Ridgewood Mayor Desperate for a “YES” vote to spring trap for incoming Council

A review of Village Council Resolutions and related contract documents expose the plan

June 17,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Mayor Paul Aronsohn and Village Manager Roberta Sonnenfeld may be so desperate for a yes vote because, despite their promises to turn all design decisions over to the incoming Council, they have figured out a way to control those decisions from beyond their political graves. Most upsetting is that this comes on the heels of a carefully choreographed set of theatrical performances at the last Village Council meeting designed to give the impression that the outgoing Council was going to take a hands off approach. Of course, the very next morning the Mayor launched his illegal media blitz, which has already drawn an official ethics complaint and a lawsuit. Hardly an act of graceful stewardship on his way out. More like giving the new Council the back of his hand for delivering an election thrashing to his hand picked slate of successors.

The Council has hired an Agent, Barr & Barr, in a no-bid process as their representative to solicit bids from construction firms to build the garage. Further, they recently spent $ 20,000 more dollars asking for a Guaranteed Maximum Price contract, which not only is not the norm in NJ municipal construction (by the Village Engineer’s own admission), by its very definition it is only possible when the construction documents are at least 70% complete. So clearly in the minds of the lame duck Council Majority they are committing additional money to make sure Design D is built.

Finally, in the Mayor’s illegal propaganda video, created at taxpayer expense, Tim Tracy of the garage design contractor, Desman, indicates there is a 12% contingency fee to account for design changes. A cozy interesting side note is that Barr and Barr was referred in by Desman and the Village Manager indicated at a Council meeting that the Village did not even interview any construction firms that were not referred to them by Desman.

That’s right, we turned our largest construction sourcing decision in years over to an outside contractor in a no-bid process based only on the Village Manager’s undocumented opinion and her cozy relationship with Desman. The same Village Manager who has expended over $500,000 creating multiple sets of construction plans before a design is even finalized. The first set was commissioned even before an initial design was vetted with the Public. One of the plums falling from the taxpayer tree was a $295,000 contract with Desman that ballooned again when virtually every one who saw Garage Design A threw up on the idea as a grotesque monstrosity jutting 12 feet out into the street. To this day the Council Majority says that if it was up them they would have built Design A. I know the local architect had an unreasonable client, but he couldn’t have been happy designing what essentially looked like an upscale jail right in the middle of the CBD.

The net of all of this arrogance and gross mismanagement is that the new council may wake up theoretically owning the design decisions, but finding out the Mayor left them a contract that is booby-trapped with excessive design changes or cancellation penalties.

The ONLY way to derail this plan is to VOTE NO.