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Reader says To wait for the perfect candidate would be to abdicate from your civic responsibility

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FOUR years later. And from a disgraced former village manager who created an HR position for one pal from Bergen Leads and more or less gave the house at Habernickel to another for low rent who is now running roughshod over the neighborhood while absorbing endless village services. She should talk! As for not voting, that is a copout. I could not count how many times in my life I have voted for the lesser o two, three, or more evils. It is never true that all candidates are alike. If you must, choose the ones you dislike the most, hold your nose, and vote for the others. More Aronsohn acolytes on the council would be a disaster as Voigt voted with them and created another “council majority” to do Aronsohn’s bidding. To wait for the perfect candidate would be to abdicate from your civic responsibility.

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The Ridgewood municipal workplace is being invaded by Bergen leads

Village_Manager_Roberta_Sonenfeld_theridgewoodblog
May 19,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood Nj, readers begin to question the political favoritism that seems to flow with Bergen Leads municipal appointments in Ridgewood . ” Does anyone thinks it’s a coincidence the human resource and village manager are both from Bergen leads and this residency requirement is being changed when the hr person isn’t from ridgewood. Old friends from the bergeb county program . Ridgewood owes a debt of gratitude to councilwoman knudsen for standing up for ridgewood residents when aronsohn, pucc and hack don’t care about the people they represent. What’s wrong there’s no one from ridgewood to fill these jobs. Anyone watching the meeting wouldn’t think this article is even about Wednesday meeting.”

“The Village Manager seems to try to help her fellow Bergen Leads graduates. Isn’t her HR hire a Bergen Leads graduate? Preferring local residents for municipal hiring does not make it easy for a VM to favor friends from different parts of the county.”

“Non-Alumni of Bergen Leads (NABL) hereby object to the fact that the municipal workplace is being invaded by a clique of self-appointed “elites” showing an troubling amount of interest in scratching each others’ backs, and nobody else’s backs but their own!”

But the landslide election loss by the mayor and his cronies may signal the end of Village Managers playing favorites. “Roberta’s days of political favors are coming to an end. It is absolutely no coincidence that a friend of hers got the lease for a business in a residential neighborhood. Antine has absolutely no right to be running her business in a residential neighborhood and Sonenfeld pushing her highly contested lease application through is unethical. And unscrupulous. And right in character for our soon-to-be-ousted VM”.

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Stacy Antine Healthbarn Founder and Ridgewood Manager Roberta Sonenfeld are Classmates, friends

Bergen LEADS class of 2010 picture

May 18,2016

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Bergen LEADS class of 2010 picture.  Stacy Antine and Roberta Sonenfeld.  Classmates, friends, united in their efforts to stick it to Ridgewood. Perhaps this explains why Healthbarn is asking Ridgewood residents to forward there emails to Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld?

From the Healthbarn website ; Stacey Antine is a registered dietitian who holds a Master’s of Science in Food, Nutrition and Dietetics from New York University.  Alarmed by the long list of lifestyle diseases (obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc.) faced by children today, she founded HealthBarn USA to connect children to natural foods and where they come from. Expanding her commitment to help families eat healthier, she started HealthBarn Foundation and it’s first project Healing Meals, a food gifting program for ill children with cancer and serious blood disorders and their families.

 

 

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Did the Village Council violate the Village Code by hiring Matthews prior to creating the position?

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file photo by Boyd Loving
There are two questions. 1. Was an HR director necessary when the Village Manager is supposed to manage this function as part of her $150K salary? 2. Did the Village Council violate the Village Code by hiring Matthews prior to creating the position.

The answer to (1) is open for debate. Some agree. Others don’t.
The answer to (2) is unequivocal – the code was violated, and the VC was well aware that they barreled ahead without following the letter of the law.

Yes, Paul, the system is broken. And you deliberately broke it.

The question is WHY? What was the big hurry? Why not get things straight before hiring someone? Why all the subterfuge?

Thank you Mike Sedon and Susan Knudsen for standing up to your law-breaking colleagues on the Council. At least we can be proud that 40% of our elected officials follow the laws they were hired to observe.

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Readers say Village hiring rules broken

Village_Manager_Roberta_Sonenfeld_theridgewoodblog
file photo by Boyd Loving

“The intent of the ordinance,” Sonenfeld said, was to clean up the language in the code “to reflect what is and has been reality.”

What a load of BS. Clean up the lanugage in the code? Come on, Roberta, do you think that we concerned citizens of this town are stupid? You hired for a position that did not exist. The Council knew you were doing this, and two objected. You did not care, because you had the vote of the threesome in your pocket, so you knew that the hiring would go through. Your “clean up” statement is clearly intended to imply that this was along-standing discrepancy, instead of a very recent discrepancy that you intentionally created in order to hire Ms. Matthews.

Paul – The system is not broken, I agree with you on this.. The system is fine. You and your buddies bent the rules, broke them in half. But the system that is in place is fine. If only you and Albert and Gwenn and Roberta had respect for the law.

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Ridgewood High School Teen LEADers present findings

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Ridgewood High School Teen LEADers present findings

JUNE 10, 2014    LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 2014, 3:53 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER

They’ve navigated the corridors of the county jail, tested the acumen of top-flight health care professionals and even grilled Bergen’s top executive with an assortment of questions.

But for the 20 students who made up the inaugural Ridgewood High School (RHS) Teen LEADS class, the most difficult assignment over the past eight months was to formulate answers to a question that has puzzled this municipality for years: How can civic participation in Ridgewood be improved?

Last Wednesday, the group of mostly RHS sophomores and juniors presented their findings of a months-long project addressing that question, which was personally issued by Mayor Paul Aronsohn last fall. Their research into local government was far from the typical “how a bill becomes a law” examination – their work included lengthy studies of a decade’s worth of election results, original surveys issued to village residents and an analysis of the raw data that was gathered.

“I’m impressed with how this turned out,” Aronsohn told the students. “This was an idea, and we didn’t know what it would look like [at the conclusion]. It took courage and vision, and you really made this happen.”

Teen LEADS is a spin-off of the original Bergen LEADS, a county-wide civic leadership program for adults. Bergen LEADS was created in 2007 by members of the Volunteer Center of Bergen County, who fashioned lessons learned from the larger Leadership New Jersey seminar into a local curriculum.

Among the many Bergen LEADS graduates is Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, who was one of the main driving forces that brought the LEADS program to RHS. Sonenfeld also highlighted the support of RHS Principal Tom Gorman, club coordinator and sociology teacher Jenna Wilson and Bergen LEADS co-director Lynne Algrant.

Over the past year, the students participated in on-site classes, meeting with Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli at the county jail in Hackensack and speaking with doctors at The Valley Hospital. In addition to meeting with Ridgewood’s mayor on Government Day, the LEADS class spent time with Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan.

“This is such a superb first class. This class would not let Donovan go, and they challenged her,” Sonenfeld said. “For those of us who are passionate about LEADS, this has been great, and we had a great first class.”

Ridgewood’s Teen LEADS, the only one of its kind in the county, was tested as a pilot program over this past school year and received funding from the Volunteer Center and the Ridgewood Education Foundation. Entry into the program was based on student applications, and the same methods will be used to grant entry to those wishing to participate next year.

Gorman indicated that school officials will consider introducing LEADS as a full-time class after the 2014-15 year. And once the test period at RHS is completed, Bergen LEADS volunteers hope to expand the teen program to other high schools.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/clubs-and-service-organizations/ridgewood-high-school-teen-leaders-present-findings-1.1032721#sthash.8wuK2sKa.dpuf