SHORT TERM FORECAST
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
326 AM EST MON MAR 3 2014
WESTERN PASSAIC-EASTERN PASSAIC-HUDSON-WESTERN BERGEN-
EASTERN BERGEN-WESTERN ESSEX-EASTERN ESSEX-WESTERN UNION-
EASTERN UNION-
326 AM EST MON MAR 3 2014
.NOW…
LIGHT SNOW WILL CONTINUE THROUGH 6 AM. VISIBILITY MAY
OCCASIONALLY DROP TO AROUND ONE MILE IN HEAVIER POCKETS.
ACCUMULATIONS OF UP TO A HALF INCH CAN BE EXPECTED.
NJ TRANSIT TO CROSS-HONOR TICKETS AND PASSES ON MONDAY, MARCH 3
February 28, 2014
NEWARK, NJ —NJ TRANSIT is mobilizing its operations, customer service and police personnel to ensure a ready response to the impending winter storm. For up-to-the-minute service information, all customers are strongly advised to check njtransit.com before starting their trip.
Systemwide Cross-Honoring in Effect on Monday, March 3: To give customers additional travel options during the anticipated winter weather conditions, NJ TRANSIT will offer full systemwide cross-honoring on Monday, March 3 enabling customers to use their NJ TRANSIT ticket or pass on an alternate travel mode—rail, light rail or bus—including private bus carriers.
For example, customers who normally take the bus from Rutherford to the Port Authority Bus Terminal may use their NJ TRANSIT bus pass or ticket on the train from Rutherford to New York Penn Station. Similarly, customers who normally take the bus between Atlantic City and Lindenwold may use the Atlantic City Rail Line instead at no additional charge. Customers using their NJ TRANSIT tickets or passes to travel to a destination other than the destination printed on their original ticket will be subject to the appropriate additional fare if applicable.
Access Link Paratransit Service: On Monday, March 3, Access Link service is suspended statewide except for Region 3 (Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland and So. Ocean Counties) as well as all transfer trips. Access Link Customers can call 800-955-2321 for periodic updates.
Customers are advised that possible storm-related delays and/or service disruptions may result from the impending weather system, particularly for the Monday morning commute. NJ TRANSIT strongly encourages customers to afford themselves ample time to get to their final destinations throughout the course of this winter weather event.
The corporation is preparing to minimize storm-related disruptions and delays to the extent possible. Bus, rail and light rail crews have begun inspections of equipment and critical infrastructure. These inspections and further storm-related preparations will continue over the course of the weekend.
New Viaje in stock at the Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood
New Viaje cigars have arrived!
Skull and Bones WMD
Exclusivo Leaded
Available now at
The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood
~Gary, Barbara and Collin
The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood
The Tobacco Shop of Ridgewood | 10 Chestnut Street | Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450
Phone: 201-447-2204 | Email: [email protected]
Hours: Monday – Saturday 10:00AM – 5:30PM and Thursday Night 6:30PM – 8:30PM
Ridgewood Parks & Recreation and The Conservancy for Ridgewood Public Lands are pleased to offer A FINE ART SHOW AND SALE on Sunday, April 27, 2014, 12 noon to 3pm at the Daffodil Festival at the Ridgewood Train Station Plaza.
All artists are invited to exhibit five pieces of work, within the interior of the Sration Plaza. Business cards and printedbrochures are also welcome. All sales are yours and no commission will be charged, although a complete application and a $25 exhibit fee payable to the Conservancy for Ridgewood Public Lands is due prior to April 22, 2014.
For an application or info, contact Nancy Bigos, Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation at: [email protected] or 201.670.5560.
R.H.S. wrestling: Paramus’ Joe Trovato beats friend Joe Oliva of Ridgewood to win 138 Region 2 title
SUNDAY, MARCH 2, 2014
BY GREGORY SCHUTTA
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
PARAMUS – Joe Trovato of Paramus hasn’t spent a lot of time on the mat this season with his favorite workout partner.
“Not since we found out we were going the same weight this year,” Trovato said of his friend Joe Oliva from Ridgewood.
But the two put aside their friendship for nearly seven minutes Saturday. And it was Trovato who came out on top, scoring a takedown on the edge midway through the first overtime to score a 3-1 victory in the highlight bout of the night at 138 pounds and win his second Region 2 wrestling championship in three years.
“This was a huge match for me,” said Trovato, a two-time state fifth who improved to 36-1 this season. “This is a huge confidence boost going into the state tournament next week.”
With the prediction of a significant winter storm expected to begin some time on Sunday and continue into possibly early Tuesday morning, all solid waste must be brought to the end of your driveway on Monday, March 3rd for the West Side and Tuesday, March 4th for the East Side. Please check the website for updates should it become necessary to cancel solid waste and recycling collection on these days.
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Ridgewood 10th Annual Service of Healing
Bethlehem Lutheran Church, Ridgewood, NJ will conduct its 10th of Healing on Sunday, March 16th follow in the parlor. They are located at 155 Linwood Avenue or call 201-444-3600.
The worship service will be led by The Rev. Andrew D. Nelson, with music by Diane Mitchell, Director of Music. This service is being held in cooperation with the
Parish Nurse/Care Ministry at Bethlehem.
The focus of this worship service will be wholeness. Healing does not mean just
the lack of illness or disability. The root of the word heal means wholeness. As Christians, we remember that our wholeness involves harmony in all areas of our lives-
body, mind and spirit, with Christ at its center. Christian healing directs us toward being
the person God is calling us to be at every stage of our living and our dying. For some,
healing is comfort, for some, strength, for others, physical healing.
Through prayer, anointing with oil and confession we cast our burdens on the Lord. We confess that Jesus meets us in our brokenness and pain and brings His love to
bear – forgiving, transforming, redeeming and healing by His grace. Jesus does this in
God’s way, in God’s time, and according to God’s loving purpose for each individual.
Our physical, mental and emotional hurts and ills are not signs of God’s rejection
but symptoms of our fallen world in which sin and death reign. We are invited by God to
commend our ills on Him for this life, realizing that ultimate healing awaits us in heaven.
Please join us as we come together for this renewal of body, mind and spirit on Sunday, March 16th bring a friend!
The members of Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church, Ridgewood want you
to know that God has a plan for you and he loves you. Our faith is in Christ. Our guide
is in the Bible. Our love is for all. Come celebrate with us. We offer 2 Sunday services:
Contemporary Praise Service at 8:45am and Traditional Worship at 11am with Sunday
School and Bible Class at 10am. Please join us at 155 Linwood Avenue, Ridgewood.
For more information, please visit our website, www.BethlehemChurch.com.
Annual Service at 1pm in their sanctuary. Light refreshments will at 1pm. Light refreshments will follow in the parlor. All are welcome,
8 Election Experts Slam IRS for Interfering with Campaign Finance
Ken McIntyre
February 27, 2014 at 4:54 pm
Eight former members of the Federal Election Commission today accused the Internal Revenue Service of attempting to “interfere” with campaign finance regulations enacted by Congress, The Foundry has learned.
The former FEC commissioners signed a letter filed this afternoon as a public comment on the IRS’s proposed new rules on so-called “candidate-related political activity” by nonprofit advocacy organizations qualified as tax-exempt under federal law. Midnight is the deadline for public comment on the proposed rules, which critics say the IRS developed secretly and announced at Thanksgiving to silence some free speech – seven months after the IRS targeting scandal broke.
Signing the letter to the IRS were Lee Ann Elliott, Thomas J. Josefiak, David M. Mason, Don McGahn, Bradley A. Smith, Michael E. Toner, Hans A. von Spakovsky and Darryl Wold. McGahn, the most recent member of the FEC, stepped down last year.
Among them, the former commissioners have 55 years of experience in campaign finance regulation, said von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation who also manages the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. He said:
“The proposed rules would severely restrict the First Amendment-protected political activity of nonprofit advocacy organizations. It seems obvious that this is the second stage in the Obama Administration’s attempt to silence its critics – first they targeted Tea Party and other conservative organizations to delay their IRS applications for tax-exempt status, and now they are changing the rules to make it almost impossible for them to operate.”
Americans may register their comments with the IRS through the website NonProfitFreedom.org – a project of the Center for Competitive Politics in Alexandria, Va., which Smith heads.
Smith, FEC chairman from 2000 to 2005, told The Foundry:
”The IRS needs to recognize the dangers of embroiling itself in the political process. It just is not equipped to regulate in an area far removed from revenue collection, and that Congress specifically entrusted to the bipartisan Federal Election Commission. If the proposed rules are any indication, the agency is already far out of its depth.”
The proposed changes would affect Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, which covers nonprofit groups ranging from the Sierra Club on the left to the National Rifle Association on the right. In their letter, Smith, von Spakovsky and the six other former FEC members argue that the IRS lacks the statutory authority to restrict the political activity of such organizations and that the proposed rules do not “respect Supreme Court precedent.”
The commissioners also say the proposed rules would “confuse regulated entities” and “seriously undermine the First Amendment rights and protections of the Constitution.” They point out the “inappropriateness” of the IRS’s proposing “a regulatory scheme almost identical to a provision of federal campaign finance law that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional” in the Citizens United decision.
The IRS’s actions are “arbitrary and capricious,” they conclude, and the proposed rules “should be withdrawn.”
Midnight is the deadline for public comments on the “Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.” As of earlier today, almost 100,000 comments had been filed, indicating that the response may break a record for the IRS.
Von Spakovsky said a quick review of the comments indicates that the public tide is running strongly against the IRS on the rules.
Some in Congress also have criticized the rules change –Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and other congressional leaders sent a letter of protest Feb. 5 to the IRS. They wrote that the rules “target the First Amendment rights” of grassroots groups and appear “calculated to take effect just in time for the mid-term elections.”
By a 243-176 vote, the House on Wednesday approved a bill that would delay the rules for a year. , Senate Democrats are expected to prevent the bill, sponsored by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI), from coming to a vote. The White House has threatened a veto.
This story was produced by The Foundry’s news team. Nothing here should be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Supreme Court Expands Police Power to Seize Your Assets Before Conviction
Damon Root
|Feb. 27, 2014 3:22 pm
It’s been a banner week for law enforcement at the U.S. Supreme Court. On Tuesday, in the case of Fernandez v. California, the Court broadened the power of the police to conduct warrantless home searches. But it was a decision handed down on Monday that’s likely to have the greatest impact on our criminal justice system.
At issue in Monday’s ruling in Kaley v. United States is an area of the law known as asset forfeiture. In essence, asset forfeiture is designed to help law enforcement officials seize the ill-gotten fruits of criminal activity, such as cash, cars, or homes. To that end, prosecutors are permitted to freeze the assets of criminal suspects during trial if there is probable cause to believe those assets constitute “proceeds” of the alleged criminal activity. Notice that this freezing occurs before the suspect has been duly convicted.
That timing matters a great deal to the plaintiffs in this case, a married couple by the name of Kaley who have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of selling stolen medical supplies. That may sound like a finding of guilt, but in fact grand jury proceedings are a non-adversarial process where the prosecution alone is permitted to call witnesses and present evidence. The suspects have no opportunity at that point to rebut anything the government alleges against them.
Top Christie Port Authority appointees devised toll-hike plan in 2011 to bolster image of NJ, NY governors
SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY MARCH 1, 2014, 11:53 PM
BY SHAWN BOBURG
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Years before they resigned amid a scandal over politically motivated lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, Governor Christie’s top two executives at the Port Authority led a secretive campaign to quickly push through controversial toll hikes on the Hudson River bridges and tunnels by drowning out criticism, limiting public input and portraying the governors of New York and New Jersey as fiscal hawks who reined in an out-of-control agency.
At its heart was a plan to have the Port Authority, an independent bi-state agency, propose an enormous toll hike — a $6 increase that would bring the E-ZPass toll to $14 by 2014 — so that the governors could then scale it back. The smaller increases that were ultimately approved in 2011 — $4.50 over four years — allowed both governors to claim credit while they set the stage for each state to claim hundreds of millions of dollars to fund pet projects not directly related to the Port Authority.
It was a sleight of hand that began with a campaign-style operation that, according to interviews with more than a half-dozen people familiar with the operation, was run out of a conference room on the southwest corner of the 15th floor of the Port Authority’s Manhattan headquarters.
Ridgewood YMCA says internal review underway after learning of worker’s sex assault arrest
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY FEBRUARY 28, 2014, 5:14 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Officials for the Ridgewood YMCA said they are conducting an “internal review” after discovering a temporary maintenance worker had been charged with sexually assaulting a minor several years ago.
The incident occurred when the victim was between 15 and 18, but she only reported it to authorities recently at the age of 23.
Abelardo Ramirez, 46, of Glen Rock, was arrested last Wednesday and charged with aggravated and criminal sexual assault, as well as endangering a minor, according to the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. He remains at the Bergen County Jail on $350,000 bail.
It is unclear if Ramirez is still employed at the Oak Street facility. A statement issued by Y officials this week called Ramirez “one of our substitute building maintenance personnel.”
Later the statement adds that he “worked for us for less than six months” and assured that “no complaints have been brought forward in regard to the employee during his employment with us.”
Graying New Jerseyans Rarely Live in “Aging-Friendly” Communities
More than a quarter of New Jerseyans are in their AARP years, but comparatively few live in communities that are amenable to older people, a report by New Jersey Future found.
Creating Places to Age in New Jersey, released earlier this month by the organization that promotes smart growth, indicated that many of the places with large concentrations of people age 55 and older are not “aging-friendly” and those that are better designed for older people have smaller numbers of retirees and near-retirees. Places considered better for older adults contain a lot of services in a small area, have a mixed-use downtown, walkable street networks, and access to buses and other mass transit. (O’Dea/NJSpotlight)
“Here I come to save the day!” Jimmy Carter offers to visit Venezuela
Didn’t this Idiot do enough Damage Already ?
Humberto Fontova | Mar 01, 2014
Last week Jimmy Carter fired off letters to Venezuela’s fraudulent President Nicolas Maduro and to Venezuela’s defrauded Presidential candidate Enrique Capriles expressing “grave concern” regarding the political turmoil and bloodshed convulsing their nation. From his pulpit at Emory University’s Carter Center, the former U.S. president calls for “dialogue” among the embattled Venezuelan parties and offers to visit the troubled nation–but not as a formal “mediator.”
The news of Carter’s proposed Venezuela visit was only hours old when alarmed Venezuelan anti-socialists sent out an SOS: “Please, desist from your trip,” reads an open letter from Venezuelan blogger/journalist Daniel Duquenal. “You have absolutely no credibility in Venezuela…You have cursed us enough as it is. I can assure you that half of the country has no respect nor credibility for you and the other half (the Castroites) thinks you are a mere fool that they can use and discard as needed.”
Ridgewood NJ, It is time once again for nominations for the annual Teacher Recognition program for the 2013-2014 school year. The Teacher Recognition Committee is soliciting nominations of teachers and educational services professionals from students, parents and guardians, staff and the community at large.
Full information and forms are found on the district website homepage at www.ridgewood.k12.nj.us.
Nominations are due by Monday, March 10. They can either be emailed to [email protected] or returned to the Ridgewood Teacher Recognition Committee c/o Human Resources, Education Center, 49 Cottage Place, Ridgewood, NJ 07450.
The Teacher Recognition ceremony will be held on Tuesday, May 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Education Center.
