June 15,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ,a reader challenged us on the recent blog article , “There was much ADO about the Pride Flag in Ridgewood “,https://theridgewoodblog.net/there-was-much-ado-about-the-pride-flag-in-ridgewood/ .
“I’m happy Ridgewood chose to fly the flag, but the basis of your article was not about the flag or why it is so important to so many, and how it might be a teaching opportunity about equality, fairness and just ‘not being an asshole’ tearing down another to raise yourself up. The point of your article appears to be that Ridgewood is great and Glen Rock is not. Kind of an asshole article, tearing down one town that has no dog in the Ridgewood debate, to attempt to elevate Ridgewood.”
Unfortunately there were a lot of ugly politics at play. The pride flag was being used as an attempt to undermine the Village of Ridgewood’s Mayor Susan Knudsen and several sitting council members. A group looking to put the previous council back in place used the pride flag to pressure the Ridgewood Village council by saying, look how great Glen Rock is ,they are wonderful and you are just a bunch of ignorant bigots .
The net result is many in Ridgewood felt they were being disparaged and it led to back lash which you see in that article . It is really not aimed at Glen Rock but at Alfred Doublin of the Bergen Record , Village Councilmen Jeff Voigt and members of CRAB , Jan Phillips as well as the former Ridgewood Mayor Paul Aronsohn . The unfortunate side effect or unintended consequence is an attack on Glen Rock and for that the Ridgewood blog would like to offer an apology to the Borough of Glen Rock and the Residents of Glen Rock. We did not in anyway mean to impune our neighbors ,who where simply caught in local Village political crossfire. Do not blame the Village , as editor and staff we should have made this far clearer in the article .
