Downtown Tree Well – Volunteers Welcome on Mondays
REAC – Ridgewood Environmental Advisory Committee – is meeting every Monday at 9:30Am in the GAP/Cottage Place parking lot to work on cleaning up the tree wells. You are invited to help out! For further information contact Monica Buesser ….[email protected]
Wanaque police charge a man with possession of silverware stolen from Ridgewood Home
JULY 20, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 21, 2014, 12:16 AM
SUBURBAN TRENDS
Silver discovery is golden
A Ridgewood woman whose home was burglarized will get to see the return of her silverware, police said, due to what transpired after officers pulled over a green Nissan Maxima for a reported cracked windshield on Friday, July 11 at 12:30 p.m.
The officers, Keith Spillane and Anthony Mule’, were assigned to a traffic detail on Interstate 287 North when they stopped the Nissan on Ringwood Avenue in Haskell and also stopped the car’s two occupants as they allegedly attempted to walk away.
Police Chief Tom Norton reports that a records check revealed arrest warrants for both the driver, Brian Trillo, 30, of Whippany, and the passenger, Emerald Griffin, 20, of Whippany.
As police searched the backpack that Trillo was carrying, they found that silverware, Norton said, which Trillo reportedly said belonged to his mother and they were going to sell.
During questioning at headquarters, Trillo confessed that the silverware in the backpack had been stolen from a home in Ridgewood while he was helping a woman clean out her home after he answered an Internet help-wanted ad, according to the chief.
Ridgewood police were advised of the findings and the Ridgewood woman was contacted to identify the silverware, said Norton.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/crime-and-courts/police-blotters/wanaque-1.1054484#sthash.XIuoGg1T.dpuf
Ridgewood seeks feedback on new municipal website
JULY 22, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2014, 3:14 PM
Before a more “user-friendly” village website is launched this fall, the municipality wants more resident feedback.
According to Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, the village has assembled a focus group to test the website and comment on its visual appearance, content, ease of use and search/navigation capabilities. The group is open, and others who want to participate can email [email protected]. The revamp is being handled by Ridgewood’s network administrator, Dylan Hansen.
“Our focus group currently consists of residents, business representatives and internal staff. We do have some web designers in the focus group as well,” the village manager said. “By Aug. 1, we will synthesize all of the input and prepare the new website for its launch.”
Sonenfeld noted that the new website will “be more visually appealing, easier to navigate, and most importantly, will have a user-friendly search engine.” It will also feature a full business directory and other business-friendly elements, based on the input of business owners.
The launch date is scheduled for early fall, but feedback will be welcomed “even after the website is live and in production,” Sonenfeld said.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/ridgewood-seeks-feedback-on-new-municipal-website-1.1055353#sthash.Cef7PPqG.dpuf
Condition of Manhattan bus terminal ‘unacceptable,’ says new Port Authority chairman
JULY 22, 2014, 7:52 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JULY 22, 2014, 10:57 PM
BY SHAWN BOBURG
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Two days before taking the reins of one of most powerful transportation agencies in the country, John Degnan boarded a bus from the New Jersey suburbs to the Port Authority’s midtown Manhattan bus terminal, a cramped and outdated launching pad used by 200,000 commuters each day.
His assessment of the 60-year-old building with broken ceiling panels, cracked tiles and balky air conditioning system: “Unacceptable.”
On a 10-point scale? “A 3 or 4,” he said Tuesday in his first interview since being confirmed as a commissioner for the troubled bi-state agency.
Degnan’s tenure as Governor Christie’s pick to lead the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey board of commissioners begins today, and among his first official actions will be to address a controversy that has nothing to do with lane closures at the George Washington Bridge. Under pressure from commuters and several North Jersey legislators, the Port Authority is expected to consider directing $90 million for stopgap repairs of the aging bus terminal, a move that has Degnan’s support.
A more permanent solution could be on the horizon: Degnan said he’d like to see the Port Authority reconsider its decision this year not to include replacement of the bus terminal — a costly and logistically complicated project — in its plans for spending over the next decade.
“When you ask people to come into a building where the tiles are broken and the ceiling panels are falling down and there are supplemental fans to cool them off, it’s kind of insulting,” he said.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/condition-of-manhattan-bus-terminal-unacceptable-says-new-port-authority-chairman-1.1055464#sthash.G1BmJg1q.dpuf
The Silicon Valley That Elected Obama Is Now Supporting Candidates That Spell Trouble For Democrats
Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) made a visit to Silicon Valley this past weekend and spoke at the Lincoln Labs Reboot 2014, which was sponsored byGeneration Opportunity.
What kind of a reception did he get in this liberal stronghold which donated overwhelmingly to Barack Obama in 2012? Well, apparently a very positive one.
From KPIX5:
[Senator Rand Paul] wants to join forces with local techies.
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But how can technology and liberty flourish side by side? Paul’s answer, “shrink government.”
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“Is government inherently stupid?” the Kentucky Republican [asked] the audience at the Lincoln Labs Reboot 2014. “I say no, but it’s a debatable question.”
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Since Paul’s visit a new political term is being coded — theconservatarian… part conservative, part libertarian.
Just what exactly has opened the door for Senator Paul and Republicans to gain traction in Silicon Valley? The failures of the Obama administration and the big government agenda of the Democrat Party on issues that are important to Silicon Valley.
“I come out here, and people say, ‘we loved President Obama, we’re all for President Obama, we’re from the tech community’ but why?” said Senator Paul. “He’s not for innovation, he’s not for freedom, he’s for the protectionism crowd, the crowd that would eliminate the activity of these companies.”
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The National Security Agency scandal sent shock waves through Silicon Valley. Paul warned about its repercussions for the business climate.
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“Since the NSA scandal, there have been people losing money,” said Paul. “People selling stuff in Asia and Europe aren’t very happy with us now. There have been articles written citing as much as 22 billion in lost sales.”
The Democrat Party and President Obama have negatively affected the business of Silicon Valley, with the NSA cyber surveillance programs harming the U.S. tech industry and those overseas.
https://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/159731-silicon-valley-helped-get-obama-elected-starting-support-candidates-spell-trouble-democrats/
Obama’s Law Professor Laurence Tribe: ‘I Wouldn’t Bet’ on Obamacare Surviving Next Legal Challenge
By Joel Gehrke
July 11, 2014 3:54 PM
President Obama’s old Harvard Law professor, Laurence Tribe, said that he “wouldn’t bet the family farm” on Obamacare’s surviving the legal challenges to an IRS rule about who is eligible for subsidies that are currently working their way through the federal courts.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” Tribe told the Fiscal Times. “But I wouldn’t bet the family farm on this coming out in a way that preserves Obamacare.”
The law’s latest legal problem is that, as written, people who enroll in Obamacare through the federal exchange aren’t eligible for subsidies. The text of the law only provides subsidies for people enrolled through “an Exchange established by the State,” according to the text of the Affordable Care Act. Only 16 states decided to establish the exchanges.
The IRS issued a regulation expanding the pool of enrollees who qualify for the subsidies. Opponents of the law, such as the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and Jonathan Adler, argue that the IRS does not have the authority to make that change. (Halbig v. Burwell, one of the lawsuits making this argument, is currently pending before the D.C. Circuit Court; the loser will likely appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.)
“There are specific rules about when and how the IRS can deviate from the plain language of a statute,” Cannon explained to National Review Online, arguing that the subsidies regulation fails to comply with those rules.
The IRS can deviate from “absurd” laws, in theory, but the subsidies language is not absurd. “It might be stupid, but that’s not the test for absurdity,” Cannon says. Similarly, the IRS can deviate in the case of scrivener’s errors — typos, basically — but this is not a typo, Cannon says, because the language was written into repeated drafts of the law.
“They not only keep that language in there, but they even inserted it, this same phrase again, right before passage while the bill was in [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid’s office,” Cannon says. “So, it’s not a scrivener’s error, either.”
Finally, the IRS could fill in ambiguous gaps in a law. The problem for the IRS, though, is that the subsidies language is not ambiguous. Even Tribe acknowledged that the language is clear, according to the Fiscal Times.
“Yet in drafting the law, Tribe said the administration ‘assumed that state exchanges would be the norm and federal exchanges would be a marginal, fallback position’ — though it didn’t work out that way for a plethora of legal, administrative and political reasons,” the Fiscal Times writes.
Tribe suggested that the case will, like the individual mandate challenge before it, hinge on Chief Justice John Roberts’s decision. “He would be asking himself the hard question: ‘Is it so clear under existing law that it has to be construed in this literal and somewhat bizarre way . . . that subsidies or tax credits cannot be provided on the federal exchanges, or is it sufficiently ambiguous that it gives me the necessary legal wiggle room’ [to side with the administration once again?]” Tribe said.
Forbes contributor Jeffrey Dorman notes that a recent ruling in a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency could make it harder for Roberts to conclude that he has that wiggle room.
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/382550/obamas-law-professor-i-wouldnt-bet-obamacare-surviving-next-legal-challenge-joel
file photo Boyd Loving
Service with Ridgewood EMS was gratifying
JULY 18, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 18, 2014, 12:31 AM
Print
Service with EMS was gratifying
There is nothing so satisfying as to help someone in need, whether it is in an acute situation or helping a person get settled comfortably at home after a hospital stay. Both situations are equally important.
Ridgewood EMS has the reputation for providing exemplary care to its citizens and visitors to the village. This is possible by having continuous education to the members and providing them with the most up to date equipment.
When the DREAM Becomes a Nightmare
Jul. 21
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Governor Chris Christie is as effective a speaker on the issues of taxes, entitlement reform and school choice as you’ll ever find, Save Jerseyans. Plain spoken but substantively on-point; the clarity with which he speaks makes apolitical Americans want to get up and follow him and good faith dissenters concede the logic of his argument.
The so-called “YouTube moments” concerning ^^ are what we remember and, at least until Sandy and Bridgegate, they’re what defined his brand. Just as often, however, Chris Christie talks like what he is by training: a lawyer. And I don’t mean that in a disparaging way (I am one!). All the same, it can get him into trouble.
Immigration comes to mind as a prominent example.
It all started back in 2008, before he was even governor, when U.S. Attorney Christie inartfully tried to explain the difference between criminal illegal entry into the United States and civil penalties associated with overstaying a visa’s lifespan. I went easy on him at the time, but it was a lot more difficult to rationalize his support for a New Jersey version of the DREAM Act signed into law at the end of 2013.
Impossible, in fact.
Conservatives including yours truly warned that “compassionate” legislation would lead to a “magnet state” effect, inducing more illegal immigration without reforming the system to ensure equity for all of the affected parties. In short, a result with anything but a compassionate outcome! Opponents predictably scoffed at the criticism by trotting out the same old lame and unsubstantiated allegations of xenophobia.
Today, I get to say “I told you so” and it gives me absolutely no pleasure…
– See more at: https://savejersey.com/2014/07/chris-christie-dream-act-iowa/#sthash.mb7IhPE3.dpuf
Affirmative Action = Discrimination Against Asians, NYC Schools Edition
Robby Soave|Jul. 21, 2014 1:50 pm
New York City politicians—including Mayor Bill de Blasio—want to change the admissions system for the city’s nine highly-selective premiere public high schools, including nationally-renowned Stuyvesant High School. The schools currently use a single exam, the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test, to determine admittance. Less than three percent of applicants are admitted to Stuyvesant.
The problem, in the eyes of some, is that black and Latino students are increasingly underrepresented at the elite schools. So are white students. When a test score is the only criteria, it seems that Asian Americans are more likely than other racial groups to gain admission to Stuyvesant.
Is that a problem? A coalition that includes de Blasio and teachers unions says that it is, according to Bloomberg:
“I do not believe a single test should be determinative, particularly for something that is as life-changing for so many young people,” de Blasio, who would need to persuade the state Legislature to amend the law, said last week. “We have to determine what combination of measures will be fair.”
The mayor would like the schools to consider other factors—such as grades and extracurricular activities—that would theoretically give non-Asians a better chance.
https://reason.com/blog/2014/07/21/affirmative-action-discrimination-agains
time for a revolution?
New York court rules that spanking kids is ‘a reasonable use of force’
July 21, 2014
VICTOR SKINNER
LONG ISLAND, N.Y. – A New York appellate court last week ruled in favor of a father who was accused of child abuse for spanking his 8-year-old son after the child misbehaved at a friend’s party.
A Suffolk County Family Court previously determined the father, who was not named in a recent New York Daily News report, abused his son “by inflicting excessive corporal punishment” for spanking his son at a friend’s party in 2012 after the child cursed at an adult.
But a Long Island appellate court judge last week overturned the ruling, and determined the child’s punishment “was a reasonable use of force,” according to the news site.
“The father’s open-handed spanking of the child as a form of discipline after he heard the child curse at an adult was a reasonable use of force and, under the circumstances presented here, did not constitute excessive corporal punishment,” according to the ruling cited by the Daily News.
Aside from the punishment at the party, the complaint alleges the father also repeatedly struck the child with a belt on the butt, legs and arms when the family returned home, but the father denied those allegations and the appellate court could not find sufficient evidence to uphold that charge, the news site reports.
https://eagnews.org/new-york-court-rules-that-spanking-kids-is-a-reasonable-use-of-force/
Court Rules That Subsidies in Obamacare’s Federal Exchange are Illegal, Dealing Huge Legal Blow to Health Law
Peter Suderman|Jul. 22, 2014 10:33 am
Whitehouse.govThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit delivered a huge blow to Obamacare this morning, ruling that the insurance subsidies granted through the federally run health exchange, which covered 36 states for the first open enrollment period, are not allowed by the law.
The highly anticipated opinion in the case of Jacqueline Halbig v. Sylvia Mathews Burwellreversed a lower court ruling finding that the federally run exchange did have the authority to disburse subsidies.
Today’s ruling vacates the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulation allowing the federal exchange to give subsidies. The large majority of individuals, about 86 percent, in the federal exchange received subsidies, and in those cases the subsidies covered about 76 percent of the premium on average. The essence of the court’s ruling is that, according to the law, those subsidies are illegal. (According to an administration official, however, the subsidies will continue through the appeals process.)
The court’s ruling agreed with challengers who argued that the plain language of the law, which in multiple instances limits subsidies and credits to any “Exchange established by the State,” does not allow subsidies to be disbursed in exchanges where a state declined to establish its own exchange and is instead run by the federal government. Basically, the federal government cannot step in and create and run an exchange that is somehow still an exchange established by a state.
“We conclude that appellants have the better of the argument: a federal Exchange is not an ‘Exchange established by the State,’ and [the relevant section of the law] does not authorize the IRS to provide tax credits for insurance purchased on federal Exchanges,” the decision says.
https://reason.com/blog/2014/07/22/court-rules-that-subsidies-in-obamacares
Infrastructure Investment: A State, Local, and Private Responsibility
Despite huge and ongoing budget deficits, some policymakers are proposing to increase federal spending on infrastructure.
President Obama on Thursday unveiled a new federal infrastructure initiative, and has been campaigning for Congress to pass a long-term highway bill. The president and other leaders believe that more federal spending on roads, rail, and other assets will boost growth and create jobs.
However, according to Cato scholars, devolving infrastructure activities to the states and the private sector is actually a more sound plan.
“Private firms can build and run roads, bridges, and transit better than the government,” writes Chris Edwards.
Randal O’Toole takes it one step further, firmly stating that the United States is absolutely not facing an infrastructure crisis, at least with regard to transportation.
“That’s just a story told by people who want to raise your taxes so they can get rich,” explains O’Toole.
https://catoinstitute.tumblr.com/post/92291685220/infrastructure-investment-a-state-local-and-private?utm_content=buffer83ba4&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer
photos by Boyd Loving
Hundreds turn out for procession for Waldwick cop killed in crash
They came in uniform, business attire and in their summer play clothes. Many had their own stories to tell about Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell. (Pries, Masters/The Bergen Record)
photos by Boyd Loving
Ridgewood resident Dawn Walter steps in to keep camp program afloat
JULY 21, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 21, 2014, 1:56 PM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
After a period of uncertainty for a beloved, 46-year tradition, Paterson children will once again be swimming at Graydon Pool and the Ridgewood YMCA this August.
Thank Dawn Walter.
This spring, the 12-year Ridgewood resident took on a leadership role previously held for 28 years by former resident Eileen Mohan, who moved to Singapore for her husband’s job last August.
“These are memories. The kids look forward to this, and it changes their lives,” Walter said.
When Mohan moved, the program she led – which coordinates free YMCA swim lessons and Graydon Pool swim time in August for campers from Paterson – was left in jeopardy. There was no known replacement for several months, and Mohan was worried that the program would fall to the wayside.
This April, Walter stepped up.
Walter, a member of the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood’s Citizens for Swimming, said she wanted to do something “more hands-on” to help people.
“This is about as hands-on as you can get,” she said. “This will keep them [the children] safe their entire lives.”
Since 1968, Citizens for Swimming has coordinated Ridgewood swimming field trips for Paterson young people. Nearly 50 years later, children from Paterson’s Community Association with a Ministry to People Youth Development Program (CAMP YDP) still look forward to the program.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/new-director-steps-in-to-keep-camp-afloat-1.1054866#sthash.neq0VkZ7.dpuf
Ridgewood considers valet system to ease downtown parking problems
JULY 21, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JULY 21, 2014, 2:06 PM
BY JODI WEINBERGER
STAFF WRITER
Ridgewood officials believe they have found a way to free up “potentially hundreds” of parking spaces in the Central Business District (CBD).
A policy is being written that would allow restaurants to valet cars to non-metered lots, providing a benefit for businesses and patrons.
An ordinance for valet parking “supports the public good,” said Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld.
Under the valet policy, restaurants would pay $250 to apply for a valet permit, and, if approved, would pay $1,000 for an annual operating permit.
The permit application would have to detail such things as insurance, the seating capacity of the business, hours and days of operations, a map of routes to the offsite parking lot, and a copy of the agreement between the business and the owner of the offsite parking location.
The restaurant would also be charged with displaying valet parking signage and would not be allowed to park in any metered spot, and would have to employ a sufficient number of valet parking attendants so that cars do not queue up and block the road.
The village engineer would review the permit application to determine whether the plan is “workable and safe” and possibly consult with the police and fire departments on the plans.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/business/valet-parking-viewed-as-viable-in-ridgewood-1.1054871#sthash.87uxyRB9.dpuf
