 |
| Jackson Avenue School is one of the poorest performing elementary schools in Hackensack, earning only a 2 from state education officials on a scale of 1-10. The Record, which doesn't cover Hackensack school board meetings, also isn't reporting on issues in Tuesday's election for three board seats. |
By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR
The words "Atlantic City" in big type on the front page of The Record today sent droves of North Jersey readers back to sleep.
And that's before they saw the piece was another long, boring column from Mike Kelly, whose first paragraph was little more than a weather report.
Meanwhile, in Hackensack, nine candidates are campaigning for three seats on the Board of Education, which has done nothing to improve test scores or engage parents in the education of their children.
In a race that is being ignored by the local-news staff of The Record, three candidates calling themselves Citizens for Better Schools say they will work with city officials to build a new school.
Wasteful lease
Now, the board is leasing a Catholic school building for more than $3 million over five years, with an option to renew for another five years.
The building is worth only $1.2 million.
Six other candidates are backed by the Zisas, who ruled Hackensack for decades, or the political machine that propped them up.
Attempting a political comeback, former four-term Mayor Jack Zisa and his brother, Ken, the disgraced former police chief, announced the formation of Team Hackensack, which is backing three candidates.
The Zisa brothers upset the teachers union when they somehow obtained the addresses of members and sent them an invitation to a barbecue at the home of Anthony Zisa, a high school teacher and Ken's son.
 |
| School board candidates went door-to-door in Hackensack's Fairmount section on Sunday, above and below. |
 |
| Campaign flier for Citizens for Better Schools, above and below. |
Local news?
There is so little local news today that most of L-2 is filled with photos.
One is an unusually large one of traffic on Route 80, near The Record's Woodland Park newsroom, after a motorcyclist was "seriously injured Sunday when he rear-ended a Toyota Camry."
The editors lead the section with an incomprehensible story about "pi" that holds even less interest than the Page 1 takeout on Atlantic City.
From a reader comparing The Record to the state's biggest paper, the Star-Ledger:
ReplyDelete"Victor -- I was at the Maywood Street Fair this morning and I picked up a copy of the Star Ledger for free - they were giving it out. The Sunday paper is so much better than The Record and has far more local angles. Try to pick up a paper one Sunday to compare."