Ridgewood municipal parking lots may get paved
Tuesday September 24, 2013, 11:37 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Improvements to two heavily trafficked municipal parking lots will be considered next month when the Village Council votes on a capital ordinance for the Ridgewood Parking Authority.
The ordinance, which was introduced by the council last week, would appropriate more than $368,000 for work at the separate metered lots at Chestnut and Hudson streets.
Work at the Chestnut lot, which is estimated at $114,170, would include the acquisition and installation of multi-space meter units. According to the ordinance, the units would have a 15-year lifespan.
The costlier portion of the capital project is repaving work at the Hudson Street lot, which would amount to $254,390 with a 10-year period of usefulness. Details of the work were recently questioned by Councilwoman Gwenn Hauck, who suggested that the lot location has been mentioned as a potential site for a parking garage.
Ridgewood weighs multifamily housing for downtown
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — The Planning Board this week directed the village planner to draft an amendment to the master plan, permitting high-density, multifamily housing complexes downtown.
Four proposals for such developments sit before the Planning Board, but the master plan prohibits them.
Blais Brancheau said he would do his best to prepare a possible master plan amendment before the board’s Oct. 15 meeting. If he does, a public hearing could be set for early November.
On Monday night, the Planning Board agreed that the public should have its say on the proposal, which has been before the board for more than two years.
Ridgewood BOE Seeks to Eliminate Budget Vote
Tuesday September 24, 2013, 11:25 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood school administrators are discussing whether to get rid of the school budget election.
The 2013-2014 budget vote, which is no longer required by state law, cost about $30,000 in election spending, according to Superintendent Daniel Fishbein. The expense seemed large in comparison to the turnout. This past April, only 12 percent of registered voters went to the polls, a historically low turnout for Ridgewood.
The budget, requiring an $85 million tax levy, passed with 55 percent of voters in favor and 45 percent against. The last time the budget was rejected was 2010, and the Village Council ultimately trimmed about $100,000 from the spending plan, a small amount relative to the multimillion-dollar budget.
According to Board of Education (BOE) President Sheila Brogan, Ridgewood has usually attracted a turnout of above 14 percent.
Ridgewood is not alone in its low turnout, and even this year attracted a higher percentage of budget voters than Bergen County overall. According to the Bergen County Clerk’s Office, only about 14,000 voters turned out to all participating Bergen districts’ elections this April, about 10 percent overall.
Plans for open space in Ridgewood still to be determined
Tuesday September 24, 2013, 11:31 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
It’s not uncommon to catch a glimpse of a youth ball game while driving through the Route 17 corridor. To date, motorists can spy the action on sports fields from the heavily trafficked highway in East Rutherford, Carlstadt and Hasbrouck Heights.
Ridgewood’s Open Space Committee last October recommended that any individual or group interested in preserving the Schedler house on West Saddle River Road should present plans to the Village Council within 12 months. Several residents had the opportunity to tour the property and interior, pictured here, of the home last month.
If funding falls into place, a fourth location and the first adjacent to the thoroughfare’s northbound lanes might one day pop up in Ridgewood. Plans to convert the heavily wooded, 7-plus acre lot between Route 17 North and West Saddle River Road into a multi-use athletics facility have made the first run through the village’s engineering department but are still under scrutiny and far from complete.
The fate of what is known to most residents as the Schedler property is still up in the air, though a youth sports complex has already won the endorsement of a number of key groups in Ridgewood, including the Open Space Committee. Specifically, a 90-foot baseball diamond with a multi-purpose turf field overlaying the baseball outfield has been laid out on the table. The plan also calls for designated areas for passive recreation and an accompanying parking lot.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/recreation/225034202_Plans_for_open_space_in_Ridgewood_still_to_be_determined.html#sthash.wawaqmTI.dpuf
Newark mayor Cory Booker, who hopes to be New Jersey’s next senator, claims to have “released” 15 years’ worth of his tax returns in what his campaign trumpeted as a “historic gesture of transparency.” National Review
Lonegan working the crowd at Point Pleasant Beach Festival – Ocean County
Lonegan Closes Gap in Latest Quinnipiac Poll
“This poll reveals what my supporters and I already knew — New Jersey is not the hopelessly liberal state everyone thinks it is. We are on a path to victory.”
METUCHEN, NJ – Mayor Steve Lonegan, the Republican U.S. Senate candidate, remarked on the recent Quinnipiac poll, showing the race between him and Booker is much closer than previously reported.
“My campaign is clearly gaining momentum. We have exposed Cory Booker as a Hollywood wannabe with a failed liberal record, and New Jerseyans are embracing the message of limited government and individual liberty,” Lonegan said.
“This poll reveals what my supporters and I already knew — New Jersey is not the hopelessly liberal state everyone thinks it is. We are on a path to victory.”
Lonegan served as Bogota Mayor for twelve years, winning three times in a town that gave Barack Obama 67.5 percent of the vote in 2012. He served for seven years as state director of Americans for Prosperity New Jersey, where he helped defeat liberal attempts to expand big government. Steve Lonegan is the conservative Republican candidate in the New Jersey special election for the United States Senate. Lonegan stands firmly on the bedrock conservative values of small government, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty.
‘A big act’: Newark mayor’s ‘urban legends’
By Michael Gartland
September 21, 2013 | 8:06pm
Gunshots rang out between the red-brick apartment buildings at Pilgrim Village, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker ran to the noise. When Wazn Miller — the 19-year-old who was shot and bleeding — fell, Booker was there to catch him.
It was April 19, 2004. Just another day in Newark.
“It seemed like a whirlwind was going on around me, so much was flashing through my mind as I sat there just trying to hold this child as his breathing stopped,” Booker told an audience at Yale three years later. “The ambulance finally came, pushed me out of the way, ripped open his shirt where I now saw three gunshot wounds in his front, one in his side — and he was dead.”
Booker’s breathless retelling of Miller’s tragic end was meant to illustrate one of the “lowest points” in his life in the Brick City. It’s the type of story that has made him famous and wealthy, a national figure who pundits say looks increasingly “presidential” and will be, more than likely, New Jersey’s next US senator.
The only problem is, the story isn’t completely true.
N.J. hospitals changing to meet needs of Affordable Care Act
Each day, about a dozen employees gather at CentraState Healthcare System in Freehold Township to come up with a plan to ensure they don’t see their patients again any time soon. Asbury Park Press
Elevated lead levels in Ridgewood water prompt campaign
Tuesday September 24, 2013, 11:19 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood Water subscribers are reminded to run household faucets for half a minute before consuming drinking water, a practice made necessary in light of elevated lead levels found in various testing samples last year. The announcement made by water department officials at a recent Ridgewood council meeting was part of a public notice campaign required by the state.
As part of a notification program handed down by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Ridgewood’s water company recently began a series of public education initiatives to inform residents of the dangers posed by excessive lead exposure and to provide advice on how to safeguard against it.
The DEP also mandated that Ridgewood Water institute a corrosion control program, which, according to business director Dave Scheibner, is in a pilot phase. Scheibner said that officials, through the program, are determining the optimal treatment to control lead corrosion in the piping of the water system.
The Obamacare that consumers will finally be able to sign up for next week is a long way from the health plan President Barack Obama first pitched to the nation. Politico
Foundation asks to upgrade Stable in Ridgewood
Monday September 23, 2013, 10:58 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
Ridgewood Council members are reviewing a proposed donation from philanthropist David Bolger that would effectively provide for needed upgrades to the Parks and Recreation Department headquarters at the Lester Stable. The only likely roadblock from the village’s acceptance of the gift is an existing ordinance that restricts donations from a category of benefactors.
Council members are mulling over the terms of Ridgewood’s gift ordinance, a regulation originally voted into place in 2008 and revised two years later with the intent of prohibiting the village from accepting contributions from individuals and entities with applications before a municipal board. A real estate firm owned by Bolger and operated by his family currently has an application before Ridgewood’s Planning Board.
The ordinance was cited earlier this year when the council turned down funding from The Valley Hospital, which offered to defray the printing costs of Ridgewood’s emergency planning guide. It was again mentioned in July after council members accepted complimentary admission to a fundraiser for Gov. Christie
Reader: This will be Ridgewood’s future, more people, declining services, higher taxes. Who’s in?
Developers only need to dazzle a handful of our planning board / council members to take over our community. Our Village is trying to build its way our of a declining budget. Development charges collected from developers and taxes collected from new residents will not even come close to offsetting the costs of new services that such development requires! This is like throwing gasoline on a fire.
It is important that new development disclose its true cost to the community. We need a study that includes traffic impact, financial impact, environmental impact, population and housing impact, schools impact, public facility impact and utility impact and a cost – benefit analysis. In addition, these studies, or analyses, should include a compilation of the cumulative impact of proposed projects along with other recently completed, current and proposed major projects.
Increased population and development create greater demands on a municipality to provide service to existing residents and and new infrastructure to accommodate growth. Towns and Cities throughout New Jersey are experiencing deterioration of their financial health as a direct result and are becoming increasingly unable to provide current levels of service. This will be Ridgewood’s future, more people, declining services, higher taxes. Who’s in?
Removal of dirt around poles intrigues Ridgewood
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — Crews from Public Service Electric and Gas were back on Hope Street last week, but they were not there to install utility poles.
The workers were there to remove something — dirt from around the base of seven of the controversial poles, a PSE&G spokeswoman said in an email.
“In response to complaints from residents, we are taking steps to address the staining that appears at the base of several recently installed utility poles,” Karen Johnson wrote on Friday.
Crews arrived Friday in unmarked white vans, residents reported, and, using shovels, removed “several inches of soil around the base of seven poles,” Johnson said. The dug-up dirt was transferred into white garbage bags. It was then replaced with fresh topsoil.
Obamacare Will Increase Health Spending By $7,450 For A Typical Family of Four
Chris Conover, Contributor
It was one of candidate Obama’s most vivid and concrete campaign promises. Forget about high minded (some might say high sounding) but gauzy promises of hope and change. This candidate solemnly pledged on June 5, 2008: “In an Obama administration, we’ll lower premiums by up to $2,500 for a typical family per year….. We’ll do it by the end of my first term as President of the United States.” Unfortunately, the experts working for Medicare’s actuary have (yet again[1]) reported that in its first 10 years, Obamacare will boost health spending by “roughly $621 billion” above the amounts Americans would have spent without this misguided law.
What this means for a typical family of four
$621 billion is a pretty eye-glazing number. Most readers will find it easier to think about how this number translates to a typical American family—the very family candidate Obama promised would see $2,500 in annual savings as far as the eye could see. So I have taken the latest year-by-year projections, divided by the projected U.S. population to determine the added amount per person and multiplied the result by 4.
Common Core Lacks Common (Business) Sense
Lindsey Burke and Brittany Corona
September 22, 2013 at 7:00 am
Proponents of the Common Core national standards push, including the U.S. Department of Education, have long argued that Common Core is a state-led initiative.
Why, then, would Secretary of Education Arne Duncan—and special guest President Obama—meet with more than 40 CEOs to promote Common Core?
President Obama and the nation’s top federal education official met with CEOs this past Wednesday at a gathering of the Business Roundtable in order to, as Education Week’s Sean Cavanagh put it, give Common Core “a boost inside the Beltway.” (Dane Linn, current vice president of education and workforce policy at the Business Roundtable, helped develop Common Core.)
President Obama promoted Common Core during his remarks to the CEOs, stating:
I want to thank the [Business Roundtable] because you’ve worked with us on issues like creating a common cause—a common core that ensures that every young person in America has the opportunity to get prepared for the kinds of jobs that are going to exist in the 21st century. (Emphasis added.)
The “you’ve worked with us before” line once again underscores the fact that the Administration has been very much involved in the Common Core effort. Federal entanglement aside, should business leaders heed President Obama’s calls to support Common Core national standards and tests?
CEOs should not be seduced into believing that Common Core will improve K–12 education and equip the American workforce with the skills future employees need in order to be successful. On the most foundational level, business thrives on a free market economy— on competition, not monopoly. But the Common Core initiative monopolizes the educational marketplace. It is a top-down approach to education that separates those closest to the students—parents, teachers, and local leadership—from the educational decision-making process.
Successful entrepreneurs would balk at such an approach for their own companies. Top-performing industries push decision making downward and provide employees with incentives to improve. Successful entrepreneurs also understand that businesses need to be able to engage in continuous quality improvement in order to remain competitive. Such an external mechanism for continuous improvement is absent in the Common Core national standards push.
Common Core is the antithesis of the type of innovation that defines entrepreneurship: It is bureaucratic, top-heavy, and inflexible.
Despite claims that Common Core was led by “teachers, parents, school administrators,” the Administration’s presence at Wednesday’s Business Roundtable meeting suggests otherwise. Indeed, according to a poll taken by PDK and Gallup earlier this month, 62 percent of Americans do not even know what the Common Core is.
Supporters of the Common Core would do better to learn from the CEOs about how to create excellence in a given field. Most recognize that choice and innovation—not centralization—is the key to improvement.
It’s this very lack of choice and innovation that has weighed down American K-12 education for decades. The last thing it needs is more centralization through national standards and tests.
![MPj03168680000[1]](https://theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/MPj031686800001.jpg "Booker’s problematic tax returns")
