Error-prone, police-loving local news section limps along

The City Council meeting scheduled for tonight was held on Monday night, according to the city's Web site. On Friday, an appeals court overturned former Police Chief Ken Zisa's 2012 official-misconduct conviction, and freed him from house arrest and a pending 5-year prison sentence.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Three more corrections appear on Page A-2 of The Record today, further evidence of the breakdown of editing and fact checking at the Woodland Park daily.

On Monday's Page 1, a local reporter assigned to cover the Haskell Invitational misstated the amount of money won by American Pharoah.

He was off by $600,000.

Another local reporter misstated how Oradell's Fire Department will spend a $160,000 federal grant.

And a sports reporter committed the biggest sin of all, misspelling the last name of Wallington-Carlstadt Little League softball pitcher Abigail Tabaka.

Local news?

Meanwhile, local assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza used seven Law & Order stories as filler in today's section (L-2, L-3 and L-6).

Sykes and Sforza endeavor to stay on good terms with all of the police departments in North Jersey to ensure the flow of the Law & Order copy they rely on every day.

On L-1, Road Warrior John Cichowski focuses on a single railroad crossing the vast majority of readers will never use -- rather than report on the overall health of mass transit or the condition of local roads.

Carbon emissions

Congratulations to environmental reporter James M. O'Neill for his front-page story on President Obama's proposal to dramatically cut carbon emissions, including a strong New Jersey focus (A-1).

The day before, Editor Martin Gottlieb ran an Associated Press story on Page 1 that politicized the issue by pitting Democrats against Republicans.

In his second paragraph, O'Neill reports:

"The plan is the first large-scale attempt by the United States to try and slow the release of greenhouse gases tied to climate change ...." (A-1).

Governor Christie's opposition to the plan appears on the continuation page, as well as quotes from New Jersey environmental official on how well the state is doing on cutting emissions from power plants.

And PSEG, whose subsidiary runs large power plants in New Jersey, backs the Obama administration's goals.

This is the kind of balance reporting that has been missing from The Record, especially when it comes to Christie and the terrible job he has done since he took office in early 2010.

Self-serve gasoline could be bad for air quality in N.J.

This two-pump gas station on Sylvan Avenue in Englewood Cliffs will probably never convert to self-service, even if the law is changed to allow it.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

The Record's front-page story on a proposal to allow self-serve gas stations in New Jersey raises a lot of questions about prices that are never answered.

The story claims drivers pay a "full-service premium ... at the pump" estimated "at 8 cents to 18 cents a gallon," but doesn't say whether prices will be cut, if self-serve is approved (A-6).

Nor does The Record say how much the gasoline tax might be raised, and whether the net effect will be lower prices at the pump.

Cutting gasoline prices would transform a quality of life report into an environmental story, if lower prices encourage more driving and discourage the purchase of hybrids and other fuel-efficient cars.

Of course, the New Jersey Gasoline C-Store Automotive Association probably wouldn't pass along labor savings to the consumer.

Members of the owners group have been charged with numerous wage violations.

Confusing numbers

At one point, the story reports self-serve pumps "would mean the loss of hundreds of part-time jobs," but a few paragraphs later notes gas stations employ about 5,000 attendants who pump gas, most of them part time (A-6).

Today's lead story on A-1 reports air pollution is getting worse in New Jersey. 

A proposal that might lead to lower gas prices and encourage more driving certainly isn't welcome in the Garden State, where mass transit is already operating at capacity.

Letterman effect

If the page proofer, news and copy editors, and other members of the newsroom production staff are still watching David Letterman, readers might finally have an explanation for the dramatic spike in errors in recent years (BL-1).

Letterman's "Late Show" was a fixture in the newsroom before the Borg family's North Jersey Media Group abandoned Hackensack in 2009.

Even more significant, moving the printing of The Record to Rockaway Township from Hackensack a couple of years earlier apparently ended the tradition of checking the first copies for errors, stopping the presses and fixing them.

Six-figure Production Editor Liz Houlton has done a miserable job of ensuring accurate headlines, and all editing seems to have ended, allowing reporters and columnists to write on and on, and spin fiction if they want.

All this coverage -- today and Sunday -- of Letterman's final show on Wednesday is a waste of space. 

After I left the paper, I never watched the comedian again.

Second looks

Take a look at the corrections on Saturday's A-2 for examples of what a crappy job Houlton and the news and copy editors under her are doing.

One headline "gave the incorrect town in which seven people face prostitution-related charges."

Another correction fixed the misspelling of a Bergen County official's name, but also gave the name of his agency incorrectly.

Adam Strobel was identified as "division director for open space." The division isn't named.

The Strobel correction noted the "impact" of raising the open-space tax also was wrong in a story on Friday's L-6.

Death Valley

Sunday's Travel section cover story on California's Death Valley National Park was beautifully written by Staff Writer Lindy Washburn, the paper's chief medical reporter.

Her description of the landscape and "a silence as immense as any on earth" makes me want to visit even more than I did before (T-1).

Non-profit medical center giving Hackensack $5.1 million

At Tuesday night's meeting of the Hackensack City Council, Jerry Lombardo, right, chairman of the Upper Main Street Alliance, announced that two developers, Alfred Sanzari Enterprises and Meridia, are donating $40,000 toward the cost of the Atlantic Street park the business group urged the city to build on downtown parking lots. George Capodagli, the developer behind the Meridia Metro apartment project on State Street, is giving $25,000 of that amount.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

Hackensack University Medical Center, a non-profit that holds more than $130 million in tax-exempt property, will pay the city $5.1 million over three years, officials said Tuesday night.

In a second development, Capt. Nicole Foley, head of the Hackensack police Traffic Division, has been reassigned.

The move came after numerous complaints from residents that police failed to enforce no-parking rules on 70 streets during the winter, entombing vehicles, hampering snow clearing and endangering drivers on streets too narrow for two cars to pass.

HUMC payments

At Tuesday night's City Council meeting, City Manager David Troast said as the result of "tax appeals," the huge medical center will contribute $5.1 million over three years for "progressive projects."

He declined to be more specific.

At earlier meetings, Mayor John Labrosse, an HUMC employee, said the city was talking with the medical center about paying for the repaving of Prospect Avenue, a heavily traveled street lined with high-rises that resembles a third-world camel track from the pounding of traffic, including ambulances.

But the repaving of Prospect and other streets was announced a couple of weeks ago with financing from a bond and grants.

City Manager David Troast said a "frugal budget" approved by the Hackensack City Council will raise municipal taxes 3.99% or a hike of $155.99 on the average home. During the public portion of the meeting Tuesday night, no resident rose to comment on the spending plan.

Capt. Foley

The reassignment of Hackensack police Capt. Foley apparently is unrelated to the fatal pedestrian accident on March 9, when she cleared a detective of any wrongdoing in the death of a 64-year-old Vietnamese-American woman.

Foley was quoted in The Record's March 11 story on the accident at Jackson Avenue and Kennedy Street, saying police do not know where Hue D. Dang was "standing" when she was hit by an unmarked car driven by Detective Sgt. John C. Straniero, 49, of Wayne.

Foley did not mention the Jackson Avenue crosswalk to The Record's police reporter, Stefanie Dazio, nor tell her Dang fell to the pavement with her feet in the crosswalk and that a plastic grocery bag she was carrying fell next to one of the car's wheel.

Neighborhood residents believe Straniero may have been looking left to see if traffic on Kennedy was approaching Jackson Avenue and turned right toward Route 80 ramps, hitting the woman when she was in or near the crosswalk.

On Wednesday, one resident referred to Dang as the "woman who got creamed."

When Eye on The Record contacted the state police and state Attorney's General Office, expressing concern that no charges were filed against the detective, the Union County prosecutor's fatal accident unit was asked to investigate.

Today' paper

Staff Writer Todd South of The Record covered Tuesday night's Hackensack City Council meeting, but any story he may have written doesn't appear in the paper today.

As you can see from the Local section, crime news took precedence on L-1 and L-2.

Page 1

For the second day in a row, Editor Martin Gottlieb blesses readers with another all-New Jersey front page (A-1).

Unfortunately, Gottlieb included a boring Charles Stile column on Governor Christie's presidential ambitions that reads much like the 100 others the Trenton reporter has written on the same subject (A-1).

If you Google "Charles Stile and Governor Christie," you get 18,700 "results."

Gottlieb also included a big photo of Tiger Woods and his adorable children as the editor and sports Columnist Tara Sullivan try to help the wealthy pro golfer rehabilitate his image as a womanizer and home breaker (L-1 and S-1).

David Samson

In an unintentionally hilarious story, Staff Writer Shawn Boburg reports David Samson --Christie's father figure, confidant and adviser -- is retiring from the practice of law (A-1).

What's hilarious is that his firm, Wolff & Samson, is changing its name to a real tongue twister -- Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi -- and will likely lose millions in billings to other firms that are easier to remember.

Samson resigned as Port Authority chairman, the job Christie gave him, in the wake of the Bridgegate scandal. 

More corrections

Local Assignment Editors Deirdre Sykes and Dan Sforza, and Production Editor Liz Houlton admit today to two major screw-ups on Tuesday's A-1 and in an L-3 story on March 31.

Detailed corrections appear on A-2 today.

One correction notes one of the Woodland Park daily's front-page stories on the murder-suicide in Elmwood Park incorrectly reported the day on which the elderly couple died.

"It was Sunday" (not "Wednesday afternoon"), the correction states, referring to Michael Juskin, 100, who killed his wife, Rosalia, 88, with an ax before slitting his wrists (see A-1 follow-up today).

In Tuesday's story, the "Wednesday afternoon" reference appears in the first paragraph of Staff Writer Stephanie Akin's A-1 sidebar on the prevalence of domestic violence among seniors.

How many editors read that first paragraph and missed the error before it was published?

How many of those editors are pulling down six figures and laughing all the way to the bank?

Don Smith

Photographs credited to veteran Staff Photographer Don Smith have been missing for weeks. 

Is he on vacation? Did he get fired? Has there been another downsizing at North Jersey Media Group?

Editors' one-two punch: Sports and two long corrections

Two-lane Passaic Street is a major thoroughfare through Hackensack, Maywood and Rochelle Park, but it hasn't changed much since the 1950s. On Saturday, the street was packed with a long line of cars heading toward Rochelle Park, above. 

With no turn lane on Passaic Street at Summit Avenue, a turning car, left, will bring trailing vehicles to a dead stop. The SUV, right, is too big to squeeze through.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

One glance at Page 1 of The Record's Sunday edition shows a strong focus on sports above the fold.

The editors consider victims of sexual assault important enough to put on the front page (A-1).

But not more important than a football team at a Catholic high school or the prospects of sports betting in New Jersey -- a subject even more boring than the story on Governor Christie's chief financial booster (A-1).

On A-2, two long corrections are like a slap in the face to readers.

This is what we have been getting for years after Liz Houlton, who earned the sobriquet of "Queen of Errors" when she ran the features copy desk, was promoted to the six-figure job of production editor, whose job it is to keep such embarrassing screw-ups out of the paper.

Local news?

The Local-news section carries stories on Teaneck, Fort Lee and Englewood (two), but nothing about Hackensack, the most populous community in Bergen.

The Road Warrior column claims this week's holiday will have everybody focusing on how to "drive on North Jersey's angst-ridden roads without killing or maiming themselves" (L-1).

Speak for yourself, John.

Isn't that what we do all year around after a dramatic decline in the enforcement of speeding and aggressive driving -- a story you have ignored for more than a decade?

Uncharitable chef

Some chefs give away leftovers to charities that help feed the hungry and homeless, but Staff Writer Elisa Ung is celebrating one who turns them into "popular dishes" (BL-1).

Or, as the chief restaurant reviewer puts it in The Corner Table column, "turning trash into cash."

How appetizing. 

Frugal Chef Al Scazafave's restaurant is called The Twisted Elm. That's not the only thing that's "twisted."

Child abuse?

Given the low quality of the food served to students in public schools, are Garfield school employees committing child abuse when they falsify their income to qualify their kids for free lunches (O-1)?

The great Mike Kelly might want to investigate the crap served at Hackensack High and other schools instead of rewriting news stories and asking a million rhetorical questions.

In my rush to recycle Sports, Real Estate, Travel and other useless sections today, did I also discard Business?

I can't find it. 

Speeding kills, but please don't disturb the editors

NJ Transit's electric-powered Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, seen here in Jersey City, will be extended to Englewood, but the Neanderthals who rule the wealthy borough of Tenafly have rejected the service, citing their heavy investment in SUVs and luxury vehicles that run on fossil fuel. Stephen A. Borg, publisher of The Record and a Tenafly resident, has lent editorial support to that short-sighted decision.

By VICTOR E. SASSON
EDITOR

With nearly a day to work on a crash that killed a Waldwick cop who was lying in wait to catch speeders, The Record's inept newsroom staff is unable to report today whether the tractor-trailer driver charged in the death was himself speeding.

Today's front-page photo -- showing the demolished police cruiser and the jackknifed truck on the edge of Route 17 -- is worth a thousand words, especially in view of how those words, with details of what caused the accident, are missing (A-1).

Why was the photo supplied by "NBC New York" and not the Woodland Park daily's own staff?

Unanswered questions

To hit Waldwick Police Officer Christopher Goodell's cruiser on the side of Route 17 south and propel the vehicle into a retaining wall, couldn't the paper say with certainty the truck was out of control?

And couldn't anyone find a source in Bergen County's fatal accident unit for an educated guess on how fast trucker Ryon Cumberbatch of Brooklyn was driving before he lost control or fell asleep?

If Goodell was using radar to catch speeders, did the truck's speed register on the device or was it destroyed?

Instead, the paper today runs separate stories about the cop and Iraq war veteran, and the immigrant charged with second-degree vehicular homicide, referring inappropriately to the trucker as "Ryon" at one point.

Speed-camera shy

To rub salt in readers' wounds, Road Warrior John Cichowski rouses himself from his usual stupor to declare in a column on the Local front Goodell "was using radar equipment to control chronic speeding" on Route 17 (L-1).

In more than a decade of writing the so-called commuting column, Cichowski has completely ignored a rise in speeding and aggressive driving amid what many believe is declining enforcement.

Governor Christie has contributed to the problem by not replacing hundreds of state troopers who have retired, leading to fewer anti-speeding patrols on the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway.

Speed still kills

More than 13,000 people die every year in crashes involving speed, according to the National Safety Council.

Cichowski also has written a number of shrill columns demonizing red-light cameras, which catch speeders and cut down fatal intersection collisions.

Today's column on speeding cameras quotes the "chief opponent" of red-light cameras, the idiotic National Motorists Association, which argues driving is a right, not a privilege.

Members likely are speed-addicted lead-foots who assert their right to terrorize other drivers by speeding, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.

Did cop die in vain?

Let's hope Goodell didn't die in vain, and New Jersey's fractious law enforcers can get their act together and demand more red-light cameras and the installation of speeding cameras everywhere.

The extra revenue will be welcome, given the mess Christie has made of the New Jersey economy.

And why are a number of homes along Route 17 south completely exposed to traffic, unprotected by guardrails or sound walls, measures that could have protected Goodell, too?

More boring politics

The fatal collision on Page 1 today completely overshadows Christie's appearance in Iowa, in what one of The Record's columnists calls the GOP bully's "unofficial coming-out party for the 2016 presidential race" (A-1).

The Record carried a front-page story on Thursday, reporting on the supposed significance of the Iowa trip. 

Unfortunately, The New York Times story on Christie's trip to Iowa appeared on Wednesday.

How long has The Record been covering a presidential election that is still more than two years away?

Clinton v. Christie?

Former first lady and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton looks radiant in a photo on the Local front today (L-1).

I can't wait for her to declare and beat the crap out of Christie or any other GOP candidate for the White House.

More corrections

The reporting and editing staffs continue to struggle with getting things right, and they seemed to have caught a flu from Cichowski, who likely has set a record for inaccuracies by a single reporter.

Thursday's A-2 had an elaborate correction and a detailed clarification. Today's A-2 carries another correction.

Tuesday's paper had two corrections and Wednesday's single correction was even longer.

Liz Houlton, the six-figure production editor, apparently isn't doing her job. Why is she still employed there?

For carnivores

Non-meat eaters can only hope they'll find vegetarian dishes at Sapphire Thai Food Express in Teaneck (BL-14).

There is no mention of them in Elisa Ung's favorable review today, even though Thai menus usually list many salads, tofu, vegetable and other non-meat dishes.

An indictment of Record Columnist Mike Kelly

The aftermath of a minor accident on South River Street in Little Ferry on Monday. I expected to see a photo of the crash used as filler in The Record's Local section on Tuesday, but the editors got excited over a trash fire in Westwood instead.

By Victor E. Sasson
Editor

Columnist Mike Kelly takes the prize for most irresponsible journalist at The Record with his third attempt to smear the name of Richard Shoop, 20, the Teaneck man who chose a crowded mall on Nov. 4 for his very public suicide.

I recoil every time I see Kelly's dated column photo with his shit-eating grin, as I did on Tuesday's front page, which was dominated by his account of the funeral at a Teaneck church (A-1).

This was Kelly's third column about Shoop, who didn't intend to harm anyone but himself and even looked shoppers in the eye and told them "they were not his target," The Record reported on Page 1 last Wednesday.

Apparently inspired by statements from Prosecutor John L. Molinelli that Shoop had extra ammunition on him, as well as in his car, Kelly claimed in Tuesday's column the man was "seemingly intent on mass murder."

Isn't Shoop's story sad enough without Kelly linking him to the mass shootings at Columbine High School and Newtown, Conn., as he did in this and two previous columns?

Time to retire

Could it be that Kelly completely missed other angles -- the incredible show of force by police that set off panic at the Paramus mall and the total lack of meaningful security provided by the Australian owners?

On last Thursday's front page, a story reported the mall reopened amid "heightened security and assurances that New Jersey's largest mall is safe."

Unfortunately, the only evidence the editors could provide was a large, laughable photo of two Paramus cops patrolling inside, without automatic weapons or body armor, one with his hands in his pockets.  

In more than 20 years of column writing, Kelly has demonstrated one thing only: He does a superb job of filling space with his long, rambling, sensationalized accounts. 

Sadly, his lame reporting is as dishonest as that dated column photo. Few readers would miss him, if Editor Marty Gottlieb busted him back to reporter or simple fired his sorry ass.

Why taxes are so high

Today's front page is dominated by the story of James Brady, the formerly homeless man in Hackensack who was denied welfare benefits because he failed to report $850 he found in the street (A-1).

Brady, who appeared at Tuesday night's City Council meeting, said the homeless shouldn't be targeted unless they are doing something wrong -- a pointed reference to city Police Director Mike Mordaga's policy of cracking down on those with criminal records.

Mordaga has blamed the homeless -- attracted by three free meals a day at the county shelter -- for street crime, drug use and other problems.

Brady's undoing by the city bureaucracy has revealed that Agatha Toomey, the head of the Hackensack Human Services Department, is making an astounding $133,000 a year and has the use of a city car (A-6).

Governor Christie is paid $175,000 a year. No wonder my Hackensack property taxes are so high. 

More liabilities

Kelly isn't the only thing that's rotten in Woodland Park, as a letter to the editor from Dianne Douthat of Wayne shows.

She criticizes Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin for using his Nov. 8 column to pin voter apathy on people, but not accept "the role the media played"  (A-8).

"You could fit the amount of fair, balanced and unbiased reporting in this [gubernatorial] election from New Jersey's newspapers and periodicals on the head of one computer keyboard key," Douthat wrote.

Radio and TV news have been "obscenely biased for many years -- now it seems our local newspapers are following suit. No wonder so few people came out to vote," her letter said.

She called on Doblin and other journalists to examine their consciences and accept responsibility for their role in turning voters off.

Don't hold your breath, Dianne.

You may want to read my Nov. 5 post on voter apathy:

In New Jersey, apathetic morons stifle real change

Road litter

Another major liability at The Record is Road Warrior Columnist John Cichowski, whose idea of a major commuting issue is a piece on gas station renovations (L-1).

He focuses on ExxonMobil stations, even though millions are boycotting the oil company responsible for environmental damage in Alaska from the Exxon Valdez spill.

Today's column is the latest based on e-mails from readers who pepper him with questions instead of going to accurate sources of information, hoping they will see their names in print.

In his Sunday column, Cichowski reported that drivers "submitted" to testing for blood-alcohol concentration in fatal accidents, but failed to mention that the drivers were dead.

Read about the other flaws in the column on the Facebook page for Road Warrior Bloopers:

Spotlight on the clueless Road Warrior

More sloppy work

Two more corrections ran on Tuesday's A-2, but today's paper has a few problem captions and at least one out-of-focus photo, suggesting that it wan't a good idea seven or eight years ago to stop checking the first copies off the press:

A story and photo of a new streetcar in Kenosha, Wis., has a caption that tells readers power comes from "overhead" (A-5).

At the bottom of L-1 today, a photo of two men is cropped so tightly neither is shown completely. The photo on L-2 has an out-of-focus background.

City employees get a free ride to the polls

Candidates from opposing slates chatting amiably this afternoon in front of Hackensack's Fairmount Elementary School on Grand Avenue, one of the polling places for today's school-board election. The Ford Crown Victoria parked at the curb carried a license plate with the letters "MG" (Municipal Government), and a man soon left the school, got in and drove away.

At least two Hackensack employees used city owned vehicles to drive to the Fairmount Elementary School to cast their votes in today's school-board election.

The polls opened at 2 p.m. and were to remain open until 9 tonight. 

Six candidates, including two incumbents, were vying for three vacancies on the Board of Education, which has been divided by politics.

Sasson campaign

Victor E. Sasson, an independent City Council candidate in next month's non-partisan election, voted in the school cafeteria, then returned about 15 minutes later with copies of his platform folded inside official applications for mail-in ballots.

Sasson was careful to stay at least 100 feet away from the school entrance, as the law requires, before approaching voters.

Still, a car pulled up and City Clerk Debra Heck got out and handed Sasson a copy of the law on "prohibited actions in polling place on election day."

Heck said she received a report that Sasson had approached voters within 100 feet of the polling place.

Mrs. Heck also was upset that in proposing a residency requirement for city employees, Sasson had mistakenly told voters at a recent forum for council candidates that she was one of the city officials who lived outside Hackensack.

The candidate apologized. 

Dissing Hackensack

The Record's coverage of the contested school-board election in Hackensack was weak, typical of its famously lazy assignment editors, who long ago developed a distaste for covering local contests.

Today's front page again shows that Editor Marty Gottlieb continues to ignore the needs of North Jersey readers.

Christie mismanagement

Why relegate to A-3 the latest version of Governor Christie's irresponsible tax-cut plan?

Three corrections run on A-2 today, including fixes to a misspelled name and an incorrect Page 1 map -- basics that a daily newspaper should be getting right.

Local yokels

In head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes' thin Local news section, the only Hackensack news is a follow-up to charges against City Council candidate Kenneth Martin, a retired cop, who is accused of removing his opponents' campaign signs (L-3).

Christie is no 'Gunfighter'

In Union Beach, 27 small American flags are a makeshift memorial to the first-graders and adults cut down at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

You won't see Governor Christie identified as one of "The Gunfighters" on the cover of the Jan. 28 edition of Time, the same news rag that anointed him as "The Boss" in an airbrushed cover photo in the issue dated Jan. 21.

As The Record reported on Friday, instead of taking decisive steps to end gun violence, the GOP bully named a study team, and called critics of his approach "simpletons."

"It's complicated," Christie says of gun control, presumably the same reason he's done nothing about the obesity epidemic and continues to eat everything in sight.

Peering into the dark

The photo on the front page of The Record on Friday was a dud. Readers couldn't tell if it was intentionally dark or was another production error by Editor Liz Houlton.

The photo caption should have said the photo was taken inside the Colorado theater where 12 died in a shooting rampage in July.

Good Hackensack news

Hackensack readers got some good news on Friday's Local front, the departure of city zoning board attorney Richard Malagiere, who parlayed political connections into more than $1 million in legal fees in recent years.

But some readers are wondering why the story carries the byline of Stephanie Akin, the former Hackensack reporter.

Holding her tongue

Friday's Better Living tab informed readers that Elisa Ung's restaurant reviews "will return this summer."

It's not known whether she is on maternity leave again or just going in for bariatric surgery after consuming hundreds of fattening desserts in the line of doodie.

Friday's lukewarm, 2-star review of Dos Cubanos in Paramus is by Bob Probert, who recommends only one purely Cuban dish, but there is plenty of back story about the chef and the building, a former Fuddruckers.

Mini reviews of other Cuban and Latin restaurants ignore the best choice in Bergen County, Habana Casual Cafe, a BYO on Main Street in Hackensack.

More corrections

In today's paper, the editors publish a second correction of an article that appeared on Page R-1 of last Sunday's Real Estate section.

The first correction told readers the big photo didn't show the building under discussion -- another embarrassing snafu by Houlton's production wizards.

Rothman, unions

A letter to the editor reveals that outgoing Democratic Rep. Steve Rothman sold out to corporate donors and betrayed taxpayers for as little as $1,000 (A-13).

Don't miss the editorial praising unions on the occasion of the death of Ralph Gozio, 103, believed to be the last person with memories of the Paterson silk strikes (A-13).

The Borgs fought tooth and nail against any attempt to unionize workers at the daily paper, and were able to preserve substandard pay, pension benefits and even severance, ensuring bigger profits for the publishing family.

More accident news

Gee-whiz photo coverage of non-fatal automobile accidents returns to the Local section front today, in what apparently is the most important local news gathered by head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes and her minions.

On L-2 today, another story on a fire in a multifamily building in Paterson stops short of reporting who are the owners of all of the ramshackle rental housing in Silk City and how do they get away with exploiting tenants?