Mercedes-Benz follows Christie in leaving New Jersey

On Tuesday afternoon, residents of Prospect Avenue in Hackensack and elsewhere in North Jersey were relieved to see only a dusting of snow.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

At least New Jersey still has Ferrari.

Today's edition of The Record carries two front-page stories and a third inside on the decision by Mercedes-Benz, the U.S. arm of the luxury car maker, to leave Montvale for Atlanta (A-1, A-6 and L-7).

Given the South's history of anti-Semitism and slavery, the move might be a great fit for the German company.

Hitler rode in an open Mercedes-Benz built especially for him, and Diamler-Benz, BMW, Audi and other German companies enriched themselves during World War II by employing slaves who weren't killed in the concentration camps.

The great success of Toyota's luxury brand, Lexus, often is attributed to Jewish customers who, recalling the Holocaust, vowed never to buy a Mercedes or any other German car.

Jersey impact

Even if you're among the small minority of readers who own a Mercedes, the move will not affect you one bit, and these and a flurry of earlier stories completely avoid discussing whether the development is more fallout from Governor Christie's failed economic policies.

Who can say whether all the time Christie has spent out of state pursuing his White House dreams influenced Mercedes officials, who reasoned if the state's chief executive wants to leave, why shouldn't we?

And if The Record's executives rode their Mercedes-Benz delivery trucks when they abandoned Hackensack -- holding their middle fingers high in the air -- what's wrong with Mercedes heading to a warmer climate?

The Record cites high taxes as one reason Mercedes is relocating most of its 1,000 jobs, but doesn't remind readers how Christie broke his 2009 campaign promise to lower our ruinous property taxes.

Home-rule expenses

Nor is the home-rule system of government discussed, and the high cost to taxpayers living in Bergen County towns of paying for nearly 70 police chiefs, 70 school superintendents, 70 police departments, 70 fire departments and 70 of everything else.

Mercedes is the latest auto importer to leave North Jersey.

Englewood Cliffs was once home to the U.S. headquarters of Volkswagen-Porsche, Peugeot, Citroen and Alfa-Romeo.

Ferrari Maserati North America remains on Sylvan Avenue. Jaguar Cars moved its U.S. headquarters from Leonia to Mahwah. 

BMW, which outsells Mercedes in the U.S., hasn't said anything about moving its headquarters out of Woodcliff Lake.  

Other news

On Tuesday, the do-nothing Republicans took complete control of Congress for the first time in eight years, and did a lot of saber rattling, but nothing to pass any legislation (A-1 and A-4).

Fair Lawn's Coffee with a Cop event sounds like a great idea for other communities, including Paterson (L-1).

But the photo that runs with today's story could have been chosen more carefully.

It shows Patrolman Gerald Graziano with his arms crossed as resident Jeff Zammitti speaks to him.

Is the patrolman trying to keep warm, feel insecure or rejecting the resident's comments? 

A weather photo on L-3 today didn't even require the photographer to leave the Woodland Park building The Record now calls home.

Three Bimbos

You've heard of the Three Tenors?

Tuesday's front page of The Record carried the same Three Bimbos that appeared on Sunday's Page 1: Christie, Columnist Charles Stile and Teresa Giudice.

In Tuesday's long Stile column (A-1) and Melissa Hayes' news story (A-4) on Christie's relationship with Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, there is no mention of a Port Authority contract the governor steered to a company that is partly owned by the Cowboys.

For that, you'll have to read a report today on an ethics complaint filed by the American Democratic Legal Fund (A-3).

Teresa Giudice

The headline on Tuesday's Page 1 story about Giudice going to prison for mortgage and bankruptcy fraud is just awful:

"Next 'Housewifes' scene
starts away from spotlight"

"Giudice begins prison term in dead of night"

I don't see anything in Staff Writer Virginia Rohan's story on the possibility Giudice will likely become another inmate's "housewife" (A-1 and A-6).

Here's another snow job from the imperious editors

Courthouse Cafe & Diner opened recently near the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, but the owner set his closing time for 4 p.m., when the city's quiet Main Street goes into hibernation.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Year after year, property taxes rise and the quality of snowplowing drops as municipal crews in Hackensack and other towns seem unwilling or unable to properly clear streets, crosswalks and bus stops.

In decades of covering winter storms, The Record has never sent out reporters to review how well or how poorly towns do on providing safe streets after a storm.

But today, a huge patch of the front page is devoted to a monster snow-melting machine and other measures in anticipation of bad weather for the Super Bowl in February.

That's next year -- in case you missed the whopper of an error in the first paragraph of today's story, which calls it "this year's Super Bowl."

The clueless John Brennan, a reporter who once covered sports, or one of his editors created the error, and six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton missed it.

As always, the joke is on the reader for thinking The Record is a serious local newspaper.

Christie follies 

Governor Christie's fiscal mismanagement and impractically strict no-tax policy on millionaires becomes clearer every day, as readers can see from today's A-1 story on Moody's Investors Services downgrading the state's $32 billion debt.

But the GOP bully, who is superb at managing the news, told reporters he had no comment and to get lost.

Native American news

The Local front carries a follow-up to Wednesday's Page 1 story on a new Hollywood film that smears the reputation of the Ramapough Mountain Indians  (L-1).

I cringed at Wednesday's story, which seemed to delight in repeating all of the racial slurs and insults hurled at the Ramapoughs in the past 200 years.

Given all the crap churned out by Hollywood, readers have to question why The Record and other newspapers devote so much space to movies and pretend to look at them critically.

The Record's Better Living entertainment tabloid on Fridays is top heavy with news of the movies, always devoting the cover to the latest trash from a director whose only goal appears to be outdoing other directors.

And what's with this kick for recreating and distorting the past, such as the Quentin Tarantino bloodbath called "Django Unchained"?

Hackensack news

Kathleen Gehm, 63, of River Vale has been cleared of a driving while intoxicated charge in the death of prominent Hackensack businessman Jerome S. Some, 87 (L-1).

As with so many pedestrian deaths, Gehm is apparently saying she didn't see Some before she ran him down on Prospect Avenue as he crossed the street to attend a meeting  at Bel Posto, a restaurant opposite his high-rise.

Building renovations forced relocation of the meeting to the restaurant.

Jerome Some's family members quoted in today's story weren't asked if they are going to file a negligence and wrongful death suit against Gehm. 

In a second Hackensack story today, officials say they are shutting down the city's Human Services Department for an anticipated annual savings of $400,000 a year (L-1).

Don't hold your breath, if you live in Hackensack and expect a property tax cut as a result.

Mentally defective

You have to wonder about the intelligence of some gun-rights advocates, such as Scott Bach of Newfoundland, a member of the National Rifle Association and head of a group of New Jersey rifle and pistol clubs (L-3).

Bach is criticizing Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop for suggesting gun manufacturers who want to do business with the city's Police Department commit themselves to gun-safety measures.

Bach -- who I doubt is related to the classical composer -- said the mayor joined the Marines after 9/11 and is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, then added this total non-sequitur:

"So you've got to wonder why he is not getting it."

Getting what? 

That we should all buy guns because another Hitler is set on exterminating 12 million more people or Muslim terrorists are going to fly planes into The Modern, the 47-story residential tower going up in Fort Lee?

Maybe Bach just doesn't have any confidence in the police to protect him from criminals and other trigger-happy elements in society.

Racists and rednecks ruin Page 1

The Record today reports the homeless are "invisible" in Bergen County.

Editor Marty Gottlieb blew a decent front page today by wasting space on who won the redneck-and-racist vote in the GOP presidential primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.

The three North Jersey stories on Page 1 of The Record are compelling reading, but forgive me if I don't have the patience or compassion to slog through 30 inches of text on an 82-year-old homeless man with emphysema who continues to smoke and almost blew himself to smithereens.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes apparently ordered Staff Writer Stephanie Akin to neglect her reporting on Hackensack and pull the story together, but who is the editor kidding by calling Bergen County's homeless problem "invisible"?

It's "invisible" from the Garret Mountain newsroom where Sykes and her lazy, incompetent minions spend all their time with their heads up their well-padded posteriors. 

Homeless beat

But for many years before Publisher Stephen A. Borg abandoned Hackensack, the large number of homeless who walked that city's streets almost amounted to a beat, and the problem merited the building of a large shelter between Costco Wholesale and the county jail.

Why insult Bergen County readers by pretending The Record's editors exposed homelessness?

Two local obits

Below the patch story, there is a terrific piece by Jay Levin, the local obituary writer, on a party former Rutherford Councilman and Ramsey teacher Alan "Big Al" Note threw himself before he died.

Levin has another good local obituary on the front of Local -- Helga Newmark of Hackensack, the first female Holocaust survivor ordained a rabbi (L-1).

Readers of Road Warrior John Cichowski's column today may be surprised to learn he has a 95-year-old father, who isn't named for some strange reason (L-6).

Cichowski has only shown contempt for older drivers -- who cause numerous accidents, killing and injuring others -- refusing to compile a list of classes and other programs to help them improve their driving skills.