Tag: Ridgewood NJ

>Audrey Meyers : Social darling or community pariah?

Audrey Meyers has had a bad week. First the State Health Planning Board gave the OK to the reopening of Pascack Valley then the Ridgewood Village Council strongly rejected her management team’s bid to massively expand Valley Hospital. To her followers, Meyers seems to have moved from social darling to a pariah in the community. What happened and why?

If you have lived in Ridgewood for more than 5 years you will remember the first Valley Renewal fliers that began appearing in mailboxes in late 2006. The early renewal propaganda all featured large images of Meyers with her serene expression and steady gaze looking out of the page from beneath her straight black fringe. I guess the public relations company decided that they could appeal to the perceived community popularity of Meyers to help sell the Renewal. But even at the beginning of the campaign was Meyers really a popular community figure in Ridgewood? From her vantage point on Highland Ave and her salary of over $1.3 million it was hard to see her as person of the people. Ever since Meyers took the job as CEO at Valley she has constantly surrounded herself with a small circle of her executive team. Stories have emerged from within Valley of people who expressed views counter to Meyers being fired. Yet Valley PR has repeatedly claimed that Audrey has the ear of the Ridgewood community from which the Renewal enjoys full support. After two council elections for Village council where candidates who did not publically support the renewal were elected, the truth about broad community support has proved to be false.

So who are the Audrey supporters? This group is really the Hospital Ancillary. At its heart the Hospital Ancillary is really a club that holds social events in support of the hospital. IRS documents reveal that the ancillary contributes just over 2 million dollars in donations per year. With the total hospital revenue near one billion dollars the financial contribution from the Auxiliary is in reality small. However, in the community Ridgewood, the Auxiliary is really THE social club in town, especially amongst the ladies who lunch. It is a club where the very comfortably well-off can rub shoulders with the very wealthy and feel like they have made it. At least twice a month members of the auxiliary can be seen gracing the social pages of the Ridgewood News or in photos in the health section. Gala balls, dinners and fashion shows are all opportunities to display a member’s taste in fine clothes, food and wine. Like the socialites buzzing around Miss Hilly in THE HELP’s depiction of Jackson Mississippi, Ridgewood’s social scene is also clearly divided between the ancillary crowd and everyone else. In this environment it would be easy for Meyers to believe that she has overwhelming support. Surrounded by employees are compelled to follow the boss and the members of the ancillary fawning over her to get a place in the social order it is easy to see why she still believes she is on top in public opinion. This is because all she hears is support as no one who she surrounds herself with dares to tell her anything different.

>America Needs More Job Creation
Mike Brownfield

December 2, 2011 at 10:26 am

After months upon months of unemployment stuck at or above 9 percent, the American people may finally see a sliver of relief in today’s jobs report from the Department of Labor. The report suggests the month of November saw 120,000 net new jobs created and the unemployment rate drop to 8.6 percent–driven in part by the 315,000 people who have given up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed. That news is cold comfort to the 13.3 million Americans who are still out of work and the 402,000 workers who filed for unemployment last week.

The question is whether this improvement is real and enduring or a fluke. The economy is growing, but there’s little evidence of the real strength the report suggests, and there’s a lot in the report to suggest something’s amiss with the numbers–something likely to be corrected in the next report. For example, is it likely the labor market strengthened as much as the job number suggests at the same time so many people abandoned the workforce? And this is only one of the anomalies in the report.

The White House would therefore be wise to trumpet today’s news with soft notes. The fact remains that under President Barack Obama’s watch, the U.S. unemployment rate remains high because America just isn’t creating enough new jobs. And if the only way the Obama Administration can get the unemployment rate to drop is by convincing people to quit looking for work, that’s bad news for the American economy. Or to quote liberal blogger Matt Yglesias, ”Decreasing unemployment by shrinking the labor force is not exactly winning the future.”

It goes without saying that if the U.S. economy loses more jobs than it creates, the unemployment rate goes up. If job losses are low but few new jobs are created, then the unemployment rate treads water and remains high, with occasional dips and rises–and that’s what we’re seeing today.

As Heritage’s James Sherk writes, in the last quarter of 2007, private employers created 7.6 million jobs and shed 7.4 million jobs. That was enough net new jobs to keep unemployment steady as new workers entered the labor force. During the recession, job losses increased, hitting 8.5 million jobs lost in the first quarter of 2009. The good news is that today, job losses are well below their pre-recession rates, hitting a record low in the first quarter of 2011. The bad news is that few new jobs are being created, leaving America in the economic doldrums. Sherk explains:

https://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/02/morning-bell-america-needs-more-job-creation/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

>All Seasons Chamber Players perform concert, Dec. 11

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2011
TEANECK SUBURBANITE

The All Seasons Chamber Players will return to the Ridgewood Public Library Sunday afternoon, Dec. 11 for a 3 p.m. concert. The popular classical ensemble has been performing at the Ridgewood Library annually for many years. This concert is part of the Sunday Afternoon Performance Series of the Friends of the Ridgewood Public Library.

The library, located at 125 North Maple Ave. in Ridgewood, provides excellent concert facilities and is handicapped accessible. There is a $3 suggested donation at the door. Refreshments may be purchased at the snack shop at intermission. For more information or directions, call the library at 201-670-5600.

The program, entitled Vive la France! will offer three centuries of chamber music by famous French composers from the baroque era to the 20th century. The featured work will be a musical tour de force – Maurice Ravel’s great Piano Trio in A Minor (1914). The program will also include a baroque Trio Sonata in D by Jean-Marie Leclair; the tuneful and playful Dolly Suite for Piano Duet by Gabriel Faure; and the ever-popular Sonata for Flute and Piano by Francis Poulenc. Robert Lawrence, co-director for programs, will introduce each piece to the audience with personal spoken program notes.

https://www.northjersey.com/community/events/134807113_Chamber_Players_to_perform_.html