Christie's big mass-transit screw-up is back in the news

Crowding in the NJ Transit waiting room at Penn Station in New York, above; delays and the stampede to get a seat on the train, below, are likely to get worse now that Amtrak will be closing two tunnels longer than before to repair damage from Superstorm Sandy nearly two years after corrosive saltwater flooded them.

Even if rail commuters could take an NJ Transit bus back to North Jersey, the antiquated Port Authority Bus Terminal in midtown Manhattan couldn't accommodate them. That terminal is hopelessly gridlocked weekday afternoons, when home-bound commuters face huge delays, with little relief in sight.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

In the four years since Governor Christie scrapped two new Hudson River rail tunnels, crowding on trains and buses, and traffic congestion have only gotten worse.

But until recently, The Record has largely ignored problems with the region's mass-transit system, following an agenda set by Christie himself.

Now, The Record reports, Amtrak says it will have to close two existing tunnels longer than before to repair damage from Superstorm Sandy, aggravating delays faced by thousands of NJ Transit riders at Penn Station in Manhattan (A-1).

Today's story reviews the October 2010 decision, noting the GOP bully exaggerated the potential cost overruns he cited when he killed the tunnel project, according to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (A-6).

The new tunnels would have accommodated more trains, and provided more seats for commuters.

The story by transportation reporter Christopher Maag doesn't explain why it took Amtrak nearly two years to determine Sandy damage is far worse than initially thought.

Maag reports closing the tunnels for "additional hours every week ... will mean fewer trains and longer waits for [rail] commuters," but he doesn't mention existing delays or standing room only on rush-hour trains.

Tunnel vision

Even though Christie diverted hundreds of millions from the cancelled tunnels to road projects, Democrats are still having trouble getting behind a hike in the gasoline tax to revitalize the state's Transportation Trust Fund (A-3).

In an interview with The Record, Senate President Stephen Sweeney wouldn't commit himself to a method for raising the $2 billion he wants to spend on transportation annually, including extending light rail service to Englewood.

And it doesn't sound like Staff Writer John Reitmeyer asked Sweeney point blank whether he supported a gas-tax hike, which, basically, means drivers would pay to repair the roads and bridges they use every day.

The Record's editorial writers also haven't backed an increase in what is the nation's second-lowest levy, one that hasn't been raised "in more than two decades" (A-3).

News judgment?

When irate customers complained Ramsey luxury car dealer Afzal "Bobby" Kahn sold their cars on consignment and didn't pay them or that they didn't get title to the cars they bought from him, the story was buried inside Local.

Now that the son of Pakistani immigrants has hired a lawyer to "help sort through the complaints and make things right," the story is played on Page 1 today.

Shouldn't the front page be reserved for successful resolution of Kahn's alleged cons? 

Other car dealers

Don't hold your breath for The Record to expose unscrupulous practices at the full-line car dealers in North Jersey, a major source of North Jersey Media Group's ad revenue.

The Woodland Park daily apparently has no plans to replace long-time consumer columnist Kevin DeMarrais, who retired in March.

Hackensack news

A story on the Local front today reports the Upper Main Alliance is "a group of 153 property owners representing 375 businesses along Main Street" (L-1).

But Staff Reporter Todd South doesn't point out the property owners hope to profit tremendously from the downtown Hackensack redevelopment they have been pushing for a decade.

Now, the group says it is ready to spend $20,000 or more for a consultant "to kick start the creation of a local arts team."

That contrasts with the group's recent refusal to contribute to the creation of open space on Atlantic Street, replacing city owned parking lots with a park and amphitheater.

The Borgs' hand-picked editor fiddles while N.J. burns

The Panera Bread Bakery-Cafe in Queensbury, N.Y., on July Fourth.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The front page of The Record today carries another so-called ANALYSIS, reporting the sad state of the New Jersey economy:

Governor Christie's "latest state budget," Staff Writer John Reitmeyer reports, contains more borrowing and more business tax breaks; higher property tax bills and no money for "transportation upgrades and open-space preservation" (A-1).

Why didn't this frank discussion of the mess Christie has made of the Garden State -- while catering to the rich -- appear before he vetoed the Democrats' budget proposal on June 30?

In a familiar story, Christie cut funding for women's health care, a tax-credit for low-wage workers and legal services for the poor, and delayed property tax relief to next year, according to a front-page story on July 1.

Silent endorsement

Yet the editorials that ran July 2 and 3 make no mention of the GOP bully's mean-spirited balancing of the state budget for the fifth year in a row.

Similarly, today's lead story on the woes of North Jerseyans struggling to rebuild their shore homes doesn't even attempt to assess whether Christie bungled federal Sandy aid, just as he tried to sabotage the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act in New Jersey (A-1).

Editor on vacation?

I've been on vacation out of state, but what is Editor Martin Gottlieb's excuse?

The onetime cub reporter for The Record went on to a stellar career at The New York Times, including a Paris posting, before he was hand-picked by the Borg publishing family to run their flagship daily paper in early 2012.

Not much has changed

The Brooklyn-born Gottlieb, 66, has been running the Woodland Park newsroom for nearly three years, but readers could be forgiven if the only changes they notice are longer stories, a relentless focus on politics and an even greater emphasis on front-page sports than his incompetent predecessor.

Readers are still ill-informed by a local-assignment desk filled with the same old, lazy sub-editors and stale, burned-out columnists that have been around for decades.

More lazy reporting

One of those lazy columnists appears on Page 1 today, trying to peddle a commuting story that affects only a few hundred people, if that (The Road Warrior, A-1).

Road Warrior John Cichowski and the paper's other transportation reporter, Karen Rouse, have labored in recent years to ignore growing mass-transit congestion, including a lack of rush-hour seats on trains and buses, and the delays faced by commuters trying to return to their North Jersey homes from the antiquated midtown-Manhattan bus terminal.

How does today's column on "a cheaper commute" over the George Washington Bridge benefit the vast majority of commuters, who are victims of Port Authority toll increases that amount to highway robbery?

Out of whole cloth

Cichowski is so lazy he will grasp at any straw as an excuse to write a column, such as his lame Page 1 effort on June 27 to tie the deaths of three men trying to fix a disabled truck on Route 287 to the average motorist whose car breaks down on a busy highway.

I pity the driver and passengers who follow his advice to stay inside a car with their seat belts on as trucks and other traffic flies by -- instead of getting the hell out of there.

The Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers notes that advice is definitely not posted on the AAA web site, aaa.com, as Cichowski claimed. 

Bankrupt section

Today's Business front story on mergers and acquisitions among community banks (B-1) makes no mention of Spencer Savings Bank assuming NJM Bank's deposits and loans, according to a letter sent to customers in late June.

The Business editors presumably are waiting for a press release.

The SMALL BUSINESS story today focuses on a restaurant in Conshohoken, Pa., not one in North Jersey (B-7).

Bring lots of dough

In Better Living today, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz and Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung continue their breathless promotion of expensive restaurants -- in a form of payback to those big advertisers (BL-2).

Food coverage has gone decidedly upscale in recent years, with no attempt to report on casual restaurants where four can eat for $50.

Lame local reporting

Today's Local front carries a story on Fort Lee trying to prepare for a steep rise in school enrollment (L-1), but no one has reported that Hackensack faces the same problem.

With hundreds of new apartments already built, under construction or proposed, the Hackensack City Council and Board of Education have yet to address the issue.

Dissing Hackensack 

Looking through the papers I missed since I left Hackensack on June 26 is a chore I'm trying to avoid, but the lead front-page element on June 29 caught my eye:

"Change isn't easy for Hackensack"

Is Columnist Mike Kelly responsible for this trite sentiment or does he tell readers where reform has come easily?

One look at his dated column photo -- with the same unflattering, shit-eating grin -- shows change doesn't come easy at The Record.

Negative spin

I saw Kelly at a Hackensack City Council meeting last month, and he has a nice head of gray hair. 

Isn't it time for The Record's editors to update his column photo, just as they did for TV critic Ginnie Rohan (BL-1)?

Kelly's column criticizing Hackensack's "unseasoned newcomers" is inaccurate and inflammatory, but it is typical of The Record's overwhelmingly negative coverage of the city it once called home.

Hackensack budget plan tries to fix past sloppiness

The Record again today incorrectly reports Hackensack attorney Richard E. Salkin, speaking at Thursday night's City Council meeting, above, was fired as city attorney in 2013 after a reform slate was swept into office in the municipal election. Salkin was fired as municipal prosecutor, but held onto a second job as Board of Education attorney. He was city attorney from 1989 to 2005. Jim Mangin, the city's chief financial officer, is at right.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

As a property tax payer in Hackensack, I was impressed by Chief Financial Officer Jim Mangin's budget presentation at the City Council meeting Thursday night.

Mangin is trying to repair all the damage to city finances during an eight-year reign by officials loyal to the discredited Zisa family.

Sloppy work

Still, Staff Writer Christopher Maag of The Record puts a negative spin on the budget plan, and commits at least two errors in the process (L-2).

In his first paragraph, the reporter says Mangin "introduced" the "latest version" of the city budget, but the agenda listed the CFO as giving a "budget amendment presentation."

The council has already introduced the budget, and on Thursday night, members voted to approve the budget amendment.

The $94.4 million proposal -- about $2 million higher than the previous budget -- calls for a tax levy of $3.3 million and a tax increase of 4.37% or $161.79 more on a home assessed at the $240,000 average.

Maag's second error, which he has committed before, is reporting that Zisa ally Richard E. Salkin was fired in 2013 as city attorney,  a job he held until 2005. 

Salkin was fired as municipal prosecutor.

Staff Writer Christopher Maag of The Record at Thursday night's City Council meeting in Hackensack.

Say what?

On Page 1 today, try to ignore the idiotic headline that leads the paper:

Obama opens door to Iraq

The big element on the front page is an entertaining feature on Jersey, the English Channel island for which New Jersey was named (A-1).

But Staff Writer Jay Levin missed a couple of opportunities in reporting on the state's 350th anniversary:

He doesn't compare the accents here ("Joisey")  and there.

Nor do we learn whether the island offers any fast food to compete with New Jersey's Texas weiners and rippers. 

Or, on the other end of the culinary scale, Levin doesn't tell us whether the island can match New Jersey's sea scallops, fluke, monkfish and lobsters.

More Christie B.S.

Also on Page 1 today, Staff Writer John Reitmeyer reports Governor Christie will say and do anything to ram through his drastic $1.6 billion cut in the state contribution to the public employees pension fund (A-1).

Pollster Patrick Murray, who was incredibly high on Christie before last November's election, is quoted as saying:

"We've kind of reached the Wild West of the Christie administration, where almost anything goes" (A-6).

As usual, foul-mouthed Press Secretary Michael Drewniak declined to comment on the pension issue, saving all of us from a string of obscenities.

Where are the jobs?

As if to punctuate what a mess Christie has made, the first Business page reports "New Jersey's job market continued to flat-line in May" (L-7).

Yet, The Record continues to support the GOP bully's adamant stand against higher taxes on the wealthy, preferring to see the latest budget balanced on the backs of the middle and working classes, as Christie has done since 2010 (A-18).

Fat lover

In Better Living, Restaurant Reviewer Elisa Ung continues to misrepresent "quality ingredients," including beef and lamb (BL-16).

In her appraisal of Novu Restaurant in Wayne, she praises a pricey filet mignon ($39) and rack of lamb (also $39), even though both apparently were raised on harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones.

Ung sounds like an ignoramus when she describes the filet mignon as "prime -- the highest quality grade," and claims the Colorado lamb "is regarded as "richer and more tender than the same meat from New Zealand or Australia."

The vast majority of prime beef in the United States is raised as quickly as possible on grain, antibiotics and growth hormones. 

Lamb from New Zealand and Australia is often grass fed and raised naturally without harmful additives.

Second look

In his Tuesday column, Road Warrior John Cichowski tried to scare readers by reporting drowsy truck driving is a growing trend when only five days earlier, he said exactly the opposite, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers.

"At the beginning of his column, the Road Warrior tried to scare the hell out of readers by making it seem that the truck crash due to a sleepless driver, which killed comedian Tracy Morgan’s friend and injured Tracy, is a frequent, imminent, and growing trend.

"What makes his false assessment even scarier and more confusing is that the Road Warrior reported later in this very same column, as well as in his June 12 column, that related fatalities are rare and crashes are a declining occurrence.

"Road Warrior indicated that Sens. Menendez and Booker held a press conference to talk about reinstating truck-safety reforms that would have helped prevent the crash of the sleep-deprived truck driver that involved Tracy Morgan's limo.

"They actually only addressed revising proposed legislation based on safety reform changes that would have had absolutely no impact on preventing that accident."

See:

Drowsy Road Warrior goes off road again

Christie will be gone when pension fund goes broke

The air is fragrant in Hackensack, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Today's front page "ANALYSIS" of the deepening state pension system crisis is good, but Staff Writer John Reitmeyer of The Record could be accused of burying the lead.

Readers who stick with his account -- which begins by saying "Governor Christie is following the well-worn path" of his predecessors by skipping payments -- might be shocked to see what awaits them on the continuation page:

"What all this means is that at some point in the future, according to experts, New Jersey's pension system, currently underfunded by an estimated $52 billion, could become simply too costly to keep afloat" (A-6).

That should have been the first paragraph on A-1 for crying out loud.

Derelict editors

Who was Editor Marty Gottlieb or one of his minions thinking of when they worked on this Page 1 story?

Certainly not public employees or even readers of the Woodland Park daily.

Readers also find out on A-6 the GOP bully basically told another lie: 

"Christie ... recently erroneously lumped [former Governor Jon] Corzine among the list of New Jersey governors who made no pension payments during their tenure."

Taxing readers

Now, Christie is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall, because he has refused, among other things, to impose a tax surcharge on millionaires or raise the low gasoline tax to fund road and mass-transit improvements.

Reitmeyer doesn't cite the conservative's inflexible no-tax policies or his past practice of balancing the budget on the backs of the middle and working classes.

In fact, the reporter doesn't even bother telling readers how many public employees are covered by the state's pension system or who they are.

Are they just bureaucrats in Trenton or are they teachers, police officers and firefighters -- in other words our neighbors?

The story says Christie is cutting his planned $1.58 billion pension contribution back to $696 million and, in the fiscal year that begins July 1, a $2.25 billion pension payment would now be just $681 million.

Christie also says he will "put forward new public worker benefit changes in the next few weeks" (A-6).

If I was a public worker who is already contributing more to my pension thanks to Christie, I'd really be worried.

Breathe deep.

Crash landing

Why was a pea-brained former sports reporter assigned to the story on the untimely demise of New Jersey multimillionaire Lewis Katz, killed in the "fiery crash" of a Gulfstream private jet on Saturday night (A-3)?

Staff Writer John Brennan reports "National Transportation Safety Board officials said it was too soon to discuss the cause of the crash."

They always say that less than two days after a crash, but there are usually only two possible causes: Pilot error or a mechanical problem.

Private-jet travel is one of the privileges of wealth, but Brennan doesn't even say whether it is safer to fly commercial.


The Borgs and Main Street

The Borgs' North Jersey Media Group has never had much affection for Main Street, judging by the abysmal lack of coverage of struggling downtowns in Englewood, Teaneck and other communities.

And Hackensack -- where The Record prospered for more than 110 years -- and its Main Street are still trying to recover from Publisher Stephen A. Borg's decision in 2009 to close the paper's headquarters on River Street, and move to the sticks.

Where money talks

Joan Verdon, the paper's retail reporter, writes almost exclusively about North Jersey's malls and highway retailers -- where the Borgs reap millions of dollars in advertising revenue.

You could think of this as journalism pay to play. Do merchants have to advertise in The Record to get coverage?

But the Business page on Monday carries a feature called "Main Street" that appears to be the editors' attempt to fool readers into thinking otherwise.

Today's piece is about North Jersey's pet-walking and pet-sitting businesses. Another recent "Main Street" feature reported on the maker of custom golf pants.

What a farce.

Teaneck police

The lead story in Local today is an upbeat report on the 100th anniversary of the Teaneck Police Department (L-1).

Staff Writer Jim Norman notes the onetime all-male force "now includes seven women, two of whom are lieutenants and two detectives."

But Norman fails to tell readers about the sordid period when women in the Teaneck department filed sexual-harassment lawsuits against their male superiors, resulting in legal fees and settlements that cost taxpayers many hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Are local assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza -- veterans who should be familiar with those suits -- deliberately slanting stories so as not to offend the Teaneck police?

Page 1 continues to burnish Christie's image

The construction site of a 222-unit luxury apartment building on State Street in Hackensack. It is the first project to break ground since the city adopted its Downtown Rehabilitation Plan in June 2012. What remains to be seen is whether tenants will patronize restaurants and shops on Main Street, which is pockmarked with vacant and shabby storefronts.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

If I didn't know better, I'd think Governor Christie has recruited Editor Marty Gottlieb and his Trenton reporters as spin doctors in his bid for a second term and eventually the White House.

For the second day in a row, a Page 1 story in The Record explores the GOP bully's politics -- this time during the government shutdown sparked by Tea Party crackpots opposed to federal health-care reform.

By slapping "ANALYSIS" on the piece, Staff Writer John Reitmeyer basically can regurgitate the Christie line while abandoning every journalist's natural skepticism or what is known colloquially as the bullshit filter.

Selling out

Reitmeyer keeps a straight face and ignores Christie's veto-filled first term when he describes the mean-spirited governor as "the bipartisan outsider tough enough to knock some sense into a similarly dysfunctional Trenton and ... into national politics as well."

Reitmeyer and fellow staffers Charles Stile and Melissa Hayes should cringe every time they write another fiction-filled piece about the worst New Jersey governor ever, a politician who has declared war on the middle class.

But I guess these three sell-outs want to be on Gottlieb's front page as  much as possible, with one eye on a job in Christie's next administration.

Has anyone figured out how much the wealthy Borg family and other members of the moneyed elite are saving on income taxes thanks to Christie's repeated veto of a surcharge on millionaires?

Wasted space

What's the point of the front-page Mike Kelly column on the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983? 

Bill Harrison, the 20-year-old lance corporal from Dumont shown in then-and-now photos on the front page today, wasn't even in the barracks, and his only injury was a sore ass (A-1).

The sheepish, shit-eating grin in Kelly's photo is his way of saying he again got away with pushing around a couple of thousand words, and passing it off as a column.

Shore thing

A day after shore residents bitched and moaned that Christie is allowing their Sandy-ravaged homes to rot, the governor shows up with $57 million in federal funds to help storm victims in Little Ferry and other towns with household expenses (L-1).

Staff Writer Hannan Adely covered the Hackensack City Council meeting on Tuesday night, reporting that a formerly homeless man who returned $850 he found on Main Street was honored by that august body (L-1).

Never mind that James Brady's honest act was reported in great detail on Saturday's front page.

Back to school?

Deputy Assignment Flunky Dan Sforza thought the City Council ceremony was more important than a money feud between city and Hackensack school district officials over a school resource officer (L-2).

For a full report on that controversy, click on the following link to a blog called Hackensack Scoop:

Misguided residents fire at City Council

Breaking news

Sforza also caught up to last week's closing of the Midtown Bridge between Hackensack and Bogota (L-1).

Much of the rest of Local is filled with police and court news, and news about the police (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

The expanded local obit is about Lawrence Stone, a former Fort Lee resident who led the Stern's department store chain (L-6).

What about an obit on a saleswoman or salesman who toiled for decades in obscurity to provide the service department stores once were known for?

Thai news

In Better Living, the first COFFEE WITH THE CHEF feature is on Kevin Portscher of Village Green Restaurant, a Ridgewood business once co-owned by former Record Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill (BL-2).

Asked t0 name the best local restaurant after his, Portscher picked Wondee's Fine Thai Food & Noodles, a Hackensack BYO that has been ignored by The Record in recent years.

"It's just always fresh and it's cheap and it's fast and it's authentic," Portscher said. Amen.  

For a glimpse of how Wondee's pleases both carnivores and vegetarians, click on the following link:

Exploring Wondee's vegetarian menu


Second look

 A concerned reader reports Road Warrior John Cichowski is gulty of RWI (reporting while intoxicated) in his Sunday column on a retired cop with many DWI arrests under his belt: 

"In his Sunday column, the Road Warrior engaged in a sad comedy of errors and illegal statements based on dialogue with a callous, cranky, self-serving, retired cop about Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) cases that deviated from actual N.J. statutes and legal precedents for DWI situations."

To read the full e-mail to management, editors and Cichowski himself, go to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Making John Cichowski walk a straight line

Too much 'Sopranos' fluff, too little substance

Construction on West 34th Street in Manhattan slowed New Jersey drivers heading to the Lincoln Tunnel on Friday afternoon, and some cars displaced pedestrians at this intersection. The Record continues to ignore the region's nightmarish traffic congestion and the need for more mass transit.

Newsroom boss Marty Gottlieb whipped his staff into a frenzy after the premature death of actor James Gandolfini, 51, a Bergen County native who portrayed mob boss Tony Soprano on TV.

Friday's coverage on Page 1, A-6 and the Sports front is way more than any reader wants to know about a single actor, and today's A-1 piece on Gandolfini and actor Don Draper is just a waste of space.

Meanwhile, the Better Living cover story today focuses on the medical aspects of Gandolfini's heart attack in Italy, and virtually ignores the dietary causes of clogged arteries (BL-1).

That's no surprise for a section whose food editors and writers promote recipes that rely on butter, heavy cream and other artery clogging ingredients.

Death has been in the news this week, so the L-1 obituary of environmentalist Ella Filippone, 78, should be on the front page today, in place of either the silly political or television column.

Racist fired

In a related development, it's too bad the Food Network didn't dump "celebrity cook" and racist Paula Dean long ago for pushing fried chicken and other unhealthy Southern dishes (A-1 and A-4 today).

Today's Local section also carries the obituary of Dr. Robert Manzi, 61, of Ridgefield -- the subject of a series in The Record -- but there is no explanation of how the paper missed his death 10 weeks ago (L-5).

Another obituary lists "pneumonia" as the cause of death for Scott Byers of Clifton, the "voice" of the world-famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But a photo of Byers on Friday's L-6 leaves readers wondering whether obesity had anything to do with his untimely demise at 48.

Mean-spirited Christie

All of this hysterical coverage of Gandolfini's death forced The Record's editors to demote approval of Governor Christie's mean-spirited $33 billion state budget.

Running under a 1-column headline on Friday's front page, the story only mentions in passing cuts in women's health services, preschool education and tax credits for the working poor. 

With that fresh in mind, readers got a good laugh when they saw a quote from Christie on A-2 today, "When people are suffering, we're all Americans ...."

So, I guess we're to assume New Jersey's women, preschool children, the working poor and the middle class aren't "Americans," because the GOP bully treats them like shit.

Bipartisan lies

All of this "bipartisan" B.S. is coming from Christie, the King of Vetoes, and it's being regurgitated by the editors.

They, in turn, pull the strings of Staff Writers Herb Jackson, Melissa Hayes, John Reitmeyer, and Columnists Charles Stile and Alfred P. Doblin, editor of the editorial page.

Road Warrior errors

Friday's Road Warrior column neglects to tell readers that calling #77 to alert the state police about aggressive driving or road rage does little good, if you can't supply a license-plate number.

The problem lies in Staff Writer John Cichowski's almost total reliance on e-mails from drivers whose observation skills are questionable and whose  exaggerations are evident (L-1 on Friday).

Cichowski's previous Road Warrior report -- Wednesday's piece on Route 80 bathrooms or the lack thereof -- was the 14th column in a row with major errors, according to a concerned reader's e-mail to management

See the full e-mail on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Road Warrior pisses all over himself again

Are they blind?

Production Editor Liz Houlton's copy editors keep on embarrassing the paper.

Today's Page 1 photo has an over line that could have been written by a 12-year-old, and neglects to report how the accident caused massive problems for commuters:

"TRUCK STUCK ON TRACKS HIT BY TRAIN"

If that's not bad enough, the photo caption describes the truck as a "tractor-trailer," when readers can clearly see a round tanker, not a square trailer (A-1).

I have an over line to suggest:

FIRE 6-FIGURE PRODUCTION EDITOR

Wayne football jerk-offs grab front page again

Image via Wikipedia
Rush-hour buses already were standing-room-only before the Port Authority raised tolls steeply, sending even more commuters to mass transit. The paper cites agency "data."

If readers thought the departure of Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale would end wasting the front page on sports, they've gotten a good slap in the face with all the coverage of those nine thuggish jerk-offs on the Wayne Hills High School football team.


In fact, high school football dominates Page 1 of The Record today.


Leave it to interim Editor Doug Clancy to beat to death the Wayne football farce. Once a reporter in the Passaic County Bureau, when it was in a Wayne shopping center, he now lives in Pequannock, which borders Wayne.


Meanwhile, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes managed to put an upbeat spin on another front-page story -- reporting Governor Christie has added more than $1 billion in new borrowing to the state's already heavy debt burden.


Unbalanced reporting


Sykes apparently ordered Staff Writer John Reitmeyer to make sure the lead paragraph noted the GOP bully is "borrowing money at a slower rate than governors before him." 


Reitmeyer also left until the last paragraph an additional $1 billion-plus borrowed after June 30, the end of the fiscal year.


The reporter notes that since the second $1 billion was borrowed in the current fiscal year, "it will show up on next year's debt report." 


So, I guess Reitmeyer is saying he is powerless to add up the numbers until it appears in an official state report.


The story also conveniently omits Christie's refusal to tax millionaires or raise the low gasoline tax to pay for road, bridge and rail improvements. Instead, most of the first borrowed billion went to those projects.


Trash transit


The lead story in Sykes' Local section reports more people are taking public transportation to avoid steep Hudson River toll hikes (L-1).


It's time for the assignment desk to tell the paper's transportation reporters -- including the supremely lazy Road Warrior columnist -- to get off their rear ends, ride rush-hour buses and trains, and report on the quality of mass transit, especially in view of the extra ridership.


And Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, who covers the Port Authority, needs to ask agency officials why they've refused in the past decade to add mass-transit capacity in the traffic-choked region, including a second reverse bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.


Winging it


Two more Hackensack stories appear in Local today -- another overlong report on a motion in a criminal case against suspended Police Chief Ken Zisa (L-1), and continued cleanup of the pre-Halloween storm (L-3 photo).


That's not exactly ground-breaking municipal coverage, in view of the city's struggling Main Street, its high property taxes and such quality-of-life issues as round-the-clock aircraft noise.


Related articles

• Shoving the jocks down our throats (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Defending the worst of today's youth (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)
• Sending mixed messages on Wayne thugs (eyeontherecord.blogspot.com)

Voters give Christie a good smack

Image by dougtone via Flickr

Bergen County Democrats won the county Clerk's Office.

Tuesday's vote of confidence in the Democrats was a clear repudiation of Governor Christie's policies, but The Record did its best today to muddle the outcome with a status-quo headline and story on Page 1.

Dems maintain grip

Christie's pull fails to change balance in State House

Democratic control is meaningless as long as the GOP bully keeps his veto pen always at the ready -- to protect millionaires and his wealthy donors from higher taxes.

At least Staff Writer John Reitmeyer quotes Bergen County's Bob Gordon, who beat Christie-backed challengers.

"It's a win for everyone who wants Trenton to serve the needs of working families," Gordon said. It's "not a referendum on him personally, but a rejection of Christie's policies."

What did Christie have to say? Ha. He was unavailable to the media as of 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, the paper's apparent deadline.

Reporter's sure bet

The Woodland Park daily's campaign to pass the sports-betting proposal succeeded, meaning readers will be bored with story after story about a looming federal court battle by Staff Writer John Brennan, who sold out to business interests years ago (A-1).

It's hard to believe the talented photographers couldn't come up with anything better for Page 1 than a gee-whiz photo of a truck being righted in Paramus. 

Or is interim Editor Doug Clancy's flawed news judgment to blame?

Shame on coaches

Given all the sports stories former Editor Francis "Frank" Scandale ran on the front page -- often pushing more legitimate news inside -- why are the editors keeping accounts of the sex-abuse investigation at Penn State off of A-1?

In the past few weeks, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has used election coverage as a convenient excuse for how little municipal news has appeared in her pride and joy, the Local section, and today is no exception.

Same old, same old

Readers seeking help with their tough commutes can't turn to Road Warrior John Cichowski, who apparently drove around noting all the "leafy obstructions" remaining in "woodsy North Jersey enclaves" after the recent nor'easter (L-1).

Cichowski rarely leaves the office on stories or how else would you explain his skipping Englewood and Hackensack, the most populous community in Bergen County? What's next? His take on leaf collections?

Try clamming up

Consumer columnist Kevin DeMarrais compiles the paper's Marketbasket  Survey, but why is he writing about canned clam chowder today (L-12)?

The frugal reporter tried two low-cost brands, Progresso and Campbell's, but didn't step foot in Whole Foods Market, Costco Wholesale or Fairway Market. Still, he concludes, "You'll just have to go to Maine if you want real clam chowder."


In her weekly column today, Food Editor Susan Leigh Sherrill makes sure readers get their fill of artery clogging heavy cream and butter with a recipe for a French apple tart (F-1 and F-2).