>If there are any heros in the Village, it would be those who volunteer their time: Emergency Services Personell, EMT on the ambulance, and volunteer firefighters. Why are these volunteers not allowed to fill the lucrative $75 per hour ‘jobs’ when PSEG or other construction sites (such as the train station) require someone to direct traffic (we all know they sit in the car doing nothing- I have never seen one directing traffic) While sometimes out of town cops fill these positions, they are never given to our volunteers? Whats up with that?????
Hmmm its quite simple. Whenever there is a problem, emergency service volunteers are called upon to ‘help out’. One of their main tasks is when roads are blocked. If anyone is ‘qualified’ to direct traffic, it would be a member of emergency services. They should be offered their choice of these ‘traffic details’ at construction jobs. Let them have the $75 per hour. Its only fair. If they are not allowed, there is a simple answer. GREED by others.
>NEW YORK, March 29 /PRNewswire/ — Rent2Buy.com (formerly Automoti Group) announced today the April 2nd beta launch of its “rent-to-buy” interactive marketplace, serving as a single destination for consumers looking to forgo borrowing money for major essential and/or luxury purchases and instead apply the rental of those items as a down payment towards their future purchase.
The site was developed by Moti Kahana following the sale of his previous Automoti assets to Hertz , one of the best-known names in the rental space. Offering a preview of the multifaceted Rent2Buy marketplace, Hertz Rent2Buy marries the Company’s first-rate fleet of cars and fantastic customer service with unmatched technology in order to make executing and managing rent-to-buy transactions seamless.
Following next month’s launch, Rent2Buy.com will enable individuals to “try before they buy” big ticket purchases ranging from real estate and boats to designer fashions and jewelry. The site will essentially serve as an aggregator to bringing an eclectic mix of brands offering the rent-to-buy option to a one-stop shop for consumers.
Already popular among furniture and appliance sales, the rent-to-buy concept is especially appealing in today’s economically trying times, providing consumers with the products they need without the financial strain caused by an immediate or credited purchase.
“We are thrilled to introduce this concept to the online retail marketplace allowing consumers to ‘test drive’ virtually anything in the marketplace today,” says CEO of Rent2Buy.com, Moti Kahana. “We saw tremendous success when Hertz applied our business model to the car rental space and we look forward to leveraging that to other industries which showcase a demand for the rent-to-buy option.”
Included among the various non-automotive categories to initially be offered are furniture, jewelry, real estate, and others.
Founded in 2007, Rent2Buy.com (formerly Automoti Group) raises the bar for what a rent-to-buy marketplace should be. Utilizing its proprietary backend technology and virtual marketplace, the company enables retailers a hassle free means of creating additional revenue streams through the rent-to-own business model.
>Bergen County will not extend bike path at Ridgewood Duck Pond
Wednesday, March 31, 2010 BY MICHAEL SEDON The Ridgewood News STAFF WRITER
Bergen County has nixed plans to extend a bike path in Saddle River County Park, much to the delight of residents opposed to the proposal.
The county has put forth multiple plans during the past few years to extend the existing paved bike path a half mile from East Ridgewood Avenue, where the paved portion ends, to Linwood Avenue.
This year’s proposal included the most complex plan to date, with multiple parking lots, property acquisitions, greenhouses, and pedestrian bridges and tunnels. The proposal was also tied the relocation of the dog park at the Wild Duck Pond. That plan, officials said, will proceed as planned.
As with past proposals from the county, neighbors rallied in support of moving the “Bark Park” while arguing against the bike path extension, and gathered more than 350 signatures for a petition they presented to the Bergen County Board of Freeholders last week.
“I am happy to see the path defeated again, and am sorry so much time, effort, resources, money and energy was used to try to pass this plan again, all at the taxpayers’ expense,” said Ridgewood resident Ray Ippolito. “The survey company has gone through this area five times by their count. The dog run was improperly designed, as it had to be fixed just a few months ago, and is now being relocated, all at taxpayers’ expense, again.”
It will cost the county “about $20,000” to relocate the dog park, said Sheri Hensley, press officer for the Bergen County Executive’s office.
“The amount of waste I have seen on the bike path and dog run alone are staggering,” Ippolito added. “I can only wonder how much more is being wasted in the town, county, state and country. This little project is just a microcosm of the massive waste our country spends its money on.”
The path extension has been sidelined “for the foreseeable future,” Hensley said.
“With the limited resources that the county has available in these difficult economic times, we decided that it is not worthwhile to do a project like this if it does not have the full support of the public for which it is designed to serve,” Hensley said. “We have decided not to extend this pathway and will, instead, focus on other projects.”
The neighbors commended the support they received at a March 24 freeholder meeting.
“We compliment Freeholder Elizabeth Calabrese, who was the first county official to support our requests to both save money and conserve the wildscape,” said Ridgewood resident Linda Reik.. “Freeholder Calabrese upheld both the value of constituents’ concerns and the value of citizen stewards of the environment.”
Originally, officials appropriated $950,000 from the Open Space Trust Fund for the project. That money will now be placed back in the trust for future projects, said Calabrese, the freeholder board’s representative to the Open Space Trust.
“It just seemed to me that this would be one of those things that could possibly wait, or not be done at all,” Calabrese said.
Calabrese gave credit to the Ridgewood residents who spoke “very eloquently” at the freeholder meeting.
Reik proposed clearing out the piles of debris near the Saddle River at the Duck Pond, and checking into ways to alleviate leakage, algae and goose droppings at the pond as possible projects for next year.
>The article at the link below, titled “A Brief History of Tenure”, appeared in Time Magazine in November of 2008. Please go to the link and read the article. It provides an interesting evolution of tenure and illustrates how it was intended for “distinguished and published professors” and is not appropriate for K-12 teachers. The model adopted by Oregon in 1997 sounds like a GREAT approach. In that year, Oregon abolished tenure and replaced it with 2-year renewable contracts and a rehabilitation program for underachieving instructors.
I (and I believe most Ridgewood residents) want high caliber teachers, who are well paid. Perhaps if teachers began working WITH the community and were receptive to being held accountable, they would realize that the community stands behind our most effective and inspirational teachers and administrators. This article could very well have been written last night after “tone deaf” teachers cast a cowardly and disgraceful vote AGAINST the community and threw their non-tenured bretheren to the street.
The conclusion of the article says it all…”Whatever the problem, most teachers and administrators agree the status quo isn’t working and that change can’t come too soon. Announcing her plan last month, Rhee said, ‘Students cannot wait for accountable teachers while adults argue’.”
When will ALL Ridgewood teachers hold themselves accountable?
>The system is bizarre, because, unlike a business, the cheapest, newest teachers are laid off first and the most expensive, oldest teachers are kept. It’s all about tenure, not effectiveness. So the salaries will be skewed up on average as more young teachers are laid off. I like some of the old teachers, but layoffs should be done based on who is the most effective, not who’s been there the longest.
The system doesn’t distinguish between a math teacher or a gym teacher, they are both paid the same. This is why it’s hard to get math and science teachers, they can make more in the private sector. I think recently Ridgewood residents have become aware that these are not $30,000 a year employees. Some parents I’ve spoken to are shocked that there are quite a few teachers making over $100,000 a year.
And most executives don’t have assistants anymore, it’s an old fashioned concept for a high tech school system.
>Wyckoff officials criticize Ridgewood Water for poor communication of boil-water alert Monday, March 29, 2010 BY CHRIS NESI Wyckoff Suburban News OF SUBURBAN NEWS
Wyckoff — A boil-water alert issued by Ridgewood Water to residents on several streets in the township was rescinded after samples that were tested for impurities came back negative, but township officials are taking the utility to task for what they called poor communication with residents.
Committeeman Brian Scanlan, who lives just outside the affected area, said Monday, March 29, that the utility’s communication with residents was insufficient.
Scanlan said he learned of the advisory from news reports and began calling people in the affected area. He said the people he spoke to told him they also heard about it from the news, but not directly from Ridgewood Water. He said he distributed fliers of his own door to door on the morning of Sunday, March 28.
“It became clear there had not been a direct communication between Ridgewood Water and their customers. They may have hit a portion of Goffle Road with the flier, but no one on the end of Ravine Avenue, Hopper Avenue or Ravine Court had gotten a phone call or a flier from them until after I started going door to door.”
Committeeman Kevin Rooney said March 29 that the township is “very disappointed” with Ridgewood Water.
“They had a really poor showing in Wyckoff as far as I’m concerned. Their track record has a lot to be desired.”
Frank Moritz, director of Ridgewood Water, said Monday that employees were sent door to door to hand-deliver fliers notifying residents of “about 100” homes in the affected area three times: once on Friday, March 26, once on Saturday, March 27, and again on Sunday, March 28, when the advisory was lifted. He said he was satisfied with the level of communication that took place. “I don’t know how many times we can visit a house,” he said.
Scanlan said the fliers were put in people’s mailboxes on Sunday, limiting the likelihood of residents checking their mail.
“If they’re going to give out fliers, they should put them where people will see them — especially on Sundays. I wish they would use their heads a bit more,” he said.
According to the Ridgewood Water Web site, residents on Bush Lane, Goffle Road, Hopper Avenue, Ravine Court and Ravine Avenue were among those notified of a potential compromise in water quality following flow tests in downtown Ridgewood. An advisory was issued to boil water before using it for drinking or cooking.
During the test, an isolation valve was closed to direct water to flow along a specific pipe, and a hydrant was open to induce that flow, but no water came out, leading the utility to determine another isolation valve somewhere else in the system also must be closed.
According to a press release issued by Ridgewood Water, a loss of pressure can “create a host of potential problems with the potable quality of the water.”
By late afternoon on Sunday, March 28, the company reported “several anomalies” were discovered in the sample results. This prompted the utility to continue the alert and take additional samples.
At 9:45 p.m. Sunday, all samples were reported negative, and the boil-water alert was rescinded by the utility by 10 p.m.
On the Ridgewood Water Web site, an advisory remains for residents affected by the boil-water alert to run their water for three to five minutes to flush the plumbing and to empty and clean all ice makers and water chillers.
Scanlan said Mayor Rudolf Boonstra has suggested the Township Committee invite a representative of Ridgewood Water to attend its April 6 meeting to offer an explanation.
>March 29 (Bloomberg) — New Jersey’s bonds should be ranked a step below those assigned by the three major credit-rating firms, as the state faces a $46 billion pension deficit and record high debt-load, Merrill Lynch analyst John Hallacy said.
The state’s general obligations are rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service, AA by Standard & Poor’s, and AA- by Fitch Ratings, the fourth- , third- and fourth-highest investment grades, respectively. New Jersey is the third-most indebted U.S. state according to Moody’s, and expanded its borrowings to a record $33.9 billion as of June 30, from $31.8 billion a year earlier.
“We are revising our view on New Jersey’s credit in light of the state’s sizable debt load, severely unfunded pension and health-care retirement benefits liabilities, and aggressive budget assumptions for its fiscal year ending 30 June 2011 which we believe will be difficult to achieve,” said Hallacy, a municipal strategist in New York at the Bank of America Corp. unit, in the report. “In our opinion, New Jersey’s general obligation bonds should be viewed as A1/A+ equivalents.”
New Jersey’s debt traded 29 basis points more than an index of generic AAA municipal bonds as of March 26, nearly double the 0.15 percent premium investors demanded for owning its debt on Jan. 1. An index of A1 rated debt traded at a premium of 40 basis points. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
Governor Chris Christie, 47, a Republican, on March 16 called for $10 billion in spending reductions to help close a $10.7 billion budget hole without raising taxes. His plan would cut more than $1.2 billion from aid to schools and municipalities, lower transit funding and skip the state’s $3 billion payment into the pension system.
‘Continuing Concern’
The lapsed pension funding is “cause for continuing concern,” the report said.
Andrew Pratt, a spokesman for Treasurer Andrew Eristoff, said his office hadn’t seen a copy of the report and declined to immediately comment.
Christie’s cuts may result in “significant” firings of teachers and government workers, prolonging the state’s economic recovery, said Howard Sitzer, a research analyst on the report. The governor will face a crucial test in whether he can push his plan unchanged through the Democrat-controlled Legislature, the analyst said.
“There is going to be change and there will be dislocation,” Sitzer said in an interview. “Invariably, there are going to be layoffs. These are real jobs, which could protract” the recovery.
Moody’s in August cut its outlook on the state’s debt to negative from stable, after the U.S. recession that began in December 2007 hurt tax revenue and prompted the state to deplete its reserves. The outlook change raised the possibility that New Jersey’s long-term credit ratings may be reduced.
To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Trenton, New Jersey, at [email protected].
>Sponsored by Chamber of Commerce Breakfast with the Easter Bunny at Winberie’s Restaurant 10AM – Reservations required: 201/444-3700. – Festivities will be in Memorial Park, Van Neste Square. At llAM the Easter Bunny will lead an Easter Bonnet Parade in the Park – all children are invited to participate. After the parade, parents can take pictures of their children with the Easter Bunny. The Ridgewood News will provide a TROLLEY which will travel throughout the business district, taking families to member business where there will be fun projects and in-store events going on. All activities are free. Further information 201/445-2600 or www.experienceridgewood.com
>Ridgewood Public Schools Advisory Re: Water Emergency
District Announcement
BOIL WATER ALERT IN EFFECT FOR MONDAY, MARCH 29: Staff and students should bring bottled water to school for their personal consumption. Water fountains will be closed off.
>The Ridgewood Planning Board will hold a special meeting on Wednesday about the Proposed Hospital Zone Amendment to the Master Plan. The Meeting will take place at Benjamin Franklin Middle School Auditorium, 335 North Van Dien Avenue, Ridgewood, NJ beginning at 7:30 p.m.
The Board and the public will hear reports from the Board’s medical planning and geotechnical consultants concerning the proposed Master Plan Amendment for the Hospital Zone. No comments from the Public will be taken at this time. A subsequent meeting or meetings, as necessary, will be scheduled for that purpose.
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>Water Emergency – Many Unanswered Questions – What’s Being Covered Up?
Village Officials Tight Lipped About Cause of Water Pressure Drop; No Explanation Offered Regarding Failed “Reverse 911” Process; Identification of Microorganism Discovered In System Not Revealed to Public
Village officials contacted over this past weekend have thus far refused to disclose exactly what caused the water pressure drop that triggered a “Boil Water Alert” for all Ridgewood Water subscribers in Ridgewood, Glen Rock, and small portions of Midland Park and Wyckoff.
Although acknowledging a failure of the “Reverse 911” notification process related to the water emergency, officials have also refused to thus far disclose why the system failed.
From www.ridgewoodnj.net regarding water sampling results related to the emergency: “Some of the results show indications of potential concern and are prompting Ridgewood Water and State Officials to continue the Boil Water Alert as a safe guard to public health and safety.” This statement implies that a microorganism was identified during sampling. What was the microorganism?
Why are there so many unanswered questions regarding this issue? What is being covered up and why?
