, emergency services being fully staffed, what about other departments that need staffing. He definitely needs to build up morale throughout the town. Because you can’t just praise a few departments and not others. and we’re not talking about pizza parties, because employees are sick of cold pizza and warm soda, it’s a nice gesture from the council that’s about it.
Probably wrote it himself LOL !
Cold pizza & warm soda. 😲
Has he been calling balls and strikes this whole time?
I love when he interrupts people during their public comment. That is the best!
The post is highly self-focused and image-conscious. Very poor taste and exudes insecurity.
A large professional portrait of himself. Resembles a campaign-style announcement driven by ego.
This has the energy of an employee giving themselves ‘Employee of the Year.’