the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ after a log commenter called the Mayors performance at the candidates Night Debate , “horrible, shrieking mess. I will never vote for Knudsen. I did, twice, but never again. She has disintegrated in the last year.” Another reader defended the Mayor:
“It would have been hard not to feel combative when your work of nearly a decade was being attacked with blatant lies and false claims while a sea of planted supporters of your opponents glared at you, laughed at you, and yes, openly booed. Horrible.”
“Yes, her reaction was a little over the top, perhaps, but clearly understandable. And let’s not forget that all council members from Time Immemorial are generous volunteers of their time, not professional pols with a staff of aides and speech coaches. Not to mention the microphones (see below)
In any case a candidate’s demeanor at this increasingly useless “debate,” an excuse for democracy (with a long history of alarmingly inept moderators) that needs to end now, indicates nothing about how he or she will behave on the council. Watch videos of the last two years of council meetings to see how calmly and intelligently Susan has comported herself while leading those meetings as mayor, and for another two years previously (sandwiching Hache’s mayoral stint). Even when dedicated gnomes such as Halaby stand there week after week insanely berating her, and she could have him thrown out, she doesn’t. (I would.) I doubt that any former mayor would allow him to spout his lies and insults to that extent. But she believes he has the right to speak. (I don’t.)
Not sure if that was Weitz’s sons who arrived halfway through the proceedings and sat in the front row, but one was so bored that he quickly began playing games on his large-screen laptop. When he got to Wordle, I told him to shut it off after his first entry (not a great choice despite what the NYT Wordle Bot claims) and he did.
The two newbies with zero experience in local government had no clue about anything. The best they could do was to faux-indignantly drum up old agendas: Schedler, pickleball, restore this or that committee that was removed for good reason, rework the EMS setup that has already been reworked to protect residents. Weitz wants to “go through the budget line by line,” he has said a million times; what’s been stopping him? Roger Wiegand did that for decades, quietly bringing to council meetings any omissions, errors, or discrepancies he had found. He has a street named after him. Weitz will go down again on November 8 and never be heard from again.
What I certainly won’t vote for is whoever set up the audio in that room.”
We should clone Knudsen.
I miss Roger Weigand so much. What an asset he was to the Village and always a gentleman (unlike that rude crotchety old man that shows up at VV meeting now with nothing of value add to the conversation. Just insults). Jeff Voigt, self-proclaimed, Ivy league educated, financial wizard, could have learned a few things from Roger.
Susan looked like an unhinged New Jersey Housewife. 3 times 3/4 if not all of the audience booed her and called out her lies. SHE LOST and big time FACTS MATTER
Posted on May 10, 2021
Village Council Votes on Defunding the Per Diem EMT Program on Wednesday
Written by
James
Posted in
village of ridgewood
Emergency Services Chief, EMS program, Ridgewood Emergency Services, Ridgewood Fire Department, Village Council, village manager
Comments
16 Comments
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The Village of Ridgewood, civilian per diem paid daytime EMS program has been in existence since the early 1990’s. This civilian per diem paid daytime EMS program supplements the 30 EMT Volunteers who respond to calls 7 PM to 6 AM, weekends and general alarms. In 2020, there were over 1300 EMS calls and 440 Emergency Services calls in the Village. The Volunteers donated over 18,000 hours, not including training.
The Village Council has publicly decided to defund the current daytime EMS operations from civilian per diem paid EMT’s to paid firefighters. The Village is making this operational change because they have failed to thoroughly investigate as to why on 3 occasions, that the paid EMTs did not immediately respond to a call. If the Village Manager and the Council would have properly investigated and report what happened instead of immediately reacting without knowing the facts, this would be a non issue today. The radio alerting system at Headquarters 33 Douglas Place failed on 2 of the occasions. The radio alerts were not received. At times, there are dead zones at the building and the the alert is not received. How can the Village lay blame on the EMT for not responding immediately on communication failure? Last year, the solution was found to remedy the alerting issue. The operations officers engaged a visual alerting system in conjunction with the audible tones. It was never a problem of sleeping that caused the delayed response. It was only in getting the message. On the third instance, the paid EMT had a medical emergency that rendered him unable to hear the alert. He has since left the position.
In these instances, the residents were never in any harm or jeopardy because of the delayed arrival of the ambulance. For every medical call in the Village, Police Officers trained in First Aid (many of these officers are EMTS), are dispatched and are the First Responder. These Responders evaluate, provide care and can stabilize the patient. The Fire Department responds with an Engine with EMTS as well if available. There was no delay in care nor transport to the hospital.
Unfortunately there was not any open dialogue between the Village Manager, Village Council and the Fire Chief to discuss with the Emergency Services Chief as what had happened and what was done to rectify the situation by Emergency Services. It was only to be ammunition to fund for additional firefighters and defund the civilian per diem EMS program.
The proposed response plan announced by the Mayor and Village Manager duplicates responsibilities of emergency personnel. Due to the nature of the job and its unpredictable requirements, this will certainly put residents at risk. A choice has to be made as to which job task the firefighter will perform? Fire or EMS?
To eliminate this problem, The Emergency Services Chief had proposed to the Village to hire additional civilian per diem EMTs and to schedule 1 or 2 additional per diem EMTs at Douglas Place to handle first and second due EMS calls. This would allow the second EMT to continue to be provided from the fire department or allow 2 EMTs to cover the calls from Emergency Services Headquarters. This will resulting in having sufficient number of EMTs to cover both the first and second due calls. EMS response will be independent of fire personnel assigned for concurrent operations and ensure all calls are answered. Hire one EMT as a Supervisor and he would cover daytime office hours as well as providing EMT coverage. This is how it is done in many other jurisdictions. Emergency Services tried this in the past but the Village said that they wanted to use the Firefighters as they have plenty of free time on their hands and they were getting paid anyway. So why hire additional EMTS?
In recent years, 2 cities alone in Bergen County, Hackensack and Englewood implement Fire Department EMS coverage. Only to find out a short time later, it was not the right decision and cost them a lot of money. Why does the Village of Ridgewood think that they can do better and less cost? Have they spoken with the Chiefs of those cities? Lessons can be learned by not repeating the failures of others.
The Village plan to defund the civilian per diem paid EMS program and give full operations to the Fire Department is a risk and a safety hazard to the residents of the Village. Currently, the per diem EMT, responds from the firehouse alone to the medical call and is followed by a fire engine with a crew containing an EMT. There is not a dedicated committed Fire Department EMT whom is only assigned to EMS for the shift. The Firefighter is wearing two Public Safety hats at the same time. One as a Firefighter and one as an EMT for the ambulance. The firefighter cannot perform both jobs at the same time if there are simultaneous emergencies (Fire and EMS). If the FireFighter is engaged on a fire call, he can not go on the ambulance call. The Village ambulance will not be able to respond to the medical call. As a NJ State licensed BLS Ambulance, it is a requirement of NJ State Department of Health regulations for a licensed Ambulance while “in service”to respond to an emergency call shall be staffed with a minimun of 2 EMTS. In Service does mean responding to the call. Currently the per diem EMT drives the Ambulance to the scene while the Fire Department Engines brings an EMT. This is in violation on licensure and State Regulations subject to fines(more cost to the Village) and operations being shut down by the State Inspectors. Ridgewood is operating in Violation. And by hiring 2 new Firefighters, that still have to be schooled and experience in Firefighting and EMS, how cantering these 2 people cover the daytime EMS operations without significant overtime to the current Firefighters? How much will this cost the Village? Has it even been considered by the Village Manager and Fire Chief? I can guarantee you that overtime alone will far exceed the cost of 2 firefighters. The Village is making decisions without knowing all the facts. How the previous problem has been rectified and what will happen if the Village adapts the budget.
Just a month ago, the Fire Department was operating on a smoke condition call in the business district. Almost simultaneously there was a medical call. The Fre Department advised Central Dispatch they they were unable to provide a Fire Fighter EMT for the EMS call in the Village. Central Dispatch was instructed to page for a general request for a volunteer EMT to cover the call with the per diem EMT. By Legal Statue, the Per Diem EMT could not bring that ambulance to the scene of the Emergency. The Village would have had to request from MICOM to find an ambulance even though one was waiting in Ridgewood with 1 EMT but the ambulance was missing the Fire Department EMT(that was expected to be there). Had no volunteers responded to assist the per diem EMT, the patient would have waited for a mutual aid ambulance dispatched from MICCOM. This means ambulances can be sent from anywhere within Bergen County. REMEMBER THIS??? AT THE DEBATE IT WAS SCREAMED WE DID NOT DEFUND THE EMS FACTS MATTER THEY LIED
Obviously you know nothing about the Fire Department and The Emergency Services EMT Program. The only change that was made was to discontinue paying part time EMTs who worked daytime hours. The EMTs who were and still are were NOT defunded
STOP WITH THE LIES LINDA!
2 flyers in the mail
Knudsen..photos within the community, list of accomplishments and where she volunteered her time..plan for next 4 yrs
Winograd. Solo photo and Nonsense for a 4 yr plan
Just say no to the candidate w the tiffany blue yard signs.
Scarpa is on a mission. I have no idea why.
The change in EMS was good.
They lied , what else is new. They all have a p-h- d in bull crap , oh yes they do. They all sleep in the same bed. We all know that they bull shit .they think we don’t see. But yea we do.
And don’t tell me the top brass didn’t know about the water problem in town.the water taste terrible for a long time. Let’s see what happens now. What kind of bull shit story book they come up with.
Most contaminants in water are tasteless…you might be tasting some the chlorine used in disinfection. you would taste more with surface water derived drinking water.
Thumbs up!
What else is new? They lied. They really do all have a Ph.D. in bullshit. They share a bed to sleep in. They bullshit, as we are all aware.They believe we are blind. Indeed, we do.