You forgot to mention that Gwenn Hauck came to the microphone and asked a question that she should have know the answer to had she been paying attention during the meeting instead of chatting with her buddy Rurik Halaby.
And then the FORMER councilwoman Gwenn Hauck goes flitting up to the microphone and asks a question that made no sense. She asked whether 3066 had been repealed. And it had not. And our Mayor had already explained why it was not being voted on last night. Ummmmm Gwenn…..please pay attention. It’s a shame to see you making a fool of yourself. Oh, that’s right, you always make a fool of yourself, nothing new there. Laughing my ass off from my easy chair with my ipad on my lap.
It really is time for Mrs. Hauck’s family to keep her at home for Council meetings. I feel bad and embarrassed for her at the same time.
Ridgewood NJ, Siobhan Winograd, self-appointed Mistress of Niceness, went to the podium and started whining about why can’t everyone be nice and how people’s comments are not pleasant and then she suggested that people’s comments should be cut to three minutes from five. Said she had done a bunch of research about other towns and we have more time allowed than many towns. And then she went on past the buzzer for more than five minutes.
Mayor Knudsen stated that she was trying to think of how to accommodate MORE speakers, not fewer. She was considering one possibility of shortening each speaker’s time but lengthening the time slot to 40 minutes. Clearly the Mayor is an advocate for the people and wants to hear from all of us.
The meeting went really smoothly and was very business like. Even residents who had frustrations to air were treated respectfully. All the former moaning and groaning about CIVILITY was completely unnecessary because really all we had to do was get rid of Aronsohn-Pucciarelli-Hauck and the air in the room cleared instantly.
Aronson left us these problems and we need to deal with them now, ourselves. How much money is too much to unravel what was done? Besides, this is not a witch hunt – – this is a targeted effort to try and determine the truth of repeated allegations of improper favoritism in Village life. There is a reason there is a law on the books that allows the council to conduct this inquiry. This is exactly the situation where an investigation is required.
Ridgewood NJ, Dogs are permitted at Habenickel. According to ordinance 212-29, dogs are only prohibited at Citizens Park, Graydon Park, Maple Park, Pleasant Park, Twinney Pond Park, Van Neste Park and Vets Field. Of course the RWD News had a photo of someone with a dog in Van Neste a week or two ago. And Aronsohn and Hauck had their dogs at Van Neste for some dog parade thing. So the rules are broken all the time. Was the kid badly hurt at Health Barn? Dog bite wounds can be very nasty. Dogs who bite are nasty.
You are correct that the dogs are permitted at Habernickel – but watch this how Paul, Roberta, Albert everyone laughed at a neighbor in front of over 100 residents and told her that she was breaking the law by walking her dog in that park.
Roberta flip-flops more than GW Bush. When the neighbor complaint that permitting kids in the passive area will affect her dog walking, they laughed at her because that suited them at that time to silence her. When HealthBarn wanted to install a dog feeding station for their marketing, Roberta allowed her, and they responded to a resident that “read the code, dogs are allowed”.
Ridgewood NJ, Readers accuse Ridgewood’s Village manager of continuing to push the agenda of the former Village council known as the 3 amigos . During Wednesday’s council meeting Village Manager Roberta Sonnefeld was taken to task over her actions on Schedler Park and Health Barn at Habernickle Park . The theme was an old theme of ignoring residents and continuing to push the out dated failed agenda of the former council .
“The biggest news from the meeting – Mayor Knudsen publicly apologized to a resident who was the subject of a very nasty and inappropriate letter to the editor of The Ridgewood News written by Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld. Sonenfeld offered no apology herself, however.”
Reader report , “Several people came down hard on Roberta Sonenfeld, and all had very specific reasons. I hope the council is listening to them. They have to get rid of her.”
While others say , “She will never resign from her “dream job” (her words). Big bucks, big power. Resigning would be an admission that she had actively followed Aronsohn’s personal instructions. That’s the truth, but she can’t admit it. And we have no way of knowing whether she has continued to do the same, only receiving his orders other than from the dais. Well, lots of those orders were given out of public view. However, if the council is wise, as several residents asked them to do in the public comments last night, she’ll be gone in a puff of smoke, ideally by Labor Day, no resignation required.”
Another reader reminded us that , “Paul Aronsohn blew a trumped up fit at our prior VM. Why? Because his formal political affiliation was notoriously out-of-phase with Aronsohn’s. Aronsohn swept out the old and ushered in someone he thought would be beholden to him. But Ridgewood has now moved on, back to a proper non-partisan VC. For anyone currently in village management publicly to defy the new councilmembers and the new mayor seems foolish. Maybe they are dead set on acting ideologically. Maybe they have become partisan hacks. Either way they need to get a clue, and fast.”
Ridgewood NJ, Word on the street is that former Village Council member Gwenn Hauck paid the bill from Tim Hillman (the video promoting a “yes” vote on the parking garage funding) out of her own pocket, and then submitted a request for reimbursement to the Village (which was subsequently approved by an unnamed employee).
The Ridgewood Blog wonders if Council members paying bills and then requesting reimbursement is an accepted financial practice in NJ municipal government?
Seems to us as if someone was trying to pull a fast one on taxpayers.
I am very concerned that newly formed committees/boards/councils etc. (arts, access, more) will consider part of their mandate to come up with countless expensive projects to propose to the council, who should bravely but firmly deflect like mad and say NO to all of them. We do NOT need a performing arts center, etc.–like many things, that was another Aronsohn plan to get his picture in the paper. It didn’t happen in time for that, so let’s scrap it. Even if partial grants can be applied for, such things always involve big bucks from property taxes. We have to stop working so hard to attract more people to visit and move here, because that just creates more problems. We cannot absorb more traffic, for one thing.
On July 20, 2016, The Ridgewood Blog posted a link to an Opinion Editorial written by former Ridgewood mayor Paul Aronsohn in which Mr. Aronsohn endorsed the construction of additional multi-family housing in Ridgewood, and also defended his active involvement in promoting the erection of a now contentious, multi-level parking garage at the intersection of Hudson and South Broad Streets in Ridgewood’s Central Business District.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Aronsohn’s editorial failed to include several key facts with regard to his tenure in office as they relate to multi-family housing and the proposed parking garage.
Firstly; public records available on line from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission reveal that in 2012, Mr. Aronsohn accepted an “in kind” campaign contribution from a local real estate developer, Mr. John Saraceno, whose firm (Onyx Equities, LLC) has applied to construct new, high density, multifamily housing in Ridgewood. Undoubtedly, Mr. Saraceno, will profit handsomely once construction is complete and all units in his building are rented.
Secondly, Mr. Saraceno’s firm owns a large commercial/retail establishment located within the very block as the parking garage Mr. Aronsohn and his supporters wanted to build (exact address is: 54 East Ridgewood Avenue). In my opinion, the value of Mr. Saraceno’s property would have increased substantially if a several hundred space parking garage had been constructed within the same block as his property.
Finally, if you think that all of this wasn’t enough to raise the eyebrows of Ridgewood’s voters this past Spring, may I remind you that on July 3, 2013, Mr. Aronsohn, along with four (4) members of Ridgewood’s Village Council, attended a $1,000-a- head campaign fundraiser for Governor Chris Christie with free tickets to the event provided to them by Mr. John Saraceno. This incident subsequently became the subject of a lead editorial in The Record on July 17, 2013.
Personally, I’d had enough of Mr. Aronsohn many, many months ago, and the results of a local election held in May, in which all of the candidates supported by Mr. Aronsohn for election to Village Council lost heavily, suggest that the vast majority of Ridgewood’s voters who cast ballots agreed with me that it was time for a big change in local government.
Whoever wrote that about Gwenn Hauck was on point. Why was she there in some kind of official capacity? Does she work for the Village? Is she an elected official? No, she does not and she is not. She is a VOLUNTEER on a committee. The event should have been run by an employee of the Village, not by a committee volunteer. Sorry, Mrs. Hauck, we no longer need or want you around. I was not at the duckie derby, but I am still very annoyed to read that she was so involved in it.
We heard this from Valley Hospital,then the 3 amigos and now the REA
“Hold strong to your position REA. This heinous, negative sentiment toward educators is indicative of a minority of Ridgewood residents. Comments about not having the support of the community are inaccurate. More and more of the limited support Ridgewood Teacher signs are cropping up everyday despite this being vacation time. The premise that teachers are living in a fantasy world, are asking for pie-in-the-sky benefits and don’t understand the reality of the day are ridiculous. The REA has proposed what every other district in NJ has asked for, nothing more. Teacher hate is not the norm in other towns…… and not for the majority of Ridgewood residents.”
“I have followed the various posts on this blog related to the current negotiations and have held my tongue. I have read that teachers are : greedy, vindictive, inactive, unprofessional, uncaring, easily replaceable, union puppets, abusing an archaic system, engaging in activities that would have them fired from non tenured jobs (wearing a red shirt for unity) and a litany of other things that are an affront to common decency. Statements are made based on gossip, half-truths and inaccurate facts that fuel the animosity. If someone, who knew nothing about the situation, happened upon this blog and took the comments as accurate, they would believe the Ridgewood teachers to be angry, slothful beings,living high on the hog, hellbent on bankrupting the taxpayers, brainwashing (while not caring about or actually teaching) their students, being provided an exorbitant salary for a no-show job, while lounging on the beach. If this isn’t teacher hate, please tell me what is?”
Aronsohn’s recent op ed piece in The Record and Pucciarelli’s letter to the editor in The Ridgewood News suggest that their plan is to lob hand grenades into the Knudsen administration’s agenda with the hopes of inflicting casualties of some sort. SORE LOSERS.
Fool us once…Let them just go away. They will never return despite them still hanging around? Chamber of Commerce etc. Sore Loserman ran and lost and they eventually went away. So will these 3. The new Council is awesome and out of the ordinary issues will be attributed to those 3….so we will overcome. They are already off to a great start repealing Pfundwood! Can we get rid of that Gyro Wall next? Tell the sidewalk Nazi he may be next after the wall fall…wasn’t he responsible for the $750,000 coin guy? People have to be held responsible. Thank you 1st amendment…
How perfectly ironic is it, that the civility and civic harmony that Ex-mayor Aronsohn was purportedly seeking, and supposedly trying to engender, by way of his signature series of so-called “civility forums”, has at long last come, almost like the break of dawn, the contrast being so stark and the transition so swift, and the only change that was required to bring it about was to dislodge his and his sidekicks’ sorry arses out of office!!! Ahhhh…. change is good. Change we can believe in. Si se puede! GO SCRATCH, P.A.! And let us enjoy our permanent vacation from watching you look down your nose at the rest of us from the VC dais.
Ridgewood NJ, Is there some reason that Paul Aronsohn and Gwenn Hauck both continue to maintain their respective ego driven, pretentious, outdated web sites?
In his recent article in the always Democratic machine friendly Bergen Record former Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn engages in what can only be categorized as an attempt to set the stage for a political comeback though historical revisionism ,blatant dishonesty and a subtle attempt to undermine the current council.
The former mayor clearly still does not understand Ridgewood ,where it has always been considered very bad form for previous council members to criticize current new council members before they get a chance to get their seats warm.
Aronsohn’s term as mayor can be best described as contentious ,dishonest, controversial and to many the worst and most ineffective mayor in recent history. Rivaling the darkest days of Jane Reilly and the abject stupidity of the Village Hall reconstruction.
Aronsohn needs to face facts that Hudson County Machine Politics do not belong or according to the last election will be tolerated the Village of Ridgewood .
As we read through Aronsohn’s opinion piece it felt like we had heard all this before. Phases like “Ridgewood at a crossroads “, “Progress and Tradition “, “Kick the can down the road “and “Need to move forward ” all sounded eerily familiar. And yes they are these very words are the words of Councilmen Ramon Hache in the Ridgewood blog on March 9th (https://theridgewoodblog.net/ramon-m-hache-announces-candidacy-for-ridgewood-village-council/)
So it seems the the former Mayor found in necessary to praise himself while plagiarizing from Councilmen Hache’s campaign.
Perhaps former mayor Aronsohn’s time would be better spent gracefully retiring to a life of gardening and back yard barbecues.
THE VILLAGE of Ridgewood is at a crossroads. For the first time in recent memory, our community has been discussing, debating and even deciding some of the big issues that have long simmered just beneath the surface — issues such as taxes and government services, multifamily housing, parking and, of course, the Valley Hospital. Rather than play it safe and continue to “kick the can down the road,” we have sought to resolve issues that have long eluded us.
In fact, remembering the details of a meeting well enough to approve or question them is only possible within a very short time. Not to mention that just getting it out of the way immediately is the only sane way to proceed.
There are rules (laws?) about this, which the previous council broke constantly. And this has happened before, with previous councils approving months and months of meeting minutes all at once just before some of them stepped down from the dais for the last time. Hearing them approve many months of minutes that they couldn’t possibly have read through was proof positive, if we needed it, that they were hiding everything they could from the public and press and spending time only on issues from which they would benefit personally. Or at the very least, they were comfortable flouting the law and making things much harder for residents as well as others, including attorneys, researchers, developers, etc., seeking meeting minutes.
Like most actions by the former mayor, this group was created for his personal purposes, in this case at least two: to rubber-stamp his decisions with a faux economic rationale (e.g., the largest garage drawing) and as a feeder group to provide a credential for placing people loyal to him in various positions that he intended to fill with sycophants (village manager, two council candidates). We have a highly paid CFO who should be doing all this work and making these recommendations. (We also have a well-paid planner, but he’s useless and should be replaced.) The two defeated council candidates, with unknown continuing ties to the outgoing council members who endorsed them, remain on the committee; disbanding it would remove them from an advisory position to the council without having to “fire” them individually. And by the way, the FAC was originally going to be a board, not a committee, which would have had more clout; the other boards are Planning and Zoning. When establishing this group was under discussion, then-councilman Tom Riche voted against it, stating that the requirements for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest were insufficient. He was right. In addition, giving a bunch of barely vetted residents access to confidential financial and other information that only the council should see just because they work in banking or whatever is another creepy-crawly. Just dump it.
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