There's a huge hole in expose of hospital takeovers

A senior living residence in Saddle River on Sunday played host to more than a dozen great jazz musicians and singers performing at a benefit for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research, including vocalist Dianne Reeves, above, and Cuban-born pianist Chucho Valdes, below. The drummer backing Reeves is Steve Williams.

Introduced as the "greatest living jazz pianist," Valdes' pounded the keys at Sunrise Senior Living, where chairman emeritus of Blue Note Records, Bruce Lundvall, now lives as he struggles with Parkinson's disease. Lundvall organized the jazz festival.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record already has published many thousands of words in its three-part expose on for-profit hospital ownership, but not the ones local property tax payers want to see (A-1 today and Sunday).

In Hackensack and Englewood, two huge, non-profit medical centers pay little or no taxes to their communities, drastically shifting the burden onto homeowners and businesses.

Hackensack University Medical Center alone owns more than $180 million in tax-exempt property, and returns nothing to the city in lieu of taxes.

Unfortunately, there is no sign either Hackensack or Englewood will lose their non-profit hospitals soon.

But amid all the negatives The Record's local-news editors list in the shift to for-profit hospitals, one big positive development was overlooked:

Those other hospitals began paying property taxes for the first time, and that could mean lower bills for residents, landlords and merchants.

Who edited this?

On Sunday, the first part of the series reported, "... After several pending sales are completed, one in six of the state's 72 hospitals will be run by health care entrepreneurs and investors.... (A-1)"

Why are readers asked to do the math? Does the paper mean 12 hospitals?

Singer Norah Jones.

Guitarists Ed Laub, left, and Bucky Pizzarelli.

Pianist Bill Charlap performed with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Kenny Washington.

Not much worth reading

I didn't see much worth reading in the rest of the paper today or Sunday.

More than a quarter of today's front page -- on a golf tournament in Paramus -- is a huge waste of space, testament to how little news the Woodland Park newsroom generated on a sleepy Sunday.

Dogs figure prominently in two stories on today's Local front (L-1).

How appetizing is it to go to a farmers' market for fresh produce and buy fruit or vegetables with dog hairs on them?

That was a possibility in Hawthorne, where a half-dozen therapy dogs were available for hugging two weeks after a woman at the market was killed by the deranged driver of a pick-up truck (L-1).

Apples and oranges

What does the 2008 fatal police shooting of an Hispanic man in Denville after a high-speed chase have to do with Ferguson, Mo., where an unarmed teen was killed by police this month?

Absolutely nothing, but that didn't stop the befuddled Road Warrior from writing an entire column on police stops of drivers (Sunday's L-1).

The best story in Sunday's paper is the obituary of Frank "Candy Man" Ix III of Cresskill, a cheerful retiree who attended every morning Mass at a convent in Tenafly (L-1).

Tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano performed with his group and his wife, singer Judi Silvano.

Miguelli sang his own songs.

Holders of VIP tickets were served tapas, as well as beer and wine at two open bars.

Here is a big reason you don't want to move to Leonia

In Manhattan today, panhandlers were working the rush-hour traffic on the Harlem River Drive ramp leading to the George Washington Bridge.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Two weeks ago, a vibrant 60-year-old restaurant owner using a downtown Leonia crosswalk was struck by a school bus and dragged 71 feet to her death.

In The Record's story on Leyla Kan of Fort Lee, Leonia Police Chief Thomas Rowe appealed to Governor Christie and the Port Authority to do something about rush-hour traffic from the turnpike that uses the town as a shortcut to the George Washington Bridge.

But what that had to do with the death of Kan was unclear in The Record's poorly reported Aug. 8 story.

No connection

In fact, it had nothing to do with her death, as a column this past Sunday revealed:

"The fatality stretched law enforcement to the breaking point, said Rowe, because only two of his department's 17 officers were on duty at the time and they were handling a domestic call" (Sunday's Road Warrior column, A-1 and A-8).

Yikes! Only two police officers were working in Leonia on a busy Thursday morning? 

Photos of Leyla Kan were part of a memorial at her Palisades Park pita-and-pizza restaurant, Picnic Cafe.

Incompetent leaders

Where are borough officials? Where is property tax money going, if not to keep residents and visitors safe?

Given all of the rush-hour traffic that inundates Leonia, shouldn't Rowe assign at least one officer to direct traffic at its main intersection, Fort Lee Road and Broad Avenue, where Kan was struck by a school bus driver who failed to yield to her?

Wouldn't Kan be alive today, if an officer was guarding the crosswalk she assumed would protect her on a beautiful, great-to-be-alive day?

Shameless apologist

Road Warrior John Cichowski, who likely is in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, quotes Leonia Borough Council President Gil Hawkins as saying:

"Austerity measures caused largely by a weak economy and  declining tax base led to the loss of six officers over the years."

And they weren't replaced? Every town in North Jersey has been hit by a "weak economy and declining tax base."

That's no excuse in Leonia or anywhere else.

Cold-blooded reporter

In his Sunday column, Cichowski couldn't have been more insensitive to Kan's death.

First, he refers to her death as "a fatal bus crash near the mayor's hardware store." Later, he calls it a "grisly bus crash." 

There was no "bus crash" in the usual sense of the phrase. How did the editors allow this fuzzy nonsense in the paper?

Cichowski never names the victim, as if she was so much road kill.

A cover-up

Cichowski's column and the Aug. 8 news story reporting Kan's death amount to a cover-up of Leonia officials' incompetence.

The original news story didn't mention the short police staffing, and gave the police chief a platform to distract attention from it by asking for state and regional help dealing with rush-hour traffic.

Reporters just published his remarks; no one at the press conference or in the Woodland Park newsroom asked Rowe what his request for help directing traffic had to do with Kan's death.

Today's paper

Readers bored with A-1 today likely flipped the page and saw an item on A-2 that basically admits the Sports staff can't spell names or correctly identify athletes in photos (A-2).

A Bergen County jury found that a cold-blooded Stephen Scharf murdered his wife by throwing her off of the Palisades in 1992.

Now, his conviction has been thrown out, but the appeals-court judges didn't attack any of the actual evidence against him, and he will be retried, if necessary.

Why is The Record giving him a platform today to discuss his "plans for life as a free man" (A-1)?

If anyone is a "Big Pussy," it's Columnist Bill Ervolino, who today second guesses the Bergen County Historical Society's 10 Legends (A-1).

Hackensack news?

Who is covering Hackensack for The Record?

Christopher Maag, who took over from Hannan Adely, is now covering NJ Transit.

Adely's name appeared under a Wednesday brief reporting action on a downtown park at Monday's City Council meeting, but she also covers education. 

Ticket prices

On the Better Living front, the $150 price (plus tax) given for a ticket to the Sunrise Senior Living Jazz Festival on Sunday conflicts with the Web site, ticketbud.com, where lower-price tickets also are available (BL-1).