JULY 17, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JULY 17, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Similar stories for two King’s Ponds
To the Editor:
What do the King’s Pond in Ridgewood and the King’s Pond in Franklin Lakes have in common? Both have been allowed to fall into disrepair due to years of inaction by both municipalities. The administrations in both towns have used the “kick the can down the road” approach to the maintenance of these ponds by refusing to plan and budget for the necessary repairs and restorations during their tenure. The result at this point is that both ponds are approaching swamp status.
The Franklin Lakes pond, which has never been dredged, has fallen into serious disrepair with low water levels, decaying vegetation and noticeable smell. Its pond is inaccessible due to overgrowth of foliage on its shoreline.
Similarly, the pond in Ridgewood has fallen in disrepair. It was last dredged in October 1999. Today, the water level in the center of the pond is five inches deep with vegetation protruding its surface. Access to the entire length of the pond existed in 2007. Today, the entire shoreline is overgrown thus denying access for fishing and viewing.
At least Franklin Lakes has finally taken action to resolve years of neglect for its King’s Pond by budgeting to dredge and restore the pond to its intended use.
To date, Ridgewood has done nothing to restore its King’s Pond to be worthy of its Wildscape status. After years of bringing this blight to the attention of past as well as the current administration, no plan or budget has been introduced to resolve this deterioration. Ridgewood’s lack of concern for these natural resources is irresponsible.
Both communities should be ashamed for allowing their inaction to promote this preventable deterioration.
The Obama administration is moving forward with regulations designed to help diversify America’s wealthier neighborhoods, drawing fire from critics who decry the proposal as executive overreach in search of an “unrealistic utopia.”
A final Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) rule due out this month is aimed at ending decades of deep-rooted segregation around the country.
The regulations would use grant money as an incentive for communities to build affordable housing in more affluent areas while also taking steps to upgrade poorer areas with better schools, parks, libraries, grocery stores and transportation routes as part of a gentrification of those communities.
“HUD is working with communities across the country to fulfill the promise of equal opportunity for all,” a HUD spokeswoman said. “The proposed policy seeks to break down barriers to access to opportunity in communities supported by HUD funds.”
It’s a tough sell for some conservatives. Among them is Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who argued that the administration “shouldn’t be holding hostage grant monies aimed at community improvement based on its unrealistic utopian ideas of what every community should resemble.”
“American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching federal government,” said Gosar, who is leading an effort in the House to block the regulations.
Civil rights advocates, meanwhile, are praising the plan, arguing that it is needed to break through decades-old barriers that keep poor and minority families
Just watched the UStream. I count four titles for this one job. 1. senior Personnel Assistant. 2. director of Human Resources. 3. Senior Human Resources Professional. 4. confidential Secretary to the Village Manager. The way they were getting testy with Bernie really gave the appearance that they were hiding something. Roberta was tap dancing all around, Albert went onto his high horse and said he was not in a deposition. Susan stayed the course and asked them what the name of the job is as of that moment. Roberta actually asked her “do,you mean as of today?” This whole thing does not pass the smell test.
Thank you Bernie. Just watched the UStream. Fascinating. The hired this person through a non-competitive position (confidential secretary) but then promoted her to a competitived position (Director) . . . what the heck is going on? Sure sounds like someone is playing very loose in Village Hall and we, the residents, are going to pay for it when the Village gets sued.
And thank you Susan for asking the difficult questions . . . “What is the name of this position as of today”? I almost died laughing when you asked that and Roberta couldn’t answer.
This really smacks of something underhanded. The position was created through unofficial channels. The person was hired before the job actually existed. Roberta defended her actions by saying this was all just a cleanup of an existing condition. Wrong. It did not exist until she created it last year. She tried to act like this was a long standing contradiction and it is not. She made this Jo and then she got the law changed. This was not an emergency. Why. Pinot follow official channels and get the Code changed before posting the job opening? Seems that this was slipped though under the radar, but thanks to Mike, Susan, Bernie and a couple of others, the radar detectors started squawking.
Make this right Ms. Sonenfeld. better yet, make it right Mr. mayor. This is outright government corruption as it stands now.
Ridgewood NJ, Despite the absence of heavy rains or high winds, large tree limbs continue to fall on almost a daily basis in Ridgewood, keeping police, fire, and PSE&G personnel on the the move. The most recent tree affected was located in the side yard of 353 Highland Avenue, at the corner of McKinley Place. The fallen limb took out electric, phone, and cable TV service to one (1) home, and blocked McKinley Place between Grandview Circle and Highland Avenue. Fire and police units responded to a call from a passing Bergen County Sheriff’s officer shortly after 7 AM on Sunday, 07/19, although a neighbor indicated that the limb actually fell at about 5 AM. No injuries were reported in the incident. PSE&G crews were expected to make the area safe, which would allow Ridgewood Parks & Tree Department crews to clear the blocked roadway. In addition to losing power & communications lines, a fence was also damaged at 353 Highland Avenue.
Donald Trump appears to have gotten under the skin of not only Democrats, but also fellow Republicans and the news media. Has that subjected Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, to unfair and/or inaccurate reporting?
An article in the Washington Post today is headlined, “Trump slams McCain for being ‘captured’ in Vietnam.”
The article’s lead sentence states, “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump slammed Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a decorated Vietnam War veteran, on Saturday by saying McCain was not a war hero because he was captured by the North Vietnamese [emphasis added].”
Is this report accurate?
In fact, Trump’s actual quote is the opposite of what is presented in the Post’s first sentence.
Discussion
1. The Post did not provide context at the outset disclosing that McCain and Trump have been feuding, with McCain characterizing some Trump supporters as “crazies” and Trump stating that McCain graduated last in his class in Annapolis. The charged rhetoric continued at the conservative Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa this weekend.
2. When a panelist characterized McCain as a “war hero,” the Post is accurate in reporting that Trump initially said McCain is “not a war hero.” But then, Trump immediately modified his statement saying– four times– that McCain is a war hero:
“He is a war hero.”
“He’s a war hero because he was captured.”
“He’s a war hero, because he was captured.”
“I believe, perhaps, he’s a war hero. But right now, he’s said some very bad things about a lot of people.”
3. Did Trump say McCain is not a war hero because he was captured? No, not in the exchanges represented in the Post.
4. Is the Post’s characterization an accident? It would appear not, because it is repeated in the Post’s caption of the video clip, which also states: “Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a decorated Vietnam war veteran, was not a war hero because he was captured by the North Vietnamese [emphasis added].”
Further, in the Post’s second sentence, Trump is quoted as stating of McCain, “He’s not a war hero…He’s a war hero because he was captured,” but the article selectively left out the phrase Trump had uttered in between: “He is a war hero.”
Conclusion
Trump actually said the opposite of what the Post lead sentence and video caption claim. The Post might have been able to get away stating that Trump “implied” McCain was not a war hero because McCain was captured, but even that would have been a subjective interpretation since Trump had actually stated the opposite.
It’s true that Trump stated one time that McCain is not a war hero. But Trump stated four times that McCain is a war hero–and that was not accurately characterized in the article.
Trump: I don’t need to be lectured
EDT July 19, 2015
John McCain has called his own constituents who want a secure border “crazies.” No one in the news media or the establishment, including theRepublican National Committee, criticized the senator for those comments.
Now, as respected reporter Sharyl Attkisson has proved point by point, the news media are also distorting my words. But that is not my point. McCain the politician has failed the state of Arizona and the country.
During my entire business career, I have always made supporting veterans a top priority because our heroes deserve the very best for defending our freedom. Our Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals are outdated dumps. I will build the finest and most modern veterans hospitals in the world. The current medical assistance to our veterans is a disaster. A Trump administration will provide the finest universal access health care for our veterans. They will be able to get the best care anytime and anywhere.
Thanks to McCain and his Senate colleague Bernie Sanders, their legislation to cover up the VA scandal, in which 1,000+ veterans died waiting for medical care, made sure no one has been punished, charged, jailed, fined or held responsible. McCain has abandoned our veterans. I will fight for them.
The reality is that John McCain the politician has made America less safe, sent our brave soldiers into wrong-headed foreign adventures, covered up for President Obama with the VA scandal and has spent most of his time in the Senate pushing amnesty. He would rather protect the Iraqi border than Arizona’s. He even voted for the Iran Nuclear Review Act of 2015, which allows Obama, who McCain lost to in a record defeat, to push his dangerous Iran nuclear agreement through the Senate without a supermajority of votes.
Why did he choose Ridgewood for this speech (flanked by his favorite union power brokers, btw)?
Odd choice since RW is not a major NJ transit hub…
Is it our “non-partisan” elections ?
Or perhaps it is another step towards politicizing the village and bringing Hudson county style Democrat political machinery into the village? (we are a tempting – rich, clueless – prize after all)
Maybe it is just something as simple as (yet another) attempt by Aronsohn to revive his political “career”.
who knows…
Ridgewood IS NOT one of NJ Transit’s busiest stations… its not even in the top 7 according to the 2014 “NJ Transit Facts at a Glance” sheet.
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LINK: https://www.njtransit.com/pdf/FactsAtaGlance.pdf
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Here is what NJ Transit lists as its top Seven:
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Stations with the Highest Boarding Levels Avg. Weekday Boardings
Penn Station New York (Rail) ……………………………………………. 87,130
Port Authority Bus Terminal (Bus) ………………………………………. 78,014
Newark Penn Station (Rail) ……………………………………………….. 27,224
Frank R. Lautenberg Secaucus Junction (Rail)…………………..24,459
Hoboken Terminal (Rail) …………………………………………………… 14,444
Metropark Station (Rail) ……………………………………………………… 7,748
Princeton Junction (Rail) …………………………………………………….. 6,799
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Ridgewood has 1,400 riders per day
LINK: https://www.stantec.com/our-work/projects/united-states-projects/r/ridgewood-station-rehabilitation.html#.VastQWfbKpc
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Menendez wouldn’t go to a 2nd rate train stop unless it served some other purpose for himself (or his political buddies in the village)
Yesterday Republican National Committee (RNC) responded to the John McCain ,Donald Trump controversy and we have responded to them .
WASHINGTON – Republican National Committee (RNC) Chief Strategist and Communications Director Sean Spicer released the following statement in response to Donald Trump’s comments: “Senator McCain is an American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine. Period. There is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably.”
we respond……
John McCain may have been a war hero but he dose not have a right to continue to disparage voters and act like a jerk , that’s the issue. If he is going to continue to play the “hero” card then he should start acting like one. We also agree with Donald Trump in that McCain needs to apologize end of story .
As for the RNC despite the fact of a landslide Victory in the last election , the Republican Majority has nothing to show for it what so ever ! Far more energy should be devoted to creating compelling policy and better marketing of that policy than attacking Republicans who don’t tow the inside the beltway party line. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is getting a bit old.
David Catanese is senior politics writer for U.S. News & World Report
The most meaningful moment of Donald Trump’s spectacle of a presidential campaign thus far may have come during a solemn evening news conference last Friday in Los Angeles, when he stood silently behind the family members of crime victims.
One after another, a father or mother or aunt spoke emotionally about the death of a son or nephew at the hands of someone who was in the country illegally.
“Nobody wants to hear from us,” lamented Don Rosenberg, whose 25-year-old son was struck and then run over three times by a car driven by an unlicensed man from Honduras. “We get ignored constantly.”
Lupe Moreno, a Hispanic woman who wore a button with a photograph of her deceased nephew, Ruben Morfin, fought back tears while describing his death: Gunned down at age 13 in Salinas, California, by an immigrant without the proper legal documents.
[READ: The Second-Quarter Game Changers]
“Our children are dying every day. They’re being raped. They’re being brutalized,” Moreno said in raw remarks that echoed Trump’s controversial missive about Mexican immigrants last month. Her sister had gone to Capitol Hill 20 years ago to deliver congressional testimony she hoped would spur action to move against those who broke the law to get to the U.S. They’re still grieving, and still waiting.
Moreno thanked Trump for speaking hard truths. Then, with a pained look on her face, she scolded the reporters in the room for failing to adequately cover the deaths or describe the perpetrators’ legal status: “You’re not helping at all; those other candidates aren’t helping, either. I wish they had the cojones of our forefathers.”
Mr. Trump is number one in the unimportant Huffington Post poll, along with all other recently released polls including Reuters, FOX, USA Today/Suffolk University and The Economist.
Mr. Trump is in first place in Nevada, where he is also number one, by a wide margin, with Hispanics. He is number one in North Carolina and expects to win Iowa and New Hampshire.
Mr. Trump singlehandedly raised the issue of illegal immigration and started a national conversation about what has turned out to be one of the most important topics of this election cycle.
Likewise, Mr. Trump is the leader on issues such as the terrible United States trade deals, strengthening our military, taking care of our great Vets and the repeal and replacement of Obamacare.
If you read previously written Tweets, Mr. Trump has never been a fan of Arianna Huffington or the money-losing Huffington Post.
The only clown show in this scenario is the Huffington Post pretending to be a legitimate news source. Mr. Trump is not focused on being covered by a glorified blog. He is focused on Making America Great Again
WASHINGTON — Furious American Federation of Teachers members are demanding the union withdraw its endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton, calling it premature and undemocratic.
“There was no internal discussion. Zero. Zip,” said Steve Conn, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers. “This is wrong and something needs to be done.”
The 45-member AFT executive board voted Saturday to back Clinton despite an AFL-CIO request to wait until July when the presidential field is more set.
There’s a new poll out on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-=Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) approval ratings. Hint: Things are not going well.
Boehner has a 36 percent approval rating while McConnell sits at an all-time low of 35 percent.
It’s easy to see why: these two men are responsible for one GOP failure after another to deliver on its promises.
Conservatives have long argued that Boehner and McConnell needed to lead on conservative issues. But both have led—in Democrats’ direction.
So much so, in fact, that one wonders whether the country’s top two GOP leaders have been in cahoots with President Obama the entire time.
It’s time to stop trying to salvage these two. It’s time for them to go.
Let’s look at just the last few weeks.
It is well established that Boehner and McConnell spent 2014 promising they would do everything they could to get rid of Obamacare, if voters returned both chambers of Congress to the GOP.
Now that Republicans control Congress, each time an opportunity has risen for GOP leadership to stop Obamacare they have backed down. Worse, Boehner and McConnell’s preferred strategy of punting Obamacare to the Supreme Court backfired, again, in spectacular fashion.
When the 5-4 decision declaring gay marriage a right across the country came down, conservatives everywhere blasted the court’s overreach. Even Chief Justice John Roberts, who has been of little use to conservatives, made it explicitly clear that the decision was not constitutional.
But Boehner and McConnell made it perfectly clear that they wouldn’t do anything to challenge the decision and it would not be a priority for the Republican Congress.
The Left has already announced its intentions to challenge religious institutions’ tax status, including Catholic schools and Catholic hospitals. You might think Boehner, who is a Catholic, might show a little concern for religious liberty.
On one of the most important court decisions of our time where religious liberty could be threatened—where are our Republican leaders?
Filling the leadership void are Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Ida.), who have introduced religious liberty bills that would protect Christians, Jews, Muslims and other Americans of faith who reject the court’s decision.
Why isn’t McConnell out front with Lee’s bill? Why isn’t Boehner promoting Labrador’s legislation? Both of these bills should’ve been on the floor of each chamber on Friday, June 26, at 10:01 a.m., one minute after the Supreme Court announced its decision.
The White House gave Boehner and the GOP the middle finger when it was announced that Lois Lerner’s hard drive was destroyed. The only way to get the IRS to jump to attention now is for Congress to levy its power of the purse to close the bank window to that office. That is the role of the U.S. House of Representatives and Boehner is abdicating it.
The Benghazi drama continued in the Senate last month where there are still far too many questions and little to no satisfactory answers. Where is the leadership from McConnell in making sure the Obama Administration is held accountable for this massive intelligence failure? Imagine how Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would be acting if this kind of tragedy had occurred under a Republican president?
Hillary Clinton stands to lose the most from Americans finding out the entire truth about what went down in this tragedy. You might expect a Republican to think this was important.
When Trade Promotion Authority was passed, Republican leadership could have at least tried to get something for conservatives out of the deal from the White House—but Boehner and McConnell never asked, or thought to ask, and predictably got nothing.
With these two in charge, conservatives never get anything.
No fool like and old fool: John McCain needs to do as he is so fond of telling others to “shutup” apologize and retire
COLIN CAMPBELL IN 6 HOURS
Real-estate developer Donald Trump is furious at Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) for dismissing the supporters of his presidential campaign.
McCain, the Republican Party’s 2008 presidential nominee, was quotedin a Thursday article in The New Yorker criticising Trump’s heated rhetoric against illegal immigration.
The senator also said Trump’s big rally last weekend in Phoenix, Arizona, was supported by the “crazies” in his state.
“This performance with our friend out in Phoenix is very hurtful to me,” McCain said. “Because what he did was he fired up the crazies.”
Trump responded on Twitter by blasting McCain and demanding an apology:
WEST DEPTFORD NJ, Town officials have adopted an ordinance that restricts protests in the hometown of New Jersey Senate President Steve “Benito”Sweeney, surprise surprise .A West Deptford committee on Wednesday prohibited picketing within 100 feet of a home and limited protests to 10 people for one hour every two weeks. Violators face fines of up to $2,000 and 90 days in jail. So much for freedom of speech .The police state ruling was voted along party lines with three Democrats pro police state in favor and two Republicans opposed the draconian infringement of rights. Sweeney of coarse a Democrat.
Recent protests by a gun rights group staged in last month outside Sweeney’s home have created acrimony between the town and protesters. Sweeney turned on his lawn sprinklers to disperse protesters. Sweeney has also been getting pressure from a Glassborro Nj group looking to push for his recall .https://www.facebook.com/events/1469404500017150/
Ridgewoood NJ, If you’ve ever received a summons for overtime parking at meter #218 on North Walnut Street alongside the Post Office, this may be your lucky day.
Meter #218 is currently configured to allow 15-minute parking only. However, the current Village Code stipulates that particular parking spot should be equipped with a meter that permits up to 3-hour parking.
Section 265-29 of the Village Code specifically designates only two (2) 15-minute (1/4 hour) parking spaces on the East side of North Walnut Street between East Ridgewood and Franklin Avenues. Meter #218 is the third in a series of three (3) 15-minute (1/4 hour) spaces there.
So, if you received a summons for overtime parking at meter #218, and you were parked for less than 3-hours, your summons may be bogus. I suggest you visit the Violations Bureau at Village Hall if you think that you might have been bamboozled.
Village Council members are expected to introduce & approve a revision the Village Code authorizing an additional 15-minute parking space alongside the Post Office, but that could take months. Until then, just remember that any summons issued for overtime parking (for less than 3-hours) at meter #218 may not be legit.
