Reader says anyone who defends the status quo Parking Meters here can only be a part of the problem.
…and how amy millions will the new parking meters cost? with the added bonus of tracking residents shopping and parking habits via credit card use. Way to go. — How about: 1) get all of the stolen money back 2) implement REAL security for the quarters – not just toss them in a open buckets in an unguarded closet. New security measures have already been put into place which make future thefts much more difficult – so why do we need to spend millions on new parking meters?
So your argument is “let’s not install smart meters that will avoid any slippage for villagers” ? What kind of a Luddite are you ? New meters might threaten the long standing tradition of municipal employees stealing quarters to pay for personal entertainment or help with the mortgage or money launder it through AC, so let’s protest against them? Sorry , anyone who defends the status quo here can only be a part of the problem. We’re not falling for it.
Outsource to a company that performs this kind of service . ( check the net) They are bonded. Have the Signal Bureau employees go back to the work they were trained for. If we check the amount of man-hours for these people to collect the coins figure their pay pension and medical against what a company would charges us maybe THE BREATH OF FRESH AIR MANAGER could give the council and more importantly the taxpayers the feeling that something is being done.
Reader says All this speculation about Parking Money Collection is for naught
The simplest explanation is most likely right Occam’s razor (or Ockham’s razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the simpler one is usually better. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation is. Occam’s razor applies especially in the philosophy of science, but also more generally.
The most useful statement of the principle for scientists is
“when you have two competing theories that make exactly the same predictions, the simpler one is the better.”
All this speculation is for naught, the plain fact is the town was more concerned with getting money back than jailing this loser. When Hemmer stole over a hundred thousand dollars from the Ridgewood PBA coffers, his father paid the money back and he didn’t go to jail either. A meter man got caught falsifying summonses and got charged accordingly but got probation instead of jail. It’s within the prosecutors authority, with consent of the presiding judge to make plea deals and sentencing recommendations end of story all other conjecture is BS.
Ridgewood seeks new way to collect coins from parking meters after massive theft
SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2014, 12:20 AM BY CHRIS HARRIS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
It is situated next to a women’s bathroom, across the hall from a senior citizens lounge, and sits behind a nondescript door most would assume opens to utility storage.
But this is no closet.
Thousands of coins extracted from Ridgewood’s parking meters are stored in this little, elongated room on the first floor of Village Hall. It’s where Thomas Rica of Hawthorne, a former public works inspector, methodically stole $460,000 in coins — sneaking in and out of the room undetected for two years, between 2011 and 2013.
Today, Ridgewood’s now-infamous “coin room” is on lockdown. Security inside and around the room has been enhanced. Even the coins themselves are protected inside — secured within heavy canisters as opposed to being packed loosely in open cans, giving Rica a perfect opportunity to swipe fistfuls of quarters. And a villagewide audit of the collection and storage methods of all municipal monetary transactions is under way, local officials said.
But despite those reforms, the village’s method of collecting parking meter coins — in open containers that occasionally spill into the street — is still archaic. It’s a system that one resident warned village officials about in an email several years ago, before the discovery of Rica’s theft. And it’s a system that several nearby municipalities, including Westwood, Paterson and Passaic, abandoned years ago.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2014, 12:20 AM BY CHRIS HARRIS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
It is situated next to a women’s bathroom, across the hall from a senior citizens lounge, and sits behind a nondescript door most would assume opens to utility storage.
But this is no closet.
Thousands of coins extracted from Ridgewood’s parking meters are stored in this little, elongated room on the first floor of Village Hall. It’s where Thomas Rica of Hawthorne, a former public works inspector, methodically stole $460,000 in coins — sneaking in and out of the room undetected for two years, between 2011 and 2013.
Today, Ridgewood’s now-infamous “coin room” is on lockdown. Security inside and around the room has been enhanced. Even the coins themselves are protected inside — secured within heavy canisters as opposed to being packed loosely in open cans, giving Rica a perfect opportunity to swipe fistfuls of quarters. And a villagewide audit of the collection and storage methods of all municipal monetary transactions is under way, local officials said.
But despite those reforms, the village’s method of collecting parking meter coins — in open containers that occasionally spill into the street — is still archaic. It’s a system that one resident warned village officials about in an email several years ago, before the discovery of Rica’s theft. And it’s a system that several nearby municipalities, including Westwood, Paterson and Passaic, abandoned years ago.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/ridgewood-seeks-new-way-to-collect-coins-from-parking-meters-after-massive-theft-1.1092781#sthash.bh0PHIBl.dpuf
Readers Continue to Push for More Answers on Meter Thief
If you have any information relating to the theft of money relating to the Village of Ridgewood meter revenues please contact John L. Molinelli, Bergen County Prosecutor at:
10 Main Street Hackensack, NJ 07601 Mon-Fri (201) 646-2300 After Hours (201) 646-2700
All information received will be held in the strictest confidence.
Reader says who has time to look? We’re too busy making money and driving our kids to soccer practice
All but a few old-timers and insiders know what really goes on inside the Village Hall. For most people, Ridgewood is a place you live while your kids go through school, after which you sell up and move out. It’s quite a transient community. An affluent town. Lovely houses. We wave at our neighbors and have cocktails and BBQs. We are a pretty sophisticated bunch, mostly wrapped up in the lives of our kids and the long, stressful hours we put in at some big corporation. We have this natural impression that all our fellow Ridgewoodians are the same. Sophisticated.
That nice looking Village Hall is not staffed and managed by people like you. Just because Ridgewood has that Norman Rockwell image, does not mean it’s run by Norman Rockwell types. These people know all too well that the typical Ridgewood resident is blasting through life full speed and living a very comfortable life, to pay attention to the nepotism, insider perks and the feasting at the trough of what these residents pay in the form of taxes, fees, and yes, parking meter coins.
Hey, who has time to look? We’re too busy making money and driving our kids to soccer practice.
10 Year Old Ryan Leo Kamm asks ,How did coin thief get away?
Leo many in Ridgewood continue to wonder that same thing , the Village had for many year rejected modernizing its parking meters and even after a $40 million dollar renovation to the Ridgewood train station the old fashioned coin operated meters remained intact .Past mentions of upgrading parking meters were met with fallacious and hostile comments on this blog .
Ridgewood Parking Problems: oh those new fangled meters will never work here
Regarding “Crime pays” (Editorials, July 11):The editorial says that Thomas Rica stole $460,000 in quarters. According to my math, that’s 1,840,000 quarters.
I am only 10 years old, but I am wondering: If Rica stole 23,000 pounds in quarters, how could he walk out of a building carrying that amount with no pickup trucks available — even if he did it over several years — without being detected?
Reader says crime really does pay in Bergen County
Wow, crime really does pay in Bergen County. He just got off with no jail time, a “sorry”, and his initial downpayment was only $64,337.55, not the $69,000 agreed to in the initial plea deal. The check was handed to the Bergen County prosecutor, not any Village representative. How do we know we get the check ?
The deal calls for Rica, who also forfeited his $30,000 pension and $8,000 accumulated leave, to pay the village $2,000 a month for five years, for a total of $120,000. Ridgewood will also keep $4,000 it seized during a search of Rica’s home following his arrest.
That puts Rica’s restitution at $226,000, of which he’s only paying back $184,337.55; the rest comes from his forfeited pension and accumulated leave, and the $4,000 (16,000 quarters) seized during his arrest. He stole over $460,000, so the Village is out here $234,000.
How is this justice for the Village ? How did this guy get such a sweetheart deal ? Where are the other arrests if he did have leverage ? I hope the Record and Ridgewood News and the Village Council have answers for us.
One reader says let’s do the math;
$460,000 over 25 months
25 months = 760 days
760 minus weekends = 544 days
544 days minus paid holidays = 524 days
524 days minus 3 weeks vacation = 494 days of work in 25 months
1.8 million quarters divided by 494 days = 3643 quarters per day!
If $100 in quarters equals 5 lbs, then $1000 = 50 lbs,
then 3643= approx 180 POUNDS PER DAY!!
But feel free to check my math.
Either way, this is WAY too much to be a one person job!
but some differ in their mathematical
To put this in perspective, and bearing in mind that $100 in quarters weighs 5 pounds, taking $460,000 in quarters requires carrying 31.5 pounds out of the building every single day. If he didn’t go to work on weekends or holidays, and was there 250 days per year, he’d have to carry out 46 pounds a day. If he missed a day, he’d have to carry out over 90 pounds, more than a sack of cement. You don’t put that in your pants pockets and converting that many quarters to cash would be a full time job by itself.
most think that he didnt act alone
I don’t think he took 12 tons of quarters. He stole some, and others stole some too.He got caught, and copped to it once he knew he wouldn’t go to jail. The trick will be watching his finances to see where he gets the money to pay it back. My guess is he will be getting lots of bank envelopes full of cash from various people over the next few years.
Ridgewood News Editorial: Coin caper calls for change
MARCH 28, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2014, 12:32 AM
A former public works inspector’s admission to the brazen theft of approximately 1.8 million quarters is troubling on many fronts. As The Record detailed last week, the effort to make off with what amounted to more than $460,000 in coins is astounding.
MARCH 28, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2014, 12:32 AM
Village should be accountable as well
Kira Semler
To the editor:
With regard to the article “1.8 million quarters to be paid back” (The Ridgewood News, March 21, page A1), what is most shocking and appalling about this entire caper is that the Village of Ridgewood takes no responsibility whatsoever for this theft.
Obviously, a person or persons on the staff in the financial department was equally as culpable for this missing money. What was that person or persons doing while this guy was pocketing quarters?
What are the taxpayers of the Village of Ridgewood supposed to think about this? Are they supposed to trust the financial department personnel to be doing their jobs? This is a flagrant miscarriage of professional and fiduciary duties by the staff of the financial department of the Village of Ridgewood.
Readers divided over No-jail plea deal for Ridgewood coin thief
I suspect that during the course of the investigation, it became evident that others were helping themselves to the coins. Whether Rica himself provided this information or not, it might be a case of the prosecutor wanting to keep this additional thievery out of the public domain as it would certainly have surfaced had Rica gone to trial. This was probably the crux of the no-jailtime plea deal. Even if Rica was the only thief, a trial would have brought up a lot of information about supervisors not carrying out written control procedures.
and some think …
If he gets charged with a federal charge…say tax evasion, then if he is convicted, a judge could impose paying back the $480,000 as part of sentencing. If that happens, then filing bankruptcy does not allow him to discharge that debt.
I am not sure if the state statutes allow him to file a bankruptcy if part of his sentence is to pay back the money.
Also, if he had ‘info’ on others as the original post stated, then he wouldn’t be sentenced until AFTER he testifies so I’m thinking he doesn’t have anything on anyone else in the Village. He just got a great once-in-a-lifetime deal due to a very good lawyer.
Readers says Light sentence implies Mr. Rica is in possession of information that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office views as invaluable
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Mr. Rica is in possession of information that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office views as invaluable. Perhaps information pertaining to others who were stealing parking meter revenues, and/or information about miscellaneous shenanigans at Village Hall, and/or information about the illicit activity to which the money was being funneled (I personally don’t buy his story that the money was used to help out with family expenses) . The public outcry associated with his receipt of a light sentence will certainly make it difficult for prosecutors to ask for harsh sentences going forward unless there are special circumstances associated with Mr. Rica’s case (that is, he’s dropping the dime on a fish bigger than he is).
No-jail plea deal for Ridgewood coin thief dismays officials
MARCH 23, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, MARCH 23, 2014, 9:52 AM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Questions are being raised over the plea deal with a former Ridgewood official who was convicted of stealing nearly a half-million dollars in parking meter quarters but is likely to be spared any jail time.
“It’s startling to see that type of plea bargain,” said defense attorney Frank Lucianna, of the deal given to Thomas Rica of Hawthorne. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”
The deal, which was orchestrated by the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office and Rica’s attorney, Robert Galantucci, calls for the former Ridgewood public-works inspector to receive five years’ probation when he is sentenced June 6. Rica also will have to repay the $460,000 in parking meter quarters he stole over a two-year period.
The proposed sentence also caught village officials off-guard.
In a statement, Mayor Paul Aronsohn said that “the Prosecutor’s Office was clear with us that this was their investigation and their decision, and that we had no say in the matter.”
Aronsohn added: “We were surprised and disappointed that he wasn’t going to get jail time, but I appreciate the prosecutor’s determination to recoup all of the money stolen from Ridgewood taxpayers.”
USA Today: 5 craziest crimes of the week Ridgewood Scores Number One
Editors, NewserA most unusual municipal theft and a mailman with a criminally bad work ethic make this week’s list:
Jersey official steals $460K … in quarters: Last year, the public works inspector in Ridgewood, N.J., got caught stealing $500 in quarters from the room where the village dumped its parking-meter coins. To say that’s not the half of it doesn’t even come close. Turns out, Thomas Rica stole taken $460,000 over two years—in the simplest of ways.
Cops: Lazy mailman trashed 1K letters, packages: If you never got grandma’s Christmas card and happen to live on Long Island, this might explain things: A mail carrier threw more than a thousand pieces of mail into garbage bins along his Massapequa and Seaford route.
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