July 17,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, a reader said the ,Financial Advisory Committee was created by the mayor solely as a breeding ground for future council members willing to live in his shadow and image. It didn’t work. Disband it!
The new council need a clean sweep of Village Hall and the Financial Advisory Committee which has added little to no input to Village budgeting should be eliminated.
The Financial Advisory Committee was created on April 24th 2013, resolution 14-171. The leadership of Financial Advisory Committee is there just to stamp the Village Manager’s decisions. So she can say ‘an expert panel has looked at it and they agree with my approach”. She comes from the corporate world and knows how to put everything on outside ‘consultants’.
What is the purpose of the Financial Advisory Committee? They were cheerleaders for the three council members? Populated by partisan Bergen Leeds people ,they should be neutral. So, they are not a financial advisory committee, they are nothing more than a political action committee.
The Financial Advisory Committee has been populated with political hacks and friends of the former mayor and supporters of the Village manager with their own agenda’s leaving out Village tax payers .
The Financial Advisory Committee does not even have bylaws or keep meeting minutes .Lets face it , it was beyond funny that the Chairman of FAC, was a candidate for the council election, and Weitz is not even a finance guy.
The new Council needs to be prudent but decisive in their actions. Let’s not replicate the mistakes of the past