>The rise and decline of the NJEA
In 1991, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), the state teachers’ union, reached the zenith of its power. The NJEA opposed the teacher pension funding reforms proposed by the then Governor Jim Florio and therefore endorsed most 1991 Republican candidates for the state Senate and Assembly. (Steinberg, PolitickerNJ)
https://www.politickernj.com/alan-steinberg/45051/rise-and-decline-njea
>Get ready for a ‘global Katrina’: Biggest ever solar storm could cause power cuts which last for MONTHS
By DAVID DERBYSHIRE
Last updated at 8:59 AM on 22nd February 2011
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Earth is overdue a solar storm as the sun enters its most active period
The world is overdue a ferocious ‘space storm’ that could knock out communications satellites, ground aircraft and trigger blackouts – causing hundreds of billions of pounds of damage, scientists say.
Astronomers today warned that mankind is now more vulnerable to a major solar storm than at any time in history – and that the planet should prepare for a global Katrina-style disaster.
A massive eruption of the sun would save waves of radiation and charged particles to Earth, damaging the satellite systems used for synchronising computers, airline navigation and phone networks
>Federal, state and local debt hits post-WWII levels
By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 20, 2011; 11:33 PM
The daunting tower of national, state and local debt in the United States will reach a level this year unmatched just after World War II and already exceeds the size of the entire economy, according to government estimates.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/20/AR2011022003201.html
>Ridgewood kids have been racing to nowhere long before the documentary
Ridgewood kids have been racing to nowhere long before the documentary. The emphasis for resume building begins in ‘enrichment’. God forbid you call it pre-K in Ridgewood. Kids are guided into a plethora of programs and activities that we actually have to have a ‘holiday’ to do nothing.
If being athletic is good, then more is better, right? Ask baseball or soccer players about 3-season sports, club teams and personal trainers. Places like PBI and Parisi are virtual gold mines for all the local kids who are brianwashed into believing that they are the greatest players to ever walk onto the field.
Forget about teachers teaching kids being enough. We have tutors for every discipline, music instructors with Lincoln Center backgrounds and SAT prep programs bankrupting families because having the best is the only option.
I have regular, happy and and reasonably well-adjusted kids. They have friends who started in therapy while still in single digits and pre-teen years because of stress and anxiety problems. And for this, we are shelling out 18k per student.
We might show them more compassion by putting them in lock-up at juvi.
The pointy heads at Cottage Place should be focusing on a good educational experience for ALL kids and not just an excellent experience for some.
>Pension Reform : It is the State government that has failed to pay into the pension
While there is little doubt that some form of change will take place. Public employees have paid into their pension each and every pay period. It is the government that has failed to pay into the pensions. Where did that money go? Why were the payments not made? If a private pension fund was managed that way someone in management would go going to jail.
1. The teachers (and other state employees) paid their share of pensions, the state repeatedly did not pay their share, that is why it is massively underfunded.
2. During the boom years people made choices. In the private sector, achievers got large raises and bonuses. Teachers didn”t fly high but got the promise of job security and very good benefits. Now that the boom is over, the former high-flyers say that teachers should be treated just like them. If the economy ever booms again, will you be giving private sector style bonuses to teachers?
3. I absolutely agree that public pensions shouldn’t be able to be manipulated at the end – moving from a 3 year average salary to a 5 year average salary is very sensible. What happens now is that crafty people go for a supervisory job at the end of their career, a job that they don”t really want or put their heart into, but which boosts their salaries.
Presidents Day: More than just a Presidents Day sale part 2
Presidents’ Day is celebrated in February to honor two of our greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. The holiday is celebrated in the United States on the third Monday in February.
George Washington : When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years.
He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British. He reported to Congress, “we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn.” Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies–he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/georgewashington
Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.”
Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln/
>Christie loses weight with diet and exercise
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has cut more than the state budget in his first year in office: he has also dropped a few notches in his belt. (The Associated Press)
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/nyregion/21weight.html?ref=christopherjchristie
>Public Employee Unions : We have reached a defining moment on this issue
The point is not the percentage of the population represented by public union members (police, fire, teachers, government employees, etc) or even the specific amount that they contribute to their pensions or health care benefits. The simple point is that, across the country, public union members have not paid their fair share for decades and these programs are underfunded. Therefore, ALL taxpayers must make up the deficit. This forces the government to increase taxes or cut services to fund the public union obligations. THAT is why this small minority of public union members in the population are a significant contributor to the failure of local, state and federal governments to balance their budgets.
Most of the union membership has been misled by their leadership on these issues and do not understand the facts. Unfortunately, like Pavlov’s dogs, the union members have been conditioned to believe that they are entitled to the status quo, or worse, that the status quo is unfair when compared to the private sector. Neither is true.
We have reached a defining moment on this issue. The only way that this gets resolved satisfactorily for the country is for the 90%+ of the population that has been picking up the slack for public union members to insist on change, right now! This requires public union employees to contribute the same amount toward health care and pensions (if pensions are even a viable alternative) as their private sector peers. It also requires that the benefit structure be reviewed to ensure that it does not inflate at the end of a worker’s career, that the benefits do not kick in prematurely (encouraging early retirement), that benefits are not overly generous when compared to private sector options and that benefits can not “be accumulated” by retiring early from one job and then starting one or more new careers under the same or another public union benefit plan.
>Opposing sides meet as Capitol protests enter sixth day
DEE J. HALL, MARY SPICUZZA and CLAY BARBOUR | Wisconsin State Journal Saturday, February 19, 2011 11:45 am
Tens of thousands of people are descending on the state Capitol Saturday for the sixth day of protests targeting a controversial budget repair bill that effectively strips public workers of their collective bargaining rights.
Some 40,000 protesters — including the Rev. Jesse Jackson — showed up Friday to help cheer on Democratic lawmakers who successfully delayed action on Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s bill by leaving the state and depriving the Senate of a quorum.
Officials expect Saturday’s crowd to be even bigger and bring a new dynamic: opposing sides. Union protesters have largely had the Capitol to themselves for the week. But a counter-protest has been organized for Saturday involving pro-Walker and Tea Party supporters.
>State Health Department looks to revisit the re-opening of Pascack Valley Hospital
the Staff of the Riidgewood Blog
The state Health Department has given Hackensack University Medical Center an official “do-over” on its bid to reopen the former Pascack Valley Hospital in Westwood on Friday. A notice inviting applications by June 1 was posted by the state Health Department for a new general hospital “to serve Bergen County.”
No guarantees were given by State Health Commissioner Poonam Alaigh that a new hospital would in fact be approved, when she signed the notice on Friday. The disclaimer , “The Department reserves the right to disapprove all applications … [if] they have not satisfactorily demonstrated need,” was clearly embedded in the notice.
Poonam also left plenty of room for other hospitals such as The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood and Englewood Hospital and Medical Center, which oppose Hackensack’s plans to make their views known.
The reopening of the property formerly know as Pascack Valley has been a serious point of contention between several local hospitals and several towns in Bergen county . The competition between Valley Hospital and Hackensack University Medical Center has been intense .
>In Market Reports, Some Affluent Towns Do Better Than Others
AFFLUENT towns are different from other towns. Their citizens have more money, of course, and their homes have more value.
But some affluent towns are different from other affluent towns, in that their median home values rose significantly last year.
In the last quarter of 2010, the median sales price for the entire state rose by 1 percent from the year before, according to a new market report from the Otteau Valuation Group in New Brunswick. To this somewhat surprising news, the group’s president, Jeffrey G. Otteau, hastened to add that even that faint increase was unlikely to continue.
The rise after a long-term decline was most likely the result of a court-ordered moratorium on foreclosures at the end of the year, and will be reversed when the moratorium is lifted, which is expected to be soon, Mr. Otteau said.
Yet, throughout 2010 and much of 2009, there was a small group of communities that seemed impervious to the overall trend of declining prices — or else extremely resilient if dips occurred.
In the Bergen County village of Ridgewood, for instance, the median sales price (at which half the homes sold for more and half for less) rose 8.7 percent in the last quarter, versus the same period in 2009. The median price was $700,000, according to the latest statistics from Otteau. In 2009 it was $644,000.
https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/realestate/20njzo.html?_r=1
>Peter J. McKenna President, Concerned Residents of Ridgewood : Modernize within limits
Modernize within limits
Friday, February 18, 2011
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Modernize within limits
To the editor:
As president of Concerned Residents of Ridgewood, Inc., I wanted to share with readers the views of the organization. Some may find it surprising that our views are not materially different than the views shared in this newspaper by a group supportive of Renewal (Ridgewood News; Jan. 28). We too, are supportive of Valley Hospital modernizing, believe that Valley is an integral part of the village and that Valley should provide high-quality health care to Ridgewood residents. We disagree about zoning and land use issues. I would like to reiterate, we have always stated we are pro-health care and that we support modernization at the site.
We are in particular supportive of modernizing within the confines of the village’s 2006 Master Plan re-examination, which allowed hospital expansion up to 16 percent above today’s non-conforming use. We think that the Master Plan re-examination from 2006 was consistent with the Village Council and Zoning Board of Adjustment decisions over the past few decades that heard the hospital’s arguments but still felt the site was already at capacity. While prior land use boards imposed restrictions and capacity limits, their actions have been reversed by the Master Plan amendment.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/116454263_Letter__Modernize_within_limits.html
>Superintendent Daniel Fishbein responds to two Ridgewood News Stories
Friday, February 18, 2011
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Information was ‘misleading’
To the Editor:
Two lead stories reported on the Ridgewood Public Schools in the Jan. 28 edition were, in fact, misleading. The reporter wrote on two issues currently before the Board of Education: school budget planning for the upcoming 2011-2012 school year and a complaint filed with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights. These stories, and their accompanying headlines, contained reporting inaccuracies that are important to clarify.
First, the budget story: It was erroneously reported that the district “has slated no raises for staff represented by the Ridgewood Education Association (REA)” and further, that 11 teaching positions may have to be cut in order to close a $655,000 shortfall. In fact, on Jan. 24 the Board was introduced to the 2011-2012 budget through a preliminary review that is part of the budgeting process. For the review, certain assumptions were made as far as teacher and secretary salary increases, because current three-year contracts with REA staff members will end at the close of this school year and negotiations for new contracts have not yet begun.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/116453893_Letter__Information_was__misleading_.html
>The state Senate passes resolution on justice’s resignation
The state Senate passed a resolution by a vote of 21-3 that calls for the resignation of Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto if the Assembly does not proceed with an impeachment hearing. (Hassan, PolitickerNJ)
https://www.politickernj.com/44973/state-senate-passes-resolution-justices-resignation
>N.J. Assembly passes bill to end more regulations of basic cable, land line telephone services
Most of the state’s regulation of basic cable and land line telephone service would come to an end under a controversial bill that passed the state Assembly on Thursday. (Friedman, The Star-Ledger)
https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/02/nj_assembly_passes_bill_that_w.html
