If you voted for Obama or any Democrat in New Jersey it is your Agenda
This is such bullshit. Why all of a sudden this hysteria of pushing for affordable housing. Whose agenda is this? Why stuff nice towns and villages with buildings that are out of character? Why force villages that people have worked very hard to build and live in to bring low income families who will certainly affect the quality of life? Why urbanize beautiful places that residents are so proud of and care so much about ? This will destroy these places and will provide no value to anyone. If you want affordable housing build in places that are already messed up such Hackensack, Rutheford etc. I am sure I am not the only who is stressed out about this nonsense.
I continue to believe that Mayor Knudsen, Deputy Mayor Sedon and Councilman Hache are decent, reasonable people who want to do what is right for the village. Here is my appeal to them.
Please do not assume that the few loudest and most frequent voices you hear from are representative of the entire village, irrespective of what they say.
I, and a lot of people I know, did not vote against the previous council and for the current one because we had much of a view on the Valley expansion, Graydon, Schedler, or the parking garage. Neither did we vote because of those loud voices. What we voted against was the dismissive attitude of those council members against residents.
Now I do not believe that those council members were very being dismissive on purpose. They did very much want to win elections. However, they kept hearing from a specific group that their actions were popular, and that those opposing their proposals were a vocal and disruptive minority.
Unfortunately, I get the sense that the new council has become beholden to a different coterie with its own agenda. That coterie is openly dismissive of regular residents in extremely caustic terms. It is as if we have traded the tzar for the politburo. Questioning actions of the new council is dismissed as the handiwork of the Aronson crew.
I urge you to work for the wider village, and not just those voices and their interests. For example, on this issue it appears that the lack of commuters and abundance of casual diners in the coterie has led to this disastrous decision. I urge you to reverse this decision and in future, think about the outcome for all residents based on wider feedback, and not just based on what you hear from a few.
You people still don’t get it. He was a plant from the get go. A stooge of the real power in this town…the formers and the developers who pull the strings. This has been going on for years, it will continue to do so and there is nothing you can or will do about it.
Ridgewood Nj, the staff of the Ridgewood blog has assembled the biggest winners and the biggest losers in Ridgewood for 2016.First the Village losers;
Far and away the biggest loser was former Mayor Paul Aronsohn, voters rejected not only his future vision of Ridgewood, voters also rejected everything about it from staffing, political appointments, planning and anyone who supported and promoted him. The only upside was that he united the Village against him and his triad of power mad ill-mannered and deceitful proponents. For many, the Aronsohn Mayorship was a huge step backward and marked the low water point for the entire history of the town. Voters rejected Aronsohn by giving his opponents a landslide victory over his chosen Village council slate.
Garagezilla; according to proponents for 80 years the Village has needed parking, looks like it might be another 80. Garagezilla was the victim of an ill-conceived design, dubious motivations and extremely poor execution. What ever happened to Municipal planning?
Other major losers this year were Valley Hospital for their continued failed vision of expansion. Valley’s self-absorbed blindness has also guaranteed it once again the “poor neighbor award”. Valley may someday get their way but they are also assured to be a victim of own arrogance opening the door for a huge property tax assessment.
Ridgewood developers were also big losers, first and foremost by supporting the failed regime of Paul Aronsohn, secondly, by being so ill informed thinking Ridgewood wanted to become Union City. A misplaced support for the former mayor has left Village developers under a cloud of suspicion, tarnishing their names and reputations and failing in their business endeavors.
And finally, the Village Financial Advisory Committee, formed by former Mayor Aronsohn to help push his pet projects through, sabotage opponents, and create a pool of like-minded power made self-absorbed flunkies. Every single FAC recommendation has gone up in flames and now their new attention is set on attacking the new Mayor Susan Knudsen . The attacks follow the same ill-mannered , innuendo driven , and sexist rants that have and continue to make fools of the all the wannabes on the FAC .
The Voigt matter is not to be left alone or forgotten. His integrity and character are shot.His attacks and lies are escalating to new heights. This level of deceit is intentional malice. BOE also needs to be addressed. The public needs to get out from behind their computers and stand up against all of it. We are losing battles because the mass majority sits around doing nothing while the BOE/Voigt remain active and launch campaigns to get what they want.
…the Council and the citizens should be made aware of plans before they are finalized. Maybe having someone look over the Library Board’s shoulders might not be such a bad idea. This should not be like our garage Taj Mahal where tons of money was spent before any general consensus occurred. Jeff might have accidentally let the “Cat out of the bag”, but that might prove very advantageous in the long run.
Here we go again. I can just picture the scenario in my mind – Nancy Greene standing before the Village Council and asking that funds be approved for this project, otherwise the monies spent on the planning and design phase will be wasted. Didn’t we hear the same arguments from Roberta Sonenfeld about the proposed Hudson Street parking deck (GARAGE)?
Gave the guy a break. For that matter I gave him money and gave him a coffee and gave him my vote. Told all my friends to vote for him. And then he comes out of the gate shooting from the hip, interrupting Susan, trying to commandeer the meetings. He was terrible from the git-go. Many people tried to make him calm down. Many people. Via emails and phone calls and over coffee. He promised to cool his rhetoric but he did not. He has gotten worse and worse. It is blindingly clear that he hats Susan’s guts. That is his prerogative, but the question is WHY? He has repeatedly gone after her in a totally unprofessional manner using words best saved for the locker room, not the council chambers. He has not said anything by mistake or accident. He has attacked her repeatedly and often and now he has accused her of breaking the law. I am so sorry I supported this guy. He is absolutely insane.
Rurik Posted: I took this on a trip to Paris in 1969.The Eiffel Tower is one of the most famous structures in the world and the symbol of Paris.Millions visit it every year.An interesting tale behind the building of the Tower.When the the plans were announced in the 1880‘s a committee of 300 leading citizens of Paris issued the following statement, per Wikepedia:“We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection … of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal.”Makes you think of their present day Ridgewood descendants, the Vocalantis, those self absorbed fools who are unable to see past the tip of their noses.
this was posted on Facebook in the “it take a Ridgewood Village ” group on Monday December 19th.
While Mr Halaby attempts to use the Eiffel Tower as a symbol of what the rejection of Aronsohn’s flawed vision of Ridgewood could mean we suggest the Nazi occupation of Paris a more fitting symbol.
Here is a small history lesson:
Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army in 1940. The French government departed Paris on June 10, and the Germans occupied the city on June 14. During the Occupation, the French Government moved to Vichy, and Paris was governed by the German military and by French officials approved by the Germans.
For the Parisians, the Occupation was a series of frustrations, shortages and humiliations. A curfew was in effect from nine in the evening until five in the morning; at night, the city went dark. Rationing of food, tobacco, coal and clothing was imposed from September 1940. Every year the supplies grew more scarce and the prices higher. A million Parisians left the city for the provinces, where there was more food and fewer Germans. The French press and radio contained only German propaganda.
Jews in Paris were forced to wear the yellow Star of David badge, and were barred from certain professions and public places. On 16–17 July 1942, 13,152 Jews, including 4,115 children and 5.919 women, were rounded up by the French police, on orders of the Germans, and were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The first demonstration against the Occupation, by Paris students, took place on 11 November 1940. As the war continued, anti-German clandestine groups and networks were created, some loyal to the French Communist Party, others to General Charles de Gaulle in London. They wrote slogans on walls, organized an underground press, and sometimes attacked German officers. Reprisals by the Germans were swift and harsh.
Following the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the French Resistance in Paris launched an uprising on August 19, 1944, seizing the police headquarters and other government buildings. The city was liberated by French and American troops on August 25, and General Charles de Gaulle led a triumphant parade down the Champs-Élysées on August 26, and organized a new government. In the following months, ten thousand Parisians who had collaborated with the Germans were arrested and tried, eight thousand convicted, and 116 executed. On 29 April and 13 May 1945, the first post-war municipal elections were held, in which French women voted for the first time.
Let’s just hope that residents don’t fall into the slumber again that allowed these shysters to get where they did. We’ve all learned a valuable lesson that taxpayers get screwed far more at the local level than at the Federal level.
“Let’s just hope residents don’t fall into the slumber again”…that’s pretty funny. Aside from the usual social gadflys that rattle about everyone else is and will always be in a slumber. Don’t you get it? That’s exactly the way the union thugs want it and 90 % of the dopes in Ridgewood are more than happy to oblige. Nobody cares….
Very important not to assume they are truly gone. They still have much skin in the game and want more. Every person appointed to a committee/board/etc. as a future source of information/votes should be dismissed, as should every preexisting staff member drawn to their questionable glow and continuing to feed them information and work on their behalf (grants for construction, etc.). Every committee or other group created solely to further Aronsohn’s post council career should be eliminated pronto, starting with the super-bogus Financial Advisory Committee.
Councilman Voigt is a hot head with an uncontrollable temper. He is inappropriate, he is a bully, and he is borderline insane.
The FAC is an incubator for Paul Aronsohn-Roberta Sonenefld’s proteges. Evan Weitz is a snake in the grass, a despicable person who was resoundingly voted down this spring. We do not need the FAC. They long since outlived their very limited value and are now way way WAY overstepping their boundaries. Kill the FAC.
Anne is making some serious mistakes and she’s been brainwashed by her blond “friend”. You know, the one who does alllll the bidding for the dark side and causes massive trouble no matter what organization she’s involved with…? Name drops at every turn and isn’t actually suave enough to DO anything herself.
Well, Anne has managed to take the league of women voters and turn it in to a mouthpiece for Paul in a matter of the less than half a year she’s been in control. Bye bye Anne.
Re: “Planning Board lawsuit dismissed,” The Ridgewood News, October 28, Page A-2.
Former Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn’s contention that both his and former Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli’s acceptance of gratis tickets to a political fundraiser, and subsequent attendance at the event, was entirely appropriate based on who else was in attendance, is simply preposterous.
Of those attendees referenced by Mr. Aronsohn (“all five Council members at that time,” “the Village Manager, County Executive, and multiple Freeholders”) only he and Mr. Pucciarelli were full voting members of the Planning Board at that time. As such, only he and Mr. Pucciarelli were in positions to cast votes on a then pending amendment to the Village’s Master Plan that could have favorably impacted the local real estate developer who provided the gratis tickets. Neither Mr. Aronsohn nor Mr. Pucciarelli should have set foot in that event venue for any reason whatsoever.
And with respect to Mr. Aronsohn’s claim that Village Attorney Matt Rogers previously advised that “it was both fine and appropriate that we attended as a courtesy to the visiting governor,” you and your reporter should have treated this statement as nothing more than hearsay unless Mr. Aronsohn was willing and able to produce a piece of correspondence or official transcript verifying its authenticity.
RIDGEWOOD — A Superior Court judge will decide Wednesday the future of a lawsuit claiming several conflicts of interest tainted both the Planning Board’s and Village Council’s review and approval of several contentious master plan changes this year.
The suit, filed in May by attorney Kevin Mattessich on behalf of the grassroots group Ridgewood Citizens for Reasonable Development, seeks an order from Superior Court Judge William Meehan voiding four ordinances.
First we have Roberta and the boys applying for a grant to rip up the brick and remove the walkway in the center of the park. Then we have installation of a tree illumination system, installation of conduit in trenches, installation of pathway lighting, installation of concealed electrical outlet boxes, installation of an audio system and other ancillary items buy the Conservatory all within the same month. I don’t believe in coincidences . Pay special attention to ( audio system and other ancillary items). I believe that one of the members of the Conservatory is a former Council person who tried to spearhead a campaign to put a gazebo in the center of the park.
Previous mayor was dead set on having horrible “concerts” and other noise wreck the peace of downtown. Is this supposed to attract apartment renters/buyers? It’s a park, not Madison Square Garden. Installation of audio systems in parks should not be happening. Thank goodness the current council refused to sign the grant application (worked on, as usual, by manager’s assistant Janet Fricke, whose tenure should end before the next manager arrives) for ugly concrete (replacing the donor-named bricks, which were going to be moved to some area in a corner or something) and a stage or fountain in the center–it’s nice having NOTHING in the center–that was thrust under their noses by the previous village manager with an urgent plea to sign because the deadline was (of course) nigh–an old village manager trick, and not only by her. Collusion by the Village Engineer, who must be replaced, was major. Get those people out of there. Cronin is no better in plotting and planning ways to wreck the place and doing lots of work before the council even knows about it. Council must remain highly vigilant about these unnecessary projects intended (even now) to make Aronsohn’s construction-union supporters happy, and quash them at the earliest opportunity.
Town must stop accepting gifts of things that we don’t want or need. “Conservancy” is a joke. People cynically join groups with a name that sounds good but represents the opposite of what they have in mind. It’s depressing. REAC’s first report was to say that synthetic turf was great, etc. “Parks, Recreation, and Conservation Board”–as long as it’s sports. I give up on all of them.
Essential to understand that everything proposed and pushed for under the Aronsohn regime, including his years on the council before becoming mayor, and no doubt before he ran in the first place shortly after moving here, was a Lego block in his long game to power. All along he was advised by paid marketing professionals who cared nothing for the populace but were paid to further one person’s career (sound like the Bridgegate trials?).The connections, machinations, and deals could fill a book. It’s left to us to disentangle what happened and to rescind and nullify any progress made in that direction, because it never corresponded with what was best for our village.
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