December 15,2016
by Boyd A. Loving
Well, well, well.
Ridgewood NJ, It would appear that the barrage of negative social media posts regarding the Ridgewood Public Library’s planned $5 million “interior renovation and expansion of the current auditorium” have caught the library’s Board of Trustees completely by surprise.  So much so that Mayor Susan Knudsen read a prepared statement during Wednesday night’s Village Council meeting in which the Board of Trustees claim that their discussions about renovating “. . . thus far have been merely speculative.”
Councilman Jeffery Voigt, who is the Village Council’s liaison to the Library Board, had publicly reported the Library’s renovation plan on December 7.  Immediately following his report, The Ridgewood Blog and other social media sites were flooded with reader comments about the grandiose renovation plans.  The Library Board of Trustees’ prepared statement, read by Mayor Knudsen, claimed that Voigt’s comments “. . . should not have served as an announcement.”
A review of Library Board of Trustees meeting minutes will determine if Councilman Voigt’s December 7 report was indeed accurate.
Stay tuned ladies and gentlemen.
Jeff Voigt is demonstrating his incompetence in myriad ways. Good job Jeff releasing an announcement that was not anywhere near ready and was not yours to make
The renovation train had started to leave the station. Perhaps Mr. Voigt has saved taxpayers quite a bit of money by letting the cat out of the bag earlier than the Library Board would have liked.
Closing shop for “a year of more” would be a complete disservice to the library’s thousands of loyal patrons.
Its Russia”s fault. The Library board got caught trying to put their hand in the cooky jar. This is just the beginning of the request for money.
@11.28. Definitely russians’ job. Considering the number of russian descendants in Ridgewood it seems like an inside job. 🙂
On another note I can’t believe somre were rooting for Voigt to be the next Mayor.
“disservice to the library’s thousands of loyal patrons.” Right 10:36 and not all of them are Ridgewood Taxpayers
Closing for a year.Right. They are just stoking the fires of fear in people like 10:36. They will look for a place to rent for that year maybe one of the many spaces the Valley has around town. The library will never get rid of those family and friend jobs they provide.
Maybe the library can rent the Elks build with a option to buy.
Closed for a year means 1 1/2 years because things will stop when waiting for the town to make inspections and we all know how slow that goes.
We should be able to vote on this just like we did with the parking lot.5 million bucks???
Who decided that this renovation goes forward? Where is the need?
A huge waste of money.
Hardly anyone goes to the library. There is nothing there that you can’t get online. Useless place
12:54 – yes there will a bond issued. We should be able to vote and KILL it.
“88 bucks? I wouldn’t give you 88 cents, Rose!”
I agree that the Council and the citizens should be made aware of plans before they are finalized. Maybe having someone look over the Library Board’s shoulders might not be such a bad idea. This should not be like our garage Taj Mahal where tons of money was spent before any general consensus occurred. Jeff might have accidentally let the “Cat out of the bag”, but that might prove very advantageous in the long run.