the staff of The Ridgewood Blog
Ridgewood NJ, Several IT savvy readers of The Ridgewood Blog contacted us late Wednesday afternoon to report that the “Destination Ridgewood” website (https://destination.ridgewoodnj.net/), which was developed to highlight and promote The Ridgewood YMCA’s Pedestrian Plaza related activities and events, is being hosted by Cablevision New Jersey/Optimum, at the same IP address (24.38.3.74) as the official Village of Ridgewood website (https://www.ridgewoodnj.net/).
This news prompts us to ask if Ridgewood’s taxpayers are funding all or some portion of the expenses associated with hosting a website primarily intended to attract business to/benefit commercial establishments within Ridgewood’s Central Business District. If taxpayers are picking up all of some of the tab, who authorized this, and how much money is involved? Are taxpayers being reimbursed? What level of risk is involved with hosting this website on servers used for official Village of Ridgewood business? And what about the seemingly sanctioned use of “ridgewoodnj.net” for non-governmental purposes? Finally, why couldn’t the “Destination Ridgewood” website be hosted on servers being paid for by the YMCA, Ridgewood Chamber of Commerce, or Ridgewood Guild?
Loads of questions with no apparent answers (no posted FAQs). So much for the much talked about transparency of the “normal” Village Council.
20% off all web services with Spark Driven https://1.sparkdriven.
It’s Greek To Me
I understand.
What else are taxpayers funding that we haven’t been told about?
It’s Greek to me.
The billboards on Route 17S in Rochelle Park.
Haha. Of course it is being funded by taxpayers. That is the name of the game with this Village Council, especially when the Mayor is also a business owner in the Village. Double dipping. Get others to pay for something you benefit from. It is just wrong.
The Council and CFO must know this, after all they go through each line item of the budget, right? It is just a happy accident that they thought they could slip through with no one noticing? I hope taxpayers wake up and smell the gyros.
The mayor is OUT OF CONTROL. Why are we all paying for advertising that he profits from?
He in his own words is out to overturn everything Susan did, but at what cost to us? He now has his Village MGR , former campaign MGR, with a bad reputation, he brought Ramon back into the fold. It’s the Paulie show!
Ridgewood residents better wake up and vote this pompous A$$ Clown out of office
What’s up with former campaign manager? Who’s that person and what post are they assigned?
Also where is Stacey and 4M healthbarn money?
He’s the new Village MGR Keith Kazmark
And you’d all rather have Susan and her lap dogs back?
Gimme a break.
To be fair – one isn’t any different than the other.
Susan enriched herself AND HER TWO SONS in many ways.
How you all conveniently forget 🫣.
All of her sons are doing field work which is dangerous every day. Paul’s campaign manager is getting 225k a year for a desk job!
Field work?
Their Ridgewood cops Barney fifing it…please
Thanks For the update Paul .. You still are doing a horrible Job
The Knudsen men all had to take a civil service exam and score high enough to get to the top of the list. Preference is given to hiring Village resident…..they are a long-time Ridgewood family.
Pleas tell me how Susan somehow managed to bypass the codified civil service system and rules? Please.. I am dying to know. Or maybe it’s just that her boys followed the rules, went through the system and were hired?
Total lie. Just stop.
Who allowed this? Who asked for it. Mayor RECUSE???
WE ALLOWED IT.
Because we are…
RICH and STUPID
…and everyone in power – ESPECIALLY THE MAYOR – Knows it.
And taxpayers thought we’d seen the worst of it when the Aronsohn triplets were in office. The Vagianos quadruplets are 10 times worse. A real bunch of scumbags, plain and simple.
Clueless Scumbags
Where’s lil ‘ Paulie …??
He got us to pay for that useless garage because he wanted more diners. So why not this?
The Pedestrian Plaza is a complete flop. With the amount of media and advertising, downtown Ridgewood should be packed and generating millions. Instead, with all the closed streets, Ridgewood had become a ghost town on weekends.
There has been close to ZERO amount of media and advertising, I don’t know where you are seeing any of it. On top of that, what is barely out there so far looks like a high school student is in charge. In this age of FREE social media, paid ads are a joke.
Barely any advertising? There is a freaking billboard on Rt 17a in Rochelle Park . Did the high schooler arrange to get that comp’d or are we, the taxpayers, paying for it?
Hello Darkness my old Friend (s) ..
The “ad agency” that makes this garbage site (which has brought ZERO business into the plaza) is owned by the same guy who owns Tapinto .
The boycott list grows….
-bud lite
-target
-walgreens
-kohls
-ben and jerrys
-mac murphys
-its greek to me
wouldn’t go into Mac Murphys or It’s Greek to me if you paid me a Million dollars
Don’t hold your breath on that lol😂
Mac Murphy’s is Gross.. The owner, well she is just a flat out Bit@h
Have you been in the dirty bathrooms at greek to me disgusting
Last time we were in McMurphys, our food was so salty it was literally inedible.
Re; boycott list – haven’t been in Paulie’s place so we he advocates for the garage. Additionally, he’s over-priced and his food sucks.
Anyone know who is paying for the Visit Ridgewood digital billboard ads along on Route 17 in Rochelle Park?
Nice,
Who cares? There’s a website promoting the pedestrian plaza, great. Stop getting all your panties in a bunch.
kissing a$$ this early in the morning???
love the big shot spending other peoples money
There are ads for the Pedestrian Plaza showing up on the Words With Friends app, so this is more than just a website. It’s a full-up media campaign. We need an accounting of how much is being spent, where it’s coming from and where it’s going
I receive these ads on my YouTube when they interrupt videos for ads. This ain’t cheap by a mile.
One of the only things I actually agree with Mr. Halaby on is that we should have a special meeting with the CFO and VC to go through budget line items so that this sort of thing doesn’t happen. We can then scrutinize. But it is very hard to scrutinize when it is a quick review and prepared sound bits by those who control the narrative.
I see on channel 12 news that they advertise the CBD gala of road closings a few times a week. Listen, it was a good try. It’s not working because many other areas doing the same thing now some people come check it out, yes, maybe they come back another time I think they try other towns. Listen, the restaurant, business, and retail business is extremely hard especially when the rent is high. I’m sure the police are loving it. They’re making all the time. And they’re not doing shit ,standing around. But then again, if nothings going on, that’s their job just like they do in Times Square when it’s dead, they stand around and look at the weirdos. Maybe we need to bring some more weirdos into the village , bust them in from the city. Or how about filling some of these door fronts with the illegals that are coming through the border. Put up some curtains at the store fronts, maybe a few bodegas some of the best food I ever ate was at a Spanish bodega. Yummy. And it wasn’t expensive just saying and now going back to McMurphy’s. That’s a pretty good band outside, but that place is dirty. I’m sorry and allegedly or supposedly the place has been up for sale. I guess they want too much money.