Insulting people’s intellectual range, calling people idiots, inventing insulting names for people who have different opinions and calling those people’s opinions outrageous – all in one paragraph – doesn’t craft a winning argument for being “above the fray” or better than the average Blog reader… And if you indeed are a very devoted and vocal supporter of the current Council majority, I don’t think it reflects well on them either. You are not doing them any favors by being so nasty and quickly reduced to the level of name calling.
Why can’t anybody just discuss the issues anymore? Agree to disagree? I have strong opinions too but make an effort not to engage in that type of behavior. It is just unnecessary and unproductive. I think if you can’t hold it together, in public or in writing, people can probably sympathize with that feeling but maybe you should reconsider participating until you can pull yourself together. This thread of comments was not uncivil at all until you took it in that direction.
JANUARY 20, 2016, 1:33 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016, 7:12 PM
BY STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A phone number used to make bomb threats that led to school evacuations across North Jersey on Tuesday has been used in other, similar hoaxes, law enforcement authorities said on Wednesday.
Teaneck Police Detective Capt. John Faggello said calls were routed through a California number that “has been used before.” He did not disclose the number but said that he believes that “it’s a number commonly used in swatting incidents.” He said he did not know specifics about how the number had been used before.
Bergen County Acting Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal said on Wednesday that all of the calls made to Bergen County schools came from a phone number with a Bakersfield, Calif. exchange. He declined to say whether that number was linked to bomb threats made in other states on Tuesday, or whether the number has been linked to other hoaxes.
The Ridgewood Police Department will be conducting a police training exercise at Habernickel Park on Thursday 1/21/16.
While officers may be seen in tactical uniforms and wearing tactical gear no live weapons are being used in this training exercise.
This training is important and helps our officers and participating agencies better prepare for critical incident response. It is conducted in support of our mission to keep our community safe and to provide the highest quality of police services possible.
Any questions or concerns can be forwarded to the Chief’s Office at 201-670-5518 or [email protected].
We thank you for your support and understanding in our efforts to keep our community safe.
A special reminder to those who have spoken out in opposition to “Council majority” proposals –
Ridgewood NJ, Per section 249-1 of the Village Code, all snow and/or ice must be removed from sidewalks abutting Village streets within 24 hours after a snow storm has ended. And, the snow and/or ice that you do remove may not be placed in the street so as to impede the flow of traffic.
Based on the enforcement efforts VIllage Manager Roberta Sonenfeld directed toward compliance of the Village’s leaf removal regulations, I suspect the same level of enforcement, or greater, to be directed at compliance of Village snow and ice removal regulations.
And if you don’t think that someone at Village Hall is closely watching the properties of those us who speak out against them, just knock on some doors in the neighborhood surrounding the Irene Habernickel Family Park and ask what happened to some of the TAXPAYERS up there who spoke out publicly against the plan to house HealthBarn USA at 1057 Hillcrest Road.
Remember folks, “Somebody’s going to pay for that.” (Although, it was not meant as a threat.)
Ridgewood NJ, It is remarkable how rude Gwenn, Albert, and Paul are. Not just this week, not just this month, not just any current issue. This has been going on for as long as they have been in office. They were wildly inappropriate to Tom Riche, to Bernadette Walsh, to Ken Gabbert, to John Ward, to Susan Knudsen, to Mike Sedon, to Heather Mailander…..and these are just the elected officials and employees to whom their wrath has been directed. Then we have citizens who come to meetings that they lash out at, and indeed THREATEN. What the heck? How in the world do they get away with this?
And then there are the more subtle (well, less subtle than yelling, but still clearly wrong) incivilities, such as:
1. not allowing anyone to ask a question – or staring mutely while questions are asked, promising to answer them at the end, and then never answering them.
2. telling a nervous first-time citizen YOU ONLY HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO SPEAK AND DON’T ASK ANY QUESTIONS, thus making the person feel like they have already done something wrong before they even get to the podium.
3. allowing some residents to speak well after the buzzer goes off, but stopping others in mid-sentence when the 5 minutes is up.
4. talking among themselves when a resident that they do not like is speaking. (such private side-bar conversations, by the way, are a VIOLATION of the open public meetings act)
5. leaving the dais to talk to someone in the audience or in the hallway, thereby indicating to whatever member of the public who is at the podium that their words are not worth listening to.
6. not bothering to reply to the emails of certain residents
7. interrupting speakers they do not like, thus getting the speaker off base and thus cutting into the speaker’s allotted time.
8. texting while on the dais, yes, we see you doing this, thereby breaking their own rules and at the same time indicating that whoever is speaking is not worth listening to.
9. loudly popping open soda cans and eating during meetings. Really? You are up there chewing and slurping when a meeting is going on. Come on, no one on the dais is starving. Hold off on your dining until you are home. Can’t do without food for a few hours? Really
Mechanical failures most since 2010 as riders pay higher fares Christie continues budget shift to cover day-to-day expenses
New Jersey Transit commuter trains failed four times more than the U.S. average in 2014, as Governor Chris Christie continued diverting equipment funding to cover day-to-day expenses.
The railroad, the nation’s second-largest by ridership, recorded 213 major mechanical failures, according to figures posted Friday by the National Transit Database. That was 19 percent more than in 2013 and the most in at least four years. Nationally, 24 commuter railroads had an average 52 major failures in 2014.
New Jersey residents, who have one of the country’s longest average commutes, have been forced to pay more for mass transit as delays and breakdowns increase. In the year ended June 30, trains went an average 83,815 miles (135,000 kilometers) between breakdowns, the worst performance in at least four years, according to New Jersey Transit figures.
Only the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, serving greater Boston, had more breakdowns than New Jersey Transit in 2014, with 219 recorded, according to the database.
We’ve just released our annual State-Local Tax Burden Rankings. According to the report, 9.9 percent of income in America went toward state and local taxes (in FY 2012).
The report highlights the state-local tax burden on taxpayers in each of the 50 states, details how much residents pay to their state and other states, and illustrates taxburden trends over time and within each state.
New Yorkers faced the highest burden, with 12.7% of income in the state going to state and local taxes. Connecticut (12.6%) and New Jersey (12.2%) followed closely behind. On the other end of the spectrum, Alaska (6.5%), South Dakota (7.1%) and Wyoming (7.1%) had the lowest burdens.
The study’s key findings include:
During the 2012 fiscal year, state-local tax burdens as a share of state incomes decreased on average across the U.S. Average income increased at a faster rate than tax collections, driving down state-local tax burdens on average.
On average, taxpayers pay the most taxes to their own state and local governments. In 2012, 78 percent of taxes collected were paid within the state of residence, up from 73 percent in 2011.
State-local tax burdens are very close to one another and slight changes intaxes or income can translate to seemingly dramatic shifts in rank. For example, Delaware (16th) and Colorado (35th) only differ in burden by just over one percentage point. However, while burdens are clustered in the center of the distribution, states at the top and bottom can have substantially different burden percentages—e.g. New York (12.6%) and Alaska (6.5%).
It’s important to remember that a significant amount of taxation occurs across state lines, and that this shifting is not uniform. For instance, one might pay sales taxes at their local corner store, but also pay sales taxes when on vacation in another state. This shifting should not be ignored when attempting to understand the burden faced by taxpayers within a state.
JANUARY 19, 2016, 6:02 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2016, 7:35 PM
BY PATRICIA ALEX
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The pipeline from community college to a bachelor’s degree needs some work, according to a national report released Tuesday.
New Jersey is three percentage points above the national average, but only 17 percent of students who start at a community college in the state wind up getting a bachelor’s degree within six years, according to a report from the Community College Research Center at Columbia University.
Among students who started at community college and successfully transferred to a four-year college, only 42 percent completed a bachelor’s degree, compared with the 60 percent degree attainment rate of students who started at public four-year colleges, according to the report.
All but one of the state’s 19 community colleges were surveyed in the report that included data from 43 states, according to the center. The statistics were not broken down by college and only a statewide figure was provided.
Community colleges have been promoted as providers of an affordable first step toward a bachelor’s degree, but graduation rates remain low, particularly among low-income and minority students.
The contrast between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, startlingly evident in their debate Sunday night, could not be clearer. While devotees of the establishment can tell themselves that Clinton held her own, it is clear she did not.
Sanders had all the passion, anger, force and emotion on his side, and the best Clinton could do was to try to keep it in the park as her rival hit ball after ball. Since primaries are about motivation in getting out the vote, the Vermont senator has it all over Clinton.
So what happens if she:
(a) loses Iowa;
(b) loses New Hampshire;
(c) falls behind Sanders in the national polls and Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the head-to-heads?
The Democratic howls of concern will be deafening. “She’s blowing it again,” will be the least of what they will say. Democrats will feel trapped with a candidate who is showing before their eyes that she cannot even win a primary, much less a general election.
Cybercriminals don’t care that much about your credit card number anymore.
Uber, PayPal and even Netflix accounts have become much more valuable to criminals, as evidenced by the price these stolen identifiers now fetch on the so-called “deep Web,” according to security company Trend Micro.
Stolen Uber account information on underground marketplaces sells for an average of $3.78 per account, while personally identifiable information (PII) was listed for $1 to $3.30 on average, oddly down from $4 per record in 2014, according to data compiled by Trend Micro for CNBC last week. (PII includes any information that can be used to commit identity fraud, like Social Security numbers or date of birth and varies in price depending on the specific information for sale.)
JANUARY 19, 2016 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 2016, 3:41 PM
BY MARK KRULISH
STAFF WRITER |
TOWN JOURNAL
A Cappella groups from around Bergen County and the greater Tri-State Area are gearing up for the quarterfinal round of the International Championship of High School a Cappella (ICHSA) taking place at Northern Highlands Regional High School on Jan. 23.
Locally, groups representing Cresskill, Ridgewood, Paramus and host Northern Highlands will put their voices to the test against a number of schools from both New Jersey and New York.
The ICHSA Mid-Atlantic Regional competition will feature two rounds this year due to a boost in the number of high schools participating in the competition. The top three finishing groups on Saturday will compete in the semifinal round on March 19.
“It’s kind of exploding,” said Tom Paster, the director of the Northern Highlands group Highlands Voices, which has won the regional competition for the past five years in a row.
One of those newcomers is a group known as The Octaves, a collection of vocalists from Paramus High School.
The Octaves stand in contrast with many of the groups competing as it is completely run by its students. Junior Victoria Marchlewski handles the musical arrangements and vocal parts while Blu Frankel, a senior, runs the meetings and rehearsals.
“They’re pretty much in charge,” said Amanda Faley, the original advisor to the group. “They run the meetings, send out messages, practice at houses on weekends and meet in my room or the auditorium during the week to rehearse and put stuff together.”
The Octaves are still a relatively young group, only about nine months old. They were formed during the spring in the last school year and were able to enter the A Cappella Festival at Northern Highlands last April. Right away, the nascent group was sharing the stage with high school groups from northern and central New Jersey as well as Casual Harmony from Rutgers University.
Since then, The Octaves have performed at other small functions around Paramus, such as the Relay for Life event at Bergen Community College, the Christmas tree lighting ceremony and a senior citizen breakfast at Paramus High School, but the big focus for the students has been the ICHSA competition.
“[The students] are so mature and so responsible,” said Faley. “A lot of teams, they have these big musical coaches who went to places like Julliard. They have professionals hired doing these things with these groups. I’m not making any arrangements or choreographing for them, which is really cool.”
Over at Ridgewood High School, both men’s and women’s groups are feverishly preparing sets of their own. Ridgewood will be sending both the Maroon Men and the Acabellas to the competition.
“The kids are doing well,” said Steven Bourque, the director of both groups. “They’re working hard and I have for the first time some student arrangements. Kids within the group arranged music for the competition.”
Bourque said the students are in the midst of working out an optimal visual component to go along with the songs. Bourque said the Maroon Men tend to favor rock and roll songs while the Acabellas gravitate more toward slower, more powerful songs.
“It’s figuring out how to create formations that are interesting, that don’t involve a lot of movement and getting it to be represent each song that we are singing,” said Bourque.
Would today’s students be better off if we provided and encouraged more hands-on training program options?
Annie Holmquist | January 19, 2016
In Forbes today, columnist Erik Sherman addresses a common mistake that politicians and the public make about education. All too often, writes Sherman, “we move from ‘education is good’ to ‘education will fix income inequality’ or otherwise charge the economy.”
Because the public has believed such taglines, the push to send every student to college to get a degree has seen a dramatic increase in recent years. And as the push to college has increased, so has student debt. In fact, as a recent Gallup poll noted, 35% of students who graduated in the last 10 years have racked up more than $25,000 in debt.
JANUARY 20, 2016 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Municipalities may try to levy property taxes against non-profit hospitals now that Governor Christie has vetoed legislation that enshrined the property tax exemption of the non-profits and instead would have required them to pay a community-service fee.
Advocates of the measure said they planned to return this session with a bill that satisfies the governor, while protecting hospitals from costly lawsuits and compensating local governments for some of the services they provide.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney said he was “extremely disappointed” with the governor’s action, which he attributed to the governor’s “personal political ambitions.” By assessing a fee on non-profit institutions, the measure might have been construed as a new tax by Christie’s conservative competitors for the Republican presidential nomination, Democrats said.
The measure followed last summer’s Tax Court decision that invalidated the property-tax exemption enjoyed by non-profit Morristown Medical Center. The hospital’s parent company, Atlantic Health System, eventually agreed to pay $15.5 million to satisfy back taxes and interest, and will make future payments of about $1 million annually as tax on the for-profit part of its operations.
Non-profit hospitals across the state have been concerned that they, too, will face costly litigation — and big tax bills. In a historic shift, those hospitals had volunteered to make the “community contributions” outlined by the measure that went before the governor.
“We are disappointed with the pocket veto,” said Betsy Ryan, president and CEO of the state’s largest hospital association.
But critics had considered the measure lenient on the hospitals. Several local governments had expressed concern that the measure shortchanged local governments. Its $2.50 per-bed, per-day fee was far too little, they said. The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, for example, would have been assessed about $407,000 annually, less than one-tenth of the potential property taxes on its full 15.5-acre property.
Some municipalities already are in “fact-finding mode” and are requesting information from their hospitals about their for-profit and non-profit operations, said Michael Cerra, vice president of the New Jersey League of Municipalities, which opposed the measure. “No one is looking to put anyone out of business,” he said.
When parking was made half price in lots, I made an effort to park in the lots. When street parking cost the same, I began to park on the street again. And there it is. Financial incentives can work to improve things when they are planned carefully. Doubling and tripling parking fees will cause many people to run away. The town cannot survive by catering only to those who don’t think twice about what they spend on items large or small. What we are facing is endless disincentives, like the prospect of having to pay 35 cents for the privilege of paying to park. For me this will never happen and if the meters stop accepting coins the CBD will never have my business again. Add to that the horrors of the single-lane underpass and now the blinding and stupid sign telling me to shop and dine in my town, and I basically avoid downtown to the greatest possible extent.
Can we talk about hypocrisy? This just in from Facebook for all to see: Gwenn Hauck preaching civility after she has been heard openly ridiculing and taunting various residents who come to speak up at meetings. She is the biggest most vicious member of the council. Read this posting :
Gwenn Hauck Echoed with sadness, Patricia. There is value in disagreement – but not so viciously. Ridgewood’s greatest joy should be its people and its community. People who condemn others for seeing things differently don’t see that their fighting-style makes our town much less attractive than any park or garage or apartment building…. Ridgewood was renowned for its strong sense of community and the pride that everyone felt just in being part of that! Now, Ridgewood is known as a critical, and severely polarized town that pits people against people and residents against government. In my experience the best solutions are born out of sincere, respectful, disagreements and a modicum of rapport.
