May 26,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, The CRR vs. PB and Valley complaint reads like a Shakespearean tragedy (or comedy), brought about by Valley’s scorched earth tactics and Gail Price’s hubris. How so?
First, during those “Whispering Woods” hearings, Valley attack dog/super lawyer Jon Drill sends an oh-so polished legal brief to the Board demanding Wendy Dockray be recused for being on Jeff Voigt’s campaign team. What a smarty pants Jon must have thought he was. But OOPS, wait a minute Jon, guess you didn’t know that Valley’s second favorite attorney, Ms Gail Price, is married to candidate Richard Brooks? (Hurrah for women who retain their maiden names.) You didn’t see that one coming, did ya? And as a good attorney like Jon knows, the ethics rules that govern lay people (like Dockray) go QUADRUPLE for attorneys. It’s called the “appearance of impropriety” standard, meaning CRR doesn’t need to prove there will be a new “Price-Brooks” wing at Valley; there just needs to be the potential for some stank. But to make it ACTUALLY stanky, when confronted with the conflict allegation in public, Gail still refused to step down as PB attorney and went straight to Facebook and threatened anyone in Ridgewood with “libel” for mentioning that she and Rich are married.
Gail hurdled “impropriety” and went straight to the “F–k you all, I know what’s best for Ridgewood” standard. That’s why I’m betting we say bye-bye to that mediated settlement, and perhaps to Gail as well. And as for Drill, though he can’t unhoist himself from that petard, I’m thinking Queen Audrey will give him a reprieve because she didn’t know Price and Brooks were married either.
I read the CRR complaint against PB and Valley. It really should be called CRR vs. Gail. I’m thinking CRR wins this one like Secretariat.
Question #1 for PB. Are you keeping Gail as your attorney, and if so, why?
Question #2 for PB. Will you be seeking reimbursement of the fees you paid her for putting you in that giant legal hole?
Apt analogy! Let’s hope the tragic figure (our Village) fares better than most.
I do not support the renewal. I do think that to move ahead you need to leave the personal snipes out of it. You should speak about Ms. Price’s work as an attorney but some comments are over the line. Putting ” F-k you all, I know what’s best for Ridgewood” ” in quotes makes it seem like she really said that. Ms. Price is a professional and never spoke that way.
And Ms Price and Mr Brooks never hid the fact that they are married. They are well known in Ridgewood. Some people just expect that women would take their husband’s name. Live and learn.
Let’s stick to the facts. If you want to state your opinion then say that it is your opinion.
9:38 – While agree with your point about making clearer distinctions between opinions and actual quotes, in this case the quoted item seems to represent Ms. Price’s general attitude in the Valley meetings. If you do not support Valley’s expansion and you’ve been to one or more meetings you have witnessed this firsthand. Ms. Price’s mishandling of the Valley matter goes back years now and this isn’t even the first time the CRR has filed suit based on her procedural mis-steps. She has shown a certain hubris over the years that seems to be getting worse and not better. Remember she is paid by the tax payers to represent the best interests of the Village. During the campaign, she removed any doubt that she’s a Valley supporter. Valley’s suit against the Village claims that the adverse impact of their expansion on the surrounding neighborhood is outweighed by the benefit to surrounding towns. Given that, there has been a conflict of interest with her from the start and any rulings to this point in favor of Valley should be thrown out.
I agree that the phrasing was crude and unnecessary but when I read the “F-k you all” comment I did not think she had actually written it. It was an impression of what she did say, and thus the quotation marks.
9:38- I really don’t think anyone reading this post thinks Ms. Price said “Fu..”etc. That said, what I don’t get is why people like Ms. Price, her husband, Ms. Hauck, etc. have cared little about “perception,” and have, like Mr. Drill, been completely arrogant. Anyone who has attended the PB/Council meetings over the last few years can see that this attitude has been right out there when it came to Valley. People get real tired of arrogance, and if nothing else, this last election proved just that.
“It doesn’t pass the smell test.” –A. Pucciarelli.
Gail Price’s actions are at the heart of the CRR complaint against the PB; is she now advising the PB on its legal options regarding that suit? If she is, would that not, in and of itself, be yet another potential “conflict of interest?”
I’m back to comment on this. Hey, as I say, all because Price is married to Brooks DOES NOT MEAN they have to think alike in all things.
In fact when couples have differing views on politics etc the sex is often hotter.,
But you conventional suburbenites probably cannot fathom that idea.
Just my opinion.
Did Gail actually say she is pro big Valley renewal..
Did Brooks actually say he is for a big Valley renewal.
I am for whatever the master plan allows. The original master plan. Maybe a little more. But not what Valley is asking for now.
It does not matter that you don’t believe the text that was in quotes. It should not have been in quotes.
This it the type of post that will get you into trouble. I agree with Gail, you should be careful what you write. And remember that you can be geld responsible for what you post on an anonymous blog. I am not a lawyer But IN MY OPINION you can still be sued.
TMI, Ms. Palacious…T M I ! We really didn’t need that image. And not for nothing, but you have now suggested that Ms. Price and Mr. Brooks have divergent opinions when it comes to giving Valley Hospital basically everything it wants according to its “Renewal” plan. Do you have any good reason for doing this other than to throw CRR and its supporters off the trail? It seems unlikely that man and wife are of anything else other than one mind on an important issue like this one but who really knows (other than the fly). Attorneys are not paid to disclose their personal policy preferences, whereas candidates for local office are usually required to speak their mind.
The commenter is not uttering a lie about Ms. Price by fashioning a pithy quote and saying in effect that the quote encapsulates Ms. Price’s basic attitude. If there is no lie, there is no basis for a libel suit in defense of one’s professional reputation. Please leave the commenter alone and stop trying to quell constitutionally-protected free speech on a local public forum.
Is it really true that Audrey Myers of Valley literally did not know that Price and Brooks were maried? If so, that’s some “low energy” management right there!
Diane- you’ve lived here for like 35 years. How are you not a conventional suburbanite.
It was not a pithy quote. It was a made up, first person quote.
Let’s agree that this is not the way to have a valid discussion. No made up thoughts and quotes. Stick to the facts.
Making up quotes and attributing them to a person is not protected. It is a lie. And posting lies has consequences.
And it was just so childish. A person has no facts so he/she make up lies to try to make a point.
We canot fight the Valley Renewal with insults and guesswork. It already is a legal matter.
Nice try, 6:24, but no reasonable person would follow your logic and conclude anything other than the quote was dreamed up by the commenter to describe what the commenter thinks Ms. Price would say if she were to drop all pretense and put into words how she really felt. What probably bothers you (and motivated you to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear) is the use of censored profanity. The faux quote is both pithy and shocking and has apparently hit a nerve. This is not illegal in America.
It was a quote. Stop defending yourself. Learn from your mistake. Stick to the facts.
It was not clever or pithy. It was a lie. Doesn’t matter that YOU know it was fake. How many of your posts are fictional?
So now 9:28 you clearly understand that for a professional defamation action to hold up in court the complaint must allege that the defendant planted a strategic lie on which the larger defamation is built. You are clearly trying to shoehorn the facts of this situation into that template by calling an orange an apple. In the field of law, that kind of flawed analysis is called or labeled “conclusionary” (note the use of quotes without any intent to assert that any actual person actually said the word “conclusionary”). You insist that the commenter is asserting that Ms. Price actually said the words in the quotation marks simply because the words appear in quotation marks. You won’t accept any analysis to the contrary because to do so would blow a gaping hole in your legal theory. But the fact remains that quotation marks are used in prose for reasons other than simply reporting actual spoken words. In this case, they are used to convey the commenter’s impression or opinion that Ms. Price’s overall conduct was more than simply improper (hence the use of the term “impropriety” in quotes) but was also arrogant. Why should the commenter mince words just to avoid triggering your tender sympathies for Ms. Price? It’s a free country and as long as a reasonable person would not conclude that the commenter has uttered a lie, they should be left alone to give their opinion in any form they want without fear of legal consequences. Whether you intend this or not, people like you are in league with the United Nations which is trying to impose strict standards on Internet speech to protect its many global political agendas , such as the global warming hoax, by stifling or censoring dissenting voices that the UN says are spreading lies and unhelpfully confusing the populace. Because Oceania has always been at war with East Asia….right, 9:28??? Right. Now get back to work throwing things down the memory hole.
Mrs. Price can be very very nasty. Have you seen her Facebook posts?
The new council decides whether to keep Ms. Price or not.
9:39- Thank God. With her lack of objectivity regarding anything to do with Valley pretty obvious to even the casual observer, she might even be relieved.
Gail’s smiling all the way to the bank. Bye 3 Amigos, Bye Gail, and Bye Roberta. All hail the new Council and CRR. Keep Valley and their Drill Sargent in litigation for another ten years instead of 10 years of construction. When will Valley finally say enough is enough and build in Paramus and all the other properties they own? Audrey you get paid a boat load of money so maybe it’s now time to seek better options! I Support Ridgewood and what’s best for Ridgewood!
5:01, the anti-Valley and CRR agenda can’t high jack Village discourse…. Valley has every right to renew on their existing footprint, and our CBD is in desperate need of redevelopment once we can repeal ordinance 3066 and rebuild under existing Masterplan guidelines. How can you say the old Town Garsge, and massive old auto dealer sites are what’s best for Ridgewood?
10:13- As the last election clearly showed, many of the residents in Ridgewood have become “anti-Valley” simply because they have taken the words greedy and arrogant, two things important to any “discourse,” to new levels. What Valley is attempting to do by putting a medical center in the middle of a residential neighborhood will ultimately lead to Ridgewood becoming a second class town. As for repealing 3066, the quicker the better. One other thing, doesn’t Valley own one of those “old auto dealer sites” on Maple Ave. ? I know,they’re just trying to figure out “what’s best for Ridgewood.” Gee, now wouldn’t that be a new approach for them.
Thanks Bill, agreed on quicker the better on repealing 3066, but I also think the CBD needs to redeveloped reflecting current densities. Now if Valley could just start paying back taxes and annual Vilage taxes on all of the properties they own, maybe we could also reduce property taxes. What I worry about is that somehow the election mandate will turn our Village Council agenda into a CRR dominated, anti-Valley platform, when in fact Valley has every right to renew on their current footprint if they could just reset their expectations from absurd to reasonable… This can’t be the only issue dominating Village discourse because our CBD is a dump, police & teachers refuse to sign contracts over health benefit contributions, our schools have declined, and our taxes are too high. There is too much complacency outside of the CRR and Friends of Schedler agendas.
you clearly did not pay attention to the election , getting rid of bad Village government was what dominated the election , now to clean house ,get rid of some worthless committees
Anyone who ever attended a Valley hearing regardless of their personal opinions would have to see where Gail Price stood on the issues at hand. She is paid by the village hence the tax payers and she is not impartial. She needs to go because she is not acting in Ridgewood’s best interest.