Nothing To Worry About

To all the parents who have young people entering school for the first time, I share with you this article I cut out of a newspaper many many moons ago; Enjoy!

Applications Available for Youth Garden Grant Program

PND - RFPs Applications Available for Youth Garden Grant Program

The National Gardening Association awards Youth Garden Grants to schools and community organizations across the United States with child-centered garden programs.

In evaluating grant applications, priority will be given to programs that emphasize one or more of the following: educational focus or curricular/program integration; nutrition or plant-to-food connections; environmental awareness/education; entrepreneurship; and social aspects of gardening such as leadership development, team building, community support, or service-learning.

Schools, youth groups, community centers, camps, clubs, treatment facilities, and intergenerational groups in the United States are eligible to apply. Applicants must plan to garden with at least fifteen children between the ages of 3 and 18. Previous Youth Garden Grant winners who wish to reapply may do so but must wait one year and have significantly expanded their garden programs.

This year a hundred recipients will receive a $500 gift card from program sponsor the Home Depot and educational materials from the National Gardening Association.

The top five winners will also receive a $500 gift certificate to Gardening With Kids.

Yes, Some Unemployment Benefits Have Been Extended, but Not All

Snatched right from the Department of Labor's website:

COBRA Continuation Coverage Assistance Under ARRA

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) provides a COBRA premium reduction for eligible individuals who are involuntarily terminated from employment through the end of May 2010. Due to the statutory sunset, the COBRA premium reduction under ARRA is not available for individuals who experience involuntary terminations after May 31, 2010. However, individuals who qualified on or before May 31, 2010 may continue to pay reduced premiums for up to 15 months, as long as they are not eligible for another group health plan or Medicare.

The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010 signed by the President on July 22, 2010, did not extend the COBRA premium reduction.

Individuals who believe they have been incorrectly denied the subsidy may request the Employee Benefits Security Administration review their denial and issue a determination within 15 business days. The application to request a review is available at http://www.dol.gov/COBRA.

My clarification:

1. Every person that is currently participating in the COBRA benefit premium reduction where the federal government is picking up 65% of the monthly COBRA fees, will no longer receive this financial assistance once they have exhausted the 15 month maximum under the ARRA. 

• Example: If you began paying for COBRA benefits as of August 1, 2009, and the regular fees were calculated at $1,000 per month for your family but with the 65% premium reduction in place you have been paying $350 per month.  As of November 1, 2010 you will be required to pay the $1000 per month because October 31, 2010 will be the last day of the 15 months of COBRA premium reduction assistance under the ARRA.  I strongly suggest that you check with your former employer about length of COBRA coverage past the 15 months and your new monthly fees.                                                                 

    2.   If you were involuntarily terminated (laid off) from your employment after May 2010, the
          65% premium reduction is not available to you.

****     I applied for a review and in less than the 15 days as stated on the DOL website, I
                was successful in being granted the 65% federal subsidy. If you have been denied,
                apply for a review.       

Getting Out of Jury Duty

Ever try to get out of Jury Duty service?  Remember when you could produce a doctor's note which suggested that the mere act of showing up for Jury Duty would put your health in jeopardy, a statement from your employer documenting the hardship it would bring upon the workplace because the company just could not function without you, or your testimony that you were a homemaker with a family and had no one to care for your children.  All of these at one time were valid reasons to be excused from jury duty.

Doctors, lawyers and even judges could get out of Jury Duty just because of the nature of their profession. Well no more.  I guess there is a shortage of willing jurors and the process to secure warm bodies able to walk under their own power has become exhaustive.

I did a little bit of research and found that there are valid reasons for being excused from jury duty and they vary from state to state.  For example in California the law and court policy establish the legal grounds for excuse from jury duty. Each request for excuse is reviewed on an individual basis by the Jury Commissioner or his or her staff based on the law and court policy. In other states I researched there are some similarities in what is acceptable and varying degrees of other valid excuses such as:

• You cannot speak or understand English.
• You are 70 years old or older and do not want to serve.
• You already spent a day serving jury duty in state court during the three previous years OR are scheduled to serve in the near future.
• You are not a citizen of the United States.
• You have been convicted of a felony during the past seven years OR you are a defendant in a felony case now.
• You are in jail or prison.
• You are a State Senator or Representative and the legislature is in session.
• You are a judge of the Superior Court, Appellate Court or Supreme Court, you are a judge of probate or you are a federal court judge.
• Have a physical or mental disability that would prevent him/her from serving. The prospective juror is required to provide a doctor's note explaining the disability. If the prospective juror does not have a doctor, a professional caregiver can provide a sworn statement explaining the disability instead.
• Will be temporarily away from the court's jurisdiction at the time for which the juror is summoned.
• Active military duty. 

The art of dodging jury duty is an American pastime, an Olympic sport of sorts.  Maybe there should be a Guinness record to set. Uh oh, hope this doesn't turn into another reality television show.

I recall the story of a man who when asked if he could be impartial during the proceedings and deliberations, replied "Yes, he's guilty".  He was excused.

Then there's the guy who once selected to sit on a jury, arrived at the courthouse later and later each day, was always the last one to return from the lunch break, holding up the trial proceedings until the judge summoned him into his chambers for a brief chat.  He was clearly shaken when he emerged from the judge's chambers and from that day on for the duration of the trial, he was the first jury person to arrive at the courthouse.  I guess they made him an offer he could not refuse.

For decades people have come up with some clever ways to get out of jury duty but this latest attempt had me rolling in laughter (of course the personal delivery of the story adds to the genius).

So as it was told to me, during the jury selection, a woman when asked by the judge to give her name, she said "No". The judge replied "Pardon me, what did you say"? And the woman again replied "No".  She was excused.

Township Furlough Days and How They Affect You

* Mark Your Calendars Now



Montclair Township Furlough Days Office Closings

The Montclair Township municipal building will close on six days in the remainder of the calendar year, as a result of the six furlough days to be taken by staff. In addition, the Community Services building at 219 North Fullerton Avenue will be closed on four days and refuse collection service will be suspended on those days (see below). Police and Fire departments will remain open to ensure public safety. * Additional clarification below.

Earlier this month several of Montclair Township’s unions agreed to voluntary concessions as part of a union-management agreement that will help reduce spending in the 2010 budget year through salary reductions.

- Friday, July 16 (municipal building, Community Services, refuse collection suspended)

- Friday, August 20 (municipal building, Community Services, refuse collection suspended)

- Friday, September 17 (municipal building, Community Services, refuse collection suspended)

- Friday, October 15 (municipal building, Community Services, refuse collection suspended)

- Friday, November 12 (municipal building)

- Thursday, December 23 (municipal building)

* Municipal building is located at 205 Claremont Avenue

   Community Services building is located at 219 North Fullerton Avenue

   Refuse collection suspended = The Trash Will Not Be Picked Up on these furlough days so please don't set it out.  If you forget and you set it out for pickup, don't leave it out until the next scheduled pickup.  

Reference - http://montclairnjusa.org/

Composting Tips From the Newbie

Where can you get an apricot muffin, gourmet spice mixtures, handmade taco, ginger roll, fresh cut sunflowers and greens for your compost bin?

THE FARMERS MARKET !!!!!!

Skip the food, this post is about compost and more specifically compost yard greens.  Compost yard greens can include flowers, vegetables, plant trimmings hedge clippings and most commonly used grass clippings. If you use the mulching feature when mowing your lawn and don't have any other regular supply of yard greens you may not be able to produce enough greens from yard cleanup to add to your compost pile.

Never fear, your local Farmer's Market can help. They have the best yard greens.  Why? Because many customers request to have the tops of root vegetables such as beets and carrots, removed during the purchase.  These greens get thrown into a bucket, pail or box and are discarded at the end of the day as trash.  The vendors are happy to pass along these greens just for the asking.
Now if the township were to get in on the action, maybe we could provide the Farmer's Market vendors a designated area or bin where they could discard these greens, the town could collect these greens along with the regularly scheduled recycle pickup, add the greens to the recycled leaves which are already being collected every week and produce even more FREE compost for the township. Hmmmmmmm............

Another way to supplement your lack of greens is to ask a neighbor who doesn't mulch grass clippings, to save some for you.  How do you know if your neighbor doesn't mulch the grass clippings?  Are they setting out lawn and leaf bags on recyclable day after mowing the lawn? Or you could do what I do and just ask the neighbor.  Be careful with this option, you don't want grass clippings from a lawn that has been chemically treated.  So you might want to pay a bit of attention if you see your neighbor adding amendments to their lawn and/or if you have a good relationship with them, ask about their lawn treatments and tell them why you want to know.

This is my first year composting and I am anxiously awaitng my pile of Black Gold.

Chase Community Giving

Chase Community Giving is back to give away another $5 million, and you help decide which 200 local charities receive donations.
Just search, vote, and share your enthusiasm with your friends. It's a new Way Forward for giving.  http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/.

Is your town participating?  Montclair township is trying to win monies for the Public Library which has been hard hit due to budget cuts.

To follow Montclair's progress go to this link http://www.montclairplf.org/.  As of today Montclair is NOT one of the top 200 charities.  Montclair has only 227 votes.  Montclair has a loooooong way to go people. 

Interested in seeing the numbers of votes for other charities? Here is the link for the leaderboard http://apps.facebook.com/chasecommunitygiving/leaderboard?page=10&view=top200.

Voting ends July 12th, so get going!!!!

Speeding Deterrent

 
It's been a long time since I was issued a traffic ticket.  A very long time, probably 20 years or so.  I recently earned the honorable distinction of having one of these slap on the hand reprimands delivered to me by the boys in blue and after making 2 visits to traffic court to plead guilty and take my chances at getting the fine reduced, I am convinced that the process is a built in deterrent, an integral part of the efforts to minimize poor driving judgment, inclusive as punishment for having broken the law.

On the first court date after waiting an hour, I was told my case wasn't on the roster (an oversight), which I knew from reading the roster posted on the wall and questioned upon arrival, so my court date was rescheduled.

The second appearance I sat for almost 5 hours waiting for my name to be called only to have the judge state that he could not try my case because the prosecutor had left for the day and he as the judge was not empowered to impose the agreement previously discussed between the prosecutor and myself without the prosecutor present.  He was apologetic as he instructed the clerk to reschedule my appearance for yet a 3rd court date.  I made a comment about how this process is the real deterrent to speeding (yes I know, that mouth again).  He laughed, remarked that I had a good attitude and encouraged me to wave at him when I arrive for court on my new date so he could see me and expedite my getting to the podium (hope he isn't going to throw me under the bus).  He went on to say that if I wore the same earrings he would be sure to remember me.  I don't know if that's a good thing.

Why 5 hours?  Because municipal court has a specific order in which cases are to be heard.  There is a hierarchy of sorts and some of the cases which enjoy a priority over vanilla types of cases like mine are somewhat surprising.

Repeat offenders and "The Usual Suspects" all take priority over a case like mine.  And oh wait a minute, if one of the defendants in a case is called and doesn't appear, the judge instructs the clerk and the court moves on to the next case, however, if the defendant from the prior case appears, once the judge has ruled on the case in progress, that prior case now gets their turn.  There's no go to the end of the line and wait for a new turn, the court just fits them back into the lineup. This happened several times.

Municipal court is like an all you can eat buffet combined with an old fashioned Chinese food menu, you know, one from column A and two from column B.

1st up - Defendants with attorneys present get processed first.  Judging by the unsolicited marketing letters I received from numerous attorneys after my ticket hit the system, my guess is they pay a lawyer between $250 and $500 an hour to speak for them, the fines get reduced and the offense is re-categorized to a lower level.  In some cases depending on the circumstances I guess an attorney can make certain things disappear. Ok, I don't have a problem with that but this option didn't necessarily seem to be the smartest move financially in my case.  After all as I found out, my options without an attorney were just as good if not better considering I did not have the additional responsibility of paying lawyers fees. The deal I struck with the prosecutor was satisfactory to me.  He even advised me to go out into the hallway and call my insurance company for further guidance on how the charges were going to affect my standing before I accepted the deal.

2nd -  The Public Defender gets to drag in any open cases for which he can produce a warm body; dozens of cases for various offenses.

3rd - County Jail inmates (I think it was the county jail, I did not verify, does it matter?  Hey they were in orange jumpsuits) who are currently residents of our penal system and have a municipal court date are now able via webcam technology to have their day in court.  One by one they enter a designated booth at the jail and respond to the charges via camera and microphone. Tick tock, tick tock, not loving technology this day.
4th and last - Traffic Violation cases are called.  Interesting, these are typically the quickest and easiest cases to process.

Here's hoping my case gets heard on my new date and that by signaling the judge with the requested hand wave and wearing the suggested earrings, my future won't include having to wear one of those jumpsuits..........even if it is my favorite color.

Yellow Tiger Lily

Three years ago I planted a yellow tiger lily at the corner of my front yard.  I think it is supposed to look like the one pictured on the right. 

I may never know.

The first year the plant grew but did not bloom.

The second year, last year the plant grew, began to bloom and just as it was about to flower a deer came along and ate it.

This year, last night one of the blooms began to open and today as the bloomfest continued, a teenage girl walked by this afternoon, stopped in front of the flower, seemingly to take in the beauty and wonder of the flowers, when she shiftly and quickly looked from side to side and behind her, snatched the bloom off the stem destroying both flowers in the process and resumed walking down the street.

I could not breathe.

I happened to be looking out of the window in my office when the dirty deed was done and called out to her asking "Why would you do that"?  I ran downstairs and outside to confront her.  Clearly startled that I was taking pursuit she ran down the street.  I followed, walking for a block.  When I got to the corner and saw she was no longer in sight, I turned and started walking back home ever so slowly knowing she would come out of hiding when she thought the coast was clear.  She did not disappoint.  I stopped part way turning around to see her come out of her hiding place.  Startled again, this time she intended to lose me. She did.

As I walked back home there lying on the sidewalk was the trail of bright yellow petals, the evidence dropped in the heat of the chase.

I may have to move that flower.

Information Super Highway

continues to take control............. 

I was searching for a home phone number on the 411.com white pages online phone book (no I don't know where my hard copy phone book is, not sure I receive one any longer) and was directed to the spokeo.com website.  I was shocked (but, really should I have been?) at what was available simply for a click.  I was looking for a phone number and the site produced the phone number, pictures from Facebook, the value of their home, age, race and more.  Curious about my own information I accessed the spokeo site again and low and behold tons of information about me popped up.  Upon further scrutiny I discovered that some of the information was either incorrect or skewed. Glad I don't have a Facebook page, not that it matters, because these sites will scoop up whatever they can from various sources and post it anywhere they please.  There is no fact checking going on or permissions for releasing information being requested or granted.

I took the suggestion of a friend and selected the Privacy option on the Spokeo.com website.  I opted to have my information removed and when I checked the next day, my file had in fact been deleted.  Yeah I know, it has been deleted from 1 site out of how many?

I made some screen shots of the step by step process, it's not difficult to do but the site does not spell out how to remove your file. I don't want to clutter my blog with the screen shots so if you have difficulty locating the Privacy option on the spokeo website, send me an email and I will forward the steps on opting out.

According to David Emery's Urban Legends Blog
http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/2010/04/07/spokeo-com-scam.htm
By David Emery, About.com Guide to Urban Legends

Okay, here's the deal. Spokeo.com is basically a search engine that aggregates information pertaining to individual names, email addresses, and phone numbers from online public sources such as phone books, real estate listings, and government records, plus profile entries from websites like Facebook, MySpace, Amazon.com, LinkedIn, Flickr, and many others (the Spokeo site lists upwards of 50 potential data sources).

Similar "people search" services include Pipl, ZoomInfo, ZabaSearch, Radaris, and Intelius.
It can indeed be shocking to see how much information can be dug up about you in 15 seconds — your home address, your marital status, religion, hobbies, names of friends and family members, personal photos, a satellite image of your home, even your estimated income and credit score.

Just as troubling is the fact that no one fact-checks the assembled data, meaning it can be partially or wholly incorrect.
The thing is, if Spokeo can find it, the info is publicly available and can be found online by anyone, with or without the convenience of a Spokeo.com.

The website does provide a form whereby you can delete your individual listing (though some users report that this is easier said than done), but don't miss the critical point: Simply removing your search results from Spokeo.com doesn't prevent anyone from accessing the same data by other means.

To protect your personal data on social networking services, you must either refrain from providing it to sites like MySpace and Facebook in the first place, or adjust your privacy settings on each website accordingly. Also, if your phone number and address are listed in the White Pages, that information is publicly accessible online, as are some government records (accessibility varies by state) and real estate listings.