Hoping for a parking garage, Ridgewood to survey Hudson St. lot
NOVEMBER 11, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2014, 5:40 PM BY LAURA HERZOG STAFF WRITER | THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
One lot = a lot of parking hopes.
In preparation for a parking garage, to be built by either the county or Ridgewood, the village is planning to survey the Hudson Street lot.
This survey follows a recent vote by the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders to transfer $180,000 from a 2002 rail network capital bond to the Bergen County Improvement Authority (BCIA), which will then lead to a parking feasibility study in Ridgewood, with eyes on the Hudson Street lot.
Ridgewood officials and BICA representatives have been talking for about a year on the potential partnership to create a multistory parking garage on Hudson Street.
Last Thursday, the BCIA planned to “take up a resolution to approve funding for a study of Ridgewood,” according to Mayor Paul Aronsohn.
According to Village Engineer Chris Rutishauser, the village’s survey of the lot would show the county that “we’re sharing the cost.”
“As we all know, we’re really serious about building a parking garage, particularly at the Hudson Street site. Regardless of how that garage gets built, we have some work to do,” said Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, noting that a preparatory environmental engineering study of the site will also need to be paid for. “This [survey] is about $6,300 worth of work … We’re going out with [a request for proposal] for the environmental.”
At last Wednesday’s public work session, the council also discussed its latest plans for new parking measures that would offer short-term alleviation for parking woes, while the village remains focused on plans to build a garage, one way or another.
New report examines what American businesses look like and what would happen to them if we fixed the tax code
Washington, DC (Nov 11, 2014)—As the American economy continues its slow recovery, both sides of the aisle are looking to business tax reform as a means of fixing present financial woes and avoiding future pitfalls. Some policymakers and taxpayers argue for higher taxes on business investment, while others fight for lessening the corporate tax burden. However, the conversation is often driven by misinformation about what the U.S. economy, business landscape, and tax code look like and how they function together.
In an effort to help ensure that the debate over business tax reform is fact based and easily digestible, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation has released a major new study, Business in America: Illustrated. The report examines the vast array of business types and sizes, the sectors of the economy they serve, and the effect of taxes on U.S. businesses and the people they employ.
Business in America is a visual guide to business, taxes, and the economy with more than 40 illustrations accompanied by concise and easily digestible analyses. Here are a few examples of the key takeaways:
The U.S. labor force as a percent of population is smaller today than in the past 30 years. 95% of businesses pay their taxes through the individual income tax code, not through the corporate tax code. Large companies earning more than $100 million pay more than 90% of all corporate income taxes. Corporations face high effective tax rates across all industries, although the rates vary by industry due to the profitability of an industry in a given year, how much business they do overseas, and different benefits in the tax code. Effective and smart tax reform could grow the economy by $2.5 trillion.
After months of debate over the relationship between corporate inversions and the U.S. tax code, tax reform will be a key issue for the newly elected congress. As the President and Congressional leaders work toward an effective compromise, it is crucial that they understand what American businesses look like, how the tax code is failing those businesses and the people they employ, and where there is room for improvement.
“Americans often look at businesses impersonally. We think of them as lifeless entities that earn profits and don’t do much else,” said Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge. “When we think of businesses this way, it becomes very easy to think that business taxes are somehow different than other taxes. But the reality is that businesses are simply groups of people; they are workers, consumers, and shareholders. This means that when we tax businesses, we actually tax people. Workers get lower wages, consumers pay higher prices, and shareholders receive lower returns.”
Holocaust Survivor Pens ‘Thank You’ To Vets And Liberators
(Newsmax) – A survivor of the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps who would forge a new life in America as a famed tailor says he owes everything to God and the “soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of the U.S. Armed Forces” who liberated him.
“Everything I am or will ever be I owe to God and the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of the U.S. Armed Forces who fought and died to liberate me,” writes Martin Greenfield in a New York Post column.
Greenfield, who came to the United States after the war, says that Americans who believe “that America has seen her best days” just need to look to the members of the armed forces to be proven wrong.
“America is bigger and stronger than the vexing problems we now face. Lest one doubt this, simply look at our nation’s 2.4 million Armed Forces members. There you will find the best of us,” he says.
Greenfield, whose first job after arriving in America was as a floor boy in a Brooklyn garment factory, would eventually work his way up the ladder and within a decade was making suits for the factory and its famous clients, according to a Washington Post profile.
The author of the new book “Measure of a Man: From Auschwitz Survivor to Presidents’ Tailor,” Greenfield says of the men and women who liberated the concentration camps, “they rescued me, and America welcomed me here and eventually claimed me as one of her own.”
He also praises the families of the veterans.
– See more at: https://www.teaparty.org/holocaust-survivor-pens-thank-vets-liberators-66895/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=holocaust-survivor-pens-thank-vets-liberators#sthash.MyFjw1nl.dpuf
Friends, family fighting for Ridgewood’s ‘Strong Mom’
NOVEMBER 10, 2014 LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2014, 1:04 PM BY LAURA HERZOG STAFF WRITER | THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
“I love you, too.”
In the past, Ridgewood resident Glenn Prettitore, like anyone, would not have thought much of hearing his wife Kerrie say this.
But in the past six months of showering Kerrie at her bedside with utterances of “I love you,” Glenn has only heard her say “I love you, too” twice.
Since a fight for her life began in the spring, 42-year-old Kerrie, a mother of three young children, is now barely verbal, after emerging from a recent coma.
Besides “I love you, too,” Kerrie – a graphic designer who loved ones described as a quietly strong, kind, and nonjudgmental neighbor, wife, friend, and avid snowboader – can just say “what,” “yes,” “no” and “OK,” and make occasional undistinguishable sounds.
“These things come out, she says them. Deep down, they’re there. In my mind, these connections are there… [but] I say it probably 100 times when I’m there, and I’ve heard it twice,” he said during a recent phone call before going to Kerrie’s bedside at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange.
This state of minimal consciousness is the result of a single administration in mid-March of the chemotherapy drug fluorouracil: Kerrie’s body was unable to break the drug down, since Kerrie, who was receiving the preventative chemotherapy after recovering from colon cancer surgery, also had a previously undiagnosed genetic disorder called DPD deficiency.
Before entering a coma, Kerrie had a severe and painful reaction to the chemotherapy, because, according to cancer researchers, the DPD enzyme is needed to break down the chemotherapy drugs fluorouracil and capecitabin.
Writing to Our Troops: Don’t Know Where to Start? Tips:
The Adventures of Rush Revere Series is a proud sponsor of Operation Gratitude, a tremendous organization that sends care packages to military heroes serving overseas. Every package and letter from home reminds our troops how much we all care.
In honor of Veterans Day, we need your help with Mission: Letters From Home! The mission involves teaming up with Operation Gratitude to send letters to service personnel. This is a wonderful and simple homeschool, or class, project for your students to bring lasting joy to our troops.
Here are a few simple tips on writing letters to our troops:
Start with a salutation such as, “Dear Service Member,” or “Dear Hero.” Share a little about your class, or your life, what the military means to you. If you can’t find the right words, consider making a drawing or painting.
Please send your class letters or artwork in one big envelope to:
Letters From Home c/o KARHL Holdings, LLC. 4521 PGA Boulevard, Box 258 Palm Beach Gardens, Florida 33418
Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said that lack of transparency was a major part of getting Obamacare passed because “the stupidity of the American voter” would have killed the law if more people knew what was in it.
Gruber, the MIT professor who served as a technical consultant to the Obama administration during Obamacare’s design, also made clear during a panel quietly captured on video that the individual mandate, which was only upheld by the Supreme Court because it was a tax, was not actually a tax.
“This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies. Okay, so it’s written to do that. In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really really critical for the thing to pass… Look, I wish Mark was right that we could make it all transparent, but I’d rather have this law than not.”
Serious service disruptions may face rail commuters to New York in 2015
By Jacob Donnelly • Staff Writer • November 9, 2014
Four rail tunnels connecting New York to New Jersey will be taken out of service in a phased process for repairs, due to damage caused by saltwater from Hurricane Sandy, Amtrak said in a press release last month. At least four of the them may have to be taken out of service for a year because of weakened concrete and corroding cast iron and steel.
Weekend crews have been working on the tunnels since the storm in October 2012, but Amtrak engineers discovered the damage was worse than previously thought.
About 400,000 passengers who normally ride trains through the tunnels to work each weekday will now have to find a different transportation medium.
The lost capacity resulting from the two Hudson River and two East River tunnels being taken out of service could result in delays not only to New York commuters but also throughout the entire New Jersey Transit system and Amtrak’s East Coast operations, as delays on one part of the route reduce the number and timeliness of trains available throughout the entire system. Long Island Rail Road also uses these tunnels.
One of the tunnels under the East River is expected to close as early as late 2015, according to The New York Times.
Amtrak, which owns the tunnels, does not have a timetable for performing the repairs but is linking the repairs to the completion of the Gateway tunnel. The Gateway Program, proposed in 2011, has not yet been fully funded.
“The rehabilitation work for both damaged tubes of the Hudson River tunnel cannot reasonably begin until after the new Gateway Tunnel is built and operating,” Amtrak said in the statement. “This will allow rail traffic to shift to the new tunnel and avoid major service impacts.”
The Northwest Bergen Central Dispatch, located in Ridgewood, NJ, is searching for a Dispatch Center Director. This individual will manage the operations and administration of the communications center serving the Village of Ridgewood and the Borough of Glen Rock, as well as other public safety jurisdictions.
Responsible for employee hiring, training, evaluation and disciplinary issues. Also oversees all operational features of the Dispatch Center, including maintenance of equipment and records, and develops and oversees the center’s annual budget.
The successful candidate will have a minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice, Business Administration, Electronic Engineering, or other related field. Also required to have at least 2 years prior experience in public safety dispatching, valid CPR certification, Emergency Medical Dispatcher Certification and Basic Telecommunicator Certification. Previous supervisory experience required.
Send cover letter and resume, including salary requirements to:
Sharyn Matthews, Senior Human Resources Professional
It’s the Culture, Stupid: Welfare Programs Can’t Solve Economic Gap Created by Marriage Decline
Stephen Moore / @StephenMoore / November 09, 2014
Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images
COMMENTARY BY
Stephen Moore@StephenMoore
Stephen Moore, who formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for The Wall Street Journal, is chief economist at The Heritage Foundation.Read his research.
This may be a surprising statement from a bleary-eyed, number-crunching economist, but the best anti-poverty program in America may not be tax cuts, debt reduction or regulatory relief, but rather that old-fashioned institution called marriage. It turns out that poverty rates are very low among intact families and prevalent among homes without a father. Children who grow up in single-parent households are much more likely to face economic trouble as adults.
Those who cheer divorce as a form of women’s liberation, or who say that stigmatizing out-of-wedlock births is just right-wing sermonizing, just don’t get this intertwined connection between two-parent households and economic success. Sociocultural factors like the decline of marriage are leading causes of the wealth gap and the stubborn poverty trap in many low-income neighborhoods. This isn’t to say that children who grow up in broken homes can’t succeed—millions heroically do. It doesn’t mean that every marriage was meant to be; many times, divorce is the only option.
Still, what is irrefutable is that marriage with a devoted husband and wife in the home is a far better social program than food stamps, Medicaid, public housing or even all of them combined. This conclusion is made clear by a new eye-opening and sometimes depressing report called the Index of Culture and Opportunity by my colleagues at the Heritage Foundation. It’s conclusion: We must reshape our culture before we can ever hope to make a big dent in the number of poor households.
Some of the cultural indicators are going in a positive direction. Violent crime is down. So is the number of abortions.
In some cities such as Detroit and Newark, N.J., two of every three children are born out of wedlock.
However, in other ways, we are ripping our families and our society apart. Consider these statistics on family breakup.
“From 2001 to 2011, the marriage rate dropped by 10.3 marriages per 1,000 unmarried women, or 22.8 percent. Since the 1960s, it has fallen by about 50 percent.”
According to one of the report’s scholars, W. Bradford Wilcox, “only about half of the nation’s adults are currently married, and about half of the nation’s children will spend some time outside an intact, married home.” Those numbers are much higher in low-income communities. In some cities such as Detroit and Newark, N.J., two of every three children are born out of wedlock. Name a government program that can take the place of a father.
This troubling trend appears to be a roadblock to the American Dream. One study by Harvard economist Raj Chetty and his colleagues finds that when it comes to what is preventing the economic upward mobility of poor children, “the strongest and most robust predictor is the fraction of children with single parents.”
It’s also true and often overlooked that family breakup creates a statistical illusion that we are making less economic progress than we actually are. For example, if a married couple earns $80,000, but then ends up in divorce, there are now two households earning $40,000 so it appears the economy is slipping and average household income is falling. In fact, what has slipped is the culture.
Meanwhile, birthrates are also falling. In only two of the past 40 years have birthrates exceeded replacement-level fertility of 2.1 children per couple. Who will take care of and finance the retirement of the 76 million baby boomers? Thank goodness for immigration. The population bomb that was once famously worried about by scholars such as Paul Ehrlich has become a population fizzle.
Many millennials have come to think that to pull them away from the TV, computer or Gameboy screen is an offense that is reportable to child-protective services.
Most economists agree that the sharp decline in the share of Americans between ages 18 and 64 who are working is a major economic hindrance. This isn’t just happening by chance—but rather as a result of policy and cultural shifts. The value of work is denigrated in our modern society—and welfare has been elevated. Millions of jobs are there for the taking if the unemployed and underemployed go out and obtain useful skills. But our culture too often frowns upon Americans doing what are regarded as grimy, blue-collar jobs—even though they can pay $60,000 to $100,000 a year. This may explain why it is so hard to get a NJ plumber or carpenter or any kind of handyman these days.
We also seem to disparage the idea of young people, especially teens, working. We parents spoil our children—and I’m no less guilty than others—with leisure and money, and many millennials have come to think that to pull them away from the TV, computer or Gameboy screen is an offense that is reportable to child-protective services. This new report reminds us of the obvious: There is dignity, character-building and self-sufficiency in all forms of labor.
The Obama administration now runs TV and radio ads assuring welfare recipients they should feel no shame whatsoever in taking a handout and even tells them that the more they live off the expense of someone else (taxpayers), the better it is for the economy. Liberals are trying to bend the culture in a subversive direction. Given that last year we had 47 million on food stamps, the left is succeeding.
We economists bury ourselves in the data and formulas to try to devise policy solutions to raise the living standards of workers and families. It’s humbling to realize how much of our nation’s economic success is based on a culture of virtue. Do the right thing, as Spike Lee would put it. To save our economy from a path of decline, we need to start with a personal and national commitment to sturdy families, strong parents and a re-emergence of the Protestant work ethic. That shouldn’t be so hard.
NOVEMBER 7, 2014 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2014, 3:40 PM BY LYNN BRUGGEMANN CORRESPONDENT | MIDLAND PARK SUBURBAN NEWS
MIDLAND PARK – Two months after entering negotiations with the Ridgewood-based Northwest Bergen Central Dispatch, the Borough Council has changed its mind, voting Thursday, Nov. 6, to “continue negotiations” with representatives of the Bergen County Public Safety Operations Center in Mahwah for emergency and 9-1-1 dispatch services to the borough’s 7,176 residents.
Councilman Mark Braunius made the motion to “continue negotiations” with the center at the end of the meeting. The motion was not listed as an agenda item.
Borough Clerk and Administrator Adeline Hanna then read a statement.
“After much deliberation regarding two very professional, well-run organizations for the service of dispatching our emergency services, the borough of Midland Park has made the decision to form an alliance with the Bergen County Public Safety Operations Center located in the township of Mahwah.”
Officials said the borough expects to pay between $135,000 and $160,000 for county 9-1-1 and emergency dispatch services, which would begin Jan. 1.
“There is a high level of confidence by county authorities that we will be up and running for Jan. 1,” said Mayor Patrick “Bud” O’Hagan. “We are led to believe we will receive [better] services.”
US Supreme Court agrees to hear new challenge to Obama health care law
NOVEMBER 7, 2014, 12:58 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2014, 11:30 PM BY ROBERT BARNES THE WASHINGTON POST | WIRE SERVICE
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear the most serious challenge to the Affordable Care Act since the justices found it constitutional more than two years ago: a lawsuit targeting the federal subsidies that help millions of Americans buy health insurance.
More than 4 million people now receive the subsidies, and the Obama administration contends they are essential to the act by making insurance more affordable for low- and middle-income families.
But challengers say the administration is violating the plain language of the law. They are represented by the same conservative legal strategists who fell one vote short of convincing the court the law was unconstitutional the last time around.
The question in this challenge is whether the subsidies should be available to all Americans who qualify, or only to those who purchase insurance through exchanges “established by the state.”
About a third of the states have created exchanges, and the challengers say the subsidies should be available only in those places. As the law authorizes, federal authorities have stepped in to establish exchanges where the states have refused.
The Mandate: Republicans Were Elected to Stop Barack Obama, Not to Work with Him
November 05, 2014 Windows Media
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: What I want to do here is cut to the chase. The result yesterday is exactly what I said it would be. The Republican Party now has one of the most important and unquestionable mandates a political party has ever had at its junction with American history, especially a political party which did not run on a national agenda. The Republican Party purposely stood mute nationally.
Now, if you go into the races, the House and Senate raises all over the country, you will find that many Republican candidates ran specifically against Obamacare, and that is an important note to make and an important thing for you to remember. Individual Republican candidates won, and they won big. They won in a wave landslide running against Obamacare. The national Republican brand or image didn’t say a word, which makes the mandate that they have all the more incredible.
It is rare that a political party running for office in a midterm election not standing for anything ends up with a mandate, and they have one, and it is the biggest and perhaps the most important mandate a political party has had in the recent era, and it is very simple what that mandate is. It is to stop Barack Obama. It is to stop the Democrats. There is no other reason why Republicans were elected yesterday. Republicans were not elected to govern.
How can you govern with a president that disobeys the Constitution? How can you govern with a president that is demonstrably lawless when he thinks he has to be? The Republican Party was not elected to fix a broken system or to make it work. The Republican Party was not elected to compromise. The Republican Party was not elected to sit down and work together with the Democrats. The Republican Party was not elected to slow down the speed the country is headed to the cliff and go over it slowly.
The Republican Party was elected to stop before we get to the cliff. And that’s the mandate: to stop Obamacare; to stop amnesty; to stop the open borders policy of Obama and the Democrats; to stop the Big Government assault on the free enterprise economy; to stop national security policies that have allowed terrorist networks all over the world to pop up and fill a vacuum created by the absence of the world’s lone superpower on the world stage. That must be stopped.
The Republican Party was elected to stop the run-up of a debt greater than all previous presidents combined have created. The Republican Party was elected to stop efforts by this administration to use the IRS and other agencies of government, in violation of manners and law, in attacking political opponents. The Republican Party was elected to put an end to this incessant and divisive lie that is the War on Women. Yesterday’s result cannot in any way mean that voters want Republicans to work with Democrats. And anybody who tells you that and anybody who thinks that could not be more dangerously wrong.
You do not have election results like we had yesterday with the intent being that the voters intend the winners to work with the losers. This election was about stopping the losers, in this case the Democrats. There can be no other correct analysis of what this election was about. They were not elected to “fix a broken system.”
Government’s Free Phone Program Riddled With Abuse, Fraud
November 6, 2014 11:15 PM
By Brian Maass
CBS4 Investigates
DENVER (CBS4) – A federally regulated program providing free cellphone service and phones to the poor and needy in Denver appears to be riddled with waste, fraud and abuse, according to an undercover CBS4 Investigation.
The $2 billion a year Lifeline program has handed out more than 13 million free cellphone plans across the country in the first six months of this year. In Colorado, the program handed out more than 117,000 free cellphone plans in the first half of this year, or about 20,000 cellphones every month.
The free phones and their wireless plans are paid for by a monthly tax on your cellphone, called the Universal Service Tax. Although the Lifeline wireless program has been around since 2005 and started under president George W. Bush, it has exploded under President Obama’s administration and the phones are often referred to as “Obamaphones.”
Obama Wrote Secret Letter to Iran’s Khamenei About Fighting Islamic State
Presidential Correspondence With Ayatollah Stresses Shared U.S.-Iranian Interests in Combating Insurgents, Urges Progress on Nuclear Talks
By JAY SOLOMON And CAROL E. LEE Updated Nov. 6, 2014 4:56 p.m. ET 354 COMMENTS
WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama secretly wrote to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the middle of last month and described a shared interest in fighting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, according to people briefed on the correspondence.
The letter appeared aimed both at buttressing the campaign against Islamic State and nudging Iran’s religious leader closer to a nuclear deal.
Mr. Obama stressed to Mr. Khamenei that any cooperation on Islamic State was largely contingent on Iran reaching a comprehensive agreement with global powers on the future of Tehran’s nuclear program by a Nov. 24 diplomatic deadline, the same people say.
The October letter marked at least the fourth time Mr. Obama has written Iran’s most powerful political and religious leader since taking office in 2009 and pledging to engage with Tehran’s Islamist government.
