The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
Village Hall Upgrading Telephone System On August 14
Thursday, August 14th the Village Hall telephone system will be migrated to a new Light Path system. If you experience difficulties in contacting Village Hall August 14th , it may be due to the telephone system upgrade. Thank you for your patience.
Last Nights Central Business District Forum at Village Hall
july 23,2014
Photos by Boyd Loving
lots more photos to come >>>>>>>>>>
Village of Ridgewood Board and Council Meetings
07/22/147:30PMBoard of Adjustment Regular Public Meeting
08/05/147:30PMPlanning Board Public Meeting
08/06/147:30PMVillage Council Public Work Session
08/12/147:30PMBoard of Adjustment Regular Public Meeting
08/13/148:00PMVillage Council Public Meeting
08/19/147:30PMPlanning Board Public Meeting
08/26/147:30PMBoard of Adjustment Regular Public Meeting
Reader says who has time to look? We’re too busy making money and driving our kids to soccer practice
All but a few old-timers and insiders know what really goes on inside the Village Hall. For most people, Ridgewood is a place you live while your kids go through school, after which you sell up and move out. It’s quite a transient community. An affluent town. Lovely houses. We wave at our neighbors and have cocktails and BBQs. We are a pretty sophisticated bunch, mostly wrapped up in the lives of our kids and the long, stressful hours we put in at some big corporation. We have this natural impression that all our fellow Ridgewoodians are the same. Sophisticated.
That nice looking Village Hall is not staffed and managed by people like you. Just because Ridgewood has that Norman Rockwell image, does not mean it’s run by Norman Rockwell types. These people know all too well that the typical Ridgewood resident is blasting through life full speed and living a very comfortable life, to pay attention to the nepotism, insider perks and the feasting at the trough of what these residents pay in the form of taxes, fees, and yes, parking meter coins.
Hey, who has time to look? We’re too busy making money and driving our kids to soccer practice.
Councilwoman Gwenn Hauck will not be present at Village Hall for this week’s Village Council Reorganization Meeting.
However, Ms. Hauck will be permitted to cast her votes for Mayor and Deputy Mayor via some form of electronic communication.
Reportedly, in the event an electronic connection with Ms. Hauck can’t be made during the scheduled July 1 meeting, provisions have been made to hold meetings on Wednesday and Thursday to try a connection again.
If you read Ordinance #3-6, you can see why the 3 Amigos are so concerned about having Ms. Hauck vote.
§ 3-6. Mayor; Deputy Mayor; President Pro Tempore.
A. At 12:00 noon on the first day of July following each election of Councilmen, the Council shall assemble at Village Hall, organize and elect one of the Councilmen as Mayor. The Mayor shall be chosen by ballot by majority vote of all members of the Council. If the members shall be unable, within five ballots to be taken within two days of the organization meeting, to elect a Mayor, then the member who in the last election for members of the Municipal Council received the greatest number of votes shall be the Mayor. Should such person decline to accept the office, then the person receiving the next highest vote shall be the Mayor, and so on until the office is filled.
B. At the same time as a Mayor is elected, the Council shall elect one of its members as Deputy Mayor. The Deputy Mayor shall serve in place of the Mayor in the event of the temporary absence or disability of the Mayor. The Council shall elect a President Pro Tempore in the event of the absence or disability of both the Mayor and Deputy Mayor.
C. Vacancies in the office of Mayor or Deputy Mayor shall be filled by the Council for the remainder of the unexpired term.
That’s right ladies & gentlemen. If more than 48 hours goes by and Councilwoman Hauck can’t be reached, Susan Knudsen could become the Village’s next mayor.
Meet the Manager – Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld will begin office hours for Ridgewood residents and business owners on Saturday, May 31st between the hours of 9 and noon
Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld will begin office hours for Ridgewood residents and business owners on Saturday, May 31st between the hours of 9 and noon. This is an opportunity to share your thoughts and provide input to Roberta. These sessions will be scheduled at 15 minute intervals and will be held in the Council Chambers on the 4th Floor of Ridgewood Village Hall. Please contact Beth Spinato at 201-670-5500, ext. 203 to make an appointment. Walk-ins are welcome but should realize that the schedule may already be booked. We will announce the schedule for these meetings on a monthly basis
Village of Ridgewood NOTICE : Friday, April 18 – Village Hall & Stable Closed – No Sanitation or Recycling Collection
On Friday, April 18th in observance of Good Friday, Village Hall and The Stable offices will be closed. Additionally there will no garbage or recycling collection on that date.
The Recycling Center, 205 E. Glen Ave., will be open Saturday, April 19 from 8AM to 3PM.
Mike Sedon’s job threatened anonymous email
Our current crop of public officials have stooped to classic middle school bullying tactics to squash any opposition
Mr. Sedon decided to run for Council and look what that got him. The original post represents how more and more people feel. Look at how Mrs. Price and Valley’s attorney have treated taxpayers attempting to speak their mind. Look at how the Council majority treated Mrs. Walsh, Mr Richie and Mr Gabbert. Our current crop of public officials have stooped to classic middle school bullying tactics to squash anyone with a point of view that opposes their own.
Why would anyone with a point of view that threatens either Valley or our Council majority ever want to volunteer for anything in this town?
Readers suggest *criminal* interference with Mr. Sedon’s employment
the person that contacted Mr. Sedon’s employer has crossed the line and hopefully will be exposed through a governmental investigation. In my mind, the only person or people that would do that would be:
a) somebody that was running against Mr. Sedon
b) somebody that is afraid that Mr. Sedon wouldn’t support their issue (i.e Valley or downtown overdevelopment)
I think it was probably item b and possibly item a as well.
This blog is here to counteract the hot air coming out of the government (i.e. Arohnsohn and his self-serving pronouncements) and the corporate interests.
Therefore, comparing this blog’s purpose and the probably *criminal* interference with Mr. Sedon’s employment is like comparing apples and oranges.
Readers think Village Halls knows more than is saying about the Mike Sedon Email Incident
“Was anything in this anonymous letter not true? I fail to share the outrage and as far as political dirty tricks go, this is pretty mild. I would suggest that Mr Sedon go on the offensive and show us he’s up for a fight…..I believe he is.”
Comments were posted by Mr Coward who is using proxy servers ” Hide My Ass! Free proxy node (IP address 67.159.5.242 )”Readers this
Contents of the letter sent to Mr. Sedon’s former employer have not been made public. Thus, how would anyone except the letter’s author, and selected members of management from Mr. Sedon’s former employer, know what was written. Any suggestion that the letter’s contents were truthful and mild must be coming from someone who wrote it or read it.
Village should be accountable as well
MARCH 28, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MARCH 28, 2014, 12:32 AM
Village should be accountable as well
Kira Semler
With regard to the article “1.8 million quarters to be paid back” (The Ridgewood News, March 21, page A1), what is most shocking and appalling about this entire caper is that the Village of Ridgewood takes no responsibility whatsoever for this theft.
Obviously, a person or persons on the staff in the financial department was equally as culpable for this missing money. What was that person or persons doing while this guy was pocketing quarters?
What are the taxpayers of the Village of Ridgewood supposed to think about this? Are they supposed to trust the financial department personnel to be doing their jobs? This is a flagrant miscarriage of professional and fiduciary duties by the staff of the financial department of the Village of Ridgewood.
Village Hall and Stable Offices Closed February 12 in observance of Lincoln’s Birthday
In observance of Lincoln’s Birthday, the Village Hall and The Stable offices will be closed on Wednesday, February 12th. The will be no garbage or recycling collection that day.
Republican Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865
Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.”
Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.
The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party’s nomination for President, he sketched his life:
“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families–second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks…. My father … removed from Kentucky to … Indiana, in my eighth year…. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up…. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher … but that was all.”
Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, “His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.”
He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.
As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.
Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.
The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds…. ”
On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln’s death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.
The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse.gov are from “The Presidents of the United States of America,” by Frank Freidel and Hugh Sidey. Copyright 2006 by the White House Historical Association.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/abrahamlincoln
File Photo by Boyd Loving
Ridgewood its Reorg time
May 15,2012
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
The election is over and its time for the reorg, Reorganization as it is called will be held at the council meeting on July 1, the two new council members Albert Pucciarelli, Gwenn Hauck will join Paul Aronsohn , Bernadette Walsh and Tom Riche to select a new mayor for a two year term.
Contrary to popular belief the popular vote during elections makes no difference in picking a mayor. .In 2010 Councilwoman Walsh, took home the most votes and was passed over for a more experience Kieth Killion. It all comes down to a simple process ,after the new members are sworn in, nominations for mayor are submitted. The individual with most total votes among the five is then appointed and sworn in as the new mayor.
The Patch has reported the sources have said Aronsohn has support of running mates Gwenn Hauck and Albert Pucciarelli, and would have enough votes to take over the their words “largely figurehead role”. We have also heard that both Bernadette Walsh and Tom Riche, elected in 2010, have expressed also interest in the position. Riche is currently the deputy mayor and comes to the council with a lot of experience .While many witnessed Paul Aronsohn standup up in front of the whole town and say he couldn’t work with Keith ,Tom,Steve or Bernie, this in our and many peoples eyes rules him out as mayor .
Ridgewood still uses a mayor-council system based on the Faulkner Act. The mayor presides over the council meetings.,but has no veto power over decisions. His or her vote counts just like any other councilperson. However the mayor is the public face of the village, attending Village functions meeting with respective counterparts and of coarse other politicians. The mayor also presides over the council meetings.
This is again where many people have a serious problem with the two new council members for their strings attached affiliation to Valley Hospital and of councilmen Aronsohn for his deep connection to the state Democratic party and partisan out look in a non partisan town.
“Citizens for a Better Ridgewood ” tainted by the Bombace scandal
It seems “Citizens for a Better Ridgewood ” is more than just a group of complainers looking to “urbanize Ridgewood ” at taxpayers expense while reaping huge profits . The group seems to also be composed of and represented by a group of bullies who will do almost anything to get their way.
Also noted in the Judge’s decision “Plaintiff received a disturbing anonymous mailing at his home which was later found to have been sent by Former Chief Bombace”
Has Bombace been charged with anything? It seems he has culpability in this matter, costing Village Taxpayers, he should not escape without being held accountable. If the Judge found a disturbing anonymous mailing having been sent by Bombace, where is the investigation from the Ridgewood Police Department or the prosecutor’s office?
This lies on his shoulders of James Bombace as Director of the Fire Dept. for the years that this harassment to place. To find out that in the Judge opinion he active participated in the harassment is telling on the type of leader he was. This is the same man that now is actively spreading rumors about our mayor is even more telling of the kind of person he really is. He should give back his pension .
This the same Bombace heading up the “Citizens For A Better Ridgewood”? Was this group formed to advance the Aronsohn/Puciarelli/Hauck ticket?
This is the same Bombase that runs the fake misinformation blog or flog known as the “Ridgewood Views” under the Andrew & Sue moniker while on the taxpayers dime ?
This is also the same James Bombace who wrote the letter in today’s Ridgewood News supporting Paul Aronsohn, Gwenn Hauck, and Albert Pucciarelli for Village Council making these candidates complicit in a premeditated plan of lies and deceit to take over the Village?
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Citing conflicting and inconclusive crime statistics provided by Police Chief William M. Corcoran, Village Council members last night flatly rejected a proposal to install closed circuit television surveillance cameras throughout the central business district. Local philanthropist David Bolger had agreed to fund the controversial project.
Opposed: Harlow, Ringler-Shagin, and Wiest. For: Mancuso and Pfund.
