Do-nothing slate starts Hackensack campaign

Extra-wide Fairmount Avenue runs through one of Hackensack's quiet neighborhoods.

Hackensack City Councilman John Labrosse is the only incumbent seeking another term in the May 14 election, but his own campaign literature is silent on exactly what he's accomplished in the past four years.

In a pamphlet he is distributing, Labrosse claims his victory in 2009 was "a blow against the city's power elite."

Now, he calls his 5-person slate Citizens for Change.

Labrosse's seat warming on the council only shows change is long overdue.

HUMC monster  

More troubling is that Labrosse works in plant operations at Hackensack University Medical Center, whose tax-exempt property is a burden the city's hard-pressed homeowners and other property tax payers can no longer afford.

If he is elected, Labrosse will be totally ineffective in getting his employer to give back more to Hackensack in lieu of taxes. 

Shouldn't the highly profitable hospital contribute millions of dollars to a city that has been changed fundamentally by its expansion and an ambulance service that disturbs residents at all hours of the day and night?

The money could be used to repave Prospect Avenue from Ross to Central avenues and beyond; install traffic lights at Prospect Avenue intersections with stop signs and plant vegetable gardens to improve nutrition at the public schools, among other projects. 

That's part of the campaign platform of blogger Victor E. Sasson.

Many residents believe another 5-person slate, the Coalition for Open Government, is backed by allies of the Zisa family, which has ruled Hackensack for decades.   

Today's paper

Here's another Sunday front page from Editor Marty Gottlieb that brings a collective shrug from the vast majority of The Record's readers.

As Hackensack residents re-assess how HUMC can improve residents' quality of life, Gottlieb obsesses over hospital "rivalries worthy of a novel" in Passaic city and Newark (A-1).

A silly Page 1 column grades two baseball players as readers continue to give flunking grades to the paper's sports and news columnists, including Mike Kelly (O-1) and Road Warrior John Cichowski (L-1).

Also on A-1, a gee-whiz, who-cares story reports a blind scientist disputes the 2011 guilty verdict against a man who threw his wife off the Palisades.

Finally, tens of thousands Jewish and Muslim readers shrug over who will be the next pope (A-1). 

Pacemaker

On the front of Local, Staff Writer John Brennan claims the scheduling of a meeting is "another sign of the quickening pace of renewal for American Dreams Meadowlands" (L-1).

Readers roll their eyes.

On the Business front today, The Record continues to ignore customers with a splashy story on a wealthy "restaurant sales guru," whatever that is (B-1).

Using their beans

Just about the best thing in the paper is on the Better Living cover, a story on Phoebe's Place in Teaneck and other coffeehouses that serve as cultural communities.

I also loved the headline, "Cafe ole!" (BL-1).

Can't afford the time

The Opinion piece on affordable housing is also welcome, but its length will put many readers to sleep (O-1).

Hundreds of words should have been edited out, including the writer's annoying habit of quoting people with such introductory phrases as "in the word of one of its fiercest critics" or "in the words of ... a Springfield attorney."

It's no surprise the piece was written by lifer Charles Saydah, who until recently had the cushy job of editor of the letters to the editor. 

Saydah laughed at deadlines and left the building nearly every day to jog -- this while some of his co-workers on the news copy desk were denied meal and coffee breaks.

 

Dumbing down of the paper accelerates

The city of Hackensack has been extremely slow in embracing solar power, which would save money and help the environment. Mount Olive Baptist Church on Central Avenue in Hackensack installed hundreds of panels six years ago, above and below.

Monday's Page 1 story on  Municipal Judge Vince A. Sicari misnamed the ethics panel that has asked him to give up moonlighting as a standup comedian, according to an A-2 correction today.

The story called it the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct (A-4), which isn't even close and doesn't make sense, because it is his conduct outside the courtroom that is being questioned.

The correct name is the Advisory Committee on Extrajudicial Activities.

This is the latest in a series of embarrassing errors on the front page or in Page 1 stories under the inept supervision of Production Editor Liz Houlton.

Houlton was promoted to the six-figure job, despite all the years she ran the features copy desk and allowed numerous errors to get past her cursor, only to appear in Food and other sections.

No laughing matter

With the departure of Jimmy Margulies, fans of his often brilliant editorial page cartoons will no longer see a New Jersey focus, as demonstrated today by the Las Vegas Sun's lame effort (A-8).

I don't know what's worse: Sunday's headline on A-4, "Police shoot man with knife," or the heading on today's letter to the editor pointing it out: "Convertible cutting device?"

2 more staffers leave

The lifer who wrote those headings for years, Charles Saydah, editor of letters to the editor, is giving up his cushy job, according to another staffer's Facebook page.

A third staffer who is leaving, Justo Bautista, is one of the hardest working reporters in the Woodland Park newsroom.

Bautista, who is in his 60s, is a police reporter who also wrote numerous stories about war veterans in North Jersey.

His hustle and legwork will be hard to replace, and his departure further reduces newsroom diversity.

Local snooze

In place of news from Hackensack and other towns, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, throw readers a few bones:

-- A story and photo on the crash of a FedEx van leads Local (L-1).

-- A photo and caption on the crash of a delivery truck (L-3), with the imaginative overline, "CRASH IN FORT LEE."

-- A filler on a bank robbery (L-2) has a photo showing investigators standing around and bullshitting. 
  

Editors commit titanic misjudgments

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The Record's editors demonized Jon Corzine during his single term as governor of New Jersey, but now praise Republican Governor Christie as a gift from the political gods.

Does the Italian tragicomedy of errors involving a capsized cruise ship really belong on the front page of a daily North Jersey newspaper -- where desperate editors couldn't produce anything more relevant to readers' lives?


This colossal misjudgment by interim Editor Douglas Clancy is mirrored in the Opinion section today, where another editor publishes three letters apparently meant to repair the reputation of a doctor who was hit by a $1.27 million jury award last week.

Today's Page 1 story in The Record might be of interest if you've taken or are planning a cruise. Otherwise, you'll take one look at the gee-whiz photo of the Costa Concordia on its side, maybe read a few paragraphs and move on in search of news you can use.


Incomprehensible


You won't find it in a second A-1 story, this one trumpeting how The Record and Herald News prompted Governor Christie to order a review of state purchasing laws and "the public contracting process."


Today's piece on government purchasing is just as unfathomable as previous ones.


A third front-page story -- on a new state Prescription Monitoring Program -- gives rare credit to Christie's predecessor, Jon Corzine.


On the Local front, the Road Warrior has morphed into the Death Warrior, with the second piece in a week on driving fatalities, another statistical story he produced from the comfort of his computer (L-1).


Readers will find Englewood and Teaneck items today, but Hackensack news coverage is a shipwreck once again -- thanks to the lazy assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes.


Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais continues to ignore organics and other food that is raised or grown naturally in the monthly Marketbasket Survey (B-2) and in today's piece on rising food prices (B-1).


More misjudgment


On O-2 in the Opinion section, Letters Editor Charles Saydah praises a frequent letter writer, Arab-American Hani Awadallah, without disclosing Saydah is of Lebanese descent.


Saydah was known in the old days for his homemade hummus recipe and his skills on the dance floor during the newspaper's annual party for loyal employees.


Across the bottom of the opposite page, O-3, Saydah publishes three long letters of praise from Dr. Roger P. Kierce's daughter and wife, and a patient.


Apparently, the letters are designed to repair the doctor's reputation after a jury awarded $1.27 million to plaintiffs in a lawsuit that portrayed him as an abusive boss at St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center.


The decision to publish the letters is shameful. Is the Your Views pages now open to family members and friends of every defendant, whether he is held liable in a lawsuit or found guilty of a crime?


Just shut up


In Better Living, the production editors put Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung on a diet of sorts -- the last sentence of her inane column was cut off (F-1 and F-5). LOL. 


Let's hope Ung, whose favorite course is dessert, takes the advice offered by the the article just above her column on how to "avoid gaining weight in the sluggish winter months."

Witch hunt claims college president

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You can have sleazy journalism delivered to your door.

President G. Jeremiah Ryan under-spent his annual expense account in raising $3.8 million last year for the Bergen Community College Foundation, but he was voted out Tuesday night -- thanks to a witch hunt by The Record (A-1).


So, you see, when critics attack the Woodland Park daily for its poor job of covering local news, Editor Francis Scandale, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Pat Alex can point to  how their public-service journalism brought down Ryan.


Baking news


The heat wave began Sunday. The weather picture on Page 1 today seems a little late.


When will The Record examine the questionable practices at tycoon Rupert Murdoch's properties in the United States, including  the New York Post and Fox Television (A-1)?


Murdoch has reaped untold riches from sleazy journalism. A sidebar on A-8 gushes over the actions of his gold-digging wife at a hearing Tuesday in London.


Readers weigh in


For every letter supporting President Obama, Editor Charles Saydah seems to print two from his critics (A-12). 


Does crackpot James Bell of Washington Township expect anyone to take him seriously when he calls the country "Obama's Marxist utopia"?


Letter writer Catherine Walsh of Englewood finds a huge hole in Sykes' coverage of the city, noting "half the shops are empty in town."


Imagine what Sykes could have printed on the front of Local today if she didn't run a story and photo on a non-injury fire at a used-car lot in Little Ferry.


Good appetite


Road Warrior John Cichowski gives readers his fifth column in a row on long lines at the Motor Vehicle Commission (L-1). 


Another filler photo appears on L-3, showing a car deliberately driven into a deli to protest its fatty pastrami.


After you spend $30 0r $40 and a couple of hours preparing lobster stew from the recipe on the Better Living front today, make an appointment with your doctor to have your cholesterol checked  (F-1).

Editors ignore people Christie screwed

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Editor Francis Scandale has portrayed Silk City as Sin City, where drugs and prostitution have corrupted scores of Bergen County suburbanites.


 

When is the last time The Record ran an interview with advocates for abused children or the parents of a child denied an after-school program?

Have you seen anything on women whose grandmothers are in nursing homes facing $29 million in cuts proposed by Governor Christie? 


What about the views of low-income parents whose children no longer get a nutritious, state-subsidized breakfast at school?


Sixteen days into the state's new fiscal year, Editors Francis Scandale and the clueless assignment editors working under Deirdre Sykes don't care about any of those people or the thousands of others suffering under Christie's mean-spirited budget.


What do you want from them? They never talk to readers, just sit in the office all day long, eat lunch and move their bowels. 


Hey, they're journalists at a once-great suburban daily. Do you really expect them to send reporters out to measure all the pain the GOP bully of a governor has inflicted and put it into words?


But someone is giving a voice to Christie's victims.


You can read all about the cuts in the letters to the editor that keep on pouring in, such as the three on Page A-11 today from Dianne Douthat of Wayne, Duane Ross of Waldwick and Jessica Cheng of Cranbury under the heading:

Series of attacks

on N.J.'s poor

Kudos to Letters Editor Charles Saydah, a lifer, for printing these letters and others. Keep them coming.


Of course, printing letters from readers doesn't fulfill the responsibility of Scandale, Sykes, Dan Sforza, Christina Joseph, Rich Whitby and other editors to bring the budget cuts to life.


Page 1 sleeper


What do readers get instead?


The lead Page 1 story reports more mea culpas from media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who lost two loyal editors in the growing phone-hacking scandal.


I wonder how much soul-searching is going on at The Record's Woodland Park headquarters among Scandale, Sykes and their minions for all the questionable tactics they've employed?


Look at that deadly dull, bureaucratic process story on curbing the state's nearly 600 local authorities, boards and commissions at the bottom of A-1. 


The third paragraph begins, "It will be a year from now and likely much longer before the authorities, board and commissions must upgrade their online transparency ...." 


OK. They spend $5 billion annually, but why is this snoozer on A-1?


More 'woops'


Page A-2 has the second correction in a row on a Paterson story, though this one is labeled a "clarification."


Someone should clarify how everybody missed a typo in the A-1 photo caption with the soccer story. "In" appears instead of "is."


Sykes' Local section is filled today with Law & Order copy ad naseum, including yet another study of two towns merging their police departments and a plan to have the superfluous Bergen County police patrol three towns.


Twelve precious inches on L-2 are wasted on a stolen landscape truck with fake plates in Oradell. Why isn't this a brief?

Marc Schwarz


On Page F-2 of Better Living, Marc Schwarz is listed in the Contact Us box without a title above his name -- a change from when he was listed as assistant features editor under Features Editor Barbara Jaeger, who was shown the door earlier this month.


Is he the new features editor?

Readers blast big sell-out to bank

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North Jersey Media Group Publisher Stephen A. Borg is laughing all the way to the bank.

Three letters to the editor of The Record today blast the ad cover wrap for Wells Fargo Bank that hid the front page of the Woodland Park daily on Sunday (A-18).

"Unfortunately, the message is that The Record sold out to Wells Fargo," Nancy Currey of Ridgewood writes. 

"Toying with your readers that way is a dangerous action.... You report on questionable ethics in other organizations; perhaps the [paper's] management should examine what message hijacking your front page for money sends to the public."

Linda Dravin of Westwood notes that the paper's own Business section shows Wachovia/Wells Fargo "offered consistently lower CD rates than ... at comparable banks." Her conclusion is that the money this banking behemoth doesn't pay out in interest to customers is going into advertising.

From Woodland Park, Roz Cohen, who says she is a former newspaper columnist, writes, "I was appalled."

"OK, times are tough," she notes, "and the newspaper industry has been hit hard financially. I get it. However, let's try not to destroy decades of newspaper tradition.

"You should try harder to maintain the integrity of 'The Trusted Local Source' that The Record professes to be instead of chasing the almighty dollar."

A male reader of Eye on The Record said when he saw the ad cover wrap, he knew the paper had hit rock bottom.

I don't know if Letters Editor Charles Saydah received more letters on this subject, but I find it interesting all of the comments published today came from women. Saydah's heading on the letters: "Squandering good reputation."

It's too bad Publisher Stephen A. Borg doesn't read the paper. He loves "the almighty dollar" more than anyone else, especially when he spends it to benefit him and his family at the expense of his employees.

"Newspaper tradition"? His background is marketing, so he wouldn't know what you are talking about. He follows back-stabbing tradition. Witness what has happened to his father, Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, the picture of a depressed old man pushed aside by his spoiled brats.

To read the three letters in full, click on the following northjersey.com link:

Squandering good reputation 

Today's paper

Here's more breathless front-page news on abuses and excesses at "nearly 600" local authorities, boards and commissions in New Jersey. But, really, who has led he way on uncovering all this high living, Governor Christie or newspaper editors?

James M. O'Neill, an environmental reporter, says DuPont will use vegetable oil to clean up pollution under 450 homes in Pompton Lakes. This A-1 story is another in a series that takes the focus off decades of inaction by federal, state and town officials, courts and the media.

The lion's share of Page 1 goes to East Rutherford Mayor James Cassella and his quixotic effort to collect municipal taxes for privately owned buildings on state land. What was Editor Francis Scandale thinking?

The Record covers another of Christie's dog-and-pony shows at town halls on A-3, with Staff Writer Michelle Lee hyping "his cost-cutting reform message."  

No one asks the governor why he refuses to tax millionaires to help the state out of its financial hole or why the former U.S. attorney seems to have granted an exemption to police chiefs in his campaign to cut salaries of school superintendents and others on the public payroll who make more than him.

Bird brain

In Local -- once the pride and joy of head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes -- Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski unloads more of the minutiae that weighs so heavily on his bird brain.

As with so many columns in the past, Chick didn't have to leave the office to write this one -- off of a news story on new federal standards for street-sign lettering that go into effect in 2012. Why not wait until the signs are up there before writing a column?

He long ago turned his back on his mission to report on commuting problems and mass transit. 

Why, for example, isn't he writing about E-ZPass toll discounts available to readers who use Port Authority crossings, such as the "car-pool discount" that cuts the toll to $2 at any time of the day, if you have a total of three people in the car.

All you have to do is register and use a full-service lane (cash and E-ZPass), telling the attendant you want the "car-pool discount." It saves you $6 at peak travel times and $4 off peak. 

A special Port Authority Green E-ZPass is available to give a separate discount of $2 off peak to drivers of hybrid cars, with no minimum number of people needed.

A second look

Sykes' crack staff has missed or misreported stories recently -- acting more like a cracked staff.

The 90-year-old Korean woman hit by a bus in Fort Lee died later that Friday at Hackensack University Medical Center, according to Cliffview Pilot.com. 

But on Saturday, The Record reported she was in critical condition at the hospital. The paper reported her death on Sunday, acknowledging she died Friday.

The Record failed to report that wounded Paramus Police Officer Rachel Morgan posted a Facebook message from her hospital bed. And it also ignored how smoky transformer lines forced the evacuation of Broadway in Westwood late Saturday afternoon.

See previous post:  
The Record isn't first with 'cover wrap' ad