June 16,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Community Relations Advisory Board or CRAB looks for a life line in a recent letter to North Jersey Media Group : Community board vital to Ridgewood https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/06/15/letter-community-board-vital-ridgewood/399735001/ CRAB co-chairs Jan Philips (Ridgewood), and Nick McRae (Glen Rock), lay out there case to save the very and controversial political body . CRAB is a group of people looking for a cause.
Seriously? Jan Philips and teamed up with councilmen Jeff Voigt went out of their way to discredit Mayor Knudsen and misrepresent her as a bigoted b%*ch while comparing her to Glen Rock and holding Glen Rock up as the best place ever. And then it turns out that Mayor Knudsen did a fine job of honoring Pride Month. Go Mayor Knudsen. Jeff Voigt, resign, now.
The dispute was never about the Pride Flag. No one on the Village Council is biased against anyone. Jan Philips and Jeff Voigt used false and skewed information to turn it into a free-for-all simply to try and discredit the Mayor.
A reader summed it up best , “This is such an obvious silly ploy of former Mayor Aronsohn and his political motives and morally corrupt Patsys. I don’t know why more people don’t see through this. He made big promises and he didn’t deliver. He literally NEEDS to corrupt this current council and break it all apart to sneak his people back in in order to deliver on the bs promises he made about disabled housing and parking garages.”
The Community Relations Advisory Board of Ridgewood and Glen Rock was harassing the hell out the Ridgewood Village Council/Mayor in requesting the pride flag be flown at our Town Hall. Did they do the same from Glen Rock Council/Mayor? What say you Jeff Voigt? Pretty sure this smells of town politics especially when you consider Jeff Voigt is best friends w Hans Lehman who is married to Jan Phillips, Chair of CRAB. Disgusting. They say this isn’t political but it is. CRAB is politicizing this. All roads lead to Aronson-also a member of CRAB.
Reader says ,”Jan Phillips, self-appointed queen of diplomacy who trashes Mayor Knudsen every chance she gets. Paul Aronsohn who trashed so many people during his reign of terror that the list of those who escaped his bile would be shorter. Gwenn Hauck, at least I think that is Gwenn Hauck at the easel – the queen of mean who used to throw verbal barbs at residents and elected colleagues alike during public meetings.”
I wish I’d never gone down the rabbit hole of this blog- which is basically just an unveiled area for ultra-conservative fake news. Unfortunately, I’m here, so I’ll play. First, it’s “their” not there.
-No one has to “look for a cause”. The attitudes reflected in these blog entries and your comments section IS a cause all itself. It shows the level of work that needs to be done to make Ridgewood a place for everyone, not just the people like you. When coins and antisemitic slurs are thrown at middle school girl by a group of boys in your town and swastikas painted on town streets- you don’t have to look for a cause- the cause is right in front of you.
-Get your facts straight. CRAB and/or Jan didn’t need to “harass” the Mayor and council of Glen Rock. The Mayor of Glen Rock was on board with raising the pride flag from the first ask. There were no stone-faces and stammering about legalities. Even the Republican council members voted yes. It was a unanimous vote right away. I was at BOTH meetings- Ridgewood AND Glen Rock. I saw with my own eyes the difference in responses. So unless you were at the meetings- the CRAB meeting it was brought up in or the council meetings, you have no idea what the climate when the flag was brought up.
-Anyone has the right to question the Mayor. This isn’t reality tv and the Mayor isn’t edited. She comes across how she comes across. If she doesn’t want to be painted a certain way, then she can act however she wishes to be seen. If it walks like a duck….quacks like duck…
-You and this blog are no different than Jan and CRAB. It’s just the opposite of their mission. You have an agenda, it’s political, and it’s influencing. You slander the former mayor and anyone connected to him. You sit behind a computer screen to spew hate and misinformation. Jan and CRAB are actually out, trying to do good for the community. What have you done for the borough besides try to rile people up and validate bigotry?
Gay Lobby = Bully L:obby
I will never forget Jan Phillips at the town meeting when she accused those who were speaking from their hearts against having that Godzilla garage built as GRANDSTANDING. I was one of those people. Not at that particular occasion, but several other town meetings. Residents standing for hours on busy weekday nights, for the opportunity to express themselves about what kind of future they want for the town they love. Our town, Ridgewood,
I attended a few of the civility meetings and felt that she kow towed to former Mayor Aronshon, excessively agreeing with everything he said.
I do not believe , from what I observed, that she is sufficiently objective to be the leader of a the Community Advisory Board, she is not sensitive enough to diverse opinions. In my opinion.
Ally- The facts support the claim CRAB did target Ridgewood for “disruption”:
CRAB’s own meeting minutes going back to February of 2017 reflect the plan to ask the village to fly the flag in a public space, not over village hall.
CRAB then deviated from that to ask the village to fly the flag at village hall, a request they did not make of Glen Rock.
The village, rightly, raised concerns about flying the flag at village hall.
CRAB’s Jan Phillips, Janice Willet, and their supporters, including Voigt, then used that concern to label the mayor and deputy mayor as intolerant bigots. OPRA requests reveal Voigt ignoring and lying about an email on 5/4 from the mayor about flying the flag at Van Neste.
Facebook posts from Jan Phillips show she and her supporters knowingly took the mayor’s comments about flying the flag at village hall out of context in an effort to smear her. When called out that they had done so, they did not apologize or retract.
While the mayor and deputy mayor are clumsy communicators who have been their own worst enemy more times than not, they have been the target of Aronsohn and his library/garage/high-density crowd on this matter.
Well said Ally–it is a very important committee and needs to remain independent. This is especially true for raising any future issues of police abuse and abuse by school officials.
Jan Phillips is a blot on the community and must go.
The Ridgewood News ( Record Jr) is now publishing this nonsense, All fabricated by a special interest group that matters little. This stuff is trivial as is the pursuit of that silly, unsightly banner. These so-called journalists mistakenly think this is interesting with their myopic vision.
You said it yourself, the mayor is a poor communicator. People should be able to leave council meetings all on the same page about what is going on but at that one where the flag was discussed – that was not the case. I have rewatched that meeting on youtube about 3 times and no matter what you thought about the flag being flown, it was very unclear what the outcome would be.
CRAB brought an issue to Ridgewood, was ignored, kept bringing it, kept getting ignored. If CRAB’s agenda was to have a smear campaign against the mayor they could have easily done so many things.
But they didn’t. They just kept trying to talk to the mayor and kept getting ignored.
You say that CRAB painted Glen Rock in a different light than they did Ridgewood. How is this true? The exact same things were done in Glen Rock as were done in Ridgewood. CRAB tried to talk to both councils, Ridgewood ignored, Glen Rock listened.
The issue isn’t CRAB, they’re not political. The issue is the Ridgewood council. Nobody gets along or communicates with each other and it causes issues left and right, issues you will not see in Glen Rock…