the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Critical issues remain before the BCIA can be engaged on this new, unknown plan. The village and residents have much hard work still to do. The November vote, and the mandate to borrow applied to a plan that is no longer is on the table.
This garage will be operate under different circumstances due to the county funding, the out of town commuting load will likely be higher than the village has detailed. Our outdated and antiquated traffic signals cannot handle traffic as it is. Has the village shown any financial information to residents for this funding? The village and county will be asking us to be investors in this multi-million dollar project and we would like more information on all aspects. The village still has a ways to go on the items it has promised. The residents need time to make a smart investment decision with our tax money on this new and unknown plan.
Even though the council hasn’t answered the question, I understand that the additional cost by going through the BCIA rather than using our own AAA credit rating (the best available and higher than the US Govt at one point) will cost the town an additional 1.5-2%.
Everyone who has likely shopped their mortgage around when buying their home in order to eliminate .5 point. This council, who likely did the same for their own home purchase, is apparently willing to throw away 3-4x that amount of our money rather than have a discussion about a more appropriate solution. We could then finance ourselves and have no input from a county authority that would expect something in return for the privilege of using their inferior cost of capital!
I’m not sure how that qualifies as a rational decision in anyone’s book.