On Page 1, editor focuses on bunch of losers like himself

Late Wednesday morning, traffic lights went dark at Main and Anderson streets in Hackensack, as well as at Anderson and River streets, above, and at Cedar Lane and River Road in Teaneck, below.

On Cedar Lane, drivers were forced to turn right onto River Road.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Oh, there was another GOP debate? Yawn.

Like most North Jersey Democrats, who far outnumber Republicans, I feel Governor Christie and the other GOP presidential hopefuls are just a bunch of losers.

Why is Editor Martin Gottlieb of The Record devoting so much of the front-page to that sorry lot while neglecting local elections?

And I am sick and tired of the almost daily Page 1 analysis of those other losers, the Mets (A-1).

Lazy lifers

Gottlieb is a former New York Times editor who is completing his third year in the job of running the Woodland Park newsroom.

But he seems unsuited for the nitty gritty of covering local affairs in nearly 80 towns in Bergen and Passaic counties.

He leaves that to three lazy, disinterested lifers, local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, and Sunday Projects Editor Tim Nostrand.

On A-3, a story reports the decision to replace the antiquated midtown Manhattan bus terminal is being driven by politics and a rivalry between New York and New Jersey.

But that has been the case for decades. 

In fact, the original name of the Port Authority didn't include "New Jersey," and state officials complained bitterly in the 1980s that New York was grabbing the lion's share of agency resources.

Hackensack news?

If you wonder why there is so little Hackensack news, take a look at six major stories from Passaic County in today's local-news section, including a long report on the Paterson school board election (L-1, L-2, L-3 and L-6).

In Bergen County, the bare-knuckle Democratic Party machine in Hackensack is trying to regain a single seat on the City Council in a special Nov. 3 non-partisan election.

Jason Nunnermacker, president of the city's free-spending Board of Education, is the knucklehead candidate supported by Lynne Hurwitz -- the power broker behind the Zisa family dynasty -- and other Democrats, including Hackensack lawyer Roy Cho.

Cho gained the respect of Democrats in 2014, when he challenged Rep. Scott Garrett, the Wantage conservative who represents a good deal of Bergen County in Congress.

But his endorsement of the pudgy school board president shows just how desperate the Hurwitz-Zisa alliance is to regain the power they lost when Nunnermacker and four other hand-picked candidates were defeated in May 2013.

$22-an-hour aides

In an email to fellow Democrats, Cho claims he's seen Nunnermacker's "commitment to the children of Hackensack while vigilantly ensuring that tax dollars are spent wisely."

Cho apparently is unaware the principal of Hackensack High School is paid more than $172,000 a year, only a few thousand less than Christie, or that lunchroom aides at two elementary school are listed in board documents as getting $22 an hour. 

Nunnermacker has three opponents, including Richard L. Cerbo, the son of a former mayor who doesn't have any axes to grind.

Cerbo's motto is "We can do better."

John Molinelli

The lead story on L-1 today reports critics of Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli say a letter the freeholder chairwoman sent this month to Christie "was instrumental in [the governor's] decision to appoint a new prosecutor."

But a few paragraphs later, the story says Christie decided in January 2013 to replace Molinelli, but that the nomination expired.

Can both of those things be true? 

Wednesday's Local 

Passaic County also dominated the local-news section that was delivered to Bergen readers on Wednesday.

At least Sykes and Sforza were able to find a photo showing the face of William J. Bate, a surrogate judge, for a story on the dedication of Paterson's new courthouse plaza.

The best the lazy editors could do on Tuesday was showing the back of the head of James P. Coleman, onetime pastor of Mount Olive Baptist Church in Hackensack, where a street was named in his honor.

Coleman was black and Bate was white. Could that have influenced the choice of photos?

Mixed food messages

A day after the World Health Organization caused a media storm by linking cured meats to colon cancer, Food Editor Esther Davidowitz wrote a long column praising Taylor Ham, a pork-based processed meat that is "cured, smoked and pre-cooked" (Wednesday's BL-2).

Her recipe for N.J. Taylor Ham and Cheese Stuffing includes artery clogging butter, bacon fat and two kinds of full-fat cheeses.

Yuck.

Hackensack Democrats try to claw way back into power

In June, Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin conferred with Lynne Hurwitz, who runs the Hackensack Democratic Organization, which suffered a humiliating defeat in the 2013 City Council election. Salkin lost his second job as municipal prosecutor as a result.

Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker is hoping to take back one City Council seat for the Democrats in a special November election, even though he was a member of the losing sate in 2013. The Record has done a poor job of exposing the partisan rancor that has dominated meetings for more than two years.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Behind the facade of Hackensack's non-partisan City Council elections, the two major parties battle for the hearts and minds of an apathetic electorate.

Only 3,000 to 4,000 votes are cast in the May balloting every four years in a city with about 20,000 registered voters.

Now, the city's Democratic Organization is trying to claw its way back into power after its entire slate went down in defeat in 2013.

Zisaville

Bergen County Democrats were part of the political establishment that kept the Zisa family in power for decades, filling jobs with loyal party members and contributors.

In a message to Bergen Democrats, Lynne Hurwitz, head of city Democrats, is asking for financial support to elect Board of Education President Jason Nunnermacker to a vacant seat on the council.

Nunnermacker was part of the Open Government slate, allied with the Zisas, that lost the May 2013 election to reformers who ran under the banner of Citizens for Change.

Council critics

Since losing the election, Nunnermacker, former running mates and fellow board members have appeared at nearly every meeting to attack the reformers, including Councilwoman Rose Greenman, who resigned, setting up the special Nov. 3 election.

In her message, Hurwitz claims Nunnermacker "has dedicated himself to improving his hometown," but provides no specifics.

Other candidates on Nov. 3 are Richard L. Cerbo, the son of a former mayor; businessman Jason Some, who was appointed to fill Greenman's seat; and Deborah Keeling-Geddis, a teacher's assistant in the city schools.

Any of them have greater appeal than Nunnermacker, 38, an attorney some Democrats refer to as "a turkey."

Today's paper

Editor Martin Gottlieb again devotes most of Page 1 today to two of The Record's burned-out columnists (A-1).

Writing from Havana, Staff Writer Mike Kelly perpetuates media stereotypes of the Cuban Revolution.

But Kelly didn't find any political prisoners.

Instead, he focuses on pianist Angel Cabo, who left the island because he needed "more freedom to choose the songs he wanted to play" (A-7).

The Record's copy desk dusted off a photo over line the paper used the last time a pope visited the Caribbean's biggest island in 2012:

"Pope's visit raises curtain on Cuba"

After putting together this non-story, Kelly likely will go in search of Jo Ann Chesimard, a New Jersey fugitive and a central figure in many of his previous columns.

Christie's 'brand'

Meanwhile, it's hard to believe Gottlieb would allow Columnist Charles Stile to report Governor Christie is campaigning for president as a defender of the middle class without challenging the GOP bully in print (A-1).

Gottlieb and Stile are being irresponsible by not listing all of the programs and policies Christie has used in his war on the middle class in New Jersey, and his repeated veto of a tax surcharge on millionaires.

Stile's columns often are the print version of the sound bite that dominates TV news.

Christie is allowed to go unchallenged when he claims the middle class are "getting plowed over by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton" -- exactly the opposite of their record.

Local news?

There are few municipal-news stories in Local today to tell readers how well or how poorly their towns are being run in return for all those property taxes they pay.

Except for the centerpiece on new immigrants, including a man who left Cuba nine years ago, the entire Local front today is devoted to Law & Order developments and settlement of a lawsuit against the Teaneck Public Library director (L-1).

Englewood schools

On L-3, no one asked the new superintendent in Englewood what he will do to integrate the elementary and middle schools.

Instead, Robert Kravitz was praised for his management and business skills, including starting a company that sold desserts to local restaurants.

Staff Writer Kim Lueddeke doesn't say where Kravitz lives, whether he has children and where he will send them to school.

Kravitz has been superintendent of the Englewood Cliffs district since 2012.

Sugar puzzle

Freelancer Julia Sexton warns readers that the chef at Grange in Westwood has given the New American menu "a sugary, pan-tropical spin."

One dish, Floribbean Shrimp, is made with spiced rum and pineapple cream sauce ($12).

The delicate flavor of the shellfish, Sexton explains, "struggled to be heard in all that sugar" (BL-16).

Yet, one of the two dishes she recommends in the 2-star review is creme brulee "whose warm crust of caramelized sugar yielded with a pleasing crack."

Sexton is no better than Elisa Ung, the dessert-obsessed chief restaurant critic.

With both, the legions of diabetic readers also are struggling to be heard.

Hackensack school board wages bitter war against council

Before Tuesday night's City Council meeting, Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin conferred with Lynne Hurwitz, back to camera, the grandmother who heads Hackensack's Democratic Party. Hurwitz has been identified in The Record as "the key strategist behind the Zisa family political machine, which ruled the city for three decades until its slate of candidates was defeated last year [2013]."

Jason Nunnermacker, an attorney, was a member of the losing Zisa-backed City Council slate in May 2013. Now, as president of the Board of Education, he appears at nearly every council meeting, along with Salkin and other board members, to berate officials. Salkin was stripped of his second job, municipal prosecutor, after his allies lost the election.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

After their work session was canceled, four members of the nine-member Board of Education, led by their attorney, went on the attack at Tuesday night's City Council meeting.

Board President Jason Nunnermacker, members Francis W. Albolino, Joseph Barreto and Daniel Carola; and school board lawyer Richard Salkin took turns at the lectern.

Another member, Mark Stein, was in the audience. 

What residents who attend the meetings witness is the losing side in the May 2013 municipal election, most, if not all, of whom are Democrats, attacking the winners, most of whom are Republicans.

This is the same type of partisan rancor that has paralyzed Congress.

From all the time school board officials spend at City Council meetings, you'd think their own house is in order, but that is far from the case.

The total 2015-16 school budget topped $107 million, exceeding the city's own budget of under $95 million, and council officials are not sure where all of that money is going.

Board members count on voter apathy to keep them in office and to approve their profligate budgets, as they did this year, when fewer than 1,000 of the city's 20,000 registered voters cast ballots in April's school election.

Legal fees

As a former City Council candidate in 2013, I read a statement on Tuesday night concerning Salkin's 2014 legal fees far exceeding the contracted amount; stolen iPads and Chromebooks, two of which were traced to a teacher's house; and rumors of sexual harassment complaints against a board member and others.

In 2013, as board attorney, Salkin turned down a request from Mayor John Labrosse for payment of $1 million the city was owed for supplying a police officer at Hackensack High School.

In 2014, according to documents, Salkin billed more than $153,000 for legal services, even though his contract limits those payments to $95,000.

This year, he billed the board more than $36,000 in the first three months alone.

Stolen tablets

Of 29 iPads and Chromebooks stolen from Hackensack Pubic Schools from April 1, 2014, to Sept. 30, 2014, only two were recovered.

Those two were traced to a teacher's house, but the teacher was not charged or disciplined.

They were among a larger number of devices, valued at more than $35,000, that went missing, but The Record has chosen not to publish a story reporting the thefts, a councilman said.

Complaints

There also are disturbing rumors of sexual harassment complaints against a board member and school employees, and a rumor that one supervisor has falsified time cards for a secretary who went home early.

Complaints about low-quality food in the high school have fallen on deaf ears, even as many students race out to Starbucks, Dunkin' Donuts, pizzerias and fast-food restaurants for lunch.

And the board has shown no interest in making schools more efficient and saving money by installing solar panels.

Todd South, the reporter assigned to Hackensack, covered Tuesday night's meeting.

Salkin speaking during the public portion of the meeting. Documents show he billed the school board for more than $153,000 in legal services in 2014 (at $150 an hour), and was paid, even though his contract limits him to $95,000 annually. In the first three months of this year, his billings exceeded $36,000.

Another persistent City Council critic is school board member Daniel Carola, 30, who initially covered his face with papers when I tried to take his picture before he approached the lectern to speak.

Francis W. Albolino, a school board veteran, front; and fellow member Joseph Barreto waiting to speak to the council. Barreto was on the losing Zisa-backed council slate in 2013. Albolino wants the city to give the schools half of the taxes collected on new apartment buildings, claiming hundreds of children will be moving into Hackensack.

Also addressing the council on Tuesday night was Howard Hurwitz, executive director of the Northwest Bergen County Utilities Authority, which operates a wastewater treatment plant. He is the husband of Lynne Hurwitz.

New Hackensack reporter isn't asking hard questions

At first blush, a proposal to change Hackensack's form of government, hold City Council elections every two years and allow residents to vote on repealing ordinances belongs in the toilet.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Buried in the Local section of The Record today is a long story on changing Hackensack's form of government that raises a lot of unanswered questions.

Staff Writer Todd South reports opponents of the mayor and other City Council members -- calling themselves Hackensack Citizens for Good Government -- are seeking 4,000 signatures on a petition to get their proposal on the ballot (L-3).

South, the new Hackensack reporter, says "defenders of the current administration charge that the group is linked to the government that was swept out of office in May 2013 and is trying to take back the City Council."

He said, she said

But nowhere does South ask Ray Dressler, identified as spokesman for the new group, if that is true, and whether he and others are allied with the Zisa family, local Democratic Party chairwoman Lynne Hurwitz and members of the Zisa-backed school board.

In fact, the Zisas and Hurwitz aren't even mentioned in the story.

'Zisaville'

The Zisa family ruled Hackensack for decades, and former Police Chief Ken "I Am The Law" Zisa is under house arrest as he appeals his 2012 conviction and 5-year prison sentence for official corruption and insurance fraud.

Under the Zisas, the city was referred to derisively as "Zisaville," and the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group abandoned Hackensack, taking its flagship paper with it and speeding the decline of Main Street.

'The committee'

South, the reporter, refers to Hackensack Citizens for Good Government as "the petition committee," and identifies its members as Dressler, Frank Rodriguez, Pargellan McCall, Ralph Rivera, Clara Krejsa and Rachel Velez.

But the story doesn't identify them further or say whether they are affiliated with a political party, an important detail given the group's proposal to return to partisan elections.

A Facebook page for Raymond Dressler says he lives in Hackensack. Dressler is the construction official in Mahwah, the same job he once had in Franklin Lakes.

City Democrat 

Another member of the group, Pargellan McCall, was appointed chairwoman of the Hackensack Housing Authority in 2004, when the Zisa family was in power, and is a former school board member.

She also is a Democratic committeewoman, suggesting that many of the most vocal opponents of the City Council are members of the party thrown out of power in 2013.

Clara Krejsa is listed in the story as another member of the group, and a Web site called Spokeo Inc. lists a Clara A. Krejsa, 77, of Hackensack, and actually shows a satellite photo of her home on Mary Street, near Route 80.

The group plans to gather signatures today at the Hackensack Street Festival on Main Street.

New reporter

South has covered at least two contentious meetings of the Hackensack City Council, and he failed in those instances to identify critics as being affiliated with the Zisa-backed school board, including two members who ran unsuccessfully in the 2013 City Council election.

The reporter previously worked in Tennessee, and doesn't seem to understand the ruthlessness of Jersey politics.

The worst kind of reporter to assign to Hackensack --where political factions are out for blood -- is one who doesn't bother digging for critics' real motivation.

That's especially the case at The Record, where the lazy, incompetent local assignment editors have been out to lunch for several years when it comes to Hackensack, the paper's home for more than 110 years. 

Today's paper

Page A-2 lists two more embarrassing corrections of stories that appeared in the Local section, which should be renamed the Loco section for saying Bogota Mayor Tito Jackson is running for re-election.

He is running to keep the job he was appointed to last November.

On the Local front, a story on a turnpike crash in Ridgefield Park that killed a tractor-trailer driver lacks even basic information on what caused a Jeep driver to lose control and hit a barrier (L-1).

Was the driver speeding, did a tire blow or did something on the vehicle break? 

And there is not a word on the resulting traffic backups, which were reported on TV news as stretching back to where the truck and car lanes merge in Newark.

For the third day in a row, the Local editors fill their columns with a single car crash photo and caption with no information on the cause (L-3).

There are more than 10 stories or photos in today's Local section with police, court and other Law & Order news, and even one story about the police.

Candidate for top Hackensack job refuses use of city car

One of the Hackensack City Council's most persistent critics is Daniel Carola, a member of the Board of Education, above. Some might think Carola is just trying to deflect attention from the sad state of the city's public schools, including the food service in the roach-infested Hackensack High School cafeteria. 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

David R. Troast, top candidate for Hackensack city manager, says he lives in Hawthorne, and would be commuting in his own car. 

In a brief conversation during a lull in Tuesday night's tumultuous City Council meeting, Troast told Eye on The Record he has already "refused" use of a city owned car, breaking with an age-old practice that inflames property tax payers.

Mayor John Labrosse and City Council members deferred action on a resolution to appoint Troast after what The Record today called "intense resident criticism of their presumptive pick for new city manager" (L-1).

The story, written by Todd South, identifies some of the critics by name, but doesn't report they are allied with local Democratic Chairwoman Lynne Hurwitz and the Zisa family's politics of greed, which dominated the city for decades. 

Troast is a planner

According to his LinkedIn page, Troast is a redevelopment planner who was township manager in Sparta (Sussex County) until a year ago, and before that headed the rural township's Department of Community Development and Services.

Since 1989, he has owned David R. Troast LLC, which "specializes in professional planning services for municipalities and private clients in northern New Jersey."

His redevelopment background would seem to be a good fit in Hackensack, which has launched an ambitious plan to make over its downtown.

The Record and North Jersey Media Group abandoned the city in 2009, knocking Main Street down but not out.

Back to school

Four of Troast's most vociferous critics come from Hackensack's Board of Education, which spends more to educate a student than does the highly regarded village of Ridgewood, according to state education officials.

Board of Education Attorney Richard Salkin was fired from a second job as municipal prosecutor after the winning City Council slate took their seats in July 2013.

Two other critics, Jason Nunnermacker and Joseph Barreto, are Board of Education members who were on the losing slate, which was backed by Hurwitz and the Zisa-allied City Council members who didn't run in May 2013.

Another critic, Daniel Carola, also is a member of the Board of Education. 

Carola, who harangues the council at nearly every meeting, appears to be reading from prepared remarks.

His attacks on the mayor and other council members serve to deflect attention from the sad state of the city's crowded public schools.

The City Council and acting city manager listening to a critic of David R. Troast, whose hiring as city manager was deferred on Tuesday night.

Newsroom idiocy

A front-page story today asks how a man who "seemed to have everything" -- including a good job, backyard pool in a wealthy community and "even Giants season tickets" -- could kill his mother (A-1).

What idiocy.

This is the same kind of clueless media speculation that occurred after Robin Williams' suicide on Aug. 11, with editors and reporters ignoring how depression and other demons could drive someone to suicide or murder.

The lead byline on the story about suspect Nicholas Piotti of tony Ho-Ho-Kus belongs to Christopher Maag, who was assigned to cover Hackensack for a few months before taking over the transportation beat.

Maag and other reporters covering the story of a son allegedly killing his mother should just assume the suspect is "crazy" -- as is any killer -- and go from there.

In fact, Piotti is being held in a "psychiatric hospital," according to the story.

Are the editors suggesting that the Giants miserable season last year had anything to do with the slaying?

Christie's latest broken promise breaks media backs

Hackensack Mayor John Labrosse, right, reads a proclamation at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, accepting an oil painting from Parisian-born artist Marius Sznajderman. The artist painted the winter scene of the old Masonic Temple from his apartment window at Atlantic and State streets in 1956. The building is slated to become the city's new Cultural Center. The artist was accompanied by his wife, Suzanne Messing, a onetime reporter for The Record.

 

 

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

An editorial in The Record today condemns Governor Christie's plan to cut $900 million from this year's pension payments in a desperate bid to plug an enormous hole in the state budget (Page 1).

The anonymous editorial writer notes Christie is blaming federal tax policy, previous administrations and public employees, but calls that "a snow job" (A-10).

That should be "latest snow job," given all the lies the GOP bully has told about lowering property taxes, job creation, surging state revenue under his obstinate no-tax policies, Sandy aid and the George Washington Bridge scandal.

Christie's first term was all smoke and mirrors, but that didn't stop The Record's editors, reporters and columnists from falling all over themselves to be the first to promote the mean-spirited conservative for a White House run.

Knows nothing

The politically motivated lane closures at the Fort Lee end of the bridge last September exposed Christie's infamous Office of Governmental Affairs, which ruthlessly pursued endorsements from Democrats before his reelection last November.

Matt Mowers, who worked in that office, became the latest former or current Christie aide to tell investigators he knows nothing about the lane closures, which critics have blasted as an abuse of power (A-3).

But Mowers testified Bridget Anne Kelly, then deputy chief of staff for Christie, called him on Aug. 12 to ask if Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was endorsing the governor, and he told her no.

Bully out of loop?

That was one day before Kelly sent the explosive e-mail, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee," to Christie's Port Authority crony, David Wildstein, who has been blamed for carrying out the lane closures.

Wildstein, who has since resigned, claims he told Christie about the lane closures last Sept. 11, during the 9/11 memorial ceremony in Manhattan.


 

Lynne Hurwitz, the political muscle behind Zisa family allies defeated in last May's municipal election, returning to her seat after speaking at Tuesday night's City Council meeting in Hackensack. Hurwitz asked City Councilman David Sims if he had used the N-word to refer to himself, as alleged by a police officer. Sims would not comment.

Hackensack news

News of Hackensack shared the front page of The Record on Tuesday with a story about nasal strips for a racehorse.

Editor Marty Gottlieb ran an inspirational photo of Hackensack High School senior softball team manager Erin Kelly, who was paralyzed for two years by illness, but has recovered.

The story on L-1 doesn't say whether her "rare ailment," a virus, was connected in any way to the mediocre food at the high school, where the cafeteria and presumably the kitchen is infested with roaches.

This is 'news'?

At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, residents saw The Hackensack City News, an 8-page tabloid filled with upbeat stories on the accomplishments of the new administration.

The "newspaper" was written by Thom Ammirato, the former campaign official who was given the $78,000-a-year job as the city's chief spokesman.

Council officials said the tabloid will be distributed by The Record, but didn't give the cost of printing or distribution.

Ammirato's one-year contract expires in July.


 

Warning to GWB drivers: Christie whitewash ahead

Governor Christie was told about closure of two of the three George Washington Bridge local access lanes in Fort Lee, above, as they caused traffic gridlock in early September, in an apparent act of political retribution against the borough's Democratic mayor. Christie's response? He takes the out used by witnesses for decades: I don't recall.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

In their desperation to advance the whitewash clearing Governor Christie in the George Washington Bridge lane closures, The Record's editors claim in a banner headline today the GOP bully emerges "unscathed."

How did Editor Marty Gottlieb or anyone else in the Woodland Park newsroom know -- barely 12 hours after the report was released on Thursday -- that Christie didn't suffer any injury, damage or harm to his already battered reputation?

As usual, columnists, reporters and editors ignore the court of public opinion as they regurgitate the highly orchestrated dog-and-pony show put on by Christie's $650-an-hour lawyer, Randy Mastro (A-1, A-6 and A-7).

Playing catch-up

The New York Times this week scooped The Record on the basic conclusions of the report, forcing Gottlieb to advance the story with "a second-day lead" on Page 1. 

But where are the man-on-the-street interviews, the reaction of the public, not just the usual interviews with critics, pollsters and so-called experts Record staffers have on speed dial?

In the tradition of defense attorneys everywhere, Mastro put Christie in the best light possible while portraying the governor's former aide, Port Authority crony and Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer as unreliable and even emotionally disturbed.

Mastro also managed to get out ahead of the state Legislature's Bridgegate investigators, who are being stonewalled by Bridget Anne Kelly and others.

As Christie's deputy chief of staff, Kelly wrote the infamous e-mail to David Wildstein, his crony at the Port Authority:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Editorial comment

An editorial today says the Mastro report raised more questions than it answered, and failed "to discover the complete truth" (A-18).

Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin's opinion column compares the report to works by Twain and Tolstoy (A-19).

Bad news

The best read story in the newsroom today is the "reorganization" and additional layoffs at The Star-Ledger, the state's biggest newspaper, which supplies stories to The Record (A-1 and A-4).

I am sure reporters and editors are wondering if the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group plans the same fate for them. 

Hackensack news

Also on the editorial page today is a letter to the editor from Lynne Hurwitz, chairwoman of the Hackensack Democratic Committee (A-18).

Hurwitz is credited with being the power behind the Zisa family in all their years of disservice to Hackensack, and her sour grapes have been clearly evident since she failed to get her slate elected last May.

Her letter complains that Mayor John Labrosse refused comment on the $78,000 salary for the city's chief spokesman, Thom Ammirato, who was campaign manager for the victorious Citizens for Change slate.

Hurwitz reportedly retired in 2011 from a $97,000-a-year job as deputy chief of staff to Bergen County Executive Dennis C. McNerney with a monthly pension of $2,499.

Critics say one of her chief duties was watering the plants in the county Administration Building.

Appetizing resume

All restaurant goers know you can't eat the wallpaper or the chef's resume, but that doesn't stop Staff Writer Elisa Ung from wasting more than half of her review today on just such details (BL-14).

As it is, readers are kept in the dark about salads, vegetables, whole-wheat pasta and seafood at Caffe Anello in Westwood, apart from passing references to "roasted clams" and a burned fillet of Chilean sea bass for $34.

This is another unfocused, poorly written and edited appraisal of a restaurant Ung awards three out of four stars (Excellent).

She reports Chef John Vitale succeeds in bringing to Bergen County the passion behind the authentic Italian meals he enjoyed in Tuscany, and ends her review this way:

"... It is the restaurant for those inspired by passion, just as Vitale was in Tuscany. Wouldn't it be great if Anello ended up planting a powerful idea in another's head?"

"Another's head"? That's awkward. Does she mean another chef or restaurant owner? Or just any head, say of a passer-by?

Today's edition lists more things Christie opposes

At Tuesday night's Hackensack City Council meeting, the audience included two members of the losing slate in last May's election; fired Municipal Prosecutor Richard Salkin; and sitting next to him, Lynne Hurwitz, who is said to have been the power behind the throne when the Zisa family ran the city that was derided as "Zisaville." Their presence and an occasional attack on the current administration is what is known as sour grapes with a vengeance.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

Page 1 of The Record today reports a scramble to enroll for new insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act that Governor Christie did his best to sabotage in New Jersey. 

On A-3, Christie blasted the public employees union for disrupting the dog-and-pony show he put on in hard-hit Union Beach to hide how badly he bungled Sandy aid.

But Rutgers students wanted to know why $4.8 million in federal Sandy aid is going to the developer of a 240-unit high rise in New Brunswick, in exchange for providing 48 affordable units (A-3).

Christie opposes all other affordable housing in New Jersey.

SUV lover

And an editorial today reports the breaking news that "Governor Christie has shown little or no interest in promoting mass transit" (A-12).

That has been evident since the GOP bully took office in January 2010, but this is likely the first time the Woodland Park daily has actually stated it. 

Why is The Record showing such lukewarm support for finding the money to extend electrified light-rail service to Bergen County?

It appears to be part of a pattern of promoting commuting by car and ignoring all of the service problems encountered by NJ Transit bus and rail users.

Today's editorial notes "the crush at many gates inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal during the evening rush is unbearable" (A-12). 

But those strong words are based on angry letters from commuters, not on reporting by the lazy transportation editor and reporter or the clueless, car-centric Road Warrior.

Gridlock at Main and Anderson streets in Hackensack on Tuesday morning.

Anti-light rail stories

In fact, several years ago, Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza guided then-reporter Tom Davis when he wrote at least two anti-light rail takeouts for The Record.

And in 2012 and 2013, The Record reported the exaggerated claims of Tenafly officials who opposed extension of light rail to their town, without bothering to seek rebuttal from NJ Transit.

More road kill

On the front of Local today, the addled Road Warrior foams at the mouth about dark highways.

Of course, the column he should be writing is one condemning poorly lit local streets, such as River Road in North Arlington, where a 74-year-old waitress was struck and killed by a car.

"The driver never saw her," a police captain told The Record (L-1).

When Jerome S. Some was killed crossing Prospect Avenue in Hackensack last October, a sister of the 87-year-old businessman told a reporter a street light was out.

That driver also said she didn't see Some, founder of a uniform company on Main Street.

Today's story about the death of Barbara Gangi, who worked the early shift at the Arlington Diner, says nothing about street lighting or whether River Road and other antiquated local streets in North Jersey are adequately lit.

Seeing red

For another view of Cichowski's  confusing, mistake-ridden Sunday column on red-light cameras, see the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Stopping the facts dead in their tracks