County prosecutor clears Ridgewood police chief in hiring flap October 22,2014 Boyd A. Loving 12:14 AM
Ridgewood NJ, Ridgewood Police Chief John Ward was cleared by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office of any “criminality” in connection with the hiring of two new police recruits earlier this year. This according to Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, who publicly announced the official findings during Wednesday evening’s Village Council Work Session.
During a heated Village Council meeting on January 29th, a meeting attendee who spoke during the public comment segment accused Chief Ward of manipulating civil service guidelines in order to hire the son of a current police officer, and the son of a retired police captain. Ward, who insisted that no rules were broken and that the two individuals hired met all civil service qualifications, requested that the Prosecutor’s Office fully investigate his actions.
One of the hired recruits, Keith Killion, was sworn in at a Village Council meeting earlier this month.
Reader says its looks like Roy Cho was ducking New York Taxes by using Manalapan as his domicile
Manalapan is not in Bergen County.But you are correct, there are plenty of other problems. My specific problem is very unique. The article states he used his Manalapan address for voting and taxes.
Roy Cho said that after he graduated from law school in 2009, he considered his parents’ home in Manalapan his primary residence even as he lived in an apartment in New York City and then rented an apartment in Hackensack. Cho used the Manalapan address for voting and taxes, and it was on his driver’s license, he said. https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Does that mean he filed a tax return using a NJ address and avoided paying NYC resident taxes? If you rent an apartment in NYC, even if Manalapan is your domicile, you are liable for NYC resident taxes.
Please before we get into the “young guy just made a mistake , he is a lawyer working for the Port Authority of New York New Jersey .
Climate change PROVED to be ‘nothing but a lie’, claims top meteorologist
THE debate about climate change is finished – because it has been categorically proved NOT to exist, one of the world’s leading meteorologists has claimed.
John Coleman, who co-founded the Weather Channel, shocked academics by insisting the theory of man-made climate change was no longer scientifically credible.
Instead, what ‘little evidence’ there is for rising global temperatures points to a ‘natural phenomenon’ within a developing eco-system.
In an open letter attacking the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he wrote: “The ocean is not rising significantly.
“The polar ice is increasing, not melting away. Polar Bears are increasing in number.
“Heat waves have actually diminished, not increased. There is not an uptick in the number or strength of storms (in fact storms are diminishing).
“I have studied this topic seriously for years. It has become a political and environment agenda item, but the science is not valid.”
Some Employers Seek to Shift Employees to Medicaid; Others Plan to Offer ‘Skinny’ Benefit Plans
“We’ve got to be careful about not fooling ourselves into thinking everybody wins,” said Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “The cost to the taxpayer does go up significantly.”
By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS And JULIE JARGON Updated Oct. 21, 2014 9:17 p.m. ET
With companies set to face fines next year for not complying with the new mandate to offer health insurance, some are pursuing strategies like enrolling employees in Medicaid to avoid penalties and hold down costs.
The health law’s penalties, which can amount to about $2,000 per employee, were supposed to start this year, but the Obama administration delayed them until 2015, when they take effect for firms that employ at least 100 people.
Now, as employers race to find ways to cover their full-time workers while holding a lid on costs, insurance brokers and benefits administrators are pitching a variety of options, sometimes exploiting wrinkles in the law.
The Medicaid option is drawing particular interest from companies with low-wage workers, brokers say. If an employee qualifies for Medicaid, which is jointly funded by the federal government and the states, the employer pays no penalty for that coverage.
“You’re taking advantage of the law as written,” said Adam Okun, a senior vice president at New York insurance broker Frenkel Benefits LLC.
Locals 8 Restaurant Group LLC, with about 1,000 workers, already offers health coverage, and next year plans to dial back some employees’ premium contributions. That is because an employer can owe penalties if its coverage doesn’t meet the law’s standard for affordability.
1st Annual KEC Golf Outing On Monday October 27th, 2014 the Kelly Creegan Memorial Fund will host its inaugural golf outing at Apple Ridge Country Club in Mahwah, NJ. Founded in 2012, the Kelly Elisabeth Creegan Memorial Fund was founded to share the memory, life and spirit of Kelly Creegan. Created by her family and friends to scatter kindness throughout the community and honor her memory, the foundation helps many experience the joy that Kelly brought to our lives.
She lived her short life with a smile and positive attitude that will never be forgotten. Registration is at 10:30 with shotgun start at noon. Golfers will enjoy a lunch and dinner with auction along with their round of golf. Price is $250 per golfer or $900 per foursome. For further information and sponsorship opportunities please visit our Facebook page, Kelly Creegan Memorial Fund, or email [email protected].
The Mark Gross Jazz Quintet will play Society Cafe on Sunday, October 26th at 4:00
Society Cafe Concert Series
The Society Café Concert Series offers a series of acoustic singer/songwriter concerts at the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood. Dessert and beverages, all provided by local vendors, are available before the shows and during intermission. The Mark Gross Jazz Quintet will play Society Cafe on Sunday, October 26th at 4:00. Mark Gross – alto saxophone, Freddie Hendrix – trumpet, Benito Gonzalez – piano, John Lee – bass, Corey Rawls – drums. Music starts at 4:00.
We start serving coffee and refreshments at 3:00 when doors open. Advance tickets are $20 and can be purchased via PayPal on the Society Café website, www.societycafeconcertseries.com. Tickets are $25 the day of the concert. The Unitarian Society of Ridgewood is located at 113 Cottage Place, Ridgewood, NJ 07450, www.uuridgewood.org. Office: 201-444-6225.
How Asset Forfeiture Allows Cops to Steal from Citizens A Virginia lawmaker takes on policing for profit. A. Barton Hinkle | October 22, 2014
In September Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Chairman of the Congressional Constitution Caucus, and Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA), Co-Chairman of the bipartisan Crime Prevention and Youth Development Caucus, today introduced H.R. 5502, the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act, to protect Americans from having their property seized without the due process of law. The FAIR Act makes a number of changes to civil asset forfeiture laws to restore the constitutional protections guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
The FAIR Act would ensure that Americans are innocent until proven guilty by requiring the government to meet a higher legal standard before seizing an individual’s property. This legislation would raise the standard to seize assets from a preponderance of evidence to a higher standard of clear and convincing evidence. In addition, the FAIR Act would eliminate the practice of equitable sharing and eliminate all profit incentives by requiring that all funds seized by the federal government go into the general treasury fund.
It probably seemed like a bright idea at the time: Let the police seize the ill-gotten gains of alleged drug dealers and other suspected criminals and sell it, using the proceeds to buy much-needed crime-fighting gear.
Unfortunately, the process—civil asset forfeiture—did not require convicting anybody of a crime. In fact, it didn’t even require charging anybody with a crime. Not surprisingly, this led to rampant abuse, which has been abundantly documented for many years. Various reform efforts, including a 2000 federal law, have been unable to stop what’s become known as policing for profit.
But Virginia lawmaker Mark Cole is going to give it another shot. That’s as good a sign as any that civil asset forfeiture has jumped the shark.
You can’t get much more conservative than Cole, a Republican who represents Spotsylvania in the General Assembly, without falling off the edge of the political spectrum. Cole supports “traditional family values” — so much so that he voted against appointing a Richmond prosecutor and former Navy pilot to a judgeship because he was gay. Cole has sponsored legislation to deny government benefits to illegal immigrants. And to strip state funding for abortions even in cases where the fetus has “gross and totally incapacitating physical deformity or mental deficiency.” And to rewrite a state prohibition against guns in schools so private schools could set their own rules. Four years ago, he sponsored a bill to protect people from having microchips implanted in their bodies, in part because such microchips might be used as the “mark of the beast” described in Revelations.
On his website, Cole boasts of supporting law enforcement. “Public safety and emergency services are Mark Cole’s top priorities,” reads a quote from Stafford County Sheriff Charlie Jett. “He helped ensure that funding was available for pay raises for deputies and state troopers. He has been a strong voice for us in Richmond.”
But policing for profit has gone too far, even for Cole. In anticipation of the 2015 legislative session, he already has filed a bill (HB 1287) that would forbid asset forfeiture without a conviction—and even then only after all appeals have been exhausted.
71% of Obamacare Signups Traced to Government’s Expansion of Medicaid
Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97 / October 22, 2014
The vast majority of Americans gaining health coverage under Obamacare actually qualified for Medicaid because of loosened eligibility —and that’s what boosted enrollment among those previously uninsured, a new report from The Heritage Foundation.
The Obama administration has boasted that the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, would allow those previously uninsured to purchase quality, affordable health care.
“The inescapable conclusion is that, when it comes to covering the uninsured, Obamacare so far is an expansion of Medicaid,” Heritage Foundation health policy experts Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski write in a research paper scheduled for release today.
Officials announced in May that more than 8 million Americans had picked a health plan on the Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov.
Subscribe to updates and alerts
Haislmaier and Gonshorowski conclude that 8.5 million Americans gained coverage through Obamacare from January to July.
Commentary: The Real Story on How Much Obamacare Increased Coverage
However, their paper says, more than 70 percent of those signups can be traced to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in 24 states:
Of the 8.5 million total individuals who gained health insurance coverage, 71 percent of that net coverage gain was attributable to Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied, working-age adults.
In the states that adopted and implemented Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, enrollment skyrocketed as an additional 5.7 million Americans signed up for coverage.
In 21 states opting out of Medicaid expansion, however, enrollment was strikingly lower. The Heritage report finds that 355,674 Americans signed up for Medicaid in those states.
In all, Medicaid enrollment increased by 6 million individuals for the first half of 2014.
The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation.
The Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, loosened eligibility requirements for Medicaid, traditionally the government’s health program for the poor. The changes made it easier for individuals with an income of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line (roughly $16,000) to qualify for the taxpayer-funded health coverage.
As the Heritage experts note, many Medicaid-eligible Americans under the new requirements also don’t have dependent children.
States got an incentive–federal dollars–to adopt the requirements.
Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia opted to expand Medicaid. By July, however, 24 states had implemented the program.
The Affordable Care Act went into effect in October. Its implementation included the rollout of HealthCare.gov, the online marketplace where consumers can peruse and purchase insurance plans.
HealthCare.gov’s advent was accompanied by well-publicized malfunctions, glitches and failures. White House officials scrambled to fix the website as consumers experienced long delays. As a result, the Obama administration extended the close of open enrollment from March 30 until April 15.
Despite the rocky rollout of HealthCare.gov, President Obama and then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius touted that enrollment in Obamacare insurance plans topped the original goal of 7 million.
According to reports from the Department of Health and Human Services, enrollment likely hovered around 7.3 million, as original estimates took into account those who selected a plan, but did not pay their first month’s premiums.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, who in June replaced Sebelius as HHS secretary, said in a speech last month at the Brookings Institute:
Four years after President Obama signed the law, middle class families have more security, and many who already had insurance have better coverage. Fewer Americans are uninsured, and at the same time, we’re spending our health care dollars more wisely, and we’re starting to receive higher quality care.
Research shows marriage is responsible for the creation of wealth – so why aren’t millennials interested?
Generation Screwed By Naomi Schaefer Riley October 20, 2014 | 7:47pm
The attitudes of millennials toward marriage are getting harder and harder to understand.
This is a demographic whose economic prospects have never looked good.
They are coming of age at a time when college tuition is at record levels, student debt has surpassed a trillion dollars, houses (even after the bubble popping) are unaffordable, unemployment remains stubbornly high and wages have stagnated in recent years.
It’s no wonder they’ve been nicknamed “The Screwed Generation.”
So you’d think that if research shows there is something that could be a surefire way of improving their economic lot, they would grab hold of it like a life preserver. Well, you’d be wrong.
In fact, research has shown marriage to be responsible for the significant creation of wealth — yet millennials don’t seem interested. The average age of a first marriage for men is 29 and for women it’s 27. Many are simply not marrying at all.
Almost half of children born to women under 30 are out-of-wedlock births now, according to a recent study by Child Trends, a Washington-based research group.
Bergen County Sheriff’s department highest-paid sheriff’s department in the country?
Bergen executive candidates debate policing merger issue, fate of medical center
OCTOBER 21, 2014, 11:01 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014, 11:05 PM BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and Democratic challenger James Tedesco clashed over law enforcement, lawsuits and the future of Bergen Regional Medical Center in their final debate just two weeks before Election Day.
Before a capacity crowd of 150 people packed into the freeholder chambers in Hackensack, Tedesco, a Democratic freeholder, criticized Donovan for opposing a freeholder plan to combine the Sheriff’s Office and the County Police into one mega-department under the command of the sheriff.
“If the County Executive is so bent on shared services, why aren’t we realigning the County Police and the Sheriff’s Department?” he asked. “She wants it her way or no way. She wants Donovan’s army.”
Donovan, a Rutherford Republican seeking a second four-year term, argued that it makes no sense to put an elected sheriff in charge of a police department.
“Never put a politician in charge of a police department,” she said, drawing a murmur from a large group of sheriff’s officers in the crowd. “The sheriff, no disrespect, but he’s a politician, as am I, as is Freeholder Tedesco.”
Tedesco claims that the Democrats’ plan to meld the forces would save taxpayers $90 million to $200 million during the next 25 years through attrition as higher-paid County Police officers retired and were not replaced.
Reader says Booker is running purely on celebrity because he has little else positive to show for his time in office.
Instead of seizing the bully pulpit (pun intended) and appoint a member of his own party as a replacement senator for the unexpired Lautenberg term (as any noble Democrat would have done), Christie swallows the poison pill and calls for the special election. He knew Booker would take the bait and Christie would be insulated from a moderate Democrat with a high name recognition value. Booker is running purely on celebrity because he has little else positive to show for his time in office. There is a reason NJ is the punchline for so many jokes (and setting for HBO series shows on corruption) – it’s the politics.
Reader says Valley should focus on being a Community Hospital and stop the race to nowhere
by Thed
I’ve seen a lot of comments on this blog that people should stop going to Valley, stop using doctors that go to Valley, etc. to try to send the hospital a message.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they would receive that message. The truth of the matter is that most people are not going to stop going to Valley due to this issue. Most will continue using Valley as they always do, but maybe not be happy doing it.
I have no problem with most of the doctors, staff, etc. that work at Valley. I have a serious problem with the administration. They are tone deaf, their embarrassment of attorney Drill should actually be named Tool based on his immature and annoying behavior during the previous legal proceedings, and unless you have a financial interest in Valley, I would think that most residents that were indifferent to Valley’s expansion are now seriously opposing it.
The truth of the matter is, based on my observations about convenience etc., Valley’s arguments that it needs to double its size etc. to compete and to serve the community are irrational. Most people will go to the local medical establishments in their communities. Valley does not need to increase their draw to compete with the megahospitals in the region. If they continue on the path they have followed for the past half a century and focus on the local community and stop the race to nowhere, they could modestly improve over time and still be successful.
Cho campaign continues to fumble Voter Registration and “Carpetbagger” Claims October 22,2014 the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Rep Garrett continued to question Roy Cho’s ties to the district . Garret told the Record “Most people don’t know who he is or what he stands for, and that’s because he just moved here,”, pointing to the 63 percent of voters who said they had no opinion of Cho.https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Cho’s campaign has be mostly been made up of the typical Democrat endorsements , and his pro Obama, pro continuation of the presidents policies . Readers have even dubbed him an”Obamabot”. Most of his website is used to attack Scott Garrett and misrepresent Garrett’s record ,with little to no substantive discussion on issues .This Amounts to the same old ,the government knows whats best and is going to save you. Policies let call it Obamnomics,that after 6 years of President Obama resulted in a failing economy, loss of healthcare , weakness in foreign policy , enormous government debt directly impacting the Millennial’s ,who Cho claims to be helping with higher taxes, a weak job market , massive debt , no healthcare and a bleak future .
Roy Cho said that after he graduated from law school in 2009, he considered his parents’ home in Manalapan his primary residence even as he lived in an apartment in New York City and then rented an apartment in Hackensack. Cho used the Manalapan address for voting and taxes, and it was on his driver’s license, he said. https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Derek Roseman, Cho’s campaign spokesman, told the Bergen Record Cho decided in April 2013 that he wanted to settle in Hackensack and that he changed his license and other documents to that address. Cho also filed his statement of candidacy in April 2013.https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
“I’m not a carpetbagger, despite the fact that these claims are coming from Congressman Garrett,” Cho said in Paramus. “The reality is I failed to change my voter registration in a timely enough fashion, like millions of other Americans have failed to do.”https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Garrett Spokeswomen Maggie Seidel countered that by saying he failed to change his registration in a timely fashion, Cho was admitting he broke the law. she continued “Also, millions of Americans who make this mistake aren’t corporate lawyers who are running for Congress,” she said.https://www.northjersey.com/news/little-noticed-congressional-race-heats-up-with-accusation-of-voter-fraud-rare-campaign-help-1.1113943
Passenger at Newark airport taken to hospital for Ebola evaluation
OCTOBER 21, 2014, 8:30 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2014, 11:32 PM BY MARY JO LAYTON STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD
As the Obama administration announced steps to tighten screening of travelers from Ebola-ravaged West Africa, an airline passenger who landed in Newark on Tuesday afternoon after spending time in Liberia was brought to University Hospital for evaluation for possible symptoms and exposure to the disease.
“During the enhanced screening process for individuals arriving to the United States from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, an individual was identified as reporting symptoms or having a potential exposure to Ebola,” a spokeswoman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday night.
The passenger arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport on a flight from Liberia via Brussels at 12:55 p.m.
The Liberian national, who was held briefly in the customs area at Terminal C and separated from other travelers on the flight, was singled out for screening by agents because of his recent travel to Liberia, and he was found to have a fever, NBC 4 New York reported.
The passenger was taken by ambulance to the hospital in Newark for further evaluation. If officials decide they need to test the passenger for Ebola, the results could take some time.
As for the other travelers, “CDC or state/local public health officials will contact other passengers on the aircraft should it be determined that there was any risk to the other passengers of exposure to communicable disease,” Carol Crawford, the CDC spokeswoman, said in a statement.
