JUNE 12, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Councilman’s question worth considering
to the editor:
During the June 3 Village Council work session, Councilman Michael Sedon asked if the salary of Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld should be reduced in order to offset the “six figure” salary of the newly created position of human resources director. Quite frankly, this question had been on my mind, and Councilman Sedon’s idea was, in my opinion, worth considering.
Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld’s reply included that she is not “outsourcing” any portion of her job, and that she is “still responsible” for human resources. Perhaps, but the fact remains that the overall salary now allocated to manage human resources has abruptly increased by at least $100,000.
Moreover, I was quite surprised to hear Ms. Sonenfeld state that her salary is “already down,” which was followed by a comment from Councilwoman Gwenn Hauck that she thinks Sonenfeld is “already the lowest paid manager in New Jersey,” and by Mayor Paul Aronsohn’s response that he “can’t imagine that [reducing her salary] would be the plan.”
Ms. Sonenfeld’s salary, established by Village Council members, is what she agreed to just over a year ago when she was hired. No one forced her to take the job or the salary. For her to now publicly complain that it is so low, so soon after she came on board, and especially when some of her responsibilities have now been delegated to a new hire, is quite disheartening.
Finally, Ms. Sonenfeld’s tone, when she replied to Councilman Sedon, coupled with the quick dismissal of Sedon’s suggestion by three of his colleagues, illustrates that civility is still not consistently practiced under Mayor Aronsohn’s leadership.
Anne LaGrange Loving
Ridgewood
Maybe it is time to move on if she is underpaid.
First world problems
Yes, indeed, time for her to move on. She has not been the breath of fresh air that Albert Pucciarelli keeps proclaiming. Far from it, she is a drift of noxious air.
So is the village manager delegating all of her actual work, and leaving herself nothing to do but be insubordinate to elected officials, solely because she feels she is underpaid?
She stated publicly that she is underpaid, and regularly says publicly that she “lives at Village Hall” because she works such long hours. So she feels she is overworked and underpaid. That sounds like she is a bad manager., not up to the job. Time to hire someone who has municipal experience and someone who is knowledgeable about how to manage a local government. And while they are at it, how about hiring someone who is not nasty and sarcastic?
hey she took the job at that rate,sham on her,
she’s not doing it for the pay, anyone who knows Roberta will understand that. The fact she’s putting in long hours on says that they is much work to be done, unlike her carpet bagging predecessor who vanished back to his Saddle River consituents in the Halloween storm of 2011…
are you proposing yourself 7:24am?
How come there isn’t a “busy at her desk” photo attached to this story? She’s the 3-Amigo’s girl in the backroom. Priceless.
9:41, you are completely delusional. $150K is not NO MONEY. For heaven’s sake, of course she is doing it for the money. And she is complaining about the amount being too low and the hours being too long. This is not about comparing her to Ken Gabbert. This is about comparing her to the job description and she is not fulfilling the job description.
Yes she is fulfilling the job descrption and better than her two most recent predecessors at that. She’s never complained about her pay, only noted it was the lowest if any Municipal manager in NJ by choice. She’s not doing this for the money, she’s doing this to clean out the broken status quo and make Village Hall responsive to residents. We’re lucky to have her instead of just another carpetbagger or double dipping ex-public safety official. You’re delusional if you think this is about the money.
She complains about her pay and she complains that she works too hard. Cleaning out the broken status quo? You mean by hiring her friends to fill newly created jobs and to help her do her own job? She screams at elected officials and chastises members of the public. She snorts and rolls her eyes and huffs and puffs whe she does not like what elected officials and members of the public are saying. Her ego fills the space she is in, even if she is outdoors on Corella Court. If she is not doing it for the money, then give us back the huge salary. We have plenty of other uses for it.
There’s only one person who could have made the comment at 8:21
Takes a big ego to get your feathers ruffled when you have your own outsized ego, right 8:21? What would you rather her spend her salary on, I bet I can guess.
Wrong. There is probably only one person who could NOT have made the comment at 8:21, and that would be Roberta herself. Everyone else sees her for who she really is.
and who is she 12:02? A long-time Village resident who is trying to change the broken status quo in Village Hall by dedicating hours to the job for less pay and no benefits. Compared to the previous carpet baggers who were only trying to enrich themselves, she’s trying to fix multiple firestorms in Ridgewood by improving processes, which includes staffing levels, as well as hiring & firing under a new HR manager… if that threatens you or any of your family memebers in any way, maybe you can explain to the readers here why that is instead of sniping away?