Election Day : Reader calls for Village Wide Financial disclosure referendum and Valley PILOT referendum
In addition to the election, there should be a referendum on a PILOT program, whereby Valley would make a payment in lieu of taxes to the Village for municipal services provided, including police & fire. There should also be a referendum to change the Financial disclosure forms submitted by Village Council and Planning Board members, forcing them to disclose if the company they own or work for does any business with the Village of Ridgewood, Ridgewood Water, the NWBCD (Central Dispatch), etc. The forms currently only ask for sources of income, not if those sources have any conflict with Village contracts. This would help us to avoid conflicts of interest where officials think it is acceptable to conduct private business with VoR.
You can have all the referendums on a PILOT program for the hospital but you should check the law. You can not force them to pay. If it was that easy don’t you thing this council or former councils would have done this. Oh I know what your answers going to be. Every council was on the Valley payroll. Please! Its all a conspiracy
Thanks for the suggestions.
How many signatures does it take to force an issue to referendum?
It can be a non-binding resolution that the Council could then use in negotiations with Valley on implementing a PILOT – of course we can’t force them to do it, but given the already high property taxes in Ridgewood, this would help offset some of the cost of providing snow removal, police & fire support for Valley if they agreed to help cover some of these costs.
I’m all for a pilot program for Valley.
Lets extend it to all non-profits as well.
The womans club that rents the place for events.
The churches that do the same.
I hope you mean places of worship or just churches.?
When will these poster get it . Valley cannot be forced in to a pilot and they are not going to volunteer or negotiate. You think that Valley cares what Rigewood voters do.
So who works for who here? Valley pays no taxes, benefits from all of Ridgewood’s municipal services and taxes our infrastructure with patients and employees coming in from surrounding towns. Yet THEY drive the agenda at hearings about THEIR expansion that will use even more municipal services and tax our infrastructure even further. For still no taxes.
One question for Valley and its supporters: How is the Valley expansion good for the tax payers of Ridgewood? Maybe Mrs. Hauck can tweet the answer…
That’s it #8 your not on the list for the Valley Ball.
If we were a Faulkner Act (N.J.S.A. § 40:69A-1, et seq.) municipality then proposed ordinances could be introduced directly with the signatures of 10% of the registered voters who turned out in the last election in an odd numbered year. However, in Ridgewood it looks like all ordinances and resolutions need to be prepared for the consideration of the Council by the Village Attorney upon written request of any member of the Council or of the Manager. They then need to be introduced and sponsored by a member of the Council, then called up for action on motion of a member of the Council. Finally, no ordinance may be adopted without the affirmative vote of a majority of all the members of the Council or such greater number of affirmative votes as the Charter may require.
#10 to the of my recollection the VOR is a Faulkner act municipality , (strong manager weak mayor) authority wise. Perhaps the rules you describe are in effect now but the public is unaware of it.
As you know this Council has followed all the rules to the letter of the law.