A reasonable View on the Post Office Development

From The Village Green

Op-Ed: Support the Process for the Proposed ‘Post House’ DevelopmentBy: Paul Sotrop | 12 mins ago | 1 Comments

The following op-ed addresses the proposed Post House development at the former Maplewood Post Office site in Maplewood Village.

Paul Sotrop serves on the board of the Maplewood Village Alliance, and is one of many past presidents of the Maplewood Middle School Home & School Association. The opinions expressed here are his own.

I’m absolutely thrilled that we’ve finally got some progress in the great controversy that some think is sweeping through our township like the announcement of the canceling of “American Idol” has breezed through the tabloids. Yes, it’s the demand from the group calling itself “The Village Keepers” that we all be civil in this discussion over the fate of a piece of property.

So far, I’ve been waiting patiently for something, if you’ll pardon the expression, concrete from this group, other than “Please put one of our signs in your yard and show support for our cause.”  Other than that, we really don’t know what their cause is.

MORE HERE:

http://villagegreennj.com/towns/government/op-ed-support-process-proposed-post-house-development/

Remember the good old days when everyone complained that all the retail spaces in town were being taken over by realtors and nail salons?

If someone has spent quite a bit of time on a project...........and I in no way agree with the end results of said project........it was a mistake from the beginning says I.  Then my vote goes for the individual who says 'no...........not in my town"   This is the wrong building in the wrong town.  Sell it to Morris-town or Princeton............not here

Maybe a reasonable approach to starting new threads on the post office would be appropriate. 

How many frigging PO threads do we really need?! Seriously. It's beyond ridiculous.

it is all Sarah's fault.

Let me make sure I understand this: the author of the op-ed serves on the Maplewood VILLAGE Alliance and yet he goes to great pains to say it's not a village?

Of course it's a village.  

Now that is funny.

sbenois said:

Let me make sure I understand this: the author of the op-ed serves on the Maplewood VILLAGE Alliance and yet he goes to great pains to say it's not a village?

Of course it's a village. 

Village=Township.  We stopped being a Village in 1989 or so, didn't we?

Unless we're talking small "v" village, in which case (colloquially, anyway) I prefer "tiny hamlet".  Sounds awkward in an org name though: "Maplewood Tiny Hamlet Alliance".  Nah.  "Maplewood Towne Centre Alliance"?  Argh.  "Ye Olde Maplewood Something..."  I give up.

A village is a rural area with inhabitants of a few hundred to a few thousand people. So we are actually not a village. It's a smart marketing term though for the business district, to make it feel more quaint than it actually is.

And interestingly, NJ has very specific "rules" related to township and village, if you can trust Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_(New_Jersey)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Township_(New_Jersey)

And wouldn't you know it, but the description of a township actually states that the members of the township council are supposed to serve as commissioners on various departments, thus codifying (I think that is the word someone else used) the cross-pollination of TC members on multiple department boards. 
How about that?

Interestingly South Orange actually operates as a village, while Maplewood does not.

"A village is a rural area with inhabitants of a few hundred"

I think that's a hamlet. 

:emoticon:

Rejected college newspaper headline, circa 1985, about inconveniences during a construction boom:

Campus Hamlet Can't Shuffle Off Its Mortar Coil

Typically a hamlet has a population of less than a hundred, and a village is between 100 and 1000. Also hamlets aren't incorporated. But that's all academic. Maplewood Village is just a  nickname for the shopping area by Maplewood a Avenue, an the MVA is its neighborhood association. 

ridski said:

Typically a hamlet has a population of less than a hundred, and a village is between 100 and 1000. Also hamlets aren't incorporated. But that's all academic. Maplewood Village is just a  nickname for the shopping area by Maplewood a Avenue, an the MVA is its neighborhood association. 

 Way too reasonable a response for this subject matter.

wendy said:

ridski said:

Typically a hamlet has a population of less than a hundred, and a village is between 100 and 1000. Also hamlets aren't incorporated. But that's all academic. Maplewood Village is just a  nickname for the shopping area by Maplewood a Avenue, an the MVA is its neighborhood association. 

 Way too reasonable a response for this subject matter.

 I did write it at 3.30 in the morning.

Frequently that which is commonly used becomes itself a fact.  There is no such place as     Short Hills in a legal sense.  Yet try telling people who live there that they are Millburn Residents.   They have paid big bucks for the cachet of living in Short Hills......and in Short Hills they reside.

There is a similar situation in Upper Montcalm compared to living in plain old Montclair

Me..........I am thrilled  to learn I do live in  Maplewood Hamlet.  

Bu I am also confused.  Should this Mushroom of a building ever rise............Will the builder and realtor market it as

being iln Maplelwood Village or just a shopping street located near the Movie Theater.

From the old sitcom "Taxi"

Smug guy walking in with a Great Dane: This is my dog, Hamlet.  Do you know why I call him Hamlet???

Judd Hirsch (not playing along):  Because he comes from a small town?

Well it begs the question of where the boundaries of Maplewood Village are. Does the Village extend over the tracks? All the way up to Ridgewood? Is Able Baker in the Village? Is Springfield Avenue in Maplewood Village? 

meandtheboys said:

How many frigging PO threads do we really need?! Seriously. It's beyond ridiculous.

 Post Office Threads are the new Torpey Threads.

Does anyone realize we can market a new line of clothes and call it Post Office Threads?

The post office would make a great location for a sweat shop.

ridski said:

Typically a hamlet has a population of less than a hundred, and a village is between 100 and 1000. Also hamlets aren't incorporated.  

 Maybe in England, but this ain't frickin' Engalnd.

I always thought a hamlet was an omelet with ham

Mon Dieu.............the possibilities are now endless.  We can break free of the Maplewood Village concept and market the area under half a dozen concepts ranging from food to clothing  lines.  Why dd I not think of this before?

ridski said:

The post office would make a great location for a sweat shop.

It's set up perfectly for it, aesthetics and all. 

They got the mail out and never ran out of stamps in my experience.   Plus near by parking  helped keep the blood pressure down.

It was not broke but we fixed it.

author said:

Frequently that which is commonly used becomes itself a fact.  There is no such place as   Short Hills in a legal sense.  Yet try telling people who live there that they are Millburn Residents.   They have paid big bucks for the cachet of living in Short Hills......and in Short Hills they reside.

There is a similar situation in Upper Montcalm compared to living in plain old Montclair

Me..........I am thrilled  to learn I do live in  Maplewood Hamlet.  

Bu I am also confused.  Should this Mushroom of a building ever rise............Will the builder and realtor market it as

being iln Maplelwood Village or just a shopping street located near the Movie Theater.

 Author, I once read a story about a simple rabbi who was sent by his village to a great center of Jewish study.  Upon arriving he felt overwhelmed by the knowledge and scholarship of the very learned Rabbis around him, so he stayed silent for a long time, listening and learning.   Because he listened so much and so carefully he learned a great deal.  On the very rare occasions he did contribute it was in areas where he was truly expert.  People paid attention because he spoke so rarely.  It wasn't too long before he was recognized as the wisest among them.

You could learn a lot from the above, because you do the opposite.  You expound with supposed expertise on EVERYTHING - but too often you do not know what you are talking about.

You write  as if you are the smart one, and the people paying millions for homes in Short Hills ( and Upper Montclair)  are stupid, as though someone put one over on them.  Bravo.   

But your idea that Short Hills and Upper Montclair do not exist in the legal sense would be shocking news to the USPS which has assigned Short Hills and Upper Montclair their own zip codes for decades.   Your assertion is also contrary to several important court decisions in the state of NJ which have repeatedly recognized the difference in value of unincorporated neighborhoods (like Short Hills and Upper Montclair)  within municipalities and have most certainly identified those neighborhoods as real places in the legal sense.    

There was a huge court case regarding Towaco /Montville.  The seller and realtor inadvertently misidentified the neighborhood and the penalty was hundreds of thousands of dollars.  

I doubt there is a single resident of zip code 07078 who is not aware that they live in the Municipality of Millburn.  After all, their deeds say Millburn.  They vote for the Mayor of Millburn.  They send their kids to Millburn High School ( which is the main reason people pay big bucks to live there).   But they most certainly, IN A LEGAL SENSE live in Short Hills.      And it has nothing what so ever to do with your premise that because it was commonly used it became fact. If you knew anything about the history of Millburn/Short Hills you might know that.   But then, some people's definition of fact is very different from others.

Actually I recall many posts over the years - many - in which people stated that they found the service in the old village p.o. lacking, and recommended Vauxhall instead. For people to drive to another town to use a post office, I would suggest that fits a definition of being broken.

author said:

It was not broke but we fixed it.

sarahzm , I live in the Short Hills area of Millburn, but zip code aside I disagree with you. Many municipalities have multiple zip codes and many, even in large cities like NYC and LA, follow well established neighborhood boundaries and have post offices with names that reflect that neigborhood (like Forest Hills, where I work sometimes). But I may spiritually live in Short Hills but in no legal sense do I live in anything but Millburn. Short Hills does not exist, except as a post office designation. The township of Milburn has 2 train stations, one named after the town, one named after an area of the town, just like South Orange does.