Category: Village of Ridgewood

>https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/nj_council_blocks_corzine_plan.html

by Tom Hester and Mike Frassinelli/The Star-Ledger

Wednesday October 22, 2008, 7:17 PM

A powerful state council today shot down the Corzine administration’s plan to make 89 rural towns pay part of the cost of State Police protection.

The ruling by the Council on Local Mandates spares the towns — including three dozen in Hunterdon, Sussex, and Warren counties — from paying $12.6 million, and ends a contentious battle between the state and mayors. The total cost for State Police protection for the towns is about $87 million.

Patricia A. Meyer, the executive administrator of the Council on Local Mandates, said its members determined the provisions were “null, void and unenforceable” because they constituted an unfunded local mandate.

More than a dozen of the towns, including tiny Rocky Hill in Somerset County, brought the matter to the council, contending they should not be forced to pay for services they have received for free since the State Police was established in 1921. Nearly 323,000 people live in the 89 towns, about 4 percent of New Jersey’s population.

“Governor Corzine’s proposal was a slap in the face to residents of these rural communities who already see a disproportionate amount of their tax dollars used to fund services for residents in urban areas of the state,” said Assemblyman Michael Doherty (R-Warren). “We warned the governor that his plan was unconstitutional, but he chose to ignore those warnings.”

The state, for example, wanted Union Township in Hunterdon to pay $224,887; Victory Gardens in Morris County $37,216; Rocky Hill $29,227; Wantage in Sussex County $448,074, and Harmony in Warren County $216,270.

The Council on Local Mandates, which is independent of all three branches of state government, was created to carry out a 1995 constitutional amendment that declared the state could not set mandates on local governments without paying for them. Its eight members are appointed by the governor, legislative leaders and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.

Leland Moore, a spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, said the matter may not be over, even though the Council on Local Mandates has powers to issue decisions that cannot be second-guessed by state courts.

“We strongly disagree with the council’s decision and are considering all options to reverse its potential impact,” Moore said. He would not say what those options may be.

Earlier in the day, Corzine said he may have to find cuts elsewhere to cover the $12 million. He has already said about $400 million may be sliced from the current budget because of the bad economy.

“We can always go and take municipal aid in some other place if we can’t do it in this place,” Corzine said. “This is all speculative … Is it going to come out of higher ed? Is it going to come out of school aid? We have limited choices.”

Rural mayors were outraged when Corzine proposed his plan, saying it would force higher property taxes.Over the summer, Knowlton Township mayor Frank Van Horn vowed he would go to jail before his Warren County municipality paid $123,060 for for State Police coverage.

William Dressel, executive director for the New Jersey State League of Municipalities, said the decision “is not just a win for the 89 municipalities, but for all local governments because this would have set a dangerous precedent in foisting upon the local property taxpayer costs for providing services the state has traditionally paid for.”

However, Hope Township Mayor Timothy McDonough said he does not believe the state will stop trying to get towns to pay.

“I think this issue is going to keep coming up,” said McDonough, who next month becomes president of the state League of Municipalities. “It started with Whitman, then McGreevey and now Corzine.”

McDonough said paying $86,000 for State Police coverage in Hope would have meant a $100 per household tax increase in his sparsely populated community off Route 80 in Warren County.
He said the township couldn’t afford to start its own police force or join one with a neighboring municipality. As it is, the township has just three full-time employees — a clerk and two road crew members.

McDonough said he is pushing for a plan by state Sen. Jeff Van Drew (D-Cape May) to pay for rural State Police coverage through a $9 surcharge on traffic tickets.

Staff writer Dunstan McNichol contributed to this report.

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/nj_council_blocks_corzine_plan.html

>A New Brighton man suffered minor injury in a crash that occurred when the driver of the car he was in ran underneath the rear of a tractor-trailer Monday afternoon, according to state police at Lamar.

The crash occurred at the Interstate80 westbound off-ramp at state Route 64 in Porter Township, Clinton County, at about 2:15 p.m., police reported.

A car driven by Florine McQuade, 77, of Ridgewood, N.J., was traveling down the off ramp and failed to see a tractor-trailer stopped at the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp.

McQuade’s car ran under the rear of the trailer, police said.

McQuade, the driver of the tractor-trailer, Robert Burton, 65, of Conley, Ga., and his passenger, Teresa Burton, 56, also of Conley, were all wearing seat belts and were uninjured. McQuade’s passenger, James DeMaria, 53, was also wearing a seat belt and suffered minor injury, police said. No information was available on whether he sought medical care.

McQuade’s car suffered major damage and was towed from the scene.

>https://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20081017/NEWS01/810170359

By MICHAEL RISPOLI
Gannett State Bureau

Four-month-old Gianna DiFiglia died only two days after being injected with four different vaccines at a routine doctor visit.

Thursday, her mother, Patricia DiFiglia of Hackettstown, stood on the State House steps with a picture of her daughter in the air, underlined by the words “Murder,” protesting mandatory children vaccinations.

The issue has come to a head since New Jersey became the first in the nation to require annual flu shots for preschoolers last month. DiFiglia said she is scared to let her two other children get the mandatory shots, but the decision is difficult because schools mandate the vaccinations.

“I really want the choice without fail to be able to say no, especially with the flu shot,” said DiFiglia, 41. “It’s just ludicrous that they are mandating it in New Jersey.”

DiFiglia was one parent in a passionate crowd of 200 adults and children rallying for the passage of a bill allowing for conscientious objection exemptions to mandatory vaccinations. Many in the crowd held up signs saying “Our Kids, Our Choice,” or “Mother Knows Best.”

Those opposing the mandatory vaccinations say parents should have ultimate say on what shots their children get and that chemicals in the vaccines can cause serious neurological disorders, such as autism.

Health officials strongly oppose such exemptions, saying they would open the door for widespread disease. They view vaccines as a great advancement in medicine that has eliminated diseases such as polio.

“Vaccines have really changed the face of medicine,” said Lawrence Frenkel, a physician at the Children’s Hospital at St. Peter’s University Hospital in New Brunswick. “It has saved millions of lives and prevented countless epidemics of horrible, deadly disease.”

New Jersey last month became the first state to require annual flu shots for preschoolers and approved three additional required vaccinations. All told, children need 11 disease-related vaccinations, some requiring multiple doses, to enter day care or preschool in the state, state Department of Health and Senior Services spokeswoman Marilyn Riley said.

While 19 states have conscientious-objection laws on the books, New Jersey currently allows for exemptions only for medical or religious reasons. A hearing on the proposal was held in June, but the bill still has not been acted upon.

Reach Michael Rispoli at mrispol@gannett.com
https://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20081017/NEWS01/810170359

>https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/new_jerseys_pension_funds_lost.html

Posted by cjrothma October 20, 2008 15:24PM

New Jersey’s pension funds lost more than $5 billion last month, sliding to a value of $70.7 billion and continuing a swoon that has lasted more than a year.

Over the past 12 months the pension accounts have lost $12 billion in value. They now stand more than $14 billion below the peak value they reached more than eight years ago in early 2000.

For the first three months of the budget year — July, August and September — the pension accounts have lost 8.82 percent on their stock and other investments, according to the Treasury Department report.

For taxpayers, that performance is troublesome. Actuaries who calculate each year how much the state should put into the pension accounts to meet future benefit payments assume the money on hand will earn an average of 8.25 percent each year.

When longterm returns miss that mark, taxpayers must make up the difference. This year, between state and local taxes, taxpayers put more than $2 billion into the accounts, which bankroll retirement benefits for 700,000 teachers and public employees.

According to the Treasury Department report, the fund’s domestic stock holdings lost $2.6 billion in value during September, while the value of its international stock portfolio dropped from $16 billion to $13.8 billion. Other investment losses pushed the total drop for September to just over $5 billion.

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/new_jerseys_pension_funds_lost.html

>Dear Friends,

In the aftermath of the $700 billion bailout, many Americans are wondering how this exercise in government spending will affect their pocketbooks. No place is this of greater concern than in the state of New Jersey, a state afflicted with unusually high taxes. Among these taxes is the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), which is claiming greater numbers of victims among middle class families.

The AMT was created by the Democrat-led Congress in 1969 as a parallel tax universe to ensure that “wealthy” Americans paid income taxes even if they had no income tax liability under the regular income tax system. Taxpayers have to calculate their taxes under the regular tax system, calculate them again under the AMT system, and then pay the higher tax liability. Essentially, the AMT was a net to catch high-income tax avoiders. But, Congress failed to look to the future when it wrote the AMT into law, and today it captures many families firmly in the middle class. Primarily, this is because the AMT is not indexed to inflation, so the income threshold set in 1969 for the very wealthy remains the income threshold for paying the AMT penalty today. To make matters worse, especially for those of us here in New Jersey with a very high state and local tax burden, the AMT fails to allow for commonplace deductions and tax credits, including the deduction for state and local taxes and the home mortgage interest tax credit. About 4 million taxpayers each year are deprived of the various deductions and credits that often save middle class families from stiff tax liability.

Last year, 3.5 million taxpayers were subject to the outdated and burdensome AMT. This year, the AMT will affect a whopping 23 million taxpayers. And, according to the Urban Institute/Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, if Congress continues to neglect this growing problem, in 2010, the AMT is projected to ensnare 32.4 million taxpayers – 34 percent of them are individual filers. That same analysis shows that 89 percent of married families with two or more children and incomes between $75,000 and $100,000 will be penalized under the AMT. By 2017, these numbers become still more dire: 53 million taxpayers – almost half – will be hit by this tax penalty.

There is no question that this outdated tax must be repealed or at the very least reformed. Up to now, Congress has put in place a series of one year patches to ensure that middle class Americans wouldn’t be enveloped by the AMT.

I’ve introduced the AMT Middle Class Fairness Act which would index the AMT to inflation and allow a state and local tax deduction against the AMT. This is a commonsense approach to the underlying problems of the AMT, and it would go a long way to helping New Jersey families who will be sideswiped by this stealth tax. The real answer, however, is to repeal the AMT. Last year, I joined several of my colleagues to introduce a new approach that would actually eliminate the AMT and restore fairness to the system for middle class America. The Taxpayers Choice Act would make the tax system transparent, simple and efficient.

Congress must make fixing the AMT a priority before it destroys the American middle class. It’s time for Washington starts looking out for taxpayers and their pocketbooks. It’s time for Washington to turn its focus on protecting the family budget, not growing the federal budget.

Sincerely,

Scott Garrett
Member of Congress

BIG TAX INCREASES ON THE WAY

>Eat more dog food 9 (8%)

Buy a second hand Mercedes in stead of new 18 (16%)

Send your kids off to work 9 (8%)

Have or shop at a garage sale 6 (5%)

Eat out less 69 (62%)


Votes : 111

We found the a full 69% said they would eat out less and 16% said they would buy a used instead of a new mercedes but only 8% said they would eat more dog food!

>THE NEW YORK TIMES
October 19, 2008
By KAREN ANN CULLOTTA

School officials and parents across the nation are turning an increasingly critical eye on the time-honored tradition of voters’ casting ballots in the gymnasiums and hallways of neighborhood school buildings while classes go on as usual just a few yards away.

Citing a litany of safety concerns, many officials are opting to keep youngsters home on Nov. 4, Election Day.
“School districts across the country now spend millions of dollars each year on controlling access to buildings with locked doors and surveillance cameras to keep strangers out,” said Kenneth Trump, president of the National School Safety and Security Services, an advocacy group, in Cleveland. “In a post-Columbine, post-9/11 world, we shouldn’t be opening the doors at our schools on Election Day, and just hoping everything will be O.K.”

The decision to cancel classes on Election Day in the Rockland public schools in Massachusetts stemmed from an accident — an elderly driver, on his way to vote in the state’s presidential primary on Feb. 5, struck and critically injured an 8-year-old girl outside an elementary school in a neighboring district.

The accident and the response by Rockland officials caught the attention of a PTA president in Aurora, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, a mother of two whose worries about the use of schools as polling places prompted the district to give students the day off on Election Day.

“The impetus for our resolution was simply a parent who asked, ‘Does it make sense for the security measures we have in place at our schools to be abandoned on Election Day?’ ” said Robin Church, president of the Parents’ Council at Indian Prairie School District 204 in Aurora. “We all agreed that student safety was paramount every day, and that includes Election Day.”

At the Smithtown Central School District in New York, Election Day will find teachers and administrators gathered at a professional development conference, while the district’s 11,000 students enjoy a holiday from classes.
“The decision to have a nonattendance day in November coinciding with Election Day was a no-brainer,” said Smithtown’s superintendent of schools, Edward Ehmann. “Our parking lots are already crowded with people coming and going on a regular school day, and this election is expected to have a record voter turnout.”
In Allen County, Ind., which includes Fort Wayne, students will be in school on Election Day, but voters will not. Officials have moved the polling places from schools to churches and other public places.

“In today’s world, we ask a mother to show her driver’s license before she can deliver cupcakes to her daughter’s classroom,” said John H. Weicker, security director for Fort Wayne Community Schools. “But on Election Day, we were allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry to walk in the front door.”

The wisdom of closing schools on Election Day has skeptics, including Kathy Christie, chief of staff at the Education Commission of the States, a nonpartisan organization. She described the effort to separate students from voters as a “knee-jerk reaction.”

“It breaks my heart to think we are losing the opportunity to send a very strong message to children about their civic duties,” Ms. Christie said. “Keeping kids home on Election Day also creates an inconvenience and another worry about day care for their parents.”

Chicago is one city where classes will not be canceled, nor polling places relocated, on Nov. 4.

“Our schools are public buildings, and we need to make them as available as possible to our community,” said Mike Vaughn, a Chicago Public Schools spokesman. “Our primary concern is that there is not a disruption to the students, so we’ve made sure the voting booths are not located in high-traffic areas.”

It is a decision with which the Cook County clerk, David Orr, whose jurisdiction includes the Chicago Public Schools, respectfully disagrees, especially since a record number of voters are expected to cast ballots.

“In an ideal world, it would be nice for children to see voters in their schools,” Mr. Orr said. “But you have to ask yourself, what if?”

>From kitchentablemath.blogspot.com

https://www.kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/

Monday, October 13, 2008

Ted Nutting on the math mess

I’m a high-school math teacher in Seattle. When I hear Mark Emmert, president of the University of Washington, say that this state is “at the bottom in the production of scientists and engineers,” and warn that our graduates “will be washing the cars for the people who come here for the best jobs,” I know what the problem is. It’s math. We are failing to educate our children in mathematics. I know how that came about, and what we can do about it.

The problem is national in scope, but in Washington state our difficulties can be traced principally to Terry Bergeson, superintendent of public instruction for the past 12 years. She oversaw the writing of our state’s weak, vague math standards, basing them on a “reform” idea to promote “discovery” learning. This has turned teachers into “facilitators” who “guide” children in learning activities. It has promoted “differentiated instruction,” placing students of wildly differing abilities together where some students cannot do the required work, often to the detriment of those who can.

She has moved away from rigorous testing. The “reform” math she champions encourages such things as journals, portfolios and group projects that tend to form large parts of classroom grading systems, while test results are relegated to a lesser role. The math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), aligned to her faulty standards, tests math skills at a low level. Even so, about half our 10th-graders fail it.

She has wasted millions of dollars on “professional development” to encourage teachers to put “reform” theories into practice. These theories are supposed to make it possible for all students to learn math. But few students know significant mathematics, and most know very little. About half of our students entering college now have to take remedial math. Many of our students who do succeed use private tutors, and the racial achievement gaps have widened. “Reform’s” emphasis on equity and fairness has been revealed to be empty talk.

My experience tells me that we can fix this, and quickly. I am the Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Ballard High School. I don’t teach Bergeson-style. I tell my students what they need to know, they do problems to understand how it works, and they demonstrate their knowledge and understanding through testing. Up until this year, we’ve insisted that our students who take AP calculus actually be able to do the work.

We at Ballard have by far the best AP calculus program in Seattle Public Schools, based on AP test scores. I have no special magnetism or charisma; I’m not a cult figure for teenagers. I have high standards and I require the students to work. If they don’t work, they know they will probably flunk. But they do work, and I am proud of them. I also have the benefit of having an older textbook that doesn’t fit the “reform math” model, and most of my students have had an excellent pre-calculus teacher the year before.

In most of our other math classes (and I doubt that Ballard is unique in this), we’ve tended to follow a “reform” model. We’ve passed students on from class to class; there is no meaningful threshold they must cross to enter a more-difficult class. Since we find that many students in our classes cannot do the work, we dumb down the courses. We say we are admitting unprepared students into our classes in order to “challenge” them.

But students should be challenged in the classes that they are qualified to take, not sent on to classes where they cannot do the work. Unfortunately, things are changing, even in our school’s AP calculus classes: We’re starting to admit unqualified students, and our program will soon begin to deteriorate.

It’s not just Ballard’s AP calculus program that is successful, and it’s not just the top students. North Beach Elementary in Seattle [was this Niki Hayes’ school? will find out] switched its math curriculum to Saxon Math in 2001. This excellent series teaches real math and does not follow Bergeson’s fuzzy, reform-oriented ideology. North Beach did this with reluctant agreement from Seattle Public Schools because the PTA paid for the books and because the superintendent supported site-based decision-making. North Beach’s passing rate on the WASL rose from 68 percent in 2000 to 94 percent in 2004 — and yet, every year parents worry that real math will be scrapped. Recently, the school has had to seek waivers to avoid having to teach the district’s “reform” math.

Legislators have begun to understand the problem. At the Legislature’s direction in 2007, the state Board of Education reviewed our state’s math standards, finding they were failing. The Legislature set up a system to fix the problems, but that system gave Bergeson the opportunity to sabotage the process. She stacked the committees selected to rewrite the standards with like-minded ideologues. The results were so bad the Legislature refused to accept the rewritten standards, sending them to the Board of Education to fix.

Bergeson then stacked the committees set up to select curricula for state approval. That process is not complete, but the first results are discour-aging. The Legislature had required that the new mathematics standards be based on (among other things) the standards of Singapore, consistently a leader on international tests, but Bergeson’s initial submission of texts ranked Singapore Math, that country’s official curriculum (and a superior one), dead last out of 12.

Most school-district administrations have gone along with Bergeson and share responsibility for this mess. Even as an uproar arose nationally against the programs Bergeson promotes, Seattle started using two of them in elementary and middle schools.

None of this is necessary. Students can learn math. My students learn it. If our education leaders would follow the lead of our Legislature, stop ignoring obvious successes and support what actually works, we would see major improvements in just a few years.
Ted Nutting is the Advanced Placement calculus teacher at Ballard High School in Seattle.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

https://www.kitchentablemath.blogspot.com/

>Posted by packerma October 15, 2008 18:43PM

As the election approaches, Rep. Scott Garrett has a 2-1 fundraising lead over Dennis Shulman, his Democratic challenger for the 5th District seat, according to campaign finance reports filed Wednesday.

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/garretts_fundraising_outpaces.html

Garrett, 49, a Sussex County Republican, has $571,000 in cash on hand, while Shulman, a Bergen County Democrat, has $279,000, according to their Federal Election Commission reports for July 15 to Oct. 15.

However, the national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has promised to bolster the 58-year-old Shulman’s coffers, after labeling the race Tuesday as one of its “Red to Blue” campaigns, in which Democratic challengers are to receive more funding and assistance to try to defeat GOP incumbents on Nov. 4.

“We think this means Dennis is well-positioned for October, especially as the national party has made the race a priority and Dennis’ grassroots support continues to expand exponentially,” Shulman’s campaign manager, Jeff Hauser, said Wednesday.

Garrett’s campaign notes he has outpaced his own fundraising, as compared with the 2006 election.

“We have exceeded the fundraising activity from previous elections by almost $300,000, and our cash on hand is twice that of our opponent,” Garrett campaign manager Amanda Gasperino said Wednesday. “These numbers are proof that voters in the 5th District want a congressman who will fight to protect New Jersey taxpayers and their family budgets.”

The campaign finance reports show the following figures:

Garrett had $649,000 at the start of the quarter; raised another $281,000; spent $359,000; and has $571,000 cash-on-hand. About $179,000 of Garrett’s contributions came from individual donations while $98,000 came from political action committees, or PACs, including the New Jersey Right to Life PAC, American Conservative Union, and several banking, insurance and finance groups.

Shulman had $258,000 at the start of the quarter; raised another $328,000; spent $307,000; and has $279,000 cash on hand. Some $205,000 of Shulman’s contributions came from individual donations while $69,000 came from PACs, including the NARAL Pro-Choice PAC, the American Federation of Teachers and several labor unions.

Shulman also loaned his campaign $53,000 in the third quarter. He loaned his campaign $35,000 in the second quarter and also has provided $14,000 in in-kind expenses.

Garrett has not loaned any of his own money to his campaign.

Of Shulman’s loans to his campaign, Gasperino said: “It’s clear that he has been unable to raise the amount of money he needs to fund his negative media buy .¤.¤. he’s forced to dip into his own pocket because 5th District voters refuse to fund his incessantly negative and baseless attack ads.”

Hauser said Shulman “has engaged a vast grassroots support that will work in the field and friend-to-friend to bring the vote out, whereas Garrett has gone financial services PAC-to-PAC to build a top-heavy campaign, out-of-touch with the district.”

Shulman has run ads blasting Garrett as “corrupt” for receiving a farmland tax assessment on nearly 10 acres of land used by his brother for a Christmas tree farm — but not listing the farmland as an asset on federal disclosure forms.

Garrett is an attorney from Wantage who is known as New Jersey’s most conservative congressman. He has said he is not required to disclose the farmland because he does not earn any income from it.

Shulman, of Demarest, is a psychologist and a rabbi. He has been blind since childhood. If elected, Shulman would become the first rabbi in Congress.

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/garretts_fundraising_outpaces.html

>Posted by cjrothma October 16, 2008 05:11AM

Gov. Jon Corzine today will propose a broad stimulus package designed to protect the state against the global financial crisis.

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/governor_looks_to_aid_banks_an.html

With the state’s economic footing and his own political fortunes on the line, the Democratic governor is scheduled to address both houses of the state Legislature at noon at the Statehouse in Trenton. He is expected to speak for about 20 minutes in the Assembly chambers, which will be filled with economists, lobbyists and others eager to hear the former Goldman Sachs CEO’s plans.

Tim Larsen/Governor’s Gov. Jon Corzine
Corzine has said his agenda will “bridge troubled waters” in the short term and “lay a foundation” for growth when the downturn ends.

Earlier this week, Republican lawmakers proposed slicing the state sales tax in half during the holiday shopping season, saying it would help consumers and merchants beset by fears of a long economic downturn. The plan would cut the 7 percent state sales tax to 3.5 percent from Thanksgiving through Jan. 4. It also would halve the sales tax in Urban Enterprise Zones, which already charge a discounted 3.5 percent, to 1.75 percent.

Corzine plans to propose investing $250 million from the state pension fund in community banks to spur lending to small businesses, and directing $45 million in state funding to homeowners facing foreclosure, officials said Wednesday.

The infusion of pension funds would boost banks’ liquidity, helping local businesses to obtain the credit they need to operate, according to administration and legislative sources familiar with the governor’s proposal.

The state Economic Development Authority would play a matchmaking role between borrowers and banks, and the deposits from the pension fund would be insured, said the officials, who requested anonymity because they were speaking in advance of the governor’s address.

Help also would be offered to about 1,500 New Jerseyans in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure, through two initiatives that would spend $45 million from the state Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency to stabilize neighborhoods, according to Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), chairman of the Senate Economic Growth Committee.

The pension investment and foreclosure assistance programs represent a piece of the Democratic governor’s total economic-stimulus package. Overall, the plan is expected to contain more than 20 separate items ranging from emergency food and heating assistance to new tax breaks for businesses that create jobs.

Other components of Corzine’s plan include infrastructure projects such as roads and schools, a green jobs program encompassing wind and solar power and biofuels, and legislation to improve the state’s business climate.

The total cost to the state — not including the investment of pension funds — is expected to be about $150 million, to be paid for out of existing state revenues, the officials said.

Recognizing the moment’s political implications for Corzine, who faces re-election in 2009, Republican lawmakers have spent the week attacking his economic record and unveiling plans of their own, including a five-week sales tax “holiday.” Top GOP senators also urged Corzine to suspend real estate sales taxes and New Jersey’s new paid-family-leave requirements to help the state become more competitive with its neighbors.

“This state and its economy have been broken for a long time,” said Sen. Joseph Kyrillos (R-Monmouth), who reiterated support for the GOP proposal to cut the 7 percent state sales tax in half for the holiday shopping season. Corzine does not support that plan.

Assemblyman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden), chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, said a proposal to allow businesses to carry net operating losses for 20 years instead of seven is among Corzine’s efforts to bring New Jersey in line with other states.

Making that change, and possibly others, to corporate tax policies “would send a strong message that New Jersey officials understand that job creation and job retention is the surest way out of this current economic downturn, and that we need to improve our business climate,” said Art Maurice, first vice president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

James Hughes, dean of Rutgers University’s Bloustein School of Policy and Planning, said Corzine can affect the overall economic downturn in three primary areas — increasing state construction spending, assisting households caught up in mortgage foreclosure or joblessness and easing taxes and regulations on business.

But he cautioned that even the most comprehensive list of New Jersey cures will not reverse a steep global economic decline.

“The tides here are very, very strong. And there’s no way at the state level you are going to be able to confront them directly,” Hughes said. “At the most you can deflect them a little.”

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/governor_looks_to_aid_banks_an.html

>There used to be a time when Ridgewood residents were smart enough to sift through all of the new theories and ideas and separate the wheat from the chaff. They would implement only those ideas that were of the highest caliber and which would measurably improve their own value and greatness and those of their children and neighbors. These sound primary individual decisions would yield a secondary effect of fundamentally improving Ridgewood as a whole which in turn lead to the by-product of elevating and sustaining Ridgewood as a premier community.

Now it seems like the residents are so focused on the primary goal of building and maintaining the perception of “premier status” that they are easily fooled by any charlatan claiming to have something new… Many current residents are so insecure in their own judgments that they happily relinquish their decision making power to any golden tongued “expert” touting some “shiny new” theory or idea. Everything is treated as wheat even when it is chaff…and when one dines on too much chaff, one is not long for this world.

>BETHPAGE, N.Y., Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ –Cablevision Systems Corp. (NYSE: CVC) today announced that it has successfully deployed Optimum WiFi wireless Internet access in commercial and high-traffic locations across its Long Island, Connecticut and Westchester/Dutchess service areas as a free enhancement for its Optimum Online high-speed Internet customers. Optimum WiFi has also been activated on the commuter rail platforms and station parking lots across Long Island, and at many Metro North stations as well.

Already the largest and most advanced consumer WiFi network in the nation, based on geographic coverage, Cablevision has more than doubled the size of its activated Optimum WiFi service area just since its initial deployment update early last month. Over the next two years, Cablevision plans to deploy WiFi in the commercial and high consumer traffic areas across its entire tri-state service area.

“We are pleased to announce that Optimum WiFi is now available to customers across Cablevision’s Long Island, Connecticut and Westchester/Dutchess service areas, as our market-wide deployment continues,” said Kevin Curran, Cablevision’s senior vice president of wireless product development. “Free and broadly available WiFi access is already becoming a popular enhancement for our Optimum Online customers, and a significant differentiator over our competitors. With an estimated 300 million WiFi-enabled consumer electronics devices shipped last year – a figure that is expected to grow to 1 billion by 2012 – we believe the interest and value associated with Optimum WiFi is only beginning.”

Current Optimum Online customers using laptop computers and portable WiFi-enabled devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and BlackBerry can access Optimum WiFi through a simple sign-on screen. Once a customer logs into the service by entering their Optimum User ID and password, the network delivers fast symmetrical speeds of up to 1.5 megabits-per-second.

Cablevision currently provides Optimum Online high-speed Internet service to more than 2.4 million customers, more than 51 percent of the homes passed by Cablevision’s fiber optic network, the highest penetration of any Internet service in the nation. Optimum Online customers are already familiar with the benefits of wireless access, with more than half using wireless routers in the home.

Optimum WiFi uses the same standard used in wireless home networks, 802.11, and any device that is certified by the WiFi Alliance as adhering to the 802.11 standards and has a browser will be able to access the Optimum WiFi network. Cablevision has launched a consumer Web site, located at www.optimumwifi.com, to provide customers with additional information on Optimum WiFi, including tutorials and detailed coverage maps, which will be updated as the deployment continues.

Previously activated Optimum WiFi community zones – which are still providing service as the market-wide deployment increases – include Denville, Ridgewood and Tenafly in New Jersey, and Parkchester in the Bronx.

About Cablevision
Cablevision Systems Corporation (NYSE: CVC) is one of the nation’s leading media and entertainment companies. Its cable television operations serve more than 3 million households in the New York metropolitan area. The company’s advanced telecommunications offerings include its iO TV(R) digital television, Optimum Online(R) high-speed Internet, Optimum Voice(R) digital voice-over-cable, and its Optimum Lightpath integrated business communications services. Cablevision operates several successful programming businesses, including AMC, IFC, Sundance Channel and WE tv, through Rainbow Media Holdings LLC, and serves the New York area as publisher of Newsday and other niche publications through Newsday LLC. In addition to these businesses, Cablevision owns Madison Square Garden and its sports teams, the New York Knicks, Rangers and Liberty. The company also operates New York’s famed Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theatre, and the Chicago Theatre, and owns and operates Clearview Cinemas. SOURCE Cablevision Systems Corp.

>I do not believe this site is connected at all with Ridgewood Public Schools. Although it has picked up the look of the RPS website it is not hosted through the schools. Beware. Does anyone have some info?

The comprehensive Online Directory is one of the most popular features of the Ridgewood High School Alumni Online Community. Find out what your old friends are up to both personally and professionally. Complete profiles include current professional information such as job title, company name, career category, and business address and phone number. In addition, you’ll find residential address and phone number, academic profiles, names of spouse and children – and of course, email address.

Visit the Ridgewood High School Alumni Online Community Today!

https://www.graduateconnections.com/ridgewood/