December 1,2017
by the staff of the Ridgewood Blog
Ridgewood NJ, There’s more to the story than just Mr. Aronsohn and Ms. Sonenfeld appearing in the video.
In addition to Ms. Sonenfeld, two (2) other full time employees of the Village made video appearances (Robert Rooney and Christopher Rutishauser), the taxpayer funded Village website was used to host pro-garage “propaganda,” and the Village’s taxpayer funded e-mail server was used to send out a biased electronic communication to approximately 9,000 unique e-mail addresses.
Although Paul “the spin doctor” Aronsohn is attempting to say that it was JUST an innocent video, there was actually a targeted, taxpayer funded, well engineered, pro-garage campaign being executed and the Village Manager’s office was serving as campaign headquarters.
Has Rutishauser & Rooney been subject to a internal investigation as to why they appeared in the video.Were they ordered to by the Village Manager? Did they appear on their on volition and if they did why are they still employed by the Village of Ridgewood.
Transparent Paul.
Their spin doctors are going to try and fix this for them. But we won’t be fooled again.
If Sonenfeld were still Village Manager today (i.e., hadn’t resigned yet) this would have been good cause for the new Mayor to demand her resignation. And yes, any village employee below Sonenfeld who assisted in the production of this video should now be investigated, and at least be counseled and subjected to some kind of censure or discipline, unless the facts reveal that they participated against their will because Sonenfeld or Aronsohn pressured them somehow or threatened their job. This is a serious situation involving municipal corruption in open defiance of the non-partisan form of government to which Village residents are entitled pursuant to the Faulkner Act. Village management needs to act promptly to ensure that nobody employed by the Village tries to do or even thinks about doing anything like this ever again.
1:03, HR manager was fired. Now who will take action?
The HR manager… was that Ms. Sonenfeld’s fellow “Bergen LEADS” friend? The one who was seemingly hired to do Ms. Sonenfeld’s job while she was out making videos or posing as an elected officeholder? If so, one would think she was let go because she was no longer needed after Ms. Sonenfeld resigned.
Unless she had some involvement at the time, the current Village Manager Heather Mailander is perfectly competent to investigate and take appropriate action.
2:29pm. are you aware of any “appropriate action” taken by the current Village Manager?
No, 3:03pm. The ethics ruling, revealing just how clear cut the misbehavior was, has just come out. Now would be a perfect time to follow up on the ruling and ensure that the corresponding lessons are lost on NOBODY currently employed by the VOR.
I agree with 2:29 PM. It would be extremely unlikely that Heather had any part of that mess.