Hey, Charlie, that's your job

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The state might save millions by privatizing toll collections, but tolls won't be cut.

Columnist Charles Stile is becoming increasingly strident in his assessment of Governor Christie -- a welcome antidote to Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin and others at the paper who have served as the governor's chief apologists in the past year.

On Page 1 today, Stile slams Christie's "hypocrisy" for being linked to the Republican-inspired Reform Jersey Now, which offered politically connected law firms and businesses a way to sidestep the state's landmark "pay-to-play" restrictions. In the next paragraph, Stile says:

"Reform Jersey Now had the reek of an old-fashioned slush fund oozing from Jersey's political sewer. It raised nearly $642,000 to do campaign hit jobs on Democratic legislators."

Stile's Political Stile column begins with his call for a new group to issue daily alerts on how "lawmakers and their naked hypocrisy have paralyzed campaign finance and ethics reform."

Hey, Charlie, that group already exists and you're in it. So are Editor Francis Scandale, The Record and the rest of the media, which have dropped the ball so irresponsibly on alerting readers to what you call "below-the-radar lobbying schemes" to defeat such reforms. 

Stile is not the only one reassessing Christie. On Sunday's L-1, Staff Writer John Reitmeyer actually juxtaposed the governor's loyalty to his wealthy supporters with his disdain for the middle and working classes, the first time I've ever seen that in The Record:

"Governor Christie ... cut education aid, picked a fight with teachers and other public workers, shelved property tax rebates, raised NJ Transit fares and came to the aid of millionaires while also taking away money from the state's working poor."

Toll lovers

Would you look at that huge front-page story on possible savings from privatizing toll collections in New Jersey. What a joke. Look at that banger head:

Road to savings? 

Oh, I hope that didn't hook you into thinking you'd get lower tolls. There's nothing in Staff Writer Karen Rouse's story about such savings for drivers. She reports that Florida -- in the fourth year after privatization -- saved $2 million and "put it back into the system." The system? 

She never explains why such savings aren't passed onto consumers.

Disorder in the court

The third A-1 story today is from The Star-Ledger, which reports Associate Supreme Court Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto has told Christie he won't seek renomination. 

Unlike recent stories by The Record, The Star-Ledger notes that John Wallace Jr., who was denied renomination last year, is black, and the departure of Soto, who is Hispanic, could make the high court a lot less diverse.

Of course, an editorial on A-8 today ignores the diversity issue completely, and doesn't even identify Wallace as black. Here's a brilliant line from it: "Although we believe Christie should have appointed Wallace to the court, he didn't." 

Huh? When and where did Doblin, the Editorial Page editor, lose his balls?

 

On A-2 today, a "Clarification" notes a Saturday article on prominent New Jerseyans who died in 2010 should have included Harold Dow, 62, of Upper Saddle River -- a five-time Emmy-winning CBS News correspondent.

That oversight is in keeping with the newspaper's report of his Aug. 21 death. The story failed to say he died of an asthma attack while driving in his native Hackensack and that his condition may have been linked to his coverage of the 9/11 attacks in Manhattan. 

Also on A-2 today, the former Hackensack daily finally corrects Friday's errors in an editorial on the size of the state budget and cuts in education aid, acknowledging they are in the billions, not millions.

Local yokels

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her clueless minions turn out a Local section with hardly any municipal news from Bergen County. Is the section still her pride and joy or is it a burden she has tired of bearing?

Besides police and fire reports, there hasn't been a Hackensack story by Monsy Alvarado in the section since Dec. 22, an Englewood story by Giovanna Fabiano since Dec. 21 and a Teaneck story by Joseph Ax since Dec. 16.

Eight days after the blizzard ended, The Record reports that angry Clifton residents are calling the cleanup effort "deplorable, pathetic" (L-2). 

Food for thought

Thirty years after the founding of Whole Food Market, The Record's North Jersey Market Basket Survey still does not track the prices of any organic or naturally raised food (L-7). Where has Staff Writer Kevin DeMarrais been?

Desperate Christie lashes out at New York

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New York is looking for help from the Port Authority to overhaul the Tappan Zee Bridge.

If you need a break from all the Law & Order news in The Record of Woodland Park today, just turn to Page A-3 for a cornered Governor Christie laying down the law to New York Gov. David Patterson. 

Patterson, facing a $16 billion bill to overhaul the Tappan Zee Bridge, wants to put it under the control of the Port Authority and get New Jersey to help pay for the work.

Don't mess with Chris

"I can't make this any clearer to New York: Stop screwing with us," the governor told a State House news conference on Friday.


Why didn't Editor Francis Scandale put this story on Page 1? 

New Jersey has long been in the shadow of New York, especially when it comes to the bi-state agency, which runs ports, airports, bridges, tunnels and the PATH lines. When a New Jersey chief executive stands up for the state in no uncertain terms, that's front page news. 

Christie knows the state doesn't have a penny to spare now that he's ruled out a millionaire's tax and raising the low gasoline tax to finance road repairs and mass-transit improvements. 

By refusing "to raise taxes," he's boxed himself in and has to fight off everyone with their hands out -- except for the wealthy, who financed his election campaign.

$485-an-hour law firm

At the same news conference, Christie defended his choice of a Washington, D.C., law firm at $485 an hour to fight the federal government's demand for return of the $271 million spent on the Hudson River rail tunnel project the governor killed.


The controversy over his choice of Patton Boggs recalls how Christie was criticized in 2008, when he was U.S. attorney,  for awarding millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to his friends and political allies.

One such contract paid $28 million to John Ashcroft, who had been U.S. attorney general and Christie's boss. In 2005, Christie gave Herbert Stern, a former federal judge and prosecutor in Newark, and his law firm, Stern & Kilcullen, a $3 million, no-bid contract to monitor the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.

I haven't seen anything in The Record this week about those no-bid contracts.

Dissing the Dows

In Local, Hackensack reporter Monsy Alvarado could come up only with police news today. 

She somehow missed an endowment from the family of CBS newsman Harold Dow  of Hackenack to to pay for improvements to the television studio at the high school, where he played football and wrestled.  

The family also announced two annual scholarships in the name of Dow, who died after an asthma attack Aug. 21 while he was driving in Hackensack, The County Seat reports in its Dec. 1 edition.
 

Looking foolish again

Last Sunday, The Record of Woodland Park reported the death of CBS newsman Harold Dow the day before, but didn't have the cause of death. The obituary was based on information provided by the wire services.

But the lazy assignment editors working under the insufferable Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes never followed up, as is usually the case. 

This week, other media reported that Dow, who was African-American, died of an asthma attack behind the wheel of his car in Hackensack, where he grew up, and that an inhaler was found in the vehicle. Here is a link to one of the accounts: Why Harold Dow died
 

See commentary on today's newspaper in the post below

Sit down and read awhile

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There is a lot to digest in The Record of Woodland Park today, starting on Page 1, with more than you'd ever want to know about changing the system for getting rid of poorly performing teachers, a story that takes up a good part of two more inside pages. 

Also on A-1, the litany of bad financial deals made by Governor Christie's Democratic and Republican predecessors stops short of reminding readers how Republican Tom Kean Sr. (photo) deliberately hid a huge deficit from then-incoming Gov. Jim Florio. Kean must be one of The Record's sacred cows.

Check out Page A-8, the continuation of the teacher tenure opus by Staff Writer Leslie Brody. A photo of Michael Drewniak, the far-from-brainiac spokesman for Christie, will remind newsroom staffers of their fearful leader, Editor Francis "Castrato" Scandale. A frightening resemblance.


No matter how screwed up everything is, there is always room for sports on a front page inspired by Scandale. First, the Jets lost and now the Giants lost a preseason game in the new Meadowlands stadium. The end of the world must be next. 

Page 1 today also refers readers to the obituary on A-11 for Harold Dow of CBS News, an African-American journalist who grew up in Hackensack and lived in Upper Saddle River. His photo on A-1 reminds me of what a poor job Scandale has done attracting and retaining minority journalists, including three he got rid of. 


The discriminating editors devote a big part of the Local front today to scams against the elderly -- one of the few times seniors have gotten any real editorial attention in recent years (except for the older workers shown the newsroom door during the downsizing of The Record and Herald News).

An L-1 story on a "coupon queen" doesn't discuss why supermarket shoppers rarely see such discounts on healthy food.


Despite all the micromanaging of head Assignment Editor Deirdre "Mother Hen" Sykes, there is no Hackensack, Englewood or Teaneck news of any kind today, but there is a five-paragraph, L-3 story on Fort Lee preschool accepting 3-year-olds, as if every parent there hasn't already received a letter from the school board on this subject.

The Opinion front has a meaty piece on how the governor is changing the home-rule system of government, and a forceful column from Mike Kelly on priests who sexually abuse boys, but the latter is padded with too much background information.



Let's hope the new food editor improves coverage that often amounts to inane wire-service stories, such as the one about frozen food on the front of Better Living today.


The selection of Susan Leigh Sherrill, an editor at (201) magazine, is a sure sign that Publisher Stephen A. Borg continues to be involved in major editorial decisions long after he moved his office out of the newsroom. That's a slap in the face to Scandale and Features Director Barbara Jaeger, who chose her predecessor.


I don't know whether Sherrill is a full-time employee at the North Jersey Media Group magazine or a free-lancer, or whether she will be paid the same $71,000-plus a year that Bill Pitcher received for far less experience. 


Unfortunately, the word on the street is that readers may not be well-served. A foodie I met at the Tenafly farmers' market this morning said Sherrill knows nothing about food.