Ridgewood police, fire departments present budget requests
MARCH 27, 2014 LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, MARCH 27, 2014, 3:35 PM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
Ridgewood police officials attribute the department’s proposed 7 percent spending increase, in part, to a spike in mandatory officer training and the imminent replacement of aging administration vehicles.
During a Village Council budget work session last week, Chief John Ward detailed the police department’s anticipated 2014 expenses contained within its $6.6 million budget. The heads of the fire and information technology departments also presented their individual budgets.
Photo credit: Boyd A. Loving 2-alarm fire guts Ridgewood barn
March 22,2014
Boyd A. Loving
7:31 PM
Ridgewood NJ, A barn located in the rear of a home at 122 Cottage Place Ridgewood was gutted by a 2-alarm fire that was reported by a passerby at approximately 6:45 PM on Saturday. The owners of the property were not home at the time Ridgewood fire fighters arrived and found the barn totally engulfed in flames. No injuries were reported. Fire officials at the scene could not provide an immediate cause of the blaze. Response by Ridgewood FD, Ridgewood PD, Ridgewood EMS, and Ridgewood Emergency Services personnel.
Photo credit: Boyd A. Loving One injured when SUV careens off Route 17 into snowbank
February 15,2013
Boyd A. Loving
10:28 PM
Ridgewood NJ , One person was injured and transported to The Valley Hospital following a 8:55 PM Saturday accident in which a Ford SUV traveling southbound on Route 17 in Ridgewood careened off the roadway and came to rest on top of a snowbank in front of 555 Route 17, South. The heavily damaged vehicle was freed from its perch by a flatbed tow truck, which removed it from the scene. The right lane of Route 17 was closed for approximately 60 minutes to facilitate accident investigation, vehicle removal, and debris clean up. Traffic moved freely through the area throughout the time. Ridgewood PD handled the accident investigation; Ridgewood EMS transported the victim by ambulance.
Photo credit: Boyd A. Loving Ridgewood firefighters work to free hydrants from deep, hard packed snow
Febuary 15th 2014
Boyd A. Loving
1:29 PM
Ridgewood NJ, Fire departments throughout Bergen County have dispatched firefighters with shovels to free fire hydrants from the mounds of deep, hard packed snow created when snowplows cleared main road and side streets. Here, a team of Ridgewood firefighters assigned to Engine Company #35 free up a hydrant located near the corner of Spring Avenue and Hope Street at the start of Saturday’s snow storm.
2 Toyota SUVs collide in pre Super Bowl Ridgewood Crash
February 2,2014
Boyd A. Loving
8:45 PM
Ridgewood NJ, A Toyota Highlander collided with a Toyota Sequoia at the intersection of North Walnut Street and Robinson Lane just prior to the Super Bowl kickoff on Sunday evening.
The Highlander’s driver was transported by ambulance to The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood with non life threatening neck & back injuries; the Sequoia’s driver was uninjured. The collision’s force propelled both vehicles head on into immovable objects; the Highlander wound up smashed into a utility pole and the Sequoia wedged against a large tree. Each car sustained heavy front end damage; both were removed by flatbed tow trucks. Air bags deployed in both vehicles during the crash. A stop sign was destroyed in the crash and the utility pole requires replacement.
RIdgewood FD personnel attended to a minor fluid spill resultant from the crash. One summons was issued in connection with the incident; police at the scene did not reveal its nature.
Flawed bid process will delay Maple Field cleanup in Ridgewood
TUESDAY DECEMBER 17, 2013, 10:32 AM
BY DARIUS AMOS
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The Ridgewood Council has rejected the lone bid it received for the Maple Park turf cleaning job, a move that will delay a much-needed procedure at one of the village’s most used fields.
According to a council resolution unanimously passed last week, the village will put the project back out for public bid because the initial bid process was declared flawed.
Mark was shown where he made a mistake in stating in a footnote that delegates from Vermont belatedly attended the constitutional convention in Philadelphia in 1787. In reality, Vermont was not even a state until 1791. Before that it was a disputed territory between New Hampshire and New York. So Vermonters were not asked to nor were they qualified to attend the Philadelphia convention. He gave his challenger no credit for reading his book carefully and bringing this non-trivial mistake to his attention. He then refused to sign the book on the page where the footnote appeared and showed distinct signs of impatience and annoyance when he opened the front of the book and began to sign it.
At this point, Mark was challenged about Cruz’s eligiblity. But the challenge did not happen as Mark said it did. The challenger asked this: “Under what possible definition of the term natural-born Citizen does your friend Ted Cruz qualify to be president?” At this same time the challenger placed an annotated copy of an earlier TheRidgewoodBlog posting repeating CNN’s recent article questioning Cruz’s eligibility, and was pointing at the document. After cursing at the challenger , Mark replied: “I never said he was a natural-born Citizen.”, upon which his challenger said: “But you must be a natural-born Citizen to be President!”. Mark then said: “No you don’t!”, and the challenger said “Yes, you do. Read the Constitution.” Levin was showing no signs of changing his tune. The challenger then turned around and left the booksigning. There was no time during any of this dialogue for Mark to ruminate on the challenger’s motivations or talk about Canada or Cruz’s mother or anything like what he said on his Radio program
Readers asks Why is Heather A. Mailander capable enough to fill in but not to actually be appointed to the position
Why is she capable enough to fill in but not to actually be appointed to the position. Another woman running a dept and not being recognized. She is better than Gabbert and Ten Hoeve
Heather Mailander would make an excellent choice for Village Manager. She is highly capable, has a tremendous work ethic, she knows the town and she well respected and liked by both Village employees and residents. Most importantly she has good common sense………..which is in short supply in Village Hall.
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Appeals court affirms decision to reduce Ridgewood firefighter’s award to $500,000 from $3.5M
Wednesday May 1, 2013, 12:29 PM
BY CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
The Record
RIDGEWOOD — A panel of appellate court judges agreed the village only has to pay one of its firefighters half-a-million dollars — far less than the $3.5 million a jury awarded him in 2012 for emotional distress.
The decision, issued Tuesday, upholds a Superior Court judge’s May 2, 2012 ruling, reducing Kevin Reilly’s damages to $500,000.
February 6, 2013 7:41 AM
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ– The U.S. Postal Service has announced that it will stop delivering mail on Saturdays but continue to deliver packages six days a week under a plan aimed at saving about $2 billion, the financially struggling agency says. Saturday mail cutback would not begin until August.
The move allows the USPS to focus on package delivery which has increased by 14% since 2010, At the same time technology which aids in package delivery has caught up with the delivery of letters and other mail declining significantly with the ever increasing use of email and other Internet based technologies. .
Under the new plan, mail would still be delivered to post office boxes on Saturdays. and Post offices now open on Saturdays would remain open on Saturdays.
The Postal Service for some time has advocated shifting to a five-day delivery schedule for mail and packages . The US Postal Service is an independent agency that gets no tax dollars for its day-to-day operations but is subject to congressional control.
The agency would need congressional approval to make the change and It was not immediately if that would be forth coming or even necessary.
Patrick R. Donahoe, postmaster general , says Postal Service market research and other research has indicated that nearly 7 in 10 Americans support the switch to five-day delivery as a way for the Postal Service to reduce costs.
Ex Chief Bombace looks to resuscitate image after behavior was blasted by judge in Reilly verdict
Kevin Reilly alleged that he reported two incidents in which firefighter safety was compromised because of violations by his superiors.
The recent decision by Judge Menelaos W. Toskos reducing Firefighter Kevin Reilly’s 3.5 million dollar jury award to $500,000.00 told only half of the story.
Firefighter Reilly’s “whistle blower” claim that he and his colleagues were ordered to clean up an unknown chemical spill at The Valley Hospital was proven to be false during the court proceedings. The chemical had been identified by The Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team, which was called to The Valley Hospital at 7:30 PM on Sunday, August 12, 2007, at the request of the Fire Department, for what was then an unknown spill in the area of the Hospital Pharmacy. I was also called to the scene by the on duty Fire Captain.
The members of the Ridgewood Fire Department and Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team contained and then identified the spilled material, which was identified as 1000 cc of Glacial Acetic Acid. Bergen County Hazmat and Fire Department members then used an absorbent to pick up the liquid. Once all of the liquid had been picked up they double bagged the absorbent and the broken bottle for disposal. The bagged material was turned over to a Hospital Representative for disposal in the Hospitals normal hazardous waste flow. This action was documented in a report filed by the Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team (BCDHS Case Number 2007-8-71) see attachment.
The next day, Monday, August 13, 2007, Deputy Chief David Yaden and I returned to Valley Hospital in the morning to speak to the Valley Hospital Safety Officer about incident and to insure that the already contained and bagged material was going to be disposed of properly. When we went to check on the hazardous material it was noticed that the outer bag had been torn at some point. We called for the on duty firefighters to respond to The Valley Hospital and I instructed Firefighter Reilly and the other Firefighters to wear their appropriate respiratory protection with gloves and to place the torn bag into another bag and then place a hazardous materials label on the new bag.
None of the already bagged absorbent material had spilled from either of the inner bags. No spill was cleaned up by Firefighter Reilly or the other Firefighters. At no time were these Firefighters placed in any danger and because there was no spill there was no need to call the Bergen County Hazardous Materials Team for this situation.
Mr. Bombace has been working directly with Paul Arohnson for the past 3 years to get a super majority of “like-minded” council persons
Mr. Bombace has been working directly with Paul Arohnson for the past 3 years to get a super majority of “like-minded” council persons elected. At first it was the “Crowd” (Cronk and Dowd); now its Albert Puccarelli and Gwen Haulk.
The problem with allowing Paul Arohnson to control a super majority (who have been telling anyone who will listen; that they intend to elect him as Mayor) is that these three will jam their agenda through over and over again and the Village will be changed forever. It should be no suprise they have been having private (read: secret) meetings with various development partners to construct new retail, garages and apartments in various locations in downtown (this is the kind of stuff that leads to jail time, just look what happened in other urban areas around us these past few years).
The current Council is composed of five individuals, none having a lock on control and all having “independent”, not “like-minded” or “lock-step” thinking.
In this Tuesday’s election there will be three non aligned candidates; they are: Keith Killion, Jane Shinazoka and Russ Forenza. Anyone who knows these three; knows they are very different people with very different ideas, all respectful of eachother and the tax payer.
