Another one of Christie's many cronies takes a powder

A little red paint dresses up this building on Hudson Street in Hackensack.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

How many key Christie administration officials once worked for the GOP bully when he was the crime-busting U.S. attorney for New Jersey?

You'd expect The Record to have informed readers long ago about the large number of cronies who got jobs from Governor Christie, but the editors don't sweat the details.

After all, they just got around to tallying the 300-plus vetoes he's used to get his way since he took office more than five years ago and inherited a Democratic-controlled state Legislature.

Sandy aide

Now, Richard Constable is stepping down as Christie's commissioner of the Department of Community Affairs, the agency that is taking all the heat for screwing up the recovery from Superstorm Sandy (A-3). 

Constable is a former federal prosecutor who worked for Christie in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Newark. 

Staff Writer Melissa Hayes actually wrote Constable worked with Christie [italics added]. 

And the reporter neglected to tell readers how much Constable is paid and how much more he will be making in the private sector. 

I guess that information wasn't in the press release she rewrote.

Constable is one of the many former assistant U.S. attorneys who got jobs from Christie, even though a good prosecutor doesn't necessarily know anything about being a good administrator.

I was shocked to see by the photo on A-3 today that Constable is black, because minorities complained the state's Sandy recovery program discriminated against them.

Fire series flaws

Today's front page carries the last of three parts of "AFTER THE FIRE," focusing on Englewood and Paterson families "coping after disaster" (A-1).

The poorly edited series neglected to emphasize some basics of fire safety, including the importance of smoke detectors, as was evident in the Brooklyn fire that killed seven children early Saturday.

Editor Martin Gottlieb just threw tens of thousands of words and some photos at readers, neglecting to break out some basic fire-safety rules in a graphic or box.

This from a former editor at The New York Times. Sheesh!

Elizabeth Branch

The best story on Page 1 today is by transportation reporter Christopher Maag, who interviewed Elizabeth Branch at a party celebrating her 50th anniversary as a Port Authority toll taker (A-1 and A-6).

Maag answers a natural question: 

How could Branch, of Bergenfield, love a job that forced her to breath in fumes for 50 years?

"The air is fresher," said the queen of the midnight shift.