the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the results of an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request revealed that Mayor Paul Vagianos was hiding comments that several citizens posted on his official Mayor Paul Vagianos Facebook page. This action was a violation of the OPRA. An elected official cannot, by law, block public comments on an official government page. Not only did this break the law, but it also flew in the face of his repeated contention that he is all in favor of “open dialogue,” “transparency,” and “civil discourse.” None of the hidden comments used vulgar, threatening, or otherwise inappropriate language; they simply stated opinions.
Moreover, the Mayor repeatedly delayed providing the requested OPRA information. The request was submitted on April 6, 2023. By law, the response was due no later than the end of business on April 17, 2023. On April 18, 2023, an extension was requested by the Deputy Village Clerk, pushing the fulfillment date to April 25, 2023. On April 26, 2023, an additional extension was requested until May 9, 2023. This would be a total of 23 business days to fulfill a request that, by law, had to be fulfilled in 7 business days.
Because the Mayor steadfastly failed to supply the requested information from his Facebook Page, on May 5, 2023 the Village Director of I.T. was made an administrator of the Mayor’s official Facebook page. The OPRA request was fulfilled on the following business day, May 8, 2023. Clearly the requested information was easy to provide, but the Mayor refused to; the IT Director provided it to the Deputy Village Clerk.
Finally, the response to the OPRA request revealed that one of the administrators of the Mayor Paul Vagianos Facebook page is DeAlessi Enterprises, Inc. This firm’s owner is also the franchise holder of TapInto Ridgewood.
Our mayor is one hot mess.
I’m certain that if you did a similar check of Councilperson Winograd’s official social media account you’d obtain similar results.
So the mayor controls Tap Into.. He is so much like Aronsohn except possibly worse.
Tapinto ran an article against his opponent to badmouth her. Tapinto owner was getting paid by the Mayor at that time too! Look at the election filings.
Wow, that is incredible. No wonder the articles are so slanted. What else will this guy do to control the narrative? That is one of the most unethical things I have ever heard of. As a journalist or owner of a new journal, there should be an ethical violation filed somewhere as I would think these is highly illegal activities taking place. Talk about having someone in your pocket.
The Tapinto Ridgewood articles are full of misinformation, inuendo and outright lies most of the time and they further control the narrative by not allowing comments at the bottom of the articles, so it is pretty much a useless rag that is obviously, now we know, controlled by Paul. Great job, Mayor. We can only hope that an all out investigation on ethics violations further digs you even deeper into the muck you are swimming in (with Joe DeAlessi).
I can only hope that someone would do a full scale investigation on campaign contributions or kickbacks. There are probably way more skeletons in both of their closets and if it weren’t for the amazing perseverance of right-minded citizens who pursued this relentlessly to get the facts that the public deserves., we would only suspect but not KNOW THE TRUTH about the unethical practices of the Mayor and the franchisee of the local news franchisee of Ridgewood, Joe DeAlessi. They should both be concerned over losing their leverage based on ethics alone.
He thinks he’s above the law ! What a P_S
During the council election campaign, Mr. V. was featured throughout the publication, including in photos, while articles misquoted or maligned incumbent council member and mayor Susan Knudsen when they bothered to mention her at all.
This is not journalism, folks; it’s marketing posing as journalism. “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.”
Oh, and Mr. DeAlessi was Vagianos’s campaign manager during his unsuccessful run for state General Assembly in 2015 and/or 2017 (he ran twice but not sure whether DeAlessi was involved both times).
Blog comment, Oct. 20, 2021:
“Tap into Ridgewood is o/o by Jason DeAlessi. DeAlessi also owns Fuerza Strategy LLC. Fuerza Strategy was Paul’s previous PR firm. Fuerza Strategy employs Donna Abene who is th Treasure of Paul’s campaign. Paul’s campaign is being managed out of Fuerza Strategy’s Kinnelon offices . There are no dots to connect here; it’s a direct line from Tap into Ridgewood to Paul’s campaign. They are one and the same. Sleazy not to say this upfront. Tap into Ridgewood has been doing opposition pieces on the current Council, Hooban , etc. Clearly, this is being directed by the pro-garage, pro high density housing crowd (the Paulie’s, Rurik, Siobhan, etc). It’s all a matter of public record on the internet. Not hard to find this out.”
https://theridgewoodblog.net/tap-into-ridgewood-editor-democratic-operative-and-former-paul-vagianos-campaign-manager/
Sounds like it’s time to get rid of him. How can this not be done with all his ethical and legal mishaps.
This man is an utter disgrace. An out an outlier. He is just such a disaster for this village of ours.
This makes a perfect case to…RECALL PAUL!!
First the ACLU and now this. How can a new organization be in the Mayor’s pocket and get away with it. This needs to stop and needs to stop now. Please “Recall Paul”!
Paul thinks he is a great Mayor and has a large ego for a little man but so many people don’t like him or think he is intelligent. The sporting community like him because they think that he will . I thought for sure Rorik was the Admin for his FB page, but it makes even more sense to have an unethical news outlet owned by J. DeAlessi who has been posting articles as news but in actuality they are OpEd pieces written by our very own illustrious Mayor. Now that the rug has been lifted and the truth exposed, where will the insects run now.