December 21, 2011 THE VILLADOM TIMES II • Page 7 Ridgewood Council postpones hearing on water rate ordinance by John Koster The Ridgewood Village Council has withdrawn a detailed ordinance that would update the Ridgewood Water Company’s rates. The item, which was on last week’s council agenda, will now be heard Jan. 11. Ridgewood Council members gave no detailed explanation of why the ordinance had been pulled, but a source outside Ridgewood said there may have been some concern about whether the proposed increase could be justified. Wyckoff, Glen Rock, and Midland Park are now engaged in litigation with Ridgewood as to whether the water company’s rate increases of the past two years were justified, and members of the local governing bodies have charged that money taken in by Ridgewood from customers outside the village – from Glen Rock, Midland Park, and Wyckoff – was used to sustain Ridgewood services that had nothing to do with delivering water to customers in the other three towns. The Ridgewood Village Council also pulled the public hearing on a capital ordinance to appropriate $7,500 for improvement to the taxi stand near the Ridgewood Railroad Station. Boyd Loving and Roger Wiegand, two residents who frequently speak at council meetings, said the new taxi service provider, Village Taxi, had already offered to clean up the interior of the building in a previous contract, and that the exterior of the building was marred only by some minor graffiti that shouldn’t cost $7,500 to remove. “I think we should take a look at this again,” Wiegand said. “It’s not in that bad shape.” Mayor Keith Killion and the council members agreed to reviewt the costs. Loving, in particular, wanted to know why the amounts of other ordinances being bonded were considerably in excess of the amount of the bids for the actual work. Village Manager Ken Gabbert told Loving and the audience that some of the additional money was for legal and engineering fees, and any surplus between the bonded amount and the necessary amount would be returned to village funds for eventual use on other projects. About 300 Ridgewood teachers and supporters conducted a demonstration of support for the Ridgewood Education Association negotiating team that is now bargaining with the Ridgewood Board of Education’s team on a contract teachers say Officials mum on contract talks should have been signed already. Neither side would comment on how far apart the negotiators were in the contract talks. But Barbara Swoboda, a resident who spoke at the Ridgewood Village Council (continued on page 10)