With Turf, Women See Unequal Footing AUG. 12, 2014
NYT article on Women’s soccer. They are suing FIFA and demanding that they DO NOT use artificial turf for the games.
Within minutes of the goal, the image was seen around the world: Robin van Persie, playing in the Netherlands’ World Cup opener in June, flying what seemed like dozens of feet above the ground, headfirst, to score a goal against Spain. The Internet went berserk. Van Persie, the Flying Dutchman. Van Persie as Superman. Van Persie, the newest Peter Pan.
Who will provide the van Persie moment of the Women’s World Cup next year in Canada? United States forward Abby Wambach can tell you who it won’t be.
“I’m not going in for a diving header like van Persie did, no way,” she told me last week, which sounded weird coming from a player known for such plays.
Her reasoning was simple. Performing a diving header on a grass field is one thing; doing it on artificial turf — which, for the first time, will be used for every field at next year’s women’s championship — is something else altogether.
Central Business District Discussion – August 20 at Ridgecrest Senior Apartments – All Are Welcome
The second open forum on the CBD will take place Wednesday, August 20, at the Ridgecrest Senior Apartments at 7 Ridge Road, Ridgewood, starting at 7:30 PM. From 7:30 to 8:00 PM, the microphone will be open to speakers who did not speak at the July forum. From 8:00 until 9:00 PM there will be a panel discussion among residents of ideas advanced to date. All are welcome, naturally subject to the meeting room’s capacity.
Turf king endorses Aronsohn, Hauck and Puciarell criticizes police and firemen, attacking salary and benefits
TAKEN FROM THE RIDGEWOOD BLOG (Archived ) You should read the whole article.
From 2009-2010 Brian Abdoo repeatedly endorsed the multi-million dollar controversial turf projects at Stadium and Stevens fields. As we all know the turf has been an unmitigated disaster resulting in Ridgewood Taxpayers incurring the burden of costly repairs
Turf king endorses Aronsohn, Hauck and Puciarell criticizes police and firemen, attacking salary and benefits
Moments ago, after a long day at work I sat down to review my personal emails, check school info and sports emails, kids schedule, etc. In the mix was an email from Brian Abdoo who I know from a number of sports programs my kids are involved in. I began reading the Abdoo’s endorsement of candidates, Aronsohn, Hauck and Puciarelli. The more I read the sicker I became. Abdoo has thoroughly disgusted me with his hypocritical rhetoric.
From 2009-2010 Brian Abdoo repeatedly endorsed the multi-million dollar controversial turf projects at Stadium and Stevens fields. As we all know the turf has been an unmitigated disaster resulting in Ridgewood Taxpayers incurring the burden of costly repairs.
Now, this same Brian Abdoo wants to express concern over taxes? He attempts to peddle Paul Aronsohn’s gimmicky zero based budgeting. Even my 6th grader understands built-in inherent cost increases. Abdoo states he wants more transparency and Village Council should “open the books”. The fact that Brian Abdoo is ignorant should not persuade anyone to his argument. Brian, the books are open. They are a matter of public record and are available for anyone to review. Brian, feel free to visit APP DataUniverse if there is anything you need to know. However, Mr. Abdoo, while doing your research you likely will not find the value of your candidate Aronsohn’s health care costs, at village taxpayer expense, for the past four years. Mr. Abdoo, while Mr. Aronsohn is busy telling you he wants to help Ridgewood Taxpayers, he has been busy helping himself for four years . Brian Abdoo proceeds to attack our police and firemen, attacking their salary and benefits. If this is such a concern why on earth would he support Aronsohn who voted for each and every raise, and contract , pertaining to the police & fire department. Maybe he prefers regionalized police and fire departments like Hauck and Puciarelli. Hauck announced the savings for each village taxpayer during the debate: a whopping $ 285 each! For that money I will sleep better at night with Village police and firemen.
Abdoo professes the revitalization of Ridgewood downtown and how committed each of his threesome is to this goal. Mr. Abdoo, Paul Aronsohn is the Council liaison to the Chamber of Commerce. What has he been doing for the past four years? Shopping at the mall? And Hauck and Puciarelli prefer a more urbanized Ridgewood. If they want urbanization let them move to Hoboken.
Best for last, Abdoo states each of these candidates is committed to helping Valley and residents to negotiate a compromise to allow for expansion. For goodness sake, Brian, where has Al Puciarelli been? He has been a member of the planning board forever. Hauck didn’t speak of compromise when she endorsed the massive expansion, as is, over and over again. Valley Hospital is not interested in compromise. The only time that was suggested by Valley was at the last Village Council hearing. Audrey Meyers, seeing the writing on the wall, begged council to hold off their vote so Valley could develop a compromise. Seriously, where was the compromise for six years?
Mr. Abdoo, reconsider and bullet for Killion and Shinizuka before we are in another turf-like drowning mess attributable to the likes of you.
Ridgewood resident proposes zone change from residential to commercial
AUGUST 12, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2014, 9:36 AM BY LAURA HERZOG STAFF WRITER Print
At a time when the Planning Board is faced with a controversial request to add a high-density residential use to the Central Business District, residents of Goffle Road have approached the Planning Board with an opposite request: a blanket rezone that would turn the remaining residential lots on their road to commercial lots.
The proposal would allow homeowners to sell their lots to developers, possibly The Valley Hospital, and increase their home values, according to Goffle Road resident Ed Boscarino, who made the request.
“We on Goffle Road believe it would be to our benefit,” Boscarino told The Ridgewood News. “Developers would come in and build whatever the community needs, office buildings, mixed-use … Any office type of things would be very good for the village.”
Boscarino, a realtor, spoke to the board on Tuesday night about his idea, noting that he has spoken to other neighbors who were in favor of the proposal. Board Chairman Charles Nalbantian noted that he would look over Boscarino’s request and put it on a future agenda.
Apple Wants To Be ‘A Hub Of Health Data’ And Is In Talks With Top Hospitals
CHRISTINA FARR, REUTERS
AUG. 12, 2014, 5:53 AM
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc has been discussing how its “HealthKit” service will work with health providers at Mount Sinai, the Cleveland Clinic and Johns Hopkins as well as with Allscripts, a competitor to electronic health records provider Epic Systems, people familiar with the discussions said.
While the talks may not amount to anything concrete, they underscore how Apple is intent on making health data, such as blood pressure, pulse and weight, available for consumers and health providers to view in one place.
Currently, this data is being collected by thousands of third-party health care software applications and medical devices, but it isn’t centrally stored. Apple also hopes physicians will use this data to better monitor patients between visits – with the patient’s consent — so the doctors can make better diagnostic and treatment decisions.
Bank failures fading, but not completely, from view Aug. 12, 2014, 11:11 a.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The number of bank failures is slowing down due to the improving economy and rising property values, but the industry is still not back to pre-crash levels and future growth remains uncertain.
Only 14 banks failed in the first half of this year, according to the most recent data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Last year, 24 banks failed – down from 157 failures in 2010, the peak failure year since the banking sector was taken down by the financial crisis in 2008. Typically, when a bank fails, its capital becomes too low to meet obligations to its creditors because of sustained losses, causing regulators to close it.
“This is a very typical bank failure cycle,” said Bert Ely, a banking industry consultant based in Alexandria, Va. “As the economy improves, banks work out their problems and the FDIC and other banking regulators closed failed banks, then you revert back to the normal situation of having very few bank failures.”
With the economic recovery continuing, many FDIC-regulated banks have improved their balance sheets, made more loans and enjoyed stronger earnings, but the industry has not improved to the single-digit annual failure rate pre-crisis.
“I don’t think we are back to the zero failure,” FDIC’s Chief Economist Richard Brown said, referring to 2005 and 2006 when no banks went under. “There are still institutions dealing with the aftermath of the recession.”
More than 400 banks remain on the FDIC’s unofficial problem list of troubled institutions that may run the risk of failure in the near terms. The list has shrunk to half the size of the peak year of 2010. However, the number remains elevated when measured against the pre-crash year 2007 with its mere 76 problem banks.
The declining pace of failures is an indication of more business activity, lower unemployment rates and a relatively stronger lending market.
Everyone pays lip service to the juicy Jersey tomato. Now three Rutgers scientists are close to recreating the greatest Jersey tomato of them all.
On a sunny afternoon in May, the contenders, each plant about 4 inches tall, were growing in a greenhouse in a rural stretch of Cumberland County. A hanging thermometer said the temperature indoors had reached 85 degrees.
“This is about as warm as you want it to get,” said Tom Orton, the plant breeder here at the Rutgers Agricultural Research and Extension Center farm in Upper Deerfield, looking protectively over his seedlings. Orton has a PhD. in plant genetics and tends to talk like a scientist, but he can speak tenderly, almost anthropomorphically, about tomatoes.
As in: “Above the high 80s, tomatoes don’t like it. Around 90, they just sit there and wait for it to get cooler. But if you keep water on them, they get over it.”
As in: “Tomatoes don’t take the weekend off,” so each Saturday and Sunday Orton drives 30 miles round trip from his home in Salem County to water them.
It’s not yet clear which of these 250 little plants in their plastic trays, now starting to branch into the familiar serrated leaves, will triumph in this genetic competition to recreate the Rutgers tomato, touted as the greatest Jersey tomato of all. Orton and his two compadres on this quest have been diligently hybridizing and selecting for four years. These are F-6’s, the sixth generation selected from the two parents Orton began cross-pollinating in 2011.
“These will go out in the field in about two weeks,” Orton said. He noticed a double (two seedlings growing in one plastic cell) and gently dug one out, replanting it in an empty slot. The plan was to truck the seedlings to Rutgers’ Snyder Farm in Hunterdon County, where they’d grow to maturity.
Village Hall Upgrading Telephone System On August 14
Thursday, August 14th the Village Hall telephone system will be migrated to a new Light Path system. If you experience difficulties in contacting Village Hall August 14th , it may be due to the telephone system upgrade. Thank you for your patience.
Reader says it only fair that the Sports Groups step up and contribute to maintenance and depreciation of the turf fields
If the sports clubs have gotten so much value out of the fields, I would think it only fair that they step up and contribute to maintenance and depreciation. It shouldn’t always be the VC or BOE (the rest of us). Given that maintenance seems to be running about $100K year and depreciation another $200K for $1.5M to replace the carpets after a flood-shortened 7 year life, the sports clubs should be contributing on the order of $100K.
Raise dues if you have to — it’s part of the true cost of doing business.
And did they ever contribute everything they had promised for the lights?
Readers says frustrating and costly when the turf has to be cleaned and repaired after flooding the grass was worse
Agreed, it is frustrating and costly when the turf has to be cleaned and repaired after flooding. But, remember, when those fields were grass the “Stadium” was used a maximum of a dozen times a year. 5 or 6 home football games and a couple of lacrosse games. And of course graduation. The field was so bad that visiting teams threatened to file official complaints and refuse to play on the field. Stevens was a glorified parking lot and nothing took place on that field besides RHS football practice and adult softball. Both of those fields are now in constant use. RHS Varsity and sub varsity sports (Football, soccer, lacrosse,) are on them almost non-stop during the afternoons and youth sports utilize them in the evenings and weekends almost non-stop as well. The result has been much improved conditions on the grass fields in town as most of the pre-season and poor weather “days” events are conducted on the turf fields and the grass fields are closed. If you look at if from the angle of cost per use, it isn’t even close even with the repair costs. The fields are much more “productive” and we’re not spending money on seed, weed killer, fertilizer, and labor for cutting and maintaining those fields. I’m not saying it is a wash but the total cost difference probably isn’t as great as you think.
Schedler, Habernickel, and Citizens are all Village owned fields. Might be fun to try and get the Village Council to step up and spend some money on any of those fields. They haven’t spent squat on maintaining Maple Park and now that field is going to have to be replaced. They can’t even agree on the simplest things, how would they even consider spending money on new fields?
One question I would ask. What ever happened to the dredging program that was begun a couple of years ago? Was it completed? I don’t recall seeing any “work” done near Graydon or down by Stevens or RHS. Multiply 2 or 3 feet of dre
AUGUST 12, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2014, 1:21 AM BY CHRIS HARRIS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — The Village Council plans to create a committee of residents, business owners and officials who will be charged with taking a long, hard look at Ridgewood’s master plan.
The decision came during a lengthy discussion at a recent council meeting, spurred by Councilwoman Susan Knudsen’s suggestion that an ordinance — known as “3066” — be modified.
That ordinance requires that developers requesting changes to the village master plan cover the costs associated with those changes, including, for example, the retention of experts to testify on the proposed changes.
Residents opposed to three high-density, multifamily housing developments proposed for downtown contend the ordinance, adopted in 2007, has made it easier for developers to propose changes to the master plan. Some residents, who suggested the ordinance be repealed, said it limits master plan amendment requests to those who can afford to pay for the process.
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
428 AM EDT TUE AUG 12 2014…HEAVY RAIN AND FLASH FLOODING POSSIBLE FROM LATE TONIGHT
INTO WEDNESDAY…
…FLASH FLOOD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH
WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON…
THE FLASH FLOOD WATCH CONTINUES FOR
* ALL OF SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT…NORTHEAST NEW JERSEY AND SOUTHEAST
NEW YORK.
* FROM LATE TONIGHT THROUGH WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON.
* AS A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OVER THE GREAT LAKES MOVES INTO
SOUTHERN CANADA TODAY…AN ONSHORE FLOW OF DEEP TROPICAL
MOISTURE WILL DEVELOP…AND SHOWERS WILL GRADUALLY SPREAD
EASTWARD INTO THE REGION THROUGH THIS EVENING. THIS MOISTURE
WILL BE WRUNG OUT BY AN UPSLOPE FLOW OVER INTERIOR
SECTIONS…AND ALSO BY A SECONDARY LOW DEVELOPING NEAR THE AREA
LATE TONIGHT…AND THEN MOVING SLOWLY ACROSS DURING THE
DAY ON WEDNESDAY.
* SHOWERS WILL LIKELY BECOME HEAVY AT TIMES FROM LATE TONIGHT INTO
WEDNESDAY MORNING OR EARLY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. RAINFALL RATES
OF 1 TO 2 INCHES PER HOUR ARE LIKELY DURING THE PERIODS OF
HEAVIEST RAIN…AND WIDESPREAD RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 1 1/2 TO 3
INCHES AND LOCALLY OVER 4 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS…
A FLASH FLOOD WATCH MEANS THAT CONDITIONS MAY DEVELOP THAT LEAD
TO FLASH FLOODING. FLASH FLOODING IS A VERY DANGEROUS SITUATION.
YOU SHOULD MONITOR LATER FORECASTS AND BE PREPARED TO TAKE ACTION SHOULD FLASH FLOOD WARNINGS BE ISSUED.
