Here we are yet again at yet another important Village Council meeting, Tonight at 7:30pm at the Village Hall. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to not making VC meetings a must attend every few weeks.
But that’s just how it is. For now anyway. Until we can get some folks onto the council who we can trust will listen to us and do the right thing when it comes to our village. That day will come sooner than later but for now, we must remain engaged.
So, in case you didn’t know already, tomorrow is the night that the Village Council likely plans to vote on overriding itself and go to the County for a bond. This is without a parking garage proposal that fits within the footprint of the Hudson street lot. This is with us being on the hook for several hundreds of thousands of dollars for the County bond, not to mention the likelihood of millions more for the building of a garage. This is against many of the the findings of the Maser Traffic Study from October 15th, which Councilwoman Knudsen and Councilman Sedon were unaware of until late December. I could go on and on…
The bottom line is that, inconvenient as it is, we must remain vigilant and protect Ridgewood, which means showing up and voicing our concerns.
Hoping to see you tomorrow night. And if you can’t make it, please email our Village Council and Village Manager to let them know that even considering voting to go to the County for a bond at this point is against the better interests of our village.
JANUARY 26, 2016, 8:53 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2016, 9:04 PM
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Local officials are looking to assuage public concerns about lead in drinking water after a letter from the local water utility recommended its customers take steps to avoid lead exposure.
The letter, sent to Ridgewood Water’s customers in Glen Rock, Midland Park, Wyckoff, and Ridgewood on Jan. 5, detailed lead’s health-damaging effects and advised customers to let water run to flush out lead that could’ve leached into the system from service lines and fixtures.
But David Scheibner, business manager for Ridgewood Water, said Monday night the letter is part of a public education campaign required by the state Department of Environmental Protection because of Ridgewood Water’s past history of elevated lead levels — not because of a new threat posed to the water supply.
Ridgewood Water’s pipes don’t have lead in them, he said, and the element is “undetectable” at the 52 wells in four communities that the utility operates. But those who live in homes built prior to 1930 might have lead service lines — water lines running from the house to the water main — and those homes built during 1982 –86 might have copper service lines soldered with lead, he said.
Only about 250 of the 20,000 service connections in Ridgewood Water’s territory have been identified as definitively having a line made of either lead or copper with lead soldering, said Scheibner — “The scope is minor, but we take it very seriously,” he said.
Ridgewood NJ, For years now we’ve heard the Aronsohn administration’s head cheerleader, Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, go on at nauseam about the importance of improving parking opportunities in the Village. We’ve listened to Ms. Sonenfeld, Mayor Paul Aronsohn and current Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce Presidnet Paul Vagianos proclaim at meeting after meeting why the availability of downtown parking is so crutial to the existence of RIdgewood’s business community. Nothing, they say, is more important to keeping existing Ridgewood businesses alive, and attracting new businesses to the Village, than maximizing parking opportunities. All of us have been led to believe that unless more parking opportunities are created, downtown Ridgewood will eventually become a ghost town.
So I ask, if the availability of parking is indeed so critical to the success of business in Ridgewood, why wasn’t snow cleared from every available parking space in the Central Business District prior to the start of business on Monday? The snow stopped falling at approximately 8 PMon Saturday – Portions of several municipal lots were still snow covered as of 3 PMon Tuesday. Metered parking spaces on Godwin Avenue and on Franklin Avenue were still inaccessible as of 6 PMon Monday. Metered parking spaces on Oak Street were still being cleared on Tuesday morning.
It is certainly understandable that the Village’s first priority was to clear traveled roadways, especially those near schools and medical facilities, and to ensure the safe egress of emergency vehicles in and out of their garages/headquarters locations. I also understand that there are a limited number of Village employees and limited pieces of Village owned snow removal equipment. But why where there no contractors called in to work exclusively on the removal of snow to facilitate downtown business operations, with a target of getting everything cleared out prior to the start of Monday morning business operations? And why weren’t contractor resources directed to remove snow from the Route 17 Park & Ride? Governor Chrisie encouraged commuters to leave their vehicles at home and take mass transit – that’s not easily accomplished if you can’t park your vehicle at a mass transit departure point.
Clearly, someone dropped the ball here. Contractors should have been placed on standby in the event the snowfall was too much for our own employees to handle. And I hope that Ms. Sonenfeld doesn’t use the lame excuse that contractors cost money – we’re prepared to spend over $12 million to improve parking opportunities, but won’t spend peanuts to remove snow from parking places? Give me a break!
I strongly encourage Village officials to be prepared for the next “big one.” Their lack of attention with respect to clearing snow from existing parking spaces suggests to me that all the talk about needing more parking is nothing more than a bunch of rhetoric.
JANUARY 26, 2016, 11:51 AM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2016, 4:08 PM
BY PETER J. SAMPSON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A Glen Rock man who is awaiting sentencing for bilking upwards of $3 million from more than a dozen investors is at it again, federal authorities allege, using a phony alias to scam new victims.
The new allegations against Paul Mancuso, 49, were leveled in a letter that a federal prosecutor sent last week to U.S. District Judge William J. Martini in Newark requesting that his $250,000 bail be revoked and that he be detained pending sentencing.
“Despite having pled guilty [in September] to defrauding numerous victims over a three-year period of more than $3 million, Mancuso is continuing to hold himself out as a real estate entrepreneur — using a phony alias — in a brazen attempt to lure additional victims into fraudulent real estate transactions,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Anthony J. Mahajan wrote in his letter to the judge.
Gathering for the first time after their epoch-ending decision to raise interest rates in December, the backdrop couldn’t be more different for Federal Reserve policy officials.
The long-awaited rate increase went smoothly, but simmering concerns over China, the global economy as a whole, deflating commodities and financial market valuations have since risen to the fore. Even fund managers that were relaxed about slightly tighter monetary policy last month are now wondering whether that was complacent.
“It is reasonable for investors to wonder whether Fed’s December rate hike was a policy error,” admits Bob Michele, chief investment officer of JPMorgan Asset Management. “Historically the Fed has raised rates because either growth or inflation was uncomfortably high. This time is different — growth is slow; wage growth is limited; deflation is being imported.”
Perhaps most of all, many investors now fret that they are operating without a safety net they had grown attached to during the post-financial crisis era.
A handful of industries are those “love to hate” types of businesses, such as cable-television companies and Internet service providers.
The federal government has joined the ranks of the bottom-of-the-barrel industries, according to a new survey from the American Customer Satisfaction Index. Americans’ satisfaction level in dealing with federal agencies –everything from Treasury to Homeland Security — has fallen for a third consecutive year, reaching an eight-year low.
The declines represent some backsliding for the U.S. government, given that satisfaction saw some improvement in 2011 and 2012, which may have been the result of spending in the wake of the recession. While the comparison with private enterprise isn’t apples to apples given the nature of government services, the findings have some implications for bureaucrats.
“Satisfaction is linked to broader goals in the political system that it wants to maximize, like confidence and trust,” said Forrest Morgeson, director of research at the ACSI. “It’s much more difficult to govern if the entire population dislikes you.”
Although satisfaction is down for the federal government as a whole, the research found that consumers have vastly different views of specific agencies. The department that received the highest score was the Department of the Interior, which received a ranking of 75 points. That could reflect Americans’ positive feelings toward national parks, which many visit while on vacation, Morgeson noted.
The lowest-ranked department may not be much of a surprise to taxpayers: Treasury, which received a score of just 55 points, or 20 points below the Department of the Interior. Treasury, as a reminder, oversees the IRS.
JANUARY 26, 2016 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
THE RECORD
You’ve no doubt heard about a sad winter phenomenon that recurs whenever snow and fire converge to cause panic, destruction and homelessness. It happens when firefighters arrive in time to quell a blaze, but they can’t hook up their equipment quickly enough — either because they’re unable to find a snow-covered hydrant, or when they do find one, they’re forced to waste precious minutes digging it out.
“And in a fire, everybody knows each minute counts,” said Ho-Ho-Kus Fire Chief Matt Menzel.
That’s why next Monday — nine days after Mother Nature covered nearly every hydrant from Mahwah to Cape May — a New Jersey law takes effect to make it easier for firefighters to find hydrants and quickly hook up their hoses. The legislation allows New Jersey’s 566 local governments to adopt ordinances requiring municipal installation of tall locator poles on all hydrants while encouraging each local governing body to require property owners to dig them out 24 hours after a snowfall or face a $75 fee if the municipality must do it.
Fire chiefs like Menzel aren’t taking sides, but the law has prompted considerable homeowner debate since Governor Christie signed it in July.
“I didn’t ask to have a fire hydrant on my lawn!” proclaimed Totowa’s Vincent D’Antonio Sr. “Will my taxes go down if I perform this municipal service? If not, I want the hydrant removed. This is absolutely a municipal function, 100 percent.”
A Fairleigh Dickinson poll released Monday find that 49 percent of New Jersey residents would support a proposed constitutional amendment dedicating gas tax revenue to the Transportation Trust Fund, the depleted funding source for the state’s roads and bridges. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
The public feels that most Americans are angry at Washington and many believe the country would suffer lasting damage if people who did not share their principles got their way in politics. At the same time, the latest national Monmouth University Poll also found that most Americans feel the harsh rhetoric of politics is not justified and believe that we can recapture the spirit that landed astronauts on the moon in the 1960s. However, there are significant differences of opinion among those who hold ideologically extreme views. Politicker Staff, PolitickerNJ Read more
The message from the public has been clear this presidential cycle. Anti-establishment rhetoric has brought avowed socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) to an equal plane with Hillary Clinton, while Donald Trump has held onto a commanding twenty-point lead against his closest rival, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). Dissatisfaction with the Washington status quo has been the only common thread, and some of New Jersey’s most prominent party chairmen think that trend could continue when the primaries begin next month. JT Aregood, PolitickerNJ Read more
Ridgewood NJ, With its close proximity to Ridgewood Hjigh School circle avenue was never plowed. It’s barely passable. The high school students are parked by the nursery school and essentially render that street one way. Some park their cars so close to Ridgewood ave that the tails of the car is sticking IN to RW ave. which also makes that turn ON to circle impossible.
Additionally, parents walking from all the way down the block to drop kids at this school-because heres no parking due to the students, are having to traverse some of the most poorly shoveled or deiced sidewalks I’ve seen. I saw a mother fall while holding her young daughter. She smacked her head in someone’s rock wall.
This street NEEDS to be addressed immediately. And the sidewalks that are so totally ice and snow covered, have got to have some code enforcement.
photos courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook Village of Ridgewood dump truck driver escaped possible electrocution by jumping from his vehicle
January 26,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The driver of a Village of Ridgewood owned & operated dump truck escaped possible electrocution by jumping from his vehicle after it became completely entangled in set of high voltage electric wires on Tuesday, 01/26 at approximately 12:30 AM. The truck’s raised dump bed had knocked the wires down as the driver was dumping a load of snow removed from downtown streets in the Graydon Pool parking lot on Linwood Avenue at Northern Parkway in Ridgewood.
Ridgewood PD, FD, and Emergency Services units responded to the scene. A utility pole was snapped in two after the truck hit the wires. A PSE&G crew was called to the scene to temporarily disconnect electric service to the pool facility until the snapped pole can be replaced
Ridgewood NJ, The town still has not cleared the parking lot at the Ridgewood Park & Ride on Route 17.
Walking from the parking spaces is now to the point of being brutal.The area froze last night and someone is going to get hurt.
Village residents get fined 24 hours after snow ends if not removed from the property.Commuters are now fining the town $200.00 a day for failure to clean the snow within 24 hours and compensation for dry cleaning.
Once again, the Council majority is trying to rush a construction agenda item through before any opposition can organize. Look for them to rush the “comprehensive impact studies” on the high density housing question through too. That vote will be scheduled immediately after the results are released so that the minimum number of people will have read them beforehand.
Apparently they only listen to rooms full of people with signs so let’s give them what they want.
Dear Members of Council and Manager,
There are many dissatisfied residents in town, and as our representatives, we urge you to listen to our concerns, not ignore them. We have lived in Ridgewood since 1968 and we don’t remember a time when legitimate concerns were given lip service and then ignored.
Marty & Ellie Gruber
Angela Turner Stoehr , does great job in explaining the problem with the current design. Hopefully watching your explanation will be an eye opener for many who think that some residents oppose all progress, and will come to the council meeting this Wednesday to request the council to come up with a design that fits the lot and not encroaches the street, and then bond it with our own bond, instead of going to BCIA, which will open up this lot mainly for out of town commuters because of the county funding and owning the garage.
As you are aware, in recent years, your Residents have voiced ongoing concerns with the “process” by which many important matters facing the Village are undertaken. Included in our concerns are handling of the High-Density Housing Ordinances, Schedler redevelopment, Habernickel house leasing/parking, and, of course, the Parking Garage designs and rushed BCIA Bonding for construction.
The Agenda set for this Wednesday, January 27’s Council meeting,https://www.ridgewoodnj.net/…/480-20160127-village-council-p…, is further evidence that our Village government is still not handling “process” in the well-planned, open and Resident-focused manner we have requested time and again. We need you to do the right thing, from the get-go, without the now routine changes that follow the constant, but fully valid and sadly necessary, complaints from your Residents.
For example, justifiable Resident complaint led to changes in the problematic scheduling of: (1) the original high-density ordinance public comment and vote, set for a single meeting on a night shared with 3-4 back-to-school nights, and (2) the recent “special public meeting” for high-density housing impact studies at the prohibitive time of Friday evening at 5pm.
We should not be Ridgewood’s guardians. That’s the Council’s job. But once again, your Agenda for this Wednesday’s meeting forces our hand. Why? Here’s why:
1. DANGEROUSLY RUSHED GARAGE BONDING WITH BERGEN COUNTY: Firstly, this Special Meeting is set to review the Bergen County Improvement Authority (BCIA) application and bonding, despite the fact that we don’t even have a finalized garage plan. In effect, we don’t know what we’re buying, but are still applying for the loan! It doesn’t take a financial genius to see the problem with that. At the 1/6/16 garage meeting, you committed to working on a new garage redesign that (1) fits on the lot, (2) does not cut Hudson Street in half, and (3) tries to address the concerns of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. So far, Residents have yet to be fully presented with any formal revised designs that we can use to either support or question the ordinance. We need to see these plans. What we do know is that the revised draft still does not fit within the Hudson Street lot and takes over several feet of Hudson Street itself. Based on the wording of the Referendum and the commitments of the 1/6/16 Council meeting, that is unacceptable and requires correction. Remember, several Councilmembers specifically told residents to “Vote Yes to Parking… and then Negotiate the size, scale and design of the garage later.” As such, based on your commitment to us, we ask that – as promised – you allow us to be a “real” part of the process. So let’s see the new plans before you write any checks.
2. FAILURE TO ADDRESS CONCERNS RAISED IN YOUR OWN TRAFFIC STUDY (by Maser): Beyond design, size and scale issues, Ridgewood must address and resolve the recommendations of its own Maser Traffic Study, which not only mandated further study of ‘at-capacity’ intersections at Broad/Ridgewood and Broad/Franklin, but also raised questions about the need for such a large garage at that location. In prior years, even the Mayor himself, in a very smart December 2008 essay on parking, stated that “I am not convinced that we need a large, potentially expensive garage… in fact, the more I learn about the situation, the more I believe that a garage now would be a big mistake” (https://www.paularonsohn.com/writ…/time-for-action-on-parking). The Mayor then wisely added some cost-effective recommendations, he called “Quick, Smart Fixes,” including enhanced signage for current parking lots (something that still hasn’t been done, but is a GREAT idea) and repainting existing lines to gain spaces. Many residents have voiced agreement with Mr. Aronsohn, circa-2008… let’s try other let costly (and maybe more effective) options first.
While you can legally take POLITICAL action towards bonding, you cannot take RIGHTFUL action towards bonding, in any manner, unless you let your Residents know exactly what you are bonding for, and give us a real opportunity to weigh-in and approve. Ultimately, Residents will pay this bill, either as parkers or through real estate taxes.
3. SCHEDLER DISCUSSIONS NEED TO HAVE THEIR OWN NIGHT, OR AT LEAST EARLIER PLACEMENT AT T A LATER MEETING: Lastly, but of similar importance, it appears you have scheduled a meaningful discussion on the Schedler Redevelopment matter at the tail end of this meeting, after what may be a lengthy parking review. Schedler is too important to too many Residents, and to the Village itself, to be given such short shrift. By the time the Schedler discussion occurs on 1/27, so late on the agenda, many or most of the concerned Residents who need to be there, will be gone. And even Councilmembers have complained of trying to make important decisions at late hours. Whether intended or not, this will continue to raise the specter of this Council’s legacy of problematic scheduling and “process.” This specter hurts your ability to be trusted by Residents and to be effective as leaders at a time you need to be the most effective. Please give this some real thought. According to many empty-nesters and seniors I’ve spoken with, Ridgewood has not seen so much government distrust and community group outrage in decades. Only you can fix this… and here’s a quick way to start:
Please do the following:
1. Put off the BCIA discussion and vote until we have answers to the Maser Traffic Study questions and until we know what parking plan we are bonding for.
2. Reschedule the Schedler discussion to a future meeting out of respect to your concerned Residents and to the import of the matter itself.
As always, while frustrated, we hope that you will do the right thing in the handling of both these related requests.
