Why didn’t our former deputy mayor recuse himself from March 23rd’s vote on High Density Housing, when, as a member of the Planning Board, he had previously recused himself for the same issue?
Why was an unvetted/unsubstantiated letter from the Fair Share Housing Center written into the record as fact/evidence by the former Planning Board Attorney?
Is it coincidence that on the same day a resident complaint was filed against the Planning Board, one of its members who was named as having a conflict of interest, should happen to resign?
These are questions that we as residents deserve answers to. According to their By Laws, the Planning Board has the right to stop the pending site plan high density housing review and investigate these matters.
Please join me on Tuesday, October 4th, 7:30pm at Village Hall to help remind the Planning Board who they really represent.
If you cannot attend, please consider emailing the secretary of the Planning Board, Mike Cafarelli, ([email protected]) to share with the Planning Board that we need these questions formally addressed.
Ridgewood NJ, The National Transportation Safety Board issued an investigative update Saturday October 1st about its investigation of Thursday’s crash of NJ Transit Pascack Valley Line train #1614 into the platform of the Hoboken Terminal.
Updated information includes the following:
Investigators interviewed the accident train engineer. No interview summaries will be provided until interviews are completed.
Environmental and structural issues still prevent removal of the train from the station. Extensive debris removal must be completed before investigators can access the train and then have the train removed.
With the assistance of NJ Transit, investigators obtained video from other trains that were at the Hoboken Terminal, to see what those cameras captured from the accident event. The event recorder and camera from the controlling cab of the accident train remain inaccessible to investigators.
The event recorder from the trailing locomotive #4214 has arrived at the recorder manufacturer’s facility in Kentucky and NTSB personnel are supervising the attempted download.
There were no signal anomalies found on the tracks leading to the terminal. A full signal study cannot yet be completed because the accident train remains in the terminal.
Investigators completed the walking inspection of the track and found nothing that would have affected the performance of the train.
Main/Bergen County/Pascack Valley/Port Jervis Lines Remain on Weekend Schedule
October 3,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, NJT has announced service plans for tomorrow, Monday October 3rd, and until further notice, following the commuter train accident at Hoboken Terminal. All rail service into and out of Hoboken Terminal remains suspended. Hudson-Bergen Light Rail service has been restored into and out of Hoboken and will continue to operate on a full weekday schedule.
Cross honoring with PATH, ferries, NJ TRANSIT bus and private carriers will continue until further notice.
Rail
Main, Bergen, Pascack Valley and Port Jervis lines will continue to operate on a weekend schedule originating/terminating in Secaucus, with stops at Teterboro and Woodcliff Lake stations (weekdays only).
All rail service to and from New York Penn Station will operate on a normal weekday schedule. This includes Northeast Corridor, North Jersey Coast Line and MidTOWN DIRECT trains.
Raritan Valley and Atlantic City Rail Lines will operate on normal weekday schedules.
Customers in New York City who need to access Secaucus are urged to take trains from New York Penn Station or use the Port Authority Bus Terminal for NJ TRANSIT and private carrier busing alternatives.
Customers in Hoboken and Jersey City who need to access Secaucus are urged to use Hudson-Bergen Light Rail to Liberty State Park, where shuttle buses will take them to Secaucus.
Morris & Essex Line, Gladstone Branch and Montclair-Boonton Line will have limited service running every two hours for points west of Montclair State University and west of Dover, in addition to regular MidTOWN DIRECT service.
Please note: MidTOWN DIRECT service will make additional stops east of Summit.
Customers may experience overcrowding and possible delays caused by congestion.
NJ TRANSIT urges customers to check njtransit.com for service updates and sign up for MyTransit alerts, which provide service updates via text or email.
Metro North Service for Pascack Valley Line and Port Jervis Customers
RIDGEWOOD, N.J., Advisors Capital Management, LLC (ACM), a globally recognized investment manager, is pleased to announce that Dr. Alan Greenspan has joined ACM as Economic Advisor. The former Federal Reserve Chairman will work closely with senior members of the firm and participate in the firm’s investment committee by providing economic analysis to support the firm’s top-down approach to selecting sectors in the economy for investment. Dr. Greenspan will also provide economic and market valuation analysis.
Dr. Alan Greenspan Joins Advisors Capital Management as Economic Advisor
ACM’s co-founder and Chief Investment Officer, Dr. Charles Lieberman, is looking forward to the collaboration. “I am very excited to resume working with one of the towering members of the economics profession. He has served our profession and our nation with distinction. I am now pleased we can bring the benefit of his insight to our investment clients.”
Dr. Greenspan’s insight will be highly beneficial to ACM’s investment management. ACM’s investment process led by Dr. Lieberman, a former Wall Street, and Federal Reserve economist, identifies economic sectors that might be affected by macro developments, before implementing a value oriented bottom-up securities selection.
About Alan Greenspan
Alan Greenspan served five terms as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System from August 11, 1987, when he was first appointed by President Ronald Reagan. His last term ended on January 31, 2006. He was appointed chairman by four different presidents.
Shortly after assuming office as chairman of the Board of Governors, Greenspan faced the October 1987 stock market crash and acted quickly to inject liquidity into the financial system to calm the markets. During his tenure, he led the Federal Reserve through several major events with significant economic repercussions, including two U.S. recessions, the Asian financial crisis of 1997, the collapse of Long Term Capital and the Russian default in 1998 and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Many observers credit Greenspan with further reducing inflation while facilitating the longest official economic expansion in U.S. history. For these accomplishments, he was dubbed the “Maestro” by Wall Street analysts. He was also known for his skill at building consensus among members of the Federal Open Market Committee on policy issues.
About Advisors Capital Management, LLC
Established in 1998, and headquartered in Ridgewood NJ, ACM is globally recognized investment manager providing portfolio and wealth management services to affiliated advisors and direct clients throughout the United States. ACM has been named to the Financial Times Top 300 RIAs* over the past two years and the firm’s investment income solutions have been recognized by numerous financial media outlets including Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.
It’s worth pondering the role of helicopter-parenting.
Devin Foley | November 10, 2015
At the same time some students are flexing their political muscles (with the help of some professors) at the University of Missouri, Yale, and other schools demanding “safe space”, we’re treated to an increasing number of stories about the lack of resilience and overall fragility of many college students.
Quite honestly, the psychology of it all is fascinating, but deeply worrisome when you consider we’re all in this as a society. So, what’s going on?
Peter Gray, Ph.D., a research professor at Boston College, recently wrote for Psychology Today about the issue.
“A year ago I received an invitation from the head of Counseling Services at a major university to join faculty and administrators for discussions about how to deal with the decline in resilience among students. At the first meeting, we learned that emergency calls to Counseling had more than doubled over the past five years. Students are increasingly seeking help for, and apparently having emotional crises over, problems of everyday life.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota’s top health insurance regulator says the state’s individual market is in “an emergency situation” amid big rate increases for next year.
Department of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said Friday that the five companies offering plans through the state’s exchange or directly to consumers were prepared to leave the market for 2017. He said big rate increases were the tradeoff to convince all but one company to remain for now.
Rate increases finalized this week range from a 50 percent average hike for HealthPartners plans to a 67 percent jump on average on UCare.
Monday, November 14, 2016 7 to 10:30 PM Indian Trail Club, 830 Franklin Lake Road, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417
Ridgewood Nj, The area’s finest restaurants and bakeries will join together for the 24th Annual …A Fall Night of Fine Dining. On this special occasion, West Bergen is honored to present its prestigious Distinguished Service Award to outstanding community leaders, Esther and Patrick Fletcher of River Edge. Please visit afallnight.com for reservations and information. Tickets are $175 per person and are tax deductible. Seating is limited. Sponsoring this year’s event is Boiling Springs Savings Bank. West Bergen is a non-profit organization providing a wide range of psychiatric and counseling services for all age groups with various levels of need. West Bergen is committed to meeting the psychological needs of each of its clients with sensitivity and responsive, innovative services of the highest quality.
By DAVID BARSTOW, SUSANNE CRAIG, RUSS BUETTNER and MEGAN TWOHEY
OCT. 1, 2016
Donald J. Trump declared a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, a tax deduction so substantial it could have allowed him to legally avoid paying any federal income taxes for up to 18 years, records obtained by The New York Times show.
The 1995 tax records, never before disclosed, reveal the extraordinary tax benefits that Mr. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, derived from the financial wreckage he left behind in the early 1990s through mismanagement of three Atlantic City casinos, his ill-fated foray into the airline business and his ill-timed purchase of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax rules especially advantageous to wealthy filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use his $916 million loss to cancel out an equivalent amount of taxable income over an 18-year period.
RE: October 4th,the Ridgewood Planning Board will be discussing the Conflict of Interest complaint
Get out and speak up. No, get out and shout. If the Aronsohn projects go through, our downtown may never recover and the Aronsohn blight will spread through town over the next decade. We’ve all spent a lot of tax dollars to maintain this town, let’s not give it up to a handful of land speculators who have to be laughing gleefully at the stupidity of the Aronsohn council majority.
More importantly, the conflict issue raised by these citizens calls out to all of us. Is this how we want our local government to be run? If these allegations are true, we need to put that truth into the light of fay and take appropriate action. If we don’t, what message do we tell the next generation? Just as importantly,, what message do we send to the next round of land speculators who want to take over another section of town for their own profit? Do we want that message to be: “Sure, get some friends placed on our planning board and walk all over us.”
So,email or call your planning board representatives. Show up at the meeting. Write tot he town council, especially those we just elected and tell them you want action.
Please also consider sending the following note to the Planning Board and our Mayor via email:
Dear Mayor Knudsen, Chairman Joel and Planning Board Members,
I am aware that a group of concerned residents delivered a Motion of Complaint to the Ridgewood Planning Board, under By Law Sections 2.13 and 7.21, dated September 16th. Their motion brings to light a series of conflicts of interest and unacceptable mistakes that impacted the high density housing votes. It spotlights the truly defective process by which these highly unpopular ordinances (3489, 3490, 3491 and 3493) were passed. It is not right for Ridgewood residents to have such important decisions made, and the future of our village impacted, by a forum influenced by potential personal conflicts and/or mistakes. Preventing such actions is clearly the intent of the Planning Board’s own By Laws.
Therefore, I fully support the motion made by these residents. I ask that the Board stop all current high density site plan reviews and promptly begin a complete review of the residents’ complaints. Should any conflicts or mistakes be found, the Ordinance votes and Ordinances themselves should be rescinded and reevaluated via a proper and untainted process.
Secretary Cafarelli, please forward/print this email to all Planning Board members.
Ridgewood NJ, Blessing of the Animals and celebration of the life and ministry of St. Frances of Assisi at Christ Episcopal Church in Ridgewood has become an annual event .
Everyone brought their favorite pets: dogs, cats, goldfish, rabbits and even stuffed animals….any beloved creature, great or small. A short service celebrating all animals was followed by individual blessings of each animal. Mayor Susan Knudsen stopped in for a visit .
Ridgewood NJ, The illegal dumping of large amounts of concrete, asphalt millings, brick, and home renovation items at the Village’s compost facility on Lakeview Drive remains unsolved more than 14 months after the debris was initially discovered there by NJDEP Inspector Kenneth Cadematori.
The staff of The Ridgewood Blog remains perplexed as to how several tons of illegal materials were transported into a gated and locked facility, dumped, and then concealed with wood chips by someone using a bucket loader – all of this done without anyone seeing anything out of the ordinary?
This is what NJDEP Inspector Cadematori wrote in his official reports about the dumping:
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Report dated 7/14/2015 (Note: Mr. Cadematori had previously inspected the site on 6/4/2015 and found no violations):
During a routine compliance inspection, noticed a large amount of concrete, asphalt millings, brick, and home renovation items illegally dumped over a berm on the site. The four (4) spots where these materials were illegally deposited were along a river. I noticed these four (4) areas of illegal dumping when I saw that these four (4) spots on the berm had a bucket loader of woodchips and tire marks leading up to it. Once I stood onto of the berm I saw the 4 spots of illegal dumping.
I called the site supervisor to meet me at the site because the Superintendent was not in the office. While I was waiting a Town of Ridgewood worker pulled in and then drove off when I was attempting to flag them down about the illegal dumping, I was wearing my bright neon safety vest and white safety helmet and waving my papers while the worker was only 30 yards away from me. The supervisor was shocked and unhappy that someone would do this at their site. We reached out to the Superintendent who is filing a police report with the Town of Ridgewood.
The facility is arranging to get equipment to assist with the job. The facility needs to deconstruct the berm which was previously made up of asphalt millings/chunks, concrete, and dirt so the contaminants in these material don’t run-off into the river directly below the berm. Also, the facility needs to take out all C&D material in the woods, put materials into roll-off containers, and then bring to a recycling center and get receipts for the amount of material and show proof of correctly disposing of illegally dumped materials on their property.
Report dated 7/17/2015:
Met with Ridgewood Village Superintendent and engineer about the illegal dumping that happened on the site. The Superintendent has filed a police report with the town of Ridgewood and an investigation is underway. During the on-site meeting we discussed appropriate actions on removing illegally dumped material in the woods and removing a section of berm which is made up of concrete, asphalt millings and some dirt. The run-off from these berms are going into the river below.
Superintendent is waiting on appropriate equipment and roll off containers top put debris in so the Department and town can understand the amount of material that was illegally dumped.
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In the hope of solving this “crime of the Century,” the staff of The Ridgewood Blog is now considering starting a GO FUND ME page to raise money in order that a CASH reward can be provided to the individual(s) who provides information that leads to the arrest AND successful conviction of the person or persons responsible for this as yet unsolved act.
Ridgewood NJ, just days after Hillary Clinton trolled two White House opponents with a single response, according to the main stream media ,”dinging Gary Johnson and Donald Trump by naming Angela Merkel as her favorite world leader.”
The Ridgewood blog found it more interesting the 30 years in politics and this is who Hillary Clinton singled voluntarily out without being asked .
Angela Merkel could use some friends about now , like Clinton’s immigration proposal Merkel has continued to defend her decision to admit more than a million migrants to Germany last year has left her increasingly isolated from other leaders coping with anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment in their electorates, especially after terrorist attacks.
Worse yet ,Merkel also currently finds her self in “deep do do” as fears of a Deutsche Bank collapse have rattled financial markets across the globe. Under capitalized Deutsche Bank shares were hit first by a demand for up to $14 billion from the U.S. Department of Justice for mis-selling mortgage-backed securities, then a reported Berlin lead rescue plan seemed tenuous at best.
In Italy six current and former managers of Deutsche Bank, including Michele Faissola, Michele Foresti and Ivor Dunbar, were charged in Milan for colluding to falsify the accounts of Italy’s third-biggest bank, Monte Paschi (which itself is so insolvent it is currently scrambling to finalize a private sector bailout) and manipulate the market. Two former executives at Nomura Holdings Inc. and five at Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena were also charged.
On September 24th Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out any state assistance for Deutsche Bank AG in the year heading into the national election in September 2017, a magazine called Focus magazine reported.
So does this imply that Deutsche Bank’s likely recapitalization effort while asking German Tax Payer Bailout or German Bank Depositor Bail-in? Let face it ,Deutsche Bank is going to need some money ASAP. Remember in a concerted effort to reduce or potentially eliminate the risk of taxpayer-funded bail-outs of European banks, the EU implemented a new “bail-in” regime beginning on January 1, 2016.
Or perhaps her new friend Hillary Clinton will come to the rescue with some kind of a US sponsored US taxpayer subsidized bailout?
It is not so far fetched with the Obama Administration setting the precedent with the Iranian payoff earlier this year.
‘Half the people don’t know what that means, but it’s something that they deeply feel.’
By CRISTIANO LIMA
Updated 09/30/16 10:12 PM EDT
Hacked audio of a conversation between Hillary Clinton and donors during a February fundraising event shows the Democrat nominee describing Bernie Sanders supporters as “children of the Great Recession” who are “living in their parents’ basement.”
Speaking at a Virginia fundraiser hosted by former U.S. ambassador Beatrice Welters, Clinton says in a clip released by the Free Beacon that many of her former primary opponent’s supporters sought things like “free college, free health care,” saying that she preferred to occupy the space “from the center-left to the center-right” on the political spectrum.
