Ridgewood NJ, YWCA Bergen County is offering an April American Red Cross Lifeguard Training course. Students must take and pass a swim test, which will be held on Saturday, April 2 at 10:00 a.m with a $10 swim test fee due at registration. Course will begin on April 2 and run through April 21, 2016 with classes held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:00 to 9:30 p.m. at 112 Oak Street in Ridgewood. The course fee is $350.
Participants must be 15 years of age or older. This course prepares students with the CPR, First Aid and lifeguard techniques necessary for employment as a professional lifeguard. For more information or to register call the YWCA Membership Office at 201-444-5600, x400, or visitwww.ywcabergencounty.org.
A pool of creamy mozzarella spilled out of the grilled zucchini wrapped around the thick round of cheese. With every pleasurable bite, I had to remind myself that I was in Ridgewood and not Campania, Italy.
The restaurant, From Scratch, has that kind of transporting affect. The dishes are simple but use the highest quality ingredients, including local vegetables and seafood. Oils, cheeses and cured meats arrive weekly from the motherland (the mozzarella had indeed traveled from Campania to Ridgewood just days before I savored it). And, as the name suggests, everything — from the pastas and breads to the sauces and desserts — is prepared from scratch.
Dana (with orange balloon) with petition. Roberta trying to interrupt conversation. John Saraceno standing off to side. Picture by Ellen McNamera snapped picture.
March 26,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, People at Van Neste square now collecting signatures. Roberta, Rurik & John apparently trying to interrupt conversations, so petitioners can’t talk to people.Hard to believe a village employee is trying to prevent a legal democratic process!
No time in modern history has a Village manager so unprofessionally inserted herself into the political process . Hired as a political hack Roberta Sonenfeld has now crossed the line .
Readers raise questions:
Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld may I ask you. Are you not hired to work for ALL of the residents of this town, by our elected representatives?
How and in what way is it acceptable, professional, or above board, for you to be in the town park today with a developer/builder who seeks to change our town, and clearly people are divided over that, and a man with a stake in the game. You’re there on our dime speaking on their behalf while residents are peacefully, and quietly attempting to exercise our rights. Residents of this town who again, PAY YOUR SALARY- for now.
How are you there pushing your agenda and not mediating the questions among-st all residents and accurately discussing both sides of the arguments?
How do you still sit in your current position? How do you look your neighbors in the face?
You represent one, and only one, side of the argument and it is questionable as to WHY. It is very very questionable.
I think that people have been remiss in not forcefully and immediately investigating THAT.
The petition seeks to protest Ordinance 3521 with the following ballot question:
Shall Ordinance No. 3521 authorizing the Council of the Village of Ridgewood
to issue $11,500,000 bonds or notes to finance the cost of constructing the
Hudson Street Parking Deck, currently contemplated as a 4 story, 5 level
Parking Deck, be ratified?Do you know the difference in height between Option A and Design D?
It’s 2ft 6in. Would you call that a compromise?
We don’t.The in house funding for the parking garage passed 5-0 on 23rd, which is great. Everyone wants the garage funded in house.
Many people who want the garage, and want to fund in house, believe it’s just 2 tall, and should come down a level.
Why a petition to repeal an ordinance that we really want?
Because this petition will put funding on hold (for a short time),
it will allow the 5 council members to talk compromise (something three of them have been unwilling to do).
They have a choice, they can decide to seriously sit down at the compromise table, and see if 1 level lower will work
(all the numbers point to a yes, since any size garage relies heavily on the parking meter revenues).
If it’s agreed to lowering it 1 story to 3 stories, 4 levels, the petition will be withdrawn,
& we move forward immediately with a 3 story 4 level parking garage funded in house.So, it basically comes down to this:
If you’d rather see:
design D with 3 stories, 4 levels, approx 37ft building height & 52ft towers- approx 260 spaces- then you should sign the petition
If you are happy with the current design D of 4 stories, 5 levels, 46ft 8in building height & 60ft 10in towers- 325 spaces- then you should not sign the petition
You must be a registered voter residing in the Village of Ridgewood to sign the petition.
Ridgewood NJ, The Village of Ridgewood will begin enforcement of Chapter 190-122 of the Code of the Village of Ridgewood on April 1, 2016. This ordinance regulates the construction, installation or display of signs within the Village. Please ensure that any non-conforming signs (ie. A-frames, banners, temporary signs, neon, etc…) are removed prior to April 1, 2016. Failure to comply with the ordinance may result in the issuance of a municipal court summons. Periodic monitoring will be occurring on a regular basis.
We understand the signs may be an integral part of advertising your business, but those that are not permitted by ordinance must be removed. This effort is being made to coincide with the enforcement of the Sidewalk Café ordinance with the ultimate focus on public safety.
For your convenience, the Village ordinances may be viewed by visiting the Village website atwww.ridgewoodnj.net. Please click on the “General Code” link on the right side of the homepage. This will link you to ECode 360 at which time you can search for the applicable ordinance.
Should you require further clarification on this matter or any other property maintenance issue; please do not hesitate to contact Tracy Jeffery, Code Enforcement Official at 201-670-5500, ext. 214. Our unified efforts will result in a safer environment for all.
Jack-knifed tractor trailer forced Route 17 North in Ridgewood on Friday
March 26,2016
the staff of thye Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, On Friday March 25th a section of Route 17 north in Ridgewood was closed in Ridgewood ,when
the northbound lanes were blocked due to Jack-knifed tractor trailer just north of Paramus Road. The highway was closed at around 1:45 p.m., according to the state Department of Transportation.
Delays of at least 30 minutes were reported in the area and Village as authorities including Ridgewood Police worked to clear a jack-knifed tractor trailer . Route 17 North has been reopened later in the afternoon.
To all our Ridgewood customers, we are sad to announce that on April 2nd we will be closing our doors to the Ridgewood location. Due to circumstances out of our control with the development of the town we have been forced to close the store. But as the say, “when one door closes another one opens”, which is exactly what we are doing!!! We are currently in the process of building our flagship store in downtown Newark. We hope to have this is open by April 30th. Its 1500 sqft space located on Halsey St.
We would like to thank each & everyone of you that has supported the store and the scene for the past 3 years, you guys have been great and will truly be missed. We know that a great shop relies on its community and we thank you for being part of it.
We will continue to serve the community in the area and at Ridgewood Skate Park and we will still have the Nutley store and online store www.undergroundskateshop.com where you can still continue to support us.
We will keep you all updated via social media on the progress of the Newark store and as soon as we have a set date we will inform you all of the grand opening
Ridgewood NJ, Resident Dana H. Glazer a video on the the Valley ‘Settlement.’ For more information about the Valley Hospital settlement, please email: [email protected] . Please attend the following Public Hearings:
Ridgewood NJ, Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld has often exceeded her authority by speaking her mind (that is, the mayor’s mind) on issues that are not within her purview. At council meetings, on Facebook, and elsewhere she holds forth in a way that is entirely inappropriate for, and unbecoming to, an employee of the Village. (You will never see such things from any other Village employee.) Most objectionably, she does not hesitate to reprimand residents, sometimes harshly, for expressing their views. The mayor insisted on hiring her above more qualified applicants to be his junkyard dog, and that’s precisely what she has become, with increasing stridency.
The Facebook page on which her note below appears does not accept posts that criticize the mayor’s circle; however, if the Ridgewood Blog reproduces her letter, which after all is addressed to “residents and friends” (not necessarily the same thing), all residents, including those who choose not to use Facebook, will be able to see what she is doing and have an opportunity to comment. The link is given for those who can access Facebook and wish to see the original.
A fair amount of the information being promulgated here is simply NOT CORRECT.
Given the 5-0 Village Council vote on Wednesday, many if not all of you may feel that the parking deck at Hudson Street is a done deal. This would be a normal reaction given the unanimous vote. Sadly this is not the case, however, as a group of people are challenging this vote by petitioning to rescind this ordinance. This is the same group of petitioners that have raised opposition to the deck previously because they wanted Ridgewood to bond by itself and not use Bergen County. Another week, another new excuse to stop a much-needed parking facility in our downtown. This time the excuse is that the deck, despite having been redesigned several times, is still too large.
The design of our deck has undergone much change and much compromise based upon the input of residents and professionals. The deck has decreased from 405 spots to 325 spots. The width of the deck has decreased 18’, from 122’ to 104’8”. The cantilever over Hudson Street has been totally eliminated. The larger tower has decreased by approximately 7’, to 60’10”; this is consistent with the other two towers currently existing on the NE and SW corners of E Ridgewood Ave and Broad Street. The height of our structure is only 43’ to the roofline. It exceeds the 45’ height code only when adding the 3’9” parapets (a safety/aesthetic feature). With this decrease has come some changes in the financials, causing the per parking spot cost to increase from less than $30,000 to about $33,000.
We have gotten to this point by careful and responsible management. There have been environmental studies, site surveys, financial analyses, traffic studies, engineering/architectural renderings and more. We have involved our police and fire professionals since the start to insure the safety of our building and the people who will eventually use it. We are at the point of completing our construction bid documents and almost ready to embark upon the exciting next phase of building this deck.
After decades of discussion, we are so close to doing the right thing for our residents, for our commuters, for our visitors, for our business district employees, and for our businesses in the downtown. Do not let a group of people who have continually tried to find any argument for not building this deck succeed in thwarting our progress.
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
RIDGEWOOD – A citizen group was present at the village’s Twinney Pond this week, observing the removal of some invasive plants from a natural landscape that has been “in existence since the days of the glaciers.”
Cynthia Halaby, president of the Conservancy for Ridgewood Public Lands group, explained via email that her organization is dedicated to tending to public lands that do not get enough care due to village budget cuts.
Change? As in making a city? No. Let’s be real here…. No one, I mean no one…. will move to Ridgewood without the idea of having children. People move here fore the schools. Dont believe me? Go see a Travell school directory and see the amount of kids from the Oak St. area. that live in apartments.
3000k a month for a luxury apartment for a commuting husband and wife? Why? We have nothing to offer that other closer more stable cities have. 3000k a month with children sounds like a better idea.
We are NOT hoboken, we are NOT montclair, we are NOT morristown. We have few similarities at best as in a train station and some nice shops but thats it.
Your schools class sizes are about to get a shock of their life, your nice class sizes are about to get big. No one seems to remember when Hawes and Sommerville had trailers as classrooms because of over-crowding, I remember because I was taught in them and it takes years for infrastructure to catch up to over building. If you have young children entering the schools you should be the most concerned.
Sewer, water, police, fire and DPW services all have to be increased to support additional population. We ALL pay for that. Don’t want to pay for it? Enjoy more county involvement.
Ridgewood NJ , Council Candidate Jeff Voigt give the Ridgewood blog his take on the March 23rd meeting .
Jeff started off , ” last night – no surprises. Yes we need parking (I actually voted for parking on Hudson St). However, I did not vote for the options presented by the council to the public. My mistake was actually believing that the council majority would be reasonable in coming up with a garage that would fit on the Hudson St/S. Broad area. As it happened, the Village residents were presented with 4 bad options and the council asked for input/feedback from the community. This was called compromise by the council majority. Compromise in my mind is when two parties, who are on opposite ends of the spectrum, meet somewhere in the middle. If this has occurred, a much smaller parking deck would likely have been the result. What occurred, however, was nothing but a multiple choice test amongst 4 bad choices.”
Jeff mentioned a new petition , “There is a petition going around (which I support) for repealing Ordinance 3521 (Ridgewood bonding the garage) – for the very reason that the garage does not fit in this space as it is currently configured. The website https://www.its2big.com has more information; email:[email protected]. As you can tell by this website, the garage is way too big (5 levels; 4 stories; with 60+ foot high towers [note: that zoning in this area is for 45 feet]) and; does not fit with the aesthetics of the surrounding area. The committed Village citizens leading this petition initiative include: Jacqui, Anne Loving, Gail McCarthy, Ellen McNamara and Saurabh Dani . As well please reach out to Lorraine Reynolds (phone: 201-264-8151). Thank you to all of these people for heading this up.”
Regarding high density housing and the Ordinances 3489-3492 that were passed, Jeff said he left the meeting with the following impressions and thoughts:
“· Affordable housing is driving the Master Plan and appears to hold precedence (from a legal standpoint) over the Village employing spot zoning to address it (note: the NJ Supreme Court has ruled that spot zoning is illegal; Riya Finnegan LLC v Township S. Brunswick; 2008). It also appears the current council majority is holding good land use planning (via our Master Plan) hostage to affordable housing. While I am not against affordable housing and agree that Ridgewood should do its best to meet its obligation, we still do not know what this obligation is and; we have no plan for it. This makes no sense to me. As well, it would be nice to understand from some good lawyers, which of the following holds precedence if the 2 are intertwined – the use of spot zoning (to address an issue – is this legal or not) or affordable housing.
· What would be optimal regarding Ridgewood’s affordable housing obligation is for the Village to wait and see what this obligation is from the state and then plan for it. It is hard understanding why we are chasing an elusive target and zoning in a willy-nilly fashion (e.g. new AH-3 zone on Rt. 17 North across from the park and ride). This new zone, AH-3, was presented on at the 3/15/16 planning board meeting – where the Valley Hospital resolution was also presented. Note: Since the agenda for this meeting was published on the Ridgewood website only 3 hours prior to this meeting, only about 10 people attended. The open public meetings act requires that agendas be published 48 hours before a public meeting. Therefore, no surprises as to why so few people attended and why so few people know about it. ”
Ridgewood NJ, At a recent council meeting pets of Mayor Aronsohn used foul language, laughter, and un-Civility. Mayor Aronsohn the so called champion of civility showed his true colors proving once again the whole ‘civility ” issues was nothing more than an attempt to silence dissent. Why it feels like Jersey City already in the new Ridgewood .
I am interested to know why you neither stopped nor even reprimanded a speaker at the March 23 Village Council meeting who referred to some members of the public as “fornicators.” The use of this pejorative certainly would not fit in with anyone’s definition of “civility in public discourse,” and as the self-proclaimed champion of such civility it is shocking that you allowed this speaker to continue. This is particularly surprising since you reprimanded me a couple of weeks ago for laughing, yes laughing, during a meeting. I look forward to hearing your explanation as to why foul language is acceptable and laughter is reprimand-worthy in a meeting of which you are the chair.
Anne LaGrange Loving
Mr. Aronsohn, when the first speaker at last night’s long council meeting, recent and questionable recipient of a good citizen award, began to pontificate about people he disagreed with, his voice growing louder, and going so far as to call those who had distributed a flier about the garage some time ago “fornicators”–to audible gasps from the crowd–why didn’t you stop him?
Is cursing at one’s fellow residents not uncivil? Did this not begin the proceedings on a very low note? Is it not your responsibility to keep council meetings cordial?
You have not hesitated to chastise other residents for doing far less. Had someone on “the other side” said anything remotely like this, that person would surely have been reprimanded and possibly ejected from the room–appropriately.
John Mara, a co-owner of the Giants, and Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets, said this week that they are interested in bringing another Super Bowl to the metropolitan area, touting what they described as the success of the event that MetLife Stadium hosted in February 2014.
“I’ve spoken to Woody Johnson about it, and yeah, we think it would make sense to try to bring it back,” Mara told reporters at the NFL meetings in Boca Raton, Fla., on Sunday. “We think it was very successful, it was great for the region, so why not have it back?”
But many North Jersey officials are far less enthusiastic about the idea, saying that the previous game did little to stimulate the economy in the Meadowlands.
Asked if he would like to see another Super Bowl in his borough, Mayor James Cassella of East Rutherford replied: “If things were going to be run the same way as last time, then no. If they made some changes, I’d have to see.”
Michael Gonnelli, the mayor of Secaucus, was equally blasé on Wednesday.
“I have to tell you, it was a non-event for us in more ways than one,” Gonnelli said. “We didn’t see a lot of increased business for hotels and restaurants, and we didn’t see an impact on traffic. The problem was that it was billed as a New York Super Bowl, not New Jersey. We didn’t see benefits.”
The two mayors, along with state Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, and Jim Kirkos, the chief executive of the Meadowlands Regional Chamber, all pointed to the necessity of avoiding a repeat of the massive delays that hindered fans who took trains to and from Secaucus Junction and MetLife Stadium on game day. The league’s estimate that 10,000 fans would take NJ Transit trains to the 82,500-seat stadium fell more than 20,000 short of the actual number who used the service, creating departure delays of up to two hours after the game ended.
