Tag: Roberta

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“Clear Cut” , “turf Field” Roberta has issues with the new tree ordinance

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June 22,2017

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, in a letter to the editor former Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, Tree tax is a bad idea https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/readers/2017/06/20/letter-tree-tax-bad-idea/412244001/ . Is it just us or does anyone else find in both ironic and ridiculous that one of the people who pushed the “clear cutting” several acres of trees at Schedler Property ,in order to build a new turf baseball field has issues with the new tree ordinance ?

The ordinance regulating tree removals on private property requires a permit to remove any tree larger than 8 inches in diameter. Any healthy tree removed must be replaced, or a payment made in lieu of replacement. Key provisions of the new ordinance are outlined below.

The ordinance was specifically established to protect the Village of Ridgewood from people like Roberta Sonenfeld and Paul Aronsohn who were looking to ‘clear cut” and  turf down every inch in the Village of Ridgewood . As they say “round up the usual suspects “, we bet most readers can add a litany of names to this list.

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Amazing Without Aronsohn, Pucciarelli, and Hauck and now Roberta the New Ridgewood Council accomplished volumes

3 amigos in action Ridgewood NJ
September 8,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood bog
Ridgewood NJ, Aronsohn, Pucciarelli, and Hauck often referred to Roberta as a “breath of fresh air,” even though clearly the air around her became increasingly foul as her (thankfully) short time in the job progressed.  Now that she has resigned and been escorted out of Village Hall, things are really running well.  We have Heather Mailander in the manager’s seat.  She is so capable, so professional, and she does her job without interjecting her opinion as if she were a 6th council member and without looking at Chris R and Janet F for affirmation every time she speaks.

We have a five-person council who are all independent thinkers, are polite, considerate, and they don’t interrupt each other at meetings.  They are actually prepared for meetings (well, Susan and Mike always were, but now they are joined by three more who are equally informed and have done their homework).  Now more nonsense like we used to have with Albert pontificating about anything and everything just to hear himself speak, and Gwenn reading from her ipad something that someone else wrote, and Paul furiously texting with Paul Vaggianos (yes, we witnessed this many times) during meetings and then giving us the doe-in-the-headlights look while saying “transparency, transparency, transparency.”

This new Council has been in place just since July 1, but so far they have accomplished volumes including that they:

1. are going to lengthen the time for public comments.

2. are respectful of members of the public who come to speak

3. overturned the much-hated Ordinance 3066

4. stopped the ridiculous Van Neste proposal

5. are going to prevent puppy-mill and kitten-mill animals from being sold in Ridgewood

6. are looking at many (and reasonable) ways to improve and increase the parking

7. are saving the Schedler House

8. will be putting grant money (hopefully) towards remediating Kings Pond

9. will be repealing the illegal ordinance that tried to prevent people from videotaping public meetings (put in place because hot-headed Aronsohn got caught getting nasty at an HPC meeting)

10. have hired a new Planning Board attorney (ok, so the VC didn’t do this, but it is yet another wonderful new development)

11. will be lowering the overkill lighting at Habernickel Park to be consistent with other parks and in response to the neighbors’ legitimate concerns about this ridiculous flood lighting

12. discovered that the extraordinarily cumbersome and confusing leaf collection process that Roberta put in place was based, in part, on a 7-day rule that has not been effective for a couple of years.  So now they are putting a smooth and simple leaf collection schedule up and we can stop hearing about “no leaf left behind.”

13. will be revising the prohibition of parking on Pomander Walk, which is discriminatory and was put in place to serve Gwenn’s friends on that street.

Wow, how much has been accomplished and all with a pleasant and civil atmosphere.  Way to go Susan, Mike, Ramon, Jeff and Bernie!!!
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Reader says time for Roberta, Willets and Weitz to step down Financial Advisory Committee

Village Council Candidate Janice Willet snoozed

pleasant dreams 

Roberta, Willets and Weitz should step down.

The committee members who signed those advertisements and letters to the editor should also resign. As citizens they have a right to free speech. They signed those letters as advisory committee members going.

They were never an independent voice. Their mission should be defined, their minutes should be public. Otherwise they are political hacks.

All boards should have by laws and minutes.

The FAC seems like a tool of the council and not an independent body. They did not help to dispel this image when two members ran for council supported by the current council majority. Their letters to the editor in support of the council majority causes showed that they did not exercise good judgment.

They seemed to be doing favors for each other.