Like the concept...you might wsnt to have links to the other patch sites like fair lawn or wyckoff

Sounds good to me... good luck.

Wasn't it Glen Rock that succeeded from Ridgewood in the first place? A century or so ago.

Glad to have you back. :)

Really... Since you have merged then it should really be clear from the title that it's inclusive of both towns. After all we Glen Rockers do have some pride you know.

This is unfortunate. I hope the name change comes sooner than later. I'm not surprised as many in Glen Rock still do not know about or visit the site but for those of us that have utilized it, it has been a great resource.

Its all good. Just having fun.

This could spark a consolidation of Ridgewood and Glen Rock services too. Maybe rename the entire region Glenwood, or Ridgerock.

Note to Tom Troncone: thanks for the upgrade but, how about changing that ragtag baseball uniform... just kidding of course. "What will 2012 bring for the new site?" ... Dom

Funny, if I was going to "add" another town to Ridgewood it would have been HoHoKus. Glen Rock is an active and decent sized town all on its own while Ho Ho Kus is not as active or populated.

Oh well, really won't make much of a difference either way for your readers who are naturally curious and read other patch sites already.

Best of luck James!

James covered Ridgewood. Someone else covered Glen Rock. Now James covers both. In other words, each town gets half the coverage they were getting. No matter what you type, news coverage suffers unless you are adding staff.

James will now be flying around in a blimp over the two towns. The Patch Blimp. A representative from the RCC will be keeping him fully caffienated. There is now a landing pad for the blimp in the RHS field. Boyd will man the cameras. He will be able to see the Glen Rock Pool and Graydon simultaneously and watch for anyone breaking any rules, anywhere in the two municipalities. (Rumor has it).

That's great news, Tom Adding staff is a good thing.

OH suuuure.. Glen Rock's all proud and bragging about how their town got their crap together and got their leaves cleaned up before Ridgewood but now look... they don't have their own "Patch" anymore!! .. j/k... Welcome to the Ridge Rock Patch!!
BTW.. I heard the leaf piles on Fairmont Ave have been there so long that they found Wooly Mammoth remains under a pile! Great Job Village Hall!! .... NOT~!

I appreciate the merger of information.

It makes sense. I followed the Ridgewood Patch from the beginning. Then the GR Patch came on line. All along I felt there should be a RWD GR HHK Patch. (3) very similar towns in economic make up. All three on the Bergen Line. GR is on both.
All 3 have high property taxes. The Ridgewood News used to cover GR until 2001. Honestly with Ridgewood less than 1/2 mile from my house, I like to read one emailed update. As for the new name - How about the ROCK-WOOD Patch? GR has the Rock. Ridgewood has the woods. BTW Ridgewood Mom. GR as was Ridgewood was a part of Saddle River Township. It was a huge land mass. In 1894 a law was passed creating this small towns like GR which is a borough. RWD is a village.

Are you town based or school based?
If the latter why is there no Ramapo Patch (Wyck - Frk Lkes) & Indian Hills Patch (Frk Lkes - Oakland? GR RWD HHK is a true connection 2 smaller communities next to the larger one. What is boroughitis? Love to hear your definition.

Ho-Ho-Kus. Isn't that where Santa Claus lives?

Love it. Oliver Train. You made me chuckle this AM.

WAIT!! What about Rock Ridge? And we can get a new sheriff and...ummmm ah..hold on.. Wasn't that the name of the town in Blazing Saddles??
Never mind. Scratch that idea!

Like the idea of the merge, but caution: The hyper - local news, information and opinion is what we are drawn too -- let's keep it local...would hate to see another merger and another-- so in a year, we are clicking on "Bergen County Patch!"

Changing our name to Rock Ridge would make one pharmacy in our town (Rock Ridge) very happy and one (Glen Rock), not so happy.

I totally agree with Karen. It's a big area even for a brainiac like James. Hope we don't get fewer Ridgewood-specific articles (local gov, BOE, human interest).

I'm sure we'll have MORE articles to look through than fewer which I think I can tolerate.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I think the coverage in Ridgewood has been quite strong since I've started and I hope to bring the same energy to covering Glen Rock as well.

A quick recap: among the Glen Rock stories over the past week or so include a power outage with elevator rescues, a fire in a residential neighborhood, a seminar on bullying, a comprehensive look at the storm cleanup progress, the arrest of a man accused in luring attempts in GR (and Ridgewood, among other towns) and the football state title game.

I will not be ignoring Glen Rock, nor Ridgewood. That said, certainly there will be some challenges; it's impossible to cover everything. Here's how you can help – send me tips, questions and letters to the editor. Sign up to be a blogger, get involved!

Please feel free to reach out to me at james.kleimann@patch.com.

I will miss Joe Gerace. I thought he was a great fit for Glen Rock. Good Luck to Joe and Good Luck to James.

I for one never found myself checking the Ridgewood Patch. I liked the idea of having our own site rather than being lumped in with Ridgewood.

Please do not forget to change the name; it is important.

This is not a knock on Ridgewood, but I'm not interested in "local" news about a town I don't live in. Thinking that if Glen Rock people are VERY INTERESTED in coverage about their own town they will be at least FAIRLY INTERESTED in news about a bordering town is flawed. If a story isn't about Glen Rock, it might as well be about some town in another state. I won't read it.

The attraction for me of a Glen Rock Patch was that I didn't have to sift through stories about other towns to find coverage that related to Glen Rock. Now that that is changed I'm sure I will be a less frequent visitor to Patch.

It would be great if the Editor of the Glen Rock/Ridgewood Patch could come to each of the merchants in Glen Rock to get to know them a bit. Joe Gerace was very good about that and his stories helped all of us merchants get the exposure we need.

Chiming in from Maryland. I think this is a great idea for the Patch. I remember telling my editor that this should be done. (That was when I was a paid reporter - before the Patch cut the funds for freelancers. I still blog, but that's not the same.) I think Patch should expand their service areas even more. In the Baltimore area, we have many Patches covering many communities. I think the Patch should consolidate all the Baltimore County Patches into one (or at least an east side Patch and west side Patch). That way they have more paid staff covering important news all around. And if a particular town doesn't have news that day, a reporter isn't wasted looking for it. This would extend Patch coverage to communities that don't currently have Patches (i.e., places without money.) I also think the entire City of Baltimore should be covered, not just North Baltimore. (I know this doesn't interest you folks in Jersey, but in case anyone from the Patch headquarters is reading this stuff, I want them to see it.)

Hey Sean Tully, Thanks for your insight from Baltimore. When you mentioned an east side Patch & a West Side patch all I could think about was The Wire. Stringer Bell vs Proposition Joe. et al. I know it is not the county but it still comes to mind.

Wood and GR are both large towns with very different vibes. I do not think anyone that leads an active life will have the time to read through both. Shame. What's next?

What Mark doesn't realize is that there is big spillover between Ridgewood and Glen Rock in terms of its people. Countless of my GRHS classmates live in Ridgewood now, but still feel allegiance to the town we grew up in.. I like the merger idea. Perhaps, as was said earlier, other services might take note...

In short the Glen Rock Patch failed to attract enough of a following to keep it going.

I honestly don't believe it was given enough time. I talked to many people who had no idea it even existed. I think it would've taken off in time. Just my opinion.

The Glen Rock Patch still exists. The GR Editor moved to be editor of the Wyckoff Patch. I know that postion was open for a while. The Patch seeks people with journalism backgrounds The question is how much news does GR produce enough news that would attract 'eyeballs' that advertisers want?

As a booster of the Ridgewood Patch since the launch, I am just finding the new combined patch cluttered and less interesting. I don't enjoy wading through the stories about Glen Rock. Glen Rock is a great town. It just isn't my town. I'm sure I'll be back to this site from time to time when some big news is breaking. But I am no longer going to be a regular visitor. Pity that AOL took a good thing and mucked it up. I hope that they will undo this unfortunate move.

I am protesting also I am going to Glen Rock right now and make a U turn into an angled parking place.

You Go, Hank. Make a U turn into a 2nd parking spot for me. Thanks for the laugh. Good way to start my Monday.

I thought the title of this page was going to change to include Glen Rock. The title of this page still says "Ridgewood Patch" -- maybe you have our DPW working on the change?

In Fair Lawn, the Patch is very active and while I shop and eat in Glen Rock, I certainly like the Fair Lawn only news. I wouldn't favor a merger like this.

Everyone,

The masthead now reflects that the site is Ridgewood-Glen Rock, though the URL is still ridgewood.patch.com.

Hey wait a cotton pickin minute...G come before R. Borough comes before Village. Looks good, James. I think you had the tri-fecta in GR stories yesterday with Ponzi schemes, Bank embezzlement & unusual parking problems on Maple Ave. I hope you can bring your good reporting of RWD councils to the GR councils & boards. It is up to everyone to report local news to James when you see it.

i like ROCK- WOOD!

OK so it's been merged for awhile now and what I think would be a good change is if you could click on a GR button and get only GR related news, click on RW and get only RW news. Also there is a lot of wasted page space on the left and right that cold be utilized for something.

Keep in mind as the PATCH biz model evolves there is no exclusive Patch. In the GR Patch you will find many non-GR articles. They are from the region. I do not remember anyone complaining. I did comment that I did not care to learn about a manhunt in Central NJ. Patch editors replied that the person the police sought might be in our area. We the readers have one choice. Read or ignore. that's it.

John, My comment was a suggestion for a feature that could be added to the RW/GR patch for the "evolution" of the patch that you refer to in your first sentence. As to your last sentence, we have another choice, submit our thoughts and ideas and hope that if enough people give the same or similar suggestions that a change will come. I really only want to see the patch as it was before the merger, MY towns news along with some regonal news. That's why I read the patch. It doesn't seem so difficult to me to have a one click option to see only the news I care about.

I like that idea as well. No need for pretty.

Cool... I'll give it a try. Thanks.

Hello James,
Hadn't seen your reply from December 16 as I haven't been back to the site since then. But Karen told me that you had responded to my earlier comments, so I'm back and will check in over the next few weeks to see how the new combined site "feels."
Best,
Cy