Could bands, tags help Christie track illegal immigrants?

On a sweltering, 90-degree-plus day this month, the owner of this new sedan was driving in Hackensack with his windows open. Some drivers don't "like" air conditioning and others are trying to save gasoline.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR


Now that Governor Christie has been roundly criticized for comparing illegal immigrants to FedEx packages, he might want to turn to the animal world for a solution.

One alternative is to band immigrants like the injured red-tailed hawk shown on the front page of The Record today or to expand the American Littoral Society's well-known fish-tagging program to humans (A-1).

Of course, does it really matter what the GOP bully thinks about immigration or any other important national issue given the dim chance he will be nominated by his party, let alone elected president in 2016?

Still, Editor Martin Gottlieb continues to devote an enormous amount of space to Christie trying to act presidential (A-1 and A-3).

At the top of the front page, a column by Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson discusses constituents who ask their congressmen for help with an immigration or other problem (A-1).

Jackson doesn't mention that many members of Congress, including Rep. Scott Garret, R-Wantage, spend most of their time raising special-interest money to ensure their reelection, not helping people who live in their district.

Fatal shooting

This must be the 50th or 60th time The Record has run the same headline on Page 1 or the Local front:

Fatal shooting stuns
calm neighborhood

But the four reporters who wrote the story were unable to find out just what suspect John C. Wisse did for Bergen County government, where he worked for 30 years (A-6).

Nor did they question why Wisse, 83, needed a gun, if his neighborhood is so calm and "tranquil" (A-1).

Wisse is being held in the slaying of his tenant, Gerald Velardi Jr., 58, on Saturday. 

Can he sue?

Can a Tenafly man who hit a pothole while riding his bike, injuring himself and other bicyclists, sue the borough for allowing the hazard to exist despite the high property taxes he and other residents pay?

A brief on L-2 today doesn't say.

After 20-plus years, columnist can't hack it

A noisy private business jet takes off or lands at Teterboro Airport and flies over Hackensack every few minutes most mornings, afternoons and evenings. They are driving some residents crazy, but imagine what it's like to live next to the airport, a favorite of the 1%.

Columnist Mike Kelly is back on Page 1 of The Record today, asking the rhetorical questions that allow him to avoid directly criticizing Rutgers officials over the Mike Rice affair.

Questions are Kelly's specialty, but without them, his columns are nothing more than news stories, stringing together quotes from such sources as lawmakers, and state and university officials.

Columnists are supposed to have voices and strong points of view -- damn the attribution -- not ask questions, such as this one in his second paragraph today:

"Why did so many allegedly smart academics seem so clueless to the significance of the coach's abuse and what they needed to do about it."

I need some caffeine.

Editor Marty Gottlieb runs two columns about Rutgers on the front page, and a news story inside -- the fifth day in a row of over-the-top coverage that leaves most readers searching for some other news.

Dissing Hackensack

The Page 1 story on towns holding April school elections makes no mention of Hackensack, where officials censored public questions at a recent forum for candidates and where a school board member is running for a seat in the May 14 City Council election.

In today's Local, the big Hackensack news apparently is the first report about the March 22 closing of a wing at the Fanny M. Hillers School, but the story assumes all 45,000 residents of the city know where it is (L-3).

Second look

On Sunday's Business front, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais praised Whole Foods Market's decision to list genetically modified ingredients on labels, and made a rare mention of organic food -- more than 30 years after the chain was founded (B-1).

Travel Editor Jill Schensul completely ignored the American Littoral Society in her Sunday cover story on volunteers flocking to restore the Jersey shore after Superstorm Sandy (T-1). 

The ALS is based in Highlands.