Ridgewood NJ, looks like Gail Price the Ridgewood planning Board attorney who came under a lot of scrutiny for her over the top Facebook posts and seemingly all too cozy relationship with Valley Hospital has submitted her resignation. Things came to a head during her husband Richard Brooks’s failed campaign for Village Council where she took a lot of heat for conflicts of interest and seemed to undergo a social media melt down.
The Ridgewood blog had heard that she did not submit a proposal in response to the RFQ and that she personally hasn’t attended a Planning Board meeting since her husband declared his candidacy for Village Council. At that time we had no resignation per se but it did appear that she’s done.
(all timeframes and the order of agenda items below are approximate and subject to change)
7:30 p.m. – Call to Order, Statement of Compliance, Flag Salute, Roll Call – In accordance with the provisions of Section 10:4-8d of the Open Public Meetings Act, the date, location, and time of the commencement of this meeting is reflected in a meeting notice, a copy of which schedule has been filed with the Village Manager and the Village Clerk, The Ridgewood News and The Record newspapers, and posted on the bulletin board in the entry lobby of the Village municipal offices at 131 North Maple Avenue, and on the Village website, all in accordance with the provisions of the Open Public Meetings Act.Roll call: Knudsen, Voigt, Altano, Joel, Reilly, Patire, Thurston, Scheibner, Torielli, McWilliams
7:35 p.m. – 7:40 p.m. – Public Comments on Topics not Pending Before the Board
7:40 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. – Committee/Commission/Professional Updates for Non Agenda Topics, Correspondence Received by the Board
7:45 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. – Executive Session
9:30 p.m. – 9:45 p.m. – Appointment of Legal Counsel
AdjournmentIn accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act, all meetings of the Ridgewood Planning Board (i.e., official public meetings, work sessions, pre-meeting assemblies and special meetings) are public meetings, which are always open to members of the general public.
Members: Susan Knudsen, Jeff Voigt, Joel Torielli, Melanie McWilliams, David Scheibner, Richard Joel, Kevin Reilly, David Thurston, Isabella Altano, Debbie Patire
Professional Staff: Blais L. Brancheau, Planner; Gail L. Price, Esq., Board Attorney; Christopher J. Rutishauser, Village Engineer; Michael Cafarelli, Board Secretary
The first election was presumably simply for a parking garage. Many of us voted “yes” because we do need a garage. When Aronson and crew decided that we voters “really meant” to vote “yes” on that monstrosity that he wanted, a second vote was held. On that we voted “No” because it was supposed to be “Did we want to bond money for ‘A’ garage” but Aronson inserted the amount for the largest garage that he wanted. He also set the vote on the earliest possible date, while he was still in office so he could presumably still break the ground for his dream. And yes, our new Council members did say they wanted a garage but not “that” garage. So, to me, what the voters wanted was still a garage, but not something of that size. And they wanted the new Council to handle the details with input from the residents of Ridgewood.
file photo by Boyd Loving
We voted against the monster garage.People were duped into voting for the monster garage in November. We were reassured that we were voting for A garage, not any specific design.
Then some hard working residents started a petition drive against the monster garage. No one ever said that they were against building a garage. They just want the right size in the right location.
Council members who were elected said that they would look into a redesign/relocation. No one running said that they were against a garage. There will be a garage.
file photo by Boyd Loving
One current council member admitted publicly during the campaign in the spring that he had been among those bamboozled by lies and omissions about the garage (he did not put it quite that way) and voted yes in the November referendum. He was among many. Had a true depiction and description been made available, including the fact that the thing was going to Occupy Hudson Street, and if it had been explained, as was the case, that a “yes” vote was not for a concept, but for the largest drawing–formally “approved,” by mayoral fiat, by the Historic Preservation Commission’s relatively new chair (appointed by the then-mayor), without checking with the members, and by the mayor’s personally created and hand-picked Financial Advisory Committee–how many residents would have agreed to it? Only those with something to gain, those who pay no attention, and those whose finger slipped in the voting booth. I think the “yes” votes would have amounted to about 150, including mistakes.
Ridgewood NJ, In an undated e-mail obtained via a recent Open Public Records Act request, Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld refers to taxpayers’ comments about the proposed Van Neste Memorial Park revitalization project as being “ridiculous” and “malicious.” The e-mail was sent by Sonenfeld to all members of the post July 1 Village Council.
The genesis of Sonenfeld’s bizarre, inappropriate, and offensive remarks can be traced to comments made during the Council’s August 3 Work Session by taxpayers Saurabh Dani and Jaqueline Hone, who both questioned a request by Sonenfeld for Council members to make an overnight (literally) decision with respect to applying for a Bergen County Open Space Grant in connection with the proposed Van Neste project in advance of any public hearing about the initiative.
In questioning the planned project at Van Neste and the need for an immediate decision from the Council regarding a grant application, Mr. Dani and Ms. Hone both cited the way in which “after the fact” public hearings were held during the Fall of 2015 in connection with Schedler Field and Healthbarn USA initiatives. In fact, in the case of Schedler, the grantor was falsely advised that a public hearing had been held, when in reality it had not.
I would like each of you to get back to me individually as to whether you agree with submitting the attached intent. It is due by 4:00 tomorrow. A Council resolution is not needed to submit the Intent to Apply. A Council resolution will be needed once we submit the formal grant application and after we hold a public meeting on the subject. That submission is due in mid-October.
Additionally I would remind you that two residents referred to this grant process as unethical and/or fishy* I would expect that once you are behind this grant that you would publicly end such ridiculous and malicious speculation.
I have an observation that people around here are taking out their anger and aggression with their pet dogs.
I have been accosted by dogs on their leash on side walk!! when taking walks. The dogs will attempt to run up to me and jump on me. The owners are sloooow to pull dog away, physically or verbally.
Just last Sunday a man let his huge dog jump on me on Meadowbrook. I think this should be against the law and justifiable reason to call the police. I have never walked with cell phone before, as I only walk a few blocks, near my house, but for now on I will never leave house without my cell phone.
Please don’t say I don’t like dogs; I love love love dogs; I regularly dog sit a family dog from out of state, when it comes to Ridgewood, very well behaved dog; and I grew up with a dog.
Dog owners around here ARE NOT training their dogs not jump on people. And it is sooooo easy to do. They are not training dogs because they HATE PEOPLE and its aggression. They say, hey, it’s not me; it’s my dog. But it is you, because it is sooooo very easy to train a dog not to jump on a stranger, or run up to a stranger. And you guys aren’t you the smartest as well as the richest. You know better than me. Any dog that touches me or comes within one inch of me is going to get that police call, dog owner.
Thank God people spoke. I want to Thank all of those who took the lead on this. Those who so forcefully pushed this monster are the worst enemies of our village. I have been driving around all weekend day or night and have found PLENTY of parking at every corner and not farther than 5 mins away to walk to ant restaurant or store. Our village is lovely the way it is, it just needs improvements but nothing major. I hope the new council identifies the obvious and doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel with monstrous “investments”.
In today’s standards-based education system, the main focus is on teaching skills rather than content. There’s a prevalent idea that it matters less what students read just so long as they are reading.
But according to E.D. Hirsch, professor emeritus of education and humanities at the University of Virginia, that’s bull.
Some of you may know Hirsch through his famous advocacy of “cultural literacy”—the idea that some amount of “shared, canonical knowledge is inherently necessary to a literate democracy,” and that students in a particular culture should have common exposure to certain texts and concepts.
Fantasy fiction is often pooh-poohed by academics and intellectuals, but it can whet the appetite for learning.
Jon Miltimore | August 19, 2016
Recently I spoke with a friend who expressed some angst that his 12-year-old son was primarily interested in reading fantasy novels. Efforts to introduce the lad to higher forms of literature were proving more difficult than he’d expected.
Not to worry. Fantasy novels and science fiction yarns, I said, are often gateways to the higher forms of literature. This was not just my opinion, I added, it was my experience.
When I was 12, I was not yet much of a fan of reading. I had enjoyed some young adult fiction writers (S.E. Hinton, R.L. Stein, Christopher Pike, etc.) and enjoyed the histories of NFL football teams, but I didn’t have a passion for books. That changed when my father gave me J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.
“The one thing that is never taught by any chance in the atmosphere of public schools,” wrote G. K. Chesterton, “is…that there is a whole truth of things, and that in knowing it and speaking it we are happy.”[1] Such words would be greeted with calculated coldness by the architects of the common core curriculum, who would no doubt respond with chilling indifference that there is no whole truth of things and therefore no meaningful happiness to be derived from it. Modernity never gets beyond Pontius Pilate’s famous question, quid est veritas, which is asked not in the spirit of philosophy as a question to be answered, but in the ennui of intellectual philandery as merely a rhetorical question that is intrinsically unanswerable. This intellectual philandery spawns numerous illegitimate children, each of which has its day as the dominant fad of educationists, at least until a new intellectual fad replaces it. It is in the nature of fads to fade but in the brief period in which they find themselves in the fashionable limelight they can cause a great deal of damage, a fact that Chesterton addressed with customary adroitness in 1910, over a century ago:
The trouble in too many of our modern schools is that the State, being controlled so specially by the few, allows cranks[2] and experiments to go straight to the schoolroom when they have never passed through the Parliament, the public house, the private house, the church, or the marketplace.
Obviously it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people; the assured and experienced truths that are put first to the baby. But in a school today the baby has to submit to a system that is younger than himself. The flopping infant of four actually has more experience and has weathered the world longer than the dogma to which he is made to submit.
Many a school boasts of having the latest ideas in education, when it has not even the first idea; for the first idea is that even innocence, divine as it is, may learn something from experience.[3]
While not necessarily improper, administrators and board members might be forced to choose between what’s best for the hospital and what’s best for their private interests.
By
ANDREA FULLER and
MELANIE EVANS
Aug. 21, 2016 12:31 p.m. ET
Nonprofit hospitals have extensive business ties that can pose conflicts of interests for their administrators and board members, a Wall Street Journal analysis of newly released Internal Revenue Service data shows.
While having relationships with companies doing business with a nonprofit hospital isn’t necessarily improper—as long as the deals are disclosed and at market rate—administrators and board members sometimes may be forced to choose between what’s best for the hospital and what’s best for their private interests.
“Just because something is legal doesn’t mean that it’s appropriate,” said James Orlikoff,a Chicago-based hospital governance consultant. “You run the real risk of violating the public trust.”
Ridgewood NJ, once again Ridgewood Police report incidence of “Identity Fraud . On 8/9/16 a Woodside Avenue resident responded to headquarters to report an incident of fraud in the past. The victim reported an unknown person made a purchase using the victim’s PNC debit card in the amount of $1910.76 in Flushing, N.Y. The victim reported PNC Debit Card Fraud department was notified and investigating the incident.
A Hawthorne Place resident reported a theft of impersonation on 8/12/16. The resident reported an unknown person utilized his personal identity to submit a tax return. The resident contacted the IRS and made notification of the fraud.
According to the US Department of Justice these are the most common ways to commit identity theft or fraud;
Many people do not realize how easily criminals can obtain our personal data without having to break into our homes. In public places, for example, criminals may engage in “shoulder surfing”  watching you from a nearby location as you punch in your telephone calling card number or credit card number  or listen in on your conversation if you give your credit-card number over the telephone to a hotel or rental car company.
If you receive applications for “pre-approved” credit cards in the mail, but discard them without tearing up the enclosed materials, criminals may retrieve them and try to activate the cards for their use without your knowledge. (Some credit card companies, when sending credit cards, have adopted security measures that allow a card recipient to activate the card only from his or her home telephone number but this is not yet a universal practice.) Also, if your mail is delivered to a place where others have ready access to it, criminals may simply intercept and redirect your mail to another location.
In recent years, the Internet has become an appealing place for criminals to obtain identifying data, such as passwords or even banking information. In their haste to explore the exciting features of the Internet, many people respond to “spam”  unsolicited E-mail  that promises them some benefit but requests identifying data, without realizing that in many cases, the requester has no intention of keeping his promise. In some cases, criminals reportedly have used computer technology to obtain large amounts of personal data.
With enough identifying information about an individual, a criminal can take over that individual’s identity to conduct a wide range of crimes: for example, false applications for loans and credit cards, fraudulent withdrawals from bank accounts, fraudulent use of telephone calling cards, or obtaining other goods or privileges which the criminal might be denied if he were to use his real name. If the criminal takes steps to ensure that bills for the falsely obtained credit cards, or bank statements showing the unauthorized withdrawals, are sent to an address other than the victim’s, the victim may not become aware of what is happening until the criminal has already inflicted substantial damage on the victim’s assets, credit, and reputation.
Statement required by the Open Public Meeting Act “Adequate notice of this meeting has been provided by a posting on the bulletin board in the Village Hall, by mail to the Ridgewood News, The Record and by submission to all persons entitled to same as provided by law of a schedule including date and time of this meeting”.
Please note: A curfew of 11:00 PM is strictly adhered to by the Zoning Board of Adjustment of the Village of Ridgewood. No new matter involving an Applicant will be started after 10:30 PM. At 10:00 PM the Chairman will make a determination and advise Applicants as to whether they will be heard. If an Applicant cannot be heard because of the lateness of the hour, the matter will be carried over to a future meeting to be determined by the Board at 10:00 PM.
Roll call
Approval of minutes
Non-agenda items:
Board member comments
Members of the public comments
Discussion: Franco, 143 Circle Avenue – revised site plan
Public hearings
Old Business:
CHANGLONG HUNG – An application to widen the driveway which will result in a driveway width of 21 feet where 12 feet is the maximum permitted at 235 Brookside Avenue, Block 4107, Lot 8, in an R-2 Zone. (Continued from June 14, 2016) (Carried from August 9, 2016)
VERIZON WIRELESS, 6 S. MONROE – Whispering Woods hearing – Proposed wireless communications facility amended to provide that antennas be placed inside of the existing steeple behind RF friendly material. (Carried from August 9, 2016)
AGENDA – CONTINUATION pg. 2 August 23, 2016
210 S. Broad Street LLC – An application to permit development for a medical office building which will result in side yard setbacks varying between 0 feet and 12 feet, where 0 feet or 12 feet is required; a floor area ratio of 54%, where 45% is the maximum permitted; coverage by improvements of 94%, where 90% is the maximum permitted; maximum illumination level at residential boundary of 0.5 to 1.0 foot-candle, where 0.1 foot-candle is allowed; 8 parking spaces proposed, where 30 parking spaces is minimum required; setback for parking area from side and rear lot lines varying from 0 feet to 4.5 feet, where 5 feet is the minimum required and setback for driveway from residential zone of 0 feet, where 10 feet is the minimum required at 210 South Broad Street, Block 3905, Lot 7, in a B-2 zone. (Continued from February 9, 2016) (Carried from June 28, 2016)
(all timeframes and the order of agenda items below are approximate and subject to change)
7:30 p.m. – Call to Order, Statement of Compliance, Flag Salute, Roll Call – In accordance with the provisions of Section 10:4-8d of the Open Public Meetings Act, the date, location, and time of the commencement of this meeting is reflected in a meeting notice, a copy of which schedule has been filed with the Village Manager and the Village Clerk, The Ridgewood News and The Record newspapers, and posted on the bulletin board in the entry lobby of the Village municipal offices at 131 North Maple Avenue, and on the Village website, all in accordance with the provisions of the Open Public Meetings Act.Roll call: Knudsen, Voigt, Altano, Joel, Reilly, Patire, Thurston, Scheibner, Torielli, McWilliams
7:35 p.m. – 7:40 p.m. – Public Comments on Topics not Pending Before the Board
7:40 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. – Committee/Commission/Professional Updates for Non Agenda Topics, Correspondence Received by the Board
7:45 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. – Executive Session
9:30 p.m. – 9:45 p.m. – Appointment of Legal Counsel
AdjournmentIn accordance with the Open Public Meetings Act, all meetings of the Ridgewood Planning Board (i.e., official public meetings, work sessions, pre-meeting assemblies and special meetings) are public meetings, which are always open to members of the general public.Members: Susan Knudsen, Jeff Voigt, Joel Torielli, Melanie McWilliams, David Scheibner, Richard Joel, Kevin Reilly, David Thurston, Isabella Altano, Debbie Patire
Professional Staff: Blais L. Brancheau, Planner; Gail L. Price, Esq., Board Attorney; Christopher J. Rutishauser, Village Engineer; Michael Cafarelli, Board Secretary
We ALL know that there is ample parking. Even Sonenfeld says so. The problem is that PROMISES WERE MADE to certain key people that a garage would be built near their properties and businesses in the business district. What Aronsohn, Saraceno, Pucciarelli, Vaggianos, Sonenfeld, Hauck and company failed to consider is that the town if full of very smart people. And the people rose up and ran a petition drive and stopped the insanity. Bye Bye Garage.
Ridgewood NJ, Registration is now open for the next session of YWCA Bergen County programs. Classes run from September 6 through October 29 at the YWCA’s 112 Oak Street, Ridgewood location, and members can register at www.ywcabergencounty.org, by phone, or in person.
For Kids & Teens: American Red Cross Certified Swim Classes for every age and level teaches lifelong fitness and safety skills in a fun and therapeutic environment. Water Polo for ages 10 to 18 years teaches game strategy, swim techniques, and water polo skills like throwing and shooting goals with one hand while treading water. Children’s Dance for ages 3 to 13 introduces and fosters love of movement through Ballet, Jazz, Tap and Hip Hop classes. Tiger Sharks Swim Team for ages 5 to 18 combines team sport and individual challenge with an emphasis on skill development, positive values, and competitive experiences. Taekwondo for ages 6 to 14 years teaches martial arts patterns, sparring, and self-defense in addition to improving physical fitness and mental discipline.
For Adults: 360 Movement Fitness Classes cross-train the body with a wide variety of challenging and motivating group fitness classes. Active Older Adult Fitness Classes provide a friendly and supportive environment to help improve member’s health and well-being.
Plus: WEN is Now: A Women’s Empowerment Network, dozens of other fitness, wellness, and enrichment programs. Drop-in child care is also available at the 112 Oak Street, Ridgewood facility. Visit www.ywcabergencounty.org or call 201-444-5600 for more information.
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