Hysterical N.J. gas-tax opponents don't deserve equal time

In Hackensack, the exterior of the Bergen County Justice Center is nearing completion as work continues on the covered pedestrian bridge to the courthouse, below, near the medieval ramparts of the old county jail. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Koch brothers -- oil billionaires who back right-wing candidates in a war against the middle class -- are financing a campaign to stop a gas-tax increase in New Jersey.

The crackpot New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which is backed by the evil brothers, urges drivers to say "no to a crazy new gas tax," a Page 1 story in The Record reports.

Staff Writer Christopher Maag actually devotes his second paragraph to the group's ridiculous ad showing "a father stealing things from his kids, including the family dog Sparky to pay for a gas-tax increase" (A-1).

The story is the latest to reflect how The Record allows wealthy special-interest groups, polls and politics to shape its reporting on important public issues.

Maag gives undue weight to hysterical anti-tax opponents without ever citing the logic of drivers paying a higher gas tax to fix roads and bridges, and to improve mass transit.  

Solar farms

The first paragraph of today's solar farm story claims "the projects could depress the price of solar credits that some homeowners rely on to pay off their rooftop ... arrays" (A-1).

But nowhere does Staff Writer James M. O'Neill mention that PSE&G has placed a floor of $400 under each credit a homeowner uses to repay the utility under its solar-loan program.

That compares to the average of $220 the reporter cites in his story. In 2010 and 2011, a so-called SREC fetched as much as $650.

Ruben Enukashvili

There are few details in the story about driver Christine Ko, 20, and how she killed pedestrian Ruben Enukashvili on Sunday night, allegedly while drunk (A-1).

Was the 86-year-old Georgian native in a Fort Lee crosswalk when he was struck by Ko's car? Is she a liquor store clerk in Fort Lee or her hometown of Ewing? Was she working that night?

Ko, who is charged with vehicular homicide, a first-degree crime, also received motor vehicle summonses.

John Walton

A story on another fatality -- the death of a 101-year-old driver who grazed a firetruck and crashed into a Paterson firehouse -- doesn't say whether former firefighter and Pearl Harbor survivor John Walton suffered a medical emergency (L-1).

Walton, who crashed on Sunday, died in the hospital on Tuesday. 

A photo of the accident and a seven-paragraph story appeared on L-6 in Monday's paper.

But for some reason, the reporter didn't identify the driver or give his age, reporting only that he was "elderly."

The man was taken to a hospital after receiving "emergency medical treatment" from firefighters, according to the story.

Staff Writer Linda Moss even interviewed Deputy Fire Chief William Henderson, who witnessed the accident but apparently didn't know or didn't tell her who Walton was.

Today's obituary reports Walton was Paterson's oldest living war veteran.

Editors gaze into crystal balls, ignore our messy present

This morning, Euclid Avenue in Hackensack, between Main Street and the railroad tracks, remained a one-lane street -- just one of the many spots city plows missed after the snow stopped falling on Saturday night.

On Main Street in Hackensack, between Berry and Passaic streets, parking was banned this morning, above and below, until the city could clear all of the snow in front of parking meters.

Lavash City, an Armenian restaurant, and other businesses on this block of Main are lucky to have a rear parking lot for customers.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's editors are so bored with our dysfunctional state government and the blizzard of 2016 they are already looking into the future.

On Page 1 today, Washington Correspondent Herb Jackson and Staff Writer James O'Neill are gazing into crystal balls on November ballot questions and the weather for the rest of the winter.

On the Local front, the moronic Road Warrior, John Cichowski, continues to ignore blizzard dangers -- even as the death toll mounts -- and referees a pissing match over whether residents are obligated to clear fire hydrants of snow (L-1).

On the first Business page, Staff Writer Joan Verdon delivers a breathless report on a German discount supermarket chain that isn't expected to open stores in the U.S. before 2018 (L-8).

Snow clearing

The snow stopped falling Saturday night, but pedestrians continue to encounter third-world snow clearing in Hackensack and many other towns, where bus stops, corners, turn lanes, parking meters and crosswalks remain covered or barricaded today.

On the Local front, the editors published an image rarely seen in the Woodland Park daily -- a Hackensack bus stop blocked by a snowbank (L-1).

On Sunday and Monday, reporters visited a couple dozen towns, but pretty much ignored the amateurish job turned in by municipal crews -- as The Record has done for decades. 

Snow job

One example was reporting from the front lines in Teaneck by resident and Columnist Mike Kelly, the veteran reporter whose work appears regularly on the front page. 

Here is an excerpt from his hard-hitting report in Monday's Local section:

"By noon Sunday, Teaneck's main business district along Cedar Lane was buzzing with traffic and pedestrians."

Kelly probably could have described Cedar Lane the same way on any Sunday, given the large number of Orthodox Jews in town who are forbidden from shopping on Saturday.

He also noted "mounds of snow" were "left at the end of [residents'] driveways by snowplows that worked through the night to clear town streets."

Apparently, Kelly didn't venture very far, because he missed the poor job the snowplows did on Cedar Lane, where only one of two travel lanes was clear between the Hackensack line and River Road on Monday morning.

Wrong headline

Even though a number of people died from shoveling snow, carbon-monoxide poisoning and hypothermia over the weekend, Monday's local front carried an upbeat headline and sub-headline:

Postcards from a wintry land

North Jersey
worked hard
in storm, but 
played, too

This is what a block on Main Street in Hackensack looks like after the snow was cleared from in front of parking meters.

The bus stop at Euclid Avenue and Main Street, where you can board NJ Transit buses to the city, remained buried under snow this morning, including the city provided bench.

Ditto for the bus stop across the street from Sears on Main Street.

Governor Christie

Wow, would you look at all of the ink on Page 1 today criticizing Governor Christie for leaving New Jersey on Sunday and returning to New Hampshire in his futile campaign for the GOP presidential nomination (A-1).

I can't recall headlines this big or similar criticism when he did a number of things as governor -- from cancelling new Hudson River rail tunnels in 2010, waging war on teachers and other members of the middle class, and executing more than 500 vetoes so far to stop bills on gun control and a host of other issues.

Burger King

An editorial today on the response to the blizzard doesn't question why employees of Burger King in Hackensack didn't call police when an elderly New York woman told them she was afraid to drive home in the storm on Saturday afternoon, and planned to park in their Hackensack Avenue lot (A-8).

Police Director Mike Mordaga says in a news story on A-6 today the body of the unidentified woman, 78, was found in her gold Cadillac on Monday morning.

The Burger King had closed at 5 p.m. on Saturday, and didn't reopen until Monday morning.

On Spring Valley Avenue in Maywood, near the Hackensack border, a woman was forced to walk on the pavement this morning, only inches from passing cars on a street that is too narrow for all the traffic it carries in even the best of weather.

The corner of Main Street and Johnson Avenue in Hackensack.

Error-prone, police-loving local news section limps along

The City Council meeting scheduled for tonight was held on Monday night, according to the city's Web site. On Friday, an appeals court overturned former Police Chief Ken Zisa's 2012 official-misconduct conviction, and freed him from house arrest and a pending 5-year prison sentence.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Three more corrections appear on Page A-2 of The Record today, further evidence of the breakdown of editing and fact checking at the Woodland Park daily.

On Monday's Page 1, a local reporter assigned to cover the Haskell Invitational misstated the amount of money won by American Pharoah.

He was off by $600,000.

Another local reporter misstated how Oradell's Fire Department will spend a $160,000 federal grant.

And a sports reporter committed the biggest sin of all, misspelling the last name of Wallington-Carlstadt Little League softball pitcher Abigail Tabaka.

Local news?

Meanwhile, local assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza used seven Law & Order stories as filler in today's section (L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Sykes and Sforza endeavor to stay on good terms with all of the police departments in North Jersey to ensure the flow of the Law & Order copy they rely on every day.

On L-1, Road Warrior John Cichowski focuses on a single railroad crossing the vast majority of readers will never use -- rather than report on the overall health of mass transit or the condition of local roads.

Carbon emissions

Congratulations to environmental reporter James M. O'Neill for his front-page story on President Obama's proposal to dramatically cut carbon emissions, including a strong New Jersey focus (A-1).

The day before, Editor Martin Gottlieb ran an Associated Press story on Page 1 that politicized the issue by pitting Democrats against Republicans.

In his second paragraph, O'Neill reports:

"The plan is the first large-scale attempt by the United States to try and slow the release of greenhouse gases tied to climate change ...." (A-1).

Governor Christie's opposition to the plan appears on the continuation page, as well as quotes from New Jersey environmental official on how well the state is doing on cutting emissions from power plants.

And PSEG, whose subsidiary runs large power plants in New Jersey, backs the Obama administration's goals.

This is the kind of balance reporting that has been missing from The Record, especially when it comes to Christie and the terrible job he has done since he took office in early 2010.

Bear editor attacks readers

Image via Wikipedia

A black bear yearling in Alaska.

At times, The Record has covered bears, bear hunts and related stories better than it has covered Hackensack, Englewood, Teaneck and a lot of other towns.


So, Editor Francis Scandale, if you're going to lead the paper with a sensational bear story, as you do today, make it a good one.


The story by Staff Writer James M. O'Neill is OK, but not as good as the report I saw on the TV news last night (A-1).


The Record story is missing a crucial detail, which was contained in the TV report:  The bear tried to drag at least one of the boys out of his tent. 


And when will the editors stop running a photo of two officers who are standing around and bullshitting, and write a caption saying they are "patrolling"? Here, the officers are called "officials" (A-6).


The other stories on Page 1 today are only there because Scandale didn't have anything better from the crack assignment desk under Editor Deirdre Sykes.


Weighing in


Six days after suffering a Big Mac attack, Governor Christie made a delayed appearance in Somerset County to sign three bills funding open-space preservation (A-3).


Christie singled out U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., for criticizing the debt-ceiling compromise. "I don't know why he's so angry. He's in his 80s and in good health."


If Christie doesn't lose weight, he isn't going to make it to his 80s.


Instead of running story after story on the partisan gridlock in Washington (A-13), please tell readers whether President Obama has executive powers to end the FAA shutdown and if he does, why doesn't he use them?


Amid letters blasting the Repubicans on A-18 is a nonsensical one on budgeting from Mark Kalinowski of Clifton. He's "associated" with "The North New Jersey Tea Party Group."


Unstoppable


Sykes appears unable or unwilling to stop Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski (L-1) from writing about everything but commuting, his original mission.


Here's a question for Sykes' assignment minions:


Why doesn't the L-1 story on Cross River Bank donating $85,000 to restore private-school bus stops in Teaneck -- but nothing for reduced public-school busing -- tell readers whether bank officers live in town and send their kids to private schools?


And while you're at it, are there any ties between the bank and Councilmen Yitz Stern and Elie Katz, who sought its assistance, as reported on L-6?


Although the assignment desk appears to be generating more local news, much of it is inconsequential and reads like the weekly paper Sykes came from. She also continues to rely on photos of non-fatal accidents to fill the section (L-3).


Food snob


As the Second Helpings blog on northjersey.com reports, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill spends more time hobnobbing with celebrity chefs in Atlantic City than she does publishing healthy and nutritious recipes for readers.