Great Commentary!

Would you hire these guys?

From today’s Bergen Record…

Dynamo Buzz

http://www.dynamobuzz.com/index.php?p=1740&c=1

What Have You Done For HH Lately?

Boy, the last thing we need is more political B.S.  These days our lives are filled with it. Turn on the T.V., read in the newspapers and the Internet, open up your mailbox…

I received the newest mailing from the Dem candidates that probably cost them a few thousand $ from their lobbyists/corporate donations. They may think it was money well spent to have it show up in every HH voter’s mailbox.

NOTHING will ever be worth more in a political campaign than real life volunteer investment in the town in which you are living in and trying to run in. That shows your true investment in where you live. Can’t be bothered? Don’t “have the time”? Pleaaaase, I don’t want to hear it. Then you are just a  “tourist” here in HH, not a resident.

I read through their piece several times and not once did I see anything that mentioned either’s candidate volunteer activity that they have personally participated in HH. If they loved their community so much and have a personal investment in it they would have showed that long ago by investing their time here in town, like the candidates from the other party did way before they were ever elected or even considered running for political office. That’s how many people here in town knew about them. From seeing their faces at town-related activities. Investing their time for our town’s future.

Nor did I read about their “plans”in their mailing. Not a single sentence.  And do you know why? They have none.   

I did read about DiNanno’s “30 years in an urban school district” (they call it an Abbott district and the same one that Introna works in and is draining $$ from HH residents and other suburban taxpayers from their hard earned paychecks). Can we say Council hypocrisy? Voting against a struggling school budget while the one that is funding your paycheck has so much taxpayer money they can fill the classrooms with new equipment and build new schools? Gosh,  and one wonders why Mr. DiNanno doesn’t mention the name of the school district in the literature. Maybe because of the Introna/Hudson County/Abbott connection?  

“Master plan” and “aggessive action”. Just political rhetoric. Why in God’s name would we elect inexperienced Council members that up are being placed on the ballot strictly for the Bergen/Hudson County political agenda?

Do you want HH’s future dictated by outsiders and their money?  Vote for them and then watch your town’s future and your personal $$ taken away from HH’s control.

The lawyers are winning…

I saw this article online today, read it and I was blown away.

 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061018/ap_on_fe_st/playground_tag_ban

But then I am not. The example we are teaching our children is to look for someone else to blame for their own actions. The parents think, hmm, how can I benefit from this skinned knee?   Let’s sue, sue, sue.  It was just kids doing what kids do, but so what. I can get some $$ out of this. I can say that my daughter/son will be scarred for life figuratively and literally and that is worth $$ for “pain and suffering”. And since it is sometimes cheaper to pay out than litigate the check is written. And we, as parents, are then passing the legacy of the “blame game” onto them. Like a bad cancer. It just keeps growing and mutating.

I will give you my own example as to how people think.

Recently walking on a street in front of my son’s school I stumbled and fell. Walking fast, talking to my daughter. Just not paying attention. It was a good fall. Landed flat on my face, broke my nose, gashed open the bridge of my nose, also broke a couple of bones in my face and my foot. Pretty gruesome and bloody accident (“Mom do you have to go out with those black eyes and face?”). Went by ambulance to the ER and they patched me up the best they could and then I made the rounds of various doctors the next day.

My first stop was at an Imaging Center for more xrays. The woman doing the xrays says, “So are you going to sue? Ya’ know that big school has lots of insurance money. I would in a heartbeat”. I turned to her and said, “It was my fault. There was nothing defective with the sidewalk. I just stumbled”. Her response? “So what?”. And then she went on to relay a story about her 18 year old son, horsing around with some friends in front of school and breaking his shoulder. Being 18 the school presented him with paperwork to sign to remove them as responsible for the accident. He signed. His mother had a fit. Again she saw $$$ in her future. And he says to her, “It was my fault, Mom and I accept that.”

I can’t tell you over the course of my recovery how many times I was asked by various people if I started the paperwork process to sue. When I said, I am not suing for something that was my fault, they looked at me like I was crazy.

But what I think was the most important aspect of these conversations was that my kids heard me say that.

So now our rising insurance rates are also being caused by that game of tag in the playground.  What’s next? Will towns follow this lead and start banning bike riding, skateboarding,  jogging, power walking  etc. until they have a waiver from all of us on file?

We could all stop this madness that is costing every one of us, but first we have to learn to accept the blame for our own actions.   Let’s take this “cancer” and start working on a cure. The first step? Repeat after me…”IT WAS MY FAULT!”

What will your vote cost me?

Like all good Dems in NJ it seems, the most important thing when it comes down to voting on issues is “how can I personally benefit”? Will I be voting against an issue important to my contributors or in the case of local municipal issues, will I be voting against what my local party leaders would want me to do? My constituents? Screw them. Keeping my political career and my party happy is more important than what would be best for my neighbors.

All those nice donations made to the “Introna Team” and the Dems? How will they influence future council votes? Will the Bergen County Dem party be telling HH Dems how to vote to keep the donations coming in? How about those companies and their lobbyists? Makes you wonder what will be owed to them and taken from us.

Check out the King of the Union City Dems voting record. Like I have said before the Hasbrouck Heights Dems apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

http://enlightennj.blogspot.com/2006/10/bob-menendez-record-on-taxes.html

What have you done for “us” lately?

And they wonder why voters get apathetic when it comes to politics.

I am making breakfast for my daughter and watching the morning news like I always do.  Back-to-back political ads…one for Kean and one for Menendez. And I watched them again for the hundredth time (and people wonder where their political donations go to). Nothing. Nothing about what either of them has done for us here in NJ. Or plan to if elected. What they did talk about (like we don’t already know)? Ethics and hiring someone with a criminal record.

What do I want to know from your millions being spent on TV ads?

How do you plan on saving me money? Decrease my tax burden?  How are you trying to  improve my quality of life for me and my family? How  about the cost of medical treatment and insurance coverage? Property taxes? Car Insurance? In our part of NJ, decrease the increasing air traffic(well, we can wish, can’t we)? How about our road infrastructure, and why I have to cover the top of my coffee  cup with my hand when I have to go over certain roads so I don’t burn my passenger with hot coffee? Increasing mass transportation options for North Jersey? Like an extended Light Rail into Bergen County? I know it was planned but I read that there are special interest groups looking to change this now.  Why and who are the groups looking to pocket the money for this change?  Environmental issues and how you will help to clean up the state?

There is a statement going around this political season. “Politics…it’s all local”. So true. That’s where it starts. 

How about our local Municipal race?

Please tell me what you have done (or realistically plan to do) to make my quality of life better here in HH.  I know for the most part what the Reps have done over the last 3 years and I am impressed.  They truly have the town’s future in their hearts and did before they were ever elected. They were very involved in many programs here in town. And still are.

The Dems running? I have read nothing about their “town” accomplishments as a private citizen or future plans. What are they? The only thing I will listen to are POSITIVES. And from YOU, not from the PARTY. We can tell when you have to use the PARTY as your mouthpiece. 

What we need are Council members that have made it their personal policy to be a part  of the HH community long before they were elected.  That they are doing their best to look out for all of us. 

As I mentioned before in this blog, we don’t need place holders on the dais at the Council meetings whose only purpose is to follow orders from  the Bergen/Hudson County Democratic party. That’s not looking out for the citizens of HH.  They are looking out for the contributors to their campaign funds, the county reps, Freeholders. state and federal level legislators.

“Politics…it’s all local.”   Let’s keep it that way.

“Keeping the Gravy Train Rolling”

Another reason to keep all the puppet Dems and their flunkys out of local politics, expecially those with close ties to the Abbott school money tree.

http://enlightennj.blogspot.com/2006/10/let-them-pull-trigger.html

Teterboro…you think it is bad now?

Lets us never forget. The PANYNJ that runs LGA, JFK, EWR and, our favorite, TEB is a profit making entity.  As I mentioned on the local HH forum, TEB, as a General Aviation airport, makes it’s money from landing fees (the more landings the better). rent from FBO  (fixed based operation) companies that have space at the airport, % of business from companies that supply services to the jets using the airport.

Now, why in God’s name would the PANYNJ executives cut into their hefty bonuses by cutting back flights for the poor people in S. Bergen County?  It’s all about the money. There is no monetary incentive for these executives to cut back the flights. And until there is,  the more flights they can get to fly in and out of there, the bigger their new vacation homes will be. Let’s also not forget about the millions of dollars spent by the corporations that do business with the airports to the lobbyists to get their message to the FAA and the PANYNJ so they can increase their business at all the local airports, TEB included.

The new “curfew”? What a joke. How many planes will that affect? I did not see the PANYNJ offer a number in their press release. If it was more than a small handful it would have been publicized. They thought by throwing a bone at us it would shut everyone up for a little while.

So what if we have seen this airport become a monster as corporate jets forgo EWR and LGA  for TEB’s ease of use? I can see why. A few years ago I worked for a company that kept it’s Gulfstream there. On occasion I would get to use it if a bunch of us were going to an area that getting to by Commercial jets was a pain in the ass.

What a dream of a flight. I would drive a mile down the hill to the hanger.  Park in front of the hanger.  Walk 100 feet to the plane. Get on plane. Valet offers coffee, fresh fruit and pasteries. Fly to VA or upstate NY, etc. Do business. Get back on plane. Fly back to TEB. Walk back to car. One mile to home. In time for dinner.  Compare that with a typical nighmare EWR trip and you understand why TEB will continue to grow.

There is not anything we can do to slow its growth. But what we do need to do is to try and benefit from it monetarily ourselves (HH). We need to get a piece of their “profits” for our “pain”.  That’s what our local government needs to keep doing. The new firetruck was a start. Let’s think even bigger now! 

Wanted: A lawn…

We like to look at the real estate prices here in HH. We look in the newspapers, drive by the open houses, look at the www.njmls.com website. Curiosity.  Also a little voyeuristic especially when we can look on the websites and see the interiors of some of the already occupied homes.

It was great to watch those house values when they kept going up.  We patted ourselves on the back for being at the right place at the right time. Many people were able to better their lives and their family’s by taking out loans to pay for college, home improvements, etc. with these new home values.

But now with the market softening and prices coming back to earth a little reality has hit us all. I am hoping that the “new real estate reality” is also hitting the developers that were swooping down, offering quick cash to estates just wanting to settle and putting up these stone monstrosities.

As I drive around town I am so discouraged about the trend in home building these days in communities like ours.  It’s is dramatically changing the look and feel of our town.

Our town is divided by home era.  I learned this while driving around with a realtor when we were buying our home many years ago.

There are those homes that were built from about 1900-1920’s (mine). Many are traditional colonial or “Four-Square”.  In many cases have been renovated by the familes that have lived in them over the years. When we did ours we actually brought it back to its original era on the exterior while creating a new, modern interior. That’s what worked for our neighborhood. It was an asset for us and for our neighbors and allowed us to stay in HH by creating more useful space.

Then there are the GI bill houses.  They are located in various locations around town, quite a few, though, by Woodland Park.  They were built right after WWII. Cute little Capes on 50X100 property.  As these young familes grew dormers were added, but for the most part they remained as they were.

Then in the 60’s the Split Level homes were built. You see quite a few of those on streets, east of the Blvd.

Even with all these styles of homes, the mix worked. For the most part colonial homes were on the same  street as other colonials and Capes with Capes, etc. Even on streets with mixed home types there wasn’t anything so out of place it jarred your sensibilities.

The Real Estate building boom. It started a few years ago in HH when those Cape-Coders many of whom had been in their homes for decades started retiring or dying. The developers offered a quick sale, knocked down that cute home, 50 year old shade trees and vegetation and put up a home so out of place it made you stand and stare. Too much house, too much driveway, TOO MUCH EVERYTHING!

Yes, they are putting up homes with the square footage and features that new familes want but it appears that the words “appropriate” and “tasteful” were never programmed into their vocabulary.  They also worked the zoning laws to the last inch.

As an example. The older homes in town have lawns. Yeah, yeah, they are a pain in the ass but what they do is create pleasant “green space” on the street.  These new homes? It seems that the developers want to create the Bayonne/Jersey City look  of no lawn and all driveway. Gotta have a double driveway with the garage, ya know, for the multiple car family.  That’s what the “market” demands. Yes, by zoning law they have to have some “lawn” but take a look and see what they are getting away with under the current zoning laws. Look at the top picture. See any “plant” area that breaks up the harsh facade? That needs to be changed.

I know that we recently changed the building/land ratio zoning law but it appears that these developers are getting around it. These new homes going up are still overwhelming. I feel awful for people that have these monolith buildings going up next to them. Light blocked. Massive walls. What does that do to your house value next door or across the street?  Before we did our renovation we talked about buying another home in HH and I contacted some real estate people. Since I knew the area they just gave me the addresses and I drove by to see if I was interested in going in. I remember seeing 2 houses that were very nice and I would have considered pursuing except there were GIANT homes next door. Drove right by. Next.

I know, I know, ”you can’t dictate taste” but we can dicate new zoning. Such as one car garages ONLY. I saw a recent build which is what they did. Gaads.  They actually put the garage AT THE END OF THE DRIVEWAY in the back of the house so that they had a nice lawn the width of the home. They could also park 3 cars in the driveway as  the need arises.  All of these 2 car garages for the most part fill with junk and the cars are in the driveway and over the sidewalk anyway with three and four cars trying to fit into the outside space. So much for the logic of the 2 car garage.

How about forcing the developers to build a home that fits in the neighborhood? Survey the street as to the type of homes are there. Choose one and build it. Want a house with 3000 square feet, garages, media room, 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths? Well then Hasbrouck Heights isn’t for you, is it. Look elsewhere. Sorry.

My own personal peeve.  NO MORE FRED FLINSTONE HOMES!!!!!! ( see pic above). When did this become attractive?  If you want a stone home please move to  a subdivision in S. NJ or Arizona where you can have blocks and blocks of them and fit right into the neighborhood. They don’t fit here and they look like a DisneyWorld prop.

What happened to brick, clapboard and siding? When I see builders put these on a new home I want to get out of my car and shake their hand. At least that style will fit into most HH neighborhoods (see bottom pic).

So if we can’t dictate taste, let’s at least dictate more lawn. And trees while we are at it.