June 6,2015
Chief John M. Ward and the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, In response yesterdays stand off situation Chief John Ward issued the following statement on facebook , ” I would like to once again thank our officers for doing an excellent job containing the situation and Sheriff Saudino, Under Sheriff Shortway and Members of the County Regional SWAT, Bomb Squad and Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office for another successful joint effort.
Members of our (ERT) Emergency Response Team integrated with county team members flawlessly. Officers from Glen Rock surrounding towns also provided valuable assistance. Without this type of team work and commitment to integrated training events, incidents such as these become very difficult and may not go as well as they have.
Fortunately the young man was ultimately taken into custody and the matter ended without incident or injury. I would also like to thank Chief Benjamin Ramos and the members of the Palisades Park Police for the work on this case and on scene assistance during the event.
Unfortunately we did have to shut down a portion of S. Maple Ave and evacuate many residents for safety concerns. The young man is at Bergen Regional medical center being evaluated and charges are pending. The matter is under investigation.
I would also like to mention and thank Chief Van Goor and Ridgewood Fire, Ridgewood OEM Director Kleiman and Ridgewood ES. With their assistance Capt. Lyons and I were able to handle our responsibilities with both tactical command and Unified Command for the other support services.”
MAY 18, 2015 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, MAY 18, 2015, 1:21 AM
THE RECORD
Why we have more coyotes, and how we can coexist
The past eight years have seen an increase in the number of coyotes in the metropolitan area, so he’s made an effort to inform residents of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut about what to expect when they live near coyotes.
He will speak at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Closter Public Library about the history, biology and behavior of coyotes.
Q. Why are we seeing an increase in the number of coyotes and other wildlife in our neighborhoods and parking lots?
Some of it is overdevelopment. A lot of it is that these surviving generations of turkeys, coyotes and bears are adapting to these urban areas. So now we have to adapt to them. We also have to see if people are perpetuating it through feeding them, which is something that needs to be discouraged. I’m not supportive of bird feeders, because it’s getting animals conditioned to people in an unnatural way. Animals are very efficient and can get food on their own.
Q. How can we better respect the wildlife in our midst?
Definitely give the wildlife respect and as wide a berth as possible. In regards to coyotes and even bobcats, people have to be less complacent about their pets. You shouldn’t leave your pets out in your yards. It also means driving a little more slowly on the Palisades Interstate Parkway to make sure you don’t hit anything. You need to take precautions, like not leaving garbage out for raccoons and bears. You should plant things in your back yard that are aesthetic but are not palatable for deer, rabbits and other wildlife.
APRIL 17, 2015, 3:45 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, APRIL 18, 2015, 10:38 AM
BY JAY LEVIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Sol Abrams stopped at nothing to promote Palisades Amusement Park. If that meant having an elephant water-ski with a showgirl on the Hudson, so be it.
“Genius? I’d give him that honor,” Vince Gargiulo, who runs the Palisades Amusement Park Historical Society, said of Abrams, who died Wednesday at home in New Milford. He was 89 and the last surviving member of the park’s management team.
For 20-plus years, until the day in 1971 that the landmark attraction straddling Fort Lee and Cliffside Park closed for good, Abrams, the consummate PR man, dreamed up ways to get Palisades Amusement Park on the airwaves and into the newspapers.
Red light camera ticket? 17,000 violations in NJ to be thrown out
August 21, 2014, 4:34 PM Last updated: Friday, August 22, 2014, 12:07 PM
By MICHAEL PHILLIS
State House Bureau
The Record
About 17,000 violations issued by red light cameras will be thrown out because of what has been termed a technical glitch, offering a kind of second chance for drivers who now won’t have to pay.
Defendants in 17 municipalities were never notified that they had been cited by a camera for running a red light. Because of the oversight, the administrative office of the courts asked that local judges dismiss the violations en masse. Some of the soon-to-be dismissed tickets were issued in North Jersey towns, including Palisades Park and Wayne Township.
Such an oversight illustrates the inherent faults in the system, said Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon, R-Monmouth, who has regularly criticized the use of red light traffic cameras.
“These companies incessantly tout the supposed accuracy and consistency of their systems – when the only thing consistent about the camera company representatives is their blatant misrepresentation of what the equipment does and how accurately it does it,” he said in a statement.
Disheartened N.J. veterans, families wonder if the sacrifice in Iraq, Afghanistan was worth it
JUNE 12, 2014, 6:30 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014, 11:45 PM BY MATTHEW MCGRATH, JIM NORMAN AND ABBOTT KOLOFF STAFF WRITERS THE RECORD
Discouragement. Sadness. Renewed heartache for lives lost. Resignation: that feeling of having known from the start how it would end.
And all of it profoundly felt.
The full-blown Islamist offensive in Iraq is sparking those feelings, and more, in North Jersey veterans and families who sacrificed time and blood to a sense of patriotic duty in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are keeping close watch on the situation — and are wholly disappointed with the failure of American-trained and -equipped government forces.
Related: Obama: US will send fresh help to beleaguered Iraq
“This is a prime example of what failing to complete a mission looks like, and this is what Afghanistan will look like in the future,” said Matt Bombace, a former Marine infantry sergeant who fought in Iraq in 2005 and at 27 is the youngest man to serve as commander of the Washington Elm VFW Post 192 in Ridgewood.
But more to the emotional point for many was the reaction of John Walter Wroblewski of Jefferson, who has visited the spot in Iraq where his Marine son, John Thomas, was fatally shot in 2004.
“Did our sons die in vain?” Wroblewski, the longtime athletic director at Palisades Park High School, wondered. “I am extremely proud of my son. I am proud of what he did. All the blood that was spilled just in taking Ramadi, and here we are giving it back. It’s just disheartening.”
Related: Iraq Sunni militant group vows to march on Baghdad
Dozens of North Jersey men died between the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and the U.S. departure in 2011. Thousands of New Jerseyans in active duty, reserve and National Guard units fought there, in Afghanistan or both. The largest combat deployment of the state’s National Guard since World War II — 2,900 from the “Jersey Blues” 50th Infantry Brigade Combat team — was in Iraq in 2008.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/disheartened-n-j-veterans-families-wonder-if-the-sacrifice-in-iraq-afghani
High-Income Whites Put Booker Over the Top
By Rick Shaftan | The Save Jersey Blog
It’s not often that a Republican wins Wallington, South Hackensack, Lyndhurst, Ridgefield and Rochelle Park and loses Oradell, Old Tappan, Norwood, Woodcliff Lake and Northvale but that’s what happened in this month’s U.S. Senate election.
Comparing the 2013 special with the 2012 presidential reveals some interesting comparisons.
Statewide, Lonegan ran 4 percent ahead of Mitt Romney – enough to have elected Romney had he run that much better nationwide. But Bergen County was one place where Lonegan actually ran behind Romney.
That’s news to people South of Route 4 where the former Bogota Mayor exceeded the 2012 Romney percentage by 10 points in Ridgefield, 11 points in Palisades Park, 12 points in Bogota and 16 points in South Hackensack.
But go North of 4 to the traditionally Republican part of the county and there’s a different story. Lonegan dropped 14 points behind Romney’s 52 percent in Booker’s home town of Harrington Park, 13 points behind Romney’s 63 percent in Old Tappan and 10 points behind Romney’s 57 percent in Woodcliff Lake.
Lonegan’s drop from 28 to 17 percent in Teaneck is heavily caused by a major drop in the GOP vote share among Orthodox Jews. Mitt Romney won 58 percent of the vote in the four big Teaneck Orthodox districts (9, 10, 11 and 12) compared with just 28 percent for Lonegan, turning a 514 vote Obama deficit into a 749 vote Booker margi
They’re crunchy, they’re nutty, they’re low-carb, AND gluten-free
Cicada swarms are all or nothing in North Jersey
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 Last updated: Tuesday June 4, 2013, 11:52 PM
BY JAMES M. O’NEILL
STAFF WRITER
The Record
For about a week now, Pattie Monsaert-Westall of Wayne has had a new daily ritual — sweeping her front stoop. Otherwise, she’d have to take squishy, crunchy steps over the dozens of inch-long cicadas that flop there each morning.
Hundreds of translucent cicada exoskeletons are piled on either side of the entrance and beneath a small magnolia in her yard. Hundreds more are attached to the undersides of the magnolia leaves, like some kind of macabre ornaments.
Then there’s the noise — as if someone had put dozens of powerful loudspeakers in the trees and started blasting the high-pitched whine of a vacuum or an entire parking lot of car alarms.
“It was so deafening over the weekend we couldn’t even stay outside,” said Monsaert-Westall, who lives along the western edge of Packanack Lake.
For some North Jerseyans, the 17-year cicada emergence has hit with a vengeance. But for others, it’s as if the strange bugs never existed.
It’s boom or bust. The bugs have appeared by the tens of thousands in some neighborhoods of Tenafly and Englewood, in Palisades Interstate Park, and among the lake communities in Wayne.
Residents of other towns — from Ridgewood and Lyndhurst to Ramsey and Clifton – say they have neither seen nor heard any cicadas. Many who have braced for the onslaught are hopeful that, indeed, they may have been spared the nuisance.
Red light cameras suit settlement announced
March 14, 2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, News 12 is reporting that a preliminary settlement was filed yesterday in a lawsuit that claims the lights didn’t give drivers ample time to hit the brakes.
Under the terms of the settlement, Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions would set up a $4.2 million fund to pay plaintiffs. The company isn’t admitting any wrongdoing or liability giving drivers ticketed by New Jersey’s red-light cameras last year one step closer to getting some of their money back.
The suite involved the following towns ; Brick, Deptford, East Brunswick, East Windsor, Jersey City, Lawrence, Linden, Glassboro, Gloucester Township, Monroe, Palisades Park, Piscataway, Pohatcong, Rahway, Roselle Park, Union, Wayne and Woodbridge.
Those ticketed before August 2012 in any of the 18 towns involved in the suite and paid the $85 fine would be eligible to receive money back.
Democrat Dennis McNerney’s Overpeck Park legacy continues to cost taxpayers big time
Overpeck Park fiasco the gift that keeps giving
Bergen County to pay $1.4 million annually through 2020 on Overpeck Park construction bond
Monday January 7, 2013, 9:02 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
Bergen County taxpayers will be on the hook for annual payments of $1.4 million through 2020 as the county pays off its remaining obligation on a construction bond for Overpeck County Park.
Several freeholders reacted with surprise Monday when they learned at a work session that they will be asked to vote next week to transfer the first of those payments to the Bergen County Improvement Authority, the county’s funding arm.
But it’s not as if they have much of a choice. Voting not to make the payment would result in a default of the bond, which in turn could damage the county’s AAA bond rating, county officials said.
Freeholder John Mitchell, a Republican, said he views the payments as the cost of the sprawling $100 million park coming due. The park, which was built on a former landfill, sits in Leonia, Palisades Park, Ridgefield Park and Teaneck.
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