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| The Record of Woodland Park continues to dump on Hackensack, its former home. |
Here comes Chicken Kelly to tell us on Page 1 of The Record that the sky is falling in Hackensack after its once-powerful police chief was convicted of official misconduct and insurance fraud in Superior Court.
In keeping with the local-news policy under head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Mike "Chicken" Kelly doesn't lower himself and actually interview any ordinary residents of the most populous community in Bergen County.
In fact, much of Kelly's front-page column today describes the Police Department as it was years ago, when Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa -- a member of the family that ruled the city for decades -- was at the height of his power as police chief.
Fie on Hackensack
Since The Record and North Jersey Media Group moved out of Hackensack in 2009, Sykes and the other editors have covered the county seat as if it were a foreign country.
Why is Kelly's column the first in decades to describe the Zisas' political power and the retribution visited on disloyal employees in Zisaville?
Can he be trusted? This is a journalist whose work cries out for editing. See how he pushes around words without any regard for facts (A-1 and A-8):
" ... the crooks that plague the City of Hackensack."
" ... a roller-coaster trial that lasted six weeks."
" ... the verdict seemed to unlock an emotional Pandora's box of accusations."
The trial was a "roller-coaster" for whom? Those "emotional" Pandora's boxes are the worst, as we all know.
More errors
Kelly says the next City Council meeting is Monday night, but my city-supplied calendar lists it on Tuesday night.
I moved to Hackensack in August 2007, and the city appears to be as safe and well-run now as it was before and after Zisa's arrest in 2010 and his conviction on Wednesday.
On two occasions, I went to police headquarters as a complainant, and have nothing but compliments for the police officers and detectives I dealt with.
I have noticed changes on Main Street since The Record abandoned its nearby headquarters and pulled out hundreds of employees, but the Woodland Park daily has never reported them.
Suicide linked to Zisa case
The A-1 story below Kelly's column links the suicide of a suspect in a holding cell at Hackensack police headquarters to the "tumultuous" aftermath of the Zisa conviction, but incorrectly reports the suspended chief was convicted on "criminal misconduct charges."
Editor Marty Gottlieb publishes three more articles in a long series about Democratic opponents in the 9th Congressional District primary (A-1, A-3 and O-2).
Gay bashing
Kelly returns with a second column on today's Opinion front, this time weighing in on the upcoming sentencing of Dharun Ravi, who was found guilty of bullying Tyler Clementi of Ridgewood.
Does anyone but Kelly doubt that's why Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge?
Why did Editor Marty Gottlieb and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin publish homophobe Kelly's appeal for a non-custodial sentence in the bias intimidation of Clementi, who was gay?
On Thursday, Doblin's editorial said Ravi is no scapegoat -- he's a convicted felon who deserves prison and deportation to India.
Kelly so abhors homosexuals his three-page Sunday Record story in 2000 completely ignored their role in the revival of Asbury Park.
On the
same exact day Kelly's story appeared, an upbeat cover story
in The New York Times' New Jersey section reported that urban
homosexual men and women were leading the way in reviving the run-down
resort, drawn by affordable, stylish homes and gay clubs. One photo
showed two women on the beach with their arms around each other.
Seeing red
Road Warrior John Cichowski -- another columnist whose replacement is long overdue -- again gives voice today to speeders and other bad drivers upset by the number of red-light and other cameras (L-1).
Gottlieb found room for Kelly's semi-fictional account of Hackensack on A-1, but banished a story on "unprecedented" poverty in New Jersey to the front of Local (L-1).
Money to burn
The Better Living cover story today is about building an outdoor earth oven for cooking food -- an article aimed at the half-dozen readers crazy enough to try such a thing (BL-1).
In another highly relevant food piece, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column promotes two caterers instead of exploring restaurant issues facing readers (BL-1).
In Friday's Better Living section, Ung gave a lukewarm 2 stars to a Greek restaurant, Opa in Wayne.
That amounts to the kiss of death from the restaurant reviewer, who also bestowed 2 stars on a faux-Caribbean chain restaurant on Route 23 in the sprawling township.
Are you crazy enough to think Opa and Bahama Breeze are judged on the same scale. Aren't restaurant ratings determined by comparison to their peers? Weren't you the food editor, you should know.
ReplyDeleteHackensack Council Meeting was changed to tonight several weeks ago due to schedule conflict of City Manager
ReplyDeleteThe access that folks here bash me for has another side:
ReplyDeleteThe Hackensack PD has settled, and been run effectively, since Ken was removed. Bad apples have either been removed or removed themselves. There's no factional infighting. Crimes are solved or prevented. Arrests are made. Calls are serviced.
For a city department, in fact, it's quite efficient.
This isn't BS toady PR. This comes from officers on the street, detectives and people outside the department -- including those who duties include assessing ops.
The biggest fear among those remaining was that Ken would be cleared, return and undo all the work that's been done.
There's a long way to go, and no one is claiming the place has been scrubbed clean. But it's a different operation since the hammer fell, one that's making arrests that stick and generally keeping the violent crime at very low levels.
Hackensack PD is also getting props from other agencies -- at the muni, county and state levels.
Funny: The dead-tree folk who campaigned tirelessly against Zisa aren't content with the verdict. They have to keep piling on the department, anyway.
Bottom line: The people who matter now in the department, and at the prosecutor's and sheriff's office aren't the primary cast in the melodrama that played out in court.
Of course, you can't know that unless you actually spend time with police.
I lectured at FDU this semester, and the cops who were my students near-unanimously were straightforward in their opinions of Kelly (not that it's been any secret).
I'd love to be a fly on the wall if the day ever came when he asked ANY of them a single question.
(OK, haters, come after me now instead of addressing what I wrote...)
As odd as it sounds, Opa and Bahama Breeze and every other restaurant reviewed by Elisa Ung are judged in the same way.
ReplyDeleteUng is the so-called fine-dining reviewer, though she lowered her standards considerably since the recession hit.
Places like Bahama Breeze are especially borderline. That's why every other place she gives 2 stars is tainted.
The Record has cut the number of guests she can take to restaurants, and limited her and one other person on what they can order.
The reviews once included the criteria for awarding the stars, but those don't appear anymore.
Now, at the end of the data box, it claims restaurants are compared to others of the same type and level of ambition.
But if you are using the same star-rating system for all restaurants, that would be impossible for the reader to grasp.