A Pre-Election Note from OHNO60
maybe I'm being unfair, but why call the diagram a "web?" Why not a "schematic" or a "diagram" or a "matrix?" To me, "web" carries a negative (and frankly sinister) connotation.
hankzona said:
It is ugly...it shouldn't be repurposed, it should be recycled. I am no fan of the current drawings, but why wasn't the building of the post office protested originally as not being in sync with the look and feel of the village back then when it must have really looked blatantly out of place? But I will edit to add that its not as ugly as some of the vitriol I've heard in this campaign aimed at the incumbent. Ugly talk isn't passion. It actually loses votes.
Well said.
author said:
Leonidas replied "Then we will fight in the shade"
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=then%20we%20will%20fight%20in%20the%20shade
:smile:
Soul_29 said:
Glad that today's election will put an end to most of this nonsense.
I sure hope that you are right about that!
Hey, OhNo60 folks,
Sexagesimalaphobia Anonymous wants to buy your domain if you're done with it.
ArchBroad said:
Seeing multiple people who are not TC members on multiple committees, to me, means there are very few people willing to volunteer their time for the various causes, which is unfortunate in this seemingly activist town. There are numerous able and competent people, who have shown their voices lately, some of whom would just rather complain about other volunteers than volunteer themselves.
I find this observation interesting in that there is such concern among Lembrich's supportersover the"web" of interconnected committee members and that certain non-TC members appear in multiple places, but Lembrich's name isn't to be found at all on the chart.
author said:
Dave.............this is a football.
No one wants to save it as a museum or artifact. The point is to retro fit or refurbish it for practical use.
As has been pointed out..........it is the strongest building in terms of structural soundness as well as being
the youngest building in the village The steel and concrete are as they were when the building went up in the 1950s.
Potential uses are limited only by the imagination...........one or more restaurants. Also the indoor outdoor variety.
Apparently the building is so strong a second floor could be added without complications
I have posted former Post Offices that are now Restaurant/Bowling Alleys.
The building is so much more sound than the Women's Club which even the Township has said will require over a million dollars in repairs to bring it up to code.
I believe it was the Queen Mary , a great old cruise ship that still sits in the water and is now used as a hotel long after her ocean going days are over.....with a little elbow grease and imagination the human spirit can produce so very much
Wonderful. Great. Can we keep it, but change it completely, including widening the footprint of the building and making the building much taller, so that it can be used for residential and commercial purposes, so that it is more financially viable for our town?
Also, can we ensure it doesn't look anything like the post office? That building is a 60 year old mistake.
Time to vote everyone!
The Post Office is the issue that differentiates these candidates. I have already voted for Greg and I urge you to vote for him as well.
I'm a city planner who has been involved in more than 20 years of contentious projects (Ground Zero redevelopment, Second Avenue Subway, commuter rail in Central Jersey), as a consultant, an advocate, and a government official. Sometimes the outreach process that was laid out worked as originally planned. More often, it needed to be recycled at least once or twice before we got it right.
We are clearly not at consensus here and there is merit to the argument that reasonable alternatives to demolition and new construction were not given the hard look they deserved. Now it has emerged that the site plan will block access to Kings's loading dock. Fixing it will require eliminating the "community space" that the project's proponents have touted or substantially altering the design of the building, either by pushing it up a floor or by pushing out toward the train tracks or Village coffee. This is a basic flaw that needs to be addressed before anything moves forward.
Greg gets it and he needs your vote today.
If you think we should have a grocery in the village (and I do), then you need to give them a way to get deliveries. Since we've ruled out a grocery at the Post Office site, we can't afford to lose Kings as well.
King's is where there are because it is a profitable location. While, I would agree that truck access should not be compromised (and Vic stated that this would be worked out), I am touched by the number of otherwise socialistic residents rushing to the support of King's.
King's will stay as long as they are making money.
That King's will be put out of business is the single most ridiculous assertion to date. There are still about ten hours for some other argument to trump it.
if Kings closes, then I will be forced to shop on occasion a little less conveniently and much less expensively elsewhere.
dave said:
That King's will be put out of business is the single most ridiculous assertion to date. There's still about ten hours for some other argument to trump it.
Yes it is. It tops the assertion I heard that Vic/Jerry are neglecting the Village in favor of Springfield Avenue. Of course, this ignores the fact that the best thing we could do for the Village is turn Springfield Ave into the equivalent of Bloomfield Ave in Montclair.
ctrzaska said:
The "Kings is leaving if they can't park" argument is hilarious.
Its not. Kings is there to sell groceries. Those groceries arrive in 53' trailers. The trailers need to back into their loading dock and the turning radius won't allow that, unless they first pull into Ricalton Square (which appears to be a mapped street on the town's GIS). No deliveries, no groceries. No groceries, no Kings.
more dramatic rhetoric...because the Kings in Maplewood is the only Kings or only store in the world that has challenges delivering its goods...right?
"Engage/OhNO" has a different description of the "web", in their last-minute post -
http://us7.campaign-archive1.com/?u=da3fbc95e047f9ea75923cf6e&id=a7f0891076
"There's The Post Office Debacle, and The Reasons. One example: this chart shows that a handful of individuals approve, and re-approve, multiple aspects of development projects in Maplewood by virtue of their roles on multiple committees."
Sure sounds like an allegation of improper behavior. Great thing to throw out there at the last minute.
Kings in Maplewood has never had problems having its goods delivered to the store. Change the street conditions which the drivers use to make their deliveries.............yes now there is a problem.
In all my years in Maplewood I have yet to see a Tractor Trailer drive itself.
The only problem that Kings really cares about is profitability. Everything else they can manage.
But this is just noise anyway. A way will be found to accommodate the trucks.
Show me a business whose bottom line is not their profitability and I will show you a business about to have a fire sale.
The answer to the truck delivery problem is probably so profoundly simple that no one has thought of it as yet.
I think the answer to the truck delivery problem is to vote for Mr. Lembrich and adaptively reuse the existing P.O. structure.
Smaller trucks would probably work in the logistic sense.......but a truck lets say one third smaller will deliver one third fewer goods. Which would add up to more truck traffic on Maplewood Ave. Don't know how desirable that would be.
There are a lot of possibilities for reuse for the old PO. It could be used as long term storage for Kings.
Fill it one time to the rafters with non perishable goods and eliminate deliveries directly to the store for a month at a time.
I worked in a refrigerated food warehouse and let me tell you it is a trip. Cold in the summer and cold in the winter but we got our merchandise delivered. I would think part of the PO could be retrofitted
as a refrigerated area.
With additional storage space the existing Kings could then expand by one floor upward and double their
selling/floor space.
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Some very good rejoinders to the OPs "claim" about committees and the membership of committees.
Yes, public officials are usually on the committees because they are set up that way, most times through Township ordinance. It's misleading to claim that this fact points to some flaw in the committees.
Another point is that most of these groups with volunteer members look for new members. Volunteers are on these committees because they chose to volunteer. That's it, and people shouldn't going around claiming that something else should be read into that.
As for the OP's request for responses to the first post - it went up after midnight on Election Day. Really looks like a last-minute volley, and readers shouldn't be criticized for not quickly composing responses. And, actually, substantive arguments which refute the claims have already been written and posted, here on MOL and in other venues.
[Edited to add] Oh, and neither Mr. DeLuca nor Mr. Ryan have served continuously on the Township Committee from the dates indicated. That's a pertinent fact if one is to "analyze" based on their tenures.