July 4th 2022 Celebration in Maplewood

That looks like a parade from a few years ago.  The children are wearing decorations like the Civic Association used to hand out.

joan_crystal said:

That looks like a parade from a few years ago.  The children are wearing decorations like the Civic Association used to hand out.

Yeah, this is an old picture. There's no tent outside the Gate in that picture for a start.

jamie said:

Looks like the bike parade had a nice turnout!  Dean Dafis posted this:

Very patriotic!

ridski said:

joan_crystal said:

That looks like a parade from a few years ago.  The children are wearing decorations like the Civic Association used to hand out.

Yeah, this is an old picture. There's no tent outside the Gate in that picture for a start.

Good catch. 

sac said:

tomcat said:

And there is still a fair number of people who refuse to use FB (undersigned amongst them).

If you refuse to use one of the best free sources available, and also don't sign up for town emails etc (also free) then you really shouldn't complain about missing information. 

Not free, but The Village Green is a great source for local news and information and well worth the subscription cost.

If you don't use any of the above, but are an internet user (which is obvious since you are here), then I just don't understand.

I'm not sure of the best answer for the (relatively few) people who do not use the internet at all in any form (no email or social media or online news.)  I think they are primarily elderly people and the numbers who don't use the internet are diminishing pretty quickly, so perhaps the Two Towns group can work on something for them. I think that very few people are totally without WiFi these days for financial reasons and there are library WiFi services (along with helpful people there.) I also believe the towns are working to provide WiFi in some areas of most need. In this day, for better or worse, the internet is the easiest, least costly and fastest way to get news out and it really isn't hard to find and follow the good sources if one is motivated to do so. 

The Township also posts announcements in the News Record, but you can barely find print copies anymore.

sac said:

If you refuse to use one of the best free sources available, and also don't sign up for town emails etc (also free) then you really shouldn't complain about missing information. 

HatsOff said:

sac said:

If you refuse to use one of the best free sources available, and also don't sign up for town emails etc (also free) then you really shouldn't complain about missing information. 

Facebook is NOT free. Their business model is predicated on taking my personal information, click history, etc. and monetizing it. I'd far rather pay for something than have my behavior and data thrown onto their obscure, highly guarded and IMO corrupt algorithms. They are not benign actors. I never have had, and never will have an account there.

It's fine to decide not to use it, but then you'd better get a subscription to the Village Green and if you won't do either of those things then you really don't have a right to complain.  I am probably connected to too many sources of info, but I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of information about our two towns that people complain they didn't know about has been in both of those places and I know of none other that are as comprehensive.  (Perhaps paper flyers at the library does it for some people, but not for me.)

HatsOff said:

Facebook is NOT free. Their business model is predicated on taking my personal information, click history, etc. and monetizing it. I'd far rather pay for something than have my behavior and data thrown onto their obscure, highly guarded and IMO corrupt algorithms. They are not benign actors. I never have had, and never will have an account there.

Cue twilight zone music

Just wondering,do we still have a Fourth of July committee? How can we omit just a few fireworks on our country’s birthday?Now fireworks are displayed for every other celebration.Our priorities are changing.

JUST for clarity

Isn't SOMA a sister city with the town in Illinois?

galileo said:

Just wondering,do we still have a Fourth of July committee? How can we omit just a few fireworks on our country’s birthday?Now fireworks are displayed for every other celebration.Our priorities are changing.

We don’t have fireworks for every other celebration. There were fireworks for this years Juneteenth celebration. 

There was a Fourth of July event this year. It just didn’t include fireworks. It sounds like it will again in the future. 

It’s the Maplewood Civic Association which has organized the festivities in the past.  If you search for Maplewood July 4th you find their website which has not been updated since 2019, but you have to go look in the FAQ section to figure that out. Otherwise you might think there was a whole celebration planned with an antique car show, The Nerds and fireworks. I wonder if that’s where News 12 NJ got their misinformation.

The Civic Association’s Facebook page (which you can read without being a Facebook member) indicates that they were not asked to be involved in this year’s July 4th activities.

There’s definitely a fragmentation of information sources here, and I think that’s part of a growing national trend. Local newspaper readership used to be the backbone of community civic engagement but it has plummeted in the 21st century. We also live in a media market which is completely dominated by New York City so we can’t rely on local TV or radio to learn much about what’s happening around here. Usually SOMA only makes the “local” news if something bad happens like a major crime.

We subscribe to the Village Green which I think is steadily improving. We have a weekend subscription to the Star-Ledger which gives us digital access to NJ.com so that’s helpful. But I think these news sources are up against a huge obstacle because there are sources of information readily available for no monetary cost. But Facebook has no mandate to provide news coverage for our two towns.

I really missed Maplewood's normal 4th this year. I hope we can revive it in 2023. One of the best days of the year here. 

Interesting. Out of curiosity I went looking for information about subscribing to the News-Record. They don’t seem to have an online option to sign up for a subscription. They have a digital presence but it’s very limited in scope compared with the print version. 

You can access a digital copy of the News Record on the Maplewood Library website under about Maplewood.  As mentioned above it is a broader based version in which you select the town of interest and get articles pertaining to that town’s publication.

joan_crystal said:

You can access a digital copy of the News Record on the Maplewood Library website under about Maplewood.  As mentioned above it is a broader based version in which you select the town of interest and get articles pertaining to that town’s publication.

Thank you Joan. I wonder if the same holds true for South Orange. I will try to look into that and report back.

Who else remembers getting a visit from the welcome wagon? It was an organization that made a point of visiting new homeowners in Maplewood and giving them all kinds of information and things like coupons for local businesses. We bought our first house in Maplewood in 2000 and I believe they visited us. We thought it was funny because my wife grew up in Maplewood but it was still appreciated.

The reason I ask is that I find myself doubting that most people who move to town know that there is a local newspaper at all.

algebra2 said:

HatsOff said:

Facebook is NOT free. Their business model is predicated on taking my personal information, click history, etc. and monetizing it. I'd far rather pay for something than have my behavior and data thrown onto their obscure, highly guarded and IMO corrupt algorithms. They are not benign actors. I never have had, and never will have an account there.

Cue twilight zone music

Or cue the Social Dilemma (which I had my kid watch before he went on social media):

Welcome wagon visited us back in 1981. They are no longer in existence, at least in Maplewood.  Newcomers Club was another great introduction to town and a great way to meet people who were also new to the area.  That doesn’t exist any more either.

joan_crystal said:

Welcome wagon visited us back in 1981. They are no longer in existence, at least in Maplewood.  Newcomers Club was another great introduction to town and a great way to meet people who were also new to the area.  That doesn’t exist any more either.

they visited us back in 1990. It was one of the things that we loved about maplewood. After moving here from Brooklyn, it was awesome. Then our next door neighbors brought over a pecan pie and a fruit basket. I’m not sure if newcomers experience that nowadays. 

To the Facebook proponents here, what do you say about the negative publicity about Facebook influencing the results of the 2016 U.S. election (to this country's detriment) and their involvement in Brexit (to the UK's detriment), as well as their refusal to reign in the Russian troll farms, the research indicating that their brand of social media has a negative influence on the psyches of children and young people, etc.?  I've been watching for a decade as more and more negative stuff comes out about Facebook, yet people will not let it go. 

Elle_Cee said:

To the Facebook proponents here, what do you say about the negative publicity about Facebook influencing the results of the 2016 U.S. election (to this country's detriment) and their involvement in Brexit (to the UK's detriment), as well as their refusal to reign the Russian troll farms, the research indicating that their brand of social media has a negative influence on the psyches of children and young people, etc.?  I've been watching for a decade as more and more negative stuff comes out about Facebook, yet people will not let it go. 

seems like there's an opportunity for somebody to start a competitive platform that allows you to invite all your FB contacts to join. (Although I've got a handful of FB connections I'd be glad to leave behind). 

mrincredible said:

Interesting. Out of curiosity I went looking for information about subscribing to the News-Record. They don’t seem to have an online option to sign up for a subscription. They have a digital presence but it’s very limited in scope compared with the print version. 

Honestly, I don't think it's worth the trouble. We haven't paid for our subscription in over a decade, but they keep sending it so I look it over but I rarely see anything I haven't already seen online.  And it's no longer a SOMA paper but a regional paper.  It still says Maplewood and South Orange on the cover and I guess they put all SOMA stories on the front page, but there is an awful lot of East Orange, Glen Ridge, Bloomfield, etc.  Worrall seems to have one set of stories that they are packaging slightly differently for all of the communities, but I'm not interested in those other towns' hyper-local news.

Jaytee said:

they visited us back in 1990. It was one of the things that we loved about maplewood. After moving here from Brooklyn, it was awesome. Then our next door neighbors brought over a pecan pie and a fruit basket. I’m not sure if newcomers experience that nowadays. 

are you greeting “newcomers” like that?

I think that's indicating it's supposed to be a reference or a joke? But I don't get it.

tpb said:

are you greeting “newcomers” like that?

one of the the neighbors are still there, the other has newcomers, which we were happy to extend the same gesture. It’s a beautiful thing…

Soul_29 said:

ridski said:

joan_crystal said:

That looks like a parade from a few years ago.  The children are wearing decorations like the Civic Association used to hand out.

Yeah, this is an old picture. There's no tent outside the Gate in that picture for a start.

Good catch. 

I wonder if that was accidental or not.

I heard the bike parade was lightly attended.

yahooyahoo said:

Soul_29 said:

ridski said:

joan_crystal said:

That looks like a parade from a few years ago.  The children are wearing decorations like the Civic Association used to hand out.

Yeah, this is an old picture. There's no tent outside the Gate in that picture for a start.

Good catch. 

I wonder if that was accidental or not.

I heard the bike parade was lightly attended.

It was posted by Mayor Dafis on Facebook on July 3rd, so it was never meant to be a photo of the actual event a day later.

Why have the heads of both the Maplewood and South Orange governments made the apparent decision to only communicate with their constituents via Facebook?  

Elle_Cee said:

Why have the heads of both the Maplewood and South Orange governments made the apparent decision to only communicate with their constituents via Facebook?  

Time for a class action suit?

They would make the argument that opening a Facebook account has no monetary cost. But I’m not happy with the idea of having to trade privacy (to a third party corporation which profits from our personal data) to get access to local government officials and information. 

Is there a way to make a Facebook page open to anyone? Right now the South Orange Facebook page can’t be accessed without a Facebook login. 

The Maplewood Township Facebook page is public, but rarely updated, as far as I can tell.  I believe most of the discussions are conducted on the SOMA Lounge Facebook page, which is private.  If it were public and one could at least read the chat, that would be okay, or better than the current situation.  

Elle_Cee said:

Why have the heads of both the Maplewood and South Orange governments made the apparent decision to only communicate with their constituents via Facebook?  

Because the vast majority of residents get their local information there