Tag: 07450

I grew up in Ridgewood and we always took pride in this being a “non-political party” place. Not since Paul Aronson saw this as a stepping stone to reverse his previous two failed attempts at running for Congress. He put a voting bloc together of three and basically ignored Susan Knudsen and Mike Sedon until the Village got fed up with the political games and tossed them out. Looking at Ms. Harwin’s campaign piece that arrived in the mail yesterday obviously same inaccurate smear campaign tactics as was the case before. So lets answer some of her charges:

1. Higher taxes – as we all have always knows, the Council has little control over Village spending – this is a school cost issue.
2. Nepotism – hiring by the police and fire department is by state law subject to exam and qualifications. The Mayor can’t do anything to influence this.
3. Fines to residents for leaves – this is a close one to my heart, as last fall we received a summons, as did everyone else on our end of the street. The leaf ordinance was passed by the previous Aronson team, not by Susan Knudsen’s administration. We contracted the Mayor and she could bnot have been more helpful researching the issue for us, talking to the contractor hired by the previous administration, and ultimately telling us what we needed to present to the Court – she told us we needed proof, what kind of proof and how to present it – when we went to Court all charges dropped.
4. The charge is made that Susan Knudsen is somehow responsible for storefronts not being filled. Funny how same problem at malls all over the country. Yet I see Amazon Prime trucks everywhere. We used to have TWO hardware stores in Ridgewood – now we go to Home Depot. The economy is changing from brick and mortar across the country and this means change for the Village too. Hard for me to fault the Mayor for a national trend, and did-honest for Ms. Harwin to do so.
5. My Dad was on the Planning Board in the 70’s and a parking garage was on the agenda then. The Aronson administration was in favor of a garage that would include retail space on the first floor to pay for it – how would more competition for Village merchants help them – so this was dropped. Next a mega-garage was proposed for the Hidson lot, over-hanging the sidewalk – an eye sore as well as an impediment for parking that was not paid for at the garage for church goers (not just Mt. Carmel as some have said but also the United Methodist Church also across the street. In the face of overwhelming upset the Aronson administration backed off on this as well. If we are going to build a garage (*which we need to do) this will involve a bond issue that will cost tax payers for 20+ years – so we want to do it right. Susan Knudsen has been working with the current Council to do it right, and attacking her for not just doing what previous administrations had been unable to do is again not honest.
6. The Harwin mailing also mentions a “failed valet parking experiment” – hard for me to blame the current Council when this was initiated by the Aronson administration.
I look at the two mailings we received yesterday – the Knudsen/Sedon piece noting issues being worked on and achieved, and the Harwin piece full of lies and blaming the current Council for things initiated by her patron, Paul Aronshon. Not much of a doubt in my mind that I am voting for the honest candidates trying to pull our Village back from the mess created by the Aronson team, instead of the one who is spreading lies and backed by the previous failed administration. Don’t be complacent as often happens in non-national elections – this is important, and whether you agree with my comments above or not, get out and vote.