With Trump and his supporters, stupid is as stupid does

The world is laughing at us. This image of Donald J. Trump is from cartoonist Marian Kamensky of Vienna, Austria (Marian Kamensky Cartoons).

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

It's no surprise Governor Christie gave reporters the silent treatment when they wanted to question him about wacko Donald J. Trump's vulgar boasts about kissing, groping and trying to have sex with women.

"Christie was the first of Trump's former primary rivals to endorse him," and he's assembling "a potential White House staff" for the GOP presidential nominee, The Record reports on Page 1 today.

And even though Christie was passed over as Trump's running mate, he probably hopes he'll be the next attorney general of the United States.

Yet the Woodland Park daily continues to ignore the seven other New Jersey newspapers that called on Christie to resign after his Trump endorsement. 

Meanwhile, businessman Phil Murphy, the leading Democratic candidate for governor in 2017, is calling on Christie to withdraw his endorsement and quit as Trump's transition chairman.

"To remain with Trump now," Murphy said of Christie, "is nothing less than a tacit endorsement of his disgusting misogyny," according to NJ.com.

Vulgar language

Christie himself has repeatedly used vulgar language, according to testimony on Wednesday at the Bridgegate trial in Newark federal court.

"Who the fuck do you think you are calling me 'a fat fuck?' I'm the fucking Governor of this state," Christie told Freeholder John P. Curley.

"If you're not in Keansburg tomorrow, standing behind me on the podium, I will fucking destroy you. I will have a robo call sent out to every Republican before Election Day telling them not to vote for you."

Today, Columnist Mike Kelly coyly calls the F-bombs a "revelation about Christie's self-definition" (O-1), causing thousands of readers to roll their eyes and throw his column into the recycling bin. 

Plus, it's hard to understand why the Kelly column about Trump on A-10 today, as well as the Margulies cartoon in Opinion, aren't condemning the billionaire's vulgar bragging about his sexual conquests.

Ken Zisa

No jury or judge has ever said former Hackensack Police Chief Ken Zisa was not guilty of official misconduct or insurance fraud -- the two 2012 convictions on which he was to serve a 5-year prison sentence.

Still, an editorial today claims Hackensack is obligated to pay Zisa nearly $3 million in back pay, legal fees and other compensation after the recent dismissal of the last criminal charge against him (O-2).

"The fallout from Zisa's tenure as chef likely contributed to the election" of Mayor John Labrosse and his slate of reformers in 2013 (The Record's editorial calls them "ticket mates").

The Record still hasn't reported that Zisa and other members of the family's political dynasty are attempting a political comeback under the banner of Team Hackensack.

They will likely try to take back the City Council in May's municipal election.

Trump, Zisa

Supporters of Trump and the Zisas have one thing in common: 

They are as stupid as the GOP's choice for president.

That could be seen in last April's Hackensack school election, when a small minority of the city's 20,000 registered voters elected two members of the Zisa-backed slate, and approved a school budget of more than $100 million (bigger than the city's own).

Even though school taxes make up 44% of the property tax bill for homeowners, Record Staff Writer John Seasly didn't write a word about the campaign of nine candidates on three slates who were seeking three board vacancies.

And the Zisas managed to freeze out the fourth-highest vote-getter, educator Lancelot Powell, and get their third candidate appointed to a sudden vacancy on the nine-member board.

Profiles in death

Unlike many newspapers, The Record does few profiles of prominent local residents, unless they are actors, singers or celebrities.

This weekend, Staff Writer Jay Levin profiled two North Jersey residents -- on the occasion of their deaths.

"In 1949, William Watt flew a DC-3 from San Francisco to New York on automatic pilot and landed in the record books," Levin wrote on Saturday's Local front.

"It was the first coast-to-coast hands-free flight."

"Two decades later, the World War II aviator helped change how corporate bigwigs travel by co-founding a business-jet leasing service based at Teterboro Airport."

Today's L-1 carries another profile from Levin, the local obituary writer:

"With his good looks and winning smile, Jim Noorigian was made for the movies.

"Alas, his 1933 Dodge got more screen time than he did."

"In semi-retirement ... Mr. Noorigian started taking his [vintage] cars to movie and television shoots in the metropolitan area."

HUMC offers chump change to overburdened taxpayers

First, drivers faced detours and lane closings caused by extensive utility and sewer pipe excavations. Now, they have to drive over rough patches like this one on River Street in Hackensack, hoping against hope for a repaving that may never come.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack residents are checking their bank balances to see if they can make a quarterly tax payment of several thousand dollars next month.

And what are Hackensack University Medical Center officials doing to compensate for the huge amount of tax-exempt property they own that generates not a single dollar for the city, shifting the tax burden even further onto residents ?

They're offering chump change to the city under a proposed law that would assess non-profit hospitals a "community service contribution," according to a Page 1 story in The Record today.

Hackensack "would receive $690,762.50" from HUMC, Staff Writer Lindy Washburn reports.

$15.5M deal

Meanwhile, Mayor John Labrosse and other City Council members haven't explained why they aren't filing a lawsuit like the one that netted Morristown a settlement of $15.5 million over 10 years (A-1).

A tax court this summer ruled that Morristown Medical Center was not entitled to its property tax exemption "because its operations were little different from those of a for-profit company," Washburn reports.

The paper's chief medical writer didn't bother to interview officials in Hackensack or any other municipality with a non-profit hospital, including Teaneck, Englewood, Ridgewood and Wayne.

Wish list for '16

Topping readers' wish list for 2016 is the departure of Road Warrior John Cichowski and all of the other burned-out columnists at The Record.

It's time for some fresh voices from reporters who aren't afraid to challenge authority.

Today's Road Warrior column is so poorly written and edited, readers can't figure out exactly why a traffic safety officer wants more cameras.

When Cichowski took over the column more than a dozen years ago, it was intended as a guide for commuters.

But, either through laziness or sheer incompetence, Cichowski started to rely almost exclusively on emailed complaints from drivers for his column ideas.

In the process, he often loads his columns with accident data, and commits more errors than any other staffer at the Woodland Park daily.

Thanks to Liz Houlton, the six-figure production editor, few of them were caught or corrected. 

To Christie and pals, we're all a bunch of outsiders

Today's Hackensack Chronicle reports that on Feb. 18, the mayor and council discussed forming a "snow committee," presumably to address buried bus stops, such as the one on Anderson Street, above, and two-way streets that allow only one car to pass, such as Euclid Avenue, near Main Street, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

There's been a lull in the action since the explosive e-mail -- "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee" -- blew open the investigation of George Washington Bridge lane closures and the resulting gridlock in early September.

Now, The Record reports on Page 1 today, newly released messages between Governor Christie's aide and his crony on the Port Authority make a New Jersey rabbi the butt of jokes.

No closer to truth

In August, Bridget Anne Kelly, then-Christie's deputy chief of staff, joked with then-Port Authority executive David Wildstein about causing "traffic problems" at the home of the rabbi, who is the Port Authority's police chaplain, and delaying flights to Tel Aviv.

Readers can plow through thousands of words in today's paper and come no closer to an understanding of whether Christie was aware members of his inner circle were using traffic and Sandy aide as tools to exact political revenge against Democrats.

Brigid Harrison, a political science professor and opinion columnist for The Record, is quoted today as saying the jokes again highlight "a culture of arrogance" that "reflects poorly on the Christie administration" (A-1).

We're outsiders

But the messages also reveal that everyone -- from Democratic mayors to middle-class property taxpayers in New Jersey -- have been treated as mere pawns in Christie's grand conservative scheme to wage class warfare.

In a letter to the editor on A-10 today, retired Paterson teacher Patricia Montalto of Little Falls decries Christie's continuing attacks on the pensions of public employees (A-1).

An editorial on A-10 today again demands that Christie call for the resignation of Port Authority Chairman David Samson -- a father figure to the GOP bully -- and all New Jersey commissioners.

"Christie needs to vent the same anger on ... people he put into power that he has at ordinary citizens who have done nothing more than to disagree with him at public forums," the editorial says.

Black church goers

Another Page 1 story today on a dramatic increase in the number of black church parishioners from Africa and the Caribbean is really old news.

The Church of God of Prophecy, a Jamaican-American congregation in Englewood, recently purchased the West Side Presbyterian Church on Demarest Avenue and other buildings, including one housing the Center for Food Action.

Hackensack news

In Hackensack news, The Record continues to report on the arrest during drug sweeps of Charles T. Williams, a convicted child rapist and murderer who may be linked to unsolved killings (L-1).

But at the Hackensack Chronicle, the big news is the possible formation of a "snow committee" in Hackensack.

The story quotes Mayor John Labrosse and interim City Manager Anthony Rotino, but both try mightily to avoid any suggestion the city's Department of Public Works did an awful job removing snow after a series of storms.

Barricaded bus shelters on Summit Avenue in Hackensack.

Euclid Avenue and Main Street in Hackensack after the nor'easter.

Blocked crosswalk at Anderson and Main streets (Sears).

How Hackensack talks

Rottino apparently was rewarded for his loyalty to the Citizens for Change reform slate that was swept into office last year, not for his command of the English language.

Rottino suggests snow removal could be "a little more organized."

But Labross takes the cake for dancing around the need to assess blame:

"When the storm is over and everything has calmed down, you go back and you do an evaluation of how you handled everything -- not to beat anybody up or to back breath down anybody, but to see what we can do better."

Come to think of it, the editors, reporters and the Road Warrior columnist at The Record also were reluctant to assign blame for sloppy snow removal and slow pothole repairs throughout North Jersey.

Ruining seafood

The Oceanaire Seafood Room, a glitzy mall restaurant in Hackensack, inexplicably gets a "Good" rating today from Staff Writer Elisa Ung, even though she calls a $54.95 steak "the biggest rip-off" (BL-16).

Scallops were "stringy," she says, not criticizing the addition of artery clogging cream and "huge chunks of heavenly bacon" ($41.95).

She found the colossal Thai shrimp "rigid," but doesn't say whether they were previously frozen ($38.95)

In another restaurant appraisal filled with poorly prepared food and mixed messages, Ung ends on an upbeat note, giving in to her obsession and praising the desserts.

In all the years she has been reviewing restaurants, the woman has learned nothing about how beef is raised.

She says the 20-ounce rib-eye she calls a rip-off had little flavor and loses points for not being aged or prime -- the fattiest cut.

Of course, it loses the most points for apparently not being raised completely on grass and without harmful animal antibiotics and growth hormones. 

Chris loves Sandy, but hates the rest of us

The new City Council, led by Mayor John P. Labrosse Jr., third from right, meeting at Hackensack City Hall on Monday night in an atmosphere of optimism for the city's future. A sign inside the 3rd Floor men's bathroom, below, seems to show the city has been conservation-minded, though it is just getting around to installing solar panels on its buildings, lagging behind Teaneck and other communities.

By Victor E. Sasson

Editor

Just imagine how Governor Christie is getting off every night thinking about Sandy -- the devastating superstorm he disguises as a siren who is luring unwary voters into giving him a second term.

The GOP bully is knocking himself out to convince voters he should be judged only by what he's done since Sandy -- and not on all of the promises to the middle class he has broken since he took office in January 2010.

And The Record of Woodland Park can't do enough to help him, continuing to run Sandy recovery news on Page 1, as it does today, or all over the Local front, even though more than 9 months have passed.

I have yet to see a story contrasting Christie's stand on the issues with that of Democratic challenger Barbara Buono.

As the bottom of today's front page shows, that's because Editor Marty Gottlieb continues to portray the contest as one that will go to the candidate who raises the most money (A-1).

Making babies

Gottlieb wastes more space today -- stories on A-1 and L-1 -- about the birth of the royal heir in Britain.

Head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' pathetic attempt to localize the story omits the names of any of the women who gave birth at North Jersey hospitals on the same day or the names of their babies (L-1).

Assume the position  

Filmmaker Michael Moore is a genius who has the courage to make documentaries no one in Hollywood would undertake.

But his well-known weight problem makes some readers wonder how Kathleen Glynn, his colaborator, managed to survive 21 years of marriage to him, unless he allowed her to be on top (A-2).

Some staffers have wondered the same thing about Sykes' husband, a tall, thin graphic artist who once worked at The Record.

Hackensack news

Today's Local front is dominated by a suspected gang member who tried and failed to take on the re-energized Hackensack Police Department early Monday (L-1).

Robert Leonardis, 22, fired one shot that narrowly missed Officer Joseph Ayoubi, but was severely wounded when four officers fired back, Police Director Mike Mordaga said.

At a Hackensack City Council meeting on Monday night, one resident said she now calls the police when she sees something amiss in her neighborhood, and they actually respond.

In the past, she said, she didn't bother to call because she knew police working under the corrupt police chief, Ken Zisa, would do nothing.

Solar-power lesson

A resident asked the council and City Manager Stephen Lo Iacono why no solar panels are being installed on city schools.

Lo Iacono said the profligate Board of Education has refused to meet with the council to discuss solar power.

The systems being installed on city buildings cost taxpayers nothing.

Coffee is hot and cheap

Sykes continues to rely on photos of minor accidents in place of legitimate local news, and continues to supply readers with no information on the cause.

Clues in today's L-3 photo suggest an older driver (Mercury Marquis, blue license plate and handicap space) couldn't wait to get a morning cup of coffee McDonald's sells to seniors at a special, low price, so he crashed his car into the fast-food restaurant.