More patchy Hackensack reporting

"The sun will come out tomorrow," the Hackensack City Council declares in a special, musical session.

After The Record completely abandoned Hackensack -- sending Main Street into a tailspin -- the newspaper's editors reduced coverage of municipal affairs and virtually ignored the schools.

I did not see any coverage of April's school board election or the city budget and tax rate -- as the assignment desk concentrated on the trial of suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa, who was convicted a week ago.

Then, the editors ratcheted up the rhetoric and began hanging crepe, declaring the Police Department "in limbo" and, today on Page 1, the entire city in "upheaval."

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes is so intent on making her case that Staff Writer Stephanie Akin -- the so-called Hackensack reporter -- actually included a plan to rezone and remake Main Street in the "upheaval."

On the continuation page, Akin says in architectural plans, a revamped business district "looks almost unrecognizable."

Horrors.

Political lesson

This story says a trio of school board members voted to oust three high school administrators, including Principal James Montesano.

They cited "a network of cronyism and patronage that has worked behind the scenes to control school board decisions for years," Akin says.

But there is no mention in this account of the Zisa family's role in directing school cronyism and patronage, as there was in a previous story.

Journalism lesson

The story also discusses the well-known apathy of voters in City Council and school elections, but doesn't connect the dots to the well-known apathy of Sykes and her lazy minions for covering Hackensack and many other towns.

And would you get a load of the interviews with six Hackensack residents (A-1 and A-8). 

When is the last time a resident -- not a gadfly or an official or an expert -- was asked for reaction to anything that happened in the city that served as the paper's home for more than 110 years?

Legal lesson

And missing in the latest account, as in all the stories since the jury returned the guilty verdicts in Superior Court, is any explanation of the law governing the dismissal or firing of a police chief who is now a convicted felon.

Is the City Council supposed to fire Zisa? Is the judge supposed to order him to forfeit his office and pensions? Readers are left in the dark.

Road to nowhere

On the front of Local, Sykes continues to allow Road Warrior John Cichowski to take his lead from readers and ignore the commuting problems he is supposed to be covering (L-1).

The quote of the day also appears on L-1, where one friend or relative of Robert Cantor of Teaneck shouted at the suspect who pleaded not guilty in his murder, "You are screwed, Tung."

The same could be said for readers in Hackensack.