Why isn't anyone held accountable?

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Point Pleasant Beach gets no respect.

A week after Hurricane Irene slammed into the Garden State and triggered massive flooding in North Jersey, The Record today is filled with articles and columns exploring decades of official inaction.


But no one is actually held accountable. Instead, concerns about "high cost" and the environment supposedly stopped implementation of long-term solutions. An editorial on Friday blamed "civilization."


Buried in thousands of words of text is the lone voice of Lincoln Park homeowner Valerie Simpson, whose home has been flooded five times in 18 months. Simpson was barred from questioning Governor Christie on Friday.


Lack of trust


"Everybody who comes into office talks about long-term solutions, and they leave office with nothing fixed," Simpson said. "I have no trust in government."


Why do Editors Francis Scandale, Deirdre Sykes, Alfred P. Doblin and others  leave it to a homeowner to pinpoint the massive failure of government in fixing our flooding problems?


Why did the paper publish a second major piece praising Christie's actions to keep state residents out of harm's way before Irene hit (A-3)? 


That's his job as governor, not going on vacation, as he did during last December's blizzard.


Here is the reaction of Allison Shuster Shea, who read that story on northjersey.com:

"Where is his pledge for smaller governement? where are the cuts? Where is the rugged individualism? What does he say about $260,000 per yr Republican Sheriffs and $180,000 Republican Police chiefs? Now he's begging for FEMA money,,, will he then reject the money because there are no audits in place or the State may have to pay for overruns? When will the press report that he is a naitional hypocrite and a disgraceful moral leader and Dems and Republicans now despise this fool, but the press sucks up to him since they are caught in his vortex and cant get out."

Why isn't the paper talking about how Christie snatched $3 billion-plus from the short-circuited Hudson River rail tunnels to improve roads, bridges and mass transit, so he can't be blamed for raising the low gasoline tax?


How many homes and businesses in flood plains could $3 billion buy and demolish?


In fact, what's keeping the editors from coming down hard on Christie and other conservative, tax-averse Republicans here and in Congress for paralyzing our system of raising revenue for major programs?


Sloppy, sloppy


Today's Page 1 story on the Shore repeats Saturday's error of confusing Point Pleasant Beach and its boardwalk with a separate community, the borough of Point Pleasant. 


"Point Pleasant Beach" appears once in the text on A-10, but all other references are to "Point Pleasant."


In an L-3 round-up on the clean-up effort by Staff Writer John Brennan, it's Spruce Street that goes by the Great Falls in Paterson, not Spruce Avenue.


I rarely read to the end of Mike Kelly's columns, but today he actually publishes a correction of a real boner, using "succeed" instead of "secede" in his ramblings last Sunday (O-4). 


He admits to being a "terrible speller," but what excuse does Liz Houlton's news copy desk have? Maybe the copy editors can't stand to read his tortured prose, either.


Trumps and Borgs


The Business cover story on Donald Trump today carries a one-word-headline, "TRUMP," and refers to him as "The Donald." Why do editors and reporters gravitate to such morons and glorify them?


Donald Trump would be nothing without his father, just as in a much smaller way, Publisher Stephen A. Borg would be nothing without his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, who apparently has been pushed aside in his son's greedy bid for grandeur.


Blog critics


I've been receiving comments from Eye on The Record readers who don't like my use of the editors' names when I discuss the failings of the Woodland Park daily. 

I can understand their concern. In their journalism careers, the editors have never before been held accountable by anyone, including the public.


It's clear the rich, spoiled Borg siblings don't read the paper or care what is in it. They have granted free reign to Scandale, Sykes, Doblin, Houlton and other editors.


If Sykes and her assistant assignment editors haven't had a good story idea for years, no one notices and no one cares. If they pamper their favorites and treat others in the newsroom like shit, no one notices and no one cares.


If they run the laziest local-news assignment desk in the Northern, Southern and Western Hemispheres, no one notices and no one cares. 


If Scandale's news judgment has been flawed for more than a decade, no one notices and no one cares.


Until now.