Favoring polluters, bi-state transit war, 'unique' restaurant

This New York Times image from 2007 shows Paul Eugene VanDunk with granddaughter Alexis Dennison holding a photo of her mother, a cancer victim. VanDunk and other residents of Upper Ringwood blame many cases of sickness and death on toxic paint sludge and other waste dumped in their neighborhood by Ford Motor Co., which operated an assembly plant in nearby Mahwah until the late 1970s.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front page today is promoting a controversial plan to pave over toxic soil in several North Jersey towns that would save Ford, DuPont and other wealthy corporate polluters tens of millions of dollars.

Assurances that capping 166,000 tons of paint sludge is safe are falling on the deaf ears of Upper Ringwood residents a few months before a referendum that would force Ford Motor Co. and borough officials to remove the pollutants (A-1).

The Environmental Protection Agency would allow the waste to stay in the ground even though North Jersey's drinking-water reservoirs are nearby.

What remains unclear is what motivates Editor Deirdre Sykes and Staff Writer Scott Fallon to turn their backs on long-suffering residents, and to forcefully promote an unpopular solution to decades of corporate pollution.

With capping, Ford and the borough of Ringwood's insurers would see their cleanup costs drop to $5.4 million from $32.6 million (A-8).

At a Superfund site in Edgewater, Honeywell and other wealthy companies held responsible for the pollution would pay only $72 million, compared to $205 million for excavation.

Drop in enforcement

One story you've never seen in The Record is a dramatic decline in the enforcement of speeding laws on state highways -- even as the Road Warrior columnist obsesses over lines at the Motor Vehicle Commission and traffic jams at MetLife Stadium (L-1).

Today's front-page story should have reported Christopher Boes, 20, of West Milford might be alive, if Butler police did a better job of patrolling Route 23 and stopped such racers as the friend driving the car in which he was a passenger (A-1).

Bi-state transit war

Check out the hysteria over the war between New Jersey and New York on replacing the antiquated Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan (L-1).

The two states have been arguing for decades over which one gets the most from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Originally, the agency was called the Port of New York Authority.

We're probably going to see many more stories on where a new Manhattan bus terminal should be located.

But The Record won't be asking the bi-state agency why it doesn't expand bus service by adding one or two more exclusive bus lanes into the Lincoln Tunnel.

'Unique' BYO

Staff Writer Elisa Ung is so excited about Turtle + The Wolf in Montclair, she calls the New American BYO "unique," and rates it as Excellent to Outstanding (a half-star shy of the top rating of 4 stars).

And although she praises the "quality" of the food, only the brisket she sampled was naturally raised at Painted Hills Farm in Oregon (BL-14).

So, are readers to assume the $72-a-person roasted pig and the $45-a-person fried chicken dinners are conventionally raised with harmful antibiotics?

The money you save on wine will be blown on tolls and gasoline to get there and back. And does the place serve any seafood except octopus?

Misspells name

She might have been able to provide more details on the food, if she didn't feel compelled to report details of the chef-owner's resume and identify his business partner, whose last name she misspells.

Ung calls him "Matt Greneven," but today's correction says he is "Matt Trevenen."

That's not even close. 

Maybe she drank too much of the wine she brought or was overly giddy about eating hundreds of dollars of food -- plus dessert -- paid for by Gannett, The Record's owner.

Corrections usually run on A-2 the day after the error is made, but today's notes the review "was produced in advance."

Turns out the rave review appeared online on Thursday, almost a full day before the print edition.

Number of speeding tickets issued on turnpike and parkway has declined dramatically, New Jersey State Police say

The New Jersey State Police say they are achieving their main objective: Lowering the number of fatal accidents on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway. (Photo credit: The Associated Press)

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The number of speeding summonses issued on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway has dropped dramatically in the past five years.

The decline on the turnpike is especially stark -- 9,950 speeding tickets so far in 2015, compared to 18,193 in 2010, the New Jersey State Police say.

On the parkway, 6,543 summonses have been issued to date in 2015, compared to 9,669 in 2010.

At the request of Eye on The Record, the state police on Thursday also released statistics for the number of careless driving summonses issued on the state's busiest roads:

Careless driving tickets on the turnpike have dropped to 13,315 so far in 2015 from 16,414 in 2010.

On the parkway, the number of careless driving summonses has actually increased, to 19,462 to date in 2015 from 17,316 in 2010.

Drivers who speed, tailgate or weave through slower traffic are a major quality of life issue to motorists who obey the law as the state's roads become increasingly congested.

The Record's John Cichowski, who has written the Road Warrior column for a dozen years, has ignored speeding and careless driving to explore more important issues.

On Wednesday, his column quoted drivers complaining they will have to carry around letters from the Motor Vehicle Commission to show a change of address.

What does it mean?

Lt. Brian Polite, a state police spokesman, cautioned drivers against interpreting the statistics as a license to speed or an indication there is less enforcement than before.

"We still enforce the law," he said today. "When troopers see drivers violating the law, they will take the appropriate action."

When state police were first asked for the statistics, they pointed to their success in lowering the number of fatal accidents on the busy toll roads.

Fatal accidents on the parkway dropped to seven so far in 2015, compared to 25 in 2010 and 31 in 2005.

On the turnpike, which is used by both cars and trucks, there have been 19 fatal accidents so far in 2015, compared to 13 in 2010 and 23 in 2005.

Lt. Polite also points to "better driving behavior" to explain the decline in the number of speeding and careless driving summonses.

Today's paper

The lead story on Page 1 today is silent on what, if anything, Port Authority Executive Director Pat Foye did to improve the lives of commuters since the political appointee took over the job in November 2011 at a grossly inflated salary (A-1).

You could say Foye, who is paid an outrageous $289,000 a year, merely fleeced toll payers at the Hudson River crossings, and fee payers at the agency's air and sea ports.

The big, black front-page headline and editing of the Foye story are amateurish:

The news isn't that he is leaving "by March," but that the board of commissioners doesn't see him as fit to be the agency's first non-political chief executive officer.

That is one of the reforms put in place after the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal in 2013.

And despite the insistence of Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, it remains to be seen whether Foye "earns" the $289,000 he is being paid (A-4).

On Wednesday, The Record's story on the departure of another political appointee, NJ Transit Executive Director Ronnie Hakim, also didn't cite any improvements for bus and train riders in her nearly two years in that job.

Gone fishing

Today's lukewarm review of Fish Urban Dining ignores the clunky name, and doesn't tell readers whether the expensive Ridgewood restaurant serves local seafood (BL-16).

Critic Elisa Ung seemed intent on sampling non-Jersey seafood -- such as redfish, Alaskan oysters, shrimp and octopus -- and couldn't wait to dive into the artery clogging desserts.

The acronym for Fish Urban Dining is FUD, rhymes with "dud."

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.

Jerseyans need 'conservative change' like hole in head

Property taxes in Tenafly are among the highest in Bergen County. So what's the explanation for why the borough Police Department still uses this outdated Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, above and below?

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'm searching through another upbeat Governor Christie column for something truly ridiculous the GOP bully said during the second presidential debate on Wednesday night.

But Charles Stile, who often sounds more like Christie's spin doctor than a skeptical reporter, cheated readers, only providing part of the quote in his Page 1 column in The Record today:

"I'm a Republican in New Jersey. I wake up every morning as an outsider" (A-8).

Of course, just the opposite is true:

Christie is the ultimate insider who cozy ups to powerful corporations like United Airlines, and installs his cronies at the Port Authority, the huge transportation agency that also serves as the region's patronage mill.

It gets worse

Christie, as reported by WNYC-FM this morning, said he brought "conservative change" to New Jersey, and claimed the state really needed it.

Like a hole in the head.

Well, Christie did cap property taxes, as a conservative would, but they continue to go up and he failed miserably to fulfill a 2009 campaign promise to lower them.

Is the state's sluggish economy the "conservative change" he is talking about or the mess he's made of state pensions, mass transit, the environment and so many other areas?

Other 'news'

The only other "news" on the front page today are two more stories about Rutgers University's football team (A-1).

On the Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski doesn't discuss the penalties against the drivers who struck or killed crossing guards and doesn't recommend they be increased as a deterrent (L-1).

He names Pawothil Abraham, 63, of Bergenfield as the driver who knocked down Jo-Ann Hans, 60, on Tuesday morning, and says among the charges against him is "failing to heed a crossing guard."

That's meaningless to readers without information on the penalty, and what happened to other drivers charged with the same traffic offense.

Should knocking down a crossing guard bring a criminal charge and a prison sentence? 

Space filler

Cichowski doesn't venture to say.

Instead, he fills his columns with tons of statistics, and often gets them wrong. 

Cichowski may succeed as a space filler, but he fails miserably as a journalist and an opinion columnist, a flaw he shares with long-winded word pusher Mike Kelly.

The news story that reports Hans' condition has improved doesn't even mention the driver or what police might have to say about why he struck the crossing guard, who was in critical condition (L-1).

When I Googled "Pawothil Abraham," the driver, I got one hit that gave the name as "Abraham Pawothil."

Criticized in Paterson, Speziale now called pain at airports

Aboard NJ Transit's No. 165 bus -- a cheap, efficient way to travel to and from Manhattan, as long as you don't do so during the rush hour, when seats are scarce and delays are frequent.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record of Woodland Park today carries the third major story about Paterson Police Director Jerry Speziale, who claims he and his fiance were "held hostage" by Port Authority police as he was trying to leave for a vacation in Puerto Rico.

Poor guy. Why are fellow law-enforcement officers treating Speziale so shabbily?

Today, the Port Authority responded to Speziale's claim the agency is retaliating against him.

Speziale says he was a whistle-blower who reported "corruption and wasteful spending" when he was deputy police superintendent at the bi-state agency (A-1).

Speziale filed a federal lawsuit last year, alleging the agency targets him at its airports.

In response, the Port Authority accuses Speziale of repeatedly causing trouble at airline terminals, especially when he isn't treated like a VIP and is forced to wait in the same security lines most travelers have to endure (A-6).

Coated with Teflon

You could call Speziale the "Teflon Cop."

I cannot recall The Record every closely examining the job he did as Passaic County sheriff or what has happened under his watch as police director in Paterson, where he seems unable or unwilling to stop the gun violence that has claimed so many innocent lives.

So far, the local editors have assigned three major stories on his problems at John F. Kennedy International Airport last Friday.

Compare that to the zero stories assigned to assess his performance as police director in Silk City, and a complete absence of editorial comment on whether he should be doing more to stop the senseless violence.

Another viewpoint

Today, on a site called Bluelight.org, I came across this commentary on a North Jersey.com story, reporting Speziale had resigned as sheriff in 2010 to take the Port Authority job:

"I aint gonna get all into it now but I have always personally hated this guy [Speziale] so much and im really glad to see him gone. he was a power hungry tyrant who was obsessed with buying more and more technology for the police department for the purpose of drug enforcement....puttin more money into the SWAT teams, the drug raids, all that shit, instead of crackin down on violent crime and some of the other shit that is a huge problem in paterson. Shit, last summer the homicides were POPPIN off like every weekend sometimes more than one in a weekend and none of that shit changed but he just kept goin hard on the drugs, puttin all their money into this crazy enforcement shit , like fuckin military grade equipment for their drug raid teams."

Click on this link for the full commentary:

Failed drug war in Paterson

Police news

If it wasn't for police news and drive-by photos of non-fatal accidents, The Record's Local section would literally be filled with blank spaces (see L-3 today).

Unable to inspire their local staff to gather enough municipal news, veteran Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza scramble every day to plug those holes.

That may be the motive for treating Speziale and other law-enforcement officials so gently -- why criticize the golden geese that lay all those Law & Order eggs?

'Lost' money

Today, a follow-up quotes Mahwah police as saying the ATM workers who left a bag filled with $150,000 in cash on a curb are not suspects (L-3).

A white van stopped, and a man wearing shorts and a T-shirt is "seen getting out ... to pick up the bag without looking inside," police say.

Without looking inside?

More questions are unanswered.

Will the ATM workers be keeping their jobs, and will the unnamed company that employs them be able to recover any of the lost money from an insurance policy?

Ethics, overtime abuses hide Port Authority's real failure

The Record's editors haven't bothered reporting on all of the unintended consequences of low gasoline prices and their impact on climate change: Cheap gas depresses the sales of hybrid and electric vehicles, and may prompt drivers to hold onto their gas-guzzling SUVs, aggravating air pollution. Those SUVs also take up more room on the road, worsening traffic congestion.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Critics refer to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey -- the behemoth bi-state transportation agency -- as the "Port Atrocity."

Today and Wednesday, The Record has published two front-page stories on overtime abuses by the agency's police officers and the many ethical questions surrounding its powerful commissioners.

But the agency's real failure is its refusal to expand mass transit (bus and rail), and reduce traffic congestion.

Even after the fourth toll hike in as many years on Sunday, few drivers are expected to leave their cars at home, because of limited mass-transit alternatives, including a gridlocked bus terminal in midtown Manhattan.

The Port Authority police have been tabloid fare for decades for collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in overtime; there was nothing new in Staff Writer Shawn Boburg's A-1 story on Wednesday or today's editorial (A-18).

And ethical questions have hounded the commissioners for years before Governor Christie named a powerful lawyer who was his mentor, David Samson, to the chairmanship of the agency's board, which once met in secret before staging monthly public meetings (A-1).

Samson resigned in March after critics noted he cast votes that appeared to benefit his law firm.

Two more embarrassing corrections appear on A-2 today; Wednesday's A-2 also had a correction -- of a Page 1 story on state pension funds.

Local news?

The assignment editors are so desperate to fill their Local section almost anything goes.

One look at this stupid headline tells you no resident of Bergen and Passaic counties has the least bit of interest in whatever is being reported:

N.J. won't

allow

Barclays

at Izod

Huh?

On L-2 today, Staff Writer Todd South identifies Richard E. Salkin as "a former city attorney," when Salkin is the former municipal prosecutor.

On L-3, Glen Rock police appear to be informing burglars they have nothing to fear.

Capt. Jonathan Miller is quoted as saying that "if something seems out of the ordinary -- like a car parked that isn't normal -- please call the police so we can check it out."

Is Miller telling burglars that police don't routinely patrol neighborhoods?