Author: James

NY-NJ transit agencies outline Super Bowl plans

Monday December 9, 2013, 8:00 PM

BY KAREN RO– USE

STAFF WRITER

The Record

There will be a “Fan Express” bus service to ferry Super Bowl ticket holders to and from the stadium. NJ Transit will have a $50 commemorative “Super Pass” that can be used on rails and buses in the week before the big game. And the PATH will sell special smart cards and increase the frequency of their trains.

But getting to Super Bowl 48, dubbed the first “Mass Transit Super Bowl,” may not be so seamless for out-of-towners visiting the area for the Feb. 2 game at MetLife Stadium. Those planning to use public transportation to get to events being held on both sides of the Hudson River that week might need a primer on transit passes – and a sense of adventure — to navigate the multiple transit systems often needed to get from one side of the Hudson River to the other.

For example, travelers trying to get from New York to Hoboken on Port Authority’s PATH train will need to buy a Smartlink card. Once in Hoboken, they will need to buy a different ticket– like the locals do – to use NJ Transit’s rail, bus or light rail systems to get to the stadium. And if you want to take a ferry or use Amtrak, there are more tickets.

ObamaCare created a Medicaid time bomb
By Michael D. Tanner
December 7, 2013 | 9:15pm

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that roughly 1.6 million Americans have enrolled in ObamaCare so far.

The not-so-good news is that 1.46 million of them actually signed up for Medicaid. If that trend continues, it could bankrupt both federal and state governments.

Medicaid is already America’s third-largest government program, trailing only Social Security and Medicare, as a proportion of the federal budget. Almost 8 cents out of every dollar that the federal government spends goes to Medicaid. That’s more than $265 billion per year.

Indeed, already Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid account for 48% of federal spending. Within the next few years, those three programs will eat up more than half of federal expenditures.

https://nypost.com/2013/12/07/the-medicaid-time-bomb

PSE&G to resume controversial pole project in Ridgewood
Monday, December 9, 2013    Last updated: Monday December 9, 2013, 1:26 PM
BY  DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News

Despite residents’ continued protests and ongoing pleas for local government intercession, Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) will resume work on the installation of 65-foot-high utility poles as early as today.

PSE&G officials met with Ridgewood staff Wednesday morning to detail the remainder of the project and produce a timeline for completion within the village, said acting Village Manager Heather Mailander. Utility crews will be back on the streets, specifically on Maple Avenue, to trim tree branches and work on the new poles that were previously mounted.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/235083001_PSE.html

BOE officials mull school calendar changes
Monday December 9, 2013, 12:21 PM
BY  LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Print | E-mail

Next year, Ridgewood family vacations on the school calendar might be different, if the district decides to end the school year earlier in June.

Results from a November poll about options to shorten the school year have been tallied, and school officials will be reviewing parental and teacher feedback, said Superintendent Daniel Fishbein.

Options under discussion include having a March break and doing away with the February and April breaks, or keeping the April break and shortening the February break. The poll also asked parents and teachers if they would prefer to leave the school year as is.

About 39 percent of responding parents were in favor of the March break option, 35 percent were in favor of the shortened February break and 25 percent wanted no change. Educators were also polled and around 45 percent favored either no change or shortening the February break.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/235082981_Ridgewood_officials_mull_school_calendar_changes.html#sthash.6STltNWU.dpuf

Police, not just the NSA, collecting cellphone data from innocent people
Sunday December 8, 2013, 11:56 PM
BY  ELLEN NAKASHIMA
THE WASHINGTON POST
The Record

WASHINGTON — Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies conducting criminal investigations collected data on cellphone activity thousands of times last year, with each request to a phone company yielding hundreds or thousands of phone numbers of innocent Americans along with those of potential suspects.

Law enforcement made more than 9,000 requests last year for what are called “tower dumps,” information on all the calls that bounced off a cellphone tower within a certain period, usually two or more hours, a congressional inquiry has revealed.

The little-known practice has raised concerns among federal judges, lawmakers and privacy advocates who question the harvesting of massive amounts of data on people suspected of no crime in order to try to locate a criminal. Data linked to specific cell towers can be used to track people’s movements.

The inquiry, by Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass., into law enforcement’s use of cellphone data comes amid growing scrutiny of the bulk collection of geolocation data overseas and of Americans’ phone records in the United States by the National Security Agency.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/crime_courts/Police_not_just_the_NSA_collecting_cellphone_data_from_innocent_people.html#sthash.8w1oIfEo.dpuf

Pallone Says Congress Doing Nothing About Sea-Level Rise, Blames Tea Party

Remember the important thing is to find someone to blame not fix and problems

Nonprofit group releases survey showing NJ voters want state and federal governments to get more involved in planning for climate change.

New Jersey voters may want the government to do more to plan for rising sea levels and climate change, but the issue is dead in the water in Congress, according to U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th).

Speaking at a conference organized by the nonprofit Clean Ocean Action, Pallone told the audience that Tea Party members in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives refuse to discuss the matter.

“Congress is doing nothing,” the Democrat said. “They can’t bring this up — if they do, they just get slapped down. We have to get this issue away from the ideology of the Tea Party and the right wing.”

Clean Ocean Action used the event — which marked more than a year of post-Sandy cleanup by almost 14,000 volunteers across the state — to release a survey showing that 96 percent of respondents believe climate change is at least a contributor to sea-level rise. (Hurdle/NJSpotlight)

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/13/12/08/pallone-says-congress-doing-nothing-about-sea-level-rise-blames-tea-party/

IRS using Google Maps to spy on taxpayers

Agents from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are using Google Maps as part of their tool kit to audit taxpayers and organizations, The Daily Caller has learned.

A redacted IRS letter dated Sept. 8, 2011 reveals that at least in one case the IRS’s examiners used photos of a property, obtained through Google Maps, as evidence to revoke the 501(c)(4) status of a homeowner’s association.

“The road consists of a two-mile loop around the inside of the property. It goes not have any sidewalks or bicycle lanes. The examining agent printed and copied a map from Google Maps (www.google.com) into this report,” states the letter.

Read more: https://dailycaller.com/2013/12/07/irs-using-google-maps-to-spy-on-taxpayers/#ixzz2mtIun7AO

New Affordable Care US health plans will exclude top hospitals
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington

Americans who are buying insurance plans over online exchanges, under what is known as Obamacare, will have limited access to some of the nation’s leading hospitals, including two world-renowned cancer centres.

Amid a drive by insurers to limit costs, the majority of insurance plans being sold on the new healthcare exchanges in New York, Texas, and California, for example, will not offer patients’ access to Memorial Sloan Kettering in Manhattan or MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, two top cancer centres, or Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, one of the top research and teaching hospitals in the country.

Experts say the move by insurers to limit consumers’ choices and steer them away from hospitals that are considered too expensive, or even “inefficient”, reflects the new competitive landscape in the insurance industry since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare law.

https://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/994951f8-5e71-11e3-8621-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2mylYQS5H

70% Of California’s Doctors Expected To Boycott Obamacare

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 12/07/2013 14:33 -0500

“We need some recognition that we’re doing a service to the community. But we can’t do it for free. And we can’t do it at a loss. No other business would do that,” exclaims the president of the California Medical Association, as The Washington Examiner reports, independent insurance brokers estimate 70% of California’s 104,000 licensed doctors are boycotting the exchange. “The Covered California board says we have plenty of doctors, and they allege they have 85 percent of doctors participating, but they’ve shown no numbers,” and if a large number of doctors either balk at participating in the exchange or retire, the state’s medical system could be overwhelmed. “Enrollment doesn’t mean access, because there aren’t enough doctors to take the low rates of Medicaid,” warns one health director. “There aren’t enough primary care physicians, period.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-07/70-calfornias-doctors-expected-boycott-obamacare

Ridgewood gets ideas for using 7-acre tract it bought for $2.7 million
Monday, December 9, 2013
BY  CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
The Record

RIDGEWOOD – When the village council sought input from residents about future uses of the Schedler property, 7 wooded acres along Route 17, they got a range of possibilities from a multipurpose field to nature trails to a short golf course.

And one option from people who live near the tract and fear an incursion of new traffic: Leave it as it is.

Mayor Paul Aronsohn said that residents living near the property should have a say in what becomes of the land but that efforts should be made to try to appease all segments of the community.

“This is an opportunity to do something special with this property,” Aronsohn said.

The thickly wooded property was bought by the village for $2.7 million using a grant specified for active recreation.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/ridgewood/235003471_Ridgewood_gets_ideas_for_using_7-acre_tract_it_bought_for__2_7_million.html#sthash.p7t6na00.dpuf

Reader questions intentions of permitting “increased density” beyond current Village zoning

None of the residents dispute a need for “empty nester” housing options, affordable housing or more options for special needs residents. What residents are wary of is raising the density from 12 units to 50 units per acre. Why so high? 50 units per acre is a density comparable to Fort Lee.

In 2006, Blaise Brancheau was the town planner for Westfield NJ. He prepared an ordinance for the Westfield Council that was passed on to the planning board. This ordinance required developers to construct one affordable residential unit for every eight market-rate dwelling units constructed. The ordinance also pointed out that a developer will NOT be permitted any INCREASE IN DENSITY of a building beyond what is already stated within the town’s zoning regulations. Why can’t Ridgewood do the same?

Why is Blais recommending something different for Ridgewood? Ridgewood and Westfield are almost identical towns. Yet, Westfield did not allow densities to increase. Blais is recommending we raise our densities by 400% in a 10 acre zone. Westfield did not even allow an increase of 1%.

https://archive.wmlnj.org/TheWestfieldLeader/2006/2006-04-06/pg_0002.pdf

the fly asks do people who appear before the planning board have to disclose potential conflicts of interest ?

the fly finds it interesting  the exchange between our deputy mayor Albert Pucciarelli and his friend David Rutherford  Now I’m to tell you a little story about the two. Rutherford does a lot of work for people in front of the Ridgewood planning board. He is now working on a senior housing project in Glen Rock and it just so happens that he needs a right a way from the Village to use the driveway that leads into the sewer plant.

During the last election its seems Mr Rutherford was a big supporter and ardent campaigner for our deputy mayor Albert Pucciarelli and spent many a Sunday handing out fliers . If you watch the rerun of last  weeks meeting you will see Mr  Rutherford presented his plan in front of council with his buddy Albert Pucciarelli leading the intro.

One only has to look at a former mayor and his failure to disclose a very close relationship with a local hospital and wonder  who else is not disclosing potential conflicts of interest?