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file photo by Boyd Loving
Insulting people’s intellectual range, calling people idiots, inventing insulting names for people who have different opinions and calling those people’s opinions outrageous – all in one paragraph – doesn’t craft a winning argument for being “above the fray” or better than the average Blog reader… And if you indeed are a very devoted and vocal supporter of the current Council majority, I don’t think it reflects well on them either. You are not doing them any favors by being so nasty and quickly reduced to the level of name calling.
Why can’t anybody just discuss the issues anymore? Agree to disagree? I have strong opinions too but make an effort not to engage in that type of behavior. It is just unnecessary and unproductive. I think if you can’t hold it together, in public or in writing, people can probably sympathize with that feeling but maybe you should reconsider participating until you can pull yourself together. This thread of comments was not uncivil at all until you took it in that direction.
file photo by Boyd Loving
January 21,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, It is remarkable how rude Gwenn, Albert, and Paul are. Not just this week, not just this month, not just any current issue. This has been going on for as long as they have been in office. They were wildly inappropriate to Tom Riche, to Bernadette Walsh, to Ken Gabbert, to John Ward, to Susan Knudsen, to Mike Sedon, to Heather Mailander…..and these are just the elected officials and employees to whom their wrath has been directed. Then we have citizens who come to meetings that they lash out at, and indeed THREATEN. What the heck? How in the world do they get away with this?
And then there are the more subtle (well, less subtle than yelling, but still clearly wrong) incivilities, such as:
1. not allowing anyone to ask a question – or staring mutely while questions are asked, promising to answer them at the end, and then never answering them.
2. telling a nervous first-time citizen YOU ONLY HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO SPEAK AND DON’T ASK ANY QUESTIONS, thus making the person feel like they have already done something wrong before they even get to the podium.
3. allowing some residents to speak well after the buzzer goes off, but stopping others in mid-sentence when the 5 minutes is up.
4. talking among themselves when a resident that they do not like is speaking. (such private side-bar conversations, by the way, are a VIOLATION of the open public meetings act)
5. leaving the dais to talk to someone in the audience or in the hallway, thereby indicating to whatever member of the public who is at the podium that their words are not worth listening to.
6. not bothering to reply to the emails of certain residents
7. interrupting speakers they do not like, thus getting the speaker off base and thus cutting into the speaker’s allotted time.
8. texting while on the dais, yes, we see you doing this, thereby breaking their own rules and at the same time indicating that whoever is speaking is not worth listening to.
9. loudly popping open soda cans and eating during meetings. Really? You are up there chewing and slurping when a meeting is going on. Come on, no one on the dais is starving. Hold off on your dining until you are home. Can’t do without food for a few hours? Really
file photo by Boyd Loving
Can we talk about hypocrisy? This just in from Facebook for all to see: Gwenn Hauck preaching civility after she has been heard openly ridiculing and taunting various residents who come to speak up at meetings. She is the biggest most vicious member of the council. Read this posting :
Gwenn Hauck Echoed with sadness, Patricia. There is value in disagreement – but not so viciously. Ridgewood’s greatest joy should be its people and its community. People who condemn others for seeing things differently don’t see that their fighting-style makes our town much less attractive than any park or garage or apartment building…. Ridgewood was renowned for its strong sense of community and the pride that everyone felt just in being part of that! Now, Ridgewood is known as a critical, and severely polarized town that pits people against people and residents against government. In my experience the best solutions are born out of sincere, respectful, disagreements and a modicum of rapport.
I know of several individuals who feel they have been targeted by the village after making complaints. At the time, I told them to contact the village manager. I thought that was the way to go. Most people feel too uncomfortable expressing their concerns at a public meeting. I now feel that is the only way to go. My own personal experience occurred two years ago. I had sent a letter to the Ridgewood News. I had forwarded a copy to the council. At a council meeting, I was approached by the mayor and he asked me to pull it. I said I couldn’t because it was past the deadline and I was under the impression they were printing it. It was not an inflammatory letter. It was not printed and I later found out through many sources that the mayor had gone to the paper and intervened. The mayor had implied that I had gotten it all wrong but later admitted that he had. I think at best , the actions taken by the mayor and subsequent cover up was problematic.
Many people believe that the email to Mike Sedon’s place of employment did come from the village as it was sent immediately after his petition was handed in at that location. I hope it wasn’t so but it seems like a familiar pattern.
If somebody knocks on your door with the permit inspection hammers swinging within a month of a public comment including that homeowners Name recording at a meeting…doesn’t take much imagination to connect the pieces and possible motives here…for goodness sake Rwood take back your Town…
This whole matter goes back to yet another ill-conceived comment made by a man that wants to be our next Mayor. Regardless of whether there’s any correlation to surprise inspections and summons’ to Mr. Pucciarelli’s very public threat, one has to question the man’s judgement for making the comment in the first place. This is not the first time Mr. Pucciarelli has spoken before thinking.
file photo by Boyd Loving
JANUARY 15, 2016 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 2016, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Urging council to keep trying on garage
To the editor:
I thank the Village Council for the time and effort spent trying to solve the parking issues in Ridgewood, but remain disheartened after the meeting on Jan. 6.
As Councilwoman Knudsen stated, the referendum was a vote for a parking garage on Hudson Street … not IN Hudson Street. Many residents were unaware of the size and scope of what they were being encouraged to vote for in the referendum.
Furthermore, aside from one vague, not widely circulated, and still anonymous flyer, there was very little public opposition. There were no “vote no” flyers all over town or on school property.
Would Mt. Carmel not have fully mobilized before the vote if they had any inkling the impact would be so great? Do you doubt that the 4,000 families of the parish would not have voted down the referendum had they realized there would be a 10-foot narrowing of Hudson and loss of precious on-street parking?
Overwhelmingly the residents who attended the meeting on Jan. 6 agreed to parking — even parking at that imperfect location — but not such a dramatic encroachment into the street, infringement on church life, and congestion to that area of the village in general.
As mentioned numerous times, the town while not legally required to follow its own rules and ordinances, should be expected to do so in all but emergency situations.
The word compromise was often used, but would be more easily achieved if a design was presented that stayed within the footprint of the current Hudson Street lot. Instead all of the options were variations on the same too big for the property design.
Mayor Aronsohn has stressed how important it is to get it right on parking, but isn’t that worth asking the architects to come back with some new ideas that a majority of interested parties can get behind before seeking funding from the county? We have waited decades for a solution and are nearly there, yet suddenly weeks are too long to wait for new drawings?
Lastly, while the financing scheme is not quite buttoned up, there was actually little disagreement around the costs of the garage. How sad then that the majority of council feels the need to seek financing elsewhere and hand the reins over to the county. By doing this, we would incur needless extra financing fees and perhaps ultimately lose some control over the project — design aesthetics, number of spaces dedicated to residents outside of Ridgewood, measures to take if meter revenue is below expectations, etc.
Can this really not be worked out without going that drastic, precedent setting route?
We have agreement on the need for parking, acceptance if not full agreement on location, and agreement on cost. There are a few months left for the council to figure this out together … I urge them to keep trying.
Carrie Giordano
Ridgewood
January 17,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ , A resident who recently spoke out at a Village Council meeting in opposition to a plan being promoted by the “Council majority” reported to me that within a few days of making those comments, a Village of Ridgewood employee visited his/her home, conducted an unannounced property maintenance inspection, and issued a summons to the resident.
Wondering if the timing of the inspection was in any way related to the comments he/she made at the recent Village Council meeting, or just a coincidence, the resident informally checked with several other people who had publicly voiced opposition to a “Council majority” plan and found, surprisingly, that a few others had also recently received summonses for property maintenance related issues.
The staff of The Ridgewood Blog wonders how many of you out there received a summons in connection with a property maintenance related issue shortly after speaking at a Village Council meeting?
We’d love to hear from you with as many specifics as you’d care to share.
file photo by Boyd Loving
A not-so-obvious reason is the relativism of modern moral discourse, best expressed in the theory known as “emotivism.”
Daniel Lattier | October 28, 2015
Many in our audience express dismay about people not being able to discuss hot-button issues – politics, religion, race, sexuality – without it devolving into anger and name-calling.
Why is it that people can’t have a disagreement without taking things so damn personally?
Well, one obvious reason is human nature. Our positions on controversial topics are usually the manifestations of some of our most deeply held principles. It can take years of education and growth to meet disagreements with these with magnanimity.
But I think a not-so-obvious reason is the relativism of modern moral discourse, best expressed in the theory known as “emotivism.”
In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre wrote that “emotivism has become embodied in our culture.”
He defined it as “… the doctrine that all evaluative judgments and more specifically all moral judgments are nothing but expressions of preference, expressions of attitude or feeling.” In other words, emotivism holds that there can be no way of rationally justifying one’s claims about those controversial issues mentioned above.
file photo by Boyd loving
Going to the BCIA is a back-door way of going around the electorate, plain and simple.$250,000 in additional cost to the taxpayers because the bond vote failed 3-2.
At the meeting on January 6th a few things were made clear. One is that the “threesome” stands firm as a bloc and of course voted in perfect synchronicity, in spite of the gigantic number of objections to the huge garage. Another point is that Aronosohn is going rogue, going directly to the BCIA to get his funding, for which he only needs three votes.
Damn the laws of the land, just find a way around them. Another is that Albert’s trigger temper is still very much alive, as he went after a resident who alluded to the upcoming election. The resident was calm and polite, and Albert was wild, then Gwenn started holding up her cell phone. Such unprofessionalism from the dais, such calm in the audience.
A summary is SAME OLD SAME OLD. A million people spoke. Most were against the garage. The three amigos voted in favor of the bond. Susan and Michael voted against it. Aronsohn is immediately going to circumnavigate the law (legal, but still underhanded) and go to the BCIA, where he only needs three votes. He put that in motion before the ink was dry on the bond defeat. Good luck trying to find the Ustream on the new website. It seems to be nowhere.
January 11,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Petitions are available for any Ridgewood registered voter seeking the position of Village Councilmember, in the Village Clerk’s Office at Village Hall, 131 North Maple Avenue, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, except legal holidays.
The Village Clerk will accept petitions which contain the valid signatures of at least 164 registered voters who live in Ridgewood, as required by law.
Three Village Council seats, which have four year terms, will be up for election. The terms begin July 1, 2016. The deadline for filing the petitions with the Village Clerk is no later than 4:00 P.M., March 7, 2016.
Remember the mantra of the 3 amigos( Paul, Gwen and Albert) that all the problems in Ridgewood was Mr. Gabberts fault. Now they and their
surrogate are blaming the residents. Who are they going to blame in the future?
For all those that think this is something new, it’s not. It’s not this council, it’s been every council. We saw it with Graydon where plans for improvement were attacked, contributors to that process were demonized personally and professionally. We certainly saw it with the current long, not yet complete, process with Valley (which duplicated the process Valley went through here in the 80’s — I was there for that too), village hall construction, the original parking proposal that the Mayor’s 2008 web page was about, the train station renovation, giant telephone poles, you name it. We’ll see it on whatever comes next. When a small percentage of the population — c’mon people no matter your definition, a few hundred at a council meeting is a small percentage of the population of 25,000 — can block potential solutions to big problems, then you will have zero progress. Zero. You get no change and no change equals no improvement. And in the long run no change equals slow, grinding, decline. You want to know what’s not Ridgewood? Slow, grinding decline, That’s not Ridgewood but that’s exactly what we have at Graydon (in-town membership totals don’t lie), at Valley (Hackensack is cleaning their clock) and in the CBD (we heard it straight from the CBD on Wednesday) and maybe you haven’t noticed but there are two giant dilapidated car dealerships and a run down toxic site in the middle of our quaint picturesque village.
It’s a lot of fun to cheer for your neighbors at council meetings, find that latest gotcha entry in the donor list or some 7 year old web page, and post on Facebook about what a hero of the common people you are but unless you are working for realistic pragmatic answers to real problems that exist in the village you are participating in its inexorable demise. Complaining feels good. Working for solutions takes hard work. From my chair we have far too much of the first and not nearly enough, on any side, of the second. The path forward isn’t cheering at council meetings when saying no to things. It’s figuring our the answer that all sides are a little unhappy with. And before I leave this here: 1] Yes I volunteer in a number of positions to try to help already 2] You couldn’t pay me enough to sit on the dais in that council room on Wednesday nights so this is not some kind of announcement and 3] I have zero relationship with any of the entities mentioned and the only stake I have in the conversation is the value of my home and my sense for what it means to be an active informed citizen. And finally,I didn’t call anyone a complainer here, you did that and they agree with you.
file photo by Boyd Loving
JANUARY 8, 2016 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JANUARY 8, 2016, 12:31 AM
BY MATTHEW SCHNEIDER
STAFF WRITER |
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
In response to numerous concerns raised by residents, the date for a special public meeting featuring interviews with consultants for multi-family housing impact studies has been changed.
The meeting, which was to take place in the Ridgewood Village Hall Court Room at 5 p.m. this afternoon, was moved to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 12 in Benjamin Franklin Middle School’s auditorium.
Residents raised concerns that they would be forced to miss the meeting because they would be commuting, eating dinner with their families or practicing their religion.
Deputy Mayor Albert Pucciarelli explained that the meeting was not intentionally scheduled for such a difficult time.
“Fridays are generally a good time to spend with family and start the weekend,” he said.
Pucciarelli said that the time and date were chosen purely based on scheduling availability, though he noted that the council agreed on Friday “with great reluctance.”
Pucciarelli said it was agreed upon that the date be changed to one that worked better for residents. Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld’s office polled residents to figure out the best time.
Pucciarelli said council members received numerous emails asking them to reconsider the original date. A separate meeting is required for this topic due to the expected length of the interviews, he added.
The Tuesday meeting will not be streamed live because consultants will be in separate rooms during each presentation.
The meeting will be videotaped for subsequent viewing, according to the village manager’s office.
https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/town-government/meeting-is-moved-1.1487454
January 7,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, For those of us who have lived many years in Ridgewood, we sit and wonder what has happened to the Village we once loved. The walls of the courtroom in Village hall are covered with the photos of those man and women who cared for the Village’s business. Some were great, some were good and some not so. To a great extent most of them thought only of their Village and guided Village government on a course set by those who came before them. They were selfless, caring and kind to the residents who duly elected them and place their trust in them. Today we have a sad situation where Paul, Al and Gwenn clearly are only interested in what THEY want and dismiss the concerns of residents as they would swat away a fly. They are self-serving, nasty, untruthful and full of venom for those who disagree with them. For those who have served with and around them and have disagreed with them, they attack, belittle and create personal and economic hardship. The walls in Village hall that will eventually hold their photos will be stained with their disgusting legacy. Many of those who voted for them now understand that they were taken in by their smooth talk and promises of a better Village. What they got was a Village with employee morale at its lowest, diminished services and a management staff who writes their own rules to fit their personal needs. Residents have always expected and deserve better. As does our country, Ridgewood needs and feels change coming. We will need to wipe the slate clean in the upcoming May election and rid the Village of this angry, nasty belittling trio and the minions they have surrounded themselves with.
photo by Boyd Loving , see https://www.facebook.com/theridgewoodblog/ for more photos
