the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the group One Village, One Vote is the brainchild of residents Bob Fuhrman, Matthew Lindenberg, Stacey Loscalzo , Deborah Steinbaum and Siobhan Crann Winograd.
All were active in the high density development in the central business district .
Mystery surrounds the idea of eliminating the vote of the school budget ,especially one over $115 million dollars accounting for over 60% of Ridgewood property taxes .
Long time readers think this group has some hidden agenda attempting to hide increases in the school budget needed for building more classrooms due to the expected increase in students due to over development .
Others suggest eliminating the school budget vote is the first step to creating a more partisan town . The ultimate goal is to make our elections tied to democratic party machine and bring more development.
Excuse me? I have never been involved in any CBD development discussions. This suggestion appears to have been completey fabricated. I support the effort to consolidate Ridgewood’s local elections in November simply to reduce costs (tens of thousands of dollars or more each year) and to significantly increase voter turnout.
Think, and connect dots between members of this group, Aronshon, Sonenfeld, Harwin, Weitz, and an out of town developer.
Follow the money. Who is funding this? There are no reports filed on NJELEC for these policial activities. Where is the money coming from????
What money? Our time and research have been free. Happy to volunteer time. Truly, there is nothing nefarious going on. You’re certainly welcome to disagree on the issues, but this type of suggestion is both incorrect and uncalled for.
As I’ve said before, I’m happy to have a public and civil conversation on the facts if there is interest. If folks instead prefer to anonymously post speculations and false statements, I don’t see that as particularly productive or in anyone’s interest. When you’re brave enough to discuss publicly, let me know.
Go ahead Matt – please explain how spending $60,000 or so to defeat an unpopular school budget (saving $600k) is a bad thing.
I think the point of the previous posts though is the concern that consolidating the vote will also reduce the spread between Local and National elections, possibly increasing the external influences being brought by the Republican/Democrat parties. Democrats tend to usher in Progressive agendas and Republicans don’t…and a big Progressive agenda is Fair Housing, which is where we get apartments from. A fair concern, wouldn’t you say?
Matt – on the subject of Anonymous positng, which as you can see, I don’t agree with. Why is the onevillageonevote.com registered with obfuscated contact information? Why is it to hide that while also complaining about others posting anonymously?
Ugh…english 😉
Matt – on the subject of Anonymous posting, which as you can see, I don’t agree with…why is the onevillageonevote.com registered with obfuscated contact information? Why is it ok to hide that information while at the same time complaining about others posting anonymously?
Looks like Hackensack… when it was new.
This is the most misguided ridiculous thing, this One Village One Vote crap. Their motives have nothing to do with better voter turnout and saving money. They want to control the Board of Ed budget so that no one can vote on it. We see right through you.
TL;DR. I’m busy. Someone please give me the executive summary on this “One Village One Vote” initiative and spare me from navigating a poorly written website.
If the idea is to change the voting cycle such that all voting is done in November, then I wouldn’t have a problem with that (particularly if doing so saves the taxpayers money). If, on the other hand, the initiative requires the taxpayers to relinquish any voting rights, then I would be strongly opposed to this initiative.
you lose the School budget vote if the vote is consolidated in November
Jon,
Reasons to consolidate our off-cycle local elections in November:
· Thousands of registered voters enter our schools on each election day, and this is compounded each time we hold a separate election.
· Between 2010 and 2019, participation in Ridgewood local elections has been 49% higher on average in November elections than in off-cycle elections
o Even with automatic distribution of mail-in ballots, our recent off-cycle combined Village Council and School election saw terribly low turnout
· Ridgewood is one of only fourteen municipalities in NJ that currently hold an automatic and separate vote on the school budget. All of NJ’s over 500 other municipalities hold their school elections in November.
o Garfield, NJ has joined the long list of NJ municipalities to move their local elections back to November
· Off-cycle local elections cost Ridgewood taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars annually.
· Consolidating Village Council elections with November general elections does not make them partisan or confusing.
· Consolidating Village Council elections with November general election does not conflict with our right to vote; we still have every right to vote for like-minded candidates, as well as the right to vote on proposed school budgets should they ever exceed a tax increase of approximately 2%.
All supporting details and sources can be found on https://onevillageonevote.com. Thanks for considering this.
Fear mongering by one village team.
Their hidden agenda is to open up Ridgewood market for their friends from Essex county.
Follow the money!!
One village one vote uses Mahwah’s example on their website.
Remember the lawsuit Mahwah had to face couple of years ago?
Guys, be careful with this group. They have an agenda.
Jon – It does require the voters to give up their right to vote on BOE proposed budgets. Disgraceful
If one vote one village was really serious about safety at schools during elections, they would advocate for:
1. professional day on election day
or
2. moving the elections to local churches, library, village hall, womens club etc – these entities don’t pay property taxes and should be allowed to serve the community on the election day – while keeping the separation of church and state.
Their hidden agenda is different – if it were school safety, they would be looking for moving election away, not consolidating it to one day. Why is that one day not dangerous?
Too bad. Nothing you anonymous wailers can do. It’s great. Keep throwing your hissy fits. Hahaha
you cant just vote NO
Can’t wait to see it pass.
Why not have a two year (or 5 year for our Socialist friends) budget cycle? Sure, you’d have to build in a lot of contingency because of the longer cycle, but then we could consolidate the elections while keeping the budget vote (every other year).
no the BOE needs constant supervision
When can we vote on the Village and Ridgewood Water budgets?
no flush Fridays will come sooner
“It does require the voters to give up their right to vote on BOE proposed budgets.”
If this is the case, then I would STRONGLY oppose this initiative (and urge others similarly situated to do the same).
Let’s consider this: approximately 65% of our property taxes is used to fund the school system.
Why would anyone in his/her right mind give up the right to vote on such a consequential issue?
Not one of the One Vote member spoke about transparency from the previous board, not one spoke about any wasteful expenditure, every year costing us many thousands of dollar, I know at least 2 who will land up to support any exorbitant contract to do any wasteful thing at schools without even reading the proposal, all the other activists have a proven record of going after suspect deals and decisions at Village hall or BOE. Then suddenly, OVOV care about the wasteful expenditure on multiple elections, out of all reasons that they give for consolidating elections the furthest from truth is that they are doing it for saving money.
The second thing that’s untrue is the 2% cap, I will invite them publicly to have a debate with people who understand budget and have thread bared the line items over the last few years, there are at least a dozen way to circumvent the 2% increase, either this group has no clue how to override 2% limit or they know and they are still lying about “we get to vote if its more than 2%”, but that in my opinion is not even the biggest risk, the biggest risk with a budget without administrations fear of going through residents scrutiny is, being far from reality.
So OVOV has not either seen the difference in the budget process for 2020 and the year before that, it looks like they are not counting the number of meetings and the content of information presented to the public when the budget had to go through the vote vs when not, they do not seem to be either engaged enough to notice the difference or deliberately glossing it over.
Aditya speaks the TRUTH
What ever happen to cutting costs and limit spending. BOE budget is ridiculous
Adiltya is correct, it’s easy to override the 2% tax increase cap. Pension and healthcare costs are exempt from the cap in yet another freebie giveaway to the unions. This is true for the BOE and their budgets, but also true for the Village and their budgets. Teachers, cops, judges and firefighters are all taking a greater share of our tax dollars above and beyond any increase in spending!
If Deborah is for it… I’m against it
Paul V is stoking the OVOV again…a Democrat looking to take away school budget voting. A politician who loves unchecked spending.
PV is very active on FB today. What a slick pos.