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Bids for updates to Ridgewood Village Hall are opened

THURSDAY, JANUARY 5, 2012  
BY JOSEPH CRAMER
STAFF WRITER
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS

Officials are moving ahead with plans to improve Village Hall’s ability to withstand extreme weather conditions, taking measures to make the first floor flood resistant and improve operational capacity in the event of a power outage.

The village is currently advertising two separate requests for proposals (RFPs) from outside professionals to examine infrastructural components of Village Hall, which has been plagued by power outages and significant flood damage in the aftermath of two recent storms.

https://www.northjersey.com/news/136755598_Bids_for_upgrades_to_Ridgewood_Village_hall_are_opened.html

>Market Competition and Consumer Choice Act (S-2664)
Post BY THOMAS BRACKEN

Telecom bill would boost economic climate
by Thomas Bracken, President and CEO of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce

As we close the books and reflect on 2011, many families and businesses are not doing much better than they were this time last year. The housing market has seen little improvement, unemployment remains high and too many small businesses continue to close their doors.

Yet, I’m struck by the optimism I see every day when talking to business owners and workers about the future. People want, and to some degree need to believe that 2012 will bring a better tomorrow. There is also growing confidence in the Christie administration’s efforts to improve the business climate in New Jersey.

Lawmakers in Trenton say they are focused on getting people back to work and improving the economy. That’s welcome news for me and the members of my Chamber. In order to build a better business environment for companies to grow and prosper the Legislature must enact pro-growth policies that reform how New Jersey treats businesses that invest and operate here.

For example, telecommunications companies like Verizon invest billions of dollars in New Jersey and employ thousands of workers, but thanks to outdated government regulations these companies cannot freely compete for consumer business. The market for communications products and services is dramatically different today than it was even five years ago. Dramatic growth and demand for wireless and Internet technologies have reshaped how we communicate. However, government rules regulating telephone providers have not changed in decades. These outdated rules should be modernized to encourage investment, job growth and innovation.

Our elected officials are considering legislation that can remedy this problem. S. 2664, the Market Competition and Consumer Choice Act, will reform how New Jersey regulates phone and cable providers and update the law for the 21st century. The bill is one very important step lawmakers can take to improve the business climate in New Jersey as we enter 2012.

Earlier this year, the legislation passed the State Assembly with strong bipartisan support on a vote of 66-7. The Senate has been considering the bill for quite some time and it is important that they follow suit and pass this important reform before adjournment.

Legislators only have one voting session day left on the calendar. Opponents’ issues have been addressed with assurances that their concerns will be mitigated. The proposed bill would simply allow telecommunications companies to compete more effectively and be responsive to consumers instead of to the Board of Public Utilities.

Passage of regulatory reform would also be a welcome signal to companies around the country that New Jersey is open for business. That’s good news for everyone on both sides of the aisle, and certainly for New Jersey’s business community. A bill very similar to this one was passed in Indiana in 2006. Consumers in that state were not only protected, as they will be in New Jersey, but within one year, telecommunications companies invested an additional $400 million to build infrastructure and create jobs in that state.

With the clock ticking, it is time to get down to business and enact S. 2664. Let’s kick off the new year right by making long-needed improvements that will enhance the business climate, attract more good paying jobs and keep New Jersey businesses and consumers connected with innovative products and services — all of which will continue the momentum of the Christie administration’s “business friendly” campaign.

>Time to Pull plug on electric vehicle subsidies

On Thanksgiving Day, a Chevrolet Volt battery pack that had been recently crash-tested at a defense facility in Virginia caught on fire.

In addition to its own editorials, USA TODAY publishes a variety of opinions from outside writers. On political and policy matters, we publish opinions from across the political spectrum.

Roughly half of our columns come from our Board of Contributors, a group whose interests range from education to religion to sports to the economy. Their charge is to chronicle American culture by telling the stories, large and small, that collectively make us what we are.

We also publish weekly columns by Al Neuharth, USA TODAY’s founder, and DeWayne Wickham, who writes primarily on matters of race but on other subjects as well. That leaves plenty of room for other views from across the nation by well-known and lesser-known names alike.

It wasn’t the first time this happened, which is why the very next day, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) launched an investigation into the safety of the Chevy Volt, General Motors Co.’s signature plug-in electric car, and the risk its lithium-ion battery pack poses after a serious crash.

To quiet the fears of the roughly 5,000 Volt owners on the road today, General Motors announced it will loan cars to Volt drivers who are worried that their battery could ignite in the event of a crash. (On Thursday, the company’s CEO told the Associated Press that GM will buy back Volts from customers who fear that their vehicles will catch fire.)

The NHTSA investigation is just one of several setbacks experienced by the Volt, which, along with every other subsidized electric vehicle, has become the poster child of President Obama’s failed green agenda.

https://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2011-12-01/chevy-volt-green-taxpayers/51545634/1

>GOP hopefuls have been thoroughly queried on a laundry list of issues Yet, the man they hope to defeat next November has rarely been asked by news reporters about many of these issues.
By Richard Benedetto – December 30, 2011

Over the past five months, the Republican presidential candidates participated in 13 debates where they fielded dozens of penetrating questions on every major issue facing the nation, and some not so major.

The nationally televised and/or Internet-streamed forums each drew an average of 5 million to 6 million viewers, along with breathless wall-to-wall coverage, commentary and criticism from the news media, radio and TV talk shows, Internet blogs and partisan websites.

Indeed, the GOP hopefuls have been thoroughly queried on a laundry list of issues ranging from immigration problems to the faltering economy, Iran’s nuclear program to trade deficits with China, the intricacies of climate change to strategies to combat terrorism, exploding government regulations to skyrocketing public debt, plus some uncomfortable questions about their pasts and their personal lives.

Yet, during all that time, the man they hope to defeat next November has rarely been asked by news reporters about many of these issues. Since August, President Obama has held only one formal White House news conference. That came on Oct. 6, nearly three months ago. It lasted 74 minutes, shorter than any single Republican debate, and the president was asked 17 questions, most of them softballs on the economy and his latest legislative proposals to create jobs.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/12/30/media_abet_obamas_aloofness_on_tough_issues_112576.html

>Top 10 Education Stories of 2011
Posted By Lindsey Burke On December 27, 2011

There was no lack of education news in 2011. From an explosion in school choice options to the Obama Administration’s executive overreach, the top stories included the high and low lights when it came to issues affecting America’s schools.

10. Obama Administration orchestrates for-profit university witch hunt. On June 2, the Department of Education issued restrictive new regulations targeting “for-profit” higher education institutions. The new “gainful employment” regulation [1] restricts access to student loans for students attending for-profit institutions (like Capella University or the University of Phoenix, for instance) if the school’s average debt-to-earnings ratio exceeds 12 percent of a graduate’s income. The net result? De-facto government price controls on a sector meeting the needs of students historically underserved by traditional universities.

9. Obama forgives student loans. In November, President Obama traveled to the University of Colorado-Boulder to announce his plan to forgive federal student loans — a demand made, notably, by the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Students cannot be required to pay more than 10 percent of their discretionary income on loan payments, all of which will be forgiven after 20 years. Sadly, this executive overreach shifts the burden of paying for college [2] from the students who are directly benefiting from having attended college, to the nearly three-quarters of Americans who did not graduate from college.

8. Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) sees action. Federal education policy watchers were surprised to see the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee pass a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), today known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB). As bureaucratic and heavy-handed as NCLB is currently, the Senate HELP Committee’s proposal was 1,000 pages of even more Washington-style education “reform. [3]“ Instead of taking a cue from conservatives in Congress who have put forward proposals to allow states to completely opt-out of the bureaucratic law, the HELP committee put a stamp of approval on a proposal to reinforce the status-quo. Hopefully the Senate committee’s solo action will remain a 2011 relic, and approaches to allow states to opt-out completely will be considered in the new year.

7. House Education and the Workforce Committee moves to reduce federal role in education. This year, the House Education and the Workforce Committee put forward some major proposals [4] to begin the important work of reducing the federal role in education. Two important proposals were introduced: one, by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), would trim the number of programs under NCLB from around 80 down to 43. Another by Chairman John Kline (R-MN), would allow states more flexibility to spend federal education dollars in a way that best meets the needs of local students. Both are good first steps to returning more power to state and local leaders, and reducing Washington’s bloated role in education.

6. Online learning growth accelerates. In 2011, a growing number of families decided to take advantage of the online learning options now available for K-12 students across the country. According to Keeping Pace with K-12 Online Learning, [5] there are now 30 states with full-time online learning schools, open to students from districts across the state. Forty states offer state-run virtual schools, online charter schools are proliferating, and many more families are taking advantage of private online learning providers. Across the country, students are taking millions of courses online, customizing their educational experiences.

5. Administration continues national standards push. One of the more concerning education developments in 2011 was the Obama Administration’s continued push for states to adopt national standards and tests [6]. The Common Core national standards, created by the National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, have been backed by the Obama administration with $4.35 billion in Race to the Top money (grants were conditioned on states adopting common standards), through the forthcoming No Child Left Behind waivers, and in the Department of Education’s “blueprint” for reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. National standards are a significant Washington overreach into what is taught in local schools, and would further remove parents for the educational decision-making process.

4. Obama Administration issues No Child Left Behind waivers. Despite Congressional deliberations over NCLB’s future and thoughtful alternatives to the law put forward by the House Education and the Workforce Committee and others, the Obama Administration decided in the fall of 2011 that time was up and began an end-run around Congress. The Administration began the process of issuing waivers to states for NCLB, conditioning access to the waivers on whether a state was willing to adopt the Administration’s preferred education policies — basically re-writing policy from the White House. The waivers are another executive overreach from the Obama Administration, and state leaders should reject them in 2012 and demand genuine relief from NCLB.

3. States limit collective bargaining. Education unions have long been a roadblock to reform. But in a bold move in early 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker limited the power of public sector collective bargaining in his state. Most importantly, Gov. Walker gave teachers a choice: Public school teachers can now choose whether or not to join a union. Other states like Idaho [7] followed suit and successfully curtailed the excessive power of education unions this year. But the fight isn’t over. Gov. Walker faces a potential recall [8], which will move forward if 540,000 signatures are collected by January 17, 2012.

2. Congress reauthorizes the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. In 2009 and 2010, families of low-income children receiving vouchers through the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program were reeling with uncertainty. The program was on its way to extinction due to language inserted in a 2009 spending bill by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL). But in early 2011, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) made it his personal mission to see that the voucher program was restored and expanded, and he successfully fought for the reauthorization of the D.C. OSP. It was a welcome and well-deserved victory for D.C. families, who had fought so hard to ensure educational opportunity for their children.

1.  Year of School Choice. The most exciting educational development of the last year was captured by a Wall Street Journal editorial headline crowning 2011 “The Year of School Choice [9].” In 2011, more families than ever before gained access to school choice options, freeing them from assignment-by-zip code policies that often relegate families to the public school closest to their home, regardless of whether it meet their child’s needs. Now, more families have access to school choice options [10] such as vouchers, tax credits, homeschooling, online learning, and even education savings accounts, restoring their control over their child’s education. In all, 12 states and the District of Columbia either enacted or expanded school choice options in 2011.

– Lindsey Burke [11] researches and writes on federal and state education issues as a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation.

>Ex-Governor’s partner targets tiger bone trade

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Defending Liberty and Security in Wartime
Ericka AndersenDecember 22, 2011 at 9:28 am(7)

The official end of U.S. operations in Iraq last week calls to mind controversial issues from the past decade. One of the most important intellectual and policy battles, which remains relevant today, is over how to defend both civil liberties and security in time of war. In other words, how should America defend itself from enemies at home and abroad while also preserving the freedoms that we enjoy and that make our country great?

People often say that we need to balance liberty and security. This implies that the two are opposed and that the more we have of one, the less we will have of the other. That’s an understandable way of talking, but it’s wrong. The truth is that neither liberty nor security can exist without the other. They are equally important to the United States and, indeed, are the twin reasons why this nation was founded.

Protecting individual liberty does not invariably hobble the nation’s defenses. Rather, as the Constitution recognizes, security and liberty are reinforcing: We “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Thus, we do not want, or need, to trade off freedom to achieve security. Nor should we assume that security, the first duty of government, is the enemy of liberty. As Cully Stimson and Andrew Grossman write in the latest installment of Heritage’s Understanding America series, “A threat to America’s security is also a threat to Americans’ liberties.”

https://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/22/morning-bell-defending-liberty-and-security-in-wartime/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

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