AUGUST 21, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Village should give more attention to King’s Pond Park
To the Editor:
It was reported last week that two truckloads of construction debris were dumped in the rear of the village’s composting site at the end of Lakeview Drive sometime in the prior two months. The village manager’s response is that the police are attempting to track down culprit. This effort seems like a worthy effort. However, the result of this dumping, although wrong, is inconsequential as it is not visible from any walk paths, does not impede access to anything and actually blends into the landscape of that area.
How the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection was able to discover and react to this violation is to be applauded. However, the DEP and the village administration have failed to recognize the very visible dumping by Mother Nature on King’s Pond Park, the largest wildscape in Ridgewood. Here, we have a dangerous, partially collapsed dam, a pond full of debris, and a shoreline overgrown with vegetation that denies access. All of this is in plain view but remains ignored. It is a disgrace that this wildscape has been allowed to deteriorate without any action by current or previous village mangers or the DEP. After 15 years of neglect, the current village budget is devoid of any funding to address this situation.
From my standpoint, if you want to clean up a mess, let’s put our efforts into restoring a popular fishing area in a very visible park setting to its intended use. The village’s 2006 master plan showed, in detail, how that could be accomplished. It’s way past the time when it should be implemented.
I fully support using this structure for affordable housing. But it points out the problems with the spot zoning created by the planning board’s decision to open up downtown ridgewood to developers.. More and more property owners are going to seek to build apartments in downtown Ridgewood. If i owned a one story structure for which I got one rent from one tennant, i would be a fool not to want to build a four story structure and bring in 50 tenants like the developers have now been given the green light to do. This is the floodgate that the planning board foolishly or intentionally opened. While Gail Price said it wasn’t spot zoning, she was wrong on that issue as she has been on so many of her irrational decisions pro-development, pro-hospital rulings over the past four or five years.
America’s housing market has been heating up this summer.
Purchases of previously owned homes unexpectedly rose in July for a third straight month to reach the highest level since February 2007, figures from the National Association of Realtors showed Thursday. The gain was driven by stronger sales of single-family houses even as the share of first-time buyers shrank.
A limited number of available properties is keeping prices elevated, giving homeowners the financial flexibility to trade up as their housing equity improves. The data and a recent report showing the strongest rate of residential construction since 2007 are consistent with the Federal Reserve’s view that the industry is making progress.
“Demand is solid,” said Brian Jones, senior U.S. economist at Societe Generale in New York. “The driver is that we’ve got a labor market that’s very healthy and mortgage rates are still very low. The Fed has clearly got to be happy with the housing numbers we’ve seen.”
Another report Thursday showed the job market is holding firm. First-time claims for jobless benefits rose by 4,000 to 277,000 last week, according to the Labor Department. Since early March, applications have been lower than 300,000, a level typically associated with an improving employment.
A joke presidential candidate with national buzz is backing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.
Independent presidential candidate Deez Nuts announced he is supporting Sanders’ bid for the Democratic nomination.
“Just gonna throw this one out there,” Deez Nuts said on his campaign’s Facebook page. “This is not for the general election. My endorsement for the Democratic nomination goes to Vermont senator Bernie Sanders.”
He added in another post moments later that he endorses Ohio Gov. John Kasich for the Republican nomination.
Reports emerged Wednesday that Deez Nuts isactually Brady Olson, a 15-year-old from Iowa who registered with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for a White House run.
A surprising poll taken earlier this week found that in a race with Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, Deez Nuts garnered 9 percent support in North Carolina.
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/22/2015 11:43 -0400
Perhaps it’s all the talk about across-the-board debt forgiveness or maybe the total amount of outstanding student debt has simply grown so large ($1.3 trillion) that even those with no conception of how much money that actually is realize that it’s simply never going to paid back so there’s no point worrying about, but whatever the case, the general level of concern regarding America’s student debt bubble doesn’t seem to be at all commensurate with the size of the problem.
And it’s not just the sheer size of the debt pile that’s worrisome. There’s also the knock-on effects, such as delayed household formation and the attendant downward pressure on the homeownership rate, and of course hyperinflation in the rental market.
Of course one reason no one is panicking – yet – is that the severity of the problem is masked by artificially suppressed delinquency rates. As we’ve documented in excruciating detail, if one excludes loans in deferment and forbearance from the numerator in the delinquency calculation, but includes those loans in the denominator then the delinquency rate will be deceptively low. In any event, as WSJ reports, even if one looks at something very simple like, say, the number of borrowers who haven’t made a payment in a year, the picture is not pretty and it’s getting worse all the time. Here’s more:
By Robert Costa and David Weigel August 22 at 12:03 AM
MOBILE, Ala. — It was the most audacious Donald Trump spectacle yet in a summer full of them, as the Republican presidential front-runner, in his Boeing 757, thundered over a football stadium here Friday night and gave a raucous speech to one of the largest crowds of the 2016 campaign.
But Trump’s flashy performance was about more than showmanship. His visit to Alabama was coolly strategic, touching down in the heart of red America and an increasingly important early battleground in the Republican nominating contest.
The Manhattan developer, who strode onstage to “Sweet Home Alabama,” is trying to show that his candidacy has broad and lasting appeal across every region of the country — especially here in the South, where Alabama and seven other states are holding a clustered voting blitz March 1.
Despite a hack two years ago that publicly exposed Hillary Clinton’s emails, the State Department took no action to shore up the security of the former secretary of state’s private computer server.
A State Department official said the department could not do anything in response to the March 2013 hack of longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal because it occurred on a non-governmental computer system. The hacked emails, which included Blumenthal’s frequent correspondence with Clinton while she was in office in 2012, were sent by the Romanian hacker to media organizations, which later posted them online.
The disclosure renews questions of when State Department officials first learned that Clinton was doing department business on a private server and what steps they took to safeguard her sensitive diplomatic communications, some of which have been deemed classified.
By Maria Guardado | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
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on August 21, 2015 at 7:00 AM, updated August 21, 2015 at 10:58 AM
LONG BEACH TOWNSHIP — Charlotte Samuels is at ease. It’s 9:30 a.m. and the sun is still rising, but sweltering heat already emanates, warming the strip of lagoon behind her family’s yellow vacation rental home in Loveladies. She’s sitting on the deck above the water, wearing a blue swimsuit, her dark curly hair slightly damp from having taken a dip in a nearby beach earlier this morning.
NJ teen prepares to make 20-mile swim from Long Island to Jersey ShoreCharlotte Samuels, of Ridgewood, is preparing to swim 20 miles from Long Island to the Jersey Shore. This should be no problem after what she accomplished last summer, swimming the 28-mile Manhattan Island Marathon Swim, the 20-mile Catalina Channel and the 21-mile English Channel. (Video by John Munson | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
It’s been an unusually calm summer for Samuels, the Ridgewood teenager who last year became the youngest Triple Crown swimmer after completing a series of swims around the island of Manhattan, across the English Channel and across the Catalina Channel in California.
She traveled to Minnesota this June to participate in a poetry slam camp and then to Massachusetts in July to attend a writing program at Smith College. In between, she hung out with her family and friends, maximizing her free time before the start of her senior year at Ridgewood High School.
AUGUST 21, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The Ridgewood Public Library has hosted a number of interesting events aimed at all age groups over the summer.
A brand-new program that proved to be very popular was the Summer Reading Club for Adults.
“We had 100 adults register within the first week,” said librarian Kerri Wallace.
In addition to being a good place for adults to meet and discuss literature, the club also served as an opportunity for its participants to earn rewards for reading.
“Participants received a raffle ticket for every book/magazine/ audiobook/ebook that they read or listened to,” Wallace said. “We had weekly drawings for prizes like a new bestselling novel and computer class passes.”
While the club didn’t follow an exact theme, it did offer a few events focused on famed author Harper Lee.
“We ran a week-long series to celebrate the release of ‘Go Set a Watchman,’” Wallace said.
The club also hosted a book discussion on “To Kill a Mockingbird” and showed the film.
For children, the library has been following a theme for many of its events called “Every Hero Has a Story.”
Ridgewood NJ, Getting closer to Oct 9-10. We have firmed up the activities, hotel rooms are waiting to be reserved, tickets can be bought on this web site (see the Purchase Tickets page)
When: Fri Oct 9 – Sat Oct 10, 2015
Where: Ridgewood area
Activities
Friday Oct 9
6:00 Tailgate before football game (RHS, alas no booze)
7:00 RHS Football game (at RHS)
7:30 – 11:00 Elks Club (informal get together, $20 per person (cash only, paid at the door), includes light dinner, cash bar)
Saturday Oct 10
11:30 – 1:00 Lunch at the Fireplace (ad hoc gatherings)
7:00 – 11:00 Main Event – Buffet dinner, cash bar, music. DoubleTree Hotel, Mahwah. Tickets $55 (on sale on this web site or via check), $65 cash only at the door
Hotel
Bad news. The DoubleTree is completely sold out on Sat Oct 10.
Good news. We have reserved rooms at the Super 8 Hotel for Fri and Sat, located right next door to the DoubleTree for $65 plus tax. For info:https://www.super8.com/…/mahwah/super-8-mahwah/hotel-overview
For reservations: 201-512-0800 Tell them you are with RHS Class of ’70 reunion. (If any problems, as for Jessica).
Communications
– This web site –We will use this web site like our last reunion (e.g. for general reunion info, for you to update your contact info, to let us know if you are thinking about coming to reunion, (eventually) to sell tickets).
– Facebook page – New. Check it out. Jump on board.https://www.facebook.com/RHS1970
Please do the following:
Buy your ticket(s) – See the Purchase Tickets page
Update your contact info – If your phone, email or street address has changed since 2010, pls use the “Update Contact Info” tab on this site
Let us know if you may come to the reunion – use the “RSVP” tab. Not binding. It lets classmates see who may be coming and helps us plan.
Missing Grads – We still have 71 grads with no email, phone or street addresses. Pls look at the list and let us know if you can help find them.
Talk this up with your classmates – Make sure everyone knows about the reunion.
Ridgewood NJ, the Ridgewood Police report that on Wednesday, August 19, 2015 an East side resident reported receiving a suspicious telephone call from a person claiming to be from the United States Internal Revenue Service who said that he/she owed back taxes. The caller requested the resident deposit the money in a Wells Fargo Bank account that they provided an account number for or risk arrest by the police.
While threatening with arrest, the caller also claimed to be from the Ridgewood Police Department. The caller was able to mimic real phone numbers for both the IRS and the Ridgewood Police Department. Fortunately the caller was suspicious and determined that the call was fraudulent.
These types of scams are on the rise and frequently target the elderly. Please be suspicious of calls or internet contacts requesting money and lookout for friends or neighbors who may be targeted by similar scams. Neither the IRS nor the Ridgewood Police Department would be contacting you by phone to request money.All defendants are considered to be innocent until found guilty by a court of law.
AUGUST 20, 2015 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 2015, 2:40 PM
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The village has been experiencing some seriously hot weather recently, with temperatures venturing past 90 degrees.
Though it had yet to be officially declared a heat wave by Tuesday, the temperatures were still scorching, necessitating the use of “cooling stations” around Ridgewood.
These locations offer an overheated individual the opportunity to rest and take a respite from the heat until they are feeling back to normal. Two such locations are the Ridgewood Public Library and the Community Center at Village Hall.
Nancy Greene, director of the library, said the doors “are open seven days a week throughout the year, except for major holidays.”
“We are one of the few libraries in Bergen County that maintains Sunday hours all summer – and we find that summer is our busiest time,” she said. “Hundreds of adults and children arrive every day and often stay for hours.”
These amenities make the library a desirable destination for those looking to cool off.
AUGUST 21, 2015, 6:25 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, AUGUST 21, 2015, 7:59 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Bergen County’s United Way is considering acquisition of the American Red Cross building on Godwin Avenue, having deemed the two-storied structure ideal for a possible affordable-housing project.
Tom Toronto, the president of Bergen County’s United Way, confirmed Friday his organization “is interested” in procuring the Red Cross site in Ridgewood, which recently hit the market following a reorganization of the non-profit’s real estate holdings.
Toronto said village officials approached him a few weeks ago to suggest the building as a potential location for a United Way-funded supportive housing project.
“Our interest would be to convert that building into housing, and there is some appeal to the structure: It lends itself to adaptation for housing relatively easily and efficiently,” Toronto said, mentioning that it’s asking price could be “a hurdle.”
Toronto said Bergen County’s United Way could end up making an offer on the Ridgewood parcel as soon as next week, but as of now “We’re in the process of assessing whether we can make a meaningful offer for the building,” Toronto said.
The Red Cross building needs an elevator, Toronto said, noting the building’s first floor would likely be devoted to living spaces for the physically and developmentally disabled. Other units in the building, Toronto said, could be allocated as senior-citizen residences, depending on the village’s affordable housing needs.
