To all of you who think we should move on….you are dead wrong. We learn from the past. Harwin was heavily funded by her own grand fortune and the money of many out-of-towners. And even if Hauck, Pucciarelli, and Aronsohn’s names are not on the donor list, they were outspoken advocates for her. She was nasty, beyond nasty, racist, divisive. She sanctioned that horrific mailing from Hans Lehmann. She was a disaster. We must never forget that she tried so hard and spent so much. Thrilled that she lost, but still, she did get a bunch of votes.
SUGGESTION TO MS. HARWYN: You are probably a very nice person. You are clearly a very educated person. So let me offer you some practical advice – GET OUT NOW. Having the backing of Halaby, Hauck, Pucciarelli, Sonenfeld, Voigt and Aronsohn is going to be lethal to your career. Your candidacy is already tainted beyond repair with their poison ink. But your career as an attorney could be destroyed if you are keeping company with those who have ethics violations, harrassment complaints, etc on their dossiers.
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!!!
Ridgewood NJ, looks like Ridgewood residents who questioned the over development of the central business district proved right all along. A state appeals panel overturned a court order that could have added thousands of units to developers’ plans.
Suburban towns are not required to address the so-called “backlog” of unmet housing needs that supposedly accumulated from 1999-2015. This is a very good development for Ridgewood. The developers have much less leverage than they thought they did. Now we have to press the point that we are fully built-out, have been for decades, and should not be obliged by any court to “build up”, city-style, to accommodate large numbers of new residents.
What a shame for Saraceno, Simoncini, Pucciarelli and all the others that stood to gain big time and pushed so hard to get all that housing into the CBD. Kudos to,the citizens who delayed all the development and stood up to Aronsohn and his horrible reign of terror, and Gwenn with her sparkly eyed talk about COAH.
Ridgewood NJ, Some of us are having trouble understanding what appear to be a contradiction in the actions and statements of Mayor Aronsohn, Deputy Mayor Pucciarelli, and Councilwoman Hauck. For the record, I pointed this out twice at public meetings (which did not result in an explanation of the discrepancy), and recently wrote to each of them for clarification (none replied).
In January of 2014, all three of them seemed pretty adamant that they did not want to violate the Village Code by hiring anyone into a position that did not exist (in that case, it was police officer positions in excess of the stated limit). Quotes from the Minutes of the 01/29/2014 meeting include the following:
Mayor Aronsohn pointed out that the most important question to be answered is whether the Village is now in violation of what is permitted by the ordinance as far as police hires are concerned. Mayor Aronsohn commented that the concerns are twofold: one is that the Village would not be in compliance with its own law, leading to the question of how to remedy that situation;
Councilwoman Hauck sees the current problem as an administrative problem and how it would appear if the ordinance were changed to facilitate an administrative error. She suggested that it might be better to wait until the next round of Police Academy candidates graduate, and hire new police officers in July. That would avoid being in violation of Village Code. Councilwoman Hauck said she feels uneasy about amending the current ordinance in order to bring people in prematurely.
Councilman Pucciarelli said that….for him, the issue is law enforcement, and the Village must obey its own laws.
How, then, do these statements fit in with their more recent actions regarding the hiring of a Human Resources Director (or Confidential Secretary, Senior Personnel Assistant, Senior Human Resources Professional or whatever the job title turned out to be) prior to the creation of this position and its official inclusion in the Village Code? It seemed that in January of 2014 they were determined to follow the letter of the law, whereas in the this situation they decided it was acceptable to completely disregard the Village Code, and then re-write it after doing so.
Certainly the creation of an HR position was not an emergency, and due process could have been followed to first create the position and have it officially entered into the Village Code, and then to advertise the job and hire the appropriate person. Our elected officials are put into office with a clear expectation that they will uphold the laws of our Village, in addition to their other duties. It strikes me that in the case of this Human Resources position, they openly disregarded their own law, even when such was being pointed out to them by Councilman Sedon, Councilwoman Knudsen, and various members of the public. No matter how badly they wanted a Human Resources person, the end does not justify the means. We have a set of laws and procedures, and we expect our elected officials to follow them.
Until the Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Councilwoman Hauck clearly state why they acted one way in one instance, and quite the opposite in this instance, we taxpayers will be left feeling very uneasy.
Reader says Mayor’s letter to the Editor is complete and total bull
This editorial is so well written that you could almost believe it……except that those of us who know him and his sneaky techniques are well aware that it is complete and total bullshit.
He and his two buddies have been nasty, then contrite, then well-behaved, then nasty again, then contrite again….it is just a ridiculous cycle. If there had been one incident of incivility from Aronsohn and Pucciarelli and Hauck, then maybe this stupid editorial would be believable. But this has been a repetitive cycle that never ends, just that right now the mayor is in the contrite phase. The pendulum will swing again, just wait.
This can be compared to spousal abuse in some ways, where the violent person is so very sorry and swears never to do it again…..until the next time. Their repeated behavior from the dais has brought the outspoken outrage of many, many citizens, not just the few hard-core residents who regularly go to the meetings. There have been long lines of people at some Village Council meetings, waiting to go to the microphone and express their disgust with the INCIVILITY of these three elected officials. And, we have also seen and heard such nasty language off the record from them, in the hallways, after the videocameras go off, even during encounters outside of Village Hall. We know you three read the blog incessantly, and you know what incidents of verbal violence you have been involved in. And, in one instance that I know off, a bystander videotaped a certain someone screaming at a village resident.
And regarding the crime (in my opinion it was a crime) against Mike Sedon, the three of them NEVER, not once EVER showed any outrage about that. It was horrifying how they just ignored it. If a couple of citizens had not pushed for an investigation, it never would have gotten underway. Mayor Aronsohn should have used his connections to push push PUSH for answers as to who sent that despicable email to Mike’s employer. He should have left no stone unturned until answers were clearly revealed. This makes it seem pretty obvious that the stones could not be turned, because lurking under one of them is the guilty party. And all indications are that it is someone who had a vested interest in keeping Mr Sedon off the ballot (and he and Ms. Knudsen won by a LANDSLIDE while a certain elected official fumed in the hallway, making a cell call during which outrage over Albano’s loss was clearly and loudly stated).
So, sorry Mayor Paul, your editorial might make you feel all pumped up and proud, but we see it for what it is, empty words from a nasty man.
