“Must-have” requests require some effort for North Jersey realtors
Sunday, November 10, 2013
BY JENNIFER V. HUGHES
SPECIAL TO THE RECORD
The Record
Every home buyer starts out with a “must-have” list that usually includes a certain number of bedrooms and bathrooms, a finished basement, or maybe a nice yard.
But for some, the list is a little more exacting — sometimes a lot more: specific views, precise colors, a particular layout, even a specific house.
“Oh, yes,” says Emila Freitag, an agent with Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty. “I had a client in Ridgefield who lived in town and always loved this one little Cape Cod, they loved the lot and the yard — it was just beautiful. They always told me, ‘If it ever goes on the market, we want to buy it.’ ”
One day Freitag noticed a moving truck in the home’s driveway, knocked on the door and introduced herself. An adult daughter of the elderly woman who lived there was moving some of the woman’s things out, but the home was not on the market yet.
“They were thinking of selling it down the road,” she says. Freitag introduced her client to the senior citizen, who liked the idea of a young family coming in. A deal was born.
Dawn Braithwaite, an agent with Keller Williams Realty in Ridgewood, says the key when working with buyers with particular tastes is to find out what they really want, which isn’t always what they say they want. She recalls the case of another agent in which their buyer insisted on a large dining room, turning down home after home without that feature.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/realestate/231325391__Must-have__requests_require_some_effort_for_North_Jersey_realtors.html#sthash.703ITEh7
Analysis: Tens of millions could be forced out of health insurance they had
Published: November 7, 2013 Updated 23 hours ago
By Kevin G. Hall and Anita Kumar — McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — Even as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans, his administration knew that tens of millions of people actually could lose those their policies.
“If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period,” Obama said as he pitched the plan, the unqualified promise he made repeatedly.
Yet advisers did say in 2010 that there were large caveats and that anyone whose insurance plan changed would lose the promised protection of being able to keep existing plans. And a report in 2010 said that as many as 69 percent of certain employer-based insurance plans would lose that protection, meaning as many as 41 million people could lose their plans even if they wanted to keep them and would be forced into other plans. Another 11 million who bought their own insurance also could lose their plans. Combined, as many as 52 million Americans could lose or have lost old insurance plans.
After three decades,Route 17 south near Paramus Road to be developed
Thursday November 7, 2013, 5:25 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
A new specialty retail commercial center is coming to Route 17 in Ridgewood, with businesses such as Starbucks and Verizon leading the list of potential tenants.
The Ridgewood Planning Board on Tuesday unanimously approved Malvern Burrough’s plan to build a 15,300-square-foot strip mall on land along Route 17 south near Paramus Road, property that he has owned and has been trying to develop for the past 30 years. According to a preliminary construction schedule discussed last month, Burroughs hopes to finally break ground on the project in early 2014 and allow lessees to move in during the fourth quarter.
Board members granted their approval this week after the developer and his team returned a slightly modified site plan that incorporated the changes and recommendations previously made by Ridgewood’s planning and engineering professionals. The board was also overwhelmingly satisfied with the overall design and aesthetics of the proposed building, which were detailed Tuesday night by project architect Charles Dietz.
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Affordable Care Act Could Be Further Hamstrung By Shortage Of Doctors
At Current Rate, As Many As 52,000 Primary Care Physicians Needed By 2025
November 4, 2013 6:37 PM
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — A doctor shortage is threatening to make the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act even more difficult — and it could create lines for care and services.
New Yorkers are notorious for wanting things immediately, and that includes medical care.
But even doctors who support Obamacare say there could be delays due to more patients and fewer doctors, CBS 2’s Dick Brennan reported Monday.
“It’s like shopping during Christmas time. I mean, you’re going to have a tough time if you have all of these people demanding services at the same time,” said Dr. Steven Lamm of the NYU School of Medicine.
Lamm said the Affordable Care Act could mean an explosion of demand for doctors and services, but will the system be able to handle it?
the above photo of poets (l to r) James Gwyn (MC for the event), Susanna Rich, and Ed Romond.
42 and 14: A Tribute to Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Baseball Held October 26, 2013 Ridgewood Christian Reformed Church Hosts: Jim Gwyn and Emily Rose
Here is a link to poetry event photos by Emily B. Wilson, of Emily Photography.
Bergen Freeholder GOP candidates share views with The Record’s editorial board
Monday October 7, 2013, 9:55 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Bergen County’s three Republican freeholders disagree on some major issues confronting county government, including police consolidation and pay-to-play reform.
Those differences emerged repeatedly during a wide-ranging 90-minute interview Wednesday with The Record’s editorial board.
I opened my mailbox on Saturday afternoon, Save Jerseyans, and I found the nifty little mailer to your right (and at the bottom) among the bills and supermarket circulars.
It’s produced by “The Coalition to Preserve Jobs and Our Constitution,” a group of Garden State business owners dedicated to defeating a proposed constitutional amendment on New Jersey’s fall ballot which would hike our state’s minimum wage and, most troubling of all, constitutionally-mandating that all future increases be tied to the consumer price index.
How Government Creates Unemployment with Minimum Wage Laws
Monday, October 31st, 2011 by Kel Kelly posted in Capitalism, Economics, Politics, Regulation.
British Columbia, why do you hate the poor?
Excerpted from “The Case for Legalizing Capitalism”
Politicians like to tell us that if we elect them, they will create jobs for us. This is impossible, unless they intend to expand government and have taxpayers pay more government workers to produce unprofitable services, or, to directly finance the creation of specific jobs in a specific marketplace with taxpayers money. In either case, a destruction of wealth is involved, and the jobs”unlike private sector jobs”do not pay for themselves and thus require yet new taxpayer funding each year, which further reduces capital in the economy. Except for the few wealth-destroying activities such as building space stations[ref]The space stations might eventually help us produce wealth, but do not currently. Even if they did, consumers would likely prefer to have other things for their lives instead of space stations. If space stations were to be a consumer preference (i.e., cost effective), they would likely be so decades or centuries down the road, not now. Plus, many things NASA is associated with having created were actually created by others. On this, see Tim Swanson, What wont NASA Build Next, https://mises.org/daily/2434.[/ref] and military bases, government creates and builds nothing. It thus has no power to create real jobs in the marketplace; it can only manage and regulate. It is only individuals and individual companies that produce and create; their ideas and capital are what profitably create jobs. The only way politicians can create beneficial jobs for us in the marketplace is by undoing the existing policies that create unemployment.
Thats right, the government (and only the government) creates unemployment, except for unemployment that arises from temporary factors such as switching between jobs. The notion that there could not be enough jobs for everyone is absurd. Think back to the desert island example: can we imagine that regardless of whether there is one person or many people on the island that they could ever run out of things to do to improve their standards of living? The same is true in our economy today. There are many more things needing to be done than we have people to do them. Most companies operating today, given available monetary capital, would expand production of what they are currently producing, or create new lines of businesses if only they had additional workers available to do this new work. And the more people we would have producing, the more things we could produce.
So then why is there unemployment? Primarily because some workers are prevented from working by having the cost of their labor fixed artificially high, above the market price, by law.[ref]And to a lesser degree by other labor laws such as those dictating maximum hours one can work as well as laws restricting the hiring and firing of workers, both of which are more intensely implemented and destructive in Western Europe and South America, where unemployment rates often reach over 20 percent.[/ref]This is done in two primary ways. The first way is by the existence of a minimum wage. As we learned earlier, workers are compensated based on the expected value of what they can produce. If the government prevents companies from hiring workers for less than a given wage, and if workers are not capable of contributing enough to company revenues to be able to cover the cost of their wages, they will not be hired. If a workers contribution to production brings in $5 of company revenues per hour, then paying the worker $7 per hour will mean a loss of $2 per hour to the company. Such workers will thus be left out of the workforce because they are unprofitable.
One might counter-argue that companies should pay a minimum hourly wage of $7 simply in order for the worker to survive given the cost of living. This argument will be addressed later in the section on poverty. It could also be argued that companies could pay more to workers by paying the difference out of profit, or by raising their prices. Neither of these is possible. As was explained earlier, businesses pay the maximum amount they can afford to pay for both labor and physical capital. Paying more will cut into the capitalists™ returns, or eliminate their profit altogether, which will drive them away toward other ventures; the entire company could thus go under (not to mention that companies must reinvest much of their profit in order to produce next years goods). Similarly, businesses cannot raise their prices to pay for higher labor costs. If they were able to raise prices at all, they would have already done so simply to make a higher profit. Businesses charge as much as the market will bear given a particular amount of money in the economy; if they charge more, they will make less money because demand will drop. Businesses across the entire economy will only raise prices if there is an increase in the quantity of money in the economy”i.e., the government prints more money. The current discussion is based on a fixed quantity of money in the economy at a given time.
If companies charge more, people will purchase a lower dollar amount (higher price times a lower overall quantity purchased). If companies charge less, their customers will purchase a higher dollar amount (lower price times a higher overall quantity purchased). Which way is optimal? Companies charge an amount that maximizes the total revenue they receive based on a price/quantity mix that results in the highest amount of revenue. If they charge more than the optimal amount, the total dollar amount of goods purchased by customers at that particular price/quantity level will be lower than the total dollar amount purchased at the optimal point possessing a lower price and higher quantity.
As an example, consider a theoretical burger joint where the owner is wondering whether raising prices would make it possible to pay more to the workers. Figure 1.4 reveals the different amounts of revenues that would result from various prices of hamburger plates.
Lowering the prices of each burger plate results in more burger plates sold. Raising the prices of each burger plate results in fewer burger plates sold. We can see that this owners optimal price to charge for a burger plate is $5.10. Charging more than this will result in lower revenues because the increase in price causes customers to buy fewer burger plates. Charging less than $5.10 will also result in lower revenues because even though the lower price leads to greater volume, it also means that fewer total dollars make it into the till. This example shows us that if the restaurant owner tried to charge more in order to pay workers more, the entire restaurant would lose business. The likely result would be the laying off of at least one worker in order to maintain profitability.
The minimum wage can help no one except those remaining workers who receive increased pay at the expense of the ones let go. Ultimately, having a minimum wage harms those it purports to help. But its more than ineffectual; its damaging. Those who are hurt the most are those with the lowest productivity”younger, less educated, inexperienced workers. Every time the minimum wage is increased, unemployment rates rise for this group, particularly for black, male teenagers. Further, as unskilled labor becomes too expensive to hire, businesses find it cheaper to replace labor with technology (automation, etc.). This is a primary reason why, for the most part, we no longer have many gas station attendants, maids or doormen.
Most economists, free market-oriented or not, do not support minimum wage: its one of the few topics nearly all agree on. Those who do support the minimum wage usually do so for ideological or political reasons. The ideological reasons are based on emotions, not economic facts. The political reasons are obvious: to most politicians it seems not to matter whether they truly help or harm citizens. What is important to politicians is to be perceived as helping people. When Congress approves minimum wage legislation after hearing testimony from economists, most, if not all, of them voting in favor of it must surely be aware that the law will not help workers. The only explanation seems to be that they pass the law simply to look good to constituents who dont understand the harm done.
In his 1993 textbook,[ref]Joseph E. Stiglitz, Economics (New York: W.W. Norton, 1993).[/ref] Joseph Stiglitz wrote detailed explanations of how minimum wages, which are a type of price floor, cause unemployment.
Yet after being appointed chairman of President Clintons Council of Economic Advisors (CEA), he suddenly changed his opinion and supported minimum wage legislation. Perhaps he did this to be seen a œteam player. President Clinton in turn said that he supported the legislation because his CEA supported it. Stiglitz, as leader of the CEA, pointed to the fact that a handful of economists had signed a petition in support of the legislation as the main reason that he had chosen to support it. In the end, this minority of economists all supported it simply because they all supported it.[ref]Vedran Vuk, Professor Stiglitz and the Minimum Wage (2006), https://mises.org/daily/2266.[/ref]
The economists who come up with obscure and often methodologically and theoretically questionable statistical studies that contradict most other studies on the minimum wage and conclude that increasing the cost of labor can somehow improve the lot of workers, are either ignorant of economics or are attempting to circumvent economic laws. Logic alone tells us that if the price of labor is raised above the value of its usefulness, there will be less of a demand for it. After all, if raising wages will help workers, then why not apply the minimum wage to everyone, and make the minimum wage $100 per hour? Or $1,000,000 per hour?[ref]Naturally, pro-minimum wage economists managed to come up with “studies†where numbers were manipulated to show that a low minimum wage is helpful, but a high minimum wage is not.[/ref] Our politicians do not do this because they know that most of us would then be unemployed. We will see in Chapter 6 that artificially high wage rates were the primary reason the Great Depression lasted so long, and why it even evolved from a simple recession into a depression.
Kel Kelly has spent over 13 years as a Wall Street trader, a corporate finance analyst, and a research director for a Fortune 500 management consulting firm. Results of his financial analyses have been presented on CNBC Europe and in the online editions of CNN, Forbes, BusinessWeek, and the Wall Street Journal. Kel holds a degree in economics from the University of Tennessee, an MBA from the University of Hartford, and an MS in economics from Florida State University. He lives in Atlanta.
I opened my mailbox on Saturday afternoon, Save Jerseyans, and I found the nifty little mailer to your right (and at the bottom) among the bills and supermarket circulars.
It’s produced by “The Coalition to Preserve Jobs and Our Constitution,” a group of Garden State business owners dedicated to defeating a proposed constitutional amendment on New Jersey’s fall ballot which would hike our state’s minimum wage and, most troubling of all, constitutionally-mandating that all future increases be tied to the consumer price index.
– See more at: https://savejersey.com/2013/10/election-ballot-new-jersey-question-2-two-nj/#sthash.UChpukqK.dpuf
The Planning Board meeting I attended on Tuesday, Oct. 29 regarding Valley Hospital’s expansion was a study of contrasts. Sheila Brogan represented the Board of Education, and then two speakers, who are members of CRR, and Peter McKenna, the president of CRR, represented the residents of Ridgewood. The contrast came about, because Ms. Brogan, as a representative of the BOE, spoke about the board’s mission, commitment to student’s safety and yet not once did Ms. Brogan choose that stance, when she mentioned over and over, “if Valley’s expansion is approved.” She never veered from neutrality of her opinions on whether this would be a detriment to the students attending BF.
The appropriate response would be to take the side that most protected the children of Ridgewood, not just mentioning what the BOE expected Valley to do if and when they were allowed to expand. Worst of all, Ms. Brogan tried to compare the short-term renovations each Ridgewood school completed, to what the residents and students will endure if Valley’s renovation comes to fruition, which is insane, and could take up to 10 years. As Mr. Drill has said before, when he spoke at one of the meetings, “it’s comparing apples to oranges.” In this case, it is true.
Alex and Ani Ridgewood – Celebrates One Year Anniversay
Thu, November 14, 2013
Time: 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Location: Alex and Ani Ridgewood, 134 E. Ridgewood Ave., Ridgewood, NJ 07450
One Year Anniversary at Alex and Ani Ridgewood 134 E. Ridgewood Avenue Ridgewood, NJ 07450 6:00-8:00pm
Enjoy lite bites and raffles,
The first 20 people to attend will receive a complimentary gift.
On Friday October 11th the Ridgewood Police Department, held the first meeting of its new Community Policing Youth Ambassador Program at B.F. Middle School. The meeting was attended by 18 young residents representing the elementary schools, middle school and the High School along with several parents, school and police officials.
photos from Ridgewod Police
The program is a community policing partnership with the Ridgewood Board of Education, focusing on leadership and youth engagement in community and public safety concerns. These young residents will be part of an active community policing advisory team consulting directly with the Chief of Police, police personnel, school officials and village personnel on public safety and community concerns.
The Youth Ambassadors will have the opportunity to:
• Help make our community a safer place to live, learn, play and work.
• Be a voice in matters/concerns which directly or indirectly impact the youth of our community such as anti-bullying, tolerance and respect.
• Assist the police department with community outreach andeducational programs for Crime Prevention, Community Policing, and Pedestrian/Traffic Safety etc.
• Have input and involvement in the development of and content for Public Safety/Awareness (PSA) videos which would reach varied audiences.
• Help forge a collaborative partnership between Ridgewood’s youth and various public officials and agencies which serve our community and the region.
• Learn and experience team building and project management, as well as help develop interpersonal skills of collaboration, communication, cooperation, leadership and active listening.
• Demonstrate to their peers and others that you are never too young to develop the leader within you and make a difference.
The issues and concerns they will be addressing are real and have an impact on our community and region. The solutions they help develop will make a difference for our community. They will be working with other students, police, school and other public officials to find innovative solutions to current and future challenges.
Honorary Police Chief Michael Feeney will continue his duties for the Ridgewood Police Department as a critical member of the Youth Ambassador team.
Chief John M. Ward and Gregory Wu (Assistant Principle BF Middle School) will be coordinating and serving as program advisors.
Chief John M. Ward – [email protected] Gregory Wu – [email protected]
Changing school vote not in step with village ‘values’
Friday, October 18, 2013
The Ridgewood News
Changing school vote not in step with village ‘values’
Joyce and Keith Schnaars
To the editor:
The proposal to trade the public vote in Ridgewood for a $43K savings on a $92 million school budget and separate the direct partnership with the community and families of children in the public schools marginalizes the responsibility of citizens of Ridgewood.
This community values education and how and where its tax dollars are spent. This differentiates Ridgewood from other communities.
It’s midnight somewhere on the internet, do you know who your child is chatting with?
The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Computer Crimes Unit will be presenting an in-depth presentation on Internet Safety, hosted by the Ridgewood Public Schools on Wednesday, October 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Benjamin Franklin Middle School Auditorium. The presentation, entitled “Staying Safe in Cyberspace – Internet Safety for Parents,” is a comprehensive examination of today’s Internet and the dangers that lurk inside chat rooms, instant messages, e-mail and blogs.
This presentation is an integral function of the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Computer Crimes Unit. Through education and outreach to the community, the Computer Crimes Unit hopes to raise parents’ awareness of online predators and the dangerous content that is only a mouse-click away from their child’s grasp.
Through their dynamic, intriguing and eye-opening presentation, complete with vivid graphics and streaming video clips, the Computer Crimes Detectives hope to educate parents about the seedier side of the Internet. The goals of this presentation are to discuss the basic functions of the Internet, to highlight current Internet trends and to illustrate the associated risks facing children of all ages. After what will be a shocking display of the dangers associated with online communication, they will turn to preventative measures and effective solutions to protect children, many of whom know more about computers than the average parent.
“The explosion of the Internet has proven to be most influential with the youngest of generations, namely our children,” said Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli. He continued, “Protecting them on the World Wide Web, a truly unregulated atmosphere, is a tremendous task that needs to begin at home, where children are indeed most vulnerable.”
With the advent of the Internet-ready home computer as a principal component of today’s household, the World Wide Web and all of its users are essentially invited into the privacy of every home in Bergen County. Parents seldom realize the depth and breadth of a limitless connection to the rest of the globe via a seemingly harmless Internet connection in their own living room. Yet, it is exactly that link which needs proper supervision to preserve the safety of children online.
The Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Computer Crimes Unit, including the complementary Bergen County Computer Crimes Task Force, consists of Investigators from around the County and has the vast responsibility of deterring and detecting Internet crime. Many of their cases involve predators who target children through the Internet. To that end, Detectives who combat Internet crime have recognized that their approach must also include a strong education initiative involving parents and children who surf the Web. This proactive mechanism is in place in order to prevent children in Bergen County from stumbling into areas of the Internet where they can fall prey to an online predator.
Prosecutor John Molinelli and Chief Steven Cucciniello urge all parents and guardians to attend this Internet safety presentation. It is their hope that by having skilled, well-versed computer crimes Investigators, coupled with parents armed with a working knowledge of the Internet and its pitfalls, the children of this County are well-protected while exploring the World Wide Web.
For additional information about this event, please contact the office of the Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum of the Ridgewood Public Schools at 201-670-2700, ext. 10532 or [email protected]. For information about Internet Safety related issues, please contact Lt. Jason Love at [email protected] or Educational Outreach Coordinator D/Sergeant John DeVoe at [email protected].
The RHS Marching Band took home third place in their division at the Annual Yamaha Cup
The RHS Marching Band competed in the Annual Yamaha Cup on October 5 under the lights of MetLife Stadium. The band and took home third place in their division. The RHS Marching Band placed first on October 12, in Group IVA competition at the Vernon Twp USBands Competition. The band also took home awards for Best Music, Best Visual and Best Effect.
Readers debate if the Planning Board made up its mind in favor of Valley or not ?
Unfortunately the Board has already made up its mind in favor of Valley and Valley knows this. They have to go through the process again as part of the settlement of the lawsuit brought by the CRR. Remember the CRR sued the Planning Board for not following proper procedure last time which would explain why Valley has gotten its way at every turn this time.
Sad but true but Valley has bullied and bribed its way to get this far and the Planning Board is squarely in Valley’s camp. Next step is the rubber stamp from their former VP – Councilwoman Hauck. Time to start putting some real pressure on her to recuse or the bulldozers will roll.
or…….
Actually, the Board has to go through the process again because in 2010 the Village Council unanimously voted down Valley’s bid to double in size. Valley is now addressing the points brought up by the Council at that time. The trouble is, Valley hasn’t made significant changes, although the numbers have been sliced and diced to give the appearance of something they’re not. Bottom line: Valley Hospital still wants to double in size (starting almost from scratch) in a residential neighborhood of single-family homes, three schools, and two major playing fields.
****It might be true that the PB has already made up its mind. But I believe we can change minds through our strength in numbers. And we do outnumber the folks who actually, ludicrously, think the expansion might be a good thing.
