Page 20 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • May 16, 2012 Some members of Concerned Ridgewood Residents, an anti-Valley Hospital pressure group, threatened to dump their endorsement of Aronsohn – who voted with Killion and the other three council members against rezoning Ridgewood to accommodate the hospital – because they saw Aronsohn’s endorsement of Pucciarelli and Hauck as somewhat less hostile to the hospital. The group never actually pulled its endorsement of Aronsohn, though their other endorsed candidates were Killion and Mary Jane Shinozuka. Killion lost by 16 votes and Shinozuka came in fifth out of six. This proves, among other things, that pressure groups do not control Ridgewood politics if they act against common sense. If Aronsohn had showed up driving a backhoe or a cement truck, the negative endorsements might have made sense. They might even have worked. They were hot air, and not enough people paid attention to keep him and his running mates out of first, second, and third place. Russell Forenza, a man who sincerely loves Ridgewood and has a solid background in local finance and banking, stepped on a political land mine. He told the audience at Candidates Night that the Valley Hospital expansion, if approved by the neighbors, would be a good thing. He said he thought he could have it worked out in a year or 18 months. He was an honest man, but the neighbors did not approve of his opinion. He finished sixth out of six. Being suspected of just possibly leaning toward a Valley expansion did not cut it as a reason for a negative vote in Ridgewood. Honestly saying he favored expansion was the kiss of death. Killion observed, in his pithy and honest way, that the next stop for the Valley Hospital expansion bid was the court system, because he did not want the council to drag out any more talks when they had budget concerns and flooding to think about. His statement to that effect could well be the reason he almost won. The salary increase vote is what killed his chances. How does that all play on the world stage? During the same week Ridgewood held its non-partisan election, elections in France and in Greece upset “austerity” programs meant to stave off bankruptcy and save national credit. The politicians who had attempted to control debt by reducing social services and pensions were worked over pretty heavily by people who think they can go on creating do-little jobs and paying people for the rest of their lives for the work they did not do while working for the government. Those who think their way beyond the next government paycheck probably assume the United States or Germany will step in and keep bailing them out because of fear of communism or guilt about their own relative prosperity. I suspect this will not work. People in Germany, the world’s fourth economy, and Japan, the world’s third economy, are poised on the threshold of panic waiting for the U.S. economy to collapse like a house of cards and take them down, too. Fear of communism will not motivate any foolishness on their part. The Germans gave up conscription last year and the Japanese are now quietly and legally trading with China on a regular basis. Hostility has long since ebbed. A few weeks ago, my wife was phoning up Japan to find photos from the 1930s for the new book and surprised a guy at the agency archive. “You’re not Japanese!” she declared. “How do you know that?” he asked. “Your English is too good,” she said. “Okay, okay, I’m Chinese,” he acknowledged. He came through for us beautifully. There are a million ethnic Chinese and a million ethnic Koreans now living in Japan. The wars are long since over, and nobody needs the U.S. to straighten out their troubles anymore. Asians who can get their immigration ticket punched for Japan, Germany, or France want no part of the United States except to see the Grand Canyon and the redwood trees. We are becoming history in economic terms. Greece and France became history a long time ago. Britain and Germany are headed there fast. Nobody even wants to think about how much debt the United States has piled up with China because those hard-working people have no choice but to work harder than they should to stay competitive. Based on an excellent Chinese documentary “Last Train Home,” the Chinese young people are not happy with their lot in life, and the kids like the three girls who showed up to take photos at my son’s wedding are funny, likable kids. But they exist. The Ridgewood election posters have notices printed in Korean, English, and Spanish. The Ridgewood voters put Ridgewood politicians on notice that public spending has to be curtailed. Nobody wants to spend a buck to save two bucks down the road. They want to save the buck before the tax bill arrives. If people in Greece and France think Americans are going any deeper in hock because other people built the Parthenon or the Eiffel Tower, they are engaged in pleasant dreams. They are in for a shock when they wake up. What does last week’s non-partisan Ridgewood election have to do with elections around the world? More than you might think. Mayor Keith Killion, a Vietnam veteran, 30-year police force veteran, and former chief of detectives, is widely respected by the people who attend council meetings. He has made a number of good decisions, and one decision that many others opposed. He voted, with three other council members, to approve a 12 percent raise for the village manager, Ken Gabbert, at a time when layoffs of public employees, some of them even residents, were still fresh and painful. Killion had a logical reason for the vote. Gabbert had negotiated contracts which, in the long run, would save Ridgewood taxpayers a great deal of money, notably by insisting that police officers pay for a portion of their own pensions. Nobody wants to deny police officers their pensions. Police officers and firefighters are probably the only people in the public sector whose lives are at risk on the job. They deserve pensions, and the public deserves to have officers who can afford to retire in a reasonable amount of time instead of hanging on when they are past their prime. Conversely, state-mandated police pensions are an absolute crusher at tax time, and anything than can be done to make sure the police officers can retire without forcing taxpayers to sell their houses and move when the last kid graduates from high school is absolutely vital. On a logical basis, the decision in favor of the village manager’s raise may or may not have made sense, but it definitely did not play well at the public forum. At Candidates Night on April 30, Killion defended the logic of his decision while the other five candidates responded with answers ranging from leery negative comments to outright excoriation when asked if they would have done the same thing. Other issues were ancillary. Paul Aronsohn, the top votegetter, essentially agreed with Killion on every issue except the 12 percent raise. Nobody on the bench wanted to federalize police forces with Bergen County. Everybody on the bench wanted to explore shared services with Glen Rock and Ho-Ho-Kus, and perhaps Allendale, Midland Park, Wyckoff, and Waldwick. Nobody on the bench wanted to pour concrete for rectangular pools at the lake-like Graydon Pool in Ridgewood. The group most strongly opposed to the concrete pools, Preserve Graydon Coalition, withdrew its previous endorsement for Aronsohn on what appears to be the suspicion that he now leaned that way – though he did not say anything at the meeting that suggested he wanted to overthrow the general consensus that Ridgewood cannot afford a $10 million concrete pool complex at this point in history. Neither of his endorsed fellow candidates, Albert Pucciarelli and Gwenn Hauck, left a cement mixer parked outside the Ridgewood Library. The negative endorsement flopped. Pucciarelli was the second highest vote-getter and Hauck, a relative unknown except in school and charitable work, beat Killion by 16 votes in a breathtaking cliffhanger. Elections at home and around the world Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: I understand that intentions were probably noble regarding students dressing in period garb to celebrate the centennial of the opening of the Willard School. (Villadom TIMES May 9 edition.) That stated, I found the front page photo of the students shocking and frankly offensive. The toothbrush moustaches worn by the students are highly reminiscent of that sported by Adolph Hitler. There certainly could have been better choices to demonstrate the styles of that era. Unfortunately, the “period” that was immediately evoked by the photo is the Nazi years. In my opinion, this photo was as lacking in sensitivity as an image of the Ku Klux Klan would be perceived. Andrew Siegel, M.D. Ridgewood Dear Editor: Your article (May 9, 2012) regarding the settlement between the Ramapo Indian Hills Regional High School Board of Education and former superintendent Paul Saxton quotes three former board presidents who all but confirm the substance of my remarks that also were quoted in the article. None of these three presidents dispute the fact that no board ever approved compensatory or overtime pay for Mr. Saxton. Mr. Meier seeks to lay some blame on the school district’s former counsel, but in no way explains why this should entitle Mr. Saxton to more than $500,000 from the school district or why Mr. Meier supported claims that, if successful, would have been so costly to the taxpayers. Mr. Madigan seemingly confirms my remark that these past board presidents continue to believe that it would have been wiser for the board to have paid Mr. Saxton over $500,000 than incur almost $270,000 in legal fees and set- Expresses dismay over cover photo Board president responds tlement costs to defend against these highly questionable claims. (I’ll let the taxpayers do the math on this one.) Mr. Lane states that the “pension matter (involving over $350,000) would have been resolved at the state pension board level at no cost to the taxpayers,” ignoring, of course, that the state pension board had denied Saxton’s claim for this amount, which is why Saxton sued the school district for this money. Mr. Lane fails to explain why he supported Mr. Saxton’s claim to obtain these funds from district taxpayers. All three presidents extol the service of Mr. Saxton to the district. This point was never in dispute in this litigation. The only question was whether Mr. Saxton was entitled to the funds he sought from the school district. As I have said previously, no past board president was free to reward an employee with additional taxpayer funds absent appropriate approval by the board, which never occurred. Mistakenly, these former board presidents believe they were endowed with legal authority that was never conferred upon them. In this case, that apparent authority would have extended to adding hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional benefits to Mr. Saxton who already was one of the highest, if not the highest, compensated superintendents in Bergen County. Wisely, the current board determined that taxpayer funds could not be given away simply because some number of past board presidents said the former superintendent provided valuable service to the school district. In defending against Mr. Saxton’s claims, the current school board, which has been conservative in all its financial dealings, treated taxpayer funds with the care and fiduciary concern that the residents of the FLOW communities properly expect from their elected representatives. The views set forth in this letter are those of the author alone and are not necessarily representative of the RIH Board of Education for which he currently serves as president. Ira Belsky Franklin Lakes