file photo by Boyd Loving Gwen on the Lamb
Readers Say the Mayor and his two Council Comrades (the three Amigos ) have shown nothing but contempt for the Faulkner Act
How much integrity or civility did it take to show up ostensibly as a member of the public at the first “civility forum”, grab the public microphone, p**s all over the sunshine law by blatantly involving himself as the third of three Village Council members (a quorum of the Three Amigos) needed to trigger its provisions, and then later, generously forgive himself for helping to violate both the letter and the spirit of that critical state law?
Here’s another criteria on which to consider the record of each member of the three amigos. How did they react at the time when another amigo behaved badly? Did they express sympathy for or empathize with the non-amigo victim? Did they criticize the fallen amigo, did they support, defend, or praise same, or did they stay silent/keep mum (following the eleventh commandment: thou shalt not speak ill of another amigo)? If not a candidate or officeholder at the time, are they on record with a private opinion, or can they be prevailed upon to express one now? If not, why not?
How about the African Queen Skype call to insure the Paul and Albert remain Mayor and Deputy Mayor and seal the deal on the BLOCK VOTE
If a broken (analog) clock is right twice a day, the Three Amigos can do the right thing, on occasion, and if it serves their collective interests.
Notice how none of the three ever bothers to deny that they are operating in league with each other? This is just another telltale sign of the kind of politically partisan behavior–including specific actions taken in concert in accordance with previously agreed-upon plans–that are not supposed to occur in non-partisan villages like Ridgewood that are organized under the Faulkner Act.
Is it that the Three Amigos despise our form of government, and wish nothing less that to bring about some kind of fundamental transformation? If so, this seems vaguely familiar, like some sort of deja vu…
The 3 Amigos have the best of both worlds. They run the town by the Block Vote but if anything goes wrong the will revert back to the Faulkner Act and say they do not involve themselves in the day to day running of the Village. Observing their action at Council meeting you can’t tell me they are not involved in the the day to day running of the Village.
Actually it was the previous block vote of Killion, Walsh and Riche that saddled us with 10% retroactive pay increases for the previous carpet bagging VM, as well as +4% annual wage and double-digit annual health care benefit cost increases from 2009-2015 for police & fire. They also tolerated open conflicts of interest in violation of State Law and Village Code – only because their annual financial disclosure forms asked the wrong questions. Annual property taxes for the Village budget rose 4.83% in 2006, 7.73% in 2007, 6.67% in 2008, 3.66% in 2009, 4.79% in 2010, 6.84% in 2011 (!!!) after laying off 10% of the Village workforce in 2010, and 3.15% in 2012. To pay for what you ask during the Great Recession? Public safety wages, pensions and healthcare, and 10% retroactive wage increases for the previous VM. Meanwhile, inflation in northern NJ ran at under 2% over that period, private sector wages didn’t grow at all, and millions of private sector workers lost their jobs. To say the previous Council was tone deaf and insensitive to these realities is giving them too much credit. But there you go criticizing the current Council who’ve held Village taxes flat since 2012. You are clearly a part of the status quo which failed us all, miserably.
Actually it was the previous block vote of three that saddled us with 10% retroactive pay increases for the previous carpet bagging VM, as well as +4% annual wage and double-digit annual health care benefit cost increases from 2009-2015 for police & fire. That block also tolerated open conflicts of interest in violation of State Law and Village Code – only because their annual financial disclosure forms asked the wrong questions. Annual property taxes for the Village budget rose 4.83% in 2006, 7.73% in 2007, 6.67% in 2008, 3.66% in 2009, 4.79% in 2010, 6.84% in 2011 (!!!) after laying off 10% of the Village workforce in 2010, and 3.15% in 2012. To pay for what you ask during the Great Recession? Public safety wages, pensions and healthcare, and 10% retroactive wage increases for the previous VM. Meanwhile, inflation in northern NJ ran at under 2% over that period, private sector wages didn’t grow at all, and millions of private sector workers lost their jobs. To say the previous Council was tone deaf and insensitive to these realities is giving them too much credit. But there you go criticizing the current Council who’ve held Village taxes flat since 2012. You are clearly a part of the status quo which failed us all, miserably.
Taking their lead from the (executive order) top
Who knew the re-election campaign would start right here, right now? Nothing like keeping your powder dry, amigos! Campaigning against long gone officeholders is so 2012…what did they have to do with your misbehavior?
Flat property taxes accompanied by a decline in municipal services, which I attribute directly to the tax freeze. I’d rather pay a few pennies more in property tax than to drive pothole lined streets that are not plowed regularly following snow storms, or try to park in a municipal lot that isn’t cleared of snow until 48 hours following a storm.
Obviously, the Amigos are hoping residents cast votes strictly based on their pocketbooks and nothing else.
The previous Village Manager is referred to as a “carpet bagger,” but yet this VC plans to do away with the residency requirement for all employees except police & fire?
Do as we say and not as we do.
Nice revisionist history 12:13, but nobody is buying the snake oil you’re selling. Gabbert cut municipal services when he laid off 10% of the Village workforce in 2010. All of the cuts were in DPW, Sanitation and Parks & Rec. Why? To pay for excessive wages, pensions and healthcare for public safety officials. Meanwhile the voting block at the time gave him a 12% retroactive wage increase for his hard work, and agreed to pannual +4% increases in public safety wages in the contracts the Village signed in 2009, and that Gabbert reopened again in 2010 without any labor lawyer present. CBAs that were rubber stamped by the voting block on the Council. That’s all money that could have gone to repaving roads, and to plow snow. Instead it went to fixed costs like wages, pensions and health care. But you go ahead and keeping blaming flat taxes.
8:59 am If you bother to check the voting record instead of trying to spew you lies you will see the your friend Paul voted for that raise along with the other Council members and if you check further Killian abstained from that vote along with any other that concerned the police. But that ok it your lies you can tell an way you want. Your Mayor is a Dem union lover so please stop with your bull.
We should be hiring for police & fire from the surrounding communities Paramus, Glen Rock, Midland Park, Waldwick and Ho-Ho-Kus, as well as Ridgewood. This would give the Village access to a wider pool of applicants and might stop us from hiring a majority of legacy candidates.
Posters are talking about Carpet Baggers but no one post anything about our Mayor. Where did he come from? When did he move into Ridgewood and why. If these apologist for the Mayor would tell the truth they would reveal that our Mayor is the original Carpet Bagger
Vote them out!
Our mayor has more secrets than a teenagers diary. How do you sleep at night, Paul, keeping all your secrets and lies straight in your head. You must have nightmares about being caught in the tangled web. You will get caught, it is just a matter of time, and then your reelection hopes will be done.
Well James I know you can see whats happening here with this story. Instead of posting about the original story the Mayors Apologist are trying to deflect any negative comments about the Three Amigos . They are falling back on Gabbert, Killian and legacy candidates. hoping to get the posters off the subject off the Tree amigos. Whats next ?
Will they blame Bush?
To the poster at 12:13, the problem with raising taxes is that none of the municipal tax increases off the last 15 years actually went to budget increases for sanitation and road repair. Those budgets have actually been slashed since 2010. The tax increases all went to pay for wages & benefits for the RPD, the RFD and the Village Manager. So I’m not sure why you think raising taxes permanently to pay for seasonal costs like freak snow storms makes any sense? If anything, the Village should just have an extra, one-time tax levy in years with extreme snow removal versus historical norms, all relative to data that we get from the National Weather Service. Permanent municipal tax increases for snow removal? No thanks, that just permanently increases the tax base. What happens then next year if there is no snow, do tax payers get their extra taxes paid the previous year returned to them? We all know the answer there is “no”.
Great point 12:16pm.
It seems one must be in receipt of the morning memo to know exactly whom to demonize on any given day, and how to demonize them. Wouldn’t want to hit a wrong note, now, would we?
The logic of their condemnatory approach is impossible for us non-amigos to follow, and that’s how they like it. The problem is that most residents and voters are non-amigos!
This must be the most in-your-face version of a ‘stealth’ politicization of a non-partisan municipality New Jersey has ever seen. When are they scheduling the ‘big reveal’, when at the end of one last Gala Civilipalooza, the Three ‘But We Make The Trains Run On Time’ Amigos finally announce the re-incorporation of Ridgewood as a party-run town, and also helpfully tell us commoners which political party is in charge?
12:40, the vote to raise Gabbert’s salary 12% retroactively was 4-1 in favor. The current Mayor was the only one to vote no. On the CBAs, please show us the vote where Killion abstained… he should have abstained given he was a retired Captain, but I’ve never seen the voting record showing he did abstain from the votes on RFD and RPD CBAs in 2009, and again when Gabbert re-opened them in 2010 without the Village’s labor lawyer being present.
Paul Aronsohn hasn’t meet a union he didn’t like.
Giving hiring priority to qualified Ridgewood residents means we give hiring priority to people who are accustomed to, and prefer, living in a non-partisan town. To do otherwise is to hasten the day when we re-incorporate as a town blatantly dominated by partisan politics, much of which is likely to be driven by political trends arising in other parts of the Bergen County. Do we really want that?
What we need is good governance. Not union thugs, not pension hacks, not made men like Tommy Boy Rica. Finally we have a professional Village Manager. But do we have non-partisan Council members who can stand up to the unions and tell them their game of ripping off property tax payers – who have been too busy to pay much attention to the outright theft of their hard earned tax dollars right beneath their noses – is finally over?
Did anybody else notice that 8:59/9:40 inadvertently conceded that a majority voting block exists in the Ridgewood Village Council? We can be reasonably certain none of Killion, Walsh and Riche, when they were in office, would have put up with any suggestion of concerted action or predetermined strategy amounting to a “voting block”. So no, 8:59/9:40 (clearly an Amigo), we in Ridgewood do not have any prior experience with majority voting blocks being deliberately formed and callously used to inflict blunt force trauma on our system of municipal governance. The current situation is causing real damage and we will be very fortunate if new candidates present themselves who have and clearly profess our traditional local distaste for partisan politics at the VC level.
Did the current Mayor really care about what Gabbert’s salary was or wasn’t? Based on his behavior at the time and since, it seems clear that his true objective all along was TO VAPORIZE GABBERT–to just get rid of him. Gabbert’s political affiliation, and his regional prominence in his own political party, were not hidden but were locally well known. Not that Gabberts politics per se played much of a part in how he conducted himself as Village Manager, but it is not much of a stretch to conclude that when Gabbert’s name or voice fell upon the current mayor’s ears, or Gabbert’s face came into his field of view, politics was 100% of what he saw, and he was not going to rest until Gabbert was gone. This result was clearly one that resonated with the current mayor’s regional political allies, explaining his single-minded focus on making an arguably premature change in the occupant of the Village Manager’s seat.
Salary was the ultimate red herring when it came to Mr. Gabbert’s dismissal.
“Finally we have a professional Village Manager.”
WTF? She has no previous governmental experience.
Hey 1:00 pm Try Reading the article.
Ridgewood drops starting salaries for police officers
December 22, 2010, 3:31 PM Last updated: Wednesday, December 22, 2010, 3:31 PM
By Michael Sedon
Staff Writer |
The Ridgewood News
Print
When the village hires police officers next year to fill positions left vacant by retirements, those new officers will receive a significantly lower starting salary.
A new police superiors and officers salary ordinance introduced by the Village Council at a special public meeting on Monday will lower the starting salary for officers coming into the department after Dec. 1 to $32,000, down from the previous starting salary of $49,273, according to the ordinance.
Officers hired at the previous starting salary would see an increase in their wages to $53,357 after working six months in the department, according to the ordinance, but new hires will have to wait until their third year to reach a salary of $51,220.
Each year, new officers will receive a salary “step” of approximately $10,000, according to the ordinance.
Under the old pay structure, a Ridgewood police officer would reach a salary of $128,636 in eight years of employment if they were hired on Jan. 1, 2013, but the same salary will not be reached until 10 years of employment if the new pay structure passes.
The new pay scale would apply to any new hires even if they are hired before the adoption of the salary ordinance, Gabbert explained.
“New officers will be hired at a lower entry salary, [and] will have 10 versus eight steps; however, they will end at the same salary level as current officers,” said Village Manager Ken Gabbert in an e-mail. “Savings will be over the career of the officer.”
This year, the three Ridgewood Police officers retired and one resigned, said Ridgewood Police Chief John Ward. The village will be looking to hire three to four new officers, Gabbert said in an e-mail.
At the ordinance’s introduction, Ridgewood resident Roger Wiegand asked why the council needed to call a special meeting with the only purpose of introducing this salary ordinance.
“We’re hiring new police officers as soon as possible. Because of recent retirements, we want to get them into the academy,” said Mayor Keith Killion, who served in the Ridgewood Police Department for 30 years. “We want a salary ordinance in place to affect the new hires that we hire after that. It is a significant savings.”
The village approached the PBA wanting to hire new officers, but the current pay scale coupled with the difficult economic climate and the state mandated 2 percent cap on budgets would have prevented this unless both parties could agree on a way forward, said Ridgewood Police Officer and PBA President Rosario Vaccarella.
“We obviously feel safety is of huge importance, so we came to an agreement to extend the contract and in return we would lower the starting salary,” Vaccarella said. “We extended the contract out to the end of 2015. We completed eight steps in seven years, and now we’re at 10 steps in 10 years, so it helps the village out there.”
Each officer will also give back 24 hours of time each year in the new contract, which is the equivalent to two furlough days, Vaccarella said.
The public hearing on the ordinance is scheduled for Jan. 5, according to Councilwoman Bernadette Coghlan-Walsh.
The deadline to submit medical physicals and psychiatric evaluations to the police academy is Jan. 7; the pre-assessment physical is scheduled for Jan. 13; and the first orientation day is scheduled for Jan. 21, Ward said.
Wiegand then questioned the mayor’s level of involvement in crafting the ordinance in light of his “30-year distinguished career” in the police department, to which Killion responded that he provided historical background when asked about specific instances by the council.
“I had no direct negotiations or great involvement,” Killion said. “I had no input whatsoever.”
Killion also noted that he would be abstaining from voting on the ordinance because of his connection to the police department.
Doesn’t anyone ever have anything nice to say? Someone did comment that we now have an excellent Village Manager.
From the Village of Council meeting on the police contact. Let us all look that who voted AYES and who Abstained. So 12:40 you saw here on the Ridgewood Blog.
Public Hearing – #3275 – Police Officers and Police Superiors Salary Ordinance
Mayor Killion moved that the Clerk read Ordinance 3275 by title on second reading and that the public hearing thereon be opened. Councilman Riche seconded the motion.
Roll Call Vote
AYES: Councilmembers Aronsohn, Riche, Walsh and Wellinghorst
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN: Mayor Killion
And look who moved the police ordinance
The Village Clerk read Ordinance 3275 by title:
AN ORDINANCE TO AMEND SALARY ORDINANCE NO. 3126, TO FIX SALARIES, WAGES OR COMPENSATION FOR POLICE SUPERIORS AND POLICE OFFICERS OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT IN THE VILLAGE OF RIDGEWOOD, COUNTY OF BERGEN AND STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Mayor Killion announced that the public hearing was now open and anyone wishing to comment to do so now. Seeing no hands, Mayor Killion moved that the public hearing be closed, seconded by Councilman Riche.
Roll Call Vote
AYES: Councilmembers Aronsohn, Riche, Walsh and Wellinghorst
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN: Mayor Killion
Councilman Aronsohn moved that Ordinance 3275 be adopted on second reading and final publication as required by law. Councilman Riche seconded the motion.
Roll Call Vote
AYES: Councilmembers Aronsohn, Riche, Walsh and Wellinghorst
NAYS: None
ABSENT: None
ABSTAIN: Mayor Killion
8:59/9:40 did concede the fact that there is a voting block but they’ve never really tried to make that a secret. This person is clearly one of the Council majority and is clearly deflecting criticism trying to point out the shortcomings of others. This original thread was about the hypocrisy of our Council majority’s conducting meetings on civility after their well documented public floggings of anyone and everyone that has ever disagreed with them. They bashed their political opponents (and some constituents) over the head and then tried to make a rule saying “no bashing people over the head.”
What I’d like to know is why this Council person chooses to post anonymously? I thought that was uncivil.
the three need to go. to much bull shit going on. it’s time people to OUT SURCE THEM NOW.
time to OUT SORUCE the three now.
it’s time to out SORCE THE THREE NOW.
Paul Aronsohn (D)
Political Action Committee Total Contributed
Teamsters Union $10,000.00
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $10,000.00
United Auto Workers $6,500.00
Carpenters & Joiners Union $5,000.00
American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $5,000.00
National Air Traffic Controllers Assn $5,000.00
Sheet Metal Workers Union $5,000.00
Laborers Union $3,500.00
AFL-CIO $2,661.00
American Federation of Teachers $2,500.00
Operating Engineers Local 825 $2,500.00
Plumbers/Pipefitters Union Local 475 $1,000.00
Service Employees International Union $1,000.00
Plumbers/Pipefitters Union Local 274 $1,000.00
Plumbers/Pipefitters Union Local 9 $500.00
Operating Engineers Local 542 $250.00
5:35-5:42… very articulate…. yoo got lerned reel good
The current Village Council has added several new titles to the payroll and filled same.Some are full time with benefits, others part time and no bennies. Fiscally responsible?
Welcome Home, Democrats
By PolitickerNJ Editor | 03/04/11 1:14pm
BY PAUL ARONSOHN
It warmed my heart. It gave me hope.
When thousands of police officers and firefighters converged on the state capitol yesterday, they were greeted by scores of Democratic legislators. From Barbara Buono to Paul Sarlo … from Bonnie Watson Coleman to Joe Cryan — the Democrats were out in full force to welcome NJ’s finest with words of support and gratitude.
In many respects, it was a flashback to an earlier time – when Democrats would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with union workers, particularly those who put their lives on the line every day. The banners and signs. The adrenaline-filled speeches. The solidarity between Democrats and the hardworking people they represent. It was all there, and it was all good.
Sadly, however, it was all too unfamiliar as well.
For the past year, my Party has largely stood on the sidelines as union workers were vilified and scapegoated. Silent and passive, many Democrats did nothing as others attacked the very people at the center of our Party. No defense. No counteroffensive. No nothing. During the past year’s great debate over worker’s rights and responsibilities, the Democrats – by and large – refused to show up.
This is not to suggest that all Democrats have abandoned the cause. Some of our legislators not only get it; they have also demonstrated their willingness to passionately fight for it.
And this is not to suggest that Democrats and union members should agree with each other on each and every issue and negotiating position. Quite the contrary. The Democratic Party is as diverse as union membership, and thus, disagreements over the particulars are not uncommon.
I am suggesting, however, that Democrats were wrong for deserting our friends in their time of need and wrong for taking so long to realize it. Attacks on teachers went unanswered. Attacks on public safety officials went unchallenged.
Going forward, we need to do better. We need to protect those who protect us. We need to fight for those who fight for us. We need to give our police officers and firefighters the support, the respect and yes – the compensation they deserve.
Simply stated, we count on public safety officials to show up for work and do their jobs. Now, it is time for those of us in elected office to stand up for them and do ours.
Moreover, we must undo the damage that has been done to our communities. We must replenish our ranks and retake our streets. And we must reaffirm our steadfast belief that the most basic function of government – at any level – is to provide for the safety and security of our people, and therefore, our most basic responsibility is to provide communities with the personnel and tools to make that happen.
A good friend recently suggested that union-related activities throughout the country could give rise to “the summer of labor” – an answer to the divisive Tea Party politics that have torn at the very fabric of our country and targeted many of the fine men and women who serve it. I certainly hope he is right. I hope that Americans from all walks of life come together and say with one loud, resounding voice – “enough is enough.” And I hope that Democratic officials in New Jersey will lead the way.
Regardless, yesterday’s show of Democratic support was encouraging. It was the first clear sign that our Party has regained its voice and rediscovered its soul – the first clear sign that we have found our way back again.
Needless to say, it’s good to be home.
Paul Aronsohn is a Councilman in Ridgewood and a member of the Bergen County Democratic Committee
8:13 – Those are shocking numbers – are they publicly available?
Uh, when STARTING salaries were lowered for the RPD in 2010 for NEW hires, salaries were raised considerably for the senior staff, including the Chief. Gabbert re-opened the 2009 contract to do this and negotiated that 2010 deal by himself, without a labor lawyer present. Which should void the contract all together. That extended the +4% annual wage increases to the end of 2015. Meanwhile inflation has been running less than 2%. Mike Sedon, who wrote the article in 2010, should know this now that he sits on the Council. Gabbert then used this to claim to the Council that he should be paid more than than those reporting to him, including Chief Ward and the RFD Chief. That’s when Killion, Riche, Walsh and Wellinghorst agreed, behind closed doors, to give Gabbert a 12% retroactive pay increase so that he could be paid more than those reporting to him. Those are the facts. 4-1 vote in favor of the 12% retroactive pay increase for a man who fired 10% of the Village workforce in the depths of a recession, and who pulled a trick like that re-opening contracts, at huge expense to Village taxpayers, without even the Village labor lawyer present.
2:38, seriously? “The current situation is causing real damage and we will be very fortunate if new candidates present themselves who have and clearly profess our traditional local distaste for partisan politics at the VC level.” Can you point to specific “real damage” ? All I’ve heard on these blogs are personal grudges and attacks on the Mayor and others on the Council. There’s no substance to these attacks. The new Village Manager is – surprise, surprise – doing an excellent job, but there are those who hold a personal grudge against her, too. Waslh left the Council to run for the Bergen County Freeholder’s seat… as a Republican. I don’t think there ever was a vote where Walsh, Riche and Killion didn’t vote lockstep except where Killion abstained as per the voting records posted above. So what “real damage” is being done to the Village?
union power, like or not.
Again 2:38 with your lies. Just like Killian didn’t abstain. Go back and check the record you will se that was not the case with your block vote comment.
The real damage being done to the village is that at public VC meetings, non-amigo council members are being blatantly and unnecessarily marginalized, and not simply by virtue of the fact that they are in the minority, and the measures they end up opposing are being passed over their objections. Nobody relishes the sense that their arguments were not persuasive, or that their concerns were not shared by their colleagues.
No, the new and much more damaging development is the trend of non-amigo dissenters being so blatantly and systematically personally misused and marginalized. More and more often, we find, that when an important issue or potential policy or statutory change is beginning to be considered by the Village Council, non-Amigo VC members are being intentionally kept out of the loop during substantive face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and email exchanges during which important village business is being discussed. Many of these events involve one or two Amigos, thereby representing a violation of the spirit, if not also the letter, of the Sunshine Law but some represent clear violations because they involve all three Amigos.
For example, former Councilwoman Walsh was CONSTANTLY being kept completely in the dark by all three Amigos during the run up to contemplated policy or statutory changes (as was Councilman Riche, BTW). In fact, this is the very issue she was complaining about, on the record at a public VC meeting, when the current Mayor, apparently feeling the heat and wishing to lash out and intimidate his recalcitrant colleague, accused her, without any basis in the facts or the law, of using the influence of her position on the VC to try to fix her own parking ticket. This is classic uncivil mud slinging.
Another example of this corrosive and damaging behavior is when the two Amigos were enthusiastically participating in their official capacity in the first ‘civility forum’, thinking they were in the clear, and the third Amigo unexpectedly showed up and used the public microphone to officiously advance the Amigo agenda, thereby pushing the meeting, already arguably covered by the Public Meetings Act (Sunshine Law), very clearly into that category. This shows contempt for the law. More distinctly uncivil behavior.
A third example, very recent, is when a typical up-to-no-good Amigo seemingly intentionally and deviously misled Councilwoman Knudsen into believing she needed to recuse herself from a VC work session relating to proposed changes to a law relating to village hiring practices because of her relationship to two pending local job applicants when the law required no such thing. Only after the meeting took place and Ms. Knudsen read the transcript did she determine the very wrong turn done to her by her VC colleague. Where does this behavior fall on the civility scale?
of course, the practice of figuratively knee-capping non-Amigos is not necessarily restricted to attacks on current VC colleages. This is a reality to which current Councilman Sedon can attest, having been forced to choose between his job as a reporter at a Staten Island newspaper and his continued candidacy for a seat on the Village council after an as-yet-unnamed individual apparently maliciously reached out to the editor and suggested that an unavoidable conflict of interest existed (hmm…seems like a pattern…). Can anyone think of something more uncivil than this, short of unjustified physical violence?
These developments constitute real damage because they suggest that anyone who, for whatever reason, opposes or threatens to oppose any current or future Three Amigos policy position or priority, will pay a heavy and a very personal price for their unauthorized dissent. Good potential VC candidates are presumably also intelligent and reasonably savvy and could very well be intimidated into refraining for throwing their hat into the ring in the first place. Moreover, effective, honest, well-meaning and therefore objectivey valuable current VC members are understandably caused by such behavior to re-think their continued participation in local government, meaning that they might not seek re-election when their term as Council member expires.
Surely this qualifies as “real damage.”
So I ask you, 10:00pm/7:34am: What’s in your conscience?
You seem to know an awful lot about this, including non-public information – who are you 11:18am? your post is riddled with heresay, accusation and conjecture, but very little in the ways of facts and figures. And why are Knudsen’s friends applying for jobs at Village Hall? Who are these unnamed individuals? If you’re going to do character assassination like that in a public forum, name names! Otherwise you’re the one doing real damage.
wow, those are some very uncivil, and nasty insinuations without any proof, facts, or evidence there 11:18…
Union power, indeed. Thankfully the seeds of destruction of union power have been sown. The wall of retirees taking advantage of better 65% of final comp retirements by 2017 means there will be a lot less PW actually contributing in to the pension system, and many more retirees drawing pensions from the system… The Ponzi scheme will eventually just collapse on itself and there will be nothing left.
Stating that 11:18 does not have any proof, facts, or evidence does not make it so. Of course there is proof, facts, and evidence for all of this, and more.
well the police can go with all the sick time they build up. time to stop them.
4:29 where did that come from. Still throwing shots at the police. Guess you fail the police test.
okay, anonymous 12:52 wants another anonymous to name names… you can’t make this stuff up…
Right your are Paul. You can’t make this stuff up.