 Image via Wikipedia |
| The Road Warrior tells reader Elyse Cohen of Fair Lawn to drop dead. Above, NJ Transit headquarters in Newark. |
In her front-page story in The Record today, Staff Writer Deena Yellin does a masterful job of dancing around the enduring controversy over inflated salaries and benefits for the more than 100 police chiefs in North Jersey.
"All over North Jersey," she writes, "police brass are figuring out news ways to cover their communities as budgets get slashed."
What about the creative ways chiefs have covered their asses since Governor Christie came down like a ton of bricks on any school superintendent who makes more than his $175,000 annual salary?
Or how reporters like Yellin conspire with their clueless assignment editors to protect the fiefdoms of the 70 police chiefs in Bergen County?
Who missed this grammatical error in her story? "Hackensack's police department is among the few who claim not to have suffered any major cutbacks [my italics]."
Time to cap chiefs?
Why not a similar cap on police chiefs? Why has The Record ignored those inflated salaries and Christie's inaction for so long?
Editor Francis Scandale changes pace today with an A-1 photo from Fort Lee -- a non-fatal traffic accident from ambulance chasing Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi -- rather than go with an image from Greece, Pakistan or some other far-off place.
Read the plea for better NJ Transit bus service in Paramus in a letter to the editor from Elyse Cohen of Fair Lawn (A-12), then turn to another in an unending series of L-1 columns about drivers from the Road Warrior, as Staff Writer John Cichowski refuses to leave the office and cover commuting problems.
Please get off your ass, John, and ride a rush-hour bus or train into the city to see what commuters are going through every day, report it and then ask why it has to be that way.
Or try to take a bus in mid-afternoon and ask why the waits are so long for seniors and people who can't afford cars?
Local yokels
On the front of Local, Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado writes about her fellow Hispanics being exposed to air pollution.
But on L-3 today, the byline of Stephanie Akin appears over stories from Hackensack and Maywood, two of the towns assigned to Alvarado.
Has head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes assigned Akin to Hackensack?
Also on L-3, Staff Writer Richard De Santa reports Social Security is closing its Glen Rock office and transferring employees to Sussex Street in Hackensack.
Unfortunately, the Sussex Street office closed months ago. Now, the office is at 401 Hackensack Ave.
On L-6, a brief reports Christie has nominated Jack Zisa, Hackensack's mayor from 1989 to 2005, to the Bergen County Board of Taxation.
Kosher trap
In Better Living, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill helps to perpetuate the myth there are "health benefits" in keeping kosher (F-1).
Although kosher poultry and meat usually costs more, much of it is raised with antibiotics or growth hormones and animal byproducts, and it's no healthier than non-kosher.
Here is a way to slash budget, although its not new; cutting out police forces altogether in towns such as Rochelle Park, South Hackensack, Prospect Park and all of these other tiny towns that exist for the sole purpose of providing cushy jobs for a tiny portion of the population. While we are at it let's understand why Bergen County has both a County Police force as well as a County Sheriff force. There is no place in Bergen County society for a County Police force, it is a waste of taxpayer dollars.
ReplyDeleteSo much money has been spent on "studying" consolidation, but as far as I know, no police departments have actually merged anything more than dispatching services.
ReplyDeleteMany chiefs make north of $200,000, and they can roll up sick days and cash them out at retirement. It's sickening.
Teaneck tried to eliminate the police and fire chiefs, and appoint a civilian safety director (the police chief), saving $250,000 a year, but it got no support from the police union or The Record, which never pointed out to readers such an arrangement could work in Hackensack and Englewood, two cities that are similar demographically to Teaneck and have professional fire departments.
What does a police chief do, go for the donuts?
Hackensack's department has been working just fine in the absence of the corrupt Ken Zisa.
ReplyDeleteWhat else can be said, we are living in the most over-policed area in the United States and have the highest property taxes in the country. People are panic and fear stricken into believing they need this level of policing. It is ironic to me that police work is probably easier than ever due to technology yet the police force continues to get paid as if they are particularly highly skilled workers.
ReplyDeleteThe only qualification for the job seems to be brawn, not brains, and police officers continue to be involved in brutality complaints.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure we could drastically cut down on our police forces if we had meaningful gun control.