Tag: Ridgewood Real estate

>New York Law Journal

Vesselin Mitev

February 11, 2009

https://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202428177805

Obtaining regular reports from Steven T. Rondos, the Brooklyn attorney accused of fleecing guardianship accounts of $4 million, was like “pulling teeth,” said one of the court-appointed examiners charged with monitoring Rondos’ performance.

Albert E. Spencer, a Manhattan attorney, inherited two cases from prior court examiners in early 2006. He said that Rondos had not provided the required reports for 2004, 2005 and 2006.

After Rondos’ indictment last month, the Office of Court Administration acknowledged that court examiners who monitored Rondos’ accounts should have detected sooner at least some of the alleged thefts that occurred between 2001 and 2008.

At least 16 examiners had signed off on the accounts that gave rise to the investigation of Rondos.

David Bookstaver, an OCA spokesman, said that five examiners, who monitored accounts from which $2.4 million allegedly was stolen, have resigned in the wake of the investigation of Rondos’ conduct, which began last year. Another has been suspended pending further inquiry.

Court officials are continuing to go through “thick files” to determine to what extent examiners failed to conduct due diligence, Bookstaver said.

Spencer has not been asked to resign. And he said in an interview that he had performed his duties as an examiner conscientiously “without a doubt.”

Rondos is charged with stealing $45,000 during April 10 to June 12, 2008 from one of the accounts Spencer served as examiner.

Spencer said that Rondos engaged in “stringing us along” by requesting repeated delays and offering excuses for tardy filings. On one occasion, Spencer recalled that the guardian claimed that he could not work for a month because he had suffered several broken limbs in an accident.

Spencer said he gave Rondos the benefit of the doubt and at first tried to be patient.

“Usually when we go at this we don’t try to act in a hostile manner because ultimately that results in more delay and we had no indication that Steven Rondos [would] be accused of bad acts,” Spencer said, pointing to Rondos’ position as vice-chair of the guardianship committee of the state bar’s Elder Law section as evidence of his prominence in the field.

“My letters to him began to get more hostile as time continued,” Spencer said, and in July 2008, after two compliance conferences, he said he moved to permanently remove Rondos.

Such a move usually is viewed as a last resort, Spencer said.

“One of the difficult factors in making that call is that there aren’t that many people around who want to take [the guardianship] job,” he said, adding that often times the guardian is a relative of the ward and may not be an attorney.

By the time Spencer moved against Rondos, the guardian already was under investigation.

According to the indictment, Rondos, 44, of Ridgewood, N.J., allegedly stole from 23 living victims including mentally and physically impaired elderly people as well as children, and one estate. Rondos and his firm, Raia & Rondos in Brooklyn, were both named in the indictment.

His wife, Camille Raia, the firm’s other named partner, has not been charged, but she was the named guardian of Andrea Spagnoletti, whose account was fleeced of more than $1 million, according to the prosecutor.

Rondos was extradited from New Jersey and arraigned before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael H. Melkonian last week. He pleaded not guilty and was remanded on $2 million bail. His attorney, David Frankel, has not responded to requests for comment.

EXAMINER REACTION

Court examiners contacted bristled at the suggestion that their lack of supervision contributed to the alleged thefts.

Brooklyn attorney Paul I. Krohn, who has been suspended from the list of court examiners, said that his suspension “had nothing to do with Rondos as far as I’m concerned,” but declined to comment further.

According to Bookstaver, Manhattan attorney Seymour Ostrow was one of the five people who resigned from the examiner list. Ostrow disputes that.

“I sure as hell never resigned,” although he said that he had agreed not to take new cases after he broke his hip about a year ago.

Ostrow insisted that he had “kept after [Mr. Rondos] … even with a broken hip.”

Ostrow said his reviews of Rondos’ accounting turned up “nothing untoward.” And he said that he had gone above and beyond the call of duty as an examiner.

“My reports are 50 to 100 pages where others turn in five and 10 pages, I analyze the law, I visit homes,” he said, adding that he had even trained himself in accounting in order to do a better job.

Lewis E. Alperin, a Mount Vernon attorney who was the court examiner in one of Rondos’ cases said he felt “lucky” that there had been no theft under his watch, although the district attorney has asked Rondos to forfeit $36,090 in earnings from the account.

Alperin said that reflected commissions taken by Rondos before they were due, an issue the two had argued about.

“One of my issues with him was how he should take commissions — we disagreed strongly on how to compute commissions. What he wanted was double the amount,” Alperin said.

Alperin, who has not been suspended or asked to resign, said that as an examiner, he said, one can only do so much.

“If your intent as a lawyer is to steal then you are going to get away with it for a while,” Alperin said.

He noted that a guardian who is appointed in January 2008 has until May 2009 to file a report and then “you can say ‘Oh, I’m a little behind, I’m just waiting for some bank statements,’ so the examiner gets the report in June or July.”

Court examiners are not court employees and are appointed from a list compiled by each Appellate Division department of lawyers and others who have met specific educational and training requirements. They are compensated annually based on the size of the estate they are monitoring.

In a 2005 report, a state commission on court fiduciaries concluded that court examiners are “key to guardian oversight in New York” but found significant problems with the process, including cursory examinations of financial records, rare face-to-face interviews with guardians and poor lines of communication.

According to the report, the average court examiner in New York handles “well over 100 examinations annually” for relatively low fees. They rely on volume to turn a profit.

The commission issued a number of recommendations, including increasing the annual compensation limit of court examiners to $75,000 and creating the position of a court examiner specialist to help oversee examiners and deal with problematic cases.

Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau said that oversight would be further tightened in the wake of the alleged thefts, including immediately implementing an electronic tracking system to warn officials of potential problems with the filing of guardians’ reports and mandatory compliance conferences.

The commission’s chair, Sheila L. Birnbaum, said that the reforms had resulted in “many fewer complaints” about the system but cautioned that a theft-proof system could be unrealistic.

“You can’t stop people from fraud and being crooks,” said Birnbaum, a partner in Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

https://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202428177805

>The proposed Valley expansion will happen over the course of at least 10 years, regardless of neighborhood opposition. Any expansion of this great magnitude takes years — in the planning stages alone, before ground is even broken (do you really think they “could be almost finished with the job” now? Ridiculous! Have you even read about Phase I, and Phase II? Have you read about the proposal at all?)

If you were up on the facts, 7:33, you would also know that the proposal does not include the addition of beds — in fact, there is talk now of reducing the amount of beds, while INCREASING the number of parking spaces by 400. What kind of sense does that make? Not every patient in the hospital is there as a result of an emergency. So, here’s one of many possible alternatives: build a great Emergency department, and build off-site facilities to house non-emergency cases. I certainly wouldn’t mind driving for two more minutes to get to an off-site Breast Center.

Valley has run out of space — it’s a simple matter of physics. The hospital needs to develop off-site facilities nearby, similar to the one near the Fashion Center. (Can anyone honestly say that a drive to the Fashion Center is inconvenient? And who says that a hospital has to be within walking distance to be state-of-the-art? If you are truly sick, you won’t be doing a lot of walking anyway!)

Valley needs to compromise significantly. Our excellent and convenient healthcare will not disappear as a result. But our suburban way of life here in Ridgewood WILL disappear if Valley is allowed to proceed without limit.

>It’s absolutely cruel and thoughtless of you to suggest that the hundreds of Ridgewood residents who oppose the ridiculously opulent, unnecessary and dangerous Valley expansion should simply “move” — just so you can have the convenience of a mammogram without having to drive for 7 minutes!!! My husband and I worked for nearly 20 years so that we could live here. We have been improving our house on our own, all of the spackling and painting, the plans and dreams — now we should “simply move”, in this volatile economy, just so you and your friends who don’t live nearby can have your colonoscopies — think of it! — within minutes!! And what a price to pay for convenience! Our children will be walking by demolition crews and huge cranes for the remainder of their lives in Ridgewood, so that you can, what, park your car? So that aging Ridgewood baby-boomers can have a built-in retirement community without having to downsize? In 2008 alone there were 3 fatal crane accidents in NY– our children will be walking by similar sites every single day, on their way to school, and to sports activities.

Oh, and the traffic. Let me just say, it’s become worse here than it is in New York City.

I want the best medical care available, just as everyone else does. All hospitals need to upgrade periodically, of course! [What we really need here is an expanded Emergency Room, that’s it.] But nothing changes the fact that Valley has simply run out of land. There is no shame in that! Just expand elsewhere. Find a place nearby that has room for state-of-the-art improvements, without wrecking the village. I have never heard one persuasive argument about why Valley “has” to expand here in Ridgewood, at the cost of ruining entire neighborhoods and turning our Village into a burgeoning urban blight.

>

WHAT THE ‘STIMULUS’ WILL COST AMERICAN FAMILIES

As the chart below shows, the per-family cost of the House-passed ‘stimulus’ bill will range from about $7,000 to more than $20,000.

Based on Congressional Budget Office [CBO] score of $820 billion for H.R. 1, with House Minority Budget Committee staff calculations, as follows: First column: Divides CBO score by the number of households in the U.S. Second column: Adds CBO interest estimate, and divides by the number of households.Third column: Takes CBO score with interest, then adds a list of programs identified by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget as likely to become permanent, applies interest, and divides by the number of households in the U.S.

CONGRESSMAN SCOTT GARRETT’S OFFICE

>I just got it in the mail today, and I thank you very much for sending it. It confirms what I know has been a major problem. The newspaper, perhaps inadvertently, set up the debate as between reform and traditional math (in the call-out box), never mentioning that the findings of the NMPanel do not support what reformers call reform. The battle for a solid math curriculum is lost if the reformers get their appealing description into the public eye as reform, and traditional math is described in totally negative terms. The battle is at its core about the intellectual content of the math curriculum and its adequacy. Reform math simply teaches much less math, and incoherently to boot. Can you get in something to correct what is a common misunderstanding, maybe even by this alert reporter? Can you get something on record somewhere that the Board has purposely excluded anyone who could bring a research perspective to the discussion.

Fishbein is another story. Right now, 3 of the 4 consultants are clearly on the Reform side, and Posamentier and I are not on the same page in most respects. He is a math ed prof, and I’m into education research. I’m the only one who would bring that perspective, and that seems to be the one perspective the Board does not want. I have no idea what Fishbein is insinuating about costs for me. All I ever indicated was plane costs, and I would even waive that if the Board was open-minded enough to want to know what is supportable by rational evidence. I’d pay my own way, if necessary. I find the Board’s approach to be reprehensible–they seem to be totally opposed to even finding out what is supported by research. I doubt they would do that if medical care were an issue.

Sandra

>**Stimulus Bill Content Alert**

Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey

Commentary by Betsy McCaughey

https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs#

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Republican Senators are questioning whether President Barack Obama’s stimulus bill contains the right mix of tax breaks and cash infusions to jump-start the economy.

Tragically, no one from either party is objecting to the health provisions slipped in without discussion. These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department.

Senators should read these provisions and vote against them because they are dangerous to your health. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).

The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors.

But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.”

Keeping doctors informed of the newest medical findings is important, but enforcing uniformity goes too far.

New Penalties

Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties. “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541)

What penalties will deter your doctor from going beyond the electronically delivered protocols when your condition is atypical or you need an experimental treatment? The vagueness is intentional. In his book, Daschle proposed an appointed body with vast powers to make the “tough” decisions elected politicians won’t make.

The stimulus bill does that, and calls it the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (190-192). The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

Elderly Hardest Hit

Daschle says health-care reform “will not be pain free.” Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them. That means the elderly will bear the brunt.

Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council (464).

The Federal Council is modeled after a U.K. board discussed in Daschle’s book. This board approves or rejects treatments using a formula that divides the cost of the treatment by the number of years the patient is likely to benefit. Treatments for younger patients are more often approved than treatments for diseases that affect the elderly, such as osteoporosis.

In 2006, a U.K. health board decreed that elderly patients with macular degeneration had to wait until they went blind in one eye before they could get a costly new drug to save the other eye. It took almost three years of public protests before the board reversed its decision.

Hidden Provisions

If the Obama administration’s economic stimulus bill passes the Senate in its current form, seniors in the U.S. will face similar rationing. Defenders of the system say that individuals benefit in younger years and sacrifice later.

The stimulus bill will affect every part of health care, from medical and nursing education, to how patients are treated and how much hospitals get paid. The bill allocates more funding for this bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force combined (90-92, 174-177, 181).

Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”

More Scrutiny Needed

On Friday, President Obama called it “inexcusable and irresponsible” for senators to delay passing the stimulus bill. In truth, this bill needs more scrutiny.

The health-care industry is the largest employer in the U.S. It produces almost 17 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product. Yet the bill treats health care the way European governments do: as a cost problem instead of a growth industry. Imagine limiting growth and innovation in the electronics or auto industry during this downturn. This stimulus is dangerous to your health and the economy.

(Betsy McCaughey is former lieutenant governor of New York and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Betsy McCaughey at [email protected]

Last Updated: February 9, 2009 00:01 EST

From:
https://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs#

>Actually, I have never considered Graydon to be the “center of our community.” My kids liked it for awhile, until it became uncool, and my wife and I seemed to gravitate to backyards of friends or our own small plot more often than not to relax on Saturday afternoon or Sunday. I think it’s nice, and it would be a real plus if we could have a decent place to swim if we so choose. But, let’s face it, a relative minority of residents could actually consider themselves to be heavy users.

The place where I really felt a sense of community was on that evening in early December when the Village tree was lit and the holiday season began.

Not to pick a scab here, but Arohnson and his comrades on the VC certainly f–ed up that tradition of community. As a result, I don’t trust his perceptions on many subjects.

>

NEW JERSEY COALITION TO IMPROVE
STATE MATH STANDARDS IS MAKING PROGRESS

February 6, 2009-The New Jersey Coalition for World Class Math (https://njworldclassmath.webs.com), an organization of concerned citizens who seek to improve New Jersey’s K-12 math standards, announces its progress report. The Coalition has established a dialogue among research mathematicians, educational advisors, parents, and the New Jersey Department of Education. Their objective is to have new math standards which are on par with those of states ranked higher than ours: California, Massachusetts and Indiana. According to the Coalition, the new math standards must be internationally benchmarked against countries that outperform the U.S. on international math tests, such as Singapore,Japan, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Finland.

“This coalition unites New Jersey citizens who wish to ensure that every child in our state receives a world class math education,” said Amy Flax, a co-founder of the Coalition.

Coalition co-founder Jill Gladstone adds, “In order to achieve this goal, our state math standards need to be written with rigor, focus, coherence, and clarity. As in those states ranked higher than N.J., the process must include research mathematicians and other similar experts outside of New Jersey who have experience writing highly ranked, successful math standards.”

The TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study) and the National Math Panel’s March 2008 Final Report underpin the Coalition’s goal. Both studies raise serious concerns about the status of our nation’s K-12 math education. It is critical that the NJ DOE heed the National Math Panel’s findings to ensure that our children will be able to compete in the global economy.

Progress is underway as the NJ DOE has acknowledged some of the Coalition’s recommendations. The most recent draft of the revised math standards (https://www.nj.gov/education/aps/cccs/2009/math/index.html) includes references to the National Math Panel’s key findings and other states and countries which the Coalition proposed as models of success.
The NJDOE asked the Coalition to help distribute the latest draft so that the NJDOE can receive feedback from as many NJ stakeholders and outside mathematicians as possible.

The Coalition is pleased that the NJ DOE is putting forth greater attention to the math standards and its revision process. Input will continue to be sought from the Coalition’s panel of advisors and their feedback will b e provided to the NJ DOE.

For more information contact:

Westfield: Amy Flax 908-233-7898 [email protected]
Bridgewater: Jill Gladstone 908-575-9288 [email protected]
Ridgewood: Sarah-Kate Maskin 201-251-9068 [email protected]

>
It is being reported that Village Manager Jim TenHoeve was ordered to permanently turn in his official Village vehicle to the police department.

Anyone know what’s going on? Did he have another motor vehicle crash?

>

continued……