Pictured (L-R) are Ferne Lambert, Special Properties Mahwah Office Manager; Daniel Hynes, a senior at Northern Highlands Regional High School; Alexandra Gregorek, Public Relations Manager; William Dator, Broker Associate; and Linda Dator, Realtor Associate.
November 8th 2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Upper Saddle River NJ, On October 30, 2016, team members from Special Properties Real Estate Services, LLC were among a gathering of donors, local leaders and members of the community who gathered at the rededication of the Hopper Slave Cemetery in Upper Saddle River. The restoration of the cemetery, made possible through individual and corporate donors, like Special Properties, was led by the Upper Saddle River Historical Society and Daniel Hynes, a local high school student who made the cemetery restoration his Eagle Scout project.
Special Properties Real Estate Services embraces the history and traditions of its flagship brokerage location in Saddle River, NJ, into an expanded, modern presence in Mahwah and Franklin Lakes, NJ. With a staff of accomplished real estate brokers, its clients across northern New Jersey and southern New York are provided with customized, personalized services, backed by the luxury real estate brand of Christie’s International Real Estate. Special Properties provides local expertise with global connections. For more information, call (201)962-9555.
Hackensack NJ, Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir S. Grewal announced today the arrests of 40 people from August 28, 2016 through Thursday, September 1, 2016, as the result of “Operation Helping Hand” – an innovative and collaborative law enforcement and public health initiative targeting the heroin and opioid crisis in Bergen County.
Ridgewood had two residents Christopher J. O’Brien and Lyndsay A. Paul, both 32, who were charged with possession of heroin.
This investigation was the result of a multi-jurisdictional task force consisting of local and county agencies coordinated by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office under the direction of Officer-in-Charge, Deputy Chief Robert ANZILOTTI. Assisting in this investigation were members of the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office, under the direction of Sheriff Michael SAUDINO. These detectives and officers formed the backbone of the multiagency task force. The municipal police agencies participating in this investigation were: Bergenfield Police Department; Cliffside Park Police Department; Dumont Police Department; Englewood Police Department; Elmwood Park Police Department; Fort Lee Police Department; Lyndhurst Police Department; Mahwah Police Department; New Milford Police Department; Saddle River Police Department; Tenafly Police Department; and Upper Saddle River Police Department. In addition, valuable assistance was provided by Bergen County officials, including Bergen County Executive James J. Tedesco, III, and Bergen Regional Medical Center.In 2015, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office Intel Unit and Narcotic Task Force analyzed overdose data as well as deployments of NARCAN, the overdose reversal drug, in
Bergen County. That analysis revealed the following with respect to 2015:
288 total reported overdoses, 231 of which were heroin/opioid-related;
87 overdose fatalities, 71 of which were heroin/opioid-related; and
187 NARCAN deployments by law enforcement officers, resulting in 170 lives saved.In 2015, the hardest hit municipalities were:
Garfield with 23 overdoses;
Lyndhurst with 20 overdoses;
Fort Lee with 15 overdoses;
Lodi with 15 overdoses; and
Cliffside Park with 14 overdoses.Similar analysis of available data for 2016 year-to-date, revealed the following:
202 reported overdoses, 158 of which were heroin/opioid overdoses; and 48 total overdose fatalities, 40 of which are believed heroin/opioid-related.
In an effort to address this issue in a novel way, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office collaborated with Bergen Regional Medical Center to set aside a number of 5-day detox beds for a one-week period for individuals arrested on drug charges, who were battling addiction. Thereafter, on August 28, 2016, members of the multiagency task force described above began enforcement actions in areas known for narcotics sales, namely heroin sales. As a result of those operations, the task force arrested the individuals reflected on the attached spreadsheet. In addition to arresting them, task force members presented the option of participating in a voluntary detox program at Bergen Regional Medical Center that was available to them. The detox program was not in lieu of criminal charges. Approximately 12 individuals have afforded themselves to the detox option, and task force officers then either transported or are presently in the process of transporting those individuals to Bergen Regional Medical Center to enter into the detox program.
Acting Bergen County Prosecutor Grewal states that the charges against the defendants identified on the attached spreadsheet are merely accusations and that the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and would also like to thank the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office, the Bergen County Executive and Bergen Regional Medical Center, as well as all the municipal departments that participated for their assistance with this initiative.
Will the kicking of the can continue with the Teachers contract??? Now is the time to stop this nonsense!!
Let’s hope we can at least put a dent in the can! One would think the REA has gotten the message by now. It would appear that most of Ridgewood (excluding the teachers who actually live in town) oppose their union’s demands. Why are we paying our teachers more than surrounding towns with better or comparable ratings? There goes your real estate values. Wyckoff, Allendale, HoHoKus, Franklin Lakes, Upper Saddle River are all lovely towns with lower taxes. I just can’t get that photo of those teachers’ and their mean, arrogant and angry faces out of my mind. The blonde and one next to her wearing sunglasses look particularly nasty! If they knew who my child was I’m sure there would be ramifications in the classroom for this comment!
They are having committees to study why people over 55 are leaving. Shiela Brogan is on the committee. The survey showed that moving is a financial decision. She needs to pay attention.
Complete agreement with all of the above. Taxes are out of control. And as for the moving truck option, don’t think for a minute that Ridgewood taxes will make the town and your home desirable to young families. Nice towns with lower taxes and higher rated schools surround us. Pay for your own pre-K and Ridgewood teachers need to get a grip on reality when it comes to their demands.
Driving out seniors is not going to help the school population or tax base. Add-ons like this may be the last straw for many who already get nothing from approximately 2/3 of their enormous property tax bite. Tired of hearing that good schools help property values, etc. The fact is that this school system has been going down the tubes for years and the world at large is finally starting to realize it. Throwing more millions at it won’t help. Eliminate half the jobs at the Ed Center and resolve the teachers’ contract dispute before coming to taxpayers for more and more.
As for property values: People will just look at other towns – Allendale, Wyckoff, HoHoKus Upper Saddle River, Ramsey, Montvale, Woodcliff Lake all have lower taxes and comparable if not better schools. Yes, Ridgewood may have a certain status and reputation in its favor but times are different now. The town has changed and more changes are could be on their way. BOE needs to keep a strong position that considers taxpayers. Our teachers are already higher paid than most and pre-school should be the parents’ responsibility.
Schools used to be top class in the entire country 25 years ago. Now it’s all on fumes of past reputation. Current teachers care more about their health benefits than they do about our students, which is sad.
PATERSON, N.J. (AP) — When Kevin Eleby started commuting by train to New York City in 2001, the station in downtown Paterson was nearly empty. Every morning he climbed the stairs to the platform to wait alongside three other riders.
Nearly a decade passed. A few new people started showing up. Then a few more. A few weeks ago, when his train rushed into the station at 7:39 a.m., Eleby was surrounded by a crowd of 45 people.
“This place was deserted. Now you come up here and it’s full. Look at all these people!” said Eleby, 48, a Paterson resident who works in information technology for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. “It’s a big change,” he told The Record (https://bit.ly/1V8CxLm).
It’s a change that’s taking place across New Jersey and in some of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions. During the housing boom of the early 2000s, New Jersey’s population grew by 2.8 percent, but car-dependent suburbs saw their populations grow by 4.1 percent, according to a study by Tim Evans, research director at New Jersey Future, which advocates for transit-oriented development.
Meanwhile, neighborhoods within a half-mile of a transit station barely grew at all.
Then came the 2008 recession — and a major shift in population and commuting patterns.
Statewide, population growth slowed, dropping to 1.5 percent from 2008 through 2014, the latest year for which data is available. Car-oriented suburbs grew at roughly the same rate.
But during the same period, transit-oriented neighborhoods saw their population surge. Since the recession, they have accounted for 38.3 percent of the population growth in New Jersey, Evans found.
“It’s really dramatic, actually, how little these transit places were growing before 2008 and now they’re growing really quickly,” Evans said. “And the outlying counties that were the locus of sprawl are now losing population.
In Bergen and Passaic counties, many older suburbs grew up along train lines, and many newer ones are dependent on cars. That means the change in population patterns is not as stark here as elsewhere around the state, Evans said.
Yet the pattern holds. Most car-based municipalities in North Jersey continued to grow after 2008, but at a slower pace than before the recession, Evans said. Places like Montvale, Cresskill, Upper Saddle River in Bergen County; Wanaque in Passaic County; and Pompton Plains in Morris County all saw their growth rates stagnate.
But many transit-oriented neighborhoods grew. In Bergen County, Fair Lawn, Lyndhurst, Garfield, Ridgewood and Glen Rock all went from losing population before the recession to gaining population since 2008.
Ridgewood NJ , NJ Family magazine compiled a list of New Jersey’s Best Towns for Families . to come up with our ranking, they looked at the entire state of more than 500 towns and measured each municipality against a host of important factors, including school district quality, crime rates, affordability, commute times, percentage of families who live there, access to hospitals and general lifestyle factors.
Ridgewood’s (81) neighbor Oradell was named the number one place to raise a family in New Jersey and Hoboken which seems to be the model of our current council majority’s vision for Ridgewood’s future came in dead last at 508. Other towns that Ridgewood seems to be looking to for guidance Englewood came in 483, and Hackensack 422.
Along with Oradell other Bergen towns ;River Edge (13), Harrington Park (15),Closter (17), Old Tappan (18) , Upper Saddle River (29), and Glen Rock (30) all did quite well.
The Top 10 in the Ranking
1Oradell Bergen 7,997
2Montgomery Somerset 22,078
3Bethlehem Hunterdon 3,957
4Boonton Morris 4,311
5Fredon Sussex 3,392
6Pennington Mercer 2,591
7Mendham Morris 5,004
8MilltownMiddlesex6,916
9Mendham Twp.Morris 5,851
10Essex FellsEssex 2,125
MLS # 1535930
456 E Saddle River Rd, Ridgewood, NJ 07450
3 Bedroom, 2 Full Bath,
1 Half Bath, Ranch Thomas Panso, Sales Associate Keller Williams Valley Realty
JANUARY 17, 2016 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 17, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
HO-HO-KUS — The fate of a developer’s proposal to nestle dozens of town houses in a neighborhood of single-family homes may rely on the state’s new process of getting communities to meet affordable-housing obligations.
The plan, put forward by the Upper Saddle River-based Chamberlain Developers, is to build 45 town homes on a 3.66-acre corner lot off West Saddle River Road and Hollywood Avenue. Some of those units would be designated to help the borough meet its court-mandated obligation to promote housing for low- and moderate-income residents.
But opponents say such dense housing would be wholly out of character in an area dominated by sizable single-family homes.
“For almost 100 years, there’s been single-family development on the applicant’s property,” said Ho-Ho-Kus attorney Robert Inglima, representing four neighboring families opposed to the proposal. “So to take that property and transform it into a site for any number of multifamilyhousing units would be a significant departure from the prior zoning pattern … this is an established neighborhood we’re talking about.”
But land is gold in North Jersey, and as more residents — especially young professionals and empty-nesters — seek smaller units closer to mass transit, development firms are reacting, said Bergen Realtor Robert Abbott.
Alpine $20,880.00
Tenafly $18,787.00
Demarest $17,937.00
Upper Saddle River $17,112.00
Haworth $16,940.00 Ridgewood $16,798.00
Saddle River $16,670.00
Franklin Lks $16,635.00
Old Tappan $15,765.00
Glen Rock $15,157.00
Woodcliff lake $15,139.00
HoHoKus $15,045.00
Allendale $14,551.00
Oradell $13,796.00
Wyckoff $13,280.00
Midland Park $11,020.00
Waldwick $10,396.00
Washington Twp 10,157.00
Fair Lawn $10,012.00
Mahwah $8,154.00
file photo by Boyd Loving
EXCLUSIVE: Property taxes up $537 million
HOLD ONTO YOUR WALLETS: PROPERTY TAXES IN NEW JERSEY INCREASED BY THEIR FASTEST RATE IN FOUR YEARS IN 2015.
Michael Symons,
Hold onto your wallets: Property taxes in New Jersey increased by their fastest rate in four years in 2015, with landowners shelling out an extra $537 million.
The hike pushed the average local tax bill to $8,354 for homeowners, up $193 from the prior year, according to data compiled exclusively by the Asbury Park Press. That’s an increase of 2.4 percent, despite a supposed 2 percent cap enacted in 2010.
The jump marks the second straight year New Jersey’s property tax hike has gotten bigger, after three years of slowing growth in Gov. Chris Christie’s first term. Monmouth and Ocean counties fared worse most of the state with tax boosts of 2.6 percent and 3.3 percent, respectively.
The trend undercuts one of Christie’s selling points as he touts his gubernatorial record on the GOP presidential campaign trail. On his campaign website, Christie says property taxes are rising at their slowest pace “in more than two decades.” Growth has grown since dipping to 1.3 percent in 2013.
The new accounting tells a costly different story — in a state where homeowners already pay the highest-in-the-nation property taxes. That burden helped drive nearly 14,000 to sign an Asbury Park Press petition urging elected officials to cut property taxes. The petition came in tandem with Asbury Park Press’s investigation of the tax crisis last fall.
Stay or leave?
Adrienne DiPietro’s property taxes have tripled in the 20 years she has lived in Eatontown. She remains optimistic elected officials will do something about the problem but says “I’m not holding my breath.” She is considering whether she and her husband, Paul, will stay in New Jersey. Both are retirees.
“All of our retirement income, we have to start thinking about this in the next five years or so: Do we want to stay here and keep coughing up that much taxes?” DiPietro said. “Do we want to stay here, because the taxes are only going up and up?”
JANUARY 5, 2016 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2016, 11:51 AM
BY KIMBERLY REDMOND
EDITOR |
TOWN JOURNAL
Based upon information provided by libraries in Allendale, Ho-Ho-Kus, Ridgewood and Upper Saddle River, 2015’s most popular books closely reflect the titles that appeared on national bestseller lists over the last year.
The most borrowed book from those four libraries was Paula Hawkins’ “The Girl on the Train,” a thriller that has sold 6.5 million copies since its January 2015 release and is being developed into a feature film starring Emily Blunt. Hawkins’ debut novel also ranked as one of the most checked-item items from the New York Public Library System in 2015.
Molly McKenney, Upper Saddle River’s adult services librarian, said there are generally two reasons as to why a book becomes popular with patrons – either they were written by an already famous author or it gets great word of mouth and “essentially becomes viral like a YouTube video.”
“People start hearing that other people liked it and they want to see what all the fuss is about. ‘The Girl on the Train’ definitely falls into that category. It followed in the footsteps of Gillian Flynn’s extremely popular ‘Gone Girl.’ Both are thrillers which center around female anti-heroes, a sub-genre which has exploded with popularity in recent years,” McKenney said.
At the Ridgewood Library, hold lists “were in the hundreds” despite there being multiple copies of Hawkins’ book, circulation librarian Lorri Steinbacher said.
“The Girl on the Train,” along with Ridgewood’s other top checkouts last year – Anthony Doerr’s “All the Light We Cannot See” and Kristin Hannah’s “The Nightingale” – all “captured the imaginations of book groups and casual readers alike,” Steinbacher said.
By Kelly Heyboer | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 15, 2015 at 9:30 AM, updated December 15, 2015 at 10:55 AM
RANDOLPH — David Browne appeared to be a rising star in New Jersey education.
The veteran educator had a $167,500-a-year job as superintendent of the Randolph school district in Morris County.
In recent years, Browne had been taking a more public role in education, writing editorials and speaking to legislators as an advocate for statewide education issues. He and his wife, Upper Saddle River school superintendent Monica Browne, lived in a historic house in an upscale neighborhood in Bergen County with their two young daughters.
“For too long, educators – and I’ve been guilty of this myself – have stopped trying to have a voice. No more. I don’t want to stay quiet anymore,” Browne, 56, told an education blogger over the summer.
Then, he went silent and his life appeared to fall apart.
In September, Browne took a medical leave from his job with no public explanation. On Oct. 13, he was found lying outside his garage as it burned to the ground. Two weeks later, he resigned from his superintendent job, accepting a $62,350 payout from the school district.
Please join us on Saturday, November 7, from 9 a.m. to noon at Jack Daniels Motors – Porsche, located at 335 Route 17 South in Upper Saddle River. Learn about men’s health and take advantage of free screenings and information centers, all while exploring the newest models on display at the largest Porsche dealer in the area. You may win the use of a Porsche for a weekend!
Attend two special presentations:
The Weekend Warrior – Joint Pain, at 9:30 a.m.; and Heart Disease at 11 a.m.
Screenings and information centers will include:
Cholesterol
Diabetes
PSA for Men ages 50 to 74
Pulmonary Function
Skin and Colon Cancer
Blood Pressure
Heart Health
Fitness
Prostate Health
Back Pain
Smoking Cessation
And much, much more!
OCTOBER 25, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY KATHLEEN LYNN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
What do you do with a big, isolated office building that no one wants anymore?
It’s a question being asked around New Jersey as giant office parks — built along highways when the suburbs boomed in the second half of the 20th century — sit empty or half-empty while corporations shrink their footprints and younger workers look for a more urban, transit-friendly buzz.
In northern Bergen County, for example, A&P, Mercedes-Benz USA, Hertz and Pearson have left or soon will leave offices built in the 1970s and 1980s, when corporations headed out of the cities for greener suburbs.
“There was a whole movement toward beautiful, idyllic campuses, but the workforce today wants to be in an urban hub,” said Andrew Merin, vice chairman with Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate firm with offices in East Rutherford.
As a result, “each of these properties is going to have to invent its own future,” said James Hughes, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers.
Some of these properties are destined for the wrecking ball — including the former Pearson building in Upper Saddle River, owned by Mack-Cali, New Jersey’s largest office landlord, which is fighting to build housing on the site.
Others will be redeveloped. The most striking example is the ambitious, multimillion-dollar renovation of the old Bell Labs in Holmdel into Bell Works, a mixed-use property that aims to turn the landmark building’s giant atrium into an indoor Main Street with an “urban” vibe.
Whatever their fates, it’s clear that many of the state’s large, 30- or 40-year-old buildings will no longer function as home to a single corporate user. And, experts say, municipal officials who depended on those corporations — and their big property-tax payments — need to make another plan.
CHRISTIE ADMINISTRATION ANNOUNCES NEW INTERACTIVE FLOOD WARNING MAPS FOR PASSAIC RIVER BASIN
MAP DETAILS SIX-MILE STRETCH OF RIVER RUNNING THROUGH WALDWICK, HO-HOKUS AND RIDGEWOOD IN BERGEN COUNTY
Ridgewood NJ, The fourth in a series of online, interactive flood-preparation maps designed to aid emergency management personnel and to inform residents in the Passaic River Basin about flooding events in real time has been launched, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin announced today. The Ho-Ho-Kus Brook Flood Inundation Map, covering a 6-mile span of the river in Bergen County’s Waldwick Borough, Ho-Ho-Kus Borough and Ridgewood, is the fourth map designated for the Passaic River Basin in response to recommendations made by Governor Christie’s Passaic River Basin Advisory Commission.
The map was developed in a partnership between the DEP and U.S. Geological Survey. Fifteen additional maps covering critical areas of the basin will be produced in coming months as part of a cooperative effort between the DEP, USGS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Flood inundation mapping is among the recommendations in the commission’s 15-point plan for short-term and long-term measures to help mitigate flooding impacts in the basin. Governor Christie formed the commission in 2011 in response to a series of damaging floods in the basin, which covers significant portions of Bergen, Morris and Passaic counties.
Key recommendations of the plan called for better information to help prepare for and respond to flooding emergencies. “The Christie Administration remains committed to addressing flooding issues in the Passaic River Basin through mitigation, property acquisitions, de-snagging efforts and emergency preparedness and response,” Commissioner Martin said. “These easy-to-use online maps offer real-time information to residents about conditions during significant rainfalls and will assist local, state and federal officials in making critical decision to protect the public in the event of flooding.” “This flood preparedness tool highlights how our agencies and local officials are working together to create more resilient communities, and to provide better flood preparedness and responses to flooding,” added USGS Associate Director for Water Bill Werkheiser.
In addition to this latest map, flood inundation maps are being developed for Lodi, Ridgewood and Upper Saddle River along the Saddle River; for Little Falls, Pine Brook, Chatham, Millington and Clifton along the Passaic River. Maps are also being created for Pompton Lakes, Mahwah and Oakland along the Wanaque River; for two locations in Wanaque along the Wanaque River; for Pompton Plains along the Pompton River; for Riverdale and the Macopin Intake Dam along the Pequannock River; and for Little Falls along the Peckman River. Previous flood inundation maps were produced for a 2.75-mile reach of the Saddle River in Lodi; a 4.1-mile stretch of the river in Saddle River Borough; and for a 5.4-mile span of the river running downstream from Ho-Ho-Kus Borough through the Village of Ridgewood and Paramus Borough to the confluence with Hohokus Brook in the Village of Ridgewood.
To view the Hohokus Brook map, visit: https://wimcloud.usgs.gov/apps/FIM/FloodInundationMapper.html?siteno=01391000. A click on the map shows the stream flows and water depths for the stretch of the stream that extends from White’s Lake Dam in Waldwick Borough, downstream through Ho-Ho-Kus Borough to Grove Street in the Village of Ridgewood.
Monitoring tools include current stream gauges, which provide real-time data via satellites to the USGS and the National Weather Service. The flood inundation map shows where floodwaters are expected to travel. Emergency management officials and residents can use this information to evaluate the potential threat of floodwaters to property and infrastructure.
Through the website, users will also have the option to receive email notifications in real time of critical thresholds reached in the river via the USGS WaterAlert. To view the Scientific Investigations Report (SIR 2015-5064) documenting the development and methods used to create the flood inundations maps, visit: https://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sir20155064 For current conditions for USGS stream gauge 013910000 Hohokus Brook at Ho-Ho-Kus, visit: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?site_no=01391000
For information on the Governor’s 15-point Passaic Basin plan and the Passaic River Basin Flood Advisory Commission, visit: https://www.nj.gov/dep/passaicriver/
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