CRPL presents: Story Walk®- “The Spotty Dotty Daffodil”
The Conservancy for Ridgewood Public Lands (CRPL) and the Parks and Recreation Department is pleased to present a Story Walk® of The Spotty Dotty Daffodil for all families to discover and enjoy together.
Story Walk® is an exciting literary initiative that combines the reading of a children’s story with a walking route, while connecting families in the out of doors. A unique way to inspire parents, teachers, grandparents and care givers to take young children on a short stroll that is free for all. The Story walk® Project was created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, VT and developed in collaboration with the Vermont Bicycle and Pedestrian Coalition and the Kellogg Hubbard Library, visit [email protected].
The Spotty Dotty daffodil is a picture book by Rose Mannering and illustrated with beautiful water colors by Bethany Straker which features a heartfelt story of acceptance ; one that celebrates the differences in all of us- spots , stripes or otherwise.
Volunteers from the Conservancy have made arrangements for this Story walk®- of the Spotty Dotty Daffodil to be displayed April1 through May 2, in unison with the bloom of some 14,000 daffodil bulbs planted throughout the Village community. The actual story walk will take place in the meadow area adjacent to the Stable, 259 N. Maple Avenue in Ridgewood. Families are invited to visit the Story Walk®, enjoy the Spotty Dotty Daffodil story together and discover the beauty of nature that abounds in one local park. For your convenience, parking, restroom facilities and a playground are available.
This is an outdoor experience, so dress accordingly. The event is free to the public.
For more information please contact the Ridgewood Parks and Recreation Department at 201-670-5560, www.ridgewoodnj.net or visit the office at 259 N. Maple Avenue.
Repeal Pfund’s Folly, i.e. Ordinance 3066 !!! In the very least repeal the Chapter § 190-143 ( here https://ecode360.com/6694062 ) that allow for applications to amend the Master Plan. Application to Village Council or Planning Board.Any interested party may request that an amendment or amendments be made to the Village Master Plan or development regulations. The request(s) shall be made to the Village Council and/or the Village Planning Board.
There was not a single employee of the Ridgewood Public School System who could have been promoted to fill the principal’s position at Orchard?
What does that say about top District management and the BOE itself if we have no viable succession program?
From last night’s meeting agenda:
iv. Appointments
Administrator
FERRERI, Mary, K. – Principal of Orchard School, effective
July 15, 2015 through June 30, 2016.
Mrs. Ferreri credentials are as follows:
Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, New Jersey
Master of Arts in Educational Administration – 2005
The College of New Jersey, Ewing, New Jersey
Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education/History – 2002
Experience:
Westwood Regional School District; Principal, George
Elementary School – July 2010 to present
Westwood Regional School District; Acting Assistant
Principal, George & Ketler Schools/Supervisor of
Elementary Programs/District Head Teacher K-6 – January
2009 to June 2010
Westwood Regional School District; Third Grade Teacher –
2002 to 2009
Westwood Regional School District; First Grade Teacher –
2002 to 2009
APRIL 14, 2015, 8:16 AM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 2015, 6:35 PM
BY MELISSA HAYES
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
Governor Christie called for raising the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare and suggested wealthier retirees forgo the benefits in a speech in New Hampshire Tuesday.
Christie unveiled a 12-point plan that includes reducing Social Security benefits for retirees earning more than $80,000 and eliminating them altogether for those earning more than $200,000.
The governor told a crowd of about 100 students and other attendees at St. Anselm College that the retirement age for social security should be raised to 69 and the early retirement age should be 64. And he called for the eligibility age for Medicare to be gradually increased to 67 by 2040.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
________________________________
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
Russia lifted its ban on the delivery of an anti-missile system to Iran just weeks after negotiators reached a framework agreement over Iran’s nuclear program, Reuters reported on Monday.
The ban on the delivery of the S-300 system and other weapons has been in place since 2010, when the United Nations announced its own ban on selling arms to Iran.
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly signed off on lifting the ban on providing S-300 anti-missile rocket systems to Iran.
Earlier this month, Western powers and Iran reached a framework agreement to limit Tehran’s nuclear research in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. Russia is a party to the talks.
Ridgewood NJ, Applications for the Chief Michael Feeney Jr.Police Academy Class #2 are now available at Ridgewood Police headquarters. The Jr. Police Academy is scheduled from June 22nd to July 1st 2015 and held at B.F. Middle School, The academy is open to Ridgewood Residents entering 6th 7th and 8th grades next fall. The Application deadline is June1st 2015.
The Junior Police Academy has proven to be a valuable experience for all involved and has provided a vital link between the Police Department and the youth of Ridgewood. Further, the Junior Police Academy has afforded students a deeper understanding of the Police function as well as an increased ability to see what the Police and the community can do to serve the Village. The overwhelming success of our first Junior Police Academy class has far exceeded the expectations of everyone involved. This program attracts a highly motivated group of recruits, and the Instructors thoroughly enjoy their interaction with these young people. We look forward to another great class.
photo by ArChick
Tax Day gets complicated for same-sex couples in states that don’t recognize their marriages
By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A necessary burden for most Americans, Tax Day is an accounting nightmare for thousands of gay and lesbian couples as they wrestle with the uneven legal status of same-sex marriage in the United States.
They live in a country that recognizes their marriages, but some reside in the 13 states that do not, an issue that will be argued before the Supreme Court later this month.
At tax time, and Wednesday is the filing deadline, it gets complicated because most state income tax returns use information from a taxpayer’s federal return.
Straight couples simply copy numbers from one form to another. But that doesn’t work for same-sex couples reporting combined incomes, deductions and exemptions on their federal tax returns. These couples must untangle their finances on their state returns, where they are still considered single.
“We’re adults, we’re contributing to the welfare of society and yet, here’s this one thing that just reaches up every year and kind of slaps us in the face,” said Brian Wilbert, an Episcopal priest who lives in Oberlin, a small college town in northern Ohio.
Wilbert married his husband, Yorki Encalada, in 2012, at a ceremony in upstate New York. He is filing a joint federal tax return for the second time this year. But Ohio, which doesn’t recognize same-sex marriages, requires the couple to file their state tax returns as if they were single.
“It may not be the most burning thing,” Wilbert said. “But as we think about equality and marriage equality, this is an important thing because it’s part of what couples do.”
The State Department agreed back on April 2 to investigate department-wide email preservation policies in the wake of the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the National Archives and Records Administration announced on Thursday.
Archives’ release of State’s correspondence came hours after a former Archives litigator and other records management experts appearing on a panel expressed anguish at the slow pace at which the government is complying with email recordkeeping requirements.
Secretary of State John Kerry has asked State’s inspector general to review the agency’s recordkeeping and FOIA practices, said the letterfrom Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Information Services Margaret Grafeld. The letter was in response to a March 3 message from Archives Chief Records Officer Paul Wester Jr.
Grafeld’s letter stressed State’s “longstanding demonstrated commitment to managing our records” in partnership with the Archives. It described formation of a “working group” led by Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy last year that produced an August 2014 memo to senior State leaders reminding them of record keeping obligations and warning them not to use private email. “Secretaries Clinton and [Colin] Powell had used non-government accounts during their tenures, but the degree to which records were captured in the department’s systems was unknown,” it said. The 55,000 emails Clinton turned over to State in December, the letter noted, are being reviewed for responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Not included in the response was any information on Clinton’s original decision to set up a private email server.
“Where was everyone?” demanded Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation for the Archives, speaking at an open government panel at the National Press Club Thursday.
Fri, April 17, 2015
Time: 8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
West Side Presbyterian Church, 6 South Monroe Street, Ridgewood, NJ
Under the direction of Marjorie Vandervoort, the Choral will perform the Magnificat by English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams. Laura Van Orden will be featured as contralto soloist and Laura Carnibucci will be the flutist. The program will include choral classics, Broadway hits and selections from Italian opera including Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana with Daniella Ashbahian as soprano soloist. Susan LaFever will accompany at the piano.
Organist Davis C. Badaszewski, a senior at Saddle River Day School, the winner of the 2015 Florence Reinauer Memorial Music Award will perform at the concert. The scholarship is presented annually for excellence in vocal or instrumental music.
A reception with light refreshments will follow the performance. Welcome Spring with an evening of delightful and captivating music.
Tickets are $15 advance sale; $20 at the door. For advance tickets, call Gail at 201-327-8184. For more information on The Ridgewood Choral, visit www.ridgewoodchoral.org
SHARE, Inc. to Host “Just Desserts” Fundraiser
Sat, April 18, 2015
Time: 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Unitarian Society, 113 Cottage Place, in Ridgewood, N.J. 07450
SHARE, Inc. to Host “Just Desserts” Fundraiser to Benefit its Residences for Independent Seniors
Shared Housing Association for Ridgewood & Environs, Inc. (SHARE) is hosting “Just Desserts: A Matinee of Sweet Delights and Soulful Sounds” on Saturday, April 18, 2015 from 2 to 5 p.m. This fundraising event will be held in Anderson Hall at the Unitarian Society, 113 Cottage Place, in Ridgewood, N.J.
Admission is $25 per person and includes an array of desserts, beverages and performances by local musicians. A 50/50 and Prize Raffles will also be sold. Proceeds will help fund capital improvements to SHARE’s two residences for independent seniors, located at 104 Cottage Place and 130 Prospect Street in Ridgewood.
To purchase tickets or for more information contact Marianne Bennett at (201) 670-9605 or e-mail [email protected].
SHARE, Inc. is a New Jersey non-profit that provides an affordable, home like environment for independent seniors within the Ridgewood community. For more information visit www.shareridgewood.org.
Whenever a prominent political figure is indicted on charges of alleged corruption, serious questions arise. Is the prosecution part of a growing and dangerous trend toward criminalizing policy differences? Does it endanger the free speech rights of contributors? Will it constrain the legislative branch from serving as a check and balance on the executive?
These questions now are being raised in the context of the prosecution of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, as they previously were in several other ill-advised prosecutions including those of former agriculture secretary Mike Espy, former presidential candidate John Edwards, the late Sen. Ted Stevens, former Congressman Tom Delay, and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
The reason these questions arise is not because there is no corruption in government. It is because the laws distinguishing between constitutionally protected political activities and illegal payments to office holders are vague and indeterminate. These laws give prosecutors enormous discretion to determine whether to prosecute questionable transactions. And the courts refuse to second guess prosecutorial decisions even in cases where selective prosecution based on improper considerations seems evident.
By Tracey Lien and Paresh Dave contact the reporters
Science fiction writer David Brin calls it “a tsunami of lights” — a future where tiny cameras are everywhere, lighting up everything we do, and even predicting what we’ll do next.
Unlike George Orwell’s novel “1984,” where only Big Brother controlled the cameras, in 2015, cheap, mobile technology has turned everyone into a watcher.
A snowboarder with a GoPro can post a YouTube video of a friend’s 540-degree McTwist in the halfpipe. But also — as happened recently — a Penn State fraternity can upload Facebook photos of partially naked, sleeping college women.
A San Jose homeowner cowers behind a locked door while she watches an intruder stroll through her home on a surveillance video. A man launches a drone to spy on his neighbor tanning by her pool. Pet owners monitor their dogs.
APRIL 10, 2015, 7:42 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015, 10:48 PM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
Companies with public contracts in New Jersey gave a record amount of money last year to a new breed of political advocacy groups that can influence elections without facing the state’s tough pay-to-play restrictions and disclosure requirements.
Although it was an electoral off-year with no statewide candidates on the ballot, contractors gave $1.8 million to PACs and outside groups in 2014, a 16 percent rise over the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. Direct donations from contractors to candidates’ campaigns fell 15 percent, to $9.1 million, ELEC reported.
“Independent groups are becoming a major force in politics, both nationally and in New Jersey,” said Jeff Brindle, the executive director of ELEC. Contractors are pouring more funds into those groups because “it’s a way around the law — it’s a way around pay-to-play” restrictions, and it allows many donors to remain anonymous, Brindle said.
New Jersey law generally bars any company with a contract worth more than $17,500 from giving more than $300 to gubernatorial candidates and party fundraising committees. Any contractor that gives money has to file a disclosure with ELEC.
April 10, 2015 Last updated: Friday, April 10, 2015, 1:21 AM
By John Cichowski
The Record
Like Superman to the rescue, Bill Pascrell Jr. swooped down on his native Paterson on Thursday to save our roads, our rail system and, by extension, the whole federal transportation trust fund.
In a speech inside an NJ Transit bus garage to a crowd of local politicians, transit managers and businessmen, the 10-term congressman unveiled an ambitious plan calling for a $27.5 billion transfusion to bail out the ailing U.S. Transportation Trust Fund that will run dry May 31 if Congress doesn’t reauthorize funding.
“This legislation, if it passes, would provide a consistent, dedicated stream of money to fix our crumbling bridges, roads and transit system for the next 10 years,” he said to applause.
Everybody in this spacious Market Street venue had heard comparable speeches lately to rally the troops behind political efforts to cope with looming state and federal funding shortages that will likely arise if Congress continues to finance transportation with yearly doles that don’t keep up with inflation and increased demand.
