file photo by Dana Glazer
June 21,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
RIDGEWOOD, NJ, Ridgewood voters decided today in a special election to repeal an ordinance to bond $11.5 million to construct the Hudson Street parking deck!
Voters turned out to overwhelming say NO in every district in what can only be called a landslide for the NO votes.
Full results
1425 yes votes 34.8%
86 absentee
2675 no votes 65.2%
81 absentee
total turn out 4097 24%
total registered voters 16901
Proposal – Ordinance No. 3521 for $11,500,000 Bond to Finance Hudson Street Parking Deck
Click Here for District Results.
Of course they did. We’re not stupid!
Thanks all for the proper publicity and for voting.
DEMOCRACY WORKS. CONGRATS TO THE EARY REFERENDUM COMMITTEES HARD WORK. NOW. RESIGNATIONS PLEASE SECOND VOTE OF ABSOLUTELY NO CONFIDENCE !!! MOVE IT ON OVER…..
Yes. Let’s get the FOUR amigos out, now.
Bye Roberta
And we won without having to lie about anything.
Thank you for the early post! A shout out must go to Lorraine Reynolds, The Lovings, The McCarthys,, Mt. Carmel and all the others who worked so very hard spending time and money to fight the good fight! And they won!! That means Ridgewood won!
Is it true that today is the mayor’s birthday? Best gift ever!
Picture should be of thumb down!
Under the table Fort Lee politics dont fly here
857 – disagree, this is a thumbs up moment. Getting out from under the yolk of the prior council.
Damned straight…!
Complete and utter repudiation.
Good riddance to the 3 ass clowns that tried to foist this monstrosity on us.
Next we take down Billary Clinton.
8:57 – I think it’s ‘yoke’ but I’ll let it slide since I’m in a good mood tonight…
Roberta “I’m Done ‘enberg” should see the writing on the wall and resign. Save us from having to have another landslide vote to kick her butt out
Another victory for James….
Line ’em up and knock ’em down. That’s a bowling metaphor.
Agreed. Thank you to the Lovings, McCarthys and Reynolds. And all the others who were vocal on Facebook.
The three council members and Roberta should go away quietly.
To Rubrick and Saraceno – IN YOUR FACE!
Big thanks for this blog keeping us informed about the real story.
No Sarceno, Vaggianos, Simoncini, Halaby at Village Hall tonight. No Gwenn. No Albert. But Jim Griffiths was there and he was very polite, very cordial, shook the hands of everyone on the “no” team and congratulated them sincerely. Aronsohn was upstairs at a PB meeting, we did not see him. Susan came down from the PB briefly and then went back up.
What about the Vag’s wall in front of his restaurant? Do we need a vote on that or Paul and Price to come clean how he ever got that approved? Would someone take that out with a dump truck or do we need to wait for snow plow season to take it down. I hope the new council will review this illegal wall soon in July and have him remove it. Congrats for Ridgewood on saying NO to over development once again.
Can you hear us now?
Ridgewood is awesome. Direct Democracy works!
So happy to have some sanity return to our town. It really is sad it had to come to this…if they had a less ego, offered voters more truth, and were more removed from developers a garage could have been reality. They refused to compromise and a year was wasted in the fight. Adios Amigos!
From an article in North Jersey . com about the results. Our soon to be Ex Mayor just doesn’t get it.
Mayor Paul Aronsohn, a staunch proponent of both the larger design and the referendum, said the results were “certainly not the end of the world, but it’s certainly not a good outcome for Ridgewood.”
“We desperately need a parking deck in our downtown,” Aronsohn said.
Wow great news. Just watch what Roberta does before July 1st. I bet she try’s to take care of of her “team” before the new council swears in.
I was afraid to turn on the computer when I got home. RELIEF WASHES O’ER ME.
I agree that resigning would be the ideal next step for Ms. S. She’d save herself a lot of embarrassment and the town a lot of grief. Her unacceptable behavior was mounting over time but the past few months have been incredible.
Ridgewood residents voted to not to throw good money after bad. And WHOA!!! the Three Amigos and their sidekick really did manage to spend a lot of bad money. The new Council should do a final accounting of all of the money deliberately prematurely sunk into this fiasco by the outgoing minority, almost as if they were constructing a financial poison pill!
Wow. What a nasty bunch of sore winners.
New Petition coming to remove Roberta if she doesn’t resign by July 1st.
Ridgewood residential streets are already burdened with commuter traffic seeking escape from congestion. Building a huge new attractant for more commuter traffic, accessible only through residential streets, would have been an enormous self-inflicted wound. Let us hope that the new council cancels this ill-conceived, destructive, and divisive project.
Great work, James. If ever there was a defining moment for this blog, this (and the recent election) was it.
8:54- Great job by everyone who voted NO, but these folks, in particular, deserve a special thank you. Well done !
Really Robert Caroll, did you go to school with Sore Loser Gwenn Hauck? Cheer up, Mrs. Carroll will be home a lot more these days. Hope that is what you want.
“I’m clearly disappointed,” said Mayor Paul Aronsohn, “because this was a missed opportunity to provide much needed parking in our downtown.” And he forgot to add a missed opportunity to take care of his friends.
There are a few more people in Village Hall that have to go. They hooked their cart to a falling star and now they have to pay the price. How about a new planner that not hell bent on Affordable Housing. Do we really need an assistant to the VM or an HR person? Roberta’s A TEAM should go with her.
7:31, yes the assistant village manager, whose husband is an attorney in planning board attorney’s firm.
“Ridgewood residential streets are already burdened with commuter traffic seeking escape from congestion. Building a huge new attractant for more commuter traffic, accessible only through residential streets, would have been an enormous self-inflicted wound. Let us hope that the new council cancels this ill-conceived, destructive, and divisive project.”
So true! Some of that congestion will be relieved when we finally get to demo that bike lane!
Good result! Now back to our usual programming (e.g. brietbart and wnd talking points)
lol
Looks like there are going to be political killings as the majority removes any dissidents. Lots of smug nastiness posted above, is this what we have to look forward too from the clean slate?
Ridgewood is not interested in “Machine” politics time to head back to Hudson county
thanks to all the time and hard work that the petitioners put in to overturn this crazy garage proposal. Hopefully with a new council we can move forward and try to resolve the parking issues in a logical sane manner.
It’s like the political recriminations that led to Bridgegate… Garage-gate, as in “I see a lack of customers coming to any business that supported the garage” which we’ve already seen posted on this blog.
once again Union city is waiting your return
James, the only place I’ve ever lived in NJ is Ridgewood, get a grip
hummm you sound like you live in Jersey City
Wow, 24% of eligible voters, what a stunning tepudiation
Thanks, 7:20 for proving my point.
The general furor erupted into fury as we watched Monsieur Carpetbagger and his allies work hard to lie their way to financial and political victory by destroying everything in their path, including people he didn’t like. We can calm down now.
10:15, you don’t understand democracy and voting. In statistics just 30 random samples are enough. In democracy, 24% are enough to represent the ‘will of people’.
I bet Audrey and Megan met for a latte today….they can’t be feeling too comfy right now..
Maybe we can send Anne Loving, Gail Reynolds and Marcia Ringle as as our envoys to meet with Audrey on the property taxes they owe, including back taxes
First step. No garage.
2. Remove Greek to me illegal planters
3. Remove the confusing bike lane
4. Get some sidewalks built on Clinton place. And open the street to traffic
I hope the mayor and his minions have gotten the message that THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN
Not into any of these personal attacks. We are simply fortunate that this is a educated town for the most part and that the public serves as checks and balances. Think it is healthy that there was a housecleaning of the council because there was obviously mistrust whether warranted or not. Certain issues can now be looked at with a relatively clean slate. though some large issues like Valley will still carry forward. On that matter, I hope rwd will stand its ground and not accept any cave in and also follow what other communities are doing as far as challenging the farcial tax exempt status From experience , local govt isnt easy especially for newcomers who are usually idealistic before realities set in. NJ govt excesses and obligations to an oversized public sector has impacted all municipalities . I can say that no one should come in to local politics with a personal agenda unless it is to serve their community. Shouldnt be a stepping stone to better and greater things. Ridgewood doesnt need career politicians but civilans that fight for their townspeople at every turn. Unfortunately influence peddlers muddy the waters so much that which was once a clear vision become foggy. It can be difficult to stand against the self interests of the influential when you become influential enough to be in those circles.Others simply make mistakes out of good intent. I wish this new council the best and hope that they remember that they were elected to serve their community first and foremost. This isnt about them but the overriding wishes of the majority. Best advice I can give is to listen to your citizenry and communicate with them with honesty. Never gonna make all happy but Ii people respect your reasoning then they can accept even if they cant embrace
11:28 there are a lot of restrictions regarding the application of Central Limit Theorem, but your point stands none the less.