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."

Pope's visit won't change poverty, immigration and politics

Construction workers adding hundreds of apartments overlooking traffic on Route 4 east in Englewood. Meanwhile, the city's downtown merchants haven't been helped much by the thousands of people who already live in buildings on both sides of the highway.

This storefront on North Dean Street, near Palisade Avenue, Englewood's main business street, has been vacant for months.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With Governor Christie running New Jersey and other uncharitable Republicans controlling Congress, Pope Francis' message of hope and unity will fall on deaf ears.

You have to wonder why The Record and other media have been publishing hundreds of thousands of words and images for a full week now on Francis' first visit to the United States (A-1, A-6, L-7).

A big break in that coverage is the death of Yogi Berra, but you won't find the best story about the Yankees legend on the front page or in the Sports section today (A-1 and S-1).

On Page 1, sports Columnist Bob Klapisch's first line is an instant turnoff:

"This was way back in the early 2000s...."

On the Sports front, Columnist Tara Sullivan can't wait to tell readers about "my few, if memorable, intersections with Yogi...."

For the most moving story about Yogi, see Jay Levin's piece on his Montclair neighbors, who recall Berra as a regular guy.

The story is on the front of the Local section under a great headline:

"His home field since 1958"

Other news

Also on Page 1 today, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg is telling NJ Transit bus riders a new Manhattan terminal one block west of the current hub will take 13 years to build and cost $9 billion (A-1).

But there's not a single word in his long account about the easiest way to ease delays at the antiquated terminal now -- running two express bus lanes into the Lincoln Tunnel during the morning and afternoon rush hours. 

In the years Boburg has been covering the Port Authority, he has written little about the bi-state agency's rail and bus operations. 

Ken Zisa

On the Local front, Staff Writer Todd South is reporting a judge is giving the lawyer for Ken Zisa and an assistant prosecutor four months to prepare for a motion to dismiss the remaining charge of official misconduct against the former Hackensack police chief and state assemblyman (L-1).

Four months?

Our glacial legal system is a national disgrace that seems designed to line the pockets of defense attorneys, impoverish defendants and deny many others access to the courts.

When lawyers always win, it's time to limit their high fees

For years, Prospect Avenue in Hackensack was pounded by ambulances into little more than a crudely patched track that resembled a third-world road. City officials neglected it, even though Prospect is a premier street lined with expensive high-rises. Now, the repaving of Prospect, between Essex and Passaic streets, has been greeted with oohs and aahs.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record is running major stories today on just three of the things Governor Christie is against, including a Page 1 report on the fallout from his refusal to raise the low gasoline tax.

Port Authority reporter Shawn Boburg says the bistate agency has spent $1.75 million on favored outside lawyers to defend itself and its employees from a probe of actions they took at Christie's urging (A-1).

That's nearly three times the $675,000 the agency spent on outside legal eagles during a grand jury probe of the George Washington Bridge lane closures (A-8).

Hourly rates?

Boburg's long story doesn't mention the rates the Port Authority was charged by connected law firms in New York and New Jersey, but you can bet it is several hundreds of dollars per hour.

Whatever the outcome of the probe, the lawyers will win by collecting millions in legal fees and laughing all the way to the bank, taking comfort in the knowledge that no one is moving to regulate their rates.

The Record prefers to report on lawyers who dress well, but never questions high legal fees, which deny many people access to the courts.

And its own general counsel happily pay hundreds of dollars per hour to lawyers at Pashman Stein in Hackensack.

Anti-transit, too

At Christie's urging, the Port Authority shifted $1.8 billion to the repair of New Jersey roads from a fund that was supposed to help build two Hudson River rail tunnels, a project the GOP bully killed in 2010.

"New Jersey needed the funds because its own Transportation Trust Fund had virtually run out of money and could no longer support large projects," Boburg reports.

He notes the repairs "allowed Christie to plug a hole in the state's budget ... without raising New Jersey's gasoline tax ..., the main source of income for the state's transportation funding" (A-8). 

The Port Authority is defending its actions from probes by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Also anti-voting

A story on A-4 today reports Christie also opposes a revision of New Jersey's laws "by expanding early voting to two weeks before general elections, automatically registering voters when they are issued a driver's license and allowing online registration."

On A-9, another story reports Christie is attacking President Obama's "sweeping plan to cut carbon emissions from power plants."

The Record and other media should question the conservative's racial motivation for repeated attacks on Obama's policies.

Christie is running against 15 or 16 other Republicans for his party's presidential nomination, not Obama, and in the unlikely event he gets it, he certainly won't be facing the president in the 2016 election.

More errors

A-2 today carries corrections from Better Living, Sports and Local, showing a total breakdown in the editing of the Woodland Park daily.

In Local, the drought on Hackensack news continues.

350 vetoes give lie to Christie's image as a compromiser

Englewood officials found a cost-efficient way to fill a deep pothole on Jones Road and Linden Avenue.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front-page story today on vetoes during what a reporter calls "the Governor Christie era" has been years in the making.

This is the first time since the GOP bully took office in early 2010 that the Woodland Park daily has bothered to tally his vetoes, and the shocking number doesn't appear until the continuation page (A-6).

Also shocking are the number of staff stories and columns that have portrayed Christie as a moderate who often compromised with the Democratic majority in the state Legislature to achieve so-called reforms.

The front-page headlines are deceiving, only hinting at how many vetoes Christie has used to get his way on a range of issues, and insulate wealthy companies and individuals from higher taxes:

"Another try to override Christie
Democrats are 0-for-49 against governor's vetoes"

In fact, "Governor Christie has enthusiastically embraced his veto power, exercising it at least 350 times since he took office," The Record reports on A-6.

Still, the story never says what seems obvious: Christie has used his veto power more than any other governor in New Jersey history.

More Christie

Two other Page 1 stories report on Port Authority airport rescue teams, and another desperate Christie grab for environmental money to help plug gaping holes in his budget plan.

Christie vetoed Port Authority reform legislation passed unanimously by New Jersey and New York lawmakers last year, ensuring the bi-state agency will continue to do things as expensively as possible.

The creation of fire and rescue squads at each of the agency's airports tripled the cost of response teams, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg reports on A-1.

Falling short

But Boburg still hasn't linked the agency's  profligate spending to increasingly higher tolls and a refusal to expand bus and rail transit in the region.

And the editors run three major Page 1 stories today on how Christie has screwed up the state and region, and still won't declare him the worst governor in New Jersey history.

Editors see politics in every Christie belch, burp and fart

Plunging gasoline prices continue to have an adverse impact on the environment: Sales of hybrid cars fall, owners postpone trading in their gas guzzlers for more efficient vehicles and many people drive more, aggravating air pollution. This Delta station is in Teaneck.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

For the third time this week, The Record's front page features Editor Marty Gottlieb's Three Bimbos, including yet another Charles Stile column on how Governor Christie's actions play in Iowa.

The third bimbo, inmate Teresa "Real Housewife" Giudice, appears in a Page 1 brief.

Stile isn't even doing any original reporting, but merely regurgitating "Republican operatives and donors in ... Christie's corner," as his first sentence notes (A-1).

Missing from nearly every Stile column in the past five years is how Christie's actions play in New Jersey, where he has tried to kill the middle class and repeatedly vetoed a tax surcharge on millionaires.

GWB scandal

Today's off-lead is Staff Writer Shawn Boburg's retrospective on the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal -- one year after the media uncovered an explosive e-mail from Christie's chief of staff:

"Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

But even this story tries to put Christie's likely involvement in political retribution against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee in the best light.

Boburg's second paragraph notes the e-mail "unleashed a massive political scandal ... and caused changes big and small" (A-1).

Though the reporter mentions "action by the legislatures in both New Jersey and New York," he is silent on the veto of those reform packages by Christie and his New York counterpart.

So, it's unclear what Port Authority "reforms" are being cited in the Page 1 headline.

And The Record and other media haven't acknowledged their failure to uncover the roles of Christie aides and cronies in the scandal in the two months before his November 2013 re-election. 

Paris massacre

Gottlieb, former global editions editor of The New York Times, gave up business trips to Paris for a trans-Hudson commute.

But in today's Page 1 coverage of the attack on a satirical newspaper in Paris, no one asks whether police could have prevented the killing of 12 people on Wednesday.

That was the same way Gottlieb handled the invasion of Westfield Garden State Plaza by a disturbed young man with a rifle on Nov. 4, 2013.

The show of force by Paramus police was too late to prevent panic among shoppers and employees, as well as the man's suicide.

Mercedes-Benz

Two more stories on the move of Mercedes-Benz USA to Atlanta appear in the paper today (A-1 and B-1).

Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley tries to compare the quality of life in Charlotte and Atlanta -- including restaurants, museums and art center -- to North Jersey, where residents and visitors have the world's greatest city, New York, just across the river.

The stories also put into context the loss of up to 1,000 jobs by 2017, when Mercedes is expected to move into a new U.S. headquarters in Atlanta.

Mercedes' employees are a small fraction of the more than 22,000 workers who commute to corporate headquarters in Montvale, Park Ridge and Woodcliff Lake every day (B-2).

Editors miraculously transform vetoes into PA 'reforms'

In Hackensack, North Jersey Media Group turned The Record's old River Street parking lot into a cash cow. Parking costs a flat fee of $5, but the first 50 minutes are free. Parking for the disabled also costs $5 with the first 90 minutes free. Jurors park free.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's Page 1 headline on Sunday tried to hide how Governors Christie and Cuomo killed any hope of real reform at the mammoth Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Today, another front-page headline miraculously transforms the governors' vetoes of bills passed by two state Legislatures into "PA reforms" (A-1).

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg reports "it could take years to enact the [governors'] most complex and politically fraught proposals."

But Boburg devotes a lot of space to a possible takeover of the PATH rail system, and none to the construction of a new midtown Manhattan bus terminal, which is at the top of the list for weary Bergen County commuters. 

Boburg is the reporter assigned to cover the Port Authority, but he has ignored the agency's refusal to expand PATH and add a second bus lane into the Lincoln Tunnel.

Today, he continues to voice PA propaganda against mass transit by citing PATH's yearly losses of $300 million as an impediment to a takeover by NJ Transit.

Does The Record know of any mass-transit system that makes money? The benefits are less tangible, ranging from cleaner air to less traffic congestion to reduced reliance on fossil fuels.

Sports garbage

The other major elements on today's front page -- especially the column on the Giants' coach -- are a colossal waste of space.

Why didn't Editor Martin Gottlieb give better play to Bill Bratton, the New York police commissioner, who said nationwide demonstrations are "about the continuing poverty rates, the continuing growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor" (A-1 brief and A-3)?

Contrast Bratton's comments to the racial stereotyping from Bernard Kerik, the crook who served as the city's police commissioner more than a decade ago.

Kerik was quoted last week by Columnist Mike Kelly.

Lame editors

The local assignment editors still can't provide readers with a complete story two days after a woman drove her small SUV into two special police officers in Cliffside Park.

Today, The Record reports one of the officers, Stephen Petruzzello, was in critical condition after surgery (L-1).

But CliffviewPilot.com said the officer died at 5 this morning.

The Record's L-1 story reports the driver, Ani Kalayjian, 62, was "cited" for "various traffic violations," but does not specify them.

There is no description of how the accident happened on Saturday night or whether the officers were in a crosswalk when they were run down.

Today's account finally has the names of the officers, Petruzzello and Thaier Abdallah.

Instead of providing important details, the reporters make sure to fill the story with the trivial, such as where the two officers sat during graduation in November. 

Cliffview Pilot

Jerry DeMarco reports on CliffviewPilot.com that Petruzzello, 22, sustained severe brain injuries and died at 5 a.m. today.

DeMarco showed a photo of the driver, and identified her as an "internationally known trauma expert and author."

He quotes police as saying the woman claimed she "didn't see" the officers. She was in the vehicle with her 93-year-old mother.

See: Stephen Petruzzello dies from injuries

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?

Bridgegate editors bury an elaborate Christie cover-up

Today is a thoroughly miserable day to be driving around Bergen County.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

If the miserable, sunless weather doesn't get you down, The Record's whitewash of a legislative panel's report on Governor Christie and Bridgegate is certain to do the trick.

"Cover-up" was the word used by some media outlets to describe the report's conclusions, including WNYC-FM.

But you would have to read far into today's upbeat Page 1 "ANALYSIS," a Charles Stile column and an editorial (A-9) to understand just how far Governor Christie, his aides and his cronies went to cover up the real purpose of the George Washington Bridge lane closures -- political payback.

When the Woodland Park daily's editors and reporters sound like the GOP bully's own spin doctors, you know journalistic principals have been compromised.

Wrong-way Boburg

Staff Writer Shawn Boburg claims in his first paragraph today that the Legislature's Bridgegate report concluded Governor Christie didn't know of the scheme (A-1), but that contradicts what he reported on Friday.

The state legislative committee investigating the September 2013 gridlock in Fort Lee said there was "no conclusive evidence" as to whether Christie "was or was not" aware of the closures or involved in directing them, according to Boburg's Page 1 story on Friday.

And Boburg's lead paragraph today mentions "two reports," a reference to the whitewash by Christie's own lawyers, including Randy Mastro, who soaked taxpayers by submitting a request for $7.2 million in legal fees.

Treating the credibility of the two reports equally completely violates the standards of objective journalism.

Indeed, a gullible Boburg quoted Mastro on Friday's Page 1 claiming that "with this [legislative] inquiry behind it [sic], the governor and his office can focus on what they do best -- serving the public interest."

At the moment Mastro's press release went out, Christie was thousands of miles away in Canada, pursing his White House dreams. 

So much for "serving the public interest."

Editorial trickery

Stile, one of the paper's biggest Christie boosters, claims in his first paragraph the latest report "may help [the governor] in his yearlong quest for rehabilitation" (A-1).

The headlines on today's editorial are even more bewildering (A-9):

No involvement

GWB panel implicates only Christie aides

Really? 

Today, none other than Boburg reports "the legislative report said Christie and an aide had deleted 12 text messages they exchanged during damaging testimony by Port Authority officials" (A-6).

And readers have to question the motives of Boburg and his editors to bury the lead in the last paragraph of his so-called Analysis, quoting a spokesman for the Democratic National Commitee:

"Some of Christie's closest aides and allies put safety at risk, seemingly to exact petty political revenge, and in the aftermath, they lied about it. That, in itself, is inexcusable conduct coming from the administration of someone who wants to be president of the United States" (A-6).

See corrections, sloppy editing in another 'rape edition'

The New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark on Sunday night.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

From The Record's sensational coverage of an alleged rape at William Paterson University in Wayne, you'd never know one in five women are sexually assaulted in college.

The Woodland Park daily's front page is dominated for a third day in a row by coverage of the charges against five WPU students (A-1).

More corrections

Meanwhile, two more corrections are published on A-2 today -- following two on Tuesday -- and sloppy editing elsewhere has readers shaking their heads.

One of the corrections notes two workers were "misidentified" in a Local front photo at J&R Lamb Studios in Midland Park.

Did the photographer, Don Smith, give the wrong information to the news editors, as photographers have been doing for decades? 

Toll confusion

In an A-3 story on the proposed Port Authority budget, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg notes tolls will go up for the fourth year in a row "after Saturday."

Does that mean Sunday or Monday or when?

And Boburg doesn't say whether the discounted car-pool and green-car tolls also are going up and by how much.

Dropped word?

I've read and re-read the first paragraph of the Q&A with Chef Jeff Kellish on BL-2 and on NorthJersey.com (COFFEE WITH THE CHEF), and have no idea what his mother used as punishment when he misbehaved.

UPDATE: On a fifth or sixth reading, I see " working in the kitchen" was the "punishment," but that doesn't sound like discipline to me.

After all, if it was so distasteful, why did Kellish become a chef?
Also, is it the newspaper's style to lower case "chef" before a name? Why? 

Or is that another typo from the overworked and under-appreciated copy desk, which labors late into the night while its supervisor, six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton, laughs all the way to the bank? 

On the next page, the continuation of a story on WaffleWaffle reports they are sold "at several Whole Foods locations as well as other retailers, including Inserra shops" (BL-3).

How many readers know "Inserra shops" is a reference to 21 ShopRite Supermarkets?

Second look

On Tuesday's A-6, a photo of the William Paterson University campus shows a sign with the school's name on it and two students walking in opposite directions.

The caption says, "Activity at the William Paterson University campus on Monday [italics added]."

Give me a break.

Travel editor betrays her readers with another free trip

When an employee of Babe's Taxi in Fort Lee complained about the huge traffic jam caused by closure of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge last September, a Port Authority police officer told him to write a letter to Governor Christie. The exit to the company's garage, above, is on Hudson Street, which normally provides three lanes leading to upper-level tollbooths, below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Jill Schensul, the perpetually jet-lagged editor of The Record's Travel section, went on another free press junket in search of what might seem like a local story.

Her gushing Sunday cover piece -- delivered with today's paper -- describes an all-expenses-paid trip to a shipyard that is building Royal Caribbean's Quantum of the Sea, "which will sail to its home port of Cape Liberty in Bayonne in November" (T-1).

Traffic jams

Schensul should have stayed home and done some reporting on Cape Liberty, which was a traffic and logistical nightmare when I dropped off and picked up cruise-ship passengers this past summer.

In Bayonne, vacationers don't have direct access to the ship.

Instead, they are processed in a shed and then taken to the ship on shuttle buses.  

To drop off or pick up passengers, a long, double line of buses, cars, vans and taxis enter the port and must take a slow, circuitous route to the shed that can consume close to an hour.

What a great start to a vacation: Sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Schensul's free trip was to a shipyard in a small German town, raising questions about whether this same yard built warships during World War II.

Why this tremendous amount of publicity for Royal Caribbean? 

With 2,090 staterooms, the new ship will surely be a zoo at sea, complete with hundreds of bratty children. What is the appeal of that?

Correction

The Travel section also publishes an embarrassing correction -- to fix captions on two selfies from Venice that were "inadvertently" switched last week (T-1 and A-2 of today's paper).

Apparently, an Arabic family -- the Sayeghs of Paterson -- were given a Jewish couple's names -- the Kapplemans of Saddle Brook, and vice versa. Sweet.

Production Editor Liz Houlton, who is paid six figures to prevent such mistakes, must have been on vacation.

Last week, no one seemed to notice or care three names were under the couple's photo and two names were under the photo of a family of three.

Today's paper

Editor Marty Gottlieb leads today's paper with another report on Port Authority police officers at the George Washington Bridge "scrambling to deal with a traffic nightmare caused by ... lane closures that clogged Fort Lee's streets last September" (A-1).

Governor Christie is mentioned in passing:

"Christie has denied any involvement [in] or prior knowledge [of] the lane closures," reports Staff Writer Shawn Boburg, swallowing whole the legal whitewash that will cost taxpayers $7 million-plus.

Dumb and dumber

On the Local front, Staff Writer John Brennan reports what the headline calls "signs of activity" on the American Dream retail-entertainment complex, including painters covering the ugly checkerboard exterior (L-1).

Now, readers are waiting for test results showing signs of brain activity in the former sports reporter's head.

Dumber still was Road Warrior John Cichowski's Tuesday column on the anniversary of the lane closures in Fort Lee, according to the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

"In his Tuesday column, the Road Warrior returns to the scene of the crime and continues to compound so many of his grossly mistaken columns about the closures of tollbooths and access lanes for a local Fort Lee entrance to the George Washington Bridge during the week of Sept. 9, 2013.

"The Road Warrior reported that a Fort Lee resident was 'prescient' when he warned the Road Warrior during that week about impending tragedies that would be caused by the associated traffic jams.

"Yet, The Record and every other credible news source over the past year has reported that there were absolutely no tragedies that were directly caused by these closures."

Also, Cichowski and The Record have repeatedly exaggerated the impact of closing two of three access lanes to the bridge's upper level a year ago.

There are other Fort Lee access lanes to both the upper and lower levels, and the latter, dubbed Martha Washington, was largely unaffected during the week of Sept. 9, 2013. 

See:

More irresponsible reporting by the Road Warrior

More too-little, too-late coverage of GWB scandal, A.C.

A third story of residential units has been added to the State Street redevelopment project in Hackensack, a building that is expected to have 222 units above a parking garage when it is completed in 2015.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The major takeouts on The Record's front page today raise a lot of unanswered questions about the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal and Atlantic City (A-1).

The so-called Analysis by Staff Writer Shawn Boburg doesn't address the chief question on readers' minds -- why is the federal grand jury investigation of the politically inspired traffic jams in Fort Lee (Sept. 9-13, 2013) taking so long?

Professor Brigid Harrison is quoted as saying the GOP bully's administration no longer controls "the narrative" (A-7).

If that's so, why does The Record persist in flattering coverage, such as the gushing stories on Governor Christie's purely political visit to Mexico last week?

Reporters love quoting Harrison, but shouldn't The Record acknowledge when it does so that she is one of its Sunday columnists? 

Maybe, it's time for the lazy newsroom editors to cast a wider net for experts.

I'm not going to bother with the The GWB Files interactive presentation at NorthJersey.com, but wonder why the nefarious motives for the lane closures weren't discovered before the November election, when Christie won a second term.

Is the photo caption on A-7 correct in saying the lane closures lasted "five days," not four?

Behind 8 ball

Is 36 years after Atlantic City's first casino opened really the right time to report on what the shore resort can learn from Las Vegas (A-1)?

Staff Writer John Brennan, a brain-damaged former sports reporter, doesn't even mention Vegas' $3.99 buffets and all the ridiculously cheap hotel rooms that lure millions to the desert.

Revel, the $2.9-billion boondoggle that just bit the dust, opened with $400-a-night rooms and the smallest casino in Atlantic City, dooming it to failure.

Sending Brennan to Las Vegas is a huge waste of money, and a waste of readers' time.

If you think his report is laughable, check out Mike Kelly's silly, shit-eating-grin perspective on Atlantic City (O-1).

Rich districts

Do school districts in wealthy towns like Tenafly and Fort Lee get more coverage in The Record (L-1 and L-3)?

Publisher Stephen A. Borg lives in Tenafly, but when is the last time the Woodland Park daily covered the Hackensack district, which spends more money per pupil than Ridgewood?

Editors get high

The Business editors couldn't find a North Jersey company that was as interesting as a Denver marijuana store (B-1).

The 4-page section supplied by The Wall Street Journal every Sunday is a testament to how hard the local business staff works to bring readers North Jersey news. 

Readers looking for a discussion of restaurant issues, such as tipping or high liquor prices, will be disappointed in The Corner Table column from Elisa Ung today (BL-1).

Traveling music

The Record's already thin Travel section is devoting less and less space to reporting on the high cost of vacations (T-1).

For years, Travel Editor Jill Schensul has reduced her workload by running a full page of readers' vacation photos on T-2.

Today, the Travel cover is filled with reader selfies (three of the five on T-1 are from Venice, Italy). More appear on T-4.

In the biggest selfie on T-1, Adam Nolte of Wyckoff doesn't look too happy. Did he pay the gondolier?

Didn't any of The Record's black and Hispanic readers send in selfies? 

Evonne Coutros

The byline of Evonne Coutros last appeared in The Record on March 3, 2014, over a story about Wyckoff, one of the towns she covered, according to NorthJersey.com.

Her byline also appeared in The Hellenic Times as far back as 1989, when she also was employed at The Record.

Coutros had a knack of landing interviews with the biggest celebrities, but The Record's editors usually assigned her to cover news from Ridgewood, Glen Rock, Ho-Ho-Kus, Franklin Lakes and other small towns.

A reader of Eye on The Record recently asked if Coutros died. I don't know.

She was 57 and lived in Closter, I believe.