Philanthropist David Bolger urges Council to drop the anti gift ordnance or pay the tickets
July 23,2013
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Seems another Ridgewood developer has issues with the $1000 fund raiser tickets the Village Council and Village manager received .
Philanthropist David Bolger thorugh his lawyer Tom Wells told the Village council to either drop the anti-gift ordinance or pay up.
Bolger though his son JT Bolger and a family run entity Two-Forty Associates has had a rezoning application pending since June 2011 on the 52 unit Chestnut Village .
The Philanthropist is still smarting from the Village turning down his $250,000 gift to help renovate the Lester Stable.
While though his lawyer his assertion that no politician would ever be influenced by a gift is so bizarre that’s it’s comical. Suggesting that no politician has ever been successfully bribed again we defer. While we admire his faith in humanity , we don’t hold politicians in the same high esteem.
While we do question the wisdom of turning down the a gift that the whole community could benefit from while on the other hand excepting a gift that was clearly meant to impress and intimidate elected officials and has a very limited benefit to anyone except for the party goers.
We do agree with Tom Wells that the anti gift ordinance however well intentioned was ill conceived and his boss David Bolger was the prime target of the ordinance.
Its seems Aronsohn and his minions didn’t get the memo that David Bolger is certainly someone to be reckoned with and the Bolger Foundation has contributed millions to the Village and many non profits with in the Village over the years including Valley Hospital. Mr Bolger is not someone to be taken lightly or slighted in this way and we would bet this will not be the last we will hear on this subject .
I think the gift rule is a good one. If someone gives you a gift, and then asks you a favor, well…….it stands to reason that you would be more likely to grant their favor. Accepting gifts from anyone who has an application in before the planning board just smacks of “pay-to-play.” In my opinion the ordinance should remain as is.
Therefore the council should have paid the tickets. Since they did not, the application from Saraceno should be denied or at least greatly delayed.
It just happens that Mr Bolger has an application in front of the Planning Board for a apartment complex on Chestnut st. I guess he didn’t want to be out done by Onyx and their gift. So lets grease the skids and get all the complex done. There are always strings attached with Mr. Bolger. When he wanted to donate money for the stable he also wanted to make sure that his pet employee got a big new office in the stable.
Ok, let me understand this. The council broke broke its own ordinance so to make everything alright let just get rid of the ordinance. WOW
Mr. Bolger is 100% correct.
I’m shocked that they haven’t paid the $1,000 back already. For all of the Richie bashing that the public endured over a similar sum, one would imagine that at least Aronsohn, Puciarelli and Hauck would have paid up at the first hint of protest. For a bunch of politicians, how politically unsophisticated these people are. The longer they hold out, the longer they’re going to have to endure the wrath and ridicule of their own constituency. I can’t believe that these neophytes get to vote on a smoking ban much less on the more critical issues this town faces.
I have an idea, Mr. Bolger can pay the $1000 to Sareceno so that the gift is really from him, which he seems to be ok with.
Bottom line is that no individual should be getting gifts due to his/her elected position.