> The Village of Ridgewood will hold a Remembrance Ceremony on Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 7:30PM.
The Village of Ridgewood will hold a Remembrance Ceremony on Sunday, September 11, 2011 at 7:30PM. The Ceremony will be held at the 9/11 Memorial Rock in Memorial Park at Van Neste Square to remember the twelve residents killed at the World Trade Center terrorist attack. The Ceremony will be similar to the ceremony held in 2001.
During the month of September an exhibit of “Portraits” will be on display in the Belcher Auditorium at the Ridgewood Public Library. The exhibit of pictures honors the memory of each of ‘Ridgewood’s Twelve’ and offers a place for reflection. Photos of the Ridgewood 2001 Memorial Events will be included in the exhibit.
The music community will recognize the 10th Anniversary with the presentation of The Requiem by Gabriel Faure. The performance will take place West Side Presbyterian Church, 6 South Monroe Street at 4:00 p.m. Sunday,
September 11th. Various houses of worship in the area, community choral groups, and musicians including Ridgewood Concert Band, Ridgewood Symphony, and baritone soloist Dr. Robert Prowse will participate. This program was first presented after the fall of the towers in 2001.
>Ridgewood golfer set for final round of Women’s Met Open
Published 11:05 p.m., Tuesday, August 30, 2011
N.J. — Ridgewood Country Club golfer Margaret Platt-Klaus shot an 8-over-par 80 on Tuesday and is tied for 25th place after one round at the Women’s Met Open Championship at Canoe Brook Country Club.
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>Bullying Law Puts New Jersey Schools on Spot
By WINNIE HU
Published: August 30, 2011
Under a new state law in New Jersey, lunch-line bullies in the East Hanover schools can be reported to the police by their classmates this fall through anonymous tips to the Crimestoppers hot line.
In Elizabeth, children, including kindergartners, will spend six class periods learning, among other things, the difference between telling and tattling.
And at North Hunterdon High School, students will be told that there is no such thing as an innocent bystander when it comes to bullying: if they see it, they have a responsibility to try to stop it.
But while many parents and educators welcome the efforts to curb bullying both on campus and online, some superintendents and school board members across New Jersey say the new law, which takes effect Sept. 1, reaches much too far, and complain that they have been given no additional resources to meet its mandates.
>Ridgewood school district adjusting to new anti-bullying policy
MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2011
BY JOSEPH CRAMER
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
New Jersey’s Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights Act will officially take effect at the start of the coming school year, bringing with it changes to definitions and procedures concerning incidents of harassment.
The act, passed in January in part as a response to the nationally publicized suicide of Ridgewood High School graduate Tyler Clementi, is considered to contain some of the strictest anti-bullying laws in the country. The revisions to the existing Harassment, Intimidation and Bullying policy were formally adopted on second reading at the July 18 Board of Education (BOE) public meeting.
Water utilities may see faster ROI for infrastructure upgrades
The state is spelling out details of a proposal that will allow water utilities to recover costs for improving their water mains, hydrants and other infrastructure more quickly from customers without as much regulatory scrutiny.
The proposal, in the works for the past several months, would address a priority of Board of Public Utilities (BPU) President Lee Solomon, who has often said that the next big crisis facing New Jersey will be the cost of upgrading its aging water infrastructure.
With New Jersey facing as much $20 billion to repair its water and wastewater infrastructure, the streamlined payment mechanism is seen as a way of prodding water companies to speed up much needed repairs. If upgrades are done sooner rather than later, the long-term costs to ratepayers will be much less, according to advocates of the proposal. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)
Port Authority head says toll hikes are too LOW, not enough to keep up with rest of the world
Punishing toll hikes may have enraged New Yorkers – but they weren’t steep enough, says Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward.
Critically needed upgrades at the Port Authority Bus Terminal and LaGuardia and Newark airports will be delayed because of cash shortages, Ward told construction execs Tuesday.
“The reality is that you cannot always do more with less,” the bistate agency boss told a New York Building Congress luncheon.
“Sometimes you simply must do more, and we’ll be playing catchup with the rest of the world until that reality becomes a part of our political conversation.”
Ward was careful not to criticize either Gov. Cuomo or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who scaled down the PA’s planned toll hike to a still-crushing $15 by 2015. The agency had wanted a fast $4 toll hike on Hudson River crossings, which was slashed to $1.50 this year for E-ZPass drivers.
>Obama’s proposed regs would cost billions annually
President Obama told Speaker John A. Boehner in a letter Tuesday that his administration is considering seven regulations that would each cost the U.S. economy more than $1 billion per year, although he added that these rules are “merely proposed.”
All told, the seven proposed rules cited by Mr. Obama would cost companies at least $38 billion per year and could cost as much as $100 billion annually.
“Before finalizing any of them, we will take account of public comments and concerns and give careful consideration to cost-saving possibilities and alternatives,” Mr. Obama wrote to the Ohio Republican.
Mr. Boehner wrote to the president last Friday, asking for an accounting of proposed rules that would cost more than $1 billion annually. “The economy cannot withstand the barrage of major new federal regulations planned by the administration,” Mr. Boehner said.
>Swiss scientists finally discover the true cause of “global warming”. It’s the sun, stupid
Sun Causes Climate Change Shock
If Michael Crichton had lived to write a follow-up to State of Fear, the plotline might well have gone like this: at a top secret, state of the art laboratory in Switzerland, scientists finally discover the true cause of “global warming”. It’s the sun, stupid. More specifically – as the Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark has long postulated – it’s the result of cosmic rays which act as a seed for cloud formation. The scientists working on the project are naturally euphoric: this is a major breakthrough which will not only overturn decades of misguided conjecture on so-called Man Made Global Warming but will spare the global economy trillions of dollars which might otherwise have been squandered on utterly pointless efforts to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions. However, these scientists have failed to realise just how many people – alarmist scientists, huckster politicians, rent-seeking landowners like (the late Michael Crichton’s brilliant and, of course, entirely fictional creation) the absurd, pompous Sir Reginald Leeds Bt, green activists, eco-fund managers, EU technocrats, MSM environmental correspondents – stand to gain from the Man Made “Climate Change” industry. Their discovery must be suppressed at all costs. So, one by one, the scientists on the cosmic ray project find themselves being bumped off, until only one man remains and must race against time to prove, etc, etc…
> The problem many people have, including myself, is that the EPA is using the Clean Air Act as an excuse to limit the emission of carbon dioxide
Dear Mr. DuBois:
Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. I appreciate hearing from you on this issue.
A 2007 Supreme Court Decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, compelled EPA to address whether greenhouse gases are air pollutants that endanger public health and welfare, and if so to embark on a regulatory course that is prescribed by statute. Having made an affirmative decision on the endangerment question, EPA is now proceeding with regulations. EPA’s regulations focused first on the transportation sector with the issuance of standards for light-duty vehicles and proposed standards for medium and heavy vehicles.
With regard to stationary sources, EPA first targeted the largest new sources and major modifications of existing sources and recently announced plans to develop new source performance standards for the electric utility and refinery sectors. Such standards are the traditional approach used under the Clean Air Act and are generally implemented through state programs. The regulations are being developed on a time frame consistent with Clean Air Act requirements covering other pollutants to allow covered sources the flexibility of developing compliance plans that cost-effectively meet a comprehensive set of requirements.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Senator Lautenberg
Dear Senator Lautenberg,
on the surface, your response is correct. The problem is that it is too general. I think we all agree that the EPA must necessarily regulate the emission of certain materials, such as mercury, sulphur, etc. The problem many people have, including myself, is that the EPA is using the Clean Air Act as an excuse to limit the emission of carbon dioxide, which is not in the same category as other substances that are harmful and /or carcinogenic. The EPA is illegally “regulating” carbon dioxide to get around Congress so they can benefit those who believe it is responsible for so-called climate change. It is not. Over the past year, so much evidence has been uncovered, not just showing that data was fraudulently skewed and scientists lied, to make it appear that carbon dioxide was causing the earth to heat, but that current measurements prove that the earth is not heating at all (a fraction of one degree, if at all), and actually has been in a cooling cycle. Just within the past month, scientists at NASA have shown that the earth actually dissipates carbon dioxide into space at a much greater rate than the climate change liars have stated. While many, including myself, originally accepted the climate change claims, most of us have seriously studied the new data and the proof that so much of Al Gore’s initial claims are invalid. Cap and Trade couldn’t be pushed through the Senate for a reason; too many Senators realized it was a scam. The President, Al Gore, Goldman Sachs, Bill Ayers, and George Soros were among the few who were able to own all the shares of the Chicago Climate (Carbon?) Exchange, which would have eventually done 17 trillion in business a year, making them all billionaires. That’s the truth behind regulating greenhouse gasses – greed.
I have no arguement with your citing the Court decision that greenhouse gasses that are harmful should be regulated. However, carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, and should not be included in the listing. Those who claimed it was harmful have been refuted – after all, it is what you exhale with every breath, and what trees use to make oxygen. The EPA, at the President’s urging, I’m sure, is overstepping its authority by trying to control it. That is something that must come from Congress, if at all.
At 4:30 p.m. Friday, our governor took to the airwaves to deliver one of those sound bites for which he is nationally famous. He brought up the topic of some people who were still on the beach in Monmouth County in the face of the oncoming hurricane. “Get the hell off the beach,” he said.
It was good advice and I took it. I drove up to Manasquan to check the surf. It looked good, so I got the hell off the beach and went for a surf.
I gather this is not the sort of behavior our governor sought to encourage. But the day I start taking advice about the ocean from an out-of-shape lawyer is the day I decide that maybe breathing H20 isn’t such a bad idea after all.
After Chris Christie’s performance in the run-up to Hurricane Irene, we should change our nickname. We’re no longer the Garden State. We’re the Nanny State. For a few days there, it was impossible to turn on the TV without hearing Christie and New York Nanny Mike Bloomberg tell citizens what they should do for their own good. (Mulshine, The Star-Ledger)
>DIY Network Hammers Home Great Ideas for Indoor Renovations with an Original Primetime Series Brothers On Call
DIY Network Hammers Home Great Ideas for Indoor Renovations With Six Original Primetime Series and Five New Experts This Fall Newcomers include “I Hate My Bath,” “The Adam Carolla Project,” “Kitchen Crashers,” “Million Dollar Contractor,” “Brothers On Call” and “I Want That.”
If kitchen and bathroom renovations aren’t inspiring enough, DIY Network introduces two new docu-series Brothers On Call and Million Dollar Contractor. Both series capture professional contractors as they navigate the day-to-day operation of running a home renovation business and offer DIY home improvement tips and best practices. Premiering Sunday, Oct. 16 at 9 p.m. ET, Brothers On Call features sibling contractors Terry and Jon Wittmaack and follows their Ridgewood, N.J., based family-owned remodeling company as they show viewers what it takes to succeed in the competitive world of construction. From changing light bulbs to overhauling living rooms, the Wittmaack brothers and their team do more than 1,000 projects a year and DIY Network’s cameras are there to capture their hectic and often hilarious world.
>Don’t count on getting 15 minutes of parking for your dime
Some time ago, during one of the many changes in Ridgewood parking rules, the two parking meters next to the post office (near E. Ridgewood Ave. and facing north on N. Walnut St.) were changed to have a 15-minute limitation. The idea was to give people just enough time to run into the post office and run out, freeing those handy meters for others.
But don’t count on getting a full 15 minutes for your dime.
About a month ago I put a dime in the meter closest to the corner–meter #216. (Yes, they have I.D. numbers.) To my surprise, the number of minutes that popped up on the screen was not 15, but 12. I later called the police department to report this; they kindly asked if I had gotten a ticket. No. But I had made it back with a minute or two to spare, when it should have shown 5 more minutes.
It’s hard enough to be sure you’ll get out of the P.O. line in 15 minutes; shaving 20% off the total makes the deadline even tighter. What’s really wrong is that the patron who receives a ticket and didn’t notice the number of minutes allowed may not realize that the meter zipped to zero in record time, and just pay up. What will happen as we get closer to those long P.O. lines for holiday mailings?
Today I parked at the second meter from the corner, #217. It had 3 minutes left on it. I know these meters are not additive and didn’t expect to get 18 minutes, as I would have on other meters. But the number that popped up was 14. Is this random?
When I returned from the post office 11 minutes later (whew!), the meter I’d previously reported (#216), which had a car next to it, was flashing. Has #216 been adjusted since I reported that it was giving only 12 minutes? Does anybody check the accuracy of the short-time meters, which exist elsewhere in town as well, to make sure they aren’t shaving minutes off the little time allowed? If the meters can’t be adjusted to that degree of accuracy, maybe they should allow 20 minutes for 15 cents.
How many tickets at 15-minute meters have been received, and paid, unfairly?
The Back-To-School Night dates listed in the RPS Newsline that was sent to homes last week has two corrections: Ridge Elementary School grades 3-5 and the High School. Please click here for a complete list of back to school nights
Gov. Chris Christie angers union by opening state offices after Hurricane Irene
Even in a hurricane, Gov. Chris Christie and the state’s largest public employee union can find something to disagree about.
After encouraging private employees to stay home today, he called on all state workers, except those who found it impossible to get to work, to show up.
For many, it was a formidable challenge. Route 18 in Middlesex County was still partly submerged under the Raritan River, and on Interstate 287 in Morris County, a chunk of the shoulder gave way.
In Trenton, where most of the state offices are situated, Route 29 — adjacent to the rain-swollen Delaware River — was deluged, and the parking garage at the Statehouse was closed.
Christie had little sympathy for his fellow public employees who had to sit in bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours trying to navigate around closed roads. And when one of their union leaders complained, Christie jumped like a batter waiting for a fastball. (Gibson, The Star-Ledger)
