Editors claim evil Paterson is killing white suburbanites

The Great Falls of the Passaic River in Paterson are a symbol of a glorious industrial past. Today, if you believe The Record's biased three-part series on heroin, the evil, largely minority city is luring young white men and women from the suburbs to their untimely deaths.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

"IN HEROIN'S GRIP" -- a three-part series in The Record that ends today -- is one of the most biased pieces of journalism I have ever seen.

Timothy Linnartz, 29, of Waldwick and all of the other dead and dying white drug addicts who are the central characters in this drama; their parents and the police, who don't arrest them, remain blameless.

On Sunday's front page, Staff Writer Rebecca D. O'Brien reported  a new phenomena -- "heroin so pure and inexpensive that it is not only hastening the fall of this once vibrant city, but feeding on the wealth of nearby suburbs, towns like Glen Rock and Clifton, Mahwah and Waldwick."

Eye on prize

Lusting for a Pulitzer Prize, Editor Marty Gottlieb and the other white editors who worked on this opus are so eager to demonize Paterson they claim Silk City's "legacy as the first planned industrial city could also be, in part, what contributes to the problem."

Then -- in one of the most ridiculous of the many assertions in the series -- they blame the city's easy access, "more than 30 points of entry, connecting some of the region's wealthiest communities to the poorest" (A-8 on Sunday). 

The only suggestion that Bergen County isn't blameless for the behavior of the addicts flocking to Paterson comes from Capt. Timothy Condon of the Prosecutor's Office:

"Bergen County is coming in and sustaining this violent narcotics trade with their money," Condon says.

The rest of his quote on Sunday's A-8 is incomprehensible.

In the final part on Page 1 today, O'Brien revisits the layoff of one-quarter of Paterson's 500-member police force and once again doesn't mention Governor Christie's cuts in state aid as a factor.

Another error?

One of The Record's readers thinks the photo caption on the Local front today is incorrect in describing a rabbi "chanting Lincoln's words in the form of a 'haftarah'" (L-1).

"First, there are four people and the rabbi on the bimah [a raised platform]. When one reads a haftorah, only the reader is on the bimah. It is clear that the Rabbi is reading from the Torah.  The people are in the position for a torah reading and, most significantly, if one looks at the picture you can see the ends of the torah scrolls.  Gottlieb should have spotted this."

Christie is no longer believable on GWB, budget

The crews of two NYPD patrol boats on the East River stop to shoot the breeze, a scene repeated frequently when municipal police in North Jersey do the same.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record today helps boost Governor Christie's White House ambitions after his bandwagon spent months spinning its wheels in North Jersey's scandalous traffic.

When the GOP bully wants to shift attention away from the terrible job he is doing on the state economy, mass transit or any other deficiency, all he has to do is snap his fingers.

Editors like The Record's Marty Gottlieb and reporters like Herb Jackson, the paper's Washington correspondent, jump up like lap dogs to catch every deceptive morsel (A-1).

Sadly, Christie is no longer believable, no matter what he says about what he knew and when he knew it on the George Washington Bridge lane closures, the state budget or anything else.

Secret budget cuts

He has successfully kept secret cuts he will make to meet an $807 million state budget shortfall, but is there any suggestion he will do anything different than balance the plan on the backs of the middle and working classes, as he did in the past? 

On the continuation page, Jackson reports Christie "did not hesitate to blame his predecessors, state courts and his own staff" for the current budget problems (A-6).

The unflattering photo of Christie on A-6 suggests the lap-band surgery he had a year ago in February hasn't been that successful.

He still looks like he is full of crap.

GWB scandal

Another story on A-1 today calls into question Christie's credibility on last September's lane closures in Democratic Fort Lee.

The lawyer for former campaign manager Bill Stepien says Christie misspoke when he said Stepien told him he didn't have "any knowledge" about the lane closures, which were ordered by a gubernatorial aide and a crony at the Port Authority. 

On A-3 today, The Record contrasts President Obama's transportation plan with Christie's failure to find a stable source of revenue for the state Transportation Trust Fund.

The story reports Christie used Port Authority toll money for some road projects, including the Pulaski Skyway, even though previous stories said the governor grabbed $1.8 billion left over from his cancellation of new Hudson River rail tunnels (A-3).

Which is it?

Solar confusion

On the Editorial Page, a boastful columnist and a confused reader's letter to the editor combine today to deliver misinformation about solar panels (A-20).

In "Global warming: It's real. It's Here. Deal with It" (Opinion, May 11), Alan Robock says, "I have solar panels on my roof, subsidized by the state of New Jersey, and have not paid an electric bill for years."

The heading on the letter, "Solar panels not free for everyone," is incorrect. 

Robock is not saying his panels were free and he apparently doesn't read his bill carefully, because no system installed with a state subsidy would provide all the electricity a homeowner uses.

The letter writer, Melinda Thompson of Little Ferry, should be able to find a private contractor willing to install solar panels for free in return for the monthly solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) the system generates.

The contractor can sell those credits to the utility over the life of the system to recover his upfront costs. 

Read all about wealthy Ridgewood's 'coin collection'

The Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan. Anything the bi-state agency does to encourage commuters to leave their cars in New Jersey and take mass transit to the city should be commended by The Record, not treated as if the paper is uncovering wrongdoing, as today's Page 1 story suggests.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza and Staff Writer Chris Harris should apologize for today's Page 1 story on a Ridgewood "coin collector."

Here is why editing matters.

The Record took another story about a municipal employee stealing public funds and decided to make light of it:

Thomas Rica, the village's former public works inspector, pleaded guilty to stealing at least $460,000 "from Ridgewood's coin-collection room" (A-1).

What coin-collection room? Does the village have a coin collection? Why is Rica called a "coin collector" in the first paragraph?

Readers don't learn until the continuation page that the 1.8 million quarters Rica stole came from parking meters (A-6).

The joke is  on readers.

Mass hysteria

I was sorry to see a Page 1 story today reporting the Port Authority may revoke NJ Transit's $1-a-year lease of a North Bergen park-and-ride lot.

The Record's editors are all hot and bothered that NJ Transit was a client of Port Authority Chairman David Samson's private law firm and that he voted to reduce the rent by $906,999 (A-1 and A-6).

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg calls the park-and-ride lot "valuable land," but is there any suggestion that if NJ Transit paid the full rent, the Port Authority would, say, cut tolls on the George Washington Bridge?

And what is the likelihood that NJ Transit might have to raise bus fares, if it has to pay nearly $1 million in rent on the lot every year? 

The Record should see the Port Authority's $1-a-year lease as part of its obligation to promote mass transit in New York and New Jersey.

Jersey Poor

The Garden State is starving for revenue, thanks to Governor Christie's vetoes of a tax surcharge on millionaires and the hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks he's given to businesses, which have created few jobs in return.

But the GOP bully won't say what programs will be cut to realize nearly $700 million in savings from the state's $33 billion budget (A-3).

And another front-page story -- on a contagious disease at the state's trout hatchery -- doesn't explain why New Jersey didn't sell fresh fish to restaurants in all the years the trout weren't decimated by disease (A-1). 

Dissing seniors

During last year's Hackensack City Council campaign, residents told candidates that housing for seniors is sorely needed.

Since they took office on July 1, members of the victorious Citizens for Change slate have ignored those seniors, and promoted the development of hundreds of apartments, despite already crowded schools.

At Tuesday night's meeting, the council voted to sell a 4.3-acre municipal parking lot near Foschini Park to "the highest bidder in a public auction" (L-3).

The city's planning consultant says the property can accommodate 240 to 440 units in two buildings.

Local weather: Now you see it, now you don't

A Toyota SUV and a Toyota sedan collided on Tuesday afternoon at Euclid Avenue and Linden Street in Hackensack, above and below, at an intersection where drivers often run stop signs.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The record-setting, bone-chilling plunge in temperatures was front-page news on Tuesday, but today, editors of The Record try to hide the local-assignment desk's lackluster coverage.

The lazy assignment editors in the Woodland Park newsroom apparently instructed reporters to stay inside and try to cover the story by telephone (L-1 and L-2).

Cold shoulder

That must why there isn't a single interview with a commuter, such as the dozen people shivering as they waited in line on Tuesday morning on Prospect Avenue in Hackensack for an express bus to Manhattan.

Or a photo of Verizon repairman raising a low-hanging wire outside a home on Euclid Avenue in Hackensack or working outside anywhere else in North Jersey.

Instead, Editor Marty Gottlieb's front page today delivers an astounding three stories on national, state and Bergen County politics (A-1).

At 8:30 on Tuesday morning, the outside temperature in Hackensack and Paramus was a bracing 5 degrees.

More Christie spin

Gottlieb continues to give Page 1 play to Governor Christie's latest B.S., portraying his GOP bullying as "bipartisan compromise."

The story by Staff Writer Patricia Alex, who covers higher education for The Record, isn't much different than past accounts, starting in 2010, that regurgitated Christie's fictional "Reform Agenda," "Jersey Comeback" and "Stronger Than the Storm."

Those political marketing campaigns were designed to hide Christie's war on the middle class, as does the current one, which ignores all of the vetoes he has used to stymie the majority Democrats in the state Legislature.

Perspective

A letter to the editor from Richard Cerbo of Hackensack serves as a counterpoint to a recent story on the city's plan to encourage apartment development downtown in a bid to revive Main Street (A-10).

Cerbo, son of a former mayor, notes "builders, developers, investors and commercial property barons" will benefit most of all.

"That's how business is done, but not once in the story was there any mention  of helping those left out, including the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly and the sick," Cerbo said.

He noted Hackensack already has "an urban feel" and that more development would add more traffic and quicken "the deterioration of the city's quality of life."

Relief for whom?

In a related story, the Hackensack City Council on Tuesday night unveiled a measure offering tax relief to developers and others "who build or make improvements in the 39-block Upper Main Street Rehabilitation Area" (L-1).

The proposal appears designed to benefit members of a public-private partnership called the Upper Main Street Business Alliance who own or have purchased much of the property in the development district, and hope to cash in by selling it to developers.

Hackensack can ill afford to grant tax relief in a city where Hackensack University Medical Center, Bergen County and Fairleigh Dickinson University already own hundreds of millions of dollars in property that pays no property taxes, shifting the burden to homeowners and small businesses.

The Record also reported the hiring of Deborah Karlsson as Hackensack's new city clerk (Tuesday's L-2).

Sky is falling

On the Local front today, the befuddled John Cichowski, in his guise as the Road Warrior, compares the Christie-inspired George Washington Bridge traffic jams in September to:

The 1966 New York City transit strike, the 1969 snowstorm that paralyzed the five boroughs, a Chicago blizzard in 1979 and a Denver snowstorm in 1983 (L-1).

Smoking gun

Today, the Web sites of The New York Times and The Record are reporting the papers obtained e-mails showing that Christie's office was "closely involved," as The Times describes it, in GWB lane closures that caused traffic jams in Fort Lee, where the mayor is a Democrat.

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," Bridget Anne Kelly said in an e-mail to David Wildstein, a close friend of Christie's who had been appointed to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Kelly, a deputy chief of staff to Christie, gave the go-ahead for the lane closures about two weeks before they occurred, The Times reported.

Trial by fire

Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza -- in an apparent bid to deflect attention from readers' disappointment in local-news coverage -- managed to find a journalist with a real image problem: 

Former Fox 5 reporter Charles Leaf is on trial at the Bergen County Courthouse on charges he sexually abused a 4-year-old girl at his Wyckoff home three years ago (L-3).

Transit column?

Every major newspaper in New York has carried a subway column, but The Record has acted contemptuously toward NJ Transit bus and rail commuters.

In the past decade, the Road Warrior column has been devoted almost exclusively to drivers, and Staff Writer Karen Rouse, another transportation reporter, has never bothered to ride the buses and trains and report on the quality of service.

On Monday's L-3, Rouse reported on the progress of a turnpike widening project between Exits 6 and 9 -- about a hour's drive from Bergen County.

North Jersey malls are putting violence on sale

The Christmas tree at Penn Station in Manhattan. Is there anything under the tree for commuters from NJ Transit and Governor Christie?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Every shopper can relate to the horror of a successful 30-year-old attorney from Hoboken who was fatally wounded by a gunshot in the head in front of his wife at an upscale mall in Short Hills.

But why is The Record allowing the shopping center's millionaire owners to get away with refusing to discuss security measures (A-1)?

Gunshots are free

That's no problem for the paper's compliant editors and reporters who are not about to alienate the big mall advertisers who keep the Woodland Park daily afloat.

Editor Marty Gottlieb appears to have deliberately tried to distract readers from the security question by focusing the story on a "surge of carjackings" in Essex County.

Security at North Jersey shopping centers doesn't even come up until deep into the Page 1 story today, on the continuation page, where readers are told mall operators "were reluctant to discuss their security arrangements" (A-6). 

Lazy newsroom

But reporters don't have to take no for an answer, if they just get off their asses, go to the malls and report what they see in terms of guards, off-duty police officers and other measures that go beyond apparently useless security cameras.

Instead, The Record today gives lavish coverage on the first Business page to a new 2,000-square-foot lounge for men at Westfield Garden State Plaza (L-8).

The lack of security at the Paramus shopping center allowed a gunman to invade the state's biggest mall on Nov. 4 and fire random shots that panicked shoppers before he committed suicide.

In the wake of that incident, mall officials claimed they had beefed up security, but wouldn't discuss any new measures.

A photo with that story in November showed two patrolling Paramus cops -- armed with nothing more than their service revolvers -- one of them with his hands in his pockets.

Just a band-aid

On the Local front today, a story about Hackensack failing to bill Hackensack University Medical Center for crossing guards misses the big picture (L-1).

The $176,000 the hospital paid the city under a 2008 agreement is chump change compared to the millions in property taxes it doesn't have to pay because of its tax-exempt status.

Naturally, with a hospital employee, Mayor John Labrosse, in charge, nothing will be done to persuade the hospital to compensate the city in lieu of taxes, such as paving streets and buying police cars.

Lost in translation

Can you imagine a more awkward headline phrase than "Japan business" on L-7 today? 

What was wrong with "Japanese firm"? 

With Christie the Bull, traffic and transit are political

Times Square in Manhattan on Sunday night, when shoppers and tourists packed city streets.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

After more than three months of prodding and probing by Democrats and the media,  sworn testimony by Port Authority officials suggests closing Fort Lee toll lanes on the George Washington Bridge was political payback by the Christie administration.

The story on Page 1 of The Record today reports Christie appointee David Wildstein ordered the lane closures in September, presumably to punish Fort Lee's mayor, a Democrat who didn't endorse the GOP bully's bid for a second term (A-1).

No surprise here, given the Portly Authority's lack of support for traditional Democratic initiatives, such as expanding mass transit, curbing air pollution and providing affordable health care (A-1 and L-3).

Railroading Democrats

Now, Governor Christie's 2010 decision to kill the Hudson River rail tunnels can be seen in political terms:

The project to expand the number of train seats into Manhattan would have benefited commuters from Bergen and Hudson counties, where Democrats have a big edge in voter registration.

Another A-1 story today, decrying the metropolitan area's uncoordinated transportation system ahead of the Super Bowl in February, is likely the first time The Record has even mentioned that in more than a decade of reporting. 

Transportation reporter Karen Rouse, who wrote today's story, and Road Warrior John Cichowski have done their best to ignore the lack of coordination, as well as packed buses and trains, and mounting traffic congestion, in the past 10 years.


Failed editors, too 

Indeed, an editorial today condemns NJ Transit -- "which remains firmly under the thumb of the Christie administration" -- for not changing "despite its massive failure of leadership during Superstorm Sandy" (A-10).

But NJ Transit failed commuters long before that by not being able to provide enough rush-hour seats into Manhattan.

The same lack of leadership is evident in the performance of Editors Marty Gottlieb, Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, whose assignments also ignore major commuting issues.

Another issue the editors have ignored is Christie's role in sabotaging the enrollment of New Jersey residents for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Today, the editors buried a story reporting the anger of Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., D-Paterson, who said Christie "stinks on this issue."

Pascrell said Christie's refusal to set up a state marketplace left unspent $7.6 million in federal funds that could have been used to educate and enroll New Jersey residents (L-3).

Stuck in line

Staff Writer John Cichowski appears to be stuck in line at the Motor Vehicle Commission, just one of the many driving -- not commuting -- issues he has obsessed over in the last decade.

Cichowski, hand-picked by Sykes to take over the column in  September 2003, mostly has demonstrated RWI -- reporting while incompetent -- as his three-times-a-week farce demonstrates.

Here is a brief description from the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers of errors in his Sunday column on DWI:

"In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior stumbles through mistakes about penalties and statistics for driving under the influence and new devices to prevent a car from starting for drunk drivers.

"Road Warrior indicates penalties are greater for driving under the influence, if blood-alcohol concentration — the ratio of blood to alcohol in the body — reaches beyond 0.08 percent.

"Actually, the penalties are greater, if the ratio of alcohol to blood reaches 0.10 percent and beyond.

"Anyone with a blood to alcohol ratio of 0.08 percent would have 99.92 percent alcohol in their blood stream. How absurd is that scenario!"

See:

Reporting While Under the Influence of Error 

Hackensack news

On the Local front, Staff Writer Hannan Adely reports Hackensack City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono (pronounced LOW-yack-a-no) has agreed to step down this Friday after holding the job since 2005 (L-1).

Critics charge Lo Iacono didn't do enough to stem problems in the Police Department under the corrupt rule of Ken Zisa, who served as police chief and as a state assemblyman.

They noted that he kept Zisa in the job, despite numerous lawsuits alleging the chief ruled by intimidation and retaliation, including forcing officers to support his candidacy for political office.

Zisa remains under house arrest during his appeal of his 2012 conviction for official corruption and insurance fraud, and a 5-year prison sentence.

On A-1: Fat cats, pregnant pigs and a GOP elephant

The owners of Boomerangs in Hackensack are preparing to open a branch of the Caribbean and soul food restaurant on Palisade Avenue in Englewood, above.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Don't look for local news on Page 1 of The Record today.

Editor Marty Gottlieb tried for balance, but ended up with two stories about Governor Christie, a centerpiece on a nasty ruling-class inheritance battle and the sad story of a battered Hackensack woman who breathed her last.

In the past two months, Staff Writer Kibret Markos has been hanging on every word during the Hudson News inheritance battle in state Superior Court in Hackensack (A-1).

Just imagine what he's been missing -- lawsuits, trials and motions he hasn't had time to cover -- as he does a good imitation of a lap dog for some of the richest fat cats in the world.

Christie, meanwhile, finally got a state Supreme Court nominee past majority Democrats in the state Senate (A-1).

And in a second victory, the GOP elephant backed factory farmers and kept helpless pregnant pigs in metal crates (A-1).

Columnist Charles Stile calls this Christie "wielding power and control, and doing it quite successfully."

Over pregnant pigs?

A third story about Christie appears on A-3 today as The Record continues to do a good imitation of being the GOP bully's personal journal.

More animal news

In the Local section, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza couldn't manage to fill his pages with legitimate news.

So, like Gottlieb, he looked to the animal world and plugged a big hole on L-1 with a story on the Meadowlands Racetrack.

On L-2, Hackensack and school board officials shook hands on a deal to pay the full salary and benefits of a school resource officer.

The City Council dropped a demand for seven years of back pay totaling $1 million -- money the board refused to pay.

In utility pole news, check out that 10.5-inch-high photo of a pole fire in West Milford (L-3).

Jerome S. Some was in robust health, son says

Some's Uniforms on Main Street in Hackensack was open for business today, two days after its 87-year-old founder and owner was struck and killed by a car as he crossed Prospect Avenue.

A display window at Some's Uniforms.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Jerome S. Some was 87, but still came into work six days a week, employees at Some's Uniforms on Main Street in Hackensack said today.

Some left his home in a high-rise at 151 Prospect Ave. and started crossing the street when he was struck and killed by a small SUV on Tuesday night.

It was dark, and there is no street lamp in front of Some's high-rise. Witnesses said the driver didn't brake before the impact.

Son Jason Some, 23, said he is glad his father "didn't suffer."

Jason Some said his father smoked as many as 15 cigars a day and could have died a slow death from lung cancer.

The Record reported today that the driver who killed the elder Some -- a 63-year-old woman who hasn't been identified --  was charged with driving while intoxicated (L-1).

Some was dressed in a dark suit to attend a meeting at Bel Posto Restaurant across the street from his high-rise, Eiffel Tower.

City officals called him a "pillar" of the community, and "Mr. Hackensack."

The Record didn't publish a death notice for Some on Wednesday or today, and hasn't listed his survivors.

Details about his life and business activities were included in news stories about his death.

No one has noted how Some was able to live a long life, only to be killed by an allegedly intoxicated driver not far from his front door.

Nor has the paper questioned the lack of crosswalks in the middle of the long blocks of Prospect Avenue, which is lined with high-rises and has the highest population density of any Hackensack neighborhood.

Readers KO'd

The Record continues to pursue the mythical "knockout punch" in its reporting on the debate between Governor Christie and Democratic challenger Barbara Buono (A-1).

Coverage today and Wednesday ignored Christie's stock answer when Buono criticized his vetoes or his mean-spirited policies.

The GOP bully said several times he is "proud" of his alleged accomplishments.

Nor did the paper report Buono's charge that Christie has balanced state budgets on the "backs of the middle class," and fabricated a reason for killing the Hudson River rail tunnels, which would have been a huge job creator.

News frenzy

The Sept. 29 road-rage incident involving a motorcycle pack and the driver of an SUV on Manhattan's West Side Highway appears to have Editor Marty Gottlieb by the balls.

That's the only explanation for the inordinate amount of coverage by the media, including the Woodland Park daily.

Today's front page is dominated by a large photo of an undercover cop, the latest suspect in the ongoing saga (A-1).

On Wednesday, the Road Warrior column explored a silly angle -- the "rules" followed by "well-organized motorcycle clubs."

Can you imagine all the local news and commuting problems that go unreported to get this garbage into the paper?

Screw-ups continue

Today's A-2 carries three more corrections -- only the latest in a series of screw-ups by Production Editor Liz Houlton and her gang of cross-eyed copy, layout and news editors.

The vast majority of errors in the paper and in the Road Warrior column are never corrected.

One example is Wednesday's Page 1 caption under photos of Buono and Christie speaking during Tuesday night's debate in Wayne.

The photos clearly show Buono speaking and gesturing, and Christie speaking, but the caption says they are shown "before" the actual debate.

Those before-the-debate photos appeared on the continuation page.

Second look

On Sunday, Road Warrior John Cichowski reviewed some of the great reporting by Jeff Page, his predecessor, but for some reason didn't tell readers that September marked the 10th anniversary of his own lame efforts.

He apologized for acting "homicidal" and being "a real fool" when a disabled person damaged his car, but did so in the third person.

Readers who want Cichowski to acknowledge all of the errors and misinformation he has been responsible for came up empty.

See the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers to read the full text of an e-mail from a concerned reader.

Editors tell Obama, local-news readers to go to hell

One of the free Bergen County shuttles that brings attorneys and visitors to the courthouse from The Record's old headquarters on River Street in Hackensack. Some intrepid lawyers don't wait and lug their briefcases across a heavily trafficked street with few crosswalks. I expect to read soon about an attorney who gets mowed down by a lead-footed driver rushing home with a huge slab of ribs from Costco Wholesale.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Thirty or so members of the wacko Tea Party have brought the nation to its knees.

But The Record still legitimizes their demand that President Obama "negotiate" the Affordable Care Act, the far-reaching law that is the answer to the prayers of tens of millions of Americans.

What's next? Negotiating Brown v. Board of Education and a woman's right to an abortion?

Let's hope Sen. Ted Cruz and fellow radicals end up destroying the Republican Party, and take Governor Christie and other conservatives with them.

More divisive politics

Meanwhile, The Record can't break the habit of reporting everything in terms of politics, as Herb Jackson's Page 1 column shows.

OK. Editor Marty Gottlieb did send Mike Kelly, the columnist with the shit-eating grin, to talk to poor people in Paterson (A-1).

Healthy interest

But Gottlieb and Kelly keep on missing the big story:

Millions of Americans, who have at least three months to sign up for health insurance that goes into effect Jan. 1, are so desperate for protection they are crashing the online health-care exchanges in many states.

The success of Obama's Affordable Care Act has become evident in just two days.

And if the law can deliver lower prices and savings, it will be a godsend to millions of working poor and employees of greedy companies like North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

Cost of policies

Since I left The Record in 2008, I have been buying health insurance for my wife and son from North Jersey Media Group.

This year, I am paying $1,004 a month to cover them -- more than my monthly pension payment.

I also buy insurance from Horizon for my mother-in-law, who lives with us, that costs about $521 a month.

I hope to save a lot of money by buying those policies on the health-care exchange in New Jersey -- once the dust settles.

I didn't plow through all the boring copy from Kelly today, so don't know if he actually found anyone who was able to buy an affordable policy and saved money.

Sforza can't keep up

As usual, today's paper is front heavy, with little to interest local-news readers, thanks to a lame job by Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza, who is panicking in the absence of his boss, Deirdre Sykes.

Sykes has been out of the Woodland Park newsroom for more than five weeks with a mysterious ailment.

The front of Local today is dominated by a road-rage incident between motorcyclists and the driver of a Range Rover in Manhattan, not North Jersey.

The only story out of the busy Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack is the ongoing saga of the Hudson News inheritance battle (L-1).

Teaneck and Hackensack news have gone missing.

Rice is univeral

On the Better Living cover, a story about rice omits any mention of how the staple is prepared by people from the Middle East, including Syrians, Egyptians and the Sephardic Jews who originated in that part of the world (BL-1).

More of the same old blah, blah, blah

A window at Barneys on Madison Avenue. Fashion Week in Manhattan is coming to a close today.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Compared to his previous efforts, there's little discernible difference in Mike Kelly's front-page column today on the 12th anniversary of 9/11.

In more than two decades of trying at The Record, Kelly has never developed a distinctive voice or the strongly opinionated point of view readers look for in a columnist.

If it wasn't for the outdated thumbnail photo, complete with shit-eating grin, the Kelly column reads like another, long news story (A-1).

His awkward writing is evident in the first paragraph of today's piece, when he has Tom Acquaviva of Wayne standing "in silence for a few humid moments."

A bad smell

A "few humid moments"? Kelly's phrases are indistinguishable from farts.

The paragraph ends with "the 9/11 Memorial Plaza, which most of us know as Ground Zero."

"Most of us" is a reference to reporters and the media, who adopted the phrase in 2001 and argued over whether it should be written with capital letters (The Record) or lower case (The New York Times). 

It's no wonder that more than a decade ago, news copy editors on River Street in Hackensack -- weary of Kelly's bad writing -- had to be ordered by their supervisors to edit his long, boring columns and slap on a headline.

Inside transit

Another Page 1 story today amounts to the same old blah, blah, blah about the incompetent administrators at NJ Transit (A-1).

But The Record's office-bound editors and reporters  continue to ignore the mass-transit agency's basic failing where the rubber meets the road: 

It's inability to provide enough rush-hour bus and train seats for commuters, aggravated by Governor Christie's anti-public transit policies.

Bergen corruption

The off-lead today -- new federal charges against Joseph A. Ferriero, onetime chairman of the Bergen County Democratic Party -- explains why even many Democrats helped put a Republican county executive in office (A-1).

Unfortunately, Ferriero allies were the power behind the Zisa family regime in Hackensack for many years, and still have their hooks into the city's Board of Education.

More errors

As the corrections on A-2 demonstrate once again, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, her minions and Production Editor Liz Houlton create problems as well as missing them.

Houlton's copy editors have completely given up trying to ensure accuracy in the Road Warrior column, according to a concerned reader:

"In his Wednesday column, the Road Warrior continued his epic inability to correctly report and provide any valid assessments on the problems and delays in completing the Route 17 Summit Avenue exit, which finally opened on Sept. 9.

"Road Warrior only explained there were 'additional work issues' involved in the delays and repeated that the only obstacle over the last 5 months was due to activating a traffic light.

"Yet, I was able to find out from NJDOT and contractors about other specific utility and ramp work that also caused the delays.

"Road Warrior is repeatedly befuddled by math, counting and calendars since he repeatedly got the number of days it took to finally activate the traffic lights wrong.

"Why was the Road Warrior unable to get more explanations, better information, and any completion date if the DOT and contractors provided me with all of that?"

To read the entire e-mail to Houlton, Editor Marty Gottlieb and management, go to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

When will Road Warrior's light go on?

Paving Euclid Avenue with good intentions

Drivers would be foolhardy to go more than 20 mph over this frequently patched stretch of Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, above. The first crew I've seen plugging potholes in my neighborhood appeared this morning at Clinton Place and Linden Street, below, but the two men didn't do any repairs to that pockmarked block of Euclid, between Grand Avenue and Clarendon Place.

 

At last week's City Council meeting, City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono said crews were working six days a week to repair a rash of potholes left behind by winter.

Did they lose their maps of the city?

As of today, Euclid Avenue has barely been touched, but I did see repairs to Grand Avenue, in front of Fairmount School, ater its potholes rated a mention in The Record's Road Warrior column.

Dead wood

You can't say much about today's paper when just about the only must-read is a gee-whiz story about a golfer who was killed by a falling tree after he went looking for a lost ball on private property (A-1).

The story doesn't tell you much about the luckless golfer except his name, age and hometown.

But both the victim and homeowner have Korean names, and the golfer breathed his last in Alpine, one of the wealthiest communities in the United States.

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's paper with more endless blah, blah, blah about Rutgers University (A-1).

Today's thin Local news section has two Teaneck stories on L-1, but nothing from Hackensack, suggesting no resident left the house over the weekend.