With gas prices below $2 a gallon in some parts of the state, policymakers are considering raising the gas tax. Legislators say the additional revenue would go to fund much-needed bridge and road repairs in the state. However, the public isn’t buying it. The most recent statewide survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind finds respondents oppose the idea of additional taxes by a more than two-to-one margin, with many (31%) saying their opposition is driven by skepticism that the funds would be used as intended, and the belief that residents are already overburdened by taxes (45%). (PolitickerNJ)
JANUARY 16, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2015, 12:31 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld is waiving her right to a compensation that will save taxpayers up to $35,000.
According to the non-unions officers salary ordinance, Sonenfeld is entitled to $5,000 to $35,000 for serving in the position of temporary chief financial officer (CFO).
Sonenfeld has taken on the position – which she cannot hold for more than a year – while the village continues its quest for a new CFO, who would also serve as a new director of the parking utility.
The former CFO, Steve Sanzari, who will remain the village treasurer, will serve as Sonenfeld’s temporary deputy chief financial officer for a stipend of $1,000 per month, according to a resolution that the council unanimously approved on Wednesday.
Sonenfeld is also serving as head of the parking utility for the time being, at no additional compensation.
“My feeling was I didn’t want the village to expend any more dollars on this,” Sonenfeld said. “I’m just putting everything into my regular workday.”
Sanzari previously received a $5,000 stipend, on top of his $110,000 salary as treasurer, for working as CFO.
Temporary cell tower returns to Ridgewood location on Route 17
JANUARY 19, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2015, 2:04 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The recently removed temporary cell tower that overlooked the Exxon Mobil station along Route 17 is returning.
The Ridgewood Zoning Board of Adjustment on Jan. 13 granted a five-month extension to a previously approved resolution that allowed AT&T to install and operate a temporary tower at the site. Dubbed a cell on wheels (COW), a tower is needed in that location to provide customers with seamless coverage of the latest network technology, as required by the Federal Communications Commission, company representatives said.
During last Tuesday’s hearing, zoning board members discussed few details of the extension but verified that the terms of the original resolution would be in effect through the length of the extension.
“Bring back the COW exactly how it was,” said Bruce Whitaker, zoning board attorney.
Last June, the board approved AT&T’s original application to install the trailer-mounted, 75-foot cell tower at the service station site.
A board resolution included terms for required setbacks, shielding and operation, among other details, and stated that the equipment would be removed on or before Dec. 31, 2014.
Sick traveler who worked with Ebola patients at Hackensack University Medical Center
January 19, 2015, 4:33 PM Last updated: Monday, January 19, 2015, 6:03 PM
By ABBOTT KOLOFF
staff writer | The Record
A woman who had been working in Sierra Leone with Ebola patients was taken off a United Airlines flight at Newark Liberty Airport in a hazmat suit Monday afternoon and transported to Hackensack University Medical Center after she exhibited a high fever and vomited on the flight, government officials and law enforcement sources said.
The woman was identified only as a health care practitioner by authorities. They did not detail whether she is a doctor, a nurse or an aide and did not specify where she lives. Newark is one of five airports in the United States designated as a point of entry for people coming from parts of West Africa where there was an Ebola outbreak last year, and Hackensack is one of three hospitals in New Jersey authorized to isolate and assess potential Ebola patients.
FOXBOROUGH, Mass. – The NFL is looking into whether footballs used in the Patriots’ 45-7 win over the Colts in Sunday’s AFC Championship game were not fully inflated.
NFL spokesman Michael Signora confirmed in an email to Newsday on Monday morning that the matter is being investigated. Signora declined to offer further details about the matter.
According to the NFL rule book, footballs must be inflated to between 12.5-13.5 pounds per square inch (PSI) and weigh between 14 and 15 ounces. There also are specific rules about how many footballs are to be available for each game, as well as testing procedures by the on-field officials. Each team provided 12 footballs before the game, plus an additional 12 in the case of bad weather, as was the situation in New England on Sunday.
It is unclear as to where the complaint originated. On-field officials removed one football from the game Sunday to have it checked.
“If something is noticed, It’s not unheard of for a ball to removed from circulation and then tested during the week for whatever issue there was,” NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino said Monday on the NFL Network’s show “NFL AM.”
“The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up.”
Republicans Need to Stop Wasting MLK Day
January 19, 2015 5 Comments
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
If Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive and well today, Save Jerseyans?
I think he’d be impressed by how color blind my generation is; he’d also be disgusted by the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world and how they’ve profited while many of America’s black neighborhoods continued to suffer.
So we can honor Dr. King’s legacy through volunteer work, yes, but more importantly by rejecting race profiteers and voting for REAL change. Not the fluffy, fake Obama variety that comes prepackaged in a can.
“The time is always right to do what is right.” Amen!
Where to start?
Republicans can stop wasting MLK Day with platitudinal calls for “service” in our communities and utilize a unique opportunity to advocate for, again, REAL change. Like the implementation of school choice reforms. The inequality in our education system isn’t tied to funding, and it remains the last great civil rights hurdle facing America’s youth.
Why don’t more GOP’ers speak out? They don’t do it more often, I suspect, due to a lack of confidence. They’re gun shy after effectively getting hit with the race card for decades, but I believe it’s a needless fear because the country is changing.
We’re more color blind than ever. Barack Obama and his party’s economic job performance where black America is concerned is nevertheless nothing short of abysmal.
President Obama’s tax plan is Piketty-lite, aimed at reversing years of economic rot among America’s poorest 50 percent
Derek Thompson Jan 19 2015, 1:51 PM ET
At this stage in Obama’s presidency, ambitious tax proposals to soak the rich are the political equivalent of desert rain dances—sometimes impressive, often well-meaning, always doomed, and essentially ceremonial. The administration’s latest tax-modification ritual would raise taxes on wealthy estates and large banks to pay for larger tax breaks for middle-class households, particularly those with two working parents and kids. The plan is Piketty-lite, skimming the wealth of the 1 percent to redistribute among the incomes of poorer workers.
Why should America’s richest families have to withstand yet another tax increase to benefit poorer Americans? The short answer is that the United States has, since the turn of the century, cemented its status as the best place in the world to be among the working rich, while poorer workers have suffered compared to other advanced countries. Here’s the longer answer…
Twenty-five years ago, the United States was the richest country in the world, for richer and for poorer, for both the 10th percentile and the 99th. Although America’s richest 50 percent is still the richest top half of any country, our distinction as the land of opportunity is eroding from the bottom up, as the Upshot elegantly showed. American superiority is rotting from the bottom up.
Paris Attacks challenge ‘lone wolf’ terrorist theory
By Michel Moutot 23 hours ago
Paris (AFP) – The attacks in Paris and the radical Islamist cell dismantled in Brussels have challenged the idea of the “lone wolf” terrorist who works alone, without the help of a jihadist organization, analysts say.
Every terrorist that has attempted or carried out attacks in the West in recent years — down to the Kouachi brothers who struck the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris this month — has had some level of ties to extremist groups engaged in global jihad, according to experts.
For Jean-Pierre Filiu, of Sciences Po university in Paris, the events in France and Belgium had shown “once again” that the idea of radicals acting in isolation was “an inane myth”.
“This largely fantastical figure is an intellectual creation that appeared in the United States as part of the Bush administration’s ‘global war on terror’ in 2001”, he argued.
Although they may have acted without direct instructions from above, the Kouachi brothers had training from Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), its Yemen branch, and struck a top target on Al-Qaeda’s “most-wanted” list.
Niece of Martin Luther King Jr: ‘Racism Has Not Been Erased’
Alveda King / @alvedaking / January 19, 2015
“But let judgment roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” —Amos 5:24
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. quoted this powerful scripture in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. He believed God’s word. He took his Bible—the one President Obama placed his hand on during his 2013 inauguration—very seriously; so seriously that he repeatedly risked his life to proclaim its message of love for God and love for neighbor.
We could use some repentance and forgiveness right now in our shattered society.
My Uncle M.L., like everyone, was far from perfect, but he loved the Lord. It was God’s word that he used to unite a movement and change our nation. For him, religion was the heart of the civil rights movement.
As his niece, daughter of his slain brother, Rev. A.D. King, I am always honored when invited to remember him.
Uncle M.L. was born on Jan. 15, 1929. In remembering him today, I can tell you that he was a kind and gentle man who was used as a strong prophet of God.
Many people called him the “Black Moses” and the “Modern Day Apostle of Love.” As a Baptist preacher, his sermons and speeches reflected his devotion to the Lord and his obedience to God’s call. The themes of his teachings strongly reflected humanity’s need of God’s love, and of human repentance and forgiveness.
We could use some repentance and forgiveness right now in our shattered society.
A black man was elected twice to the White House, but racism has not been erased. The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and others remind us that black men and teens, in particular, are still pre-judged by the color of their skin.
When members of the pro-life black community tell the truth about abortion—that the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb—we are accused of racism.
In a 1967 speech Uncle M.L. gave at Stanford University, he spoke of the “other America” and the “daily ugliness” that greets some people of color every day. He would be proud of the many advances and achievements we have logged in the human rights category, but he would still be troubled that so many still live in this “other America.”
There was much speculation about whether or not Uncle M.L. would have taken part in protest marches in Missouri or New York or elsewhere, and he very well might have. But he would never advocate for violence, and he would never walk arm-in-arm with anyone calling for attacks on the police.
His message was one of love and non-violence, and I know it would not have changed in the time between his death and now, because he followed the word of God, and the word of God never changes.
I do know that he would be disturbed—and vocal—about our constantly eroding freedom of religion. Everywhere you look, if the exercise of religion bumps up against a liberal absolute, religion loses.
President Obama has made it a priority to prevent Americans from conceiving children, and when people of faith rise up in protest to this contraceptive mandate, we are accused of waging a war on women.
Forty-two years after Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton made abortion legal, half of America clings hard to the belief that women can’t be equal to men without being able to exercise their right to kill their own children. But people of faith who don’t want to have the blood of innocents on their hands—health care workers most prominently, but others as well—are finding that they have to defend their conscience rights and sometimes, they lose.
When members of the pro-life black community tell the truth about abortion—that the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb—we are accused of racism. The people who target us for annihilation through abortion are praised as heroes. What an upside down world!
The growing controversies surrounding First Amendment rights to freedom of religious and speech are reaching a fever pitch. But we must continue to do what we are instructed in 1 Corinthians 16:13-14: Be on guard. Stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong. And do everything with love.
We must work hard to remember, and remind those who seem to have forgotten, that in all matters of conflict, love, dignity, clarity and communication are key, even when viewpoints differ. Especially when viewpoints differ.
As my Uncle M.L. famously said, “We must learn to live together as brothers [and sisters] or perish as fools.”
Reality star Rosie Pope of Ridgewood partners with Valley Health System
JANUARY 19, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2015, 1:21 AM
THE RECORD
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HEALTH: Reality TV star partners with hospital group
Ridgewood resident Rosie Pope, best known for her starring role in Bravo’s “Pregnant in Heels,” has partnered with the Ridgewood-based Valley Health System to promote pregnancy health and wellness.
JANUARY 16, 2015, 12:05 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 16, 2015, 12:05 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service on Thursday proposed slight increases for mailing postcards and international letters — but wants to leave first-class “Forever” stamps at their present 49 cents.
Under a filing with the Postal Regulatory Commission, letters to international destinations would rise from $1.15 to $1.20. Postcards would rise from 34 cents to 35 cents.
The increases being proposed would become effective April 26, if the requests are granted.
On first-class mail, every ounce over 1 ounce would cost an additional 22 cents, up from 21 cents. And letters to all international destinations would go from $1.15 to $1.20.
The filing does not affect Postal Service shipping products and services.
The Postal Service said the requested price increases are the latest in a series of steps “to achieve financial stability.”
LG brings its Styler to the US as an alternative to frequent runs to dry cleaners
JANUARY 19, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY JOAO-PIERRE S. RUTH
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD |
THE RECORD
* LG set to roll out the Styler in U.S., but don’t expect a washing machine
It quietly shakes and steams away wrinkles and odors from laundry, but a full cleaning? Not quite.
For the first time, LG Electronics, which has its U.S. headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, introduced its Styler, a wardrobe-like appliance intended for sale in the American market. The Styler lets users “refresh” up to four garments at a time as a sort of alternative to constant dry cleaning — with some caveats.
Presented this month at the annual International CES trade show in Las Vegas, LG said this new-generation Styler is 30 percent smaller than its prior version. Still, it is not tiny — with a slim, tall profile as if designed to be part of a walk-in closet.
And it’s the latest example of companies that made their names in consumer electronics delving deeper into home appliances.
By Tom Howell Jr. – The Washington Times – Sunday, January 18, 2015
Those Americans who didn’t get health insurance last year could be in for a rude awakening when the IRS asks them to fork over their Obamacare penalty — and it could be a lot more than the $95 many of them may be expecting.
The Affordable Care Act requires those who didn’t have insurance last year and didn’t qualify for one of the exemptions to pay a tax penalty, which was widely cited as $95 the first year. But the $95 is actually a minimum, and middle- and upper-income families will actually end up paying 1 percent of their household income as their penalty.
