Page 1 errors, new PA probe, Christie payback

In Hackensack, Prospect Avenue residents are turning thumbs down on the sloppy patching of the street's numerous potholes, complaining the pavement is not much smoother than before, above. Meanwhile, drivers are cursing hundreds of potholes on streets and highways in northern New Jersey and New York City that haven't been fixed.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record continues to report on the decrepit Pulaski Skyway, the Newark-Jersey City link that represents a huge detour for Manhattan-bound residents of Bergen and Passaic counties.

And the Woodland Park daily keeps on making the same boneheaded error, reporting on Page 1 today that "the Pulaski Skyway closed Saturday" (A-1 photo caption).

That repeats the error at the end of last Tuesday's Road Warrior column, written by the befuddled John Cichowski, who said:

"Starting next week, some 70,000 commuters might become a test case of sorts when New Jersey's longest span shuts down for rehabilitation [italics added] ...."

Not that it matters for the vast majority of readers, but only two Manhattan-bound lanes are closed for repairs to the bridge deck and deteriorating beams. (A-3).

The bridge remains open for drivers leaving the city.

On the New Jersey Turnpike today, I saw a sign that said, "New York-bound Pulaski Skyway closed."

That means Cichowski is dumber than a digital sign.

Lead story

Today's embarrassing front-page screw-up detracts from the lead story.

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg reports the Manhattan district attorney has subpoenaed "communications between Governor Christie's office" and the Port Authority, the bistate agency he packed with his cronies (A-1).

The subpoena relates to the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, the Port Authority's takeover of operations at Atlantic City Airport and the diversion of $1.8 billion in PA money for repairs to New Jersey roads.

Three photos run with the story on Page 1, but it looks like a clueless editor picked the wrong photo to represent the "rebuilding of the World Trade Center." 

The photo appears to show construction of the reflecting pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers, which were destroyed in the 9/11 attack on  America (A-1).

More Christie anger

Another A-3 story today seems to establish a pattern of political retribution by Christie that dates to late 2010.

The Star-Ledger report on "unprecedented interference" with the State Ethics Commission echoes Christie's other unprecedented moves:

They range from denying tenure to the state Supreme Court's only black justice to vetoing 5% raises for state Pinelands Commission members who didn't green light a gas-pipeline project pushed by a Christie crony. 

New media tack

Since January, the weekly revelations about Christie, his Trenton staff and his Port Authority cronies have forced The Record and other media to rethink their mindless promotion of the GOP bully's presidential potential in the past couple of years.

Too bad none of this came out before last November's election, when Christie won a second term in what was the lowest turnout for a gubernatorial contest ever.

Much of that apathy in northern New Jersey can be traced to Columnist Charles Stile, Staff Writer Melissa Hayes and other reporters who built up Christie into a juggernaut who couldn't be beaten.

In fact, Christie appeared to be desperate to enlist Democratic supporters, judging from the George Washington Bridge and Sandy aid scandals that emerged after the election.

More dementia

The Road Warrior column is back today, with Cichowski devoting most of the space to Martin Cooper, who invented the cellphone in 1973 (L-1).

Cooper has gotten nowhere with another invention that would "disable a cellphone keypad" inside a motor vehicle.

Cichowski apparently has never heard about Bluetooth, the hands-free cellphone technology that cuts down on driver distraction, or new vehicles that allow you to listen to text messages as you drive.

Why waste your time with Cichowski's blast from the past?

On the same page, there is a well-written local obituary about a delightful woman, Mary Planten, who died at 108 last Sunday (L-1).

Restaurant myths

On the Better Living front, Staff Writer Elisa Ung again takes the focus off of the slave wages restaurant owners pay their servers (BL-1).

Instead, she devotes her entire column to restaurant workers' "pet peeves" about customers, playing into the hands of greedy owners.

She even tries to shame users of promotional coupons into tipping on the total value of the meal before the discount.

That's ridiculous. 

During Manhattan's semi-annual Restaurant Week promotion, you tip on the discounted cost of the meal and nothing more, and it's been like that from the beginning in the 1990s.

This winter, a 3-course lunch was $25 plus tax, compared to $40 to $45, if you ordered the dishes a la carte, and that is what appeared on your bill and what you tipped on.

Tipping follies

Ung should question why restaurant owners are allowed to pay servers about $2.50 an hour, putting the onus on customers to provide those workers with a living wage.

The reporter's numerous promotional pieces about restaurant owners and chefs raise an important question:

Whose side is she on? Today, she comes down firmly on the side of owners, not consumers.

Christie is a master at deflecting criticism, blame

Jazz musicians volunteer to play in the lobby of Englewood Hospital and Medical Center on Tuesdays. Today, two more jazz musicians and a pianist are scheduled to perform.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
Editor

The Record's editors are flummoxed by Governor Christie's refusal to raise the motor-fuels tax that funds road repairs and mass-transit improvements.

Even though Christie grabbed more than $1 billion in rail-tunnel money to fix the Pulaski Skyway, an editorial today says increasing the low tax is "not an inviting option" for reviving the insolvent Transportation Trust Fund (A-10).

What a joke. 

Why can't Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin get behind the simple concept that repairs should be financed by taxes on the people who use the roads -- drivers, and bus and trucking companies?

Motorists could easily defer a hike of a few cents in the gas tax by buying more-efficient cars, and lead-foots can save lots of gas by obeying the speed limit.

An old story

Christie has been getting away with this since he took office in January 2010.

He dismissed John E. Wallace Jr., the only African-American justice on the state Supreme Court, arguing the panel was "too liberal, and in nearly every follow-up for a year or more, the editors conveniently forgot to identify Wallace as black.

The state blew $400 million in federal education funds, Christie blamed that on a clerical error by bureaucrats and his education czar took the fall.

He killed the Hudson River rail tunnels -- the biggest expansion of mass transit in decades -- explaining his overweight wife complained she would have to walk too far to the subway, and the editors rolled over and played dead.

Blame game

And, recently, he put taxpayers on the hook for the $1 million it took to hire lawyers who produced an elaborate whitewash on his role in the George Washington Bridge lane closures in Fort Lee, and blamed four days of gridlock on underlings.

Now, state legislators investigating charges of political retribution are sniping at each other (A-1), deflecting the biggest question of all:

Why doesn't Christie -- the central figure in the Bridgegate scandal -- testify under oath?

More poor editing

Tuesday's Page 1 story on Verizon was not only obscure, it required a clarification today (A-2).

A story on A-3 leaves long-suffering commuters wondering whether Ronnie Hakim, NJ Transit's new executive director, will add more seats to rush-hour trains or help cut the long lines at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

The Record continues to cover mass transit in the laziest way possible -- driving to NJ Transit meetings in Newark -- and forcing commuters to suffer in silence or vent in letters to the editor.

Mystery crash

On the Local front, another story about Nick Romano, 17, of Wayne, who was killed in a crash, continues to keep readers in the dark about the cause, even though another 17-year-old was driving (L-1).

The reporter interviewed a Wayne police lieutenant about the investigation, but apparently didn't ask if the teen driver was speeding or texting (L-2).

Lost restaurant

In Better Living, Chef Hal Elkady of high-end Zestt in Tenafly says, "You get what you pay for; the quality of the food is extremely important" (BL-2).

But the "COFFEE WITH THE CHEF" feature not only doesn't back that up with any information about the beloved roast chicken he serves, some editor screwed up and a heading says the restaurant is in "Englewood."

On the Better Living cover, a line referring to interview also says the restaurant is in Englewood, but the address is given as 10 W. Railroad Ave., Tenafly (BL-2).

This feature is written by none other than Food Editor Esther Davidowitz.

Also on BL-2, "FYI" or "What's new, what's happening, what's trending in the North Jersey dining scene" appears to have been put out by public relations people working for the featured food and liquor businesses.

Columnists make fools of themselves on Page 1

Before and after a crew patched potholes at Euclid and Prospect avenues in Hackensack, above and below. The private contractor spent the entire day Monday repairing only two blocks of Prospect between Ross Avenue and Clinton Place.

The severely pockmarked pavement along the blocks of Prospect Avenue lined by high-rises wasn't touched on Monday.

Editor's note: In 2018, four years after this was written, Columnists John Cichowski and Bill Ervolino still are boring readers to tears while so many talented reporters were laid off by the Gannett Co.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

I'd be surprised if more than a few dozen commuters from Bergen and Passaic counties drive past the Lincoln Tunnel and use the Holland Tunnel to enter one of the world's most-congested cities.

But here is Staff Writer John Cichowski of The Record, also known as the demented Road Warrior, wasting his and readers' time with a Page 1 column today on the Pulaski Skyway, the elevated roadway that reaches a choke-point at the old, two-lane tube to Manhattan.

The drop headline on A-1 asks if the gasoline tax is the best way to fund future road repairs and mass-transit improvements.

But Cichowski's dementia took hold, and readers who stick with this column to the bitter end on A-6 never find the answer.

Commuters in Bergen and Passaic counties would much rather see more stories and columns on whether any improvements are planned at the congested Port Authority Bus Terminal, where bus riders encounter long lines and the lack of such basic comforts as benches.

Or, whether any widening projects are planned for such antiquated roads as Passaic Street in Rochelle Park, Maywood and Hackensack, a major thoroughfare that is often backed up behind turning vehicles.

Ruining Rooney

The other fool on Page 1 today is Columnist Bill Ervolino, who can't help reminding readers he once interviewed actor Mickey Rooney, 93, who died on Sunday after a show-business career of nearly nine decades (A-1).

Ervolino reaches back 21 years, and makes a "short joke" at Rooney's expense, noting the actor was seated on a couch, but that his "sneakers" only occasionally touched "the ground" (the carpet in the actor's hotel room). 

Who gives a shit that the unfunniest man at The Record once interviewed Rooney?

Meanwhile, does anyone understand the densely written story on Verizon's high-speed internet service or what is at stake for consumers from the first few long paragraphs on the front page today (A-1)?

More accident news

Two traffic accidents, one of them fatal, dominate the front of Local today as Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza seems to be relying more and more on crash coverage to fill out his thin local report (L-1).

The stories don't answer readers' questions on the cause of the accidents, even though the fatal crash occurred more than three days ago.

The reporter who went to the funeral home for the wake of Nick Romano, 17, couldn't reach the Wayne Police Department's Traffic Bureau on Monday (L-1), and the investigating prosecutor apparently wouldn't talk to her.

The second accident involved a tanker truck that flipped on Monday at 3 in the morning on Route 287 near Mahwah, injuring the driver, who wasn't identified (L-1).

The photo caption notes 2,000 gallons of milk spilled from the tanker, but doesn't say whether 12 ounces of coffee would have prevented the accident.

More highway related news appears on L-2, where a photo shows a brush fire on Route 17, near Route 80, in Lodi. Gee whiz.

A story and photo reports Paterson is having financial problems from the extra cost of removing snow and patching potholes, but where is the story about Hackensack and other Bergen communities who are in the same boat (L-3)?

My gun is bigger than your gun

The Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas serves Flatliner Fries, and a Quadruple Bypass Burger that contains 9,982 calories. A promoter of the restaurant died of a heart attack at 52, The Record reported today.  (Wikipedia)

Gun owners are feeling inadequate under an assault of gun-control bills in New Jersey, the latest wave of new proposals and laws after the massacre of innocent children in Newtown, Conn.

A Page 1 story in The Record today declares:

Crowd

jeers call 

for gun 

control  

These putzes somehow have duped the media and the courts into believing the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the individual right to bear arms, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

They defend the personal ownership of assault rifles, shotguns and other obvious phallic symbols out of some feeling of male inadequacy, and in the process indict the police for not being able to protect us from violence.

'Pay to play'

In other news, The Record today continues to add up all the "pay to play" contributions by New Jersey companies to the Republican Governors Association, a big booster of Governor Christie (A-1).

Christie was jeered by relatives of the developmentally disabled who oppose the closing of two state institutions in North Jersey -- in another sign of the GOP bully's commitment to the common man (A-1).

Queen of Errors

Two more long corrections appear on A-2 today -- the tip of the iceberg under the six-figure Queen of Errors, Liz Houlton, the paper's so-called production editor.

On A-6, the latest story in unprecedented coverage of mass transit reports Sandy damage to rail cars and locomotives (A-6) was underestimated, but readers have seen little about crowding and the overall quality of bus and train service.

Seizure Shake

A 52-year-old man who dressed as a hospital patient to promote the Heart Attack Grill in Las Vegas died of -- you guessed it -- a heart attack (A-15).

"It's a dark, cautionary tale," the American Heart Association says. "Heart disease is still the No. 1 cause of death in the U.S. Nutrition and what we put into our bodies [play a] significant role in the heart health of an individual."

When was the last time you read anything resembling that message in The Record's food pages?

Seat belts, naps

On A-18, an editorial takes Sen. Barbara Buono -- the Democratic gubernatorial candidate -- to task for not using a seat belt without mentioning that Christie doesn't need one: 

He's wedged into the back seat of his massive state police SUV, and his body fat serves as a natural air bag in the event of an accident.

I had a hard time following the message from Columnist Leonard Pitts Jr., but I'm sure Christie's morbid obesity says nothing about me or the tens of millions of fit people who go to the gym regularly and watch what they eat (A-19).

From the looks of today's Local section, head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, never awoke from their afternoon naps.

Setting Record straight

A concerned reader found errors in the Pulaski Skyway press release that formed the basis of a Road Warrior column on Jan. 13.

The reader got the state Department of Transporation to correct the mistakes, and then made sure Wikipedia's entry on the skyway was linked to the corrected release, not the Road Warrior column.

He alerted The Record as well:

"The enormous NJDOT organization had enough decency and integrity to listen to me and correct 2 mistakes it made in a Jan. 10 press release about the Pulaski Skyway.

"I updated the Wikipedia page for the Pulaski Skyway that, unfortunately, had one of these mistakes referenced by the Road Warrior Jan. 13 article.  I removed all Road Warrior article references and changed it to the Jan. 10 NJDOT press release.

"Road Warrior mistakes are confusing Record readers.  Wikipedia readers should not be confused by the same unsubstantiated or senseless mistakes.

"It would be helpful if The Record and Road Warrior had enough decency and integrity to start correcting and preventing Road Warrior mistakes that I bring to your attention.

"It could start with 6 mistakes I mentioned with his Jan. 13 column about Pulaski Skyway."

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

Another Polish joke from John Cichowski 

New Jersey is going down for the count

Why aren't Hollywood directors interested in the saga of a young publisher who puts personal gain ahead of his newspaper's responsibility to cover Hackensack and many other towns? The dumpsters in the parking lot at 150 River St., The Record's old headquarters, above, are a fitting symbol of how Publisher Stephen A. Borg has abandoned the city where the paper was founded more than 115 years ago.

The Record's upbeat coverage of Governor Christie can't hide the sad reality: 

Battered by Superstorm Sandy and facing a deficit of up to $2 billion, the great state of New Jersey is on the ropes (A-1 today and Monday).

Is there any doubt Christie has mismanaged the state and cut middle-class programs to balance the state budget?

And it's all to preserve lower tax rates on the millionaires who support him -- an issue on which even his fellow hard-line Republicans in Congress have yielded.

Pitty the poor senior

Monday's front page continued The Record's policy of stereotyping seniors as frail, sickly and helpless. 

If not the police, who are they supposed to call when they fall?

Readers don't get to know all those well-heeled, globe-trotting seniors who live full lives until they die and show up in one of Jay Levin's local obits. 

Acting stupid 

Today's and Monday's coverage of the Golden Globe Awards ignores how Hollywood appears to be stuck in the past, making films about such events as the Iranian hostage crisis, emancipation of the slaves and the French revolution.

Where are the movies about newspapers and the selfish people who own and edit them?

Too bad Jodie Foster's Golden Globe speech stole all the attention away from winners Ben Afleck and others whose acceptance speeches made them sound like blithering idiots (Better Living cover).

It demonstrates how most actors are only as good as their scripts.

Out of order

Monday's Page 1 carried a rare Hackensack story that isn't only about the legal problems of former Police Chief Ken Zisa.

Staff Writer Jeff Pillets focuses on questionable behavior and apparent conflicts of interest involving Richard Malagiere, attorney for the city zoning board and former legal counsel to the Board of Freeholders.

In the past three years, Pillets reports, Malagiere has received at least $822,000 for advising the zoning board and for defending Zisa in a series of civil law suits.   

Gunning for readers 

It's good to see Mike Kelly writing today and Sunday about the nation's shameful record on controlling gun violence, but readers can do without the overly dramatic prose and the eye-glazing length of his columns (A-1 today, O-1 on Sunday).

Here is vintage Kelly: "American history is rich with stories of ordinary people mounting extraordinary efforts to change the way we live." 

Or this: "The Locieros offer a counterpoint from their Hawthorne living room, where a large portrait of their daughter keeps watch and a clock tolls every hour [italics added]."

Hey, Kelly, no she doesn't and no it doesn't.  

Fuzzy journalism

Political Columnist Charles Stile reports on how Christie is blurring the line between his official role as governor and his candidacy for a second term (A-1).

But isn't that what the editors, reporters and columnists at The Record have been doing since the GOP bulldog took office 3 years ago: 

Blurring the line between covering him and praising him, despite evidence he is the state's worst governor ever.  

Little local news

Thanks to head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her deputy, Dan Sforza, there hasn't been much to read in Local lately beyond Law & Order news.

But today, L-1 carries two Hackensack stories, including a discussion of whether city zoners will re-appointment Malagiere. 

The second story, on the death of two elderly women in a crash with a second vehicle on Polifly Road, doesn't say whether any charges are pending or even whether police are investigating (L-1).

Readers are told, "Police said they had no other details to release Monday night."  

So, Sykes and Sforza told the reporter to go to police headquarters on State Street today and stand outside with his hand out.


Paved with errors 
 
Sunday's Road Warrior column on the Pulaski Skyway was filled with errors, according to a concerned reader who e-mailed management:

"General Pulaski and advocates of history, traffic, and the truth are turning over in their graves or gravel beds about mistaken reporting by the Road Warrior [John Cichowski] in his Jan. 13 column about scheduled construction work for the Pulaski Skyway.

"The Road Warrior reporting once again damages The Record's integrity, which becomes more and more costly to repair the longer these misleading and false reports are allowed to continue in the Road Warrior columns without any corrections."

To read the full e-mail, go to the following link:

Road Warrior surrenders to accuracy again