PA to commuters: Wait 20 years for better bus, rail service

This cartoon from Mike Lukovich equates GOP repeal of the Affordable Care Act with terrorism against the American people.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Staff Writer Paul Berger of The Record has been so busy chronicling the transportation war between New York and New Jersey he buried the lead today on funding of a new bus terminal in Manhattan.

Deep in his Page 1 report on Thursday's meeting of Port Authority commissioners, Berger quotes the board chairman as saying a new midtown bus terminal may take as long as 20 years to complete (6A).

Yikes! Does that mean the 230,000 bus commuters who pour into Manhattan every day, most of them from New Jersey, won't see any relief until then?

And does that also mean they'll be fighting over rush hour seats for another 20 years, because The Record isn't prodding Port Authority officials to expand service immediately by adding more exclusive bus lanes into and out of the Lincoln Tunnel?

The bi-state agency's capital plan also includes billions to double rail capacity between New Jersey and Manhattan, but Berger provides no estimate of when those tunnels will be finished.

And as I understand it, when the new Gateway tunnels are finished, the old ones, or at least one of them, will be shut down for repairs, so service might not "double" for another 20 years.

Food Editor Esther Davidowitz of The Record.

Food crawl

When Friday rolls around at the Gannett-owned Record, it's time for another "food crawl" (Better Living).

This one focuses on only four of the many great food businesses in Englewood, but the author is none other than Food Editor Esther Davidowitz, who warns readers "this is not your low-cal, low-carb, low-fat, sugar-free crawl" (10BL and 11BL). 

Well, it could have been, if Davidowitz didn't completely miss the restaurant-quality Meals To Go at Jerry's Gourmet & More, her fourth and last stop on the South Dean Street crawl.

These take-out dinners -- with seafood, chicken, pork or beef, plus pasta or potatoes and vegetables -- are at $7.99 a sane alternative to Jerry's $12-a-pound stuffed eggplant or $17 a pound poached salmon.

Fish, linguine with white clam sauce, and broccoli were just three of the items in one of Jerry's Meals To Go -- complete, restaurant-quality take-out dinners for $7.99, below.

If the freshly prepared store-made dinners aren't sold out at 4 p.m., they are marked down to $5.99.

AvalonBay tenants do a slow burn as investors celebrate

An aerial shot of the inferno that destroyed all 240 apartments in the Russell Building of the AvalonBay development in Edgewater on Jan. 21, 2015. Former tenants are still fighting for compensation.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Nearly 19 months after the Avalon at Edgewater apartment inferno filled TV screens and front pages, former tenants are still waiting for compensation even as investors celebrate higher profits and dividends.

The Record's front page today reports that tenants' lawsuits are "still in the discovery stage and it could take more than a year before they go to trial or are settled" (A-1 and A-6).

Staff Writer Nicholas Pugliese focuses on such frustrated former tenants as Marina Rubinstein and husband Fedor Zakharov of Fort Lee, shown in a Page 1 photo with their dog.

However, the reporter doesn't address weak tenant-protection laws; lax building codes that allow AvalonBay to use cheap, lightweight wood construction that does little to stop fires; or lawyers who will walk away with at least a third of any damages tenants recover.

At the end of 2015, AvalonBay Communities -- the nation's second-largest exchange-listed apartment real estate investment trust -- owned or had interests in 285 apartment complexes with nearly 84,000 units in 11 states and the District of Columbia.

AvalonBay now has a total enterprise value of $31 billion, according to REIT.com's Anna Robaton.

Trump aide, ally

Today's A-1 story about wacko racist Donald J. Trump focuses on campaign manager Paul Manafort, and on the continuation page, a related story reports ally Rudy Giuliani's senior moment on 9/11 (A-5).

The New York Times reported handwritten ledgers found in Ukraine show $12.7 million in undisclosed payments to Manafort from a pro-Russia party. 

Manafort, who is guiding Trump's hate-filled White House campaign, denied any wrongdoing.

In an Ohio campaign stop on Monday, Trump said he would bar any immigrant who doesn't believe in the U.S. Constitution "or who support bigotry and hatred" (A-1).

Presumably, it's OK for citizens like Trump to base their entire GOP presidential campaign on "bigotry and hatred."

As for that moron Giuliani, he completely forgot that 9/11 occurred in 2001, when George W. Bush was in office and he was mayor of New York (A-5).

"In the 'eight years before [President Barack] Obama came along, we didn't have any successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States,'" Giuliani said Monday in Youngstown, Ohio, where he promoted Trump's national security plan.

Leonia's Keystone Kops

A story on the Local front doesn't explain why it has taken Leonia Police Chief Tom Rowe two full years after a pedestrian death to figure out a way to protect others "at the borough's most dangerous intersection" (L-1).

On Aug. 7, 2014, Leila Kan, a vibrant 60-year-old restaurant owner, was struck in the crosswalk on Broad Avenue and Fort Lee Road, and dragged 71 feet along the pavement by a school minibus "whose driver failed to yield to her while making a left turn."

No police officer was stationed at the intersection to protect Kan and other pedestrians. 

Now, a new "red light phase at Broad Avenue and Fort Lee Road freezes all lights for 26 seconds to permit crossing at the intersection, used by thousands of cars and hundreds of pedestrians each day," Staff Writer Svetlana Shkolnikova reports.

'Cost prohibitive'

The reporter quotes Rowe as saying it would be "cost prohibitive" to post a police officer at the intersection, which is inundated by 15,000 cars a day from Route 95 whenever the George Washington Bridge is backed up.

But the truth came out two weeks after Kan's death in a 2014 Road Warrior column, where Rowe admitted only two of the borough's 17 officers were on duty at the time "and they were handling a domestic call."

Leonia Borough President Gil Hawkins also was quoted, blaming "a weak economy and declining tax base" for the loss of six officers "over the years."

Today's upbeat story doesn't explain why Leonia officials haven't hired more police officers in the two years since Kan's death.

Private concert

Staff Writer Jim Beckerman must have had blinders on when reporting on today's private master class and concert by Miri Ben-Ari, the young, glamorous Israeli-born violinist "and R&B, pop and hip-hop trailblazer" (Better Living front).

Ben-Ari will be stopping at The Elizabeth Morrow School, where her "Symphony of Brotherhood" -- a musical meditation on Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech -- will be performed on Thursday by 230 student violinists, age 4 to 13.

Isn't that rich? 

I guess Ben-Ari doesn't know or care Elizabeth Morrow is a private school on the East Hill, not far from the city's segregated elementary and middle schools.

Those black and Hispanic children haven't realized the dream of integration more than 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education. 

City Council rebukes school official who claimed he cut tax

Hackensack Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker (he's the one with the double chin) hiding from the camera at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker was being dishonest when he claimed at a public meeting that school officials "cut taxes for the average homeowner by $214," city officials said Tuesday night.

Near the end of a long City Council meeting, Deputy Mayor Kathleen Canestrino said Nunnermacker "had absolutely nothing to do" with potential property tax cuts from a citywide reassessment of home values.

Apropos of nothing, Nunnermacker rose to speak at the May 3 City Council meeting and declared:

"On the superintendent's behalf, we cut taxes for the average homeowner by $214 -- under my presidential leadership." 

(A week later, Nunnermacker announced at a school board meeting that Superintendent Karen Lewis had been suspended with pay for reasons he didn't disclose.) 

Cites revaluation

On Tuesday night, Canestrino, speaking for the mayor and council, said the citywide revaluation is the "sole reason" some homeowners could see a total cut of about $400 in city and school taxes.

School taxes make up 44% of the total property tax bill.

Canestrino noted the reassessment lowered the value of one-third of the homes in the city, one-third stayed the same and one-third went up.

She also noted the school board approved a $4.2 million hike in the tax levy that a tiny minority of registered voters approved in the April 19 election.

The $79 million tax levy supports an overall budget of $104 million, higher than the city's own. The hike in the city tax levy was $2.1 million -- half of the board's increase.

The Record didn't bother covering the issues or the nine candidates in the school board election or report on the budget in any detail.

Councilwoman Deborah Keeling-Geddis, right, again led the city's African-American community in criticizing officials for the embarrassing Lt. James Prise promotion. Councilman David Sims, second from right, left the meeting to take care of a personal matter before Keeling-Geddis read a statement and audience members, including clergy, spoke.

Lt. James Prise

Staff Writer John Seasly of The Record covered Tuesday night's City Council meeting, but his story in the Local section today doesn't report any of Canestrino's comments about Nunnermacker (L-1).

Nor does Seasly report that City Councilwoman Deborah Keeling-Geddis again led members of the city's African-American community in criticizing officials for promoting police Lt. James Prise to captain, only to return him to his original rank when it was learned he failed the oral portion of the state civil service exam.

Prise was the city's first black police lieutenant and was heralded as its first black captain at a March 8 ceremony in City Council Chambers.

City Manager David Troast said Prise's promotion was "provisional" pending the results of the oral exam, but he still thinks he was the right choice to lead the Police Department after the retirement of Police Director Mike Mordaga.

In response to comments from the audience that the City Council should issue a public apology to Prise, Canestrino and Mayor John Labrosse said officials have apologized a number of times, but that The Record hasn't reported any of them.

Censorship

A front-page story today reports that Bergen County had one of the state's 191 "apartheid schools," or "schools where 1 percent or less of the student population was white," according to a 2013 Rutgers University report.

But even though a Record reporter added material to the story from The Associated Press, that district isn't identified (A-1).

"Apartheid schools" certainly would fit the elementary and middle schools in Englewood, where desegregation efforts in the last decade have focused only on Dwight Morrow High School.

Over the years, Dan Sforza and other Record reporters assigned to Englewood have routinely ignored the city's dysfunctional school system.

Then, Sforza spent many years as a local editor who assigned reporters to cover stories in Englewood before he was promoted to managing editor this year.

Staff Writer Mathhew McGrath, who covers the city now, has written about education, but never reported the city's elementary and middle schools have few white students nor has he asked the superintendent what, if anything, he intends to do about that.

In reporting Hackensack news, editors ignore big conflict

One of the projects proposed Tuesday night would return Hackensack's Main and State streets to two-way traffic, something that many residents and merchants have long hoped for as they try to navigate the congested business district. This photo was taken in late January, when parking was banned on one side of Main to clear away snow.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today, The Record carries a follow-up to Tuesday night's Hackensack City Council meeting, where officials proposed four major downtown and recreation projects.

In the second paragraph, Staff Writer John Seasly quotes Chief Financial Officer James Mangin saying the projects wouldn't increase taxes.

Seasly actually wrote that Mangin "insisted" taxes wouldn't go up, as if the reporter had contradictory information in hand.

Still, even that wasn't sexy enough. 

Seasly later quotes a resident, Chris Colli, asking, "How much more of a tax increase will that equate to for this town?"

Seasly doesn't say if Colli is hard of hearing, came in late or just missed Mangin's statement.

The proposals are scheduled to be presented at a public hearing on April 4, when a final vote will be taken.

Towns v. hospitals

To many residents, a far more controversial issue is major non-profit institutions that pay reduced or no taxes, shifting the burden onto Hackensack homeowners and commercial property owners.

A front-page story today reports Teaneck and Englewood have joined a growing number of towns challenging the tax-exempt status of their local hospitals (A-1).

The Record's report doesn't even mention Hackensack University Medical Center, which also was missing in recent stories on Governor Christie trying to immunize the hospitals from suits for two years.

Nor has The Record asked Hackensack officials why they aren't filing their own lawsuit after a landmark Tax Court decision last June that stripped Morristown Medical Center of its century old exemption from property taxes (A-4).

The potential tax liability of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center is missing from today's story, but Holy Name Medical Center would have to pay about $2 million a year.

HUMC's potential tax liability is far greater, more than $10 million, Hackensack officials have said.

Auto show

On Wednesday, The Record's business editors went out to lunch, and never returned to the office.

At least that's the impression readers have from today's stale preview of the New York International Auto Show at the Jacob Javits Center (L-7).

"Hyundai will join Toyota in showing off new electric and hybrid vehicles," The Associated Press reports today.

In fact, those cars were introduced on Wednesday, the first of two press days, as the photo and caption clearly indicate.

Old Prius news

And Tom Krisher, a clueless AP reporter, adds, "Toyota will show a plug-in Prius than can run on electricity alone." 

But since the first Prius was imported in 2000, the hybrid's gasoline engine turned off when stopped at lights, when coasting and at other times, allowing the battery and electric motor to power it. 

In another major error, Krisher claims hybrids and electrics appealed to the "environmentally conscious" and "lacked the power and handling of gas-powered rivals" (L-7).

But electrics accelerate far faster than a conventional car, because all of their power is available immediately.

Krisher's story on L-7 carries a New York dateline, but a related piece on L-8 carries a Detroit dateline. 

How was he in two places at the same time? 

Editors allow partisan politics to shape Trenton coverage

In Englewood, Mayor Frank Huttle is pushing the City Council to buy a building next to a Korean supermarket and develop it as a community center, The Record reports today. The plan comes many years after the city dropped plans to buy the shuttered, 100-year-old-plus Lincoln Elementary School for a community center, eventually selling the land and building to an apartment developer.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's editors and owners refuse to provide the leadership readers are looking for as Governor Christie butts heads with Democrats over an "extensive" list of problems facing the state.

As they did after Christie took office in early 2010, the editors continue to focus on the nasty partisan politics dividing the conservative governor and the Democratic majority in the state Legislature (A-1).

Today, The Record announces a groundbreaking "tracker graphic" as key issues move through the Governor's Office and the legislative process in 2016.

Of course, the original "Christie Tracker" was started by WNYC-FM, which told listeners where Christie was traveling as head of a GOP governors group or when he was campaigning.

Real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson, left, is a top adviser to Governor Christie, and a personal friend of Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg, chairman of North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record.

He said, she said

But if the past is any guide, Editor Deirdre Sykes' bad-hair days will mean bad-news days for readers, who will have to slog through endless he said/she said stories on such issues as transportation, public worker benefits and taxes.

Since she took over in January, Sykes has failed to provide any editorial leadership in Woodland Park, repeating the same failures readers know from the many years she ran the local-news section.  

Seven other daily papers in New Jersey called for Christie's resignation after he endorsed and campaigned for racist Donald Trump. 

But the Woodland Park daily didn't even report the state's biggest daily, The Star Ledger, and the other papers want the GOP bully to leave Trenton for good.

Readers' eyes roll

Charles Stile, the biggest Christie apologist on staff, today has readers' eyes rolling with a front-page column on the Republican Party in New Jersey more than 50 years ago (A-1).

Meanwhile, as limp as they are, the last four lines of Mike Kelly's Opinion front column on Christie should have been the first four lines (O-3):

"He says he's 'back to work'. Yet, he skips a state trooper's funeral for a political campaign.

"He's the butt of belittling jokes.

"He thinks this is all just a good time."

And on the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski is writing about "us older folks" who don't buckle up in the back seat (L-1).

Mazel tov

Congratulations to Hackensack Mayor John P. Labrosse Jr., who became a grandfather twice on Friday (L-1).

Flay's burgers

Food writer Elisa Ung has been a big fan of Bobby Flay ever since she reported a decade ago "chef's quality" beef is used in the hamburgers sold at his Bobby's Burger Palace in Paramus.

Today, the sell-out continues to blow smoke in another elaborately promotional piece on Flay and his burger restaurants (Better Living front).

Of course, nothing could be farther from the truth. Flay uses Certified Angus Beef, which is raised on harmful antibiotics and who knows what else.

Stick with the salads, if you know what's good for you.

Drivers took commuting columnist hostage 12 years ago

An NJ Transit bus on Main Street in Hackensack. In a dozen years of writing the Road Warrior column for The Record, Staff Writer John Cichowski has largely ignored bus and train riders, and in the process, racked up more errors than any reporter past or present at the Woodland Park daily.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In a front-page headline today, The Record's editors admit that drivers have been allowed to hijack a column that was aimed at all commuters when it was launched 25 years ago:

"Keeping drivers in the loop"

And John Cichowski, the reporter who turned his back on bus and rail users, is still writing the column today, a dozen years after he took over from the original Road Warrior, Jeffrey Page.

This Page 1 anniversary column also is flawed by the photo of a highway project that was completed about 15 years ago, and an awkward sub-headline.

I'm sure the drowsy copy editor who write the sub-headline was looking for "delays" instead of "holdups," which was two meanings (A-1).

Dissing seniors

Besides ignoring mass-transit users, Cichowski has spent little time reporting on the challenges facing his contemporaries, older drivers who mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal with often fatal consequences.

If there is retraining available to seniors or other programs to improve their driving skills, readers haven't seen it in the Road Warrior column.

Shaky reporting

Chichowski made so many errors he inspired one Record reader to set up a Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers in an attempt to correct what the newspaper refused to set right.

And because Cichowski's reporting has been so shaky readers are questioning some of what he says today:

"It took nearly a decade to get E-ZPass to work correctly," the reporter claims, without ever elaborating anywhere in his overlong column (A-1 and A-10).

He also takes credit for a column that stopped "four mornings of horrific traffic jams" at the George Washington Bridge in September 2013 (A-10).

But Cichowski, a lazy reporter who rarely leaves the office, doesn't tell readers that he was tipped off by Publisher Stephen A. Borg, whose friend called from the bridge to complain about being stuck in traffic.

Shortcuts

Cichowski's chief weakness is relying on the eyes and ears of his readers, and publishing hundreds of their emails as the basis for many of his columns.

Their only motive is to see their names in print, and their observations and knowledge of driving laws and regulations are even shakier than Cichowski's.

Among his other failures as a journalist is his refusal to embrace mass transit as a way of cutting traffic congestion and reducing air pollution.

EV charging

A story on the Local front today doesn't tell owners of plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars how much they will have to pay to gain access to chargers in Englewood's municipal garage (L-1).

Nor does the story report on the rate of charge or whether the electricity is free. 

With employees of a Mercedes-Benz dealer using the spaces from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, public access will be limited.

Guessing game

A caption on L-1 identifies only one of the four people whose faces are clearly visible in the photo, which runs with a story on Englewood's hometown sports heroes.

Stories or photos from Closter, Mahwah, Tenafly, Maywood, Clifton and Woodland Park also appear today.

But there is nothing from two of the biggest towns in the circulation area, Hackensack and Teaneck.

Hackensack Democrats try to claw way back into power

In June, Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin conferred with Lynne Hurwitz, who runs the Hackensack Democratic Organization, which suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2013 City Council election. Salkin lost his second job as municipal prosecutor as a result.

Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker is hoping to take back one City Council seat for the Democrats in a special November election, even though he was a member of the losing sate in 2013. The Record has done a poor job of exposing the partisan rancor that has dominated meetings for more than two years.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Behind the facade of Hackensack's non-partisan City Council elections, the two major parties battle for the hearts and minds of an apathetic electorate.

Only 3,000 to 4,000 votes are cast in the May balloting every four years in a city with about 20,000 registered voters.

Now, the city's Democratic Organization is trying to claw its way back into power after its entire slate went down in defeat in 2013.

Zisaville

Bergen County Democrats were part of the political establishment that kept the Zisa family in power for decades, filling jobs with loyal party members and contributors.

In a message to Bergen Democrats, Lynne Hurwitz, head of city Democrats, is asking for financial support to elect Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker to a vacant seat on the council.

Nunnermacker was part of the Open Government slate, allied with the Zisas, that lost the May 2013 election to reformers who ran under the banner of Citizens for Change.

Council critics

Since losing the election, Nunnermacker, former running mates and fellow board members have appeared at nearly every meeting to attack the reformers, including Councilwoman Rose Greenman, who resigned, setting up the special Nov. 3 election.

In her message, Hurwitz claims Nunnermacker "has dedicated himself to improving his hometown," but provides no specifics.

Other candidates on Nov. 3 are Richard L. Cerbo, the son of a former mayor; businessman Jason Some, who was appointed to fill Greenman's seat; and Deborah Keeling-Geddis, a teacher's assistant in the city schools.

Any of them have greater appeal than Nunnermacker, 38, an attorney some Democrats refer to as "a turkey."

Today's paper

Editor Martin Gottlieb again devotes most of Page 1 today to two of The Record's burned-out columnists (A-1).

Writing from Havana, Staff Writer Mike Kelly perpetuates media stereotypes of the Cuban Revolution.

But Kelly didn't find any political prisoners.

Instead, he focuses on pianist Angel Cabo, who left the island because he needed "more freedom to choose the songs he wanted to play" (A-7).

The Record's copy desk dusted off a photo over line the paper used the last time a pope visited the Caribbean's biggest island in 2012:

"Pope's visit raises curtain on Cuba"

After putting together this non-story, Kelly likely will go in search of Jo Ann Chesimard, a New Jersey fugitive and a central figure in many of his previous columns.

Christie's 'brand'

Meanwhile, it's hard to believe Gottlieb would allow Columnist Charles Stile to report Governor Christie is campaigning for president as a defender of the middle class without challenging the GOP bully in print (A-1).

Gottlieb and Stile are being irresponsible by not listing all of the programs and policies Christie has used in his war on the middle class in New Jersey, and his repeated veto of a tax surcharge on millionaires.

Stile's columns often are the print version of the sound bite that dominates TV news.

Christie is allowed to go unchallenged when he claims the middle class are "getting plowed over by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton" -- exactly the opposite of their record.

Local news?

There are few municipal-news stories in Local today to tell readers how well or how poorly their towns are being run in return for all those property taxes they pay.

Except for the centerpiece on new immigrants, including a man who left Cuba nine years ago, the entire Local front today is devoted to Law & Order developments and settlement of a lawsuit against the Teaneck Public Library director (L-1).

Englewood schools

On L-3, no one asked the new superintendent in Englewood what he will do to integrate the elementary and middle schools.

Instead, Robert Kravitz was praised for his management and business skills, including starting a company that sold desserts to local restaurants.

Staff Writer Kim Lueddeke doesn't say where Kravitz lives, whether he has children and where he will send them to school.

Kravitz has been superintendent of the Englewood Cliffs district since 2012.

Sugar puzzle

Freelancer Julia Sexton warns readers that the chef at Grange in Westwood has given the New American menu "a sugary, pan-tropical spin."

One dish, Floribbean Shrimp, is made with spiced rum and pineapple cream sauce ($12).

The delicate flavor of the shellfish, Sexton explains, "struggled to be heard in all that sugar" (BL-16).

Yet, one of the two dishes she recommends in the 2-star review is creme brulee "whose warm crust of caramelized sugar yielded with a pleasing crack."

Sexton is no better than Elisa Ung, the dessert-obsessed chief restaurant critic.

With both, the legions of diabetic readers also are struggling to be heard.

More clueless reporting and editing on local bias, buses

Paramus police have asked drivers on Route 4 east to try and avoid having a medical emergency until CITYMD opens a walk-in urgent care center next to a Popeyes fried-chicken restaurant, above and below. The sign went up weeks ago, before the building with Dos Cubanos, a shuttered Cuban restaurant, was renovated and repainted.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record finally is giving Calvin Spann, an African-American veteran who lived in Rutherford and Englewood, the recognition he deserves with a front-page story on his memorial service today.

You might remember the editors literally buried Spann's obituary deep in the Local section last Tuesday.

That's the same day Page 1 was dominated by the photo and story of a hospitalized white pilot who crashed his crippled small plane in a Cresskill field, and had been the subject of two previous stories.

Spann, 90, was one of "the famed Tuskegee Airmen, the black World War II pilots who broke through racism to fight combat missions and escort American bombers across Europe," Staff Writer Todd South reports in a stirring salute to a fellow veteran.

Bias against blacks

Spann and other Turkegee Airmen "helped inspire the effort to racially integrate the U.S. military and, early on, set in motion the pent-up forces that would lead to the civil rights movement," South continues.

But the reporter and his editors are silent on the discrimination Spann may have faced after the war when he began "a career in pharmaceutical sales" and settled in Englewood, where he lived until 2006 (A-1).

That's no surprise 

Assignment Editors Deirdre Dykes and Dan Sforza, familiar with Englewood from the years they worked as reporters there, have taken a vow of silence on discrimination in the small city -- in the heart of The Record's circulation area -- where Chairman Malcolm A. "Mac" Borg has lived for decades.

At one time, the only jobs blacks could aspire to were as chauffeurs and maids to the wealthy mansion dwellers on Englewood's East Hill.

In recent years, county and local officials have been working to integrate Dwight Morrow High School, but the lower grades remain 99% black and Hispanic.

The Record spends far more time reporting about the premier private school in Englewood, Dwight-Englewood, attended by three generations of the Borg family, which owns North Jersey Media Group and The Record.

Bias in layout?

Is it merely a coincidence that a large photo of Spann at a Tuskegee Airmen convention appears on the continuation page next to the photo of a black Rutgers football player who was suspended "after a Saturday night incident" (A-6)?

That reminds readers that for decades the only way blacks could get on the front page of The Record was to break the law or be mentioned in a column on Black History Week.

Forced busing

In an editorial called "Buses over PATH," Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin tries mightily to stop the $1.5 billion commuter rail extension to Newark Liberty International Airport (A-9).

But Doblin seems unaware that until the antiquated midtown Manhattan bus terminal is replaced, officials could easily solve massive rush-hour delays by adding another dedicated bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

Now, a single, reverse lane operates in the morning, funneling buses against traffic on Route 495, but no such lane is set up in the afternoon, when hundreds of buses parked in New Jersey during the day have to return to pick up riders at the midtown terminal.

No to drivers

Operating two dedicated lanes into the tunnel both morning and afternoon would ease bus delays, but the Port Authority fears angering motorists, many of whom drive alone into the city on commutes subsidized by their employers.

What other choice would these morons have but to sit in even worse congestion than now, finally giving long-suffering bus riders some relief?

Are the drivers going to try using the Holland Tunnel or the George Washington Bridge to reach their free midtown parking garages?

Who cares? Let them take the ferry or swim.

Local news?

You know there isn't much local news today when Sykes and Sforza lead their section with yet another story on a proposed public parking garage in downtown Ridgewood (L-1).

Staff Writer Chris Harris has probably written more stories about this single project than The Record has about a new bus terminal in midtown Manhattan.

Third story on small-plane crash still doesn't get it right

Abma's Farm & Market in Wyckoff was closed on Labor Day.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Readers know Labor Day is what editors call "a slow news day," but that's still no excuse for the third story in four days on pilot Jack Rosenberg.

The Spring Valley, N.Y., man is shown in a Page 1 photo today, recovering in a hospital bed from broken bones and other injuries, wearing what looks like a skull cap.

The Record's story not only doesn't say whether Rosenberg is an Orthodox Jew or if the slice of pizza he ate was kosher (A-6), it raises other questions.

Why is the Woodland Park daily doing a third story on the crash, and why is it all over the front page?

What's the big deal? 

Don't all small-plane pilots who go down after their engines conk out try to avoid injuring or killing other people on the ground?

Flawed story 

And why was first-day coverage of the crash on Friday missing the crucial details about Rosenberg deliberately turning his crippled plane away from cross-country runners and others on a Tenafly field?

Or, as the overworked police reporter, Staff Writer Stefanie Dazio, put it:

"As Jack Rosenberg looked out the window of his small plane ... hurtling 60 [mph] to 70 mph over the Cresskill and Tenafly border and saw dozens of young faces on a school field that would have made a perfect landing site, the father of seven knew he'd have to find another spot" (A-1).

Even my shortened version of that lead paragraph is enough to choke a horse.

Small-plane menace

Small planes like the one Rosenberg was piloting seem to crash all too often, usually with fatalities. 

When they're not crashing, small, medium and large planes, and the noise they make, have a huge impact on the quality of life in Bergen County, especially if you live in Hackensack, Teaneck and other towns near Teterboro Airport.

One story on Rosenberg would have been enough, but The Record's reporters and assignment editors never seem willing to hustle and do the legwork needed for such thorough reporting.

The two follow-ups corrected an error in the first account that Rosenberg contacted air-traffic controllers at La Guardia Airport; it was Teterboro Airport.

Overlooked pilot

Instead of a rehash and regurgitation of pilot Jack Rosenberg's crash, some enterprising editor should have put the obituary of a Tuskegee Airman on the front page today.

You'll find the compelling life story of Calvin Spann, 90, a former Englewood resident, literally buried in the back of Local (L-8).

The obit illuminates how African Americans in North Jersey still face discrimination today.

As a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps, Spann flew 26 combat missions, including the longest bomber escort mission of the 15th Air Force.

When Spann returned home, he wanted to become a commercial pilot, but the major airlines wouldn't hire African Americans.

The sub-headline on Spann's obituary says incorrectly he "faced segregation after war." 

He "found a job in pharmaceutical sales and settled in Englewood," the obituary notes.

Spann faced discrimination, but the black and Hispanic children attending Englewood schools today still face segregation in the elementary and middle-school grades.

Virtually all of the white children in Englewood attend private schools, and officials have sought to desegregate only the high school.