Storm prevents delivery of print edition three days in a row

A Hackensack Parks Department truck and two men cleared my driveway this afternoon, above and below, after I called to complain plows had blocked it three times during Tuesday's snowstorm, and the barrier was frozen solid.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Gannett continues to slash the payroll at The Record of Woodland Park.

The latest exodus of 141 North Jersey Media Group employees has already begun, and the last of them will be gone by March 25.

They will be receiving one week's pay for every year of service, and can apply for unemployment.

For more news and views of The Record, see these and other posts at The Sasson Report:

After the storm, icy roads in Englwood

More low marks for Hackensack DPW

Readers hit 'corporate greed' at Gannett

Trump supporters attack paper as 'left wing'

For more, see: The Sasson Report

Eye on The Record has moved to The Sasson Report

The Record newsroom is in this building at 1 Garret Mountain Plaza in Woodland Park.

Eye on The Record has moved to The Sasson Report.

-- VICTOR E. SASSON

The year 2013 in photos from "Eye on The Record"

The Great Falls in Paterson is the place to visit after a heavy rainfall.

The Record's old headquarters at 150 River St. in Hackensack remained an eyesore for much of 2013 -- four years after the Borg publishing family abandoned the city. Meanwhile, Staff Writer Kibret Markos covers the Bergen County Courthouse full time, but his smoking breaks outside the main entrance are so frequent little of that coverage actually appears in the paper.

The first luxury apartments built in Hackensack in many years went up between two shopping centers on Hackensack Avenue, near Route 4, as the city pursued a policy of encouraging apartment development and an influx of new residents as a way to revive its downtown.

Tin Alley in  Hackensack, where auto dealers line River Street. The Record on Saturday is stuffed with several sections of car-dealer advertising, which may be one reason the error-prone Road Warrior writes obsessively about driving and hardly anything about the overstretched mass-transit system.

A fence at a railroad station in Pennsylvania prevents pedestrians from crossing the tracks, a safety measure that is scarce at NJ Transit stations.

Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, where the elementary and middle schools remain segregated, a story The Record doesn't touch.

One Friday night in Manhattan, the line to board NJ Transit buses stretched down the escalator to the level below the platforms.

Increasing traffic congestion was a big story in 2013, but one The Record didn't bother covering.

To handle greater demand, NJ Transit used longer trains, but often platforms were too short. Above, the New Brunswick station. Passengers would be told to run forward to exit the train.

Penn Station in Manhattan is owned by Amtrak, which assigns track numbers to NJ Transit trains 10 minutes before departure, setting off a stampede by passengers scrambling for a seat.

A firehouse on Main Street in Hackensack.

Record Publisher Stephen A. Borg's $3.65 million McMansion in Tenafly.

Part of a display in the NJ Transit Waiting Room at Penn Station in Manhattan.

Yours truly ran as an independent candidate for the Hackensack City Council, above and below.

The Record mocked then-Governor Corzine's plan to monetize the New Jersey Turnpike, but saw nothing wrong with charging Bergen County hundreds of thousands of dollars for parking spaces at the old Hackensack headquarters. The Borgs also announced a luxury apartment developer agreed to buy about 20 River Street acres in a flood zone, and would be using gondolas to carry residents to the bus station across the street.

The New World Trade Center is the latest jewel in the Manhattan skyline.

Jerome S. Some, 87, founder and owner of a uniform company in Hackensack, above, was struck and killed by a car after he left his building, below, and started walking across Prospect Avenue to reach Bel Posto Restaurant. 

Governor Christie -- the GOP bully, the Portly Authority and the Elephant Man of national politics, won a second term on Nov. 5 -- in what turned out to be the lowest turnout ever for a gubernatorial election.

The first of two 47-story residential towers was nearing completion in Fort Lee. But The Modern's glass facade reflected sunlight and blinded some drivers heading for the George Washington Bridge.

Recycled copies of The Record are destined to return as toilet paper.

A winter scene on Englewood's East Hill.

Inadequate journalists love sucking on A-Rod

At the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan, the body language is clear from people lining up for NJ Transit's No.165 bus to Hackensack and Westwood at mid-afternoon on Monday. Only an eldery woman was desperate enough to sit in one of the four folding "seats," below. 

These seats are listed as implements of torture under the Geneva Convention.

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

Feeling inadequate, Editor Marty Gottlieb of The Record and sports Columnist Bob Klapisch are going ga-ga over the turmoil in the life of multimillionaire athlete Alex Rodriguez (Page 1 and A-6).

Readers, however, are gagging on all of this coverage of Rodriguez, who was given the sexually suggestive monicker of "A-Rod" by copy editors with short-count headlines to write -- not because of his alleged prowess in the bedroom.

More boring politics

The rest of the front page today is wasted on politics, including another futile bid for higher office by arch-conservative Republican Steve Lonegan, former mayor of Bogota (A-1 and A-4).

Does anybody believe the exaggerated story on A-3 that Chris Christie, our piggish governor, "would fall only 4 points short of Democrat Hillary Clinton in a hypothetical presidential contest" in 2016?

The Record and other media continue to report polls as gospel -- even after President Obama trounced Mitt Romney last November in what was reported ad nauseum as a close race.

More bad mistakes

On the front of Local today, the funeral of an 8-month-old girl killed by a falling light pole reminds readers of all of the errors in the Sunday Road Warrior column about penalties for jitney drivers who talk on cellphones.

Unfortunately, the errors and omissions are repeated in today's editorial calling for a crackdown on those drivers (A-8).

Staff Writer John Cichowski (aka Road Warrior) completely overlooked "jail time of up to 10 years and fines up to $150,000 based on a 2012 law for cellphone violations, when any drivers are involved in accidents where there is a death or injury," according to a concerned reader. 

Homicide charge

In fact, he didn't even mention that the distracted jitney driver who knocked down the pole, killing the North Bergen girl in her stroller, was charged with vehicular homicide under that law.

Cichowski also left out relevant information when citing "a federal law that imposes fines as high as $2,750 if commercial drivers use hand-held devices in non-emergency situations during interstate travel."

Road Warrior failed to mention the federal law also disqualifies drivers for up to 120 days for multiple violations within a 3-year period. 
 

Cichowski also overlooked the maximum fine of $250 under New Jersey motor vehicle law for use of hand-held devices in non-emergency situations, citing only a $100 fine for all drivers.
 

To read the full e-mail to management and editors, click on this link to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Readers are hanging up on the Road Warrior 

Eye on The Record 

will return next week

Blogger, North Jersey Media Group settle lawsuit

Former headquarters of North Jersey Media Group and The Record in Hackensack.

In the face of mounting legal fees, Victor E. Sasson has settled a federal copyright-infringement lawsuit filed against him by North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record and the North Jersey.com Web site.

Sasson signed a confidential settlement agreement on Thursday, and admitted no wrongdoing.

The suit alleged Sasson violated several copyrights when Eye on The Record published NJMG photographs and a news story.

So far, Sasson has paid more than $16,000 in legal fees in connection with the suit.

A federal judge dismissed the NJMG lawsuit without prejudice in January, allowing the publishing company to file it again.

Jennifer A. Borg, NJMG vice president and general counsel, was listed as attorney for the plaintiff. 

Borg also hired an expensive New York law firm, Dunnegan & Scileppi, to handle the suit.

Click on the following links to earlier posts:

Judge dismisses NJMG lawsuit

NJMG harasses 'Eye on The Record'

'Great pride ... in responsible journalism'

Today's paper

The thin Sunday edition features four of The Record's burned-out columnists, and more from pundits who are playing catch-up to the victory of the reformers' slate in the Hackensack municipal election.

The upbeat "Shore's ready to roll" takeout on Page 1 plays into the hands of Chris Christie, who hopes voters forget what a terrible governor he was before Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey last Oct. 29 (A-1).

Hospital profits

The opening of Bergen County's first for-profit hospital in Westwood -- under the Hackensack University Medical Center name -- raises anew questions about HUMC's $130 million in untaxed property in Hackensack, and whether the medical center will give back to the city (A-1).

The best story in the Local news section today is the obituary of Betty Ersalesi, a Rutherford school teacher, whose death appears to be the making of a medical-malpractice suit (L-1).

The worst piece is the Road Warrior column on whether seat belts are "your thing" (L-1).

Self-promoting reporter

On the Business front, Your Money's Worth Columnist Kevin DeMarrais gives himself a huge pat on the back for 19-plus years of consumer reporting in a paper that long ago sold out to commercial interests (B-1).

Of course, DeMarrais' 1,000 columns virtually ignored the rise of organic and naturally raised food, which aren't listed in his monthly survey of supermarket prices.

And sadly, The Record's business editors still have to rely on a 4-page insert from The Wall Street Journal to make their Sunday section amount to anything (B-3 to B-6).

Kelly sells out again

On the Opinion front, Columnist Mike Kelly continues to fawn over Christie, calling the GOP bully "the political equivalent of the Kardashians" (O-1).

Have you ever read anything so ridiculously hilarious?

Playing catch-up

Brigid Callahan Harrison, a political science professor who writes a Sunday opinion column for The Record, and the newspaper's editors ignored the 3-month campaign of Citizens for Change, which won last week's Hackensack City Council election.

So did Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, who refused to "get involved" in the battle to decide whether reformers or the Zisa family political machine would prevail.

To the great surprise of everyone -- including apathetic voters -- the reformers swept the election for 5 seats on the City Council, unleashing a series of reaction stories and columns.

So, here is Harrison today taking Newark Mayor Cory Booker to task for forgetting his reform roots, and backing establishment candidates in Hackensack and Jersey City, where all of them went down to defeat (O-1).

Ex-Hackensack mayor blasts independent candidate

The entrance to the polls at the Fairmount Elementary School on Grand Avenue in Hackensack, where independent City Council candidate Victor E. Sasson voted for himself this morning, below.

"X" marks a vote for Sasson (Line 11), editor of Eye on The Record.

On a beautiful day for voting, independent City Council candidate Victor E. Sasson drove down to his polling place this morning, and was blasted by ex-Mayor Jack Zisa and Open Government candidate Joseph Barreto, one of "the Zisa slate" puppets.

Zisa -- standing on the street corner with Barreto -- was incensed that Sasson's campaign flier urged voters "to end the corrupt rule of the Zisa family."

Zisa saw one of the fliers on Monday night, when Sasson's wife and teenage son distributed them on Poplar Avenue, where the former mayor lives.

Barreto followed Sasson to his car, and criticized him for telling voters the Zisa-backed candidate doesn't send his children to the public schools, calling that an attack on Baretto's religion.

Lara L. Rodriguez, left, who was elected to the Board of Education in April, leaving the voting booth this morning at the Fairmount School. Her candidacy was backed by Hackensack's political machine, which has controlled the city for decades.

 

State Sen. Loretta Weinberg refused to "get involved" in Hackenack's non-partisan municipal election, opening the way for Newark Mayor Cory Booker to make a robo call backing candidates from the Coalition for Open Government, also known as "the Zisa slate."

Open Government candidates also are backed by Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic boss and the power behind Ken Zisa, the disgraced former state Assemblyman and convicted ex-police chief, and brother of Jack Zisa, who served as mayor for 16 years, until 2005.

Another Democratic party figure, the widow of state Sen. Byron Baer of Englewood, also sent out a letter mounting a scurrilous attack on the Citizens for Change slate of reformers.

The letter from Linda Baer, a former state Administrative Law Judge and Bergen County freeholder, carried a Clinton Street address.

Residents may have wondered why Linda Baer would get involved in a Hackensack election.

It turns out Lara L. Rodriguez, one of the successful machine candidates for Board of Education last month, is Byron Baer's daughter.  

How cozy everyone is in Hackensack.

Dissing Hackensack

The Record hasn't mentioned the election since a front-page story last Thursday.

Today, the Woodland Park daily finally publishes a story about the approval of Hackensack's $91.9 million budget a week ago.

Of course, property taxes are going up, piling on a 65% increase in recent years under the current City Council, which has raped the taxpayer.

The story on L-3 is a reprint from the weekly Hackensack Chronicle, and fails to mention today's crucial election.

The polls are open until 8 p.m. today.

Hackensack voters, throw off your chains.

Multimillionaire banker and developer Fred Daibes has expressed an interest in the 20 acres along River Street in Hackensack owned by the Borg family, publishers of The Record and Herald News, according to rumors circulating today.

Borgs, Daibes et al.

The Record and the Borg family were the subject of Election Day rumors in Hackensack.

Fred Daibes, founder of Mariner's Bank in Edgewater, apparently has expressed an interest in developing 20 acres on River Street, former headquarters of The Record, which moved out in 2009.

That might explain why Daibes -- one of the county's most politically active developers -- came out smelling like a rose in Sunday's Page 1 expose of unsecured Mariner's Bank loans to Democratic Party bigwig Joseph Ferriero and others.

The story was written by Jean Rimbach, whose rare byline exposes her as the least productive member of the newsroom.

Rimbach keeps her job, because of her friendship with head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes, a lifer who seems immune to being fired, despite the drastic decline in local news in the past decade.

Hackensack donors stray far from Main Street

Hackensack High School.

A fund-raiser for Hackensack High School students on Sunday offered food, wine and non-alcoholic drinks from more than 35 restaurants, caterers, bakers and liquor stores, but only eight were from the city itself.

And despite the participation of the Hackensack Main Street Business Alliance, a public-private partnership, only five of them are on or near Main Street, the struggling shopping district that has yet to recover from the pullout of North Jersey Media Group and The Record in 2009.

Tickets to "The Taste in Hackensack" were $75, and raised money for the Hackensack Blue & Gold Scholarship Fund. 

In addition, there were raffles, including a $100 ticket to win an all-expenses-paid Indy 500 weekend and "admission to the private Alfred Sanzari Enterprises Suite at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway."

The event was held at The Shops at Riverside, and there was no mention of the alliance, also known as the Upper Main Alliance, in an entertainment program listing sponsors.

Alliance budget

The $360,000 alliance budget is included in Hackensack's overall budget, and the city and the business group share a $64,000-a-year employee, Albert H. Dib, who is the group's executive director.

The $360,000 is raised through an assessment on Main Street businesses, in a limited zone between Atlantic Street and Clinton Place, that appears as a surcharge on their property taxes.

That surcharge is undoubtedly passed along to city residents and other customers as a cost of doing business.

The alliance was formed in 2004, but empty storefronts, traffic congestion and other problems continue to stifle the revival of Main Street. 

Some of the Hackensack businesses at Sunday's fund-raiser, including Solari's and Fusion Empanada, are outside the alliance zone.

Merna Georges, owner of Main Dish in Hackensack.

Ghost town

Main Dish, which replaced the shuttered Naturally Good, is in the zone, and served delicious mini crab cakes on Sunday.

But owner Merna Georges says she is open only for breakfast and lunch, because Main Street is too quiet in the evenings.

Dos Cubanos, which is on Route 4 in Paramus, served wonderful ceviche and a salad with diced fruit, but Hackensack's own Cuban restaurant, Habana Casual Cafe on Main Street, wasn't represented. 

Victor E. Sasson, editor of Eye on The Record, joined other Hackensack City Council candidates in attending the event.


Today's paper 

What do you think gripped readers more -- the cover price doubling to $1 or the second installment of a Page 1 series on white suburban heroin addicts?

As a former employee, Sasson pays $58.50 a year for 7-day home delivery -- or about 16 cents a copy -- compared to the regular price of $229.49.

Dissing Hackensack

The Local news section continues to ignore the City Council campaign in Hackensack, including false attack mailings by the Coalition for Open Government.

The coalition is backed by Lynne Hurwitz, the city's Democratic boss and the power behind the Zisa family political dynasty that has controlled Hackensack for decades, holding it up for ridicule as "Zisaville."

The lead coalition candidate, Kenneth Martin, a retired police detective, will stand trial for removing signs put up by a reform slate, Citizens for Change.

Another coalition member is Jason Nunnermacker, an active Board of Education member whose council campaign would appear to violate the board's own regulations against political activity.

In its latest attack mailing, the coalition lied when it claimed Kathy Canestrino, a Citizens for Change candidate, was involved in a lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Sasson plans to file a complaint with the Hackensack superintendent of schools over a coalition mailing sent teachers and support staff on a "confidential" list, in violation of school policy.