5-vehicle Crash on Route 17 South Backs Up Rush Hour Traffic in Paramus
January 8,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Paramus NJ, A 5-vehicle crash on Route 17 southbound in Paramus on Thursday, 01/07 shortly after 5:30 PM, resulted in multiple injuries and backed up southbound rush hour traffic for miles. The incident occurred just south of Century Road. Only the far left lane and right shoulder of the road were passable as crews worked to evaluate and treat the injured, and clear the scene of damaged vehicles and debris. At least three (3) ambulances were called to the scene along with two (2) tow trucks. Paramus Police are investigating the crash’s cause. Police at the scene said that one (1) victim’s injuries required transport by ambulance to Hackensack University Medical Center.
Ridgewood NJ, This is just a sneak peak of our 11th Annual Alumni Art show. The photos don’t do it justice…come see the show in person. There’s so much more to see and so much talent! Our reception is this Thursday, 1/7 at 7:00 pm.
Where’s America Moving? Oregon Named Top Moving Destination of 2015United Van Lines’ Annual National Movers Study Shows Americans Continue to Move West and South
January 7,2015
the staff of the Rmidgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , For the third consecutive year, Oregon holds on to the No. 1 spot as “Top Moving Destination,” as Americans continue to pack up and head West and South. Those are the results of United Van Lines’ 39th Annual National Movers Study, which tracks customers’ state-to-state migration patterns over the past year.
Oregon is the most popular moving destination of 2015 with 69 percent of moves to and from the state being inbound. The state has continued to climb the ranks, increasing inbound migration by 10 percent over the past six years. New to the 2015 top inbound list is another Pacific West state, Washington, which came in at No. 10 with 56 percent inbound moves.
The Southern states also saw a high number of people moving in with 53 percent of total moves being inbound. In a separate survey of its customers, United Van Lines found the top reasons for moving South included company transfer/new job, retirement and proximity to family.
The Northeast continues to experience a moving deficit with New Jersey (67 percent outbound) and New York (65 percent) making the list of top outbound states for the fourth consecutive year. Two other states in the region — Connecticut (63 percent) andMassachusetts (57 percent) — also joined the top outbound list this year. The exception to this trend is Vermont (62 percent inbound), which moved up two spots on the list of top inbound states to No. 3.
“For nearly 40 years, we’ve been tracking which states people are moving to and from, and we’ve also recently started surveying our customers to understand why they are making these moves across state lines,” said Melissa Sullivan, director of marketing communications at United Van Lines. “Because of United Van Lines’ position as the nation’s largest household goods mover, our data is reflective of national migration trends.”
“This year’s data reflects longer-term trends of people moving to the Pacific West, where cities such as Portland and Seattle are seeing the combination of a boom in the technology and creative marketing industry, as well as a growing ‘want’ for outdoor activity and green space,” said Michael Stoll, economist, professor and chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. “The aging Boomer population is driving relocation from the Northeast and Midwest to the West and South, as more and more people retire to warmer regions.”
United has tracked migration patterns annually on a state-by-state basis since 1977. For 2015, the study is based on household moves handled by United within the 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C. United classifies states as “high inbound” if 55 percent or more of the moves are going into a state, “high outbound” if 55 percent or more moves were coming out of a state or “balanced” if the difference between inbound and outbound is negligible.
Moving In
The top inbound states of 2015 were:
Oregon
South Carolina
Vermont
Idaho
North Carolina
Florida
Nevada
District of Columbia
Texas
Washington
The Western U.S. is represented on the high-inbound list by Oregon (69 percent), Nevada (57 percent) and Washington (56 percent). Of moves to Oregon, a new job or company transfer (53 percent) and wanting to be closer to family (20 percent) led the reasons for most inbound moves. Nevada remained on the high inbound list for the fifth consecutive year.
Moving Out
The top outbound states for 2015 were:
New Jersey
New York
Illinois
Connecticut
Ohio
Kansas
Massachusetts
West Virginia
Mississippi
Maryland
In addition to the Northeast, Illinois (63 percent) held steady at the No. 3 spot, ranking in the top five for the last seven years.
New additions to the 2014 top outbound list include Connecticut (63 percent), Massachusetts (57 percent) and Mississippi (56 percent).
Balanced
Several states gained approximately the same number of residents as those that left. This list of “balanced” states includes Alabama,North Dakota, Delaware and Louisiana.
JANUARY 5, 2016 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2016, 11:51 AM
BY KIMBERLY REDMOND
EDITOR |
TOWN JOURNAL
Based upon information provided by libraries in Allendale, Ho-Ho-Kus, Ridgewood and Upper Saddle River, 2015’s most popular books closely reflect the titles that appeared on national bestseller lists over the last year.
The most borrowed book from those four libraries was Paula Hawkins’ “The Girl on the Train,” a thriller that has sold 6.5 million copies since its January 2015 release and is being developed into a feature film starring Emily Blunt. Hawkins’ debut novel also ranked as one of the most checked-item items from the New York Public Library System in 2015.
Molly McKenney, Upper Saddle River’s adult services librarian, said there are generally two reasons as to why a book becomes popular with patrons – either they were written by an already famous author or it gets great word of mouth and “essentially becomes viral like a YouTube video.”
“People start hearing that other people liked it and they want to see what all the fuss is about. ‘The Girl on the Train’ definitely falls into that category. It followed in the footsteps of Gillian Flynn’s extremely popular ‘Gone Girl.’ Both are thrillers which center around female anti-heroes, a sub-genre which has exploded with popularity in recent years,” McKenney said.
At the Ridgewood Library, hold lists “were in the hundreds” despite there being multiple copies of Hawkins’ book, circulation librarian Lorri Steinbacher said.
“The Girl on the Train,” along with Ridgewood’s other top checkouts last year – Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See” and Kristin Hannah’s “The Nightingale” – all “captured the imaginations of book groups and casual readers alike,” Steinbacher said.
Triple Five, the operator of the American Dream Meadowlands shopping and entertainment project, would be eager to submit its own proposal for a North Jersey casino should the opportunity arise, state Senate President Stephen Sweeney saidMonday. John Brennan, The Record Read more
Ridgewood NJ, Frigid weather is here, and heating systems are working extra hard. With three months of bill credits this winter, PSE&G residential customers will pay about 30 percent less for gas this season. But there are simple ways to lower bills even more:
Lower your thermostat by just one degree, which may reduce your heating bill by up to 3 percent. Save even more by lowering your thermostat 2 degrees during the day when you are home, and 5 to 10 degrees when you are away and at bedtime, if health conditions permit. Close fireplace dampers when not in use. Close and latch your windows. Set your hot water heater to no more than 120 degrees. Move furniture and drapes away from heating registers, radiators, and baseboard element covers. Open any register or baseboard dampers. Remove or cover window air conditioners to reduce drafts. Install insulated or lined drapes on your windows. Open your curtains and blinds that face the sun on sunny days to warm your home, and close them at night to keep the warm air inside. Use weather stripping or caulk to seal up cracks and prevent drafts in windows and doorframes. Beneath doors, install draft guards available at hardware stores. Use a shrink film insulation kit, commonly available at home improvement centers, on drafty windows or make one yourself from plastic sheeting and double-faced tape. Seal wall switches and electrical outlets on exterior walls of your home with small foam gaskets available from home improvement centers and hardware stores. Remove the cover plate, insert the gasket, and screw the cover plate back in place. Keep your garage door closed if the garage is attached to the house. If your budget permits, install (or have installed) a programmable thermostat that you can set to automatically lower room temperatures when rooms are not in use and at bedtime, if health conditions permit. Check for sufficient water levels in the sight glass for steam heating systems to ensure maximum efficiency. Clean or replace the furnace filter on hot air heating systems.
Visit PSE&G’s Home Energy Toolkit at www.pseg.com/toolkit. You can calculate the energy efficiency of your home and find out how to save energy and money on appliances and heating systems.
When making home improvements, always wear the appropriate safety equipment such as eye protection, gloves and a mask to protect against dust; and remember to check your carbon monoxide and smoke detectors for proper operation and replace their batteries at least once every year.
I am pleased that you have formally outlined The Record’s editorial policies. I am also happy to hear that you believe in freedom of speech, religion and the press, however I did not see that you are in support the Constitution or The Bill of Rights. You have stated that any group of citizens should not run roughshod over the best interests of the people as a whole
I also understand that the newspaper’s mission is not to please the public. According the recent to Gallop poll:
68% of Americans do not want to be “politically correct”.
70% of Americans say that the Government is too big.
68% of Americans are against Obamacare.
I feel that Obama is pathological lier. He has ignored our Constitutional separation of powers through the illegal use of Executive Orders or his illegal waivers of Obamacare’s dictates or his refusal to enforce immigration laws, and massive new regulations that are destroying capitalism, and my country that I have fought for.
I have yet to see an article on Obama and his Far Left agenda. I and the majority of Americans agree upon these is issues. You stated that the success of any democracy depends on a full debate of the issues, if they are printed.
JANUARY 4, 2016, 3:55 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2016, 7:04 AM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON — New Jersey was given a nine-month extension to have its drivers’ licenses meet national proof-of-identity requirements.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security last month extended the state’s exemption for Real ID requirements from Jan. 10 to Oct. 10, Motor Vehicle Commission spokeswoman Mairin Bellack said Monday.
Without the exemption, state-issued drivers’ licenses and non-driver IDs would not be accepted to get into most federal facilities, including military bases.
Bellack said the state had its exemption extended because it is taking steps to meet requirements of the Real ID act, including allowing more than nine characters of a name to be included and requiring people have their photos taken immediately upon reaching the counter to get a new license.
The 2005 Real ID act imposes tougher requirements for proof of legal U.S. residency in order for state driver’s licenses to be valid for federal purposes. The law was passed in response to national security concerns after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
States originally were supposed to comply with the Real ID requirements by the end of 2009. Federal authorities have repeatedly delayed implementation to give time for states to change their driver’s license procedures and make the necessary technological improvements.
At least five states were informed by Homeland Security last year that their extensions would not continue beyond Jan. 10.
JANUARY 4, 2016, 6:47 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
NORTHJERSEY.COM
Officer Tim Franco offered one final wish as he left his job for the final time last week.
“Cameras,” said Fair Lawn’s retiring traffic safety officer.
Most cops love recent improvements in law-enforcement technology, especially surveillance cameras that provide powerful evidence for documenting shoplifters, cheats, liars and worse. But Franco likes them for recording what happens at busy intersections.
“Not just crashes,” he said. “Close calls, too.”
Police usually know crash details from accident reports. But unlike pilots who must report close calls to aviation authorities, it’s rare for drivers or police to document events that almost happen – except when regaling colleagues or reporters about the harrowing experiences that nearly become the big events of their day.
But as Franco learned over his 31½-year career, these experiences have value beyond locker-room chatter.
That’s because workplace bean counters figured out years ago that there are about 30 close calls for each accident. If cops and engineers had access to a huge sample of these “what ifs,” as Franco calls them, they could be added to the small number of crashes they record. Doing so would add more precision to their ability to improve road safety – either through enforcement or through charges made in signage or the design of troublesome intersections.
“Right now, the system for gathering crash data is very limited,” Franco said. “But the camera technology exists to do a better job,”
In landmark shift, hospitals agree to fees in lieu of property taxes
JANUARY 3, 2016, 10:59 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 3, 2016, 11:00 PM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
For more than a century, New Jersey’s non-profit hospitals have been exempt from paying property taxes, despite relying on their communities to maintain local roads and provide police and fire protection. Now the state’s largest hospital association says its members are willing to make payments to towns they reside in — but many municipalities want more.
In a historic change, the New Jersey Hospital Association recently declared its support for a proposal in the Legislature to require non-profit hospitals to make “community service contributions” to municipalities. The move came after a tax court decision this summer that Morristown Medical Center was not entitled to its property-tax exemption because its operations were little different from those of a for-profit company. That hospital has since agreed to pay $15.5 million over 10 years.
Concerned that Judge Vito Bianco’s decision would lead to tax battles involving many other hospitals, the hospital association endorsed a proposal by state Senate President Stephen Sweeney. The measure would assess non-profit hospitals a fixed daily contribution — not a tax — of $2.50 per bed, to be used for public safety expenses or to reduce property taxes.
The association estimated that the payments from all of the state’s s would total $21 million to $25 million, including about $2.7 million annually from the six non-profits in Bergen and Passaic counties, if the measure is enacted as written. They are Hackensack University Medical Center; The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood; St. Joseph’s Healthcare System’s two hospitals in Paterson and Wayne; Englewood Hospital and Medical Center and Holy Name Medical Center in Teaneck. Hospitals owned by for-profit companies — HackensackUMC at Pascack Valley in Westwood and St. Mary’s General Hospital in Passaic — already pay property taxes.
JANUARY 1, 2016, 11:47 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2016, 11:58 PM
BY MARY DIDUCH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The red-and-white metal boxes, affixed to utility poles or the walls of large buildings, are relics of an earlier time — pieces of street furniture that are easily overlooked in North Jersey’s crowded suburban landscape.
Fire departments almost everywhere once relied on these call boxes as their primary means of learning about fires and other emergencies. The boxes have been slowly disappearing over the past three decades — many becoming collector’s items — as fewer departments see the value of maintaining a system that is prone to false alarms and, in the era of the cellphone, relies on century-old telegraph technology.
But some fire departments in New Jersey continue to use them. “We kept some of those basic systems because they still work,” said Chief Anthony Verley of the Teaneck Fire Department, which has paid firefighters. Little Falls, Hawthorne, Hackensack and Ridgewood also still use them.
For these departments and others, the appeal of the call box endures not despite its simple nature — the technology was developed in the late 1800s, and the boxes themselves and the wiring within can date to the 1930s or earlier — but rather because of it.
Call-box systems — firefighters often call them Gamewell systems, a shorthand derived from one of the better-known manufacturers — use very little electricity, making them reliable in the event of a natural disaster that knocks out the power grid. Ridgewood’s system, for example, runs on only 12 volts; six car batteries in the attic at fire headquarters can provide enough backup power to run the box network for days in the event of a widespread outage, fire Capt. Greg Hillerman said.
“We don’t need power, we don’t need anything. It’s self-sufficient,” Hillerman said, noting that during the Y2K scare, when blackouts were feared, and Superstorm Sandy, when much of the village lost power for more than a week, the call boxes were one of the few sure things around.
“It’s one of the rarest things you can think of when something 100 years [old] is more reliable than what they’ve come up with since,” Hillerman added.
Call-box systems are simple. The boxes — traditionally made of cast iron, though newer models tend to be cast aluminum — are attached to posts, poles or buildings. They’re numbered, and firefighters have records of where each box is located. When someone pulls a box’s lever — or if a smoke detector attached to a box triggers it — gears inside the box begin to turn and click, tripping a signal that’s transmitted to fire stations through a network of copper wires.
When the signal reaches a fire station, a bell chimes a number of times corresponding to the number of the box, telling firefighters where to go. A digital signal receiver also prints out the box location. Some departments, like Hackensack and Ridgewood, maintain manual receivers that predate the digital ones and punch triangular-shaped holes in long strips of paper, like Morse code, indicating where the emergency is.
In many cases, firefighters have memorized the numbers of certain boxes that are frequently pulled in their towns, as in hospitals or schools. Otherwise, the number must be looked up — on index cards in Teaneck, in large binders in Ridgewood, or on an oversized sign in Hackensack.
A Glen Rock resident who has prosecuted major white-collar crimes for the U.S. Attorney’s Office will be appointed acting Bergen County prosecutor on Monday, officials said. Mary Jo Layton, The Record Read more
DECEMBER 31, 2015, 9:50 AM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2015, 9:57 AM
BY STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
WYCKOFF — A 39-year-old Hackensack man who allegedly recorded a co-worker using the bathroom at a Wyckoff business for up to two years was arrested Wednesday.
LAW ENFORCEMENT PHOTO
German G. Gonzales, 39, of Hackensack
German G. Gonzales is charged with invasion of privacy, Chief Benjamin C. Fox said in a statement.
His co-worker, a 56-year-old woman, saw Gonzales bend down near the bathroom sink, Fox said. While Gonzales said he was just picking something up off the floor, the woman later found a cellphone taped to a water supply line under the sink.
It’s the worst-kept secret in the Garden State: People are leaving the state in droves — New Jersey has the highest out-migration rate in the nation — and those who stay aren’t doing well.
But New Jersey is also the nation’s leader in another troubling, underappreciated category: Nearly half — 48 percent — of New Jersey’s young adults are living with their parents, more than in any other state.
Let that sink in. Tens of thousands of people in their prime — who should be building their dreams — are stuck in Mom and Dad’s basement.
Living with the parents means other dreams are being put on hold, like getting married, having a family or starting a business. As a millennial myself, I was fortunate to get married a few weeks ago. But 71 percent of young adults in the state have never been married.
Everyone has to accept disappointment in life, but far too many young New Jerseyans are getting used to disappointment being the status quo. And far too many families are literally being broken up as generations move out of state. I asked around recently — what’s life like in the Garden State for millennials?
“I’m living at home, have three degrees and can’t find a paying job anywhere! I’m currently working for free so I have some experience to put down on my résumé,” one 30-year-old attorney told me.
Don’t believe me when I say New Jersey’s economy is breaking up families? Then don’t take it from me, take it from a retired mother of three adult children, who said: “We have three kids living in three different states who will never return! They are asking us when we are leaving.”
Hudson City Saving in Glen Rock file photo by Boyd Loving
DECEMBER 29, 2015, 11:24 AM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2015, 1:15 PM
BY STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
ORADELL — Police are investigating a bank robbery on Kinderkamack Road Tuesday morning where about $8,300 was stolen.
The Oradell robbery was the latest in a string of recent crimes at locations in Bergen County.
The man walked into the bank around 10:10 a.m., placed a black bag on the counter and told a teller to fill it up with cash, Capt. William Wicker said.
The man said he had a weapon, but did not say what it was or show it, Wicker said. Surveillance footage showed that he did not appear to have a weapon, Wicker said. The suspect fled on foot.
The man is described as black, 5’8” and 175 pounds and about 30 years old. He was wearing a black knitted hat, a gray sweatshirt, a gold scarf and khaki pants, Wicker said.
Authorities are investigating if Tuesday’s crime was related to bank robberies at Hudson City branches across the county in recent months. On Dec. 3, a man walked into a Lyndhurst branch in the Lewandowski Commons shopping center and told a teller to fill up a bag he’d brought with money.
