Hackensack's school board appears to be incompetent

The Avalon Hackensack at Riverside luxury apartments, shown in February, potentially will add students to already crowded classrooms in Hackensack. Two-bedroom apartments are renting from $2,355 a month, and three-bedroom units start at $3,035 a month. Parking is extra: $100 a month for the first vehicle, $50 a month for the second. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack schools are experiencing an enrollment boomlet, and officials are scrambling to lease space in a Catholic school that is closing, The Record reports today.

The story, on the Local front, makes no reference to a Hackensack Avenue luxury apartment complex with two- and three-bedroom apartments that potentially will add more children to the overburdened schools.

Finger pointing

Joseph Abate, the interim schools superintendent, blames the lack of long-range planning, and school board members blame "turnover in administration for the lack of a current plan."

So, what has eight-term school trustee Francis W. Albolino -- a political ally of the Zisa family -- and other longtime members of the board been doing?

They've been spending more money per pupil than Ridgewood, and getting little academic excellence in return.

Wrong story for A-1

Not only do the editors do their best to make today's major Page 1 story hard to follow, but readers who stick with it to the bitter end must wonder why it's on the front page in the first place.

"Wrong number goes

right for ailing woman"

The reporter does a good job with this much-ado-about-nothing occurrence, once you overlook the silly lead paragraph:

"Next time you dial a wrong number, think about this."

Bluenotes

The A-1 obituary of jazz pianist Mulgrew Miller is yet another attempt to avoid the most compelling question about his death at age 57:

Why are so many other African-American men dying in their 50s?

All news is local

On Friday, The Record did what a local newspaper can do best.

A front-page story revealed that James Comey -- President Obama's pick to be FBI director -- was himself a crime victim more than 35 years ago in Allendale.

Sadly, that kind of local perspective is missing from the national and international news stories Editor Marty Gottlieb likes to run on Page 1, as if The Record is a trans-Hudson version of The New York Times. 

Friday's A-1 also was notable for the absence of another Rutgers column by sports writer Tara Sullivan, the paper's own vagina monologue.

Seeing stars

Friday's restaurant review gives a good-to-excellent rating to Raymond's in Ridgewood, even though the only "flawless" dish was French toast (BL-18).

And the restaurant misses a heart-healthy rating by a country mile -- cooking leaves of Brussels sprouts in duck fat, and adding butter, cream and mascarpone to shrimp and grits.

Thai mystery

In the May 2013 issue of (201) magazine, Editorial Assistant Ryan Greene sounds knowledgeable in discussing the food he sampled at Pimaan Thai Restaurant in Emerson.

But then, his review says "the papaya salad" has "no actual papaya, for whatever reason."

I called the restaurant to confirm it serves "green papaya" salad, a staple of Thai cuisine.

Of course, it contains papaya, but it's just not the sweet, ripe fruit Greene or the (201) editors might be familiar with.

If that's not embarrassing enough, who wrote the amateurish headline?

"Thai Something New"