Time to call Christie's bluff?

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In the last paragraph of today's Page 1 story on NJ Transit fare hikes, Staff Writer Tom Davis quotes Governor Christie as calling the agency "a political patronage mill." Well, if that's true and if that's part of Christie's justification for cutting state transit aid, why hasn't Davis given us any details?

Instead, Davis cobbled together an elaborate but ultimately inaccurate front-page story yesterday in The Record of Woodland Park alleging that since NJ Transit receives government assistance, it is taking taxpayers for a ride

Today, this ink-stained wretch reports a proposed 25 percent fare hike and service cuts drew outrage from mass-transit advocates who fear bus and rail service will become unaffordable and "force people to choose their cars over trains and buses."

Hey, Tom, what about the thousands of poor schmucks who have no choice but to ride crappy local NJ Transit buses, because they can't even afford cars? Do you even know they exist?

And when is the former Hackensack daily going to ask the governor about promised property tax cuts? When is Christie going to be asked for details on reigning in the grossly inefficient home-rule system? He loves to issue executive orders, so why not order consolidation of school districts and such municipal agencies as police and fire?  

How is cutting school, municipal, mass-transit and environmental aid going to help the middle class?

Yesterday's Hacknsack Chronicle led with a story on city schools, where the hiring of minority teachers lags behind the percentage of Africa-American and Hispanic students. A second story, on Page 2, contained the Hackensack schools superintendent's reaction to state aid cuts.

Neither of these stories appeared in The Record, which has virtually ignored Hackensack schools in the past few years, while running numerous stories about schools in other North Jersey towns, as part of Publisher Stephen A. Borg's "every day" education coverage (suspended during the summers).

It's a good thing the Hackensack Chronicle is another publication of the Borgs' all-seeing, all-knowing North Jersey Media Group, and is delivered with The Record on Fridays, apparently in recognition the daily has abandoned the city where it prospered for 110 years -- both physically and editorially.