MAY 1, 2015 LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MAY 1, 2015, 12:31 AM
THE RIDGEWOOD NEWS
Backbiting must come to an end
To the Editor:
I do not subscribe to the Manichean political vision of good guy/bad guy, white hat/black hat that many Ridgewood residents seem to espouse. We are all a shade of gray, part saint, part sinner.
With this in mind I am getting fed up with the slings and arrows that Mayor Paul Aronsohn has been subjected to. Our mayor may not be perfect, as I have indicated in many of my letters to The Ridgewood News, but he is one of the best and most effective mayors Ridgewood has ever had. Let us support him as he does his best for Ridgewood.
The backbiting has got to stop. I wish all those who talk the talk can expend some of their energies to walk the walk. Ridgewood will be a much better place for it.
Rurik Halaby
Ridgewood
MAYOR’S OFFICE HOURS FOR RESIDENTS -Saturday, May 2
Mayor Paul Aronsohn holds office hours for Ridgewood residents the first Saturday of every month. Mayor Aronsohn will meet with residents on Saturday, May 2 from 9AM to Noon in the Council Chambers (Sydney V. Stoldt, Jr. Court Room) on the fourth floor of Ridgewood Village Hall.
For an appointment to meet with the Mayor, please call the Village Clerk’s Office at 201-670-5500 ext. 206. You may come to the Mayor’s office hours without an appointment, but those with appointments will be given priority
This guy is a riot.
What are you smoking Rurik? The Mayor is allowed to verbally abuse everyone in sight, even other council members, yelling at them in the hallways, etc? This is OK with you? And Poor Poor Paulie Boy, no one should object to his behavior? You must be smoking the Paulie Pot….or Pol Pot (yes, you are old enough to remember the Khmer Rouge)
I love how the Mayor and his supporters act completely uncivilized towards those that disagree with them and then start a forum on civility. Now they want stop the “slings and arrows” – but only after emptying their own quiver. Too funny.
Do as we say, not as we do.
“Best and most effective mayor Ridgewood has ever had.” I think not. He’s currently running neck & neck with Jane Reilly for the title of worst mayor in Ridgewood history.
Dear Anonymii: I appreciate the debate my letter has initiated, but why hide behind your mothers’ aprons when making your comments? Why not express your views openly under your own names? What are you scared of? A knock on the door in the middle of the night? We do live in America after all.
he and al are done.
Rurik, If you wish to make comments on a topic, on a blog that allows anonymity, please do comment on the topic. Every posting you comment on shouldn’t become your quarrel with anonymity. Feel free to start a blog for Ridgewood where anonymity is not permitted, and so how many people post on it. It will be more effective to have those 3 people meet you for a discussion over coffee at Raymond’s.
P.S. I remember your comments on the Valley Renewal wanting to know why people opposing it were not blogging under their own names. It didn’t take a lot of courage for you to blog in favor of it, when your wife Cynthia Halaby was a Trustee of the Valley Hospital. Perhaps there are people with opposite opinions to your whose position/relationship to Valley or Village Hall or elsewhere make them feel uncomfortable expressing their opposing opinions very publicly.
We do live in America, and there is a secret ballot. An opinion (as long as non-libelous) is a form of freedom of speech. Prior to about 1890, when people voted, it was a public matter and the community, including factory bosses, knew exactly how their employees voted. I don’t mind an anonymous blog – why are you so opposed to it? Why do you need to identify those who disagree with you?
Well said Rurik.
In the end, we always harvest what we have sown….
Rurik, where have you been? Many MANY people are not hiding behind their mothers’ aprons. The ones who go to the meetings and speak up, actually recently they were lined up to speak out against the Mayor’s outrageous behavior. They are not anonymous. And there have been numerous letters bashing the Mayor’s actions, and the letters are singed by citizens. The fact that you choose to post with your name on this BLOG, where most post anonymously, does not make you more bold and does not make your opinion more worthy. And those who post anonymously are not less worthy. This is the 21st century Rurik. This is how BLOGS work.
Paul Smith is a fake name
All politics is local, and this blog, among other essential functions, supports free and open exchanges of information and opinions bearing on the politics of the VOR. Mr. Halaby is willing to put his name behind his opinions. Good for him. But in Ridgewood we suffer from a particularly bad case of the malady some refer to as “the politics of personal destruction”. In most important areas in which Mr. Halaby offers his opinion, it just so happens that the POPD malady typically operates to the detriment of people who hold considered opinions opposite to his. So to rephrase the salient point of an earlier commenter, those who are motivated to express (non-libelous) opinions opposite to that held by Mr. Halaby are to be forgiven for taking advantage of a means of publicly expressing themselves that Mr. Halaby and his like-minded friends, frustrated in their seeming inability to make headway, are determined to brand as the last refuge of the damnably timid.
9:02… no it’s not
the people would like to see new and more people run for council and the mayor.