June 9, 2010 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 3 Ridgewood Police urge council: Spare two new patrolmen by John Koster Members of the Ridgewood Police Department have urged the Ridgewood Council to keep up negotiations they hope will save two of the village’s newest police officers from the latest round of layoffs due to budget constraints. Mark Butler, a union representative for the Ridgewood PBA, asked Mayor David Pfund and the council to keep talks going in an effort to save the jobs of Michael McDermott and Colin Donnelly, both of whom were hired about 18 months ago and recently received Rice letters. A dozen police seniors and patrolmen, some of them in uniform and some in plainclothes, came to last week’s council work session to show support for the two young officers. Veteran policemen said there had been no issues with their performance on the job. The perceived need to trim manpower on the force for economic reasons was seen as the only motivation for the Rice letters. Mayor Pfund, who will be leaving office July 1, said the council and the unions would keep talking right up to the final vote on the budget. “We obviously hope for some answers,” Mayor Pfund said. “Hopefully something will be worked out.” Teresa Hooban, deputy registrar, also spoke to the council and asked that the decision to reduce her position to a part-time job from a full-time job be rescinded. She said that she found in her own research that many towns comparable to Ridgewood had a larger administrative staff and felt that having a full-time deputy registrar could actually benefit the community economically. If the office were to become understaffed, she said, it would be just as quick and easy for residents who needed copies of birth or marriage certificates to obtain them from the state, and Ridgewood would lose the fees charged for the documents. Staffers from the Ridgewood Water Company also came to argue on behalf of retaining one of their colleagues who had been laid off, but did not speak before the council. Village resident James Kuiper said the cuts had not been drastic enough, particularly where the Ridgewood Board of Education budget was concerned. “The taxpayers and the town can’t afford the situation that’s going on,” Kuiper said. “This whole thing is going in the wrong direction.” Kuiper said that taxes, primarily to support Ridgewood’s public school system, are so high that large numbers of people whose children have graduated are moving out of Ridgewood as soon as the children graduate. This flight, he said, would lead to a massive influx of younger couples (continued on page 4) ������������������������������ ������������������������������������������� ��������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������������������������� ���������� ������������������������� Explore the Arts This Summer! GLEE at TRC! CALL ALL G ING LEEK Here’s your chance to shine for two weeks this S! summer as you sing and dance your heart out to some of the best pop tunes ever written in the Glee at TRC Workshop! ����������������������������� ��������������������������������������������������� ������������������������������������������������������������������� TRC’s TRIPLE-THREAT: CATS ACT SING, E! 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