MONDAY, MARCH 10, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY MARCH 10, 2014, 12:22 PM
By ALFRED P. DOBLIN
RECORD EDITORIAL COLUMNIST
JEFF SPICOLI would have been right at home in Ridgewood. The fictional Spicoli went to high school in Southern California in the early 1980s. In “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” Spicoli was a stoned teen played by Sean Penn with a serious case of the munchies.
Editors note : History has shown us the problem is the Village simply has “ZERO” credibility in its ability to plan ,manage and implement large projects and too many seem to have their vision clouded by personal gain.
No one wants to see empty lots in the CBD , nor do most want to live in the “next, next ” Hoboken .
Like the Train Station renovation before , there is a way for everyone to get something positive, add housing , improve infrastructure , take into account schools and of coarse parking.
Whats lacking is a vision for the future of the Village. A vision uniquely by Ridewood ,for Ridgewood. Not about people getting elected or speculators getting rich off government connections .
This Vision must include Valley Hospital, CBD housing ,retail and parking , traffic and the Ridgewood School district.
The Village with its excellent schools , parks ,CBD, cultural institutions and easy access to transportation offers a very unique opportunity .
If we chose to destroy the character of the town , the very character that has attracted so many to the Village over the years , we will lose the very thing that makes us who we are….
The people advocating for high density buildings (and for Valley Hospital over expansion for that matter) do not care about our town. They care about making money. Once they make their money, if they don’t like what the town is like they will be able to leave. There is no middle ground we can get to right now because they want maximum $$. They will first try for maximum $$ via high density, and only if we defeat them will they come down a notch and try for slightly less (see Valley Hospital). Maybe after several defeats we might get to a middle ground, but even that will be temporary. People like this do not give up. 10 years after we reach a middle ground solution (if we do) they will be right back at it (or their children will take the helm) seeking to make $$ by ruining our Village…..
I think that is what has to be discussed. But to right away jump to conclusion and think over night or even years Ridgewood would turn into any of your examples is foolish and not forward thinking.
You think modernization and growth and you assume that means higher crime, noise, traffic and every negative thing you can imagine… But it doesn’t have to be that way if you develop a sustainable plan for growth through a thoughtful process.
The contextual makeup of Ridgewood is not sustainable. Look every town around us…. Minus glen rock… We are a old folks home… And it’s sad because we have an opportunity to be an example of a modern town that still remains true to its roots.
It doesn’t have to be an all or nothing deal. What i am really saying is that we are going to expand… No way around it it will happen eventually, just being honest. I rather the people that do care about this towns and it’s history be the ones making the plans and not the (as number one stated) money Hungary investors that can up and leave if it fails.
What rather you have?…..
We don’t want to follow the path of Hoboken, Paterson, Hackensack or NYC. Is there a suitable model out there?….
New coffee stand will brew at Ridgewood train station
Tuesday February 4, 2014, 10:03 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
The Ridgewood News
The Village of Ridgewood is now accepting bids from vendors who are interested in leasing and operating a new coffee stand at the Ridgewood train station, which has been without that particular service since 2009.
The deadline to submit proposals is 11 a.m. Feb. 20, when all public bids will be opened.
Regarding “Bag the lunches” (Editorials, Jan. 22):
I cannot help questioning the motives of the Ridgewood schools superintendent and also ask the editors if any of them really cares or knows anything about the security of our schools.
Flawed bid process will delay Maple Field cleanup in Ridgewood
TUESDAY DECEMBER 17, 2013, 10:32 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The Ridgewood Council has rejected the lone bid it received for the Maple Park turf cleaning job, a move that will delay a much-needed procedure at one of the village’s most used fields.
According to a council resolution unanimously passed last week, the village will put the project back out for public bid because the initial bid process was declared flawed.
“Apparatchik” is defined as as unquestioningly loyal subordinate: a subordinate who is unquestioningly loyal to a powerful political leader or organization. You can find a cadre of Obama apparatchiks here. They are known as the Editorial Board of the NY Times. It is claimed that this board operates independently of the regular “news operations” but if no one objects to it, well….
I was going to title this “The Devil Wears Pravda.”
Pravda is the Russian government information outlet, unflinchingly loyal to the leader of the Communist government. The NY Times editorial board has become the US version of Pravda. It has become a pathetic, apologetic, partisan, left wing shadow of itself. It is sodden with democrat bias. It is essentially an arm of the Obama Progressive Movement and the National Democratic Committee.
What it cannot do is tell the truth. The board is an Obama propaganda machine. Yesterday they posted an editorial entitled “Insurance Policies Not Worth Keeping”.
In it, they decide what’s worth keeping and what is not despite a complete absence of facts. But more importantly, they send a very important message- lying is acceptable to get what you want.
“He clearly misspoke.”
“Congressional Republicans have stoked consumer fears and confusion with charges that the health care reform law is causing insurers to cancel existing policies and will force many people to pay substantially higher premiums next year for coverage they don’t want. That, they say, violates President Obama’s pledge that if you like the insurance you have, you can keep it.
“Mr. Obama clearly misspoke when he said that. ”
Misspoke? This is astonishing – it is a lie in itself. Obama didn’t misspeak. He LIED.
It could be argued that Obama misspoke when he claimed that premiums would go down 3000% when he meant to say that premiums would go down an average of $2500 per year (and that was another lie). That’s closer to what one might call misspeaking.
Let’s revisit what Obama said one more time:
“No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
Obama probably said it hundreds of times and he knew it wasn’t true. He and his aides knew that the truth wouldn’t sell:
More from the NY Times today: “The former official added that in the midst of a hard-fought political debate “if you like your plan, you can probably keep it” isn’t a salable point.
They knew the truth wouldn’t sell. This wasn’t misspeaking. This was wholesale deceit and the point cannot be made too strenuously. The President of the United States and the democrat Congress sold America a lie.
The Times’ apparatchiks then spend the rest of their apologia defending Obama’s big lie:
“But insurers are not allowed to abandon enrollees. They must offer consumers options that do comply with the law, and they are scrambling to retain as many of their customers as possible with new policies that are almost certain to be more comprehensive than their old ones.”
And they spend the rest of the editorial defending the lie.
“Indeed, in all the furor, people forget how terrible many of the soon-to-be-abandoned policies were. Some had deductibles as high as $10,000 or $25,000 and required large co-pays after that, and some didn’t cover hospital care.
“This overblown controversy has also obscured the crux of what health care reform is trying to do, which is to guarantee that everyone can buy insurance without being turned away or charged exorbitant rates for pre-existing conditions and that everyone can receive benefits that really protect them against financial or medical disaster, not illusory benefits that prove inadequate when a crisis strikes.”
“What health care reform is trying to do.”
This is distraction. It is deflection. It is dishonest. What they needed to be was honest, but the Times doesn’t agree.
The NY Post sees Obama going from “Bullsh*t to dishonesty.”
“Obama denounced the individual mandate to purchase health insurance during the primaries to get to Hillary’s left, but his stated reason was that it wouldn’t be fair to force people to buy health insurance if they couldn’t afford it. You could argue he covered himself by including in the law large subsidies — your income can be four times the poverty line ($94,000) and you still qualify for aid.
“He said he would close Guantanamo but that was just campaign blather for suckers — an applause line, not a serious policy proposal. As any student of the matter knew, there wasn’t a better alternative, and nobody really cares about Guantanamo detainees anyway. It was just opportunistic Bush-bashing.
“This week was something new. It was the week Obama was revealed to be a stone-cold liar.”
Obama’s lies are so egregious that even WaPo gave Obama Four Pinocchios.
There are a number of ways one could summarize the NY Times position, but “the end justifies the means” is probably the most accurate.
Obama and the NY Times will decide. They know what’s best for you. You are too stupid to make your own choices.
You don’t even deserve the truth.
No, you can’t keep your plan and you can’t keep your doctor. For one woman, that could be fatal:
“Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.
“But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October.”
Should she lose her battle, would it be fair to say Obama killed her?
The Times go to great lengths to defend what is being done here but the truth remains- Obama lied and they are endorsing his lying so that he and the rest of his Progressives can force upon you what they and they alone decide is best.
Just like Stalin.
Just like Hitler.
Just like Mussolini.
Just like Gaddafi.
Just like Mubarak.
Just like Mugabe.
This is how it always begins. They impose their will on people. They knew what was best for you. Once you get past the need for the truth anything is possible.
Bergen Freeholder GOP candidates share views with The Record’s editorial board
Monday October 7, 2013, 9:55 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Bergen County’s three Republican freeholders disagree on some major issues confronting county government, including police consolidation and pay-to-play reform.
Those differences emerged repeatedly during a wide-ranging 90-minute interview Wednesday with The Record’s editorial board.
Editorial Note: We hate to..ahem..kick a guy when he’s down, but the launch of ObamaCare online has been such a spectacular fail, we are savoring the opportunity to gloat. Who isn’t tempted in Tea Party ranks to utter, “Told ya so” when we hear people complain about being dropped from their health insurance company? I mean, really, who saw this coming? They called us crazy. Well, who’s crazy now?
Here’s a good gloat from Gary North – The Tea Party Economist, October 28, 2013
In what is one of the greatest examples of crony capitalism of my adult life, the main company that produced the incomparable failure known as www.healthcare.gov turns out to have gained its share of the $678 million contract without facing competitive bids. That’s right. There were other companies that submitted bids, but those bids were not considered, or so initial reports indicate. Why no bids? We are not told.
This kind of thing goes on all the time, but usually it is never discovered. But the website was rolled out as the prime example of President Obama’s signature program, which bears his name unofficially: ObamaCare. This program was going to be the deliverance long awaited for by 15 million Americans who did not have healthcare coverage.
It went online, and it was dead on arrival: a corpse of government medicine. It died so spectacularly that it became front-page news around the world. It is such a total failure that there is a kind of magnificence about it. Millions of people tried to get in. Millions of people could not get in.
Now Congress is conducting an investigation of how this happened, and it turns out, that it happened because it was a sweetheart deal from the get-go.
The man who is in charge of the company became an Obama supporter in 2012, I can hardly blame him. His ship came in.
Unfortunately, the ship has just sunk in full public view. It is like the capsized cruise ship on its side off the coast of an Italian island in 2012. The site is there, dead in the water, for the whole world to see.
More of the story here: https://www.garynorth.com/public/11712.cfm
Bergen Freeholder GOP candidates share views with The Record’s editorial board
Monday October 7, 2013, 9:55 PM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Bergen County’s three Republican freeholders disagree on some major issues confronting county government, including police consolidation and pay-to-play reform.
Those differences emerged repeatedly during a wide-ranging 90-minute interview Wednesday with The Record’s editorial board. Maura DeNicola favors tighter restrictions on what contractors can contribute to county candidates while John Felice and John Mitchell say the county’s current pay-to-play law is adequate and a good compromise.
Mark was shown where he made a mistake in stating in a footnote that delegates from Vermont belatedly attended the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787. In reality, Vermont was not even a state until 1791. Before that it was a disputed territory between New Hampshire and New York. So Vermonters were not asked to nor were they qualified to attend the Philadelphia convention. He gave his challenger no credit for reading his book carefully and bringing this non-trivial mistake to his attention. He then refused to sign the book on the page where the footnote appeared and showed distinct signs of impatience and annoyance when he opened the front of the book and began to sign it.
At this point, Mark was challenged about Cruz’s eligiblity. But the challenge did not happen as Mark said it did. The challenger asked this: “Under what possible definition of the term natural-born Citizen does your friend Ted Cruz qualify to be president?” At this same time the challenger placed an annotated copy of an earlier TheRidgewoodBlog posting repeating CNN’s recent article questioning Cruz’s eligibility, and was pointing at the document. After cursing at the challenger , Mark replied: “I never said he was a natural-born Citizen.”, upon which his challenger said: “But you must be a natural-born Citizen to be President!”. Mark then said: “No you don’t!”, and the challenger said “Yes, you do. Read the Constitution.” Levin was showing no signs of changing his tune. The challenger then turned around and left the booksigning. There was no time during any of this dialogue for Mark to ruminate on the challenger’s motivations or talk about Canada or Cruz’s mother or anything like what he said on his Radio program
Readers asks Why is Heather A. Mailander capable enough to fill in but not to actually be appointed to the position
Why is she capable enough to fill in but not to actually be appointed to the position. Another woman running a dept and not being recognized. She is better than Gabbert and Ten Hoeve
Heather Mailander would make an excellent choice for Village Manager. She is highly capable, has a tremendous work ethic, she knows the town and she well respected and liked by both Village employees and residents. Most importantly she has good common sense………..which is in short supply in Village Hall.
Reader says time to end Mayor’s Monthly Column in the Ridgewood News
Seriously, whether you like our mayor or don’t, Boyd has a very good point. Why should the newspaper provide a forum for Mayor Aronsohn to highlight the accomplishments while ignoring the major problems? This is a non-partisan government, so there cannot be an official reply from those opposed to the leader’s views on things. But we do know that at least one letter in which Mayor Aronsohn was not being portrayed favorably was squelched by the newspaper…….and this was due to the mayor himself interfering.
I wish the Mayor would man-up and address all the issues that have been controversial and have not been resolved. For example……what ever happened to the Graydon Ramp? For example…….what is the resolution on the Christie fundraiser (even The Record wrote an editorial blasting the council’s attendance at this event). For example…..why was a personnel matter (Mr. Riche) discussed in open session when there is a strict policy that individuals are to be discussed in closed session? Lines of people jumped up to protest his actions on this, yet no apology or explanation ever came from him. I am betting that the Hope Street poles will be the same thing, never any official follow-up from him because the outcome is not good.
He sweeps controversy under the carpet and we never get a final report on these matters. The Mayor’s Column in the newspaper enables him to continue to do this, by painting a rosy picture with absolutely no space allocated to controversies and problems.
Readers share thoughts on Boyd Lovings Ridgewood News letter to the Editor
A year is enough of that self-serving blather. Sick of seeing his face on the editorial page, co-opting space needed for letters to the editor. All published series stop eventually. The time has come.
Agree with Boyd. This is a blatant billboard for the mayor and it should not be allowed. Can we have an anti-mayor corner column, in which all the problems he has caused can be highlighted?????
Mayor Paul Aronsohn and the Ridgewood “New Prefect Together” Hey Ed. Yes Paul. Only print the good stuff about me. Ok Paul just don’t cancel the legal advertisement because without the advertisement from the village and valley hospital the Ridgewood News would be down the tubes and I would have to get a job at the Patch. Hey Paul. Yes Ed. Do you have any connections at the Patch? Matter of fact I do Ed.
The Ridgewood News All-Suburban Girls Golf Teams
Friday August 2, 2013, 8:39 AM
BY GREG TARTAGLIA
ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR
The Ridgewood News
Villagers continue to headline the elite unit in 2013, with three Ridgewood High School golfers and Ridgewood resident Victoria Paulsen of Immaculate Heart making the grade. Ramsey placed two golfers and Paramus one among the two seniors, four juniors and one sophomore on the first team….
