Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Village Council approved changes to the planned parking garage on Hudson Street by a 3-2 vote Wednesday night.
In the “newest version” of the Hudson Street Parking Garage ,residents were told the reduced size garage would provide close to 325 parking spots and will be 43 feet tall. The foot print of controversial structure will now be no more than 5 feet over the property line with Hudson Street will be slightly reduced in width but will stay at lest 25 feet wide so it will be able to maintain the three lanes, two for traffic and one for parking. The mystery of coarse is that no actual garage drawings were shown.
The encroachment onto Hudson street has become one of the most divisive issues surrounding the garage causing concern from Our Lady of Mount Carmel parishioners and many residents who voiced concerns over traffic congestion, fire safety as well the feeling the encroachment seemed very well concealed from referendum voters.
I think Boyd Loving summed it up best when he recounted the story of how he met his wife – His best friend from grammar school through high school came to him 41 years ago and said he’d met a girl that Boyd would probably want to marry someday. Boyd’s first question to his friend was “Well, what does she look like?” In short, it is insane to expect the public, especially property owners near Hudson Street, to wholeheartedly embrace the “revised” garage plan without first seeing what the hell it looks like.
Many felt that ,”To have the council vote on a design that doesn’t exist and to have our village manager justify the benefits of going to County is within the realm of farce.” , “Spin, subterfuge and slander are what I witnessed last night.”
It seemed that most resident questioned the amount of the change orders for the new plan. They also wanted to see the new design which was not available. Susan and Mike wanted some time to digest the new plan and speak to neighbors. So did most residents but the Council Majority were in a rush.
How the Chief Finance Officer replies to a resident who understands some numbers : https://www.tubechop.com/watch/7641044
Legit or not residents remained very skeptical with the BCIA funding . The biggest issue was going through BCIA (besides not seeing the actual garage drawings)…even if the Council assumptions on rate savings are correct and the bond through BCIA vs bonding ourselves is a wash we create 2 problems by doing this:
1) give up additional revenue by not being about to charge out of town commuters more
2) create more out of town commuter traffic to the lot that actually takes away parking spaces for residents
Just seems stupid , the BCIA gets hundreds of thousands in fees (great deal for them), and we get more commuter traffic that we don’t get to charge a premium for.
The Deputy Mayor who previously lost his temper and made threats at a previous council meeting now has a problem in recording the public meetings. Councilmen Mike Sedon stated that the NJ Law allows one party consent for recording, and Matt Rogers stated that as per the case laws, courts have allowed anyone to record a public meeting . Deputy Mayor pushed his dissent and stated that he is going to introduce an ordinance to limit it.
Here is the link – fast forward to 4h9m54s
I think it is wrong to have people making visual recordings of town meetings. One resident protested last night saying that the visuals can be edited and used in many different ways on the Internet and can hurt people. That is true.
Dana Glazer should not be allowed to tape meetings. I really think it is wrong, really outrageous.
Yes, it is also wrong to approve a garage design that residents cannot see beforehand. Also outrageous.
Can both actions be wrong at the same time or is that too complicated for people to comprehend?
The deputy mayor is wrong about the garage design not being shown beforehand and right about not allowing visuals of meetings. Is that too difficult to comprehend?
9:36…what dana did was legal as confirmed by the town’s attorney at the time…so kind of irrelevant that you or the deputy mayor think it’s wrong.
I see no problem whatsoever with people making recording of town meetings. Who cares? It’s recorded anyway, so why shouldn’t a resident be able to make their own copy?
The “mysterious garage” sounds like a pretty good design. But why not just wait a few weeks and get it approved by the full council? Bizarre process, I don’t get it.
Agree with everything 9:36 says. Regarding the camera, I completely agree with the deputy mayor, at least on this one.
Dana Glazer may be doing something legal but it should not be legal. He , Dana , can use it anyway he likes to for purposes that can hurt or embarrass people.
The town’s visual recordings of the meetings do not appear and cannot appear on the Internet or anywhere else.
I, for one, will never speak at a town meeting and allow myself to be visually recorded by a non governmental persons.
9:36am – the resident who complained thought that town recorded videos cannot be modified. All town recorded videos be modified as easily as videos being recorded by Dana. My guess is he is only doing that, so the village administration cannot edit parts of town recorded videos. So the argument that resident made is from 1990s and now it’s 2016.
Same thing applies to Al’s arguments and egos. He is still thinking as 1990s politician. He is on boards of too many big fat companies / organizations to understand the changes of demographics and how new generation doesn’t care about establishments.
The CFO’s and village manager’s comments in the above video are interesting. What are the qualifications of our CFO? Is he really a finance guy? Also I thought the village manager served on the finance committee and is from CitiBank? These two are handling our finances?
Village Council meetings are streamed live over the internet, broadcast live on two (2) separate cable TV channels, recorded for posting on the Village’s web site via YouTube, and recorded on a DVD for use by the minute taker. Now I ask you, what the F difference does it make that a concerned citizen is also recording the event? The answer is no difference at all – the Deputy Mayor and Mayor are making Mt. Everest out of an ant hill.
The deputy mayor stated that change orders and soft costs of 5-10% are normal for a project, so lets not worry about them. It seems highly irresponsible to issue work orders, knowingly that in 2 weeks there may be a change order to that work order. Knowingly that we may loose in 6 figures with each change order – when the time difference in getting final details is just 2 weeks away. They knowingly issued marching orders to the design firm to create the construction documents on Plan A in early Oct, when public was being invited to provide feedback on design, and they knew it can change. Now the deputy mayor is saying we will complete the formalities of bond with BCIA, but we can change our mind until the first money is drawn. This will mean that if we switch to Ridgewood funded bond, we will loose over 200,000 in initial fixed costs of bonding through BCIA. Councilwoman Knudeson is asking for 2 weeks to go and talk to the neighbors and show them the design to be able to vote on this bond through Ridgewood, and deputy mayor wants to throw away our 200K+ as part of 5-10% soft cost.
If these type of known wasted money money are acceptable, why not clean up the North Walnut Site for 800K, that’s also 5-8% ‘soft cost’ of a 10M-12M garage?
Something might be quite right..so end run needed…we are just the common folk who are lucky enough to pay high taxes . Towns loosing ground with all this back dealing…
Reminiscent of the single-lane underpass fiasco. Once people realized what was happening, they objected vociferously, making good points. A couple of weeks after the new divider had been installed it was ripped out and replaced at a cost, I believe, of $40,000. “I’m doing it my way. Nobody will notice.” YES, MR. ARONSOHN, THEY WILL. Horse before the cart, please.
“The deputy mayor stated that change orders and soft costs of 5-10% are normal for a project, so lets not worry about them.” He should know after all he is an HOTEL ATTORNEY. The only problem is that they are not building a hotel.
Mayor Albert Pucciarelli will fix this all next year when he is re elected. He will pass and resolution that members of the public can only speak at council meetings if they agree with him. All other who attempted to speak logically or ask question will be escorted out. Meeting will not be televised or minutes be taken, anyone who reveals any information from any council meeting will in the words of Mayor Albert Pucciarell ” someone is going to pay” All in favor?
12:42pm – Since Paul had announced he is not running for council, he has been acting in these meetings as if he is the Mayor already. So much ego and show of authority if you watch him closely.
10:19 – you said this: The town’s visual recordings of the meetings do not appear and cannot appear on the Internet or anywhere else. I, for one, will never speak at a town meeting and allow myself to be visually recorded by a non governmental persons.
Are you nuts? The visual recordings do and can appear on the internet and are available for anyone to see from here to Bangladesh. They are on youtube for gods’ sakes. What era are you living in?
So you think the non governmental persons are less trustworthy than the elected persons. Wow. Do you live in communist china?
Bob Fuhrman was obviously there as a schill for the terrible PALBERT double-headed monster. Doing their bidding since they did his for Clinton Ave.