January 27,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Its a bird ,its a plane no its a heavily intoxicated Superman. On Thursday 1/21/16, patrol responded to a business on East Ridgewood Ave for the report of an adult male dressed in a Superman costume sitting in the lobby of the business. Upon arrival, officers found a heavily intoxicated 29 year old male from Hackensack. The man was transported to Valley Hospital for treatment related to the intoxication.
Ice & Snow – Remove It Before You Go
Ridgewood NJ, Remember to remove all ice and snow from your vehicle before driving, especially from the hood, windows and roof. It’s the law in New Jersey! Motorists who fail to do so face fines of $25 to $75 for each offense, regardless of whether the ice and snow is dislodged from the vehicle. If flying ice or snow causes property damage or injury to others, motorists face fines of $200 to $1,000 for each offense. There are approximately 500 fatalities in the United States per year due to icy road conditions.
file photo by Boyd Loving
Dear Neighbor,
Here we are yet again at yet another important Village Council meeting, Tonight at 7:30pm at the Village Hall. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to not making VC meetings a must attend every few weeks.
But that’s just how it is. For now anyway. Until we can get some folks onto the council who we can trust will listen to us and do the right thing when it comes to our village. That day will come sooner than later but for now, we must remain engaged.
So, in case you didn’t know already, tomorrow is the night that the Village Council likely plans to vote on overriding itself and go to the County for a bond. This is without a parking garage proposal that fits within the footprint of the Hudson street lot. This is with us being on the hook for several hundreds of thousands of dollars for the County bond, not to mention the likelihood of millions more for the building of a garage. This is against many of the the findings of the Maser Traffic Study from October 15th, which Councilwoman Knudsen and Councilman Sedon were unaware of until late December. I could go on and on…
The bottom line is that, inconvenient as it is, we must remain vigilant and protect Ridgewood, which means showing up and voicing our concerns.
Hoping to see you tomorrow night. And if you can’t make it, please email our Village Council and Village Manager to let them know that even considering voting to go to the County for a bond at this point is against the better interests of our village.
Paul Aronsohn <[email protected]>,
Albert Pucciarelli <[email protected]>,
Gwenn Hauck <[email protected]>,
Roberta Sonenfeld <[email protected]>
Susan Knudsen <[email protected]>,
Michael Sedon <[email protected]>,
Best,
Dana H. Glazer
JANUARY 26, 2016, 8:53 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2016, 9:04 PM
BY STEVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — Local officials are looking to assuage public concerns about lead in drinking water after a letter from the local water utility recommended its customers take steps to avoid lead exposure.
The letter, sent to Ridgewood Water’s customers in Glen Rock, Midland Park, Wyckoff, and Ridgewood on Jan. 5, detailed lead’s health-damaging effects and advised customers to let water run to flush out lead that could’ve leached into the system from service lines and fixtures.
But David Scheibner, business manager for Ridgewood Water, said Monday night the letter is part of a public education campaign required by the state Department of Environmental Protection because of Ridgewood Water’s past history of elevated lead levels — not because of a new threat posed to the water supply.
Ridgewood Water’s pipes don’t have lead in them, he said, and the element is “undetectable” at the 52 wells in four communities that the utility operates. But those who live in homes built prior to 1930 might have lead service lines — water lines running from the house to the water main — and those homes built during 1982 –86 might have copper service lines soldered with lead, he said.
Only about 250 of the 20,000 service connections in Ridgewood Water’s territory have been identified as definitively having a line made of either lead or copper with lead soldering, said Scheibner — “The scope is minor, but we take it very seriously,” he said.
January 27,2016
Boyd A. Loving
Ridgewood NJ, For years now we’ve heard the Aronsohn administration’s head cheerleader, Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, go on at nauseam about the importance of improving parking opportunities in the Village. We’ve listened to Ms. Sonenfeld, Mayor Paul Aronsohn and current Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce Presidnet Paul Vagianos proclaim at meeting after meeting why the availability of downtown parking is so crutial to the existence of RIdgewood’s business community. Nothing, they say, is more important to keeping existing Ridgewood businesses alive, and attracting new businesses to the Village, than maximizing parking opportunities. All of us have been led to believe that unless more parking opportunities are created, downtown Ridgewood will eventually become a ghost town.
So I ask, if the availability of parking is indeed so critical to the success of business in Ridgewood, why wasn’t snow cleared from every available parking space in the Central Business District prior to the start of business on Monday? The snow stopped falling at approximately 8 PM on Saturday – Portions of several municipal lots were still snow covered as of 3 PM on Tuesday. Metered parking spaces on Godwin Avenue and on Franklin Avenue were still inaccessible as of 6 PM on Monday. Metered parking spaces on Oak Street were still being cleared on Tuesday morning.
It is certainly understandable that the Village’s first priority was to clear traveled roadways, especially those near schools and medical facilities, and to ensure the safe egress of emergency vehicles in and out of their garages/headquarters locations. I also understand that there are a limited number of Village employees and limited pieces of Village owned snow removal equipment. But why where there no contractors called in to work exclusively on the removal of snow to facilitate downtown business operations, with a target of getting everything cleared out prior to the start of Monday morning business operations? And why weren’t contractor resources directed to remove snow from the Route 17 Park & Ride? Governor Chrisie encouraged commuters to leave their vehicles at home and take mass transit – that’s not easily accomplished if you can’t park your vehicle at a mass transit departure point.
Clearly, someone dropped the ball here. Contractors should have been placed on standby in the event the snowfall was too much for our own employees to handle. And I hope that Ms. Sonenfeld doesn’t use the lame excuse that contractors cost money – we’re prepared to spend over $12 million to improve parking opportunities, but won’t spend peanuts to remove snow from parking places? Give me a break!
I strongly encourage Village officials to be prepared for the next “big one.” Their lack of attention with respect to clearing snow from existing parking spaces suggests to me that all the talk about needing more parking is nothing more than a bunch of rhetoric.
file photo by Boyd Loving
JANUARY 26, 2016 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2016, 1:21 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
THE RECORD
You’ve no doubt heard about a sad winter phenomenon that recurs whenever snow and fire converge to cause panic, destruction and homelessness. It happens when firefighters arrive in time to quell a blaze, but they can’t hook up their equipment quickly enough — either because they’re unable to find a snow-covered hydrant, or when they do find one, they’re forced to waste precious minutes digging it out.
“And in a fire, everybody knows each minute counts,” said Ho-Ho-Kus Fire Chief Matt Menzel.
That’s why next Monday — nine days after Mother Nature covered nearly every hydrant from Mahwah to Cape May — a New Jersey law takes effect to make it easier for firefighters to find hydrants and quickly hook up their hoses. The legislation allows New Jersey’s 566 local governments to adopt ordinances requiring municipal installation of tall locator poles on all hydrants while encouraging each local governing body to require property owners to dig them out 24 hours after a snowfall or face a $75 fee if the municipality must do it.
Fire chiefs like Menzel aren’t taking sides, but the law has prompted considerable homeowner debate since Governor Christie signed it in July.
“I didn’t ask to have a fire hydrant on my lawn!” proclaimed Totowa’s Vincent D’Antonio Sr. “Will my taxes go down if I perform this municipal service? If not, I want the hydrant removed. This is absolutely a municipal function, 100 percent.”
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, With its close proximity to Ridgewood Hjigh School circle avenue was never plowed. It’s barely passable. The high school students are parked by the nursery school and essentially render that street one way. Some park their cars so close to Ridgewood ave that the tails of the car is sticking IN to RW ave. which also makes that turn ON to circle impossible.
Additionally, parents walking from all the way down the block to drop kids at this school-because heres no parking due to the students, are having to traverse some of the most poorly shoveled or deiced sidewalks I’ve seen. I saw a mother fall while holding her young daughter. She smacked her head in someone’s rock wall.
This street NEEDS to be addressed immediately. And the sidewalks that are so totally ice and snow covered, have got to have some code enforcement.
photos courtesy of Boyd Loving’s Facebook
Village of Ridgewood dump truck driver escaped possible electrocution by jumping from his vehicle
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The driver of a Village of Ridgewood owned & operated dump truck escaped possible electrocution by jumping from his vehicle after it became completely entangled in set of high voltage electric wires on Tuesday, 01/26 at approximately 12:30 AM. The truck’s raised dump bed had knocked the wires down as the driver was dumping a load of snow removed from downtown streets in the Graydon Pool parking lot on Linwood Avenue at Northern Parkway in Ridgewood.
Ridgewood PD, FD, and Emergency Services units responded to the scene. A utility pole was snapped in two after the truck hit the wires. A PSE&G crew was called to the scene to temporarily disconnect electric service to the pool facility until the snapped pole can be replaced
Once again, the Council majority is trying to rush a construction agenda item through before any opposition can organize. Look for them to rush the “comprehensive impact studies” on the high density housing question through too. That vote will be scheduled immediately after the results are released so that the minimum number of people will have read them beforehand.
Apparently they only listen to rooms full of people with signs so let’s give them what they want.
Dear Members of Council and Manager,
There are many dissatisfied residents in town, and as our representatives, we urge you to listen to our concerns, not ignore them. We have lived in Ridgewood since 1968 and we don’t remember a time when legitimate concerns were given lip service and then ignored.
Marty & Ellie Gruber
Angela Turner Stoehr , does great job in explaining the problem with the current design. Hopefully watching your explanation will be an eye opener for many who think that some residents oppose all progress, and will come to the council meeting this Wednesday to request the council to come up with a design that fits the lot and not encroaches the street, and then bond it with our own bond, instead of going to BCIA, which will open up this lot mainly for out of town commuters because of the county funding and owning the garage.
https://www.tubechop.com/watch/7623263
Next the Village has to go to the BCIA to petition for the money next. That will be a public meeting and the freeholders have to vote on it.
file photo by Boyd Loving
Dear Village Council & Village Manager,
file photo by Boyd Loving
The attached terms posted are a proposal by the residents living in the vicinity of the Schedler property. These terms are a result of many meetings and discussions among the Schedler neighbors over the last 6 weeks. We have worked hard as a group to prepare this document which we believe considers the needs not just of the Schedler neighbors, but of the entire Ridgewood community. The terms demonstrate a park that we envision will significantly reduce the amount of trees to be removed, decrease the cost of the development and maintenance required of the proposed larger field and draw our fellow Ridgewood residents to visit and enjoy the east side of the Village. Charlie Nowinski
Outline of Proposed Terms for the Development of the Schedler Property
In order to provide the Village with much needed passive park and recreational space, the field shall be no larger than 60’.
Any design will include a sound wall to block out the sound of the highway for the entire length of the property. In addition, to a sound wall near the highway, the park will include a berm on West Saddle River Road to block off the sound and view of the park. The berm shall include several rows of regularly maintained evergreens in order to provide the neighborhood with a “green shield”.
All demolition, including removal of trees (downed, diseased or otherwise) will not occur until completion of a development plan and budget approved by the Village Council. Demolition shall occur in conjunction with the overall project in order to avoid a gap between demolition and construction.
The plan and design of the park will be developed by an independent civil engineer and landscape architect specializing in park design with input from representatives of the neighborhood and the Village.
The development plan and budget will be based off of independent, comprehensive studies which would include:
Addressing the issues already identified by environmental and wildlife impact studies
The noise study to be conducted on the property and the surrounding area
A third party traffic and safety study on West Saddle River Road and the surrounding side streets as recommended by the council committee. The traffic and safety study will include a determination of an adequate parking lot, as well as a review of potential ingress and egress into the parking lot from Rt. 17. In addition, the traffic and safety study will include a determination of appropriate parking restrictions on West Saddle River Road and, if practical, the surrounding streets off West Saddle River Road
Prohibition on the inclusion of (1) lights, both permanent and portable as required by the conservation easement, (2) a public address announcement system and (3) a concession stand.
The hours of the park will be from dawn to dusk.
Installation of police monitoring system to monitor any criminal activity.
Preserve the Schedler house by moving forward with registering the house with the historical society. The house will be used to benefit the entire community by, for example, providing meeting space for different community groups and providing restrooms for the park participants.
file photo by Boyd Loving
2016’s Best and Worst States to Retire
by Richie Bernardo
Retirement might be the end of the line, but it doesn’t have to be the end of financial security or life satisfaction. For many of us, our primary concern with retirement is timing, which often coincides with the age at which we become eligible to receive Social Security or pension benefits. Hopefully the choice will be ours and not dictated by our circumstances — the unfortunate case for nearly a third of nonretirees who haven’t put away a single penny for retirement, though not necessarily through any fault of their own.
But in addition to when you want to retire, you might want to ask yourself where. That can be an awfully difficult question to answer if you haven’t adequately planned — or been able to plan — for the rest of your life. Even in the most affordable areas of the U.S., retirees often cannot rely on their Social Security or pension checks alone to cover all of their living expenses. Social Security benefitsincrease progressively with local inflation, but they replace only about 40 percent of the amount you earned if you were an average worker, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
https://wallethub.com/edu/best-and-worst-states-to-retire/18592/
Residents said , “We thought there were fireworks originally hearing the loud noises.”
January 25,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood Nj, OPRA requests are now not affordable in the town. They have now (since last 2-3 months) started charging hundreds of dollars for each OPRA request because they don’t want residents to questions all these things happening at the same time with unprecedented push, without satisfactory answers from the council and administration. The Mayor uses his personal email account for most emails and some of them use their cell phones (text) to communicate, even when they are sitting at the public meetings.
There cannot be smoke without fire. If so many residents are going to these council meetings and they are frequently going to 1-2AM with residents speaking for 6-7 hours, there must be something wrong going on. Hopefully this new prosecutor will look at this and get to the bottom of this, which we the normal residents can’t do without access to all the data.
There are state laws limiting the amount of fees that can be charged for filling OPRA requests (Open Public Records Act ). Anyone being charge excessive amounts should check that out and file a complaint.
How much were you charged?
https://www.nj.gov/grc/public/complaints/fees.html
What is a special service charge?
A special service charge is essentially a labor fee that may be charged when a request is voluminous, requiring extensive time and effort, or when the request required extensive use of technology. Special services charges must be reasonable and based on actual direct cost of fulfilling the request. Actual direct cost means the hourly rate of the lowest level employee capable of fulfilling the request (no fringe benefits).
The imposition of a special service charge is extremely subjective and the determination is made on a case-by-case basis. No special service charges can be established in advance by ordinance.
The custodian must notify the requestor in advance of the special service charge. The requestor has the right to disagree with the special service charge. If the custodian and requestor cannot reach an agreement regarding the special service charge, the request is considered denied. Complainants may challenge a custodian’s special service charge by filing a Denial of Access Complaint with the Government Records Council or filing an action in the Superior Court of New Jersey.
The following is an example of a special service charge for a voluminous request:
Request: Meeting minutes from 2005 to present. There are 1,000 pages of responsive records which will take the custodian 2 ½ hours to copy. The Custodian may charge her direct hourly rate for the 2 ½ hours required to fulfill request. Custodian must estimate cost and notify requestor before fulfilling the request.
