“I cannot emphasize enough the importance of obeying these restrictions – this is a public safety issue – our firefighters need to have the necessary water and water pressure to be able to fight fires and we also need to maintain reserves for household use.
As you are aware we have ratcheted up enforcement over the last several weeks issuing over 50 summonses and hundreds of warnings. This has had some impact but unfortunately we need to take this further – so, I have taken the additional step of appointing more Village employees who will have the authority to issue summonses in order to achieve a higher rate of compliance. “Roberta Sonenfeld.Village Manager
Water restrictions could be more effective if the town sent Postal Notice Flyers to all water customers, stage 2 and stage 4, or when Severely Urgent – drive around towns in evenings with loud speakers announcement, as they used to in past years. There are residents who are sincerely not even aware about Stage 4 water restrictions, only by word of mouth by good neighbors. Of course, there will always be those arrogant self entitles who will always defy rules.
* Please take note:
** Reverse Emergency Robo Calls – Not all residents get them, used to, how come? What happened?
** E- Notice – Not all residents get them or sign up.
** Website – Many residents do not refer to.
** Local News Newspaper – Many residents do not subscribe or refer to online.
** Link immediate release notice to BOE school website for more exposure.
** Mention the stiff fine of up to $1,250.00 That Stops Usage Abruptly!!
* Thanks to the Ridgewood Blog for posting – the Stage 4 News Release on Friday 9/4/15
Good neighbors let others know about the restrictions. Unfortunately, Ridgewood neighbors just call in a complaint and hope their neighbors get a fine.
If it were not for this blog i would not know about current restrictions as the village has not done much of anything about notification.
Postal notices wouldn’t make any difference. The people that disregard the water restrictions are fully aware of their existence. You mean to tell me that they don’t see those great big digital signs as you drive through the Village? It’s no different to people who cheat on their taxes.
Good neighbors would have been complying with the annual watering restrictions in place annually, and the stage 2 subsequent restrictions.
Had these incionsiderate neighbors played by the rules we would not be at stage 4.
The same ignorant offenders have being watering 7 days per week all summer ignoring the odd/even rules in place to prevent this.
9:24 am if you see this then why not rat them out?
Reverse 911
Hey, did you ever tell someone, who lives in Ridgewood, N,J something and get a response, like, I didn’t know that. No, the response is always, I already knew that; it doesn’t surprise me, I already thought that.” Because in this town everyone knows everything.
Everyone knows about the new water rules, or they guessed they were coming, or they noticed no rain and the Fockers just don’t care and refuse to obey the rules.; (lFockers refers to movie, of course)
I ratted out a few people while on my run Saturday morning. Ran by a few houses with their sprinkler systems on, then came across a couple cops in a bank parking lot. I asked if they were writing tickets for sprinklers, and they said “yeah, we are”. So I said there was free money right down the road. On my way back, I saw them writing tickets for the offending residences.
So some people woke up to nice little love letters from the RPD.
Felt good.
1:02 pm Glad you admit you’re a rat. You should let all of your friends and neighbors know as proudly as you admitted it here. Let us know the reaction you get asshat.
What I find interesting is the ability for the public to fall into a dictated compliance without question. Every year we hear there is a water shortage, every year we hear we need to increase system capacity, every year we hear about lack of compliance.
Do we consider that some of the homes using the water have invested in new landscaping or lawns and may need to water them? How quickly would the town begin to look rundown without a flower in sight? Have we calculated the use of the new apartments and added system capacity or backups to address? Have we added any collection and storage to the system, we had a good amount of snow this past winter, did we store it? Are there any short or long term plans to address this issue other them having neighbors running around looking for the police to ‘rat’ out an neighbor? Seems that if that feels good to anyone, we have a much more serious issue in our neighborhoods
3:52 asshats are those like you that do not abide by the rules .
Save your term “rat” for what it means :’one criminal turning over on another to save their own hide”
I’m glad 1:02 turned in the law breakers and I’ll do the same when I see them.
NEW – NEWS ON STAGE 4 ENFORCEMENT – Message from the Village Manager Regarding Stage 4 Enforcement…
https://www.ridgewoodnj.net/main_recent.cfm?ArticleID=1780
I did, 3:52, and because I don’t associate with the kind of people who water their lawns in during a drought, nobody had a problem with it.
6:51 it has less to do with the law, and more to do what is right for the community. If people can’t take showers, or the FD can’t get water, on account of some assholes sneaking water to their lawns overnight, then it’s a problem for all of us.