Stale Cuba reporting distracts from Christie's 'dictatorship'

11:30 a.m. FRIDAY: Getting a new driver's license at the state motor vehicle agency in North Bergen took about an hour from when I got on line behind a dozen other people, above, outside the building in a shopping center at 90th Street and Bergenline Avenue. Last Tuesday, I went to the Lodi agency, but was told the wait was at least 2 hours.

12:10 p.m. FRIDAY: I waited on an even longer line inside the building to have my documents checked, then was in sight of the camera, above. After my photo was taken and I paid with a credit card, I had to wait about 10 minutes more for the making and laminating of the license itself. The clerk said I may be able to renew by mail when my 4-year license expires in 2019. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

When a pope visits Cuba, Editors like Martin Gottlieb of The Record and reporters like Mike Kelly always manage to find a long-suffering island resident who complains about the lack of free elections and yearns for democracy.

Yet, on the third day of Kelly's stale reporting from Cuba, The Record is silent on how special-interest money, a gullible media and voter apathy have made a mockery of free elections in the United States, including New Jersey.

Despite inheriting a Democratic majority in the state Legislature, Governor Christie has managed to get his own way and wage war on the middle class by executing more than 350 vetoes since early 2010.

And despite all his bluster, Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney, a Democrat from Camden County, has failed to overturn a single Christie veto.

The GOP dictator won his first term by promising to lower property taxes and save millions through consolidation of inefficient local governments, but accomplished neither.

Page 1 news?

Local readers don't find much to interest them on Page 1 today unless they are Catholic or Rutgers football fans (A-1).

From Havana, Kelly files a rewrite of the stories The Record published when other popes visited Cuba.

The first pope to visit Cuba, in 1998, was John Paul II, so what it meant by the use of "historic visit" in front-page coverage today of Pope Francis' trip to the biggest island in the Caribbean?

Pope Benedict XVI also visited the island in 2012.

Local news?

Why does a fundraiser for the Girl Scouts get such big play on the Local front today?

It's because they staged their "rappelling fundraiser" in the same Woodland Park building where The Record and Herald News rent space for a newsroom and executive offices, though there is no mention of that (L-1).

That meant the lazy local assignment editors didn't have to move a finger to send a reporter and a photographer to cover "the big story."

After The Record moved to 1 Garret Mountain Plaza from Hackensack in 2009, the number of stories and photos on nearby Route 80 accidents and other neighborhood happenings rose dramatically.

Missing pages?

Today, the Business editors publish a "reporter's notebook" on the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce's first business summit (B-1).

Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley managed to cover a dozen speakers, "some saying the state faces an emergency situation, and even a 'crisis'," without once mentioning Christie.

Did Morley lose pages of his notebook or did the Woodland Park editors sanitize his story on B-1 today?

Opinion columns

On the Opinion front, don't bother with a second rambling Kelly column on the pope's visit to Cuba, but do turn to Brigid Harrison's piece under the headline:

"Christie learns where pandering gets you"

"The man who spoke about putting the country's domestic house in order occasionally comes home to New Jersey to a ransacked and ramshackle state, with little vision for how we can get our own house in order," Harrison says of Christie on O-2.

Editors promote Kelly book, gas guzzlers, unhealthy food

An office building on Union Street in Hackensack, opposite John A. Earl Inc., has been torn down, and some residents believe apartments will be built there.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You'll have to read and read and read today's Page 1 column to find out what The Record's Mike Kelly means by "a new reality" in Israel, where four Jews were killed while praying in a synagogue.
In fact, the column is so poorly written and edited you'll have to turn to the continuation page and chose between two new realities he mentions:

The broken "trust" between Jews and Palestinians or "murders [that] seemed all too close and personal" (A-6).

The entire, murkily written column seems designed to promote a book Kelly wrote about a 1996 suicide bus bombing, which he mentions at the end of his overlong piece.

The book has been promoted by both (201) magazine and NorthJersey.com.

More Christie P.R.

Governor Christie's chances of getting the Republican presidential nomination get better play today (A-1) than the resignation of one of his closest advisers from a council that invests the state's $80 billion public employee pension fund (A-3).

An ethics complaint alleges Robert Grady allowed political contributions to Republican groups to influence investments.

Press hysteria

Instead of encouraging readers to take mass transit, The Record continues to scandalize the $1 lease between the Port Authority and NJ Transit, two public transportation agencies, for a commuter parking lot (A-1).

If NJ Transit had to pay $1.2 million a year for the land, the agency might have to raise fares.

Similarly, the business editors run a wire-service report noting "green cars" are the focus at the L.A, Auto Show, but no photos of Toyota's and Honda's emission-free cars are used on L-8.

Instead, an Audi with a 605-horsepower V-8 engine is featured.

Unhealthy recipes

Better Living editors continue to run the recipes of freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson, who specializes in turning healthy food like carrots and butternut squash into unhealthy dishes (BL-1).

All of her Thanksgiving recipes contain artery clogging butter or bacon (BL-3).

Second look

On Sunday, Road Warrior John Cichowski's column on a future form of mass transit was filled with errors, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior provides a very dim-witted and mistake-filled report about the first ever, potential use by JPod Inc. of its privately funded, personal rapid-transit system with small overhead passenger pods in Secaucus.

"Road Warrior tried to convince readers that a JPod system designed to handle up to 1,000 passengers, at best, could have easily handled the crowds leaving MetLife stadium from the last Super Bowl.

"It would not have handled the large crowds since he forgot that he previously reported that there were 33,000 passengers that were trying to utilize the train system that day.

"Road Warrior claimed that construction for a JPod system would start no later than early next year since it would be easily approved by the Secaucus City Council.

"Secaucus administrators dispute his wild guess since no formal plans -- which are subject to reviews, delays and rejection by local, Meadowlands and state officials -- have been submitted.

Cichowski also described the system inaccurately as a "monorail." 

See: Road Warrior buries accuracy in Meadowlands

Why are these columnists wasting their time and ours?

On the upper level of the Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan, you can get your shoes shined for $5 while waiting for your overdue NJ Transit bus.

A week ago, I gave the man who shined my shoes a $2 tip, and he seemed miffed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Road Warrior column is supposed to focus on commuting issues.

But that would take real legwork, including riding trains and buses, and reporting on the quality of service.

Or, challenging the Port Authority on why it doesn't add a second bus lane to the Lincoln Tunnel, and run the two lanes mornings and afternoons.

Instead, Staff Writer John Cichowski has ranged far afield in the more than 11 years he's written the column, often taking the lead from readers who pepper him with emails in hopes of seeing their names in print.

Transit's present

On Sunday, the veteran reporter devoted an entire column to a solar-powered monorail system in the Meadowlands that may not be built for another five, 10 or 15 years -- or ever (L-1 on Sunday).

I guess it's OK to write about "transit's future," as the headline put it, but what are commuters supposed to do now when they can't find a seat on a train or bus or they get home an hour or two late because of Manhattan gridlock?

Cichowski's Sunday column reminded me of the stories on "highways of the future" that Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza wrote when he covered transportation for The Record.

Sforza could have looked into why new NJ Transit cruiser buses, the ones that ply routes to Manhattan, had defective rear brakes and were much noisier than their predecessors -- to the consternation of people who live on such bus routes as Grand Avenue in Englewood. 

But that would have taken a lot more work than writing about highways that would never get built.

Out of touch

If Sforza and Cichowski are out of touch with the needs of their readers, what can you say about Staff Writer Mike Kelly, whose Sunday column sounded like he had assumed the mantle of Road Warrior (O-1 on Sunday)?

Kelly filled his column with potholes and ruts in the road, dented and bent guard rails, and aging bridges.

Sounds like he ran out of ideas again, and found himself in another writing rut. 

Overfed and boring

Meanwhile, Staff Writer Elisa Ung's The Corner Table column took on an issue that really put me to sleep on Sunday.

The headline says it all: "Why do waiters automatically give the check to the man?"

As the paper's chief restaurant reviewer, Ung routinely ignores the universally hated tipping system, slave wages paid to servers, how those aged steaks she loves are raised on harmful antibiotics and growth hormones, the outrageous restaurant markup on wine and other far more compelling issues. 

Today's paper

One of the stories on today's front page takes on the "financial and political drawbacks" of raising the gasoline tax to revive the bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund -- the same subject Kelly tackled on Sunday.

The Sunday column and today's takeout by Staff Writer Christopher Maag never ask this question:

If drivers don't pay for road and bridge repairs and mass-transit improvements through higher gasoline taxes, who should pay for them?

Gagging on Gaga

What was Staff Writer Jim Norman going for with the bewildering first paragraph of his story on the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the woman who discovered Lady Gaga (A-1)? 

And with all such stories that dazzle readers with multimillion dollar legal settlements, why not put the windfall into perspective and report that up to a third or more will be going to the lawyer?

Violence against women

The main story on Page 1 today is about an Englewood high school football coach who encourages male athletes "to become advocates in the fight against violence toward women" (A-1).

With women facing brutality, lower wages than men and other forms of discrimination and inequality, is who gets the restaurant check really that big of a deal?

Another crappy column from a burned-out reporter

In Hackensack, Teaneck, Englewood and many other towns, as well as on state highways, hundreds of potholes like this one remain unfilled, and pose an obstacle course for drivers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

No. This post isn't about Staff Writer John Cichowski, whose Road Warrior column is known for hype, exaggeration and numerous inaccuracies, which may be caused by the aging reporter's confused state of mind.

This is about Mike Kelly, whose Page 1 column today in The Record is another in a series of unfocused, rambling pieces that is completely devoid of a point of view.

Kelly presents the usual set of observers and experts, publishes the usual quotes and calls it a day. 

Yet, readers have to look at his thumbnail photo's shit-eating grin, as if the reporter knows he is getting away with more crappy writing and reporting.

This "column" is indistinguishable from a news story (A-1).

Sloppy reporting

And he can't even manage to accurately quote the infamous e-mail that blew open the investigation into the George Washington Bridge lane closures, known far and wide as Bridegate, a word The Record refuses to use.

Kelly says Bridget Anne Kelly "suggested 'some traffic problems in Fort Lee.'"

But Kelly, who was Governor Christie's deputy chief of staff, didn't "suggest" anything.

In an e-mail to David Wildstein, who was Christie's crony on the Port Authority, she called for the lane closures in no uncertain terms:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Blame game

The report on the "internal" review commissioned by Christie places the blame for the lane closures on Bridget Kelly and Wildstein, and clears the GOP bully.

But it was met with widespread skepticism, and denounced as little more than a self-serving whitewash.

Today -- a week after the report was leaked to The New York Times -- Kelly the reporter cites a "debate" over descriptions of the former aide's personal life and her alleged relationship with Christie's campaign manager. 

Is anyone but Mike Kelly debating this? Isn't the real debate over whether Christie has lied about his knowledge and role in the lane closures from the beginning?

And if Mike Kelly is offended by the report's use of personal details, why does he repeat them in his column?

And why doesn't he act like a real journalist and call for Christie lawyer Randy Mastro to go before an ethics panel for dragging Bridget Kelly's personal life through the mud?

No news today

I know Sundays are "slow news days" and Monday's front page is usually filled with scene-setters and other canned copy.

But, really, are trimming trees around power lines so controversial that they are on the front page today (A-1)?

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and the other supremely lazy local-news editors have these words on a save/get key:

"No other information was available."

Those words appear today in a photo caption on a fatal accident "early Sunday" on New Bridge Road in Teaneck (L-1).

The 29-year-old driver was killed, but The Record doesn't identify him or say whether he was speeding.

If Teaneck police wouldn't release the information, shouldn't the editors address that and not constantly cheat readers?

Deliberate distortion

In his Road Warrior column last Wednesday, Cichowski focused on a disabled man who lived in Union Township, and claimed he could be served by a proposed car service to get to his doctor in Hackensack.

But the man is in his 50s, and would be ineligible to use the service, which is for people 60 years old and older, according to a concerned reader.

This was no innocent oversight by Cichowski. 

It was deliberate distortion accomplished by omitting from the column both the man's age and the minimum age of people who could use the proposed service.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior gives false hope to disabled

See previous post

on Hackensack's new train shelter

Oh shit, readers mutter, Kelly is back

An example of a heart attack shows plaque buildup on vessel walls. (Wikipedia)

After an absence of many weeks, the unflattering photo of Staff Writer Mike Kelly and his column appear again in The Record.

Today, his shit-eating grin is on Page 1 with another in a long line of poorly written columns, this one a breathless account of "a mystery" left behind by Superstorm Sandy.

Kelly has been away while he recovered from a heart attack, but his near-death experience hasn't done much for his style.

Out of ideas

Here's another overwritten column that poses an endless series of questions that bother no one but Kelly, who long ago ran out of ideas.

A natural would to be to write about his heart surgery and to try and educate readers about coronary health, a subject newspapers and their food writers devote little room to. 

Hey, Editor Marty Gottlieb, what's the big deal about a firefighter rescuing an elderly woman from the "knee-high floodwaters in Little Ferry"?

Compared to all of the death and destruction on Oct. 29 and 30, this was a minor act, just another instance of a first-responder doing his job.

Everyone is a 'hero'

But Kelly can't resist hailing the firefighter as a hero, and here is an entire column guessing at the rescued woman's identity. 

The hack columnist even gets 9/11 into the column.

Kelly calls Sandy "a dramatic disaster."

Tell that to the survivors who lost loved ones. Tell that to shore residents whose homes were literally blown away. 

Is "dramatic" really the right word? 

Basically, Kelly spins an entire column out of The Record photographer failing to get the identities of a firefighter and an old woman, and minor events that are nearly two months old.

Chief word pusher 

Kelly didn't lose his ability to push around words.

He describes "universal pain and fear" on Oct. 30, the day flood waters rose in Little Ferry, Moonachie and other towns, and "the heartbreak that would mount in scores of communities in the weeks that followed."

"First responders," he writes, "left their own damaged homes to pick up the pieces of broken lives."

Where are the violins?

As usual, no editing

And his A-1 column goes on and on, taking up more than a third of A-8.

Where are the editors who allow this tripe into the paper? Who is Kelly's assignment editor, and why isn't anyone editing him? 

Is it head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza or one of their minions who spell-check this garbage and unleashed it on readers?    

New park entrance?  

In Local, readers get to see some of the terrific staff photos that ran in 2o12 (L-3), a welcome break from all the ambulance chasing that photographers did under orders from Sykes and Sforza.

One of the photos shows Overpeck County Park, reminding readers how the paper hasn't reported on the recent opening of a new entrance to the New Overpeck.

A long, two-lane road passes over two unusual wood-truss bridges, whose warm tones seem especially appropriate in a park setting.

Editors' gift to readers

Today's paper is a Christmas gift that will keep on repeating like a bad meal -- thanks to Gottlieb, Sykes, Sforza and Kelly.

Happy holidays! 

Reporting the news by the numbers

Image via Wikipedia

Bill Ervolino's blog on northjersey.com was shut down in 2010 after he made an inappropriate comment about Malia Obama, above. Now, The Record staff writer has won first place for humor columns.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Is it just coincidence, desperation or inept planning?


The three major stories on the front page of The Record today are jammed pack with so many numbers you'd think the paper was catering to CPAs.


Editor Francis Scandale's by-the-numbers stories on a municipal ticket blitz, a public-school staff exodus and home foreclosures  follow by one day a mind-numbing, numbers-crunching A-1 piece on funding for road and transit projects.


Eye patch


For the A-1 patch today, Staff Writer Zach Patberg interviewed drivers who complained about getting summonses, but didn't talk to taxpayers who welcome any extra revenue in their inefficient, home-rule communities. 


Of course, even tens of thousands of extra dollars don't justify the bloated salaries and benefits of local police chiefs. 


But ticket quotas? Red-light cameras? What's not to love?


An A-2 correction fixes the embarrassing error in a front-page caption Sunday that said a middle-age woman was 3 years old.


On A-11, both cartoonist Margulies and Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin weigh in on the giveaway of NJN by Governor Christie.


I've said NJN's evening news show can be boring, but I found last week's coverage of the budget crisis in Trenton more compelling than what I saw in the Woodland Park daily.


In view of today's deadly dull front page, why relegate the killing of a gas station owner from Paramus over $4 to Local -- unless Editor Deirdre Sykes' assignment desk had nothing else (L-1)?


Sykes had no Hackensack or Teaneck news for today's section, but made sure she found room for a revaluation story from her hometown of Harrington Park (L-6).


They win, we lose


What can you say about journalism awards? 


A bunch of editors and reporters get together to pat each other on the back, ignoring readers who howl over the crappy prose they turn out day after day.


Now, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, which I've never heard of before, reveals its 2011 contest winners for work published in 2010.


"The society’s traditional top prize (its Best Motion Picture or Album of the Year, if you please) is for general-interest columns in large newspapers. 


"First prize this year went to Mike Kelly of The Record of Bergen County, N.J. 


"The judge’s comments included this: 'These are what metro columns should be: elegantly written, with a clear point of view, but — above all — well-reported.'"


Many readers believe Kelly just pushes around words and is a terrible reporter, as he showed recently in a column about noise from planes that use Teterboro Airport.


He wrote that noisy business jets "float" before landing, and described Hackensack as a city of "working-class neighborhoods."


In a major piece on Asbury Park for The Sunday Record in 2000, Kelly failed miserably as a journalist by not saying a single word about the urban gays who were leading the way on reviving the faded shore resort -- as reported by The New York Times the very same day. 


Yeah, he's some reporter.


Bill Ervolino of The Record won first place for humor columns in newspapers with over 50,000 circulation.


The society's Web site is silent on Ervolino's blog, which northjersey.com shut down in 2010 after he made an inappropriate comment about President Obama's daughter, Malia.


Maybe the award to Ervolino should be for perverted humor.

Bad news for seniors on all fronts

Image via Wikipedia

 Teterboro Airport is a huge nuisance for Bergen County residents.

The Record runs stories about senior citizens infrequently -- the editors are far more concerned about autism than Alzheimer's disease, and they treat the  death and destruction caused by older drivers as mere photo-ops.

Today, the front page is dominated by a story on how life expectancy in the United States ranked 37th globally, with a photo of a woman who turned 100 in May. 

Old news

(Last Thursday, CNN reported the U.S. ranked 38th, not 37th.) The ranking is from 2007, not this year.

The main headline in The Record notes the country's poor ranking "despite spending" -- a bewildering choice of words in view of the 30 million to 40 million people without health insurance.

Nor does the story compare the U.S. with every other country.

The story cites "research released this month" by the obscure Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, where an automated system answered the phone this morning.  

The only other stories on Editor Francis Scandale's front page today are about official corruption. For a New Jersey paper, that's like using A-1 to report the sun rose and set. 

Aircraft news

The lead story in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section reports another wealthy, macho small-plane pilot -- this one a doctor from Franklin Lakes -- killed himself and his wife when his plane crashed and burned in Ohio (L-1).

Mike Kelly deserves rare praise for a column demanding the shut-down of Teterboro Airport or at least a ban on all those noisy business jets carrying such mucky mucks as Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, investment bankers and hip-hop stars (L-1). 

Still, Kelly is such a poor reporter and writer, he mentions how the jets scream  over "the close-knit, working-class neighborhoods of Hackensack," but ignores the aircraft noise heard in the city's middle and upper-middle-class enclaves. 

He also says, "Other jets float into Teterboro all day ...." 

No. Jets don't "float" unless their engines have died. They roar overhead, denying residents of many towns the quiet enjoyment of their homes and backyards.

The local-news section has two stories from Garfield (L-2 and L-3), but none from Hackensack.

Bloopers

Are the news and features copy desks competing with each other to see which can make the most mistakes? 

That wouldn't be surprising, considering that Liz Houlton, who supervises the news copy editors, once ran the features copy desk and then left it in the unsteady hands of her husband, George Cubanski.

A Star-Ledger story on F-8 of Better Living today reports Rockland County, N.Y., is east of the Hudson River. (It's west of the river, just north of New Jersey.)

On Sunday, the headline on the Road Warrior column (L-1) referred to "summer," which doesn't officially start until Tuesday.

Also on Sunday, the Father's Day feature on the Better Living front had a different age for Hudson Feeney in the text and photo caption (F-1). 

That same day -- in Sachi Fujimori's excellent story on karaoke -- the photo and caption on F-7 don't seem to jibe with the text on how many other women joined the reporter to sing a Beyonce hit. 

None of these errors have been corrected or clarified.

Once over -- superficially

Image via Wikipedia

How many Fair Lawn synagogues have closed or merged with others?

The Record's front page today continues to pour thousands of words on the heated debate over teacher tenure, but where is the discussion of family life, parents and other outside influences on student success?

I guess Editor Francis Scandale and Staff Writer Leslie Brody have swallowed Governor Christie's argument that teachers have to go unless they perform miracles in the classroom.

Is it really Page 1 news -- in the form of a large photo, caption and refer to L-6 -- that a Fair Lawn family gave a new torah to their synagogue or should editors be assigning reporters to find out how many Jewish temples in North Jersey have closed or merged with others in recent years?

Towering journalist

Every few weeks, it seems, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg writes a story about the 9/11 memorial or museum, and it appears on A-1. You'd think the Port Authority, the agency he covers, does nothing else.

A story on how Christie slashed legal services for the poor appears on A-3. 

When you have to make up nearly $1 billion you're not getting from taxing millionaires, all other residents suffer.

Local yokels

No Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck municipal news appears today in head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local section.

But Columnist Mike Kelly has another 9/11 piece on L-1 today as he reaches for his goal of writing about every one of the nearly 3,000 victims who died that day.

NJMG pension plan loses value

Image via Wikipedia

Breaking news: The Holland Tunnel was closed for hours two days ago.

The total assets of North Jersey Media Group's pension plan stand at $62.9 million -- a decline of almost $15 million since 2008, the company says.

In its annual funding notice to employees, former employees and retirees, the company said last week it needs $84 million "to pay for promised benefits under the plan."

The number of participants is 1,978: 555 active participants; 682 retired or "separated from service" and receiving benefits; and 741 entitled to future benefits.

The plan has 96% of its money in mutual funds and 4% in cash.

Today's paper

The big Hackensack news actually is an ad wrap for a Main Street hearing-aid center that obscures nearly half of Page 1 in The Record of Woodland Park.

Not that there's much real news to hide.

Editor Francis Scandale must have been really desperate to put a two-day-old Holland Tunnel shooting on A-1.

Brain damage

Road Warrior John Cichowski's follow-up to today's column on speed bumps (L-1) will explore the history of double-yellow lines and list paints that are visible from the moon.

Did anybody read Columnist Mike Kelly's lame attempts at satire on O-1 today? Gee, the so-called journalist must have left his balls at home, failing to label Donald Trump's antics as racism.

For that, you have to read a letter from Carl M. Losito of River Edge on O-3.

Lots of baggage

Travel Editor Jill Schensul is much more effective when she writes about travelers' rights -- as she does today in her cover story (T-1) -- than when she gushes over a free Disney cruise.

But is the male model in that amateurish illustration really representative of readers who travel?

Today's paper carries three pieces on Manhattan building anniversaries (A-2, F-1 and F-4).


Here and there

An Eye on The Record post discussing Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung's evaluation of Grissini in Englewood Cliffs was picked up by a Web site called New York Living: http://www.newyorkliving.info/blogs/The-Fat-Of-The-Land.html

An Eye on The Record reader had this to say about the Turnpike Authority trying to cut E-ZPass discounts to grab another $16 million from drivers (L-2):

"Following up on your Saturday column about Christie giving commuters the shaft, check out today's article, "N.J. seeks opinions on limiting E-ZPass discount," where Christie want to eliminate the off peak E-ZPass discount for all E-Z Pass users that are not signed up with NJ E-ZPass in order to steal another estimated $16 million from unsuspecting E-ZPass drivers, the majority of whom have not been stupid enough to sign up for NJ E-ZPass and their monthly bilking scheme. Let the E- Pass wars begin! All E-ZPass authorities in other jurisdictions and states should start charging NJ E-ZPass users double for tolls on their roads and bridges, including those into N.Y."