With Christie's support, Big Oil is ruling New Jersey, too

At the post office in Hackensack, employees used official Postal Service tape to hold together these signs.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For decades, the noxious Bayway Refinery has given hundreds of thousands of visitors a negative impression of the state as they drive by on the New Jersey Turnpike.

And it helped fortify the "Cancer Alley" reputation of the Garden State, which had the nation's highest incidence of the disease in the 1970s.

Who knew that Exxon was at the same time contaminating 1,800 acres of wetlands at the oil giant's former refineries in Linden (Bayway) and Bayonne, according to a lawsuit the state filed 11 years ago?

Now, The Record says, a Superior Court judge has OK'd a settlement of the case for a mere $225 million, most of which will go to balance Governor Christie's voodoo state budget and to pay legal fees (A-1). 

The state had sought $9 billion in damages when the case was filed in 2004 by the James McGreevey administration (A-6).

Koch brothers

Is it any coincidence the Koch brothers, who made their fortune from the refining and distribution of petroleum, are putting hundreds of millions of dollars behind conservative Republicans like Christie in the 2016 presidential race?

Big Oil and the nation's automakers also have worked hand in hand to fight the production of more efficient cars and trucks, and to delay implementation of higher gas-mileage standards.

That only aggravates air pollution and hastens climate change -- two environmental issues that aren't mentioned in a wire-service story on increasing traffic congestion (A-1 and A-4).

Today's front page

With not one but two silly sports-related stories on Page 1 today, the Exxon ruling is the only news of any real relevance to North Jersey residents whose property taxes continue to climb as the state's economy sours under Christie.

In Ridgewood, it seems, desperate residents are stealing street signs and even poles, and selling the scrap metal as they struggle to pay property tax bills inflated by the wasteful system of home-rule government (L-1).

Look at the hysterical reaction of New Milford officials, who are opposing a plan by Fresh & Fancy Farms to hold healthy farm-to-table dinners, cooking classes and festivals at River Road and Stockton Street (L-1).

Officials cite traffic "congestion" and "parking shortages" in the neighborhood.

Tea Party news

Also on L-1 today, the editors run a rare story on Rep. Scott Garrett, the Tea Party idol who represents part of Bergen County. 

As usual, the story doesn't report on what Garrett is doing to improve life in New Jersey and the nation, only what he is doing to block President Obama's every action and initiative.

Instead of pandering to a regressive like Garrett, local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza should use their Local front to celebrate the lives of people like Deborah Hubsmith, a Woodcliff Lake native.

Hubsmith, who died on Aug. 18 at 46, is founder of Safe Routes to School Partnership, which encourages children to bike or walk to school and spurs government to improve bicycle and pedestrian safety (L-6). 

Tracy Morgan

Today's Business page story doesn't say whether comedian Tracy Morgan used any of the settlement money from a 2014 turnpike crash to purchase a 22-room brick "manor" in Alpine for $13.9 million.

Instead, the Business editors' focus is on how the transaction is "the priciest so far this year in Bergen County," promoting the health of the real estate industry (L-7).

The settlement was probably reduced because Morgan wasn't wearing a seat belt when a speeding Walmart tractor-trailer slammed into his limo van on June 7, 2014.

The comedian's lawyer said he suffered a traumatic brain injury in the crash. 

This past June, NBC News reported Morgan still walks with a cane, gets headaches and has memory problems.

After the turnpike crash, The Record and other media ignored major safety questions surrounding the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter passenger van like the one Morgan and fellow comedian James McNair were riding in. 

McNair died from his injuries.

See the original Eye on The Record post from June 8, 2014:

Gravely injured comedian
rode in van prone to rollover

Ode to heart disease

Clueless freelancer Kate Morgan Jackson of Upper Saddle River is back today with another recipe that seems healthy, but includes a half-cup of artery clogging heavy cream and chicken breasts pumped up by harmful antibiotics (BL-2).

The headline claims "Summer Chicken Pasta" is an "ode to summer," but given the heavy cream, a more accurate heading would be "ode to heart disease."

"Eat it outside for maximum happiness," Jackson suggests.

Like when you are waiting for the ambulance.
  

Jersey pride and punishment

Image via Wikipedia

Today's Jersey-centric front page in The Record of Woodland Park even has an authentic whiff of corruption -- another charge against suspended Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa. But what about all the other stories the Super Bowl-giddy editors are ignoring?


What about the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Has this important environmental story ever been on Page 1? The inability of BP to stop the leak after more than a month has everyone feeling powerless -- including readers who never see news of their towns in the paper. 

Why doesn't The Record ever identify the company as British Petroleum or report it is a foreign company? Are drivers boycotting BP stations, as people of my generation have long boycotted Exxon stations for the Alaska spill? Is this payback for the American Revolution?

What about the Jamaican community in Hackensack, Teaneck and Englewood? Aren't their views on gun violence in their homeland of legitimate concern to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, who has eaten her fair share of Jamaican rum cakes from an Englewood baker? Have those cakes made her lazy?

I appeal to Sykes, Editor Frank Scandale and others to get their heads out of their asses, and to Publisher Stephen A. Borg to tear himself away from his palatial estate in Tenafly and pay some attention to the many stories that are going unreported out of laziness, incompetence or worse. The Record is dying a slow, journalistic death.


A story on the hunt for a reputed drug lord in the island capital of Kingston -- way back on Page A-19 today -- has an incorrect headline. The Jamaican death toll stood at 48; the head says "reaches 50." And why is the wire editor wasting space on frogs closing a road in Greece (A-15)? Baffling.


Hackensack readers are so bored with coverage in the past year of the police chief's legal troubles, and Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado is such a timid reporter, she can't even get Zisa to comment on the occasions she has seen him. Pathetic. It's Alvarado, likely at Sykes' request, who has ignored just about all other Hackensack news in the past two years. 


Joseph Ax, the Teaneck reporter, has a strong story in Local (L-3) about pay-to-play and the township auditor and an Englewood budget story (all six paragraphs) is credited to Karen Sudol, the Tenafly reporter. It looks like Englewood reporter Giovanna Fabiano was pulled off her beat to help Alvarado with the Zisa story.


In Better Living, it is food-less Thursday.