March 26,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld has often exceeded her authority by speaking her mind (that is, the mayor’s mind) on issues that are not within her purview. At council meetings, on Facebook, and elsewhere she holds forth in a way that is entirely inappropriate for, and unbecoming to, an employee of the Village. (You will never see such things from any other Village employee.) Most objectionably, she does not hesitate to reprimand residents, sometimes harshly, for expressing their views. The mayor insisted on hiring her above more qualified applicants to be his junkyard dog, and that’s precisely what she has become, with increasing stridency.
The Facebook page on which her note below appears does not accept posts that criticize the mayor’s circle; however, if the Ridgewood Blog reproduces her letter, which after all is addressed to “residents and friends” (not necessarily the same thing), all residents, including those who choose not to use Facebook, will be able to see what she is doing and have an opportunity to comment. The link is given for those who can access Facebook and wish to see the original.
A fair amount of the information being promulgated here is simply NOT CORRECT.
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https://www.facebook.com/roberta.sonenfeld?fref=nfhttps://www.facebook.com/roberta.sonenfeld?fref=nf
Roberta Sonenfeld
3 hrs
Dear Residents and Friends,
Given the 5-0 Village Council vote on Wednesday, many if not all of you may feel that the parking deck at Hudson Street is a done deal. This would be a normal reaction given the unanimous vote. Sadly this is not the case, however, as a group of people are challenging this vote by petitioning to rescind this ordinance. This is the same group of petitioners that have raised opposition to the deck previously because they wanted Ridgewood to bond by itself and not use Bergen County. Another week, another new excuse to stop a much-needed parking facility in our downtown. This time the excuse is that the deck, despite having been redesigned several times, is still too large.
The design of our deck has undergone much change and much compromise based upon the input of residents and professionals. The deck has decreased from 405 spots to 325 spots. The width of the deck has decreased 18’, from 122’ to 104’8”. The cantilever over Hudson Street has been totally eliminated. The larger tower has decreased by approximately 7’, to 60’10”; this is consistent with the other two towers currently existing on the NE and SW corners of E Ridgewood Ave and Broad Street. The height of our structure is only 43’ to the roofline. It exceeds the 45’ height code only when adding the 3’9” parapets (a safety/aesthetic feature). With this decrease has come some changes in the financials, causing the per parking spot cost to increase from less than $30,000 to about $33,000.
We have gotten to this point by careful and responsible management. There have been environmental studies, site surveys, financial analyses, traffic studies, engineering/architectural renderings and more. We have involved our police and fire professionals since the start to insure the safety of our building and the people who will eventually use it. We are at the point of completing our construction bid documents and almost ready to embark upon the exciting next phase of building this deck.
After decades of discussion, we are so close to doing the right thing for our residents, for our commuters, for our visitors, for our business district employees, and for our businesses in the downtown. Do not let a group of people who have continually tried to find any argument for not building this deck succeed in thwarting our progress.
Enough is enough.
