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| In Hackensack on Tuesday, fewer than 1,000 of the city's 20,000 registered voters approved the $74.8 million tax levy to support the school budget, and returned three incumbents to their seats on the Board of Education. The board keeps the election in April to exploit voter apathy and ensure the status quo year after year. At the Fairmount School, above, poll workers far outnumbered voters on Tuesday evening. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
An appeals court will decide whether "prejudicial comments by a prosecutor" are enough to overturn the official misconduct and insurance fraud convictions against former Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa, The Record reports today.
But thanks to our glacially slow justice system and a well-paid lawyer, the man who destroyed his family's reputation in a city they ruled for decades remains out of prison -- nearly three years later (L-1).
On May 16, 2012, a jury convicted the chief of Bergen County's largest police force of three counts of official misconduct, one count of a pattern of official misconduct and one count of insurance fraud.
Staff Writer Todd South, who covered an appeals-court hearing in New Brunswick, appears unfamiliar with trial reporting, and no editor seemed to notice.
On L-3, South reports in the same sentence "Zisa was convicted on charges of insurance fraud and official misconduct in May 2012 on allegations he tried to cover up a 2008 car crash involving his girlfriend, Kathleen Tiernan" [italics added].
Besides the redundancy, they stopped being "charges" and "allegations" when a jury found Zisa guilty.
School election
How does the Hackensack Board of Education ensure the status quo and exploit voter apathy?
Members have kept their election in April, rather than shifting it to the general balloting in November, and the polls don't open until 2 in the afternoon, meaning residents can't even cast ballots on the way to work or when dropping off their children at school.
Two challengers faced three incumbents in Hackensack, and the incumbents kept their seats. No surprise there.
The incumbents are so sure of success they don't even mail campaign material to residents or offer to debate the challengers.
Such issues as the low-quality of food service and lofty administrators' salaries in the high school aren't even addressed.
Mass transit
An editorial today is so unequivocal about Governor Christie's poor mass-transit policies and voodoo budget balancing readers are wondering why the editors and reporters who fill the news columns are so far behind (A-10).
"No way," the editorial states in reaction to an NJ Transit proposal to raise fares 9 percent and cut service.
The editorial notes Christie slashed dedicated state funding to NJ Transit to $34 million in 2013 from $309.4 million in 2012.
The editorial also notes Christie is "averse" to raising the low gas tax to fund road and bridge repairs, but The Record says a 9 percent fare hike "is just a tax by another name."
A letter to the editor on the same page notes mass transit isn't one of Christie's "favorite things."
"I guess he's more partial to helicopter rides," writes Jack Bell of New Milford.
But Michael DellaFave of Emerson, who bought a home "along the Pascack Valley line of the NJ Transit system," tries to garner sympathy for what he calls the "nightmare" of frequent weekend and holiday rail service in the past six years (A-10).
Of course, DellaFave's letter doesn't explain what exactly he was thinking when he made the naive decision to buy a house next to NJ Transit railroad tracks.
More Christie lies
The New Jersey Education Association is joining other unions to challenge the GOP bully's decision to significantly cut the state's pension contributions (A-1).
NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer said a "memo describing concepts" the union signed "was misrepresented by the governor" as an "unprecedented" accord.
Photo captions
Two photo captions on L-3 today describe "fire crews working to control a two-alarm fire" and "an emergency crew working on one of seven people" led to safety from another fire.
But in the foreground of the first photo, a half-dozen backup firefighters are standing at the ready, and in the second photo, no one is working on the woman on the stretcher.
Nutrition advice
Clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson advises readers to eat their veggies, but to make sure they top them with ham and poached eggs (BL-2).
Maybe Jackson is just trying to drum up business for cardiac surgeons.
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