
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The Historic Preservation Chairman, Vince Parillo, asked if any members of the HPC had any comments. When Councilwoman Susan Knudsen commented,Vince Parillo then asked, do any voting members have any comments?, thereby ignoring Councilwoman Knudsen’s comments. When it was time to vote, Councilwoman Knudsen explained her vote, the Mayor questioned the audience whether Councilwoman can vote, and the HPC Chairman Vince Parillo replied that her vote doesn’t count.
Basically Mayor Aronsohn and HPC Chairman Vince Parillo had teamed up to discredit Councilwoman Knudsen and make her presence irrelevant in the meeting.
Tony Damiano, a store owner and also President of The Ridgewood Guild, is a newly appointed HPC member. He sent a letter because he could not attend. In his letter he mentioned he is approving “Plan D” because this design fits the lot, which is not correct, as he well knows as he attends Village Council meetings at which this fact has been clearly discussed.
Jim Shimmel voted on the design while he should have recused himself because he owns a building next door to the proposed garage.
In the meeting it was also discovered that the resolution passed on January 27th for design D requires two lanes for traffic on Hudson Street but design D only provides one lane.
Lastly, a resident asked the architects why the archways of the garage, which are supposed to be 11.5 feet high, look smaller than the entrance door of The Village Green restaurant, which is probably six feet eight; the architects could not explain this apparent inaccuracy
Vince Parillo does not deserve to chair Historical Preservation Committee. Vince Parillo should chair Historical Destruction Committee. Vince Parillo’s should really step down from this committee while his friends from the council are stepping down from their positions.
Parillo was horrendous. I hope he resigns. What a cad.
I had never heard of Parillo before. Watched the whole video. Parillo needs to move on. He seemed tired and cranky.
As chairman he should be able to accept opposing views. You would think they were talking about his property and not village property. He devinate,y had bias in his dealings.
Hope Roberta was able to find a toothpick
I don’t get it. Knudsen does vote on the council. So her opinion does count, even if not formally at historical meeting. If she voted no at historical meeting wouldn’t it indicate that garage might not be approved on March 23. Wouldn’t he want to know that and perhaps make revisions. Or do they believe it will pass the council in a super rmajority.
If the Mayor or Mr. Parillo were men, she should have smacked them in the face.
10:15, please explain toothpick comment.
11:44 am – please watch the HPC video from this link to get the answer to your question – https://theridgewoodblog.net/historic-preservation-commission-meeting-yet-another-example-of-the-misinformation-regarding-the-presentation-of-the-hudson-street-parking-garage-for-ridgewood/
Interesting that schimmel the man who voted 2nd owns the neighboring building and has recused himself from votes on this subject before but didn’t that night?? No one picked up on that?? Vote is totally void
Dear All,
I never comment on this blog, but I feel the need to clarify a couple of comments being made. I did not approve the plan because it fits on the lot. I approved the plan because this plan works from a design standpoint. To err is human. I was asked to write the letter to the HPC since I could not make the meeting. I made the mistake of saying the 4th plan fit the footprint. More importantly, the sidewalk is 10′ from the building to the curb. The 5-6 parking spaces that will be deleted, are being deleted to accommodate the 5′ extension of the sidewalk.
In defense of Mr. Parrillo, he simply stated that a liaison is not authorized to vote. In recollection, when I was president of the Chamber of Commerce, our liaison also was not permitted to vote. They simply were a conduit to the council.
Thank you…Tony Damiano
P.S. Notice I signed my name, not like the cowards who make comments, mail distorted post cards, etc.
Saw her digging at her teeth with her finger. Maybe some stuck food. Maybe just a habit.
We are Cowards Tony! Really! We will see who are cowards in the voting both. You are some businessman. Calling people Cowards. You should have recused yourself as a shop owner. Who asked for you to write a letter , Pau;l ?
Did you read that all you Anonymous poster / pass or future customers. Mr. Damiano has called us cowards. Remember that if your thinking of shopping at his store. Well Tony with that attitude a garage is not going to help your
store.
Well all you members of the HPC enjoy your time in the sun. It will be over soon. New appointment are just around the corner. That also goes for a lot of members of other committees.
You can take the boy out of Brooklyn but….
Here you go all you anonymous poster/cowards as Mr. Damiano has labeled us. Look up January 21,2015 Planing Board meeting minuets. There a common thread or theme of these store owners and Landlords. Build Build. No developer is going to build 55 and older building. That just a come on.
I would never shop in his store to begin with. His little time on the radar is almost over. Who cares what he says.
He’s a stingy, nasty man anyway.
Vince Parilko didn’t “simply state” ANYTHING. I watched that video. He was awful. I hope he has crawled in a hole and stays there. And yea! Schimmel voted?? What’s that about.
So “schimmel the man who voted 2nd owns the neighboring building ” Tony Damiano owns a store around the corner is a member and sends a letter in support . No conflict there. Who appointed these member or need I ask. How many people are on this committee?
Well maybe us Cowards / Anonymous should rise up and take back Ridgewood. These storeowners, landlords and special interests group should be boycotted. A list of these people should promulgated and distributed and we should shop according. The next election will fix only a small part of the problem. There is a underbelly of greed in the CBD and they must be made to listen.
The only person missing on the HPC is Mr. Halaby
The 5-6 parking spaces are being deleted because of the sidewalk? No, They are being removed because the new building deleted the old sidewalk.
Storeowners are behind the parking. The HPC member who is a storeowner and former Chamber of Commerce president should not be voting. It is a conflict of interest. Someone in a different post siggested that another HPC member owned the building next to the garage. Is that true and was he allowed to vote? It How do so many people with conflicts get on the HPC?
I did a renovation more than ten years ago needed a variance, the architect suggested that we get planning HPC approval even though we are not in a designated historic area. The HPC agonized about how the addition would fit in with our neighborhood of old homes.
The current committee is very lenient. They do not seem to care about the historic district and what the impact will be on the neighborhood. the garage overwhelms the neighborhood. I am shocked that the HPC cannot see this.
Mr Damiano, you had to use your real name. It would have been hard to defend your mailed-in decision if you posted anonymously. We would have figured it out. It does not matter that the reason that you gave in your letter was wrong, you were still voting yes.
Tony Damiano you should be ashamed of yourself. Distorted postcard? Geez, that postcard was more accurate than the crap the architects have been putting out. Their so-called renderings are grossly inaccurate and they don’t even know that OLMC has a second, much higher cross, and they don’t even know whether there will be two lanes of traffic and one for parking or one lane of traffic and one of parking…….talk about distorted, and they are getting paid hundreds of thousands of Albert pucciarelli’s “soft money.” I will never, ever shop in your store. EVer.
Roberta was picking her teeth and the mayor was slack-jawed dozing at times. What a motely crew.
Well all you Cowards,Anonymous Poster Read the following article from the Ridgewood News and do you shopping what ever you position is.
With the Village Council currently considering changes to parking ordinances, the Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce held a forum on Monday, Feb. 9 for its members and fellow business owners to share their thoughts and concerns on the parking situation in the Central Business District (CBD).
Among the topics addressed by the 40-50 business owners, employees and residents in attendance were the three-hour limit on parking meters, the cost and inconvenience for part-time employees to park, and the need for parking garages to be built downtown.
Mayor Paul Aronsohn and Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld joined Chamber of Commerce President Paul Vagianos to answer questions from the audience.
Many owners in particular are struggling with three-hour parking limits being imposed on meters throughout the village, which they say has had a negative effect on both their customers and part-time employees.
“I think of Ridgewood as more of an experience,” said Jack Panico, president and CEO of Panico Hair Salon. “They’re coming here to get their hair done, they want to go eat and they want to go shop.”
Sonenfeld responded by informing the audience that the council is considering developing a day pass for both residents and non-residents that would allow them to park for more than three hours. Sonenfeld said that idea is still in the design phase.
“That would be done in conjunction with us bringing some phone technology in the town, but they wouldn’t necessarily have to use their phone to do that,” Sonenfeld said. “They could actually ask for the day pass in their homes and print it. So that’s one of the things we’re considering as a response to Ridgewood and non-Ridgewood residents having that issue.”
However, the three-hour parking rule has also affected part-time employees who have to rush back to their cars once or twice per shift to move them and continue feeding the meters.
Morgan Novak, the store manager at Alex and Ani, said her employees, many of whom are full-time college students working part time, are sometimes faced with the dilemma of rushing through a sale with their client or passing them off to another salesperson altogether.
“They need to make this money,” Novak said. “They’re already struggling, they can only work so many hours because they have full-time classes. For them to have to pay $80 per month for a parking pass, it’s just not feasible.”
CBD employees can pay $80 a month to park in the Cottage Place or Ken Smith lots.
Last week, the Village Council discussed an alternative for part-time employees that would allow them to buy a parking pass for the annual fee of $25. The pass would grant them access to the Cottage Place lot, although the employees would still have to feed the meters or buy an all-day pass. If the council decides to opt in favor of using Parkmobile, a smartphone app, employees would also be able to pay for parking without leaving their place of business.
Another issue was raised by Randi Shinske, the owner of Red Velvet Luxe. She asked if anyone knew exactly how many employees work in the village each day. Vagianos said he did not know the answer to that question because a survey of every business in town has never been performed.
“I find it disappointing that solutions and decisions were made when, quite frankly, that information is not really known,” Shinske said.
Sonenfeld agreed, saying that any decisions made on parking should be done with the number of employees the village needs to cater to in mind, but those numbers simply are not available. Her hope was that the village would be able to identify workers in the village through signing up for the new parking permit, which would allow the village to compile a list.
“The original idea was to be able to identify CBD employees, which is great because if we can identify them and they can come to Village Hall we can now start getting a list of them,” said Sonenfeld. “I do agree with you, the metrics are an issue and we should be making metric-based decisions, but, frankly, we didn’t have them.”
Vagianos said that a survey of every business in Ridgewood would be a tremendous undertaking, though he stated that he was open to the idea if enough people were willing to volunteer and cooperate.
“To do a survey you need people, you need time, you need money, you need effort and you need people who want to volunteer to spend their time taking a survey,” he said.
The long-range solution that had the backing of many business owners and village officials was the construction of parking garages in Ridgewood.
Joanne Ricci, the owner of Raymond’s and operator of another location in Montclair, said the construction of a parking deck there was a boost to her business.
“We were in the same ‘Oh my god, the parking stinks!’ situation,” Ricci said. “It was very similar to the situation we are in now. [Montclair] built a deck and it has done wonders. I can see a huge difference in my business. I’ve had my business before the deck, during construction and since [it opened]. It was when the deck was opened that we really saw an increase in our business.”
Tony Damiano, the co-owner of Mango Jam and a former Chamber of Commerce president, said the news of additional parking might also encourage customers from outside the village to come back, noting that many non-residents were no longer coming to Ridgewood due to a lack of parking.
“We cannot survive on Ridgewood residents alone,” said Damiano, who currently serves as president of the Ridgewood Guild. “We need the out-of-towners to come in. We have annoyed and frustrated them over the past 15 years and they have boycotted Ridgewood. We need to win them back, and that is not an easy thing to do, but this is a step in the right direction.”
Aronsohn gave the crowd an update on the possibility of building parking decks in town. He said the council is currently considering two locations – the Hudson Street lot on Broad Street and a space on the corner of North Walnut Street and Franklin Avenue near the Town Garage.
“We’re trying to move as aggressively as we can,” the mayor said.
a link would help
Tony Damiano, mango jam, coward is better than a liar.
So it confirms many many spots are taken up by store employees
taking spots away from customers.
So if this is an employee parking issue / restaurant parking issue, why on earth the CBD businesses / chamber of commerce and these restaurants of Vagianos not chipping in to pay for this garage? Why is the cost completely passed to the tax payers (we won’t get free parking in return, we don’t get tax based on the traffic they get).
9.17. Excellent points..they are foisting this on the VOR Taxpayers..what a scam and coverup..they screwed their own pooch on this..games over…
No such sympathy for VIR Taxpapers cough up your 750 for commuter pass. Im sick of the restaurants whing. Get on with your big plans ….dont ask me a Fifteen yeat taxpayer to cover your dreams of a mighty empire in small village of ridgewood. If your that good they will park and hike in or valet. This is all crap.
VIR, Taxpapers, whing, yeat… well said… where did you get learned to spell?… but you got sympathy right…
Spell check touched a nerve paul..?.too close to the truth more likely..