Tag: Machine politics

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Amazing Without Aronsohn, Pucciarelli, and Hauck and now Roberta the New Ridgewood Council accomplished volumes

3 amigos in action Ridgewood NJ
September 8,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood bog
Ridgewood NJ, Aronsohn, Pucciarelli, and Hauck often referred to Roberta as a “breath of fresh air,” even though clearly the air around her became increasingly foul as her (thankfully) short time in the job progressed.  Now that she has resigned and been escorted out of Village Hall, things are really running well.  We have Heather Mailander in the manager’s seat.  She is so capable, so professional, and she does her job without interjecting her opinion as if she were a 6th council member and without looking at Chris R and Janet F for affirmation every time she speaks.

We have a five-person council who are all independent thinkers, are polite, considerate, and they don’t interrupt each other at meetings.  They are actually prepared for meetings (well, Susan and Mike always were, but now they are joined by three more who are equally informed and have done their homework).  Now more nonsense like we used to have with Albert pontificating about anything and everything just to hear himself speak, and Gwenn reading from her ipad something that someone else wrote, and Paul furiously texting with Paul Vaggianos (yes, we witnessed this many times) during meetings and then giving us the doe-in-the-headlights look while saying “transparency, transparency, transparency.”

This new Council has been in place just since July 1, but so far they have accomplished volumes including that they:

1. are going to lengthen the time for public comments.

2. are respectful of members of the public who come to speak

3. overturned the much-hated Ordinance 3066

4. stopped the ridiculous Van Neste proposal

5. are going to prevent puppy-mill and kitten-mill animals from being sold in Ridgewood

6. are looking at many (and reasonable) ways to improve and increase the parking

7. are saving the Schedler House

8. will be putting grant money (hopefully) towards remediating Kings Pond

9. will be repealing the illegal ordinance that tried to prevent people from videotaping public meetings (put in place because hot-headed Aronsohn got caught getting nasty at an HPC meeting)

10. have hired a new Planning Board attorney (ok, so the VC didn’t do this, but it is yet another wonderful new development)

11. will be lowering the overkill lighting at Habernickel Park to be consistent with other parks and in response to the neighbors’ legitimate concerns about this ridiculous flood lighting

12. discovered that the extraordinarily cumbersome and confusing leaf collection process that Roberta put in place was based, in part, on a 7-day rule that has not been effective for a couple of years.  So now they are putting a smooth and simple leaf collection schedule up and we can stop hearing about “no leaf left behind.”

13. will be revising the prohibition of parking on Pomander Walk, which is discriminatory and was put in place to serve Gwenn’s friends on that street.

Wow, how much has been accomplished and all with a pleasant and civil atmosphere.  Way to go Susan, Mike, Ramon, Jeff and Bernie!!!
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Reader says We should memorialize Hudson Garage caper with a village plaque to hubris and for the future generations

Village of Ridgewood : Van Neste Memorial Park "Revival" project

We should memorialize this caper with a village plaque to hubris and for the future generations to Trust but first Verify.Could have turned out quite differently without the hard and determined efforts to overcome those developers and some whom they called to dance to their opportunistic tune.

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Reader sums up Ridgewood Village Manager’s situation : “She has to go “

Roberta

I think Ms. Sonenfield mistakenly and foolishly assumed that her Party’s machine was too strong to be challenged, let alone be defeated, by a bunch of mere ordinary residents. When you are so neck deep in machine politics, you sometime do end up making such delusional assumptions.

Whatever her abilities, there should be NO place for a village employee who so openly and blatantly aligns herself with one set of political leaders.

There is NO way her name could have been so openly and repeatedly used in their campaign absent her approval.

She made her bed, now it is time to lay down in it. She has to go.

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Fight the soulless juggernaut: Big money, machine politics and the real issue separating Sanders and Clinton

Hillary Clinton

Democrats face a stark choice: A money-mad, scandal-plagued establishment, or the potential of decency and change

CAMILLE PAGLIA

Despite Bernie Sanders being tied with her for pledged delegates after last weekend’s Nevada caucuses, the media herd has anointed Hillary Clinton yet again as the inevitable Democratic nominee.  Superdelegates, those undemocratic figureheads and goons of the party establishment, are by definition unpledged and fluid and should never be added to the official column of any candidate until the national convention. To do so is an amoral tactic of intimidation that affects momentum and gives backstage wheeling and dealing primacy over the will of the electorate.  Why are the media so servilely complicit with Clinton-campaign propaganda and trickery?

Democrats face a stark choice this year.  A vote for the scandal-plagued Hillary is a resounding ratification of business as usual–the corrupt marriage of big money and machine politics, practiced by the Clintons with the zest of Boss Tweed, the gluttonous czar of New York’s ruthless Tammany Hall in the 1870s.  What you also get with Hillary is a confused hawkish interventionism that has already dangerously destabilized North Africa and the Mideast.  This is someone who declared her candidacy on April 12, 2015 via an email and slick video and then dragged her feet on making a formal statement of her presidential policies and goals until her pollsters had slapped together a crib list of what would push the right buttons.  This isn’t leadership; it’s pandering.

https://www.salon.com/2016/02/25/fight_the_soulless_juggernaut_big_money_machine_politics_and_the_real_issue_separating_sanders_and_clinton/

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Paul Aronsohn has closed their account and is no longer accepting donations…..but he sure did rack ’em up for awhile!

menendez_at_REORG_theridgewoodblog
file photo by Boyd Loving
October 1,2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Just a small town guy…ya know, one of “us”…Ridgewood NJ, I don’t believe any other mayoral candidate in the history of Ridgewood has received one cent from the Teamsters, United Auto Workers or SEIU…..especially those interested solely in “volunteering” for this “thanksless” job……that’s alot of “thanks” in my book…where’d it go when the coffers slammed shut on the dead campaign’s war chest?

from Paularonsohn.com….
Paul Aronsohn has closed their account and is no longer accepting donations…..but he sure did rack ’em up for awhile!

https://www.fec.gov/press/press2008/20080912murs.shtml
Paul Aronsohn for Congress and Paul Aronsohn acknowledge violation of “testing-the-waters” provisions
In MUR 5693, Paul Aronsohn for Congress, the principal campaign committee for Paul Aronsohn’s 2006 campaign in New Jersey’s 5th Congressional district, and Mr. Aronsohn entered into a conciliation agreement with the FEC regarding violations of reporting requirements in the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). During 2005 Paul Aronsohn’s activities crossed the line from testing the waters into candidate status when he sent a solicitation letter indicating he had decided to run for federal office. However, Mr. Aronsohn and his campaign committee failed to register with the FEC and file a year-end financial report in 2005, as required by the FECA. In the conciliation agreement Mr. Aronsohn and the committee agreed to pay a civil penalty of $6,500.

https://www.heritage.org/research/commentary/2010/10/npr-political-donations-raise-questions
All of the donations supported Democrats. Besides Obama and Clinton, two other contributions supported Democrat Paul Aronsohn, who lost his race against Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) in 2006,

https://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/colbert_bump.pdf
Aronsohn, Paul S. NJ-5 9/21/06 68 $ 46,113

https://theridgewoodblog.net/readers-voice-concern-over-weakening-of-residency-requirements/

The Mayor received massive campaign contributions from unions  :

Paul Aronsohn (D)Political Action Committee Total Contributed
Teamsters Union $10,000.00
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $10,000.00
United Auto Workers $6,500.00
Carpenters & Joiners Union $5,000.00
American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $5,000.00
National Air Traffic Controllers Assn $5,000.00
Sheet Metal Workers Union $5,000.00
Laborers Union $3,500.00
AFL-CIO $2,661.00
American Federation of Teachers $2,500.00
Operating Engineers Local 825 $2,500.00
NJ Plumbers/Pipefitters Union Local 475 $1,000.00
Service Employees International Union $1,000.00
Plumbers/Pipefitters Union Local 274 $1,000.00
Plumbers/Pipefitters Union Local 9 $500.00

https://www.bluejersey.com/tag/NJ5/10
According to an April 14th electronic filing with the FEC, Paul Aronsohn for Congress raised nearly $214,000 in the first quarter of 2006. The filing, which was signed by campaign manager Parisa Sabeti, makes official the contributions which had been rumored in excess of $200,000. After expenditures, the Aronsohn campaign had $135,125.31 cash on-hand.
Paul Aronsohn (D)
Raised: $214,005
Spent:  $78,879
Cash on hand:  $135,125
Last Report:  3/31/2006

Arohsohn uses JAMBOREE MAILING LIST for political purposes????
https://theridgewoodblog.net/reader-unloads-on-candidate-paul-aronsohn/

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Readers say This really smacks of something underhanded. The position was created through unofficial channels This whole thing does not pass the smell test.

Village_Manager_Roberta_Sonenfeld_theridgewoodblog

file photo by Boyd Loving

Just watched the UStream. I count four titles for this one job. 1. senior Personnel Assistant. 2. director of Human Resources. 3. Senior Human Resources Professional. 4. confidential Secretary to the Village Manager. The way they were getting testy with Bernie really gave the appearance that they were hiding something. Roberta was tap dancing all around, Albert went onto his high horse and said he was not in a deposition. Susan stayed the course and asked them what the name of the job is as of that moment. Roberta actually asked her “do,you mean as of today?” This whole thing does not pass the smell test.

Thank you Bernie. Just watched the UStream. Fascinating. The hired this person through a non-competitive position (confidential secretary) but then promoted her to a competitived position (Director) . . . what the heck is going on? Sure sounds like someone is playing very loose in Village Hall and we, the residents, are going to pay for it when the Village gets sued.

And thank you Susan for asking the difficult questions . . . “What is the name of this position as of today”? I almost died laughing when you asked that and Roberta couldn’t answer.

This really smacks of something underhanded. The position was created through unofficial channels. The person was hired before the job actually existed. Roberta defended her actions by saying this was all just a cleanup of an existing condition. Wrong. It did not exist until she created it last year. She tried to act like this was a long standing contradiction and it is not. She made this Jo and then she got the law changed. This was not an emergency. Why. Pinot follow official channels and get the Code changed before posting the job opening? Seems that this was slipped though under the radar, but thanks to Mike, Susan, Bernie and a couple of others, the radar detectors started squawking.

Make this right Ms. Sonenfeld. better yet, make it right Mr. mayor. This is outright government corruption as it stands now.