Readers question Page 1 column on house without driveway

Posters in the "My County Poster Contest" were on display today in the lobby of the Bergen County Administration Building in Hackensack, above and below.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

You've seen those houses -- on the edge of Route 17 or next to railroad tracks -- and wondered why would anyone buy and live in them.

The same question could be asked of Ken Klabouch, who lives in a house with no driveway and has to jump through many hoops to comply with Midland Park's ban on overnight parking, The Record reports today.

Is it any surprise Klabouch can't sell the place (A-1)?

Surely, I'm not the only reader questioning why Staff Writer John Cichowski thinks this real estate story has anything to do with his responsibilities as a commuting columnist.

Cichowski took over the Road Warrior column more than a dozen years ago, and quickly turned his back on bus and rail commuters, and drivers who faced mounting congestion at the Hudson River crossings.

Instead, he specialized in reporting on waiting times at the MVC, potholes, teen drivers and highway lighting, and wrote column after column quoting state police statistics on fatal accidents -- though he rarely transposed the data accurately.

How far is Klabouch's house from an NJ Transit bus stop, does Midland Park have rail service and could the place be ideal for a young couple who want to reduce their carbon footprint?

The clueless Cichowski doesn't say.

Memorial Day

Staff Writer Paul Berger did a fine job covering the Memorial Day ceremony at the monument to war dead in Englewood on Monday (L-1).

He ignored the speeches, and focused on Olga Mosciaro, 88, who has organized the parade "since the days she was a secretary in the city's Police Department detective bureau 30 years ago."

Berger's readable story noted the woman's white hat "barely poked above the lectern."

Korean drivers

The gee-whiz photo on L-2 today only adds to the poor opinion of Korean-American drivers held by many people.

The caption notes the large "SUV wound up on top of another vehicle ... when a parishioner at the Korean Presbyterian Church of the Palisades in Old Tappan lost control of the vehicle." 

What does "lost control" mean? Was the driver elderly, and did he or she mistake the gas pedal for the brake pedal -- a common problem among seniors, whether they are Korean or not? 

The Record's editors made no effort to find out, and in the process smeared the reputation of Korean drivers.

Monday's paper

Page 1 on Monday reported that eight residents of Midland Park -- a 1.5-mile-square borough with about 8,000 residents in the 1960s -- were killed in three years of the Vietnam War.

The story was by Staff Writer Todd South, a Marine veteran of Afghanistan.

As I read the story, I wondered whether this was the first time The Record had reported the heavy toll.

Nothing on the front page indicated the moving story was anything but the result of great reporting, but when readers turned to the continuation page, they finally saw the truth.

The story was based on the work of another Marine veteran, Paul Chepurko, a Hawthorne resident who self-published a book on the eight soldiers from Midland Park, "Small Town-Big Sacrifice II" (Monday's A-6).

Was the story deliberately written or edited to leave mention of Chepurko to the continuation page?

LOL: Christie calls millionaires the 'people of New Jersey'

Two of the unfilled potholes on Euclid Avenue, between Prospect and Summit avenues, in Hackensack, where residents say the block hasn't been re-paved in about 30 years.

Big stones that are thrown off can damage car tires.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

New Jersey's faltering economy, soon-to-be bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund and a host of other problems under Governor Christie can be explained in four words.

In response to another attempt to place a tax surcharge on the wealthy, the GOP bully claims millionaires are the "people of New Jersey," The Record says (A-3).

"So the Democrats are once again firmly in the place of raising taxes on [the] people of New Jersey," Christie told reporters in New Brunswick.

Staff Writers Dustin Raccioppi and Melissa Hayes simply quote Christie making the most ridiculous claims, and never challenge him.

For example, he claims his "economic policies" and "reforms," if not blocked by Democrats, would have allowed him to "cut taxes" -- but the reporters don't ask him which taxes he is referring to (A-3).

'Millionaires tax'

Of course, many of the millionaires that would pay such a tax surcharge -- raising more than $1 billion a year in new revenue -- are Christie supporters.

They are part of the 1% and the source of campaign money that elected him governor and, he hopes, will send him to the White House.

They are far from being "the people" he has tried to screw from the outset, whether they ride mass transit, teach in our schools or work for state government.

Just folks

You'll find one of them on the first Business page today -- Goya CEO Bob Unanue, whose billion-dollar Hispanic food empire received an $82 million state tax break to build a new world headquarters in Jersey City (L-7).

Staff Writer Hugh R. Morley, who covered the "dazzling ceremony" to open the building, is a good reporter, but he didn't say anywhere is his report whether the Unanue family or the company have contributed to Christie's campaigns.

Instead, he quotes Christie extensively on the importance of Goya to New Jersey, which has lagged the nation and nearby states on job creation under the conservative's misguided rule.

And another multimillionaire who is just folks to Christie is real estate mogul Jon F. Hanson, one of his biggest fund-raisers and a personal friend of the Borg publishing family, owner of The Record. 

Hanson's links to Christie and the Borgs may explain why Editor Martin Gottlieb continues to run an endless stream of boring Charles Stile columns on Page 1, exploring in mind-numbing detail Christie's chances of winning the GOP nomination (A-1).

Vietnam War

Staff Writer Todd South is a veteran of Afghanistan, but he could have turned in a far more complete Vietnam War retrospective than readers find on A-1 today.

Like our second war in Iraq, U.S. government officials may have lied to the American people to justify the invasion.

And South doesn't discuss all of the health problems veterans experienced from the use of Agent Orange and napalm to eliminate hiding places for guerrilla fighters.

When I worked on The Record's copy desk, I often edited the obituaries of those veterans, many of whom died in their mid-50s.

And like returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, the country turned its back on those who fought in Vietnam and their health problems.

Finally, Vietnam was the first war that made the nightly TV news, where the horror sparked protests to bring it to an end, such as the one I attended in San Francisco.