THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011 BY KELLY EBBELS STAFF WRITER THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
The trial in the case of the 2008 drowning of a 13-year-old boy at Graydon Pool began this week, with attorneys poised to bring their arguments forward and expert witnesses to testify.
Soo Hyeon Park, who, with his family, was visiting from Korea when they went to Ridgewood’s municipal pool as guests of the Kim family, drowned on the afternoon of July 15, 2008. Details of the drowning, notably the time at which the incident was first reported, have been disputed by the Village of Ridgewood and the Park family.
The Park family has sued the village for negligence and for emotional distress. The village had filed countersuits against the Park family as well as the Kim family, arguing that they owed a duty of care to oversee their son and to explain the pool’s rules to the guest family, respectively.
A Superior Court judge dismissed the Kim and Park families of culpability in summary judgments in June.
>Christie Talks To WCBS 880 About ‘Occupy,’ Obama & 7 Train October 26, 2011 10:18 PM
NEW YORK (WCBS 880) — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie joined WCBS 880 anchors Steve Scott and Wayne Cabot for an interview Wednesday and discussed a wide range of topics, including Occupy Wall Street, the 2012 presidential election and how it feels to be governor.
LISTEN: You Can Listen To The Full 11-Minute Interview Here
What Do You Think Of 7 Train Running To New Jersey And How To Pay For It?
Christie: “I like this idea a heck of a lot better and here’s why: it would do what the ARC tunnel was originally supposed to do, which is to connect New Jersey with the East Side of Manhattan and that makes this project infinitely better than the ARC Tunnel. Secondly, we’re approaching this as a partnership, unlike the ARC tunnel. The ARC tunnel was a partnership just between the federal government and the state of New Jersey and the federal government was paying about 30 percent of the cost and New Jersey was paying about 70 percent. Here, we’re looking at this as a partnership between New Jersey, New York City, New York state and the federal government.”
>New York City Officials Reach Agreement On Pension Reform By: Bobby Cuza
City officials were joined by municipal union leaders Thursday afternoon to announce an agreement on a new pension system that will consolidate funds under a unified board in hopes of producing higher returns and lowering costs to the city. NY1’s Bobby Cuza filed the following report.
Right now, the pensions for city employees reside in five different pension funds, each with their own separate board overseeing investment decisions, with 58 trustees in all. It’s a system critics say is inefficient, duplicative and outdated. Web Extra
“Right now, if we want to make an investment, it’s like turning the Queen Mary around in the Hudson River. By the time you do it, you may be going in the wrong direction,” said Stephen Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association.
On Thursday, labor leaders joined the mayor and city comptroller to announce a new way of doing business: All five funds will be overseen by a single unified board, which will hire a new chief investment officer, independent of any one elected official, to manage the money. The aim is to produce higher returns and, in turn, lower costs to the city.
“The extra investment dollars that pension funds earn free up city taxpayer dollars that can instead go for police and fire protection and for teachers’ salaries or to pay for all the other essential city services,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
> FLAGS ORDERED FLOWN AT HALF-STAFF FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28
Upon Executive Order from Governor Chris Christie, flags at Ridgewood schools will be flown at half-staff on Friday, October 28, 2011, in recognition and mourning of a brave and loyal American hero, United States Army Staff Sergeant Jorge M. Oliveira of Newark, who tragically lost his life while heroically and selflessly serving his country in Afghanistan while supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
>Garrett Unveils Proposal to Reform Secondary Mortgage Market
WASHINGTON, DC, October 27, 2011 –
Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, today unveiled his proposal to reform the secondary mortgage market to ensure robust private investment in the U.S. mortgage market without a government guarantee.
“Since taking control of the House in January, we have remained steadfast in our drive and determination to end the ongoing bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, protect taxpayers from future bailouts, and encourage private capital to re-enter the secondary mortgage market,” said Garrett. “Now that we have taken the important step of introducing a series of bills to wind down the government-backed mortgage twins, it’s time to start thinking about the ways we can jumpstart the private market to step in once they’re gone. My proposal to reform the secondary mortgage market will facilitate continued standardization and uniformity, ensure rule of law and legal certainty, and provide investors with the standardization and transparency necessary to ensure that a deep and liquid market develops in the absence of Fannie and Freddie.”
“Most, if not all, of my colleagues, Republican and Democrats alike, recognize the status quo is unsustainable. The government-sanctioned duopoly of Fannie and Freddie is not only systemically dangerous to our economic security, it’s un-American,” added Garrett. “For too long the government’s manipulation of the housing market has crowded out private market participants at the expense of the American taxpayers. It’s time to move from the era of crony capitalism that defined our housing finance system during the last century to an era of free market capitalism that will define our housing finance system in the next century.”
Garrett’s proposal to reform the secondary mortgage market will do the following:
1. Facilitate Continued Standardization and Uniformity of Mortgage Securitization
Direct Federal Housing Finance Administration (FHFA) to create several categories of mortgages with uniform underwriting standards for each. Direct FHFA to develop standard and uniform securitization agreements and representations and warranties. Streamline the process for securities that meet the standard underwriting characteristics and securitization agreements to be sold to investors. Provide FHFA authority to ensure underwriting and securitization standardization compliance. Abolish risk-retention provisions included in Dodd-Frank.
2. Ensure Rule of Law and Legal Certainty
Remove conflicts of interest between servicers and investors. Clarify the rules around the eligibility of obtaining second lien mortgages. Require mandatory arbitration on disagreements between investors and issuers on reps and warrants. Prevent regulators from unilaterally forcing investors to reduce the principal of loans they have invested in. Allow for the appointment of an independent third party to act for the benefit of investors in mortgage-backed securities. Standardize servicer accounting and reporting for restructuring, modification or work-out of loans used as collateral.
3. Provide Additional Transparency and Disclosure
Increase the quality of the loan level information and the disclosures that investors can use to evaluate the value of the mortgages. Ensure investors have sufficient time to review and analyze disclosed information before making investment decisions. Increase pricing transparency by disclosing pricing history on securitization deals. Require the creation of an individualized marker for each loan within a securitization.
Throughout the 112th Congress, Garrett and his Republican colleagues on the Financial Services Committee have taken an incremental approach to gradually chip away at government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In March, House Financial Services Republicans unveiled eight bills during the first round of legislation and then followed it up with a second round of seven bills in May. To date, fourteen of the fifteen bills have been cleared through the Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises Subcommittee and are scheduled to be considered by the full Financial Services Committee in the next few months.
Bill could deliver what solar sector needs most: Stability
The legislature appears poised to act to stabilize a solar market that some have argued threatens to curtail the rapid growth of solar systems in New Jersey. But the initiative will have to wait until the lame-duck session after the election next month.
Assemblyman Upendra Chivukula (D-Middlesex), the influential chairman of the Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee, said he expects to move a bill in mid-November that would deal with issues that have caused widespread uncertainty among investors as to whether solar energy is still a good bet in New Jersey. (Johnson, NJ Spotlight)
New Jersey’s economic development czar Tuesday encouraged the green technology industry to take advantage of incentives for start-up businesses, but some investors said they want a clear idea about planned changes to the state’s energy policy.
Caren Franzini, chief executive officer of the state Economic Development Authority, told an audience of nearly 200 at the Cleantech NJ conference about how the administration a few weeks ago won a commitment from Belgian-based Fluitec to call New Jersey home. The company has sales in 36 countries and offices in the United States, Belgium and China, and is consolidating its U.S. operations and global corporate functions here. (Jordan, Gannett)
>Letter: John Birkner, Jr. Mayor of Westwood thanks area residents for support at hospital hearing
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2011 PASCACK VALLEY COMMUNITY LIFE Mayor thanks residents for support at hospital hearing
To the Editor:
It has certainly been a long time coming, but the residents of the Pascack and Northern Valleys finally had the opportunity to address the New Jersey State Department of Health and Senior Services Planning Board. The application by Hackensack University Medical Center to open a full service acute care hospital at the site of the former Pascack Valley Hospital is now in the final stages of review. After nearly four years of working to have the hospital reopened, it was great to see that the passion, energy, and resolve of our residents has not diminished one bit, and in fact seems to have grown stronger.
The old saying “actions speak louder than words” could apply no better than to the actions demonstrated by the executive staff from both Valley and Englewood Hospitals, who after accusing the members of the State Department of Health of manipulating the application process, then claimed that they cared about the residents in our community. We expected them to speak out against the opening of our hospital, but we also expected that since they claimed to care about our residents, perhaps they would have stayed at the hearing to listen to our concerns. Instead, after they addressed the panel, their small group got up together and left the building in a display that demonstrated a clear lack of interest in what anyone in attendance has experienced because of the closure of our hospital.
>The Whitestone Associates report is critical as to why the scale of the expansion of the hospital should not go ahead
The Whitestone Associates report is critical as to why the scale of the expansion of the hospital should not go ahead – 12 trucks an hour for 8 hours a day and the foundations of local homes been damaged, these are just some of the real issues that the village as a whole will face. Together with the noise, the increased level of traffic and the general dangers posed by such an undertaking, the Village needs to look carefully as to why this project is something that we must not undertake. A legal remedy that the hospital will seek, should its plans be quashed, will amount to nothing based on the findings of this report.
We must be mindful that the Village has a duty to care for its tax-paying citizens and most importantly, for the children that will be caught in the crosshairs of this massive project – regardless of what side of town they live on and regardless of their numbers. Endangering the welfare or life of just one child is something that can not be tolerated.
Another important factor that needs to be touched on is the companies that will be potentially hired by Valley for this supposedly massive project – will the Village get an opportunity to review the track records of these companies as those records relate to health and safety history, employment history (most construction companies that undertake these sized projects have in the past been found guilty of hiring illegal immigrants and paying them below average wages off their books). What recourse will the Village have against Valley and the companies should anything untoward happen?
It’s important to remember that the issue of the expansion plan comes with numerous sub-issues that all need to be addressed and I am of the opinion that that most of those sub-issues have not been addressed or even placed on the radar.
> Valley’s expansion will face number of Ridgewood regulations.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2011 BY BARBARA WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
RIDGEWOOD — About 22,000 truckloads of soil and bedrock would have to be hauled away from The Valley Hospital site if its plan to expand is approved, according to an expert hired by the village.
To deal with that many construction vehicles, Ridgewood would need to restrict the hours dump trucks can haul excavated soil out of the village and work with the hospital on the traffic routes that will be used, said Christopher Rutishauser, the village engineer.
The 100 daily dump truck trips necessary to remove all the soil and bedrock would have to work around school drop-off and pick-up times, he said.
“There will probably be between 12 and 15 cubic yards per truck — that’s a good amount,” Rutishauser said. “They’ll have to apply for a soil permit from the village and that permit has a lot of conditions.”
>New Street Lights To Have “Homeland Security” Applications High-tech system to include speakers, video surveillance, emergency alerts Paul Joseph Watson Infowars.com Wednesday, October 26, 2011
UPDATE: Presumably in response to this article being linked on the Drudge Report, the company behind ‘Intellistreets’, Illuminating Concepts, has now pulled the video from You Tube entirely, presumably nervous about the negative publicity that could be generated from concerns about street lights being used for “Homeland Security” purposes – their words, not ours. We have added an alternative version of the clip below, but it may be subject to removal at any time. The video is still available on the company’s website.
New street lights that include “Homeland Security” applications including speaker systems, motion sensors and video surveillance are now being rolled out with the aid of government funding.
The Intellistreets system comprises of a wireless digital infrastructure that allows street lights to be controlled remotely by means of a ubiquitous wi-fi link and a miniature computer housed inside each street light, allowing for “security, energy management, data harvesting and digital media,” according to the Illuminating Concepts website.
The state’s largest teachers union has opened its checkbook wider for this year’s legislative races — largely to gird for a battle with Gov. Chris Christie over proposed changes in education policy.
“Looking out over the landscape, there are more races that are judged to be critical races,” said Stever Baker, a spokesman for the New Jersey Education Association. “There’s a sense that the stakes are higher in this election, so it’s critical we support people who support public education.”
At the same time, the powerful education association narrowed the scope of recipients, following through on a threat to penalize lawmakers who approved a large increase in the cost of pension and health care benefits. (Friedman, The Star-Ledger)
>THOMAS SOWELL :The Media and ‘Bullying’ OCTOBER 25, 2011 12:00 A.M.
Privileges are accorded to the minority of the moment.
Back in the 1920s, the intelligentsia on both sides of the Atlantic were loudly protesting the execution of political radicals Sacco and Vanzetti, after what they claimed was an unfair trial. Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to his young leftist friend Harold Laski, pointing out that there were “a thousand-fold worse cases” involving black defendants, “but the world does not worry over them.”
Holmes said: “I cannot but ask myself why this so much greater interest in red than black.”
To put it bluntly, it was a question of whose ox was gored. That is, what groups were in vogue at the moment among the intelligentsia. Blacks clearly were not.
> Ridgewood residents clear debris leftover from Irene
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2011 BY KELLY EBBELS STAFF WRITER THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Barbara Ferrante, a member of the Women Gardeners of Ridgewood, was walking her dog with her husband three weeks ago when she came upon a mess at Maple Park: trees and debris lodged between the riverbank and the bridge, roots exposed on the path, silt everywhere.
Concerned, she reached out to her gardening club and to Deputy Director of Parks and Recreation Nancy Bigos, who is a member of the club, to organize an effort to clean up the riverbank.
Last Sunday afternoon was no day off for about 20 Ridgewood residents, who volunteered their time and labor to take on the arduous process of cleaning the area. The effort brought together the Women Gardeners of Ridgewood, the Ridgewood Wildscape Association and the Preserve Graydon Coalition.
“It’s just public-spirited people that have come down here to help,” Ferrante said, rake in hand, as she and the other volunteers busily cleaned up the area with tarps, rakes and ropes. Ferrante’s dog, tied to the wheelbarrow, looked on.
Rutgers-Eagleton: largest percentage of voters cite jobs and unemployment as state’s toughest problem
In today’s Rutgers-Eagleton 40th anniversary poll, voters assess the state’s most important problems. Twenty-seven percent name unemployment and jobs first, followed by 25 percent who cite taxes first, and 10 percent who express concern about the economy in general.
Crime, cited first by 16 percent in 1971, beat taxes by only 2 percent. Today just 3 percent put crime at the top of the list. The environment, named by 10 percent in 1971, receives first mention from only 1 percent of Garden Staters today.
In the very first Rutgers-Eagleton Poll in September 1971, crime and drug addiction topped taxes as the single most important problem in New Jersey. Forty years later, crime is barely mentioned as jobs and the economy are now New Jersey’s top problem. Taxes, which consistently have been listed first or second over 40 years, continue to vex New Jerseyans, ranking just behind jobs as the state’s biggest problem. (Pizarro, PolitickerNJ)
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_riaIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 165
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_inhaIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 166
Warning: Undefined array key "sfsi_mastodonIcon_order" in /home/eagle1522/public_html/theridgewoodblog.net/wp-content/plugins/ultimate-social-media-icons/libs/controllers/sfsi_frontpopUp.php on line 177
