Search Results for: ration

>Next stop in dispute over reopening Pascack Valley Hospital is the Appellate Division of state Superior Court

Tuesday, February 23, 2010
BY LINDY WASHBURN
The Record
STAFF WRITER

https://www.northjersey.com/news/85019202_A_victory_for_Pascack_foes_.html

The next stop in the fight over whether Hackensack University Medical Center should be allowed to reopen Pascack Valley Hospital will be the Appellate Division of Superior Court, after a ruling Monday from state Superior Court Judge Peter E. Doyne.

Doyne declared that the proper jurisdiction for determining if the state’s Permit Extension Act of 2008 applies to the Westwood hospital license is the Appellate Division, not Superior Court.

That appeal could take as long as a year — and it would center solely on whether the deadline for reactivating the license could be extended beyond last Dec. 28, not on whether Hackensack’s application to do so should be approved.

The two hospitals opposed to reopening the Westwood hospital considered Monday’s ruling a victory. The longer the region goes without a hospital in Westwood, the harder it will be to prove that one is needed, they say.

“A new and unnecessary hospital only serves to weaken” the health care system in Bergen County, said Megan Fraser, a spokeswoman for The Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. “Since it opened its doors almost 60 years ago, Valley has welcomed patients from the Pascack Valley area.”

Englewood Hospital and Medical Center said through its spokeswoman that “Our dedicated physicians, nurses and other staff members have been providing uninterrupted, high-quality care to surrounding communities since [Pascack Valley Hospital] closed, and we continue to assist local towns, expand outreach efforts and provide more health care services to these communities.”

In the 28-page decision, Doyne expressed frustration with the “procedural machinations” in the case. But the question before him was narrow, not a substantive one about the public’s health care needs, he wrote.

“One is compelled to wonder whether the interests of Bergen County residents are best served by mandating the licensing process start anew,” he wrote, particularly since the problem “may have been caused by a misunderstanding of various procedural requirements.”

But that, “unfortunately, is beyond the province of this court.”

Hackensack said Monday it was still “100 percent committed” to opening the hospital. “We will take all the necessary steps, including having our case heard in the Appellate Division,” said spokeswoman Anne Marie Campbell.

Without an extension, Hackensack’s current application to reopen the hospital is moot. It still might ask the state Health Department for a new declaration that a hospital is needed in the region, with an accompanying call for applications, according to an attorney representing the department. But that process could take three to four years, Deputy Attorney General Susan J. Dougherty said in court Friday.

full story…

https://www.northjersey.com/news/85019202_A_victory_for_Pascack_foes_.html

>“Americans for Prosperity” has once again joined with the NJ Tea Parties to provide buses to Protest Government Takeover of Healthcare – Press Conference (outside 30 min –to ensure attendees like Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid hear our message as they head inside) and Meeting following in the GW Hotel Ballroom.

Located half a block down from the Blair House where Obama will be holding his Press Conference to begin ramming this through, we will show our OUTRAGE over this arrogant push for Socialized Medicine (get people thinking of it as a RIGHT and dress it up later).

Americans for Prosperity are holding their own Critical Care: The Patients’ Summit to deliver a simple message: the American people have rejected this trillion-dollar takeover of health care. So Congress should start over from scratch, or better yet, focus on policies that create jobs and get our economy moving again.

Do we want to allow Healthcare to become a guaranteed RIGHT, allowing the government to control 1/6 of the economy AND many of our personal healthcare decisions? Republicans have already served notice they’ll continue to oppose it. They want Obama to start over with the goal of producing a more modest bill that tries to curb costs and helps small businesses and people with health problems secure coverage.
The summit at Blair House, the White House guest residence, will be televised live on C-SPAN and perhaps on cable news networks. It represents a risky and unusual gamble by the administration that Obama can save his embattled overhaul through persuasion — on live TV.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Sunday he would participate, but insisted Obama and congressional Democrats would be wrong to push the bills they wrote in the House and Senate.

You know, they are saying: ‘Ignore the wishes of the American people. We know more about this than you do. And we’re going to jam it down your throats no matter what.’ That is why the public is so angry at this Congress and this administration over this issue,” said McConnell, R-Ky, speaking on “Fox News Sunday.”
Thursday’s meeting will take place nearly a year after Obama launched his drive to remake health care — a Democratic agenda item for decades.
If you wish to go and wish to leave from Bogota (Bergen County) register now by emailing: [email protected] …..

Give your name and the number of people in your group and if we can fill the bus ….AFP will provide the bus gratis; donations to AFP will be appreciated if you are so able but the intent is to FILL THE BUS

LOCATION: BOGOTA: 24 River Road, Bogota, NJ 07603 — Departure 4:00 AM

If we cannot get enough people to go or other locations south are better for you, you can still go with AFP if you wish at other locations…
Morristown, Wall (Commuter lot north of exit 98 food and fuel on Parkway)& Atlantic City.

Please contact Chris with your at (201)487-8844 (DO NOT CONTACT CHRIS IS YOU WISH TO LEAVE FROM BOGOTA- -JUST EMAIL MICHELE PER ABOVE).

>

On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the first President of the United States. “As the first of every thing, in our situation will serve to establish a Precedent,” he wrote James Madison, “it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles.”

Born in 1732 into a Virginia planter family, he learned the morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century Virginia gentleman.

He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were shot from under him.

From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses. Married to a widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, he devoted himself to a busy and happy life. But like his fellow planters, Washington felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the restrictions.

When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years.

He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British. He reported to Congress, “we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn.” Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly. Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies–he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown.

Washington longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. But he soon realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. When the new Constitution was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President.

He did not infringe upon the policy making powers that he felt the Constitution gave Congress. But the determination of foreign policy became preponderantly a Presidential concern. When the French Revolution led to a major war between France and England, Washington refused to accept entirely the recommendations of either his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was pro-French, or his Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was pro-British. Rather, he insisted upon a neutral course until the United States could grow stronger.

To his disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances.

Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, for he died of a throat infection December 14, 1799. For months the Nation mourned him.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/georgewashington/

>Great Article by Mike Sedon !

Revenues from Ridgewood parking rate hike fall short
Friday, February 19, 2010
BY MICHAEL SEDON
The Ridgewood News
STAFF WRITER

https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/84758732_Revenues_from_rate_hike_fall_short.html

Doubling parking meter rates in Ridgewood did not double revenues, but other factors may have played a role in how the parking utility netted $34,000 in additional income over a five-month period, compared to the same time frame in 2008.

The Ridgewood News, through an Open Public Records Act (OPRA) request, obtained parking utility revenue figures for the months from August to December 2008, when rates were 25 cents an hour to park at all meters in the village, and August to December 2009, when the Village Council changed the rates to 50 cents an hour.

The revenue totals for the 2008 period were $254,167.80, while the total for the last five months of 2009 were $288,622.28.

The biggest difference following the rate increase was the change in enforcement times. From 2008 and up to the time of the increase, parking meters were enforced Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. But after August 2009, the enforcement times changed from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Another difference is that the village only enforced meters on Ridgewood’s streets on Saturdays, offering free parking in the municipal lots for that day.

Also, the village took over management of the Chestnut Street parking lot from a private vendor in October 2009, and that lot produced an additional $7,509 of parking revenue for the final three months of last year.

But the addition of the Chestnut Street parking lot revenue may have been offset by nearly six weeks of construction at the Prospect Street municipal lot in August and September of last year, when the village replaced curbs, sidewalks, light pole bases, decorative bricks and paved the lot’s surface. The East Ridgewood Avenue streetscape project, which lasted all summer, and work done by Ridgewood Water in the Central Business District (CBD) might also have affected parking revenues because parking in the area was periodically restricted during construction.

Village Manager Ken Gabbert explained in an e-mail that “the rate increase created greater revenue in each of the months following implementation,” but “the parking utility was not self-funding in 2009,” which was the goal of the increase.

Gabbert wrote that it cost $1,000,668 to run the parking utility last year.

When the council voted to raise the parking rates and change enforcement times last summer, it stipulated that it would revisit the matter after six months. Councilman Paul Aronsohn, who has long opposed the parking meter increase, said in an e-mail this week that he “strongly believed” the entire issue should be revisited.

“I still believe that parking lots should all be long-term and all be put back to their original rate of 25 cents per hour,” Aronsohn wrote. “This would provide much-needed and much-deserved relief to our commuters, and it would provide some relief to people who work or shop downtown.”

Aronsohn said he needed to better understand the “rationale and funding” for the utility.

“I’m still not satisfied that it provides a benefit to the village or that it is being used properly,” Aronsohn said.

Mayor David Pfund and Deputy Mayor Keith Killion did not return calls seeking comment for this article by press time.

E-mail: [email protected]

https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/84758732_Revenues_from_rate_hike_fall_short.html

>

More nearly than any of his predecessors, Andrew Jackson was elected by popular vote; as President he sought to act as the direct representative of the common man.

Born in a backwoods settlement in the Carolinas in 1767, he received sporadic education. But in his late teens he read law for about two years, and he became an outstanding young lawyer in Tennessee. Fiercely jealous of his honor, he engaged in brawls, and in a duel killed a man who cast an unjustified slur on his wife Rachel.

Jackson prospered sufficiently to buy slaves and to build a mansion, the Hermitage, near Nashville. He was the first man elected from Tennessee to the House of Representatives, and he served briefly in the Senate. A major general in the War of 1812, Jackson became a national hero when he defeated the British at New Orleans.

In 1824 some state political factions rallied around Jackson; by 1828 enough had joined “Old Hickory” to win numerous state elections and control of the Federal administration in Washington.

In his first Annual Message to Congress, Jackson recommended eliminating the Electoral College. He also tried to democratize Federal officeholding. Already state machines were being built on patronage, and a New York Senator openly proclaimed “that to the victors belong the spoils. . . . “

Jackson took a milder view. Decrying officeholders who seemed to enjoy life tenure, he believed Government duties could be “so plain and simple” that offices should rotate among deserving applicants.

As national politics polarized around Jackson and his opposition, two parties grew out of the old Republican Party–the Democratic Republicans, or Democrats, adhering to Jackson; and the National Republicans, or Whigs, opposing him.

Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and other Whig leaders proclaimed themselves defenders of popular liberties against the usurpation of Jackson. Hostile cartoonists portrayed him as King Andrew I.

Behind their accusations lay the fact that Jackson, unlike previous Presidents, did not defer to Congress in policy-making but used his power of the veto and his party leadership to assume command.

The greatest party battle centered around the Second Bank of the United States, a private corporation but virtually a Government-sponsored monopoly. When Jackson appeared hostile toward it, the Bank threw its power against him.

Clay and Webster, who had acted as attorneys for the Bank, led the fight for its recharter in Congress. “The bank,” Jackson told Martin Van Buren, “is trying to kill me, but I will kill it!” Jackson, in vetoing the recharter bill, charged the Bank with undue economic privilege.

His views won approval from the American electorate; in 1832 he polled more than 56 percent of the popular vote and almost five times as many electoral votes as Clay.

Jackson met head-on the challenge of John C. Calhoun, leader of forces trying to rid themselves of a high protective tariff.

When South Carolina undertook to nullify the tariff, Jackson ordered armed forces to Charleston and privately threatened to hang Calhoun. Violence seemed imminent until Clay negotiated a compromise: tariffs were lowered and South Carolina dropped nullification.

In January of 1832, while the President was dining with friends at the White House, someone whispered to him that the Senate had rejected the nomination of Martin Van Buren as Minister to England. Jackson jumped to his feet and exclaimed, “By the Eternal! I’ll smash them!” So he did. His favorite, Van Buren, became Vice President, and succeeded to the Presidency when “Old Hickory” retired to the Hermitage, where he died in June 1845.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents/andrewjackson

>Thursday, February 18, 2010

The founding document of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, states that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Today, however, just 21% of voters nationwide believe that the federal government enjoys the consent of the governed.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 61% disagree and say the government does not have the necessary consent. Eighteen percent (18%) of voters are not sure.
However, 63% of the Political Class think the government has the consent of the governed, but only six percent (6%) of those with Mainstream views agree.

Seventy-one percent (71%) of all voters now view the federal government as a special interest group, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.

That helps explain why 75% of voters are angry at the policies of the federal government, and 63% say it would be better for the country if most members of Congress are defeated this November. Just 27% believe their own representative in Congress is the best person for the job.

Among voters under 40, 25% believe government has the consent of the governed. That compares to 19% of those ages 50 to 64 and 16% of the nation’s senior citizens.

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2010/only_21_say_u_s_government_has_consent_of_the_governed