file photo by Boyd Loving
April 23,2015
Anne LaGrange Loving
Ridgewood NJ, Our Mayor has been taking a lot of heat for his continual gross mismanagement of the Village Council meetings, and rightfully so. He allows, and in fact he enables, every level of disrespect and incivility to flourish in these meetings, from the subtle to the blatant. In order to be helpful to our busy Mayor, here is a previously scripted apology that he issued more than two years ago for this same behavior. He can just carry it around with him on his ipad and read it whenever the need arises for an apology. This will allow him more time to prepare for his civility meetings.
From the February 6, 2013 Village Council Minutes:Before the meeting began, Mayor Aronsohn noted that there had been a lot of feedback from the Village Council Work Session meeting on January 30, 2013. Some people commented that when Councilwoman Walsh had the floor, she should have been allowed to speak without interruption; others felt that the issue should not have been on the agenda in the first place, because it was confrontational; other comments were that Mayor Aronsohn should not have allowed Council members to attack each other. Mayor Aronsohn stated that it was not a great meeting, and as the person responsible for running the meeting, he wanted to apologize to his colleagues and to the public, because he said that frankly, the public deserves better. The public does not deserve a fighting Council, but a working Council. He pointed out that there is a lot of work to do, and it is good to have differences of opinion, but that there are ways to disagree while being agreeable. Mayor Aronsohn said that going forward, he hopes and expects that the Council members can agree to disagree, and that while there are issues to be settled, the Council members can and will work through them in a much more civil and respectful way.