photo courtesy of Melanie McWilliams
May 11,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood
Ridgewood NJ, the victory for Ramon Hache, Jeff Voigt and Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh it was nothing more than a total reject of Mayor Paul Aronsohn’s entire agenda . The new trio will begin their four year terms on July 1, joining Susan Knudsen and Michael Sedon.
Now the hard work has to be done restoring the luster to the tarnished reputation of the Village and building on the unique nature of the Village of Ridgewood and moving forward.
Congratulations to Ramon Hache, Jeff Voigt and Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh and all there supporters and all the volunteers who put in countless hours and faced down both threats , physical and personal attacks to do the right thing .
The Ridgewood blog would like to say thank you. Now lets move forward and build a positive future .
2016 MUNICIPAL ELECTION RESULTS – UNOFFICIAL
FOR COUNCIL
Jeffrey Voigt – 3839 – 67.37%
Janice M Willett – 1803 – 31.64%
Evan Weitz – 1736 – 30.47%
Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh – 3611 – 63.37%
Richard S Brooks – 1656 – 29.06%
Ramon M Hache – 3867 – 67.87%
Total Registration – 16,740
Votes Cast – 5,698
Percentage – 34.04%
Congratulation to all three. Please all candidates remove your signs . That goes for you losses also. Thanks.
Congratulations! The clean-up has begun . . . . starting with Slimoncini deleting his FB page “The Truth About Ridgewood”. I guess we now know the truth.
Wonderful article.
Truth about Ridgewood on face book must have pulled up stakes and left town. Just tried to get on and this is what came up.
Sorry, this content isn’t available right now
The link you followed may have expired, or the page may only be visible to an audience you’re not in.
Go back to the previous page · Go to News Feed · Visit our Help Center
Every council screws something up, good luck to the winners.
Well Big Al the Developers Friend looks like there will be no Planning Board appointment in your Future. Time to fly off into the sunset.
7:22, every council screws something up. This one screwed up just about everything. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Hats off to James…the political Remediation doesn’t happen without this outlet….
Who edits these blogs? They’re informative, but the spelling and grammar errors are not a good reflection. Change it to “total rejection” and “all their supporters” please.
Rurik Halaby has not posted because he has been heavily medicated after seeing the results of the election.
The “Truth” About Ridgewood was a poorly designed and disguised sales pitch for the developers.
It was an amateur use of social media.
The cynic in me feels that the developers will get what they want anyway. It’s just going to cost them now, as opposed to being practically free had the stoolies been elected.
Of course The Record was late this morning so I will have to read their write-up tonight when I get home…
Can we get an injunction against and pending projects lined up for the next 2 months…?
All the candidate deserve respect and the outgoing council members, while not always aligned with me, also deserve respect for their service to the community.
If you watch the TV show Survivor at the end of each episode one cast member is voted off and the host says, “The Tribe Has Spoken”. I think this landslide makes it clear that all the people of Ridgewood (every single voting district) have clearly said that the People of Ridgewood Have Spoken. We don’t want the Hudson County politics, we don’t want to be like other neighboring towns, we want to be Ridgewood. Lets work on returning to the core values that we once had. Thanks to all the hardworking people who put in long hours to get these three elected.
Amateur use of social media by a professional public relations firm!
Congratulations to the winners and condolences to the losers. In the end, I’m not even sure that Mr. Weitz and Ms. Willet even wanted to be in the race. Mr. Brooks is a nice guy and a good neighbor. He campaigned hard but was just on the wrong side. Next up: Revoke the Pfund ordinance the afternoon the new Council is inaugurated. Valley – fight the lawsuit and sue them to revoke their non-profit status in town. The $4.5 million that their Linwood Ave campus will generate in taxes will pay a lot of legal bills. Apartments – 18 units per acre seems reasonable. If developers can’t make it work with a 50% increase over what’s been on the books for decades that shouldn’t be the residents’ problem. And if they sue us, so be it. Garage – how about a nice 2 or 3 level commuter lot? Keep it small enough so that no developer can incorporate it into his plans for oversized apartment buildings. Schedler – outside of the RBSA brass, I haven’t heard any support for a baseball field there. Plus what’s the hurry to cut down all the trees? Best of luck to the new Council – please remember the grass roots organizations that helped get you elected.
8:17, well said…another reason that the Mayor’s and Vag’s candidates lost is they had some signs saying 2020. Didn’t they realize this election was for 2016? We need to take care of things now not four years from now. BTW, please don’t attempt to run in 2020 because you’ll re-live the same results as today. The new council is a huge step in the right direction! Let’s ALL work together for reasonable changes.
Yeah, what was that 2020 business about? Was it actually a (cryptic) reference to the future? Or was it a reference to good eyesight, i.e., “20/20”? In any event, it was incoherent and a poor attempt at generating interest or excitement in their candidacy.
It seems as if the public discussion on this website matched the results of the election. But in no other written forum was this the case. To read the Ridgewood News, for example, was to conclude that the Three Amigos had an iron grip on Ridgewood politics, and that their chosen candidates, all of which lost last night, were untouchable. In other words, the Ridgewood News, well known to be plummeting earthward for years, has FINALLY GONE SPLAT! The king is dead, long live the king!
Congratulations ( and thanks for running) to Ms. Walsh, Mr. Hache and Mr. Voigt. You have renewed my faith in Ridgewood ! BTW, what 8:17 and 8:56 have commented on above are right on the money. You folks have been given a great opportunity to “right this ship,” go for it.
I love you, 8:17!
Looking forward to Mayor Hace cutting property taxes
8:17, why aren’t you on the Council? Agree on repealing ordinance 3066. Schedler property should be sold. Cutting municipal property taxes is another issue when Valley starts paying their.fair share of property taxes given $4.5mn equates to 10% of current Village budget. Hopefully Mayor Hache is a good fiduciary of taxpayer funds given his finance background.
Your mayor paul aronsohn loves 3066 for his developer friends
The 20/20 slogan was a eeally bad choice. Especially ib the year 2016.
I heard Brooks talk about it at the LWV forum. I thought he was talking about 4 years from now. It was a week later when I heard “clear vision”.
Your slogan should nit be a puzzle. Hope it didn’t cost Paul too much.
I thought most of us were expecting a mayor Voigt instead of Hache. I guess it doesn’t matter. Godspeed to the new council. We can finally breath a little. I hope the outgoing 3 don’t try to destroy as much as they can these last 2 months. They may be feeling mad 🙂
The absolute defining moment was the Vagiaous “pledge.” Vag completely did in and derailed the 2020 campaign. He childishly attempted to have people sign a pledge before coming to a “debate,” and doing so, he woke up (and turned off) people who might previously have fallen for the 2020 message. He solidified the opposition to his candidates. Everyone wants more parking, no one wants an insulting and undemocratic farce. All Vag needed to do was to ask the candidates to come in to a free and open debate on parking. What lead him to this childish attempt? Arrogance? Arohnson? Desperation? Calculated risk? I guess we will never know.
I truly hope they do the right thing from day one and elect Susan mayor. She has the experience, and while they received more votes she might have received even more votes if she had been running against the same candidates…
Now…who’s going to turn heel?
Valley is a non-profit hospital and that’s why it does not pay taxes. It’s the law. Sounds nice, but you can’t sue them for tax money when they are protected by the law.
https://ushealthpolicygateway.com/vi-key-health-policy-issues-financing-and-delivery/health-financing/tax-expenditures/nonprofit-tax-exemption/
@1043am LOL -“Looking forward to Mayor Hache cutting property taxes”. Did you just buy in to the Village? There is not much left to cut in this town. New buildings are going up, parts of Franklin Ave and Broad St will be redeveloped. The cookie jar full of treats still exists, there will just be new hands helping themselves to it. Ridgewood has Hudson County politics, it just comes in Oxford shirts and tailored suits, not tracksuits and pinky rings.
ok we got all of you in , now it,s time to rebuild the services that we had in the past. it,s time to rebuild this great town. we let all the village departments go down to the lowest levels of workers in 100years.
thanks mr bloom
yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,
bring back J T.
COME ON ANY MORE PHOTOS.WE ALL NEED TO KNOW WHO WAS IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM.
Butting heads with Our Lady of Mount Carmel over the size of the parking garage was a dumb move. All of the winning candidates are parishioners at OLOMC. They also screwed the people near West Saddle River Road, the anti Valley Expansion group, Hillcrest Road area taxpayers, the Graydon advocates (who opposed the deep end ramp), and just about anyone who tried to ask a question during a Council meeting. The list of enemies was extensive. Many more than the usual 2 suspects they always insist on blaming. Let’s not forget the failed Garber Square traffic project, no sidewalks on Clinton Avenue, and thei hiring of several people to do parts of the Village Manager’s job. Everything they touched turned to shit on them.
My guess is that it is going to be Mayor Knudsen and Deputy Walsh.
3:00 – New Jersey courts have established a three-part test that, in essence, provides that for an organization to be entitled to property tax exemption, it must show that:
1. it is organized exclusively for a charitable purpose (or other qualifying purpose enumerated in the statute);
2. its property is actually used for such a charitable purpose (or the specific qualifying purpose applicable to that organization); and
3. its use and operation of the property is not for profit.
Morristown Hospital failed the third test, so will Valley.
Bring back J T 4:25 Really you must be one of his drinking buddies who got a big raise because you asked him for it after you bought him a couple drinks.
Just what we need a some more village car wrecked.
So where does this leave the remaining 3-Amigos ally, the Village Manager?
YES TO SERVICES.
4:26 who cares who was in the back of the room…? Lots of people.
5:03, based on vote counts, Hache should be Mayor and Voight DM
3:00pm, I guess you missed the Morristown precedent – hopefully the new Council pushes hard on challenging Valley’s not-for-profit status. If we can capture $4.5mn in annual property taxes from Valley for everything they own in Ridgewood, then the property tax burden on residents could be reduced. This would be enlightened tax policy from the new Council and smarter governance. They pay their CEO $2mn a year to run a single hospital – not a system – and acquire every building they can yet pay no property taxes?!?! Not fair to village residents who effectively subsidize their public safety services, snow plowing around the local roads by Valley’s properties (which get removed from rateables), etc. time to pay your fair share.
3:36, if we win our challenge of Valley’s not for profit status then that’s $4mn+ of additional annual property taxes. The new Council should do the right thing and return at least half of that to overburdened property owners, while using the other half to fund an “emergencies” budget instead of permanently increasing our tax base to pay for one-time events like storms or hurricanes. That’s just smart tax policy.
Where’s the guy with the bow tie? 24 hours without pontificating.
I miss him.
Well, two of the three newbies will get their taste of a voting block right away. Knudsen Mayor, Walsh DM. Done deal already. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Nice try@ 6:34. These council members may or may not be like minded on policy, they were simply like minded in disdain for the previous trio and their utter disregard of members of this community. You now have some fiesty individuals on that council – I’d expect some fireworks for sure!
But Walsh got less votes than both Ramon and Jeff
Completely agree with S. Frapz at 5:06; Valley will also fail the third “not for profit” test, just like Morristown.,.. And James, I’ve long been a vocal opponent of 3066. Just repeal it. That ordinance has wreaked years of havoc on the Village and why Pfund has a role as our municipal judge is beyond me. We will need to increase densities from the 12 units per acre in the Master Plan to current reality 18-24, but that’s far more reasonable than ordinance 3066 driven applications to amend the master plan densities. Our CBD is in serious need of redevelopment, it’s a dump with the old Town Garage, Ken Smith Chevrolet and Brogan Cadillac amongst other eyesores…. But redevelop based on reasonable densities.