January 13,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , Discrepancies in the interpretative statement and contradictory statements made by Various Council members served only to confuse voters and obfuscate the council majority’s intentions.
Readers have echoed “The electorate was also PROMISED that the sign and scale could be negotiated. The electorate was lied to and misled. Furthermore, there is not disagreement on funding so why go to BCIA? only to get the design the three want…how is that reasonable??”
Other readers repeated the sentiment, “the electorate voted for a garage in a “Non-Binding Referendum”.The actual vote for the bond failed 3-2. That was the only vote that was binding. ”
While most who spoke at the Council meeting on January 6th , believed there was some measures were needed to ease peak parking issues in the Central Business District (CBD) most of the 100 plus people who showed at the meeting came to the conclusion that a super sized garage was an over kill.
The crux of the misinformation issue circled around the fact that the garage is built into Hudson street . Jetting out at least 10 feet into the street. That is not building a garage on the lot. Many felt they voted for a garage on the lot. Not street.
While others thought that the council majority , “grossly and intentionally withheld the information that it was on the street.” While other who spoke cited example after example where council members contradicted each other or gave what was later on perceived as misleading information .
