file photo Boyd Loving
More election shenanigans?
A reader reports hearing rumblings of “Sedon For Council” and “Knudsen For Council” lawn signs being stolen and replaced with “Albano For Council” lawn signs.
file photo Boyd Loving
Have any other readers heard these rumors and/or been the victim of such a theft/replacement?
Has Ridgewood PD received any reports of these rumored incidents?
file photo Boyd Loving
Anyone who displays any sign, be it political or some other kind of local issue, has zero sense of class. They make the Village look tatty.
isn’t it great living in Hudson County ?
Just placed two Albano signs on my front lawn to replace the two that mysteriously disappeared last night. I will be watching tonight and I hope the bastards try taking them again.,
I agree with you.
It makes the Village look like a trailer park.
Even some no-class homeowners on Clinton St have some ILLEGAL signs stating ‘drive here like your kid lives here’ because they resent the rights of residents to drive down their street. (they should have bought on a cul-de-sac)
Those ILLEGAL signs make this place look like Hopper ave in Waldwick where the residents posted ugly signs.
It may be permitted in Waldwick, but its ILLEGAL in Ridgewood. Now if only someone would enforce the law……….
Shades of Hackensack during their turbulent municipal election last year.
Fortunately, the United States Constitution guarantees Ridgewood residents the right to place political signs on their respective properties. At one time such signs were banned in Ridgewood and several other Bergen County municipalities. A court case changed all of that many years ago.
Once upon a time and for many years before that, no signs were allowed on Ridgewood lawns, period–including “For Sale.”
I think that was better.
Election signs are not illegal in Ridgewood or anywhere. The Supreme Court ruled otherwise. Get your facts straight. And for heaven’s sake stop being such a snob about Ridgewood versus Waldwick.
Well, I guess we know who THIS anonymous poster is…….
IF Ridgewoods going to look like Waldwick, then I’d like my TAX BILL to look like a Waldwick tax bill. If you like it so much up there..move there.
I think its way too late for that
In past elections there has been little display of signage anywhere. The current landscape is a true indication of how upset many are with the current leadership in our town.
Albano is going to lose.
Great comment #6. The best course for Ridgewood residents is to set a first-class example of life in the civil society by exercising their speech, association and franchise rights freely and without intimidation. While some may find yard signs unpleasant to look at, the vast majority of homeowners in Ridgewood are fee simple owners with natural and inherent rights to utilize their own property as they see fit. The few legitimate exceptions to this rule are mostly set forth in the common law of New Jersey (no noxious fumes, can’t present an attractive nuisance, must keep up maintenance on retaining structure if it contains a man-made lake or pond, etc.) which has its basis in the law of nature and of nature’s god. Fee simple owners are certainly under no general obligation to adhere to intrusive restrictions based on local tastes. Look at your deeds, folks–only a restrictive covenant binds a fee simple owner, and even then the restriction cannot violate an individuals natural law and constitutional rights (yes, unconstitutional racial and religious restrictions were found in–and judicially eliminated from–many Ridgewood fee simple deeds). Many who pine away for times past when row upon row of pristine, uncluttered lawns suggested uniformity of high-minded opinion and a “we’re above it all” air as distinguished from surrounding towns have entirely missed the fact that hard-core political operators have infiltrated the village and are poised to politicize everything they can get their hands on unless they are stopped dead in their tracks. Now is the time for Ridgewood residents of good faith, intelligence, and decent self-respect to voice their opinions and engage more enthusiastically in the political process that we’ve always politely followed and supported, but which has only recently become such a high-stakes struggle.
Your ‘legalese’ nonsense is pure bullshit.
Political signs are permitted unfortunately, so this place starts to look a lot like Paterson North.
Non-political signs are NOT permitted by Ordinance.
You gibberish about convenants sounds like you’re a former condo-dweller… and another new arrival attempting to destroy what makes this a nice place.
The only thing more moronic than putting up ugly signs in your yard are the people that put political stickers on their cars.
I honestly believe that not a single person in the history of the world has changed their political position or voting decision based upon seeing someone elses sign or sticker.
#15, by your comment you appear to be of the opinion that municipal, county, state, or federal governments can regulate the substance of messages conveyed by fee simple owners on their property as long as the message is not ‘political’ and the property owner has no recourse.
This is not correct. Generally speaking, the right of a fee simple owner in a U.S. State to convey any message they wish to convey is broad and without a clear limit, whereas the power of government to restrict the content of messages conveyed by fee simple owners is naturally limited.
Your gibberish about content limitations on the speech of property owners sounds like you’re a wanna-be condo or town-house association president seeking to enforce rules on your fee-simple neighbors that don’t exist, and moreover can’t exist in a country whose constitution is founded upon and incorporates natural law.
#15, are your interests endangered by the willingness of long-time Ridgewood residents to begin employing yard signs to express themselves? Your personal financial interests, that is. I understand that your aesthetic interest in uncluttered lawns is suffering greatly at this time.
#16….
A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court rejected the ordinance in City of Ladue v. Gilleo, writing that residential yard signs were “a venerable means of communication that is both unique and important.” The Court explained:
“Displaying a sign from one’s own residence often carries a message quite distinct from placing the sign someplace else, or conveying the same text or picture by other means. … Residential signs are an unusually cheap and convenient form of communication. Especially for persons of modest means or limited mobility, a yard or window sign may have no practical substitute. … Even for the affluent, the added costs in money or time of taking out a newspaper advertisement, handing out leaflets on the street, or standing in front of one’s house with a handheld sign may make the difference between participating and not participating in some public debate.”
Your political choice is best kept to yourself. Polite society often dictates that discussions on politics and religion are best avoided. Putting a political sign up in your front yard is simply making a statement to neighbors. You have now lost your place in polite society, not to mention making the place look untidy. If it makes you feel better, or you somehow want to stick it to that neighbor you don’t really like, then I guess you have that right. Just remember, you are changing anyone’s political mindset.
To # 14, 17, 18, 19 the ‘ambulance chaser’ of late…
No I would never live in a condo. (sorry to burst your bubble)
Its bad enough living on a 1/2 acre next door to a loudmouth instead of a foot away in a condo. (I prefer my ‘fee simple’. Either your a wannabee ambulance chaser or just finished your first hour of real estate school)
Ordinances prohibit signage on the property except for political junk.
Why don’t you test it and tell us where your sign is. I’ll be the first to report you to code enforcement officer in town.
#16/Declan, I’m surprised that, at this late date, you can still say with (presumably) a straight face that the societal good of politeness trumps the need for a healthy and thorough public debate on issues of great moment.
Unless I’m mistaken, you seem to be saying that the only role the public should play is to cast votes for candidates they favor and then let the process play out as if the governing class (as opposed to the electorate) can be trusted when it is on ‘autopilot’. Why then have public meetings where citizens/taxpayers get 4 minutes each to air their views in a bid to influence upcoming decisions by planning board members or members of the Village Council? Isn’t this a waste of time and oxygen in your view? (Interested readers should do some research on FDR’s innovative recruitment and use of so-called ‘four minute men’ to see how a U.S. presidential administration wishing to centralize power can promote its interests by distorting and subverting local political debate.)
There is a certain type of sophisticated political operator these days who benefits out of all proportion by the understandable tendency of people to refrain from discussing important issues based on an overweening fear that calmness and fraternity (meaning, simply, the type of friendship that exists between people in a group) will dissolve and be replaced by antipathy, infighting and isolation of those who dissent. People generally (and naturally) fear being isolated and attacked merely for thinking a different way than their peers, or for going on record as suggesting that a belief or habit held by a majority is wrongheaded or outmoded and should therefore be changed for the better or jettisoned outright.
In such an environment, though it seems counterintuitive, a deranged policy, initially brazenly promoted by self-interested parties, can, over the course of time, be shoehorned into appearing to be a majority belief or preference, in large part because right-thinking people feared to challenge it at an early stage, when its glaring weaknesses still rendered it (appropriately) quite vulnerable. Once the policy or belief begins to take on the sheen of an accepted societal norm (e.g., the belief that the earth is warming and human activity is the primary cause), these same political operators change their mode of action. They begin ruthlessly attacking and isolating their detractors (e.g., calling them ‘client change deniers’, as if they are no better than holocaust denying neo-nazis). The latter are soon forced into an awkward silence out of a real and urgent fear of being ruined, either personally, professionally, or both. Public debate then begins to atrophy, not because one side or the other has scored a true victory on the substance or the merits of the issue, but because modern psychological methods, combined with the low arts of duplicity and slander, have spoiled the landscape for decent people.
So I have to disagree with your approach, again, not because I don’t understand it–I do, and moreover, I believe it is a natural mode of thinking, or more broadly, of living, among polite people of good faith who place great store in (and therefore struggle mightily to maintain) good relations between family, friends, and neighbors. I just think that for every thing there is a season, and the most salient difference between my ‘thing’ and your ‘thing’ is that yours was suitable for another time when every issue bearing on daily life was not shamelessly politicized for personal or partisan gain, whereas mine has now ripened, and once again become seasonable.
And in case you were wondering, yes, I see the current struggle as being of a size and scope similar to the one that began brewing in the early 1760s, and that was forced over the course of a decade-and-a-half into a resounding clash of arms by a ruthless and domineering government bent on centralizing the minutiae of domestic administration and crushing public debate between and among its inarguably faithful subjects.
So road signs, as well as other publicly visible signs of disagreement, taken (at least initially) in moderation are not a problem in my book, but rather a healthy indication that we may yet be able to turn things around.
More from the Supreme Court’s Ladue decision:
“A special respect for individual liberty in the home has long been part of our culture and our law. That principle has special resonance when the government seeks to constrain a person’s ability to speak there. Most Americans would be understandably dismayed, given that tradition, to learn that it was illegal to display from their window an 8- by 11-inch sign expressing their political views. Whereas the government’s need to mediate among various competing uses, including expressive ones, for public streets and facilities is constant and unavoidable, its need to regulate temperate speech from the home is surely much less pressing. Our decision that Ladue’s ban on almost all residential signs violates the First Amendment by no means leaves the City powerless to address the ills that may be associated with residential signs. It bears mentioning that individual residents themselves have strong incentives to keep their own property values up and to prevent “visual clutter” in their own yards and neighborhoods — incentives markedly different from those of persons who erect signs on others’ land, in others’ neighborhoods, or on public property. Residents’ self-interest diminishes the danger of the “unlimited” proliferation of residential signs that concerns the City of Ladue. We are confident that more temperate measures could in large part satisfy Ladue’s stated regulatory needs without harm to the First Amendment rights of its citizens. As currently framed, however, the ordinance abridges those rights.”
Regulating signs on residential property for traffic safety purposes seems like an appropriate regulatory need but attempts by municipalities to regulate aesthetics outside the central business district are probably DOA at this point. I think the political/non-political distinction probably doesn’t mean as much as #21 thinks it does.
Talking about a commercial/noncommercial distinction might be more relevant. Does anyone know whether there are U.S. Constitution-based or NJ State Constitution-based limitations on the ability of a municipality to regulate or ban a commercial message appearing within the four corners of the property of a private residence in a strictly residentially-zoned neighborhood, if that commercial message doesn’t present a traffic safety problem?