file photo by Boyd Loving
From the archives: Local towns paying heavily for Bergen County loan program meant to save time, money
DECEMBER 28, 2009, 8:47 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2010, 2:41 PM
BY STEPHANIE AKIN AND CHRISTOPHER SCHNAARS
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
This story was originally published Dec. 28, 2009.
A Bergen County loan program touted as a quick and easy way for local governments to pay for big-ticket items has instead plunged some of them into long-term debt.
The five-year-old Municipal Banc was supposed to let cash-strapped towns bypass conventional borrowing methods and get county-backed loans for emergency services and public works projects. The program promised 24-hour loan approval with no red tape, backed by the county’s AAA credit rating.
Most towns and school districts that used the program borrowed only what they needed and spent the money quickly. Many praised the program for its convenience and low fees.
But some towns took out loans for items as inexpensive as rope and firefighter boots, borrowed money long before they intended to make purchases and paid interest on money they never spent. In some cases, their applications were approved even though they provided little information about how the money would be used.
From 2004 to 2008, Rutherford, Fair Lawn and Hackensack let a total of more than $1.6 million in loans sit idly in Commerce Bank accounts while taxpayers paid more than $200,000 in interest and fees. Fair Lawn, for example, waited four years to buy a $130,000 generator.
“That’s like saying, ‘I’m going to buy a house, I’m going to pay a mortgage and interest on the house, but I’m not going to move in for three or four years,’” said Joseph Tedeschi, a Fair Lawn councilman.
TD Bank took over the program after it bought Commerce in March 2008.
Five consultants that donated more than $450,000 to Bergen County Democrats from 2004 to the end of 2008 were paid at least $1.8 million for professional services by the Bergen County Improvement Authority — the agency that oversees the Municipal Banc — including more than $180,000 for services tied to the loans.
Those consultants included Dennis Oury, the former counsel for the BCIA and the Bergen County Democratic Organization. Oury, who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in September, collected more than $1.1 million from the BCIA during that period. Oury resigned from the BCIA in early September 2008 after federal officials accused him of fraud.
The program auditor, Ferraioli, Wielkotz, Cerullo & Cuva, also was the auditor in three of the towns that were the heaviest users of the program: Fair Lawn, Hackensack and Rutherford.
Lesson #1: DO NOT BORROW MORE THAN YOU NEED. If the garage/deck/whatever is projected to cost $10.7 million, do not borrow $12.3 million.
A financial disaster in the making. Thanks Paulie.
Why would we leap into bed with the BCIA? Because Paul wants to get this done, any way, any how, no matter what.
Pretty sure the VOTE Paul loves to refer to as a “mandate”, even though it was a non-binding referendum, was FOR FUNDING A PARKING GARAGE! Paulie has been in bed with the BCIA since 2014. County garages do not belong in crowded downtown villages. We have a AAA rating. Same as BCIA. I am sure the county has plenty of municipal projects that need the funding more than we do. End of 2 Amigos reign is coming fast…don’t let the door hit you on your way out!
Sorry…3 Amigos!! plus our Village Manager who seems to think she has a VOTE as well…this is a joke.
Has anyone sent the full post and link to the council and village manager? At this point we should be considering suing them.
To answer your question, ask the Dynamic Duo who have done everything in their power, by hook or by crook, to torpedo the garage as a way of pandering to their vocalanti, rhymes with vigilante, base. And speaking of the vocalantis who have done so much damage to Ridgewood, the only word I can think of is “Solipsism,” defined on the web as “extreme preoccupation with and indulgence of one’s feelings, desires, etc.; egotistic self-absorption.”
Rurik “Solipsism,” could just as well be applied to you and your 3 friends.
Rurik Halaby what your thoughts on the Deputy Mayor wanting to enact an Ordinance stopping residents from video taping council meeting
Picture above of the three stooges and you expect smarts.
The article is long but worth reading to the end. It points out, for example, that once the money is approved, it tends to appear almost instantaneously, accruing interest long before the project can even get started. That is a significant reason to reconsider this plan or ploy and an excellent reason, if it does happen, not to ask for a cent more than is needed. But losing control over the way commuter spaces are priced is a huge problem and there are undoubtedly more. A NEUTRAL source, by which I do not mean any Village official, staff member, or consultant, should be asked to investigate and supply a true and full list of the pros and cons, which should be publicized openly.
Anon 11:15. No one is perfect, but at least I had the courage to express my opinion openly under my own name. Unlike a coward like you hitting and running and then hiding anonymously behind Mother James’s apron strings.
Follow the money. Who will reap the benefits of the Village borrowing through the BCIA? Cross match those names to political donations made to anyone on the Village Council (including donations made to other offices they may have run for). It you get a hit, bingo – time to call in the FBI.
Anon 11:35. Yet again, typically Pravda style, repeat a lie enough times and it becomes the truth, at least in the mind of people like you. Mr. Pucciarelli never said he wants to introduce an ordinance banning residents from video taping Council meetings. See my comment under “Village of Ridgewood Council Meeting : Last night’s horrible ending”
No wonder you think that way Rurik Halaby being born in Israel. And don’t try to use the anti-Semitic card because this post is only educate poster on you though process and what has affected it.
Speech in Israel Is Not Free
There’s more to democracy than just holding regular elections
By Justin D. Martin
November 4, 2011
Both Israeli and US policymakers are fond of calling Israel and the United States likeminded democracies. “America has no better friend than Israel,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to applause from a joint session of Congress in a 2011 address. “We stand together to defend democracy.” Vice President Joe Biden has basically called Israel his second America. “No matter how long I’ve been away,” he crooned in Tel Aviv in 2010, “the instant I return, I feel like I’m at home…[T]he United States has no better friend in the community of nations than Israel.” Unfortunately for Israelis, their country has anti-free speech policies that do not represent modern democracy. Israel is more open than countries it borders, yes, but this isn’t a liberating revelation.
Multiple laws, policies, and court rulings in Israel violate nearly every freedom enumerated in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of peaceable assembly. If Israeli politicians wish to brag that their nation resembles western democracies, they must defend the freedoms those countries hold dear. Israel does not.
Let’s start with religion. Ultra-orthodox Jews are eligible for welfare salaries from the Israeli government, which allow them to spend their days reading the Torah and praying, rather than earning a living. Catholic priests, Islamic scholars, Mormons, and atheists, however, do not get salaries for sitting around and pondering their beliefs. Israeli politicians, including the Prime Minister himself, routinely insist that Israel is a Jewish state, and that Palestinians must recognize that if they want to ever have a state of their own. No fully functioning democracy on earth has such an offensive religious policy, and the establishment of a national religion is something that goes against the very first democratic protection expressed in the American Bill of Rights.
Does Israel have a free press? Israeli news media must routinely submit their work to military censors for approval prior to publication. Imagine if journalists in the United States were forced to hand over their work to the Marines for their blessing, and then ask yourself if the American press, bound by such shackles, could be considered free. An Israeli journalist reported in an op-ed in the International Herald Tribune this month that another Israeli journalist and ex-soldier had been sentenced to four and a half years in jail for blowing the whistle on potential Israeli war crimes. This was after the whistleblower was confined to house arrest for two years. Another reporter for Haaretz, who received the leaked documents from the ex-soldier, may face criminal charges, despite having received approval from his military censor to publish a related report.
As for freedom of speech, a shocking policy passed by Israeli officials outlaws a core element of that right. One of the ways that citizens in a democracy can most powerfully effect change is by speaking through their financial decisions. Israeli lawmakers astonishingly passed a bill this year that makes it illegal to call for boycotts of Israeli goods, services, and even universities or cultural organizations. One renowned Israeli legal scholar quoted in The Guardian called the bill’s passage the “blackest day in Knesset history.”
Lastly, freedom of peaceable assembly is something the Israeli government openly dismisses. While thousands of Israelis have been recently demonstrating in Tel Aviv and elsewhere for economic change, not everyone in Israeli territory can do the same. Implicit in the right to peaceably assemble are the freedoms of association and of human movement. There are over 500 military checkpoints, closures, and military barricades in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which is slightly larger than Delaware. During my travels to Israel and the West Bank I met a Palestinian man who missed the birth of his son because Israeli soldiers refused to let him through a checkpoint. I once told this man I grew up in Florida and that my wife is from Seattle, and also explained the thousands of miles between those two cities. “How many hundreds of military checkpoints are between those places?” he asked. He was flabbergasted and then saddened when I told him there were none.
Palestinians rights to assemble, to visit family and friends, and to access institutions are crippled by an Israeli police presence that would’ve made Mao giddy and George Orwell vomit. This is in addition to a twenty-five-foot-high wall that is over 400 miles long, equipped with electrical fencing, sniper towers, and razor wire that keeps Palestinians where the Israeli military wants them. Israel does have legitimate security threats from extremist groups, but Israel is also the only regional power with nuclear bombs, and its carpet bombing in recent years of Lebanon and Gaza and the mass civilian casualties it inflicted indicate the country doesn’t need a wall to defend itself.
Israel’s apologists sometimes counter that speech in Israel is freer than in any other country in the Middle East, and this is true. But again, Israelis aren’t satisfied, rightly, with being labeled more open than Algeria or Saudi Arabia. They want more. A democracy is more than a country that just holds scheduled, meaningful elections. Even Mubarak’s Egypt had elected politicians serving in parliament that the regime didn’t like, but Egypt was not a working democracy. Israeli policymakers may claim their country is a modern democratic state, but there are simply too many indicators revealing that it is not.
Yes I will and be sure to see my comments under the same heading. I now understand you and forgive you.
Rurik Halaby I served in the U.S. military and fought to protect the right of citizens of the U.S. and that would include to post anonymously on this blog or any other blog that allows it . Can you say the same. You sir called me a coward which I find ironic because you have never stood a post to defend this country and it Bill of Right, Constitution and laws.Maybe if you don’t like the was thing are done here you should take a plane back to you country of origin and see if the afford you the same right . to be so outspoken. You sir are the coward.
People – Do not feed the troll. Don’t let this poster derail us from focusing on the issue of why the BCIA funding is wrong for Ridgewood.and how can we stop it. We need a garage that fits in the footprint, let’s see the pictures, talk to the neighbors and move forward from there.
Saudino jumped aisles in the nick of time….his county mounties will make sure the idle garage becomes a nice cooping place for the rank and file…
No financial comparisons available-“we don’t have that”
No rendering of new design- “we don’t have that”
Get into bed with the BCIA and watch parking garage “A” become a reality.
Exactly how Paul wants it.
You want to get re-elected Albert?
SHOW RIDGEWOOD SOME TRUE LEADERSHIP. YOU ARE SO CLOSE. DO NOT BOND WITH BCIA.
Get a design that fits. Present honest financials to the residents of Ridgewood who voted to fund a garage. Fund it through the Village. Break away from Paul Aronsohn and do what is right for Ridgewood.
Then, MAYBE, the people will trust you again.
You what us to trust Albert J. Pucciarelli again. I would never trust him even if he walked on water
Anon. 12:53 :
1. Thanks for serving
2. Why are you not standing for my right to express my views.
3. Your braggadocio is puzzling. If you are so brave why aren’t you standing up like a real American and expresing your views openly and proudly? Whom are you scared of?
4. You want me fly home? America is my home. If you have a problem with that, I can think of an expression I can use, but I don’t think James would be too happy if I were to use it.
Anon 2:07 The only reason the Village is going to the BCIA is the obstructionism of the Dynamic Duo who have done everything they could to derail the project. The VC could have approved the issuance of the bond at the Ridgewood level, and we could have then concentrated our energies to finalizing the design to suit the taste of many if not most Residents. You can’t please everyone and at some point decisions have to be made, like it or not, if any progress is to be made.
Thank god for that dynamic duo. The majority were ready and willing to approve that monstrosity that encroached 12 feet into the street and towered over mt Carmel. They lack any judgement and can not be trusted to act as caretakers for this village. .
5:52…the only reason they are going to the BCIA is because they want to and need to since “that’s the plan”. Derail the project…if those council members seriously thought they were going to get away with that stupid garage then that says a lot about their bad judgment; bad taste and; bizarre company they keep -people who seem to think building a garage 12 feet in street is smart, the best option, fitting in the streetscape and good for everyone! These 3 council members can’t be trusted…they deceived the public. To think a garage 12 feet in the street is fantastic….and let’s pay 15 million for it. What??? Stupid…sleazy. You say “concentrated our energies to finalizing a design”….why don’t you understand that train left the station…they voted on Option A. Finally, show me the hundreds or 3,000+ people who were pleased with a massive building 12 feet in the street. It was more like 20 people (I added a few).
Rurik Halaby
! I don’t need your thanks. People like you don’t really mean it .They just want to be political correct
2. I am. You have the right to post what ever you want.Remember I didn’t call you a coward
3 Your statement is exactly what I expected from you. The only real American is you right? I have the right to express myself by using my name or by not using my name. The only people that may and I say may scare me are people like you.
4. I didn’t post that.I said to go back to your country of origin not home. Now you are concerned about making James happy. Twisting words are how all dictators come to power.
Thank God for Susan and Michael, the voices and brains of reason on our council. Soon they will no longer be in the minority, and then we can have reasonable and honest government once again.
So why do people troll in a rude way?
Psychologists say that many Internet trolls are psychopaths, sadists and narcissists getting their jollies. It’s easy to underestimate how many of these types of sickos are out there: There are millions of sociopaths in the U.S. alone.
How many parking spots in town are currently being leased to restaurants?
Why should restaurants claim spots that otherwise would have been used by visitors? The spots would have generated cash without the restaurant valet. Is this what they get for supporting the garage?
Why should a business hold a parking spot when I am looking to park? I am a taxpaying resident. This is bullshit!
Very well said 6:40.
9:27 I can name a number of psychopaths, sadists, narcissits and sickos who are elected officials. Some right here in our home town.
Anon 7:58: Reading what you wrote now and in the earlier posting, language that I had read before in correspondence with a certain individual I can bet my last dollar that I know who you are, which makes you pathetic as well as a coward. Yes, attacking a person anonymously is the definition of cowardice. If you have a problem with what I say, come out and say it openly. Are you that scared to identify yourself?
Im just shaking in my boots, Are you really that sure you know who I am ? Or are going to label some innocent poster because of you speculation . Were ever part of the Mossad? Sure sound like you are a caed carrying member.
Mr. Halaby
Have you ever contributed any rationale / reason into any debate here or at the council meetings? Or the only things you know is how to accuse those who are presenting any facts?
Why is Mr. Halaby so fixated on names of posters. What will he do to these poster if he knows their name? Maybe he will also want to know who we voted for? Seems to me that he has a motive for wanting name and I would suggest it not good.
I was think instead of posting under Anonymous maybe I should use Bore in the USA. What do you thing Mr. Halaby?
Maybe if he knew you name he could send a Katsa to speak to you.
Please, let’s focus on the issues and public figures. This blog is a useful tool for that, and the rantings of a Village idiot should not be allowed to detract us from the serious issues under consideration.
Yes your right 10:52 Mr. Halaby is starting to bore me anyway.
Bingo @10:52. We need to focus on saying loudly, clearly and frequently no to BCIA!!
Halliby, there are hundreds of people who post on here. Sneaky ones use remote ip addresses. So glad you are an expert at deciphering who is who. Of course on the other hand we would all recognize you no matter what name you posted under because your brand of vitriol is matched only by pucciarelli and company.
Rurik,
How does putting a garage at one end of the CBD really help the rest of the downtown area ? Don’t you think that adding a deck for a couple of million to the lot across from the Post Office would be a better alternative ? This proposal, like Valley, is over the top and in no way needed. This country goes into a slowdown/recession and you can kiss going out to the real beneficiaries of this (the restaurants) good bye.
Rurik… even though 90% of the time I wholeheartedly disagree with you keep on posting… the slings and arrows from those in anonymity are meaningless… but please channel your energy to putting sidewalks on clinton avenue… that should be a litmus test in the next election….
Bill H.: While I disagree with your conclusion, I compliment you on your constructive tone. I wish we could have more debates like this.
Reading the comments from my fans regarding my membership in all sort of secret organizations, I should point out that I am known as Rurik Halaby, International Man of Mystery. And to share a secret with you, I will be starring in the next James Bond movie.
Its about time you lighten up a little Mr. Halaby. See you can be funny. Just one last question “Shaken or Stirred “
You do mean ” Halaby, Rurik Halaby”…..
Yes Bill H . There is no other. I just thought he add a little humor to last post. Maybe I read it wrong.
“Secret Agent Man” Remember that song by Jonny Rivers.
Rurik,
Which part of my conclusion do you disagree with ? I guess the idea of building something for a large sum of money where the present and future need is highly questionable does not do much for me, and will do even less for the overall good of the CBD.