More wasted Hackensack reporting

It's not known whether Palazzo Zisa in Palermo, Italy, has any connection to suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa and his cousin, City Attorney Joseph Zisa.

Hackensack readers probably yawned loudly when they read the headline on the front of The Record's Local section today:

Cops drop

civil claims

vs. county,

prosecutor

This is another in a seemingly endless stream of stories from head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who burdens her Hackensack reporter with chronicling every burp, hiccup and fart in the complex legal cases swirling around suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa.

Sykes has been obsessed with Zisa and Michael Mordaga, the city's onetime chief of detectives, for many years, and she's thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff salaries into investigations of them.

Many lawsuits

Officers started filing suits against Zisa in June 2009. He, in turn, has filed administrative charges against them.

Today's story notes the chief was indicted on insurance fraud charges in April 2010 and on official misconduct charges in May 2010.

Since then, every motion, every delay and every legal maneuver in departmental hearings and in court has been reported in The Record -- to the exclusion of other city news -- but no one has asked residents if they are happy with their Police Department.

Apparent conflict

Nor has the Woodland Park daily explored the apparent conflict of interest involved in Zisa's cousin holding the job of city attorney and defending the suspended chief.

In December, the weekly Hackensack Chronicle listed law firms that have received the most money from the city in defense of the chief, including $535,158 paid to Zisa and Hitscherin, in which City Attorney Joseph Zisa is a partner. 

Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, who covers Hackensack, has a second story inside Local today -- about a third-grader who won a statewide "Power of Art" contest (L-3).

Free-mulch news

But overall, there is so little local news in Local, Sykes' pride and joy, the desperate layout editor had to run a four-paragraph story on Closter's free mulch-delivery program to residents (L-2) and a 12-inch story on a single house burglary in Mahwah (L-3).

The flaws in Local are more apparent now that Editor Marty Gottlieb seems to be having some success with remaking Page 1.

Town crier

A "bright" story at the bottom of the front page -- on Fair Lawn's town crier -- is by Staff Writer Karen Sudol, who is covering the Dharun Ravi trial in New Brunswick (see today's Local front).

It's likely she wrote this weeks ago and it's been sitting in "the can" until Gottlieb found room for it.

"Oyez, Oyez, Oyez," the town crier exclaims. "The Record's Local news operation has caught the Black Plague and staffers are falling like flies."