speaking of waste in Fair Lawn, enough is enough. Sunday morning 8am a crossing guard sitting in a chair at Plaza Rd & High St holding stop sign, while reading a book. Not a pedestrian or a car in sight. regardless if it is a grant or not waste is waste. Did our police department select this site. How about 7pm when the trains come in or at the post office where pedestrians can get killed any day. Lets run our town with common sense.

Why should the Taxpayers of Fair Lawn be forced to subsidize an employment agency? Particularly one riddled with cronyism. Many of the employees are wasteful spending by definition.

Actually "TheCommish", outsourcing the group wouldn't fall under the State Civil Service Agency, additionally, our state constitution trumps state law.

Unfunded mandates are generally prohibited by the New Jersey State Constitution and statute (N.J. Const. Art. VIII, § II, ¶ 5 and N.J. Stat. 52:13H-1 et seq.) Unless the Agency is sending money, they simply lack the authority.

STK has several points. I would hate to see the sh** storm at borough hall if cronyism is used to handout the "promotion".

Yes, look up "desk audit", it cost the boro over 500k recently because of the boro Shenanigans!

Harold, please share some details of your analysis. I haven't studied the results in any meaningful way, but logic suggests if you decrease value proportionately to the increase in rate you get the same result. ie a $300,000 assessment at 2% is no different from a $200,000 assessment at 3%, they are both $6,000.

The slight shift in burden from residential to commercial reduced our taxes (based on the bloated budget), however, in the long run, 208 will be littered with apartments which will cost us all more. The businesses at some point will say enough, move the jobs and sell to a developer.

The market dictates what your house is worth. Not an assessment. In 05 all capes like mine were assessed around 150K and selling for 500K. What's your point?

Can you post a link Mike? I can't find that comment anywhere.

Chris, it took .29 seconds using google.
Anyway, I was witness to his public comment when he said Alan Marcus told them not to step down and not to seek reelection.

http://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/121410_Edward_Trawinski_named_Bergen_County_Administrator.html

On that note Chris, I have never posted anything that was not true. You challenge almost all of my postings about these two individuals. Each time I have provided the facts.
Getting back on track, what plan do you suggest to make up for the shortfall?

Chris,
Here's a blog I wrote last year. It contains the same information I just stated.
http://fairlawn.patch.com/blog_posts/fair-lawn-politics-rears-its-ugly-head-9398c835

Mike,
I don't challenge everything you say. Your comment was "Two council seats (Baratta and Trawinski) are up for election in 2013. Baratta and Trawinski were ordered not to seek reelection by Alan Marcus (per Ed Trawinski upon his appointment of County Administrator)." Where does Ed say he was ordered to not run in 2013 by Alan Marcus? You made the same statement in the blog. I cannot find any article quoting Ed saying that. Where did you witness this? When was it said?

It was said at a Republican function just prior to the election.

What election? If it was before the election Donovan won, he hadn't been appointed yet. And I find it hard to believe that Donovan would have assumed she was going to win Bergen County. I believe he said publicly after his appointment that he wouldn't seek reelection. Never did I hear from anyone that someone told him not to.

I stand corrected.
It was right after the public swearing in.
Chris, you have to get out more. Come to the Republican events. You will see and learn a lot.

Just because you don't see me doesn't mean I'm not there.

Is that you that has been following me? :)

I thought you were in Afghanistan? ;)

Chris, today, Ed doesn't suck, he finally is getting it right about the fireworks! Now we end the library, rec center and pool along with the stupid telephone poles littered with flags and everything is near fixed!

Melvin,

Do the math please: Pool - 500K. Rec Center - say.... 1.5M including salaries. Hey, let's even throw the library in there. Say another 1M just for fun. Nah, go 2M on the Library. Now, we have 8,000 (approx) residences in Fair Lawn. This is not including the commercial property. Do I really care about $4,000,000/8,000 residences=$500 (approx), or do I really want to know where the other 8K+ of my tax dollars are going? Well, roughly 2/3's of 8K are going to the BOE. So, $5280 (approx) is going to the schools. The other 1/3 $2640, is going to the municipal budget. And remember, I didn't use the commercial revenue, so these numbers are approximate.

So, for 500 dollars we have a pool, Rec Center and a Library. Stop whining!!! All of you! What is Radburn's assessment Tommy?

Chris, I respect your views. You bring up some very valid points.
However, the fact remains that the borough manager was not optimistic about a measly $900k. As you stated, $500k is a drop in the bucket. $900k is only a tad bit more. So, why was he so gloomy?
"There’s only three ways to offset that number without it having a tremendous impact," Metzler said gloomily,
"None of the options are good ones," he said.

You're missing the point. First, no one is selling the Rec Center for reasons that have been discussed ad nauseum on these forums. No one is closing the pool. Neither are they closing the library. That's just a fact of life a few of you have to deal with. A lot of you, as usual, are missing the bigger picture here.

Cindy,

How would you outsource the FLPD? What would you replace them with? I wouldn't want to outsource that kind of accountability to a private vendor.

Candy Apples, Do away with Rec Center, Library, Pool, and the silly flag's on the poles expenditure, and with the plan I put forth the problems go away. The borough is crying poverty, they cant even fix an air conditioner, Why keep these NON-ESSENTIAL services at a constant loss to taxpayers, is ridiculous. Politics is the problem, and we don't have strong leadership.

Melvin,

You don't have a plan. Eliminating those services is a drop in the bucket, not to mention the town would just elect someone to reinstate the programs. Again, another clueless poster on the Patch. You really have no concept of municipal government.

Do you people ever question that fact that having a conversation with yourself could be a problem?

Sure they would. Then they could justify their jobs. Lol.....

I agree. Contract as much as possible, get rid of the high salaries and not get saddled with all the long term entitlements along with the other savings, lawsuits, etc. I was reading about a town in Georgia that has a much greater population than FL and only has 7 actual city employees. Government employees are the highest paid, highest benefits and get the most time off than any other workers and are the least productive. Plus, when they sue for their big payday, they sue a private contractor instead of the goverment with the very deep pockets, which are our pockets. Best of all, when we don't like the contractor's service, we go elsewhere. Try getting rid of a government worker for incompetence, forget it!