the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, so let’s see how the “new” council is doing so far:
1. Someone (Siobhan???) has written a list of rules and regulations for council meetings, and without a public discussion among council colleagues put it on the Village website. It is then learned, from social media, that one council member does not have the authority to do so. Bingo, it disappears from the website.
2. Pam announces that the council will no longer be using their phones during meetings. As if this were a new idea. Actually a resolution was written and approved unanimously by the 2013 Village Council, in which it is stated that council members absolutely cannot use their phones during meetings. Good to know that they are not up to speed on rules that are already in place. How long have you been in office Pam?
3. Siobhan decides to question whether the Schedler property actually has historic status. It does, Siobhan. Questioning it so you can shove another astro-turf field onto the property does remove the historic designation.
4. Paul announces loudly and for everyone to hear (and it was conveniently captured on tape), on election night, that now there are four NORMAL people on the council. This, from the man who claims to be the champion of civility.
5. Speaking of civility, Paul lets one village resident mock and make fun of Lorraine at a public meeting, and does nothing whatsoever to stop this childish diatribe. Seems that civil discourse for Paul is only a concern when his “normal” colleagues are under attack. Come on Mr. Mayor – control the meeting. It is your job to do so.
6. Paul continues to discuss and vote on all aspects of business in the downtown, from the pedestrian mall to outdoor dining to loading zones. He stands to personally profit from all of this. ALL of it. Does he even know what “recuse” means?
7. Paul and Pam tell the Village Manager, Heather, that she is going to have to step down from her position. This is done without consulting Lorraine (maybe because Lorraine is not “normal”???) It was clearly at least mentioned to Siobhan. OPMA violations, ethics violations, illegality – these are just some of the possibilities that come to mind with this hot mess.
8. Evan, who has remained quiet and steady this first month, needed to be not-quiet at the February 1 meeting. Lorraine questioned whether he had been part of the back-room discussions about Heather. Pin drop. Crickets. Radio silence. Well Evan???
9. The long-since approved Schedler plan suddenly had Siobhan and Paul suggesting that a 90-foot baseball diamond, stadium lights, artificial turf, and more could be shoehorned into and smeared onto the lot. To ensure that their grandiose add-ons would look sexy, they enlisted every sports person from town to come to the January 25 meeting (many of whom were wearing Ridgewood baseball caps, how mature). They all spoke about how they NEED all of these things, and one even threw in that we could use a new high school and a cement-bottom pool to replace Graydon. Some offered big bucks to help pay for the baseball diamond at Schedler. Shameful, to say the least. It completely backfired, however, their backroom shenanigans, because social media did its thing and the residents of Ridgewood came out and spoke passionately against changing all these plans.
10. Siobhan and Paul “promised” that the baseball folks will get their 90 foot diamond. Somewhere. They mentioned lower Hawes. Are you listening, you folks in the lawns? You’d best be paying attention.
11. The social media pages of some council members are messed up. Some citizens report being blocked from seeing some postings. One page was listed as a campaign page (the BLOG to the rescue, once again, pointing this out and “blink” – it was corrected)
12. Paul likes to say that he is “new” at the job, but this is not true. He has been on the Council for more than a year. You are not new Paul. You should know the ropes.
13. Pam voted for a dear friend to be approved for a salaried position. Not just a casual friend. A good friend. A friend who swore her into office. When this was brought up publicly, both Pam and Paul started defining what friendship is, how there are levels of friendship, how if you know a lot of people then you have a lot of friends. Yadayadayada. Reality is that this person is a GOOD friend of Pam’s, and the councilwoman should NOT have voted on approving her for a paid position.
Councilwoman Reynolds is behaving professionally, politely, and within the confines of established governance procedures and policies. Glad we have at least one NORMAL person on the dais – although Evan might be a contender if he would at least answer that aforementioned question.
And the hits keep on comin’!
Excellent photo choice James. However, the Marx Brothers were actually talent.
One month in on the Vagianos reign of terror/error/horror.
Humor too.
You’re right. Humor too. You could not make this stuff up. Wednesday Night Live
And this is only the beginning. It is going to be a long ride
Well its just a matter of time before Siobhan will want to revisit concrete pool at Graydon :Park.
Much more to come, say goodbye to your stipends.
How many residents around town are already regretting the way they voted (or failed to vote at all) in the last council election?
There will be many, many more.
Democracy can come back to bite you.
good to know the previous regime wasn’t on their phones during meetings.. lol
it all sounds too familiar
Sweeeeeeep’ Two. More to
Go
This VC is tragicomic. A lot of stuff to make you laugh, but a lot of pain to see how incompetent they are at managing this town. It is clear they think that time has come to make their personal agendas a reality. I have stacked up on popcorn.
You know a lot you look back at the old regime. There was way too many peoples hands in their pockets. There was a bit of attitude from them too. They were nothing special move on. The bottom line is they’re cleaning all the old wood out of Villa troll, don’t even worry about that, wait until you see what happens with Valley hospital. If you think Valley Hospital is going to keep that big building up and running for small, day-to-day operations you better think again. They are building over $1 billion building in Paramus. They don’t need that old building anymore. They sold you some bullshit story.
Hackensack Hospital would purchase Valley Rwood in a second. Stop blowing smoke
The cat is out of the bag. Some thought they were slick, but a few of us are just a little bit more slick than they are. Some of us learn from the best ,we’re 10 steps ahead of you so called sneaky bums.
Who is blowing smoke, Hackensack doesn’t need that land, They had the opportunity to take over the old Bergen county hospital and they didn’t want it. Who’s informing you of this miss information. You have no clout in the situation. Why don’t you worry about filling up the parking garage. Yeah I thought so.
Hackensack is not buying anything from valley. If anything they would buy the old rt 17 Kmart , they put a bid in for that. But now they are looking up in Mahwah so they can land a helicopter dummy. Yes up there they can.
Time to open the windows at Village Hall and air out the rot that set in under Knudsen and friends/sycophants.
The old valley is not going to Hackensack. And there’s two options on the table one the hospital donates the land and building two the county and state for housing to Valley operates that site for a few years until it’s really obsolete. And they could sell it to the village. Or highest bid.
In my opinion, the truth is that Paul Vagianos is working for the CBD landlords (and he’s one of them with multiple hidden name LLCs).
Evan Weitz, Pam Perron and Shioban Winograd received funding and support form those same groups (check the postal permit on their mailers, and cross check missing filings in their election disclosures).
So essentially Evan Weitz, Pam Perron and Shioban Winograd are puppies of Paul Vagianos and they are sitting there just to rubber stamp everything Paul and their financers want in return.
We warned you.
The old way is done. Time to clean house, directors, supervisors, just lost all their power. You guys are all peons. Get out in the street and start working. Because you’re getting fat. And some of you forgot where you came from. What a shame.