The closing arguments for the Obama years are arriving, and they aren’t helping the outgoing president. A case in point is a new book published this week, one that acknowledges “Obama’s supporters have experienced [his presidency] as a continuous disappointment.”
Those supporters, and others, must have noticed that “for most of Obama’s term, wage gains were largely confined to the rich.” Or that “The administration’s planning in Libya clearly failed” or “It is certain that the actual outcome [of Obama’s Syria policy] was disastrous.”
Even many of President Obama’s proudest achievements look about as enduring as April snow: “If there was a single aspect of Obama’s legacy most vulnerable to reversal, it was his achievements on climate change,” the book says, and “Obama’s regulatory offensive is, of course, vulnerable to reversal by Donald Trump or the Supreme Court, since it rested upon executive action.” The longest chapter is titled “The Inevitability of Disappointment.”
There are several projects and services I want to share with you…
Traffic Alert – Starting Monday, January 16th PSEG will be working on Broad Street to upgrade the service in Ridgewood.Construction activities include the installation of manholes and underground pipe.The work will be done from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Mondaythrough Friday for approximately 3 months, weather permitting.Paving will take place after the 3-month construction period.Police will monitor the traffic but please try to plan alternate routes in order to avoid the traffic congestion in the construction area.
2017 Annual Parking Permits – Annual Resident, Non-resident and CBD employee parking permits are available for purchase at Village Hall.Driver’s License and car registration are required to apply for all parking permits.The Annual Parking Permits for residents which are available, cost $750 annually, and it allows residents to park in the Chestnut, North Walnut, and Cottage parking lots.We have reached our current capacity for the $1,000 Premium Permits, but you may call the Receptionist at 201-670-5500 ext. 200 to put your name on a waiting list for these permits, as new commuter parking spaces become available.
New in 2017 – “Shopper/Diner” parking spots are available in the Hudson, Prospect and Chestnut Lots.These parking spaces are marked with white signs and arrows, and commuter parking will not be allowed in these parking spaces.
Leaves…Our annual leaf collection is finished and we ask that from this time forward, please do not put any leaves in the street. Branches, plants and leaves can be brought to the Recycling Center or placed in paper biodegradable bags.All yard waste must be brought to the recycling center or held until yard waste pickup begins in the spring.Please consult your 2017 calendar for spring pickup schedules.
Christmas trees are still being picked up on both the east and west side of the Village each week.Please place them on your curb, and not into the street.
Snow and Ice Reminder – When there is snow and ice forecast, please assist us by placing your garbage cans at the end of your driveway, by the curb, but not in the street.This will ensure that our employees are able to safely pick up your solid waste. Additionally please remember to clear your sidewalks within 24 hours of snowfall.This is especially important on school walking routes, but is required in all residential zones.
In observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Village Hall and The Stable offices will be closed on Monday, January 16th There will be no sanitation or recycling pick up on that day.
Thank you for your cooperation,
Heather A. Mailander
Acting Village Manager
201/670-5500 x202
Mark Krulish , Staff Writer, @Mark_Krulish1:56 a.m. ET Jan. 15, 2017
RIDGEWOOD — The site of a former car dealership is once again a hub of commercial activity while an application before the village Planning Board, which would radically alter the property, awaits approval.
It has been nearly 4 1/2 years since Ken Smith Motors shuttered its doors after more than 60 years in business at its prominent location on Franklin Avenue next to the railroad underpass.
Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse-off than you. Millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis by the advocacy group Young Invincibles. (Jan. 13)
State and local governments have promised an estimated $5.6 trillion in pension benefits that they cannot afford to pay. (Photo: iStock Photos)
COMMENTARY BY
Rachel Greszler
Rachel Greszler is a senior policy analyst in economics and entitlements at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis. Read her research.
Pensions are a huge part of public employees’ compensation, often providing a quarter to a third of their total compensation. A new report from the American Legislative Exchange Council shows how politicians play politics with public pensions, threatening public employees and taxpayers alike.
State and local governments across the U.S. hold about $3.8 trillion in public employee pension assets. Unfortunately, the politicians and pension officials who manage these assets often sacrifice higher returns for personal and political gain.
Pension plan officials are supposed to look out for the best interests of pension beneficiaries, but the American Legislative Exchange Council report, “Keeping the Promise: Getting Politics Out of Pensions,” tells a different story:
Rather than investing to earn the best return for workers, [lawmakers and pension plan officials] use pension funds in a misguided attempt to boost their local economies, provide kickbacks to their political supporters, reward industries they like, punish those they don’t, and bully corporations into silence and behaving as they see fit.
The report shows three ways that pension officials play politics with public worker pensions:
1. Economically targeted investments. These are a way for public pension plans to buoy local projects at the cost of receiving significantly lower returns. These subpar investments strip pensions of billions of dollars in returns. Alabama is the biggest offender, with over 16 percent of its pension assets invested in them.
One particularly egregious example is Alabama’s pension fund investment in the troubled oil repair and shipbuilding firm Signal International. Alabama invested $21 million and later loaned $73 million to Signal (despite three years of it providing 11 percent losses).
Shortly thereafter, Signal was forced to pay $21 million to settle what was called “one of the largest cases of labor trafficking in modern times.” Signal later entered bankruptcy and was purchased by one of Alabama’s pension funds.
2. Political kickbacks. These allow private individuals and companies to buy access to public pension investments by making political contributions to certain local politicians, and by lobbying pension funds to invest in them. Investments based on politics instead of performance costs the average pension fund over $200 million a year.
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as CalPERS, suffered massive losses from political investments, largely at the helm of board member and union leader Charles Valdes.
Despite having no investment experience and twice filing for personal bankruptcy, Valdes spent 25 years as a CalPERS board member where he added significantly to pension deficits by granting investment contracts to political donors and engaging in suspect behavior with other board members.
During his 13 years as the investment committee chair, CalPERS experienced one of the worst investment performances of any public pension plan in the nation.
3. Political crusades. These are a way for politicians and pension officials to use pension investments to advance political views or causes. The most common example of late is pension funds divesting from energy companies.
Since divestment is based on political agendas instead of returns, it should come as no surprise that it results in significantly lower returns. A hypothetical portfolio showed divestment from energy products resulted in a 23 percent loss over five years, compared to no divestment.
There are also significant administrative and frictional costs (the impact of selling large quantities at once). Administrative costs for large college endowments were 12 times higher than socially conscious funds, and frictional costs were estimated to reduce the value of a fund by 2 to 12 percent over 20 years.
Moreover, political crusades have extended from certain sectors of the economy to personal objections.
For example, the American Federation of Teachers union has used its influence over an estimated $1 trillion in pension assets to “blacklist” about three dozen individual hedge fund managers who donated to causes and organizations that the union doesn’t like. Consequently, pension funds in at least seven states divested their pensions from these hedge fund managers to some degree.
One of the main reasons state and local pensions can get away with politically motivated pension fund management is that they lack adequate regulations and enforcement. State and local pensions are not subject to the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, but rather are regulated by states themselves.
The easiest way for states to eliminate the negative influence of politics in pensions is to shift to defined contribution plans. This would require governments to pay their workers’ retirement benefits immediately and would prevent politicians from having any role in workers’ personal investment decisions. Moreover, taxpayers would no longer be on the hook for unfunded promises.
Short of a complete shift to defined contribution plans, however, states need to strengthen fiduciary responsibilities to ensure pension officials are acting in the exclusive interests of participants, require greater oversight and transparency of public pension operations, and diversify pension boards.
State and local governments have already promised an estimated $5.6 trillion in pension benefits that they can’t afford to pay. Governments cannot afford to continue sacrificing valuable investment returns for the sake of short-term political and personal gains.
Let’s dispense with the obvious — while it’s far too early for political prognostication surrounding the 2020 presidential campaign, it doesn’t take too much effort to see that the Democrats have very little in the way of worthy candidates for nomination.
For this, they can thank Barack Obama and his eight years of hollowing out that party by relying on vicious identity politics and Hard Left cultural aggression to pile up near-unanimous votes in urban areas dominated by racial and ethnic minorities and “lifestyle liberals” at the expense of “normal” Americans in suburbs and small towns. Consequently, state legislatures are becoming more and more uniformly Republican and governor’s mansions are already there. The only path to national relevance for Democrat politicians is becoming the mayor’s office in larger cities Dems dominate.
Which is where Cory Booker, who appears to be the preener-in-chief among the rag-tag roster of 2020 Democrat presidential hopefuls, came from.
What Booker proves is it’s not important whether a Democrat is actually successful as a mayor on his or her ascent up the political totem pole — Booker, as mayor of Newark, couldn’t be considered a success by any rational measure. He rode some of the economic effects of an economic boom in New York City to an uneven construction boom in the city’s downtown and he managed to buy a couple of corporate headquarters away from other New Jersey cities with taxpayer dollars redistributed from what was left of Newark’s middle class. But in Booker’s time as mayor Newark went from 67 murders in 2008, a decline from 105 in 2006, to 112 killings in 2013, the year after he left office. Booker never presided over an unemployment rate in the single digits. And he laid off 163 policemen amid budget deficits his mismanagement produced.
It’s commonly believed today that “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.”
What nonsense.
Where does this “entitlement” regarding opinions come from? Who has bestowed it?
The statement is a decidedly modern one. No person until very recently in history would have dreamed of saying something so silly. It’s usually attributed to the American financier Bernard M. Baruch (1870-1965). The full quote reads: “Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” (I’m really not sure why the former imaginary “right” wouldn’t also entitle one to be wrong in his or her facts.)
Schedule a Complimentary Session with Robin Gardner, CDC Certified Divorce Coach® & Professional Coach
January 14,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Bring your questions and spend a 1/2 hour with Robin Gardner, CDC, CPC. Whether you’re contemplating divorce or have just begun the process, you will benefit with the proper support while saving money, time and energy in the end. Robin’s coaching shows you how to avoid the 6 biggest mistakes in divorce. She can help you overcome the emotions and get clarity on decision making in order to feel confident and empowered. As your coach, she will be your thinking partner and will assist you in preparing documents. Robin can help support you through this difficult time so that you don’t have to do this alone. You can thrive after divorce! Call 201-612-6700 or email: [email protected]
By Rajeev Dhir | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on January 13, 2017 at 7:04 AM, updated January 13, 2017 at 5:20 PM
New Jersey led the country in foreclosures for the second year in a row at more than double the national rate.
Atlantic City topped the national list of metro areas with the highest foreclosure rate in 2016 at 3.39 percent, followed by Trenton at 2.16 percent. RealtyTrac tracks metropolitan statistical areas with a population of at least 200,000 or more.
The state posted an average foreclosure rate of 1.86 percent of housing units in 2016, according to data released by RealtyTrac. The national rate of 0.70 percent dropped to a 10-year low.
The state’s foreclosure rate for December was 0.2 percent, compared to the national rate of 0.06. The state saw an increase of 13 percent in overall foreclosure activity from last December, while the national average dropped almost 17 percent from a year ago.
Ridgewood NJ, The Airbnb website currently lists approximately 10 available short term rental properties within the Village. Anyone recognize a familiar house?
Ridgewood NJ, and idea proposed by Ridgewood resident Saurabh Dani on the Facebook page “it takes a Ridgewood Village ” and could lay to rest any ambitions of build a parking garage in Ridgewood .
Dani suggests, if you live at a walking distance from Glen Rock ,Ridgewood or HoHokus train stations, there may be an opportunity to make money.
How about renting your driveway to a village resident or a few village residents if it’s big enough.You can charge anything that’s less than 83$ a month depending on how far you live from a train station, as that’s what the town is charging and is profitable at that price.
83$ a month is 1000$ a year. To spend $1000 a year, most of us have to earn about 1600-1700 a year (pre tax). So this is a good bonus for not much work.. you will just need to designate a specific spot on your driveway and exchange money every month.
We can probably use this Facebook page to create this market place. Thoughts?
Ridgewood NJ, Bottom line, there’s now an ordinance that prohibits such short term rentals. Those wishing to snub their noses at it and continue (or start) running such operations risk being fined $1000 per day if found guilty in municipal court.
ORDINANCE NO. 3570 AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND CHAPTER 117 OF THE CODE OF THE VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOOD ENTITLED “BUSINESSES AND OCCUPATIONS” AT ARTICLE I, SECTION 1A, AND TO CREATE A NEW ARTICLE IX ENTITLED “SHORT TERM RENTALS”. AMEND: ARTICLE I Section 117-1A ADVERTISE OR ADVERTISING: Any form of solicitation, promotion, and communication for marketing, used to solicit, encourage, persuade, or manipulate viewers, readers, or listeners into contacting for goods and/or services in violation of this Ordinance, as same may be viewed through various media including, but not limited to, newspapers, magazines, flyers, handbills, pamphlets, commercials, radio, direct mail, internet websites, or text or other electronic messages for the purpose of establishing occupancies or uses of rental property, for Consideration, which are prohibited by this Ordinance. HOUSKEEPING UNIT: Constitutes a family-type situation, ,involving one-or-more persons, living together that exhibit the kind of stability, permanency and functional lifestyle equivalent to that of a traditional family unit, as further described in the applicable reported and unreported decisions of the New Jersey Superior Court. OCCUPANT: Any individual inhabiting, using, living, gathering, entertaining, being entertained as a guest, or sleeping in a dwelling or a portion thereof, or having other permission or possessory rights or interest in the dwelling. OWNER: Any person(s) or entity(ies), association, limited liability company, corporation, or partnership, or any combination, who legally use, possess, own, lease, sub-lease or license (including an operator, principal, shareholder, director, agent, or employee, individually or collectively) that has charge, care, control ,or participates in the expenses and/or profit of a Dwelling Unit pursuant to a written or unwritten agreement, rental, lease, license, use, occupancy agreement or any other agreement. NEW ARTICLE ARTICLE IX: SHORT TERM RENTALS SECTION 117-56 – PERMITTED USE The residential occupancy of an otherwise lawful and lawfully occupied dwelling for a period of thirty (30) days or less by a person who is a member of the Housekeeping Unit of the Owner, without Consideration, such as house guests, is permitted. SECTION 117-57 – PROHIBITIONS: No person shall undertake, maintain, authorize, aid, facilitate, solicit and advertise any rental activity that violates any part or provisions of this Article. SECTION 117-57 -SHORT TERM RENTAL PROPERTY: Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Village Code, it shall be unlawful for any person, including but not limited to, and owner, lessor, sub lessor with any possessory interest in any dwelling, to receive compensation of any kind for the use, occupancy, or rental of any dwelling for a period of thirty (30) days or less. SECTION 117-59 – ENFORCEMENT: The provisions of this Article shall be enforced by the Village Zoning Officer, Fire Department, Police Department and any other Village Official or employee so designated by the Village Manager who all shall be authorized to issue summons or other appropriate civil violations or complaints for any violations of the terms and provisions of this Article. SECTION 117-60 – FINES AND PENALITES: Any person who is found or adjudicated to have violated any provisions of this Article shall be liable for a fine not to exceed one thousand ($1000.00) Dollars. Each day of any such violation after receiving written notice of same shall be a new and separate violation. SEVERABILTY: If any portion of this Ordinance is adjudged unconstitutional or invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction, such judgment shall not affect or invalidate the remainder of this Ordinance but shall be confined in its effect to the provision directly involved in the controversy in which such judgment shall have been rendered. Except as hereby amended, all other sections of the Code of the Village of Ridgewood shall remain in full force and effect. This Ordinance shall take effect upon final passage and publication according to law. Ridgewood News-4116350 Fee: $71.30 December 16, 2016
