Hackensack police director makes sweeping changes

Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga, who took over on Feb. 4, has launched initiatives to improve residents' quality of life.

Does anybody envy Hackensack Police Director Mike Mordaga, who is trying to resuscitate the reputation of a department that was virtually destroyed by Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa, the disgraced former police chief and state Assemblyman?

Since he took over on Feb. 4, Mordaga has moved to make big changes -- from requiring more formal police uniforms with hats to boosting crime patrols to coping with all of the homeless drawn by free meals at the Bergen County shelter on South River Street.

The highly decorated Mordaga rose from beat cop to detective, and ran the Hackensack Police Department's investigative division before leaving in 2002 to become chief of detectives at the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office.

In the 5 years he was there, seizures of money, cars and other ill-gotten gain from suspects totaled about $26 million, far above the level of previous foreitures, Mordaga said.

Fighting crime

In Hackensack, he is pairing a county sheriff's officer with a city policeman in a police cruiser, and sending them out on patrol to fight crime, including street robberies.

"Residents shoud be able to walk on the street without fear," Mordaga said.

Mordaga noted his officers are spending a lot of time driving homeless people to the emergency room at Hackensack University Medical Center, and he would like to see the hospital assign staff to a room at the homeless shelter.

He also needs more police cars, and wonders why the tax-exempt HUMC can't donate a couple of them to the department in lieu of property taxes. 

Welcome crackdown

Mordaga also is attacking numerous moving violations by drivers in Hackensack, noting the department issued a couple of hundred more summonses this March than it did in March 2012.  

Victor E. Sasson, editor of Eye on The Record, met with Mordaga late this morning at police headquarters on State Street.  

It's unclear why the changes he discussed haven't been reported in The Record.

Gottlieb bombs again

Editor Marty Gottlieb should have given the biggest play on Page 1 today to a move by Bergen County freeholders to water down the county's pay-to-play law, not the bombing in Boston (A-1).

The Mike Kelly column about the placing of "flowers and teddy bears" in memory of an 8-year-old boy killed by the terrorist bombing sounds exactly like the one he wrote after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Connecticut (A-1).


Dissing Hackensack 


Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes ordered follow-ups to Tuesday's school board elections in Englewood and Secaucus (L-1 and L-3), but nothing more about Hackensack's contest.

In Secaucus, two losing incumbents complained they were defeated by the Hudson County "political machine."

But no one asked the losing Hackensack incumbent and her two running mates, who also were defeated,  to characterize the victory of three puppets whose strings are pulled by Lynne Hurwitz, queen of the city's Democratic Party and mistress of machine politics in Hackensack.

However, Sykes made sure to find room for another filler photo of yet another tractor-trailer on its side (L-3).

More free advertising

In Better Living, a lavish cover story by Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill continues the paper's promotional coverage of chefs and restaurant owners, ignoring the dark side of dining out (BL-1).

Saru Jayaraman, author of "Appetite for Profit," has called the National Restaurant Association "the other NRA," referring to the millions of dollars spent to lobby Congress and keep the federal minimum wage for tipped workers at $2.13 an hour.

That has set up one of the biggest scams going: Putting the onus on customers to tip well and elevate servers to a living wage.
  
Related articles

• Editors cook up Hackensack crisis
• Hackensack is behind rank-and-file cops
• More patchy Hackensack reporting

Hackensack is behind rank-and-file cops

The Record's old building on River Street is a daily reminder of how Publisher Stephen A. Borg screwed Hackensack when he moved printing of two daily newspapers and then the entire staff to other communities in North Jersey.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's coverage of the rot at the top of the Hackensack Police Department doesn't stop.

Stories about former Police Chief Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa and his brother, former Deputy Police Chief Frank Zisa Jr., dominate Page 1 and the Local-news front today -- the third straight day of breathless legal reports from Zisaville.

But the Woodland Park daily has been presenting a warped view of a Police Department that gets high marks from the vast majority of city residents and businesses.

Not once since this coverage began in 2009 has head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes commissioned a story on morale in the department or how residents feel about rank-and-file officers.

In fact, the coverage coincides with The Record and North Jersey Media Group completely abandoning Hackensack, scattering their staffs to Passaic County and other Bergen towns.

Zisa brothers

Today's front page story is about a $2.48 million settlement of a suit by Alessandra Viola, Frank Zisa Jr.'s ex-girlfriend, who alleged Frank and Ken Zisa hit on her after she broke it off with Frank (A-1).

Sykes' Local front is dominated by yet another rehashing of Ken Zisa's defense during his trial, which ended in May with guilty verdicts on five of eight counts, including official misconduct and insurance fraud.

A large L-1 photo shows Ken Zisa and defense attorney Patricia Prezioso smiling, though in view of how she blew the case, it's unclear why she is so happy.

Maybe the defense attorney with the annoyingly high voice is just happy to get her name in the paper again.

Silencing Kelly

Also in the L-1 Zisa package is a Mike Kelly column on Prezioso's "last-ditch plea" to the judge to get the verdicts thrown out before the Aug. 30 sentencing.

Kelly rails against Ken Zisa's "world of silence," prompting readers to wonder when the columnist is finally going to shut his own mouth and retire.

Local yokels

Inside Local today, as in the past, readers find stories about a park cleanup, affordable housing, unified police dispatching, development -- all about towns other than Hackensack.

Gee, how is it that Hackensack, the county seat and most populous community in Bergen County, has so little news to report outside of the Zisa family and related issues? 

Akin and Akin

Does anybody besides me wonder whether that moron, Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri, is related to Staff Writer Stephanie Akin, the Hackensack reporter? Both of their names are on Page 1 today.

Another moron gets Page 1 play today, publicity monger Shmuley Boteach, the Republican rabbi who is challenging Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. in the heavily Democratic 9th District.

I'm still waiting for a story -- any story -- about the campaign of Teaneck Deputy Mayor Adam Gussen, a Democrat who is running against Rep. Scott Garrett, R-Wantage, in the 5th District. 

More bad writing

The caption under the train-wreck photo on A-1 gives the impression two teenagers died in cars crushed by rail cars that fell off an elevated bridge.

But the story on A-7 couldn't be more clear. The 19-year-old women were sitting on the bridge as the train passed a few feet behind them.

On A-8, an editorial concludes, "Hackensack cannot sweep its past under the rug, particularly when its lying at the top of the stairs."

Huh? Who is responsible for that tortured image?

Padilla 'expose' is 2 years in the making

The first editor of The Record, left, makes a deal to publish the paper in Hackensack.

Two years after the Bergen County prosecutor tapped Tomas Padilla to run the troubled Hackensack Police Department, The Record today finally "exposes" his strong ties to the convicted police chief.

The Page 1 story by Staff Writer Stephanie Akin reports the interim police chief "is a close friend and political protege of his disgraced predecessor."

Padilla also is a co-defendant in three of the lawsuits filed by subordinates against the suspended chief, Charles "Ken I Am The Law" Zisa, the Woodland Park  daily reports.

The suits allege Zisa and Padilla "tried to coerce officers to donate" to their political campaigns for the state Assembly and Freeholder Board, respectively, Akin says.

Contrast today's A-1 story with a report that ran in The Record in early May 2010, when head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Monsy Alvarado made Padilla sound like a reformer:

"Capt. Tomas Padilla, who was named the department’s acting officer in charge, signed the administrative charges against [Ken] Zisa, who earns $191,606 annually. The chief was placed on a paid leave of absence on Friday by the city manager, a day after he surrendered to authorities on an insurance-fraud charge.

 “'We did this under the authority and with the approval of the prosecutor and the advice of our labor counsel,' Padilla said Monday. '… We received copies of the criminal charges, and based on those criminal charges, under the Attorney General Guidelines, we have a duty to act, and I did.'”

"Last week, after Zisa’s arrest, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli announced that his office would begin to monitor the 107-member police department for at least six months. Under an agreement between the city and the prosecutor, Zisa was stripped of his chief’s duties, and Padilla was named the department’s acting leader.

"Residents are expected to attend Tuesday's council meeting — the first since Zisa’s arrest — to protest Padilla’s appointment, which some are saying is not the best choice because of his political background. Padilla, a Bergen County Democratic freeholder, said he plans to resign that post in June.

"Lt. Timothy Condon, of the prosecutor’s office’s special investigation section, will be in daily contact with Padilla.

"Padilla said Condon was at police headquarters on Monday morning, and issued directives. Among them is that each officer will get a copy of the agreement, and understand how the monitoring will work.

“'There are specific issues that were addressed by the prosecutor, no political contributions, disclosure of any business arrangements that officers may have with each other,' he said. 'We are in the process, through all my commanders, to make sure that each one of our officers is given a copy of the agreement, reads it, and if they have any questions they can be addressed, and fully understand it.'”

"Padilla said he expects officers to disclose by the end of next week if they have been hired to do outside work for any of their colleagues in the department."

Local news?

The entire front of the Local news section today is devoted to honoring North Jersey armed services members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That lets Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, off the hook of trying to inspire their reporters to produce any meaningful municipal news.