Developers still have their hooks into Hackensack

NJ Transit's Jersey Avenue local left New York's Penn Station a few minutes after its scheduled 2:29 p.m. departure on Friday. Seats on this older rail car freed up only after the train stopped at Secaucus Junction and Newark Penn Station. The discomfort of many rail and bus rider is of little concern to The Record.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Even after a reform City Council slate is sworn in on Monday -- as reported today by The Record --Hackensack will be burdened for years to come by insider deals with developers.

A 226-unit development on Hackensack Avenue is now renting, a 222-unit building on State Street has broken ground and other developers have announced plans to replace The Record's old headquarters with hundreds of new high-rise and mid-rise apartments.

None of these developers have been asked to help ease the expected impact on Hackensack's badly crowded schools.

Ruling by veto

A heading on Page 1 today reports Governor Christie signed a "bipartisan" budget, but the full story on A-3 contradicts that with news of several vetoes the GOP bully used to get his way.

One of the vetoes killed $7 million in funding to Planned Parenthood and other women's health organizations. 

That's very "bipartisan" of Christie, just like his earlier vetoes of a hike in the minimum wage or a tax surcharge on millionaires.

Eat this

On Friday, in Eating Out on $50, freelancer Jeffrey Page managed to review a rare restaurant that uses antibiotic-free chickens, Flames Rotisseria in Ridgefield Park (Better Living, BL-24).

But when The Record reduced the number of people fed for $50 to 2 from 4, the review lost all value to readers.

If Page's cheap editor allowed him to spend $70 -- a little under $18 per person -- he could tell readers about plenty of places where they can get a decent meal for 4.

And even with only $50, he could make the money go further if he stopped wasting money on fattening, artery clogging desserts (BL-25).

Worshiping animals

Sunday's Travel section, delivered with today's paper, reflects Editor Jill Schensul's worship of animals over humans.

In her cover story, Schensul, a vegetarian and animal lover, reports on trips of a lifetime, complete with photos of some of  the four-legged and slithering creatures travelers can commune with.

I guess her way of dealing with all of the human misery in Africa is simply to ignore it.

Even though Schensul's section is down to only 4 pages on most Sundays, she continues to run vacation photos of readers in The Record on The Road feature -- a huge waste of space.

'Dangerous' Road Warrior

The Road Warrior column finally is starting to report that a lack of enforcement has resulted in growing abuse of cellphone use while driving -- not to mention speeding and numerous other traffic violations (Friday's L-1).

Red-light and speeding cameras may be the ultimate solution for the police.

The column, written by Staff Writer John Cichowski, no longer pretends to deal with commuting issue. 

It should be renamed to reflect an almost total focus on driving and reliance on reader e-mails.

In his Wednesday column, Cichowski didn't let a reader's question stump him; he simply  made up the answer, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his June 26 column, the Road Warrior continues to endanger his readers with his contradictory, confusing, incomplete and inaccurate accounting of crosswalk laws.

"Readers are frightened and confused by his clear lack of knowledge about the confusing and poorly written, revised crosswalk statutes, which he has championed.

"He inferred that drivers would rarely be held accountable under the revised crosswalk laws for hitting pedestrians outside of crosswalks. 

"Unfortunately, the laws clearly state that it will be assumed the driver did not exercise due care for the safety of the pedestrian in the event of a collision between a vehicle and a pedestrian within or outside of crosswalks.

"In his responses to readers' questions about the requirements of the crosswalk laws, the Road Warrior simply made up answers, which are in contradiction to the crosswalk laws, or failed to provide key relevant information about the laws."

See the full e-mail a concerned reader sent to management:

'Our Dangerous Road Warrior'


A short break

Eye on The Record will return at the end of next week. 

Reformers win Hackensack City Council election

Hackensack Councilman Jorge Meneses, left, chatting with Kenneth Martin, right, the Coalition for Open Government's lead candidate, this afternoon in front of the entrance to the polls at Hackensack High School.

 
Citizens for Change, the slate of Hackensack City Council reformers headed by incumbent John Labrosse, won today's non-partisan municipal election.

Official results show residents rejected the dirty campaign of the Hackensack Coalition for Open Government, also known as "the Zisa slate," which was backed and financed in part by Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic boss.

Councilman John Labrosse, right, speaking to supporters as votes were tallied tonight at the Elks Lodge on Linden Street in Hackensack.

The first 5 columns represent votes for Citizens for Change.

The winners will be sworn in on July 1.

Since he was elected in 2009, Labrosse has been out-voted 4-1 on the council.

Labrosse and the other four members of his slate were the targets of a campaign of lies and distortions mounted by the Zisa family political dynasty, which has ruled Hackensack for decades.

This morning, former Mayor Jack Zisa blasted independent candidate Victor E. Sasson for a campaign flier that urged voters to end the Zisa family's corrupt rule.

Zisa seemed to be saying he was an honest mayor during his 16 years in office, ending in 2005.

But he didn't explain why he stood by and did nothing while his brother Ken, the city's police chief and a state Assemblyman, broke the law.

Jack Zisa is the city's broker for employee health insurance, and his cousin, Joseph C. Zisa Jr., is city attorney.

Sasson, whose name appeared at the bottom of a column of 10 other candidates, finished last with 344 votes, City Clerk Debra Heck said tonight.

Heck released the following vote totals:

Labrosse, 2,008; Kathy Canestrino, 1,908; David Sims, 1,911; Rose Greenman, 1,788; and Leo Battaglia, 1,804.

Kenneth Martin, a former cop who headed the Coalition for Open Government, received 1,651 votes, Heck said.
  
 

Hackensack defends developer's 30-year tax break

Hackensack resident Steven V. Gelber questioning Councilman John Labrosse, second from right, on Tuesday night about his three health-insurance policies, including coverage by the city and Hackensack University Medical Center, where Labrosse works in plant operations. Labrosse, the only incumbent running for a new term, declined to answer during the public session. The Record covered the meeting, but didn't report any comments from Gelber or other residents.

At the Nellie K. Parker Elementary School in Hackensack on Tuesday, blogger Victor E. Sasson approached two teachers or teacher's aides during recess, and asked them to sign his petition of nomination for the City Council election on May 14. Although they had been talking to each other, they said they couldn't sign the petition because they had to keep their "eyes" on the children. Later, a short, balding man with a white mustache came out and said he couldn't sign a petition on "city time," and that Sasson would have to stand across the street from the school, if he wanted to solicit signatures.

The Record's upbeat story on a 222-unit apartment building planned for State Street in Hackensack doesn't report residents' objections to a proposed 30-year tax break for the wealthy developer, Capodagli Property Co. of Pequannock (L-3).

At a City Council meeting on Tuesday night, officials introduced an ordinance allowing the developer to pay $1,200 in property taxes per unit for the first 7 years or a total of $266,400 a year.

Based on a partial assessment of a 226-unit apartment complex that is nearing completion on Hackensack Avenue, between two shopping centers, the State Street building would be paying only about a third of full property taxes, a city official said today.

Downtown spark?

City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono and council members defended the giveaway as necessary to develop the "blighted" State Street property, which, they said, is now yielding less than $80,000 a year in property  taxes.

They said the building, which will be called Meridia State and have only 141 parking spaces, will spark the renewal of Main Street, which is a block away. 

But the building won't be completed until January 2015. 

Young professionals

The Hackensack Avenue complex will be marketed as a perfect place for shopaholics to live. 

Let's hope for the sake of Main Street merchants the "affordable luxury" building on State Street isn't aimed at young professionals who have maxed out their credit cards.

The hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in taxes that won't be collected means Hackensack residents will have to wait longer to see their neglected streets paved, and can give up hope of ever seeing their own property tax bills stabilize.

Across America, large and small cities are making their downtowns more liveable in the hopes of attracting empty nesters and seniors, but Hackensack appears to be focusing on young professionals to bring about a renaissance.

Today's paper

If you expected to see local news on the front page today, you can forget about it. 

Editor Marty Gottlieb has got bigger fish to fry than Hackensack's future.

Errors, not corrections

On the front of Local, Road Warrior John Cichowski presents another column filled with numbers -- this one based on a report from the U.S. Census Burea -- and quotes from commuters he undoubtedly interviewed by telephone.

The problem is that the tired Cichowski has shown a propensity to misread and misreport numbers in reports, as he did on Sunday in his column on rollover crashes, according to a concerned reader:

"The Road Warrior continues to demonstrate an inability in his March 3 column to correctly report information from government reports, such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration annual traffic fatalities for passengers involved in vehicle rollovers.

"The Road Warrior's problems are so bad that he is unable to correctly report on a graph that is published in his own column.

"He indicated that rollovers account for 2 out of 3 SUV deaths in New Jersey.

"The graph in his column clearly shows that rollover deaths in SUV's have NOT exceeded 50% of all SUV deaths since the mid-1990's, with the average closer to 45% in the past 10 years.

"Readers should also always use caution when encountering any of the Road Warrior's published scientific information, which inevitably defies scientific laws."

Read the full e-mail to management on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Help! I've fallen, and lost my glasses