The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Continue reading Village of Ridgewood Garbage Collection will resume on Wednesday, February 14, 2024
As a homeowner, your sewer system needs to be maintained regularly for optimal performance levels. It’s important to understand the basics of maintaining your system so that you can quickly identify any issues and take steps towards resolving them as soon as possible. In this blog post, we’ll go over four key items you should know about managing your sewer system – from warning signs of potential problems to how to prevent clogs and leaks.
After reading this article, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge necessary to ensure that your home’s sewage lines are in good condition. So don’t wait – let’s dive right into the essentials of proper sewer maintenance!
Continue reading Managing Your Sewer System: 4 Things You Need To Know
October 24,2017
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Kim Guadagno the Republican candidate for governor has proposed conducting a full state audit of New Jersey’s finances or lack there of as part of her 8 point plan to right a sinking ship . Neighbors are fleeing New Jersey because of excessive taxes and the sky high cost of living, yet Trenton dose not seem to understand how dire the situation is for New Jersey families.
1)Conduct Full-Scale Audit
On day one, Kim will order a complete audit of state government finances, operations and programs to root out waste, abuse and inefficiencies in all areas of state government. Savings realized from the “Audit Trenton” initiative will be given back to the taxpayers in the form of property tax relief.
2) Support An Independently Elected Attorney General
New Jersey is one of only a handful of states that allows the governor to appoint its top law enforcement official. A Guadagno administration would support a proposal to establish an independently-elected attorney general, or commission an independent special prosector in the event the governor or lieutenant governor is under investigation. This will ensure the state’s top law enforcement agency in the state is accountable only to the people of New Jersey to root out potential corruption and abuse.
3) Use Zero-based Budgeting
The first budget proposal presented by the Guadagno administration will utilize “zero-based budgeting” techniques, forcing all state spending to be justified based upon need and cost. Kim will also nominate Cabinet officials who understand that finding savings for taxpayers ranks second only to protecting our citizens’ health, safety, and welfare.
4) Ensure Education Dollars Get To Classrooms
New Jersey taxpayers currently spend an average of $19,600 per student, but that amount varies widely district to district and a large portion never gets to the classroom. Before we can ask taxpayers to fork over another penny for schools, we must ensure that the education funding formula is fair and our tax dollars are actually being used to improve student performance. That’s why a Guadagno administration will immediately call on the State Department of Education to conduct an audit of the state’s 586 school districts to ensure we’re spending the money on improving educational outcomes for students.
4) Fix School Procurement And Construction
School district procurement rules and practices often get in the way of getting the best product at the lowest price. We must review and change these rules and develop benchmarks for districts regarding smart purchasing practices. Like collective bargaining, we should establish a uniform, statewide procurement policy and system that will allow for the leveraging of statewide bargaining power to secure the best possible price for school goods. New Jersey must also bring fairness to school construction by requiring the SDA districts to pay the same percentage on capital improvements as they do for their entire district budget.
5) Sell Surplus State Assets
A Guadagno administration would sell buildings and other assets no longer needed by the state. This would yield the two-fold benefit of producing income that could be used to reduce debt and would put these properties back on the local tax rolls to help municipalities reduce property taxes. This proposal would not affect parks, beaches or environmentally sensitive properties owned by the state.
6) Take The Politics Out Of Road Building
In New Jersey, it is no secret that it costs too much and takes too long to build roads and other infrastructure projects. Yet instead of fixing the problems, Trenton insiders created a politically-appointed panel of four to control how our transportation dollars are spent and demand everyday New Jerseyans pay more at the pump through higher gas taxes. A Guadagno administration will demand better and work to bring efficiency and common sense to road construction. This includes auditing the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), eliminating political appointees, disbanding the panel of four politically appointed bureaucrats and ensuring infrastructure projects are funded based upon need, congestion and economic impact.
7) Oppose New Long-Term Debt
New Jersey’s state debt is about twice the national average and threatens to further erode the state’s declining credit rating. As governor, Kim will close the loophole that allows New Jersey’s Economic Development Authority to take on new debt without voter approval. In fact, Kim will oppose any plan that adds additional long term debt to the state’s balance sheet without getting voter approval via a referendum.
8) Scrap Plans To Build ‘The Palace Of Versailles’
At a time when we have the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, New Jersey cannot afford to turn the State House into the Palace of Versailles. Instead of spending $300 million on renovating the State House, Kim believes we should set up a charitable foundation to raise funds from private sources to make any necessary repairs to the aging building. This effort can be assisted by making charitable contributions tax deductible.
John Brennan , Staff Writer, @BergenBrennanPublished 11:41 a.m. ET May 20, 2017 | Updated 10:47 p.m. ET May 20, 2017
In a move that could turn out to be the trigger for turning the long-dormant American Dream Meadowlands into a reality, project operator Triple Five announced late Friday that it has closed on $1.6 billion in construction financing for the long-stalled project.
The deal is expected to set the stage in the coming days or weeks for a billion-dollar bond issuance that would provide the rest of the funding for the 2.9 million square foot first phase of the entertainment and retail project.
Two companies sanctioned by state officials to operate under their own rules have come to dominate a growing and lucrative industry in New Jersey, collecting nearly $1 million in fees last year after arranging online auctions for municipalities selling off their residents’ tax liens, according to a report released Tuesday. Salvador Rizzo, The Record Read more
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Independent investigators found problems with how NJ Transit runs a $100 million program to improve weather resilience after Superstorm Sandy, problems that could lead to waste, fraud and abuse, according to the state treasurer’s office.
But what those problems are — and how NJ Transit should fix them — remain unknown because the agency has declined to make the findings public, violating a state law intended to ensure transparency, say legislators.
“It certainly violates the law,” John Wisniewski, chairman of the Assembly’s transportation committee and a co-sponsor of the law, said when he learned of NJ Transit’s decision not to release the records. “It’s more than just wrong. It’s outrageous. You can’t help but wonder: What are they hiding?”
The Trouble with Getting Congress Working Again
Having deprived Congress of regular order for nearly the entire tenure of the current administration, Harry Reid and his cohorts have milked every partisan advantage from this circumstance that they could possibly dream up. The same goes for his shamelessly executed plan to eliminate the Senate filibuster rule, so helpful in ushering committed statists and hardcore political progressives into important appointive federal government posts by depriving the political opposition of their only effective means of applying political leverage during the Senate confirmation process.
Senator Reid now stands ready to take full political advantage of his political opponent’s stated desire to restore Regular Order in the federal budgetary process, and to bring back the filibuster rule. Come January, leaders in the new majority party in the Senate will (or at least should) be torn between two different goals or aspirations, each with its own unique merits:
On the one hand, they will wish to repair the institutional damage done to the Senate and restore its potency as a strong and independent actor in our republican form of government under the U.S. Constitution. This means moving Congress out from underneath the dark cloud of executive branch dominance that has overspread all of Washington D.C. in recent year, as well as re-establishing the unique power of a single senator to stand in the way of ill-advised legislative measures, to the chagrin and consternation of reason-blind ideologues who rely on group-think and public shaming techniques to achieve their public policy goals.
On the other hand, they will wish to make of Congress an even greater and more insurmountable obstacle to the current administration’s stated goal of fundamentally transforming this country. Along the way, they will also be eager to cooperate freely with the House of Representatives to pass a series of clean bills for the president to sign or veto (most likely the latter) that will serve to draw into the starkest possible relief two competing and contrasting visions for how this country should move forward. To be the beneficiary of such an historic mid-term electoral landslide without then seizing and exploiting every available partisan advantage would be to appear naive and unwilling to engage in the largest and most momentous political struggle this country has seen since the Adams versus Jefferson ‘Clash of the Titans’ circa 1797-1800 (culminating, of course, with Jefferson’s historic inauguration, preceded that day by the remarkable scene of a humiliated but still office-holding John Adams emerging from the cavernous new executive mansion in the pre-dawn mist, hailing a ride in a passing public carriage like any other ordinary citizen, and high-tailing it back to New England to enjoy the rest of his life as America’s first one-term president).
So to say that Mitch McConnell could (or at least should) be experiencing mixed feelings about acting in good faith to restore the filibuster rule as it applies to Senate debates, or to plot a return to Regular Order in support of the Constitutionally-required process of preparing and passing an annual budget for federal governmental outlays, is the understatement of this rapidly ending but remarkable year.
Wilsey Square Project a ridiculous waste of other peoples money
This whole project seems to be designed around a $146,000 Federal grant that must include a bike lane. It is a ridiculous waste of other peoples money. Now we are spending $350K of the Village Taxpayers money and $146k of Federal Taxpayers money to create an unusable bike lane and choking a 4 lane road to 2 lanes which will result in all day traffic jams and create a safety issue regarding emergency vehicles.
The Village could have repaved the existing road for $150K.Just plain wasteful and stupid.
