Readers debate State worker give backs on pensions and healthcare
The pensions and benefits for the officials and employees has already been reduced by the legislature, the costs of health benifits should be curbed by the legislature as well, but for the health care providers to raise costs they should have to go before the board of public utilities regarding tax funded health care costs. Why come after the worker when the health care vendors are milti-billion dollar enterprises, I’ll tell you why, too many politicians at all level of Govt. own stock in these companies and that kind of legislation might affect the stock prices.
Hummm , well in the Private sector I used to pay over $600 per month for health insurance for a single person working in finance and now I have a consulting contract were as part of the deal I pay a bit over $400 per month for insurance (up over 25% since Obamacare) So for the record how much do you really pay in??
Bridgeaplooza: Reader says Once again the Record chooses to continue its GWB bad joke columns
Once again the Record chooses to continue its GWB bad joke columns. At least this time it kept the Roman Catholic Church from a bashing probably because it took care of the required daily Christie bashing. The Archbishop backtracked a bit, however. This piling on should be put to rest.
P.S. All these jokes & songs that the Record so loves to quote are not even funny so why bother. Oops I forgot, the Record won an award for breaking the GWB story.
Reader says Ridgewood’s effective property tax increase was +4% based on the realized decline in property prices.
According to a Tarvin Realtors report on Ridgewood home sale prices as a percentage of tax assessment value, the average sales price in 2013 was 108.35% of the full tax reassessment in 2012-2013 (source: https://www.tarvinrealtors.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/2013-December-RWD-Sold-v-Assessed-Value.pdf ). The 2012-2013 reassessment cut the average home value in Ridgewood by 13%, so that implies that average property prices fell by 4.65% YoY vs. 2012 based on realized sales prices in 2013 (8.35% – 13%). However, overall property taxes were flat to up YoY, so that’s an effective tax increase of +4% based on the realized decline in property prices.
Reader says We do not need pitchforks to say NO to over development
Much like the valley hospital situation, these people need an exception to the master plan. We do not need pitchforks to say NO. We do not even need a middle ground. These entities are all looking to build/expand so that they can make more money. Nothing personal, it’s just business.
What is in it for the town? More traffic, more kids in the schools and even less parking?
The Ridgewood blog Suports Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh as a Candidate for the Republican Nomination for Bergen County Freeholder
March 17,2014
PJ Blogger and the Staff of the Ridgewood blog
At this time the Ridgewood Blog wholeheartedly endorses Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh as a Candidate for the Republican Nomination for Bergen County Freeholder.
Bernie is uniquely qualified as a native of Bergen County and a sitting Councilwoman in the Village of Ridgewood to represent Bergen County as a Freeholder.
Bernie has extensive knowledge of the County and County operations and as a Council Person Bernie has balanced budgets, participated in Union Contract negotiations and is currently Chair our Safety Commission.
Bernie has proven herself to be an honest, reliable and a no holds barred advocate of Republican values.
Bernie has worked tirelessly on Republican campaigns over the years to ensure these values and views are heard throughout the County, State and beyond.
Bernie is a Corporate Relocation Consultant and Real Estate Appraiser and works throughout the County and State.
Bernie’s corporate experience comes in business of keeping people employed and making sure Bergen County is affordable and attainable at every level.
Because of this experience Bernie has tools to work within the County Government and to develop plans to lower taxes, strengthen property values and make Bergen County the pride of New Jersey.
Bernie and her husband Michael have been married for 21 years and they have resided in Ridgewood for the past 17 years.
Bernie is the mother of three energetic, thoughtful and caring children ages 16, 14, and 10 and is raising them to be productive, respectful and fun kids.
Reader says There’s a big difference between ‘opinion’s’ and ‘slander’.
There’s a big difference between ‘opinion’s’ and ‘slander’.
If someone makes a statement about a particular individual that is false and or defamatory, I’d say they could be liable for it. (one would have to prove damages in court and that’s a difficult and expensive task)
A ‘public person’ *elected official, govt employee* vs a ‘private person’ also has certain definitions and parameters of what is acceptable and expected to be written about them.
If I recall, one of the earlier online blogs set a legal precedent where online posters could state opinions, but not false accusations and slander.
The blog owner was sued and the problem there…and im not 100 percent certain…had to do with his editing of posts or selectively allowing some posts and not others vs. allowing all posts.
It was “emerson eye’ or ‘eye on emerson’… something along that name.
Analysis: Port Authority works under its own set of rules
MARCH 16, 2014, 12:01 AM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Their bylaws allow spending millions of dollars of public money with just a quarter of their members voting. They almost always agree, but rarely say anything about their decisions in public. Even for people at their meetings, it’s sometimes impossible to know how they vote as individuals.
The Port Authority’s commissioners are under increased scrutiny as their board’s chairman, David Samson, has been the subject of a growing number of reports that he voted for projects that benefited his law firm’s clients. Agency officials recently said he meant to recuse himself two years ago from a vote to give a $1-a-year lease to one of those clients, NJ Transit, even though he was recorded as voting for it.
On Wednesday, sources have said, the Port Authority will put that lease up for another vote in an effort to quell controversies stirred when The Record reported on it last month.
Samson, an appointee of Governor Christie’s and a significant figure in the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal, has not denied some of the other reported votes, including the authorization of $2.8 billion for two bridge projects that reportedly benefited two of his firm’s clients. But he has maintained that all of his actions on the board are for the benefit of the region and not for personal gain.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/analysis-port-authority-works-under-its-own-set-of-rules-1.743343#sthash.5aqmhiOo.dpuf
N.Y. archbishop draws laughs at N.J. event with good-natured GWB jokes
MARCH 15, 2014, 12:59 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, MARCH 15, 2014, 12:59 PM
BY LESLIE BRODY
THE RECORD
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, cracked New Jersey jokes at a Catholic men’s conference at Seton Hall University on Saturday, saying he “would have been here a little earlier but we got hung up on the George Washington Bridge.”
His good-natured reference to the lane-closure controversy confronting the Christie administration drew laughter and applause from the crowd of more than 2,000 who gathered in South Orange for the all-day conference. Dolan was the keynote speaker.
“What did you hold me up for?” Dolan asked. “I like the guy.”
Asked to elaborate in an interview later, Dolan said he didn’t like to comment on political views and had never met the governor, but he admired Christie’s “freshness, his openness, his moving around with people. That I find refreshing.”
He also declined to comment on recent news stories about Newark Archbishop John Myers’ plans for a $500,000 expansion of his Hunterdon County retreat, which some Catholics have called extravagant for a religious leader, especially at a time when Pope Francis has eschewed luxuries and preached the value of living modestly.
Dolan said he didn’t know details of the expansion and “I have enough headaches of my own to worry about.
E-cigarettes finding a North Jersey fan base in ex-tobacco users
MARCH 16, 2014, 12:00 AM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, MARCH 16, 2014, 5:41 PM
BY KARA YORIO
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
As New Jersey mulls an e-cigarette tax and the medical community continues to stress the unknown health implications of so-called electronic vaping devices like e-cigarettes, a passionate community is growing in North Jersey – it’s a group of advocates largely made up of former smokers who say they quit traditional tobacco cigarettes when they started vaping.
“This completely changed my life,” said 28-year-old Adam Jankowski of Garfield, who credits vaping for quitting his six-year cigarette habit in a week last spring.
Tim Condron of Woodland Park smoked for 40 years and tried different cessation products without success. Last summer he picked up an e-cigarette just to see what it was like. Soon, the pack-a-day guy was down to a few traditional cigarettes a day. Within six months, he was done completely.
Gary Remert, who smoked for 30 years, said e-cigarettes were “the only thing on the market” that worked for him and his wife in their many attempts to quit. He estimates they now save more than $600 a month not buying cigarettes.
iPhone usage tips
March 15,2014
Marc A. Hirschinger
1:43 PM
Ridgewood NJ, Since many of us have iPhones I thought I would pass along a few tips which may help make using your phone easier and quicker to use. For starters delete all old phone and text messages. Close the web pages you have been browsing as keeping these pages open uses a lot of memory. Clear the browser cache. Choose the “Settings” icon on your “home” screen and look up the “Safari” and click. There you will have the ability to clear cache, history and cookies. Finally, go to “Settings,” “General,” “then “Spotlight Search” or “Search Results and turn off all of the features you do not use, such as “podcasts, audiobooks etc.,” I hope this helps! Here is another good tip. Have a great weekend folks.
MARCH 15, 2014, 10:13 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — The village once again finds itself at the center of a drama involving a youth soccer program and the behavior of the adults in charge. This time, however, it’s playing out in a courtroom.
In a lawsuit filed in a Manhattan court last week, Siobhan Winograd, the wife of a leader of a village-based soccer travel team, alleges that her husband is the victim of false complaints lodged by anonymous critics.
Winograd would not discuss the suit with The Record on Saturday. But according to a copy of the filing, anonymous complaints sent to the village soccer organization had falsely alleged that Michael Winograd had “fixed” tryouts for the team and “engaged in misconduct relating to sportsmanship during the season.”
In the suit, which identifies the defendants as “Ridgewood Soccer Mom” and “John Doe,” Siobhan Winograd alleges that the complaints made anonymously to the village soccer organization were designed to injure “her family’s reputation and standing with their small community.”
This is not the first time that youth soccer in Ridgewood has come under unwelcome scrutiny.
Village resident and independent film director Caytha Jentis released a film in 2012 called “Bad Parents,” which was based on a play — “It’s All About the Kids” — that she had written about her soccer-mom experiences in Ridgewood.
The film, a satire starring Janeane Garofalo and Christopher Titus, painted an unflattering portrait of the parental back story that at times pervades youth sports programs in suburbia.
In the lawsuit, Winograd argues that, since the summer of 2011, she and her family “have been subjected to a pattern of harassment and other tortious conduct.”
MARCH 16, 2014, 12:07 AM
BY JEAN RIMBACH AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD
Thousands of routine power outages in New Jersey — caused by everything from faulty equipment to brittle tree branches to wayward animals — are being tracked by state regulators for the first time as electric utilities provide an unprecedented look at their day-to-day operations.
The gathering of detailed reports reflects an effort by the state Board of Public Utilities to enhance its oversight of the state’s electric distribution companies.
The filings do not include data on such headline-grabbing events as Superstorm Sandy and other major disruptions, which are documented in other reports kept by the BPU. Rather, the newly released data give the public a first glimpse of smaller problems — where and why they start, how many customers are left in the dark and for how long — even when nothing extraordinary is happening. The nearly minute-by-minute catalogs provide some of the most detailed information yet of trouble on the electrical grid, even on problems that affect just one customer.
Stephanie Brand, director of the state Division of Rate Counsel, whose office advocates for consumers in utility matters, says this gives the BPU a way “to identify the poorest performing areas of the distribution system.”
The day before the Iowa caucuses in 2008, I wrote about the massive crowds of young people at Barack Obama rallies, noting that his candidacy would collapse “if they don’t show up.”
The next night, after Obama’s victory celebration in Des Moines, Obama strategist Steve Hildebrand spotted me in a crowd. “The kids showed up!” he said fiercely.
They did. But where are they now?
An army of 15 million voters under 30 swept Obama past Hillary Clinton and John McCain and to the presidency in 2008. More than 12 million helped him return in 2012. But now his presidency is on the line — and the Obama youth are abandoning him in his hour of need.
The administration announced last week that only 1.08 million people ages 18 to 34 had signed up for Obamacare by the end of February, or about 25 percent of total enrollees. If the proportion doesn’t improve significantly, the result likely will be fatal for the Affordable Care Act.
The administration had said it needed 40 percent of registrants in the health insurance exchanges to be young adults, or about 2.7 million of the expected 7 million total. Overall enrollment is also below target. But the alarming shortcoming is the number of young participants, which would make the insured population older and sicker and the program too expensive.
This week saw the release of Obama’s sit-down with comedian Zach Galifianakis, of “The Hangover” fame, to encourage the young to join the Obamacare exchanges. It was good comedy (the host, in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, rolled up his sleeve to show Obama his “spider bites”), and according to the White House it had the desired result: a boost in traffic to HealthCare.gov. Yet the fact that Obama sought Galifianakis’s help was an indication of how much the president’s standing has slipped among young Americans. Six years earlier, he had been a demigod among that demographic.
What went wrong? The president and his aides failed to keep his youth movement engaged. But part of the problem also is the inability of the millennial generation to remain attached to a cause. The generation that brought Obama to power is connected online but has no loyalty to institutions — including, it turns out, the Obama White House.
In 2008, “the level of innovation and engagement in the election, especially the primaries, was amazing, but then the level of engaging them during the administration was extremely disappointing,” says Peter Levine, a Tufts University professor who specializes in youth civic involvement. “He had a potential army for legislative success and implementation, but the Obama administration did not do that. At a critical moment in the first term, they did not turn to them. . . . They got rapid youth demobilization.”
Young voters, after playing a big role in the campaign, became little more than an e-mail list for the White House and Obama’s Organizing for Action group. Then came health-care reform. The millennials, very liberal overall, saw Obama’s plan as too timid; they were disillusioned by his failure to fight for the “public option” of government-run health plans.
Reader Says Pitch forks and torches have their time and place. Cooler heads need to figure out a way to work out a solution that everyone can agree with
There is a bare minimum that the village can compel the property owners to do. Government can make them maintain their existing structures. Government can’t make them build something. That leaves two deteriorating vacant car dealerships in the middle of town.
The property owners could within current zoning make improvements that are far less desirable uses of that land. Uses that drive higher traffic than residential and exacerbate other problems our village has.
There is probably at least one solution that gets to middle ground. How do we get there? Demeaning the volunteer members of the Planning Board? Spreading rumors disguised as facts? Buying lawn signs? Writing internet posts with ALL CAPS? Probably not.
Pitch forks and torches have their time and place. Cooler heads need to figure out a way to work out a solution that everyone can agree with. Otherwise, get used to the look of those car dealerships.
‘far less desirable uses’, you mean far less profitable for the property owners. If they build something within the current zoning, and more traffic, etc. occurs, so be it.
A car dealership is retail, by the way. The only reason these blighted properties are in the condition they are in is because they are waiting for the chance to make the highest profit they can, its their jackpot – high density apartments. Period.
This has been the only time in Ridgewood’s history that this opportunity may come to fruition. Previously, we have always had Planning Board members and council members who appreciated our Master Plan for the power it beholds.
Bolstered by our mayor who is on the Planning Board and council and fully supportive of these high density buildings, these developers taste those profits. Its so close. That is why these properties sit, the potential in profits is worth the wait. If you support these developers, whats in it for you? I have met not one person who thinks they are good for the town. And its not just these 3 projects, amending the MP to allow this rezoning sets a precedent.
