Long Meeting, Short Council Recap

Make sure to stay tuned for full, detailed stories later today and Friday. For now, here's the skinny on a few of the council votes and issues brought up at Wednesday night's public meeting.

Field's use policy

The village council predictably said no to the school board-approved fields policy, which would have allowed lights at the fields to be up to 10 p.m. and increased the usage of the fields. No Fields Committee members were in attendance, though a few were spotted downstairs. The vote was unanimous in voting down the policy, with liaison Bernadette Walsh abstaining.

Neighbors of the fields, strongly opposed to the project, departed before the hearing began (at around 11:30 p.m.) but spokesman Jim Morgan issued a statement on behalf of neighbors.

"The neighbors are pleased with the Council’s rejection of the draft policy. We believe that the Council’s fair and careful consideration of the matter is a much better approach than the closed process that the Board of Education followed,” he said.

Parking

It wasn't the smoothest process seen in municipal government but it'll work, the council said. After months of back-and-forth discussions and differences of opinion over several parking issues, the Ridgewood Village Council unanimously passed an amended ordinance to keep on-street parking at the same rate, lower lot parking to 25 cents per hour, and institute a parking pass component.

Councilman Paul Aronsohn, however, took objection to there being parking enforcement starting at 6 a.m. when the first agreement in winter agreed to start metered parking at 10 a.m. Outgoing Chamber of Commerce president Scott Lief, as well as business owner Eileen Smith and new chamber prez Tom Hilmann said the new plan could hurt businesses and in effect, residents because of the time component. Lief cautioned that Ridgewood could become the train station lot of Bergen County under this new plan and asked the council to revert back to the January agreement.

Resident Boyd Loving pointed out two problems with the ordinance, one in which the Broad Street annex was stipulated as a three-hour zone when it's really a two-hour zone; and the other that the Park & Ride would fill up and there might be more demand than spots for those with a parking pass. What would happen if residents bought passes (for $650) to be able to park in any lot and then those spots weren't available? The reason, he said? Well, a business that uses the P&K lot offers up spots but at a much more expensive rate.

Aronsohn said he wouldn't "fall on his sword" because the plan overall was still a plus. The two ordinances–one of which designated fees–was approved unanimously. The mayor personally promised to revisit it in six months if business owners say it's damaging.

Budget

Village CFO Steven Sanzari provided the council and residents with a presentation outlining the proposed budget, which would bring back about a dozen workers into the fold, workers that were laid off last year. Things look better than this time last year but there are still large cost obligations in pension, insurance, contracts, some of which increased by double digits, Sanzari said. The average resident's taxes for municipal should go up just over 7 percent per what was introduced for the public hearing. Village Manager Ken Gabbert said administrators wanted to come in at a lower rate and are still waiting on some figures to come in, so that figure may be reduced when the council works on the budget at its June 1 work session.

The adoption vote for the budget is June 8 and the upcoming work sessions will see if the village can lower the 7.4 percent rate down to around 6 percent.

Friends and trustees of the Ridgewood Public Library also to took the floor to again express public support for the institution. The council said it was willing to give $35,000 of Director Nancy Greene's request of just over $75,000, which she has said if not granted will lead to closures over the summer.

Valley

It may not have been on the agenda but Mayor Killion said he wanted to put an end to rumors. Contrary to what some have heard, council members have no plans to use Valley's expansion proposal proceedings as a platform to run on in 2012, he said. That's because, Killion said, it's the council's intent to have the issue decided before the 2012 election.