Winter 2004 Edition     

Letters to the Editor     Cable TV FLTV 77 is the Fair Lawn home movie channel where you can see your friends and family at work and play.   But we offer more than just your Grandma’s 100th birthday party. We feature several on-going series such as: Around Our Town, a community news program; Family Tales, where Fair Lawn kids and librarians interact with stories, skits, and music; and In The Spotlight, a show that introduces interesting people in and around Fair Lawn .   We at FLTV like to think we keep the tradition of the “back-fence conversation” alive with the FLTV Bulletin Board announcements, and by presenting such programs as Fair Lawn’s town council meetings and elections, as well as the various events around town: the Fair Lawn High School Talent Show, Fair Lawn Fireworks, Bergen County Mock Trial Finals, Cavaliers of Harmony concert, and the Warren Point 5th Grade Lip Sync Show.   So keep the conversation alive: Contact us with any comments and suggestions, or send us a tape of your grandmother’s 100th birthday party at FLTV Productions, PO Box 376 , Fair Lawn , NJ 07410 ; (201-794-5394; fairlawntv@Fairlawn.org). We’d love to hear from you! Mariann Hutlak   The Radburn Historic Architecture Group A number of Radburn residents have recently formed a group interested in the Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Radburn. Two meetings have already taken place.     The first get-together was one in which individuals gave ideas of topics and projects to be discussed at future meetings. Some of the ideas put on the table were: The History of Radburn, A Home Renovator’s Guide for Historic Radburn, Gardens in Radburn, and Historically Compatible Construction.  The second meeting was a presentation comparing the architecture and planning of Radburn with that of Letchworth, England, a “Garden City” which heavily influenced the principal designers of Radburn (Clarence S. Stein and Henry Wright).   Radburn is a noteworthy and famous planned community. The goal of the group is to identify, document, preserve and continue the historic architectural elements which are unique to Radburn. The group is eager to embrace new members and welcomes their valuable input. Interested parties may contact: Suzanne DiGeronimo (sdigeronimo @ digeronimopa.com) Larry and Felice Koplik     Trees Something that came up in conversation today that I bet most FL residents don't know.   The boro plants trees all the time. New trees to replace old trees as well as new trees to improve the town's appearance. It plants them - and then they die of neglect. No one from the town waters them. Maybe a homeowner will take it upon themselves to water trees in front of their home, but what about trees planted on town property? They die. And, next year, new trees. And the year after that, and so on.   When they dedicated the ball field at Westmoreland to Frank Jacene two years ago, they planted shrubs along the Raymond St. side of the backstop area. They died, rather quickly. This year, they dug up all the dead shrubs - which were ALL the shrubs but two - and replaced them. Now the two that were left over and most of the new shrubs are either dead or failing. No one ever watered them, either.   The town used to have a water truck, but right now, it's out of commission, and when it was working, no one was assigned to drive it anyway and take care of all those expensive trees with watering. So our tax dollars go for the replacement of replacement trees that will also die for lack of watering. And so on.    I was told that a new tank will cost around $1,100. Trees start at around $150, and most of the street trees cost more than that. It does not take an expert in math to figure that the cost of a tank, someone to run the truck, and the water would not come remotely close to the cost of replacing the replacement trees.   So why is FL not taking care of the trees it plants?  It just makes no sense. Fair Lawn Resident   Note From The Editor:  We'll ask the Borough of Fair Lawn to comment on this, for our next edition.       Regarding an Old Fair Lawn News Article About Training in Florida During WWII I thought should know that there are other than air force vets who were trained here in Florida lived in Fair Lawn.  I and lots of others in the Signal Corps were trained here in Camp Murphy, north of Palm Beach near Hobe Sound during the war.  We used to take the train to Palm Beach and Miami on weekends.  I was with the last group to train in the Camp which was then in the everglades type of brush and sand.  We were training on the SCR 584 radar equipment which was then very new.   I moved to Fair Lawn in 1952 and lived there until 1967.  Milt Robbins and I were the co-chairmen of the Temple Beth Shalom building committee, and the temple was designed mostly in my living room.  When he was President I was a VP of the temple. My children attended the local schools.  We now live in Boca Raton.  I just thought you should know this. Donald J. LeVine     This series of letters were postings on the Fair Lawn 's Discussion Forum   Overnight Parking: Get Rid of It I am completely sick of this stupid pointless overnight parking ban crap. Does Fair Lawn want other people to think we are special because our burglars have operation hours only between 2-5 am? Oh yeah, you can park on the streets on designated holidays, so I guess the Bandits must have off on the holidays also.  It makes absolutely no sense to argue that overnight parking keeps Fair Lawn's beauty...to the right, folks, we have a family who parks their car on their front lawn...how pretty! I was even driving home one morning at 2:30 am and I saw cars parked all along the streets without tickets, so I guess the cops don’t care; you can't tell me ALL of them called in that night to park on the street for the night. The town of Lodi for a fact has a sticker they display in their window to let the policeman know they are a Lodi resident...what a concept! Ken Iacobacci   Overnight Parking: I Like It Sorry bud....most people, myself included, like the "Overnight parking Crap." As a matter of fact, it was one of the MANY reasons we chose Fair Lawn as our home.   Usually the only people who complain about it are the ones who rent. If you're a homeowner, you have a driveway. If you rent, you might have a problem.   FairLawnFrank   Overnight Parking: There Is A Good Reason For It Wyckoff, Franklin Lakes, Ramsey, Ridgewood, Mahwah, Allendale, HoHoKus, Paramus, certain sections of Englewood. What do these ad other towns in Bergen County have in common with Fair Lawn? They all have overnight parking bans.  Ken, burglary is not the only reason the overnight parking ban. There are many other reasons. You say you have a neighbor who parks there car on the lawn. Well, do they use their garage at all or is it loaded with stuff so they can't pull their vehicle in? There's one spot. Also, if they have that many vehicles, they should expand their driveway. If they are parking on the lawn, that is a building dept problem since it is a violation.     Take a look at Lodi, Garfield, Elmwood Park, etc when leaves are picked up from the curb or the snow is plowed. They are done horribly. Traffic can barely move on most of these streets on a normal day since it is packed corner to corner with vehicles.   No tickets a 230 am. Not unusual. By time the officers receive the list of residents that called in their vehicles, it is about 215 am. Do you think it is possible to ticket the whole town in 15 minutes, while still attending to calls? Not likely, even if there were no calls during that time period.   Young Jedi  Overnight Parking:  It Could Be Easier I don't mind the no parking 2-5am in Fair Lawn . Being a native New Yorker, it seemed kind of ridiculous at first, but I got used to it. However, I DO find it very frustrating when you try to call your car in and the line is constantly busy so you can't get through. That's happened to me many times. In addition to calling, the residents should be able to log on to some kind of website where they can register their car for the evening.   Heather Blecher  Overnight Parking:  The Police Perspective A little background on the overnight parking ban.   It's been around a long time.   Originally, a provision was put into the ordinance to allow the police department to grant permission to a resident to leave his/her car on the street overnight in case of hardship for one night. An example of a hardship would be the car doesn't start so it can't be pulled into the driveway.   As Fair Lawn grew, the police desk would start receiving more and more requests for permission to park, not only from those whose cars broke down, but also from those who had guests, those who couldn't find a parking space close to their apartment, those whose driveways were overcrowded because there were teenage drivers with cars in their family and of course, those who were just too plain lazy to go out and put their cars in the driveway.   The police desk would receive hundreds of calls per night asking for permission.  The calls would start as early as two in the afternoon and not stop until 4:30 a.m. It got to be too much. It got to the point where it was interfering the dispatchers ability to dispatch emergency calls. Finally after much complaining from patrol supervisors and dispatchers, the Borough finally hired an answering service to take these calls so the police dispatchers could concentrate on the important stuff and every resident calling HQ would with a legitimate problem would be able to get through and not be put on hold for fifteen minutes while the dispatcher answered an endless string of calls requesting overnight parking permission.    The answering service faxes the police desk the list after 2 a.m. As far as enforcement goes, the Borough is divided up into patrol posts with an officer assigned to each post. This ensures that the Borough is evenly patrolled and that you don't have several officers in one corner of the Borough while the rest of the Borough is uncovered. It's the equivalent of a zone defense in basketball or football. Each officer handles all police matters within his/her post. They only leave the post to backup other officers to handle calls in another post when the officer covering that post is tied up on another call or when directed to by a supervisor for some reason.     Since we must obviously prioritize, it is not always possible to enforce the ordinance every night. For example if the officer covering that post makes a DWI arrest or a domestic violence arrest after 2 a.m., it is doubtful that he/she will have time to do the overnight parking enforcement for that post. Since issuing an overnight parking ticket is obviously less of a priority that arresting a drunk driver or a wife beater. So sometimes violators do get away with it.   In addition to processing arrestees, the officer is also expected to patrol areas such as business districts, houses of worship and parks. So even if it's a slow night and the officer just gets a few alarm calls and has some time on his/her hands, they still can't devote all their time to the overnight parking enforcement. That's why I always used to get a kick out of residents who would call up at 6 a.m. and complain that their neighbor's car was out all night and didn't have a ticket on it.   Sgt. Bob Boyle