Dear Mayor and Council,
Wednesday night’s meeting was a confirmation that the Schedler advocates are being treated far differently than the RBSA who want a professional size baseball diamond at the Schedler property.
When Isabella Altano came before you with 45 thousand dollars, a matching grant opportunity and a plan to stabilize the house every obstacle was thrown in her way even accusing her of some scheme not to accept monies from Mr. Bolger. Roberta made a comment that putting together the grant application would require work from village employees and that the ability to lend the additional 45 thousand until the grant came through would be a strain.
Now the RBA comes forward with money and no plan and we find that a grant application is in place with the help of village employees and two council members knew nothing about it.
In this day and age there is no believable explanation for not informing all council members. We have email and phones and there are only 5 council members not 50. Gwenn made some comments about a dad dealing with his two equally loved children. I would say it is more like the story of Cinderella. The inequities are that apparent.
I am asking you to put a moratorium on any removal of trees or other significant alterations to the property until there is a fully vetted plan for Schedler that includes safety studies, DOT approval for site changes, traffic studies etc. At this point we do not know the entire cost of a 90 foot diamond at Schedler and whether a wall may need to be built as the property without the trees will back up to Route 17. Removing the trees in advance would be devastating and unnecessary.
I don’t understand why any one organization or advisory committee has more importance than the people. Schedler advocates are representatives of their community and for the whole of Ridgewood. They have been left out if the process. It appears that they never had a chance but you let them work diligently, attend numerous public and private meetings acting as though there was a hope. You need to know costs including long term maintenance of the property and if the field is even viable for the area. After spending some time there recently I was reminded again of how close the property is to Route 17 and how drastically the removal of the 4 acres of trees will affect the neighborhood.
I sincerely hope you will not move forward until you can present a fully developed plan to the public for their input and for your needs to know actual costs.
Sincerely,
Linda McNamara
There is no need to inform members of the minority.
The three amigos are in charge.
What part of that don’t you understand?
(sarcasm)
Amen, Linda McNamara is completely correct. This entire thing is riddled with inaccuracies, illegalities, and it stinks to high heaven. Aronsohn so clearly wanted to shove this through without even letting on that the RBSA is funding the whole baseball diamond (which will overlay the house that will be destroyed). He is one despicable S.O. B., that mayor of ours. I cannot stand him.
Pop quiz: define “transparency.”