>The latest propaganda that our Public Information Officer has delivered from the BOE on the Ridgewood Public Schools site is a message that tells of the “many emails” the Village Council has received “in support of keeping the budget as it stands and that they are looking for guidance from the superintendent in the form of a defense of the restored cut list and the impact that further cuts would have on the district”
Uh-oh, looks like the fox is loose in the hen house again. Is this to be believed? Can our superintendent and BOE possibly top its own astronomical arrogance? Blogs on this site say otherwise. What part of NO don’t they understand? WE MUST NOT LET THEM CRAM THAT SAME BUDGET DOWN OUR THROATS.
Time to rally and stop the lies and waste. We must go beyond the confines of this blog and let the Village Council hear from us. SEND YOUR THOUGHTS TO THE VILLAGE COUNCIL NOW!!
Ridgewood Fire Chief Jim Bombace is set to retire Friday after 30 years of service to the village and its residents.
He was hired on Monday, July 7, 1980, a date that Bombace provided instantaneously because “well, you never forget that day.” After nearly 20 years with the department, Bombace became fire chief in May 2000.
“[The department is] very professional,” he said. “These guys are some of the best in the firefighting business in the state of New Jersey, and quite arguably maybe the country. We’ve got a great group of guys, and it’s been an honor and a privilege to be the chief of the Ridgewood Fire Department. And I’m certainly going to miss a lot of the camaraderie.”
There is also the feeling that comes when a firefighter saves a life or someone’s property that Bombace said he would miss after he departs.
“It’s a wonderful feeling when somebody says ‘Thank you for coming and helping us,’ and that’s something I’m going to miss,” Bombace said.
The biggest change in the department under Bombace’s watch was the computerized record-keeping system, he said. Before the department installed its own computer network, it relied on Central Dispatch’s system, which was slower.
“It’s made reporting a little faster, a little easier, and we don’t have to rely on connections to Central Dispatch,” the chief said.
Bombace said he would be available in an advisory role if the department needed his experience, and he planned to remain in Ridgewood as a resident for some time, working on some home projects.
>The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a new analysis of ObamaCare, confirming that our nation’s health care costs will increase rather than decrease under ObamaCare. This violates a pledge President Obama made to the nation on September 10, 2009 last year. CMS concluded:
• National health care expenditures will increase by $311 billion. • Health care increases to 21% of GDP by 2019. • ObamaCare spends more than $828 billion for health care coverage. (CMS didn’t analyze all the tax increases, such as HSAs, FSAs, increasing the AGI threshold, etc.) • The government will spend $410 billion to expand Medicaid. • Medicaid enrollment increases by 20 million new beneficiaries. • 18 million people will be uninsured (excluding 5 million illegal immigrants). • Uninsured and those employers who don’t offer coverage will pay $120 billion in taxes. • 50% of seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage plans. • Some of the Medicare cost-control mechanisms may not be sustainable. • Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) will run a deficit in 15 years. • The $5 billion for High Risk Pools is not enough. • Doctors may drop out of Medicare because of the changes in Medicare reimbursement rates. • Medicare “savings” may be difficult to achieve.
>Schundler: teacher wage freezes would yield $765 million
Tool kit legislation championed by Gov. Chris Christie would provide local governing bodies with more negotiating leverage and slice down salaries while save teachers’ jobs overall, says state Department of Education Commisisoner Bret Schundler. But the detailed contents of that tool kit are still not available as teachers in multiple school districts face the chopping block, even in school districts where teachers allowed certain salary give-backs if not full wage freezes. (Pizarro, PolitickerNJ) https://www.politickernj.com/max/38637/schundler-teacher-wage-freezes-would-yield-765-million
The Cartel will be playing at Bergen County Community College’s Anna Ciccone Theater this coming Wednesday at 7:30pm. Tickets are available on our website: https://www.thecartelmovie.com/
Here is a bio on Mr. Bowdon:
Bob Bowdon, The Cartel’s director, has been a New Jersey-based television producer, reporter, news anchor, and commentator for the past fifteen years. His varied career has seen him producing television shows; hosting news programs; conducting in-depth on-camera interviews; appearing in satirical news sketches for the Onion News Network; anchoring regional news broadcasts covering New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut; and shaping Bloomberg Television’s World Financial Report. He is president of Bowdon Media, an Internet marketing firm, and holds degrees in mechanical engineering, engineering management, and film production from Purdue University, Stanford University, and New York University. The Cartel is his first film.
And a short snyopsis of the movie:
Teachers punished for speaking out. Principals fired for trying to do the right thing. Union leaders defending the indefensible. Bureaucrats blocking new charter schools. These are just some of the people we meet in The Cartel. The film also introduces us to teens who can’t read, parents desperate for change, and teachers struggling to launch stable alternative schools for inner city kids who want to learn. Behind every dropout factory, we discover, lurks a powerful, entrenched, and self-serving cartel. Balancing local storylines against interviews with education experts, the film explores what dedicated parents, committed teachers, clear-eyed officials, and tireless reformers are doing to make our schools better for our kids. Together, these people and their stories offer an unforgettable look at how a widespread national crisis manifests itself in the educational failures and frustrations of individual communities. The Cartel takes us beyond the statistics, generalizations, and abstractions that typically frame our debates about education, and shows us our educational system like we’ve never seen it before.
The Board of Education will hold a regular public meeting at 5 p.m. on Monday, April 26, on floor 3 of the Education Center, 49 Cottage Place. The Board will recess at 5:30 p.m. and reconvene in Council Chambers at Village Hall, 131 North Maple Avenue, at approximately 6:00 p.m. to discuss the 2010-2011 school budget.
TRENTON — Plans to create a permanent public school choice program in New Jersey continue to advance in the state legislature.
The measure would allow parents to move their children to schools across district lines. It would replace a pilot program that expired in 2005, though many participating districts continue to informally honor its arrangements.
The Assembly passed the measure late last month 75-0 and sent it to the Senate, where it has been referred to the Education Committee. That panel, though, has not yet scheduled a hearing on the proposal.
However, the proposal is expected to be discussed Monday when state education officials appear before the Assembly’s budget committee to discuss their 2011 fiscal year spending plan.
If the measure becomes law, schools seeking to participate in the program would apply to the state education commissioner, detailing services available to their students. The applications also would include an accounting of fiscal issues that schools could face by taking part in the program.
Students who want to transfer would have to apply to their district of choice, which would decide whether to accept students based in part on their interests in the school’s offerings. Schools also would be allowed to hold lotteries if the number of applications outpace the number of available seats.
Students’ home districts would have to provide or pay for transportation for elementary school pupils who live more than two miles from the receiving district, and for secondary school students who live more than 2-1/2 miles from their new school. Sending districts would not have to pay these costs if the new school is more than 20 miles from the student’s home.
“Public school choice is an important step to ensuring each child has the ability to attend a school that is best suited to their individual needs and talents,” said Assemblywoman Mila Jasey, D-South Orange. “More importantly, public school choice programs can improve educational outcomes for students without seeing taxpayer money funneled out of New Jersey’s strong public school system.”
Jasey, a former member of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education, sponsored the measure in the Assembly with fellow Democrats Joan Voss, a retired educator from Fort Lee, and Paul Moriarty of Turnersville. The primary sponsors in the Senate are Shirley Turner, D-Lawrence, and Republican Leader Tom Kean Jr.
Don’t be too quick to suggest an on line newspaper is the way to go!
The Ridgewood News publishes several successful weeklies to many local districts. They are distributed gratis and are the most financially solvent of all the Newspapers. They produce AD income.
PS the Ridgewood News as one of the “Legally Required” municipal notice publications,can’t be given away. It’s rates and costs are determined by verified “paid distribution circulation. That includes the Record.
On line pages and Blogs don’t produce advertisers income for many employees and are self serving.
Says this well informed “My Community” Editor, without a payroll to meet, but with a large protected readership list (not for sale)that many would like to have or use. Reader answer :
you must work for North Jersey Media. Defending the Dinosaur Media and not recognizing that the move to all forms of digital media is basically inevitable.
As for “Legally required” notices, that is more of a nod to the unions. Have you seen a classified page section lately? It’s wafer thin. Public notices (billed at a heavy discount) are the great majority of the column inches. Soon, we’ll see the “legally required” move to the town/village site (like ridgewoodnj.net) or on video channels (Cablevision, FiOS,etc)
The carbon-based model is dying a slow and painful death. If they only read “Being Digital” by Nicholas Negroponte in the early 90’s, they would have a clue now.
As for the Record, if they are not the most self-serving paper I have ever read, I’m not sure who is. I stopped bying it, except for Sundays, over a year ago and my recycling crate barely gets full in a month.
I’m not saying that blogs are the only place to advertise, but ads in all new media are on a steep ascent. My money is on them.
Only one way to find out if your looking to run ads get in touch with the Ridgewood Blog @ [email protected] for a rate card .
>How the heck is one random uninformed prediction front paged? Riche “has shown that small changes are oftentimes as important as big flashy projects.” Really? Sounds nice, but how? And how are Walsh and Riche representing fiscal responsibility? Riche’s record says exactly the opposite. (Village Hall anyone?)
What was his big accomplishment when he served? Take your time, because there isn’t one. Then he “decided” not to run for reelection. Then he ran again in ’04 with Harlowe. The crew here has got to get their heads out of the sand. Walsh doesn’t have one idea about how to fix things. Not one.
She says that nothing can be done at Graydon because it’s in a flood plain. Her running mate built a Taj Majal Village Hall in the same flood plain. Fiscal Responsibility? How much is Riche’s pool at Upper Ridgewood Tennis Club going to run us? Proven leadership? How about saying, in the middle of a debate after identifying a specific home, that the family that rents it is about to be evicted? Untrue and slanderous. Real leadership there. Time for some new names so we can finally get something done around here.
>If your looking to run ads or get in touch with the Ridgewood Blog please send all correspondence to [email protected]
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>Ridgewood officials say rift between Governor Christie and teachers to blame for budget defeat Saturday, April 24, 2010 BY EVONNE COUTROS The Record STAFF WRITER
RIDGEWOOD — Officials say the public fight between Governor Christie and the New Jersey Education Association — and the unwillingness of teachers to take a wage freeze — were to on Tuesday.
“We lost,” Board of Education Vice President Robert Hutton said. “The turnout at the polls in Ridgewood was over the top as board of education elections go. In the overall scheme,the governor and the NJEA warfare was brought to the forefront in this election.”
>Concerned Residents of Ridgewood (CRR) have decided to endorse Tom Riche and Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh for Ridgewood Village Council.
Over the last two weeks, representatives of CRR met with all four (4) candidates and discussed a wide range of issues; revitalization of downtown, parking in the business district and for commuters, the shrinking Village budgets, Graydon Pool, and the proposed H-Zone changes.
On balance, CRR feels that Riche and Walsh are the right people to be part of our Village council. Both candidates bring different experiences to the council. Walsh not only runs a successful business, but has the added responsibility of being a mother of children at Travell Elementary and BF Middle School. Richie, also a successful businessman, has a very strong record of public service in Ridgewood and has previously served on the Village Council. Importantly, both candidates are prepared to take firm positions on the important matters that are facing our Village today, rather than take a “wait-and-see” approach.
CRR urges its members to vote for Walsh and Richie on May 11 (Line #1 and #4).
