Did Mayor Paul Aronsohn pressure the Ridgewood News to withdraw a letter to the editor ?
June 26, 2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , The question is did Mayor Paul Aronsohn pressure the Ridgewood News to with draw a letter to the editor?
A Ridgewood blog investigation suggests that Mayor Aronsohn  intervened and looked to squelch a recent letter to the editor critical of his public handling the “Tom Richie issue , Extel Communication issue.
The letter writer claims that after she received the usual phone call to confirm from the Ridgewood News  , and she forwarded a copy to all the members of the Village council . At the June 12th  she was approached by Mayor Aronsohn and asked to retract the letter because it contained some “mis-information” . The letter writer kindly declined . On June 14th she was contacted by the Ridgewood News assistant editor and told the letter “needed some fact check verification”  and was being held up. Then she received an email from the editor who had been out of town and he basically said he would print it and that he was sorry for any inconvenience. at this point she told him not to bother because of the time lag.
This all begs the question  Did someone call the News on Thursday,June 13th and asked that the letter be withheld ? If so then it brings up two issues first is that some one pressured the Ridgewood News  to retract the letter  and the second is that the paper succumbed to the pressure.
Like the letter writer we dont believe that being approached by the mayor to withdraw a letter and the fact that it was withdrawn is a coincidence.
Simple way to find out if this is true or not. Let’s see an editorial. It will confirm whether or not Mayor Aronsohn called the Ridgewood News to hold the letter. I don’t buy this business that the editor was out of town. We’ve all known about the Patch and their “personal” relationship but the Ridgewood News, that’s sad.
Agreed. An editorial by the Ridgewood News Editor will help, but frankly Paul Aronsohn keeps digging himself deeper into the influence hole. Look at Aronsohnsons intimidation tactics: besides Riche, he does seem to go after women and that is a matter of record. This guy has control and anger issues.
I am not a fan of the mayor. That said, if there really was misinformation in the letter he was right to point it out. Too much misinformation is published as fact these days.
The mayor has unique opportunities of his own to correct misinformation. He needn’t fear the printed word. If it is true that he leaned on The Ridgewood News to halt the planned publication of a letter to the editor, he is clearly misusing his influence as a mayor. And this, coming from the man who, apropos of nothing at a Council meeting, started talking about how Bernadette Walsh complained about an improperly issued parking ticket, as if to say she was misusing her influence as a councilwoman!
Nothing wrong with fact checking something that is in disoute that is what the press should do. Too much opinion passes for fact these days.
The mayor talks about transparency in government all the time. Meanwhile he is hiding behind a smoke cloud that he has created. He must really be scared to have made such an unethical move regarding a simple letter to the editor. Maybe he will start calling the paper every week before publication date and ask them if there are any unflattering things being written, and asking them to pull them out. The newspaper should be held accountable for this. An editorial would be great, or some kind of statement from the paper. They could say that they pulled the letter, and then print the letter.But knowing the mayor, he might get them to lie and say that no request was ever made by him in the first place.
This is despicable. The Mayor needs to be exposed.
The Ridgewood news needs to correct this, agnoledge their mistake, and tell the truth about Aronsohn.
If he wasn’t such an incompetent political hack, he’d already have leveraged his Ridgewood Mayoral position into a real position in the Democrat Party.
Instead we are stuck with this embarrassment as he continues to struggle with his 11 year political comeback.
#8 – we are not necessarily stuck with this embarrassment. Perhaps he has broken a law, or at least a moral code, by interfering with freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Maybe we can get rid of him.
Over 2000 smart Ridgewood residents vote for this carpetbagger and his team.
We can. Recall.
Of course the Mayor pressured the Ridgewood News. Notice he didn’t do anything to suppress all the mud being slung at his running mates – that’s obviously their problem.
Aronsohn is such a d-bag.
He loves writing his mayor’s corner about “current events” but never mentions the real topics in town— the valley expansion, his hypocritical pillorization of Riche, etc.
Hope this blog gets some publicity when Aronsohn tries to run for another office.
In the bonds,
Thed.
I tuned in just after the meeting began last night when they were honoring some crossing guards. I do not think Aronsohn made any statement prior to that, but maybe he did. If the tape ever goes up on the website maybe I can see, but that seems to be a very delayed process.
Last night they approved a new contractor to manage the tasks that Riche’s company used to do. OK, fine, that is completed and everyone agrees that it is the right way to go. This would have been the PRIME opportunity for Aronsohn to then make a brief statement that while he was glad that the situation with employing an elected official was resolved, he was sorry for the public manner in which it was managed. He could have re-gained a lot of credibility if he had done this.
As to the very strong likelihood that Aronshon called the Ridgewood News to pull a resident’s letter, this needs to be investigated. Such an underhanded tactic is outrageous and the public needs to know that our elected official stooped so low. I hope the Ridgewood News comes clean on this or I hope the letter writer pursues this.