Hackensack is front-page news again

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I hope Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado doesn't get writer's cramps from turning out two stories about Hackensack in as many days -- today, the A-1 lead on huge payouts to city workers for unused time. Of course, far less clear is the motive of The Record of Woodland Park in highlighting how well-off public workers are.


The main element on Page 1 is a weird story on a moon-rock sliver brought back in 1972 that New Jersey officials apparently have lost, by Staff Writer Elise Young, who has done such great work on state pension abuses. Where did this story come from, is it really A-1 news and is a student trying to find the sliver related to Managing Editor Frank Burgos? 


Apparently, a retired NASA investigator, now teaching in Pheonix, assigned student Jaime Burgos, 32,  of Philadelphia to track down the one-28th-of-an-ounce sliver. Frank Burgos, who lives in Hackensack during the week, is from Philadelphia and his wife and children apparently still live in their home in that city's suburbs. Is Jaime related to Frank? Bizarre. And even if the sliver is worth millions of dollars, as the reporter asserts, is the paper suggesting the state sell it to help ease budget cuts?


Road Warrior John Cichowski's column today on the front of Local is actually historic. He writes about a Fort Lee bus shelter before lapsing into his usual pandering to drivers' every little, e-mailed complaint and question about state motor vehicle rules and regulations. His column has become boring and repetitious, and his punishment should be to ride buses and trains so he can experience some of the lousy service first-hand.


There is a second Hackensack story on L-3 -- about an unlicensed day-care center -- and a Teaneck story reports the school board will have to cut $6.1 million from its budget. But Englewood readers come up dry again.


In Better Living, Food Editor Bill Pitcher has put readers on a starvation diet. Pitcher apparently has dropped, or been told to drop, Marketplace -- the weekly column on new markets, bakeries and other food businesses that was written by free-lancer Amy Kuperinsky. The last Marketplace I saw ran at the end of April.


If Marketplace has been dropped, it's a definite sign that less space is being devoted to food coverage and good nutrition during the obesity epidemic. (Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded the Food section nearly four years ago, in favor of so-called daily coverage. But Better Living never actually had food stories or even recipes on a daily basis.)

Pitcher, who is being paid more than $70,000 a year, is producing far less than his lower-paid predecessor, Patricia Mack, who wrote a weekly column in addition to frequently writing the section's lead article. Pitcher, on the other hand, is mostly a recipe editor, and he's writing restaurant reviews now only because the full-time reviewer, Elisa Ung, is on leave.

Pitcher spends a  lot of time -- wastes a lot of time, that is -- driving around North Jersey so he can chronicle the opening and closing of every bagel joint, pizzeria and restaurant -- first in the Second Helpings blog, then in Friday's Better Living section. Features Director Barbara Jaeger, his supervisor, must imagine readers sit poised and ready to dash to their cars as soon as they get word a new bagel store has opened somewhere.