Readers begin to face prospect of declining Real Estate Values
If your scenario plays out take whatever money you win and put it towards moving costs since it will not be worth staying in a town that gives into a group that lies, manipulates figures, distorts, deceives, etc.
What they are asking to do defies logic, and then another group(PB) agrees that it is o.k. to insult both their intelligence, and the people that they are representing ?
Simply put, the bad press will only get worse if this gets past the PB.
Village Officials Continue to try to put lipstick on a pig for “Aronsohn’s Folly” resurfacing project
June 11,2014
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Yesterday commuters faced heavy delays in the area of Garber Square and all roads leading to the area due to construction.
Ridgewood PD had warned travelers to ,Avoid the area and plan an alternate route if possible.
The Village also issued a June 10 , Traffic Alert for Garber Square
Tuesday, June 10 AM -Traffic delays are being experienced at this location due to work going on around Garber Square this morning that will result in alternating one lane of traffic going each way; in other words police will close and open the one lane alternating between east and west bound traffic. This will probably cause delays throughout the morning and maybe into afternoon – this is NOT the Village’s Complete Streets Paving Project – this work is being done by Fletcher Creamer for a Verizon project. Fletcher Creamer has hired two Ridgewood police officers to address traffic flow and safety at Garber Square for this project.
Some readers claim they were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic from Monroe all the way to Whole Foods Market,When I left the parking lot I turned left to go back to Monroe. traffic was backed up past Lincoln.
The Village through Gwenn Hauck on the Ridgewood Police Facebook page were quick to play the blame game and point out “BECA– USE VERIZON is doing ROADWORK! “
Still not sure why no one though of any of this before the Village embarked the the Wilsey Square , Garber Square repaving project ,known as Aronsohn’s Folly .
I would say perhaps they relied on the same traffic engineers who continue to promise that that despite the doubling on the size of Valley Hospital ,10 years of construction, and 4 new large multi family housing developments slated for the Central Business district ,” the latest multifamily housing hearing said that their proposed use would result in less additional downtown traffic than other allowable uses” – See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/traffic-engineers-testify-on-ridgewood-housing-proposals-1.1030111#sthash.0QHzQPRn.dpuf
But apparently they never did a traffic assessment or CBD impact study on the “traffic easing” .
Ridgewood Police Report Motorcycle thief raced off with elderly woman’s groceries, purse
June 10,2014
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Police are reporting an elderly woman had both her groceries and purse stolen this weekend right outside her apartment building along South Maple Avenue, in Ridgewood .
Ridgewood police sources say the purse thief was a man in his 20s or 30s and fled on a black motorcycle.The incident happened just after 2 p.m. on Saturday, as the 83-year-old woman was returning home from food shopping.
The woman told police that when she arrived home, she noticed the man was in the driveway, working on his bike. As she reached the door, the man allegedly ran up and ripped the shopping bags and the purse from her hands, then fled.
Residents reported seeing a suspicious person on Woodside Avenue, rifling through the bags he was carrying while police were investigating .
Anyone with information about this crime or who may have witnessed the incident can contact the Ridgewood Detective Bureau at (201) 251-4537.
How a Dad’s Involvement Can Change His Children’s Future
Rachel Sheffield June 06, 2014
Rachel Sheffield focuses on welfare, marriage and family, and education as policy analyst in the DeVos Center for Religion & Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
Children with involved fathers are more likely to graduate from college—particularly among middle- and upper-income families but also among those from lower-income backgrounds, a recent study found.
According to this new research by Brad Wilcox at the University of Virginia, the family structure that best promotes this involvement is a married, intact family. This is the case for youth from lower-educated homes as well as those from more highly educated homes.
Wilcox also found fathers are more involved with their children today than they have been in the past. The amount of time fathers spend with their children each week has increased from 4.2 hours on average in 1995 to 7.3 hours on average in 2011. The down side is that fewer teens live in intact families, particularly teens from working-class and lower-income homes.
On the other hand, their peers from college-educated homes are “triply advantaged,” according to Wilcox: “They typically enjoy more economic resources, an intact family, and an involved father.”
The question then is, how to keep youth connected with their fathers, or, as Wilcox puts it, how to “bridge the fatherhood divide between children from college-educated and less-educated families.”
Increasing the odds that more children are raised in homes with their married mother and father is a crucial factor in the equation.
Cantor out in Tea Party Landslide shocker June 10, 2014, 08:05 pm By Russell Berman
Brat defeated Cantor, a six-term incumbent, despite having no experience in elected office and being outspent by nearly 20-to-1. The Associated Press called the race for Brat shortly after 8 p.m., an hour after polls closed in Virginia’s 7th District. Brat was leading Cantor, 56 percent to 44 percent, with 98 percent of precincts reporting.
For Cantor, the loss guillotines his fast rise through the House leadership, which many had expected would make him the first Jewish Speaker in history.
It is perhaps the most significant jolt to the Republican establishment since the emergence of the Tea Party in 2009. While conservative activists have ousted veteran Republicans such as Sens. Bob Bennett (Utah) and Richard Lugar (Ind.), a sitting majority leader has never been defeated in a primary election.
As recently as Friday, Cantor and his team projected confidence.
“I’m just not worried,” Cantor’s Richmond-based political adviser, Ray Allen, told The Hill. Cantor’s own polling showed him with a comfortable lead.
Obamacare Taxes: Next Filing Season Could Be “one of the most chaotic in years.” Posted by John Kartch on Tuesday, June 10th, 2014, 10:25 AM
Problems with a key component of Obamacare will lead to unpleasant surprises for Americans during the 2015 tax filing season, according to testimony from a top tax expert before the House Ways and Means subcommittees on Health and Oversight today.
“I am here today to tell you that the upcoming tax filing season has the potential to be one of the most chaotic in years,” said Ryan Ellis, an IRS Enrolled Agent and Tax Policy Director at Americans for Tax Reform.
According to the testimony:
“One of the key elements of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare,” is the creation of advanceable tax credits for the purchase of exchange health insurance plans.
Taxpayers applying for credit assistance must be evaluated by government entities ranging from the SSA to CMS to the IRS. The goal is to have an educated estimate, based on the most immediately-available government documents (e.g. prior year tax returns, etc.), of the taxpayer’s probable income for the year–which in turn determines the size of the tax credit.
In an effort to get this tax benefit out quickly, the estimated credit is advanced to the insurance company by the IRS, which applies it to customer premiums.
This is an important point—the money has left the IRS’ hands up to over a year before the taxpayer actually calculates his final credit amount. The insurance companies have collected it, and they are not required to pay it back.
Press reports this month indicated that the government was having a hard time doing all this, with 1.2 million of the 6 million federal exchange applicants having to be asked for additional income verification information from CMS. That is not surprising. Applicants are asked to complete a detailed, confusing twelve-page application which asks for income, family size, etc. It is rather like trying to fill out a 1040 on the fly. Added to this is the lack of employer reporting requirements and the failure to complete the back-end of the web site.
Inconsistencies–some of which are the result of failures of the healthcare.gov system, some of which are poor records from the government, and some of which are mistakes from the individual–are not surprising. But they are a problem. It is the middle of June, and many people have now been receiving inaccurate subsidies for six months. To the public’s knowledge, not a single advanced tax credit has been adjusted this year.
So what happens if the flawed, confusing process results in a tax credit larger than what the law calls for?
A hypothetical example might help illustrate: a health exchange customer selects an Obamacare exchange plan. The government estimates that this taxpayer will earn $30,000 this year, which makes her eligible for a $2000 tax credit. This $2000 is paid to the taxpayer’s insurance company to help with premiums.
The next spring, our customer/taxpayer is filling out her tax return. Unfortunately, the government estimated the taxpayer earned too little and paid too large a credit. She actually earned $40,000, and so only had a $1500 credit coming to her.
Depending on the taxpayer’s income level and availability of verified affordable workplace insurance, she will have to pay back much or all of the $500 overage to the IRS. This means skinnier refunds and maybe even liabilities, and it won’t be the taxpayer’s fault—it will be the government’s fault.
It is also inevitable that many people are receiving tax credits for which they are completely ineligible. The firewall of the offer of employer sponsored insurance is a new concept — tax preparers will have difficulty figuring out how it works in operation. There is virtually no way to catch it on the front end — but come tax filing season, many people will end up owing thousands of dollars, and it will be a complete surprise.”
Ridgewood Planning Board holds contentious meeting about Valley Hospital
JUNE 10, 2014, 6:40 AM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 2:25 PM BY BARBARA WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
The Valley Hospital has been aggressively seeking approval from the Planning Board to double in size and on Monday night it took its most vigorous stand yet, presenting information that some board members said they found selective, confusing and disingenuous.
Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and the surrounding neighborhood homes.
The board will vote next week on whether Valley should be given the master plan amendment it is seeking to undertake an expansion project that will nearly double the size of the hospital.
Monday’s meeting was to be a time for the board to hear summations from the attorneys representing Valley and residents opposing the project. But first Valley’s planner, Joseph Burgis, made a 45-minute presentation he characterized as clarifications that the village planner had requested. Instead, Burgis addressed some of the complaints and questions raised by residents over the last 15 months of hearings.
Burgis acknowledged that the construction is a detriment, but added that air monitoring will be done during the duration. He said that the school board issued a statement saying it is not concerned about the construction affecting students attending Benjamin Franklin Middle School, which is located next to the hospital.
“As far as construction, there’s no getting around the timetable,” Burgis said. “I don’t mean to minimize the 6-year time frame, it’s a long period of time but it’s necessary to make this happen.”
He said that traffic will decrease by 430 trips per day because Valley will be moving outpatient services off-site. It wasn’t until the end of his presentation, however, that it became clear that the predicted decrease was not based on current traffic but instead was a comparison between this plan and previous expansion plan Valley had before the board in 2010.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/ridgewood-planning-board-holds-contentious-meeting-about-valley-hospital-1.1032397#sthash.6nOuaWi6.dpuf
ABC Revives Soros-Funded Attacks on Johns Hopkins and Coal Companies
By Sean Long | June 6, 2014 | 13:37
Building on a long week of anti-coal attacks by the media and the Environmental Protection Agency, ABC’s June 5 “World News” revived another attack on the coal industry. ABC hyped a 2013 investigation that it conducted in partnership with the Soros-funded Center for Public Integrity (CPI). It alleged that the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions had essentially been bought off by coal companies to ignore cases of black lung disease in miners.
ABC’s David Muir declared a “victory a long time in the making,” Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Paul Wheeler for allegedly “working for the coal company.”
On October 30, 2013, ABCNews.com posted an extensive investigation by ABC’s Chief Investigative Correspondent, Brian Ross, ABC’s Investigative Producer Matthew Mosk and CPI’s Investigative Report Chris Hamby. This report alleged that Wheeler, the leader of a unit that analyzes potential black lung cases, was either incompetent or had ignored cases of black lung in coal miners.
Miss USA Winner Sparks Feminist Fury: Encourages Women to Avoid Being Victims Through Self-Defense
Feminists were in an uproar over a very controversial and insensitive statement that is sure to haunt Miss Nevada Nia Sanchez for the rest of her life.
The question came from Rumer Willis, who’s known for nothing other than being the daughter of Bruce Willis:
“Recently “Time Magazine” said 19% of U.S. undergraduate women are victims of sexual assault in college. Why has such a horrific epidemic been swept under the rug for so long and what can colleges do to combat this?”
Miss Nevada answered:
“I believe some colleges may potentially be afraid of having a bad reputation, and that would be a reason that it could be swept under the rug because they don’t want it to come out into the public but I think more awareness is very important so women can learn how to protect themselves. Myself as a fourth degree black belt, I learned from a young age that you need to be confident and being able to defend yourself and I think that’s something we should start to implement for a lot of women.”
For the evil sin of publicly advocating for women to take some steps to defend themselves, she was immediately vilified, because as we all know, you just can’t say such things in today’s PC-driven world. Get ready:
Ms. Nevada just said the best way to prevent college rape is to teach women self defense…and not men self-control..?
Readers set up Betting Pool as to how and who will cave to over development in the Village
DO NOT bet the ranch on either Ms. Hauck or Mr. Pucciarelli abstaining.
Ms. Hauck has already strongly hinted that she will not be abstaining (her thought being that voters knew her position when they pulled the lever and she has no skin in the game from a financial standpoint, thus no conflict).
And it is rumored that Mr. Pucciarelli may offer a legal opinion that holding an elected office differs from being appointed to a position. Therefore, although he recused himself from Planning Board matters about Valley, he will not do so in connection with Village Council business about Valley.
Case in point, he did not recuse himself from the discussion about whether Council members should accept a donation from Valley to cover printing costs for the OEM manual.
My $20 parlay bet is on a yes from the PB and a no from the Council 3-0 because of abstentions.
My $20 says the plan will be approved by the Planning Board and the Village Council (in a 3-2 vote, of course).
I grew up in a working class town in Bergen County.I went to a four year college and have gone on to create hundreds of good paying jobs through businesses I have created over the last 30 years.A childhood buddy went to a two tear school and the became a police officer in our hometown.
After spiking his salary for the last two of his thirty years he retired at age 51with a $9800 per month pension do the math…and tell me how this is justifiable and or sustainable?
Village of Ridgewood “Unfunded liabilities (retirement payouts) reach $7.1M
Now Look at the Village of Ridgewood 2014 Budget Newsletter: “Unfunded liabilities (retirement payouts) are $7.1M (against a reserve of $479K)”…https://mods.ridgewoodnj.net/pdf/manager/2014BudgetNews.pdf
Why should anyone get a FULL, risk-free pension immediately after only 25 years of work ? The average retirement age of our public safety officials is 52.4, and they immediately start their full pension. In addition to that, on retirement they get up to six months of accumulated sick leave, paid out at their FINAL comp rate (salary + 10% longetivity pay) instead of at the rate when the leave was awarded earlier in their career. Most private sector workers don’t carry over sick leave from year to year, and don’t use it always – good health itself is reward enough. Yet municipal workers see this as a retirement perk, and this is very clearly being abused as per the article above.
photos surfaced from Texas and Arizona showing Border Patrol processing centers
US struggles with surge in illegal immigrant children By Geoff Dyer in Washington
Federal officials were scrambling at the weekend to provide medical and other supplies to an emergency shelter in Arizona to help house a surge of illegal child immigrants into the country that President Barack Obama has called “an urgent humanitarian situation”.
More than 750 children from Central America spent the weekend in an unused warehouse in Nogales, Arizona, which the border patrol agency has turned into a temporary “way-station” for the children, a state official said.
The improvised shelter is one of the by-products of a jump in illegal immigration from Central America this year, including 47,000 children who entered the country on their own – almost double the number from the year before.
The difficulties in coping with such large numbers of unaccompanied children are stoking the already tortuous debates about reforming the country’s immigration system..
Jan Brewer, the conservative Republican governor of Arizona, described the conditions at the shelter in Nogales as “dire”. She urged people to ask the Obama administration “the reason for this massive influx of illegal crossings and the cost to taxpayers for having to deal with the crisis created by the President”.
Although the overall trend of illegal immigration has dropped in recent years, the authorities have been overwhelmed in recent months by the surge in children trying to cross the border. The federal government is establishing facilities at military bases in Texas and California to help house the children while their cases are being examined. The administration estimates that the influx of immigrant children could cost the federal government $2.28bn this year.
Reader says time to face facts perhaps Bowe Bergdha was a plant allowing the US to infiltrate the Talaban . A double agent in spy talk . I mean he was just to good of a prize for the Talaban to pass up .
He fits the profile for a good counter spy , with “hippie” left leaning anti establishment parents . His career in the military featured several instances of “wandering off ” , and I did find it strange all the sources reporting he was under observation , yet it was felt too dangerous to try to recover him.
I concede that the President is probably looking for any excuse to rid himself of “Club Gitmo” and he knows most of the media will parrot anything including sending compulsive lair Susan Rice to do the rounds .
So maybe like so much these days it more than just a captive/traitor . Obama vs America , Islam is the Religion of peace wink wink , maybe he was an embedded spy its just about as much sense as anything else .
