Christie's worst nightmare steps up to the plate

Developer George Capodagli hired The Brownstone in Paterson to cater Thursday's groundbreaking ceremony for his 6-story, 222-unit rental building at State and Warren streets in Hackensack. Completion is set for January 2015, and monthly rents will be $1,600 to $2,000. 

The lead story in The Record today reveals Governor Christie's worst nightmare -- Newark Mayor Cory Booker -- a strong Democratic leader who would have stolen votes away from him in the November election (A-1).

Booker jumped into the special primary and election to pick a successor to U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, D-N.J., who died last Monday.

Christie, once full of his usual bluster, now appears desperate to win a second term.

He jumped through hoops, told lies and was willing to squander $24 million to prevent senatorial candidates from appearing on his November ballot.

He obviously was trying to avoid a comparison to Booker, who is expected to make quick work of defeating his presumed Republican opponent, radical Steve Lonegan of Bogota. 

Christie's mismanagement of state finances also made Page 1 news today: 

A state appeals court has stopped the GOP bully from grabbing $160 million in affordable housing funds to balance his mean-spirited budget (A-1).

Wet race?

Another A-1 story -- on plans for a Formula One race through the streets of Weehawken next June, the weekend after the F1 race in Montreal -- doesn't say whether grandstands will be covered to protect New Jersey fans from heat or rain.

In the past, thousands of Montreal racegoers paid hundreds of dollars for seats in unprotected grandstands, then had to leave during downpours and never saw the end of the race.

Back to the source

The quality of food coverage has declined for years, ever since Publisher Stephen A. Borg folded the paper's Food section.

Today, the Better Living cover story on farmers' markets completely omits mention of Closter, where 28 stands offered fresh produce, artisan bread and other food last Sunday.

In fact, Closter's Sunday market is bigger than most of those mentioned in today's poorly reported story (BL-1).

Friday's paper

Now, four former governors have gotten into the act to save the Palisades from a high-rise corporate headquarters planned by LG, the South Korean electronics giant (not "South Korean-based," as in the story on Friday's A-1).

Where were they when the Palisades south of the George Washington Bridge was defaced with one high rise after another?

A correction on Friday's L-2 is long enough to choke a horse.

Mouse that roars

The sub-headline on an A-18 editorial  ("Christie makes smart interim choice") sounds suspiciously like the headline on an A-19 opinion column by Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin ("Christie made the logical political choice").

Doblin, the mouse that roars, is incapable of writing a column without making references to Hollywood films or Broadway shows. 

Lazy warrior

Friday's Road Warrior column on Sen. Lautenberg's pivotal role in improving transportation only reminds readers of how little Staff Writer John Cichowski has written about mass transit since he took over the commuting column in September 2003 (L-1).

The burned-out, supremely lazy Cichowski prefers to base entire columns on the complaints about driving and other drivers he receives from his cranky readers, who love to see their names in print.

He even ran a question from John Balkun, The Record's assistant managing editor/sports (Wednesday's L-3). 

I guess that's better than making up comments, as he is suspected of doing in the past.

Main Street property owned by Jerome Lombardo, head of the public-private partnership pushing for redevelopment of the depressed shopping district, above and below.

Hackensack boom?

Friday's L-1 story on a groundbreaking in Hackensack quotes George Capodagli, the developer of a 222-unit rental building, with rents of $1,600 to $2,000:

"I'm bringing in the $20 martini people -- the rich and the famous."

The story reports a ribbon-cutting for Avalon Hackensack at Riverside, a 226-unit building near Route 4, and plans for "a full-service luxury residential building of more than 25,000 square feet" on Main Street.

The L-1 headline describes the three projects as a "residential building boom."

Englewood bust?

Englewood has four luxury apartment buildings or complexes, two of them downtown, but they have had no perceptible change in the fortunes of the Palisade Avenue shopping and dining district.

In the Hackensack story, Jerome Lombardo, chairman of the Hackensack Main Street Business Alliance, says:

"Nobody in North Jersey can beat Hackensack's location."

Lombardo hasn't disclosed how much property he owns on or near Main Street or how much he will profit from execution of the city's official Downtown Rehabilitation Plan.

Don't worry, you can skip today's paper

The Record reports Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., won't be smiling after the National Rifle Association gets through with him and a Democratic bill to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines like those used to kill 12 people in Colorado last week.

It took only five days for the horrific movie-theater shooting in Colorado to fall off the front page of The Record.

In its place, Editor Marty Gottlieb gives readers four major Page 1 stories today -- all yawners.

Don't look for North Jersey relevance in all but the "process story" on Governor Christie's grab for unspent affordable housing funds (bottom of A-1).

Here comes the judge

Next to it, the story on the state Supreme Court only reminds readers of how high legal fees prevent most of them from having any effective access to the courts -- an issue The Record won't touch.

It's an elaborate and intricate system enforced by judges, all of whom were themselves lawyers who got rich by representing people in criminal and civil matters as they slowly wound their way through the courts. 

The high court ruling cited constitutional protection of judicial salaries, stopping Christie from requiring hundreds of judges to pay more for pension and medical benefits.

But how independent is a judiciary whose members are appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Legislature? 

Bored with shooting

With the Colorado killings fresh in readers' minds, why doesn't Gottlieb's front page carry the story on Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and other senators taking on the NRA (A-3)?

Out-of-touch journalist

On head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' Local front, Road Warrior John Cichowski writes about "the great universe of parking tickets" and "our ... stellar driving careers" (L-1).

In other words, it's another totally irrelevant column from La La Land, ignoring the realities of commuting in North Jersey.

Blaming the victim

The major element on L-1 reports that a pedestrian apparently committed suicide on Tuesday by standing on the tracks in front of an NJ Transit train approaching the Broadway station in Fair Lawn.

The victim, Yelena Gorovits, 47, is called a "trespasser" in the story, but there is no mention of safety measures at the station to prevent such incidents or whether an NJ Transit cop patrols the tracks. 

Just chopped liver

Staff Photographer Tariq Zehawi got a terrific photo -- investigators lifting a sheet to look at the body, which presumably resembled bloody hamburger after being hit by the enormous locomotive.

Was Gorovits a mother, daughter or aunt? Was she married, employed? Sykes and Deputy Assignment Editor Dan Sforza don't care one bit about those questions.

The insensitive, lazy editors treat her as so much chopped liver.

As if often the case, Local is filled with lots of police and court news, and hardly any municipal news.

Hackensack readers, you can go back to sleep.

Editors help PA sell toll, fare hikes

Image by Mulad via Flickr

At $2.75, the PATH fare would be one of the highest in the U.S.

Hey, Shawn Boburg, you're supposed to be a reporter covering the Port Authority, so why do you sound like an agency spokesman trying to sell a plan to more than double Hudson River tolls and make the PATH rail fare one of the highest in the nation?


Hey, Deirdre Sykes, you're supposed to be the head assignment editor of The Record, so where is reaction from commuters in today's lavish Page 1 coverage? Did you go home early on Friday to get a jump on your weekend?


And where is the editorial condemning the plan from Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin, seemingly the paper's only advocate of mass transit?


Lazy edition


You know the Woodland Park daily is falling down on the job when a paper like the Daily News delivers a complete package that includes reaction from a Teaneck commuter, and his photo, as well as an editorial.


Boburg, on the other hand, front-loads his story with what sounds like the bi-state agency's press release, complete with justification for the record hikes.


Readers have to wade through the boilerplate and turn to A-6 to hear U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., slam the proposal as "unfair" and "yet another assault on New Jersey's commuters."


Another critic noted Governor Christie redirected $1.8 billion from the Port Authority for use on state roads after he killed the biggest expansion of passenger-rail capacity in memory, the Hudson River rail-tunnel project.


Pay for what?


Why should drivers and PATH riders pay for cost overruns and mismanagement of the World Trade Center site construction, which will be incomplete on the 10th anniversary of 9/11?


Will the increased revenue result in the long-overdue second bus lane on the helix into the Lincoln Tunnel to relieve a standing-room-only commute for thousands? 


Boburg doesn't bother asking those questions and others, and his assignment editor must have merely spell-checked the story before sending it on.


Also on A-1 today, why did it take six days to report July was the second-warmest month ever recorded, dating to 1895?


On A-11, four letters to the editor slam gullible Staff Writer Elisa Ung -- the restaurant reviewer and columnist -- for her July 31 article putting a positive spin on the brutal force-feeding and killing of ducks to produce swollen livers known as foie gras.


However, on Twitter, her editor praised her handling of the story:

susanlsherrill Susan Sherrill 

@BetterLivingNJ's @elisaung handles a tricky subject with aplomb. Her column on Hudson Valley Foie Gras is a must-read bit.ly/p0zcur

1 Aug Favorite Retweet Reply

Second look


One of the best stories in the paper this week was in Sports: Staff Writer Gregory  Schutta turned in a detailed and sensitive piece on the adjustment of Paramus Little League ace Hiro Mizutani after he moved here in June 2010 from Japan.


One of the worst was Ung's review of Joe's Crab Shack in Clifton, with an undeserved rating and headlines that seem designed to keep the chain's ads coming.


Maybe the restaurant should be called Joe's Crap Shack.

See previous post on Hekemian & Co.

Belly laughs echo amid news drought

Image via Wikipedia

Hey, Governor Christie, one of the richest men in the state, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, has some practical advice on how to spend the state's money. 

Don't you love Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.,  telling Governor Christie in The Record today he can get it for him "wholesale"?


Christie railroaded commuters when he pulled the plug on new Hudson River tunnels, and now he's railroading taxpayers by shoveling more than $1 million for legal and lobbying services to his pals at a politically connected law firm in Washington, D.C. (A-1).


"Governor Christie could have gone wholesale, but chose to go retail at a heavy cost to the state," Lautenberg said.


You'll have to plow deep into the Page 1 story, all the way to the continuation page to see Lautenberg's comment (A-6).


So the clueless news or copy editor uses not the Lautenberg quote as a pop-out at the top of the column on A-6, but a quote from NJ Transit containing an embarrassing grammatical error.


And why do Staff Writers Karen Rouse and Herb Jackson insist on sticking to their deadly dull recitation of the facts?  


Loosen up. Use that great Lautenberg quote in the lead to hook readers and stop trying to pass off your stories as exposes.


Organ grinder


Editor Francis Scandale came up with a doozie front page today.


Where did this story on a New Jersey organ-making family come from, and why is it on A-1? As for the other A-1 story, isn't everyone already tired of federal snitch Solomon Dwek, and the petty officials he bribed?


What would have been wrong with putting out front a scary story that affects nearly every reader -- the one on commercial air travel safety -- instead of burying it on A-7?


There's even a Page 1 blurb about an idiotic column by Tara Sullivan in Sports, comparing the U.S. Women's World Cup team to the '99 squad. 


How about comparing the Woodland Park daily to The Record in 1999, before the Scandale scourge arrived?


More Jewish news


Another Page 1 blurb, on a Jewish center, doesn't even tell you what town it's in.


It's in Tenafly, Staff Writer Deena Yellin reports on the front of Local. Isn't there something wrong with allowing an Orthodox Jew to write so many stories about other Orthodox Jews?


Readers often learn a lot from letters to the editor, more than what they learn from the paper.


James T. Gallione  Sr., a retired Westwood teacher, comments on the ceiling Christie has imposed on superintendents' salaries, but notes that in addition to a $175,000 salary, the governor gets a $75,000 cash stipend, a luxury box and other perks (A-10).


It looks like head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes -- or her stand-in -- put the paper to bed real early Monday night.


No July Fourth fireworks photos appear on the Local front or anywhere else.